Nuanced. - 18. Adrian Starks: Author & Keynote Speaker

Episode Date: November 10, 2020

Adrian Starks is a Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author, Personal Development Coach, CCO of Connect Now Business Network LTD and  Founder of Champion UP®. His mission is to help entrepreneurs,  students and organizations with teams who are feeling stuck, uninspired or unfulfilled. Giving them tools and strategies to get out of the ruts they are in, Adrian will empower these individuals to become their own Champions of Change, no matter how stressful their environments may be. Champion Up is a philosophy that began with the desire to help everyone see that they can courageously make their own changes and become their very own Champion in any endeavor.In this conversation we discuss adversity, personal growth, motivation, meaning, and change.Send us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Adrian Starks, it is a pleasure to have you on. You are a very accomplished individual, so let's get started with a brief introduction. All right. Well, thank you for having me on. It's great to be here. My name is Adrian Starks. I'm a keynote speaker, best-selling author, personal development coach, the CCO of Connect Now, and also the founder of Champion Up.

So I wear many hats, and I love working with business owners, entrepreneurs, and organizations, and helping them deal with change and challenges. and I actually give them small tools and strategies to implement their everyday living because I truly believe that success is totally different from what we think it is. And when we use these tools and strategies for changes and challenges, we can actually create better environments not only for ourselves, but for the people that are around us and are working with us. And I'm passionate about doing that because, hey, Aaron, I believe that it's our duty to create a better world,

but it starts first with us understanding how to deal with change. That's so curious because if you think about our culture right now, we're definitely pushing the idea that like our vote doesn't matter. Our opinions don't matter. Everything's like our opinions are equal, even if one's an expert and one's not. We have a very pessimistic view of the world right now. And I feel like that idea that we matter is not something I'm hearing much through social media and through different means. And so it's so refreshing to have someone who actually believes that you can change your workplace because most people go into work and they go, I can't change what my boss. thinks of me. I can't change how I'm being approached. I can't change how much money I'm making. I can't change my car. And we feel stuck and I feel like a lot of people feel trapped. So it's such a pleasure to have you on to be able to have a different approach and a different mindset of I do matter and I can change my environment and I can improve the environment for others around me. So please tell us, let's start out with how you got here and how you got this mindset because I think that that is an amazing story. Well, the first thing is it goes back to childhood.

the nickname the champ by my uncle Calvin Starks. I was this kid that was very resilient, very creative. And in those days, they called me a hardhead, which in these days means I was consistent in trying in my efforts and doing things. And I never gave up. So my name to Adrian comes from the movie Rocky. My parents loved Rocky. And they said, oh, let's just name our child Adrian because we love that name. And it's a different name. So since day one, I believe that I was given this responsibility to be a person to take on the challenges of life. I didn't know at that time. So what happened was as time went on, I began to get involved in sports, in schools. And I remember that when I was in middle school, I lived in a predominantly black neighborhood. And my

parents, at that time, I was born and raised in Texas. They decided to have me go to a private Catholic school, which was predominantly all white. That was a huge challenge for me. But their thing during that time was, hey, we want you to have a better education. We want you to be able to be in an environment where you can create your own self to deal with the challenges. And it was hard at first. It was very hard for me. But it taught me a lot about how to be responsible for my emotional intelligence. Also to see how people around me are responding and know the value of other people, even though they may not know it. So it taught me that in an early age. So I went through my life doing, I went to college after that, graduated with a degree in exercise physiology

because I loved the process of the human body, the stress levels and what happens when we're put into a position where we have to adapt and change. So during that time, I didn't know that I would be doing what I'm doing today, but I was priming myself for it. In college, I had this great attraction toward poetry and public speaking, which is a, it's like in society, there's two big fears, death and public speaking. I didn't fear either one. In college, I was like, I was fascinated with death and life, and I was also fascinated with public speaking, so I got into philosophy. I started studying some of the great orators, some of the great speakers, some of the great writers, and I became infatuated with the concepts of putting words together

and conveying a message in a certain way that moves the masses. So in Seattle, oh, let's go back here. So when I was in Texas and I graduated high school, graduated salutedictorian, actually, I was a second in my class. I decided to move to Washington State because that was a place where I was really attracted to. I was attracted to the nature aspect of it and the diversity. My parents encouraged that. They said, you know what? We taught you to go to different places. So go. I chose the University of Puget Sound because it was a school that was very high on the scale of its reputation for exercise science. It was actually a very hard school. I got in. After I graduated with a degree in exercise physiology, I decided to explore elements of

poetry. So in Seattle, during that time, I started going around doing spoken word poetry, getting in front of audiences. I started putting a different spin on how poetry was done. I wanted to create a narrative and take you on a journey. And at the end of this journey, which is very poetical and very insightful. I wanted to give you a message at the end that you could take home and be like, wow, I thought I was listening to just some cool poetry, but I actually have to make some change. To this day, when I'm in Seattle, I have people that will call me up and say, hey, can you go and can you come here and recite that point you did five or four years, five or six years ago? I'm like, I don't remember that point, but I can look it up and possibly try

to, and that's the impact. So I really believe in the process of of helping people feel better about themselves to be better human beings. I don't believe actually that we're here to just live. We're here to do three things. To learn, to grow, and to fully express ourselves. That is the journey of the human life. And since day one, I have been going through all these processes of change and challenges. And here's the thing, Aaron, I don't like unexpected changes. Nobody does. But I'm fascinated by it. That's why I research it. That's why I look into it.

That's why I'm eager to teach people about it. So from college up until now, I have been a student of my own change. I worked in the call center for about eight years, medical call center in Seattle. I learned a lot about stress levels, team building, leadership. What happens when you're dealing with families that feel like they're not being seen or heard? How do you talk to them? How do you create a system to make them feel like they are accepted? Because no parent wants to call the hospital ever.

But when they do, they're leaning on you to be that person to really care. And so from day one, I learned about the word care, empathy. I wasn't happy at that job because after eight years of being there, I was answering phone calls. And every time someone would answer, Aaron, I would answer someone would say, oh, I'm sorry. I thought this was an automated system because my voice and how it would speak. And then there would be families that would tell me, you should get into, like, voice acting or be on the radio. What are you doing here?

So that kept getting seated into me over time. And after eight years, I thought to myself, wow, I need to be somewhere different. Why am I here? I mean, I've served my purpose, but where else can I go? And I started getting down about my environment, and then it was there I realized that I had to study what could I change within myself. that could allow me to expand beyond my environment, not just trying to change my environment,

but what will allow me to outgrow my environment is what I call growing forward. So I have a question for you because I know a lot of people who can be at a position that they don't enjoy and they can realize that, but then they just stop putting in work. They just kind of pull back on all fronts

and stop trying to strive towards any particular goal and they just go, well, I'm stuck at this job and I don't enjoy it. So what made you realize? Because I assume your calls center service didn't go down when you realized you wanted to leave. You were like, I want to leave, but I want to make a plan. And so I feel like that's the difference between you and most people is that you had this mindset of, I'm going to do this properly. I'm going to do this the right way.

And I'm going to respect the position I'm in and continue to do my job to the best of my ability while looking for something else. Can you tell us about that? Because I feel like that's lacking in our communities. That's a great question, Aaron. And it's a great segue, because I developed this thing called exit strategy. And I'll say it again, exit strategy. For the last two years of working at the call center, I was building my business. I was driving back and forth to Vancouver, Canada, every single month.

So much that people thought I lived here. They were like, why don't you just come here? What are you doing? You're here more than we are. I would go to events, personal development, workshops, and psychology. And I would just engulf this information and continue to digest it and learn about it and implement it at my workspace. So I actually became like my own guinea pig. I would go to these workshops and come back to Seattle and be like, okay, let me try it with my team.

Let's see how this works. And then I said to myself, well, I know I'm going to be leaving, but how can I make this place better? That's the problem that a lot of people have. they want people to see them as being good, being better, but it's no, it's actions. And a lot of times you're not going to get the applause. A lot of times you're not going to get your boss to say, good job and patch you on the back. They got a thousand things going on their plate. So it's up to us to decide what value do we want to bring to our work.

You have to become valuable in order for you to get what you're wanting to get from that result. So for me, I realized that if I wanted to change, I had to be my own change. I had to change my world, which was my attitude, my way of thinking, my thought process, how I interacted with people. In actuality, the last two years were the best years of my years there because of how I changed my demeanors. Exactly. And I think that that's so important because one thing that I have my hesitations on is the mandatory minimum wages and not because I don't think that people should be paid

fairly, but I feel like within a Canadian context, I have not seen very many people learn how to articulate what value they're bringing to where they're working. And that's something that's sort of just faded away. And now we're expecting annual raises and these types of concepts. And that disconnects us with the idea that when we show up to work, we have to demonstrate value. We have to bring value to the small business we're working for. We want to show that we're worth keeping on. And that whole mindset has started to fade away, especially in big corporations, but even the idea of having that conversation with your employer and saying, hey, like, you know what? I've been going the extra mile in these three ways, can we talk about a race?

And that whole approach is very lost within our society where bringing your own value and saying, I'm going to put in this much work is something you chose to do. And now you work for yourself, which to a lot of people can be intimidating. The idea that it's up to you, they don't want that personal responsibility. What was that like for you to go, you know what? I'm ready to be in charge of myself and hold myself accountable and roll out of bed without anybody demanding me to. I'm going to do the work.

Which is usually the hardest thing because when you know that you're responsible for yourself and there's not going to be someone that's going to like slap you in a hand, it's a big difference. It's called, you know, going to work versus waking up and not making any money. I mean, it's like the money is there at work. You know you're going to get it. But if you don't wake up in the morning as an entrepreneur or business owner to go to work and be out there, regardless of who sees you, you're not going to build your business. For me, it was quite simple. I came from a family of entrepreneurs, Aaron. Like most people, I fell into this conundrum of the nine to five.

You go to college, you get a good degree, you get out, and you get a good job. The challenge with that is that when you're coming out of college, you have this competition of people wanting you to already be experienced. So I knew that that was something that I was up against when I was there. But my family, my grandmother ran her own beauty salon, my grandfather ran his own scrap iron business. My dad ran his own tennis workshops. You know, so my mother, my mother had a jewelry business. So I came from a family of entrepreneurs. So I learned very early about mindset and how to serve people. Leaving that job and going into entrepreneurship was not hard. It was just basically me thinking, I've got to do this because I want to be out here. What was hard was not having

the urge to go back. What happens to is when we go out there in the real world and we're like, okay, now I've got to hunt for myself. I've got to create things for myself. It's fun in the beginning because you know that you're just going off of adrenaline. But after a while, the consistency of the dry moments, the dry spells that we have, you're going to find yourself thinking, wow, what decision did I really make? Should I just go back and make a couple of and then come back again, that was the biggest challenge for me. It was the resistance to go back to what I knew that was easy in order to continue to doing what I'm doing now, which was hard.

That's so wild because that is the case that we run into these situations where when it's placed on us, we have this hesitation of, well, what do I know? And there's this point in, like, young adulthood where you realize no one knows your future and what you're capable of and what you would be willing to put in the work to other than you. You can't ask your mom, your dad, your uncle, your aunt, what should I be doing with my life? Because they don't know. And sometimes the people you want to ask never lived up to their own potential. So they're actually the worst people to ask because they're going to tell you to stay where you are, stay safe, stay in the job for the next 20 years. And I'm sure you've heard

of these things. So what is it like to run into those people? Because I'm sure there's people out there that you've dealt with who have said, oh, I couldn't do what you're doing. And we say that all the time. It's this feeling of you were wrong. I was right. You have a smile that you want to give them, but you know that they're just basing their pains off of experience. That's what it comes down to. Everyone is looking from a different lens. Like you wear glasses, I wear glasses. I wear contacts. But if we were to give someone else our glasses or contacts, that vision is going to be blurry to them. We all have different things that are prescribed for us. That's called visions and dreams. And people are not going to see it the same way you do. So I always saw it that way. I saw it as

they don't see it the way I do. They don't have the long-term vision. I recall working there every Friday evening after work, I would get off at five o'clock. I would go down into the lobby. This was like clockwork for me. I would get my journal out. I would write down in my journal to five reasons why I deserve my dream. Every Friday for those two years, I would go down into that lobby after work because it was a trading method. It was saying, you're out of work, but now this is when your real work starts. And I would sit at that table and write down the five reasons why I deserve my dream. Five reasons why I deserve my dream every single Friday. People will come down and say, go home. What are you doing here? We're done. And he would also

ask me, you want to go to happy hour? And I say, no. They say, why? This is my productive hour. This is my productive hour. Wow. That is so unique because you're willing to put in that extra time and towards developing yourself. For me, trying to do these things, I need to surround myself with music that inspires me, TV shows that are encouraging, that are saying this is the best way forward. How have you approached that? Because you don't need to listen to the other people, but you do need some inspiration of people saying you can do this. And I've found that through music and different shows.

Have you had to come across that in order to support you just so when you're on a run, you're having that mindset instilled in you continuously? Absolutely. Books were the things for me. I'm always a huge reader. I have books surrounding me all the time. Can you tell us about some of them and what you've gleaned from them? Yeah. So one of the books I loved reading was The New Earth by Eckhart Tolly. And that was about the idea of the ego and how we're in an ego-driven society. And when we are operating, we are actually operating from the sense of self that's trying to attach itself to labels and things and people. And our real power is understanding that we always will have an ego. But when the ego steps up, we have to put it in control, like getting on that horse, right?

Other books that I've been reading for quite some time would have to be, let's see, one that I'm reading right now is called, I have a number of them. It's called the biography of Abraham Lincoln. I love reading about certain historical figures, especially speakers, people who have had a one. wonderful way of conveying messages. I also read other books such as, like the alchemist is one in reading right now. Another book that I read is called Endurance about a particular journey between people at sea and that there was a shipwreck and they had to overcome that. So I have a number of books that I pull from out of my library that I read from time to time. It's just for me, it's always a resource. I learned from OPE, other people's experiences,

and P.E. My personal experiences. And I combine the two to decide which ones work best for me. Music also inspires me, so I do love listening to the Rocky soundtrack. But these are important things where people don't know where to go and people don't realize the value of music and what it can put into you. And for me, like, I listen to Big Sean regularly and he's part of the inspiration for the podcast, but he's talking about, like, one of his quotes in his recent album was I quit my job and that's when the real work started and that's the same mindset that we're talking about right now and so being able to find places to get that where people are just like I kind of like I don't know the new pink album and it's like but what is

that telling you on how to proceed in the world if we're just listening to music that lets us vent and complain and make us feel like we're victims that's that's not encouraging and instilling that that proper mentality and that's why I want to hear more about why this is so important to you and what things you draw on is because we need ideas on what mindsets work and the rocky soundtrack is obviously going to get you that pumped up energy of like you know what i'm in the driver's seat and that's what people need to hear more of people need to hear more of things that resonate with them and i feel like music i always call it art music is art and art to me is a rt applying real truth when you think of music and you listen to it as an art to people and that truth that that person is speaking will

probe that person's soul, their spirit, and they will talk to them. That's why music moves us so much. For the dawn of time, we've been able to communicate through body language, through rhythms, and music is part of that process of how we communicate. I feel that music is something that we should pay more closer attention to, particularly how it sounds and what language is being conveyed. Right now, you may know this, the younger generation is being brainwashed by all the crap that's out there. Yeah, they're shaking their butts to it and they're dancing, but here. here's reality. While you're dancing, there's this meditation thing that's going on in your brain, and those words are seeping into your personality, and you're wondering why you're

operating that way or why you're bringing these people into your life. And it's like when you're listening to a song, you're actually paying attention to what that person is saying, and you understand it, and it's actually positive and constructive, and you apply it in your life. That's where the magic happens. So we have to be paying close attention to things coming to us, the words that are in people's mouths when the people were connected to. the saying that you're the sum of the five people that you hang out with the most, even music. I 100% agree. And I think when I was growing up, like Eminem was a huge influence on me.

And people were like, well, that's garb. Like, that's not good music. Don't be listening to this guy. And like, I 100% agree with most of the songs. But for me personally, it was the story of adversity, the story of starting from absolutely nothing, trailer park, backyard. Like, that mindset for me was where I was coming from. I knew what it was like to be in those circumstances of being an,

community where you're like, I don't know if this person has a knife. I don't know whether or not I'm safe. So when he's singing and talking about those things, I was like, I connect with that. So I'm not listening to the people saying this is trash. And now I can see obviously the terrible songs that have no meaning. But you can start to look for what you're looking for in the music that you're already listening to. And when I realized, oh, I need that story of starting from nothing and making something out of it. And you can start to figure out shows, movies, TV shows, music that align with what you're looking for that is also simultaneously encouraging to you and motivates you to believe that. And going back to the music thing, it's like music is a stacking of different things because

you can have like a symphony. It's the flutes are playing and then it's mixed in with like the guitar or different sounds are all being stacked on top of each other. And then if you have people dancing, it's like art on art on art. And it's all these levels of analysis that are all working syncratically together and it brings something out of you because it suggests that something can be stacked on top of each other and it can be better than if it was never done and we don't acknowledge what the world would look like if we didn't have music it's so important to us and I feel like with shows not having as much meaning to them if you think of like the Big Bang theory there's not that depth underneath it that tells you a real story that's why I feel like we're

pulling on music so much is because we don't have the artistic work. We don't have journals anymore. People don't do these things anymore that brings their life meaning and grounds them in reality. Beautifully said, I want to go back to what you were saying about filtering things out and that's also a life skill when we're listening to music and we're deciding, okay, I like this song, I don't like this song, I like this message, I don't like that message. We're learning to decide what works for us as part of communication. Someone's talking to you about something negative. You can decide if you want to partake in that negativity, Or if you want to say, you know what, I respect your opinion.

I'll let you have that, but I'm not going to own it. It's the same thing with music. It's like we decide what we want to take into our lives. For me, growing up, I loved Tupacore. I still do. I loved his articulation skills. Now, there's a lot of things about him that people could say on the contrary. And we all have our sides to us, right?

We all have our past. We all have mistakes we make. But when you look at his articulation skills at the age of 25, And what he talked about and how he was so passionate, that moved me. And to this day, it still does. Now, when I listen to his lyrics, I'm very mindful of like, oh, don't want to listen to that. Or I don't want to pay attention to that one. But I do like this song where he's talking about his community.

And I can feel that passion in his heart to cry out for, we need help. I like that aspect of Tupac. And also the aspect of him of wanting to create his own change. So when we look at music, music is a powerful way for us to grow as in individuals, and we should be listening to music more. I have a variety of music. I can go from hip-hop to R&B to all of a sudden I can listen to Beethoven. That is me. In the morning time, one of my favorite things I love to do is play Beethoven. I will make a pot of a French press coffee. It's kind of routine for me. It's like a ritual. I grind my own beans. I make sure the

water temperature is just right. Play Beethoven. And then I start, you know, making my coffee. I go around and I spray our plants. We have tons of plants in our house. And I talk to them. that's my morning ritual. Now you're probably thinking, how does this guy move from that to all of a sudden listen to hip hop? It's easy. It's called being a human. We have different sides to us. We have different interests. We have different things that we're pulling from that is adding to our personal journey that allows us to identify ourselves in a world where things are constantly changing. Music is life. And anything around us that we're deciding to participate in, that's part of our lifestyle. People are waiting for the lifestyle to come to them, but they don't realize that, You are creating your lifestyle by what you choose to do, by what you choose to interact with. 100%. And I think that that's very common within, like, you see people trying to have that kind of their routines, but it's wine, it's alcohol, it's doing things that everybody else says, like, if you talk to most grown adults, they know what their favorite wine is, and they

don't know what their favorite plant is. They don't know what their favorite music is. Mine is a money tree. Yeah. But we don't have this connection. And I feel like a lot of people just end up copying what other people are doing because they don't know what they should be doing. They don't know what lane they would be most comfortable in because they look around and everybody's like, are you going to have a glass of wine? Like, we have this kind and you're like, oh, this is clearly something important to my community.

Like what I'm drinking as an alcohol matters. And to me, it doesn't. I don't drink that often. It doesn't interest me that much. I totally get that some people de-stress that way. but it's this idea that you can be way more complex than that. And choosing to put on Beethoven, French press, your coffee is you choosing to invest in that morning. And having that micro routine can be very difficult for people because we're used to cheaping out on ourselves.

We're used to getting the $2 coffee from Tim Hortons rather than making it the way we would actually enjoy it. And then it's not the way we want and we're frustrated. But it's like if you had have added an extra five minutes to your morning and done it the way you would have preferred, everything would have been better for your morning and it would have been tailored to you and then you can go out and focus on other people rather than complaining that your coffee isn't the way you want it to be.

You're so right and here is what I do that's part of, and to people who are listening, probably thinking, okay, big deal, you're making your coffee in the morning and all right, we get it. But there's a lot going on with making that coffee. For one, I am setting the state of one thing at a time. I'm getting the coffee machine.

I'm getting my beans. I have to go through the process of grinding my beans. I have to make sure I have the right amount of beans. So I'm having to pay attention to what I'm doing. I have to be strategic to get that coffee. I have to get the right temperature of the water. This is how I run my business. This is how I teach people.

You have to be strategic. You just cannot go out here and just say, I want to do this and just build it. There are steps in between. And if we start in the morning with those steps of having a habit of doing certain things a certain way, guess what happens? it spills over into your career. It spills over into your relationships. You do certain things a certain way that brings the results that you're looking for.

If you don't like the results, you go back to what you did before and you make corrections. There are some mornings that coffee doesn't taste the same. And I'm like, what happened to my coffee? Well, Adrian, you're responsible for that. You know, you may have used too many beans this morning. You may have been in a rush. You may have been not paying attention to the water temperature. What did you do?

So I go back and I think about what did I do? And then I make the correction. This is how I operate in my business and how I operate with people. If I do something that's incorrect or if a mistake is made, I go back to the steps. I go backwards. Okay, what steps do we do? Where do we go wrong with this? That's how we corrected.

So it's more than just making coffee. It is a process of life. And when we can start taking out times for ourselves in the morning to do such things, we can start finding out a lot about ourselves, which many people don't do. They roll out of the bed and they're already reaching for Friday. They roll out of the bed. They're reaching for the weekend. They roll out of the bed.

They're already thinking about a meeting they have to go to. They roll out of the bed. They're thinking about all the problems and bills. And it's like, you have to give yourself that sanity in the morning to not think about anything except the task at hand and that is taking care of you. I completely agree. And this kind of links back to my episode with Chanel Prasad because he was explaining how he set up his new style of legal work where Alpine Legal Services. He designed everything from the bottom up, the micro details of his. business, trying to design everything from the bottom and then working his way up to the top

and trying to make sure that every single detail, the pen that he hands to you that you can keep is exactly how you want it to be. And it's a pen you actually enjoy using. It's not going to fall apart. Trying to make sure the umbrella is actually usable, not going to fall apart. And making sure that those details are taking care of in the proper way because you're right, that spills into your business, that spills into how you choose to interact with people. It's not just about the coffee, it's what are you paying attention to? And are you putting in the necessary work in order to make it the way you want it to be and a way that would be good for other people? Can you make the coffee in a way that everybody can enjoy it? And being able to think

of those things and take that extra time demonstrates that you're critically thinking about what's going on right then and there and not skipping to, oh, like, my coffee is cold. And it's like, what happened? And it's because you zoned it. You weren't paying attention. And that idea of paying attention is crystallized within our culture as something that we should do and that we should focus on what's going on. That's why there's an eye in the pyramid on the United States money is because there's an idea there that the ultimate goal is to pay attention. And that is so important. And you obviously implement that into your life. What has that been like to be able to do different tasks with the mindset of trying to make sure they're done properly?

It's been great. You know, to go back to the coffee just for a quick second, it's the experience. So when I'm looking at it from a point of what is the point of the coffee, it's the experience. And what are you doing up into that point to have that experience? And this experience we call success. It's experience that people call results. This experience people call achievements. What I have been doing in the process of my life that has allowed me to get the results I have, like being here today in front of you was a journey. And it still is. before I got into the idea of doing public speaking when it comes to professional speaking, speaking to organizations and teams and students at schools, I actually did a little bit of work

on the radio, and it came literally by accident. I was actually in Seattle, and I had a friend of mine that connected me to another person and said, hey, Adrian, you're building your business. I think it'd be good for you to get some exposure, get used to getting interviews. So this person, she called me up. Her name was Dina, and she took me on to her radio. show and did an interview with me. Well, we had a great time, just like you and I are having. And she was like, you know what? I like you. I want to have you back for another interview.

So I came back and did another interview. Then a few weeks went by. And she called me up one day, and she said, hey, quick question. I'm going to be out of town. I need someone to fill this slot for my show. Can you host it? I was like, what? Hosted? She's like, yeah, you get on the mic. You know how to talk and you good people. Just be yourself. And I said, can I think about it? She gave me a couple of days. She called me back.

She said, what's your answer? I said, Dana, I don't think I'm ready for this. She says, Adrian, if you were not ready, I wouldn't have called you. Get your butt here. So I went in that following week and I was sweating profusely. I had like sweat coming down my head. I had my armpits were sweaty. And I remember the producer, Benny, was telling me, Adrian, just be yourself, man.

Just be yourself. You know what you're going to talk about. Be yourself. And he counts down. Five, four, three, two. And we're live. And I step into it. And I'm Adrienne Starx. I'm feeling in for Dina Marie today. And so I just, I landed it. And after that, I remember doing another episode, then doing another episode. And then it became natural for me. Then I realized that this was something that I really wanted to do. I wanted to do more things on the radio. I wanted to do more things on the microphone. I need to get out in front of more people. And I started being strategic about doing that.

I started getting involved with other interviews. I started coming to Vancouver and being a part of workshops and volunteering to be the first person to get up on the stage and to do a particular. particular exercise. It was my way of getting out of my comfort zone and getting in front of people. When you're a speaker, or if you're in the world of communication, one of the important tools is knowing yourself. And so every single day, what I have been keen on doing is knowing what I want to do, knowing what my patterns are, what are my habits, what are my likes and dyslex? Because if I'm going to speak in front of somebody, Aaron, I show up as me, and that comes from just practice of doing certain things every single day a certain way and knowing

what works for me. I will not speak on things that I'm not passionate about. I will not speak on things I do not have knowledge about. You know, I don't BS people. If you want me to talk about something and that's not my thing, I won't talk about it because I want to bring my best self to people. To get to where I am today, it took a lot of effort. It took a lot of, you know, emails. It took a lot of reaching out to people. It took a lot of free talks. It took a lot of a lot of podcast episodes that I was doing. It took a lot of writing. It took a lot of nights where I felt like, can I make it in this industry? There are many people telling me that, you know how hard it is to be a professional speaker? It's very hard. They said, can you handle it? You know,

once you break the surface, it's going to be great, but you, but there's so much competition out there. Can you do it? And I had a lot of doubt about that, but I kept doing those things I needed to do, reaching out to mentors. I would write down, who do I know in my industry that I can talk to about speaking? Who can I reach out to through social media links that are actual speakers or mentors or teachers that I can begin to build a bond with? I had to start doing those things and maintaining a relationship with those people over time to learn more about their lifestyle and how they built their business and how they became fluent in what they're doing. And it was just a succession of activities I kept doing over and over again and repeating. Okay. Here we are

today. That's amazing. And I think that I'm just going to hop on the more tragic parts of those experiences because for listeners, I think that it's great that you've achieved what you've achieved, but most people have a goal that probably isn't the right goal for them. Like, we roll out of bed and we're like, hey, I'd rather be an artist. And we don't have any art experience. And we've just kind of chosen something arbitrarily where it seems like you had way more of a clear understanding of kind of the direction you were going. What was it like to fall down? Because I think that that's what we often miss out on is you've come so far. But there was moments where you doubted yourself and you've struggled and said, this might, I might have bitten off more than I can chew. Did that

ever arise for you where other people can be where they are and realize that there are going to be those tough moments, but you can ultimately arrive at where you want to go. It's just, it's going to take a lot of work. Absolutely. There are moments and times I looked at my bank account because I made investments in things to build my speaking skills to go to workshops, and I would look at my bank account. And I'll be honest with you, you know, back in the day, it was like $2 in my bank account. And I would look at it and say, what am I doing? I had to borrow money from people. I had to have people help me. And here's a beautiful thing about people that really care about you. They support you if they know that you're passionate about what you're doing. They will help you in any way they can.

And that was part of the struggle of knowing that I was this person of value, but the bank account wasn't reflecting that. The outside environment wasn't reflecting that at the time. And I was like, damn it, I know I'm worth more than this. Why am I not seeing this? And those are the moments where you just, I had moments where I cried. I would literally go in my car, go out and, you know, to the park and I would just just ball and tears and cry and just think to myself what am I doing is this actually for me I had it good you had it good in Seattle you had it good you had this job age and your brain starts working on you that mindset right it starts telling you well you know you had this going on you had the nine to five you had this nothing wrong with nine to fives because I support

them because nine and five I worked nine and five for years but for me during that time I was I wasn't happy with it but my brain was telling me hey you can go back to that nine to five. You made good money there. You can do it. I mean, you have benefits. Come on. Just go back and work a little bit and build your business, you know, a little bit at a time.

And I had to fight that resistance because that is where most people go back and they never come back. And so I had to tell myself, you know what? This hurts. But it is the pain. It is the bitterness of failure that we have to. taste in order to taste the sweetness of success. It is like when you're biting through an apple, you have to taste that outside right of the apple before you can get to the center sweetness of the apple.

And that's how I saw it. I saw it as I have to go through these things to build the character that will be necessary to take on the responsibilities of the things I want to do. You see, this guy that was sitting in a call center couldn't do the things that I'm doing now. He would have tapped out. But since I had this time frame of going through the letdowns, the, you know, not having much money in the bank, you know, opportunities falling away, you know, some people walking away from me because they thought I was crazy, you know, because they thought, well, you know, you're changing now. So what next? And this was what happens. When you begin to change, people's perceptions of you sometimes won't. I call it locked perception. As you change, they will change. They will. see you as that same person, that same buddy, that same sibling, and they will lock into that of

there's no way that you can be this person now. Or why are you doing this? Why are you changing? In reality is that we're supposed to change. That's part of human evolution. We have to change. Right now, our bodies are changing internally to maintain homeostasis. Homostasis is not happening because your body wants to stay normal. It's happening to change itself so your body can continue to function. This is what people miss out on. It's about the changing process. So I realized that with this pain I was going through, it was the awakening of a new me that needed to take on new responsibilities. So it hurt like hell, Aaron. It sucked. And I got quite envious at times because I'm looking around and people were being successful. I'm like, what the hell is wrong

with me? Why am I not being successful? Why is this so hard? If it was easy, everybody would do it. that's the issue it's not easy it takes courage i call it being a courageous creator it takes courage to go out here and to create something on your terms and that's where the struggle comes in you've got to work the courage muscles you got to build them up in order to take on the resistance and a stress so it's a life testing factor it's like oh you want this you want this thing okay well you've got to go through these doors that's a weird thing about our society right now because I hear a lot of be happy. And within those struggles is where a lot of the growing takes place and a lot of the personal development and life experiences. And in our society right now,

it seems like we're trying to design out any of the adversity. Like, I completely support people being able to have support in getting an education and having student loans available to them. But I'm against the idea that all you have to do is take out a bunch of student loans not have to work and not have to feel that grind of like, well, I'm going to continue to work. I had people all throughout my undergrad saying, oh, I'm just like using student loans. And they were buying Tim Hortons, Starbucks, all of this food and snacking all the time and just living lavishly while they were in their undergrad.

And it's like, for me, like I had different supports than they did. But looking at them, it was like, these are the grinding years. These are the years where you're supposed to have nothing. You're supposed to have your education and you're getting by and you're working hard. And I feel like within the university context, a lot of that is dying away. The idea that you don't have a $40,000 car when you're in your undergrad is if you go to the parking lots, there are a lot of expensive cars for people who haven't even gotten a job yet. And we're disconnecting ourselves from the reality of perhaps where we financially belong because money is more accessible than it ever has been.

and I think that that is taking away that grinding mindset. And that's why it's such a pleasure to have you on is because we're losing that slowly through seeing people struggling going, oh, well, we can just financially fix that. It's like, but part of their, if we take away all the opportunities for people to fall down, look around and go, I have to get back up because nobody else is going to do it for me, that's personally rewarding. And it develops you as an individual. Obviously, we don't want to have it where we just push everyone down and force them to suffer. But we want to have like a good balance.

And I feel like right now we're trying to take away any struggles that an individual can go through. And that story of them getting back up is not the story we're talking about anymore. It's not. You know, I think as Socrates, the Greek philosopher, I have him tattooed in my forum. He said that, you know, failure is not falling down. Failure is where you choose to remain after you have fallen down. It's the unwillingness to get back up and to move. I've been bankrupt.

I've been through marriage. It didn't work. I filed for divorce at one point in my life. You know, at some point, too, during my life, I thought about committing suicide when I was early when I was younger. So I've been through a lot of moments in my life for a lot of lows. When people see me being happy and optimistic, they think, oh, this guy has always been happy and optimistic.

No, I'm happy and optimistic because I've understood the shit that I've had to go through. Now, we've got our own stories. Everyone's got their own low points. But when you can take that story of yours and you can say, what can I bring out of this story. How can I create myself, reinvent myself, and create a life out of the story without feeling pitiful about it, but saying, this is what I'm going to do with it. Then you begin to create wonders for yourself out here in the world. And the idea of falling down is absolutely necessary because you need to know, since day when we're born, as infants, we get up and we learn

to walk and we wobble a little bit because we haven't been used to that kind of balance. And so we fall. But then we get back up again and we readjust ourselves. So, this is part of nature to fall down and get back up, recalibrate, and then fall down again until you get it right. When you're riding a bicycle, same thing, riding a motorcycle, same thing, getting in a car. Same thing. We're learning how to measure ourselves in the things that we're doing. A lot of people now don't do that because society has set up a term for them saying,

if you do this for me, I will protect you on all levels, but you just got to do this for me, stay comfortable. And so we operate this comfort level. Michelangelo, one of the Renaissance artists, said that, you know, the problem with us is not that our aim is high and that we miss, is that our aim is too low and we reach it. Because when our aim is too low and we keep reaching for those things that are easy for us, we never grow. You can't grow that way. You can't grow yourself. You can't grow your business.

And you certainly can't grow any ideas. That is so true. And I think that one of the important parts to pull out of this is this idea that, you can't grow your business. it is worthwhile to fall down so we can figure out where we are and how we can proceed from that position and we miss out on those opportunities for me personally I hear a lot about indigenous issues and being an indigenous person I try and keep an eye on what the narrative is and to this point I feel like the narrative is that we can't get back up on our own and we can't sort things out because the narrative is well Indian residential school happened the 60 scoop

happened. Colonization happened. And so treat these people differently because they've been so disadvantaged. And it's like, watch us turn this around. I'm not sitting around waiting for you guys to fix it for me. Let me go back to my community. Let us try and get back up ourselves and let us have our own story. I don't want to be told that I'm stuck and like, oh, woe is me. I'm been so disadvantaged and life just isn't fair. It's like life has never been fair. Like we had World War I, World War II. People were not going through fair times. Like, Jewish people were not treated fairly, and they are trying to turn that around, and that is part of their culture. That becomes who they are.

They're the people who figure it out when everyone's stacked against them. When the news media is stacked against them, they're the people who try and figure these things out. And these stories are within each culture of you guys have done this, this, this, and this to me. And we're not going to stand for it. We're going to figure out a way through. And we're not going to do it listening to your narrative of who we are and what we are. And that's one area where it's just been frustrating to continue to see that idea of just, I should just sit back and wait for the government to fix my issues. And it's like, I can fix them.

Get out of my way. I will try and help people do better. I don't need someone to tell my story for me. And that seems like it's happening more and more. Do you have any thoughts on that? Well, I'm glad you brought that up because I'm just thinking now of the story with me being, you know, born in America as an African American. The story has always been. People of my color, especially male black men, have been wild, aggressive, uneducated, you know, not articulate at all. I had to change that narrative. Growing up in, you know, the south part of Texas, my parents always taught me to never walk with a chip of my shoulder. They say, you know what? You are Adrian Starks. That's who you are. You decide who you become down the road. Your skin color. is your skin color. But that doesn't determine your character. It doesn't determine what you can

develop in this world. So since day one, they had groomed me to really step into owning who I am, not what people tell me who I am. And that was the idea of putting me into a private school because they wanted me to be able to adapt to the level of discomfort, to be able to make my own changes, to find my own way. And they always told me, they said, you know what, you're a black man, but you don't have to fit the stigma of a black man. You choose what you like. You choose. choose what you do, where you go. And I remember telling my, my fiance, my partner about this, there were times in Seattle where I would go to plays, like theatrical plays. I like going to theatrical plays. I like dressing up and going to theatrical play and having a good time and just sitting.

And I would look around, I'm like, there are no black people up in here. Like, where are the, where's the, you know, and I would make it as a joke because I'm like, it was true. There was none. And I would go back to some of my friends that were black. And I said, you know, you guys want to come join me. You're like, oh, we don't do that. I'm like, what? We don't do that. You know, we don't do that. We do other stuff, right?

I'm like, who told you that? Who gave you that story? So I had to separate myself from those kind of people. And that's the thing you were talking about, Aaron, you know, when society has given you a image or tried to put this mask on you. Speaking of, today is Halloween. Speaking of that, let's talk about mask. People put mask on you to make you think and feel and be a certain way.

But we don't have to wear that mask. I don't have to wear the mask of I'm black and this is happening to my culture and I'm going to walk around angry and upset all the time. I'm not wearing that mask. People say, well, you have a platform. Why don't you talk more about the outrage of everything going on? People are already talking about it. People need to have other people be in this position of giving out constructive, positive information, helping them get beyond these things, not just adding fuel to the fire. So I choose to take this route.

That's what I choose, and that's why I feel it's important for us to understand that as we're growing into a society of complexity, and right now, society of unexpected changes and fear, because the media will do, the media does two things for us. It wants to entertain us, and it wants to put us into fear. Either way, it's going to control us. When we look at the media and we see what's being said and being done about certain cultures, we begin to think those cultures. we begin to think those cultures are like that. That's the stigma that's happening. And people will begin to associate certain cultures with certain things. And it's like, no, cultures are powerful.

You've got to go and look at that culture. Look at their background. Go in and do some research. I did a 30-day challenge over two months ago where I wanted to go online, and I did this through TikTok. I went online and I posted a powerful, positive, influential black person in America that no one knew about. That actually made changes.

For 30 straight days, I did that. The amount of people who were not black who commented back and saying, oh, my goodness, thank you for this lesson. I did not know. Can you give us more? People are hungry for knowledge. They are hungry to learn things that are constructive, that are beautiful about cultures. And I feel like what you're doing, Aaron, with your communities and helping, that's a powerful thing. That's leadership.

That's mentorship, stepping out and saying, no. I'm going to be the person that's going to say, I don't want that. This is what I'm going to do instead. These are the change makers of the world. I completely agree. And I obviously completely support what you just said, because that's what I'm working towards, is there's people here who do the right thing and get no acknowledgement. Like, I had just had a meeting with the court manager at the Chilliwack Courts, and she wants to do something different. She wants to have me involved and try and do something.

where we can build the relationship between indigenous communities and the regular community of the city of Chilliwack in a way that actually makes a tangible difference. And within that, it's not showing a 30-minute pre-made, like, provincial BC video that tells them that they're bad people. It's about, do you even, like, do you know what the indigenous communities here are? There's squaw right over there. There's Shi'actin, there's Squat. Like, there's so many different things that people just don't know.

And that's okay. But we treat people like, well, why don't? Don't you know? And it's like, well, they don't know because who's going to educate them on that? Who knows these things who are going to talk about these things? And the opportunity to sit down with people and really learn about what they've been through. Because if you go to the store, we oversimplify ourselves. And not in necessarily a bad way. You want to be able to go into the store and nobody act erratically. And you want to be able to go leave and not have any nonsense go on. And you'll see people in there when you're shopping around that aren't following the social code of conduct

and you'll be like, oh, that person's yelling in the middle of a store while I'm just trying to grab my apples. Like, you'll notice those people immediately. So we do simplify ourselves, but that doesn't mean that we're that simple. You are not the person, when you're in the grocery store, you're not being yourself. You're agreeing, I'm just going to operate my cart and be quiet and do my thing. And that's okay. But when we leave, we're real people and we have a story and it can be so interesting.

People have reached out to me again and again saying like, this person has. has a story and it's like, it's no secret to me that people have stories of adversity. I'm just looking for people who have that story of adversity, who've turned it around, who can talk for three hours about it, who are also trying to hit all the markers because I know people who are doing a great job in their career, not so great in their family, in their community, in those areas. I want to get the people who are hitting it on all fronts, trying to do each area and not just, well, you're like a successful lawyer and that's it, right?

It's like, no, I want to hear about what are you doing for the, community? What is your family relationships like? Are you treating people well there? I don't want to have someone on and then find out later that they're a terrible person. I want to ask those questions and make sure that the person fits each category. And I know people have come to me and said like, well, my aunt's like a really great. And it's like, your aunt's really good at her job. And I'm not denying that. But I need to hear about their family. How does she treat people at nine o'clock in night when she's had a tough day? Is she the person trying to do everything right? And when you talk about caring about the coffee, it indicates to me that if you make a mistake, you misspeak to

someone, you treat someone poorly for a second, that you're going to turn around. You're going to think about that the next day and go, you know what, I don't like how I left that. I'm going to give the person a call and try and clear things up. That's what I think you're articulating when you're talking about coffee beans and stuff. It's not just in that moment that you're that way. It's how can we do this every single day and try and lay things out where each thing I do is good. And even if it's not good, I will go back and I will try and address it. And that's, that's the story. That's the story. And like you said that, it's this perspective of our day-to-day actions and how it spills over into other things that we're doing. And to be effective and to be success in life,

people have success and achievements mixed up. And I often talk about this, Aaron. Success is not what you have. It's what you do. It's who you are. Success is a way of living. Right now, you can be successful to the person listening, you may not have all the money in the bank you want. You may not have all the things you need in your life, but you can still be a success because you are as you are. If you're choosing to be this way and you are aware of that and you're treating people appropriately along the way, you're a success to me. If a guy has a million dollars in a bank, hey, hooray to you for having a million dollars in bank. But if you're shitty toward me or anyone else who doesn't, then I don't have any respect for you. Sorry, don't. I just don't

have respect for you. So it's like, good for you, but if you can carry that mentality of what you've done for the bank, and if you can carry that into how you treat people, then you've got my honorable respect. Well, and I've heard about that. Cleptocrats were used in a Netflix documentary called Explained, and they were just talking about how kleptocrats are people who make money off of the sacrifices of other people, where the reverse would be where you bring a tangible good to the community and you create jobs. And that's where one area where I feel like I've learned a lot in law school about the value of corporations, the value of businesses and how they support our society and growth and capitalism is actually a really good thing. It has a lot

of flaws. But what it brings to us is the opportunity to carve our own path. And that's something for most of human history we have not had. You can do what you want to do and you can make it the best thing ever. And no one's going to stand in your way because I think both of you and I agree is there really is no one standing in your way of doing talks, doing like there's not someone saying you can't do it and you're going to fail every day it's mostly yourself and your own fears of doing it where for the most part when we're sitting at home and going i really wish i could go and become something we think people are going to know and say you can't do that i know who you are and you could never do this thing and those people don't really ever show up in comparison to what

our mind kind of puts on them which is that someone's going to come up and be like you can't do any of this you're not qualified so just sit back down and that doesn't really happen the way that I think we expected to when we're planning our futures. Right. It doesn't. And there's this unconscious behavior that we have where we actually, we want to scare ourselves to death so much to the point to where we don't do it. It's like this part of ourselves is trying to protect us from going beyond that comfort zone.

And it's saying, because here's the thing, the brain, three million years young, and it's still growing. It's still being developed. We're learning right now through neuroplasticity that the brain is adaptable to all new things even beyond the ages of 80 and up. But it's designed to do two things, to protect you and to serve you. It's very simple. A lot of times the signals get mixed up. It wants to protect you because you haven't given in orders. If all of a sudden you're like,

okay, I want to go and do this thing now, I want to stop out some of my comforts or I want to build this, and you haven't put together a scenario, a plan, what is your plan of attack on this? What is the purpose behind it? Like, you need to have the why. Why are you doing this? Why, why, why, why? If you haven't convinced yourself of your why, your brain is going to protect you as you start stepping outside that comfort zone. It's going to say, okay, this is uncomfortable. I don't know why we're doing it. I don't know where we're going. So let me create scenarios for you.

Let me create imaginary people who are going to come into your life and tell you you can't do it. Let me create these scenarios where you pretty much self-sabotize yourself because you know you don't want to really do this. So we have to get into this notion of if you want something in life, you have to ask by going into action. And you've got to know why you're doing it. When I got into what I was doing, I had to ask myself, why do I want to go and to reach people? Is it a vanity thing? Do I just like being in front of people? Do I want the attention?

I had to address those things. I had to get serious about myself. I had to have what Howard Thurman said. He was the spiritual mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He said, there's a time we have to sit ourselves down and have a personal confrontation, a civil war. So I had to sit myself down and I had to ask myself, why do you want to do this, Adrian? What are you going to do to improve the world? Why should the universe, the world, open the doors for you?

Why? And I had to ask, and I had to sit down and think about it for a while. And I said, you know why? Because I really believe in improving humanity. That's what it comes down to me. It's very simple. People can tell you a thousand things, but they can't break down why they're doing something to a simple statement.

They don't know their why. My why is improving humanity. Taking the human being from human being to human becoming. want human beings to see that they are in control of creating better realities that in turn will create a better world. We don't just create a better world. We create better realities and those realities ripple into making a better world. The world doesn't need us. It's been here before we got here, but it will allow us to collaborate with it in creation. That's why I'm here. To wake up the human spirit in business and in their personal life and show them

you have a personal responsibility on this planet, a personal responsibility, to make this world a better place than when you left it. And damn it, you need to do it. Now, Horace Mann said that you should be afraid to die until you've done something for humanity. And I take that to heart. I refuse to go off this planet just being a friend. I refuse to go off this planet just being, oh, Adrian, who's a nice guy? You know, he did good things. I want to leave this planet and people saying, wow.

we're never going to have another one like that. He left something behind. Wow. We need to do right by this. That's what I instill into my life, into my brother. I have a brother who's eight years behind me. I instill that into him. I instill into my family.

I instill into my stepkids around me right now. I want people around me to feel that energy, that sensing call for urgency of just being a better human being. Like, if you're walking outside, give someone a smile, help someone out, ask someone how they're doing. You know, give your time and energy to something. It's not all about just getting what you want out of life.

It's about giving what you can to life. And that's what the power of being a human being is all about. We're the only things, we're the only organisms on this planet. We have the ability to choose, to choose daily what we can do. Other organisms can't. They're just trying to survive. I think most humans now are just surviving. They're not thriving.

They're just surviving. They're just trying to hold on. And the people that are thriving are the ones who are waking up to reality saying, you know what? It's up to me to deal with what I have, to create my own story, to make a better place, no matter how small that step may be. I didn't get here because I took big steps and I just got here in three steps. I took multiple small steps and made mistakes, fell on my face. got hurt, got, you know, just basically put into a headlock by life, you know, and given, you know, and just, I had to ask myself, do I really want it?

And when you can say you really want it, you'll get there at some point. But it's about the journey. It's not about the destination. I completely agree. And the crazy thing is, it's you're going to die no matter what. So you might as well find what's meaningful. Like, there's no reason to stay with the car you can't afford, pay the rent you can't afford, and pay the groceries you can't afford. You can change all of that.

And there's nothing better to do on this planet. You're going to die. It's going to kill you. Whatever you choose to do and spend the rest of your life doing, it's going to kill you because you're not getting out of this any other way. And so you might as well put your best foot forward. There's nothing better to do. And I don't know. Do you know who David Goggins is?

Yes, yes. Because he talks about, and it just landed on what you were talking about, where he talks about how he wants to get up to heaven and to whoever God is, and he wants them to have a list of accomplishments he expected that God expected and said, you weren't supposed to do that. I wasn't expecting you to run, because he's run some crazy amount of kilometers, miles, he's run up mountains, he's done incomprehensible human accomplishments and destroyed his body to show that he's nothing special. He can go out and do those things. And his childhood was tragic, and he's been through a lot. But he doesn't want any sympathy, and he tries to show you the best way.

forward and that whole mindset of how much could you accomplish within your life is something we can never ask people what could what is your potential what would that look like and i don't even hear people saying you're not living up to your potential anymore because we don't want to make a person feel bad and it's like how are we supposed to grow if people don't expect more of us and throughout this whole process the only thing that surprised me is no one thinks like nobody talks about how i could do anything any better and i'd be fine if somebody was like well i like how you do the audio and I like how you do this, but I'd improve this, but nobody has that because we're hesitant where we don't want to bring someone down. We don't want to tear them down, but there's ways

of going about it that can be meaningful and can give real guidance. I used to have this saying that I still say from time to time is like if you want my feedback and honest opinion, I'll give it to you. But people will say, well, what if you step on someone's toes? Well, if I step on your toes, then don't stand in my way. You know, don't stand in my way. If you don't want your toes stepped on, if you don't want anything coming from me, then don't stand in my way. And I see life like that. It's about risk taking. And here's the thing. You mentioned the whole idea about getting out of life, you know, alive. And that's the biggest risk we have. You know, you can't get out of life alive. That's the greatest risk we run.

We can master everything else, but you cannot outmaster that. We got to go at some point. The key is how do you want to go? I rather live, you know, I'm 39 right now. So I rather live this lifestyle knowing that I had I had, I had, I had done what I could do with the resources that I had and I gave it my all versus being 80 years old saying that this is all I did was just I just stayed in one spot I did this one thing all the time and that's it for some people that's success to me that's failure I can't do that that's not me so I believe that we have to find out what is success to us and what that means to us and we got to push ourselves to find out that thing we all want success we all want results we all want better things in life but you got to work for them you have to

work from life will not give you its goodies if you're unwis willing to get out there and to give it a try. And when people are saying that, you know, well, I would do that if I had this amount of money. We hear this a lot. I would do that if I had resources. I would do that if I had their background. I would do that if I had, well, yeah, would have, could have should have. We all say, people say that, right? And it's just an excuse. It's like, no, you wouldn't. You wouldn't do that. You wouldn't. So for me, it's like, it's all about what you're choosing to do. I have never made an excuse for anybody. I have commended everybody in my life who has been successful. When I was growing up as, you know, kid, I

contribute all of my tenacity now to my parents, allowing me to be different, allowing me to work through stresses, allowing me to work through my pains of being called the N-word in school at times. I didn't, we didn't bring that story up, but I was called that when I was, when I was going to school in earlier stages. I remember growing up and friends around me, when I was in high school, they had nice cars, and my parents could barely get me a car. And they got me a car, but it was like this rundown car. And I was like, well, how come I don't have it? They were like, well, you know what? You have a car. Make the best of it. Make it your car. I take an analogy with me wherever I go. I make the best of what I've got. And there's not a single person on this planet

that can tell me they're more successful than me because you don't know my success and what it means. That's the bottom line. And I think that when we can start operating from that and understanding how can we take on better mindsets and way of living. Now, mindset is not just thinking positive thinking. I want to make that clear right now. Everyone's thinking, well, you know, positive thinking, no, positive thinking doesn't get you anything. I mean, it gets you into a state of feeling, but you have to have optimism. And optimism for me is positive thinking and action. You're out here and you're going through all the things the media is telling you that's wrong with the world. You're going through all the things that people are saying that is wrong with the government, et cetera, et cetera.

But you're continually working through that stuff because you know that you have your own GPS. And I call it the GPS going positively somewhere. You have it and you're navigating through and you're filtering through all the negativity because you know that you've got to continue to step forward to take action. that's optimism positivity is someone who's just sitting down and saying oh things will get better eventually we know they will uh change doesn't happen that way change happens with action that's how it happens that happens with action i completely agree have you heard of the self-authoring program yes okay because that's such a good example of what you're talking about because it basically tells you to write about what your life would be like in like five or ten years if you pointed

towards the ultimate goal that you yourself would like to strive towards it's not going to be the same as me or you, but you choose what you would like to see your life look like in five years. And then you have a goal to point towards a reason to roll out of bed. And then you write about what your life would look like in the exact opposite. And what your life would be if you didn't do any of those things. And if you continued to do your bad habits, you continued to smoke or have too much wine at dinner. And you continue those things. What does your life look like then? And that gives you a really good idea of where you want to go and where you don't want to go. And so it gives you that motivation to run from your bad intentions and your bad ideas and strive towards a positive

goal. But I'm curious because you share this with a lot of people. And for me, it's mostly only done on the podcast. I don't talk about these things much off of it because conversations for me are just too short in order to get into these types of conversations. But what is it like to talk to somebody about those things? Maybe some people closer to you where you've tried to give them this recipe and I don't know I've dealt with people who they're just not hearing it they just don't buy into it they feel stuck and it's almost like you can't wake them up it's like you're shaking them and you're like hey life can be so much more meaningful and they're like I'm good here thanks like I know people who are just like that I'm going to retire and just hang out not like that

mindset is like you're missing out on your community needs you you're you still have so much potential left to give the world and you're basically just not interested in pushing your And I know lots of people like that. So what is that like for you to share this positive message and have people go, no, I'm just stuck? It's quite disappointing when you realize that when people are choosing to say, I'm just stuck, they can also choose to say, I want to move beyond being stuck. It's a choice. And it's very sad because these are some people that could really contribute to society. Growing up, there was a phrase that I always heard, and I say this.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force them to drink. You can give them all the tools, all the resources. But if they don't put it into action, they don't want to, there's nothing more you can do. You've done your part. I realize that we are not here to save people that way. We're here to help guide them. We're here to provide them of what we know. And it's up to them to decide if they want to take their lives to the next level.

It's a hard feeling. And I know how you feel, Aaron, it's like when you want people to, and you know that people can do better, you see it in them, you see it in their eyes. You just, you can see through their spirit that this person, I know they want more. They want out of this shell. But they have to take themselves out of the shell. It is their responsibility to do that. That is something I've had to come to terms with. So when I'm speaking with people, I'm no longer in the business of trying to convince them that they need to do this.

I'm in the business of sharing with them why they're doing. should do it and what would happen if they did? And if they don't take those two elements and use it to their advantage, then there's nothing more really I can do at that point. And I've come to peace with that. And there are people, a lot of people who take that information, they use it, they run with it, and they make some major changes. There are some people, small percentages, who no matter what you do, they're going to go back to what they knew before. Because it's a comfort thing for them. I always say this about challenge. If you look at the word challenge, you're always going to have challenges in life. But we can actually change how we deal with those challenges because inside

the word challenge is the word change. This is the beauty of it. You've got to be able to make your change within that challenge. So if you have something in your life that you're wanting to make a change on, you've got to drop back into yourself and say, okay, what can I do to change how I'm looking at this problem, to change how I'm reaching out to people, accepting help? How do I change that. And people need to understand that you can't do things alone. I used to have this ignorance when I was younger. I used to think that, well, I'm talented. I'm super talented. I can do all these things myself. And I'm going to be a star. I'm going to do this. And I realized very quickly as time went on that you cannot, everything that we do, we rely on other people. Bottom line, we rely on other

people. When I was talking about the coffee earlier, there was someone who had to harvest those beans. There was someone who had to bring it to the store. Someone had to sell it to me. Someone made the machines. I could grind the beans in. So it goes on and on. The water from my sink, the plumber did that for me. So I can make sure I have that water. So I realize that when we're in life, there is a conglomerant of everyone working together. And when you realize that people are in your corner and they're trying to help you and you're resisting that, then that's on you. You can't complain that you're not doing anything if you've got people that are trying to help you. In our world, when you have a mentor, you are having someone who's choosing

to give you something that they didn't have in the very beginning. It's a huge advantage. They're saying, look, we're going to, I'm going to take you out of these steps and put you into these steps because these steps don't work. I've learned it. So I'm going to give you a head start. That's a beautiful thing. And if you don't take those head steps, then you can't complain. You can't say, well, I'm not doing what you're doing. You're never going to do what I'm doing. If you Don't look at how the process works. This is how we build things in life. This is how things happen.

And mindset is a huge issue. And now it's become more of a taboo for people because people hear about it a lot. Oh, mindset. Oh, yeah. I know about positive thinking. I know about having a good attitude. I know about self-improvement. Reality is, do you really?

Because if it was something very simple, everyone would master it. It's not. Working ourselves is a 24-hour job. and that door never closes. So when someone is unwilling to accept my help or anything, I don't force the situation because for me, true motivation means you got to have a motive. If internally your motive is I don't want to try, I don't want help, I can tell you a thousand things that are eloquent, that are amazing, that are capturing, that are

perfect. If you don't have the motive to change, you won't change. that is how things were for people. People have to look at what is my motive. And if you do want to change, trust me, you will find ways of listening to people that will allow you to change. I had someone a long time ago

that told me about the process of life. And I'll never forget this. We were sitting in a restaurant. And this was probably when I was in my early 20s. I was going through some hard times, as most people in the early 20s do because you're finding yourself, right? You're trying to create things for yourself.

And she said, Adrienne, do you want to go forward or straight in life? I said, what do you mean? She goes, do you want to go forward or do you want to go straight in life? I said, they're the same thing. I said, you're crazy. They're the same thing. She goes, no, they're not. So she takes out her little glass.

She holds it in the middle of the table. She says, Adrian, look at this class. Right now in life, you're doing this. You're just going straight. you're not paying attention, you're not adjusting, you're just going straight, hoping things move out of your way. What happens if I just keep going straight? I said, well, you're probably going to drop the glass,

so you're probably going to, exactly, or run into a brick wall, exactly. Now, Adrian, here's a glass again. Now I choose to go forward. Now if I go forward, if something comes in my way, I can stop, think about it a little bit, move around it, or maybe you can go back and think about it again, look at it from different direction, go straight, move around it. But whenever I get here, I don't have to keep going in that direction of life. I don't have to keep making those same

mistakes, having that same feeling. I can just choose to go this way. I'll never forget that story. That is a really good story. And I think that it lands on such an important point, which is it's not just about motivation. It's not just about telling people to just do their best. And I think that that's kind of the culture we're at now is like the self-esteem movement is rampant in universities and my issue with it is I was not a put together like when people were coming to me saying like

oh you're doing the best you can and it's like you don't know that I'm sleeping like when I'm supposed to be doing my assignments I'm not doing the best I can and we're so scared to have those conversations and be a little bit tough on people and that's I just had John Haidon who was an old professor I fell asleep in his class

like I was not putting my best foot forward and having people think that they are doing the best they can when they're not is it's it's just like making us infants it's not making us capable confident people and it is tough to go down this route and that's why I'm grateful to have you on is because I don't think that you're just telling people like do the best you can and have self-esteem it's this there's there's depths to what you're telling people to do and there's this intrinsic idea in taking responsibility that it's not always what you want some people sometimes people come across

completely the wrong way. And then I turn around and I go, well, what could I have done better? Like, it's not something that is always enjoyable. Sometimes it would be way easier if I was just like, oh, that person's just a terrible person and like what a horrible person they are. But when you have this personal responsibility, you go, hey, that didn't go the way I wanted it to or that approach didn't work for me. What can I do better? How can I have that conversation better? And that's what I learned a lot growing up with someone who has a disability is that person isn't always going to know when they're incorrect. So you have to be able to say, okay, they're wrong, but I can't force that on them. They're not going to hear me. So how do I move forward despite the fact that

they are incorrect? They don't know it. And I have to somehow still live in this world without deciding I'm incorrect because that doesn't always work. So you have to be able to, when somebody yells at you or treats you wrong, you have to go home and then go, well, what did I do wrong? And that's not something you want to do. And it's not something that we talk about when we talk about personal responsibility is sometimes they're wrong and you could have done something a little bit better so you still have stuff to work on. Sometimes it's not always, it's somebody else's fault and you're completely innocent victim here and it just didn't go your way. You can always improve things and that's a tough responsibility to take on because sometimes it is so clearly that somebody else,

the cashier was being super inappropriate and then you still have to leave and go, but could I have done this? Could I have done? And that's that personal responsibility that isn't the glorified idea of responsibility that we don't like to talk about all the time. It's real courage. We have this notion that courage is running into a building that's falling and grabbing someone and pulling them out. And courage is being in the line of just complete danger where your life could be taken any moment and you find a way to survive.

And there are people who have done that. And yes, those are bouts of courage. But that's not the only courage. Courage is doing those simple things that no one sees. Courage is just waking the hell up in the morning and taking on your day and knowing that I'm responsible for my day. You know, Carpidio, you know, seize the day. I'm responsible for this day.

Courage is being able to help a friend who's in need. Courage is being able to say something that needs to be said. Courage is being able to step up and speak out against something. Courage is correcting someone when you know that they need to be corrected. Courage is accepting feedback. Courage is saying, oh, you know what? Maybe I was wrong than that. I'm sorry.

That's courage. And that's what I love to talk. about because courage is, out of all the things in our life, courage is the first thing we need in order to access the other ones. People talk about happiness. Happiness comes from personal freedom. Personal freedom to choose. That leads to happiness. But in order to get personal freedom, you have to have the courage to be able to access the personal freedom. That is, going beyond the things that are comfortable for you. You know, you talked about the, this motivational speaking. It was like, yeah, when I first started, I did not,

my whole aim in the beginning was not to be one of those guys. You can do it. You know, I've been through this and so can you. It's like people will hear that now. They're like, oh, God, you're one of those people, right? And that's what they think. So for a long time, I tried to get away from the motivational speaker thing. And then people know this about me. I didn't call myself a motivational speaker. I call myself a speaker. You know, I'm actually a keynote speaker. I spoke at a huge event in 2019 about changes and challenges. because that's what I like to talk about. And for me, that is what I'm passionate about

because my whole life has been ruled by that. That's my domain. And so when I talk passionate about that, it comes across so much better because that's something that I want to instill in people. I don't want to just motivate you to feel good because we all know what happens. It's like, you know, inflating a balloon

after a certain amount of days it's going to deflate. You're going to be happy and then go lucky. The next thing you know, someone's going to come in and probe you and say, no, no, no, problems are still here. Remember this, that you left when you went there to this event, now you're back, hello, and people get deflated again. So what we need to do is change people from internally and just say, you know what, you have

to change a lot of things about your lifestyle in order for you to have an overall perspective of change, but more importantly, you have to become a student of change. This is what I want to teach people. You have to become a student of change. You have to be also fascinated by the changes that you're creating and also fascinated by the changes that are coming towards you that you didn't want. you got to ask yourself, why is this, why did this show up here? Why is this a repeat for me? A lot of people don't realize that repeats in your life are just habits and thoughts that you're pushing out there.

So why is this a repeat? Why do I keep going through this? Why do I keep attracting these kind of people? Why does this keep happening? Why does this emotion keep coming up? This emotion of I'm not enough. This emotion of I'm not being respected enough. This emotion of I've got to defend myself when someone said something to me. I had a big problem with that, defending myself. And even to this day, I still do at some point because it's conditioned behavior. When someone says something, automatically you think, what did I do wrong? Why are they coming at me? And that's a conditioned behavior.

And that does not allow us to operate at our better selves. You see, there's a part of us that wants to be creative. It wants to just express itself. But it can express itself if we have this blockage of this is how I'm supposed to be. perfect put together. This is how society wants me to be. This is how my friends want me to be. No, you've got to break out of that shell. And the reality for people is they don't want to break out of that shell because they will lose people. And I don't see this losing people. I see this releasing things in your life that do not serve the character that now you're bringing

forth into reality. So if you want this reality, guess what? You can't bring all these people with you. I hate to say it. You can't. Some will come with you. They truly love you. They truly care about you, they will come with you. But you can't bring everyone with you. It's like the Gordian knot. You can't untie the knot. Sometimes you've got to just sever it. You just got to cut through it and say, I've got to move on. I've got to do this. That's what I had to do in my life. And it wasn't easy, but I had to do it. But now I've connected with so many other good people like yourself, you know, my fiance and other people up here in the area. And so what happens is you begin to go into this path and you meet people along the way who are saying, oh, hey,

What's up? How are you doing? Because they're on that path. But you never would have met them if you stayed on the path you were on before because you're trying to maintain this little clicking group that you're with because they don't have anything to do with that path. So that's the courage we got to have to step outside of ourselves. I think it was Robert Frost in his poem called The Road Not Taken. I'll just use the last passage. He said two roads diverged into the woods and I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference in the world. that's made all the difference in the world to me. I completely agree, and I think that that's where that depth comes in, because people have, for millennia, thought about these issues, thought about what, because that's the area in which science can't interact with, and that's what the fundamentalist Christians seem to be arguing, is science is not the cure for everything, because it still leaves us, you can have, you can't derive an art from an is,

and we still have to figure out how to operate in the world, And that's the eternal question. That's what religious ideas are trying to discuss. And I don't subscribe to anyone specifically, but the idea behind them is you're the person who changes things into the environment that you need them to be. You're the person who interacts with chaos and brings it into order. When your room's a mess, you're the person who goes in there and sees, oh, this is like, I don't know where my pens are.

I don't know where my clothing is. Like, everything's a mess. You're the person who goes in and organizes it all. And you feel better when that's done. And that's because you're the thing that can organize things. You're the thing that can set your whole day up the way you want it to be in the car. You can have your heat set the way you want it to be the temperature. You can do it all in a way that you yourself would enjoy it and that would make you more productive.

And that's where I feel like a lot of people don't think about that self-optimization of what could I do? Could I approach the person at the store differently, better, more politely? Could I make a donation if I work a little bit harder and build these businesses up? and donate and support people and build other people's dreams up. And that's where we never get to have the conversation because people are so trapped within having those connections and feeling like, well, if I stop talking to my sister, then I'm betraying her and I'm leaving her behind. And it's like, you have to sever that relationship so that she can realize that you're going to move forward and she either follows or she stays, but that is her choice, not yours. And that whole idea is so complex and it's so nuanced that people never get to hear good conversations. And if normal people ask each other, how should I treat my sister?

It's like, well, you better stay. Like, it's family. And it's this surface level answer that has no depth to it. And even going back to our conversation about trying to improve someone's day, it can manifest itself in so many unique ways. It doesn't have to be a card. It can be getting the door for them. But like for my friend Jake, he went through a concussion. and he lacks motivation right now,

and I worry about him because he's a close friend. I don't want him to fall any more behind. He's had barriers just pop up and knock him down. And it's hard to watch because those aren't my barriers. And he continues to get up and move forward despite them. So the least I can do is try and help and find little ways to build him up because he's pointing in the right direction. He's trying his best.

And so he just needs support. He just needs to know people on his side. And for those types of people, It's so important that we send the text message saying, hey, is there anything you need? How are you doing? And hook them up. Try and get them something that they'd enjoy doing. Get them a float.

Get them a massage. Try and make their world more habitable. And so they're at the floating place or they're at getting a massage done and going, wow, like, I'm only here because my friend cares. And like, I have people in my life who care about me. And that can make all the difference. It does make all the difference. It's the process of giving and receiving.

And it's good to be on the game. giving end first, because it's a cycle of life. Everything has to come back to some norm, just like life and death. It's a cycle. We can't evade this simple system that life has set up. But yet, as humans, we're so complex in our nature that we create complexity within this simple system. And it's like, yeah, well, all you have to do is be nice to people and be kind.

And they're like, well, is that it? Yeah, that's it, really. That's it. Because you rely on people for so many things. And if you're going to be kind to people, what if someone's mean to me? Okay, well, if they're mean to you, now you have the ability to decide how you want to interact with that. That's what we call personal power. If you choose to abdicate your power by interacting with them on a negative level, then you're going to lose every single time.

So it comes back to, I use this analogy a lot, do you want to be a thermostat or a thermometer? They're like, what do you mean? I said, well, thermometer is something that just reacts to the outside temperatures. If it's hot is hot, if it's cold, it's cold. thermostat regulates inside temperature. You can regulate your emotional context and how you deal with people and how you deal with things. It's up to you.

That's where true power is. And that's how change happens. And that's where true realities of life take place when we understand that every moment we are creating our futures. And it's scary to some people because they realize that if they think that, then they have to always be watching their thoughts. And no, you can't watch your thoughts all day long, but you should be aware of what you're thinking. What are your most dominant thoughts? Is it scarcity? Is it fear? Is it revenge? Is it envy? Is it a feeling of

loneliness? Is it a feeling of, you know, oh, poor me? If those are your dominant thoughts throughout the day, then that's the world that you're going to be living in. And I don't care how many people you've got around you. If your dominant thoughts are that, you're creating reality. And what will happen is that reality will push those people away. Scenarios will come up where you'll create arguments with them. scenarios will come up where you'll find fault with them for something because we're that powerful as human beings. People consider us to be woo-woo, but it's not. It's reality. It's like as a human being, you are shaping and shifting your world. And you want to know how some people can go from failure to failure and still have success. They're shaping their world. They're taking what

they know best and they're using it better than next time. We need to have, we need to open our eyes up. I am so sick and tired of seeing where this world is going. From politics to police brutality to how people are treating the planet, it's absolutely disgusting. And as a human being sitting back and watching this, it's like we as a people, as one embodiment, as a community, we've got to wake up. We've got to start being our better selves, bringing more creativity to the planet, to the people in our communities, to our world, to make this a better place. That's why I love doing this, because I'm not here for me. I'm here to make this world a better place.

And I'm using my tools of what I'm good at in order to do that. But we have to wake up out of this nightmare that we're all living in right now. Because I truly believe that what matters is what we leave behind for our future generations. I only have so much longer to be on this planet. and I understand that. I understand my mortality. That's why I wake up with optimism and courage and happiness every day. I understand that I am vulnerable. I get that. But I also understand that I have a privilege of being here every waking moment when I breathe. And people talk about give and receive. Look at your body, for instance. Right now, you're having to take in air, but guess what happens? You've got to give it right back. Try holding your breath for longer than you can. trust me you'll you'll that will be a permanent job you'll have forever is you know because you cannot hold your breath forever if you do that you'll die so people we have to understand that we've got to give something back to society what are your gifts what do you have and here's a

rebuttal well i don't have time for that can't make any money doing that i'm not good at that's not the answer the answer is what are you good at what do you want to explore just start doing it. Everyone starts somewhere. They say that you can tell a pianist, a master at his craft by the way he holds his hands before he even plays a note. It's all about what we work on, form, how we start things off. And as human beings, we've got to start looking at our lives more than just work for someone else or making money. Although money is good. Don't get me wrong. Money is great. because we can use that to build things. We can use that to improve things.

But we have to look at what can you do as a human being every single day that is going to be better for the planet? What can you do every single day that can be better for the people around you? That's what it means to be a human being for me because I truly believe that right now is a wake-up call for all of us to look at things differently. It truly is. I completely agree.

And I want to tie this in with how bad things can be if we abdicate our responsibilities as a society because one area that I feel like we never talk about is like communism and Stalin's communities and how he developed a society because all of those people tried to support the idea of equity and creating everything so everybody has the exact same amount and you can't do that and they tried it in Russia they tried it in Maoist China they tried it in Venezuela it doesn't work because the idea that we could just flatten everything out and everybody gets gets a little bit is not how it works. We have to work hard at whatever we're passionate about. It's not. We're like ants. We have to find something and we have to push it forward. And this idea that this is just how it's going to be forever has never been the case.

We've always had civilizations fall. And that's what terrifies me is we've forgotten that we could fall. And we don't have this idea that our economy could crash and never recover. Our economy's worked for so long that we're like, this is just how it's going to be forever. And it's like, how long has anything ever stayed the same forever? That's never been the case. And we don't seem to appreciate that anymore. We don't seem to worry about whether or not things can go so bad that we don't get to play

any games anymore, that we don't get to have the job we want to do. This is all something we've just landed on like a hundred years ago. You can just go and do whatever you wanted. You had to do what the family did or what your community did. You had to stay the farmer. Now you don't have to do those things. But this is all a lot of work to keep. and maintain. This isn't going to stay here by accident. It takes real people to maintain the

civilization. And that's why it's such an honor to work in places like the courts is because those are fundamental necessities. And when you start to hear decisions that we disagree with, we start to go. Where is our society tipping? And that's the first thought people have when they hear an unjust sentence that they disagree with is, where is my society going? Is it going in a place I want to go? And when the looting happened and when those events happen, people start to are the police there? Are they going to protect me? What's going on? And that's when our fundamental instincts kick in. And in my view, it's so important that we recognize that it isn't just try and do the best in your life and everything will go swell. It's like, if you don't do this,

we can end up in Nazi Germany again. We can end up in communist Russia. We can end up in these places. These places happened. But most people can articulate why they happened. And most people blame people like Hitler and while I'm 100% agreeing he's a terrible person it was also his society that voted him in that supported his actions and that allowed him to do what he did it wasn't by accident he didn't

trick like millions of people into doing what they did that was an agreement between him and the people and that were the consequences we paid people died because people didn't stand up to him people fought for Nazi Germany and ended up supporting a terrible idea

because they were fitting in and that's where we can end up. And even when people say, well, you can be manipulated by the propaganda, well, there's a book that I have called Ordinary Men, where they were a police battalion, they were grown adults, they were police officers, and they ended up doing the most horrendous, terrifying murders, and they weren't manipulated, they weren't indoctrinated, they were regular police officers who just, they didn't, the one reason that they gave for why they committed all of these atrocities where they didn't want to make their comrades do it for them. And so they chose to continue. That's what human beings are capable of, and I feel like I have not stressed the point enough in this podcast that I know people can be horrible, incomprehensible, terrible people.

And we choose not to be every day. You can, if you really want to be a bad person, you find what you're the person you don't like idealizes, find it what's most important to them and turn it upside down and ruin it. And that's, that's what the idea of tipping the cross upside down is, is it's taking an ideal and it's flipping it upside down and it's wrecking it for the person. So if they have a terrific relationship with their mother, well, you say something about their relationship with their mother that they don't want to hear and you've just destroyed their ideal and what they believe in or talk about how many mistakes their mother is made or whoever it is, wreck their ideal. And that's what humans are capable of. We're capable of figuring out what people care about and exploiting it for our own gain. And that's what makes us the only creatures that are really malevolent because you don't look at like a bear and go, oh, that's an evil bear. It's like, that's a bear just doing its thing.

It doesn't realize, it doesn't have our morals. We have morals and we have a responsibility with those to go in the direction that's positive, to support people. And people like the Columbine killers are examples of people who knew exactly what they were doing. They wanted to destroy human beings. They wanted to destroy young people. The Sandy Hook killings were choosing young innocent victims and choosing to victimize them because that's our community ideal. mothers and children are our community. They're the things that

grow up and change and revitalize our communities and we are lucky to have them and so when somebody destroys it, it is a demonstration that they don't believe in the good of human beings anymore and they've given up on that and those are the consequences we pay if we choose to do the opposite of what we're talking about right now. That's the reverse

of what the world would look like if we didn't do these things. It is the responsibility that we have to not allow the world to dictate to us how we should respond for instance when we're looking at social media and we're seeing all the things that are going on many people will drop back and say well that's that's bad it's not happening to me so i'm glad it's not happening to me and then we fall into this shell right we see

this happening a lot if we go on a highway and there's a car that you know was a wreck or something that happened or someone was pulled over the first thing we do is human beings we look and then there's a sense of sigh because it's not us. That's how people think. In this society that we live in, we have to move from, I'm glad that's not me, to why is that happening? Why is this continuing to happen? We're seeing this now a lot in the States, in the U.S. People are questioning, why is this continuing to happen? What is going on? Probing the question permits the person to step into the action of finding out a solution. That's what happens when we ask a question. We have to be in the state as human beings of asking the question of

what do I want to do on my end to make this better. And I encourage people that are listening today to not have the burden of feeling like you have to have the world on your shoulders because you don't. You can't change the world by yourself. It's not your responsibility to do that. But what can you do as a human being to be better? Well, one example is this. Don't buy into everything that you hear as the only thing, the only source. If someone tells you something that they've heard or read, go look up the research yourself. Go find out for yourself.

Formalize your own opinion on it. Just don't take their word for it. You know, if you're looking at politics, for example, I don't want to get into too much politics. But if you're looking at politics, you know, just don't say, oh, this person's from this party. This person's from this party. So look up the person. look up their background, look at what they're talking about. Get deep into the heart of the matter. Investigate. Because when you do one thing in one area, we go back to the coffee again. When you do one thing in one area, it trickles into the other. And when we start learning how to look at things from a different perspective and investigate, we call it intelligent objectivity. We're taking a step back from the drama and we're looking at it from a perspective of like a scientist would. Okay, that's different. Let me look at it from this angle. then we can begin to see what other people don't see.

That's how human beings become better. We involve ourselves less than the drama of everything because we call this conviction bias too as well, right? Confirmation and conviction bias. People all have it. We're always trying to confirm our biases or convict, or, you know, so when we look at something and we're saying, oh, this is what I believe anyway,

so I'm going to validate this by finding more information to stack on top of this. And people do it all the time. They've got all the support about something negative I'm saying, but I always say, can you find me one thing positive? You've got all of this backup work. You've got all the support here for your negative comment, for your negative feeling, your negative thought.

But can you tell me one positive thing? They can't. This is confirmation bias. Well, and I completely agree with that. And I don't want to get too much into politics either. But you definitely see that happening with news systems where both Fox and CNN, neither of them ever discussed the contrary view of their own thoughts. Like CNN is not in the business of talking about the great things their presidents

doing. That's, if you're going on to CNN to try and find out anything good that's going on, you're not going to find that on CNN. And there's weird areas in which the Trump administration appears by all accounts who have done something good, but we do not publicize that on CNN and then on Fox News. All they're talking about is this amazing one thing that that administration did. And there is no even account of like, these are the five things, bad things that happened and these are the four good things that happened and laying it out in a fair and reasonable way that somebody can go, okay, well, I really care about those two issues and that's not how they went. So that's how I'm going to make my decision.

It's just pushing one side or the other now. And we don't want to have our ideas pushed as much anymore. We don't. And I think that it's coming from a lot of things. One, when we look at anything coming from the media, it's filtered information. It's information that someone has read, that they have approved. And they're saying, we're going to get this to the public now. So when we can begin to look at the information that's being given to us,

We have to take a step back and think, okay, how relative is this and what is my thought process about this? Why am I feeling this way about it? And this goes back to what we were talking about before, the self-introspection of beginning to look at ourselves and asking ourselves, why are we feeling this way, why are we thinking this way? This is a hard process when it comes to the world of self-development because it never stops. people talk about self-development. They're like, well, you know, I have developed myself. I'm good. No, self-development is a lifetime.

You always have to be on your case. Because if you don't, you're going to go back to what those thoughts were. We all know this. You get around the people that you used to be around. You start speaking their language. You start sounding like them. You know, if you're like some people, if you get around certain family members, you begin to take on the accent again, right?

So, like, I'm up north, but my family's from the south. And so sometimes if I'm talking to family members, that tone will come out because it's conditioned behavior that we were impacted from the time we were born to the time we were like seven. So we have to be mindful of that perspective of us that is constantly trying to creep in, that self that really is not who we truly are. It's the conditioned self. That condition self finds itself in arguments. It finds itself getting involved in things that other people are involved with, that it shouldn't be involved it because it's trying to identify and attach itself to certain things, that confirmation bias again,

when we can operate from a level of not having that confirmation bias so much or knowing when it takes place, taking a step back saying, wow, am I actually listening to this person, or am I turned off because I just don't like what they have to say, period, because it doesn't go and coincide with my value system. See, I can listen to someone, and it doesn't have to, if it doesn't coincide with my value system, I can still let them finish what they're going to say, finish out whatever they're doing. But I don't have to believe it. I don't have to get upset about it. I don't have to buy into it because I understand my place. This is what we call true maturity. Like we talk about maturity being when you get a certain age, no maturity is

action. You can have a person who's 20 years old who's more mature than a person who's 40. It's all based on action and how you're learning from your experiences. So we have to as a society take back control over what we question and to stop letting people around us insert us with all kinds of things without us questioning them. We have to go back to what is the source. I do this in books. If I'm reading a book and I read something and someone refers someone else in that book, I go get that book.

Because at that point, I want to know if this person referred this person in this book or this book within a book, I want to go back to that book and read that book to formulate my own perception on that book. That's how I learn. That's how I digest information. I don't just take it from someone to say, oh, you know what? That was a great book, and this is what I learned from it. Okay, now I want to go and read that book.

I want to see what I can get out of it. And I may not even get the same thing you get out of it because we have different perceptions. So as human society is concerned right now, it is a calling card for us to evolve. is the key word, evolve. We have to rise beyond the madness. We have to rise beyond all these things, and we have to start stepping out as mentors, as leaders of our communities to be able to say, you know what, I'm here for this reason. I'm not here for this reason. I'm over here. I want to create this. I want you to be a part of it. I want you to have a place that you can come to that you can feel like you are a human and you're not another number or statistic. Come join me. That's what we

more people off. We need more people who have solutions rather than just people who are just talking about problems. I get more people now they're talking more about problems than you are solutions and I'm so tired of hearing about it. Like, you know, every time I hear I turn around, if I'm online, there's a problem. I'm like, is there anything that we can have or we can go online and we can just see solutions? We can see happiness. We can see. And then there was this ego part of me that said this, well, Adrian, that's not reality. Ah, there is the ego. It's not reality to have good things and live happen most of the time.

It's reality for us to have negative things. And that is what we've been conditioned to believe. And that's why we feed off of it. I completely agree. And this kind of leads into one question I wanted to ask you about because I feel like for most people other than us who are able to have long-form conversations, almost every one of my guests who leaves goes, I have never laid myself out so clearly, even to myself.

Like, I don't have my story from beginning when I started university to now laid out in such a way that I understand who the heck I am and why I do things. And so they've said to me, like, this was a great experience for me to understand myself better. And that just kind of leads into how many conversations are we not having every single day and all the time? We constantly oversimplify ourselves and don't share the interesting things about ourselves or cut ourselves short to speed things up. And we'll ask at the grocery store, like, how's your day going? And they'll say, good. And we'll say, they'll ask you back. How's your day going?

You'll be like, really good. And then that's the conversation. And that's fine, maybe at a grocery store. But when you start to see it happen at work and in your community and then with your parents and then with your friends, and then you're becoming a person, you don't even know. You don't know what your drives are and what you're interested in and the good things. And that's one area that I saw some recent research of, like, children only get. like, I think it was like 15 minutes a week of like quality conversation with their parents because you're just too busy. You don't have the conversation. You don't have time for that.

You have to get work done. You have to make the coffee. You have to get them ready for school. You have to get their backpacks. You don't have time for a conversation. And that's starving people of feeling like they're important. I know a lot of people who are in that kind of mindset of I can't get out of this and I'm stuck here. But it's because I don't have all day long to talk to them and go like, well, what do you want to do? Well, how do you want to go about doing that? Well, what books should you read on that? And, like, that takes a long time, but we're not doing that to people anymore. We're not asking more of them and saying, like, let's have a four-hour conversation. Like, when I tell people, oh, it's like two to three hours podcast, they're like, what am I going

to have to say for three hours? And it's like, it just, it happens over time. You start to get a flow, and then you start talking, then you start sharing stories. And then all of a sudden, three hours goes by. And the person's like, three hours. And that happens. And that happens. happens because we're so starved. People just fall right into like, I've had so many people never been on a podcast before and then three hour mark goes by and they're like, oh my gosh, like, that was awesome and I enjoyed myself and that was really meaningful. And it's like, well, why aren't you doing that every day? Yeah, that's absolutely true. So what is that like for you to go through and have to have to try and talk to people and say like, hey, I want to tell your story. And they're like, what story? What are you talking about? it's it's challenging because most people don't understand their stories it's challenging because most people don't understand their stories because they haven't had the chance to really think about what their story is because our stories are constantly changing and I find that for me it's the art of conversation so having long conversations with people like I have a friend out of Seattle his name is his name is Joseph and he's probably going to kill me for not knowing his name's Joseph and he and I we get together you know we're from time to time when I'm down there. And we'll sit down for about two, three hours and we'll just have conversations about life.

It goes from martial arts to philosophy, to some politics, to back to personal, like our relationships with our, you know, with our significant others. And it goes back to health, the martial arts, and we just recycle around the conversation. And it's so fulfilling to the soul. Because when I come out of this conversation, I feel happy. I feel radiant because we need that. we're thriving always for knowledge. Our souls want it.

That's what we're here for to learn. Once again, learn, grow, and fully express ourselves. And when we give ourselves that through deep conversation, it allows us to be seen and heard. Everyone on this planet, no matter what position they're in, echelons of command they're in, how much money they have, how much fluence they have, where they're from, who their parents are, everyone wants to be seen, everyone wants to be heard. everyone wants to be considered to be meaningful to life. That's everything the human beings share together. We all share that. When we can get that from conversation, it really helps us to minimize the amount of anxiety

that we have in our lives. It allows us to minimize the amount of feeling of loneliness. Right now, loneliness is a, it's an epidemic right now. People are feeling lonely because there's a disconnection of social human behavior called talking. We have moved it to texting, emails, social media. Now you can communicate people through social media on different platforms. It's a great way to go through society knowing that our technology has advanced. However, there is a part of us that needs good old-fashioned conversation.

It's a part of us that needs good old fashion just taking a pen to paper, writing out your random thoughts. That is a part of us that will always need to have. have attention. And when we don't give it that, then this is what happens. We go off and we're trying to validate ourselves through likes, through comments, through replies. We're trying to find ways of being seen, being heard versus just getting in front of people and having the conversation and talking it out. And what we find is that people realize, like you were saying, Aaron, a lot about themselves. They learn something new.

They realize that, oh, my goodness, I haven't talked about that story in a long time, because you kept it embedded inside because you didn't think it was important. A lot of times, too, that will help us to work through our pains. When you can talk deeply to people,

a lot of times you will bring up something that you have kept down in the basement of your being. And now that opportunity is so vulnerable that you feel like you don't have to suppress it. You don't have to keep it down. I have had for a long time thought I had to put on a certain persona for people

especially when I got into the industry of speaking and teaching, coaching. I thought I had to have this look, this style. And when I began to do more conversations with people, deep conversations, finding out about myself, I realized that, whoa, you know what? I don't have to wear a suit and tie.

I can wear earrings. I can rock a beard. I can be articulate and still get out there with the best of them and look this way. That comes from deep conversations of knowing more about yourself. So the challenge today for people listening to this is to find ways to engage in more conversations. Get on a phone call.

Get on a Zoom chat with people. Get on Skype. Do something. Use face. Use some kind of platform to just get into a conversation with someone. I have this thing that I do. I never get into full-blown conversations through text. If I feel if it's going a certain way and it's continuously going,

Then I will say, can I call you? Can we do a video chat? Because I want to get the full experience of the conversation, not just through quick words, unless it's just something that we need to just talk about quickly. But usually I want the full conversation. And that to me is the art of communication through human beings. Being a podcast like yourself and other people, I think that it's important to really stress that idea of communication. Because that is how wars happen when there's miscommunication.

right now we're seeing a lot of miscommunication going on across the planet because people have the inability to really articulate what they're feeling so they choose other things to say instead confirmation bias to validate what they're feeling when reality is it's not it's just a conditioned behavior so when we learn to communicate we can pull out those words that really are the words we want to use the words we need to be using and I would also encourage people to just get involved in reading more reading more books because books are a way for us to connect words together it's sad to say this but i truly believe that the way things have been going people have a lot of people now don't know how to use words in a certain way that will allow for better relationships of communication they

just don't they don't know how to articulate it anymore now it's more of just emojis now it's more of just, you know, a quick phrase or a quick catchphrase. It was so funny because I think I had this conversation with some friends a while back and they were saying, what was your best pick-up lines when you were in high school and in college? And I said, I didn't have pick-up lines. I just talked. I just went to someone and if I was interested, I'd just talk to him. I just talked to you. I said, I was just, hey, can I talk to you? She wasn't interested in? Great. And I had some situations like that. They were not interested. But it was like, just talk. Figure them out. What are their likes? What are their dislikes? You know, I have this thing all the time. I want to know about people around me. You know, there's me and my partner, my fiance, we talk about this a lot. We sit down and we talk about what are our dreams and what are our wishes. You know, what is something that we want to do together? What is something we want to do individually? It's so important to have these conversations that way you know how to show up for people and yourself.

I completely agree, and that's just an interesting point because I remember all through my undergrad, I would say when people would be like, how are you doing? I'd be like, live in the dream. And that's all I would say. And Rebecca called me on it, and she was like, holy, like, you say that to everyone. And it's like, because nobody really cares. Because nobody's following up with. No, seriously. Like, how are you doing? Like, is everything okay? Nobody said that. Everyone would, everyone would laugh and go, ha, ha, ha, yeah, like, have a good day. And it's like, that's fine with me. But that also tells me when you don't do the follow up question, you don't really want to know and that's fine but now I know exactly how they're acting and it was always just uh I know they don't care I'm just going to give them what they want to hear which is I'm great have a good day bye and that mindset of like they don't want to hear it and I don't want to tell it and so that builds social disconnect because you're assuming like I was assuming they don't care and that might not be the case they might just be nervous to be like oh how is your relationships with your family right now like that would be a weird question in passing to ask And so being able to have the honest conversations are so important, what you just said about your relationship with your partner is something I absolutely want to get into because I think that it is a representation.

Just recently you put roses, I believe, in the car of your life. You're stalking me on Facebook. I'm stalking you. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Yes, I put so it was a day that I knew that she was having, it wasn't a rough day, it was just a busy day. there was a part of me that just felt like I want to do something good today for her. I mean, I do a lot of good things for it, but I was like, I really want to show her that she's seen, that she's loved.

And sometimes we just need that. So I decided to, that morning, to surprise her by buying a single violet rose, because that's her favorite color, purple violet. And I got a card. It was a Christmas card, but it was more of a relationship. Christmas car like, you're my greatest gift, you know, this Christmas, signed it. And I put it right in the driver's seat because I knew that when I got back, she's going to be rushing out to get to the car because she's had to go to a meeting. It was the greatest feeling in the world. It was something that I felt that's what it's about to be able to have those simple moments

where you can give to someone. So yeah, she's an amazing person. I love her so much, and I try as many ways as I can to show my appreciation for her because it's so important to let the person that you're with, your loved one, know that you care about them, even when times are busy or stressful, that you care. That's what matters. That's what truly matters. I completely agree, and I feel like that is just another area in which people are missing out on the opportunity to show that, because I don't know about you.

but for most men that I know, it's like, how can I do the bare minimum possible and get away with it? And, like, that's the mindset. And, like, you're going to yield a result. And I see their partners roll their eyes when they do something. And it's like, oh, I just did the dishwasher. And it's like, the woman's like, yeah, that's the first time you've done it in two years. Like that feeling. And then both are, like, contemptuous towards each other because you both haven't been putting in your best effort.

And the idea that when you get married, you're automatically a team isn't the case. and you guys are working as a team because she probably did better in her day because of you and it didn't take all that like it wasn't an incomprehensible task you weren't you didn't have to take her to Jamaica or the Bahamas for her to have that boost it's tangible real things that we can do in society and that ties in with so many issues that we deal with as a society because Amber Price did like an amazing mural of an indigenous figure and was like this is a tangible way of reconciliation and I was like that's such a nice change of page. because I'm so sick and tired of hearing people say the word reconciliation and then not doing

anything or showing any meaning behind the word. And they're like, well, this is having this conversation is reconciliation. It's like, well, you're the prime minister. You're just talking. Like, that's your job. And so this idea that we can do tangible things to build people up and that that might make her meeting go better, which makes her day go better, which makes her month go better, is not trivial.

And so I want to get more of your thoughts on this because it's so crucial that we start to work towards these things and recognize that the small things we do for people can change their whole day because none of us feel like we're worth anything. And so when somebody says, hey, you know what? You're worth me doing this and surprising you in this way. It's like, really? And so what is that like for you? Because I think that that's so important.

It's important to realize it's not about you all the time. I think a lot of us think that the world is only about us and it's not. there's a notion that, or the phrase that the world doesn't revolve around you is what we were told as, you know, sometimes the kids growing up, you know, it wasn't revolve around you. You just can't, reality is the world does revolve around us, but the other reality is that there's people within the world that revolve around us and that we have to be mindful that we are the center, not only in our lives, but in other people's lives. And when we can take out time to notice those people, particularly the ones that are very

close to us. And to give them the smallest gesture of appreciation, it's greater than gold. It's so rare in the society that we live in now, we're all designed to think that we've got to do some grandiose thing in order for people to be happy with us. And sometimes all it is is just a rubbing of the shoulder, you know, a hug. I'm very proud of you. You know, I know you're so tired, but you're kicking butt. I'm so proud of you. What can I do for you? right now. What do you need? It's just those kind of things that really go a long way and to do things without wanting anything in return. That's the greatest gift. Like I never expect to have anything come back to me because I've given something to Katie to my to my partner. I never do. And she never does

it. She never does that either. She gives because she wants to. So it's never an expectation when we've got we have this invisible scoreboard where we have to like, oh, I've got this. Now you got to get this. We'd never think that way. It's always a, it comes from the heart. Whenever we feel compelled, it comes from the heart and we do it. And that's what makes us be so strong together as a couple. We also know, too, we're our own individuals. So it's important for people to know this. In relationships, there's this saying that I used to believe that you make me whole. I don't believe that. I believe that we're all individuals. It's up to us to be responsible for our own happiness. But we choose to join in alignment with someone on our journey that adds more to our happiness.

You see, I can't make my fiancé happy all the time. That's her responsibility. She can't make me happy all the time. That's my responsibility. But we can allow ourselves to be happier together by understanding what our wants and needs are. I understand what her wants and needs are. It's as simple as sitting down and just rubbing her foot and talking to her and asking her about our day, asking her about her ideas.

That's gold to her. You know, my want is to have her look me in the eye and tell me that she loves me, that I'm amazing. You know, and I do the same thing for her. But we all have our wants and needs. And once we understand that about our partners, about our partner, then that really helps a lot. It really goes a long way. And this is also part of being a better human being. Once again, one thing we do in one area, it trickles into another.

I'll keep going back to this throughout this conversation. it's how we do things a certain way. If you're this way with your spouse, if you're your partner, guess what happens? You're going to be this way with people in your business. You can be this way with people in your community because you take that attitude with you. Like, what can I do for this person here? This person's been showing up.

How can I show them my appreciation? You know, what can I do to acknowledge them? You know, in our network, we had someone the other day. She had a birthday and we sent out a thing for her birthday on all platforms. And we were like, let's just blow the platform up and just let's let everyone know it's her birthday. And that meant the world to her just by us doing that. So for me, part of my strength in life is caring about people. I've always had this huge heart. And when you have a huge heart, it gets stepped on sometimes. But when you have a huge heart and someone shares that same huge heart

with you, it's like fireworks. So when I'm with my partner, she is, she allows me to be me. I think men in general, we have to take away the bullshit like armor that we have on at times. And once again, we're talking about Halloween, the mask. So let's take off the mask of masculinity and having to be so tough and just so like, I have to be this way. No, true strength comes from vulnerability. This has been my new philosophy. It comes from vulnerability. It comes from the willingness to be able to know that you are a human being at the end of the day. Your feelings can get hurt just like anybody else. You're going to have weaknesses just like anybody else. You're going to have upsets and downs like anyone else. And it's important to let the person

that is closest to you know that you're hurt. It is important to let the person closest to you know that you have fears. Because why? At the end of the day, they're going to be the ones that going to have the greatest concern for you and look out for you the most. And if you don't do that, if you want to put this armor that you're a man and you got to be tough and you got to show a certain thing, it's just all for show. It's all for show. And I think men need to show up more in relationships and to be more open to have these conversations with their partners, to be more open to look into their partner's eyes and to listen. Some people just want to be heard. Just listen. In the beginning of our relationship, I made so many mistakes of not listening.

I was just wanting to just know what I could do to help. And she would always tell me, all I wanted you to do in that conversation was just listen, Adrienne. That's all I wanted. But you couldn't even do that. And I learned a lot from those conversations because, see, we grow. When we're with people in our lives, relationships are more than just being with people to be happy and to have fun. actually choose people in our life journey to allow us to grow. There are aspects of us that need to be changed and need to be taken away or even conditioned. And there are certain people

that have the ability to do that. And this, what we call a challenge, they will challenge that part of you. They will challenge you to look at things different. They will challenge you to listen different. They will challenge you to question your own insecurities. And as men and as myself, I've had a lot of insecurities. I thought I always had to be right when I was younger. I thought that I had to be the strong one. I couldn't cry. I couldn't show any feelings. I thought I had to be the person that, you know, was like the head of the house and I had to have all the control, you know, when I was younger. And that's not true. That's, that's not true. I think men now today, what we're noticing is a shift in not power, but human thinking.

that at the end of the day when you're choosing to be under the same roof with someone you have to know what your strengths are and each one of you play on those strengths there's some things that I like to do that she doesn't like to do that I will do there's some things that she likes to do I'm like I don't want anything to do

with that and she'll do it there's no argument because we know that's where we are and there's some things that we come together on that we do together that we know we just need to do it so it comes to having this I call it the dance the dance of knowing when to take your step forward and when to take your step back. And it's an ongoing process because we're constantly battling in the midst of this, our egos, which are trying to constantly tell us that, well, they meant this when they said this. And they did it. That was our perception of it.

And I can't recall how many times we've had conversations. And Katie has said something to me, and I'm like, and I say something back because sometimes I can be quick with it, you know, with my words. and she's like, that's not what I meant. And I'm like, well, no, you said it this way. She's like, no, that's not what I meant. You perceived it as that way. And then we get into this conversation about perception. And so, but that's my vulnerability of sharing this with you on the mic right now,

because I can easily come on this mic and be like, oh, I've got it all together. I'm a personal development coach. I talk to people and there's no mistakes with me. I'd be lying. there's no human being out here and there's plenty and say they're flawless that they are run from them

I 100% agree I was just talking to Rebecca because I was like I don't like I have doubts about the podcast when I'm doing it and I wonder am I the person that should be doing this

am I the right voice am I doing it the right way and one of my concerns is constantly like why isn't this being shared what is it about it that isn't working what isn't it

that people aren't liking about it why are people seeing it not liking it what is going on that I could do better that I could improve and if I can't improve it, then why am I doing it? And if I can't improve it anymore and it's stagnant at six months, then I've done something horribly wrong and maybe this isn't for me. And we can all have those moments of like, maybe I'm in over my head. Maybe I'm not

the person to figure this out. Maybe I'm not that capable. And you have to be able to turn to someone who's going to give you a real conversation about where you are because I don't want to just have someone say, no, you're a pro. Have a good day. Like, I don't need that in that moment. I need to know how I can do better and I really like the analysis that like when you get married the rule is you don't get to leave and so when people choose to get divorced it's like well maybe you're never married like the part of it is that you don't get to leave and I need someone tied to me that's going to call me out when I'm being a moron and when I'm not thinking things through properly and when I'm just reacting and she's gotten so good at saying like you're not you're not hearing me like you're

focused on your perception and if that perception was true then you win the argument and you can get into that mindset of as long as I hold this to be the case that you meant what you said by this, then I'm going to be right. And this is going to all be resolved in one certain way. And it takes that process of having someone put their foot down and go, no, you're misinterpreting what I'm saying. You're doing it deliberately and you need to get a handle on yourself because that's not going to fly. And having someone who rolls over, like, I never want her to lose to me because I was just louder or I just yelled stronger and she just folds. Like, that's all I've done. is destroyed the person who's going to guide me and their sense of self and their confidence

to bring me a problem and say, hey, you know, like, you're really falling behind on this, or you're not noticing that this is important and not having someone who has the confidence to give you the truth and the reality. She's the only person I can turn to for like an honest perception of what I'm doing because everyone else is going to have their own intrinsic, like, responsibilities. Like, if I ask a past podcast guest, am I doing a good job? They're going to be like, of course, like, I'm not going to insult the person who just did something nice. And I totally get that, but you need someone who's going to say, you did not start that podcast off, right? You did not write this well or you have tons of spelling mistakes here. You need

someone who can be honest with you. And that's what feels like was lacking from past relationships for a lot of human history is during the 20th century. It feels like we forgot that we need a voice that helps guide us. And that's super important because the one thing I wanted to ask about is more about that whole idea that men want to fix things because I do think that that's the case and most of my guy friends are like that and that is something where taking our foot off the gas is really hard but we never get to have the conversation

because it doesn't happen in schools in universities of like men are just kind of this way and this is a very common male dominated thing that we just want to fix the problem oh your light's not working properly in your car and you couldn't see on your drive home well let me just go fix it and then everything will be solved And she, the woman might want to say, well, it was terrifying because I had to drive in the dark and I couldn't see.

And like, and then I thought I saw a deer and I was, they want to share that and let that off their chest. Or I saw a cat and I was terrified I was going to run it over and that changed my whole night. And all we want to do instinctually is, well, I'll just go get the new lights and we'll get it fixed in the morning and like, we can just finish watching our TV show. Oh, I've been notorious for that. Let me tell you, those nights and I go good. I have been like, okay, well, you know, my, my biggest thing I used to do is. is I'm watching myself a lot more now about this. I'm just like, okay, well, problem solved.

And that's the worst thing you can say in the situation. It's like you're asking for war if that happens. So now I'm trying to do more of understanding. And here's the thing for the men that are listening. Understand, but be cautious of that boiling effect that comes up in you, feeling like you've got to fix or you've got to defend. It will happen quite often because it's just, it's upbringing. It's how, and I'm not using this as an excuse, but it's, you know, growing up, most men are not, we're not in the position with their fathers to have those conversations, to have those intimate moments.

And so it's very different. So when we're adults, we're thinking in terms of, okay, straight, this is a scenario. Let's just resolve it and we're done with it. We didn't have that conditioning of nurturing of like, let's talk about this some more. Let's do this some more. And this is not coming just from a gender perspective right now, but it's just reality of what I grew up in. It was more of like I didn't, I love my dad. I mean, my dad and I, we get along great.

But my dad was not the person I can go to and spill my emotions to and talk to. You know, he protected me by all means, but my mother was the one who really understood. So I grew up in a family where I was around a lot of women because it was my mom. mother, she had a sister, and then my grandmothers were very present. So I remember during the holidays, you know, I would spend time with them in certain areas of the room and they would tell me, get out, you know, because we're talking. But I would sneak in and I would hear conversations. And I could hear them talking about them feeling like they were not heard, not seen. And that never left me because I understood that, wow, you know, is this how some, this is what marriage life

is like? Is this what relationships are like? And I'll be. I went through a lot of relationships, a lot of them. And I was a person. I enjoy being the one that was always right. I enjoy being the one that knew it all. And strategically, people will do this, whether it be a man or a woman. You will choose people that will match what your insecurity level is when you're younger, when you don't know a lot of things. And you will choose people based on, like, just are they willing to submit to you? Right. But with my relationship, now is she is strong. And you know, she's on the last episode. She's very powerful. And so when you get two powerful people together and they yield to a power greater than themselves and they

understand that, then this is where we call it the dynamite couple or the power couple transition comes in. You begin to maximize that. And we both have our weaknesses. We both have things that we need to work on. But at the end of the day, we understand. that we are in this together and that not one of us is here to control the other. Like, I have my things that resonate with me. She has her things that resonate with her. And neither do we try to control the other party. And that's the beautiful thing.

It's like we allow ourselves to be ourselves. There's some times where I'll be like, hey, I'm going to go to the room here. I'm going to lay down. I want to do some reading and writing. There's not a fight. There's not an argument like, what, you don't want to be with me? There's none of that going on. It's because she understands that.

That's part of my breath of fresh air Is to do the reading Is to do the writing Is to go out for a run Is to go out to action That's how that's me And there's parts of her That I let her do

That's parts of her And that's part And I think as men In this century Here's the interesting thing So In the earliest 16th and 17th centuries There were kings

Who went off to war all the time Right And the queens were behind The castle And no one ever talked about, like, the power of the queen. He always talked about the power of the king going out and leading the military. But reality is that when the king was at the castle, and there were big discussions about what was the next moves to make, to go to war, alliances. Who did the king speak to about that, to talk to?

The queen. The person by his side. History doesn't tell that because history tends to be a bit biased. Right? They want the king to be like this person. But the queen was a person that said, no. Actually, you're overthinking. This person is not a good alliance. Did you see how they were walking in? Did you see how they were interacting? The king was like, well, I didn't notice that because the king was already fixed on just alliance. Same thing with war. The king went off to war. Who ran the castle? It's a queen. But history tells us that there was someone that the king left in charge. They did.

did not say that the queen was in charge of the person that he left in charge, that history doesn't tell us that unless you dig deep, deep, deep, and you do your own, once again, research. You question the sources. So what I'm getting at with this is that as men, our strength does not reside in just being a man. I think that's a big mistake men are making. our strength relies in our ability to understand that we bring a different type of energy to the relationship and that when we understand that energy and we understand that our partner's energy is coming in and we work with it, that becomes how true power happens. And as a man, you do not have to control.

If you are in a position where you feel like you've got to control, something is wrong. You should not feel like you've got to control and you should not ever feel. like you've got to be in control, because that's not how things work. Having, the best control to have is self-control over you. It's not trying to control somebody else. You know, there's never a situation between Katie and I that I'm trying to control her. Never, and she would never allow that. It's like your partner, right?

It's like, when you have someone strong, they're like, they're like, oh, hell no. You know, that's not happening. They would tell you right, this is not happening. So, but it's one of those things where I never walked in a relationship feeling like I had to do that or I wanted to do that. I think that part of being a strong man is based on understanding that you do not need to always know everything, be in charge of everything, and feel like you've got to control everything. being a man means just being you, being who you are, expressing yourself, being, being, being you. I think that there's a lot of negative connotations with what it means to be a man. You've got to have like this aggression. You've got to be like very forceful. You've got to be hands on with equipment, you know, and things like that. I remember growing up, my father is from that baby boomer era. And so for him, he is like the typical like old school. I can fix things, guy.

You've got a broken-down car. He can fix it. Just give him the parts and he'll put it in there. Anything in the house, he'll fix it, you know, with the dishwasher. Very highly intelligent, man, very intelligent. And I sat down one day and I asked him. I said, hey, dad, how is it that you're able to fix anything? And my brother and I, we're kind of like, we can do a light bulb.

You know, that's good. We can do that, you know. But if it comes to anything else, mechanical, but we're just, we're not there. My dad said, well, son, it's from the errors we were born in. I said, what do you mean? He says, think about it. What did we do for fun in my time?

We didn't have computers. We didn't have technology. What do we do? I said, you guys were probably outside. Yeah, we're outside, pushing tires, playing with old cars, anything we could find in the junkyards. That's what we were doing. He says, your era, you don't have to do, because you guys, you have technology. You don't have to learn what we had to learn during that time.

He says, just different error. And I think now the point of that is we're in a different error now. And it's safe to say that the way that men have thought in the past about their relationships with women and how they treat women is out of date. And we have a new era now where men have to be comfortable with the fact that the one, in their life, or whomever they choose in their life, could be the breadwinner. They could be the person that maybe has more influence than them. They could be the person that has just as much power as them. I think when men start to begin to understand that, they can drop this old ancient, like,

I have to be in control method, right? And so also learning, my mother and father had great relationships. So my mother, once again, she was a strong woman. It was never a control issue. It was like, my mother was like, oh, no, I am doing this. I'm going to say this. This is what I want. And so I grew up seeing that being transitioned in the house.

But never once did my mother make my father feel like he was any less of a man. So it takes both of a dance. It was more like she never degraded him in any way. And he never degraded her in any way. It was more of just like they understood. So I take that mentality right now into my relationship. That's so important. And I do want to ask you about your relationship because I think that being able to hear your story and her story of how you both met would be,

such a great way to tie the two together but just building off of that point I think that a lot of our great media like I don't know if you know Riba but that was like a show that was just an example of like an incredibly strong woman who maintained her family like all the time

and that is such an important role and then you watch movies like Harry Potter and that's laying out what the responsibility of the man has been for most of human history which is to be the breadwinner to go out fight the dragon get the gold bring it home and like take care of your family family, and that's been something we've dealt with for millennia, and it's only now where you can do both jobs from home.

And that's so new to us that, yeah, some of our stories and some of the movies we've watched haven't kept up, but some of them are terrific examples. And for me, it's just frustrating because I feel like we're downplaying the value of women and what they've brought to the table for all of human history is being able to bring children into the world, which is our next generation, raise them up, hopefully well. And that's all the people. Women have created all the people. And this whole dichotomy between women being able to work and have children seems so crazy to me. Because fundamentally, the most important thing they could possibly do is bringing children into the world is because that's going to be the next generation. We can't have another generation if they choose not to do that. And I want women to work whatever job they prefer.

But it's just crazy because the studies on like successful female lawyers is like they end up not wanting to do those jobs. Because why would you want to be in a law firm all day when you could be at home with your family who care about you? And, like, I just feel like we've forgotten that the job is not where men want to be. Like, we don't, I don't want to be at work off by myself for eight hours and sitting in a cubicle and I'm being told, oh, you need to get this report done. And if you don't get this done, you're fired. Like, I don't want, that's not the goal. The goal is to work from home and to have an office space where I can get stuff done and then go out and be around my family and be a part of the whole. home. And it feels like all of the shows we watched growing up, whether it was like Roseanne or like the guy wanted to be at home more. And it was his job that was keeping him from home. And he missed out on opportunities to be a part of the family. And then like when I hear about these dichotomies of like, oh, women want like, why aren't they making more money and why aren't they work more? And it's like, well, why would you want, why would you want to be somewhere else away from your family more? Like guys and males are trying to get away from that. So the whole idea that the career is the ultimate.

goal for women is like I just can't if you want to do that and if that's who you are go at it but I don't think that that's a good goal to set when everything that's great that's ever been has always been in the home and in a place where you can have good conversations where you can have the food you want where you can get your exercise where you can listen to your children where you can listen to your grandparents and have that wholesome relationship that's not happening at work and so I think that you and Katie have gone in such a positive direction and taken advantage of what society's allowed, because both of you were able to be together during the pandemic, but you can also get work done from home.

And I feel like that's something the pandemic's waking people up to is, what is it like to be at home? And what could you get stuff done? And I know for government employees, their cameras are on in their laptops, watching them to make sure they do work. And it's like, you're missing the point of being able to work from home, which is people are going to inevitably be more productive for the most part because they're happier. They don't want to leave the second they get the chance because that's their home. And you and Katie are obviously evidence of working hard while at home, going for your runs,

getting exercise, but doing that from home and not going into an office and sit down, get your work done eight hours, you get a 30 minute break. And then, so first can we start off with, can you tell us how you and Katie met, but can we lead this into what is that transition like to be able to work from home? Because I know that part of it was you were stuck between the USA and Canada and you had to make a decision. and you ended up choosing to stay here. So can we tie all that together? And can you tell us how you met?

Absolutely. So Katie and I met about a little bit over a year, actually over a year ago. And we met at a Connect Now business meeting. And it was the first time we had seen each other in person. I think that we have seen each other maybe a few times online, but there was never any communication between us. I remember her, she was leading that particular meeting. And it was my first time ever to a Connect Now meeting. And I remember sitting at the very far end at the table.

And this was in Surrey, actually, the Surrey meeting. She stood behind me and she was talking to someone and I felt this energy that was like, like you've known this person before. Like you felt really, she had this welcoming, like, she's a very bubbly person. Like, she's just very kind. But it was just a different feeling. And I was like, I don't know, I don't know what that is. This is like a very comfortable, like I know her, but I don't know her.

It was so weird. then we talked of course during that meeting and then after the meeting and then I was like oh this is she's pretty cute and she's very intelligent and I was like wow this is a very amazing probably to get to know more about her so we just started getting to know each other more during meetings and talking and then over time you know I think probably in three or four months into it we began to see that it was like this was like wow we actually are interested in each other. This is like more than just us having common interest in business. This is like we actually have interest in each other. And at that time, we were just like, well, you know,

let's just be friends. Let's just see how it goes and develop. But I honestly have to say that it was love at first sight because when I did see her, I saw something I had never seen anyone before. And it was almost like I was like I wanted to get to know her. But there was no pursuing like I'm going to be with this person. It was more. of like, I'd like to get to know this person and know more about their story and who they are. And just over time, it was just like this confirmation, right, of like, oh, this is the person. And she shared her life story with me, shared the things that she was going through. And the one thing I loved about her was her open honesty and her ability to be vulnerable.

And her passion for what she does, her passion for her kids, you know, and that was just like, it was just really eye-opening to me, and I saw someone who had the passion that matched my passion when it comes to life. Wow. And so what ended up happening through that? Because obviously, the pandemic started in March. Where were you guys at at that point in time? So during the pandemic, I had a choice to make because I was up here as a visitor, which I'm allowed to do. And I didn't go back to the states because of the border situation. And plus, I was already staying up here temporarily with someone as I was trying to work on my, my residency here. So at that point, it was just like, okay, you got a choice. You can go back. But at that time,

it was like, Katie and I were like, we were in, like, we had developed so much. And we were like in a relationship by that time. Like, we were actually dating. And, and we were just, it was so much going on. And I decided that this is my life. I'm building a life here. And this is where I want to be. And so I stayed and extended everything that I needed to do here with paperwork. And then at that point, it was like, okay, I'm here to stay. Then the next step happened, you know, okay, well, I'm staying this person temporarily and my time is almost up with them. And then we were like, well, why don't we move in together? You know, we've known each other for a while. And it was almost like over a year. So we've known each other for a while because we started talking back in 2000, early, 2019.

Like, that's like, like around June or July is when we started talking. And we were like, okay, well, no, because we knew that we were in love. And we still are. We knew that. We were like, okay, let's do it. She's like, you are aware I've got two kids. And I'm like, yes, I'm away. She goes, and they're energetic kids.

And I'm like, she goes, but they're wonderful kids. And so there was this perspective of, okay, I'm moving. into this situation where with someone who has kids. And it was very different for me. Once again, here we go, talking about challenges, stepping outside of your comfort zone. Now, I went from being pretty much a bachelor living by myself for the past four years to now I'm in a relationship with someone and I'm actually moving in with them with kids. And this is also part of the story of being responsible and being a leader. There are a lot of things that we're going to have to step into at some point that we're not going to be absolutely ready for. And so I stepped into this

moment and moved in. And I wasn't aware that the pandemic was going to be like this intense, right? It was like, okay, we moved together. We got kids. All right. And she's got a great relationship with the father. And he's a great person, by the way. He and I have talked and I have a high level of respect for him. The way that he has treated, the way that he has treated me in the situation, the way that he loves and adores his kids and respects Katie on top of that. It could have went the opposite way. I talked to her all the time about this. You know, some men would have been very immature or could have been very nasty about it, right?

But he was like, he's just great man, great person. So I have high respect for Jeremy for that. So I want to give a shout out to him for that for being, I would say, he is a mentor. He is a guy that men should look at his demeanors and say, okay, wow, this is how you handle this situation, right? So we, moving in to kids, like, he has them some days and she has them. So it's like split and half, split with the kids. So, but the pandemic changed everything because kids couldn't go to school. And we couldn't even take them to the playground. They had everything taped off. So imagine a five and three year old

who's used to being able to go and run and play and do things. They're now in this. smaller space where they can't really do as they want. And so for me, it was like another challenge. Like now I'm in a place with kids who are like, they're going crazy. And I love them. But they're just, we all know, these kids have high energy levels. And now I have to adapt to an environment where it's a lot more noisier than what I'm accustomed to. And now I have to adapt to an environment where I've never been a dad. How do I do this? What happens? And I going to suck at this? Are these kids not going to like me? Is this going to be the moment where she sees me as not being compatible? All this went through my mind at that time. And she and I've

had conversations about this. I've even told her, I said, I don't know if I can be a, I've never done. She goes, no one ever does it the first time. No one ever walks into it with experience. She goes, this is all new to everybody. This is new to me. So it was going through those moments of realizing that I had a lot of maturing to do. That it wasn't. just about me. It was about now I'm in a household with people. And I'm going to be honest and share this with you. There was an ignorant part of me that thought that that my success of being a speaker and traveling, I couldn't do it with a family. That needed to do all that first and then have a family. That was my ignorance. And this is what a lot of people think. Do you think that, well,

once I hit my success level in my career, then I can start a family. And it may work for some people, but I realized that wasn't my story at this time. Obviously, my story is a little bit. different. And that was part of my reservation, I think, in the very beginning of a relationship. I thought I couldn't hold up to that. But as time went on, I realized that, wow, this is, I'm actually good at this. I can do this. And it actually allowed me and Katie to grow closer together because that is her world. Her kids are her world. And walking into that world and being a part of it was an honor. So it actually, the pandemic actually allowed us to grow closer together. And what we're finding through statistics is that a lot of couples were bringing.

making up, marriages were being broken because of the pandemic, because there wasn't that conversation going on like you and I were talking about, right? There was always the, I'm going off to work, see you later, I'll be back five o'clock at night, right? And then they eat dinner, get a quick bite to eat, watch a TV show, kids go to bed, spouses go to bed, repeat the same day, right? And so this pandemic for us was different because we're entrepreneurs. So we already knew that it wasn't a go-to-work thing and come back. We were already seeing each other. Just now we were seeing each other so much more. And it allowed us to grow, it allowed us to grow closer together and to see the real parts of ourselves. Like when we're first dating people or

when you're first together with people or if you're working a job and you're coming home, people are not seeing that real part of you. They're not seeing the frustration when you're on the car, you're on the bus or you're a train or whatever. They're not seeing those aspects of you. They're only seeing when you leave in the morning when you come back at night. But when you're with someone all day, you see the ups and downs. She saw the fact that I was, like I'm not like I'm an optimistic person, but I'm not happy go lucky all day long. I have my days where I'm down. Like I just, I'm pissed off at the world sometimes, you know? I'm like, I just want to be alone. I want to think. And she saw those aspects of me, but she never backed away and said,

that's on you. She always asked me, can I, can I do anything for you? Do you need anything? And I saw aspects of her that she just wanted to be. Like, so we saw those real parts of ourselves that we use to hide from other people. So the pandemic, we thank the pandemic actually for bringing us closer together. Because now we know. Now we have this saying, we've survived the pandemic with two kids, a five and three-year-old, we can survive any damn thing. So bring it. This is what we always say. It's like, if we were able to do that and that dynamic and grow stronger, then look out, world. Look out. That's so awesome. I'm so glad that to have that story told because that's so important to be able to hear and know that you can get through

tough things. And coupled with that, I just want to go back to your point about guys who want to just go off, get the job, go get their education and then get the $120,000 job. It's like the reason that that is, in my opinion, a bad idea to try and do without a partner is because how do you share that story after? Once, like my mindset was like, I'm going to go become a lawyer, a big hot shot Vancouver lawyer, make it really big, and then I'm going to have a relationship. And it's like, but then you're such an independent person. You've proven you don't need anyone. So why would you want a person around?

Why would you want someone around if you think that you're all that and you're capable of whatever you want to do? And for the most part, those stories end up being that that guy gets to the very top and realizes that there's no meaning there and then chooses to leave the firm and go be with the partner out in the suburbs and live that life. And that's the normal story we're told is because it's way better. to accomplish something and to achieve something with an audience and with support and with people who have heard your fall downs and like, I don't think I'm going to make it. And then when you finally do, they were there. They were the encouragement. They were the people.

And I have a close friend who's like, I'm going to go off to Brock University. I'm going to go get my education. I'm going to go get a really good job. And then I'll pick my partner. And it's like, who are you going to pick? There's going to be nobody who can live up to your standards of success because you went and did it all by yourself. And that mindset disconnects you from people because it's.

sharing those struggles and those times where you just want to quit with someone that allows that to become a narrative within your family that you guys got through that. And so that's so awesome to be able to hear that. Can you tell us what it's like to be a step-parent? Because as I mentioned to you, that is something that a lot of my guests have had as stories of I got involved with these children and it was a huge responsibility and it was intimidating. And it is a theme that I could have never imagined come out of the podcast. Like, I wanted to talk about role models, but I didn't expect the traits in which would arise that I would have never guessed.

And if you had have made me bet before I made the podcast, whether or not men were the terrible things that we've named them to be, and whether or not this characteristic would come out where men agree to be involved in children's lives. I had no idea how commonplace that was. And all I know about men is Tinder and short-term relationships and, like, a lack of monogamy and wanting to go to bars and cheat on their. spouses. And then there's this whole other group of men that I've never heard about. And it's only come through this podcast. And so I want to get your take on it. You should have a podcast just on men who take on responsibilities of being stepped at. Exactly. Well, like, who would have you would have a huge market for that actually. The reason why that you don't hear about it much or people don't hear about is because of how society is built. Like, they'd like to entertain

people. Like, it's more appealing for people to be to be entertained by the person who gets all the the people, like the musicians, they get all the females, they get all the, or even the female positions, they get all the men, or whatever, however their preference may be, they get multitude of something that this is a sexual preference for them. And society does not focus on the perspective of relationship. It focuses on entertainment, lust, it focuses on adventure, and because that gets people's attention. So when it comes down to heroes, mentors, men who have stepped up to the plate and they said, you know what, biologically, these are not my children, but I'm still going to be a part of their lives because they are my children. You know, when I, when Katie and I were dating, she made it very clear.

She says, you know, I have two kids and they come with me. And I said, I wouldn't have it any other way. I would never step between you and your kids. I said, I'm in love with you and your kids come with the territory. So I said, so therefore I'm in love with them too. And so it's been like that since day one. And the kids know this because they just love being around me. Kids can tell if someone doesn't like them.

They're very quick to let you know. It was so funny. Speaking of that, when I go off on a tangent here, I'm so well with the kids that I woke up one morning, and this is from the five-year-old. She's very intelligent. Her name's Natalie.

I had a little note on my desk that had an F and two plus signs. So obviously, I did something wrong. She graded me on it. So I had this thing. I was like, well, I'm starting my day off on a bad note. My parenting skills were not very good today. I got an F. So these are the funny stories that, you know, you can tell when you're with kids because it's like, they will tell you the truth.

But back to what you were asking me, the question of the men that when I first got into it, I was scared. I was scared. I felt like, and the ego came into play, oh, this is going to slow me down. I'm not going to be able to do what I need to do. I'm going to fall into this role of having to be like a dad and we know how that goes. I had these stories in my head that were just all negative stories, right? Because people don't talk about the kick-ass dads out there, the ones who are still running businesses and are good fathers at the same time because they don't care about stories like that. They only care about the results of money and achievement stories.

But there are dads out there like that. And more importantly, there are dads that walk into situations and they say that I'm going to be the best I can be for this situation. Like, not once have I ever tried to be like super dad or to override anything. Because here's the thing I just mentioned, they already have an amazing father. He's fully present. And he loves them to the end of this world. And he would do everything in his power to make sure they're safe and they're okay.

And so they have that. So for me, it's only icing on the cake. All I'm here to do is to be more, to be supportive to them, to be loving to them, and to show them that whether they're in their dad's environment or in mom's environment, they're getting love on all levels and they don't know any difference. They just know that there's love. That's the most important thing for the kids to understand. For me, it's important for me to understand that there is not a competition. I think some fathers can get into that rhythm or stepdad think that they have to. compete or be better than the previous person. And that is wrong. It's like you're here because

you are in love with this person who has children. And your job is to be the loving person that you've always been and to reciprocate that love to the children. That's the responsibility. But when it comes to learning how to parent, oh, man, Katie tells me all the time she's still learning. And parents are still learning. There's never a rulebook that says, oh, you've got to do X, Y, and Z to produce these kind of children because children are their own people too they're basically powerful spirits and little bodies and we have to see children that way like yes their brains are very young and their brains are still maturing like you but at the end of the day they're very wise and they understand what love is they understand what what what not receiving love is and in an

environment that we're in we want to make sure that they understand that they're getting love and they're getting attention, they're getting reassurance that it's okay. And that's the most important thing I think for stepfathers. And if you're dealing with kids that are older, it's a little bit different, you know, particularly if they're a teenager. So I'm pretty sure some fathers may hear this. You're not my dad. They may hear that a lot.

You're not my dad. And that's okay because reality is that you're probably not biologically, but however, you can still be a father to them. You can still be present to them. So the father's listening today and you may be feeling down because you may have that kid that just doesn't connect with you,

find more out about that kid. What is it about that kid? What are they like to do? What can you, like we talked about this earlier? What can you give them as a gift? Not as a bribe, but as a gift. What can you do? How can you show up and be your better self for them?

How can you just look at them and let them know that you see them? Kids pick up on body lane. There are some days where I may feel down and out or I may feel like tired or not as congruent as I want to be because when you're used to being a bachelor, what happens is sometimes those feelings come up and you're like, you have your days or you're kind of like you're sitting away. And whenever that happens, the five-year-old, three-year-old will come closer because they can feel that energy. They can feel like, oh, you need some love. You need some, I'm like, don't you guys understand social distancing? Come on.

But it's like they know that and they come in closer. And that's the beauty of it. I think that as a stepfather, you shouldn't just see yourself as a stepfather. You see yourself as a father. You see yourself as a person that's in this dynamic and you're adding value to the dynamic. Like these kids, they have it so good because they have an amazing father already. they have an amazing mother and now they have an amazing stepdad who's who's in the picture who's just adding value adding icing to the cake my job is not to to enforce myself or try to

take away anything from anyone my job is just to be as I am and to be loving and let the kids experience that and to also to let them know that there's rules and no boundaries because you got to do that as a parent you have to at times and just say no we can't do that here no not happening here and their dad does that too so but the kids are funny they'll tell you test boundaries. They'll say, well, mommy says that I could do this. And dad's like, no, she didn't. And he'll get on the phone with her. Did you say? No, I did not say that. And then vice versa, no, the kids will say, well, well, dad said that we, and mom, she'll get, Katie, get a phone. Did you? He's like, nope, didn't say that. So kids are always testing boundaries,

but more importantly, they're watching interactions. So I think the most important thing for stepdad's to do is to make sure your interactions with the mother or the father, whomever it may be, is good because the kids feed off of that. And kids just want to be safe. They want to feel like they're loved. And they want to know that their environment is home. And home is where the heart is. And if your heart is not in the home,

then you're not going to be able to reciprocate any kind of love. So stepfather's out there. It's not easy. And if you're feeling doubts about not being a good dad, that's normal. Because you're trying to take on a responsibility of creating this image for someone, and it's not. You know, Katie has told me a thousand times, just be yourself. You don't need to be super person.

Just be yourself. The kids will love you unconditionally. Just be yourself. And I had to take that to heart and learn that. So for me, but also, this experience has made me a stronger person overall. Because if you know how to communicate with a five and three-year-old to keep things simple, then you will know how to keep things simple when you talk with people. And trust me, kids will ask you questions.

well why is that? Well, because the sky is blue. Why is the sky blue? Well, the sky is blue because oh, well, why are there clouds in the sky? Well, because the clouds. So you have to find yourself answering questions that typically you don't answer and it allows you to really think about what you don't know. You're like, oh man, I got drilled today. We always had this joke now. I was like, did you get drill today? No, I didn't get drilled today. Did you get drill today? Yeah, I got drill. I got asked a thousand questions today. So, Natalie, I love her so much. She always says, so Adrian.

And whenever she says, so Adrian, there is a question following that. So now I'm always prepared. And it was funny. The guy, she asked me a question once I took my little thing. I'm not right to style, okay, go find this out. And then I come back later, what's an answer? It's quite funny. That's so awesome because that is true that we get so used to seeing things and thinking

that, like, everyone recognizes when they go for a while. that there's trees, but you don't know what the trees are called. You don't know, like, what type of rocks are in there. You don't know what type of ants are in there. Like, what type of spider is that? I don't know. And, like, we don't think about that. And then we start to think that our interpretation of the world is valid because we haven't

died yet and we haven't been overwhelmed. But there's a lot about the world we don't know. And there's endless amounts of questions. And if you try to list everything, like stop time for a second and try and list everything, it would take you forever. Like, there's so much complexities to everything, even in this room. And children bring you back there and force you to grapple with that and realize that you don't have all the answers to all the complex questions. There are answers, but that we don't think about and that we don't put into our own life.

So you've been in Chilliwack for a while now. And I don't know if that was part of your plan prior, because you obviously went to Surrey for the business networking meeting. What has it been like to live in Chilawak for the time that you've been here? and can you tell us some about the businesses you've enjoyed connecting with and utilizing? Well, I love Chilliwack. Chilawak reminds me of parts of Seattle where I was originally from. It is an amazing area. I love the terrain, the mountains.

I love just the green. I mean, I feel like when I'm driving in Chilawak, I'm around Chilawak, I feel like there's so much life going on. And when I'm going anywhere else, like, you know, I don't want to call any cities. out over any areas out, but from going, like, north of Chilliwack, and there's just some areas I don't feel the same. It just seems a little bit more barren for me. And I'm like, I just feel open in Chilliwack. First of all, I love Chilliwack corn. So let's not talk about the Chilawak sweet corn. My first encounter with was last year. And I remember sitting there like, oh my, I fell in love again. Katie, you've got some competition, girl. So I remember eating that and I was like,

wow, this is amazing. And just being in Chilawak in general has been great. The food here is wonderful. restaurants are wonderful here. The people here are great. I feel a different vibe in the area. And I also feel like this is an area that people, they understand community. There's some areas you can be in. It seems, the vibe seems spread out. Like, you have this corner, you've got this corner. But Chilliwack just seems to be everyone is in business, but everyone is a community. And that's what I really love about Chilliwack. That's awesome. Have you been to any places that you've really enjoyed that we can talk about? Yeah, I've been to Sarah Bella's

gluten-free Caffe. Love that place. They have an amazing dish. I think it's a meatless nacho cheese dish,

which I just, I will eat everything on it if they allow me to every single time. And just the decor of being in there. Now I know if COVID

happening right now has caused a lot of the businesses not to have people in, but before COVID occurred, Katie and I would go there quite often

to do a lot of business, just to sit down and go over business ideas and work. And the interaction with one of the managers, her name is Stephanie, with us, has been so, like the customer service, like the ability to be able to see people, to notice people that are consistent coming into your business and treat them like you know them because you do.

It is what keeps people coming back. So my, I give two thumbs up for that particular place because not only is their food good, the people there are very good. The owner's there. She's amazing. And her, and her manager, Stephanie is absolutely, they're out of this world. So I would definitely, I would go there every single day if they were still open for, no, but they will be once we get through this challenge of COVID.

That's awesome. I'm so glad to hear that. Can you tell us a little bit about your business here in Chilliwack just to give people a better idea? Yeah, absolutely. So I am actually the CCO, the chief communications officer of Connect Now Business Network. So I'm involved in all the communications with the leaders and locations. So being here in the community, I look to help to improve personal development for the person, behind the business within the business because I really feel like what we were talking about

today. It's important for us not to just have a positive attitude, but to understand the complexities of human nature and how stress levels impact us, how nutrition impacts us, and how just day-to-day living of communication impacts how we see our world. I don't think that's being talked about enough. I think people in business talk about personal development, but they don't talk about the nuances of it and getting deep down into the complete of just, what is it that's challenging you? Do you know what challenges are? Do you know what changes are?

Are you willing to accept changes? And if you don't, why? That's what I'm passionate about to help the businesses have is their structures. You know, for a long time, I have seen businesses freeze and die because they were unwilling to change. They were unwilling to take on new avenues. They were unwilling to communicate properly. And I see working in this community as a way of being the bridge.

through Connect Now to help people connect better in their businesses. It's like an art. It's like, do you understand the art of communication? Do you understand the art of being on a podcast? Like, if you're in business, are you on a podcast? How do you get interviewed on a podcast? Do you know how to interview correctly on a podcast in your business? Do you know why your business is open in the first place?

Do you know where you want to go if you? So I aim to help businesses do that and to get back into the fun of what they do. I think a lot of people right now are just in this grind of just wanting to work and to get the result, and they're not realizing that your result comes from happy clients. It comes from people who are going to speak about your business for you. And that process only comes when you add value, and the value comes from you becoming more valuable. So when we can start with the person becoming more valuable, then that value trickles into the business. And that's what I'm looking to do here in the community and expand beyond there.

Well, and I think that that's so important because right now a lot of businesses are trying to figure out how to survive COVID, and I've seen the chamber come out with a lot of great information on how to adapt. But one of the biggest problems we face is it's not about the money. It's not about getting another loan in order for your business to stay afloat. It's about adapting and figuring out how do I make the most of this new circumstance and how do I move forward despite, like obstacles are always going to arise in business. Your business is not meant to be as long as nothing ever goes wrong, my business will succeed. Like that's not a good mindset to have. You want to be able to adapt. And seeing how.

different businesses have been able to rearrange themselves and modify themselves for COVID has been such a joy just to see and be like, oh, I didn't even think you could do that. Now you're doing, like, that's so cool that that's an option now. And how businesses move and maneuver themselves through these things is part of the joy of going there and learning. And I think that right now we're so focused on making sure that we give them the loans and the financial piece. But that's not what makes businesses last. It's not just about like you can give any. a lot of money and their businesses can still go under like it's not that it's about how they can

move forward better and reconnect with the community and I think that that's so important because a lot of business people feel burnt out and feel pushed to their limits and they have had their margins cut and they have had opportunities cut down and how do they adapt through that it's also about having conversations with people oh you did that over there how can I do that how can I integrate this and that's what it seems like connect now business network is all about is getting through it without having to just get more money because a lot of business people right now are like if I just had more money and it's like well we all feel that way to a certain point it's about maneuvering ourselves and having tough conversations and some people they built their website and

they think well I put a lot of work into it so it's good and it's like you might have put a lot of work into it but it might not be what your business needs and that's where you can have that honest conversation what has that been like you know it's been it's been quite interesting because during these times, everyone is operating from a lens of fear. And so when fear is in place, then a lot of the logical thinking kind of sometimes will go out the door. And then they start operating from a sense of survival. So for businesses, for me, I feel like there are a lot of businesses that are

beginning to open up and realize that, hey, this pandemic is not going anywhere. So we do have to adapt. And businesses now have been doing more like, okay, how are we more present online, like the websites, like social media? Because here's the reality. They have to be. If you don't, so here's one thing I want to just kind of share a teaching point today. With change, I talk a lot about change, but there's three perspectives of change that allows change to come about for your advantage.

One is acceptance. You've got to accept the fact that there is something staring you right in the face right now that needs to change. There's a problem. There's a challenge. You got to accept that. What is that? So for businesses right now, why are you stuck? What's going on?

Why are you not visible? Two, the second step is you've got to, address that problem. You've got to make the changes. Once you've identified what the problem is, and you've got to accept it that it's there. You can't ignore it and say, well, that's not no, you've got to accept the problem. You can move to step two, addressing. Now you reach out to people who can help you address this problem. These are people who are experts in their field. I don't know what your business may need. It may need to have a new website, new social media. It may need to have a new leader in place. I don't know. Whatever it may be,

you have to reach out to those people who are experts in their field, and you've got to get some ideas on how do you address this? Then once you get those ideas down and you're willing to go forward, I call it growing forward, G-R-O-W, get real and winning, you want to grow forward, then you move into the third step, embracing the discomfort of everything kind of coming apart that you're so used to so that things can come together. That's what I call chaos. Things come apart to you, you're like, wow, why is this coming apart?

but it's needing to in order for things to come together. So once you hit the third phase of embracing, most businesses will drop off at this phase. Most people will drop off at this phase because embracing is where you face turbulence, where you face resistance. It's like Henry Ford said, the airplane doesn't take off with the wind. It takes off against it. So when you're embracing the change, you're going to have a lot of resistance from doubt, from insecurity, from the ego creeping up, saying this is my business is how we've always done it.

that's going to all creep up because of you because of you letting go of an attachment. Then once you hit beyond that point, then you can start seeing some results when you get beyond that resistance. But you've got to go through the acceptance. Businesses, people have to accept the fact that COVID is not going anywhere right now. You've got to be online. You've got to have a different strategy being online. You have to have a different strategy reaching out and communicating with your people because those people are going to be the ones who are going to provide you with the income that the service that you're providing. So you have to have to adapt your service to what people's needs are. What is your community needs right now?

Maybe the needs that people have are not the same they had before COVID happened. Have you researched that? Maybe your needs are not the same. Maybe you're operating from different needs that's causing you to kind of maybe self-savitize your own business. People don't think about that. You may be thinking, well, my business is not working because maybe your ideas have shifted. And now the energy you're putting on it is something totally different to what you're wanting the result to be. And Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same things over and over expecting different results. So if you're getting this result over here, you don't like it. You've got to go back to what are you doing, those small things that we're doing every single

day, back to the coffee again, right? What are you doing that's causing this result? Most businesses won't do that. A lot of people won't do that. And this is why I really stress the fact of change and challenges through Connect Now in business because it is not just the words. It is the philosophy behind it. It is the meaning behind it. It is the activities behind it. And it is an art. And if you do not understand that art of change and challenge and how it works, you will not be able to maneuver around the challenges that are coming your way, especially with COVID, especially with anything that's coming down the road. So as a business, you have to be accepting that your forward path needs to be forward. Remember what we said before earlier, right? You don't want to go straight. You want to go

Ford. Blockbuster went straight and look what happened to them. They just froze and died, right? Codiak, same thing. The cameras, they did the same. They went straight, died. It is a historical fact that businesses and people who decide to stick with one thing because it's all they knew, despite what the universal community is telling them needs to change, they don't last. And if you're going to last down the road, even be young, this pandemic, you've got to be able to learn what you can change within your own world, in your, in your communities, in your business. That's how you're going to survive. That's how you're going to continue to be better. It's all about adapting. That is such an awesome way to end this podcast. Can you please tell people how to find you?

We just did three hours. Oh, three hours. It felt like one hour. I'm so having so much fun here. All right. So you can contact me at, um, uh, contact me at speaking at book adrian starks.com because I'm doing presentations right now for teams and companies that are looking for someone to come in about change and challenges,

even organizations and even students at schools if they need that. So it's speaking at bookadrian starks.com or if you want to go to my website, go to bookadrian starks.com. Awesome. Well, it was a pleasure to have you on. I think that what we're talking about is so important. And I think it's really lacking in social media, news, all of that. So it was such an honor to be able to have your experiences coming from the state, making all the changes you did to get to where you are today, and being willing to share that with people is just another way that you're trying to lift other people up and operating in a way that's clearly bigger than you.

So thank you again. You're very welcome. I was happy to be here. I'm going to leave with one quote from the great Socrates. He said that the secret of change is not to focus your energy on fighting the old, but on building the new, building the new guys going forward. Thank you.