The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Way Back To Being by Tom Askman

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

The Way Back To Being by Tom Askman https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FDN6BHMN What if the path to joy, purpose, and love was already within you? In The Way Back to BEing, Tom Askman-artist, professor, and spiritual guide-shares a life-changing roadmap for returning to your truest self. Through deeply personal stories, hard-won insights, and practical tools, this book invites you to move beyond the noise of the ego and external expectations and rediscover your intuitive, heart-centered nature. Based on over five decades of teaching and spiritual exploration, this transformative guide explores themes of mindfulness, heart-brain coherence, emotional healing, and authentic living. You’ll learn how to break free from societal “somebody training” and align with your inner guidance-what Askman calls your BEing. It’s time to reconnect. Time to awaken. Time to live from the inside out. Start your journey today-your Way Back to BEing awaits.

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Because you're about to go on a monster education role. roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Douglas Voss here from the Chris Foss Show.com. You know, and the earliest thing that makes official. Welcome to nearly 20 years of the Chris Voss show, nearly 3,000 episodes and all the wonderful stuff that we're up to. We are the oldest living broadcasts out of a podcast, not broadcasts because

there are radio that's older than us. The oldest living podcast still puts out and publishes one to two no shows every day. What's going on, man? Monday, I can't learn to speak already. I don't know. I'm probably having a brain hemorrhage at the same time, but that's most podcasts, right? Anyway, we have an amazing young man we're going to get into it with, but please support the show.

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Today, we have an author on the show. His book is entitled Catholic Positive Energy by George Goodsaid and designation of MA. What does that stand for, George, M.A. I have a Master's of Arts degree in Catholic theology. Oh, a master's in it. So you know your Catholicism, your Catholic. Yes, I do. I'm not, I don't, don't make me out to be a scholar, but I certainly know a thing or two. All right. We're going to call the Pope in if you, they get these answers wrong. All right. We're going to get into him. We're going to talk to him about his insights and everything else. George was born and raised in Southern California. What a beautiful place. Me too. It's he is a Catholic faith advocate, dedicated, spreading hope, healing, and encouragement. What a wonderful. thing. Drawing from his own experiences with hardship, he promotes resilience, forgiveness, gratitude, and transfer of powers

of God's love through Catholic, positive energy. That's the name of his YouTube, too, as I shouldn't interject here, where he shares uplifted messages through writing, speaking, and online broadcasts. He lives in Menefrey, California, inspiring others to live with faith,

dignity, and positivity. Welcome to the show, George. How are you, sir? Doing great, Chris. Great to be here. It's great to have you as well. Give us dot com's, websites, YouTube, wherever you want people to find out more about you. I have a Facebook and YouTube channel, also titled Catholic Positive Energy, like my book, and my website is georgegoodsaid.com. So give us a 30,000 overview.

What's inside this book? This is a nice short book. I just self-published this last October of 2025. It talks a little bit about my backstory, just through some difficult upbringings. as well as trying to find God through redemption and bringing about positive energy in the world, utilizing the Catholic faith, which is what I always do on my YouTube channel. I think it's wonderful what you're doing. You're spraying a positive message.

The word positive is in your titles of stuff. And why is it important you write a book like this as opposed to maybe a book entitled Catholic Negative Energy? I wanted to really emphasize positive energy on this, Chris, and I'll just say this. A couple years ago, I met this really amazing friend who lives in Phoenix. We met on Facebook, and she was someone who had this very positive page that actually had the words positive energy. This person was not a Catholic, really amazing friend. And this was someone who inspired me about seven years. ago to eventually be on this road of positive energy I'm on now. And I just wanted to obviously

be able to hopefully create my own channel and community and write a book about positive energy, but I wanted to put a Catholic spin on it. A Catholic spin on it. And how long have you been involved with the Catholic Church? Did you grow up in it? Did you discover it late in life? I was born and raised Catholic, but I actually stopped going to church when I was about years old, did my own thing for a while, and eventually I came back to the Catholic Church when I was about 19, and that was 20 years ago, I'm 39 now. And through that time, as I came back, I met some really amazing friends who have really tried to help me grow in my faith, because sometimes when you're a kid, things don't always

stick with you, and as you get older, sometimes you break off and do other things. But I've been back, and I'm also a substitute teacher at a Catholic school, which I love very much about to start my second year. And I've had my channel for six years now, and I'm definitely trying to bring about a movement of positive change. Because I often say this on my channel. A lot of people believe that preaching is just for Catholic priests or Catholic nuns or the Pope. But I try to emphasize it's also for the laity. It's also for regular people who are also members of the church as well. Positive message.

I think it's great that someone's working hard to try and influence the world and raise the positive activity resonance spectrum, whatever you want to call it, because we need more of that. We need people to maybe complain a little bit less. Complaining has its place in certain degrees, but it just seems like everybody plays victim now and blames everybody for their problems and they don't really take self-accountability.

and there doesn't seem to be a lot of positivity in the world. Really? I never noticed any of that. You haven't been on Twitter, have you? I realize that, Chris. And yes, this is why one of the reasons I try to use the style that I use. I was also very highly inspired by some, here's someone I like to call the king of positive energy, the late Mr. Rogers.

Oh, yeah. Boy, we were just talking about him, I think, yesterday the day, or it would have been last week, Friday, or. Thursday. Oh, really? Yes. And he was someone who I often credit as the king of positive energy and just things that he has done or my friend in Arizona, as I mentioned previously. I feel that we don't always have enough happy, positive, inspirational people in the world who are best known for being loving, kind, and sincere, especially not just when they're out in the public platforms like this, but also how they live their lives.

That's something I try to be. And, of course, I'm not sinless like Jesus, but I certainly try to always follow him on my path. Yeah. Yeah, it's a wonderful thing you're doing there. And you've been doing the YouTube channel for six years now, I think you said? That's right. And then does what do you usually talk about over there for people who tune in? What's kind of the rap that you're putting down over there?

Normally, like I said, I'll have certain broadcasts. I usually have this little Chinese waterfall in the camera shot with me. I like to also call that my symbol. I like to call that the Central Command Center of Catholic Positive Energy, just something I invented. And I'll have meditation and prayer. Usually the meditation will be like everything is quiet. You just listen to the waterfall.

And I just try to engage in these deep breath exercises. I always tell my audience, this is how we're going to try to get rid of negative energy. We're going to throw it away. way, just like when we throw trash. We don't think about it. We don't try to hold on to it or get it back. We throw away all traumas, no matter how big or small. And after I finish that half, I'll usually either pray the rosary or chaplain of divine mercy. And in every other broadcast, like I said, I've been reading entire sections from the catechism of the Catholic Church, because I feel

that even a lot of Catholics, the catechism's only been around since 1992. This is something I want to try to strongly talk about on my channel, so more Catholics, no matter how young or old, will know about it. And I also often try to preach on certain other important things going on in the Catholic world. Ah. What did you call it the cataclysm? The catechism of the Catholicism. What is that for people who don't know?

It is a compendium of all church teaching. It was published by our, at the time, future Pope, who's now a previous one. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who we now known as previously Pope Benedict the 16, well as Pope before him, Pope John Paul. It has 2,865 paragraphs about all things related to Catholic teachings. Wow. And so is it like an index or a definition or kind of like an encyclopedia maybe or something? You could call it an encyclopedia, but yeah, little paragraphs talking about all things related to the church about, you know, papacy, Jesus, Mary, the saints, and other important topics related to church teaching. Oh, there we go. Yeah, we had somebody on the show. They had a book called Jesus and Jesus and Mr. Rogers. If they live next to, next door or something like that. Let me see. Nifty neighbors. I've never heard of that before. I want to read that one. Yeah, it's called Nifty Neighbors, Mr. Rogers and Jesus Christ by Tracy Emmerich. And we interviewed her and she basically wrote a book that's these, she brought a book where

basically Jesus and like you say, Mr. Rogers are super positive people. And basically those are your neighbors. And she writes like a non-fiction or something, historical fiction maybe. That sounds like a wonderful book. Yeah, yeah. And he talks a little bit of entrepreneurs in there. I remember, did you see the Mr. Rogers' biop about his life? I haven't seen that one, but I did see the one where Tom Hanks played him.

That was something that rekindled my love for Mr. Rogers. Oh, yeah. If you got a chance, check out the documentary that he did on him. I took my mom to it like five or six years ago. I think it was before COVID, but it was somewhere in there. I sell the ticket, but it's very moving. And it's a beautiful documentary about him. And that guy, that guy wasn't faking it on TV.

He wasn't faking being kind and nice and a decent human being. He lived it. And there's some people who pretend to be nice in public. And then behind the scenes, you find out they're horrible. I try not to be that myself. But yes, I would like to think of the late great Mr. Rogers as a saint. It's a beautiful documentary. I encourage everyone to go watch it.

And boy, he sure sets a standard that more, but most of us need to really work towards. So you write this book. What are some things in the book that you talk about or some of your favorite parts of it that you kind of stand out that you feel people really like? There's only five chapters in the book. It's only 39 pages. So it's an easy read. I tried to make it longer, but you could read it in a day. I'll just name the chapters here.

Chapter one where I talked about a little bit about my backstory. It's called It All Starts Here. And I talk about, and I try to relate to anyone else reading. And my book, it's for everybody. But I want to be able to try to especially relate to people who have experienced some kind of, you know, childhood traumas like I have. Or I was often bullied a lot when I was a kid and the things weren't always positive. I never even really used the words positive energy as a kid, but definitely do not. now. Chapter 2, I also like to talk about how we all need positive role models. I was telling you about my friend, my dear friend in Phoenix, who inspired me as well. And just to name other ones, I've also had a lot of amazing folks. There's this amazing organization down in the San Diego

area. They're called Catholic Answers, where they provide answers to anybody who has questions about the Catholic faith, very great friends of mine. They've also been very important. in my journey, as well as why we need to lift people up. See, here's a catchphrase I always say when I closed my broadcast, Chris, and I came up with this all by myself. I hope nobody ever rips it off. I always like to say, you're a child of God. Dignification is better than criticism.

Live life to the fullest. I often like to stress the importance of dignifying people, because I was criticized a lot when I was a kid over. basically everything and I didn't always often feel like I was being dignified. So that's why I try to emphasize that in my book and on my channel, why we need to try to lift people up rather than tearing them down. Yeah. I love that.

You've taken something bad that happened to you and you've turned into something good and you're sharing the message. And a lot of people, sometimes when they're treated poorly like that, they end up angry and bitter and sometimes they just become what assaulted them and they just become that person and go make the world more miserable. But you've done something great with what you're doing and you're trying to make the world a better place. You're trying to lift things. Absolutely. And I have experienced some of those other unpleasant moments. Like I said, I wasn't always the positive person I try to be. But yes, I'm trying to help people.

people who have been through what I have and hopefully not try to make it worse. I try to make it better. And I also want to try to make a positive impact in the world like Mr. Rogers did. Yeah. What a great... Sometimes I wear cardigan sweaters when I'm at my school job, but not during the summer months. That's true. You probably should not do that during the summer months. But do you have a bench where you go in, you sit down and start talking to students as you change your shoes and your cardigan sweater? No, I already have those on by the time I get... But I do try to talk to them in such a way where they'll feel inspired.

I'm not allowed to talk about my book at my school job, but my colleagues know about it. And I have had some students' parents by my book without me ever having mentioned it to them. Oh, that's nice. Well, people always tend to Google people's names so they can easily find it if you Google my name. I know they're keeping an eye on you. As long as it's this kind of an eye regarding my book and what the good. things I'm trying to do then I don't mind that. What a great uplifting thing to offer to people and stuff. What are some things that Catholics are maybe challenged by that they need to kind of

put a positive spin on these days. There's some negative things that are happening to them? Or is there, is there, what are some of the issues that you see sometimes people coming to you with? I often hear a lot about things involving things that we've heard in the news in recent years regarding clergy and that I don't, let's just say I don't condone those things, but I try to talk to people in such a way where they'll try to hopefully understand. And I just want to say, I love the Catholic Church. It's not perfect. It's also filled with human beings who tend to get tempted and have flaws. Why, you know, Jesus has emphasized that we need to try to resist temptations. when Moses received the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai in the Book of Exodus,

the Ten Commandments. These are things that we need to follow. And Catholics will always be tempted. Human beings will always be tempted. So that's why for people like myself who try to really pay a lot of attention to daily mass readings, I even try to attend daily mass when I can and really listen to a lot of preaching where you're listening and it doesn't go in one ear and out the other, then it's much easier to resist temptations.

But yes, like you were saying, I do hear some of the complaints that people make regarding Catholicism or just things regarding church in general. And I try to reach these people in a way where that has to do with love, rather than clashing back and forth. Oh, I love that. Maybe we should all start discussing things that evolve more, love instead of just arguments and bitterness and negativity and anger and whatever else the whole

else is going on this week? I couldn't agree more. Yeah. So you've been working on this YouTube channel for six years. Did you do that first and then you decided to launch the book out of it? Yes, I did. When I started the YouTube channel, this was around, I think, April or June, just during the pandemic. At first, it started off as just a hobby.

And obviously back then, I wasn't expecting things to be the way they are now. I've grown the channel right now. As of this video, I have 865 subscribers. And I just launched the book last year through this amazing publishers, Red Rock Book Writers, who I've been working with. And ever since I've launched the book, yeah, this is the second time I've done an appearance on a podcast this year. And I'm also going to be on one on Wednesday,

as I talk to you about beforehand, I feel that things have been moving in my life and what I'm trying to do in a very positive direction. And I feel very blessed. And I hope to continue to have experiences like on your show right now, Chris. Hopefully you will. It's an interesting world out there, podcasts. And hopefully you'll find really good people out there, really good podcasters, really good hosts who know what they're doing. Now, on the book, you include a fore by Sy Kellett. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right, though. Is that right?

All right, cool. Who is he and how important was it to get that forward? He's a very dear friend of mine. He's the host of Catholic Answers Live. I told you about Catholic Answers a little while ago. They're a media ministry. They also are on Catholic radio stations, and they're also on Facebook and YouTube. I've known Cy for about nine years now.

He's a very dear friend, and I wanted to hopefully get a foreword from someone on the Catholic answer staff. And yeah, he's just such a great guy. And he's also written some Catholic books himself. And I just felt like it was important to get an endorsement from someone who is well known in the Catholic world. Yeah, that's a pretty good one then. You got the good endorsement there.

Fun is fun. Let's see here. Anything more we need to know about your book and your YouTube channel before we go out? Some questions maybe I should have asked you. My book is available on all major platforms, Amazon, as well as Barnes & Noble. If you try to Google my name, George Goodshead, or Google Catholic Positive Energy, then you'll definitely find those out there, as well as on my website, georgegoodsaid.com. It's available on Kindle, Audible, as well as paperback and hardcover.

All right. Thank you very much for coming to show. We really appreciate it, George. Wonderful stuff you have got going on there. Great to be here, Chris. I've loved every minute of it. Thank you. And be sure to pick up George's book. You can get it. Where refined books are sold, there'll be a link for it on the Chris Voss show. Catholic Positive Energy by George Goodson and all that good stuff. Be sure to check us YouTube channel as well.

Thanks to my eyes for tuning in. Go to Goodrease.com, Fortresschristchristch, Christfoss, LinkedIn.com, Fortresschristch, Christfoss, YouTube.com, Fortressch, Chris Foss, and all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walshow podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts.

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