THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Are You Secretly Self-Sabotaging? w/ Gary John Bishop

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

Are you ready to shatter the illusions holding you back?! The author of the bestselling book, ‘Unf@_k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life’ is about to REVOLUTIONIZE your MIND!This week, we're delving into a world of RADICAL HONESTY and self-transformation with Gary John Bishop, a trailblazer in personal development.With his unique blend of TOUGH LOVE, GRIT, and WIT, Gary, a New York Times Bestselling author, is here to guide you through an incredible journey of self-discovery.In this episode, you will gain invaluable insights, including:Understanding Childhood Impact: Learn how childhood experiences shape our adult lives and behaviors.Breaking Free from Past Constraints: Uncover the tools to break free from flawed beliefs and repetitive memories that limit your growth.Mastering Self-Awareness: Discover the importance of self-awareness in reshaping your life’s trajectory.The Power of Love, Forgiveness, and Integrity: Explore the essential life lessons that every parent should teach and every individual should learn.Navigating Personal Transformation: Gain strategies for discarding falsehoods and embracing a life of authenticity and honesty.This episode isn’t just a conversation; IT’S YOUR TURNING POINT!Embark on this transformative journey with me and Gary John Bishop and step into a new era of self-realization.

This is the Ed Milach Show. I welcome back to the show everybody. My guest today is somebody whose work I have been a fan of for years and I have wanted to meet him. One of the great things about this show is I've met most of the people whose work has made the biggest impact on my life and I gotta tell you this man is at the top of my list. His work hits you right between the eyes and I would categorize it as brilliant. I just think that way he phrases things and comes

right at you with truth is very unique and it's he's also been on the list of most requested guests for quite a while. The book that first impacted me was on F yourself. I'll give you the clean version and the book that he has out right now is grow up, becoming the parent your kids deserve. And as I read this book, it wasn't just really about being a parent. It was actually really about being a human being, which makes you a better parent,

so that if you're not a parent and you're listening to this, trust me, every minute of this will apply to you. And if you are a parent, they'll just be an added bonus because this man's work will impact how you're raising your children. Gary John Bishop, welcome to the show, brother. Ed's great to be with you.

Thank you, brother. It's good to have you too. So I want to get, I read your stuff and like I'm like, I got to read that again. Crap, it's like, it hits you, right? And I want to start out kind of, because it's leads to the parenting thing. Even though I think the vast majority

of the days, it's applies to being human and not just being a parent, being a functional person. You said, you live your adult life either as a reflection of your childhood or in reaction to it. I just think that's really a great place to start. What do you mean when you say that? I know what it means for me, but are we all sort of acting out of some place

from our childhood every single day even to this day? Yeah, I mean if you if you were looking at any area of your life that doesn't work There is some echo from your childhood playing out there and it's not always obvious Because you know your childhood is hasn't necessarily what you remember. It's a lot of what you forget. And so you're shaped by in ways that are when you start to dig into it become really surprising. And then I think that's I think that's the fascinating part of it at least for me. How'd that play out for you? I mean, I know you talked about this situation in the book. It struck me. I think you were four years old and the fact that you remember this is compelling to me.

But I think your parents were fighting, you're trying to get them to stop. And once you take it from there, I think this is just a good example of that. Well, I think, you know, look, if you ask your average person, tell me every moment in your life, they can't tell you. But they'll tell you some interest and bets. But, you know,

for years and years, I, you know, you used to, you used to kind of grind away me like, why, why do people remember that part and not all those other parts? And it wasn't until I started to get more deeper in my own development that I started to see them like little milestones that incidents. And so that incident as a 40-year-old was fascinating to me. Like, I remember the feeling. I remember that experience in the book I described. But, and the feeling for me in that moment was, I had no power. I couldn't change it. I was, so I was overcome with this.

And you've got to get out for a little 40-year-old. This is like wild, right? But my experience in that moment was like I'm weak. I can't I can't do it. I couldn't stop them from arguing or flighting. And that that that moment isn't just a moment for a child. It's like it's like a sea change and their experience of themselves. I'd never experienced myself that way before it was no. And then so those little things just sink into the background and they become what you call ontological decisions. They become decisions that you've made that you're going to have to know handle because they sink into the background

and basically become your truth, if you like, and that was certainly one of mine. That notion of your truth, that's why, by the way, everybody said whether you have children or not, this is about being a functioning human to me. I've never read someone's work. I don't think Gary, where the way you set it,

I wanna write down someone's work. I don't think Gary where the way you said it, I want to write down and remember it. Like I find myself wanting to quote you more than most people. And here's something you said about that very thing on the past. This will rock a lot of you. And by the way, I agree with you after I read the book. You said, the past wins one way or the other. And then you went on to say it another point.

You say, you are not shaped by the past itself. You're shaped by what you said about it. Meaning to some extent, this past thing is a little bit of an illusion to some extent. Am I right about that? Because I totally, completely, in my fifties now, realized the profound truth in that. Right. So, like, this is why this is why this book had to be written. Like, I couldn't put my head

on the pillow for another night with getting this book out there because I keep hearing all this stuff, but generational chains and you know, parents, so I'm going to break a generational chain and I'm like, you are the generational chain. Everything that falls out of your mouth, you are the generational chain. And if you want to break anything, it starts with you. And so I wanted to people to see what we're trying to break with generational chains, if you like, it's circumstances. So we're looking back, the old circumstances gone, those circumstances are not going to happen again. What we fail to see is the mechanism that runs underneath those circumstances from that generation to this generation to the next generation.

So you don't, you know, working on the chain, you're working on the oil, you know, you're making no effort at the chain. The chain itself continues because like, if you go back to that example, I used in the book when I was four years old, my parents had no sense that that's what was going on in my head. And I had no sense at four years old

that I was making a life change in decision because you don't relate to ourselves at four of that way. I'm playing with toys and I'm making a life change in decision because you don't, you don't, we don't relate to ourselves that forward that way. I'm playing with toys and I'm having a good time and I'm, you know, doing all the things that a four, you know, would do, but in that moment, that experience boom, that hit me like a wall. And so as parents, this is what I wanted people to get from this book.

Like you said, whether you're a parent or not, you have to know that there's, that you had experiences in your childhood, that you attached to various incidents, and you live like it's about the incidents, and it's not. It's about the experience that came out of it. It's the ontologic decision. It's whatever you decided, whatever you changed in that moment, the compounded and lives on with you is an adult. So, so, you know, whatever you change, then that moment, the compounded and lives on with you is an adult. So you know, we've got, I own all the wrong things and I wanted people to start a see, like you have to look at your life, your childhood, your parents life, their childhood.

And if you have children, maybe you'll get a little insight onto what's actually going on with them, no matter how hard you think you might be trying to guide them another way. I told you everybody, I'm telling you, his work hits you. By the way, the way he writes to, he doesn't let you escape you. Every time you try to escape you, this guy's pulling you back to you, and I love that. It's like there's just no BS to this. So I want to stay right on this incident. this incident when you were four in this absolute truth

that you're talking about. I always say, it's not the events of our life that define us. It's the meaning we attach to the event. And one of the difficult things when we're a child is we don't have the emotional makeup or experiences to attach, we're not really choosing our meaning when we're capable. We're choosing our meaning when we're capable. We're choosing the meaning when we're incapable.

And so, do you then recommend somebody question their past? I know that you do, but I'm going to let you answer it. Do they question the past? And then, are you having them evaluate an incident and then try to attach a new meaning to it so that they behave differently in the current moment because they attach a different meaning to an event. Well, what I'd like people to see is that your mechanism for adding to a situation

exists to this day. So it still exists. What's a mechanism mean to you? What do you mean by mechanism? So it's like your automatic wiring, your default is high to the German philosopher, he would have called it your default ways of being. So the ways that you are by default, and you know, people don't wake up in the morning and decide to be themselves. They wake up and that

self is there. Yes. Right? And it's a sad self. It It's not a it's not a malleable self. It's like this. That's me that I am. Now, no, if you if you hang on little ones long enough, especially like that, age group, like two, three, four, there's no real self there. It's just like this big expression. Right. There's no, there's no set way, but anybody who's a parent will tell you they literally watch their children become set, right? They'll not totally watch them. Like age of seven, age of 12, age of 14, age of, and then suddenly they're just like that way, and they're always that way. And they're always, and they're always that way is a compensation

that way. And they were always, and they're always that way is a compensation to whatever they felt they had to overcome. That's why it's so casting, by the way, because, you know, like people can get through really, really turbulent times enough childhood and come out with a whole different thing than somebody who went through a very similar experience. They come out, they all different thing. Why? Because they don't come out of the experience. What they come out with is whatever they told themselves about it. And it becomes so tightly intertwined that whatever I told myself about it, and the incident, there's no distinction between those two for me as a human being. They're the same thing, right? So again, for instance, in that moment, I'm four years old. I'm watching my parents argue, it's about me. I'm not observing that like this is about them. I'm observing that like this is about me like I can't some some the self-determination in that moment

What I want people to understand is if they look back in their own childhood What do you think those were just random moments and nothing came out of it? No, you're the living embodiment of what you Decided in those moments and by the way when you make that kind of decision That's why those memories are so fragile, clear, that ask the life is about those little memories again, reactivated, those same emotions coming up and getting applied to situations. As I like to say, you know, people live the lives and little vignettes of fighting the same battle over and over

and over, and then they die. battle over and over and over and then they die. Gary, you're, um, you're on to such profound work here as a friend as a brother. I want to, I want to encourage you to continue to dig deeper into this and that there's other, but I'm serious. I, I've done some work in this myself and started to write about it. And you're, this is new and this is profound. And we'll talk about those three stages in a second. But it's why, by the way, a child can have the same exact two parents.

One child takes different meanings from the situations they were raised in and they have two totally different lives. I'm raised by an alcoholic father and it ends up that all four of us turned out pretty darn okay. But usually you'll see, one of the children goes on to be a high performer and the other one ends up being an alcoholic themselves. Same exact environment, same situations, different meanings were attached. And then that notion that you just said brother about that you're fighting the same battle over and over again with different circumstances, but the same battle. Listen to what he says in the book. I tell you guys, I don't ever quote books in interviews,

Gary, I don't do this. But I want you to hear what he said here. Every day of your life, I wrote this down for me, bro, not for the interview. This is stuff for me, but I'm gonna have it in the interview. Every day of your life, you find evidence for and then confirm in your crevices of your mind, quote, you. You talk like you, walk like you, think like you, and react like you.

Every single day you are justifying you, and one of the main ways you do it is by reaching back into your memories to satiate that beast. Therefore, the past isn't just the past, as evidence for you being the character that you've become to this day. The past wins one way or the other. Brother, are you serious? That is so good. I just want you to elaborate on that a little bit.

Well, you know, look, when I say people are being self-indulgent, right, it sounds kind of narcissistic, which is another word that just can't stand. But anyway, but it sounds like it's just, you know, like self-indulgent. What I mean is we indulge self. That as we get up every day and we respond to what at once, right? So we respond to its upsets and we respond to its desires and we respond to its quote, unquote, needs. So it's like it's, it's, I really invite people to get like, who you are is more like a venue for something to show up. And what shows up every day are

the same noises. And you just go along with it. You finally see that you're the venue in which all of this is happening. And, and with And with a little bit of like a shift, like just a little shift in the way you think, you could get a little bit more observant of that self, actually see what it once did though, and understand it in those terms. And I look at it more like it's just something I gotta be responsible for rather than something

I'm fighting against, you that it's gonna talk I'm gonna talk and you know, I've heard all the shit that it wants to say you know Board by it, you know Stay on that I Man bro, I gotta tell you it's one of these conversations. I'll remember a long time I often say and if you don't mean it this way, correct me and say it your way, I often say just the awareness of the pattern of me being me, it loses a lot of its power over me

when I'm just in awareness. Oh, I'm doing that thing again. I'm doing me again. I'm doing that thing I do. And what you said is then that former you, the way you just said that, is not the voice that I can now choose the new voice. Is that what you mean by just being stepping back and getting above yourself a little bit

and going, oh, I'm doing that thing I do again, I'm being me again. That awareness allows you to then make a conscious choice as to how to behave or change rather than to keep responding unconsciously. Right. So awareness isn't a stage that you arrive at right awareness is a Constantly unfolding phenomenon like is your as you're going through a day You get aware of one default response and shift in that moment. You I mean, I really believe It's not believe this. I really want people to get this. In that moment, that shift that you make, you have literally changed the trajectory of your life in a moment.

Right. Now, because your life would have kept going along that path and you just were like, nope, we're not doing that, right? So imagine being someone who manages having to catch yourself a handful of times a day, just catching yourself up, to go on a direction that you know you typically do. And you're like, you know what, not today. I'm not doing that. No. When I wrote my first book, that was a nine months, ten month process of catching myself thirty times a day because the self that I am had no interest in writing that book and had zero interest in you reading it because you know I'd be openly screwing in judgment and ridicule and la la la la la. So the kind of self that I had become was going to make that a long

process that eventually I would give up on and you say it's not worthwhile and I would tell myself some nonsense like I'm going to go on another reaction and see something else I think would be more powerful than writing a book and and all I did in that process was just catch, catch, catch, catch, no, not today I'm going to write, no, not today I'm going to write and No, not today. I'm going to write. And I wouldn't call it necessarily a struggle, but it was definitely like, it was the first time I feel as if I really exercised that muscle and producing something that went beyond my wiring. I really, very deeply to that, very deeply. And it's just the last four or five years for me that I've done that. One more thing on the past I want to cover, just deeply. And it's just the last four or five years for me that I've done that.

One more thing on the past I want to cover just because I want you to elaborate on it because this stuff, you know, to be honest with you today, guys, you're listening to a conversation between he and I that I wanted to have. And you said, you are not a direct product of your past. And while it's true, you were born thrown into an already existing conversation of family and values or morality and so on. You are in fact a predictable, repetitive, emotional expression of what you have come to believe is true about all of that past. And no, what you have come to believe about it,

this is not the same as actually what happened. So you have a, you're saying you have a flawed recollection of the past? Because why is this matters as a parent? Because you're, you're imprinting on your children all the time. It matters as a human being to then understand that imprinting that you are now reflexively unconsciously living through now. You have a terrible recollection of the past, like terrible. And I know a lot of people,

oh no, I still remember the smell. Look, here's a neuroscience hotel, you every time you recollect a memory, you don't recollect the memory. You recollect the last memory you had of that memory. Yes. And that's how your brain works. You can read, so now if you're someone

you're 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, if you recollect a memory right now, you're recollecting a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory all the way back. So all the times that you've recollected that memory, how many tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of times done the line you are. That's how far you are away from that memory. And again, if you use that example when I was a 40-year-old, the memory isn't so much about the parents. The memory is more like for me in that moment, it was a week, but just as easily, by the way, in that moment, a child made of said, my mother's week or my father's week and set themselves on that pathway.

Therefore through the rest of that childhood, it's a bit gathering evidence for see their he or she goes again. They are again. They are they are again. They are they are again. That's why that's why when people, you know, like you just

gave an example earlier, a family of maybe three or four, all have a different experience and you shared that you fought, you know, you know, you know, I'll call it father. And, you know, I'd wanted those, I don't call them an alcohol anymore by the way, I call them, you know, somebody who drank to the degree that he couldn't manage his life anymore. That's that simple alcohol, it's a whole world that I don't want to dwell in. But when I look at that childhood, you could get a child coming out of that childhood and saying, my father was selfish and I hated him. You have another child coming out of that family saying,

I love my dad. Okay, so which one's the truth? Well, for the individual, they're both the truth, but they're not the truth. Yes, for the individual, they're both the truth, but they're not the truth. Yes. That's right. Truth is he dead when he dead. And that's it. That's right. What's added to all of that is what people have to live with. Yep. Guys, this is how you change your life. Is these realizations? You're a you're a accumulation of patterns of behaviors and thoughts. And in order to change your life, it requires evaluation of those things.

And the way that this is worded to me is the most profound. I have to tell you that for me, blame has been a major destroyer of my own life. And you write pretty hard core about blame in the book. So once you have these memories, by the way, as a parent, this stuff matters. This thing he just said about repeating the memories, one thing I just wanna say, that can happen at any age. I've had friends of mine that have gotten a divorce.

We've all seen this before. You knew them when they were married, you knew them when they got divorced. And one of them has a repetitive version of their memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory. And you see them 10 years later. And the other one is, then you have them get together and they go,

I didn't do that, I didn't say that, I didn't mean that. And they both in their own world are right. Except both of them are actually wrong. To your point is there was just a behavior that took place. So let's talk about blame. Well boy, here we go. You say blame creates a sort of safety. Blame is a catalyst for keeping you tied to what has been.

Blame to blame is to perpetuate the past to keep it going. And you're an effing blame machine. Ouch. So what do we do about that? And why is it matter? So what do we do about that and why is it matter? Right, I can hang out with a whole notion of blame

for a number of years. Like, it's a word, by the way, as a culture now, it's a firestorm when it comes to blame. So I know people have got lower ideas about, you know, why society as the way that is in my view, right? Again, just some random Scottish guy, but in my view, the propensity for blame is wildly out of control, like wildly out of control. And we have fed that beast, by the way. We are feeding it and eating from the same trough. And so you can't experience true freedom from the past and keep your blank can. Now again, I know people who say, well, oh, no, no, that's not true. I mean, I'm free of that incident that the time. I'll say, that's funny why you bringing that up.

It's good. And they're bringing it up because they have to continue, continually remind themselves that they're over it or they're past it. Yeah. Now, I know this to be true, not only this is, I'm not speaking from personal experience, in fact, my personal experience really only aligns with what I've discovered in years and culture and tens of thousands of people and going deep into the background

of the laws. And when you go in there, you'll find the same undercurrent just running through it time after time after time. And how does it tie into the past? Well, it's quite as simple. If you had, you know, we talked about my experience when I was a four-year-old. Imagine somebody else is a seven-year-old and their experience of an incident or two incidents or four incidents with our father is that he doesn't love me. He only cares about himself. That gets married. That goes through life, gets married and has children. What gets married? I'm not loved, gets married. And I'm not loved, has children. What gets married? I'm not loved gets married. And I'm not loved has children.

And so what does it do? It does what I'm not loved would do. Prove that it's not loved. It's not the opposite. It's not like, oh, you know, I'm used to throw myself with love. No, I'm going to diminish the way that people love me. I'm going to make it hard for people who love me. I'm going to make it hard for people who love me. I'm going to prove that that decision is true because I've developed some sort of persona, or personality that allows me to grind up against it and prove it over time. So that blame actually has now become so embedded in me that I identify with a blame. When I say, I identify with I say the persona that I am identified with that blame. Now I have it people come in me and

tell me my life is measurable. This is terrible. My relationships don't work. And I'm coming with us and I'll say, okay, well, let's look at who you're blaming. And we'll dive in there and I'll say, yeah, you're blaming blaming your father you need to let him off the hook and then they'll say no. They'll literally argue for their misery and then what they'll do is there's got to be another way and I say that is no other way. That's it. That's it. That's it.

That's the source of something here and it's very, very tacit for people people fight for their misery. People fight for the right to hang on. They're blowing because they feel as if somehow let them go with that, but maybe let somebody else off the hook. So they'd rather grind that at their own toxicity than then reach for freedom. I think you hit on it at another part of the book. I want to ask you this. I think they feel like they're letting go a part of themselves when they do that. It's become such a familiar part of me. That thing you called you, this

blame, this pattern, this belief, whether I've overcome it or I haven't. I think that holding on to that, letting it go, you feel like a sense of loss of who you believe you are. It's part of your identity. It's part of how you get through life. It's part of how you get the emotions. We move in our lives towards where we're most familiar with. And even if we have emotions that aren't healthy, we become addicted to them. And we're gonna find a way on a damn daily or weekly basis to get those emotions one way or the other.

And you are not gonna tell me, I don't get to get my crack. You actually call blame in the book, crack. It's the crack of emotions. And I think you're onto something there because I actually think we become addicted to these emotions even if they don't feel good anymore because there are a version of crack

and we're not gonna let go of them because then we lose part of ourself. There are families who don't, that no longer exist because they couldn't settle on who is to blame. Period. It's a shame. By the way, it's there are companies who no longer exist

because in that company, they couldn't figure out who was to blame. This addiction to blame, most things that end, you've nailed it in the book. You actually say something that I love because it helped it lose its power over me. You say, there is nothing remarkable about shame. It's like, it's almost like this badge of honor

that we shame ourselves with. There's nothing remarkable about shame, nothing extraordinary about guilt, and absolutely zero personal power in blame. But then you actually take it a step further, and that includes blaming yourself. There's a lot of us right now that come to the show today listening and there's a little, yeah, we blamed a lot of,

that's the addictive part. It's your fault. But political does that very well. No, you should blame them. No, whichever party allows you to blame someone else for your life, you'll choose that one that feels more reasonable to you. That's a biggie.

But there's also, and I almost consider these like the good people. You know what I'm trying to say? Oh, like a weak person, you know who I don't really care for they blame other people Almost to me like the good people blame themselves, you know, I mean and that but but there's no more Nobility in that and you're pointing the book either, but I almost don't you feel that way there's almost like a redemptive Social quality almost or a morality to not blaming others but blaming yourself And then you just carry that crap you carry that crap through your life through I blame myself for the failure of my marriage I blame myself for the fact that I've gained weight I blame myself and there's there's a difference between blame and ownership and accountability, right?

There's a big there's a difference there. there. I'd love for you to talk about that. Well, the guy who's flying my plane to LA, I want me fly it responsibly rather than he's to blame for it. So there's two different pilots up front when that's happening, right? It's the one the guy who's just responsible and accountable and owns it and owns all of it, right? And can fly the plane with that ownership. But but self plane is the biggest get out of Joefree card you can ever play yourself.

And people don't like to hear that one, right? Because it's like, you don't know, it's like, and I know, I do, no, I actually do know, and I want you to understand, like, this is how you get off the hook for being on the hook for 11 a great life. You get to say, oh, well, you know, I'm still punishing myself. Okay. And anytime somebody gets himself to that point, like, there's one question, you have to ask yourself,

if you're blaming somebody else, what are you getting out of it? Yeah. Just really look like, what are you getting out of it? And if you're blaming yourself, what are you getting out of it? What is it just to fight? What is it I'll allow you to perpetuate? justify? What is it allow you to perpetuate? What is it allow you to keep doing and the name of what?

And you'll see it, there's so little introspection with us at times because, I mean, that can be too much introspection. If you're grinding your whole introspection, then you gotta loosen that up a bit. That has a balance. There's a nice balance where you can actually start to look a little bit, learn a little bit, step out into the new with what you've learned.

But all too often, this is why some things when I talk to people, they're shocked that what's coming out of my mouth. And I'm like, well, you know, you should be a little more shocked with what's going on in your head than what's coming out by my mouth, because I'm just joining the dots together for you. You're the one who wrote this story. Yeah, that's why I said what I introduced you, brother. Like you don't let them escape themselves. And I think one of the reasons you don't is that you're trying not to escape yourself. And I think one of the reasons you don't is that you're trying not to escape yourself. And we haven't even talked about parenting yet,

although all these things imprint on parenting. And we ought to jump there for a second on why all this matters. But everybody, if you're now, we're 30% of the way through the center if you're 50% of the way through. If you're not doing some of that self-reflection right now, please start. What are some of my patterns? What are the some of the meanings I. If you're not doing some of that self-reflection right now, please start.

What are some of my patterns? What are what are the some of the meanings I've taken away from my life? To your point, does it serve me to believe these things? Does it serve me to blame this person? Does it serve me to blame myself? Start to live more consciously rather than unconsciously. Start to evaluate and be aware. And the reason that it matters is apparent. As I often say, Gary, most things with our children are caught, not taught. They're catching things from us all the time. You make the point in the book that we should know, but we just forget all the time. And man, I wish I could get a do over after reading your book to be honest with you, but it's how much as a parent, you're truly being observed by that child. And I just think sometimes we're so busy in our own emotions and stress and making sure they get fed and off to school and they did their homework and these other things that we're not aware

of their the subtle observances that they're making all the time about us. Right. And that's actually part of the development of a human being when when in the beginning of your life, your very young wife, you're a player, you're in it, right? But once you start a head like 10, 11, 12, there's a chef in the chef, there's no, I'm watching it. So I'm kind of in it, but I'm watching it. And I'm watching the players that I'm more than ever watched them before. When you're young, you're just playing with them, right? So you're playing with your parents, you're playing with your brothers and sisters, you start a head, 10, 11, 12, nuts, like I'm starting to watch them. And, you know, I say this to people all the time, you know, your children are onto you in the exact same way you are onto

your parents. So, whatever you started to see, and that's when that, you know, I talk about this in the book, like when this kind of world of senesism starts to arise, there's a very natural disconnect that has to happen between children and parents. What parents felt is he has, it's common from the children. They're disconnecting and it's done over a period of years, but all it really is there is service that it justifies them forging ahead and living their own life. So in many cases, what they have to do,

they have to do is justify that break. So they have to justify that break. That's another big thing I wanted people to get. Again, looking at maybe back at your own childhood or your own team years and saying, oh yeah, they'd go through something like that. Because people think it was circumstantial. People look back and say, well, my father lost his job or my mother lost her job and it was a tough time for the family and this is why this is happening. Now, this was happening. This was going to happen. You just have to realize that it was going to happen. It might have happened in a volcano or that might have happened very smoothly, but it was gonna happen, and it's gonna happen with your children,

the exact, they're gonna get through the exact same sort of spaces, the exact same sort of development, and they're literally gonna justify not being around you. You paint three stages in the book, right? There's like zero to what, four or six, then about to 12. I think it's important that we, because you know it's in the book, right? There's like zero to what, four or six, then about to 12. I think it's important that we, because you know it's in the book

and I know it's in the book, but they don't, and I want them to get the book. So, if you don't mind, like paint those three stages really quickly, you just sort of describe them around them. Let's go right into them for a minute so that when it's happening with your child, if you are a parent, this is a parent part of the interview for a minute here,

what those look like and why they're happening. I think it's really, really important. Well, again, I think an ontological perspective. So somebody who's a psychologist might take a different one, but I think an ontological perspective. Although I should add, I was interviewed recently by a psychologist and she felt it was pretty much like a psychologist. But anyway, lived by a psychologist and she felt was different pretty much winds off the psychology of anyone. I describe them as three ways. I said, life comes at you in three ways. And when it comes at you, it changes you.

You become changed by that wave. And if you look at it in the beginning, like that first wave is when a child first really sees that they are a self, that they become self aware. Like there's, they were more out here, if you like, more connected to life before that. Suddenly, there's a big massive sea change, like, and again, I describe in a book, I say say life comes at you like a wave. And again, this is why I talk about traumas because everybody's traumatized because how could you not be?

Could you be born the way you're born and not be like jarred by this world? How could you just be like, no, it's all good to me. Right. Right. How could you not be jarred by it? Of You know, I'll be joked by it. Of course, you're going to be joked by it. And the way the noise, the sounds, the cultures, the whole, you know, the whole of the own.

But that first wave is when you get a sense of a self. And it first really starts to get like, oh, like I'm here now. And the focus becomes on self, right? But it's, but I know it's kind of years and years. And young adults, as I like to call them, even though they might only be four or five or six or seven, it's actually starting to, or starting to know what it's like, what we're not good at. So it's not even just like the realization itself. That's often the time when people come to your realizations like, you know, wow, I'm not as smart as those know, wow, I'm not

smart as those other kids, but I'm not thin as well as those other kids. All right, and don't. So we start to become more self aware, more self aware. And it kind of leads us naturally into this next phase, because in that next phase, like we're becoming way more observation on that. But more observational of our parents, right? This is really starting around power. So we see our parents do things and then say other things, and then say things and do the opposite. And we started finding the little cracks. We started see these little chefs and changes in them. And it really is when that little empire starts to crumble because we don't relate to our mom or dad

or whoever's raising us in the same light. We started to see them in a different light. And that's the beginning of the separation of the disconnect. Now, I've worked with parents in the past and they can actually talk me through like I remember when that actually started, I remember the week that started, I remember like they were like this and then they were like that. And I could never get them back to what I could never get them back to the way they were.

It was like they just stepped over something, like they'd gone over a bridge and it was now going back. And so that next wave is, I call it a wave of cynicism because it will as of cynicism starts to kick again. And I talk about this in the book too, when people like how cynical we are, you know, like that leathers on that same cynicism. But if you understand the development of human beings, to be cynical would be, to kind of be active on your feet, making sure you're never going to get duped thing, you're never going to get turned over and you know, like

it makes sense as a makes sense for people, you know, people, I know a lot of positive folks are like, I'm not cynical. Positive people then it'd be really cynical a bit negative, people I notice. I'm not positive. Positive. Positive going to be like, is he really that? But anyway, is that bleeds on in that final phase? And in that final phase really is when that justification for separations to the last year, I like, we really started to see like, you know, I've had that off of there. So it's like that bright from the family unit has to happen. And again, sometimes those can happen inside of a massive

upset. Sometimes we can have those can happen very, you know, very smoothly. But be left in no doubt, you know, like, had that realization myself, when I was, uh, dependent my 30s, when I suddenly realized like the 3000 mile difference between my self and my mother was in fact not an accident nor circumstantial. You you're making me literally think about my relationship with my parents when I went through those stages and I can definitively see it with my own children. I mean that's those are and your point in the book is those are

natural stages. I've been saying lately in some of my speeches, though, as a parent, that I think one of the most insidious forms of child neglect going on in the world is a child being raised by a parent who is either not becoming more aware of their own patterns, pursuing their potential or their dreams. It's one thing to, because we all figure our parents out to your point, it's some age I figured out who my dad was

and who my mom was. It's one thing to say sweetheart, you can be happy and have an amazing life. At some point your child's going to look at you and go, then why aren't you, mama? Son, you can be president and walk in a room and make a difference in the world. Why aren't you, dad? At some point there's an incongruency. And I don't think our children care about how much money we have, but I do think they want our parents to be happy and

blissful and peaceful and joyous and your kids know you they're they're they see how you look at yourself in the rearview mirror when you're driving on the school every day Not the face you put on when you get out of the car and walk into the office they know and they pick up those emotions I don't think you always inherit all of your parents emotional or your their behaviors and everything, but I do think you pick up some of their emotional imprinting. And that's so important because in your work, you talk about like, at the end of the day if I'm a parent, what do I want my kid to leave my house with? And you name a couple things in the book, but like, what do you feel like? If I'm a parent and you were my son, by the time you leave me, what should I want you leaving me with?

Um, the abel, the love another, you can't love another, you're screwed in this world. So you have to know how to love another, you have to know what I look like, you have to know what that feels like, you have to, you have to know how to love another, and you have to know what that looks like. You have to know what that feels like. And you have to, you have to experience that for yourself. And that's one of the things that your children are going to observe. They're going to watch how their dad did it, or their mom did it. Like how did they love another,

and not how they loved them, how did they love another? And so those are the moments where is somebody's getting a little bit older, they're either going to replicate the way that the father loved other going to try and do something that's the opposite. So love is fundamental. I mean, I know we want to have tips and tricks and hacks and stuff they can use on life less than if they know how to love another. That's that will a long way to a happy life. What a great answer.

The second thing that I get into is forgiveness. Because, you know, I mean, there's a whole pot in the book about forgiveness and why it doesn't work. Right. But when you take out blame, forgiveness is easy. What is forgiveness? It gives me that belt it move on. If the given is gives me that belt it it it it it it it it and move.

And and and I would say that for me as a human being I would say that's one of my superpowers. Now forgiveness does not mean yeah you can just go ahead and do that again. No sometimes it changes things but I'm not going to hang on to it. Why I don't have time. So I want my children to have that kind of freedom. I want to be see me forgiving another. I forgive them. It's okay.

Because I know that in the next moment, I have the power to make change. But if I don't forgive, the only real change I can make is based on that lack of forgiveness. So that's like a groin, that's a negative energy. That's a lot of down-in, that's a negative energy. That's a lot

of down driven, you know, like that kind of energy. So forgiveness, freedom to pivot, move on, deep powerful. And another big thing, you know, I talk of the authenticity in the book, but what I want to people to get at the end of this, who's this thing called integrity. I want to people to understand what integrity is. It's not morality. It is not like doing the right thing or something. That's not integrity, right? Why not? Because doing the right thing is subjective. So it's based on some code of morality or values.

It's got nothing to do with integrity. In fact, if you have no integrity, but you're up to here with morality, your morality is not worth anything anyway because there's nothing to hold me together. Integrity is what holds morality together. Morality without integrity is useless. Values without integrity is useless. Integrity exists on its own. So what's integrity for us? It's teaching yourself to

Honor yourself to treat what you say and what you do like it actually Matters and to demonstrate that to your children and say you know what I said I was going to do that and I'm going to do it and So it's not always sent your children you said you would do it so you do it It's that I said I would do it, and I'm going to do it. And I don't feel like doing it, but I'm going to do it. Why? Because I told myself I would, and that match. And so if your children can pick that up, if your children can have the ability to love, if your children have the ability to forgive and pivot and move and if your children have the ability to

No longer honor their negative feelings to actually stay true to something else called their personal integrity I would say they're pretty much a quet for anything the life might throw at them bro. It's so freaking good I Look how you're worked just so you know you're about to be blown away by how familiar I am with your work quit for anything that life makes for all of them. Bro, this is so freaking good. I look how you work just so you know you're about to be blown away by how familiar I am with your work, but all of your work flows together from your first book to this book. Because on the integrity line, I have this written in my office just so you know, I think this is out of on F yourself. I'm not positive.

But you said, thoughts don't define you. Actions do. And these are things that I think is that is it from that book? Yeah. Yeah. That's the same. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. No, you go ahead, please. Well, I mean, I'm not I'm not saying something radically wildly. No, like, you know, I mean, the Stoics were saying, you know, 2000 years ago, but, but, you know, I wrote a book called Love on F, okay? And I talked about why marriage is screwed. Marriage is screwed because it's based on this thing called a vow. So I declare my vows and my partner declared their vows and that's the thing. Why it's why we're screwed in a whole ceremony. It doesn't actually mean anything anymore, because you don't a vow isn't a thing in society anymore. So a thousand years ago, a vow was a big deal. So what was the vow of a vow was a contract that you made in language.

So like a like a solemn promise. And so when people used to stand up and say, I promise to love and honor and cherish you, you are saying that to your community people. They're now expecting you to live by your word, right? We don't live that way anymore. We don't live by our word. What have you lived by? How we feel? And what's the problem and how we feel is always based in the past. So if I keep going by how I sweat, I don't, I don't subscribe to us. Did you go with your go? I'm like, I hope not because I could change that with pizza. So, you know, my whole approach is, what'll keep you true is what exists outside of you.

If you can honor something that's outside of you, something compels you, something that's greater than the sum of these parts, then you'll learn the ability to go beyond self and beyond self is beyond fear is beyond the past is beyond Self-imposed limitations is beyond self-limiting beliefs is beyond all of those things and then you're playing this game of like What do I need to get out of the way to make sure I deliver and To me that's power bro. That is unbelievably well said. I deliver. And to me, that's power.

Bro, that is unbelievably well said. I don't want to stop. We're going to go 10 more minutes. Sorry, it's too good. It's too damn good. Because I want all your work to be merged together. I actually say a lot of times, I think the quality of your life is in direct proportion to your ability to embrace and deal with uncertainty. And one of the other things we do, I think, you tell me. You, and F yourself, you said, make friends with uncertainty. And I think it's from that book. And one of the reasons I think we established these stories in our life is they're predictable and certain.

And I wrote a book last year, and a lot of that book was about my dad's alcoholism, and by the way, I agree with you on that label. It's one of the things I have a challenge with and even in AA is, and my dad was in AA, and it worked for him, but is this label of that term and that identity, but having said all that, that's a whole other conversation.

I found myself after a while on that book tour, not enjoying talking about it. And it was just like, because it's not real, I did it for the purposes of helping other people, but the truth is, many, many years ago, I stopped telling that story. And I think that's why I've had

somewhat relatively productive and somewhat happy life is like, I'm not addicted to the certainty and the predictability of my stories. And even as happy life is like, I'm not addicted to the certainty and the predictability of my stories. And even as a guy who like, I don't know that I'm naturally a big risk taker because I grew up with so much risk around me. I think there's this little bit of me

that tries to avoid that. But as I've embraced more uncertainty in my life, it's actually accepted, it's helped me accept that's what life is. Let me give an example and I'll let you respond. As we're recording this two days ago, I had a lady on my show who's one of my dear friends just a few weeks ago who had staged for colon cancer. She's 34 years old and she passed away two days ago. And there's no way a year ago you could have told her in any way shape or form that was going to be a part of her life.

But it was. Life is uncertain. And our, I think our ability, our false notion that I'm going to be able to control everything in my life and that it's predictable and certain. And if I tell myself these stories over and over again, if I stay safe and don't take risks and don't get vulnerable or authentic with people, if I tell myself these stories over and over again, if I stay safe and don't take risks and Don't get vulnerable or authentic with people. If I just stay in this space I'll have certainty and I think certainty is like the greatest lie of our lives

Nothing is certain and it's a fallacy that you think you're embracing it anyway So to step into the uncertain to me is to actually step into life in general Do you agree with that and what's your version of what I just said? Well, I mean, you're right there. You're right there. I mean, there is no certainty. There doesn't exist. It's a human construct. We're just trying to make it certain. So when people say, you know, step into uncertainty, you know, okay, that's fine to say that,

but you need to realize you're in the uncertainty. You don't have to step, you're in it. What we're doing is trying to make sense of it because we feel as if, I mean, look, we are, and I did talk about this in the first book, you know, like we're consumed by protecting. So we want to protect, we want to protect protecting. So we want to protect the weather, want to protect the financial markets. We want to protect our relationship.

We want to protect the lives of our children, right? But literally looking at our child, make a mistake and we are already like seeing that, taking them straight to the state pan, potentially by the time that 18, right? We're already seeing a straight line between like bunking off a school one day when they were 12 and they are, you're going to the state panattentiary by the time that 18, right? We're already seeing a straight line between like bunking off a school one day when they were 12 and they, oh, you're going to the state pan. We're already protecting futures and we're protecting futures based on the past. So this is why when I talk to people, I say,

look, you don't live like anything's possible. You live like some things are possible given what I know. And that's kind of like the blinkered view that we have. But the alternative to that is to expose yourself to the chaos, right? And the unprotectability of uncertainty. And this is what I wanna people get grounded in that book.

And when I wrote Ys A F about later, I want to people to get you thrive in that environment. You're brilliant and unproductive ability. You are actually creators and masterful and unproductive ability. How do I know that? Look back in your life. Look at those moments when you get sideswit and look what you did. Look how you responded. Look what you created.

Look how you stepped up. People are people do their best thinking and uncertainty. People do their most inventive and creative work and uncertainty and then protect the ability. They just get grounded in the repetitive patterns. That's why I say people would rather have the mesmerism of a predictable life than it's he actually wake up to the idea that they could have way more than that, but then their face with, well, what about this and what about that? And then I'd have to deal with this and I'm like, yeah, but that's the game. So to me, it's more like exposing yourself to how unprotectable it is and then giving yourself the freedom to go perform there. It's so good.

Brother, I'm just in peace. I just, I'm just enjoying this so much. God, there's been several moments in this interview. It's like, I wish I could just go rewind and hear you say that again and then talk a little bit more about it. Let me ask you one more thing, if I could. And again, I've never had someone's work.

I think that I wrote down more of what they said than the way you write and express yourself. So the last thing, like this is like life advice, but it's also an parenting book too. It's both. It's an parenting book and a life book. You said, man, and I need to do a better job of this when I read this to you. I do. You said, speak like your words mean everything.

Listen without making it mean anything. What do you mean when you say that? Like what great life advice? I know what it means to me when I read it, but what did it mean to you when you say that, like what great life advice? I know what it means to me when I read it, but what did it mean to you when you wrote it? There's a big look, cultures develop and continue to develop in the articulation of new conversations. So if you want to know how a society changes.

What changes is what they talk about, right? So if you go back through time, you'll see society's talking a bit new things. And as they talk about those new things, they'll literally have an again, new language to some of those new things because it's not like those things didn't exist before. We just had no language for that, right? So we had no language for it. So in society, nah, there's a lot of talk

about how you speak, what you're saying, when you're saying it, that, that, right? People are going on to call it political correctness okay fine but that's an articulation of a language that didn't exist 20 30 years ago okay so so language is evolving in as that language in those conversations that evolving society is evolving but it's but what we want to talk about is what people are saying and that asking people to be responsible for what they're saying and I say great I think that's fair enough. But you need to be responsible for the way in which you listen. You need to be responsible for the way things are landing for you and rather than putting that on somebody else you might want to do a little bit of work on yourself and realize, like, hey, this is an old thing for me that's coming up. This person's

talking, saying whatever they want to say, and I'm getting hooked, and I'm getting hooked by something of my own making, but we don't. We are all too often, And it's two ways. It's not one of the other. It's both. Can I be responsible for the way that this might land? But at the same time, can I be responsible for what I'm listening to? And I'm I'm I'm making sure that this goes in the right spot, right? Rather than just hooked by an old, trigger pattern for my own past. That should be played on like every nightly news broadcast for the next 16 years, every single damn night. What do you just said right there? I just want to first say something to you. Thank you for this today.

And thank you for your work. It's improved my life, Gary. Your work has improved my life. Thank you. And today's conversation, bro, is one for the ages. Look, I've done a lot of these, okay? A lot of them. This is one for the ages. And I'm extremely grateful to have been a part of it.

And you have an open invite. The only thing is you need to sit in front of me next time. We're not doing this Zoom crap again. We're gonna be together. Is that fair? Sure, I'll definitely do it. I would love that and everybody listen go get grow up becoming the parent your kids deserve In fact, let me just say this to you if he wrote it get it if he wrote it get it You've never heard me quote more people more lines from any person's book ever on the show because I write them down and I keep them And I'll keep this conversation close to my heart and my mind for a long time too Gary

So thank you again, bro very very much Very good. Yeah, everybody go grab the power of one more of my book as well Well, you're grabbing his and at the same time share this episode I probably don't even need to ask you to do that today. I'm pretty sure you're sharing it So anybody you care about anybody's life you want to make better anybody want to make a better parent or a better human being Whether they have kids or not, they need to hear this show today. Alright everybody, God bless you, max out your life.

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