THE ED MYLETT SHOW - The Spiritual Healing - w/ JP Sears

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

Start living a more MEANINGFUL Life! This is a truly special conversation! You are gonna learn, laugh, and be liberated! Are you sacrificing your emotional well being for the advancement of others to the point you don’t have enough left in the tank for yourself? Have you mastered the art of masking your feelings for the sake of your own sanity, your ability to function, or even just to appear stable? The gift of reclaiming your heart is PRICELESS. If you are able to connect with your PAIN, then you will ALSO be able to connect with your JOY, FULFILLMENT, and HAPPINESS! This is the BIGGEST emotion we ALL chase! With over 300 Million video views, this emotional healing coach, comedian, author, speaker, and world traveler is about to open your mind and unlock your ability to lead a more meaningful life. He is one of my favorite people to listen to and one of the ONLY life coaches I know that can use humor to help others become the next best version of themselves. I’m happy to bring JP Sears to The Ed Mylett Show! In this LIFE-CHANGING interview, JP and I dive deep into trauma and life experiences that can cause emotional numbness and the havoc the effects of that numbness can have on your life. Your greatest accomplishments will often come at the moment you OFFEND your MIND and let your HEART guide your actions. It is the single greatest separator between humans and animals! We have the ABILITY to analyze our actions and make a CHOICE. You’ll learn how to better understand your own mind so you can become the MASTER of it instead of becoming a SERVANT to it. This episode is full of actionable tips that you can implement with the very next choice you make today. If you are ready to step into your greatness and master your emotions and your mind, you MUST watch this interview!

This is the Edmmerlidge Show. Hey everybody, welcome back to Max Out. Today's going to be special because the man that I have on the program, there is only one of in the world. Like literally he's one of a kind. And he is just one of my favorite people to listen to, to watch. I've gone to see him perform in person, which was just a hilariously awesome growth experience. He's a comedian, he's an entertainer, he's a life coach, he's an author, but all around he's a human being trying to chase the greater version of himself. And he's wonderful at using humor to teach people to do that for themselves.

And the depth of this man sometimes can be even hidden by the humor, but you're going to get all of it today, everybody. So JP Sears, thank you for being here, brother. It is beyond an honor to be here. I'm a fan of yours, I haven't since day one, and I'm so grateful to now be a friend, so yeah, there's nowhere else I'd want to be. Thank you, brother. It's hard to interview you. I was prepping because I think you know this about you. It's hard to know when you're saying what you really think and when you're being funny. Sometimes what I've said.

I have no idea. So, it's not true either. So speaking of that, let's start out there for a minute. Where's this style? So everybody has a style. I think that's usually an overviews term. Sometimes it's just our authentic personality. But there's nobody like you.

And you're able to use humor, satire, yet then the next second, there's this deep lesson that I catch from you. How did that start? Like, did you start out as a life coach and then say, I'm going to kind of hide the humor aside of me and then there was just this one day when I can't hide this anymore or it's a risk that you took in being that way for sure. anymore or that's a risk that you took in being that way for sure. Yeah, you know, my inner idiot had me hiding a great gift for many years because it was telling me it would be bad to let my gift out. So yeah, I started off as a life coach. I had been doing life coaching, especially emotional healing coaching with people for 13

years before I put out my first comedy video. And during that time, I'd look at my natural sense of humor that had been very prolific in my personal life, ever since I was a kid and still was, yet, look at it and say, humor would be bad for business. The discredit you is a life coach, as a spiritual guy, you should be serious, JP. So I was doing meaningful work yet excluding a lot of parts of me. I was giving people some authentic JP, but definitely not the whole pie of authenticity. And then five and a half years ago at this point, I started to betray that story that it would be bad for business to let my humor out because I kept having these ideas come to me in flashes.

And they were in the form of video ideas where I'm sharing my perspective through the language of comedy. Now, like anything poopy, I did my best to constipate those thoughts and ideas. I'd hold them down. Like, oh, that's not what I'm thinking of those exciting ideas. What's wrong with me? But eventually, like, the itch became too great. I had to scratch it.

So I made my first comedy video, really stood October 50, 2014. And man, that woke something up inside of me. I mean, it woke up an expression of creativity that I had never known before. And it was my expression. Like Van Gogh has his paintings like, ooh, okay, comedy on video and I'll stage. This is my expression.

And on the inside, I just have to say this as well. What was happening on the inside was more important because it was me saying yes to a part of me that I judged to be defective enough that he would screw up my career. It's like I was on that first video. It was like an initiation where I was taking my inner child out of the basement where I locked them, reclaiming them and saying, not only do you have a place in my life, you are the gift in my life. And I think every since then,

my work doing conscious comedy is led by the five year old inner child and me and different ages, but it's like, dude, the more I'm just a kid sharing the truth as I know it, giving voice to what's not being said, the more things work out well for me. That's a, by the way, we're five minutes into this and I would already tell everybody, rewind and go back and watch that.

Like, if one phrase you use, brother, they're about betraying that kind of BS story you tell yourself. And wow, it's funny that you say it the way you say it. Every one listening to that has that thing too, where there's this part of themselves they want to express, but there's this fear that if they do, it'll hurt other things they have. I remember when I started speaking, I was a one-trick pony when I spoke, which was intensity. You know, a natural, easy emotion for me to get is intensity, or even maybe even a bordering

on anger. And I was willing on stage to be vulnerable. Many of you might relate to this to express one of my emotions. Almost like, that was a safe emotion for me to express was anger. And a lot of you have that one or two emotions that you feel safe expressing. But there's all these other ones that are unsafe to express was anger. And a lot of you have about one or two emotions that you feel safe expressing, but there's all these other ones that are unsafe to express. And so on stage for me to be vulnerable or emotional or or or show the my weaknesses or the things I fear, I would never go there as a speaker. And it was only when that itch finally got scratched that I became kind of my own

self on stage. And then all of these other ideas and expressions started to come out of me. When I started to betray that crappy story, I was telling myself. So I love that about you. One thing about the other thing, JP, that I've heard you say, not a lot of people admit to, was that I got into coaching or personal to all myself,

help, whatever you want to be, thinking, I'm really gonna teach this stuff to other people. Yeah. That could really help people. I'm a pretty good expressive person like you are. I'm like, I'm going to use my gift of expression and words and articulation to help people with all these things. But that was a lie.

I really got into personal involvement to help heal and grow myself. And I've heard you say the same thing. I'm curious. Do you even know what it was you were trying to heal or grow from that caused you to get into the space itself? Well, looking back, I do, but in the moment, if you would have took a blood draw of 19-year-old JP, you would have found very high arrogant levels. And, you know, I'm thinking like, I'm gonna like work with people because I'm so strong and stable.

And like I just wanna help the weak people. But I was constructing my sense of strength off of what I now call weakness. You know, at the time when I was 1920, I hadn't cried for eight years. And I thought that made me strong. I thought that meant I'm emotionally stable, but I'll never forget the very first workshop

I took with a powerful mentor of mine, a guy named John McMillan, I'm runs an organization called Journey to Wisdom. He's to this day, he's 79 years young, one of the most playful people I know. But the afternoon of that first workshop, I cried for the first time in eight years. And it was, I was crying about stuff. It wasn't happening in that moment. It was stuff that happened 13 years before in my childhood, 14, 15 years before.

years before in my childhood, 14, 15 years before all the emotions were still there. I was just numb to them, but the tears were coming out because this was a wise man. I was an ignorant man. So now looking back, I could realize one of the things I needed to reclaim was my emotions. I was so emotionally numb and you know our late great friend Carl Jung, the sort of psychiatrist he died I think 1963, he's one of my favorite quotes of all time. He says feelings are the language of the soul. And if that's half true, that meant I was dramatically disconnected from my soul. Life doesn't feel great, it doesn't feel fulfilling, it doesn't feel purposeful when you don't have your soul speaking to you through

its language called emotions and feelings. And you know on top of that, I also had some more nuanced issues. I grew up being a rescuer. Let me sacrifice my needs, take care of mom and dad, my sister, make sure everybody's strong and stable because it feels like the world's falling apart around me. So let me just be Mr. Fixed and not that any kid can, but I could have a sense of control that gave me the illusion of all I got fixing that. So it feels like I'm fixing that so it feels like I'm not going to die either. So, man, and I want to give myself a little bit of credit. I've come a long way and I have infinity yet to go with my healing and growth and connection to my emotional vulnerability and knowing who the hell I am as a person. I connect so much with you.

I got to tell you, I think millions of people do. This idea of numbness, you explained me early on in my life too. I used to think, well, if I don't feel this pain, then I am actually probably not having it. Yeah. I think a lot of people express them. So I think, well, you've got all these coping skills you built up. I remember I was at my place, something personal. I was at my grandfather's funeral.

I don't know what age I was. I was 15, 16 years old. And appropriately, everybody in my family was crying at the funeral. And I remember going, why can't I cry? Well, I loved him so much too, right? But I can't, why can't I feel like they feel? This isn't good, this isn't healthy. I have learned all these skills like you did

from coming from kind of dysfunctional family. I think you can share it in a minute years. I kind of found ways to not feel things. And so as I got older, I thought that meant I don't have any pain. But what I did is mast it. Do you mind sharing a little bit like, if you don't want to, it's okay, but why did you begin to build these skills of numbness? Was it dysfunction in your family? Was it some particular event or what was it? You know, yes, to all of that. I think in them, the most pervading pressure that caused me to cope in a way where I created psychological dissociation for my own emotions. And

therefore, I was numb was like my when I was younger, my parents would split apart We're getting a divorce then a few months later. No, we're not anymore a couple months later Oh, no, we're definitely getting a divorce and they did that a lot and Like at that time I'm like okay, just tell me what you're doing. I don't care Like it didn't affect me yet looking at that, I can realize that was very influential. Having a child's world split apart. And how was your world split apart as a question?

We all have an answer, too. For some people, it's trauma, it's abuse. For some people, it's a family secret. It's like, I'm drinking so all the time, but we all act like she doesn't. For some of it's parents splitting apart. Other times, it's a family secret. It's like, no, I'm drinking so all the time, but we all act like she does. And for some of its parents splitting apart, other times it's other hardships, other times we're bullied at school.

You know, it's adversity, we all have because we all need it. You can only be as strong as the adversity from which you overcame. Yet this is my adversity. It feels like my world's splitting apart. And in order to feel like I'm keeping my world put together, I'm going to try to take care of mom and dad,

keep them as happy as I can, which means my emotions don't have a place. Because I can't be unstable because that'll make mom and dad care for me and give me their attention, but they need their attention on their own lives. So I appeared to be strong and stable and I thought I was. But man, numbness is temporary relief and long-term increased suffering. We just think, I know anytime we're in pain, like last night I threw my back out because I'm squatting with more weight relative to an old back injury that wasn't quite rehabbed surprise. It's like, okay,

I threw my back out, I racked the weight, I wish I could have felt numb, but I'm feeling the pain. And that's good. Because once we're numb for a while, we don't feel the pain, but also what else don't you feel? You know, like if you get anesthesia in the shoulder, you're not gonna feel the surgeon's knife going in. But you're also not gonna feel the Swedish massage. So when we're numb long enough, we don't actually, in my delusional opinion, my experience is we don't have the

feeling experience that we're alive. We can know we're alive. We can be in our head like dude, like my IQ's high enough, I know I'm alive. Look, I have a pulse, that's cool, I know I'm alive. But that doesn't mean we feel alive. And man, people will do crazy things to escape numbness. Once they're psychologically dissociated from their emotions, I mean, some people will routinely overeat just so they can then feel like, cool, I feel so much shame because I over ate. And that's a secondary emotion that they feel so they can feel something, but their core emotions are still numb or they'll use themselves with drugs, alcohol, sugar, other times it's like always self-sabotaging themselves just so they can feel the thrill of something so they can feel something. But then when we give ourselves the gift of reclaiming our heart like, you mentioned

the V word vulnerability, it's so challenging to do. It's way easier said than done but when we can get fierce with our vulnerability, that's so challenging to do. It's way easier said than done, but when we can get fierce with our vulnerability, because we realize we're freaking worth it, and we cannot just be angry at and JP or non JP, but we can be angry when it's appropriate, when it serves us. We can be the one that's crying the loudest at the funeral, because that's what's most appropriate, when it serves us. We can be the one that's crying the loudest at the funeral because that's what's most appropriate. And which means we can be the one laughing the loudest at the comedy show, which means we can also be the happiest.

Because when we're numb, we don't get any of that. Brother, I gotta tell you, now y'all know. So you see this dude on YouTube or on Instagram and I think oftentimes they have no idea because this year, normal brilliance. I happen to think as funny as JP is as articular is is. You're now watching him and his gift to this zone. No, it's just a fact.

And I gotta tell you, like, you just said something so profound. I don't wanna always restate things you say, but the gift of giving yourself the willingness to feel pain and not be numb. You know, the other side of that is you do experience more joy in those moments. If you're one of these people, you're like, why don't I enjoy the moments at a party where other people do?

Or seeing someone in my family do something. Why isn't it affect me like it does other people? These are things you need to evaluate. Are you also doing that on the other side? By the way, speaking of squatting, I'm at the show. This dude walks out on the stage. I turn to my wife and go, look at his freaking legs. Dude, I'm not going to make them show him to you, but you guys, if you go see JP, you're gonna see some crocs on a guy that are their guard Gantuan. This was a little dude five years ago. I think you were anyway. I don't know what the hell you've been doing, but his His legs are like my dream legs. And that's a little cheesy to say to another man live on the call, but like, you know, I feel like a beautiful woman having

but you know, I feel like a beautiful woman having you in my life. Yeah. Well, thank you, brother. I mean, there's some genetics involved there. My dad's got strong legs. And there's also some work my ass off. I'm gonna crush those legs, brother. Don't, I'm telling you, I know, I'll crush them too, but I just gonna tell you guys,

that's a side note on JP that y'all wouldn't know. So I'm gonna give you guys that gift. I wanna talk about some specific things. You say it funnier than me, but I talk about, you shouldn't even buy into all your own thoughts all the time. Yeah. Right? What are your philosophies about that?

So this numbness idea is one idea. Then there's this, I think one of the things JP's best at, if you really listen to the real JP stuff is, I think he helped people step into their greatness. I really do. I think that that's one of your great gifts. But about thoughts, didn't you say something like, you shouldn't believe your own thoughts until you like,

pee or something like that? I heard you say that before. That's a good question. I talk about pee and pooping all the time. That's so you probably did not miss hear me. I wanna remind everybody something I said a few minutes ago, when I was doing life coaching, telling myself, letting your humor out JP, that would be bad for business.

Then I betrayed that, let my humor out, the best thing I've ever done for business, my inner life, just everything. What that experience taught me at a visceral and body level is, don't believe everything you think. So I, we have minds. Our minds are a great gift. I'm so glad. We have a mind, a brain in our head. Yet, I think ideally, our brain serves us well, our mind serves us well when we have our beliefs, but we don't believe our beliefs. You know, the analogy I'll use and forgive a slight potty mouth, we're all full of shit. That's why God gave us an asshole to remind us we're full of shit.

And if we start to believe our beliefs, we're not curious, we're certain. And we know how much the mind grows, expands, and learns when you're certain of yourself all the time. Yet, on the flip side, if we can question our beliefs, have our beliefs when they serve us, you know, we don't believe the beliefs. It's like, oh, when they start discerving, make cool. I'll, like, compost it, bring a better one. And so when we can do that, our mind becomes curious. And the curious mind is the one that learns and expands.

And I'll, yeah, share a couple of quick things. One of my favorite quotes of all time. I know I mentioned the Carl Jung one, but I lied. Here's my more favorite quote. Quote of Einstein's, he says, the intuitive mind is a sacred gift. The rational mind is a faithful servant. Yet most people live in a way that forgets the gift and honors the servant.

And I think our messy-haired brother Einstein shared that with us for a reason, so that we can make the choice to flip the script on that, where we can live in a way that honors the sacred gift, the intuitive mind, for me that's also the heart. And we use our rational mind as a servant, as a servant rather than us becoming a servant of the mind. And our friend Tony Robbins, he always talks about how the mind is here to keep you alive, not make you happy. Yet, I think that the mind's mantra is self-preservation makes me more powerful, but I think the intuitive mind in our hearts mantra is self-realization. Is what's powerful.

So mine says, nope, life's about self-preservation. Toative mind in our heart says, no. Oh, gross. Life's about self-realization. So when I look at everything great in my life, all my blessings, and I took inventory of this a month ago, all of my greatest blessings, my wife, we have our first child on the way,

little while there, we're so excited. I look at my ability to reach millions of people around the world for videos, look at the opportunity to do standard comedy. So, like, these are the greatest blessings. Every single one of my greatest blessings came when I betrayed what my mind wanted to do. things came when I betrayed what my mind wanted to do. When I met my wife, my mind was telling me, she's out of your league, don't bother JP, not a good idea. My heart was saying, go tell her how you feel.

So I had to defend my mind. And we always know we're offending our mind because it scares us. So I had to defend my mind. I felt fear in my body, and I was honoring my intuition, my heart, and I shared how I felt my mind. I felt fear in my body yet. I was honoring my intuition my heart and I shared how I felt about her and The idea of like JP do stand up comedy like okay

Scares my mind my mind so that's a stupid idea. You don't have any experience doing stand up comedy You just doing these friggin YouTube videos and that was wrong with you of my heart saying know that feels purposeful Yes, it's scary to do the thing I've never done before. My heart, my intuitive mind was saying, do it. So that's been the path of self realization. And I think the irony is, if someone wants to live a path of self realization, which means that's where you get your purpose, that's where you get your sense of fulfillment, that's where you get love, that's where you get contribution. When we live our life in a way of the path of self-realization, we have to be willing to experience being scared to death.

And Tony Robbins and I like to say that in any given time in your life, the amount of uncertainty you can deal with any given time is directly correlated to your happiness. I've heard you phrase it a little differently. I think you say it better. You said, I think you say, correct me if I'm wrong, but you think the amount of fear that you are willing to deal with at any given time or the unknown is correlated to your growth and your happiness. Is that how you say it?

Yeah, yeah, and to me, fear and uncertainty are the same things so Where you go with it is a different level. This is what I want to ask you about and I You know, I like to really prepare yet. I feel like I know you row well too. I've seen you live. We've talked several times I I consume your content every day because sometimes all of us in this space can sometimes just take ourselves a little bit too seriously I think the other thing JP does is it brings levity to these choices. Like life should be fun. This growth process can be fun. It doesn't always have to be painful to grow. Sometimes it's painful to grow. But I think if you always think I have to go through pain and order to grow, that's a fallacy. I mean, sometimes just growth can be fun. Oftentimes it is painful. But you said something, man, I was preparing and I've never heard that and I'm in this space

and I'd like you to talk about it. And it's that you've, you said, I think a lot of people think they're chasing happiness in life because that's what we all really want. But maybe most people aren't chasing happiness. What do you think most people chase unknowingly? Yeah, I think most people are chasing gratification, not happiness. And, you know, meanwhile, if that's true, and whoever that's true, say that again, what's

the difference? Yeah, well, you know, first off, for whoever that's true for before I share my delusional opinion on the difference, people who are truly chasing gratification, their mind tells them they're chasing happiness. They're chasing what they think happiness is. But here's the difference. Gratification is something that makes me feel better right now. And it's usually comfort. It might be, give me that substance that creates chemical reaction in me that makes me more comfortable. I'll have one more drink or gratification like, oh, yeah, the business that I could start that will probably fail. I'll just not do that because it's just more gratifying to have the guaranteed income

here in the job that like I hate. It like people who are in a relationship where it's like, oh, this is not the right relationship but it's more gratifying. So typically with gratification, it makes us feel better now, but worse, long term. With happiness, it's something that typically makes us more uncomfortable now, but feel way better, long term. You know, share the example with my wife. Do do was not gratifying to go tell her how I felt. Like that was so uncomfortable.

It made me feel worse in that moment. But here's several years later, I can say, oh no, dude, it made me feel way better, long term. So, I, you know, I haven't scientifically validated this. In fact, nothing I've ever said has been scientifically validated, including that statement. Yeah, it seems to me that there's a paradox in life where the things that make us feel better short-term are actually the gratification route, not good for us. The things that make us feel worse long term, but better long, worse short term, but better long term are good for us.

Yeah. What a great question. What you're like is quality of questions asking yourself, is this decision given me gratification or happiness? Like that's powerful, brother. It's the same thing getting fit. Like I know your fitness, I look at your body, I look at your physique, I try to do the same thing. If I was constantly gratifying myself

and not really chasing happiness, which is for me is health, strength, those are two completely two different choices. And leading down that road, I love this. By the way, we could go five hours together because I love how you put your thoughts together and how it flows. And we can't leave gratification and happiness without talking about this little thing that most of us are a servant to our phones, our devices. Whenever we look at our phone to scroll Instagram

for the 19th time during the day, we think like, yeah, I want to feel happy. Yet, I would dare say those times were chasing gratification. And I don't know about you. I fall into these traps myself. But when I get into like cool, like that was my 27th time checking Instagram, like it feels better while I'm checking it. And I put my phone down. I'm like, yeah, I feel a little, I feel emptier because I did that. It's chasing gratification.

The phone's never gonna make us happy. Yet that's the phone. We carry the promise. Our phone's gonna make us happy. No, it's designed to gratify us. It will not make you happy. And I think it's just important to know the difference so that we don't become the servant of something

that's meant to be the servant to us. Very good. I want you to stay on that, though though because you just said something very important. So tactically, what do you do? Are you saying you don't check Instagram very often? Oh, no, dude. I screw it up so much. Like, I'd look to say what I do. I've checked Instagram since 1987. But I'll go through stretches where I'm pretty clean. Like, dude, I'll get on, I'll post and go. And for the most part, I do pretty well. Yet for me, the most important thing is the first hour of the day, I'm not looking at

my phone. Certainly not scrolling social media. And ideally, the last hour in the day. And the more often than not, I'm true to that. And when I fall off that wagon, man, it's just like a slow, insidious, creeping on of, like, I feel less fulfilled, less comfortable in my own skin, like, what is going on? And I think one of the reasons is the more I connect into the gratification of my phone, the more I'm disconnecting from my own feelings, emotions, and inner experiences.

So that doesn't feel super good. I got to say brother, so profound because when I go on those benches myself, where I'm on their 40 minutes straight of scrolling through stuff, you know. Like for me, there are two or three people, four people a day who bring me energy, bring me insights, bring me, you know, whatever, hopefully you and I do that for some people. But there shouldn't be a 144 of them. And I gotta tell you, the times where I have done that, it's almost like you said it so well,

it's almost like, I feel like I just ate like three entire pizzas alone, you know. And so what what I was doing was like this is awesome you're just gorging and then you're done you're like oh god what did I do so the weird thing is like I'm guessing at an Instagram you're not following heroin dealers that's probably 140 people that are all like awesome and so worth following yet needing to scroll through all 140 that becomes the disservice. You're right, hope, man. Powerful stuff, you guys. And by the way, I'm glad if for those of y'all who are watching this and video, I'm glad you got that painting I made for you and sent to your head. But I should say that because I'm guessing it's not cheap.

It's not. That's this. I probably should go that. Yeah, it's because it's a, yeah. Thank you, though, for making it. Question for you. One of the hardest laughs I've ever had is a video, well, a lot of years or years or years, or years of years, but one of them is JP does this one skip where it's like appropriate conduct at a personal development self-help event. And it's all the different things you say, you know, like it's just it's hilarious. But let me down the road because what was funny about that for me was and go see this video guys. We'll scroll within on the YouTube right now so you can all see it.

But make me think about something that's an area I want to go out and never gone on here with somebody. But I know because the way you knew on things you can. And that is that the personal development entrepreneur self-help life strategy space, you can get to the point where you're addicted to your point of consuming the content and never actually taking the actions to physically change your life. You know what I'm saying? Almost like, I don't want to say seminar junky, but kind of. If you know what I'm saying. And so there's a fine line between that.

I think you would agree with me. What would you say to somebody who's like, they've consumed a lot of content. They've read every Wayne Dyer book. They've been to every Tony Robbins event. They've gone to my things. They've got a life coach. What would you say to somebody like that? I know it's a hard thing to say

because maybe the time hasn't come, but what would you say about that? You know, I think the most important thing is being aware that self-improvement can become the path of self-diminishment, depending on how you relate to it. And I think the path we take to find ourselves will eventually become the path we take to find ourselves will eventually become

the path we lose ourselves on if we stay attached to that path. So for example, I remember in my 20s, I read so many books and that was a path I was finding myself on. It was truly improving me. And then it became an escape mechanism where instead of like going out and living life and facing the challenges and applying what I was learning, I was staying in the the comfortable protection of the prison of continuing to do the same thing I was. And it took me a while to recognize, oh, I'm like, I'm actually diminishing myself.

And this is all self-improvement books. So it's easy to rationalize. Yeah, man, I think a paradox of life is this season's change. The path we take to find ourselves will eventually become the path we lose ourselves on if we're not willing to upgrade the path based on not what anybody says other than our hearts calling. It's just like, you know, when we look at the farmers farming

their fields in the springtime, see them applying fertilizer, plowing, planting, watering, dude, if they don't, if they keep doing that, that will kill their fields. If they keep doing that, that will kill their fields. But they know the right strategies in the spring, then the summer, and they're doing the opposite strategies and the fall and the winter, they're realizing not doing anything is what's best. And I've been the self-help junkie, where every weekend I've got to go to another seminar or workshop.

I don't take a bowel movement, unless I have a book in my hand before the social media. So, but like now I'm in a time in my life where I've probably read two complete books the past year. And I'm so interested in learning yet I'm finding like, wow, when I'm not bearing my face in someone else's opinions of the world, I'm getting more in touch with my own opinions.

So it's like I'm learning about life more through connected conversations and seeing how the lens of my own eyeballs reports life back into me. So, you know, the Lake Great Rondos once said, you can't get out of a jail, you don't know you're in. And I think the way you framed up the question, Ed, you brought awareness for everybody about a jail

that they don't know they're in, that they don't know is even a possibility. But when we know it's a possibility, we can really better recognize when we're in that jail of protecting ourselves through self-improvement, classes, books, and all the things. Yeah, it's so good. Like, you know, the way you say it too is, you know,

I think about thoughts too. And you know, sometimes experiential learning is the best learning, which is really that stage of your life. You're right, I think your point is, if it's serving you and it's growing, you continue to do it, but when you're aware that you're at a point where it doesn't, and the same thing is true about thoughts.

Don't you think? I've had thoughts in my life that served me at different stages. And you continue to drag these thoughts into this new stage of my life. Some of them are no longer thoughts that serve me anymore. Are you agree with that? Amen. The people I like to have friends and learn from are the ones that disagree with their past self. And they're the ones that are they have so much courage. They're willing to be so bold with their thoughts, their actions, and their voice right now, even though they know their future self is going to disagree with them.

That's the bad side of getting wiser. Your wiser self will disagree with you now. But, you know, we don't need to do it shamefully. We live in an age where it's just for goofy reasons. We look at politicians who change their mind. They're like, dude, they're not job, they changed their mind. It's like, dude, you're a not job, if you think it's wrong to change your mind. But we can look at it with compassion and growth and evolution. And I look at myself when I was nine years old. I was in third grade. I disagree with so much about how I interpreted the world when I was nine years old.

Yet I look at my nine-year-old self with great reverence and compassion. Of course, you saw the world that way and thank you, young JP, for having such an open mind to allow my mind to expand so that I can think what I think today and be who I am today. Because when we vilify changing your mind, that's like saying, cool, I'm in third grade, this will be the ceiling and I won't change, I'll always have a third grade mentality so that I can stay consistent.

Wow. One of my favorite things ever said on the show right there. Like, think about that. What if you're back to your third grade self-if, if you think about it the way that you describe it to, it almost being nightmare as, I'm 49. It almost being nightmare as that if I arrive at 16, I agree with everything the 49 year old agreed with like what was the point of those 11 years? Yes. It'd be about exploration and growth and spiritual awakening and insights and my gosh, that's so flip and powerful and on that

Gosh, man, that's really good like I don't want to agree with me. I think sometimes We think changing of one's mind is somehow a negative thing It's it's one of the most positive things you could have I I look at very few things I my foundational ethics are very similar to what I was 25 or 28 or 30. But things that were important to me then, thoughts that served me at that time for that stage amount, about competing and winning, served the 30-year-old me. It served me at that age. At 49, I loved to collaborate. Collaboration and connection is far more important to me at 49

Then it was at 29 and by the way for some 29-year-olds. That's the most important thing for them right now on it 48 it's gonna be competing in some sport they find at that age right so Wonderful he said and you know this analogy because I've gone through it I talk about it a lot of a midlife crisis. It's kind of a similar train of thought I write my book about my daughter teasing me about having a midlife crisis. I'm like, I have, I've had several of them, but I think there's people here that are at 25 or 30 or 35 that maybe a midlife or early life crisis would serve them in some way. Don't you? In my opinion, hell yeah, you know, the alternative is we suffocate in the coffin of a comfort zone. But the crisis is the caterpillar inside who's really transformed and not a caterpillar anymore. It's the butterfly. The crisis is the butterfly having the urge to get the hell out of what was.

That's the cocoon. What was? That's might be old beliefs. That might be old relationships. That might be an old job. But I mean, largely it's like beliefs. It's so much an inside job. In the crisis, essentially, in my opinion, the voice of the crisis says things can't go on as they are. Yeah, please don't let them. Please let yourself change. And I think the more we stay rigid through our certainty of what we believe, I gotta say consistent with who I've always been and what people expect of me,

the more we do that, the more intense the crisis needs to be to create the motivation to get the hell out of the cocoon that we spun for ourselves. And I'm actually kind of scared about what my next crisis will be because like it sounds great when we're talking about it and we can be all glorious like you don't have learned so much from my crisis is you've gone through many and like we can look back post-game and be like dude that was the best thing that ever happened, yet to be freaking real.

When we're going through it, it feels like the world's gonna end to us. And that's why I believe to live the life of self-realization, growth, fulfillment, we have to be willing to feel scared to death. Mmm. Speaking of which, bro, I don't know if you like reading my notes here, but. I am. I'm using my intuition. And I can also tell you don't have pants on during this conversation.

I had to off to you. I'm. I'm. Let's see. No. Oh, no. Um, speaking of crisis, we're in one sort of as a world right now. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19.

I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19.

I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19.

I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going to go get some COVID-19. I'm going seeing it when it's released, we're in the middle of still of COVID-19. And for a lot of people, this has been a crisis situation they didn't see coming. They've lost their jobs, 40 million people just in the United States, but worldwide hundreds of millions of people are out of work.

Maybe money they've saved for the last five, six, seven years has gone. Maybe a fitness, you know, a amount of weight they've lost. They can't even do a gym in eight, 10, 12 weeks and that's gone. Relationships strain because they're in the same house together. This is sort of the crisis time. Anything you'd share with people to thrive or cope or thrive during this time that's been working for you.

Yeah, I will. And, you know, first I acknowledge the hardships. So little advice on how to thrive is not to like go into denial. Like it's all great, isn't it? I'm a pro-sac right now. So for me, my mom truck is I had some major things shift in my business and life. All comedy shows for the first able future canceled. And I know that's a one-one million of what a lot of people are going through. Yet my mantra I had adopted right away was two things. One was the mindset of this is either an opportunity or a catastrophe. I'm going to get what I'm looking for. Wise man named Dan Sullivan has has said the mind, or I'm sorry, the eyes can only see and the ears can only hear what the mind's looking

for. So I'm going to look for the opportunity. Yeah, there's things going on. I don't like and I'm going to look for the opportunity. So the second piece of the mindset is more the action oriented one where I've done my best and I encourage people to take this and it works for you. Have the mindset of surrendering to what I can't control and taking bold action on what I can control. I can't control all of California's shutdown. I can't control how much of the rest of the country is shut down, but I can take bold action on what I can

control. And I'll tell you, at least for me, and I'm guessing some other people are part of the human condition with me, so they might be able to feel this. If I wasn't taking bold action on what I can control, I would have gone nuts, I just guarantee it. It's like the life energy that wants to live through us. If you don't give it an outlet, it just, it fries us. We get depressed, anxious, we feel purposeless, yet taking bold action on what we can control, especially bold action on things that feel purposeful to us. Man, I think that's a recipe for fulfillment.

And I think that's a mindset that a lot of people can be served with during a weird time. You know, I want to keep going. Is that okay? It's too good. I want to keep going. Yeah, come on, brother. Let's let's go another 11 hours. Okay, great I know you you Everyone just clicked off And you're right. I'm not working. It's how you know that. I don't know, but it's awesome You know on a serious note. I think there's, I think all your contents wonderful, but I think if people are at a stage of their life where, and I'm gonna be real with you here,

where they just, they wanna heal a little bit. You know, they've heard everything we've been talking about. And they're like, look, I wanna step into my greatness, midlife crisis, all the stuff on my thoughts. I don't want to be not all these things we've covered, but I feel this want to heal a little bit. I don't know that that's covered enough on my show. And then when I got someone here, I think it's like great.

That. Well, I'm says they're listening to like, hey, man, I'd like to heal my heart a little bit. I'm this big old strong dude run my treadmill right now, listen to this. I don't want everybody looking at me because I'm gonna get but I'd like to heal my heart a little bit or you know I'm I'm I'm at home with my kids right now and I'm pouring into them all the time all this love and affection but I'm hurting yeah I'm hurting and I think you and I both know humans are hurting you know there's a lot of hurt humans and

You're so good at this topic. So someone said, hey, man, I want to heal my heart a little bit What are your practical steps or thoughts? I know that's a hard question But what would you say to somebody who's just they're yearning for some sort of direction or hope on that topic? Yeah, man, you know first off, I'd say to that person Good for you for having the courage to claim you want to heal. We all have things to heal, so that makes you one of us. It really does. And for me, feeling is the sensation of healing. So I'm inconvenient as hell because at least part of me would love to fantasize about like cool healing just is pleasurable. Sometimes it is and

sometimes healing means we're feeling worse, but here's the cool thing. We're feeling that's what's doing the healing. So before I share a quick practice, I'd ask people to entertain this analogy. Our emotions are like our digestive tract. If you eat food, but your digestive tract stops, you become consummated. And we know that can be toxic for you, but a well-moving digestive tract, that's awesome.

So when we need healing, what we're really seeing is, you know, I have an old emotion. It's stuck in me. Like I'm constipated and some people are numb and other people like we can feel it, but it's like, oh, man, I've had this pain for 30 years about when, you know, when dad died. So that means there's more feeling that needs to be done. So it's amazing how the emotions mirror our breath. And there's a simple what I call FFF meditation. It's feel your freaking feelings.

And what you do, you just sit there where you're comfortable not driving a car. You find the dominant feeling in your psyche in mind. So if it's sadness, awesome, congratulations, I'm being so aware that you have sadness. Find the sadness, where do you feel it in your body? Is it like in your chest, is it your throat, is your heart, your gut, you find the sadness. And then here's the gift you give yourself in the FF meditation.

You focus on the sadness. Not to distract, not try to escape it for the freaking first time. You are being with it. You do your best to even let it amplify. If we can feel the sadness even more Amplify, see if we can feel the sadness even more. And all we do is simply breathe in and out deeply as we're feeling the sadness. If it intensifies, great. If you cry, great, if it gets less great. So healing happens in my bed, by the way, and that would be a practice I would do for at least two minutes. If you've got five, do it for five.

And if we can get in the habit of giving ourselves that that connection, that deliberate connection to our emotions through the FF meditation every day, then that means we're having an emotional bowel movement every day, not just once every three years when I go to an event for the weekend. And that in my opinion, it clears so much. Wow. That's the, even this alone. As my everyone to know, this is why I do the show right here today. Like there's some, they're all wonderful,

but there's some of my, oh, I'm just really proud to be a part of this right now. Like this is helping people, bro. Like it's helping me, it's helping you, it's helping people. And that's my next question for you. By the way, I'm gonna do that. That's mine now. And that's my next question for you. By the way, I'm going to do that.

That's mine now. And I think there's millions of people that are like, I'm going to do that. You know, I want you to be a little bit less humility for a minute. One of the reasons that I think one of the things there's a lesson to be learned from JP about why he helps people so much with his humor, but also as a coach and someone

on social is, I feel like I don't feel like I'm being judged by you or assessed by you. And there's a, I think you make people comfortable being more open and vulnerable than they might normally be with somebody they think is all knowing if that makes sense. And that's something for all of you leaders out there, if you're a CEO, a mom, a school teacher, a life coach, there's something about JP that I hope I have a little bit of myself, which is that there's not is, you can, people are comfort and being themselves in your presence and not feeling assessed and judged constantly. That's a really comforting thing that can help people grow in your presence.

And that's true. And about you, bro, this is where I want the humility to go away a little bit. So I want you to give us some real stuff here. You, you achieve a lot of greatness in your life. From a kid who grows up in Ohio and kind of this family with this dysfunction, like mine, kind of where probably a loving good family mine was for sure. But there's almost, I think sometimes when you have dysfunction, everybody knows about it. There's almost a shame when there's dysfunction you know about in your home and other people don't. There's another

layered for millions of us who you know it's the world doesn't know and you almost feel like you're you're a lie. You begin to think as a child, you're a lie because everyone doesn't know what's really going on in your home. And I relate to all of what you said of trying to hold things together and I relate to all that, but you've gone from that experience to very young in the space like me 19 year old guy starting to go and improve himself and grow. You've achieved a great life coaching business. You've got a wonderful relationship. You've got a family on the way. I can already tell you're a great friend. When I met you initially, like your humility and kindness when we met that first time struck both my wife and I.

We ended up driving home, not just talking about how much we laughed, but what like how obvious it was, you had a good, what beautiful spirit. And you've also done well financially. You've had a flourishing career. What have you done? Like, what is the special about you? What's the keys? I'm not saying your life's perfect. I know that it's not mine as an either, but you've achieved a pretty special life

at a relatively young age. What have been some of the keys do you mean successful in those areas? Yeah, the cheat code that I have, and I know you got some cheat codes about life, which is great, but which by the way, there's no cheating in life is just having life codes. But here's the formula that is just unshakably freaking successful for me. Do the things that scare me, but also feel purposeful.

do the things that scare me, but also feel purposeful. That everything I do that's become great. There's been that formula. Now, contrast that to do something that scares you that doesn't feel purposeful. That's like, oh, get in a lion's cage. So I go, that would feel scary, but it doesn't feel very purposeful to me. But the idea of like, oh, dude, like put out a comedy video, my mind is telling me, it'll suck.

People will hate it. I'll just cry to me. Cool. That feels scary. Yet there's also this like just drop of purpose in that that I can connect to. Even though the fear might be the loudest, yeah, I can still feel a drop of purpose in that that I can connect to, even though the fear might be the loudest, yeah, I can still feel a drop of purpose. So I'm gonna do that thing. So doing the thing that scares me that also feels purposeful and it reminds me of a Brunei Brown quote.

And by the way, like, not just trying to, I know you said like, you should the humbleness. So, Brunei, I live this, you just said it. But shit, I love her. Her quote is, He or she who's willing to be the most uncomfortable is not only the bravest, but rises the highest. And much like you and Tony were talking about people

being willing to feel uncertain. The ones that are willing to be uncomfortable. I'll tell you, I have so much room to grow financially yet, I'm so proud of where I've come. I've had to uncomfortably shatter beliefs of myself. I've had to uncomfortably receive in order to grow. There's been discomfort in it, fears in it. Yeah, when it feels purposeful,

I do my best to do it. And that's what I attribute every nuance of greatness, too, that I have in my life. And by the way, the part here's some humbleness. I'll call it humbleness that way. I'm not humble about the humbleness. Like, dude, I'm the most humble person I know. Here is some more humbleness. I guarantee the areas of my life where I'm stuck or maybe like moving at a

surrepte speed, I bet those are the areas where I'm being called to do something that scares me, but I ain't doing it yet. And I might be unaware of it. That might be my mechanism of avoiding doing the thing, but I guarantee that we'll check out at least in my life, and everybody listening, I'd ask you to assess your life. Both the great things, what do you have to do that scared you to get those and was their purpose involved? And then with how you're stuck, what do you know you need to do but you're not because it's scary? And, you know, man, I have to mention, I know you've had Kyle Seas on the show. He's a dear friend.

I love him. Kyle says, the mind can measure what we're going to lose, but I can't measure what we're going to gain. So some of those things where we're stock, feel slow and stirrupy, we're not doing the things that scare us. It's because we're afraid to let something go, because we can measure what we're going to like, oh, because we can measure what we're gonna like go, like, oh, that just equals loss,

because we're actually uncertain about exactly what we're gonna gain, how much and what is it? What will that be like? Will it meet my expectations or not? Will it be different than I expected? In other words, it provokes fear, because we don't know what we're gonna gain, and we don't even have a guarantee we're gonna gain anything.

But he or she who's willing to be scared and be that uncomfortable, I think we'll rise the highest. We've got so good. It scares me and on purpose. I, you guys, that's funny. I, JP's one of these very recognized people. So many people in the audience, I just already knew you. For some of them are like, that's the funny guy

from YouTube and Instagram. Little did you know, when I opened this show, and I told you how much depth there was, that you were gonna hear this stuff from. By the way, I like when I do that with my hat. See that every time I raise my eyes. That's it. Did you get your hat surgically implanted in your scalp?

Oh, it doesn't kind of fit right. Anyway, last question. By the way, guys, follow J.P. on Instagram is how to be spiritual, book is awesome. And I think you just want to be connected to this man going forward because this is just the beginning for him. But I have a question for you. I haven't seen who it was. I don't ever call people out.

I don't like doing that to another human. But I watched a, I read an article on Woody Allen yesterday and it bothered me. I won't go there on Woody Allen's life because there's some stories there, but I don't know about, but there's some, he's 84 years old, he said an interesting life, let's just put it that way. And I'm no judgment about that, but it doesn't look great. That's not what bothered me.

What bothered me was there was this quote, and I'm paraphrasing it everybody, so don't go look to quote up But it bothered me because I disagree with it so strongly and basically he said life is just this big scary thing that's pointless Hmm 84th birthday and I thought to myself and bless his heart that that's what he's concluded after 84 years on the earth But I do not believe that life is just scary and pointless. I just completely fundamentally disagree with it. And I'm just curious from you, like there's a lot of people out there, I think they're

just trying to survive life too. And there's a broad question, and it's a big one, but like life, what's the purpose? I thought I'm going to ask JP after hearing this from Woody Allen yesterday, what do you think the purpose of this whole life thing is? Thank you somebody, but that's a big last question, but I'll give you a big. I have no clue, but I have an opinion. For me, life is a mystery to be experienced. It's like a mysterious roller coaster where we can't see the track ahead. We don't know if it's going to go up, twist around, spin us in a circle, go down. And like any roller coaster, it's not a very thrilling ride.

If it just goes in a straight, predictable line. That's why I do believe life truly is a mystery and is intently, imperfectly a mystery. And I think the mystery of life is what creates the thrill. And back to your point that you and Tony mentioned, though the people who are the happiness have the most tolerance to feel uncertain. For me, what that means is those people are the ones

most willing to experience the mystery of life. But just like being on any good roller coaster, it's a little scary at times, isn't it? So when we're not willing to be in the mystery of life, we become certain, which doesn't make the mystery of life go away, but it makes our awareness of it go away. Then we create a coffin of a comfort zone around us. And I would dare say, if you do that long enough, you can wind up being an 84 year old person acting out resentment towards yourself that you project onto the world around you, saying, this is just scary and pointless. to the world around you saying, this is just scary and pointless. To me, that's someone who's not riding the miraculous gift of their life all out. It's scary at times, yeah. Happy at times,

yeah. Sad at times, yeah. Thrilling, yeah. Just to all of that. So, man, I think the more we can let go of our hallucinations of certainty and embrace the mystery of life, the more we're meeting life on its terms. And I think just like an ocean wave, the ocean's a force of nature much stronger than us. It's gonna get its way. So if we're willing to paddle into the wave of life as it presents itself,

I think life feels better to us. It feels fulfilling. It feels purposeful. And we actually live in a state of reverence and celebration for our lives. And of course, go through times where we're freaking cursing at like whatever happened. Yet if we do that, we live most of our time in the reverence state. And in my delusional opinion. Brother, what an extraordinary conversation today.

There's not a minute in this conversation that was wasted. It was so good. And everybody, I hope you go follow JP. Thank you, JP, by the way, for today. So much, brother. Thank you. You're welcome, man. And thank you for having me brother. And the way you facilitate this conversation, I mean, you have more experience than me, more wisdom, but the fact that you just, you sit there so humbly, letting a weirdo like me share opinions, you serve up some questions that I honestly feel therapeutic for me to answer, even if nobody

hurts, I'm like, I'm walking away, feeling more connected to Ed and more connected to myself. So thank you, brother, forgive me the gift of this conversation. The gift was definitely mine, bro. And I'm so glad I get to share it with everybody and everyone, hey, it's from mind you, I take the end of every show. Go follow JP. You know, if you're not following me on Instagram, you gotta follow me, I'm a good follow,

but I run the max out two minute drill every day. Let me tell you why I do this, or I just want you to know. I just wanna connect with the people that are engaged with me in a way that, so I know what you need, what you want. I wanna be connected to you in a way that I'm creating content and bringing people

on like JP that I think can make a difference in your life. The two minute drill is really simple. Follow me, turn notifications on. When I make a post, 730 Pacific, 1030 Eastern every day, make a comment, and you're in a drawing every day. And you can increase your chances if you replied to other people's comments.

And if you missed the first two minutes, just make a comment on every post every day. At the end of the week, we add y'all up. You can win coaching calls with me, coaching with my guests, my book, take us to see me speak. Some folks have won rides on my jacks. This is cool stuff. We connected the max out gear. And so come connect with me on Instagram as well. And please share today's show and subscribe. And God bless everybody. Max out.

This is the end of my life, shall we?