Podcasts about really i'm

Sara's Bio: I am a Christian, a wife, a mother, a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, and a competitive runner. My husband, daughter, parents, extended family, and cats are my world. My career as the Director of Applied Behavior Analysis Services at a large developmental disabilities service agency makes my days fulfilling and interesting, and I also teach as an adjunct in Missouri State University's ABA Masters program. I am active in my local running club, the Ozark Mountain Ridge Runners, and lead a competitive training group. I also enjoy reading, traveling, photography, and scrap-booking. I am passionate about my running goals, the science of ABA, and about using my talents to serve others. Really I'm just an ordinary woman trying to make the most of my God-given abilities. Questions we ask Sara include: How did you get your start in running and how has your running developed over time? You have a wonderful blog titled, “Running Down the Dream.” Tell us why you started the blog and what you have learned from having it. We’ve LOVED your pieces in the series, “The 2:45:01 and Beyond.” For listeners who do not know, would you mind sharing a bit about what this is? What motivated you to share other women’s Olympic Trials journey stories? We know you are an accomplished runner yourself! How can the female running community and running world in general better share and promote stories like the ones you are sharing? What has been your own inspiration to chase after the Olympic Trials? What keeps you going each day to do what you love? What does being a Strong Runner Chick mean to you? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/strong-runner-chicks/support

I perform a rendition of Francisco Yates Satin Sheets. Really I'm just messing around scatting so to speak. Nothing serious but this is purely acapella. It is also for fun though I would love to collaborate with him and record a verse. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/Wulfpire/message

HAPPY MONDAY MOTIVATION! Welcome to the weekly podcast, No More Excuses! Thank you for listening and for sharing your comments... AND for sharing this podcast on your social media outlets! I help people realize their BADASSNESS! And that's what last week's podcast was all about – realizing when you felt like a BADASS! Do you remember when? For me it was when I ran my first half-marathon! I nailed the time I wanted and just felt confident the whole race. CONFIDENCE. That IS your BADASSNESS! Everyone has it, it just sometimes – for whatever reason – hides. We have to learn to let it out no matter what has happened. No matter how many times you've been rejected or feel dejected. It's hard to do that and it's scary sometimes. I help many of my clients with building their confidence. Even if they make lots of money and on the outside appear to have their shit together! Can't find yours? Don't feel like you have much of it? I've heard MANY people say "I wish I had as much confidence as her/him!" I was once told I exuded the confidence of a privileged white male! LOL right? REALLY? I'm not 100% sure what that meant, but I just said "THANK YOU!" What about YOU? On a scale of 1-10, where does your confidence level fall? Or does it depend on what you're doing? Stepping out of your fuzzy-slippered comfort zone can be scary and necessary to help you build your confidence! Listen in this week as I talk more about how your confidence changes as you do things you're comfortable doing or, like me... going against the "norm".  Remember, failure is temporary and regret is forever.  Have a great week and I look forward to hearing from you! Not feeling very confident? Email me - let's set up a time to talk about why! Cheers! Sandi

Tim Edwards of The InBound Podcasting Network joins Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S., for Episode One of the Move Look & Listen Podcast.   Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. is a full-service eye and vision care provider in Southern California and is a sought-after conference speaker, educator, and passionate advocate for patients diagnosed with dyslexia, specific learning disability, ADHD, autism, and any other qualifying diagnosis for an IEP or 504 plan. Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. 208 West Badillo St. Covina, CA 91723 Phone: 626-332-4510 Website: http://bit.ly/DouglasWStepheyWebsite Videos: http://bit.ly/DrStepheyOptometryVideos The Move Look & Listen Podcast is brought to you in part, by Audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30-day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like the Move Look & Listen Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com or visit www.InBoundPodcasting.com Transcription Below:  Tim Edwards: The Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey is brought to you by Audible. Get a free audiobook download and a 30-day free trial Audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including several books mentioned here in the podcast. Support the Move Look & Listen Podcast by visiting www.audibletrial.com/inbound.  Dr. Stephey: If our two eyes are not working together well as a fast synchronized team, our internal mapquest continues to be off. It's consistently inconsistent with our ability to judge time and space. Those that don't feel well-grounded, those that have some measure of anxiety, oftentimes it starts in the visual system. If you can't move, look and listen in a fast, accurate, effortless, sustainable, age appropriate, meaningful way, you're in a world of hurt. There's a whole world in vision and how it affects brain function that no one's ever shared with you. 20/20 is perceived as a holy grail of going to the eye doctor. Well, I'm here to change that paradigm.  Tim Edwards: Hello and welcome to the very first episode of the Move Look & Listen podcast with optometrist, Dr. Doug Stephey. My name is Tim Edwards and I'm the founder of the Inbound Podcasting Network. Amongst our roster of shows, we cover topics such as nutrition, high intensity strength training, celebrity interviews, wellness, family law, and many others. But the topic of this show is more than what meets the eye, so to speak. You might be thinking, why in the world is an optometrist doing a podcast? Well, that is because Dr. Stephey is much more than your everyday eye doctor. As you heard in the opening of the podcast, Dr. Stephey mentions that vision directly relates to one's ability to function in life and that one is very obvious. But vision also affects the development of your sense of self, your place in the world, how you socially engage with others, your ability over your lifetime to receive further education, to live independently and have gainful employment.  Tim Edwards: Now, most of what I just mentioned may seem easy for most, but in reality it's definitely not for some. Dr. Stephey not only has a thriving optometry practice in southern California, but he is also here on the Move Look & Listen podcast to educate how vision therapy combined with specific lenses or prisms can greatly benefit those who might be diagnosed with ADHD. Or for parents who have children that land somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Or maybe even has a student in special education. In this podcast, Dr. Stephey will also educate us regarding common eye problems. How nutrition plays a key role in your vision health, and what exactly is 20/20 vision and why seeing 20/20 is not enough to move, look and listen through your life with ease. Our sister company to the Inbound Podcasting Network is Inbound Films and as you are about to hear, we produced a series of videos for Dr. Stephey's practice a couple of years ago. I was so impressed with Dr. Stephey and his amazing staff that he became our family optometrist and has also become a good friend. So it gives me great pleasure to kick off the maiden voyage of the Move Look & Listen podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey.  Dr. Stephey: Well, thank you and I'm excited to be here. Since we met and you talked about the things that I should be doing, like the videos that are on my website and the podcasting, and at one point in time I said, so let me get this right. I should just listen to you and get out of my own way. Tim Edwards: Yes, you did. And I think it's taken us a couple of years and we're here. And your passion and the message that you have to share is one that our audience needs because you're a nonconventional optometrist. And I hope that you take pride in that and not offended by that. Because you're very different and I believe that the world needs you, not just so that they can have some really cool looking glasses sitting on their nose.  Dr. Stephey: Well, you know, what's interesting about that is no, I did not take offense to it and because many times when I do the weird stuff in my office, people will tell me that I'm a voodoo doctor, or that I'm a witch doctor. And you know what?  Dr. Stephey: I can live with that. I'm okay with that.  Tim Edwards: You know why there's results, right? You're seeing results. I've seen the results myself and with what you've shown me on video.  Dr. Stephey: What's really interesting about that is if I take somebody who has postural issues, right? And most people would not associate posture problems with vision problems. And certainly not in their understanding of that the holy grail of going to the optometrist is to see 20/20. And that's important, but it's not the most important piece. I don't think. So, if I'm going to assess somebody's posture and their response to changes in posture through their visual system, I will often preface our conversation with, I don't know if this is going to work with you or not, but I'm willing to take the chance because if it doesn't work, you're just gonna think I'm crazy. And if it does work, you're going to think I can walk on water. Because how could I change the way your knee hurts or the way your hip hurt or the way your back hurts or the way your neck hurts by putting on a pair of glasses with prism or color. You don't believe it until you've experienced it.  Tim Edwards: That's true and I've experienced it for myself than just a personal story. My wife is experiencing it as we speak. She had the opportunity to see you a couple of weeks ago. She's now wearing her lenses that you prescribed for her, her colored lenses and we'll get into more of that a little bit later. But she is around fluorescent light all the time. That used to bother her and now it doesn't, as a result of these lenses. And that's the first time I've told you that is right here in the recording. So, you know, like I said in the lead into the episode, I told the story of how this podcast came to be Dr. Stephey. We don't want to scare people away when you say the word witch doctor because that might make people freak out a little bit, but give us a rundown of your optometry practice because it's not your run of the mill optometry practice where you're in and out in an hour with a pair of glasses.  Dr. Stephey: Early on in my career when I first bought this practice in 1988 and I was reading practice management tools, one of the fundamental questions that has to be asked and answered is, do you want to be a quantity practice or do you want to be a quality practice? Quantity practice is just that. It's about. It's about crunching the numbers, how many people you can get through your exam in an hour, and I chose not to do that. I wanted to be a quality practice and I see less patients per hour, but I think I spend much more quality time. I actually listen to patients. I've gotten much better over the years about watching patients. It's not uncommon that I'll notice that somebody taps their leg or wiggles a foot or drums their fingers or chews their lip or other quirky behaviors that they oftentimes know they have, but nobody's explained why they have and that's not ADHD.  Dr. Stephey: Most of the time that's an undiagnosed and untreated vision problem and that they need that kind of movement in order to shower up thier otherwise poor vision skills. So I decided to be a quality practice and when somebody comes to see me for an exam, I want them to learn how the eyes and brain have to work together as an integrated team and that in order to function appropriately in life, you've got to have eyes that see fast, that see accurately, that see effortlessly and sustainably over the course of the entire day. And if you can't do those things, there's going to be behavioral consequences to it. Either you're going to be pushed to be in fight or flight or you're going to learn how not to pay attention, right? That's the group that describes themselves or others describe them as daydreamers or spacey or staring out the window or absent-minded professor.  Dr. Stephey: That's an adaptation to typically not being in fight or flight. High fear, high anxiety, high distractibility. And then the third way some people adapt is they're chronically fatigued and they feel like over the course of the whole day they end up walking around on their last nerve. And oftentimes that's one of these undiagnosed underassessed, and undertreated vision problems. So that's really why I have practiced the way I do.  Tim Edwards: And it's evident from the moment that you walk into your practice, again, referring back to the intro to this podcast, I was able to meet you on a video project. And I won't go into too much into it right now because I talked it about earlier. But when I met with you to prepare and plan the video, the very first thing you did was stick me in your chair and go, all right, here's what I do.  Tim Edwards: I mean, I've been wearing glasses and contacts for over 25 years. Even had LASIK surgery back in the early 2000s. And I mentioned earlier that I've filmed dozens of marketing videos for optometrists throughout southern California. So I can say with great confidence that your methods that a patient experiences in your initial exam are slightly unconventional, which is a word that you embrace with your practice. They go way beyond the typical, you know, which lens looks better, one or two. And it's truly Dr. Stephey not hyperbole when I say that you blew my mind when I produced that first video, which of course, again, we'll have links to in the show notes. So you can see Dr. Stephey for yourself, for those that are listening while you're driving to work or walking the dog or on the treadmill or something. But please share, if you don't mind with our audience, some of the things that a new patient can expect when they see you for the first time, for that consultation, that same consultation that blew my mind.  Tim Edwards: How you're able to assess what you just spoke about. How we can, how you can determine whether or not someone is in constant fatigue or feeling anxiety or lack of concentration.  Dr. Stephey: You Bet. So first thing I want to say is there is great value in the part of the exam about which one is better, choice one or choice two. But what's interesting is that oftentimes patients will stress out about picking an answer. And if I ever get the feeling or somebody voices that concern to me, I remind them or tell them maybe for the first time after years of being stressed out with other exams, I remind them that I'm trying to get them to a point where the differences between the choices are so small that they can't pick a right answer because they're both right. So the little secret is we should get you to the point where you can't tell the difference between one or two. So stop stressing out about the choices.  Tim Edwards: There's always anxiety associated with that because you know that you're going to be committing to some lenses and so you want it to be right and perfect. So that anxiety that I've always felt, you know, like I said, wearing glasses for a quarter of a century and going and seeing different optometrists throughout the country, that the anxiety of picking one or two, you alleviate that. Just by how you worded it. And that is the very first thing that I noticed was, oh, that, that was easier than I thought. And that's just step one. That's foundation. Dr. Stephey: That's foundation. And the other thing to consider is a two circle venn diagram. So if we take two circles and partially overlap them those two circles are where most eye doctors practice. And one circle is can you see 20/20 and the other circle is related to eye health and/or eye disease. And again, those two circles have great value but they're insufficient. So there's a third circle that we're going to add into the venn diagram. And that third circle is really in my estimation, where all the magic happens. In that third circle, there is eye taming, eye focusing, eye tracking, visual attention, visual-auditory skills, visual-spatial skills, visual auditory, visual motor. And on and on it goes. Most eye doctors pretend like that third circle doesn't exist. So even if you've got major problems in the third circle.. Dr. Stephey: It's probably gone undiagnosed and untreated. Whether you had an exam the day before you came to see me or whether you've been going to the eye doctor like you have for 25 years. If you don't measure components in the third circle, if you don't ask questions in your history about the symptoms typically experienced by somebody having third circle problems, then you're never going to find those problems.  Tim Edwards: That's pretty clear.  Dr. Stephey: It's pretty simple. So I think one of the fundamental differences in my practice is when you walk in my exam room, well you know what, that's not even really true because it could be outside of my exam room. If I go to a bank and strike up a conversation with the teller about what I do, it's not unusual for me to ask them if they have a history of migraines or headaches.  Dr. Stephey: That's a simple question and a lot of people have those problems. So if I get a yes answer to that, it's already opened the door for us to have a conversation about me asking some other questions and then the patient looks at me like, what? What is going on? Because I'm answering yes to everything that you're asking me. And it's just that easy. So when you walk in my exam room, I am assuming that you have a third circle problem until you prove to me that you don't. And what I mean by prove to me it's either going to be the questions I asked you during the course of the exam or the questions that I hand to you at the end of the exam and have you go home and think about for a few days or during the course of my exam itself where I measure some things.  Dr. Stephey: For example, how easily or how difficult it is for you to cross your two eyes. Because that allows us to strike up a conversation about the way your two eyes work together as a team. How, if we think about the two eyes is being global positioning satellites that have to be in synchronous orbit and if your two global positioning satellites are not in synchronous orbit, then your internal map quest is off. A couple of the other quick assessments that I do in my office, I've got a couple of devices that allow you to see, let's say a vertical line through your rigght eye and a horizontal line through your left eye. And if your brain is using your two eyes together as an integrated team, you should see a plus sign. Well some people look at these targets and only see one line.  Dr. Stephey: So that gives me an opportunity to demonstrate to them that that they weren't looking through one of their two eyes and that is a concept, I think you used the phrase earlier that blows their mind.  Tim Edwards: That was the first thing that blew my mind was, oh my gosh, how did that happen? How was it that I had been seeing this one line and not the other?  Dr. Stephey: Right. And what exactly do you mean that my brain isn't looking through my left eye? I thought our eyes just looked out in space, picked up information and filter it back to the brain that we then processed. Well, that is how most people think about vision, but remember the retina, which everybody's heard of, right? The retina is specialized brain tissue that's pushed out into the eyeball. And the optic nerve is one of the 12 cranial nerves that is a direct branch off of the brain.  Dr. Stephey: So to be very clear, the brain does the scene, not the eyes. And in this context, the brain has to pick up data from the right eye, has to correlate it with the data in the left eye and then combine the two in order to use the two eyes together as a well integrated team. But if there's too much conflict. And now that happens, oftentimes in fact I would argue that the smartest of brains, will figure it out how to turn one eye off because if you can't use your two eyes together as a well-integrated team, your brain's either going to use your two eyes together as a poorly integrated team and lend itself to you being physically clumsy or to have a lot of fatigue or get tired or sleepy when you're read or be prone to headaches or migraines. So the brain's thinking, well, I can use the two eyes together that way, but be miserable doing it.  Dr. Stephey: Or I can shut one eye off and test drive what's life like if I do that. And then what's really the most, I think one of the most fun things about that whole discussion is when I point out to the patient about their wiggley left foot or they're chewing on their lip and we'll do that same assessment again and I'll have them do whatever they're quirky behavior was and probably 95, 97, 99 times out of 100, when they do that kind of movement, their brain will turn that eye on and tend to keep it on. So then we have another blow my mind moment because you know, I convey to them it's like, are you beginning to understand that all that motor overflow that  you've been doing is actually trying to solve the vision problem you didn't know you had. I'm like, how smart is your brain that it has figured that out and you don't even know it.  Dr. Stephey: So I think in part that's how my practice is different. I'm assuming that you have this problem until you prove to me that you don't.  Tim Edwards: And I would venture to guess that the majority, if not every single person who's listening to this has never experienced that at their optometrist, unless of course they're already listening and they're clients of yours. Is this done elsewhere? The way you set up your practice.  Dr. Stephey: Interesting thing about that, Tim, is that optometrists, at least part of us have been doing this kind of work since the 1930s and it was likely more common in the 50s and 60s maybe up even until the mid to late 70s. And then optometry as a profession started to increase it's scope of practice and started to do more medical things, which is fine. I think we should be able to practice within our scope so we should embrace the things that we're trained to know how to do, but not abandon the things that have made optometry so unique in its history.  Dr. Stephey: And as more optometrists adopted the medical model, they moved away from this behavioral or this neuro-developmental model. So I would venture to say that there's maybe 10 or 15 percent of optometrists in practice today that practice in this way. But I wouldn't change it for the world. I've said this in other venues, being able to practice this way and change people's lives in the manner in which we can do this. It's chicken soup for my soul, so I get to feel great everyday about what I do because it is life changing. You bet, Tim. So as an example, you're going to learn in the future why 20/20 is not enough. It's important. But remember that third circle part of the venn diagram, 20/20 is not enough. There's a whole lot more going on. You're going to learn about a concept you've never heard before.  Dr. Stephey: Called the magnocellular visual system, which is about seeing fast.  Tim Edwards: Seeing fast.  Dr. Stephey: Seeing fast. People know that when they go to the eye doctor, it's about seeing 20/ 20, right?  Tim Edwards: That's what we're told.  Dr. Stephey: Well that's not enough. We also have to account for how fast or how slow we see. Because there are a number of patients, kids and adults alike who have been defined as having slow processing speed. What typically isn't getting discussed is what exactly are we referring to when kids have slow processing speeds. While invariably it's tied in to vision. Even though most psychologists and cognitive psychologists don't describe processing speed in vision terms in most cases, there is a tie into these visual skills. So we're going to talk about seeing fast or slow. We're going to talk about the volume of space that you can see. That's something else that doesn't get talked about a whole lot.  Dr. Stephey: Some people who exhibit inattentive tendencies essentially have tunnel vision. So imagine the cardboard tubes at the end of the paper towel roll, and if we took the two of those and glued them to the front of your eyes, and that's the volume of space you could see. Well your head's going to be on a swivel top because you only see that big volume of space. So in order to capture your environment, you have to look and take a snapshot of each picture. That's that tiny, and you effectively have to build a collage and your mind of all the snapshots that you've just taken in order to try to image then the volume of space that you're supposed to see. And similarly, in terms of the tunnel vision, oftentimes people do the same thing with auditory and touch. These are the kids as an example where you might say, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, because they have learned how to be auditory and attentive.  Dr. Stephey: They have hyperfocused to a task and tuned everything else out in order to be able to try and do the task at hand.  Tim Edwards: There is the listen part of Move Look Listen.  Dr. Stephey: Yup. And similarly, if you're somebody in their 60s and 70s, this becomes an issue when you drive. Because if you imagine again the paper towel tubes and you're looking straight ahead and that's the volume of space that you see and some kids playing in the yard and his ball rolls out in the street and you don't see them until he's right in front of you, that's not good. And when you can only function with a small volume of space, it also contributes to your clumsiness. These are the patients that have bruises from hip to ankle, from running into the corners of tables or chairs, they run into the edge of a door frame, they don't like driving in the car pool lane because the whizzing pass to their peripheral vision of the concrete dividers is too upsetting. So we're going to be talking about those things.  Tim Edwards: Boy, these are every day run of the mill tasks that we all have and without thinking of that volume. It's almost like tunnel vision and it just inhibits how we function.  Dr. Stephey: Yes, because your brain has to make a decision about the volume of space that you're going to attend to or can attend to, and the speed with which you do it. So you can either see big and slow, smaller and faster. And one patient said, well, what if I want to see big and fast anyway, even if I don't have the skills to do it?   Dr. Stephey: I said, well, you can force yourself to do that but then you will be tired and cranky at the end of the day.  Tim Edwards: It's exhausting, right.  Dr. Stephey: It is exhausting. You can do it, but there's going to be a price to pay and it's going to be exhausting. And when you're that exhausted, it's going to wear out your adrenal glands. It's going to have some role to play in chronic gut dysfunction and it's likely to play a role in headaches and that you're just fatigued all the time.  Tim Edwards: My gosh, it's foundational. It's just foundational and everything is connected. If you think about all of the different ailments and problems or struggles or anxiety or stress that can be a result of not seeing fast or having great volume with your vision.  Dr. Stephey: Well, what's interesting about that, Tim, because that ties right into the next topics which has to do with nutrition and fish oil. And I was just at a nutrition conference yesterday all day and during one of the breaks, one of the other attendees, we introduced ourselves and she's a chiropractor. And most people in this group, there were a number of chiropractors, some acupuncturists, there was one M.D., there was one pharmacist and me. And when I told her I was an optometrist, reflexively, she said, what are you doing here?  Tim Edwards: Yeah, why are you here?  Dr. Stephey: And we didn't have much time to talk about it, but clearly she had fallen into the trap of, well all someone would come to see you for is to be able to see 20/20. And then I just said, you know..  Tim Edwards: Send her a link to the podcast and then let her subscribe and then she'll understand.  Dr. Stephey: Yes. That's excellent. Well, you know, she did want my contact information. So I texted her.  Tim Edwards: Wonderful.  Dr. Stephey: I may follow up with her and say, hey, what's your email because I need to send you some stuff. And where are you located? Because you're an 818 area code. So you're, within striking distance to my office, you need to know what I know.  Tim Edwards: That's right.  Dr. Stephey: So further episodes we are going to talk about nutrition and vision because we cannot parse out our brain functioning abilities and the way our GI tract functions from these visual skills that are all happening in that third circle.  Dr. Stephey: So nutrition is a critical part of the way I practice this kind of optometry. It has to be.  Tim Edwards: And again, have never heard an optometrist say that, and it's foundational. I mean, it comes down to what we put in our body, how it affects everything, not just our weight.  Dr. Stephey: No. Every cell membrane in your body has a component of fatty acids to it as an example. And your body and brain is going to make those cell membranes out of good fats or bad fats. And the problem is that we're exposed to way too many bad fats. People have heard something about omega-3 fatty acids and omega-6 as well. We're going to talk about in more detail the differences between those two and the consequences to your brain and your visual skills and you're learning and attention. So those will be coming in future episodes.  Dr. Stephey: I'm going to be talking about something called retained primitive reflexes. Retained primitive reflexes have a foundational role to play in our abilities to develop our move, looking and listening abilities. So I've seen kids as an example who've done six, seven, 800 hours of occupational therapy and speech therapy and adaptive physical education services. They've been to reading tutors six to 800 hours.  Tim Edwards: My goodness. And I didn't hear vision therapy in there at all.  Dr. Stephey: No. And and they still have tremendously poor outcomes because I think most cases the visual skills are never assessed. So they're being jumped over and if you don't have these visual skills, you can't do those other outcomes in a way that you should be able to.  Tim Edwards: It's that key missing component.  Dr. Stephey: It's a key missing component. You know, at the bottom of my learning ladder, there's genetics and epigenetics, there's nutrition, then there's primitive reflexes. So it is really low down on the ladder and if you tried to jump over that and do things that are three or four rungs up the ladder, you're not going to have great outcomes.  Tim Edwards: Perfect example.  Dr. Stephey: And the sad thing about that discussion, which happens all too often, it's pretty much universal, is that you contribute to these kids misery because now there are six to seven out of eight hours in and not really getting better and it snuffs the spark of their really being interested in getting better because they increasingly don't believe they can. Because their life experiences would tell them, hey look, you're 700 hours into doing therapy, you're really not better than when we started. That is really sad.  Tim Edwards: It is very sad and expensive. I mean, of course it's more important that it's sad. But it's also quite expensive too.  Dr. Stephey: It is very expensive and it could be that the school district is paying for it. And in one of the upcoming episodes, we're going to talk about educational rights as it relates to your move, look and listening abilities.  Dr. Stephey: And you're going to learn a lot about what your rights really are as a parent. And how likely those rights have been violated even as we speak. So I think that's going to be one of the most exciting episodes for parents to hear. Parents, grandparents, and even some educators because if you're a classroom teacher who's, in the front lines, teaching these kids, those kids and their behaviors are disrupting the flow of your classroom. So you really want to know this information because it's going to make your life easier in the classroom. And ultimately it's going to affect that child's life who's in your classroom. If not during the year that you have them, certainly for the future.  Tim Edwards: And perhaps these educators with that knowledge can look upon those children with a lot more grace than they would before, knowing what they're going through.  Dr. Stephey: Well, I think they will. And another example of that, this past week I've had an opportunity to assess a 16-year-old. She's had an IEP for a number of years, has never had this vision assessment as is pretty much universally true. Let's be real. It's universally true. And she's currently kicked out of school because she's gotten in one too many fights at school. She's fairly disconnected when she's in class and I believe that it's primarily related to the problems that we're going to be talking about in these future episodes. It is a combination of nutrition and this vision piece. So she is perpetually in a constant state of fear that is beyond her control. I mean it's not surprising or would not be surprising to me that somebody brushes up against her in the hallway and she's ready to punch him in the face because she perceives that as a threat.  Dr. Stephey: And when, when you're pushed to be in survival based behavior, it's survival at all cost. So if somebody invades your personal space and touches you and you perceive it as a threat, you're going to fight back. So I think she's oftentimes swinging the first punch and doesn't even know it until after it's happened.  Tim Edwards: And others might look upon that as an offensive, aggressive behavior and it is. But the root of it is it's really defensive because of what's going on in her mind being in fear all the time.  Dr. Stephey: Absolutely. That's what's happening and I think that is in great part why she throws her hood up. When she's in class because she's trying to withdraw into her shell and not feel that miserable and not feel that anxious, not feel like I want to run out of the room screaming. I'm forced to be here, but the only way I can really survive this is to learn how not to pay attention.   Dr. Stephey: It is really sad and I was talking to her mom about this and you never know when you're going to strike the right chord because I was having a discussion with her mom about about this. Her being pushed to be in constant fear and I made the comment about how if you're in this state, if your autonomic nervous system is so dysregulated that you are in a constant state of fear that you could make eye contact with somebody across the room and be ready to go over and punch him because you perceive them looking at you as a glare. Right. It's like, why are you looking at me that way? Really? I'm just looking at you and then that turns into a confrontation and so her mom had mentioned to me that, that is exactly what happens to her. She misinterprets facial cues and that's going to tie into one of the future episodes as well. We're going to talk about something called the polyvagal theory of affect, emotion and self-regulation. And that if your autonomic nervous system is dysregulated that you are precluded or prevented from engaging in social behavior or at least positive social behavior. You may be engaged in negative social behavior and that's what's gotten her kicked out of school right now. So we're also going to be talking about learning disabilities and dyslexia because as an example, in my estimation, those are just labels.  Dr. Stephey: They don't really tell us anything. And when, when I meet somebody in my office and if it's a parent and they say, oh, my child has a learning disability or my child's dyslexic. I usually say, what do you mean by that?  Dr. Stephey: And then they look at me like, what do you mean, what do I mean? And I said, well, you're the one that threw out the term, I want to know what your understanding of that term actually means. And that's when they pause and they're like, I guess I don't really know what it means. I said, okay, well amuse me for a second. I'm going to rattle off some terms you tell me which of these terms you know could define and specifically how they apply to your child. Phonological processing, rapid naming speed, working memory, convergence insufficiency, vergence facility, accommodative facility, ocular motor skills, retained primitive reflexes, millisecond timing clock deficits, and your child's AA-EPA ratio as measured in their blood. And then I get that blank stare.  Dr. Stephey: They typically don't know any of these answers because nobody's sharing the information with them.  Tim Edwards: They were just labeled.  Dr. Stephey: They were just labeled. So you know, that's really the purpose of this first series of podcasts is that I want to broaden people's knowledge about what is out there. The labels don't mean anything, not really. Learning disability, dyslexia, reading disorder, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, ADHD, inattentive ADD. Those are just labels. They recognize the behaviors, but I want to go back to my holy bucket analogy, and assess why are you ending up with those behaviors. And how again, that ties into your abilities to move, look and listen. And shouldn't we be assessing for those skills and treating those skills because I don't care what your chronological age is. If there's a big gap between your developmental age and your chronological age related to your abilities to move, look and listen you're going to struggle.  Dr. Stephey: And that ties also into kids on the spectrum because you know when we go from however we define normal and we slide down the scale of behaviors while there is normal and then there's ADDness and ADHDness and then there's high functioning autism and asperger's, and nonverbal learning disabilities, and then there's more traditional spectrum kids that are not as high functioning and then there's kids who are nonverbal. All of this is on a continuum. So when I assess even a nonverbal child, I'm looking at their abilities to move, look and listen, and how those skills allow them to regulate their autonomic nervous system and engage their social behaviors to facilitate their ability to read gestural language and body language and facial expressions and think about that for a minute. Gestural language, body language and facial expressions all read through the visual system.  Tim Edwards: That's true. It's all absorbed through their eyes.  Dr. Stephey: It is, and most social psychologists would tell you that 80 percent of what somebody is telling you is through their body language, not the words coming out of their mouth. Because there's more messaging in the nonverbal cues. We're going to wrap up the first series with two different episodes. One is going to talk about brain injuries and alzheimer's and one is going to talk about headaches and migraines because both of those things have a tremendous visual overlay. For example, there's estimated to be 3 million sensory neurons that feed information to the brain through vision, auditory, taste, touch and smell. And of that 3 million nerve fibers, there's roughly 30,000 auditory nerve fibers per ear and roughly 1.2 million per eye. Almost two and a half of the 3 million sensory inputs to our brain and our brain's ability to experience our environment, are tied up in the visual system. And that goes directly in to the third circle of the venn diagram.  Tim Edwards: Wow, that's it. Move Look Listen with Dr. Stephey. You know you mentioned, you alluded to it earlier when we were going through some of the topics we're gonna cover in season one of the podcast, but I'd like for you to dive down just a little bit more to Dr. Stephey if you don't mind, into what it is in one statement, what it is you want to accomplish by producing and distributing this content through your Move Look Listen podcast.  Dr. Stephey: The purpose of my doing this podcast and how it relates to one's ability to move, look and listen, relates to your ability to function in life, your development of your sense of self, your place in this world, how you socially engage with others, your ability over your lifetime to receive further education, live independently, and have gainful employment. That's the purpose of Move Look & Listen.  Tim Edwards: Well, I can't wait to delve into season one with you, Dr. Stephey. This has been a long time coming and I do believe much needed information for anybody struggling with any of those issues that we've talked about here in our inaugural maiden voyage of the podcast. Thank you for your time and looking forward to season one with you Dr. Stephey.  Dr. Stephey: Thank you.  Tim Edwards: Thank you for listening to the Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial of audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including books mentioned here in the Move Look & Listen podcast. You can listen to these books through your iphone, your android, your kindle, your computer, or even an MP3 player. And if for any reason and at any time you choose to cancel your membership, you keep all of your audio book, downloads. Give it a shot for 30 days. You got nothing to lose. Support the Move Look & Listen podcast by visiting audibletrial.com/inbound. We will include a link for your convenience, in the show notes of this and every episode of the podcast. And of course if you like some more information regarding Dr. Stephey's practice or to make an appointment, we will include links in the show notes to Dr. Stephey's website and his youtube channel.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey's website is stepheyoptometry.com. That's s t e p h e y optometry.com. You can also call the office at 626-332-4510. Again, all of Dr. Stephey's contact information will be included in the show notes of each and every episode. One last request before we let you go on to the next episode, please subscribe to the podcast from whichever platform you might be listening in. Of course, it is free to subscribe and it ensures that every time we post a new episode, you'll find it right there waiting for you to listen in your podcast app of choice. We really do appreciate your listening and until next time for Dr. Stephey of the Move Look & Listen podcast. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.    

The owner of Identified Talent Solutions, it's a talent recruitment company and this company has grown to the point where it's in the ink 500 Paul David   Stefan: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show. Respect the Grind with Stefan Aarnio. This is the show where we interview people who have achieved mastery and freedom through discipline. We interview entrepreneurs, athletes, authors, artists, real estate investors, anyone who's achieved mastery and examined what it took to get there. Today on the show we have Paul David. He is the owner of Identified Talent Solutions, it's a talent recruitment company and this company has grown to the point where it's in the ink 500 of feet. Indeed Paul, welcome to the show. Respect the grind. Good to see you, my friend. Paul: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me Stefan. Stefan: Awesome. Yeah, I love having guys like you on the show because we got so many real estate people. I'm a real estate investor you know, I teach flipping houses and rental properties and stuff like that. And I love having someone from a different field and so for the people at home who don't know you that well Paul, tell us how'd you get started in the talent recruitment business? That's something that I'm sure is an awesome business. I've just never thought about it. So how did you get started? Paul: Sure. It was about 15 years ago, right out of college. I got into a firm that does third party recruiting. So basically they provide candidates, they provide employees to other companies. I did that for about six months. Very salesy position. Didn't think I was very good at it. I was really, really shy back then. But then I went into a mortgage company, they shot as a recruiter, mortgage was booming back then. I learned my whole entire trade from that particular point. After 10 years I decided, well it's about time to go on my own, utilized a lot of the relationships that I had over my 10 year career and I built the business basically in my garage. Stefan: Wow. I love stories where it starts in the garage. I think Apple started like that. All of these, I think Harley Davidson started in the garage. They all start in garages. I think Google started in a garage too. Paul: Yeah. Amazon started in the garage. Stefan: Yeah Bro. It's great. So really pertinent topic I think is recruiting. And a lot of people listening to the show, maybe they're solo preneurs or maybe they got like two employees or one employee or they want to recruit more. How does somebody effectively recruit? 'Cause I'll let the cat out of the bag here Paul. Every recruit I've done for my business has always been a referral. I've never done well with a head hunter. I've never done well with somebody recruiting for me it's always been through someone I know and I've tried agencies before. I've spent money before for whatever reason they don't stick. The talent is good if they don't know my brand or they don't know me in advance for whatever reason doesn't go. So how do you effectively recruit talent for so many companies and how does that match really work? Paul: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean I think what they need and recruitment's really tough because it's not only a matter of just the skill set that they have, but it's also how do you fit that person into a culture? Even if they have the incredible skillset. I mean that person might be really successful in one company, but then they go into a different culture and then they're completely off. So it is a little bit of a difficult process, but you said that most of your hires have been referrals. That by far is the best way to hire people in your company. Is if somebody in your company or yourself or someone that you know and trust vouches for them then that's fantastic. It's almost kind of like dating. If you meet someone and they're like, yeah, they are a great person, then generally you're going to trust that. Paul: But, if you don't have that capability, it is really important to stream that person properly. Now there's no silver bullet. So I mean you've kind of seen it. There's no silver bullet in picking the right person off the bat. I mean employment's like a dating process. So what we do is one, we're very narrow in the things that we do. So we know the skill set. So if you're a generalist and you're trying to do everything for everyone, like the larger staffing firms, it's really hard to understand what kind of skills are looking for cause you have to master one particular vertical. So what we do is we're mastering one specific vertical and understanding the skillset so the candidate is an optimal candidate from a skillset perspective. Then what we need to do is really, really build that relationship with the client. What is their team like? I mean not only the culture of the company, but what's the team like? How do they operate? What are they composed of? I mean what do they like to do? So you can look at the intangibles and the tangibles and place that candidate properly. Paul: So that's kind of how we do it. We really have to, I mean it's like a dating process. We got to make sure that we know our client really well so we know exactly what kind of candidate put in there. Stefan: I like what you say about the dating and I teach people real estate investing and they'll say, "How do I get a good deal?" And I'm like, "Bro, you got a good deal in real estate just like dating." You pick the most beautiful girl at the school, the Prom Queen. And if you go ask on stage wearing her sash that says homecoming and her tiara, you're never going to get a date. But if you wait for her to break up with her boyfriend and she's under the bleachers crying, wearing some dirty sweatpants with makeup running down her face, that's the time where you go in there and go, "Hey baby, look, let's grab a cheeseburger." And she's like, "I've been hungry for years. Let's go." And so it's really interesting 'cause I think people always try to over complicate business. Stefan: We always go, "Oh man, it's different. My industry is different. This business is different. This time it's different." It never is. It really is just dating. It's relationships. And I like what you said about, it's almost like a marriage. These two people have to come together, the culture has to come in with the skill set and it has to fold together. What do you think when you're out there recruiting people Paul, what's the most important thing that you look for in any candidate? Maybe like is it grit? Is it drive? Is it just general intelligence? What's something that when you're just meeting talent that you want to see in just about everybody? Paul: For me what I'm looking for is an intangible skillset. You can have someone that has the most impressive resume, the most impressive of education, but if they don't have a personality where they can build relationships, well I mean, at the end of the day, the fundamentals of business is relationships. If you do not know how to build a relationship, then you're just going to fail, period. I mean like, you know, I don't care how much you automate things, all the click funnels I hear, if you do know how to shake hands, talk to somebody and really build that relationship, you're not going to be successful, period. So I want to make sure that one of the things that we make sure it is how do we converse with this person? Will this person be able to influence other ... I don't care if it's an individual contributor or a manager. They need to be able to interact with people regardless if they do software development or if they're a nurse. Paul: So relationship skills are very, very important. Communication skills are very, very important and that's what we look for first and foremost. It's not a complicated thing, but I think people would really want to work with other people and that they can kind of get along. And if that happens then what happens is you build trust, right? So once you build trust, because you [inaudible 00:06:37] then you can kind of work through anything else. Stefan: I love that. So is it more, would you say, are you looking for more he EQ or IQ? I guess you're more of an EQ guy. Emotional quotient. Paul: I'm an EQ guy. I mean most of the people that I have, you know what I first did this, I was looking for skills, but when I started my company, I was looking for grit. I was looking for someone that had tenacity. Someone that wanted to improve, I can teach them the skills, I can't teach them to drive. Stefan: You just got to respect the grinding bro. Yeah there go. You've got a gong already. A gong's been hit man. I like that. You know, grit is something that in the military academies, they noticed that that's the number one thing that keeps people going. And one thing I say all the time is, I fail at 80% of the stuff I do. I'm failing all the fricking time, man. I'm an entrepreneur, so it's constant failure. And then the 20% I win on is so big. It handles all the losses and then some. Now, how would you describe grit? What is grit? What is the ability to keep going? What is that? Paul: You kind of hit it on the head. It's like for me happens after my why. Why do I want to achieve something? Why do I want to, what is it that's important to me? Once I fundamentally understand why something's important to me, then it's the dedication. What I've learned about grit is grit really is the ability to embrace failure, right? And really learn from that failure. 'Cause here's the deal. I don't care what you do in life you're going to fail. I don't care if it's walking down the street. One of these days you're going to fail. 'Cause I look at things this way, you're going to fail or you're going to succeed. And those two instances for failure, I'm going to learn something. I'm going to learn something really quick so it doesn't happen again. And if I do that, then I'm going to succeed. So I try to rush into failure as much as I can. Paul: I try to embrace it as much as I can and I look at it, I think being able to have grit is you can look at that failure not as a failure itself, but an opportunity to learn. Because all of us entrepreneurs, if we don't know how to learn from our failures, we're never going to be succeeding. So I've kind of looked at it in a different perspective. I actually enjoy failure because it's like, "Oh crap, I didn't do this right. Well let's try to figure out something else." So that's how I see it. So I think grit is the ability to understand that failure is more of a learning opportunity and something that sets us back forever. Stefan: I like what John Maxwell says. He says, "You either win or you learn." Paul: Yeah. That's in his book Failing Forward. Stefan: Yeah, you win and you learn. And that's just something I started to do in my life. I had some pretty hardcore things happen to me this year is what's the meaning of this? What's the story? What am I learning here? And I don't know if you ever read the book Man's Search for Meaning. You ever read that Viktor Frankl? It's one of Tony Robbin's favorites, and it's about a man who was thrown in the Nazi death camps in World War II. And he had a book manuscript, I guess he was like a scientist or something. A book manuscript he was going to publish and the Nazis took his book and they I don't burn it or ripped it up. They took it away from him. And what he noticed when he was inside the death camps was the optimist died first. So the people who were "Oh, we'll be out by Christmas, we'll be out by Christmas, we'll be out by Christmas." Stefan: Christmas comes, they die of a broken heart. But the people who lived through the death camps were the people who had meaning and they had a child to see. They had a book to write, they had a spouse to go find after the camp. And that to me when something bad happens to you in life, it's so interesting because there's two meanings. There's the victim meaning you can have, and then there's the, what am I learning meaning. Is that something you see in some of these very successful people where they have major setbacks and kind of the bigger the setback, the higher they climb? Paul: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of people that have overcome tragedy, have been very, very successful because they know how to adapt to it and they know how to get over it. I think when we first started talking, I told you I never really wanted to be an entrepreneur. I was kind of forced at it where my wife died of cancer at 36 we went through a four and a half year battle with cancer. I was left with a four year old. I had $150,000 in debt. And it's like I had to make a decision at that particular point. I had to look up my why, which was my daughter. What am I going to do? Am I going to crumble? Am I going to fall apart? I mean, that's not an alternative that I want. So I did, and I had no idea how to start this company. Paul: All I know was I needed to do it. So with that intensity and that drive, I said, I have to make this happen. And after that what's all your focus is I think from tragedy, once all your focus is pointed to one direction, then you'll start to see the opportunities that you've never seen before. So, I mean, I think people that have gone through tragedies and really decided to not let that tragedy define who they are, but let their choices make them who they are, that you see magic when that happens. Because intensity to succeeding and making sure that they're never defined by what happened to them in life so. Stefan: Bro I'm giving you a gong. I love you, man. Dude, I love you man. You know that story you have. I'm so sorry to hear your wife died. I mean that's just the most brutal thing. But I love that you picked up the pieces and I love that you saw the why in your daughter. And I love that you were able to get that emotional charge 'cause so many people would have folded like a lawn chair. It's so easy. Whenever you go downtown, you see a homeless guy on the side of the street. That's someone who folded a lawn chair, but you said, "No, I'm going to use this. I'm going to use it as fuel." And it's tremendous to see what you built. Now shifting gears a little bit, Paul- Paul: I actually wanted to kind of comment on that I don't know it's going to be ... I have colleagues and friends that have children right? And every time I hear them they say like, "Well, I can't do this. I can't do that. I can't do that because I have to take little Johnny or little Cathy or little whatever to the baseball game. I can't do that." I decided and I think people should decide that you know what? You don't make your children your reason why you can't do things. You make them your reason why you do, do things. Stefan: Oh, another gong. Bro. We're hitting today. Church of the grind is in session. Damn. Instant replay on that. I want you to say that again for the kids at home. Paul, one more time. Paul: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I have colleagues and I have friends that continuously tell me "I can't do this because I have to take little Johnny, or they have to take their children or their little Kimmy to their basketball game. Their ballet practice." But you know what? You have to be able, I mean, either you're going to choose to have your children be the reasons why you can't do something or you make them your reason why you can. So that's the different mindset. I mean, you have to make your kids a reason why you can achieve your dreams. Because that's the truth of the matter is if you don't, they're going to learn from that. Don't ever make your children your reason why you can't do something for yourself because that's not their fault. Stefan: You know, it's like the old seminar story. I don't know if you've heard this story, but there's two brothers and they're identical and they're twins. And one brother says he's living in cardboard box downtown and it's raining on this cardboard box and he's with the woman that's ugly. And they fight and they hate each other and he doesn't know where his kids and he can't hold down a job. He's got no money in his bank account. His creditors are coming after him all the time and life is horrible for this guy. And he says, "My life's a failure 'cause my dad was a drunk who beat me and my mom was a prostitute, smoked weed." And then I cross the tracks. And the nicest part of town is his identical twin brother who's in a mansion, the gorgeous wife and they have great sex and they've got lots of kids and the kids love the dad and they love the mom and they'd go on four vacations a year and they got the dream car and money in the bank and they sleep well at night. Stefan: And he says, "Man, I'm a success today 'cause my dad was a drunk who beat me. My mum was a prostitute who smoked weed every day." You know that same thing happened to those two guys. But on one side, one guy says, "This is my fuel." And the other guy says, "Oh man, this thing totally devastated me." And I love your story, man. Massive, massive props to your story because I come from a family, my dad was the son of an alcoholic and he had the dad who beat him. He says "Oh, I can't do this. I can't do that. It totally froze him." And with me, I use it as total motivation you know, my why. I think these interests are the whys, you're talking about your why's your little daughter. With whys I notice it's either people's parents that they want to save or it's their kids. Paul: Sure. Yeah. Stefan: And it's just either they want to help their parents who are screwed up or fix the parents or whatever, or they want to help their kids. And you know, how important do you think Paul to have a reason and a meaning outside of yourself to succeed? It can't be all about you. Paul: Oh, 1000%. I think if you don't have a reason outside, I think as human beings we're called to do something bigger than ourselves. And the reasons have to be more than ourselves. So I think innately, if you do not have a reason outside of your own personal gain, then it's going to be futile at the end because the drive stops. The why stops. So it's like when people are only motivated about money or cars or whatever, and they get that, then what happens after that? Right? If you have a purpose that's intangible and that can create a change for everybody else and the reason outside of yourself needs to be there. I mean it just has to. Stefan: I love that. We're going back to the Viktor Frankl Search for Meaning. You know, Man's Search for Meaning. What is the meaning of all this? And I think that one thing that's common across all of our shows, you're a very successful guy, especially in the space you're in. Is that the darker people get, the more they go into the darkness, the more they're in the light. And the worse it is and the deeper that pit of despair is, I call it the pit of despair. The deeper people go into that darkness, the higher they're able to climb after. And I think there's so many people at home that want to, they want to have it easy. They want to get a job, they don't want to go through any of the risk or the pain, they don't want to have their whys die, anything like that. But in some ways, Paul this is an interesting thing, like that event of losing your partner in some ways is that the best thing that ever happened to you? Paul: Yeah. I mean it's the worst and the best thing that happened to me. When I look back at it now, it's been about five years since she's passed away. But I look back at it now and even when we were struggling, right. And it was even before that, I mean we were homeless when my daughter was born and she was three months and we were sleeping out of our pathfinder and then a year later she got cancer. I mean we were going through a lot of crap, but I look back at it now and I think about it. If I didn't go through any of those struggles, it wouldn't have made me who I am today. Because I had to choose- Stefan: I'm going that. I'm gonging that bro. Paul: I had had to choose to be better. I had to choose. And I think seeing my wife pass away at an early age, that kind of pushed me too. 'Cause I think what happens is people don't realize how delicate their life is. Right. They can always wait until tomorrow. They can always wait till tomorrow. They can always wait till tomorrow. And you never know. You never know. Like my wife never knew she wasn't supposed to die when she was 36 so. Stefan: Right, right. Well that's super young men and like most women live till like 86 or something. So it's like 50 years too early. Paul: Yeah really early. Stefan: One word that you use and that I love those, the word choose. And the one thing that no one can ever take away from any of us, even if we're thrown in a Nazi death camp, is the choice to choose. Paul: Yes. Stefan: We can always choose the meaning of things. We can choose, what does this mean? This horrible thing. Is this going to be a wake up call? Is this going to be your fuel for the future? I had a big event in my life when I was younger and it was my parents' divorce. And it's interesting, my brother loved them to pieces. He uses it as a reason why he can't do stuff. You know, he says, I remember once he was yelling at my mom, he said, "Mom, if you guys didn't get divorced, I'd be in the NHL Right now." I'm like "Really?" I'm like "Dude, I don't know about that. You're a December baby. December babies don't make it in the NHL. You've got January, February, March, April go in." Paul: You've got a lot of Malcolm Gladwell. Stefan: Yeah man. I'm a Malcolm Gladwell reader. But it's so interesting 'cause I was with one of my girlfriends at the time and she said to me. I remember she came to one of my seminars and she said "All this stuff that you do and all this that you built, you do it for him." And I said, "Who?" She didn't know me that well and I didn't know her that well but she in two seconds as a woman with her intuition knew that the education company I've built is for my father 'cause my father never had that. And that was, yeah, there's such a deep meaning there and there's such a big why and it's so much fuel. 'Cause in life you got so much shit thrown at you all the time. They just, it's buckets and buckets of shit over and over again. And the people with a strong enough why can bear any how. What do you think about that famous quote? I think it's a Nietzsche quote. Paul: Yeah. No, I absolutely believe that. I absolutely believe that things that get you through the day. And the thing that gets you through life is why are you doing it? If you don't know why you're doing it, you're like a sailboat without a rudder. I mean, you're just kind of going endlessly through and through life, you know? And I think nowadays, I look at it nowadays with how instant everything is. Postmates, instant coffee instant, instant this, instant that. We're forgetting that the true gift of success is actually the journey that you go on. It's who you have to become, to become successful. That's what the gift is, not the actual achievement. It's who you have to become to achieve that. So like, yeah and to achieve that, you need to know your why and why you do it. I mean, so yeah, I absolutely believe in that quote. Stefan: Wow. Yeah. Now, I love what you're saying about the process and you know, this show's called Respect the Grind, right? You've got to respect that 10 years, respect the 10,000 hours. You can't cut the line. And we live in Instagram life, it's Instagram, Insta popcorn, Insta sex, Insta phone, Insta everything. Right? And I wrote about my book here Hard Times Create Strong Men. It's my fifth book I wrote. And it's interesting, right now there's like a porn and video game epidemic with young men. And I did the math. It's 10,000 hours to master let's say business or something, right? 10,000 hours. Well, you can master a video game in 500 hours. So where we give up our 10,000 hour endeavor, like maybe becoming an artist or a musician or an athlete or maybe starting a business. Stefan: Those are all like really worthy things. We go play World of Warcraft for 500 hours and we're at level 100 torrent shifting or something. What do you think about, does that translate into the workforce now with you recruiting young people? I mean, are there people out there who just don't get it and they're playing their world of Warcraft but they're not willing to put in the 10,000 hours? Paul: That's funny that you're saying that because I've visited Blizzard many times for one of our clients. Stefan: Dude, I want to work for Blizzard when I was younger, they didn't return my phone call though. Paul: Oh man. They give away like swords and shields when you hit your five and 10 year anniversary. Quite an organization but to your question about the younger generation, you know we do a lot of work with this particular segment because they're the incoming generation, they have to take over in the workforce. Right. You know what we are figuring out, it's not that they're not intelligent and it's not that they're not motivated or driven. They just want to get from A to B as fast as possible. And you and I both know it's like that's not going to work. You can't master anything. I don't know taking an online course or skipping out of school or whatever it is. You've got to learn the fundamentals and the basics. It's like building a house, right? If you're building a house and you decide that you don't really want to do and you think that the foundation, you just build it on the rock side it came on, it's got to fall down eventually. Paul: So we forget that I need to build that. But yeah, I mean I think because of how society is propagating this instantness that we're having, we're not putting in the fundamental work to make sure that not only our minds are strong, but our characters are strong, our will is strong, our drive is strong, everything is strong. So it is getting a little bit harder to recruit the younger folks just because they want things more instantaneous than before. And what they do is if they don't get it, they start moving to a different place of work or something else. I mean, I think the statistics were that the new grads, the last two years of college graduates, their average tenure at a company's eight months. So after eight months they're out. If they're truly a millennial, the average tenure at a company is 18 months. So we're seeing them just take off. So even if you get into a company, there's no level of mastery yet in that. Paul: And even if you're an entrepreneur, because it seems like everyone wants to be an entrepreneur now, but it takes a lot more than 18 months or eight months to really master a craft. You can't do that automatically. And if you do, you're probably going to lose it in the end. If you get lucky, you'll make a lot of money, but you lose it in the end because you don't have the fundamental to see it through different types of market. Stefan: Yeah. You know, those numbers are scary to me, man. I mean, I'm an employer and what happened to me last year, I came out of the jungle. I was fasting in the jungle for last year's 18 days, I'm going on a 40 day water fast actually. Yeah bro. So I came out of the jungle last year and I wrote this book, Hard Times Create Strong Men because I came out of the jungle and my young 21 year old, 22 year old millennial employees were saying like, "You're mean, I don't like you. You make me feel like a piece of shit." You know, they started complaining. And I was like "What's wrong with these guys? What's going on?" And you know it's interesting 'cause their tenure, those young millennial boy's wasn't very long. Probably right in that timeframe that you mentioned. And what happened was I went home and ... Well first I had to give these guys a talk. I gave two three hour talks one week in my office of how to be a man, which is like the most, that would never happen in the 50s. That would never happen in the 60s right? Stefan: The sixties you'd like smoking a cigar and a scotch and everyone just knew how to be a man. That was a normal thing. But I give this like six hour how to be a man talk and do your work. Being a man is about your work and that's what you do. We don't have a uterus, we don't have ovaries, we can't bear children. You're a dad by proxy, but you didn't have that thing come out of you, man. I mean you planted some seeds and walked away right? Paul: I didn't do it. I did the fun work. Stefan: You did the fun work yeah. It was like two minutes. So like- Paul: One and a half. You're being too generous to me. Stefan: One and a half minutes yeah. And I'm going to give that a gong. Bang. So these young boys, they're like, "Oh man, I want to be the leader of the company. I want this big salary. I want to make all this money." And what I found that was really interesting was these boys who were complaining like teenage girls never had fathers. And it was so interesting because you know, look at the stats 50% of the couples are divorced now, the marriages fall apart. And then I don't know what the status for dads sticking around, but dad's typically don't stick around 'cause either they don't want to stick around or the laws are so bad, the guy isn't around. And then you've got this entire generation of young men raised by young women and they don't know how to be a man and show up to work. Stefan: So I wrote this book Hard Times Create Strong Men and the cycles of history go hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. Paul: That's absolutely right. Right. Stefan: And we're in this like weak man time and it's so interesting, my sales manager Ian, he had a very strong relationship with his dad. And his dad has a farm, a goat farm out East and the we're in Canada up here. And he had a great relationship with his dad and because he had a great wish up with his dad, he has a great relationship with work. And it's so interesting cause the guy with the good dad, he's a great worker, he does great work. And then the guys with problems still at my office guess what? Have daddy issues. You ever notice this where there's like daddy issues on some of these men and then they creep in your workforce and now they're bouncing after eight months. You ever notice that? Paul: Yeah. I think there's a strong linkage between how someone grew up and what their family structure was to whether it work [inaudible 00:26:14]. When people say that there's a work life and then there's a home life there's no difference. You're going to blend your personality with both. So yeah. I see there's a strong linkage. And also there's a strong link to you what you just said about your book where like, you know, when we're looking at World War II where all these young kids were born in a battle, right? They're after depression. There was a lot of adversity. But then you look at our times now we've been going through a lot of prosperity, especially in the last 10 years. I think we're both old enough to understand. In 2007 2008 there was a crash. Nearly all of us were getting our house foreclosed on and everything. Paul: So you've got these kids that have been going through this prosperity. I mean, you can throw anything at the wall and make money nowadays. And they haven't seen that [inaudible 00:26:54] yet. And then I think it's problematic in our domestic workforce too, because like especially in the technology field, because if you think about it, we've had all this prosperity and it's been a little bit easy, but then you have these emerging countries, these emerging markets like India and China that were oppressed for a long time and they're like, "Screw this shit." You know, like I want to work. Right. They were what we were going through back in World War II and the depression and things like that. So now they're becoming the very, very strong capitalistic societies that were a little bit more weak. So, I don't know it just, you made a really good point about your book because I completely agree with you on that. Stefan: Yeah. Well, they're hungry. Right. And like immigrants in America are four times more likely to become millionaires than native born Americans. Paul: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I know that 'cause I'm an immigrant, so I get it. Stefan: Where were you from, man? Paul: I'm from the Philippines. Yeah, my dad- from Manila. Stefan: Okay. Awesome. Yeah, I'm up here in Winnipeg and we got, I think 16% of the population is from the Philippines. I would flip houses and I'd sell them to the new immigrants. So I'd give him the Canadian dream for like a 100 grand or 129 grand. These houses look like little mansions. Right? And I always have these customers from Manila and they'd see it and they go, "Oh man, I got to have that house." And we actually just got a Jollibee bro. Paul: Oh my God. That's awesome. Stefan: We got some spaghetti and like a chicken leg or like a mango pie. They're pineapple pie or mango pie at Jollibee? Paul: It's a mango pie. Stefan: Oh, a mango pie. I haven't been there, dude, I haven't been to Jollibee yet, but I heard they play the song, the Jollibee song and- Paul: Yeah, you got to go, man. Stefan: Man. I'm trying to look after my health here, man. Paul: You can do it once. Stefan: Yeah go try it once man. Do they have a hot dog spaghetti at Jollibee too? Paul: Yeah they do. So the Spaghetti they put a little bit of sugar in there to sweeten it up. Stefan: Oh, of course. Of course. My dad's from Sweden, so I have an immigrant dad, and I remember going to Sweden when I was 12 and we're sitting down at the table and like Sweden is like, it's one of those countries, I looked it up, I was like, what's a racial slur for a suite? They call the Spanish people spics and they call Italian people waps and I looked up the Swedish one there isn't one because they're tall and they're beautiful and they're smart. So nobody's the Swedish people. But I'm over in Sweden and it's such a developed place. And they had these like Woodfire pizzas back in the day and they had like nice little pastries, they're so civilized. Stefan: And then we sit down at the kitchen table at my aunts or great aunts, I don't even know who these family members are. We're sitting down at the kitchen table at their house and they're making spaghetti. And I'm like, "Oh damn, I love Spaghetti." You know, my mom makes a great spaghetti back in Canada. We sit down at the table and they give us these like white boiled noodles. So it's like plain ass noodles and then you know what they do. And Paul you're going to be horrified at this man. They put the ground beef like straight up on noodles. So you got just playing ground beef, not taco meat. It's just like plain like gray brown ground beef on these plain white noodles. 'Cause like in Sweden they're not into spices. It's like salt is the white band spice over there. Salt and bill pepper. Stefan: So they put the ground beef down on the noodles and then I was horrified. They pull on a ketchup bottle and you cover it and ketchup. I know Bro. Ketchup spaghettis, you haven't ground ketchup and it wasn't just white noodles. I went to house to house to house. I was like "How are you guys eating this ketchup spaghetti 'cause you know we got like Oregano, we got basil, we've got garlic, we got all these great things written in the Ketchup Spaghetti." But I digress. I digress Paul. Now, let me ask you this. A lot of young people listening to this show, 12 years old, 15 years old, 18 years old, different ages, younger people. Do you think in 2019, it's going to be 2019 in like a week. Do you think that it's still good to get a degree today? Or do you think that no degree is the way to go and just get some skills and figure it out? Paul: That's kind of a controversial topic, but I promote education. I think you should at least get your college degree. And the reason why you should do that is, and this is just what I truly believe is that college is an opportunity for you to, it's kind of like a playground, right? You're accomplishing something. A four year degree isn't easy. So it's the first step I'm trying to accomplish something before you do anything else from the studies. I got my degree in Kinesiology, which is exercise physiology. I obviously don't use that, but what I learned from college is I communicated with a lot of people. I had to collaborate with my other students. I had to do projects with the other students. I had to get them to buy into a lot of things. I was part of a fraternity, so I understood that organization. Paul: So it's much more of an experience than anything else. And that's what I grew out of. But I look back, I mean I even got my MBA, but a lot of the reasons why I did that was because of the networking progress and the ability to build relationships during that. So I was really active in college and that's why I think it meant something to me. The stats don't lie, I don't know the stats exactly off the bat, but college graduates tend to earn twice as much as high school graduates. People with masters have by 40% more earning potential then that someone with just a high school degree. Now we have to understand that, okay, well don't go to college and then start your own business. But the failure rate of business is 99%- Stefan: I was going to say 99 bro. 90 in the first five, 90 in the second five but 99 yeah, you're going to die man. Paul: Right. So it's like go ahead and not have any education and then you have nothing to really kind of I don't know fall back on I guess. And not to say that a degree is going to help you out because I'm in recruitment, so you have a degree and you don't have skills, it doesn't really matter. But what I've noticed that every time I do interview someone, someone that has been active in college and has gotten through college, they will most all the time be better communicators and be better at being able to grip through their job. So I mean, that's my opinion for whatever it's worth, I still believe in it. I come from a very highly educated family. My Dad's a physician, so I don't know, look at the statistics. Most of the billionaires have a college degree, so I wouldn't dash it I guess. Stefan: Yeah. There's a lot of BAs actually in the billionaire club, bachelor of arts, which is interesting. I got a degree in English. So I went to school, I went to music school 'cause I want to be a rock star. So my mom says, "Oh if you want to be a rock star, get a music degree." Right? So I go and I'm studying jazz of all things, which jazz, it's funny it's all over here up in Canada, 2005 so like I don't know what is this. Like 50 years after jazz is relevant. They opened this new music called Jazz [crosstalk 00:33:23] behind. So I went and got a ... I was working in the jazz faculty there and I was a professional musician and then I realized I don't want to be a jazz musician 'cause it's a very hard and horrible life. Stefan: And then I dropped out of that and I went to the business school and I dropped out of that. Then I went into computer science, I dropped out. I was very good at computer science. I wanted to work for Blizzard bro. That was actually ... And then I ended up dropping out of computer science and I went to the registrar and I said, "Hey, can you recommend a way for me to get out of here without dropping out that won't piss my parents off." And she said, "Yeah, take two poetry class, you're going to have an English degree." So now I have an English degree with a minor in music. And I remember 2008 that was when I graduated, it was May 2008 and I went to go get a job. And the only thing I could get with an English, was a call center job in the middle of the night selling luxury hotel rooms to rich people, and you actually needed a degree. Stefan: And it was, we were making minimum wage, it was just like hardcore minimum wage. And I remember having like a post grad depression about that cause I was like, "Man, I spent my whole life, I spent 12 years plus kindergarten or whatever, plus four years of university and that degree got me here to a call center job. I could have just painted houses." But here's the bittersweet flip side of it is I'm a resourceful person. So I've written five books now, I'm 32 I've written five books. I'm sure the English degree helped with that a bit. Paul: Probably. Stefan: And then Mark Cuban, the billionaire in Texas, he says that today in today's world, an English degree is suddenly one of the most powerful degrees to have because we live in the world of content. People need more and more content. All content comes from writing. And so it's interesting, I used to totally bash on my degree. I used to totally beat on it. I still beat on it, but I kind of have to shut up about it now because I've published five books. By the end of this year I'll be up to eight books. I'm an avid blogger. On the flip side though, I wrote my first book when I was 12 before I went to school. So it's an interesting thing. I think it's a catch 22. I throw out resumes with degrees in my office. When they come in, I got a stack a degrees and it's actually kind of sad. Stefan: I get guys with PhDs, they go in the garbage. I get guys with MBAs or master's. It's pretty sad man. 'Cause a lot them are applying for entry level sales jobs. Now let me ask you this, Paul. I mean degree in school versus learning to sell. What do you think is more valuable? Someone who knows how to sell and make money on commission or somebody who has some sort of degree. We don't even know what it is. Mystery box. It could just be a mystery degree. What would you say is more valuable? Paul: Selling. Hands down. If you know how to sell, you'll beat out a degree. Stefan: So, okay. I love that answer man. I mean that's powerful stuff and I think being good at sales, it's funny like the Mormons in Utah, they all go on missions and they sell bibles door to door. So they have all these fantastic call centers up in Utah for these educated smart, street smart salespeople who speak two languages or more. With learning to sell, what are some of the best places that people can go to learn to sell? 'Cause there really isn't a degree in that there isn't a school. Nobody teaches it. Where do you think people should go and learn to sell? Paul: You know what? I'm kind of lost for like where people would want to sell. I mean, like when I'm talking to my sales guys I think the most important thing before any sales techniques is again, going back to the ability to build relationships. I don't think anyone likes to be sold to, but I think in order to be an effective salesperson, you have to be in a relationship with somebody and understand what their problems are, what their needs are, right? You can't just push it on them not knowing that there is a need. Right. I think the ability to be able to problem solve is one of the highest, well, one of the most critical abilities that there is. And the only way to do that is to be able to get into relationships. Paul: So, I mean, as far as sales techniques, I mean I don't know I guess I'm kind of lost as far as I think the best thing that you could possibly do in any kind of sales is really understand what the problem is. Or who you're dealing with and get into a relationship with them and make sure that once you do it, you can understand what their problems are and then you can fix it. Stefan: Right. Right, yeah. I love what you're saying man. I got a book I wrote here about sales called The Close: 7 Level Selling. On the back I put stop selling, start serving. That's just the main thing you said nobody wants to be sold these days. But it's funny 'cause everybody wants to buy. Paul: Yeah everybody wants to buy. Stefan: And they want to buy but they don't want to buy in some salesy way where they feel like you're manipulating them. They want to buy on their own terms. So how do you make it so that they choose you? So they decide and they want you. Coming back to dating. It's interesting like the man might choose the woman he wants to date, but he has to make the woman choose him. Paul: Yeah, I mean it's the same thing I think we're talking about. If we understand what the wires. So like let's take for instance our clients. If we get into a relationship and understand okay where their inefficiencies are, what's happening, what their troubles are with their current staff, what we can do. Once we understand what's keeping them up at night and what's keeping them desperate and what's keeping them in pain, people want to alleviate pain. So the minute you understand what their pain is and then you bring up a solution, you're not selling, they're going to be buying all day long. Stefan: Bum. You know, I heard a great quote weeks ago, I was down in San Diego at a conference and one of the speakers said "All human beings, all purchases are either avoiding or alleviating pain or elevating status." Paul: Yeah, true. I would bet it's more about pain. I think people are motivated by the carrot or the stick, but I think most people are motivated by pain. They don't want it. Why do we follow rules? Well, I don't want to get in trouble, right? Sometimes people don't understand the pain. So you have to be like, "Hey, you know what? As an expert, here's what's going to happen if you don't do that." So you've got to sometimes the pain understanding that you got to do good for them. You can't just create pain and just sell them crap. You've got to make sure that whatever you are doing is going to improve their situation. And I think that's how you have long lifelines. I'm sure you see that all day long in the real estate industry. Stefan: Yeah. Well one thing I say to my, and my sales guys, I say, "Look, do what's right for the customer.: And that gets in the ethics. I think ethics is the base, then it goes the product, then it goes sales, marketing, brand. And if you do what's right for the customer, whatever that is. If you go to chick fil a and you forget your credit card, the guy comes running out to get your credit card and hands you your food. If you do what's right for the customer, if you take care of the customer, you're always going to have food to eat. Right? Paul: Absolutely. I think in dealing with business integrity is the most. I mean that's the one thing that you cannot succeed without. You cannot succeed without integrity. Stefan: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Paul, I've got some questions I'd like to ask everybody. Here's one that I love just floating by you. Now, you see all sorts of people, man, you're in the hardcore people business. You got employees, you're recruiting, you're matching with customers. You're just like, your business is nothing but people. What do you think is the biggest cause of failure in people? Paul: They lose reasons on why they're doing it. It's always going back to the why, the problems, the challenges, the obstacles, whatever they have become bigger than the reasons why they're doing it. And once you start doing that, and a lot of it is perspective, if you start looking at, okay, I didn't get this promotion, I didn't to get this client, I didn't get this. And they start looking at all those challenges and obstacles and setbacks, that starts to vary your why. And I think that's one of the biggest reasons of failure. If you don't hold onto the reasons why you're doing things, you're going to fail nine times out of 10. So you've got to want to embrace that. But if you can't hold onto the reason why the heck you're doing something like a fitness goal, right? Paul: Like, okay, I want to lose 20 pounds. I lost 92 pounds. I was really heavy at one time and I wanted to do that because I wanted to be there for my daughter, right? And it got hard. I didn't want to wake up in the middle of the morning. I mean, it's not, the first thing that I want to do is wake up and be like, "Whoa, holy crap, I'm going to run like five miles." It's like I want to go to bed, but why am I doing that? Why am I doing this? And the reason why we fail is because we forget why we're doing things. Why was it important to begin with? So that's what I feel the biggest reason of failure is. Stefan: So it's really coming back to meaning, you know, when working out to be alive for your daughter or being healthy for your daughter's there, that's way bigger than you want to look sexy at the club and that mesh shirt you bought, right? Paul: Yeah. I mean that can be motivating to people too- Stefan: Oh yeah. Right. There's, there's some sex there, right? Paul: Yeah. There's always a why. If you don't know your why, then you're never going to be able to hold on to anything. You'll feel at everything if you don't know why you're doing it. Stefan: Right. I love that, man. I think we've had a really deep conversation here about the meaning and the why and it just translates everything. Now, Paul, if you go back in time, to let's say 15 year old Paul. And you would give yourself a piece of advice time machine here, what would you say to a 15 year old Paul? Paul: Do you. Don't think about anybody else and their opinions. Whatever's you feel is going to make you succeed, you do it. That would be my advice. Stefan: Yeah. Well everybody else is taken. You might as well do you, right. Paul: Exactly. Stefan: Awesome. Top three books that changed your life. Paul: Principles by Ray Dalio. Stefan: Damn. I'm giving that a gong. Great book. Paul: Awesome book. The Bible is one I mean just from a learning aspect and then Failing Forward by John C. Maxwell. Stefan: Those are three tasty books. Let me ask you this, the Bible and organized religions have lost a lot of ground in the last 70, 80 years in the United States, why do you think the Bible is so important? Personally, I think it's like I was born into a church and then I went to university, became an atheist communist as they manufacturer over there. And then now I'm back hardcore with the book of 5,000 years of human civilization and all the things that worked and didn't. But why do you think the Bible is so important? Paul: I think because there's a lot of great fundamentals in there. I think success books have, I mean they've originated somewhere, right? Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich is to think is great right? But then if you look back at Proverbs, it says "As a man thinketh so he is. So if it's like if you kind of go back to it, I'm not saying that I'm religious or anything, but I just actually like the content of the book. The story of Job where he was really depressed and he went through this whole entire depression and then what he did to come out of that. I mean those are all very applicable things for me in my life now. I'm not a big organized religion guy, but I mean if the Bible is the most read book in the entire world, there must be something coming out of it. So I wanted to try and get my bits and pieces out of it and I've just noticed after reading it, it's very similar to a lot of the new things that we talk about. So that's why I'm like it. Stefan: Yeah, well it's so interesting. It's incredible. I did a bit of a study on it and my book Hard Times and what it is is it's the base values of our civilization. Our laws come from those value. Our entire framework comes from there. So whether you're religious or not, it's super important. And you know what else I think is really cool about the Bible. I was lecturing my secretary the other day about how to live her life as old men like me do. And I said, "Look, the Bible, you got to study it because they've already tried everything. They tried it all for 5,000 years. 'Cause there's the Old Testament, there's the New Testament. They tried it. They tried all the bullshit we're doing now. If you look at Sodom and Gomorrah, the Tower of Babel, they already did this shit. They already did it, and they move on exactly how it happened or how things went down and they wrote down all the problems. So you know in advance, if you just read that thing, you can see the future because it's 5,000 years. Stefan: And I think it's so interesting how every 70 or 80 years, we always think we're smarter than the past. You know, oh, let's try out communism this time, or let's try out something that clearly does. Try socialism out I know. Yeah. Let's try out socialism. And when you read back on that text, whether it's history or not history, it's amazing because all the answers are in there. Paul: It is. Stefan: And the Bible means the book. It's the original book so. Paul: It is, I mean, I think if we don't learn from history, we're destined to repeat it right? That's the quote, right? Stefan: Right. Yeah it's money. All right, awesome. Well next question here, Paul. Talking about the young people again. This is one of my favorite questions I ask this absolutely everybody. 100% of the people on this show get this question. Come back to the young people, the millennials. What do think is the number one thing that the young people today need to succeed in this world? Paul: We just talked about him. Grit. I mean you just need to, I mean there's always going to be challenges. You need to be able to have heart and critic and desire and quite frankly you need balls man. This world is tough. So regardless if you want them to be successful, you've got to have balls. Stefan: Big massive bowling ball balls. Paul: I mean, yeah, absolutely. If you want to be anything you got to have balls 'cause the opposition to be successful is so, so stiff. I mean you just have to have the biggest pair of balls ever so. Stefan: I'm giving you a gong for that one, boom. Yeah, some big balls, big ovaries, whatever you're running with there. Awesome. Paul, how can people get in touch with you man, if they want to know more about you? Paul: Sure. I have a personal website, paulmichaeldavid.com and my Instagram handle is Paul Michael David. Those are the two best ways you can reach out to me. Our company website is identifiedtalent.com. Stefan: Awesome. Really appreciate having you in the show Paul. Respect the Grind, man. Yeah, we'll have to have you on again. I thought we had a really great chat today and I really appreciate you and your story, man. Bless you. Paul: Yeah, bless you too, man. Happy holidays brother. Stefan: You too. Bye, bye.  

Hi everyone! This is Connie Sokol, and you're listening to Balance Redefined Radio. I've spent over 20 years teaching people how to redefine what balance really is, meaning a more purposeful and joyful life.   They’ve paid off credit cards, lost weight, organize their homes, and created a meaningful life plan and they've managed their time, changed habits and experience greater success both at work and at home.   So now I decided to take the plunge and help about 100,000 new people who want to redefine balance in their lives. People ask me all the time, “How do I go from an overwhelming and chaotic life to more purpose and organization and joy?”   That's the reason why I'm doing this podcast, to give you trusted answers and create a space where you could find balance. My name is Connie Sokol and welcome to Balance Redefined Radio…   [00:01] Welcome back to Balance Redefined! I am giddy this morning-yeah, a new word. I'm giddy because I just finished my workout. This is the motivation and inspiration that I had literally while I am doing my Zoomba. I was holding my phone and making notes for this podcast because I felt so happy.   [00:19] When is the last time that you have felt happy working out? If you work out regularly or if you're doing it, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you don't, then I'm telling you I forgot.   [00:30] I forgot how good this felt and I'll tell you why. Over the last, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 years, you know, I have been up and down having seven children with weight and all of that, the weight loss, weight gain and all of that. I've exercise to some degree over those 20 years, but as far as loving it, not until I figured out my own little method did I start loving working out.   [00:51] And so here's my thoughts for you today: three tips to get off the couch and jumpstart your fitness. I am so excited. I'm trying to hold back my energy to not be so gushing because I will share with you what happened.   [01:04] I usually do a variety of things. It just depends on the season and how that works. So several months ago I was doing zumba because it was the beginning of the year into the early spring. Then when it hits like late spring and summer I like to switch it and I go walking.   [01:21] We have a park in an area that's just right by us and so I like to do that, but right now it's the fall and while I was doing that, you know, we had had these experiences recently where we had had Back-To-School...   [01:32] Then I had gone to that trip with my daughter to pick her up from nannying in France. So we had gone to Europe and then came back and then we were evacuated for the fires. Then we had the flood and sandbagging for possible flooding.   [01:43] Then right after that, we'd already scheduled to go to this week long orphanage trip to help with the orphans in Mexico. So we've been kind of busy and we have not really had a consistent on a workout schedule.   [01:53] Have you been there? You're just like, "Literally, I don't know if I can fit in sleep right now."   [01:58] All during that I'm doing all kinds of things because my business partner and I had started kind of exploding in lots of different things that were happening.   [02:04] Then I had to take care of those while the kids are at school. So it was crazy. Has it been crazy like that and you're like, "I don't know how I can fit in?"   [02:10] "I don't know if I even want to fit in working out quite frankly."   [02:14] And that's really where it stems from. It's that beginning desire. Right? But here's the deal. Sometimes we wait until that desire hits us. When guess what?   [02:23] We have to get that desire...   [02:25] We have to jumpstart it with doing something to create that desire. Because generally speaking, it's not going to like show up in our wheaties is not going to walk down upon us like a sweet little air freshener.   [02:37] It's not going to happen that way. So what happened this last week is I was going back through some cradle life plan things, module stuff and I started retooling at the end of the year. I like to retool my life plan and so I don't wait until January.   [02:50] I like to kind of assess the year, November, December, really have an evaluative, enjoyable, kind of a spiritual thinking back and evaluated last year.   [02:59] Really I'm calling from all the wonderful experiences I've had learning from the ones that were not that wonderful.   [03:04] Then I'll share more about that with you in another podcast when it gets a little bit closer to that, but how you kind of do your year end review just in a fun way.   [03:11] Not like in a tax audit way. No, like in a really fun way really if you can take an overnight or hotel and that kind of thing. So I want you to think of it in a positive.   [03:19] So this was my feeling this last week...   [03:22] I had this nice little time when I was by myself. It was amazing that I was able to have that...   [03:28] I just had my little notepad, my little legal pad, my pen, my sticky notes, and cuddled into my bed all nice and cozy with my pajamas. I was really thinking and praying about my life.   [03:40] Anyway, I started writing down some things and one of them was I wanted to get back into regular workout schedule because I remember my soul remembers how good it feels. Sometimes we don't remember.   [03:51] We forget. And it's like after you have a baby, then you say, "Oh, that baby," and you're so happy that you kind of forget after a while the birthing process and all of that.   [04:00] And that's what makes the, you know, the human race still, you know, continue because it propagates by the fact that we forget the pain....ha ha ha!   [04:09] So it's reversed...   [04:10] We forget the joy of working out and we only remember the pain.   [04:14] So I am here to tell you, I just finished my workout and I feel so fabulous. I feel energetic. It's like my soul just went, "Oh Connie, thank you..."   [04:24] "Thank you for cleaning me out. I feel like I just got rid of toxins. I just was able to get all that oil out of the car, all this fresh clean stuff."   [04:33] I felt like I drank 64 ounces of fresh clean water. I had so much fun. And guess what? It was only 20 minutes. Twenty minutes.   [04:42] So I've just got three quick tips for you today. If you're like, "Man, do I get out of bed? Do I get up off this couch? Do I stop watching Netflix and do I really do something?"   [04:53] I'm here to tell you, "Yes, yes."   [04:55] And it doesn't matter if you do it for five minutes, for 20 minutes, for 45 minutes...   [04:59] It doesn't matter. What matters is you move. If you don't remember anything else I say in this podcast, move.   [05:06] Your body craves movement and we know all the benefits...   [05:10] We know all the benefits. We're not dumb. We know it helps our incredibly helps our immune system, our nervous system. It makes her skin glow already. I feel like I just had this cute, shiny face. Your metabolism is higher.   [05:24] You burn calories even after you work out. I mean...your bones are strengthened. There's so many benefits of working out. I seriously want to smack my head on the wall and go, "Why don't I do this? This is a no brainer."   [05:37] But we still end up making it a choice, don't we? And I'll tell you why we make it hard on herself. So here's three quick tips, okay? First and foremost, you must make it enjoyable. It has to be enjoyable.   [05:51] So let me tell you the three right away, enjoyable, simple, and sustainable. So the first one, enjoyable. You've got to find something you love.   [05:59] If you don't like walking, then don't start with walking. If you don't like yoga, don't start with Yoga. Start with something you love. And if you're like, "I don't know, when I like," stopped whining and find something. There are 50 bazillion things out there.   [06:13] Find something you love...   [06:14] There is yoga, tight-chi, maybe bowling, gardening, yeah. All of that is a workout, right? So figure out what it is that you love to do.   [06:25] I love to dance. Now I always say there's two kinds of workouts, right? Really two kinds of workout people. There's athletic and there's dancy and the Dansie people, they love Zoomba.   [06:36] They love Yoga. They love flexing their body and doing kind of cool things.   [06:40] I would say sometimes even for dancing people, yoga is a little bit of a stretch. Ahah! Pun intended...   [06:46] So the dancing people though, they like to move...   [06:48] They like that quick step. They like to feel their body do all these kinds of contortions. The athletic people, they're like, "I can't do three steps together to save my life, but I can do burpees like for an hour..."   [07:00] So you get what I'm saying?...   [07:01] So find something enjoyable, find something you love. I love Zumba and I love the movement,and oh my gosh!   [07:09] I have these dvds and I put them on this morning and I thought, I'm just, you know, I might got my kids out the door and I could have gone back under the covers. It was such a cozy fall morning and I didn't. I said, "You know what? I'm just going to try it. Do a couple of minutes, just kind of get back in the groove, see what I need to do," and guess what?   [07:25] My shoes were where they were supposed to be.   [07:27] My clothes are where they're supposed to be, and that's in the simple. You put those things exactly where they need to be so that it's simple to do. I knew where the DVD was. I knew I had to bring the clicker. I knew I had to pull the little decorative carpet off the hardwood floor downstairs so that I could dance. I knew this rhythm...   [07:45] So give yourself a couple of times to be able to get in that rhythm. Once you find something that you love to do and it's fun. In fact, I even call my workouts in my program, the balance redefined program, FUN workouts, and it stands for-For Your Nurture- so FUN workouts.   [08:02] Once you find that FUN workout, then go to that next step. Make it simple, have FUN. Have those clothes where they need to be, have the dvds where they need to be, have your gym pass where it needs to be. Have your car ready to go. You know you have gas because you're going to go in the morning. Do all of those things so that you are prepared for success so that it makes it simple.   [08:20] If it's not simple, I'm not doing it...   [08:23] In fact, this morning when I had that first thought I was getting the kids breakfast and blah, blah, blah, and I thought, "Oh, I'm going to go change my workout clothes right now because I know my personal success mantra is if I put on my workout clothes, I will work out."   [08:37] The percentage of success for that is 99 percent, because I will not take off my workout clothes unless I've done something. It feels like a waste of energy to me. Now it takes me about 35 seconds to change clothes, but it is a mental game.   [08:52] This is all a mental game, so mentally I know if I've got my workout clothes on, there's 99 percent chance I'm working out, so find a way that makes that simple for you. And again, if it's a DVD, make sure you find it. I want to start doing some melodies and I know I have some dvds that I like and I'm going to go find them in the workout drawer so that they are handy for me to do.   [09:13] I know my daughter, she loves yoga and she has these youtube videos that she does with this Gal. Please post your comments below. I would love, love to hear what you have to say about the workouts that you love so that we can all get some fun ideas and maybe some things we hadn't considered, so please comment and post away. I would love it.   [09:31] It will help and bless other people's lives. But she loves yoga and it's funny because she won't do it for awhile, but then once she starts it, she can't stop. She loves it, like loves doing it and she does it at night.   [09:44] I know for a long time I did body for life and I loved it, but I got so freaked out about not working out at night until I saw that there was a couple in there that had actually lost weight and gotten fit and in shape and they did it at night together.   [09:57] So that's a great thing to do. Do it in a way that makes it simple and doable for you.   [10:03] That takes us into the last one which is sustainable. Make it sustainable...   [10:06] I have started looking at gyms that are right around us so that I only drive five to 10 minutes because if it's longer than that, not going to do it.   [10:16] If I have to drive longer than I would work out, I'm not going to go there. That's all there is to it. That's just me and I want to find a gym that I can take my kids to because guess what ?   [10:26] I talked with my kids. I got the family buy in and they said they would love to go to a gym a couple of nights a week. There's a place that my child, my six year old, can play and the rest of them can do the things that they want to do. Their total family experience. Right?   [10:39] And we're not doing it all the time. So if we do it on our family night night, then we can do our regular kind of learning life skills. Part of family night on Sunday night works great.   [10:48] Then we can go party on a Monday night and then afterwards if they want a smoothie that's healthy, great, because I'm telling them stop worrying about carbs and calories and all of that.   [10:58] Move and eat balanced and eat healthy and at this stage of your life you will be great because they're young, they're teenagers and it's working. It's keeping them healthy and strong without being obsessed. So sustainable...   [11:11] That's why I do the Zumba Dvds. I know that if I can get up and do that 20 minutes then in the morning it's done. I'm showered, I'm ready for the day. I'm not worried about anything after that. It's optional.   [11:23] Another thing is, the reason why I switched to walking in the summer is because, like I said, I can do it with my kids.   [11:30] My six year old can go play on the swings. I have my teenagers. One of them stays right there and she does her art because she likes to do more stretching stuff and then she'll do her art right there, so she's watching him and the others will go walk around, but we still see him as we walk around and take our laps and it's beautiful.   [11:45] It's outside. It's in trees. It's lovely. We have just this gorgeous park area where you can still see things, but then there are these trees that are dotted around. It's beautiful.   [11:55] So make it sustainable, make it something that you'll love to do.   [12:00] Again, three quick tips to just get you jump started because we forget...   [12:04] We forget how good it feels and that's why I wanted to podcast right now. I don't know if you can feel it, but I hope you can feel my energy and my desire and my joy because I feel so good.   [12:16] I am ready for this day and it's a Monday. I am ready for this day. I've got meetings, I've got a bunch of errands. I got stuff to do with my kids. I've got a whole bunch of stuff. We've got a holiday coming up in a few days. It is just, it's busy, but I am clean and clear and I have this energy boost.   [12:33] I know I did it for the right amount of time because you should feel energized after you work out. If you're not feeling energized then you either didn't do it for the right amount of time or you did the wrong thing, so find that thing you love, do it for the time that feels good and do it in a way that is sustainable for you...   [12:50] I promise you it is something you will keep doing for life. I keep coming back to these. It's been 20 years. Like I said, I keep coming back to doing dvds and walking and Zumba palates, doing a little bit of weight training.   [13:04] I do strength and toning. This little lunges and squat routine that I do, it's like 15 minutes, and I do lunges and squats and some jumping jacks and some crunches and I love it.   [13:18] I do it while we're listening to scripture. I do it while we're watching a show in the morning if the kids are getting ready. There my little one just wants to watch wild kratts. I'm doing it quick while he's doing that and just getting kind of awake for the day.   [13:29] So like I said, it brings joy. It brings joy to me, brings joy to my family, and it's something that is doable for a lifetime. So I invite you.   [13:39] Get up off that couch, get up out of that car. Go walk extra to the grocery store. Park farther away from work, all those extra steps, they matter, they count. Do things that will make you happy and that you can sustain...   [13:53] ... and you will feel the benefits of fitness. Not just weight loss or weight maintenance, but that beautiful skin, the higher metabolism, that beautiful appetite for healthy things and that feeling of your body moving in such a beautiful, happy, healthy youthful way. You will be thrilled. All right, stay tuned for more balance redefined. You got it. Thanks for listening and remember to rate and subscribe. And if you are feeling the need for real balance in your life, get your free 3-Step Life Plan, and get started today! Just go to conniesokol.com/download.