Get Out of Your Own Way with Dave Hollis

follow your path. I see myself a lot in your life. You're a little bit further down the road. But we have Mr Dave Hollis with us today in studio. Dave. Welcome, Buddy. Yeah, by man. So I'll give our listeners. For any of our listeners that don't know who Dave is, I'll give you a little background. He is the CEO of the Hollis Company, a company that exists to help people build better lives. He is the husband to Rachel, a father

of four. Right Jackson Sawyer Ford to no Uh. Together with his wife You, You and Rachel how the podcast Rise Together, which is Number one podcast, Number one health podcast on iTunes. You're previously previously president of distribution for Walt Disney Studio Studios until you left that company, um, and you started you wanted to expand the Hollist company. That's right, which is the company you have with you

in your wife. You remember the Motion Picture Academy. You've been advisor, on board, a member of technology incubator, fan Dango Labs, philanthropy, film charity. I mean, this guy has done it all. This bio I could go on for days. Don't read the bio anymore. I love it. I love it though, because I love like I was an athlete and now I want to have a title of list of all these things that I've worked on too. So I look at this, I'm like, man, this guy's Superman.

I got Superman sitting here with me, and I get to pick his brain for the next hour. It's so funny because I am now a couple of years, as you mentioned, into having transitioned away from what for me was a twenty plus year career that started as a you know, an assistant and finished as this head of distribution,

president of distribution the film studio. I worked in these different things that you could read on a on a list of resume, and the weight that they carried two and a half years ago was extraordinary in terms of them being an anchor to my identity and what my

worthiness and affirming me. And now two years later, I can tell you what, as much as it's interesting for me to hear you read them, and I have some great memories from a lot of the things that I did in that space, they have very little weights relatively speaking to where they did have a ton just a

second ago. I love that. So what I love about that is I'm currently in the process in my life, on my journey about liberating energy that's still tied up in my hockey career and what it's And so that's why I'm excited about this discussion. Is you've been able to do that. You have had that identity, this this

worked with Walt Disney. How cool is Walt Disney? And you you were the man at Walt Disney and now you let that go, and how does that change your identity and how do you find peace with like almost removing those clothes moving forward? Um, So I want to

dive into that. Your whole story is super inspiring and I think our listeners are going to be able to find themselves in your story because I think more and more people these days go through tours of duty, they go through pivots in life where they switch not only careers but identities of the Yeah, it's interesting because I was watching a couple of things that you've posted recently and of the things that I'm rolling out to you

know do in this lead up to the book. I was looking forward to seeing you in part because of it just acknowledging. Man, I remember when I was as close to the transition as you are now, and how much different it feels. So like time ends up being one of the greatest gifts. Unfortunately, it just requires it to pass right. But man, it's so different six months out versus two years out. So how far are you

right now? I'm to two years ish out. I mean the decision we made this decision as I had been in the six or seventh year as the head of sales, I recognized, you know what, I need to do something to chase growth in a way that pushes me away from all of the certainty, the safety security that I am currently connected to. At the same time that my wife, who had been building a business was at a tipping point where she said, Hey, as the visionary, I need

an integrator operator. You have that as a set of special skills, and so we made a jump and we made this decision in kind of late two thousand seventeen, officially left Disney at the end of May and eighteen, and here we are, you know, early twenty where it's it's a decision that we made a long time ago, but practically speaking, we're like a year and a half in So how long did that decision, in that discussion between you and your wife persist before you actually committed

to it. We started talking about it three or four years before the decision, But at the time when we were talking about it, I was entertaining it in a yeah, ma, yeah, sure like I if you had asked me at the time the conversation started, if I thought I'd work at the Walt Disney Company for the rest of my life, the answer was yes. I was drawing where do you think you'll be ten years from now? Vision? And it

was always about some next level, some next job. And I had been the beneficiary in the Walt Disney Company of for the first ten years, having a different job every year for the first ten, so my professional l A d D was satisfied so regularly. I was always drinking out of a fire hydrant. There was something exciting, and what I didn't realize was I was being afforded an opportunity to grow because of not having the set of skills that were required to do the job well.

When I first got the job that fed me, that were that provided me just a ton of fulfillment. And in the last job that I had, though it was the best job on paper and optics wise, after the learning curve was conquered, around three or you know, three years in, I was in this place where I had stopped growing because of the strength of my team, because of the strength of the slate like Disney at that time had acquired Pixar, Marvel, Lucas and in addition to

Disney had this leverage in selling movies to theaters. That transformed after I figure out how to do the job with the strength of my team and support of the best leadership on Earth, I was. I was scoring well on tests without having to study right, and that was

where it was like, oh, I gotta go. That was really as much a catalyst as the opportunity to jump was that, Like, the reason why I had to go was I'm not being fed here any longer, and I am making choices in the absence of growth that are compromising my relationship with my wife and my ability to father and parent my children. Well, so that that brings up what I'm super interested in asking you about, is

I know how massively successful you and Rachel are. How did it work the transition to your relationship, because my concern would be did it hurt your relationship when you're working together? And in some ways she is the powerhouse, and I have concerns about the switch of the masculine and the feminine. Oh yeah, We've talked about that on

the show. Yeah. And I argue with these men all the time because they repeatedly say to me, it's fine if the woman makes more money, and it's fine if she's the breadwinner, it's fine if she's more successful, and

I'm like, no, it's not. Yeah. Well, Number one, I was hyper triggered by what happened in the first year of us working together in that I left something where my title or my salary or the way that I was the primary breadwinner informed a piece of my identity that gave me worth, and in leaving something to pursue this work together, I was leaving behind that identity, but

also are having come together. We made this decision before a book that she wrote called Girl Wash Her Face came out, but it ended up becoming the second biggest selling book of the year and went on to sell about four million copies. That was a lynchpin, big domino. Every other thing that happens in life and in our business is now the question is how do you pour

more gas on all of it? But from a provision for family perspective, she had a year the first year we were working together that outpaced the five previous years combined of my very successful time at the Walt Disney Company. And for me, it actually triggered this question. Now that she doesn't need me, will she still want me? Yeah? Exactly, And thank you so much for saying that, because I have such a hard time with these men getting them to admit that. Well, I'm going through that right now.

So my when I was playing hockey, I out earned my wife, and then two years ago I stopped playing hockey, and now she vastly out earns me. Because we need more listeners in this podcast. But she vastly out earns me right now, and so I I don't struggle with that so much. This is where Amy and I sometimes butt heads on. This is that because I want my

wife to succeed more than anything. She earns everything she gets, and if I'm a small part of supporting her, and I don't even know if i'm I don't empower my wife. She doesn't need me for anything, but like being part of her journey, being married to her, I'm part of her journey, and I want for her everything she has earned. Now on the flip side, I don't compare myself to her, but damn it, I still want to earn for myself.

I'm still a proud man. I still want to contribute to the world and I want to I want to earn money as well, but I want to do it in a way that's authentic to my mission. And I want to tip my cap to you for leaving a job, a career with security, with certainty, with identity, with prestige, with notoriety. To now, almost from the outside, it looks like you are going to support your wife in this, But I don't think that's why you did it? I don't want to now how did you deal in that year?

Did you? Yeah? Did you? I don't feel like you went to support here, You're like, hey, I'm coming in and this is a partnership or was it? Like it was? It was definitely a partnership. And I can tell you, like the one of the weirder things that was happening in my life was that I was in this weird bridge between thirty and forty. So my big milestone fortieth birthdays come the kind of questions that happened at a birthday. They aren't lasting two or three days. They are perpetually

in my head. Why are you on this planet? Why have you been afforded these gifts and not in a posture of needing to use them? What will it mean twenty years from now if you continue to not have to use them like you are not using them today? For how you feel about yourself when you're by yourself? And and also i'd add to that, who suffers if you don't use them? And who suffers if you don't use them? Right? So I start connecting to this reality that I'm living out my literal greatest fear, which is

not utilizing my potential. Right I have been given these gifts, I am not using them. And now I have the chance of getting to the end of my life where my legacy is hung not on having maximized everything that was given to me, but instead doing things that made sense to the rest of them, but at the expense

of me feeling full. And so I have to go on a pursuit of like what would actually provide me a different kind of a feeling and what I would you know, come back to, is I gotta be in a position where I am uncomfortable, where I have a chance to fail. Right like I was not in a position because of the strength of the intellectual property, the team, the leadership to fail on the whole there was things were too good, and in the absence of being able

to fail, I wasn't growing. But also I'm not like man, I don't like to fail. But I am now in a small business where that's just like the price of entry is failure to simplified. Did that get boring before? And now it's not. And the thing is I I tried to convince myself that I could like endure boring periods because of the parties, because of the title, because of the money, because of being a member of the academy, because of because of right, and those things they did

at the beginning feel good, but they weren't. There wasn't depth necessarily because they're a little more shallow veneer than they are deep meaning. And so I ended up like in this transition, my my real true pursuit was how can I have impact that makes me feel a different way when I'm falling asleep at night. And so the trigger of my wife's success short term was a like man, hard thing to get through, but also a massive gift because how did you do it? And what did it feel? Like?

Like I really want to know, like what did you feel? Because like I've had people say to me like a man, I don't want to do that with you because I don't want to be your purse holder, and it's like I get it, and I don't want you holding my purse. Yeah, it goes both ways. Well, I mean first just st

on like the breadwinning piece. The thing that was triggering for me was truly this, like, oh, I had convinced myself as she for fifteen years was building a business that I was the backstop to her taking chances and growing the business that now that she didn't need me to take chances in our business that need being removed gave her a reason to not want to be with me,

which is bananas. But the good news is in like that trigger having been one that came up, I got to actually really look at me eye and realize, this is crazy. We don't have a contingent love. Contingent love isn't even love. And so if I'm putting a contingency on her only loving me when I can provide for her, that's not even a love that I'd want in the first place. And it also doesn't even exist in that How long did that last? That sort of three months?

Four months? Like, But it was a thing that like until I was processing it verbally, doing some journaling, talking out loud with her about what I was actually feeling. It was sitting in my subconscious sent away that was

gnawing at me but not really coming to the surface. YEA, words to it right once, like and one of the things that helped me bring words to ith I gave you the setup of this like bridge between thirty and forty was I am in pursuit of impact and as much as Yep, I'm transitioning into someone who also is a vessel for impact by being a voice and writing books,

are doing podcasts at the time. My wife is a vessel for impact, and so if I, in use using the superpowers that I have as the how person, can help her as the what person bring the what to life, well fantastic. I can satisfy this want I have for impact because I have been witnessed to the letters from people who have read the books. I've sat in the

audience of the personal development conferences we've thrown. I've seen the way her coaching community responds, and if I can be complicit in helping them have those breakthroughs and transformations, I get to feel the thing I was in search that I wasn't getting in my old world. Wow, I have I have two things with that. Yeah, because I have another question about just home life. You go okay.

First off, I resonate with you about the the feeling bored with comfort you want to and I resonate with it because as an athlete, I wanted to play in the games that I could possibly lose. I didn't want to play in the games that I knew I was going to win. There wasn't there wasn't discovery and personal challenge. And like I wasn't tested, my medal wasn't tested. In

those games, I didn't learn about myself. So the games that were so tight that I didn't know if I was going to win or lose, I was okay with the result because I was gonna lay everything I had into it and that was the best that I could do. And the result just was, you know. And so I resonate with that, and I commend you for leaving something and not staying in it. I actually have a dear friend in my life who is staying in his job just because it affords him some freedom and some money.

We have those people on the show, they're not here today and and he's he's exhausted, and he's his soul is dying, and he's like, I want to do something. I want to do something that matters to me and matters to the world, and just working this job isn't it. And I think a lot of people are scared to actually take that leap. And I want to commit you. That is a massive thing that you did to bet on yourself to take that leap. Um that's amazing. And inspiring in its own regard. And in my second part

is what did your wife say? What did Rachel say when you brought it up to her about this? What was in your kind of subconscious all of a sudden you brought words to it? Was she like, babe, you're crazy? What are you? Is this really what you're going through? Yeah? And isn't that weird? Hout off so fast it made the three months of time where I'm toiling with this insecurity that was born out of some rejection in seventh grade. She cut it off so fast that I actually felt

ridiculous for having let any time. Ten minutes of time would have been ten minutes too many to have spent with it. But she cut it off so fast, and I was like, Okay, I'm an idiot, let's go and die.

And I felt better. But but but by the way, because I would have felt better the first day of the three months if I just brought it up, But instead I sat with it with some shame or some there was something in me even feeling the thing that made me feel weak and so not wanting to like truly own the fact that, man, I feel this thing doesn't make me weak for feeling this thing kept it as a thing that was in silence, and in silence it festered and became something that it never had to be.

That makes me really want to talk about this question at home, because again I argue with these guys all the time that like, I have this career and I'm just like in this career all day long, all night long, all the time. So it really helps me in my relationship because I'm like the girliest girl, Like I can't and I'm not being dumb, but it's like I can't

make the remote work. I can't and I can't open this jar, and like when he does that stuff, I'm like, you know, with the hard eyes, and it's so at home. I'm wondering, do you I sort of really go into those roles at home? Or maybe Rachel is different than me. I don't know, but I'm so curious, Like I mean, like she can she can be the strongest, like she can, Rachel.

Rachel hollis me in the kitchen when I started struggling with some limiting belief for self doubt and she, you know, the best example is I'll start to get anxious about something and she is someone who has worked through her own anxiety for all of her life, and she has found a way to trace back the like where did the anxiety come from? In a way that man, she can do it for me, all right, where did you

start feeling this? What were you doing? Well, let's like truly isolated once you can thing but but here, but that is like man, her kind of superpower on a stage is that kind of thing. But she also likes to throw on holy sweats and have us cuddle and like, yes, is interested in me being like a gentleman in the respect of man. I love to get her coffee every single morning. I get her coffee. Right, It's like just the thing that I do. Um, but I don't. We're

we i'd say we Yeah. Sometimes fall into like more or less traditional roles. But some of the things that are traditional for us are like totally untraditional for other people. So it just kind of depends. How do you guys navigate How do you swap back and forth from work hat on to relationship? Do you put like, hey, from nine to five, it's work at and then from five o'clock on, hey, we're we're husband and wife and not at all? Like how do you not at all there are.

There are things that we have committed to inside of having established relationship values and habits and routines that help us make those values come to life inside of our everyday life. So we have a standing date night every Thursday between now and the end of time. It's existed since our thirteen year old was four weeks old. So we have every Thursday. Now. The last two years of our marriage have been because of our working together, been the two best years and the two hardest years of

our marriage. Right, So, our our decision to do this work has meant that there have been plenty of Thursday nights where we have been more in love than we have liked each other. Right, we have chosen, We've chosen to go on a date even though we've just had a decent amount of friction during the day. Right Like the roles that we play in the in the workplace had to be in order to make this thing work super clearly defined. Your lane is here, my lane is here.

Here are the places rare that they may be where this overlaps. But otherwise you stay in your lane. I'll stay in mine. Now. I am the practical pragmatic operator integrator as a word that we use. She's the visionary, creative and so good news like that as a superpower. That's the avenger. Come together, we are good and that right, they're good. But those two roles come together mean like friction is the required ingredient to produce the good fruit.

So we are friction ng all day. And sometimes that friction, as much as you try to keep it super objective just about the business, can spill into it becoming emotional and then we got to get in the car and drive to get sushi. Dude, I resonate with that so much. I think I said it the other day to my wife and Danielle. You're married, Like, there's times and it's one thing I've learned about marriage. Hey, you always love the person, but there's sometimes you just don't like the person. Yeah,

it's just so true. And that they don't like to take it the sushi to start to feel better. Oh, there are times where it doesn't. Let's be clear. We have had we've had dinner where it's our date night and we are maintaining the respectful intensity of the conversation that we were having prior to the date, only to pose it well. Jared the Server wants to describe them like, oh, welcome, Jared. I mean I get that, like, yeah, so you don't

turn it off? And then I get that now. I mean, here's the thing we because we have four kids, it's like a thousand kids. Know seriously, we have a thousand children at our house. They're three to thirteen years old, and so we are really particular about sitting around the table as a family for dinner every every single chance that we can. There's technology limits like crazy in our house. We are very much about intentional time with each of them,

and they are each wired unbelievably different. My oldest tentional time is super important if there was a single thing as and like if you're not yet a parent, or if you're a new parent, you want to know like what's one hack, what's one one tip. I have four kids that are wired so unbelievably differently, and intentional time pouring into the thing that they have personal passion for

is the way that we accomplish. I write this this goal down every single day I am close to my children, and it is a prompt for me to spend time intentionally with each of them individually without technology. So for people listening intentional time to me. So one of my best girlfriends we talk every day for about an hour and just digging into everything, and we talk on her way to picking her son up at water Polo. But at eight o'clock, when water Polo gets out and he

gets in the car, that is his. She doesn't call it this, but I know it's that's his intentional time. That's his one on one time with mom in the car for twenty minutes. None of the siblings are in the car. They get to talk about whatever that kid wants to talk about, and she is you know, we could be in the most heated discussion, but he gets in the car boom. We will continue tomorrow because that's his time. And I think her children thrive because she

does that with each all three of them. Yeah, for me, it's I have the oldest to Musical theater is his jam. He like lives for it, He's got a community for it. They he loves it. And I spend more time inside of a conversation around or supporting in the audience of his musical theater. Middle son baseball is all he wants to do. So we've got a separate coach. And then there's practices. Youngest son, it's cub Scouts in the outdoors and he wants to just be in nature and run.

And if I when I each day, I want to plug in with them. I meet them where they want to be met. I pour into the and into these things that they're passionate about. I thought it was gonna be one size fits all. My dad was rat, he is rad. We have four kids that I grew up inside of the I was the oldest of four, and I thought my dad was just the same dad to all four of us. And maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. I don't know. I just know him as my dad.

But my impression that you come into fatherhood and you just treat all your kids the same was thrown out its head when I realized, you know what, my oldest son doesn't want to play baseball or soccer or any of the sports that I had as a vision for how I was going to raise my sons. Dude, you have I think everybody in this like studio can just feel it. This guy had just has secret sauce of life. Yeah. I mean, like I just want to bottle you up.

So does Rachel. But I think What's what all have the balls to say is Rachel was doing it, and I think what I interpret is now you're doing it. You're with this book, and I've seen you start to

do more and more. So that's why I was so interested in that in between time and how like left up that probably was, Yeah, I do want to go back, Like I appreciate Brooks the credit you're giving me for deciding to leave the company, but I do want to paint this picture because I think it's important, right I if I had left of my like decision before the seven years of time I was in the job had passed, if I had left it five years in, it would have been different. Those last two years of time where

I didn't leave and I should have left. That was me descending into a lesser version of myself after having had a very successful, very productive, great dad, great husband kind of existence. I dug a ditch for myself and I found myself in that ditch. And it was inside of that while Rachel was discovering the power of personal development and was like it started truly with anxiety. She

had some anxiety. She decides to go on a hunt to figure out how she could potentially change the way that she felt anxious about things, and it led her into books, and it led her into personal development conferences, and it led her into therapy. And as she found a solution for one thing, she found a solution for

two more, and five more and ten more. And I just grabbed a shovel and kept digging myself a ditch because I was so frustrated about all of what feeling like I was tied to in this identity thing around a job that wasn't providing the fulfillment I was looking for. And so I had to in some ways, as she's continuing to grow, build leverage of what might happen if

I didn't make the change. So some people can paint a like fantastic picture of the possibility of their future and like hold hold to it, and it can be something like a big kite that could pull you along. No, no, no no, I had to imagine a future version of myself that didn't take just drastic action to change the trajectory of my life and what might happen if I didn't. So was your marriage getting crappy at that time too? Or was it always like I'm just real blunt with it?

Let's be real. No, no no, no, here's the thing. Like the turning point for me making this decision was the back end of a vacation where I in having received the first the first time I read girl Ash your Face, I decided to drink every ounce of alcohol I could possibly find because I've been being triggered by how transparent and vulnerable and honest she was about everything, including me being a jerk at the beginning of our relationship and

details about our sex life that wasn't awesome, Like it's all in there and I'm hyper triggered by it while I'm as unsatisfied in my work as I was. And we got back from that trip and we sat on the edge of the bed, had the hardest conversation and best conversation of a relationship, where she said, Hey, I have growth as the number one commodity of my life period. I am going to be better tomorrow every day for the rest of my life, and I'm going to do

it either with or without you. I love you. I would love for you to be with me on this, but I know I am going to do it for me. And if I continue to grow and you stay stuck, or if we're honest. Truly, I was digging a hole in a year, Will we still be going on dates in two years and we still be making out? In

three years? Will we still be married? And I knew the answer the answer was no. And so I had to really connect to this vision of exchanging our kids on weekends and me having a alcohol problem and becoming an overweight, like just all of the things, where is this?

And uh? And one of the things honestly that like I had to construct in my head which will sound somewhat crazy, but at forty milestone birthday, I could see sixty the milestone birthday and the idea of a dinner at sixty when my kids, who were at the time eight seven four would then be adults. Maybe they've got partners or significant others have been asked to come around a dinner table at sixty to raise a glass to me. I could see two versions of the way the story unfolds.

Either they're raising a glass celebrating the way that I spent the next twenty years at a time, establishing a legacy, connecting with them, showing up for my life. Or there's a version of the story where no one comes to the dinner and the like. I mean, I could cry just thinking about that, right because I want so badly to show up for myself, but I also want to show up and be a model for who these kids deserve as a father. And it was the first thing that I had to do in that was understand why

I was digging. And so it was right, here's the thing. I didn't know why, but I knew that my wife had gone to therapy to understand why she dug and I thought, you know what, I have been skeptical of every tool you've ever used. I have even resented the fact that tools work for you in a way that I didn't think they might work for me. But I will go sit in the therapist office to try and get some of the answers. And this answer key in the back of the book, because I am so stuck

right now, I have no other choice. So again, like I'm coming way back to I appreciate the man, how rad that you decided to make this leap. I made the leap to save my life and my marriage. I get it, but you still made it. And the fact that you still that you did these things, and I resonate with that. I've tried a dozen things that my wife tried months or years before me and said, hey, can you this is this has really helped me. I'm like, no, I'm good. I'm I'll figure it out, like I'll Men,

I think are very internal. We internalize things, We go with things. Were like, that's like the dumbest thing about dudes ever. We have to deal with you guys all the time because we are the opposite, super emotive and like and you're all just burying that. That's why we wanted That's that's why I'm here doing this show. That's why we talked about, like what's my purpose with this show? Like, Dave, you are a model of what I want to become

of what I hope men can become of. Like, hey, let me bring a voice to my insecurities, let me bring a voice to my doubts, my fears, my things. I'm scared about my failures, you know what I'm going through. Like, I don't think men in general do it enough. And we wanted to do this show to help men set down their weapons, say hey, to help the women to dealing with you all because y'all are so confusing. My question for both of you, you both have a lot of um. Even though you might be going down, you

know you're gonna dig yourselves back up. What advice do you have for men and women where the man is sort of stuck, like nothing's disastrous, the job doesn't totally suck, but it's not great, the marriage doesn't totally suck, but it's not great. Like he likes the kids, but it's just a lot of that. That's what I find of so many forty year olds, where they're just like, it's the most asked questions by far, it's Hey, I it

tends to be I'm more the women than men. Hey, as a woman in this relationship with a man, and I am on a journey. I am reaching for a better version of myself every day. I can't get him to get on board with my growth. I know Dave was in this, like, how do I how do I convince him to want to grow? How do I ask him to grow? How do I tell him to grow?

And the simplest and best answer is if you want to change him, change yourself because you committing to pushing yourself to become a better version of yourself every single day, Well, one leave a trail of breadcrumbs right like I was the like I had an accomplice in getting out of my own way, and that was Rachel and the work that she did for herself on herself, even though I was giving her a hard time for doing it, even though I would grunt when she would wake up in

the morning, even though I rolled my eyes when she went to the personal development conference. I finally, when I was at a place where I was available to it and ready for it, I reached for a rope that she'd dropped, dropped into that valley that I created, and it was truly like a I would toe dip. I went into therapy super skeptical of it, thinking that it was for broken people, only to realize it's fantastic and

be a greater advocate. I went to a personal development conference, super super skeptical of it being snake oil, and yet there were some weird things in it. But guess what at a transformative experience sitting in the audience at a personal development conference. So you know, like I still carry a lot of skepticism. I am someone who has to

see the actual results to become a true believer. And seeing my wife's actual results were what created belief in the tools that end up saving the title of your book. Get out of your own way to me, Like that's everyone's problem is themselves. Oh yeah, Like further to what he said, dude, I just laugh. I've like you're you're just my dude. I just resonate so much with what

you're saying. Also, because um, guys, at least speaking for myself, will only try it when we want to try it, so you you, my wife can tell me, hey, this is great, this is so, this is pretty perfect for you. I'm like, great, that's wonderful. Then she's like, why you're gonna try it. I'm like no, no, Like she's like why, I don't know. I don't want to try it. It's inception. Yeah, it's like he has to find a way to make you believe it's your idea. I mean that's like I

guess what, that's the human condition. And I think it actually goes both ways. I don't think that like there's this is like, yes, I think it is maybe more male than female is because literally it is. My boyfriend was like, get this toothbrush. He sent me the link. I order it, Like I know that's super simple, but like he just tells me what to do and I do it. We all have to just do all this voodoo with you guys to get you to try it. It just comes when it comes listen like and then

here's the thing once we try it. Like you said you tried therapy. I've tried therapy. It's amazing. I loved it. I went to UH, I went to a personal development, went to Tony Robbins date with Destiny because my wife she would gone. This was her third time going. She's like, do you want to come? I'm like, Okay, sure, I'll come. And the first day I almost walked out my head blew off. It's Tony's giving you this this rant about how to show up in the world and create energy.

I'm like, I drove a bus for a pro sports team for fifteen years. Dude, I know how to show up. Don't tell me how to show up. Let's go. I'm here. I prepare and show up before I even get here. And now we're here and you're trying to get me to create energy. How dare you disrespect me? Like like just stuff like this that I'm just an idiot on right, like and so my wife and then when I Finally, when it finally clicks, I tell my wife and like, oh,

I tried this thing. I tried working with Johnny, I tried working with Scott and my mind blue is amazing. It's the most incredible thing. And the look on her face is just like that, I'm not telling you. You

can't say that either. You go okay, um. But you know what's crazy too, though, is like there have been things that have come out of some of these experiences where you're immersed for two days or three days, and it may be two hours of twenty that were the thing that fundamentally changed the way that you think you might have to wade through fifteen hours of stuff that you're like, dude, you can keep this, but I still, holy cow, can connect to a couple of these experiences

that just a lightbulb went on a thing that you just and Rachel could have told me a thousand times,

it didn't matter. It had to be something that I discovered myself through my own process because of the way that we're wired and are you guys able to like because there is so much sort of bettering yourself and digging and exploring and thinking and understanding, like do you ever just like shut it off at the date night and just talk about, like I really like to the show on Netflix, you know, or are you guys really

like kind of always doing it? We're I mean, we're we're not consumers of almost anything media wise, which is like crazy. I mean, like we at the like for the first ten years of our marriage we almost exclusively watched maybe not even ten years, but like seven or eight years we we watched a ton of TV. We don't we don't turn on the television, which so which is weird. So like now the things that we talk about tend to be more connected to the work that

we're doing in the books that we're reading. We still have those conversations, but it's it's really rare that there's like, oh, hey did you watch did you watch this? Which, yeah, well you probably watched things together that my life. Well, you know, here's the thing. So I like, I went on this. I went on this. Uh, I went on this like three day goodbye from technology, goodbye from family, walk in the wilderness. Man, I really recommend that people

take time to get clear. Nope, Amy open open your mind to this. So I went to Tusun, Arizona out in the middle of beautiful. Oh my god, Tucson, Sorry, Tucson, You're not You're not great. I had to change. I had a bad time and had a bad experience and two soons. It doesn't it doesn't great. The tourism board is never going to welcome you back at me if you if you continue to rag on Tucson, Uh, you go,

And then I'll tell you. The headline is, I'm in this experience of just trying to leave my mind clear enough to figure myself out a little bit. It was like my own version of therapy where I am now both a therapist and the patient and in the work of just being by myself. I literally deleted my social media from my phone and had someone on my team changed the past words because I know myself well enough to know two days in I had have gone back

on right. So I start doing a little bit of work on where in the last two or three years worth the time there was pain in my life? Where did pain exist in my life? I wanted to try and see if there was any consistent ingredients in the times when I felt pain of some kind, and the thing that was a through line every single time there was pain, it was a time when I professed an interest in or told people that I was a certain person. I am this kind of dad, I am this kind

of leader, I am this kind of husband. But new in the silence of my own bedroom while I was falling asleep at night, that I had not shown up that way, that incongruence, the dissonance that existed between who I was telling people I was, or who I know myself to want to be, and who I was actually showing up as that distance is pain, it's shame, it's unfulfilled potential, it's all those things right, it's impostor you

name it, like all those things right. And so I in that in that time my brain works and maybe a little bit of a different way. But I had to think about the math. Okay, if I say I want to do these things, I want to be this person, then I have to show up for my life in this way. This is a long way to land the point that the reason why watch television is that my math equation. If I want to have the energy to go on a city book tour, if I want to stand on these stages that we have for these personal

development conferences this year and have this energy. If I want to write my next book, if I want to lead our team, then I have to be asleep by nine pm every single Night's right. It's a non negotiable because and the thing is, by the way, right, you have a different if then right if you want to stay up to date on all of the storyline of this is us Man, I honor that choice. But your then statement is just different and there's nothing like truly

there's no value judgment on it. But I don't. But there are there are people who wonder why they can't chase their dreams or feel under fulfilled, or haven't hit their fitness goal or whatever, and they're still watching six hours of streaming a night. Well, let me let you in on your answer. You have an if then equation that is satisfying some entertainment value at the expense of you get in the kind of sleep that would let you start your day at five paid to watch all

those shows you do. So I want to ask you both the question what really landed on me when you were talking? And again maybe Danielle can jump into because it felt very male to me, the shame you wanting to be this certain person and feeling saying you were that person, but you aren't that person. Like I could understand it for you guys it's gender, but I didn't.

I don't experience that. We women to me are like I'm a train wreck, and we tell our girlfriends and we all get together and lift each other up, where I would never say like I'm really killing the game, but then inside I'm like I suck, whereas men, I feel like you have to flex a little bit more, and I'm curious. I don't think it's gender related to you specific I don't think it's gender related only in that my wife gets this question all the time in

a way that I've never been asked it. What's this going to do to your kids? Right? My wife is an ambitious person who's pursuing a career. What's this going to do your kids? Is a question that she gets that I don't, right, And she gets that question because it's asked through the lens of the stereotypes or gender norms and rolls of what women ought to do, and

a hypothesis that women couldn't possibly be both. They couldn't possibly be both a good mom and a person and a badass entrepreneur, and so what I always say is like, oh, you're just you're asking the question in the wrong tone of voice. Right, what would this do to our children? Right?

I have three kids who are boys, and those boys will never for one second question whether a woman can write to back to back number one year times best selling books, stand on stages that draw ten thousand people lead a boardroom like it'll never enter their mind that women can. And I have a three year old daughter who will never need to read a book that my wife wrote called Girl Stop apologizing, because she's never once seen my wife apologize for standing in the identity that

she was put on this planet for. But can I take go on a limb and say, your daughter also will have a great boyfriend or marry the right guy, because she's got you to model that after, you know what I'm saying. So let's not get ahead of ourselves. But I do think she's got a man that's saying that, and I think that that becomes what we're talking about. I think she wants I think those are the point Brooks's point of I don't know that it's gender specific.

I think that there are plenty of things that women carry, worry or guilt, or shame about with regard to what the other moms of p t A you're thinking, or whether or not they're living up to the rest of the women and they're small group, or if they've hit certain things. There's We do this crazy exercise at our personal development conference called Rise where it's a it's a women's conference and dude, you got to open that up to dudes. We are and I'm like, this is about girl.

Let's let's let this book of mine get out. Let's see what we can do. I hear, I am here for it, and Brooks, you are. It's the invitation is already. But we do this exercise called stand Up for Your Sister, where there are a list of twenty trauma events that people have been through that we ask the audience to check. Hey, no one's going to see it, go ahead and just check the box. And it's the first morning of a

day called Own your Past. And you go through and you check check, check, check, check, You fold it up and then you pass it and pass it and pass it and pass it until it's now lost in the audience. And then from stage Rachel reads these things and they are, oh,

the hardest things in the world. But among those things are things like I hate the way I look, or I feel judged for the way I do this, or and as they're read, even though you walk into this auditorium feeling like the struggle that you carry as a woman is unique to you, when you see nearly like I hate the way I look, it's unbelievable. It's like it makes me want to cry. Higher audience stands up and it's like, well, this is this is what's broken. Let's figure out how to create a set of tool

us to try and fix this. But there are I just you know, there are things. And by the way, if we do something for men and check the box.

We have a business conference where we did the same thing, but we did a stand up for yourself, like owning that you made decisions that drove your business to bankruptcy, that you've had to fire the person that you thought was But the reality is their struggle is universal, right, I mean, like part of my reaction to girl Wash your Face was this idea that she was going to reveal the struggle of our life as though it would

be a surprise to people. And the headline is that I was assigning vulnerability as a weakness or a showcase of weakness and have come full circle because of the way the book was embraced in the letters that have said, hey, this was where I got breakthrough, and I feel differently about how I can control my my forward, everything that's

gonna happen going forward. Vulnerability is a superpower, and her ability to tell stories that would afford people the chance to see themselves in the story is what lets them get out of their way. It's why you know, I wrote a book in the same kind of vein where I'm telling a bunch of stories that most people would never ever own. There's power owning your own story, but people seeing themselves in the story is where the power

comes from. Well, I think as for you too, I like that you both are willing to be vulnerable because that's why we're doing this, is to get these guys to be able to do that because it benefits women so much to help to help them understand what's really going on. Well, we were talking about this before we started in. Producer Danielle said, Hey, save that for the show. We're talking about just being authentic and real and sharing vulnerabilities and how easy that makes life. You know, there's

like freed a minute. Yeah, once you once you're comfortable with owning, Like you said, I made this mistake. I felt this way. I had an insecurity about this. I f this up big time. Take full ownership when you actually accept ownership of things that you tried to hide previously. Man, you just sit back in your chair and life is just relaxing. Doesn't mean we have it figured out. Doesn't mean like you're just comfortable all of a sudden in

your own skin. You've got nothing to hide. And Dave walked in and he said, man, just ask me anything, like, ask me anything. So I have a question for both of you, Like, that's to me, that's real masculinity. Well, yeah, I agree, that is real modern day masculinity right there. So I asked some women as I was coming here to talk talk today what they wanted to know. And one of the questions I thought was really interesting and

I wrote it in Brooks notes. If you're in a relation, you're in a relationship and the emotional connection has dissipated, can you get it back and how or if it's gone? Is it gone? I mean, I think you can definitely get it back, but it may take doing the work to get to the why, like why did it go? Like again, like my my brain is a little more like again practical science based objective. I want to try

and find the answer to why it left. So if I found myself in that situation, I'd be sitting in a therapist office with someone who could help curate a conversation that would allow the things that we're currently not saying to come to the surface. I mean, one of the gifts of us working together, as much as it has been the best two years and hardest two years, is that it has forced us to commit to this idea of radical candor. There's a book by a person

named Kim Yeah. So Kim Scott wrote this book. It's

called Radical Candor. So I'm borrowing it from her, But it's this idea that like in respect for someone showing up as their best self, if you truly care about someone, you will, in real time find a way to deliver feedback to them in a way they can hear it, in a way that respects them, that's away from other people, but that doesn't allow the thing that they've done fester, or doesn't allow the thing that is bothering you, But may not even be on their radar to come into

the light so that you can just deal with deal with it quickly and move on. You know, it makes me laugh about that, the old timey saying don't go to bed angry. It's like sort of true. It's like talk about it and kind of try to work it out so that you can move forward. I disagree with don't. I don't like it. It doesn't make me feel it. I feel uncomfortable. I like to kind of work it out.

Here's what Well, here's the thing. If you are practicing like this idea of radical candor on the like regular it's just like so ingrained in how you just pursue you rarely are going to find yourself with something that would leave you like truly bubbling over angry. But the reason why I disagree with don't go to bed angry is if you are really angry about something and you're gonna start tackling it at the end of the day when you have less energy that maybe you know, you

push in an emotional state faster. The chances that you can hear things without being defensive, the chances that you can give people responses that actually feel like they're filled with respect and the intent shin of coming out the other side in a good way. I'd rather sleep on it, let that emotion go do that. I agree with him.

There's times where if I get into an argument, I need just a minute or not even a minute, but a couple of hours just to really set in what I'm feeling, and then I'm able to have a conversation and actually be But let me ask both of you honestly, because my wife does that too, She'll sometimes leave the room. I need a second. I hate it, and dudes that that pisces me off. I'm like, let's just deal with it that same thank you. But I get it. I'm like, Okay,

here's what I'll say. I need a moment to recalibrate. I get it. Some people there there are argument styles, so a little bit depends on how you're arguing or constructive conflict style is right, I am captain of the debate team. You want to give me a letterman sacket, I will get I will, I will, I will argue to the death to win, to be right, and Rachel

in conflict shuts down. When you pair capture the debate team with shuts down it actually provokes something that has me looking like a bully, which is the world like, Honestly, it makes me want to throw up. I hate when I come off as a bully, and I don't even if I come into it not meaning to. If she's shutting down and I'm winning the argument when she's not even participating, it's the worst. So we've just acknowledged up

this is the way that we're wired. Yeah, you're going to try and have, you know, as constructive conversation, but there's been plenty times we've actually opted into sending each other emails that right, and and the request and sending the email is like read the email, process the email. It doesn't mean that you don't get emotional. We still get emotional with the email, but you wait until the emotion,

the initial emotion is subsided. You wait until that initial let's get defensive or reactive feeling goes away, and then you come back and have a more objective come. I can't do it. It's the difference that I've read up on this a little bit. Respond versus react. You know, react is like boom triggered, I'm coming back at you, whereas let me like what you said, let me take it a little bit here, let me process this, and then let me be respond. And that's a totally different

energy than reacting. The one one thing that has been super helpful in the responding has been starting the sentence with my intention here is just like declaring your intention for the outcome of this conversation. My intention here is that I want to I want to show up well for my intention here is to help you because I can see something I don't think you see. My intention here is And if you've declared the intention, it's easier to stay connected to the intention than it is the

emotions that without intention leave you. Right. I love that. I'm going to use that. The other one, there's another one that's, um, my hallucination is instead of saying like I think you, it's like, well, my hallucination is that you're feeling this way about where that's something that I just it means it's I'm not putting you on the defense of it's my hallucination, but what I'm making up about you. Yeah, Well that's what I was going to

say to you, guys. Is the reason I like, don't go to bed angry is because and I'm after this show I'm much more healed. I'm not going to cry right now, but the old man would have cried because I think the person will leave. So I have like an abandonment thing where if we don't work it out, they'll they'll leave, and so they'd be interesting to trace where that comes from. I think my mom didn't come get me at camp is really the only thing I can come up with on that. I've talked to her

about it so many times. I literally wrote a letter and come get me. I hate camp, and she didn't come, and the letter didn't get there. She got it. She called the camp and said, my daughter wants me to come get her, and they're like, she's fine. But anyway, I don't know if that's really it, but I don't know. So I think it's understanding your your person. Yeah, there's another um like that hallucination thing. There's another one to respond after you've shared your thoughts is if you can.

If it's you try this and it feels amazing to hear it, and so once you've heard it for yourself, you'll want to share it. It's thank you for taking care of yourself. So when when my wife says something or shares a feeling. If you're able to learn this from Jaya, Yeah, about talking about like sexuality and things that you craved and desired in the bedroom in our

intimate relationship. Um, it's a way to empower people to bring a voice to things that that they fear a little bit, Yeah, or maybe they'll be judged for it, or something that I want everything for my wife as I want everything for myself. Right, So she tells me something, then I acknowledge her with thank you for taking care of yourself. She just kind of like he hears me permissions. It's permission, permission, but even even in the world where you don't want to have it feel like permission, but

you get it. It just disarms you a little bit. And then when I get to say what I want to say and she says thank you for taking care of yourself, it's like, oh, it's just you feel so well received when you say that. I love having guests that come in that just bring like, dude, you're just you're just throw and smoke today. Come on, I love it. Um. I Also you also touched on something about incongruencies between your life. You're what who you thought you were in

your actions, and it's I have I have. I call it my golden question, the single most important question that defines my life. I asked myself that every day, it's written in my gym, are my daily actions congruent with my life goals? That's it? That is It's why I'm here on this podcast. You know, the day that my daily actions, the day that the goals of this podcast don't align with my life goals, I'm not here, you know, I call I call them my operating principle. Well, because

I love it all. I do. I love it all. I love me some Oprah's and Tony Robbins, I love you guys. But I'm also sitting here going like I'm just trying to like get through the day. I don't have enough time to always process that. Like I'm just I haven't got to the bathroom in three hours, Like literally I have to pee so bad right now because I've been so busy and going from one thing to so I don't have time to be like, am I in congruum. I'm like, I'm just trying to shove you know,

you go first, I'll come, I'll come. I want to hear you first. What's interesting as a person who has historically been crazy skeptical of fu fu talk like this. It wasn't until I saw the fruit of crazy habits, of hyper routine, of actually doing the work to define what are my personal values? And in defining my personal values, what are the operating principles that I have to live by every single day so that those values come manifest

Like is it like subconscious? Are you actually saying? Am I like being conscious in a way that like if there was a secret shopper watching my life, like the way that a retail store sends a secret shopper into watch how the you know, clerks are restocking the shelves. If there was a secret shopper watching my life and I was hoping that if I couldn't make the interview of my life, they were sent in to rep resent the very very best traits about me. Would they actually

say the things I want to say about myself? And what do you think they say? Well, I hope that they'd say that I'm generous, so that I'm interested in growth, that I value my family, that I show up for impact, like the things that are hopefully a reflection of what I believe to be my core values, and you think that you're gonna let's say the secret shopper came and followed you today, like, would you pass? I think he would.

I hope every single day. I hope too. I mean, are there times when I wouldn't, of course, But again I'm about to see. But here's the thing, right if you if you say that, okay, so then what's the objective? And my objective is better tomorrow? Right? I want to just I am on a perpetual pursuit of a thing that doesn't have a finish line. I just want to be a little bit of a better father tomorrow, a little bit better boss tomorrow, better friend tomorrow, better conscious

you know what I mean? Like it's president's conscious, but so much of what we do, of what we do is an unconscious have a loop. So if half, almost half of what we do isn't even in our consciousness, the only thing you can do to change half of what you do is to become more conscious. I mean, am I the only one that's like, I'm just hoping the other shoe doesn't drop, and I'm just kind of like, can I keep all the balls in the air? And I hope my boyfriend likes me. I'm like, you know,

you're not. I'll just say you're not. You're not the only one this is, You're definitely not when you ask that question. I love Dave's answer the door dressed. Dave's answer is real, and he's a lot more elaborate and articulate than I am. What I wrote down right here when you asked that is my response to you is what are your priorities? Like you just said, I can't. I haven't got to the bathroom in three hours, so

so look at that. Let's look at that. Then what's the priority the email in your life, in the grand scheme of your life? What are you prioritizing right now? This email, this work, this little project, this little I need to be on this phone call? Like, well, yeah, I had to be on a phone call, and then I had to take a check down to accounting, and then I needed and I wanted to be in here, and I already missed the first five minutes. I have no idea what the hell you guys talked about in

the first five minutes. I just hoped I wasn't repeating it. So go into the bathroom was not a priority. I can do it in twenty more minutes. That's a slippery slope. Then that's a very slippery slope because that's going to start to infect other areas of your life and my bladder. I mean no, I just I just mean neglecting things that you want, like neglect like chocolate. That's the two

things I want right now, chocolate and bathroom. There's try this, so there's a saying for people to say I don't have time, I don't have time for this, I don't have time next time. Instead of saying I don't have time, try saying it's not a priority and just wear that for a second. You don't have time for the gym next time today it's not a priority. Or I don't have time to pick my kids up. Oh, it's not a priority to pick my kids up. It's a totally

different suit that you wear. And at that, when I heard that, I was like, oh that changed be so yeah, damn right. I asked, well, it was more of a priority for me to get in here, then go to the bathroom, and the chocolate is probably third. I think I'll go to the bathroom after. Well, you guys, you guys are very like I don't know people listening are like, well, sure, I'd love to be like those two, but hell like parts are not. Zick. Here's the thing, though, I need

people need to hear this. We are unbelievably ordinary people who have decided to implement habits in our life to unlock extraordinary results. We are ordinary people. Also, there's areas of my life that are absolutely chaotic. I got here early so I could take my car downstairs to get it cleaned, because my car is absolutely discussing. He's got bird poop all over it, it's got dog. You're rolling over that piece of paper. I mean, I hear the paper here, the paper here, the paper, but like so

just because somebody's got it in line here? I mean, there's a million ways in my life that are chaotic right now. I would love to ask you too, how like, percentage wise, how in line are you both? Like really, how much is you're together congruency with with who we want to be? I would say, I'm I would say, honestly, Uh,

I'm pretty damn congruent. But I have so much growth that I desire for still, I am just starting to really I think unlock uh the new version of me that like things that that I shut off for years, for twenty years, and as an athlete, things that I shut off and I didn't give time or resources or dedication to that, I'm starting to bring into my life that are going to open me up and change me in ways to become a new man, a better man, a different man than I was before. I've said that

my adjective of is to be boundless. I don't want to bound myself or constrict myself under an identity of an athlete male thirty six Canadian. Those are all you're boxed in now, and I've done that to myself and also people have done that to me, and so my word for is boundless. Now, I'm I don't know where I am. I know I'm damn true. I know that I'll speak the truth whether it's good or bad. I know that my system doesn't lie to me. I trust

my instinct. I've shared it on this show, my biggest success in my life as I've always followed my instinct. But am I where I want to be? No? I am just starting, like I am one step into climbing the Eiffel Tower of where I want to be as a person. But I'm super damn excited about it because it's the first time in my life where I've really

like opened up, and that's why I wanted. I was so excited to have Dave come in when I'm researching him and his story, and we actually met at the Jurnal and I was like, apparently, time to go to the bath. I just can't wait to hear your stud to talk about your life for me, but also then to serve our community. My word for the year is captain, which is a strange word, but I I got a quote tattooed on my arm when I decided to make this leap. A ship is safe in harbor, but that's

out which ships were built for. And I thought the decision to leave the harbor was the hard part, and so I made this choice and it was hard, but it began a string of very hard decisions that I had to make every single day to push back against the insecurity and the identity shift and the imposter syndrome and how to scale a team from five to sixty five. In the last year, like, we have gone through some fun stuff that have every single time pushed me into

spaces that made me feel uncomfortable. And so the the first year of us doing this work together was about me leaving the harbor and just sitting in the waves, And it was something that at first I didn't even receive the benefit of because I had really bad coping mechanisms. I'm eleven months into not having a drink. Thanks well, I'm eleven months into not having a drink because I

committed to not drinking for a year. I wanted to get to the point where the book came out, but I think I'll probably, to be honest, I don't know yet, and I've decided I'm not going to make the decisions so I get through the year. But I was definitely not in this congruence place a year ago because all of the things that were coming at me with anxiety and fear and identity and everything else, I was not handling well, and so I had to find a different

coping mechanism. I started running instead of drinking. Just to give you a sense of how chaotic life has been, I have run one thousand miles and eleven months I have I have run a lot of miles now. Captain though for me is I am closer now to congruents than I've been in a long time. Because these waves. To me, I am built for this. I am the boat on the water. Let's go. And just because it's rocky, and just because failure is happening in our business, that

is more successful than it's ever been. I f I don't know, three or four hours, I have now just come to realize that that is the way that this small business operates. That's just the way that it works, and I'm growing from it. But I'm way more congruent and consistent with the things I say I want today than I was a year ago, and wildly more consistent, like by a magnitude of five or six times more

consistent than five years ago. Do you think about congruin's Daniel Um not really, to be honest, I sometimes think I feel balanced, Like, yeah, chemicals seem to be okay today. That's the EMO word balance, because we're, like you said, you were juggling all these different types of types of things. I definitely resonates congruent. I know it's matching who you want to be with who you actually are. It's how do I show up in I whatever. That never crosses

my mind. I agree, You're you are very congruent. You you love people and you genuinely show that you love your job, you show up for that. Do you both think congruents is also equivalent or on the scale with happy, Like, if you're congruent, are you happier? Damn right way happier. But I also like my congruents is in part because the posture I say I want to be in is one where I'm growing, and that's where fulfillment lives for me.

Right Like, if I if I'm not growing, it's like I don't even know if I've heard the word congruent more than four times before today. Well, this is like a bingo game and you can fill the entire car. This is fantastic. Um. It's so, here's the thing. If you are not, if somebody is not congruent in their life,

at some point, you're going to face that. You're gonna when you're by yourself in a dark room, whatever, there's gonna be a dis sect, there's gonna be a mirror, there's gonna be a reckoning where you understand what you've said is different than how you've acted. And your true friends, you're the people around you, they'll know it, they will see it, and they'll know it as much as your people listening, how do we help them understand it? Well, my question is how do you feel about yourself when

you're by yourself? How you feel about yourself when you're by yourself is everything. So here's yeah. The reality is if you're incongruents, you'll know because you'll feel pain, shame, anger, insecurity, fear. If you are congruent, you'll feel peace, You feel free. And there's um one way that I always try and figure things out as I ask myself. I directly ask myself the question, and my system, my heart, question my

heart just sec I'll get to it. But whatever question do I want to ask myself, my heart my system will not lie to me. It will undeniably not lie. It will reveal the truth. So if I ask myself, am I proud of the man? I am? And I close. I always close my eyes because I don't want any other visual I don't want any other sensory stimulation. I'll have a blindfold on sometimes or I'll close my eyes. I'll have a lot of times I do my thinking

with headphones on because I don't want to hear of things. Um. And if you for me, this is how I do it. I close my eyes. I asked myself this question, and my system will not lie to me. The heart does not have an ability to lie to you too, as a human. I'm damn proud of myself. I'm also damn excited and curious and scared for what I still need

to learn. I like I like the process, but I actually do it in a way that compartmentalizes individual pieces of my life, because I can be proud of myself on the whole and not have pride for the way I'm showing up against a certain dimension of my life. Right, So am I proud? I write down ten statements in a journal every day as though they've already happened, as a trigger for my unconscious to search for ways to make that happen. And and one of them is I

intentionally pursue my wife. I actively intentionally pursue my wife. I write down every day as though it already has happened, and then I have to during the day look for ways to be in pursuit, Like we haven't yet even had the wedding ceremony, right, Like I want to pursue my wife as though there aren't guarantees that she'll stick

with this, I want to pursue my wife. Right. I am close to my children and so every day right, But in doing that, I can I can be proud of who I am overall, but I can realize, oh my goodness, I'm on my phone while my kids are sitting here on their device and we're in the same room, but we're not actually connecting. I am not proud right now of myself in this because I could do more to be intentional in connecting with one of my kids. My answer to all the questions is ish, that's great,

that's great, that's great. Awareness. You can question you guys say that's okay. But I'm telling you, whatever question you want to ask could be a specific question, could be a general question. Am I proud of myself? Could be a specific question, am I doing my best at work? If you truly ask yourself's I mean one of the things that we've had to institute, like our life, your life, all life, it's so hectic and crazy that if you hope and you use the word hope, so I'm gonna

have to come at the word hope. But like if you hope that an exceptional life is going to show up. If you hope that an exceptional relationship is going to show up. If you hope that feeling a certain way at work is going to show up, you are setting yourself up for being at the mercy of life doing whatever life will do. And life is not that. Life is not engineered to create exceptional No, no, no, no no. Life will come around the corner and kick you in

the shins. So you have to frontload the life that you say you want to have. We have a saying. It's whether it's our saying or someone else is saying that hope is not a strategy. You need to have a strategy for how you hope your exceptional life will show up. So, before we go, what do you think of trust the universe? I think there's a place for that, But also too, I also want to give credence to what Dave is saying, is that and you are this Amy sometimes I've I've told you many times on the show.

I don't think you give yourself enough credit. I think you're very I think you're very self critical and don't think you give yourself enough credit credit because you are what he's talking about, a creator of circumstance. You you literally created this podcast. You've literally created every other podcast we are all in this room right now because you created it. You are a creator of circumstance in the world more than you know. And I think I sometimes

think you don't give yourself enough credit. Thank you. No, I appreciate it. Like if we need to affirm me, I'm happy to make things up, I do it. No, it's about you today and also everyone listening. So what I hope people listening are like taking because there's some good meat. Like sometimes I think people like Dave that are in your career our way too broad strokes and this, I think that we give people some real practical things to do and how to do it. I really appreciate

he's given it today. He's very taking. Like I love with those ten things you write down, I intentionally pursued my wife. I love that thing. All men should totally do Easton because it's like that will help your marriage if you are acting like that every day the way around too. Though, I think, let's talk about this for a second. This is why I'm here to your significant

other like you just met them. I have a question for you, Dave, so in your book, which I want to get to in a minute, but get out of your own way. Um, you talk about what ways people prevent their own success? So what is for our listeners, what is like some of the two or three most common ways that you feel people prevent their own success, whether that's in business, whether that's in fulfillment, enjoy happiness, in relationship, go at it how you want. I want

to leave it open to you. But what are some of the ways that people prevent their own success? Well, the first is that we are the believers in a series of stories that have been told to us about how life works, how life shows up or avails itself to us through our family of origin, through societal norms, through some voice of authority at some point in time

that we ascribed value too. And if we're not asking all the time, if that story was told by a credible source, then we are just living through the lens potentially of someone else's fear and not our truth. Right. And so I, in the simplest form running right, I had somebody tell me for years, thirty six years of my life that tall people can't run. Right. Tall people can't run because of their hips, because of their knees,

because of their back. People can't run. So I just believe that story to be true and never tested the hypothesis. Then one day I went on a run and my knees hips back didn't hurt, and I went on another run, and so I had to go back to the source. The source is that a credible source? It turns out it is a credible source actually kind of like his hallucinations thing. It is like his hallucinations thing, right, But the source was still credible. But then I had to

ask do they have credibility on this subject? And the reality was as much as that person who I crave left from is someone who is a credible source, they had no credibility on the topic of running. Be free from this story. It no longer bears any weight for you. What's right for what's right for them isn't right for you. So you have to choose carefully what stories you believe. And if you believe a story, you've kept it as a capital t truth in your life. Do the work

of understanding who was the storyteller? Do they have credibility? Do they have credibility on the topic right? And it could be that they were a credible source when they told the story, when you were five, I've but have lost credibility over time. Be free. It could be that they had credibility on the topic then, but don't have application to that topic in your life. Be free, Like, there's so many ways to be free. It's so good.

I had a therapist when I was twenty say don't do stories, and like, I know exactly what she's saying, because it's exactly what you're saying. Don't do stories. Don't make up your own stories in your head, and don't buy into somebody else's made up stories. Just don't do stories. The other another one, I mean, like the amount of time that we waste worrying about what other people are thinking about the things that we're doing is singularly the

like one of the biggest paralyzed. It's just paralyzing. And I was like, having stayed at Disney for longer than I should have. The reason I stayed longer than I should have was the worry of what they would think of me leaving something that made so much sense to them but would not have like totally helped me in my journey. And so I, on the other side of leaving, was afforded a gift that pierced ego and my identity. They weren't thinking about me, And it's not an indictment

on them as human beings. It's just a reflection of their humanity. No one's thinking about anybody else, Like for the most people still in relationships because they're worried of what somebody else is going to think of them leaving

the relationship, right, No one. I mean there are a hand I would say, like maybe ten percent of people are truly truly thinking about you, but they are usually thinking about you through the lens of their fear or their insecurity, and not necessarily what is in your absolute best interest if they're judging right, if they're what I'm saying is if they're judging right right, And so it's like, be free, Holy Cabby free. I I will say, like, in the like Catharsis of writing this book, man, it

was hard. It was really hard to be as honest and vulnerable in this book as I ended up being. But on the other side of having the words on the page and having now had some early reception, I have never been so proud of owning fully the struggle that I have gone through and the way that I feel progress for having persevered through it. If you are someone who is struggling, I want to acknowledge your humanity. Good news, brother, sister, you and I have something in common.

You struggle, I struggle. We all struggle, and if you're going through something, you are not alone. But also the only way that you will get help. Truly, the only way I was able to get help was by actually acknowledging that the struggle existed. Because in darkness, nothing can come there, nothing will be there to help you. And so like be okay, finding someone to represent whatever it is that you're going through, it will be the rope that gets thrown in your ditch if you're you know,

find yourself in one. I'm telling you it wasn't until I could admit the things that I was struggling with that I was able to actually reach you see the rope, because you said it was hanging there for a long term there forever, Dude, you're awesome. Also, I want to add to that what you're talking about about people thinking other people judge them when you look at when you really look at that act of that in individual, it's an incredibly selfish act for me to think that you're

wasting your time. And Danielle and Amy all you guys are looking at me and you're thinking about something about me. How selfish of me to actually think that your lives are consumed about what I'm doing. And when you actually get clear to you're like, oh, like nobody's given a damn about me, nobody cares about me. Like you turn that selfishness off. It's amazing. And also what you touched on. Prior to that, I was reading about stories about maintaining

and holding onto stories. I was literally I was reading the book The Untethered Soul today. Have you read that book? Credible book? And I'm on I think chapter six and he was talking about his best friends. Now, this guy is like my older brother. I've never had an older brother. This guy's like my older brother. I love it. Um, And you, by no means look old at all. I probably look older than you. Um. But Sam Scara, you ever heard the term sam Scara? It's about congruent. Okay,

I had no sound scar until today. From Untethered Soul. It's about how we are heart traps, things that we don't process. So everything that comes into our lives comes into our lives and it's supposed to move in us, through us and then be as Dave said, free, be free of it. But there's certain things that trigger us. Tucson triggered you earlier. That's stuck in. Yeah, that's stuck. I'll never go to Tucson again. But that's that's now energy that's closing off a valve of like your energy

flow in your heart about Tucson. Okay, but it's still there, Like why did you respond to it? Because it wasn't able to pass in and through you. That experience still has a grip on you in some way. There's weight there, I gotta tell you. Like I I was so skeptical. I thought it was hooie the idea of journaling for

a long time. Okay, yeah, I'm still there to try it once, And I was like, I want to just piggyback on what you just said, though, because as a person who hated it until I went and had this experience in Tucson where I had no technolog g and

all I had was a blank piece of paper. You spend the first twenty minutes writing about things that are sitting in like they're on your consciousness, that you actually know what you're you're writing about, you're thinking about all the things that you think about, and then at minute one forty one you just have to keep writing. All of a sudden, all the things that you're holding Tucson, your Tucson comes up and lands on a page and

it coming out of Phoenix. Oh jeez, I mean whatever it imprinted so strongly that you got the city wrong, even the state time in Tucson. But the one is really but continue, Dave. The bottom line is if you can bring this experience out of your consciousness, the weight that you afford something when you are not able to actually ask is this real? Does this matter? Is there a possibility that I have conjured something? This like phantom

stories stories? This it's a lie. But now that it's sitting on a piece of paper, I mean, that's part of what happens in therapy, but it's also part of what can happen in journaling. Now of a sudden, you're bringing something from your unconscious subconscious into your consciousness, and when you see it, you're like, this is so ridiculous. Why would I have even wasted any time thinking about this? Bring Phoenix, not Tucson, out of your consciousness, and figure

out why the heck you're still carrying it. May I apologize to the good people of Tucson. They have cactus there. It was it was Phoenix, Scottsdale. Okay, we'll be taking the show to Arizona. They don't want you. I'm gonna be honest after this. They have let us know they're not interested. We have some healing to do my yeah, we have some healing to do with with Tucson, Arizona.

I think it was Scottsdale. M Dave. I want to ask you a question because listening to you and for our listeners that have listened to you, and looking at you now, if somebody looks you up on social or looks up a holical on social, I mean you look uber, happy, fulfilled, amazing wife, kids, family, life, career. I mean everything is going on, and you've shared so much of what what got you there? Negative things, how you're even digging yourself. Um.

I want to ask you this question. What mistake or misstep in your life helped you the most, helped you the most? Oh man, what mistake helped me the most? Because I have a saying everything is an opportunity. Yeah, I mean at the very beginning of my relationship with Rachel.

My decision to tell her that we should not stay together when I was moved by the company Disney from l A to Minneapolis was a great misstep that worked out because it was only maybe because of having created did that distance, that I was able to appreciate the thing that I actually had. I mean, it was still a jackass in some of that window, as evidenced in chapter five of Grow Wash Your Face, but still it was it was it was a it was a good mistake, uh.

I mean, a story that I'd tell in the book is one of me feeling this imposter syndrome and having been the beneficiary of having received more promotions than most

people receive in a short window of time. And so I found myself sitting in a room where I was certain that everyone was judging whether I was worthy of having been given this third promotion in three years in a way that manifested where every time the room would fall silent, I would try to fill that room with something smart so that I could justify my worthiness of having the seat. And it didn't even a lot of times have anything to do with what was happening in

the conversation. I was just like, oh, I have a smart factor, woid. Let me jam it in here so that you can all see how smart I am. And it was after one of these meetings where the boss's boss asked, Hey, can I see you in my office? And I'm like, oh, They're gonna make a bronze of this moment. I'm getting like memorialized for having contributed beyond the call of duty in a meeting like, let's not go for the high five, Let's make it a high ten.

Announced myself like this is gonna be amazing. And I walk in door closes and he says, shut the f up. I mean, just like destroys me, like soul piercing. And he said, look, if we didn't think that you were the right person for this job, we wouldn't put you in the job. And here you are undermining your credibility by trying to convince people who are not actually worried about whether or not you are good enough to have

this job that you are qualified. Knock it off just at value when value is requested, and otherwise sit back and listen. And it was, you know, maybe three years into my seventeen years at Disney, and it fundamentally changed the way that I sat at tables and felt the need to overcompensate and spaces where I've been given more opportunity than my resume deserved. What a gift and kudos to you for being receptive to such a blessing. Wow, dude,

you're superhero. You are Dude, You're a superhero. Okay, where can I want to get this book? It comes out when March tenth, tenth? Okay, where can what the name of the book is, get out of your own way? Where can people find it? Literally anywhere? I mean they can go to Amazon, they can go to get out of your own Way, the book dot com, Um, they can go to Target, they can go literally anywhere books are sold. Awesome. Uh, and where can people find more of you? Hang out on social I'm Mr Dave Hollis

on Instagram, Dave Hollis on Facebook. If you go to the Hollis Code dot com. We throw rat events, have coaching that that exists. There's uh journals you can but there's a whole host of things you can do. Our our company exists to put tools in people's hands to help them have a better life. And we're gonna come. You know, we're committed to trying to have as much impact as possible, so and making a event for dudes, and making an event for dudes where Brooks will headline

with me, Holy count, We're gonna change some lives. Yeah. Uh, last word, anything you have for a community or something that you're extremely proud of, anything you want to share your last words with our community. I'm going to go back to the tattoo because it has been my mantra, this idea that a ship is safe in harbor, but

that's not what ships were built for. I want to encourage anyone who in any way isn't today feeling totally fulfilled, to ask if they've left the harbor of certainty, because I in now realizing why I was stuck and how my ditch digging had a genesis. It was connected to the way the rope was still on the dock. You have been given a certain amount of gifts that this

world needs. You have a certain amount of lie that this dark space that we all inhabit need, and it can only truly be unleashed if you are willing to leave the thing you know for the thing you need. The choppy waters where growth really will actually unlock fulfillment for you. About this guy, Come on, I appreciate your brother, Thank you so much. Can we have Dave back now? I'm going to go to Tuson and try and men fancy, I mean this show is honestly of course we need

to now bring Dave back with the other guys. I wanted to do it with you guys first, so that, like you know, Daniel probably already booked me a ticket to Tucson to go. Um. What about your podcast? Where can people find? Because your your mission, your voice, just as everyst what's it called? So we have a very bizarre thing. My wife and I do a morning show every day on Facebook and Instagram called the Start Today Morning Show. It also does a replay on iTunes and

everywhere podcasts exists. We have a relationship podcast called Rise Together, and then my wife has a business podcast called Rise. These guys are crushing. Let's go. I need to come hang out with you a day, for a day or two, or a week or a month. At first, I thought I said, I was going to say Arizona. I would never I would never go to Arizona. You guys execute so well like you guys at something in my life that I know. I'm failing miserably. I don't know like

you are. You have a standing invite. Come over see the place we bought a Baptist church that we turned into a headquarters. It's got a Jay Z quote on the wall. There's a studio that looks nothing like this when we record our shows. This guy isn't there, So I mean I miss I miss him not working for us. But otherwise you are. You are welcome. I'll give you the full playbook. Brother. I love it, buddy. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dave. I appreciate you more than

you know. Thank you you forgot your ending. I was doing it right. I was worried. You Just going to thank everybody for listening today and leave them with this till next week. Take care of one another, love one another, and we'll see you back here for another episode of How Men Think