There are many ways we construct false narratives about ourselves. We tell ourselves the potential is within us, but we just never have the time. We tell ourselves forces outside us compel us to behave in ways that aren’t truly “who we are.” These truth distortions aren’t necessarily wrong. The question is how we lie to ourselves or distort our self’s reality, but why? The pursuit of self-knowledge is practical, even if a degree in Philosophy might not seem to be. The truth is, you will be happi...
Sep 27, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 46
A lot of philosophy and psychology says that if you want someone else to change, you should first begin with yourself. There’s a great deal of wisdom and insight into us beginning with ourselves, but ultimately we don’t just know ourselves in a vacuum, we have to enter into community, into relationships. At the same time, there’s a lot of self-improvement ideologies that say we shouldn’t listen to others because it’s always about them. How can we discern the difference between when we should lis...
Sep 21, 2020•39 min•Season 1Ep. 45
Coming at you live with another learning curve Top 5 takeaway in 30 minutes or less. Finding your way to your desire requires a number of the principles we teach at the Big Self School. It requires a calm center and, paradoxically, the courage to put the ideas into practice. Whether you think you know your desires, but want to reconnect to them, or you simply have no idea, this book can help you realize your way to a deeper and more authentic connection with yourself and what you truly want. Des...
Sep 18, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 44
Chad and Shelley have a session on how to break through the obstacles that stand in the way to living a bigger life, a life you want. Maybe you don't even know what that life is, or maybe you want certain things for the wrong reasons. Lyndie Putnam helps us see from the inside out where we want to be and how to get there. Lyndie Putnam is a certified Life Coach and Seminar Leader who helps ambitious professionals and entrepreneurs strengthen their mindset to break free from personal limitations,...
Sep 14, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 43
After a letdown, the idea is to gather your strength especially in the places you feel broken and bounce back even higher than you fell. Failing and falling is a part of life. It’s a part of growth, if you use it right. A setback is a setback if you don’t. Setbacks can lead you to getting enveloped in fear and anxiety. They can keep you looping in mediocrity, jaded and scarred. At the same time, failure offers you an opportunity to grow and learn from your shortcomings. Failure is a mindset. You...
Sep 11, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 42
Chad and Shelley sit down for a session of self-knowledge with Anthony Moore. In a fascinating and quick-paced session we get down to the fundamentals: the five things extraordinary people know, and do. Anthony Moore has been a top Medium writer since 2017. His articles have been featured in Business Insider, Fast Company, Thought Catalog, CNBC, Yahoo!, and Thrive Global . Hundreds of thousands of readers view his articles every month. He is the author of What Extraordinary People Know: How to C...
Sep 07, 2020•44 min•Season 1Ep. 41
At the Big Self School, we know you want to connect with the world in a way that’s meaningful and get rid of the feeling that life is just passing you by without you having anything to show for it. To do that, you need a community that supports you as you rediscover your purpose and resources to help you along the way. We want to celebrate a few big happenings in the Big Self School. What are five life-changing practices you can apply to your life to develop a deeper awareness and understanding ...
Sep 04, 2020•36 min•Season 1Ep. 40
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." –Dalai Lama We could all use a little more self-compassion right now, but why is self-compassion so hard? We talk about the power of the inner critic, where it comes from and how it functions. In the face of this critic, we need to cultivate self-compassion. Where does the inner critic and negative inner voice come from? You weren’t born with it. These voices are constructed. They tend to be an a...
Aug 31, 2020•36 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Remember the days when we were dreaming of the opportunity to work from home? The workplace can be full of distractions, empty time, needless meetings and interpersonal drama. At home you have flexibility, autonomy, and the comfort of working in your own space. Pre-pandemic, it was clear that in many cases you could simply get more done. But now that it is forced upon us, and the days and weeks blur into one another, the perception of our work and home life balance has shifted again. Throw in th...
Aug 24, 2020•44 min•Season 1Ep. 38
Back by popular demand: the Learning Curve where Shelley and Chad dish on what they’ve been learning during this pandemic while we’re all still trying to flatten the curve. Shelley dishes on what we’ve been learning about trust. She’s got this really cool equation for how you can know just how well you build and establish trust in all your relationships, and how well you receive it. We call it the trust equation. At the Big Self School, we know you want to connect with the world in a way that’s ...
Aug 21, 2020•34 min•Season 1Ep. 37
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” — Charles Darwin The American Psychological Association (APA) defines adaptability as “the capacity to make appropriate responses to changed or changing situations; the ability to modify or adjust one's behavior in meeting different circumstances or different people.” On this week's episode we ask you six questions to help you discern and determine your own level of adaptability, and think ab...
Aug 17, 2020•33 min•Season 1Ep. 36
“Self-care is never a selfish act—it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give the care it requires, we do it not only for ourselves, but for the many others whose lives we touch.” — Parker Palmer The term “self-care” has been used and abused, and seems to be generally misunderstood. It’s become a buzzword, directly related to the retail side of the wellness industry. The marketing leads us to b...
Aug 10, 2020•26 min•Season 1Ep. 35
Your ego and your “calling” in life can look surprisingly similar. Both pull you toward the realization of your desires. Ego assembles your personality. It manages your fragile identity while you figure out who you are. It protects you from the onslaught of societal expectations and motivates you to work hard and achieve things. But ego alone can also skew you toward thinking that hard work and achievement are the goals in life. If your ego assembles your personality and manages your identity, t...
Aug 03, 2020•32 min•Season 1Ep. 34
You asked and we listened! On this week's episode Chad takes the bull by the horns on his own and answers one of the questions from our community: How can you find your purpose and prevent burnout? Chad discusses the beginning point questions for answering the question: What is my purpose? Also, what is the difference between meaning and purpose? He offers some great questions to ask yourself to find your purpose if you've lost track along the way. He concludes with a big challenge to every list...
Jul 20, 2020•41 min•Season 1Ep. 33
Today’s episode takes us to our origin story. We learn as we go and the Big Self School has been slowly evolving and the evolution has sped up and things are happening fast. One of the questions we get asked a lot besides What is the Big Self School, is Who is it for? We challenge you to ask yourself three BIG questions that can produce BIG results in your life if you take the time to track your experiences for even just seven days. What do you have to lose? We’ve got the first half of a year un...
Jul 13, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 32
On this week's episode we shine a bright spotlight on the shadow side that would rather lurk behind the scenes of our personalities. Do our shadows want to be left alone, or are they begging to be heard and leak out in uncomfortable ways? We ask: How can you completely and wholeheartedly accept who you are if there are sides of yourself that you’re too afraid to explore? The keyword here is “integration,” which comes from the Latin word integratus , meaning to make whole. To integrate an inner q...
Jul 07, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 31
On this week's episode, Chad and Shelley explore empathy. Why is it on the decline when it was a trendy topic throughout the past decade? Why should we practice empathy in the first place? What gets in the way of us building empathy, even when it's something we say we want? We explore these questions and more from our home studio in quarantine. As always, thanks for tuning in, subscribing, and leaving us a review! TIME STAMPS 0:21 Chad opens up the podcast by introducing the concept of empathy. ...
Jun 22, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 30
We sit down with change-maker, Marco Perez, and discuss the need for our students to have equal access to quality education. We discuss a community's obligation to each other, and how we lift up everyone when help those in greater need. How do we rally as a community? We look for our lanes. We look to educate ourselves, and we look for authentic leadership and what that means. Marco Perez is running for Hamilton County School Board District 2 seat. He has a passion for this community and wants a...
Jun 16, 2020•46 min•Season 1Ep. 29
Sabrina Moon joins us to talk about what she means by “embracing the suck.” But why is it so hard? Is it a fear of losing control? A need for a positive spin on things? If we embrace the suck, are we somehow giving in to it? We know that shame is not an effective tool for changing people’s behaviors. In this strange time of shared vulnerability and shared accountability people are operating from so many different value systems. We depend on each other in profound ways right now, yet we aren’t al...
Jun 01, 2020•49 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Charlie dishes on inner discipline, maintaining work-life balance, and not burning out on ambition. Charlie has been cooking professionally for over 20 years. He began his love for cooking at the age of 6, always wanting to help his mother, grandmother, and Aunties in the kitchen. As he grew older, Charlie found his passion for learning about food maturing. Next he found work at a fast food fried chicken restaurant called Roy Rogers at the age of 15. He says that he almost felt as though he was ...
May 25, 2020•50 min•Season 1Ep. 27
It's the weekend edition of the Big Self School, a segment we call the Learning Curve, where Shelley and Chad discuss the big and small questions they're having. Chad and Shelley first consider what the literature says on whether or not we have a true self. Most people believe we have a true self, and that it is a moral core. But perhaps more importantly how does that inner voice of your speak to you? Is like a good friend? A reasonable judge? Or is it a negative critic? We discuss what it all m...
May 22, 2020•19 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Being an observer of your experience Camille Kennard is a Certified Health and Wellness Coach. She began her career as a social worker for a decade, counseling people with chronic medical conditions and providing grief counseling to patients and families. The inspiration for her business Flourish Wellness came from her desire to help people avoid chronic disease and illness through learning to nurture themselves as part of their lifestyle; body, mind, and soul. This passion came from her own jou...
May 18, 2020•51 min•Season 1Ep. 25
It's the weekend edition of the Big Self School, a segment we call the Learning Curve, where Shelley and Chad discuss the big and small questions they're having. This week we're learning about authenticity, and how we're seeing it more with the people we engage with. There's less outer props for validation for one thing. More people are seeking guidance for another. Chad's been working on a short book on building self-knowledge, and Shelley's been exploring the concept of Imposter Syndrome. Are ...
May 15, 2020•14 min•Season 1Ep. 24
This week we shine the Big Self spotlight on Jena Beise. Jena is a doctor of Physical Therapy and a women’s health specialist. She’s been a Physical Therapist for the better part of a decade now in outpatient orthopedics. She is also certified in Dry Needling, and is the cofounder of Heal at Home Moms . Jena talks about trying to change the postpartum psychology, how to form good habits that combat stress and help heal the body in sustainable ways. She also talks about some of the challenges and...
May 11, 2020•49 min•Season 1Ep. 23
It's the weekend edition of the Big Self School, a segment we call the Learning Curve, where Shelley and Chad discuss the big and small questions they're having. This week Shelley is thinking about the senseless killing of Ahmaud Arbery, and dealing with people's emotional responses on a number of different levels. She shares some aspirational ideas about how we can "grow ourselves up." Chad is thinking about how to develop the "inner citadel" and not take things so personally, whether for good ...
May 08, 2020•19 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Kim Shumpert talks with us this week about a new model of female leadership. Kim was selected to serve as the Executive Director for Chattanooga Women’s Leadership Institute (CWLI) in May 2018. Kim twice served as an executive director working with underserved women and children. And she reminds us that when women thrive, everyone thrives. There has been such a tremendous amount of suffering either directly or indirectly from this pandemic. So much fear and uncertainty, and so much loss. This is...
May 04, 2020•55 min•Season 1Ep. 21
It's the weekend edition of the Big Self School, a segment we call the Learning Curve, where Shelley and Chad discuss the big and small questions they're having. This week Shelley is thinking about the life skill of adaptability and how the happiest people she knows have developed their adaptive muscle well. She discusses an approach to bringing fears into consciousness, and how in times of stress "the only way out is through." Chad has been researching and writing about the concept of calm, and...
May 01, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 20
What had at first started as just a big trip slowly -- drip by drip -- got bigger and bigger until it snowballed into a six-continent trip. How did that trip turn into all seven? Angela tells us how it works for them. When you start to learn that people are pretty much the same wherever you go, then you’ve probably been a lot of places. You may come to the same conclusion by going nowhere, but it’s a completely different mindset when you’ve been to every continent and lived with people all over ...
Apr 27, 2020•54 min•Season 1Ep. 19
It's the weekend edition of the Big Self School, a segment we call the Learning Curve, where Shelley and Chad discuss the big and small questions they're having. This week Chad is seeing COVID-19 as nothing less than a plague--and is drawing parallels and conclusions between how we're responding now and how people have responded to epidemics in the past. Is there anything we can learn from the past, or are we doomed simply to repeat it? Shelley has been struggling with the usage of the word "sha...
Apr 24, 2020•21 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Kristi Angevine, MD is an Ob/Gyn and Physician Life Coach. She specializes helping physicians change unhelpful habits into intentional ones. Whether it’s overdrinking, overeating, overworking, excess screen time, procrastinating or simply chronically feeling overwhelmed and like there’s always something to fix, she targets unpacking old or compulsive habits to create permanent transformation. Kristi decided to become a life coach after her initial skepticism evaporated when she experienced coach...
Apr 20, 2020•53 min•Season 1Ep. 17
