Kristoffer Carter

don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,

how they feed their good wolf. Our guest this week is Christopher Carter, and the reason that you're hearing my voice instead of our trustee, Chris Forbes voice is that I met Christopher Carter at Camp Good Life Project, which I have tweeted about and some other things have been online. And Chris was the ringleader of ceremonies there and we got to see a lot of different sides of him. He led us in meditation at first thing in the morning.

He walked around with a megaphone, kept everybody motivated. He led a garage band where we played a lot of music. And he is a truly inspiring and dynamic guy. And he is from Ohio, where we are from. So I was able to travel up to Akron to meet him again. I had dinner with his family, his three kids, which was quite an adventure, and then we were able to go out to his studio and record this interview. I hope you enjoy it. Hi, Chris, welcome to the show. Here.

We are sitting in your office slash studio here in Akron, Ohio. So I'm always happy to do interviews in person. It's a much better experience in Skype. So it's great to be here. And we just had dinner with your family and so I'm sorry, Andrew, welcome now. It was it was good. So um Our podcast is called The One You Feed and it's based on the parable of Two Wolves, where there's a grandfather's talking with his grandson and he says,

in life, there are two wolves inside of us. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks, and he says, well, Grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in

the work that you do. Sure, first of all, I love the fact that you have a whole series of amazing interviews based on that parable. It's very very cool

to me. Um, so many ways to interpret that. And for me and thinking about the last few years of my life becoming a creab on yogi, studying yoga a deep level lot of meditation, Um, it really brings up the idea of discernment, of being able to consciously choose which wolf you're going to feed day to day, Which of these terrible habits that were handed to me as a child or that I nurtured as a child are gonna serve me, and which ones need to be cut

out like a cancer basically. Um, So I I try to head into each of my days with just more of a kind of a polished lens of awareness and being able to be open to what's serving me and what's not. And that's kind of what the parable brings up to me. I think that all of us have a front row seat for our you know, the best aspects of ourselves, but also the very terrifying aspects of ourselves.

And I've through meditation and some other things, I've had to come face to face with all of it, you know, And so I guess just reminds me where to direct my energy. The parable is one of those things. And in some ways the show is all around that parable, and it comes up every time, but the answers to it tend to be I always find the follow on is to be so illuminating because the answer, largely it is is about, like you said, I think discernment is a great word. It's about, you know, our what are

the choices we're making? Um. But I do like what you're bringing to it about because we talk about action a lot, but what you're talking about is the step before that, the clarity to even know. Yeah, and you know, you went to summer camp with us for GLP and uh I talk a lot about right action. You know, the Yogis don't consider all action to be created equal. You know, we're taught in our culture that take action, work hard, and make it happen. Now now, now, now, now.

But Yogis were more of the opinion of maybe I'll go meditate for about six hours, Maybe I'll take a shower, go for a walk, spend time with a guru or a disciple or whatever, and take right action. And that one right action might preclude or eliminate countless other actions by just taking that right. So again, the meditation is

about discernment. So whenever I'm faced, you know, it seems increasingly more each more lately than whenever I'm faced with giant workloads, I have to be really concerned about taking right action. So that's where you know, the meditation I think comes into it. So tell me about your you're becoming a yogi and that spiritual path. How did you you know, maybe how did you get on that path?

And tell us a little bit more about that, because that is a particular path here on is one that I just am not I don't know too much about Yeah, you know, it's um, it's a rigorous path. It's it's really um the science of meditation and self realization through meditation, as taught by Paramahansi Yogananda. Most people would probably know the name from the book Autobiography of a Yogi came

out in the forties. He was one of the first swamis from India to come over in the nies and bring over this ancient science of yoga to the West. And so most people think of yoga now is downward facing dog, happy baby yoga stretches and stuff. But um, this was really kind of the step beyond. It was, um, the half of yoga and the stretch of yoga is

to prepare the body for meditation. So the type of yoga study is more so UM, a series of techniques that kind of just keep on deepening your perception over time if you're practicing, right, I mean, and some days

are great, some days or not. I mean, it's meditation. Um. But how I found the path was really you know, I grew up um suburban Cleveland, Um latch key kid, and you know, talk about having access to every possible bad habit and bad influence including all the you know, craziest eighties hair metal headbangers, ball bands and uh you know, um drinking beers in the creek behind my parents house at the age of twelve and playing in rock bands and all these things that you know, I have respect

for now, but just had the potential to really lead me astray and really like, um, really kind of engage that seeker in me that maybe there's a better way to do things than to you know, be drunk every weekend or whatever it may be. And um, years and years later, in my twenties, I had an experience that um, you know, I nearly passed away from that was stress

related UM illnesses and symptoms. And after that whole kind of big upheaval, I started getting hardcore like you in a personal development and professional development and where I started to realize, as it sounds like you had his wealth and the interviews I've heard is that where the personal and professional development work ends, usually the spiritual path begins,

and sometimes they overlap. It's like a guy like Stephen Covey, who I have tremendous respect for a seven habits high absolutely because he understood universal, profound, timeless truths, and I would argue that Wayne Dyer has that same thing. You know, Wayne Dyer and Stephen Covey all so happened to be like the U two of that whole arena. So of course they're looked at it like, oh, I could you know take or leave that? You know, it's like two

on the shelf of every wal March or something. But the fact is it's so based on you know, Wayne Dyer is talking about the Dow, He's talking about the Baga bad Gita, all these things. So as I started to go more and more down that road, autobiography of Yogi kept coming up. More and more people would say, Chris, you should really read this book. Because they knew I was a seeker, but they also knew that I was pretty hardcore, Like I was a scientific seeker, Like I

have two speeds off in eleven. So if I wanted to go down a spiritual path, I wanted it to be rigorous. I wanted to, you know, measure my own results. I wanted to experience, hopefully the expansion of my consciousness on some level. And that work absolutely did that for me. So I started, in a very beginning of two thousand twelve, I sent away for the at home lessons, I started

rigorously meditating. I've been meditating for about ten years prior, but just kind of tripping over decent meditations once in a while. And this just kind of gave me the structure and the outcomes I needed to really pursue it. What sort of meditation were you doing in those years before that? Yeah, so the first time, you're kind of fascinated by the topic because there's so meditation, so many Yeah. Yeah.

I met this woman on an airplane when I was nineteen and I was getting ready to fly down to Texas to tell my dad I was going to drop out of school to tour with his band. So I was really um in a low depressed state. I was

terrified about this conversation with my dad. So this woman wakes me up on the airplane and essentially tells me that I'm her reincarnated brother and all these things that hairdressers from California might tell a young traveler from Ohio, right, And so I was skeptical to say the least, you know, But by the time I got off this flight in O'Hare Airport, I was beaming. I was felt connected to something, and my eyes were glowing, and I just felt really um,

I felt that look blissful kind of love sensation. And I ended up running into her again in this like crowded airport and she asked me to come outside, and she just really dropped some knowledge on me. She said, it's your path to meditate. I'm going to give you a basic technique to start with and promise media practice and said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll practice. And it's it's a technique that I still teach to people when I

teach companies to meditate these days. However, it took me another few years of floundering before I really tried it. And I tried it. I tried meditation like most people do you know. I I was like, don't you meditate at the end of yoga the savasana? Meditate the corpse pose, And of course what happens when you do that, you fall fall asleep. So I did that countless nights of Oh it's it's just a new way to fall asleep, that's meditation. And but one night, on the third night,

I remember in Chicago. Um, when I was years later, I was living in Chicago, I was laying on the basement floor my studio and I did the savasana meditation and I somehow transcended. I felt my body is something distinctly different from my soul, and I felt like a body buzz kind of feeling, and I thought, this is it, this is the dragon I will chase to the end of my days. And and that was enough to do it. And it just kind of since then, it's been that's

been about ten years. It's been just really polishing the technique and trying different methods to get me back to that place. Yeah, I've been on again, off again. I was writing something today about my earliest meditation experiences a long time ago. At this point, I think it was like seventeen and so on again, off again, And it really isn't ntil the last year that I feel like

all right. I got it like every day consistently. And the thing for me was I had to I kind of had to give up wanting any experience from meditation because I think that I thought I was supposed to feel good while I meditated, and I think some people do, right, and I think some people don't. I generally didn't. I would sit there and think, I I don't feel peaceful, I don't feel calm. My mind is racing. I'm looking at the clock. I want to stand up, you know.

And and I finally went I just went to a you know what, I'm gonna treat this sort of like brushing my teeth, like you know, brushing my teeth. Maybe I enjoy it, maybe I don't. It doesn't matter. But I get clean teeth. That's the benefit the other twenty three hours and forty you know whatever it is. I've got clean, healthy teeth. And I'm just gonna treat this

like mental hygiene. And once I relaxed about that and didn't expect to have any experience, I was able to settle in enough that I started to get to the place where I was like, oh, this is this is you know, a lot of times it's enjoyable. Sometimes it's still not. I still sit there, and I was just like, I want to get up, I want to go. I want to you know. And but I think just that and all, you know, all meditator teach all meditation teachers generally, hell,

you just relax and don't be hard on yourself. Yes, your mind is going to race, it's gonna run, you know, Just that's fine. It's an exercise and compassion. And then, as John Cabinz then says, it's a it's an active sanity. You know, I can love. I love your term mental hygiene. That's so great. I gotta I gotta totally steal that. I'm sure I stole it from somewhere. But when I tell, when I tell people, when I talk to people about

meditation specifically, you know, companies are executives. They they think that meditation is sitting in a beautiful white room with candles lit, you know, a nice pillow, the absence of thought totally then all white, robed or whatever. No, the act of meditation is some of the hardest work you can do. It's showing up for yourself, sitting there at all costs while the thought monkeys crawling through the windows and just trying to clear the screen to white, trying

to clear the screen, you know. So it's that it's that intentional act of bringing your meta attention back over and over, no matter what the weather. And and I realized now after doing it for so many years that that if um, if people think that I've made any progress, it's from that. It's from training my meta attention. And the only way you do that is by sitting your butt down and doing it. It's it's like working out a muscle group. And I had I gotta tell this

really quick funny story. Is that hum a few months ago, I was so busy, I was traveling all the time, and I forgot that we had scheduled our roof to get redone And at the time, before the studio is done, I was meditating up above our bedroom and our finished attict. So, like every day I go up there, my habit loop kicks and I opened my eyes and I think, I have to meditate now before the kids feet hit the floor. That's my that's my habit loop. So I get up,

I go and before I light my candle. Once I light my candle and my meditation althar, that's me committing for an hour. So I think long and hard before I light the candle. You know what I mean, Because an hour is an hour and a substantial commitment. It's rigorous, and that's what the path that I'm on kind of requires it. It's a lot of techniques, it's a lot of um, it's a lot of time on the cushion. So before I am, before I light the candle, I think,

are you ready for this? And sure enough, let it. I sit down. As soon as I sit down, this truck pulls up and these Amish men storm the roof like which spiders. They crawled to the top. They're banging, they're whacking, they're ripping, their shredding. The kids come, My little children come into the rooms, trembling like Daddy, what's happening? Crawling into my lap, candles falling over the shades or I mean, it was chaos us. But the interesting thing was I sat with it, and I told them to

call me gun downstairs for breakfast. Dady'll be down in fifty five minutes. And all I could do was kind of sit in that chaos and try to find the one Amish guy on the corner of the roof that had a rhythm to his hammer, then find the guy that was taking care of how he tore things off, like to become really mindful and a total chaotic situation, and it turns something that was totally unnerving into something really interesting exercise. But I couldn't have sat there for

thirty seconds a few years ago. Yeah, Well, I've been meditating lately outdoors. Whenever I can, I can, I get you know, can I get the sound of crickets or birds or and it sounds seems to be the thing that has worked for me, I mean, locking in and just sort of paying attention to sound. But the place I do it most often is in an industrial park. So there's just there's birds, there's crickets because there's they're

a little pollen. And then there's the sound of semi doors slamming and forklifts going you know, and cars going by. And I'm like, I'm just gonna treat it all as you know, and just make it all sound and not be like I like that when I hate that sound and this sound disturbs me, and this and just like and that's been a good experience for me to sort of try and non non judgmentally or non preferentially just

relate to what's there. Well, it brings you into the scene, you know, like sometimes when you're in a museum and you you see those people that aren't truly appreciating what's there or just missing most of it, you know, just you know, going quickly painting to painting, judging, judging, judging. But then when you catch the right thing, you kind of become you come into it a little bit, and meditation brings you fully into your life experience like good

and bad. I mean, you know, I lost three people close to me over the over the summer, and I haven't experienced like that many Um, grief experiences that close together, and it still comes and goes. But because I'm a meditator, because it's like my refew usion, my strength and all

those things, it allowed me to process the grief. Um, I think more quickly, but also on a very what I feel like it is a deeper level of understanding because I would have thought before if I would have lost one of those people, I would be derailed and out of the game for months or years. I don't

know if I would recover. But um, something about the lens you cultivated, meditation brings you into a state of understanding, being able to stand above the maze of your life and to see adjacent possibilities and reasons versus being down in the maze and right fearful of that next corner. You know. Yeah, I think that's meant whether it's meditation, which I think is a great way to do it,

or but whatever way we can get perspective. I always think perspective is really whether that perspective, as you said, as that you sort of rise up and look down on the situation. Another type of perspective I always find interesting is to play with time. How will I feel about this in five hours or five we you know, what would you know? Get because we just get so mired in this. But anything we can do to sort of change the frame of reference so that we think

about those things from a different angle. And I agree, I think meditation is I mean you're going back to uh, you know the Stephen Covey. I mean that book. The very first thing in it or very early is right between stimulus and response, there's a space, yeah, the Victor frankl you know, then you get that and the and that What I found with meditation is like that space increases that that space between all right, I have got

a stimulus and my response. I just have a little bit more chance to go, Okay, what what is happening here? What do I want to do? Versus just immediately? And I've always been pretty good at not like I'm not like you say something to me and I immediately hit you kind of got or I start immediately start screaming you know. But what I do do is I immediately go to an emotional reaction that I attached you pretty strongly sure believe is the truth. Yeah, and I think

most of us are wired to do that. I mean, we have a lizard brain for a reason and serve us very well for millions of years. Um. But the more often you can consciously try to put your focus up into the front of the cerebral cortex or the Christ consciousness or any of those higher faculties you know, you, chances are things tend to work out a little better for us. Yeah. I just did one of the recent many episodes on exactly that sort of thing about why

is it that we're inclined to focus negatively? And it's tends to be because that's what our brain is wired to pick up. And but exactly what you just said, if you can, if you can move your you know, if you can move that attention to call it whatever you want, you know, Christ consciousness, you're you're the front of your brain, your higher self, whatever it is. But if you can move out of out of lizard brain mode, out of binal mode and perspective is a is one

of the ways to do that. Yeah, yeah, I for for my for a lot of my work, I do a lot of curriculum design stuff, and and part and parcel with curriculum design is to receive immediate feedback. You know. It's kind of like coding software. You know, you have to have immediate feedback work to improve otherwise you'll just never solve the true problem. And when you move into that space, you feel really raw because you're like, I'm always under attack. Everyone just wants to like rip apart

my beautiful work all the time. But what I realize is that the feedback it's such a gift now because that's you know, one of the main components of flow states. Certainly, like you have to have a good feedback channel open to you know, work at the highest level of your creative capacity. But the meditation and mindfulness it just keeps you from jumping into that defensive mode of like how dare you attack my beautiful curriculum module there? And you you get to a state of wow, we're all here

to make this better and isn't this great? And are we were like truly collaborating? And the end users all who matters, because that's who keeps our lights on all these higher ways of perceiving a situation where a lot of people cross their arms, get defensive and take it personally. And you know, I was absolutely one of those people for a long time. But you know I can't afford

me a minute ago. You use the term lens, and so I want to take this moment to maybe change a little direction a little bit and talk about your UM. You've got a website called the Epic Life, and UM in it, you've got a manifesto, So maybe could you talk through what this Epic life is? And then one of the parts of that manifesto is about upgrading your lens,

and so let's maybe move into that now. Sure, sure, So the manifesto was created I released at the end of two thousand and twelve when I was doing a lot of training with both with a Good Life Project led by Jonathan Fields, as well as doing all this crea yoga meditation. So that whole year was really kind of the scorching of the earth. It was like really shattering who I thought I was. It was dismantling the ego,

it was everything was up for grabs. And I had a sabbatical in that year in April, and our company is great to give you a three week paid sabbatical in your fifth year. You have three weeks to do whatever you want with And I didn't know what I was going to do except these three small kids. So UM, I decided to keep my normal business hours and pretty much meditate all day long. I went running and I meditated. That was pretty much all I did from eight to

six pm every day for three weeks. Really ideal circumstances to come up with something creative, you know what I mean? Like and and I think that I was just insane enough at the time to actually do it and stay with it. I called it the Radical sabbatical. And during that sabbatical, I um, I just had a kind of an answer came to me. And my my big question over that period of twelve years leading up to that was always why do I always feel like a jack

of all trades, master of none? Why do I why do I tend to look at all these different talents and skills have a mass and accumulated as more of a curse than a blessing. Um, why can't I just pick one thing and focus on it and be excellent or outstanding at that thing versus wearing all these hats. I was a professional musician since I was a kid, I was and an attainer. I had this, you know, I was I was starting to get really into meditation,

I was starting to get really into running. And it wasn't trying to prove that I could do all these things. It was like I felt like these things made me me. And so somewhere in the sabbatical I got this idea for the framework. And the framework is this is that you can control your entire perception of life by having a n what I call a lens statement. Companies have typically very cheesy, crappy missions team. It's like we will serve the people by selling more widgets every quarter in

blah blah blah. But if you think about a guy like Stephen Covey, who was like highly guided by virtues, and it's it's like kind of that deep values work that people will do a lot of coaches do, except I kind of skipped the step of values and I went straight for the capital views, which is virtues. And I thought, you know, I was ruling into the stoic philosophers,

Greek philosophers. This this aristotic poine I read today, the toy reminds me of the work you do on the show that to be excellent, we um we we just can't think excellent, We must act excellently. You know that your action has to be congruent with your virtues. So the Lens statement was really just a frame around the

whole thing of um tightly tied to my virtues. I say it to myself every day after meditation when all my channels are open, and it's kind of kind of reminds me who the hell I'm trying to be and who the hell I'm becoming on a daily basis. So

that's the Lens statement. And at some point in our development we realized, and you and I were talking about this before the interview, is that sometimes you just outgrow what served you well up to a certain point in your life just doesn't serve you anymore, and you have to change a little bit, right, you know, Sometimes like Yester years, bad Wolf might serve you in some way, or the things that you thought were great that you conquered ten years ago might not be anywhere near near

as deep as you need to go, you know. So it's the Lens really gets at that is how can I upgrade it? For to perceive the world around me. You know, and I say about the lens that it could either enhance or diminish all you experience. I mean, it's it's pretty heavy duty. So you know a lot of people's lens they kind of accute, they acquire them, or they adopt them by default. You know, like if your parent was a worrior, maybe you're a worrior. If so and so is a doubting Thomas, maybe you are too.

I was lucky to have very amazing role models as a kid with with my lens. So, but the lens was core for perception. And then the framework moves into defining non negotiables, which are to me like the things I rattled off before my art, my family, my vitality, and my work, my spirituality. So it's it's five not ostiables. And the thinking is is that the lens has the

capacity to magnify and deepen those non negotiables. So by making them non negotiable in my life, I'm saying I'm not only saying that, like I'm not giving these things up because I don't know any better. These are the things that make me me um. I'm saying that over the course of my lifetime, I will absolutely pursue mastery in any and all of those areas. I'm not saying I'm gonna get there. I'm not saying I have gotten there,

but I will trip over. Moments of what I call full life integration is when all of the non negotiables are working together and they're kind of spinning together. The lens is working with it, and the fact that I'm a musician makes me a better parent. The fact that I'm a decent parent makes me a better meditator, the fact that I'm a meditator makes me a better businessman. All those things that make us us stop working in separate silos and start really working together to make something

profoundly unique and powerful. I'm fascinated by that. I was doing a keynote addressed today at a solar energy conference, and I had the moment when I when I walked away from that and I went, what the hell am I like? I've got so many different hats? And I had that moment of exactly like you said, it wouldn't maybe I should focus on what if I focused on

one thing? And but what I've realized is that I don't know as conscious I don't know if I realized it as consciously as you have, But anytime I've gotten to that point, I've went but that's just not me, Like if I did that, like I just am never going to be interested enough in solar energy to spend all my time thinking about it. I'm interested enough in it to spend a fair amount of time thinking about it.

I'm but not all of it. And and so I think that's really And when I read that about your I was really fascinated by that idea of how do you bring up how do you bring all those pieces together? So what you talked about the lens so is when you talk about non negotiables or what we're saying is these are the key parts that make up me. And I'm going to say that these are going to be

part of my life. And and so, you know, I know one of the things one of our very first guests on the show, and it's kind of stuck with me when I asked him, what does feeding the good? You know, we read the parable and he said it means making time to do the art. And so for him it was his battle was it's really easy for everything in life to pull me away from doing that. Family obligations, work obligations, all that. But when he doesn't do that, he just becomes an asshole. Yeah, and and so, um,

I was sort of struck by that. So is that what you mean by non negotiable? Yeah? So I define non negotiables as sacred life ingredients, like sacred is a key word. They are sacred life ingredients that cannot be removed or substituted. And what I say in the manifesto is that, Um, you've already disproven all the haters and nonbelievers by just saying showing up year after year and saying, you know, I am an artist. I might not be excellent at my craft today, but I'm going to get there,

and I'm getting there and I'm working on it. And that was always Music was always that for me. That was the thing that I couldn't not do. It brought me joy. It was my the first language I spoke with any level of confidence. And now I would argue, when you're up there speaking at you know about solar energy. The fact that you're a great guitarist or musician or a podcaster, dad any of these other hats you wear absolutely benefits you being at the podium talking about solar energy.

You know, you might not be able to make the direct correlation to it, but it's kind of the unique thumb print on who we are as people. And to dishonor all of those other things by saying like I'm just I'm just a guy in a suit today, and then I take the suit off and like, okay, I have my dad time now, and then I have my music time. You know, Jonathan, my friend Jonathan Fields, when he interviews a lot of people, he's really obsessed with work life blend. I mean, you've spent the last hour

and a half, two hours with my family. You kind of see how my work day goes. You know. It's a little bit of rock and roll, a little bit of business, a little bit of kids and diapers and food and all these things. That's my life. You know, I can't um I could. We could do our best to separate all those things and the nice little clean buckets of here's where my money comes from, here's when I get to do my craft in my hobbies whatever.

But I was never into hobbies. I was always like, if I'm gonna do it, I want to try to be good at it. I want to be proficient, and eventually, as as you moved down the path, you realize that I will be that crazy coot on my porch at the age of seventy rock in my base, you know, because it's just who I've always been, It's who I always will be. So why not make them non negotiable? And why not have all of your work benefit from

the other non negotiables in your life? What? But what you just said that you know you've sort of proven their nonnegotiable because they're still there. But I know, certainly at times in my life things that I think are non negotiable now I've let slide under under pressure. How do what? What? How do people go about sort of finding out what those things are? And can you is it really sacred if you've let it go, can you

bring it back? Yeah? Yeah, you know. I as part of the and this isn't isn't to really pitch my stuff, but it's part of the manifesto. I did create a workbook that helps people do that. Um, it's all the same process as I did when I put together my own framework because a big part of my work is trying to live my own case study and trying to just trying to break the model and seeing if if

it's truly legit. So how I usually help people do that is, um, non negotiables are usually things that people either thank you for, thank you for bringing to a certain gathering. You know. I get calls all the time like do can you please bring your acoustic to the bonfire and rock out like eighties hair metal songs or whatever. And um, it's it's the things that just adds such an intangible quality that nobody else might be able to bring. You know, He's that guy you call when we need

him to do that, you know. And um, and what I started realizing about my own is that mine could be segmented in a way that could apply to a large art of the population. Like I really highly recommend a soul practice of some level. You know, it could be mindfulness, it could be meditation. For some people, that could be like needle pointing or anything that helps you transcend thought and just kind of get into the moment,

you know, vitality. We all know that we need to maintain these human apparatus is or they're going to fail us eventually. Um. The family is, you know, it's a mixed bag and nuts for everybody. You know. Um, in a lot of ways are families of origin are more pain than pleasure. So I always thought, how can I try to improve the situation I'm in? And art, I feel like everybody has an art and some capacity, you know, and even the most hardass business man who has never

picked up an instrument or a paintbrush. Maybe it's the art of persuasion, or maybe it's the art of conveying ideas or packaging thoughts. Um. And then finally, work should be no negotiable for people because it's pretty much an event. It's inevitable in life, you know, we need to work in some capacity, so why not make work benefit from those others. So I just ask people to really think about what people thank them for and think about the

things that truly bring them joy. And it's kind of like Stephen Covey's quadrant too, which is like, what's uh, not urgent but important. You know. Um burn a Brown, who I'm a big fan of, she had this great quote, you know, unused creative energy is not benign. And I've seen so many musicians. Yes, that's just let that one sink in, because how many musicians did you grow up with. I mean, you've been in bands, I'm sure since you're

a kid. The guys that don't hang their guitars in view that they can't reach for their guitars when they want to, they manifests itself. First is bitterness and envy and jealousy, and then they become the critic of all other music. And then down the road, maybe they end up with cancer or they end up with some sort of manifestation that's so much deeper or so much more painful than just being yourself and picking up your guitar,

because that's who you are, you know. Yeah, I think that there are a lot of things that I really struck me from what you're saying. I think that quote is really amazing. But I think this idea and there seems to be more of it. You hear this more lately, and I know some of our interviews have reflected this, which is I think we all have a tendency to be to bring the person to the situation where that we think should be there. Yeah. Right, like you said,

I'm now at this thing. So I'm the business guy, right, and so I need to fit there, and so I mold who I am a little bit to that, or I even if it's not so much as I mold that, I bring out the parts of me that work there and the parts that don't just sort of sit quietly until I go over to the other area. And I have been I mean, I wrestle with this one a lot. I mean I have, I have done that. And what I started to realize was that I think it's kind

of what you're saying, and it's not easy. But the thing that actually is counterproductive, I think your to your to my business career because I'm not really there all the way, right I am. I am part of who I am There, I am a fragment of myself, your facade, and and so I don't connect or resonate with people in the same way that I do when I go I'm here, and you know what, yeah, I'm you know, I do these things that are at least in this

circle would be considered oddball. But there who I am, and then I'm there and and things change, at least for me when I bring all of my entire I mean, we are we are you know, if we're icebergs. You know, there's the limited facade that's above the surface. That the

rest of the world sees. And then there's this the waterline is kind of this thin layer of static between you know, us and the bigger us, and the bigger us is enormous and in so many ways it frightens the crap out of us, and we're afraid to show it. But the tagline from my side or my my coach Cynthia Morris helped me figure this out is be who you are, wherever you are, and we feel fully integrated and we feel fully alive when there is no toggle

between who we are and what we do. That I could show up rocking my Mala beads to a board meeting or two meeting with Jonathan for Good Life Project or too, you know, in my family situation, and I don't care about judgment. I don't care about because I'm just who the hell I mean, you know, taking So how do you I mean that that is a that is a bold way to live right and right? I mean so I think that's a that is a there's a lot of fear to overcome getting to that place.

So what are some of the things that you know people can do? You know, short short thing or two and one of the things you say I I love, which is basically um. You know, keep in mind that when it comes to your inner alignment, there are no shortcuts. So I'm you know, you're not going to give me the too easy to head. I never right. But but what are some of the mindsets that people can start to bring when they go, you know what tomorrow at work?

I want to be more me or know what when I go home to my family tonight, I want to be more who I am instead of who I've been or who they expect me to be or yeah, yeah, and I think it's you know, my wife. You met my wife briefly. I mean, she gives me a lot of inspiration in this department because she's always been unapologetically who the hell Gail is? Like, that's Gail, you know, and uh it was something to aspire too. She's way more assertive than me. She just you know, she rocks

her tattoos. She's who she is. Um. But me, what what I would recommend for people to do is there's so many great surveys you could take now a lot of them for free to attain what I call ruthless self knowledge. Ruthless self knowledge is taking the v I a Strength survey, which is like a positive psychology survey. That's that's so dead on in terms of nailing what your core strengths are. Remind me to get that in the ship. Yeah, I'll give you. I'll give you a

whole list of them. Uh, there's that one. There's a three sixty Reach survey, which is kind of a branding survey for anybody doing like personal branding. I just did that from my website Strengths Finder. Tom Rath is the book Strengths Finder. Um. The lens statement is absolutely one. That's that's one of my exercises I I do and

use religiously. Um but but all of this ruthless self knowledge is great because what you'll start to see, oh m B T I is one of the most famous ones that's been used in work situations forever, like it helps with teams work together Myers Briggs. It's called um but ruthless self knowledge. You take all these different things. Oh and the other one that blows my mind is the angiogram. Have ever heard of the angiogram? Yeah? That thing is wild. It's kind of like astrology on steroids.

It's it's a way of looking up looking at the world through a series of numbers, and I know for a fact I'm an indiogram number seven. So what does ruthless self knowledge give you? Well, it gives you the ability to lay out the results of these different things and maybe just take two or three of them. Because I only have one speed eleven, I probably took eleven

of them, and I look for pattern recognition. I look for you know, humor shows up in every single one of these, So I know that humor isn't a crutch for me. Humors strength. So how can I use humor at work to get executives to the table that wouldn't otherwise work together? Then I become the guy that people tapped to bring people together for things. So you start

small and working from an area of your strengths. I started injecting spirituality came up and all my stuff I I started taking meditation into the workplace and people thank me for doing This is stuff I would have done for free anyway. But you know, was that was that hard? Was it hard to out there? To to go into a corporate setting and say I want to bring meditation here. I'm kind of spoiled and my company, I'm spoiled because we have such a remarkable culture. We've it's a company

called Centro. We've won the best place to work for four years in Chicago. They are so open to anything and everything. Our founder, Chief Shawn and other Ohio boy, he grew up Mennonite, so high principles. He's basically an Amish that can party and use technology. He he always had this culture that said, you know, I want to make it as spiritual and open and loving as possible.

So Chris, you've got an idea to do it. And so at first, when I started with the company, I was really afraid to hit send on some of my crazy emails about meditation, and you know, I'd wrap a lot of humor into them, but I knew that a certain percentage would think I was very weird out there, and some of them still do, frankly. But I have their utter respect on some level too, because I've never

deviated from that. They know, like a lot of these executives that I've come up with at the company the last seven years, you know, one of them asked me to officiate his wedding next weekend in o Hi. So it's it's when you when you find the courage and you get the footing to just rock a little bit of your truth and live from your strengths. It leads kind of the next one, and each one's a little bit of a risk, and you push a little bit farther.

But I swear there's times and this is crazy, Eric, but you know, remember those jobs we have all had where you had to hide the fact that you're a musician. You try not to talk about it. You don't want to be that guy like you know, used to be in a band like whenever. Now I show up at work events and people seriously asked me where my guitar is. They're like, did you bring your guitar? And if I don't have it, they're they're kind of concerned, why didn't

you bring your guitar. I could have never imagined having a day job that paid me well where I could even think about bringing up music, let alone being that so But but it came from that long again, long road, long commitment of saying I'm gonna push it, I'm gonna

be myself in these situations. But the more you do that, the more people come to trust you, the more people come to rely on you and value your perspective on things because you're not packaging it, and because you're yeah, you're not packaging it, and the politically correct thing to do. I have to tell executives all the time, like, I appreciate your idea, but it's a terrible one. I have to, you know, give because I love the company, I have to be direct. However, they know that, Um, I'm also

the first one on their side when it's a great idea. Hell, yes, let's do it, you know, because authenticity, it's really at the end of the day, it's our true currency for how our lives and our career unfold is authenticity. And everything works better for me when I put radical in front of it. So I would argue radical authenticity very painful for some people. Yea. For me, it's it's been painful to a point, but I realized now that there's no going back. I just have to keep moving towards

more authenticity. Yeah. Well, you whatever challenges you may have had with that, you seem to at least anywhere I've seen you be past you know, you seem to be pretty much you. Yeah, I mean in a in a pretty remarkable way. Thanks man, you had a great um seat for the best job of my life in the last few years, which was being the camp director for Good Life Projects Summer Camp. And it was one of those things I knew months leading up to it that

I was made to do this role. I'm gonna be a ring master, I'm gonna be an m C, I'm gonna be a DJ motivator, a musician, all these things, and who else would be crazy enough to try and try all that stuff, but to show up there and to just be fully and meshed in the moment and to be rewarded for being who I am, showing up in pajamas on the second day and doing like the intros for the keynotes and pajamas and those things. It's it's not a look at me, look how much fun

I'm having kind of thing. It's say, Wow, what took me so long to get here? You know this? You know. I see guys like Bob Marley. I see guys like you know, John Lennon, people that were unapologetically who the hell they were from a young age, like almost fell onto the earth like that. And it takes some of us a lot more years to take that baby step journey.

But once you trip over it it's hard to go back. Well, it's I certainly think it's encouraging to see because I think if you didn't watching from the outside and not knowing you, you would seem like this guy hadn't been born that way, right, because you were so clearly just

they're out there having fun, completely un self conscious. And but I think it's really important that you know people here that wasn't the way you were, that you can get there, that you can you know, those those um that weight that we carry to be somebody different than we are, you can. So one of my things, one of my exercises every once in a while, as I try to post something on Facebook that literally makes my

skin crawl, because James Altur is the same way. If you ever listened to his podcast, he's he said, you know, he he knows it's this successful post by the degree to which he scared sless to post it. And um, when my when my dad passed this summer, I was with him as he passed. Was a very emotional time for our family. But somehow being in my parents house over the weekend, I found this this hidden on a shelf.

I found this like little book of my senior photos yearbook photos, and they were the most horrific photos, like floral vests, brooches, band letters, band whistle, doogie howser, haircut. I mean, just you have a dab a damn painful to look at. So I thought, I gotta practually, I preach,

I gotta. I'm gonna post these one by one and just kind of see the response I get, you know, And and so I still absolutely take those risks and endure that pain to say, you know, and in some way it's honoring that kid, that geeky, super concerned with what everybody thought of him, kid that we all were at some point. Honoring that and saying, you know, these days I try not to have any apologies for who the hell I am, but um, all of us kind

of start from that place. And you know, but but waking up the next day and seeing kind of like that, that bag of support and like total all my friends like jumping in and reminding me what a complete dark I was and stuff. You know, it's, uh, somewhere in there is what I'm trying to leave behind. You know. Well, I like that we talk often on the show. It's about small steps. I mean, for some people, you know, sometimes just taking a huge jump is the right thing

to do. In a lot of cases, for people, it's just one small step, you know what, what what one way tomorrow, in one conversation with one person, can I be more meat? Yeah? And then oh that went okay, Well all right, let me try that again the next day with a different person, or let me take one more step with that person, or it's you know, those things, those microscopic steps add up if they're consistent. Absolutely, and

again it's for me. Meditation is where that's cultivated. I always tell people that meditation helps you discern signals from static, and the static is the ego and the voices and the scripts that were given as kids telling us you have to fit in this box and do this and like all that stuff that doesn't quite jive with us. People meant well when they gave it to us, but it doesn't serve us. And then the signal, which is sometimes absurd, sometimes inspired, sometimes scary, but your unique signal.

If you could use meditation or a mind from this practice to tune into that and be guided by that, those risks become less about the risk and more about your duty to fulfill because to me, that's your mission, that becomes providence, that becomes and all the all the audacious people in history, I mean, Steve Jobs summed it

up beautifully. The thing differently campaign you know that it's um those people that change the world, and it's it's no, it was no easier for them to step into that responsibility because it is a responsibility than it is for any of us. But at some point we realize that we have to do it. Yeah, And I think for a lot of people, the the uncomfortable nous for the pain of not doing that, it starts to become a

pretty big motivator. I used to joke about it, like when I was younger and would be scared to ask a girl. I would eventually eventually got to the point where it's like the pain of being a chicken is worse than the pain and rejection. At this point, I can't stand my chickenness on this, you know. And and then you try you get past that, and you're like, oh, yeah,

this is not being true. Ourselves is far worse. Although it not, it doesn't seem like it for a while, but eventually, at least for me, that hits a hits an inflection point where I'm like I can't. Yeah, well

you had. You had a great quote on one of your podcasts I listened to the other day, which was one of the short ones where you were talking about pushing through procrastination to take good action, and you said something about you can't think your way into action, but you can act your way into You can't think your way into right action, but you can have your way into right thinking. Yes, yes, you have to lead with action. And and most people aren't wired to take that action,

you know. They have to really go through so many crazy cycles of getting the hell beat out of them before they say, Okay, I've had enough, I'm gonna try, you know, to to pursue this. So yeah, well I think we are at the end of our time. Actually, this has been a long one, which seems to be happening more and more as I get great people and um, but thanks so much for taking the time, my pleasure.

It's been fun. And I will make sure that on our show notes that links to your your site and all that stuff, will make sure we get some of those personalities studies out there also tests. I appreciate that. Yeah, and always great to make another good friend in Ohio. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, you can learn more about this podcast and Chris Carter at one you Feed dot Net slash Carter and don't forget to go online

and sign up for our email list. And you can get Eric's free four part series about the seven habits of highly affective people. Thanks Spite,