Episodes 51-60

 When was the last time you felt UNSTOPPABLE?  Did you feel like you were on top of the world?  What were you doing?         What if I told you this had everything to do with your state of mind and nothing to do with what you were doing?  And that you could tap into this power, this resourcefulness, at any time, regardless of what you are facing.  This the power of ENERGY over the power of MATTER.       Your Internal creates your External, not the other way around.  If you are stuck in a rut and your External creates your Internal, then you are a victim.  "For anything to change, I must change."  Whenever we have an excuse, even if it's a good one, we let ourselves off the hook.  The only solution is 100% responsibility for our lives... no matter what! 

 Humor me here...        We all remember the story of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears.  The one where Goldilocks went through the bears' house trying porridge, sitting in chairs, and sleeping in beds.       The term "Goldilocks" has been adopted over the years to describe the perfect version of something - when conditions are juuuuust right.       I wonder if that's ever the case?  Are situations ever perfect?  So often, we wait for CERTAINTY when we want to make a change.  We don't leave our current situation, even if it's killing us, because it's predictable... we know what to expect. 

 Intuition = the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning; an inner knowing.            We all have intuition, but not all of us know how to use it.  We first must quiet our outside world so we can hear what our inside world is telling us.        Intuition is truth whispered to us every second of the day, which only registers in our mind when we quiet our outside world enough to receive it.  It can't come through if there's too much interference... so it is our duty to remove it when we can.       Shouldn't we learn to listen more to what is never wrong?  Let's discuss on this week's episode with Jon Zieve - welcome to Coach's Corner! 

 The more we suppress our feelings, the more we lose ourselves... you become a stranger to yourself - you try to please others.  And you are training others to not pay attention to how you feel because you don't pay attention to how you feel, because you suppress how you feel."        This is how we live as our "authentic self".  It starts with becoming aware when the above situations are occurring, and since over 50% of our communication comes from our body, it always knows when we are betraying our authentic self.        During this week's #truthseekers Coach's Corner with Jon Zieve, we get into very specific detail about how to navigate this process.  What a difference it makes to know how to live authentically! 

 What will business look like in the future?  What about trips into the office vs. working remotely?  What does that mean for collaboration?  For hiring?       This week's #truthseekers guest Brian Rivers has been a CEO for 16 years.  We thought it'd be prudent to navigate some of these questions with Brian who currently runs a company of 23 employees.       The conversation was a great reminder of what we have control over... in business and in life.  External factors are constantly making their presence known in our lives... some more than others - but we always have a choice.       Where our focus goes, our energy flows.  There are 2 sides to every coin so whenever we face a challenge, there is always an equal opportunity to rise to the occasion - to see something that was not there before - and make it better. 

 Imagine having a company culture where everyone has bought in.  Employees are committed.  Goals are clear.  Communication is great.  And people have fun.       This week's #truthseekers guest, Jason Tierney, has an approach that just might be the secret sauce to foster this environment... and his company Forced Air Mechanical, appropriately acronym'd "FAM", takes an employee-first approach to ensure everyone owns their work-life balance.       Part of the responsibility that comes with building this ideal culture is eliminating its threats.  As Coach Nick says, "it's easy when things are bad to make things better, because what have you got to lose?...  In order to get to great, you've got to sacrifice good sometimes."        As Jason discusses in this week's episode, sometimes that means firing an employee.  "If you're not in, if you're not understanding the 'why' we are here - 'why' we are doing everything we're doing, and it's for the benefit of everyone here - then this isn't the place for you."  How powerful is that!   

 Where does creativity come from?  Are the ideas that pop into your head your ideas?  If you were creative once, surely you could be intentional about being creative again, right?       We had some fun with this week's conversation as Chip Venters joins #truthseekers to talk about his insatiable reading habits, and a concept encapsulated in the 1960's Mad Men-era businessman, the 3-martini lunch!  Both strategies seem to promote creativity (in different ways), but the approaches are actually quite similar if you strip it all away.  Let me explain what they have in common...       We cannot be creative when we are stressed.  We cannot be creative when we are hyper focused.  We cannot be creative when we are worried about events from our past or in our future. 

 Neurologists have found that the physiological lifespan of an emotion in the body is 90 seconds.  Wait, what?!       That's crazy to think about!  But it's true - we can be the observer of our emotions.  This has huge upside potential if you can remain aware of this fact in the moment you experience negative emotions.       Negative emotions include unworthiness, fear, anger, shame, self-doubt, guilt just to name a few - we are all painfully too familiar!  So what can we do when we notice these emotions?  How can we regulate ourselves?  How can we use these emotions to grow our emotional intelligence?       Welp, that's just something you'll have to find out by tuning into this week's episode of #truthseekers with Leslie Cunningham.  Also included is a very special and serendipitous interaction between Leslie and guest co-host Coach Jon Zieve, who we discovered right before recording both experienced the same form of tongue cancer, and subsequent (partial) tongue removal surgery, and recovery. 

 Just because we aren't conscious of them all doesn't mean we don't make hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions every single day.       We are all creators of our lives - our actions shape our future.  In its most simplistic form, some of our daily actions include the clothes we choose to wear; the hygiene routines we choose to engage in; the people we choose to surround ourselves with... this is the power of choice!         The more conscious we become of the world we are creating, the more intentional we can be about the world we want to create.       We are 100% responsible for our own lives.  As we become more intentional about creating the life and the world around us, it's as if we take on greater responsibility for the choices we make.  We begin to recognize the importance of everything we do.  And just how much is this concept magnified when you are the CEO of a company...?!       This week, we have the privilege of tapping into the mind of a CEO who has been making decisions for his company for more than 18 years.  Tim Szczygiel joins #truthseekers to give us insight into his approach to making decisions and what he has become intentional about as he chooses to mold the culture of his company. 

 "The quality of your life is the quality of your communication" ~ Tony Robbins  We live in a material 3-dimensional world, yet our communication is quite often flat and 1-dimensional.  It's been said that 55% of our communication is our body language, 38% is our tonality, and just 7% is our words.  7%!  If most of the communication we engage in throughout our day is text message and email, our messages are at such a risk of being miscommunicated because only 7% of it is being conveyed!  Even a phone call lacks up to 55% of the intended message!  Humans have known this for some time... which is where the dawning of visual media comes in.  How can we convey messages better?  Better yet, what's a way we can instill a targeted emotion?  How can images or video influence our thoughts and actions?  This week's #truthseekers guest,  Andrew Larson, Animator/Producer at The Production Group and Owner/Animator at Spirit Studios, talks about what it's been like to live in this space for decades.