Discover FOUR Secrets to a Balanced and Purposeful Life with Ran Selig

Rand Selig, a trailblazing entrepreneur and author, shares his compelling journey from the confines of corporate life to forging his own thriving path. Gain insights from Ran's experiences as we unpack the art of defining success on one’s own terms, and the pivotal role of self-awareness in leading a purposeful life. With heartfelt anecdotes, Ran reveals how mentorship and support from his life coach and wife paved his way to success, underscoring the transformative power of recognizing personal strengths and aligning life with core values.

We venture into the essence of living a life with purpose, where work, family, and personal well-being blend seamlessly. The episode challenges conventional ideas of work-life balance, advocating for a more integrated approach that enhances fulfillment and happiness. Through personal stories, we explore how a sense of purpose can shift at various life stages, and how genuine connections with family and community leave a lasting legacy. We emphasize the need for humility, spiritual reflection, and aligning actions with values to make meaningful contributions to both daily life and broader commitments.

Embrace the liberating journey of imperfection and self-growth, especially from a male perspective, as we navigate the complexities of love, self-acceptance, and emotional resilience. This conversation sheds light on overcoming self-sabotage, practicing forgiveness, and letting go of mental burdens to forge your destiny today. By fostering vulnerability and maintaining a curious mindset, learn to cultivate deep relationships and emotional resilience. This episode is a testament to the power of continuous learning and growth, inspiring you to become the person you are meant to be.

Key moments in this episode:
06:46 The Inspiration Behind 'Thriving'

11:03 The Four Pillars of Thriving

13:22 Balancing Life and Work

17:46 The Power of Purpose and Legacy

28:28 Overcoming Self-Sabotage

30:13 The Power of Forgiveness

34:31 Building Deep Relationships

37:32 Strengthening Emotional Health

41:48 Impactful Books and Mentorship

48:17 Defining Personal Success

How to reach Rand:
Website: https://www.randselig.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rand-selig-43525a6

Rumi.ai
All-in-one meeting tool with real-time transcription & searchable Meeting Memory™

Chapters

• 0:00 Creating Your Path to Thriving
• 10:47 [Ad] Rumi.ai
• 11:36 (Cont.) Creating Your Path to Thriving
• 12:39 Living With Purpose and Legacy
• 23:35 Embracing Imperfection and Self-Growth
• 28:10 Overcoming Self-Sabotage and Forgiveness
• 35:20 Building Deep Relationships and Emotional Resilience
• 50:50 Forge Your Destiny Today

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Just take for a moment and imagine your life and you find yourself and you're struggling to forge deep relationships. Maybe you're feeling trapped in some self-sabotage and it's really hindering your progress, you know. So the concept of living your legacy may be distant and really unattainable. Then we have to look at how we're defining success. Are we defining it on our own terms or we defined it on somebody else's term? So we're going to explore all of these in today's episode of the Revolutionary man podcast, because we're going to offer you a lifeline. So we dive into the insights of a really remarkable guest whose expertise and positive outlook can provide a roadmap overcoming these challenges and so many more.

Speaker 1: 0:40

And before we get into that and into today's episode, let's come to grips about something else, and that is inevitably. There will come a time in our lives when we will hit a wall. You know, whether it's a marriage that's not working, or a career or a business that's stagnated, or maybe your personal life is just flatlined. And so if you're tired of dealing with any of these, or a combination of them, then allow me to help you get clear on what needs to be done, how to do that, and so you can get on living the life you were meant to live. Just go to the show notes today and book a clarity call and let's get started. And with that, let's get on with today's episode.

Speaker 2: 1:18

The average man today is sleepwalking through life, many never reaching their true potential, let alone ever crossing the finish line to the Revolutionary man Podcast. It's time to become a revolutionary man. Stay strong, my brother.

Speaker 1: 1:48

Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man Podcast. I'm the founder of the Awakened man Movement and your host, alan DeMonsal. So before we get started, allow me to ask you a couple of questions. As we dive into today's conversation. I want you to think about your own life, and are you forging the deep relationships that truly matter, or are you letting distractions pull you away from what's important? And then I want you to consider your daily habits and your mindset.

Speaker 1: 2:15

Are you living your legacy and defining success on your own terms, or are you caught in this cycle of self-sabotage that's preventing you from reaching your full potential? You know it's a scenario that's all too familiar for many of us, and getting clear and real with where we're at is more important than how we get there. That's just the never-ending rabbit hole when we consider about how we got somewhere. So we don't want to spend a lot of time on that. What is important is taking charge of our lives moment by moment. The only way we can do that is and say that we are thriving. So how do we get to that point? All we need to do, all we need is a little bit of guidance, and today my guest intends to do just that, as he spreads a few breadcrumbs on the trail to thriving in our life.

Speaker 1: 3:04

So allow me to introduce our guest. Ran Selig is an accomplished entrepreneur, coach, scoutmaster, board member and a roll up your sleeves conservationist. Ran shares his expertise and extensive expertise in his book Thriving how to Create a Healthier, happier and More Prosperous Life, and, with an MBA from Stanford and undergraduate degrees in mathematics and psychology, he's going to excel at managing complex projects, not just locally but globally, and he's relentless positive and believes that he can design his own life, just as you can too. So welcome to the show today, ram. How are things, my friend?

Speaker 3: 3:43

Hey, alan, it's just great to be with you After that lead up.

Speaker 1: 3:48

You know I should Well, we're going to spend more than two minutes together for sure today, my friend, I was so intrigued with your story and, as you know, here at the Revolutionary man podcast we talk a lot about everyone being on their own hero's quest and their own journey. So I want you to take us back into your life, a time in your life when you knew that things just had to change. What did you do about that and how did it shape you into the man you are today?

Speaker 3: 4:11

Well, I think one of the most important decisions I've ever made in my life was starting my own company. I've been working for big firms, big Wall Street firms, for a dozen years and I was feeling very uncomfortable, itchy, frustrated. I had a boss who basically said if you want to go to the bathroom, raise your hand. This is after running the entire Asian investment banking business. So this was insulting and frustrating. And I have the most amazing wife. She put up with me coming home every night for about three years saying the same stuff, slightly different story.

Speaker 3: 4:53

But I decided I got bored hearing myself talk about this stuff and I worked with a coach, a life coach, who was a self-paced program, asked me lots of really great questions who are my heroes? What were my strengths? How did I see myself as a moral entity, in addition to having talent of whatever kind? And what that confirmed was I was not going to be a forest ranger. No, I was going to stay and stay as an investment banker, but I was going to run my own firm. And so I got really busy with that and on day one starting my own firm, I had five clients and I've never looked back. It was truly a fantastic, painful period of time, but I came out of it smelling like well, I think, like roses, and I again have to thank my wife so much and this great coach, boy, oh boy. I'll be forever thankful for her.

Speaker 1: 6:07

I bet for sure she's in heaven now and I'm going to have a question on mentorship in a little while, but what I really like about your story so far is really talking about, you know, paying attention to the things that are happening to our lives, and how often are we caught in the rabbit race and we just keep doing the same thing over and over again. It becomes a little bit like groundhog day and we lose ourselves, ourselves and our ambition, and we lose ourselves and in wanting more, and so I'm grateful that you found that and I think you know maybe I want to get into your book actually and talk about your book. You can cut time about thriving, as I mentioned earlier, and you tackle a lot of the things that I talked about in the opening of our show today about how we define success and stopping self-sabotage and forging relationships. What inspired you to write Thrive and what do you hope that readers are going to get as a takeaway from the book?

Speaker 3: 6:59

Yeah, well, the background story is that I'm a very disciplined person and since high school, actually, I was writing notes from books that I had read, and collecting articles and collecting great quotes. And I had this four foot high stack of papers and I kept looking at the stack, thinking, well, there's at least one book in there and there's at least one book inside me. And so four years ago, I started writing this. I chunked the four foot stack into files, which ultimately became the chapters.

Speaker 3: 7:35

Originally, I thought the book would be great as a legacy thing that I would give it to family and friends, dear friends, and I shared it with three people who know me well. Several had written books and they said, oh no, no, this is a much bigger book than that. You have to share this with the world, get out there, finish this book, and so so it's quite an adventure. It's my first book, an enormous adventure, and if you're not prepared to learn things along the way and keep pushing forward, it'll be a struggle and you may not get there, but I was committed. I really believe in this book.

Speaker 3: 8:20

The central theme of this book, if I'm going to distill it down, is that we have enormous power, enormous power in our lives, the power to get on the road to thriving by making choices Choices about how we spend our time, choices about who we spend our time with, choices about our habits. And choices about our feelings and choices about our feelings. These things all roll up and you can do the hard work of looking at yourself and being honest and say I need to work on this and this relationship is not serving me. It's actually taking me backwards. Maybe it's toxic, but it's not working. I need to make changes. You need to add new people to your life. These are all choices that we make, so I think this leads to the confidence of designing your own life.

Speaker 3: 9:14

I've done that and, as you mentioned at the outset, alan, I believe other people can too and related to that, now that I'm actually a published author, I can say you can be the author of your own story, which is, I think, a very nice set of words put together. What it basically means is that you can decide what to edit, you can decide what to delete. You know it's your story and then you can decide what various scenarios are going forward. Look at those, write them down.

Speaker 1: 9:46

I just love that how you frame that. We can be the author of our own lives and we forget that the next chapter is up to us to decide on how that is going to be written, and I think that's why it's so important that you know we were talking just as we were getting on to hit record for today. Is that what I enjoy about doing this podcast so much is one meeting some outstanding people such as yourself. It's also about, you know, seeing average and ordinary folks doing extraordinary things, and more more of us. I think it's just it's more inspiring to see that from the average, the average joe, so to speak. Then then maybe seeing some more, I would consider maybe the icons that we would all look up to in that you know what. You don't have to have a superpower of anything other than maybe the superpower is being able to pay attention and make choice. So that leads me into asking and wondering how do you define thrive and what kind of aspects make that up in a human?

Speaker 3: 11:29

Well, as I lay out in my book, I think if you're truly going to be thriving and, by the way, thriving is the climate, it's the average over time. It's not today's weather, so anybody can have a bad day and that doesn't mean you're off your game forever. It just means you're having a bad day. So thriving is an average over time. And I think about sort of four components, four basic elements to thriving. There's thriving personally, there's thriving with others, there's thriving out in the world, thriving with others, there's thriving out in the world. And there's thriving as we move ever forward in life, which includes gaining wisdom and evolving. Each of these are really rich. The first part of this, the thriving personally, is half my book. It's so foundational. If you don't have a really solid relationship with yourself, for example, how can you have a really great relationship with others? So it kind of builds outward that way. If you're all about yourself you talked about defining success your way If you're only about yourself, you know what are you. You know when are you going to be charitable. When are you going to be philanthropic? When are you going to be charitable? When are you going to be philanthropic? When are you going to be helping somebody else. Maybe it's a neighbor, maybe it's sitting on a board, maybe it's volunteering.

Speaker 3: 12:51

My wife and I are volunteers at our local marsh and our technical title is we're environmental stewards. And my wife laughs and says we are weed pickers. Get over yourself, you're right. You're right, but we're doing important work there in a marsh that matters a lot. It's on the flyway, with birds and so on. So doing all these things and you don't have to, I think a lot of people think that they have to finish one whole set of things. They have to do their work and be with their family and they don't have time, they don't have focus to do the volunteering or to be charitable. They're saving and I really I want to push back hard on that. My own experience suggests that you can do many things well at the same time by focusing and by having a commitment to those things.

Speaker 1: 13:47

It is about that, I think. We tend to put a lot of pressure on how we're trying to show up with in life, and if we feel that we can't make at least I'm saying using the royal we here if I think about it for myself, how much time can I dedicate to this? And then I'll discount it. And so one of the notes I wrote down here was work-life balance, and that seems to be this you know this idea of trying to have things in balance, and what are your thoughts in your journey? What have you learned about what truly what work-life balance means?

Speaker 3: 14:21

Well, let me just start off by saying I don't love that term balance. It sounds to me like a teeter-totter. You know, it's the sort of zero-sum game You're working, and when you're working you're not with your family, and when you're with family, you're not working, and I think that sort of one or the other kind of thinking is a bit of a trap. Instead, I think it's important to say what's important to me as a human being on this planet, who's important to me, what are the issues that are important to me and what am I going to do about that, and then you can build out. So you have to be healthy. You have to be physically healthy, you have to be mentally healthy, you have to take care of yourself. So that takes time, and as you get a little older or if you've had some kind of accident or some other physical setback or maybe a mental setback you got to, you got to spend extra time with that. So there's that.

Speaker 3: 15:13

There's, of course, I think it's important to have a sense of spirituality. It's more important, in my view, to have a spirituality than it is to have a religion. Spirituality leads to being in awe. You look out, you look at this amazing world we're living in and then it leads to humility, like you're a little bit of a nobody, You're a little tiny grain of sand on the planet and say nothing of how insignificant you are in the universe. Being in awe and having humility go a long way to just keep going and doing your best and not getting over yourself, thinking well, this is going to be a big headline grabbing thing. That's not what it's about, I think.

Speaker 3: 15:57

Having purpose, really spending time with yourself saying what is my purpose. I have had purpose Again. I may be a little bit unique in this regard, but I've had purpose and written it down and revised it a number of times since high school. And I recently gave a talk at a local retirement home and I was talking about the nine keys to aging well and one of them was purpose and I said if your purpose here in your 80s is to just be a kind person, to ask questions of somebody, to listen well, to invite them to do something, you are having mighty purpose and I salute you if you're doing that kind of thing.

Speaker 3: 16:47

So there's a multiplicity of things. I've had more than three dozen roles and responsibilities and titles in my life. It's been amazing, but I think the most important, the one I care about the most, was being father and raising my kids. They're fantastic kids and my role has shifted again and again because they're so independent and you know, they come back to home port from time to time and I'm delighted and they're delighted. But I did my job and I worked hard at that being a scoutmaster, a little league coach and being home for dinner, except when I was, you know, flying to a client or something. When they were little, I read to them every night. These kinds of things make a difference, and it's not a difference necessarily just in my life, but now it's going to be a difference in their lives and in their children's lives. So this is the balance I'm talking about the integration actually I should scrap the word balance the integration of life and being authentic, being yourself.

Speaker 1: 17:56

And being yourself means that you screw up once in a while and that's okay too, and I love that there's just so much great information you put there. The first thing I wrote down was your question what's important to me? And then you were talking about humility and purpose, and when guys come and do work with us here at the Awakened man, one of the things that the first thing I get them to do is through an exercise that ultimately crafts their mission statement with you know what it is, that they are, that they're willing to stand up for, and because a lot of times we don't have that like. We think we have a purpose but our values aren't necessarily aligned with that. What we're actions show up are different than what we say that we value, and I think it's really key. And then you know you talked about uh also in that, in that whole part of it about you know what.

Speaker 1: 18:49

What was important to me and I thought I think about you know a tool that we use and I wanted to get your thoughts on what you're using with your clients is that I we get them to go through a uh using the eisenhower matrix, you know, on a on a week-to-week basis, and then they can have a look at it. Well, if you you know on a on a week to week basis, and then they can have a look at it. Well, if you, you know what your, what your purpose and mission statement is and I agree with you a hundred percent I encourage them to redo it every year, to realign with it, get it sharper. And then how are you actually showing up? Because it's in the moments to moment that really makes a difference. And so what are your thoughts on some of this?

Speaker 3: 19:25

Well, this is, this is important work, and I completely agree and I'm delighted that you're doing that, alan, thank you. You know, words are words, but until they really have traction, they can just be feel goods. So, you know, applying yourself and getting the alignment you're talking about is absolutely key. I think for some people, if you dial forward, get away from the here and now, go forward 10, 20 years or maybe even towards the end of your life, and then figure something out and pull it back, what do I need to do now to get there? It's actually one of the key ways in which we do professional forecasting. Shell Oil is a master at that kind of approach, and so one of the things I like to talk to people about is writing down their legacy. So what do they stand for? So you know, what you want to do is carve your name on hearts, not on a piece of marble, no. So what is it? What is your legacy? What are you all about? And? And once you have that, you can go through many drafts and it's OK. You can revise it as you say, revise it annually, however often, but then start living it now. As you say, revise it annually, however often, but then start living it now. And I don't care, I don't really, it doesn't matter whether you're 35 or 55 or 75, this creating a legacy.

Speaker 3: 20:53

And I will just be happy to share my four part legacy. One is a legacy of excellence. Everything I do, whether it's relationships or work or commitments I make, I'm going to do it in the best way. I know how I'm going to follow through with people. I don't let the ball drop. A second thing is having a legacy of purpose. I'm clear about my purpose and I revise it from time to time. You know, my purpose right now is engaging people with my book. Well, that wasn't my purpose four years ago. That's great, it's it's, it's a livening, it makes it keep me young, it's just really great. A third is to be encouraging, a voice of encouragement for everybody I come in contact with, and there's lots of ways to do that. You could do it in a more formal way, like being a mentor or, uh, you know, maybe, maybe with a friend who might be unsure about something, but just look at them, you know, openly, and tell them what they're doing well and what, why you believe in them, and be encouraging, being, be encouraging, being positive in that way.

Speaker 3: 22:03

And then my fourth, which I'm very excited about. Some people kind of snicker and say you spent too much time in Northern California. But it's being love. And you know we hold love in a kind of Hollywood way. It's romantic, it's all this, and we have words like you fell in love and you fell out of love, and the one and only love. And you know that kind of romantic love for Valentine's Day and other days of the year, oh my gosh, that's great If you have it, I'm so delighted for you.

Speaker 3: 22:33

But there's something even bigger, I would say even more important, which is love is a way of being, and that means being kind and being respectful and asking questions, listening hard, listening hard again, being generous, performing acts of loving, kindness, whether that's with Mother Nature, with animal, with other people. When I go to some place, even if it's the first time, and I don't know if I'll ever come back whoever's serving me, whoever's there at the counter, whatever I engage with, I sometimes ask their name and I thank them for what they're doing and especially if they do a great job, then I say I call them out, I say this was terrific, I just want you to know, yeah, I'm leaving you a tip or whatever.

Speaker 1: 23:25

But that's not the big story here. What I really took away from your four-part piece there is when you used the last part and you talked about love. Last month, that was the theme of the month for us guys. I have 12 different virtues. We follow one a month and give an opportunity to work through it, kind of like the Ben Franklin model, and one of the things that, as men, I find is that we struggle with receiving love and actually giving love. We don't know how to do that because it wasn't something that normally we did receive, and I don't know if you're finding that in your work as well. But that is a really big subject today and sometimes, you know, showing love also means being able to be honest with somebody but still giving them the space to still grow, and that's a skill that more of us as guys need to learn.

Speaker 3: 24:23

I'm totally with you. There's a great line I'm sure you've heard, Alan we accept the love we think we deserve and this is a problem. This is a problem because if you don't really love yourself, you're seeing the dings and the bruises and you're recognizing that you made some mistakes and that you were not the nicest person to whomever.

Speaker 2: 24:51

And you don't get through that.

Speaker 3: 24:53

You're carrying heavy rocks in the backpack and the mountain just gets higher and higher. So you just have to say I am, I'm going to fix the problems, I'm going to go and apologize, I'm going to forgive myself. There are certain things I do control in life, but there's a lot of things I don't control and I'm just going to be the best person I can. I'm going to commit to being a better person tomorrow or in the future than I am today.

Speaker 1: 25:22

You want to compare?

Speaker 1: 25:23

yourself not to your former self. It makes so much sense because so many times we are competing or we tend to, as guys, we tend to compete with something else that probably, you know, depending on where we're at in our life, it may or may not be attainable, but what is attainable is being better men as we continue to grow. And you know there's a term they use in a lot of 12-step programs and that's, you know, progress over perfection. And I really like that idea because it is about, you know, just and you used it, you know excellence.

Speaker 1: 25:58

And excellence to me is also that idea of looking for what I'm doing well versus looking after perfection, which is, if you're chasing perfection, then you're always looking for what's wrong, and it's a subtle shift, but I think it's really important.

Speaker 3: 26:18

Well, if I get around to writing another book and I'm so busy with this one and enjoying it so much, I'm about to do the audio book and read it myself but it would be about words that are troublesome and difficult and set us back, and one of those words is retirement. I think we should get rid of that word. We should change it at the minimum to rewirement. I think that would be really cool. You know it's kind of fun to make that word. We should change it at the minimum to rewirement. I think that would that would be really cool. I mean, you know it's kind of fun, uh to, to make that shift.

Speaker 3: 26:46

But there are other words that get in our way, uh that that hold us back and and limit how we think about ourselves and how we think about the world that we exist in, um, so there's a series of those uh, difficult, troubling words. You were just referring to one a minute ago and I, you just got to throw that stuff away and say I'm defining this my way. It may, I'm willing to swim, put my swimsuit on and swim against the tide of society or my family or or uh, friends, and just get on. Get on with this, because I, I believe in it. I believe in it and, um, I'm, I'm going to continue to evolve as best as best I can.

Speaker 3: 27:32

Yeah, and another of the bad words is this idea of perfect, and I hear it when it relates to things like a wedding and I go oh, my gosh, my gosh, this is not good guys. It's great to be joyful and happy and all those heart-opening things, and it could be excellent in so many ways the food, the service, the formal wedding, part of it but perfection, don't go there. That's so true.

Speaker 1: 27:59

That's so true.

Speaker 3: 28:01

You'll hurt yourself.

Speaker 1: 28:02

What we're talking also about is why we struggle a lot in our lives is that we have self-sabotage. We ultimately squash the goals and aspirations that we have. And so in all the work that you've done, especially preparing the book and that, where are you finding some common signs of self-sabotage and what can people do to start to overcome those?

Speaker 3: 28:25

Well, my first taste of self-sabotaging was actually in college. I was one of my degrees was in mathematics, and I was a tutor and became the head tutor. And so students would come in and within a minute they would say they're not good at math and I'd say well, come on, let's work together.

Speaker 3: 28:45

Let's do some problems and we'd solve the problems. And then they'd gain some more confidence. And I'd say you know, why don't you try one on your own? And you know, eventually they'd get it solved. And I'd say you know how do you feel? And he'd go math is fun. And you know? That's an example of self-sabotaging when you say you don't even get into the game, you just hold yourself back. I'm not good at this, I'm not going to apply for that job, I'm not going to follow through with Alan on his very nice invitation because he's just blowing some smoke my way. He doesn't really want me to be on his podcast. You know these kinds of things and even if your chance of succeeding is only one in whatever a hundred, don't blow that off. I just self-sabotaging is one of the three arenas of not being emotionally healthy.

Speaker 1: 29:41

Yeah, I completely agree, and it's some of the work that we spend a lot of time looking at how we do that to ourselves. How are we self-sabotaging? And I find that it's coming from limiting beliefs that we have with ourselves and it comes from a misalignment and again I go back to the misalignment in our values, because we end up by acting out in opposition of what we truly desire, because we don't believe that we can get there. So there's this disconnect that we end up by having. And so you talked about what's one of three key areas. What are the other two?

Speaker 3: 30:20

Oh, thank you. Yeah, so another one is this forgiveness, uh, you know, things happen to us. I've yet to meet somebody who doesn't feel like somebody somewhere along the line.

Speaker 3: 30:30

Maybe long ago or more recently, did something intentionally or unintentionally that was really painful, hurtful and, uh, they haven't been able to forgive that person. So I say you have to forgive them. You can't carry that weight around. Be honest with yourself. Did you do something to participate in it, like a one percent, three percent, five percent contribution? Yeah, maybe, maybe they they own the vast majority of this and they do owe you an apology. You may never get one and maybe, if there's a little bit of a role you played, maybe you can open the door by apologizing to them. Not taking full ownership of the whole problem, but that honesty could be good. And even if they're gone they're no longer in your life or they're gone off the planet you can still write a letter and ask for them to apologize to you or for them to forgive you for your role in it. And the other part of it, of course, is forgiving yourself. You know, I don't know a person who's walked around who hasn't made some kind of mistake, and the trick is again to be honest about it and then learn from your mistakes so you don't repeat them and you just go forward without that heavy burden. So that's number two, the forgiveness, and number three is one that was, I got to tell you, is the hardest one for me, which is learning to let go. Why was that hard? Because I held my life in this way of. I was in control. Oh boy, you know, scoutmaster, you know, be prepared. My clients running very, very complicated transactions. You know, step one through 23, boom, boom, boom on schedule. I was in control.

Speaker 3: 32:17

Well, what I realized and I realized it only as my children became full adults and very successful ones that I realized I was controlling four things. I was controlling my attitude Wow big. I was controlling the amount of effort I was putting into things. I was controlling my behavior and I was controlling my actions. Those things I control and I can continue to control those things. Those are in my bailiwick. But there are all these things outside of that dealing with other people. And, yeah, I can maybe be of influence and say, if I screw that up, I lose my influence. So, uh, and there are lots of times when, uh, I really I have there's no voice. I have there's, I'm just not there to have a voice. Uh, I have no control over the situation. This, this is true of, uh, for example, national policies or events or elections. These things are out of our control. That doesn't mean we don't participate in certain ways. But you know, realizing this, learning to let go.

Speaker 3: 33:32

I actually like to do a little exercise. Alan, maybe you want to do it with me. I say hold up your fist and hold on to something that you want to let go of, and it may have been there a long time, maybe it's more recent. You see your white knuckles. You're holding on so tight. Okay, now turn your fist over. You again see your white knuckles. You're saying to yourself I want to let go. And then I joke, maybe because you read Rand's book Thriving, you say I have power and I'm going to let go. And book thriving you say I have power and I'm going to let go. And now you open your hand, you wiggle your fingers, you wiggle your thumb and your hand rises because you've let go of this heavy weight. And it's a little exercise. That's kind of fun. I used to have to do it a lot and now I don't have to do it so often because I'm a little more humble have to do it so often because they're a little more humble.

Speaker 2: 34:25

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love that you had attitude, effort, thank you, action and what was the fourth one, behavior, yes, uh behavior absolutely

Speaker 1: 34:35

yeah, that's the different than actually really crucial takeaways and one thing we didn't get yet that you had a chance to talk about we talked in the intro is about forging enduring and deep relationships and again I find in my men's work that's one thing that we'd struggle to do. Well, as men we don't know how to really forge deeply, although we fall in love deeply. How to maintain and grow that relationship can be a struggle. So what have you found? What are maybe some tips or some secrets on forging deep relationships?

Speaker 3: 35:09

Well, it's a very personal story for me. I woke up I don't know 10 years ago and said, wow, my life is just terrific. This is a great life. What could make it better? And I said, well, what would make it better? I have lots of friends, know lots of people, friends know lots of people, but I could have a few more really deep, enduring relationships. And so I said, okay, all right, who?

Speaker 3: 35:35

And so I picked six people they happen to all be guys, although I have many female friends too and I said, okay, I'm going to go talk to them. What am I going to talk to them about? That's different than all the other conversations I've had. Well, I'm going to be vulnerable. I'm going to be vulnerable. I'm going to tell them about something I'm concerned, about something I don't have an answer to. Maybe. I'm worried, anxious and see, just share it. And if they have some advice for me, I'd love to hear it.

Speaker 3: 36:08

And I said, okay, it's possible that the needle won't move with one or more of these people. And it's possible although I quickly dismissed this that somebody will say this guy's a real flake, I'm getting out of here. Well, what happened is five out of six moved the needle a lot. One didn't seem to move at all, and that's fine, I was prepared for that. But the other five began sharing not only great advice and insights and perspective, but they began being vulnerable with me and the relationship shifted into this depth that is so important. At any number of times he had the joys, the confusions, the sorrows that we all go through at various times. No, not alone, and it's one thing, you know. It's not a fun thing.

Speaker 1: 36:59

A big reason why I wanted to start doing men's work was just through some personal my own personal experiences and finding that, you know, this lone wolf idea it just wasn't working anymore and I needed to find that place, and unfortunately, there wasn't a place for guys to go, that they can be vulnerable and talk about stuff and I. Sometimes these are things that you just can't say to your spouse and your partner, and because you don't, you've never done it before, and so we made that environment and that's why we started doing this work was to give that space, and so I, you know, really leads me into, you know, talking about what you wait. Another topic that you like to talk about is not strengthening our emotional health, and you know, and I think that has a little, maybe it has a little bit to do with learning how to let go, but tell us a a little bit about how we can strengthen our emotional health.

Speaker 3: 37:55

Yeah, well, we talked about that a minute ago in these three things that I think are really so key. And there may be others too. No, it's not that there may be. There certainly are a variety of other things, but I think there's so many people I've come across I've met hundreds. I can't count the number of people I've met where I've had a conversation, where they are self-sabotaging or you know they. You don't forgive somebody. There's a great line, something like not forgiving is like drinking poison yourself and expecting the other person to die. You know this is this is not good stuff. So you got to be the forgiving, reach deep to do that. Stop self-sabotaging and learning to let go sabotaging and learning to let go those three things. If you can really get on top of those, your emotional climate will change a lot, assuming you're struggling in some way, even if it's a little bit of grit you know we need a little bit of grit in our life.

Speaker 1: 39:01

You know, the thing with grit is it gives shape to things, it helps us change and mold ourselves, is it gives shape to things, it helps us change and mold ourselves. And because I think, you know, if we sit in a life where we're not challenging ourselves or we're not being challenged, then where is the growth truly coming from? And I'm a big believer in that. We need to have that little bit of chaos to help us grow and rise up and find out what we're truly made of and move forward in our lives. And so you know, obviously, go ahead.

Speaker 3: 39:33

Well, I think one element to this that's so important is to position yourself to be a lifelong learner. Being curious makes life fun. I mean, you think about some adventure you took. Maybe it was a vacation. What made it fun was learning new stuff, seeing people dressing differently or speaking differently or eating different food or whatever the adventure of life. So being curious, being a lifelong learner, is huge. It really helps also in conflict resolution.

Speaker 3: 40:12

So why did I bring that up? Because think about a time when you were really kind of uh, face to face, knocking, uh locking horns with somebody cause they had a point of view that you did not share. You were getting kind of hot under the collar and it could. It could have hurt the relationship a lot, depending on how you handle it. But if instead you decide I'm going to be curious and you just sort of pull yourself away from the immediacy of that and you start asking questions, you say, hey, that's, I'm curious. You just said this, but tell me why? What led you to think? You don't say that stupid thought. How could you be so ridiculous? No, you don't say that. Instead, you say I'm curious, but mean it and ask them what they're all about. It doesn't mean you have to change your view, but you might learn something if you're actually honestly listening and it preserves the relationship. Maybe it's just a topic you don't go to anymore, that's okay.

Speaker 1: 41:16

But being a lifelong learner, pays such enormous dividends in life To continue to learn and to grow. And so you know, obviously you know you were mentioning of a four-foot stack of notes and quotes and everything and so you've read a book or two in your life, and so I'm not sure if you're in between books or you have something on your nightstand today, but if there was, you were to think back on a book that was really impactful for you. What was that book and what was the impact it made on you?

Speaker 3: 41:46

Well, that's a hard question because there's so many. Yeah, well, that's a hard question because there's so many. And in fact, in my book, one of the things that people have told me again and again they love about my book over 200 five star reviews of my book is that the back of the book I have, by chapter, my favorite books, books that I've read that really impacted me, that I've read that really impacted me, and they cover all the waterfront, from environmental stuff to money stuff to aging, on and on. It just covers this waterfront. And for me to pick one of those books here, let me just see if I can pick. Oh, I'll pick one. It's Essentialism. I'll actually pick two. Essentialism is one. It's essentialism, I'll actually pick two. Essentialism is one.

Speaker 3: 42:33

It's a great guy, also a Stanford MBA, greg McCown, and what he taught the subtitle of the book tells you a lot. It's the disciplined pursuit of less. And he talks about that same theme in like 15 different aspects of life and one of them was on strategy. And I said I don't even know if I'll read that chapter, I'm a strategy guru. Well, I read this chapter. I said, wow, I learned a lot and I'm going to be applying it because it's not the top three things that you're going to do. It's the number one thing you're going to do, and so that's a really good book. And the other one that came to me at this most amazing time was called Positive Intelligence. This book is again subtitled something like why only 20 percent of individuals and teams achieve their potential, and it's because they're they're doing a lot of sabotaging.

Speaker 3: 43:37

There there are these. He talks about these saboteurs that come along the way. There are a dozen of them. The king of the saboteurs is judgment, and when I read this book, I was a dozen of them. The king of the saboteurs is judgment, and when I read this book, I was so full of judgment, I was so cocky, I was so full of myself oh, I know how to do that. I'm smarter than that guy, so, whatever, well, that got in the way. And the judgment saboteur has a co-companion, and this book helps you figure out who the accomplice is to judgment. But the really juicy part of this book is there's another part of our brain, a different part of our brain, that is our sage selves, and it tells you how to pull away from these saboteurs and go into this really rich, helpful arena of being in the sage self. It's a great book. So those would be two, but depending on your mood, there's many more. Well, that's all right.

Speaker 1: 44:40

Those are two outstanding books, for sure. You know we started off this podcast talking about a mentor. You talked about a mentor that was really impactful in your life and he's no longer with us at this time. But what was the best piece of advice that he gave you and how is it still serving you today?

Speaker 3: 45:03

Well, daryl said a lot of things to me. Over the course of about a year I met with him probably eight or nine times for an hour or two at a session, and I had to prepare for him. He gave me homework and I had to come prepared. He said a number of things. He said you are enormously talented, but if you're going to be a square peg in the round hole, you're going to feel a lot of pain. So you just need to figure out, make the hole bigger or find something that fits you. This is the alignment point that you're making. And he said for you, rand, it's having your own company. You are so disciplined, you have a lot of talent, you have a lot of experience, you're ready, you're really ready to do it. So do what you would ordinarily do Get ready, you know, build up some clients, be sure you know what your focus is, know what you're able to do and and offer it honestly and with with excellence, and you're never going to have a problem. So that was one. The other is within, I think the first meeting. He said you have a problem with your father, don't you? And my mouth flew open and I said Daryl, how did you know that. And he said well, there were just a couple of little tiny things you said. But I know you have a father problem. You are a bull and your dad's an older bull and I bet you're just locking horns and being difficult with each other. And I said yes. So he said I'm going to recommend a book to you. It's another one of the books I refer to in my book, which is called Fathers. It's a great book written by I think Osherson is the fellow's name, the author of it.

Speaker 3: 46:52

Yeah, I learned a lot about myself and my relationship with my father. I was able to diagnose finally, after decades of a problem with him, what the issue was, him being very narcissistic, and I realized I was the person who had to make the changes. I had to respect him and I had to be prepared for him, never asking me how I was doing or never saying I'm proud of you. I just had to say and I created another father I create.

Speaker 3: 47:24

You know, a friend said write a letter to your dad, don't mail it unless you really really want to. But this fake father that you're creating in your head is this father where you just spent a weekend and you had a terrific time. You had great conversations. You had a lot of fun together, so create that father, so you'll now have two fathers. You'll have this father you deserve and the real father that you can respect and and appreciate for gifting you so many things that are part of who you are and that you recognize honestly as coming from him and contributing to the person you are today bringing.

Speaker 1: 48:05

That bring us to almost to a close to today's conversation. You know of everything that we spoke about today, and maybe there was something we didn't get a chance to touch on. Rand, if there was one thing you want our listeners to remember of our conversation, what would that be?

Speaker 3: 48:19

Well, we have covered a huge amount of terrain. I want to come back. I think it's a really big point for people, especially as they're building their careers is figuring out what is enough and figure out what success looks like. It needs to be personal, it's not an external yardstick. It's not qualitative external yardstick. It's not qualitative, it's quantitative and when you get your arms around that, you can be you. You know you can be successfully you.

Speaker 3: 49:01

Your life will change. You'll be moving around a very difficult corner. You cannot look out your window of your office or out your home window and compare yourself to the neighbor or the boss who has something or who just came back from this amazing, very expensive trip. That's not what it's about. It's about you looking inside and saying this is what gives me joy, this is what allows me to be of service or to be a good spouse or a good father or a good neighbor or whatever it is, and I might not be acknowledged for that, but I know I can see myself and I can look in the mirror and say I like that person and when I put my head on the pillow, I'm going to sleep.

Speaker 1: 49:57

well, I'm going to use that question to help define what success looks like in all aspects of our life, and so, Rand, I just want to say thanks so much for spending time with us today and showing us how we can truly move from surviving in life to thriving. So if men are interested in getting a hold of you picking up your book, participating in any of the work that you're doing, what would be the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 3: 50:18

Well, there's two ways. You know, the big Goliath on the planet for books is Amazon. Of course, my book's on Amazon. It's also at the independent bookstores Barnes, noble and so on. But you can also go to my website, the book website, randsaligcom, and there's a lot of information in the book, including other great podcasts. I'll add yours, alan, because this has been such a terrific one. There are my favorite quotes by chapter. You can have that as a free PDF. There are six amazing testimonials. I mean, these are blackbustered. The head of Kaiser Permanente wrote a testimonial for this book.

Speaker 1: 51:03

So there's a lot of great material there at the website. I'm going to make sure that information is in the show notes, as well as a link to your book, so folks can get out there and pick up a copy. I just want to say once again, rand, thank you so much. I just loved our conversation today.

Speaker 3: 51:14

Alan, thank you, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Speaker 2: 51:23

Thank you for listening to the Revolutionary man podcast. Are you ready to own your destiny, to become more the man you are destined to be? Join the brotherhood that is the Awakened man at theawakenedmannet and start forging a new destiny today.