Leadership and Self-Discovery with Ron Stotts

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Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy. Hey, stand up guy, boom, ten toes.
Big body pull up in a range. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show.
Today we have a tremendous episode for you, a conversation with Ron Stotz, an executive coach, a three-time New York Times best-selling author. He has a PhD in psychology.
He has a doctorate in chiropractic medicine.

And what I love about this conversation is how Ron ties, I'm going to say the spiritual.

I don't necessarily, and we actually talk about this in the religious sense, but he brings in an emotional, a spiritual, and in the words that Ron uses, a consciousness

to leadership that I think is going to open your mind to the way we talk, we act, we think, how we show up in our business. This episode is all about leadership, both of an organization and taking leadership of our own lives.
You're going to love it. Let's get on to this tremendous guest, Ron Stotts.
Ron, I appreciate you being on the show. I'm excited because one of the topics that we talk about the most and I focus on the most with this show, and really you don't know this because we're just getting to know each other, but about six months ago I I changed the title of this podcast from my name, The Ryan Hanley Show, which is super creative and egotistical, to Finding Peak, which is the podcast title today.
It was a big change. It was a brand change.
And really, it was a directional change for what we're going to talk about today, which is these ideas of leadership, growth, and kind of, I call it peak performance, but being, becoming the best versions of ourselves, because as you said, and this is where I want to start, right? It's time for a quantum leap forward in leadership. So what does that mean to you? And why in particular now do we need that quantum leap forward? Like what's going on in the marketplace today that this, among maybe a few other times in history, is an incredibly important time to evolve our leadership? Yeah.
I think it started back in the 80s. I was working with AT&T during their divestiture.
I was running a corporation called Inner Game, and they had hired us to really manage their shift from the mindset of being a monopoly to one of being a for-profit five organizations.

And I really saw how stuck they were in that old way of thinking. And even though they saw and fully agreed with what I was suggesting needed to be done in terms of really supporting everybody and cooperating and bringing in and sharing, you know, everybody kind of in the organization kept their head down, nose to the grindstone, and was looking more at, you know, retirement than anything else.
And so it was just that monopoly mindset that limited everybody. But, You know, today we're in a place where we have to be much more conscious.
We can't be this old ego-centered, top-down, arrogant, you know, leader that's really just telling everybody what to do. I mean, first of all, people just aren't accepting that any longer.
It's just not working. You know, you get Gen Z, they're gonna walk out on that sort of mentality immediately.
But you're also seeing there's 50 years of leadership research that clearly shows that a more conscious cooperative collaborative organization is more profitable, literally by at 40 i mean i see it all the time in my clients that they're seeing increases in profit and productivity by well over 40 percent all because just as as if we get our own life in alignment with our highest intention our greatest aspiration and we really develop our life and become who we need to be to to reach that highest aspiration so an organization

that has a meaningful purpose even if it's making widgets but they're also contributing to the world in some way all their people come together so it's just as an individual comes together and their life becomes more uh you know successful or fulfilling and and you know and joyful uh so in an organization as they come together with a single pointed focus collaborating cooperating bringing out the best in everyone you give people meaning you give people a sense of purpose and validation in their life and And the truth is they go home happier. They go home feeling more fulfilled.
They treat their family better. They treat their spouses better.
They contribute to the world in a different way. And we create, which is kind of my hidden agenda, creating a more conscious and caring world, which is, you know, if we don't do it now, we're in trouble.

So for one, just a point of reference for the audience, when you say conscious, like maybe just define that term a little bit and how it relates particularly to leadership so that everyone can kind of be on the same terms. Good.
You know, conscious, really the definition of it is how aware are you of what you're thinking? How aware are you of what you're feeling? Even on a subconscious level, you know, I realize people think, oh, subconscious, well, that's not conscious. And actually, you know, if you quiet your mind, if you're focused and present enough, you really are aware of subconscious thoughts that go through, you know supportive or unsupportive that type of thing and so it's really a matter of healing the past from my experience so that you don't have all that subconscious limiting chatter from unhealed issues of your past and really quieting the mind and then neurologically rewiring the brain for integrated whole brain thinking which really makes the brain a much more potent receiver

and capable of you know that you i mean you immediately start accessing higher levels of creativity imagination intuition but also higher levels of thinking you as you move up in consciousness, you become more aware, not just of yourself, but of other and otherness. And in that

level of awareness, that's where you find the answers that you're looking for. So my clients,

as they move through their different levels of evolving, they begin to recognize, oh,

if I don't have the answer here, and are feeling resistance and struggle here, that just means

of the... different levels of evolving, they begin to recognize, oh, if I don't have the answer here, and are feeling resistance and struggle here, that just means that there's something ready to be healed.
And so they breathe into that, do whatever is necessary, because they have the skills to really heal whatever is in the way. And in healing whatever they're struggling against, they access the very part they need to allow them to go up into an even more aware more conscious state where they can find the answers that they're looking for and that you know that takes them into what i call big mind the capability of really rather than struggling and trying to find answers but to just really quiet the mind and put out what you're looking for and receiving that.
I was talking to a friend of mine. We meet every Monday morning.
We're peers and both entrepreneurs, et cetera. And it is like a true kind of shoot the shit session.
Like there's no agenda. We kind of check in on each other.
And so much is like, you know, how was your week? You know, how you doing? You're hitting your goals and that kind of stuff. But then for the next, you know, sometimes it's we, we, we, our technical stop is a half hour, but sometimes we go in an hour.
It's really just, I'm going to use this term safe space, even though I don't like the, the woke connotation of, but it is a safe space to just – we just talk, right, about different things that are on our mind related to business.

And it is – it's difficult.

Like what you just discussed is a very heady topic.

And I feel like in today's world, people are so bombarded with life.

There's so much.

And I'm 43. So I remember a world without the internet.
I'm the last generation that will remember a world without the internet. And before the internet, life was just slower.
There was more space built into life. It just was, right? You had to walk places and not know if the person was going to be there on time.
Right. Like you'd be like, Hey, I was trying to explain to my kids and I promise this is going somewhere.
Um, I was explaining to my kids, the idea of like, I was like, you used to say to your friend, Hey, meet me at the ballpark at 3 PM. And then you just hoped that they were there at three and maybe they, they were two 30, maybe they didn't get to know four.
You didn't know. And you just had to kind of trust that eventually they were going to show up at the ballpark to play or whatever.
Like it just, and like, cause they're like, well, did you text this person? You tell them you're going to be there. And if you're going to be three minutes late, now you got to like text them and say, hey, I'm three minutes late.

It's like, and all of that takes space and time. Okay.
Okay. So this is kind of what we were discussing.
And I said to my friend, I said, you know, it feels like today everyone needs to become a philosopher. Right.
Right. And it comes back to the idea of stoicism having such a resurgence and huge impact on our culture.
And now I'm reading half the books. I'm a big reader, but half the books I read now are philosophy books.
And not for the, I don't know, I guess when I was growing up, if you read philosophy, it was like you were not going to do anything with your life. And now I feel like if I didn't have these concepts as an entrepreneur, as a leader, et cetera, I couldn't operate in the world without these ideas, right? Without, without a quote that I've been using all the time is from Bruce Lee and some of his writings.
The value of the cup is its emptiness, right? I've been saying that a lot to some of the people that I mentor and some of my, I have some executive coaching clients that I work with and I'm like, you know, they'll be talking, talking, talking kind of like I'm doing right now. And I'll say like, Hey, let's, let's empty the cup on this topic.
Like you're telling me you don't have the answer. So the reason you don't have the answer might be because you know, it's already full in your head.
Maybe we need to empty it. So like coming back to my question with that huge, long contextual diatribe

is, um, do you think that with the pace of the world or other factors, which I'd be interested

in that philosophy and philosophical concepts, it's why these things are making such a resurgence

into our life that we actually need these topics now more than ever to deal with our teams, with ourselves, with our spouses, with our children, with our friends, et cetera? Yeah, I do. I mean, there's certainly, I come from a strong spiritual background.
I've studied all the various religions and meditation and just quite fully. And those were kind of like,

that was another part of my life

that never came into my work in a sense.

And now it's an integral part of my work.

You know, just as I remember creativity was really,

you know, if you had creativity,

a creativity group in your organization,

well, they had a little closet in the basement.

Yeah.

And now the CEO is, you know,

Thank you. creativity group in your organization well they had a little closet in the basement yeah and now the CEO is you know all about creativity that that has to be their uh highest ability almost

you know you so all of a sudden you know if you're not present if your mind's not quiet if you're not

accessing higher levels of consciousness you're not functioning as an optimum leader. And so.
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Visit masteroftheclose.com to learn how. It really is a complete shift, you know, and I think it's wonderful because I think that that shift in awareness self-awareness other awareness caring becoming more cooperative collaborative supporting others is really what we need to really begin to not only take care of each other take care of the human but also take care of the rest of the world become aware aware of the oneness of it all rather than the duality, separateness.
And, you know, whatever's good for me is all that matters. So you've said quiet your mind multiple times, and I am positive that knowing the audience as well as I do, that there are many people out there going, oh my gosh, I would love for my mind to be quiet.
So how do we do that? If you're a leader, et cetera, how do you quiet your mind? When you're working with a client or an executive or whatever, how do you coach them to actually build some quiet into their mind? Well, first I try and logically get them to understand what all the noise is about and as they begin to recognize that and this is just science that most people say have the same thoughts every day they might say them differently but it's really just this you know noise that goes through their head a lot of people even embrace that and raise that level of chatter because they feel safer being up in their head rather than really being in the wholeness of what their brain's, you know, really made of, which also includes the heart and the gut. People are starting to recognize, oh, the gut has neurological circuits.
The heart has neurological circuits so the brain isn't really

just this in the in the cavity up top it's it's all through us and and so you know you have to be able to you know a lot of people that i work with are very brilliant they really are they have that high iq but they don't have the emotional intelligence and that's because they hide in their. And so the only way to get them out of their head is to help them recognize that what the challenges they're dealing with are all really the result of them stopping breathing.
In other words, they ran into something that they didn't know how to emotionally handle. They ran into that they didn't feel comfortable with and so they went up in their head and effort and tried and saw what they could do but they quit breathing when they do it when they do that and so the way to heal all of the things that they were unable to heal as a child as you know even earlier in their adult life is really to learn to breathe and as

you learn to breathe and look deeper you learn to recognize oh there's a lot of emotional baggage in there so you have to learn to acknowledge express and release that emotional baggage you know your analogy of hanging out with your friend and having an open sharing conversation well those can even go. And maybe you just didn't include this.
But, you know, one of my mentors, Joseph Campbell, talks about you've got to enter that cave that you fear to enter to find the treasure that you seek. And, of course, that treasure that you're seeking is that unconditional love that every child wants.
It's you. You know, you need to discover the wholeness of who and what you are you know as a child growing up they discard a lot of the different aspects of who they are to get acceptance from their family from others and all of those parts that you know we've discarded are really necessary for us to become whole for us to authentic, for us to become capable of accessing who and what we truly are.
So what I do is help people to go on that inner journey, that hero's journey that Joseph Campbell talked about, that Star Wars was written about and all of that. And in that inner journey, they become more self-aware.
They become more aware of others. They become more compassionate, empathetic.
They become more sensitive and supportive of others. And all of a sudden, they create a more trusting, supportive environment where people are willing to contribute and explore answers and share what their insights are around the work environment or social structures that they're involved in.
And in that, you really, all of a sudden, you get people who are more committed. They're more involved.
And all of a sudden, your organization is more cooperative, more collaborative, more successful. And, you all tied together but it all starts with healing yourself it all starts with healing all the different aspects of yourself that you left behind and then that really creates a platform of foundation if you will and the higher you want to build your life the more you know um more you want to do with

your life the stronger that foundation has to be just like if you're building a building you know if you're building a one-story building well that's you know maybe a foot deep of concrete it's going to do it but if you're going to build you know towers then you're going to have you know that huge hole that you're filling with a concrete and structural support and so healing the past gives you that foundation to build your life on i think that's what took me in this direction is so often i'd see people spiritual teachers politicians business people they would have done really well and they went rose to a certain level in their life all of a sudden they felt like they were kind of running into something limitation something that they couldn't understand so they'd try harder they'd use the old tools they'd used and rather than shifting to a higher state of consciousness becoming more self-aware and emotional intelligence or anything like that and their life falls apart i mean i've seen people die i seen people lose everything, all because they weren't willing to let go and grow. They were so caught in that old fixed limited mindset that they weren't able to evolve.
And so my clients, which are really very successful, C-suites, entrepreneurs, founders, what I see in them is that they're really, as they heal themselves, become more self-aware, they're really looking at how do I, I don't want to go from one comfort zone to another to another. I want to continue to evolve.
And so that's really, you know, that can only be done by quieting the mind ever more fully so that you're accessing the very best of what your brain has to has to share with you you know so not to jump on let me just add this you know as you quiet your mind and becomes more integrated whole brain thinking that forebrain is everybody uses it, but it doesn't really blossom

until the brain gets quiet. And as it blossoms, it becomes the conscious CEO of your life.
So you see everything differently. You respond to everything differently.
You react to everything differently. And as that begins to happen, you begin to trust your higher capabilities.
You begin to understand, oh, consciousness is key. And if I understand what my highest aspiration is, in other words, what is it? What's my highest intention? But what do I need to breathe into? What's going to be a little more difficult? And that's your aspiration.
And so as your life becomes that has that deeper purpose that deeper meaning and and you're moving towards that aspiration you're becoming more self-aware you know it reflects in your relationships with others your relationship with yourself is always reflected in your relationship with others so the more conscious and caring and and-accepting and self-loving you become the more that is expressed in all of who and what you are and what you do and so it really is key to quiet the mind because you know the the kind of the thing that makes a huge difference in my people who stay stay around for a while is they start accessing what i accessing what i call big mind and big mind is where you not only don't you know you you have a challenge and rather than sitting down and trying to look up well what did i do before how could i handle this and trying harder and exhausting yourself you really just sit there and quiet the mind completely and say, okay, this is what I'm looking for. This is what I want.
And trust that it will come in. And it does.
You know, I just was talking to a fellow I hadn't worked with for about a year. He's just blown away by what big minds came below because he's, he said, I've got six patents and I've got six more coming and and this guy's not an engineer he's just a business guy who's got ideas that he needs for what he's developing and so you really are able to you have to be able to be that mentally agile you have to be that mentally capable of accessing the best of who and what you are without running all sorts of down dead end roads and wasting time and effort because this rapidly changing, ever increasing complexity of our business world.
There's no time for that. You have to be able to respond and you have to be able to respond from a very present conscious place.
And most people don't. If they haven't healed stuff, they're going to respond from the more contracted, fear-based, ego-controlled place.
Yeah. I want to go back to something you said that I feel like, especially earlier in my life, I could really relate to you before I started doing a lot of work on myself back in 2017, 2018.
You said many people feel safer in the noise. And that may be paraphrasing, but that was pretty close to what you said.
And I could very much relate to that. I have a fairly strong case of ADHD, which I got diagnosed with at 40, even 43.
I just thought I was crazy and different for a long time and didn't necessarily understand. But what I would do is essentially that, like when you said that, I was like, oh my, you know, I had never thought about it that way.
But when I really look at 2017 is like a, a sea change moment in my life.

When I started, uh, trying to take, uh, uh, we'll say control as much as you can, but, but being

a conscious effort towards being a better version of myself versus just like existing

early in 2017. And, um, and we don't have to go into why that is it's unimportant.
Um, but before

then I, I feel like that's what I would do, right?

In moments where I felt lost or I felt unanchored or depressed or whatever, it was like more. Give me more.
Put more in my head. More thoughts.
More activity. and it was like somehow that,

even though I don't know that anything

and most likely I don't think you could say anything more productive came out. No relationships were not getting better.
I wasn't getting happier. Yeah.
It was like, it was like an excuse or a, a distraction from actually getting better was just more, more, more. So, okay.
So, so, so I can completely relate to that. My question to you is for those who are listening, who are, who are still there, I feel like today I have a much better handle on it.
Not that I'm perfect and, and improving, but I do feel like today I have a much better handle on it. Six years of really good counseling and lots of personal work.
I've done that. But for that person who, who, who isn't there yet, who may hear that and go, man, I think I might do that.
How do you – one, how do you start to recognize that you are that person, that you're – instead of quieting, you rush into more noise as a way to escape, right? Which we know, which I think we both agree, and obviously this is your position is not the way to go. How do we start to recognize that? And maybe what are like some one-on-one level ways of starting to pull back into the quiet? You know, if we're starting at a baseline of most people, I don't think, and you've probably seen this in some of your clients, right? They have none of these tools.
So how do you recognize it? And then what is maybe like your number one, one-on-one basic first thing for starting to quiet that brain? Well, to recognize it, all you have to do is say to yourself, okay, I want to stop thought. If you can't stop thought thought you're not in control of your mind and so you know so then the journey becomes okay so how do i stop thought and that is the journey of meditation that's the journey where you begin and find a single pointed focus and i would suggest breathing because it's always there and handy and you start breathing into and that that noise and you start breathing into it and giving your mind something to focus on like as you breathe in say in as you breathe out inwardly say out and you just continue that and maybe you begin to extend the in and the out by counting you know one up to 20 while you hold the breath in and 20 as you hold the breath out.
You know, and that can keep going up to 50 or 60 or whatever it is. You know, you're just working through your fears of life and death as you do that.
But what you're going to recognize, everybody does, is, oh, well, what's all that noise about? And that noise is always about your unhealed, unacknowledged, and dealt with childhood issues. And they're really, you know, that's the beauty of it is you learn that, oh, when I'm struggling with something in my life, that's really just nothing but an indicator that something's ready to be healed something's saying oh okay yeah we can figure that out but we need access to more of who and what we are so we need to heal that part so we can you know become more whole and conscious and access that that wisdom that knowledge and awareness, you know, it only takes a couple of months

to really heal our emotional backlog sufficiently

so that you can monitor and deal with it on your own.

As, you know, things will continue to come up

maybe throughout your life,

but you have the tools,

you have the ability to take care of those as they come up.

And to be honest with you, when they come up,

you don't see them as, oh my God,

I've got to deal with this now.

No, they're opportunities to learn and grow and develop.

They're opportunities to become whole.

You know, you were talking about

when you were talking with your friend at lunch,

you were open and honest with each other.

Well, if you heal that past, if you really have gotten to that point of openness, that cave door, those cave doors are wide open. You put up party lights, you have music on, you invite your friends in.
If they see anything, they're going to point that out to you and you're to them as you're going to their caves. Those caves, rather than something you hid yourself and hid away from others, hoping nobody had recognized that that existed, those aspects of yourself existed, so you avoid rejection and being hurt, those cave doors are open.
And that wholeness of who you are brings out the uniqueness, the character of who you are, which allows you to be unique enough to actually live your life fully and be successful. Otherwise, you're just sort of meandering in the noise and fear of success, fear of failure, fear of everything, you know, runs your life.
I, um, this, this year I had there 2023 2023, I guess, in the last year, but it was 2023, had the opportunity to see Jordan Peterson live in Utah talk. And I'd heard him talk about this topic on his podcast before.
It was the first time I got to see it live. But it was the idea, and it's very simple, of tell the truth.
And people hear that and they're like, yeah, of course, tell the truth. Yeah, okay.
But the way that he dives into this concept to me is exactly what you're discussing in terms of letting people into the party and letting them see the things because he goes into this in a way that only he can, so I'm not even going to try to do it justice, this thought experiment on why it's important.

And ultimately, he comes out with the conclusion that the only way to live in reality is to tell the truth. And the first time I heard him say that was probably five years ago.
Again, I got one of his podcasts, and I couldn't tell you what it was. but hearing it again live and watching them actually work through the thought

process in real time, it hit me even harder and became really something I said to myself is this needs to be a core value in my life because one, I guess lying is immoral for sure, you know, I guess, especially if you're religious.

However, more of the concept that was this idea of if I'm not telling the people in my life the truth, I'm not living in reality. And the idea there was, if I say something to you that is untrue, you, Ron, are going to respond to that as if it is.
So now I'm getting a response to you. I'm getting an honest response or what I would perceive as an honest response to an untruth, which means we're not actually communicating in reality because I told you something that I didn't actually believe.
You gave me a response on that thing that was untrue to begin with.

And now we have a relationship that's based on concepts that don't actually exist.

And I feel like that relationship debt builds over time.

And so many of the poor relationships that I've had, I could almost, I could almost pull back to this idea. And in the time I obviously couldn't wrap my head around this concept, but listening to you describe it here in a way.
And I, and I really liked that visual of like letting your friends come in and, and party and see all the, see everything with the lights on. And they can point out the, Hey man, you might want to dust that corner off or whatever.
Um, like know, that to me, I think is a really good visual because everyone can imagine someone come around with our house. But, uh, and now your friends are actually, they're, they're, they're living in, in reality with you and maybe one of those friends.
And I think this is the hard part. And I guess this is maybe a really good place for you to jump in is, excuse me, is the hesitation is obviously, what if Ron doesn't like me? What if I tell Ron exactly who I am and I would love for Ron to like me and Ron hears exactly who I am and goes, you're not really somebody that I want in my life.
Or I think you're okay, but I don't want to have the type of relationship you want to have. And now I'm hurt because you have rejected me.
And if I had just lied to you about who I was or massaged pieces of me, this person who I wanted in my life would be in my life. How do we get past that concept? Because maybe not just in relationships or marriage or whatever, but in business, this is just as true in business.
We do it with our best employees. We do it with our business partners, our vendors, our board members, our investors.
We create these false realities and then we're surprised when they react to the false reality or that they buck when they actually figure out what the truth is. But we and, but we do it over and over and over again.
So how do we stop this cycle? One, I guess, do you agree with this little monologue that I went on? And two, um, I think you're absolutely wrong. No.
How do we, how do we buck the cycle or how do we, how do we have enough confidence in ourselves to say, even if Ron is someone that I would love to have as a dear part of my life, I have to show him myself. And if he decides that that's not what he wants, I need to be okay with that.
How do we do that? Well, you've hit the nail on the head that most of us grow up, you know, because I've asked all over the world whether it's a child wanting more than anything else. And everybody shouts out love.
Do you want conditional or unconditional love? Unconditional love. So a child wanting more than anything else and everybody shouts out love unconditional love unconditional love so a child wants unconditional love i'm just confident of that so what will they do to get it and everybody shouts out whatever they need to anything and so the question is well what did you do to get love what parts of you did you give up what parts of you did you develop you know who did you become you know you you learned who to be what to feel what to say what not to say who not to be all so that you would fit in because you were looking for love outside of yourself so the beauty of healing the inner child of doing that inner work and becoming more self-aware is a big shift that I see, even literally within two months, is they begin to look within themselves for that acceptance and love.
So that paradigm shift, the program for getting love rather than, well, to be a nice person, to be an achiever, to be whatever they think they need to be to get love from others becomes, to get love, I need to love and accept myself. And that becomes their journey.
And so they're not worried about what other people think. They aren't in relationships.
They aren't in the big game of being a rescuer, a persecutor, a victim. They're in the game.
Well, they're outside of that game completely and in a game of just really recognizing everything is an opportunity to learn and grow and to recognize a part of themselves that's ready to be healed and accepted and loved and to become the journey of becoming

whole becomes a journey of being authentic and it's from that integral place of wholeness and

self-acceptance and love that you move through the world so if somebody's doing that with somebody like myself i'm not judging i'm not even really listening to what they're saying i'm listening to what's behind it you know

you somebody's doing that with somebody like myself, I'm not judging. I'm not even really listening to what they're saying.
I'm listening to what's behind it. You know, they're revealing a great deal to me, you know, which doesn't always make them comfortable, but it's, you know, it's what they're not saying that tells me as much as what they are.
And so, you know, I ask questions. You know, my wife jokes, you know, i'll go to lunch with somebody and she'll joke when i get home would you make them cry why do you mean but the truth is i ask questions and i i love rabbit holes it's like well what's down that rabbit hole what's that what's that thing you just avoided yeah to see what's down there because that's who you truly are and so you live your life differently and you live your life you're you're not looking for people who are playing that outside game you're looking for people who are are more open and connected and exploring you know and so you can unpack your back you You know, I had lunch with a fellow, he's a master, grand master in martial arts, you know, been teaching it for 60 years.
And we had the lunch every day for years and years until he moved out of the country. But, you know, and every day we would just, you know, talk about everything and anything, not just business, which was a part of it, but anything and everything.

And in that, you're exploring just what is left behind that needs to be healed. Because why would I ever leave any part of myself behind? You know, if one of my sons had, you know, we were at a picnic and I couldn't find him.

And, you know, two years later, he finally comes to the door and I can see that he's gone through hell, you know, am I going to just slam the door in his face or am I going to open that door and invite him in and support him in all the healing that he needs to go through, all the anger that he has for me abandoning him, all the things that he needs, I'm going to give them to him unconditionally without waiver, because I love him. And if we can't do that with ourself, if we can't go in and help heal that inner child, for me, that little boy within, then we're lost in the noise.
We're lost and then we don't want to be responsible for ourself, our life, and anything else. So I'm just going to get lost in the noise and not be brave enough to actually respond and be able to respond appropriately on all levels to what's coming into my life.
It seems to me, and this is anecdotal, I don't have any numbers in front of me, that there's been a resurgence in openness around people talking about their faith, about God, about whatever status that is for them, and where God and faith play a role in their lives. I felt like for a while people were hesitant to be public about those topics or to bring them up.
And I guess to me, again, that's anecdotal. So assuming that it's true in this scenario, it might not be.
And if you have evidence, I'd certainly be interested. I just haven't done the research on the topic.
It's mostly just from, again, as many people as I follow. To me, that seems like a counter move to what has been a very secular few decades in our society.
It seems like I've seen my own sister go through this. I've seen many friends who have pulled away from faith, away from God and no judgment on which

version you choose. I have my thoughts on God comes to us all in the way.

I think there's about 300 and some gods. So yeah.
Yeah. But, you know, and I actually fight with my, even though I'm technically a Christian and and follow practices, I get in arguments with my mother.
She's a very – my mom is a saint, but she's also a Bible literalist. And we have a lot of really fun arguments because I'm of the opinion that – this is so off track, but I guess, I guess I've already

gone down the path.

So I have to follow it for a second.

I feel very strongly that all the religions are God.

He's comes to you in the time and in the way that he, that he needs to present himself

to you.

And whether, you know, cause I said to her, I go, so what everyone in Japan pre 1557 or whenever the first Christians got there is just screwed. Like, because they didn't have Christianity.
They're just all that entire part. That is, they're all screwed.
Like, I don't understand. Like, you know, explain that to me.
So whatever. So my point in saying this is, um, is it, it feels like our society very much had made this very secular, very materialistic, narcissistic move the last two decades.
And maybe that's to do with the internet. You know, there's a lot of different reasons for that.
And now there seems to be this counter move back to these ideas of mindfulness. If maybe God is beyond where you want to be right now, and you want to be more in kind of a meditative, non-religious mindset, but similar breathing techniques, mindful techniques, or you're going down to faith-based, do you see this move coming back? Like, does my anecdotal observation make sense to you, and are you seeing similar things? And do you think it's from this kind of very, like, self-oriented last few decades that we've had?

Does that seem like the right way to position the argument?

I'm okay with that.

Okay.

Okay.

So that being the case.

Oh, sorry, sorry.

Keep going.

Sorry.

Well, people talking about religion isn't talking about themselves.

A lot of people hide behind their religion and let their religion define who they are.

Thank you. people talking about religion isn't talking about themselves.
A lot of people hide behind their religion and let their religion define who they are. So you've got to be a little bit...
I think there's some fairness. I think there's some fairness in that comment.
I would accept that. You know, I've studied a lot of religions.
I started when I was about 12 as a Christian and started literally going to other churches at their synagogues wherever and that branched out into hinduism and buddhism and a lot of other things and you know so it's a matter of i'll be i'll be really bold here i think you know please i think yeah i think your religious choice is determined by your level of fear and so it's you know when you get to a certain point you know when you meditate and and dissolve in the infinite and recognize the oneness um is that god yeah certainly most certainly but what if you know when you study physics and you recognize that you recognize the perfection of the world you recognize perfection of existence and it's like okay well so did god really spend that much time creating this earth and us in this huge vastness or is there you know god is something more than what i'm really contributing or, you know, saying that he or she is.

You know, so to me, the one thing you can rely on is, you know,

it's like if you and I were walking on a dirt road and there was a dirt bank off to our right

and I saw a gold pocket watch at the bottom of that dirt hill.

You know, I don't think you would, you know, if I said to you, oh, my God, look, the rocks fell down and turned into a gold pocket watch at the bottom of that dirt hill. You know, I don't think you would, you know, if I said to you, oh my God, look, the rocks fell down and turned into a gold watch, you would go, well, maybe somebody dropped it there.
Yeah, yeah. And the reason you would do that is because of complexity.
You know, it's too sophisticated. It's too complex to just be accidentally happening.
And so is the world, and so is the universe. So exalted is existence.
There's intimate perfection that goes through all of it. And so I find myself going, well, I don't know about a God because, you know, I grew up with the God sitting in a big chair kind of thing initially.
So, but I do recognize that there's a consciousness behind it all and so everybody it's like the Hindu story where there's five blind men climbing through the jungle or hiking through the jungle and they run into an elephant one's holding the tail one the leg one the ear on the trunk on the side of the elephant and they all describe this beast in completely different ways you know and i think that's really what's happening is we're we're in this jungle we're lost in this jungle and we're looking for something you know meaning and you know some anchor that gives us a feeling of safety and confidence and and we find this elephant. And so all these blind men go off and they create religions.
There's the tail religion, the trunk religion, the leg religion, the ear religion. And yes, that's fine.
And that works for certain people. But the truth is, what if you really are willing to quiet your mind and really let yourself experience the oneness with God? What if you're really willing to let go of your attachment to this physical form and experience the connectedness that you have with that vast consciousness that is existence? Then you begin to recognize that religion is a workable tool for people and it helps them feel more comfortable and it gives them focus in their life and perhaps creates a bit of sanity, although millions of people have been killed because of it.
So it's really a know, what level do you want to play on? You know, when you look at, you know, in Mythea, the king said, geez, you know, we're going to throw out this part of the Bible and we'll bring in this part. And, you know, so this one guy, for political reasons, so that the Christians and other people would like him and he could stay in power, you know, really, really defined what the Bible is all about.

And yet, you know, I have people come to my door going, well, it's in the Bible.

And I say, yeah, this is, you know, it's funny.

And this is the struggle.

And I talked to my mom and we have, when I say this, we have amazingly productive yet

combative conversations in so much as like, you know, our varying views.

But I tend to skew more towards you. And I said, or I go, my King, just take King James, right.
Didn't change too much other than the definition of words literally changed how we define certain terms, which drastically changes our interpretation of what's going on. So like when you say, you know, and again, I'm not knocking my mom.
She's

like I said, a saint and is probably on a deeper plane than even myself. So, you know, I, I, not that she listens to the show, she does not, but, but, but, but, you know, she wouldn't be upset with me saying this.
And I just, and cause there's a lot of people that feel this way. And my point is, and I think this is what you're trying to get to.
And I wholly agree with what you're saying.

To me, I see all the religions and meditation and varying other things as different handrails on the steps leading to the same place. And if you see them as that and not the actual laws of the world, but as a handrail, as a guide to this, to this higher place than which physics gets you to, which I was a math major in college, math gets you to all these things.
If you allow them to, and you don't get caught in the ideology of the thing, but in the, but in seeing it as a, uh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm creating this visual of a handrail, they all take you to the same place. I mean, literally string theory is built, if you believe string theory, and I don't know that I do, but, you know, this whole concept is built on the thing that literally everything in the universe is connected, right? That quite literally everything is connected and how you could believe that's true and not believe in a oneness or, or God, whatever you want to name, you know, that the, this, this oneness is a good way of putting it in the terms of our conversation today.
I don't know how that's possible. So here's my actual question for you that, that we can go back to a tactical usage for someone from a, from a business context is I believe, uh, whether they are,

whether they are embracing religion for all the right reasons or not, or depending on how

deep they are, uh, meditation, mindfulness, et cetera. Uh, and regardless of it's geo-Christian

or, or, or Hindi, et cetera. Um, I believe, I believe the resurgence of these topics are a

counter move from two decades of, as I said, selfishness, narcissism, secularism, et cetera. Let's say someone listening to this is still caught in – do I still have you, Ron? Yep.
Okay, good. Okay, good.
The screen froze for a second. Good.
I'll cut that part out. Yeah, no, it's fine.
It's right. The internet probably knows we're talking about religion is starting to like knock us down a little bit.
No. So, so let's say someone is listening to this and they can feel that sense.
And I've seen this and talked to my, some of my friends about this, right? They, they, they feel that little bit of like, man, my life has been a little bit all about me, even though I have a spouse or a partner or kids or, or, you know, they're, how do you, what are some, just like we talked about a little bit with the quieting your mind, what are some initial steps to, to, that someone could take that, that don't feel too, you know, some people get a little overwhelmed with some of the stuff we're talking about, right? What are some of the initial steps that people can take to start to break free of the, I'll call it the cage of self-orientation to starting to think about some of the things we're talking about, right? Obviously, you're farther down the path than me, and I'm farther down than most. Um, for those who maybe are towards the beginning of this path, but they, but they understand it.
They, they feel it. They want it.
What are some of the things that you would recommend for just those initial non-scary steps to get a little bit of momentum going down this path? I would share what I do. I mean, that's what I do.
I, you know, I've studied and learned and,

you know, I've gone through a thousand different tools and practices and that type of thing. And

the one that is always there for me is breathing. So if you, you know, what I'm recommending is

become responsible for your life to the point where you can respond appropriately on all levels of what's coming into your life and you know so you have to breathe you have to heal that that backlog you have to quiet your mind and the only way to quiet your mind is to give your mind something to focus on you can't you can't tell your mind oh quiet down because that's the mind talking to the mind which only raises the level of confusion so you have to you have to breathe because that connects you to your feelings and that connects you to your heart and of course that's when you go oh those feelings are getting in the way. Maybe I should heal those.
Oh, that heart is in the way. Maybe I should open that.
And it is that problem. People are going to choose how deep are they interested in going.
And that depth that they go will determine their depth of their consciousness. That will determine their depth of their ability to

recognize the perfection of the world.

You know,

me,

everything that comes into my life is perfectly designed to support me and

open up my heart and living more fully.

Most people,

most of what comes into their life scares the bejesus at them and they shut

down and hide from it and that type of thing.

You know,

the truth is I, I was given a gift very early on. It's probably the worst, best gift I've ever received.
I was in the Marine Corps during Vietnam and it was not a happy place for me. I went in all athletic and ready to go and realized what a nightmare it was.
And when I got out, I was a mess. I got divorced, lost custody of my boys, lost everything.
And it was in a moment of literally in the middle of the woods, I'd chosen to take my life. And I was a big guy and I had a big hunting knife and it was coming towards my heart at full speed.
I wasn't, you know, looking for excuses or haphazard ways of doing it. And somehow in that moment, I dissolved in a white ball of light, you know, and at 21 or 22, i had no idea what that was no awareness of myself

no awareness of the world around me but what i did have what i did experience is uh the perfection of existence the the beauty the oneness of of life the meaning that my life had within all of that and And it gave me purpose and and direction because i wonder

okay how do i live with an awareness of that oneness rather than the duality how do i rely on that that oneness to bring out the best in me in other words as i later learned how do i live from a place of consciousness that allows me to really enjoy the oneness rather than, you know, have to struggle with the duality and be limited in my little comfort zone so I don't have to respond. You know, I don't have to be responsible for things that I'm uncomfortable with looking at or dealing with in life.
Have you ever read The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer? I probably have. I'm certainly familiar with the title.
So, you know, I'm a voracious reader. So, yeah, me too.
Me too. I'm with you.
And I'm also very draconian. And I, I, I, the library, my library is, is books that, that, that, that pass a cut.
I will throw a book one chapter in, in the garbage and move on to the next one. If it feels contrived or whatever.
And I, and I love it. I, I, and I love all different stuff, but to Michael Singer.
And then I, and I want to address one more thing with you.

The whole book is a non-religious breakdown of the concept that we are not our mind and we are not our body. He refers to it as a soul.
Insert whatever word makes you most comfortable. But this concept that our mind and our body are physical manifestations in this plane that are meant solely to keep us alive.
And the narrative that we hear on a day to day basis is not us. That is our mind just projecting thoughts, most of which are fear-based because fear is what keeps us alive and has been evolved to keep us alive.
So you are essentially being pounded all day long with fear-based thoughts and you can hear them, right? And he goes to this idea that you talked about very much so that by quieting our mind, by listening, by being able to find what you call a big mind, you can actually start to dissolve that narrative that is just an onslaught. And when you do, it's like the first time, excuse me, that you ever get to experience who you actually are and what you actually believe in life because you're just having this narrative hit you in the face all day that you think is you.
Most of us are never taught that that's not us. It's our mind or our body sending signals to our, to us to say, this is how you keep us alive.
You know, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, avoid this. Don't do this.
Be scared of this. Don't say this fit in here, you know, whatever, because those are all the things that keep us alive yet.
None of which is who we actually are. And, and, and, and it, it, it just relates in some ways, at least closely to what you're saying.
And I, I just, I try to push that book as much as I can, because it was so meaningful. You can, you, it's a very quick read.
It's a very easy read, but the concepts in it are very, very deep. And, um, and to me, it's a, it's another data point to, to support exactly what you are saying that, that, that we have that unless we understand who we truly are.
And the only way to do that is to, is to be quiet and however you can get there. Um, I've used meditation.
Sometimes I'll tell you quite honestly, um, the, our father prayer works for me. I, I will just almost like a mantra, I'll just repeat it and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it.
And then it will kind of get quiet in my mind. And then all of a sudden I'll be in this state of peace.
And that's just how I get there. I think everyone uses different ways of getting there.
I think in terms of the noisier mind, the noisier meditation has to be. Yeah.
So yeah, you might want want to have music on you might have to stare at something you might have to be saying something you might have to yeah you know all of that together is you need that level of noise to quiet and focus the mind and that's fine but at some point as the mind gets quieter and quieter you begin to okay, I don't need the music. Okay, I don't need that visual.
Okay, I don't need that. And pretty soon, you know, it comes down to, well, okay, my single pointed focus is my breath, and I'm going to use my breath in various ways to extend that single pointed focus so that I can quiet the mind completely.
And it's in quieting that mind that you empower yourself ultimately to, as you suggested, to discover who and what you really are, because otherwise you're just not able to take responsibility for your life because you don't even know who and what you're capable of. I just finished Bruce Lee's Striking Thoughts, which is a wonderful look into a very dynamic and interesting human being.
Some of it is just the ramblings of an individual. Some of it is really, really interesting and intriguing.
And he talks a lot about the Confucian idea of knowness and this idea of the, you know, and I've said this on the podcast many times. It's a it's a it's a it's a slightly different but cut from the same part of the book.
He expands on that idea of knowness and he tries to describe it in this idea of the value of the cup is in its emptiness and that we are not we cannot be who we are unless we enter all situations as an empty cup would, right? Open to the world, you know, devoid of these incessant thoughts that are constantly filling our mind, devoid of ego and all these kinds of things. It's a really interesting concept and book for those who are interested in it.
But my second to last question, I got two questions for you and then I will be very, try to be respectful of your time, although I know we're close. I'm doing fine.
I apologize. So you just told an amazing story and I want people to dig into it further.
And my last question will be where they can find out more about you and your work and dive into that. I just have one question about that experience.
And it's, um, you're standing in the woods and you're driving this knife towards your heart and you, you, you, you, you're enveloped by this white ball of light. Um, this experience happens.
It ends. You have not killed yourself.
You're standing there. You have a knife in your hand.
Actually, the knife is about 20 feet away. Knife is about 20 feet away.
What is your next thought? Like this just happened to you, something that you will, it will forever define a moment in your life and obviously change the course of your life. Very much so.
What is your next thought in that moment? What is the, what is the first thing that hits you that, that you're like, you know, what, what, what is the first thought that hits you when that, when that happens? I'm just interested in that. How do I reconnect with that? And so I literally went to a little cabin on an Island, you know, I'm talking outhouse, you know,

wood stove, water pump type of cabin. And I read and studied and breathed and quieted and began to explore who,

you know, began to heal all that, you know, I, you know,

when I went in the Marine Corps, I was, you know, I was a U.S. champion rower.
I was married or engaged to the, you know, Miss Teenage California. And, you know, I'm thinking, okay, this is my life.
I'm doing all right. Yeah, yeah.
And I came out and within a year or two, everything was, you know, I had no direction, no no sense of everything so when i had that experience

and really realized the perfection of my life which i had no sense of before i realized the oneness i realized that's my religion and so okay so what's my church well my church you, is probably nature. And how do I get to that place in my church so that I can recreate that whenever I want? And so that became my journey.
And the breath has taken me into that. I can quiet my mind.
I can go into any state of consciousness I want. I do see the perfection of life constantly, even in the worst of times.
And really, you know, I'm not coming from that place of fear. I'm not.
And why would when you recognize how limiting it is? you know if if you're in the middle of a crisis, do you want to contract and decrease your ability to handle that crisis? Or do you want to be present and expand your ability to handle that crisis? And, of course, reasonably speaking, you're going to want to expand. You're going to want to have the best perception reaction that you can have.
So that's how the people I work with, that's how they begin to live. And that's the art of high-level leadership.
You know, the one thing I saw when I first started studying leadership is the higher their level of consciousness, the higher level level of their leadership the more connected they are with others and more

able they are to relate and really create a thing it's like well yeah I've

spent my whole life helping people move into higher states of consciousness so

focus more on living and working in the world and and doing that and so yeah I

I don't know. helping people move into higher states of consciousness.
So focus more on living and working in the world and doing that. And so, yeah, it's just, you know, you make up your highest intention.
Mine is to create a more conscious and caring world, you know, and the best way to do that, because high level leaders can really, can have the greatest impact on a organizational or societal level. So, all right, since I have this unique ability to

take people into those levels of leadership, that's what I'll do. And so that's the process

that I'm in the middle of. I love it.
This has been a tremendous conversation. I've so I've

enjoyed it immensely. And if you saw my crazy notes, you'd think I was either planning some sort of attack or that I was completely manic.
But I've just I've written down so many ideas that I'm going to think on more after this. And it just appreciates so much of your time.
For those who've listened that want to learn more about you, about your work, about where they can dive in, where's the best place for them to go? Well, just my website runs.com. Yes.
And it's got a lot of information on free stuff if they're looking for ways to begin their journey. But if they're ready to have a conversation and look at what they really want what they're at the effective then they'd go to next level discovery call.com and yeah that's not a sales call it's really it's like where are you what is what's your biggest challenge what's your biggest dream and figure out how you can, what you need to do, who you need to become so you can create that dream.
Well, for everyone listening, I will have Ron's contacts, his website, the website he just mentioned as well, next level discovery call.com in the show notes, whether you're listening on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever. Also, obviously you can just go just go there direct but if you forget just go to the show notes and um and you could find all that ron i appreciate your time so much uh i have enjoyed this conversation thoroughly and i hope that this isn't the last time that we connect anytime no we know yeah make it look make it look thank you hey stand up guy on 10 toes big body pull up in a range road i could chase a whole game when i say so i pull up shut it down Yeah, they know Money in this game and it's time Thank you.
I'm They can never count me out. They can never count me out.
I know. They can never count me out.
They can never count me out. I know.
Make it look cheesy. Make it look cheesy.
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