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How Words Shape Your Reality—Break Free From Your Past and Move Forward w/ Melanie Whitney
Chris Do and Melanie Whitney reveal how your internal stories create your reality and offer a framework to break free from your past.
Chris Do
Founder, The Futur™ · February 26, 2025
The Unseen Anchor
Most people are crappy time travelers. We possess a machine capable of navigating the expanse of our own history, yet we allow it to run on autopilot. It defaults not to moments of triumph or joy, but to a recurring loop of our worst experiences. We are anchored to the past, and we don't even realize we’re holding the chain.
This is the core of so many professional and personal failures. It’s not a lack of talent or opportunity. It is a failure of emotional regulation.
Mindful communication expert and professor Melanie Whitney argues that this failure is the single greatest obstacle to achieving what you want in life. In a conversation with The Futur’s Chris Do, she dismantled the common belief that our circumstances are created by external forces. The truth is far more personal, and far more controllable.
“I don't think people understand how important and vital it is to be able to emotionally regulate yourself to really get to the places you want to go,” Whitney explains.
People seek out coaches and therapists for practical skills. They want to be better communicators, better leaders, better negotiators. They come for the tangible, the tactical. Whitney says, “They're like, ‘yeah I want to learn how to be a better communicator,’ but then what they don't realize is really what needs to quote unquote be fixed is the story that they have about x, y, and z in their mind.”
This is the unseen anchor. It’s the narrative running on a loop, generating emotions that dictate our every move.
The Architecture of Your Life
The formula is deceptively simple. It is so fundamental that most people overlook it entirely, searching for a more complex diagnosis for their stagnation. Whitney breaks it down to its core components.
It starts with a thought. That thought, the story you tell yourself, creates an emotion.
That emotion dictates your behavior.
Repeated behaviors create your life.
This is not a complex psychological theory. It is a direct, observable chain of cause and effect. “Your thought creates an emotion... and that is the very emotion that's going to dictate your behavior,” Whitney insists. “And guess what? Your behaviors that are repeated are going to create your life.”
The implications are staggering. It means that the life you currently have is a direct result of the stories you have chosen to believe. It also means you have the power to change it by starting at the source. Whitney calls this the thinking-feeling loop. “Emotions are a record of our past experiences,” she says. “If you can't think greater than how you feel, this thinking-feeling loop keeps you anchored to your past and creates a constant state of being.”
Most of us outsource the job of managing this loop. We make other people responsible for our emotional state. We say, “I want you to make me feel better. I want you to believe in me.” We transfer the burden of our internal world onto partners, bosses, and clients, hoping they will fix the narrative we are unwilling to confront ourselves.
This is a recipe for perpetual disappointment and stagnation. True progress requires taking back that control. It requires becoming the architect of your own internal reality, not just a tenant living with faulty wiring.
From Rock Bottom to Mindfulness
Melanie Whitney never planned to teach people how to rewire their brains. Her path was supposed to be safe, linear, and academic. As a second-generation Mexican American growing up in Southern California, the mandate from her family was clear: “Go to school, get an education, get a safe job.”
She was the poster child for this ethos. An overachiever from kindergarten, she excelled in school, sports, and social life. She followed the track laid out for her, earning both a bachelor's and a master's degree in interpersonal communication from Cal State Long Beach. “I just in my mind if I finished my education and I did all the things and I checked all the boxes, I was going to be solid in life,” she recalls. “And then that proved to not be true.”
After graduating with her master's, the promise of a stable career vanished. She was unemployed for nearly eight months, a period that felt like an eternity with student loans looming. People told her she was overqualified, a polite way of saying she had credentials but no applicable skills. Eventually, she landed a job in marketing and event planning, a field she thought was her mission. For almost a year, it was.
Then the floor fell out. Just days after buying a new car and narrowly avoiding signing a lease on a Los Angeles apartment, she was laid off. “I ended up living back with my parents in my childhood bedroom in my twin-sized bed,” Whitney says. “And that was like the first rock bottom that I had.”
It was in that state of crisis that she first encountered the concept of mindfulness. She picked up a copy of Eckhart Tolle’s seminal book, The Power of Now. The book, a guide to spiritual enlightenment through presence, planted a seed, but Whitney admits, “I still was not ready for that deep dive.” She retreated to the safety of academia, becoming a professor at her alma mater, CSULB.
Do points out the stark contrast in educational costs that often shapes these life decisions. Whitney, who worked three jobs to put herself through school, chose the affordable state school route. At the time, her tuition was around $1,800 per semester. Do provides a stark point of contrast: “To go to art school, because I'm paying for a child to go to art school, it is $25,000 a semester.” The current tuition at Cal State Long Beach is roughly $3,700 a semester, a fraction of the cost of a private institution. This financial pressure is a powerful force that often dictates life paths, as it did for Whitney, who stayed local to manage costs.
Life continued to present challenges, and Whitney realized she was living a limited existence within the bureaucratic constraints of the education system. A flyer for a TEDx event sparked a hidden ambition. She applied on a whim, got accepted, and delivered a talk on her personal experience of healing. That one talk became the catalyst, leading to workshops and a new career path she had never envisioned. She had to heal herself before she could guide others.
The Mindful Communicator
The practice Whitney now teaches is mindful communication. It sounds ethereal, like a cloud of vapor, but she defines it with pragmatic clarity. “Mindful communication means your ability to communicate in the present moment,” she explains. “So you're operating from here, not some story in the past, not some story in the future.”
It’s about speaking from the now, without judgment and without attachment to a specific outcome. These are the core tenets of mindfulness, applied directly to the way we interact with ourselves and others. Who needs this? “Everybody,” Whitney states unequivocally. “We all need it.”
She turns the lens on Do, noting a shift she’s observed in his communication style over the years. “Your communication has changed... dramatically,” she says. “I've noticed that now you speak with a lot more presence... you're a lot more compassionate now as a teacher.”
Do offers a counter-theory. He doesn’t believe he has fundamentally changed. Instead, he suggests the perception of him has changed through familiarity. “Initially when somebody comes upon a piece of content or drops into one of my rooms, it's like a shock,” he says. His direct, incisive style can be interpreted as arrogant or aggressive by newcomers. Only after they get past the initial layers do they see the underlying a. “I think it's your familiarity with me that it's changed how you remember it,” he posits.
This exchange highlights a key aspect of mindful communication: the gap between intent and impact. People often build false narratives around others based on initial impressions. Do’s approach has always been rooted in a mission to help people achieve their dreams, a concept he explores in depth when outlining the difference between a personal and business brand. “I think the world is a much better place when each of one of us is working in our zone of genius,” he states. As people spend more time with his work, they move past the surface-level delivery and begin to understand the core mission.
Whitney acknowledges Do's point, agreeing that familiarity builds a more nuanced understanding. “There's layers to people,” she concedes. “I think that's what I appreciated about you the most is you're very direct and authentic.”
This is where self-awareness becomes critical. Whitney notes that in her work, she observes a universal human tendency. “We all think we're so different,” she says. “‘Oh but my problem's different in my business, Chris.’ And I've just continuously watched you... I've seen people from all these different fields and all these different ages and different backgrounds ask him the same question and it's the same freaking answer.”
A business problem is a business problem. A human problem is a human problem. Whether you bake cakes or run a tech startup, the principles of marketing, sales, and customer service are the same. Recognizing this similarity is an unlock. It requires setting the ego aside and seeing that we are more alike than different.
Unlocking the PEACE Framework
To help people navigate this internal work, Whitney developed a framework from her own healing process. At first, she felt self-conscious sharing it, but its effectiveness with clients proved its value. The acronym is PEACE, a five-step process for moving from being a victim of your past to an architect of your future.
It is a roadmap for self-guided emotional regulation.
- Patterns. The first step is to identify the recurring loops in your life. “What are they?” Whitney asks. “Are you dating the same type of person? Are you coming up against the same obstacle in your business?” This is about honest observation without judgment.
- Ego Deconstruction. Next, you must examine your ego. This is not about destroying the ego, but understanding its attachments. “What are you attached to in your identity?” she prompts. “A CEO or a founder or like, I'm the best at this, or in my family I have all the answers.” Recognizing these attachments is the key to loosening their grip.
- Awareness of Core Wounds. With patterns and ego in sight, a deeper awareness can emerge. This is the awareness of your core wounds, a psychological concept for the fundamental fears that drive our behavior. Whitney focuses on seven primary wounds.
- Compassion. Once you identify the wound, the healing begins with compassion. This is compassion for yourself, for the inner child still activated by old trauma, and for the people who caused the wound. “Most people are doing the best they can with what they know,” she says. This reframes blame into understanding.
- Empowerment. The final step is reaping the reward. When you work through the preceding stages, you stop giving your power away. “You get your power back,” Whitney concludes. “You can now live this empowered existence because you're not giving your power away to everybody else.”
The awareness of core wounds is often the most revealing part of the process. Whitney lists the most common ones she encounters in her coaching:
- Abandonment: a deep-seated fear of being left alone.
- Unworthiness: the belief that you are not good enough.
- Rejection: the fear of being pushed away or excluded.
- Vulnerability: the fear of being exposed or emotionally open.
- Being Misunderstood: the anxiety that your intentions or character will be misinterpreted.
- Unprocessed Grief: lingering sorrow over any kind of loss, not just death, but lost opportunities or identities.
- Betrayal: the wound from having your trust broken.
Whitney shares that her own primary wounds were a fear of vulnerability and a sense of unworthiness. For ambitious people, acknowledging these wounds is a crucial step toward authentic success, a journey Do himself has spoken about in his masterclass on building a successful personal brand in 2024.
The Ego in the Driver's Seat
The ego gets a bad rap. It’s often painted as the villain in our personal development stories. But Whitney is quick to clarify its role. The ego isn't inherently bad; it’s necessary. “Ego is the reason I did my hair this morning, that I wanted to look nice,” she jokes. “Ego is the reason that we have financial goals... it's okay.”
The problem arises when the ego moves from a passenger to the driver. When it’s in charge, it makes decisions based on fear, status, and the preservation of a constructed identity. A person driven by ego can’t ask for help, because asking is an admission of imperfection, a threat to the identity of “the one with all the answers.”
Whitney suggests to Do, “You're able to ask for help because I don't think your ego runs your life.”
Do agrees, sharing his own experience with seeking professional help. Years ago, feeling he was failing in his relationship with his children, he sought out a therapist. His business coach at the time, Keir McLaren, gave him a critical piece of advice: “If you're not willing to be honest, don't go. Just save your money.”
Do went into therapy with a task-oriented mindset, a willingness to be completely honest, and a clear goal. The result? He had a total of ten sessions. “She was just so good at solving problems and I was a very good student,” he says. “I hear the lesson, I'm done, let's go. What's the next one?”
This is a healthy ego at work. It recognizes a problem and seeks a solution, without the need to protect a fragile sense of self. It aligns with Do’s lifelong formula for growth: “When you realize you have a problem, seek out the highest authority that's within your grasp and just pay them whatever they need to get paid so that you could learn from them.”
This approach runs counter to the inertia many people experience. The discomfort of admitting a deficiency, driven by an overactive ego, keeps them stuck. This is a topic Do has explored before, teaching that the fastest way to unlock business growth is often to learn directly from those who have already solved your problem.
The Path to Radical Accountability
The journey from being a crappy time traveler to the architect of your reality is paved with one essential material: radical accountability.
Self-awareness, the PEACE framework, and understanding your core wounds are all diagnostic tools. They show you the map of your internal landscape. But a map is useless if you are unwilling to take the first step. Accountability is the decision to walk the path.
Do emphasizes this point. He rejects the notion that his story is unique or that his problems require elaborate context. He wants the answer, the action, the path forward. “I'm thrifty,” he says, using the term to mean efficiency of time and energy. “If I don't have to tell you all the background and the context and you can just give me the answer and I can change my life, that's what I want.”
This discomfort with ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. Many people get lost in the fog of their own complexity, using it as an excuse for inaction. “It's not clear what I should do, so I'll do nothing,” Do says, characterizing the mindset he works to dismantle. He emphasizes that whether you are coaching a baker or a dog walker, the fundamental problems are the same, a principle he applies when helping entrepreneurs get their first customers.
Whitney’s work provides the language for this internal audit. It gives people the ability to name their patterns, their egoic attachments, and their deepest wounds. It allows them to see the machinery operating just beneath the surface of their conscious mind.
But the work doesn’t stop there. Naming is not the same as changing.
The ultimate goal is to break the thinking-feeling loop. It’s to develop the capacity to have a feeling arise from a past program, observe it without judgment, and consciously choose a different thought. A thought that is greater than the feeling.
This is the work. It is not about finding a magic bullet or a life hack. It's about dismantling the old reality, word by word, thought by thought, and building a new one with intention.
You already have the time machine. The question is whether you will finally take the controls.
TRANSCRIPT
people are in therapy for years if not decades and I was thinking are you making progress the kind that you want if you've gone through really traumatic things in your life it can take a really long time to undo that damage I still was figuring out my own process my own experience I
really think that it's part of The Human Experience overall and if we can walk ourselves through this anyone listening to this can do the work themselves because emotions are a record of our past experiences if you can't think greater than how you feel this thinking feeling Loop keeps you anchor to your past
and creates a constant state of being we're really crappy Time Travelers imagine having a time travel machine but you don't get to control it and it takes you back to all the crappy experiences you didn't like that's how we've trained our minds a lot of us and we willingly let our minds take
us to the past I will share a very practical way of how I had to change my state to tell people this stuff works if we can change Melanie yes what do you want to talk about I would actually really like to talk about this notion of that I've been seeing a lot
this year in my coaching is that I don't think people understand how important and vital it is to be able to emotionally regulate yourself to really get to the places you want to go or to have the experiences you want to have so emotional regulation is something I've noticed just people are not
like oh sign me up it's like yeah it's you know it's something a lot of people learn in therapy and I think a lot of people people are more open now to therapy but what I just realized this year while I was doing the coaching is that people come to me for the
communication piece they're like yeah I want to learn how to be a better communicator but then what they don't realize is really what needs to quote unquote be fixed is the story that they have about x y and z in their mind so it's all about your thought creates than emotion so the
story you have in your head the thought you're having creates the emotion and that is the very emotion that's going to dictate your behavior and guess what your behaviors that are repeated are going to create your life and so it's been such a small tiny little formula that I've just been honing in
on with my coaching clients and you know different workshops and what have you and it's so simple but it's it's finally simple enough for I think people to understand because I think before the way I was doing it was too many steps for people it was too much so I just realized that
a lot of us struggle struggle with emotional regulation and we project that job onto the other person like Chris I want you to make me feel better I want you to believe in me I want you to whatever fill in the blank we just pass that on so it's just something I've been
seeing a lot of and with the all the uncertainty in the world right now I think people are are struggling okay I noticed there you almost combined two words I'll just do it for you we strugg youate we strug to manage is that a new word we're going to use strug stry let's
do this now for people who don't know who you are Melanie can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of your backstory yes so my name is Melanie Whitney I um so what I do for work I essentially teach people how to mindfully communicate and regulate their emotions but my
background I never in a million years thought I'd be doing this for work this is like so opposite of what I thought I would be doing I grew up in Southern California uh my parents are first gen here so grew up very Mexican amican and the big thing that drove my most of
my life and my adolescence was go to school go to school get an education get a safe job and so that was deeply grounded in me and so from I mean kindergarten I was like an overachiever the poster child kid good at school made friends great at sports like and that was it
you just that was that was the track and it was that all the way until college and then my master's program so I just in my mind if I finished my education and I did all the things and I checked all the boxes I was going to be solid in life and then
that proved to not be true I uh graduated couldn't get a job couldn't pay my student loans and I actually ended up finally I was unemployed for like six to 8 months which seem is like forever right when you have bills to pay and things like that and so there I was like
you know in my early 20s now I look back I'm like like I was a baby but at that time I was like I have my Master's Degree I should be doing this by now I should be doing this you know this this and this so anyway life had uh different things in
store I went into marketing and event planning which I thought that's what I wanted to do and that was my mission I was very detail oriented type a perfectionist and when I went into that path it was good for about almost a year and then I got laid off right after I bought
a brand new car oh snap and I almost signed a lease in an apartment in LA and thank God I didn't I think I got fired um not fired let go they were downsizing like 2 days before I signed the Le so that was a blessing but I ended up living back with
my parents in my childhood bedroom in my twin-sized bed and that was like the first rock bottom that I had okay I was like what am I doing with my life and so that was the first time I was introduced to mindfulness because I needed to pick myself up out of the dark
out of the floor and I picked up a book called The Power of Now by eart tole and that was my first introd introduction to mindfulness but it I still was not ready for that that deep dive and so I ended up becoming a professor and being super academic still and doing all
the things and again more bunch of different life events happened and ultimately I just realized how limited I was living in the education space because is you know it's it's very bureaucratic you have to follow these rules and do these things and then one time I saw flyer for a tedex talk and
it had always been like a little secret dream of mine to do that I never told anybody and I was like you know I'm just going to apply I probably won't even get it and then I got it and I was like oh [ __ ] now I need to come up with
a talk for this and then I just did the Ted Talk on my experience and that one Ted Talk ended up leading to another work sh and another workshop and that's kind of the short version of how I got here was really healing myself through that whole process I just want to sit
in that for a minute thank you for sharing that yeah I want to go back in time a little bit to try to understand you you're Mexican American first generation American my parents are first gen they were born here I'm second okay you're second how how is it that you have the name
Whitney my dad's part uh White that's that's why that's where it comes from that's why he's like a sliver white and that's where the name comes from and it's sad because we actually don't know too much of his um his ancestry cuz he had an absent father okay so we learned what we
know is through like uh what's that called ancestry he did his ancestry and so we know a little bit but not too much so what kind of white is he we think it's like from the map according to the map it's like right by um Ireland and in Scotland right there mhm so
somewhere in there there was a Scottish Irish white man who impregnated a Latina it seems that way yes cuz you're you're a sliver of white but then disappeared out of the story yeah okay now I just wanted to understand that part okay so you're very academic minded you do well in school you're
unlike me I'm first generation immigrant I'm supposed to do well I'm like uh I don't know about this you're anti well not anti it's just like the pressure to do well in school as many immigrant children will tell you is very real and luckily I had a older brother who would Shield me
from most of that pressure to oh so you're a middle child I'm a mother freaking middle child everybody there we go the truth is out I have middle child syndrome and we can talk forgotten child the Forgotten child yes you know the middle child disappeared what do you mean that's a phenomenon because
people are not having three kids now they might have one they might have two so there's no more middle child oh my gosh on this if you want to look it up well I I empathize cuz I am a middle child but technically I have an older sibling but we're like 12 years
apart so I also grew up very much like the eldest child once she left yeah so I have I have both okay so anyway you were saying you got shielded from that well and apparently you weren't because 12 years is a good time to forget and then all their pressures back on you
again to do well yeah and so you excel in school and you you get an under you go to uh get a degree and then you get a master's degree where did you go to school and what did you study so I went to Cal State Long Beach mhm and I studied communication
interpersonal communication specifically okay pretty broad yes okay and then where'd you get your master's degree also at Kel Long Beach you can't leave huh I couldn't leave it was like a freaking Vortex okay okay okay here's another question I kind of already know the answer I think and where do you teach Kel
St L surprise I tried to freaking leave you didn't try hard enough oh my gosh your homebody well you know this is what's crazy yes is the biggest decision in me staying there for my masters was a financial decision like I couldn't afford to go out of state that was a big thing
and I was like I I I couldn't I couldn't fathom how because I had to I put myself through college okay I worked like three different jobs it was a nightmare it was a lot um I don't know how he did it to be honest but I figured okay if I stay here
if I stay local I could live in my parents house I could do this so it's a very calculated decision never planned on working there uh wink wink sure you didn't we'll see we'll see detective dos on the case everybody so relax We're to this we dig out all the juicy details okay
you you so your parents didn't have an education fund for you and I do want to say this there's lots of problems with the American education system but one shining star in it is State Schools they're actually really good they're affordable and let's talk a little bit about that so if you were
to go to like a UC school the tuition would be radically different right versus like cow State School do you remember how much you paid in tuition per semester there roughly I want to say I this could be totally wrong I want to say like 1,800 okay and what year sounds like nothing
it's um I started at kelate Long Beach in 20 2007 I was a transfer student I went to Community College first okay like a like a good person should get all your gened stuff out right exactly all right 2007 1800 so here's the point of reference everybody because you're like well what's the
difference here I went to Art Center in the early 90s tuition then was $3,400 when I started and wound up being I think almost six grand by the time I finished this is a private art school and and you can see now quite the difference there so ad for inflation and Rising tuition
costs I don't know what it was like in 2007 but I can tell you what it is now let's do a comparison now no to go to art school cuz I know because I'm paying for a child to go to art school it is $225,000 a semester a semester a semester do you
know what the tuition is today to to go to Cal State about 3,700 a semester a seventh of the cost to go to a private art school so there's a lot of problems that we have we we live in a great place with great weather I'm looking outside it's beautiful sunshine and I
think it's like 72° maybe 73 it's beautiful and it's like this for most of the year but $3,700 a semester is a bargain is it is a steal and I love that okay so certain things are working I want to give credit where credit is due but you said you had to work
three different jobs to put yourself through school while living at home so you have no rent you have no food cost I assume you might have to pay for your car or something like like that or maybe your parents got you a car a beater something like that you're able to get to
school what were you doing in your jobs I mean it's like I can't believe the mind you the freaking like don't mind me mind you mind you the the minimum wage was like what like $8 maybe or something like that um I was paying for my own bills essentially so like my phone
bill I paid I did buy my own like groceries in the house my um car insurance textbooks were insane rolling my eyes go on roll your eyes it was part-time work ultimately cuz I still needed to go to school so it never felt and you know like going out and having fun with
friends but I mean it's chump change really when you think about it like it wasn't a lot but it felt like I was working so hard for so little and what what kind of jobs did you have I worked in retail I worked as a server oh my God I'll never do that
again where I want spe specific want some details I he's going to I'm going to verify your work record here I actually worked at Lucille's uh in Long Beach on Second Street but it's not there anymore that's fine that's the retail place no that was um the barbecue restaurant place that was a
server there Ser okay what about retail oh my God I had quite a few different jobs I it was uh this old I can't remember the name of it they sold like uh College college like sweaters and shirts and stuff it was at Camp store like what the campus store something like that
it wasn't a campus store it was just like a regular store but it had all like Nationwide different like college campuses and stuff yeah it was at the Block um which is now the outlets in Orange okay but I had a couple jobs there a surf shop I once worked at like random
random whatever somebody who hire you I'm your girl yeah right done cashier so you go through you you finished getting your degree and what compels you to go get a master's degree you know what compelled me was I figured one day I'm going to want to retire and teach cuz I did love
school and I figured you know that will be my my my backup plan so let's just get knock it out now it'll be easier everything's fresh let's do it so you roll right into the master's program right in yep okay no Gap and is this now the same major communication yep wow so
you doubled down on that dog I did double down and you know it was really about time I was in a hurry I was like how can I get out of here fastest wow okay CU again I thought I was chasing a pot of gold what gold were you chasing success Chris success
like through Communications you cuz I was going to go into PR marketing right event planning I had known people that were doing it and they were living why didn't you stud advertising then or or marketing versus communication I was going to minor in marketing but it would have costed me another semester and
I was like not that important can't afford another $1,800 no thank you it was more about the time it was more about the time than the money cuz I was pulling out student loans at that time to you know and so I was like forget it I was like no time let's put
this in perspective everybody and you're going to roll your eyes at me and I'm okay if you do everybody um $1,800 is like my jacket shopping budget here so Melanie won't get her minor um excuse me you got to F you got to rewind the cost of living back then you can't that
long ago it's not that long ago it's not like in the 70s all right so I'm like damn okay like right now I'm like I can't wait for the jack to go and sale so I can buy it you can buy it you're you're like I'm not going to get a whole another
degree was a poor little college student I don't know and I was racing honestly it was the time that's what I was really racing against cuz I was like whatever these are going to be payments I make anyway right okay well but it was time yeah I was very impatient I I need
to say this because my son's in college right now and he's going to Columbia and he's studying philosophy and writing and he's just trying to finish school I'm like you're supposed to enjoy this part this is going to be the foundation for where you're going to go what is the point to finish
school to finish school cuz as it has worked out with your master's degree with your fancy master's degree you couldn't get a job for 6 months you know what people would tell me I was overqualified yeah that's a fancy way saying you're really smart but you have no skills just going to put
that out there everybody and we're afraid that you're going to want more money than what we can pay you to do this very low thing that or you're going to leave too soon yeah so there's a bunch of reasons why they could say that and so here's the funny thing even with your
master's degree you wind up doing something quite different event planning and marketing which isn't under I think the communications major it is techically yeah so the way at at calate I mean every this is the thing like every Cal State like umbrella's communication different for us we had three tracks so it was
either you could go PR like that route um interpersonal or organizational and ultimately my um what do you call it my adviser was like look stick the track you already have these classes stick with organizational interpersonal you can still go into PR I'll hook you up with these internships you'll be fine and
so I was like all right yeah because if I were advising a 17 or 18-year-old kid right now and you want to get into marketing and event planning I would just say go get an internship somewhere and just work like a dog and work your way up and learn the trade you're going
to go much faster much farther than you would if you were to spend 6 years or whatever you're going to get to a degree and then and mind you like the system is so it conditions kids to really think like you need you just it's a checklist like you already have these these
classes so stay here don't waste your time don't do this don't do that and like your your son is just trying to like you said burn through cuz he just wants the piece of paper so it's like I have the piece of paper now I want to go do these things So eventually
you wind up teaching back at the school you're Amal Moder right mhm okay so you're a full-time Professor now yeah now and what do you do on the side I teach mindful communication to professionals to high performing professionals so I basically get to teach what I'm kind of teaching in the school I
They Don't Really permit me to get too much into the mindfulness aspect there's there's a little bit of it because my research is an empirical research is coming out but my hands are kind of tied I'm playing you know within their parameters but my wife who's very much business oriented was like why
don't you just start your own Consulting business like screw screw the system they're not paying you well anyway like screw the system so that's so you have your school hours and then you do mindfulness communication coaching Consulting in the private sector if you will correct okay and in your workload how does that
balance out like what percentages in your Academic School life versus in your private practice it's really tough to be honest um you know when I'm in session especially in the beginning it wasn't as bad because business was kind of slow to be honest and I was figuring it out and it was I
really made the shift to go hard on my business was right before the pandemic and then the pandemic happened so all this shifting right learning content then now I'm a content creator and now I have to learn this and this so now that things are kind of rolling it's very difficult I have
to be so on my time management because my commitment at the school luckily is only two days a week I physically go two days a week but as you know with teaching there's grading there's emails there's handling students there's all of that and then I need to also I'm a solopreneur so I
also have all these things that I'm juggling and I find that in the beginning I was throwing speak at the wall figuring out like as far as my business like I'm going to try this and I'm going to try that and I'm going try that and I think that's the biggest mistake I
was making is not deciding what's where and this is a phrase that I've learned from people who are in sales are like what's closest to the money put your time and energy there and then once you build a system and you get in a pattern it will be a lot easier and so
the workload is is tough I go to school all day Mondays and Wednesdays and there from 88 to 5: I come home I do a little bit stuff for my business then I have a wife and a dog I have to pay attention to to go you know handle that and then Tuesdays
and Thursdays I'm all in on my in my office working on my business and then Fridays is a day where I kind of create content plan content plan things like that and I don't really have weekends but I'm okay with that because I'm doing something that I truly love and I've realized I
never would have called myself a creative but after being part of the future Pro Group and seeing how different that word can mean to so many different people and it just really truly means to create I notice that when I'm not creating I feel like this angst in my body like it something
needs to come out and so my my Friday Saturday Sundays are the creating and often it's it's writing or it's building a workshop or you know writing some script for something that I'm working on and it's it's never I think in the beginning I was trying to achieve this perfect balance and what
I've had to surrendered to is that it's really about me being able to prioritize what's important this week okay you didn't answer my question what you said what was the balance what the breakdown between these two things you gave me what do you mean break 40% 60% you know that kind that's what
you want do you want percentages like and then I wake up and I have coffee what's the percentage for each roughly I'm not managing your time sheet it's okay no honestly it's it feels very like every like let's say this last week was heavy on school yeah you know what though but if
you just zoomed out and looked at the last couple of years you have an answer I'm just for people to understand what it's like to run basically a full-time to work a full-time gig at a school and to run an independent business what it's going to take it's going to take everything yeah
but per wise I really feel like some half the like when I'm here's the here's your answer when I'm in session at school when school's on that's probably taking more of my time let's say 6040 okay and then when I'm out like in the summer yeah oh my God I can put everything
right towards my business which is amazing and then I have to plan for okay August is coming semester's coming how am I going what can I put put on autopilot what needs my time and so the beautiful thing about teaching at a school that you get Summers off so you have three Monon
breakish right yeah and you you have longer holidays you have spring break totally and you have Long Winter breaks right mhm okay so count down every time yeah well that's really interesting now we we need to move to the thing that we want to talk about let's move to it which is this
idea of mindful communication it seems like really lofty like you try and put your hand around as like a cloud of vapor and they like what the heck is that now you have a lot in common with my my wife that there's a deep sense of spirituality there's what I always tell people
I'm really logical so I get secondhand woo and that's what's happening here but what what does it even mean mindful communication so it's relatively newer in the communication space but if I was to just be very simple and pragmatic about it mindful communication means your ability to communicate in the present moment so
you're operating from here not sto some not some story in the past not some story in the future So speaking from the present moment without judgment and without attachment because that's really mindfulness is the ability to be present observing your surroundings without judgment and being detached from any specific outcome so bringing those
three principles into the way you communicate and not just communicate with others but communicate with yourself that's what mindful communication is who needs this oh God everybody we all need it people suck at this Chris you know how judgmental you're looking at me right now I'm looking at you I am you know
and we're going to be cuz we're you and I are very straight up with each other let's do it so when I first met you on clubhouse okay I don't know what this is 2020 2021 something like that your communication has changed since that until now dramatically I've noticed it you were a
little bit more what would you call yourself a Charming razor blade yes you were a lot more I would listen cuz that's that's my superpower I'm listening to people and and hearing and and breaking down their communication I've noticed that now you speak with a lot more presence meaning here now when and
when people ask CU God people ask you questions all the time and a lot of them are the same questions right you're very patient for the most part and I just find that I find that you're a lot more compassionate now as a teacher Am I Wrong have you been doing some work
in the past couple years that we don't know about I don't think so I haven't done any work when did you start going to therapy long before that yes okay so what do you think has changed the most with you in the past three four years your leadership style I don't know I
don't think much has changed to be honest I think there's some other phenomenon that's going on right now oo please do tell yeah so for for the record I think I I saw my therapist a family therapist for total of 10 sessions in the span of less than a year oh wow and
I didn't have any more problems with her she was just so good at solving problems and I was I'm a very good student so I hear the lesson I'm done let's go what's the next one and so I ran out of things to talk to her about which is one of my big
regrets in life because she since retired she was older when I met her and so of course I try to reach out to her and she's long gone right not from the Earth but just not doing from this yeah from her occupation and I would say that was probably 2007 2006 oh wow
it was a long time ago that's awesome yeah and then I've been coach free for a long time my my mentor my coach my business Coach K McLaren and I stopped working together right around the time of the future so that's uh 200 14 so from that point for to 2020 so it's
been 6 7 8 10 years since I've talked to a therapist and I think the phenomenon that's going on here is I'm put this back on you okay this how I go like this okay I'm into it I'm into it the dance is initially when somebody comes upon a piece of content or
drops into one of my rooms it's like a shock like in terms of like cold water or electricity and they're not used to this who is this who's this Asian man who's like super Direct brusk and just really just incisive in the comments that I'm making really Thrifty with my words but just
trying to find the problem really quickly and people will take it as arrogant um as aggressive as violent communication until they get past the first couple layers once they get beyond that they're like oh there's a warm compassionate human being there who genuinely cares about people who's doing this for what I believe
is to be the right reasons and not the wrong reasons because you keep thinking there's a funnel coming there's a there's a enroll in this webinar and blah blah blah and it just doesn't come in the way they think because it's so different and I think it's your familiarity with me that it's
changed how you remember it that would be my theory fair fair Theory totally and you know I just and yeah that makes a lot of sense familiarity right there's layers to people I think that's what I appreciate appreciated about you the most is you're you're very um direct and authentic you're like I'm
not going to blow smoke just to blow smoke like you ask for help I'm going to give you my advice right and I I really appreciate that about you and I think that's what a lot of people appreciate about you I just and again this could totally be my own delusion but just
over the you know years being in the future Pro Group it just seems like you've been so much more uh like sharing more or just more authentic or more not more authentic cuz you were authentic before but I think feeling more maybe more vulnerability more of that and maybe to that we can
talk about that yeah what you're seeing is I think where where a lot of us come from which is I'm showing up to teach nobody wants to know about anything about me I'm not here to like tell you all about my personal life because you don't care that's the story I tell myself
you were talking about your thoughts or the story that you tell yourself and then they govern your feelings and your actions and all kind of stuff I just think nobody needs to hear this but if you watch some of the earliest videos when I used to have students from Otis or Art Center
come by my studio and we would film those sessions they would ask me like how'd you get started what did you struggle with and I would tell them it's just those videos don't go viral and nobody's going into the archive so people would say oh you've never shared this before I'm like actually
I have video proof that I have and the story's been there it's just no one wants to know it the interesting thing is I think when students come to your studio they know you as a professor they they know your body of work so of course they're going to ask for more personal
things because for them that would be potentially some kind of unlock or insight into the thinking that made this person that made this work so that's what they're looking for but if you're just bumping into our content as the social feed the algorithm sends you something that may not be your first question
and so it takes them time to like want to know that and this is what I preach to people when you're making content initially unless you're really about healing from from trauma and dealing with with your emotional wounds the mother wound all that kind of stuff you may not just want to lead
with that you you you need to show up for people before they show up for you show me you care so I can care about you and I do care a lot about people my entire thesis for the future is to help people achieve their dreams because I think the world is a
much better place when each of one of us is working in our zone of Genius fulfilling our highest desires and passions and doing purposeful meaningful work and if we could do that I think there's going to be less V vience in every definition of that word and that's what I'm really here for
so that's what I'm putting out there so as more people get to know you through your work they become naturally more curious about who is this person and I don't think you've ever encountered me there's a bold statement where you've asked me a deeply personal question and I've shied away from it no
you you usually answer have I ever not answered no yeah and that's the thing I I even tell people maybe my questions need to get more deep no I'm just kidding and I encourage people to you do I've seen you tell people like ask me anything yeah whatever you want to know if
you're brave enough to ask it I will do my best to answer it and I think only on one occasion somebody asked me a question which I wasn't comfortable answering and the reason wasn't so much that I didn't want to answer it was because they're fishing for gossip and then I'm like since
you're not involved in this story I don't feel compelled to tell you this and I just don't know how it's going to help anybody right now yeah that makes sense yeah don't get me wrong I like gossip as much as the next person but you got to be in it you got to
be in there with got to be involved involved you got to be part of it if you weren't there it doesn't feel right for me to talk about no I I love that and I think what's so cool about you know being in in the future PR group and being in this space
that you facilitate in is seeing and this is just maybe this might just be a me thing but I think humans are so fascinating and that we all think we're so different we think think like oh but my my problem's different in my business Chris like my mine's different and you're always like
I like the different voices that you have there really I'm liking I I like the side of you keep going and I've just continuously watched you and your and I'm going to compare it to to what I do um I'm like God I've seen people from all these different fields and all these
different ages and different backgrounds ask him the same question and it's the same freaking answer it's the same thing but and I'm like so this is so interesting do we all just want to feel like we're special or unique or are they trying to maybe connect with you in a certain you know
different way they're they're Desiring that a different connection with you and so what it got me thinking of when I so I've had a lot of different jobs and there was one job I had in public health where I was a tobacco cessation counselor i' help people quit smoking and I would going
into rehab homes jails like uh detention facilities like all sorts of places I've met I've worked in really nice places like I've worked with all different types of people but working in that specific sector where people are really looking at these folks who have been incarcerated or drug addicts very negatively but when
I would sit there and listen to them I'm like man we all have the same problems we all feel like we're not good enough we're scared to be rejected we are uh have fear of Abandonment like we're scared to be vulnerable and I'm like it's wild so I've just noticed that like when
we were um when we went to the fishing trip you know in Canada and seeing uh you engage with all different types of people like even people outside of our group when people would approach you on the street and it was like we're all the same we're all the same and I think
that if we can really there's an unlock that happens when you I guess may I don't know maybe that requires this minimizing our ego to see that we're much more similar than we are different but I really feel like it opens us up in ways where we can be pursuing our passions we
can be creating things that we thought we only could dream of and we just there's a lot of healing I think that needs to take place and a lot of ego check that needs to take place first there is this thing that we all think we're so unique and different that our business
our family story our birth order makes it so complicated there's a tendency to want to create something that was I think to to make something that's very simple and clear unclear and it's that kind of fogginess of the mind that we don't have to be accountable for a whole lot and I'm I'm
a person about radical accountability to take responsibility for things you know when we make a decision to go on a trip or not go on a trip it's very uncomfortable because we keep thinking about the other decision that we didn't make the opportunity to cost if I do this what I I saying
no to yeah and in that state it allows us or gives us the opportunity to say well it's not clear what I should do so I'll do nothing or I'll just move very slowly through life and I think that's the challenge there and you're absolutely right I'm 100% in alignment with you here
a business problem is a business problem I don't care if you bake cakes or you walk dogs you still have the same problems Marketing sales customer service delivery of product and making sure everyone has a beautiful customer experience and it doesn't really matter just done at different scales speak to different audiences and
different language and tools but the core principles are the same this is why I can answer questions that I'm not prepared to answer because you see patterns it's the same problem over and over again yes and people keep insisting no you need to hear my whole story you know and and there is
something to that right of course if we're if we're in a Social Circle and we're out by the campfire and there's 10 of us I do want to know your story I want to know how you got here not here in this moment but how you got here yeah because then I really
understand and appreciate you on a different level but when it comes to coaching or learning or doing something I I'll listen to that you just have to pay for it but at the end of the day the answer will be exactly the same so I'm you know being a first gener generation immigrant
I'm not even born here I'm Thrifty mhm that's a that's a nice way to say I'm cheap meaning I I I don't want to spend money on things that aren't necessary because I'd rather use that money to do something else so if I don't have to tell you all the background and the
context and you can just give me the answer and I can change my life that's what I want that's why I only saw Joan for 10 times cuz it was that good I'm like I don't know what else to do well and I think what's what you're speaking to though requires a lot
of self-awareness right and I think a lot of us struggle with that that self-awareness and being able to objectively look at your behavior look at examine did being a middle child is the first immigrant how is all of those events and layers of of life and variables in life impacting me right now
and am I carrying stuff maybe that I shouldn't be carrying anymore and I'm making it part of my story still yeah right and so I think you have a really you probably went into uh your therapy experience very self-aware and willing and open and like task oriented like let's do this yeah not
everybody does yeah I see that because people are in therapy for years if not decades and I was thinking are you making progress the kind that you want and I understand that if you've gone through really traumatic things in your life that it can take a really long time to undo that damage
I understand that I often tell people if it took 18 years for you to develop this this problem or this fear hopefully it doesn't take you 18 years to undo it but it will take time not 18 minutes let's be realistic with our expectations but something that Kier told me my business coach
when when I was uh thinking about going to a therapist he said if not willing to be honest don't go just save your money it's silly you're just going to make them work through all this and they already know you're lying or you're not telling the full truth and and you just drag
it out so I'm like yeah I'm going of my own free will no one's forcing me to do it there isn't a gigantic problem I need to resolve immediately but I just want to go to learn how to be a better at that point dad I felt like I was failing my relationship
with my children and I wanted to be better father so that's why I went and so that now now I know what what age this is because this is like 14 years ago no maybe more maybe it's like 17 years ago cuz it's been some time okay right cuz I can date it
to like when my children what year how old they were Point yeah and you know I think that's commendable and like again that takes self-awareness to be like hey I'm feeling this particular way about how I'm interacting with my children right now with the status of our relationship how can I change it
and I think it that's really vulnerable to admit that to yourself and thank God your friend told you like don't waste your time don't go unless you're going to be super open because there's no progress that's going to be made and I think think that if more people especially those that are really
ambitious and probably listening to your podcast that have big hopes and Big Dreams that they're going after it requires a level of vulnerability and self-awareness to be able to get there and you know in my own you know they say that you you end up like um I'm going to probably screw up
this phrase but like you end up teaching what like who you were or your target audience ends up being like who you were something like that where it's like you you you know your process what you went through therefore you can help other people through it yeah um this took me years and
maybe it's a little cheesy um but I I wanted to help people right and I was like I love the coaching but like what am I coaching them on and it took me a long time to figure out like a what do you say the on line marketing you know deal like your
little pitch your little elevator pitch yeah and it's because I couldn't I I still was figuring out my own process my own experience but then eventually I came up with this This Acronym and I really think that it's a human it's part of The Human Experience overall and if we can walk ourselves
through this anyone listening to this could can do the work themselves right they don't they don't need to hire someone like me I think it's helpful to have some type of professional outside of yourself to guide you some type of Mentor but the first I think step is identifying a pattern that you're
in whatever that is right so P so the acronym is Peace So P I say patterns what are they are you dating the same type of person are you coming up against the same OB obstacle in your business what are the patterns in your life and then the next layer which is really
tough for people is ego deconstruction so let's look at your ego what are you attached to in your identity and like some people are really attached to their you know label as a CEO or a founder or like I'm the best at this or in my family I have all the answers so
like what what is your what are the layers of your ego that you're attached to and then the a I think once you identify patterns and you become really aware how your ego operates in your life we can have awareness of your core wound so I think after those two things deep awareness
comes in which is the A and it's not just awareness in general because you're developing awareness with the patterns in the ego but the awareness of your core wound and for anyone who's never heard of a core wound it's a term used in Psychology there's different people say sometimes there's five eight core
wounds I there's like seven I really focus on but some of them are like abandonment core wound not being good enough is a big one fear of rejection fear of vulnerability uh fear of being misunderstood like all of those when you can identify which one or two cuz normally when I introduce them
people they're like oh my God I have all of them and I'm sure on some level we do but there's typically one or two that are super up on the list like for me unworthiness was a big one and fear of vulnerability was a big one and when we know how that shows
up because that's often connected some some crap in childhood that happened someone said something to you and you're holding on to it that one bully said this or your mom said that and you're holding on to and you're just showing it's showing up in your adult life right when we have that awareness
of like oh my God right now I'm feeling triggered because I'm scared that my partner is going to leave me or my uh best friend is not going to whatever fill in the blank right once we have those wounds identified you then can move into the compassion piece which is where the healing
takes place that's the C the compassion and compassion is for yourself and and the and the inner child that is still activated in the adult and also for the people quote unquote that hurt you that cause those wounds right because in when we look at it from a different compassionate lens you see
that they Pro if they were really mean to you and bullied you they probably suffered some type of trauma of their own right so we end up learning that most people are doing the best they can with what they know and then the I feel like once you go through all of those
steps you you get your power back so the E is for empowerment you can now live this empowered existence because you're not giving your power away to everybody else and I think that's like the biggest pattern I've noticed in my own Journey once I identified my journey and I started sharing it with
people cuz at first it felt kind of silly I felt a little self-conscious about it and I was like you know what it works for me I'm going to share it and people don't like it they don't have to like it but so many people are like oh my God now I have
I can kind of see the chapters that I'm in or where I'm at in my journey so it's been pretty cool to share that with people and help them realize where am I at in that do I even know what patterns I'm in do I know how my ego shows up and it's
been really cool to give language I guess to those different phases you mentioned a handful of core wounds I wrote down five which ones am I missing abandonment rejection vulnerability misunderstood unworthiness what else am I missing uh grief so like unprocessed grief okay is definitely one and it doesn't have to just be
a lot of people hear the word grief and they think it means like the loss of a loved one it could be an an opportunity you didn't take and you're like damn I should have taken that job with Chris and didn't um did we say betrayal no maybe those are the last two
okay those are good yeah I'm looking at the list and then I have to ask you what is your core wound so my two biggest ones were fear of vulnerability and unworthiness those are my biggest ones and a little bit of betrayal I would say would be the third but yeah I know
I know let's let's go there let's go there I ain't afraid to go there really no I'm not at all okay well I'm listening to this I'm like I don't have a fear of Abandonment rejection and I'm not afraid of being vulnerable or misunderstood or I feel very worthy so you I don't
everyone why I have a feeling of like I should have done this instead of that but then I get over it real quick and I have had I've been betrayed myself too but I'm also over that so I'm I'm like you're I'm just kidding no no I'm kidding I'm totally kidding I'm kidding
what is perfect like you're can we have an acronym for perfect no but you know what Chris you're a product of doing the work okay that's why you like these things are not easily activated in you because you've done the work and so why I share the core wound is that a lot
of people haven't done the work and so those buttons are still activated yeah I see and you had said something that I shared something and you said that was vulnerable or to for you to admit that I need help I don't feel like it's vulnerable at all so when I'm I see like
um the stress that's being caused by not knowing how to parent my own children and feeling frustrated and and I can see it spilling over into my relationship with my wife like it's creating tension between us and it's not even about us it's about our child and how to deal with the child
so I'm like I need help right now so I'm I'm a forever student right I've mastered some things but there are Masters who are Beyond me and every time I run into a corner or dead end or hit abling block I I know a formula that works really well I'm going to share
it with our people here guys take out a piece of paper get ready for this this this gem I'm about to drop when you realize you have a problem seek out the highest Authority that's within your grasp and just pay them whatever they need to to get paid so that you could learn
from them I've just done this consistently through my life and it's worked time and time again if you had asked me Chris I noticed your teaching style is a little different I would say well because the last two years I've spent a good deal of money to hire teaching Consultants to teach me
how to be a better teacher and I'm learning different tools and I'm and it's because it's my aspiration to be the best teacher I can be and there's so much more to learn and so that's what I've been doing but it hasn't necessarily changed my my care for somebody or the the the
sharpness of the blade it's just I want to try to structure the teaching in a different way so anybody who's really good at teaching who knows how to do it well I want to learn from you yeah yes so you see you have been doing something yeah but it's not what you think
it is that's but it was still something always doing something which which is why what I love about you I want to grow and learn every single day I want to push myself physically mentally spiritually all those kinds of things I want I want to go way out of my comfort zone so
I can find out what the edges of my world are and and I think that's the beauty of life and I want to be able to share that experience with a lot of other people you included of course you know cuz I think you're able to ask for help cuz I don't think
your ego runs your life I think that's a big distinction I think a lot of people unconsciously they don't know but maybe after listening to this they'll know yeah their their ego their their need to drive that car live that house have that title is driving the car and therefore if I ask
for help what are they going to say about me because da da da d d That's ego sounds like you were like I need help yo like let's I know it's important in life my kids I even broadcast it I'm like I'm not even hiding this you know that's what I'm saying so
you're you have a very healthy ego because ego isn't bad that's one thing I definitely want to say is a lot of people the ego gets a bad rep like ego is the reason I did my hair this morning then I wanted to look nice you know ego is the reason that we
have financial goals like ego you know what I mean like the jacket you want to get like that's ego so it's okay it keeps us it just it can't drive the car but it can be in the car it just can't drive so I think that's why you're so able to ask for
help what are practical ways that I a person can identify oh ego's driving this what are certain telltale signs that you've seen in working with people some of the biggest signs are judgment so are you judging yourself you judging others and also judge so whenever I say that people are like oh so
I'm never supposed to okay if that's you chill okay there's a difference between uh judgment and discernment judgment is me evaluating you there's often some type of ranking I think I'm better I think my way is right you are wrong right that's judgment okay discernment is me looking at the situation and being
like hm is this going to be in my best interest okay you know what Chris is deciding this this and this maybe this other leader is doing it this way you know my values are more in igned with Chris so I'm not saying oh this person's a bad teacher they're d d d
I'm Chris is way better that's ego but for me to be like you know what I think this is in more alignment with me and would serve me better I wish that other person well they can do their thing but Chris is a better choice so I'm going to go I'm going to
go this way because we're in more alignment that's discernment you know like there's this cheesy example I often give because this is a really hard notion for people to grasp because judgment is so deeply embedded in our brains for survival we are constantly judging to say is this safe is this not safe
am I going to be okay right our brains are wired for that but we also have the ability to observe and to you know like Consciousness and and and notice our thoughts so imagine I was the captain of a ship and a storm was coming and I'm like all right oh my God
and I panic I'm like everybody get inside we're going to do this and we're going to do that you do that and um and you're like no wait what what if we can actually like withstand the storm like Chris no this is what we're doing the end okay that's me being judgment freaking
out ego is like no no no no no cuz this is going to look badly on me discernment would be you know what okay how bad is the storm you tell me this is how bad it is okay and then I look at this other person what um you know supplies tools do
we have currently who's aboard on the ship right now I'm going to sit with it I'm going to think about it and be like okay this is I think the course of action we should take so discernment is like this reflection and I'm not does that make sense it does okay so I
think that's the biggest thing where people kind of like so judgment is the first thing with the ego you can look if you're in judgment you're in ego another thing is our attachment to things like our our identities yeah that's a big one and it it's so weird I feel like The Human
Experience is this really interesting experience where we get attached because we know we are going to die one day so we get attached to things nothing's forever and nothing's permanent so we get attached but then also that very attachment causes so much pain and suffering you know I think about when I was
an athlete for so long my whole life played college for a little bit and then when that no longer was my identity I had a really hard time because I was so attached to like I'm an athlete I'm this I'm that and I was like now who am I at like an identity
crisis because of my attachment to that that was ego yeah okay I want to talk about some of these things there's some juicy um to bits here strings I want to pull on if you will let's talk about attachment cuz I think attachment is the thing that prevents a lot of people from
the exponential growth that they're capable of I was having a conversation with Mo this is before Mo and I really get to know each other really well and he's at one of the future meetups in in Santa Monica and I told him like hey Mo I just noticed something about you you show
up in a t-shirt kind of like not really well put together and you have to realize that when people see you looking like this they're going to make assumptions about maybe you're not that thoughtful in the way that you show up in the world that you're not showing people the respect for the
situation and he was really put off by that he goes Chris I got to be me this ain't me and I don't want to do that and this is how it's going to be and we started to examine and picked out a part and I told him let me ask you this question
if you go to an Asian person's house will you take off your shoes he goes of course I would I said and if you go to a business meeting uh with Japanese business people would you wear a suit he goes yes I would so when is that not part of your identity and
when is it and why would you take off your shoes he goes it's a sign of respect I said okay so when you dress the way that you want you're saying I'm going to disrespect the way that you want things because it's fighting against your identity and so he's so attached to this
identity of whatever clothes he's wearing that he's not willing to change to make that concession the difference between him and dgo at that one moment was dgo is like I hear you so dgo started dressing differently immediately he didn't sit there to to calculate all the different reasons why or why not he
just heard something he's going to try it and see where it takes him and he's been on that continuous experiment good news for both gentlemen both Mo and dgo who you've seen on the channel they're both moving into the next Echelon of how they show up in the world and I'm really happy
for both of them that's one simple example another example is I have a friend who's very emotional and I said you know emotion emotions Cloud judgment because that mental state that you're in will color whatever you're seeing in a very specific light mhm and I said that emotions are good when you're expressing
things of Love admiration or whatever it is that you're you're like when you connect with a real human let all those emotions go but when you're looking at life often times the emotional goggles that you look through skew or distort reality but this person argued with me who am I without my emotions
I'm an emotional person I'm going to live in this and they they're reacting emotionally to the comment about maybe wanting to get that distance away from that what I understand from you in terms of discernment is our ability to float above our emotions and to observe those things to be able to decide
when and where it is most to our benefit to to respond or react that way a th% right yes a th% because there also emotions driving that person like you said you're in you're you're being being reactive yes instead of just being like hm how do I want to respond to this situation
I'll share this with people because some some people are going to feel really angry right now listening to me like who who the heck are these two people talking about this thing I'm going to have my emotions and that's the way it's going to be and that's totally okay I'm going ask you
this question all of you does your state of mind your state affect how you see things how you respond to things I just want you to sit with that question does your state of mind affect how you see things and how you respond to things let's let's go through it let's say you're
late for an appointment the interview for the job of your dreams so now you're in a panicked anxious State how you drive how you grab things and I've always noticed this whenever I'm anxious I make careless mistakes I'm like oh I didn't grab the right shoe I run back and I oh I
forgot this and I'm not in a clear state of mind let's put another thing if you've been the the the victim or the recipient of an act of betrayal for someone that you love and and and and have a great relationship with if they've betrayed you you may be in a suspicious or
uh jealous state of mind so that person who's wronged you or you've been wronged in the past maybe not not even that person every time they have an interaction with someone else you're like oh this must mean that and we know this we we've done it I've done it I've been a jealous
person before and I've also been on the other end of people looking at me with jealous eyes and I'm like just relax there's nothing here there's no smoke there's no fire it's the most platonic business relationship there ever is so I just want you to sit with that everybody that your state your
mental state your thoughts govern how you see things and if if you look through the world through those lens you're going to have a distorted version of reality and I'm just trying to see things for what they are not what I want them to be you said it beautifully Chris and I were
in agreement and there's a I'm losing her name right now but there's a person who studies emotions and she was saying that essentially emotions are really just records of the past and our brains are when I see let's say you and I are are a couple and I see you talking to this
other woman and I'm like and she's really attractive and she's really pretty and I'm just like starting to feel jealousy and maybe I've been cheated on in the past you've never done that but I've been cheated on in the past this feels this feeling is bringing me back it's taking me in a
time machine and so our brains are just trying to assess oh this looks familiar what's the most familiar uh example I have this one where I got cheated on and now I'm projecting that into my future so there's this one of my coaches once told me cuz I used to be guilty of
this being very emotional and being very reactive and she told me you cannot continue to build from the past or else you will just get more of it so she's like you need to learn how to build from here now or in the future where everything is possible what kind of what kind
of a relationship do you want with Chris do you want one where you're all jealous and you guys don't trust each other and no right but again our brains that's how they work and I think that's why it's so important to become an observer and notice okay I'm feeling a little jealous right
now why and go into that and and discern and reflect instead of me getting all upset at my partner and projecting the mess on to them and making them you should have done this you should have done that so yeah emotions totally they can't they can't drive the car I did a little
research here the quote comes from Dr Joe despenza emotions are a record of the past most commonly attributed to Dr Joe despenza who often uses this phrase to explain how our current emotions can be heavily influenced by past experiences and memories essentially acting as a kind of record of our past life he
goes on to say something like this that because emotions are a record of our past experiences if you can't think greater than how you feel this thinking feeling Loop keeps you anchored to your past and creates a constant state of being I love this idea I didn't know about this but this is
this explains a lot doesn't it so let's let's say in this okay everybody so when you're behaving in a way in which you're responding to a previous trauma or or um slight or whatever it is you've had to to deal with a grievance you're saying well you must not love me you must
not care about me and you're betraying me when in fact if you just look at objectively what has happened it's not a very strong case for the conclusion that you have but some part of this mirrors a little bit of what you've had happen to you in the past and you're just reliving
that memory which is really tough because then you can't have real connections with people because you're not really being present you're not being here to the moment you're responding to some old story old narrative an old wound that hasn't fully been reconciled and that's a tough place to be in and so now
when you say who needs this and you say everybody I'm like yeah pretty much pretty much everybody I know much much I say like we're really crappy Time Travelers like we only you know we're we're imagine having a time travel machine but you only you don't get to control it and it takes
you back to all the crappy experiences you didn't like like no thank you want that machine but that's how we've trained our minds a lot of us and we willingly let our minds take us to the Past you know I will I will share a very practical way of how I had to
change my state and when I really first did this um to tell people this stuff works I in um in college in grad school I went through a very traumatic breakup like I thought me and this person were going to get married I thought this was like the W homie breaks up with
me in an email Dodges my calls dodges my like everything all of a sudden just imagine everything's cool and then one day it's not and I was like what the heck happened this was right before my comprehensive exams which is like what you need to get out of grad school okay the timing
could not be worse yeah I had never in my life experienced depression I up in until that point thought depression was like all in your head quote unquote I was like cuz I was very like driven and achievement based and you just power through mind or matter right this the first time in
my life where I was could not get out of bed never experienced that before ever and I had some I've had some crazy things happen in my life that was the first time and I remember for weeks I was not really eating I lost like 15 lbs and I'm already kind of a
tiny person lost 15 lbs I couldn't get out of bed and every morning I would repeat the same thoughts of oh my God she left what did I do wrong she won't pick up my calls what's the point I'm going to fill my exams like just literally this loop I was in I
wouldn't eat I wouldn't talk to anybody like it was in just the same tape for weeks and then I don't even know how this happened but maybe I picked up a book I in my in my room or something oh I think it was eart to The Power of Now book I reopened
and he basically said like just if we can change the thought we're having in the morning when your subconscious is so open in the morning and also before we go to bed let's just see what happens so I finally just got curious it was like okay I can't live my life like this
and and am I really going to let this one person destroy my whole academic career I need to pass these exams right the very least I need to get my butt up and study and so I started this practice of instead of replaying all of the trauma of how the the breakup went
through every morning I would do that I would be like wake up and be like wait is this real did that happen cuz it felt like a dream so what I started doing was before I even opened my eyes cuz you know you're awake I made myself say three things I was grateful
for I forced myself I was like what are you grateful for some days it was just like I'm alive um I have a nice bed to sleep in and I have a job yay that was that was it but then as I kept doing it and I would do it before bed and
I would Journal it before bed three things three things and I mean there's so much research now on gratitude and how powerful it is in changing our state it's one of the most powerful emotions to Anchor you into the present moment the most powerful is gratitude because you can't be anywhere else when
you're trying when you're saying what you're grateful for you you have to be here and so that little practice changed my state changed my thoughts changed how my body was feeling I started being able to actually eat food and then slowly started making different decisions because my emotional state was different and so
that was one of the places where I was like oh this actually works and that's why I just wanted to share that with people because it works it's real but you got it you just got to try it and you got to just you got to do it and I think people aren't
willing to try it sometimes until they're really on their knees and they've hit rock bottom like I was sometimes you need that I think a lot of us uh this is one of my theories of life so let's let's see if we are in alignment here I think we have to hit rock
bottom sometimes to force us to make different decisions with our lives that sometimes people don't get off smoking or drinking or drug abuse because they haven't hit that rock bottom and when they finally hit that Rock Bottom they have to come to terms with I think there's only one more bottom to this
which is I no longer exist and I want to make different decisions and so you go the other way there's nothing controversial about what I'm saying there what I'm saying is what people do is they experience some kind of setback mental relationship physical spiritual something they have a setback and what they do
is they get fuzzy about it and they avoid the feeling of like how bad it feels and so they kind of gloss over it so they're bound to repeat this over and over again when I have a negative emotion or feeling about myself of not being worthy or I'm I'm I'm letting my
ego Drive I just stop and think I want to sit in that pain in that negative motion and in fact I want to amplify that to its Nth Degree so I create like a mini catastrophe in my mind but it's guided right it's not like out of control so I take myself to
like what is the next step next step and Next Step what is the bottom of this pit because I want to go there now and I want to sit in that emptiness so then I can zoom back up to where I'm really at emotionally and say I know where this How This Ends
why don't I just make the decision now instead of having to go to the bottom to make that decision and that's how my mind operates exactly and that's I think what we need to do is because what you did was you just put things into perspective for yourself is it really worth it
is this really the hill I want to die on is this the motion worth my time my energy and is this going to produce the outcome I actually want no it's not and I'm not saying to like bypass your feelings and don't feel don't ever be angry or people are like so you
saying it's not okay to feel the negative things no absolutely feel it like you just said play it up feel it do it what what's that going to give you and then let it simmer down there's research that shows really our emotions are fleeting they only last seconds but what makes it last
longer is the story we attach to it MH that's why people end up being angry for days or couples fight over something for days and then they finally resolve it 3 days later I think there's this thing that reminds us that we're alive and that we're human in that we want to relive
that emotion over and over again because it's just uh and and my my my wife has said this to me I just want you to be angry for a minute because I want to see that behind the robot there's a human in there that cares about this kind of stuff I say I
care about this deeply and when I go negative and when you see it it will be the most horrifying thing that you see and you not want that at all but if you want to I will let the dragon out and I'm totally in control of the Dragon but here we go and
of course I show it to her and she's then has tears of joy I'm like this is the strangest response I've ever seen me being unreasonable irrational emotional angry is what you wanted to see because you just wanted to know if I care but I care a lot I just choose not to
express it in negative ways and so I think for people it's it's my theory there that that story of abandonment it's not a good story it's not one that lifts us up it's definitely not one that empowers us but just reminds us we're hum so we relive it over and over again and
I I find this with my children too so we we used to sit around and tell stories about my childhood and it was pretty rough I'm not going to lie pretty rough stories of Abandonment people forgetting about me and just feeling like lost and alone and my sons both are like oh Dad
what a child to tell us more like we love this they're like eating popcorn in my misery they don't need TV they have you yeah I'm just telling them like like oh my God how could grandma do this to you why would she do that I'm like Grandma did the best that she
could with the information she had and she just didn't know she didn't know now I get to have fun telling those stories but there wasn't fun when I was living it but I find that my children don't want to hear stories about success and overcoming Triumph they want to hear the dark sad
stories and I think it's because they feel it in here and it reminds them that they're alive and Dad's a human being he's not a robot yes I I mean I'm like your kids like I love sad movies like dramas what's wrong with you guys oh it's just it but it it speaks
to what you're saying like I want to watch like my my wife loves comedy and stuff like that and she's like why do you want to watch this sad movie like are you kidding me this person's going to like this is why we watching this you know it doesn't end well but I
think there's just something like you're speaking to that's like wow they survived that or wow they didn't right and how lucky am I right right so yeah I think you're on to something there's a a friend that we went on a trip with recently this person's an intellectual extremely like well read can
quote different things I'm like oh my God the brain on this person they just re books for fun like they're eating potato chips and we were just having a conversation without the person in in in the room it's just saying like yeah I don't think this person knows how to lie and we're
all looking at each other and I said that I'm like it it just doesn't feel like they could lie because it doesn't make any sense and then we joked because a person's so robotic it would be inefficient to tell a lie it's like what is the point of telling lies you know it's
kind of like how they operate yeah so we kind of think like that you know robotic people people who are very intellectual are optimized for op like optimized for positive outcomes what is the point of not telling them the truth and it's just it's hilarious so for me it's like yeah I'm kind
of like a robot deliberately and so the the shock and surprise to a lot of people is when they meet me outside of the context of a teaching environment they're like oh my God you smile a lot and you're a lot more Charming than I thought you're a weird mother effer you know
you're joking around and and you do goofy weird things that only adolescents do I'm like yeah cuz I'm human and in the context of teaching or workshopping or doing a serious role playay where do I bring that out you know yeah it doesn't fit it doesn't fit it doesn't fit why would I
bring it out it's just like would be a non Seer it would just be like left field bro you know context that kind of stuff but you know if you're out on a fishing trip with me in a boat it's going to get fun and you pulling your fish you know I'm like
okay now Bonk the fish in the head this the next step and like no not like that you you'll see emotion from me because in the context of the boat that makes perfect sense yeah because I think you know when you're teaching you're really like tunnel visioned in and you're trying to give
this person as much value as possible for what they're trying to learn or where they're at right and so you kind of remove all the other stuffs to make room for for that unless it's necessary unless it's necessary yeah which I do do as well but there's not often times when that's appropriate
or is there clones of Chris and there's teacher Chris and then there's other Chris other chis well you know I used to teach at Art Center and it's a 14we class for about 8 to 12 students at a time and we'd sit in this really big room it's a perfect room because all
the walls are whiteboards and I could draw on every single wall right and they they kind of sit in the center and oftentimes we put up our work we critique and in that moment I'm like you guys are a little uptight here uh why did you draw this thing I would draw something
inappropriate around there like that's what it looks like to me and then everyone like oh my God did did did the teacher just do that I'm like yeah because that's kind of what you presented to us right now I'm just saying what everybody's thinking but is too afraid to say and I I
will do really weird goofy things with them so that they can break out of this very tightly contain this tight container that they put themselves in and then there it's very appropriate for me to get weird and wacky absolutely if anything you're enhancing their learning environment because they're relaxing that's what I tell
myself at night you are you are we're both delusional through years of trauma therapy you know it's like oh my God I can't believe the teach said that about my work no it really it disarms people and I think that's one of the things that you know when I I do the same
things Chris like I mean come on I'm going to high to not high school I'm sorry uh college students 18 19 years old I'm like let's talk about let's talk about trust let's talk about betrayal in relationships and they're all posturing for each other so yeah like I got to bring something something
silly something good yeah of course you have to show them that you can be this way exactly like it's okay to be yourself it's okay to show up imperfectly it's okay to say the wrong thing it's okay so I think that's just kind of what you're you're doing in those in those moments
and you're like you said it's not um you're not a robot but you're picking and choosing when is it efficient and appropriate to have those versions come out let's look at the three things you said okay uh but your core wound vulnerability unworthiness and betrayal I'm trying to be mindful time I don't
want this to be a 45h hour podcast so which one of those things do you think would be helpful for people to understand and unpack and we'll use you as an example here um I think I feel like vulnerability is a pretty universal one that a lot of people struggle with you know
for me I did not know I did not realize this but one I grew up in a household where we didn't talk about feelings so vulnerability was not a thing we did not do that it was like you had to kind of fight to be heard and as the middle child I had
to fight to be seen middle child is I had to fight to be seen and so in while it's happening to us when the core wound is happening you don't know what's happening right and now it's only in reflection when you look back you're like oh yeah I was fighting to be seen
but I really think where I started to struggle with vulnerability it started there in my household where we didn't express feelings openly you had to be um and when there was conflict we didn't talk about it you just assumed everybody was sorry and would behave normally the next day but I think for
me in particular and this is for anybody who feels other but being a queer person in the 90s and early 2000s I felt like I had was performing all the time right and vulnerability is really you know us being um authentic us being our our true self I didn't feel like it could
ever be my true self because I was so scared of being rejected and that's what vulnerability is we're hiding who we are or we uh pieces of who we are to be accepted by the group and so I did that forever all through my teenage years then into my early 20s and I
was like and I grew up in Orange County which is rather conservative and so I did not realize the posturing that became so normal in the switch switching like you know how we code switch with our words i' code switch in other ways to to blend in you know and i' like okay
well uh how you know what how can I behave to be accepted in the group and it's not just with my sexual orientation but other ways like being an athlete you had to be tough if I was hurt I sucked it up coach didn't accept that it was the playoffs you better you
know suck it up and unless something is broken like keep going right so there's all these ways that we posture to be accepted as human beings and I feel like this is why it's a core wound that's so vital but the fear of vulnerability I think really stems from not being accepted you
know in society and being othered and there's so many other things you people could talk about race you could talk about a disability that you have I mean there's so many other things um and I think that was the hardest part just growing up and always having to hide some piece of me
was the biggest wound for me and then to get in this work where I'm like let's talkop you I have to be my authentic self like I remember the first time I was teaching I was like 23 years old teaching at the University and I was like do I come out to my
students do I just wait for the topic to happen do I am I closeting myself if I do that am I not being authentic it was a really weird thing to think about and this again can be substituted for things that we share and don't share you know there's so many things that
we don't share and disclose with people and then when there's moments there's those like sliding door moments of this is an opportunity where I could share something with Chris but I'm scared he's not going to accept me if I if I share this so there was always this big fear of not but
really what it comes down to for everybody is if we don't accept those parts of us of course we're going to fear that other people won't but the moment I started really accepting all of my different differences and being like and if I share something with this person and they reject me guess
what they're not for me and then I was okay with releasing them yeah so it was it was a big lesson but I think the vulnerability piece is when you can learn to be really comfortable with who you are nothing really can stop you because you're not going to fear anything really you're
breaking some stereotypes I believe even though your dad is whsh it seems like this a very non-latin family if I think of Latin fames it's like emotions and talking about this and and and it's all there like I put aside the ma cheebo thing um because guys tend to hold back feelings for
judgment or fear of Judgment of being not manly enough and I get that but what you guys would just like sweep feelings under the rug like there would be a big fight oh yeah and this is the thing kind of weird thing of how I grew up my parents were together but it
felt like they were divorced because my mom worked graveyard and my dad wor like 8 to 5 so there was always only one parent home it was really interesting to grow up like that except on the weekend they'd both be home but there would be these blowout fights me and my siblings the
three of us one parent trying to manage all that craziness right we would fight there'd be emotion there's definitely that that Hispanic siblings my my sister and my dad me and my my fighting about my dumb crap that family one thing I I don't know I I haven't been in many of those
fights so what are you guys fighting about like I remember my sister was in high school and she'd fight to stay out later right okay and then Cur things yeah and then I would be like my brother and I are four years apart so if I'm like eight years old he's four I
don't want anything to do with him and I'm trying to play I'm like get out of here and we' physically fight right and my dad is just like you guys are all getting on my last nerve all of you of course right and then like other things uh I remember other more serious
things like uh fighting over money like there's not enough money there's a lot of scarcity in my house and so well who's fighting over it my parents or me say saying like you shouldn't spend money on this no like I I played Sports a lot so guess what sports cost money right right
sure and my dad would I remember my my dad bless him he's he's working on it still okay would be like oh my God this is so expensive like the J you know the J and I'm a kid I'm like right okay but you put me in this sport right right what do
you want me to do what do you you get a job at four okay yeah and so I just remember there's all this projecting of emotion but we never actually apologized or talked about hey that wasn't right I shouldn't have done that it was just like he'd buy me something and be like
here you go like that was his way of saying sorry the peace offering yes there you go okay I get it so in in many immigrant cultures uh feelings are a sign of weakness predominantly for men sometimes for women as we we're finding out and this idea of you hiding who you are
when when did you come out to your parents not till I was like 19 or 20 is this like in college yeah I was already in college um probably my oh you know cuz I started college early I started at 17 um it was probably like my third year of college yeah yeah
H and what made you decide to come out to them and how did they respond it was so another uh traumatic breakup not as traumatic as what I told you but a bad breakup and it would just be kind of weird like all of a sudden this person was around now they're just
not around you guys just aren't a friend now disappears out of your life exactly so it's kind of like weird like where so and so and I would lie and then I was giving me a lot of anxiety to just Li and I was out with everybody else except my family I was
live literally living a double life and I remember I'll never forget kudos to my mom my mom was like in the kitchen and I just like had to pump myself up and she already knew parents know like when you're about to bring something they suspect they suspect they just don't want to have
that conversation but they suspect they're like [ __ ] some some bomb's about to be dropped know we know it's coming and it is like denial so I came and I just said hey Mom me and so and so broke up and then I just started crying and I never cried in front
of my parents ever right cuz feelings are weakness exactly and so I it was like all this pent up tears right came out and my mom is such a g she just took a breath and she was like well you know what honey she's an effing idiot and I was like yes Mom
she did a classic mom thing she did yeah I get it and she just like let the other part slip right by it's like yeah Y and then with my Dad we never had a conversation about it because I don't know I'm assuming my mom told him something but he never approached me
about it he never said anything but my dad's always been super supportive and very liberal and very open so I never suspected that like he would abandon me but there's always that fear even me my parents loved me my I had a very loving family um but you still wonder is this the
thing thing that's the exception okay yeah so I see two of these core wounds attached your fear of vulnerability of revealing who you are is connected to your fear of Abandonment because if I show up as myself does that mean I'm no longer in your life and you'll never accept me again you're
a pro see hey I can do this now I I want to land the plane on this you're a mind mindfulness Communications coach how are you going to help me to transform oo okay what what is the outcome of working with you what do I who do I become what do you get
from working with me you know I would say that the biggest thing I do for people is I really help them because we're removing old beliefs and we're removing emotional patterns these things are invisible right so I help people remove that and typically what happens the transformation that people report is after we
remove that they feel more one empowered confident and just really back to their authentic selves like they're like I don't feel like I'm playing I'm playing um a part anymore that I'm not doing things to appease I'm not playing the role anymore now I get to just kind of like breathe and so
I would say the transformation I mean as cheesy as it sounds is they're able to communicate authentically and really just be who they want to be without all the pressures of what's this what's my mom going to think what's my brother going to think what's it they get plugged back into themselves without
all the junk that they've collected along the way so cheesy so cheesy so cheesy I'm just kidding I don't know why you always say that is cheesy I'm try I don't know well don't say that you framed it as cheesy now I'm thinking cheese okay no cheese so I think if I may
use slightly different words to describe the benefit of working with someone like you is have you ever felt like you've been caring around this invisible weight all of your life the weight of being somebody that you're not supposed to be and hiding in plain sight so I imagine that then all a sudden
you can become unburdened and you didn't realize this whole time that your posture is weird and you've never stood up fully straight erect and now free from that that burden unencumbered by it you're lighter in every essence of the word you're lighter and you're more able to express who you are to be
more present in the moment and to have stronger relationships with people that you care and this could be your staff it could be um your manager your boss your partner in life or the people that you show up for to coach and to teach and to facilitate or whatever it is that you
do is that an okay way to say it that's perfect that's actually my elevator pitch you help me create years ago when I said I teach people to mindfully communicate and manage their emotions so they can have deeper connections with themselves and others that a perfect way to end this conversation Melanie I
know we've done this dance for a while and I'm glad that we're having this conversation now perhaps the way that the Universe Works to get a little woo I wasn't ready to have this conversation with you until this very moment in time so we're exactly where we need to be at the moment
in which we're supposed to be in it so before we get out of here um I I want to ask you if people want to get in touch with you where do they go they can go to Mindless mindful.org [Music]
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“You can't think greater than how you feel.”
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