Break the Identity Trap: Surrendering Control and Remembering Your True Self with Peter Kennedy

0:01Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one marketing platform. Today, we'll be breaking down how to break the identity gap, surrendering control, and remembering your true self. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Peter Kennedy in the EO Fire Studios. Peter is a father of five, entrepreneur, spiritual seeker, and author of The Remembering. Once driven by a relentless pursuit of success, culminating in the$140 million exit of his tech startup, his awakening came not from achievement, but from surrender.

0:36Today, he is a co-founder of Evolve Well, Inc., a conscious technology company redefining growth from the inside out. And today, we'll talk about the trap of identity, fear versus love, values in action, why healing isn't found in the mind, the sacred invitation, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Peter and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software, say hello to our featured partner, HighLevel, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today.

1:19Whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you stay ahead of the pack. Right now, get the business guide, Demystifying AI, for free at netsuite.com slash fire. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash fire. Peter, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Yeah, thanks for having me. I think that most people think that you have to kill yourself in order to be successful. And there is a path where you don't need to destroy yourself with your time and all your energy in order to be successful.

1:59Fire Nation, a great start with a great theme to what's going to be a great episode. And Peter, I want you to take us to the jungles of Brazil. Share the story of the sweat lodge, the Temescal that broke you down, and how that moment became the doorway into both surrender and transformation. Yeah. Well, before I entered into the sweat lodge in the jungles of Brazil, I was running a company and it was a very successful company. We had offices all around the world. And I had been living my life as the master of the universe. If something was going to happen, I was going to make it happen. And I was gripping onto control with white knuckled intensity.

2:42And I found myself in the jungles of Brazil in a Temescal, which is a sweat lodge, which is very different than Asana. This is painful and hot, like hotter than you can ever imagine. And I had reached my breaking point where I thought I was going to die. And at some point, I lost consciousness or something happened. And I had a spiritual experience. I was no longer in the Temescal. I was in this open field surrounded by stars. And I looked up in the distance and I I saw a Native American walking on a horse towards me. And when he got to me, he looked at me and he said, fear is worse than death.

3:21And that is why I fear no death. And at that point, I saw my entire life flash before me. How fear had run the entire show. Fear of not being successful. Fear of having my children not reach their full potential. Just fear of everything. And all my decisions were based on that fear. And it was that moment of spiritual awakening that I realized that I'm not following my true passion and my true voice, my inner higher self. And that was the breaking point for me. And that set me on a journey of self-discovery that would transform how I viewed the world. And listen, not to get too dramatic, because I know the percentage is minute, but I mean, sweat lodges can be incredibly dangerous.

4:05I mean, there have been people who have perished before, correct? Yes, definitely. And this was in the jungles of Brazil. We had spent the day clearing the forest for building the Temescal ourselves. And then you cover it in thick wool blankets. And every 30 minutes, we open the door and they bring in more molten hot stones that had been in a fire for like 12 hours. and you know where a sauna might you know help you evaporate the sweat this a temescal just suffocate you under a layer of just you know moisture and it's someone passed out during the ceremony and you know and there was no like let's get him out of here they just poured water on water on him and they sat him back up and and it continued and i'm like oh my god these people are crazy.

4:51That is intense. But listen, sometimes it takes an intense moment, an intense experience to have the kind of transformation that you're talking about. Because I want to talk next, Peter, about the trap of identity. I mean, entrepreneurs, and I can speak, you know, from firsthand experience, I mean, we love building things. But sometimes the thing we build is a persona that ends up trapping us. So how did your own identity as this quote unquote successful entrepreneur actually become a prison and what fears were really driving you? Yeah, definitely. I mean, when I was growing up, I had a grandfather who was very successful.

5:26He was a great businessman. And when I was a little kid, you know, my friends wanted to be professional athletes and, you know, superstars. I wanted to be an international business person. I mean, it was just crazy, but that's what I wanted to be. And so I tied all my self-worth and self-love into this idea and identity of being successful through business. And as I got older and older, and as my company, Tagger Media, became more and more successful, that identity took over. And it got to the point where if that didn't become successful, who would I be? That identity that I created my entire life would have just crumbled, and I would have crumbled with it.

6:03And so that's the trap of identity. Through our lives, we create identities, whether it's a devoted father or a nice, amazing husband or a business person, whatever that is. That identity keeps us stuck because in order to be successful within that identity, we have to accomplish a couple of things. So a successful business person has to be successful. Well, what if success isn't the end goal? What if the journey of discovering yourself is the end goal? So, you know, the trap of identity is it's not a fixed destination. It's something that we want to go into, but then you want to move beyond. And I found that in my life, you know, there's there's so many things I had passions for.

6:44But, you know, I couldn't do those things because, oh, that would be weird if I did that. Or, you know, a dad couldn't do that or whatever it is. And that kept me limited. And once you move beyond these identities, then the world is your oyster. and you can be and do anything you want and really find that ikigai, your passion, where you can make money, what the world needs. It all kind of comes together and that's where you can really explode. Now, we have talked a little bit about fear today, but I wanna talk now about fear versus love, the two lenses of decision-making. So you have a simple, but let's be honest, powerful framework.

7:23I mean, we're either deciding from fear or from love. So break this down for Fire Nation. How has this shifted the way that you lead, that you parent, that you love? Yes. So it's as simple as that. Are the decisions I'm making in life based out of fear or love? So what is a decision based out of fear? Well, I'm going to go into this business meeting and I am so afraid that this company is not going to become a client. That's going to change the way I interact with them, how I talk to them. It actually changes the physiology of your body, right? Because when you're coming from fear, you're coming from a place of fight or flight.

7:57When that happens, all the energy goes to your hind brain. That's your survival brain. And the creativity brain just shuts down. And we see this a lot in our lives where if we were in a big crowd right now and I said, hey, tell me a joke, the best joke in the world. You can't even think of one, right? Because all your energy has gone to this survival fight or flight. Right. And so when we focus on making decisions out of love, that's called abundance. When we make decisions out of fear, that's called lack. So I am constantly looking at every decision I'm making. Is it coming from abundance or is it coming from lack?

8:33So even if you take your daughter to the mall, for example, and you want to buy her something nice, is that decision based out of fear or love? Fear would be I want to make sure that she knows I love her. And I'm afraid that she's not going to know that unless I do this, you know, act, which might seem like a loving act, but it's from fear. Verse, I'm just so in love with this child and I don't care what she thinks because I know that I love her and I know that she knows that I love her. And so it's out of abundance. And so that completely changed everything I do in my life, but also in business.

9:09It's so crucial. I walk into every meeting and, you know, I'm there to service these people. If I can help their business, that's great. If I can't, I don't really care because there's plenty of customers. I don't need them. And so it's changed the way that I've interacted with people, how I approach meetings and my business as a whole. Because listen, I can do as much as I possibly can to make my business successful, but ultimately it's not up to me. And Fire Nation, I do love just diving deep on that scarcity versus abundance mindset. Like, which one are you living? It's time to think about that on a decision-to-decision day-to-day basis.

9:50And we have so much more to talk about, values in action, why healing isn't found in the mind, and so much more when we get back from thinking our sponsors. Have you ever considered all the time we spend looking for things, whether it's the perfect gift for a loved one or a parking spot at the baseball fields? Imagine all the time you'd save if you could find it right away. While you may never instantly find these things, if you're hiring, you can find qualified candidates right away, time and time again, with ZipRecruiter. And today, you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com. ZipRecruiter is powerful matching technology.

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12:54This isn't another bolted-on tool. It's AI built into the system that runs your business. If my business was in need of a platform like this, NestSuite is what I'd use. Whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you stay ahead of the pack. And right now you can get the business guide, Demystifying AI, free at netsuite.com slash fire. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash fire. netsuite.com slash fire. Peter, we're back. And as I kind of shared before the break, I want to talk next about values in action. I mean, you say that values aren't what you say, they're what you do.

13:30So how can entrepreneurs stop preaching values and starts living them? And then why does this distinction matter so much specifically for leaders? Yeah, so I can understand your values by looking at your behavior, okay? So if you say, listen, I hate my job. My job's so horrible. Yet you're staying in that job. Well, your value is not to have a job that you really enjoy. Your value is making a certain amount of money that's gonna support a lifestyle, which is totally fine, no problem at all. But be very clear that what your values are. So if you make a list of your values and you make a list of your behaviors, then you can see, okay, well, I want to go to the gym every morning, but I sleep until noon.

14:16Okay. In order to change your value, you have to change your behavior. And that's really what it comes down to. I think so many people, they think that their values are X, Y, and Z. But when you look at their behaviors, it's completely different. So you either get comfortable with the values that you have, or you change the behavior to match the values that you want to have. Fire Nation, powerful words. And I want to move into why healing isn't actually found in the mind, because I think a lot of people believe that is the case. I mean, transformation doesn't happen in a spreadsheet or even in our heads.

14:52So share how somatic therapy, emotional release, and even psychedelic ceremonies have helped you integrate the parts of yourself that you had actually exiled. Yeah, definitely. I mean, listen, I am a person who lives in my mind, as most of us do, right? And if I am in a situation where I'm not happy, or, you know, I want to change, I go deep, and I try to think my way out of that situation. And what that does is it actually drives me deeper into that feeling into that situation. And it wasn't until I started working with this amazing therapist, Conchetta Trotsky, who is a somatic therapist. And somatic means in the body.

15:35And what happens is when you have experiences in your life, whether it's trauma or just any experience at all, you're actually storing that into your body, into different parts of your body. And, you know, my entire life was kind of driven by this part of me, which I call the man. It's that part that just drives me. It's, you know, just constantly pushing me to be bigger and better and, you know, always chasing kind of after this hamster wheel. And it was interesting. My wife and I had been married for 20 some years and she had never seen me cry once because every time something happened, the man's energy would just kind of come in and I would go numb.

16:14I would feel absolutely nothing. And it wasn't until a psychedelic experience, a ceremony that I had where after taking psilocybin mushrooms, I started to purge. And the purge is not necessarily throwing up. My purging was ab contractions. And it was all around my solar plexus, kind of above your abs. It's your center of power. And I had these like intense, it looked like an exorcism. I had this intense um you know ab contractions for like an hour and once that was done once i broke down that that stored area of you know we'll call it trauma call it whatever you want then i was able to actually have a conversation with the man this this part of me and he actually came to me and we we had conversations and we went through my entire life and saw how you know i i had created him um which was which was fascinating but it was that moment where i realized oh yeah in order to to grow to really expand myself, it's not getting deeper into my mind.

17:15It's getting out of my mind and into my body. And that's what I do. Every somatic therapist I work with or session that we have, eyes closed, 45 minutes, deep dive into my body, looking for areas of tension, discomfort, pain, and then going into those areas and just talking to it. What do you need? What's going on in there? And you're really removing that mind from it and you're really feeling into it. Fire Nation, it's just important to be able to understand what Peter's saying, what he's been through, how he's experienced that because maybe there's somebody out there listening right now who's in need of a similar transformation, which kind of leads us to the sacred invitation.

17:57And Peter, I want to land this plane. What is your message for Fire Nation, for these entrepreneurs who are chasing success to feel worthy. How do we step off this hamster wheel and come home to who we really are? Yeah, it's a great question. You know, listen, I thought I was chasing success. I was running from the fear of not being successful, you know, not being great enough. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with chasing after success. you should. It's great. But if you spend the time to truly understand what are you chasing and why are you chasing that? I thought I was chasing just success and just money.

18:40The reality was I was chasing self-worth and self-love. And I didn't know it until I finally got the success. When I made the fortune, the next day I became super miserable and depressed because I realized that what I was chasing wasn't that. It was self-worth. And when I didn't get it when the sale happened, I became even more depressed, right? And so take the time, understand what you're chasing. And listen, no one's gonna take your life lessons from you. The purpose of why we're on this planet is to learn your life lessons. And so keep charging at it. But if there's that voice in your head that says, maybe there's something different here, start tuning into that.

19:21And that's your intuition, that's your highest self. So for me, it's really a journey of tuning into my intuition because, you know, once you start to do that, then you start to flow into the really the flow of the universe. And it's a pretty remarkable process. It does sound like a remarkable process in Fire Nation. If you're open to that, the change can be waiting for you as well. So, Peter, what's your call to action? What do you want Fire Nation to do as a next step? How do they connect with you? How do they learn more? You can go to my website, which is evolveweird.com. And I call it evolve weird because, you know, the process of transformation is never a straight line.

19:59And when you look back, you always say, man, that's so strange how it all happened. There you can find all my socials. I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter. I recently wrote a book called The Remembering, A Journey Back to Self. And it's a combination of my spiritual experiences, psychedelic ceremonies, but really the story of my business and how it started and how it became successful, but also the realizations and the life lessons I learned in that process. So you can check that out on Amazon as well. Fire Nation, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with PK and JLD today, so keep up that heat.

20:41And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Just type Peter in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. And Peter, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute your brother and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it, man. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Peter for sponsoring today's episode. and Fire Nation. Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment.

21:15I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white-label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, HighLevel, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today.

21:55Whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you stay ahead of the pack. Right now, get the business guide, Demystifying AI for free at netsuite.com slash fire. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash fire.