Cory Allen on how you create a brave new you EP 508

27:02And I was like, yeah, it's crazy to think about these people that reach out to me. It was what a generation, like they generated so much direction and goodness in my life by suggesting that to me. And one of the people on the call was like, I was one of those people that emailed you 12 years ago and told you to talk about customer retention now, but I mean, but joking aside, I really appreciate the fact that someone is still following along after all that time. But yeah, so now is the way it was what to me, and this came out in 2019. So I wrote it the year prior to that. If we go back six years ago at this point, thinking about where we were in society, where the ideas of presence and mindfulness and meditation and things of that nature were, there wasn't a great resource for this current generation to understand these things in a way that not only can they really hear it, but also deals with the modern issues that we're dealing with today.

28:04There's a lot of great books, people like who actually never read Eckhart Tolle until about a year ago, two years ago. But a lot of books, there's Ram Dass and Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. And the list goes on, John Kabat-Zinn, all these important people who brought that this type of stuff to the mainstream in America. But the thing is, these people are amazing, but they're also all in their 70s and 80s right now. the language in their work and stuff like that might not be connecting with some of the current issues and some of the current people who are in their twenties and thirties. And so I wrote, and again, I love all those people that I was just, just to say, trying to bring a modern view on that stuff to a younger generation.

28:51And so that was what, that was the way it was really, was talking about introducing mindfulness and some things like CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, just giving a person the ability to zoom out and to observe their mind and to be more present and intentional in their life. Introducing that to a younger audience and then talking about things like how do we deal with technology? How do we deal with smartphones, social media, the compression of time that we're all trying to fight against now? Yeah, that was my first attempt and I'm very grateful to have that out in the world and all the people it's reached and just all of the incredible messages I've gotten from people over the years that have read it.

29:32Yeah, and I wanted to use this to just read something to you. My sister has recently passed away, and she was a Buddhist, very much involved in mindfulness. And during her ceremony, a Buddhist priest read the loving kindness scripture. And I just wanted to read the last paragraph. And it says, standing or walking, sitting or lying down during all one's waking hours, let one cherish the thought that this way of living is the best in the world, meaning love and kindness, abandoning vain discussion, having a clear vision, freed from sense appetites, one who realizes the way will never again know rebirth in the cycle of creation of suffering for ourselves or for others.

30:16What does that passage mean to you? And what is the importance of love and kindness right now in the world that we live in. Yeah, that's a beautiful, I mean, whoever read or wrote that really knocked it out of the park. Yeah, so ultimately what it means is it's talking about, for anyone that's not familiar, a term called loving kindness, which is hyphenated, loving kindness. So it becomes one word. And that is referring to metta, which is M-E-T-A. Metta is a term in Buddhism, which means essentially it's like a kind of love. It's compassion. It's sending goodwill and positivity and what would be called skillful wholesomeness.

30:56And by skillfulness, that means the decisions you're making in life, like that passage alluded to. If you feel the impulse, and this is whenever that passage he described, the sense appetite, which I love that was in there because it's a huge part of it. And it's generally a little bit too esoteric or technical for people to hear. the sense appetite. He's talking about the arising of your desire to say something negative, to say something judgmental, to do something that's going to make your mind less clear. And in that regard, it could be overeating, over-drinking, distraction, believing and falling into delusion, which those are the three poisons in Buddhism is anger, desire, and delusion.

31:44And And by delusion, they mean making assumptions about reality so that you're getting further away from the essence of what's real. Living in the story in your mind and acting as if that's true would be another way to say that. So in that passage, he's saying, you'll find, he mentioned the freedom from suffering and non-rebirth. So he's saying basically, if you are present and clear-minded, you're intentional about not spreading harm to yourself, to others. And that's the skillfulness. And then what will happen is that through doing that, you will, and his words would be, you stop accumulating negative karma, which is how you're reborn in Buddhism.

32:32And then you'll be free from suffering for eternity, which means basically by doing that consistently, you would work off the inherited karma that you had on your current rebirth and then be able to be liberated in what's called deliverance, which is like freedom from the human realm of suffering. It's a beautiful passage and things like that, like I've studied Buddhism my, pretty much my entire life now at this point. And I'm, I would say I'm like a lazy academic. And one of the things, but I also, I'm not a Buddhist, but one of the things that I would say is, and I always try to do in my work, but also I would do with stuff like this.

33:13This is a beautiful idea. What can we do with that? What do we do with that? How can we take this beautiful passage and these ideas and the idea of loving kindness? Of course, again, to make it even more clear, the root of what he was talking about was focusing on this loving kindness, on this meta of intentionally in your daily life, trying to be as compassionate and to give as much warmth and slowness and peacefulness to everyone you encounter and yourself consistently as much as you can. Another move that burns off karma. And yeah, so I look at all that and I say, what can we do with that? What do we actually do?

33:55How can we, after we forget that sentence and we forget the emotion that arose inside of us, whenever we heard that sentence and the poetry of it becomes not as enamoring and bedazzling as it was at first. and we're back in the office again, and we're back on Mopac again. John says, I know you're, or I should say 35. I said, I know you've lived in Austin. They're both bad. It's all bad. So what do we do with this, right? What do we do with this after this passage? Focus on that essence of paying attention to your body, paying attention to your mind. Whenever you see yourself getting wrapped up, intense, acting on autopilot, acting compulsively, when you feel the urge to be aggressive towards someone or yourself, when you feel the urge to go into a negative way of talking, just notice that material arising.

34:50Notice that discord, the dissonance feeling arising in your body and your mind. And use your awareness of that arising feeling to do something, also called Buddhism, turn poison into medicine. Notice that feeling and then use your presence to release it and to choose a different action, choose an action of kindness and compassion that moment instead of the action of aggression and destructfulness. That's what we can take with that from away from that lesson and really move it into our lives of just having an eye out for those dissonant, harmful feelings and impulses that arise in us and then using our awareness to change it in the present to create more of that love and kindness, more peacefulness and more harmony and equanimity in the world.

35:43Well, man, what a beautiful answer that was to that question I just came up with based on the flow of this interview. And something you brought up there is something, is a key aspect of Brave New You and something we're going to be discussing throughout the rest of the episode, which is the whole lens that I do the podcast through, which is the power of living intentionally. I think it's important as people get to know you better. I always like to get different people's definitions of intentionality. What does that word mean to you? Love that. Yeah. To me, it means, I think I've talked about it a good deal so far.

36:28Ultimately, it means being present and the choices that you're making are rooted in awareness and mental clarity. It's not living in a reactive way in life, not drifting in your life on autopilot, but taking the time to slow things down and to be very clear on what you're doing and saying and who you are becoming in each moment.

36:59Well, I love that because I think what we end up doing is we are so concerned at times about the output that we're not into the moment as we should be on the inputs that are ultimately going to result in whatever goal or vision that we have for our future life. So to me, being intentional is really working on those inputs that end up culminating in the life that you want to have. So that passion that I talk about really reminds me of what you were just talking about in that passage of love and kindness, where you're talking about this rebirth. And when I read Brave New You, that idea of having the opportunity to have a rebirth of creating whatever version of ourselves we want really came through the entire book.

38:00But you started out in the opening chapter about talking about the importance of being open minded as a starting point for transformation. transformation. Can you share an instance maybe either from your own life or someone who you've had on the podcast or mentored where being open-minded led to a significant breakthrough? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned someone I've mentored. Yeah. There was this person that was looking to start this, just professionally looking to start a jewelry company, like a fine jewelry company and they were had the idea of a distributor that would have been very high level and really helped their business grow 10x not only just in cash but also in terms of visibility and having some social proof and they were hesitant and just had this story in their mind of well they won't want to talk to me it's like I and I met some like a representative of this company at the trade show but they won't want to talk to me because I don't have enough history or sales or whatever to, or connections to back it up.

39:14And I remember saying is where are the, where's the proof of that? You don't know how this person is going to receive or think about the work that you're creating, the jewelry that you're creating. So you've got this story in your mind where you're telling yourself and making this assumption about what's going to happen. That's completely based on nothing. So let's try and reset this moment. Let's look at what's actually happening right now is that you have a person that you know at a company that is an end to the goal that you're looking for. This is a good situation, not a bad situation where you're just, you've got this end like, oh, well, she, I know her, but she hates me.

39:57It's like, no, let's look at this clearly. And now let's approach this from a different perspective. What if instead of you suggesting that you have a meeting with her in the company, what if her saying, no, this isn't going to work because I don't like what you're doing. What if you did that? And they said, I would love that because I've seen some of your stuff. It's incredible. Let's talk further. So what if that was the story that was going to unfold? And this person I was mentoring said, okay, I said, look at it and lower the stakes. It's just look at this as an experiment. Just go try this.

40:31Go talk to them. Just relax about it. It's all just give it a shot. See what happens. So she did. Of course, they loved her because she's an amazing person. And now she's on the site. Her business has grown 10 times. And it's all thanks to being open-minded, to recognizing the story that she was telling herself, noticing that it was just an assumption. It was purely imaginary. being able to reset that and approach her goal with another perspective. And then through, this is a kind of a, this is a thread that goes through the book too, is that through that simple process of recognizing the story that was in your mind, how you're allowing your negative thinking habits to limit you, breaking that up, disrupting that process, and then choosing a new action in itself builds the self-trust that allows you to then move into those opportunities with this level of confidence and bravery or belief that you might not have had before.

41:34Man, what a fantastic answer. As you were crafting this book and I was reading it, you absolutely used a ton of insights from your podcast, from your community to shape the book. Was there anything as you were doing your research that you found most surprising or unexpected about why people struggle to make positive change in their lives? Yeah, it's the most surprising thing that I found was that everyone has the same, they have this emotional feeling and they have this vision of how things could be better. And these don't have to be big things. They can be. They can also be small things. but they go, if I could just do this, I'd feel like I was thriving.

42:25And they have the emotion, the drive, the inspiration to want to make that happen, but they feel they can't quite find the road that will take them from where they are now to where they want to be. And ultimately, that issue, that barrier, that conflict, is what we were just talking about with this person I was mentoring. It's a system of behavioral thoughts that is preventing someone from taking action. And that's the resistance that's holding people back. And it's just amazing to me that so many people, seems those almost everyone, is being held back by something that's completely imaginary.

43:12Something that just exists in their mind. the way that they've positioned reality in their mind is the only barrier that's keeping them from thriving. And so that was why one of the big things in this book is I thought, you know what, let's break that apart. Let's break that barrier. Let's create a highway to get a person from where they are to where they want to be. Yeah, I love it. And if you have read my book, Passion Struck, there is so much that overlaps between the wisdom that Corey is sharing and what I was trying to convey in the book. So the two complement each other extremely well. And in chapter two of his book, Corey does a real big deep dive into what he was just talking about.

43:58And that is how our assumptions trap us in our past. So I think you've given a good teaser for it. I don't want to go more into it, but you got a whole chapter that covers it. So one thing I do, and I'm sure you have to do it as well, is I'm on the socials. I shouldn't say I. A person from my team is on the socials every day posting content. And occasionally I'm doing it as well, depending on what message I want to get out there. But one ordinary day, just like any other, you happen to be creating an Instagram post. And it read, reframing your perspective is a powerful move. When you feel stuck or resistant, pause and look for the upside.

44:39Shifting your thinking from I have to do this to I get to do this engages curiosity. This turns every experience into a chance for growth, wisdom, and understanding. Corey, that post received an unexpected and overwhelming reception. And I think it's one of those things like you hear from recording artists like you are, that sometimes the least expectant song that you put out there is the one that hits. I remember for Third Eye Blind, Semi-Charmed Life was something the band never thought would have ever become a hit because of the subject matter it covers. However, your post really hit a core with so many people.

45:19Why do you think its core message on the importance of looking at life with fresh eyes was so impactful for so many people? Yeah, I mean, first of all, I love that example you gave music. One of them that hits me, I always think about is Paranoid by Black Sabbath. That was one where they literally, the label said, you have to turn over eight songs or something like that, or how many of it was for the album. And they had five minutes, 10 minutes in the studio, and they wrote it in literally five minutes and recorded it in one take. And we're like, all right, that's good. And then they became one of the best selling songs ever in history.

45:57Yeah, I love that. That's a good, that's a whole other thing I'd love for us to talk about because it's so interesting. But yeah, no, the reason why that quote, I think, hit people so hard is because it opened the door to this perspective shift that we've been covering throughout this podcast. We have this narrative in our minds about how things are going, what things mean, like what's possible. The framing of things that we experience and our perspective in which we engage with them, it changes our experience of everything. For example, if you're going, oh man, I have to go unload the dishwasher.

46:35This is, I don't like this. It's annoying. I don't want to do it right now. You're just putting so much onto the experience before actually experiencing it whatsoever. And so it's going to be unpleasant. It's going to be a chore. You're going to suffer during it. But if you were to take a moment and pause and go, I'm applying this story and all of this yuck to the idea of doing this. And so I'm definitely going to be miserable while I'm doing it. What if I approach this moment with a bit more of a broad perspective? If I open my mind and I engage with this from a more present place and just have fun with the experience and look at it with curiosity.

47:16And then all of a sudden you're in there and you're peacefully, mindfully unloading the dishwasher, thinking about things like, oh, this is so weird. I'll find myself just laughing in the kitchen and something like this, holding a fork, being like, we are so, this life is so weird that there were like these animals that we thought, well, we do a lot of eating. And so let's forge something like a stick with a bunch of points on it. And it's like just weird stuff like that. And then all of a sudden you're laughing and having a good time and thinking your mind is going into creative places and you're enjoying this experience instead of creating more tension and taking your overall perspective into this more tight place, which the important, not of just moment to moment experience like this, but the more that you keep your mind in this present, original, open state, dealing with things for what they are, as opposed to your idea of how they're going to be, the more that you then stay in that state of mind consistently throughout the day, so that now whenever you're having an important conversation with your partner, where perhaps it could have been a conflict because you're going into that with the same energy of the dishwasher going, oh, I don't want to have this conversation right now.

48:30It's going to be uncomfortable. I'm irritated. If you approach that conversation with, well, let's see what's here. Let's have this conversation and maybe I'll gain a new perspective. Maybe this will make us connect more. Maybe I'll hear a blind spot about myself that will be valuable, or I'll be able to evolve and be a better partner. This thing just will evolve in every area of our life. And so I think that quote was really powerful for people and really connected because it gave this concrete example, this thing of like, here's one thing that's happening in life. Look at it through window number one and window number two, and look how different life looks.

49:06And the lesson there is that the thing happening in life is still the same, but the way in which you look at it totally changes how you think and you feel about it and therefore changes how you experience your entire life. man thank you for sharing that and it makes me think of the discussion that we had on your podcast where i was bringing up astronauts that i'd interviewed and the overview effect and things like that and i couldn't help but chuckle as i was hearing you talk about that thinking about the two astronauts who have been stuck on the space station now for 60 days and are now finding they're probably going to be up there for another six months and it turns out i was at a naval Academy Alumni Association meeting last night.

49:49And one of the gentlemen who was in the audience is a classmate of Sonny Williams, who's one of the two astronauts, and was saying that they got to have a talk with her during the first or second week that she was up there, about 50 members of her class. And one of the things that she brought up to them was that as they were getting ready for this mission, they were worried about having too much weight. So they were taking things off storage. And one of the things that they removed since it was going to be a short duration mission was all their personal belongings and change of clothes. And so I'm thinking about these two people who are trapped up there.

50:29They don't even have any of the pictures of their family, change of clothes, everything else. I can't even imagine how you do laundry up there. Probably can't. And it got me thinking about what you were talking about with this perspective, because they could be thinking about this as I was only supposed to be up here a week and view the rest of it as a torture chamber, or they can look at it as I have the opportunity to spend eight months in space that I would have never in a million years thought I was going to get the opportunity to do. And it changes their complete viewpoint that they have on their situation.

51:06Anyway, I digress. Yeah, no, that's absolutely, that's a great example. And so true. I hope that they're experiencing it in that way. Well, knowing Sunny, I believe she couldn't wait to get back up there. So I'm sure she's just loving every single moment she gets up there. Corey, one of the areas I really wanted to dive into with you is something you cover in the book around impulsive behavior, which whether we realize it or not ends up driving big and small parts of our lives. And something you write about in the book is you say, taking power over our thoughts creates a spaciousness inside our minds that lets us be more intentional about our actions, which I completely agree with.

51:48This is good because how we act is who we are. How we act is who we are. We certainly don't want to let our impulses dictate who our future selves turn out to be because that would result in a rather animalistic chaos. Man, I love that. Can you to pack that a little bit? Sure. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Ultimately, if we are in this unexamined state of mind and we're allowing our impulses to dictate everything that we're doing in life, so that looks like you are in traffic, you get irritated, so you yell at someone and you try and cut them off and fight, then you're hungry and you, instead of, well, this cheeseburger was good, I'll have three of them.

52:33And then you see someone else that has something, you go pick a fight with somebody, whatever it is, just these animalistic impulses that everyone has. What's if we tamp those down like 20%, that's the frequency, which most people are living at. They're just living this impulsive behavior, not considering what they're doing, what they're saying, how they're acting, what the long-term repercussions are going to be of their actions. And I love thinking about this stuff. This is probably, I play at least like a dozen games of chess a day because I like thinking about that type of long-term theory like that.

53:07But if we look at our own actions in that way, it's incredible. And the more that we recognize that each of those decisions that we make in the present, what we say, what we do, how we're being in the world, like how are we showing up even, what is the feeling that we're bringing into the space that we're in? Those things have a huge impact on us, on who we are, on the people around us. And the more that we're in tune and conscious of those things, the more that we can craft who we are and who we're becoming. Because if we're living in this impulsive way, it's just chaos. And we will continue to just move as this chaos vector into the future.

53:53And we won't have any say or control in who we're becoming. So we'll look up at our lives and we'll go, oh yeah, I'm still unhealthy and irritated and frustrated and things aren't going my way. And generally a person will then blame chance or the universe or other people on that instead of themselves because they don't have the self-awareness to take responsibility. And the lack of self-awareness is why they're being impulsive to begin with. And so if we can be more conscious of who we are and what we're doing, then each of those decisions that we'll make will have this knock-on effect. It's like these dominoes falling.

54:30and by having that intentionality of being more thoughtful, more peaceful, more kind, more generous, more clear in what you're doing in life, the more that's going to create this momentum of that moving into your future. So by being present, we can really craft who we're becoming and that's one of the things that I said in my first book, Now Is The Way, is that you are not your thoughts, you are the thoughts you turn into action and so if we think about that as a mantra, we can really get clarity on what I'm talking about here is that each thing that we do, it doesn't matter what we're all going to think and feel and have certain things arise in our minds that would be, to take it back to Buddhist language, unwholesome.

55:13But if we choose to not indulge those things and focus on this intentional way of living, it will just continue to evolve what we're becoming through our actions more and more. Well, I'm going to keep going down this theme because you're really talking about the way that our actions manifest themselves, determine the outcomes we ultimately achieve. But that also leads us to this topic of self-fulfilling prophecies. And everywhere I turn today, I hear manifesting this, manifesting that. And when we do that, we're really talking about the ability to visualize our goal, think our way through it, work hard, bring the vision to life, which is all great and good.

56:02But what people don't really talk about, what you cover in the book is the opposing truth. And that is, we also have the power to create the reality that we do not desire in our minds. And when we go down this path of creating this alternate reality, we create this massive tension in our lives that create such a limit on us achieving what we want to achieve. How do you break away from that manifestation? Yeah, that's a great question. It's a matter of recognizing the story as a story. I think so for example, if you are, let's say you're going to go to a social event and you're anxious and you feel awkward at home beforehand, then you start getting a little uncomfortable, a little weird.

56:53You think, oh, what if I, people aren't going to like me. I'm going to, it's going to be uncomfortable. What if I'm alone at some point, it's going to be super awkward and don't know if what I'm wearing is going to look good whenever I'm there and so on. you start believing that narrative and the more of you go and you arrive at this place, you have that story in your mind. And so therefore what's actually happening is you are acting more awkward. You are being weird. Your energy that you're bringing is tight and closed off and you're not being yourself. And so the people that you engage with won't want to talk to you.

57:27They won't find it pleasurable to engage with you because you're signaling all that stuff that you're fearing. So you created that story in your mind. So that's the negative manifestation of generating this self-fulfilling prophecy. But if we're in those moments where let's say we're back at the house now and we're about to go to the social event, we've got the anxiety, we're thinking, I don't know, people aren't going to talk to me. It's going to be weird. Noticing that chatter happening in the mind, recognizing the arising negative thinking habits, the story that you're starting to spin up and believe in and taking a moment to pause.

58:06And again, let's look at what's here. What are the facts? Well, you probably know a couple of those people. You're going there because you want to go there in most cases. Let's go there with an open mind and let's go there with curiosity. Let's explore. Let's see who's there. Let's see what interesting things we can learn, what perspectives on life we can learn, what experiences, what stories we can here. Let's just go in there with the truth is that we don't know what it's going to feel like. We don't know what everyone's energy is going to be. We don't know this and that. And let's just move into it one step at a time and experience it as opposed to going into it with all of this preconceived notion, all of the story of how it's going to be.

58:48And by doing that and approaching the moment with curiosity and disrupting that story in your mind of negativity, then you're able to step into these things. And let's be honest, you might still feel a little anxious, because social anxiety is certainly a real thing, but you're doing, it's calm, it's quiet, it's just in there and you'll get comfortable and you'll warm up in just a matter of five minutes or something like that. But moving into those spaces with curiosity, then it allows you to be yourself and then people will wanna talk to you. They will wanna hang around you and you avoid creating that negative story that you had imagined.

59:25Thank you so much for sharing that. And I wanna jump way forward in the book to chapter 14. And this is a chapter where you're talking about inner trauma or painful events that have happened to us in life. And that if we're going to heal others, we have to heal ourselves first. I have been through a lot of this as you and I discussed, and I'm a person who had a lot of trauma early on in childhood and then my life. And I ended up suppressing it because I thought that was the macho thing to do. And when I was in the military, the last thing you wanted to do was to go see a shrink or something, we were told, because it could impact your deployments, your security clearances, et cetera.

1:00:09And what I found over time was that by not dealing with these things earlier on in my life, it caused me in many ways to be unable to be empathetic to others because I wasn't being empathetic to myself. And I think that's what you're really trying to talk about in this chapter. Is that a good way to think about it? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that's one half of it is certainly, yeah, the way generally, if you don't have the, in this case, which we're talking about here with repressing things and not addressing the the suffering that you're feeling. If you don't have the connective tissue because you've shut off your own connection to your emotional intelligence and your sense of a felt sense of the world, then you're not going to be able to connect to that inside whenever you're speaking to others.

1:01:05So therefore, if you're shut down and someone else is going through something, even if you look for that connection inside to go, well, let's give them some empathy, you can't find it because you've intentionally severed the wires in the circuitry to have that connection. So it's very important for not only for yourself, but for the people in your life to be able to do that type of inner work and restore the emotional connection to oneself, to work through whatever traumas or negative experiences that you've had. So therefore, you're not incapable of connecting and understanding that and seeing that in other people.

1:01:43Of course, it's very important to do that so that you feel well as well. And then also another side note to that is that generally what happens is there's reenactments will happen too. If you're not addressing these aspects of self, you'll find the patterns that created the initial suffering in you and you'll reenact them again and again until you essentially shine the light into those patterns of behaving and speaking to people and treating yourself where you see the clarity of what's actually going on and then you're able to to work through and purge those things another beautiful reason to do this work on oneself is that then you can actually influence people in a positive way people whenever they start doing some type of inner work they generally get really excited about it because they go because they feel better it's like they've been having this they've been carrying this 50 pound anvil their entire life in their stomach.

1:02:41And now they feel the weight of it removing a little bit. So they're springing up and they're going, Oh, well, I feel good. I feel light. And they want to tell everyone about it. And they say, Hey, you should do this. Have you read this? Have you listened to this podcast? Have you tried this practice? Hey, you need to go to the therapist because you're just wanting to share the joy of how you feel, which is great. But people aren't extrinsically motivated. They're intrinsically motivated. They need to be. They need to have a reason for themselves to pursue these things to make them feel better or well or whatever the thing may be.

1:03:12And so in that chapter, I also talk about something that healing yourself is an important way to heal others. Because whenever someone that you're someone in your life system over time sees the change in you and the CEO, Oh, for example, I'll just make this up, but to say John was always very kind and steady and clear-minded, but not very emotive in life. And they've noticed, oh, over the last year, he's become a lot, he seems a lot more just relaxed and open and a lot more, just a lot warmer in a different way than he was before. They start to wonder about that. And then that's the inspiration that they go, I see this change is possible.

1:03:54He just seems comfortable in his skin and happier and more at ease now. Like I want some of that in my life. And so then that will is what will drive a person to go seek that for themselves. And in a lot of cases, they may ask you, hey, what have you been doing? You look good. You feel good. What's going on? And then you can tell them, oh, I started going to a therapist and they go, really? Okay. Well, maybe it's not so taboo after all. Maybe I should try that. I love that answer because I think I went through a period of my life where I was chasing all the wrong extrinsic things. And one of those was trying to constantly compare myself to others.

1:04:33And so I was constantly living my life in the gap. And now that I've tried to shift my entire life's focus, I really am trying to live more in the gains in life and realizing that the only person I can compare myself to is a past version of myself. And it makes your life so much better, I can tell you, when you're doing that, because you're authentically being you and you're not trying to compare yourself to anyone else or be someone else. And this kind of brings me to the last section that I wanted to talk to you about. And this is the fifth component of your book, which you titled An Appetite for Possible Things.

1:05:14And the first chapter of this section is all about redefining yourself often. And this is something that in my own book, I wrote pretty heavily on, I called it brand reinvention, but I think we're talking about the same thing. And it's interesting because as I was researching my chapter, I ran across the work of Dan Schwabble. Not sure if you know who he is, but it's a New York Times bestselling author. He's a partner and a researcher at a place called Future Workplace. And similar to you and I, he's interviewed a lot of people, in his case, 1 ,200 what he calls remarkable people. And what he found was observing all of them, there was a prevailing characteristic shared amongst them all, and that's the consistent pursuit of reinvention.

1:06:02And I was hoping in your own words, you could describe why this is so important. Of course, yeah. We get stuck in these ways of thinking about who we are or who we have to be. We think that generally because of the patterns of our life take shape in a certain way, that we just fall into kind of the general motion of what's going on, what our behavior will be like, the type of people that we talk to, the things that we do. And all of those things are how we identify ourselves, of who we are. But the issue is that we generally have this sense of who we are and who we are allowed to be that develops because of the comfort and the familiarity that's created with how we think of ourselves and how other people think about us.

1:06:54The reality is that life is always evolving. Nature is always evolving. Society and culture are always evolving. We're always evolving, right? Internally anyway. And if we stay stuck in this fixed image of who we have to be, this representative that is playing the role of me for the world, as opposed to what you really are feeling inside or what's driving you, then you're going to stay, you're going to lose your enthusiasm for life. You're going to lose that power, that energy that comes whenever you do things that make you feel alive, whenever you do the things that you're passionate about, that you're excited about.

1:07:37So revisiting who you are and what you're doing and taking stock and just doing some, even if you like a bit of self-clarification of what am I actually interested in right now, as opposed to what I was interested in. How can I do more of that? What are the things that give me that energy that make me get that boost and feel like I'm levitating? I get fooled with kind of this zest of life. I want to do more of that. Maybe I want to present myself differently, like in social situations. I don't have to be this, the way that I was, I can redefine and be this person because this is how I feel now.

1:08:10But so many of us stay locked because there's this fear that if we go off script, if we challenge the familiarity that others have with us, or how they who they expect us to be, or who we expect that we have to be in these situations, then just the more shut down and the more calcified and the more bored that we're going to feel. So being able to see who we want to be, let go of the old behaviors in the way that we've thought about who we have to be in the past and allow ourselves to evolve and continue to emerge in the future and in the present. Every moment will keep us in this state of evolution, of growth, of change, of inspiration.

1:08:50And most importantly, it will keep us in this sense of energized meaning building for ourselves as we continue to move through our journey of experience. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. And your book is such a deep and thought-provoking essay into how you can better your life. If there was one thing you would want to leave listeners with about the book or one key takeaway, what would it be, Corey? I think it would be that you are capable of a lot more than you give yourself credit for.

1:09:26and I would like a reader to just experiment with that and lower the stakes. Don't make it this big test of self. Don't make it this moment where you're going to feel fear that you're going to judge who you are, what you're capable of, but try exceeding your own expectations about what you can do in any area of your life. It doesn't have to be big, it can be small, but just do that and notice how it's possible. Once you approach these moments in your life with a bit of playfulness, a little bit of curiosity, a lack of assumption, you can see that you are so much more powerful, so much more able to create change, to grow, to reach the goals that you have in your life than you allow yourself to believe right now.

1:10:18And by experimenting with that, what will happen is that you'll discover that's true. Well, I love ending on that. And Corey, thank you so much for being here. And I'm going to just put out a teaser there. If you want to hear more from Corey and I, I'm actually going to be in Austin after this episode comes out in November to do a book signing and talk. And Corey has actually been kind enough to agree to moderate the events. You'll get to hear both of us talk and learn more about both of us. And that happens, I think it's Sunday, November the 13th, if I have the date correct. But well, Corey, thank you so much for being here today.

1:10:56And what an incredible book. I highly encourage my audience to buy a copy. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun. I loved being here, your questions, your insights, your perspectives. They were awesome. And it was a real joy. So thank you so much, John. Wow, what an insightful conversation that was with Corey Allen. His work, especially his brand new book, Brave New You, is a game changer for anyone seeking to unlock their potential and to infuse their life with deeper meaning. Corey's wisdom on mindset, intentional living, and breaking free from limiting beliefs is something that we can all use to make our lives better.

1:11:33If today's episode resonated with you, then please take a moment to give it a five-star rating and review. It helps us to continue bringing impactful conversations like the one with Corey to you every single week. For those of you who are wishing to dive deeper into Corey's work, including his book, Brave New You, links can be found in the show notes at passionstruck.com. If you're purchasing any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show, I'd appreciate it if you use the links on our site. It helps us to support the podcast and keep it free for all our listeners. Don't forget, you can find videos of our episodes on YouTube at both our main channel at John R.

1:12:06Miles and our Clips channel at PassionStruck Clips. And you can check out our advertiser deals and discount codes at one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. And if you're not already following me, you can find me at John R. Miles on all the social platforms. And don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter titled Live Intentionally, where we dive into a new courage exercise every single week to help you strengthen your courage muscles and live a more intentional life. Now, Before we wrap up, let me tell you about our next amazing episode.

1:12:36It's one you absolutely don't want to miss. I'll be joined by Nassim Rochette, a woman whose life was changed forever on May 21st, 2018, when she survived a traumatic accident. Through that life-altering experience, Nassim found resilience and purpose, and now celebrates Unbreakable Day, a symbol of thriving in the face of adversity. We'll learn how she turned that moment into a powerful mission to inspire, and you'll walk away with lessons on how you can change your life and approach your own challenges. I had seen myself in the mirror, and I knew I was unrecognizable. I couldn't walk. I couldn't see.

1:13:14My eye had been cut open. Pay it forward. I could barely open my eyes. I couldn't hold a coffee cup. Like, how could I pay it forward? and it really added a lot of micro recovery, but also at the same time, hearing that it was a miracle, it did two things. One, it added the stress of, well, I miraculously survived. I don't deserve help. I don't deserve to be off from work. And all of the kindness that people wanted to impart on me, all of that kindness was like a debt in my ledger. But at the same time, that little idea that I had to pay it forward just seeped into my brain. And every day I thought, I'm going to pay it forward.

1:13:53What do I do? What does that mean? What does that look like? Remember, we rise by lifting others. So share the show with those that you love and care about. And if you found Corey's episode inspirational, then definitely share it with someone who could use the advice that he gave here today. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. Until next time, go out there and become passion struck.