Better Dating Through Self-Development w/ Nishant Patel

29:21And so really my own personal inner journey led me to understand the nature of the mind, its limitations, how that is a primary source of the suffering that we experience, how we could take our power back from it by questioning it or just stepping back from it through something like meditation, as an example. And then the more inner piece you have, then through that, you can then express authentically how you'd like to move in your relationships or work or other areas of your life. And I think the big hurdle for many of us is moving from this external circumstances to the internal. So if you could just share a little bit of your story of how you went from, you know, man, I really would love this girl to be paying a bit more attention to me or to impress my friends by being able to talk to this person to like, well, wait a second, like there are these beliefs and emotions and thoughts inside of me that are actually leading me astray.

30:18And if I wrestle with this, instead of worrying so much about the external, I can overcome that hurdle. As I mentioned, you know, when I was 20 years old, I got diagnosed with anxiety and depression at that time. I was a junior in college, especially my junior year of college, came home and I have one older brother and he was getting married during that summer. And at the wedding, there was a couple hundred people and I was one of the best men. And I was going to give a speech because I'm the brother. And I was feeling on that day of his wedding, my heart beating out of my chest. I was feeling a little queasy in my stomach.

30:52And automatically I was like, of course, I'm a 20 year old kid. I've never talked in front of hundreds of people kind of thing. And I equated it to that as the reason why I was feeling what I was feeling. But during that summer, I was still feeling my heart racing out of my chest and I was feeling queasy. I was vomiting, nauseous. I was in and out of the hospital, got two endoscopies done to check my stomach and what's going on. And everything came out negative towards the end of the summer. And one day a doctor walks into the room as I was in the hospital and he's like, he's like, yeah, so all your medical tests are coming out negative.

31:24And you know, that heart racing out of your chest, that's actually anxiety. And what you're experiencing is psychosomatic symptoms from depression. And I was like, whoa, you know, I'm just a 20 year old kid. and didn't know anything about the inner world or the mind and all that kind of stuff. And that led me into therapy for myself. I went on and off for a number of years in the beginning from like age 20 to 24. I meant like twice a week in the beginning. I remember being in college and driving an hour and a half to my therapist's office like twice a week. And immediately the first like water works just like this happened to me in high school and this happened to me when I was a kid and my family this and my family that.

32:02And it was wonderful and it was great. But somewhere, and that was a lot of relief. And so when many people think of therapy, they think, oh, I'm just going to go talk to someone and vent or, you know, it's a safe, confidential space. And that was very valuable for me at that time. But eventually along the journey, I remember I was going through something difficult in a relationship situation and kind of feeling this kind of broken heart kind of scenario that now I realize my mind created more so than anything. and I had this epiphany where I was like well if I ever have a situation in a relationship that doesn't go well or I lose a job or something happens to my health or something like do I have to go to therapy for the rest of my life you know I just have to go and talk about it and that led me on to this whole kind of other search and different spiritual teachers came on into my life a popular one was Don Miguel Ruiz he's popular for a book called The Four Agreements experience and one and I like his other book more it's called the voice of knowledge and what I learned through his work was a kind of fundamental truth that I had no idea is how we human beings experience life and function is that when we as human beings look out through our lives we don't necessarily see the world as it is we see our story about it and when I use the word story it just it's equivalent to thought or belief about it so if I say hey Johnny AJ you guys are the most loving, nice people in the world, well, that's my story about you.

33:26If I say, hey, Johnny, AJ, you guys are the worst, despicable human beings on planet Earth, that's my story about you. And that originates in here. And one of the things that I learned through his work in particular is that a lot of what goes through the stories that I believe are lies, but they feel real, they feel truthful. That really served me in that realization. And the more and more I realized it, I was like, okay, I feel my suffering is getting lighter, but I would still react in the world. you know I might get angry or blow up on someone I cared about because and then afterwards oh it was a thought it was a story it was a belief I didn't know what to do with that and then eventually a process called the work of Byron Katie came along in my life Byron Katie I think is in her late 70s now and she's been spreading her particular meditative work where you can learn to give your emotions a right to life on paper and when you're able to do that you identify the stressful thoughts that you're believing and thinking behind the emotion.

34:24Because we're much more aware as human beings, like, oh, I feel this fear, I feel this anger, I feel this anxiety, I feel this disappointment. But we're not necessarily conscious of the beliefs that are behind it, or that the beliefs are the primary influence of those feelings that you're having in the first place. That was very foreign to me, I had to go learn that. Because quite naturally go, I feel the way I feel because of my mom or dad or friend or lover, or I lost my job, or I have this thing going on with my health, that external thing is causing me to feel the way I feel. And it feels very logical when you're in it.

34:55But when you kind of take an inward journey, you begin to realize, well, how is it possible that some other human being could be in the same situation, yet they don't experience it that way? And what I learned is that the stories and beliefs that I have that are conscious, some most not conscious, are running the show. And that we can actively learn as a skill to take power back from our minds, step back from it. And the more and more I did that in my journey, the more, literally the more clarity, freedom, inner peace I had. And, you know, there's other parts of my journey. I have an autoimmune condition where I live with chronic pain and, you know, I have a skin condition too because of it.

35:32And I've been crippled at the age of 28, walking with a cane, you know, it was 125 pounds. And so I've been in these really difficult scenarios where because I had these skills to question my mind or step back from it and take my power back from it that I experienced even in those difficult circumstances, a bit more clarity, freedom, inner peace, and a deeper sense of wholeness that didn't rely on the external. Because especially with my health issues is like, well, I might not be able to walk out of bed today. And so there goes the idea of getting the girl, so to speak, or a career or at least previously or something on the external to validate me or make me feel whole.

36:10And so I was kind of forced to by life to touch into a deep word sense of who and what I am beyond that now I'm okay today and I'm on some medication it's help helps and don't know how long it will but because of this inner journey now the expression of whether it's relationships work or other avenues in my life can come from a more heart-centered authentic discovering who I am place on a deep deeper level rather than I need to feel whole by getting that that thing because I learned a long time ago oh that doesn't work. Well, what's interesting to me is the seeking of certainty, right? So the human mind puts us in a position to seek certainty because uncertainty, fear, freezing, it could lead to you losing your life.

36:54It's a survival mechanism. So one of the ways that we seek certainty is by creating these stories. And many young men found us 15 years ago seeking certainty in their dating life, right? It's uncertain to walk up to a stranger, to lay it out on the line and hope that they end up liking you, hope that they go on a date with you or hope they wanna be friends with you, right? So we seek this certainty and we very frequently first reach for strategies, right? What are the hacks? What are the tricks? What are the strategies that can get me to that certainty? But we still feel uncertain internally. We don't know who we are.

37:30We don't really understand what all these thoughts and emotions are that are swimming around, especially as Johnny was talking about hormonally in our 20s, right, in our teens, as we're trying to leave the nest. And yet at the same time, the more we grapple with the internal, the better we become at communication. Here's who I am. Here's what I'm about. Here's what I'm passionate about. Here's what I value. And ultimately the better we become in relationships. But in starting out and starting this company, we couldn't say, hey, we're just a mindset company. Come work on your mind with us. Because we know that most people don't reach that conclusion first.

38:07The first conclusion is I need certainty and I need some strategies to overcome this hurdle that I have in my life where I'm feeling really uncertain. Sometimes so uncertain I have anxiety, I have fear, and I'm frozen. And in all of this work that you talked about in your own personal journey, the work that we hope to inspire by bringing guests on the show and the work that we do with our clients, it's so interesting. out with all three of those things, the mindset piece, your ability to communicate, and then of course the relationships that come out of those communication fall into place, the sooner it is that you actually feel whole than seeking the external validation status and chasing those external things.

38:48And even going through tragedy, heartache, suffering with disability and disease that you know is creating a ton of uncertainty in your life, you still can look internal at the mind and go, okay, how can I use these tools to unpack the thoughts and emotions that I'm feeling that are then projecting these stories outward? And through these stories, we really create the suffering in our lives, right? And as you said, someone could be in the exact same position and not view it as suffering versus you with the story that you bring to the table, viewing it as the largest hurdle you're ever going to face, can't move forward.

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41:43slash charm. That's mintmobile.com slash charm. Limited time offer, upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12 months required. That's$15 a month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes when the network is busy. Capable device required. Availability speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Yeah, yeah. It's a huge realization I had through the support of, different teachers and so forth. And even the clinical field I'm in, that it's what we're believing and thinking that's the primary source of what we're experiencing emotionally, as well as what influences how we show up in our lives.

42:21And so when I eventually, to continue to answer the question of how we came together again, once I decided to become a clinical psychotherapist, to give back in this way, to support others that are interested in, let's say, the meditative style work that I offer to begin to shift their relationship to their own thought processes and minds and belief system. When I was along that journey, someone had recommended a book by Russ Harris, who's a popular member of the acceptance and commitment therapy. I think by profession, he's a physician, but then turned psychotherapist and he wrote books. So one of the popular ones was The Happiness Trap.

42:57And it was an introduction when I read it, because I always kept reading books. I was like, I know this. I know this stuff. And I gathered it from different wisdom traditions, you know, through meditation and all that. And so I found it awesome and fascinating that I guess since the 1980s, this community known as acceptance, this style of therapy, acceptance commitment therapy was, there's a lot of clinical research around it. And they were touching on human suffering from a whole nother angle. And they were talking about language and how once we as a human species are in language, that there's a constructive side to learning language.

43:31There's a destructive side that it wasn't, it's not you or I per se that are crazy or something like that, that this is part of learning language and that can project out. And sometimes it's useful, sometimes it's not. And we have to learn as a skill how to utilize thinking in a constructive way when it's constructive and way and take our power back when it's destructive. Once I stumbled across a YouTube video of the both of you interviewing. I was DJ Moran, who's a part of that acceptance and commitment therapy. I just had a huge smile on my face and that I saw both of you once again after all these years.

44:08And then I reached out through email. I was like, hey, how are you guys doing? I love that you love acceptance and commitment therapy. And I'd love to chat more because that's a primary source of the work that I do too. It's funny that we're talking about this because what we're discussing is how to use our minds correctly, how to use our minds to get the things in life that we want, to build, as I've been saying for years, a life worth fighting for, that life that you desire and that you will do anything to put together to have, right? We all have that vision of what that is. Are you willing to go out and fight for it?

44:45Now, I was talking generationally earlier, And I don't know if you guys had this, but for me, late night television, as a teenager, as a Gen Xer, you would see commercials for Dianetics. And so the quote about that and everything around that, the commercials were always about you are given this mind, but no instruction manual in how to use it. And as a teenager, that was always incredibly appealing to me because you're sort of blown away. But you haven't had enough life yet to understand what that really means. And as you get older and begin to start recognizing your limitations and where you need to develop yourself, you start looking for those answers.

45:35And it's funny because I think all of us had come to some of the same conclusions of cognitive behavioral therapy, which I really enjoy, acceptance commitment therapy, which we have reconnected over. To me, these are the true ideas of the manual of how to use your mind. And as you mentioned, how do we use it to move forward rather than falling into the traps that come with it that hold us back? And the other part is we were all raised in an environment that is going to be strong in some areas and weaker on other areas. And you have to discover where those weaknesses are and then what you're going to do about them.

46:24Are you going to build them up and get better or are you going to find a way to avoid them and play in the world where you're strong? There's many different ways of going about it, but you still have to discover that. And if I was raised in an academic-focused household, well, then I'm going to be stronger in those areas and maybe weaker on socializing or sports. But if I was raised in an athletic-focused household, well, then I'm going to have all that opportunity to place my time and efforts into my physical skills and hand-eye coordination. But then again, maybe I might not be so good in math.

47:04And personally, I was raised in a very arty household. And so music, creativity was the center of my world. And as a teenager with a lot of energy, skateboarding was my physical outlet. But as I got older and started recognizing my limitations, then I started to understand the areas that I was weaker in and then began to try to round those areas out or build those up to the best of my ability. And I found great utility in CBT and AZT and to be able to do that. you know we come out of the womb and we have these emotions whether it's anger disappointment fear and no one gets the handbook who gets the handbook how to deal with emotions you know and some have a very loving supportive environment growing up and some have and i've heard it in my clinical practice really horrific ones and so to see that there's this availability through modern psychotherapy and certain therapeutic models like acceptance of commitment therapy there is a way or a tool that could be supportive in dealing with the challenges of the human experience, no matter what you're going through, and that we can begin to actually learn it.

48:21That it's a skill. Overall, there are many little skills, but overall, it's one giant skill that you can learn in welcoming your emotions, taking power back from your thoughts when you're limiting, move in a direction that might be meaningful for your own personal life, whatever that might look like, beginning to touch into a sense of self that's more grander and whole, despite your personal history. And some of us have had really, really difficult and challenging histories and learning to be more present. You know, when you, when you're able to develop that skill to be more presently here and now, we kind of realize like, wait, other than what I'm thinking and believing, I'm actually okay in reality and, and touching into that and that centeredness and grandness in the here and now can be supportive and helpful just to be at ease in our own beingness but also to take meaningful action, whatever that looks like in different arenas.

49:10I think the fascinating part for me is this ancient Eastern wisdom now melding with the science, right? Yeah, it's cool. These ancient works, before we understood how the brain worked, the structure of the brain, neuroscience, chemical reactions going on in the brain, they were able to pass down this wisdom to unpack suffering and ways of looking at how the brain is operating and give you tools, as you say, right? I actually differ with Johnny a little bit. I don't know that instruction manual is as informative as just laying all the tools out. And we know for some of our clients, CBT tools are really impactful.

49:49For some of our clients, acceptance commitment therapy tools, ACT tools are really impactful, but really allowing you to take the tools at your disposal. And I'd love to talk a little bit about mindfulness too, because this is an area where we've had guests on the show talking about social media. We're in this always on mindset. Work is facing us with notifications on our phone and Slack and email. And it feels very difficult at times in the modern world to really slow things down, to be present with your thoughts and emotions. And I'd love to talk a little bit about the mindfulness that you utilize in your practice.

50:26And then that exercise that you brought up that was really transformative for you around not only identifying the emotion, but then getting to the stressful thought behind it. I'd love to wrap with for our audience, because I know that they're struggling in these areas. And every time we've talked about meditation, they're like, I'd love to start, but easy for you guys. Glad you guys are meditating. It just doesn't work for me. And I hate hearing that because there's so many different ways to look at mindfulness and meditation. and even if this one strategy hasn't worked for you, it's still an area of self-exploration that I would hate our audience members to be turned off from.

51:01Yeah, I don't even, even in my own clinical practice, I don't even use the word mindfulness too much. I know it's been very popularized. I use the word meditation a lot and I know meditation can be a practice, like an actual, like, oh, I'm gonna sit with myself for five, 10 minutes and be focused on my breath. But actually in the way that I share it, it's more of a way of being in life over time, that life becomes a meditation. and one of the things that we can begin to realize that meditation is not just one thing so those those people that say like or the people that i've encountered that go oh i've tried meditation but didn't really work for me i kind of question what they mean by work for me usually when i hear them they say well i tried meditating and i just kept thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and so i felt like i was doing it wrong right or i was meditating and i felt really uncomfortable And so I didn't feel Zen-like or peaceful.

51:52And those are some of the myths that I break about meditation, that meditation is not about feeling calm. It's not about feeling relaxed. Sometimes it's a side benefit through practice over time, but it's not the primary aim. And so when I share meditation or mindfulness, it's really about targeting for processes that we human beings go through or can skillfully begin to incorporate into our lives. And so one is that there's an opportunity to enhance self-awareness. And the thing that you become self-aware of as a human being through meditation is we only go through a few processes in any given second of our lives.

52:31I got the breath. I got the five senses. I got feelings and sensations in my body. And I got thoughts and images going through my head in any given second. And what you first learn when you try to sit with yourself, whether it's the breath or just listening to the sound, is that there's one aspect of your experience that dominates you. And that's thinking. That's thought. And thought pulls you away from the present moment and pulls you into an imaginary future that hasn't happened yet or a past that's no longer here. And sometimes that past is not so pretty and can create suffering or that future can create worry and anxiety.

53:05And so you can begin to be self-aware of that. And then as a skill, you can also learn to contact the present moment. Kind of going back to earlier, the mind has a constructive side and destructive side. So when my mind is not being helpful or useful in creating lies that appear real, we can begin to shift our awareness and attention of the skill in the here and now, come back to the safety of the here and now, which can look as simple as I'm a human being sitting in a chair. I got the breath. There's the ground. There's a laptop. There's some sounds. and that's way kinder than whatever my mind might be saying about the future.

53:38And then we could also, through meditative practice, target these skills of learning as best as we can to be a neutral observer of our sensations in our body as well as our thoughts. And I'll kind of start with that second part. Like, why would I want to be a neutral observer of my sensations or enhance that capacity? Well, usually when we're trying to move towards meaningful things in our life, whether it's, oh, I want to talk to that attractive person over there and I just want to say hello. or I want to ask for a job promotion, or I want to do something new and it's totally unknown, the heart might race a little bit.

54:09You know, you might feel a little queasy in your stomach, your chest might tighten. And naturally, because it's almost like even where biologic hardwired to move towards pleasure and away from pain, when that occurs in our physical body, we just go, okay, I'm just going to not go in that direction so I can soothe myself and feel okay. But one of the things that you can enhance as an ability is to begin to shift your relationship to those sensations because all sensations or feelings they come and go in their nature you can just check your experience even intense ones then you don't want to let them dictate whether you move in that meaningful direction or not and then secondly you can enhance this capacity to see which is the most revolutionary thing i think a human being at any age can discover is seeing thoughts as thoughts and the more you begin to see thoughts as thoughts as opposed to thoughts as truth or thoughts as facts the more you're better able to see like my mind's being helpful here and my mind's beating me up here or oh this is an old thought that I took on because my mom or dad when I was growing up said it a gazillion times like I'll just make up one like I'm not good enough just to say as an example let's just say if that thought keeps coming up in different scenarios like is that really my own thought or was that handed to me you know because of a personal history or some experiences I had that were challenging or that's just one way my mind's limiting me and I need to enhance my ability to go, hey, that's not necessarily me, even though my mind's claiming that's me, but that's actually just a thought amongst other thoughts.

55:35And when we're able to build that ability to shift our relationship, not easy, it's a skill. We can discover this capacity to move in more authentic ways. And then lastly, when I'm sharing meditative work with my clients and meditation, I say, this is kind of the deeper essence of meditation that you could touch into, which is discovering who and what you are beyond your mind. So usually when it comes to our identities, we go, I am my job. I am my relationships. I am the amount of money I have my bank. I am my body. I am, you know, that thing that happened to me in the past. I am the judgy inner critic that comes up and beats me up.

56:13And one of the things you can discover in meditation is, oh, wait, that's stuff I took on in my life. It's not my essence. It's not my essential nature. And different traditions use different words for what it is. So some in like theological tradition, oh, you are spirit. Some science-y people might say, oh, you're consciousness. Other traditions might say, hey, you're awareness or you're the noticing being. But one of the things that's valuable from a psychotherapeutic standpoint of, or just living life to discover that sense of self that's grander and bigger than any of those other things that we typically identify with is there's a sense of wholeness that could be tapped into.

56:52And especially if those things like, hey, I got the body and I don't got the body anymore. I got the relationship and divorce just happened, or I got the money and now I'm broke. Well, if I'm not defining myself by those external things, that's useful because those things are going to come and go at some point in our lives. And so we have this capacity to touch back into a deeper sense of wholeness And then go after all those things if you're interested in it, if it's coming from whatever an authentic place might look like for each of us. Go for the relation, go for the money, go for the body, go for all that.

57:23But it may come from a different place when you touch back into this deeper sense of wholeness. And so I see meditation as a practicality. There's many other reasons why I share meditation, but those are kind of four primary reasons. It's self-awareness, learning to contact the present moment as a skill, helping ourselves become a neutral observer of thoughts and sensations and then discovering who and what we are beyond our minds. And then through all of that, more clarity, freedom, and inner peace is a possibility. Yeah. I just want to add really quickly, there was something that Stephen Hayes had said that stuck in my mind.

57:58And this saying or his metaphor for the mind was so powerful. It was like, once he said it, it's like everything kind of clicked for me, which is the mind works like a calculator without subtraction or delete, right? So it's just absorbing. It's just taking things in. There is no control over what it is taking in and not taking in. It's just absorbing. And you have to work with all of that. Everything that is coming in, you have to override it, compensate for it, work with it. There is no getting rid of it. And when you mentioned just that saying of you're not good enough, right? It doesn't matter where that came from.

58:42Your mind picked that up and your mind is grappling with it. And unless you compensate for that, there's no getting around that. And that has to be accounted for. The mindfulness practice, the meditation, this gives you an opportunity to see what's going on up there and to have an understanding of that. It's not about eradicating it because there's no subtraction or delete. It is having an understanding of who you are. And maybe that might be in your head, but that does not mean that that's who you are and your actions are going to dictate that. But your actions have to take in consideration that thought and work accordingly.

59:29Yeah. And so in essence, meditation really is a shift of relationship, right? Like, so I'm not good enough at showing up. Can I help myself see that as a thought and not necessarily a truth? Um, which is where earlier when I mentioned Don Miguel's work, it's like, oh, that's a story wherever I picked it up from. That's a story my mind's making, right? Can I see it as a thought? Can I step back from it enough skillfully so that it doesn't impact, moving towards meaningful directions in my life? Can I also touch into this grander sense of self that, hey, that's just one amongst many other identities or thoughts that came along in my life journey, and I don't have to define myself by that?

1:00:06And that's really beautiful that we could touch into this through meditation or mindfulness practice, touch into this place inside of us, so to speak, or experientially recognize inside of us, oh, wait, I don't have to define myself by my past. My mind sure will try to. It will bring up stuff from like 20 years ago or 10 days ago, or it'll create a fearful future as to why I can't do something, give all convincing reasons, but I could touch back into this observing presence that I am, watch that come and go, sometimes harder than others. Some thoughts or beliefs are way stickier than others. And we could unlearn that, unwind that, and have a little bit more freedom.

1:00:41And the real kind of recognition is that, well, clarity, freedom, inner peace comes from taking power back from our own minds. That's the primary place. And that's the foundation of the confidence that leads to you talking to that stranger, asking for that promotion, going after that relationship. And this understanding that once those thoughts continue to bubble up, they become beliefs. And those beliefs influence your actions. And then you can end up like some of our clients later in life frustrated by, well, man, I'm in my 40s or 50s. And now I have all these beliefs about talking to strangers or that I'm not good enough with women and that I shouldn't have pursued that career.

1:01:27And just the simple fact of bringing this mindfulness into your understanding of how the brain works, the thoughts that are coming and going, just like passing cars on the highway next to me here. And you have the ability to latch on to certain thoughts, to detach from certain thoughts, and just label them as just another car going down the highway. It doesn't have to define you. Right, and you used the word confidence, and I think what many people get stuck on is I have to feel a certain way. And that means I'm not anxious, I'm not worried, I'm not stressed physically or anything like in my mind.

1:02:04And really true confidence is that we're able to begin to welcome in whatever we're feeling, whatever we're thinking, without letting that dictate our lives. That we can begin to step back from it, open our hearts to it, step back from our minds from it, and then still move in that meaningful direction. So it's not getting rid of anything. It's a shift of relationship to what we're experiencing internally. And then giving it everything we got in whatever area of our life that matters. Act in the face of that discomfort. Yep. Right. And that's really the first step in our X Factor Accelerator program around these acceptance commitment therapy principles are how do I understand the thoughts that are leading to these actions that aren't necessarily getting the results that I'm looking for in my relationships, in my life, in the people surrounding me or what I'm going after?

1:02:51and then how can I still act in the face of that uncertainty, in the face of that anxiety, in that discomfort of having never done that before to put myself out there and those actions are in line with my core values, what I've really cared deeply about. So not the memetics of the car and the outside desires or what media is pumping through my social media that I need right now, but what are those core values that light up the meaningfulness in my life that I'm after, regardless of what happens externally to me. I see it in my clinical work with clients where they want to live more honest, authentic lives, whatever that might mean, whether it's in their work or their personal relationships.

1:03:32And it's actually damn hard for us human beings to live honest, authentic lives. And if we kind of go why that is, we realize fear tends to run it and or discomfort in the body shows up when we're trying to move towards living more honest, authentic lives or the mind comes in and beats us up. And that uncertainty that you mentioned, when we are in the unknown, every single moment we're in the unknown. And because the mind is highly built on the illusion of control and likes things in categories and nice and neat, and that's just not how life works, that can feel frightening for the mind. So it keeps us safe and comfortable as opposed to moving to those meaningful things.

1:04:08But like I mentioned, something like meditation or different kind of practices along those lines can support in dealing with the discomfort that may show up in the body or the thoughts that may arise so that we could face uncertainty head on as best as we can. And sometimes we're not going to be perfect for sure. And then we just get back up and we still keep moving forward over and over and over again. And we find out that, hey, I am way more powerful than my mind gives me credit for. It was so great to reconnect. We love asking each guest what your X factor is. What do you think makes you unique and extraordinary?

1:04:41I just think it's just that through my own personal journey of overcoming suffering and my health issues and the challenges of dealing with my own life, the thing that makes me extraordinary was I just kept moving forward and learning that there is a possibility for us human beings to experience clarity, freedom, inner peace. And if I were to say there's something extraordinary about me, it's just, hey, I got a big heart. I want to give that out. Give that out to as many people out there that are suffering. And I do it in my own clinical practice. And yeah, that there's this opportunity for clarity, freedom, peace for all of us that are open and willing to do that hard inner journey.

1:05:20So yeah, I think just I don't think there's anything particular that makes me unique or extraordinary. But it's just that the more and more we question our minds, the more and more we question those limiting beliefs. authenticity and the heart gets a place, whatever that might look like for all of us. And for me, it looks like expressing itself as a clinical psychotherapist and having a blast from the past right now and connecting with the both of you. So yeah, well, it was great connecting with you. Thank you for joining us. Yeah. Happy to be here. Thank you for both for having me.

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1:07:11Hey, everyone. This is Preston from Mesa, Arizona. I joined the Art of Charm because after transitioning out of the military, I noticed I was struggling with building connections and relationships with people on a personal scale, and it didn't help on the business side of things either. I tried a lot of different coaching programs, YouTube, personal growth videos, the works. And the great thing about Art of Charm is it's not a pill that you can just take to quickly fix everything. They have a system and a structure so that you can build what you need to to see the matrix in yourself and actually get the results that you're looking for in the end.

1:07:42The awesome thing, AJ, Johnny, Michael, they work with you one on one, as well as they put a lot of time and effort to set up continual meetings there during the week and groups. again i would highly recommend this you're going to see the matrix you're going to see things that will help you connect and build great relationships thank you very much preston we appreciate the feedback and the testimonial and we are ready for you to come join us at the art of charm join us today and before we head out a huge thank you to our producers michael harold and eric montgomery until next week get on out there and crush it Yeah, I remember you.

1:08:21You were the bad boy. You threw your love away. Like you were just a toy. And you sold the world. You're a song of a tragedy. Cause you had your taste. All black on the east of the bay. Yeah, but I remember you. Yeah, I remember you It was a bad day I remember you I remember you