Case Kenny: Mindfulness for Entrepreneurs, How to Gain Clarity and Make Smarter Decisions | Mental Health E311

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24:20we have a lot of similarities in our own stories so for example i had a blog a very popular entertainment news blog in 2012 13 14 i also started my podcast in 2018 i also quit my corporate job over covid to start my social agency and now podcast network so you took a different route You did more of like the authoring and the journaling and really focused on becoming a huge Instagram star. I really focus on building a company as well as my podcast. So we kind of take a different route. But I'd love to understand, even though you had this traditional job, you were still doing what I call opportunity set Bs, right?

25:04So opportunity set A is what you get paid for at your job. Opportunity set B is just anything else you can learn outside of your job. for example, you starting a blog. Because that was your own thing. You created that blog, right? And that was while you were working your corporate job. So talk to us about how that experience lent itself for you to even have confidence to become a podcaster and do your own thing. Because I think it's probably all tied together. Yeah, I like that a lot. I think about that a lot too. I've got a lot of empathy for people who are like, I don't know, investment bankers during the day, but rappers at night where there's not a whole lot of overset, you know, not a lot of, transfer of skills, although maybe there is that I'm not thinking about.

25:44But for me, I started a blog called Pursuit in 2014. So I go way back with trying things on the side. But I'm super grateful that I was in advertising and sales, sales specifically, and creative expression on the side. That the confidence I got from my day job, walking into a meeting, having to entertain people, having to find a reason to strike up a conversation with people, having confidence in speaking and leading and empathy and working with a team, so transferable immediately to this. Nowadays, I do a lot of public speaking and workshops with sports teams and corporate groups. I used to really be an introvert and I used to be really averse to public speaking, truly.

26:25Now I love it. And it's not because I've been doing a lot more now. It was because of the eight years I ran a sales team and had to grow into that. So those skills were so transferable. And then also, I would say there's something about working in sales in particular about... Again, I was an introvert, started as an account executive. I was like, oh, little old me, I'm going to sell a deal. And by the end of it, I was like, yeah, I'm going to sell a deal. Give me a bigger goal. Let's do this. I want more commission. I grew so much confidence in my ability to go from a book of business of zero to selling in to Fortune 500 companies.

26:58I could go from zero to nothing. And I think that really gave me the confidence on this side to say, I can go from having no social presence to having a bit large social presence or having no books to having a book deal and a bestseller and these kinds of things. So I think those skills were very transferable and really helped me. And I think it was right time, right place for sure for a lot of that. And I'm very grateful for a lot of the perspective I learned along the way. And I think I'm a very impatient person. Truthfully, if I had to wait for an elevator or someone's walking slow on the sidewalk, it really irks me.

27:32But I think there was something that I'm really grateful for where my intuition was saying, just be patient when it comes to the right time so that when I did do that jump, I had that confidence in place. And I think that's guided me even three years later in the right direction. I think the other thing is your consistency. The fact that when you were in a corporate job, you were saying even while traveling and having this full-time job, you were doing two episodes a week. Talk to us about your ability to be consistent and how you had the motivation when you first started. I know you did get quite a bit of downloads when you first started, but what kept you going before you were the super popular podcaster?

28:10First off is what I referenced earlier. I started the podcast for myself. Someone messaged me the other day and they said, Case, can you give me some advice to be a successful podcaster? And I wrote back and I said, don't try to be a successful podcaster. Get a mission and use a podcast to amplify the mission. That's the only way in social, in podcasting and writing. You can't just want to be an author or be a content creator. You have to have a fire for a thing, and then you use the platform to amplify it. For me, I never wanted to be a podcaster. I wanted to know myself better, truthfully. I know that sounds a little noble and like a nice little soundbite.

28:44That was the only reason I started the podcast. Alongside of wanting to be creative, I've always been creative, and I love writing and expressing myself. but I truly started the podcast because I was frustrated with myself. And that's always kept me going. 630 episodes later, you can't help but grow. You talk about the 10 ,000 hour rule, whether that's real or not. I've done so much more than that. And I've grown and reinvented myself so many times and I have so much clarity into myself that I can't help but grow every single time I sit down and do the podcast. So I've always been motivated to do it twice a week.

29:16And yeah, to your point, I mean, yeah, I was traveling twice a week. I would be doing the podcast in the back of an Uber I would be writing it. I would be getting to the hotel late and recording it. I bring my mic with me on the road. Definitely was difficult. But I think it was a combination of what I just described that internal drive. And then also, you know, I got lucky. I remember my first month, I got 56 ,000 downloads, which at our size, we're privileged to have large podcasts. Now, that's not a lot, but it's not insignificant. And for a first one month podcast, that's actually quite a bit.

29:48And I owe that to a couple different things. Good timing. I had an email list that's the time and it helped grow some of that. But I saw that I was like, wow, if I could do that in one month, what could I do in a year? So I was like, I'm not going to stop until I have at least 50 episodes under my belt. And just committing to that 50. By the end of the 50, I was well beyond 50 ,000 downloads a month. And I was like, wow, let's just keep going. And by that time, the podcast had become a routine as simple as breathing. I know that sounds more poetic than it needs to be to describe releasing a podcast.

30:21But for me, it's like, I do it twice a week. Every Sunday and every Wednesday, I sit down and I write and I record and I release just what I do. It's not, oh gosh, I've got to come up with content. What is my content strategy? It's like, no, I'm just going to do the thing. Because that's what I do on Sundays. That's what I do on Wednesdays. So for me, it's become that simple. It's a lifestyle at this point. And it works for me. It's all those things combined and creating evidence for yourself of why you should continue. Get out of theory, get out of writing down your goals and just starting the thing, putting it on paper, seeing what people say, using that to inspire you, listen to your followers, all those things.

30:58But yeah, for me, it always did start though with why I started it in the first place. I love that. I also love that you took sort of a self-journaling approach and you really just kept your podcast yourself. So many people go the interview route. That's the route that I ended up going with for majority of my episodes. and when I look back, because I started my podcast in 2018 as well and similar to you, I had a corporate job. I'm like so proud of Young Hala for doing episodes every week, even when nobody was listening. And to your point, my why was bigger than just wanting to be a popular podcast.

31:34I literally just wanted to help people and had a lot of fun. I had a volunteer team helping me with my podcast and even just the building something with somebody else was something that I was enjoying. It wasn't like a selfish thing. So I always give that advice too. You've got to like want it and want to help people and want to improve your own life. And it shouldn't just be this goal of making money or becoming some huge podcaster. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. We're very similar. It's funny how similar we are. I bet if you were to look at podcasters who have been doing it for more than five years, we'd probably find the commonality that we share.

32:08The mission was first and the channel, the means was second. I bet we would find that comment. Because I think there's a stat that I see passed around a lot. You know, 99 % of podcasts release less than 10 episodes or something. Like people give up so fast. Yeah, it's a crazy number. And it's probably because of a couple of things here. The mission, the lack of maybe immediate results, all these things that derail people. Okay, let's move on to your latest book. You released it last year. It's called That's Bold of You. So similar to mindfulness, you can interpret it in many different ways. So what does being bold mean to you?

32:46I'm an author and I write on Instagram. My whole day is about words. Word choice, 12, 14 words, little short, little sentences. So I live in words. And on that note, you know, over the years, I've really leaned into trying to break down the identities that we give ourselves, specifically the words that we use to describe ourselves. Those are either words that other people have called us. You're too much. You're too needy. You're too intense. You're too quiet. You're too loud across the board, these things. And that we've internalized and say, well, maybe I am. And the way that we let perception, right, the way that we let feedback, the way that we let our parents, the way we let the internet basically create our identities for us unless we push back.

33:27So I think it's a bold thing. That's why I called it's bold of you to allow yourself to push back against these identities and decide that, well, maybe they are true. Maybe you are too intense, but maybe that is a good thing for X, Y, Z reasons. So basically, it's a mindful examination of who you are and why you are that way. And the reason I wrote the book was I'm all in on vulnerability, not like sappy vulnerability, not like feelings, time vulnerability, but just being radically honest about how you feel. So we don't have to beat around the bush. We don't have to guess. We don't have to play mental gymnastics.

33:58None of that, whether it's in dating or business or friends or just with yourself. We say how we feel and we act upon how we feel and we're clear and we're healthy about it. Vulnerability, right? Vulnerability. I read this study that really kicked off the book called The Beautiful Mess Effect, which was basically these social scientists and these researchers were looking at the fact that we applaud certain qualities in other people. We like weird, wild, eccentric people. We like honest people. We like that friend who's like, oh, he's or she's so real. Like he's got no filter. We love that in general, right?

34:29Not on the extreme. So in general, we like people who are real, a little out there, quirky, a little too loud, a little too this. We like that in other people. But for some reason, when we think about ourselves being that same way, we pass so much unfair judgment upon ourselves. And we say, well, I can't be that way because people won't appreciate that quality in me, even though we said we like that quality in other people. So the beautiful mess effect was basically saying, why do we applaud the beautiful mess and other people, but in ourselves, we detest it. And they ran all these participants through these studies to basically show that across the board, there's a bit of hypocrisy there.

35:03There was one instance where they took these two groups of people, they had one group and said, hey, you're about to go into this room and there's going to be a group of people in there and you're going to sing this song to them. You've never sang this song before. It's going to be awkward. You're going to go in there and sing it. Get ready. The other group, they said, hey, by the way, these people are going to come in and sing a song to you. And right before they did it, they asked each group, hey, how do you think this is going to be received? The group that was told that they're about to sing, they were like, well, this is going to be horrible.

35:27They're going to laugh at me. They're going to think I'm an idiot. They're going to hate me, so on and so forth. Very condemning, very judgmental. So the group that they told, hey, you're about to have these people come sing to you. What do you think? How are you going to react? They said, well, it doesn't really matter. I applaud them for doing that. That's awkward. That's vulnerable. I applaud that. I like that. So basically showcasing the idea that we're all in our heads about these vulnerable things. And then they ran other tests too about asking for help, exposing your body in a vulnerable way, expressing your feelings first, all these different vulnerable acts.

35:57And across the board, it was always, they will hate it if I do it. But across the board, the judgment was, this is a great thing. And that always really struck me as a glimpse into humanity of a little bit how hypocritical we are when it comes to judging ourselves for these things that are unfair. So basically, I wrote the book from that perspective, that it's a bold thing to push back against our programming, our conditioning, our judgment. So it's basically a book about being kinder to yourself, but in an informed way and to not be so conforming in life. I want to dig deeper on being vulnerable.

36:33And I want to talk about dating for a second, because I feel like that with dating is especially relevant right now, because in the online dating world, a lot of people have the impression that they've got to be cold, maybe not make the first move necessarily, especially if they're a woman or not show their softer side because they're afraid of being hurt, right? They don't want to get ghosted. They don't want bad things to happen. So can you talk to us about how being vulnerable can actually be something that is attractive and maybe talk to us about how we should rethink that? Yeah, I'll answer that in the traditional way I do, but I'll actually add some very, very recent sauce to that.

37:12I released an episode yesterday because I read this piece of research in the Harvard Business Review about why optimism in life literally makes you happier and makes you more money and it makes you more fulfilled. I see vulnerability and optimism as two sides of the same coin. And basically the research showed, and HBR of course is about in the workplace. So it's about workplace professionals earning more, being happier, and being more fulfilled. And it basically showed that cynics, people who are cynical, right? Cynical in the sense of everyone's out to get me. I need to protect myself first.

37:43I only match energy, a little bit of Machiavellian tactics, right? A little bit of manipulation, little doggy dog kind of world. They showed that people who believe that about the world, that people are inherently dishonest and that maybe you should play some games too. People who believe that the world is competitive and you need to step on some people's necks to be successful. They showed that those people are across the board. They earn less than their optimistic counterparts. they're promoted less than their optimistic counterparts and across the board they showed less satisfaction in their jobs i take that as a microcosm of larger happiness right i think there's definitely a lot to be said about the workplace versus life but they showed that to be very true and the suggestion of the research was make trust your default and you'll earn more you'll be promoted more and you'll be happier and there's a fine line between being trustful and being naive But it basically said, look for the best in others.

38:38Offer your energy first instead of only being the person who receives and waits to see what they do. And then you make your move because everyone's got to move. So instead of all that crap, you just make trust your default and you'd be a kind, hopeful, optimistic person. Which is very much in my ethos. But I think that is a very relevant way to approach dating. I think we've all gotten into our heads and our hearts in different ways that have made us so resistant to being open. and a lot of it's for a good reason, right? If we've been hurt in the past, maybe multiple times, maybe it happens to us so many times and we've been disappointed so many times and we can't help but feel that the whole world is that way.

39:16I would never dismiss that, of course, because our experiences shape our reality. But a lot of the time we're taking little tidbits of our reality, which is real and valid and hurtful, and we're adding to it a whole variety of projection to everyone else. And that leads to a lot of the things that you described and that I talk a lot about, right? We want someone else to make the first move or we don't trust anyone at first. We're resistant to speaking up for our needs. All these things that just back us further into that cycle. So there's not much great advice I can give other than don't do that.

39:51But perhaps with a bit of the research and then a little bit of logic. I do a lot of dating content. I don't ever do dating content around tactics or how to get someone. What do I freaking know? but I do know when it comes to the idea of vulnerability and dating, you win every time when you're vulnerable. I really, really do believe that. And most practically, when I say vulnerable, I mean, speaking up for yourself, advocating for yourself, saying, here's what I need, asking questions, speaking up to how you feel. And 99 % of the times when I receive feedback or questions from people, all of the things that they talk about are solvable through communication.

40:29and it's a boring topic, but the way that I really break it down about vulnerability and dating is anytime you speak up, anytime you're vulnerable, you either get one of two things and both of those things always help you in. Anytime you speak up, you either get what you want or you get what you need. Both of those things always, always help you. You either get what you want, you speak up and say, hey, you said this thing that makes me feel a certain way. What are your intentions? You get what you want. They say, oh, sorry, that was confusing. Here's what I actually mean. Turns out you're on the same page.

40:55Amazing. You just needed to talk it out. On the get what you need side, You say, hey, that thing you did or this thing I'm noticing about your behavior, what does it mean? Let's talk about this. They say, oh, yeah, I know you're right. You caught me. I'm not really into this. I've been messing with you, whatever. That hurts. It hurts a lot. But you got what you need because now you can move on and you're not in that holding pattern anymore. And I know that's oversimplified and it's not as easy as just snapping your fingers, having a conversation. But that is vulnerability in its most practical form.

41:21And for me, mindfulness isn't always this soft butterflies and rainbows thing. Sometimes it's mantra. It's case. Right now, you're feeling confused or trapped in this relationship or you're feeling used or whatever negative feeling. Get what you want or get what you need. Case, get what you want, get what you need, get what you want, get what you need. It's like motivate yourself to have that conversation because you understand what's on the opposite side of that. So that's what I would say a combination of those two things. Make trust your default. Be soft and fluffy on the outside. Don't take any shit on the inside.

41:53Speak to what you want. Get what you want. Get what you need. And I think that'll really help people get out of this funk where it's them against the world, which I think just doesn't benefit anyone. I really, really love that framing. Something else I wanted to pick your brain about is your perspective on how we should frame our past. I always say that you need a happy past and you need an exciting future if you want to live a content life where you're not anxious and you're feeling positive. You need a happy past, an exciting future. I'd love for you to help us understand how we should think about our past and how we should treat our past.

42:29Yeah, certainly there's areas of life that I love to talk about. I don't particularly like to talk about past traumas and things like that. That's for a serious mental health care professional. For me, though, I think about my past as the ultimate piece of clarity in my life. I love to oversimplify things. But, you know, you think about why are certain things good? Because of the bad things. What makes a healthy love? Unfortunately, unhealthy love. What makes a communicative, understanding patient partner? Someone who always rushed you. Someone who never took time to understand you. The unfortunate reality of life is we need contrast.

43:07We do. And it's one of those things that in the midst of contrast, you would never say, I need this contrast. This is good. We need this. We needed rain today. It's been dry out. We don't think like that when it comes to pain. We are wired to avoid pain. and most specifically, we are wired to avoid repeated pain. We will do anything to avoid making the same mistake twice. Perhaps that's what leads us to be so closed off to our previous point. But our paths are powerful. Our paths are the source of contrast, which is the source of clarity in our life. I talk a lot about standards and boundaries and fear that a lot of people have of being too picky.

43:45I've had a conversation around that 99 % of the time that comes up, I don't wanna be too picky. Okay, well, let's figure out if you're being too picky or not. Let's figure out if that's actually a valid thing. I talk to people and sometimes I break down standards into standards 1.0 and standards 2.0. Standards 1.0 are like theoretical standards, standards that you'll borrow from TikTok, right? You deserve someone who does this and does that. Things that are inspired by other people's examples, things that sound good on paper, things that your parents told you. Back to our original conversation, just because someone said something's right for them doesn't mean it's right for you.

44:18That's standard one, 1.0. It's good. We're not gonna argue with it. We're not gonna say that's not true. Standards 2.0 come from your experiences. I lived through this past painful experience in my past. Here is why I believe my standard to be true. When you have a past that validates your standard, I consider that to be rather unbreakable and a non-negotiable for yourself. And that's why in the present, you could look yourself in the mirror and you're on that line where you're being like, man, maybe I am being too needy and I'm asking for too much. No, point to the past. This is why I have that standard.

44:52And that's what makes it powerful. So if we're not taking advantage of our past in that sense, again, we're just floating. We're just floating with these theoretical things that aren't backed by why. So it sucks to have painful experiences. Of course, I've been through my fair share, loss, breakups across the board. But those are the things that make clarity in the present possible. And that's what transforms into the type of relationships you want, the ones you're willing to fight for, the ones that you're willing to walk away from, the times you're willing to start over. You need that clarity.

45:23And if we don't look at our past as a source of it, we're basically throwing away all of this goodness in our life that we have. I love everything that you said. And something else that I want to touch on is ego. A lot of us think that it's bad. We just assume that ego is the enemy. We need to fight off anything that is related to ego. Why do you think that there's some positives related to our ego? I think in general, ego is the enemy. Mr. Ryan Holiday is correct. Boastful, better than thou. Ego, of course, is bad. Thinking you know everything is bad. Mindfulness, the practice of mindfulness, the more mindful you are, the more you meditate, the more you have mindful practice, the more you journal, the more you realize you don't know.

46:05It is a very humbling practice, and it should be. Honestly, that's the best sign you're on the right track. You're more unsure of yourself from time to time. That is the greatest sign that you're doing things right? But I would say along the way, there is a healthy side of the ego. And it's not even ego. I think I dress it up as ego because it's easy to understand and we can create the visual of two sides of the ego. But all it is, is faith. It's faith in yourself that you should have some confidence, a little bit of swag, that no one's out of your league, that no business objectives out of your reach.

46:37You could do these things. You could put yourself in a position to at least try. and the humility side is no matter what happens, you can handle it. And I just think in the day and age of social media and comparison and conformity and what if isms, we're so quick to talk ourselves out of things because of all these things that we've been talking about. I'm to this, I'm to that, they're this, I'm that, that we talk ourselves out of trying in the first place. And it's in those instances where I think we need the healthy side of ego, the catalyst, the spark for just trying. I'm not reinventing the wheel here with talking about just motivating yourself to try.

47:13But I like people who have a little bit of swag and confidence, but it's balanced wholeheartedly by humility. They're willing to put themselves into situations where they're cringe, where they're weird, where they're awkward, where they're vulnerable. Only good things come from that. And if we only think of ego and confidence as this thing that is a negative, I find a lot of times we don't even put ourselves in those positions. So I think it's a matter of humility, but it's also a matter of believing that no matter where you put yourself, you can react to what happens next. And that's the healthy side of ego.

47:45We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.

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52:01I was listening to an interview with you and James Altucher a couple days ago, and you guys were talking about how luck is similar to faith. How can we make ourselves more lucky? What are some ways that we can break the rut that we're in, the routine that we're in to try to bring more luck into our lives? Yeah, I like the idea of luck is faith. And I like the idea of luck and faith and patience being intertwined. When you give yourself patience, that is saying I have faith in myself. When you're saying I don't need to rush to do this, I don't need to conform to someone else's timeline, I just need to keep doing what I'm doing.

52:38That is faith in yourself. And that is what creates luck. There's a book that I referenced quite a bit that has been passed around a little bit that talks about luck. I'm blanking on the author of it, but it's called Chase Chance and Creativity. the lucky art of novelty. And it's basically written by this scientist professor who was talking about the role that luck has played in some great scientific breakthroughs, right? Specifically luck in the lab, like the invention of pasteurization and Louis Pasteur and the invention of penicillin. These were technically like mistakes that were made in the lab when they just randomly did things.

53:09Not a scientist, I don't know the exact, but like they randomly mixed things together and something great happened, right? It was luck. It wasn't part of the plan, it was luck. And basically the scientist looked over the years, over the many decades and centuries of luck in the lab. And he said, luck is actually categorizable. It's something we could break down and it's something we can't control. And he said, there's four kinds of luck. And one luck is the kind of luck that I think we're all so apt to identify by. For me, I used to think, well, I'm an unlucky person. I've never won a lottery.

53:39I always hit red lights, give something bad can happen. It tends to happen to me. That's the kind of luck that we need to ignore, that's random luck. Like we don't really care about random luck. We can't control it. It is what it is. But there's three other kinds of luck that he identified in the lab that I think is very immediately transferable to life. The first was luck that comes from experience and association. Basically, the more you do something, the wiser you get about it, such that in the future, you make better decisions. You're able to quickly form more mental associations of if this, than that.

54:10And you just have better results. It's luck that comes from wisdom. So for me, it's with writing quotes. I've written, I don't know, a thousand on Instagram. I kind of know what people want. I know what makes people feel seen. I posted something yesterday. Today, it's got like 90 ,000 likes. That's a lot of likes. That's a little bit lucky. The algorithm lucked me today. Well, kind of. It was just a little bit of association. So that was luck one. The other luck was luck that comes from motion. Can't deny that. The more you do, the luckier you get. Objects in motion stay in motion. Objects in motion bump into other objects in motion.

54:45The more you do, the more podcasts you release, the more music you release, the more cold calls you make, literally the luckier you get. for some reason we conflate luck with being irregardless of effort, but luck is truly effort. And then the last luck that he broke down was luck that comes from uniqueness, originality, authenticity. Just the fact that the more real you are, the luckier you get in the sense that people can detect that. Like, you know, if you have blue hair, right? And that's like authentic to you and your expression, it strikes up a conversation with someone, oh, and they're an editor for Vogue and you want to be a fashion model.

55:17Like things like that, luck that comes from originality and authenticity that in very practical ways, whether it's a conversation in an elevator or something you post that shines through, it attracts the right people and you get lucky. But it comes from that level of realness. So yeah, I like thinking about luck in that sense because I used to really victimize myself as an unlucky person. And of course, that's not true. And that's unfair. Back to the idea of that's bold of you and vulnerability. It's an unfair thing to say I'm an unlucky person. You could break yourself free of being unlucky, by being real, by leaning on your past for those associations, and then for doing more, of course.

55:53But all those things combined are faith, and they all require patience. So I think it all fits nicely. Something that I think ties with this is your advice that you give that you got from Seinfeld about doing the opposite. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. For being in the mental health space, I talk a lot about Seinfeld. It might come out of left field unless people watch that. I think there's a lot of wise ideas in Seinfeld. But yeah, I've done a bunch of episodes and I talked about it in my book about the idea of you're feeling stuck in a rut, you're feeling ambiguous, you're feeling trapped.

56:22I think the best thing you could do is just try the opposite of what you've been doing, whether it's a habit or routine, a mindset, a standard, a boundary, right? We're not talking about going back to zero, but just throwing things to the wall and trying something different. Because there was an episode in Seinfeld where George, who is Jerry's kind of short king friend, who is an unlucky person, he's not conventionally attractive. He's not wealthy. He's kind of neurotic, right? He doesn't have any luck with women. And so they're talking and George is like, nothing ever good happens to me. I always make the wrong choice.

56:53And Jerry's like, well, if every choice you've ever made to date has been wrong, then what would happen if you did the opposite of that? And then he gets up from his seat at this table and he walks up to this attractive woman at the bar and he goes, hi, my name's George. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents. And she's like, hello. And they hit it off and they go on a date. So it was just a funny example of him instead of like trying to fake it and be this Rico Suave guy, he gets up and he's just very honest with her. And it's the opposite of how we normally react. And I've always taken that to heart.

57:21In my early sales days, I had to be the opposite of who I was at the time called a fake it till you make it mentality. I had to get up and be that funny guy and take clients out and do all those things. But that helped mold me into actually becoming that person. And, you know, in so many areas of life, you know, I used to be a pretty avoidant attachment type when it came to relationships and like being willing to sit in that space of discomfort, the opposite. On the entrepreneurial front, again, my parents, my upbringing has always been very traditional. You make money in traditional ways. You max out your 401k.

57:52To do the opposite of those things really pushed me out of my comfort zone. But here we are. So I think a very piece of practical advice is dip your toe in the water of opposites and see what it brings you. So good. So something else that you talk about is being comfortable with embarrassment. I thought this one was really funny because I never really thought about that. But you say you're even competitive with yourself about being as embarrassing as possible. You challenge yourself to be embarrassing. So talk to us about that. Yeah, I mean, it's less like trying to be embarrassed and more a willingness to be embarrassed.

58:27And you know, for me, it's to this idea of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone doing opposites. A way that I've done it in the past was to gamify the experience. Not so overtly, like I'm literally gamifying it. But you think about confidence, right? Where does confidence come from? Confidence comes from, without a doubt, evidence, right? Confidence can be theoretical at a certain point. But in order to make that confidence real, you need to generate evidence, evidence that you could trip and fall and still be confident, evidence that you could start and fail and pivot and still do well, right?

58:57That is what creates confidence. It's a muscle. It's evidence-based. So I always thought about it in the sense of, well, how do you create evidence? You gotta get points on the board. So I always used to treat it that anytime I did something awkward or embarrassing or cringe or uncomfortable, in my head, I would give myself a point, like a ticket at a county fair, and that I would redeem that from a big stuffed animal, right, in my head. It's the same idea for confidence. How do you gain confidence? Well, you cash in those points, and at a certain point, to our conversation about healthy ego, So at a certain point, you're like, I could put myself in any position.

59:31I could be the one to say a funny joke and have it fall on deaf ears. I could be the one to introduce myself to someone and they can dismiss me, but I'm still confident in that situation. I'm not less of a person and it comes from that evidence. So for me, back to our conversation about motivating yourself to get what you want or get what you need, that amps me up to have a difficult conversation. It's the same idea when it comes to confidence. It amps me up to do something that is potentially awkward or embarrassing or vulnerable because I know what it gives me. We're so focused on what it takes from us, right?

1:00:02It takes from us our pride and our respect or maybe even a friend. I'm more focused on what it gives me, which is those things, those exact same things. And it's really helped me evolve my thinking there from I don't want to be cringed. That used to be my biggest roadblock, especially when it comes to being a guy who literally writes potentially cringe things on the Internet. I can't be cringe. why? Why? Why is that a fear of mine? What am I afraid of being judged by people who think being real and open and honest is a cringey thing? That's a cringe thing, that they would judge that. So I've really evolved my thinking there, focused on what being awkward and embarrassing gives you versus what it takes from you.

1:00:42Okay, as we close out this interview, I want to start talking more about your career and your Instagram and things like that. I know that you now are merging mindfulness with music. You have been for a little while now. Talk to us about why you decided to do that and how personally has that made you feel to be able to combine both of these passions? Do you feel more fulfilled now that you can merge these passions? Yes. I love house music. I've always loved house music growing up in Chicago. Now I'm in Miami. Just love dance music, any genre of dance music. So that's part one. Part two would be back to my passion for mindfulness as a subject matter.

1:01:21I think a lot of my hesitation towards it in my 20s was because I used to think that vulnerability, mindfulness, mental health, journaling, therapy, those are things for sad people. That is something you do when you're sad and you're overwhelmed and it is for broken people, right? Ridiculous statement. But I think that's how I used to think. And I think a lot of people think that too now, particularly with the language we use around mental health and stigmas and all these things, there still is this connotation that it's for sad people. And I don't take a whole lot very seriously in life. I think some of my quotes reflect that, but I've always wanted to encourage people to see mindfulness as something that you celebrate.

1:02:00It is a journey inward to celebrate who you are. It is something that you do when you're happy, not just when you're sad. It's for both, of course, but I've really always been drawn towards the energetic side of mindfulness, not the sit in silence and meditate, not the sound bath and meditate kind of guy. That's great for some people. It's never been great for me. I always get the most mental breakthroughs when I listen to dance music. There's something about the structure of dance music for one, break, build, drop, break, build, drop, hit drop. It's very euphoric. It's very journey driven. I've never written anything of substance without listening to dance music.

1:02:36So I've always had this creative and emotional connection to dance music. At a certain point, a couple of years ago, I was like, well, let me bring this into some of my practices. So I started working with different DJs and I would have them on the show where they would play a set. Like I would have Martin Garrix on and he would play for 60 minutes. And then the great thing about dance music is there's usually transitions between the songs where it's somewhat easy to come in with a vocal or a piece of audio. And I would come in and just kind of do a little of my usual mindfulness, but over 130 BPM banger house tune.

1:03:06And it's not for everyone. Certainly a lot of people don't really get it. They would rather do the quiet, call mindfulness. But I think a lot of people are leaning towards mindfulness as something that excites you. Mindfulness that's something that you could do while you're moving your body. And it's more of a creative outlet for me than anything I really do with my business. And I live in Miami now and my girlfriend is a DJ here. So it's part of my life. I spend a fair amount of time in clubs here. But I don't really drink. I just enjoy the ability for music to be a catalyst for vulnerability, whether that's in person or in an episode or with a DJ.

1:03:41I just think there's such an inherent, powerful connection between music and mindfulness that I at least have to put it out into the world. And I enjoy doing it. Yeah. And I think a lot of my listeners are going to want to hear some of that. Where can they hear your mindfulness music? Yeah, they're all on the podcast. So if you go to New Mindset, who does Spotify or Apple, you just scroll through, you'll see the cover art's different for them. There's one I did with Martin Garrix is when I did with two friends, a bunch of different DJs who are a little bit smaller, but they're great. So if you want to give it a shot, listen to it and see how you feel.

1:04:13That's awesome. Because I'm somebody who has ADHD. So I like doing mindfulness with yoga and like matching it with different things. So I think it's really a really cool thing. All right. So your Instagram, couple questions on your Instagram, because you've managed to build such an awesome Instagram. And nowadays, everyone's saying it's all about Instagram reels. You've got to do your reels. But you're having so much success posting quotes and thoughts and sliders. And I'm curious to understand, where did you come up with this strategy? And why do you think it works so well? Yeah, I'll address the video versus static in a second.

1:04:51I always think about that. It was during COVID. Again, a big breakthrough time for me creatively because I literally had more time on my hands. I was sitting in my apartment and I was like, I want to promote the podcast. How do I get more people to listen to podcasts? I was like, well, I got to post on social. And I was like, well, for one, if I talk for 20 minutes on the podcast, how can I show that I really understand it? Well, simplicity is the way to show you understand something. So I was like, how can I take something on the podcast? It's a complex conversation, boil it down to one sentence.

1:05:19So I really forced myself to be creative in that sense. And then two, I was like, well, I don't want to just do a one by one and do a little Canva digital mock-up. I was like, there's got to be something more real. And at the time I had these coffee cups in front of me. So I started writing on coffee cups with a pen and those did really well. At the time, there weren't a whole lot of people doing handwritten stuff. And then I started writing on pieces of paper and I lived in downtown Chicago. So I had the backdrop and I would just start posting them all over. And then I also understood the algorithm somewhat well and saw the power of carousels and not just the power of carousels, but the power of series.

1:05:56Have one idea, but to say it in eight or nine or 10 different ways so that people would scroll through and find different ones that they relate to. And the rest is history. I write them all by hand. I still do. Even though now I generally just write on a white piece of paper with my pen and then I take a photo of it. People's preferences changed. I think people like the simplicity and the minimalism of just a white piece of paper, but I love my red pen. I love doing it. For me, it's a noble creative quest to ensure that I can distill down a conversation like this into a short sentence. I'm an adamant believer in the power of mantras and affirmations to have these things that you believe, pieces of clarity that you could put human language behind.

1:06:39We opened up with talking about learning to talk to yourself, not just listen to yourself. So this is my way to encourage people to do that. People tattoo my quotes. It's crazy stuff. But then to your question, yeah, everyone's always like, hey, it's like, why don't you do more reels? Sit down and do reels. I just like to write. I really do. And at the end of the day, even if I were to get on a reel and basically read a quote, read one of my quotes, but just say it. It's going to get shared much more if it's already written down. I've tested that a million times, at least in my world. Maybe I don't have the right production value or I'm not handsome enough to really grab the algo's attention.

1:07:16I don't know. But for me, I like to write things down because there's so much more shareable. And people remember it so much more because they can actually see it. Reels are great. And obviously, video is the future on social media. But for when it comes to the type of material that I really want to evangelize and help spread, short written quotes, for me, just speaks my truth and people remember them. And that's what I want. I don't want a quick hit of dopamine that comes from a nice reel. I want the longevity that comes from a piece of affirmation that people take with them and print out or tattoo or all these crazy things I've seen people do with things that I've written.

1:07:51So I will continue to be the quote guy and hope people continue to receive them. And you're so good at it. Everybody loves your quotes and it goes back to being true to yourself. You're not trying to be somebody else. You're not trying to be something that everybody else wants you to be or expects you to be. You're just doing your own thing and that's magnetic to other people. So if you had to pick one of these quotes to stick up on your fridge, you've got hundreds and hundreds of them, what would you pick? I wrote one a while ago where I just said redirection is an upgrade. I like that a lot.

1:08:24Back to everything we're talking about here, faith, patience, luck, vulnerability, our past, clarity, our ability to see a detour, a failure, a flop, a piece of redirection as opening another door as opposed to closing all the doors. I really like that. It's optimistic thinking for sure, but you read that enough and you're in the moment and someone dismisses you or you're rejected. It's like, oh, that stings, but redirection is an upgrade. Let me see where this is pointing me to. So I like that one and it's short and sweet. Yeah, that's beautiful. Okay, I end my podcast with two questions I ask all of my guests.

1:08:59The first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? I'll just go with the obvious here. I would start journaling, truthfully, Even from a business perspective, it gives you clarity in what to do next, which I think is the ultimate thing. As long as you could find things to do next, you will inevitably be profitable, whether that's emotionally profitable, mentally profitable, profitable on paper. I really do advocate for a guided journaling habit. You said a guided journaling habit. What are some resources that you recommend? I've made and sell a variety of guided journals.

1:09:35You're welcome to pick them up. You don't have to. There's great ones out there that aren't mine. I would just recommend finding a journal that asks different questions every day. I find that sometimes we get into this performative journaling mode where it's like, I'm grateful for this or three things I did today. Those are great, of course, but it needs to be alongside of a powerful, intention-driven question that dives into your past. I think that's the most powerful way. So find a journal that has calibrating questions, some gratitude exercises I think are great, but find one that hits hard with specific different questions every day so you don't get comfortable.

1:10:10The point of journaling is not to reinforce what you believe. It's not. It's to make you uncomfortable to evolve your thinking. So whether that's through my journal, someone else's, create your own prompts if you're creative. Just focus on the power and depth of the question. And what do you say is your secret to profiting in life? And this can go beyond the topic of today's episode. Yeah, I would say consistency. truly whether that's consistency in the gym or with my business or my podcast i'm big on doing difficult things you know i am a david goggins stan in that respect do the difficult things if it's difficult you have to do it just do the freaking difficult thing i'm really big on it whether that's physically or emotionally or i don't want to do another episode no do the difficult thing i'd say it's that i'm a sucker for doing the difficult thing consistently because i've just seeing what happens when you're consistent with those things that most people don't want to do.

1:11:03And it sets you apart. Not that I'm apart from everyone else and there's me. It sets me apart from older versions of myself, which is the person that I compete with. So do the difficult things, do them consistently. Well, this was such an amazing conversation. I really appreciate your time. Where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do? Yeah. Thanks for having me. I love talking about myself, but it was cool to see how much we have in common as well. So thanks so much for having me. Case.Kenny on Instagram. The podcast is called New Mindset Who Disse everywhere you listen to pods, books, journals, newmindsetwhodisse.com.

1:11:34Amazing. We'll stick all those links in the show notes. Case, thank you so much. Thank you.

1:11:43Case, Kenny is the man. I love his broader approach to mindfulness, how it's not just about sharing your feelings or being present in the moment, but also about learning how to talk to yourself. Like he said, mindfulness is really self Q &A, asking yourself the right questions in order to understand yourself and get the most out of yourself. And when you get better at that, you become more self-aware. You'll end up being a lot kinder to yourself. You'll start to push back against the programming and the conditioning that drives you to be so much harder on yourself than you are with others. And here's the beautiful thing.

1:12:22Once you let up on yourself, it frees you to become a lot bolder, bolder in relationships, in your job, and in your life. I also liked Case's view on the past, how the tough experiences we've had in the past really set the stage for a better future. Our battle scars help us raise our standards in a good way. Our failed relationships of the past teach us what to value in future ones. In short, our past troubles can boost the clarity with which we view the world today. Finally, like Case, we can all learn to embrace not just our past experiences, but our present embarrassment as well. He actually seeks out embarrassment as a source of growth, a way to build his confidence.

1:13:06And that's because having a difficult conversation, an awkward encounter, or a shaky performance helps us to build the mental evidence that we can survive anything and even flourish in spite of all. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcast. If you listened, learned, and profited from this conversation with the amazing Case Kenny, then it's time to be bold. Take out your phone and share this episode with somebody who would benefit from it. And if you did enjoy this show and you listen each and every week or every single morning or every time you go to the gym, then share it with us.

1:13:42Tell us in a review, write us a five-star review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I really love reading your reviews. It makes my day. And if you prefer to watch your podcasts as videos were on YouTube, I'm starting to do a lot more in-person interviews, which I'm really excited about. And if you're looking for me, you can check me out on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name, it's Hala Taha. I also have to take a second to say thank you so much to my amazing production team. You guys are so hardworking. You do such a great job. I really appreciate all the experimentation you're doing with AI and all the cool stuff you guys are doing at Yap Media.

1:14:24I love you guys. This is your host, Halataha, aka the Podcast Princess, signing off.

1:14:42Thank you.