Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome back. This episode I call You Coming to Meet You, also known as Know Thyself. So the words, you coming to meet you, I hope those hit you the way they hit me when a woman said that to me many years ago. So in this episode, we're going to bask in know thyself, but it's all about you coming to meet you. And as you've learned and as we've talked about, there are thousands of ways to know yourself better for you to come and meet you. And in this episode, I'm going to share with you two things. We're going to do an exercise, number one. And the second is I'm going to share an experience. And I'm just compelled to do these two things.
(00:57):
And so here we go, starting with the exercise, the exercise you may be familiar with. If you read Shine, this exercise is in Shine, and it's called the True Self Exercise. I also shared this exercise in one of the original podcast episodes going back a year and a half ago, but way back then we had very few listeners back then as we've built this podcast. So many have not heard that. And my question to you, even if you read Shine, have you really done the True Self Exercise? Because we're about to do it together. And so with that, here we go. We're going to dive in. And if you are driving, I would urge you to please hit pause, pull over, because this will be worth it. You're just going to be pulling over for a few minutes. And here we go.
(01:50):
And so I'm going to start by asking you to close your eyes. And with eyes closed, I want you to take a deep breath in. And then let it out, and just ground yourself. And with eyes closed, sitting, I want you to picture you. Picture your entire life. And in seeing all of that, I now want you to remove from your life everything. Remove your business, remove your employees, remove your accolades, remove your accomplishments, remove your family, remove your friends, remove your addictions, remove your money, remove your house, and remove all of your goals. And I ask you, what is left? What is left is you, just you, completely alone with nothing but yourself.
(03:17):
How do you feel? And you feel either one of two extremes, anywhere on a spectrum, you either feel on one end, joy, love, trust, peace, safe, or on the other end of the spectrum, you might feel empty, you might feel pain, you might feel unfulfilled, uncomfortable, sad, scared, lost, lonely. This is about you coming to meet you, the real you, your True Self. Now, obviously you should feel unconditional love and complete self-trust, but wherever you are, you are. When you feel love and trust and peace, everything is better in your life. If you feel empty or pain, it just simply means you're not 100%. You're going through life a little off balance, and it's affecting everything. You're on a shaky foundation. And there's hope.
(04:27):
And so now I would ask you to please bring it all back, bring everything back, bring it all back in. And once it's all back, I want you to open your eyes. And with eyes open, I want you to think about, so whether you felt pain or whether you felt peace, what's important to understand is whatever it was, it's showing up in 1,000 little ways in your life with everything and everyone. And the idea is to obviously shift toward more peace. And a way to think about what happened there is if you picture a spectrum, on one end is peace and on the other end is pain, just put a little hash mark on that range where you were.
(05:12):
And so we never know what's going to happen when we do that exercise with someone or with an audience, and it's all over the place. It's just incredible. Everything from people feeling incredible pain or incredible peace. One particular woman, she said she felt absolute peace. And then when she brought everything back in, she started to feel stress and pain, which just tells her there's some things in her life that are causing her stress that she needs to deal with. And in other situations, people feel pain. And so there's just something going on at their core. Whatever came up for you is exactly what needed to come up for you for you to learn more about yourself, and maybe something to work on or something to do more of.
(05:57):
And so that's part one of our conversation here in this episode. And like I said, we're going to do an exercise and I'm going to share an experience. And I'm feeling compelled to do these two things. And so now I want to share this experience with you. This experience I call my four-day personal retreat. And it was really interesting what led up to it because I was actually scheduled on this same date to actually go do a guided retreat with someone. And something was just telling me that it's time for me to be my own guru, to listen to myself, to go inside. So I actually canceled that and decided to just go spend four days with myself. And it was absolutely incredible. And so I went to an island off of Jacksonville called Amelia Island, stayed in a hotel on a beautiful beach, it's an incredible beach, on the ocean. And so just a great atmosphere and certainly view.
(07:04):
So I've done lots of retreats, again, whether it was guided or working with some guru or going with friends or family or whatever it was, but I've never done anything like this where it was just all me, no agenda, being with me, no distractions, nothing tugging at me. I turned off the world. I prepared everyone. All my wife and I did was texted good morning and goodnight at the end of the day, just so that I could stay disconnected completely. And in that, I had no identity. I was not a husband, I was not a father, I was not a son, I was not a businessman, a teacher, a friend. I was just me being with me.
(07:47):
And so here's what I did, again, I'm just feeling compelled to share what I did and then certainly some outcomes. But the first thing that I did is I wrote my life story. So when I got to the airport, I pulled out the journal and I wrote my life story. It took about four hours in the airport, on the flight. By the time I landed, I was done. And I was just compelled to do this from a book I just read called Primal Intelligence. You don't have to run out and read it, but it talked about the power of just clearly knowing your story in the way of it just anchors and grounds you. And so it was just a really profound exercise. And so it's just this beautiful rollercoaster ride of looking back at all the highs and lows and things like that. So it was very, very profound.
(08:33):
Another thing that I did is I journaled a lot. So up and over just my story, I journaled a lot, I did a lot of writing. And there was this cool thing that came to the surface I'm calling authentic entrepreneurial leaders. And so I think that's going to be an episode sometime very soon, so more on that in a bit. Another thing that I did is I went to bed early. I was in bed by seven o'clock. That's just what my body wanted. For some reason, I was in bed, and I'd meditate sometimes a little bit, but I was out pretty darn early. And then I was up really early. And so I would get up probably 4:00 AM, I would do an hour-long meditation. And I was actually down in the lobby by 5:00 or 6:00 AM every day. And I was journaling or doing some of the other things that I'll share with you in just a second. So that was just, again, what my body wanted. It was just really cool energetically.
(09:32):
Another thing was when I would be in the lobby early, I was reading through, I have a file of some of my biggest ahas, lessons, things learned, teachings, et cetera. And I was able to go through that file, and it takes a good four hours to fully get through that. And so I was able to do that. It took me two mornings to do that. That was very profound, to just bring me back to all those wonderful teachings and ground me in some things, and reremember some things, which was really incredible as well.
(10:04):
The other thing I did is I went to the spa twice, and probably spent four hours in the spa. So it was an hour-and-a-half massage, it was doing all the amenities, steam, sauna, jacuzzi, and then the relaxation room. So just an awesome experience. That was its own experience in itself. In addition to that, I walked on the beach, I swam in the ocean, spent lots of time pondering, but then I did something really cool that it's been on my bucket list for years. And so again, I was in the Jacksonville area. You may or may not recall, but I'm a huge fan of Michael Singer. And Michael Singer does a talk on his compound in the middle of nowhere in Florida. And I've always wanted to go see him do one of his talks. He does two a week.
(10:56):
And so one of the days, in an 18-hour period, I drove to Alachua, Florida to Michael Singer's compound. It's incredible how only about 50 people show up for this. I did his yoga, his meditation, and then listened to him talk for an hour, which was just kind of a dream come true. I just really wanted to experience his whole vibe. And as always, every one of his lessons are incredible. Every one of his talks are also on his podcast, so you can actually hear all of his talks that he does twice a week on his podcast. But I was able to do that and just finally check that box on my bucket list. And it was everything I hoped it would be. I then drove back home the next morning. And in addition to everything I've shared, I'm working on a new project that I'll unveil in 2026. And I spent about a half day just working on a creative project.
(11:51):
Another interesting thing that happened is I got a little bored twice and felt despair. This was Tuesday to Saturday. So on Wednesday night and on Thursday morning, I experienced boredom and despair, where I think it was all part of the process, where I just started to get bored and I started to get a little depressed. It was really fascinating. And then that, as it always does, processed whatever needed to be processed there. So that was quite profound. And up and over all of that, I just rested a lot, I got a lot of rest. And I probably said 100 words in four days total. So I did very little interacting with people, talking, I dined alone. And so I think that was also very powerful, because I was almost on my own silent retreat per se, although it obviously was not a silent retreat.
(12:51):
So there it is. As I reflect back on it, I have no doubt there was a shift toward freeing and being my True Self, a shift. I don't know how much, I don't know if it was monumental, but a shift toward me knowing myself a little bit better, me coming to meet myself a little bit better, me shifting again toward being my True Self. I know that I came back a little bit better of a human being. I know that I shed a little bit, I don't know how much, but it's all gradual. So again, it wasn't this monumental thing, it's all gradual as we grow and ascend and shed and become ourselves. So all that said, I have a question for you, what would you do with yourself for four days? What would you do for one day? What would you do for a week? I don't know what your formula is. For me, four days was perfect, I was ready to come home on that fourth day. And what might you discover about yourself if you take a personal retreat, again, an hour, a day, two days, four days, a week?
(14:03):
I urge you to consider that. Even though I know it's hard, in other words, we are all busy. And if you have young children, I know how hard that is to get away. I'm fortunately an empty nester, many years in, a grandpa, so I have luxuries that I can get away for four days. So I know it's hard, so maybe it's a half a day for you, but just consider that question, and consider the topic we're talking about, and that is you coming to meet you. And again, I've shared with you an exercise and an experience. There's 1,000 other ways to do it, 1,000 other ways to help you know thyself better. And I am hopeful that in this conversation, at least one way was prompted for you that you'll actually do very, very soon.
(14:59):
Thank you for listening in today, we truly appreciate you taking the time to spend with us. And please tune in for the next episode. Until then, we wish you all the best in freeing your True Self. Stay focused, and much love.
