005 If You Aren’t the Calm You’re the Chaos

Having made a career of walking into the unknown, Jeff Banman shares with us what he has learned about embracing uncertainty and mastering the emotions associated with it.  He explains how the body’s response to uncertainty is the same whether you are walking into combat or quitting a job or starting a new life.  In this episode we learn some easy, practical tips to help us learn to embrace the exciting unknown and thrive in it

Jeff Banman’s BioAs a former Firefighter, US Army Ranger and CIA Counterterrorism Operator, Jeff has dedicated his life to discovering what separates success from failure. He has conducted operations and been responsible for producing powerful results in over twenty-three countries including two combat zones and multiple high-threat environments. Today, he continues to contribute to his community through the Operational Mindset Foundation and podcast, Mindset Radio with the mission to mentally, physically and emotionally prepare those who choose to place themselves in harm’s way.

​Links:
www.opmindset.org – The Operational Mindset Foundation
www.mindsetradio.com – The Podcast
Mindset06actual – instagram
Mindsetradio – instagram
https://www.facebook.com/mindsetradiopodcast/ – Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/theopmindsetfoundation/ – Facebook

Transcript
Stephen Christopher  1:52  

Hey everybody. I am Stephen Christopher here with my co host, Laura Sanchez today for another absolutely amazing episode of the exciting unknown podcast today. As always, we have an absolutely amazing guest for you That’s going to be different in a couple ways. So I’m really, really excited about this episode. We have today with us we have a former firefighter, former US Army Ranger, also former CIA counterterrorism operator who’s operated in over 23 countries, and has taken everything that he’s learned and put it into this very interesting package and solution and purpose and mission that we’ll go into a little bit more today. He’s founded this he’s created this really amazing community called the operational mindset foundation. He has a podcast that is absolutely amazing called mindset radio, and just one of the most caring giving heart centered guys that I’ve ever met that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find with somebody with a background of all of those cool things. So I’d like to welcome Jeff Banman to the show, Jeff, how’s it going, man?

Unknown Speaker  10:00  

Brother, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Stephen Christopher  10:02  

Yeah, absolutely, man, this is gonna be Yeah, this is gonna be really, really fun today. So, you know, let’s, let’s just jump right in. Because here’s a really cool topic that you and I have talked a little bit about dealing with the unknown, right. And I think there’s two ways to look at this we can say dealing with the unknown, or kind of like the podcast alludes to as the exciting unknown, you know, in whichever way we tend to look at that is probably a little bit of what we tend to get out of it. But I mean, with your background, man, I mean, you you, your life has been dealing

Unknown Speaker  10:38  

with the unknown with the unknown. Yeah, well, and it’s all been unknown because none of this was planned. I think you and I were talking about that, you know, this started for me. At 16 organ a Domino’s Pizza. And one of the drivers decided to start volunteer and firehouse came to work one day, I was like, dude, check out my gear. And three days later, I was sitting the firehouse, like, I want to be a fireman. And then it’s just been Opportunity presenting itself kind of each step of the way. And so yeah, I think I think very much My life has been living in that unknown space, right living in some uncertainty, not quite having all the answers. And then, you know, probably I would say probably the last decade, decade and a half has been really exploring that, right with depth and science and data, and really understanding why we do what we do and we do it. Right, what are the more of the factors around and so now it’s a very interesting conversation. When you look at how, how people operate in, you would say, unknown, I might say uncertainty, right? We’ll just interchange those for the purpose of the conversation. You know, it’s one of the key attributes that I’ve really been able to see over time. And and in my study, and in my opportunity to kind of investigate and look at the top performers, really from almost any industry, you know, not just the military, not just the intelligence community, but business leaders, Stock Exchange guys, right traders, entrepreneurs all the way down line pro athletes. And, you know, you came back to it each and every time and one of the key factors that you see that begins to separate them, right, these people that you would look at and be like, wow, that person is really doing well or they have their stuff together or they’re just, you know, really an exceptional human being. One of the key factors there is their ability to be comfortable. in absolute uncertainty, absolute unknown, right? They’re just, they’re okay, you know, for me, that’s, you kicked me out in the world, you send me to Beirut, and say, Hey, dude, you’re gonna hang out Beirut for the next month. All right, cool. You know, I’ll go have coffee at the coffee shop and meet people and hang out because I’m okay. I know. idea what is there for me, but I’m okay being there. Right? I have this sense of comfort and calmness that comes over me in in those places, and that’s a, that’s a behavioral trait. That’s something that that really takes some time to develop as well.

Stephen Christopher  13:20  

So has that Have you always been that way? Or is that is it learned? Is it?

Unknown Speaker  13:28  

Yes and No, you know, I mean, I think I have a natural predisposition. You know, I mean, as you as you go through and you start to explore childhood trauma and everything else, right. I was on a buddy show the other day and I said, Yes, I said, it’s no wonder why I’ve ended up in this life easier to control the chaos outside the control the chaos inside, right. But I think that I think entering into the fire service so young for me, you know, because it’s 16 you’re still in brain development. You’re still Really in character building and trait building and those that time. And I think I had, I had the privilege of learning from some amazing people who were amazing firefighters, right? And you know, old school nitty gritty of like, really gritty guys. And at every turn, if I look back on my training and the encouragement they had and the mentorship they had, it was always about being that settled presence. Like no matter how they were configuring or what they were talking about, that was the constant anchor point along the way. So I think, I think it’s learned, right, I think it’s, you know, my my favorite statement is if you’re not the calm, you are the chaos, right? And that’s very relevant our world. You’re either in it or you’re bringing the car to it. And that’s true in business. That’s true anywhere you go. It’s true parents Right. So I think that that’s something I had the privilege and opportunity to learn at a very critical time in my life, and then that kind of set me on the course if that makes sense. You know, that question for you?

Stephen Christopher  15:16  

No, it definitely does. And so you mentioned this internal, right, this internal struggle, and you mentioned trauma and things like that. When did you start? When did you start looking at that was that much later in life? Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  15:31  

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that’s really been, I think, the dive into trauma and residue and processing my life. And I don’t just put it in the bucket of my operational life because it’s, you know, all a lot of pre seven childhood stuff there. That then influences me throughout and then gets triggered throughout. But I would say that’s probably I would put that in the last three years, really I have been starting to unzip that and open that up and deal through that process of, you know, even to the point of identifying that I had carried, I’d carried a lot of souls for a lot of years. Like it’s still my responsibility and letting them go, right and letting them doesn’t mean have to give up the memory. But, but let them go on their journey. And I don’t I don’t have to hold that any longer. So yeah, that’s it’s been fairly recently that deep dive.

Stephen Christopher  16:33  

And so I want to go let’s go a little bit deeper into this from a standpoint of I think that so I’m on a similar path as you I think, probably until the last few years, I did not go back deeper into some of that stuff because you know, ultimately, I had a really I had a great childhood when you compare it to most right, you know, sure, good family. We had no issues. My parents are still married. You know, my sister, everybody’s healthy. I mean, literally, almost nothing. Right? Yeah. But what I’ve realized is that, you know, trauma doesn’t have to mean something terrible. Right, exactly. ways that we’ve learned to be the, you know, our parents. For the most part, I think most of our parents did the best they could with the knowledge and the info they had 100 but this trauma thing. So yeah, I just want to pinpoint that trauma can be trauma doesn’t have to be like, you know, your mom and dad separated or way, way worse than that,

Unknown Speaker  17:29  

dude, it could be that you just lost your favorite toy. I mean, at three, right? I mean, that’s, it’s it’s understanding the perception of you at that age with that ability, you know, have that effect. It’s so it’s like Mike said on the podcast, you know, a while ago, it’s we’re not in the trauma Olympics here, right? We’re not Yeah, I’m not. I’m not beating you out in the trauma corridor. It’s so individualized. And that’s why I do like Preston climb good friend of mine, who was the leader. developer leader at Wharton Business School, phenomenal academic and big in my community, just published a recent paper titled residue. So it’s really looking at how you process extreme experiences. And that came via a conversation with the actor with Tom Hardy. You know, because he’s doing one of his pieces deed method actor, he cornered precedents said, What about residue and a bunch of silting guys and delta guys hanging out around and as Tom’s explaining, like the need to wash off the last character before the next character, everybody kind of had this look on their face, like, oh, wait a minute, and then in press and press and style goes deep, publishes a phenomenal paper. So I think that also gives us an opportunity to separate what’s trauma and needs to be healed, and then what’s residue and needs to be processed through two different two different chord or center. So that’s something we’re about Really unpacking now,

Stephen Christopher  19:02  

along the way, I see Yeah, that’s a really good distinction. And I’ll definitely look for you to send us more on that as you guys. Yeah, as you guys figured that out more. So over the course of last couple years, somebody like you that has a lot of this innate, right, like dealing with the unknown or the uncertain and stuff like that, I mean, most people in the in the, in our little world, right maybe the business world that you know, have never really had to deal with a lot of stuff that you have. It’s hard enough to deal with the uncertainty and the unknown. Sure. So for you when you started processing through this older stuff is older trauma. What was the impact that it had on you? Because like I said, you were already what I would say much further ahead than a lot of us as far as being okay with the unknown being okay with your uncertain I think that’s huge. But now you’ve taken that to a next level by starting to go back and process some of this, this older stuff. What does that done for you? Like, what does it have What is it unlocked? What? How is that started to show up in your life? And so far?

Unknown Speaker  20:07  

Oh no. I want to like paint my face blue. And do you have said like fruit? Oh, my God. It has been, it has been magnificent because Wow, for a lot of my life you could kind of send me anywhere in the world and you know, do whatever and I would produce the result you needed to produce by any means necessary, right? I mean, I would get out there and do it. I didn’t understand my heart. You know, you said this kind of even after our little warm up, right? Like you could feel that heart, man. I know now I have this gigantic heart that just loves people. And I think previously in my life, what I did was I was I was more I just carried everybody shit. pardon the expression. You know what I mean? I just whether they asked me to or not, I carried it, I took it. I owned it all. I got it, I’ll shoulder that, I’ll do that. And when I look back now what I can see is where it just stood in my way of, of performance of producing results better than I’d ever produced. It just, I mean, man that Wait, I carried in my rucksack for 45 years. Was was too much. Right. And so I think what this has done for me is this. This is this has freed me up. I mean, I see it. You watch a video of me, you know, just like last week with with Dan Luna and you got to seal team guy SEAL Team Six guy, the CIA guy, and SWAT commander all crying by the end of this episode. I don’t. I don’t. I’m going to use the words I don’t care anymore. Because I don’t, but it’s not that you know what I mean? There’s like Don’t have a thing about how I look or what I’m saying or how things are it’s like we’ll figure it out I’m I am more subtle more at peace more heart open and I’m able to I’m able to really see other people’s stuff and separate you know my my statements kind of becoming of your audiences okay with this you know you got to deal with my background oh yeah like your shit not mine like that’s a very definitive line for me I mean even going to the grocery store somebody frustrated somebody agitated hey that’s, that’s yours you just go ahead and keep that over there. I’m not not carrying that. I’m me. And I’m seeing that in my engagement with our audience. I’m seeing that and how I run my podcast I’m seeing that how I’m shooting video for the programs. I’m free. I’m free to have like all that should be looked this way feel this way. Carry somebody else’s stuff up against judgment up against shame up against up against self doubt, dude, gone. You know, it’ll creep in every now and again I just go breathe into it settle down, get it out of my body. You know what I mean? Gone and rock and roll. So that has been, it is, I would say the last three years have probably been the most epic of my life. Huh? Yeah,

Stephen Christopher  23:20  

dude, that’s, that’s awesome. I mean I feel so for me in my in my journey of this I’ve I’ve come up when I’ve visited some of the stuff from the past and like what’s been holding me back and what I would say is keeping me or has kept me from that sense of ease and peace and freedom and fulfillment is a lot of it is judgment, self judgment and fear of judgment from others. That was a big one for me. So like just hearing you say, freedom and not worrying about what anybody else says what anybody else thinks. So I get it when you say you don’t care. You don’t care about those judgments. But yet you you have the heart that wants to be so deeply connected to serve.

Unknown Speaker  24:04  

Yeah. Yeah. And if you, you know, and I’m, you know, it’s funny, I’m closing like closing my circle, we talked about this right. And it’s funny who’s showing up now, you know, and and getting, getting people that consume space and time out of the way previously, people that, you know, readily handed me their stuff to carry on knowingly. don’t need that anymore. Not that I don’t love them, not that they’re not amazing people, but they’re just not in my orbit right now. And by doing that, and the things that have just like, even just in this last week, people have shown up that I’ve spoken to in three years and checking in and it’s like, oh, well, I’m doing this, let me support you with that. And just, it’s magical man. It’s, it’s really cool. And it’s, you know, I’ve always been, at the end of the day, I am a performance guy. Right? It’s, you know, there’s one answer to Did you produce the results you wanted to produce and that is it. They’re a yes or a no. And like understanding how to answer those powerfully, and leave it. I mean, I would ask people all the time, I’m like, are you producing? And there’s no, there’s going to be a Yeah. And storyline, or no, but storyline. Nope. I just want to Yes. Or I want to know. And then we’ll discover from there, we’ll learn I will walk you down the road to explore why on either side, and really extract the goodness, right. And so I think even that statement that I’ve said for years becomes more powerful because now there’s no judgement to it. It’s just flat. It’s just what it is. And I’m actually able to call myself out and be like, hey, am I producing at the level that I know I can produce and I’m capable of producing? And if that answer is no, it’s like, Okay, cool. No, there’s not like, shame around that. It’s like, Oh, I screwed up again. Oh, I’m not doing this. None of that crap. It’s like nope, okay, cool. And walk through it.

Unknown Speaker  26:01  

So I think that’s been spent cool.

Stephen Christopher  26:05  

I love that. I love the, I think of it as ones and zeros, right? It’s either a one, and it was it was completed in the way that you intended it to or a zero and it wasn’t. And then either way, it’s okay. It’s, it’s funny. So it wet at the digital marketing company that I founded. We do weekly commitments in these little pods and everybody writes down on the spreadsheet, their weekly commitments, and then they meet with their pod the next Monday and say, Did you do it and we track all of it, and it’s either one or zero. And so there’s no it’s either you did it or you didn’t? Because otherwise it’s this sliding?

Unknown Speaker  26:40  

Yo, like, murky and this Yeah.

Stephen Christopher  26:43  

And it’s like, well, I did it. You know, I can technically I could check the box because somebody from the outside could say, Oh, yeah, you know, because it’s personal and business. They’re like mail somebody wants to clean their closet. Well, they’re like, well, I did kind of clean it so I could kind of say I did it, but it We always ask the question, did you do it to the level that you committed to yourself? Yeah, when you said it. Yeah. So it’s always a one or zero,

Unknown Speaker  27:09  

dude. Oh, hundred percent man, I think that’s when you can operate like that. Excuse me? It’s magic, right? Because that’s like, because it isn’t just everything else sheds away. And just like, No, actually I didn’t. Okay, cool. And it’s not like, people have this idea. And this is why right, so let’s go back to operating and uncertainty or stepping into the unknown. This is why it’s so difficult. You know, answer that question for yourself. Yes or no. If you’re struggling answering that question for yourself, you’re going to struggle operating in the unknown operating uncertainty, because there’s the ambiguity creeps in that need to justify or excuse or maneuver or whatever really takes hold. You know, if you’re in, step out launch a business or you’re gonna try a new product or you’re gonna, you know, go hunt bad guys around the world. You can’t have that. Like that will stop you, period. And, you know, coming through that process is is a is a major way man. I love that you do that. That’s, that’s awesome. Yeah,

Stephen Christopher  28:23  

thanks. So okay, I have some questions around this so you’ve been through I’ll call them a lot of different careers, right? There’s a lot of threads that that tie them together but a lot of different careers. So when you were 16, you quit dominoes and went to be a firefighter. What, how did you know when to leave each one and go on to the next? Like, was it a calling was it What was that thing that kind of led you there? Because and here’s kind of the the big overarching thing at least that I’m very curious. About as I’m always curious about this, you know, intuition and trusting our guidance and following this calling, and even though we may or may not know exactly why, but you’ve made some pretty big changes along the way. So talk me through each of those kind of different changes and why you’ve decided all the way up to doing what you’re doing now.

Unknown Speaker  29:20  

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I’ve looked because I, because we’ve, I’ve had a lot of conversation around this, because people are always like, dude, how do you do all that? Right? and have it be on plant? So I think, I think what’s been interesting for me, and I don’t know where this came from. Okay, so this was embedded in me a long time ago. And I come from a family of very entrepreneurial, you know, Blue Bloods. I mean, we’ve got direct lines to people on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and all that. So I mean, I know in my blood, there’s generational stuff, right? That That gives me a move towards this. But I think, for me,

Unknown Speaker  30:07  

I always had the ability to sense

Unknown Speaker  30:12  

whether or not what I was doing was really working for me. Like when I, you know, so I started volunteering in the firehouse at 16. So I stayed working at Domino’s, but even that, I mean, it’s like, one pivot left, I own five Domino’s in the Northern Virginia area. And then, you know, because they literally were like, dude, you’re going to go to our management training program. You got an opportunity, we’re going to give you the opportunity to buy in because you know, that you’re talking early 90s right. Northern Virginia was still small. That was my track there. And I mean, I don’t know I was just flapping to his eyes, go get right, love it and do my job. And then the opportunity to also step into the fire service was cool. And, you know, like my mom would say I just moved out of a house. At 16 lit that fire station now all through high school, but and then got hired right out of high school. So I think what’s interesting is even like leaving the fire service to go in the military, like that’s a major choice, right I mean, I’m leaving a career at that time that was like the number one most desired job in the United States. I’m 20 years old I’m making 45 grand a year Brian fire trucks right it’s like pretty darn cool. She and somebody would look at me and be like, why do you want to go join the army like what what’s wrong with you? And I plenty of even some of the guys virals had bets like how fast I’d be back.

Unknown Speaker  31:40  

And it was just a point where I was like, Okay, I looked around and said, Is this it?

Unknown Speaker  31:48  

Is this it for me? I was a little overweight who wasn’t super happy with myself. And, and I learned so quickly it was like, Is this all you got? Is this how I’m going to spend the next 30 years of my life? And when I looked at it that way, that was a very unsatisfying answer. And I knew I needed a little more I knew I needed a physical push, I knew I needed like there was something internally that I knew I needed. I didn’t know what I didn’t know how to put my finger on it. And as I began to kind of look and get curious about those things, of course in my space shows up Sergeant Anthony Hollywood Harrison, who had just left first Ranger battalion and you know getting ready to retire doing some recruiting duty his final ticket and just intersected meet and he’s like, Dude, come talk to me like sure I’ll come talk to you. Go over next thing you know, I Jeffrey a ban and do solemnly swear though, you know, of all defend the constitution, knighted states and after he died, I was going and then doing my service time. You know, I’m in Kosovo in 99. It’s a choice to get out or stay in. All the options were there. I was very well taken care of it. By stated I had basically everything that I wanted to stay in and a nice bonus tax free because we’re in a combat zone. And I just just in you know, I say knowing, knowing his neck down knowledge, his neck up knowing is all neck down. And I just knew there was something else. And I had no idea what I truly when I left the military, I had no idea what was next. But I knew it was the right choice. And, and so I got out and I kind of fumbled for about a year. Right kind of going back to fire service putzing around doing this doing that. Fast forward a little bit. I’m on duty the night of September 10, having coffee The morning of September 11. We’re about 30 miles outside the Pentagon, and within an hour so we get alerted and so post that and it becomes a trickle effect. I get by to do some trading operations with some friends of mine, who were sporting some people, there were some people from the agency there. They said, Hey, what are you doing? I said this, they said, you want to come to work for us? I said, Sure. And six months later, I was in Africa. I mean, literally, that was the conversation. And, you know, I think I put myself in a position where I’m open to the opportunities that present, I’m able to see and connect to the opportunities that present and then assess whether or not they feel right for me. And that’s been true. Even when I left the agency time to transition into building my first company, posi agency, and then even now into developing the foundation. You know, this was a real anchoring call. I think this was, like we talked about, right? This is the combination of the work, what matters, what’s the legacy? How do I live my life every day in contribution to others, you know, I’m not gonna write fire trucks anymore. I’m not to go go out in the world. And you know, look for bad guys. Unless one of three people call me, you know, I’m not doing that stuff anymore. So what do I have to contribute? What can I do? And I’ve got amazing network that supports us in the foundation and frees us up to really deliver to me a conversation that’s, that’s been long needed. And it’s making an impact. And so I love that I get to have the opportunity to do that now.

Stephen Christopher  35:26  

Yeah, and, you know, just for people listening, elaborate on who you’re serving, and to what level because you’re a super humble guy. And I just want to make sure that he that, that people understand who these people are that you’re serving, because it’s it’s extremely impressive.

Unknown Speaker  35:46  

Yeah, I mean, so the operation mindset foundation is is the foundation I created last year, with the sole purpose to mentally physically and emotionally develop the men and women to put themselves in harm’s way right for our benefit. So, police, firefighters, military personnel, EMRs, doctors, nurses, anybody who truly places themselves in a position to serve us, protect us. You know, it is our I believe it is our responsibility to give them the tools to live a full life. You know, we’re working on the book right now, titled the unspoken life caught between two worlds. And it’s very much like entrepreneurship, right? I mean, you find yourself between how do I provide for my family? How do I create stability and structure here, and love and care? And then how do I dedicate myself to this job, and this work and the challenges that go there? And I’m always stuck. I’m never all in either side. And it’s no different in any of the services. And then it starts to Paul and then what it is it’s a gateway for everything we talked about earlier. shame, guilt, judgment, fear, doubt. self doubt, you know, inability to perform. And it’s just this pendulum swing that I’m never able to fully embrace both sides. And so it takes some work. So that’s what we’re really. I mean, that’s the podcast. I mean, we, we lay it out there we talk about real things in real time. And we’re just not afraid to say what needs to be set. So that’s, that’s the mission. That’s the life that we do now. Yeah,

Stephen Christopher  37:28  

yeah. I mean, it’s awesome. When when you and I’ve had conversations when you’re in a room with, you know, SWAT teams and these, these super high level people, and you start getting groups of men and women in that in that world that you know, and you guys are crying, and they’re sharing stuff that they would never have shared. And it’s having these profound impacts. I mean, yeah, these are the people that serve us, right. And

Unknown Speaker  37:51  

we want them to feel served and fulfilled as well. And that’s a lot of the work that you’re that you’re doing doing well and we talked about emotion earlier, right? I mean, that’s I say a lot of times in my community, the only acceptable emotion was anger. Like, you can’t be too happy because you’re screwing off. You can’t be sad because that’s weakness. But you can be angry. You can be as angry as you want to be because you’re going to take that anger and you’re going to move it right where it needs to go. And that is probably one of the biggest two services in our community. The lack of emotional intelligence, lack of self awareness, the lack of those core fundamental skills we need to be able to process through what goes on because it’s a hard life. And you could step in today to be a police officer as clean as you could be. And in 10 years, you will be damaged, you will have prejudice, you will have biases, you will have issues, no doubt, because you listen, humanity is not nice. I mean, I’ve seen what one human can do to another in the extremes, you know genocides in Kosovo. The things that I saw in Iraq. Human beings are not Rarely people when you let them be. And that’s I think we, it doesn’t excuse anything, right? It doesn’t justify any behavior, it doesn’t justify any action. But to get in the world of each other, like, we got to know that, that these people are out there really dealing with stuff that you’ll never even know about every single day, three and four and 510 times a day. And that shifts away and shifts weight shifts way. And so the whole focus was, how do we enable these people? How do we empower these people to deal with that, to process that to go home and hug their kids, you know, to be a dad or to be a mom to love and have an open heart? And then how to protect it when they need to go to work and do what they’ve committed to do it. So sorry, I didn’t mean to jump off on a tangent there. No,

Stephen Christopher  39:51  

that’s, that’s great. Yeah. So how do okay? You’re teaching this at an extreme level, right people that go out into the world and see Bad, terrible things and teaching them how to how to deal with that without being or with being. I don’t know, you can tell me how you would say it, but as minimally damaged by this as possible. So most of us don’t have to deal with those types of extremes. Sure. So if we can learn a couple things from what you’re teaching these people how to do that could be extremely beneficial. So what’s, what are a couple actual things, examples, whatever you want to use sure to how we can we can become, I guess less impacted by some of that stuff, while becoming better and better versions of ourselves and being more free. And yeah, I mean, shit, man. I keep it’s funny. I keep doodling here, which maybe we’ll get to this maybe. Well, I keep doodling. How do you have fun? Right, like, yeah, you know,

Unknown Speaker  40:54  

I did for years, by the way.

Stephen Christopher  40:56  

Yeah. So how do you so maybe maybe we can tie that into this to this Question too. But I think fun is is really important because it creates ease. It creates, you know, resonance in the body and it creates healing. And so maybe we can tie that in there as well.

Unknown Speaker  41:12  

Yeah, I mean, I think here’s I do want to anchor something for you real quick, because I know, it’s like, especially when I come on a podcast like yours, right? And we’re in a, we’re in an audience of business people, entrepreneurs, performers, people that are actually you know, uptick great things. I want to do want to anchor something. Stress is stress, like the experience of something is just the experience of something at any extreme, and, you know, stepping out leaving a job starting a business, biologically is just as scary as stepping into combat. Right. I mean, there are so many fears of the unknown, of support of just all kinds, you know, and you’re hanging yourself out there, you’re really putting yourself on the line. You know, worst case scenario, you lose your house, you lose yourself. Sleeping in your car? Yes, over here, you know, maybe you lose your life or somebody around you lose. Yes, you, those are there. But those can’t be the guides for like assessing how somebody perceives stress. And I think I want to give that make sure your audience gets that, that I can understand that it’s just as scary. Right, stepping out or doing something or operating in the unknown. We did. So years ago, we wired guys up from combat and guys on the stock exchange floor in a really bad day. And if I showed you the data points, you would think the guys in this action floor are actually in combat.

Unknown Speaker  42:35  

Wow.

Unknown Speaker  42:36  

Yeah. So. So the experience of stress is, is just individualized across the board. So I want I don’t want anybody to be like, Oh, I Well, I’m not doing that. Then we’re getting back to the whole Olympic idea, right. So you are where you are, and you’re experiencing what you’re experiencing. I think tactically, right if we kind of bring it down from theory and hardline tactics, some of the major things that I teach along the way are understanding how to create recovery points and recovery periods. And so I’ll explain this real quick because this is a, this is a great tool even in in my daily life. So recovery point is like a quick, settle brief. Like it’s just a quick moment. You know, if I’m teaching the SWAT guys, it’s like, bullets flying all around, give me time to plant a cover brief before I call out to take that shot. If I’m you know, moving from meeting to meeting, have I given myself a period and time to recover? Have I given myself time to settle process, digest what just went on and then move forward? Okay, so setting that up, and I say, you know, you either have to plan them, or you have to be in tune enough with the environment to take them when the environment gives you give them to you, right? But without that, you end up just stacking Right, if you think about it, you go from missing your keys to running a little bit late to the meeting, to walking in the meeting, to not having what you need to then somebody disrupting you like you’re just, you’re just stacking, stacking, stacking. And if you aren’t, you’ll never be that calm. You, you are now the chaos. And I think we’ve all especially in business meetings, we’ve all been chaos, right? We’ve all been that guy, that woman, that person in the room just like do you know? So, really being disciplined about him? If you look at my calendar, there are recovery periods built into my day. Like even some of my workouts, my workout will be a recovery workout, like I’ll go, but the focus is how fast can I recover? And then that goes into like breath work. And I’m a big believer in understanding your body and your systems. Virtually all of our behaviors are driven by central nervous system right by what’s going on internally. And the only gateway you Have to manage that is your breath. So, figuring out a process of breath work that works for you. I believe that it’s very individualized, you know, whether you’re just doing like a, an easy heart rate coherence for a second and pause for a second, I’ll pause, just a rhythmic breathing cycle. I do that in meetings, I just trigger in it, you know, get my breath work going, you know, and I’ll pause and I’m okay, being quiet for a minute. Everybody can look at me, I don’t care, you know, and I will settle and then speak and then move. So I think that recovery combined with some solid breath work, just rhythmic breathing. You know, I need to kind of get myself moving, right, maybe a little more rapid. Maybe I’m doing a little more chest and shoulder full mobility breathing, to get myself where I need to be to step in to be a presence in the room, right because we’re just energetic beings and Your experience of me presence is just my energy dispersing amongst whoever’s there, right? So I may do some work to get myself where I need to be. And then when I step out of that it’s a settling breathwork. It’s a rhythmic process. I’m actually just going through and I’m processing things. So I think tactically, you know, I’ve said this before, it’s a highly complex answer to a very simple solution that we just don’t do. So, I’m in transition periods, right? If I’m from home to work, or from work to home from home to work, I’m setting myself up, I’m deliberate and what I’m doing, I’m always operating intentionally, just period, right. So those are some of the, the key, you know, tactical goodies. I mean, and that goes, and I’ll just share that same thing. We’ll teach you guys in the stack before you hit the door, right. It’s collectively unified as a team settled And move, right and then cuz not only am I entering a home, I want those people to be like what is happening or like what, what energy just crossed the threshold into that space and I’m not going to screw with it, right and that’s just as important is all the gear and kit and whatever I’m carrying. So I think that that is if you just start there and master that and mastery looks like doing it every day and doing it until you just running and then figuring out you forgot to do it and going back to doing it some more.

Unknown Speaker  47:36  

That’s, that’s fundamentally like Ground Zero starting point. For a lot of this, you know, because it bleeds into so much. it bleeds into your ability to see things to hear someone, right it gets you out of your head and into their conversation they’re having with you. It lets you start to connect to their energy and their their story. And their time. And, and then you know, you get to decide how you want to move things. You know, it’s like, okay, Chris, I see where you are, you know what I mean? Like, cool. Steven, I see where you’re cool. You know, whoever’s with me, it’s like, okay, gotcha. You know, Mike, Mike’s with me, like, how right and I want, you know, and I’m actually empowering him in this place to do that. And it may sound gooey, gooey, it may sound all kinds of hippie dippie. But it works. It works. I promise you, it works. And the guys at the top of the tears, the guys that you see on the movies, you know, and read the books about they’re doing it. They are doing it every step of the way.

Stephen Christopher  48:44  

What I love that you bring, I love you bring that in right gado, it could sound a little hippie dippie type stuff, but if people understand because you know I talk about this stuff a lot Laura and I do and and the business world is starting to come in a little bit more but if people are understanding that it’s going out into like these fields as well. And that this is one of the most important practices. Hopefully that starts to sink in a little bit more with people about how important this is and how easy it is like, Look, business as a whole is not hard, right? We make it hard. Yeah, it’s relatively simple. And so in living a better life and a more fulfilled life is not hard. You know, things that are simple are not always easy. But it’s not this big, you know, I got to figure out the 52 perfect steps on how to be this person and blah, blah, blah. So it’s really cool to hear that something so simple. And we do this like I teach this to our team, like always build in a call a buffer blocks. Yeah, well, then a little buffer block and just just take a couple minutes and just, you know, just breathe. And it’s pretty cool that you know, Laura, I don’t even know if we’ve talked about this on the episodes yet but sharing with people that are listening what we do right before For the show. So we take, and we did this for this show and previous shows, we take 30 to 60 seconds where all of us, close our eyes and just take a couple deep breaths. And what we’re doing is we’re intentionally connecting to each other, connecting to you know, all of you know, source God, whatever you want to call it. And I mean, for me, it, it just calms everything and makes it so much better. And I think then you start to be able to hear things like intuition and in these guiding forces, right, which makes the show a lot better, which just allows it to kind of flow into the what is I don’t know, what’s the best thing that we can pull out of this interview for the people listening that they need to hear right now? And it just kind of always goes

Unknown Speaker  50:46  

that way. Does man Well, you’re sitting in alignment, it lines up. I mean, that’s, I think I, you know, one of the teaching points I always say is, you know, it’s either the question or the statement. If we’ll just go with the statement. Put your In the conditions you need to be in for this moment, and the immediate next. Right? So, if I’m walking in and pitching my deal to investors, what is the condition I need to be in? investors don’t invest in deals, they invest in people, right? So, if I am centered in energy, and grounded in my practice and confident in myself by faith that I, I know my material, I know my business, and I know where we’re going, that that right there you enter the room with that. They used to know executive producer, and he said, I know whether or not they’re gonna have the part by how they walk onto the stage. Like, that carries so much weight you and we just don’t, don’t give it the attention we need. And that’s a biologically that’s a process of Central Nervous system heart open regulatory processes. And the gateway to that process is through my brain. I mean, it’s just and most of us when we get into high stress state when we’re nervous or anxious or worried, what do we do? We stop breathing. Yep, we cut that we just got it right off. And then just stacks. And there you go. And I can I could prove that to you on data. I mean, that’s, that’s not very,

Stephen Christopher  52:28  

that’s evidence. And it’s hard to catch up to I know for me, oh, yeah. business meetings or even like when I first started doing video, I would. I would if I would forget to breathe because I was nervous, right, I would start to start recording the video because I started doing video live. I always did live video because otherwise I wouldn’t do it. Or I would hesitate and I would be like, Oh, well, I can do that again. And I’d be like 50 takes deep. I was like, Oh my gosh, just just go so I started doing everything live. And if I wouldn’t take a minute to breathe beforehand. I would forget to breathe the whole time leading up to it, and, you know, three or four sentences in, I’m so far behind on breathing that I sound funny. And I, you know, I’m like, I’m gonna pass out. And so

Unknown Speaker  53:12  

yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s it’s funny to me because it’s everywhere, right? It’s acting, singing, you know, dancing in any part of our lives, it’s there. And we’ve heard it forever. You know, somebody has been in our ear somewhere along the way, telling us to breathe telling us this. And it’s the first thing we just jettison. We just get rid of it so fast. And we don’t pause. We don’t stop to be intentional and be purposeful in what we have. And we don’t put ourselves in a condition like to look forward what what is the condition I need to be in, even for this podcast, right? And so I love like doing that 32nd minute thing beforehand, man. We’re all in the condition, right? We’re all connected. Now we’re not. We’re not talking head to head. We’re talking heart in the heart. Right and that allows us to do dropping in move. And so, yeah, I mean, it’s a, it is a trip, I definitely feel like an outlier in my community. But they’re coming. I mean, it, they’re, it’s it’s impressive to see people stepping up into these conversations and really wanting to operate at a different level and wanting to take the stuff on and so so the entrepreneurial community, I believe, is, you know, 50 years ahead of us in that state. more willing to try this stuff is not too far fetched for them. You know, and you’ve got everybody else that talks about it, and then tells you how to set up your morning in the 500 things you need to do a top performer and, yeah, now, my morning routine is coffee and breathing. That’s

Unknown Speaker  54:48  

the simplicity of that. Yeah, seriously. Coffee, breathing,

Unknown Speaker  54:51  

coffee, breathing. That’s all I need. just settle breath. Where am I what I need to do and then move forward. That’s my way. I love that.

Stephen Christopher  55:00  

So, let’s do this. I want to touch on fun real quick, because I really yeah. And then Laura, if there’s anything that that has come up that you’ve thought of, or other questions or something like that, and then we’ll kind of move towards wrapping up and we can always bring you back on because we talk about this stuff for hours. So powers want to me a little bit about fun. You said it was something that you hadn’t brought in for a long, long time. what’s what’s changed and what’s been the, I guess? I know it’s a benefit. So what’s been the benefit? And life?

Unknown Speaker  55:31  

Yeah, I think I think one I will adamantly say for good 4344 years, I didn’t know how to fun. Like, you know, Morgan always say, Can you pull the stick out of your ass please? I said No, I did not a throttle down. I didn’t know how to settle. And I didn’t know what fun look like. And, you know, I look back to my life. There wasn’t a lot of experience of what fun looks like and so I will Say I’m still very childlike in that place. Okay? Because I’m learning. And I tell you the best teacher I’ve got is my little man. Right? Declan at two and a half years old man, that kid he is teaching me how to have fun. We we ran around the house the other morning for at least an hour chasing each other. We danced goofy the other day just hanging out, right? Because he’s kind of a little timid and shy and like call him and get out here like, I’m learning to just be more more freed up what what interfered with the freedom to have fun judgment. Not looking good. Not having my stuff together, not this Well, you know what I mean? Like this whole world I lived with so I don’t know what the answer is. I know that. That that joy and enjoyment of people has come up so much like I felt like I’ll finish this podcast and just be like, Ha full of joy because this is fun this is this is enjoyment. And this isn’t work for me like I don’t work. And you know, that’s all the old statement do something you love. It is. It’s a very true statement. Because I am really in the measurement of what brings me joy and an expense and then experiencing it and letting it sit, I think is really been key for me because I didn’t know how to do that before always had to be ready. I always had to have the answer always had to be on, you know what I mean? Like, there were requirements, I mean, or obligations of me that I didn’t like, you know, I’m really dissecting the difference between obligations and commitments these days, so we can talk about that. And, and so I just didn’t know and so I don’t know, I’m having fun. I’m enjoying myself. I’m going to start rock climbing again. You know, I’m going to find things that bring me joy that settle me. And my friend doesn’t have to look like you’re fun. I think that’s a big thing that I’ve learned. You know, everybody, what do you do for fun? I hop on a podcast because it’s, it brings me joy. Or I write a book or I spend time or I dance like a weirdo with my son. You know, goofing around, or I go for a cruise or something. You know what I mean? I’m, I’m learning to understand what fun what is fun supposed to bring us? It’s supposed to bring us joy. Right? It’s supposed to bring us a sense of like, purpose and freedom and real enjoyment. And so what are those things? That’s what I’m in discovery off and, you know, Chase mellow guy round or just, I wouldn’t dance before now. I don’t care. You know what I mean? Like, I can look like a 45 year old white dude trying to dance, you know, it’s still gonna bother me. And you can laugh at me and that’s totally okay. Actually, if I made you laugh, because I’m being good. And then we’re experiencing that together. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s, that’s the best answer I can give you, man. It’s because I’m still learning.

Stephen Christopher  59:10  

That’s awesome. Yeah, yeah. And you know, we’re always, we’re always, we will always, always be learning. Yeah, right. I mean that I say it all the time. There is no finish line, right? It’s only these milestones and there is nowhere to get to, we’ll never fully know how to experience all the fun or all the joy or all the love or all the fulfillment in the world. We’ll just never get there. So just stop trying to get there. Just enjoy it for what it is today and, and see how we can learn to do even more of it tomorrow.

Unknown Speaker  59:39  

Yeah, yeah. And just, you know, don’t take yourself too seriously. I mean, yeah, it’s really I wish I I wish I had a little bit of that more over my life, even. Even in some I mean, the hardest I’ve laughed is is in some of the worst moments of my life, right? I mean, it’s a fear response. But But still, I wish I had a little more lightness about me, or my life would have been nice. No,

Stephen Christopher  1:00:06  

but you’re doing great now, and we appreciate it. You’re inspiring a lot of people to do the same. So thank you. Yeah, man. All right, Loura, any other questions that came up from your side?

Unknown Speaker  1:00:19  

actually do have a question. It’s, this might be a hard transition back only because we kind of started talking about fun. I got all excited now I’m gonna get serious again again. Um, so it what I heard from you, Jeff, was that two things happened for you in terms of every time you made a change in your job, your career. One was the kind of brutal honesty with yourself of Hey, wait a minute, Is this it? Is this giving me everything I want and being able to clearly say yes or no. But once you did that, what I heard was, you didn’t necessarily go out and say Okay, well now what I need to do is x and start looking for it. It was a matter of notice, isn’t it? And maybe you had some ideas that I want more of this or more of that. And then it presented itself.

Unknown Speaker  1:01:13  

100%

Unknown Speaker  1:01:15  

Okay. And so do you believe that it is not a matter of Hey, put it out in the universe, the law of attraction? Or is that a reflection of when you’re really good at something and you do something really well, and you excel, people know you? And if you have connections, then it opens doors for you, or combination or something different?

Unknown Speaker  1:01:38  

Yeah, I think it’s all the above in some way. I mean, I, I am a relationship guy. Like I if you go through my contact list, I mean, I’ve got people 35 years that I’ve kept relationships with and I, I do weird things like on Sundays. I’ll call I’ll just play, contact roulette pick somebody call, you know, business. Maybe Friday call through check in. But so there is the component of right skills, right abilities at the right time around the right people, right? You can’t. You can’t not account for that. But I mean, my life is six degrees of separation. And so it’s not like I knew these people directly. They just intersected, right. I’m a big, big believer. So let’s talk. I will initially talk a law of attraction, but I will talk like alignment, you know, universal alignment or spiritual alignment, and then open to the opportunities as they present themselves. I think the more the more you’re in line with yourself, like your purpose, your intention, the more things show up in your space. I have this theory on intersections and leaps that, you know, people intersect us at various times in our lives. And it’s an opportunity for us to make a leap and we either see that intersection or we don’t Or sometimes we’ll see it and not take advantage of it. But I’m always curious as to like, why somebody shows up in my life.

Unknown Speaker  1:03:10  

You know, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:03:12  

Like, I’ll just step back and be like, Huh, not like I have to get something from them. You know? You know, it’s like when I reached out to you, you know, it was just like, Hey, dude, you’re down the street, man, you know, and I’m just realizing this and we just, yeah, we just need to reconnect, you know, and no, no outcome, no purpose. No need for anything behind it. Just, I, I know this person, and I would like this person a little closer in my space. So I’d like to reach out and invite you in. So I think it’s a combination of all right to answer simply, it really is.

Unknown Speaker  1:03:50  

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes it just kind of that was in the back of my mind as we were talking through all of this

Unknown Speaker  1:03:56  

awesome. Anything else you want to wrap up with in terms of that? We haven’t covered that you’d like to talk about?

Unknown Speaker  1:04:01  

Um, no. I mean, I think I think for most people, I’ll just go back to like,

Unknown Speaker  1:04:10  

not not equating yourself to others, right, like they’ve got it harder, or, or that’s more difficult. You know, there is a matter of respect, right for sex is just a matter of like doing the harder thing. So I respect people to go to Harvard or go to Yale, or whatever it might be. It’s why we have a kind of a respect for top tier level operators or people that do harder things in life. And by the way, you’re only one step ever away from being in that group. Right? stepping out, starting a business is a hard thing to do. I have gotten the crap beat out of me, it has been harder to be an entrepreneur than it is to be an operator. So So always give yourself credit. Always really just set back in who you are and what you’re committed to. And you know, find that, find that place alignment, stop, stop like being in Over the doing of things, there’s plenty of people that will tell you everything you have to do every day to set yourself up, you know, and that’s why I kind of made that comment about just coffee and breathing in the morning. You know? I mean, Steven, you know this, right? I mean, in our world, it’s like, oh, I have this and this goes to my coffee. And then it’s like, every little nuance thing. rad that may work for someone. somewhere. Cool. If doesn’t work for you. Don’t try to live up to that. Don’t chase that. Don’t let that become a thing. Because then you’re starting your day off like crap. Why would you set yourself up for failure? First thing in the morning? Hmm, no, that’s my that’s my final thought on that one.

Stephen Christopher  1:05:44  

That’s awesome. And and what I what I pull from that, and what I think about a lot is we need to all focus on finding ways to be ourself, right. And so we can test things and we can see what they work but if it doesn’t feel aligned, test something out. Do something Don’t be afraid just because somebody puts butter in their coffee. You don’t have to write. You know, try it. See if you like it. See your ex works. might feel like shit. Don’t get on it.

Unknown Speaker  1:06:11  

Yeah, seriously? Yeah, there’s nobody. There’s no rule that says you have to. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome, man. Well,

Stephen Christopher  1:06:18  

Jeff, thank you, brother. I love you, man. This has been fantastic. Talk a little bit about our share. How can people find you? How can they? How can they help you with your cause? Whatever you want to share?

Unknown Speaker  1:06:31  

Sure. So, you know, social media wise, you can find us all over the place. Instagram and Facebook are our two major outlets. So I think on Facebook, we are at mindset radio, podcast, mindset radio is podcast. It’s available on all the platforms. It’s an interesting conversation. We have a lot entrepreneurs that listen in and extract some goodness out of it. The foundation can be found at out mindset.org. That’s Opie mindset. dot org, you know, the contributions go through right now we’re raising money to work through the book to get the book published and out. Because we think it’s time it was on the who’s on the play for later this year, clearly with the things that have happened, that’s been timelines and push forward. So yeah, check out the podcast. Instagram is mindset radio or me personally mindset 06 actual, and then, you know, you just type Japan and then you get a right I mean, that’s easy to say, you find me. I’m now everywhere all over the place. So if you, you know, get back later, and you’re like, what was that guy stuff? You just, you can just google me. You’ll find more than you probably want to know. But it’s all out there.

Stephen Christopher  1:07:46  

Awesome, man. Yeah, well, we’ll put some links to in the show notes and anywhere that we put this so all right, man, I can’t say thank you enough. This has been fantastic. And Laura, you want to take it away. And share maybe some of your some of your insights today.

Unknown Speaker  1:08:04  

Absolutely. Likewise, Jeff, thank you so much for sharing your experience and certainly your insights. I think the biggest thing for me was the importance of the pause. And that that came out in several different ways, from the very beginning, in the sense of being able to settle in and settle in, in the sense of either the moment or settle in, in who you are, and why you’re there. So the pas have been able to do that, because if you’re not calm, you’re the chaos. You know, a lot of great quotes By the way, I like writing them down furiously. So that was definitely one of them. But then that pause moving on to being in a particular situation and some of the tactics you talked in the sense of when you find yourself Continuing from moment to moment to moment to be able to pause and reset in terms of recovery or to process and digest. I think that is so hard for all of us. And particularly with all the demands in the world, we just keep going and going and going. And then again, tying that back to pausing to get in touch with your central nervous system. And I, the way you said, it really hit with me that your central nervous system controls your behavior. I’ve never thought of it that way. I just thought, Well, my nervous system is doing what it’s doing. And therefore my mind is saying, Okay, well or get the hell out of this situation or whatever run or you know, fight back. As opposed to wait a minute, I can control that response that my nervous system is having by pausing and breathing. So there’s a whole lot more to that, but I’m gonna leave it with just

Unknown Speaker  1:09:56  

Yeah.

Stephen Christopher  1:09:58  
​
Awesome. Cool, Laura. Well, thank you for that, Jeff. Again, thank you so much, brother, we appreciate you. And thank you for taking time to listen to this today. We really, really appreciate it. Make sure to tune in for Laura and I’s connect the dots episode where we’re going to recap about things that we’ve learned over the course of a little bit of time after this interview and things that we’ve tried and things that we’ve implemented and what that has, what that’s impacted in our life, from all of the great information that Jeff gave us today. So, thank you again for tuning in to another episode of the exciting unknown podcast and until next time, embrace the exciting unknown.