Your Body Transports You & Your Food Is Your Best Anti-Medicine

On my own journey of connecting with myself and everything else, I find everything to seem richer and clearer and just more fulfilling. The base level pleasures of life don't satisfy as much. So when this book came across my desk, I was immediately interested. The book is, Undimmed: The Eight Awarenesses For Freedom from Unwanted Habits. The author is mother, investor, advocate, and founder, Cecily Mak. Cecily says she is devoted to helping people live dimmer-free, with clarity, courage, and the freedom to change without stigma or shame. Her story started with realizing she was using alcohol to dim her life, but our focus is no alcohol. It's any number of things we engage with that dim our lives. Think of what you turn to when you have a moment of freedom. Instead of being fully present in the moment and taking in the beauties and glories and realness of life, you fill it with what? Social media? A book or podcast, whether entertainment or self-help. Just being productive and getting something done? Buying things? Food, entertainment, and even exercise can be the fillers. Anything and everything other than being fully present and clear. In this episode I dig in with Cecily on the topic. We don't even get into the specifics of her "Eight Awarenesses For Freedom from Unwanted Habits," so before we start, I want to give them to you: 1 My Life Is Better Clear 2 I Choose What I Consume 3 My Intuition Defines My Priorities 4 My Trauma Isn’t My Identity  5 Forgiveness and Letting Go Are on the Path to Liberation   6 I Do Not Judge or Impose My Orientations Upon Others 7 Time Is Our Most Precious Currency 8 I Seek Ways to Support Others The book is Undimmed: The Eight Awarenesses For Freedom from Unwanted Habits and you can connect with Cecily on Instagram @clearlifejourney Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5 Jan 1h 4min

I seem to be a natural optimist. And as the former host of The Ziglar Show podcast, greatly appreciate Zig Ziglar’s famous quote, “Positive thinking won't let you do anything, but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.” That said, I now realize I spent a lot of my life as a father, husband, and friend, not always connecting with people when they were hurting or struggling. Today I strive to just be with people. Witness them. And be curious. When they are struggling, I don’t try to lift them up with positivity, or pull them further down by fanning the flames of their struggle. Someone who helped me with this is Whitney Goodman. Whitney is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist who has taken on our concept of positivity and has an instagram following of well over half a million followers who are finding great help from her guidance and encouragement that life is well worth living, but treating it as a continual self-improvement project and bypassing our true feelings doesn’t leave room for a full, quality life. I understand now, that jumping from a negative experience right to positivity can rob us from the growth, learning, and peace we find in between. Whitney took her years of work as a therapist studying cultural positivity and wrote the book, “TOXIC POSITIVITY: KEEPING IT REAL IN A WORLD OBSESSED WITH BEING HAPPY.” The book is a dive into how we’ve distorted the concept of positivity, and how we can better handle the hard things in life and ultimately acknowledge them, but not be overwhelmed and controlled by them. Find Whitney Goodman at www.sitwithwhit.com. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Jan 50min

In my experience, you can accomplish a lot of production by just working like a slave. Day in and day out. The world and most people will applaud you for it. But as I’ve stepped back from being a professional “doer” and given my attention to much more “being,” I’m realizing my fulfillment in life at large just increases. And my connection to myself, the world, and everyone keeps getting deeper. Further, I’m realizing that the lifestyles of the greatest minds I have been looking to for guidance, do not work like slaves. They do far less quantity of life, but in what I now value, have much more quality. So recently a book came across my desk about taking mini-retirements. At first glance I saw it as a tool to help you do literally that, take mini-retirements, or sabbaticals, from your work. But as I dug in, what I was drawn to most is how you must face your own identity and life values if you are not just working day in and day out. I found it all very, very revealing to help us ask, what are we doing, and why?! My guest and expert here is Jillian Johnsrud. Jillian is…not defined by her work. But inspired by the idea of sabbatical years, she set out to sprinkle retirements throughout her life. At 40, she has taken over a dozen mini-retirements. These allowed her to pursue dreams like living abroad, traveling to 27 countries, adopting four kids (plus two biological kids), investing in real estate, and touring the U.S. in a camper. She did this with her husband and kids and usually on less than $100k per year. Jillian has taught, coached, and wrote about mini-retirements for almost a decade. She has now written about her experience and insight in a new book, Retire Often: How anyone can take multiple career breaks to unlock adventure, advance their career, and find financial freedom. She hosts the Retire Often podcast and is a popular speaker and consultant for mini retirements. She lives in Montana, where she spends time in the garden drinking tea. Jillian’s book, Retire Often, is literally a manual for stepping away from work, no matter what you do, but as you’re about to hear, also addresses the philosophical questions that come into play. Find her at retireoften.com Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Dec 20251h 12min

The ideas of time management and efficiency have never interested me much. I’ve always found them to feel constraining and tiring. But I also can’t claim I use my time as wisely as I could. In this episode we take some of our normal concepts of time to task and bring them into focus in accordance with what we actually value. My guest is Richie Norton and this was his second appearance on my podcast. Richie is one of these people who I find is an influencer to influencers. He’s been a very successful entrepreneur, but my experience is that everyone knows him as this huge light and source of energy and inspiration. His first book was, The Power of Starting Something Stupid, and this show is in regards to his second book, “Anti-Time Management: Reclaim Your Time and Revolutionize Your Results with the Power of Time Tipping.” What you’re about to hear is a very thoughtful conversation that begins with Richie observing that we as a culture have ever increasing full calendars, but emptier lives. The rest of the conversation is Richie’s guidance in how you can change that, right away. You can find Richie’s book, “Anti-Time Management: Reclaim Your Time and Revolutionize Your Results with the Power of Time Tipping” everywhere and his website is richienorton.com. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Dec 20251h 10min

To make this statement, which is subjective, we need to clarify what we mean by self-worth. I have nine kids. Did they have any worth as infants? Or no, because they hadn’t earned their self worth  yet? How about as toddlers? Kindergartners? My belief is they were born with self worth. They deserve to have value in the world just because they exist. I think of the Rocky Mountains I live in. I don’t perceive that anything I observe has to earn its worth. They have worth because they are. Now us as humans, we may want to do some things. Grow and test ourselves. I get that and still look to behave in ways I respect as good choices and efforts. But like Viktor Frankl in a Nazi concentration camp, I want my self-worth not to rely on anything. I wish I’d understood this earlier in my life, as I’ve spent most of it working to earn my errant concept of, or ignorance toward, my self-worth. So in this episode I bring on a wonderful guide for this topic. Michelle Maros  is the cofounder of Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life, a non-profit that has inspired a global community dedicated to mental health, mindfulness, and emotional well-being, and she co-hosts the popular podcast Life Happens with Barb & Michelle, alongside her mom, Barb, where they have heartfelt conversations blending personal stories, spiritual insights, and practical tools for navigating life’s ups and downs. Michelle has devoted herself to extensive training in meditation and mindfulness and has a deep passion for helping people cultivate happiness, fulfillment, and inner peace. She has become a leading voice of her generation— reminding people that inner peace isn’t found in perfection, but in showing up each day with intention, compassion, and authenticity. She just came out with a book, Dear Friend: Daily Notes for Contemplation, Connection, and Clarity. I relate it to a daily devotional, and have been inspiring and reminding myself with her daily insights. As you’ll hear, I’m gifting some people in my life with this book for Christmas. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Dec 20251h 9min

I continue to research human communication and find the vast majority of everything we communicate is subjective. We are seldom discussing facts and right, wrong, black, white issues. They may feel so to us, but if pressed we’d need to admit that what we are arguing or advocating for is not fact. The topic or issue is not unanimously proven. But it’s efficient to just cite our perspective as truth. It takes time and effort to really understand and consider all sides. So I sat down with an expert on this concept. Wendy K. Smith has a PhD in organizational behavior from Harvard and is the Dana J. Johnson Professor of Management and faculty director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at University of Delaware. She is an expert on organizational paradoxes, exploring how leaders and individuals effectively respond to contradictory, yet interdependent demands. She spends her time continually working to better manage the paradoxes of life that we all face. Wendy is co-author of the book,"Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems.” This topic is of utmost importance to me as I continue to see our world in conflict and people more isolated. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

19 Dec 20251h 10min

In your younger years, you may have thought about your future self. I always wanted to be 30 and I would envision what it would look and feel like. I ultimately became 30. There I was. But I did not arrive and become the ultimate “Kevin” at that point. Five years passed and I became 35 and thought about how far I had come since 30. And this continues happening. As of this recording I just turned 55. Five years from now I’ll be 60 and likely be amazed at how much I have grown and evolved past the 55 year old I am now. This is the focus of this episode.  I am back with Dr Benjamin Hardy. I have had Ben on this podcast six or seven times. His personal story is the lead in the first chapter of my book, “What Drives You.” Ben’s books on willpower, personality, and personal transformation have put him at the top of the human potential movement. Here I give focus to Ben’s book,  Be Your Future Self Now: The Science of Intentional Transformation. It was through Ben that I first heard the concept of, “End of history illusion”, where as I led off with, we look back with amazement at how far we have evolved from who we used to be, but we think who we are now is…who we are. Ben takes us through his research to see how we can open up our personal transformation if we will engage with the future self we are going to become and not only conceive of who we are today. Ben Hardy is an organizational psychologist and has devoted significant research to this issue and become a leading expert on the application of Future Self science. Ben’s new book, Be Your Future Self Now, can be found everywhere and you can connect with him at benjaminhardy.com.  Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

16 Dec 20251h 12min

You’ve likely heard the parable of two brothers with an alcoholic dad. One brother becomes an alcoholic, blaming his father and stating, "What else could I do?” While the other brother becomes a teetotaler, blaming his father and stating, "I watched my dad, and don’t want to end up like him.” We all have things that happen in our lives, and we create a story about it, based around a perspective we think is true. We attach meaning, and we believe it. Even though we often change our perspective later. What would it be like if we questioned our perspective to begin with? A few years ago I sat down with Kindra Hall to discuss this. Kindra is a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, international speaker, and the former Chief Storytelling Officer of SUCCESS Magazine. She wrote a book titled, Choose Your Story, Change Your Life: Silence Your Inner Critic and Rewrite Your Life from the Inside Out, which was my muse for our conversation. As you’re about to hear, this isn’t some Pollyanna positivity motivation. The point is to reveal how we are not writing about facts, but perspectives, and if we accept this, we can free ourselves. Find Kindra’s book anywhere and connect with her at kindrahall.com. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

12 Dec 20251h 43min