How to Find Your True Self with Dr. Kelly Flanagan | The Better Than Rich Show Ep. 39

Becoming Loveable

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Becoming Loveable 〰️

How to Find Your True Self

Your “true self” or your “inner child.” You’ve heard the term thrown around, probably a lot. But what do these terms mean, really?

You may think theories built around the idea of each of us having an inner child is all fluff.

It’s not.

Learning more about your own inner child will empower you to live a more fulfilling and compassionate life, be a better parent, and have healthier relationships.

According to Dr. Kelly Flanagan, famed psychologist and author of the inspiring book “Lovable” and others, you enter the world as your true self. Then as you grow up, life gets in the way and makes you question your worth.

That’s when you build your “ego castle” and it’s when things get complicated.

We had the opportunity to sit with Dr. Kelly and learn more about why we experience shame, how to rein in your ego and draw forth the right energy to match each situation in your life.

It was amazing to learn that Dr. Kelly didn’t originally buy the concept of the inner child and now his work is based around the very idea of the inner child and its connection to one’s true self.

During our time together, Dr. Kelly showed us why acknowledging the inner child in everyone can lead to more compassion and understanding.

If you’ve been feeling that your ego creates disruption in your life or just want to know about this whole “inner child” idea (believe us, you do) listen to Mike’s interview with Dr. Kelly today.

Mike Abramowitz 0:00
Welcome back to the veterans and rich Show. I'm your host today and my name is Mike Abramowitz. And we have a special episode here in season three with Dr. Kelly Flanagan. Now I'll tell you right now, this is one of those episodes, you're probably going to want to have pen and paper and maybe read Listen to it one or two times, because Dr. Kelley is the author of the book lovable. And I read this book, I devoured this book and I reached out to Dr. Kelly, I said, I absolutely love your work. Is there any way you would come on to the better than rich go and speak. And now this is an incredible interview, if you follow Brene Brown, I consider Dr. Kelly like the male version of Brene Brown, where he talks about vulnerability and courage and in the relationship with shame, he's gonna give some really incredible analogies on how to navigate through shame and self worth and, and that we go into a deep dive on polarity of masculine and feminine and his definition blew my mind of what it means to anchor into masculine energy versus feminine energy. He has two other best selling books as well that we'll also discuss during the episode. And I really believe that you're going to enjoy this if you are a male. Listening to this episode, I encourage you to be in a place where you could absorb the information and truly connect to what Dr. Kelly is talking about when it comes to the emotions and when he talks about the abuse is a great analogy about the original self versus the false self. And he talks about using almost like a medieval terminology like the wall bridge analogy. So if you're male listening to this, I think these are going to be really excellent reminders and great tips for you. If you are a female listening to this episode, I can assure you he is it's going to feel almost as if he's speaking to you saying oh my gosh, this is everything that I have been feeling, but it's tough to sometimes put those feelings into words and I think you're really gonna love this. We got a lot of great feedback when we recorded this live. So without further ado, Dr. Kelly Flanagan Pennebaker reading excited for you to have him talk to you on better than this show. Welcome to the better than rich show with your hosts Andrew Biggs and Mike Abramowitz. The better than rich show helps ambitious leaders who are on a mission to leave the world better than they found it, change their perspective on what's important, increase their income and impact and systemize their life and business. If you've ever struggled with finding your purpose, have felt disconnected or distracted or found yourself going through the motions. This show will remind you that what you do matters and will re inspire you to chase your highest dreams, it's time for you to become better than rich. Dr. Kelly, thank you so much, again, for being here. For those of you that do not know who Dr. Kelly is, I gave him the name the male version of Brene Brown. So if you're not familiar with Brene Brown then sorry. Um, she's pretty fantastic. And Dr. Kelly spoke to a front row data event that I was at a couple weeks back, and he actually just like just blew it away with his knowledge and his inspiration and his connection and his delivery. And I reached out to Dr. Kelly, and he was nice enough to lend us some of his time. If you haven't explored Dr. Kelly's website, I highly recommend you to check it out his focus the three essentials of a truly satisfying life, your worthiness, your belonging and your purpose. And it is it is going to be a very impactful conversation that we're going to have around these topics today. If you have not picked up either any of his new his newest book, The unhiding of Elijah Campbell or his original book lovable or the one in between the true companions, fantastic reads that can help you help your family no matter what situation that you're in. This gentleman knows what he's talking about. So he also has his wife, Dr. Kelly, who is a child psychologist, and then he has his oldest son Aiden, who's about to graduate high scores just graduating high school. As a middle son Quinn is graduating ninth grade, and his daughter Caitlin is going into seventh grade. And you may have read his awesome blog post letter that he wrote to his daughter. It is such a fantastic read. So Dr. Kelly, thank you so much for being here. And we're excited to have the conversation and to get things rolling. So as a psychologist I hope you're not psychoanalyzing me as I have this conversation with you. But I want to dig right in. So one of the concepts that I really loved in your book lovable was when you were talking about our ego or our false self. And I think this this idea is something that every one of us live with, we have this false self behind the scenes that's kind of operating all the time. And you did you gave a great analogy about the throne and about the ego cannon and and the wall that the ego is kind of hiding behind and you even use this really beautiful analogy of the drawbridge. Can you start there with the relationship with the false self, the ego and just this analogy that you asked stitches your beautiful job in the book talking about?

Unknown Speaker 4:57
Yeah, absolutely. Mike thank you for for small crowd. To me here tonight, and thanks to all of you who are here, it is an evening in the middle of summertime right before the Fourth of July. And and it's a sacrifice to be here of your time and energies. And I'm just really I want to honor that. So thank you for having me here. And Mike, there is a time when I would be would have been analyzing you. And that's because there was a time when I spent a lot more time and my false self and my ego and in my ego and Dr. Kelly, who has all the answers and who, you know, can understand everybody else better than they can understand themselves and what a safe place that is to sort of camp out in for Dr. Kelly. But the truth is, more and more what I'm trying to do is not lift for that safety, protective place. So I can promise you so far, I've succeeded at that tonight. And I have psychoanalyze you yet.

Unknown Speaker 5:47
So, yeah, I think for me, the fundamental truth about being human that has absolutely changed and transformed the way that I see myself. The way that I grow personally, the way that I help others in my coaching practice through their growth, is to recognize that we don't have one cell, that we've got two selves. And the hinge between those selves is this experience that we call shame, you called me the male than Brene Brown, and I am honored by that comparison, she's certainly influenced my thinking an awful lot. The idea is that we come into the world with the true self. And I even these days, I referred to it as the original self, makes the self we arrived in the world with, if you're a spiritual person, that was the self that was given to you, when you entered into the world. And it was good enough and worthy of love and belonging. It was just a given a fact. And when you were young, you didn't even question that fact. But at some point, all of us at some point in life begin to experience something that we call shame. And it's the message and the belief that we aren't good enough for love and belonging the way that we are. And when that happens, when we begin to experience that we do sort of the natural thing as young people actually, usually, this is starting to happen by 567 years old, even in the best of childhoods. We say to ourselves, essentially, not consciously, but unconsciously, well, hey, if the true self that I have, if the self I was given isn't good enough to be loved and to belong, then I guess I'm gonna have to build the self. That is, I'm gonna have to create a new self that is in charge of going out into the world to earn the love and belonging. And that's when we begin to build our false self. And you know, as a psychologist, and as a coach, I've had to figure out over the years, the mean, True Self false self like these are sort of murky inner concepts, right. And so metaphor has really helped to get our hands around and our minds around those concepts. And so the concept that seems to have been most helpful for folks over the years is the concept of the false self, or the ego. It's also called, as a castle, in castles are built to protect their inhabitants, right. And so the the false self, or the ego castle that we start building in childhood is, as I see it made of three components. And those are walls, cannons and throats. So our ego walls, first of all, we, I'd say we probably most young people start to build their Eagle walls around third or fourth grade. And this is the this is the first component of our false self that is sort of designed to hide us away from people, right, we put up our walls, we try to blend in, we hide our uniqueness, because we're afraid that our uniqueness is going to get us nailed again. And so we started to try to blend it. And I remember when my oldest came home from the third or fourth grade, and I think he had left the house and like mismatched pairs of socks and clothes that didn't match themselves. And it comes to him saying, you know, I, I need to wear this brand to school. Tomorrow, I'm going to be trying to sit with these kids at the lunch room tomorrow, I need to play this sport at recess, we started to build ego walls, ways of sort of blending in with the crowd so that he doesn't pick up any more punishment, any more messages that he's not good enough. And then for most of us young people sometime around like, I don't know, probably middle school, which is started by middle school is a terrible, horrible experience for most young people, we start to add ego cannons to our ego walls, and these are the more aggressive things we do to keep people at a distance. You know, like the walls weren't working, we still felt the shame we still felt not good enough. Now we're going to like we're going to hurt other people to stop them from hurting us. You know, best offense is a good defense sort of idea. And so we start to build those ego cannons. My wife by the way, she says that's a very masculine metaphor, and that women's women don't have ego cannons they have archers they put on their ego walls like precision strikes and and so whether it's ego cannons or ego archers, we do these more aggressive things in that stage of life to sort of keep ourselves safe. And then if all goes well, and truly I would imagine everyone here can say that at some point. They've added a cannon I'm sorry, a throne to the ego castle and the throne is some place in our life some situation where we feel like we finally arrived, we have some control, we have some power, we sort of feel like, Hey, I've proven I'm good enough. And so now I don't have to prove it anymore. Everyone should just sort of take that for granted. And the reality is that that cop for many of us goes okay for a while, but at some point, the the ego castle, the false self begins to create more suffering, and it's preventing. And at that point, we begin to ask ourselves, what do we do with this thing? What do we do with the eagle capsule we created? And Mike you know, we talked about in lovable I mentioned, every Castle has a drawbridge, a point of vulnerability through which the inhabitants of the castle can exit the castle. There it is, there's lovable and and through which we can go out and meet the world more authentically, more nakedly. And so this drawbridge is the point of vulnerability where we begin to step out and show up a little bit.

Unknown Speaker 11:02
The castle is always there, the false self is always there, it doesn't mean we tear it down or eradicate it, we can't uncreate what we create in our false self. But we begin to have a little bit more flexibility about when the sort of hunker down and to stay safe. And when we show up authentically in the world and take some risks.

Mike Abramowitz 11:20
And such a beautiful analogy with this ego castle, and I love I love the way you explain it. The curiosity that I'm that I like to bring to you is how does one know whether they're living in that false self? Or their or their true self? Like, the original self, the self of worthiness? How do I know if it's the facade? Or if it's the if it's the truth? Is there like a symptoms? Or is there a call signs or something that we could, you know, be aware of?

Unknown Speaker 11:50
Yeah, that's such a great question a lot that. I know one of the for me, personally, one of the signatures of the true self, is that the true self knows it's where they and its worthiness is not judged in comparison to or relative to anyone else. It knows it's absolutely worthy. And it knows everyone else is absolutely worthy, as well. So I can tell you how I knew earlier this afternoon, in anticipation of this event tonight that my false self was actually at work. And it's just how I knew. Last night, I was invited to speak to a small group at a church I was doing this for a friend from high school, she said, would you come and speak to our small group at church. And I said, I'd be happy to do it. And I went to the small group at church. And it was a very small group, only two people showed up. One of them was someone with an intellectual disability who sort of confessed that she had bipolar disorder, two of her children were in jail, the other woman who was there and complex PTSD was a beautiful night, gorgeous night with them, just getting to sit with that, that small group, and share some of these ideas. This afternoon, there was a part of me that started to tell me that you all were more important than that I should be nervous in front of you all, because you're Tony Robbins people. Right? You're not nice to poor ladies up at the church in rural Illinois. And so my false self was somehow starting to make comparisons about judgments about worthiness, right. And so I was able to kind of step back and see that and go, Oh, you're feeling a little vulnerable. Today, Mike's invited you to talk to the Tony Robbins crowd, they're used to really high caliber speakers. And so you're feeling a little bit vulnerable, maybe a little bit of shame is coming up, am I going to be good enough. And so my ego is kicking in, and starting to make comparisons. And so it was just a and that's the beautiful thing about the ego, right is every time you notice it, you're literally in that moment re inhabiting your true self. Every time you make the observation of your ego talking at work, protecting, defending you comparing, judging, every time you make that observation, the only part of you that's present to observe the false self is the true self. And so in that moment of observation tonight, I was sort of returned to myself and to this beautiful, blessed awareness that you all are, you all are totally worthy. And so are those folks. And we're all on the same playing field. So to me, that's like, there's no better indication of living in that place to have true self is to know our worthiness to know the equal worthiness of everyone else, and to be without protection.

Mike Abramowitz 14:33
Yeah, that's beautiful. So I am curious on this, because ultimately, this ego cannon this castle, and everything that you said, we're building this as kids, and we're building this armor, we're building these drones, we're doing this as kids, and something that you did in your book because you wrote these beautiful love letters to your kids. And you also mentioned that some of the adults are the ones who read those love letters to your kids and the ones that receive Even if the most weren't actually the kids were these grownups these, you know, 3040 5060 year old people? Why do you think that is? Why do you think that, that the grownups are reading this note that you wrote to your kid and are messaging you by the 100? Saying, I really fully to that I needed to see this I needed to read this letter.

Unknown Speaker 15:21
Yeah, that's right. Well, so I was trained as a clinical psychologist, it's an empirical degree, we're trained as scientists. And so I was not very friendly for many, many years to get the concept of the inner child didn't seem very hard sciency to me, right. And then I started writing these letters to my kids, my daughter, and I wind up on today's show, I get paired up with this great literary agent. And she says, Hey, you're writing these letters to your kids, they're going viral, millions of people are reading them, you should probably write a parenting book. And so I go home to my wife, and I say, Who's the child psychologist, in our family, by the way? And I say, hey, Kathy, major things like she'd write a parenting book. And my wife said, Do you know business writing a parenting book? And she's totally right about that. Almost everything I've learned about parenting I've learned from her, but it got me thinking, to your point, like, Okay, I'm getting hundreds of letters a day at this point from people saying that they they love these letters. And what are they saying, they're saying, They're not saying I'm going to save these letters for my daughter, or I'm going to write a letter like this to my granddaughter. They're saying, I needed to hear these words, I needed to be reminded that I'm good enough that I belong, that I matter that I'm not alone. And it sort of hits me, we all have a little kid inside there was still that is waiting on a love letter. And that's around that time, I became a believer in what some called the inner child. But I also really believe that our inner child is also our true self. Right? The youngest version of us is the closest version of us to who we were before we started to pick up shame, and to build a false self. So I, these days, I spend in terms of my own inner work, I spend as much time in dialogue with and nurturing and coming alongside the little one inside of me, as I do anything. I didn't find that and find to share this with you. But prior to this, this call tonight. The youngest memory I have of my little little one is about three years old. I'm sitting in a playroom. And I've got books open all around. And they're scattered all over the place. And my dad comes in and he says, You need to put all those books away. It's time for dinner. And I apparently say to him, well, but I'm reading them. I've asked him about the story. I'm reading them and I don't want to put them away. No, I want to read them after dinner. He says nope, you got to put them all the way on the shelf where you can come to dinner. So I sit stubbornly in my playroom in the middle of those books, and I go to bed with no dinner. Right. And so this is the earliest version of me that I could remember. And and so before I came on here today, I just said, Hey, dude, we gotta go talk to a lot of people about things like true self and false self. And he's like, what, what, I don't know anything about those things. And I'm shy, I just want to stay in my room with my books. I don't want to go talk to anybody right now. And I'm like, Dude, I know. And I appreciate that we're gonna get, you're gonna get to go back to your books tomorrow. But tonight, it's time to go talk to some folks. And if you go with me, I'm gonna just do it. I'm way better than if, if I do it without you because you are the thoughtful, tender, sort of sensitive parts of me. And if I don't have you there, I'm just going to bloviate and act like a, you know, an expert on everything. And that's not going to be any good. So I actually had this dialogue while I was in the shower earlier, and it was it was very free. And the little version of me that is a little bit afraid of the world set up, hey, I go I'm gonna

Mike Abramowitz 18:40
do this. That's beautiful. The the self talk that you have with your little one, that inner child is something I think most people don't want to say envy, but we'd love to strengthen that relationship with that version of them a part of your book, when you talked, I love the part where you talked about your story with your daughter, when I believe when Caitlin was at the table, and you went to like hugger and she gave you the stiff honor and you're like you were proud of her. But at the same time her this like she created a boundary. And you were willing to respond to the boundary and appreciate and accept it. That's great. But most parents when their kid gives them a boundary, they look at them as like, How dare you say no to me? Do you know who I am? It's almost like this righteousness that are like the authority or the parental and us do that we project on to subordinates or kids or whoever we're parenting. Right? Why why do we do that? In the outside world? Do you think it's we do that and outside world to people outside of our own inner child because we're not. We were still suppressing something that we necessarily haven't necessarily processed with our own inner child or our own little one. Is that why we might project that or is there something else that might be there,

Unknown Speaker 19:58
too? Good question. I I think that the ego needs to be in control. And, and I think there's, I do believe there's something essential as parents about getting reconnected with our own little one with our own younger self in order to really kind of resonate with the, the sense of dignity of a child, the sense of power, the sense of autonomy, the desire to, to encourage their sense of worthiness. And so I think I remember specifically when she said, No, you can't give me a hug this morning, my fragile ego got all offended, right? And it's like, what it wants to do is say, Oh, come on, you know, stop being that way. But I saw an opportunity here. I mean, she was I don't know, she was a couple of years old, three years old, at the time, maybe tops. I'm like, 10 years from now. 15 years from now, I want her to know how stiff arm a guy she doesn't want a hug from right, that training starts now with her dad, with their dad, being able to handle his fragile ego enough to be able to say, hey, yeah, if you don't want a hug from a guy, right now, you don't have to have a hug from a guy. And in that story is I share. It was it was a beautiful moment, because I told her that I said, yeah, if you don't want to hug her bed, you don't have to have one, you could see her sort of wheels turn, she was right, she just needed to know she had a choice that she had power in that moment. And so I think that's so much a part of parenting is from a place of true self trying to negotiate influence and control and power with our kids recognizing that we want them to grow into their own. So if we're constantly snuffing it out or suppressing it, or telling them they can't exercise it, we're not probably doing them any favors. And yet, our role as parents is to guide and influence them to, you know, understand that we have more wisdom than them in a lot of ways. And so it's a, it's a balancing act to find that, that middle ground,

Mike Abramowitz 21:47
do you think that that's the same for an intimate relationship or something similar there to where if you have a partner who doesn't feel like, you know, a plant donor for the night or, you know, doesn't feel like you know, cooking, but you're hungry, or vice versa, you they don't want to go out, and they have like this stiff arm as like their inner little one is almost like coming out. And instead we're like treating them as like a 50 year old or 40 year old person, where it's really like that inner child that's trying to like, speak, and instead of speaking to the little one of our partner, we're speaking to the, you know, false self. Like, is it? Is there some potential truth there, you know, I think helped me help me out with what I'm trying to

Unknown Speaker 22:34
say. I think it's, I think it's a fantastic question. And I can't think of a situation with an intimate partner with a companion of any kind, in which it's not helpful to remember that they have little one living on and then as well, I just can't think of a situation where it's not helpful to keep that in mind, I could be an example of this, this was maybe I don't know, now, a couple of months ago, my wife and I are in a situation now where we both have plug in cars, but we only have one Plug in the garage. And so we ran into a situation for the first time ever, where I was about to take a long distance trip. She'd unplug my car, and plug it into hers. Now my car wasn't charged for the trip. And I was running late, and I needed to get out the door. And the little kid in me was going oh my god, I gotta take care of myself completely again, just like I had to when I was a kid and all of that. And I got really I got really frustrated and and I was rushed. And anyway, so I'm pulling out the drive. She's coming back from her morning run. And we've had a very nice morning that she's coming back from a morning run. And I'm running up the hill, I'm driving up the hill and I sort of do this blow by with a window down. Like, you unplugged my car wasn't charged. Now I have to take yours at blow buyer, right? I look in the rearview mirror. And my wife, God bless her. She's standing in the middle of our road, double bird just rebuilt. And but my first reaction to that my second reaction to that is sort of there's a joyfulness and that, that she was willing to stand up for herself. Now the next part was really interesting. She then texted me and she says, hey, when you get home, you need to apologize to your daughter. You really upset her when you were rustling around in the garage. I had to stop like, don't think my daughter even knew what I was doing in the garage. The little girl in her that was really startled and disturbed by what just happened. And so now this is what this is the difference. I would have gone home. I would have said to my daughter what you did excuse me today upset you this morning? No, I didn't even know what you were doing. And then I would have gone to my wife and argued with her. Right and told her you're nuts. She wasn't upset. You know, why did you say that? Instead? I'm able to sit there and go. Yeah, and she there was a little girl who was upset by what happened today. But it was the little girl inside my badass Enneagram eight why? Food is tough as nails and isn't probably gonna talk too much about her sense of vulnerability, like that's in there. So it served me well to be aware of that. And I just can't imagine a situation where it doesn't serve us well to go every person that diamond interaction with today has a little one inside of them. That is still sort of asking the question, Am I good enough? Am I worthy of love and belonging, and at some level trying to protect against being told that they're not. So I just think it's helpful to keep that in mind.

Mike Abramowitz 25:26
I'm interested in this, this topic with the relationships. So I'm going to ask the two questions, because one is going to stay on the topic and one is going to segue a little bit away. The first one is under the umbrella of in this relationship, let's say you're having this conversation, whether as a parent or with a significant other or subordinate of some sort, and you do hurt their feelings you do say something that hurts their feelings, or your feelings get hurt, is there a way for you too? Like, how can someone navigate through this need to be accepted? Like, I don't want to hurt like, I don't, I need to be accepted by you. But I also want to remain true to my authentic self, like, I know what I'm doing is, is right? Or not, you know, not righteous, but I know it's right. And I'm doing it for the greater good, but you're pissed at me for doing it for the greater good. And I want to remain true to my authentic self. But I also want you to accept me. And it's like, how can someone navigate remaining true to their authentic self while in turn doing the right thing, which might break the rule of feeling accepted with a lot of which a lot of people tie worthiness to acceptance? So that's like, question one. And then the question to that I want to kind of go on a tangent on is with the relationship is to maintain polarity? Because obviously, you know, we want to create polarity between masculine and feminine. I'd love to hear from you on on your definition on masculine feminine and how that ties in because with us, Tony Robbins, we went to date with destiny, there's a whole relationship day on polarity. And I'd like to kind of see your your take on some of that. So those are those are the questions that I just unloaded on your hopefully that, you know,

Unknown Speaker 27:14
yeah. Well, if I get lost in the first part of you'll have to remind me what the second part is. Maybe. Yeah, sounds great. So I don't I can't remember if I told this anecdote in, in level unlovable, but it was shared with me at a at a public event by a philosopher, theologian, Peter Rollins. And I sort of took it and used it for my own purposes here. The joke is this guy goes to a psychoanalyst. And he says, Hey, Doc, I think I'm chicken feet on the ground. And it's a terrifying way to live. Can you help me with that? psychoanalyst says, yeah, let's get to work. So he sees them everyday like psychoanalyst, you know, five times a week for several years. And the psychoanalyst finally declares them healed. He says, You know who you are. Now, you know, you're a human being, you're not chicken feet on the ground, you're good to go and discharge you. So the guy calls the doctor about a week later and says, Doc, Doc, I need to come back in and the CD right away. And Doc says, what's wrong? He says, Well, I have new neighbors who moved in next door, and they've got chickens. And the doctor says, well, what's the problem? You know, you're not chicken feet on the ground. And the guy says, I know, I'm not chicken feet on the ground, but do the chickens now. And the way I appropriated the story is to say a lot of us are walking around aware of our worthiness, but the question is, do the chickens know? Right? And so that's absolutely the tension a lot of us are living is, I'm true to myself. I'm residing and my sense of worthiness. But that's not going to be received well, by a lot of the people around me, they might still get me in various ways. And that, that that can still be painful, that can still be painful. I think that's the most important thing to communicate here that when we sort of inhabit our true self, it's not an arrival at which pain is over. And pain is done. Okay, now I get to live blissed out and manage yourself. There's an awful lot of pain that follows on the heels of living in our true self. Because our true self is sort of a filter that selects for people in our life. And when we inhabit our true self, a lot of people who are sort of depending upon us, existing behind those walls, people pleasing, you know, chameleon, doing all of that they're not going to be thrilled with that. So just an encouragement that, that those two things aren't mutually exclusive, that arriving in our true self and expressing them in the world sometimes sort of engenders a backlash, and that's okay. The goal is to remember that we're not chicken feet on the ground that we can continue to live from that true self interest that from good enough anyways.

Mike Abramowitz 29:44
Yeah, I like that. It's because it's true. Like if you if even if you were doing the work, I mean, how many of us can relate listening to this, where it's like, oh, I'm doing all this work, especially when you go to a personal growth event. It's like, you go to this personal growth event and you come back and it's like, you're just saying the shit that they told you to say You know, you're brainwashed now? It's like, no, no, like, I've actually done some work on myself.

Unknown Speaker 30:05
But something's actually shifted Yeah.

Mike Abramowitz 30:09
Sometimes makes us feel incongruent with what we deem is our authentic self. But we're not getting accepted by the people in our lives for being our authentic self. So now it feels like there's incongruency? And how does, how does one, you know, remind themselves of, of that, like, how do I stay true to that authentic self? Is there is there? Do you have a tool or a practice that might be able to help them that and then we'll go to the second part of that other questions.

Unknown Speaker 30:39
So this is what I'd say the most powerful practice probably that I've been practicing, and now for a year and a half, and it comes out of reading, inspired by to some extent, reading Michael singers great book, that Untethered Soul just in what I made the New Year's resolution in going into 2021, that my simple, I was going to be mindful of as many moments as possible as possible in which my heart was closing, in other words, of which my ego Castle was pulling up the drawbridge, basically, and hunkering down to try to be mindful of those many moments as close as possible. And then in that moment, try to open my heart back up to the moment. And the practice that developed over the course of the year, and I'm still practicing. First of all, there is an awareness that emerged, which is the ego, when it's protecting us is always doing one of two things. It's either resisting an experience, or it's attaching to an experience that saying, I don't want it this way. Or I do want it this way. Right. So my practice became, at least internally and sometimes externally to there was no one around or it was appropriate setting, when I would feel my heart start to close to a situation. In other words, my true self feeling threatened. I would hold up my hands, one hand off without saying, Stop, and the other one, grasping at something and saying, Okay, what am I? What experience Am I resisting right now? And what experience Am I holding on to right now? So maybe I'm resisting this feeling of rejection, maybe I'm holding on to that sense of approval that I think I've learned by being such a good boy. And what would it look like the deep breath to just open up to this experience and receive it, to not resist it not attached to something else, just open up and receive that. And an image emerged for me over the year for a long time, I thought that my true self was like a younger version of me sort of in there, like, you know, when those Russian dolls take it apart, and it's tinier and tinier. But this image started to emerge of my true self, not as a younger need, but as sort of a, a window, that I can either open or close the window in the center of me and that my, my calling here on this planet is to keep that window open as much as possible. So the experience of being human no matter what that experience is, rejection, disapproval, pain loss, can flow through me and be experienced. So what's the experience that I'm resisting? And in this moment, it was the experience that I holding on to and wishing I had instead, big deep breath, what if I allow this experience to flow through me to receive that, and what I can tell you is that when I'm able to do that, when I'm able to have the wherewithal, the space to do that, my reaction to the situation is always wiser. It's more patients. It's more curious. It's more empathic. It's, you know, I mean, it's all of those beautiful things that are sort of embedded in our true self. And so I hope that answers your question, but it's practice that I've, I've been doing, and I said, great power for me. So I want to share it with you know,

Mike Abramowitz 33:37
I love that the window analogy is open and allowing the experience to flow through you, and fully receiving the experience versus trying to avoid it or attached to it or hold on to it. So I really love that.

Unknown Speaker 33:51
And to bring it home to today. I mean, to be honest with you, like going into this afternoon, I feel a little emotional about this. My my oldest, my son hadn't talked to you. I said something to him, that was really hurtful. I didn't know it was hurtful. And I didn't understand why it was. But we sat down for an hour this afternoon on the back deck. And that's what I had to practice and just had to practice this openness because I knew I was going to hear some things that hurt some things, I wanted to defend some things that I wanted to disprove. And that that was just going to hurt him more. And so I needed to, what am I resisting what he's about to tell me? What do I wish it was instead? And how do I just opened the window and receive this and it was really, I mean, it was a beautiful hour, I feel more connected to him than I have in a long time. But I could have done great damage by resisting it or attaching to something else.

Mike Abramowitz 34:43
That's beautiful. And what you're demonstrating is the ability to tap into the polarities which is was coming back to that initial question which is the feminine and masculine energy because you're, you're aware of which energetic needs to be called forward at the appropriate moment when to embrace the feminine and when to also call forward that mask? And when do I need to stay stationary and stay firm? And when do I need to be a little bit more fluid and open? And that's why I'd love to hear. How do you define masculine and feminine from your lens? And what creates the environment for each of them to exist? Because I know some people hear masculine feminine, I think male female, like a big fan, speak to that. And how do you create the environment for each of those to exist?

Unknown Speaker 35:32
Yeah, wow. That's a great question. So I remember a conversation I was having with somebody years ago, and I said, pollack Hold on. It seems like every time we talk about toxic masculinity, and masculine energy getting healthier, it seems like we just end up talking about feminine energy. So is there any difference between like, is it all just one energy, I'll never forget what he said. And it shaped my thinking about this ever since he said, It's all just the souls energy, but used for different purposes. The purpose of the souls energy, when it's in a masculine energetic space, is to go somewhere, to accomplish something to do. I joke that that's why the arrow on the masculine on the male symbol is pointing up to the sky, there's, there's goals and visions to achieve, it's about accomplishment, it's about getting from point A to point B, whereas feminine energy is a souls energy and specifically focused on not getting to point B but cultivating a depth in point A right where we're at creating and holding space for nurturance and depth, and what is rather than what could be. And so that's how I started. And ironically, the symbol for female right is a cross rooted in the ground, rooted in this moment in point A. And so that's sort of how I understand those two energies. And I think I, I would love to have a conversation about I don't think I have all the, I don't even pretend to think I have the answers on this. I, I believe, that are calling each of us is to be able to cultivate as much of a balance between those energies in each of us as we can. And a flexibility and sort of wisdom about how to call upon those energies when we need them. So I think I think polarities, as you describe them, polarities attract the opposite, right? So if we have cultivated primarily our masculine energy, we will attract someone who has primarily cultivated their feminine energy. And again, we're departing from gender ideas here, we're just talking strictly about the energies. This can be friendships, companionship, marriage, whatever. So what happens oftentimes, is those who have cultivated strong masculine energy, they attract strong feminine energy, and then they get so frustrated with that. It's like, come on, I want to have a visioning conversation, I want to, you know, review our goals for the coming year and talk about how we're going to execute on them and pursue the feminine energies like oh, my gosh, could we not have an agenda for one moment and just be right, and then vice versa, of course. And so what I what I believe is that if we can cultivate a fairly healthy balance of masculine and feminine energy and ourselves, we will also attract people who have a relatively healthy balance of masculine and feminine energy. And then we can sort of work with and honor the other person's energy we can trade off kind of the sharing of those energies. When do you need to leave with the masculine, I can live with the feminine? When do we both need to be in a more feminine space? It's interesting, you said, you know, this is coming right on the heels of me sharing about my son because in hindsight, the morning that I set it to Monday mornings ago, I was in a an exceedingly masculine energy, like way out of whack. And I approached him with that when what he was needing, with some feminine energy said, what I needed to provide him today was that and now that you said, like, now that we're talking to him about it, I realized at the very end of our conversation, I said, Can I offer a suggestion? Which was me saying, Can I Are you ready for me to offer a little bit of masculine energy here how I think you might be able to get from point A to point B and at that point, he was like, yeah, like there's been enough safety and space to sort of feel like that was okay. So yeah, for me, it's that cultivation of balance and the attraction of balance and the ability to fluidly work amongst companions with both of those energies and understand them both and offer both

Mike Abramowitz 39:31
I love that explanation of the masculine is going towards from you towards a point B where the feminine is staying like let's let's really get more depth in point A. I have a curiosity is my curiosity is if someone's immature, in their masculine there's almost like that destructive or the toxic masculine or there's that destructive or toxic feminine. Is there a conflict resolution or conflict strategy? that you can maybe bring to the surface because obviously, if someone is immature in that style, and they're really on the opposite end of the spectrum, they're really, it's sometimes it's hard to meet them where they're at. And then we don't want to get triggered to where they bring us on this emotional journey with them. But we also don't want to retreat where we completely fall prey. So is there a conflict resolution that you find works? Well, if someone is in the toxic or the immature of either of those?

Unknown Speaker 40:34
That's a really good question. I believe most great conflict resolution happens within us, not between us, it's really great when both people are taking responsibility for that, right. So if you're in an interaction where so a person's imbalanced masculine energy was causing a lot of problems, causing a lot of damage, and they were willing to take responsibility for addressing that, that imbalance and that toxicity, that would be great. I don't know that you see a lot of success in convincing or coercing somebody who's in that space to take responsibility for their own, kind of work with you on that. And so I think in that situation, it's a matter of asking ourselves, How do we want to show up to that? What does it look like to give a stiff arm if we need to? What's it look like to hold space, like, for me and a helper role, if someone's showing that, for instance, like if I'm coaching someone, I believe my ugly, by the way, my I think it's simple for me as a coach, my personal responsibility is to stay in a healthy balance of masculine and feminine energy, that the coaching and the growth space is accelerated by creating space to hold what is and accept what is, and also imagine and strive for what's possible, and still holding that healthy balance. So if someone's coming into that space with me, and they are, you know, they're on hyperdrive, they want to get from point A to point B in two in two days, and they think everybody's a failure, who doesn't and you know, anybody who gets in their way, as a problem, I'm probably going to go away feminine energy on that, in order to create space to explore what's underneath that. Like, I just want to understand what it's like, we don't get there. In the next two meetings, want to understand? Where did the idea come from? The things have to go so fast, you know, what's it going to be like? Can I Can we still be in relationship with, if I don't go at that speed with you, I'm going to just want to get curious and really hold space for that energy and to do so in the healthiest way possible without fear and without a sense that I need to change or protect, but just sort of show up to that energy as authentically as I can. That feminine capacity to hold.

Mike Abramowitz 42:50
Yeah, I love what you said is just is cure be cure, as curious as you possibly can, in order to understand where they are in that moment. So you so if they're on the extreme feminine or their extreme masculine, you would err more towards this curiosity and understanding or,

Unknown Speaker 43:09
and someone, someone said something to me recently, I wish I could attribute it that extreme masculine energy is afraid of feminine energy. It's afraid it believes that oh, my gosh, if you slow down, if you just create space, you will get bogged down into depression, right? If you feel a little bit of sadness, it's going to deepen into something that's intractable. It's terrified that holding space is going to devolve into failure, stagnation, depression and these sorts of things. And so by holding that, that feminine space in a healthy way, you actually give that masculine energy and experience of feminine energy that it's healthy, that it doesn't feel doesn't feel stagnant and unhealthy. It feels like moving forward anyways, at the end of the day, you might say, Hey, did we really get anywhere today, so to speak? Now, do you feel Do you feel better? Do you feel like something shifted here? Yeah, yeah. And that's because not all at all shifts, and not all growth involve a point A to point B, experience, some involve a deepening a point A and, and so to get to learn that experiential way can be really powerful. But ultimately, it's not totally up to you that they received that experience. And it's something that we have to be willing to accept as well.

Mike Abramowitz 44:24
That's a great response. It's a beautiful response. Dr. Kelly, I appreciate that. Before we head for the exits. I got a couple other questions. Is that okay? Yeah, yes. Great. So So I really appreciate you you share in such awesome wisdom with us. And this is a masterclass and really just emotional intelligence. This is what you're given us right now and self awareness and how we can become just more of our authentic self that we're here to be. So thank you for this. And I know, one of the things i i talked about and I love your take on is just the influence of everything. thing that surround us, specifically social media, the influence of ads, everything, all the information that's coming to us, you know, right now the media has, you know, has certain agendas that they're pushing, and then big business as their certain agendas they're pushing. And when we're trying to raise our kids, or, you know, our bring our raise our businesses raise our standards in this environment, sometimes, it's hard to keep their focus because they're being influenced by everything that's around them. So what are you doing for your kids specifically, or what you do for your staff to keep their focus on some of this some of these things that you're talking about with us today?

Unknown Speaker 45:43
Yeah, so great question. Well, I can, specifically with regard to our kids, and this is where I say, again, I give my wife a lot of credit for this. I, I sort of brought the masculine energy, so to speak, and said, We really need to do something about the kids phone use, we need a we need a culture in our family that's better defined around devices we need, we need a contract of some sort. And her great wisdom was to say, yes, let's do it. But let's make sure every step of the way it's collaborative, every step of the way, it's collaborative with the kids so that they feel like CO equals in developing it, because if they feel like it's forced upon them, the chances that they actually follow through with it are pretty slim. So what I'd say is, we started off, we actually have a written device contract in our house. And we started off with a statement about how we relate our relationship to our devices and to media. And what we say is that we agree, we agree collectively as a family that our devices are primarily meant for communication and productivity tools, and only secondarily for entertainment devices. But the makers of those devices, want us to begin to use them for more for entertainment. So we're going to be conscious of the of all the ways that we sort of get enticed to stay on the devices, those three little dots that show up when someone's texting you back, just to keep you there waiting for that's all just more time on the device. Because if you stay on the device, you're gonna go to another app that has advertisements and everything else. So we started with that you got thumbs up on that. And then we went through each of the principles, you know, when our devices will be in a basket, will they be allowed at dinnertime, all of these different principles. And with everyone we had to everywhere to get five items for at the time for thumbs ups, two parents and two kids. And if there's any thumbs down, we have a conversation, a collaborative conversation about how would you change this item? To make it and you know, the kids, it was almost always about what we feel like this favors you as adults, why do you guys get to do that on your devices, and we don't, right? They wanted some fairness and equality. And they almost always had a good point. And they're calling this out. So anyways, the contract ended up being a collaborative effort. And I think that's so important that we have buy in from everybody, all the stakeholders, and understanding and mutual understanding about what these things are, what they're wanting to do to our scheduled scheduling themselves into our minds, and how we can begin to put fences and limits around that.

Mike Abramowitz 48:16
Because I'm like, over here taking notes, I love the written communicate the written statement, the communication, this is a communication productivity tool. And its second source is for entertainment. And the business of this device is to keep you on here as long as possible. So everything that you're getting exposed to is to keep you on the device. So by you having that awareness creating that statement, I love the principles for the device, when we use it, where we use it, how often we use it, and grieving that mutual understanding.

Unknown Speaker 48:46
Yeah, I appreciate that. And the baby, the piece that I would add there. And this is borrowed from Cal Newport, because the book digital minimalism is to also ask, is this tool the best way to communicate? Is this tool the best way to be productive? So theoretically, you know, anyone in your ecosystem could argue, Well, Facebook is my way of communicating with my people. Well, what does communication mean? This telling this giving someone a digital thumbs up? Is that the quality of communication we're ultimately looking for in our family? Or would it be better just to instead of giving 10 thumbs ups on Facebook this afternoon? Would it be better to call one friend and actually have a conversation and actually communicate? So getting really clear about not just your values, but what are the best ways to execute on those values. And some of these tools, these tools are not the best way to to actually execute on the values.

Mike Abramowitz 49:40
Really love what you just did there. And it was so subtle, but you took it back back to what is the meaning of the word communication. Yeah. And I noticed how you did that so many times in your book, and I took so many notes on that, like you said, the word courage from the word core, which many people believe it's heart But you said it's really core, like the core of ourselves, like the center has to be at the center of our core with some sort of direction, I really found that fascinating like passion. You said, passion comes from, to suffer, and to suffer to ache to. And then compassion is to suffer with. And it's like, if you break down the actual meaning of the words that we're using in the language, we could almost decipher the mystery of what we're, what their, their meanings are. And I thought you just did a beautiful job in your book and lovable on how to do that. And I like that you love that you just did that again with well, what are we trying to accomplish with communication? What is communication? actually mean? Is this the best way to communicate? So I just wanted to bring attention. That was beautiful.

Unknown Speaker 50:51
Thank you, Mike. I'm really grateful for that the author and me and that little one in me sitting in all the books, loving his words, very honored. You saying that?

Mike Abramowitz 51:01
Well, it's masterfully done. And I truly, truly am loving this conversation selfishly. 98% of these questions I'm asking are for me. So it's really thank you for, you know, fulfilling my mind with what I wanted to know. And then the other maybe one or two questions are, are there for everybody else who happens to be listening to this recording? And so we probably have time for maybe one more question before we head for the exits. And I'll see if there's anything in the chat. So

Unknown Speaker 51:29
Matt asked a great question.

Mike Abramowitz 51:31
So yeah, mad dad, fellow front row, Dad mat. Right on? How do we help our kids as they grow up and move through the stages of castle building to stay within their original self? And that is a really beautiful question. And we also have a second question, Scott post, what are the tools to overcome shame? So if you want to tackle those last two, and then we'll we'll have for the exits? I appreciate it. Dr. kills two

Unknown Speaker 51:54
tiny questions. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that is such an important question. And I think one of the things that we need to remember is that actually building that ego Castle is a part of normal healthy development, that while eventually, the ego begins to outlast its usefulness and starts to cause more suffering than it's preventing, at first, it's actually quite a bit. And it's a normal part of development. So when we see our kids doing it, we don't want to discourage the creation of their ego. Because ironically, what we'll be doing will be shaming them for building an ego. And now they're building an ego because they're ashamed. So now we're giving them more reason for ego if we're shaming them for building. And so what we really want to do, and I appreciate the question, Matt, because you tie it back into that original self. And the hope is that what we can do is we can continue to be and maintain our role as mirrors of our kids original self, their true self, were the only ones who had been there from the beginning, were the only ones who remembered them all along. And we continue to reflect that back to them in mirror that back to them so that one day, when they realize this ego that I've built isn't serving me anymore, the journey back to their true self won't be so obscure, it will, it won't be so hard to remember who they are, we will have kept that image of them. And so my encouragement that to every parent is, it's, it's hard as a parent, to watch your kids start to build that false self and become somebody other than who you've, you know, love them to be. Try to love the process of building the ego as well. And stay focused on reflecting back to them who they are underneath that, the lovable thing that they've always been, so that you keep that alive for them and they're a return to it would be my first thought. And I that's a whole hour, we could we could talk about that.

Mike Abramowitz 53:44
I love I love that I just want to make sure I echo the mirror of their true self. And because you've raised them in the case of the parent, you know what that authentic self is assuming you've raised them and you know, you've been a part of their life. So being a mirror of that. I never heard that before. I love that so

Unknown Speaker 54:00
well and in my kids, they've my oldest, at least his read level. Well, I don't think my second has gotten through it my oldest and so I'll say to him like, Hey, do enough cannons for today? Like what's his name? Mitch, this is what's happened is a little too much. I'm sort of done for today. And I love I love you and I love what's what's behind those cannons, but I just can't take any more today. So it's sort of acknowledging and working with it and playing with it as it's important.

Mike Abramowitz 54:28
Yeah, that's that's beautiful. Because too many too many parents are probably going to use you know, shame or guilt or something to kind of prove a point or, you know, project some sort of insecurity on them or maybe even just used like name calling like, you little jerk off or whatever. Well, ultimately, you know,

Unknown Speaker 54:47
egos egos are triggers for other egos. So recognize as your kids get to that ego building stage, they're gonna start triggering yours, right and now I mean, the spiritual, spiritual work of releasing your own ego is in full force when You're raising adolescents and young adults for sure.

Mike Abramowitz 55:02
And that's a great final question. Which are you got it? What are your favorite? What are your favorite tools that we could use to help navigate or overcome shame?

Unknown Speaker 55:12
Yeah. So number one, first, most important thing is until we begin to recognize shame for what it is, it doesn't feel like it's shame, it just feels like it's the truth about who we are. It's just constantly narrating our lives. And so it's really important to create some, some separation from an identity line. So we begin just by listening to it, listen to that voice of shame, constantly going, minesto goes, LA, you're not interesting enough, everybody's gonna get bored and forget about you. And you know, you're gonna be end up alone. I mean, it's, it's constant, right? And so beginning to listen for that voice and begin to experience it as something that is not you. But as your shame droning on and on inside of you, now you've created a little bit of separation, right? It's a little bit of separation from it. And then at that point, you can do two things. Number one, you're going to have a hearing and invited to sort of quiet down. All right, I get it, you're saying the same thing, you listen long enough, it actually become a little boring. So it helps to quiet it down a little bit. But then you do two things. Number one, shame is essentially experientially, it's the urge to hide, if the sense that I'm broken, I'm bad, and I need to hide that. So every time you share your shame with somebody, you tell somebody who's relatively understanding, hey, I'm ashamed of this, your shame loses its power, it's the urge to hide. And it's also fueled by hiding. So as soon as we name it, and expose it and say it in a relatively safe space, it's robbed of that fuel. So that today, and this is where Brene, Brown is just knocked it out of the park in terms of talking about vulnerability, right vulnerability is just saying this thing, we're ashamed about showing up. And recognizing that as soon as we expose it to the light, that shame loses its power. So number one, I would say that, and then number two, when we begin to recognize that there's a voice droning on, and I've seen a pretty loud one, I talked about this a lot and lovable, we have an opportunity to invite in other voices, other inner voices, and I call it the voice of grace, the alternative to the voice of shame, the voice of grace. And I gotta tell you, I have always, when I hear the voice of grace, I am always blown away, it comes out of left field. It's a thought in me that I can't imagine having come from myself. And it's always a lovely antidote to what machine's telling. And so I encourage folks differentiate from the voice of shame, who allow it to quiet down start to listen for a different voice. I got an email here recently from someone said, I read, love. Almost five years ago, I've been listening for the voice of grace, and I just heard it for the first time I heard it, and now I can't unhear it. Right. So it's that process of listening for a better voice within, in addition to just naming that shame to somebody robbing it of his power.

Mike Abramowitz 57:56
I love that and you talk about it in the book, like you have your best friend shame. Shame was the best route and I know where you're going with. You did such a methodical way. And then you you said, I'm going to break off the relationship. And you said, you you, if you could correct me if I'm wrong, you wrote the book. But it's through forgiveness, but not reconciliation. And you kind of did an example there of like, we're not going to reconcile this relationship because it's only one sided. I'm just going to forgive you because it's all I can control. It's not really a conversation is really beautiful. The way you explain that in the book.

Unknown Speaker 58:30
Yeah, I don't know that. I don't know that like a lot of resistance to shame helps. It's just resistance is more the egos way of trying to deal with shame. And so forgiveness of that shame, voice, right forgiveness of those who helped create it in the world, and but simply saying, we're just not going to, we're not going to be the best buddies anymore. I'm not gonna let you sort of get away with telling me those things about myself anymore. But other than that, I don't think we need to resist it too much. We actually just need to be gentle with it.

Mike Abramowitz 59:01
Dr. Kelly, thank you so so much, if ever if people want to do stay in touch with you beyond this conversation, you know, I think I went and found your mini course on your website, Dr. Kate flanagan.com. And then also your blog has incredible resources. Is there anything else in addition to you know, people would want that you would want some people to know?

Unknown Speaker 59:26
Yeah, I mean, the website is a great place to go to right now. You'll see in that main header area, that that opportunity to get free access to the mobile mini course that'll get you on my email list. About once a month, I sent out an email saying, Hey, this is the new blog post I've written. I think we're at about 400 Plus blog posts at this point. So there's all sorts of great free reading material there. I've been told I should quit blogging because blogging is dead. But it's not that in me, I love it. It's still a wonderful way to connect with my tribe. And I'm just I have a great time doing it. And then there's a there's a book tab on that page, and that'll take you to the book page. It's for lovable for true companions and for The unhiding of Elijah Campbell, my first novel, which is coming out, which is a lived example of a guy following his passion, even when it doesn't make a ton of sense to jump into fiction, but I just had I had so much fun with it, and I can't wait to get it into people's hands comes out October 18.

Mike Abramowitz 1:00:15
And I did see there's a you have a free excerpt. So if somebody wanted to read like the first little bit of that book, where could they try the excerpt of your first novel that you're putting out?

Unknown Speaker 1:00:25
Yeah, so I published it as a blog post, I published the prologue as an excerpt on the blog. So you go to the blog there that that site you just showed, I think it's I think it's the top blog post right now. And then at the end of the blog post, there's the link to click to download a PDF of the first chapter. So you basically get the first two chapters, and I am dying to get this out there. So thanks for coming by and checking it out.

Mike Abramowitz 1:00:47
Yeah, we'll definitely be sure to pick up a bunch of copies. And again, if you haven't picked up lovable, fantastic place to start, I'm excited to dive into the true companions, myself. October 18, will mark our calendars and the two millimeter club better than rich? While all of us I'm sure we'll make our way to Amazon? Is that the best place to get it or through the website or

Unknown Speaker 1:01:07
you can go to the web page on hiding book.com and hiding book.com. And, and you'll see a place where you can purchase it at the bundle. Click order to get all your different purchase options. But I can track some of that. And yes, pretty much everybody chooses Amazon.

Mike Abramowitz 1:01:24
On hiding book.com Thanks so much again, Dr. Kelly, we appreciate you. Thank you and thank your wife that take the other Dr. Kelly. Kelly, Dr. Kelly, Dr. Kelly, for giving us you and your kids. So thanks again. Well, didn't we appreciate it? All right. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, and you'd like to help support the show, please share it with others posted about it on social media or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest from us. You can follow us on Instagram at better than underscore rich and join our Facebook group at the better than rich show. Thanks again for listening. We look forward to seeing you next time. And remember, leave today better than you found it.

Andrew Biggs 1:02:15
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Mike Abramowitz 1:02:26
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