FletcherEllison.com, the practice of feeling good in business and in life.
Um, we might, we might come back to your brand directly as well.
Um, and, and talk about that, but curious, calm, courageous, um, creativity
didn't fit in the title for all you listening in.
Um, that was another one of these C's that we've got.
Uh, why, why those words?
What are those words mean to you?
So curious is really important to me because much of my life, I was a
judgmental SOB and, and I really, maybe we are, you know what I'm talking about.
Uh huh.
Oh yeah.
And, and my judgment really got in the way of me of understanding people,
connecting with people that got in the way of having compassion.
It got in the way of understanding, uh, and as a result of it, I actually fell,
found myself isolated in, in certain regards of my life.
As a result of it, my business suffered as a result of it, my relationship
suffered, uh, my judgment caused suffering when I learned to get curious.
My judgment, uh, my judgment subsided.
I got curious, which, which I was, I was, I was, I was, I was
편 нам что 내
I can tell man, our vibe is like right on,
but we use different word choices,
extremely different word choices.
And you know, it's funny, cause you did,
you're like, no, I don't use the word love, you know?
And now you say curious, but what word did you go to?
Compassion, which to me is love.
So make space everybody, like, you know,
it's just too neat, man.
So keep going, keep going.
Yeah, so curiosity really facilitated growth in my life.
That's what came out of intentionally getting curious,
getting curious about how is it for that person?
Are they fearful?
Are they missing information?
Are they doing the best they can
with the tools that they have?
What are the other ways they can?
Where it came from, it broke my heart when I found it out.
Like literally it shattered my, I was so like,
oh, that's why my relationships suck.
I found a quote that said,
expectation is the root of all heartache,
William Shakespeare.
And I felt that, so I was,
I immediately knew how guilty I was
of always wanting my expectations to be fulfilled
and how disappointed I constantly was in people
because I was so addicted and obsessed
with being able to fulfill my expectations on life.
So there's, I wasn't using the word judgment.
I was using the word expectation,
but those two words are far more synonyms
than I think people, so is entitlement.
I'll throw that one in.
That's another cousin of those.
They're all the same.
And that's how we use,
we use these words to escape or rationalize, right?
Where we're coming from.
But like you said, the hurt, the damage, the loss.
Yeah, it was significant.
Yeah, and so getting curious put me on a path of really,
excuse me, a much more fulfilling life.
And it was fulfilling
because I was more connected with people.
Yeah.
I love that.
And so calm, that was huge, man.
Okay, I'll add one more word to curious.
Some of the ladies in my life
have helped me understand the value of wonder and awe.
Right, and that's like curious at a,
yeah, it's like a two feel good of a level almost.
It's like a three feel good, but yeah, huge.
Calm, what's up with calm?
Yeah, again, no surprise.
Anger and frustration were two of my go-to emotions.
And in fact, I was just talking with one of my clients
before a week on this call about anger.
And she was like,
I don't know why this person's always so angry.
Why do they always go to anger?
And I said, let's get curious about that, right?
And what we discovered is that people use anger
to manage people.
And what they're really telling you in their anger is like,
hey, you stepped out of line, get back in line, right?
So frequently we'll even have that tone like,
hey, watch out.
Hey, hey, don't talk to me like, you know, it's like that.
And what people do is then they usually acquiesce
and step back in line.
It's like the perfect or the very clear illustration
of this is the drill sergeant
where you have soldiers lined up in line, right?
And somebody steps out of line and that drill sergeant, boom,
he comes down on them.
And what do they do?
They straighten up and they make sure they are in line.
So we've learned to use anger as a way to manage people,
to get them to do what we want to do
when we don't know how to handle the situation.
Fletcher, did you serve in the military?
I did not.
You did not, you carry yourself with that civic duty.
So happy Veterans Day, by the way.
Yeah, absolutely.
Let's certainly talk about that.
And there's that context of where anger
or high octane, right, has its place.
And certainly I think even a need in some aspects of life,
just like force and strength can,
but oftentimes we find ourselves using it as a means
to overshadow other opportunities.
Exactly.
I love that you just added that.
And it makes me want to clarify one thing.
Yeah, anger in itself, it's not bad.
It's not wrong.
We want to get curious about the message of our emotions.
When it becomes problematic is when we begin to use anger
as a hammer, right, or a weapon to knock people down.
Oh, there you go.
For those of you who aren't familiar with this,
I enjoyed teaching my son about this
about a year and a half ago.
And it's something I've always been,
I shouldn't say always, but since I was 19 though,
I've been pretty drawn to this reality
of what types of emotions may exist under the surface.
Right, I dive in too deep with it
because you can always go study that on YouTube
and do your own internal discoveries
of what emotions might be below the surface
of the experience.
Courageous, though let's shift gears
to going from curious, calm, courageous.
Yeah, courage.
I love courage.
And I really do believe that humans in general,
they love courage.
They love witnessing courageous acts.
In fact, it's one of the reasons why we go to the movies.
Right?
We love seeing the underdog who's been getting,
pushed down, pushed down, pushed down.
And towards the end of that movie,
oh, the underdog, he steps out of,
not just a step out of fear,
he steps into courage and takes an action
that wasn't based in fear.
And that's when we just wanna stand up and applaud, right?
I mean, we love that courageous ending.
And, but here's what I want your audience to hear
because for me, this is so cool.
Courage can only be experienced when we are fearful.
We never experienced courage apart from fear.
Fear is required to be present for courage to exist.
And so they travel together.
In my book, The Practice of Feeling Good,
I talk about that courage is actually
the kryptonite to fear.
But they always travel together, right?
So courage is the gift in fear.
And so when we are experiencing fear,
I programmed my brain to now, when I feel fearful,
the next thing that comes to my mind is,
oh, this is my opportunity to experience courage.
I like that.
Yeah.
I like that a lot.
From a spiritual standpoint,
it reminds me of the thought processes
of when I don't wanna pray.
It's an opportunity to remind myself
this is probably the most important to time
to dive into prayer.
Yeah, I love that.
So fear represents our opportunities.
And naturally, there are unhealthy levels
of not just fear, but circumstance that leads to it.
We don't wanna test our courage by walking to a cliff's edge
and seeing how close we can get to take selfie,
for instance.
Yes.
Unfortunately, people have had news stories
come out about them doing just that.
So there's ways, fear will find us in life.
There's plenty of ways that fear and adversity
and challenges are there.
But when we do find ourselves afraid or in fear,
I love that you empowered us with a new tool to say,
ah, here's an opportunity to exercise my courage.
This is why I need that golf club, if you will.
Yes.
That's cool, man.
That's awesome.
Well, we're gonna be diving in further and deeper
on these subjects with Fletcher and his vision at large.
Before we cut to a break though,
what are three resources that you recommend
for other visionary leaders out there?
Yeah, I'm gonna recommend a new book
that I have been enjoying.
It's by a relatively new author on the scene.
His name is Greg Benwick,
and the book is called Reclaim the Moment.
And the subtitle is Seven Strategies to Build a Better Now.
And I'm really enjoying that.
This guy's really inspiring and done incredible things
in his life.
So that's one.
One of the ones that really launched me many years ago
was Tony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within, right?
And another one would just be The Four Agreements.
And I think that one is so powerful
because it highlights and emphasizes being your word.
Huge, that's awesome.
You know, it's interesting.
I really, really, really, really, really like Tony Robbins.
He doesn't get mentioned a lot in the three,
but I'm grateful when it happens
because I feel like that's a man
that I just don't want overlooked.
He did his Netflix, I'm Not Your Guru,
he was super impactful on me and super helpful.
So it's nice to be able to give credit there.
And The Four Agreements,
that's a very fundamental and principally driven book.
And it's one of those things that you can restudy that topic
every year, every month, you know,
and get so much more out of it
and unpack and unpack and unpack.
So cool, man, you range the spectrum.
One principal, one new, you know, one great giant.
That's awesome.
So we'll come back, we'll dive in,
we'll talk more about curiosity,
calm, courageous, behaviors, creativity.
We're also gonna be talking about values.
You might see Fletcher and I bring our anger sides out.
We might have some back and forth on that one though,
and why he says your values don't mean Jack.
And while I'm like, well, Jackson's values
are kind of everything to me.
So, have fun with that.
We might talk about the gift of fear a little bit further
and how to overcome resentment.
And maybe even how Fletcher's grown about performing
as a speaker, as a performer, as a coach,
and building his entrepreneurial lifestyle.
The practice of feeling good is why Fletcher's here.
And I'm excited to dive in deep on that.
So we'll see you guys on the other side.
All right, welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
With Jackson Callum, I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there.
Hey, what's up everybody?
Welcome in to another episode of Vision Pros Live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Callum,
founder and CEO of First Class Business.
I'm excited to have Fletcher Ellingson on stage today.
We're gonna be diving in deep with curiosity,
calmness, courageousness, overcoming resentment.
A lot of things that are fundamentals,
if you're not fundamentally driven,
this show is not really for you, love you,
but you're not going to care too much
about what we talk about.
My nephew one day, a long time ago, said,
it feels like talking in circles
when people talk about those things.
And I almost named my podcast when I launched it,
Talking in Circles, in his honor.
So I do enjoy the process of let's dive deep
in the principles, let's figure out how those work,
because if we know the principles,
we have the skillsets and depths to be able to tackle
any types of challenges that can come our way.
Before we dive in with Fletcher on that though,
and explore his principles
and how he's gonna help us do that,
a couple of resources that come to mind.
The Hard to Kill, I shouldn't say that,
hardtokill.org, leave the the out of it.
Hardtokill.org with Dave Morrow, 100,000 veterans.
He's helping 100,000 veterans
lose two million pounds collectively.
He's also expanded his doors so that all of us,
the civilians out there like myself,
can get access to this community
and work on my health as well.
I've met with and worked with a lot of personal trainers
and coaches and people,
and I've successfully avoided working out
for about eight years.
And that's not a good thing,
but somehow Dave meowed me into actually getting after it
and starting to take care of my health again.
And I'm super grateful because I sleep better now.
And my back doesn't hurt like it used to.
So he's on a mission to help people.
I highly recommend checking it out.
It is Veterans Day, if you know a veteran,
make sure to share this with them.
They might find a community that helps inspire them
to look good, feel good, and go and do good.
Dave is an amazing leader.
And there's opportunities for work for Latinos.
I said at the Green Go Away,
Oprigna de este trabajo para latinos
is a program that we've built for Latinos
to be able to learn about the things
you and I take for granted.
A lot of them don't know LinkedIn exists.
Can you imagine that?
They don't know Canva or Fiverr or Upwork
or that digital opportunities exist.
And we're trying to raise awareness for that.
Those are the people that we hire to help
with building our brand and business out.
If you know of a Latino who would like to be on our show
for opportunities, send them our way
because we're looking for Latino leaders
who can inspire that movement
and help us bridge the economic gap
between North America, South America, and rest of world.
And I couldn't do what I do without the Latinos
who helped support this process.
And we've expanded to India.
We've also expanded to the Philippines.
And we hope that you get the chance
to dive in with us on that.
Then there's the Water Project.
We have no affiliation with the Water Project.
Looks like my system got a little bit frozen there.
But you can see up here in the top
that the Water Project is a program
that helps people get access to clean drinking water.
And once again, I don't know what that's like.
I've never really truly been thirsty in my life.
I imagine most of you haven't either.
Imagine what it'd be like for your kids to leave school
and have to go three to five miles
to find clean drinking water for your community
or how that would affect you at work
if you had to leave and do just that.
I took some time to meditate on this process
and realize how important it could be
to just raise awareness for.
So we do contribute to it.
And we hope that you take the opportunity to as well.
I love how transparent they are.
You get to pick the community
that you wanna help and support.
And as you do that,
you get to see that project come to fruition as well.
They actually send you pictures
and tell you the story of what's happening,
the sand dam they're building or the borehole well.
If you're not in a financial position to give back,
my request would be to use this
as a dinner party conversation.
Maybe talk about it with your spouse on a date night
and consider who you might share this with.
You might share this with somebody
that can invest 10,000, 100,000 or more.
You never know the ripple effect of the good that you'll do.
And we've got 8 billion people to help in this world.
So we should jump in and try to help out.
If you know of a cause you'd rather see us talk about,
drop it in the comments.
I love to learn about these causes
and we might bring them on our stage as well.
So without further ado,
Fletcher Allenson is here to throw down
and help uplift all of us.
Thanks for joining me, Fletcher.
Hey, my pleasure.
Good to be here.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you got a vision I align with quite well.
This whole like practicing, feeling good.
In fact, I think most people in the world
like the idea of practicing feeling good.
Let's just dive right into that.
What does that look like?
Why is this different than, I don't know,
what Coca-Cola can do for me?
Or watching a soccer game.
What is this about?
All right, great, great question.
Actually people go to soccer games
because they wanna feel good.
Yeah.
So people want to feel good.
It's the number one thing that they want.
Why do we want money?
So that we can buy stuff.
So we can have experiences.
Why do we want those things?
Because they feel good.
We're all driven to experience progress.
Like you and me, Jackson, you and me,
we are progress driven.
Is that accurate or not?
1000%.
Yes.
And when we make-
I'm glad you said it so I didn't have to.
And when we make progress, does that feel good?
You know it.
Yeah, right.
I mean, I would say it's not only feel good,
but it is good.
And I think there's a huge difference between the two.
Go ahead.
Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
And not only does it, it doesn't feel good just,
we're not just saying that lightly.
We mean it actually physiologically.
It feels good in the brain.
We get that dopamine.
We get that adrenaline.
We're literally addicted to progress.
Business owners, what do they want?
They wanna see progress.
What do people in the stock market wanna see?
They wanna see progress.
What do you want in your marriage?
Progress, right?
What do you want in your health and vitality?
Progress.
We want progress because progress feels good.
Now there's lots of ways to feel good,
but I'm of the opinion that most people are practiced
at feeling a lot of other ways
that don't fall into the umbrella of feeling good.
A lot of people feel isolated.
I wanna play Andrew's advocate real quick.
Don't lose your thoughts though,
cause like this, I know we're not gonna have the time
to hit everything we wanna hit.
This is already just juicy, man.
You made a statement that's easy to make,
and I don't think you meant it as strongly as you said it,
which is we are addicted to progress.
And I would add the caveat,
we can be addicted to progress.
Meaning it's a very easy addiction to fall into,
and I would just add that simple subtle hope
that on the flip side,
there are those who've recognized the value of progress,
but also understand the far greater value
of enjoying the journey.
Yes, and I'm glad you brought that up as a different flavor.
I'm addicted to progress,
like chemically addicted to progress.
If I am not- I mean honorable.
Yeah, like if I'm not feeling like I'm making progress,
I will feel depressed.
And I will do something, even if it's clean out my car.
No joke, I mean, I have-
I laughed out of appreciation for that.
Yeah, yeah.
It's an interesting reality because I think most of,
I could be very wrong on this.
I don't know who's listening, right?
My mom might be listening, you know,
my sister might be listening.
You have no idea who's listening,
but I do think that our typical audience
has a pretty great balance of knowing how to moderate
that feeling so that they don't become addicted to it.
And yet if you out there, you resonate with that,
one, I'm just grateful for Fletcher
for being able to say it.
Two, I do know what that's like.
And I do know that I haven't been addicted
to my progress for almost 10 years, I think.
I made some serious changes,
but how I saw things and what I wanted for my life.
And the big secret for me was shifting
from needing to be the best to realizing
I just need to be my best.
And I need to be happy with that.
And that I shouldn't even say need.
I have the opportunity to step into that.
And so it's one of those sentiments that again,
and we're talking about a subject that is so nuclear,
in my opinion, like this, you mentioned it, Fletcher.
It's the number one thing that people want is to feel good.
So it's also, you're not the only one who knows that.
Chad GPT can tell anybody in the world that.
It's the number one most exploited market
for self-development.
And tribal leadership calls that out
and has so many people dive into this
because it's easy money to exploit people's feelings
and what they want.
So again, I wouldn't have you on this stage
if I was ready, if I was like, I gotta crucify this guy.
No, I don't think you're an evil person.
I think you're an awesome person.
And I'm excited to explore both sides of it
or multiple facets of this,
because all of you listening in,
there are lots of perspectives.
And there's a process of feeling good
that can lead you to like,
oh, cocaine made me feel good for a moment,
but oh, now your life's starting to crash and burn.
And we do that with things that aren't cocaine,
Netflix, ESPN, relationships, children,
candy, lots of ways.
Go ahead, Fletcher, I'll let you go back to it.
Yeah, and thanks for clarifying.
I love all that.
And we should talk about,
when I say the practice of feeling good,
the word good is an umbrella term.
So for me, that means feeling connected.
It means feeling safe.
It means feeling enthusiastic or eager, excited,
grateful, joyful.
Yeah, right?
So there's lots of ways of feeling good,
but I'm of the opinion that most people
aren't practiced at it.
Correct.
Right?
We're practiced at feeling judgmental, frustrated,
upset, angry, jealous.
And I mean, I'll speak for myself.
That was me for many, many years, okay?
But I do see this out in the world.
And like what you said, marketing, oh, they leverage that.
They leverage the heck out of that, right?
So, but what I'm suggesting is that we can intentionally
begin a new practice of feeling good,
where I feel calm.
I feel creative, right?
I feel at peace.
Huge.
Right?
Or I feel optimistic.
I feel open.
I feel willing, right?
I love the concept of open and willing.
It's huge.
We've had some back and forths on that reality
of open and willing and what exists there.
And it is one of those, it's,
I'm big on the concept that freedom has a certain level
of accountability and responsibility with it
that most people don't want to embrace.
And that we tend to think we want freedom,
but our actions, right?
The things that we say and do showcase
that we're actually quite terrified of it.
We'd rather escape a conversation than explore,
what's possible with true open freedom.
How do you go about in your life helping some of the people
that you work with explore freedom
and not and catch their blind spots?
Let's talk about blind spots as a system with freedom.
Yeah.
I think the thing that I like to do with my clients
is two things.
Number one, we get curious.
Okay.
I love this.
I love you going back to this.
I need to remember this myself.
So thank you.
Yeah. I help them get curious.
And then we begin to look at their beliefs.
And a belief is simply a feeling of certainty.
A belief doesn't, just because you believe something,
it doesn't mean it's true.
It simply feels certain.
And the more certainty you have about something
to stronger the belief.
Huge.
So next time you hear-
Or a true cycle.
Yeah. Right.
And so next time I'm talking to your audience,
the next time you hear somebody say,
well, I believe what you're hearing them actually say
is I feel certain.
And once you understand that it's just a feeling
of certainty that's, and that feeling of certainty
is based on evidence that they've collected.
It's just like a court of law,
a prosecutor and a defender.
They each have a belief that they're going to support
with massive evidence in hopes that their stack of evidence
will determine a guilty or innocent verdict
by their peers, right?
I'm glad you found the word verdict
because I wasn't gonna find it.
I was like, oh, I hope he's got it.
Oh.
Right.
And so then what I ask my clients is,
does that feeling of certainty, that belief,
does it serve your life or does it hinder it?
And if it hinders it,
then let's intentionally set up a new sense of certainty.
How do you do that?
By defining or deciding what you want to believe
about that topic and then gathering new evidence
to support it.
I love that.
What's a type of belief
that typically hinders visionary leaders?
Oh boy, that's a great question.
And one of the top ones is, Jackson,
I don't have time for that.
There's never enough time.
There's not enough time in the day.
That-
I don't have dot, dot, dot.
But good, I'm glad you kept going with that.
The time aspect is certainly one of the biggest ones.
And anytime we find ourselves saying, I don't have.
Yes.
And so what we do is, so first of all,
we ask the question, does that belief feel good?
Does it feel good in the body?
And the answer is, no, it doesn't.
And so what we assume in this methodology,
I learned through studying with David Bayer
and Tony Robbins and a number of other people,
but it really comes down to this.
If that doesn't feel good in the body,
then we make a bold declaration.
The declaration is, the belief must not be accurate.
Why?
Because it doesn't feel good in the body.
So we're using our emotional guidance system
to make a decision.
That doesn't feel good in the body,
must not be entirely accurate.
Okay, well, step three is, if we,
what, if it's not accurate,
then some form of the opposite is likely accurate.
Well, what's some form of the opposite that,
some form of the opposite of there's never enough time
or I don't have enough time.
There's a lot of time.
There is a lot of time and I actually have enough time
for the things that are important to me
because we always have enough time
for the things that are important to me, right?
I've got, I always make time to pay my mortgage.
I always make time to pick up my kid
or I always make time to pay my bills on time, right?
I mean, you can begin to see that you make time
for the things that are important to you.
Now, some people will say,
well, Fletcher, how does that fix the problem?
Well, first of all, there's no problem to fix, right?
We're just reorienting the way we think.
There's enough time for the things
that are important to me.
And now we're gonna ask, does that feel good in the body?
Oh, that feels a lot better in the body.
And then, now your brain's gonna fight back.
It's gonna say, but Fletcher, you're just playing,
you're just doing, you're just wordsmithing things here.
Good, I'm glad you caught that
because that's what we've been doing our entire lives.
Ooh.
Now we're just bringing a different and empowering story
around this concept of time.
You've just been living
with this disempowering story about time.
I don't have the money, another example.
I already have a coach, right?
There's also positive ways we do this to ourself.
Yes.
You know, right?
We have enough to be able to, it's like,
when's the last time you gave a plant
the minimum amount of water?
Not exactly a great gardener move.
We wanna make sure that we are stepping into abundance
if we want to have an abundance of life.
So there's lots of opportunity here to play with this,
with where y'all are going with your visions.
I wanna ask this, I feel inspired to dive
right into this question before we go any further.
Sure.
And that is, if this was the last chance
that you had to share a powerful lesson with the world,
this is it.
What powerful lesson can other visionaries learn
from your experience lecture?
That you are not your thoughts.
Talk to me about that.
Yeah.
So I have thoughts that come and go all day long.
They are automatically generated by my brain
and they are being generated without my permission,
consent or approval.
They simply show up.
The mistake I made for many, many years was,
I thought I was thinking those.
I didn't recognize that, I mean,
I don't say I am my heart, nor am I my brain.
My heart pumps blood.
It doesn't ask for permission.
It doesn't ask for my approval.
My brain is an organ that produces thoughts by itself.
Just like it's a chat GPT, right?
It's constantly pumping out thoughts.
And I mean, you ever get a song stuck in your head?
That's huge, especially based on your environment.
That you don't control, oftentimes.
A kid cannot control an abusive environment
that they're stuck in.
But that environment produces thoughts for their mind
to then have to work with.
Huge, dude, that's...
And so what you wanna realize is that the brain
is an organ that generates thinking.
It generates thinking.
This is like mind blowing when I consider this.
Without my permission, consent, or approval,
sometimes those thoughts work in my favor,
but frequently they work against me, right?
And so the opportunity is to notice
the thinking that's taking place.
Be the observer that is noticing the thinking
that is taking place.
And then you can ask the question,
does that thinking serve me or anything?
Does that thinking serve me or hinder me?
Is it in alignment with what I want?
Or out of alignment?
And if it's in alignment, wonderful.
If it feels good, wonderful.
But if it's not in alignment,
you have the opportunity as the observer of your thoughts
to step in and say, I'm going to use the power
of that same organ, the brain,
and I'm going to intentionally think X, Y, and Z.
Which is why I'm a big fan of affirmations.
These are, the affirmations are ones I've set,
those are programs I've set up, right?
I'm resourceful, capable, flexible.
That's one of my affirmations, right?
All that I need is within me now.
I mean, I've just got a bunch of these
that I can rattle off, rattle off.
Why?
Because I programmed my brain
and I get to say when I think those thoughts.
Huge.
It reminds me of a term I didn't appreciate
as much growing up.
Stand in holy places.
Understanding that if I put myself in that environment
where I am in a bubble of protection, if you will,
in a secure environment,
then it's going to have an impact on my thoughts.
And now I may have all sorts of,
survival instincts or modes that I'm pre-programmed
that for a while overpower and outperform the environment.
And over time, the exercising of the process,
much like trying to drive towards a six pack
or trying to move from being able to run half a mile
to being able to run 26 miles, right?
It's not something that can be done overnight.
But as you're saying, it's also not something
that we have to judge ourselves over for.
And not something we, if we learn
that it's not necessarily our fault,
that the, we're not victims saying that,
I can't do anything about this,
but we're also, there's an external influence
something that is happening that we then have the power
to learn about and move towards control.
And I get that right? Totally.
Yeah, yes, you did.
And you said in external, yes.
So, and I would say, and now what we're responding to
are the internal thoughts of the brain, right?
That are auto generating these thoughts.
And I love what you said, it's not our fault.
It's not our fault.
And it's a hundred percent our responsibility.
Ooh, I like that.
Yeah, right?
So you didn't set those thoughts up in your mind.
You didn't set your programming.
You had very little to do with your existing programming.
Yep.
And I have the opportunity to dive
into the responsibility to improve.
Exactly.
To get done what I want to get done
in my brain, in my heart and in my life.
Exactly, yeah.
That's beautiful.
I wanna, I've got, I wanna ask you the question.
What question, Fletcher, should I be asking
on our audience's behalf?
What is it that you don't get asked
that you wished you would?
Well, if we've got time, I'd love to, yeah,
I think the values concept is,
our conversation is very valuable.
I love it, brother.
You just jumped in the ring with me.
Oh, that's great.
I love new perspectives.
You know, it's like, you never know what's gonna happen.
So the concept that we have here,
I'll go to our private chat,
is you said your values don't mean Jack
and what you can do about it.
And that's either, to me, it sounds like a little bit
of a marketing jargon thing.
That's maybe saying that some people
don't actually care about their values.
But I saw it and I was like,
I'm really big on values and them and sticking to them
and cultivating them.
So yeah, tell me about that.
Why do you say your values don't mean Jack?
Yeah, excellent question.
So indulge me in just some question and answer here, okay?
So we'll set this.
Do it, absolutely.
I don't mind eating crow, by the way.
I also don't mind learning on the fly with people.
Okay, so let's just, I'm gonna ask you some questions
and I'm not trying to be sneaky or anything, all right?
These are just obvious questions
because you're representing our audience, right?
So first question, do you value freedom, yes or no?
Yes. Okay.
How about family?
Yes.
Do you value trust?
Yes. How about loyalty?
Yes. Okay.
Do you value honesty?
Yes. How about financial stability?
Yes. Health and vitality?
Yes. Teamwork?
Yes. Friendship?
Yes. Creativity?
Yes. Quality communication?
Yes. Good work ethic?
Yes. Courage?
Yes. Collaboration?
Yes. Okay, great.
Lots of, these are wonderful values, aren't they?
Now it's interesting, and they feel good,
but what I want you to consider is that all those values
that we just said yes to,
those are the exact same values that the mafia also has
and every drug or organized crime syndicate on the planet.
Now some people may say,
Fletcher, hold on a second, what are you talking about?
No, do they value freedom?
Absolutely, absolutely, right?
Family, they're all about family.
Trust and loyalty, huge, huge.
If you, I mean, because if you're not trusting
and you're display disloyalty, well, watch out, right?
Financial stability, absolutely.
Creativity, they're incredibly creative.
Friendship, on and on and on.
We share almost all the same values with the mafia.
That's where I disagree with the almost all,
but go ahead, continue.
Okay, yeah.
So, or at least a lot of these core values.
Now, so what I'm, so there's nothing wrong with that.
And then, didn't we have companies?
Oh, I know, I'm actually gonna double down on that.
I think there is something very wrong with that.
And not with you, but with, if you as an audience,
if you do not have the right values aligned,
it's a lot like having a rocket ship that's 99% built
and you're likely to blow up and die, right?
You have to get your values right in life
in order to get the types of results that you wanna drive.
And there's more to it than that, of course.
But if I don't, I love this book.
This is from the 1800s.
For those of you out there,
it's called As a Man Thinketh by James Allen.
Oh yeah.
Beautiful short read about how our virtues
drive our successes and our vices drive our failures.
And so if I put family and courage and loyalty
and my opinion above love, right?
If I forgot that value, I left that value out,
then yes, I can drive a lot of success forward
because the power of hate, which is the opposite,
that's the vice that mirrors love,
yeah, it can drive a lot of results.
Hitler was very successful.
But was he fully enveloped in values based on virtues?
No, he had enough to make certain things happen
for success, but he also had enough addiction
to the vice side to drive a whole lot
of bad things to happen to.
Go ahead, man.
I wanna hear your side on this.
Yeah, you bet, you bet.
And I'm gonna put a pin in what you just said there.
Yep.
And so a lot of people will say to me,
Fletcher, I really wanna meet somebody
and partner up with somebody in my life.
I wanna have, but I want them to share the same values
as I do.
Well, what I'm suggesting is you didn't just narrow down
the dating pool, you opened it wide open
because everybody on the planet
basically shares these core values.
Now, when my wife and I used to teach a weekend seminar,
you know, an intensive weekend seminar,
it was called Diabetes Smackdown.
And it was for people who had type two diabetes
and who were at risk for developing it.
They were pre-diabetic, right?
It's type two diabetes, which is a lifestyle disease.
So people would come to us, you know,
they've had amputations, they may be blind,
they're maybe, most of them were all depressed,
they were on medications.
I mean, it was not a very cheerful group of people, okay?
Beautiful people, loving people,
but they were there for serious issues
and they have quote unquote tried everything.
Now, we get to the part where we're talking about values.
And it's like, raise your hand if you value health
and vitality.
Every hand in the room went up.
And yet here were people at risk for heart attack.
Sure.
I mean, just for a terrible life of dis-ease,
yet we all value health and vitality.
So what I want our listeners to hear is that
there's nothing wrong with values,
but values don't move the needle.
So a value is simply an indicator of preference.
So just consider that values indicate a preference,
but what breathes life into the values,
what gives them legs are our standards around the values.
And a standard is what you're willing to settle for.
And most of us are not practiced at identifying
what our standards are.
So for instance,
you see me drinking water here because I have a standard
about how much water I take in every day.
Okay.
I need to take in a minimum of 40 to 50,
I count my coffee and tea as well.
So a minimum of 50 ounces of water a day.
Now a lot of people say, well, that's not very much.
Well, it's more than I've done in the past
because when I didn't have a standard,
when I didn't know what my standards were,
when I didn't have a standard, when I didn't know
what my standard was,
I wound up in the emergency room with kidney stones.
They actually came in while I was laying there
in excruciating pain and they said,
we're just curious about something.
After looking at your urine sample,
how much water do you drink a day?
And I was like, what do you mean?
How much do I drink?
I mean, I literally didn't know.
I mean, I know you should say hydrated,
but I wasn't keeping track of what I consumed.
I didn't have a standard for my intake of water.
And as a result of that led to kidney stones.
So I quickly made a standard of what I'm willing
to settle for, which is a minimum
of 50 ounces of water every day.
And guess what?
No more kidney stones.
So we have standards all over the place,
but most of them, again, we haven't taken the time.
We're not practiced.
We weren't taught this.
We didn't create a standard.
Like for instance, I'm looking over at this bed over here.
I'm down here in my guest room and there's a bed.
And it made me think of, oh yeah,
one of the standards we have in our household
is we make the bed every single morning.
Right when we get up, our standard is we make the bed.
Now for many years growing up,
I couldn't care less if my bed was made or not,
but I liked the feeling again,
we're going back to feeling good.
It feels good when I walk into my room and my bed is made.
So we have standards around exercise
and health and vitality.
I was into triathlons for a long time
and I was performing at a fairly high level.
There's a question for, I'm gonna go a little bit deeper.
I got my reasons for having, one, I'm loving this.
This gives me great opportunity to meditate on new concepts.
So I really do appreciate it.
I know you're listening in.
That's kind of both mine and Fletcher's goals,
I think, is give you new perspectives to think about.
No, I'm gonna consider it for your own lives.
So how do you know you're setting the right standard?
What's the system for making sure
that you did set the right standard
versus become victim to an externally projected standard
that doesn't represent what your true needs are?
Okay, awesome, good question.
So number one, first question to you,
I don't care what subject you're talking about,
what area of your life, health, sex, food, whatever,
ask yourself this question,
can I identify what my standard is?
If you can't articulate it easily and clearly,
you have a standard, but you didn't set it with intention
and it's probably not serving you
because you can't identify it.
So chances are that standard, it's still there.
Remember, standard is what you're willing to settle for.
Settle being the key word.
So it's probably not serving you.
So ask yourself that question.
Then number two, if you can identify it,
so for instance, for a long time,
I valued financial stability.
I mean, if you would ask me,
hey Fletcher, do you value financial stability?
Of course yes, I do.
But if you looked at my checking and savings account,
you would have sought barely any money in there
and sometimes oftentimes zero dollars in there.
My standard, what I was willing to settle for
was to have an empty bank account.
But if you ask me now what my standard is,
I can identify it, I can tell you clearly.
My standard is I always have a minimum of $2,000 bumper
in my checking account and Jackson,
this is the big one for me,
was because I used to be delinquent on some of my bills,
not because I was a slacker,
I just didn't have good money sense at that time.
Okay, I was a hard worker,
but I just didn't have the money sense.
So I would have late fees with the bank,
I'd have late fees with the PUD.
So now my standard is what I'll settle for,
I'm always paid ahead between three to six months.
So if you go down to the city and look at my account,
you'll see I'm paid at least three months ahead.
But my question is,
how did you determine
that was the best, healthiest standard for you?
Because again, let's talk about the finances.
If you were Jeff Bezos,
oh man, I'd be all ears on what the hell you're saying.
If you were Elon Musk from a financial standpoint,
give it to me, let's hear it.
But you're not.
And so I'm gonna use my juxtaposition.
So when I wanted to start becoming healthy,
I downloaded an app to help me with my calorie counting.
Good idea.
I wanna improve my intake and outtake
and learn about the stuff and how to do it.
And about six weeks later,
this was almost two years ago, probably,
I began to feel very weak and begin to feel very off
and not common sense, life lessons of 30 years.
Oh, I'm like realizing that, you know what?
Maybe, maybe just maybe this app doesn't know me well enough
and I don't know health well enough
to actually do this the right way on my own.
Maybe I'm not designed to create my own standard
in this category because I don't have the depth of training
to really maximize my best self and figure it out on my own.
And so I ditched the app and realized this is stupid.
What am I doing to my body
by trying to do this in this way?
It was beyond stupid for me to do that.
Again, I'm not saying saying standards is stupid.
I'm saying if somebody's going to move towards,
one, away from values, please don't.
That's my first impression.
You gotta consider this side of it.
You set rules for yourself,
but how to be the best judo fighter in the world,
but you don't have the best sensei.
Don't expect yourself to build anything of magnitude
or great results.
So back to the question, how?
How do we know what standards are the best ones for us?
I love this question.
I know, we're short on time too, I'm so sorry.
Three things and I'll be brief.
Number one, does it feel good in your body?
Okay, does this standard feel good?
Number two, you wanna get around people
who have the outcomes you desire
because chances are they're crystal clear
on their standards.
That's why they were able to produce those outcomes.
Yep.
Okay, so get around people who have the outcomes you want
and you're going to begin to pick up on those standards.
Community helps a lot.
Yeah, and so how do we,
oh, and number three, you just ask yourself the question,
does my current standard, if I can identify it,
does my current standard serve my life?
I like that.
I like that a lot.
And I'll add to it on that
because mine is a little bit more simplified,
but yours is going to add juice to what I do.
And so I appreciate that because this is something
I have my personal reasons for,
I wanna go through these exercises myself.
How do I recognize, right,
does my current standard serve my needs?
For me, that is the ability to tap into both your heart
and your mind.
So our mind can deceive us.
Our heart can also deceive us.
When there's alignment,
I do not believe that deception is possible.
And sometimes life is about exploring things
that aren't always in our fullest best interest.
It gives us new perspective and paradigm appreciation
for others, appreciation for what we don't want in life.
Sometimes that wrong turn gives us a certain element
of certainty around why we should appreciate the right way
when we end up going the right way.
So there's so many elements to it.
Fletcher, this was awesome, man.
Thank you for battling that with me.
Thank you for helping us look at,
how do we practice feeling good in the right ways?
And you did, you brought to me and to our audience,
I'm gonna call it the right ways, guys.
No, I'm not God, people.
I'm still figuring all this stuff out with you
as much as Fletcher is,
but these are the conversations that lift my soul
and they're usually the ones that lead me to day by day
after these sessions happen
of just getting that much more balanced and appreciation
and what life has to offer.
So you've delivered on that today and I appreciate that.
All right on, man.
Well, I feel the same way.
I appreciate what you're doing here,
giving out great content and bring an awareness
to these awesome projects too,
like the water project and the,
what was it, the warrior?
Opportunities.
Oh yeah, and hard to kill with the tomorrow.
Yeah, just being a valuable source of contribution.
So thank you for that.
100%, those of you listening in,
below this episode, you'll see the action steps
so you can get involved with Fletcher.
You can read his book, find out more about that.
And below that, we'll also have the resources
that we both shared and talked about on this episode.
And in the top right corner,
you're gonna see a button that says, be our guest.
If you wanna come on, share your vision,
uplift us, teach us some things, share with the world,
then by all means, join me on the show
and we'll see you on the next episode.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
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We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show
and thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro.