Being Playful and Having Fun - Jason Goldberg

Welcome to The Ultimate Coach Podcast conversations from being inspired by the book, The Ultimate Coach, written by Amy Hardison, and Alan Thompson. Join us each week with the intention of expanding your state of being, and your experience will be remarkable. Remember, this is a podcast about be. It is a podcast about you. To explore more deeply, visit theultimateCoachook.com. Now, enjoy today's conversation from being

Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Ultimate coach Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Meredith bell. And I am so excited today to bring to you one of my favorite people. Jason Goldberg, also known as JG JG Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me Meredith And I you said you're one of the hosts as the other one invisible? Is there an invisible friend? Do you want to talk about this? Is that why I'm here?

Doing? No one else is going to show up behind the scenes. Oh, I love it.

I'm so happy to be back. Again. It's been years since we've connected like this. And it's just so great.

That question is a great way to kick things off because it shows the humor that I just love about you and that you'll be bringing to this conversation. I have deep gratitude for you that I want to acknowledge publicly here because you are the reason I know about this whole world of being. And that's because when you and I connected back in 2015, I looked it up on LinkedIn, because of a post that you wrote about the house of cards, which was a TV series at the time that we were both watching me and we had a conversation and then life has not been the same because you introduced me to Steve Chandler Who was your coach and his books, specifically reinventing yourself. And we wrote in all the and so I got hooked on Steve Chandler in his books and then learned about Steve Hardison as coach because he mentioned him so often. Yeah, it's so here we are today circling back.

I love it. I love it. That's amazing. Yes, talking

about Steve Hardison and being and so I think it would be fun for you to kind of kick things off by saying how did Steve Hardison come into your world?

Yeah, I mean, he'd like most people, he just kind of floated down from above and just kind of levitated in front of me. And there he was, now, that that's what it feels like sometimes in his presence, though. So So I heard about him initially through Steve Chandler, because I also you know, reinventing yourself, which to me is just such such an incredible it's such an important book that I think everybody should read, and then read it again, and then read it several more times. And just like you, you know, Steve Hardison has mentioned all throughout this entire thing, right? Because there's just such a, there's such a reverence, it's, it's deeper than a connection. It's deeper than client, you know, client coach, it's even deeper than friendship. There's like a real reverence there both ways, I think, between the two of them. And so just the way he always spoke about about Hardison, of course it's very intriguing. And then the very first time I went through Steve's ACS program in person, his coaching school, I, he brought Steve and he brought Hardison in to do like a live talk for all of us. And it was, you know, him and Amy just sitting in the room and get just, you know, he's emanating all this heat and his power. But he just he showed up with this fiercely loving energy. And that's just how I've always experienced him.

That's great. Well, you know, speaking of love, I think that this whole idea of being who are we being in the world, and I know Steve Hardison just talks about that so much being love. How does that land for you in terms of how you're being and how you are loving in the world?

Yeah, it's so interesting, like, even even the term being and asking the question, asked me a question that involves the word of you. And then the question becomes, well, who am I? To begin with? Right? And so it's like, first of all, I need to separate who I am from my B, because those are those are different to me. Right? So or who I think I am, I should say, from my view. So who I think I am is this body and this and I'm Jason. And the only reason I'm Jason is because my mom said it enough times and I believed her. And I have this body that's changed and these thoughts that have changed and so I believe that's who I am. That's a default way to be who wouldn't think that's who they were. And then by diving into this stuff, when you start going into the beating, the thing you start doing is starting to question whether or not This physical form, this container that I'm in is actually the make of my being, is that actually who I am. And that's an exploration that I've been on for years and will continue to be on and, and sometimes it's like I remember Michael Neal said something one time, I don't remember what it was a reference to, but let's say any kind of spiritual kind of teaching. He said, It's like pointing at fire with an icicle, the closer you get to it, the less you have to work with. Right? It just starts to melt in your hand, the closer you get to it. So. So I say all that to say that this is a continued exploration. What I know, to be true for me, is that beyond being awareness, full stop, right? That's kind of that's who I really am. I'm if if the body of JSON is sitting in the movie theater, watching the story of my life, who I actually am, is the guy sitting one row behind looking at the person I think, is Jason looking at his life, right? So now that I've thoroughly confused everybody listening, including myself, what I'm what I mean by all that is, when we do that inquiry, when we really check in to figure out who we are. And we come to whatever conclusion we come to, I don't believe there's a right answer. But we come to whatever conclusion we come to. What I've come to is that I am, I am energy, right? So in a sense, it's like, all of us, as humans are light bulbs. And the source of energy that travels through all of us is one source. Right? So I am a part of that source just by default, otherwise, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have a light bulb to light up if I wasn't a part of that, that thing. So all that to say that I then check in with my energy and say, Well, how is my energy? How does my energy express itself? How does my energy make an impact on the people that I meet in the world, and that's where the love, the joy, the enthusiasm, the connection, that comes from this deeper place, that can't be summed up by my body, my thoughts, my emotions, my belief systems, any of those things. So they're kind of separate and together. And so that's, that's kind of my exploration, that's where I think that stuff comes from. And that's where I operate from as much as I can.

You know, I think one of the key things around love, that I know you've explored deeply is this idea of self love. Because you didn't always have it. In fact, you have a wonderful international best selling book called Prison Break. And it's all about breaking out of the self imposed beliefs and limitations that we have talked a little bit about your own journey to coming to a place of genuine self love.

Yeah, it's, it's still a moment by moment thing for me, it's not a it's not a default, I have to be aware of this. And it's all a part of a spiritual practice, if you will. So my belief is that self love is simply the absence of self criticism. Right. So without self criticism, what's left over is self love. Right? Self love is our default, until we start believing our limitations and our beliefs and what the parents say, and what society says and everything else. Or even what we say about ourselves. When we don't believe that or don't put a lot of weight or significance on it, what's left is self love. So it means that all I have to do I don't need to do nothing things wrong with what I'm about to say, but I don't need to do affirmations in the mirror, I don't need to, you know, tell myself, I'm enough. I don't need to do I can, I don't need to do those things, though. Because self love will just be there. If I just check in with myself criticism, and really, really slow down and inquire into that and say, why why why am I why am I having that dialogue? Why am I engaging with these thoughts that are unhelpful and inaccurate? Why am I why am I giving so much significance to something that's interesting, like binge watching the Kardashians, but not really helpful based on how I actually want to feel in my life, right? And so that's where my self love comes from, when I'm really tapped into it. It's simply the absence of self criticism is the absence of that noise.

Wow, you know, you're bringing up something that really makes me think about how much chatter does go on inside our own heads, where we're evaluating ourselves and others, and that judging the constant need to judge based on inputs we've gotten ourselves over the years, what have you found? Because I know you're a big believer in being gentle and playful? And so how have you incorporated those into this path of greater self love and less self criticism?

Yeah, and I love that you said that, because the whole notion here and I try to speak about this as much as possible. You know, joy, and play are such a big part of my life, and how I teach and how I coach and all these things. But the definition of those two words is so subjective. And so a lot of people when I say that, like I focus on joy, they think that means that in order to be joyful, you must be exuberant, over the top, enthusiastic, super high energy, all these things. And that's not the only definition of joy, joy can be contented, joy, joy can be The joy of knowing that you're safe, you know, physically or emotionally, the joy of you know that joy can be peaceful. Joy, joy can be curious. Like, there's all these different things that joy can be that it's much more kind of down here level wise, and it doesn't have to be all the way up here. And the same thing happens with play. When people think of play. They're like, oh, so what do you do? Like, you know, nerf ball breaks, and you like, shoot your friends and water balloons? And that's, like, that's an example of play. Sure. But I mean more, how do we play with our experience of life? How do we try to be in harmony with instead of resistance against our life. And to me, that can be a playful endeavor, right. And so the way I bring those two in, and it's kind of what we were talking about here a second ago, in a sense, is to really check in for when I'm having resistance to an experience. And it's something that a lesson that I love is actually from another teacher that that Steve Chandler turned me on to years ago, is a guy called Rupert Spiro, I don't know if you know him at all. He's a non duality teacher. And he has this beautiful metaphor that I really love. And I wrote about it recently. But this beautiful kind of visualization slash metaphor, of imagining, you're in a room like the room that you're in right now married, if you're in that room, four walls, typical room, everybody knows what a room looks like. And if you look at the room, the room has no resistance to anything that you bring into it. Right, the room that you're in right now has no preference about that plant, the room that you're in has no preference about the cabinets, or the bookshelf or anything else, it has nothing. It's not negotiating with the things that come in, it knows that it is an open space. And so it's a no resistance, anything that comes into that space. And so to me, that's where more of the joy in the play comes from, is to realize the only time I feel pain or suffering is when I'm in resistance to what's going on right looking at Byron, Katie as well loving what is right, like resistance to reality is what causes suffering. And Robert even goes further and says that although kind of level one, right meeting us where we are level one is trying to accept instead of resist what's going on, at a deeper level, he says if something showing up in your experience, it's already been accepted. Right? It's it's only our job to not be in resistance, we don't have to accept it, whether the room accepts it or not the bookshelves already there. So acceptance is actually our nature, until we fight against acceptance and resist things. And that's when the play goes away, the joy goes away and everything gets heavy and suffering Phil,

I want to share something here, JG because I don't know if you remember it, but it's embedded in my brain forever. You had done a coaching session with me years ago. And I remember thinking I'm gonna get this amazing breakthrough. Jay, JJ is so smart. He's going to pick up on things. And so I was talking about this and that. And you said, you know, Marathon picking up a theme here that Oh, good. And you said, you know, it's it's really that you're, you're too serious. And that, that, that maybe it would be helpful if you could be more playful? Because I was in such a serious mode. I was resistant to hearing that. I was thinking, this is serious business here. I'm you know, and but I pondered that, and I have never forgotten it. Because it's so true. That when we are in a serious frame of mind, and we take ourselves too seriously, not just the situation but ourselves. I think that's when our greater risk of that self judgment, that criticism kicking in. Because we we can't see the humor, we can't see the fun. And so I just want you to know that those words had a lasting impact on me, as I'm always looking at. Where can I have fun with this? How can I take a more playful attitude? Because what No, let me ask you, what are the benefits of being more playful? Rather than being more serious in the way we approach something?

Yeah, I mean, it's even easier to look at what are the consequences of not, you know, the be of being serious instead, it's, it's such a, it's such a drain of energy. And it's, it's very much like, in my experience, it's very much like the, like Netflix like the way Netflix works, because one of the worst things you could ever do to me like this is this will end our friendship. Meredith, do you ever do this to me, it will end our friendship. If you log into my Netflix and watch a movie that you like, but I don't like then the Netflix algorithm is gonna say, Oh, you like that kind of movie? Here's all of those. I'm like, No, Meredith, what did you do I have the algorithm perfect. But the reason I bring that up is because it's the same way with our thoughts, right? So if something comes up and we take it really seriously, then the mind goes Oh, you you like things that make you feel serious? Oh, well, here's a bunch more. Here's a bunch of stuff that's not working out the way you think it should here. is a bunch of reasons why you're not enough and why you should just give up. And why did you even start this to begin with, and you're such a moron for trying, like, the algorithm will give you exactly what you want. And so we have to break that pattern. And we need, we don't need to break the pattern by, you know, changing it out for positive thoughts or anything like that. It's just about really slowing down and asking ourselves, what is it? What do I think is at risk? By letting go of the seriousness? Right, nobody's serious. Because they think it's bad. They're serious, because they think it helps. Right? There's, there's a gross misconception, it was my misconception for the first 30 years of my life, like seriousness is how you are successful. And then I got introduced to this distinction from Alan Watts, which has stuck in my head forever, is the difference between being serious and being sincere. So I can be sincere about my work, I can pour my love and devotion and attention and reverence into the work that I do. But I don't need to take it too seriously. Meaning I don't even make it overly significant. So when I talk about living in not so serious life, like Steve and I, Chandler and I used to have our web show together, living in not so serious life means not making things overly significant.

That was a great show, by the way. Always look forward to your, because again, it made me laugh. I think that's the key. If we have any listeners that are similar to what I have suffered from, in the past, have too much seriousness, this whole idea of looking for ways to laugh at what's going on in life, it goes back to what you were saying about, you know, accepting it. This is just the reality. So having that resistance kick in feeling like I have to fight for my seriousness. Yeah, take know that I am not. And here's one of the things that that I think is a consequence. I in tell me if you agree with this, curiosity and creativity suffer, when you take things too seriously, because you're not open to considering what could be fun about this as an X.

How do you 100% I 100% agree with you. And the way I talk about this is imagine that you are a heart surgeon, right? Like if it does very delicate, intricate, potentially life threatening, or life saving surgeries. And you have a major surgery at 4pm, you're going to do this crazy like a heart transplant, right? This is like a major deal, this person is going to live or die based on this transplant. Imagine all day leading up to that surgery, you kept your hands clenched, as tight as you possibly could, like so tight that your knuckles turned white and the bloods are running into your hands. Imagine you did that all day long. And then at 359, you open your hands expecting them to be ready to do these intricate surgeries. Impossible, your hands would have so much, they would be so tired, they will be so worn, you probably lose feeling and some of them there's and there's no way you can operate that way, you can't put that much pressure on your hands, and then expect them to do this delicate, intricate work to a level of excellence. So why would we expect our minds to do any better, if I put a ton of pressure on my mind, and I'm constantly walking around with a tight grip, and I'm constantly making everything serious and significant. Of course, I'm not going to be able to perform, because putting pressure on the muscles makes them grow. But putting too much pressure on the mind makes it shrink. And so if I want real access to my creativity and curiosity, I need to really understand that the path to get there, this is just about being effective throw if, if somebody listen to this as Oh, this sounds too woowoo this sounds too spiritual, or whatever. This is about effectiveness. That's all it is. It's not about you becoming one with you know the universe or the cosmos and thought about you being enlightened or being the next Buddha. It's about being effective. And so something else I've always heard Steve say is that every system is perfect for the result you're getting. Right? If you want a different result, try a different system. So what we're talking about here, and what I'm advocating and inviting people to consider is that there is a system of thinking that does not include seriousness and significance with which you can be just as successful if not more successful, and not damage your health and well being in the process.

So talk about what does that look like?

Yeah, so it's so back to that kind of metaphor of walking around all day, it's to start loosening your grip, right, it's to notice how tight of a grip we have on things and I don't say notice I don't say release your grip. Notice I don't say stop thinking about the things that stress you out. That's that's a tall order. And I think you know, as much as it'd be nice to be a Buddhist monk and live in a monastery with none of the troubles of the world at your doorstep. We do live in the world of form we do live in the 3d world, I do have to engage with people and things and situations. And so I want to know that I have the best possible operating system to be able to do that. And so for me, loosening your grip is kind of like you know, if I if I have my phone in my hand and I have a loose grip, I still can see the phone the phone still in my hand. I still can move the phone around Don't like it's not like I'm hands off of life. I'm just having a looser grip. And the more I have a loose grip on things, the more I have the creative energy to solve a problem if there's a problem there, or to realize that what I thought was a problem actually isn't problematic, and then I can just let it go. But that doesn't come from seriousness and stress, it's almost impossible to access that and that level of seriousness.

I can so relate, I love that image to of loosening. I think it's so important as we think about this journey of who we're being that we not have some kind of picture of perfect that we're aspiring to be. agree with that

100% Yeah, I think that's the biggest one of the biggest things, I always say one of the quickest ways to, to slow down your progress on something you're working on, is to judge the rate at which you're progressing. Right, that's the number one thing. So if you're moving forward, and you start thinking about how you're not moving forward fast enough, I guarantee you'll move even slower. And so we need to really zoom out, because I know I don't know if you've ever done this before, or kind of have this, this feeling. But when I look outside of the window of a plane, when I'm flying, it feels like I'm going five miles an hour, like barely changing, barely moving, it's just so slow. And then I see a plane go by the other way, you know, a few miles away. And it's like, are we going the same speed, because that guy looks like he's going Lightspeed, we looked like we're going five miles an hour. So from inside your mind, sometimes it can look like that. And we put we put these unrealistic expectations, I was talking to a client this morning, who doesn't take rest on the weekends, because he feels like he doesn't deserve it. Right? Because he hasn't worked hard enough during the week. And then we start to unpack that. And we notice that he sets himself up to lose by putting too many things on his list for a day that's unrealistic to complete, then he doesn't complete it. And then because he doesn't complete the thing that was unrealistic, to complete to begin with, he doesn't deserve to rest. And so it's all this stuff about the pressure we put on ourselves, the self loathing the beating ourselves up the the the the unrealistic expectations, the comparison to the highlight reels on Instagram, like all these things that just take us out of the present moment of just doing what's in front of us serving who's in front of us, and focusing on the being stuff that we're talking about.

There's so much we could unpack just with that. One example. I think so many listeners are able to relate to that. How do you work with a client to help them see and choose differently? Because it involves seeing themselves differently? It goes back to how do you help them develop greater self love? So they're not judging themselves as less than or undeserving? Or any other negative judgments?

Yeah, yeah, well, I had to work on this client. First, I always tell people be your best client, if you're a coach, be your own best client. So everything that I talk about everything that I share, any tools, any metaphors, any whatever I've developed, because I need them, right. It's not an intellectual exercise. It's an experiential one. And I'm lucky enough that the things that I've developed that are helpful for me with the help of all of my amazing mentors and teachers that have come before me, you know, huge Chandler being huge part of that. It's, it's something that is needed in my own life. And so I share it with others. So for me what I recognized, and I had the exact same thing that like when I first started becoming an entrepreneur, which was, I guess, 12 years ago now, actually, this year is 10 years that I've been coaching, which is crazy. But when I first started, I remember I was working weekends, I was doing all this stuff. And it was like no, you are not allowed to take off time on the weekends until you get to this certain milestone. And it was slowing that down enough to really ask myself, What is this identity that I'm clinging on to of this person that just is ridiculously productive, that is constantly busy, that needs to do 10 times more than anybody else, somebody who only quote deserves REST based on the level of productivity that he put out, like, where did that come from? And I noticed that it came from first of all my my corporate experience, right being in tech consulting and being on call and you know, working 70 hours a week and all that stuff, and I go, Okay, well, then that's what it is. That must be what it is, is that it's my job. And it taught me that I needed to work 80 hours a week to be successful. And they go well, that's convenient to blame the job that have ever happened before then, and I started looking back and I'm like, Yeah, this has been around for a long time. This wasn't the job. So what I noticed was, and I wrote a chapter about this in in Prison Break has a chapter called intentional drowning. Right? We hear a lot about an unintentional drowning. We don't hear a lot about intentional drowning. And that's probably because most people who intentionally drown themselves are not around to let us know that it was intentional. But but if you look at intentional drowning, what I mean by that of the chapter is that we create or at least for myself, in my experience, I created a story that I needed to be needed, that I needed to be remarkable that I needed to be irreplaceable, which essentially, is saying, I'm in constant fear that I'm not enough. And so I'm in constant fear that I'm not enough, what's the answer, do a lot more, if you just keep doing at some point, you'll feel enough. And merit if, as you well know, that never comes or if it does come, if they're for a day, maybe two, and then you're back to well, that was two days ago. Now I need to do it again. And so I say all that to say that this is the way I work with people is I always want to find out the root of where this came from, not to, not to be a therapist, but it's, it's, it's, it's interesting to see where this stuff comes from. And when we know where it comes from, when we know the root of it, we can have more compassion for ourselves around it, because now it's not that we're dumb or stupid or screwed up or broken or anything else. It's very well meaning innocent ways that we're trying to feel enough that we're trying to feel loved. And so if we can notice that that's no longer needed, that we can start having conversations with ourselves that can change this, and I have a few different conversations that I have with myself that can really help with this whole self love thing and feeling more enough. One of them is I have this, you obviously know this, my weight loss, you know, last 130 pounds and used to be 330 pounds. And so physical weight has always been a big thing for me. And I remember about four or five years ago, I had gained back like two pounds, I, you know, over the weekend ate a bunch of crap. And then Monday morning, get on the scale, I gained two pounds. Most people who didn't have the history or the triggers that I had, would say, oh man, you know, I probably shouldn't have that extra slice of cheesecake and pizza, that's okay, I'll be a little healthier today. It'll come off in a couple days, I had so much trauma around body shame and weight and being unlovable and all these things that when I saw the two pounds, I go, Oh my God, it's the beginning of the end, I'm going to gain back all my weight, I'm going to be a total loser, I'm going to be a failure, my business is gonna go away, I'm a fraud, for two pounds of Meredith, two pounds. And so I was I was really, I was really sad. I got really down about two pounds. And so I ended up sitting down, I'm not sure why I ended up sitting down in front of this mirror this like tall floor mirror that I have. I sat down in front of it, I looked myself in the eye in the mirror. And I said, Jason, I would still love you. Even if you gained back every single pound you lost. And there are two really important words in that statement. There's still an even if, right? So still means it's timeless, it's here forever, even if means it's unconditional doesn't matter what you do. And it took away the pain or the feeling that I would be unlovable based on the worst case scenario, right? Same thing can happen for work if you're an entrepreneur and you're scared because things aren't going as well. And like, oh man, if this doesn't work, I have to go back and get a job again. And it all starts going through your head. When you sit down and you look in the mirror and you say to yourself, Jason, I would still love you. Even if you had to go back and get a corporate job. And when I have those conversations with myself, I feel it I feel that the thing I think would make me the most unlovable that I would still have love in my life, self love in my life. So those are some of the things that I do and that I do with clients that really tend to help.

That's amazing. I love that this whole idea of being enough and being loved no matter what. And loving yourself no matter what without that unconditional. I love those words. i That's a writer downer. I just did write that down still. And even if, yeah, there they can work like magic, just looking at what happened for you what can happen for any of us, if we say that with the deep belief, whether it's to one of our kids, which I love, the idea of communicating that to our children, because that's where a lot of these negative self images start is in our childhood where we don't feel because we hear words, we see actions that tell us not didn't quite measure up there. And so there's these yardsticks that if parents could convey that if a manager can convey to an employee, I value you, you know, I just love that it's very, very powerful. There was something else I read recently on your Facebook page that ties it with this this whole thing of being versus doing and I want to say this quote and then I want you to elaborate on what was behind it for you. OB without doing as a wish doing without being is a waste. Why is it a waste? You're talking about you know, people working, working working, but where does the being come in to that so that it's not a waste?

Yeah, yeah. So so the first part of that being without the doing is a wish, meaning you can sit there and be spiritual all day, but at some point you have to interact with the world around wants you to make things happen, right? A lot of people think that, you know, the reason that we can send a space shuttle into space is because of because of the engineering and the math. Well, not really the engineering and the math was on paper, we had to test the math. And then we found out that the spatial go into orbit, right, so we have to do, we can't just do the beat. But on the flip side, the reason I say it's a waste, is because the motivation for doing for most of us is probably for all of us. But I'll just say for most of us to give myself some wiggle room out, is to feel a certain way about ourselves, right? Whether that we're smart enough that we're accomplished, that were successful, that we made our parents proud, like, we have all these these different reasons, if the doing is strictly to satisfy those external measures, or those external requirements, quote, requirements, if the doing is based on being in a place of compliance, right, I'm doing this because my parents wanted me to or I'm doing this because my boss says so kind of a thing, then even when you do it, and you accomplish it, it's very short lived, that you actually feel the way you want to feel. And so then to me, it's like all of your hard work was kind of a waste. Because look how you feel now, you put all this work and all this effort in and you don't feel any better than you did before you feel worse, you accomplish what you wanted, and actually feel worse than you did before you started it. And so bringing those two things in together is really about checking your intention, checking your motivation. And even if that means for a little while, and I had this happen to me, like, the more I've gone into the being in spirituality and everything else, there was one point in time, where not that long ago, maybe 18 months ago, but 18 months, two years ago, where I had this, this feeling of almost like, what's the point? Not? What's the point and like a hopeless way, but like, you know, being on stage or or, you know, making people laugh, or, you know, a house in Ha ha is and self leadership, and not so serious life and all these things that I love and all these things that I've done. And it occurred to me, like, who cares? Like, what's the what is what does it matter? Like it's there's, it's such, there's so much of a bigger context of why we're here, what does it matter? And then, luckily, I remembered a quote from the brilliant Nancy Klein Do you know, Nancy Klein, have you ever read any of her stuff, so she wrote a book called time to think, and then the greatest title ever for a subsequent book, more time to think, love it. So so she's, she's brilliant. But she has this line that she says in in time to think and that book is about kind of human love. And actually, it's all about creating the container for conversations. And so this is not necessarily for coaches, it could be for leaders, it could be just for families, or friends or whatever else. But she says in the listening environment, I think that's what she calls it listening environment, in the listening environment, we, as the listener, are both essential and irrelevant, right? We are, but we have to hold the paradox that we are essential and irrelevant. And I love that in the container usage. But if you really zoom out and look at life, in general, we're actually essential and irrelevant. It's essential that you do the work that you're doing on yourself and with others, it's essential that I'm hopefully trying to reduce people's suffering and increase their joy, it's essential that that work be done in this world. And if I die tonight, everybody's gonna go on living tomorrow, which hurts my ego tremendously, but they're gonna go on living their life tomorrow. And so if I can hold this paradox of me being essential and irrelevant, then if you think about that, that's kind of like playing a video game, right? Because when I play video game, it's essential that I have the controls in my hand, otherwise, the player doesn't move at all on the screen. But when the game is over, I go back to life, it's kind of irrelevant. And so then I can really play. So when I hold that paradox of essential and irrelevant, I can actually start playing with life.

Whoa, that is very powerful. I'm sitting here processing, that that whole idea. And the irrelevant piece to me, what jumped out is Wow, easy to get your ego out of the way, take into account. You know, it and the other words that come to me is you matter, you don't matter in sets. It is important what you do, and how you are being. So we take responsibility. And yet it it's that playfulness, we can play more effectively, because we have that burden of being the be all and end all to a person the situation that we're in at that moment. And so healthy perspective, yes, it's a paradox, but it's also a powerful perspective to bring to any situation because I'm just thinking about all the ways we can have a positive impact. If we realize it's important for us to step up, you know, to play big, and I love that play big you notice play. And yet on the other hand, I Um, and it does matter because of the of the people we can impact. But it kind of releases the fear of what if I fail? Or what goes wrong or that you know the questioning before I even start taking action? About why maybe I don't want to do this.

Yeah. And that's exactly what you're saying is this shift from serious to sincere? Like, like Allah once talked about, like you're not saying so for example, I always have to talk about this is I believe there's one Marvel character who is the most spiritually evolved in all the Marvel characters Can you can you guess? I don't know if you're even a Marvel fan, but can you can you?

It won't do me any good to guess?

That's okay. So I say it is Deadpool. Have you ever seen Deadpool before? Do you know who Deadpool is? Okay, so Deadpool.

You know, I'm not in that world. So

that's okay. That's totally okay. But Deadpool is is amazing Deadpool is it's played by Ryan Reynolds, who is one of my favorite actors. I just think he's amazing and hilarious. But But Deadpool is the most spiritually evolved character to me, because he's the only one that knows he's in a comic book. So if you watch the movie, Deadpool, there are multiple times during the movie, he's fighting and doing all of his you know, Deadpool stuff. And then I'll turn to the camera and talk to us at home. Because he knows that everything that we're seeing that he's in is an illusion, it's all created. It's not it's not real. He knows that. And so so he, that's why he talks to us. But here's the thing, that could be a recipe to say, Well, if you know that it's not real, then who the hell cares? Why even try, just sit on the couch and wait to die? Deadpool does the opposite. Deadpool is very sincere about the work he's doing in the world about, you know, fighting, whatever oppression is out there or getting the bad guys or you know, getting vengeance for them killing one of his people, or whatever it is. He's very sincere about that. And he knows that even though it's an illusion, he's still going to play full out inside of that illusion, right? But notice how important notice how different it is, if you are in an illusion, no, you're in an illusion, and still give your best to be at a level of excellence versus being in the illusion not knowing you're in the illusion and doing doing doing to try to prove that you're enough inside the illusion. So it takes away all the seriousness and all the self imposed pressure, when we say this is all a big game. And I'm going to bring all of myself to it sincerely and operate at a level of excellence.

You know, what people are going to need to rewind and listen to this part, multiple times to really extract the power of what you're saying. Yeah, because we're so used to taking life seriously, whatever it is, that comes our way. And this whole idea of seeing it as a game, I first learned that from one of Steve Chandler's books, was the 100 ways to motivate yourself, you know, and what could you make a game out of in order to have more fun with it? And I see you doing that it's such a high level. And I'm just curious for the other listeners who are more like me that have been more serious more of the time, what are some other things that you have done to develop that more playful approach, our playful experience when you're working on something, especially something that you deem is important?

Right, right. And that's exactly it, you just nailed it. So the entire, the entire thing that I'm trying to do when I'm when I get too serious, and by the way, I am default, serious. That is my default left to my own devices, I will take everything too seriously. So anybody who thinks I have some joyful gene that makes me not stress out and take things seriously, I'd love for you to see me from six years old to 30 something and then even now, still, just to a lesser extent, but you nailed it, it's about significance. So. So a couple of things here. I, when I start taking things too seriously, I have one question that I asked myself, and I have, you know, obviously we're talking about all these different tools and metaphors and all these things. The reason I share all these is because I don't want you to I don't want you to take a create a list of 50 of these things and then try to practice all 50. My hope is that there's something you hear you hear where you go, Oh, that that one, I think I'll try. Like, I don't know about these other ones. He's kind of a weirdo that pull out and I don't get that. But this actually sounds kind of cool. So I'm sharing a bunch of stuff. But this one is for me, one that I go back to a lot. I don't use all the things that I say all the time, but this one I do a lot. And the question is, what am I making the center of my universe? Right? That's the question in this moment, what am I making the center of my universe because my belief is that anything we make the center of our universe, we are going to use all of our energy to protect it from failing or falling apart. Right? If something is significant, and it's the center of our universe, everything is gonna go into making sure that thing doesn't fail. And so when I noticed that, I want to shift and I want to say if there's anything that's going to be the center of my universe, if there's anything at all, then I'm going to make the center of my universe It's my own experience of peace and ease. My experience of peace and ease is the only thing. So I literally say I'll say what am I making the center of my universe right now? Oh, man, yeah, this launch. Oh, man. Yeah, making it super serious. I got I gotta make this thing work. It's got to work like it's like, yeah, it's really serious. I got to make it happen to see, okay, cool. What would it look like right here right now for just a moment to have my own experience of peace and ease, be a center of my universe, I just put that I just sit with that for a minute, I let everything settle. And I see what happens. And without fail, there's always some sliver of peace that comes out of that doesn't mean I go from being stressed to being totally blissed out. But I'm moving in the direction, I stopped the bleeding. And then I'm moving in the direction of joy again. And I remember bringing this up, I was speaking at a leadership conference on my leadership conference with these these 40 women really like high powered amazing women. And I share this and one of them raises their hand and says, Okay, so I make my own piece, and he is the center of my universe. And my kids don't get fed, and my work doesn't get done. And my employees don't get paid. And I said, Okay, that's one potential that could happen. But for me, I know that if I have a child that needs to be fed work that needs to be done, or employees need to be paid. And that's left undone, that does not contribute to my sense of peace and ease. So if I want to make my own peace, and he's the center of my universe, I look at everything that needs to be done. And from a peaceful and easy place. I say, I want to keep this feeling. And the way that I'm going to keep this feeling is following through on my commitments, being in integrity, with my word, doing the things that I say I'm going to do that contributes to my peace and ease, it doesn't conflict with it. Mm hmm.

Such a fabulous question. And I love that peace and ease. You'll love this recently. It's related to what you were talking about recently, my business partner, Paul, and I decided to rename our to do list or task list to our playlist love, that's not great. You can take it, you can feel it. That's fantastic. Here's why I'm bringing that up. Because one of my daily declarations that reinforces what you just said, I move with speed. I mean, let's see, I move with speed and ease, to accomplish my daily playlist. It's that idea that I'm not messing around. But I'm not stressed about it. And so this whole thing of, you know, focusing on what you just said, the incorporation of peace and ease doesn't mean ignoring everything. Its approach is who we're being when we enter in to those actions that we're taking really is magical and miraculous in many ways, with the difference that that makes and how I feel about what I'm doing. And it reminds me of one of the other quotes that I wanted to bring up that I had read of yours. It was another question you asked that relates to what you've said, How can I play with this? Whatever the situation is? So talk about why you recommend asking that question and what impact it can have on how we approach something.

Yeah, totally. So so the question of how can I play with this applies differently to external circumstance versus internal experience. And so external circumstances, you know, my perfect example, my girlfriend and I were just in Paris for New Year's, I had this beautiful thing planned, it was this cruise down the river sand, and we were gonna dock at the Eiffel Tower. And there was like a private party and a DJ there till 2am. Like, I got this whole thing set up. We go, we're maybe a mile and a half away, like our hotel to the dock is about a mile and a half away. And the traffic and road closures were so bad that we couldn't get to the boat. So we missed it, we missed the entire thing, this entire beautiful thing that I had, that I thought was gonna be so romantic and so amazing for the two of us. And it was just gone. It just just gone. And so there's definitely a moment for both of us were like, ah, it really sucks. Like, we really wanted to do that, like, that's so disappointing. It's so disheartening. And even that, you know, a little bit of the the prisoner mindset comes in and says, I can't believe this is happening. Like what, you know, why, why did this happen? Why did they have to click, all the things start coming in? And so the question became, and I didn't say this out loud, but in my head, that kind of a notion of how can I play with this? Or, or or how could this be? I think maybe the question I asked myself was kind of how can this be the most memorable New Year's Eve I've ever had, right? And so we started looking around, every restaurants close except for one, McDonald's. So we had McDonald's for New Year's Eve dinner. And then we went back to the hotel and we watched Netflix and And what I take away from that, number one is a way better memory than going on a boat cruise and being in front of the Eiffel Tower, because it's just hilarious. It's like a Ben Stiller movie basically, is what we were going through. And the second thing is, I got to see, we both got to see how the other one acts when things don't go our way. Do we freak out, we get upset, we get angry, do we yell? Do we blame? And none of that happened? Besides being a little disappointed, we were pretty quickly able to jump back into play mode. And so when we ask ourselves those questions, like, you know, if Ben Stiller was going to make this a new movie, what would happen next? Right, there are things that we do and it's to shift the being. So the being is not always this, like, deeply esoteric, spiritual thing. It's, it's about changing from what we're looking at, to where we're looking from. Right, what we're looking at versus where we're looking from, because what I was looking at was my New Year's Eve is ruin, the plans didn't go through, we missed the boat, that's what I'm looking at. But where I'm looking from when I can really back up and go, Oh, I'm looking at this from a lens of disappointment. I'm looking at this from a lens of unfairness. I'm looking at this from a lens of powerlessness. And I say, okay, cool. So what if I looked at this from a place of humor of levity of possibilities of curiosity, of creativity, and that's when the whole McDonald's Netflix thing happened. And so there's just such benefit to being able to use that frame, when you're out in the world.

I love that story. It's such a great example of adopting that playful that question, how can I play with this? In asking it in different ways? So you're not necessarily literally asking that one question. But in this situation, you know, thinking about what you just said, circling back to earlier, when you were saying, you know, this isn't, woo woo, this is about being effective. And when you take that one example that you just gave, and think about all that energy, you and she could have wasted, you know, complaining, and Bing, not just as a point of an angry and I mean, all these negative emotions that you could have experienced and ruined your evening, by not allowing yourself to entertain other thoughts. And I think this is one of the greatest negative impacts for us, of going down that road of looking at the illusion that we think is reality and interpreting it against us with that prisoner mindset, as you, you know, talk about and so, as we're getting close to time here, I'm just curious, what are some other things that you've helped yourself and help your clients do to more gradually get to this place of self love, self acceptance, because that impacts so deeply how we interact with others in the world, the more we judge ourselves, and we're critical of ourselves, that's, you know, using your words, the lens, that's the lens I'm going to be using to see the rest of the world. So how do I become more gentle, more loving, with myself, so I can be that way with others?

Yeah, I think it's such a fantastic question and one that we should all be pondering in the world in general. There's, for me, the goal is, is depersonalization, right, non identification and depersonalization. So for example, if I'm watching a movie, and in the movie, a man stands a woman up for a date, or a woman stands a man up for a date or whatever. I don't take that personally. How could I, it's a movie I'm watching on the screen, it has nothing to do with me. And so no matter how painful that is, in the screen, I can have compassion and empathy for the people on the screen going through it. But I don't take it personally, I don't think it's about me, I don't have to do any work on myself about it. And so that's the aim that I want to have with my own thinking as well. And so one of the ways I do this very, very simple way, I just did it yesterday as a matter of fact, but one of the really simple ways that I do this is I changed my language from from from I am, to my thinking is, right, so I'm not overwhelmed. My thinking is overwhelmed with thoughts, right? I'm not, I'm not frustrated. My thinking is frustrating, it's real. I can see it. My thinking is really frustrated. But until I can have that level of depersonalization, where it's not me, that has these things, because if it's me, then I'm like the, the firefighter who sets the building on fire just to prove that they can put it out. Right, I'm creating the drama just so I have something to work on. Right and that's also not helpful. It's a misuse of Have time and energy. So if I can start being in the practice of when this stuff comes up instead of immediately defaulting to I'm stressed, I'm overwhelmed, I'm frustrated, I'm mad. Just see what happens when you shift that language, my thinking is mad. I think he's really moody, there's a lot of Mad thoughts going on in my thinking right now. Right, just that little bit gives us a little bit of depersonalization. And then we can start using other tools. But until we have that first little break of the personalization, everything else is like, it's like putting ketchup on your face, and then trying to convince yourself it's blood, it just, it's not going to work. Because you know, right, you know, you just put it on your face, it's not going to work. So we need to be personalized first. And that gives us the little crack, that we can now go through and do the rest of the work to really get settled.

Beautiful. JJ, you've given us so much wisdom today. I've taken a lot of notes. I know the folks who are listening to this will also in fact, I encourage them to listen more than once because there's so much that you share that we can take and use to help us be more effective in the world starting with how we love and treat ourselves. Absolutely. I know people are going to want to know more about how they can learn more about you hear more of you. So share where they can find you.

I'm going to be camping out in front of Steve Hardison, this house so I'll be on the lawn, you can find me that now. Okay. So so I hang out primarily on Instagram. You can find me there. I'm at verge Jason Goldberg, because Jason Goldberg was taken, so I got the most pretentious name I possibly could. So I'm Jason Goldberg. I've recently thought about changing America to a Jason Goldberg. I'm just one of them. It's just just one of them. But for now, it's Jason Goldberg.

That's great. And I highly recommend your book for folks that are looking at ways that they can break out of old patterns, adopt new ones Prison Break, all about self leadership, taking personal responsibility. JJ, you are such a gift to the world. And to me and our listeners, and I want to thank you for being with me today.

Thank you, Meredith. You bring so much heart and so much love to everything that you do. I'm so happy that love kind of came out today because it's who you are. And it's how you show up. So thanks for being you. And thanks for inviting me back on.

Oh, great, thanks.