SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to What What Ember Do with your host, Amber Howard, your weekly post of guidance, inspiration, and strategies to have your small business and whole life thrive. We bring you incredible guests who share their real life experiences of being an entrepreneur so you can have your whole life work. Now, here's your host, Amber Howard.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to What Would Amber Do? It's my privilege and honor this morning to be talking with Chuck Basti. Chuck is a podcaster, author, blogger, storyteller, and content creator, and by all accounts hockey enthusiast. Chuck is a passionate advocate for mental health, empowering women and men, really, just empowering people and guiding people to leave their legacy of a life well lived. Chuck, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. Well, thanks for having me. Yeah, it's good. Chuck, Chuck and I met on Facebook, and then we've kind of been messaging back and forth, getting to know one another. He's got a great Facebook group that I'm a part of and I can attest really creates great content, which we're going to talk about this morning as well. But this is the first time we're actually talking live. So it's kind of really great. I love the show that I get. And as a podcaster, I'm sure you can attest to Chuck. It's great to, you know, the kind of people that just start showing up in your life inside of being a podcaster.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah, I think if you're just a regular alone person, when you're dancing with people around that are of like mind or that inspire you, or great storytellers, um, or just live extraordinary lives. You know, you get to play with these people uh and then be able to share their story um in a way that makes a difference for other people. So just much like your podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

Yeah. Wow. It's lovely. So talk to me a little bit about how did you get to be where you are today? How did you become an entrepreneur? Did you have a career before being an entrepreneur? Like some people did. Some of the, you know, most of the people I talked to kind of did some transition out of the corporate world into working for themselves. Other people kind of like started their journey here. So, what's Chuck's journey to get to today been like?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

So I think I've always been an entrepreneur since I've been, you know, a teenager. And I've always had my own little businesses uh growing up in school and then through college. And then when I left college, I became a recruiter downtown Toronto and I did that for 25 years. I owned a recruiting firm. Uh, I had up to, I guess I was at 24 people was my highest of uh the amount of employees I had, and then just kind of woke up one day in ICU and just hated my life, and I had a standing heart rate of 175 or something like that. And uh uh, and I just had to take some inventory of my life of like where I was. I was 37 and I was a you know healthy guy, and uh I just had too much stress in my life, so I had to really take inventory of what was really gonna work for me going down the road and what I had to change, and I didn't know how to do that. Um, but I just vowed that I would do it because I wanted to, my daughter was six months old at the time, and I wanted to see her grow up. So that was kind of a big wake-up call for me. And then from that point there, I just find I found things that's uh that interest me, uh things that I was passionate about, and just started working with people that were passionate about what they were passionate about. And then, you know, that that just kind of played leapfrog into what I'm doing today. And uh I don't make anywhere near the amount of money that I used to make before in the past, but I'm exponentially happier uh now despite it.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

I want to talk about your relationship with your daughter because you actually wrote a book for her, but I think that it's interesting that you can I talk a lot about this idea of success and and people getting to create what success looks like for them. And and I think so much of success out there, you know, this the kind of default conversation about what success looks like is to earn a certain amount of money and you know have whatever prestige or any of those things. And if your whole life isn't working, right? Like that, that alone, like we we've seen enough, right? Like Robin Williams, you know, Anthony Bourdain, so many celebrities who appear to have it all. And and you know, I know mental health is something that's really important to you as well, that so many people seem to have by outside standards have it all and yet are profoundly unhappy. So I really acknowledge you. It takes courage, I think, especially when you've had a successful business for 25 years. It takes courage to say, you know, I'm just not gonna keep doing that anymore. And I can I can understand as a mom myself, like my children were a powerful motivator for me to move through some very difficult circumstances in my life. And just even when I didn't want to show up in life some days, or even when it just occurred like it was really hard, um, I had this this this really powerful motivator to just say no, like there's something bigger than me to keep going forward for.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Yeah, you mentioned you mentioned the word successful in business, and I and I wasn't successful in business. I was just able to make a lot of money in what I did. And that's I always say that money will just give you more of what you already have in your life currently. So if you have joy and happiness and you have a pile of money, you're gonna have an exponential amount of joy and happiness. Um, if you're seeking to buy happiness and you're miserable and someone gives you a you know a ton of money, you're just gonna have a whole lot of misery. You just find a way to make more misery in your life with that money. And I had the money and I had the time in the same spot, and that's very rare. Usually you have money and time or time and no money. Uh, and I had both. Um, but again, I was just trying to fill a bottomless pit of emptiness and of unhappiness, you know, and all the water in Niagara Falls couldn't fill that void. And God knows I tried. And so I wasn't successful. I just made a lot of money. I think we just look at this and say, people who have big houses or nice cars, we look at them and say they're successful. And I think on a mental health side that you brought up, I mean, like you could be looking at those people and say, well, those people are highly narcissistic or you know, whatever mental health issue they might have as a pathological lying lawyer, for example, who makes a lot of money, but they're not successful. So it's a matter of just making a distinction between success and makes a lot of money, because success doesn't really follow that algorithm, it's just one of the traits.

SPEAKER_03 6:38

Yeah, well, I think for and I think for me, a lot of what I what I'm present to is like there are outside factors that are said to determine what success looks like. And then it's like, what does it look like for us, right? And and a big one in North America, I think there's also very much this in North America, it's like success equals achievement. And then so you've got to keep achieving, right? Because you're only successful if you're achieving. So it's like that creates this like, you know, it's not the same with consumerism, it's like more, and I've got to have more and more and more. And because we tie success to worthiness, whether that's true or not, we kind of we live in this cultural agreement that if you're, you know, you're you're worthy if you're successful, then when we're not achieving greater and greater levels of money or you know, acclaim or authority or whatever it is, then you know, our our mental health, our our well-being takes a real hit because regardless of what it looks like on the outside, who we are for ourselves is a failure.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Yeah. So was it that experience that you had for yourself, like you know, when you were in that ICU and you were dealing with, you know, the stress that had mental health become like was mental health always important to you? Or is that something that you've discovered on your journey since that?

SPEAKER_01 8:08

I don't think it was yeah, it wasn't it wasn't important to me at the time. Um, I don't really remember when I realized mental health was important to me. I think um probably around 10 years ago, I started taking inventory of what mental health was or what good mental health was. Um, and then I just started to, my best friend became an addiction and um and uh mental health uh counselor with uh TMHA. So uh I guess through our friendship, I started to really understand cluster D personality disorders, uh mental health um, you know, um advocacy for uh what we're dealing with. And then of course the pandemic comes on, and of course, that just goes off like you know um fuel on top of a fire. So I think that the work I've been doing for the last four or five years kind of became more prevalent now because everybody is now, I mean, if you're not an addict and you get your routine messed with, this is what non-addicts probably don't understand. Is like right now I'm drinking coffee, right? So if you took my coffee away from me or you made my eggs differently this morning, people like routines. And if you take away my shopping, you take away my credit cards, you take away my hockey, you take away my movies, my Netflix, my phone, those are all coping mechanisms that we all use to keep good mental health, to keep a routine, to keep comfortable to have psychological security. Uh, and when you take that away from an addict, you know, that's the same exact response. So when I started realizing these things in my own life where I was like I was gambling a lot, I was playing hockey a lot, um, I was just completely impulsive in almost every area of my life, sexually, financially, physically. So those things all took a toll on my life. And then I kind of one by one took them aside to say, why am I doing this? You know, what am I gaining from this? Like, why do I need to gamble? Why do I need to play this much hockey? Why do I need to go to the gym this much? Um, and then started to get some sort of balance back into my life where it wasn't controlling me, but I was controlling it.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

I I it's an interesting thought. I hadn't really thought about like this notion that we're addicted to routine. And as someone who works in change management, I can definitely see that that, you know, I wouldn't have languaged it as addiction, but people are very um comfortable with the way things are and don't really invite like some people do. There are some people out there who are like, yeah, bring on the change, like they really see change as an opportunity for growth and and you know, invite it in. But that is not my experience working with people in corporations that the norm for them for the most people. There's actually a real, and we talk about it when I'm training people in change management, there's like a real grief that goes with change. And COVID has, and I don't I don't hear this being talked about as much as I thought it would be, because it has literally changed almost everything about how like how we live our lives, how we grieve, when people die, how we how we be with or not, people when they're going through illness, you know, the inner our inability to be by the bedside of our loved ones, when when you know, when people give birth, you can only have one person in the room. Like I remember having a community with me when I was giving birth, right? So, like our work, working from home, like every part of how we lived our lives has been, you know, we've had to re-examine that and look at that. And I think it's now leaving people in a real space of like questioning, you know, how was I living my life? What do I want now? And of course, um all of the things that go alongside with people, you know, relationships. I'm sure there are, you know, we've got COVID babies, and then I'm sure we've got divorce rates going up, right? Because there are a lot of home renovations with people being trapped in their houses, going like, I can't stand this space, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

That's funny because it's true.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Yeah, it's it's like I I'm as someone who for me life is an inquiry. So I'm always like, what is there to learn out of this? Like, that's just kind of my default. And I I I do know from a lot of people it's very unsettling for them.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Oh, yeah. And I think you're you're probably a unicorn in that regard because I think most people that I know are still living in uh who moved my cheese and they're still waiting for the cheese to come back versus going to go look for the cheese or finding new cheese. And I'm like, this is the new norm. Like right now, if you haven't re-examined your business model or checked out your online platforms or redesigned what you need to do moving forward from right now, like then you're gonna be a dinosaur because this is never gonna change. This has shifted everything. You know, we've had stars before this or the bird flu or whatever we've had, and they've had some dents in tourism and you know the way we do business, but this has revolutionized it.

SPEAKER_03 13:14

Yeah, it's funny this idea of going back because I don't think we ever really go back, right? We we tend to romanticize the past and you hear it a lot right now. It's like, oh, I want to get back, we got to get back to normal. And I know from the work I do in resilience, like we talk about people go through life and they have like, you know, expectations, right? They operate like anchors in the brain. I expect my commute to take this long, you know. I expect that when I say this to my partner, they're gonna do this. I expect this person to pick up the kids from school, like whatever it is, we operate in life with brain patterns and expectations of how things are gonna go. And then reality happens, and sometimes like there's a gap between our expectation and the reality of what's showing up in front of us, and then we're disrupted and we're in our sympathetic nervous system, and we don't have tools, like we're just we're triggered, we're we're hijacked, right? So, but I like and and so we talk inside of that. There's language, like you know, you there are things you can do to get back to normal, but I don't know that we ever go backwards. I think it's it's always about creating what's next, right? And and I know a lot of companies that I train for are like, what what is next? And there's like it's interesting, I'm just kind of getting this in this conversation with you, Chuck. Like, we always want to try and manage manage uncertainty. So at the beginning of the pandemic, it was like, oh, there's uncertainty. We don't know what's gonna happen financially with our job. And now the conversation is like, oh, what's it gonna look like when we come out of this? Like what and there's like discomfort with the uncertainty around not knowing. And and I think part of the other addiction we have as human beings is like we are addicted to knowing.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Oh, well, I mean, knowing is a is the result of uh of our fear of psychological insecurity. So we all have psychological insecurity at our base core, and the only kind of like solution for that issue is knowing or understanding or knowledge or input or feedback or any of that that's going to kind of give us an inkling of what we can expect to show up as. Um, and then again, like I don't know if it was uh Charles Darwin that said this, but he's like the saying goes something like it's not the strongest that survives, it's not the fittest that survives, it's the most adaptable to change, which survives. And in my life, I just realized that I used to hate change. Um, and now I just say, well, change is now inevitable. It's it's it has to be welcomed in your life. I mean, I think it'd be funny if you put an experiment at Tim Horton's one morning and you have a camera hidden, you know, it's rushing, everybody's in line, and you purposely made everybody's coffee wrong. And it's like, here's a double-double, and they get it and they take a swing of it. And it's like, I guarantee you, like literally every single reaction would be that of like, eh, you're fresh. It would be an absolute stand-up comedy routine if everyone, and then you could watch them watch their reactions, go, oh my god, I got punked. Oh, there it is. Oh, I gotta work on that, you know, because that's just how knee-jerk our body is built into expectations of how we see life going versus flowing with how life goes.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Like, you know, you think it's water and it's like whatever it is, right? But you're absolutely right. Like, could and this is what there is to confront about being a human being. We are not in the driver's seat 95 for 94 to 96 percent of the time. Our our body, our actions, our perceptions are being controlled by our subconscious mind. So it's like you don't even choose it, it's just what shows up. And then the choice comes in. Well, how am I gonna react? Who am I gonna be in the face of what showed up this minute, right? Who am I gonna be in the face of, you know, you talk a lot about women and male relationships, and you know, my experience is we don't say a lot of new in this area. There's not a lot of new being said when it comes to how women and men relate to one another. But it's like my partner just said this, my kid just said that. I I'll even share from my own experience, like and I've I've shared with you, you know, I was a bit of a workaholic for most of my life and probably still have some of those tendencies now. And so last November was the first time I took a day off work to grieve the passing of someone. And and yesterday I just found out that my aunt in New Zealand died, and it's brought up like all of this stuff and all of these emotions. And I I see the growth from last November where I basically had to ask permission from a friend to take a day off work. I was like, this is what I feel like I feel like I want to do. Is that okay? Is it appropriate? And and she, of course, gave me permission. And now, yesterday, like when I first found out about my aunt, I was like, cancel everything. I'm taking tomorrow off. Like, and I see the growth in that. And then I go tell my daughter, who's like my best friend, that I'm taking Thursday off to like be with my feelings about what's happened with my family. And and she's like, Why? You hadn't seen like you didn't know her that well. And I was like, my reaction was like, What do you mean? Why? Like, why, like, why don't you get why I need that? And I was so confronted. So, people like that happens in life, right? Like, the people around us don't say, I wanted her to be like, Oh, yeah, mom, of course, I get it. And she was just like, Why would you do that? You weren't that close. Like, why do you need to take time off to more, you know? And she wasn't responding to me. She was coming from her own view of the world and what she would do in that situation, right? It I it's like not what Amber would do. Not what Amber would do. And here I am, like, do you not know? Do you not know how big a deal it is for me to take a freaking day off work? Like, I ne like you. I this is a story I share often, and I'll probably write a book about it one day. But I literally showed up to work with a walking IV because it had walking in the title, so I can go to work, right? Like that was how I related to like the you know, life. And so I wanted my daughter, my best friend to be to get like and be proud of the fact that I'm like honoring myself. And she's just like, Why are you doing that? Right. And we worked it out, and she was like, and it was so great. She came back to me like five minutes later, Chuck, and she was like, I got you want a date and not have to do anything unless you want to do it.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Go figure, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

Yeah, and she's like, she gets that for me. That's a really big deal because I'm you know, like, and so it was so great. And I I love that I can kind of I have these relationships with my kids, but I'm just getting this image right now in this conversation. Like, human beings are literally like giant pinball machines, like just like yeah. So good. So in your experience, given all of that, and from the work that you do with people and and training them and and being with them, you know, what are what are some of the things that you know have like either worked for you or worked for other people and being able to manage all of all of that and and perhaps some of the things that you've seen that work for people specifically at this time?

SPEAKER_01 20:22

I think, well, there's two there's two points I would say to that. So I think for one of the biggest shifts for me as a male is I was writing my book, uh Men Don't Get It. And I was writing that out of more necessity. Because all the female partners in my life kept saying to me, you don't get it, you don't get it, you don't get it. And if you've been on my page or you've been on my Facebook group or whatever like that, you might see me as a very empathetic man now, but I wasn't before. I just wasn't. Uh I grew up in the military, my dad was, you know, a sergeant and I was a base brat and traveled around on races, and I was very much just a shithead kid. And you know, it took a lot of unlearning and you know, kind of like reassessing my belief system to figure out why I believe certain things and then releasing them. So um I think teaching men what empathy is, because that is the what is men don't get it, is it is empathy. And I've interviewed over 2,000 women for that content of that book, and you know, that was the one thing that we kept saying to women, we asked them four questions, and like I asked them, what is it for you that men don't get? And one woman in 2000 got empathy, like that was it. Like every other woman came up with a thousand other answers that could just go down a list and you know, show all the data. But when it comes down to it, like we aren't taught this. And there's only two connections for human beings one is empathy, one is vulnerability. And we as men don't have vulnerability in the in a in a traditional authentic sense. We think vulnerability is weakness, we think vulnerability is you know shame or um projected guilt, or it's just not something that sits well with us because you're weak. And empathy is never something that we've ever been taught because we've been providers and protectors our entire lives when we've been taught that as little boys. And coming into this, empathy is exactly the opposite of being a provider and a protector. So we're going against our entire life teachings of what our dads taught us and what our dad's dad taught them, you know, not fixing a problem, just sitting with the problem, just saying, I can't imagine how hard that is for you to go through that right now. And having the person feel heard and understood on their side versus fixing the problem, which is what our knee-jerk reaction has meant us to do. So that was the first part of it. And the second part is more like the pandemic. So it's just more along the lines of how long people have been able to shift or change or release or pivot is a good word these days, in order to really understand where they're at, where they need to go, and how they need to get there. And people aren't, I find people aren't really good at pivoting. You know, like they have this, like you mentioned, a romance of the past. And so, you know, where you got right now is a product of how you got there, where you want to go in the future is not a product of where you got right now. You got to go a different path to get somewhere differently in the future. Uh, and yet we all seem to have this one tool fits all of this is where I can insert this. It's got to be drive, or it's got to be hard work, or it's got to be perseverance. Like, okay, but then different things come in front of you, and that tool won't work anymore. Now you need understanding, now you need listening, now you need a different set of tool sets with the perseverance, with the hard work, with the resiliency to go along with that. So that way you can flow with that problem as opposed to being able to just like hit it with you know that one tool fits all and hope it breaks or moves or shatters or you can get through that. Uh, but in my experience, it hasn't really worked out very well. God knows I've tried.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

Well, you know, when all you have is a hammer, everything occurs as a nail, right? I mean, I think that's a really good analogy. It's interesting you talk about um men and vulnerability. I I'm I'm thinking that must be masculine energy because I know for me, like I'm a woman, and this is something that I have really struggled with a lot in in the past in my life, is like this, this, and I and I maybe it it is part of like it's tied into because I've been a provider for my kids all of their life as well. So I've really been for most of my life in that masculine, that male energy, protecting and providing my family for my family. And um, I wonder if there's something about that that like needing this idea of needing to be strong, because that was my biggest thing. Like, I like I never wanted to occur as weak, you know. And I would like, you know, I did the landmark form in 2016 and I I had it like I had resolved a lot of my self-worth stuff going into that weekend, and there were these two small things that I wanted to work on, and then I got in that week. And like I remember sitting in the room on Saturday morning and like sobbing. And for people listening, not everyone cries in the landmark forum. I did, but you know, I um just sobbing because I got like I did not have a small self-esteem issue still. I like I was so unworthy for myself that every human being on the planet could have told me they loved me and I would have made liars out of all of them because I knew the truth about me. Everyone loved Amber, but they didn't know me. If they knew me the way I knew me, they wouldn't love me, right? And and like just getting that, and but also getting that I couldn't let anyone see that because people don't like a loser. So no one would want to not, right? So, like there was this disconnection in all of my relationships. Like I and and even like I'm still unpacking some of that this morning, like looking at where where don't I feel welcomed? Where where do I feel like I need to have permission? Like I create community for other people. And and it's been interesting because it's been surprising for some of the people like that I that I influence and I interact with and that I'm in their lives to hear that this is something I deal with, because they're like, we would never think that about you. And it's like, yeah, I deal with that as well. It's like needing permission, you know, like looking at feeling like I need permission externally to show up in life a certain way, or uh as I'm trying to as I'm about to create myself and have a bigger impact in the world. Well, who gives me the authority to say I'm X, Y, or Z, right? Where does that authority come from? So I think that's uh it's just really interesting to notice that there are layers to all of this. And as we unpack things and do some work, it's not that we get anything handled. It's just you know, we we have newer, like deeper and deeper levels of awareness about what drives us and and why we show up in life the way that we do. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So as someone who, you know, I mentioned earlier you have great content, right? Not just your, you know, your podcast, you you interview great guests, like really some really provocative guests. Yeah, and you know, what what do you what's at the source for you of being someone who's a content creator? Because I know a lot of people who listen to the show and a lot of entrepreneurs, like this conversation around like content is important. What are some of from your experience, what are some of the like what makes great content?

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Ah, that's a good question. Um, I think you need to really streamline your content for what your tribe is or what you're following is, because you know, and if you don't know what that is, you have to you have to do that right away. Like, who am I speaking to? I used to have a marketing mentor in my life that always used to say, Chuck, know your audience. You know, know who you're speaking to, because there's no sense in trying to sell them something they can't afford or that they don't see value in, or whatever. And creating content is no different from that. You have to be able to create the content that's going to be received on the other side. I get so many con comments on my posts about, you know, are you making this about Donald Trump all the time? Or, you know, you say that you have a friend that you do this about. I'm like, no, the reason why this is like so well um uh received by my my following is because it lands generally for everybody. And if it lands generally for them, you're giving them value or validation or understanding or insight, and that's all really, really valuable content to the follower. And so you need to reverse engineer that to give them that feeling. If you give them that feeling, they will come back for more of that feeling, and that's what content creating is really doing. You're basically using ideas, guess, content as a way to storytell and capture that feeling inside that person. And we as human beings, we're emotional beings, we're trapped in the emotional experience. And the better emotional experience you give somebody, the more that you can verify that they're going to come back. And that's what content creating is all about.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

It's so great. I, you know, I will I've said this on other shows before. I really have at different points because I have a lot of different skill sets and and different ways in which I want to contribute to people. I have struggled in the past coming up with like niching down like this idea that you, you know, you're supposed to target one group of people. But one of the things that I've landed on with the person that I'm working with around my branding and that I'm going to be stepping into newly is like, what's the intention for each channel? Right. So, like, what's the kind of content and then creating a content strategy that's specific to that channel? So, you know, at the core, my core belief is that love, connection, and belonging are fundamental to well-being and success. And how I speak about that to young women or executives or entrepreneurs, like I can speak, I can take that core belief and I can speak about that into various different places. And it's like having a strategy that's appropriate. So, you know, what's my intention for LinkedIn? Well, my intention for LinkedIn is to connect with other business leaders and create partnership. So then what's the kind of content that I need to have on LinkedIn versus my my Facebook group, which is around people being leaders in their own life, which is really anyone, like I could talk to anyone inside of that. But again, the is the content specific to and like driving the conversation around where is your leadership showing up or not in your own life? Right. So uh that's work I know that because uh, you know, most much of my content is really been about just my thoughts and my journey. And and then so now the work to do and you know, with my team is creating content that's specific. So, you know, do I do I get rid of Twitter? Am I really like what am I doing with Twitter? So you can have, I think when we start our journey as entrepreneurs, we go and create all of these channels to connect with people. And I think it's very powerful to say, okay, well, what's the intention behind each of these channels? My podcast, my newsletter, and and what am I, you know, what I'm what what am I fulfilling on there?

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Yeah, because they're all different, right? They all reach a different demographic. Some people are visual, some people are auditory, some people are kinesthetic. So it's about creating that platform and how they connect to your content. Because really there's dozens of Ambers out there, you know, like you know, the hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of Ambers out there because they all see you differently.

unknown 31:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

So it's about how how how am I being seen, not the way I want to be seen, but how am I being seen that connects or works for them? And that's what people you know really care about. They really don't care about Amber, they don't care about Chuck. They only care about like how does Chuck make me feel? How does Amber make me feel? You know, and when you can deliver that as a content creator, then you've done your job. And you've served abundantly as well. If you serve abundantly, like the word deserve comes from you know Latin of service, deserve. So the more you serve, the more you deserve. I like that. So James McNeil taught me that. I'll give that shout out to James McNeil because he's uh he's one of my favorite love gurus.

SPEAKER_03 32:09

He is awesome, and I know that he is just recently on your podcast, which is great. And for those listening, you'll be able to find out where to connect with Chuck in the in the notes for the show. You brought you bring up an interesting point. We were talking about this a little bit before we started recording, this idea of per public persona and how we think we're creating this persona, but really like it's how people listen to us, right? And that's going to be from the world of NLP, like from their map of the world. What do they want from us? So, my audience, it's it's not about who am I creating myself as for them. It's more about what do they need? And what what am I, what can I fulfill? What am I fulfilling for them inside of what they want to create and what they need? And when I was preparing for the show, like I do, I was like, you occur for me at times in your interactions. I'm I'm excited to have this conversation with you, Chuck, because I was surprised by your reaction to it, right? You occur for me at times as a bit of a provocateur or like someone who, you know, definitely an interruption. And and I and I see that in your remarks and your interactions with people on your in your Facebook group. And when I said that to you, you were like, I don't see myself that way. And I think this is probably not the first time someone said that to you. So where what do you think? Like, let's just talk about this right now. Where does that come from, right? Like that listing that people have of you as being an introvert, you know, and this isn't personal to you, right? This is for all any of us listening. That's a very question.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

That's a really because I mean, I think everybody who is an influencer on Facebook or social media or whatever, you know, will get this from time to time. And it's important to actually ask yourself the question, you know, maybe I am. Like, you know, you bring it up, and you know, my knee-jerk to you is to say, no, I'm not. So this is like, ah, there it is again. There's my little knee-jerk reaction of just like of my ego trying to transcend something that I don't want to be, that I actually am occurring this way, is there's something there for me, right? Um, but I I think generally speaking, excuse me, generally speaking, most people um are set in their own way. Most people are not open to new ideas, they're opening to convince other people about their ideas. Uh, and when you say the word provocateur, what I think I'm doing is I'm I'm opening up new dialogue, I'm opening up new thought processes, I'm opening up new ideas or concepts that people can actually be open to. And what I find in my experience is they're just not. The majority of them are not, because they will come up with a surprising reaction to every single comment, tell me about what they think or what they do or what's fact or what they've done on their due diligence or the YouTube videos they've done or Dr. Google or whatever that is, and they'll just do more of that and defend their their one because they they they cling on to that like it's their their firstborn, and they're just not going to give it up. And most people don't say, uh, say more about that, or uh, well, you know, uh, I never looked at it that way. You know, said nobody ever. You know, you could do a hundred people in that comment, and a hundred comments would be about telling you why they think this way, not asking you for clarity, not asking you for why you got that or how you became at that at that point of understanding, uh, but that all 100% of them will be willing to tell you about their point of view. So I think people like when I ask questions that are more challenging intellectually about belief systems. And then from that point there, it occurs like that. I'm the provocateur because now they're fueling my question. And it's by design, like obviously I know I'm doing this and I know how the human psyche works and what the reaction I'm going to get. And all I do is I just facilitate that. And I think it opens up dialogue that people want to engage in, and then there's that whole keyboard keyboard warrior where people just chime in and just you know shit goes sideways.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

So it's interesting because like I was as you were talking, I was like, what does the word provocation even mean? Right? Because I think it's sometimes important, right? We we think we know, and I mean a meaning is always created by human beings. So, but the the definition on Google of provocation is an action or speech that makes someone annoyed or angry, especially deliberately. And in so then yeah, yeah, so there's that. All right, now we know but it's interesting. So, yes, it's deliberate, and yeah, these are actions or like speech that you're creating it with, but it's like, what's the intention behind it? And I think that's key, right? The intention isn't to make people annoyed or angry, and sometimes when we we speak our truth or when we're out there causing conversations that might be confronting for people, the side side effect of that is that they might get frustrated, annoyed, or angry, because it's driving things up in them that they're not, you know, that we don't necessarily want to look at or or you know, engage within ourselves. And um I think, but I I think the intention and like who we're being, because I don't when I when I think of you that way, I don't think of it as a a bad thing. And it's interesting because I I often don't engage in chats on like public forums. Like I responded to a LinkedIn post the other day. This gentleman was getting, in my words, eviscerated in the court of public opinion about his views about pay equality. And like he he just like he commented on on a post and and then there was like 60, 70, 80 responses to him, and he was engaging with people back and forth. And I almost never comment because I just though for me, those forums are more about people monologuing their personal opinions and being right about their views than they are about any kind of dialogue. And I I want to dialogue with people, right? Like I wanna, I wanna like you're gonna give me your thoughts and I'm gonna give you mine, and I'm gonna grow, like, because that's just like who I am in life. And so I just don't, but I and I did engage and and I I offered an opinion that was kind of contrary to what he was saying, or you know, and and he responded back by saying, that is such a mature, that was such a mature comment. Thank you so much. Like, I really appreciate it. Because what he really wants is the dialogue. Yes. And, you know, and I've we've since started talking offline and I've gotten to know him better better, but it's like really like, and I've offered him from my own experience like, are we speaking into the listening? Like, even if we're being provocative, are we doing it in spaces where people where we've actually created a safe environment for people to be willing to confront what might come up as a result of whatever it is that we're offering them to consider? I think as leaders, I think as leaders that's really important as well.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Yeah, I think if you can make a safe space for them inside that, I mean, I I I I mentioned James McNeil, but he came up with a great uh coin phrase that I love to use. Um he calls it hurrah. So it stands for heard, understood, respected, and accepted. So I understand, I hear what you have to say, I understand that's your point of view, I respect your ability to have that point of view, even if I disagree with it, especially if I disagree with it, and I accept that's who you are, or I accept that's who your opinion is or what your opinion is. And that way I'm not trying to change, fix, or converse or try and convert someone to my way of thinking, and I leave them with no ammunition to come back because they felt all hurt, understood, respected, and accepted inside that algorithm, which now you know takes away the hijack. And so you just leave them with, ah, thank you. Thank you for the dialogue. And you can agree or disagree on anything as long as you have all four of her in place. If one of the four is out of place at any one given time, then you've got the algorithm for contempt, you know, for anger, for frustration, for hatred, for misreal, for vitriol, for fear. Um, but when all four are in place, I don't care if you're you know Jewish and Muslim inside the Middle East conference and they both had hurrah on both sides, there would be an agreement to disagree at the absolute worst case scenario. At the best case scenario, they could start moving forward in small things that they could actually help each other, you know, and their people with.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

Yeah, well, I I I think that's really important. Human beings, we really do just want to be gotten. Right. And like when you talk about hurrah, and I love that. And you know, James, James McNeil, for anyone who doesn't know him, really is a master in communication, and uh you could definitely check him out as well. And um yeah, people just want to get gotten. And I think I I've I've trained people, like I've led web webinars and workshops on communication, and I've asked that question. When was the last time you had the experience of being gotten in communication? And people, the majority of people say never.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

And I think they work so hard to be gotten, but at the same time, they don't facilitate reverse engineering the experience to be gotten. Like, you know, for example, I used to have a uh a girlfriend that would say, I need you to listen to me now. I need you to not fix the problem. This is how I feel understood. And then I'm like, okay, so what do I have to do? And she's like, she had to train me. And then and have me understand what gotten for her, because it was different for me, of what that looks like. And then when I learned what that was, then I could actually replicate that cognitively in a way that made her feel more understood or had more empathy for her situation, or had more compassion for her feelings, or whatever that was. But I was never trained as a man ever in my entire life to even think about that, let alone do it. And so in the very beginning, there's a little bit of resistance for me to do that. And that that really sucked.

SPEAKER_03 42:21

I think that's good, right? Because it will like two things come up for me then. We do like there's no such thing as like gotten out there that's the same for everyone, right? For each of us, that looks different. And so I think it is important, like what I taking on being 100% responsible for for me and and how I show up in life. It's like I want to let people know, like what that what does it look like for me to get gotten in communication? That interaction with my daughter was perfect yesterday. Like years ago, I would have just walked away from an interaction like that and like just been pissed and fumed and like why, you know, like just why like the martyr, right? My identity is a gigantic martyr. It's like, why don't they get like all of it, the whole world of that? And I wouldn't have said anything about it, I wouldn't have communicated that to her. I would have just been upset, right? And now, with all of the training and the development and the relationship that we've built, I could actually like I walked out of the room, got responsible for myself, and then I like literally turn around and walk back in the room and said, like, yeah, like what was that about? Because like I, you know, I figured you would get how big a deal it is for me to take a day off work.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

Like, and and I think most people just don't even it doesn't even register with them. Like, we are such egocentric beings, and we're so caught in a world of self that unless, like you said, unless you go outside, you get present to your amygdala hijack and the trigger and the emotion that's running the show in the moment. And unless you're able to catch that thought or feeling, and then really give a healthy dose of empathy. To the the person on the other side, most people, and I mean a vast majority of people will never learn that. Uh, and and they think the entire world revived. I mean, look at the one thing that proves my point is like if anyone has ever taken anything personally, like that's my one proof. If I was in a court of law and I said, Your honor, my one evidence here is that everyone who's ever lived that's ever had an interaction with any other human being has ever once taken something personally because we all think the world revolves around us, and it just doesn't. The only thing people do things for two reasons: one is to escape the pain in the that they're in, and the other is to get what they want. And when you see that, you will think differently about how we take things personally because it has nothing to do with what I've done in front of that person. I'm either getting in the way of what they want or I'm I'm facilitating them getting out of the pain that they're in. And then when you can get that, you can get the fact that you know, like this taking things personally, and I still do it, don't get me wrong, I'm human. I just catch it a lot faster now. So I mean, it just it just it used to run my entire life, Amber. It was just absolutely an up and down all-day battle of me just taking everything personally with thin Irish skin, you know, and you know, God knows I couldn't battle the sun, but I couldn't battle all the rest of the stuff that landed my thin Irish skin, you know, and like as a pacey white guy, I'm like, what do you mean? Like, and I was just like, oh my, and I'm an empath. So my entire life surrounded by non-empaths in my entire immediate family. Um, so it was really, really challenging that way. But I mean, that's made a huge difference for me.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

We um we literally, as a Scottish person, we literally have skin that's designed to suck as much vitamin D from fog as possible, right?

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Yeah, like every level with the sun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:50

So good. It is like we do. We like the human, and this is like part of the shared experience of being a human being, right? This is part of the condition of humanity. You just have to look out in the world. We take everything personally, we make it about us. And and this is like from this course that I'm doing, it's just been such an incredible experience. But the tip from weekend one is they're not responding to you, you're not responding to them. So just consider not like it's some truth, but like in any interaction with another human being, they're not like it's they're whatever the even if they're even if what's coming out of their mouth is like and the the language is directed at you and they're yelling at you, it it's not about you, they're not responding to you. Yeah, there's nothing at all.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

If it wasn't you in front of you, it would be somebody else behind you.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

Yeah, when you can get that, that is freedom and power. And like, and again, there I think there's nowhere to get to it. It's just a get-to about it is more and more of practicing, building that muscle around, like, you know, oh yeah, I I made I made that about me. Check it out, right? Because I really got this.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

There it is again. Like, oh yeah, there it is the hundredth times today. Yeah, okay, good. Damn it.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

Yeah, I think so weird. It's like, and that's the step, especially with men, Chuck. Like, as I'm dating, that's been the biggest, like, I'm really like developed and I I do a pretty good job at being responsible for not only like what I say with other people, but also my listening. Like, what am I making, the meaning I'm bringing to it? But one of the newest things that has opened up in my recent endeavors and out in the dating world is being checking out what I think they meant with men, because I really got for myself that was something I didn't do. Like, I got okay, I made it mean something, but I never like it wouldn't what in this one interaction. This gentleman said to me, like, you have an addictive personality. And I was like, I know, and I was like, What say more? Sorry, yeah, please. Like, I this is what I heard when you said that, and he laughed. And he said, He goes, I totally get how you could like take that, like you have a personality that gets addicted to substances, or that you know, you have uh the kind of personality that is so enthralling that one could get addicted to you. And I'm like, Oh, which one did you right? Like two totally different interpretations, and then there's the default of where my brain goes to, like, or most human beings that there's something wrong. They think there's something wrong with me, yeah. Right. So that has been that's something new to play with in discovering communication. Is like, I what do you mean? I could actually just go back to the guy and be like, you said this, and I I thought you meant this. Is that what you actually meant?

SPEAKER_01 48:36

Or just simply ask for clarity. I mean, I think we have this knee-jerk reaction of like just going over the top rope and just landing on them with our meaning, like with an exponential force, you know, to punish, to coerce, to make wrong, to vilify all of this. And he's just like, Yeah, that's not what I meant at all. I didn't mean that. I don't know how you took it that way, but that wasn't my intention. And I'm just like, Oh, so there's that. That wasn't awkward. Did anybody see that? Was anybody looking like besides my ego? Was anybody looking at that? Like it's so good.

SPEAKER_03 49:16

So you're saying, like, just ask for clarity.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

Like, what did you mean when you said that versus like I'm sorry, um, uh, what did you mean by that?

SPEAKER_03 49:24

Yeah, yeah, because in the other, I could really see like you would start to have people would start to get the crazy in our heads that no one ever wants to know what happens in our heads on loudspeaker, right? Yeah, so good. Oh, well, Chuck, I could talk to you forever and I would definitely probably have you back on the show at some point in time. But just you know, like really thank you for taking, like, I just want to start by honoring like the work that you do. I, you know, it I it's so important as a woman to have partnership with men, to have men out there, like you do the work. And I think for me, that is like really the mark of a great coach. Like, leader is like someone who's like you're you I see you on the court doing the work in your own life to make sure that you show up, that you're congruent, and um, that you're really being authentic and and vulnerable in your leadership and and just as a human being. So just thank you. I really want to honor you for that. And just thank you for coming on and having this conversation with us this morning and and sharing yourself. I I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with you today, and I know my audience will as well.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

And I have a hard time with taking uh compliments or being acknowledged for that. So I want to say thank you for that. Uh uh I I wanted to leave one point as well for for the listeners who are watching this as well, is like one of the things that makes things so much workable in relationships is when women lead, you know, when the feminine energy leads. So if you're watching this right now, um, I always equivocate it to a dance. You know, the male leads the dance in terms of the steps, but the female shows up as the energy to be the vessel that will let them flow together. No man can ever like if you watch two men dance with each other, it's just awkward and clumsy. The female allows the flow of the dance and then allows the man to do the masculine energy to do the steps, but he only does the steps because he's inspired by the energy that the female energy brings or the masculine feminine energy brings to the table. So, for females out there, understand the more work you do, like the more energy you're gonna bring to the table, the more you're gonna be able to guide those relationships to the way they should be more workable in your life, and you'll attract a more vibrant partner that resonates higher in your life than what you've normally had before when you didn't do that. Uh, and any single male will tell you they don't get a bigger car or a better house to impress their buddy, they do it to like really impress or woo their partner. And we are Clydesdales as males that we will work hard and be able to do the work in order to pull the load for the inspiration that we derive from our feminine energy partner. And that goes with gay relationships, that goes with straight relationships. In that dynamic, those two energies working together are the ones that fulfill healthy relationships. And going back and forth with that, you're not the same feminine energy and the masculine energy in different times, but together collectively, you both flow with each other inside that like a tango. And there's no mistakes in the tango, you get as tangled up, you just tango on.

SPEAKER_03 52:32

Oh, that's beautiful. I love that. Thank you so much for for sharing that and everything you have shared this morning. Chuck, for those listening, you'll, as I said earlier, you'll be able to check out how to connect with Chuck and find out everything that he's up to uh in in the show notes. And for for everyone who listened, just thank you. I hope you have a great weekend and we'll catch you next week.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

And thank you for having me on your show, Amber. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode. For show info, visit what would Amber Do.com. And for information about Amber Howard and Associates' offerings and services, visit amberhowdenc.com.