SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to What With Amber You with your host Amber Howard, your weekly dose 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 0:27

Welcome back, everyone, to What Would Amber Do? It's so good to have you here today. I am thrilled to be have on the show this morning Nathan Harrington. Nate is the founder and owner of My Habits Coach. Nate has a background in education and transformational leadership and is committed that all people live extraordinary lives and experience themselves as whole, powerful, and capable. Nate, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing yourself with us.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Oh my God. Thank you, Amber. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Yeah, it's so good. So talk to talk to me a little bit. How did you like my habits coach, becoming an entrepreneur? What's that journey been like for you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Well, in a way, I feel like my whole life has led up to this. And I'll tell you, you know, I never, it's never been like a dream or a desire of mine to be an entrepreneur. I've never wanted that. And um, and then something happened in April of this year, uh, where I so I I run a small chain, and when I say small chain, I mean three locations, a small chain of uh yoga studios for the last seven and a half years, and um that completed, and I um I didn't know what I was gonna do next. You know, um, I knew I was done with that. I'm I knew I was done teaching yoga. I mean, I'll always teach yoga, like the the essence of what yoga is, um, and teaching people you know yoga poses on their yoga mats. I I'm complete with that. And so um, so I didn't know what I was gonna do. And I was like, I could either start my own coaching business. It seemed it seemed like I had two choices start a coaching business or uh, you know, go get a job. And I was talking to a friend, and I told her, I said, you know, in the meantime, like while I'm figuring things out, I said, you know, I should do like a 21-day habits challenge. And I was it was like literally just kind of this flash of inspiration. One of the things I did at the yoga studios was I ran twice a year a 40-day yoga challenge. And over the course of the seven and a half years, we probably had about 10,000 people go through this challenge in Houston and in Denver. Amazing. Where our studios are. And if you strip away the yoga, what we actually had gotten really good at was giving people tools and structures and conversations that allow them to create and sustain a new habit. And that in that case, it was a yoga habit, right? So I kind of knew that I had like something that I could like I could run a 40 days in my sleep at this point. So, and then there's 21 days, and there's kind of that's 21 days has really kind of been debunked as a myth in terms of like how long it takes to form a habit. And we could talk more about that later if you want. But it's you know, it's the kind of a number that people have in their mind associated with habits sometimes. And so I thought, hey, let's do this. And my friend was like, This is this is what happened. My friend said, Um, she said, a 21-day habits challenge, you should that that could be a business. And I was like, Like, no, that's not what I'm talking about. I just want to have some fun, maybe make some money, have no problem with making money off of it, but I'm not trying to start a business. And she goes, I get that. She said, I understand. She said, but um, that's a business. So one thing led to another, and here I am, I'm the business owner, and I'm having a lot of fun, and I'm totally glad it went that way. It's um, I love the freedom of it. I love the um, like, you know, I answered in me and my customers, I guess. Um, and uh the the place the place that I'm still learning to be with is it this is the first time in my adult life where I haven't had a a paycheck two weeks every two weeks out of my future. So uh that's a new experience. But other than that, that's that's kind of where I am and how I got to being my habits coach and an entrepreneur in this way.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

It's so great. Well, I love that you said, you know, like I didn't set out to be an entrepreneur, right? It's kind of like um, you know, especially with someone like you who's so committed to leadership and other people's transformation, like sometimes there's like a future that's speaking, calling to us, right? Or like a service that because we know, like many, many successful people, and I don't mean success in like any specific terms, but people who are able to create the lives that they want, we know that the more often we can turn behaviors into habits, the more effective that we're gonna be at being able to have the things that we want. And so I think, and it's like it's that easy to create and sustain habits. Like it actually takes something and a lot of some things, right? Like it takes mindset and and right the right tools and the right, like like being open to different structures. So I love that you're, you know, I think COVID provided an opportunity for a lot of people, myself included. You know, I already had my business before the pandemic, but it, you know, I was it it was a great opportunity to stop and reflect and say, you know, where where do I want to be spending my time? What do I want my life to look like? And um for for anyone listening to this conversation, I think it's great. Like you don't have to want to be an entrepreneur. Like you don't have to have like had that goal from a childhood. You know, some of the people I talked to did, some of the people knew they were raised by entrepreneurs, they always kind of knew that they were gonna own their own business. But there are others, you know, myself and you you included, Nate, who it just owning my business or being an entrepreneur, like was what was gonna work for me to be able to fulfill on the other things and the service I wanted to provide to people and how I wanted to contribute to the world. So I think that's that's so great. And it's interesting you say about the debunking, because I'm curious about that because like I hear 21 days, I hear 40, I hear 90, I like, so is there any actual magic number or like what actually, like, let's talk about the formation of a habit. Is it about the time? Is it about, you know, like I I mean, I know for myself, the more I do something consistently, the more confidence I have in myself that I'm gonna be trustworthy to do it. Like, for you, what do you what do you think the magic ingredients are to forming you know, sustainable habits?

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yeah. Well, so the first thing I'll say is no, there's not a magic number.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Good, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

You know, as far as I can tell, um there are so many different factors to consider. And I've researched this a lot, and you know, in all of the people that I've worked with, and just in my own experience, is you just have to take into consideration a lot of things, right? Like the first thing is what is the habit itself? Right. So, you know, there if the habit has um is associated with long-term rewards, let's say, right? Like trying to develop a habit, I don't know, like a healthy eating habit, let's say. Like sometimes the long-term rewards of that make it really challenging to develop and sustain that habit. Whereas, like, if I said, hey, Amber, I want you to start a habit of drinking Coca-Cola every day or something like that, or eating ice cream every day, right? Like, well, how long would it take you to form that habit? I mean, maybe two days, right? Like, right. So, so that's like one thing to consider. And then it's like, you know, probably counting days, like maybe counting hours engaged might make a little more sense because if I'm doing practicing something all day versus something that I just get to practice once a day, of course, that's gonna take more time. And then, you know, there's also, and this is just a place where like I feel like even like language doesn't quite capture the diversity of the human experience, which is it's kind of like, well, what do we mean when we say a habit? Right. And so there's you know, there's certain things that I do that are just like completely automatic, right? Like I don't have to think about them. They just like even if I'm half awake, they kind of they happen no matter what, right? And so for me, one thing is is like I really have like cultivated like getting up and moving my body first thing in the morning as a habit, right? And by every sense of the word, like I don't have to think about it. I kind of crave it, do you know, like the way that when you talk about the Charles Duhig, I think was the one who like popularized, if not created, the notion of the habit reward loop, and that every habit has three pieces to it. It has a cue, a routine, and a reward. And the reward is the thing that makes you like crave the habit, right? So going back to this notion of like moving my body and things, um, I really do crave that. Now, there's other things that are like I do every single day. And you know, I'll give it like an example of email, right? Let's say like I have pretty impeccable integrity around email and responding to email and like that. I never crave that. I never crave it, and I have to choose that every single day, and though, and yet like I do it every single day. So it's like, so is that a habit, even though like I, you know, I don't want to do it, and yet I do it every so I don't know. I feel like there's like a like a whole conversation you can have around that. It's like what what are the edges of habits, right? And where does it where does a habit start and where does it end? And where is it something that's not a habit, but maybe something that you're practicing, right? Or uh, you know, like that. So that's that's kind of the answer to that question that could lead us in a lot of different directions.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

But I love what you said, and I think it's interesting the whole idea of reward, right? Because perhaps, like, you know, you're not getting a reward in the sense of like, because I think sometimes we have a very narrow definition of like what a reward is, but perhaps the reward for being on top of your email is it brings workability to your life and that gives you peace of mind mentally. Like, you know, there's lots of ways that the reward can look like it. And I think and what what I got out of the whole conversation about um like not having specific amount of days, I for me anyway, that's helpful because I think one of the ways like I can see I fall off in terms of creating habits is like if I think it has to look a certain way, like say I'm doing it and I get to day 17 and I don't do it, then I've failed. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

Versus like, you know, I know what really works is like having that, like, oh, every day's a new opportunity, or even a moment by moment thing where it's like I'm I'm recommitting to this every morning. And, you know, like, and like getting, if I miss a day, you know, because in the past, if I missed a day at something, it's like, oh, that whole, it's all gone out the window, it's screwed, like it's screwed up, I can't reclaim it. Like, I'm just gonna go back to doing the unhealthy behavior or whatever it is, right? Um, so I think there's for me anyway, there's some freedom in getting there is no magic number. And, you know, it's like anything. Um, you know, our subconscious minds, like we have very powerful pattern-generating software inside of our brain. Our neocortex is designed to create patterns. Yes. And it's either going to create those patterns by default from the past, or it's gonna create, and we can we have neuroplasticity, we can create new neuropathways, and we can create new patterns that are based on what we want to create. And it's like anything, it requires repetition and practice and doing things over and over again. And um, I like to talk about it from like the world of gratitude. So there was a time in my life where I didn't, I was not a grateful human being. Like I was constantly coming from a conversation, it just wasn't. I wasn't. I mean, some people listening might be like, that sounds horrible. I just wasn't constantly coming from scarcity. I was in a conversation for me not being enough. Like, this is at a point in my life where I was like completely unworthy. So I was not enough. Nothing was ever enough. You can imagine what it was like to be around me during that period of my life, constantly looking for like validation and you know, and um so I couldn't be grateful because it was never enough. Like, no matter how hard I worked, no matter how much I created, it was never enough. And and then I got that I started to develop some gratitude. I started, you know, and then I started doing a practice of gratitude and you know, doing my writing gratitude in the morning and and at night. And I went through periods of time where I forget that I was supposed to do that, and then I, you know, and over time developing that practice, I now like being grateful is actually just who I am all the time. Like I actually have the experience of this is now automatic. Like I don't have to, you know, I'm a human being, I have moments where I'm like, ugh, but more often than not, I am in a constant state of gratitude, even for the stuff that might not go the way I want, I think I want it to. And part of it is choosing a frame for my life that everything is unfolding for my greatest good. Like I choose that, I choose to create that so then I can see even the stuff that doesn't go the way Amber thinks it should go. Um, like that is a gift and something I could be grateful for because even if I can't see it, it's unfolding for my greatest good. But it like we have very powerful pattern-generating software in our brain. It's there. You know, um, Maxwell Maltz talks about it like success mechanisms, you know, like uh success gener, you know, mechanisms in the brain. Um and so I think I I like what you're saying. It's about, and I thought that was really funny. Yeah, no one would have to like coffee. No one has to, no one has to like no one has to enroll me daily in making sure I have coffee. Right. My whole life is like constituted in some way, shape, or form around making sure that I have coffee every day.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Exactly. Like, and you like are looking ahead at that.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

I know we moved from Laguna Beach to Huntington Beach like yesterday, and uh, you know, some stuff is still back in Laguna, but the coffee was here. Like there's coffee in out in the house this morning, right? Like that was like not gonna. Um, so it's a real opportunity, I think, right? Um, you know, and it was like I I think Aristotle was the one who said, like, habit is how we make excellence like permanent in our lives, right? I'm paraphrasing him, this isn't exactly the way he said it. Uh, so I think I think this is something very powerful for people. And it's like there's so much, you know, inside of like the world of shoulds. And you know, the minute we say we want something, we want it, like we fall into this like default network of conversations around like what that looks like. And so there's so much room here for like making ourselves wrong or beating up on ourselves when we don't do habit the way we think it should get done, right? So I think it you're I think you're onto something very powerful. I think this is a real contribution to people.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, you know, I um I think everything that you've just said points to sort of a useful, well, first of all, it points to mindset, right? And um I I think it illustrates how you kind of have to be a mindset to have around habits, is sort of um like a two-headedness, right? Which is is first is is that it is possible to have something be your natural expression, your natural way of being. Like you don't even have to think about it, and like things that right now you can't even imagine being your natural like like if I were to say, like, oh, you could have this just be like something you don't even think about, and this is just you wake up in the morning and this is who you are, right? Yeah, like that's possible, right? And you know, going back to what about like the number of days or whatever is like this may be a little counterintuitive, but sometimes it helps me to actually create the mindset that like what if it never does become my natural self-expression, and it's still something that I want, right? How would I engage with it then? Right? If I were to like look out in the future and go, okay, nobody's promising me that in 30 years from now I'm gonna love to eat a bunch of vegetables every day, right? How would you engage with that? Like what mindsets would you create for yourself around that? What kind of structures would you create for yourself around that? How would you think about that if it is something that you are in fact committed to doing? Now, predictably, if you do that with some consistency, many things, I don't know if I would say most or all things, but many things will become your natural self-expression. Right. Right. But given, given sort of this thing that you're talking about with um, you know, what our brains are hardwired for and the fact that they can learn new things, given that they are so hardwired for things, and most of what I've read in neuroscience about habits formation is that the old neural pathways never fully disappear. They'll weaken, they will weaken, right? Like the the more you act differently from them, but they'll always be there. And then the the game of creating new habits is about creating and strengthening new new neural pathways. So period.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

So it makes sense that they don't go away, right? Because the brain is like just piecing together, you know, bits of code or patterns to create something new, right? So the the old patterns, the old code's always like if you're talking about in terms of computer, that old code is always there. It's just put together other code pieces to create a new pattern or a new code, right? So um it's like it's really fascinating to me. And I think there's a lot of freedom. Like if you could, if we could be, and because I think there's like a bit of a default, the minute we embark on something new, it's like, oh, it's gonna be hard. It's like it's gonna be hard to create that new habit. It's gonna be hard. And and I like what you said, like the paradox, because I've been playing with this language around paradox for a while, like holding two things to be true, right? Like, um I can know from the world of like knowing that it's a good idea to eat healthy and exercise or have some kind of movement daily and and take care of my physical, like my sleep and you know, drink water, like, and I may not love drinking water and I may not love exercising, and I may not love eating vegetables, as you said. So it's like to your point, well, if I know this is a good idea from the world of like long longevity, and you know, maybe you have some other commitment that you, you know, to being a grandparent or like whatever you want it goals that you have for the future, I know that being healthier is aligned with these other things that I want, and yet I've got to deal with, I don't really love these things. And you know, like in the world of how do I want to spend my time, um, I don't really want to do these things, and I want this other thing, right? Which I think is so great because what you're pointing to is our ability to reframe something, right? Like we could choose a new current, you know, a new context for something. We could choose to reframe something in a way that even if we don't love it, allows us to understand how this is gonna help us fulfill on other things that are important to us and what we want in life.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Totally. Uh, you know, there's a lot of ways that you can say that in my habits coaching, the language I use is mindset. Right. And um and one of the distinctions I make is um is that there's a difference between an empowering mindset and a positive mindset. Right. And so the difference that I make there is that like a positive mindset, I think people hear that as like, oh, like I have a good attitude about that, or like, you know, you know, I'm happy that I'm I'm doing this thing. And that's fine, right? And there are some goals that you might have, some habits that you might have that you're never gonna be like, oh yeah, I'm so happy that I'm doing this. Yet you could create a mindset, a relationship to the thing that you're doing that gives you power. Right, that gives you that allows you to stay connected to like a yeah, I can do this. I got this, I can, you know, be consistent in X or Y or Z area. I might not like just be like, you know, crying tears of joy or something like that. But I can I can stay connected to the part of me that is able and that will that will do it. So I think that's uh I think that's really good. And then I think the I I just want to like circle back to what you were saying about like grace and compassion as well as gratitude, is if if there's any habit that there is to get right, it's habits around mindset itself. Right? So it's like look, if you don't handle your mindset around sleep, right? If you don't create an empowering mindset around like getting to sleep, getting enough sleep, getting up to awake on time, like if you don't deal with that, you're gonna be consistently unsuccessful with that. And so which is why like it matters to have things like a gratitude practice, right? Or to before you even get started working on a habit, to like make up your mind, like, okay, given that this is like we're saying this is given that this is gonna be challenging, right? Given that I might fail, given that whatever, how am I gonna be in the face of that? And have that, like preaching now, right? Have that you got the soapbox, use it, I love it. Yeah, have that be like the actual habit that you're out to develop, and then you know, whatever it is, the the sleeping, the productivity, the whatever is gets to benefit from you really doing the work and and mastering cultivating mindset.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

I love it. And it is funny, right? Because like uh you've had this conversation with a lot of coaches, and people don't people never come to us and say, I need to adjust my mindset, right? Like they come to us and they say, like, I want to lose weight, or I want more money, or I want a better job, or you know, there's some goal or outcome that they want. And we know, like I train and develop people in root cause analysis and get into the root of things. We know people don't want to hear this. That's exactly what I was thinking. They don't want to hear it, right? But they because they don't. They don't want to hear that it's mindset, right? Like 95% of your success or your results, like, yeah, actions matter, but you can take the same actions and inside of a mindset of I'm gonna be successful and I'm gonna be, it's gonna be great and it's all gonna work out, or you and you can take those same actions inside of a mindset of it's not gonna work, and it's you know, coming from scarcity, like just leave you know if you just look at the difference between actions taken from scarcity versus abundance, totally different outcomes, right? So you like people don't want to hear that. And it's the same thing about like this conversation around worthiness and self-love, you know, that I bring up, like it comes up everywhere. And uh a Louise Hay would say, like the one, you know, from you can you can heal your life, like my clients come to me, and the first thing we work on is self-love and self-worth. Because if you don't get that, like not even handled, not like there's somewhere to get about it, it's constantly evolving. But if you're not dealing with that, so to your point, right? The mindset piece is habits around mindset, grace, like seeing past behavior to people's heart, like seeing people's commitment, your own commitment, you know, honoring, celebrating ourselves, and and uh like um that piece makes everything else easier because we're going to fail. It's part of being human. You know, like I love this analogy. Rockets fail thousands of times on their way to landing on the moon, like they're constantly falling off course. But if you can be someone who is being in life grateful, who sees the who sees the the opportunity and the failure for growth and learning and development, who can be like, what is there? What's the lesson in this, right? All of that, then um it makes life easier. Amen. Yeah, gratitude makes life easier, and habits make life easier, right? If you want an easy life, this if you want an easy life, hire a habit coach, have great habits, like get habit, you know, like get your habits on point.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

And it might it might get harder at first.

SPEAKER_03 26:54

Yes. Well, but that's so that's an interesting segue because one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was accountability. And and this is why I think have coaches, because it's gonna get harder at first because you're doing new things and you're creating new things and you're gonna be bumping up against stuff, right? And so I'd love to kind of hear your thoughts on like for you, why accountability? Why is accountability so important for you in your life and your because I know you're someone you know, we met in personal development. Um, you know, so you're constantly taking on your own growth and your own, like, and this is one of the things that I really respect. To me, a great coach is someone who's doing the work. Like they're on the court in their own life. They're not just standing back saying, Oh, you should do this and you should do that. Like you can you can see the evidence in their own life as they continue to grow. So, why is accountability so important to you, Nate?

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Well, first of all, um I sort of ongoingly have to the the language I've heard used before is refile certain words. And accountability, and when I say refile, I mean um uh you know, sometimes words get tainted in a way, so like like we have them collapsed with something. Um, so oftentimes I have to refile what accountability means so that I can I can have an empowering relationship with it, right? So you know, so because like usually like in, you know, if you listen to the news, right? Like accountability is like the this punishment that we we bestow on leaders, right? Like, who's accountable here, right? Like that. So I that is that actually is kind of step one for me in the process of accountability. Um second is um we all have things that we want. Right, we all have things that we want. And mostly what a human being does, I think, is we let ourselves want things that are just big enough that we know we can get to them on our own. Right? And if we look out into the future and we go, I don't know if I could do that without you know risking failure or looking bad to my peers and family, or um I don't know, or sweating too much, or something like that. Um, we tend to go, all right, you know, well then that's not for me, or I guess it's not meant to be, or whatever. And something that I feel like arises it's like that, it's like these two things arise together. It's like when I have something or someone that is bigger than what I know myself to be, or no, let me say that differently, that sees me as bigger than what I've known myself to be, well, then I can want bigger things. You know, I can I can want more. Like my my ability to to have a vision for myself and my life expands because there is this external thing going, hey, actually, maybe you can a little bit more. Maybe you can do. I mean, if you just take it to like actual like sports coaches, like maybe you can run one more lap, maybe you can, you know, do one more rep. So I guess that's the first thing that comes up for me about accountability.

SPEAKER_03 30:27

Um I really um, I really love that. There have been those people for me, right? Especially in the area of my leadership, like in, you know, would talk about like living in their listening, right? It's like they saw me as bigger than than I could have at that time ever seen myself. And I think it's funny because we have a little bit of this narrative that we like in like conversations around, like, I know what's best for me, I know what I'm capable of, like this I unfortunately, whatever we think about ourselves is like filtered through a bunch of crap. Like that we, you know, this view we have of ourselves is not, and my experience has been, and I think from what you're sharing, Nate, I think your experience probably be similar, is that other people, you know, if they're the the right people, and I I uh, you know, qualify right by not like right, wrong, good, bad, but like people who are a gap for us in in these areas where we we want to grow. So they're you know, there because there are some people in our life who are not out to empower us on to bigger and better and greater things, right? So, but if we're if we're looking to people who, when we look at them, you know, there are people in my life who are such a massive possibility around money in a way that I'm not there yet. And it's like, wow, like, you know, so if I choose to live inside their listening, they actually have a better view. Like I could choose to take on that they have a better view of what's possible for me in money than I do from over here, because my view of myself when it comes to this is like gunged up by all of these conversations from the past, from you know, generational conversations around money, familial, you know, all of that. Like I've got all this stuff about money, and they actually have a better view from where they are of what I what's possible for me than I have of myself. But that's going against a popular narrative in our culture, which is that I should know what's better, I should know myself better than anyone.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, I mean, and that uh that narrative, I you know, has its its place, right? It has its own value, and you can explore that and you know see what you see from that. Um, I had a coach tell me one time, like when it comes to seeing how awesome or not, or how capable or not, or how great or not you can be, you only get one vote. Like your view of yourself is one view of yourself. Oh, that's so great. I love that. It is so and and you know, I know that both you and I like traffic in in whole communities where people are you know practiced and developed in, you know, seeing people for from what's possible, right? Seeing people for their greatness. And and so then when you, you know, if you kind of if you get like a, you know, uh, what's the word, like a quorum, like around you that goes like, you know, it's 10 to one. You can do this, you can have the life that you want, you know. Um, then you kind of start to see things differently.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

Well, and you could choose to, like, not like it's the truth, but like I love what you said. I'm like actually like really moved by what you just said. Like, you could like my my view of myself is just one vote for the for the view of who Amber is. And I could choose to try on that everyone's view of me is just as valid as my view of myself, not more or less, right? And and see what you see from there and what what starts to open up. And it's so funny, I think, how willing we are when it comes to ourselves, because I think the naturally, as human beings, you know, you think about a parent with their children, and this is part of where I think we get into there are some challenges. Like parents don't fight. Typically, parents don't fight for what their kids aren't capable of, right? We don't fight to be right about what other people aren't capable of. We typically see other people as a, you know, as more capable than we see ourselves. But we really fight as human beings, we fight real hard for our view of ourselves as not capable of having what we want. And I think back to what you were saying, circling back to what you were saying earlier, Nate, we get so caught on the how. And you know, I know this from the study and the work I've done with Bob Proctor and like thinking into results and stuff like that, we get so caught up in it's like we won't create a want bigger than we know how to get it. Well, it doesn't work that way. Right? Because the if you choose to believe that the point of having goals is to grow, it's not to cause the result, it's to cause our growth. Then you actually have to be creating goals that are big enough that it causes your expansion. And inherent in a goal big enough to cause expansion is you don't know how to do it. You gain the skills and the knowledge and the tools in the journey of the expansion that allows you to cause the result, right? And that I think is why having accountability, whether it's a coach, a partner, friends, a network of people surrounding you that see you as capable and like want you to have, you know, the things that are important to you, because they're gonna keep you moving forward step by step by step um on the journey through that expansion.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Yeah, you know, I didn't know that both you and I were like kind of armchair neuroscientists, but we could like we could go back to um this the idea of like well-established brain patterns versus developing new brain patterns. Um the other deal is is that uh our brains are bad existence systems for new possibilities. Right? Like see, like look, this is how I describe it, is like it's the flash of inspiration syndrome, right? So you get a flash of inspiration, and those it's like this phenomenon where like you get a flash of inspiration and you go, Oh my god, I get it. I I this is it, I found the answer. Like, I just need to, if I just never eat fried food again, then everything will be okay and I'll have a lot of right. And like you're driving down the freeway, and you're like just like, wow, I'm a new person. And then you get like two exits down the freeway and you're pulling out of you know, McDonald's or wherever, and you've got like some French fries in your mouth, right? Because the flash of inspiration, they like their uh half-life is so short, right? But if if you are if there's something in that flash of inspiration that you're committed to, right, then getting that in existence, right? In in communities, in you know, in the listening of a coach. And I know this is just audio, but behind me, I've got like um like a whole row of posts. I see it. And I've got this uh like a habits tracker behind me where because I know that you know, I'm gonna have 10 flashes of inspiration today, and you know, mostly they're not gonna stick around, right? And then I'm gonna have much like at least a hundred I don't wanna's and I can't, and I na na na. And so it's like yeah, it's like this is what this is. I love this. I think James Clear writes about this in um in Atomic Habits is um uh like the most successful people aren't necessarily the most disciplined, they're the people who create their lives around them, structure, communities, relationships, so that they don't have to be disciplined. Right. So like that their future choices are already kind of made for them based on how they've set up their environment and created their relationships.

SPEAKER_03 38:52

Yeah, well, I mean, from a you and I are in a course right now, together, you know, wisdom and one of the things you talk about is like our originating circle, right? Who are the people that we're in conversation with the most? And that one of the things I saw about that is like, so your point here, if I want to be in a relationship and I look at it my net my originating circle and they're all single, or you know, like if I want to be healthier and I look at it my originating circle, and you know, all of the people in my network of conversations are not healthy and not taking care of themselves, or if I want to expand my financial possibilities and create more wealth, and I'm surrounded by people and only having conversations with people that are trapped in scarcity around money. Well, good luck with that, right? So I think that I think I really agree with you on that, that it's it's very important. And it's interesting because you keep talking about these flashes of inspiration. And one of the things that just came to my mind, there's this great book called The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey Jr., his father wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And Covey talks about the importance of self-trust. And there is this one line in the book that, like, the first time I heard it, it was like I got smacked upside the back of the head by it. And he first he says it's important to make a distinction between like things that we're actually giving our word to, commitments we're making to self or others versus like a goal or maybe like an inspiration, like, and get really clear, like, you know, what am I giving my word to? And like that's a commitment. And and he says, when keeping your commitments becomes too difficult or becomes hard, we have two choices. We can either alter our behavior to match our commitment, or we can lower our values to match our behavior. And when I heard that, I'm like looking at you can't see Nate's face right now. But that was kind of the point. I was like, that's like zoom, how like I do not want to be the kind of person that lowers my values to match my behavior, right? And so in those moments where keeping the commitment is difficult, or you know, like what do I need to change structurally? What do I need to, you know, asking really great questions, like what's missing that if it was present would have me be able to fulfill on this commitment. And again, this is where the self-compassion and the grace and the, you know, if you do break your commitment, it's not the end of the world.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:22

Right? Have some love for yourself, get that you're practicing, you're trying on something new. You know, give yourself the the freedom to be able to fail. And like, you know, how big could I fail in fulfilling on this commitment? Like, well, what would it look like to really fail uh epically at this, right? How big would I have to be playing in life to not just have little failures, but to have massive failures? Some people have massive failures, and you'll notice that most of those people who have massive failures also go on, like they they fail forward from that failure to bigger and bigger success.

unknown 42:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:01

And that is like exactly their mindset, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 42:08

So good. Um, yeah, I like that armchair neuroscientists. I love it. I, you know, I'm I'm always in a conversation looking up, like, what's the evolution of all of this work? Like, you know, how could we I'm actually looking at maybe doing you know, doing my PhD in a couple of years around how could we, you know, cause not faster for the sake of getting somewhere quicker, but how could we look at all of the different layers of a human being, mind, like our thoughts, our subjective experience, our emotions, our language, like what's the evolution of all of the work that's being done today in personal development to create ways of like causing an increase in levels of awareness that's more like that honors the whole human being, looks at because I'm just now like I'm five years into this journey, I'd say it's only been about a year, a year around now. Actually, my friend died about a year ago this time, that I started dealing with the emotional layer. And boy, has that been a juicy one. So, ah, so good.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Yeah, yeah. I um, you know, when it comes to that, right? Like I just get present to the state of humanity. And I think it's fascinating to think about how we didn't evolve to live in the societies that we currently live in now. Meaning like our bodies and our brains and all of it, right? We're just like for tens of thousands of years, you know, walked around most of the time, ran around, jumped around, we didn't sit in chairs all day long, we didn't drive cars, right? And um, and I mean not.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

to be too bleak, but I think a lot of the things that like ail us as like modern society when it comes to like mental health and um you know the just the sense of disconnection or despair or whatever it is that human beings that we we are bumping up against we do have to find a way to be well right for human beings to be well to take care of ourselves uh mentally physically emotionally in this relatively new environment called modern civilization um and so yeah and I think what you I've thought a lot about in the past right but I haven't I I like that you're kind of going like yeah we're doing how do we need to evolve in the next 50 next hundred next 500 years assuming that we have a next 500 years on this planet um to to be able to thrive yeah and like for all of it right like so funny because like you think about it like the how much you know sometimes like some of the work I do with my clients are people who are like you know committed to transforming like global issues right ending poverty in our lifetime climate change and my friend puts it beautifully where she says for people who work in this kind of space there's a little bit of an experience like you're trying to mop up the ocean with a paper towel. So it's like so much bigger like how could I possibly move the needle like given the the enormity of the challenge. And I think you could look at that but you could also really get astounded and marvel at like it was not that long ago that most human beings didn't even know how to read. And it was okay you know that the Bible was only written in Latin and most people couldn't so they had to have the Bible you know one of the core tenets for their religious beliefs like translated for them and spoken to them because they couldn't read it themselves. It was not that long ago that you know women were not you know being given an opportunity for higher education like that was being denied them. And and look I'm not saying that there aren't so places in the world where these things are true. And like of course we're like you know I believe we rise up together and those you know that we're constantly looking up and out to see how we can find other ways to to to improve the level of quality of existence and life for all human beings. And I think it's important to to be kind of two-headed about it. Yes we look at the enormity of all that there is left you know as we keep evolving and I like you you know on the back of your wall you have what if well what if we do have 500 years on left on this planet? What if we have a thousand what if you know that idea that wise people plant trees that they'll never sit under so for you and I as people who are committed to um the possibility of what human beings could accomplish given how infinite like our we we most of us die with untapped like potential we'll never use the majority of our potential right so how could we as people who are protectors and and holders of the possibilities of the future like what if we have a thousand years well what would it look like and and um to cause shifts in awareness at a much like more exponentially and in a way I think that looks at what's optimal for the individual person. Because I know some people who I've talked to who started their transformational journey with the emotional layer and that was great for them. I could not have started there five years ago that would that was that that would have taken me out because I just was not ready to engage in conversations about you know my the ways in which I dissociated emotion through my habits and through work and patterns and stuff like that. But starting where I started in landmark with language and phenomenology and beingness was a very powerful way for me to to access this work right so how could you create uh journeys for people to go on in their own level of personal development and awareness that really honored the individual and you know throughout all of it I think habit like what the work that you're doing is like really critical to that because for whatever reason we don't teach this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 48:29

Well and that kind of we do it like I was just gonna say we do in that like we teach kids to go to school every day and raise their hand before they talk and you know so we do teach some kind of habits about how to work become a a good citizen and like work with other people but we don't give I don't think we give young people the tools to know how to replicate that for themselves intentionally is what I to be more accurate about what I wanted to say.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah well and then this for me kind of goes back to the the idea of like well what is a habit and you know there's something that you were saying about you know being like everybody kind of has their the the pathway to transformation that is correct for them. You know and and just what I got present to was like just listening. Yeah you know is is that that that really is something that can make a profound difference in life and in the world for people. And then the other thing that I was thinking about in sort of create like the this notion of defining habits is in habits coaching one of the places that I come from is that it's all habits. It's all habits it is all habits right your emotional self your you know mental self your spiritual like all of it is habits. And here's the beautiful thing about that is right is when you can get like what if like what you feel what you think what you say to yourself the shoe that you put on first in the morning even who you consider yourself to be what if all of that is just habits and when you can deal with that right and practice sort of playing with and telling the truth about and and being present to and aware of the habits that you have well two things happen. One is is you then become a distinct phenomenon from whatever habit that it is that you're talking about and you can just have your habits and you don't have to be them right and then by the very nature of habits is the things you know if you can distinguish something as a habit it then becomes malleable and things new things become possible.

SPEAKER_03 51:00

So I think that is the perfect place to end this initial conversation Nate thank you so much. One I just really want to honor acknowledge you for the commitment you have to people you know like and to yourself and to your own growth and your commitment to the people around you that their lives be great and that all people's lives be great. Like it it it takes something to be that kind of person. That in and of itself constituting yourself as that is a habit that you've developed over time. And so I just really want to acknowledge you for everything that that took to be that kind of human being and um just thank you for coming on the show and sharing yourself with my audience and for those of you who listen to this amazing conversation you can catch up with Nate and find out all about how to get a hold of him and his services and what he's up to in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

Awesome. Amber thank you thank you for having me this is great such a great conversation uh we should do it again sometime.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

Yes we definitely will for everyone listening have a great weekend and thank you so much for being part of this conversation thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode for show info visit what wouldamberdocom and for information about Amber Howard and associates offerings and services visit amberhowdinc.com