I welcome Dave “The Hurricane” Rossi back to the show! Yes, that was his nickname back in the day of being a high school football star and then running a large construction enterprise. You will see why soon into the show, as this guy brings the energy from start to finish.

In fact, my first show with Dave ranks as one of the most downloaded episodes ever, despite his relative lack of superstardom. But Dave has a brilliant and deeply impactful message that really resonates with people: how to avoid the pain and suffering caused by the rat race mentality and live a more mindful, happy life.

We discuss his sensational new book called The Imperative Habit, and the seven practices that you can implement right away to grow spiritually and live in a default state of happiness. Dave hits some pretty heavy topics with grace and memorable quotes, so this show can quite possibly change your life. Some tidbits from the book:

1. Spirituality can overcome the limits of your biology: An athlete pushing past the pain is a real example of accessing the spiritual plane, so don’t be intimidated by the term! Ditto for jumping into an ice tub, so my chest freezer cold plunge counts as a spiritual practice! You can leverage the ability to overcome biology the next time you take a breath to relax before reacting.

2. We operate from flawed subconscious programming: As detailed in my summary recording about Dr. Bruce Lipton’s work in The Biology of Belief, our programmed behaviors and thoughts can dominate our lives, usually for the worse. Dave’s 7 habits can help you overcome this flawed programming, and live in acceptance and happiness.

3. “You can change your beliefs at any time for any reason.”

Dave is all about helping you grow and strengthen your ability to differentiate between biological urges and spiritual desires, so you can make decisions based on logic and love, instead of fear and biological proclivities. Here is a quick look at the 7 habits from The Imperative Habit that Dave details on this show:

Practice–Habit #1–Accept

Practice–Habit #2–Do not fear the outcome

Practice–Habit #3–Happiness as a practice

Practice–Habit #4–Be present

Practice–Habit #5–Do not judge

Practice–Habit #6–Respond with love and compassion

Practice–Habit #7–Have faith

The effect of implementing these 7 habits was so life-altering that Dave ended up writing his book, so he could share what had helped him with other people. In his own words: “I failed. I failed so completely and utterly miserably…And I failed, trying so hard to do the opposite of failing! But I learned so much through those failures. I learned through transitioning back into a position of success. And I wanted people to understand what I’ve learned, without having to go through the same pain.” There was a certain idea that was a recurring theme in our conversation: “Everything comes to you in your life to bring you to a higher level of consciousness.” Keeping that perspective in mind, failure starts to look a lot less intimidating, especially when you hear Dave give examples of how often failure actually results in something positive. Obviously it can be hard to not think of failure as a negative thing, which is why Dave stresses the importance of knowing that you can change your beliefs at any time. Thinking of failure as a negative experience will never be helpful to you, but when you start to think of it as a road that leads to a higher level of consciousness, then it suddenly doesn’t look so bad. After all, what’s so bad about something that acts as a catalyst that propels you in the right direction towards something better? Enjoy this inspiring conversation with Dave, and make sure to check out his book so you can start “practicing towards happiness” today!

TIMESTAMPS:

This story is of Dave Rossi going from being successful by all measures and then losing everything. [04:03]

Everything comes to you in your life to bring you to a higher level of consciousness. [08:56]

External things cannot solve internal problems. [11:17]

You have to practice what it is you are trying to learn, and you have to develop the power to make choices. [13:36]

The rest of our life is set on a path based on the first seven years of our life. [14:37]

People’s definition of spirituality is based on their early programming. [18:16]

Biological responses are like fear, self-doubt, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, stress. [20:04]

Our programming tells us the external thing is pleasurable. [23:35]

Don’t be attached to the outcome. Find love in the journey. [26:50]

Do we have permission to be highly competitive? [30:54]

The people that find sustainability in excellence are the ones who do it because they love it. [33:28]

You chose something new because of the information that’s being presented to you. [35:43]

Live in acceptance. It takes practice. [38:25]

When you hold a grudge, it means that you haven’t learned that lesson. [43:38]

We learn so much from failures in struggles unless we hold on to them and they continue to be a source of stress forevermore. [46:13]

The power of choice is the power to choose what you believe in first and then the power of choice to follow it. [49:14]

Do not fear the outcome. [53:10]

Maybe you should reassess your goals. [59:08]

If you aren’t attached to the outcome, how do you gracefully proceed when there are roadblocks in your way? [01:01:45]

Deal breakers are really only deal breakers at the moment. [01:08:45]

Practice towards happiness. [01:12:18]

Be present. Don’t let the past affect the present. [01:14:23]

Do not judge. [01:16:01]

Respond with love and compassion. [01:17:24]

Have faith. You need faith to get through the rough times. [01:20:47]

LINKS:

• Dave Rossi
• Brad’s Shopping page
• The Imperative Habit
• Biology of Belief
• Eckhart Tolle
• 7 Habits for Highly Effective People

QUOTES:

“External things cannot solve internal problems.”

“Everything comes to you in your life to bring you to a higher level of consciousness.”

“The people that find sustainability in excellence are the ones who do it because they love it.”

LISTEN:

Get Over Yourself Podcast

Brad (00:00:00):
Welcome to the get over yourself podcast. This is author and athlete, Brad Kearns, discovering ways to be healthy, fit and happy in hectic, high-stress, modern life. So let’s slow down and take a deep breath. Take a cold plunge and expertly balance that competitive intensity with an appreciation of the journey. That’s the theme of the show. Here we go.

Brad (00:04:03):
Hey people, I’m so pleased to bring you the second interview with a superstar in the making. His name is Dave Rossi, author of The Imperative Habit, a fabulous new book which will draw you in right away with his incredible story delivered with tremendous honesty and vulnerability about how he was living the live, live in the dream, had a fantastic business, seemingly successful by all measures in society, and then pretty much lost everything. His health, his marriage, his business, and plunged deep into a spiral downward and then rediscovered the truly important things in life and how to live in a default state of happiness.

Brad (00:04:51):
It’s a fantastic story. His first episode resonated greatly with the listeners, one of the most downloaded shows ever despite his relative lack of notoriety. But I’m telling you, this guy has got his A game on and this recording comes on the heels of a great weekend skiing and hanging out and an opportunity to see that this guy really does walk his talk. He has discovered the secret to living in that default state of happiness and rejecting the cultural pressures that cause us to suffer from FOMO and rumination and negativity and anxiety. He just goes with the flow and his message spews out of his mouth so freely. You’re going to love this fast moving show. It’s Dave Rossi is Fasten your seatbelt. Here we go and please go visit the imperative habit.com or grab it at Amazon and start reading because it’ll draw you in. It’s amazing stuff. The seven habits, you’re going to love them. Is the hurricane ready?

Dave (00:05:57):
I was thinking something about you. I think a lot of people think I’m a little crazy, like I do crazy stuff and maybe I’m a hurricane, but you’re the kind of person that people like me think are crazy.

Brad (00:06:08):
That’s funny. People tell me I have a lot of energy too, and I’m like, no, you don’t understand man. I’m always crashing and burning, looking for a chance to rest during my busy day. So it’s whatever the perception is. But

Dave (00:06:20):
yeah, what people, people that think I’m crazy. I think people like you are crazy.

Brad (00:06:23):
That’s a high honor. I appreciate that. So, uh, listeners, we got a little warmed up a few Saturdays ago when we went up scan and driving for many hours and traffic and, uh, we missed out on the eight hour Dave Rossi podcast unfortunately. So we’re going to have to, um, get United. It was fun. The next best thing, the next best thing. My mind was filled with insights. Inspiration. It was awesome. So I want to turn the hurricane loose. Uh, but especially talk about this masterpiece that you presented to the world. The Imperative Habit, the name of your new book.

Dave (00:06:59):
Well I think it’s awesome. We call her the masterpiece. That means a lot you a you calling it that. Um, it is what it is regardless of what people call up. But I’m glad you like it. That always feels good.

Brad (00:07:09):
Well you are teeing us up already for this, uh, evolved mindset that you’ve worked really hard to cultivate. And I think the best part is you jumped right into this book and you tell your story and you’re so vulnerable and you say, Hey, I was this guy. I was living in, you’re living the dream, you’re making money, you had your possessions, but deep down you discovered that you weren’t really happy. And I guess that was sort of the catalyst for this journey. That’s of course a work in progress every day, but it’s an amazing transformation really. So maybe you can take us through how you got into the, uh, the, the realm of writing this book, changing your career, changing your life, adopting a healthy new mindset.

Dave (00:07:51):
Um, well I think kind of two questions there. I think one question was how did this happen? And I think another question you asked is how did I do this? Um, I wrote the book because I wanted other people to, to know that this is out there. I mean, I failed so completely and totally miserably. Um, I failed trying to do the opposite of failing. I mean, I’ve failed having what I believe was talent, having a great background and upbringing, having so many, uh, uh, headstarts and I failed while using all of these things and trying hard to do the opposite of failing. And so I wrote the book because I, I learned so much through those failures and through transitioning back into a position of success that I honestly wanted so many people to understand what I learned. And one of the things that I had to go through to learn these things was a lot of suffering and a lot of pain and a lot of introspection. And I wanted people to learn these lessons without having to go through a lot of that same pain.

Dave (00:08:56):
Yeah. And I think the second question you asked is, you know, kind of how did the, how did you know, I, I muddled through this. I read, I mean, honestly, I just read and read and read and read and I came from, and I, I wrote this in the book. I never read a book in my life. Like I could barely read a magazine. I would get tired and I’d fall asleep or I get distracted or my mind would go into other places. I would write email in my head or recount bills I had to pay when I would read a magazine. And what it ultimately did was I walked a lot and I read a lot in those, the combination of those two things really kind of propagated me to change my life.

Brad (00:09:34):
So what was going on at the time when this transformation started? You had this huge business operation,. Things were good from the outside, uh, but you describe grabbing that pint of ice cream and sitting up late at night and watching TV. And I think that was when the, um, the insights start to happen.

Dave (00:09:55):
Yeah. You know, I read, I read this in a book that said everything in your life has presented to you to become more conscious. And uh, certainly I think I was such a fighter that it took more and more and more bad shit to happen to my life. For me to actually look at the signs to actually change and become conscious. And that’s a really powerful statement. Everything comes to you in your life to bring you to a higher level of consciousness. It’s a pretty big concept to actually get behind and understand and you really don’t understand it until you’ve kind of crash and burn. And say, Oh my God, I could have learned so many lessons so many times. And I ignored the clues. And for me it was, you know, my best friend dying, tragically. It was my health with a back surgery that I had pending. It with my business. It was the recession. It was my marriage. It was my family. It was sitting mindlessly numbing myself to TV every night before I finally stopped and said, wait a minute, I got to do something about this. I’ve got to do something about this. And the traditional methods were, Hey, watch TV or go exercise more, or go get in shape more or develop better relationships or see a counselor or see a therapist or learn to communicate with my wife or all these things. And those really weren’t the things that ultimately, um, changed my life. It was, you know, reassessing everything that I believed in.

Brad (00:11:17):
Starting with the, the, uh, seems the most obvious one is this a rat race mindset that we have that if we can acquire more possessions, consume more, we’re going to be happier. And you already did that and proved that maybe that wasn’t the simple solution, right?

Dave (00:11:36):
Yeah, totally. I think, I think I’m, you know, when we look at external things to make us happy. External things can’t solve internal problems ever. So if you have a problem that’s kind of internal thing like happiness or, or love, the way you’ve used success or the way you view yourself. These are internal belief structures that we have. There are internal ideas that our brain is processing. Um, when we try to use external things to solve these internal problems, it just doesn’t really work. It’s like a square peg in a round hole. It just doesn’t work. And, and our, our lives and our, and our upbringing have taught us to use external things, um, to find happiness. But ultimately they really don’t. And for me, I collected more things, thinking they’d make me happier. I built a bigger business thinking it would make me happier. Um, I tried to build a life with security. People think security’s a big driver. A big motivator is to feel secure. And, uh, I guess what external things that don’t make me feel secure? Just tell Kobi Bryant. I mean, they’re just tell Steve Jobs, you know, there is no such thing as security. It doesn’t exist. And so when we chase something that doesn’t exist, we’re of going to be led down a path that, well, it doesn’t really exist. So yeah, I learned the hard way that external things do not make me happy in a tickled law, a lot of pain to get to that point.

Brad (00:13:07):
Uh, I guess it starts with, um, as you say in the book, the, the basic mechanism is how we interpret the stimulus. And so what we, what we perceive to be important. Uh, and then we’re, we’re making all these judgements, which is one of your rules, not to judge. So I don’t know if we could jump in there with sort of the opening premise of The Imperative Habit and, uh, then we can wind into the steps.

Dave (00:13:36):
Well, you know, the, the main premise of the book, I think there’s two premises of the book. Number one, it’s gotta be a practice. I think you know, I’ve learned about your podcast. I love your podcast by the way, and I love your newsletters and you had a posting today, um, from Dr. Gray and it tells you to do things. Um, you just don’t learn something and then do it. You actually have to practice it. And not only do you have to practice it, but you have to have the power to make a choice to practice it. So what I hope to do with the seven steps of my book is number one, teach you how to have a practice. The number two teach you how to, how to have the power to make choices. If you can’t make the choice to follow the advice of Dr. Gray or you can’t make the choice to develop a practice to follow the teachings of Dr. Gray, you’re going to have a really hard time following Dr Gray’s advice.

Dave (00:14:37):
That’s the same with diet and exercise or love or relationships or even how to find internal, everlasting internal happiness. You’ve got to develop a practice and you’ve got to develop the power to make choices. And the seven habits are built around those two premise, those two premises and judgment is a big part of that. Now let’s talk about judgment for a second. Okay. Cause I think that was your initial question. Judgment needs one thing and that’s a standard to compare against. And the question is where does that standard come from? The standard for most of us comes from our upbringing. It comes from our programming, it comes from the life we lived. It comes from age zero to four of our brain learning and adopting through observation with alpha waves. And then it comes from beta waves from four to seven and then all of a sudden the rest of our life is set on a path based on the first seven years of our life and observation.

Dave (00:15:37):
And we’re programmed to, to learn how to live in the environment that we’re living in. And now we move around a lot. You know, we’re homo-sapiens of 2 million years of evolution that we didn’t move around a whole lot and now we endlessly move and we’re in different situations, but the mechanics of our body and our brain are still to be programmed based on the adaptive life of the situation that we’re put in. Now we move around and so we don’t have the same situations that we were, we were raised in, but that becomes the premise of our judgment. It becomes the comparison or standard that we create that we judge ourselves against and we’re basically judging ourselves against a standard that was developed by our parents, exposing us to it, and that provides us a zero value in our life. Zero value. If you want to judge yourself against something, judge yourself against what you want to be and say, Oh, I want to be a world-class sprinter. Okay, what a world class sprinters do? Let me go judge myself against that. They found a lot of success being world-class sprinters doing X, Y, Z. I let you go to that. Oh, I want to be the best surgeon in the world. Okay, what are the best surgeon in the world’s do? Let me analyze and assess that standard. Not the imaginary standard that we were, we were programmed into our brain. So judgment really doesn’t provide any value and it really prevents us from number one, cultivating the power to make choices.

Dave (00:17:01):
And uh, number two, it really prevents us from creating an effective practice because if we’re practicing judging against an imaginary standard, we’re not really practicing anything but judging ourselves against an imaginary standard.

Brad (00:17:16):
Yeah. That insight about getting the programming from a zero to seven, you and I are both fans of Dr. Bruce Lipton’s work Biology of Belief and he explains that from a scientific perspective that really, uh, we’re most of the time operating from this flawed subconscious programming that occurred in childhood when we were the open book the sponge and we soaked everything in and developed our notions of, uh, for example, the, uh, the, the parental relationship or the family relationship. So I guess the rest of life is basically a struggle to unwind that subconscious programming. Uh, you talk about conditioned response versus conscious response and maybe we could transition to that. And, uh, explain how people can kind of wake up to this because it’s a pretty heavy insight if you, if you don’t realize that you’re operating from flawed subconscious programming 93 to 98% of the time according to Dr Lipton and daily life. Uh, that’s pretty heavy. You might, you might think you’re conscious, but, uh, we’re, we’ve got a long way to go it seems,

Dave (00:18:16):
No, I think we do, you know, um, the, the, the subtitle, the subtitle of the book is Seven Non-spiritual Practices Towards Spiritual Behavior and it’s called that. And also let me preface by saying this is an entry level book, an entry level spiritual book, right? Mmm. I was not spiritual before I found this path. And I think the word spirituality might, might scare some people off or it might inspire some people, I don’t know. But I think everyone’s definition of spirituality is obviously based on their programming. So let me kind of explain what it means to me cause it, it’s kind of feeds into the, the answer to your question about a reactive response compared to a conscious response. To me, spirituality is as simple as talking about athletics. Um, you had this biology of your body. You have this biological makeup that produces chemicals and sends signals to your brain.

Dave (00:19:08):
And if you’re running or exercising and you’re in your biology has this chain reaction of responses like lactic acid. It sends these signals to your brain. Your brain says, Hey, you know, we’re kinda tired. The, the, the senses in signals are that we’re tired and your mind then says, you know, I’m working out. I want to get better. I’m going to have to overcome this biological response. To me that’s a spiritual response. Okay. To me that’s a spiritual behavior. I call it spiritual behavior. And I see the only reason to be spiritual is to use it for practical purposes. And certainly overriding a biological response of lactic acid is a spiritual behavior for a practical purpose. I’m going to become a better runner. You know, this is great. I’m using this higher level of power over biology, over a biological response. And a lot of athletes like yourself have found a lot of success with that spiritual behavior.

Dave (00:20:04):
Okay. So fear is it biological response, self doubt, um, self esteem, anxiety, depression, stress. These are all biological responses to senses in our brain stimulus and response to creative biological pattern. So if we have programming, I call it a set point in my book and the programming of the set point is driving, you know, fast, let’s say 80 miles per hour on the freeway is dangerous. That programming creates a response of fear. Now we can reprogram that by taking the class and race car driving and changing a new, a new set point for what driving fast means. And now if we drive fast after this training or practice, our brain no longer produces that chemical of fear. And so what we need to do is understand what is a biological response. Just like lactic acid. The brain produces chemicals and it produces chemicals from a stimulus and a response.

Dave (00:21:09):
And we either change the way we interpret the stimulus or change the set point of the comparison for the response, but we have to do one or the other to change the output of the emotional chemical. And to me assessing this a biological process as a spiritual behavior and we can use it in so many powerful ways and the book kind of gives a practice on how to change the stimulus and how to change the set point in the seven habits are designed to change these two things; to change the corresponding emotional output. So it happens automatically

Brad (00:21:43):
with a lot of practice.

Dave (00:21:45):
You need practice. Absolutely. Yeah.

Brad (00:21:47):
I like that distinction. There was a passage in the book where you described how you would always pull these inspirational quotes and collect them and get excited about them and share with your friends in the morning like, Hey, uh, don’t, uh, don’t, don’t attach your self esteem to the outcome. This is great. I’m going to write this on a sticky note on my desk and then like at 4:00 PM the same afternoon, you forgotten about that and you’re all, you’re all worked up with a reactive response. I think so many of us can relate to that, where we have these great intentions. We’re going to change our diet, transform our fitness, head over to the gym every day at six in the morning, and then things start to unwind. And there’s some missing link there to where, uh, we have the awareness, we have the knowledge. If you take a specific example like diet, we’re not supposed to eat sugar and not supposed to eat junk and fast food. And yet, uh, if we’re, if we’re not able to eradicate that and move on to the promised land, obviously there’s a sticking point. There’s a block there. So,

Dave (00:22:41):
well, why do you think that is? After I explain that to you, why do you think we run to sugar?

Brad (00:22:46):
Well, shoot, that’s the flooding of the dopamine pathway. Uh, we have plenty of, uh, commentary about that from, um, my, my show talking about The Hacking of the American mind, dr Lustig’s book. But, uh,

Dave (00:22:58):
and so why is that? It’s a biological response to biological response or feeling good. We’re addicted to the dopamine. It’s a biological urge to say, I need this. I want to feel good. I want to feel great. This is part of it. I need an external thing to feel good and that’s, and if you can’t have the power to make a choice over these biological proclivities, then then you’re going to have less, less levels of success.

Brad (00:23:25):
It’s an addiction.

Dave (00:23:25):
Absolutely. It’s addiction to feeling good. So if you feel good without sugar, you feel good because you’re not stressed. Well, let me back up. One of the things about happening as we talk about in the book is that you can’t go search for happiness. You can’t eat sugar and feel happy. You go to a football game and with your friends and find happiness. I mean, you can. It does. It creates an external thing for it’s happiness, right? Sugar produces dopamine. It’s an external thing. Creating a chemical, going to a football game with your friends is an external thing. It produces dopamine and you feel good. Okay. In both situations, when those external things end, what happened to the release of dopamine? It ends, right? So what do we do? Right? We remove all of the things that make us feel unhappy and what’s left? The state of being of happiness. See the difference between eating sugar or going to a football game with your friends. External things are creating the emotion of happiness. Just like we talked about. The emotion of fear is a chemical response to stimulus and response or stimulus in our brain, right? Brain’s creating the chemical of fear or your low self esteem or depression, even our body does the same thing with happiness and even love.

Dave (00:24:53):
You know, oxytocin and some of these chemicals, the love drugs that these hormones, our bodies secrete. And in fact, when we think we’re in love, our body’s also secreting dopamine. Different parts of our brain. And so when we do this, we become addicted to the chemical, not addicted to the external thing. Our programming tells us the external thing is pleasurable. Our programming tells us stimulus and response produces dopamine. Some people like football games, some people like soccer, some people like ballet. I don’t know what they’ve been exposed to. And in my book, I use the example of a red room with a child. If you’re exposed to something a lot, you may love it or hate it later in life because you’ve been programmed to be around it. It’s going to affect your life. If you’re run ballet your whole life, you may love it.

Dave (00:25:37):
You may hate it. Okay, look at a look. Shanahan, you know Kyle Shanahan to come into football. I’ll coach his dad was a football coach. He loves it. He learned it, he absorbed it. He probably wouldn’t be that guy if he was exposed to cooking or something. I don’t know. Not to judge any one over the other. Mmm. But the point is, you have to be able to practice how you deal with these stimuluses and you have to be able to have a biological override with spirituality. And when you remove all of the things, you just completely remove unhappiness. You remove stress, your move worry, you remove self-doubt, you remove all of these things, and then you’re left with a state of being. That’s pure happiness. It’s not an emotion from dopamine. It’s pure internal, everlasting happiness. As a state of being and now sugar becomes a choice. Because when dopamine is injected, it actually doesn’t have as much potency cause you’re already at an elevated level of happiness.

Dave (00:26:42):
That’s state of being. It just doesn’t affect you as much. It’s the best way I can explain it in a short period of time.

Brad (00:26:50):
Yeah. I think the sticking point is, uh, to remove things that make us unhappy. These sometimes are the things that we love to pursue because they give us that instant gratification, pleasure, dopamine hit. And when everything goes perfectly well and we’re excelling in our career and have a wonderful relationship, all these things are great parts of life, but it’s when we don’t get what we want, which is becoming increasingly more common, we have the disease condition of FOMO that pervades modern society, even even affluent society. So I think that’s the point that we have to, uh, arrive at. And, you know, we spent hours talking through this and I was playing devil’s advocate at times when you’re telling me not to be attached to the outcome of, for example, uh, writing a book and working really hard and then wanting to see it become on the bestseller list or even wanting a relationship to work and being of feeling attached to, Oh, hi, I just got married last year. So, you know, I’m kind of attached in that sense that society thinks, but this concept of letting go and continuing to let go when we’ve been programmed a whole life to attach, attach our self esteem to the outcome of what we’re doing, uh, feel proud of ourselves for getting that law degree and passing the bar exam. All those things are a little bit nuanced.

Dave (00:28:08):
Well, you know, what’s interesting about attachment is it, it really is a big part of, of ’em being spiritual and again, spiritual, my definition. Mmm. I think I asked you this question once. Did you ever run a race, and right before you started that race, did you say to yourself, I’m not even going to enter this face if I’m not guaranteed to win?

Brad (00:28:31):
Not once.

Dave (00:28:32):
Okay. And why? Because you love the sport. You love what you’re doing, you enjoyed it. The outcome didn’t matter, right? The attachment to the outcome didn’t prevent you from racing. Now what’s interesting about attachment is Buddha and Patajanli, author of the book, The Sutras are, are some of the earliest teachings that I’ve found. The talks about non attachment and we’re talking, you know, 500 BC. Non-attachment as a means to love and non attachment to a means of loving what you’re about to do has been out there for a long time. These are not new concepts. And just a conversation we’re having about your racing career, very elementary proves that love of the journey, that love of the activity is much, much more powerful than the outcome your love. Mmm is inside of you. What you love and enjoy is inside of you. And when you find someone to marry, you’re giving that gift to them. Um, if you’re attached to them, then you’re attached to the feeling of this dopamine. You’re back to being an addict again

Dave (00:29:51):
and you’re attached to the security that you think this relationship provides you and then as no longer a choice, then the relationship isn’t a choice. The relationship is an addiction of what the relationship can do for you. Same thing with your sport. The sport is no longer a choice. It’s what you think the sport can do for you. And there’s a very, very powerful distinction between those two. Um, the seven habits do create a situation of non attachment. When you do follow the seven habits, you really do begin to unattach and accept and find love in the journey. Find love that comes innately, organically or intuitively without dopamine or without chemical centers. And again, we’re dividing the biology of your body, the biology of your existence to the spiritual aspect of your existence, the intuition, the love, the appreciation of things that you truly enjoy side of your, of your being.

Brad (00:30:54):
So Dave, do we still have permission to be a highly competitive driven person that wants to achieve goals and have these great things and maybe even material possessions and things that we think are going to bring us security. But you pointed out that there’s really no such thing, but is there some place where we can exist where we have this enlightened mindset but we’re not going to just lie down like a doormat and let everyone else pass us over for the promotion and, and kind of figure out how to thread that needle.

Dave (00:31:25):
God, that’s a great question. That kind of goes back to when we started talking about, um, when you mentioned about not getting that promotion. Um, well let me ask you again, thinking about your racing career, Did it, did it motivate you more or less thinking that you would win or not win or getting first place? Where did that motivate you? Just because you love the sport?

Brad (00:31:48):
It’s a very tricky thing there. Uh, and I think one of the problems is what we see around us in society are people who are materially successful and setting this example for all of us to, uh, feel inferior towards the social media people with the more followers, the billionaires with their massive conspicuous consumption and they’re succeeding and they might be assholes and very poorly adjusted. And this is quite true because we see the celebrity train wrecks left and right every single day. Someone’s misbehaving who has it all and is highly successful. So back to the, the example you asked me, um, you know, it was, it was really grueling and really challenging to, to put in that level of physical work to try to compete and try to win a race. So I had to be driven by certain, uh, an external, you know, ego demands and uh, chances for material success and all those things.

Brad (00:32:44):
But I realized, and that’s why the name of my podcast is get over yourself, is when I could temper those and just kind of use those to my advantage, but not be consumed by them. Then I was in that most powerful position of, you know, coming from a place of pure love and joy for the activity, the process and win or lose. I could accept that and wake up the next day and realize that I’d learned a valuable lesson even if I got my ass kicked. Uh, and that’s a really difficult place to remain in because you’re constantly getting pulled out of it and sucked out of it by sponsors who are asking you what place you took so they can decide whether they’re going to pay you more and all those kinds of things that we, we keep getting, you know, bumped up against when we’re trying to, uh, live this enlightened journey through life.

Dave (00:33:28):
Well, yeah, I think we’re, we’re, we’re seeing a lot of things in this strain a little bit from our initial question and let me try to address some of those. Um, okay. The people that find sustainability in excellence are the ones who do it because they love it. Um, the people who do things for reward now, the human, the human, the homosapien, the mechanics of our body, the chemical that our brain releases for fear is actually the same chemical that was released a hundred thousand years ago running from a tiger survival. Okay. Um, so a hundred thousand years ago, you know, wooly mammoth comms where saber tooth tiger comes and we’re running for survival. The chemical in our brain then is the same chemical that it is in our brain now for not winning a race. Um, for thinking that I need to win races to be important. Now what we consider as survivability today is I’m accepted.

Dave (00:34:29):
I have money, I’m important. People love me. I’m handsome or I’m pretty, I have money, I’m secure. These Mmm imagined realities that we’ve come up with as a definition of survivability is back to that judgment of a standard again. Oh, survival looks like this. A success looks like this. Acceptance looks like this. Now to you. You know, or somebody else. If I win races and I get sponsors and I make money, then I’m, I’m secure and people like me and I get more sponsors. That is survivability and when you get the signal that you might not have those things when you’re attached to those things and you might lose those things, the same chemicals in your brain begin to start firing of fear on my good enough. It’s survivability and it becomes almost primal and we’re all on this scale. Somewhere on the scale of where the set point kicks in that I’m not surviving and I’m going to create fear and to respond to that fear you might get motivated, motivated to go reach an imaginary standard of achievement.

Dave (00:35:43):
Now what are the things we talked about in the very beginning of the conversation is that everything is presented to you as a form of getting more conscious. So if you begin losing races and feeling really crappy about yourself, that’s really not up to you. Now I know you’ve probably thought I need to run harder or race harder, but actually somebody was maybe just better than you. It’s really not up to you. Some person is taller and whatever and worked harder and has more talent and maybe they are, they are better. And so the loss wasn’t actually up to you. It’s not up to us when we don’t get that promotion at work and yet we get so hurt by it and we and we get hurt by it because we’re losing sponsors or losing money and we’re not as accepted and we don’t have as much security.

Dave (00:36:31):
And this pursuit of this imaginary judgment against this imaginary standard now kicks in when in fact it should be something for us to recognize that we can become more conscious. We can say, wait a minute, maybe racing isn’t for me. I’m kind of losing a lot and I’m creating a lot of negativity, not getting these sponsors and I feel like shit because I’m not getting sponsors. I’m not building security and these guys are beating me. Maybe it’s time to change what I’m doing. I’ve got a great idea. I’m going to become a Guinness world record holder in speed golf. And by the way, I liked that more anyway. I mean that’s a moment in your life that that created consciousness in you that you responded to. You chose something new because of the information that’s being presented to you. Intimately attached to that outcome might’ve produced a decision to change what you’re doing longer than it should have.

Dave (00:37:24):
Maybe you could have made the decision sooner. I don’t know all the specifics about when you changed your life, but certainly your biology might have hijacked that decision making process. Your biology of feeling comfortable and secure again, which isn’t, isn’t real delusion you feel secure, but your biology is saying, I’m doing good enough racing to have enough sponsors to feel secure if feel good about myself and and make enough money maybe prevented you from actually seeing the signs of, wow, there are a lot of really great racers that are going to take over my career and I’m not going to have a career here in a couple more years. Maybe I should find something different. So everything’s presented for us for a reason of becoming more conscious. And our ability to differentiate between biological urges and spiritual desires becomes that spiritual behavior for practical purposes. Finding that division, finding that robust line helps us make decisions based on logic and love and not fear and biological proclivities.

Brad (00:38:25):
Yeah, I think the, the fear, the stress hormones are, uh, taking center stage in most of our lives and pervading everything, including relationship dynamics, parenting. We see all the problems with, uh, the helicopter parenting, trying to overly orchestrate the kid’s life so they don’t fail. And it seems like if we could just escape that for a moment, um, you’re first, I’m going to transition now into the first habit cause it’s, it comes up, you know, as in live in acceptance, which is so tough, but that’s the opening here. So, uh, we have, uh, the, the, the seven habits count them and we’ll try to go through each one. Uh, but that first starting point of, accept, and then the, the, the subtitles going through the chapter except to everything. Let’s talk about that man. How do we accept everything?

Dave (00:39:16):
Uh, well, well I, I definitely write in the book how to practice accepting everything cause it does take practice. You don’t just, um, swallow giant pills of misery, um, easily. Um, so a couple of things happen when you practice acceptance. Number one, logically you, you want to recognize this because, well, it already happened. So accept what already happened. Um, but, but accept everything also in the terms that people have their own points of view. I always say one of the first Mmm. Behaviors of spiritual behavior is to accept that everybody has a different form of reality. And everybody has a different opinion about things. It’s a spiritual behavior to grant people their views. Because as a biological unit, we want to fight people over their views and disagree with their views and, and disagree with their opinions and, and share our opinions. Spend 10 minutes on Facebook listening to people talk about politics. It is where you see people instantly not having spiritual behavior and wanting to fight other people’s views. So when I say accept everything, I mean everything except everything.

Brad (00:40:27):
But what if those people are wrong, Dave?

Dave (00:40:29):
Well, no, they’re not wrong. They’re just positions that I don’t agree with. There is, there really isn’t a right or wrong. It’s just there are, there are just situations that I don’t personally agree with. Um, not the things that I’ve learned. They can have that life. You’re welcome to. I just don’t want that life. And so it’s not wrong. It’s just not, not the life that I want to live. So accepting creates number one, it’ll turn the chatter down in your mind, the chatter that causes you to resist what’s already happened. Like people who’ve been wronged,. They sometimes carry this, this stigma or grudge for a long period of time. And when you don’t accept it, that grudge or resistance really create, it’s basically a giant shard of light in your brain that takes energy constantly and it always is distracting you if you were upset because you, you know, had an accident as a child and maybe you’re paraplegic or you are born blind or you, you, you lost your parents or they got divorced.

Dave (00:41:36):
As long as you resist what’s already happened in the past, that’s going to be stuck in your head. Now I understand that’s a difficult thing to say to let it go into accept it. And let me tell you why it became comfortable for me to do that. Granted, it took many times stay on top of a mountain crying. How fucked up my life was to accept my life. But I use Viktor Frankl as a great example because people will say, Oh, you don’t know what it’s like. I, my mom died when I was a kid. Great. Okay. Viktor Frankl was a psychologist and Auschwitz that basically was ripped from his family and put into a prison camp. Uh, Auschwitz, a World War II, Mmm. German prison camp for no reason and was beaten and starved and diseased and frozen and lost everything, every possession. His family, his friends died in front of him constantly.

Dave (00:42:28):
And I always say, whatever happened to you, it isn’t worse than his, so let’s learn from him. So every time I was like feeling sorry for myself and not getting over myself. Uh, as you would say, I would say Holy shit, like he had it way worse than I ever could. I got accept this, I gotta accept that I’m going to lose some money. I got to accept I’m getting a divorce. I have to accept that this is where I am. I have to accept that I made a lot of bad choices in my life. I need to accept, I said and did horrible things at different times of my life. I’m not proud of. The longer I resist those things, stick in my brain and take energy away from focus these, these traumas, these situations that stuck in my head, how I was wronged and how I should have gotten this project or I should have made this extra money or why am I, my wife did this to me.

Dave (00:43:23):
The longer I held on to them, the more energy it took from the moment to be focused on what I really wanted to achieve. And until I let go of those things and literally accepted them, they just haunted me and took, took things away from me.

Brad (00:43:38):
Why do we feel the need to hold on to these things? It’s, it’s so common that we need to hold on to that grudge so that it’ll drive us to, uh, succeed more next time.

Dave (00:43:51):
Well, um, it’s a biological response to survive.

Brad (00:43:54):
Hmm.

Dave (00:43:55):
Okay. And believe it or not. Well, let me ask you, have you ever touched a hot stove before? I

Brad (00:44:01):
I believe I have.

Dave (00:44:03):
Okay. How many times? Probably once. Huh? Okay. So you learned that lesson. Do you relive the pain of that moment? I mean, does it actually stick and now you just learn the lesson? You learned it, you know, it. Now we learn these lessons, but our brain actually wants us to survive that. The algorithm or mechanism in the biology of our body is to survive. So when your body releases lactic acid, it’s to survive. When your body releases, uh, the emotions of fear, it’s to survive. It’s to show you and teach you what places bring you happiness and what places bring you, um, you know, the dissatisfaction. And as for the sole purpose of survivability, the chemicals that we’ve used for a million years as homo-sapiens or into conditions today that actually should inspire these emotions. Things like I was, I was dumped, right? Someone left me and I feel rejected and a scoring them and they cheated on me and I can’t believe it. These are emotions that are being attached to lessons that our biology is learning, that we’re holding on to, to think we actually haven’t learned that lesson.

Dave (00:45:18):
It, it, um, gives us a sell a sense of satisfaction to be better then the way our spouse treated us by cheating on us. We find pleasure in being better than the spouse and holding onto that emotion that I was robbed and it actually doesn’t serve us any value. We need to let go and accept to get into a place of performance and success. Not a place of being distracted and weighting us down. And, and I think Eckart Tolle says this so well, he wrote a whole book on Being Present. I have it as one habit. It truly is a remarkable and very powerful thing to do that the past has no power over the present. You’ve learned your lesson, not touching a hot stove. Someone else may have learned the lesson that this spouse is, it has a potential to cheat. So let’s stay away from them. We don’t need to relive the emotion or the pain that it caused. Just learn the fucking lesson and move on.

Brad (00:46:13):
Right, right. So the acceptance of everything you’ve done up to this point is okay, just like you processed me at the 1440 retreat and you, you said we were having lunch and you said, well, uh, what, uh, whatever I was blabbing about, you said, well, when have you ever really failed in your life? And you caught me off guard there because I was about to mention, uh, the race that I lost. And, and this happened and that happened. And, uh, I had this, uh, you know, I was terminated from this job and this relationship didn’t make it. Uh, but of course those are all really stepping stones to the point where I am today, which I want to live in total acceptance of. And we learned so much from those failures in those struggles unless we hold on to them and they continue to be a source of stress for evermore.

Dave (00:47:03):
Yeah. You know, I had to tell you, first of all, you said the same. It was, I mean, you are a very spiritual person. Um, athletics in certainly athletic achievement

Brad (00:47:12):
From behind on the run course, even though my legs are sore, that makes me spiritual. Congratulations.

Dave (00:47:18):
Well, I think more than that, I think making choices for what you eat. I think making choices for cold plunging is basically putting yourself in a situation of harm or pain, right? Choosing over biology to me is a spiritual behavior. And people that actually can have that power in winter area of their lives can certainly use it in another area of our lives as well. And I think you are remarkably spiritual. Now. I want to get to is that I think all of our listeners and people that read my book and certainly books that I read, they all meant something different at different times. I read them and everyone’s going to walk away from this conversation getting something different out of it because truly our context in our brain, our programming, what we know is going to filter or alter or change our comprehension.

Dave (00:48:12):
And when you become someone that practices acceptance and you actually begin to find some success in acknowledging acceptance. Um, and some of my seven habits overlap because one aspect of acceptance truly is being present and one of my habits is being present, but they’re kind of the same thing. Um, when you truly do, except your context is going to change and your comprehension for all future information will change as well. So these are things we have to practice and find movement on to create new context and new levels of comprehension. And I think that’s a really powerful thing. And I see you like your brain clicking in real time with information and you know you, you have a great guest on your show and you listen to all this wonderful information from truly an expert. And then I see you applying it to your life because you do have the power to apply it and you do have power over your biology to go do these things.

Dave (00:49:14):
And that’s where we really, really derive power from is making choices. And I love, again, I said there’s earlier, I love a lot of your podcasts because there’s so much great information from experts, but it’s only a good information from experts if I can follow it, if I actually can make a choice to follow it and realizing when thing I need to have, make one choice before I make the choice to have, to have the power to follow it. And that is a choice to believe it. We actually have to have the power of choice to choose what we believe in. If you don’t choose what you believe in, then you’re believing what your programming is. You’re believing what your parents told you, you’re believing things. You don’t even know how you believe them. You just believe them because you’re influenced by them. But the power of choice is the power to choose what you believe in first and then the power of choice to follow it.

Brad (00:50:05):
Oh, that’s nice. So we should be very careful when we make those purchases, when we buy into something, take our time, reason with the message, and then go, okay, I’m in, I’m going to stop eating grains and sugars, but not be cavalier about going through with these, you know, flimsy commitments and so forth. But once that, once that choice is made, um, then you can change it. Right.

Dave (00:50:29):
And change your mind.

Brad (00:50:30):
Yeah.

Dave (00:50:30):
I mean, I think for me, um, I didn’t know what I believed anymore. I was so low. I, um, I didn’t know what I believed. I didn’t know what the truth was. I didn’t know where reality lied. I didn’t know why I failed so miserably. I didn’t know why I was so happy. I didn’t know why so many bad things were happening to me. And that was kind of a tough, very confusing phase. But I did choose one belief and the belief that I chose to get behind is that everything will be okay.

Dave (00:51:04):
That everything actually is happening to me for my benefit. And I read about this habit. Seven is faith. And I had the faith. And I look at faith and I talk about the book. Mmm. Faith is nondenominational. It can be religious if you want to. It doesn’t have to be religious. But if faith is believing in something, um, without actually seeing or experiencing it. And I chose to believe in something without ever having felt it or seen it. And that was the belief that everything that’s happening to me is happening to my benefit and happening for a reason. And I will be okay. I’m not going to go die. I’m not going to go have a piano fall from the sky and crushed me. I’m not going to go away. And I believe that. I believe that with faith. I believe that so wholeheartedly that as I began to experiment with what I believed in, uh, I could change my mind if I wanted to and what I believed in, uh, with these complicated topics that I was reading about, I could change my mind.

Dave (00:52:12):
You can change any belief at any time for any reason. In fact, it’s advisable to do that. It’s not advisable to believe something and not even know where you got it from. You know, and there’s that great quote by Henry Ford, whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right. You can use that with everything. Whether you think it’s hard or whether you think it’s easy. You’re right. It’s just anything where you think it’s good or whether you think it’s bad. You’re right. Even Socrates called viewing things as good or viewing things as bad as either a delusion or an attachment to the outcome. I mean, these are people that have been around for a long time. We’re just not listening. And more importantly, we’re just not practicing. Our biology takes us away with beliefs and ideas and, and actions and, and leaving our life.

Dave (00:53:01):
And yet we have to stop and ask ourselves, what do we believe first? And then if it’s not working for us, change it. Change your mind.

Brad (00:53:10):
and hit habit. Number two, do not fear the outcome.

Dave (00:53:15):
Uh, yeah, absolutely. Um, outcomes are pretty much everything. A lot of the reasons why we make up little white lies to people is we’re afraid of the outcome. We’re afraid of what they might think of us. Now, what people think of us, I call a currency amongst valuation. When people like us, we feel good. We’re valuable, right? When people don’t like us, we feel badly about ourselves and we have vulnerability. And so laws, the reasons why we’re afraid to tell people the complete honest, stark truth is because we’re afraid of the outcome of what they might think of us. Now. Um, I, uh, there’s a guy I work with, I, I um, saw at a Christmas party who quit smoking cause he had a stroke.

Dave (00:54:03):
And I said, Oh my God, Daniel, it’s so great. You quit smoking. He says, yeah, I almost had a stroke. I almost died. And smoking was a big part of that. So I quit. Oh my God, I’m so great. That’s fantastic. So I see this guy about six months later and he goes, I see him smoking. I said, Daniel, I thought you quit smoking. And he said, uh, well yeah, I did. You know, I, I, I did. But then my mom got really, really sick and she went into the hospital and I was so stressed out and worried about her that I just couldn’t handle the stress. So I started smoking again to feel better and, and so here I am and I said, I’m so sorry about your mom. Mmm, I’m so sorry. Um, did she pass? Oh no, no, she’s fine. She made a full recovery.

Dave (00:54:48):
So here is a guy making a present moment decision to feel comfortable about a presumed future outcome. Right? He was trying, he was afraid of the outcome. So made a current decision based on the fear of the outcome. And believe it or not, your psyche is afraid of being afraid. And so he used smoking to actually combat the fear. His body said, we don’t want to even feel miserable. Let’s feel better. Let’s go find a way to feel better because we’re afraid of being afraid. So let’s go smoke. That’ll make us feel better. And it was a current moment decision, purely wrapped in the biology of the fear of fear. And it was a decision made on a fear of an outcome that actually didn’t even happen. And we do that a lot. When we fear the outcome and make a decision about a presumed outcome, we’re actually betraying ourselves by not living out our true desire or our true goal or our true objectives by trying to keep the peace or keep the peace of a possible outcome.

Dave (00:55:58):
I’m not going to tell my significant other X, Y, Z cause I don’t want them to get upset. I don’t want to tip the Apple cart of this relationship. I’m late, but, but my friend is an understand that I’m late. So I’ll say I had to get gas or my cell phone died and I had to go back and get it or pick up my, my son from, from school late and he wasn’t ready. We tell these little white lies to keep the peace when we really don’t have to at all. We can say, I’m sorry I’m late, was late. I mean, my book doesn’t talk a lot about energy and and vibrational energy, but the difference between, Hey, I had to pick up my son from school late.

Dave (00:56:37):
It’s very different from I’m late. Your party, I’m sorry. The energy behind that, the energy behind the intentioned one is dishonest and one is honest. I’m just late. I’m really sorry. I hope you’re not upset versus it’s not my fault. It was my kid’s fault. I had to pick her up from school and they weren’t there and had to go find them on the playground and I’m so sorry in evaluation and it’s not my fault. The energetic signature behind those two intentions are very, very different. And yet the situation is the same acceptance that we’re late and not being afraid of the outcome of what our friend might think of us for being late doesn’t really matter and we can’t control what they’re going to think anyway. They’re going to think whatever they want to think no matter what.

Brad (00:57:17):
Right. I remember doing this a training seminar and it happened that uh, my chronic lateness was, uh, something that was brought to the attention of the facilitator. So I was processed on that thing throughout the weekend cause we had to keep coming back from our break at 9 :15 and I was 9:17. Everyone was already there. And so, uh, I was trained to use the phrase, Hey, sorry I’m late to your party. I didn’t care enough about you to be on time, which is sort of the truth. Right? And so when you put it in that context of raw honesty rather than, Oh yeah, I had to do this, I had to do that. The traffic was terrible. Now you can’t lie about traffic cause everyone can pick up their app and look at the red lines. That was a great one in the old days. Yeah. But just putting it out there and realizing that, but not fearing the outcome. It seems like the stakes escalates so high when whatever, when I, I judge this to be super important. I’m either going to get, uh, the, the job or I’m not and I might feel devastated if I don’t get it or if the relationship means so much to me that I do fear the outcome because I don’t want to, uh, you know, get my boyfriend mad at me and then he’s going to dump me. That kind of thing.

Dave (00:58:29):
Well, first of all, the outcome actually isn’t up to you. I know you think it’s up to you, but it’s, it’s really not. Um, and that’s a very complicated statement in its own. And, and before I get into explaining that, um, if you’re into something because you’re attached, you’re into an outcome because it’s attached to your motivation is definitely different. Your motivations back to being biological. And secondly, the reason why you’re concerned about the outcome is because you think the result of the outcome that you think is either bad or good. Um, you say, Oh, I need this job because it’s really important for money.

Dave (00:59:08):
Uh, I may have to leave my, my apartment because I can’t afford the rent and I need this outcome cause this outcome’s going to prevent so many bad things from happening. Okay. So I lost my house. I think I built, yeah, it’s like my dream house. I built it from the ground up and um, it really wasn’t up to me that I lost it and well it was up to me is what I learned from it. And when I learned from it was non-attachment. And I think the thought of me losing it being bad is what created so much negative energy, actually losing created wonderful insights and wonderful lessons and wonderful abilities to now learn and grow and change. And actually it was, it had to happen. It wasn’t up to me and it had to happen. And so if I hold on to not accepting it and talking to all of the things that went wrong on why it shouldn’t have happened or just plain scenario is out in my brain, takes up tons of mental capacity.

Dave (01:00:12):
It’s kind of like turning on too many apps on your phone. You don’t have any more mental capacity to focus. And the thing about the result of an outcome that we think is bad, actually maybe it’s good, maybe you really shouldn’t move out of that apartment. Maybe you should reassess your career goals. Maybe you should reassessed your life. Maybe you should downsize and then build back up something different. So these are actually lessons that do have value saying I need this job to live in. This apartment is being attached to two things. The outcome of this job and attached to this apartment when in fact maybe it isn’t even right for you. We always judge what these things are. Just because you lose that apartment, it doesn’t mean you can’t get something better in the future. Cause I lost my house, doesn’t mean I can’t build another one.

Dave (01:01:00):
It means right now I can’t, but that doesn’t mean I can’t in the future. And I’m already in the process of designing a new house to build. So being upset about it, it doesn’t, it’s like the smoking situation. We predict an outcome is bad and then it may not even happen. I mean, made these choices for an outcome. We really can’t predict. Um, go after the job you love. Go after the job you really, really enjoy. And if it doesn’t give you as much money, then maybe you have to readjust what you have to make it work. And that doesn’t happen in one year. It could take three years. I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but if you truly love it, you’re going to find success in it. Monetary and, and internal as well. It’s a double edge success to doing things that you love.

Brad (01:01:45):
So along the way, I remember challenging you on this during our eight hour podcast slash visit. Uh, let’s say I’m in the job that I love and I’m really passionate about it and we’re all working toward a common goal. And I’ll use your example because now you’re overseeing the construction of these incredible multimillion dollar estates in the Silicon Valley. Have a lot of pressure, a lot of moving parts, and you’re not attached to the outcome. You’re living your Dave Rossi imperative habit, but at the same time, uh, you related some great examples of a real shit in life getting in, you know, getting into the mix here. Uh, the cabinet maker is two weeks delayed on his project. Now I don’t want yet. So we don’t want Dave Rossi to be attached to the outcome. But then you have this face to face meeting. How do you handle it where you can handle, uh, challenges and, uh, roadblocks with grace as you proceed toward your goal and your dreams?

Dave (01:02:41):
Well, you know, certainly, Mmm. My other job, my day job in building a custom homes in the construction industry is fraught with all kinds of conflict, conflicted situations, adversarial relationships, and, and, um, lots of confusion and lack of, of uniformed context for equal comprehension. Um, you know, one of the things that’s important to do is give bad news. Uh, and I, I don’t want to call it, I’m calling it bad news for, for representational purposes. It’s just news, right? Um, people call it bad news because people are going to get upset and you have to be able to deliver information without calling it good or bad, but just deliver it because it’s, it’s information and people plan their lives around information. So a project that I was on where the a cabinet maker was two months late and the client’s planning to move into their house, um, isn’t a situation that I can actually change.

Dave (01:03:41):
It’s a situation that happened. I’m being upset about it. Um, doesn’t really help it. Deciding how to respond to it, helps it. Um, giving the cabinet maker kind of a pass and showing appreciation for his ability to get back on track and being grateful for his attention to get back on track is going to be a much more powerful than me. Literally throwing darts at him every single day and throwing jabs at him every single day. I can’t put countertops in because the cabinets aren’t here. I need to find a path to get closer to what I want, not farther away. And in my book, I have this checklist and I use this checklist all the time. And the checklist basically kind of goes like this except everything for for what it is, I have to accept that he’s two months behind. The emotion of not accepting that that is not going to be helpful.

Dave (01:04:34):
Okay? I need to not judge them or me. I need to not judge why it happened. It happened. Okay. Acceptance and non-judgment. Cause if I judge, I might be angry. If I judge, I might add emotion, I might add anger. Okay. Um, I’m going to not judge myself on how I, how I’m going to react or how I feel or what I need when I need is what I need. I need this done. I don’t need a judge why I need it done. I know I need it done. So I’m going to accept, I’m not going to judge how it happened with him. I’m not going to judge why I need it, why I need it done as well. Okay. Um, I’m going to respond with loving compassion in a manner that gets me closer to what want. Okay, that’s difficult. Compassion isn’t rolling over. Compassion means I accept.

Dave (01:05:24):
I understand. I accept the position that he’s in and I’m going to give him kindness and love and compassion and say the things that I need to say get closer to my goals. I don’t have to be an asshole to respond that he’s two months late. I don’t have to be a jerk. I don’t have to chastise him. I can deliver the messages that I need to deliver without emotion to this individual, and that’s exactly what I did and I’m constantly challenged with this all the time. Again, it’s a practice. It’s not like, Oh, Hey, I’m super conscious and I live this life and I recognize,

Brad (01:06:03):
Hey, it’s the cabinet maker. Hey, how was your weekend?

Dave (01:06:07):
It’s not quite like that. It’s, Hey, I’m so thankful that you’re so busy that you’re, you’re busy. I understand you’re busy and I understand my cabinets are two months late, but I need to make some decisions on what to do. What can you do? What are your abilities? How can I help you solve this problem? I want to build a relationship with you for the longterm, but we have his problem that we’re both stuck with. And we could have come clean two months earlier, hand going to be late, but he was kind of stringing me along. I don’t have to get mad that he was potentially dishonest and strung me along. I have to now say, great, I have this problem. You’re two months late and I need these cabinets done. I love Stephen Covey, Seven Habits for Highly Effective People. It’s a win, win or no deal. Hey cabinet maker, what can you do for me? This is what I need or this is what you can do that’s not going to work. Let’s come up with something else together. What can I help you to get something better for me?

Dave (01:07:02):
I need more. What can we do? Well? What can I help you with? Oh, you want to do X, Y, Z. That doesn’t work either. I need more. How can I help you get more? I’m kind of thinking I need this. Okay, now we’re both focused on the solution. Not how this happened, not insults and anger towards what’s happened. Did you see what I’m saying? We would vote are now working together effectively on a solution not fighting over and he tried blaming. Well, you guys may change is the architect made changes and said, look, I understand. Aye, let’s find a solution going forward. I don’t really want it tit for tat. You know what I mean? If I have all kinds of reasons of what the architect did change and it doesn’t take two months, let’s not go there. I don’t even need to say that. Great. You think the arc I may maintain it is great. Let’s just find a solution.

Brad (01:07:56):
Yeah. I acknowledge your struggle.

Dave (01:07:58):
Right? Let’s move forward. Let’s go to solution. Yeah. Right, right.

Brad (01:08:02):
Speaking of that quote, and you did a great job describing this, I think in person when I once again challenged you back with, uh, you know what, if you’re in a business dealing that feels, uh, it manipulative, you’re dealing with the sleazeball, uh, you’re trying to use the Dave Rossi Seven Habits and you made the important point that you don’t have to, you can choose out of these relationships that aren’t working for you, that, that don’t align perfectly with you and you and your dream for how to live your life, including a love relationship or whatever else that’s super, you know, super high stakes. Uh, there’s a point where it seems like we have to put deal-breakers in so that we can maintain our own mental health and our own spirituality.

Dave (01:08:45):
Well, deal breakers are really only deal breakers at that moment. We always think that, um, if we’re going to end a relationship with a business partner or a significant other, that’s the way it is forever. Or even family members. I mean, I know this from my family. Uh, I was in talking to my parents for many years before I, I began to change my life. And you say, okay, well it’s family and family always comes together, but that, that that’s the way it is with business relationships as well. People, um, again are along the spectrum of consciousness or, or the spectrum of living more than their biology or living more in their spirit and they’re sliding up and down the scale. And when people are lower on the scale and we’re higher on the scale that comes, sometimes difficult to interact with them because our context and our comprehension or at a different level than their context and their comprehension.

Dave (01:09:36):
People on this, on this lower scale of consciousness are reacting to biology and fear and they’re quitting when they have lactic acid. When I want to go harder or they’re circling to fear or they’re smoking because they’re afraid of an outcome. That doesn’t really work for me. I’m not there. I’m more like it. Everything’s going to work out and I can, I can accept it and make decisions in that moment right back to being present again. So there are different times in our lives when this gap is too far and it just doesn’t work for us at that moment. And we think that the tough, tough decision of of breaking up with a business partner or relationship or even a sport or a career is so devastating. Well, it’s not,. It’s devastating at that moment. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be devastating forever.

Dave (01:10:23):
And we always think that whatever the present moment is is that’s how it’s going to be forever. We think because our little voice is telling us is sucks. That’s reality. It isn’t. It’s just programming. It’s stimulus response, stimulus set to a set point. Stainless had to programming. When these two things line up, we think it’s bad. Okay. And these things are going to change in a month or six months or a year and your entire set point, your entire context is going to be completely different. And so we have to be able to differentiate between what’s happiness to it now and stop trying to forecast the future and think about how it could harm us. So I’m not sure if that answered your question or not.

Brad (01:11:08):
Very nice. Yeah, yeah, sure. Uh, wow. I have, I have notes, two or three more additional podcasts, but I’d like to get this nice and clean where we can sequence the seven habits you’ve touched on so many of them, uh, through the conversation. But let’s just see if we can take a minute for each one as we work through the seven and then everyone will be, be certain to go grab that book, The Imperative Habit immediately rise up the charts on Amazon. So Dave Rossi, you’ll be happy. Oh wait, he’s already happy. He doesn’t care. He’s not attached to the outcome. Oh my.

Dave (01:11:43):
I actually haven’t, I don’t even know how many books I’ve sold. I don’t, I don’t check. I don’t ask. I’m, I’m happy when people come to me and say they enjoyed it. Um, because it means that they’re growing. That’s important to me to help people grow. Um, that’s really why I wrote the book is to help people. So I really don’t look at the sales and I am very happy with my day job. I love my day job, but I really, really, really enjoyed writing this book. And I’m going to write another book, whether it sells massive amounts of books or not. I really enjoyed creating concepts. If people can take with them and learn and not everyone’s going to want to give me a subset of certain people and I’m happy with that.

Brad (01:12:18):
Oh shoot. If you can just take one of the seven habits and implement it, it’s going to be a success and it’s going to be a worthwhile read. Uh, so we talked about, uh, number one was to accept everything, and we talked about number two, not fearing the outcome. Number three, happiness as a practice. Can you describe what you mean there?

Dave (01:12:38):
Well, it means that we need to work towards being happy. Is that happiness? There is one chapter dedicated to the definition of happiness and happiness is more than just a general feeling of happiness. Um, Maharaji Mahesh’s book, um, he’s the teacher of trends and dental meditation. Uh, I use his, his definition of happiness, which is basically a growth mentality, a mentality of growing with knowledge, growing with love, praying with giving, and also the, the feeling did we generally associate with happiness. We need to make decisions that bring us happiness because it brings us so many more things. Happiness as a state of being not happiness as an emotion. Making decisions where we’re removing the Shings that make us unhappy. Um, my book is a collection of lots of other authors and philosophers. So I use kind of untethered soul Michael Singer’s example of happiness as a river or a, um, an access of, of happiness.

Dave (01:13:36):
It’s always available to us and things that make us unhappy or like debris blocking our river of happiness. We need to make a practice towards continually removing the things that block our river, making a practice of removing stress, making it practice of removing self-doubt, making a practice of not being afraid of the outcome and having that practice towards happiness. We’ll remove these obstacles. The river will flow and there’s all kinds of health benefits. Our immune system, inflammation, will power, interpersonal relationships. Patients in dealing with people. The ability to grab small moment in time that Viktor Frankl talks about grueling towards happiness brings lots of benefits to us. Um, so it’s a pretty simple one but it’s important.

Brad (01:14:23):
Number four is be present. You said that overlapped a bit with number one, live in acceptance,

Dave (01:14:30):
well being present. If you, if you need more than than my habit redecorate toys, book the power of now, um, being present does go back to Buddha does go back to potentially it does go back to loud SU and the doubt of Ching goes back to many, many old tax that a lot of people have, have read and begin to understand and teach in different ways. To me being present is lots of things, but one of them is not letting the past affect our present. Right. Our past is very, very complicated. How we know ourselves. I’m a racer. I’m a Guinness book world record holder golfer. When you begin to forget the past,

Brad (01:15:12):
yeah, some guy broke the record. Anyway, so now I’m, now I’m just looking toward the present, getting a shape and then going forward. Take that thing back in the future.

Dave (01:15:20):
Right? And you don’t worry about the future. You, you worry about the present moment. Your desires are for the future. Great. Have desires, have wants, love it. It’s what you love. That’s a, that’s a, that’s a goal. But to not worry about the future, to not make the drive, I have to have this or that attachment being present is for getting their past and not worried about the future. And focus on the present moment. You get massive amounts of clarity. The mental chatter in your brain turns down. It gives you the power for spiritual behavior. It gives you the power of choice. So my book is about practice and choice. Being present increases your power of choice and being present is a practice.

Brad (01:16:01):
Number five is do not judge.

Dave (01:16:04):
Yup. That’s a real big one. I’m judging. Promotes louder voices in your head. It promotes chatter. It prevents you from accepting. It prevents you from not being attached to the outcome. Um, judging causes so much emotion again, which is biological, which is stimulus and response. When we judge, we’re literally saying, Hey, if threw up the equation of stimulus and response and kick out some emotions, we’re literally inviting emotions to, to um, infiltrate our blood and make it more difficult for us to do things than had that emotion not been there. Fear is a big one. It’s a lot easier to make a decision without fear ,,then to make a decision based on merits and what are the biggest things that we misinterpret when we judge and when we have fear is our own abilities. One of the, one of the most powerful things I was able to do in business is recognize my own weaknesses. Being vulnerable with my weaknesses. Stop judging myself, but it have to be all of these things. The past, right? Not being present and being vulnerable allowed me to say I’m not good at this. I don’t have all the information. I really need some help and the product is going to be better. And had I not done that. Being vulnerable creates a lot of power in our lives.

Brad (01:17:24):
Don’t judge yourself nor others. Love it. Number six, respond with love and compassion to the cabinet maker. That’s two months late.

Dave (01:17:33):
Exactly. Now I define love as an attachment. I have a description of what I believe love is. Um, it’s, I do believe that there are things that I’ve read. They come from lots of different sources. Um, someone asked me recently, Hey, I’d like to understand what you mean by love is not attachment. And I went on Google real fast and found a link to 30 quotes of love is on attachment. These go back in time with lots of different backgrounds and lots of data from people in lots of different philosophers. It’s not just mine. I do believe it. I’ve practiced it, I’ve found success in it and I’ve chosen to believe that’s how I define love. And then I also define compassion and I do make a practice of always trying to live with love and compassion. Now my ex wife at times and other people in my lives may say, you didn’t respond with love and compassion. Well that may be true. It’s a practice. But also it’s my definition of love and compassion, not theirs. When they say you didn’t respond with love and compassion, that may be true. And I’m really sorry that you feel that way. I’m doing the best I can. And your definition of what I should be doing might differ. I need to stay true to my beliefs and my practice and my goals and do it. I think love and compassion is not what other people think love and compassion is. And that’s an important distinction.

Brad (01:18:52):
Oh, I’m thinking of parent child right away with that example where the kid’s going to raise hell because you, they, they, you don’t love me anymore because you took away my car cause I crashed it three times. And you’re loving compassion and that example is going to be, I guess tough love could be the characterization.

Dave (01:19:11):
Well I think that’s a good distinction. I don’t know that I, I don’t do that many things with my children like that where I’d kind of have a yes or no. I tried to teach them to the choices of what’s potentially more beneficial or less beneficial for them. But yes, exactly. That’s kind of the right scenario, which is, um, you know, it’s what I think, not what you think. I certainly want to take your opinion into consideration, but ultimately I have to make a decision what I believe in and I have to make a decision when I think loving compassion with the application of love and compassion are in this situation. Now, with that said, biology always creeps in. Um, it just happens. And I always used this, the scale. If you’re really unconscious and you have lots of biology and you’re responding to fear or hunger or whatever, that’s like this, and as you begin to break that biological stranglehold on yourself, you increase your spirituality and consciousness and they kinda change.

Dave (01:20:06):
And they, it’s not always like this, and it’s not always like this, but it’s a ebb and flow. And you might be ebbing and flowing here or you’re ebbing and flowing here, but ultimately you want to break this, the strain of biology and increase your consciousness or spiritual behavior. We’re spiritual practice and responding with love and compassion increases this power increases your ability to continue doing that. And also thinking about it makes a difference. Just when have you ever stopped and said, I need to respond with love and compassion. Hey, my checklist. I say respond with love and compassion to get closer to your goals.

Brad (01:20:47):
That’s great. Habit number seven is have faith.

Dave (01:20:52):
Yep. We need to have faith. This, this practice gets confusing. This practice gets difficult. This practice creates a lot of doubt and a lot of uncertainty and puts you in situations where you don’t really know what is what. And you need faith to stick to your beliefs, whatever they are at that time. And if they’re not working for you, change them and then have faith in the new beliefs that you’ve created. But you have to have faith to give it some time. And you have to have faith to continue practicing through those rough times. Um, people call it desire or hunger or perseverance or whatever it is. To me, I’m going to use the word faith. You need faith to get through those rough times. You don’t abandon your favorite ice cream because life gets rough. If you love golfing, speed, golfing, you don’t give it up because it gets rough. You have faith that you can transcend these tough moments because you really love it. We don’t give up what we love because it gets difficult. So don’t give up your goals because it gets difficult. You need faith to bridge those gaps when things are tough and you’re not achieving the kind of success that you expect. Those expectations, again, our judgment and delusional responses to a standard. So faith is a really, really important habit to practice.

Brad (01:22:08):
Dave, you got these habits down man. I love that concise summary. Brilliant. And we have so much more to talk about. I would love to have you back on the show. We talked about manifesting and how, how that word’s getting misinterpreted these days and you’re talking about how to do it the right way. So we’re definitely tuned you up for more. But thanks for this lovely summary of The Imperative Habit. We can go find that on Amazon, right? How else can we follow you?

Speaker 3 (01:22:34):
Um, The Imperative Habit.com, um, is where you can buy the book. Also Instagram and Facebook, uh, at Dave Rossi global.com. Um, both pages. There’s, I quote almost every day. I do create all my own quotes. It’s rare that I actually use somebody else’s quote. I usually synthesize what I’m thinking about the moment and try to apply it to, to help people and ultimately is about helping people. So Dave Rossi, global.com and Facebook and Instagram. It’s great if you follow me because you get the feeds and also the imperative.com and www, www.Dave Rossi, global.com.

Brad (01:23:11):
Dave Rossi the hurricane bringing it. Thank you so much.

Dave (01:23:16):
Thank you Brad. It’s great being here. Duh, duh, duh.

Brad (01:23:22):
Thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback at getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com and we would also love if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop, iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars. And it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves cause they need to. Thanks for doing it.

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