What Matters

[00:00:00] Paula: Hello everyone and welcome to Tesse Leads with your host Tesse Akpeki and co-host me, Paula Okonneh. Tesse Leads the podcast, is a safe, sensitive, and supportive place and space, to share your stories, hear other people’s stories, and to tell your stories and experiences. We get super curious about the dilemmas and shaping of our futures and your futures, and so, we are very interested in the journeys that we are all on. Today, our theme is called What Matters. And with us to do that, that’s with Tesse and I to do that, is our guest, David Taylor-Klaus. For Tesse Leads this time I’m going to let him introduce himself, because he always has a perfect introduction and nothing I could say, but compare with what he says. So welcome to the show.

[00:00:57] David: Thank you. Thank you. I can’t wait to hear what I say. Alright, so if you want me to introduce myself, it would, I always get uncomfortable when other people read my bio or introduction, so this should be fun. So the best way to describe me is, you know, I’m a husband, I’m a father, I’m a son. My mom always wants me to remember that part. Reminds me all the time. The way I show up in the world is as, a master coach, as an author, as a speaker. Most important, very centered on being present and playful and enjoying what I’m doing. And I do that, I mean, I’m a wine collector. I’m a cyclist. I tell terrible jokes and find my own stuff funny. So it works out really well for me.

[00:01:44] David: Professionally, I spend my time reintroducing successful entrepreneurs and senior executives to their families. So the work I get to do is taking those folks that are over calibrated towards work and lost center of what moves them, drives them, and enlivens them. And I bring them back to that center, so that the world that they’re in, becomes better ’cause they’re better in their own skin.

[00:02:08] Tesse: Oh, I love that! I love that! And David, welcome to the show. Welcome, welcome, welcome.! You know, when I think of you. I have this metaphor of shifting the dial. You know, I think of your work. I read your work, I listen to your clips, and I think dialing it up, dialing it down. How would DTK do this? What would his thoughts be?

[00:02:29] Tesse: So I’m really super, super curious about your journey of what matters. You know, at the moment, what is that looking like? I’m thinking, particularly when I first met you and you just publishedMindset Mondays. And you know, you had these wonderful metaphors, you had all this going on, and now I see you, but you’re showing up differently, all good and different.

[00:02:53] Tesse: So what’s your thing about what matters now?

[00:02:57] David: Okay, so I’ll take a bold stance on that. The only thing that matters is right now. I spent a great deal of my life trying to time travel. And by the way, it doesn’t work, right? So I’m either perseverating over the past and saying, God I wish I had done that Different!

[00:03:12] David: Or trying to predict all the different ways we could go in the future and pick a path in the future. That doesn’t work. That’s just burning energy, burning time, burning attention. And the one thing it robs you from is being now, and present here. Which is the only thing we actually have to experience.

[00:03:30] David: Everything else is projection or perseveration and it’s a disaster. And yet so much of our world is about predicting you’re controlling the future or replaying the past. Even if it’s replaying the past so you could better be in the future. That’s still time traveling that way so you can try to time travel that way.

[00:03:50] David: And as far as I can tell, time travel doesn’t yet work. So that’s what matters. And I think I don’t know. What’s coming up is sort of like leaning into how do we make what matters real? And so many people come to coaching trying to make drastic changes, right? How do I burn down everything and start over, right? And so much of that is just; I’m so miserable with what’s going on right now and where I am and how the world is for me.

[00:04:20] David: I wanna start completely over. And what I realized after 15 years of coaching and another 15 years as an entrepreneur before that is, it’s fine tuning the dial. It doesn’t have to be drastic sweeping changes. I mean, granted, a number of the folks that I get to work with are coming in after a company’s imploded or after the exit of a company didn’t go well, or after a marriage has come apart and they’re trying to do the next round of it.

[00:04:47] David: Well. I do get to work with some people who are seeing that if they don’t change anything, it’s all gonna come apart. So they wanna raise the bottom and make things better now. But when people are trying to redo it, [00:05:00] I think that’s when they have a better understanding of what fine tuning is. Most of the time changing the dial, just a degree or two can make a massive difference.

[00:05:10] David: If you’re on a ship and you’re moving forward at speed, turning one degree over many hours, days, weeks, months, that’s a drastic change. So it’s oftentimes that fine tuning, the incremental changes can make a massive change. But we seem to have this desire, and I don’t think this is unique to the inanity of the American culture. I think many people get caught up in the idea is if I make a drastic change, things will get better quickly. And that’s rarely true.

[00:05:43] David: So again, it goes back to what matters is right now and making the fine tuning to make things better, in a way that you want. How’s that land? Because we haven’t had this conversation.

[00:05:54] Tesse: No, we have not had this. But you know, as you’re saying this, my heart is singing because I’m a real supporter, believer, whatever it is, of

Atomic Habit. And James Clear’s work, and it’s still small, incremental pieces that really make a difference. And what I’m finding in my life is that they’re more sustainable.

[00:06:13] David: Nope. No doubt! Our brains are wired against change. And for lots of reasons that are evolutionary and developmental. But our brains are wired against change the long parts of each neuron, the axons. These long stretches of the nerves have myelin, have this little fat layer on it.

[00:06:31] David: And the more often you have a thought or do a behavior or repeat a habit. The more myelin gets laid down. We’re just doing a little bit of neuroscience, so stick with me. And the more myelin on the axon, the better electricity moves across that nerve. That’s how thoughts move, right? So if you wanna change a habit, yep, there’s another neural pathway. It’s brand new, that you’ve gotta do enough to get the myelin on that one. And so the old one withers. So the only way that change happens is small actions repeated frequently over a duration of time. That’s it, period! And Atomic Habits is one version of it. Some research says you can create a new habit in three weeks.

[00:07:18] David: Much of it says you can do it in 30 to 90 days. Some research says it takes 180 days. What the duration is. It’s all actions repeated with high frequency over a duration of time is the only way to build a new habit. Whether it’s a habit of action or a habit of thinking, or a habit of behavior. It’s the only way to do it, period.

[00:07:40] David: And I think the challenge is we look for the quick fix. Big change, quick fix. Everything will be great. Our brain is wired for sameness. So you have to work with your brain instead of against your brain, or it’s not gonna change.

[00:07:52] Tesse: I love it. I love it! You know, work with your brain, not against it.

[00:07:58] David: So much of effort is working against the way the science and the neuroscience works, work with your brain. It’s amazing! It’s supposed to be helping, not your enemy.

[00:08:09] Paula: Yeah. Yeah. You’re so right. And I was listening to a program where they were talking about exactly what you’re saying. You know, we all wired differently. We all come and, you know, wired in a specific way. But we spend a lot of our time trying to change that. Trying to be the better you is never like hone in on, you know, your natural strengths, what comes naturally to you. But, oh no, I gotta learn something new. And as you said, change takes time.

[00:08:37] David: I had a dear friend, God, West African, just beautifully dark skin and black hair; 10 years older than I was. I was like, Michael, why the hell is your hair still black and I’m so gray? And he goes, dude, every single morning I push through color, beard, and hair. Man, that’s a lot of effort changing from how you show up and who you are and putting a lot of effort into that.

[00:09:03] David: Bless his heart. Doing it every morning, you know. But we do that in so many ways. If you have curly hair, you want straight hair. If you have this, you want that. We have things for changing our skin color, hair color, eye color. Good God! We put all that effort and energy into deepening our connection to who we are, and now we show up.

[00:09:23] David: Wow, what would that be like? Right? Instead of spending minutes coloring my hair every morning, I’m done in minutes. Because I, I do in the day, and I don’t chide Michael, he likes who he is looking like that. Wow. Think about how much, you know, energetically into our physical appearance, our emotional stance, our professional appearance.

[00:09:46] David: Oh my. What if we put that energy into being better at being who we are? Instead of changing everything we can.

[00:09:55] Paula: Yeah. And so with that, I want, as you talk about that and we talk about how change takes time, it’s incremental changes. What are you looking? I mean, as you look ahead, to the next year, what are the next 12 months looking for you in terms of your dreams, in terms of your hope and your aspirations?

[00:10:16] David: Part of me instantly rejects that idea, right? Because I, poking at it because I may have a point on the horizon that I wanna aim towards. But as things happen in response to my interacting with the world. I’ve gotta fine tune that. And, and there was a Persian General in the 1850s who said a version of, ’cause my Prussian is terrible.

[00:10:38] David: He says, a version of no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. Right? Or Mike Tyson says, everybody’s got a plan until they got hit in the face.

[00:10:52] Tesse: It’s true!

[00:10:53] David: But then the environment interacts with our plan and we’ve gotta adjust. If we get attached to a very specific outcome, we’re dead. Right? Buddhist teaching is all suffering stems from when expectation diverges from reality. Well, expectation or reality is going to diverge from expectation almost every time because, we don’t have a crystal ball.

[00:11:16] David: So, if I know that I want to be healthier emotionally, physically, and spiritually, more connected to my wife and my children and my family. I wanna be serving a few people more deeply than, rather than serving tons of people shallow. I can make changes to move me in that direction, right? If I know that I want to be doing more of this type of work, less of that, and more time sitting on a beach, then I’m making the changes along the way that aim me towards that destination.

[00:11:49] David: I’m attached to a, loose outcome rather than a very tight, , specific thing. Because the tight specific thing gets us in trouble.

[00:11:57] Paula: I agree. I’ve had that conversation with a lot of young people and say, you know, when you get on a plane, you’re going from point A to point B. The pilot and the plane, of course, because now we have a lot more technology involved.

[00:12:09] Paula: It’s recalibrating all the time. The wind gusts, the whatever atmospheric condition. They’re getting you there. But it’s certainly not as the crow flies. So, yeah.

[00:12:20] David: Nope. And it’s not, and when you watch a sailboat, anytime you near the water and you can see a sailboat. They don’t, very often go straight, pleasantly pivoting to and tacking to get the wind and the sail and the boat and the keel to work together.

[00:12:35] David: Because just ’cause you wanna go that way doesn’t mean the wind’s right behind you.

[00:12:38] Paula: Exactly!

[00:12:39] David: Often it’s not. And I think that when we look at the world through the lens of what is it that I want to create versus where am I going. That’s very different. Because if you’re committed to where you wanna go. The how is less of a; if you’re clear on where you wanna go, the how is less of a focal point we get.

[00:13:01] David: We tend to, as humans, get focused on how we’re gonna do something rather than where we’re going. So if the, how doesn’t work out at the beginning, we freak out, cave in.

[00:13:10] Tesse: No, this speaks to me, to my sense of adventure. Which one, I’m in a good place. I have more of that playful, adventurous, you know, smiley, laughy place. When I’m I’m stressed, not so much.

[00:13:21] Tesse: And the word that you use Paula, which is calibration. I think you used it DTK as well. About calibration, and I love that thing about how we can make something different and build as we go along. Or sail as we need to, or the wind blows and all those kind of analogies. So I’m wondering David, about any reflection you have for people who are listening in to this conversation and probably in a very reflective space. And you know, sometimes we like, embrace tools and mixes and all these things that I know that sometimes you hate. They call them those things. I know you do templates, but hey, uh, I’m a lawyer. We like our tick boxes in our templates. To use as guides, not as the whole  thing. What would your reflections be to these reflective souls listening in?

[00:14:11] David: The first thing on the tick box list is. What’s a good way to say it? I don’t want it to sound flippant. But even in the most dire of times, there’s something that you can glean, gain, or enjoy in what’s happening right now.

[00:14:27] David: Right? I think that’s the hardest part. We, we are so trained to be, I’ll be happy when. Like, I just have to muscle through this. I just have to endure this. I have to get past it and I’ll be better, fine, happy, whatever it is. We’re training ourselves to delay joy, and seek it out there, as opposed to what’s here now?

[00:14:53] David: I have so many cringe-worthy pieces of my past that if I had a magic wand, one part of me would want to make them go away. Right? And every time I remember it, and there’s a long list, it’s a, uh! And yet when I look around me at the marriage, I have the woman that I share my life with, the children in our lives, the work that I get to do in the world. Any one of those sliding door moments that went a different direction none of this would be the case, right?

[00:15:24] David: So if I can, when I can find gratitude. Even the smallest thing. Like if I joy or gratitude. I can get the energy from that to move through anything. Whether it’s loss, you know, with loss of someone, whether it’s loss of a business, an opportunity, a sale. Oh my God, people can get so tripped up by, and I used to be that, those people. So tripped up by this didn’t happen ’cause if I fail at this, then I’m a failure.

[00:15:57] David: That’s the nightmare. That’s not true. If I fail at this, I failed at this! That doesn’t make me a failure. I’m still the fabulous human being I am anyway. Even when I don’t recognize that I’m a fabulous human. And when, when our behaviors that fail to achieve the outcome we want happen, great.

[00:16:19] David: Rise something else. It’s not life or death. So I guess the second thing on the tick box would be it ain’t life or death. Lighten up!

[00:16:30] Paula: It ain’t life or death,

[00:16:33] David: you know, because if you’re dead, you’re not having this conversation. So anything where you don’t end up dead, it’s not life or death. Keep going.

[00:16:40] Paula: You are right! You’re so right! You know, my motto for the past three or four weeks is I choose joy. Everything else can be going, but I choose to be joyful. Because I can choose to be not joyful, but for me, it works to be joyful; to choose the joy.

[00:17:01] David: I think that’s an absolute requirement. Tonight, in about six hours, I’m gonna be with some friends who just lost their 18-year-old child. Having a community come together and going through the service and the ritual. And having people come together and tell stories about the family and the loved one and share memories. It’s the joy of connection and support and togetherness. Even in arguably one of the most effed-up situations in the world.

[00:17:32] David: No parent should ever bury a child, right? And yet you can still find joy and find connection. Find something positive. And I think that’s, that’s critical, ’cause otherwise the brain is gonna compound, right? Call it confirmation bias call, it whatever you want. The lens through which we choose to see the world colors, the evidence we collect.

[00:17:56] David: And so that if we are seeing the world as a negative experience. Then we will through that lens, we will take every experience that we have, and it will be colored as the world is a negative place. And it’s not the world is exactly how you see it. So we do not; this is a, quote from Carl Jung, that actually came from a religious text years before that.

[00:18:18] David: Um, it says, we do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. And when I first heard that, it really ticked me off. Oh. I was like, great, so I’m warping everything. Then the realization was, no, no, no, no, no. Something happens. I attach meaning to it, and then I operate from that. Meaning, well, I’m the one attaching the meaning to it. Which means if it’s all made up, why not make up something that serves?

[00:18:43] David: I am in control, the way I collect evidence to support my theory of the world. Seek joy! That presumes that joy is there to be found and experienced. That’s the lens through which you see the world, you will see it that way. The Ronald Dahl said, those who don’t believe in magic, never see it. And those who don’t believe in joy will never experience it.

[00:19:08] Paula: You are 100% right on that DTK. And so, oh boy. We could talk with you forever, but you’re the master of metaphors. Can you close us out with a metaphor on success? Oh, joy! How about a metaphor in joy??

[00:19:24] David: No, I wanna go to the success one ’cause that really poke with me.

[00:19:28] Paula: Okay. Alright.

[00:19:32] David: The phrase that came up as soon as you asked, as soon as you said the word was,problem in the world, is that we have a, we don’t have a clear definition of success. Everyone’s is different, right? But success is an inside game. It absolutely has to do with how you define it. And the more you define it externally, the more upset and disappointed you are likely to be in the outcomes. It is an inside game. Oh, absolutely. Yeah!

[00:19:57] David: Wouldn’t have been said better. Success is an inside game. That’s what we are gonna close with.

[00:20:03] David: Uh, wait, I’m gonna give folks an exercise to play with that you can do with any other person in your world, and the two of you should do it and it would be really interesting.

[00:20:10] Paula: Alright!

[00:20:10] David: Is you write the word success in the middle of a paper. I’ll circle around it and put 12 spokes on it. Right? The end of each spoke, you know, the two of you go off on your own and spend five minutes doing this. Go fill in at the end of each spoke, one word or very short phrase that helps make up your definition of success.

[00:20:31] Paula: Love that!

[00:20:32] David: Right? Don’t stop till you have 12, and if you’re pissed at me, tell me later you’re pissed at me. But come up with 12, right? And then, get back together and the two of you go through your list. You guys have known each other for ages. You’ve worked together for ages. I did this with, a company where these people have been working together for years. And not one single pair had more than five things that lined up.

[00:20:56] David: Our definition of words and concepts vary wildly. And that’s even within the same country and culture. They all live within 25 miles of each other. So think about that, that the way you define success has everything to do with how you measure hitting success. So when we’re not clear of our definition, let alone the definition of the other people we’re in relationship with. Wow, I wonder why success is so hard to achieve ’cause we don’t know what we’re going for.

[00:21:27] Paula: It is awesome! That’s a great way of thinking about it. Everyone’s success differs and yeah, it is indeed an inside game. I love it.

[00:21:39] David: You asked me to introduce myself and I didn’t start with all the different crazy accomplishments of being an entrepreneur for 30 years, and doing this and achieving that, and so what?

[00:21:50] David: Right? My successes are measured by who I am in relationship to the people in my world. The work stuff’s extra. Right? That’s just part of it. And I think the way we define success has a lot to do with how we achieve success. So inside game is the metaphor for that one.

[00:22:06] Paula: Love it! Inside game!

[00:22:10] Tesse: You’re calibrated man!

[00:22:11] David: I thank you. And I’m not taking the easy way out. I think it really is. It’s find joy determines how you see it. So!

[00:22:17] Paula: Yeah. But that’s been my mantra for the last three weeks. I choose joy! Things are not perfect. But I choose…

[00:22:24] David: You do it for another whole year.

Outro:

[00:22:26] Paula: Yep, yep, yep! And so, our precious listeners and viewers. You can see why we do Tesse Leads because every story matters. Listening to DTK now, who has given Tesse and I an exercise to do, we give that to you, our listeners as well. We ask you to share your lives just like David did and your stories with us. Because others are supported when they hear it. Others feel encouraged and nurtured, when they know that they’re never alone. That they’re people who share similar views and points and lives. So we ask that we head over to Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to a podcast and please click subscribe. And if you found Tesse Leads helpful, we ask that you leave a review.

[00:23:20] Paula: And if you had any questions or topics that you would’ve loved us to have covered or you want to join us on this show. We ask that you send us a note, and head over to our website tesseleads.com to apply. DTK, this has been phenomenal! Thank you so much!

[00:23:38] Tesse: Such a treasure, always gold you are David.