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Explore your curiosity - Interesting people with fascinating stories.
Life consists of three things:
-The stories we tell others
-The stories others tell us
-The stories we tell ourselves.
Furkhan, welcome aboard to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pleasure to be here. Good to chat with you again, Ari.
Speaker 1:I gotta say I really enjoyed being on your show. Thank you for having me. As you know, this is not the show of easy questions, so we'll start with a hard one. You moved from being a clinical counselor to advising entrepreneurs. Were you like, oh, same thing, these guys are mentally ill too?' or what was the play there?
Speaker 2:Well, think I'm doing both.
Speaker 1:How can I say this as an entrepreneur myself? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I'm doing both. What I have observed is stressors affect everyone And sometimes as an entrepreneur, you may minimize your stress because you could say, oh, it's just part of the business. Whereas when you're working with people specifically for mental health, it's, you can easily say this is mental health related. So I think sometimes entrepreneurs might minimize the impact of running a business and how that can affect their mental health.
Speaker 1:Is there, do you see any commonalities of kind of the plagues that trouble entrepreneurs? What do you see in common?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think all humans, are susceptible to all kinds of things. And I think one of the biggest things I've noticed when I'm working with entrepreneurs is eventually we start getting into the personal side of things. And we start talking about their interpersonal relationships, how that's affecting their lives, how do they cope with stress, what are some tools they use to manage their mental health. So it very quickly becomes a personal conversation. And if they're able to focus on the personal side of things, then that could also improve how they show up for their business.
Speaker 1:Do you have any story, of course, keeping anonymous that you can kind of describe one of these changes where somebody kind of took your advice to heart and kind of moved from one side of the spectrum to another?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, there's many and it's, it's a gradual change, right? So I often remind people that it's not something that you're going to wake up tomorrow and be a different person. It requires incremental changes. But yeah, I think one client I had, he was focused so much on the business and the stressors, but we quickly realized that the business side was more of an escape from the marital side. And we started talking about improvements he can make and conversations he can have with his spouse.
Speaker 2:And that started to, because he was resolving that, it gave him a lot more clarity on how to approach the business. And he realized pretty quickly that it was, the business itself was serving as a distraction at times.
Speaker 1:That's an incredibly interesting topic. I had one CEO of mine whose business turned into a unicorn ultimately and he said, I was like, hey are you going home? He says, no the kids aren't asleep yet. I mean I smiled, laughed, but I was also a little concerned. What do you see as the kind of tieovers between family life and running the business?
Speaker 1:Is there stuff that we do poorly in family life and that carries over to the business and interpersonal relationships or anything like that or vice versa?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll kind of go about in a roundabout way here, but I also work in the addiction space. And one of the biggest things I've realized is we can easily look at the addictive behavior and say, Oh, that's the problem. But ultimately, one of the biggest things I've learned working in this space is it all comes back to interpersonal relationships. And the behavior we see on the surface is an escape. And some forms of escape are stigmatized and others are often glorified.
Speaker 2:So working long hours, having sixty hour weeks, I remember even being in university and pulling all nighters, those things were glorified as much as we know that performance starts to drop off no matter how much time you're investing. So I I go through this example because it's it is worth noting that you need to ask yourself, why is there this desire to work so much? What are you getting out of it? And what is the cost? And if it's costing you being present in the lives of your children who are growing very quickly or in the life of your partner, your significant other, is it worth incurring that cost?
Speaker 2:Because at some point, you see a lot of people then struggle because they haven't invested any time into their relationship or their children. And and then sometimes it's too late, unfortunately. A lot of the times I've also worked with people who are in the post retirement phase of their life and they don't, they seem to struggle because they can't find a sense of purpose because they never invested the time to discover that early on.
Speaker 1:This is so incredibly important. I had my own journey. My son, know, he was very young at the time, but incredibly tall for his age. He was able to open the locks on the door and he ran out to the streets and he almost got run over. At the time I was, you know, in this crazy entrepreneurship, you know, working the more than ten, twelve hours a day.
Speaker 1:For me, that was a signal of pain that made me stop and kind of reevaluate a lot of things in my life because this was completely unacceptable. But I thought it was interesting that you're saying like look there's different things that could be you know maybe somewhat broken in our lives and those things are driving these addictive behaviors and it's interesting because I never thought about overworking as a type of addictive behavior or a type of escape really is the right way to say it. If we had to break it down to these different things because I'm on this journey of self, you know, awareness, let's say, and I am, what are the things I should look inwards and ask myself, am I this? Am I this? Am I this?
Speaker 1:And if I can at least, would it be fair to say if I could at least identify the problem, maybe I can start working towards a solution?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I think it's, there's many facets to it, it's not like a slam dunk in terms of, oh, this is a specific problem. But what I've observed, and I've seen it in myself too, is what am I trying to escape from? And it's for many people, there's a fear, and you could say, and this is something philosophical, but most human behavior is driven by fear, but there's a fear of being alone. So you'll do whatever you can to escape that feeling of being alone.
Speaker 2:And I often ask people, can you be okay being with yourself? Does that necessarily mean you're alone? And can you find that sense of stillness or inner peace? So the question in terms of answering what you're asking is, do you experience inner peace? And do you create pockets of time throughout the day to connect with yourself and find that stillness?
Speaker 2:And if the answer is no, then that's where you need to ask yourself, well, what are you running from? Right? Where, why are you trying to escape it? And most people don't take that time to connect with the self. And I think despite, you know, we all go through stressors, there's going to be all kinds of things happening throughout the day.
Speaker 2:But if you're able to take moments throughout the day where you can turn inward and calm your nervous system down, that to me is the goal. And that's how you avoid escaping. Is sports, is
Speaker 1:there some activities that kind of help people do that, with the sense that, it's okay to be alone. I don't have to run away. What are the maybe tools and techniques, regardless of what is the fear that's driving it? Is there any kind of things that we can practice in order to try and come to this sense of awareness and and betterment?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think the, I mean, the common ones, everyone's probably heard of them, whether it's breath work, meditation, journaling, mindful walks. I think anytime you're able to be present and that's very, very difficult in today's world, especially with all the distractions and these little devices we carry around in our pockets. Right? So I'm guilty of it too.
Speaker 2:Anytime you have to sit somewhere, wait, you go to the doctor's office, you're waiting at the superstore, the checkout line, everyone's tendency is to pull out the phone and then numb out or get into scrolling or just see what's going on. Right? So, if you can avoid that, but create moments where you can be mindful and then, like I said, engage in some of those activities to pay attention to what's going on inside and finding that moment of presence within your day. I think that's a good starting point. And it's like anything you're training, right?
Speaker 2:I often use the analogy of going to the gym. It's, you're not going to see results in a week, a month, or even a few months. You have to really consistently do it before you start seeing those results and you start building that muscle memory of finding that inner peace and presence within yourself.
Speaker 1:I want to ask maybe a stupid question, but with a shameful maybe admission. I've heard the words mindfulness and being present and maybe even I'll add on listening, truly listening onto that group because that's a form of being present. I didn't understand what it meant. I didn't understand how to do it. I felt like everybody was telling me it was this new hype thing.
Speaker 1:At some stage I had an anti to it because it felt like a cult. So I truly just didn't know what this is. How would you break it down in its most simple form?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, the most simplest thing, I think I've touched on it in different ways, but the basic thing is, you sit and just observe what's going on? Right? So I'll give you an example. When I'm talking to people about meditating, so many of them will say, well, I'm not good at meditating. And the question is, what's good?
Speaker 2:Define good. And then you try to get into that. And a lot of the times people will say, well, for me, good means that everything is clear, right? There's no thoughts. And I think that's part of the misconception.
Speaker 2:The thoughts will always be there. The human brain generates about on average, thousand thoughts a day. So it's not like you're going to just completely wipe that out. So can you sit there and be the observer? Observe what's coming in.
Speaker 2:And I often use this analogy of picturing a cloud. Your thought is like a cloud it's drifting in and just observe it pass through. And will you get it right all the time? No. You're gonna find yourself drifting away with the cloud and you'll realize a couple of minutes later that, holy crap, I've been on this, like, complete roller coaster.
Speaker 2:I've been ruminating, but then bring yourself back to the present and start observing again. And that to me is the simplest way I can explain it in terms of finding that moment of stillness and just sitting there and observing and continuing to bring yourself back anytime you drift away.
Speaker 1:But that's only the first step of the journey. It's one thing to do this and practice it on your own meditation while doing It's a whole different ballgame to be present when you're in an interaction.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So you touched on listening and I think that's been one of the biggest skills I've developed and podcasting has helped me tremendously. And because of podcasting, it's also helped me in the therapeutic world too, because I can sit there and listen to the clues my clients are giving me. But active listening is definitely, I think, a skill all of us need to have, not because I'm in the field.
Speaker 2:I think it's helped me in all my interpersonal relationships because most of the time, and I I especially love talking about active listening when I'm working with couples Because anytime the other person is talking, we're waiting for them to stop so we can chime in with what we have to say. Yes. Right? Or we've taken, you know, they'll say five sentences, but we will pick out the one thing we were waiting to hear because of our own projection, and then we'll run with that. Right?
Speaker 2:So that's not active listening.
Speaker 1:I have an answer for that one.
Speaker 2:Alright. Let's hear it.
Speaker 1:Oh, meant that's what the couple says. Oh, I have an answer for that one. I'm gonna say it Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's it. Right? So because we're we're not I think part of it is the struggle really is because we're so not present. We're so intertwined with everything going on around us. We're not able to pull ourselves out that even because someone and this is when I'm practicing that active listening with couples, they'll often say they'll start refuting what the other person is saying.
Speaker 2:Right? And they'll start arguing it, and they'll start defending it, and then immediately it becomes like a litigation. And it's not that. Right? It's what is the other person trying to tell you, and what are you hearing?
Speaker 2:And just repeating that back. And it can do wonders because human need, primary needs are to be seen, heard, and understood. And if you can give that person that even in a five minute conversation, it could change everything. Right? So I agree with you.
Speaker 2:I think the next stage is how can you be present within yourself, but actively listening, to give an answer, not to defend yourself, but truly listening to hear what the other person is saying.
Speaker 1:So many brilliant things here that I wanna go after all of them all at once, but but let me break them You said something incredibly interesting. You said that podcasting helped you become a better listener. I must say that exactly the same thing for me, in fact, I don't think I knew what listening meant until more or less episode 100 of my podcast. It took me a long time to figure it out. And then the other thing about, you know, the the couple interaction, and I don't know, maybe this is groundbreaking, I think podcasting has made me a better husband because it taught me how to listen, which is my other huge takeaway.
Speaker 1:But I and my son, like myself, has ADHD and the hyperactive of it is a bitch. Like, it's it's the worst. And I feel bad for my parents for what I did to them because now in retrospect, I understand how awful I was. So I take him running in the morning and I'm like, okay, you need to listen. And you know, he's six, he's like, what does it mean to listen?
Speaker 1:So I'm like, oh, great question. I didn't know this three years ago and I'm 40, it took me forty years to figure this out. Let me, and now I know, so let me tell you what I think it is. You need to quiet your heart, you can't be feeling these incredibly strong feelings, you need to quiet your head, you can't be thinking about the next thing you're about to say and you need to quiet your body because us hyperactives we're fidgeting all the time. So I talked through how he quiets all his senses and I'm saying when you look you can't make them completely silent but you can make them not so loud and when everything is as quiet as can be and you're truly listening that's when you're ready to hear with me and I, God, I wish somebody had taught me this earlier because I reached 40 before knowing how to listen and when people told me what active listening was, it was oh it's leaning in, it was all these outward physical things.
Speaker 1:Nobody said shut your inner voice, shut your emotions, shut your fidgeting. That's something nobody taught me. It took a while to figure it out. Here's my my question to you. What is the best practice?
Speaker 1:How can we practice this within relationships?
Speaker 2:So common issues, I'll start with that first, is majority of the times you'll see people try to address something when emotions are high or when you're triggered. And you could see that in the business place too, for sure, right? A decision is made, you're not happy with it, you want to talk about it or address it, or something happened and you're not happy with the outcome. And same thing happens in relationships. Your partner says something or does something and immediately you're triggered and you're feeling emotions.
Speaker 2:So my first cue or guidance is to not talk about it if you know either you are emotional or the other person is emotional. It's doing it respectfully. It's not to say we're not going to talk about it right now. It's to say, hey, I feel this might not be the right time. Perhaps we take a break.
Speaker 2:We take a time out. We come back to this an hour later or a day later, whatever you have in terms of agreement, especially with couples, I advise them to have these agreements in place beforehand proactively that if you need to take a time out, this is the guidance you'll follow. And then both individuals have to respect that for and respect that boundary. So then when you've taken that time apart, what are you doing with it? That's the key.
Speaker 2:So a lot of times people are still ruminating about it and chewing over it. And then that resentment and anger is building up. So you're not really calming yourself So part of being present, and I teach people other things, is focusing on calming your nervous system down because if you're in fight or flight, your brain is not working properly. The executive functioning of the brain is completely shut down. So, you're not absorbing the big picture.
Speaker 2:You're only seeing through a tunnel vision and all you're seeing is how you've been wronged, right? If that's your perception of the situation. So calm your nervous system down, really prepare what your feelings are speaking to, terms of I statements, I'm feeling this, I'm feeling that. Again, you can apply that in the business setting too. Some people can use journaling as a great tool of structuring what they're feeling, putting those thoughts on paper, and really paying attention to how you're expressing yourself.
Speaker 2:Especially in relationships, I advise don't use you did this or you did that because you're making an assumption and the other person's obviously going to get defensive because that they're going to be focused on their intention. They're not going to be focused on the action. So if you can keep it to yourself and say, this is how I feel. That's it. It's very hard to argue with the other person's feelings because it's completely their experience.
Speaker 2:Now, if you're the person on the receiving end of that, don't try to argue or try to understand because this is another thing I see with couples like, well, I wanna understand why he or she is feeling that. Want to make sense of it. It's like, you'll never make sense of it. You're two completely different human beings with different worldviews, different life experiences, all of that. Right?
Speaker 2:So, so those are some common things to think about and work through.
Speaker 1:Peeling that onion a little bit, the the fact that you're different people with different worldviews means that your interpretation is according to your worldviews, not according to theirs. So there's a good chance you're gonna interpret their intentions differently. Absolutely. Like this might be true if you said that, but if they said it doesn't mean the same thing. This is this is incredibly interesting.
Speaker 1:There's this like it's almost like we're speaking English, we have the same culture, the same background, you know, sometimes the same history, and and yet we're we say words and we don't understand each other. Like, it's a very inefficient way to to communicate.
Speaker 2:Yes. Well, and the other thing I would add, I would add one more thing that you can look at it as something negative or you can even look at it as positive because what I appreciate about my marriage is that my wife brings that different perspective and she can identify my blind spots because there's, I'll, I will go about a situation in a very specific way. I have my own strengths, but I also have my own shortcomings. So, how do you leverage each other's strengths in any given situation and then hopefully identify those blind spots so you're not tripping over each other in those moments.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. I know this is true for me, right? So, I love your argument about this kind of opposites compliment in many ways. That's beautiful. How can we accelerate our journey of kind of self awareness, self discovery?
Speaker 1:How can we accelerate these learnings?
Speaker 2:I think, well, you can't speed it up. That's the thing, right? I think that's another, and perhaps this might be, I don't like to use gender stereotypes too much, but generally speaking, I think as men, we want to like get at it. Right? And get it done.
Speaker 2:And I'm guilty of it too. But, and I've had to be humbled throughout life to learn the hard way, just like yourself, that I have to take it, take things slowly, and, you know, trust in the process. And if the process dictates it's going to take five years, I can't rush it and try to do it in two. The reason why I say that is because even with our children, the biggest thing I've learned is, and children don't learn by listening. Like, we can tell them all the right things to do, they're not going to learn as effectively as by watching.
Speaker 2:So, role modeling. And I think the best advice I can give, and I have to give it to myself too, is if I can role model these things, way I speak, the way I use emotional awareness, and the way I carry myself when there's stress, if I'm role modeling that, then chances are my children will also absorb that and pick it up and start practicing it. And sometimes it means doing it with them. Right? So if my son is having an emotional reaction, it's sitting down with him and doing some breathing exercises to calm his nervous system down.
Speaker 2:So then he's ready to communicate what's actually going on.
Speaker 1:Would you I've had this dilemma. If you have let's say an area of weakness, not if everybody would you be honest about it and say look I'm not good at this but I'm gonna get better and then kind of create a transparency to the process of you being self aware to your weakness and kind of getting better. Would you do that with children? Would you do that with a spouse? Is there a reason not to do it with children?
Speaker 2:I think it's healthy to do it because I remember growing up, I didn't receive any apologies growing up, so that was definitely required a lot of Did you have
Speaker 1:a Lithuanian mother too? No.
Speaker 2:But it required a lot of therapy. So I think the biggest thing is I do struggle with accepting shortcomings because I feel like I can work on them and get better, but there's a point where I have to accept that no, these are things I'm not going to be good at. This is the best it will be and I have to accept that. But also recognizing that when I do fall short, if I've made a mistake, whether it's with my spouse or children, having the courage to be able to admit it and apologize. Because you're also role modeling that it's okay to make mistakes because that wasn't role modeled for me.
Speaker 2:There was so much shame I carried so that I turned it inward as opposed to saying it's okay to make mistakes and I don't have to beat myself up. In order to prevent that and passing that generational trauma piece down, how can I break it? Am I gonna get it all right? Obviously not. But at least this these are a few things that I can identify and I can admit that, hey, you know what?
Speaker 2:My reaction there when I was driving and the guy was pissing me off was not acceptable. And that's not how we should carry ourselves. So I'm sorry I exposed you to that.
Speaker 1:Why is it so difficult for us and to and I find it's two things. It's not only apologizing. It's also being grateful. Why is it so difficult for us to be grateful in a way that is authentic, real? These are two things that are hard to do.
Speaker 1:Why is that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think I can appreciate admitting the mistakes because that requires vulnerability. Right? And I think for men, it's difficult and we're part of the same generation. So we were socially conditioned to not show our emotions, to not show that vulnerable side. So a lot of times when I'm working with men, it, the mask becomes anger.
Speaker 2:We use anger as a mask and instead of being vulnerable or saying, Hey, I'm hurt, or I'm feeling pain, we'll use anger. Right? So I think in terms of admitting mistakes, there's that piece. Gratitude, I don't know. I think that's just part of the the human condition.
Speaker 2:I think we're just ungrateful and practicing that requires effort. Right? So the amount of people I have to remind, including myself, is making a list of things I'm grateful for every day because it's so easy to lose sight of it and just focus on all the things that are not going well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. There's an incredible power in gratitude. I'll tell the story very quickly. My son was being bullied. I told him, give your bully a compliment every day.
Speaker 1:He broke down in tears because giving his bully a compliment broke my son. As a terrible parent I just forgot about the whole thing. Three months later I talked to my son again, he's playing with this friend, his sister gives us like shit face and I'm like what's the problem Emma? And then he says she doesn't like this boy at all. And then I'm like who is this friend?
Speaker 1:It was the bully. Through that technique of giving gratitude he turned the bully into a friend and I was like holy cow Liam, you have mastered the art of kung fu, you have turned an enemy into a friend. I'm not sure I've done that, Like, good job. I didn't think, I mean, you know, I gave this advice, I didn't know if it would work or not, but I was, I was, I was in shock, like how powerful a little bit of gratitude can be.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it can do wonders, right? So one of the things, the analogies I use is if you're constantly mired in looking at negativity or all these things aren't going well in my life, Just doing a simple gratitude list can make a big difference. And like I said, the analogy I use is like, when you're shopping for a car, all of a sudden you start seeing this car everywhere.
Speaker 2:Right? So what did these cars all of a sudden just appear out of nowhere or it's just because you're attending to it now. And it's the same with gratitude. If you're attending to all the positive things that we take for granted on a day to day basis, then you're going to start seeing positivity all around you. And then these little things that are annoyances are not going
Speaker 1:to have the same impact they used to. So I love what you're saying.
Speaker 2:I think there's, I mean, in that example, can apply so many of the biases, right? Like primacy or heuristic. So, like, there's so many things at play and we are not even aware. Right? And you and I talked about this on my podcast too, in terms of even propaganda, right, and how that affects the human brain.
Speaker 1:In fact, what you think is true can become true. Pygmalion effect. This one absolutely shocked me. This guy makes a sculpture and then one of the goddesses turns the sculpture and he's like, oh, I wish I could find a wife as beautiful as the sculpture. And then he's like, the goddess turns the sculpture into a real woman.
Speaker 1:So that's where the psychology got its name, but really it's this idea of self fulfilling prophecies. And I had this weird experience at work, this guy quit and he was like, or got fired, I think that's yeah I fired him and he was like oh you're gonna fire me and I was like okay when did when and I don't know why it came to me, asked when did this happen because the behavior was going on for quite a long time, longer than so it's like when does this happen? And he gave it like a time that was many months ago and I was like at that time I did not want to fire you. So even though it's this weird dynamics of you know the last meeting we're ever gonna have, we had this discussion around well what happened then and what happened then, so we kind of did this analysis of the history. Turned out somebody had a bad day, right, he had it in his mind that he was gonna be fired, negative, then people perceived his behavior to be negative so they reacted to that.
Speaker 1:So it created the snowball effect of negativity which led to his behavior becoming so negative that he actually did get fired. All because he believed for completely and correctly that he was gonna go get fired. Wow. To me, that that that broke my brain. Like, that broke my brain how you can believe something and it can become a reality.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So so to your point, can we do the opposite? Can we believe something good and it will become a reality?
Speaker 2:Well, I think so. I because this is the other thing. I'll give you a couple of examples, but a lot of times people will say, well, when this happens, then I'll start doing this. Right? Like, I'll stop drinking when this happens or I'll start smoke stop smoking when this happens or I'll be more faithful when I'm in a relationship.
Speaker 2:And it's like, well, you have to start embodying the person you want to be today. Otherwise, how else will you be able to receive what you want in the future? Right? So some people call it manifestation and all kinds of things, but I think it's part of, I've got this weird theory in my head around quantum physics and how all of that works, it's like, you know, the wave equation. So in my head, it's like a mathematical thing that, you know, if you're starting to observe your life in that light, then things will start becoming your reality.
Speaker 2:So yes, I agree with you. I think if you change who you are and how you behave in a positive light, then things will start shifting and you'll start inviting things into your life that are meant for you.
Speaker 1:And if I'm not mistaken, this would be a wonderful time to say what your podcast is called.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's called Easy Conversations.
Speaker 1:Easy Conversations. Believe it or not, we're almost at the end of our time. There is only one question that we ask every single one of our guests. The problem is it's a hard question. If you had to go back to the most difficult time in your life, whether it was, you know, three months ago or twenty years ago, what advice would you give to yourself?
Speaker 2:It all works out.
Speaker 1:One way or the other. Yes. Furkhan, thank you so much for coming to the show today. It is always such a delight to talk to you. I appreciate
Speaker 2:you deeply. Likewise. Thank you.