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Wendy Coulter, CEO of Hummingbird Creative Group, introduces the “Hummingbird Effect,” describing how branding and marketing create interconnected, unexpected impacts beyond immediate ROI. After celebrating Hanna's upcoming 28th birthday and noting her wedding planning, Wendy welcomes guest Josh Perry, a former pro BMX freestyle rider who competed for 13 years while battling five brain tumors and later shifted into full-time coaching. Josh shares how an MRI after a head injury revealed tumors, prompting deeper self-inquiry and a move away from problem-solving marketing toward vulnerability, identity, and unseen drivers of behavior. He explains measuring results through intrinsic alignment and fulfillment, cites a client whose marriage improved, discusses integrating personal and professional growth, critiques “work-life balance” in favor of priorities and seasons, and outlines frameworks for uncovering blind spots and chronic complaints. He shares where to find him online.
00:00 Welcome to Hummingbird Effect
01:01 Birthday Hats Surprise
02:26 Wedding Plans and Events
03:14 Meet Josh Perry
07:23 BMX to Coaching Journey
11:21 Brand Ripple Effects
15:21 Measuring Intrinsic Results
18:44 Niche and Positioning
25:19 Authenticity and Judgment
34:57 Experimentation and Consciousness
36:46 Consciousness Before Matter
37:07 Limitless Self Experiment
38:08 Advice to Younger Self
39:56 Voids Create Values
41:40 Jealousy and Authenticity
44:06 Leading With Acceptance
46:12 Identity Blind Spots
50:04 Work Life Integration
54:59 Money Stories and Scarcity
57:24 Self Sabotage and Values
01:03:12 Rackets and Hidden Payoffs
01:07:29 Where to Find Josh
Creators and Guests
Host
What is The Hummingbird Effect with Wendy Coulter?
Welcome to "The Hummingbird Effect," a podcast dedicated to uncovering the subtle yet powerful ways that small innovations can transform your business. Hosted by Wendy Coulter, CEO of Hummingbird Creative Group, this show delves into the stories and strategies behind successful brand building.
For over 25 years, Wendy has helped CEOs and business leaders redefine their brands through innovation and compelling narratives. In this podcast, she shares the insights and lessons learned from her extensive experience, exploring how a strong brand orientation can significantly increase the value of your business.
Each episode features engaging conversations with industry leaders, business advisors, and innovators who have harnessed the power of branding to make a substantial impact. Discover how focusing on core values, mission, and vision can drive your brand beyond mere marketing tactics, fostering a culture that resonates with your audience and enhances your business's reputation.
Inspired by the concept of the Hummingbird Effect—where small, adaptive changes lead to remarkable outcomes—this podcast aims to help you understand and implement the incremental innovations that can elevate your brand and business.
Join Wendy Coulter on "The Hummingbird Effect" and learn how to evolve your brand, attract more customers, and ultimately enhance the value of your business through strategic branding.
38 - Hummingbird Effect - Josh Perry
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[00:00:00] hi, I'm Wendy Coulter, CEO, and President of Hummingbird Creative Group, where we help business leaders unlock the power of their brands.
Wendy: for many years business leaders have focused on tactics of marketing. But what really matters is building a strong brand like the hummingbird and the flower. Your marketing and every other aspect of your business have a very intertwined connectivity, and sometimes there are effects that you're not expecting.
And we call this the Hummingbird Effect. So today I have Hannah on the show with us. [00:01:00] Hi Hannah. Hello,
Hanna: Wendy.
Wendy: So I have a little surprise for you.
Hanna: Oh no.
Wendy: Um, so, because tomorrow's big birthday and nobody watches the video anyway, right? So you get a hat, you get a hat, you get a hat, you get a hat and you get a hat.
Our guest, Josh gets a hat. I get a hat.
Hanna: Oh, Joe, I think you have
Wendy: a hat. Joe does have a hat, but, um, oh, my hat has a tag on it. So that's really pretty. Um, so,
Hanna: oh, we have multiple hats.
Wendy: We have more hats. Anyone
Hanna: wants to come?
Wendy: Okay. So Hannah has a big birthday tomorrow. I don't know if she'll share which birthday.
Hanna: I'm gonna be 28.
Wendy: It is. Oh, there you go. But I had a theory that like, you might think it was cool to celebrate the last day of this year.
Hanna: Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. I, '
Wendy: cause you might celebrate it the rest of your life. True. No, this is the last day of my, the rest
Hanna: of my life. Yes,
Wendy: yes, yes, yes. This is the last day of the rest of your life.
So every day from here on out,
Hanna: I will be
Wendy: 29. [00:02:00] Forever. You'll be this age. So I thought that would be cool. So happy birthday. Thanks. Happy birthday. Happy. This is
Hanna: gonna fall off my head.
Wendy: Yeah. I was gonna sing, but I don't think anyone would enjoy that. So, um, we'll be celebrating tomorrow with lunch and at the office and so happy birthday.
Thank you. Start the celebrations early. Okay. Woohoo. We can talk about, yay.
Hanna: This is cute.
Wendy: Um, maybe get a picture later. Oh, it's probably
Hanna: in the,
Wendy: so other than birthday celebrations, what else is going on in your life? I know you're planning a wedding.
Hanna: Wedding, yeah. Birthday wedding. That's pretty much taken and work and all the work and stuff work and that's taken up every inch of my.
Wendy: Yeah.
Hanna: My being.
Wendy: And we have, um, we were talking to Josh before the show. We have, um, some activities coming up too that are like training. Mm-hmm. So he'll talk a little bit about maybe some of the training and events he has coming up. But we're gearing up for a big event with Women's Business Center North Carolina to Yes.
Friday morning.
Hanna: Mm-hmm.
Wendy: Um, so [00:03:00] just a shout out to the Women's Business Center who does amazing work for women business owners in the Raleigh area. Um, and I guess we should talk about the guests today. The guests, I guess. Um, Josh Perry stealing my
Hanna: birthday, but
Wendy: yeah. Um, you know, I'm excited because Josh and I have gotten to know each other a little bit more recently, but I knew Josh or of Josh or saw Josh and maybe he didn't know me years ago at Daniel Dares Action Sports Complex.
My daughter kind of grew up there, skateboarding and scootering and, um, the pros, which that was you, Josh. The BMX pros would come in with Daniel and, um, it was just amazing and inspiring, um, and scary. Um, and so, you know, having a daughter growing up in that space, watching you guys and what all happens is, um, was always interesting and we saw a lot of things happen.
Not, not necessarily at Daniels, but when you get on concrete [00:04:00] doing that stuff, yeah, it gets pretty dicey. Um, so I think. Given Josh's kind of background, he might have a few hummingbird effects to talk about today.
Hanna: Yeah, I do think, we'll, we'll hear some professional ones, but, um, I did dig in and I don't know if you were gonna talk about this, and it is a little personal before I start, but, um, just to some not so fun facts that I have found.
Um, you were professionally doing BMX. Is it racing? Is that the, it was the freestyle Freestyle X camp. Trixy freestyle for 13 years. Um, all while, but while battling five brain tumors. Um, and then you had to do a wake surgery to remove one. Um, so that just, I, that doesn't set the stage for how amazing you are.
And then that's just your personal life professionally, I'm sure there's a lot to talk about. So I'm excited that it itself is a hummingbird effect. So I'm excited to learn.
Wendy: Welcome to the [00:05:00] show, Josh. Yeah, tell us more about you and your past and what you're doing today.
Josh Perry: Well, first thanks for having me and is it today or tomorrow is your birthday?
It's tomorrow, yeah. Happy early birthday. Thank you. And also congrats on the wedding.
Hanna: Thank you.
Josh Perry: Thank you. My wife and I just had our three year anniversary last month, and um, it was one of the. I think people say like a stressful, I was say planning experience, but in our experience it was a little bit of stressful, but it was more excitement.
Yes. That's, and then it was like probably one of the greatest,
Hanna: where we are ni
Josh Perry: days of our lives up until
Hanna: I was said today. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I so excited that I don't want it to be over, and I don't know if that's just like, I'm blissfully unaware of what's to come or, or what it is, but I am excited, so thank you.
Josh Perry: Yeah. It, it went by really quick, so we were very fortunate to have some advice of taking intentional moments aside to be with each other, just mm-hmm. Absorb and just process,
Hanna: not yell at each other that something's not done. Yeah. We should. Is that quality time?
Josh Perry: So yeah.
Wendy: Maybe that's what this long weekend is all [00:06:00] about.
Hanna: Maybe
Wendy: you don't know.
Hanna: I have no idea. I am going on a surprise trip.
Wendy: There's a surprise trip. Okay. There you go. This weekend,
Hanna: I hope it's not wedding planning.
Wendy: No, you're gonna take a moment
Hanna: to be take intentional time. That's right. That's a really, that's a good piece of advice
Josh Perry: because even when we're doing that, it was like, wow.
Like the day the night been going by so quick and we, we thankfully had it at our friend's house where they had a bunch of land, so it wouldn't even have known it was their, their property. But we were there till maybe four in the morning with a bonfire for that's the people that lingered around towards the end.
And um, but even though it was, you know, 12, 14 hours, it went by so quick, so
Hanna: fast and it's over.
Josh Perry: Yeah.
Hanna: And then,
Josh Perry: and it was one of the, and then what one of the greatest days of our lives though, just having all of our friends and family come together and be able to celebrate and, um, yeah. So excited. Well,
Hanna: I'm excited for you.
I'm excited. Um,
Wendy: and you have exciting news. Yes. To share as well. There's a little one coming
Josh Perry: first baby on the way. Yay. Due dates July 24th and.
Wendy: Yay.
Josh Perry: We're excited about that. Um, it's been [00:07:00] about a year and a half, maybe two years now of mentally preparing with some therapy and, you know, getting to the place of, making the decision.
And it's interesting 'cause when we found out that Jackie was pregnant, it just, for me, it felt like a weight lifted. And I was like, that's how this what you do the thing. And it's like all the anticipation just,
Wendy: and that's it.
Josh Perry: Yeah. And the new things come along, so, so looking forward to that new Yeah.
Wendy: I love it.
Well, tell us a little more about your background and where you've landed.
Josh Perry: Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot to it. I think everyone whether they realize it or not, they have a story and there's a lot of elements that go into it. And my best way of trying to summarize all of that was to write a book last year that took me six or seven years to finish.
Wow. There's parts of it that aren't in there that I'm not sure if I should put in there or do another book. So but I guess, yeah, long story short, I mean, how we originally met, now that I recall was in my BMX career. That was a childhood dream. I grew up just wanting to be like the people I saw on TV and played the video game characters of, and um, I made that [00:08:00] happen.
I turned pro my junior of high school around when I turned 17, and then moved from Massachusetts to Greenville, North Carolina, about an hour and a half east of where we are. And that was a train with Dave Mira who is, you know, people aren't familiar, like Tony HTA skateboarding, Dave was and is that to BMX.
And he had a private training facility along with Ryan Nyquist, had another private training facility, backyard Ramps public park. And at 17 years old, I was paying 200 bucks a month for rent with a three bedroom apartment with some of my best friends. And
Hanna: that's awesome.
Josh Perry: Living the dream, traveling the world, being paid to ride my bike, film, video projects, compete.
And shoot photos and all the good stuff. So became heroes or friends with my heroes and like the people I play the, you know, the characters of video games with. Um, and yeah, that just led me down a path of really just pushing myself mentally and physically and didn't realize the emotional part was there as well.
And then, um, my, you know, first year after getting into the X Games, I had a head injury that led to an MRI that accidentally discovered the first of many brain tumors. And that was when I was 21 in [00:09:00] 2010. And that was the catalyst of me pointing the finger back at myself and asking, you know, what's going on here?
What can I do differently? What am I not seeing? And just was the catalyst to me just doing a deep dive into learning about who I am, who I thought I was, and who I could be, put me on the path to where January, 2020, I decided to experiment figuring out who I was without BMX. That's a six year experiment still running.
Hanna: I was about to say, have you, have you succeeded or are we still
Josh Perry: Yeah, I, I mean I, I think now it's just a decision. Um, but what started as a, you know, a hypothesis if you will, you know, cemented and my chosen reality to be on a path of a higher calling, I say, which is the coaching business I've been doing full-time for eight years now.
And, um, I just love helping people transcend beyond performance. I guess we can talk more about that later, but it's just my understanding of, um, so much of us, you know, try to perform, to do something, to get something, to be something, when really that's just a part of the, you know, the reality that is what we call life.
And [00:10:00] um, I feel like a lot of that gets us results. And then it also comes with expenses along the way. And there's a less forceful way I've learned to live life. So I think at the end of the day, I'm like an oxymoron of a high performance coach. 'cause I'm usually not telling people they need to do more.
Actually, it's the opposite. It's like, let's, let's pause and pull back and let's see what's going on. 'cause. That was my journey was really,
Hanna: mm-hmm.
Josh Perry: Having my dreams come true and then still not feeling like enough and not feeling successful. So I just love being able to help high performing individuals, you know, really discover themselves and what it means to perform at a high level and what it could look like beyond that.
Wendy: So what I love about Josh and um, just like how we've connected here in general is a few years ago, um, he spoke at a OX annual meeting. Mm-hmm. And I learned that he's coaching, um, Stephen Perry at ox, and we, we do work with ox. And so, um, I just had that moment of, wait, I know this guy, [00:11:00] how do I know this guy?
Right? And then he was telling his story on stage and I was like, oh yeah, that, that would be, um, BMX. And so, um, it's just really neat how like that little string keeps coming back around and we keep touching base with each other
Hanna: mm-hmm.
Wendy: Here and there. Um, and I always feel like that happens for a reason.
Um. So let's transition because we're here to talk about a hummingbird effect and, um, you know, for us, and, and really for me in coming up with the idea of the show, um, I own a marketing agency and the majority of the time we are being talked to about ROI and immediate, you know, results of marketing strategy and how are we going to help sell the next thing.
But over the years, I've just seen so many other effects of great marketing and great branding specifically that really lead to long-term success. And you don't always know where it's gonna come from. [00:12:00] It might be that a business gets evaluated a little bit higher. Mm-hmm. It might be that a new product idea comes out and it turns out to be the most amazing product that the brand has ever come out with.
Or it might be a big culture shift for the team because of something that happened with the marketing and the branding. Um, and so I wanted to explore that in the podcast and kind of talk about the way that something in a branding and marketing world can lead to changes in a completely different way.
Mm-hmm. Um, and so let's, let's unpack that a little bit and just talk to us about where you've seen like a shift or change in marketing with a client or in your own world, affect something else. Mm-hmm. That was totally unexpected.
Josh Perry: Yeah, I, I'll speak from my personal experience, it's definitely been an evolution to where I learned I wasn't being as vulnerable with myself, therefore my communication and what I was stuck on was trying to help people get [00:13:00] to what you were talking about people want and immediate ROI.
So I was positioning myself as someone that can help solve problems, and that realization for me of solving problems could be the problem of itself solving. And so when I started to look at it in terms of, okay, how can I create more of a ripple effect downstream, long term really help people see the gaps that lead them to going, oh, like let's look at this surface level, um, thing that we can see, but not the invisible component that's driving the piece that we can see.
And we usually gravitate to, like, I'll just mess with this. I'll change this. I'll stop doing this. So when I started to realize. There's a deeper thread through all these things I'm talking about, and started to implement that in my life and started to communicate that it was less of me trying to be something and more of me just being it and helping people connect the dots of what they were experiencing and what I was sharing that could actually help them bridge the gap.
And that's why I talked about earlier of me kind of feeling like I'm an oxymoron as a [00:14:00] high performance coach. 'cause I think a lot of us look in human nature to live in this 3D world. And what I've learned about my marketing or my coaching and just kind of my positioning as a human being, which is an extension of, or my business extension of me, is like, let's look at the elements that aren't being seen, like identity and energy informing the decisions we make and the behavior we create and the outcomes that are a result of it.
So just making that shift to looking deeper into, um, you know, someone may want to scale their business and make more money, or they say they want to scale their team and they have a recruitment issue. I come in and I'm like, all right, well what's actually feeling. This problem and what is the implications of not looking beyond, beyond the surface?
And so just that shift of really getting more vulnerable with myself to be able to pick up on things, feel things, and then communicate that I've just, by virtue of making that shift, I now have people reaching out to me to [00:15:00] inquire about what do I do at the least? And if not the best, like, how can I work with you, Josh?
And that was just these small tweaks of just kind of language I was using rather than just trying to solve people's problems. I was challenging them to look at, well, what's really informing the statement that you think you have a problem or the desire to make these changes? And let's talk about that.
Wendy: So talk about how you measure that. Um, kind of how are you, how are you measuring the results of that shift that you've made?
Josh Perry: How do I measure them for myself or with my clients?
Wendy: Either way.
Josh Perry: For myself, it's intrinsic. And that's something I've learned is carrot stick, you know, pain, reward, um, can help. And it's really good at getting us motivated to do something.
But when I consider how much I really appreciate things like growth, contribution, and impact, then I see, okay, the old way was like numbers. Let's just look at the objective. Mm-hmm. [00:16:00] And a lot of people do that. I mean, businesses, they operate, you know, largely off of numbers, you know, in and out. Um, but for me it was really like a sense of fulfillment, a sense of joy, a sense of congruence and alignment with who I am.
Internally and who I'm putting out into the world. And as that gap started to close, then that became more fulfilling, even though it was, you know, scary and uncomfortable. That's what led to one of my values of growth. And I see that with clients, um, especially the high performing clients I work with that identify as a high performer, like a professional athlete or CEO founder.
Um, you know, they may have the resources or the typical numbers that people wanna see, but there's like this disconnect and this, this constant stress, stress and this idea of like, you know, whatever I'm doing, I still feel like it's not enough. Or I'm like, I'm falling behind and I don't feel disconnected from my family or my team or myself even.
So that's what I've learned to create different, um, ways of measuring those intrinsic subjective values that we can put numbers to and then track along the way. And then [00:17:00] ironically, we, when we see those numbers go up, then we see like the financial numbers go up as well. Mm-hmm. Um, and then like, you know, the different expenses or costs go down.
Can
Wendy: you give us an example of kind of an unexpected consequence that's come about in your world?
Josh Perry: Yeah. I'd say one of the early ones that really changed my perspective of the work I was doing, when someone told me that by virtue of us working together, it'd saved their marriage.
Wendy: Oh, wow.
Josh Perry: And if I was a typical, you know, per, I've had a typical perspective of like trying to create a number of an ROI, there's no number that would've ever met that experience.
And that's why I talk about the intrinsic, like that was such a deep value of theirs, that the desire to change their, you know, a lot of what I'm working is the mental emotional components. And so when they started to change from an identity level, their behavior changed and the results changed. And I think it was a surprise to all of us that their marriage started to shift in a beautiful manner because.
When they started to connect more themselves, they were able to be more intimate with someone else. So no longer [00:18:00] were they relating to their, their spouse or the circumstance through the lens of their survival mechanism. Unknowingly, they started to be in a relationship with, because it wasn't about their discomfort from their partner or the team or the business not doing well, which is largely how we operate.
So that was a shift that I was like, I don't, how would you ever put a number right on your marriage? Same thing with like health, like we know what we do put in, in terms of cost with health insurance, maybe surgeries or medications or lost work, things like that. But how do you really put a number on something so valuable, like a human being or your health or something that's, um, a true value of yours that's intrinsic and I don't think it's possible.
Wendy: Yeah. So do you position yourself, um, in the more personal coaching space or more business coaching space, or talk about how that intertwines in your world A little bit.
Josh Perry: Yeah, that's been a fun journey to navigate because [00:19:00] I position myself as, you have a brain that goes with you wherever you go. So the work we do or the work we don't do, whatever, whatever your life is impact, however it's impacting you at work or at home, is gonna impact you, vice versa.
So I always talk about personal and professional life 'cause, and I don't really talk about explicitly anymore. I, I guess talk about implicitly because I just talk about the human, you know, you go everywhere, you go. So whatever the person really, however they find me, and the desire to improve an aspect of their life, whether it's their business, it's their health, it's their relationship, it's whatever.
It all becomes holistically and intertwined. So again, there's no way, like, and I mean, people will say, I'm sure you say this to clients, you know, find your niche and things like that. I, I think it's the stubbornness in me. Um, I just, I have a hard time. Finding that niche, so to speak. And [00:20:00] instead I've used how I speak as my niche, if that makes sense.
Wendy: I think that makes total sense. Mm-hmm. So I always talk about niche because I know I felt called out, right? We, we felt called out. When people say niche, so you know, as someone in marketing and someone who owned a business, it was years and years and years of being told you've gotta have a niche, you've gotta have a niche.
And I always looked at niche as like a vertical. So like in your case, is it, is it the, exactly the way I asked it, is it personal coaching? Is it professional coaching? Do you deal with, you know, only executives? Do you deal with only men? Only women, you know, what is your niche? Right. Um, and I could never come to a place at Hummingbird where I felt like we had a niche.
I kept, I would try different verticals and I'm like, but when the economy changes I need to be able to serve multiple verticals. So why would I only do work for restaurants? Or why would I only do work for life science? Or why would I only do work in construction? I want to do work in all different kinds of things.
'cause that will help. [00:21:00] With job security over time. Um, and sustainability was like a really big focus. And so for us, same thing like finding the way that we communicate our value proposition and branding is our niche, not who we serve. Mm-hmm. We can serve a lot of different people. So it sounds like you can serve any person who is open to
Josh Perry: Yeah.
Wendy: The way that you do things. So talk a little bit about that. Talk about the way that you come to the table and how that is maybe a little bit different.
Josh Perry: Yeah. I think you said something key that how, as I interpret it, as the person has to be willing to explore these conversations and willing to commit to change.
And so if any, if any niche word were to be used, I mean, in the corporate space, in the athletic space, it's high performer. Not everyone that is a high performer in my mind, consider themselves a high performer. So, um, I've been challenged by different people in marketing that just tell me like, you know, you gotta [00:22:00] have a niche.
And people I just met for the first time, or they're just in my dms on LinkedIn, and I'm like, if anything now I'm about to just change my title of who I work with to just people. Like I help people. That's it. Um, because for me, how I feel like I come across in, you know, developing a relationship and then, you know, maybe a client is through conversation.
It's just through meeting people where they're at. And that could be from a referral, it could be from being on a podcast, it could be from my content, it could be from meeting someone. And just by virtue of me showing up with a compassionate, um, and empathetic container of just the energy I bring to the table, not judging, I just ask questions that most people won't, which is my role as a coach.
And then it helps 'em see things they can't see, which is, I think the number one thing I help people with is discovering blind spots. So I think just by just being myself and then creating that experience, people end up being curious like, oh, how could this help [00:23:00] me? I'm like, all right, great question. You want to set up a time to chat more about that?
That's what I love to do. Um, I think when I was trying to like niche and like I only work with executives, but then I'm like, I work with people in finance that are managers, maybe not executives. I work with solopreneurs that are in a completely different industry. I work with life science people, like I work with athletes.
Wendy: Well, and you find the definition of executive is a really interesting conversation to have with anyone because anyone in corporate America, the executives are the highest, like set on a pedestal. If anyone else calls themselves an executive that that's not a good thing, right? Um, but in small business.
You know, the business owner is the executive. Um, and oftentimes in a small team there are people really close to them who would be considered executive level. They're just not in a large organization. So that's always interesting. Um, and then I think to your point with sports, um, [00:24:00] that doesn't fit in the box and that's okay.
Josh Perry: Yeah. I mean, right now I have two pro golfers as clients I'm working with, I have a fractional CFO, I have a founder. Um, as a client, I have someone that's not sure how to relate to themselves or title themselves. They, I think, are small business owner. They're a 10 99, but they're a middle person between a manufacturer and the businesses.
They are like the middle person too, and they run a team. Um, so I, I asked them, that's business side, right? I was like, so how do you refer to yourself? Like entrepreneur, small business owner, leader? And they're like, I don't really know. I never thought of that. I was like, 'cause in my mind you're a small business owner that is also a leader, but not an executive but not a solopreneur.
'cause you have a team. So yeah, and I work with people in between. And then that's the beauty of me working with companies as clients is they, depending on how we structure it, whoever they want to have support to grow, I work with 'em. And it may not be, in that case, [00:25:00] it's, a lot of times it's not the executive level, it's some other leadership level.
Um, and my ignorance of the corporate world I think helps me. 'cause I'm just like, yeah, I mean, I don't need to know what the roles are, the titles. I, to me it doesn't matter 'cause it just, what matters is how that role impacts you and then how you are impacted by the rest of your life.
Wendy: So as an entrepreneur yourself.
What do you feel like the biggest lesson is that you've learned going down this path of marketing and branding yourself in this different space that you're in today?
Josh Perry: I'd say for me, the biggest thing I've learned in terms of marketing is the, the phrase, just be yourself. Just be authentic. How do you know to do that or what that is if you don't know you've ever not been your authentic self?
And that's something that I think takes a minute to think about. And for me, what helped me was realizing how much in my life I was in like a state of functional freeze in terms of a stress [00:26:00] response. I was doing the thing, but internally, my autonomic nervous system was suppressing emotion. So I wasn't feeling, I was stuck in my head.
I was intellectualizing, so I thought I was being me, which always frustrated me for years when. Mentors and be like, you felt, it felt like you were really in your head. Like, get, get more in your body. I'm like, what did, what does that, does that mean mean, like, how, how, like I'm here right now. And I, and I would say that when I started to really grasp that concept, I was like, oh, so I was stuck in this, and I mentioned earlier, closing the gap of who I am internally and who I'm putting out that I think people perceive me as.
And that gap grew to where it collapsed. And that was, I mean, we called midlife crisis at, I mean, 28 years old, whatever, whatever you wanna call it, core life crisis. But that really taught me like, oh, there's a version of me, I don't feel comfortable sharing. And I caught that. I was trying to speak in a way that people would accept to gain approval to work with me or to hang out with [00:27:00] me, whatever the, you know, the motive was during, you know, depending on the context.
And so when I really got like, oh. I can just like stop trying to talk like other people admire and I can just speak the way I do. But that took really understanding that I was insecure with who I was and how I was communicating. And even in environments like this, I would be stuck in my head trying to think about what to say rather than just speaking it.
So when it came to marketing in the last year and a half, when I've just slowly shifted the energy in which I am informing the words I use and just speaking the way I want to, same thing in my BMX career happened. When I started to really authentically express myself without the constraints of what other people, the judges thought they, I wanted them to or they what I thought they wanted to see.
For me, I started placing hire and I've been doing that in my business now and I've had a conversation a couple weeks ago where someone was following my content for a couple months and then they just saw the transition and they wanted to reach out 'cause they felt connected. That's the [00:28:00] biggest thing I've learned is if people tell you to be yourself, be authentic and you're not sure it's gonna create that disconnect 'cause you're disconnected from yourself.
And that's what I found with myself. That's what I find with a lot of my clients is we're so worded as humans of the thing we want is out there that we lose sight of who we are. 'cause we're trying to be something or do something that we think is gonna get us that thing.
Wendy: Well, and I think you're unpacking that really in a unique way because we hear, especially as women, like I'm at events all the time that are about be your authentic self.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, and somewhat for me, I've always been like, how am I, anything else? Mm-hmm. Right. Um, because you're kind of authentic for also the time of life that you're in or what's going on. I
Josh Perry: start,
Wendy: you're
Josh Perry: always as authentic as you're able to be.
Wendy: Authentic as you can be. Right. But I think the way you're unpacking that is more about.
Like, I went through a time in my life where I had had some women in my head about the way, the way I was dressing.
Hanna: [00:29:00] Mm-hmm.
Wendy: And so I started dressing different because I thought that's what I needed to do to be successful. Um, it didn't really change who I was, it didn't really change, change the way I approached the world, other than I was uncomfortable in that space then because I was not dressing the way.
So that's just like a simple, a simple way. So when judgment comes into play and we put judgment in our head is when we aren't so authentic, is what I'm hearing you say. And trying to find the ways to let that go, which I'll say, you know, getting in, becoming a woman in your fifties, somehow it all just starts to melt away.
So that's been fun.
Josh Perry: Yeah. There you go.
Wendy: That's been, and that's why I'm 29
Hanna: forever.
Wendy: That's why you're 29. Forever. Yeah. 'cause I think I had probably about hit 30. When there was some pretty serious like judgment coming into my space in the business world. Right.
Hanna: Don't judge me.
Wendy: Well, I think it, [00:30:00] I think it happens somewhat because like you're getting to that place where you've got experience behind you and then people are holding you to new expectations that you might not be sure really what your path should be.
And you kind of let them steer that. Mm-hmm. If you're not careful to letting that go, great.
Josh Perry: Well, I think you just said it. That's a great know if you're not sure.
Wendy: Right. Yeah.
Josh Perry: That usually tells me that someone's partially disconnected from their authentic self, like their true nature of who they are. And so with the words that are full of judgment is like, I should be doing this.
I shouldn't have done that. You know, I need to do this. And it's all based on the perception, um, that we have of other people's perspective of us. And something that really shifted my mindset quite a bit was the idea that we're not worried what other people think. We're worried that other people think what we already think about ourselves.
And so when we can really get that and we're like,
Hanna: it was deep.
Josh Perry: Oh, okay. Well that actually, that makes sense.
Hanna: Yeah. Yeah.
Josh Perry: I was talking with someone yesterday, another coach and sharing about how he's, you know, judgmental, not as much as other [00:31:00] people, but judgmental of himself and worried that what he puts out in terms of content won't be received in some kind of way.
But he's not, he was, I forget how he was worried about it. He was like, yeah, but it's like, it's all good though. And I was like, but it's not because you are telling me about this and you're talking about it and the energy is this concern. And so this was the first time we, we spoke. So it was interesting.
And then we got into it and he is like, yeah, that's actually true. Because if, you know, 'cause I was asking him what would be the concern if someone, you know, had some type of feeling about what you wrote and get down to this thing about not being good enough, not being, you know, valid in what he was talking about.
And I find that if someone, you know, the clothing example and. I imagine with women, especially in the corporate space and entrepreneurial space, it's unfortunately a lot of insecure little boys as adult men, um, don't, you know, treat people, um, a way that is respectful. It's gotta be really tough. Um, but also if we consider what the fear is that's driving it, that's where [00:32:00] I'm learning more and more is how we identify with ourselves.
And so what, how I refer to it as is the identification with the negation of self. So if we go deep enough and we're vulnerable enough with ourselves or with someone that can help us see this is if at the root of the fear, and this is deeper than limiting beliefs, but at the root of it is like this idea that I'm not going to be something safe, good enough, worthy, acceptable, whatever loved, um, that is the part of us that we identify unknowingly.
So we go pursue filling that void mm-hmm. With the thing which is really just trying to prove ourselves wrong, which is never gonna work. That the ego's designed to be right. This is why people fight for the limitations, why they fight to be right about their own suffering 'cause they're in control. So when we can start to work with that, not against that, which I think is really noble and, and from a place of love when people try to say like, oh no, you're great.
You know, whatever the, the, the fear is. The concern [00:33:00] is like, no, you're great. Like it's, it's a form of denying one's reality and that creates more separation with ourselves. Mm-hmm. 'cause then we go to think unconsciously like, what's wrong with me then? 'cause you know, Hannah is saying, I'm great but I don't feel great in this moment.
There must be something wrong with me. And then we go pursue trying to find the solution to fix ourselves and it just creates the cyclical effect of solving becomes the end never ending problem that just expands the inner fear. And so that's a lot of my work is helping people unpack those things. But also it's because of the journey I'm on.
Understanding more of myself, and that's kind of how I position high performance today, is just how well you know yourself. Why are your goals the way they are? Why are they meaningful to you? What happens if you don't? What meaning are you making about yourself? Especially in sales when people hear no all the time,
Hanna: right?
Josh Perry: It's like, what are you making that mean about yourself? Um, it's, yeah.
Hanna: Oh, we hardly ever hear no anymore. They just disappear.
Josh Perry: It's so
Wendy: interesting. That's true. The world has [00:34:00] changed a lot from the no aspect. Yeah. It's either a Yes, definitely. Or where did they go? Where did this person,
Josh Perry: it's always interesting when I hear from people, they reach out to me and then we do a little back and forth and then nothing.
Wendy: Right. Oh, well there's that actually, I had a client, this happened once. It was in New Zealand. We had a couple calls, decided to work together, paid the first month, had a session, and then got, I got ghosted card stopped [00:35:00] working and so. I was in my head, you know, at first I was like, well, did I something?
Josh Perry: What did I do wrong? And then I was like, well, wait, no. He said he had a great, great experience and wanted to, did something happen to him? And I followed up for like three months and nothing. So, I don't know. Hopefully
Wendy: he's okay. If you're listening. If you're listening, give him sign
Hanna: of life.
Wendy: Yeah. Just let him know.
Yeah. Wow.
Josh Perry: But yeah, the ghosting experience is, is a new one.
Wendy: Yeah.
Hanna: That's.
Wendy: So talk about, um, innovation and experimentation and, um, there's a lot of things going on in the world now with AI and digital marketing and all of those things. I think we're all experimenting every day. It's hard to know exactly what we need to do, but where have you kind of taken yourself with experimentation and innovation and what kind of impact has that made?
Josh Perry: In terms of technology, ai or just in general?
Wendy: In general.
Josh Perry: Oh, I'd say that's the, the core of what I'm talking about is experimenting with just being as vulnerable as I can with [00:36:00] myself and other people and expressing those pieces and just not worrying so much if it lands or doesn't. The irony is it lands pretty well, so I think that's, that's probably the thing that comes to mind the most is I'm constantly pursuing that path of.
Understanding I'm not who I think I am. And actually getting into more of a spiritual philosophical lens is the left brain is the interpreter of our lives, and it creates a fictional self. That's what they call in Buddhism. It's the fictional self. And so the more I question that and I'm like, oh, is this who I am or is this this what I think or what I feel or what I've been doing?
And breaking that down and really seeing the evidence like, oh, okay, so this isn't who I am. Who I am is I like to mess with people. And so when they ask me on podcasts, Josh, tell us who you are. I'm like, I'm consciousness curious of what I'm capable of in the world.
Wendy: My husband would love this conversation
Josh Perry: because the more I learn about it, and the more I learn about consciousness, specifically from a ni [00:37:00] neuroscientific lens, it's like, well, that's what we are is consciousness.
Whether that's, you know, in Buddhism, it's, you know, a collective universal field of energy and you know, or in religion, it's this higher, you know, being God, you know, um, whatever it is, it's, it's something that's beyond us as an individual that connects all of us and everything. And I recently just saw, um, I haven't read it yet, but applied physics put out a paper of scientists now saying that consciousness comes before matter.
And so the idea of like this invisible mm-hmm. Connected field of energy, even deeper than energy, like it's, I don't even know what it would be. Um, that's, that's been a fun thing to explore. Also realizing I'm in this human meat suit and on this spinning rock in, in the universe, and there is that realistic element that just brings me a lot more, I find freedom and joy playing in exploration rather than searching or mm-hmm.
Surviving or, you know, um, what's the other word that's commonly used? Um, like chasing [00:38:00] something?
Hanna: Yeah.
Josh Perry: I'm just being more of my limited or limitless self. And that's been a fun experiment to see how far that can go. And by virtue of that, my vision for my business and my life has expanded to where I'm doing things differently that are, are a requirement for, or the vision's gonna bring me.
Wendy: So it's so interesting. He's talking about his limitless self now, and he was in a sport where everyone, I mean, yeah, I was terrified, um, as a mom, right. To watch. You guys riding and to watch my daughter and the tricks and the back flips on concrete and all of the things. Right. So like you've lived limitless in so many ways, but how, what would you like say to yourself now, like what would you say to your 11th grade self going into that space and would, knowing what you know today, how would that have changed things for you back then?
Josh Perry: Yeah, I think the first few things that come to [00:39:00] mind I'd say is, it's okay. You're good enough, you are enough. Because what I've understood now is yeah, that, that form of expression and BMX, you know, doing tricks in the air, flipping, spinning, all that, yeah. One could say that was limitless, but now as I understand it from one of my teachers, helped me see it like this.
It was the best version of my limited self because how much I identified with myself not being good enough unless. Not being able to, unless I did this, not being who I wanted to be until I obtained or achieved or whatever. I was forcing my way through life, identifying with the negation of who I was, which has created a, a limit, it created a cap.
No matter how well I did the thing inside would still be suffering. Um, and it, I really got this when the person I'm referring to as one of my teachers really mentioned how he's worked with dozens of billionaires. And he said that on paper they may look successful, but in his mind they're not. 'cause they're stuck on this trap of not being enough [00:40:00] still.
And so they're identifying with like everything that they want is out there. And anytime we feel separate to something we want, or um, someone or ourselves, it creates an instant form of survival as a human being. And then so we go try to manipulate the external people, places, things and experiences to get that, which is all intrinsic.
And so. For me, I would just try to help my younger version of myself see like, man, it's all good. Like you're enough. Because I didn't have that growing up. And that's what I've learned about, um, our voids breed, our values. So the things that we don't have growing up, those are the things that we become defined by trying to get.
And so we become a victim to that thing. We become in control by that thing, or people that we perceive can give us the thing that we unknowingly value, which is what drives our motives to do or not do things. So being able to go back and have a conversation myself, I would just try to help myself be more vulnerable, expressing himself.
And then, [00:41:00] I don't know, like you can do all this stuff, like Jim Carrey said, I wish everyone would get rich famous, how the dreams come true to realize it's not gonna be enough.
Wendy: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Josh Perry: It's not gonna solve the problem you think there is?
. '
Hanna: It's interesting 'cause when you're talking, I was like, okay, you're speaking on this person that obviously everybody wants to be, but at the end of it I was like, no, you're kind of speaking on a person that everyone's jealous of.
Like that person that is succeeding because they don't care what you think about them and they're doing exactly what they want and you're like, Hey, do you wanna go do this? And they're like, no. And you kinda get your feelings hurt, but it's just, they know exactly what they want and how to get there and you're always just standing back.
So it's interesting to hear someone that's actually gotten to that point and not just standing behind them envious of what they're doing. And I don't know if that's relatable to anybody else or if I'm just,
Wendy: I think, I think learn. It's interesting because I think it kind of comes down to, um. What some of us look to as confidence.
Hanna: Yeah.
Josh Perry: Mm-hmm.
Wendy: Right. But it might not be confidence as much as it is [00:42:00] finding that authentic self in Right. Yeah. Finding your comfort in the world as opposed to, oh, that person's got it all together. Right. And they're so confident. Right.
Josh Perry: Yeah.
Wendy: So
Josh Perry: I, we even think about the language you use. What would someone that's jealous of someone that they admire or want to be, what, what do you think that jealous person is experiencing?
Hanna: I think you're asking me to my face one. Oh,
Josh Perry: no,
Hanna: no, no. I was trying to like have an example.
Josh Perry: That's true. Yeah. I mean, I appreciate that and I acknowledge you sharing
Hanna: that. I was thinking about like, some specific people have popped into my head and I, but. I was trying to pinpoint what it was, and really the entire time was they just don't care.
Like they were gonna say what they wanted to say and they were gonna do what they wanted to do. And for some reason everything always worked out for them. And it left me kind of cleaning up their mess because they didn't care. And that mess, probably, now that you're talking, didn't need to be cleaned up.
I just didn't know what I, I was following [00:43:00] them because they were presenting as a leader where I probably could have been in the same position. And the stories that I'm thinking of, I was the leader, I was in charge. These people were technically under me, but I was so drawn to their. Confidence, whether if that's the word or not, that I was just kind of letting them go and in turn I was miserable.
So I, I think I'm just having a moment of realizing
Josh Perry: I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah.
Hanna: The position that I was in. So I don't know if that's relatable to, to everyone if you've seen that or experience, but that's what
Josh Perry: human, human
Hanna: experience. I was going. The other thought I had, and this one I think is a question for you, Wendy, but I was trying to connect it all back to the corporate world or leadership where as Wendy, you could engage and you could learn all about yourself and what brings you joy and close that gap.
But then how do you create leaders that encourage people [00:44:00] below them to do the same thing and then take it a step further and be accepting of who they are and that they are a part of your team. Because if they're doing, if you hear me say something and it's like, why would she say that? But it's just genuinely what I thought, and I'm happy with the outcome.
How do you create an environment that is accepting of everybody? And I don't think that there's an answer, but that was what I was trying to right down as we were talking.
Wendy: I think, and I would hope Josh would support me on this. Most good leaders are mm-hmm. Trying to do that. Yeah. All the time. Right? Like we are hoping, we're creating an environment where everyone feels accepted and a part of it.
And you know, part of that though is understanding maybe our own values and then how to surround ourselves with people who connect in that way. Um, and that does come down to understanding authentically who we are. Yeah. Yeah. [00:45:00] Instead of, oh, my company needs to be this, and then you are not in alignment as the leader, and therefore your people aren't gonna be in alignment either because you've created this thing that you think people expect your company to be a certain way.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I think I've done some learning in that space as I've led different teams over the last 30 years. But I mean, don't you think that's, that's a piece I would hope that most leaders who you would coach, that would be something they're striving for. I don't know that we always have the answer, but I think finding those, those core values is a big part of it.
Josh Perry: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean. It's so the identity becomes the blind spot. And so people can start out and usually do, I don't, this is a fundamental belief, I should say, of mine. Everyone is doing the best they can with a resource available to 'em at the time. Awareness being one of those important resources.
So I don't believe in bad people. I don't believe in, in that [00:46:00] whole, um, framing. I believe people are byproducts of their environments. They grow up in which epigenetics shows us how this happens to a cellular level with a child in the womb, and the different receptors of different information that gets, um, embedded into us and encoded in our DNA.
So that's first. Everyone's doing to me, everyone's doing the best they can with resources available to 'em at the time. The environment being one of the most important resources. This is the, the nurture over nature conversation of what's most impactful. So yeah, someone may start. A business with the greatest intention.
Mm-hmm. And then as it grows, as they experience more life, blind spots start to become a very big apparent apparent aspect of every human experience. And so when that becomes, you know, let's say I start communicating with someone at that point, you know, 15, 20, 30, 40 years in their career of running a team and they want the team to change your framing, I'd say works backwards from where you ended with, it starts with themselves.
And can they meet themselves where they are? 'cause [00:47:00] something I now know from experience and I believe in is we can only have compassion, empathy, faith, trust, or whatever in another person as much as we do for ourselves. Mm-hmm. And so if we can't meet ourselves somewhere, we want our team to, then it goes to the other point you made of demonstrating like leadership, whether people like it or not, they're a leader.
They're modeling.
Hanna: Yeah.
Josh Perry: And leadership. You're either a warning or an example. You're either demonstrating what you want your team to do and to follow, or you're warning them of what they can't trust, which is what I think a lot of leadership traps become, is the lack of commitment and integrity to the word, which is just doing what they said they'll do when they'll do it.
That creates instant lack of trust because the lack of predictability is there. And this is actually goes back to a funny conversation with my wife and my therapist and I, he, he referred to it as in psychology, it's a predictable, safe object. As human beings, we laughed about it, but what we discovered for each other as, you know, partners, was we became [00:48:00] predictable safe object for each other that we didn't have growing up to no fault of our parents. You know, they, they're just doing their best and now we're doing our best. But that's why we connect so well is 'cause we can trust the predictability and feel safe in that.
And being ourselves, which is another tangent, another mm-hmm. Adjacent way is what I believe love is, is being able to. Have a container that allows you to be your authentic self with no judgment and no fear. That's why we love someone the way we do is because they allow us to be ourselves, the depths of which we want to.
And so when people, you know, break up with someone they thought they loved, really, they just miss the element of being able to be safe being themselves. And then this translates to leadership. And you're mentioning that all the stories, the values, the beliefs, all these things that form an identity, it gets to a point where if things start growing and what they did to get there starts to change, that identity becomes challenged.
So yeah, what they developed as an unconscious decision about who they had to be in the world or what they had to do to be safe as themselves. And this is why I see with any [00:49:00] one of my clients we get to this point, is the identity starts to get to the edge of its comfort zone. And so there's a growth barrier that's being met.
And so it starts with the end of your positioning of your question. You have to meet yourself. To be able to meet someone where they're at because you are able, your ability to meet yourself mm-hmm. And move through the world is going to be the factor that affects other people. Otherwise, they're just always at the effect of you as you being the leader.
Right.
Hanna: How do you relate this back to work life balance? And I ask that 'cause I hot take, I'm not a big like work-life balance, like believer in like the definition of it. I think that this is, we work and, but that is part of your life. Like you can't completely draw a line to separate it. And I, and what we do, we're always having fun and there's five of us, so we're a small team and we're with each other all the time.
So it's not like your typical [00:50:00] corporate job going in, but it kind of feels like, if I'm hearing everything you're saying, that's, you really shouldn't look at it like as a balance. It's just you and what you're doing and what's making you happy and. Where you're trying to to go and maybe that it's okay to admit that it, you want to go to work.
And I think a lot of people struggle to like say that with people being so hardcore on mm-hmm.
Wendy: Balance. I set in a circle at this meeting that was about work life balance and you know, I was like, listen, I'm, I might work this many hours a day, but then I'm at the skate park watching my daughter whenever I can get an extra minute and I get that relief and the time with the family.
And it was, it was like. Balance isn't like what it is. It's about integration maybe, and just like making sure that I feel like everything's getting good attention. [00:51:00] Mm-hmm. But I put my all into every aspect of life and that can, I think that seems tiring to a lot of people. Mm-hmm. Maybe. Um, but yeah, I think the balance thing has gotten a little bit over, over talked about.
What are your thoughts on that question from Hannah? Josh?
Josh Perry: We're on the same page. I look at as less about, or not about work-life balance. Yeah. More of integration, harmonization.
Wendy: Yeah.
Josh Perry: So when people usually I hear them ask, you know, like, how do you get work life balance? What I'm starting to seek more of is the intention in forming the question.
There's usually either a lie or a problem stated in the question or the statement. When I think about, you know, like, why should someone have work-life balance or how do I get work life balance? I instantly think, okay, they probably think there's a problem with their work-life balance, otherwise they wouldn't be asking it, right?
I don't believe to be great at any aspect of life, there's ever a balance. Mm-hmm. It's going to be more or less in one area. I think what it comes down to is being aware of your [00:52:00] values, your priorities in life, and the season of life you're in.
Hanna: Mm-hmm.
Josh Perry: So what could be a priority to you in you? I'll say for me in my teenage years, definitely not a priority to me in my thirties.
Yeah. Um, and that'll probably change in my forties or fifties. It all depends on the season and how the level of which you meet yourself with authentic vulnerability and just being real with yourself. So when I hear about balance, I'm like, well, it depends like, do you want to be average as a parent, as a business owner, as a human being?
Like there's nothing wrong with that, but by virtue of you asking the question, it tells me there's something missing. So what do you want? And then that creates the path of what's actually important to you right now. If you know being creative is not important to you right now, then why try to be creative when your health is maybe a priority or your family?
I think that that's a trap a lot of entrepreneurs and just human beings in general fall into is like this idea that they have to be great at everything. It's like [00:53:00] that's impossible. Yeah. Like you look at any aspiring person we look up to, they had flaws. Like they weren't great at all the things because they chose to be exceptional in one area, which created a sacrifice in another one.
So it's the idea of like choosing what to sacrifice, choosing your regrets. Would you rather regret not having time with your family or would you rather regret not building your business? To be as big as a lot of people ignorantly think they need to be. It really just comes down to the stories and the beliefs and the perception really.
I think those are powerful tools as human beings that we are not taught. And miss, because that's what controls our life is the
Wendy: perception we have. It's all the out, it's all the outside pressure
Hanna: to
Wendy: be a certain way and do it a certain way. We
Hanna: think of how you grow up. I mean that's kind of what I heard, like you, there's very clearly like memories of like friends that were like, well, my parents own this business, or My parents make a lot of money.
I'm gonna make a lot of money. Where that was not necessarily always [00:54:00] like what I was told. It was just like, well, I was a dancer. Like I wanted to get outta school and go to dance. And like that made me super happy. And it wasn't like you need to study and like work really hard so you can own a $3 million business.
But it is, it's how you grow up and what you're told and then you think that that's what you need to do and no one gives you the grace to question it and
Josh Perry: yeah,
Hanna: really become who you want to be.
Josh Perry: Well, you think about what you just said reminds me of you think about what most people's idea of money is.
How do most people look at the, like the concept of money.
Hanna: I feel like happiness is the like maybe, I mean like success I
Josh Perry: guess. Yeah. Partially that.
Hanna: Yeah.
Josh Perry: And the majority of people don't believe there's enough. They don't believe they have enough. Right. You can never have enough. They don't believe it's possible for them to have enough. Yeah. So what are the some, some of the old stories, money doesn't grow on
Hanna: trees.
Yeah.
Josh Perry: Money's the root of all
Hanna: evil.
Josh Perry: Did we have the same parents? No. No. Not at all. But those are the cultural stories that are embedded in [00:55:00] media. Think about cartoons to movies, to TV shows.
Hanna: I wrote down influencers
Josh Perry: to the, to the news. You know, how, how many stories do we hear of, you know, wealthy people rightfully or wrongfully, so are under investigation for some tax fraud or embezzlement or something.
Right. So it's embedded in our culture to reject money because the unconscious decision we're making about people with money based on the media and the stories we hear from childhood growing up. Mm-hmm. Especially if we had families that argued about money. So as a first language, we're feeling we're experiencing through energy and emotion.
And then we start to have the parts of our brain come online that associate words, and then we start to see conflict around money. Mm-hmm. We hear money, what do you think I'm made of money. Money doesn't grow on trees, like all those things. And so we start to create a representation of money and people with money because of the media on top of conflict of family.
Wendy: Like if me think I need to change some of my language at home with my teenager,
Josh Perry: yeah, maybe, um,
Wendy: you won't. What?
Josh Perry: [00:56:00] But, but that's how, and that's I think what society does so incorrectly is uses words,
Wendy: right
Josh Perry: incorrectly, where there like need, you literally don't need to do most of the things you say it is a feeling.
But besides oxygen, calories, water, and shelter, let's say there's no need. There's
Wendy: no need.
Josh Perry: And then evolutionarily, there's a need to reproduce. So besides that, you don't need to do anything. But if you consider those cultural stories, those you remember, that family stories, the stories we create about what we see in the world when it comes to money is just one example.
Yeah. We get older and our values, which is family being a good person, friends that is encoded in us, and then we get to a point where we, oh, I need money to do the things I wanna do. But unconsciously we're unaware that, oh, but I have an internal representation of people with money as being bad. I don't wanna be bad.
So we always get close enough to, we always get the point in making enough. And then in my case, making a plethora. I would just give it away. My wife would say, I'd hire my friends for things and I would find creative ways to get [00:57:00] rid of it and then complain I don't have money. And then when I found myself in a sales position, I was like, oh, and this has been the latest awakening for me over the last few years, was the very thing I wanted.
Going back to your jealousy mention.
Hanna: Yeah.
Josh Perry: The very thing I wanted, the people that had it, I resented and I qualified as bad. Yeah.
Hanna: And
Josh Perry: I don't wanna be a bad person. So that was where self-sabotage was coming. Self sabotage is nothing. Then an entail hierarchy of values. We value money, we value our family, we value or we don't value money.
We value family, we value ourself, we, whatever it is, being a good person, something that's in conflict of it, is always going to sabotage our efforts. And then there's the whole herd dynamic of being mammals, the herd mammals, so the social constructs of what's acceptable. And then the corrections, right?
That comes in. Our deepest fears being rejected from those. Um, and that creates fears of abandonment because of isolation. All that. So all these inner, this is where I talked about the five D model. All these inner workings are at play, but we're not aware of it. Just like gravity. We can't see it, but we're at the effect of it.
Same thing with [00:58:00] energy and vibration and frequency. It's like how our microwaves work or how all technology works. We can't see it, but we use it every day. If we consider these embedded cultural stories around money and how most people don't have it. So there's all this evidence that creates a very affirming illusion, but a belief which is just nothing more than a shortcut for our brain.
'cause we're not just gonna sit there all day in the moment and be like, all, what are all the stories I've ever heard or told myself about money or about getting out of traffic? Someone get hit? No. A brain's des designed to be efficient.
Hanna: Mm-hmm.
Josh Perry: Get us out of, out of danger and to be safe. How many people have a story about money being unsafe and don't even know it, but they use these terms, they use these words and they have these emotions attached to it that feel real and then their environment shows them nothing but evidence of it.
Because they're addicted to their phones. We all are, you know, they're seeing the news. Mm-hmm. Or they're just going to the same job. They're being, you know, triggered by the same people. They're annoyed at the same things, and they look at themselves every day to [00:59:00] be reminded of who they are and all these things.
It's become more convincing that who they think they are and the feelings they have and their environment is actually who they are. And it's not, it's just a story. It's very convincing. Anything that can change is not who you are, but we think it is. So, going back to your jealousy mention, I assert, it's always something that you feel you're lacking by virtue of that person exposing something to you.
We feel more comfortable being jealous or angry, right. Or resentful.
Hanna: It's easier to
Josh Perry: a hundred percent
Hanna: to just blame it on that than it's
Josh Perry: more efficient
Hanna: become who they are in our own way.
Josh Perry: And from a, from a energy perspective, this is why people, we can get locked into negative loops of thinking. It's more efficient energy wise.
To take yourself out of a negative thinking loop requires energy. To get yourself out of a habit of sitting down rather than going to the gym or exercising. When you consciously say you want takes more energy,
Hanna: you are right.
Josh Perry: And that's why we have to have compassion for people and not judge 'em starting [01:00:00] with ourselves.
Otherwise, it's just gonna reinforce the problem that we think there is.
Wendy: So I think like to bring it home and back to hummingbird effect. 'cause you just kind of, you just turned it right back around to what we started talking about at the beginning, um, is working with leaders who think they need more and more and more and they get caught up in doing more and more things when really they need to take a step back and slow it down.
Yeah. And, and kind of think through what's really important. Right. Um,
Josh Perry: well I assert it's, I'm getting better at this. It's the language I used to say. If anything you need to pull back now what I'm working on saying is it would benefit you to pull back. It would benefit you to meet yourself where you're at, and more importantly with this example or in sales hearing, no.
Or you know, I didn't go to the gym when I wanted to, whatever it is. What is the concern of you not being successful? What [01:01:00] are you making that mean about yourself or you who you have to be? When people can really start to see, we don't fear outcomes or lack thereof. We fear what it means about us. We're never a victim of circumstance.
We're a victim of the identity that's viewing the circumstance. It's just a perspective. So whether it's a leader that is got a te a sales problem, I hear that all the time. Our problem's sales, Josh, it's the economy. I'm like, all right, well, I can find evidence of the same business as you that is actually thriving right now.
The problem isn't sales. The problem is you think that the problem is sales. It's actually your internal representation of what it means to not increase sales or what it means to. Not, you know, succeed at growing sales, whatever it is. What does it mean about you as a leader in the organization at large?
Hanna: In that sales example, do you find that they've kind of created an environment where excuses are acceptable? Because what I was kind of hearing from that is, yeah, it's a sales issue. Now I've communicated [01:02:00] that we're having a sales issue, so now the sales team's like, well, we're an issue, or we don't know what the issue is, it's they start putting the blame on something else.
Mm-hmm. Where if that person could have just better communicated what the actual problem was, rather than just pointing fingers. Does
Josh Perry: gets really nuanced because in one aspect, yeah, there's excuses. It's not lack of effort though.
Hanna: Right?
Wendy: Right.
Josh Perry: This is why commonly here, our sales team working harder than ever.
It's like, all right, well, was that doing anything? No, they're just getting burnt out. Okay, well, what's going on? What you're speaking to, and this is maybe for another time, but I can quickly go through it if we
Wendy: need a whole
Josh Perry: session on this one. It's, it's called a racket and this comes from, um, back in the pro prohibition area and things like that.
There's a whole story about it. There's four components of the anatomy of racket. The first one is a chronic complaint. So there's a story about something sales is, you know, or I have not enough sales coming in. Okay, cool. Second component of the anatomy of a racket is a consistent behavioral pattern.
What does [01:03:00] that story inform? Maybe it's, we work harder, you know, maybe we stay focused on this one lane and we're afraid to experiment we talked about earlier. Okay, cool. That creates a third component of the anatomy of a racket, and that's a hidden payoff. What do we get by virtue of sticking to this complaint and doing align doing things aligned with this complaint?
And we get to be right about it and we get to avoid discomfort having these types of conversations. Mm-hmm. The rightness is a huge one. Um, avoiding discomfort. Um, not being vulnerable, not taking risk, avoiding failure, whatever it is, there's a hidden payoff. Everyone has these. Mm-hmm. By the way, rackets are not just leadership issues, right?
Every human being has rackets. I have one I just recently discovered with my cat litter box, the chronic complaint about I have with the cat litter box. Um, and then the fourth component of the anatomy of racket is a hidden cost. So what's the cost associated with keeping up this chronic complaint? It could be growth, it could be progress, it could be performance, it could be [01:04:00] intimacy, it could be vulnera, like whatever the things are.
That racket framework allows us to see what's going on objectively and subjectively, and then be able to reconcile that through a simple process as well. Um, just about reframing the language to something we want to see future-based language. Most people complain about what is or what has been
Hanna: right.
Josh Perry: How many people talk about vision? I mean, Dr. King was famous for this. I have a dream. Everyone could connect with that. Not everyone. It's a big generalization major. A lot of people, most people connected with that. Right? It's future based, it's inspiring, complaining and telling your team, yeah, we just gotta work harder.
Come on. Right. No matter how connected to the purpose or vision it is, it's still creating a, a message of a default future.
Hanna: Right? '
Josh Perry: cause we're talking about what is and what has been not what we want. And if we continue talking about the complaint, behavior doesn't change. We just work harder. This is where people are shown through Daniel Pink's book Drive, talks about the different stages of motivation [01:05:00] 2.0.
Motivation is carrot stick, paying reward or reward pain. In that example, people are more likely to steal and cheat if they're incentivized by results and performing.
Wendy: Mm-hmm.
Josh Perry: So what do people do? They, they look for shortcuts. Mm-hmm. You know, they look, you know, they look for the hacks. They, they try to hire more people, um, get more the latest, you know, biohacks or technology or trip tips and tricks.
Cool. What is that implying though? What is that reinforcing? It's, it's not, it's typically not a technical solution perspective. It's an adaptation process. So if someone has going through that racket form, we can see, okay, there's a complaint that's consistent with this behavioral pattern. Here's the hidden payoff, here's the cost.
Once we can identify that, then we can see the identity that's attached to it. Maybe it's the person in my case with the cat litter box's, like I'm the person that always has to clean up out the, the cat box. And it's like, all right, well, what do I get outta that? I get to be right. At the very least, I get to be right about how I feel.
I feel validated to myself. [01:06:00] All right. What's that? Costing tons of energy every morning, you know, me being annoyed with my cats, they didn't do anything. I chose to bring them into this, this house. No sums, they
Wendy: cannot, not their fault,
Josh Perry: right? But it's as silly as it is. That's, that's when we get into like, you know, high pressure, stressful situations with people's jobs and livelihoods in organizations, right?
That's how it works. And it's a simple framework that people can understand if they're willing to. And that's where you mentioned like, oh, it sounds like you can work with any, anyone. Yes. Caveat. If they're willing. If they're willing, yeah. They're willing to meet me where they're at. Yeah. You know, and to go a little bit deeper than that, 'cause it does take a level of discomfort to go to these places.
And I, I invest a ton of money in coaching and therapy. I'm very open about that. I'm also committed to my values of growth. And then contribution and impact doesn't happen if you don't grow.
Wendy: Well, this has been awesome. We could listen to this all day, like I could delve all in. Um, but if the listeners want to find [01:07:00] you Josh, and learn more and hear more, um, let them know what your contact information is.
Please.
Josh Perry: Yeah. Thank, and I appreciate you guys having me here today. This was fun.
Wendy: Absolutely.
Josh Perry: I hope to do it again sometime soon and I just always enjoy the opportunity to share. Um, as you can tell, I get fired up about this. I'm very passionate about it.
Wendy: I love it. I love it.
Josh Perry: Yeah, I'd say my website's probably the best one.
Stop shop josh perry bmx.com. Um, all my social media, whether it's LinkedIn, YouTube, it's all just Josh Perry, BMX. A little fun story is I tried to change my website to just josh perry.com, but a domain squatter wants five grand for it, and I just
Hanna: don't do it,
Josh Perry: haven't felt, and this was what I was trying to leave BMX and like the identity, and then I was like, oh, like it's, you know, it's part of my story.
Gets me in the doors, it's yes. And um, then also Josh Perry on Instagram won't respond to my dms, but doesn't use his account and I can't get that. So I'm like, it's, it is what it is at this point. I've accepted it. It just creates more opportunity as a challenge for me to let people know I don't ride anymore.
It's been actually six years. Um, but it's just a [01:08:00] part of, you know, what I've done in the past, so it doesn't define me anymore, which was. The whole challenge before.
Wendy: Have you been on a bike at all lately?
Josh Perry: I mean, I've ridden a bike in the driveway, my bike three times in those six years, but Wow. Last time I did a trick on it was in the UNC basketball, um, stadium, doing a halftime show.
Wendy: Oh, nice.
Josh Perry: Yeah.
Wendy: Nice.
Josh Perry: So,
Wendy: well, thank you so much. It's been wonderful to have you on the show. And for all the listeners, thank you for giving us your time today and go out and find your hummingbird effect.