Authentic Living: Dr. Fred Moss on the Power of Genuine Communication and Vulnerability

Ever wondered how authentic communication can transform your life? Join us in this enlightening episode of Mindforce, featuring Dr. Fred Moss, a life optimization specialist who has turned his chaotic childhood experiences into a mission for authentic living. Dr. Fred takes us on a journey through his early passion for communication, the challenges he faced within the educational system, and his impactful work with adolescent boys in a state mental health facility. Discover his critical views on psychiatry’s shift with Prozac and the concept of chemical imbalances, and learn how finding your true voice can lead to genuine connections in all areas of life.

Authenticity isn't just a buzzword; it's a powerful tool for building stronger, more connected teams, even in rigid structures like the military. Hear personal anecdotes that highlight the risks and rewards of bringing your authentic self to work and how aligning with your core values can lead to greater satisfaction. We dive into the importance of vulnerability in leadership, exploring how sharing personal challenges can foster a supportive environment. Learn how to embrace life's challenges, maintain a positive outlook, and find empathy to lead a more fulfilling life.

Social media often pressures us to present idealized versions of ourselves, but what if you could reconnect with your true self? Explore how platforms have changed the nature of communication and discover strategies to foster authenticity, such as mindfulness, spending time in nature, and reducing screen time. We also delve into the power of storytelling in forging genuine connections and the importance of self-care practices in achieving true alignment. Embrace life's ups and downs and understand the significance of genuine connections with this compelling episode filled with insights and practical advice for living an authentic life.

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Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:56

Hi, welcome to the show. This is Mindforce, the podcast for love, life and learning where your mind matters. I'm your host, nate Shear, and today we have a wonderful guest, dr Fred Moss, a life optimization specialist, which is awesome, because this show is all about being the best that you can be. Today, we're going to be talking about being authentic, finding connection, locating your true voice and becoming undoctored, and we're going to welcome you and everyone else to humanity. Okay, we're going to start off by the easy stuff who, what, why? Who are you, what do you do and why are you here?

Speaker 1: 1:33

Well, first of all, nate, I just want to thank you for having me on the show today. It's just a pleasure and I look forward to our conversation immensely. It's great to be with you. So who am I? My name is Dr Fred. It hasn't always been my name. I think I was born Freddy and then became Fred and then became, I suppose, mr Moss and then became Dr Moss and then became Fred and then became, I suppose, mr Moss and then became Dr Moss and then became Dr Fred Moss and probably later became Dr Fred, and there's a progression there. It's kind of like part of who I am.

Speaker 1: 2:02

I was born into a family that was in a fair amount of chaos and disarray. I had two older brothers, 10 and 14 years older than me, and my parents, and I was told later, of course, that the essence of my purpose and I was told later, of course, that the essence of my purpose of my birth was to bring joy and connection to my family, and I think I did a pretty good job of that early on. I think my brothers right now would probably argue that I'm not always done that good of a job, but I did pretty good early on and it was pretty precocious. They were 10 and 14 years older than me and it was the 60s. So I learned a lot about life before I even went to kindergarten and I was reading, I was writing, I actually did a little bit of math even before I went into elementary school. And I went into elementary school really enamored and enchanted with the whole idea of what I later learned was communication, talking and listening and creating, you know, ideas from that and then creating actions on the back end of that. And I really wanted to be a communicator my whole life. And my elementary school teachers there's not one of them who would forget having me as a student, for sure, because I spoke a lot.

Speaker 1: 3:07

I talked a lot in elementary school and that was in an effort to communicate my ideas, in some ways mimicking my older adult role models, and so I thought that I was going to learn how to communicate in school. It seemed to me what else could they want to teach me? But it isn't what they taught me in school. They taught me how to sit down and be quiet, listen to the teacher and regurgitate what they say, and that got worse over time. Of course, that even got tighter and tighter in junior high and in high school and I became really again a little bit disappointed, a little bit disgusted, hoping that I could eventually learn how to communicate. And I eventually went to university with the idea that of course they would teach me how to do that in Ann Arbor, michigan, at University of Michigan, and at the university they didn't teach me how to communicate. I mean, ann Arbor taught me how to communicate, but not inside the classrooms at the University of Michigan.

Speaker 1: 4:03

I eventually dropped out and came out to California to find myself. I took a long drive on a bus, on a Greyhound bus, to get here with my stuff and really thought that I'd find myself. And I had a good summer in a youth hostel in Berkeley, where I did find myself, but it was not a sustainable living environment. And eventually my family convinced me to come back to school and study a new industry that they thought I would be good in. Now it had to be at the University of Michigan, because the only actual tool that was required for this industry was something called the computer and the University of Michigan had the only computer in all of the state of Michigan. So it was a two-acre facility. It was a facility that was just built on batch jobs and punch cards and I went in with the idea that I would maybe be a computer specialist. Well, of course that didn't work either and I eventually dropped out again and again, even went back to California.

Speaker 1: 5:02

I was eventually lured back after telling my mom that I would no longer ever go to university again and that it wasn't for me, I wasn't going to learn what I needed to learn, and she said that's great, but you have to get a job. And she got me an application at a state mental health facility for adolescent boys in Michigan. I became a childcare worker that year, in 1980, and I really began to get communication, and communication at the heart of all healing I was. You know, I was interacting with these so-called kids who were only six or seven years younger than me and so-called mental patients, who were only kids, who were somewhat troubled about X, y or Z, and we were creating healing for each other. And inside of communication was where I learned healing actually emanates, was where I learned healing actually emanates.

Speaker 1: 5:53

The thing I didn't like about that job was psychiatry, and nevertheless I kind of just felt like psychiatry was headed in the wrong direction. And I later learned, seven years later, when Prozac was introduced to the world, that for sure it was headed in the wrong direction. In other words, the paradigm shift that was about to take place was this one called biological psychiatry or chemical imbalances at the heart of, you know, any kind of discomfort we're experiencing and the illusion that a pill could actually fix discomfort. And you know Prozac was a big game changer. That took place while I was in medical school. I went back to school, finished off school and then went to medical school so that I could be a psychiatrist, because I wanted to bring communication into the field. And while I was there, prozac was introduced. And Prozac was, in fact, like a paradigm shifting agent.

Speaker 1: 6:47

Since that time, you know biological psychiatry has been the name of the game for psychiatry and you know, at this point in time, you know biological psychiatry has been the name of the game for psychiatry and you know, at this point in time, you can't get a job as a psychiatrist unless you're willing to medicate people. And you know, over the last 35 years, that's the direction that it's taken. And you know it isn't what I want to do, and it's never been really what I want to do, but because I had sunken costs and because I was in the field already, I was typecast and I enjoyed being the so-called thing called a doctor. I learned how to diagnose and I learned how to medicate, and I learned how to do that well. I had over 40,000 charts that I have estimated, that I've entered my signature in over time and I've written over 100,000 prescriptions. You know, given all the refills etc. And you know drugs that I've had contact with, but none of them have been aligned with who I am. I'm not. You know. I took an oath to first do no harm and I was never really certain that I wasn't doing harm when I was prescribing medicine.

Speaker 1: 7:47

So a few years later, 2006, I began to do something even more radical At least it seemed radical to my friends and that was I started taking people off of medicine, and this is where the whole idea of Undoctor comes in. I really got that. Taking people off of medicine was part of the contract we made with these people Once they got better. Our idea, even if it was unwritten, was that we would stop the medicine, we'd get you better and then stop the medicine. But no one ever taught us how to stop medicine. So once you got better. We would instead use some sort of notion that you know why, fix it if it's not broken, or if this got us better, I might get worse if I stop, and people would stay on medicine for a lifetime.

Speaker 1: 8:31

I started taking people off medicine and, lo and behold, they got reliably better, sometimes very much better, and sometimes their diagnosis actually disappeared. This was quite a finding to learn that the actual treatment was perpetuating the symptoms it was marketed to deal with, and I wanted to scream that out to the whole world. Basically, I was really, really, you know, it was quite a finding and I really wanted to get on out to the whole world. Basically, I was really, really, you know, it was quite a finding and I really wanted to get on the mountaintops and let everybody know, shake some people up. I later learned that that's not the best way to get this information out to the public and I began to be a little bit gentler, less violent about my finding and over the next several years, really continued to infuse the notion that communication is the heart of healing, not any kind of diagnosis or medication. So over the next several years I became a psychiatrist. All over the country and then all over the world.

Speaker 1: 9:23

I started, I began to really see that I wanted to apply these skill set or apply this notion to psychiatry elsewhere. My practice folded, you know, ended up well, I would say it folded. Really, what ended up happening is I took most of the people off of medicine, they got better and they no longer needed psychiatry. And then I began to do that from around the world, given the new impact that telepsychiatry was making on the planet, and I, you know, went to really cool places to learn how doctors treat their clients, and this included Nepal and Bhutan, thailand, israel. I went to England and France and Italy and I learned a lot talking to a lot of people physicians and clinicians that treat people about what being a healthy human is and what so-called the nebulous nature of what it is to be mentally ill.

Speaker 1: 10:19

And then, when I came back to the United States, I began to really be, you know, really see again. More than ever, that communication and connection was what I was after in order to help people heal. And that's where I founded the Welcome to Humanity program and also eventually earned the moniker of the undoctor, meaning that I undiagnose, unmedicate and indoctrinate people, really get them out of the conventional system if they feel that it's not working well for them. And there are hundreds of millions of people who actually know that the system is not doing them the best. Now let's make this really clear, nate If for the people in our listenership who feel like they have found their diagnosis and they like their therapy and like their medications and feel like it's really been a godsend or something like that, by all means please stay on that train. Do not come off that train under any conditions. If you, anywhere in life, if you have found something that works, keep doing it. I'm not here to tell you to stop doing something that works. I'm focusing this conversation on people who aren't sure that they're in the right space, and maybe sure that they're in the wrong space inside of the conventional mental health system.

Speaker 1: 11:27

I've since written a couple books, one called Find your True Voice and the other one called the Creative Eight, where we really help people find their true voice by rediscovering what really matters to them and then incrementally delivering that context to the people in the world that are important to them. You know, like, actually stop being someone that you're not in order to protect the person that you are. Like, really go to your grave with your song sung instead of your song unsung. You know, I think it was, I think it was Henry David Thoreau who said that the mass of men go to their grave in quiet desperation. And, you know, go through life in quiet desperation and go to the grave with their song unsung, and I think that's what we're really after. That's a tragedy that we can actually take a bite out of these days.

Speaker 1: 12:15

So here we are, moving up to a present time, and what I have is, you know, I have a course called the True Voice Course. I have a coaching program that's different than my doctor, you know, being a doctor, really transformational, restorative coaching where I give people back their life back, optimizing their life by helping them find their true voice, communicate with others and connect with others and actually alter their mental illness from the ground up, frequently actually disappearing it as a function of being connected to another person. This is the combination of being the undoctor, being welcome to humanity, being an author, being a podcaster, being a keynote speaker and all the things that I've become. So when you ask me who I am, I guess that's a little bit of a long-winded answer of how I got to be here.

Speaker 2: 12:58

Perfect. Thank you for that intro and one thing I want to highlight. I know we're going to go into it later, but it's funny how two people that you would assume are completely different are pretty similar. So my siblings are actually 10 to 13 years apart.

Speaker 2: 13:18

I had trouble in school because, if you look at every single report card talks too much. Doesn't matter where you put me in the classroom, I will talk too much. My mom was told I have ADHD and I need to pipe down and be quieter. But the punishment I used to get in elementary school for talking too much was to skip recess. So the one time to get energy out and start to feel a little bit better, I was contained inside. And then it's odd I actually tried to go to school for programming as well and went through my first programming class and found out that was not me just sitting in a dark room trying to program and, you know, break things and have to debug. That was not quite the thing for me. So it's interesting that you try to find commonality. You always can. So thank you for that intro. We're going to move into the warmup. Get to know you a little bit more. What? How would you describe yourself in three words?

Speaker 1: 14:07

I would say that I'm let's see.

Speaker 2: 14:30

I would say that I'm let's see curious, I'm intelligent and I'd say that I'm a human being, perfect One. One last fun one before we jump into the interview If you could have dinner with any historical figure, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

Speaker 1: 14:42

Hmm, hmm, any right um, that's a tough one. I think there's a couple different people that come to mind. Um, hippocrates comes to mind. I'd be really interested in talking to him and what he really had to say, the uh. You know, I've read the hippocratic oath through and through before and it's really a just a remarkable document. Um, I would love to interview him and find out what he thought healing was about. And there's other healers as well that come to mind Maimonides and Sam Hanneman. Both those guys are incredible doctors from the past. And then there's many other people I would love to tap into, but let's just stay with the clinicians for now.

Speaker 2: 15:25

Perfect, okay, and keeping in the theme of conversation, do you have any questions for me?

Speaker 1: 15:34

No, I think you're doing great. The only question is you know, what do you got next in this, inside this conversation?

Speaker 2: 15:41

Okay, so we're going to move on. How do you define authenticity and why is it essential for fostering genuine connection with others?

Speaker 1: 15:53

So authenticity is a. Thank you for the great question. So authenticity is really just having your thoughts and your actions and your words be aligned with each other, and none of us are 100% great at authenticity, so it's really important to get that. We are always off in our authenticity and it's not a matter of being authentic like you don't really arrive there. There's always a little bit of a disjoint between our thoughts, our actions and what we say.

Speaker 1: 16:22

How is it important? Well, it's a good direction to point to, because what creates the resonance or the harmony between clients or between people in general is the idea, in this world, of connecting and communicating. The idea of vibrating at the same level requires us to be as close to our basic human being as we can be and just like a tuning fork that's at a certain frequency. When we get close to that, that's what authenticity is, sort of wiping the dust and the muck and what cobble ebbs off the tuning fork of our soul Then we get to connect with other human beings who, frankly, are living at the same vibration as all of us are, a pure vibration, consistent with your harmonic, resonant, resonating vibration. The more likely you are to be to have the capacity to connect with another person, which, of course, as I've said before, is the pathway to ultimate healing absolutely so.

Speaker 2: 17:24

In this day and age, we got social media and you put something out there and you want all the likes and the hearts and the clicks and things like that. How have you seen people struggle with trying to be the real self instead of just trying to fit the mold?

Speaker 1: 17:38

I think almost everyone is really trying to fit the mold. There are some rules, unspoken or spoken about. How to you know how to post on social media. You know there's only certain things that you can or really can't do inside of some of these actual programs. You know some of them are short videos, some of them are pictures, some of them are. You know there's a sort of a style that's written. You know what you can post or what you should post, and how to post.

Speaker 1: 18:05

Most people point themselves you know in a good light, whether or not they're saying something good or not. Even if they say something bad, they're trying to say it in a good way, so that it's attractive to a great number of people. So you know, when we do that, we've created a whole different context for why we try to communicate in the first place. Like right now, I'm not doing that. You know there are rules inside of podcasting as well'm not doing that. You know I have. There are rules inside of podcasting as well. I have to watch what I say. I have to stay in front of the mic. I have to look reasonably good for the camera. I have to care a little bit about your question. I have to follow your follow-up, I have to monitor how the conversation is going and all of that are some unspoken but real rules of the game, of what it is to play podcasting. So because of that, you know, we start looking at what is the reason to post in the first place. Well, you're posting so that you can make a post that makes a difference for a great number of people typically, and the greater the number of people that you make a difference in, the more successful your post is. That's entirely different than how we generally communicate with another person. You know it used to be that we really cared about each other and we, you know, might have sat with each other in the same room or sometimes spoken with each other on a telephone call or maybe, in the more advanced form, in a video conversation, and the idea would be like we're doing now attempting to connect to another person, hear what they have to say, listen to what's being called for and move the needle forward. That way, social media posting is not used that as a basic context at all. Every so often a conversation will break out in social media, but still you're realizing that several people, like the whole world, has access to watching and listening and being with that conversation and that melds you and molds you into speaking or writing in a certain way, posting certain things that show you how clever you are, or so how connected you are, so how beautiful you are, so how rich you are, so how smart you are. Show something good about yourself, even if again, even if what you're saying is a complaint about the world. You're showing how good you can complain about that particular item. And so when we start really looking at that, we see that it has just changed the whole convention of what it means to communicate. And you know, you called the world, I think you said molding.

Speaker 1: 20:27

The idea is that many of us have stopped being who we really are. We have a different place to launch from and we in fact pretend to be somebody that we're not in order to protect the person that we are and I've asked a lot of people about that and typically that's based on a fear, a fear of being disrupted or being dismissed, of being thrown off the island, of being misunderstood, being ostracized, disenfranchised, causing more problems than it's worth. By speaking your truest self, we've now reached a point, nate, where some of us and I think you can almost say most of us actually sometimes say things that even we don't believe. Now, that's insane. That's out there, dude. That is out there, saying stuff that even you don't believe. What drove you to that point?

Speaker 1: 21:20

And you get that nearly all of us have had that experience where, in order to fit in or in order not to be thrown out, or in order to be aligned with the group that we're with, we might actually say or write things that even we don't believe, or we might even say things like something you know. Like when we share someone else's comment, it's almost like we are saying what someone else, like it's another version of what he said or what she said. You know, and we take credit Like it doesn't you have to get who posted this right. Like if I post something that you, if I share something that you posted, I get credit for having said it and, frankly, you probably didn't say it either. You might have stolen from someone. And we act like we then said that was what someone else said, rather than using the creativity that is required to speak or be. You know, in real time.

Speaker 2: 22:13

Yeah, I'm curious like how people can be a little bit more authentic in their, their posting. I feel like there's a lot of judging and things that you're worried about, because it seems like a lot of times you post the vacation, you post the Christmas card, you post all the positive moments in your life, but you don't see too many where you're jumping on there and saying things that are negative, unless the extreme where you're just on there complaining all the time. So it seems like you have one end of the spectrum or the other, but I wonder how the best way to try to convey real life or maybe you can't convey real life in posts.

Speaker 1: 22:46

Well, posts are a tough place to convey real life, and the first thing you have to do is get in touch with who you really are. So that's really important. Most of us, again, have really lost who we are. Earlier in our childhood like you and I talked about earlier like even in elementary school, you were kind of told to stop being who. You were longer able to cultivate that which was really important to you, which was to play and explore and dig around and speak and have fun and all those things. And so the crack in the cement was created when we were young and we never went back and repaired it. So we as adults are still struggling with the crack in the cement that was created by us, being in many ways forced or coerced to be someone that we're not.

Speaker 1: 23:31

If you're going to get in touch with who you are, you have to do the work. You have to dig down what's really important to you, what really matters to you. Why are you really on the planet in the first place? Who are you with respect to other people? Are you interested in contributing? And why are you interested in contributing? Are you interested in contributing so you can get all sorts of accolades? Are you interested in contributing because you're a member of a tribe called humanity or a smaller tribe, of whatever group you are, and contribution is a very high level.

Speaker 1: 24:04

Many of us forget how much we are social beings and what we really want to do is make a contribution to the world, and the way that we want to do that is be heard for who we are like, actually be heard and seen for who we really are and who we're really not. And a lot of us, you know, have again stopped trying to do that and almost just fall into a category. Many of us even like political parties. You know, we're on a political party, we back a particular political party and therefore think we need to back everything that that political party thinks. We have some things that like if you're right wing, then you believe all these right wing things. If you're right wing on any one thing, you're right wing on everything. If you're left wing on any one thing, you're left wing on everything. You just believe everything that the left wingers have to say and you just instill that into your personality, when in fact that may not be the real truth.

Speaker 1: 24:56

You may believe some things that are left wing, some things that are right wing, some things that are neutral, some things that aren't any wing at all, and we wash those things out so that we'll fit in, and we work really hard to be the round peg that's getting shoved into a square hole, and if you really want to take advantage of you know communicating your truest self the first thing you need to do is find out what that is Rediscover, because you don't have to create your true self. Your true self has been sitting with you the whole time and the ultimate goal here is to wash away the mud and the muck and the rust that's in the way of your true self, that same true self that was there when you were five, when you were 10, and when you were 20,. That's still there, and that's the person that we want to get in touch with as we communicate our truest voice, either online or in person, with another group.

Speaker 2: 25:45

It's interesting. You mentioned the thing about the political parties. That can go in a whole bunch of different directions. But one thing I find interesting is if we're diving into social media and algorithms, you have confirmation bias where the algorithm is going to keep showing you the things that you clicked on it at one point in time, so the algorithm keeps kind of feeding you the same thing. So it's kind of interesting as we move forward. That's going to be a difficult thing where I wonder if that's going to stifle people and kind of shut down that growth, where maybe they need to change their mindset.

Speaker 1: 26:20

Like you said, a little bit of left and a little bit of right, but once you kind of go down the left rabbit hole, then it's all left, because that's the way the algorithm works. Yeah, the algorithm is really defining and helping us define who we think we are, and you know, it's not necessarily an enemy. I mean, I've been said before. You know, the Spotify algorithm is so fantastic I don't have any idea how to even deal with it. I turn on some song and I'm always just shocked that they know exactly what the next song is that I want to hear, and they're just so good. It's such an incredible playlist and I enjoy every second of the Spotify algorithm as much as I don't enjoy every second of the Facebook or the Instagram algorithm, which seems to serve me up stuff that I by chance picked on one time, and now it's kind of shoving me down that rabbit hole.

Speaker 2: 27:11

Yeah, that's interesting, some good and bad. So the next question I got speaking of tribes. I'm really interested to see your thoughts on this next question, because I'm in the military and so I have to, you know, kind of conform to a certain standard, but I've always kind of been, you know, a little out there. So the next question is how can individuals bring their authentic selves into a professional setting, and what impact does authenticity have on career satisfaction and success?

Speaker 1: 27:39

Yeah. So that's a great question and you know it's funny, we it's unclear why it would be any different in a professional setting than in a public setting. You know, the idea is that maybe fear is underlined as an influencer inside of the professional setting. The idea really being propagated here is that if you speak your truest self in a professional setting, you may in fact like lose your job or lose the support of your boss or lose the support of your employees, depending on your position. And so it seems like it's a greater risk to actually speak your truest, authentic self in a professional setting, because your moneymaker might be affected directly. Not only might you be thrown off the island, but if you get thrown off the island, you don't have any income all of a sudden, or you get fired or laid off or demoted or whatever might happen. So you know, and how can? And the question is, the second half of the question was career.

Speaker 2: 28:41

How can it, or how does it, impact career satisfaction and success? Do you see that as being a positive or negative?

Speaker 1: 28:47

Right. So you know, the more authentic you are, the more life satisfaction will grow. As simple as that. And the more inauthentic you are, you have a little meter inside of you that knows when you're saying stuff that you're not aligned with, knows when you're not speaking and you should, and knows when you're speaking too much and you shouldn't, knows when you're making a difference in a positive direction and knows when you're likely to make a difference in a negative direction.

Speaker 1: 29:11

And the more authentic you bring your life, the more aligned with your truest heart and soul, your core values, that you're speaking, your thoughts and your actions are aligned with, the more likely you are to actually have a life that's working. You know, to actually have a satisfying life. In fact, I'm not positive that authenticity isn't maybe the number one thing that's required to have a life that works. If you're making a lot of money and even have a lot of, like you know, a lot of prestige or a lot of girlfriends, or a lot of cars or a lot of whatever you think you have, and you're not being authentic, you're not going to live a very satisfying life, even with all those external circumstances in your space. But when you're living an authentic life and earning whatever is due to you like, whatever is consistent with the life you're delivering and it's resonating harmonically with your core self. That's the recipe for a life that works and that's the recipe for career and life satisfaction, in my very real opinion.

Speaker 2: 30:14

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it makes me think of a lot of celebrities. I'm not going to mention any specific names or anything, but we've seen time and time again where people are on successful shows or movies, millions of dollars traveling the world, but they kind of have that facade or they feel a little fake and so later on, usually many years later, they write a book or whatnot and kind of open up about that. So definitely, if you're not true to yourself, I think that's a huge problem and this is going to kind of transition into our next point. So I'm in a leadership role and so I've seen this topic of vulnerability come up. We you know Brene Brown has done some videos and things like that and it's something I think that's super important.

Speaker 2: 30:53

It's difficult, I think, especially being in the military.

Speaker 2: 30:56

We're a type personality supposed to be strong, supposed to be, you know, whatever, pull ourselves up and take care of ourselves.

Speaker 2: 31:02

But vulnerability, I think, has really gone a long way for me, because it seems like there's a little bit of a divide sometimes between the leadership role and, you know, the people actually getting it done, and so sometimes it's frustrating because we're all people, we all have good days and bad days and I remember going through training frustrating because we're all people, we all have good days and bad days.

Speaker 2: 31:19

And I remember going through training and I very specifically remember we were told you will have no bad days, which is just an insane thought to not have any bad days ever, because they were trying to say you'd poison the well and bring everyone else down. But I've noticed when I brought up things of you know having difficulties in life I've been divorced and you know I have child custody stuff and you know I lost my dad and grandma and grandpa and long list of you know different things but I feel like bringing those up and being able to make those connections makes us stronger and better as a team, not weak and, you know, starting to crumble. So the next question for you is how has embracing vulnerability positively impacted your connections with others and your sense of self?

Speaker 1: 32:05

Well, vulnerability is not the same as having a bad day, first of all. So it's important to get that there's a distinction there. Being vulnerable does not simply mean expressing I'm having a bad day, and the thing about having a bad day is you get to choose whether it's a good or bad day, no matter what's happening in your circumstances. Ultimately, this idea I'm not sure what you meant by poisoning the well, but ultimately I guess it's when you announce you're having a bad day that it might be contagious and other people might take the opportunity to have a bad day around you as a resonating feature. But you can be vulnerable and what vulnerable allows you to be is able to get whatever is being served up to you in life, good and bad, right and wrong. You know, calamitous and beautiful Anything that's actually being served up is. You know you can embrace as being part of your day. And then your response to what's ever being served up and you know, including just acknowledging. You know, I was just around. I just saw, let's say, a cat get run over by a car, or I saw somebody get hit by their mom, or I saw somebody. You know, I heard of someone who lost their wallet, or I heard of someone who died or who got injured or who got who knows assaulted, or many of the things that are not necessarily above board. It's not like the things that we are looking for to have a pleasant life, but sharing unpleasantries that are in your experience, and doing so without being emotionally attached. In other words, you are not your emotions and you don't have to declare it a bad day. If, in fact, you saw a cat get run over and you saw someone be assaulted and you had a flat tire, all on the same day, it doesn't mean that you had a bad day. It just means that all those things happened in your world that day and you get to choose whether or not that translates into having a bad day. So I wanna get really clear about the idea that being vulnerable is more the capacity to experience all those things and share them, if it's going to move the needle forward in your conversation and not necessarily collapse them or conflate them into being the equivalent of having a bad or good day. Like your circumstances are going to, life is going to keep lifing, and then you get an opportunity to you know, to deal with that life and call it as you will.

Speaker 1: 34:23

You can react. You know there's things that happen Like you're like I feel terrible, I just saw a cat get hit by a car, which I have three cats here and I shouldn't say that as much time as I just said, I don't, I don't want my cats to be hurt. But you know, if we say that I feel terrible and I saw I feel terrible, I'm having a bad day, I watch a cat get run over, that's not really true. You're not having a bad day because the cat is getting run over. You've just taken it upon yourself to have that be the reaction that you chose for the cat being run over. A cat got run over. It's not automatic that that equals a bad day. It's automatic that a cat got run over. That's something that actually happened, but it doesn't have to be translated. Vulnerability doesn't have to be translated to blanketing yourself with your reactive feelings. You have an opportunity to choose your response, which is a really powerful thing, to get as far as what it means to be a powerful human being.

Speaker 2: 35:15

Yeah, and I think that's one thing I've struggled with a little bit. I've always been kind of upbeat and happy-go-lucky and sometimes people see that as nonchalant or nothing bothers me, but it's just kind of the way I've lived life. But sometimes it seems to rub people wrong. I don't care about anything, I still care. It's just I feel like life's too short to let anything take me down for that long.

Speaker 2: 35:37

One thing I did want to mention is there's a short video by Renee Brown. I think it kind of sums up the vulnerability pretty well. She talks about sympathy versus empathy. You know the sympathy is, oh, poor you. And then you got empathy where you know someone's walking alongside you and being in the bad situation with you, not looking down upon you. Yeah, I think that goes back to like kind of a reoccurring theme. So far has been that connection. So that's definitely good stuff.

Speaker 2: 36:07

I hope that, like the situations I've been through, even though they're negative, I don't think of them as super negative because I hope that at some given time I'd be able to help someone else and find that connection. And so, even though I've had, you know, these negative things happen in my life, I don't necessarily like dwell on it. I just hope that at some point I can help somebody and not to say that I've been through the same thing, because that's not the right thing either, like, oh, you know, I've been the exact same thing, I know exactly how you feel. It's not but the empathy being at least to connect with some points, even if it's a parallel. But moving on to the next question, talking about finding your true voice, what advice do you have for someone seeking to find and express their true voice, especially in this current world where it sometimes encourages conformity?

Speaker 1: 36:52

Right. So we've talked about this a little bit already, but really the way to do it is to make incremental shifts. First, of course, find what your true voice is. What is it that you're really not saying that you wish you could say? Or what is it that you're saying that you wish you wouldn't say? Where are you misaligned and what would it take to be aligned Really? Taking a look in the mirror, doing the work and getting in touch with what really matters to you? Authenticity is so contagious and the opportunity to be authentic is something that opens up that door for other people. So when you're sharing with another person, share yourself as truly as possible and when you catch yourself saying something that you're misaligned with, take that moment to actually correct that misalignment, Announce wait, what I just said is not really what I mean, and you know like, fix it right. Then Give yourself some compassion, give yourself some acceptance and forgiveness and be aligned with that thing that you have now discovered yourself to be.

Speaker 1: 37:47

You don't want to make big, bold changes, right. You don't want to make big, giant steps into thinking that you're not, like, super aligned with yourself. You want to try to make incremental changes and do it in a way that matters, by talking it and sharing it with the people in your inner circle who actually matter to you. From there it can stretch out to you know, establishing a new identity. And it can stretch out to the people in your world who are more on the periphery people in your you know the clerks at the stores or your neighbors or your colleagues, or even strangers. You start being someone that's more aligned with yourself and you'll feel that there's a sense of really a beautiful sense of again inner, harmonic resonance that takes place once you're being authentic. Now the important thing is to share it, and the idea is that if all you're doing is thinking about it in your head, that's not really alignment. We think we're having, many of us think we're having conversations when we're thinking about things in our head.

Speaker 1: 38:46

You know we think that and that's called a monologue and not really a dialogue, and but it feels like we've had that conversation, even though all we've done is banging around in our head. All we've done is banging around in our head. So it's really important to share it with another person and get that they see something that you're finding about yourself Again. The more authentic that you can be with another person, you open up the gates for them to find their authenticity. I'm sure you've found that before and one good example of that is have you ever been around somebody that you're diametrically opposed to what it is that they're expressing? Yet you can respect them because you know it's coming from an authentic space.

Speaker 1: 39:26

It isn't the content that we're disagreeing with. It's more along the lines, like we can still disagree with the content. But what's troubling is when someone is saying things and they're inauthentic, and that's when we really feel it. We have that meter that we're watching. We're like little authenticity police and we're watching that from other people and we're watching that from ourselves. And when we're authentic, there's a beautiful feeling of that resonance, of being aligned, of being in tune and of communicating effectively and connecting. And again, as I've said before and we'll continue to say, probably to the day I die. I believe that connection is at the heart of all human healing.

Speaker 2: 40:06

Absolutely. I have a question. I hate to make something cookie cutter because I don't believe the human mind to really be that way, but have you seen anything specific that is generally successful in this, like journaling or quiet time in the morning or into the day? Seen anything specific that is generally successful in this, like journaling or quiet time in the morning or into the day, or anything like that?

Speaker 1: 40:23

Sure, I think those are great two things. Those are a part of the arsenal to use. So there's, you know, there's mindfulness and meditation. There's yoga and the grounding martial arts, for instance, and non-combative martial arts, tai Chi and Qigong. There's, you know, keeping yourself detoxed with respect to what you put in your body, making sure that if you actually eat something that you shouldn't have eaten, that you get that washed out one way or another. Frequently that means drinking a lot of very clean water. And another thing, you know, putting organic food into your body and really watching what you become. You know, cheetos are sure tasty, but they don't have to become part of who you are as a person. And you know, and if you do eat some Cheetos, it's fine, enjoy them, but then realize that it's you know there's some toxicity there, and that's true with the drugs that you take in as well, and not only the stuff you're taking in your mouth, the stuff you're taking in your eyes and the stuff you take in your ears and the people that you're around. There's toxicity everywhere the air that we breathe, et cetera. So keep yourself as detoxified as possible. And then you want to really monitor your walks in nature, for instance, being out in nature and seeing how nature was intended to roll will be a distinct difference from how the computer is intended to roll. We are living in a computer age where we think reality is taking place in the screen that we're sharing. And that isn't really the only reality out there. You know, squirrels aren't really watching the computer quite yet, and this is also true with hummingbirds, this is true with plants and trees. They're not very worried about what the next post is on TikTok, and that's because you don't need to have that in order to have reality. There's a cycle out there. There's a flow going on. How a river flows is how a river flows, and it can be really therapeutic to be around that.

Speaker 1: 42:11

Another thing you want to do, consider, is, you know, getting that sleep of yours put into space. So you want to be able to rest and relax, and do so in a way that works. And one thing you might want to do with that is like decrease your screen time going into bedtime. You know the number one at least number one or number two enemy to sleep is light, right? We already know that. What do you do when you want to wake someone up? You turn on the light, and what we're doing, you and I right now. We're acting like we're with each other, but actually both of us are staring, and not even blinking, at millions of lights. This is the enemy to sleep. And so when we watch our computer or look at that little phone of ours or watch the TV right up until bedtime, we are feeding ourselves anti-sleep you know, anti-sleep agents and then thinking that if we put our head on our pillow, that should be enough to get us proper sleep.

Speaker 1: 43:07

Insomnia and having difficulty sleeping is like the number one complaint in America at this point. Almost everybody, many people, are having trouble getting the sleep that they think they deserve, and they walk through the day like zombies. Or they have to catch a nap or they have. You know they're not awake or sharp enough during the day to manage the next day.

Speaker 1: 43:26

Another thing that's really important is movement. So you know, I talked a little bit about yoga and Qigong, but even exercise or walking, these are important things, as are pampering ourselves. So you want to be able to pamper yourself, you want to be able to do things that really work for you. That might mean getting a manicure, a pedicure. It might mean taking a bath. It might mean, you know, like a warm bath bubble bath can be very comforting. Or it might mean listening to music, or it might be, you know, like going to a museum or being with a loved one, actually listening and connecting with your loved one, your family or your friend, and going along those lines.

Speaker 1: 44:03

Another thing that seems like is very important in this area is creativity, so you want to really be able to draw on your creativity. You may think you're not a good artist or not a good enough musician or not a good dancer, but art, music, dancing, singing, drama, cooking, writing, gardening all these things that require some creativity you can do them. How do I know that? Because you can. After all, the next moment that you're living is requiring maximum creativity.

Speaker 1: 44:31

Anyways. You're already pulling whatever strings you're pulling to pay attention to, whatever you're paying attention to. That isn't all the other millions of things that you could be paying attention to at any given second, and that takes an immense amount of creativity just to live the next second. You are a creative soul. That's how you were put on the earth, and the possibility of even tapping a pencil on the side of a table consistent with some music or dancing, as you might do to a sound that you're hearing, either in your head or in real life on radio, or maybe without even sound, like actually dancing, just like the world, like nobody's watching, as they say or of singing or picking up a paintbrush, or tracing or embroidering or knitting. Picking up a paintbrush or tracing or embroidering or knitting these are things that we all can do and they have amazing capacity to assist us in getting grounded and getting healed.

Speaker 2: 45:26

Absolutely, and we always say we never have time. But if you mark on your calendar, you be intentional about it. Somehow the time always becomes available. I want to touch on one thing that you said earlier. One of my favorite books, susan Scott Fierce Conversations. So many quotes in that book, but one I just find kind of hilarious because you just mentioned it. But she says we're having conversations all the time and sometimes they involve other people. Exactly.

Speaker 2: 45:54

Exactly it's good, the inner monologue is always running, so be kind to yourself. So I'd like to ask a question. Supposedly, with the Internet and whatnot, we are more connected than ever, but a lot of people feel alone.

Speaker 1: 46:10

So, with the prevalence of social media, digital communication, how can individuals maintain that authentic connection and prevent the dilution of their true? That's the only space we deal with anymore. I'm lucky enough to have a wife who I love and who loves me, and I have these three cats and they just provide some real time, three-dimensional love and peace and fun and funniness. You know humor and uh, there, you know, uh, the cats. The cats are amazing. I, they really are. We have the three coolest cats in America that in all of the world actually. The three of them are so great and so great to be around and I'm lucky enough to have somebody I can hold. I can hold her hand. You know, earlier today we were napping together just on the couch. You know, she had her legs on my lap. It was just great. I just realized, you know how thoroughly lucky I am, and that's where really human connection happened.

Speaker 1: 47:15

Using this media to cultivate a human connection is pretty difficult. Now, I don't think that about podcasting, by the way, and my book, the True Voice Find your True Voice, is written about podcasting, as is my course, true Voice Podcast. It's called the True Voice Course and it emanates from a course I used to teach called True Voice Podcasting. The idea here is that podcasting really does promote human connection. That you and I are creating a friendship right here is undeniable. The idea that you and I could actually meet, have fun, have a drink or have a meal or hang out for a while. I think it's very clear that we both know we could do that. There's a real connection happening here. That's not true when you read a post of somebody. Even if what they posted is totally charming, you cannot find out from a post whether or not you're connected to somebody. You might find out that you're in some mode of agreement and if you read all their posts and you're like I agree with 93% of these posts, maybe I could have coffee with this guy. That's still not going to get you the connection that you're looking for. You might learn the guy's a jerk anyways. You know that. You just you know you don't know.

Speaker 1: 48:24

Whereas here inside of podcasting, you have the opportunity to be a host or to be a guest or to be a listener, and all three of those positions create the possibility of learning about another person and some you know. As a listener, you get to learn about two people and you get to learn about our interactive and you get to learn about our interactive styles and you get to learn something about humanity where you might already have an idea, and you and I, as we're having this conversation, are bringing new ideas to people that already had ideas about what we're talking about. And the only way we're going to learn anything is actually listen outside of ourselves. If we continue to listen from inside ourselves, all that we have to work with is that which we already know.

Speaker 1: 49:01

When you start listening to somebody else, for whatever reason that is, and that's what we're attempting to do with each other. I'm attempting to listen to you, you're attempting to listen to me, and our listeners are definitely listening to us, because they're only here for one reason they're here to listen. They're not here to have this conversation and they're not sitting here thinking I wonder what I'm going to say next. They're actually watching two guys talk to each other, and this is an opportunity to listen radically and from there you can really get that the social media is not necessarily a space to navigate and cultivate the growth and development of a real relationship, whereas podcasting maybe even offers an opportunity to cultivate a real relationship even quicker and more outstanding than what meeting in the real world is. If we met in the gym or we met at a coffee shop, it's unlikely that we would have gone this deep this soon and with this kind of intensity. And we get to do that in podcasting.

Speaker 2: 49:59

That's definitely true. So, moving out of the digital age and into the real world, what practices or habits do you believe contribute to the cultivation of genuine and meaningful relationships?

Speaker 1: 50:10

So the two things I'm talking about, you know. I think that the real magic sauce for that is listening. And you know we're listening is more than listening to the words that the other person is saying, and you know we're listening is more than listening to the words that the other person is saying or even the mood that they're saying it from, or even the context that they're saying it from, but the entire circumstances. What is the space you're in actually calling for you to learn or to contribute to? Like, how is it that I can, what is it that I can learn from being in the space I'm in and how can I contribute or be of service to the people or myself who are in that space? And you know that's what's really here is continually asking those questions Like what is it that I can learn and how can I be a contribution? And the only way we can do that again is by radically listening. What is really being? Who are you really? Where are you asking your question from? What are you representing? What's going on over there with you? And the more that I can be really curious and wonder what's going on over there with the other person, the more I'm likely to become aligned with what's here, offering something that actually fits what they're looking for, without having to sell my very soul and at the same time by speaking my truest self and again we've talked a number of ways to get to that true self.

Speaker 1: 51:22

The opportunity exists to cultivate a real relationship inside of being with another person. That is very difficult to cultivate in social media posting exchanges and a little easier to cultivate in or much easier to cultivate in a podcasting situation. Little easier to cultivate in or much easier to cultivate in a podcasting situation. And then you know on real time if you have somebody in your three-dimensional world, someone that you're actually able to touch and feel and you know walk with or dance with or you know actually be in their presence.

Speaker 1: 51:57

That's a different challenge and many of us become over-intensified, over-stimulated in that setting so that we back away from the relationship possibilities that exist in that setting. It's almost too intense to create the kind of relationship that we would want here. In podcasting it's an easier space to sort of fearlessly take on the risk of saying what matters to you and then creating a relationship from there. In real life it's not clear. It becomes a little bit harder to. There's a lot of fears about how to manage ourselves around people that we're growing to appreciate or growing to want to connect with.

Speaker 2: 52:36

Yeah, it's difficult out there in the real world.

Speaker 1: 52:40

It is for sure.

Speaker 2: 52:41

Next question Anyone knows me I love storytelling. Probably tell the same person the same story too many times. But how does storytelling play an important role in expressing one person's self and really fostering those connections with others?

Speaker 1: 52:58

I think that storytelling you're right is at the essence of what we do with each other. Almost everything that we tell each other is a story. Almost everything we say about anything is a story. We made up whatever we made up, there's this soul of ours that actually put in all the extra pieces. All that happened is the cat got run over by a car, but we make up all the things that matters after that, like what that really means. What about the driver? What about the cat? What about the owner of the cat? What is about my day? What about the society? What about cars? What about you know? What about cats in general? What are the? What about you know? What about this or that or this?

Speaker 1: 53:34

And we tell our story to include all those uh, emishments, all the fabrications, and we're very curious and very interested in what people have to create.

Speaker 1: 53:45

The truth is, it's our connection to creativity. Again, we're looking for creativity and responding to the way people see the world. When you tell a story, you're generally saying something about the way that you see the world, around the issue that you're discussing around the issue that you're delivering, and I can be really turned on by whatever it is that somebody else is saying about any particular issue and in order for them to deliver a particular issue. If you just say the cat got run over by a car, end of story, that's not even a story, that's just what happened. The story itself is the embellishment. And once you start adding your particular you know your particular idiosyncrasies to the story, you become interesting, you become individual, you become somebody who gets to make up the next line. You're the one creating the sentences and the paragraphs and the ideas that you're trying to convey, and it becomes an honest to goodness, human interchange at that point, based on the stories that you're designing.

Speaker 2: 54:41

That's hilarious. I hope my wife listens to this episode because she's always saying you exaggerate so much. That's not how they said it, that's not how they did this and I'm like but it's more fun, right? Like you want a good story. I'm not trying to lie or make it incorrect or inaccurate, but I like got to spice the story up a little bit, but I'd like to continue on this one. Can you share a personal example of a story that allows you to connect with others? Hmm, do you have one? You have a go-to?

Speaker 1: 55:12

A go-to story, Gosh I have a lot of stories.

Speaker 1: 55:16

I've had things that have happened to me over time that are freaking, hilarious and kind of tragic. I have a couple of stories of two major life-threatening car accidents that I was in. They're not as fun to talk about, but they're both really amazing stories are not as fun to talk about, but they're both really they're amazing stories. And then I have, um, the story of, uh, of a life threatening. I had my, I had open heart surgery this year, I had emergency open heart surgery this year and, you know, recovering from an aortic dissection not bad, not bad for a guy, right, for a 65 year old guy recovering from an aortic dissection and uh, that's a cool story, right, that is something there. I got arrested in a Phoenix Bashes supermarket back in the day for stealing a piece of salami. That's a fantastic story. That's an unbelievable story that puts me in, you know, puts me in the Phoenix system and eventually gets me into Maricopa County Jail for the evening and the holding tank for about six hours, with about 50 people fitting in a place that held 20 comfortably, and all of us waiting to get into the big jail. And these are not 50 pretty people, by the way. You can imagine. They were pretty smelly and they were pretty yucky and big jail and these are not 50 pretty people, by the way you can imagine. They were pretty smelly and they were pretty yucky and pretty terrible, and there I was with them waiting to get released into the big chamber at Maricopa County Jail and that's a pretty cool story I've gotten.

Speaker 1: 56:50

Let's see what else I have a story about a challenge to my medical license. It's very cool as well that I want to end it up on the right side of you know. And lots of stories with women and lots of stories with moves and lots of stories with being another. You know, walking through the Annapurna Mountains. You know, up in Nepal, uh, up in, um, uh, Nepal and um, you know, I I'm not, and not up Everest, but up the mountains right near Everest, we could see Everest at every other turn. That's a cool story. And you know, um, they go on and on, for sure, but I, I'm, I'm a guy who likes stories as well. Sorry for not telling you any one of them, but they're all pretty cool.

Speaker 2: 57:33

No, no, I think that's, you know, proving the point of that example. You can find that connection to others and find that shared experience. If someone is going through something good or bad, or you know you meet someone at the line of the grocery store or something, a conversation and a connection can happen. Because of all the different things that have happened, everything from jail to climbing the mountains to open heart surgery Hopefully not too many people have that connection but can experience that. But yeah, as we move into wrapping up, I'd like to give you a final chance. What would you say would be the big message or takeaway that listeners need to take today?

Speaker 1: 58:10

Well, the big message to take away and we had already touched on this earlier is that there might be nothing wrong with you. It's entirely possible that there's really nothing wrong with you, even though everyone thinks that there is something wrong with you, even though you think there's something wrong with you. In fact, you thinking there's something wrong with you is more proof that there's something right with you, because I don't know anybody who doesn't think there's something wrong with them. So that just makes you normal if you think there's something wrong with you.

Speaker 1: 58:36

Now there might be nothing wrong with you mentally. It might be okay to be depressed and anxious and even fearful or scattered or aimless or tired. It might be okay to be all or any of those things. Being uncomfortable does not mean that there's something wrong with you. We don't blame a log for burning in a fire.

Speaker 1: 58:57

The idea here is that life is challenging and you don't have access to all of life. You do not have this shit put together, I promise. You just don't. You just don't. You may pretend that you do, you may act like you do, you may have an image that looks like you do, you don't. You just don't. That's just. And if you and and you know, when you really start looking at it, you start realizing if you can embrace everything that's going on in the world good and bad, right and wrong, terrible, painful, miserable, beautiful, wondrous, ecstatic, when you can get all of it as being what's just being served up in this lifetime of yours, which is temporary in the first place, when you can get embracing all of life and managing as you do, just because that's the way you do it, there might be nothing wrong with you. And if there's nothing wrong with you, you don't need psychiatric care, and if you don't need psychiatric care, you shouldn't get it.

Speaker 1: 59:50

And if there's nothing wrong with you and you don't need psychiatric care. You don't have to get it. And if you don't get it, you won't have to take the medicines. And if you don't take the medicines, you won't have to deal with the effects of the medicines, which often perpetuate the symptoms are marketed to treat. So if you really want something wrong with you, go, start taking psychiatric medicines. Then in a minute you will be stuff wrong with you, because that's what the drugs are intended to create. They're intended to create the symptoms they're marketed to treat.

Speaker 1: 1:00:15

Now, this isn't a nefarious intention. This is just how the whole industry rolls. The industry rolls by creating and perpetuating, if not increasing and sometimes causing the symptoms they're marketed to treat. Now, between you and me, nate, that is a fantastic business model. That is fantastic. What a cool model to actually sell a product that gives you the problem that has you need that product to deal with it. It would create billion dollars a day profits if it really worked right. Oh, wait a minute, that's what they got. If it really worked right. Oh, wait a minute, that's what they got. So no industry makes a billion dollars a day in profits in a legitimate fashion. It's not possible.

Speaker 1: 1:01:00

Those things do not go together and what we're looking at in that industry. It's not like I'm banging on the pharmacological world. I'm not. They're entirely entitled to do exactly what they want. It's inert substances. You can't blame the substances for the problem. It's for the people who think there's something wrong with them and desperately looking to have something fix them and have the idea that there might be a pill or a liquid or a intervention, a patch or a shot or something that can actually make them right again, based on some human design out of a laboratory. And truth is, that isn't how to get better. The way to get better is to accept life for what it is and what it isn't and embrace it all, because indeed there might be nothing wrong with you.

Speaker 2: 1:01:51

That's interesting. It reminds me a business model. Sounds like Congress, right? Congress asks if they get a pay raise and they get to vote on their own pay raise. Exactly.

Speaker 1: 1:01:59

Who's going to turn that down Exactly? No kidding, it's a nice inner circle, right? A nice vicious cycle.

Speaker 2: 1:02:08

Yeah, absolutely Well. I encourage listeners to share their thoughts or questions on social media or email. You can find me on Facebook, Buzzsprout or YouTube. But, dr Fred, thank you for coming out. My pleasure, thanks for having me, I love you all. See you you.