The Door Is Always There: Dallas Collis on Reimagining Your Life

Dallas Collis shares his transformational journey from addiction and self-sabotage to radical responsibility, revealing how questioning his life story led to profound liberation. Through powerful insights on trauma, identity, and present-moment awareness, he demonstrates how reimagining—rather than recovering—ourselves creates lasting change.

• Viewing our identities as stories we've constructed from past experiences
• How small "traumas" can accumulate into heavy emotional baggage we carry through life 
• The pivotal moment when the question "Show me yesterday" changed everything
• Breaking free from victim mentality and blame by taking radical responsibility
• Creating meaningful change through tiny, consistent adjustments rather than grand gestures
• Challenging the "believe in yourself" narrative when your self-identity is the problem
• Living in the present 16 hours of each day rather than dwelling in yesterday or worrying about tomorrow
• Understanding trauma as "a thousand little cuts" rather than single catastrophic events
• Moving from recovery to reimagination of who you can become

Don't believe in yourself. Believe in a new, imagined self.

https://mindforcepodcast.buzzsprout.com

Chapters

• 0:48 Meet Dallas Collis
• 3:20 Carrying the Weight of Our Stories
• 10:42 The Cancer Diagnosis That Changed Everything
• 19:13 Success vs. Authenticity: Removing the Masks
• 24:46 Breaking Free from the Victim Mindset
• 31:22 Small Steps Create Meaningful Change
• 39:34 No Yesterday, No Tomorrow, Just Today
• 44:25 Reimagining Instead of Recovering
• 49:10 Final Takeaways and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:21

Hi everyone, welcome to Mindforce. I'm your host, nate Shear, and this is where love, life and learning come together, because your mind is what matters most. Here Today we have Dallas Collis, and today we'll be talking about his life story, his beliefs about you and change and transformation. So, dallas, tell us the who, what, why and where. Who are you, what do you do, why are you here, and where in the world are you?

Speaker 2: 0:50

Thanks for having me, nate. I'm in Vancouver Island, british Columbia, canada, and the story is everything. Because we are a story, each of us, from our birth on. Everything we receive, we learn, we see, we experience becomes a page, a chapter, a part of our story. And there becomes a certain point in our age when we begin to self identify as the story. It informs us who we are.

Speaker 2: 1:19

So, on my story, like many or most people not different or special in any way we get messages and events early in our lives that often we now call traumas. They're impactful moments that are often based in something negative or we have created a negative understanding of them, and this builds up into what I call emotional baggage, and most people carry these bags through their life. Some people, it affects them really strongly and it creates the course of their life. Other people it's just a nagging worry and concern in the background that always seems to be there. And so for me, I learned in my childhood that I was not smart enough, I wasn't good enough, I was a loser, I couldn't pass the grade. That was a failure, and the abuse, psychologically and physically, from people around me and events I went through impacted me to make me believe that was the truth of me, that was who I was, and I lived that way for 50 years Losing, failing, falling down, getting hurt, hurting others. We self-sabotage. When we have that kind of mindset, we begin to do something that's positive and moves us forward, and then we find a way to ruin it, because that supports our real view of ourselves inside and we want to live up to our own projected story that we believe we are. And so for me, that pain grew so big and those bags so heavy that I turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain, to get pain relief. And this is how most addiction is created. And over time you keep getting more and more of the addiction because you need that pain relief.

Speaker 2: 3:21

I then got into a 26-year marriage that from the outside two kids, cars, vacations, our own business, success. You're a middle-class, nuclear, well-done family, but underneath that roof, both my wife and I were addicts. We were both in terrible pain and I were addicts. We were both in terrible pain, and so it was a storm, a war every day inside that home, and the damage we did to each other and our kids is something we will live with forever. It was a horrible place. And then one day, in July 1st 2000, I woke up. It was the luckiest day of my life. I had cancer and over the next 12 months I went through treatment, surgery, radiation. I lost my wife, I lost my house, I lost my business, my family, in almost every way. I ended up 12 months to the day later waking up one bedroom basement apartment alone, broken, broke and suicidal. Now I didn't commit suicide, obviously, but when I look back on that year I realized that was the greatest thing that could have happened for me, because it made me examine my story.

Speaker 2: 4:36

And one morning, while I'm preparing breakfast, I had a YouTube video on a podcast. They were talking about consciousness. I had a YouTube video on a podcast. They were talking about consciousness. And the man on the podcast said this one line and it absolutely changed my life. He said show me yesterday. I lived in yesterday.

Speaker 2: 4:56

My story, everything I carried with me into the present moment was based on memories from yesterday. The pain, the suffering, how I thought about myself, my lack of security and self-confidence. All those things were about yesterday. When this guy says, show me yesterday, my brain said, yeah, I can't go to a cupboard and get yesterday out and say see, here it is. There is no reality to it. When that struck me that you could question your belief in your life, in what it meant. If it's only a story, if it's only something we believe, then we could easily say to ourselves what if I'm wrong? What if? What have I believed is wrong? Not the truth. It's not that events didn't happen to me, but what do I believe about them? Now?

Speaker 2: 5:56

When I crossed that line, everything changed in my life because it meant I didn't have to carry that baggage. I had given my past power over my life. But if I'm present right here, right now, it doesn't exist. You and I are here right now. We're talking. There is no problem happening. There is no worry or concern. We're here, no worry or concern, we're here. I have to go to my past in a memory and bring it to here to be upset or worried or concerned about something, or I have to go to my future and my imagination and think about something that might go wrong and bring it here and be concerned and anxious about tomorrow. Otherwise they don't exist. I mean that changed my entire outlook on life and my entire trajectory, because I could control my life. I was in charge. The past wasn't in charge. My concern about the future isn't in charge. It's right here in front of me right now.

Speaker 1: 6:59

Yeah, I think that's super powerful too. And I've recorded, you know, quite a few episodes recently been getting to you know multiple per week now, and I've recorded, you know, quite a few episodes recently I've been getting to you know multiple per week now. And something that just keeps coming up over and over, that's just so, just bizarre to me is, as humans, we will be comfortable with discomfort for a very long time.

Speaker 1: 7:20

I've had stories on here bad relationships, bad jobs, bad whatever, and it's not bad enough. That always seems to be the key. We'll go along with something for a very long time that we're not all that happy content with, just for the longest time. And I mean that must go back to caveman and safety and security. So you're not supposed to do anything that breaks the pattern and it puts you in a vulnerable spot, it makes you unsafe and things like that. But it's just wild to me. It just keeps coming up time and time again, and so I'm curious, like what your thoughts are on that defining moment. If you don't have the shock and awe of the cancer and that pivotal moment, I mean, are you still in the same spot or what do you think? I mean, obviously that's hypothesizing, but like what do you think that looks like, you know, with someone that doesn't have that large pivotal moment?

Speaker 2: 8:13

Yeah, I think if I hadn't woken up, I would be in that spot still. We are creatures of habit and routine and even if it's painful, the devil we know routine. And even if it's painful, the devil, we know. We can get used to our pain. We can be sitting in it and a little voice in our head can say this is hurting you. And yet we stay right there because we know it. As bad as it might be, we know it. We want to know our future. We know we can handle our day because we handled it yesterday. And so why do you want me to walk out a different door? I don't know what's out that door, it's scary. So, yeah, the caveman wants the routine, I want the security, even if it is killing me.

Speaker 1: 8:59

That's interesting.

Speaker 2: 9:00

That is a fundamental of us, but I think it's not overwhelmed in, it's not hard enough. It's not hard enough and you see an exit. You have to be ready to see the door open. I could have gone through all that and not seen the door open.

Speaker 2: 9:20

One thing that happened when I was suicidal. A friend came to me how are you doing? And I'm saying you know I'm not doing well, I just can't. You know, I've had enough, I'm so tired of all this. I said I'm not strong enough. And he said you're not strong enough.

Speaker 2: 9:38

He said in a pandemic you went through cancer and lost your house, your wife, your business, you're an alcoholic and you think you're not strong. That would have killed anyone else. And I sort of went. Maybe I'm not weak, maybe I can actually be resilient and handle this, maybe I'm supposed to go on. That was the door. I could walk through that door. I don't have to go down this path. So I think you have to be ready as well as have enough pressure, enough suffering and pain to push you. But the two have to happen.

Speaker 2: 10:13

It's why we can't really help anyone else. We can say what we did, what happened to us, but if they're not ready to hear it and see it in themselves. It doesn't really do anything, but we try and, as humans, we want to be there for each other. That's why you have a podcast, that's why I want to be on and share my story, because we're saying there are doors that can open for us and we want other people to see them, because human beings want to help each other. We are social creatures. We're afraid and we're insecure, and all those fragilities as well, but something in us always leads us towards love, towards being together, towards being supportive, and so that's what brings us here today, that's what brings us to our friends tomorrow. That's the light, that's the thing we're always grasping at.

Speaker 1: 11:10

Absolutely, and I think there's got to be balance too. One thing that I'm always like hesitant on the show right is like saying ultimatum or one thing or another, like you are going to have days that are uncomfortable, you are going to have, you know, bad days in your marriages, you're going to have, you know things like that. So also want to point out the fact things are not rosy every day either, and so I think you got to stop and reflect and figure out where that you know that tipping point is, where you know it's just bumps along the road and like, hey, I need to get off this train all together. I think there's probably some deep reflection there either. Like I think you know marriage at its you know 67% divorce rate or whatever it is. You know two thirds, I think, is where it's currently at Like part of me believes part of that is people maybe not trying to push through as much as as they should.

Speaker 1: 11:58

There is definitely a point I know I've been through one there's definitely a point where, like it's not going to work and you need to go your separate ways, but I wonder how many you know are jumping off a little too early. One question I did want to ask you going back, you had said success, and that's something that's just really intriguing to me. You said it looked, you know, good from the outside. So if you could, how would you define true?

Speaker 2: 12:23

Well, you know we wear masks. I have a father mask, I have a relationship mask, I have a work mask, I have a social mask. We behave certain ways in certain situations. It's the classic person who's angry and upset. The phone rings, they answer it and they go hello how are you? What just happened? We have this ability just to throw on this mask.

Speaker 2: 12:48

So I think a lot of success in our culture is really a mask. I've got the house, I've got the car, I've got the job, I look the part and people try to strive to have that part. And yet inside we know almost everyone struggles. It's never perfect, you're right. It's always going to get a bloody nose, you're always going to fall down at some point. You have to get yourself back up.

Speaker 2: 13:14

I think success really is being that person that gets the bloody nose, the person that falls down and is okay with it, the person who knows they have the ability to control themselves, that they don't have to be wearing a mask, that they can be vulnerable and open. And those are the difficult places to go to. And I think one of the fundamental things we're seeing in society today is almost cultural support of being fragile, that we are given to such comfort and convenience that now, when you fall down, you have a hard time getting up without someone's help, you get a bloody nose and you sit and cry instead of say that's life and get going. We are creating, I think, a weakness and that we give up on the relationship with the first big roadblock. We don't struggle and fight. Life is hard, it's not fair, it's not equal. You're smarter than me in lots of areas. I'm not as talented in lots of areas. I'm never going to be as fast or maybe as slow. I'm not always going to win, I'm going to lose. And that's the reality of life, and we're trying to paint pictures today of it being perfect in some way, of there being a security, an insurance that you won't have to face real hardship, real loss, and so when people do, they're crushed because they haven't been at the gym, exercising, and I mean that mentally or physically.

Speaker 2: 14:59

When I started turning my life around, the first thing I did was physical. I had to get out and walk every day for 30 minutes. That was one little step. Then I started going to the gym and lifting weights and that building the physical power built the mental power and made me stronger and not easily blown over by a problem, and I think that's a big part of it, because as we see mental health declining in our culture, we also see physical health declining. They go hand in hand. We are body and mind picture. I'm painting and showing you. It's what's really going on in here and that's why you can be rich and completely dysfunctional and you can be poor and incredibly happy because you know yourself, success is in there.

Speaker 1: 15:57

Yeah, I definitely think there's something true for, you know, being an authentic self, and that goes a really long way towards that success. One thing I find is just really bizarre to me too is like we love the word resiliency. I feel like that's really buzz right now but it comes at a price, and that's one thing I wish it like conveyed better is, can resiliency comes after difficult things have been, you know, pushed through and completed. Things have been, you know, pushed through and completed. It's the looking back and realizing I am not dead, it didn't kill me, I'm still here. And sometimes I think that word is just kind of watered down where it's like why don't you have resiliency or why don't, why aren't you more resilient? And it's just used and it's thrown around and it's kind of watered down.

Speaker 1: 16:41

I had my one of my very first guests on the show. She gave a physical example, which I love storytelling and physical examples, so hers was the idea of a paper plate, which I had never heard before. I heard resiliency as a rubber band and you're supposed to bounce back, but like you don't just bounce back, they make it sound like something that occurs to you and it's not you doing the action, which is really odd, like you don't, just, you're not, rubber, you're. That doesn't actually work. So her example was paper plates and paper plates.

Speaker 1: 17:12

Like if you were to have a single paper plate and they were to put a large meal I think she referenced like spaghetti and meatballs that thing is going straight to the floor, it can't handle it because it's one paper plate. Yeah, but what her therapist had talked to her about was going through difficult times and accomplishing things and making it to the other side builds up paper plates. Now you have 10, 15, and then you can take this large meal. And so in the example, the meal is those difficult things that come up. You're able to handle them because you've been through them before. You have the experience, the example. You can reference back to something that's tangible, that actually happened, and so that one I love the physical example to be able to look at it and have a visual instead of like just bounce back or pick yourself up, or you know we have a lot of generic phrases for it, but the paper plate I thought was really cool.

Speaker 2: 17:58

Yeah, and I think for me, the missing piece of resilience is it comes at a price. Piece of resilience is it comes at a price you pay for resilience. It's not just a bounce back. You have to pay a price between the event and your resilience Something is being put in right.

Speaker 2: 18:15

It's not free. Lately, I've been really pushing this idea of you know the world is believe in yourself, the strength of self-belief, you can do it, you're strong. And I realized maybe the biggest mistake we've made is telling people to believe in themselves. Why? Because yourself has been the problem. So what are you believing in? If I believe I have to be confident, resilient, strong, I have to have this optimistic outlook and that's believe in yourself. Well, if I had those things, I wouldn't need to believe in them because I would be them. So what am I being asked to believe in? My story that is dragging me down and holding me back? I don't want to believe in that. In fact, I want to disbelieve in myself so I can reimagine myself.

Speaker 1: 19:13

It's like this idea of recovery.

Speaker 2: 19:15

I don't want to recover from before. I was an alcoholic because that led me to alcohol. I want to change and not be the alcoholic. I don't want to recover anything. I want to change and not be the alcoholic. I don't want to recover anything. I want to reimagine and rebuild a new future without alcohol, without the need to try and get rid of a pain, because I don't want the pain. So everything for me is now not from the past. And all these things believing is believing something behind you, and those are where all the troubles lie.

Speaker 1: 19:53

Yeah, that's good stuff. One thing that you had mentioned earlier you had talked about the pivotal moment and shifting and things like that, and you didn't quite say it but it's reminded me a lot of like victim mindset. Do you have any like tips or anything on like you, but it's reminded me a lot of like victim mindset. Do you have any like tips or anything on like you know, woe is me and kind of living in the past you had talked about One of my long addictions was blame, and blame is an addiction because it removes personal responsibilities.

Speaker 2: 20:20

If I blame everyone, everything the economy, the government, the world around me, the treatment I got if I blame all of that, I never have to be accountable. I can always keep that away. So it's a defense, it's a safety valve. If I'm blaming you for my problems, it's not my problem, I wasn't to blame. That is the victim mentality right there, because you're not facing it and you're saying I'm the victim, it wasn't my fault, you're to blame.

Speaker 2: 20:55

That's to blame this event. The weather's to blame for my bad mood, it's raining and I wanted a sunny day. Everything we push it away from ourselves. That makes us the victim, that keeps us in pain because we're not dealing with our own responsibility. So for me it was to be radically responsible, not just responsible, and that means that everything that has happened in my life is my responsibility. You did something bad to me. It's my fault, not yours. I blame nothing outside of myself and once you take that ownership, you no longer have to carry it. It can be put aside, the bag can be put down because it was me and no longer is.

Speaker 1: 21:44

So what was that shifting point? Because I feel like, like you said, it's addictive and you're going to keep doing it. And I feel like when the people are in that blaming mindset, they kind of stay there. How does a person like with? I guess, like we said it earlier, right, you can tell people all day, but they don't want to do it unless they want to do it themselves. But how does someone shift out of that? How do you get unstuck?

Speaker 2: 22:06

We're always going to return to where we've just been. You know that story, that sudden crisis that opened the door for me. Of course, everyone's different, but almost everyone gets to that fed up place where they know, even though they might not admit it out loud, they look in the mirror and they know that there's some place they don't want to be. And until they can really face that, that's why we can't really help someone. We can only say there's a door, but you have to be prepared to walk through it. What triggers that change is going to be different for everyone. I think the support is letting people know that everyone has the strength to change, to make that move Everyone, regardless of who they are, how poor, how rich, how out of shape, how healthy doesn't matter. Everyone has the power to do it. It's what gets them there. You know that ability to do it. There's a reason goal setting almost never works.

Speaker 1: 23:15

Resolutions were coming up on the first of the year.

Speaker 2: 23:18

Yeah, we manufacture these things from the pain that we want to change. We get the idea that we could do something better, we could be a better person, act better, work harder, whatever it is, and so we get the imaginative idea that if we write it down, if we create a goal, a plan, a strategy, fight, be strong, you can do it, believe in yourself. All of this comes tumbling together in an imagined wonderful tomorrow. The problem is, you can't live in tomorrow. You can only fantasize it. You are always you, right here, and if that you is not confident, is not happy, it'll always be in the way, and so we give up on the goal.

Speaker 2: 24:13

After a month, I go to the. I'm going to go to the gym next week and see 100 new people at the gym and it's going to be crowded and I'm going to go. Well, I'll have to wait three weeks and then they'll be gone, because we all know it's going to be crowded and I'm going to go. Well, I'll have to wait three weeks and then they'll be gone, because we all know it's going to happen.

Speaker 2: 24:29

And it happens with ourselves all the time. We do it to ourselves because the change isn't really happening. We're pretending, that's all we're doing. So where's that door? You know it's there. There is the gym, there is a better diet in the fridge All those things are there, available. It's making that choice.

Speaker 2: 25:00

I didn't know how to make the choice, but I did know if I collapsed life, which I just turned around, I was in, life collapse and my brain said collapse life, make everything big, small. I took a sticky note and put it on my TV. Tiny, tiny, a little step. I then took my chair out of the living room and put it in a different room. So when I woke up in the morning, my routine behavior of going and making coffee out of the living room and put it in a different room. So when I woke up in the morning, my routine behavior of going and making coffee, sitting in my chair and clicking on YouTube I looked at the hole in the floor where my chair was and my brain said don't sit down. I put a sticky note on the fridge and said what's going into your mouth? So when I got to the fridge in my habitual routine sleepwalking, eating. I looked at the little note and went oh right, yeah, I should eat something better.

Speaker 2: 25:59

Little, tiny moves that all led to the same place being aware of thoughts as they come up in your head. We're not aware. 10 to 30,000 thoughts a day arise in our mind out of our memories, out of past experience. We don't act for them, we don't call them forward, they just pop up. Well, the vast majority we don't even listen to or notice. They just fly by the cloud across the sky. But some of them are routine thoughts. Maybe they're lacking confidence fears, worries, concerns, and we latch on to them and those we identify as and there our thoughts control us. So the sticky notes I started putting around the house were trying to be aware of my thoughts. If I normally went to the fridge and ate garbage, it's because a thought just happened that said, yeah, I want that, but because I wasn't aware I wasn't really being awake. I was asleep, just doing what my thoughts said.

Speaker 2: 27:02

The sticky note was a purpose. Oh right, I don't want to eat that crab. I need to make a better choice. Oh right, I shouldn't sit down, I need to stand up. Then I got myself a stand-up desk for my computer. So I had to stand up. Then I got myself to go for that walk and that became a very meditative process. I always felt better and then became a very meditative process. I always felt better and then I'd impress upon myself all day man, I feel good after a walk.

Speaker 2: 27:30

I met people who go to the gym. I hate going to the gym, but I know I got to do it. Discipline, I got to push and I would go to sleep at night thinking I can't wait to get up in the morning and go to the gym. I made it exciting and that was all the motivation I needed, because I was excited, I looked forward to it. It wasn't dread. We create these ideas. We tell ourselves it's going to be good or it's going to be bad, and then we behave that way. We are simple creatures. You can self-program Instead of letting past memories that baggage instant thoughts and let them lead you, or you can actually think, which is different than thoughts, because you're directing your mind instead of having your mind control you.

Speaker 1: 28:18

Yeah, that's super powerful. I think it's a great reminder too that things don't have to be Herculean efforts. I feel like I don't know where the mindset came from, where you need to do this large over the top. It's probably like social media and you see all the good and the pictures and you only see the bright side of things and never the downside. Or it must come from more technology or something, but it always feels like in order to do anything, to have those goals or New Year's resolutions, it has to be this massive thing. But I think it's a great reminder. The walk around the block after you eat like start there.

Speaker 2: 28:56

So simple.

Speaker 1: 28:57

Right, like, oh, 30 pounds, you know some huge number. It's like it starts with the first step, you know, putting the shoes on and getting out the door. I wanted to ask you a question about trauma. So in the very beginning you mentioned trauma and you kind of just touched on it again about the self-doubt and you know having those things. And so I've talked to different people and they're like oh, I don't have any trauma. You know, my childhood was relatively normal. You know I don't have anything.

Speaker 1: 29:22

But you can see and tell that they have that self-doubt and things like that. And so how do people you know identify and move through? You know those things where you've been told something because you said you're not smart enough. You know those things you mentioned in the beginning. Like people have been told that their whole, their whole lives up to a certain point so they could be 20, 30, however years old they are and whole lives up to a certain point, so they could be 20, 30, however years old they are. And it's not even like something that seems abnormal, it's just part of their programming, where it's now ingrained. How do you break free from the same thing that you now have taken into your own self-talk?

Speaker 2: 29:56

Well, I think the first step is to understand that we have sort of taught ourselves that trauma is a massive event, something horrific, something really big, and so we attach it to the military PTSD and we attach it to big things, impactful moments that wound us psychologically. But for the vast majority of people, trauma is from a thousand little cuts built up over years, told them, believing I'm not good enough, and just always being a little cut, a little stab, a little pinprick, until one day, just suddenly. How did this happen? The overnight success is the overnight trauma. You know. It's like out of nowhere. I'm suddenly. Why am I so tight in my stomach all the time? Why am I exhausted? What's going on with me? And it's the thousand cuts built up. That's mostly what trauma is.

Speaker 2: 30:59

Few people actually have that single horrific event. But any way you look at them, it is a memory. It's not that the event never happened or the cuts don't take place. It's what we accept the meaning of those cuts, the perception of the event and what it means to us. That's the difference. That's what the journey is to be able to examine what we consider trauma or what our baggage is, and look at it and say, okay, it's real. It happened, but it's not happening now. It's not real now. It is only my memory of it, my replaying this tape over and over. This is why a lot of talk therapy doesn't work very well for a lot of people, because they're replaying the movie over and over and what they're doing is driving it deeper, making it stronger, not weaker. You have a million memories from your past that you cannot remember right now. I asked Nate right now what did you have for breakfast on Tuesday, the 14th of September in 2005?

Speaker 2: 32:12

No idea how would he have a clue? Because it's not something you've replayed, it's not something you kept alive. You let it die and all memory dies if you don't keep it alive. Even trauma, everything from our past will wither and die and go away. If we don't spend any time on it, if we don't focus on it, the scene from the movie evaporates. If we don't go back to the scene. That's how human brains work, because we can't hold everything. We would be dysfunctional if we held everything in our mind. We wouldn't be able to move. You've forgotten things 10 years ago and you don't believe things from 10 years ago that you do today. And you will remember things in 10 years from today and forget things based on then. We are constantly changing and yet part of us believes that there's a truth in what we remember, and the reality is there is no truth. It's a perception that we carry with us that keeps it alive and keeps it real.

Speaker 2: 33:21

It's a hard step to take. It's hard to wrap your head around sometimes, but it is this simplicity that is so difficult. You have a military background, don't you?

Speaker 1: 33:34

Yeah, I'm active duty Air Force.

Speaker 2: 33:36

There you go, so you know what a checklist is. Absolutely, you could not function without a checklist. Why? Because we break things into little steps and we remind ourselves to follow each step. Because it's important, it's a routine and a behavior that makes life work, that makes our job work. It is when we sleepwalk and we think we remember everything about the checklist that we make a mistake. This is why, with fundamentals, bring us back there.

Speaker 2: 34:09

Well, your life can be a checklist while you're awake or it can be sleepwalking through memory of it, and that's when we make our mistakes. So for me, it's there is no yesterday anymore. It doesn't exist. I don't believe in my past, I believe right now. And here's my checklist. I'm going to eat a little better today. I only have 16 hours to live.

Speaker 2: 34:34

That's how I look at collapsed life. If I sleep eight hours, I have 16 hours, I'm awake. That is my life. There's no tomorrow, no yesterday. So in this 16 hours, what's my checklist? Can I eat a little better today? Yeah, I can do that. In 16 hours, I can probably muster the strength to eat better, not worse. Could I do some exercise, like go for a walk or go to the gym In 16 hours. Yeah, I can probably fit that in and make it work. Could I be a little more loving and careful with people around me? Yeah, I can probably control my emotions and think before I speak. Little things. I break my life down and say all I have to do is be the best I can be today. I have no control over tomorrow, and yesterday no longer is real. I have no control over tomorrow and yesterday no longer is real. So I get to live this simple, easy life no worries, no concerns, no trouble, because I'm not creating it and that's simple and it's really hard to do.

Speaker 1: 35:37

Yeah, I would think people would say what about? You know planning and long-term, you know goals and things like that? I mean there's got to be some type of balance there, right?

Speaker 2: 35:47

But every what about is taking you into your past or your future. That's what you've done. As soon as you say what about? You're creating something outside of here right now, you and I, right here right now, have no what about. We just are right here. You would have to go in your mind to some concern from yesterday and bring it here to give yourself that feeling and emotion. Or you would have to journey right now into tomorrow or even 10 minutes from now and say, when this talk is over with Dallas, I'm going to have to boom. You're not here, you just went there. So every what about is you creating something that isn't real and making it now. There is nothing right now between you and I. We are just here, you and I.

Speaker 1: 36:39

Just here and present. I wanted to ask you what are things like you've taken on and done? You've touched on a couple of them, you know removing the chair, the sticky note, thinking about each day in 16 hour increments. Are there other things that most people would consider? You know a little goofy that you do within these daily windows? Sure.

Speaker 2: 37:02

You know, most of it is inside the head, because we are in our heads. So for me, I looked for what I called the gap. There is a gap in everything in our life. There would be no talking unless there was a gap between words. There would be no music if there wasn't a gap between notes and tones. Everything has space, and space is where you reside. Everything else is a mask, an idea, an imagination. So I'm a blue sky, just like you are, and a blue sky is just that it has no weather, it has nothing. It is just a blue sky. Every cloud is a thought, an experience, an idea. That's the weather, and a lot of us live in storms. So if I have a thought, instantly, I want to see the thought and have a gap. I call it a space question.

Speaker 2: 38:07

I can say to myself is that really how I want to do? Is that really how I should feel? Just questioning myself becomes a habit, and pretty soon. You don't have to try, you just do it. If I'm 60 years old, I've spent 60 years practicing being me, so I'm pretty good at it. I don't have to think about it, it's just habitual. This is who I am, I would tell you. But the reality is it's not who I am, it's just who I've practiced to be, and so I want to do something different. Guess what you got to practice the first day I went to the gym was hard because I didn't practice doing that. It hurt, my muscles were sore the next day. So what Practice? And a few years later, all of a sudden I have muscle and I feel fantastic. I love going to the gym and I never, even when I'm working hard, it's not hard.

Speaker 1: 39:05

Yeah, I think one of the most important like motivations is consistency. Like we talked about motivation, like it's this thing that comes inside you and fills you up and it's going to make you want to go. Consistency is just so much better, especially for the gym, because I feel like my muscles get sore quicker than everyone else. I'm sure that's completely not true, but one thing that you know my motivation is to not take a break, because I know when I come back it hurts even more. So that's my. Maybe that's like a negative reinforcement and like a punishment type thing, but I know that if I take a week off, you know I come back and it hurts, like when I have to travel for work. I leave and I I miss the gym for a little bit. I don't do the weightlifting that I normally do that week. Coming back is just painful the legs are shaky.

Speaker 1: 39:50

It's hard to get up the stairs and so when I go to pause I'm like, well, I know that I can't, so it's more just keep showing up as a form of habit and consistency. I don't ever, I never really have got this like feeling of motivation. I'm just gonna, it's gonna feel like fun and motivated. It's like more, just, it's a non-negotiable, it has to happen and let's go, and so that seems to work to a certain extent. Hopefully, you know, that continues to work for me. But motivation's always been kind of a weird term, kind of like resiliency, it's buzzy, it's thrown around a lot you see it on posters like motivation.

Speaker 2: 40:31

I don't even know what that really means. Yeah, for me it's just being excited about something. You know I'm self-motivated because I'm excited. People want a break. I need a break. Sometimes, you know it's hard. I got to have a break and I think why, If you need a break, it's because you're not excited about what you're doing really.

Speaker 2: 40:54

You may think you are, you may be disciplined, you may be pushing yourself, but if you need a break, there's a reason. Why do we work at jobs for 40 years with the idea that we're going to retire and get that real break, be happy, have the life we want Really? You're going to put this work in to get that. Why not live it right now? I don't go on vacations because what's the reason? What do I think I'm getting away from on vacations? Because what's the reason? What do I think I'm getting away from? If that's the life I live, what a horrible place to be. And that's where I used to be. I can't wait to sit down and just relax because it's going to take me away from something I'm not happy with. Well, be happy with it. This is it. It's not a dress rehearsal. You're already in the life. What are you waiting for that's what came to me and the motivation was you mean, I could be happy right now if I chose to.

Speaker 2: 42:01

I can be motivated and excited and full of energy anytime I want. Of course you can. No one is tired. That's an absolute myth. Your body is made of electricity. You are full of energy. Your mind is telling you you're tired. Your mind is giving you a feeling of exhaustion, but people do miraculous things every day, beyond what we think is possible physically and mentally.

Speaker 2: 42:31

Why? Why, on the battlefield, does a soldier tap into a strength that someone else would see as superhuman? It's always there. Every one of us are superhuman. We just decide, we carry the baggage, we weigh ourselves down, we convince ourselves we can't, when the reality is we can anything we want. And if our can is relaxing on a beach, that's fine. But do it for that reason, not because it's a reward to get away from something you don't like. Not because it's a reward to get away from something you don't like, but because you're doing it, because it makes you feel good. Life should make you feel good, and if that's climbing a mountain, trudging through some crap or just sitting watching a movie, that's fine. But be present in that, make that why you're happy.

Speaker 2: 43:32

The rest of it is escaping and trying to find something that's going to make you happy. Nothing can make you happy but yourself, and that can happen right now, or it can happen in 10 years when you get the Lambo. That's your choice, your choice.

Speaker 1: 44:01

Yeah, I think that's a super powerful reminder that you have the power. I mean your choice repeating thing and really repetitive, and how often it is where, like it's outside of my control, I was dealt a bad hand, I'm poor, I'm you know this or I'm that, and so hopefully everyone that's listening really takes a hold of that. I mean, make some change, get out, you know, put your shoes on, go around the block. You can start with that one small step. I wanted to ask you, dallas, what's one key takeaway from your story that you hope listeners will reflect on in their own lives?

Speaker 2: 44:31

I don't have to believe the story that I've carried. It's that simple. I said, if you can ask this one question of yourself, what if my story isn't the truth? What if I'm wrong about my past? What if I'm wrong about my past? What if yourself? Because we are creative beings, you can. What if anything? What if I did something different today? What if I loved you a little more? What if I worked a little harder? What if I didn't tell myself I couldn't? What if I didn't tell myself I couldn't? We are beings of the creativity. What if? Don't believe everything about yourself, reimagine. What if?

Speaker 1: 45:20

that makes sense. Try something new, you know, try to sit down, reflect and walk through those what-ifs we talked about. You know, bad relationships, bad jobs and for whatever reason, we'll continue to kind of push on through this thing without having that pivotal moment and then the door to get out. The door is there. Maybe it's only cracked right now, maybe it needs to get a little bit bigger, maybe you got to wait for the right window for you to. You know, exit, but keep your mind open and ready to exit the door. Try something new. If you're in an uncomfortable situation, try to figure out what the next step and what's something better for you. So, dallas, I wanted to ask you, as we close, what's next for you on your journey and how can people connect with you or your story.

Speaker 2: 46:08

Well, my journey now is to live in service, to share the story and my beliefs about the story, because I think we all I say all the time we all walk a hard road. We just wear different shoes. We're all traveling this same journey. We all want the same destination to be happy. So, if we can share stories and help each other see possibly that light, that door open and be happy now, not someday. That is the purpose, that is all there is, that's all I could offer.

Speaker 2: 46:45

That's perfect, and so I've got these books that I've written and they're on Amazon. You can find anyone Amazon. You can find anyone. Today you can't hide anymore. If they've got your name, you can find me, so you can find me pretty easily today. I always laugh at people about security and their identity, and I think you've already given it all away. What are you afraid of?

Speaker 1: 47:07

Yeah, I always find that funny too, because everyone's freaked out about security. Yeah, they won't leave the house without their phone and I'm like the phone just tracked where you were, what you bought and everything. So I'm like if you're really worried, you'd probably just leave your phone at home. But you love your phone but uh.

Speaker 2: 47:22

Yeah, just kind of comical people don't want to go dark. They won't, but they't, but they're freaked out.

Speaker 1: 47:29

It seems like a good concept, but I don't know if.

Speaker 2: 47:32

I want that.

Speaker 1: 47:33

But yeah, thank you, Dallas, for coming out. I wanted to see if you had any final takeaway. I know you kind of said live each day at a time. Do you have anything else as a final takeaway?

Speaker 2: 47:44

Don't believe in yourself. Believe in a new, imagined self.

Speaker 1: 47:48

A new imagined self, the one you create, imagine self. I love that. You said that you didn't want to recover, to be a recovery, but to be reimagined. I think reimagined sounds much cooler than recovery. I love that well I encourage listeners. Yeah, I encourage listeners to share their thoughts and questions on social media. Throw me some feedback. But but, dallas, thank you for coming out and I love you all. See ya, thank you.