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Get Out of Your Own Way with Dave Hollis

I love you, Mr Dave Hollis. Welcome to the show, Dave. Ah, Chase. I'm so, so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Welcome from somewhere just on the outskirts of Austin, Texas. Tell us a little bit about where you are. And of course, we're in strange time. So talk to us about yourself, your wife and a family of four Children down there in Austin, Texas. How are you holding up? Yeah, we are like every other. Hopefully, human doing the quarantine thing are trying our best. Navigate what is unlike anything that any of us have ever been through ever. We, as you say, live just outside of Austin, Texas, small town, about 40 minutes in the wilderness, in the middle of nothing. And so our quarantining is also a bit of time to commune in nature and figure out how with kids that air from 3 to 13 4 of them always here, they will not leave. How do we home school? How do we handle and juggle? Still trying to run a business and stay connected to our team of 60. How do we navigate? Still trying...

to have an exceptional relationship. All the things that, frankly, everyone is trying to get a handle on and kind of at the same time. Keep some perspective for how this idea of us having to quarantine is nothing compared to what frontline workers and people who are trying to in essential businesses do in keeping this world of ours operating and running. So we're doing just fine, thank you very much. Well, yeah, well, I think it's important to recognize, um, as you just did eloquently there that weaken both, you know, be managing our own world, managing our stress, trying to figure out how to run a business. Ah, in a virtual world managed to family all that stuff and still hold in high esteem with deep gratitude to the people who are on the front lines that have it worse than we do. Um, so thanks from I would just say real quick. I'm looking at my computer screen. I'm here in my master bedroom. The bathroom mirror is directly over the lens that I'm looking at and written on. It is something that my wife wrote, which says your quarantine is a privilege. The reminder that on the days when we start to complain about having to be inconvenienced by quarantine, that there are millions and millions of people who don't get the gift of choosing to quarantine because of their conditions or socioeconomic level, the way that front line workers air walking in. So I'm trying to stay connected a little bit in the midst of this too. One. Can we think differently about what might come out of this pain that could, in fact, change the way we think about normal going forward but also trying to contextualize or create some objectivity for how hard things are on a relative basis. So true, man, So true. And I think you guys, you and Rachel, um, I'm a fan of the podcast. Rise together, and you all do a fantastic job of staying grounded. You've had insane success. Um, the company, as you mentioned employees, a whole bunch of people and with the mission and vision you have of helping people live their best lives, Um, it is fair to say that we're privileged. It is fair to say that, um, you come from a place of security and health and a strong foundation, but probably for you. Um, hasn't always been that and from what I gathered from your book and some of the things you share in your podcast, um, you're investigating those with the book and the podcast. And so I'm wondering if you could take us back. Let's go. I don't know to childhood, because that's where a lot of, um, of our our challenges in life start out right with relationship we have with their parents or lack thereof with yourself and, uh, orient us, if you will around you, the human, the young Dave, Hollis, and ah, and then walk us through a little bit of the the experiences that you had that delivered you to a running this company with Rachel and then be writing the book that you write, which we'll talk to talk about a little bit later. But I want to I understand some of your foundation, your your history. Yeah, well, what's interesting is you know, all of us, including how we process this time of disruption and inconvenience and quarantine, are operating through a set of stories that we believe in. Those stories are often told at the very beginnings of our life. For me, I had toe really understand in my why I do the things I do and why I feel the things I feel the stories that I believe had Genesis and who was the original author of those stories and so many of the things that I still am trying to wrestle with with Capital T truths come from when I was five years old, trying to get the attention, the affection, the love from my parents. My, you know, my first personal development experience was one where I was asked this question that I'm sure people have heard before. From whom did you crave love from most. And who did you have to be to get that love? And for me, it was my mother and I needed to achieve things to get that love and that wiring for achievements, whether you're talking about it to the lens of something like any a gram and being, ah, three on a zone achiever or just you know if I can get a trophy if I can get good grades, if I can memorize the Bible versus if I can have a job with a certain title, then I will be worthy of the love I will be deserving of the love I will be seen is enough and affirmed good and hold because of the way that I achieve. And if you're in the position where you can achieve or you're fortunate enough to find yourself in environments that give you that next opportunity, there's there some parts of that wiring that absolutely 100% serve you. But I you know, for the 1st 20 years of my career, I found myself going after the next job and the next title and the next pay bracket and the next kind of status or the trappings that might come with whatever that might that next job might be in part because of my five year old self informing how my 25 35 year old self was still on this perpetual hunt for love right and and that, you know, by the way it works well. My career on the entertainment side started 1/20 Century Fox, a 21. I've had five or six jobs. Entertainment before I transitioned into the Walt Disney Company, where I had a 17 year career and the last seven of those years I was the head of sales for the film studio. And so man achieving an achievement chasing title or status was a thing that was effective in building a career. And when I found myself in that last post at the Walt Disney Company, I man had the best 1st 3 years of that seven year time because of how steep that learning curve waas right, my attempt to achieve came up against me. Being not totally equipped for the work that I had been asked to dio and drinking out of the fire hydrant was just the most exhilarating opportunity to grow because of the stupid questions I had to ask in every hour basis because of the mistakes I made and learn from because of how I had to try and make myself smart enough to actually be qualified for the chair I was sitting in. But as the time went by the company right after I got the job, the company acquired Pixar Studios, and every two years after that, then it was Marvel Studios that joined the fold and then Lucas film and as my learning curve was being conquered and the intellectual property that I was selling to movie theaters was becoming stronger when coupled with the strength of my team and the strength of the leaders. I was now achieving things at a clip. I'd never achieved things before, but not having to work. It's hard to get the reward toe, have the title or the pay or the recognition or the status, and they're now at this strange points in my life. This special between 30 and 40 was a disconnect between how I thought I'd feel when I achieved and how I actually felt about myself when I was by myself. And that dissonance that existed led me on a journey to try and understand Why was I chasing achievement in the first place? And was there something missing that if I could put my finger on and find it, might will afford me a level of fulfillment that just didn't exist, even though I was at the top of what I thought was my mountain to scale, and what I found is I went into that journey. Waas. There is this unbelievable tie between fulfillment and growth, and because I was in an environment because of the strength of the team and the strength of the intellectual property, not actually in a position where I could fail, not because of me, but because of these variables around me. The absence of being able to failure bail guaranteed an inability for me to grow on without growth. I was guaranteeing that I could not be fulfilled. So I made. This decision is a long answer to a question. I think the best though day this is This is why people aren't looking for a 22nd answer on TV. This is keep going. Just This is like people from all over the we've got New York, we've got Italy. We've got Northern California. Got Los Angeles, Mercer Island, Washington, Kuala Lumpur, India. We have There's a New Zealand. I don't even know what time it is in New Zealand. We have the whole world listening. So please keep going because it's resonating with our people. Were we've we've achieved. And you know what? We still feel empty. So keeps preaching, please. So I'm at this place, and if you resonating anyway, guess what? There's normal. Nissen the feelings I want to normalize. This is a You have a vision for how it will feel when you get to certain places in your career and then in the midst of having achieved some of those things, there's a disconnect between what you'd hoped, the feeling to afford you and how you actually feel. And so, in this now weird transition from 30 to 40 I am sitting in the backyard with my Children, playing a game that we play all the time, which is ask me any question. It happens to take place in a Jacuzzi, my boys at the time or 97 and four and my middle son, seven year old, asked this question. What are you most afraid of? And he asks it innocently, looking for torrential, a zor scorpions or something scary, gross and out of my mouth falls not living up to my potential. And it was jarring for me to just verbalize this thing that I wasn't even consciously consider it up in front of my kids in a way that they didn't even understand the words that had come from my mouth. But now that it had been spoken into the air, I was left with this bigger question. I can either continue to take pride in living out the rest of my life chasing potential in a space that is other than this, or I can continue to do work in a job that other people have afforded enormous status and prestige to. I can continue to provide for my family with a paycheck and have access to the academy and the red carpets. Or I can go and do something that's different than that. And I I had to make that I had to make a choice, and I was afforded the gift of some leverage that I don't think I would have made the choice if not for the fact that part of what was happening in the midst of me feeling this absence of fulfillment was I wasn't going Oppa's well for them as a dad or as well for my wife as a husband, as any of them deserved. And we went on a vacation not long after this instant incident, in the spot where I just was not the best version of myself. I didn't enjoy this scenic back yard. That was the ocean. I didn't play with my kids. I didn't go to the farmers market with my wife, and in the absence of having actually shown up for this vacation. We returned home and my wife asked me this question. Hey, I am going to pursue growth every single day. I am. I have, as growth growth is one of the like number one commodities in my life. And if I decided to become a better version of myself every day and you stay stock in this place in a year, we still gonna go on dates in two years. We still gonna make out in three years, and we still gonna be married. And of course, I knew the answer. The answer was no. And so now, with the gift of my revelation to my sons in the spa, my biggest fear is being realized and the leverage applied by my wife this recognition that we are actually on divergent paths and that I alone hold the power in changing the course of that divergent nous. If I don't want to be on a path of your reconcilable differences, I gotta make a change. And so we take this casual conversation that we've been having for three years, about one day working together and operationalize it and say, What if we did and in a way that it did even more leverage. We went on a trip to Austin, Texas, and at a house, even though I had a contract with Walt Disney Company, even though I had no plans to leave, even though I hadn't spoken a word about its anyone so that I was pot committed so that we were in a place where this is a thing that would absolutely change the trajectory of the balance of my life. And two years ago we moved our family of four from where we lived in Los Angeles. I left the Walt Disney Company to come to this work with my wife, and it has been two of the very, very best years and honestly two of the very hardest years of my entire life. But fulfillment now exists in my life in a way that was absent when I was doing what I used to do in a life that doesn't exist anymore. Amazing and do not ever apologize for a long answer on this show. That is because, honestly, day, this is what people This is why people are listening and I gotta confess. Oslo and UK in Florida and Canada. They were all upset. I didn't mention them the first time around, so we got people from all over. But this is thank you for sharing your truth. And this is what we is what we're here for to investigate this stuff. Um, the next thing I'd like you to help us understand about your experience is something you said right at the end there. Which is these last two years have been the hardest and the best. How do those things go together for you? Well, I I'll show you this. I got this tattoo on my arm. It's this, like, mantra. It's holding their show to them a little more. There you go. Remind myself everyday a ship in the harbor is safe. But that's not what ships were built for. And, ah, I got at the beginning of my journey. As I was deciding to leave the harbor of safety, of security of knowns, I left what I knew for what I needed. I left this commodity that had in my life been driving so many of my decisions in my life. And that was certainty for the promise of growth that only exists in uncertainty. And when I made the decision, I thought that the hard part was making the choice to leave the harbor. And what I've come to appreciate is that is a hard part. But is the beginning of a series of hard parts that you have to wake up every single day and continue to choose? Because as you push away from the heart from the harbor, you're pushing yourself into the choppiness of the waters and it will be jarring and this art orienting and you'll become seasick and there will be swells and you'll pass the jetty. That's where the big waves come. And so for me, I had a handle on. This is the thing I need to go Do I know I need to go do this. I feel convicted for the mission of the work we're going to go do. And I know because of the leverage that was created, that the cost of inaction is greater than the cost of anything that I might even run towards. So let's go. But as I jump into it, my identity as a person who worked as the president of distribution is now challenged as I'm working in this small startup. My competency as a leader inside of a corporate environments is being challenged as I'm faceless, um, imposture syndrome in the startup world, where failure happening as often as it inevitably does, is making me question if I actually have a set of skills that apply well to a space that is totally foreign to where I've ever been before, as my wife and I are trying to work together for the first time in our life. You know, that is a thing. If you work with your partner, you know it is the very best in the very hardest decision, and our interest and still wanting to make out at the end of days is a thing that required us figuring out how to work well, have, you know, conflict that super constructive, but also not emotional or personal. And that man that's hard and writing a book and doing this work that required vulnerability toe go from what I believed, beginning a zoo, a vulnerability. Seeing it as a superpower is just something that's up time. And so, for anyone who feels like they may in fact be called away from the harbor, man I want to encourage you to go, but when you dio just know that it's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be rocky. It's supposed to be choppy, and you're gonna have to find ways to create habits and routines that set you up for success in the chop. Get control of your coping mechanisms that will inevitably be triggered on a hot way, more frequent basis. Because of the chop, you're gonna have toe talked openly with other people about how it feels in that chop, even if it means being vulnerable. God forbid with how you feel so that it can be normalized and you might be afforded the benefit of understanding how not just normal. But hey, it's it's normal. And here are the tools that you might use to endure some of these waves. We have this opportunity to become friendly with and have as a mentor, John Maxwell, who has written a ton of unbelievable books, and it's just like a leadership godfather. And I was in a setting where he and Rachel were doing some work together. I was complaining about how it felt for me as a person who had led big teams at the Walt Disney Company struggling to figure out how to lead well in a small business because it felt like I just kept tripping on things. I went from a place where, I would argue, was a little more trail management to something that was a little more trailblazing because the things that would come up his problems in the 17 years I was at Disney were problems people had seen more or less over the course of time and the level of subject matter expertise that existed usually have the resolution of problems being a thing that was brought to my attention, not the problems themselves. And in this entrepreneur stuff, the problems were coming on every two hour basis, and I was unable to preempt them, and my inability to preempt that made me question if this was something that I was cut out for, and John said, Well, I'll tell you, when you're running a small business, that leader never has two good days in a row, so you're gonna have to decide. Do you wanna have multiple good days in a row, or do you want to have a small business because it's either or it's a buy in everything and the gift of normalizing having hard days as the price of entry and running a small business completely shifted my mindset around. That just being what happens on a Thursday and it not being an indictment necessarily on me because me or any leader can't preempt the things that are gonna happen when you're trying to forage new paths inside of a part of the forest you've never been inside before. Amazing, Amazing. We get some. I have a handful of questions and a parallel to questions that have come in. I want toe one from Drew Hitchcock and the other from MJ. Doris put him together. Essentially, it's, you know Drew is. He says he feels like he's on on the water with just he's got a really tries to keep a really long leash back back to the harbor. And then MJ Doris says, you know, how do we What are some actual tactics for self preservation in this world? And I combine those two because it might be seen as one tactic is just have a really long line back to the harbour. You can pull on if it's storm comes up, but I have a feeling that that's not what you mean. And and so what do you do if if Drew's goal can't be met? Because that's still not what ships are for? How do you manage that? What is what is the actual tactic for managing fear and not feeling good enough, not feeling competent to do all the things that you're just talking about right there? Yeah, well, the first thing I'd say is I have to stay really connected to align. It's It's from an anonymous source, but you can never across the ocean and lets you lose sight of the shore, right? The idea of keeping something tethered to the shore is inevitably going to keep you from reaching the destination that you are headed to. And man, that's hard because there was safety in that doc. But if you want to be able to get to the other side of wherever your journey is leading you, you're gonna have to get to the place where you lose sight of your short. I'll be honest. I, in the decision to make this move, also knew I had to move to Austin, Texas, so that I as a person who spent 23 years and entertainment could remove myself from the environment that was so familiar to me so that I wasn't distracted by it or tempted to come back to it or left with feelings that might keep me wondering if I made a good or bad decision I had. I had to make a very clean and full break and ah, and I'm not saying, Hey, you gotta move your family to Austin, though I cannot recommend it enough. Uh, right. But, uh, the idea of keeping like kind of one foot in one spot and another foot and another means that neither neither feeder actually in the space that you want to go so finding ways. The only way that I can say if you are still struggling is I tend to talk to my team about walking toward new challenges through the lens of immunotherapy. Go with me for a second, right? If we're gonna try something new on that new thing, would if we were to take an entire dose, kill our business or compromise or infrastructure, or put some cash flow challenges our way, then we have to try and take a small dose, an immunotherapy kind of dose until we build up on immune immunity to actually facing that new thing. And if there's something that you feel a calling for, but you're just still wanting to keep connected to the old, you got to just keep taking that micro dose until you get to a place where you can totally now withstand whatever it is that you're worried about. When it comes to like, How do you set yourself up to handle it? I I have gone through something my brains a little more practical, and it's wiring. But I At the beginning of this year, I went on this time to be clear with myself. I said goodbye to my family. I left my technology at home, God forbid, and for 2.5 days I sat on Iraq in Tucson, Arizona. I was trying to paint a picture of who I wanted to be in 2020 as I was in the midst of proclaiming that this year, my 45th on this planet was going to be my best year ever. So what do I want that actually look like and who do I actually have to be to make that happen. And I decided to start this process by identifying where pain existed in my last 3 to 5 years, so that if I could see any consistent variables that were present each time pain was there, I might be able to preempt pain from happening in this. I've declared it picks the biggest and best year of my entire life. And the interesting thing that was present in each time I could identify a pain in my past to 5 years was an incongruent. See a dissonance between who I suggest that I wanted to be, or what my personal values were and how I would have to do he to actually have those personal values manifest on a daily basis and how I felt about myself when I was by myself knowing that I didn't actually achieve that vision that I projected to the world that promise I made to my wife the thing that my kids deserve, the leader my team should have in that space. That space is shame. His guilt is under fulfilled potential, my biggest fear, and so I could identify for me that that pain for me. Every time in my past was when I said I wanted to be something but new at night when I fell asleep in my fellow that I had not actually done the things that were required to make that version of myself come to life. And so I had to do this math equation. If then, if I want to be in an exceptional relationship with my wife, then I need a calendar that reflects it with a standing date night. Then I need to be very intentional with intimacy, not just what happens after hours but, like in conversation, owning feelings, building trust. Then I need to put technology down then, right? If I want to be a present father, then I have four kids, just like a fouls and kids. Then I have to write. I have to connect with them one on one. I have to commit to having family dinners. I have to meet them where their passions lie. I have a kid who loves musical theater. I got a kid who loves sports When he loves the outdoors. I have a three year old who is a monster. I'm not sure what she loves other than terrorizing us. But I'm gonna meet each of them where they are, right? My If then statements for each of the things that were important in my life led to a series of habits and routines that were required to create the congregants that I'm looking for for the version of life that I suggest I want. And so, if you want across this ocean, if you want to leave this harbor, then you need to understand the prerequisites that are necessary for you to be able to have that congruence show up for your life, because it's one thing to say you want it. But if you say you want it and then fail, Teoh actually get a set of habits and routines in the morning or through the day in line if you say you want it but failed to address your coping mechanisms when you're triggered by anxiety as you explore new spaces, then you will have that that space that dissidents and that will create pain that will not produce the kind of a filament your ultimately looking for. How do you How do you manage that pain? Because any time there's a distance. There's a gap. Tweet this just a little bit. There's a gap between where you are and where you want to be from the things that you know about yourself and this. If then statement, then you're not doing those things you're delivering on the promise to yourself, your wife, your kids, your job for some that can create pain. It's not optional, right? Because if you're saying you want to grow than you're admitting that you're in one place and you want to get to another place. So how do you both welcome that gap or acknowledge that gap and not feel less than not feel that you're not capable, not feel the anxiety that is almost by definition, when there is a gap? How do you reconcile those two things? Well, one of the ways I had to was to find a way to become comfortable with my struggle, owning it publicly in a way that afforded me an opportunity to normalize its existence. I struggle. If you are listening to this, you struggle, and your struggle, like my struggle, does not make you weak. It does not make you broken. It doesn't make you less or not enough, it makes you human. And so the first thing I had to do was just get in conversation with other people about my struggle about that space and own it in a way that didn't let shame. Shame has no place in this conversation. It's not a helpful emotion at all. Acknowledging that that space existed allowed me to understand that space, existing and other people, and it normalized a little bit of that struggle and made my humanity of thing that connected me instead of my aloneness or my feeling like I was the only one going through it, keeping me from actually being able to make any progress. That was the first thing. But in in that conversation, now I'm finding that other people also are trying to find solutions for How do you close the gap in this particular area of your life? And inevitably, I was able to because of sharing how I was feeling. Find someone who had a hack who had a tip who had a trick. So not only did they normalize it, make me feel less alone. They were able in making me feel less alone. They gave me permission to ask a question on how they also made progress. Now, sometimes it came through books, right? I'd read a book. Oh, thanks for the hack. I'd sit in the conference. Thanks for the hack, but a lot of times it was I'm struggling in my small business in this area. It's provoking this emotional response. I'm gonna own that response. Does this sound familiar either to you human I'm talking to or anyone you've ever spoken with? And if it does, what tools did you use to try and address this? I have become good friends with Tom and Lisa. Bill, you and I love Tom. He's like one of my favorite human beings on the entire planet, in part because his brain is wired in a wildly different way. But he also in his like matter of fact, no B s kind of approach to problem solving is my best resource. When it when I get stuck on something, I'm like, Hey, have you ever experienced this is Yeah, 1000 times. Good. Immediately it's normalized. I'm not weird for feeling this thing. What did you do? What did you do when you ran into this thing? Oh, I went to this person for this and then, you know, had to go through an RFP process for this. And next thing you know, I've got a solution and feel great about having solved the problem instead of carrying shame for a thing that I didn't address and felt otherwise alone if I hadn't brought it to the surface. So it sounds like I love Tom and Lisa as well talking about the show. I've been on his great great humans. Um, and it sounds like I mean it. Um, maybe short circuit. There's a little bit. I'm just going to say the word community because what it sounded like is you referenced. You know, some mentors in different areas of your life, whether they are further along on some paths or less far along than you on other paths, there's a collective human experience that you're tapping into. It seems like, Have you experienced this? What advice do you have? And it seems like it's on a bunch of different axes, right? Emotional, parental, professional. So I want you to talk to me about community for you. And what have you done to cultivated and where have you whiffed. Yeah, well, we're in real time building a business that at its core is about community building. And because there is so much power in this shared experience, that is life and the attempt that we have as a business to afford people tools and if they were to use them, an opportunity to control of and reframe their life or change the way they approach problems, it happens most often in community. And, um, in real time, we're doing a free community challenge. It is a 90 day thing because we're in the craziest 90 days, maybe of our lifetime. And we've decided that every single week we're just gonna pick a different theme and we're gonna walk through that theme as a community. This week, the topic ends up being habits. Habits are so important any day of the week. But in the midst of quarantine habits are multiples more important. And so there's a few 100,000 people that every single day are inside of a community talking about the same thing and in the space where you've created community, there's also permission for people to represent. I am struggling to build habits in this way. Do you have a tip? Yep. I got a tip or Hey, Sharon, give yourself some Grace were in quarantine. You're gonna fall off on your habits. It's not a, you know, question of falling off. It's about how fast you get up. And now all of a sudden there is an encouragement loop that lives inside of community, you know, for us. I grew up inside of the faith community. So there's always been church is a part of how community has shown up. Friends obviously have been a part of of what happens in our lives. There are just a handful. I mean, like, what's interesting? As you become older, you go from a place of having a lot of good friends to just a handful of great friends and the way now that we depend on, you know, five couples truly that are the people that we go to in times of celebration in times of crisis. In times of what like whatever it calls for, it could be just a normal Tuesday where you're looking to connect. We go to them and I would say as Muchas yet I hope that every single person listening to this is social distancing and staying at home. Please be clear that social distancing does not mean to stop being social. In fact, I would really encourage anyone who is doing this, especially if you're isolating by yourself. You're gonna have to fight every single day to try and connect in community in unconventional ways that are different from how all of this work before the world changed 34 weeks ago. We, you know, just celebrated Easter here, and we've always been the house where if you didn't have a place to go, come on over 50 or so people at a minimum, we're at the house. Every single Easter was a star jam. Well, this time it's our family. And so we did what we always do. We had a couple of computers up on the table and had a couple of zoom screens up, and we had families from around the country sitting at our table as we were enjoying our dinner, and that it doesn't feel exactly the same. No, Did some of the same ridiculous conversations come up? Of course, because you bring the cornucopia of your community together. You invite everyone to be social, even though their social distancing. And yep, next thing you know, we're arguing about politics and every everything, and it was beautiful. So fight for that, please. You know, community here, I think in this time is Mawr important than community might normally be because of how many emotions were processing and how abnormal it is. Creating some normalcy and admirable times is going to be such a critical survival skill, for however long it takes for us to return to whatever normal looks like on the other side so well put. And I'm such a huge advocate of for community. And although we're social animals as our species, there's so many ways that culture now has put barriers up or how we tell ourselves stories about what community really is or how much we needed or we don't. And I'm just a you know, 1/4 of my my book Creative calling was about building community, and to me, it's a key missing ingredient for the success of creators and entrepreneurs. They put together a great product, and they put it out into the world and then crickets tumbleweeds because they haven't been cultivating a community to receive their work or their ideas or to collaborate with. So I wanted to circle back because I'd asked you it was their time when you feel like you whiffed on community when you tried to go it on your own. And you know you've done such an elegant job in our conversation today of, um revealing that very human side of you and and the vulnerable side, but specifically around community, because I think it's something that's so wildly misunderstood that it would be helpful if we could hear that you who has someone who's cultivated a you know, a 1,000,000 person community online. Um, and you've done a great job of bringing people together on holidays that your family, but he's got to be somewhere where you struggle that it so share, share, share on example with us. If you want, I'll give you I'll give you two examples. So in the in the business, right, like anyone who's community building as a part of your business, you're interested in happy ing community of people who are rabbit fans of your work who find great value in your work. There is a temptation at a certain point when you start to hit tipping points of thresholds of the size of the community to attempt to keep all of them happy. And we have fallen in the traps of playing it safe and Onley saying things that could absolutely keep all of the people happy. And you run the risk as business operators as humans of coming off, not authentic. Because, of course, there's always gonna be a position or stance that will have someone offended if you are being true to who you are. And so, at a certain point you have to, uh, not worry so much about keeping everyone happy as keeping everyone connected to the authenticity of who you are, even though that means that there will be some people that choose to not be part of your community any longer. You're not free ice cream. And it took me a while to appreciate that you're not free. I'm not free ice cream because not everyone likes me in part because I'm not free ice cream, Right? Uh, I I put this in my book, but, like, I don't want to offend anybody. But I don't like Lord of the Rings. I just don't like Lord of the rings you both and I don't get it. I don't I can't. I just can't. And the fact that I don't like Lord of the Rings does not make Lord of the Rings unlikable. In fact, it is a loved franchise. How do I know, Dave? How do you know it's so loved? You don't even like it. I know it because it has done billions of dollars in box office. It has millions of fans around the world who will fight me on how loveable this thing is, right? So someone deciding to not like you or not want toe like be part of your community does not mean that you're not likeable or that there aren't millions of other people who in fact will like you. What you want to fight for is finding the people who like you who like the actual authentic version of you, the depth of the relationship that can exist when you actually start feeding them something that will be polarizing in some way and will turn off some part of your audience is when you will start having something of a relationship that actually matters. You gotta push against some of the human instinct to try and keep everybody happy. You can't You're not free ice cream. The second example that I would give I definitely in my personal relationships have made this mistake. I have made the mistake of offering some gift with purchase perks to my friendships at times when I because of insecurity because of my wiring, because of whatever it might be, some of the access that came with my job is that a sales of the Walt Disney Company or some of the whatever it might be there were times when I dangled some of the extra benefits of my access or my work to others in a way that I thought was, you know, it was. I think I want to say, honestly that it was more of an unconscious thing, but it was this attempt to put my finger on the scale in a way that would make them. I just want me as their very, very best friend. And when I could pull back and objectively think about craziness of that statement, it made my friendships contingent on things I might afford, the friendship which makes them not friendships at all and So if in any way you find yourself relating with what it feels like to beat someone who have to sweeten the pot to try and get someone to pay attention or to stay interested in the relationship, you don't have a relationship. You like that. You have a transaction, right? You have a transaction, you have a transaction, right? And the idea that I could be in transaction relationships and feel good about them was the thing I tricked myself into. For a long time I realized there was an emptiness and some of my relationships, and when I finally put my finger on it, it was because there was a quid pro quo, transactional nature to them. And that's not a real relationship. So community building or friendship building or circle building, you know it's You've got to try and keep it pure and authentic to who you are without necessarily needing to sweeten the pot, because those are the kind of relationships that aren't real in the first place. Amazing. I went on a 2300 people hung up when you said that he didn't like how miss them. Of course, I'm kidding. Of kidding but the site, Um it's phenomenal because I'm the same way. I love fantasy like dragons and game of Thrones. Watch like three episodes just because I wanted to spend some time snuggle up to my wife who loves that stuff now my jam thing. I mean, I'll just go ahead and ruin it for everybody. I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, and I was sitting in a room when Bob Iger walked into, like, Let us know this is happening and everyone else in the room is just like this is the greatest news in the history of time. And I was like Brad, you know, like more things to sell. But it didn't fulfill a boyhood dream to be able to work on the next Star Wars movie. I tell people that they're like, we need to get you checked like Is your wiring okay? What is wrong with you, man? But there's something in, like fantasy SciFi that just has, for whatever reason, not ever connected with me. If there's a C a logo on the floor of a movie, I am there. But spend this belief. It's, you know it's harder. I I love it I love it and this concept of I'm not free ice cream that is brilliant. I'm gonna borrow that one. That's so good. And when you try and be free ice cream, it's just that's there's this Ah, hole in not just our not just our psyche, but our heart, our humanity. And ironically, that's, I think, what really triggers if you go back to bringing Brown's work like shame and guilt and all these things that are are, um, I don't know are blockers to us tapping into our authenticity. Speak with Glenn and Doyle yesterday on the show, and she talked about having this tough conversation that you're not free ice cream, even to your parents. I found that really provocative and hard as a topic for lots of people because we and our parents that they love us so much and we love them so much. And yet they were born, you know, it usually 20 to years before we were usually times were quite different. And yet there's this on attempt to be, ah, equivocation of values, of what happened then who you were then who you are now we want to be yes, I was wondering if you could comment on on that because, you know, you faced it with your own family, talked about you needing to win the approval of your mother. Um, and as a father of four, you're clearly going to face this. So how do you reconcile that for the actually, not for the parents out there for all of us. Because we all have parents. Yeah. I mean, the thing that I had to do a lot of work on this, I will tell you this was this is they Still I'm working through that, though I feel like I've made a ton of progress, but I had to go to a place where I could hold that. Ah, I could honor that. My parents did the very, very best. Their intentions were the very, very best that I am a product of their very, very best. And still, though I honor that and respect that deviate from it in a way that doesn't in any way take any of that respect away. And it took a long time because we all have these stories that we believe are capital T. Truth is informed most often by a family of origin and the truths of my life were their troops. And still I until I started testing the hypothesis of my own truth and seeing if there weren't some things that may be fit then but don't fit now. And it's okay to have had them fit then and also not fit now. And my like the kind of human I was coming into our marriage, right. I was the reflection of their model. They celebrated their 47th anniversary wedding anniversary yesterday. Right, So congratulations. Their crushing, the still being married game. And I am grateful every day for the model of their marriage. And yet when I came into our marriage, the thing I was most using as how to be a husband in a new marriage 16 years ago was the way that my dad and mom did Marriage and the things that work for them don't work in our marriage. And that doesn't mean that their marriage was bad. And it doesn't mean that our marriage isn't gonna always be this fluid thing that continues to become. But at the time when I walk in with some gender role assumptions, When I walked in with some. The guy does this and the woman does that in the I did a disservice to the relationship I was in by taking some of what they did and assuming it was what we would work for us when we had kids, right? I struggled a lot with that idea of honoring the way that I was parented and not parenting in the exact same way with these four kids of ours. And I've come to appreciate that the things that worked in 1980 when I was five don't work in our family in 2020. And that's okay, in part because 40 years of Convivir times or get right like four decades of time have gone by. There's nothing that's happening since 1980. That's still happening the same way in 2020 literally nothing. So why in the world would you hold yourself to the standard of something that works 40 years ago as the way that you have to do it 40 years later? Right. So when you can, when you can find a way because what I was really struggling with when I started to deviate and how I would parents or how I was in a marriage was will my parents, who I love and want them to still, I still crave love from them. Will they Will they be offended by the choices that I make as they deviate from their their ways? But I do realize it doesn't matter if they're offended, because their offense and my fulfillment, their their their offense and what is right for my family may in fact end up being at odds. And it's okay to have them be at odds because I'm in no way taking what they did and disrespecting or not honoring it in the first place. I think the only thing that may not have changed those 40 years of Star Wars okay, fair. But that's one of the reasons I don't love it. Maybe I don't know, uh, you where I think were cut from the same cloth on that one. Man, um, thank you for sharing that. That is, I think, extremely powerful. Two things I want to focus on for the next five minutes. Here, one a couple of questions again. We've got people from all over the world asking questions, and I'm trying toe look at them and say, OK, what's one question I could ask that maybe represent a handful. The question so I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to Ash Jensen. Um, and I think Ash is European. I don't remember, but seen that name in the chap for Ah Cem, Mentors of years. You've mentioned a few and I'm wondering if you can It's easy for you to rattle off The names of some mentors are people that you respected, admire or their work books that have been impactful to you. Programmes of study, whatever. That's great, if not or if you want. Don't wanna like I hate when I'm asked. I'm doing this interview thing where I hate when I get asked this superlatives like What's the best? The most? The number one experience. I'm like kidding me right now you're trying to like. So if you're uncomfortable mentioning specific mentors or books or pieces of art or literature or whatever has affected you, what are some characteristics of mentors that that do? You either wonder by blending this question. Yeah, What's interesting is like I skeptic is in the name of my book. I am someone who has been skeptical of putting too much faith in mentors other than the ones that are like in my life personally, because of unfortunately, having been let down at times by the people that I had afforded, you know, thinking they were great until I met them or thinking they were great until something illuminated stay. It's It's something of the difference. But when it comes to my own personal development journey, the two most important books at the beginning of my journey, which for this crowd will likely be books that people have read are the Power of habit by Charles Do Hig. Just understanding the science behind habits is such an important thing, given that half of the stuff that we do is unconscious and being ableto like preempt. How you behave once you are triggered has been a game changer and how I'm able to affect the life that I hope to have show up and then mindset by Carol Dweck I'm a person who very much identifies this, having been fixed mindset oriented. So my wife being growth mindset oriented and be someone who just wasn't as in immersed in this space and didn't understand necessarily some of the detail inside of the differences. Now that I can understand the differences, it's changed the way that I'm able to activate more of a growth mindset. Even though I'm working in some muscle memory, I tend to be a little bit more kind of what's happening in my life and then finding a resource that feels like a good fit in real time. I'm reading a book called Essential Ism That all right Mechanic is right. Yeah, It's a great book, Rachel. Just my wife just did an interview with them two days ago, and it was a fun not like it. I love it when, like, we're reading something. And then the blessing of this work that we get to do in introduces the author of this thing that I'm being blown away by into a conversation. But, um, so gave tweeted at me yesterday and asked if I'd be on his podcast or Greg did it. I was like, Yeah, yeah, synchronicity. Yeah, yeah, But like, as we were trying to figure out how to do work well together, I read this book. We read this book called Rocket Fuel, where it was talking about the visionary in the integrator and Rachel's the visionary and I'm the integrator. And these, like Yang Yang pieces inside of a small business. There was some language that we didn't have a handle on. But then we read this book, and it provides us this language and changes the way that we think about role clarity and so, like its seasonally I think there's just stuff that kind of comes up when we were at the beginning of scaling the team powerful by, uh uh, shoot. But she was the former head of HR Netflix. Now I can't remember her name, but Powerful is a fantastic book. If you are a team building human. It's the approach that Netflix took in, how they were scaling and thinking about talent, acquisition and in the midst of their scale. But just, you know, like I say, it kind of depends on what's happening. It's I will even this I will say. I started writing my next book before quarantines like happening and in the midst of this environment that we're in the things that I'm thinking and the relative weight of the things that I was even like feeling inspired to write about, have in real time changed and those same changes air happening to the kind of things that I want to read in the kind of mentors I want to reach two. Because I'm thinking now, more through the lens of whom can I learn from that has previously had their life totally in in every way disrupted and found ways to find opportunity in it, right? I was. I was doing a coaching call the other day, and I was talking about at the time when I was working at the Walt Disney Company is still on the home video side. Before I moved to the theatrical side, I had a couple of interactions with both Blockbuster and Netflix, where at the same time they were working on solving the home video needs of customers. And as technology is introducing itself in different ways of interacting with customers is now becoming a thing. One of them made a choice. Let's get this male thing and turned it into an online thing and the other held to its guns and said, I'm gonna be this corner store that people are gonna come into and return videos for the rest of time at well Obviously there's no blockbusters left, and Netflix has become what it is. But like a story like that, that's the kind of thing in a season like this that I want to read more about or I want to sit and learn more about. So I find myself drawn into this community. I find myself drawn into Tom's community. I find myself, you know, Gary is giving like there's and there's just a whole host people they're talking about this phenomenon that we're experiencing through the lens of how to find it, being something that is for us. I can hold that this can be for us and that it will be unbelievably painful and that we have to honor the work of people on the front lines. And we have toe show a lot of grace for people who are gonna process a lot of pain. But the alternative is burying your head in the sand and taking a wait and see approach and having a small business that doesn't have the cash flow to survive this last thing longer than we hope. It does so like man, my short term mentors or people that have always run towards being a disrupter. Inside of disruptive periods, I looked back toe like the genesis of uber and the genesis of square and the genesis of Airbnb all happening during the last economic downturn. I want to find somebody, anyone who's just gonna, like talk about what? It what it was about that time that allowed the biggest name in hospitality that doesn't own a building. And the biggest name in transportation that doesn't own a car to be invented in the midst of crisis. Because I am. I'm And I'm here for those stories. And that's the kind of mentor ship I'm looking for right now. Brilliant. Brilliant. Um, last question. I want to pull on this thread, and it's directly rated your book, which is a reminder. Like a congratulations new book. Get out of your own way. Skeptics guide to growth and fulfillment. If you've enjoyed this conversation and you're one of the many people are commenting, and I'm trying to get to a lot of the questions, Um, but forgive me, X, Speaking of Grace, extend a little to yours truly. Here. What is trying to do his best? Um, so a congratulations. Stunning book looking. I'm looking at more than 405 star reviews. Um, but my last question or a last sort of topic I want to get to is fulfillment. Because the idea of growth, I think, is really widely understood. You know, you go from here to there, you run a faster mile, you earn more money, you make more connections. You have a richer connection with your spouse or your peer. Your boss, your mentor, your friend. Fulfillment is tricky. So yeah, you included that. You know, uh, I've written book titles before, at least a couple. And you were very intentional with those words. So having chosen fulfillment as one of the words in the subtitle of your book, how do you think about it? And how might you suggest we think about it? Because it's it's nebulous. And this idea of success is so easily understood. But what is success without fulfillment? It sounds like the worst place you could positively. So talk to us about fulfillment. Yeah, well, my my appreciation for what fulfillment is is something that continues to evolve. So I'm gonna talk about it in the context of what I've come to appreciate in this journey that has led me through 45 years of time. But in 10 years, when we're having this conversation, I bet there'll be some other things that this next decade of time illuminates when it comes to being fulfilled in the shortest term. Or maybe in like the quickest snip. I would say that fulfillment has shown up for me in this pursuit of being better. Tomorrow, as in, I will become a better version of myself tomorrow, And the actual fulfillment of that mission is what creates a film. It's right when I'm able to push myself beyond what I believe myself to be capable of. It reframes my capacity in my mind when I push myself. So I'm a I'm a runner. Now I like to run. I didn't ever think of myself as a runner. I had been told that I could not run because of my height, a challenge, that idea. I became a runner and man I have run. It's time and in having run a marathon, I'm not training for an iron man and in my pushing myself to do the marathon for the first time because I'd come from this place of believing that running wasn't in the cards for me as a six foot four, but human. The idea of pushing myself to do it became something that was bigger than myself. And so incrementally creating a training program that got me to a place where I could actually cross the finish line of 26 miles reframed my belief in my ability to run 26 miles. I know for sure 100% certainty that I am capable of running a marathon, and that sense of that ability is a form of fulfillment because of it being a better thing that I was able to dio than what I was capable of before I started running. And so every day as I'm trying to push beyond the bounds of my comfort zone, push further away from the dock and into the choppy waves. My hope is that I am reframing every day. How strong I think it could be physically have strong. I think I can be mentally how has strong my faith can become, how strong a leader I can be, how good a father husband I can be, and every day that I can make progress that sense of that accomplishment is, ah, big part of her fulfillment lives. The secondary piece of that right. Becoming better every day is about the ability for you to have greater impact because of you having made more progress in who you are becoming right when I am stronger, when I am a better leader, when I and more connected to our community, when I am able to leave my humans here in this house, well, then I am able to have a greater impact on them. An impact at the end of the day is the way that you will feel your legacy at the end of life the way that you will feel the full exploitation of your potential, the way that you will as you sit. This is morbid, but I'm gonna say it. I have this visualization of the video that plays at my funeral, and I can appreciate that there is a video that plays where I am bawling because of how much impact my legacy has created, and I'm watching the audience cry through this entire thing. I also can appreciate that there's another version of the video that plays where it's shorter. There are no tears. I'm not inspired. I don't feel like I have fully extinguished the potential in my body, and I know that fulfillment for me is going to be some reflection of having that sense at the end of life. That man, I left it on the field. I continued to become a better version of myself and as my best version of self. I gave myself the greatest opportunity to impact the most number of people, period. Becoming better so that you can impact more. That's refinement, the film it sets so powerful, and that's just straight out of the book. If anybody appreciated that, that answer, you have to pick up a copy of Get Out of Your Own Way. Skeptics Guide to Growth and Fulfillment. Now I've got one question left. I'm trying to represent and respect all the people who were timed in from all over the world. There's one question that's been, um, thematic, and I've been keeping in line, and it's one that I think is popular. So I try and try and ask it when it comes up. And that's this is from Ryan hater, longstanding good human in our community, right nice to see you here. When you're stuck with her career or relationship. What's the first thing you dio? Because what we've been talking about this whole last hour? Davis, you know the uncharted path. All of the, you know, untether ring the boat from the dock, the path to fulfillment to being a good father. You start out stuck. What's the first thing that you do? The first thing that I had to do and I will argue that everyone needs to do is creating sense of self awareness because saying that your stock is a description of what you're experiencing. But it is not Ah, full expert exploration of what it is that you're feeling or why it is that you're feeling it. And so for me, my getting a set of answers as to why Why was I stuck right? I was stuck between 30 and 40. I was in this job that everyone else thought was great. But I wasn't feeling great. I didn't understand at that time why that dissonance existed. So I had to start a journey to understand. What I didn't say is after my son asked me the question about unknown not fulfilling my potential. It was a catalyst for me saying yes to a thing that I've always said no to. Because of some taboo, I agreed to go sit in the chair of a therapist and have a conversation to understand why I felt the way I felt. I began a pursuit of self awareness because once I was able to become more aware of myself, then I was able to address the things that we're getting in my way. The book is written through the lens of 20 lies that I believed that in having believed them kept me in my own way. And the journey of the book is the description through storytelling and some tips of what it took to make those lies unbelievable. The first thing I had to do was understand what lies I was believing. And so the sooner you can spend some time and self awareness understanding the stories, the limiting beliefs that are keeping you tethered instead of empowered, that's where you start. Once you know what those things are, now you can address them. You can look for mentors or tools or hacked anything toe. Make those lies untrue or change the way that you reported weight to them. One of the things I had to do right? I become self aware with some of these lies. I had to ask where the storytelling for those lives came from. And if that story teller had credibility, I in this story with my running just toe finish the point. My mother was the storyteller. She's an amazing human being. So she has credibility. My mom told me because of her interest in protecting me, that tall people cannot be runners. And so I believe this lie that something's air available to other people. But they're not available to me. Some things like running are just things that certain people can do. But I can't do them now. I had to. I had accepted her truth, and her truth was told through the lens of her fear. But I never tested the hypothesis of my own truth. And so I went out and ran and my back or my knees and my hips. They never hurt Iran Mawr on Iran more. I've run 1000 miles in the last year, I run a ton, and when I started running, I had to ask if the credibility of the storyteller existed. And since it's my mom and she's credible, I had to give that a yes. Then I had to ask the second question. It's the one you'll have to ask to. Is the credible storyteller credible in this topic? Because my mother is neither tall nor a runner and because of her not having any credibility is a tall person or a runner that makes her noncredible When it comes to whether or not I can be a runner. As a tall person, I am now free to run, go and substitute running for literally anything in your life question the credibility of the source of the lie that is holding you back of the limiting belief that's holding you back. The first thing that you got to do, though, is understand what the lie is, and that's where self awareness begins. This journey, the more you can connect with where your lies are holding you back, the sooner you can ask those questions and decide if those truths serve. You are you need new truths. Brilliant. There, there you have it. The loud suit quote. Journey of miles begins with a single step. Many people ask that question. Such an elegant answer, Dave. Starting with self awareness. Fact. What's what's the problem? What am I trying to solve for Where does it come from? Um, man can't thank you enough for being on the show again. Reminder for people tuning and get out of your own way. A skeptics guide to growth and fulfillment is the book. Dave Hollis is the man. Ah, Where else would you want to steer people to to Ah, the work that you do And the work that you do with Rachel? Um, what are some coordinates on the Internet? Yeah, If there's anything that we do that sounds interesting in terms of we do live events. We've got a virtual conference coming. There's this three community challenge called the next 90 days. Uh, go to the holosko dot com. Our company is called the Hollis Company. It's the holosko dot com. All that information lives there. We would love to have you join our community. It is truly just a community of like minded people who are interested in a single thing, and that's being better tomorrow and doing it with others. So that on the days when it feels hard, you've got someone who can be there to either be a cheerleader or an accountability coach. Ah, all of the things exist. There's coaching, there's some product. But truly there's community. And that is the most important thing. If you're interested in that head over to the holosko dot com. Amazing day. Thank you so much for being on the show. Congrats on the book. The business that you and Rachel belts. Amazing. I can't I can't wait for the next upset of the podcast to drop. In the meantime, hope you're well and to everyone out in our community here creativelive my personal community extension. Hi, Mom. I'm guessing you're watching. This is Well, good luck, Everyone stay safe. And thanks again, Day for being on the show. Thank you, Chase.