#115 I was recently interviewed on James Schramko Superfast Business podcast. We had such a great conversation I wanted to share it here.
Even though this is a business podcast, I really feel we covered many things that relevant to everyone who is interested in this work.
“Coach and entrepreneur Guy Lawrence once felt trapped in a successful business he didn’t love. How he left it behind to build what he really wanted from scratch is the topic of this SuperFastBusiness episode”. Enjoy!
Topics covered:
01:28 – From business success back to ground zero
04:33 – An educational endeavor
06:05 – How do you start over from scratch?
08:34 – How one Guy did it
11:28 – The platforms that helped
17:32 – Self-sabotage and the fix
21:02 – Getting past a biased filter
23:58 – What breathing can do
27:55 – Why push boundaries?
29:33 – A parting takeaway
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About Guy: Guy Lawrence is a coach, speaker, wellness advocate and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Let It In. A program designed to help people bridge the gap between the life they live and the life they truly want to live.using meditation and the language of neuroscience. This is facilitated via live workshops, retreats and the online Let it In Academy membership-based community program. He also supports people via his podcast called ‘The Guy Lawrence Podcast’. These include conversations with pioneering experts that go well beyond conventional health, wealth and wisdom to inspire change in our lives. All episodes are freely available via Youtube, iTunes, Spotify & Stitcher.
►Audio Version:
TRANSCRIPT
Guy: Welcome to the GuyLawrence podcast. I’m your host Guy Lawrence. After building a successful health company and a number one podcast, I decided to do something deemed a little crazy. And let it go. Set a new destination called the unknown and use my heart as comfort. Each week I sit down with great minds as we explore topics beyond conventional health, wealth, and wisdom to inspire and ignite that passion within us all to create the life we truly want. So my question to you is, are you ready to let it in? Hey rockstars, Guy Lawrence, of course, your host and welcome to another stellar episode of my podcast where each week I have conversations that go well beyond conventional wealth, health, wealth, and wisdom. I know is one of those ways to inspire change in our lives. And, I’ve got a ripper episode for you today cause my special guest is me.
Guy: And, uh, what I, I do from time to time is, share episodes where I’ve been interviewed on other podcasts because I’m a, I get, um, a lot of great feedback from it. And b, a lot of people, who listen to my podcast and are aware of some of the interviews I’ve done on other shows and, uh, and every time I get interviewed I actually always try and, um, imagine that there’s somebody who’s listened to my interviews before is listening to it again. So I’m not just sort of talking about the same things all the time and I really try and bring new aspects and useful things into this conversation. And I had a lot of great feedback when this podcast went live a few months ago cause I was a guest on a business podcast, SuperFast Business with James Schramko and um, yes, I know it’s a business podcast, but many, many of the things that we talked about are relevant for everyone.
Guy: And they named it exploring human potential. And I liked that. And that’s ultimately what I do at the end of the day. And I thought this would be a great episode for you to share with a loved one or friend, especially if they’re on the outside looking in thinking, what the hell is this work? Um, I know that used to be me, you know, and uh, and every time you try to explain this to someone, they’d just go, not, you’ve lost the plot, don’t know you’re on a boat. So, if you could get them to listen to this episode, uh, I reckon it’s a great place to start with that because, it was a really good practical conversation today and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Um, I, I, this is probably March sometime when this podcast is live. I think it’s March. Uh, so the years flying so quickly, um, we still got some spots left for Portugal.
Guy: If you find some making a trip to Europe with us, I can’t wait, uh, to get that and be able to see you. And of course, we got the winter retreat coming up in August, um, this year, spots are flying out for that as well. And if you have no idea where to start, just come back to GuyLawrence.com.au And there’s a short meditation as a great place to start as well, plus my five step morning routine, which is something I highly encourage to check out, uh, because if you start the day the right way, you set yourself up for a winner. Uh, yeah, that’s it from me. Let’s get over to this interview. Please drop me a line, let me know what you think and um, have a fantastic weekend. I shall catch you soon
Guy: James. I’ve jumped out of airplanes. I’ve bungee jumped. I’ve got to do Kathy and my garage downstairs. I can take out, rip it up anytime. You know, I’ve worked in businesses, you know, I want to live life at the same time, but for me there’s been no greater adventure than learning about myself and going with it. It’s been an incredible, hence why I’m so passionate about it and I just hope people listening to this will start to explore this and give it a go. Because as far as I’m concerned its game changer, the more you learn about yourself, the more it will start to show up over time. It’s a process. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s, I’m like, wow, the world is missing out.
James: This is episode 679 and today we’re going to hear about a transition from big successful entrepreneurial run right through to starting from scratch and for that I’ve brought along the special guest Guy Lawrence. Welcome.
Guy: I thank you for having me, James. It’s a truly an honor to be on your show mate. I’ve been listening to your podcast on and off for many years, so if I can give back a little bit to you and your community today, then it’s a privilege.
James: Well, that means a lot coming from you Guy because you’ve been pretty big in the podcast world yourself. You probably started at a pretty similar time by the look of it back in what, 2010 you were blogging and podcasting about superfoods. Is that right?
Guy: That’s exactly right. Yeah, it was a journey. I kind of, I remember stepping into that line of work. It was even before that, probably 2008 where I was in the fitness industry and I kind of hadn’t got into my own business perse in the online world before as far as I didn’t have any scars or anything and I was a bit naive, but I always say that my naivete actually got me going because I didn’t know what I was in for. So I was listening to Tim Ferriss, the four hour work week, Gary Vaynerchuk came out, all that kind of stuff. And I just thought, Oh, this makes sense and I’ll just start putting content out there. And that’s what we did. And by 2000 and I think at the end of the third year, we turned it over three to $4 million, which was quite a surprise.
James: Well, I know Gary V was really the master of content back then with wine library TV and I was reading the four hour workweek at the time, getting a little bit inspired that there could be some more leverage in my life, although had trouble relating to a young single guy cause I had kids in a mortgage. So it felt like it was still a bit of a gap and I was most definitely drawn into the idea of having a bit of a leveraged passive income and less of the constraints of my old job. And it seems like you’ve been through a little bit of a revolution too. I’d love for you to tell me how that developed. You were early to the market in Australia with the superfood stuff. You were podcasting before podcasting was a big deal. You’ve built up quite an audience and then I’d love to know what happened. Yeah, for sure.
Guy: Honesty. I found that I’d kind of, the one thing that amazes me with podcast and James is how much you learn along the way and how many awesome people you meet and you start to see the world from a different place. I mean that’s where it was like for me. And I kept exploring more and more around health and wellness and wellbeing and I was just fascinated. But I found myself starting to become misaligned as the brand grew, the success grew and, and you know, it’s a form of marketing where you’re trying to sell a product at the end of the day, a physical product. And my heart wasn’t in it anymore and I was in a partnership and I was kind of felt trapped and stuck to a degree and I wanted to explore the work that I was doing now. So I’ve made a very conscious decision and backhoe about two years ago to, you know, in a good chat, my business partner and we decided to go our separate ways and he was going to take over the business and I sold out and I wanted to really be aligned with my heart to be honest too, because I remember even before 2010 not listening to that and get myself into trouble.
Guy: So I thought if I do this again, then I’m going to make some major mistakes in my life. So that’s what kind of sparked the instigation. And, uh, and like I was saying to before, it was a real, it was hard letting go. Cause I think we had 3 million downloads on the podcast. You know, we’d built up a social media following. It was under the brand. So to walk away from that, uh, I had to actually practice what I preach around the work I teach now. So there was this real polarity that was starting to happen in my own life, uh, with this work that I do. And, but the thought of going back to ground zero and starting again really excited me at the same time. So that’s when I started to look around thinking, how am I going to do this? How am I going to get this untangible message out there and make it tangible for people and create a culture around it, which is what I really wanted to do.
James: And we’ll get into your message in just a moment. I want to just, uh, reiterate the idea about the podcast is so true that you do learn a lot. By the time I’ve racked up the Mount of podcast episodes that I have, I’ve been able to learn from great people in all walks of life, very different aspects. And when I started podcasting, although my very first episode was quite educational for me with John Carlton, a lot of the other episodes, I was probably creating content for the purpose of creating content to draw customers so that I could sell things. But as time passed on and I realized that podcasting was going to be a core business philosophy for me, I started to get more interested in finding the story in the guests that I was speaking with and I wanted to share things they’d never shared anywhere else and I wanted to dig up really interesting things and I’ve had led me to some series with founders like clay Collins before he was famous and to watch him develop and even starting a podcast with a guy no one had ever heard of called Ezra Firestone, who then went on to quite a big deal in the eCommerce space.
James: So you know that it’s true that the big Oak trees come from the tiny little acorns and it has been a rewarding thing and some of the things I’ve learned, especially around health and fitness and mindset, the series that came just before this podcast with Anita chaperone went through a lot of those sort of elements and reflecting on each one of those episodes is how it’s literally changed my life. Everything from how I eat to sleep, to move, to meditate, to surfing, all changed because of the podcasting. And that’s if you put aside any of the business stuff. So that’s a tremendous discovery. And you know when you talk about starting from scratch, it’s probably one of the age old questions entrepreneurs get asked is if you had to start again from scratch, what would you do? And I’ve been asked that question dozens of times and I’ve seen that question asked a lot.
James: And I think also at the high level, some business owners are creating businesses they don’t absolutely love. They start out innocently, they’re quite good at something and then they add a couple of things here and there and they get a few more people in the team. And then they put a few more products on and then they, sometimes they get an office and then staff and then they go into international markets. And then before you know it, they don’t own the business. The business owns them and it’s got them by the balls and they’ve created a nightmare for themselves. And I have had more than a few people in my highest level groups say, gosh, I wish I could just start from scratch because I’m not happy with what I’ve created. And that’s often when they bring me in to help them restructure and reorganize.
James: But instead of asking a hypothetical guy of what you would do if you got to start from scratch, I’d love to know what you did do when you started from scratch. So you’ve handed over 3 million podcasts, download audience, you’ve handed over your social media profiles, you literally have a clean slate. I imagine, as it would have been exhilarating and frightening at the same time, and it allowed you to reflect on, okay, of all the things you’ve learned along the way, what things would you redo and start, you know, and which things would you get rid of? Because I think that’s going to be really instructive for someone listening to this who’s in that decision making process, whether they’re just starting out or maybe they’ve got a bit of momentum and recognize that things aren’t quite right. What do you think the classic things would be that you’ve done from scratch that worked out really well for you that you’d want to pass on to someone else?
Guy: Yeah, I love this question and um, and it’s certainly something I give a lot of thought to in the process now. And I think there were two things in mind. They were, I got very clear on what I wanted my end goal to look like, which was actually impact people in three to five day retreats. Okay. But I knew that was a longterm vision, so I was very clear on my angle. But then rewinding it all the way back, I was very clear on what I didn’t want to do anymore as well, which was for me was actually have a physical product and most of our energy was constantly creating content, pushing content out there and then driving it into sales. And of course, social media and everything. The game changed over the many years from when it was organic and easy to reach people without paying and actually dealing with fulfillment and customer service and packages getting lost and those sort of things come with it.
Guy: I really wanted to move from that and actually go into a teaching role and educate people and I knew that if I was to create a culture, I could use the skills I’ve learned to create a digital product, but not only that, trying to humanize it and create a connection. The last thing I wanted to do was create a product that people just buy and forget, never use the thing either. And from there I was then looking at, well, how do I create static? Create a culture where I can bring like minded people together to come together in a place where they can start the connecting, talk about this conversation, which I haven’t even got into what I actually do yet. But then from that, build that culture and then start to be able to take a community of people deeper into the work I do.
Guy: And essentially the work I do is help people bridge the gap from, you could say from a neuro perspective, from a mental side of things, from the life they live to the more the life their heart wants to live and starting to honor and listen to that and I use meditation and the language in neuroscience to help break that down for people. And again, I didn’t know anyone that was doing it in a membership format. James and I’d been listening to your podcast on and off for years, like I said, and really felt you were walking your talk and I started to look at all these things and I was only familiar with ClickFunnels at the time because we were using it as a selling for my last company for the supplement. But I knew that wasn’t going to be a sustainable platform for a membership and that’s when I started looking around and came across 10X pro and you know that spoke to John as well. Love that guy and what he represents and kind of just was able to, I guess use the wisdom of what I learned from the pastor to see things in my mind that that made sense and just keep it simple. And I went from there. I literally just started started again.
James: Well I think that’s really the way to do it. It’s like you first decide what you wanted and then you have to figure out a way to bring that to the market and put it into usable language that they can actually relate to. So the way I see it is you’ve gone from the wellness and fitness market with super foods and a strong content machine and then you’ve gone more into the human behavior side of things and you discovered that people tend to limit themselves, they self sabotage and you want it to help them rewire their nervous system so that they can self regulate and have more love and appreciation and gratitude and less stress, a better life. And you’ve been able to find a platform that lets you express that both in the top part, the front end part where you have to actually communicate that to a client, which is where probably click funnels would have been strong as the actual pages and the way they’re linked together and the sequences at the front end of it and collecting the money in 10X pro does that.
James: And then there’s the delivery part, which is, as you said, and it’s such a critical thing. And I think it’s actually quite rare. You want people to consume your product, you want them to get the result because your heart centered and you actually have love and appreciation for your clients. And I think that’s what you probably picked up from me, that I actually care about the people that I work with in their results. They get, I wear that emotionally and I want them to succeed. Sometimes it seems more than they do. And you know, while we’re here, I’m want to make sure I get some tips from you on how we can avoid limiting ourselves and self-sabotaging. But I think it’s good that you’ve chosen a platform that helps you deal with the front end of the puzzle and then the back end of the puzzle and you just plug in an autoresponder of your choice or an email database of your choice. Which one did you choose by the way? I use active campaign, right? Very popular in our community active campaign.
Guy: And it’s been wonderful. It was the first, because I was using MailChimp for many years with my last company and John was like no switch talkative campaign. And I was like cool, I’ll do that. I wasn’t questioning that either. I was trusting some of the advice I was getting in cause I was seeing the results from the other end as well, which I think is really important and point as well. And how is that integration and the simplicity of it? You know, cause at the end of the day my passion is teaching this work but I’ve had to learn the skill sets obviously from an online space over the years, just bootstraps and all. And I try not to keep it too complicated. I really do. And I find that sometimes we can bear our own worst enemy from the complexity of things. And uh, I, I genuinely love active campaign. I gotta be honest.
James: Yeah, I’ve had great feedback on it. It allows the segmentation that is more advanced as some of the simpler CRMs. It’s in the top two or three that I hear about all the time. I liked that you chose this platform because you wanted to keep it simple and yes, people tend to want to complicate stuff and it actually solves all the problems that you need. Have you found that it was fairly easy to set up and get going in the beginning?
Guy: Yeah, 100% and I’m not just saying this lightly, like you know, it literally is plug, put your pieces in. Once I understood how to, you know, have an active campaign tag come in, which are the important things for me, tracking what’s actually going on. You know, you just follow the steps. It’s not that hard. But the one thing that’s really surprised me with using the software is, and I really wanted to make a point to mention in this today was the customer support because I don’t know what John’s done to his team, but they’re on Twitter. Like literally half the time, within half an hour I send an email, I get a very detailed reply back quite often, which is huge, especially when you’re like me. There’s only me in a VA and at the moment I’m trading in the VA where all my content and this one is still handling the bills side of things and just to keep that momentum enough logo and if I want to tweak or I don’t fully understand something, they’re onto it. So that’s why I’m happy to come on and talk about it. I would certainly recommend it to anyone
James: when it comes to passion. John is off the scale for um, his commitment and focus on this. And I speak to John every single week. It’s no secret. I’ve been helping John grow his business because I liked the platform and I like John, we met on the Maldives mastermind years ago and we now serve together every year. And I’ve really got to know him. But what we have done from a business development point of view is we open up our laptops and sit beside each other and I share with him everything I know about running a successful membership. And then he develops it into the platform. So he’s got that R and D angle from someone in the trenches. But he’s also got a really good brain for marketing and technology and a really serious commitment to discipline and honesty. And his values are very strong. And if you’ve ever watched any of the little videos we publish on a regular basis, his sometimes his passion comes out, little things will frustrate him if they’re not just right.
James: You know, he’ll build a team around him that he deserves and a team who can keep pace with him and deliver. And that’s what I like. And you know what? A trend that I’ve noticed having met plenty of Tenex pro clients now because they’re in my community, it’s super fast. Business is they’re good people. He’s attracting good customers who have good products and who have been frustrated with the other solutions out there and they’re getting the results. And that’s why it’s actually not hard to find people who are willing to come along and talk about the product, but also to share their story. And I think the big story here is you’ve gone from a serious level enterprise, sort of the business of maybe not enterprise, but like serious small business in Australia, they’d call it multiple millions is still a small business, but you’ve got all the tools and things. I’m sure your tools cost per month would have been in the thousands as it is for any business in the millions of dollars of revenue. And here you are with a piece of software and a CRM system and one VA and you’re able to run an information business using the ideas and knowledge that you’ve gathered, but without having all the infrastructure and bureaucracy and clunkiness of having to glue everything together.
Guy: Yeah. And it’s massive. And you know, James, if I hadn’t had gone through what I had gone through in the past first, I don’t know how much I would fully appreciate what I’m actually have in my hands. So I’m glad I kinda got the scars on my back too.
James: That’s the single biggest comment John makes that people don’t actually realize how good the system is because they haven’t got context. And you know, we have been attracting plenty of people who are, it’s their first time with this kind of tool and I don’t actually realize how capable it is because it does so many things so well it’s actually quite rare. So that being said, and I really appreciate those kind words and I’m sure John will be glowing whenever he hears this podcast. Would you recommend that tool for someone else?
Guy: Totally. Absolutely. I mean, I get people asking me now, especially from people I have in my circles and they’ve seen the, you know, the transition I’ve made into what I’m doing now. And, and building a, an online membership community as well off the back of that. It’s quite often that people are coming in and what do you use and why do you use it? And I literally break down the things like I’m talking about today. And the fact that that is taken care of is a massive stress out of my life. Hands down. Like I don’t think I could urge anyone enough to say check it out, look at these things and see what it’s doing and what I’m finding as well as I’ve been using it now for probably about 12 months, I’m still learning some of the things that can do. So it’s only my own self getting in my own way of not actually maximizing what it can do anyway. And it can be subtle at first, but over time they actually make a great big difference. You know, bringing new customers into a world full stop.
James: Oh, I mean it’s like, and he adds things when people ask for it. So you know, it does hyper advanced stuff like allowing to embed different remarketing code in different places of the funnel to communicate a different message. For example, I was like really seriously cool stuff, which I won’t bog down in while I’ve got you guy. I’d love it if you’d be able to share some of your thoughts around human behavior if you’re open to it. Because you know, I say a good chunk of the work I do with the people I’m coaching from a, you know, initially a business connection has to do with mindset, especially around removing limitations and blockages. And I do see people say some funny things like they don’t have time or they’re not comfortable taking the business to the next level. It could be classified as some kind of self sabotage or they don’t go and get customers because they haven’t got capacity to deliver it and they haven’t figured out a mind frame to allow for that change. How do you help people self-regulate and start to turn that nervous system from a stressful system into one of appreciation, love and gratitude?
Guy: Yeah. Well I think you just nailed it right there. W we’ve got what’s called the autonomic nervous system and it’s fight or flight rest or repair parasympathetic. And you know they’re like a counterbalance. And the reality is, I mean I was only on a podcast a few months back discussing the stats in America, I think it was that 80% of health issues are stress-related. Now they can stand back to the way we stress. And if you keep firing your nervous system in the same way every single day, that becomes your familiar reality. So your nervous system is like the filter between the information where you perceive the world that comes in through your senses to the signal you’re actually sending every single cell in your body. And if that nervous system is continually doing that, then that’s the familiar state that you have recognized and conditioned your body to over the lifetime.
Guy: Now think about that for a moment. So the moment you step outside of that in any shape or form, then that becomes an unknown. And if we’re in an unknown, we generally stick to the things that are known, are familiar in our life and the unknown can equal paddock. And equal, we put all with 10 to put worst case scenario upon it. And most of us are not even aware that we’re living that way. So we’re often running from the subconscious. So unless we start to become aware of these things and start to address the way our subconscious behaviors coming up, then change will never happen. And we tend to stick to the same things that we’re doing all the time. I think this one does, that is by the time you’re 35 years old, you’re 95% running on a set of automated beliefs, programs and habits that you’re getting your whole life.
Guy: And what do most people do when they get to 35 40? They just stick to the same thing. And then, um, atrophy. You know, decline can actually start to speed up in all sorts, including our mental health. So it’s really important that we start to really come back and the kids, you’ve got to want to do this work. But if you’re willing to start looking at and reregulate in the nervous system and there are so many ways you can start to do it over time, then your body starts to become conditioned in another way. And if you can really train that body to get into the parasympathetic, into that rest and repair more often, it really to send different signals to the body different ways. And at the end of the day, every emotion you have has to produce our home on to create a feeling. So you can start to influence the endocrine system and start producing Norb hormones that actually are not in a stress response or in more of a happiness, joy, love, appreciation place.
Guy: And then you start to see the lens of the world differently from that place as you practice that over time, because you start retraining new receptors that will allow you to become more familiar with those States. And once you start seeing the world differently and you see your situation differently, you start to start living from the present moment. And when you can start to do that, you will then start to see more opportunity instead of obstacle. Like I think it’s, you know, there’s a lot of information coming in. I think it’s like millions and millions of bits of information at any one time, but we can only filter it down to like less than 2000 bits of information. So we’re always going to focus on the way we’re actually feeling at the time. And that’s a biased filter of what’s actually going on. So quite often we don’t see things that are true. We just see things that are true to us, which is a very different situation. And once I believe, once you start to take control of that and start to learn that and understand that, but more importantly embody it, then you can start to really facilitate true change in your life. And I think it’s crucial, especially for the work that we do. Jane.
James: Yeah. So I guess, uh, some people are walking around in a trance and maybe haven’t given it too much thought. And then there’s other people who are more, would you say enlightened or aware that they have the ability to change their state and they’re actively working on that to improve.
Guy: So that’s what this whole comes down to about. It’s about generating more awareness around things that you might not have been aware before. So, and then as we start to bring them more awareness on it, we can then start to facilitate that change. So there’s a term in in that I love to use and it’s neuroscience term, it’s called metacognition. Metacognition is probably the most important thing that anyone could ever really learn and understand. And what that word means is becoming the observer, the observer of self. So the fact that you can think about your thinking because ultimately at the end of the day, we are not our thoughts and we’re not our feelings. There’s a part of us that can observe that actually what’s going on. And once we start to understand that thoughts that generate feelings and feelings will generate thoughts equals the feeling. And we can get caught in these loops.
Guy: And these States of being, which of course can influence the choices we make moment to moment, whether we reach out to poor food choices or decide to sit in the coaches that are going to exercise in. There are so many things. And as we start to learn and observe that and practice that, and that’s what a meditation practice can come into that because you’re then starting to learn that skill in a safe environment before you know the world gets busy and stuff goes down and your day and get all sorts of problems happen. And that skill, it becomes quite incredible. And the best way to learn that is instead of constantly looking out to the world and perceiving the world through your five senses, which we’ve conditioned ourselves to do our whole lives, we kind of taken those sensories off ourselves for moments and turning our inward. And then we can start to grow a relationship with the body. And that’s when we start to notice these emotions. And that’s when we started to notice these feelings, these automated patterns, and they start to show up and then you can start watching yourself like a third party person going, Oh my God, did I do that today? You know, and not when we can start to interrupt that and then create the change. I mean it can go, it goes a lot deeper than that. But that’s it in a nutshell.
James: It’s really quite fascinating as you’re saying that I feel like I often observe myself, but in the moment, or I’m actually processing in real time the way that I’m thinking about something or, or what I’m doing. It’s like I’m having a chat with myself about it and making decisions. I don’t know if that’s somehow related, but totally. I’m wondering how do you develop that skill beyond the meditation? What else can you do?
Guy: Uh, you can use breaths. So actually consciously breathing is huge. You know, most of us actually breathe from the chest and breathe through our mouths. And, uh, there’s a lot of studies reporting actually breathe in through the nasal passage. And into the diaphragm and actually having deep conscious breaths. I mean, you know, we can only survive two minutes without breasts. Like it’s not very long where food and water we can go for without days. So it’s a real crucial component and actually by just learning to breathe properly can get us out of anxiety States. I mean there’s a reason why they teach the Marines Brassworks especially when they’re going into battle and being able to control the nervous system more so even the breath alone, you can do that. You can stimulate yourself using cold exposure or heat exposure, which starts to get into internal systems of the nervous system. She can start to influence them that way. I mean, think about it as anyone. I’m sure people would relate listening to this, have gone on holiday and then they’ve got sick a few days in because they’ve given the body permission to wind down and stop for a moment and not you.
James: I think it’s a massive phenomenon of people who when they leave, they get sick. Gosh, the breath thing is so powerful. I’ve been reading that stuff too. I’m interested in what you said about the deep breath though, because some of the research I’ve seen when it’s talking about switching to breathing through your nose, it says that people over breathe and they breathe too much and they’re inefficient in that we should have shallower breaths, you know, in day to day existence.
Guy: Yeah. So you’re probably thinking about into the take a break then we’ll talk about that as well. I think breath, there’s two forms of breathing. So there’s breathing unconsciously through the day where we’re just breathing shallow. Uh, I’ve trained myself to breathe through my nose, a minimal breath, but then there’s conscious breathing at particular times.
James: Gotcha. And then there’s surf breathing where it’s like open the biggest the mouth and go as deep as you possibly can in between getting held under to store oxygen in your body.
Guy: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
James: I’ve done a lot of research on the breath in the last few years and I believe it’s had a profound difference in someone who was an S Matic all through childhood as well. It’s good to actually turn on the body’s natural filter. It also helps for sleeping. I found.
Guy: Yeah, totally. Yeah. Cause all you’re doing is stimulating the system. It’s, it’s a bit like say, um, yeah, I love keeping myself fit. But if you tried keeping yourself fit all day by running all day, you’re going to burn out. You know? So what we’re trying to do is stress the system slightly cause you don’t get fitter by working out. You get fit there from recovering, from working on rebuilding the torn muscles. It’s the rebuilding phase. The same as intermittent fasting. You know, when you stressing the body, that’s when the magic afterwards starts to happen.
James: Are you doing the ice bar things then?
Guy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I spot once a week consistently. I have done for about,
James: I walked down the street in winter bear fate and dive into the icy cold water. It’s like beautiful. You know, I would not have done that five years ago. I’ve definitely become more disciplined and stoic and I embraced the discomfort and the challenge of it. And then when I’ve finished myself, I’m like all warm and cozy. My wetsuits hated up. I’ve been active, have done three or four kilometers of paddling and come back deeply satisfied. Having had some, you know, terrifying drops and like literally yesterday, the way is a very big here and I got kind of washed around the point a bit near the rocks, much closer than I’ve ever been on my GPS watch where it tracks it. It looks like I’m on the rocks and you know, I just took a calm approach about it. Management breathing, waded in between the sets to paddle across and just gently duck dive each time the foam came and I turned it instead of a terrifying dunking.
James: I turned it into a terrific tantalizing spa bath and then eventually made my way back around the point into safety and then came in. It took me about 15 minutes, but that seemed like a lifetime. But by managing that fear and controlling my breathing and understanding, my worst case scenario was that I’m going to end up on the rocks, in which case I’ll just try and hop up onto a rock as quickly as possible. But you know, it is that sort of daily reset or pushing of the boundaries a bit that makes everyday life in between like extremely manageable. And I feel like I had the same effect when I’d went skydiving a couple of times and when I received an award for being the top sales person up in front of a stage in front of all my peers, you know, those little moments push the bar higher on what you can cope with and then everyday stuffs or walk in the park.
Guy: Exactly, exactly. They’ve supported me in so many endeavors in just business as well, you know, all the way to public speaking and holding workshops and then taking retreats. I think it’s, it’s crucial if we, if we’re not willing to challenge our edge but you know, do it in a safe way. Of course then that’s where the truth growth lies. There’s no doubt about it. And, um, you know, I, I want to give some people to ponder on about this as well. You know, James, I’ve jumped out of airplanes. I’ve bungee jumped, I’ve got to do copy and my garage downstairs, I can take out, rip it up anytime. You know, I’ve worked in businesses like I’ve looked at, you know, I want to live life at the same time, but for me there’s been no greater adventure than learning about myself and going with it. It’s been an incredible, uh, hence why I’m so passionate about it. And I just hope people listening to this will start to explore this and give it a go. Because as far as I’m concerned, it’s a game changer. The more you learn about yourself, the more it will start to show up over time. It’s a process. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s, I’m like, wow, the world is missing out.
James: Well, I’m glad the world’s got this podcast to listen to exploring human behavior and you know, also being able to unleash your human potential on the internet with the help of a great tool like 10 X pros. So guy, um, what’s your sort of final piece of advice or wisdom tidbit that we can end our show on because you’ve been so generous and I’m really inspired. I like, I’m smiling listening to this podcast. It’s giving me some more understanding as to what’s happening in my own life and I’m sure it’s helpful for someone who might be stuck or encountering an artificial limit on their performance. So how are we going to leave this one?
Guy: Yeah. Wow. The first thing that came to my mind, or I should say my heart that has never let me down, is that I always honor and follow my heart even though it doesn’t make rational sense half the time and not something I’ve learned to lean in and trust more and more and more. And as I do that, I would encourage everyone else to do that too because you’d be amazed once you start to let the ego subside a little bit and start to tap into your true self on what wants to come through you. If you can then start to express that through your business model with the people you interact, the way you live your life on a daily basis, that’s when we start to really start to, I believe, live more from joy, happiness, appreciation, and from those stressful states. If I can do this, anyone can do this, I promise you, but you’ve just got to have the courage to listen to that but act upon it too. You know,
James: that’s such a great message. I bet you’re a hugger.
Guy: I’m a hugger.
James: Well, I’m sending you a digital hug. Thank you Guy. This has been great. You’ve got information at guylawrence.com.au people can check out and see and start that journey and go through it. Just wanted to mention that resource there as a thank you for coming on and sharing and I love what you’re doing and I look forward to charting your journey wherever your heart takes you over the next few years. It’s going to be really epic, I’m sure.
Guy: Thank you James. Really appreciate it.
Guy: Beautiful guys. Hope you enjoyed that interview with myself and James Franco. If you’re still listening then I’m guessing you did anyway. If you are ready to take the next step and explore your own human potential. Come and hit me up back at guylawrence.com.au And I certainly hope to meet you in person one day soon. Have a ripper week. Much love from me and catch ya.