56: Robert Pardi - Possibility in Action: Embracing Impermanence in New York City, Dubai, and Abruzzo, Italy

0:01 What can the imperfections in the pieces of an ancient Mosaic and Michelangelo's David? Teach us about self-actualization how can daydreaming and activity? That were dissuaded from his children, serve as a powerful Catalyst to help us realize a major life shift. And what is the meaning of possibility in action? How can this platform in this philosophy? Liberate us from the land of regret and prevent us from quote, shooting all over ourselves. Stay tuned as we touch on these and many other topics. Picks on this week's episode of untether your life.

0:41 Welcome to untether your life, show that empowers you to own your own health and break free of templates for managing physical and mental wellness. And look shaky issues impacting the South Asian diaspora. I am your host and kill torsa car. And I'm passionate about the power of conversation to catalyze change this week. We have the pleasure of speaking with Rob party, a three-time best-selling author, compelling International keynote, speaker and transformational life coach after his Wife passed away for metastatic breast cancer, Rob reimagine, his life and left his comfort zone to achieve new dreams. He now shares the many life lessons, he's learned through his work in fashion, his life, as an example of possibility, in Action, a powerful personal growth philosophy and platform prior to his dramatic Life Changes in New York City.

1:27 Native it spent several years in the Middle East as senior portfolio manager in Abu Dhabi. And co-founder of the dubai-based, private Equity Firm evolved its capital He now spends the majority of his time in a brute. So, Italy outside of traditional coaching, Robert host personal growth Retreats and workshops in Italy creates micro video mindset modules and host the possibility action podcast and with that, let's get untethered. So Rob, it's great to have you on. Hey, it's actually great to be here. I love the show. I love the name on tethered, so that's something I really resonate with and looking forward to our conversation. Rob. If you want to go ahead, if you want to share anything, Beyond what I had shared before we dive in heart of the life's journey, right?

2:13 It all starts with with mindset. So I was lucky enough to be curious and one of the things that I've carried with me, the whole time is wondering, what it would be like to pull something off. Instead of if I'd fail, that's what underlies that whole idea. So as we're going forward, talking about it at least people have that context. So you are now in the beautiful Village of Italy, but But it's quite a long ways from where you grew up. Maybe if you can tell us a little bit more about your background and how you got to this point in a tiny village in Italy. Sure. And it really is a tiny village. There's only 900 people. Wow, and I have a castle in my backyard. Five minutes away by foot. So, New York City Kid born and raised in New York, you know, I was born in the Bronx, I lived in Harlem Queens, then further out on Long Island for a while but my childhood which I was blessed to have actually because You being a lot of life skills. I grew up with an abusive alcoholic father that really did.

3:13 Teach me early on about grit resilience crafting your life being intentional his mother. So my paternal grandmother would tell me. Look at your father, he's an example of what you don't want to be but cautionary tale I guess you could say, right? Yeah, really a cautionary tale. And also at tailed to, to embrace Possibility and to walk away from what would be considered the norm? She would always tell me that you could do anything you want in life and so forth, which was different than what my father was telling me. But there came a point in time where I actually grew strong enough to actually fight back then, the dynamic changed of course, because he was a typical bully, and as soon as I could protect myself, the physical abuse went away, but there was always the mental abuse of nobody likes you or this or that at the other thing.

4:05 And sometimes words can be more Destructive in essence, right? My, my journey personally was to overcome some of those words. It wasn't the physical aspects for me, but it was that idea of no one likes you, you're never gonna have friends. I used to like to write when I was a kid and he would hit me because it was a feminine thing to do to use a nice word instead of the word she used. But all of that empowered me. And so at a very young age, I started thinking about safety. D. I started thinking about freedom and to a 13 year old kid. What does that mean? Money Ronnie, and I grew up in the age of Ronald Reagan.

4:45 Gordon Gekko. Worried is good, right? That was your Mantra back then. Right down to El money was good. Not necessarily greed, bloody weird. And so that's how I wound up in finance. It wasn't a passion. But it was for me, the quickest way to freedom to be independent. In that Journey, my second year, I was a sophomore. I met my wife who is a freshman and literally she just blew the doors off. Every swept you off your feet Tuggle. Completely swept me off my feet. When I met her, I said because of the experience, I lived because of what I saw with my parents I said I'm not someone that ever wants to get married, I don't want a relationship.

5:26 Want to make a lot of money and I want to go live on an island all by myself. Okay. And that was much, I thing, right? Yeah and she was like, yeah, that's not gonna happen. So we got married very young, she was 21. I was 23 at the height of our everything and literally I mean the height of everything I had just gotten a job in Abu Dhabi. Senior portfolio manager. I was the youngest one on the team. The pay was really good. I had just finished my MBA from Columbia University. My wife was doing an MD PhD. And so I take the job because we both talked about experience. And for us, we never wanted to own anything. We wanted experience. We wanted flexibility and that fit well with me, because as the way, I grew up, I always wanted that You damn, right.

6:07 Would you say it was? You were sort of living The Nomad lifestyle that was sort of what you aspire to as a nomadic life. You know, it's funny because here's that idea today of The Nomad lifestyle and I think we lived more of an essentialist type lifestyle where we didn't want anything to hold us down. So we didn't want a car, we didn't want to home. We wanted jobs that would allow us to travel if we wanted to go live in different places. Nope. Pressure of us having children this and that. So there was always that idea flexibility. But until I get the job in Abu Dhabi, she just finishes her PhD. She decides to take a sabbatical. She comes out to Abu Dhabi to live for the year before, going back to medical school and to live in the UAE.

6:53 You have to go through a medical. Screening just, so happened that right before her 31st birthday, in that screening, they found breast cancer. And back then we can't fall to anyone, and I would never fall to anyone. We were surrounded by amazing doctors, but her GYN at that time. This was 1997. Basically said, you're too young for breast cancer. It doesn't run in your family. You have cystic breasts because in the late 90s it was not common. It was a rarity. It was that white elephant for a woman that age to have had breast cancer. So that sent us in a direction of really not only confronting the disease itself but my wife call. Calling on me and saying Robert.

7:39 Listen, I know enough of medicine to be dangerous to myself. So therefore, I don't want to be involved. I want you to deal with everything. She didn't know how big the tumor was. How many lymph nodes were involved. She didn't want to know anything. And so I became the middleman and to a certain extent, I had to live her disease. She was very clear about what quality of life meant to her, what she was willing and not willing to do. I mean she was very active. The in her care but she did want to participate. You wanted to show up as a patient, get the medicine and come home. Well, it never really went away back then. They didn't have pet scans, the only had cat-scans.

8:19 So while she was declared any D, no evidence of disease for about nine months just because the cat scan couldn't pick up that it was in her liver. But during that Journey we learned about surrender, we learned about purpose. I came up with my own definition of purpose that purpose. This is when passion comes in alignment with your values but you want to give the results away. I didn't want to be patted on the back for being a good husband or a good caregiver. But I did leave my job because knowing the gravity of her situation, I wanted to do everything. I could to help her achieve her goals. I wanted to do everything I could to live every moment with her.

9:00 She became the founding director of palliative care at New York Hospital while having metastatic breast cancer. Yeah. And for people who, I don't know that term. Can you describe what that is for the lame. So palliative care is actually really misunderstood unfortunately, because if I say hospice, a lot of people know what hospices and they equate hospice to palliative care. Hospice is, let's say the end service of palliative care. Palliative care is a discipline of medicine that allows you to live a quality life while confronting a chronic or terminal disease. So it's not just about pain management, it's about lifestyle, it really is to help you live life around the disease, which is exactly what my wife was doing.

9:47 So she said, who better than me to become an expert in palliative care? Because I'm living it. And it's all about patient choice and all of that. So when she passed away and I had a look at my life, one of the things that happens in grief is that it impacts the identity of the Survivor. I love that. Hymns. So one I say loss is the lack of self because your identity is lost in that moment and security because the world feels really unsafe. And so I had to look at my life. I went back to finance because the little boy inside me said, oh, now this is very scary security. You know, your wife didn't have life insurance, you have to leave your apartment because it's Hospital housing. It was an eleven year Journey with breast cancer, you have six figures in debt, It.

10:37 Wow. So, and that's not because of the medical system in the u.s., when my wife was diagnosed, you couldn't find a mushroom supplement, use the barely find organic food. So right, the money I was making was going towards that and then when I left work, it was even more difficult. We had to live off our savings sounds like if you had looked into some options outside of the conventional allopathic medical realm than it sounds like, is that correct? Great was you're breaking my supplements, my wife. Had an amazing oncologist. He was an alternative medicine oncologist. So she had chemo, but she also had acupuncture, she had Reiki. She had supplements, she had Pooja and Indian chanting and meditation. And we send this is in the late 90s that, right? I mean, this is, but from 1998 to 2009, she passed away in 2000.

11:30 Okay. I mean, it wasn't, it definitely wasn't as mainstream as it is now, right? I mean, it was pretty apparent, shall we? Therapy chairs. You put the headphones on the chair would vibrate to a certain frequency while you were getting the chemo. Just incredible. He's the one that brought my wife and I to Indies to the first for the first time. Yeah, we went to Pratt Tamil Nadu. We spent a lot of time in Tamil Nadu, but when she passed away and I went back to finance, I start paying off my debt. I just kept saying to myself, this is not where I'm supposed to be. This is not where I'm supposed to be and one of the beautiful things in grief, you fall apart. To fall back together. And if you think of a mosaic, I was happy to live in Italy.

12:13 I was lucky to see some beautiful ancient mosaics, and you look at those ancient mosaics each piece. Each individual piece was cut by hand so they're all imperfect. But it's that imperfection, which creates the depth and the beauty of the Mosaic. Now, my wife is a big piece in that beautiful Mosaic sure. But unfortunately, I didn't have the choice of saving her. This is Slice. This is impermanence and so when I was falling back together, I ask myself well. Okay, I know I'm different because all my expectations were I was going to be this investment banker. This wonderful wife living in New York. My identity has shifted.

12:53 But what do I miss about? The Robert that passed away with Desiree because we do die with the people that died. Our of Heart Of Us does. And I realized that I loved supporting her, I loved watching her achieve her dreams. Love the conversations about spirituality. We had unbelievable conversations about things despite the fact she didn't want to talk about her own death but we talked about because her job was also palliative care and we talked about things that you extend life, you don't extend death, you know, all these topics. So I said, well, I was for life coach and one of the things I believe is just the most, beautiful instrument, we can use and this is something we're given.

13:34 As we're kids is, our imagination is date. Dreaming daydreaming is not scary. Daydreaming is fun. Daydreaming is powerful. In that when you have a loss, that's this big there's a big hole. Yeah you can't find something to fill that you have to start to put Pebbles inside and slowly fill up the whole those Pebbles are little Day Dreams and as I started daydreaming, the idea of Italy kept coming up, I'm an Italian America. My grandparents were from Italy. So as I started daydreaming, I thought well, what would Be an amazing story to come from this loss, to come from this life shift and I said, to myself, you know, what, it's to try to live in Italy, and then I said, no, it's not to try, it's to attempt. Because when we use the word try, we've already accepted a lot of the excuses as to why it may not happen. Attempt is more powerful.

14:26 I'm going to attempt this. I'm not going to focus on the reasons, why? It might not work. And I ask myself the question, what if I can pull it off and then spoke to my business partner? And And for anyone that's listening. Yes Columbia, MBA. X investment banker. I had no money, I left my job, I showed up in Italy, two suitcases, I didn't speak, the language, didn't have a job, didn't know where I was going to live didn't know anyone and started teaching English for $8 an hour. Why niece and nephew were making more money than me and I am here I am the Columbia graduate, right? The move to Italy was not what changed my life. It was the mindset shift of. Can I pull it off?

15:07 In mindset shift was okay, I'm not sacrificing. What investments can I make investment was to teach English for a dollars an hour because my dream, my goal was this new life that comes from the childhood experience where I had grit and resilience to get out and away from my father. So I slowly built that. While I went to coaching school, got my coaching certificate, and that's sort of how I wound up. Where I am today I was very Very lucky. I have an amazing friend actually. She was also my wife's friend. We met her in the chemo Center, she's going through her own treatment. While my wife was going through her treatment after my wife passed away, she said, you need to write your story because my wife and I lived. A philosophy of cancer is not the dominant color in the painting of our life.

16:00 Cancer will be the accent account. Well, guess the contract. Yeah, it is the contrast to Joy it is to say, okay you know what life is precious it showed us what the present moment actually is it taught us? That hope is not hoping for sure. In that you're powerless in that, you are you're in this state. Almost a victimhood waiting for something from the future to help you. Now, true hope is hoping for the best day possible today and that's what we learned. And that's what I brought forward. And so she said you need to write a book and I was like, I don't I want to be that guy that you know, writes a book about his wife and blah, blah blah, during covid, she said, you know everybody's living what you and Desiree live uncertainty and ambiguity, the year people are dying, nobody knows what's going to happen next.

16:52 You really need to write this book over the course of all those years from when my wife passed away, two, when she told me the second time, I needed to write the book during covid. She said, you know what? I wrote down all your stories for you. Here's 30 pages to start you off your friend wrote. This for you. Yes wow yeah that's why she's my coop. Is she just said you know the story had to be told the whole concept of that book is that we don't measure Life by the number of years. You live measured by The Moments Of Joy, you experience because my wife she died before her 41st birthday. But she lived a full joyful life. There's nobody that can tell me otherwise that although, you know, she lived a short life while she lived it all. And I lived it with her, it is all about joy and it's about the present moment.

17:42 And so when I wrote that book, that just opened up whole Fountain and I wrote two more books within the year and when was this book published? This was you said it was during covid and her Jew 2021 was chasing life and then a pin B tail was. Feb, 20, 22 and then possibility in action was May 20-22 and possibility in action that sort of segues into my next question, which is that is the name of your platform possibility in action. And as I had shared with you earlier, I love that juxtaposition. Because possibility is something that's ethereal and formless and dreamers are always castigated as being too idealistic and they talk a good game but as the I think the quote is Vision, Without execution is a hallucination. I think there's like, Tom Addison or something, but it sounds like you're preventing that Devolution into hallucination with action, so I'd love to hear more. If you could talk me through possibility and action, what the philosophy is, and what it is really about, because you've talked about your books, we haven't gotten into the coaching her say yet, but I do want to talk about that and then anything else that is under that umbrella possibility, in action. So, possibly an action is, is actually my life's philosophy. It's became a Platform, let's say, but it is something that I wrote in a journal years and years ago while dealing with everything with Desiree possibilities exist, all around us, but without action, they remain in the land of wishing and that could create regret so

19:15 possibility. An action is understanding that transformation is possible that possibilities do exist. You have to walk away from labeling. You have to walk away from the shoulds. There's a lot of This to unpack in there at the end of the day, when you understand your values, you understand your beliefs, you understand the story, you want to live, when that's defined clearly you're able then to see the possibilities that can make that happen and the actions you need to take. I had to teach English for eight dollars an hour, that was an action that took a possibility and created into my reality. And that's really what possibility in action is all about. We Create limits, we create barriers we create excuses, it's all valid, because that usually comes from trying to stay safe track, come from survival mechanism. But as I learned with Desiree, right? Is there really safety?

20:14 As we all learned with covid is there really safety. The thing that exists and will always exist is change or as it said in Buddhism, anicca impermanence impermanence is the only thing that We're all on a journey with terminal disease because we all have to pass away and so therefore do you want to sit seeing possibilities? But not taking action because of fear or figuring out how you can make those possibilities into your reality because nothing is linear in this life at all. When you're clear on your values, when you're clear on the the Investments you're willing to make into that I worked with Someone that said, oh, you know what?

20:59 But I have children. I don't know if I could do this, and I could do that. And she really wanted to start painting. I like you don't have to leave your job to start painting. And then, as she was doing it, I asked her the question. I said, so what do you think? You're teaching your children right now? And she said, well, I'm not I'm not teaching them anything. I'm like, well, if you don't do this, because you're afraid, you're definitely teaching them self. And if you do this, despite the fear, you're actually teaching them something. And so a lot of times, we may find an excuse because Have a child or I have this, or I have that or whatever, but there always is a different side. There are two sides to the coin. There is yin and yang always so possibility in action, if you if you distilled it.

21:41 And you think about the hero's journey, you could even use on Dante's Inferno, right? Or Star Wars or Harry Potter, you know? That we're more familiar with, but Akira's journey is confronting fears, entering the unknown growing increasingly Coming out with some type of wisdom, some type of gift. And so that journey is fueled by possibility in action because it requires both the recognition of possibilities and taking action to bring those into reality. And everyone has a tolerance. You have to understand what that tolerance is. Yes, I showed up in Italy with two suitcases, I went through the worst case, scenarios, I wasn't going to let them stop me.

22:25 And so it's as simple as it sounds. But yet there's a lot of components to it because you do have to surrender outcome, you do have to understand impermanence, you do have to learn to enjoy the journey and the identity of the traveler, the identity of I think of myself more as an adventurer. I am an adventure in my life. I don't know where this is going to wind up. And you know what? That's when you understand it's not linear. None of us know where it's going to wind up because we will die unfinished. We do. Don't know when our story is going to finish, so we can project and we can project, but we're not Clairvoyant and so that requires us to think a little bit more of again. What is the story I want to look back on? Do I want to look back on safety and fear and lost opportunities, and regrets Grant him?

23:20 Or do I want to say? You know what, I took a big bite out of that Apple of life and I still have some pieces in my teeth as, you know, The Specter of, you know, death is knocking on my door and that aligns, oh, well, with the philosophy of our podcast, as you, and I have discussed, is just about there, is that illusion of safety, where we are doing what was handed to us as I like to call them templates, for me, being like a South Asian immigrant it was, you know, go to med school. Go to the best colleges, the US News and world ranking of your college of your alma. Mater was a proxy for your value and your worth. And we all come to realize that that's all Bs. And there are people who still live Give Tethered to those ideals or Tethered to those scripts that they've been handed.

24:03 And so, it's always so amazing to connect with people who have gone outside of that comfort zone because obviously Financial dislocation. That was a big concern but yet an MBA from Columbia, you had the pedigree of working at I think was a top, was a venture capital firm in Dubai, was it? Yeah, it was it was the first Boutique on private Equity Firm, a bird and the Abu Dhabi investment Authority is, you know, one of the Up Sovereign wealth funds in the world. So, I mean, you had two choices and you took The Road Less Traveled and that's see. It seems like you are really a Shining Light. I think, for people who have had those curve balls thrown at you and to take your life in a different direction is really commendable now, possibly in action, I think you've done a great job of outlining the philosophy. You know, the why I'd like to hear more about, maybe the what that's involved in possibility in action, because you've talked about your coaching service.

24:57 Tell me more about Out. Some of the people that you coach and what kind of challenges are they coming to you with and some of the outcomes that either they can look forward to? Or maybe if there's a case study to be very MBA ish that you can point to that can just illustrate the benefits of possibility action. I think you highlighted something earlier, which is somewhat important. So, you know, like you talked about people being tethered and so forth for some people that might be the story. They want to look back on what I always say to people. When I start to work with them is nobody needs to be fixed. No one is broken. It is whether or not you feel in harmony with your life.

25:38 Do you feel resistance? Like, I felt resistance sitting in Emirates Towers in Dubai and thinking to myself. Okay, well, you know what, I just lived this whole big experience with by my wife. And here I am crunching numbers and there's something else out there and that's what people come. To me for it's this feeling of there's got to be more to life than this. I feel like, I'm spinning my wheels. This doesn't feel like the life. I should be living. It's not necessarily people that are, like, I want something completely different. It's hey, help me understand here because I'm making good money, or I'm not making good money or whatever. The case is, I followed the, as you said, the template, and here I am and I don't feel content, I feel there's Something more to life I feel aimless.

26:30 So those are the people that reach out to my type of work because there's a million different types of coaching. I'm not a believer in digging into the past at all. So working with me. We're not going to talk about your childhood. Let's just blame it on your parents and that's it. Done over with what do you want now? Because all it takes is changing behaviors, and to change behaviors, takes action. I don't believe personally, when I work with people, we can break a habit. It's more about replacing our replacing with habits that actually work for you instead of work against you as examples of people I worked with.

27:11 There was one gentleman, I worked with. He's the CEO of a tech company and his wife passed away. He felt very lost in his life overall. When we worked together to try to uncover this aimlessness and this disease that Had it wasn't necessarily the situation with his wife, brought it to light but what he missed was all the innovation in curiosity and stuff that came and technology that he no longer had because he was now that the CEO and this is an example of someone that was wealthy. So this is one of those examples that maybe not all of us have that the opportunity to do. But when he looked at his life he said and we got down to what she wanted.

27:56 Now, this was before covid. He said is you know what, I'd love to travel United States in an RV and work from my RV. And the question was well, why aren't you and you're the CEO? Why aren't you? Well, that's not what, the CEO know what it was. Let's stick through it and template. Let's build that I've had. Other people that have worked with me where it could be anything from re-crafting. A relationship. It could be sexuality as well for some people that I've worked with. It all comes down to okay? You have this feeling of there must be something more or I feel nameless or I'm not doing doc. It sounds like yes, where is it?

28:39 That you feel stuck. And we start to break that apart and what we want to get to is to empower and when I say we it's us together because a coach can never do anything for the client of the client doesn't want to do it. Right, right. So because that becomes motivation and motivation is not sustainable. I can motivate You and then a week later we never see each other and the motivation Fades away, right? And then we need another hit of motivation. That's not what we want. We sit there and we look at these different things and as we start to break them apart and we understand what's essential to your life and what resonates with you we start to then chip away at all those shoulds the Temple of this piece of the template doesn't work for you.

29:21 You're unique your life is different. This is not the 1950s with two and a half kids and a white picket fence. Re generation. But every year it's unknown territory, I really can use the past to understand some things. But what you want to do is try to Define your future. That's why it is not a case study because it's all, it's all so different Michelangelo. Said that David was inside the marble. What did he have to do to get David? Kelly was away, all the stuff that wasn't David, okay? And he didn't just take the Chisel once and hit it and all of a sudden David popped out. It was Labor. He had to get rid of the things in his life that didn't work anymore. So, working with me.

30:02 You do an energy audit, we try to understand. When are you the most creative in your day? When are you the most physical in your day? When are you the most strategic in your day? Richard egg aligned with that. What is were your job? It's if it's passion like me. I could do 24/7 but I don't do it 24/7 because I take every June July and August off. My friend hasn't has a house on the beach. I like to go visit and sit on the beach and So that means that I'm making a lot less money than I could. Yeah, but it's the lifestyle. So what happens is we Define that lifestyle, we understand that lifestyle. We really get into the nuts and bolts of that lifestyle. And then we reverse-engineer it, I love that.

30:43 I'd never heard that about David being inside the marble. That's, that's such a beautiful conception of how to achieve the Pinnacle of the Maslow's hierarchy of self-actualization. She got a chip away at it, it's not A one and done type thing, which I think as Americans. Unfortunately, I think that's what we're all looking for. We're all looking for that quick fix. I'm very big into self-improvement. And sometimes that can be an addiction in and of itself, because it's just like, we keep trying to find that silver bullet. No. Is it breathwork, is it Silva method that you? And I have talked about, is this energy, healing chakras. And that's what's amazing about Americans, is it just like, we take something that's supposed to give us tranquility and serenity and we Help sort of driving ourselves even more crazy.

31:30 Trying to pursue all these certifications are trying to pursue becoming the Pinnacle of that or how many Instagram likes were getting for that brilliantly. Insightful, post about eliminating anxiety is I just find it so perverse sometimes and I bring up the American intentionally because I wanted to understand you're based in Italy and obviously technology has enabled as really shattered. A lot of boundaries obviously I'm in Chicago and your were separated by time. Time zones, in terms of the people you're working with, are they coming to you from all over the world? Or is there a particular area of the world that you're attracting a lot of clients? I wish you could say, it truly is global, it's three markets, it's UAE, it's Canada, and it's the u.s. so not not to money from Europe. Then it sounds like, no, not not, not too many from Europe. Also the idea of coaching and everything else, even though it is pretty prevalent.

32:26 Now in Europe, It's not necessarily the same thing. So the u.s. component really came from when I became a life coach because of who my wife was. And because of the New York Times article when she passed away, the palliative care Community said, oh, you're a life coach, we have people. And you'd so then there was a came, a, you became a minor celebrity in the palliative. Care World. It sounds like, well, I was yeah, I was known. Let's say so it was easy to get referrals. Sure Dubai. I did the UAE. I lived there and I have a lot of exposure there and I was there for many, many years of you really think about it. We could say from 1997 until 2014 pretty much on and off. So there was a community and that was a little more leadership based because they knew me as the finance guy, there and Canada is just because it happened. That one time I was asked to be one of the faces of national caregiver Day in Canada, and I'm not Canadian, but the story about my wife, Was so intriguing for them that they thought they would get would be good, but I would say, yeah, it's predominantly those three markets. And as you were talking about, sort of, we're always chasing the next new thing and and all of these other things. And yes, I mean, even if you think about it, we've taken yoga which at the beginning was just supposed to be good for the body and flexibility and to relax and then we got hot yoga. And then we got, you know, yoga challenge is and it just, you know, it's lost what it actually is supposed to be by this. Yeah, right.

33:58 Exactly. But my perspective comes from and this is what the ancient philosophers said they didn't ever say, read these 1000 scriptures and study life, they said take one of these figure out what works for you and go put it into action. That's it. It's that simple, if breathwork is something that that makes you feel grounded, continue with it, that's it. Don't go searching for other things because what we have caused and like you said, this whole idea of Instant gratification. I mean, everyone wants their Amazon package that the minute after they click. Yeah, I mean, but if you think about my wife, when I took my job in the Middle East, in 1997, we wrote each other letters.

34:40 There was no email. I mean, that's how crazy it was. But if you think like, even when we get on a plane, where luck, we're flying in a tube across the Atlantic Ocean, and we get aggravated because they don't have access or be everyone access to Internet and watching Three Amigos on. On the, on the in-flight entertainment, some bad move here, some it will be but here's the thing is though for anyone listening personal growth is personal, there's something that resonates with you now. Yes, it might take some time to figure that out, but that's also one of the reasons why a coach helps, but you can't continue to sample, sample, sample sample, because there's no progress in anything.

35:22 It's like New Year's resolutions. You can't go to the gym for two weeks, and then you get frustrated because you're not seeing Results on, you want to look, I don't know who is a is a well-built person today. I'll say Arnold Schwarzenegger, because that's who I grew up with, right, right. Right. But so, all of that is consistency and there's a philosophy called casein, which is part of the overall possibility in action. Philosophy. Casein is actually something that was developed by the United States given to Japan after World War Two. And that's what helped Toyota become the number one car manufacturer. Yeah, it's continuous Improvement. Leave continuous Improvement. You are not measuring the goal, you're measuring the commitments small little commitments. If you want to change a habit tomorrow and you want to exercise, I challenge you to do.

36:13 Three push-ups in the morning and you can be like that. So stupid, just do three. You know, what you may do five? Because you're like, well, three is pretty easy but it's digestible, it's manageable. We as adults, forget how to learn we're born, Learning beings. But there's a difference between learning and understanding we as children touch the fire, we knew not to touch the stove ever again, we don't seek their everyday. Get mad at the stove. The stove is bad. The stove hurt it? No, we understood that. That hurt. We took an internal you can't study life. You can't study and read these books and read them over and over and over again.

36:54 You have to understand them, you understand them by putting them into action. Action. That's why I do the Retreats I do because it's a completely different experience than just visiting some place. One of the things that I had mentioned our first conversation was that you had done. An amazing breakdown of this beautiful quote from Rumi which is the wound is where the light shines through and I just love that quote and as I mentioned I think broke it down in a way that I hadn't heard you know. So powerfully I want understand any other philosophers or quotes or if it's roomy. That's fine too. But are there any philosophers that Have been particularly insightful or helpful to you in your very layered and complex Journey. That's a beautiful question because I'd say all of them, I love to read ancient philosophy stuff. Spend a lot of time with stoicism. I also love reading a lot about Chinese wisdom and Edge and Japanese as well.

37:49 The Japanese used in a calendar. The ancient Japanese of 72 micro Seasons to represent impermanence. That's something that's part of my My exist in this part of my life. So there's not just one, there's many, many I can share one quote, which is my favorite really it is my favorite quote comes from Richard Bach book 1. He says, we're all born with a block of marble and the tools to shape it into a sculpture, we can leave it untouched. In my opinion. That means in action, he then says, we can pound it into gravel. In my opinion, that's anger. Or we can shape it into glory in my opinion that's possibility in action.

38:32 So that's a quote, I reflect on often. Yeah, all of them. I think there's so much wisdom out there and we should surround ourselves with that type of content. Instead of maybe some Tick-Tock picking something up his nose for - yeah, she's no 100% with social media. It is something that I think we do have to be intentional because there's just so much Wisdom at our fingertips, we need to really be intentional because it's easy to get sucked into that void like you said about Tick-Tock because it's mindless and it's what I would call an energy vampire. If we want to achieve the highest version of ourselves, it ain't going to be by pursuing likes on Tick. Tock for doing something stupid.

39:15 Like, the tide pod, Challenger, whatever. Whatever the face it Fanny was your is so intimate and it's definitely funny. There is a place for that. But what you just said that mindless Is scrolling. Yeah, you being sucked into it. The energy vampire, that's your life, you are manifestation of time and energy. And so what do you want to do with that timing energy? I know I want to craft a story, that's pretty damn cool to look back on when my time comes so Rob. How can people find you if they're interested in learning more about you connecting with you going on, one of your treats, reading your books, all of the above tell us more how they can find you best place is just go to my website, Robert DPA are diy.com, my books are all on Amazon, and the titles of the books again, are so, the titles of the books are chasing a life and that's the Memoir for my wife.

40:07 The second book is extremely unusual, but I love it and it's called a pin detail. And it's actually a child Babel written for adults. So it actually is written in an eight-year-old voice, but it's to remind us that we are possibility. Nation magic believing and then the y stands for you. So, that's what a Pity means. And then, the last book is possibility in action, which is, it's a book that highlights My Philosophy but also provides what are called musings. Because I'm a big believer in the idea of a cone from, you know, Sun Khan's a shit.

40:48 And so, I just throw out these random ideas and I asked you to journal about them. Well, thanks again, Rob for joining us. It was so nice to talk to you. You. And we look forward to continuing the discussion down the road. Me to me. Tune Thanks so much for listening and I hope you enjoyed that episode four more of these types of conversations. Please visit us at untether, your life that Co you can also find us on Instagram and untether your life, as well as on Apple Spotify and other platforms by searching for untether, your life. And if you did enjoy this episode, please leave us a review or share it with someone who might also benefit. Thanks. And until the next time we meet stay untethered. Thanks so much for listening and I hope you enjoyed that episode four more of these types of conversations. Please visit us at untether, your life that Co you can also find us on Instagram and untether your life, as well as on Apple Spotify and other platforms by searching for untether, your life. And if you did enjoy this episode, please leave us a review or share it with someone who might also benefit. Thanks. And until the next time we meet stay untethered.