The rat race is exhausting and all-consuming. So it’s not surprising that most of us have not stopped to closely examine a central concept directing our lives: Whose expectations are we trying to meet?

College, finances, unquestioned family obligations, status, home ownership, status. These are common goals that we are conditioned to respect and strive for because…well, because it’s just “common knowledge” that they build a good life. Brian Bogert, Human Behavior Coach, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, and all-around inspiring guy joins Refractive to discuss the auto-programming of expectations that is so common (and painful) in today’s world. Has your life been focused on what really matters to you? Have you weighed your life goals against your values, or are your goals based on an unexamined fear of struggle if certain concepts of “security” and “happiness” aren’t checked off? Have you been willing to look at painful experiences as springboards to joy, freedom, peace, growth, and beauty? This episode is all about honoring the guidance your highest self gives as the absolute shortest path to a life of serenity, fulfillment, security, and joy.

Find more information on Brian Bogert and his challenge to impact 1 billion lives by 2045 by visiting brianbogert.com

For similarly-themed content, try these episodes: Making Peace with Our Dark Side and The Ancient Truths of Acceptance and PLINKO

Find an audio transcript via software below- please excuse any errors from the software’s transcription.Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of refractive. My guest today is Brian Bogart and he is a human behavior and performance coach. He’s a speaker, a business strategist, top sales, professional, and philanthropic leader through his own growth journey. He’s built a life around helping people become their best self by embracing radical authenticity and this revolutionary strategy that he’s developed to work with his clients. It embraces pain to avoid suffering, and he helps individuals and companies break beyond their normal to achieve success, freedom, and authenticity. So I’m really happy to have you on the podcast today, Brian, that bio is, it could be the bio for this podcast. It is a, it’s my jam. It gels with me. And I’m excited to talk with you.
Speaker 1 00:01:34 Well, dude, I’m happy to be here. I mean, every single time you and I connect, we connect. Right. And, uh, and I think there’s a major alignment here. So I’m just happy to be here and you build a platform that I get to pour my soul into your audience and man, that’s what it’s all about.
Speaker 0 00:01:46 Yeah, for sure. You know, I’ve talked on lots of episodes already about the concept of expectations that expectations were, were programmed with these societal expectations that I need to break a six figure income, and I need to own a house by the time I’m X age and I need to get married and I, I need this stuff. And if I don’t, my life doesn’t feel right. It just doesn’t feel, it feels like I’m faulty, like I’m broken. And so much of my own journey has been learning, which of those expectations feels nourishing and feels good for me. And which of those expectations. I’ve just kind of blindly accepted over the years. And I know that’s a big part of the work that you do, your clients. And so what are some of your find foundational thoughts on this whole idea of the pain of expectations that don’t belong to us?
Speaker 1 00:02:46 Yeah. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna riff on this for a second. Cause there’s two places I want to take it. The first is how do we develop into this and where do we as individuals start and where do the narrative start to shape us throughout time? And then lastly, it’s like, what does the narrative cause us to do? Which is to chase the what? So we’re going to unpack those both quickly. Feel free to interrupt me at any point, if you’re like, Hey, let’s talk about that further. But um, this, this is just my view, right? This is not mean that this is the way that it is. This is how I view the world. Um, you know, I genuinely believe that we are born as our absolute brightest shining light, our most authentic selves. Yes, period, and a story. We are born as our brightest authentic burning light that we will ever be, frankly.
Speaker 1 00:03:32 And anybody who has kids or has been around kids knows that the rawness, the genuineness, like the, the lack of boundaries, the vulnerable, authentic self shows up right out of the gate. And then what happens? Parents, teachers, coaches, employers start layering on all these narratives around who they should be, who we should be, right? You should do this. You shouldn’t do that. You should be this. You shouldn’t be that you should chase this amount of income. You shouldn’t chase that amount of income. You shouldn’t be happy. You should focus on the external definition of success. You shouldn’t feel you should shut everything down and show up with a smile on your face because that’s what the world tells us to do. Right. And then what happens, right? We all of a sudden start to become literally this armored shell of all these narratives that are wrapped around us and who we once were is we’re just like an empty vessel of who we once were. Yes. Right? Because we ended up chasing this many of those things that we don’t necessarily even necessarily feel like you said, align with who we are. But if this is how we need to be in the world, let’s do it. Right. And then what happens? We wake up one day and we realize we’re miserable. Yeah. All of those should right. Should in and of itself is a shame based word because it implies that whatever you’re doing isn’t good enough. Yes,
Speaker 0 00:04:52 Exactly. So I’m
Speaker 1 00:04:53 On a mission to remove the word should from our language, because it has very few actual positive applications. And instead I want us to start saying, what could I do differently? What would I do in that scenario? Let’s replace should with code and wood. And let’s start focusing on allowing ourselves to get there. Because the only way we get back to that bright burning light is once we’ve shed, the layers of everything in the world is put on top of us. The what is, what we are trained to chase, what the narratives that I just outlined, house, job, car spouse, amount of money, amount of external success. We chase the what, because that’s what we are conditioned to do by parents, coaches, teachers, employers. Exactly. Chase the what? Because that’s what the world will accept you for. Think about it too. What is one of the first questions someone asks you when they first meet you?
Speaker 0 00:05:49 What do you want to be when you grow up or, Oh, I’m thinking about kids as kids. Sorry. Yeah. No, no, but, but that’s great question, right?
Speaker 1 00:05:58 That is what do you want to be when you grow up, it automatically forces this linear thinking and then once you’re a grownup, it’s
Speaker 0 00:06:04 You do? Yeah. Yeah. It’s no longer what do you want to be when you grow up? Yeah. And almost never is it? Who are you? And even when you ask someone who they are
Speaker 1 00:06:19 9% of the time, they’re going to answer with what they do, right? Yeah. We’ve lost clarity on who we are. And we chased the what and again, no different than what I just talked about. That bright burning light with the sheds, we chase the, what we may accomplish the what. And then one day we wake up and realize we’ve lost the who in the process and we’re miserable. We’re stuck. We’re afraid. We’re insecure. We have all these negative emotions bubbling up. But, but I can’t, I can’t step out and talk about that because the world told me I can’t, and I can’t actually fight to become who I want to be because the world has told me, they’re not going to accept me for who that is. Right. And so what’s super important around expectations is we’ve got to realign with who you are, who each individual person is. And the what’s in the world just happened to become that much more powerful because they’re a manifestation of the who versus the, who becoming a manifestation of the, what, which is where people lose themselves.
Speaker 0 00:07:12 Yeah. And we gotta be gentle with ourselves because what you just talked about, it’s, it’s an entire, it’s the combination of all human society that has built up this programming. And so it’s, it’s normal. It’s, it’s expected that we, that we lose ourselves. Right? It’s, it’s, it’s understandable that we lose ourselves through the process of growing and developing. Uh, you know, because what I find is when you ignore that gentle voice, that small voice of intuition inside you over time, it gets quieter and quieter and quieter. And although it never goes away, it’s always there. It just fades into the background and then you have to proactively listen to it. So there’s the reprogramming that we do. You and I do so much with clients and that, that, that it’s really the key to freedom in life is learning to really acknowledge what your insights are telling you is the path to fulfillment. Passion, love
Speaker 1 00:08:21 It’s everything. Yeah. It’s everything. I mean, that’s, that’s literally what it is. I mean, you and I have talked, I mean, I’m on a mission to impact a billion lives by 2045. And what that means is that I want to help reduce the level of suffering on this planet, right? The suffering that exists is a whole lot of reasons connected to what we just talked about in the very beginning it’s expectations versus who people really want to be. And so the only way that we can reduce the level of like, when we reduce the level of suffering, it’s the only way, frankly, that joy, freedom and fulfillment can start to exist in people’s lives. If the only way, frankly, that people can believe that they can be authentically who they are and that the world will receive them and appreciate and support them for exactly who they are.
Speaker 1 00:09:01 And Oh, by the way, vulnerability and authenticity are the glue that binds human connection. It’s not a surprise that we suffer at the level that we do with the amount of polarization and pull, pull information on any given topic these days, because all it does is separate us. We all desire human connection, vulnerability and authenticity are the glue that binds it. So impacting a billion lives is literally about reducing level of suffering so that we can have all those things. I know what it’s like to suffer. I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to lose who I am and wake up one day, making a ton of money and being miserable and who I am. I also know what it’s like to silence my own voice because the world has told me that it’s not good enough. And I know what it feels like on the other side, I know how bad that feels and nobody deserves to feel that way.
Speaker 1 00:09:43 And on the flip side, I, over the last period of time have chased 100% authentically who I am for the first time in my entire adult life. In the last 18 to 24 months, I’m happier. I’m more fulfilled. I’m having more fun. I’m more free. And I feel more like myself than I have in my entire life. And it just so happens that again, all the what’s in my life are blowing up compared to all the force and effort I had to put into what’s in my prior period of life. Um, it’s, it only further proved the point that I’m on this planet to do, which is to help people understand who they are and love and appreciate themselves and love and appreciate others for who they are.
Speaker 0 00:10:20 My listeners, uh, they’re going to roll their eyes. But I mentioned this person again, because they talk about her on so many of the episodes, but one of my favorite spiritual teachers, her name is Byron Katie. And she, uh, she has this process to help people uncover, uh, the truth in order to fall in love with what is, and so she asks over and over, is it true? Is it true? So we think about like, if I don’t get my kid into this, pre-K my kid is not going to have the best chance at life. And when say like, wait, is that, is it true? Maybe it is like, let’s just, but let’s not assume let’s peel back the layers and let’s just look, is it true that your, that your kid won’t have the best life if he doesn’t go to this school. And you know, a lot of times when we really think for ourselves and feel for ourselves, the answer is no. What I believed was true, what I believed was right, is not it’s somebody else’s truth. And that’s great for them. These things money’s not bad, right. Pursuing them.
Speaker 1 00:11:34 No, no, no. By no means did anything I see have anything to do with negative on money?
Speaker 0 00:11:38 No. These goals that society to give, they’re not bad, you know, just to make sure that the mix of the goals you accept is right for you.
Speaker 1 00:11:47 Correct. That’s it is that people chase the external definition of success, very rarely do they success based on their terms. I mean, that’s one of the first questions I ask people in my first couple of sessions working with people is how do you define success? Yeah. Right. And it’s just interesting because a lot of people haven’t even thought about that. How do I define success? Yeah. And I think what’s beautiful about what you just shared about the question I’m going to, I know nothing about her, frankly. And I feel like already, I’m drawn to her work and want to do some, uh, do some research. So by all means, please we’ll have to connect afterwards. You can share that with me. But yeah. But the interesting thing about that as well is I didn’t use to believe this, but I believe it holistically. Now, those that truly become free.
Speaker 1 00:12:30 Those that truly get to the next level are the ones that recognize that there are two narratives constantly telling us stories, constantly lying and constantly often conflicting with each other. And that’s our intellectual narratives and our emotional narratives. Many of us are hard wired to operate dominant. On one side, I am dominant on the intellectual side and it was only further conditioned with an early childhood injury, which we may talk about today. We may not. But the point is, is that it really honed. Like I went up in my head, I created mental toughness. I created an intellectual narrative. And when I was experiencing the amount of physical pain that I did, I also shut off emotional pain that I didn’t realize until well into my thirties. Yeah. And those that truly unlock and go to the next level. And this is a lot of the work that I do as well is not just asking, is it true?
Speaker 1 00:13:20 But asking is my intellectual narrative true? Is my emotional narrative true? Are they both true? Yeah. Is one lying to me are both lying to me. And for those individuals to really clearly identify with who they are, we’ve got to think about our thinking. Yeah. Feel our feeling, think about our feeling and feel our thinking. We have to understand that it’s not just one narrative that we’re asking the question about. And in this particular case, with that example, if my kid gets into the school, you’re way to have an intellectual and emotional narrative around that. And you’ve got to balance and regulate between those two, because emotionally you may just believe that this is the best chance and intellectually, you can talk yourself down and say, yep, this is an external narrative, but I still feel it’s right for my kid. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so that may cause you to go ahead, despite the fact that you recognize which part is a lie and make that decision. So I think that’s just one pivot I want to do extend on because that’s what I think a lot of people don’t pay attention to is that we actually have two really strong narratives. If we’re listening.
Speaker 0 00:14:17 Yes. It’s beautiful. And you know why just so many religions focus on contemplation meditation, quiet time. It’s because the answer to anything you could ever need to know is in the stillness, right? If you get still enough, you can get the answer to any question it’s true. It might not be something I can do right now in five minutes. It may take years of honing that skill. Right. But it, the whole process is to on program, this muffle that we put on top of that guidance. And it’s not something you can do overnight.
Speaker 1 00:14:56 No it, and that takes, I mean, I think so meditation and stillness, I mean that it’s years in practice before you even start to really feel the effects of it where you actually, I think can get answers. I think some people can shorten that curve, but I know for me, it was, it was probably 24 to 36 months before I actually started getting a heightened level of consciousness, even in my awake state and being able to turn to stillness, to connect my mind and my body and elevate myself out of my mind and my body in a way that I actually could let wisdom flow through me versus having to access knowledge. Right. I mean, it took time and by the way, I’m still practicing it. That’s one of my greatest focuses right now is I actually have a meditation coach that I work with once a week because my singular greatest focus is that if I continue to elevate down this path on a high, highest level of consciousness, I mean, game over, like whatever I’m going to want to manifest into this world, I’m going to chase it. And I don’t say that to impress. I said to him precipice up on the point, the answer to everything you need in life can be found in stillness.
Speaker 0 00:15:52 Yes. I mean, 100%. And I look at the path that kind of led me to where I, to what I’m doing today. Right. Which is stepping outside of the corporate environment, which I was a part of for 16 years, um, moving to the middle of Maine, um, in a cabin, right? Like in near isolation. Um, but all of this stuff, you know, going on a two month road trip, uh, when my lease ended and using my rent money to, to, to, to pay for that. So I could go explore like all these national parks and whatnot, like all of this stuff, these are things that I would never have considered before. The idea of not having an address, putting my stuff in storage and just going, driving until I’m tired of driving and finding a hotel night after night for two months. Like, that’s something that sounds crazy town like what, but that’s what my inside told me to do. It was like, there’s this opportunity for you to take advantage and to take something that some people might see as a stressful or anxious and weave it into something that’s good for you. Beautiful.
Speaker 1 00:17:03 And you probably, you probably found a lot of yourself on that trip.
Speaker 0 00:17:06 Absolutely. Absolutely. But it, it takes the willingness to challenge the conventions, you know, challenge the conventions.
Speaker 1 00:17:16 Well, and Oh, by the way, I mean, that, that goes into one of the concepts that, you know, I, I preach on it’s this idea of embracing pain to avoid suffering. What is that? When you talk about challenging the narratives, when you talk about challenging, like what it is, it’s, you know, the world literally tells us to reduce eliminate or avoid pain, right. I’m telling you that the world is absolutely wrong. Okay. So what’s interesting about this. Let’s let’s first understand what pain and suffering are quickly. And then, and then I’ll tell you what the concept is. And then if we want to, we can unpack the steps to teach people how to do it. If not just the concept alone will typically spark thought for folks. For sure. So pain is literally defined as short-term intermittent direct cause from something and alleviated. And he owed wants that direct causes are removed.
Speaker 1 00:17:54 Then as you know, human beings, we screw everything up. We put adjectives in front of it like acute and chronic, well, acute maintains the definition. Chronic inherently changes it because it implies that it’s no longer short-term, it’s no longer intermittent. And it persists even up to under direct causes removed. Now we call it chronic pain. Cause I think in a lot of ways, it makes us feel better because suffering sounds a whole lot worse. But if it’s not, if it’s unrelenting, doesn’t go away. After the direct causes are removed, it’s not chronic pain it’s suffering. Okay. And we don’t want to admit that suffering exists, particularly when it’s a direct result of our choices. Yes. Right. Whereas pain gets tons and tons of attention because we feel it it’s real time. And our tendency is to avoid it, which is the natural evolutionary response to survive, which we no longer need to rely on as much in today’s world.
Speaker 1 00:18:37 Okay. So let’s, let’s, let’s understand this for a second. We can embrace the pain of hitting the gym for 30 minutes a day to avoid the suffering and make some pains of sedentary lifestyle. There you go. We can embrace the pain of a difficult conversation with a loved one or spouse to avoid the suffering of remaining in a Loveless marriage. That’s going to end in divorce or frankly being stuck in a marriage. When we know we want divorce, yes, we can embrace the pain of a difficult or a, of the fit. Our kids are sure to throw by having them put down their mobile device at the dinner table to avoid the suffering of years, lost, meaningful connection and conversation that we’ll never get back. We can embrace the pain of walking away from having an address and exploring the country over a two month period to help find ourselves to avoid the suffering of not ever knowing what that experience would be or what you would actually find in that journey.
Speaker 1 00:19:20 Yeah. Right. And the list goes on, right? It’s just that we often pay attention to like where and how do we do these things? And you know, we always talk about, get uncomfortable, uh, or, you know, get comfortable getting uncomfortable, which is a part of it. But discomfort is kind of the 5k to pain’s marathon. And so we’ve got to pay to the fact that like, it’s those little moments of discomfort that help us condition ourselves to be able to also turn into pain. But I’ll tell you this definitively, I believe that we all must choose our pain or our suffering will choose us. And a lot of the suffering come from those external narratives and expectations that have been placed upon us versus us honoring who we are. And so we can all choose our pain or our suffering can choose us.
Speaker 0 00:19:59 Yes, boy, that’s so powerful. And you know, pain is, it’s a check engine light. It means something needs attention. And it’s a gift. It’s a gift. You know, when my leg is broken, it hurts like hell, but it’s telling me stop. Don’t put weight on it. Right. You know what I mean? Pain is always like that. It’s, it’s, it’s, there’s, uh, an Axiom in, uh, there’s an Axiom in the recovery community. Uh, and you want to talk about avoiding pain, right? Like compulsion is based in pain avoidance. Yeah, exactly. But there’s this Axiom that says that, uh, pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth. And you know, I mean, tell me about it. You got to dig into that pain. You got to peel back those layers. If you want to understand what’s making yourself tick and, uh, and how to grow, what has the process been like as you kind of have observed people, you work with digging deeper into the pain.
Speaker 1 00:21:08 They almost instantaneously feel lighter. Once they’ve actually been able to understand the root of the pain and they address the pain and they move and embrace through the pain, they really do eliminate suffering. I’ll give you an, I’ll give you a couple examples. Um, uh, one, I’m working with somebody very recently over the course of the last couple of months, and I’m not going to give details of their life, but I will tell you that they had some very, very dark, dramatic, traumatic things happen in their life. Stuff that like you can’t write novels or movies about. I mean, it’s, it’s almost the worst of the worst that could happen to people and what they were exposed to over repeated chariots period of time, they literally have verbalized that they were like a crab on the bottom of the ocean building up a wall of shells around themselves because they just didn’t feel like they wanted to one put that burden on others.
Speaker 1 00:22:00 They didn’t feel validated in their feelings. And they felt like they’re just always going to be this way that they’re always going to suffer. They’re always going to be miserable. They’re not going to have these things in a period of three months. And I’m talking like six to seven major, major events over the period of about a decade in formative years for this person. Um, so many things had been, uh, really covered for this individual, but they couldn’t be vulnerable. And they were carrying this heavy weight called armor. They thought that they were protecting themselves. But really what was happening is the weight of the armor was crushing this person and Berking them over time. Okay. So we’ve worked through really understanding what the root of some of these things were. And in a matter of 30 to 45 days, this person vocalized almost 90% of these things to the people that mattered to the ones that were closest.
Speaker 1 00:22:50 I mean, when I say that they’d never told anybody up to and including their spouse and their parents didn’t know some of this stuff. I was the very first person that in 30 years, this person has chosen to speak with about this stuff. She took action on these things because she knew what suffering looked like, right? And went into action to alleviate the burden of the weight that these things were causing on their insights just by vocalizing it. And just by mere vocalizing it, she felt instantaneously lighter. Now that doesn’t mean the work is done. That’s where it gets misleading. It’s not just about vocalizing something. You still have to put in the work to heal. But what happens in those scenarios when you don’t vocalize, when you don’t feel you don’t heal. So that wound that is there at best will scab over, but it’s going to abscess.
Speaker 1 00:23:38 It’s going to cause issues in your life. It’s going to manifest in different ways until you actually rip off the scab, get to the root of what’s on clean it up. That wound won’t heal it won’t scar over. Yeah. And so you’re going to constantly have an open wound that you’re going to be exposed to until you put in the work to feel in order to heal. So that’s just one example of many, but people feel lighter. They feel more free. They feel more like who they are and they don’t have to carry this external weight just because you can carry. It doesn’t mean it’s not heavy.
Speaker 0 00:24:06 Right? Exactly. Exactly. You know, we don’t have to live that way. No, we’ve it’s. How can I say this? You know, pain is mandatory, but suffering is optional and, and we don’t have to live a life of grinding and struggle internally. Uh, you just don’t have to, there is another option you can, if that’s, if that’s, if that’s how you get through and there doesn’t seem to be another way and you don’t have another idea or other resources, look, that’s fine. If that’s your path, that’s your path, but it’s not required. There is a way. And, uh, uh, it’s about, it’s about digging deep and understanding. What’s making you tick and you know, are these things, are these beliefs that we have? Are they true? Are they coming from me or are they, are they telling me a lie? You know, they telling me a lie. So when we look at this concept of living a life, that’s not necessarily authentic.
Speaker 0 00:25:22 When I talk to people, I’ve talked to people, informally, not clients and stuff, but I’ve talked to people informally and said, yeah, but like, do you really need your next job to be more like, to make more money? Like what if, what if you made 10 or $15,000 less? Like, wouldn’t you still be like, absolutely not. Like I don’t leave a job unless I earn more money. And, and so it’s one thing to say, yes, let’s question this programming, let’s question these beliefs. But so many people can’t see a path to even believing that their thoughts might not be accurate. So what, what are some ways that you have seen that are successful in helping people kind of unprogrammed these beliefs?
Speaker 1 00:26:12 Yeah. So I think just like pain perspective points as to what’s important. So I think bringing perspective into people’s worlds, whether it’s done by a coach or they seek it themselves, either one is effective. I think a lot of times people don’t, they feel silly to feel the way they feel. They feel like not worthy to feel the way they feel. And it might be I’m in a miserable job. It is what it is, but I need to pay the bills. They dismiss it. Right. So it’s like challenging the, not the thought process and the narrative. I will tell you for the one client that I just talked about, she literally believed it was impossible for her to feel joy. He literally believed that it was impossible to feel human connection and a bond with someone. Yeah. And in a matter of 30 to 45 days, by working through it, she literally has said, I just proved the impossible possible.
Speaker 1 00:27:00 There you go. Now the techniques can be different for each person. And it depends on the type of pain, the type of things that they’re experiencing, the narratives that they’re buying into. But I think on the professional front, there’s a couple ways to look at it. I’m not a believer that everybody can align their purpose and their passion with their profession. But I am a believer that people don’t need to exist in a toxic culture. There’s a lot of toxic cultures. And so some people are like, well, yeah. I mean, it’s not what I care about. So I just go and I’m going to endure all this just unnecessary berating in this toxic shame-based culture that I operate in because it pays the bills. Yeah. Well, that’s typically an emotional trigger. That’s keeping them stuck. So what I find is most people who have some thing that they need to challenge from a narrative perspective, the perspective that I’ll offer to those individuals, because I think perspective points is that what’s important is it’s typically not a combination of the wrong strategy or tactics.
Speaker 1 00:28:00 Most of the time, it’s a combination of emotional triggers, behavioral pattern and environmental conditioning that keeps people in that self-defeating place. Yeah. So is it that you feel unworthy of being treated with respect in your workplace, right? Is there a shame or a worth issue that you need to work through? Are you afraid of what’s next? I think you’ve got to really tap into what are the emotions that are keeping you there, understand what the root of it is. And oftentimes it has nothing to do with what’s right in front of you. It’s something way back in your past, in history that you’ve been conditioned into that you don’t even see. And so you just chalk it up to be like, Oh, well I guess my spouse is upset at me because I loaded the dishwasher wrong. When in reality it has nothing to do with loading the dishwasher wrong. It has something to do with how you’ve talked to her about how that triggers a relationship with a grandfather from 40 years ago, I realized that was like really hard sidebar when I just gave the dishwasher example. But my point is like, that’s what people don’t pay attention to. They don’t pay attention to, and they deny their own internal voice. Yes.
Speaker 0 00:28:54 Because sometimes, you know, if you ask someone, well, is it about a self-worth issue? Is it about a shame issue? Their honest answer is no, but that’s because, um, through coping and, and healing and scabbing over, like, we may not recognize that it really is a self-worth issue. Like, and it takes someone that you trust someone who’s who’s, who’s who you believe is holding your agenda for you to say, I got to tell you, you say no, but here are the two or three red flags that pop up for me that, uh, you know, maybe this deserves a second look. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:29:39 No, I think you’re exactly right. And that’s why I say it’s not just a coach. I, in fact, I think there’s many people on this planet who aren’t even ready for a coach. They haven’t put in the work to get to the point where a coach is going to be as effective as possible. But I do think that you need to find that outside influence. So it might be a spouse. It might be a parent. It might be a good friend. It might even be a kid depending on, you know, the relationship and the ages. Uh, but I do think that perspective is important. So seek that external perspective. Uh, and then the other thing that I, I have found, and I, I know that you just, you, you gave this example. I very rarely ask somebody whenever possible a yes or no question when I’m working with them in a coaching capacity.
Speaker 1 00:30:14 And the reason is right. Had somebody asked me if I dealt with shame, I would have said no. And two things would have happened. One, I would have not been aware to it. Cause I wasn’t for a long time in my life. And then two, I would have been defensive to it. Cause I’m like, what do you mean? Like, no, I’m not suffering from shame and worth. What are you talking about? Right. And so I think that information gathering, and so this is really more speaking to those people, those external sources, right? Coaches, mentors, teachers, whatever, ask questions to gather enough, enough information. So that it’s not even a question as to whether or not they’re experiencing worth shame. You’ve got such a body of information to be able to point to those red flags without ever having to put them on the defensive. And if you just embed the language appropriately, people start to come to their own conclusions. They’re like, Oh, I haven’t even thought about that. Yeah. Then all of a sudden it translates to action. It’s more intrinsic. The trust is super important though. And I’m really happy that you said that. Um, but I find that often, if you ask somebody about an emotional state they’re in just as a yes or no question they’re going to, they’re literally going to answer no more times.
Speaker 0 00:31:20 Yes. Yeah, it does. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:31:21 And I know, you know that, so that wasn’t to you, that was to everybody listening. I love it.
Speaker 0 00:31:25 I love it. Um, so Brian, kind of, as we reach, uh, the last part of the episode today, I want to kind of give some nuggets for the listeners to walk away. You know, people who, uh, would like to have some quiet time to consider what are some, um, obstacles that I’ve built for myself. What are some beliefs that I may have accepted that are no longer serving me, maybe at one time they were, but they’re not today. And you know, from, for me, I’d like to ask you to make, uh, to give some advice and some suggestions on how they can work on this. Um, in their own quiet time for me, I love journaling and writing questions, you know, uh, when it comes to my family life, what do I believe needs to happen? Right. Something as open as that. And then just write, write for 10 minutes.
Speaker 0 00:32:18 Right? And if you get to a point where you don’t know what to write next, just keep writing the last sentence you wrote over and over and over again until another sentence comes to your mind and keep writing. And then once you’ve finished, go back and read it. And, you know, question that and maybe talk it over with another member of your family, a spouse or, or someone who’s trusted in saying, does any of this ring true? Like, does any of this need a second look? And I feel like for me, journaling is how I got the guts to leave. My corporate career journaling is how I decided to become a coach. Journaling gave me all those answers because it allowed me to pour myself in those quiet moments, into one intention, which was, uh, uncover the inner message. And so that’s what I’d like to share with people. If they believe that you’re holding yourself back, you’re, you’re accepting expectations that, that, that aren’t authentic to you write about it. And you might be surprised at what comes up. Um, what do you have to offer with people about how to dig deeper in that?
Speaker 1 00:33:25 Yeah, so I have a bunch of things, but I’ll keep it really short and sweet on this one. I’m I will second your journaling. Uh, I’m a big fan of journaling. I think that sometimes just getting it out of your body and mind is really, really cathartic. And oftentimes if you don’t have somebody that you can talk to or someone that you can trust your journal, you can trust. And so, because it’s yours, it’s your thoughts, your own intention, and you get determined. What’s written on that page. And so I think I do agree with journaling. I’m going to also say though, I think that open-ended journaling is also a really effective way. So like you talked about a really primed, like prompted type of journaling, answering specific questions. That’s very effective. And I appreciate that, but I also think that sometimes just sitting down and writing, or if you are feeling sad, upset, frustrated, scared.
Speaker 1 00:34:16 I don’t care what the emotion is. Even happy. Just write about it. What made you feel that way? What, like where, and how has this manifested in your life? Where does this pattern repeat itself? Like just literally just write open-ended about it. I think that can be very effective. The other thing that I’m going to say, and this is really real right now for a lot of people, because we were all knocked out of autopilot a year ago. Right. And all of a sudden it’s like we’re having to reclaim back some influencing control in our lives. So many people. And because we were operating, operating on autopilot, we also were operating the unconscious. What we know is that the mind processes, 11 million bits of information per second, we’re only consciously or about 40. So what that says is we’re largely led by the gut unconscious.
Speaker 1 00:34:54 So it’s no surprise that so many people feel like victims and like life is fate and that they have no influence or control over their destinies. But how often would you get up in the morning and go through the exact same morning routine, get to the office. And you don’t even remember the first two hours of your day because it was just so routine. I, yeah. Now is a great opportunity to take toll and literally make two lists. One list is what are the things that bring me joy? What are the things that keep my, my energy up? What are the things that, you know, make me feel inspired, desired, make me feel like I’ve got something to live for that are the people that are complimentary around me. The sources of information, whether news or whatever that I put through my body that make me feel good.
Speaker 0 00:35:34 Yeah. And we feel good about myself and everything, right? Everything, everything like just
Speaker 1 00:35:38 Write it all down, right? What are all the positive, good influential sources in your world? Now the opposite to that is what are the areas that are toxic? What are the areas that are negative? What are the areas that make me feel depleted? What are the areas that make me feel unappreciated and the people and the sources literally write down those two lists. You know, what it feels like to feel good and you know, what it feels like to feel not so good. So this list shouldn’t be difficult other than it’s going to cause you to be really honest. Cause you might have people on this list that are your family members. You might, your job might be the greatest source of stress and toxicity in your life. And that causes you to end up to have a level of awareness to say, how do I take action on this?
Speaker 1 00:36:13 Because the golden is once you have these two lists move as many to the positive list as possible, and try to eliminate or remove as many of these, that aren’t positive sources in your life, you can’t get rid of all of them. Right. I just, I give that right out of the gate. Like there might be reasons why you can’t get rid of all of them, but you can at least remove as many as possible. So that is a tool that I use with lots of people because the stuff that’s on this side of the list is probably more authentically you. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not to say that what’s over here or over here is good or bad. Don’t put a label on it. It’s how does it make you feel? Yeah. More or less might be 180 degrees opposite from my list. That’s okay. It’s not about me versus you. It’s about you knowing what is right for you. And so that’s what I would just, I would, I would give that as a very specific tool for people to walk through. Um, because it’s, it’s at least the starting place. If you have no idea who you are.
Speaker 0 00:37:01 That’s right. And I mean, just to give an endorsement to that, uh, that exercise, making that list of what brought me joy, which was brought about by the fact that several people asked me if I was happy and I couldn’t, I couldn’t answer. And making that list was the spark that changed my life. And so it is incredibly powerful. It is so powerful. Yeah, Ryan, I am so grateful for you, uh, to join the podcast today and share your experience and wisdom with the listeners. And um, if listeners want to learn more about you and discover more of your messaging and maybe contact you for some help, how can they do that?
Yeah. So Brianbogert.com is my website. It’s probably the best place it’s got all my social handles, which are at Bogut Brian. I’m pretty much all of them. Um, but you know, to impact a billion lives, we put out a lot of free content, cause I’m very intimately aware that 99.999999999% of those people will never pay us a dollar. Right. And I’m completely okay with that. And so what you’ll notice is there’s lots of content that gets pushed out. That’s genuinely, they’re just designed to help you. Um, one of those free pieces of content, if you’re interested, you can also go to no limits, prelude.com. And what it is is it’s a sync download of a lot of our coaching philosophies in questions to lead you on that own intrinsic journey, start teaching you how to embrace the pain, to avoid suffering. And by the way, that might be all you ever need from us.
And if it is take it and run, I have no expectation beyond that. If you are interested in some support beyond that, great, all of our contact information is on there. Um, but we only want to help and how we can, um, not just to be there to help. So raise your hand if it’s a, if it’s something that we can be with you on that journey. So whether you know who you are, whether you have no idea who you are and where to start or you’re somewhere in between this, this resource will be evaluated.
Awesome. And can you spell your website for listeners on the podcast?
Speaker 1 00:38:52 Yep. It’s www.BrianBOGERt.com 

All right. Perfect. Thank you, Brian. I, uh, I’m grateful for you being with us today and I hope you, uh, have an amazing rest of the week. Thank you, brother. You have been listening to refractive podcast and this is Johnny G. If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, do me a favor, give it a share on social media or if you’re in the podcast app, give it a rating. If you’re on YouTube, click like, it really does make a difference in the search results. I am a speaker, coach and facilitator based in Washington, DC, but I work in person and remotely with people who are ready to step with clarity into their most authentic life. If I can be of service, reach out to me, Johnny@refractivecoaching.com -have an amazing day. Be good to each other and always remember
Speaker 1 00:39:47 Aim your light.