What if conflict wasn't something to avoid, but something to embrace?

In this episode, we sit down with Matthew Abrams: leadership coach, EOS expert, and author of Inviting Genius, to explore how conflict can become one of our greatest tools for growth, connection, and self-discovery.

What begins as a conversation about leadership quickly evolves into a powerful coaching session, as Matthew helps uncover how our earliest experiences shape the way we navigate conflict, relationships, and even our sense of identity. Together, we explore the stories we've inherited, the masks we wear to feel safe, and why embracing discomfort can lead us back to our most authentic selves.

This isn't just a conversation about better communication: it's about understanding yourself, telling the truth with courage and compassion, and discovering how conflict can become a catalyst for deeper relationships and lasting transformation.

Topics We Explore:

• Why conflict is a gateway to self-discovery
• How childhood shapes the way we handle conflict
• Moving from people-pleasing to authentic communication
• The relationship between entrepreneurship and identity
• Fear, vulnerability, and telling the truth with compassion
• Why healthy conflict creates deeper connection
• Turning discomfort into growth and transformation

Connect with Matthew Abrams: https://matthewabrams.us/ 

Get your Copy of Inviting Genius: https://invitinggenius.com/

Learn More about The Viking Academy: https://www.vikingacademy.com

Episode Transcript:

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Viking Academy podcast. This week I have Matthew Abrams on the podcast. Matthew I met through Strategic Coach. We had this uh CoachCon event down in Orlando, Florida, and he did one of the breakout sessions and he was talking about this book that he had written and his teachings. It's the book's called Inviting Genius. And when I listened to him and I heard him speak, I was like, "Holy [ __ ] I need this guy on the podcast." I think we're going to hit it off like a house on fire. And sure enough, we did. This is a really great podcast. It's goes quite a quite a while. I think it's about an hour and a half. It's a good size podcast. What happened in here though and what I didn't expect is I knew we were going to explore a bunch of self-discovery tools and and to come back to our old programming and conditioning, but I didn't realize he was actually going to start doing an actual one-on-one coaching session with me. I had a huge unlock here when it comes to conflict for myself. And that's what inviting genius is about. It's about how conflict impacts you from your childhood all the way through your life. And actually embracing conflict is a way of finding yourself actually is what you want to think about it that way. You will actually find yourself if you embrace the conflict. Um we talk about masculine and femini fe feminine energies. We um we look back on our own lives on what happened and and pivotal transformations that happened for both him and I. There's a lot of similarities between him and I. But man, you got to listen to this guy. He's awesome. Um, I can't wait to listen to this podcast myself as well when it's done. So, without further ado, let's go explore.

You push the button on the um mixer. It works better if it's turned on. Yeah. [ __ ] dude. I That's what I knew what was going on because I've done that so many times. I've been sitting there talking. I'm going and everybody's like going, "What? What? What? What?" Yep. Totally, man. Yeah. It helps when the button start and they're like, "Push the power on." Yeah. Just those little things, you know. Um. Awesome. Yeah. Um, dude, your your uh breakout session at Coach Con was awesome. Oh, thanks, man.

That was I'm glad you found value in that. That was No, that was like that's what spurred me on to want to have you on the podcast, right? Yeah. I mean, I figured. Yeah. Like, oh, by the way, the podcast has started. Like, just so you know, because this Okay, I'm just This is a conversation. Like, listen. Great. I I hope you caught that. I forgot to turn my mixer on because that's going to be great. Oh, no. It's perfect. No, it's perfect because that's the best part of it. It's like, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is a real conversation. No, because I don't like it's not setting up kind of a stage show or preparing beforehand. I just want to have a conversation and and uh Yeah. Yeah. So, amazing. That's how it goes. So, dude, the your um your presentation at Coach Con, so that's where you and I met, right? And you got up on you were talking about inviting genius, your book inviting genius. Like I'm like I was blown away by the the connections of what you were teaching to business, spirituality, mindset. Like I was just like, "Holy crap, I need to have this guy on the podcast." Like, yeah, man. I mean, I I love this that sense of intersectionality because we are holographic. We exist on so many layers and if we're not addressing all of those layers, we're missing out.

And that that was the thing that excited me the most was just the holistic and and I am like when I was thinking about this, I'm like, I'm not even really sure where I want to start this conversation, but I got to start it somewhere. So, let's let's go to um so we met at Coach Con. So, for the listeners out there, that's a the um that's where you know I'm a coach at Strategic Coach. You're a member of Strategic Coach as well. So am I. Are you a member, right? You're I'm an alumni. Yeah. Alumni. You're alumni. Right. So um and uh so we've been coached by Dan in the past and it's a mindset uh coaching program for entrepreneurs, high achieving entrepreneurs. And so um you work you're you are working in EOS. Let's talk about that first. So, we're going to talk I would just a little background on your EOS um background and then how you got into inviting genius this book that you just wrote man like that that's that's it seems to be a what the reason what I'm trying to get to is that there seems to be a um I've noticed more and more people coming from the shall we call it the hard spaces of business and moving to more the woowoo space shall we call it like people are moving away from like the bit hard like so I was a chartered accountant and now I'm a spiritual coach like I mean it's like and I talked to other people who were like they were nurses and then now they're spiritual teachers or they're energy healers and what you were talking about resonated it seemed to me and am I picking that up right yeah well I mean they're all important what I find is that a lot of entrepreneurs will start out in the we have to have a good product we need to know our market we need a good marketing strategy we got to make it happen and then they start making it happen and then there's it's like okay now what? So I've been working as an EOS implement for 10 years and I have all these clients and they start and they need the operating system they need how do we do this effectively and then they learn that and then they'll hit a ceiling and the next ceiling is inviting genius. It's in how do we create the conditions to draw out the fullest potential the fullest expression of everyone and that's not a mind game. That's not a logic game. That's a spiritual quest and it's a relational quest and it's a self-discovery and evolution of identity. And business, I believe, is such a powerful vehicle if we let it to become a vehicle for self-realization. And that is the ethos of the Viking Academy. Like that is that is the ultimate ethos. I believe every human was put on the planet for a reason. But we're the only species that doesn't know why we're here, right? And so exploring yourself like a VI, go out and be in a Viking and explore, that's that's the quickest way to self-discovery. And it's figuring out who am I, why am I here, and what am I here to do? And so, one of those identities or the outlet for creativity is entrepreneurialism. Like, I love being an entrepreneur because it's a creative act. There's no difference between being a musician and an entrepreneur. It's the same thing. You're creating something.

It's a different medium. That's it. But it's really cool how you've kind of tied that back in. And that's why I was so excited when I heard you talk. I was like, "Dang, this guy got this guy in the [ __ ] podcast because it's what I've been seeing too is that it's almost like an awakening to the fact that you are a creative being, having a a spiritual being having a creative experience, but the outlet seems entrepreneurialism." and the people that I'm resonating with anyways because that's been my path and I didn't realize I was an entrepreneur. You remember the first thing you learn in strategic coach they teach you, oh well, what do you do? And they're like, oh, I'm an accountant. No, no, you're an entrepreneur with a specialty in accounting. And I think it's almost we could reframe that as you're actually a spiritual being having a specialty in entrepreneurial expression. Yeah, I totally agree.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the that's the deeper journey of the entrepreneur. You know, we start out, we have an idea, this idea resonates in the market, we want to make money, we want to scale it. Um, but then it we need to ask those deeper questions if we want as entrepreneurs to take our business and to create the conditions for everyone in the company to achieve deeper meaning, deeper purpose, deeper impact. And unless we're creating those conditions for the real whole human to show up and have a voice and use that voice from an authentic place, we're missing the boat. And as we move more and more into this AI world, which is obvious and it's inevitable and it's only expansive, we're moving from this information economy into a connection economy, into a relational economy. And how do we really harness the authentic nature of the humans to show up and do our best work? Because all the information, all the access, we have that. We don't need that anymore. That's an amazing gift for us entrepreneurs. But this is the next game, the human side of it, the relational intelligence side of it. And that's what gets me so excited. And that's what I've been I mean my unique ability using Dan Sullivan strategic coach or our good friend Chad Jenkins unique value contribution is creating the conditions for humans to live authentically for them to realize their fullest purpose and capabilities on this planet. And man doing that through the vehicle of business is one of the most exciting things I could imagine. I know. And it's w it's wild because from my experience, I didn't come to that realization until like not just recently that I started to realize that the entrepreneur and the m or the artist are the same. They're the same person.

They're creating. They're in an act of creative uh expansion because I like I always used to feel like I had a conflict inside me because I had two choices after I got out of university or after I got out of high school. So high school I found numbers and I realized I was really good at math and then I went oh this is fantastic. I'll I'll become an accountant. Like I don't even ask me why that happened. It happened because that was there was a calling inside me because I was good with numbers. But then I'm like but I had an opportunity to join a band that had gigs lined up from Victoria all the way down through Seattle all the way down to LA and back.

And they asked me to join their band. And so I was an I was a heavy metal and I still play in a heavy metal band right now, which is great because I I'm realizing I'm embracing all of me, but I had a choice to go either a chartered accountant route or heavy metal rockstar. It's like seems like polar opposites, complete polar opposites, which wild, right? But then the the journey went from accountant to frustrated with the old model. That's a whole thing to talk about in of itself. Just this heavy heavy laden model that doesn't grow like they're not entrepreneurial in spirit, but I was and I had this big breakthrough in that and then I realized I was an entrepreneur and then I started to create things and I thought it I thought they were two different things, but they're not like that. The path for me was a path of wholeness, which is what I love that you've brought that in there, too, is I'm embracing all of me and all of my experiences because it's clearly what I had to go through to have the awareness that I have today. Yeah, 100%. I resonate a lot with that.

Although the dichotomy for me was different, I was of this mindset of either I need to do good in the world or do well successfully. And I started I started a nonprofit and I was like, well, we're not making much money, but we're making a big impact. And then I started facilitating and designing retreats for EO and YPO members. And then I was like, "Oh, well, now I can like make money." And I see all these entrepreneurs making money. And it eventually I came to the intersectionality where, by the way, that's where all the magic happens. And I realized, oh no, this that was out of integrity. We can make a tremendous living and even make more significant, profound, and comprehensive impact, but we need to think about it that way in an integrated mindset. And as soon as I started doing that, man, it was rocket fuel. Yeah, that's that that's I have I've had that awareness as well because there was something inside. And it's interesting to figure out where that where that thinking came from, you know, that the big evil corporations or the big people that make all the money are the evil people, right? Like they're the ones that are evil. And then if you're, you know, you're either uh in a loin cloth on a mountaintop doing God's work or you're you're the evil snake and Wall Street making and stealing money from people and and it it's taken me a while for me to finally wrap the two together and go, "No, if money is just a measuring stick, it's just a scorecard to say how much value you've created in the world." Like I look at it that way and say this is the money. It's just saying if you've got if you created a billion dollars worth of worth net worth, then you've created that much value in the world because they're not going to exchange it. Like I'm not going to get paid for something that doesn't have value. Exactly. Right. And I'm a word geek and an etymological geek. So I think about the word currency. And if you break it down, it's two words. It's current and sea. So it's a flow of energy. Okay? Right? So, one flow of energy is money, and that's an easy, tactile, tangible, countable, stackable currency. But there's so many other currencies that matter that we just can't measure.

Relational currency, authenticity currency, well-being currency. So, relational in the sense of how are we showing up in relation? Am I adding value to you in your life? Are you adding value to me? Uh proximity currency, our relationships beyond the scope of you and me. So really it kind of like opening the aperture of the currencies acknowledging that money is one of them and it's a really important one. You know we need that but that's just one of the tools that we use that a enable us to leverage all these other currencies as well. And that shift in mindset was really helpful for me to change the game and change the question. And this is something I was listening to a couple of your podcasts, by the way. We have so many mutual friends. Uh I was listening to Christa. I was listening to Chad and Stell. And it's just so cool. Uh it's like hanging out with the the gang. Um, but just really understanding that if we can reframe how we're thinking about what is value contribution beyond the scope of money, like that's that's where the magic happens. And the thing that in listening to some of your other podcasts, which might be helpful for you, um, you're like this Viking, this notion of an explorer and the power of questions.

Questions are the thing that unlock a quest. And when we can be living, have a really good question and be living in that question, we're a Viking. We're off on an adventure. So the quality and intentionality of the questions that we're asking and this was the question that I was asking. How do we create the conditions for that intersectionality where we're creating comprehensive value? Um it's amazing where that journey takes you and it's taken me right here to you to us. So that's so cool. That's so cool man. Yeah, because that like that's been the burning question for me which is the ethos of the Viking Academy is like who am I and what am I here to do or like the three questions who am what yeah who am I why am I here what am I here to do right that that's that okay well let's go explore it let's figure that out so interesting just to come back to that that that question again which is where does it come from that this dicottomy or the shall we call it the extremism of if you're either Buddha on the mountaintop in a loin cloth creating love and joy and peace everywhere or you're the evil empire builder who's stealing money from babies and just making money. You're Scrooge McDuck, right? Like you're just you're just making all the coin. Totally right. It's interesting where that that that culture comes from and where that conditioning like and that's something that's really been resonating in my mind a lot lately is the programming shall we call it maybe go back to that verbiage programming of our personalities and that how we behave is just a an accumulation of programming and conditioning through experience through our environment through our internal experience and we're just creating this programming. So then like where did where did it come from? Yeah, it's a great question. Look, I don't have the answer. I have my perspective. Yeah, my perspective is like and I I write about this in inviting genius because it's re it's it's about conflict but it's really about conflict as a signal that we're out of alignment somewhere and identify that and return back to authenticity.

So one of the major reasons why we as humans entrepreneurs especially are out of alignment like chronically out of alignment is for two reasons. One is our acculturation and two is our experiences. So our acculturation of course that is a kind of meta type of experience but we all are born into this world and there is an implicit values architecture and we learn these things right we see the news and we see these like you're talking about these business magnates and they're eating their red meat and their like $100 bills going out the window with escorts and all that stuff and It imprints on us. Exactly. It imprints on us. And depending on how we're we're raised, right? Like our family, our community, our friends, our society, and our brains are motivated by one primary thing, safety and acceptance. And if we go against that, our brains say, "You're at risk.

you're at risk of losing your tribe, losing your community. So, you need to fit in. And one of the things I heard Christa talking about on one of your podcasts is is so accurate. And like the first half of our life, we try to fit in. The second half of our life, we try to stand out. So, we do this in so many minute yet omnipresent ways of trying to fit in. So, one of those ways is listening to the stories of society and adopting them. You were talking about personality. I think it's even deeper than that. It's identity. And we're not in touch with our identity. So much of our identity, I believe, is constructed through this automatic process of wanting to fit in. So we see all these kind of rules and values and philosophies that are out in the world and just through osmosis and just through relationship just being in that space we start to say this is good this is going to keep me safe this is going to keep me connected this is going to keep me in my tribe or this is bad this is different other people don't agree with this I want to be accepted I'm going to put that on the shelf and then ultimately hopefully And this is what I'm seeing with these entrepreneurs and this transformation that I see time and time again is they get to a point where they're confident enough that they have enough achievement that they can stop conforming to what other people expect of them and they can start the discovery process of who they authentically are. And with that comes tremendous confidence, capability, achievement, impact, all the things that we want. But it requires us to go on that hero's journey. It requires us to go into the valley of death and let go of all these things that got us to where we are. But a lot of them aren't going to get us to where we want to go. But there's no guarantees in that. So we need this leap of faith. We need to step into the unknown and start thinking from ourselves and start reclaiming who we authentically are. So long- winded answer of just saying that's one of the reasons why I believe we create these stories and we live with these stories and we take these stories as fact but they're really fiction. They're really something that's been told to us which we just ingested and uh processed and it became part of our identity. So we need to decouple ourselves with the uh identity that has been pushed in from the outside and reclaim that identity which is inside wanting to come out.

That was brilliant, dude. That was brilliant. I loved that. I absolutely loved that. And so I I pictured it too as you were Yeah, I don't know where to go here. There's so many avenues I could go on this one. So let's just talk about the fact that once you've you said about that leap of faith or taking that and having that courage that's that Viking mentality that I was looking at with the Vikings is that they were they were always looking to the horizon. They were looking to explore and so they were they had the courage to go and explore beyond the great unknown. Right. Yeah. And that's the journey you're talking about internally. And that's what the Viking Academy is and its ethos is go explore yourself. Like go and and you don't know what it's going to show you. You have to you have to go and have faith and courage to go and start this process.

Right? So that's like in the Viking Academy like maybe you're a beginning and you just want to go well where do I start? Or maybe how far can I go or who can I become is the ultimate thing is who who am I really at my core and I love the fact that that you've you've framed all that because it's it's something that I've been thinking about a lot like you said in your in your breakout session about the amygdala hijack and that's exactly what you're talking about here it's our old programming that says keep me safe keep me safe what's going to eat me who's going to what can I eat right what was it what you said like what's going to eat me? What can I eat? Those are two questions that the brain is constantly looking for, right? But we've gotten to a point in evolution that it's all it's like outdated programming, right? Like we don't actually need that anymore, per se. Like and so when you're talking about the mini journey of the entrepreneur is once you've achieved a certain level of material safety and well-being all of a sudden you start going well now what and I think that that underlying current of disease that these entrepreneurs have because I've worked with thousands of entrepreneurs as well. They get to this point of going, "H, I'm just kind of not really happy." And everybody on the outside is going, "You have everything. Like, what are you talking about?" And they're going, "Ah, I just don't feel right." And they're like, "Why don't you just be grateful for all this material wealth you have?" It's that inner calling that's telling them, "Well, now you've been conforming. Now, when are you going to actually express who you really are?" Yeah. I saw this quote somewhere. It said something to the effect of some people are so poor that money is all they have.

And I see what you're saying in that and that it's it goes back to like Masloww's hierarchy, right? We can get all the material wealth and be in a place of like at especially external perception like you've got it made and that actually makes it worse. They're like, "What? You don't have anything to complain about. You got it made. You have a successful business." Whatever. And they're like, "What's wrong with me?" And until they start entering those top tiers of self-actualization, and you can't self-actualize from an inauthentic place. You can't. It's impossible.

Right. Yeah. So that's where we need to go inward and be the architect or the archaeologist and discover you know what of my identity is not mine what of it was inherited through acculturation and what of it did I create to keep me safe from some trauma or traumas at some point in my history that I'm still carrying with me as protection or to fit in. Identify those and then release them. Release another etymological word, real ease. When you release that which is not yours and you just let it go, you experience real ease. So understanding what those things are that are not authentic and born and part of your soul's calling, your spirit, your God's image, whatever language you want to call it, we need to decouple those which were put in, pushed in from the outside and those that are authentic to the DNA of our spiritual being. When we can do that and it's not like a one-and-done thing although some people through you know plant medicine or whatever make some great strides. Um but it's a practice. It's a continual removing of the masks that we've inherited or we've built the walls around us to keep us safe to really be seen to be raw to be real to be vulnerable. And that's scary. That's probably the most courageous, brave thing that we can do is show up, you know, exactly as we are. And leaders, I think, have an additional challenge in that the external perception on us as entrepreneurial leaders is we have it all figured out. And that's another story that we have. I'm the leader. I need to have the answer. If I don't have the answer, then why am I the leader? So to say, I don't know. I need help. I don't have this figured out. I screwed this up. Like those are incredibly empowering and liberating things and um unfortunately a lot of the leaders that I work with feel like they don't have access to that that would go directly against the identity that they've created them for themselves and the identity that the world has put on them.

So there's a huge shift in paradigm and seeing how we see ourselves that entrepreneurs and anyone for that matter need to ascend those higher levels of Masloww's hierarchy to self-actualization. The um again literally this we talk about one thing and I think about 15 different ways different paths we could go down here. I want to kind of tie this back in. It's interesting. There's pain is the touchstone of all growth. That's something that I've that I keep coming back to. It's a pain of that is the touchstone of all growth. And leaning into that uncomfortableness. It's like people we don't naturally go after the the hard stuff like do the hard things, right? Like that go do the hard things first because it's always like wrong. Go do the hard stuff. Beat his man go like beat this this beating of the drum thing. Yeah. I found that even on my personal journey, I really don't lean into the hard stuff. I have to actually be in enough pain where I finally it forces me to go through it. And that's the one thing I loved about when you were talking about your book, Inviting Genius, was that the the the conflict which we you were doing in business. When there's a conflict, we're going to lean into that. I want to do a little more dive into that side, but I'm kind of relating it back to the personal experience, your actual personal experience. It's when you start feeling conflict in yourself and going, "Something's out of alignment. Something doesn't feel right." It's like, "I don't really want to do this." Or a bunch of my friends and people that I know, they're like all of a sudden they're like, "I just want to get rid of my business. I want to sell this business." Everybody's like, "What are you doing? I just it doesn't feel right." And you're like, "Get over it, man. You're making all this money. What's wrong with you? And but there's it's it's like there's a nudging from the universe saying here's a problem and I've been changing my mindset around this like one of the things that I I felt when we did the the when we're at Coach Con, Dan went through that failure exercise. He said, "Let's start with failure." And it's like all of a sudden I realized I didn't feel fear anymore. And he goes, "No, no, no. You still feel fear. It was I'm no longer afraid of the fear." It's fear isn't a problem. Fear is actually a really great signal that it makes you uh alert, present, and get feeds you energy. Like fear is actually a great emotion to have, but being afraid of fear is the one that really held me back. Do you know what I mean? Like there's a there's a meta visual to this for me. It's the story that we ensconce around the concept of fear 100%. It's like, and this is what we were talking about before, when I'm, you know, out and about, it's like all these benign things. I'm like, snake, snake, snake, snake, snake. Right. And it's it's the fear of fear.

And to your point, like we our brains and our beings and our lives have evolved hundreds and hundreds of generations beyond the saber-tooth tiger. Yeah. Right. But our brains haven't been updated. It takes a really long time. So we actually need to do the work. Like you think about growing pains for like a adolescent. There's a genetic encoding on how to do that, right? We don't need to stretch our arms out. We don't need to like like our body knows how to grow. Our brains haven't had that upgrade in our operating system. So we we actually need to do the work. And that shift from fear of fear to fear as signal, fear as information, that's where it becomes incredibly powerful and valuable and a tool that we can use to understand ourselves. Operating system and our reality and our identity and and that's where I saw so in your book that you had meshed from business because your book was written for business leaders right invited genius it was about embracing the conflict in the business but I read right through it and I was like this is about who you are as a person that's that's 100% what this is about and it's that that conflict and not and not shying away from it. Again, conflict doesn't have to be we're going to go and kill each other. Like again, with the Viking Academy, there's a there's a fine balance here. When I first came up with the idea of the Viking Academy, and I knew I had something, Dan, I was on a call with Dan Sullivan and he and I said, "Oh, yeah, it's the Viking Academy." And Dan goes, "Oo, oh, oh, oh, I like that." Goes, "Oh, I like that." Hm. He goes, "Rape and pillage." And I went, "No, no, no, no. That's not what it is." Right. He was but he goes it's intriguing but it's not that forceful Viking. It's not the the the the but it is a it needs you need to have the warrior mentality to go into the space that is the scariest part which is you like that scariest part unlocking. But when we start framing it like we have around it's just programming.

We're just talking about programming and really each one of us is like the the David statue or right it's the statue of David. We're just chunking away the pieces that aren't us so that we can get back to who we are authentically inside of us. Like I've really started to resonate with that going there's a me that's in there that's just got layers and layers of programming and conditioning and alls we're doing through this exploration is just being more of an archaeologist as you said. We're just peeling away the pieces that aren't us so we can find the authentic us underneath that which is the beautiful part. But it's a never- ending excavation. That's right. Like it doesn't end. That's right. Yeah. Good news, bad news.

Good news, bad news. Good news is your authentic self is in there. Bad news is you're never going to find it. But but it's the pursuit. Like I have a a I have all these different sayings that I write up beside here. It says, "Happiness doesn't come from obtaining things. It's found through the pursuit of a goal worth achieving, like worth going for." and going for your authentic self. And that just the act of getting closer to who you feel you truly are, that is where happiness happens. It's in the actual journey as opposed to finding it, right? Yeah. Or or achieving it. And that's like you're talking about and I think we both have experience with a lot of these entrepreneurs who have built a successful business and they're not getting fulfilled. Or what I often see is build a successful business, sell the business, then have an identity crisis cuz all the identities that they celebrated and were proud of are now gone. And they were all these external monikers. You are CEO, you are founder, you are leader, you are etc. And then when we sell the business, what a lot of entrepreneurs don't understand is they're selling their identity. Now, it doesn't have to be that way if it's coming from an internal locus of control, internal agency. But when we depend on those external affirmations, and then we sell the business, we are selling our identity. But if we can remain internal, like you're saying, there's a Viking that's outward, but there's also a Viking that's inward and exploration and adventure on an inward way. And when entrepreneurs can do that and do that difficult work of the archaeologist and consistently, continually rediscover deeper and deeper with greater nuance who we authentically are and what our values are. And what we believe in. Then we sell the business and we remain grounded and we remain intact and it's just an external transition from our identity over here and that's just one of our identities. We have many more and then we remain grounded in pursuit of the next. Whether that's a new business, whether that's traveling, whether that's woodworking, it comes from that authentic place within us. And there's much less disorientation that happens when we make these major transitions in life because we're internally grounded. We have a a centerboard that keeps us even keel.

Yeah, without that we lose a business, we lose a relationship, we lose a whatever that gives us our sense of identity and orientation, then it's going to be much harder. Oh, I've got that t-shirt, dude. Yeah, because I went through that with my first uh my first business where I was a partner in an accounting firm and it was 18 years of my life that I spent working up to that and then alcoholism took me down and the partnership exploded and my identity of who I was was completely shattered. Like it was just it it blew apart. But that's what I needed to finally put the bottle down, right?

That's what I needed to actually and I look back on it and I go I'm actually grateful for the whole experience now. Like I'm grateful for all of it because it's made me who I am today. And I'm starting to understand in hindsight and I that's why I tell people when I work with them is like everything that's happened in your life has happened for you. It's happened for you, not to you. To you is the victim. For you is like it's actually it's a gift, right? Yeah, this this gift and then and then our buddy Stell goes but then once you realize that life is actually working through you like three phases that Stell talked about but he goes happened to you now it's happening for you now it's happening through you it's that and this is what's taken me the last so then actually that was 18 years and then there's been another 18 behind actually I just I just realized that there was 18 years of that part of my life and then I've had a post 18 years since that crash.

Yeah. And so there's that's interesting because now I'm looking at it I'm a centered I'm centered in the middle because I'm realizing that the life life is just a big sandbox like I'm just here playing right now and and and Dan says this you as an entrepreneur you can ride different horses like you could go and ride different horses. I think there's a philosophical outline to that as well that we're just spiritual beings having a a physical experience and then once I've kind of grounded myself in that and I don't stay there all the time by the way haven't haven't been able to keep myself grounded in that in that I don't think many of us do in that knowing right I have moments of yeah I'm peaceful is everything and then all of a sudden something happens and someone screws something up in one of my businesses and I lose my mind right but it's that joyful play and discovery and constant learning that is like joyful like there's no like it's nonattachment, right? It's that non-attachment and and so anyways, I rambled on there. There was quite a bit. No, I love that. I mean, you're bringing up something for me, which is the the non-attachment is very different than not being allin like blood, sweat, and tears. Like this is so present. Probably recency bias for me, but I I set a completely arbitrary goal for myself. Sell 5,000 pre-sell 5,000 copies of Inviting Genius. Why? Because that felt like a number that was really hard but doable. And that sense of like if it doesn't happen, I'm not going to be gutted. I'm not going to be like I'm a failure.

And I'm like scraping, clawing, calling, getting uncomfortable, making huge asks, doing everything as if my life depended on it. But it's about the journey. It's about each of those calls and being present and connecting and delivering service and building the relationship and investing in the relationships and making it happen along the way. And you know, one of the books that I'm going to write in the future is called Deathbed Intentionality. So, how do we live every moment, every day, every week with that degree of deathbed intentionality? So, we look back and we're like, I left it all on the field. I feel really, really content with how I showed up. And I just love that notion that and again it's not this dichotomy. It's always almost always a transcendence of these dichotoies. There's value in all of it but it's there's almost no value in just one of it. So that notion of being allin, giving it everything you got for a very specific goal, outcome, impact, and then you you release.

Back to the word release. You release on whatever you achieve it. It doesn't go to your head. You move on. It's the next thing. You don't achieve it. You learn from it and you move on. It's such a more joyful way to live. And now, do I do it 100% of the time? Like you were saying, no, of course not. But it's a practice. Just like I asked Dan, you know, after he came out, he and Ben came out with gap and gain. I was like, oh my gosh. So, you are not really at all living in the gap and he's like only like 10 times a day, but he just recognizes it and gets out of it and moves into the game. So, that it's a practice. Yeah. The um it's interesting when you were talking about leaving everything on the field. So my daughter plays fastball and so we had the LA year-end tournament and the girls didn't do that great this year. They were the youngest group in this uh next age bracket and I had to bring girls from the bottom up. So they they didn't win a lot of games but they at the end of the tournament my daughter is the pitcher and she goes, "Oh my dad, my arm hurts so much." And I said, "That's fantastic." And she goes, "What?" I said, "That means you gave it everything you had." I said, 'You didn't leave an inch of energy left out on the field. Like, you put it poured it all out into this one thing. She goes, "Yeah, I did." And then she kind of walked away and I watched her like she stood with her shoulders up and she was stand she goes, "Yeah, I did. I I left it all there. Like I did all of it right but then not being attached to the outcome which is so like every spiritual teaching. There's only two types of books that I read like they're spiritual, right, or business mindset, right? Those are the two types of books I Oh, great. Inviting Genius falls into both camps. You'll enjoy it. I know. That's why I wanted to talk about this one. I love it. Right.

It's it's it every spiritual teaching is about you're doing the work. That is the the that is the the gift. That is what you gain from it is doing the work. The results. Leave the results up to God or Allah or Buddha, Brahma, baby Jesus, doesn't seem to matter what you call it, but leave the results up to the universe. The universe will then say, I'm going to take this and I'm going to apply it to the bigger tapestry, the bigger picture.

Right? It's like you've done your work for that one part of the puzzle. Give that to me. I will then use it to paint the rest of the picture. Right? And so your job is to Well, I've actually never even thought of it this way. Your job is to actually mix the paint and then give it to the artist, which is the creator, which is the infinite intelligence, to then take the paint that you've created, that color, and to put it into the picture that the creator has the vision of already has this vision of the the overall picture. And your contribution, that's what you're here to do, right? You're here to actually contribute that piece. But if you let's let's play with this metaphor because I really love it. So imagine you are red paint, right? That's what you're saying. We are the paint and then the creator uses us in service. But if I you're red paint and you say I'm blue paint, I'm blue paint. And you keep putting that message out there to the creator and the creator goes for the red and it's like wait, you keep saying you're blue. It's a confused signal that we're putting out there. And there's other reds that are clear and clean. And I'm red. Maybe I would like to be blue, but I know that I'm red. And creator, spirit, quantum field, whatever says this person has a clean signal of who they are, why they exist, what they're here to do. I need that. Yes. Yes. And I'm going to dip my brush into that and I'm going to paint my masterpiece and you're going to be an essential part of it. And and that's where we're talking about coming from authenticity because you've realized that that is the that is the shade of red that you are here to create. You're that shade red that the creator is putting into that part of the the landscape to give it that hue.

Exactly. Beautiful sunset. Right. Yep. And are you fire engine red? Are you candy apple red? Are you you know lipstick red? Whatever. I mean, the more clear of that internal awareness of who I authentically radically am and are unapologetic about that, with the more clear we can be on identifying that and putting that signal out there, the more likely our color is going to be used in whatever authentic expression to paint the masterpiece. Yeah. And it's it's but that this is the the thing the fear kicks in and again we'll talk about this is the amygdala hijack when we talk about being your true authentic self and being who you are layers and layers of fear kick in like even just talking about it I know sometimes I think just be your authentic self and I'm like yeah oh [ __ ] right and you're like it's like what's what is that risk what does that mean what do I have to give up I have vot vulnerable doing that 100%.

Yeah. Yeah. What's going to eat me? Right. And that's and that's that and there's it's interesting because I think that is so far has been my experience is that the more I start to explore and discover my shade of the color palette that the infinite artist wants to use. Mhm. The more energy and joy I feel like I feel more passion and purpose. And again that the ethos of the Viking Academy is like go explore your you know embrace your inner Viking, explore yourself and or explore your mind, body and spirit and experience the joy of self-discovery. You'll then find yourself living with passion and purpose because all of a sudden you're like you get up in the morning, you go, I'm here to do this expression, right? And it keeps growing. And that's why I see Dan as such an incredible role model. He's always like, I'm going to do what's fascinating and motivating. If I'm constantly doing that, he goes, why would I retire? Right? Like, and and I'm working with entrepreneurs. I'm like also an associate coach for strategic coach. So, I've got like about 300 uh clients that I'm working with right now and I talk to them and I'm like they're like I got to build this business to sell it and I'm like well what if you built the business you never wanted to sell and all of a sudden they go click whoa wait a second and that's and that's the question that unlocks a really meaningful quest for them and that's what we do as great coaches we ask great questions we don't map out the journey for our clients, we ask great questions and we support them in going on the quest to discover their own answer. But that's a beautiful question. Dude, you're giving me so much copy for the Viking Academy right now. It's like I should be you should be like the question unlocks the quest that finally you've said it only you've only said it like three or four times and it finally just landed for me. Okay, thanks. Um anytime that's but you know that's the other thing too like not taking ourselves too seriously like to come back to the leadership model that you were talking about like my experience when I was especially when I was going through the accounting world and I was trying to become a partner and it was like this important role and I was going to be the important person and I had to have all the right answers and when I sat down with clients I watched the senior partners having all these answers for clients and I was like that stress and pressure that you feel as an accountant is immense because when you're sitting with a client, you feel like I have to have all the answers. I have to know everything. And then once you become a partner, you you you feel like you have to have this bravado and this this knowing, but deep down inside, you're a scared little kid. You don't know what the heck you're doing. You know, I when I finally started being open and honest with my team and just saying, you know, guy, I'm not really sure if this is going to work. And they're like, what? And I said, I'm making a guess here. And they were like, really? And I said, and if it works, great. If it doesn't well let's just try something else and they're like all of a sudden I saw this weight come off their shoulders and I'm like it's okay but in the accounting profession it's even more beaten into you are beaten in from day one do not associate yourself with anything false or misleading ever right as a professional accountant you can't do that medical I mean you think about any of these major industries you have to be right all the time right and it's pounded into you and then you grow up believing that and then so many isms alcoholism, gambling, whatever, you know, workcoholism and and then we get sick, kills creativity, yeah, kills the joy, kills vitality, all of it, right? And then we model that for everyone else. Now we finally made it and we are embodying this dysfunctional, out of alignment know-it-all. Mhm. And what we're saying implicitly is this is what you need to be. This is how you need to be if you want to get to where I am. And around and around we go until something cracks and we need to repair.

Here's another one. Repair. Repair with who we authentically are because the lens that we were using to see the world is now shattered. So, we need to build it back up. And you had the wisdom to build it back up a new. You weren't like, "What was the prescription of these glasses? I need this exact prescription." You said, "These glasses weren't working. I was not seeing myself nor the world in a way that felt good, that felt aligned, that felt authentic. What does Let's build those glasses. I want to see through that lens. And you did it. And look at you now from 18 years ago. You're alive. You're vital. You're aligned.

Totally different person. I'm actually Well, I'm I shouldn't say I'm a totally different person. I'm who I would I feel more and more like I'm the person I was meant to be. Yeah. Yeah. You're your exact shade of red. Yeah. That whatever that is. It's a It's a fire red, dude. Like it's full on fire. It's like there's no there's no there's no throttle back on this guy, right? Like it's either full out or I'm out, right? Like I'm it's you know it's I often say this to people. It's like if it's not a [ __ ] yeah it's a [ __ ] no, right? Like it's it's that's it's but that's that's the personality that I have. It's which is also a I got to be careful on that too, right? Like I I temper it sometimes because I got to watch that extremism that I have which is part of my alcoholism and um you you we're talking about man there's so many again I keep saying this there's so many avenues I could go down with this with yourself what did you like your in your experience what did you where was the break point for you like where did you have your crossroads like I shared my crossroads with the alcoholism and that was like oh yeah point what what was it for you well this is how I opened the book is this story so I'm sitting in um mediator's office um who she's coaching my business partner and me our my last business it we were running it for five or six years it was doing well and then it wasn't doing well and we me and the co-founder were very out of alignment. And she asked me, "How did you learn conflict?" And I was like, "I don't know what you mean. What do you mean? How did I learn conflict?" And she said, "Well, how did your parents model conflict for you?"

And I said, "Well, they were very happily married for a long time until I was 15. And then they got in a really big fight and then their marriage slowly disintegrated over the course of the next 10 years, but they didn't have conflict. I didn't see them have conflict after that either. And the confluence between me being in exactly what I was we were just talking about like don't do this. I was doing it. I was I was the leader. I needed to have it all figured out. I need to have all the answers. I needed I needed whatever all the masks. And that felt like I how am I supposed to be perceived as the leader if I don't have it all figured out. So Amy Edmondson talks about fixed mindset and growth mindset. So I had a fixed mindset. I was so gripping who I thought I should be which was out of alignment with who I authentically was and the business failed and I saw myself as a failure. So that question that the mediator asked, how did you learn conflict was the seed of my quest.

So that was the seed and the decomposition of the of the business failing, breaking that down, making meaning out of that was the fertilizer for that seed. And over the next three or four years, I started to understand all the things that I'm talking with you about. This isn't theory. This is all practice. This is all something that I went through and realized that I needed to a be more in touch with what was real for me, be in an honest relationship with my truth, and then be expressive of that, especially when that's hard. Because what I learned was if you have conflict, you're at risk of losing all the things that are important to you in your life. That was the story.

It wasn't a rational story. It wasn't like, oh, this makes sense. It was my experience of growing up with my parents. And I, you know, when we all especially leaders have some kind of their own experience of this, whatever the trauma is, whatever the ways that we coped and built those layers of protection that served us in those moments, until we reconcile with that, like Carl Jung says, and until we make the subconscious conscious, it will continue creating the conditions for the thing we don't want, and we'll call it fate. So I over these next three years or so really reconciled that I was not in touch with my subconscious story. I was not living in alignment and this was leading to pain in almost every area of my life. So I had that awareness and then I you know I said well I need to know more about this. I need to learn about this. I don't ever want to be back here again. And it set the wheels in motion for a 12- year deep dive research, self-search journey on conflict and conflict as a vehicle not to be managed, minimized or avoided but to be leveraged. And then I started doing that. And then I started learning principles and frameworks and I started creating them on my own accord. And I started applying them and refining them and learning them and have continued to grow ever more aligned with who I'm authentically.

And that's like we talked about that's a practice that's a journey. But that failure in probably 2013 2014 was the breaking point for me. That's when the lens that I saw the world shattered and I needed to not get the same lens and put that back on, but really be on the market for a new lens, one that would enable me to authentically see myself in the world. And that was hard. And it still is hard. It's easier now, but it still is hard.

as you were explaining your story of your parents uh having their fight and then seeing the conflict and then you said, you know, if you and then the story that you created, if I have conflict, I'll lose everything. That means everything to me. That's right. That dude, I almost started crying when you said that cuz that all of a sudden hit home. That's another reason why I could tell that I resonated with you right away is that that's my childhood. Not my parents separate. They didn't separate like they're not separated and they didn't but we never had conflict in the family and if there ever was a conflict it was like almost the end like it was like everything was going to just disintegrate and I as you were talking through your experience all of a sudden it was like there was a you know a computer defrags itself you remember we used to do that defrag thing I mean I got I got enough grays on me that I remember defragging my computers I'd hit defrag and you'd walk away and let it kind of reshuffle itself. That's what happened to me as you were explaining that because all of a sudden I started to realize that that's why I have I personally have a hard time with conflict which is the funniest thing ever for a Viking, right? You'd think Viking, oh just he wants to go and fight everybody. I've got an axe. I've got a shield up behind me. I'm this big tough Viking, right? But I actually avoid conflict like the plague because and I'm realizing where it came from. I see where it came from now. You helped me with that, man. This is like a counseling session for me. That's incredible.

Amazing. Yeah. It's interesting. The a lot of the leaders that I work with have, and I'm not saying this is true for you, and maybe it has been, but it seems like you've done a lot of work on this, have an overindexed masculine. And you would think just like the Viking, oh well, if you have this like really strong masculine energy, you must be really good at having conflict. You might be good at being in conflict, but you're not good at having productive conflict. And like Mark Twain says, the difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. So conflict is very very different than productive conflict. Productive conflict involves us being authentic and saying what needs to be said and the healthy feminine of genuine care and compassion and listening and relational intelligence. So we need both of those. So that's one thing that I had to reconcile with too because I was more on the unhealthy feminine. Protect the relationship. Don't say what needs to be said. Don't rock the boat. And it led to tremendous amounts of pain and disconnection within me and between those that I cared most about. So and and like you I so many people when I tell that story have said you know their own story that illustrates the destructive conflict or conflict avoidant nature and the question that hopefully will serve as a quest is how is that showing up for you in your life today? Um, oh, I see it riddled. I see it riddled everywhere. Like that's that question like where is it showing up today? Where is it causing the friction in my life or the avoidance and the problems? When you were explaining that, you saw started to see how it permeated your entire life. Like I said, almost bringing tears to my eyes right now because it's it's so I don't know if primal is the right word for it. It probably is because it's the fear of loss. It's the fear of safety and security which is the as a child the most safe and secure you are is when you're around your parents. And so ultimately the hopefully yeah hopefully hopefully and you know regardless of how nice or um how loving or caring or whatever there is going to be something in your childhood that's going to cause you some sort of trauma. Shall we say that word's overused to a certain degree but it's it's there. I jokingly say it to my wife. I said, 'Look, our daughter Isa said she's going to hate us for something. Let's just know what that is.

And so I tell her, I keep telling her that. I said, ' Isa, you're gonna you're going to resent your parents for something because that's just how this works. I just want to make sure I know what that thing is. So, I'm going to purposefully do this just jokingly with her, right? Just for her to understand that. But that's that that that programming that that comes with us from that. It actually does. It lasts a lifetime. And that's one of the things that I've been doing over the last 18 years is really working on the self, working on myself to try and unpack these layers. And like you said, it doesn't doesn't seem to stop. Like it never ends. It's a neverending unpacking, but that's not a life sentence anymore to me. That's actually I actually feel energy from that now, which is it's a journey of liberation. Yeah, it is. It's a liberating journey.

Like as opposed to when if you were to hear it from the beginning that you need to unpack this for the rest of your life. Like especially when you go into recovery, they're like, "Okay, you can never drink for the rest of your life. For every day you're going to get up and it sounds like a death sentence until you go through it as you're going through it and then it becomes a life liberating. It's not a death sentence. It's a life sentence, right? It's your entire it's your your entire life that you have to unpack. Right. Um." Right. So, you brought up another point that I was really glad that you did because I was hoping Wait, hold on. Before we go to your next point, will you remember the next point?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Can we stay on this for a second? So, you said that your life is riddled with this. And I'm assuming what you mean by this is your acculturation with conflict as a child. And we can't talk about conflict and avoidant of conflict. And are you saying your life is still riddled with that you that patterning is showing up consistently in your life? That's what I'm saying is that I when you were explaining it and you were explaining how you saw how it was permeating your life and causing these problems, right? I can see and and this is unpacking as we're talking, right? So this is unfolding in my head. I can see what happened in my past was conflict avoidance which was part of the alcoholism, right? Alcoholism is a great hey you want to get away from numb it down baby go get you know dive into the you know big bottle of Jack Daniels and a pound of cocaine and let's have fun right forget let's avoid everything. I've seen that in its heavy destructive nature and all of my life and what's happened and my relationship with my parents, my relationships, every relationship I've ever had, conflict avoidance is been an issue, right? Yeah. And even today, I look at the way my micro, it's maybe not a macro behavior, but it's more micro now. I'm seeing the nuances of it. It's still here. Like I still can sense it but it's once you know you can't unknow once you once you have awareness of it is the first step so this is why I'm so grateful for this conversation is because I'm starting to see it now still in my life not in the extreme that it was in the past which I'm very grateful for but it's still there so when I see that conflict avoidance yeah I got work to do on this one still and I But you see how No, I love it. Here's the difference. I love it. I appreciate you. I appreciate you sharing that. And there's just a framework that can be really helpful because you're not alone.

There's so many of us that are navigating this and obviously other developmental challenges and opportunities. Um what I'm hearing is that this is called the competency framework where at some point you were unconsciously incompetent. You didn't even know. And this is where I was in my my last business. I didn't even know that I was incompetent. I had no awareness of that. And then the second layer is conscious incompetence. I know that I suck at this. And then the third layer is conscious competence.

I know what to do here, but I need to go slow, paint by numbers, one step at a time, and I will do it. And the fourth step is unconscious competence. So it sounds like you're vacillating between conscious incompetence and conscious competence. So my question and invitation to you which is a rhetorical one I mean planting a seed is think about those relationships those specific instances in your life or even better yet where are you out of alignment with yourself and with others that matter and what might it look like if you were to lean into that healthy masculine healthy feminine and and do the truthtelling at the same time embody the compassion. But more the challenge for you like it was for me and still is at times is the the radical truthtelling.

Just saying exactly what needs to be said cuz often times we'll say around what it needs to be said or we'll hint at it and we'll expect the other person to connect the dots which happens 0% of the time. And when we can compassionately share the truth, it is amazing what that unlocks within oursel within the relationship. The very thing that we're afraid of arming the relationship, the opposite happens. The relationship becomes deeper, becomes more tender, becomes more connected and full of life. So invitation for you, not something that we need to, although I'm happy to uh go into specific details, but I imagine like other listeners are kind of at this inflection point of like, oh wow, like I never thought about it. Yes, I feel like there are some relationships in my life that I'm not being radically honest with myself or with them. And here's an invitation for us to lean in because when we can, you were talking about the edges, the Viking, they go beyond what they know. They go beyond what is safe in those edges. That's where the magic happens in the edges.

But in relationships, it's because of conflict. Conflict is the gift that fasttracks us to the edge. We say yes. We show up in that space and then we navigate that competently, curiously, and honestly. Man, that's rocket fuel. I'm processing so much right now, dude. Um, okay. So, you didn't think you were going to get a real time coaching call on this podcast. This is awesome. No, dude. This is great. No, this is fantastic. I knew we were going to have a great conversation.

I just You never know where it's going to go, which is part of the fun, right? This is part of the fun. This is part of the exploration. This is part of like, okay, where is it going to where's it going to lead? Um, it's there is an underlying fear of loss of love. So, I've been I've been diving deep back into Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich and the other book which is a must- readad side by side which is outwitting the devil. Yeah, those are great. Those two books together, right? But the the six fears the six fears that he talks about which is the loss of love, right? That one to me is the one that resonates the most. Yeah. And and I know where it resonates back to my childhood and not have and fear of loss of love from my parents and it's kind of permeated all the way through. So when I look at the behaviors I do things to protect the loss of love.

Yeah. And by doing that I think it's a solution but it's turns out to not be a solution. It causes more of a problem. So what like remember when Dan brought up the issue of the uh someone in the when they talked about the the woman was talking about their child who's doing their drinking and trying to having a problem with that and Dan mentioned he goes that's actually a solution to your son that's been rattling around in my head a lot like all the things that you and I are talking about the behaviors that we've accumulated over time have been solutions to a problem we had at that time. That's right. And these solutions have now no longer no longer serve us because what they did to insulate us from what we thought was going to kill us because it's the amygdala hijack is now turned back as boomerang.

It's the thing that's holding us back from our authentic self. Like it's the thing that's actually which was a solution is now part of the problem. That's right. And what happened is, and this is so helpful cuz I never thought of bit about it this way, is back then, whatever fill in the blank of whatever then is 15 years old. You only have access, we only have access to one altitude and it's like, you know, 100 foot range. And the solution that we have is the only solution that we see. I'm in pain. Here's beer, booze, what have you. I'm going to do that. And then as we grow the complexity and nuance and sophistication, we now see all these different layers. So having a drink was the 30,000 ft symptom addresser. I have pain. Pain is the problem. Drinking is the solution. But it's the symptom that we're addressing. We don't have the capability to address the root issue at the time. Hey, mom and dad are [ __ ] up. They're not, you know, loving me and how they should be loving me and I need to like deal with this and have a real conversation. We don't have the capability or the capacity to do that at the time. So, we have take the one tool out of our tool chest that we have access to and we use it. But then we over the course of our lives, we acquire all these other tools and they're in the tool chest and they're at deeper and deeper altitudes, right? Behaviors, stories, emotions, beliefs, identity. And now we realize, oh, we can access all these different layers, but still we have this one pain that we had when we were 15. And we have one tool that we know that addresses that. So until we develop more of our literacy around what tools to access for those problems, we are in arrested development. And and I think that's what happens for so many of us. It's a pattern that we don't see. Oh, there are different ways to address this. Yeah. Arrested Development. A great show, too, by the way. It's hilarious. You like when I just thought of that when you said Arrested Development. I was like, "Oh my god, that's such a funny show." They the thing that what you just brought in there when you talked about and that's the part that I wanted to bring up was the masculine and feminine bringing those two together before we switched into one-on-one coaching mode with me. Yeah. Great. I want to bring that in as well because you're talking about I'm looking at my past self and having compassion for myself having not having had the tools or the awareness or the altitude levels as you've talked about. I didn't have access to the complex feelings and emotions or how that what I could do to address the issues that was happening as a kid. So when you look when I look back now on the little little Eric, I I'm looking back on him with compassion now going he created something a solution because that's the only thing he knew how to do at that time. That's right.

And and that's what it that's what that solution has then turned into part of the problem that big Eric has today. But I have compassion for him because I'm applying that feminine side. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's it's really important before your listeners are like, "What the [ __ ] are they talking about?" Let's let's dive into this masculine and feminine because yeah, like understanding the terms is really important. I mean, always, but especially in this. So, these are energetics. Think historical yin and yang, 5,000 years old. This is nothing new. It's nothing that I created at all. Um however it is something that I have been a student of and something that I have seen and to be tremendously effective applied in the context of business and applied in the context of conflict. So masculine feminine two different energetics has nothing to do with man or woman. Yes there are tendencies for more masculine traits to show up. Part of that is biological and part of that is sociological. We'll get into that in a second. And then feminine traits. Same thing is true for feminine traits. So feminine traits, you think inward, think fluid, think introspection, intuition, relational, curious, receiving, masculine, outward, accomplishment, structure, execution.

um truthtelling. All of those are great, right? They're great so long as they have integrity because if they don't have integrity and we're overindexing on the masculine or overindexing on the feminine, they have shadows that have very significant consequences. So think about in the context of conflict, the unhealthy feminine is what we're talking about protecting the relationship. I don't want to say this thing that will hurt that person's feelings. We want to preserve the relationship, but it's actually the most disrespectful thing that we could do to that relationship. And it's like there's a splinter in the relationship and we say I don't want to touch it. I don't want to make this person uncomfortable. The truth is I don't want to make me uncomfortable. And what happens when we don't address and that splinter? It gets infected and it gets worse and worse and it becomes contagious and affects other relationships. Especially I see this all the time on the leadership teams I work with. So, the unhealthy masculine is not honoring the relationship and just saying what needs to be said when it needs to be said without compassion, without an understanding of the impact that that's going to have. Both the unhealthy feminine, unhealthy masculine are destructive.

So, that's when we're thinking about life, conflict, and leadership. Great great leaders have the integration of both. They know when it's time to be the Viking, to go out there and map the course and I won't say conquer cuz I know that's not what your intention is, but to, you know, go make [ __ ] happen. They can do that. They also know how essential it is to them being successful in that that they slow down, they pause, they reflect, they ask, "What am I missing?" They enlist others in the journey. Especially when things get hard. When things get hard, the unhealthy masculine closes the aperture.

I got this on my own, right? The healthy masculine feminine integration expands the aperture. We're going through a really hard time. I cannot do this on my own. I got to call in all the troops on this one and we're going to figure this out. So, it's just a really healthy, helpful, powerful framework, a lens to see how do I show up in conflict? Am I overindexing masculine? Am I overindexing feminine? It's an also a very healthy way to show up in life and in business. So I I'll end with one story and then we can talk more. So my coach is our friend Christa Clive Smith. So I was talking with her um probably I think on Monday and I have this book launch going and guess what? Masculine masculine masculine. What do I want to accomplish? What's the strategy? Go execute. And a little bit of feminine sprinkled in in that each of the calls and relationships that I have, I'm pouring into it. I'm really being present. It's not about getting to that goal of yes, I'll buy books. It's really being present and connecting authentically. But she said, "Where are where in your life are you making space to receive?" And I said, "Aha, this is why you're so good." because what I wasn't doing was a meditation practice or whatever journaling whatever your modality is but mine is meditation and journaling in a receptive feminine state receptive to ideas to make things leveraged higher impact lower energy investment receptive to resources ideas books purchases is interestingly enough or not interesting uh or just kind of expected is the day that I started that practice I received an order for a thousand bucks right and it's I just like the universe is like finally you were listening and now you're doing what you're teaching everyone else about integrating these two energetics that oh that is the funniest one is when I I I I've catch myself because I I've got multiple coaching companies and I'm coaching people on things and then as I'm coaching them, as I as the words are coming out of my mouth, I'm wanting to grab the words and integrate them back into me and go, why don't you pay attention to your own advice, Eric? Why don't you why don't you actually implement what you're saying? Right? I catch myself sometimes where I'm going, "Oh, that's why that" And it's interesting because I see a a a connectivity throughout everything. I go, "That's why that coaching client had that problem and had was there to help address it for them because I'm not only the teacher, I'm the student at the same time." So, I'm a constant student and teacher at the same time. That's that whether you're coaching, whether you're in a podcast, I mean, I've seen you do it multiple times in our conversation today. And that that's the growth mindset. We're always evolving and we co-evolve, right? You talked to Chad Jenkins and Stell and you know we do this evolutionary work in relationship and when a huge part if you do not have conflict in your relationship I would venture to say you don't have a relationship because if we're being real and showing up we're going to be out of alignment sometimes and then we have friction then we have conflict and then we have an opportunity to navigate that and when we n navigate that effectively we have a co-evolutionary byproduct. You are not the person that you were before this conflict. I am not the person I was before the conflict. And our relationship is not the relationship that it was before the conflict. All of them have co-evolved. I have work to do on conflict. I can't wait to read your book. I don't have a copy yet. I'm going to get it. I'm going to tell everyone in the Viking Academy to focus in on that because that this this is one th this is what I needed to hear, man. I needed this podcast. Like, I needed to talk to you. I knew I knew it was going to be a great conversation, but I never realized how much it was going to impact me personally. Like, that's like I'm really really grateful for this conversation, man. Oh, man. Me, too. Yeah. And I don't see this being and I'm just I'm just conscious of time here. We've been chatting for a while now. We should probably wrap the the podcast up, but I don't I don't see this conversation ending here. This is not this is this is what you're working on right now and bringing inviting genius, which I love the title of the book because it's actually our internal geniuses that you're pointing to, isn't it?

Yeah. So the etymological root of the word genius is inborn nature. So we are all genius, right? That's the that's the premise which I live my life by and our job is to create the conditions that invite that genius out into the world which is directly in alignment with the Viking Academy ethos. It's just a different brand. Right? You're saying it one way I'm saying different language. But it's different language, but we're pointing in the same direction. It's the same. It's got the same spirit and energy to it. Yeah. That's why I knew like soon as I heard like we did that breakout session, I'm dude, I got to get this guy on the podcast. Okay. So, uh, inviting Genius.

Okay. People can get it on Where can they find it? Wherever books are sold. Wherever books are sold. And then do you have a website for the work that you do as well? Yeah, so the website for the book inviting genius.com. Okay. And my personal website is matthewabrams. Us. Okay. Like us. Ah, you and me. Got it. Yeah. All a And to come back, it's all a collaboration to Chad Jenkins, right? It's all a collaboration, man. It's all a collaboration. That that whole it's collaborating with the self to find the self in relationship with others. Bingo.

Yeah, that's it. Which is actually our self. We're all one. Dad bingo. Like just to put a cherry on the top. The listener might have gone on the brain on that one. Um, brother, thank you so much for being on the podcast this Oh, man. What a pleasure. What a treat. Anytime. Okay. To be continued. Okay. Rock. Yeah. Thanks for listening to the Viking Academy podcast. Make sure to leave us your honest feedback by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify and hit subscribe so you never miss an episode.