Start Your Day With Confidence

Hey Cadre fam, how you doing tonight? Thank you so much for tuning into this live session. Had an interesting day today. m. Right now. I woke up in the morning, I got news that somebody who I've been in contact with had COVID and you know, I wasn't really in the same vicinity for very long but had to, you know, figure some things out and do a little bit of quarantining. And so it wasn't the usual start to the day. I kind of hopped right into the day. But the way that I typically like to start the day is I usually listen to a guided meditation on insight timer.

It's a great example of the we that sometimes on my own accord I can't necessarily get there in the morning. But if I have a little help with that guided meditation right out of the gate it really, really helps me get centered. And then I usually say some prayers related to a twelve step program that I'm involved in for sobriety. And then depending on the day I might do some breathing exercises. I might go for a walk. Tim Ferriss recommends bouncing a tennis ball up and down and walking around the block.

It's a great mindfulness exercise. I try to eat a banana and get some protein in and do I do this perfectly every morning? Not exactly, but I, I don't miss it a lot. Also, if I have time I might do some morning pages where it's from this amazing book by Julia Cameron called the Artist's Way. And you basically just write out three long handed pages, um, kind of stream of consciousness. It could be what you're grateful for, it could be problems that you're having. It could be just random sentences just kind of letting it flow out there and it's almost a form of uh, meditation.

So that's another thing, you know, that I would definitely highly recommend. And so I'm just sharing some of these tips. Some of the things that, you know, have helped me. How did I used to start my day? I used to start it, you know, depending on what you were looking at it could have been starting it with a cigarette for sure for a long time. I quit smoking about four years ago. It could be taking a drink of alcohol or smoking a big bong rip. I quit doing that about nine years ago. No judgment to anyone who hasn't quit that or doesn't need to quit that or whatever.

This is just my story that for me I had to quit drinking and using to get to where I am and where am I now, well, I'm 34 and turn 34 in May. And at this point, when I was a younger man, I would have thought, God, I should be living in the Hollywood hills with the. A beautiful wife and an academy award, you know, by this time and millions of dollars. That's not the case. But what I do have, in some ways is richer than that, because I have peace a lot of the time. I have joy a lot of the time. I have bliss a lot of the time.

And do I want those material things? Is it still ingrained, you know, in me to want prestige and money and power? Absolutely. You know, I think that's so ingrained in our culture, and I think those are worthwhile, you know, pursuits for a lot of people. But I have discovered this spiritual side to life. And the fact is, if I am able to provide value to others, if I'm able to help others, if I'm able to be of service to others, that's what kind of cures my. What you might call hole in the soul. Or there's this thing inside of us that the theory is maybe used to have to fill it with drugs and alcohol, whatever it is, whether it's a mental illness.

I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was about 21. Whether it's addiction, alcoholism, whatever it is, something, you know, in my. In my thinking and in my soul and my emotions when I was doing that was. Was not working for me. And, you know, if I think too much about the why, what am I? Am I bipolar? Am I an addict? Am I an alcoholic? Am I whatever, then I. I get kind of bogged down, and I. And I used to try to think, think, think. How do I. How do I get out of this? But when I began to just take some actions, you know, and change some behaviors and, you know, invite a higher power into my life, things started to slowly change and slowly make progress.

And I'm a fearful, anxious person by nature. And that's okay. That's okay. I think just to be human is, in some regards, to be anxious, but that's all right. And I don't want to beat myself up for those anxieties. There's a great psychologist, I think his name is Doctor David Burns from Stanford, and he talks about kind of the flip side of an anxiety. So, say I'm feeling anxious about something. And recently I felt anxious that, you know, something I'm gonna somehow relapse with, like, a hand sanitizer falling in my coffee or wine not being properly cooked out of a pasta sauce or something.

Like that. And it's a bit of an irrational fear. It's probably not gonna happen. If it does happen, you know, I don't think it will. If something accidentally like that were to happen, I don't think it would cause me to derail. I've got a lot of support systems, but nonetheless, it is a fear. And I found that my mind does like to latch onto whatever it can to kind of say, nick, don't pay attention to the good stuff. Get fearful about this. And all we have is the moment. And so if I bring it back to that moment and breathe and let it go, and for me, if I talk about it, but Doctor David Burns would also recommend, like, acknowledge the good side of that anxiety.

So in this case, the good side is I can say to myself, hey, Nick, good work. You care about your sobriety. You care about your health, and so you are really mindful of that. So that's the good side. So rather than beating myself up, I can acknowledge that I care about my sobriety. I don't want to relapse. I care. And so if I acknowledge that, it's a little bit easier to kind of my highest self say, you know, I had a therapist who used to talk about, what would your highest adult self tell that portion of you that's that struggle in that voice that says, oh, my God, what if I relab?

Or what if I do this? Or what if I said the wrong thing at the meeting, at the work meeting, or I did this or that in that situation, my higher self is going to say, hey, it's okay. I hear you. It's all good. I respect where you're coming from, but it's going to be okay. And that kind of self talk has really helped me through the years as well. So these are just a couple of things that I wanted to share with you tonight. I hope they help. And I definitely want to talk about creativity and the role that that's played, you know, in healing and life and joy for me.

But that's all I got for you tonight. Cause I gotta get some rest. Rest is important. Get that sleep. As a friend of mine said, ronan, do your best and get some rest, which I think is pretty good advice. Hope you have a good one. I'll talk to you later. Catch you on the flip side. Thank you, Cadre fam. Here we go. Let's keep the ball rolling, and let's keep the conversation going.