7 Keys to a Meaningful Life

All Dr. Cooper

Welcome to the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance Coaching Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Bradford Cooper. And we have a little something different for you this week. I hope you enjoy it, but as always, you can let me know. I hit a birthday this week, number 55, it’s evolved a little more reflection than usual. You see, my grandfather died somewhat suddenly at the age of 49. My grandparents on the other side were previously divorced from each other and they got remarried back to each other in their mid fifties. My father-in-law a great man who was not only a physician, but also incredibly healthy himself, diagnosed with a brain tumor and died within the year at age 55. And my own dad who has certainly contributed to some of the lessons I’ll be sharing here today, did a U-turn in his own life at age 55, spiking, a completely different vision for the second half of his time here on earth. I would love to be able to sit down with each of these four men today and soak in their wisdom. While you may not read about any of them in the history books, the life lessons they would share, no doubt, be powerful. Thinking about their lives got me thinking what lessons have I learned that might be helpful to others? So here they are, the seven keys to a meaningful life, regardless of whether you’re just entering your twenties are maneuvering your way through the forties. Maybe you’re a decade or two ahead of me yourself. Now while I’ve written out the seven main points so I somewhat stay on track. That’s really the extent of my notes. I’m simply going to share some thoughts around each of these seven keys as if you and I are just sitting and having a chat in an outdoor coffee shop in old town, Fort Collins, or I don’t, I don’t know, sitting around a campfire up in the mountains. There will likely be a rabbit trail or two along the way, but in the end, in the end, I hope your life will be a little bit better for this time together. I’ve got plenty to learn myself plenty. So these certainly are not intended to be the answers by any stretch. By the way, you can always reach out to us with any feedback, questions about the next NBHWC approved health and wellness coaching certification, or even the Rocky mountain coaching retreat and symposium. That’s coming up this fall in Estes park, Colorado. The email is Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com or visit the new website any time it’s CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. So with that, if you’re ready, let’s give this a go. Here are my seven keys to a meaningful life. I’m hoping there’s a nugget or two in there for something you’re facing either today or will be in the near future.

Number one, dots, more creating, less connecting. Folks, I don’t know if you’re like me, but I have this tendency to try to connect all the dots before I create them. So, so I’m like, well, I need to figure out how are these dots connect? And then I’ll decide if I’m going to pursue this. And what I’ve learned, one of the big lessons in our life is the value is in creating more dots. We can’t connect something that doesn’t exist. We can’t, we’re not going to know how the dots are going to connect beforehand. We just need more dots, just get more dots on the page and then we’ll see how they connect. We’ve got to take some chances, go out there and take some risks and give it a shot. And, and you’ll find how those dots connect. It’ll make sense, but often not before, but rather afterward. The opportunities for us to learn and grow, they’re not just available. There are unbelievable, awesome opportunities at any age. Many of you know, my story, I went back for a PhD at age 50, that that was an exciting dot that I did not know exactly what it was going to lead to. And I probably still don’t know the full picture of that, but it was a cool dot, a valuable dot something that created a lot of other dots along the way. We’re looking for that opportunity to create dots, instead of trying to always know exactly how they connect before we’ll create any more. Folks growth begets growth. When you start growing in one area of your life, it grows other areas. You, you’ve seen this. You start exercising. You naturally started eating better. You naturally enhance your relationships. You naturally pursue better sleep. Growth, begets growth. When you start reading valuable books, instead of just bingeing on Netflix, you start asking better questions. You start doing more things. You start exploring more, you start engaging with other people. Growth begets growth. We, the more dots we create, the more dots that get created. It’s a really cool process. And I’m getting kind of excited for only being on the first one here. Huh?

All right. Well, let’s shift over to number two, and number two is tune in without tuning out. Now, the idea, this is acknowledging the external factors, the external things that are pushing against you in terms of your progress without really important, without taking on the victim mindset. You know what I’m talking about here? And it’s so easy to do. It’s so natural and it’s almost encouraged now. So I love to run. So if I’m out running, I might be, you know, running along this path. And I looked at my watch. I’m like, Oh man, I know I’m not moving very fast. And then I tune in the externals and I go, Oh, I’m running up a Hill right now. Or by the same token, I might be feeling like man, I’m cruising. And I’m not even feeling like my heart rate is that high. I’m just kind of, man, I’m really getting fit. And then I kind of tune in, Oh, you’re running slightly downhill or, Oh, you’ve got this nice tailwind behind you. It’s tuning into those externals. You can still celebrate. You can still acknowledge the fact that there are things pushing against you. You have, you have barriers in your life. We all do some of us more than others. I get that. But the idea is tune into those realize those are there, create ways to adapt to those or address those, but don’t go to the victim mindset. Don’t don’t shift to, Oh, I’m a failure or, Oh, no one likes me or, Oh, I’ll never be able to accomplish this or that stop tune in without tuning out. Also it’s interesting, you might be running uphill in one area of your life while you’re running downhill in another one. And when I say uphill that’s with the extra resistance downhill is when you’re kind of on cruise control. And you’re like, Hey, this is easy. So I don’t know. In, in your twenties, you may be running a little more uphill financially, but you’ve got a little more free time. Maybe you don’t have kids. Maybe you’ve got a more flexible schedule. Maybe you’re not married at this time. So you’ve, you’re facing more pressures in one area, but less pressures in another. Can, can you figure out a way to use those and balance those back and forth? That that might flip in your fifties? You might have, you know, a little bit more financial opportunities, but your, your time is more restricted based on family commitments and work commitments and those kinds of things. So maybe think about as you do this, tune in without tuning out, look at, okay, I do have limited finances right now, but what do I have? Where are my opportunities? Or, you know, whatever your thing is, and then dress for the weather tune into the weather, acknowledge it’s going to rain today. It could be windy. It might be cold. It’s much better, and when I say weather, I don’t really mean the weather folks. I think you get that, but I just want to say that out loud, what’s the weather going to be going into that meeting? What’s what are you going to face over the next decade financially? What commitments do you have with family or, or kids or your own goals, pursuits, et cetera, et cetera. How can you prepare for those things? You know, when you, when you’re out running, it’s easy to remove a hat, but if it’s too cold and you didn’t bring it, you are stuck. Over-preparing can be incredibly valuable in that, that applies not just to running for goodness sakes, that’s true for education, finances, your network. You may not need all those things, but it’s better to have them. It’s better to have that hat. Now, you’re not going to take that stocking cap when it’s 60 out, you’re going to be plenty warm, but you know, if it’s in that 40, 35 range, I think I’ll bring, it might warm up, but at least I have it. How can you apply that to whatever you’re facing now? So number two is to tune in that tuning out, acknowledging the externals without falling into that victim mindset.

Key number three is to differentiate between goals and resources. I mean, most of these lessons are things that I’ve learned by screwing it up. So I am not speaking as the expert here. I’m speaking as the, Oh my gosh, I’ve done this for so long. It’s so easy to confuse a goal and a resource. Money is an obvious one. Is money, a goal, or is it a resource to help you achieve your goals? And it’s a big difference. If it’s a goal, then you sacrifice everything at the altar of money. If it’s a resource you see, as one of many resources to reach the goals that you’re looking for, but it’s in the perspective of how does this goal fit into everything else, efficiency, time management, if you will, or use of time. That’s one that I absolutely raise my hand and say, wow, I completely mistaken those my whole life. So focused on making good use of every moment that that became the goal folks, efficiency or time management or good use of time, whatever you want to call it. That’s not a goal. That’s a resource, it’s a valuable resource. It allows you to do much more with your life. It allows you to accomplish much more. Yeah. But, but you see the difference. It’s, it’s, it’s not that goal. When I was thinking through these, these different things, I was going to go through today and trying to come up with, you know, a handful of them that I could share with you. I, I took a little digital recorder that I use when I go out for long runs and I’m thinking about stuff. And just when I thought of something, I just hit record and boom. That’s awesome time management, but I don’t do that when I’m out for a tempo run. I don’t do that when I’m out for a speed workout. I certainly wouldn’t use that in a race. You’re not like, Hey, I’m doing a half marathon. And I’m going to think about how to do this talk. No, see that that would be making time management, the goal, the goal is to become a better runner in this example. So how can you combine those most effectively something in your life that you’re making, that that’s a resource that you’ve shifted. And instead of seeing it as resource you’re seeing as a goal, because there’s a big difference.

All right. Key number four, easier to stay in shape than to get in shape. Now, obviously you’re thinking fitness when I say that, and it absolutely applies to fitness. I’ve had a lot of injuries in the last few years. It would be much easier for me to just like lay on the couch and say the heck with it. I’m just going to lay low until these things heal up. And then I’ll, I’ll start it again. It’s really hard to start again. It’s really hard, and then you start so slowly and it takes forever to get back to where you want it to be. If you can just maintain half of it. I mean, where I am today, training, we’re just talking a little activity exercise. So for me, it’s maybe jump on the bike. I can’t run. So let’s jump on the bike. Let’s get in the pool and swim a little bit. We’ll keep some of the cardio, we’ll keep the weight in a good general range. Do some strength training, make sure the muscles are reacting the way we want them to. And then when we get back to running, we’ll be starting over with some of those things, but not all of them. We’ll be 50% there. And it’s much easier to jump on that 50%. When, when you say, Hey, let’s see if we can increase 10% a week, 10% of every other week, 10% on a, a 50 out of a hundred comes up a lot faster than 10% of 2, like do the math. Now I’m not actually talking about fitness. I mean, I am that applies there, but I’m talking about any area of your life. Financially, it’s so easy to just, you know, just kind of give up for a couple of years and rack up some debt in whatever area. And then it’s so hard to dig yourself out of that. Whereas if you think that through and you say, wait, wait, let me, let me try to stay out of debt or let me try to at least minimize debt. So now it’s not always possible stay out of debt, but let’s minimize it because then when I’m in a role where I can start making more money, I’ll, I’ll recover a lot faster. I’ll get back in shape financially. In this case, a lot faster. Education, you see this all the time, you start off and you, you like blow the first semester or two, and you’re playing catch up for the rest of your life. It’s easier to stay in shape than to get in shape. It applies to any of these areas.

Next one, within this, this fourth, one of easier to stay in shape than to get in shape. Don’t underestimate yourself and, and what you could achieve if you gave it your all and chose to show up day after day after day. We’re a composite and reflection of those habits. So as we’re doing that, don’t underestimate what that small incremental effort can make. Even though, even though we’re not fully training, we’re not all in that staying in shape piece. The idea of, you know, what, just doing a little bit, don’t underestimate the impact of that. It’s very, it’s very, very powerful. And then the other side of that is the compounding effect. You know, that if you can stay at a certain level over a decade, two decades, three decades, whether that’s financially, whether that’s fitness and health, those things all compound. And so the, the, the choices that we’re making in our twenties and thirties and forties have a huge immense impact on what our payoff is in our 50, 60 seventies and beyond. So just give yourself a chance. One of the things I love saying to myself when I’m out, and you’re gonna hear a lot of running examples, just cause I just started running again. I’m super excited, but say I’m out doing a 10 miler and I want to hold a certain pace. Well, my mantra early on is just give yourself a chance. Meaning don’t drop off so far. You know, I may not be able to quite hold that pace, but stay in the neighborhood because if I stay in the neighborhood, then maybe on a downhill spurt, or maybe if a buddy comes up behind me and pushed me a little bit, then I can pick up a little bit and finish strong. But if I let up early, if I start off that first couple miles too slowly, then I don’t give myself a chance. And I’m saying that in your life, give yourself a chance. If you’re just starting college right now, give yourself a chance, go all in that first semester or two. And then you’ve got a chance. Then you can decide you’re not having your, your hand forced. You’re not being told well, you don’t qualify for this degree. You don’t qualify for that degree because your grades are so poor. You choose them. Or in your career. When you go go all in early on, because that opens up the doors for future, you may choose not to do some of those future things, but you have the choice to, because you were in shape, you didn’t let things drop off that first two months of work, six months of work, first semester of school, whatever it might be. The examples are endless, like give yourself a chance, put yourself in a position to surprise yourself in a positive way. So that’s, that’s key number four.

Key number five. Wow. We’re already over halfway. Key number five is attitudes and choices. Folks they are two way streets. They go together. Like they just run in parallel. I love to talk about the difference between got to and get to. One tunes into the choice piece. It turns into the importance of attitude. And the other one is just almost like we go back to our, our second key of the victim mindset or like, ah, I’ve got to do this. You hear it all the time and things that should be hobbies, you know, in, in the endurance world, I have buddies all the time. You know, I hang out with all the strange people the ultra runners and marathoners, the ultra cyclers, the triathletes, et cetera. And I’ve said this. So I’m pointing at myself here too. But a lot of my friends, it just cracks me up. They’re like, yeah, I’ve got to do my long run on Sunday. Yeah. Got to get out for that five-hour ride on Saturday. Right? Folks, let me just remind you. This is their hobby. Like no one’s paying us. No one cares, except you, you don’t got to do this stuff. In fact, most of the, there are some things that we’ve got to do. Granted, we don’t have choice. We’ve got to get it done. But a lot of the things that we’re whining about a lot of things that we’re saying that with, it’s not true. And sometimes analyzing that and we’re going to come back to this number seven sometimes analyzing that helps us say, wait a minute. I don’t got to do a long run. In fact, I am kind of feeling like it’s not something I want to do anymore and why am I doing it, Oh yeah, it’s my hobby. And I don’t enjoy it anymore. What am I doing? It’s ridiculous.

Second one under, this is the waiting piece. We all get stuck in this. This it’s just like this waiting period. And, and you know what I’m talking about. We all face this. We all, we all have our stuff and we’re forced to wait. Now our attitude is our choice in the midst of that waiting. The person, who can drive other opportunities or it can weigh us down in the midst of that waiting. And I guess that’s maybe something we should talk about is, is it waiting, like being weighed down or is it waiting, anticipating that next opportunity when we’re waiting, we can be looking around for those opportunities. We can be seeking out. Wow. Okay. So I don’t have much time to do this. So where can I invest that time in the mean time? Do you see the difference? And again, I’m the first one to say, I struggle with this one, but wow. Incredibly powerful. The next piece of this attitudes choices thing is, is serving others without martyrdom. Serving others, that’s an important piece of health and wellness. It’s an important piece of life. I, I hope that all of us are looking for opportunities to serve those around us, to serve our community, to serve the people that that we’re in community with. But I want to encourage you to ponder your style when you volunteer for that service opportunities. When you step forward, that service opportunity, we all just like with career pursuits or anything else, we all have our, we all have our thing. Like we all have our stuff that we’re good at and stuff that we were natural with that really fits us. And then there’s the stuff that, you know, what is it? Square peg in a round hole or vice versa where it’s just like, we could do it, but, but it’s not comfortable. It’s not, we just, we’re not enjoying it. And I think that happens far too often in our service opportunities. A quick example. So two extremes of this, uh, when it comes to service, sometimes the opportunity is, you know, you show up every Tuesday night to help with XYZ at 6:00 PM, you know, six to eight, and you’re going to do X, Y, Z. That’s kind of one end of the spectrum style. The other one is more of a buildup to an event you’re, you’re, you’re helping coordinate something. That’s kind of a one-time star on the calendar. And then you stop for a little while. So one is this almost like consistent over time, just, you know, a little bit the other one’s like this crescendo and it’s a lot of time and energy. And then it’s nothing for a little while.

Most likely as I’m describing those, you’re saying, yeah, I’m more the first one I liked that first one better or no I don’t really like the first one. I like the second one for me. I like the second one better. If I step into one, that’s more, the first I can do that, certainly. And if I feel called to do that, that’s that’s fine. Or for a season of life. But what I’m saying is if you can pursue the service opportunities that fit you, I get energized by the second one. It’s easy for me to fall in that martyrdom with the first one and vice versa. I know people that are like, Oh my gosh, I’d never want to do that. Number two, that would just drive me crazy. Okay, cool. Then don’t, don’t. The last thing I want to mention about this attitudes and choices being the two way street, is it the attitude drives the outcome in so many situations. When we have an attitude of expectancy, it’s amazing how many people will open doors, point us to the open window, come alongside us, put their arm around us and say, let me give you a hand with that.

I mentioned my PhD earlier, well I was super fortunate, but here’s the quick story on it. I had narrowed down about four or five universities that were, that fit what I was looking for. And one night I’m reading a runner’s world. And I read about Dr. Andrew Jones who was involved with the two hour marathon project and he was quoted in the article and said, he’s from the university of Exeter. And I’m like, wait, what? That’s one of my schools. So I reach out to him. I thought, you know what? This guy is super busy. In the midst of the two hour marathon project with Kipchoge. And, but there’s hope there’s potential. So I sent this email to him. He responds almost right away, tells me, you know, a little bit about school and he said, you know, I’m not your guy, but this, this other person is who also happened to be a Dr. Jones. Dr. Martin Jones, uh, reached out Dr. Jones and Dr. Jones said, yeah, he basically was willing to adopt me as his much older child for a period of several years. And then he brought a Dr. Mark Wilson on board. And so this whole journey started because, well, because I said, you know what, what the heck? Let’s just email this guy. Let’s just see what happens. He may not respond, but what I lose 20 minutes to write an email? Same thing with our podcast guests. I’m just, I’m just stunned. We’ve been so fortunate. And when people like Dr. Kelly McGonigal, David Epstein, Tom Peters, Wendi Wood, I mean, it’s just an amazing list of people who are kind enough to say, yeah, yeah. I’d love to do that. Every time I send one of those, the Porchaskas our hundredth episode. And they said, yes, and Suzanna will tell you how excited I was the day that they said, yeah, we’ll do that hundredth episode. That’d be fun. I was just over the moon, but attitude drove that choice. I don’t make that choice without that expectant attitude.

All right. Number six, we’re getting close here. Focus on the opportunity to grow old instead of get old. And this is true for our relationships, exercise, learning. Doesn’t matter. Continually ask yourself, am I growing old? Or am I getting old? Folks, reinvention is always available and it’s necessary. The grass is not only, I love the statement, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence. You know, that’s the old saying grass is always greener on the other side. No, it’s green where we water it. Now I love that phrase in the context of marriage, I am, I’m crazy about my wife and you know, we, we have to water our, our marriage, or it’s not going to thrive, but it applies to everything. Your career, your hobbies, your education, your finances, your friendships, your fitness, the grass, isn’t greener on the other side of the fence, it’s greener where we water it. That’s such a key area. And if we want to grow old versus get old, we’ve got to water those things, things that are of value to us. Now, within that, I want you to think about the pause button versus the stop button. I think too often, we feel like we either need to push play or stop. You have two options, play stop, but do we have pause buttons there for a reason? And I don’t just mean on your iPhone. I mean, your life, the pause button allows you and it actually leads into number seven here. So it’s good timing. But the pause button allows you to, to sit back and say, okay, hang on just a second. Am I doing this for the right reason? Is this a good choice as I move forward? Or once we hit the pause, you can always hit stop after that, that’s fine. Or maybe we hit play again. But the pause button now allows us to not just throw everything out. It keeps that door open for the future. If we want it while providing space for some other opportunity in the meantime. Last two things I want to say about this one. I’ve told our kids, in fact, we did a video on the YouTube coaching channel on this not too long ago, actually a couple weeks ago about the five people you spend the most time with, that’s who you’re going to become. Like the data’s very clear. You pick, you pick a category of life, the people you’re spending the most time with. And when I say people that can be authors, it can be podcasts. It can be classmates. It can be friends. It can be family members, the five influencers in your life. You become those five people.

So anyway, I’ve been saying that for, since our kids were born, maybe before, but recently I’m tuning into the value of people six through 15, and I’m making up those numbers. But basically the others that you’re close to, it may not be your core five. You become the five people you spend the most time with, but you grow as a result of people, six through 15. If they are simply mirror images of one through five, or you, we’re not growing, we’re static remaining constant. We need people to challenge us, people who disagree with us now, and not in a mean way, not in a cruel way, not in a jerk way, in a respectful, let’s have a conversation in a respectful, that’s really interesting. I completely disagree with you, but I’d love to hear what you have to say. You know, what’s the evidence that you’ve looked at. That’s caused you to think that way. I’m really curious. If you’re truly really curious. So we become the five people who we spend the most time with, but we grow as a result of the six through 15 that we also interact with. And then the last comment on this in terms of growing old, versus getting old folks put dogmatism to the side in whatever your thing is. For the first 50 years, maybe plus of my life, I saw everything black and white binary thinking completely binary, but we don’t know. There’s so little that we absolutely know. We have a leap of faith of some sort in almost every single thing that we talk about that we spout out as well, this is definitely true. Is it though? We know very little for absolute certain it’s the whole idea of the scientific method is to keep pushing back and say, okay, here’s the, here’s what we currently know. Now let’s knock into that a little bit and, and see where we’re wrong on that. And that’s a cool way to live. Okay, I here’s where I’ve landed in whatever topic it is. Now, let me keep investigating to see where I’m wrong, what a cool way you live your life. You know what? I know I’m wrong in a lot of these things, but I need people or things or books or whatever to, to help me go that route. So I wanna encourage you with this, uh, focusing on growing versus getting old, growing old, versus getting old, growing, growing old, not getting old. To focus on contemplative thinking instead of binary thinking. Contemplative thinking is, is what we’ve been talking about here the last few seconds. I wonder what there is out there. I wonder what I could learn. I wonder who could push against me and, and, you know, help me kind of share from what I’m thinking on this, or, or, or maybe nudge me in a different direction that I hadn’t thought about before, but we need those six through 15 to balance out the one through five.

And that brings us to key number seven life’s turbocharge might just be quiet reflection. We truly do have a life budget. It’s a reality. If we choose one thing, even if it’s a good thing, it means not choosing to do something else. And this applies to every, every single aspect of our lives, fitness work, friendships, food, free time. It doesn’t matter, like everything. And it’s really the bad choices that throw us off. Those are kind of obvious. It’s the less optimal stuff. It’s the, it’s the sixes and sevens on a 10 point scale that are crowding out the potential for more nines and tens. Is your life being built on nines and tens? Are you settling for the six and sevens? That’s where the quiet reflection comes in and you don’t need to go to a mountaintop and hum, just a few minutes sometime in your day. I prefer mornings, but other people different times to sit and think, okay, how did I spend my day today? Was that the best way to spend it? What’s tomorrow look like, how can I dial that in a little bit more effectively as you go through your, your daily routine, your schedule, your, your choices that you make. Again, there are some things that we just must do, but among those things that we’ve chosen are they sixes and sevens or the nines and tens are the choices we’re making about the sixes and sevens crowding out the opportunity that if we were to reflect, we could create more nines and tens.

Next thing I want to mention here is the, the joy meter. We did a video last year at youtube.com/coaching channel, where we talked about smiles per day, that it might just be the single best way to measure health and wellness is smiles per day. And we got some pretty, pretty interesting feedback on that. Now I’ll try to remember to include a link to that if you want to check it out. But with that in mind, smiles per day, I mean, another way to look at it as your joy meter, are you tuning as you reflect on your day either morning or night, or whenever, whenever you do that, are you thinking, okay, how did the joy meter look today? You know, you look at your, your fuel gauge in your car and you know, okay, here’s where it is. Or you see the temperature gauge in your, your oven and you say, okay, that’s where it is. Do we do that with our, our joy? Are we reflecting on how we’re spending our time? And, and if there are ways that we can tap into more of that, we’re recording this in 2021, hopefully toward the end of the pandemic lockdowns. And one of the things that I’ve realized is the incredible value to me, this is not a value judgment on these things. Maybe these don’t matter to you at all, but to me, incredible value on events, concerts, and sporting events. And it, from a rational perspective, it would be very, very easy for you to lean in and say, really, Brad, you spend that kind of money going to a Nuggets game or a Zach Brown concert or whatever it might be. Had you asked me this 10 years ago, I would have been like no, I just, I just didn’t want to, it was too much. It didn’t make sense. And I’m realizing sometimes a rational decision is not the best decision. Now I’m saying that now, let me take a step back just for a second. Be aware of you. If you’re somebody that is constantly making emotional decisions and you look back and you go, Oh, no, I did it again. Well, then you need to lean in, on the rational thing a little more, but if you’re somebody more like me that it’s like, Oh, if it doesn’t make logical sense, if it’s not rational, then I’m not going to do it. Then maybe you need to take the opposite approach and say, you know what? Sometimes I’m going off on emotion. Some things should not be decided based on rationality.

Two quick examples, both events, uh, the Denver nuggets, uh, our son has always enjoyed the Denver nuggets. I I’ve I’ve liked them, but the real reason I love those games is because it gives me a connection with him. We’re both kind of quiet. We text each other about the nuggets games, even if we don’t text about anything else in life, it’s that connection. And that to me is worth whatever it costs to occasionally go to those games because it’s, it’s not the game. It’s not the Nuggets. I could care less about the nuggets. It’s a relationship with a young man. That’s incredibly important to me. Similarly with our daughters, Ashley and Danielle, we took everybody to a concert a couple of years ago before the whole pandemic thing out at Coors field Zac Brown band. It was awesome. But the concert itself, no, the music isn’t as good. You don’t hear as well. Yes, it sounds better on Spotify. That’s not the point. That’s not the point. We sat there in the nosebleeds the sound wasn’t even all that great. But the eight of us are our kids, their spouses at the time, future spouses, we were together. And even now, when that song comes on that at the concert, it was dark and everyone had their phones out, lit up, kind of waving back and forth. I feel like I’m there with our girls, smiles on our faces, that connection, the cast of eight of us going to a concert like that is frankly ridiculous and worth every single penny. So we can’t take that stuff at face value all the time. Those kinds of events can be a conduit for the things that really matter. So if you lean in on the rational side, the logical side tune into the value of the other side, and by the same token, if you lean in on the emotional side, maybe it’s time to take a step back and say, I need to be a little more rational with this stuff.

Thanks for joining me for this. If you found it valuable, let us know. We do listen very carefully. We’ve watched the trends when, when people are doing more reviews after certain podcasts, we, we see that when you share it with more people, we see that when there’s more downloads, we see that. And that’s what we use to drive our planning in terms of topics, formats, et cetera. So we are absolutely listening. We appreciate it. On the coaching side, whether you’re considering a future career as a health and wellness coach, or you have some questions about how to proceed, or maybe you’re already a coach and you’re looking to enhance your skills or your coaching business, we’re psyched that you’re part of the catalyst community. And we’re, we’re absolutely here for you. Lot of other resources at CatalystCoachingInstitute.com if that’s your thing or reach out to us, anytime Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. Now it’s time, you know, to be a catalyst, making a positive difference in the world without burning ourselves out in the process. This is Dr. Bradford Cooper, of the Catalyst Coaching Institute signing out. I will speak with you soon on another episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance Coaching Podcast, or maybe over on the YouTube coaching channel at youtube.com/coaching channel.