0:00

I've watched a lot of people step

0:02

right out of that and understand that

0:04

they have that fear about shining. But

0:07

go ahead and breathe through it, acknowledge it,

0:09

and go ahead and do what you want

0:11

to do anyway. Hey,

0:33

it's Kathy Heller. Welcome back to the Kathy Heller

0:35

Podcast. Today we have an amazing

0:37

human being back on the show, Dr.

0:39

Gay Hendricks. Really looking forward to

0:41

sharing this episode with you. But before we dive in, I want

0:43

to ask you a question. Have you ever

0:46

been curious about having your own podcast? Have

0:48

you been wanting to start your own podcast?

0:50

If you're thinking about it and you want

0:52

some of the nuts and bolts to get

0:54

started, we have an awesome checklist for you

0:56

that could really help. If you want the

0:59

free checklist, you can go to kathyheller.com/checklist. Pretty

1:01

easy. Let us know what you

1:03

think. I think that it'll really help you to

1:05

get started. It has some really good nuggets and

1:07

information in there. So you're in

1:09

for such a treat today because the delightful

1:11

Gay Hendricks is back. He's the founder of

1:13

the Hendricks Institute, a New York Times bestselling

1:16

author. He spent over 40 years

1:18

as one of the major contributors to the

1:20

fields of relationship transformation and body mind therapies.

1:22

He's been over 40 books, including one of

1:24

my all-time favorites, The Big Leap. And he

1:26

has a new book coming out tomorrow. It's

1:29

called Your Big Leap Year, a year to manifest

1:31

your next level life starting today. It's

1:34

a 366-day guide to maximizing

1:36

wealth, love, and creativity. If

1:39

you're a fan of The Big Leap, then you're going

1:41

to love this because it takes the big goals that

1:43

are explored in his book and breaks them into small

1:45

daily steps so that you can move into action and

1:48

stop pushing aside your dreams. And if you haven't read

1:50

The Big Leap, then go get a copy of that book

1:52

because it's such a game changer. It's always

1:54

such an honor to have Dr. Hendricks on the show. He

1:57

has this incredible zest for life. He has such

1:59

a beautiful... heart. He shares so

2:01

much of his goodness and wisdom. So let's

2:03

get into it. Without further ado, please welcome

2:06

the wonderful Gay Hendricks. So

2:08

first of all, welcome back. We've had you on the show

2:10

before. It's always such a pleasure to have you on and

2:13

the audience just eats you up. So thank

2:15

you for being here. And I

2:17

feel like it's such a perfect time to

2:19

have you here as we are finishing off

2:21

one year and heading into the next year

2:24

because the new idea of this

2:26

book is to help people sort of break

2:28

things down into daily actions that

2:30

can really feel like

2:33

progress. But I'm curious before we even get

2:35

into that, in case people have not read

2:37

the original or in case people don't know

2:39

your work, just give us a

2:42

decent understanding of what a big leap is.

2:45

What does it mean that we sort of

2:47

have this leap that we can

2:49

make, that we want to make? And then we'll sort of

2:51

get into the new book and how that

2:53

is so helpful in achieving it. Yes.

2:56

Well, in the original Big Leap book,

2:58

I designate four different

3:00

areas that people spend their time

3:03

in. The highly desired one

3:05

is the genius zone where you're doing

3:08

what you most love to do and

3:10

you're doing what makes your biggest contribution

3:12

to life. Unfortunately,

3:14

due to programming and life,

3:17

sometimes we spend our time in

3:19

three other areas that aren't

3:22

the same. And one of them is called

3:24

the zone of incompetence where you're doing things

3:27

you're not any good at and you don't

3:29

like doing. So unfortunately, a lot of us

3:32

still are stuck in doing things in

3:34

our zone of incompetence. The

3:36

zone of competence is okay,

3:38

but it's where you're doing stuff you're good

3:40

at, but somebody else could do just as

3:42

well. The third zone where

3:44

some of us get stuck still

3:47

is in the zone of excellence where you're

3:49

doing things you're good at and that makes

3:51

you money and get you out of girls

3:53

and out of boys, but it's not

3:55

really speaking to your true essence what

3:57

you most love to do. So

4:00

i started catching on to

4:03

this old gosh now

4:05

forty years ago and

4:07

i realized that i was only

4:09

spending about one hour out of my own

4:11

day. And my genius is

4:14

all yeah and so i started focusing

4:16

on building that up and it

4:18

happened i was working at the time with

4:20

a bunch of silicon valley. Exactly

4:23

sure incredibly brilliant people

4:25

but they would keep messing up over and

4:27

over again in all sorts of

4:30

odd ways and i started. Thinking

4:32

about that and i called it the upper limit

4:34

problem that they would get to a certain degree

4:36

of success and then they

4:39

would do something to mess up either

4:41

create a drama at home or a

4:43

drama at work or an illness or

4:45

an accident. And so i

4:48

began working with that and helping

4:50

people eliminate first of all eliminate

4:52

their upper limit problems but also

4:55

helping people make decisions. That

4:57

guide them into their genius is

4:59

all and it's not

5:02

gonna say it's an overnight process cuz it

5:04

literally took me years. To

5:06

go from one hour a

5:08

day in my genius zone up to

5:10

eight or nine hours in my genius

5:12

but it was all good because i

5:14

was always expanding my genius and so

5:17

that's what the new book is all about it's

5:19

all about. Taking three hundred

5:22

sixty five little leaps every

5:24

day that will build on each

5:26

other and actually three hundred

5:28

sixty six because. We put

5:31

this new book out on a leap year and

5:33

so it's called your big leap year and

5:35

so we want to give people something they

5:37

can do every single day to move their

5:40

life a little bit more into the genius

5:42

zone. Yeah those are all really

5:45

beautiful things to unpack a

5:47

little bit more and dive into one of

5:49

the things i'm curious about and i know

5:51

that you go over this in the original

5:53

the first book which is the big leap

5:55

is this upper limit. And

5:57

i know that as people are continuing.

6:00

to grow and have a more

6:02

fulfilling life. I've heard people

6:05

talk about how we sort of

6:07

allow for more expansion

6:09

at the speed of safety. You know,

6:11

there's something about our nervous system and

6:13

our preconditioning that as

6:16

you were sort of referencing,

6:18

the more things start to

6:20

feel good, there's a

6:22

feeling at some point of

6:25

this feels new and therefore it might

6:27

be too good and therefore it might

6:29

not be safe or whatever the preconditioning

6:32

is and then it kind of allows

6:34

us this way in which we sort of we sabotage.

6:37

And I know that

6:39

while people want to have a big

6:42

leap year, if we're working

6:44

against ourselves and we're not really

6:46

clear about the awareness around how we might

6:48

sabotage ourselves, I want to just get a

6:51

little bit more clarity on that first. How

6:53

can we understand that so that we can

6:56

push through what would

6:59

normally be an upper limit and

7:01

allow for more well-being and

7:04

more of our desired outcome? Well,

7:06

that's the great question that I began

7:08

asking myself because well, I

7:11

think I'll tell the story in the big leap but I'll

7:13

tell it a brief version of it again. How I first

7:16

saw this in myself, I

7:19

was entered, I got hired

7:21

there for a year to fill the place of

7:23

one of my professors who was going on sabbatical.

7:25

So it was a great way to start my

7:28

academic career. One day I'm a PhD student, next

7:30

day I'm a Stanford professor. So I did that

7:32

for a year before I went out to the

7:34

University of Colorado and started my main

7:37

career in 1974.

7:39

But anyway, I was sitting in my office and

7:41

I was feeling really good. My

7:43

research was going great and I

7:46

had just come back from lunch with a colleague where

7:48

he told me how his research was

7:50

going great. So I was doing what

7:52

I wanted to do and I was

7:55

doing a good job of it. So

7:58

I was sitting in my office feeling really satisfied.

8:01

The very next thing I started thinking

8:03

about my daughter who was six at

8:05

the time and I had taken

8:07

her out that day to her first going

8:10

to be three-day sleepover camp and

8:12

she was very excited about it. I

8:14

was of course very excited for having

8:16

three days off and so I got

8:18

back and all this good stuff happened

8:21

and so I was sitting there just

8:23

after lunch and I started thinking about

8:25

Amanda and I said, oh I

8:27

bet she's really lonely. She

8:29

doesn't really know any of those other girls. Oh

8:32

gosh, and I pictured her

8:34

sitting over in the corner feeling lonely

8:37

and miserable and so I

8:40

got caught up in that thought and I called

8:42

the director of the program whom

8:44

I just met that day, a very lovely person

8:47

and I said hi

8:49

to Dr. Hendricks. I was concerned about

8:51

my daughter at her first sleepaway camp

8:54

and I was afraid she's feeling

8:56

lonely and the woman was

8:59

really kind to me. She says, well in

9:01

actual fact she said I can

9:03

see Amanda she's out kicking a soccer ball around

9:05

with a bunch of girls out of

9:07

the field and she looks like she's perfectly happy to

9:09

me but if I may

9:11

say so Dr. Hendricks, you're the third

9:14

parent that's called me this morning with

9:16

similar kinds of concerns

9:19

and she said consider the

9:21

possibility that you might be

9:23

the one that's feeling lonely

9:25

without her. Suddenly I

9:27

figured why did I put

9:29

all this work into getting a stand for

9:32

PhD in psychology for the last three years?

9:34

But you know the old surgeon healed

9:36

I self just because you're

9:39

a psychologist and you've mastered all your

9:41

own quirks but anyway so I

9:44

was sitting in my office afterwards why

9:46

did I suddenly go from feeling

9:49

good to picturing

9:51

my daughter suffering and

9:53

I realized oh my goodness I

9:56

have an allergy of sorts to

9:58

feeling good I can only tolerate so

10:00

much of it before I

10:02

visualize something terrible happening. Exactly.

10:05

And it was just a revelation to

10:07

me. And so I began

10:10

looking at that in all areas of my

10:12

life because what we're really talking

10:14

about is F-E-A-R,

10:18

fear, false

10:20

evidence appearing real. So

10:23

I suddenly, because of my own allergy

10:25

to feeling good all the time, I

10:28

dialed up a painful thought that

10:30

I knew would kill off my good feeling because

10:34

all you got to do to somebody feeling

10:37

good if they're a parent is say something

10:39

even potentially negative about one of their children.

10:41

And you immediately go, clunk. So

10:43

that was my first clue. And so like I

10:45

said, I was working with all these brilliant

10:48

Silicon Valley people that were

10:50

inventing the future, basically, because

10:53

Apple was just getting started,

10:55

Intel was there. All

10:57

these things that became world famous were

10:59

just starting back in the 1970s. And

11:03

so I realized it's not about

11:05

your IQ. It's not about how

11:07

smart you are. It's

11:09

about fear. It's about the

11:11

fears that each of us kind of

11:14

stores up as we're growing

11:16

up. And then those later

11:18

become the fears that are between

11:20

us and reaching our full

11:22

potential. It's like in childhood,

11:24

we get certain gates put up

11:26

around ourselves. And then adulthood is figuring out

11:29

how to get through those dates out to

11:31

the larger world. And

11:33

so I eventually identified

11:35

just a small handful of

11:38

fears that were underneath

11:40

the upper limit problem. The

11:43

most prominent one, even with people that were

11:45

like Harvard MBA, that's

11:47

the head of a Silicon Valley

11:49

company. He's got

11:52

this fear underneath that

11:54

he's fundamentally flawed

11:56

in some way. And

11:58

I kept running across. that one

12:01

and even the most successful people

12:04

where they'd all come through as a kid

12:06

thinking they were the wrong color or

12:08

the wrong size or the wrong gender

12:10

and had internalized that

12:12

feeling of being fundamentally flawed

12:15

in some way. And so I

12:18

begin to help people identify these fears

12:20

that were underneath their upper limit problem

12:22

and that eventually led to writing the

12:25

big leap. Well I

12:27

remember so clearly not only

12:29

how I felt reading the big leap for the

12:31

first time but I remember that story in detail

12:33

and I remember that she was

12:35

playing soccer when you called me. That's how

12:38

much that I could feel it because I

12:40

could relate to that feeling. So

12:43

when somebody experiences that feeling

12:46

what do we do? If we're

12:48

about to sabotage ourselves or we're

12:50

not able to feel courageous

12:52

enough to keep allowing the good

12:54

to flow, what do we do

12:57

so that we can have a tool to

12:59

sustain it? Yes, well

13:01

it's one around here we call Hendrix

13:03

aerobics. It's a one aerobics move. It

13:05

goes like this. Ha, hmm,

13:09

ha, hmm. In other words

13:12

you see something out there in the world,

13:14

oh I'm doing it again. Go

13:16

hmm, what am I afraid

13:18

of and go to the source

13:20

of that fear? So that's your first move

13:23

is to stop thinking it has

13:26

to do with the world and

13:28

put your attention on what is my

13:30

fear that's keeping me from showing up

13:33

in the world. But that's a

13:35

tough one because a lot of us aren't

13:37

used to making that move. In

13:40

fact you have world-famous politicians

13:42

that are all about blame, blame,

13:45

blame, blame but you never ever

13:47

hear them saying, hmm, what

13:50

are we doing to contribute to this

13:52

problem? You know it's all about the

13:54

other people are causing the problem and we can solve

13:56

it which everybody just knows is

13:58

BS but we are kind of go

14:00

along with the fantasy. Sure. Well, as we

14:03

look towards making 2024 and every year hopefully

14:05

feel like progress, I

14:12

think first of all, I wanted to find

14:14

progress because I think sometimes people buy a

14:16

book like your new book or

14:18

they join a gym or they

14:20

start couples therapy or they take

14:23

on some version of a good habit

14:26

and they wind up

14:28

getting off course and then they give

14:30

up. So before we even,

14:33

you know, begin, since there's like

14:35

a 365 day

14:37

sort of record of prompts and

14:39

ways that we can sort of find our

14:42

way to new habits and things, what

14:44

can we talk about in terms of how

14:46

to set ourselves up for success and what really

14:49

is progress and how

14:51

can we lean into something that we might

14:54

not be already so great at like

14:57

making a big leap and sustaining

14:59

it or whatever it might be,

15:01

how do we lean into this project

15:04

and set ourselves up not to wind up getting

15:06

off course by day 13? Yes.

15:09

Well, there's one big word that you'll get

15:11

familiar with in the big leap and in

15:13

the new book, your big leap

15:15

year and that is the subject of commitment.

15:18

So commitment gets you into the

15:20

game. It's your entry ticket to

15:23

breaking up an old habit or creating

15:25

a new habit. Somewhere along

15:27

the line, you've got to make

15:29

a heartfelt commitment to it. I

15:32

have a friend that I see all the time

15:34

who lives here in my town, he

15:36

and his wife, we sometimes get together with

15:39

them socially and he's

15:41

a long time recovering alcoholic,

15:43

very successful person but lost

15:46

like 11 years of his life

15:48

to major league addiction.

15:51

And he told me that up

15:53

until the day he made the

15:55

commitment at the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting,

15:58

a thousand times he said... I'm going

16:00

to quit drinking." And friends of his

16:02

had said, you've got to quit drinking. He'd say, yep,

16:04

I've got to quit drinking. But there was

16:07

something happened on that particular day where he

16:09

stood up for the first time and said,

16:11

you know, my name's John, I'm

16:13

an alcoholic. I don't know what to do.

16:16

And I don't know how to solve the problem. Before

16:19

then, he was always, I can

16:21

solve it, I can handle this. And

16:23

then to admit that he was powerless

16:25

over it, gave him the freedom to

16:27

make a commitment to not

16:29

taking a drink that day, which

16:32

he did. And then he strung that now

16:34

into 19 years of

16:36

those one day at a time. And

16:38

so it's a beautiful thing to see,

16:40

but it all hinges on commitment. Because

16:42

until you can stand up and say,

16:45

okay, I, in all

16:47

my heart and all my mind,

16:49

I make a heartfelt commitment to

16:51

losing to 20 pounds or going back

16:54

to school or whatever the thing

16:56

is. But here's the other thing, Kathy, and that

16:58

is that around here at

17:00

the Hendricks Institute, we teach people to

17:03

be like an automatic

17:05

pilot of an aircraft. Like

17:07

if you get on the plane in New

17:09

York and you're going to LA, the automatic

17:12

pilot, the pilot types in the

17:14

coordinates and says, okay, we're going to LA.

17:17

But once the plane gets up in the

17:19

air and the automatic pilot is turned on,

17:22

it doesn't go in a straight

17:25

line to LA. That would be

17:27

impossible. What it does is good

17:29

at detecting drift. And so

17:31

it says, oh, we're drifting a hair to

17:33

the right, let's correct to the left. Now

17:36

we're drifting a little to the left. And it

17:38

does this hundreds of times a minute. Oh, I

17:40

never knew that. Yeah. And

17:42

it's always making corrections. Now

17:45

that's a superb image to carry

17:47

because you're always going to be

17:50

drifting off and breaking

17:52

a habit. I love that.

17:55

And now just get back

17:57

onto the drift. Around here we say,

17:59

catch you. the drift and make the

18:01

shift. So you notice, oh

18:03

shoot, I just realized I

18:06

broke my no sugar commitment by having

18:09

a life saver, which may have had

18:11

10 calories. But then you

18:13

say, okay, since I've broken my, I'll

18:15

go ahead and order the triple

18:17

banana splits. Exactly. But it's

18:21

much easier to think of

18:23

yourself as a recommitment machine.

18:26

You want to get into the game

18:28

with a commitment. What's going to get

18:30

you there is recommitment, recommitment, recommitment. You

18:32

know, like I suffered from childhood

18:34

obesity. I had a problem

18:37

with my pituitary and thyroid glands that didn't

18:39

even get figured out until I was later

18:41

on in life. So there was no cure

18:43

to it, although I was taken around to

18:46

a bunch of different medical people.

18:48

And one year I was putting on

18:51

diet pills. So I was a kid in the

18:53

ninth grade that was, you know, but I made

18:55

straight A's that I couldn't sleep at

18:58

night. You know, so sure, I'll study until three

19:00

o'clock in the morning. You know, the only year

19:02

of my high school that I made straight A's,

19:04

as soon as they took me off the amphetamines,

19:06

I went back down to being a

19:08

regular old. I made some As and

19:10

some B's and some C's. But so

19:12

I spent my ninth grade completely hopped up

19:15

on amphetamines. Oh my God. And I lost

19:17

weight during that period. But as soon as

19:19

they took me off the pills, I

19:22

gained back weight again. So to

19:24

make a very long story short, when I was 24

19:27

years old, I still

19:30

was trying to deal with my weight.

19:32

By then I weighed 300 pounds. And

19:35

by the way, I'm six feet tall and I weigh about 180.

19:37

So you look

19:39

at me, you walk by, you'll say, there goes an

19:41

athletic old guy. And I do, I work out three

19:43

days a week at the gym and play

19:46

sports and ride my bike and stuff like that.

19:49

So I kind of work at it and play at it. But

19:51

anyway, what happened when I was 24, I

19:54

had an enlightenment experience that

19:56

showed me what the real problem was.

19:58

I had a this moment actually

20:01

it came in the form of a slip and

20:03

fall, I slipped on some ice in

20:06

New England taking a walk and

20:08

I went down on my back and

20:10

a 300 pound person weighs about

20:12

as much as a refrigerator does. So it's

20:14

a you know I really boom down on

20:17

my back. At the time I weighed

20:19

300 pounds, more than 300 pounds. I was in

20:22

a really toxic relationship. I

20:24

smoked two or three packs of moral burrows a day.

20:27

I was in a crappy job, didn't

20:29

like my car, didn't like where I

20:31

was living. So all my cylinders were

20:33

not firing well in my life and

20:36

so I had this slip and

20:38

it didn't knock me out

20:41

unconscious but it knocked me out

20:43

of my, I call it

20:45

I had an out of Hendrix experience. It

20:47

knocked me out of my usual way of

20:49

seeing myself and I could

20:51

see all these emotions inside that I'd

20:53

never opened up to and

20:56

talked about in any way. But

20:58

the thing was down at the

21:00

bottom of everything in myself I saw

21:03

what I came to call pure consciousness

21:06

which is this gift we all have

21:08

of the pure consciousness of

21:11

just pure being. We

21:13

cover it over with all of these

21:15

different layers of programming and

21:17

so my programming had me thinking of myself

21:20

as fundamentally flawed you know because I was

21:22

fat. I couldn't figure out how to deal

21:24

with it and I was

21:26

taking around all these different medical specialists. So

21:29

I became fundamentally flawed.

21:32

That was my way of thinking of myself. So

21:35

later on in life over

21:37

the next year when I

21:39

started applying this new knowledge

21:41

I'd just gotten, I

21:44

lost a hundred pounds within a year by

21:46

only doing one diet thing

21:49

which was eating foods

21:51

that felt like they fed

21:53

my new pure consciousness instead

21:55

of my old 300 pound body. So

21:58

I started discovering these things that

22:01

they call fruits, vegetables,

22:03

is new concepts in

22:05

my life. I began

22:07

choosing a couple of apples and some

22:09

yogurt for lunch rather than a triple-decker

22:12

cheeseburger with the fries and

22:14

chocolate shake. Here's the

22:18

first upper limit problem that I had with my diet,

22:20

although I didn't know what to call it at the

22:22

time. In the first month, I lost

22:24

35 pounds. I felt like a million

22:27

dollars. I'd lost 10% of my

22:29

body weight in a month. Even though

22:31

I would have still looked back

22:33

to the outside world, I mean I felt

22:35

completely different. I'd gone down

22:38

to Cambridge, Massachusetts for the weekend and I

22:40

was walking down the street very briskly heading

22:43

toward the Harvard Book Store. I

22:46

looked to my left and there was an

22:48

ice cream shop with a family

22:51

of four devouring this triple-decker

22:53

ice cream Sunday kind of thing.

22:56

I just lost it. I went completely

22:58

unconscious and I went in here and I

23:01

ordered one of them for myself.

23:04

I ate this thing and for about

23:06

20 minutes, wow,

23:08

while I was riding the sugar high,

23:11

I felt like the king of the world. But

23:13

then 20 minutes later, I was walking down

23:15

the sidewalk and I actually doubled

23:17

over. I got such a bad stomach ache.

23:19

I couldn't walk. I doubled over in the

23:22

street and people were saying,

23:24

are you okay, sir? No,

23:26

I wasn't okay. It was my first

23:28

major. I didn't know what to call

23:30

it but I went from feeling great

23:33

to having the Sunday which destroyed

23:35

my diet. Boom. It

23:38

literally took me days to get that

23:40

toxicity out of my body going back

23:42

to my consciousness diet again. There

23:45

was my automatic pilot again.

23:47

I had to recommit after that

23:49

blow-up on the streets of Cambridge

23:51

Mass. It's a

23:53

great example. It's a great example

23:55

and it's so powerful that that

23:58

one change of the what

24:00

would feed the conscious part of

24:02

me. I mean, it's such a great

24:05

tool. So for

24:08

those that are going to buy this

24:10

book or lean into that big leap

24:12

in their life, what

24:14

can you help them to see as

24:16

far as what's possible? For a lot

24:18

of people, the reason

24:21

they sometimes don't commit is because they don't

24:23

believe it's even possible. So why bother? So

24:26

number one, how do we start to

24:29

believe in what's possible when we have

24:32

a hard wiring towards sort

24:34

of this learn and helplessness around something

24:36

we really want so we just don't

24:38

commit because we don't see the possibility? And

24:41

then what can you show us that

24:44

is a potential that we could actually invite

24:46

into our life? Yes. Well,

24:49

one of the things we do here is

24:51

when an executive person comes to us, one

24:53

thing they do is they go

24:55

in a little room on themselves, just

24:58

a chair in there. And for 10

25:00

minutes, we ask them

25:02

to ask what we call a

25:05

wonder question, which is a question you don't know

25:07

the answer to, but a question that would really

25:09

change your life if you did. And

25:11

so the first wonder question we

25:14

give them is we say,

25:16

really, what do I most

25:18

love to do? And then

25:21

we invite the person to take three

25:23

easy breaths, which

25:25

takes about 30 seconds. And then we asked

25:27

them to say the question again in their

25:29

mind or out loud, what do

25:31

I most love to do? Because

25:34

the future that you're going

25:36

toward is a future where

25:39

you're doing the things you most

25:41

love to do. That's your primary

25:43

activity. And the

25:45

byproduct of that is

25:47

that it changes the lives of other

25:49

people too, that it makes a positive

25:51

contribution to other people. So

25:54

the way I describe the ideal state

25:56

of life, it's not that you're going

25:58

around just grinning. high all the time.

26:01

Well, you know, you could get that effect

26:03

by soaking in a hot tub probably. But

26:06

really to get a permanent enduring

26:08

sense of good flow

26:10

of energy inside, you've really

26:12

got to aim toward doing things that you

26:14

love to do. And at

26:16

the beginning, maybe you only can do those for

26:19

10 minutes a day or an hour a day

26:21

or something like that. But that's the

26:23

place you've got to start and then you need to

26:25

make a commitment to growing that.

26:28

One of the things we ask people to do in our

26:30

intensives here is to use

26:33

a couple of mantras. Like one of them is,

26:36

every day I grow my

26:38

genius more and more. And

26:41

every day I do more and more of

26:43

what I most love to do. And

26:46

every day I do more and more

26:48

of what I love to do and

26:50

what makes the biggest contribution to other

26:52

people's lives. So gradually,

26:54

you know, it's like an old

26:56

joke about the person comes up to the cop

26:58

in New York and says, how do I get

27:00

to Carnegie Hall? And the cop says, practice, practice,

27:02

practice. It's really practicing

27:05

certain simple things like,

27:08

is this thing I'm about to eat,

27:10

will that contribute to my

27:12

pure consciousness and my genius or

27:14

will that take me away from

27:16

pure consciousness and my genius? So

27:19

that's a very simple thing you can

27:21

ask yourself. Another simple thing is, let's

27:24

say you get a call from someone and they're

27:26

asking you to do something, which is

27:28

going to happen. More successful you get in life, the more

27:30

people are going to call you and ask you to do

27:32

things. So it's one of the immutable

27:35

laws of the universe. And

27:37

so you've got to get better and better and

27:39

better at saying your yeses

27:41

and your nos very carefully. Because

27:44

in my view, we get to

27:46

where we want to get in life, partly

27:49

by becoming masters of yes

27:51

and masters of no. So

27:54

we've got to know what we want. What

27:57

do I most want? Some

27:59

years ago I wrote a little book called Five Wishes

28:01

where I live

28:05

for an hour and make up their

28:07

five big lifetime

28:09

goals. And

28:11

actually in the book, I sometimes call them deathbed

28:13

goals because I say if you're on your deathbed

28:15

50 years from now and your

28:18

life has been a success, what

28:20

made it a success? So I ask people to kind of

28:22

look at it from the end of their life as well

28:24

as from where they are now. So

28:26

for me, for example, when I really

28:28

did that, I was in

28:30

my early 30s and I realized Number

28:33

one for me, I wanted

28:36

to create a relationship with a woman

28:38

with whom I could grow and change

28:40

over the years where we could live

28:43

our lives together and grow together. I

28:46

had not had that. I'd had a bunch of

28:48

relationships since I was a teenager and

28:50

they usually lasted from say six months

28:52

to maybe two years or something like

28:54

that. One, I'd been in for

28:56

four years but I didn't count it because we weren't

28:59

speaking to each other for about two of those years.

29:02

But I figured out that's what I really wanted and

29:05

I didn't have that but at

29:07

the time I was just starting into

29:09

my relationship with Katie and

29:11

we just celebrated our 43rd wedding anniversary a

29:14

couple of weeks ago. And

29:16

so we've been together for 45 years and

29:18

so that started that moment where

29:20

I realized wow, that's

29:22

what I really want. Why

29:24

aren't I putting my whole heart and

29:27

soul and commitment into it?

29:29

And so I made a commitment to her

29:32

that it's been big enough

29:34

that it's lasted through 45 years

29:37

and two billion frequent flyer miles

29:39

and visits to Oprah

29:41

in Chicago and visits to the

29:44

Taj Mahal and all the things that we've done

29:46

in our lives come from some

29:48

sort of commitment. And

29:50

so I can't overstate

29:52

the value of heartfelt commitment because

29:54

that's really your entry ticket to

29:56

the good things of life.

30:00

So that's one thing you can

30:02

do is sit down and it doesn't take

30:04

long, but figure out what are the most

30:06

important things for you. That's your yeses. But

30:10

then you've got to figure out what are your

30:12

noes. Like the

30:14

month before I met Katie, I sometimes

30:17

say she's the answer to a

30:19

prayer because the month before I

30:21

met her in 1979,

30:24

I had been in this

30:26

on-again, off-and-on relationship for years with

30:28

a woman named Carol. And

30:32

we had this one magic

30:34

day. I was in

30:36

an argument with her. We'd get back together and then

30:38

we'd argue and we'd be apart for a few months

30:40

or a few days or something.

30:44

But I realized I was in the middle of this argument and

30:47

I had the insight, oh, this is

30:49

not our 500th argument. This

30:52

is our 500th run-through of

30:54

the same argument. I saw

30:56

how it all went. Like one of us

30:59

would not tell the truth about something

31:02

and then we'd begin to project onto

31:04

the other person, to criticize

31:06

the other person. And

31:08

then the other person would make a run

31:10

for the victim position and then both people

31:13

would fight out of the victim position until

31:15

they got tired of it and changed

31:17

the subject. And so I

31:19

saw that pattern and

31:22

I actually, I probably did spend

31:24

about an hour going back to

31:26

my cottage and thinking, okay, what

31:28

are my, what I call then

31:30

my three absolute yeses and my

31:32

three absolute nos about relationship? And

31:35

so I said, okay, I want somebody that I can

31:37

be honest with 100% of the time. I

31:40

want somebody that will take

31:42

responsibility. If I take responsibility for

31:44

something, I'd had

31:46

the experience if I said, okay, I take responsibility

31:49

for this, Carol would say, see, it

31:51

is all your fault. And what

31:53

I was looking for is her to take personal

31:55

responsibility too. And for both of us to come

31:58

at it that way rather than fight. for the

32:00

victim position. So I said, okay, I want

32:02

somebody who's willing to take responsibility. And

32:05

my third one was I want somebody

32:07

who's really committed to their creativity. Because

32:09

one thing I had seen is

32:11

when I was really grooving

32:14

on my creativity, I

32:16

didn't complain about my relationship very

32:18

much. You know, it

32:20

was only when I was cheating on my

32:22

creativity that I began to find fault with

32:24

other people. So I was cheating myself and

32:27

then looking for other people that were cheating

32:29

me. And so I

32:32

said, okay, I want a person who's

32:34

got those three things. So

32:36

I don't have to think about that or argue

32:38

about that. And then

32:41

my three absolute no's were I

32:43

want somebody who's not

32:46

addicted to some chemical.

32:49

Because I had been in a relationship with a

32:51

person who was, you know,

32:53

a secret alcoholic, I would say now,

32:56

looking back at it. And she

32:58

came from that kind of family too. But

33:00

I didn't see it at the time, you know, as I

33:02

was so lost in the drama with her. The

33:05

second thing, I got in a relationship

33:07

with another woman who was

33:10

a Valium enthusiast. And

33:13

so that kept her from kind of being in

33:15

the presence. She was always sort of one

33:17

beach away from the presence. And

33:20

so I said, okay, I don't want any more

33:22

chemical addict. And number two, I

33:25

don't want any more relationships

33:27

with people who have

33:29

a lot of other dramas going

33:31

on. Because I've

33:34

been in a relationship where this person was always

33:36

consumed in a drama at work. And he

33:39

would come in the door in the evening

33:41

talking about that, leave in the morning talking

33:43

about it. And I was really tired of

33:45

that. And I'm having trouble thinking at the

33:48

moment what my third absolute no was. And

33:50

maybe it'll come to me. But what I'm

33:52

saying is, I made a commitment to creating

33:54

a relationship where those three things could

33:57

happen. And a month

33:59

later. law and behold,

34:01

I bet the person that because

34:22

most people are so unconscious and it

34:25

requires really beautiful awareness to have

34:27

done the work you did to

34:29

see that. What I

34:32

noticed about my own life

34:34

and working with the women that I've worked

34:36

with so so many amazing

34:38

people who listen to this show over the

34:40

last seven years, there's

34:42

a lack of self-worth

34:46

that I see and when you talked about how

34:48

important it is for women to say what

34:51

they say yes to and what they say no to, there's

34:54

definitely a sort of

34:56

conditioning where I see a lot of women over

34:58

function, right? They're depleted. So

35:01

there's almost like a rebuilding

35:04

of the self-worth to

35:06

where they have to kind of understand like

35:08

a light switch goes on and maybe you can

35:10

help with this is

35:12

to share what

35:14

might we want to understand about the fact that

35:17

it's not selfish to

35:19

say no and you

35:21

actually can create

35:23

a life that you like. I

35:25

think there's just a lot

35:28

that's carried down from one generation of

35:30

another where women didn't

35:32

necessarily see their mothers or their grandmothers

35:35

show up for themselves. There's just this

35:38

inherent feeling that if you want to

35:40

be a good person, you just

35:42

always say yes and

35:44

being depleted is just something that is and you

35:47

don't put up boundaries or expectations of

35:49

anyone and therefore we don't

35:52

even begin to ask questions like you're

35:54

even posing and so I think

35:56

we need to redefine what

35:59

is actually permissible and it

36:01

doesn't make you selfish, it

36:04

actually creates really beautiful

36:06

intimacy opportunities and health

36:09

and good modeling for your kids. And it's

36:11

awesome in every relationship to have yeses

36:14

and boundaries and no's and clarity and

36:16

what makes you feel good. And I

36:18

just I see it in

36:20

myself and in a lot of women just the

36:23

the lack of

36:25

feeling worthy of having

36:27

that. They always need

36:29

to be nice and they just

36:32

don't even know a life

36:34

without over-sensuring and hypervigilance. I

36:37

got massive early training in

36:39

that because my mother I grew up in

36:41

a single parent family my mother's a very

36:44

powerful person and she was the

36:46

mayor of my town. Oh my god. And

36:48

she had a lot of and she also

36:50

wrote a daily column in the newspaper she

36:52

was a newspaper journalist and

36:54

so she was an extremely

36:56

busy person and the

36:58

phone would ring and it would be somebody from

37:01

my fifth grade or the teacher

37:03

for the fifth grade class I was in

37:06

and they'd be asked here to make a

37:08

dozen cookies or would you make two dozen

37:11

cookies for this meeting and

37:14

my mother would always say yes yes you know

37:16

in a very gracious way but

37:18

as soon as the phone came down

37:20

you know that she would blow up

37:22

at having said yes to this

37:24

but the idea of saying no to it this

37:26

wasn't in her vocabulary and there's

37:29

another thing Kathy that you know

37:31

I've worked with a lot of powerful women

37:34

and I work a lot with women

37:36

entrepreneurs in their 30s and their 40s in

37:39

my mentorship program and one

37:41

of the things that often women

37:44

have to face that a lot of men don't have

37:46

to face is in

37:48

their programming a lot of

37:51

women are programmed to hang

37:53

back and let the light

37:55

go to somebody else you

37:57

know to be facilitators of

37:59

other people experiencing

38:01

the light but not willing

38:04

to stand up in the

38:06

light themselves. In the

38:08

Big Leap, I call it the fear

38:10

of outshining. And a lot of times

38:12

you get it growing up. Let's say

38:14

you've got a family, particularly if there's

38:16

a golden boy or

38:18

a golden girl that gets

38:21

a lot of the goodies and

38:23

you kind of have to stand down from the

38:26

light of that. Well, that's difficult

38:28

programming but at some point I've

38:30

watched a lot of people step

38:32

right out of that and understand

38:34

that they have that fear of

38:36

outshining. But go ahead and

38:38

breathe through it, acknowledge it and go ahead and

38:41

do what you want to do anyway. Yeah,

38:43

I think you really and I'm

38:45

glad that you addressed it and I'm glad

38:47

that those people get to work with you

38:49

because I'm sure that's a giant gift and

38:52

blessing. So as we're wrapping

38:54

up, I'm just thinking of a couple other things that

38:56

I'd want to ask you and one of those things

38:58

that comes to mind is I think

39:00

that there's a question for people around

39:02

what gives us more of the

39:05

edge? What gives us more of

39:07

the leap? Is it taking action or

39:09

the inner work? Is it mantras,

39:12

mindfulness and meditation

39:14

or is it getting an

39:17

MBA and knowing what strategies to take

39:19

and getting on the phone and making

39:21

podcast episodes and writing books and whatever it

39:23

is? What I love about

39:25

this new book is it's giving you something

39:27

to do each day but a lot of

39:29

it is something to be. It's

39:32

sort of a mixture and I'm

39:34

curious what you think about the

39:36

path to our potential and

39:39

what's the balance between who we

39:41

need to be and what we need to do? That's

39:44

a beautiful question. The way I look at it is

39:46

to look at what

39:49

nature has given us with our breathing. There's

39:52

an in-breath and then there's an

39:54

out-breath. If you think about that

39:56

as a metaphor for your

39:58

creativity, that you have to

40:00

have a balance between going

40:19

right and not taking that in

40:23

breath and so that's why sometimes when people

40:26

come here and they go in a room

40:28

for 10 minutes and they just have a

40:30

question like what do I most love to

40:32

do they come out beaming

40:34

from head to toe because they haven't

40:36

really had a chance to drop

40:38

into themselves and so

40:41

think of yourself as

40:43

an exquisitely designed creativity

40:45

machine that needs to be

40:47

balanced between what you take in and

40:49

what you give out. If

40:51

you sit all day watching

40:54

game shows on television you're taking

40:56

in a lot but

40:59

you're not probably giving out very much

41:02

and so a lot of people get unbalanced

41:05

that way. So work on

41:07

balance of how much you receive

41:10

versus how much you give because the

41:12

two need to be you

41:14

know if you're giving giving giving you're overworking

41:16

you're stressing yourself out and you're setting yourself

41:18

up to be a martyr. Martyrs

41:20

are no fun to be around. No. I have

41:24

many of them in

41:26

my family. One of the

41:29

last things I'm thinking I asked you is you said

41:31

earlier this beautiful question

41:33

and you referred to it just before which

41:35

is this you know what do you

41:37

really want to do question and you talked about your

41:39

zone of genius as you sort

41:42

of have gone through your life really

41:44

expanding how much time you spend doing

41:46

what you want to be doing really living your

41:49

life or most of your time you're spending in

41:51

that in that flow state

41:53

really in that place of being

41:55

really alive and awake to what really makes

41:58

you feel like you're playing in your zone. zone

42:00

of genius. And I think

42:02

for some people that's radical. Like they

42:04

feel like if you

42:06

knew my life, my circumstances, my

42:08

obligations, it must be nice for you.

42:10

But real life is I have

42:12

to do this job, take care of this thing,

42:14

da da da da da. And

42:17

I'm curious if you can paint a

42:19

picture or shed some light on

42:21

the fact that that might actually be

42:24

possible. But we

42:26

may be tolerating a

42:29

whole paradigm in

42:31

life that we're saying yes to when we

42:33

don't realize there's a whole

42:36

other place that we could

42:38

be living. And I

42:40

think that it would just be

42:42

remarkable if people could spend even

42:45

one hour when you said I was only

42:47

spending one hour a day my zone of

42:49

genius. I'm like, most people I know don't

42:51

spend an hour a day and there's no

42:53

genius. They maybe do that once every three

42:55

years on a vacation because by accident, this

42:58

thing happened and they did this thing that they loved or

43:00

they had this great conversation. So because

43:02

I want people to buy this book, I

43:05

kind of want you to crack that

43:07

open a little bit so that they can

43:09

even leave this conversation understanding

43:11

that this is a

43:13

potential in reality.

43:16

Yes, well, that's actually one of the

43:18

main reasons I wrote to do book

43:20

is because I would get

43:23

letters from people and say, give

43:25

me something I can do in

43:27

20 minutes and another person would write

43:30

in, give me something I can do in

43:32

10 minutes, then another person would write, give me something I can

43:34

do in a minute. And so the new

43:36

book is all about what you can do in

43:38

a minute or so to enhance

43:40

your genius. And if you

43:42

can't spend a minute, I don't know if I

43:45

can help you. Ideally, the

43:47

way we ask people to start is

43:49

actually with only 10 minutes and

43:51

we actually ask them to find it in

43:54

their calendar and put it in every day

43:56

for the next couple of weeks. Where's that

43:58

10 minutes going to be? because

44:00

until you get a little bit

44:02

disciplined about your genius, you

44:05

don't have really a prayer of bringing

44:07

it up online, just like, you

44:09

know, if you don't go up on the internet

44:11

for 10 minutes, you're not gonna be able to

44:13

find the stuff you need

44:15

to look up. So it takes a little

44:17

bit of investment in the beginning, but we

44:20

say, you know, if you can't find 10 minutes,

44:24

you know, look out. But

44:26

we found that everybody we talk to, not

44:29

just people that come here, but I just did a

44:31

workshop out in Boulder, Colorado, where I had a lot

44:33

of people there that were kind

44:35

of newbies. They hadn't read the book

44:37

much or anything like that. But

44:40

even if you got a lot

44:42

of pressure on your life, take

44:44

that 10 minutes. Like I had a guy

44:46

in my mentorship program that wanted

44:49

to write a book, but he only

44:51

could find 20 minutes a day in his

44:53

schedule. He's a big busy Wall Street guy

44:55

and everything. And so

44:58

he made a commitment to

45:00

writing his book. And

45:03

he wrote for 20 minutes every

45:05

morning, just what he had time for. And

45:08

by the end of the year, he'd written a

45:10

240 page book. Wow. It

45:13

was amazing, you know, in 20 minutes a day.

45:15

That's amazing. Yeah, if you

45:18

can get 20 minutes, great. I

45:20

know you can write a book, but if you can only get 10 minutes,

45:22

do something else creative in that time. I

45:25

just want to clarify something for people. Cause when we

45:27

talk about genius, I think there are people who are

45:29

like, I don't need this book. I don't have anything

45:31

I'm genius at. Like they think of

45:34

genius as a IQ

45:36

that makes you a genius.

45:38

You know, like help people

45:40

understand what does that mean to play in

45:42

your zone of genius? Yes,

45:45

genius has nothing to do with IQ. Genius

45:48

has to do with bringing

45:50

forth creative solutions,

45:53

even like, you know, one of my old

45:55

mentors, Abraham Maslow said, it doesn't matter if

45:58

you're making a genius shoot. or

46:00

writing a genius symphony. You're

46:03

doing the same thing. You're making something

46:05

that you love to do, that you're

46:07

uniquely suited to do, that

46:10

makes a contribution to other people. And

46:12

so your genius is

46:14

often hidden in the stuff you're

46:16

already doing. In fact, that's

46:19

one of the big questions I ask people is,

46:22

look through your workday or whatever you do

46:25

and find that sweet spot where you're

46:27

doing things and you're in

46:29

the groove. And what is it that you're

46:31

doing when you're in that groove? You know,

46:33

are you working with people or are you

46:35

designing a piece of technology or what?

46:37

Because everybody's got a little bit

46:40

different unique abilities. And thank

46:42

goodness, because that's what it takes

46:44

to create our world. I

46:46

love that. Tell us when this book

46:49

is coming out, and tell us where we can

46:51

get it. Yes. Well, hopefully

46:53

everywhere. You'll get it everywhere on all

46:55

the good bookstores in Amazon and Barnes

46:57

and Noble and all the good

46:59

places, Books and Millions. And it'll

47:01

be out in February. And

47:03

it's not a book that you have to

47:05

start on January 1st. You start wherever you

47:07

are during the year. It starts with

47:09

day one, and then you go through day 366. Why

47:13

366? Because

47:15

it's a leap year. It's perfect.

47:18

Yeah. It's perfect. Thank

47:20

you so much for the work you do and for loving

47:22

life and

47:25

loving people so much, because these

47:27

are such beautiful insights. And it's

47:29

such an incredible path to take

47:32

with you in our pocket, because

47:34

I think that we can be

47:36

happier than we are. And those are things

47:38

that are possible. And you've helped chart

47:40

a course to that. So thank you for doing that.

47:43

Well, thank you for using your genius

47:45

zone to bring great information to so

47:47

many people. It's obvious that you love

47:50

what you're doing and are doing great work in

47:52

the world. So many happy returns

47:54

on that. Thank you. It means so

47:57

much. And it's such a blessing, also

47:59

your relationship. and it's such an

48:01

incredible model for so many people. That's

48:03

not lost on me what a huge

48:06

thing that is in this world today

48:09

to have built something so honest and

48:11

loving and it's an awesome

48:13

thing including all

48:15

your books. That's like one of

48:17

your best legacies. So thank you. Thank

48:20

you. Thank you. I appreciate that very much. Thank

48:22

you Dr. Hendricks. Thanks a lot, it's

48:25

such a joy talking to Dr. Hendricks. He's such a

48:27

gem. All right here in the takeaways. Number one, commitment

48:30

gets you into the game. Make a

48:32

heartfelt commitment because that's really your entry

48:34

ticket to the good things in life. Number

48:37

two, catch the drift and make

48:39

the shift. Think of yourself as a

48:41

recommitment machine. You get into the game with

48:43

a commitment but what's going to get you

48:45

in there is recommitment. Number three,

48:47

tell yourself every day I grow

48:49

my genius more and more and every day I do

48:52

more of what I most love to do and every

48:54

day that I do more of what I love it

48:56

makes the biggest impact and contribution to other people's lives.

48:59

Number four, we get to where we want

49:01

to get in life becoming masters of yes

49:03

and ministers of no. Number five, breathe through

49:05

the fear, acknowledge it and go ahead and do

49:07

what you want to do anyway. You deserve to

49:10

shine. And number six, your genius

49:12

outfit is hiding in what you're

49:14

already doing. All right now I want to

49:16

shout out a few amazing alumni from our podcast

49:18

program. Let's give it up for Katherine Garland and

49:21

her podcast Homespun, Create the Life You

49:23

Crave, Jerry Bossi and her

49:25

podcast Living Life in Awe, Kalila

49:27

Cisiliano's podcast Pushing Through Loss,

49:30

and Donna Monroe's podcast The Wellness.

49:33

Such incredible awesome human beings. I love these

49:35

women. It takes such courage to put your

49:38

voice in the world and I want to

49:40

commend you for taking that brave step forward.

49:42

I know how much the world needs you.

49:45

Thank you for listening. I know I say this all the time

49:47

but I really, really mean it. Thank you. Thanks

49:49

for being here. We have great episodes coming up. Nate

49:52

Birkness is going to be here. Jamie Kern-Lima

49:54

is coming back. So many good episodes. So

49:56

please follow along on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

49:58

wherever you're listening so you don't miss. out.

50:00

And if you're a fan of what we do here, leave us

50:02

a review because it's the easiest way to support

50:04

us. It helps other people who haven't heard about

50:06

the show to find it. And if you can

50:09

think of someone who would love this episode, if

50:11

the answer is yes, go ahead

50:13

and send them the link or post about

50:15

this on your Instagram. And don't forget, if

50:17

you're curious about starting a podcast, and I

50:20

really do think that that's an amazing thing to

50:22

be curious about, I think it's

50:24

an incredible way for you to make

50:26

your mark, to let your voice be

50:29

heard, to start really curating an audience

50:31

that's really about engagement. If

50:33

you want to start that, go to Kathy

50:35

heller.com slash checklist and grab your free checklist so

50:38

you can get started. I love you so much.

50:40

I'll leave you the song and I hope you have an amazing week.

52:00

I'm gonna hide away, look at

52:03

the clouds below

52:07

And now I'm on my

52:09

way, feel like home

52:54

I'm on

53:05

my way, feel

53:09

like home I'm

53:20

gonna feel like home I'm

53:22

gonna feel like home

53:39

I'm gonna feel

53:41

like home

54:00

W