Taylor - I Was a Good Alcoholic With a Great Career

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I was a good alcoholic, you know,

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like I, because I could go out with friends and have a really fun,

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easy time, but mostly.

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I was sitting at home, you know,

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getting home from work and, let me just

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have a glass of wine. Well, let me have half a bottle.

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Well, the bottle's already open.

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I might as well finish the whole thing.

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And I got this bottle of whiskey or cognac or whatever.

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I'll just have a nightcap or two for that.

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Taylor, thank you very much for turning up to the podcast today.

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I've been looking forward to chat with you for a few weeks yeah,

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so whereabouts are you at the moment?

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Thanks Hamish, great to see you as well.

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So currently I am outside of Nashville,

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Tennessee, visiting some family back here in the US.

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Yeah. you grow up in the US?

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I grew up in the US a bit all over.

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my

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hometown is Richmond, Virginia,

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where I'll be going in a few days to see my sister,

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but I've been out of the US for many,

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years. Don't quite know. Yeah.

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Home is where the heart is.

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Home is where the heart, isn't it?

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Absolutely. Yeah. So we were talking a little bit earlier and you spent

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a lot of time working in the corporate world.

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but tell me about it and why did you end up leaving that environment

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and going out on your own?

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It just takes me back. So interesting to think about the choices we make

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and how we end up, where we end up as a young man.

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I found myself searching a lot for identity,

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who I was in the world,

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what I was supposed to be, who I wanted to be.

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And I was fortunate,

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I guess, in the sense that

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I did well in school. I was relatively bright and responded well

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and responded well to the educational system that we have.

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so therefore it provided a reward for me in a feeling of a sense of,

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I can do this and this is supporting me or giving me sense of acknowledgement.

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And although I kind

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And...

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of went out on my own and tried to do a few things in my early twenties,

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I reverted back to education

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and specifically law in my mid twenties and chose to go to law school here

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in the US which is a three year postgraduate post university degree.

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And then almost by chance,

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I would say, ended up as a Wall Street lawyer.

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It's not what I expected to have

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happen. And yet I followed a few breadcrumbs that were that,

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peaked my interest and lo and behold,

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I sort of happened onto a job as a Wall Street lawyer.

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I mean, I'm not saying I didn't apply myself and it didn't take effort,

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but it seems quite a magical experience as I look back on how I ended up there.

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And I really had an amazing experience because I worked in New York,

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Tokyo and London over the course of five years.

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And although I had a really amazing experience and it really challenged

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me intellectually, there was something in the corporate environment that wasn't

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particularly fulfilling for me.

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I just felt a bit like a fish out of water.

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know, there were many people who had worked so hard.

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to get to this position in life,

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whether it was as a lawyer or banker or corporate executive or whatever it was.

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And it clearly, you know, this is what they wanted.

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And as I said, I kind of fell into it.

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And it was, you know,

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you know, it's like when you like take a wrong turn in an amusement park

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of a sudden you end up in a ride where you think,

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oh, how did I get here? And it's really exciting and fun.

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And then you think, was I supposed to be

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on this ride? Like what happened here?

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So that was kind of a

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bit of my experience in my first foray into the corporate world.

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left after five years, got married,

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tried to start a new life in Southern France,

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went through some challenges there,

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got divorced. And again, sort of Providence landed

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at my feet and I...

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kind of fell into a very amazing job working in offshore wind,

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which was then a very, very new industry in the early 2000s.

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and

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was doing some really, really amazing,

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incredible, fun, innovative things with a great group of people over

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a number of years. And I did that for about five years

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I started to.

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feel like it wasn't really what excited me that much anymore.

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So I then went on, another venture for a couple of years,

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travelled around the world, did another graduate degree,

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tried to go out on my own, stumbled a bit and then found myself back in corporate.

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I know this is a bit of a long answer,

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but found myself back in corporate where I worked as a consultant

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in the renewable energy industry in a various

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various

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guises, supporting projects, helping banks in the financing of projects

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and using my legal background in different ways for about five or six years.

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And what finally kind of pushed me out,

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I guess, well, a couple of things pushed me out.

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The company I was in went through a restructuring over the five

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years I was there. We went from 65 employees down to six.

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I was one of the last six. And at some point they said,

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well, this

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department isn't working and so they let three of us go.

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But even before that, I was having a struggle because although

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the renewable energy industry was exciting to me,

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I found myself working where I was kind of just shuffling paper from one side

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of a desk to the other. And there was a necessary component to that.

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That's what some of industry is,

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but it wasn't really fulfilling me.

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And

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It wasn't challenging me emotionally,

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spiritually, and even some ways intellectually.

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So although

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pay was good and I had good experience,

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I just thought this isn't what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.

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Now you may have heard, I've kind of gone through a few different iterations

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and tried different things. I could tell you many other stories,

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but I got to a point now, I guess about eight years ago,

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where I thought I want to try something new.

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and I want to create something of myself from myself rather than

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just the application

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of my intellect and my other skills,

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which as I kind of started out saying,

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I've been rewarded and I did well at that.

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But I got to a point where that wasn't enough for me and I wanted to prove myself,

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I guess, first and foremost to myself,

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not to a boss or to a partner or...

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to society, but for myself.

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I'm really curious though, why did you,

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or rather how did you decide the time was up?

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Because so many people will just stick in a job and they will happily shuffle paper

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or unhappily shuffle paper. But what,

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what made you decide to step away from these roles?

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Cause I mean, a lot of people would give their eye teeth to become

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a Wall Street lawyer and, and other businesses like that.

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So why did you go?

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this isn't for me. And rather than,

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I said, rather than just stay there,

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step out and do something different.

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What was the impetus for that?

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I

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guess a few things. One,

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I think I've always been a bit experimental and curious about what life

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has to offer. Not so much the grass is greener,

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but I kind of have a sense of what this field is like.

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what's what's over there? And and,

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you know, have it have a nose around two different things.

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You know, I study different things.

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I've travelled around the world and tried many different

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You know, jobs, experiences. I've worked as a blacksmith and a school

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bus driver before being a corporate lawyer.

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And now I run my own business,

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you know, coaching and facilitating trainings and workshops.

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So I kind of always have had a bit of this curious,

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like exploration aspect in me.

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And I think there is something else that,

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you know, maybe applies here.

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when we're talking about men

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and brave men, it's certainly a masculine trait.

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I don't think it's necessarily exclusive to men,

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but it's a masculine trait. And some people may be familiar with the hero's journey,

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right? That Joseph Campbell talked about The Hero with a Thousand Faces and

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it shows up in, you know, movies and books and all this throughout culture.

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The reason I bring this up is because there's a step in the hero's

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journey where the hero is shown the path to

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go on their journey to fulfilment,

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enlightenment, the boon, the great treasure,

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all the things that they have waiting for them.

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And they refuse the call. It's

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very, very common to refuse the call.

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So there's a call. Here is what you are meant to be.

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In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker meets Obi-Wan Kenobi in the cave

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and Obi-Wan says, are a Jedi Knight.

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Yeah. And what does Luke say?

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Because there's a message from Princess Leia,

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Come Obi-Wan, save me. You're my only hope.

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And Luke says to Obi-Wan, essentially,

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I can't go save the galaxy. I have chores to do.

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And

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how many of us refuse a call to go on the greatest adventure of our life,

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which is just the fulfilment of our heart,

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of our souls calling, because we have chores to do.

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So we all have a choice and some of us.

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We get the call and we refuse it once.

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And then we hear it again and we go,

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yes, I'm stepping across the threshold and I'm going on this great adventure into

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the unknown, which is my own soul,

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my own heart, my own calling in life.

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and many people refuse the call over and over.

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some people, sadly,

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go to their grave, having refused the call many,

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times. but when I went from being a lawyer to leaving to live in

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the south of France, that was me heeding the call and then refusing it.

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I could go into the

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detail, but it doesn't matter.

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Same thing happened some time later,

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but because I had refused the call a couple times and then,

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felt the pain inside me of what that meant to refuse the call.

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When it came up the time, the next time when somebody said,

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here's a pink slip and you've been let go,

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part

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of me wanted to rush back and say,

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my gosh, I've got to go get a,

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a, a paying job, a salary, pay for this,

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do this, do that. And I got to a point,

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you know, maybe losing some hair and growing up.

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said, well, screw it. I'm just going to

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have go.

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The worst that happens is I'm gonna fail.

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And at

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least I will know that I failed trying to become

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and learn who I'm meant to be on this planet.

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What started to go through your body,

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through your feelings, through your system that you decided that this

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is not working? And then why did you ultimately...

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leave that behind. Because I think this is the crux of it when we've

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got the man who's beginning to feel that life is not what he wants it to be.

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think I just listened.

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I worked in a law firm with about,

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I don't know, 500, 600 attorneys around the globe,

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really. We had a big office in New York,

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but we had offices in Tokyo, Hong Kong,

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London, Paris. And there were,

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I'd say about 500, 600 attorneys.

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I didn't know all of them, but I probably knew 150 or so of them.

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Maybe maybe a bit more. And we,

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you know, you'd work with people,

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work with partners, senior associates,

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you know, it's a bit hierarchical.

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You work with

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different people on, individual projects.

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We were, I was moving through different departments and then I moved from

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New York to Tokyo, from Tokyo to London.

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So I got to, I got to see quite a significant part

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of the business. And.

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You you talk to people, your colleagues,

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you hear, you

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see people, your bosses, how they are.

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And over five years,

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I looked around and I think

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I could probably count on one hand,

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maybe two,

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the number of people who were legitimately happy and satisfied with what they were

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doing.

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You know, who were like, this is the challenge I want.

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I really enjoy the detail of the work I do.

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I kind of geek out on this aspect of the law.

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And I thought, wow, amazing. Good for you.

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Like that's inspiring.

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The vast majority of people either were nonplussed,

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sort of neutral, but not very excited about what they did,

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or...

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You know, downright resented a significant part of what they were doing.

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It just came through, right? Through conversations.

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And, you know, then this was just in the realm of the company that I worked for.

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And that was not unique. And I had other friends who worked at other

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law firms and for banks and, you know,

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whatever. And, you know,

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the, I was talking to somebody about this recently,

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it's like, are different terms for it.

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But you may have heard, you get golden handcuffs.

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You're paid well

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to stay in something that is maybe not very thoughtful

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and fulfilling. Now,

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some people are completely fine with that.

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For me, I you know, I noticed how people were really suffering and and

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not and not seeing

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That they had choice Not seeing that they actually

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had agency about what to do with where they

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were When I when I was leaving the law

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there was a partner I'd worked with.

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when I first started in New York,

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this person, she was a young partner.

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And so quite sort of excited and vibrant about life.

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And we got on quite well. We worked on some deals where we'd have to go

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for long car rides out to this company we were working with and got

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to know each other quite well.

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And then I went off, know.

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did my thing and went off to Tokyo.

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And anyway, she ended up, she actually invited me to the London office.

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So we got to be friends there as well.

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And at that point she was, you know,

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four or five years into being a partner,

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making a lot of money, a lot of money.

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mean, this is 25 years ago, but making a significant amount of money.

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And I remember talking to her about her life at one point,

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and she just displayed a very kind of like,

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sad and almost trapped way of being in her life.

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And when I said I was leaving,

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when I told her, I walked into her office and told her I was going to

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be leaving the law firm, and I didn't really have a plan.

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Most people say, well, I'm going off to this company or this bank or this other

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law firm or whatever it is. I'm a

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bit of a maverick and sort of like,

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don't know, figure it out. Let's sort of burn a bridge and see what happens.

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Uh, you know, I had other ideas,

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but, um, and, and anyway, I told her that I was leaving and

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she said to me, she said, gosh,

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I wish I had the courage to do what you,

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what you're doing. And I kind of pro probed it a bit and kind of asked her what,

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she meant. And she said, but what came out of it was that she just felt trapped

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as if there was nothing else that she could do.

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Now I know that she had.

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I'm sure she had, you know, the equivalent of a good couple million,

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you know, available to her and a nice home in London and all that.

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And I just remember thinking you could quit your job

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and live quite comfortably for two,

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five, maybe even 10 years on a modest stipend and,

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know, available to you and go off and learn anything that you wanted to,

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to do what you want to do in life.

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to discover what you want to do.

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You don't need to know, go out and discover it.

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And yet I really was so clear to me how somebody felt trapped

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in that sense of, you know, golden handcuffs.

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Like I got a lot of gold, but I'm tied to this and there

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and, the thought that there's no way out of it.

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Um, and so, you know, I, heard that from a number of people.

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That's quite an extreme story,

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but I heard it from a number of different people who

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complained about where they were over and over and over and then just said,

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but what are you going

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Just too afraid to make that effort,

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too afraid to hear the call, heed to the call.

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what was niggling? What was that you mentioned curiosity,

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but what was niggling and just saying,

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try something else, try something else.

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Is this your purpose?

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what was driving you forward to seek a purpose?

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I don't know. I think you can call it.

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You You can call it a spirit.

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You can call it God. You can call it...

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Curiosity, grace.

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You know, can call it schizophrenia.

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There's a voice in your head.

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But on some level, there was a part of me that felt incomplete,

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that felt unfulfilled,

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I was fulfilling other people's goals and expectations.

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Mothers,

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societies.

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And, you know, I'm lucky in a way that

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I was able to,

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to climb that ladder fairly quickly and easily.

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I say fairly, I mean, worked very hard at it.

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And I remember as a,

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as a lawyer, but as a lawyer, you start as an employee,

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you know, you're an associate.

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attorney, at least in the US on the associate attorney.

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And there is this kind of carrot that's dangled out that like maybe

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one day you'll be a partner. Yeah.

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Own part of the business. You'll be a partner and

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you're kind of once that happens,

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like you kind of set, you know,

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you obviously have to continue working,

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but the money's always there. There's no threat like that.

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You're going to be let go. mean,

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unless you commit fraud or some other horrible thing.

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But just being you, you're kind of,

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you're well off. You kind of made it,

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know, at that point. And for most people,

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that's a kind of, like in the US law firms,

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that's maybe a seven, eight, even up to like a 10 year process to be asked

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to be a part.

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And I was having my year-end review in Tokyo,

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and it was my third year as a lawyer.

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the partners, and we had two partners in Tokyo and they were giving them

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a year-end review. And you know,

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it's like, well, here's what you did well.

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Here's some things to improve on overall.

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Here's what we say about your performance.

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And then one of them said,

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Well, anyway, you you're well on your way to being,

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becoming a partner.

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And at that point it was like,

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okay. So it was almost like it'd already been offered to me.

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Hmm.

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Okay. So what am I actually chasing here?

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You know, like there was this accolade like,

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one day, you like you chase grades like,

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let me get the A, let me get this.

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And, and it was like, okay.

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Well, I guess you're telling me right now that if I just keep doing what I'm doing,

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that's, that's an assured thing.

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So.

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Is

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that what I really want? Is that what is important to me?

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And for some people that would be like we were talking earlier and that's fine with

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respect. I just looked and I thought,

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then I don't need that.

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You've kind of already told me in a way that I'm good enough.

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Maybe I was looking for acknowledgement and acceptance and a pat on

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the back from the father figures or the masculine or something.

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And so it was kind of offered and I got it.

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So I just had this, you awareness like,

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well, that I don't need to chase after that anymore.

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So you decided to chase what was important.

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That's what I'm hearing. You decided,

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I'm good at whatever I do. It falls to my feet,

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which is very nice, but it's not satisfying.

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So

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done all these things and obviously learned bits and tools and bits

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and bobs from it. But what is a consistent thing you've learned through

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all of these roles that you've done?

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What have you kind of taken responsibility for?

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What have you got from them that has enriched your soul,

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your life?

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I think for me, a constant sense of exploration,

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adventure, curiosity, that

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We never arrive.

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So that sense of exploration,

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adventure, curiosity, what else is there,

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becomes much more compelling in all sorts

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of places. for me as a, yeah, in my own exploration,

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my own expression, like writing books,

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doing other expression,

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I started painting.

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coach people, run a business, travel.

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Who I am in the world becomes an ever expanding,

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like a circle can continue to expand,

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right? A fulfilled space can continue to expand outwards and still be complete,

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right? Or whole, guess one could say.

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Because we have this sense,

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that we're broken and that we're incomplete.

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And so we go to try to do things to fill that void,

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to fix ourselves, to be whole,

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but we're already whole and complete in who we are.

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The circle, the radius of that,

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the circumference of that may be fairly small where we are right here right now.

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So

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then we can expand that out. can continue to expand that out in whatever ways

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we choose. So yeah, that sense of exploration,

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adventure drives me.

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One of my mentors that I first learned intuition from and

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really helped me on, gosh, in so many ways,

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gosh,

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it's just one of most powerful.

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wonderful, hard-hitting, but loving human beings I've ever known.

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She passed on a couple years ago.

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And

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she used to say that when you're green,

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you grow, and when you're ripe,

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you rot.

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So, you know, there's this sense of like,

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want to get to the finished thing.

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We want to have the apple and,

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know, but as soon as you're ripe,

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you start to, as soon as you've arrived,

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you start to away. start to deteriorate.

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When you're green, when you're continue in

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that growth cycle, you know, like the new buds and spring on the,

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on the trees and bushes, when you're green,

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you grow.

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So we had this opportunity to continue growing,

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evolving, becoming, unfolding who we are and what our potential

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is in this life. And that to me is interesting.

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That is mildly terrifying isn't it when you're green you're growing and

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as soon as you get there you ripen and you rot.

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What a horrible thought.

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Well, it's either horrible or it's the most liberating thing possible.

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It depends on how you look at it.

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Because

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No, I'm just.

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the apple tree doesn't say, here's all my fruit.

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Cool. I'm done. Right. It puts out every year,

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hundreds of apples that each have whatever,

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you know, half a dozen seeds that can grow apple trees and produce thousands more,

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but it produces all its apples and

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You know, when fall comes around and the apples fall off or somebody comes

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and picks them, it goes, cool.

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All right. I'm going to take a little rest.

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know, rest is important. We're in the Northern atmosphere.

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We're approaching winter solstice.

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That's the shortest day of the year.

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And you know, the trees outside,

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like they're like, let the leaves go,

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let the fruit go. And I'm going to take a little time to regroup,

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to have a little rest.

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sure enough, I'm going to come back and I'm going to put out some more growth

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and put out some more fruit.

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So it's either terrifying or it's liberating.

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I was thinking as from from the perspective of being the apple.

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But yeah, from being the tree it is isn't it's just like,

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okay, I'm going to grow a bit more.

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Yeah, you know.

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what were the deeper reasons that you decided to leave the corporate world?

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I mean, you've, you've mentioned there was a sort of,

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it wasn't really doing it for you,

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but was there, was there a darker reason?

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Was there something that was just making you hate what you were,

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what you were doing?

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not necessarily hate but I maybe I was a bit blind

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to that but I Yeah,

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I definitely found myself Turning to

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all sorts of distractions To fill to fill a void like I wasn't satisfied.

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I wasn't fulfilled in What I was getting

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the money wasn't enough, the accolades,

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the work itself wasn't enough for me

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and I found myself

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quite despondent, you know, like I,

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was a part of me that, really felt like I'd failed.

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I'd failed myself and hadn't.

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Yeah, just wasn't happy in the life I had.

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Most

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people would look at it and go,

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yeah, but you know, got a nice life,

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got a good group of friends, you're making good money.

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But for me, there is a real...

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I had pushed down, and in some ways had had pushed down

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by my mother and society,

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like my own expression in the world.

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So I learned to do that. I learned to push down,

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to keep down my frustrations.

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I had a really hard time expressing anger,

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so my anger went inwards. My frustration went inwards.

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so, you know, lot of internal judging,

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worst critic, and then there were,

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there were soothing techniques to,

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deal with that. And alcohol was certainly one of those.

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yeah, I was a good alcoholic,

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you know, like I, because I could go out with friends and have a really fun,

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easy time, but mostly.

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I was sitting at home, you know,

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getting home from work and, let me just

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have a glass of wine. Well, let me have half a bottle.

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Well, the bottle's already open.

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I might as well finish the whole thing.

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And I got this bottle of whiskey or cognac or whatever.

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I'll just have a nightcap or two for that.

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That just became kind of the, the coping mechanism to,

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deal with a sense of lack of fulfilment,

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lack of.

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joy in my life.

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It had been modeled for me by some different family members.

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My mother, her mother,

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my father's brother, you know,

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like there was alcoholism in the family.

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And so it was easy to

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and comfortable in a sense to go down that path because

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You know, a lot of these things,

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they...

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You know, lot, know, things are

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demonized drugs and alcohol porn,

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you know, the different things that we turn to addictions that we turn to.

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But from the mindset of somebody who's in pain and struggling,

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they're a comfort. They're a relief.

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They are the closest thing that we can find

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at a particular moment or for many moments or for our whole lives.

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that takes us

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out of, temporarily, takes us out

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of the pain of whatever we're experiencing.

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And I had problems,

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certainly with alcohol and pornography,

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where we're substitutes for my own expression and intimacy and connection.

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I smoked a lot of weed, which was a great way to escape and to think that

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I was doing creative things.

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Um, you know, did, did hard drugs on the weekend,

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going out to parties and clubs,

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um, and having a good time with friends.

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it's like, wow, what's wrong with that?

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You know, and for me,

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I'm not say nothing about anybody else's journey,

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but for me, it, you know,

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got to

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a point where that was just kind of like the zero point,

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you know, and everything

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else negative. So, you know,

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it might get me up to a

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positive number, but it was basically keep keeping me,

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you know, from really going under and being,

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was suicidal at times, and really deeply,

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deeply depressed and just angry,

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frustrated.

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despondent, you know, with, with,

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what I had and, also feeling guilty because again,

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you know, by all measures, like,

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wow, you've got this, you've got that.

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So, you know, I thought, well,

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why, why am I not happy with this?

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Why, why is this not enough for me?

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But,

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you know, I, I was caught in a loop that it certainly wasn't,

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or that was my perception. And so the only way out of that was,

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you know, temporary.

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escape through, yeah,

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often pornography, you know, anything to kind of get away from that pain.

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Yeah, I can relate to that pain and it's

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It's just all consuming. And as you said,

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it makes you feel worthless and ashamed and despondent,

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desperate and

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You got out. I got out. I mean,

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that's, that is a remarkable thing.

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How did you, how did you get yourself out of that situation?

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Cause it's, it's a hell of a one way street.

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Yeah, it is.

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Well, you I refused to call on that a few times as well.

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I had a I had a real scare when I was,

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I don't know, 21 or 22. I I just,

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you know, I graduated from college,

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and had no idea. I just like, you know,

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and I kind of ran away a bit and...

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and really went down this kind of drinking to escape

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path that was quite dark

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and quite dangerous.

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actually I went to my mother who was a social worker,

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first off for help, and she was kind of so shaken by

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the whole thing that she just handed me off to.

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friend of hers, you know, it too close,

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too raw and too close for her.

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Um, and

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I learned from that, but I eventually slipped down the slope again,

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years and decades. You can excuse a lot of things.

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I was functioning. I wasn't showing up work drunk,

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although I did probably show up to work high a few times.

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But I didn't have...

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Accidents, car accidents, didn't hurt anybody.

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I didn't burn any houses down accidentally.

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I was fortunate in that respect.

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Yeah, I I had a few moments of real,

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like things got really dark and I was in a,

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like the bottom of a pit and thinking,

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what am I going to do? And I'd kind

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of crawl myself out or do something and then eventually kind of slipped back down

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again. And I don't know, that happened enough times.

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I think the thing that really,

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really, I was going through some struggles with the job I had,

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the consultancy job, the last,

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job I had working for a company.

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And I was already struggling a bit.

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And I was like I said, I was a pretty good drunk.

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Like I could handle myself, you know,

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people might know, but I wasn't a slurring,

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stumbling drunk. Like I got good stock.

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I could hold my liquor and you know,

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still cycle home after you know,

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whatever.

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so I had I think the biggest the big wake up call for me came

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yeah, about ten years ago. New Year's twenty fifteen,

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twenty

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sixteen. I was at a at a New Year's

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Eve party in East London and it was about two,

Speaker: 00:35:06

two thirty in the morning, and a very good friend of mine came up to me

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and he asked me, he said, Hey Taylor,

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are you okay? Which sort of surprised me because I

Speaker: 00:35:18

Could always handle my drink and drugs quite well.

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I you wouldn't I mean you might know I was drunk or high,

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but you know, I was highly functioning,

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I think, in in those in those respects.

Speaker: 00:35:30

But this friend of mine came up to me and said,

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Hey, are you okay? And I kind of was like,

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yeah, I'm

Speaker: 00:35:36

fine. Like, what do you mean? And he said,

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Well, you just look a bit off.

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You look you don't look great,

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you know? And you know, it was a bit sort of like

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You gotta check yourself before you wreck yourself.

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Sentiment. And

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it stuck with me. you know, it struck a nerve because I wasn't okay.

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You know, and and and his question came from a deeper place

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of concern and love and and awareness.

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so you know, it was a real wake up call.

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And I went home and, you know.

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Woke up with a hangover or whatever it was.

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And about I don't know,

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like within a week, I got

Speaker: 00:36:26

an email or message from a friend of mine who I'd met who said,

Speaker: 00:36:29

Hey, I want to invite you to this,

Speaker: 00:36:31

you know, transformational system,

Speaker: 00:36:35

this new thing I'm working with.

Speaker: 00:36:36

and I got an email and said, Come to a open day on,

Speaker: 00:36:40

Come to a open day on you know in a week's time on a Saturday or something.

Speaker: 00:36:45

And I just

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Pressed yep, cool, I'll go. And so I went to that

Speaker: 00:36:52

and then within another week or two

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some Facebook ad came up and invited me to some other event.

Speaker: 00:37:02

Then I just said, Cool, I'll sign up for that.

Speaker: 00:37:05

And I just had this, you know,

Speaker: 00:37:09

like I think I'd kind of had enough of

Speaker: 00:37:16

ending up in bottomless pits and taking weeks or months to kind of crawl

Speaker: 00:37:20

w my way back out again, thinking like,

Speaker: 00:37:23

okay, I'm normal and I have control

Speaker: 00:37:25

over these things and

Speaker: 00:37:28

And, you know, finally saying,

Speaker: 00:37:30

Okay, I got the message. You know,

Speaker: 00:37:32

I got the message. I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna make a change.

Speaker: 00:37:36

you know, I had other scares,

Speaker: 00:37:39

but that that was or other s it situations,

Speaker: 00:37:42

but that one really was the the kind of the final wake

Speaker: 00:37:48

up call to

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to

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make a change for myself to really,

Speaker: 00:37:54

you know, take responsibility and say,

Speaker: 00:37:56

okay, I'm gonna do something about this.

Speaker: 00:37:58

I don't know what that is, but I'm gonna I'm gonna do something about that.

Speaker: 00:38:03

About you know, about my situation.

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And you know, not say like I haven't it's not like I went cold turkey

Speaker: 00:38:08

and that was last time I ever did anything like like that.

Speaker: 00:38:11

but I really took it on board

Speaker: 00:38:15

to take responsibility for

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who I was

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what was happening to me and doing what I could

Speaker: 00:38:26

and finding help and support and you know going on that exploration of

Speaker: 00:38:33

things that

Speaker: 00:38:36

you know, help me to get out of consistently get out of the the hole

Speaker: 00:38:42

and the despondency and despair and challenge that and then that

Speaker: 00:38:48

and that I created for myself.

Speaker: 00:38:51

That's that is really empowering because it's you know,

Speaker: 00:38:55

you you consciously realise that things were not working.

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Okay, you got that elbow. so I'm you know,

Speaker: 00:39:02

there's a a hat tip to there, big time for that,

Speaker: 00:39:04

because it's it's hard to ask for help.

Speaker: 00:39:06

It's hard to realise that it's just not working.

Speaker: 00:39:10

I think what you've done by

Speaker: 00:39:12

Realising it wasn't working, realising you had to change and taking ownership

Speaker: 00:39:16

of your life, you've with that curiosity,

Speaker: 00:39:18

you've you've turned it round,

Speaker: 00:39:20

obviously. But tell me about responsibility and why that is so important

Speaker: 00:39:24

to get your sovereignty back, to become curious and more curious and thrive.

Speaker: 00:39:31

Mm.

Speaker: 00:39:33

Well

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The the first thing that comes mind is

Speaker: 00:39:37

That I learned a lot from my mother.

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I was raised by a single parent,

Speaker: 00:39:42

my mother. I was an only child for most of my childhood.

Speaker: 00:39:46

I got a very weird situation. but I've got a couple,

Speaker: 00:39:50

I've got a couple half siblings and some

Speaker: 00:39:53

step siblings, but most of my concept

Speaker: 00:39:56

for the first 10, 11, 12 years of my life were being an only child and having

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just my mother around.

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And so she was a single mother,

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you know, working very hard to create a life for us.

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So she was a single mother, you know,

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And it wasn't easy. You know, like a lot of what I remember from meals

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as a child were, you know, vegetables out of a can.

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And, you know, things like hot dogs were like luxuries.

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Like, good, we get to get to have hot dogs tonight.

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and you know,

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she worked very hard as a as a single mother

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you know, early mid seventies.

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My father

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was not much of a he was a bit of a deadbeat dad.

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we had a bit of a, you know,

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we had a reconciliation later,

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and but he wasn't very good at paying child support.

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So my mother had to be responsible for us.

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And, you know, working as a single single mother,

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a parent, as a social worker,

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you know, well, there wasn't a lot of money in that.

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So she

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had a very strong sense of responsibility and instilled that on me.

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So I I I had that as a you know,

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that that that had been, you know,

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as it like say instilled upon me and and pressed upon me

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there's definitely a part of me that wants to say,

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they're the reason why blah blah blah,

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whatever happened, you know, she did this or my boss is the problem,

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right? There's part of me that loves to do that and really wants to

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say, Well, they're the responsible ones.

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But over time, you know,

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I realised, well, who's responsible for my life?

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I am. I'm the only one that

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is really going to take interest in that and and

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to look after myself. it's wonderful to have family,

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friends, and support in whatever way we can.

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But for me, yeah,

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taking ownership of that is was in many ways

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a hard pill to swallow. And

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also, you know, a real empowerment.

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Because when I realise that well,

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who I am and what I'm gonna be is up to me,

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and that feels like overwhelming and pfft,

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who am I and what am I gonna do?

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But then there's there's freedom,

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there's

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possibility, there's joy, there's sadness.

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You know, there's there's a lot that goes in that,

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but that becomes a more

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enlivening way of being.

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And I'd just say as well, I I'm not the first person to say this,

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but responsibility,

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you know, I I really had a sense growing up that responsibility

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was burden and obligation, which is you know why I really struggled with it.

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Because, you know, my mother was well,

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you're responsible for cleaning up your room or you know,

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whatever it is. And so it was like,

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wow, a bit of a chore, obligation,

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burden. And that was my relationship with it.

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But if you break down the word in its components,

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responsibility is simply the ability to respond to whatever's happening.

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And so it it becomes less about this kind

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of weight that's put on me of

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the things that I have to do or must do or am expected to do.

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And then it becomes an opening.

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Well

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How do I want to respond to the situation?

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Because there's a set of circumstances in front of me,

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you know, a job, a relationship,

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a my own, you know

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life. And my ability

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to respond to that is it then opens things up.

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Yeah. So instead of

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rather being closing it down, then it becomes an opening.

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So, you know, it takes us back to the curiosity and what's possible and

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and an exploration. So because

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My ability to respond here now today is going to be different from what

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it was yesterday and will be different tomorrow.

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So then, you know, then when we have the same the same relationship,

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right, the same intimate partner,

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essentially, right, we end up in this person's doing the same thing

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the last one did. It's like, okay,

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well, am I doing things differently?

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Or the same boss, right? The same roommate,

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the same, you know, we we we we kind of find ourselves in these similar situations

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over

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and over again in life. And

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We have an opportunity to learn from those so that our responses change,

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they evolve. And that we have that ability to learn from that

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and to respond differently and to respond in,

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you know, ways that that we choose.

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Sounds joyful. Sound joyous, not just joyful.

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And it also sounds really liberating.

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You're you're not restricting yourself.

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You're not limiting yourself. I think that is a really powerful answer.

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Thank you very much. I like that.

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The last thing I do in this podcast is ask a couple of questions that

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I find really important and what my guests are giving me are some really interesting

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answers. So can you define bravery and courage for a man?

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Well, I think bravery is a willingness

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to stand for what's true for you.

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Each man has to connect with his own heart in whatever way that is,

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and bravery is the ability to stand for that,

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to be a warrior for your own truth.

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In certain fields of battle they would you

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know, because

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To be at battle and war is a terrifying thing.

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And imagine standing in a field preparing for battle and knowing that

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a horde of enemy warriors is going to come over the hill prepared to kill you.

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Most people logically would want to run away as quickly as possible.

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And so one of the things that indigenous tribes and warrior tribes from

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Over time did was they would take

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a spear and tie a leather strap around the spear on one end and the other strap

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around their leg on the other end.

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And they would take that spear and slam it into the ground.

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So that their urge to run away would be

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tempered because they'd be they'd have to stand their ground.

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So it's an acknowledgement on the first instance that.

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Bravery does not mean, you know,

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being fearless. Yeah. It it's it's actually recognising fear and

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and choosing to make a stand for what's important,

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choosing to face our enemy or battle or,

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you know,

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the challenges we have. I think courage is

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The the word courage comes from the French or the Latin word for heart,

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le cœur. Yeah, so courage is

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the willingness to follow your heart.

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We we get courage by being vulnerable to our truth.

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yeah, so that that's that's what courage and bravery are to me.

Speaker: 00:47:41

Brilliant. Thank you very much.

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Where can people find out more about you and follow you and all that kind of stuff?

Speaker: 00:47:46

well I run a company called Galliant Trainings.

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So I've got a website, Galliant.life,

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and on Instagram, galliant.life.

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Yeah. I mean I'm on, you know,

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social media, Instagram, Facebook.

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LinkedIn. Don't do TikTok yet.

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But maybe I'll start doing dances.

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Well, thank you ever so much for your time.

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It's been it's been it's been really good.

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It's been honest. You've shared things which are uncomfortable and you've come

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out the other side and you've told us that life's for living

Speaker: 00:48:21

and being curious about. So I thank you ever so much for your message,

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your thoughts and your kindness and your time.

Speaker: 00:48:27

I really appreciate it.