Brad Miller 1:12
Dr. Brad Miller back with you with the pathway to promise podcast where we’re all about helping you overcome adversity to achieve your promise life of peace, prosperity and purpose. We do that by talking to some great people who have great stories to tell about overcoming adversity themselves, as well as helping you to gain insight and, and influence into your life and helping you to overcome adversity. Today, we have Dr. Michael Hudson with us, who has transitioned in his life through various through the academic world into a life now where he’s helping people to drive to clarify their vision, and their businesses and their life, to drive impact in order to have success in their life. And he does it by really focusing in on their communication, getting their message heard. He is online at Michael Michael Hudson calm. And he is our guest today on pathway to promise Michael, welcome to the

Dr. Michael Hudson 2:11
podcast. Thank you, Brad. It’s a pleasure to be here and a privilege.

Brad Miller 2:15
Absolutely. Well, I’ve been a fan of yours for quite some time on your podcast and some of your some of your work that you’ve done. And I love your story. And I love how you focus in on communication and helping clarify messaging, I got a feeling that you’ve had some experiences in your life that have been transformational and transitional for you. To help move you through various pivot points in your life. I just like to hear a little bit of your story. What are some of the points in your life that have important to you?

Dr. Michael Hudson 2:45
Brad, I love the question. And by the way, I love the work you’re doing here because my fundamental belief that I have come to discover over time through the journey I’ve traveled is that all of us have lessons from the journey that we’ve traveled that reveal things to us that only we know in the way we know them. That opened the door for us to help other people in a different way. And you know, my big pivot in my first pivot out of academia was after a decade, had the privilege of building nationally recognized Programs at the University of Illinois then I went to Cornell had the privilege of doing the same thing. And then I realized the bureaucracy wasn’t fulfilling me. And there was always this underlying thing. And right around the time I made the decision to leave Cornell that underlying thing reemerged. Now, I have since learned there is a category to define those kinds of underlying things, which is called adverse childhood experiences. And for me, and you know, we’re diving in real deep here real fast, Brad.

Brad Miller 3:41
I’m ready.

Dr. Michael Hudson 3:43
Let’s do it. You want the audience to know I’m okay, I’m past this. And thank God, I am past it. Sure. But I was raped and molested for a year when I was 10. Okay. Now, my way of understanding the world is verbal processing. I talk through things. Well, that’s fine Island, me because the person who did this to me threatened to kill me if I ever told anyone. So I never told anyone. And I went silent. I didn’t stop talking in class, and getting in trouble. Because I was trying to get attention and trying to get affirmation, all those things we do when we’ve been harmed. And I completely block that experience out. Now, all I wanted to do Brad was kind of be up in front of the room and on the stage, but I couldn’t do it. You know, if a day came and it was show and tell tomorrow, I would wake up the next morning and convince my mother, I was sick, so I didn’t have to go to school. And at the same time, I would envy the people who could do that, because I really wanted to do it. And the interesting thing is my father was a state policeman who was a youth officer at the time, who developed the first drug education program in the state of Delaware drug abuse education before day or existed and that whole thing came around. And I would go watch you speak. And I would think I want to do that. And right around the time this all happened, I saw a speaker come into our school. And I watched this man stand there on the stage. His name was john Jimenez. And then he your audience members who live in the Mid Atlantic area probably heard him if they were not in school in the 60s. And he was a recovering drug addict who actually started a very successful church in Virginia Beach, okay. And when I watched him tell these stories, I thought that’s so powerful. And Brad, that became my resurrection, so to speak. In the short term, it was my journey. It was where I went to story. So I lived in the country, we had this little thing called the bookmobile which was a minute ago, you know, that had books on it came around the corner from down tenths of a mile from my house, every two weeks, kid was allowed to get six books, I convinced my mother that I needed more because I would devour them because that was where I retreated into story. So all of that is a backstory to let you know why story matters. Why message matters so much to me. When I was 33 34, I started experiencing some depression issues. And when I decided I need to get help with this. All of a sudden, one day all the memories of what happened to me came back. And truth be told Brad, I was in my PhD program before I actually got comfortable speaking in front of a room.

Brad Miller 6:16
Because when was the ongoing process really three, you’re growing up years into your adult life?

Dr. Michael Hudson 6:21
Yeah. And I was fine in small groups. You know, I was fine one on one, I was fine in small groups. But you know, if I stepped to the front of the room, I just couldn’t do it. But when you go into a class with 250 freshmen, and your job is to teach them economics. And it’s your, your day that you have to overcome you overcome. And I overcame by doing one thing, leveraging story. I’ve got to tell this story this way, Brad, because it’s it’s absolute. It’s the way it happened. But I left my office the day that I finally had to go put myself in a room on a stage in front of 250 freshman I stopped at three buildings between my office in the building where the classroom was and threw up in every men’s room I could find

Brad Miller 7:06
left your mark, what’s your trail, I guess?

Dr. Michael Hudson 7:08
Oh, my goodness. Well, and and and and you know, I’ve got my this is a new overhead transparency day, right? I’ve got the acetate, I’ve got everything, you know, I’m ready. Oh, boy. But I get to the last building and I walk into men’s room for one last am I okay, before I go in the in the in the auditorium. I walk out of the men’s room. There’s nothing left inside, of course. And I realized, I’ve got to walk into the same doors those students are walking in, you know, it’s about 25 feet away. But it seems like it’s 100 yards I make to get across there. And the whole way I’m thinking what am I going to do? And literally all of a sudden, I saw john him in his face, in my mind, okay. And I saw him telling these powerful and vulnerable stories. And I realized, and I started hearing this refrain it I mean, whether it was God’s voice or whose voice I started hearing this Frank refrain of just tell them a story, and teach them a lesson. tell them a story and teach them a lesson. The hallway as I’m walking, and this is this is in the early 80s. You know, they don’t have cell phones. They’re wondering who this dude is walking in the room that they’ve never seen before, because I’m not the professor that’s regularly there. He’s out of town for two weeks. And now it’s my shot to go in and do this. Okay. So as I’m thinking, I’m okay, I don’t have a story. I don’t have a story. I’m teaching freshman economics, we’re talking about supply curves. What am I going to what story who’s going to care. And as I stepped on this stage, I remembered when I was in graduate school, there was a time when I did to supply and demand curves backwards on a final exam. And the professor called me to his office after class and he said, We need to talk. He says, I want you to look at this. He showed me my exam. He said, Is anything wrong with that? I said, you had a curves are all backwards. He said, yeah. He said, but I’m going to let you go with it for one reason. You said your logic is perfect. You thought through it economically. Exactly. Right. You just drew the graphs backwards. Okay. He said, You haven’t ever done it before. And he said, I’m pretty sure after this, you’re never gonna do it again. Right? So long story short, I told them that story. And I said, and here’s the good news about being here. today. I’m going to show you how to do it. So you never forget how to draw them correctly.

Brad Miller 9:15
Okay, well, that’s what a wonderful and effective teaching method telling stories, whether it’s economics, or messaging, or communication, whatever is the story. The story is so powerful,

Dr. Michael Hudson 9:28
became the go to thing, right. And I literally at that moment, I felt myself if this sounds grandiose, but I felt myself transform on the stage. It’s like, okay, I can do this. I can finally do what I’ve been wanting to do my whole life, which is a big fight. I left academia later.

Brad Miller 9:45
did all that being onstage and helping, you know, even though the bombing the whole bed there prizes that help you leave behind some of that childhood trauma, or whatever trauma was leaving up? Or is that was that part of the whole process of healing and wholeness for you?

Dr. Michael Hudson 10:01
Brad, it open the door, okay.

And the truth is, that journey took another 25 years. Sure. And but it opened the door to make I mean, I just I did not remember this at all. I literally was in a situation where I, I had gone to a therapist for 13 weeks. And every week, he asked more questions, and I told him more. And the 14th week I walked in, and I said, You know what? You’re not asking the questions today. I need to know something because this isn’t getting any better. And I’ve told you everything about myself. And he said, Are you sure? I said absolutely. I said, I said Why do you ask? He said because everything speaks to your having had some sort of a trauma or abuse. And you’ve never described anything like that. And it is as if he turned on a switch in my brain. And I immediately saw, I’ll call it a video in my brain. worst time that it happened. Sure. And I sat down on a couch and cried for three hours. Yeah, he was fortunate that he had another room that he could go into his with his other patient, because he kept there. And and that unlocked it. And it didn’t solve it and resolve it. And I didn’t allow it to for a long time I kept hiding. I kept putting on the mask and the suit every day, and doing the work that I was being paid to do. You know, I, you know, that all happened about a year and a half before I actually left the academic world. And when I left it, I said you know, it’s time number one for me to go do what I’ve longed to do since I saw john Jimenez, which is be that person on the stage changing. Beat person who’s unlocking stuff in people that they don’t even realize is there be that person who’s asking the questions, others don’t ask to let them raise their hand and say I need to be I need to help I need to work through this.

Brad Miller 11:45
So that was a pivotal point for you that you’ve used this metaphor couple times. Now unlocking in our and opening doors is sound like that was a pivotal point for you. Of course, we have a lot of evidence now that childhood trauma is guilt can be deeply suppressed in such a way that we don’t even know it’s there. A lot of evidence of that, of course, and you’re an example of that. But it sounds like this unlocking process, opening new doors also led you to make some significant decisions in your career, leaving academic a pretty relatively secure thing, being a college professor into what you’re doing now. So tell us a little bit of that story about how that evolves in such way. Because you seem to share now that you say that you’re now doing what you said earlier, you always longed to do or remit to do. And of course, that’s what I’m really about in my work is helping us to search out what I like to call the promise life where you really are meant to be. So tell us a little bit about that story?

Dr. Michael Hudson 12:36
Well, Brad, I think up until that point, in my life, I had been doing one thing, which was

chasing external validation.

And I think a lot of people do that, you know, because I felt like if every it was it’s that kind of thing. It’s the imposter syndrome, however you want to label it, I felt I wasn’t good enough. Even when I wasn’t aware of what had happened, I felt this drive to be recognized and acknowledged and celebrated, you know, so I did a lot of chasing, you know, rewards, accolades and things like that. And I did a lot of trying to chase validation through other things. When this all popped up, and I realized, okay, I can’t keep doing this. And at that time, I weighed almost 275 pounds. And my body’s not wired for that. I was working 16 hour day, seven days a week. And I realized, this is not validating me and and helping me. So I left that world. I was at the time were in that academic world, you could take a sabbatical. So I did and left, right. And I said, I’m going to go to full time speaking, coaching, consulting, because I believe that’s my gift. And that’s what I’m here for. And that’s what I want to do. Now, the truth is, I sort of slipped back into that, chasing the reward more now through financial, you know, what, what kind of gross sales? can I do? You know, now, and at the same time, I don’t, I don’t want to mislead your audience. And I don’t want to lie. I mean, Truth is, I was having impact. I mean, I was very successfully having impact with my clients. But I kind of got hung up on that drive, it’s got to be more, it’s got to be bigger, it’s got to be this, it’s got to be this. And I accidentally fell into a niche that I built a niche business for 16 years serving a specific industry, doing strategy, leadership and culture work, loved it had some fantastic clients. But then one day, I had another one of those pivot moments. And I share that that way, Brad, because I’m hoping to wake your audience up to the fact there are pivot moments in our lives that we need to recognize,

Brad Miller 14:31
yes, and you do need to do something about it. It’s like people don’t recognize those. And they let slide by for the safety and supposed security of where they’re at. But they end up being in a lifetime called the malaise of mediocrity, or the blaze of misery, you stay stuck there. And many people in sometimes myself included, have chosen to stay stuck there rather than taking the risk to move forward. So keep going down my friend keep it

Dr. Michael Hudson 14:55
it’s it’s kind of like that parable or story about, you know, the guy hanging on the side of the map. God says, I’ve sent you three different things, you know, you just keep ignoring them.

I don’t know that one well enough to tell it right now. But well sounds it

Brad Miller 15:08
sounds like an old preacher story that I’ve told many times that him but go ahead.

Dr. Michael Hudson 15:12
But the signs are there, right. And so here’s where the sign happened for me. And I’ll give a shout out to the guy because I love his work, Michael been gay standard. Michael was doing a keynote. And I had been hired as one of three people who were going to take the people who were in the audience into separate rooms, and coach them on how to apply what he had just taught. And this was when his book do more great work had just come out. Good. So I’m sitting at a table Brad with six CEOs who are going to be in a room with another 75 people with me after this session, where I’m supposed to coach them. So like, Okay, I got to play along and play fair and you know, be it be all in. First thing you did was it was piece paper on the table. Everybody take one. And it just had a circle with a button middle. You said in a minute, I’m going to give you a three definitions, I’m going to ask you to draw a pie chart of how they relate to you. So get a pencil out. Get ready. Let’s go said good work is this. It’s your job description. You’re good at it. You enjoy doing it. And if you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. We all have to do some good work. Bad work is abbreviated wombat. Because this is a waste of money, bandwidth. And time.

Brad Miller 16:30
I’ve not heard that one before. I like that. Remember that one? To get that book. So okay,

Dr. Michael Hudson 16:38
yeah, it’s a good little book.

And great work is the work you’re here to do. It’s the life changing strategic stuff that you really are supposed to be doing. So I want you to draw a chart on this pie chart percentages for those. So in my I’m compelled to be completely honest about with myself, as well as with the people at the table. I think 65% of my work, bad work. Oh, my goodness, and I labeled 5% Good work. And I said, Okay, you’re 14 years into running this niche business, you’ve done some good work along the way. But at this moment in time, you’re saying 65% of your work is bad work. Why is

Brad Miller 17:16
that? That’s a pretty brutal self assessment, isn’t it?

Dr. Michael Hudson 17:20
It’s a smack in the face, self induced. And so I went into room of the people, I listened to what they said, I guided them and help them. And then I kind of just went to my hotel room and I said, Okay, I gotta figure this out. And I was flying out that that later that day. So on the plane on the ride home, I made a list of my clients in three columns. Right? Work? Good work, bad work.

Brad Miller 17:43
Okay, I’m assuming so in that process, you had much longer list of some categories and others,

Dr. Michael Hudson 17:47
definitely in the bad work. Okay.

Because I only hit 5%. Right? And no way there were, there were three clients in the good work column. Okay. There were, I don’t remember the number to bed work, I think there were eight or 10, I had into good work in the three integrate. And I made a decision at that moment that I’m going to fire those clients, that I’m not going to do that work anymore. And now I did some other analysis. What is it about these clients? What is the problem and I realized what the problems were, they were pretty clear. I wasn’t leveraging my gifts. I wasn’t helping them communicate more effectively to implement the strategies we were defining for them. I wasn’t doing what I do best, which is challenge people to think differently. And I was finding myself frustrated and coming home a lot of times from the planning sessions I facilitate and just shaking my head, like, that was a waste of my time. And there’s

Brad Miller 18:41
and you come home for those. I’m assuming I’m read into this, you also come home with those drained, it is so energized and invigorated about and looking forward to what’s next.

Dr. Michael Hudson 18:51
Yeah, and I and I sort of had to also realize I hadn’t been listening to my wife, who was saying, Why do you keep coming on frustrated from these things? Okay. And so, you know, I made the joyful announcement on a Monday morning, Brad to my wife that I’m firing 65% of our clients today,

Brad Miller 19:07
which of course, comes with it with the with the with the consequences of whatever the revenue was, and other things with that, doesn’t it? So okay, 70 70% of the revenue came from those clients for that year.

Dr. Michael Hudson 19:20
And I said, and by the way, I’m going to do something else. I’m going to double the business next year. This happened in November, by the way, I’m going to double the business next year. And I’m going to sell it because I am not doing what I was put here to do.

Brad Miller 19:37
Okay, so you made a strategic plan, and not just to kind of just jump off the cliff with it, but to take a process a strategic plan, as it were. And that’s felt like that’s how you’re wired up to make a make a plan and follow it, although it certainly had some, you know, a really bold, you know, move but for you wasn’t it just was

Dr. Michael Hudson 20:00
it was risky. It was risky, right? Because in your what, here’s what firing MIT right, I was doing strategic planning for most of these people. And that meant every year they had planning session, okay. And so it was very typical for me to work with a client for five, five to seven years. So what I was basically doing was saying, by the way, I’m not available next year, I see. And the way I did that simply was to call the clients and say, just wanted to check on what you were thinking about for next year. I’m going to be doing fewer planning sessions next year. And I want to help you find the right person because I’m not going to be available

Brad Miller 20:36
to work with you. So there was a process, it wasn’t quite abrupt. But it’s still you’d made a decision. And what I’m getting at here with you, Michael, is, you’ve mentioned her already a couple times about some pretty bold decisions that you made, you know, bold decision to go get therapy, the bold decision to move out of academia to set a consulting business and the decision of the consulting business to, you know, fire your clients into defining refine your consulting business. What are some of the factors? Or what are what goes into making these bold decisions? And what’s the implications of those?

Dr. Michael Hudson 21:16
Oh, fantastic question, Brad. And, you know, I know it differs to some degree for everybody. But you know, the first factor to me was really the personal satisfaction. And the Am I doing what I’m best at doing? You know, if we go to Clifton’s strength, finders thing, right, you know, I have more strategies that are forced strengths that are strategic. And the other one is persuasion. Okay. And when I’m having that plane ride, and I’m looking at those great work clients, what hits me face is the ones I love, that are the best clients, where I’m doing great work are the ones where I’m leveraging my gifts of helping them think strategically identify where to go, and then showing them how to persuade the people, they need to help them make it happen. Get involved. And I looked back and said, Okay, what was happening in my academic time? Well, when you’re an active when you go in as an as an academician, and you know, you’re an assistant professor, what I discovered very quickly was if you can create the vision, and you talk about it enough, you’ll find the support, you need to speak it into existence. And that’s what I had done in both those cases, like, Okay, this is what I do best. This is what I love. This is where I feel excited, where I don’t come home frustrated. What can I do to do this all the time? Sure. So I went to Michael heights platform conference, literally the week after this epiphany from Michael

Brad Miller 22:38
standard, which is another bold action he took by going to the conference.

Dr. Michael Hudson 22:43
Well, and Brad, I got to tell you a backstory, that conference, which is I have never been sicker in my life than when I went to that conference. I got there and I had this intestinal virus thing hit me and I literally was between sessions, I would go back to my room and lay down and deal with other things. I’m a room service the entire time talk to no one just went in, sat in the room and absorbed. And then a man named Ken Davis walked on the stage. Oh,

Brad Miller 23:11
I know. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Hudson 23:12
Yes, I’m sure you do. And and Ken walked on the stage. And you know, Kenza, you know, he’s a lifelong communicator. You know, he’s a great humorist. He’s fantastic speaker. And I sat there, and I listened to Ken and I thought, you know, Michael, you’re hiding from what happened to you, has led you to hide from what you do, because you don’t think it’s good enough. I had never called myself a communication expert, or communication specialist. I didn’t think it was good enough, right. I’m a business guy, strategist. And I walked out of the room, picked up my phone, my cell phone out, called my wife. She answered the phone, and I was silent for a rather long time, and I’ve just kind of pulling myself together, I said, Just hang with me out, I want to tell you something. Literally, with tears rolling down my face. I said, um, I now know what I’m supposed to do. Awesome. And I now know that it can’t be done, because I’ve just seen an example. So to your question started me down this particular path. I think looking for the examples of people who are doing those things, is one of the things I’ve always used to give me strength to say, I’m going to make the bold decision and do this.

Brad Miller 24:27
Well, that leads me kind of to go to this a little step deeper with you here. Now you said, the sea of the example of, of Davis and Hyatt and the conferences and things that you went to lead you to go deeper and draw on that power. So tell me a little bit about how this becomes more than just a career change? How this was transformative, you said tears were rolling down your face. This is transformative in your soul, in your inner place. So what kind of power did you draw on? What kind of almost spiritual transformative things happen? You here? And did you draw on any, any resources from outside yourself? speakers or others? Are? They absolutely they have a spiritual nature?

Dr. Michael Hudson 25:09
Well, and and I think the whole journey was entirely spiritual. And I think it was, you know, for somebody would say, it’s just the universe working the way the universe does. To me, it was entirely spiritual. You know, the people that crossed my path. So you know, I have that happen in November, I see Ken Davis and I now know, okay, he plays a role. So what I ended up going to his score conference, paying the fee to work in the small group that worked directly with him, so I could learn from him on the following February, so now we’re in 2015. This is the year I’m going to double the business so I can sell it. Okay. The initial year, beginning of the year, revenue was not there, because I fired 65% of the business. And I said, You’re

Brad Miller 25:52
not like trying to double you’re going from a deficit, at least from where you were, she

Dr. Michael Hudson 25:58
was more than double. Brad, I’m doing a lot of praying. Yeah, there you go. Along with a lot of hoping, a lot of searching. Um, and I’m literally sitting in February. It’s it’s a rainy, dreary day, my wife and I are both in our chairs in the living room with our laptops in our laps working away. And I stopped and I just sort of looked at Sky a little bit. And I said to her, I said, I just wish somebody could tell me how to do this and help me shorten the path. Okay. Now, seven years earlier, I had met a gentleman named Ray Edwards.

And I don’t know if you know, Ray Ray is a copywriter, very faith based guy, former radio guy.

Brad Miller 26:36
I’ve been to his conferences, and I’ve interviewed him as well. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Hudson 26:40
So there’s an email in my inbox from after I say this to my wife. So I just wish I could go somewhere for three days and get this stuff figured out. I hit refresh on my email. And the first email is right from Ray Edwards, who I met seven years earlier. He sat next to me at a luncheon he was speaking, it was the only seat left in the room when he came in the room. We had minor casual conversation. But when he got up and left, I sat there and thought, Okay, you know what, he’s about the fifth or sixth person I’ve encountered in my life that I don’t know where but they make an impact in my life somewhere down the road. So I’ve been on his list and paying attention to him had never interacted with him. I was the jerk that would occasionally point out a typo here and there. Because

Brad Miller 27:29
I know. I know, he doesn’t go for that stuff.

Dr. Michael Hudson 27:33
But it was interesting was because of something he had said, At lunch that day, it was a call back to that the connection. Two or three years later, I saw this like, oh, wait a minute, here’s a way I can at least touch base with him. Because I remember the story. He told me sitting there at lunch. Anyway, this email sounded like he was in the room with me listening to what he just complained about, oh, boy, okay. And he was offering a three day workshop, come to Spokane, Washington, we spend three days together with eight other nine other people to I was in a room, and we’ll get things figured out. It’s called the escape velocity workshop. So I went, I did in fact, come back with a lot figured out. And on the plane ride home, I suddenly realized what the real differentiator was between the great work clients and the rest of them. And I wrote a description of who they were and what they look like, I didn’t put names with it, but I just wrote it. And literally, within the next 90 days, enough of them showed up to double the business revenue for the year. And allow me to actually work less than I had been, which was part of my goal. Because I was traveling a lot. Sure. And, you know, and then then what happened is I found the buyer for the business. And, you know, I sold him a strategic planning planning package for his organization along with the purchase of the business, which he has now been able to take his business four or five times where it was by acquiring that. Hell it all into my five great work clients. Okay, good, who various stages of five year processes, which gave me a runway

Brad Miller 29:06
to create new foundational to your next step, right?

Dr. Michael Hudson 29:09
Yes. which gave me runway and allowed me to start Brad, testing because I think this is another part of your question about how do you make the big jump, it was making a conscious decision, I’m going to start putting the stuff that I want to do that I believe is my own intellectual property, the lessons from my journey into my work, okay. And see how that flies because I it related to strategy, it related to vision, it related to persuasion it related to culture. So I started doing that. And I think, you know, that obviously empowered me because it landed well, and it further clarified who I was here to serve. And and here’s where the real pivot then came, which is, it’s more individuals than it is organizations.

Brad Miller 29:50
Okay, excellent. And I love to go there, because that’s you, you can’t change an organization. You can’t have transformational organizational outcomes, without transformational leaders who are transformed themselves. And yeah, that kind of goes to another level of my questions to you, Michael. And that has to do with the emotional aspect of all this here. And you mentioned your wife, you mentioned, some friends and people emotionally impacted you. So what, what is the power of the fuel of the emotion here of either serving a greater good, or maybe serving your wife or your family or the love of others in your life, tell me about how the emotions come into play here, whether it’s love or something else, that that drive or fuel your changes here?

Dr. Michael Hudson 30:36
Well, the it is, I’m a very emotional person, first of all, so you know, emotion is in everything. And as this all begins to happen, and I start getting clear on this, I realized that we suppress the emotion too much, that we don’t allow ourselves to feel it sometimes far enough for us to work through it. And you, you know, it was through this period, where I realized that I said, you know, what, I’ve kind of start sharing deeper, more vulnerable, personal things open up the emotional path. So not to be purely chronological, but it helps me helps me track. Understand. It’s probably 2017 in November of 2017, maybe 16. And 16, actually, and I’m doing it all staff for a client. And I realized, okay, I’m talking to them about story. Now, for me, the power of story became apparent because of very emotional stuff that happened in my life. I keep seeing people who are holding back, when I’m in rooms, facilitating conversations, I keep hearing from people who are struggling with figuring out well, who am I here to serve? What’s my message? How am I going to connect it all those kinds of? Yeah, I said, I stop hiding my story. So I walked in front of 150 people that and for the first time ever shared what I shared at the beginning of our conversation today. And in the context of serving them, to realize that there are things that legitimately get in our way, when it comes to communicating effectively, that I know there are reasons why some of you don’t feel comfortable telling stories or speaking up. So the session ends, they all go to lunch, there are several people staying in a room come up and talk to me and there’s one who stands over in a corner. Now, I’ve been working with this particular organization for about seven years at this time. And I know this person who’s standing in the corner very well. We’ve been in rooms a lot together in the past seven years. And I can tell

she is very troubled at that moment.

So after the last of the seven people leaves and goes to lunch line, she comes over to me, puts her arms around Brad, and I think there’s a phrase in a movie somewhere, I left that hard one time, which is called she squeezed the stuffing out of me. Actually, I think that’s a mash episode. And started crying. I mean, sobbing on my shoulder. And when she finally calmed down a bit, I sort of step back and I said, What’s going on? She said, Well, you know how I don’t speak up in the planning sessions very much. And I don’t, but but at the same time, by the way, right? Those people don’t speak up there. But they talked to you on the way to dinner. Or they sit next to you and tell you. And I said yeah, I notice he says it’s because what you just told on stage of your story is exactly my story. Now, let’s fast forward.

Brad Miller 33:30
Unless you were vulnerable yourself.

Dr. Michael Hudson 33:32
Absolutely. And let’s go to where the real breakthrough was amazing, right? Nine months later, I’m back doing a planning session with them again. And guess who’s talking?

Brad Miller 33:40
Oh, my goodness. Yeah. There she was finished. re finish.

Dr. Michael Hudson 33:44
Yeah, we finished the second day. And she comes up and says I just need to thank you. I said for what? She said, Well, because you’re telling that story. Last November, I took a six month leave of absence. And I finally went and dealt with what happened to me.

Brad Miller 33:57
Awesome. Awesome.

Dr. Michael Hudson 33:59
And so the cemented for me that you have to touch the emotions of the people. And you have to allow yourself to share the vulnerable illness to do that. Or your journey doesn’t pay off.

Brad Miller 34:12
Sure. And it shows the power of your story as well, and how that impacts others. And then they share their story with others to impact and it perpetuates. So you were saying about my Kim, they’re

Dr. Michael Hudson 34:22
just gonna say our friend like Kim said in one day, so you know, basically what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to help other people understand that all that shit you went through taught you something that it mattered? Yes, yes. Pardon the language. But that’s exactly how I

Brad Miller 34:35
of course, of course. And that is what we go through. That’s what adversity is. Oh, yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, what the way I like to define it, we all deal with some form of adversity, you know, it could be a death in the family, it could be a diagnosis of cancer disease or something. Depression is a big one, a debt, crushing debt or financial issues. Divorce, you know, all those things come into play is called the five days. But it all it makes are ways that we deal with the crap of our lives and how we get through it in order to break through to get to something else. And so that’s

Dr. Michael Hudson 35:08
awesome. And she, she was probably the pivotal instant incident for me, Brad, where I said, you know, what, these things matter. And they matter not just to us, because I guarantee the struggles you’ve had in your life open doors for you to teach other people things in the work you

Brad Miller 35:26
gives you credibility, it gives it the empathy, the emotional piece comes into play there. And that’s, that’s what you know, gives you the, the gravitas with with other people, and that, that comes into play, and I just want to get a couple other things from you, then I’ll let you go. And we’ve talked about a lot of things about, you know, kind of the spiritual, the emotional, and the, the actions that you took. And yet, there’s also got to be, you know, you talked about, you know, your organization and your, your framework a little bit, I just like to know, two or three things you do about discipline about how you actually, you know, implement all this, you’re talking about either personal discipline or things that you teach or frameworks of what you do. Can you speak to that from it?

Dr. Michael Hudson 36:11
Sure. I appreciate the question. Um, you know, I think the thing that drives my whole approach to discipline these days, and I’ve got to give credit to Jeff Walker, because I learned this in his Product Launch Formula live event three or four years ago, he shared the idea that 100% is easy, and 99% is hard. And let that sink in for a minute. You know that? If you commit 100%, it’s a lot easier because you know what to say no to. But if you don’t fully commit, you don’t really know what to say no to. And even if you think you’re fully committed, but you’re not fully committed. And he gave us he told the story of him in dark chocolate. He said, I love dark chocolate, because I would eat it day and night. He said, But if I decide to give it up, it’s very easy not to eat it. But if I eat a piece, I want another piece. He said, think about that in your business. Think about that in your life. And I realized I was still 99% in Yeah, I had written the weight loss roller coaster for years. Because the other thing I turned to besides story when I was 10 years old was sugar. Yeah. Right on the same corner where that bookmobile came that I got my books was a little old railroad station stop. It was one of those old timey stores that you know, you could buy everything in there from hip boots to sliced cheese to sodas, you know, to sweatshirt. Lots of candy

Brad Miller 37:34
was a part of your life and kind of a self medicating thing as well. It goes on

Dr. Michael Hudson 37:39
in Brad, I love you saying that that because I hadn’t acknowledge that. Yeah. But so you know, you get to this whole concept what happened and fundamentally the discipline thing was okay, and I said this I, I said this talking to my counselor one day, I said, I always feel like because I keep losing the weight loss battle, that I can’t win it anything.

And then I had the Epiphany last July 2,

just over a year from when we’re recording this, I had gone through a fantastic program called heroic public speaking graduate school run by Michael and Amy port. And they also came into my lives at the right time, because after I told that story for the client, I was concerned about managing my emotions telling that story. So I went to an event they had where I was coached on stage by them on how to deal with that. And when I finished that program, we recorded the demo video. And I had unlocked what this story really meant to me, Brad, in this journey, it was it’s a 16 week program over four months. So you’re a 16 day program over four months. So you’re pretty deep. And I got the demo video back on July 2. And I looked at and I said, You know what? That’s not me. I have told people for years who are really close to me that I just want to find me again. And I had made a decision in December 2017, I was going to finally kick kick weight loss problem in 2018. But it was July 2, when I saw that video and said you’re not even making progress on this. You’re six months into the year. And that was the day I decided to think about Jeff Walker and go 100% so I took Sugar Sugar out of my diet, broke the addiction. And a year later, I’m 65 pounds less than I was then I feel better and and and it’s much more than the weight loss. Brad It wasn’t about the weight loss. I don’t want your audience to misconstrue what I’m saying, well,

Brad Miller 39:30
weight loss is just an indicator. It’s not emotional trauma. JMI. Several years ago, I lost 100 pounds. So I know what you’re talking about. Yeah. And it’s a much more ahead thing and emotional thing than the body things.

Dr. Michael Hudson 39:42
Yeah. And about six months after I walked into bathroom one day, and in our house, she walked towards a mirror. And then he goes left to go into the closet. I turned left to go in the closet and I jumped back. I mean, I literally jumped back. I’m like, wait a minute. There you are. There’s the guy you were before what happened to you when you were 10 happened to you? Well, that’s all and you know, that was the emotional unlocking. Not surprisingly, tears came at that moment. I tell the story now without the tears, because I’ve worked past that. But so I think the whole point to your question, if I can kind of button it up up a little bit as that. Let the emotion take you where it takes you. I leaned on my wife heavily for that. I went through another counseling process to help me with that, because I’m a through it kind of person. And sometimes you got to talk through it with somebody has no vested interest in the process.

Brad Miller 40:36
And you’re talking about even specific is weight loss. You had to do that process with accounts. Yes. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. So that talks about a tool there that you use. So

Dr. Michael Hudson 40:45
I read I’m a devote, you know, I’m a voracious reader. So I we started talking about books. And I look to a lot of people like that to teach me things. And I and I think I’m a person who believes you have to take bits and pieces from lots of places, as opposed to just one I know there are other people that need to pick just one. So part of that emotional journey is pick the one that works Renee Browns video, when I first saw it on vulnerability certainly pivoted my thinking, you know, her TED talk, you know, then reading her work was another step. So I reached out to lots of places to address that point of how you deal with the emotional I give myself permission I do I do a massive amount of journaling to Brad I you’re more stuff out in these pages.

Brad Miller 41:26
Well, that helps you process it sounds me like Michael you process in several ways. One of them is your work. And one of them is your whole messaging thing here about clarifying your message in order to get your message through to others. And you’ve done the work on it yourself mostly in order to help teach others and the journaling and the processing the weight loss are all part of that. And that’s part of the life transformation process, which is awesome. And that’s why when you have on the podcast today to help us learn from you and to teach others and to and you do have ways that you do teach others. So what are you leading into these days? Michael, what are you up to these days? And if people want to learn more about you and what you’re about? How can they do that?

Dr. Michael Hudson 42:08
Thank you, Brad appreciate the opportunity to share that and appreciate what you just shared it puts a good cap on it. My work right now is heavily focused on coaching and one on one coaching for people who want to unlock their message now most of the people I work with are people who are at some sort of a transition point. Because as you’ve just heard in my story, I’ve transitioned four or five times in pretty significant ways. And and I think that’s helping attract those people to me. So right now for example, I have a new 90 day coaching program I’ve just rolled out you know, it’s helping people unlock what’s that message How do I get it out who’s the audience and and my premise there is really basic attract the right clients and repel the wrong ones because the bad clients were the wrong clients. And so if you’re comfortable I I can you know, if you want to get us I’ve got a video a series that talks about that particular thing that you can get it Michael Hudson. com slash attract just a TTRACT

Brad Miller 43:07
awesome, we’ll put in a show notes as well.

Dr. Michael Hudson 43:09
The other thing I’m doing is you know, speaking at conferences and conventions where I can wear those kinds of people in the audience. And I’m working on a number of little courses that help reveal some of the lessons I’ve learned from 35 years as a full time speaker, coach and consultant for 25 have a 10 part time for the first 10 to help people shorten the learning curve avoid pitfalls, overcoming obstacles so that’s that’s and you can reach me anytime at Michael Michael Hudson calm. The always happy happy to have an email sent to me. If you’ve got a question, happy to answer and connect with you. But what I help do is people unlock you know, what is it they’re here to do? What is that journey you’ve traveled, taught you? What is it equipped you to do that only you can do and if you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. Awesome because I’m tired of seeing people sit struggling. I’m tired of teen people not understand that there was a lesson in that, that you have to learn

Brad Miller 44:07
it unless you learned you’re now passionate about sharing that lesson in order to help effect life transformation for others to pivot and move on to what they’re really called to be about what they’re called to do. And so, love your message. Love Your Work, Michael, and we will look for great things to come from you down the road here.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brad Miller 0:00
Eric Christiansen is with us today. And he is a filmmaker who specializes in films that have to do with

people who’ve been compromised mentally and spiritually and physically by trauma somehow in their life. And his films are about the resilience of the human spirit and the importance of hope and healing journey. And he said some really specialized in a lot of films that have to do with with veterans, including

faces and the fire and visit and homecoming are some of the films he’s worked on in the past. And his upcoming film is unmasking hope the movie, we welcome you to pathway to promise. Eric Christiansen. Thank you, Brad. It’s an honor to be here. I’m excited to have a conversation with you about all these things. Well, it is awesome and I love to talk to filmmakers. I’ve I just recently talked to a filmmaker who was working with a woman who was an survivor.

Auschwitz and had some great stories to tell about that. And then your stories about survivors of another conflict other, both internally and in some cases through a war and things like that. But tell us a little bit about you, because I got a feeling that you’re telling the stories of people who’ve had trauma in their life and drama, because you’ve had some share of that in your life. So let’s have a little bit of background on you, Eric, about some of the things you’ve had to deal with that have informed your filmmaking. Well, Brad, if we have to kind of rewind back to 29 years ago, on June 27 1990, in Santa Barbara, California.

Eric Christiansen 1:41
I was I was working in industry up there. I was an editor and I was leaving living in the foothills of Santa Barbara, California. And we have an unusual weather condition up there, called the sundowner wins. It was in June, it was really hot. We had three days straight of triple

digit temperatures, zero humidity. And then we had this sundowner phenomenon where the winds blow down through the canyons and out to sea and some of those winds can get pretty ferocious. And so we have three days of this. And

the Chaparral interface there in the foothills had gotten tend to dry. And all it took is one little spark and the paint cave fire disaster of Santa Barbara in 1990 was ignited and it came through the foothills there and down through

headed towards the ocean. And in a matter of less than eight hours it consumed about 450 homes including my home, my goodness, and I was reading up there, no renter’s insurance, but I had kind of all my worldly possessions in that residence. My mom, I was living up there with my mother and she had the top floors of this beautiful, beautiful home.

kind of changed my whole life once that fire came through, and then took my home, and it was but you know, looking back on it, and and I can speak more about this looking back on it was such a pivotal day, but it was also the start of my new life. But looking at my mom’s life, it was actually the start of her kind of entropy after that. So it was it was a very interesting contrast. So unpack a little bit more you say her happy and your new life. What was there was salad. There’s some pivot points there that maybe you went one direction she went another. So tell me a little bit more about that. Well, basically with my mom, you know she was a over at that point she was over, almost a 45 year cancer survivor. She had a radical mastectomy when I was only three months old and she was quite a survivor.

I see that blow of she had all her heirlooms and everything in that house and she was getting older than and I see that blow as really the start of you know, she, she had a lot on her shoulders from surviving all that. And that was the beginning of kind of a downward spiral for spiral for her losing all that stuff that was so important to her. And it was just tough to watch. And then she went through a couple bouts of cancer and passed away probably about about 10 years after the fire. But for me, it was quite different. It took about seven months for me to kind of figure out what God had done with that fire. But it wasn’t a comfortable seven months before the fire, I was probably drinking, not drinking socially, I was a little bit over the top in my partying and everything already. And I knew that. But the fire really brought out a different kind of drinking and drugging. For me. I started drinking up the fire. And I was I was very, pretty angry, I was always a happy person. And it just really changed my whole demeanor. And, you know, it got towards the end that Christmas after that June. I was I couldn’t, I couldn’t drink enough to stay drunk. And that was a lot of all him, okay, I couldn’t I couldn’t get sober. I just there was an option. And the woman that’s my wife now, gave me this card. And it was this guy named Don R. And she said, if you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired of doing this, and you should maybe go see this guy, he might have a solution. So I went down and saw this

Brad Miller 5:44
guy, he’s a therapist, or some sort of counselor. He’s a

Eric Christiansen 5:47
member of a spiritual group of gentlemen that and men and women that found the solution to addiction and alcoholism. And he also ran an outpatient outpatient was very important. But it was more important that I joined this other group of, of alcoholics and addicts. And then that’s, that’s where I got really involved in a spiritual program that really helped help me heal. And I had my last I had my last drink January 13 1991. So it’s a 28 years of sobriety.

Brad Miller 6:24
And you got us an interesting turn of a phrase there a minute ago, you said you were drinking at the fire. And I just thought that was an interesting way of approaching it, you know, when people drink or use something to self medicate or a substitute sometimes your that’s one way of trying to attack What’s he getting you without getting to the core of your, what’s going on your soul and that that’s great. So you took so with your now wife, she took some action and you and you follow through by participating in this spiritual life group. And that would be an ongoing process. I assume it wasn’t just a one off thing, you had to be good invest in yourself and Right.

Eric Christiansen 7:01
Exactly. And I still do today, I was just at a group this morning. And, you know, it’s um, you know, I love your show, because we can talk about God, God made a promise with me. He said, If I do his work, and I mindful of his we’ll well, day by day, that he’s going to take this obsession of alcohol away from me. So as long as I’m mindful every morning, and every day to do His will, his part of the deal is he’s going to take this upset, the obsession away of alcohol. And that has been the truth for 28 years now. That’s awesome.

Brad Miller 7:39
So that part of that process is, you know, we, we believe part of this show is believed every body has a god given promise, life of peace and prosperity and purpose. But you have to work at you have to follow, you have to go through some disciplines and some processes and, and that sounds like that’s part of what you’re doing. And the spiritual formation is definitely a part of that. And so tell me what you said, You met with this group this morning. Other times, it sounds like this ongoing thing, tell me how that works out in kind of your day to day life, how you impart the spiritual power in your life in order to help this transformation to take place.

Eric Christiansen 8:15
You know, it comes down to a real basic thing for me, you know, I get up I have my morning meditations, you know, I read, I read from our morning meditations book, which is, you know, a Christian God oriented book, and, but not only that, one of the my vital parts about my personal well being, and continued well being is to have a spiritual mentor, that is older than me, a male that’s been there before that is also following God. And I check in with him two, three times a week. And, and when things get tough, I sit down with him and I let him speak into me. And, and he guides me through a lot of things. And, and that’s been a big thing. And the other thing is I give it away, I do the same thing for other young men that are coming in, that are trying to get sober, and I work with them. And I serve as their mentor. And so on a personal basis, that’s how it works for me,

Brad Miller 9:12
that’s awesome. Because that, that shows the building of that relationship. And I like to talk about that. loving relationships, those intimate relationships, help fuel transformation, and us and help keep that going. But you got to keep that stoked, and it going you mentioned your wife and, and your mentor and you have mentees I guess to another turn of a phrase. So people use spoken to you, you speaking to them. And those relationships have to be a powerful part of your ongoing transformation.

Eric Christiansen 9:42
Exactly. And with and applying spiritual principles, basically, you know, I go to the book of James. And, you know, if we went on to get real nuts and bolts, and a lot of lot of my message is in the book of James, and, and, and you know, and keeping my side of the street clean, and being mindful of others before me.

Brad Miller 10:04
And so, and be a doer of the word is one of the ways it is phrase in James as well. That’s exactly yeah, that’s good spread part. So part about being a doer of the word. Eric, it seems like you have expressed your this transformation that’s happened in you. And some of these experiences happened to you overcoming alcohol and such a devastating fire and, and some other things in your life that are part of where your expression is through filmmaking. So let’s let’s just talk about that little bit about what, what got you into filmmaking in the first place? And what drives you what motivates you, what keeps you going to make films that you do?

Eric Christiansen 10:45
Well, you know, basically, I’ve been making films, even before a second grade. But second grade, I did my first film with a script that I’ve been working professionally, since I was about 13 years old being on sets. And so that’s always been my vocation. And I’ve always felt even since I was tiny, you know, 1012 years old, that I had some sort of message. But I didn’t know what that message was. So I just kept making my little films and my super eight films which were lost in the fire. But I kept making little films and all these things. And then what happened is the fire came along and after the fire, there was this, I, I edited tons of commercials, IMAX movies, done a lot of other work. But after the fire, I was so moved, when I would go to the Red Cross centers and interact with other survivors, how we could speak. But it was very difficult to try to explain the experience to people outside the circle that hadn’t been through the fire, you had a commonality

Brad Miller 11:46
in your trauma that you Only you really knew.

Eric Christiansen 11:50
Exactly, and that inspired me through my naivete at the time. And this is almost 20, almost 2728 years ago did this film called faces in the fire about surviving disaster fire disaster, and I interviewed over a dozen other fire survivors. And then we I worked with the American Red Cross. And we had a screening of that in Santa Barbara the year after the fire at on the anniversary, which is always powerful. Those anniversaries are powerful for the trauma survivors. Sure. And we had a very successful screening that brought a lot of healing not only for me, but the people in the film, being able to see their life reflected in the film, really validated their experience. And it really a lot of times it motivated them to take the next step towards healing towards other things that might have come up through this trauma, and then be able to take care of that. So it really produced a lot of healing on both sides of the camera, then the film went on to later be shown on all sorts of cable networks and things. And one of my first Emmy Award, which was really kind of exciting. And but the more importantly, it was picked up by the National Institute of Mental Health as a healing tool, where they would use it to train counselors that are coming into disasters that are going to deal with some of the survivors. And they would use that film, to give the counselors an understanding of what the effect is and the debriefing and the whole kind of grief process that the survivors are going through. So that was really the biggest that was an aha moment for me.

Brad Miller 13:34
Well, that dead dead also means that your work is being not just entertaining and useful and helpful, but it is actually being used as a tool for actual therapeutic Reese a resource for for people and that that is awesome. Was it used also you said is used for the for the counselors and so on was it also used for the victims in some way another to

Eric Christiansen 13:56
Yeah, it would be it consistently was shown for the survivor and was made available through the American Red Cross, and through the National Institute of Mental Health, and female to survivors of different fires and things like that. But it was mainly used as a tool and training. And that was a big aha moment because I’ve never done a film since then. Without clinical support without again, it goes back to mentorship is finding clinicians that understand my work that will give me guidance and things. So my work is on point clinically, on top of being emotional, moving, and hopefully aspirational for people to get healing.

Brad Miller 14:38
Yeah, plus gives you credibility. You know, you want you as far as the content of what you have, and, and a big another big part of what the films you’ve made. Eric has to do with with veterans. I understand. I saw this with your friends it with with veterans. Of course, they’ve had their own sets of traumas, but what led you to do films with veterans and the traumas that they deal with?

Eric Christiansen 14:58
You know, that’s such a great questioning because it really goes chronologically as part of my story because I finished faces in the fire. And a lot of producers saw that. And I was hired to do a lot of other films that kind of had the same feeling but it wasn’t, it wasn’t facing the fire or wasn’t that same kind of soul connection. So I was literally a few years later praying for a similar project. Again, I was in my men’s group and a good friend of mine. Bob Trimble was in this group. And he mentioned that his mom had passed away. And he was a Vietnam veteran, Purple Heart, Silver Star. And he said there was a lot of stuff coming up with him. And he couldn’t, he was having he was very rocked the trigger, but his mom passing away and a lot of stuff from Vietnam. And he was very, I guess, triggered and agitated. And so he had heard about this motorcycle run from California to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington, DC. And he was thinking of going on this run. So after the meeting, and Bob, I go, this helps it answered my prayer. You know, if you’re thinking of going, can I follow you on this? and make a film about your journey? And he said, Yeah, I think so. And so I met with some other veterans and the veterans are various Vietnam veterans in particular, very skeptical about media. And they’re like, okay, yeah, we’ll see. And we’ll see if you really go the whole way with us. Right. And so, there I was down, it was in May, of 2000. We left Ontario, California with 300, Vietnam veterans on motorcycles, and it headed for the wall. And it really is not a motorcycle run. It’s a motorcycle pilgrimage. It’s very interesting. It’s very, it’s very somber. And it’s, and it’s allows these veterans to understand that America still supports them. And they get the Welcome home, they never got Sure. From from when they came home originally. And Bob in particular, had quite an epiphany at a place called Angel fire, which is a Vietnam Veterans Memorial in New Mexico that was built by Dr. Westfall, he lost his son in Vietnam, he literally started digging the foundation to this beautiful chapel with his own hands. And so the run goes through there. And that was a very emotional time for Bob where the basically the shell crack there. And he got to experience that, that release of Vietnam, but not only he was, he was surrounded by lots of his Vietnam brothers that understood. And then that film, go ahead.

Brad Miller 17:44
No, I’m just saying, I’ve been to the wall myself. And it’s certainly a that’s a powerful, powerful place to see, you know, people there who are still mourning and still do deep grief about what happened in Vietnam, right there at the wall, both in person and course the, the letters and the gifts, people leave things like that. So yeah,

Eric Christiansen 18:06
the wall, the wall, you know, is a very powerful place. And it was an honor to walk the wall with Bob while he looked for one of his best friends that he lost in Vietnam, and you do the etching there. And he found Bobby’s name. And he did that thing. And I got a walk with him on that wall. Sorry, I’m getting emotional course. Because Because if you flash forward, gosh, almost 16 years, I gotta walk the 911 Memorial, with jack Delaney. It was a first responder. And without question, was running towards tower two before it fell with his with his group of men, then he lost quite a number of men. Yes. Responding to 911. And it was funny because it’s not funny. It’s, it’s, it’s a God thing is we’re at the memorial, I’m there with jack filming his and we’re connecting and talking. And he’s trying to find the name on the wall of his survivors. And then after that whole thing, I get into the Uber, and we’re way back and I go, Wow, who gets to walk these Memorial walls, one in Vietnam, you know, one from Vietnam, and one for 911. with men like that, yeah, I gotta do it twice in my life. What a

Brad Miller 19:23
what a, what an awesome privilege. That is when you, when you walk with people through those special times, I’ll share my brief story that has some similarities I’ve been, I was privileged in my church, I’m a pastor at to interview a world war two veteran A few years ago, a few years ago, before he passed away, who was in the battlefield Jima, and he was wounded seven, eight times, and, you know, lost several friends. But he, he would continue to talk about his buddies who he lost there, and who he met with every year, you know, for decades after that. And I remember that also, not too long before that interviewed a, another veteran of the first Gulf War, who’s a tank commander in 1991. And as remember how there was, you know, certain differences, to be sure, but a lot of commonality with the collegiality and the grief and the, and the drama and the trauma that happened there. And then just yesterday, I was talking to a person on the east coast and Delaware, as asking us some of the dramatic things happening in the world around there. And he referred back to 911. Was that was interesting about how that impacted so many people in that area, but all around the world, of course, but particularly where he was at lost people there. And so there’s a commonality there. And, and you’re telling me these stories, which are just amazing and dramatic, and they all have to do with some form or another of, of delivering power of hope, right? The power of hope. Exactly.

Eric Christiansen 20:46
And that’s the amazing thing is, Oh, and by the way, I was making a movie. It’s kind of funny, it’s like, not only am I walking with these men and get this experience, personally, but I’m putting it down prosperity, and I’m recording these men story and and their hope and their healing. And, you know, Bob’s Bob, you know, he that run changed Bob and and visiting the memorial with jack. And being participant in this in unmasking hope, yes, was was a big is a big part of his life now. And it’s just such an

Brad Miller 21:22
honor to be friends with people like let’s go ahead and get into unmasking hope a little deeper than because that’s what your present project is. And so just tell us what what you mean, then, by unmasking hope, what is that? What’s that? representative of?

Eric Christiansen 21:37
You know, it’s interesting, it works on a lot of different levels. I mean, the first level obviously is uncovering hope, uncovering hope, and seemingly, at the time, hopeless situations, you know, and one of our clinical expert experts, Dr. celeb out, the New York University says, You’re never completely depleted of Hope you’re never empty, there’s always a core that’s left. And that’s where he can start to rebuild with the survivors. But then the other level of unmasking hope, is the masks that we all were particularly trauma survivors, that just to get through the day, sometimes we have to put this mask on that everything’s okay. And that mask does help us function in certain cases. But that mask can get out of control. Like for me, that mask became drinking and drugging. And that mask I hid behind that mask, and that became me. And it’s about the melting away of this mask, and unmasking hope, the hope underneath that mask. So when we had such success was searching for homecoming back for more on public television, and on video on demand on iTunes and Google Play. We started say, okay, what’s our next project. And going back to my clinical supervisors, and the clinicians and the doctors involved and Dr. Meet that came out of Stanford University, we were discussing the most effective way to really connect with the bigger audience outside the veteran community, and create a connection that’s even bigger than that than that and make the film more accessible, I guess you would say. And so that’s where unmasking hope came about is that we have 911 survivors. We have police, first responders, we have sexual abuse survivors, we have mass shooting survivors. And then we’re going to grow out from there cancer survivors, people that are close to people that have committed suicide, we’re going to cover kind of the gamut of trauma, but show through the lenses of the truth, what happened to them, the healing when they find somebody else like themselves and get on the healing path. And the hope we’re going to, we’re going to be able to show that we all heal very similarly, no matter if it’s sexual trauma, or if it’s 911. And that’s the fascinating part of doing the film is interviewing the 911 survivor. Then next week, I’m over here with a sexual abuse survivor. And they’re telling a very similar story about their healing.

Unknown Speaker 24:21
Yes.

Eric Christiansen 24:23
So I think, to me, healing is kind of that that mental healing of trauma is very similar to how God is designed to scab, when we scrape ourselves or something, that there’s a natural way that God has implanted in us that we heal from it. But there’s ways that we stop it and we stymieing the healing and, and we make it difficult to heal just the same way with the we scrape off a scab, but at the core of all of us is similar way that we all heal. And that’s what my work is based on. That’s why I have such a wide aggregate survivors and basking hope

Brad Miller 25:02
that’s good. And there, you’re revealing that thread that goes through all these stories, you know, there’s some, you know, very distinct differences, you know, from war survivor to a sexual abuse survivor to Sony, Pfizer, fire or disaster, or even more common things like someone gets cancer or you know, someone is in a car wreck or something, you know, but there’s these, this process of healing and wholeness and, and that doesn’t happen unless we choose to work through, you know, the journey, the decisions that we make, and, and you’ve given us your films, or given us some tools to do that. Well, just kind of one more one or two more things here, Eric, and that is, give me an example of how you’ve seen either your work, or something you’ve done. Or witnessed how you’ve seen some real science of hope, signs of, of healing and wholeness have taken place where you’ve mentioned your story and some other people’s subjects, so your films, but I’d be nice to see a story where you’ve seen something now this work, has it back to somebody else?

Eric Christiansen 26:01
You know, that’s I glad you asked that. Thank you. Because I was just thinking about and I was thinking about my experience with homecoming and Vietnam vets journey. And after that film was done, that that motorcycle run culminates at a thing called Rolling Thunder in Washington DC on Memorial Day where there’s up to 200,000 bikes, right into Washington, DC and memory of POW is an MI. Of all the wars. And so it’s it’s, it’s a huge procession. And so we were there one year, selling the DVDs. And I remember my kids were tiny, we had shipped all these boxes back, we’re on the mall selling DVDs. And my wife and I, and this big burly biker guy is standing in front of the stand. And my wife comes up and goes, this guy wants to talk to you. And I’m like, wow, okay, you know, I’ve gotten pretty used to the big biker guys and everything. And I look and he turns and he has tears in his eyes. And he goes, I just want to thank you. I’m like, why is that he goes well, my dad lives down in Tennessee. And he saw homecoming of Vietnam veterans journey on TV. And we hadn’t talked since Vietnam. He said, after I saw that film, he called me up after his dad saw that film in Tennessee, he called him up and apologized. And now him and his dad have this relationship. And it was because his dad was able to experience through the film, what his son had went through from Vietnam. And now they have a they have a relationship. And if that isn’t amazing to hear, and that’s just one story. That’s, that’s awesome. about that. That was very powerful.

Brad Miller 27:53
Yes. Well, that that’s great. Oh, I love that, because that’s what I love to hear. Because what what I’m all about here on pathway to promise is that is those type of moments, you know, where you know, it’s a God thing, you know, something has happened here, for changes take place in a relationship or something else that has gone, gone well, but people have chosen then to do the hard work or to take to do the actions they they’ve chosen to draw on a higher power a spiritual forces we talked about, they’ve chosen to to act out in love in relationships, one to another and do the difficult work. And they’ve chosen to have the disciplines that takes you know, to to do whatever it takes. And I appreciate your work and helping people have some tools to do that. And so, so Eric, how can people find out more about you and what you’re about and what’s next and about when we can see your upcoming movie and tell us about how people can be in contact with you or learn more about what you’re about.

Eric Christiansen 28:48
The best way is to go to unmasking hope, the movie calm. And you can go to that website and it pretty much as a clearinghouse on everything you can get to my personal site, ec productions.com. That keeps you up to date with what I’m doing personally. But a masking hope the movie.com is one of the main places you can go to Instagram, unmasking hope and to Facebook and look up unmasking hope on facebook and join us. And we’ll keep you up to date. The really exciting thing with unmasking hope now is it might be way more than a movie star. And there’s a lot of interest in here in Burbank and in the industry and turning it into a series because right now it’s a very prime time for people to talk about mental health issues. And they’re very interested in the message in the message of hope. So we’re very excited. So you know if you do want to find out more unmasking hope, the movie.com and we’ll find out and follow us from there.

Brad Miller 29:50
Absolutely get on Eric’s list and be aware of whatever’s next, whether it’s a series or a movie or anything else that could come out of it helpful tools that help people deal with trauma, and to really claim the power of hope for life transformation. So we’re thankful today to have Erica Christiansen, the filmmaker with us here on the pathway to promise podcast. Thank you, Eric.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brad Miller 0:00
We have Frankie Finn with us who’s an author and a teacher and a creator and a retreat leader. And he is, has the website sacred plant retreats.com. And he is all about helping people in their life journey to understand discover what they were really put here on earth for and to discover their unique gifts and experiences, and to focus focus in their life and to have some inspiration. And these type of person he has a great story to tell about some of the things he is overcome in his life and some of the resources he’s used to overcome adversity achieve some success in his life. And we welcome the pathway to pathway to promise Frankie Finn.

Frankie Fihn 0:46
Well, thank you so much, Dr. Miller. That was an amazing introduction, by the way, and it’s it’s an honor for all the beautiful things you stand for, to be a part of this wonderful show. Thank you, Frank. Appreciate it. And what is from here on I’ll be up Frankie, and I’ll be Brad you

Brad Miller 1:00
we’ll just have a good conversation as as, as Frank said, Brother, Herman, they tell me a little bit your story I just mentioned a little bit of some kind of kind of took to the heart of the 10,000 foot view of your story here. But tell me a little bit about your story about where you’ve come from, what kinds of things you’ve had to do with your life and what you’re doing now.

Unknown Speaker 1:20
Yeah, you know, it’s really, really interesting, because

Frankie Fihn 1:23
I had, like an extremely dysfunctional childhood, by most people’s standards. And I grew up where both of my parents were alcoholics. And my dad probably dabbled in every kind of drug you can imagine. And, and so I always had this continuing, like, crowd of unusual, weird, sometimes downright crazy characters in my life. And, you know, I can remember just like an experience when I was really young, where my dad had a girlfriend who was fighting a court case, for the custody of her son and the, the, the girlfriend had been a heroin addict for many, many years. And the guy she dated was also a heroin addict. And so they, they managed to make a baby and not even realize they did it. So seven months pregnant, and somehow miraculously, this baby who was born in the middle of heroin addiction, came out perfectly normal. And it’s it’s such a blessing, but she remember actually telling me and most people

Brad Miller 2:26
who, That’s bizarre in and of itself, isn’t it? My goodness, it’s, it sure

Frankie Fihn 2:29
is, it sure is. And I can remember, you know, she told me once that she spent $100,000 on heroin, and like, seven months, or something like that, until she just ran out of money. And yeah, and you know, it’s really sad seeing those addictions. And I remember, one point, they were fighting this custody battle, and, and because when you’re dealing with two people who are like that level of extreme dysfunction, you know, both heroin addicts, it’s kind of like, if you just show up, and don’t do anything stupid, but Child Protective Services is going to side with you because they want the kid to be with the parents. And I can remember, there was a five o’clock exchange, and they had some friend over who had been drinking all day. And he asked, could I take the car to go up to the bar, so you went and drunk, drove to the bar,

Brad Miller 3:17
and

Frankie Fihn 3:19
ended up getting so drunk at the bar that he passed out in the driver’s seat in the parking lot didn’t go anywhere. And so they had somewhere to be at five o’clock, and at six o’clock, they weren’t there. And it’s seven. And eventually, they drove, it was about an hour drive an hour away, everybody in the car, you know, like very drunk and made this exchange. And of course, it was like, you know, kind of like Olympic fencing by that point, because everybody was fighting. And these kind of things were like, really normal in my childhood. I mean, for most people, that would probably be really extreme. And I remember when the, the friend finally came home, my dad had a fistfight with him and beat him up on the lawn. And then he just like, pass out on the lawn. And so for me, like to, to look back at life, and to look at all the ways have been able to, to be blessed and everything, like when I look back at just all the, the obstacles I was working against, in many ways, like if not for a higher power, I legitimately don’t think it could be done.

Brad Miller 4:16
Well do what drama and trauma there and in your childhood growing up. And yet you somehow have managed to have some success in your life in the corporate world and some things like that, what, what got you there and I will get to your what you’re doing now in a minute, but you somehow matriculated out into the corporate world. How did that happen?

Frankie Fihn 4:37
Yeah, yes. So you know, I think it was it was really interesting. I was in a situation where I’m from, I’m from Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and it’s about five minutes from Detroit, Michigan. So I always say that I grew up close enough to Detroit to hear the gunshots without being hit. And Detroit’s, like, legitimately a pretty rough city. Yes, I know. And, and where I’m from, like, there’s this kind of like, unreal written script in the stars that says, you’re going to go up and work for one of the car companies for General Motors and Chrysler, that’s just like all the industry there. And so a huge significant portion of all the, the the jobs in that area, either work for a car company, or work for a company that supplies them. And so there’s this kind of like, path that was really laid out for me. And I was fortunate where I went to school got a really good job as a, or got a really good degree as an engineer, and was able to move up really, really quickly. And then, you know, I was kind of building this life that it wasn’t really what I wanted. But what end up happening is 2008 came around the economy, all of a sudden, these car companies that were these havens of business, were laying off 10s of thousands of people. And it really forced my hand to go in life in a different direction. And so, for the last 12 years, how I’ve been able to live and obviously, it’s, you know, it’s been its own journey and growth, but I kind of live the, what a lot of, like, people dream about what they call the laptop lifestyle, where you can, you know, go around the world, because we actually, for the last two years, I think I’ve been around the planet twice. We’ve been in like, 30 countries. And

you know, we just seen many things and because, you

know, like, you know, the way we kind of like run our business works laptop, we’re able to kind of work our own hours and our own times. And it’s just been such a different blessing from the the craziness that I grew up in.

Brad Miller 6:29
That’s awesome. That’s a dream for a lot of folks and achieving that. But I’m sure that getting from fistfights on the front lawn with heroin addicts to this laptop lifestyle was not just a straight line of, you know, butterflies and wonderfulness. tell a little bit about some of the actions that you took, what are some of the things that you did to break some patterns there, Frankie to get you where you’re at now, what are some of the bold things that you did?

Frankie Fihn 6:58
Yeah, I mean, I wish there’s been a lot of little things, as you know, Brad, it’s like when you when you make something of yourself. A lot of people are looking for that one thing, but it’s usually like 10,000 little decisions. But I think there’s a lot of really amazing habits that you can develop that if you’re listening to this, that. And you had mentioned before the show, there was the five D’s I’m trying to remember one was depression. One was divorce, one was death,

Brad Miller 7:25
and also was disease and debt money. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, basically, I believe most people have one form or another, they have to deal with those things in some form of some form of adverse something in their life that impacts that is due at least one or more of those things.

Frankie Fihn 7:42
Yeah, yeah. And I would say, you know, I’m no exception to that rule, I’ve had to deal with all five of them as well, I would say probably in the health might have been the most fortunate Not that I’ve never had a disease. But you know, I spent most of my life being healthy. But I can actually remember being really, really depressed for a lot of years. And I think people, a lot of people feel that way, where it was very interesting to me to have kind of like the success that my parents always dreamed for me at a very young age. And to realize what I wanted to do, because you know, when I was working in this factory actually became like a middle manager at the Ford Motor Company. And when I would go into work, and I would go to this thousand square foot plant, where I’d be surrounded by people that were mostly negative, like it was just that that particular plant was really negative, hostile, argumentative kind of place. Now, a lot of just kind of bad attitudes, I breathe in toxic chemicals all day long. It smelled I was 20 years old, I ever saw a pretty girl in any factory places. They were, they were a long ways from there. And it was it was miserable. But I would go home. And my parents are, you know, were they were just so proud of me, like my mom would be like, wow, you did it, you got health benefits, you’re making like more money than I ever did, aren’t you so proud of yourself. And I think a lot lot of people experience something similar, where you end up being successful, but successful in in what other people want to do. And then you find that there’s a certain emptiness to it, where you’re like, kind of miserable. And so I experienced this, like, really, really bad depression. And I and I remember, like, some days, you know, just thinking that, you know, I was going to die, and I was just going to be this miserable factory worker. And it just intensified. And I think one of the biggest things that I learned out of it, even though is a very, very difficult time is most people don’t realize it, but you’re either kind of like to use a sports metaphor with your life, you’re either playing offense or you’re playing defense. And in my particular, you know, miserable kind of factory job I was, I was playing defense, I let the company Tell me what I had to do every day, I’d let somebody else do all the thinking. For me, I didn’t really ask a lot of questions about who I was, or what I really wanted to do, or what kind of do friends I made in the world. And I think the number one thing you can do, to get out of any sort of depression is to have that deep kind of self honesty and reflection. And then use that as a catalyst in order to like, be really real with yourself about what you really want. And the beautiful thing is I find when you when you’re really honest about what you really want, it also will benefit a lot of other people to like, it’s not just your own selfish dream, it’s actually something that really contributes and betters the world. And I find when people are doing things they really love doing, and they’re helping better people’s lives. And, you know, they’re doing the things that they’re naturally good at. It just it seems to have an effect of, of, of whatever depression is the the opposite of that, where you feel blessed and inspired and purposeful, in amazing comes when to me when those three things align with just to say kind of once more, doing what you love, doing what you’re naturally good at, and doing what people really need and contribute getting something to other people’s lives. And I find when you do that, it’s a very different experience.

Brad Miller 11:04
That’s, that’s awesome. And I love the metaphor, you’re using their Frankie of the Office of defense to sound like you, you were back on your heels playing defense, you’re in a in the corporate world and the Ford plant just kind of getting by kind of dead inside. And then when you took offense, you took some charge of your life. That was part of the process of breaking out of your depression and breaking getting forward. Yeah, that’s great. So that’s kind of what you did sort of part of what you did that internal, intrinsic part of what went on with you that I just can’t keep going this way. And yet, I got the feeling that with you. And a lot of folks that can only last so long that kind of that, that internal unhappiness and internal, I gotta change this internal. willpower can only last so long. And we have to get some strength or some energy from some other resources. And I find oftentimes at some sort of a higher power since we’re for spiritual journey, and this would tell me about that a little bit. Is this any part of your experience, Frankie, some sort of drawing and some sort of higher power spiritual journey, which has helped to embolden you and your transformation?

Frankie Fihn 12:20
I mean, I would say 100% of it. And I experienced this. For me, what started happening in my life was, when I started to come out of it, there was people call synchronicity, and it was, it was really weird for me, I can remember, I would walk by a clock, and there was like, at the time, and there was a 99% chance it would be like 1111, or 111, or 1234, when I would walk by, and this would even happen when, you know, like, the DVD player resets because the power goes out. And it’s set to the wrong time for three weeks, but I would still walk by the wrong time at 1111. And I remember for for months, thanks.

Unknown Speaker 13:00
Okay, this,

Frankie Fihn 13:01
somehow my like, subconscious knows the time. And it’s just like, I’m just doing this to myself, I can’t be like, all these signs are coming. And then I remember when I first started thinking that I would get like emails from people at 1111. And I would see these kind of symbols over and over, or I remember one time, and this happened to me numerous times, but I, I would turn on, like the local hockey games, or I’m Canadian, you know, I’m gonna watch some high

Brad Miller 13:25
scores i get i get sad. Sure.

Frankie Fihn 13:29
And, but I would turn it on, and the game would be tied, one one in the first and they would be on a timeout, and there would be 1111 to go in the first period. And it just started.

Brad Miller 13:40
That’s all. That’s awesome. That’s how this kind of thing happens sometimes going. Yeah, I know. Sorry to interrupt you. But it’s just interesting how that I’ve had that kind of thing in my life to where you just kind of have what we know, what is it? What is this supposed to me? What is this situation for me especially keeps happening again? And again? Yeah,

Frankie Fihn 13:55
yeah. And I think there’s, I don’t know how it was for you. But there was certainly a resistance in me, we’re like, this isn’t really happening. Like, I’m just doing this or, you know, like, I tried to come up with a rational reason for it that kind of explained away. And what ended up happening was like, it was just like, you know, this higher power was just beating me over the head with so many signs that I reached a critical mass where I’m like, okay, I can’t deny it. And I kind of, for me, my own journey was a little Alice in Wonderland and following those signs. And what you find is, you know, there’s a real challenge in the beginning, I think in like trusting this higher power that that is, you know, it’s not leading you astray, because you don’t always for sure, know where it’s actually leading. And, but I think the decision to do that is actually, even though it’s very, very scary, at first, it’s actually the best decision you’ll ever make in your life. Because, you know, it’s a higher power for a reason, it knows, knows a lot more about what’s going on. And I just

Brad Miller 14:52
believe that that’s a resource that’s beyond our, our own self, that is a resource of power, that can empower us. And if we lose our own self sufficiency, you know, we only have so much energy of our own accord. And we can draw on the power of whether it’s your prayer life, or meditation, or reading or reading, or being connected in scriptures or some other sacred writing, to fill yourself with good stuff is such an important thing to do, because we just can’t do it on our own. And you have to have that power in your life. And that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Tell me about I want to hear some more now, Frankie about relationships.

Unknown Speaker 15:36
About,

Brad Miller 15:38
you mentioned about some kind of toxic relationships that you had, growing up with your dad and some pretty unhealthy things. And so you experienced some part of relationships that drain energy, or certainly give us some bad baggage to carry with us. But I’m a believer that we need positive relationships and some loving relationship. So help us go forward and kind of fuel our journey to have what I like to call the promise life or life of peace, prosperity, and, and purpose. Tell me about any positive relationships. So or something that’s helped you move through this process of life transformation? Tell me about that little bit.

Frankie Fihn 16:20
Yeah, and I can actually give you examples of both and I think is really valuable lessons for anybody listening to, to really think about this in your own life. So I mean, I feel like for real, like growing up for me, I got a PhD in what dysfunctional relationships were just, you know, a lot, not just myself, but I mean, like, you know, I kind of grew up in a very getaway government subsidized area. And because of it, pretty much everybody I know, had dysfunctional relationships. Like I can remember, there was a neighbor, kid, his name was Andre. And he had a dad who was a trucker from Michigan, and his dad would come to visit him on weekends, sometimes, and he would always tell him, I’m good come and this, you know, come visit you Saturday afternoon. And there was probably eight out of 10 times, he said that he just never came at all and called and never gave an explanation. And I would, I couldn’t, I can still have this image of just Andre standing curbside waiting Saturday afternoon for four or 5678 hours until he realized, you know, dad’s never coming. And I myself had that same experience. But I never actually felt that bad about it, because mine wasn’t as bad as his, you know, it’s like kind of put in perspective. And it was just really sad seeing all these people. But one of the beautiful things that really came out of it, it made me today really appreciate how important it is to have loving supportive families and what kind of difference that makes for somebody in their lives growing up to just have like unconditional love in the home. And so it was about two years ago, I met the woman of my dreams. And beyond that, I think one of the things that I’ve done very intentionally that this is I think something anybody listening to this could benefit from just tremendously, is to take building loving relationships intentionally. And I first met some friends and I had no idea the level that this could be done. But a couple of my very like high end entrepreneur, friends, they have everybody who really has made an impact on them that they want to intentionally build a relationship with, in a spreadsheet, all written down, they can tell you the last time they talked to them, what they talked to them about, and when they plan to talk to them next, and what they plan to talk to them about next. And when I realized

Unknown Speaker 18:35
this, this like really just

Frankie Fihn 18:36
blew my mind. And it was very interesting to me, because one of the things that happens at a building a laptop lifestyle, and I think this is probably true of anybody who’s really trying to make a dream come true, is there’s really some lonely moments along the way, like really lonely moments where you’re like, I’m the only one doing this. And it was, you know, it’s really funny, because you work on a laptop all the time, like people would tell me, you’re so lucky, you’re connected to all these people all the time. And I would say Well, to me, it feels like most of the day, I’m sitting alone by myself on a laptop. So I don’t, I don’t feel very connected at all right, quite the opposite. And one of the things that happened is my girlfriend and I actually met in a business coaching group. So we both signed up for this mentorship from a guy who built the kind of businesses that we want to build. And we met in his private group. And I’ve met so many amazing individuals in this group that I realized that there’s certain communities and they’re actually pretty easy to find on the internet. Like one of the ways that I do this is in Facebook groups. So I have a Facebook groups. Part of for my health, I have Facebook groups that I’m part of, for business things I have Facebook groups that I’m part of that are just purely based on like spiritual and contribution and good ideas and feeling good and all that kind of beautiful stuff. And as I do this, what I find is there was a time where I used to really hate going on Facebook, because you know, just all these negative posts, and in a matter of six months, I turn that into literally 100% beautiful positive inspiration on my Facebook newsfeed all day long every day. And, and not only that, but I have endless communities to connect with people who share like a like mind. And maybe you don’t necessarily have to do this online, if you’re in this there. I’m sure there’s communities within you know, your own physical space. But I think there’s some real magic to intentionally figuring out what kind of people lift you up, fill you up. And you know, it’s like, for example, I have a friend I just talked to yesterday, he’s, he’s working on becoming a billionaire, he’s already made $800 million. And his goal is to give it all away to charities before he dies. That’s awesome. And so if you look at it on the outside with people who don’t know him, they’re like, well, what, you know, he’s greedy, selfish, why? Why do you need a billion dollars, and you don’t really know what he’s doing and how selfless It really is. And, you know, when I meet people like that, how can I not be inspired every day to connect, connect like that. And I think when you when you have really cool people around you that are doing cool things and less of the crazy, you know,

Brad Miller 21:10
I don’t know, I just love being intentional about those healthy life giving relationships. And I think it’s interesting that your shared about how you have really made that work in Facebook groups by being very intentional about it. Because you know, there’s a lot of, as you mentioned, you know, a lot of just toxic kind of stuff on you know, online as well. And I think we have to be good discernment of how to do that, or maybe take some control of how to make that work. And also sounds to me, if I’m hearing you right here, Frankie, it’s not just been, you know, like, online, or a Facebook post in a group or something, you saw that you picked up the phone and talk to people. And maybe you’ve had some personal encounters with some folks as well. Is that fair to say that you’ve got a little more personal? Yeah. As well,

Frankie Fihn 21:56
of course, and I have like one of the things that we do that’s very intentional, like, just to give you an example is like that’s very in person. And anybody can do this, and I would highly recommend it is, you know, my girlfriend and I we sit around we say what are the conferences in the country right now that have the most amazing people? And when are they and how can we go?

Brad Miller 22:15
So when you go to these conferences, it’s not just for wherever the content is, it’s for the networking, but also the, the, the encouragement, the relationship building?

Unknown Speaker 22:27
Yeah, absolutely. And I find

Frankie Fihn 22:30
you know, I don’t think anybody who does something really successfully is is quote, unquote, a self made man, I think it behind every self made man is a lot of help. And so I don’t think you can ever have too much help and support and that that journey,

Brad Miller 22:44
one of the things you’ve said in this process here, Frank is this, the fuel of these loving relationships have come because you’ve been very intentional about nurturing them, and you’ve had a bigger vision, about how you want to have some accomplishment in your life and have a sense of inner peace and, and so on, so forth. And that doesn’t happen without that intentional action piece that you’ve been, we’ve been kind of skirting around here. And if you will, like you to talk a little bit about some of these intentions that you do, or some of the self disciplines, or some of the habits that you have that help you to, you know, break through, you know, those parents, those patterns you mentioned at the beginning, but growing up and so on, those are powerful, powerful things. And to break out of that kind of thing means that you’ve got to be, you know, have not only have the loving relationships, a drone, a higher power, but you got to have some systems down. And I sounds like did you do so tell a little bit about systems or habits or disciplines that you have in your life that help you to succeed?

Frankie Fihn 23:40
Yeah, I can tell you, Brad. So I’m kind of like, I’ll give you some ones that have worked really well for me, and then I’ll give you some ones that anybody can do, because I’m kind of an extreme kind of growth person. So like, I’m always, I wouldn’t recommend most people try what I’m doing all at once is what is what I’m saying. One of the things that I do every single day as a habit is to, to really just take a moment to meditate and slow down and reconnect with what my purpose is. What I’m intending to do, and I think it’s really, really similar to what you’re doing is I, you know, in my own way, I’m working to make people feel more love and have a better feeling and enjoy their life more and have it be more fulfilled in so many different ways. And I think just taking 10 minutes, to really think about why you’re here, you know, because I read the story once about JK Rowling, the Harry Potter author, and she, I guess she was on a train. So the story goes, and she got inspired to write seven Harry Potter books. And she took dictation, like from this like kind of voice in her head and wrote them out in like seven minutes and then went home and got to work on writing them. And I think sometimes that happens, where, you know, every now and then somebody has the immediate aha download. But I think for most of us, it’s done intentionally, just like any other practice in the same way you learn how to drive a car, you just the first time you have to think about it a lot, but then you just keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it, eventually, you can drive 20 minutes to work without even having thought about it once about how you got there. Right. And so I think that’s one of the things that has really worked for me well is is doing that. I also when I met my billionaire friends, but before

Brad Miller 25:20
you go too far, before you go to the next thing here, Frank, I was curious, do you actually have a state but you have your own Oh, purpose statement or a thing that you say or do or you know, something like that you mentioned you to try to connect with purpose. Some folks who actually have a phrase that they use, I just want to go along now.

Frankie Fihn 25:39
Yeah, and actually, it was really interesting. Because one of my businesses over the last couple years, I got to work with the top lawyers in America. And I realized when I would meet a really good law firm, they could articulate what they were doing and why they were doing it. And the small firms, often they had an idea, but it was only in the owners head. And one of the really smart lawyers I met said, until you write out with your mission purposes, nobody else can help you with it, because you can’t tell them what it is. So when you feel inspired, write it down and then repeat it over and over and over and practice with it. So I’ll read your mind right now. Awesome. I believe we’re here. I believe we’re here on this planet to raise consciousness to see people go Ha, ha ha rather feel that divine spark come back on to walk this earth with new inspired ideas, feelings and use. We share this gift of loving consciousness to give freely to souls in need. without our help people settle for less than lives of fear, trauma, anxiety and negativity, it ripples into the experience of everyone they touch. We remember when we felt that same suffering, and we really feel empathy. We give people real lasting, profound change, a quantum leap forward, a purposeful existence with freedom, harmony, health, contribution and wholeness. We have fun and laugh, life is to be enjoyed. People think us and find unusual and amazing ways. And our work is for the betterment of all, we deserve the best life possible. abundance is our birthright. And we support our families like bosses, and we believe everybody in the world deserves to live the best life possible. It’s time to inspire a million human beings. Who is the next one now.

Brad Miller 27:14
That’s awesome. Because I do something similar. It’s not quite a lengthy that I just boil it down to the several a statements to try to abide with abide with God to affirm other people to live abundantly, and to be alert in my life and to take action. So I just kind of have my five I call my five five A’s. So I kind of do that kind of thing. Yeah, awesome, man. I didn’t mean to interrupt you too much. But it is I like to hear those type of things from people when they have that kind of a statement or that kind of a phraseology. But you had a couple other things in mind there that you said that you do, and some does self discipline.

Frankie Fihn 27:48
Yeah, so one of those is also writing goals. I when I met my billionaire friend, he’s I asked him like, Hey, what’s the number one thing that’s working for you to do this, and he says, I decide what i want i right down. And then every day, I write it out five times. And I do it every single day like clockwork. We also my girlfriend and I we just built a vision board last night, we this is something we update every couple of months where we sit and figure out all the different ways we want to do things have experiences help people and so forth. I also read a lot I think you can ever read too much. It’s interesting to me. And this is not a judgment against anybody walking their path. But I know that when I made really like high performing people, they read a lot of books. And when I meet kind of low performing people, they usually watch a lot of TV. And so I find if you want to, if you want to become one of the the great thinkers and something that’s worked really well for me, because when I meet somebody who is inspiring to me in some way in life, I always ask them, like, what are the books that most influenced you? And it allows me to know what the best books are without having to like, do a bunch of research and spend time on Amazon. So I’ll meet somebody who’s you know, I admire in one area of their life, and they’ll say, Oh, this book changed my life. That’s awesome. And then 10 bucks, 10 bucks later on Amazon. I also Yeah.

Brad Miller 29:12
Well, before you get too far, before you get too far away from that one, let me ask you what, what r me ask you about a couple books or a book or two, especially in recent months that you’ve read that have been influential on you.

Frankie Fihn 29:28
Wow, that is a you know, I never want to say there’s just one.

Brad Miller 29:36
But it had to be this one. But any book or just I didn’t mean to put you on the spot too much there. But since you met you mentioned it, I thought I would ask you.

Frankie Fihn 29:45
Yeah, and Okay, I think these are the ones that

one of the ones that I really recommend, is by Joseph Murphy. It’s a long book. But it’s very, very useful. And so it’s 100 year old. And I, I tend to like those,

those books that have kind of the timeless wisdom in them. You know, like when you think about the Bible, it’s like, it’s still relevant. You know, 2000 years later. And so one of those is called the miracle power of your subconscious mind by Joseph Murphy. And he really goes to show that if you really want like a certain kind of life, you know, it’s kind of teaching about like, repetitive prayer in a way where, rather than, like begging God to do something for you in your life is to practice giving thanks that he already has, and that what you’re asking for, you know, believe you have received, and you will.

I sure i’m sure i just butchered that passage. So

Unknown Speaker 30:43
that’s, you know,

Brad Miller 30:45
I know put in there a little bit, but I just think it’s, I think what you said is so valuable to, you know, consume good stuff, whether it’s reading, you know, conferences, you mentioned that going to conferences, and relationships, you know, iOS and a lot of podcasts, this type of thing, as well. Some good stuff out there, or audio tape series from some people in this type of thing. But, yeah, and I just think it’s good to keep filling yourself up with good stuff in order for you to So did you contribute to the greater good? Here’s yourself? Absolutely. So for so for me, you know, I’ve got kind of my historical books that I have, you know, the Bible included in that and I, the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren’s one night, that have brought about 20 years that I use, and just just last week, I read how rods book about the miracle equation, which was helpful to me, and, you know, some things like that, I want to, as well. But so, but go on, my friend, just you had at least one more thing I think he wanted to share about some discipline or habits that you had.

Frankie Fihn 31:46
Yeah, and it was like, I guess the reason why I recommended that book, because it made me realize the way a lot of people approach things is is not in my experience, how they actually work. And what I mean by that is, they’ll want a certain thing to happen in their life. And most people kind of pray in ways that lead to disappointment, I think, and the book, the book, kind of like talks about how to pray, and it, it breaks it down into like, the best way I can kind of summarize it is, you know, the way you learned how to ride or drive a car the first time, you had to really think about every little movement, and it didn’t come naturally. And like I said, then, you know, after a couple of months, you can drive to work without thinking about it. And he’s like, that’s how everything works. That’s how you learn anything, but for some reason people think a prayer is one time beg God for something, and then he’s either going to check yes, or check now. And it’s about creating the kind of prayer where you know, you’ve received it, and giving thanks for it over and over and repeating it until just like anything else, that you learn to receive it properly, and then it shows up for you.

Brad Miller 32:56
And I really think there’s some real wisdom in that, because that kind of rapid tissues prayer, I really feel like can fix almost any problem anybody has in any situation. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. You’ve taken all this information, this life experience that you’ve had Frankie and everything else like that. And now you’re doing some things to contribute to the greater good well being of others through some of the things you’ve written and resources you had, I know you lead some retreats in this type of thing. Tell me a little bit about what you do to contribute to others. What are some things that you’re working on?

Frankie Fihn 33:32
Well, I think the biggest thing is, you know, I realized when you go through like kind of like a really difficult life, at least you know, in the mid childhood is that you can look back, and you can see people who were exactly where you were seven years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and you know, not none of us have it all figured out. But I look like I see it like you can always do something for somebody who’s behind you. And it’s, it’s really interesting, because even when people think they really have it bad I heard this quote one time that summarizes it beautifully that says, If everybody in the world had to put their problem in one big pile, and then you had to take one back out, most people would be pretty content to take their own out. Yeah. And you know, like, sometimes when life is really, really hard, you forget, like I have a friend who’s a motivational speaker does TED Talks, also a client, actually, amazing woman, and she grew up in Bosnia, and there was a mortar shell that went off, and she had her legs blown off and watched a number of her friends die. And so she was, she was like six years old, flown to America, she has no legs, she has like, you know, two metal prosthetic things. And, you know, obviously went through a pretty traumatic experience, but like, she’s learned to kind of like transmute it in a in a really beautiful, amazing way. And I think, you know, that’s, that’s really available to any of us. And when you really tap into that, I don’t know. So how long kind of doing that for people, is, what I realized is, you know, through my corporate background, I became really good at building businesses that I hate. And it showed me the biggest reason I ended up hating my businesses was because they weren’t really about anything other than making money. And so you would make all this money, but somehow it would be really empty inside. And nobody, nobody really like talks about that in our society. But it’s a real thing that I think a lot of people do in business, you know, they, they want this better life. And when I realized this, I realized there was a lot of people in similar situations that are really smart people, they read a lot, they have gifts, and they want to help people, but they don’t always know how to do that. And so I hear things from people. Like, I haven’t figured out what my one true passion is, I don’t know what the one thing I’m supposed to do is, or I don’t know what the purpose of my life is, I can’t figure out I feel lost. And when I hear these kind of things, I realized they’re really fixable. And I kind of, through my own journey, realized that discovering your purpose can be done like JK Rowling does it where you have this sudden, aha, and the light comes on. But for most of the rest of us, it’s done by a very formulaic process of just asking yourself questions that show you what you want. So like one of the things, and it’s not the only thing, I think a lot of people get caught up in this, but one of the things you can do, for example, is to look at what you really love doing. And some people have a hard time answering that. So we usually break it down to something simpler. To give you an example and say, Well, what have I really enjoyed spending my time on the last, you know, X number of months. And when you look at the things like these things are actually fun for me to do. I enjoyed them, they filled me up, it starts to show you ways in which you can contribute to other people. And you know, another one of those things, like I said, is helping people to see the things that they’re actually good at. A lot of people I think that are really smart, especially like, you know, obviously Brad, your note, you know, you’re a doctor is that one of the things that’s challenging about being an intellectual, is you think too much all the time. And so it’s sometimes you can like get caught in like a lot of self doubt, especially when you’re too smart for your own good.

I don’t think dumb people face this. I’m not sure. But

Brad Miller 37:20
it’s a very interesting, and I think, cogent insight there, my friend. Yeah.

Frankie Fihn 37:26
And, but you know, like the really smart intellectual people, they, they look at something they’re good at. And then they see immediately somebody who’s better. So like, you know, I have a friend who’s like I mentioned a motivational speaker. And they say, Well, I’m not Tony Robbins. And will you know, you don’t have to be Tony Robbins to contribute something to somebody’s life. Right. And, and, and then the other piece I mentioned is, is and I think this is a big piece that most people miss is, most people would love to be able to work on what they really love doing and be paid a great salary for it and have a really cool life. But the one piece, they forget to look at what is what people actually need what is needed in the world right now. And it takes, there’s no like real secret. But there’s a process that I call just deep listening. And one of the things the Internet has made it really beautiful to do is there’s people all over the internet and conversations where if you want to, and you want to really see where people are at, you can walk into one of these anonymous conversations in a forum, or a group and just listen and see like people are stuck on where they are and what they really need and what the challenges that come up. And when you combine those things of doing what you love and what you’re good at it and and then also doing what the world needs, there’s this really magical thing that happens for you that suddenly each day becomes worth waking up to. And I see a lot of people, this is such a weird thing for me, because people tell me all the time how they dread Monday and really look forward to Friday. And for me, I haven’t had this experience for 10 years because you know, I’ve always kind of done what I want. And you know, if we want to take a road trip

on a Tuesday we we do. But the beautiful thing is,

is it me Monday morning is something to look forward to. And I think that’s the real test is when Monday morning strikes, are you thinking Oh God, not another week? Are you thinking Oh, God, thank you for this week? Yeah,

Brad Miller 39:16
I think you really touched on something very important. There is this this sense of meaning less ness, which is in our world, in so many places, and so many ways, and how what you’ve mentioned how you’ve been intentional about reaching out to people and finding these various forums online. And otherwise, we’re like minded people are doing the deep listening and making a greater contribution. And that’s some of the things that you’re doing. So you’re doing it through retreats, and other things like that through sacred plant retreats, calm and some of your writing and resourcing and and if when if people want to know more about what you’re about, and do some deep listening with you or to somehow make a connection with you, how can they? How can they learn more about what you’re about and what you’re doing these days, Frankie?

Frankie Fihn 39:59
Well, you kind of hit it on there. So we have a free training right now. And I kind of built this free training because I wanted to help anybody who is not sure what they want to do in their life, somebody who’s like smart, and is just simply not sure how your unique gifts and combinations fit into the world. And so the free training, which is again on you mentioned sacred plant retreats, calm walks you through the systematic process for finding your why because like I mentioned, there are ways to discover it intentionally. And I really feel like purpose is like anything else is created intentionally. It’s not something you just magically sit down and go discover and find it’s not going to be on the writing the wall, you have to like do some real deep thinking and self honesty about what’s important to you and the people around you and what life experiences you have a really valuable to others. But once you go through that, once you really clear about who you are, it becomes really, really easy. And to give you like an analogy of how powerful that clarity is, is. I hear people say like, I really just need to get away, and then you say where these I don’t know,

somewhere, maybe a beach

and you go well, that’s really hard to do. But that’s very, if somebody has the clarity to say, I really want to go to with it with is actually really happened. In my experience, my girlfriend said to me, I’ve always wanted to visit the Big Island, I would love to see the ocean wake up. And so I made a bunch of business things. And I remember I don’t know, it was a couple of months later. And we were sitting on the Big Island Hawaii started crying her eyes out because she woke up and the first thing she saw was was the ocean and we had been there like very very intentionally right and but but until she had said to me I want to wake up on the ocean in the Big Island of Hawaii and like stay there for like a month you know, it’s very, very hard to actually fulfill that and so when you have the clarity, the deep clarity to know what you would could actually be meaningful to you you can you can take real steps to do it and then what you’ll find is you can actually live it and then the real magic of it is not just figuring out what your purpose is but to actually wake up and experience it and see people thank you every day and make a difference in the world. So if that sounds like something that you dig, then you probably should check us out.

Brad Miller 42:12
Yeah, which sounds awesome and it’s a process it’s like a this process of helping you dig a little deeper and find your clarity and your purpose in your life and certainly that’s what we’re about here on the pathway to promise is we call it the promise life that is that visualization of what a greater purpose for yourself a sense of what we believe that God has a greater intention for all of us then we probably have for ourself and and you have given us some things to think about and to deal with and the process here Frankie and some tools to do it with. And I thank you today for for being a great guest here on the pathway to promise podcast

Transcribed by https://otter.ai