As human beings, we are both programmed and pressured to say everything is “fine”.

Someone asks, “how are you?” and you’re supposed to reply “fine, how are you?”

Have you noticed that a benign, well-meaning core value many of us are raised with could be reinforcing this and blocking us from improving ourselves?

Ely Delaney, whom I met through Success Champions and recently reconnected with when he responded to an ad from our production company looking for guests, is one of these people.

His parents raised him with a strong work ethic, emphasizing that you do your best with what you have. All well and good, and from what I know of Ely, I can see his parents’ positivity and love reflected in the man I’ve come to know and respect.

But could you be translating this in your mind into “good enough is good enough”? For Ely, it’s the difference between the common notion of "working hard equals success" and the necessity of pushing oneself beyond average effort.

By 2019 Ely, had his business, his life partner, their daughter, and though he had been some ups and downs, everything seemed “fine”.

But Fine is a 4-Letter Word.

In 2020, COVID hit and took a toll on his business. At the same time, his partner was diagnosed with what turned out to be a fatal brain tumor. Plus, he didn’t feel like he fit in living in Portland, Oregon. All the while, he was expected to say “Fine, how are you?” when asked how things were going.

So, after attending a seminar in Texas, Ely decided he had found his people – those who aligned at least 80% with his core values – and moved there for a fresh start.

It was basically a “fuck this, I’m OUTTA here” moment. Given your current circumstances, would you like to do that?

These days, Ely is on the rise – his business is growing again, he has a great circle of friends, and he’s found happiness unlike what he knew before. In fact, he has watched podcast interviews of himself from two years ago vs. today and sees in himself the changes in his facial expressions and the energy he projects.

In a moment, when you meet Ely, you’ll discover the influences and learnings that coalesce to bring him to this place. It’s an eclectic mix of archery, Bushido, and two of the core philosophies he has developed for himself and teaches others – “Meet Cool People” and “Just Fucking Be Nice”.

Ely’s hype song is “Main Attraction” by Jeremy Renner.

Resources:

• Ely Delaney’s website: https://ConnectWithEly.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elydelaney/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elydelaney
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/elydelaney/
• X (formerly Twitter): https://x.com/elydelaney

Invitation from Lori:

If, like Ely a couple years ago, you’ve reached the point where you’re tired of saying “fine, how are you?” and are ready to say “Fuck this, I’m OUTTA HERE” - the 5 Easy Ways to Start Living The Sabbatical Life guide is for you.

Once you read it, you’ll

✅ Discover a counter-intuitive approach to making intentional changes in mindset and lifestyle.

✅ Learn how to own your feelings and your struggles so you can address them.

✅ Find out how to face fears, step out of your comfort zone, and rewire your beliefs.

It’s only 7 pages, so it won’t take you long to get through. The five tactics are simple, but similar to the seven principles of Bushido, they are simple, straightforward, and at your disposal to use as you choose.

When you’re ready to say F*ck Being Fine – then this guide is the place to start. It’s time to blaze your own trail and allow your curiosity to take you on a new quest!

Go to https://zenrabbit.com right now to download it for free.

Now, let’s go meet Ely. Whoa – wait a minute – he’s holding a bow and arrow! He’s a super nice guy, though – you’ll see!

Lori: Hello, and welcome to FINE is a 4-Letter Word. My guest today, Ely Delaney. Welcome to the show, Ely.

Ely: It’s my pleasure to come hang out with you today.

Lori: Yeah. It was so cool that we got connected through my production company. But we already knew each other from Success Champions. That was super fun.

Ely: I thought it was funny. When I got the notification of, “Hey, would you like to be a guest on the show?” I’m like, “Hey, wait a minute. I know her. Yes, of course I would.”

Lori: All right. So here we are. First question I love asking people is what were the values and beliefs you were raised with that contributed to you becoming who you became as a young adult, and then eventually into where you are now?

Ely: I think more than anything else, work ethic, working hard, making sure that you’re doing the best you can with what you got. If there’s one thing that I got from my parents, that’s it right there.

Lori: That’s so interesting because a lot of my guests say they got work ethic, like work hard and you will be successful. And that’s not necessarily true in my experience now.

Ely: No, it’s not necessarily true from a standpoint of if you work hard, you will have success specifically, but if you don’t work hard, you’re not going to have success. You’re going to have to push yourself further than the average person. And a lot of people give up or they don’t try. They don’t try to level up their game of what they’re doing, whatever it is, and they use the excuse of, “Oh well, good enough is good enough.” That’s a phrase that I see a lot in the last few years. Really, that one rubs me wrong. Because there’s a point where, yes, they’re not wrong, but then good enough, when you have like, here’s the beginning and here’s what you really want… Is good enough good enough when you get it like 80% and you just couldn’t quite get it to the 100% of what you wanted? Or is the good enough “I did 20%, that’s good enough”? That’s where I think that people let themselves off a little too easy with that phrase. That’s why I don’t like it. It’s not that I don’t understand the concept. For me, that goes with the stuff of “Shoot for the moon. If you land among the stars, you’re still okay,” something to that effect, I get that and I’m totally cool with that. But I think people use that as an excuse to just let the world happen around them instead of doing the best they truly can.

Lori: That’s so interesting. I love that you just created that distinction between those two interpretations. Because yes, you could get caught up in the super high achievers that we hang out with, get into that perfectionism, and never release anything because it’s not good enough.

Ely: Right. I was one of those for many, many years.

Lori: Then pushing when something feels uncomfortable.

Ely: I think, for me, personally, I’m a big fan of—and I wish I could remember—it was actually an exercise group that I’m part of. Because I’ve gotten into some stuff more recently. Exercise was not part of my world growing up necessarily, and as I’ve gotten older, I’m like, “You know what, this is one of the things that I’ve happened lacking I do need to have gone. The cool thing about the guy who runs this program, he’s like, “Do not compare yourself to me or anybody else in this group. It is you versus you. Do the best you can, not to the point of hurting yourself. You’re not competing with me. I am an Olympian. You are not. Don’t try. But that means try to do the best you can and you’ll do just fine.”

I like that because it’s you versus you. For me, personally, I’m not a super competitive person. I got into one sport in my entire life that I actually got involved with, which is archery. And the great thing I love about archery is there are a lot of different things I love about it. But one of the things I love from that standpoint is what somebody else does has zero effect on me. If I shoot well, it’s because I had a great day. If I win a competition, it’s because I did well that day. But that doesn’t affect—did somebody else play better than me, or did somebody shoot better than me, or did somebody do something like they tripped me? Because you don’t touch either. None of that is involved. I do the best I possibly can. By the way, I’ve had some times where I’ve done tournaments where I did the best I could and I had a really, really bad day, and I still came in first because everybody else just happened to have a worse bad day. That’s a good place to be because you know you are trying your best. That’s all we can ask for. That’s why I love that.

Lori: I am a big fan of archery. I can’t remember anybody bringing up archery. I did it at camp, and I freaking loved it. But then I haven’t done it since except back in April. Almost a year ago, I was at a friend visiting a friend in California, and she had a target in her backyard. We went out there, and we’re shooting, and I did really well. She’s like, “Wait, you haven’t done this in a year? Like, since you were a kid?” I’m like, “No.”

Ely: You got the talent before. That’s awesome.

Lori: I need to find somewhere that I could go and maybe take lessons or do it on the regular. It’s so much fun.

Ely: Yes. We need to talk because I can help you find some of those kinds of places. I’ve only been into it for eight, nine years now. For most of my life, I was not into it. I did in high school. You know when they run you through every different sport you can get into for one day? I don’t think I hit the target once. I shot like three arrows because they only had like three bows between 30 people, something like that. But I got into it. I fell in love with it. For me, it’s my meditation time. It’s my zed time. One of the things I love to do is if the weather’s right, there’s outdoor ranges you can go to and you just walk the courses. You go golfing. A lot of people go golfing. It’s kind of the same thing, only with a stick and a pointy object. It’s a lot more fun in my aspect, and it’s so relaxing.

Lori: Yes. Okay. We’ll talk about that later.

Ely: That’s a different conversation.

Lori: Going back to the pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to achieve things that you say that you want. A lot of people slink back because it’s like, “Oh, I didn’t think it was going to be this hard,” or “I didn’t think it was going to be this much work,” or “I just don’t know the right people,” or whatever reason they come up with for not achieving. I think it all comes down to “It feels uncomfortable. It feels uncomfortable and unfamiliar, and I don’t like that. So I’m going to go back to what I know and stay in my tiny little box.”

Ely: I think we all go through that in different aspects of life, whether it be personal, business, whatever. For me, personally, you and I talked about this actually the other day, I’m making kind of a shift of who my target audience is and how I run my business. A couple of things that I’m doing differently are very outside of the comfort zone for me for a couple of different reasons. I had the same niche I’ve been working with for over 15 years. These are the same people, easy for me to find. When I say who I work with, it’s like, “Oh, you go to these particular events. That’s where they hang out.” It’s real simple. Now I’m like, “Okay, where do I find these new people that I’m looking at?” and that’s a scary part in itself. Also, with that aspect, I’m changing even how I’m marketing and how I’m connecting with people.

One of the things, as simple and as silly as it sounds, my comfort zone has always been using Facebook as a marketing tool. And now I’m diving into LinkedIn quite a bit. I don’t like LinkedIn. I have avoided it like the plague for years. I have account, I have stuff posted on it, but literally, I post and I leave. That’s it. I’m like, “I don’t need to change things for the stuff.” As simple as that sounds, that’s actually a very difficult hurdle to get over when you’re stuck in your ways and you’ve been doing the same thing the same way for 15 years and it’s like, “Oh, I have to do this thing differently.”

On a business aspect, I mean, look at what’s going on with AI right now, so many people are fighting what’s going on with it. When it comes with AI, yeah, I grew up watching Terminator. I’m scared as hell some of that stuff. But the reality is it’s not going anywhere. And for people that are saying, “It’s horrible, you have to avoid it like the plague and all this kind of stuff,” guess what? You’re going to be left behind. So you have to figure out. You don’t have to embrace it and fall down the rabbit hole with it, but you have to embrace, “I have to figure out something with it, I need to utilize it, and what works best for me.” So I have a different way that I’m using it than what the masses are doing because that’s a way that keeps with my authenticity and helps me deal with the things that I have against it. And my clients are kind of in the same boat with that, which is great because now I can communicate with them better. But still, no, it’s not going anywhere.

So the world evolves. We have to go outside of our comfort zone. These are just a couple of examples off the top of my head because these are things I’ve been talking about a lot lately is you figure out what is the best way that you can handle that thing and make that shift even if it’s in small bite-sized chunks.

Lori: Yes. I will throw in that I am being very polite to AI. So that when it takes over, it remembers who was nice to it.

Ely: Do you say please and thank you to your Siri?

Lori: Yes. Actually, not to Siri but to ChatGPT and some of the other ones. But yes, maybe I should consider being nice to Siri.

Ely: I got my Google and my Alexa. And yes, I catch myself saying, “Oh, thank you.”

Lori: Right. It is. You mentioned that you are going through a transition now with your clients. And you had gone through some personal and some business transitions.

Ely: Yes.

Lori: Wait. You were saying everything was fine but it was not fine at all.

That’s a lot. It’s funny. I’ve told people what I’ve gone through. I’m not going to go through all the details. But I went through enough, I’ve shared details, and people are like, “All right, are you in therapy?” and I’m like, “Well, no, but I got some friends I definitely need to get a good steak dinner for.”

Lori: They were your therapy.

Ely: They were my therapy. But the reality is that I came at it with the point of I don’t have a choice but to just push through. So when people are like, “How are you doing?” I’m like, “I’m fine,” because I had to be, I had no choice in the matter. For me, personally, there’s definitely a lot going on inside my head that was not fun at all. But I looked at it as these are the things I have to deal with. It just is what it is.

Lori: You chose to do that because you said you didn’t have a choice. But you actually did have a choice. You could have walked away, you could have broken down, you could have responded differently than you did. So you did have a choice and you chose to keep it all together and convince yourself it was fine because you felt like that was the right thing to do.

Ely: Yes. That is an interesting look at it. Because for me, it was the right thing to do. So therefore, there was another choice. If I look at the other options—and that’s the hard thing about stuff like that. When you when get dealing with major trauma, major things going on, you look at “What are my choices here?” and it’s like, “Okay. I can put on the best face I possibly can and just make use of what I have.” Just push through it all. Or I can crawl up in little ball and do nothing. When you look at that, some people will choose the second option. But for me, I’m looking at that that’s not living. You got to move forward to get out of it.

I think it was Winston Churchill who said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” I think that’s a good way to look at it because the choices that we have are going to the things that get us through the other side. I mean, I was a basket case. But I did as much as I could to hold it together. And it was funny. I had some people that were really surprised, that weren’t close to me, but when they found out what happened, they’re like, “Wow, I didn’t realize what was going on.” Then I had some people that didn’t know me and they’re like, “Yeah, you were a mess.” And they could tell.

Fast forward, I moved to Dallas a little over a year ago. I’ve done a lot of personal work on getting my head back on straight. I am night and day different than where I was a year ago. It’s funny because I can even look at videos of like podcasts and stuff like that. And I can see where I was holding it together compared to the energy and the look in my eyes now. It is so different than what it was back then.

Lori: What are some of the things that you’ve done or that that you did or that you are doing now? You mentioned working out. But what are some of the other things that you did to help you get yourself back in a good place?

Ely: Okay. So working out was one of them. It was real simple because it was, “Okay, this is something I can control.” I’m not looking like I’m going to lose 100 pounds in the next 90 days or any of that kind of BS. I’m just like, “No, I’m just going to be consistent. Just be consistent with something.” It’s that real simple thing. Everybody talks about “If you’re in the worst case situation, just make your bed, because you can be proud of making your bed that day,” which is just really funny because that’s something I started doing, too, that I hadn’t actually done before. I’d never been a fan of that. I was like, “What’s the bother doing that? You’re going to just mess it up the next night anyway.” Literally, since I moved here, I’ve made my bed every day, and I worked out almost every day.

It’s those things have helped. But on top of that, when it was all going through, before all that stuff happened, I had actually started studying stoicism a little bit. So I had been kind of following it to some degree for a couple of years. Then I got deeper into it and then that’s when stuff really started happening. I don’t even know what started or where it came to be. But I got into studying bushido, which is the code of the samurai. I ended up going down a completely different rabbit hole with that because it helped me think of things. It’s funny because you look at a lot of times it’s like in military or—I hate to use the term—but more like alpha group kind of stuff. They’re really pushing their core values, which core values are super important, but the way they do it tends to be a little in your face a lot of times, and so I’ve never been a big fan of it.

Lori: Dictator-like.

Ely: Yes, exactly. That’s a great term for it. What ended up happening was I saw the way bushido came to be. If you think about samurai, back in their day, they were the most feared warriors in the world. But the difference with them—and this is why it appeals to me, because I’m not a violent kind of guy. I like I love archery but I’m a target archer—for me, it’s meditation. It’s not for the hunt of the kill or any of that stuff.

Lori: It’s not about killing.

Ely: Exactly. I got plenty of hunter friends. I don’t have a problem with it, but there are wonderful steakhouses, I don’t need to do that kind of crap. But for me, what I found with what the samurai do is that they are or were—technically there are still some from heritage—they were the most feared warriors, but they were also very disciplined in what they did and they looked at things from a very calming state. They weren’t the in-your-face tyrant type. They were very calm and collected. It was like, “Okay. What is it that kept them centered and their philosophies to that?” They’re the type of guys that chop you in half, and then they’d apologize, because they respected you as another human being and as a warrior. So that’s the way they thought. It was like, “This mindset as a whole appeals to me. How can we be respectful of each other?”

The thing that really pushed me over the edge with that is two of the seven virtues. It’s compassion, which compares to what I call kindness, and respect. Those are two of the seven. And for me, those are my core values personally. The other ones are all important. But those two are the ones that stand the most, and I think that’s where the world needs more of, kindness and respect. Be kind to other people, show them respect. You don’t have to like them. You don’t have to agree with them. Just show basic respect. When we do that, we come from a very different place and we can have a better conversation. And for me, those things help center me and get me back to, “Okay, just keep pushing forward.” One of the big things with the stoicism side was it’s not about lack of emotion. It’s about controlling your emotions. And that’s how their mindset is about. A lot of times people think of stoicism as boring and cold and stuff like that, and it’s not about that. It’s about how do you control your emotions. You let your emotions control you, because so many people do that in today’s world. Some of the silliest things will trigger them and they go completely off the wall where it’s like, “No. You don’t like it, you don’t have to like it. But keep your cool.” That was a big thing for me. It’s like, “These bad things that are happening, this chaos in my life, I can’t control that. What I can control is the actions that I do to try to make it as good as I can.” So I just focus my energy as rock solid as I could on that.

Lori: We talk about that a lot on this show and outside of it in my coaching program. One, it’s not about not having emotions. We all have emotions as humans. It’s about feeling them and not letting them, like you said, take control of you that you’re responding to things instead of reacting. There’s a difference. Then it’s about how do you process them. I was going to go back to when you were talking about bushido that it’s similar to what I hear about martial arts. I’ve never practiced martial arts, but it’s the same once you have those skills. It’s not like you go out and karate chop everybody because they pissed you off. It’s about being respectful and knowing when to engage. As far as I understand that people who are really into practicing martial arts, it’s not like they want to engage, they will only engage when forced to.

Ely: Right. There are some people that get into the sports of MMA and things like that, but the vast majority of them… There’s a great quote that comes from Eastern philosophy somewhere, and I don’t remember where it came from exactly. But it’s like, “It’s better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.” The mindset behind it is just being prepared, being ready for it. You don’t want to ever have to use it.

For me, I’m not into the martial arts side. Not that I’m opposed to it. I’ve actually had some interesting thoughts of—potentially, at some point, getting into that, I got too many things going on right now to take up a new hobby. I don’t even have time to do the archery as much as I’d like to yet right now. For me, it was a matter of—like bushido, it was all about the philosophy. It’s about how do you react to the world around you and how do you keep your values at the top?

It’s like integrity. Integrity is one of the seven virtues as well. Even when you’re stressed out, and things are not looking good, and all the things are going on to the bank account, it has 20 bucks in it, are you going to keep your integrity and take care of the people and sell? I’m a big fan of this one this because you and I both worked in the coaching world, there’s a lot of people that make a lot are really, really big promises that are just foolish. Like, no, that’s not in integrity. I would never do such a thing.

Lori: That’s why it’s so important to be aware of what your values are. And a lot of people are not, they don’t know… They’ll say they value integrity or they value family or they value health. But when you look at their calendar, or you look at how they’re spending their time, or how they’re acting, they’re not acting in accordance with those values. One or two, they haven’t really sat down and thought about, “What are my values that I want to live by? How do I want to define myself? Who do I want to be?” When you are clear on what those values are, and that’s one of the things that we talk about in the Fuck Being Fine program is, that’s one of the places we start, is getting clear on what your values are so that you can then live into them. And no matter what situation comes up in front of you, you’re living those values.

Ely: Yes. It’s really funny because I noticed that the term of using core values has come up a lot just in the last—it’s a massive explosion of conversation, which is cool. I think there’s a lot of ways like figuring out what your core values are, both on a personal side and on a business side, and the two may not always be the same overall, they will probably mesh mostly for the big part. But even like for me, I didn’t realize those were my core values until I literally saw them in words when I saw them on—there’s a really cool poster that I have downstairs of the seven virtues. When I saw the words, I was like, “That’s it right there. Those are the things that are the most important to me.” I’ve been living that. Those things I’d have conversations about. We just need to be kind to each other. Just need to show kindness, smile at the barista when you get your coffee, make them laugh a little bit, because they probably had a bad day with a bunch of people that weren’t caffeinated enough. Show respect. You don’t have to like somebody. If you have a disagreement over something, that’s fine. A guy might be a narcissist, that’s okay. Smile, say hi. Shake their hand and walk away. There are little things like that. When I saw it, that’s when I’m like, “That’s it. That’s what is important to me.”

So that’s what started me down that particular rabbit hole. When I got going down there, I realized how much deeper it really went and what the philosophies were behind it, so much more than, okay, let’s show kindness, let’s show respect. It’s so much deeper than that. And now that’s become a very big part of my persona. I talk about it all the time and I teach it to my clients. Even some of my business stuff is melding more into those core values and the philosophies behind bushido because it gave me a way to center myself and to be confident. it’s like, “Okay, there’s all kinds of crazy crap going on, and chaos.” I mean, I’m still recovering from all that stuff that happened.

Lori: Absolutely.

Ely: I feel like a year ago, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. And a year later, I am confident, I’m happy, I’m doing well. There’s still stuff, voices going on in the head. But I’m doing so much better than I was before, and it’s because I’m like, “Okay. Let me find my path. Let me find that north star, and just stick to it.” It’s going to be wavy. There’s no getting around that. But follow the path anyway. And once you do that, it just makes life a little bit easier.

Lori: Yes. Absolutely. It’s about following. You mentioned earlier about consistency. It’s not going to be a straight shot. As long as you are consistent—you’re talking about being at the gym, you miss a day, a week, whatever. You get back on the path, and you keep going, and you’re consistent. And it’s that consistency that brings you the results that you're looking for.

Ely: Let me say something real quick, as you just brought up something. You said going to the gym. I don’t even go to the gym because for me, going to the gym is more of a trauma thing. It’s like gym rats and big, bulky dudes that make fun of you, and me and my fat gut, and all that kind of stuff. It’s like, “No, that’s not cool for me.” So it’s a matter of, again, don’t look at the excuse. Look at how do we figure that out?

So what I did, I found a program that is something I can do from home, uses resistance bands, so it doesn’t take up any space. I have videos on my phone. So I just take out my phone and I download videos every day. I watch it. It still gives me the same workout. It busts my butt. I have a hard time standing every Tuesday because Monday is leg day, you know. But that’s the thing is we have to think solution-oriented.

As an entrepreneur, I try to stay that way because entrepreneurs solve problems for profit. That’s what we do. So my brain is always looking at what’s the solution? How can we make it work? It’s not “We can’t make it work because we don’t like this thing.” It’s like, “I don’t like the gym. I’m not going to go to the gym, that’s going to be too inconsistent. And it cost me money. I have to get up I have to go, blah, blah, blah.” Eliminate all the problems. You do right here. I get up and do my thing. That’s the kind of the mindset we have to have to get over the kind of chaos that can throw us for a loop. It’s like, “Okay. All this stuff is going on. What’s one thing that I can do that give me a step forward?” That’s all I focused on.

Lori: That’s such great advice. What’s the one thing I can do today that can move me forward, keep me centered, whatever it is, and be solution-focused? That’s fantastic. We live in a world that tends to be problem-focused.

Ely: There’s a whole rabbit hole we can go down to.

Lori: We won’t go down that today.

Ely: For some reason, I’m saying rabbit hole a lot today.

Lori: Because then rabbit.

Ely: Okay, there we go.

Lori: Yes. That’s what happens.

Ely: That’s it. All right. I’ll buy that.

Lori: Solution-focused. You mentioned earlier about relying on your friends as your therapy kind of thing. It comes up again a lot in the show. You don’t have to do this alone. And if you can’t see the solution because you’re too in your head or your situation is so overwhelming to you, emotions can take over and you can’t see the solution, get somebody else who can help you, whether it’s a friend, or a coach, or a therapist, or a rabbi, priest, or minister, whatever, somebody who is outside of your situation who can help you find solutions.

Ely: That actually brings up a really important point. My thoughts on this, too, is one of the other things, this is also a partial, one of the reasons that I chose to move to the Dallas area when I did was I came from Portland, and if anybody knows all the chaos going on out there—

Lori: Portland, Oregon?

Ely: Yes.

Lori: As opposed to Portland, Maine.

Ely: Yes. Sorry, I always forget about that one. Because they’re nice and quiet. The other one isn’t. The one I lived in is not quiet. I moved here for various different reasons. But one of the things is also is I had found a culture that also a group of people who live by stronger core values. So when I looked at the core values that I had, and they’re not 100% alignment with mine but they’re very, very close, and I’m like, “Okay. This is what I’m looking for.” I’m not looking for people that make me feel warm and fuzzy because that hasn’t helped me in the back. There’s a point for that. There’s a point where you need somebody just to give you a hug. There’s nothing wrong with that. But they can’t coddle you forever, and you need somebody who’s going to take you to that next level. It’s like, okay, this is where we are, and we all believe in these things. And when you can find that culture, embrace that, get around that, even if it’s not 100%. Even if they’re 80% there, that’s 80% better than where you were without it. So that’s where you find people who embrace those same values that you do because that’s going to make a big difference, too.

Ely: Yes.

Lori: Well, I have so enjoyed this conversation. I’ve never heard about bushido before. Stoicism yes, bushido no. So grateful for you for introducing that to me. I’m going to dig into that a little bit more. Like you said, go down that rabbit hole.

Before we go, two more questions. One, you are calm and grounded now. But what’s the song you listen to when you need an extra boost of energy? What’s your hype song?

Ely: My hype song? I would say the Main Event as the name of the song. It’s by Jeremy Renner. A lot of people don’t realize, Jeremy Renner, if you’ve heard of him, he’s actually an actor. Do you ever watch the Avenger movies? He is Hawkeye. So he’s the archer. That’s actually how I got introduced to him. I’ve actually followed him on a personal level and found out he was actually a musician. I come from a music background, too. So I followed a lot of his stuff and he has some really amazing music. That’s one of the songs that he put out, it’s really powerful. So I recommend checking that song out, checking out him. He’s great. He’s just a cool guy. If there’s one person that you could literally say is a true superhero, follow his life, things that he’s done, he really is amazing.

Lori: Cool. We’ll have a link to that song in the show notes. And also in the show notes, I’d like to put how somebody can get in touch with you if they want to continue this conversation.

Ely: Yes, simple. The easiest way to connect with me is connectwithely.com. And it is E-L-Y. Connectwithely.com. You can find all my social media sites, you can find a link to my podcast, Meet Cool People podcast. All the fun stuff. There’s even a spot, if you want to just book a chat with me because I do love meeting cool people, book on my call or book on my calendar, have a call with me. I’m very open. I love just talking and having good conversations with people. The number one thing I’ll ask is, if you do book a call or connect with me or anything, please, please send me a message letting me know that you heard me on the show because that is the biggest thing. It gives me the ability to know where you came from because that’s always important. But then secondly, I can come back and say, “Hey, guess what, Lori? I got somebody cool I just talked to you last week who can be on your show.”

Lori: Yes, because there are a lot of cool people listening to the show.

Ely: I’m sure there are, definitely.

Lori: Well, thank you so much, Ely, for joining me today on FINE is a 4-Letter Word.

Ely: Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. Lots of fun.