This episode will discuss an overlooked aspect of our lives that we often spend the most time doing in our childhood: letting our imagination run wild to explore our hidden gifts. With the various ideas, new worldviews, and curiosity about the world that we hold in our younger years, we are often faced with the choice of embracing what gifts we are developing in the world as we get older...or giving them up for the sake of responsibility and complying with what society and norms dictate us. In this episode, we will ask the age-old question: how do we re-embrace those gifts to realize what we are truly capable of doing in this world? The answer may be more simplistic than what meets reality.

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Intro/Outro By: Michael Dugan, Podcast Host: Voice4Chefs

Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

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determination all converge into

an amazing, heartfelt experience.

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This is Speaking From The Heart.

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Joshua: Welcome back to episode

number 50 of Speaking From The Heart.

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Today, I hope that you're stretching

your imagination, and even your childhood

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for that matter, because we're going

to talk about the gift that you have

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to give to this world that you didn't

even realize that you still had inside

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of you, and I love that we're going

to talk about this subject because it

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reminds me so much of my childhood, and

especially since this episode is airing

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on Halloween, for all my United States

folks, Happy Halloween, and as we were

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even kids growing up, I remember dressing

up into one of my favorite costumes.

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Whether that was being a ghost,

whether that was being a ninja,

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whether that was being a warrior.

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Those were the things in which we were

able to stretch our imaginations into

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a wide variety of different things, and

I think that even for this concept that

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we're talking about today, about exploring

our hidden gifts, most of those gifts

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were already realized when we were a

child, and now, we're going back in time

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to unleash those gifts into the present.

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Now, I know that for many of us, you

might be thinking, "I didn't have this

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opportunity growing up, Josh, and I'm

not sure why you're getting this idea

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that many things started in childhood,

but for me, it only started in the last

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5, 10, 15 years of my life, and that's

why I've been able to do what I have

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been able to do today because of those

motivations, those aspirations, those

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things that excite us.", but I would like

to challenge the fact that maybe you are

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thinking about this wrong; maybe you are

actually thinking about the fact that

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you had this idea way back when and you

just never realized that it would come

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to full fruition until this very moment.

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I have often talked about on this

show about my personal experiences,

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not only of my grandfather when he

was alive, but also the fact that

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I had different ideas of what that

would be when I was able to figure out

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what kind of career I wanted to have.

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Not only did it include the things in

which I needed to work on, especially in

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education and even the training that would

be needed to eventually get into the type

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of work that I do now, but ideally, one of

the things that have been really the most

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awesome of experiences is being able to

live in an opportunity every time that it

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came up, meaning, when I had things such

as being able to work in Washington, D.

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C.

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in my college days, being an intern

at the Department of Justice, those

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were experiences in which I started

to learn and grow into really

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what my idea of a career would be.

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I thought I would be a

lawyer; it didn't happen.

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I thought I'd be a medical doctor, that's

what my step grandfather said; that

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didn't happen, but yet, at the same time,

when those things didn't happen, a new

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reality was born, and every time that

we think about this new idea about the

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things that we can do can help us get

to that next level, the things that we

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continuously push into that direction, we

are actually letting go of a little bit

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of maybe what that idea of what we were

supposed to do, or what we were supposed

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to be, actually coming to fruition.

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I feel that when we are faced with a

choice of being able to not use our

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gifts, or to use our gifts, we are often

stuck in the middle, which means we

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are under utilizing our true talents.

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Embracing what we actually have in this

world, and what we have as gifts, often

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means taking a big examination of all the

different life experiences that we have

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in our lives, and we often overcomplicate

things, thinking that we have to do this

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and that and this and that in order to

get to where we ultimately need to be,

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but I think that we often mistaken the

fact that it takes so many hundreds of

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thousands of dollars, so many thousands

of hours to get to where we need to be.

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I think for the sake of this conversation,

we have to think about the fact that

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we, as society, often dictate what we

want people to do; what we often want

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others to think about what we should be

doing, but at the same token, we're not

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realizing what our true potential is.

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I think that we need to keep

asking ourself this question: how

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do we re-embrace those gifts

to realize what we're truly

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capable of doing in this world?

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I think that's always the time

tested question because we're always

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pivoting into another direction.

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We're always trying to figure out

what that next big adventure will be.

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We're always listening to what other

societal members: our family, our

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friends, our co workers, our bosses,

are always saying that we need to do it

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in order to have the latest training.

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Not to knock on it, but diversity, equity,

inclusion are some of those subjects

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that have often been the catalyst for

jump starting some of those conversations

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about how we can be a more friendly

workforce while respecting the differences

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that are involved with each other.

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I'm not discrediting that movement, and

by all means, I advocate, especially

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on Speaking From the Heart, about all

those diverse viewpoints, and what we

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can do to be able to create some of those

best versions of ourselves, but I often

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have to say that when we are talking

about subjects like this, we cannot

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stop at just what is on the surface.

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There are obviously motivations, and

there's strengths, and there's reasons

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as to why we keep pushing forward; why we

keep saying to ourselves that we need to

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keep doing the things that we need to do

in order to change the course or direction

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of our lives, but the problem with all

of that is that every time that we take

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that step into another direction, we often

lose a little bit of our own humanity.

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In other words, we lose a little

bit of that childhood magical

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dream that we had growing up.

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I remember spending a lot of time at my

parents place, which, even if my mom is

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listening to this episode, she probably

had no idea what the heck I was doing,

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especially at night, but we had this big

open landscape in the backyard, and as a

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kid, I would walk outside the back porch,

walk into the middle of the field, knowing

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that there was a bunch of wildlife,

and look up to the starry sky above.

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I was fortunate enough, being that

I grew up on a farm, to have a vast

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amount of countryside to be able to

see those bright, shining lights,

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and it would often intrigue my

curiosity of seeing what is above us.

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What actually exists out

there in the universe?

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What are other people doing in

this world right now, even as I

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look at these stars that I have

this great opportunity of seeing?

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Those questions, and a lot more, often

intrigued my imagination, my ability to

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really think outside the box, to continue

pushing forward, even when other people

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thought that maybe I was a little bit

crazy to keep pushing forward, but yet,

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my thinking pattern, which I did not

understand at the time, was actually

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due to the fact that of all these

different types of experiences that I

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was living in my life, but yet, at the

same time, I was starting to see that

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bigger picture by simply walking outside

and looking upon the sky and seeing

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what is truly capable in this world.

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We have to let our imagination run wild;

to be able to see the possibilities,

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especially if we're in this vast, open

space, which I think for many of us, we

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often think that we're in this closed,

confined space, in which we're not able

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to really punch ourselves out of whatever

box we're in, whatever sort of concept

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that we're completely put into, and I

have to say, for the longest period of

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my life, I felt that way because not

only did I feel that other people were

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saying to me that I wasn't capable of

doing that imagination part of my brain,

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but that I suppressed that feeling,

that ability to talk to others, to be

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able to really say what was on my heart,

on my mind, and being able to do the

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things that I should have been doing at

that pivotal stage of life: childhood.

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Childhood allows us to really experiment

and allows us to make mistakes,

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because mistakes should be embraced.

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Mistakes are not the end all, be all,

of everything that we should be doing

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in our lives, and It's okay to make a

mistake, especially when you're an adult.

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We often think that as we get older,

we have to give up those abilities,

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that knowledge that we have inside of

ourselves to be able to help others to

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create that best version of ourselves,

but I often have to tell even my own

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self that it's okay to keep on dreaming.

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That it's okay to go back to

childhood and keep on imagining

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those great ideas that we had.

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Now, that's all great and everything, and

that's all peachy dory, Josh, because I

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love to do that too, but what does this

have to do with setting goals, being

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able to realize your true potential,

to have relationships, confidence, and

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determination in this ever changing world?

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It's really quite simple.

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If you haven't been looking at your

past to be able to contribute to

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what is in the present, I don't think

you're really living that future

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that you really wanted to have.

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It's about combining not just the

things that we have done in the

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past, but it's also about learning

what we have done in the present.

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We have to be able to continuously grow

and provide not only the things that we

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have on the bottom of that food chain,

but also get to the top of that food

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chain as well, which means that we have

to keep pushing that boundary line every

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single time that we feel that we are

stuck, because we have learned something

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growing up as a kid, which is actually

learning how to become not only better

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for ourselves, not only better for the

things that we're going to do in the

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future, but we were planting the seeds

in which they were growing all along.

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Let's face it.

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In this world today, we need lighthouses,

which I talked about in episode 13,

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the importance of being able to be that

guiding light, but even with that episode,

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I often think about the fact that we

are not shining that light on those big,

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massive gifts that we have in our lives.

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And it's often because of not just the

things that we've talked about, maybe

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those distractions, maybe those family

obligations, but it's about the fact

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that we haven't re-embraced what we are.

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You see, you are that child.

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You're not just the child in which you are

still living in today, but it's still a

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part of you, and whether you accept that

or not, which is a very abstract concept

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in itself, and I completely understand

if you think this is a whole bunch of

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hogwash, but if you really do believe in

having that change happen in your life,

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you have to look back at what made you

in the first place; what really created

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not just the person that you are, but the

person that's going to continue leading

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a forward thinking life; to be able to

share those awesome gifts that you have

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inside of you, whether that is writing

a book, whether that is starring in a

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play, whether that is being the CEO of

a successful company, whether that is

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just being a great dad or a great mom.

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It doesn't matter what the goal is.

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What it does matter to have,

though, is having that voice to

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embrace those gifts to develop

us, because we are getting older.

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I'm certainly not getting any younger as

I talk about this concept, but sometimes,

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even as I say this out loud, there are

people that are still not embracing that

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full potential that they should have

realized as a kid, and it's not their

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fault, and neither is it your fault.

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We often get swept away by the fact that

there are many things happening, and

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there's so many different aspects of

our lives that we have to continuously

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pay attention to, but having that gift

that we know that we have embraced

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so much with in our lives, and that

we've allowed ourselves to just roam

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free of that circle that we've been

able to be in for all that time.

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I feel that we have often lost that

ability to not just be in the circle

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or the square, but to be in the

bigger universe that we live in.

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There are a lot of different

perspectives and possibilities to

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choose from, and no matter what society

or even others dictate us to do.

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We have those gifts in which

we are capable of doing, and

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all it starts is just realizing

where have you started from.

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It's not simply about just writing

it down, but even speaking out loud.

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I always have said to myself that I've

always had this voice as a kid growing

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up, always telling me to keep pushing

forward, to never give up no matter what,

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to keep helping others, no matter what

kinds of circumstances they are living

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in, and that no matter how I felt about

it, they will be able to help themselves

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get to that next point in their lives.

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We often overlook that the best work

that we have done in our lives have

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actually been in the early years

of our life, and maybe you should

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be going outside and looking at the

stars sometimes, because maybe those

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answers that you had, especially as a

kid, will come flooding back to you.

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Whether that's old videotapes,

old journals of what you've

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written growing up, even if it

is art projects, or even written

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assignments that you did for school.

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Even if you don't have any of those and

you have only the memories that are locked

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deep inside of you, start exploring who

you are, the essence and the inner core

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of what you were ultimately going to

become, because maybe you have already

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reached that plateau, but maybe that next

plateau is standing above, but I don't

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like to think of it as just a plateau,

but an acceleration curve that you can

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continue to climb because you do have what

it takes, because you have that awesome

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gift that you were starting to cultivate

at a very young age, and even if you did

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realize it or not, know this: maybe you're

not using it in all the right places,

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in all the right things that you should

be doing, and there are people out there

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that are willing to help you do that.

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There are places that you can go

that will help you get to that next

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level, and maybe there are things

that you can do to continuously

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self improve, but you are worth it.

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Not just from the fact that you have those

gifts, but that you were able to hold on

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to it for so long, and now after hearing

this episode, you're ready to start that

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conversation all over again, and I'm

cheering you on, knowing that you're

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going to have that gift that stands out.

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Whether you are going to be the next

President of the United States, or

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even be the best speaker in the whole

entire world that has the most massive

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following along with the best message,

but when you re-embrace yourself, not

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only are you showing your gifts, but

you're showing love in more ways than one.

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Thanks for listening to episode

number 50 of Speaking From the

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Heart, and I look forward to

hearing from your heart very soon.

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Outro: Thanks for listening.

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create the best version of yourself.

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See you next time.