Ever wondered why some people seem to navigate life effortlessly, exuding happiness and positivity, while others always seem to be in a state of flux? This week, Hallie and I shed light on how our expectations cause unnecessary pain and suffering, and how releasing these expectations can lead to a more fulfilling life and make us better leaders. We also touch on the importance of trusting your gut feelings and flow states and explain how to tell the difference between your true instinct and your inner chatter. Often, the clarity we seek reveals itself when we least expect it.

[00:00:13] Hallie: So we have a, a listener question that I think is really interesting that I wanted to get your take on. So this person said, traditionally I think of leadership primarily as my workplace responsibility. I'm seeing that my greater lack of leadership is at home.

[00:00:36] Adam: Well, I think the, uh, well, it's great that they're, that they're working on raising their leadership lid and, and I think one of the most important steps that people can always have is the awareness around this, right? Which is you're aware that you want a deeper relationship and deeper connection with your immediate family, which is, you know, your partner, your kids, which is wonderful.

[00:01:20] And those are all wonderful things to do. Um, so you get what I'm saying though? Like, you can, you can do all of those wonderful techniques that you have. To kind of help raise the lid to help increase the awareness of where your family's going. Having a mission for your family or an ethos is a wonderful thing to do, but I think the listeners really getting at to a deeper question, which is, how do I become a, a, a being of wellbeing?

[00:02:04] Is to raise the moment up is to contribute to the moments. The moment is better off for having passed by me in in order to do that. This is where the deep work, the personal growth work, the spiritual path work, is really developed from which is to let go of that part of you that is looking to take something from something.

[00:02:39] Why doesn't this person wanna stay over here? Why? Why would they act this way? Right? It's all about me, like you're looking at me to try to get, it's always about, I'm trying to manipulate people, even though people don't call it that. They're trying to go in there and try to, trying to take something from somebody.

[00:03:16] If you're listening to this, somebody may say, well, how are you supposed to do that and work? There's nothing wrong with holding people accountable. There's nothing wrong with getting the results or being layers focused on them, but what you're letting go of is you're letting go of the intent behind the accountability.

[00:03:47] Hallie: yes, in in general. So if, if I'm gonna just like, maybe this is maybe going back a little to the tactical a little bit, but. First, even like in this particular question, like you mentioned the awareness. So I feel like yes, this person is obviously aware that they're showing up one way at work and one in a different way at home, and they wanna change that.

[00:04:37] They have to have some sort of intention to spend their time differently.

[00:04:43] Hallie: Or is that not,

[00:05:06] So the answer at one level is exactly what you said. There's plenty of technique. And, and by the way, that may be where anybody, there's nothing wrong with that. That's, that's actually a wonderful, wonderful first step. Look, look, anybody that's working on themselves consciously should get a hug, right? I mean, that's the whole point of all of this.

[00:05:40] You're doing it because you're raising the moment, and that's a different place that you work from. And that's, again, that's the same thing at work. It's the same thing at in, at home, which is when you, when you surrender. And, and that word I know, it, it, for me, it makes tremendous sense for a lot of people.

[00:06:18] All the time. So it's, it's, it really is just extremely spoiled, like a kid that's always spoiled. And, and when it doesn't get what it wants, it complains and argues and yells and does all this stuff. And I know it's a little off topic, but it's really what it, it's really the essence of this question, which is if you're continuing to spoil your ego, like you would spoil your kid, they're gonna, it's gonna show up and yet you may be going to Florida.

[00:06:55] It's just, and then if it's so spoiled, that's what the mind does. It gets so spoiled cuz it's everything it asks of you, you give it, it asks you to go get another job. You'll get another job. Asks you to get a divorce. You get a divorce, right? I mean it, just watch what goes on in there. So that's why you just gotta be cautioned when you, when you, when you use techniques, they're wonderful and they're a wonderful place to do it, but they should, the technique should move you through a deeper path to the deeper question, which is, how do I no longer need the techniques that are there so I can show up and raise the moment and be present for the moment and, and without this mind chatter that's happening, and I promise you it goes away.

[00:07:48] Just like you read a book three years ago and you read a book today and it makes more sense to you, right? You get that. I, I think I finally realized the, this whole no preference thing. Um, I, uh, I, I really, what ha and I, I've heard it. But I didn't really get it. And so what I realized is that the preference, it's not that you've, you try to remove preferences.

[00:08:32] And it was just blank for a long time and I was just like, look, there's no preference of anything. And I'll tell you where it's stemmed from. For me. Again, this is just, I think it's always good to have examples for people when they're going through this path. It's silly, but this is just my example. I woke up in the morning and I play a men's LAX league at night, and one, I used to play in a men's hockey league after college for about four years, and I stopped playing it because the games are so late and I'm an early morning person and do this.

[00:09:17] It's just complaining. It's like, oh, you're gonna be tired. Oh, it's late at night. Oh, you won't be able to. And I'm just going like, what is like, and I'm just like, I'm not gonna touch this. And I just watched this whole thing and then all of a sudden it just started to just move away. And it just was there.

[00:09:51] So the answer is, of course, gonna be agreeing with the question that asks itself. And so once you no longer have the voice loud enough in your ear, you don't, you don't suffer anymore because you're not reliving any of that, or you're not reliving, you're not living something that's not currently happening.

[00:10:23] People were like, oh, we're going for a bike ride at five o'clock today. And I just found myself going, oh, great, I'm gonna go to the bike ride. Then I go, oh, I guess I'm not going to LAX then. So it was literally just unfolded like this. And so it was ju it was. Then I'm like, oh, so it's, I guess I'm just not going, and it just happened.

[00:10:52] The decision was already, the preference wasn't there. It just, it all unfolded. Does that mean, so it was really, it was a really fascinating thing and I think the same thing goes is I. The minute you, you are willing to just do this deep work of just, of, of, of surrendering to allowing the energy to move through you instead of repressing it or, or expressing it.

[00:11:23] Hallie: So, I hear everything that you're saying and I, it makes me think of two things. One, the whole going, not going to lacrosse or not going to lacrosse thing. Did you have any thoughts? Because immediately for me, I would've been like, okay, so the thing came up at five, right? And so you were gonna go Viking instead.

[00:12:01] Adam: Yeah. And the, that's what was causing the suffering. It was, I was, I think that's what it is for most people. There's a, there's a, there's a disagreement inside you, right? I mean, it's, there's a, there's an incongruency between what your mind is saying and some value judgment that you have about your self concept that isn't that where the argument happens inside, which causes you to close your heart.

[00:12:38] And for me it was like, oh, you're not gonna go and he's gonna have to drive up by himself and you're gonna let people down. You're gonna do this whole thing over here. You know, like, then it just becomes like, okay, I can't do that. Then it's like, but you need to do that. Like, it just gets this battle that goes on in your head instead of just going.

[00:12:52] Hallie: Yeah, but you didn't mention any of that, so that's why I

[00:13:08] And then it just, it was very painful. And just kinda let this emotion kind of work through you, and then I just stop thinking about it. Then I literally, like, I, I say stop thinking about it. It just wasn't there for me to think about, right? Like, it wasn't, it wasn't like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm just, I just really need to stop thinking about this.

[00:13:37] It's the first sunny day we've had in a while. We're gonna meet at five o'clock. And I'm just great. It was just there. I wasn't even thinking about anything else cause I wasn't, I didn't have the preference of what it was and I was like, that sounds fun. And then all of a sudden, then, then, then I just, then later on I was like, oh, great, I guess I'll just can't, and I'll just, I'm not gonna go the lax And, and, and by the way, the, the men's league, it's not like you need to show up every day.

[00:14:13] So it's not like it's, it's like this, this tremendous lack, and other people can show up too if you bring a friend. So people show up one time. So it's not like a, uh, um, you know, a big event that you actually are like missing and, and people are gonna be, it's not like a. Traveling lacrosse team where you're playing these intense games with high competition, that people are counting on you to be there.

[00:14:39] Hallie: Well, and also when you were talking about all that, it's, it feels like a very, um, spontaneous way of living. However, I hate spontaneity in theory, right? Like, being spontaneous feels so counter to who I am as just a person. So how do you marry the two things of like being spontaneous and listening to whatever that not listening to the voice.

[00:15:16] Adam: Yeah.

[00:15:19] Adam: think there's, you should bifurcate the, uh, fulfilling obligations is different than spon, spontaneity for a lot of things, right? Um, there's, there's nothing wrong with, if your nature is to be more structured, to have things planned out, that's fine in that situation, right? It may have just shown up and you're like, oh, our friends are going to do this or, or we're gonna do this.

[00:15:51] That's not it at all. Everyone's got its own nature. Everything has its own nature, its own vibration, and the more you're in the way the Dow, right? When you're in the Dow, that is the whole. It's no action with all action, and that's all that that means. It just has a deeper context for what that is, which is the, it all the, the, the look for thousands of years, the, the Dow's been, been written, and it's, what it's trying to say in kind of layman's terms is that the minute the mind or this self-concept you've created is talk is no longer talking to you, you're no longer acting from that.

[00:16:47] And that's where people really get caught up because their entire life, that's all they're doing is listening to that voice. Again, that's why I said the ego is so spoiled. The self-concept is so spoiled cuz it keeps asking you for things and everybody, everybody keeps giving it to 'em. It is whatever you want.

[00:17:07] Adam: course it's intentional. It's not conscious.

[00:17:28] And then I'm

[00:17:30] Hallie: is that my voice?

[00:17:47] That's so when you ask your mind, oh, is this the voice or not the voice, and you're kind of waiting for an answer, the mind is gonna gen.

[00:17:59] Adam: Well, I think when you, when people are asking a question now, there, there's, there's two ways to kind of answer that. Number one is most people are asking the mind 99.9% of their day. They're asking cuz they, what you're looking for is you're, you're, you're, if people are asking the mind, you're also looking for an answer that comes back in the sound.

[00:18:36] The personal heart is tied to the self-concept. So your emotions that most people live by or say, I'm following my heart, you're not following your heart in the way you're saying it, you're following your emotions that are driven from the self-concept or the ego that's there. You once you allow that to just be quiet for a second or just stop paying attention to it as best you can, you'll instantly look to your right and realize there's a whole other world that's over there that can guide you.

[00:19:23] That's how clear it is to, once you start paying attention, to know the difference between what the mind is versus what the, again, the mind would be, the physical pain. Cuz it's very, you're like, I'm physically painful versus psychological suffering. And it just becomes very clear.

[00:19:46] Adam: It's not even like you're listening to it. This is, it is just, it's so dif, it's so difficult for people to comprehend this because they've never not listened to their mind. That's, I mean,

[00:20:15] Deeper knowing, and that's just the language that people use to express that. Um, but I don't know, you tell me if that's accurate or not, but that's what I think of when I think of at least people are getting, starting to get glimpses of it and knowing that it's not necessarily their mind generated

[00:20:46] Hallie: So, so confusing. So then like

[00:21:10] This is all the work that I do. And I literally just share that. So it'd be like, you know, if you're spend every waking minute in business, then you have a lot to share. I just share this because every single minute of my life, I work on this, on, on spirituality, if you will. Um, so for me, when, when I, when I see that, I mean, how many times, again, this is my own experience and I, I posed a question not for you to necessarily debate it or answer it just for people to, to ask it themselves, which is how many times you had like this gut feeling and then it didn't work out.

[00:21:47] Hallie: Yeah, that's, that reminds me of the whole, um, decision, the whole, like, it's literally like the same thing as like the, oh gosh, what's the word about like the decision? Uh, resulting it's the same thing, like just because you make a decision and it works out or doesn't work out, doesn't mean that the decision itself was a poor decision.

[00:22:18] Adam: All right.

[00:22:21] Adam: That's, that's my point. So that's why, so it's, it's, it's not that it's right or

[00:22:25] Adam: so that's exactly why it that so, so exactly. So if you don't, if it's not right or wrong, then you are only guiding yourself in a direction towards it because it's, you think it's right. If it's not right or not wrong, and you get out of that and you don't actually pay attention to it.

[00:23:03] You're just moving in harmony with which way to go based on how you're at that moment. How your legs and ankles are, are hit, that snow and that angle to where the tree is, you're just in there moving. The same thing also in a complete other example is if you ever give a presentation, and most people have.

[00:23:37] So it's like it can't be looked upon the same way that people look upon the mind, which is why it's so difficult for people to comprehend that there's a different way to live, which is the more, it's, it's in harmony with your own nature. But most people have mistakenly see this as. Their nature is their personal heart, which is the energy that they're feeling cuz they're blocked and they go and express that out there of like, oh, I needed to go share that, right.

[00:24:27] That's not really nature in itself. It's your energy that's blocked and it's trying to move around and you go, oh, oh, I need to go over here. And if you pay attention to this, the minute the energy starts to move, the voice starts to communicate a direction for you. That voice is the, is actually literally your self-concept, getting you to go a different direction.

[00:25:10] When that no longer exists again, it's like you've been looking in the entire left side of your, of the room and when that goes away, you turn around, you look to your right and you go, wow, I've been looking inside the entire time. Now I see there's a whole world out here and it just moves you in a entirely or different direction.

[00:25:44] You find yourself, like I once heard a high being say, you just, you may find your, they ask like, am I supposed to get married? They go, who knows? You may, but what you'll do is you'll find yourself at an altar getting married. And I know that people are like, how can that even possibly be? It? It's, I get it.

[00:26:22] You're missing the whole thing over here. It's the same thing, like when you just, you start to get further back and you're going, oh man, I see this whole thing unfold. Now I see why for thousands of years there's been this single truth. About life. There's not, you know, they haven't been writing about leadership for thousands of years or how to get what you want for thousands of years, or how to be a life coach to get what you want.

[00:26:53] Hallie: Okay. I have like, cuz you've talked about a couple of different things, but I couldn't help but think, and this is probably me just wanting to be argumentative, that when you're giving those examples of being in that flow state with like speaking or skiing, I again, intellectually understand what you're saying about being in that flow state.

[00:27:29] No. You need to be trained, experienced, understand whatever you need to know about skiing or, or speaking, right? So what's, what's experience and when training and what's flow.

[00:27:58] Somebody that's going and giving their first presentation may not be great at it, but they can certainly find themselves in a flow state. And all that state is, is just absence of mind. That's all that it is. It's just, it's just absence of that.

[00:28:20] Adam: simply giving that as an analogy and, and, and people wanna relate. You can relate it back to like a, like how good you're going to be at golf or speaking, or in business or as a parent. Like sure. You learn through it. Every experience makes you a wiser being. There's no denying that every experience is worth having that you have cuz it makes you wiser whether you failed, whether you succeeded at any of those things.

[00:29:00] To get what it wants. So when you, when, when you ask the question about when people are, are about like, am I following nature? Am I following my heart? 99% of people are following their personal heart. And the personal heart is based on the emotions and the voice that's inside their head. And I was just trying to simply state that people can get reach these periods in different areas of their life.

[00:29:35] It doesn't require any experience to listen to music, and it can just take you away. If you listen to music for a second, it's like all of a sudden there is no thought and you're just in the music. So there I was just apparently painting examples of what those could be. But um, and sure wisdom and experience will make you better at what you're doing in terms of application of how you're using your outer life.

[00:30:21] That's why, you know, I've said this for many, many years, that spiritual growth or personal growth is not about changing what you're doing. It's changing the part that is interacting with life. And again, the moment in front of you. I mean, this was Oprah's favorite line right from Michael Singer's book, which is the moment in front of you is not bothering you.

[00:30:54] And the reason why you're bothering yourself about it's cuz it's somehow not what you want it to be, or you're scared you're gonna lose it, or you're scared you're not gonna get it.

[00:31:18] Adam: Well, you go back to who you are. You fall back in your actual nature that you're always there. It's just like if the clouds move away, the clouds are taken away. The sun's bright. Same thing for you. The minute the mine's taken away, it takes you away from the. The interaction that you're paying attention to inside your body, which is the mind and the personal heart, right?

[00:32:04] How we need, how we get more of this, right? It's literally what it does. But for the moments, it takes you away from you paying attention. Uh, uh, it takes you, it's almost like it distracts you for moments, um, from your, your old self-concept and you actually feel what it's like to be in life. So yes, people have that feeling and they want, then they go, I want more of that.

[00:32:46] It's, uh, it's, it's just a, it's a fascinating journey. Um, you know, I dunno why I've been on that little kick recently about the, and you think about like the principle truths of life, right? Forget about business or kids or relationships, just this, these fundamental truths of living, of being here in life.

[00:33:23] Like those things come and go, but these, these simple truths that are, that are there. Uh, and I think to me, to me, like that's what people, now there is a deeper part of you that comes from a deeper spot. Of this yearning for these deeper questions, which is why we're behaving having this conversation. If you're listening to this, you're someone who has that itch or someone who has that, that sense of why am I here?

[00:34:06] Which again, if you just pay attention to it, you'll see the D, you'll feel the difference. Just like you can feel the difference between jealousy and anger. You can feel and understand the difference, and I think you understand what that means too. Like you can feel the difference when that deeper question of like, man, why am I here?

[00:34:30] Hallie: Yeah. I would even even say maybe, I don't know if this makes sense or not, but that it's almost like when it comes from that deeper place, it's not even, it doesn't even feel like

[00:34:42] Hallie: It feels like,

[00:34:45] Hallie: getting well, that you're getting an answer even though you haven't actually asked a

[00:35:04] Like, how can I ever go back to living the other way? But you're, you're spot

[00:35:34] Adam: Yeah, they do. They, they, well, you're absolutely right because what happens is when the, when the, when the mind isn't narrating what it wants, you actually gain clarity. The clarity is just there. You don't have to ask for clarity. Just like, it's almost that, that analogy is almost the same thing as what I was talking about with preferences.

[00:36:11] Hallie: Well, I was gonna say, oftentimes when you stop searching for the clarity, it does just show up, right? I mean, that's, yeah. Or you like listen to something and you're like, oh my God. That's what, that's the answer that I didn't even know I had the question about.

[00:36:46] It's always ahead of you. It's always ahead of you.

[00:36:49] Adam: Yeah. Actually, the way the whole thing goes, it's called the Hand, it's actually called The Hand of God. And, and basically what, what's what the whole essence is, is that like there's always a, there's always a hand trying to gra help you and it casts a shadow over you.

[00:37:13] Hallie: Right. Cause it's right, it's always there. As long as the sun is there and which is maybe gone

[00:37:29] Uh,

[00:37:31] Adam: exactly. Exactly.

[00:37:35] Adam: what I, I just, I, I use the word God as like everything. That's consciousness.

[00:37:42] Adam: Well, so again, hopefully this was helpful for the, the listener in terms of, uh, what that path is. Again, techniques are great. They're, the awareness is the first step of all of this, by the way.

[00:38:09] And, and that's the, that's the thing that I can tell everybody's just like, how would you know? You can read a lot about being really good at golf, but if you don't ever go out there and actually play golf, it's very difficult for you to actually get better. And it's the same thing here. You can read as much as you want, or listen as much as you want about personal growth or spiritual growth.

[00:38:44] It's just there. The hardest times that I've had in my life has been when I've tried to force clarity, and it's when you just lean in. And lean into it. It A, you're not suffering. And number two, it shows itself a B And the word that I think they've used for thousands of years has just been, it just becomes un disguised.