Jem Fuller, a leadership coach based in Australia, helps executive and senior-level leaders lead more consciously and create better organizational cultures. He's also the author of "The Art of Conscious Communication for Thoughtful Men." We chat about intentionally designing your life so you can invest in your essential relationships, focusing more energy and dedicating time to the things that matter most to you. Through a midlife crisis, losing his career, marriage, and home, he came to understand how crucial it is to prioritize valuable relationships. Through mindfulness and neuroplasticity, Jem began to build the base for overcoming anxiety and developing his strong self-confidence.

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Timestamps

0:04:26

Intentionally Designing Life for Quality Relationships

0:17:55

Self-Belief Directs Life Decisions

0:20:10

The Power of Neuroplasticity and Self-Love

0:24:59

Result of Anxiety and Self-Worth on Intimacy in a Marriage

0:41:54

The Power of Surrender

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Connect with Jem Fuller

Website:

https://jemfuller.com/

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Mindfulness Made Easy - Free Course

https://jemfuller.teachable.com/p/mindfulness-made-easy

Use Coupon Code “springgift”

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’The Art of Conscious Communication for Thoughtful Men’

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Conscious-Communication-Thoughtful-Men/dp/0645222623

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Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/jemfuller.me

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Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/jemfuller/

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LinkedIn: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jemfuller

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Connect with Mike Forrester

https://linktr.ee/hicoachmike

I'm, I'm honored to be a guest for you.

You know, so I'm, I'm passionate about people living their best lives. And I do that through coaching leaders. I also have online courses, uh, and international retreats. We had to put the international retreats on hold over COVID uh, but very excited that we can travel again. Now we run re retreats in the Himalaya and India, and in the jungles of Bali and the deserts of Australia. So the retreats are happening again. In my spare time, uh, I'm an author. I've had my first book published, which was exciting and a TEDx talk that came out recently as well. So I'm nice and nice and busy, but not busy as in, you know, a badge of honor, I'm working too hard.

I still have plenty of time, uh, surfing with my teenage boys, uh, and traveling with my partner and our, our kids.

And the reason that I'm so aware of that is because it wasn't always like this. Uh, but now, you know, for the last seven years, I've been in a beautifully conscious relationship with my woman, my other half. Uh, we're a blended family now. So between the two of us, we've got. Uh, three boys and a girl, 18, 16, 15, and 13.

So there's, uh, between the kids and us, there's surfing, mountain bike, riding, lots of camping, hiking, treking. Lots of time outside. We love the outdoors and yeah. And, and also other things, you know, my personal life, I mean, I mean, I think the relationships is the most important thing. Right. And when you can create a life where you can invest quality time in those relationships and there, you know, in a really beautiful place, then the rest of your life is just easier.

Right? Yeah. Um, so there's that. And then, you know, look, I write music and, um, you know, we enjoy going to the movies and the, the regular stuff, you know,

Well, we're also investing so much energy. Then when we get home, we don't have the energy to spend with our time. So how are you, how are you making the time, but how are you also, like making sure you have the energy to be present during those times?

I'd lost my career, my marriage, my home. I lost the lot except my kids. Anyway, that's another story. But, um, so when I was first in the room and it was when I was studying coaching. So I went to, to become qualified as a coach and, uh, using neurolinguistic programming and human behavioral profiling and all the stuff.

And we spend most of our time in quadrants, one and three, which are things that are urgent, you know, so we have these urgent things on our to-do list and we get to work and there's, you never finish your to-do list. And you're always prioritizing the most urgent things. And if you don't schedule time for the things that are important, but not urgent, IE, our relationships, our, our physical and mental wellbeing, you know, doing the things that fill up our tank of resilience.

So then, um, I, I would literally schedule time each week to spend time, uh, thinking how, how can I nourish this relationship with my. With my woman with my other half, what can I do to nourish that relationship? And I started dedicating time to it. And as a result of that, we have a really, really beautiful, easy relationship.

You know, it never gets to crisis point. We don't fight. Um, it doesn't get to the point where she's angry or upset that I'm not loving her well enough. You know, her love tank is overflowing and so is mine. And so, and it's true. So now I can actually, you know, move into my potential in the other roles that I play in life.

I didn't want to hear that because I didn't know how to fix my relationship. And I didn't, I wasn't ready to contemplate leaving that marriage because that it was a terrible time for me personally. And so I, I neg I reacted negatively to it, but deep down inside, I knew there was some truth to it, but I, I pushed that to the side again for a while.

I wasn't ready to, to accept that truth. And it wasn't until in the years after that, that I had to go, wow, that's so true. , you know?

I've, I've had those times where it's like, I'm struggling with my wife. And, uh, you know, I invested myself at work because I felt like I had a level of competence. I had that level of success. And so. Almost doubled down on what I felt I was doing well, whereas at home I could have let it go. Um, yeah. So I love the fact that you're saying, you know, like really, if it's, if it's rubbing you wrong, really look in and spend some time with it.

So that, that is super helpful because back then I wouldn't have done that Jem. Not in the least, I would've been indignant . Yeah.

Like if I had nothing to defend. What, what, how could I broaden my horizons or how could I, um, elevate my perspective to this situation now? If I didn't need to feel defensive about it? You know, just give yourself a moment to consider, um, why perhaps am I so vehemently defensive on this particular point?

I wonder why that is, you know, and just to be gentle with yourself as you, as you're sitting in this self inquiry, I think is important. Yeah.

Right. I wasn't feeling as though I was enough. I wasn't a man. Like I didn't understand my purpose. I didn't understand my value that I had worth. And, uh, the pain from that became less. Then the pain of like saying, Hey, I'm gonna ask this question that, you know, from what I've been taught, if I ask a question, that's a sign of weakness.

It makes me a failure. Um, you know, it was, it was one that I asked the questions to say, what am I missing? What do you have? And so that's for me where things started to change where the, the pain threshold changed.

Um, a lot of men would, um, because we think about things. Um, and, and so I think that there's, there's a, there's a brand of men of man, what it is to be a man. And I know in America, it's the same for us here in Australia, where the brand is, you know, toughen up, harden up the patriarchal dominate type situation, you know, don't cry like a girl.

I got told that when I was a boy, when I was a child and that didn't sit well with me because as a young boy, I was quite an emotional, sensitive person. Um, and then I thought there was something wrong with me because I was emotional and sensitive. So then we get taught to toughen up and harden up and be a man, whatever that is.

And I know lots of men do as you do as well. Right? Absolutely. Um, you know, hence this podcast and the, and the, the beautiful conversations that you are facilitating, you know? And so I think, I think, I think all men are thoughtful, but we kind of have been taught to cut ourselves off from that. You know, don't contemplate that stuff, don't think about it. Just take action, get on with it, get results, make money. Do the do, you know? So yeah, I think we're all thoughtful.

Um, your marriage was struggling at that time. How did you, how did you begin working on you when you're like, oh wow. This, this is a mental shift of how I've seen things. How did you work on the personal growth of you and changing your perspective at that time to set yourself on the path to where you're at now?

You know, and it was me looking at these two boys who were the most important humans to me in the world. And I was like, wow, I've gotta get my act together. I've gotta get this together. Um, this all happened at the same time. I, I had a, a kind of an awakening I'm calling it. It was in a north American Indian sweat lodge, a traditional.

I was, this was at the age of 42. When this happened. I was 42 years old and I realized that I had this belief that I wasn't enough, right. That I wasn't good enough. And I couldn't, I wasn't enough to be her man or I wasn't enough to be successful in my profession or I wasn't good enough. I just wasn't good enough.

You know, and because I had this background belief that I wasn't enough, I manifested my life in that way. I chose to marry a woman who was, who would let me know every day that I wasn't good enough. I chose her because that matched my belief that I wasn't enough. I sabotaged my career, my professional career, because I believed I didn't deserve the success.

Um, there was, uh, other books, David Deida's book around the, 'The Way of the Superior Man'. These books all started showing up, as they do. And I read these books and I thought, wow, I can actually change my wiring. I can. Thank you, neuroplasticity. I can change the, the, the neural pathways that have been firing repetitively, but Mike, it takes work.

It's not like you can choose the blue pill or the red pill and everything changes all of a sudden, you know, you're not Neo in the matrix. You've gotta go to work to, to rewire the new beliefs that you want to have. Uh, and so I did, I, I was desperate to get happy again. I was desperate to live a meaningful life and I was desperate to be a good father.

So for the first. Best part of a year of saying out loud every day, many times I am enough. I still didn't believe it, but I'd read the books. And the book said, if you do this, then this will happen. And I just had to trust the books, right. So I just kept going. And then after a while the neural wiring, sure enough, it took hold.

And I started to believe that I am good enough and that I do deserve success in happiness. I started to believe that first I started to love myself. That was the most important. And when I started to love myself, this was the healing, you know, and my anxieties dissipated. And I attracted into my life the most stunning, beautiful, gorgeous, perfect for me, human ever.

Is that about right?

Right. You know, and it's. Furthermore, it's not just, um, having patience to say this will take some time to rewire. It's a shift of thinking to going, hang on. This is how I'm going. This is a practice. Now this is habitual self love for me, my affirmations, my meditations, the way I treat myself, it's not, there's no finish line.

You don't kind of arrive and go. Yeah, I've made it to self-love. I don't need to look after myself anymore. You, you always look after yourself from then on you.

Yeah. So yeah, it's been, um, like conscious and intentional, knowing that these things are like the bedrock of what is helping you to see things from this perspective. Right. So, yeah. I love that. You've got. Kind of set in, it's almost like the difference between a diet and a lifestyle and working out versus just, you know, going to the gym for hell week, you know, for football or rugby, you know, it's it's no, this is a long term choice.

That part, right. I'm the man. And, and I, and also in, in not such a egotistical way, just in a loving way, I wanted to be my wife's man in that way, I wanted to be able to take her and, and say, I love you. I wanted to be able to make her feel good. I. Her her to be able to lose herself in the ecstasy of intimacy I wanted that's, I, I really wanted to be able to do that for her and because I wanted it so much, but I started developing anxiety around it.

I didn't know how to fix it. And it was, yeah, it was, it was really horrible. I would not wish it upon anyone. Yeah.

And, um, you know, stepping into that, having that self love going, wow, I am worth this. I do matter. Did you see that change or like did the shame and the anxiety still remain or what happened?

Uh, so it was too late for our marriage, unfortunately. Um, but not too late for me. So I, I started the self work and then when my current partner came into my life and we were falling in love, um, and I said to her, I just wanna take this really slowly. And I was open. I thought, you know what? I'm just gonna be open and honest.

And then in combination with my self work and then also in combination with the support and love of a person who could hold space for me to relax into and just feel like it doesn't matter. Everything's okay. The healing. Happened really, quite quickly. Um, and then, you know, and then we've explored to the other end of the, the scale of that functionality.

You know, we've done lots of tantric workshops together and we read the same self-development books together, all of David Deida's stuff, you know, and we're both, we're both right into it. And, and so now I get to experience in my life zero anxiety in that space, um, and really, really beautiful, deeply intimate and connected love making.

So I'm, I'm super relieved. to be able to say that because there was, I almost lost hope, Mike, you know, if I look back to 10 years ago from now, um, I, I had almost given up.

Um, yeah. How as you're healing and you're finding your worth, did you see that change for your children? Like did their, their worth for themselves change as well?

You know, in that direction or he could have gone in the direction that he's gone in, which is beautifully resilient. He does not mind what you think of him. He's got a big heart. He's kind, he's beautiful. He's 18. He still kisses and hugs me in public goodbye or hello. Like if I pick him up from school, um, He'll still hold my hand.

We'll walk down the shopping mall and he'll still hold my hand cuz we love each other. And he's my son, you know, he does not care what you think of him. And so at school, if he sees someone put some litter on the, on the ground, he'll pick up other people's trash and put it in the bin and people will tease him saying, why are you picking up the rubbish?

um, they've watched their dad learn to love himself in a good way. You know, not in a egotistical way in a, just in a, in a beautiful way. They've seen that and they've watched me. Create a life of, um, I'm doing inverted coms for people listening to this of, of a successful life. Right. Because I earn money doing what I love to do.

So yeah, I think it's definitely had a beautiful, positive impact on them. And, and they both, as, as young men believe that they can live a good life. Uh, they certainly believe that they're enough. Yeah. You know, there's no kind of self depreciation going on there. Um, So, yeah, I, I hadn't thought too much about it until you asked me Mike, but, but it must, it, you know, the way we live certainly impacts our children, you know, in lots of ways, doesn't it.

So, yeah, I'm, I'm guessing they've had positive responses to it, for sure.

And, uh, our children. I mean, I'm excited to hear you say that, you know, like that, that they've got this re resiliency, you know, they have their worth because you're breaking, you know, those like the. The beliefs that have been passed down to us, right? You're being a change maker for your family. And that's something that so many of us, until we realize that, Hey, our past doesn't determine who we get to be.

That, uh, you know, when we find out that is available, then we can make those changes and, and determine a different legacy, a different heritage that our, our children and our grandchildren get to inherit. So I'm excited to hear that, man.

So my partner, her, her daughter and her son. And I'm not their step dad. They've been, we've been very clear about that. , I'm just Jem to them. Um, and I've always been very clear to them that, you know, I, in no way do I want to ever replace their dad or, or, or even try to replace their dad, they've got a dad.

Uh, they spend half their lives with him. That's beautiful. , uh, I'm just Jem, but I'm very different to their dad. I mean, we could not be more polar opposite in terms of our, our character, our traits, the way we look at life. We're, we're, we're very, very different. And so they get to see, they get a, you know, a, another perspective on, you know, on an older male.

And in our Western society in recent years, relat. Recent years, we've become very insular. You know, we have this, this house with fence around it and there's mom and dad and the kids, and we we're pretty isolated. In terms of the way we, when we're eating and sleeping and, um, you know, washing and doing just normal living per functionary stuff, we do it very isolated.

Uh, and so, yeah, look, I think, you know, it takes a village is, is a beautiful way of looking at things. And so it's been good for our kids and for my two boys also to see. My partner who's, who's not their mum, but she is a woman, an older woman, and they're seeing another way of being. So it's a more well rounded kind of learning experience that they have as young people, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

It's a part of that Rite of passage. Uh, and. What's fascinated me with the tattoos and, and I ended up tattooing by hand. I tattooed myself first using tattoo needles, but attached to a stick. I use a chopstick and then dipping it in the ink and dotting it in dot, by dot, by dot. So it's very slow. Um, and it's the traditional way of tattooing.

And I started doing that when I was traveling and living in India, uh, and after tattooing myself and then gradually tattooing other travelers, uh, and then it became a trade. So I'd give you a tattoo and you'd give me a, something, a massage or something. I don't know. Uh, and then after some time, My work got good enough.

Um, but I will tattoo if, if it's someone in community that I feel a strong connection with, and I feel that. Reasons for having a tattoo align with my, um, honor of the art, then I'll do it. Um, but I, but not much anymore. Um, so that's, that's me and, and tattoos my feet. I, I love the tattoos on my feet. All the other tattoos on my body.

I designed like I'm a bit of an artist and I designed all the tattoos on my body and I was trying to design tattoos on my feet. I was living in London at the time and I was in a community of tattooists and I was trying to design these tattoos for my feet and I just couldn't come up with anything. And so I said to a friend of mine, who's a tattooist.

And so he came up with this mandala where the two feet, when I put my feet together, they, they make a circular mandala, which is really lovely, but yeah, he freestyled it and that was a really, really liberating experience because normally you spend so much time thinking about which tattoo am I gonna get and it's there for life and you can't make a mistake.

It's gotta be perfect. Right. So to go from that to full surrender, Full and I'm, I'm massive on surrender. We could have a whole conversation about surrender, but I, I, and I just full surrender and I gave him my feet and he just started tattooing them and he tattooed them and I love them. They're arguably my favorite tattoo now,

Because I'm unsure of letting go and trusting somebody else. How did you get to a point of saying, go for it? You know, I give you, I give you all reign. How did you, like you talked about how did you surrender that?

So surrender, I just need to delineate a little bit around the definition of the word. Most people would hear the word surrender and they take that as defeat. They take that as I'm surrendering to you because we're at war with each other and you're stronger than me or your army has surrounded my army.

So we're gonna surrender. You know that concept of we're at war and, and I'm defeated. So I'm gonna surrender mm-hmm , that's not what I'm talking about. The surrender that you and I are talking about. And I, I know you get, this is, uh, that letting go of holding on so tightly, you know, because when we, when we hold on, so tightly to something.

But if you loosen your grip a little. And harness the storm. The winds are blowing this way, so let's change our course. Let's be flexible and adjustable, and let's surrender a little bit to that, which we can't control. I, the storm you'll navigate a more functional way through the storm and get where you want to go in anyway, you know, and for me also, the exploration was.

Oh, that's hell . You are gonna have a terrible, terrible time, terrible time. And I truly learn to surrender. To those experiences. And that's when potentially you can experience altered states that are quite beautiful. So there was that surrender learning that piece then as well, but then also the surrender to getting a tattoo, you know, like, like we were talking about the surrender of handing over to someone else and just trusting, um, you know, all the surrender to, you know, even that, which we can't control.

But surrendering to that, which we can't control, frees up our energy to focus on, well, what, what is possible? What can I influence in this moment? What, what can I be doing? You know, so for me, the, the idea of surrendering is, um, a really wonderful key. It's been a really wonderful key for me.

To relinquish, relinquish control, not having it stolen from us or being subservient. Right. So, yeah, I love the way you described that with the ship. That's such a great picture.

The practice of mindfulness over the last decade for me has become really one of the most powerful mind training tools. To make my life easier. Uh, so I made a course that's mindfulness made easy. It's just a 10 day easy course. And if your guests would like to put in the coupon code "springgift", just as one word "springgift", it'll make the course free for them and they can download it and keep it forever.

Um, and you can find that on my website under the course is bit. Um, but if I could offer that, then that's something that I can give for you.

If, if people, um, would like to look at my TEDx talk, that'd be, that'd be great. Just Google Jem Fuller on, on YouTube. Um, and, and my book, 'The Art of Conscious Communication for Thoughtful Men' that you've mentioned as well. You can buy that anywhere, Amazon or wherever, but if people are interested, they can go to those places as well.

Yeah. And

I mean, dude, that's so encouraging, so I appreciate it. Thank you, Jem.