032: Unlocking Exponential Personal Growth: Understanding What Sets Some Apart

The podcast episode explores the idea of exponential growth in different aspects of life, like business, health, and relationships. Hosts Mike and Stephen discuss the mindset and strategies behind significant growth, including the role of hard work and effective decision-making. They also examine the impact of engagement, such as responding to messages and comments, on growth potential. 

The episode continues its discussion on the factors contributing to success, including the combination of strategy and hard work. The speculation on whether these two elements are sufficient for success or if there's another variable involved, like having a unique quality or authenticity. They explore the concept of uniqueness and authenticity through examples like Bruce Lee, highlighting the importance of being oneself in achieving success.

Connect with Mike Chang:
- Instagram: @mikechangofficial
-Youtube: Mike Chang
- Website: www.flow60.com

Connect with Stephen Yeh:
-Instagram: @iamstephenyeh
-Twitter: @iamstephenyeh

Transcript

Mike: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of body over mine podcast. This is your host, Mike Chang with your cohost, Stephen. Yeh. Today's topic is a discussion that Steve and I was having, and it's about exponential growth. It's about the philosophy of why is it where some people experienced more growth than others. Now, this growth is a very general term.

We see this in business. We also see this in health. We may see this in a person's relationship. Now, while these seem to be like different categories, there is a certain philosophy. There's a certain mindset, there's a certain approach. And when a person is growing in one of these categories, a lot of times it's because there's a certain way that they are seeing their business, their relationship, their health, their decisions are made there differently.

There's a line that many people have heard of. It's a [00:01:00] popular one. There's 24 hours in a day. Everybody is working with the same 24 hours. Why is it that some people are moving forward faster, experiencing more of life or gaining more, while someone is not? Same amount of time could be similar amount of waking day.

So what makes the difference? And I'd like to discuss that today. So Stephen, We were talking more about a business because we saw somebody's account on Instagram and we saw how it really blew up, I think over the past, I want to say six months to maybe about a year. And that kind of opened up the subject.

So let's just dive into. What do you think is the components that a person need to have in order to experience a lot of growth in an area of their life? Is it as simple as just hard work, hard work, and more hard work? Or are there other things that a person needs to recognize or approach differently? 

Stephen: I mean, honestly, [00:02:00] you know, for sure.

We're going to dive in deeper and specifically for you, because especially this year you have made tremendous, tremendous growth in terms of your business and in terms of your followers. So, , especially around business, I can only speculate just from what I'm seeing and just what has been going on.

And so, you were just talking about hard work. I feel like for sure. That's one of the main components for sure, because without that, it's, it's You know, if you don't put enough effort into anything, it's really going to be very difficult to really grow, especially exponentially. So that for sure is one component.

I mean, the other component I would say is I'm going to assume it's also just doing the right things. You know, there's people around the world that have work ethics, like crazy. That's why a lot of immigrants who moved to America. . A lot of them succeed so well, and even though back in their [00:03:00] country, they're still hard workers, but they just couldn't get anywhere.

Why? The opportunities were different. The model that they were applying was different, and they didn't have the opportunities around to be able to do it. So, strategy is going to be very important, and that's going to depend on, let's say in business, you would consider a business model. You know, work with a company that mainly talks about e commerce.

And essentially, sometimes people hop on the calls and they're in different industries. I just had a call with someone that is in the roofing industry. And he's saying, Hey, I'm doing exceptionally well. I'm profiting about 3 million per year at this moment. But if I wanted to grow this company more, it's going to be exponentially harder because it's so location dependent and it's so people dependent.

And so he said, okay, there might be other business models that would make a lot more sense. [00:04:00] For example, e commerce or creating your own physical products brands, because you can replicate the products and use that as a tool to be able to generate income for the company now, it's not so demanding in terms of human resources.

Right. So that's just one example. So I would say in terms of growth itself. , for sure the hard work plus the right strategy, you know, what would you say? 

Mike: Well, so if the right strategy, so , let's say many people are selling courses on strategies. Right. Here's the blueprint for the right thing to do.

Um, here's the, you know, learn all the things. So if someone has hard work, that I agree, right? That's like, , being in a race car race and hard work is like making sure you have a race car, right? Without the race car, you just have no chance. So now that you have a race car, it doesn't mean you're going to win.

You're just kind of leveling out the playing field. So I think hard work is like that. I think it's [00:05:00] just a standard thing. But then the next thing we'll just talk about is like strategy. So imagine if, let's say the best race car drivers, , all created a handbook or, you know, a course, this is the way to win.

And everybody took it what would have somebody stand out and win, let's say a hundred people took it. They all have the same data, but there could only be one winner. One first, that's 

Stephen: a, that's a good question. I mean, that, that's also what's happening in the industry in general, in all the different aspects.

Mike: Yeah. I mean, what it could be hard 

Stephen: work. 

Mike: Yeah. I mean, could it be that maybe one is working harder? Like we want to crack that code right now, right? Is it, is it really just, uh, cause hard work is very general. Is it so much of somebody putting in those extra hours? One person works 10, another person works 13.

One person goes, I'm going to outwork you guys. I'm going to work 16, maybe. Right. But what else could it be? You know, I think there's a, there's definitely the amount of time. Put in, [00:06:00] but as we know, the amount of time can also create diminishing returns over a certain period. So something that, that I noticed.

When we were looking at the accounts, , at this person account and seeing the growth and also something else that I've done personally, , for my accounts as well, , like just, a day ago, I looked at the numbers on our account on Instagram. And right now we've hit a million subscribers now.

And I think, uh, just early this year, we're at like 40, 000. So we've experienced some growth. Yeah. Tremendous growth. That's that's insane growth. Well, just between yesterday and today, we just increased by 20, 000. Cool. You know, so I just checked the numbers. It doesn't show it on the, main page.

So you got to go into like the analytics in the back, but I just checked it. And I was like, yeah, we're, we just increased like 20, 000 since yesterday. So we're like, okay, well, that's a big one. We now, is it by accident? No, it's not. So [00:07:00] is it strategy? I think the strategy has a lot to do with it, but right now we're talking about the two variables, strategy and hardworking so far, you know, and I want to cover that before we dive into maybe another variable, but I think So I want to talk a little bit about just about strategy.

This is not going to be so much of how to grow your Instagram, but I do want to share what we're doing. And I don't want to keep it a secret is what it is. So if you're listening, so this is something that we found out about maybe four to six months ago. It was a theory that if we were to go and do a lot of answering on DMs, that it would increase the engagement on the account.

And if we increase the engagement, then the posts will show up more. Now, we didn't know if this was a fact, we have speculation because we had a lot of responses on DM and then we started seeing some growth, but of course the growth could have came from anywhere else. We just recently started doing that again and right now we're seeing some growth, but of course, again, this is speculation because there's so many other [00:08:00] moving parts that it's hard to say that this is the only one.

So we're trying it out, but I think this is a good example of strategy because. Yeah. If it works, we should experience a lot more growth. Like it will just be continuously skyrocketing. And that would mean that we applied this strategy of, sending out a lot of messages, a lot of engagement on the account on top of comments.

Now bringing in the hard work part, the comments that we receive, , some are easier to answer, but there's a lot of them that are questions. And these questions are like, not easy questions because we got a little bit of information and people are asking some complicated things. They would usually say, Hey, love your videos.

It helped me a lot. Here's my scenario. , I'm this old dealing with this thing, feeling this way, had this, do this, do this, do this now, what can I do to accomplish this? And it's like, that's it. Right. And, and my goal is to go ahead and try to provide some value. Now I can go ahead and give it to our team, [00:09:00] but they're not going to know what to say, because these are some, just some complicated questions.

So then what that means is I literally sit there and I'm just going to answer, answer, answer, answer. And we just started doing that again. , Andy and I, our instructor, one of our instructors, he's the only one that's close by that really I trust to help me answer these. Everybody else I think won't give a really good answer.

These are tough questions. So then We have to take an hour out of our day minimum to go ahead and do this. We don't even have an hour. We are so slammed. I'm already working really a lot of hours, but I think this is the example of strategy combined with hard work. And it might end up working. We don't know yet.

This is just speculation. So if we didn't have the strategy and the hard work in this case, then we probably wouldn't have, we wouldn't even try this approach because it takes both the strategy part, because we had to pay attention to what works and what doesn't. And then the hard work part, because it's a lot of work to go and do this.

And not just once in a while, [00:10:00] this is like every single day, I'm already working 14 hours a day, you know, or sometimes more, And so I don't have an extra hour, so therefore to come up with an extra hour and try to find a way to make it fit, I would consider that to be hard work. So now, on top of that, would there be another variable outside of these two things that a person would have in order to succeed?

What do you think? 

Stephen: I would direct that question to you, but, one that comes to my mind right now is it's almost like if those become an even playing field where people are willing to work hard, people are implementing the right strategies. It's essentially almost, there's that one show called the X Factor.

Yeah. And to find the business or the person or whatever it is that has the quote unquote X factors. It's almost like the thing that you can't really describe it that well, [00:11:00] but you just know that it's there. 

Mike: So in business, we call it like, I feel like those are the ones 

Stephen: that really blow up. Right.

It's like a unique selling proposition. I mean it's either unique or it's just somehow feels special. Like when I see when you compared to the average person, like, uh, I'm not trying to toot your horn, but like you, it's like, Whoa, like there's something special about this guy. Right. And so, I don't know how you would get it.

I, maybe I feel like it's a mix. Of both, you're born with it and you can also develop it over time. 

Mike: Okay. I want to dive into that a little bit. I think one way we can look at it in the business standpoint, we look at it as USP, unique selling proposition. What's the difference between product A and product B, right?

So we say product A, if they all look very similar, but product A has a special thing about it, [00:12:00] right? So we do that in marketing. We do that in, selling products and services. And that's what gets the customer to go. I want to pick. Product B because it has that special thing. Um, two bikes. Mm-Hmm. We can go into all these examples, but I don't think we need to dive into that.

But this same USP, if we were apply it to a person, I think we're, talking about this. What makes this person unique? Well, I like to go in deeper and say that all of us are unique. We are all unique because we're very different. Different is unique, but just 'cause a person's different doesn't make them interesting.

Stephen: Mm-Hmm. . 

Mike: They're different for sure. But I think in, today's society, and this kind of dives into the subject of this podcast is people are not trying to be different, but I think people, it's not even that I think it's the entire opposite, not only are they trying to be like other people. I think the biggest mistake is that people are just [00:13:00] not being themselves.

Because if they are themselves, automatically they become different, unique, because they are different. There's no two people that's alike. And if they can be themselves, then automatically they are unique. That uniqueness can come from different things, right? If a person's uniqueness maybe is in their style.

So then the moment you look at this person, this person just looks different. They have a certain style about them. They always wear this thing. You know, they always have this in their hair. They always like this type of clothes. The moment you look at them, you can tell this is their. Calling card, right?

Their signature. Now this person is not trying to do that, but that's just their natural expression versus a person always uses this word like I think about, Ralph smart, you know, the infinite waters, I remember his videos used to be in the beginning. I don't know if he still does this in a while, but he's like, uh, what is like, hello, deep divers.

Oh, that good ass Prana. You know, he does that now every, all the, all the videos before I remember now it's been [00:14:00] literally. I think at least a year, I think since I watched any of his videos and before then, it's been a while, but I still remember, , because he, he has that uniqueness. Now, anybody can say that, but he says it because that's his natural expression.

That's just him being him. And so I think every person, if they were to really just stop trying to act like somebody else, stop trying to impress or be something different and just express themselves naturally, I think there is a uniqueness that would come from it. I don't know what it is because every person is different, but you mentioned earlier you say I don't look like a, an average person or something that's special Well, I think The special, it's just, I'm just being me, you know, it's not that I'm a special, everybody's special, but I'm just being me and maybe there's something that I do [00:15:00] that is a little bit different than somebody else, 

Stephen: mhm 

Mike: know, but for me, I just be me.

I don't even, I don't even know exactly what it is, but it doesn't, really matter for me. I just be me and, then whatever comes out, comes out. But then I guess maybe what comes out is unique because I'm just being myself. And therefore nobody else is the same 

Stephen: as that. I mean, that it makes a lot of sense.

And it's also one of those things that gets talked about a lot, but at the same time, it feels like it can be very hard to distinguish when you're truly being yourself, even Bruce Lee, even Bruce Lee, who made . A freaking phenomenal, you know, he's known around the world, even he himself said, the hardest thing that you can do is to be authentic, is to truly express yourself.

Yes. Right. And so, like, when you hear that, and you hear the depth of [00:16:00] what, especially his experience and everything that he's gone through, , so how, how does a person even know, and how does a person even go towards that way? Yeah. And I have something else to follow up on, but we'll keep that for later.

Mike: Let's, talk about a few, people that could be well known enough to where everybody would, know who they are. Let's say Bruce Lee, right? When you think about Bruce Lee, what's unique about him? What's unique about him? 

Stephen: I mean, especially during his days, people really revered his martial arts abilities.

You know, people thought he had superpowers, but it's not just the martial arts. It was the way that he was expressing himself. Right. 

Mike: I mean, even now he's still popular now he's been gone for a while. So what's his special sauce? 

Stephen: 50 years later, after his death. Still being talked about. 

Mike: So when you think about Bruce Lee, 

Stephen: there's 

Mike: a flair, there's a flair about him.

Like when you think about him, you think [00:17:00] about like, charm combined with intensity combined with this fist. I'm always seeing a fist. When I think about Bruce Lee, I think of a fist in like, and there's like this flair and like this intensity of energy, , and I think super ripped, right, super, super ripped.

And like this, like this type of like, that's, that's the image. Now, who has all of these elements? Super ripped? Many people have super ripped. Who is super ripped that has a lot of intensity energy? Like glare in his eyes, right? And he makes a sound. 

Whaaaaaa! 

Like, who, who, who does that? Right? With the super glare, with the, and then what else?

And has, , Good fighting abilities. Is he the best? Hugely debatable. He was very 

Stephen: intelligent as well. He was he was very intelligent. He was well spoken as well. 

Mike: So then all the combination of 

Stephen: all [00:18:00] of those things. 

Mike: Who has that right now? Like if you were to think about somebody right now in our time.

Stephen: Not to that level for sure. I mean, I mean, is there anybody that come, come 

Mike: close now, obviously there probably is, but do you and I know, I'm trying to think right now. 

Stephen: Yeah. I mean, I, I can know popular figures out there, and essentially nowadays, especially they're quite controversial. I mean, regardless if you like them or not, Donald Trump is fricking, everybody knows who Donald Trump is.

Mike: Okay. He's a, but yeah, but he's like a president. Okay. Yeah, you became a president, okay. 

Stephen: Yeah, even before that, he was, super well known, , and, another one, I guess, who made the rounds around the world right now was also Andrew Tate. Okay. So, , that got into the minds of everybody as well.

Mike: Well, why would Donald Trump, I'm obviously like, like, we can say every president, I mean, We can say he was popular because he was president, but in reality, he was popular before that, right? [00:19:00] He was popular before that. , what's his flair? All right, what's his uniqueness? Besides the titles that you had, right?

What's the personality? What makes him stand out? It's a, 

Stephen: it's, it's hard to say. It's not hard to say. I mean, just look at him one. , for sure. It's not his physical prowess. It's it, but he does exude lots of energy. He exudes lots of energy. He is very , opinionated. He's very committed and confident in what he says, very opinionated.

And he, he, he's a very intelligent guy. Whether people want to believe it or not, you don't get to a billion dollar status without being intelligent. But what he did very well was when he spoke in public, he spoke in a way where children could understand, right? And so that's why he was very popular because he didn't use such, magnanimous words to make [00:20:00] him sound very smart, but he was able to talk to the people.

And I'm sure when he talks to his lawyers or whoever else, his speech pattern also changes and shifts. Do you think so? So.

Mike: I don't think so. 

Stephen: I'm pretty sure. 

Mike: I think he speaks the same way. I have a feeling, yes. And he will throw in some extra words, but I don't think it just entirely changes. No, no. That means he can't be authentic.

Fully authentic. Well, I don't know. That's hard to say. You can be authentic and. 

Stephen: I would say not completely. I'm, I guess I'm thinking more of like when he's speaking on stage and he's, he's more. What do you want to call this? Just public speaking. Right? When it's a one way monologue, he does use certain techniques and things like, for example, just repeating, repeating, repeating the same words.

And essentially it becomes a mantra for the people, right? We're going to build a wall. We're going to build a wall, build a wall, build a wall. [00:21:00] Okay. And then eventually he 

Mike: just gets into the minds of people, but. So then there's a lot of energy, right? There's a lot of expression. There's a high level of confidence.

So if we look at these things, right. Energy, confidence, that's damn hard worker as well, for sure. Yeah. But that's, so that's authenticity. That's just him being himself, right? Confidence. I think confidence . It's definitely a thing like who is well known that doesn't have confidence, right? Who doesn't have, because I think energy and confidence can only happen.

If somebody is fully themselves, that's how they become confident. They can't be confident by trying to act that way. You can see through it. There's a sense of doubt in their expression and they can affect a little bit, but they want to get the masses that they really want to make an impact. They have to let go of that doubt, which means high confident, which means also authentic expression.

You said Andrew Tate. I think he definitely [00:22:00] has that right now, whether somebody likes him or not is another story. Some people do, some people don't, but I think he definitely has that component, that uniqueness. And again, because of the authentic expression, being himself. 

Stephen: So now, let's go back to Bruce Lee, right?

He has a famous quote. Which is, absorb what is useful, discard what is not, and add what is uniquely your own. Hmm, right. And so, when, he says this, what I'm thinking of is, he says, absorb what is useful, right? So, whether that's from books, or people, or whoever it is, or let's say it's in martial arts.

He's learning and he's, taking in from outside of himself, right? So if we're talking about authenticity, being yourself, let's say even just physicality, let's say someone just grew up, they don't go to the gym. And, they like to [00:23:00] eat whatever it is. And, and there's like, this is my authentic self.

This is just how I am. Then it just goes back to like, how do you really define being authentic? 

Mike: Being authentic is the ability to express yourself fully. That's it. Express yourself fully. Donald Trump doesn't have a great body. I don't know what it looks like, but I can bet that it doesn't look that good.

But it's not about the body, right? It's not even about being fit. It, there is definitely energy behind it, right? He's got energy. So energy is just the basis of things. So yes, but authentic is just the ability to express oneself, which has to do with energy. 

Stephen: But if 

Mike: a person can't fully express. Because what's fully expressed, well that means what you want to say, do, act, you do it to the fullest.

So if a person is not fully expressing outwards, then , no attention is going to be given, people [00:24:00] aren't going to notice them. But there are people that express, fully express themselves and the ones that fully do, I think then we combined with strategy combined with hard work, , that combination is going to get heavily noticed.

Stephen: Yeah. 

Mike: And if a person has a strategy to go and have it to be out there because they have some type of cause or product or service or something like they're in business, or it might just be neither one of those. It could be to where somebody fully expresses themselves. Yeah. And they want to enhance their relationship.

And suddenly all the people want to flock to them. This person has so many people chasing them, right? Wanting them, for example. , when we look at that, it's like, you ever noticed, I remember, it seems like ages ago, but being in the, single market of dating and all these things, you remember even growing up, the people that get chased, it's not like they're the best looking person.

but They have that flair that we're talking about, right? There's something about [00:25:00] them. I think it's for, I think it's guys and girls. Like some, I remember there'll be certain women. It's like, everybody wants them. They're not the best looking women. They're not the best looking one, but there's something about them.

So then we can say, well, they're attractive, like, or there's a sexiness or isn't that what confidence creates? If a person is confident. Isn't that sexy? Isn't that likable? Yeah. Isn't that build trust when a person is confident, I trust this person because they believe in themselves. And so therefore I can trust them because I know when they're saying something, they really mean it.

Stephen: Right. 

Mike: So then when it comes to relationships, I think it's the same idea, you know, whether it's a single person or we can take the same, situation and turn it into a, how it's like when somebody is in an existing relationship as well. When somebody is fully confident and authentic. it enhances it 

Stephen: So let's go back to the [00:26:00] initial when you were talking about exponential growth, right?

And we can, clearly see that. Let's say with your Instagram growth, you're just traveling, just going along and all of a sudden there's just spikes and eventually you understand the strategy and then there's just continuously more and more spikes. Okay. We can see that in. Let's say business now, if we're talking about exponential growth in terms of relationships, what does that look like?

Mike: Well, first of all, when it came to business, it wasn't just suddenly it happened. I had a really clear intention to create the growth, but I did lack strategy. I I don't know anything about Instagram before, , it took me a long time, just like I mentioned earlier, even now we're testing out theories.

I don't know if it's going to work, , but we're testing it out, putting in the work and all that. So it's strategy is calculated, right? Combined with the, hard work and the, authentic, [00:27:00] the special sauce. So then what does exponential growth look like for relationships? Well, I think that means the relationship becomes stronger.

I think that people can be individuals because you know usually when people are in a relation, they grow to be more alike, right? They go they and it's like almost like a person loses identity over themselves. They stop expressing fully who they are and their expression is heavily influenced by the other person and vice versa.

And I think exponential growth is the complete opposite. I think two people, as they build their relationship, their relationship becomes stronger in the sense of a, they become more of themselves. They can express more of themselves sometimes because these two individuals are different. So therefore the uniqueness are going to stand out even more versus the opposite.

I think [00:28:00] something else is that once they express more of themselves, how does that growth look like? Well, If a person, let's say, let's talk about certain elements of a relationship. Let's talk about communication. So now they can communicate even more easier. That means easier because a person is able to clearly express what they want, what they see, what their ideas are.

The other person can clearly either go great or that's just ridiculous, which is their authentic expression. It's what they really think. And because this exponential growth means nobody's offended, people can actually be themselves. So that's in the communication. Right. People can actually express themselves and nobody is taking it personally because everybody is, so sure of themselves, so to speak, that they don't need the validation.

They don't need the praise. They don't need the, please, honey, like my idea so I can feel better about myself, because if you don't [00:29:00] like my idea, I think you don't love me. No, it's not happening. I think when it comes to, let's say physical intimacy. I think that same thing. It doesn't mean that suddenly everybody's more physical.

Maybe it could be the complete opposite. Maybe one person was only physical because they're trying to satisfy the other person. They weren't being fully authentic. If they were, maybe they don't care about being so physical, having sex all the time, hugging, touching, all that, maybe they just like to have space or it could be the opposite.

More intimacy, more physical touch, more whatever it is. 

Stephen: I 

Mike: think exponential growth in a relationship is a person has certain desires and those desires can be expressed more in a relationship. And therefore it's created more. It's either, let's say more physical, less physical. If there are other things that, that couples like to do, you [00:30:00] know, now I'm thinking of like the five love languages, right?

If somebody likes to give gifts, then they may now are giving more gifts. Why? Because they're being more expressive. I just like to give gifts. So I give gifts. Now let's say the other person doesn't care to receive gifts, right? So then, but this person who likes to give gifts doesn't care. They, and just as long as it's not hurting or offending, right?

This person is constant giving gifts and a person goes, Hey, great. The other, that's receiving is okay with it. Right. But it may not spark them like crazy, but they're okay with it. So you see, everybody's able to express themselves. Okay. The relationship allows a person to be, themselves. I think that is what real growth in a relationship is versus the complete opposite, which is people are shrinking their own expression to try to make the other person feel better, make them happier, losing their own opinions, losing their way of seeing things and [00:31:00] just seeing another person's eye, everything is happening to be.

I have to think about what they consider is good and all of this stuff when we are truly expressing ourselves, even though that is one part of it, but it's not the dominating part because in a relationship, if you constantly have to go ahead and think, what is she going to think about my expression, then you can't fully be you.

So now the opposite. You can fully express the way you want to express and you don't have their opinions, their thoughts as such a dominating factor for how you act and do. That I think is a strong relationship. And as we move in the opposite direction, a big part of how you express yourself is based on someone else's making sure that they're happy, make sure that, you know, they're being considering them.

I think that shows a weak relationship because the relationship is so fragile that All of my decisions, acting, [00:32:00] feeling where we're going to go. All of it have to be so considerate if I just can't be totally me, because if I do, I'm going to hurt their feelings. I'm going to break their trust, blah, blah, and all that.

I think that's a weak relationship. So that's what exponential growth, in my opinion, looks like for a relationship. It's just my opinion, you know, 

what do you 

Stephen: think? I mean, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, especially while you're talking about that, you even mentioned the, five love languages and that was actually a really good exponential growth for my relationship.

Because even though I heard about the five languages for a while, we actually start to go through it and really discovered more that Anya, my partner, her number one by a lot is quality time, while for me, my number one was physical touch. And so. What really helped was understanding each other's love language to be able to give each other more of that.

And then that, that just [00:33:00] really helped out the relationship because then you started to understand. It was like, for example, for her quality time is just kind of sharing what you're doing throughout the day. And so for me, it's like, but why, why is that so important? But then I started to just send short messages saying, Hey, you know, this is what happened at work, and , this happened and, and that.

And I had a good day. And then I totally remember when she first started receiving it, you could just feel how open she was. She was like, Oh my God, this is, this is so lovely. I was like, really? But for me, I guess that's not a big one. So it didn't make as much sense, but because I was able to share more like that.

She was able to feel more loved. And then also she understood that for me, just like slight little hand gestures or holding my hands or whatever it [00:34:00] is, would kind of fuel me up as well. And when we started to implement that, the relationship just got a lot better. 

Mike: So, so to play devil's advocate and to poke at that, I think somebody would, look at it and say, well, what happens if one person's expression really gets on the other person's nerves, , or even in this case, I think someone can say, well, how can somebody fully express themselves?

And still do things for others that they don't care to do, like in your case, you could have, said, well, I think it's silly, right? I should go and talk about my day. I don't care about that. You know, right. She does, but you don't, right? So that person go, if I was to do that, doesn't that mean I'm not fully expressing myself because if I was to be authentic, I don't care about it.

Right. So therefore, if I did this for another person, then I'm not being authentic. That makes sense. [00:35:00] 

Stephen: Okay. I mean, you can dive into it. I mean, there's, there are elements of that and I would actually like to ask you the same question as well. Cause I feel, especially if you're in a relationship and you're in it for the long haul, it goes back to the message that you also talk about quite a lot as well as just being

more selfless, that's kind of what's coming to my mind right now, it's not because we are in a family dynamic and we have kids as well. And if we want to keep the family dynamic strong and healthy and having a good flow and everybody kind of needs their own needs, If I am kind of stubborn in my own ways and just want to do just my own things and, do that, then it's going to hinder and affect kind of the, the whole family, right?

So that's kind of how I'm seeing it. What, what about you? 

Mike: You know, I think when you, [00:36:00] when you brought it back to the subject of selfless, right? , we talk about this in other episodes, basically letting go of our sense of self. This is how we can, this actually is directly allowing somebody to fully be themselves, right?

Because how, if somebody really wants to express themselves, they have to get themselves out of the way. They can't go, I'm trying to be this. I'm trying to be that, or they can't go, how was my expression there? Because if they were to question their expression, they can't fully express because they're having to stop their expression.

That's like Bruce Lee always said, like, don't think about you doing the punch, just punch. 

Stephen: There's no 

Mike: you, there's only punch, you know? So when we are fully expressing ourselves, automatically, fully expressing ourselves, automatically, we are out of the way. There's not a strong sense of self.

There's only the expression itself. And then now we bring into this family dynamic. And so when a person, we found out that, this is their love [00:37:00] language, they prefer this and that when we fully express ourselves, we will also recognize that because I don't constantly need things for me, I don't need things to make my sense of self feel better.

So therefore I can look at what's needed at this moment. And then fully express that. So let me take a step back and we skipped a step here. In order, when we can fully be authentic, that means we aren't getting in the way of our expression. So that means we're not in the way. That means I can express without having to go and have this, expression somehow make me feel better.

Cause if I do that, if I have them feel better, then that means I can't fully express who I am because I have to express something. That can get me to feel better about myself. So I can't express just who I am. I have to express something special, something that I can gain from. I can't just tell you what I really want to tell you [00:38:00] because I need you to go ahead and give me some type of praise or approval.

So I have to tailor my expression. If I didn't need that, I can just say whatever I want. So therefore when we are fully expressing who we are, that means we're not having to go and need. Gain from others, no approval needed, no extra love needed, no extra acceptance. We can just be. So then that also means that we feel confident about who we are.

There's not a constant, how am I doing? Am I a good person, bad person? Am I awesome? We don't even think about that. Automatically that means we are okay with who we are. And now if we are okay with who we are, then we don't need the praise from someone else. If we are okay with who we are, then we don't need to go ahead and do something and have and gain a higher sense of self, a more valuable sense of self.

But now if we don't need that, because we're okay with who we [00:39:00] are, and now that allows us to express authentically, now our partner goes, Hey, hon, can you tell me about your day? sure Because is that our natural expression? If she didn't ask you about it, then your natural expression would not to be talk about your day because you don't care, but because she's your partner and she asked you about it.

Now your natural expression, because you love her, is to go ahead and talk about your day. It doesn't matter for you, because this expression wasn't going to make you feel better or worse. Because you don't have a strong sense of self. That's how you're able to express who you are anyways.

Without that strong sense of self, the expression just flows out.

Stephen: That makes sense. 

Mike: We had to connect the dots there. It can be a little, so we kind of just jumped through that pretty quick. So this way I can connect the dots to that for those of you that were interested, , but that's how a person can go and have a awesome relationship.

Even though two people could be [00:40:00] interested in different things and had different styles of. Expressing love 

Stephen: while you've been talking about this, a lot of it makes sense, but I can also kind of see from certain perspectives of, let's say, for example, when you say like, you can fully just express yourself without any filter, right?

And the full expression, it's kind of getting out there, meaning in the mainstream and people like, no, I'm just being my authentic self. And that's kind of getting more towards where I'm about to talk about is I feel like how people can take it. And you let me know if this is actually them fully expressing themselves is people can carry long term trauma inside.

They can carry lots of hate. They can carry lots of bitterness. So kind of just lower vibration, lower consciousness. And then when they hear like, yeah, go and express [00:41:00] yourself fully. Then what they're going to do is, yeah, that's right. And then they can go out and say, well, fuck you and fuck that.

And then that is their full expression. And for them, that is true. That is real. Like for you, would you say that that's authentic expression? 

Mike: It's expression, but it's not authentic because authentic means expressing who they are. Expression just means express whatever. So the difference here is.

How can we be authentic? Authentic means we are expressing what we really want to express and not having to gain something in return. When a person is dealing with all this trauma, their expression is never authentic because they're needing to gain something. If a person experienced trauma, right? Let's say, they are, used to people putting them down their [00:42:00] whole life.

Right. Saying they're worthless and just treating them bad, right? Parents treat them bad, siblings treat them bad. So then usually this person would either become a victim type personality where they are scared to express who they are, right? They're timid. They don't want to share their opinions. Or this person is the opposite.

Right. They're wanting to prove it to everybody. So now let's say this person was option one. And then they're scared to express and you go, Hey, what do you think about this? Oh, I don't know. I don't, it doesn't matter. Okay. Well, what do you think about it? And say, you know, what's your thoughts on it? Oh, I think it's great.

Like they're, lacking their own opinion. They lack expression because they're so timid. So then if we said this person's expressing authentically, well, actually they're not because they carry fear. inside They carry shame and all of these things, guilt, right? All these emotions from the past. So therefore they're just expressing, but it's not authentic.

This person will need to go and release all of [00:43:00] these things. And then an authentic expression can be made. Second scenario, a person wants to prove things to themselves. They want to prove all those people that didn't believe in them. What do you think about that? Oh, I think this and this and this and this.

It may look like it's authentic. Yeah. But in reality, it's not because they are expressing to prove things. So now how do we know on the outside? We take a look, we don't know, right? How do we really know? Here is a way if a person is very emotional, they cannot be expressing very authentically because when a person is emotional, that means not an expressive person who's expressing energy.

Energy is not emotional. Energy is what gets everything to work in the world. Not energy, emotional, very different. Okay. That's the thing. Emotional is when someone expressing high levels of fear, emotional is also when somebody is expressing high levels of excitement, the other end of it. [00:44:00] How do we know?

Well, listen to how they think, listen to their expression. If a person's emotional, it doesn't just turn on and off. So I can go, Hey, here's a lot of energy. And then now it can be calm. Was that emotional? No, that's just energy. If I was to have something similar, let's say I express a lot of excitement. Hey, I'm so excited about this.

And you go, are you okay, Mike? Yeah. Oh man. I'm just, yeah, yeah. Now. This is excitement just as a bad example, but that's emotion. It's not just energy. Emotions have energy, but emotions are different. They're different because there's a sense of judgment in it. There's a strong sense of self. I like this. I prefer this.

I don't want to dive too much into that, but there's a huge difference. So now, if a person is very emotional, they cannot express themselves authentically, because the emotions is there, therefore, they have a strong [00:45:00] sense of judgment about things, and that strong sense of judgment about things creates a strong sense of self, and the strong sense of self, It means that they have such strong preferences, and the strong preferences come from a need to gain something in their life, make themselves appear to be this or that.

If I go, no, this is the right thing, and you go, no, that's the wrong thing, and I get emotional, I get upset. My strong preference about this, the need to be right, this need to be right is because I lack, being okay with who I am. I want you to think of me as a smart person, or I want to be right so I can feel better about myself.

Now that's very different than I think this is this and you go, well, I think it's different. Okay. Well, it's okay. We, we can disagree. It's no big deal. I can stay calm. There's no attachment to opinions. We can have different opinions. But the [00:46:00] attachment to opinions, attachment to ideas, that shows a strong sense of lack.

Therefore, emotions flare up. Therefore, no authentic expression can really be made. Just expression, but not the authentic part.

Stephen: We're getting a bit deep there. I think we can definitely save those , for future episodes. Cause I can hear certain rebuttals to that. And I can hear even just in the back of the mind, just like someone being like, Hey, but isn't like having emotions, like it's just part of the human experience, right? It's just part of having emotions 

Mike: is part of the human experience. Everything that we do is part of the human experience. However, the experiences are very different. If a person wants to have a emotional experience of life, then they will just be emotional.

And then that's what they'll be. They'll experience high levels of fear, anger, and then excitement and joy, and then crashing down into shame and depression [00:47:00] and so forth. If a person decides that they don't want to have this strong emotional fluctuation, that they prefer to have peace and calmness and centeredness, clarity.

Well, then they will do their best to move in that direction. So yes, emotions are part of life, but we don't always need to be emotional about everything because when we are, we're not centered, we're not clear, and therefore we aren't consistent, right? Today I'm happy. We're having a great conversation.

And then later on, I'm upset. And then our conversation is entirely different. Yeah. It's not going to be very consistent. Therefore, if we want to succeed in anything, we need to be consistent. Whether it's relationship, whether it's health, whether it's business, we need to be consistent, right? If I don't post every day, because one day I feel like posting.

I got a great idea. Another day I'm sleepy. I'm tired. I don't want to post. I just don't feel like it. [00:48:00] That will never go anywhere. If you don't consistently go and share your day with Anya, because one day you just don't feel like it. Well, that's not going to make her very happy, right? She's going to be like, you only do it once in a while, right?

Imagine the way we treat our kids, right? So it doesn't work out. Consistency is really important. Consistency comes from a consistent state of being, which means we can't constantly fluctuate in emotions. Anybody that constantly. is Emotional does not experience growth in their life, period.

They're just living life, but they're not moving towards making changes that they would find to be desirable. It doesn't matter if it's health relationship, , or business. They are lacking that they feel stuck. They have lots of frustrations. And the reason why is because of their emotional state. Which then gets them to lack energy in their body and lack mental clarity in their mind.

And I think tying it all the way back to [00:49:00] our beginning subject of exponential growth, when we are not emotional, therefore we can be hardworking because if you are emotional, it's going to be very draining and you cannot work very hard and be emotional won't last. It will not last because hard work requires a lot of energy.

And you're not going to be consistent on your energy if you're emotional. So therefore, hard work is out the window. And then the next thing, strategy. Well, strategy requires clarity. Strategy requires, get your opinion out of the way and look at what is, what's the cause and effect? But if I'm emotional and that's not going to work out very well, I want this just because my business and that's not strategy.

That's just, you know, not going to work. And then the last thing, which is this full expression, right? Authentic self. And we are very far from that. We cannot be authentic if we're very, very emotional. So I think that is one big key. And I think if you look at people [00:50:00] that are very successful, that experienced exponential growth, yes, they have emotion, but they are not constantly emotional.

If they are, they will not have gone where they are at now. And the ones that have cannot stay there. Right? We've seen people rise to the top and fall, crashing hard. Because you cannot stay consistent forever. You can only do it for a certain amount of time. That emotion would eventually eat you up. And the way it's going to show is in many different things.

Some people, you see them in substance abuses, drugs, and rehab and all these things, and then that takes them off the top. Some people just go into, hardcore depression and they gain, but then they fell off, so people will end up ruining their growth. And all of this is because there was this inner issue inside.

So the only way to, to continuously grow is to have these elements, right? [00:51:00] The hard work as a basic strategy, cause we got to do the right things. But that most important thing is in my opinion, having that. Authentic expression, which then increases all performance in what they do. 

Stephen: All right, ladies and gentlemen, hopefully you got some nuggets of wisdom right there.

We've been interweaving so many different things together, but essentially it's all the same. It all comes down or it all comes together. So thank you guys once again for listening to another episode of body of a mind, we'll see you on the next episode.