EP34 Preparing to follow your Vision and Dream

BOL 34

Transcript

EPISODE 34

[0:00:14] KC: Welcome to the Business of Life, welcome to our first episode of the new year, January 1st, 2016. Just really excited for 2016, really excited to share today’s episode with you. What I wanted to talk about today, I want to really lay some ground work, lay some foundation to your year and the title of this episode, Preparing to Follow Your Vision and Dream. Really, I started out and I wanted to do this episode about goal setting and planning for the New Year.

I was sort of thinking about that and I was thinking about my life and I was thinking about how I go about doing things and I thought to myself that if you are not clear on your vision and your dream and you haven’t cultivated that and it hasn’t really settled into your DNA then it’s really hard to set appropriate goals and set appropriate things that you want to get accomplished throughout the year.

Today’s episode, I’m going to share with you, I’m going to share a lot about a story of mine and a time in my life and really when the vision and dream of my life was implanted in me. And I’m also going to share about why I’m doing this podcast, where I’m going with this podcast, share a little bit more about some of the guests, why I chose specific guests. And as you listen, what I really want you to think about is the vision and dream of your life.

Because we can go ahead and we can make all these goals and all these plans for 2016 but are they aligned with the vision and dream of your life. Do you have an identified vision and dream, are you clear on it? A lot of you guys know my past story, if you don’t, you can go back and listen to the episode about Keith’s Story but had a really rough upbringing. I shouldn’t say rough upbringing, I made it rough on myself.

Did a ton of therapy and eventually started out on a spiritual path. The spiritual path that I started out on and am still on today is a Native American spiritual path specifically the Lakota. Started out on that spiritual path and they have seven ceremonies and one of the ceremonies is called Sun Dance. Sun Dance is the highest, holiest ceremony that we do, it’s in the middle of the summer, it’s usually the last week of July into the first week of august out in Rosebud, the Rosebud reservation of South Dakota.

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We go out there every single year and a big part of my vision and dream really came about through the first time I had gone out to that Sun Dance and when I had gone out there, I was still really suffering with a lot of anxiety and really dealing with a lot and it was hard for me to get myself out there, it was like a really big step, a really big, just thing in my life, it was totally knew, you go out there, you’re in the middle of the desert in southern South Dakota, on a reservation, actually on the most impoverished place in the United States with a 90% unemployment rate.

So I’m out there and I get out there and there’s about 3,000 people that go to this ceremony. The ceremony itself is four days long but we usually get out there about four days early and stay a couple of days after. The whole trip is about a two week long trip. Get out there and it’s roughing it, you’re digging latrines when you get out there. You’re in the middle of the desert.

During this one ceremony, one of the things that came to me — first of all when I was out there, I got to meet, it’s the first time in my life I got to see a fully just healed, alive, engaged adult male where these guys would, they would go for four days and four nights and a very tough physical fast. They would fast from food, fast from water, praying the entire time.

But I would see these men who were these just strong warrior men, both physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally and they just had this sense of power to them and then you would also see them in the next moment sitting there talking with a circle of children, sharing a story about when they were younger and saw this one man while he was sharing the story start to cry.

I got to see a man just freely exhibit emotion just like the child. I got to see the balance of the feminine and the masculine within a man, all the beauty that that is. So I’ll never forget that. One of the things that happened, a lot of the things that the Lakota teaches when you first start coming to ceremony, usually you’ll get a spark, you’ll get a vision. And it may be the only time that it comes to you in your life.

So while I was there, we were kind of deep into the ceremony and as you get deeper and deeper in, you sort of shift out of the mental body, the body that has all these limitations on it and you get in to your spiritual body and as we were getting deeper into the ceremony I was out there praying for a few hours and I got this insight and the insight was a very clear message. It

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was “Continue to follow this spiritual path and also the work of teachers like Marianne Williamson.”

I didn’t even really know who Marianne Williamson was at the time and I didn’t see myself being involved with this spiritual path and this wasn’t like a message of you know, “do this for a couple of years”. This was a message, it was just loud and clear and It was like, “This is what you’re here on this planet to do.” It wasn’t like this loud booming voice from above or anything like that, it was just like, I was out there and I heard it and it wasn’t like something my mind had conjectured up, it was just something that came to me.

It was something that, it was one of those first times that call it god, call it the divine, call it intuition, whatever you want to call it, it was something that was like non-negotiable and I knew every single piece of it was right and it’s been about 10 years now since that message came to me and I continued on that spiritual path and have been on that spiritual path ever since. And about halfway through, about six years ago, I got involved with Beach Body and that again was through a prayer and I’m not going to go into the details of that but I got involved with Beach Body and I learned so much, I had amazing and continued to have amazing mentors with Beach Body, amazing leaders.

And over the last six years with the work that I’ve been doing with Beach Body, I have been able to really develop as a professional, as a human being, as a friend, as a mentor, as a leader, as a husband, as a father and I’m proud of the work that I have done with that. Really proud of the work. And one of the things that I’m most proud of is my wife and I, we’ve built a team of over 25,000 people in what’s called our “down line”. A down line is the team that you build. The way we were able to do that is because we developed very deep, very meaningful relationships with a core group of high level people.

In order to build a large team in something like Beach Body. The most important thing is it’s not important what you do, it’s important what the people that you bring in do and what the people that they bring in do. I like to sort of phrase that as you want to be a leader of leaders. The most successful people, the type of business that Beach Body is, it’s a network marketing company and the most successful people in that industry are leaders of leaders. I want to make a very big distinction, they are not leaders of followers.

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A leader of followers can lead a lot of people but it stops. The buck stops with them. A leader of leaders empowers the people that they’re working with to become leaders themselves and to become leaders of leaders. A lot of leader words in there. So anyways, we’ve had an enormous amount of success with that. While we’re going through this, I figured I might as well make a shameless plug if you’re listening to this, if you’re curious about Beach Body, if you’re curious about working with me, shoot me an email.

My email is keith@keithcallahan.com and I can answer any questions you have, if it’s something that you want to look in to a little bit deeper, I can do that. We also have a sister podcast called all about Beach Body coaching. You can check things out there. So anyways, I have had and continued to have and will continue for years to come to work with Beach Body and do what we’re doing there. I love it, I’m inspired by it, it allows me to help so many people. A lot of people look at it from just the physical standpoint, that’s kind of the last thing that I’m focused on within that business.

It’s about helping other human beings live up to their full potential. So I’ve had an enormous amount of success with that and again, it was really due to building relationships. Over the last year, I’ve had this itch that’s been coming up inside of me and this itch that’s been going back to that original vision, that original dream, that original prayer. You’re put on this planet to do work with this spiritual path, this Lakota spiritual path and Marianne Williamson type work.

I’m finally starting to understand the Marianne Williamson piece. If you don’t know who she is, you can just Google her. But to me, what’s starting to settle in is the taking my professional career into 100% of the spiritual realm, the heart realm, the people helping people realm. And I don’t really know exactly what that means or exactly where that’s going yet. I just know that I have a group of people who are within my life that I honor, that I respect, that I would say fall under that umbrella of the Marianne Williamson right?

And I started to want to explore that a little bit more, I started to want to connect with those people. I when I’m doing things, the way that I look at it is okay, so I want to move in to or I want to continue to expand, move in probably isn’t the right word, but I want to continue to expand and I have no idea where any of this is going. But I know that I want to start expanding into this

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Marianne Williamson realm, right? That’s really where the start of this podcast came from and the start of this podcast was, it was really two fold. It was for me to be able to start to get a voice outside of Beach Body.

I have so many amazing friends, so many amazing leaders that I have connected with in Beach Body. From a strictly just like, “it is what it is” statement, I have a ton of influence within that community. I was looking at it and I was like, you know, outside of that community — and one of the things with network marketing is, when you have influence within that community, you can’t really do anything outside of that community, with that community. What I mean by that is, if I was to go and develop, or write a book, I can’t, somebody can’t make a payment to me for a book if they’re in Beach Body and that’s really, it’s an FTC type thing and I won’t get in to all of that.

But I started to understand, I want to understand, I want to start expanding outside of just the beach body community. I started thinking about the people that inspire me, I started thinking about the people that I’d love to talk with. Really, the type of people that I would like to work with. And I also started thinking about this podcast and really, it was a vehicle for me to be able to start sharing what I love to talk about and that’s really the center of this podcast. What I love to talk about is the process of creating a life, the process of living life fully, the process of healing, the process of being a heart centred person, being a spiritual person, being a compassionate person, being a better father, better mother, better husband, better wife.

All of that, that’s what I absolutely love doing, it’s what I could talk about, I could go for three days without eating or drinking, right? I wouldn’t even realize it if I’m within this realm. I thought that — and I also knew and know that teaching this stuff, that’s the culmination of my vision and my dream. That’s where it’s going right now. So following that spiritual path, doing Marianne Williamson type work, what that really means to me is living life a certain way, spending all of my time focusing in my thoughts becoming, really following this straight and narrow path of being a spiritual warrior, living like a spiritual warrior.

That involved the masculine and feminine, both balances. That’s really where I’m going with things, that is why I created this podcast and a lot of the people that I have had on this podcast, it’s because I admire them, it’s because I respect them, it’s because I want to work with them in

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some way in the future and I don’t know how. I honestly don’t know how but here’s a key point and I want you to really take this in.

I do know one thing that if I can give — the fastest way for me to help, the fastest way for me to move into a new arena, the fastest way for me to connect with more people is to start helping others. Really, that’s how I went about starting this podcast. I reached out to other people that I was A, like really curious in learning more about them. And then B, curious in helping to spread the word of what they’re doing.

That’s it, that’s where I am right now with this podcast. I don’t know where it’s going, I don’t know what the future of it holds. I do know that the listenership is starting to jump way up, that we’re starting to help get the word out there for some amazing, amazing teachers, that are listeners, I’m getting messages daily now for the inspiration, the life changing stuff that our guest speakers are having on this podcast.

And again, I really want to just hammer down and isolate this one point. I’m giving in my relationship with our guest speakers right now but I’m also receiving. So I’m receiving a ton because I’m learning by talking to them but I’m not going and asking them to do stuff for me, I’m not going and — there’s no ulterior motive with it except for one thing; I know that I want to influence my sphere outside of Beach Body, right? I know that if I build trust with other leaders, it’s going to allow me to do that quicker than just going from, just trying to do it on my own.

When you are looking to make a change, it could be that you need to seek out a therapist, it could be that you need to seek out a spiritual adviser, it could just be that you want to get into a community and surrounded by a community. The number one point is, relationships and how you cultivate those relationships and choosing the right relationships is going to help you to do what you’re supposed to do on this earth better. Again, it goes back to, I had that vision, I had that dream and I’m continuing to nurture it, continuing to let it unfold in front of me and the next thing is this podcast developing deeper relationships. And again, I don’t know where it’s going but I have the faith and I know in my heart, in my soul, in my bones that we’re going in the right direction right now.

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I want to just sum up the last year or sum up is probably not the right word, I want to give a big thank you, a big “whoopula” to the guest speakers over the last year and if you’re a newer listener, this is a great, great episode to listen to because I’m going to give just a little shout out to each of our guest speakers and what you can learn from them. So Rolf Gates was one of our speakers, he is really — he is the teacher to the teacher. He is a meditation teacher, he is a yoga teacher.

But for me, he’s a guy, guy. He has that balance, that masculine, that feminine balance, he’s the author of Meditations From the Mat and Rolf, I don’t remember the name of the new book — Meditations on Intention and Being. Alright, got it. Saved myself right there. Just a guy who has had so much influence on my life, teaching me how to meditate, helping me through a really confusing period of my life and just someone that I have always looked up to, always honored from a distance. Check his episode out.

Jacqui Bonwell, I call her the spiritual mother of New England, just such a fierce, compassionate, loving, human being again like a balanced woman. One of the things that I love about Jacqui is, there is no filter, there is no airs to her, she’s going to soften it up, make it good, make it prettier than it is. You get an amazing woman, an amazing heart, but also you’re going to get toughness, you’re going to get somebody who pushes you, who inspires you to be more in your life. And I’ve had the opportunity to sit down, to talk with her and now to develop a friendship with her and Sarah Gardner from Yoga Reaches Out.

The Yoga Reaches out episode talks about the movement, the massive movement that’s picking up right now with Yoga Reaches Out. Expanding into all these different markets. Donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to kids’ charities. And yeah, I get to sit down, have a conversation, develop a friendship with Sarah Gardner. Taylor Wells, one of the women who pointed me in the right direction to a path of healing. So if you haven’t listened to the episode with her, we talk about how I came to her when I first needed help and she pointed me to Shiva Lucido who I wound up doing a ton of therapy work with, became good friends with her and her husband and now I follow a spiritual path that they’re on.

But amazing woman doing amazing things out there in the world with all of her Yoga Studios, all of her card decks, the book that she wrote. Now also getting into network marketing with a few

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different companies and it’s beautiful to watch her continue to shine brightly and help as many people as possible.

Jenny Fenig. Jenny is a newer friend of mine, we just recently met over the last couple of years, she lives out here in Great Barrington. Her kids, her and her husband Steven, they have three kids in the what’s called Rudolph Steiner school, so our kids go to the Rudolph Steiner School. And she runs a mostly for women, so she teaches women how to run a spiritually based business, I hope I didn’t botch that wording Jenny. Just so much love for her and for the work that she’s doing out there in the world and people that she’s helping.

I’ve just watched her business really blossom over the last two years and it’s going from a mom and pop business to just a — she’s becoming the teacher to teachers. It’s been beautiful to watch Jenny grow and also I know a few women who have been listening to this podcast that jumped over and I’ve been getting amazing feedback from the work that they’re doing with Jenny and Get Gutsy. That’s the main name, the main theme to the work that she’s doing.

It’s also the name of her podcast. She just got a brand new podcast that she started. Go ahead, check that out, it’s called the Get Gutsy Podcast. And then David Lindahl, David is an old, old mentor of mine. Literally, probably one of the very first mentors. Dave has bought and sold thousands of real estate units, he currently controls over 5,000 rental units and really just a very humble, disciplined and spiritually based guy. Check out his episode.

One of the things that I loved about the episode was when he talks about, I think it was a Benedictine monk that he had met and this guy Dave has met all kinds of famous people around the world and it was a Benedictine monk in the town that he lives in, that had the biggest influence on his life. Tawnya Landis, she’s also a Beach Body coach, got to interview Tawnya Landis while her and her husband Scott were overseas traveling Europe for two months with their three little kids. Just a beautiful experience for me to be able to have that conversation with her and really learn about all that it took for her to do that.

Greg Amundson, Greg is just an amazing mentor from afar now. The first time I saw Greg, I connected with him through Rolf Gates and I was looking through Greg’s Facebook page and I was like, “This dude is ripped!” He’s this big, beautiful, cuddly teddy bear. He really is but with a

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warrior spirit inside that spiritual warrior and a very disciplined faithful Christian and he’s got it dialed in, he’s got all aspects of his life, the mental, the physical, the emotional, spiritual and financial dialed in, focused on them.

And one of the things that I loved about the episode with Greg, first of all, his morning routine, check out that episode for his morning routine but it’s also the commitment to excellence in all areas of life. Danny Dwyer, got a little chocked up thinking about this. Man, what an amazing story. Amazing story about triumph and actually bringing Danny back on because I interviewed him originally, we talked a lot about his past. I want to bring him back on to talk about all the amazing work that he is doing now.

So many things that I could go in to right now about Danny but I think the most important thing is that he went through and completely transformed his life and he’s living that story both for his own continual healing but he’s bringing that story out to the people he’s bringing to the people that hope, that vision, that dream that they can do it. Because the change that he went through in his life to from where he was to where he is now, 99% of the people don’t have that mountain to climb. Much love for you brother.

Also David Vendetti. David is just this big, beautiful, bright, shiny just man and just so heartfelt, so compassionate and so just like ferociously courageous if that’s even a way to say something. But he’s the owner of South Boston Yoga and just an amazing conversation with him, amazing time spent talking with David, learning more about him, learning about the work that they’re doing with South Boston Yoga and really about his big vision and dream.

Andrea Vall sort of the — one of the reasons I love Andrea, she was Facebook marketing person that I brought in right? We would think, a Facebook marketing person doesn’t really fit with the people that I’m talking about but she’s a spiritually based woman whose teaching Facebook marketing. I think one of the things that I love about the way Andrea teaches and it’s something that I really believe, it doesn’t matter what you’re teaching. It matters where you’re teaching from.

That’s a really important thing and although she’s teaching Facebook marketing, there’s a lot of, for a lack of better word, scumbag marketing people out there right? But there’s also some

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amazing people like Andrea who is teaching marketing and she’s teaching it from a heart centred, spiritual place and she’s out there to provide value for her customers, for the people that are looking to learn to bring their message out there to the world and she’s showing you how to do that in a beautiful, beautiful way. I’ve had a few beautiful conversations with her outside of that episode. So check out that episode with Andrea.

Johnny Gillespie. So Johnny, the opening act to many of the well-known yoga instructors in New England and also around the world but man, I love talking with Johnny. It was just like a compassionate, heart centred, again, it seems the theme going through this is a balanced man and that masculine female balance, he’s got it all going on. He’s out there rocking out Murph and then sitting in meditation and such honor and respect for his wife.

The work that he’s doing with the Balanced Athlete and just so many — I actually haven’t had the chance to do his program yet, really excited to do it, again, called the Balanced Athlete. So many teachers that I really honor and value their opinion, they just speak so highly of Johnny, of the work he’s doing and I get it, I understand why we became fast friends just from a few quick phone conversations in the podcast interview.

Then Erica Nunnally — I hope I pronounced that right Erica — and The Bija Institute. Wow, what an amazing place, so much amazing work they’re doing, Erica I love just what you’re out there doing, the work that you and Eric are doing. And so much compassion, respect, honor, humility around the walk that you guys have gone through and then really taking that vision and taking that dream and bringing it forward to the world.

So I mention all of these guests because that Marianne Williamson piece is intertwined with them somehow. “Follow this spiritual path and do that type of work” and I want to get rocketed, I want to get like catapulted into that, I want to go deeper into that realm and that’s why I brought in these specific guests. I’ll be honest, we had a couple interviews that I did that we didn’t air because it wasn’t the right feel, it wasn’t the right authenticity, they weren’t speaking and coming from the place that this show is based on, that the foundation of this show is formulated on.

For all of you that have been on the show for the last year, thank you from my heart to yours, thank you for trusting in me, thank you for sharing freely, thank you for allowing me to just really

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open. You gave me the green light, said, “Ask what you want,” and it was a beautiful opportunity for me to learn, it’s been a beautiful opportunity for our listeners to learn and it’s also been beautiful establishing new relationships and taking some of the other relationships to a deeper level.

Alright. So I told you when I started this that we were going to talk about preparing to follow your vision and your dream and I just went on and I talked a lot, right? I started this about a vision and a dream that started 10 years ago. Here I am 10 years later, nurturing and cultivating new relationships for that vision and that dream. I bring that up because a lot of people see the end result. Go back and listen to my Keith’s Story Episode and what the first 20 years of my life were like because they were not pretty.

When you see somebody’s end result, don’t compare your today to somebody’s tomorrow. You can’t compare your today to my 10 years later. The work you do on you is so much more important than the work that you’re doing, the actual work. So many people, they want to be able to write the book, they want to be able to teach the class, they want to be able to do all these things and I really want you to hear that in order to do that, first you have to have the vision and the dream then you have to become the person that is capable and worthy of fulfilling that big vision and the dream and that my friends, that is the beauty and the blessing of your vision in your dream.

The beauty and the blessing of your vision and your dream is who you have to become to live out that vision and that dream. Don’t focus on what you’re getting, focus on who you’re becoming. Another thing that I really want to bring up here and really hone in on just one final time is none of this happens overnight. We’re talking about something that happened over a 10 year period. Lots of failures, lots of mess-ups, lots of things that I wish I could take back, even a couple times that I forgot about the vision and the dream. That the vision and dream wasn’t in the forefront of my mind. But always, always going back to it and that being your guide post, that being your anchor.

If you have your vision and dream follow it like that, follow it with that straight and narrow path. Be gentle with yourself when you fall back, and get back up, get on it, get after it right away. If you’ve already got that vision and the dream, follow it with these three things. Follow it with

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patience, follow it with hustle, I mean hustle, real hustle but patient hustle and have faith. If that vision and dream has been whispered to you and if you have this — like we all have it, you have it.

You were put on this planet to do something big, bold, beautiful, miraculous. It is within you, it’s in your DNA and in one second I want to share about if you haven’t found it, how to find it. If you have found it, hustle after it, have patience and sit with that deep seeded knowing that you’re on the right path because your mind is going to tell you you’re not. Your mind’s going to misguide you, your mind is going to misdirect you, your mind is going to try to trick you.

Your vision, your dreams start with that for 2016, and then go to the nitty gritty of the goals and all those other things. If you haven’t found that vision, you haven’t found that dream, you need to make space for it, you need to get in to the quiet space to be able to listen, maybe it will come to you today, maybe it will be the next week, maybe it will be in two years, three years, five years. The only way to get in touch with it is to de-clutter your life.

We could do a whole podcast series on this but we’ll start with that. You need to de-clutter so you have the ability to hear, you have the ability to hear behind, through, before the chatter in your mind. My big, beautiful, bold dream is that follow this path, follow this Sun Dance path, this Lakota path and Marianne Williamson, wow. 10 years I sat with that, what does that mean? Kind of new, started nurturing a little more. Now it’s coming to fruition, 10 years later. But it’s my big, beautiful, bold dream that no matter what, as long as I’m following that, as long as I’m going about it from a heart centred place, that you can’t go wrong.

Much love to you guys, I am super stoked for 2016 and I’m going to be praying for you, I’m going to be praying for you to connect in with that big, beautiful, bold dream that has always been inside of you, that is just waiting to come out, waiting to be unleashed. Alright, Peace. Oh, and Happy New Year!

[0:39:09] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to the Business of Life Podcast. Apply what you learn today and you’ll be one step closer to creating the life you love to live.

[END]

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