[LISA LEWIS] The Am I Ok? Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith Fringes, the Holistic Counseling Podcast, and Beta Male Revolution, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. Welcome to the Am I Ok? Podcast, where you will discover that being highly sensitive is something to embrace and it’s actually a gift you bring to the world. We will learn together how to take ownership of your high sensitivity, so you can make positive changes in your life, in the lives of others, and it’s totally okay to feel this way. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. Welcome everyone. Welcome to today’s episode of the Am I Ok? Podcast. This is Lisa Lewis, your host. So glad to have you here today. It’s a beautiful day here in sunny California, in Los Angeles, especially after all this rain we have. Today I’m very excited to have my guest on and to hear what he has to say and hear his message for all of you. My guest today is Dai Manuel. He is a super dad dating his wife with a by example way of living and a contagious personality who is on a mission to positively impact 1 million role models around the globe to lead a functionally fit life through education and encouragement and community. He is an award-winning digital thought leader and author, distinguished Toastmaster and keynote speaker, former partner and chief operating officer of a multimillion-dollar retail company, and sought after lifestyle mentor and executive performance coach. Dai knows the struggle of the jungle and keeping his health and happiness a priority. He models his work on five Fs, fitness, family, faith, and finances with an overarching roof of fun, built on a rock solid foundation of health,nuggets of wisdom and inspiration to take action to be your best self are guaranteed when you connect with Dai. Welcome to the show, Dai. [DAI MANUEL] Well, Lisa, thank you for welcoming to your show. I’m just, I’m so excited to be here and to hear you talk about sunny LA, I was like, huh, I can actually say today, sunny Vancouver, Canada, where I am, but this time of year, that doesn’t happen too often. [LISA] Vancouver is beautiful. As I was telling you before the podcast just went, drove through there up to Whistler and just went, whoa, this is spectacular. What a neat place to live. [DAI] It sure is a nice little place to go home, I’ll tell you that. But I mean every place around the world’s got its beauty in it and its amazing people and cultures and, but I’m happy to be Canadian and I’m happy to call Vancouver home, but we’ve been fortunate enough that we’ve lived a number of places also overseas. And every time, I have a friend from Australia, Match, the funny thing is, whenever we ask what’s home to you, he says, my home is wherever my toothbrush is. And I used, it’s always stuck with me. Then I’m sorry for any Australians. I didn’t to insult you my very poor Australian accent, but I always thought about that, home is where your toothbrush is, so simple, so simple. [LISA] I love that. Sounds like a person who loves to travel. [DAI] Yes, indeed. He lived out of suitcases for a long time. [LISA] Oh, that’s great. So I like to ask all my guests who come on the show, since my podcast is geared towards highly sensitive people, do you consider yourself a highly sensitive person and if so, or if not, if you could just share a story about that. [DAI] Yeah, sure, Lisa. Well, you it’s such an interesting question because when I think about it, I’m 46 now, and when I think about my life and I think about certain periods in my life, I would definitely, my answer would vary in degree. What I mean by that is as a teenager, I was extremely sensitive. I was battling with morbid obesity, a lot of the clichés and the stigmas that are associated with someone’s living in that state of un health. I mean, that was just my life every day? And kids can be mean, but I’ll tell you, teenagers can be cruel. I was highly sensitive to that, to the point where I had a lot of social anxiety. I didn’t want to leave the house. Also dealt with a lot of depression and just everything. I was sensitive about everything vut especially emotionally, psychologically speaking. And I went through some big changes. To be fair, I know everyone, anyone that’s listening to this we all have stories of transformation. We all have stories of us overcoming something that maybe at one point in time we thought we couldn’t, and yet we persevered, we dealt with it, maybe we got help and we overcame. This resiliency that’s in humans, it’s in all of our DNA. Like, we all got this trait in us but I think sometimes we forget. I got to a place where I was honestly more afraid of not changing than the idea of changing and that’s when I knew was ready make, and during that changing period, it took me five years to get to that state of obesity, but it took me about two and a half to get back to a place where I felt healthy, I felt good, I felt comfortable in my own skin. But unfortunately, I was still quite sensitive and I hadn’t done any of the inner work yet to really get to know me, to get to know what makes me tick. So that’s just sort of the, that introduction. Even today, fast forward 30 years later I definitely think of myself as a sensitive person and at times can be very emotional. But I also recognize that I have an awareness of who I am now. I don’t allow that to be present for anybody and everybody, if you know what I mean. Like, I am a bit more selective with who I’m vulnerable with and who I allow into that space. And obviously, being a father of two daughters who are now teenagers, when I had them, that shifted my perspective and my understanding of the question that you just asked me, Lisa. That’s what I meant by if you were to find me 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and ask me the same question, my answer would’ve been slightly different every time. [LISA] Yes, I hear you on that. Being a man and what you know about yourself and just, you just named about you can be sensitive and emotional at times, what would you tell a young man maybe that even that teenager or young adult who may be experiencing something like that and is going, I’m just trying to be comfortable in my own skin, and how do I do that with all these other stuff coming at me from the outside, from the environment, from the world? [DAI] Well, that’s a great question. When I think back to certain periods of my life, even in my teens, and then again in my twenties, to be honest with you, it was tough because I would often think about who was I spending the most amount of time with? What was influencing me the most in my life at those periods? Because Lisa, when we think about it the two most effective ways, we all learn is through mentorship and modeling, and there’s direct inputs. And now today we have more inputs than we did say 30 years ago when I was a teenager. Like, back then it was, I mean, we didn’t have the internet. My kids laugh, I’m like, “I’m older than Google.” They still don’t quite understand that. [LISA] How is that possible, dad? [DAI] “Are you also older the TV dad?” I’m like, “No, but computers in a way.” But I think of myself as that teenager, and I think about who I associated with the most. That association definitely fed into some of my insecurities. They weren’t necessarily positive role models. Even when I started to make some of the health changes, I found myself wanting to be accepted. So I found myself conforming to these different groups, believing that this is the person they needed me to be or wanted me to be and often I’d get that affirmation because they would treat me differently when I would act a certain way. I discovered alcohol quite early on. I was about 16 when I had my first drink. I realized a couple drinks in, I felt like a completely different person, and everybody I was hanging out with would applaud that person, would make me feel like I was somebody of value. So this constant reminding that this is the person I believe that everybody wanted me to be, it just fed into the more of the insecurities that I had at the time, some of these emotions that I allowed to sort of rule me at times. My biggest word of advice for those that are thinking that, yeah, I want to start making some changes, I want to start to look at myself bit differently, want to start to show up a little bit differently, and really just have a stronger relationship with oneself, you have to start and look at what are the inputs that are shaping you right now? Like, what TV are we watching? Are we playing video games? Are we watching movies? Are we reading certain books and magazines? What podcasts are we listening to? Like who is mentoring? What friends are constantly dripping into our belief systems and shaping our worldview? Because I honestly feel that that’s one of the things that sometimes we forget to look at is like, because what goes in often dictates what comes out. [LISA] I love that. [DAI] So that’s of my thoughts on that. [LISA] So what goes in is usually what comes out? [DAI] Yeah, usually, it’s not always what we want, which is unfortunate, but as long as we can recognize when things are falling short and we can start to navigate change and start to look for different inputs. [LISA] What’s the best way to manage change in one’s life? [DAI] Well, the easy answer would be, well, let’s just avoid change. I think we’ll all agree that the more we try to avoid change, the more we may feel that change runs us over. Because the Buddhist, at like 2,600 years ago, there’s only one thing that we know to be absolutely certain in this universe of ours, this reality of ours, and it’s that nothing is permanent. The nature of the universe is impermanence and everything’s in a constant state of change. It’s funny enough because 2,500 hundred years later, science caught up and said, oh, man, Buddha is right, everything is just empty space, and these molecules and yada, yada, yada, like basically just energy that’s in a constant change. When we sort of accept that as a truth, if you’ll, we start to realize that change is going to happen. It’s not a matter of if, it is just a matter of when, but then we can start to look at our relationship with change, because there’s change that we feel sometimes that we’re in control of. I use control very loosely but we feel more sure of like, we feel like maybe we’re the proactive or maybe we’re the champion, if you will, of change for ourselves. As an example, it’s January, I mean, we all know what happened at the beginning of January. End of December, beginning of January, lots of people having resolutions, resolving to start to take steps in a different direction to influence certain changes in their lives. Now everyone has the best intentions. Now, when we look at statistics, by the end of this coming weekend, 50% of people that set New Year’s resolutions would’ve already failed, which is sad. Like, half of the people, not even three weeks, and they didn’t make it a month? They’re already giving up on what those results were. Change is challenging at times because it involves doing things differently than we had done them before. But here’s the thing with change, because it’s going to happen whether we like it or not, why not figure out how we can have a more positive relationship with it so when it does happen, we can navigate it with a more positive outlook, we can be a little bit more proactive? It’s not an easy process by any means by any means. I often equate change, for those that are movie busts, like myself, Harrison Ford, one of his first movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, beautiful scene. Within the first 10 minutes, he’s in this Aztec cave. He gets this golden idol, and then all of a sudden, he’s trying to get out of this cave to save his life and all of a sudden it’s like the last hundred meters of the cave, and there’s this massive boulder that’s chasing him. Most of us feel like Harrison Ford in our lives running from that boulder and that boulder represents change. It’s like, it’s going to catch me, it’s going to get me. We have to recognize that sometimes we just got to step out of the way or maybe figure out what got us in that path of change. Because there’s usually some signs. So those are a couple things and obviously, there’s some strategies around this, which I can share with you, Lisa, but I mean, what are your thoughts on that? [LISA] I hear you and what comes, what’s coming up for me is I feel just working with clients as a mental health professional change can feel so scary. So it’s like, change is coming and I’m just holding on for dear life. It’s that white ride on a rollercoaster, because if I let go just a little bit, oh my gosh, the world is going to collapse or I’m going to die. I think that’s really, it’s like if I change, if I let go, I don’t know where am I going to land, how am I going to land, what am going to land on and it feels like I’m really going to die. My thing is like, why does change have to be so hard? Why do people have to think like that? What if we make change exciting? Like, there’s new possibilities. There’s, what if we just changed that mindset so it doesn’t have to be so scary? So I’d love to hear what you, how you help people with that. [DAI] I think that’s a great way to put it, Lisa. You’re right, change is scary. I think most of us, we think about some of the biggest changes that we’ve ourselves have navigated. It’s, if we often think back and it’s like when you’re going through change, it’s like you’re in the middle of peace soup. You know what I mean by that? It’s just everything’s cloudy around you, you’re not sure which way’s up, down, left or right. Like it just, you’re in the thick of it, the eye of the storm in a way. It’s like, oh my gosh, what am I doing? Where do I go? We forget though, because once we get to the other side of that change, maybe it’s a career change, maybe it’s a relationship change, we get to that other side and all of a sudden, the pressure’s gone. We’ve navigated the hardest part, and all of a sudden, it’s like, huh, that wasn’t so bad. Because in hindsight, it always, once you’re through it, it never seems as bad as it was when you were in it. I think remembering that, locking in on that is important because if you’ve navigated change before you can navigate change again, we’re dynamic people. We are resilient people. I mean, there’s 8 billion of us across this planet. My climate change friends think humans are too resilient but we overcome hard stuff all the time. It’s an impressive testament to just our species? I think remembering that is important. There’s three questions I usually like to arm people with when they’re starting to feel like, gosh, I think it’s time for me to make some changes. I don’t know what they are. Or I might know what they are, but I’m intimidated to do it because that an anxious part of our brain does start to think about all the possible futures, even though we know there’s only room for one. We rarely do we ever actually guess accurately what that future looks like, but our brains are good at filling in the. So here’s a way to sort of narrow the scope and narrow in some clarity, which breeds confidence. when we’re feeling more clear, we feel more confident and when we feel more confident, our ability to take action actually do the things that we want to be doing proactively to start to influence certain changes, we feel more sure of our footing. So we’re more apt to take more steps, keep taking the action. The next thing about taking action is it also means we procrastinate less. We stop avoiding the things that we know are going to help us through the change. But it all starts with clarity. So here’s three questions to help people get clear. The first one is, can I do this? Like, whatever that change is like that, I remember I was ugly obese teen, like me thinking, when I first came to that this moment, and it’s when I was literally having an ugly cry in front of the mirror in the bathroom at my dad’s place, and like, literally uncontrollable sobbing at 15 years old and just, I lost it. But it was the first time I really locked eyes and looked at myself naked in the mirror. I avoided the mirror. I avoided to the point where I would allow the mirror to fog over. Like, I would stay in the shower an extra few minutes, turn it on extra hot, so by the time I get out to towel off the mirror would be covered in condensation so I didn’t have to see my reflection. That was what I did. That was my hack. I avoided it. But this one day I was being rushed, I got out and I don’t know why, but I looked and I gazed and I lost it because for the first time I actually saw where I was and I accepted that, but I didn’t accept that I was going to stay there. That’s where I really felt this need to change but, in my head, I’m like, man, can I actually do this? Can I actually change this? Can I change my status? Can I get healthy? And I didn’t even know what that meant. But can I do this? I realized deep down, I was like, yeah, I think I could do this. I’ve seen other people. My mom was a huge Richard Simmons fan. For those who don’t know who Richard Simmons is if you look at Sweating to the Oldies or any of the old AIO Hall YouTube clips, you’ll see were very colorful character. He had all these old VHS tapes and videos and my mom would buy these, do these in the living room. So I grew up watching these videos. They were awesome VHS because he always had these stories of clients that adopted this methodology and achieved great results, like releasing hundreds of pounds, by moving their body, by releasing those happy endorphins, by gaining that inner confidence that they can influence this positive change in their lives. So when I asked myself, can I do this, I started to reflect on other people that have done similar things. I’m like, you know what, they can do it. I can do this too. Yes, I can do this. Now, just because I answered the first question didn’t mean I knew what I was going to do or how I was going to do it, but it gave me enough confidence to sort of move on to step two. So once you have this inner confidence that, “I can do this, I can get help, I can change my careers,” like we get that clarity that I can make this change. It’s not going to kill me. It’s possible to navigate this. Yes. You have to ask question two, if I do this, will it work? How many of us think about that? We think about the changes we want to make, Lisa, and we’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m going to do this, but I wonder, well, will this actually help me make this change? Around the health space, it’s quite popular. Like we see people talking about different diets. Oh man, I’ve tried 101 diets and nothing’s really helped me sustain the change. Gosh, will this one work? Like, if I do this, will it actually help me see these changes through? This part often relates to education, self-education, maybe finding support or help. Someone that might know a little bit better how to do the things. Because if I do commit to doing the certain things, like for me as that morbid obese teen, it was like, listen, I need to understand how to eat because obviously what I’ve been eating to this point hasn’t been helping me and I also have to start moving my body because I wasn’t doing any exercise. I played video games and I watched movies, and that’s what I did. That was pass time, that was my main output, which was very low on the calorie expenditure. So obviously I kept putting weight on so for me it was like, well, can I get healthy? Yeah, I can. If I do these certain things that I’ve identified, like move my body bit more, go for a bike ride every day, and I start to change what I put in my mouth, will this actually create the result I want? I got to a place where I was able to say yes. So can I do this? Yes. If I do this, will it work? Yes. Question three. And Lisa, this is the hardest question. This is the hardest question. I’d love to hear your insights into this question specifically based on your background and experience. The third question is it worth it? Now, when I’m working with teams or organizations, I can use the term it. When I’m asking someone individually, like when I was obese as a teen, the question was, am I worth it? I’ll tell you, at 15 years old, when I was in that state of my health, I couldn’t have honestly said, yes, I’m worth it. I couldn’t answer that fully because at that point in my life, I didn’t feel I had value to offer. I didn’t really feel like I was worth the change, to be honest. Like, that’s just how I felt. But fortunately for me when I would ask some of the closest people to me in my life at that point in time, it’s like, “Hey, do you think I’m worth making these changes,” fortunately for me, that unconditional love and support I got from my community and from the people around me, like my parents and my friends, my true friends, they were pouring that belief into me until I had a point where I believed myself was worth it too. I don’t know, what are your thoughts on that question, Lisa, because I know it’s not an easy one to answer for a lot of us? [LISA] That third question, am I worth it, that’s a loaded question and when people are going through change, of course, I would want the answer to be, yes, you’re worth it. Of course, you’re worth it. Sometimes we don’t know and I think that’s where maybe faith comes in or something else that’s outside of ourselves, like you said, even in that unconditional love from support people and our lives. But sometimes we don’t even have that. So maybe doing the change, not even know, you’re not going to know if it’s worth it until you’ve gone through it. And I think the thing is, I mean, I would say 99% sure once you do, once you go through it, you’re going to look back and yes, I’m worth it, it was worth it and I just did that hard thing. I can’t believe it. Wow, hey, I did it. And you know what, I can do something else that’s even harder. Once we still, once we continue to make changes and it’s like, there’s no stopping us. We just keep going. It’s that, and there’s that fluidity with life. It’s that we don’t have to say stuck. We don’t have to keep doing the same thing. We just flow with it instead of against it. Then life becomes so exciting and the opportunities come to us and we’re like, I never thought it’d be doing something like this. Then people see that, and they’re attracted to that. Then they want to, they’re attracted to you because you’re shining your light so bright. And that’s how we make change with other people too, as I hear you, just by your words and how your inflection and your tone, how it helps people change. [DAI] Well said, Lisa, I loved everything you just said there. I was going to say drop the mic, but Don’s probably expensive but thought it was so well said. But it’s so true. It’s an important thing to take note of, and I hope everyone really recognize what you just said there, because it is, you may not have that belief in yourself at the beginning of the journey, but once you start navigating it, and this is, it’s important when we start to navigate certain changes that we experience some forward progression very early on. That psychological win we get from seeing the efforts turn into a result that we wanted is a great way to then create this internal energy to keep us going, to keep us enduring and moving through the change because change is hard. It’s hard, no matter how you look at it. But I’ll tell you also one thing about change, it’s almost always worth it and until you start navigating and going through that process, if you will. It’s hard to believe that because if we don’t have that personal relationship with change, and it’s not in a positive way in our life already, it’s going to feel very foreign. It’s going to feel different. It’s going to feel intimidating. But trust the process. Trust yourself. Like I know 14 years ago, I stopped drinking and it came from me recognizing I needed to make a big change because the way alcohol was playing out in my life was not healthy and it was affecting a lot of things negatively. That change was really challenging and I started by making a commitment to giving up alcohol for just a year and I realized a few months into that commitment, holy smokes, this is hard. I hadn’t realized how much of a crutch alcohol had become in my life until I finally removed it completely and then I realized, oh boy, now I’ve got to learn how to function without, and that was the bigger change. It was harder than actually giving up the alcohol. Giving up the alcohol was easy, but learning how to function without it was hard. That was the, but fortunately for me like, this is the first time in my life I’d actually got completely vulnerable with my wife, where I’d really let her in on everything that was going on not only in my head, but also in my heart. I just had this verbal dump on her and it was to the point where she’s looking at me cross this couch and she’s like, “Thank you, and I don’t know what to do with this.” But she was such a generous listener and the empathy that she gave me, that ability just to say it’s going to be okay. But she then encouraged me maybe you should talk to somebody about this stuff and referring that I should find a professional to speak to. At that point, I had a huge stigma like against that stuff? I’m just being honest, that’s where I was in my early thirties. I was very, I was overly confident as a shield, okay, as a shield, protecting that that sensitive ego of mine and this belief that I had to be a certain way for everybody other than actually being who I wanted to be and alcohol was that way of doing that for me. All of a sudden now I was going to have to go speak to somebody. What? I can get help, what? But I’ll tell you, I found a psychologist, found a therapist, we even found a relationships counselor and I committed myself to literally, six months, I just did the work. I went all in, like all in, I was like you know what, I don’t want to be like this anymore. I want to make some changes and I know I can’t do this on my own. It was the best decision I ever made, ever made. It opened up a whole new world of possibilities, which I’ve been living the last 14 years, and the connectiveness with my friends and my communities, my daughters just, everything changed. But I needed that help. So like what you do, Lisa, with your clients is, case in point, it’s so impactful and empowering and clarifying. It’s intimidating at first. I get it but man, when you find that person that can support you with this stuff, it just makes that massive hill not feel so intimidating anymore. It’s a lot more fun of a process, I’ll be honest with you, when you got someone there to help navigate it with. [LISA] It sure is. Whoever that person is for you, whether it’s your friend or your parent, your teacher, your coach, your therapist, whoever that is, to have someone on the other side looking you in the eyes and knowing that they know that you can do this. So they believe in you probably more than you believe in yourself and just having that is what I think helps get you through that through the ring of fire as I like to call it. [DAI] Well said, yes. [LISA] Wow. I have a question about change in a relationship. When someone, let’s say a couple, one of the partners makes a change hoping the other partner makes the change with them or does something different and decides not to, kinda keeps it where it’s at. What do you see in that, or what do you, how do you help the partner that was hoping for change? What would you say to that person? [DAI] It’s tough. Like, that’s a very tough place to find oneself, especially when someone’s very change-averse, you know, just really resistance to change period and then you have someone that really wants to embrace change and see it through. Because most of the time change, especially the change that we invite or proactively decide to embark on, it’s usually for good. We know that on the other side of that challenge, that work that’s going to take to achieve that change or that result on the other side, we’ve already deemed that it’s worth it, that we’re worth it to some level. That’s what we’ve committed to the process. Now, if that person that is, we’re in the closest relationship with that knows us best is very, there’s two different ways to look at us. They could be extremely supportive of the person going through the change, but they themselves aren’t interested in making the change. Or are they someone that’s completely against that person making the change because they feel threatened that if this person goes through that change, they may not want me anymore. They may outgrow us, outgrow this situation where we’re at right now. This is getting more into that idea of codependency versus co-commitment. There’s a lot that we can unpack there, but I often just say that when you’re making a change, you can’t make a change for others. You can only make a change for yourself. There will be an effect on others around you by making that change but it’s usually not the primary motivation for us wanting to make a change for ourselves. If it is, I find it’s a hard change to sustain long-term. What I mean by this is, I’ve seen a lot of parents say, oh, I want to get healthy, “I want to lose weight.” And I think that’s wonderful. That’s great. We know that there’s lots of health benefits to that, and it decreases the risk and so many diseases and other issues. If they’re only motivated to do it, say for their kids, okay, that’s great. I think it’s a wonderful motivation. But do you not want this change for yourself? Because eventually the kids are going to leave the house. Or like my kids, they’re teenagers, I’ll tell you, trying to keep track of them’s like crazy. They got their own lives. Like they’re not hanging out with me all the time. They don’t want to, I get it. I remember what it was like being a teenager. By 17 I was out of the house a lot. But we have to want to make the change for ourselves because we feel that we’re worth it. But the nice part is everybody benefits from that change as we evolve into that next version of ourselves. So I think it’s really challenging with the relationship part, especially if we have someone that’s more threatened by the person going, and I see this a lot with health changes. I coach a lot of individuals and I’ve seen relationships and as a result, it’s very, it’s sad. Like, because of course, it’s not their intention when they set out to make the change, but as they grow and as their belief in themselves and their value in themselves starts to elevate, and they start to see new possibilities of things that they can lean into and say yes to with their lives that they’ve always wanted to, but maybe they lack the confidence or the belief in themselves to do it, now they have that. Now they want to move forward and do those things. If they have a partner that’s not willing to allow that to happen, or they’re very against that. I mean, come on, like, if my wife was not supportive of my vision, my dreams, my passions, and the things that I wanted to do with my life, I wouldn’t see us being together long-term. But we’re in a cocom committed relationship. I am just as committed to help support her and going after whatever dreams and vision she has for herself. Sometimes that means she might be taken away from me for periods of time, but it doesn’t mean we’re not any less committed in our relationship of life together. So this is that idea of co-committed versus codependent. I think Gay Hendricks and his wife do a wonderful job of this in a book called Conscious Loving. It’s just a wonderful relationship book. It’s really helped my wife and I, as well as The Four Agreements and the 5 Love Languages, the three books that my wife and I was lifechanging for us as far as our relationship’s concerned. Is what I recommend for people as well. [LISA] Beautiful message. I love that. Just love that. One thing I heard earlier on when you said your wife, she just, it sounds like just very gracefully just said maybe you should talk to someone about that. Ands that she didn’t take it on herself. She didn’t do it for you. She left it up to you to do it because you’re the only person that can do it. [DAI] That’s right. But she was supportive of it. I commend her for that because you said something earlier that really struck with me, Lisa. What’s the fact that you said sometimes those people in our lives, like the real people that truly love us, they often see the potential in us that we’re not able to see in ourselves. My wife’s always been that for me. She’s always seen something in me that, I’ll be honest, there’s been period in my life, I haven’t seen it but she didn’t give up. She was there, she was supportive, but she also challenged me. That’s okay, that’s what we signed up on for. Like I signed up as part of our vows. Like we’re here to help each other be the best versions of each other and that’s together or apart. I just hope that everyone has that relationship with that significant other in their life. [LISA] Yes, yes, of course. Of course, everyone deserves to have a loving relationship. So, I want to ask you, why do you believe that vulnerability is a human thing? [DAI] Well, thanks for asking that. Well, I think it’s interesting because depending on who you speak to about vulnerability, there’s a lot of different definitions for what that means. What does vulnerability mean? Obviously if we take it just as the term vulnerability, there’s lots of different answers. You talk to some IT professionals, internet technology professionals, they say, well, vulnerability means your mainframe is susceptible to viral, like viruses and yada, yada, hackers and, okay, fair enough. Okay, but we’re not talking it. We’re talking humans and the human experience, this idea that we’re born and one day we’re going to leave this place and we got all this stuff packed in between. Well, that’s the human experience. In that human experience we’re social, we’re social people and more importantly, we’re, we’re not humans that are emotional. We’re actually emotional human beings. That’s just part of who we are. We’re emotional people. We have a part of the brain that’s very emotional. We also have a logical part of the brain, but often, it’s the emotion part that makes a lot of our decisions for us, sometimes rash, sometimes maybe not for the best of reasons or motivations, but out of self-preservation. But it doesn’t matter, this fight or flight mechanism that we’re always battling with is happening. When we start to look at certain things and aspects in our lives, this idea of being vulnerable means allowing ourselves to potentially lower down the guard to allow people deeper connections. So when I’m referring to vulnerability, and now as a man who identifies as a man, and I look back in my early twenties and even in my early thirties, I look at what was being modeling around me, like modeled around me by the other man I associated and hung out with. But also I looked at what some of my mentors at the time were also filling my mind with or encouraging me to do or to try. This idea of being emotionally vulnerable was never something that was seen in a positive. It was always referred to as being very negative, like it’s like a sign of weakness. If I’m vulnerable with another man in particular, he may take what I share with him and use it against me as leverage or he may think lesser of me, or maybe he won’t refer business to me? So this was this idea that was sort of perpetuated because even my father and the way he was raised, he passed a number of years ago from pancreatic cancer, but he left at 72 and in his 70 years like emotion was not something that was easily tapped into. He was very stoic. He was raised by parents that were very stoic. He told me that he never remembered his parents saying, I love you to him growing up. That has an effect. So my dad was doing the best he could with my brother and I, but I know that there were certain things that were perpetuated, like, we don’t cry and this idea of showing our emotional state was something that was not encouraged. It was usually seen as something as being weak. So this popular idea around vulnerability is not new. It has been perpetuated again and again and again but this limits our ability to experience this human experience because we are social people. We like to have deep connection with others. I know we do. We all do. We want to feel connected. We want to feel understood. We want to feel seen, heard, acknowledged. When we are vulnerable, and I love Brene’s Brown, the way she puts it, being vulnerable is not for the sake of shock and awe. It’s not for like, hey, look at me. It’s for deepening connection and understanding and relatability. I think back to my relationship with my wife, like just, it was an act of getting vulnerable just to ask her on a first date. I was putting myself on the line there emotionally. It’s like, oh my gosh, she could say no, she could laugh at me, she could completely shut me down. But I decided to get vulnerable. I assessed the risk and I was like, it’s worth it. I’m going for it. Thank goodness she reciprocated, because who know what would’ve happened. But that’s just an example of vulnerability in action. If we have children and we connect with them and truly empathize, things are going to be okay. Like there’s a certain level of vulnerability that’s also required for that. But it’s a skill, like any other skill, it can be developed, it can be harnessed, and it can be used in a very positive way, but it doesn’t mean that you’re being vulnerable for the sake of being vulnerable. I think that’s where this idea of vulnerability sort of gets a bit of a gray area and there’s a lot of debate around it in certain communities, certain circles. But the way I like to position it, it’s just a wonderful way to fully experience life, is getting good with that, being able to tap into that part of you to be honest and open and transparent with somebody to let them know how you truly are feeling about a certain situation if you feel they are deserving of your vulnerability. Does that make sense? [LISA] That makes a lot of sense. I love that. Speaking of Brene Brown, I love her book, Dare to Lead and I just completed a training on Dare to Lead and the vulnerability, as she calls it, being in the arena and how we, someone has to take the lead right, take the lead of being vulnerable. So how that brings us down into the arena and we want the people from the stands, or at least one person to come into the arena with us. [DAI] Yes. [LISA] Sometimes we are alone in that. How we have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep going and not allow that experience to stop us from being vulnerable because there are people out there who are willing to get it in the arena with us, that’s where I, that’s that deep connection. I seek for myself and my relationships and I know that I’ve put that responsibility on myself, that I have to be vulnerable first if I expect anyone else to be vulnerable with me. [DAI] I’m so happy that you said that because it is, the thing about vulnerability is it does take someone to go first. I facilitate, co-facilitate men’s groups, started these many, many years ago. It’s one of the rules, is that you got to create safety for people to practice vulnerability first and foremost, especially if it’s a new skill they’re wanting to lean into and start to develop. Well, it takes a big amount of trust for that to happen. We have to feel safe. I’m just, again, speaking as a man who identifies as a man, who had all these other preconceived beliefs around being vulnerable. So define a space where it can be modeled by other men. Seeing them being vulnerable without that fear of what they’re saying is going to be used against them but having that trust, that faith that the space is safe, it is very empowering because all of a sudden it gives us an arena as you said, said, to practice. The skill of being vulnerable, of allowing people into maybe something that’s alive and real for us right now, something that we’re experiencing right now, and yet we’re sheepish to share. We’re not sure how to share because we’re more intimidated by it being received either maybe as we intended or maybe completely not as we intended and then having that judgment that we might have to live with and that in itself creates a lot of fear in us and a lot of doubt. No wonder we don’t want to be vulnerable. But in these men’s group, what’s the most amazing thing is the guy that shares first in those meetings. It’s so empowering because you’ll have these new men that are brand new to these types of things. They often come in like, “Deer and headlights is the same ghost.” They’re like, “What am I doing here? There’s like 20 guys sitting around a table and they’re all looking at me right now. Am I in the right place? Maybe I should leave.” They’re intimidated by it. They’ve never been in something like this. They’ve never been in an environment like this. [DAI] They sit down, they get the lay of the land, they meet some guys, and then all of a sudden we start to share what’s live and real for us? You see the first guy share, and often these guys, the deer and headlights, they’re like, wow, this guy’s talking about something very deep. Actually, this is something that I’ve been dealing with. Wow, I thought I was alone in this struggle. I had no idea. Others, even, wow, other people deal with this stuff too. That’s the cool thing about being vulnerable. As soon as we start opening up, we start to realize, oh my gosh, we are way more alike than different. We wouldn’t know that if we weren’t willing to open up about some of the things that we’re working through. So I think that’s that ability to have that deeper connection and relatability, but also it allows and creates more room for empathy. Anyways, I’m all in on this stuff because it’s been so lifechanging for me and it’s helped me be a better man, and a better father and a better husband and just a better human being. That’s why I maintain that vulnerability is not a man thing. It’s not a woman thing. It’s not a they thing. It’s a human thing and that’s really the whole point to that sort of idea. [LISA] I love that. Wow, I just love that. And I agree it’s not a woman thing or man thing, or they think it’s a human thing, a human need really to be vulnerable. [DAI] Absolutely, absolutely. [LISA] So Dai, what would you like listeners to take away from our conversation today? [DAI] Well, vulnerability’s not a bad thing, that vulnerability can be a skill all of us can learn to harness and harness in a way that allows this human experience that we’re all striving to make the best possible for not only ourselves, but our families, but also our communities. Just find a place to practice. Doesn’t have to be huge. It can be something small, but just start to practice the skill because you never know who’s watching, who you might be modeling this habit and behavior to. It could be that next generation of leaders that are going to take the reigns for this planet eventually. I’ll tell you, I’d much rather have them at the helm than some of the other people I see at the helm right now. You know what I mean? So it’s on us to be part of that change to start to model and mentor the habits that we ourselves recognize are very serving for us, but are going to be even more serving for the next generation. That’s my invitation for people to take that away and just start practicing. [LISA] Well said. Very well said. Do you have a free gift for my listeners today? [DAI] I find that a lot of people struggle on the nutrition side of things, and in particular with sugar. I just know that sugar, it’s hidden in so many things. Myself, I’ve found my energy has had periods where it’s been great, and then there’s periods where it’s not so great, and it’s usually directly tied to tend to my amount of sugar I get in my diet. I notice, especially when my kids were younger, with children, it’s funny, like they’re little experiments that are running around all the time, you can sort of just observe them and what they’re doing. I had kids on sugar and then I have kids off sugar, and I’ll tell you the off sugar are way easier to manage and handle and less emotional. So my invitation for people, if they’re, you’re interested, I have a free resource and it helps people just start to educate on where sugar is, but also how to start to cut back on sugar in a way within five days. So it’s just a five day sugar detox and it’s a free resource. It’s on my website and it’s there for anybody that wants it. [LISA] Great. Thank you for offering that. It sounds great. I want to check that out myself. So, in that note, how can listeners get in touch with you? How can they find you? [DAI] Oh, well, thank you, Lisa. I’m pretty easy guy to find because my name is pretty unique. Dai i Welsh name spelled D-A-I, means David. Manuel is Portuguese. I know M-A-N-U-E-L, so Dai Manuel and they are probably like, that’s a weird name. It’s like, yeah, that’s Canadian. Don’t worry about it. So if you can spell my name, you’ll find me most actively on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, just with my name. But I also have a website, daimanuel.com, where same place where you can get the Sugar Detox. But I’ve kind about 1800 articles I’ve published since I started blogging back in 2007, all geared on helping people live those 5 S, fitness, faith, family, finances and fun. So just, I always say, there’s a wonderful resource there. Just start to dive in. No apologies here, but it is a bit of a well, we’ll just say it’s Alice goes into Wonderland. It’s a little bit of a rabbits hole, but you’ll learn something and if you take one thing away and are able to apply it, I know you’ll start to see some positive change for yourself. [LISA] Great. All of this information will be in the show notes as well. I want to ask you about your men’s group. Is it in person or is it virtual? [DAI] Oh, we have both. We actually have both. So we started, I started while I was living in Bali with my family. That meeting still happens every Monday in Bali. So if everybody goes to Bali, it’s a great men’s group I love to plug into. It’s called Mentorship Mondays, Men-torship Mondays. We also have some online meetings that are every Monday. They’re typically at 7:00 PM in three different times. We have the UK time zone, East Coast Time, and then West Coast 7.00. So there’s three meetings every Monday. If you just go to my Instagram there’s a link there, takes you to a registration page, you pick the time zone you want to come to, and it’s just, it’s all done on Zoom. More the merrier. We welcome all men to come join us. [LISA] Okay, thank you. I want to highlight that because as a therapist, there’s not a lot of men’s groups and I’m always, I want to have resources. So I want to be able to direct people, especially men that are looking to connect, really wanting to, in a deep way. So I love that resource. I really want to highlight that. Thank you for doing that. [DAI] Thank you. That’s selfish reasons too, I get it so much out of it for myself. So it’s, but it’s wonderful to have a community of like-minded men that are willing to explore and recognize that, hey, you know what, it’s a lot more fun to try to get there together, wherever there is it’s. But Lisa, I just, before we say goodbye, I just want to say thank you for the opportunity as well as thank you for creating this resource for so many of us to be flies on the wall, to listen in on your wisdom, but also the wisdom of the people that you have these conversations with. That in itself is a wonderful, well, this should say it’s a flashlight in some of the darker recesses and a lot of our lives that sometimes we avoid. Thank you for holding up the torch and allowing us to see, hey you know that corner, it’s not that bad. You know what? I don’t need to keep a plant there anymore to hide it. This is all good. I’m reclaiming this part of my house, my life and I just want to say thank you for doing that. I know there’s so much work and time and energy that goes into creating a platform like this, and I just want to say thank you for doing that. [LISA] You’re very welcome. It’s my pleasure and I’m just grateful that I have the opportunity and the resources to do it. Just like yourself, just putting that information out there, wanting it to reach the people, the person that needs to hear it so they can change their life. Thank you for coming on the show Dai. [DAI] Thank you, Lisa. [LISA] This is Lisa Lewis reminding each and every one of you that you are Wishing you the best day every day. Until next time, be well. Thank you for listening today at Am I Ok? Podcast. If you are loving the show, please rate, review and subscribe to it on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you’d like to learn how to manage situations as a highly sensitive person, discover your unique gift as a highly sensitive person, and learn how to be comfortable in your own skin, I offer a free eight-week email course called Highly Sensitive People. Just go to amiokpodcast.com to sign up. In addition, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email to let me know what is on your mind. You can reach me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. 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