Have you ever wondered why some transformations stick while others fizzle out like forgotten New Year's resolutions? Join us as transformative coach and author Jacob Kaufman unpacks the journey toward authentic change. In a heartfelt discussion, we move past the facade of achievement to address the deep-seated pain that shapes our personalities. It's about treating more than the symptoms; it's about the courage to face the struggles that lead to lasting change. Jacob's insights will guide you to understand why confronting our innermost challenges is crucial for genuine growth and fulfillment.
Achieving goals can feel like an adrenaline rush, but does it really equate to happiness? Together with Jacob, we peel back the layers of our desires, questioning what truly motivates us and the emotions we chase after ticking boxes off our lists. We challenge the "if this, then that" mentality and explore how joy can be found in the present moment, not just in a distant, elusive future. This episode isn't about chasing shadows; it's a philosophical shift towards pursuing meaningful aspirations while nurturing inner contentmentāstriving for a life that harmonizes success with genuine satisfaction.
In a culture where struggles with self-worth and identity are amplified, especially for men, this episode sheds light on the damaging effects of traditional masculinity norms on mental health. We celebrate the shift towards openness and vulnerability, recognizing the role it plays in normalizing mental health conversations. Our heart-to-heart with Jacob Kaufman concludes with an invitation to carry these discussions forward, recognizing the transformative power of facing our suffering head-on. Whether it's navigating societal pressures or personal challenges, this conversation aims to provide solace and inspire action towards a more fulfilling life.
Please do me a favor, subscribe, leave a positive review on iTunes, follow us on Instagram and share if you know anyone who would benefit from this or other episodes!
Do you want to work with me? Reach out and let me know!
https://www.instagram.com/jasonwasserlmft/
https://www.tiktok.com/@youwinninglife
https://linktr.ee/jasonwasserlmft
Thank you for joining me on this ride!
Jason Wasser Therapist/Coach
Online Tele-Therapy & Coaching š„
The Family Room Wellness Associates
Certified Neuro Emotional Technique Practitioner
š§Host:You Winning Life Podcast
š¤Available for speaking engagements
Have you ever wondered why some transformations stick while others fizzle out like forgotten New Year's resolutions? Join us as transformative coach and author Jacob Kaufman unpacks the journey toward authentic change. In a heartfelt discussion, we move past the facade of achievement to address the deep-seated pain that shapes our personalities. It's about treating more than the symptoms; it's about the courage to face the struggles that lead to lasting change. Jacob's insights will guide you to understand why confronting our innermost challenges is crucial for genuine growth and fulfillment.
Achieving goals can feel like an adrenaline rush, but does it really equate to happiness? Together with Jacob, we peel back the layers of our desires, questioning what truly motivates us and the emotions we chase after ticking boxes off our lists. We challenge the "if this, then that" mentality and explore how joy can be found in the present moment, not just in a distant, elusive future. This episode isn't about chasing shadows; it's a philosophical shift towards pursuing meaningful aspirations while nurturing inner contentmentāstriving for a life that harmonizes success with genuine satisfaction.
In a culture where struggles with self-worth and identity are amplified, especially for men, this episode sheds light on the damaging effects of traditional masculinity norms on mental health. We celebrate the shift towards openness and vulnerability, recognizing the role it plays in normalizing mental health conversations. Our heart-to-heart with Jacob Kaufman concludes with an invitation to carry these discussions forward, recognizing the transformative power of facing our suffering head-on. Whether it's navigating societal pressures or personal challenges, this conversation aims to provide solace and inspire action towards a more fulfilling life.
Please do me a favor, subscribe, leave a positive review on iTunes, follow us on Instagram and share if you know anyone who would benefit from this or other episodes!
Do you want to work with me? Reach out and let me know!
https://www.instagram.com/jasonwasserlmft/
https://www.tiktok.com/@youwinninglife
https://linktr.ee/jasonwasserlmft
Thank you for joining me on this ride!
Jason Wasser Therapist/Coach
Online Tele-Therapy & Coaching š„
The Family Room Wellness Associates
Certified Neuro Emotional Technique Practitioner
š§Host:You Winning Life Podcast
š¤Available for speaking engagements
let me record here um 45 ish minutes. Does that work? Sounds good, okay, so I'm gonna just welcome you. I'm going back afterwards and I do the intro post after everything's done and I have some notes and everything, so just assume I already did the intro and then so when I welcomed you in, as if that was that so cool.
Speaker 2:Awesome, all right.
Speaker 1:All right, y'all Welcome back to another episode of the you Winning Life podcast. And I get to say y'all proudly, because I have a wonderful guest who's living in the Atlanta Georgia area and you know that you're not from Atlanta when you call it hotlanta, so we're going to make sure we don't go there. But Jacob Kaufman, who is a transformer, transformative coach, author of the new book let love in the pain stops when the truth starts, and we're going to talk about some hard-hitting New Year game plan strategies and some insights on how to make life seriously kicking ass. So, jacob, thanks for hanging out with us.
Speaker 2:Jason, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited for the conversation today, yeah me too.
Speaker 1:So let's reverse engineer the process here. One of the things that I love finding out from people is when did they know that what you're doing now is everything that you're supposed to be doing? Sure, so talk us, talk us a little through that.
Speaker 2:Oh man. Well, I mean in terms of what I do now, one could suggest that, you know, I've essentially been prepared for this my entire life, you know, as someone who has experienced a fair amount of pain throughout the course of their lives. It now prepares me and equips me to be able to support people in the alchemy of moving beyond their pain and turning that pain, or transforming that pain, into purpose, power and progress. But when I knew that this was what I was supposed to be doing was shortly before I started doing it, roughly back in 2015, 2016. So about eight years ago, eight, nine years ago, when I first stepped into the world of personal development I did. I did so because I had to right, there's two great catalysts for transformation, and that's great love or great suffering. And for me it was great suffering. And so I went into personal development to change so that I could become a better, more idealized version of myself. And shortly after doing so, the moment, I experienced a little bit of transformation. Of course, I wanted to share it.
Speaker 1:So I find that journey, that experience of going through stuff, like you said, it's transformational, and this word of personal development, personal growth, transformation have in a lot of ways become cliche. And so those that do the work I kind of put it out of binary You're either doing the work or you're not doing the work. And even that phraseology of doing the work is, you know, for some people esoteric, or it's mythical, or they claim to be doing it. What are you finding one for yourself? But and obviously I'm assuming what you're doing for yourself and what you found for yourself is what you're trying to help guide other people with what? What do you think separates one from the other? Where that's the talk versus the action?
Speaker 2:Oh man, that's a great question. Well, here's what I will say to to kind of tee up. The answer is that the primary goal of the ego is to maintain the status quo, and the best way for it to do that is to hide the truth from you. So what this often looks like is us convincing ourselves that we're quote unquote doing the work when in reality we're not right. We're trying to solve for the ego with the ego, which just gives us a more strongly reinforced and cleverly disguised ego. It's like rearranging the deck chair. It's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, what this looks like, practically speaking, for a lot of people is especially this time of year. Shortly after the new year, people are making resolutions, they're setting goals, they're bringing all of this new year new me energy into the new year. Unfortunately, what we see is that their approach to making a change just has them overcompensating in the opposite direction and not to use an extreme example. But they were overweight, they were out of shape, they were lacking or they were experiencing significant challenges in a certain area or certain areas of their life, and the new year represents, like this benchmark, this opportunity for a fresh start for them to make a change. They oftentimes exercise or leverage willpower in order to get in shape, lose the weight, get their finances order, whatever their resolutions may be or may be focused towards. But it's the same energy. Different strategy is they're bringing their ego right that had them be overweight, out of shape or whatever their specific unique challenges were into attempting to solve for that, which is why it never works long-term. And all you have to do is look at the statistics around. The number of people who stay on track with their New Year's resolutions, not to mention actually accomplish them. Like the statistics are just absolutely awful. I think, come, you know, march 1st, over 85% of people are not on track to accomplish their new year's resolutions and I believe, come end of 2024, over 92% of people will have failed when it comes to reaching their new year's resolutions. Why is that? You could say it's a lack of commitment, a lack of discipline, a lack of resources, et cetera, et cetera. But at the end of the day, all of those things are just symptoms. They're just symptoms. They're these external factors that are currently being motivated by underlying unconscious factors. Yeah, and until we do the work of actually undoing the parts of our personality that had us overweight, out out of shape again.
Speaker 2:Whatever your specific, unique challenges are, fill in the blank. All you'll end up doing is creating more of the same. You will revert back to your former level of behavior, but the ego wants nothing more than to avoid that entire process. So it'll convince us that we're being productive by getting us to go to the gym more consistently. Or, you know, we quit drinking for a month, or we adopt a new, you know diet plan for a period of time, and we actually see results. That's not the question. But the question is where are you six to 12 months from now? And the answer for most people, unfortunately and the statistics back this up is they're right back to where they started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the way we, we, we, we look at it and the way I was trained was the attempted solutions to solve your problem only gets you more stuck. So there's two things that you described in that accurately is you have the attempt right, the action, and then you have the beliefs that come along with that. Right, the what's, what's the? You know what's the beliefs, assumptions, expectations and story. And how does that serve you? How does that not serve you? To stay stuck or not stay stuck? That's part of that. So, like you said, unless that stuff gets unpackaged and put on the table and looked at of like, well, how does it serve you not to achieve this? Who doesn't it? Who does it serve? It won't serve someone. If you're going out and training for a half marathon and you're now out of the house. That may not serve somebody else and you may want to honor them by dishonoring yourself.
Speaker 1:So that very, very accurate in that new year's resolution. And we see that you know the world of first order versus second order change, which is one of the ways that they talk about it in cybernetics and systems theory, is right. The first order changes. I'm going to do it differently. Second order changes. What's the beliefs behind that system? So very, very much apropos and I and that's kind of like where we were brainstorming. It's like the new year, new me versus new year, old beliefs, different attempts based on the same place.
Speaker 2:That got me stuck in the first place absolutely, which is why we never rise to the level of our goals. We always fall to the level of our beliefs, and so this is really at the heart of the work that I do with my clients, because, you know, you are correct, oftentimes people, the people, especially for the people that accomplish their goals oftentimes they're very discouraged to find that they accomplish their goals, they achieve what they set out to, and they feel the exact same way. Or, for some people, they feel even worse, even worse. Right Now, they're experiencing an even greater degree of emptiness or an even greater degree of anxiety or overwhelm, because they didn't again. They were just treating the symptoms right. All the work that they were doing was merely surface level in an attempt to solve for something that resides inside of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite stories about that is you know that person that wakes up in the middle of the night and they they think they're hungry and then they go to the fridge and they open the fridge and they're looking inside and like, eh, it's not there. And then they right, then they go to the cupboard and they open up the cupboard and they're looking around no, it's not there. And then they go to to the fridge again and it's still not there, as if it's automatically going to pop up. But that's like so descriptive of what you're describing. Right, and how many of us do that? We all do that in our own unique way. And this paradigm of like, I've realized over the last couple of years and tell me if this makes sense to you that a lot of times what people describe as goals are really just action steps.
Speaker 2:I would agree with that, you know. I mean, I think at the end of the day, it can't be about the goal in and of itself, because that always proves to be incomplete and insufficient to the task. You know, part of what we'll be talking about today is my book. You know, anyone who's ever written a book will tell you the exact same thing that you know after having completed the book. You know you grieve. You grieve all the things the book could have been but is not right. It's never about the end goal, it's about who you are forced to become in the process of accomplishing that goal. We always glorify the goal and you know we're almost always inevitably disappointed, you know, because our focus tends to be in the wrong place. It's about accomplishing this thing that's outside of us, the inherent assumption being that my happiness, my joy, my happiness, my fulfillment will be found on the other side of that goal realized, which is really just to imply that my joy, my happiness, my peace, my fulfillment, is not available to me here, right?
Speaker 1:here right.
Speaker 2:Correct. It's out there in the future, which, of course, creates time, and in that gap, right that's filled with time, is suffering Cause that's what we're saying is that the things that we're after, right, the feelings, because that's really at the heart of every goal that we pursue or have for ourselves. It's not the actual thing, but goal that we pursue or have for ourselves it's not the actual thing, but how that thing is then going to make us feel, or what it will enable us to do. So it's a really empty game when you think about it, because it has so many people chasing after their happiness in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if someone's listening to this right now and they're trying to figure out okay, do I do that what are some of the things in their languaging? So, like you know, I I challenge my clients and I'm always listening to the thing that they say they want to accomplish, not just the story. Right, the story is always important, but it's the but, it's the unconscious rules that they're expressing that has to serve the maintenance of the thing they think they want to get rid of.
Speaker 2:Right. Yep the unconscious motivation beneath the conscious desire.
Speaker 1:Right. So what would you say? As, as, as people are listening to this they should be looking out for in something that they want to achieve, and they're they're hearing themselves, or they're just finding that they can catch themselves leaning into a narrative that isn't supporting them, like what would be like so if you hear yourself saying this or you hear these, uh, words or phrases coming out? This might not be supporting you that you found with a lot of your clients.
Speaker 2:Well, it's classic. It's classic If this, then that thinking. So my encouragement would be not just to determine what you want, but why you want it. What are you hoping that that's going to enable you to do? And then therefore feel, the key being what is it that needs to happen in order for you to access that feeling? Now, that's, that's the big thing. That's the big thing. So it's this classic if this, then that thinking, dualistic thinking right, this or that, this then that, the idea being again that I can't access or have what it is that I really want to feel until this happens. And that's how we create a win-win situation right, when we can still have goals. Right, Because goals are not inherently bad or wrong. I would suggest that they're very supportive because we're wired for transcendence, we're wired to desire expansion and growth. So that's how we create a win-win situation where we still have our goals, but we're not attached to them as the source of our happiness, because we are able to cultivate and create happiness for ourselves in this very moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I haven't shared this on any previous episode in the ways that it comes up for me with my clients. Is that both ends, right? You're talking about the dual versus non-dual paradigm, right, it's the both end. Is that one um, while you're working through or struggling with x, how can we manifest y? Right, and it's not correct, right. And we also have to talk about the rules. And is it allowed culturally, gender, religion, right? All the things that are playing out and holding us back from that and put those on the, you know, make those unconscious conscious and see where those things are, but also dancing in that duality of how you even describe it. Right, the sentence of um, I can't wait, right, this thing is going to be really amazing. But such and such and such, and when people flip the structure, the sentence structure of, even though I'm still working on this, I'm very excited about that.
Speaker 2:Right? Yep, it's, it's always both right. One one should not have to come at the cost of the other. But that's oftentimes the game that most people play, even if they're unaware of it, right. They oftentimes sacrifice their present happiness for the sake of accomplishing future goals, and so they end up self-sacrificing in a certain or specific area in their life for the sake of attaining or reaching that goal. You know, because, as a society by and large, we're addicted, you know, we're addicted to accomplishment. We're addicted to success and achievement and looking good. All classic, you know, classic addictions of the false self, which is why the addict's creed is we always want more of what doesn't work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and, and and the question that you know this was way deeper than I was even thinking about asking is you know, the world is set up with these things and we're working away or working towards something different, and the universe obviously benefits from us having to struggle with this, and we obviously benefit from having to struggle with this, but this is not something new. I mean, this is time. Time is all this, right? There's all this history and, and I don't know if you've ever, you know, dabbled deeper into, well, where the hell did this come from in the first place? Right, I mean, we obviously have all the different theories of ego and super ego, and then you know all the dual, non-dual paradigms and the psycho-spiritual stuff. But what, what's your best understanding and appreciation of why this came into?
Speaker 2:existence in the first place for humanity. Well, I would suggest that it's divinely designed and it's the necessary pattern. I mean, if you look at the course of history, it really transcends time and cultures and different religions. And it seems to be very true for everybody that in the beginning, we always overcompensate right, like we're born with this innate wounding, if you will, or this propensity to thin, which is like the classic religious term for it. But, put in another way, we all have this fault that we are ultimately trying to make up for, and so we overcompensate right, so we become this person that we think we need to be in order to be loved, accepted, successful, admired, loved, accepted, successful, admired, etc. Then, as the pattern would follow, at least we then would ideally decompensate, which is why true transformation is always predicated on dying to something and has much more to do with unlearning than it does to do with, like, learning or developing, and then we properly compensate.
Speaker 2:So so, yeah, this kind of you know transcends um time, religion, cultures, um, because you, you find it all over the place, even in ancient mythology, for example, um, where, you know, even in like ancient stories, like take hercules, for example, on some deep, inherent level, he, you know, had this intuitive notion or feeling that he was born of royal blood. Like this is classic stuff. Yeah, you know that that still even shows up in um, oh gosh, what's the? What's the new pixar movie? Um, or the, the latest pixar series of um, the, the two sisters in frozen, it's the same thing, it's the same thing, you know. So, in hercules, he had this deep, inherent knowing that he was born of royal blood. You know, caused him to try to live up to that which was to say overcompensate, only to then realize that, oh, I am of royal blood, I don't actually need to overcompensate, I can just be myself, essentially, which him to, to show up authentically, right, properly compensate.
Speaker 1:And that's the journey that we all the hero's journey, which is what a lot of people would describe that as yeah.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent, you are correct, right which was popularized as a framework for storytelling and used in Hollywood, but really is the spiritual journey that we all must go on in order to move from, you know, this self-actualization or individuation stage of development and move into self-transcendence. In fact, maslow and his hierarchy of needs self-actualization in his first iteration of it, was the highest, the notion or the idea of becoming the highest version of myself. But it was all based around individual success and achievement. And toward the end of his life he came into contact and he met Viktor Frankl who, if you're familiar, wrote Man's Search for Meaning Correct, who was a psychiatrist, the founder of Logotherapy, who came to essentially popularize and found what is known as will to purpose, that man's primary motivation is for meaning, for significance and for purpose. And the only way that that can happen is to be dedicated to a cause greater than oneself.
Speaker 2:And Maslow eventually said yeah, that's actually higher. That is actually higher than what I have prescribed is the highest level of needs, that being like accomplishing or achieving the highest version of yourself. It's actually bigger than that. It has to supersede you, it has to go beyond you. Right, outlive you, if you will, right In order for you to be truly fulfilled. Because as long as the idea is that, as long as we're focused on ourselves and the pursuit of our own individual, private perfection, right God, the universe whatever you want to call it can't utilize us to our full potential in a way that benefits humanity and allows us to be of highest service to humanity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's powerful coming from him because of his experience of going through the Holocaust and surviving, and just most of the book, a lot of the book, is describing what his experience was like and I'm wondering comparison, you know, in comparison to maslow, right, having those two different experiences, right, academia and and whatever it might be, and you know, being in, being, being in a safer place than literally having to live in a latrine and a death camp and surviving in a, in a toilet, uh, which which we know that he did, and you know he tells that story man's search for looking at those angles and perspectives that's why we all need some type of yeah Right, and not to run away from it and not to avoid it.
Speaker 2:A necessary struggle.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Is what Carl Jung essentially said we all must go through and or experience in order to go from the first half of life to the second, from self-actualization and individuation to transformation and transcendence. We have to experience this necessary struggle or necessary suffering, where our current mental resources, our strong willpower and our acquired knowledge are just not a match for. We have to confront something that we just don't know how to deal with, and that's that's kind of where my book literally picks up and starts off is me acknowledging, you know, that I was sexually abused and for the first time in my life, I'm having to confront the pain of that and the 15 plus years of suppressed and repressed emotions that were just kind of lying dormant inside of me, that I had been simply performing my way around and by performing I mean, you know, being career oriented and overly obsessed and consumed with accomplishment and achievement and climbing the corporate ladder and being successful as an entrepreneur Again, not that there's anything inherently wrong with that, but it was simply a compensating strategy so that I could avoid my pain, you know. And and then, all of a sudden, I was, you know, I experienced this existential crisis for lack of a better phrase where I came into relationship with, like, the parts of my persona that were not actually me but that I had spent so long self-identifying with, which really led to this.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's really no other way to put it than this deep, deep state of depression, and I think most people, at some point in time in their lives, are confronted by this. You know, we call it the midlife crisis for a reason, you know, and there seems to be people having like this quarter life crisis. Now, you know, because of, like, social media and this egoic game that it has us playing, where we're constantly comparing and competing and you know, all of this other stuff, right, but it's all just this, this game, that's all it is that we, but that so many people, especially men, are getting stuck in nowadays, right, and we don't actually move beyond this phase of individuation or self actualization, and we're where we get opened up to this bigger picture and caught up into a purpose that is is so much bigger than than us and the title let love in right.
Speaker 1:That's very descriptive of especially around men, and you know, being loving in that classical sense is about what do I take care of? What am I responsible for? How do I show up in the world? What have I achieved and accomplished Right, which is, which is very different than the whole Brene Brown power vulnerability paradigm and cause. A lot of people still, especially men or more, are very likely to describe that vulnerability as a weakness and as what's going to. How is that going to take me off my a game? How did you decide on that title and and as the primary jumping off point?
Speaker 2:Great question.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it was one of the things that I would suggest, actually the primary thing that kind of woke me up to the game that I was playing for lack of a better phrase, to the game that I was playing, for lack of a better phrase where I was constantly holding people at arm's length. I was hiding behind these various masks that I started to take on in childhood. One could suggest that accelerated after my abuse, where I started to act as if I started to act as if I was successful, as if I had it all together, as if I was quote, unquote fine, and how many men do we know nowadays that would kind of fit the bill. Right, I'm fine, you know. But when you actually sit down and have a real honest conversation with them, just like if you had done so with me in my mid twenties, despite my career success, despite from the outside looking in like I had it all together and I had everything going for me and in many ways I did but all of it was just this unconscious performance to overcompensate and ultimately make up for this deep-seated insecurity and lack of self-worth that I experienced due to my abuse.
Speaker 2:And this is what I find most men, especially highly accomplished men are in the position of nowadays. Is this high performer persona that they take on in an effort to become successful is really just this unconscious attempt to claim victory over their pain? That's really all it is, you know, and that's why so many men, despite their success, report increasingly higher levels of unhappiness, increasingly higher levels of unhappiness, of anxiety, of depression, of suicidal ideation, of suicide attempts, and so this has become so unfortunately redundant, especially in my work, because, you know, I'm constantly coaching people. It's what I do for a profession. It's a tale as old as time. It's what I do for a profession. It's a tale as old as time. Like I got everything that I set out to achieve and yet, on some deeply inherent level, I feel empty inside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I see how many, so many people, especially with the men that I'm working with, where they can't necessarily put their finger on it, and it is that compensation. But look at all these wonderful things I have in my life. Why am I still missing something? And is it's? It's because we are, we have this role of being, you know, the provider and the take care right. All these things that we have, these obligations, societal obligations and I love it makes me so happy to know those of us, you and others, who are helping people have. Yes, you can have all that success. Yes, you could be kicking ass and work.
Speaker 1:Yes, you can, right, you can have that reputation and you can be a leader and you could be, uh, committing to those things in your life and you can also feel and believe that you are in life is amazing and I'm so glad to see that shift over the last many years. Where I remember starting as a as a young therapist in my early twenties, the joke of like you know, the difference is in New York, but right up North, right, everybody went to therapy, right, that was like the thing, right and and in Florida it's kind of like, oh, you're a therapist. And how that's changed over the years. Where, like it's not, like, oh, you, you don't have a therapist in New York, something's wrong with you.
Speaker 2:Sure, oh, I bet, yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:Right and and cause that's just. Everybody goes to their therapist up in the Northeast and that was right there. The DC, you know, corridor, that's a thing, but now, as it moved this way, maybe in LA, maybe also, but you know, here in the South right In Florida and Georgia.
Speaker 2:Southern States right.
Speaker 1:It's. It's now become so, thankfully, more normal that I'm sure you're probably seeing people that would have never called five years ago Finally showing up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, and it's. It's really awesome to see people one could suggest the progress that we've made overall as a society, especially amongst men, you know, because women obviously, you know they tend to have this, at least historically speaking this really beautiful therapeutic embrace about them. Right, they tend to congregate in groups much more, they tend to talk about and be open about their feelings much more and what's really going on with them, where, historically, men have friended in the opposite direction, which is to shut down how they feel, which is to close off, which is to hide, which is to not have close relationships. And again, the statistics back this up. I believe they say that one in five men report having no close friendships nowadays, which is insane to think about, um, but I do believe it is the thing, um, that thing being suffering, that propels us to seek help, yeah, to, or to go, or to go to therapy.
Speaker 2:You know, going back to what I said at the beginning of the episode, where I said the two greatest catalysts for transformation are either great love or great suffering. And if you know, great love, great love tends to come with great suffering, so it pretty much just boils down to great suffering. You know, we, we seem to need things to get so bad to where you know we can no longer ignore them, and I think this serves to kind of support this Tony Robbins quote where it's like until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change, then you're not going to actually change, right. You're going to go on continuing to live under this illusion, which is to just say, you're going to go on continuing to be addicted to your ways of being, doing and living that allow you to have the life that you have, but still wrestling with this, this internal void, this emptiness, or this very high baseline level of anxiety that so many people now report these days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's. I mean, I've heard it from other people, but I know Jesse Itzler, who's, you know, local, local boy to you, yep.
Speaker 2:Yep Local Atlanta guy.
Speaker 1:Look at, yep, very, yeah, part of part owner now of uh right of the of the hawks uh yeah, so I know in his coaching community he talks right when you're sick. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, right which?
Speaker 2:is not his originally.
Speaker 1:But I know he talks, you know he uses that phrase a lot and and, and I still see. It's so interesting, where I still see this, it is primarily a lot with men where there's this intellectual knowing, but that space that you know, that foot between the head and the heart is the longest distance and they may say they want it and they may say they know and they right, and I hear this commonly from I know, I know, I know, I know I need to be doing that, I want to be doing that, I want to be doing that, yep, and it's just figuring out like what? Well, oh, okay, where is it? What's going on?
Speaker 1:and, and that's the necessity of the work with you and the work with me and the work with other people that are handling this space. That is absolutely, and I want to challenge people. I write if you're listening to this and you're like debating and it's yeah right it's the beginning of 2024 now and you're listening to jacob and jacob and I talk and you've been waiting and you've been waiting, and you've been waiting. We're here. Jacob's here, right?
Speaker 2:right. Yeah, and this is I mean obviously between you and me. We have a high fluency for right, how the psyche works, works and how it's all interrelated. But for those of you who are listening, this is the difference between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The conscious mind is connected to what we know and it's responsible for what we say, so, for example, what we say we want but it's our subconscious mind that is connected to who we actually are and it's responsible for what we do, the actions and the decisions that we, that we make or take. And so, in order to create a fundamental, foundational, long-lasting, sustainable change in our lives, whatever that looks like, with regard to whatever area you're seeking to improve in right, we have to shift the unconscious person. You can't just adopt new habits or incorporate new patterns of behavior like that's not gonna work, you can't kamikaze it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't, don't be a kamikaze, just dive right into all that yeah, right again.
Speaker 2:Just we're rearranging deck chairs on the titanic that's all. That's all it is at the end of the day, right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna buy a gym membership. I'm gonna hire a personal trainer.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna right, adopt this new clothing, new sneakers, yeah, new totally yeah exactly a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Building a house on top of a faulty foundation, you know. But the real work of addressing the foundation, the foundation being right, our relationship with ourselves and our self-identity, that's the work that the ego seems to resist the most. Because it seems to be that, more than anything, the ego is resistant to change right, at least true change, not just again changing. You know my, my habits, or you know my patterns of behavior in terms of, like, what I eat or who I spend time with, or or those things it's really about. You know who I be and and how I show up and the decisions that I make in the world love it.
Speaker 1:So short of instagram, which everybody uh pull if you're not driving, take out your phone right now and go on instagram. If you do have instagram still and and just search. I am jake kaufman, k-a-u-f-f-m-a-n and you can find some really great links and uh there. But where else can they uh track you down and get? But where else can they track you down and get more information Besides obviously getting the book on any you know, resale?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, absolutely. If you're interested in picking up the book, you can do so via the link in my bio on my Instagram. Otherwise, it is on Amazon. It is my full name, so something to keep in mind it's Jacob Kaufman. Again, that's K-A-U-F-F-M-A-N. Otherwise, you can sign up for my newsletter on my website, which is awakewithjakecom, and I look forward to connecting with you on the interwebs.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So, for anybody who's listening to this, if you A either took one little takeaway from it, we would love to hear from you. So that's why I said, just grab out your phone and and send jake a message and just say, hey, I love this little tidbit. Send me that message, uh, that we know that we're getting these really awesome guests and obviously the, the person that introduced us, is, uh, you know, doing a great job of.
Speaker 1:I know you've been on some of my other friends podcast shout out to erica brawl and uh, he's a good, really good buddy of mine, and so, yeah, so I know, right, the right people are getting to the right places. And obviously we want to make sure that you know you're, you're knowing that you're, you know that you're being not just received but that people need this, and and I want people to really give us that feedback of like, hey, this really did hit for me and this is what I'm going to do with it. And you know, check out really did hit for me and this is what I'm going to do with it. And you know, check out, check up Jacob's book and like everything else, yeah, just, you know, please, everybody, you know where to reach us and Jacob, again, congratulations, one first on on doing the work and not just talking about it, but doing the work.
Speaker 1:I know you know just the bits and pieces that you did share with us and you know I would love to actually invite you back to. What you have gone through is not talked about enough amongst the male population and it is coming out in certain circles. I know here within the Jewish community, there's a lot more talk about abuse from men to men, specifically in the community, and there's people who are leading those conversations and it's finally coming out. I know certain church circles it's coming up, but just in the general society of personal development and personal growth, where that has impacted and what you can do with that is a powerful conversation. So if you would love to come back and we can delve a little bit more into that and any other topic obviously- more than neurology and philosophy and spirituality all that other stuff.
Speaker 1:But thank you again for sharing your time with us today.
Speaker 2:Jason, thanks again for having me. I appreciate it.