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welcome to the true Hope cast podcast where we take a deep dive into mental Health's many physiological and

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psychological aspects this is the show for you if you're looking for motivation inspiration knowledge and solutions and

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that's what we are all about here at true hope Canada true hope Canada is a mind and body-based supplement company

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dedicated first and foremost to promoting brain and body Health through non-invasive nutritional means for more

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information about us please visit truehopecanada.com today on the show I welcome will Sampson

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now will is a transformational mindset and change coach he holds a PhD in sociology from the University of

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Kentucky and an MS in Information Systems from George Washington University will serves on the adjunct

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faculty of Peugeot University where he lectures on Executive management change management and conflict resolution he's

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a board-certified executive coach today on the show we're going to be discussing the big changes between self-help and

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personal growth enjoy the show okay good morning will welcome to true

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hypercast I hope you're doing well um it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today how are you what is going

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well well thank you for having me I am doing well and it is a pleasure absolute

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pleasure to be here what is going well so many things but what I find is

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um that when I'm well within all the other things outside of me seem to go well so right now I'm well within and

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everything else seems to go well as well I absolutely love that perspective of looking into Al that's that's great I'm

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very happy to hear that um as an introduction for our audience can you just let us know who you are and

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what it is that you do please you bet so I am um a individual who gets to work

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with mission-driven entrepreneurs and Executives who exist at the intersection

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of doing well and doing good and so so often um I get to coach individuals and

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so often the coaches that I know work with people to try and help them Reach reach their financial goals or or you

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know achieve a certain level of capitalization I work with a lot a lot of entrepreneurs who are looking for Venture Capital

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um but but it's just as important to me to work with people who want to do good who want to live a better world behind

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and so there's so many different companies so many different efforts we could put our hand to but to uh to work

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with people who really want to leave the world a better place one of the ways I like to think of it is I want to make sure I'm being a good ancestor to the

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people who come behind me so I'm a coach who gets to work with people who do well and do good

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that's very interesting how did you get into that line of work so it was both purposeful and accidental

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and there's I'll tell you that I'll give you the short version of the story and then we can probably unpack some of it so

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I had work I was I had worked in the corporate world as uh in the technology the I.T space

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and I left there to go work in uh to go get a PhD and teach for for you for a

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few years what I found is that a number of my students as they were going off into the

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world after they graduated they needed more Direction so

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um for them I I ended up getting into coaching because it was a way of working with my students who

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um who just needed some Direction they needed a a way to sort of find some guidance in the world but then I went

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through a lot of personal trauma myself I entered long-term recovery after too

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many years of dysfunctional behavior and and addictive behavior and what I found in that process was a

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group of people who were willing to invest love and belief in me until I could begin to find it in myself and so

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um I've been given this great gift of Grace in the world the chance to reboot my life older than most people do so in

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my 50s and because of that I I started saying you know how could I use this these coaching skills that I've

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developed to really try to give back to try and invest that same level of love

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and belief in others that was invested in me and the the coaching that I do the work that I do seems to be the best way

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to do that do you think we need to be in a particular um

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environment environment or like personal space to actually be able to to receive

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that like love and grace possibly it's it is an interesting

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there's there's sort of an interesting Paradox to it which is that often we are unable to get to the place where we can

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receive it because we've created barriers we've told ourselves stories you know it's it's often true because of

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my experience I also work with some people who are trying to find recovery in particular from alcohol but I but I

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work with people trying to find recovery from a whole variety of things and um one phrase that I use a lot and

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it this is this Harkens back to the old um horror movies of sort of the 80s and the 90s is that the caller is inside the

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house you know so often if you remember the old movie like The Scream movies like the person would pick up the phone

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and I'm gonna get you whatever the villain would would give them horrible news and then we found out that the villain was on the upstairs extension

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and so often for us like what stands between us receiving the love and belief

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that is available to most of us and I know some people have dysfunctional systems and dysfunctional families and

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relationships but so many of us are surrounded by love and belief but we're we're unable to get to that place

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because we have these stories that we tell ourselves and it's often just us talking to us it's time it's not it's

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you know usually it's not that we've got uh people around us condemning us and and maybe we do and like I said I I know

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even for myself I've had to overcome some dysfunctional relationships but

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the most dysfunctional relationship I've had is with me um and when I have learned to restore

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and be in healthy relationship with myself I'm able to realize that I'm surrounded

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by people who love me care for me believe in me want the best for me and

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to the extent I can then take that in I can give it back out to others yeah I think it's such a large amount of

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people who do have this dysfunctional relationship with themselves I wonder your thoughts in regards to why that

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might be and why so many people end up in that situation and then you know maybe something happens to them that

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might actually be the worst thing that's ever happened to them but that's the actual spark that lets the the changes everything I know I've got plenty of

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examples of people in my life and myself as well it sounds like you've got an example there and not everybody has that

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Epiphany moment that Epiphany thing that happens so I just wonder like why so many people slip into that dysfunctional

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relationship with themselves yeah yeah and I often say that I'm grateful to have had to be a person to

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enter long-term recovery I'm grateful for my my substance abuse because what

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it did was it it brought me to the point where I had to ask for help it got me to the point you know we often in in in

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many of these types of dysfunctions and addictions we talk about people reaching their bottom and I had the Good Fortune

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of reaching a bottom and when I had to look for help around me but I think to the larger question

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there's really there's so many ways there's so many answers to the question of why people end up um getting caught

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up in these dysfunctions but but I think there's at least three three answers to that one is

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um you know we um we live in a society that is increasingly atomistic like we're

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part of we often think like what's happening in 2023 or what's happening in the 2020s the reality is we're we're in

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this sort of broad historical Arc where for the last several hundred years we've

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moved further and further away from community and into more and more sort of individualistic atomistic settings

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um and I know I live near Washington DC in the United States and DC was just rated the most lonely uh city in America

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largely because of so many people who live by themselves so I think some of it is personal it is social I mean we have

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we have a lot of broken systems our family systems our our community systems are broken

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but I also think cultural you know there's this uh this Narrative of you

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know pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps all these sort of shorthand phrases that we use

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um that are that are more harm than good I think I think we we create this notion

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that the people who succeed the people who do well the people who thrive are people who've been able to do that

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by themselves and that's just not that's not reality the reality is that as

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humans we live in these systems of interdependence from the time we wake up until the time we go to sleep and even

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while we're asleep there are Untold people who are holding our world together and I think to the extent we

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can realize that we can begin to shift our own narrative yeah I think we that's a great

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assessment thank you for that yeah I think that we um we have we breed this

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fear of vulnerability in people and you know asking for help asking for support

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asking for Community is one of the most powerful things that you can do as an individual you know like one of the

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smartest questions you can do is like you know say it's like can you help me with this right and there's not

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something that we really teach our kids we don't really teach it into our society it's like go go you gotta go out

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there and do your own thing and other people are gonna hold you back or try and take what you you get and you get to

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a point I suppose maybe in your 30s 40s and 50s where you realize that Community communication and collaboration without

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question the only ways you can really elevate your self to a place where you will get the success that you want and

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going trying to do it on your own is totally doable but it's significantly harder it takes a lot more energy and at

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the end of it you're probably going to be sick so it's very interesting that we when when people end up

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recognizing that the vulnerability that we do have and we can experience as humans ends up being a superpower that

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we can like take a step back and ask for help and just I just wonder how how frequent frequently because you were

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talking about your work with um individuals with addiction issues do you see common patterns with those

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individuals like do they have certain do they have a lack in a certain trait or do they have too much of a certain trait

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that that leads people down that path yeah they often they do and I and I can

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mostly I can best speak from my own experiences experience which is I had this I had the worst of both a sense of

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codependence but also a sense a false sense of Independence and I think both

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are toxic we understand in this culture what's wrong with codependence when we have an unhealthy relationship on a

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thing or a person or like any time I believe something outside of me is gonna

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is going to make me whole complete whatever it is I'm supposed to be that's

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a that's a real problem um and that can be true you know for for those of us that have gone through substance abuse issues that's certainly

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true of alcohol and drugs but it can be equally true if you believe a person is what you need to be complete if you

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believe in outfit or whatever whatever fill in the blank with whatever um and so I think codependence is a

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problem but I think it's equally true that a false kind of Independence is a problem and I

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see that a lot with people who deal with addiction and substance abuse because

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we end up getting in these these cycles of dependency these cycles of addiction and we we uh we don't believe that we

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can ask for help we believe that we're supposed to sort of solve the problem by ourselves we believe we're supposed to

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pull ourselves up by the by the by our own bootstraps even the booth even if the bootstraps are clearly and

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demonstrably keeping us tied down and you know I I always think there's if you

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remember the book um seven habits of of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey here's this great quote in there he says

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that um trying to go through life independently it's like trying to play

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tennis with a golf club the tool is not suited to the need and I just think that

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summarizes it so well like we just believe like we believe because so much of culture tells us that we need to be

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completely independently we believe that's how we solve our problems including the problems of those who suffer from it from addiction it's just

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not true and we need to really deconstruct that myth yeah it's I mean obviously something

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like addiction is very complex and it doesn't you don't just like wake up one day and you're addicted to Something There is a there is a period of time

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where you will reach that point and you will go through certain thought patterns and for sure like a lot of people will

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independently believe that they've got this under control that it is not a problem and as you kind of like step

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towards like more serious addictions people end up isolating themselves from other people who might you know so again

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like that isolation piece comes in um do you think um how important do you think having

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like a purpose having Direction taking responsibility for things is a huge part

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to play as just being a human being you know especially when it comes to you know young young kids I think about like

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tribal times when we were in small communities where we would have responsibility from a very young age and

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we would even have these like Rites of Passage to go from a child into an adult and how vitally important we knew that

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that was and we don't really have that anymore you know we have 30 40 year olds who are still

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behaving as adolescents when you know that's not it's not the case so when how

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do you how do you much do you think uh Direction and responsibility comes in

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into this and are we miss are we missing that with it with our kids education

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yeah it's possible and the kids education is a such a bigger conversation

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um but but here's what I know to be true is that we we are missing to your point these kind of Rights of initiation after

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which we have a certain identity and that's really to me this is and the work I do in the coaching work I do I focus a

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lot on identity because I'll often see people who come to me and they're like well and this isn't true just of people

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who are dealing with addiction issues this is people who are trying to you know thrive in life and they say well

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um I know I need to exercise more and I've done everything I know I'm supposed to do I put my gym shoes by the door I

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did like all the I did I did all the hacks that was were supposed to make me be able to go out and get to the gym and

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it's not working and I don't know why and the reason why is because between our head and our gut and so our head is

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where we recognize a change that we need to make our gut is where we begin to build Identity or build habits rather so

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we say you know I'm gonna I'm gonna really get after it I'm gonna run I'm gonna go to the gym I'm gonna eat well

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whatever the whatever the Habit is we want to we want to embody but between our head and our gut is our

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heart and that's where I where our identity exists and to your point like

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those anthropologists used to call them um Lim they called them liminal

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processes or liminal exercises that's where you know a culture would send the 13 year old boy out into the woods for a

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week to try and make it on his own and when he came back what did we say we say you're a man in the same way a lot of

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other cultures have the same process for saying oh you did this now you're a woman you know we don't really have

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those processes those liminal processes after which we give people the gift of a

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new identity and it's that identity that matters so much and that's where these questions are asking about like purpose

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and understanding why we're here on this planet things like that all those relate to our identity so what I think we need

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and I think this fits as well within education is the ability to give kids and really

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even humans I mean people even even for those of us who are you know further along from from elementary school the

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ability to have an identity that um that relates to why we think we're in the world it gives us joy it gives us

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purpose gives us energy and when we have that identity the the things that we're

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supposed to do are more naturally flow and there's actually some really interesting Neuroscience here

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um it was uh I think it was in the Journal of sports science they did a survey of individuals who describe

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themselves as athletes so these could be Weekend Warriors these could be people who run 5Ks you know four or five times

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a year or whatever but the people who call themselves athletes were more likely to stick to

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their exercise regime regime they were more likely or regimen rather they were more likely to do what they were supposed to do so I think there's a

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there's something missing in that ability to to to form an identity

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that really lets us drive the rest of the decisions we make in in our life

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yeah absolutely I think it's so interesting that trying to

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create that identity find out who you are going internal and you know doing a lot of self work it's kind of a

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difficult thing to do within school because it's it seems to me just looking I've not been in school for a long period of time but like it's I'm sure

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it's the same in regards to you're just trying to fit in trying to fit into a category trying to fit into with a group

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of friends which is obviously very important that's social skills for example but like how how does that um

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a block individuals from becoming that individuals becoming their own identity

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recognizing their own strengths their own weaknesses where they may need to work on things and things that they really need to to things that they

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really do enjoy creativity obviously comes into that I feel like it's very very difficult for you know in a school

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of maybe let's just say like 40 kids in a class how difficult is that for one teacher to try and

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um cultivate and I think it's an impossible job to be honest and I'm sure

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um it's been tried and there are certainly institutions I'm sure do a better job at it here and there and parental

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involvement is obviously vital in that but I I suppose that identity and that individual

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um teaching could certainly come from even a younger age before school even starts before kids start thinking about

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you know like the clothes that they're wearing and the haircut that they've got and the accessories that they have to

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start fitting into school I suppose that's more of like a you know maybe 11 10 11 12 years of age and up but there's

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a big period of time where kids are wild they are energetic they are these free

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beautiful spirited and pieces of energy that have got the potential to create

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wonderful wonderful things and be kind of whoever they want to be and then you

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know involved in a institution like education maybe sometimes doesn't enhance that individual creative piece

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absolutely and and I do think and I have a little bit of insight on this because I my my partner my wife is a music

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educator who also teaches mindfulness and yoga at in in the US at kindergarten through fifth grade wow

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um and yeah she sees a lot of she struggles with a lot of this and you

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know I think and this goes back to culture like what are we trying to solve for in our Educational Systems and I see

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this because I I do I still do a lot of work with corporations and oftentimes corporations are trying to solve

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um uh what are less well-defined problems so in the way we kind of think of it in

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problem solving is there are engineering problems and there are design problems so engineering problems are how do I

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make brake pads from my Tesla that are the same every every version of the

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brake pad that rolls off the assembly line I want it to be exactly the same because I want them to work the same every time and that's an engineering

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problem the the reality is that most of the problems we face in this world are more design problems they they force us

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to think creative or creatively and and to really take a bigger view on the problem itself but our education our

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educational system is largely cranking out Engineers we we spend a lot of time

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and we should on stem so you know engineering math and science and science technology and so on

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um but but even like I can tell you even from my own coaching and some of my own

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work I I um for a while I taught it one of the I taught online at one of the larger technology and one of the larger

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engineering colleges in the US and I sometimes joke that my job was to teach Engineers how to talk human and we

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teach Engineers how to be how to be social people because um so many of the problems that we face

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in the world and the problems were that are coming the problems we're going to be facing are really design problems

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they don't have Real Clear Solutions and so um because we don't

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encourage people to think creatively to think broadly we're we're kind of still

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encouraging we're still educating for this industrial mindset it's very difficult to go back to the basic

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concept for people to form their own identity to feed for people to deform their own individual sense of purpose

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and and self um and and you know that like I said I think the answers to that are much are

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much bigger than we could probably unpack in this podcast but yeah but I but I do think it's a clear issue that

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we need to be aware of yeah I just think that the larger populations get the

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larger the bigger cities you live in but the more people it's it's more difficult to um become part of that Community to

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become part of that whole it's it's so big that it's impossible that you end up just being an individual person within

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it and that whole thing is just bigger than everything and then it's so hard to take responsibility and have you know

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have a have a role within that like it sounds like it's such a difficult Prospect and then you look at I know

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people who live in small um small towns of a thousand people here in like British Columbia and everyone

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knows each other's name there's like one mechanic there's one restaurant you know like I absolutely love that like that

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idea because everyone's got a job and a run when they're called Town meetings like everyone in the town is there and

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it's functional you know it's like everyone is a part of the whole and there's a role there it's distinct it's

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I don't know it's just a very interesting concept which we obviously were evolved to kind of be be within

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within smaller groups but you know we have these larger cities now and it's uh it's a it's a problem for a lot of

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people who do live there um to yeah find themselves because there's just so much going on around

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them yeah yeah now I here's I'm I'm such an optimist here's where I think here's

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where I see a great glimmer of hope is that coming out of the pandemic and and coming out of just sort of the broader

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shifts that are happening in culture um there is um a lot more emphasis toward remote

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work there's a lot more emphasis to changing the way we do work and and uh I

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think it was it might have been in the New York Times I don't recall but I was just reading recently how a lot of

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smaller towns at least here in the U.S and I think the same is true in Canada where they're they're realizing some of

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these smaller towns are realizing that they can be great hubs for the kind of community life you're you're talking

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about because people can choose where they want to work you know how they want to work they can choose to work remotely

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I think optimistically that there's some real good uh possibilities of returning

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to the kind of life you're talking about returning to the kinds of communities you're talking about but that'll only happen if we the people

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ask ask of it if we if we say this is the world we want to create you know we can create that world

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yeah I completely agree with you I think um I know a few people who have moved to these smaller places because they

24:08

recognize that they can do their work from anywhere they could save a significant amount of money from moving out of the Cities they can be closer to

24:14

Nature they can spend more time with their kids I know you know I work from home and I'm very very blessed to be

24:19

able to do that and I to see my kids all of the time and I can only imagine like you know from my my parents age back in

24:27

the day like this wasn't a thing and I can just I could just every single day I'm just bonding closer and closer with

24:33

my two kids and I feel just having that that that that male role model around

24:38

all the time is only gonna only gonna support them and help them grow into grow into the individuals that they're

24:43

going to do but I want to talk a little bit more about um you've got some stuff on your website

24:49

which I thought was interesting about the self-help industry and how you're doing your very best to disrupt it so

24:54

can you tell us a little bit about a bit about that process and that thought process and um you know why does

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yourself self-help uh make us less happy yeah so I make a really important

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distinction for me at least between self-help and personal growth I can tell from my I can tell you from my own story

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that it's you know one of the big shifts in my life is when I became the author

25:17

of my own story so I I think that is important that we begin to own our own growth personally

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but self-help is is a is a different is something different it's a different animal than that um and it might be

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helpful to think of the um origins of the self-help movement and actually the

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the title actually came from a book that was written in the 1850s by a guy named Samuel Smiles I wish I was making that

25:42

up because it almost doesn't can't be doesn't sound like it's right but it is Samuel Smiles wrote the book self-help

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um and if you think about what was happening at the time talk about historical Trends this was the height of the Industrial Revolution people were

25:56

moving from Urban Air or rural areas to urban areas they were moving from the countryside to the city they were you

26:02

know suddenly confronted with these new systems different kinds of people than they knew and it made sense to encourage

26:10

people just buck up and and own yourself and you know and that's where we get

26:15

phrases like pull yourself up by your own bootstraps which was actually originally mentioned as a joke in a

26:21

newspaper editorial but it's become it's almost we think it's settled science yeah

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I think about self-help books were one of the first like printed published books in history I think it was yeah it

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was yeah exactly exactly and so um what's happened is what's come along

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with it is these cultural myths these cultural narratives that we we think are

26:45

true because we hear people saying them but we don't really question it so I'll give you a perfect example so

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um you'll be listening to a podcast and you'll hear an entrepreneur and they talk about you know how they

26:57

made it all on their own how they you know pull you know pulled their pull their life together and they they

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overcame great difficulties and that's also true in addition to that though

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every great entrepreneur had many many people who helped them succeed

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the greatest example of this I give this is of Richard Branson who you know when

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he was 23 years old he owned a tiny little record store in East London called Virgin Records

27:25

and he didn't stick to he didn't take care of his finances he was about to be evicted and go bankrupt and his mom

27:33

mortgaged her home to keep him afloat and so um and so years later he's this

27:39

incredible self-made billionaire well he's not he's he's a billionaire he

27:45

is there because he owned his own story because he he took charge of his own destiny

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but he also realized that he was surrounded by people who could help him and so so much of the self-help industry

27:58

for even without meaning to so much of the the literature that just this kind

28:04

of falls into that more coarse self-help category is just you know people telling

28:11

other people how to take care of how to live all on their own and for reasons we've already talked about that just

28:16

doesn't that's not a that's not a recipe for success and so what I want to when I say I want to deconstruct the self-help

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industry I really want people to understand that success and thriving and resiliency and

28:29

all these things that we might hope for is always is always a balance between owning our own story and allowing the

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grace of the universe and and that which is greater than us to provide us with

28:43

people around us who love us care for us Believe in Us and it's success is always a balance between those two and so much

28:50

of what we think of as self-help really is is often just limited to I just got to do this on my own and that's just not

28:57

correct yeah and then you've got the personal development piece which is you know some people confuse the two of them but maybe

29:04

you could give us your definition of of personal development and why that is wildly different yeah so

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um the the main area I would say is the difference between self-help and personal development is and personal

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growth is you know one is more based on reality there's a um I don't know if you remember the comedian George Carlin but

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he had this great line in one of his um one of his routines where he said you know if you're if you're reading a

29:29

self-help book written by somebody else that's not self-help somebody else wrote the book for you you know and so to me

29:37

the the distinction between self-help and personal growth is self-help is I

29:42

would say a false narrative that says I have just got to do this on my own I've got to I've got to Buck Up and I've got

29:48

to pull I gotta pull really hard on my bootstraps and maybe eventually I'll pull myself off the ground to me it's a

29:55

um it's a false belief and um and unfortunately it's I think it's

30:00

pervasive in particularly in the west but in in our culture globally as well this belief that we need to succeed

30:07

alone by contrast personal develop personal development means owning my own story

30:14

but realizing I'm telling that story with others realizing that you know for

30:19

me I have such a rich network of people I call them my my life team they're the they're the team of people that help me

30:26

live my life and they're on my life team because I'm on theirs it's it's a exchange of of love and belief among the

30:33

people that I that I live with and do life with um and personal growth is really more how do I how do I use all the riches

30:40

I've been given to succeed Thrive and for me make the world better for for me

30:46

having been here how do you think people can get started positively with personal development

30:53

yeah so um it's a it's a both end and I and I encourage people and not because I this

30:59

is a lot of the people that I coach are kind of in this same space and so um

31:05

it's it's a two-fold track of both knowing yourself well and then creating social bonds and

31:13

social social relationships around you and so you know knowing yourself well is is

31:18

just is just the basic day-to-day work of journaling gratitude

31:23

um oftentimes the answers to these questions are not you know go spend thirty thousand dollars on this great

31:29

course it's really simple as you know um journaling being aware of yourself

31:36

um getting to know yourself getting in conversation with yourself I um one exercise that I encourage my clients to

31:42

do is a is What's called the mirror exercise which a number of different writers have talked about but it's literally

31:49

and I do this even to this day even several years into my journey where I have different questions that I ask

31:54

myself um or different things that I affirm to myself and I say them to myself in a

32:00

mirror so right now um I'm working on understanding that I am complete and I am whole and I I

32:07

literally I stand in front of the mirror and I look at myself and I say that will you are complete you are whole you have

32:13

everything you need so it's I think it's kind of rebuilding our relationship with ourself and then

32:19

it's also being involved in activities that bring us into um better bonds of social relationship

32:25

and this does not have to be hard it's it seems so hard sometimes to to meet

32:30

people how do we meet people the easiest way I I know how to do it and it's something that I I do on a fairly

32:37

regular basis is I just invite people to eat with me I create meals together

32:42

um I don't do it now but for a number of years I used to run something called which is called Sunday supper because we

32:47

couldn't think of a better name and I just opened my home I said I'm going to make some food and if you want to bring some food and eat with me that'd be

32:54

awesome and there were there were Sundays where we had you know 30 40 people there because people are so

32:59

anxious for community and they're so anxious for connection that and I think that's especially true after the

33:05

pandemic um so it's to me it's it's those two it's sort of rebuilding the trust and relationship with yourself and then

33:12

creating social ties with others I love the mirror exercise and what

33:18

that's just made me think of the fact that when I think of a mirror and when most people think of a mirror when they look into a mirror they're actually just

33:23

trying to fix their external appearance right right rather than like looking

33:29

inside themselves and talking to themselves and you know

33:34

passing strong affirmations to yourself you know it's it's a very very interesting concept looking looking at

33:40

yourself in a mirror like actually doing that um so that's a very interesting exercise that I'm gonna have to take and yeah the

33:47

idea of creating meals for Community inviting people over and you know that's I mean eating together and being around

33:53

campfires is one of the most ancient things that we've ever done and sharing stories sharing knowledge

33:59

um recognizing where we can you know help other people support other people and also get support and help from them

34:05

it's just like we've been doing that forever that's how we work that's how we communicate it's how we get things done

34:10

it's literally how we've got to 2023 and we haven't blown ourselves up yet like that's literally how we've done this so

34:17

far so do you do you think that with the personal development piece that

34:23

recognizing like your own lack in maybe particular knowledge is an important place to to to begin like reading books

34:31

and maybe listening to to other people yeah I think so I think it's also um

34:37

it's it's also making an honest assessment of yourself and what you do

34:43

well what gives you energy what you have joy in doing and then recognizing that

34:49

um you know we live in a good and bountiest universe that wants to bring the other those other resources into our

34:55

life and one of the ways one of the analogies I use with my coaching clients is is to

35:01

think of yourself as the CEO of your own life and so if you were looking at the CEO of a

35:07

corporation you would never expect the CEO to file the taxes or create HR

35:13

policies or you know buy the you know buy the technology or manage the global

35:18

supply chain you would recognize that a CEO is going to have all these other people that do those things for them and

35:24

so when we think of ourselves as the CEO of our own life it really enables us to say okay what am I good at what am I

35:30

here for what am I supposed to do and then to recognize that around us is the possibility of people who can help us in

35:37

those other areas who can help us be complete and the way that works the way this whole I I think of it as a life team

35:44

that's the way I phrase it but uh the way life teams work is that that those relationships tend to work when we are

35:51

living in service to other people as well so as we as we seek relationships

35:56

as we serve the people around us um it's it just seems to be almost like

36:01

magic that we end up having our own needs met as well um and so I I think information is

36:08

important um and I you know I'm you can I don't know if people are watching this on video but behind me are a whole bunch

36:13

of books like I'm a big book fan I think more more data is always good but I also think it's found in the

36:20

experience of of trusting yourself and trusting others it's it's uh to go back to the word you mentioned earlier

36:25

vulnerability like we just don't know how to practice that and so learning how to practice it

36:30

out in public is really important yeah it's such a powerful scale and once

36:37

you really reach out and ask for support and help from somebody it it's a it is a

36:43

magical experience you know it's certainly it can certainly change your whole energy it can certainly shift your

36:49

egotistical mindset that's probably been prominent for a long period of time and it recognizes it actually feels good to

36:56

get helped and to also reciprocate that and it's uh it is a wonderful thing that

37:01

we've you know we've certainly maybe lost through I don't know we could talk for hours and hours on why that may have

37:07

been but um what we do know is that there are most likely for most people that are

37:12

going to be people that that love them that careful and that do want to support them

37:18

um remarkably even you know strangers can recognize and understand and connect with somebody who is struggling

37:24

and the humanity comes out in that and your ceiling that a lot of people can really do quite magical and wonderful

37:30

things once they recognize that another fellow human being is struggling and in trouble so without question for sure and

37:38

I was going to ask you about like overcoming adversity and finding kind of that

37:43

strength to start over do you think that begins with asking for help I do well it did for me and that

37:50

certainly seems to be true most of the stories that I've uh that I've heard um and I I guess I would if there's an

37:58

authority on this I would look to Victor Frankel if you if you know Victor Frankel he wrote the book man search for meaning which is a book he wrote after

38:05

surviving the um Auschwitz death camps in Nazi Germany and he managed to live

38:11

through that and he wrote about the idea of meaning afterward and

38:17

um he said that we find meaning in life when we have three things when we have the ability to look at our suffering

38:23

redemptively when we have a big project to work on a project that will give our life purpose

38:28

and meaning and when we have a community of people that love us and so I think

38:34

when we can take our traumas we when we can take our pains and and bring that

38:39

perspective to it so for me I'm always asking you know um

38:44

with what I've gone through in addiction and other traumas in my life if if I

38:49

believe that I'm fundamentally good and I believe that the universe is fundamentally good then I have to

38:55

believe those things were brought into my life for the for the benefit of others and there's you know cross

39:00

religious Traditions uh there's there's this is a pretty consistent theme that we are able to take our pain and turn

39:09

that into comfort for others who are suffering from the same things that that we suffer from and so if we can make if

39:16

we can take our pain and turn it into a project if we can take our trauma and make it part of our life purpose if we

39:23

can reach out to help others and make that part of the community of people who love and support us

39:29

boy that's a that's a winning formula that's a life of meaning and that's a life of value

39:34

so simple well yeah no it's really what it's an

39:41

absolutely winning formula and yeah I can attest to that my own personal circumstances there are things that I could not have accomplished without

39:47

my family without my friends and without having that having that specific purpose and motivation myself it's um yeah it's

39:55

uh it's certainly humbling and when you're able to actually put the ego aside a little bit and and reach out that

40:01

helping hand um you can do wonderful things and I want to thank you so much for coming

40:07

on and sharing so much wonderful wisdom and advice and I'd love for you to share with us like where people can learn more

40:13

about you and maybe tell us a little bit more about your website and what people can expect there you bet so the easiest

40:19

way to find me is just to go to willsampson.com and there's no p in Simpson

40:24

w-i-l-l-s-a-m-s-o-n.com and that's pretty much a One-Stop shop I have a course that I've just recently released

40:31

called how to create lasting transformation in your life and people can sign up for it there they can listen to my podcast they can get my newsletter

40:38

where I release just the short bit of wisdom every week and I would love to engage with people

40:43

well thank you so much for coming onto the show I really appreciate it I'll make sure that people can connect with

40:49

you um in the show notes via those links but um I hope yeah I hope that this has

40:54

been I'm sure it's going to be very eye-opening for a lot of people because it's such it's such a complex beautiful

41:00

conversation that needs to be had you know like the idea of like putting down the ego putting down the sword settling

41:07

down and looking and looking to the people around you who can you know who can lift you up and put you in a

41:13

position to you know make the necessary changes that you want to do like it's such a big topic and it's needed now

41:18

more than ever thank you this was a great gift thanks for the conversation I loved it beautiful will thank you so much well

41:25

that is it for this episode of True Hope cast the official podcast of true hope Canada you can leave us a review on

41:31

iTunes if you wish don't forget to subscribe but we'll be back with you next week thanks a lot

41:38

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