#121 Boys Club Decoded: Inside the Mind of Men with Pat Divilly

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Welcome to the 360 leadership podcast, the top rated show for driven women in senior leadership with new episodes released every Wednesday. I’m your host, Lucy Gernon, a multi award winning executive coach for women leaders and the founder of 360. Leaders Club exclusive high level membership for career driven family orientated women just like you. I created the 360 leadership podcast to share practical tips, actionable step by step strategies, and inspiring stories to support you to unlock the power and belief within to accelerate your impact and potential. So you can build a life filled with success, balance and happiness. So are you ready to achieve 360 degree success? No more excuses. No more waiting. Your time is now.

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Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the 360 leadership Podcast. I’m very, very, I’m not even gonna say excited. I’m feeling very grateful actually, to have a very special guest on the show today, somebody I’ve admired for a long time. And his name is Pat Dively. Part I’m not even going to do you justice with the introduction look part has been in the wellness and coaching industry for I think over 15 years, you started out your career in kind of the fitness space. And now you’re more into the mental wellness and men’s mental wellness more specifically. Part two is a lot of work with a lot of deep work with men, which is social needed. And I suppose does a lot of work for corporations too. And I suppose the reason I wanted to have pat on the show today was to give us the scoop and give us the what really goes on behind the minds of men. So pass you’re very, very, very welcome to the show today. Thank you. I’m thrilled. It’s good to get to do it. And yeah, as you said, we’re human Yang, in a sense with who we’re working with. So hopefully we can put some good stuff together today. Absolutely, absolutely. So maybe just if you wanted to start by introducing yourself, in your own words to my audience, let them know a little bit about you and where you are now maybe

2:06
right now I’m in Thailand, I’m out here for two months just training and working on a new book, by train a lot of martial arts. That’s a big passion of mine. So I’m out here pursuing that. And yeah, who I am, as you mentioned, I started in the fitness industry, that’s 1516 years ago now and got into that probably, before fitness became what it became. It obviously blew up quite a bit in recent years with social media. And you know, I felt like everyone became a fitness trainer for a while.

2:33
But I had good success and fitness, I failed with my first business and I was quite successful with my second and won a lot of entrepreneurial awards back in 2014 1516. I moved from there into kind of personal development, I just kind of fell out of love with the gym, it became a bit, I have a belief in life that you kind of go through different phases, and you’ve got lessons to learn. And once the lessons are learned, you can flog a dead horse, or you can kind of move on. And it’s sometimes it’s scary to move on. But I knew my days were done with fitness, even though as a business it was at its peak, I moved more into mindset and goal setting workshops, all that kind of stuff. As you mentioned, I work with a lot of men, that wasn’t always the case, I was working mostly with women in the fitness industry. And then when I moved into personal development, most of the room would be women. And if there was ever a man in the audience, I’d kind of jokingly say, Was anyone dragged along, and a few hands would go up from the men. But gradually over the years, it just started to shift. And I suppose the last four or five, six years, it’s been a lot of men’s work, which is just the idea of you know, sharing tools for emotional and mental wellness with men and communication and creating, you know, it’s a cliche, but creating safe space where men can sort of, I would say try on different versions of themselves, we’re kind of put in a box as women are to be a certain way. And so it can be scary to try with your existing social circle to share your emotions or to communicate differently. And so I try to set up the container that people can come in and experiment with who they are and how they show up. So that’s me I love martial arts. I love traveling. I love my work. Aviles fabulous. And you know, I think your work is so so needed. So I think we might just even just I just feel like we need to just jump straight into that part about men and emotion. So like, what is it? You know, obviously, you spoke there a second ago about the we’re put into a box and obviously we have gender stereotypes. Women are supposed to be humble and all those things and not be too boastful. And men are supposed to be strong and if men are not strong, all of this, you know, what does that mean for me? So how in your work do you begin to break that down? A core aspect of my work is always shadow working with shadow. And what the shadow is, is the idea that as kids, we’re conditioned so you know the the kid who’s a toddler hopefully can express all of who they are. You’ll see a baby cry and then they laugh and then they dance and then they run around naked and there’s no shame but obviously getting a bit older we start to learn who we need to be so

5:00
First we learned at home, okay, we’re not, it’s not approved of when we’re too loud, it’s not approved of when we get angry, it’s not approved of when we dance or fill in the blank, every household will be different. And so we quickly learned that for me to be loved and safe in the world, as a child, I’ve got to show up in a certain way. And that becomes our persona. So our mask that we show to the world persona is the Greek for a mask. So we create this mask at home, okay, my dad loves me when I play sport, but he doesn’t really appreciate when I try to sing. And so sports becomes who I am. So my first layer of conditioning is at home, and then I go to school. And now there’s another layer where it’s not about what my parents want. Now, it’s about what my peers approve of, Okay, boys don’t cry, girls don’t get angry, that’s not very lady like all these messages we start to take on, and then a new mask starts to form. And then beyond the family, and beyond the school system, or the community, there’s the culture that we’re raised in. So I’m in Thailand right now, that will be a very different set of expectations to maybe what we had in Catholic Ireland, versus what’s going to happen in different parts of the world. So you know, things like our gender, our religion, you know, Irish people, and drinking, and just all these messages, we take on 1000s of messages as kids and we all develop a sense of, for me to be loved, accepted and approved off in the world, I need to present this. And if I’m presenting this, it means I need to hide the opposite. So the girl who’s told the girls don’t get angry, becomes very polite, and she hides her anger, and maybe directs that anger toward herself. The man who’s told Boys Don’t Cry, hates his tears, and he shows his stoicism, and then maybe in a relationship years later, he can’t connect emotionally because he’s disconnected from that part of himself. So in terms of how I work with it, it’s first identifying what was put into shadow or parts of yourself were hidden away, because there were bad wrong disapproved of rejected. And then how can we bring them back out in a safe way, because the way I started to put it to people is, as a child, you don’t have context, you’re not able to recognize that, okay, anger is not appropriate, when I’m at mass, and I wanted to just start shouting for the church. But maybe anger has its place, we’re quite black and white. So I say to people, we put certain parts of ourselves in the good box and other parts in the bad box. And my work is about coming back to those boxes later in life, taking the aspects back out and saying, wait a second, in certain contexts, my anger is really important, because maybe it’s my assertiveness that lives alongside my anger. And we also have golden shadow, which is our potential the parts of ourselves when we were told we were too much, don’t be a show off, stop looking for attention. Who are you to think you can do that people from our household don’t do that. A lot of our potential lives there. And we keep ourselves small, it’s very Irish thing as well. You know, someone says, You have a nice jumper and suddenly, oh, that’s from pennies.

7:41
Yeah, yeah, it’s recognizing what we put there. And how can we repurpose these parts, not make them bad, but recognize that everything’s got its place?

7:52
I love that you’re doing that work. I’ve done that work myself. And it literally was a catalyst for everything for me, but it’s painful, right is painful to go there. So I think people you know, what I think the work is I think it’s the key, actually, I think it’s the key to everything is going there. So what would you say to somebody who’s listened to the show now, when they know they have those parts of themselves? They know they’ve been living their lives to please other people. Like, that’s literally what we’ve been doing? What would you say to them, there’s different things. I mean, one thing I would say is, you know, what we resist will persist, which is the idea that, like a beach ball, if you push a beach ball underwater, you can only push it down so much before it’s going to generate a lot of force, and it’s going to pop back up. So any part of yourself you reject, or you try to push away, will come and take on a life of its own. It’s like the person who is very nice and very polite all the time and is a people pleaser. And then suddenly, they have a road rage that just comes out of nowhere. And so I would say it’s important that we address this stuff. You can come to this stuff when you have a midlife crisis, or you have an identity crisis or your world falls apart, and then you’re kind of forced to look at it. Or maybe when you’re in a more grounded place, and things are going okay, you could gently start to explore. So I would say recognize that the work for me at least I believe the work is needed. It’s one quote the Carl Jung had, who was a famous Swiss psychiatrist that talked about the shadow was the idea that 90% of the shadow is pure gold. So although it’s painful, although it sometimes feels icky, it feels you feel shame around certain aspects of yourself. Generally, there’s massive gifts and we all know that from our life experience there’s generally more gifts and more learning in our failures than there ever is our success. I would also say to people, the bigger the challenges you have in life, the more support you need. So get support and I would say take it slowly. Yeah, those would be my my core messages I think do the work. Take it slow, get support, and you can come waiting for it to knock on your door and have your life fall apart or you can hopefully come at it from a place of okay, I’m gonna go place now but I’m gonna gently explore becoming more of who I am allowing myself to be more of who I am.

10:00
Because my experience is, is ultimately, if we don’t, particularly in business we see in the business world we see, you know, it was my life in my 20s to have a lot of insecurity, a lot of self doubt, a lot of impostor syndrome, a lot of I’m not enough. And that’s what drove most of my decisions in my 20s. To chase all these goals achieve a lot of goals. But my experience was everything I achieved, just put a bigger magnifying glass on my insecurities, because I thought, when I do this thing, I’ll feel great, but then I do the thing. And then I think, Geez, I must be really flawed if I’m achieving things. And I still feel like this about myself. So oftentimes, we run away from those parts, and we try to outrun them. But it’s you, it’s a part of you so you can’t outrun it. See, I go gentle, go slow, but lean in. I love that. And I, I always think as well, like, you know, I don’t know, do you? Do you know, Abraham Hicks? Or do you ever listen to any of that stuff like what? You know, she talks a lot about alignment, and where you’re not in alignment, you’re going to feel resistance. So if you ever feel resistance, it just means you are not in alignment with who you are. And when you have the resistance, it’s it’s you know, you’re frustrated, you’re angry, you’re not feeling good. So I always know that for me that that’s a real trigger for me, if I feel nothing negative emotions are bad, because we have to feel them, we have to have the contrast, right? But I always feel like if I’m if I’m feeling frustrated, or if I’m, if I’m feeling jealous, in particular, and things like that, then I’m just I go back into myself, I’m like, Whoa, Where’s this coming from? Like, this does not need to happen. So I think too, like I was gonna ask you, I was gonna just share that. When I first started my coaching journey. I remember one of my my first business coach, she was excellent. She was in the game a long time she was in the US. And she brought everything back to basics, like really basic stuff of how to start a coaching business. And I remember she talked me about the different coaching archetypes. I don’t remember them all offhand. But I think she had four different archetypes. And she was sharing with me that it was really, really important for me as a coach and for you and for everybody, to to really express, you know, who we who are we as a coach. So for anyone listen, like who are you as a leader. So for example, I know one of them was like the, I think she called it something like the superstar, which is the person who likes to be, you know, in front of people who likes the attention and, you know, sees himself on stages. When she was saying that to me. I knew inside that I kind of wanted to be that person. But I didn’t have the confidence to do it. But I felt it. I was like, I do want to be on stages, but then the voice pops up, right? Who do you think you are? And you’re not going to do this. But now that I am, I know that that cue was there for me years ago. So I think it’s really important for people listening to know that you can’t push away who you really are, it’s always going to be there isn’t this? Yeah, absolutely. And no changes. You know, as I said, you know, for me, there was certain things I wanted to do in my 20s that were my lifelong dreams. And when I got there, I thought, okay, I enjoyed it. But now I’m ready for something different. So we shift and we morph. And I think my big encouragement to people with any of this work is around, it’s about being adaptable, like having the capacity to be flexible and be adaptable in who you are. Like the the challenge for a lot of men that I work with, is that they’ve been conditioned to live in their warrior. So warrior is an archetype that’s all about doing and, and same for a lot of women in the corporate world. Like it’s, I want to get things done, I want to hit this target, it’s very linear way of thinking, which is great, you know, and it gets things done. And it’s got its value, like all other archetypes, and all other aspects. But where it becomes a challenge is when we’re stuck in that one dimension, and we come home, and we can’t move out of that. And so we’re talking to our kids, like, you know, we’re trying to get projects done, we’re just kind of, again, not able to connect. So I always talk about range, like what is my range. So the warrior is one aspect, again, getting things done, moving in the right direction, setting boundaries, protecting the kingdom, and protecting what’s important in our lives.

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But then there’s other aspects, there’s the lover, which is all about connections, who can connect and those those kinds of work in conflict to one another, but they can also be complementary. So again, the man who comes home from work and is very successful in that warrior role, not being able to shift into lover and being present with his partner and his children, will result in a misalignment and results in a lot of stress and ultimately becomes an issue. So it’s how do we start to practice different parts of ourselves. So from nine to five, maybe I need a lot of warrior, then I go home, maybe I need to tap More into lover. And then when there’s a crisis, I need to move into my king or my sovereign, which is more about the vision for our lives. So it’s, yeah, recognizing different energies, there’s times where you’re gonna want to be the superstar aspect of yourself and that archetype. But if you start going around like that in all of your life, and that’s the only thing you can access, you’re probably gonna piss off your friends, you know? So it’s,

14:46
and, you know, as we talked about at the start, when we’ve received all these messages about who we need to be, that range becomes very small. It’s like, I’m only allowing myself to be this and this or I’m only allowed to be this and this. I’m a people pleaser, and I’m a nice guy.

15:00
That’s fine. But if that’s all I have access to my life is gonna be quite small, quite limited. And I’m gonna limit my vision for myself. So it’s yeah, how am I showing up? And and how do I want to show up? And can I allow myself to to be different?

15:14
And do Matt do, Matt. So this is let’s just talk about the the male mind while we’re on this topic. So everything that you’re obviously you’ve been sharing, obviously, I resonate with deeply, and I know all of my clients that I work with, resonate with. So tell me about the male, I suppose, are we the same? Are we the same?

15:33
Well, as you know, there’s there’s the idea of like masculine and feminine energies. And you know, we all have these energies within us, it’s just different for everyone. So the way I would put it to people is that you know, a man who’s very artistic and maybe very musical, and that kind of archetypal, creative energy is more in the feminine energy with his flow, and there’s chaos, and there’s creativity, and there’s the unknown, and there’s possibility in this flow. Whereas the traditional maybe engineer or I don’t know, accountant is more a much in the masculine, where it’s more directed, it’s more linear. So we all have these, you know, male or female, is it different? I think there’s fundamental differences. You know, ultimately, I think those first years of our lives, and the messages we received become our blueprint for the rest of our lives. The man who was told, don’t feel your feelings. I often tell people that as a boy, I was told boys don’t cry. I also was fearful of being too joyful, because that would lead to being judged and being shaped, you know, you’re probably called gay or something at the time, when you’re a kid, which is a scary thing to be called, if you were too playful to foot, you know, so much being been too much of anything other than I would say, anger was safe to show as a boy, because if I’m angry, you’re not going to mess with me. So anger becomes my default setting. That’s an easy one for me to go to. I’m not saying me personally. But for as men, you know, that’s what a lot of us will have been taught. So I think, you know, again, if that’s the message I received, then I’m going to struggle with my emotions, probably as a man. And if I struggle with my emotions, and recognize my own emotions, that’s in turn gonna help, or sorry, that’s gonna lead me to struggling with other people’s emotions. If I can’t be with my own sadness, when someone else cries, I’m going to quickly grab a box of tissues, and I’m not grabbing the tissues for them. I’m grabbing it for myself, because I don’t feel comfortable. But if I’ve been when I’ve been with my sadness, which I have, I can hold men twice my age in my arms as they sob you know, I work with men that have not cried in 30 years, guys that lost their fathers when they were kids and held all the sadness and grief for losing their childhood because they became the man of the house. Well, I never got never got to cry, you know, and look same for women. We all have our stuff. So it’s, it’s a different. Yeah, it’s different. And, and we’re all human. It’s all about what you said. It’s about alignment. And, for me being aligned is being honest about what I feel. A lot of us as kids, you know, we felt our feelings because our parents maybe didn’t know how to, you know, mentioned a child says I’m scared, they see a spider, I’m scared, I’m scared. And the parent says, Don’t be silly, just a spider, the weird disconnect that happens there where the child feels a feeling. They viscerally feel it in their body, and then the grown up superhero saying, Don’t be silly. So is this disconnection? Can I trust what I feel because the superhero saying that there’s nothing to be fearful of, as opposed to maybe a parent saying I get it makes sense, that is scary, but you’re going to be okay. So I find oftentimes, we relate to our own emotions later in life the same way that our parents maybe or our caregivers related to them. So if you were told, if you felt anxious when you’re young, and someone said, when I was young, I didn’t have time to be anxious. Nobody is an adult, you tell yourself when you feel anxious that you don’t have time to be anxious. So it’s, yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it? Like I think, I think that childhood stuff, like, I mean, I know, we’re talking deep stuff today. And I love this, because, you know, I’ve done the work, and it really is the thing that’s gonna move you forward. But it’s scary. And it’s hard. And you know, what I think I think the biggest shift that people can make is to understand, I always say this to my my people to is like, you’re not a little girl anymore, or not little boy anymore. You know, you get to make your own choices. They’re not there, and you don’t have to please them. And I think as well, like, I know Tony Robbins, love them or hate them. I just remember watching something with him before. And he was saying, you know, we blame our parents for a lot of stuff. But if you’re going to blame them for all the bad stuff, you have to blame them for the good stuff to you have to blame them. You wouldn’t be half the person you are today. If your parents hadn’t done those things, quote, unquote, to you. What do you think about that? Yeah, 100% I work with a client just recently, and there was a lot of resentments toward his father. And so we listed some of the things that he resented about his father. And what I challenged him with, which is a difficult thing to do is to tell me all of the positives that came from those things that he presented, so there’s a resent around the fact that his father worked all the time and said, Give me 10 positives about the fact that your father worked all the time. He said, well, like well, I found I found a hobby in the gym because it didn’t have him to hang out with so went to the gym and the gym ended up being a big influence in my life.

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and I connected with certain friends into my life. So it’s not about making someone’s behavior, right or wrong, it’s just about noticing that, when we look back on our past and we see something as a negative, it’s because we’re only seeing it through the filter of negative. But if we can go back with perspective, we can say, well, there was some probably some positives here too, we can find the public, we can just start to sit, take some of the charge out of it. And the same is true of the reverse, like, you know, a few to back would blissful eyes to your, your, your, I don’t know, coming out of school and traveling the world. And that was the perfect time and I had no stress, you’re looking at it as a positive experience, because you only remember the positive, but there was probably drawbacks as well, your friends that say to home probably started building the career a little bit earlier, there was advantages that so there’s always an upside and a downside, I think to everything. But I definitely agree that you know, taking responsibility is is both sides of the coin, if you’re gonna blame someone, you need to also appreciate, yeah, what they what they did, and none of us would be where we are now. There’s certain aspects of all of our lives that probably we’re not contend with right now. But we have to recognize that everything that has happened in our life has brought us to the position where we are now. So if I work with a client who’s got a business that turns over huge money, and there’s a lot of resentments from the past, in a way, everything that happened, led to where we are now. So now if we can go back and we can heal the wounds, then we can hopefully make peace and enjoy the experience. Now, without that heaviness, you know, and how would you how would you? How would you say somebody could put aside their ego, that’s what I found, like when I when I had to go back and kind of look at, you know, all the things I was blaming my parents for, I had to be a big guard and put my ego to the side and go right, I think that’s the biggest block like if you you know, I was going back to what you said about only seeing things through a negative lens, you’re only going to see it but in order to be open to seeing it in a different way. For me, you’ve got to put aside the ego and put the big girl pants have the big boy pants on and just get ready. But how would you recommend somebody begin to do that? There’s a lot of different ways. One exercise I really like as the starting point is to

22:00
recognize we’re all living in a story. So we all have a story that we’re recreating in our lives. Like, there’s lots of different stories, like have stories about men have stories about women have stories about Irish people’s stories about people in my profession of all these beliefs that are there. But I think deep deep down, there’s one big story that’s running our lives. And an exercise I often give to people is to look back over your life, and to break it down into different chapters. So the first six years of your life, and then the next six, and then the next six, and then the next six all the way up to your current age. And you would rise just in simple language, a couple of lines as to if this was a movie or a book, what was the story, so it’s okay for six years of my life, I’m happy at home, everything’s good. Playing lots of sport, feeling good, got two younger siblings all as well. Next chapter, I started school and bullied on the first day of school, I feel completely unsafe in the world. And you go through all your chapters, and what you’ll often find is that you’re recreating the same narrative again, and again and again. So again, for me in my 20s, I was successful and make good money about a house about a car, I had a great girlfriend, I ticked all the boxes I was supposed to take. But I was still living inside of my seven year old story that I don’t fit in. But I’m not enough that I’m the victim of bullying, all that kind of stuff. So that can be a good exercise to help you recognize that something you decided as a child, without perspective, without context is just being replayed. And whatever you believe you will recreate. It’s an old, it’s an old cliche, but you buy a new pair of shoes, you walk into the city, you’ll start seeing those shoes everywhere, not because they weren’t there before, but because you’re aware of them now because you have them. So we create what we believe. So I think that’s an exercise that can be useful as a starting point to recognize your story.

23:37
And I think that’s really, really, really important. So if you’re multitasking people come back to me, and please listen to our posture said, everything is a story. Everything is a story. You know, you can choose to look at anything in any way and tell a story. And it’s all coming from your beliefs, your values, your conditioning, but you can write a new story at any time. You can choose the right choice, isn’t it?

24:01
Yeah, there’s a there’s a story but a story. But there’s

24:06
there’s this analogy I heard years ago. That’s quite nice. And it’s two kids that came from alcoholic parents. And one of them never drops it drinks a dropper drink in his life. And they asked him, Why do you want to drink? And he says, Well, my father was an alcoholic. And the other fella becomes an alcoholic. And they asked him, How do you become an alcoholic? Because it will my father was an alcoholic. So what else was I going to be? So that’s kind of the idea that ultimately what happens is we have experiences in life, the experience itself is neutral. Like if I go out and I walk on the street and ask a stranger out and they say no to me, I can build a story about rejection. You’re looking from the outside, and we’ll have no emotional attachment to it. So you’re not, you know, so it’s, it’s when we’re emotionally invested in the game when the ego is playing out. So actually another little exercise that that really I think is useful is called the ABCD. And this is for when you’re experiencing stress or resentments or you’re challenged by people or you’re challenged by yourself out there.

25:00
any frustrations ABCD is a journaling practice where A is to write down the activating event. So what happened specifically, that has been the source of what you’re feeling? So you wouldn’t say, I’m stressed because my friend showed up late, you would just go to the activating event, what was it a cat? What would a camera have seen with no emotional investment. So said I will meet my friend or to my friend arrived at 230. So that’s the activating event. And then B is where you figure out the belief. So what did I make that mean? This is the key is recognizing things happen, and we give them meanings. And generally, the meanings are based on our past. I heard a story years ago that when Brad Pitt moved to Hollywood as a young lad, everyone was staring at him. And he had a belief that they were staring because he was ugly.

25:44
Yeah, so a activating event, what happens be, what did you make it mean? So you gave it a meaning. So friends showed up late for lunch, one person might say, Oh, my friends got a lot going on. That might be the belief that they had it. Now the friend might say, my friend doesn’t respect me. And if my belief is my friend doesn’t respect me, it’s probably a deeper narrative that I carry into different relationships in my life. My boss doesn’t respect me, my parent doesn’t respect me. So that’s, so a and b, and then C is figure out what are the consequences. So what happens when I believe the story, my friend doesn’t respect me, while I’m a bit snappy with them, I’m a little bit hostile, I’m not really enjoying the lunch, when they do show up, puts me in bad form the rest of the day, then I take it out my parents, so there are consequences. And then the final piece, which is where the ego gets challenged, is D, which is to dispute dispute. So imagine you’re in court, and the other side of the opposition are fighting for the belief that your friend doesn’t respect you, but you’re fighting for the belief that your friend does respect you. And you’re gonna find all the evidence that makes that true. So they’ve never shown up late before they were there. For me in recent times, when I was struggling, there’d be a list of evidence that your friend does potentially support you. And it’s just, again, it’s not about making someone’s poor behavior, right. It’s about finding perspective. So what happened? What did you make it mean? What are the consequences to that belief? And where’s some evidence that that belief might not be true? I love that ABCD, I’m going to be ABCD and my wage in the next couple of weeks, for sure. So do you know what I’m just thinking that you’re saying that we’ve been talking for about the last half an hour, and you have literally given us the blueprint to break through like you like, guys, I hope you know this, and ladies and men, whoever’s listening, you’ve given us the steps, you’ve given us the tools, literally, you’ve spoken about exactly how to do it. But the problem that I see with a lot of people is they don’t want to do the work. And it’s hard. And it takes you have to set aside time and you have to get serious about it. So how, how can we encourage people like knowing that I know that the benefits and you know, the benefits when you do the work, quote, unquote, are huge? How can we encourage people to do the work, I suppose as practical as possible, I always start with a couple of journaling prompts, like the when I run corporate workshops, I’ll just give a couple of simple exercises. And I’ll say to people, Look, these are free to do do them for two or three weeks, see if it makes an impact if it does, keep doing them. And it’s really simple stuff, I’ll say, for 10 minutes in the morning, or even five minutes, take up pen and paper, write down three priorities you have for the day. And also write down why each of those things are a priority to give it a bit of leverage. Write down three things you’re grateful for. And again, also write why otherwise, it can just be like to do list. I’m just writing down. I’m grateful for coffee. But if you think why am I grateful for each thing? And third question I encourage people ask in the morning is what am I most excited for the day ahead, and it just gives people a chance to be mindful of? Okay, I have a little bit of control here. Rather than looking at my phone. I’m going to start with what am I grateful for? What are my priorities? What am I excited for? And then in the evening, I encourage people to sit down and ask Who did I help today to kind of tune into a bit of contribution? Like have you helped anyone? Now what did I learn today? Kind of Tony Robbins stuff. So you know what, even if it’s the worst day in the world, can I take something positive from it big fight with my partner, I learned how not to tease my partner, whatever it is, and they’ve won in the in the evening, a huge one, I think for building confidence, which I think is something important for us all. I say if if if you’ve got a football game, and there’s parents on the sideline, and one of them is roaring at their kids, whatever the kid does, they’re just given them grief. And they’re expecting more. And they never, never acknowledged kids progress, that child’s self esteem will shrink. If there’s a parent who has the same level of child like the child playing at the same level, and they’re constantly saying, Well done, you didn’t go out you miss, but you get the next one. If there’s that kind of encouragement, that child will grow in confidence. And it’s the same for us. Like you were saying earlier, you know, we grow up we’re not little girls anymore. Not little boys anymore, but I think there’s a part of us like a younger part that’s looking the insecure part in us all is almost like an inner child. And so I think in the evening sitting down and writing down three wins that you had for the day. And again, writing the reason why those things were relevance can help you to just take a few minutes to recognize that your inner critic is going to do a great job of finding everywhere you were wrong everywhere you fell short, everything you’re lacking. So having a conscious practice, I think have recognized your

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where you’re achieving, particularly if there’s one specific area. So let’s say you’re focused on your health, write down three health wins, if you’re focused on your leadership, write down three leadership wins, those would be some some starting points, I think in terms of practical. The other thing I would say is, oftentimes, of course, we’re inspired by either inspiration or desperation. So desperation is things get so bad in life that I say I have to change. Inspiration is I’m just so lit up and so fired up about something that that drives me. And I think a lot of us can easily get caught in the middle where things are fine things are grant. And so I don’t really need to change, I don’t really need to look at that stuff, or whatever. Our way, where you can get leverages to say, if nothing changes in my life, and I don’t lean into this, where will I be in five years, and you’re not gonna be in the same place? Because you’re gonna be five years older? So people think, if I do Lean into the software, could it be in five years, or, you know, say someone’s drinking too much, or they’re having a couple of glasses of wine a couple of nights a week? And they feel it’s maybe it’s grand, but they want to make a change, that kind of question of what’s the impact of this over five years, because the cram for a week, or it’s gone for a month, or it’s gone for a certain period of time. But I think that’s a way of getting leverage and

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recognizing the importance of the work is to, yeah, where will it be in five years? If I do it? Well, maybe in five years, if I don’t, yeah, and you could be dead within those five years. Let’s keep it real. You know, like, I don’t mean to be I’m so blunt. But like a friend of mine, sadly passed away only a couple of weeks ago, she was 43 years old, she was about to qualify as a solicitor, she had gone back to college, she had done what you had said, you know, which I love what you talked about earlier, you don’t you don’t have to be one thing, your whole life, you can change. And now she’s gone from this earth. And I just think it’s a really, it was a really sobering reminder to me, again, you know, when these events happen, like we, we only get one shot. And we’re only here I believe, and I go, I know, I’m quite spiritual, and what I believe we’re only you know, we’re a spirit having a human experience, and we’re here to experience certain things on this earth. And then we go, you know, so it’s, we’re not going to be around forever. So let’s not take this gift of life for granted. And let’s just go and do the work on ourselves. That’s what I think. Yeah, break the cycle to break the patterns. Yeah, break our own cycles and patterns, and maybe break the generational generational thing. Let’s Be The Change breakers. Yeah, and talking about doing the work, you know, if there is resistance to doing the work, and if people had maybe resentments toward the parents, or any of that stuff we touched on earlier, which some people will be the opposite, you know, but if my belief is if you don’t look at that stuff, you will just recreate it with your own kids. You think you will, you will, yeah, that’s powerful. That’s powerful. I don’t know, maybe maybe a bit of a sideline, but the person who says I’m never going to be like my father, or I’m never going to be like, my mother is not in alignment with their own life, because they’re just creating an oppositional identity. They’re just saying, I’m gonna be the opposite, because I don’t like that person. So they’re not choosing who to be in life. They’re just reacting, like job. So you’re just reacting, you know. So that’s what the shadow is. That’s, that’s, that’s choosing okay. I’m not going to be an angry person, or I’m not going to be a don’t choose or you’re not going to be decide who you’re going to be, I think, yeah. And there’s another really powerful exercise. I remember coasted with me before she and she was like, write down all the things you want to be. So I wrote down, I want to be kind, I want to be funny, I want to be smart, I want to be helpful. I wrote and all of these things. And then she, she just turned to me and she went, well, that’s who you really are.

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Because it already lives inside you. That is who you are. And you’re just reconnecting. So I find that’s really powerful. Ask yourself, who do you want to be? And that is actually who you really are. So that really helped me for sure. Yeah, you can take that and you can, you know, make that the journaling practice in the morning. Okay, one of you playful, kind and compassionate. And then you can ask yourself, What’s one thing for each of those traits that I can do today to put that into the real world to turn it from an idea to get there, but maybe it’s dormant in some of us, you know, so the person who who doesn’t want to have to go back to this and pull out all of these amazing journal prompts on Windows episode because there’s some really really powerful stuff here path. Thank you. Okay, so I just want to talk to you a little bit before we finish up about the corporate world and the melee goals and the boys club and all of the masculine energy, the dominance that the intimidation, how can we create more harmony in the corporate world because that is like my ultimate goal with the work I do? Well, this tyrannical piece that we see across like politics and media and corporate and all that kind of stuff. That’s that’s come from the wound of not enough. So we talked about these archetypes earlier on the King, the warrior with the magician and the lovers. So these are different aspects of the male psyche, the warriors, the action taker, the lovers, the part that connects the magician is the strategize or the king or in the female case, the queen. So the sovereign part of us

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when it’s healthy, there’s a belief that we’re enough and so we can be of service. So if I believe I’m enough, I can be of service to the world. But the wound that comes in as young boys or teenagers what

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Whatever it might be, is I’m not enough. And when the belief is I’m not enough, there’s two ways you can respond. One way is you deflate, and you almost collapse, and you become the weakling. And so this is the person who gives their power away and puts people on pedestals. So I’m waiting for the government to save me, I’m waiting for, you know, whatever I’m looking outside of myself, the opposite of that is the tyrant. So the Tyrant is the person who deep down believes they’re not enough. But they’re going to do everything in their power to make you believe that they are enough. So they’ll hold power over other people. So that’s ultimately what we’re seeing is tyrannical behavior that likes certain politicians. You know, true power is obviously a connection to ourself a connection to our vision. So I think again, it comes down to the individuals doing the work, unfortunately, or fortunately, it will be a very different world, you know, politically, socially, culturally, if the people that are in charge, and up there were actually healing their wounds. And how would you recommend like, sorry to interrupt us while we’re on the flow of that? If I’m working in the corporate world, and I’m dealing with somebody who has that tyrannical behavior, either male or female? Because we’re talking about this, like more masculine energy? Right? How would you recommend like, what do they need to hear that person to calm down?

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You are enough? Yeah, imagine humor enough that?

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What do they need to hear? I’m not sure is that is the answer. Like, I’m just wondering, like, imagine if you’re in a meeting, and this person is, you know, obviously, they’re in their chimp mode, you know, they’re all activated and all aggressive. How would you recommend somebody deals with that kind of energy? Well, across the board with communication, when one person gets activated, it creates activation in the other person. So I think the first thing is recognizing that in ourselves. So ultimately, what’s happening is we’re adults. And when the child in US gets fearful or wounded, so the the corporate person has been a tyrant, ultimately, what’s happened there is there’s a wounded part of them, that is fearful that they’re not enough, and you’re gonna see that. And so then there’s a part that is a protective part, which is the tyrant that’s gonna do everything in its power to keep the little boy safe in that man. And so when he goes to tyrant, if the little girl and you are the little boy, and you then get scared, and you go to your defense strategy, which for some people is to be a people pleaser, and to give into him, and to just like bow down to him, for others is to be confrontational and to get into comfort, so we all have our own defensive patterns. So I would say part of it is recognize your own pattern. So how do you relate to authority? Or how do you relate to people in power that demonstrate those kinds of tendencies? What is your strategy? So how do you usually show up so for me, oftentimes, when people get like that, my, my, my default setting is to appease and to shrink and to become a people pleaser. So in terms of how I communicate consciously, I think my work is to stay grounded, and to stay in my adult self and not revert back to those defense strategies and be present and be able to communicate clearly not from a place of reaction, but from a place of grounding. So it’s taking breath, taking a few breaths, feeling my feet on the ground, communicating clearly. And ultimately, what you’re doing there is you’re giving the other person a chance to step back into adult because if you meet that, if you meet them with defensive strategy, then you’re just going into back and forth. So it’s slowing things down, taking a breath, communicating, obviously, you know, communication, a lot of it’s about communicating my feelings, I feel, I feel overwhelmed. When I hear this, as opposed to you made me feel overwhelmed. If we start pointing fingers, it’s about this is what I feel when this happens in work. This is what I need in order for me to feel appreciate it, would it be possible, so it’s demonstrating, okay, this is what it felt, this is what I need, and then making a request. That will be some of the pieces I would love to love that. Love that. And I think it’s really important to to remember, it’s not about you, it’s all about them. And that own heals that wounded part of themselves. So I think that’s really, really, really good advice. Okay, Pat. So thank you so much for being on the show. There are so many, I just love the depth of this conversation. So thank you for bringing the steps to the show. Before we finish up, I would love to just ask you a couple of questions that I ask all of my guests. The first one is what is the best piece of advice you have ever received? One of them even one of them?

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Oh gosh, I don’t know if it was like one specific word. But my father, I was just kind of, I remember him telling me when I was younger, just about keeping my circle small, like having a small group of real friends, you know, keep my head down, do my work, not getting caught up in rubbish and maths and stuff like that was more of a kind of, I guess my father’s advice was just to live a simple life and to be a good person. So it’s quite cliche, and it’s quite basic. But as I get older, I see the value in that because my 20s were caught up caught up and trying to be somebody and all that kind of stuff and definitely much more comfortable in my own skin now with trying to live a simpler life. So I think that that’s kind of a don’t get caught up in trying to impress people. Yeah. And what about a piece of advice viewer lying on your deathbed now and you had one last thing to say to people what would you say? I come

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was down to my beliefs. Again, my belief similar to what you mentioned earlier is we come into this world and we have an experience. And

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I think life is about collecting lessons. So experiences come to you. And we were all sent here to learn different lessons in this lifetime. And if you learn the lesson, you get to experience more lessons. If you don’t, you just keep repeating the same loops in your life. But what I would tell people, I don’t know this to be true, but I believe that we’ll just kind of come back and do it all again. So take the pressure off yourself, stop trying to be perfect, stop trying to do everything, stop trying to allow yourself to make mistakes, allow yourself to fail, allow yourself to change. That’s probably my advice, actually allow yourself to change. You don’t have to be who you were. You’re a dynamic individual, you have got energy that you can express in a million different ways. So don’t get caught in. Yeah, don’t get caught in a box. Pass. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Tell us where can people find you. passively.com is my website. And I’m trying to get better on LinkedIn. So following your lead on LinkedIn, so everyone come over to LinkedIn connect a pass and WE GET and POST loads of content soon. What about Instagram? Are you still on Instagram or not so much? Yeah, yeah, I’m on Instagram as well. Yeah, I have an interesting relationship with social media. You kind of have to do it, don’t you? But it’s, yeah, it’s trying to navigate to be honest ways of doing it a way that I enjoy that can also be of help you know? Exactly, exactly. Well, listen, we link Pat’s website in the show notes page. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you