Episode 106–I'm Back! (with a Special Guest!)

That's right, ladies and gentlemen...I’m back! And this time I brought with me my best good friend, the always entertaining Matt Hazard! 

I can’t even begin to explain how awesome it feels to be back. I’m beyond grateful to have this opportunity to help the listeners of this show navigate the complexities and possibilities of life's second half (and even help you with your travel plans)!

Tune in each week as I share how practicing intentional and mindful living over the last ten years has helped me navigate the trials, tribulations, and successes of my own midlife crisis. Being more intentional and mindful has helped me process my ruminating thoughts, anxiety, and stress in a much healthier way by reducing my emotional reactivity and impulsive behavior, which in turn has helped me improve my relationships and communication with others as well as be more consistent, disciplined, patient, and productive in meeting my goals.

If you liked this episode, check out these episodes as well:

• Episode 9--Billy & Brian Discuss the Emotionally Mature Male Brain (Part 3 of The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine)
• Episode 78--Billy Recaps Season 6 with His Best Good Pal Matt Hazard of The Brute Squad!
• Episode 79--Morning Routines for a Successful 2023
• Episode 87--How Renting a Scooter (Almost) Gave Me an Anxiety Attack

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Check out Luvo Calming Guided Meditation on Google Play and App Store
• https://ezvasectomy.com/
• Gen X Jukebox - https://www.instagram.com/genxjukebox/

All of our episodes are available at www.mindfulmidlifecrisis.com

Join us for Meditate & Mingle!

Interested in working with Billy or learning more about mindfulness?  Set up an Exploration Call! 

Get a free week of BetterHelp using Billy's referral code!

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Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Topics? Email Billy at mindfulmidlifecrisis@gmail.com.  

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Transcript

Billy: Coming up on The Mindful Midlife Crisis

Matt:  I'll be a good guinea pig for you to see if I can start to practice mindfulness in a more meaningful way in my life and report back to our listeners about how that is impacting my life in a positive way, hopefully, right yeah.

Billy:  And I think that'll be good feedback for me too, because if you can't get your shit together, then like who am I going to be able to help? But I mean, you're a little bit further along in the lost cause world, but I think, like if I can help you, I think really what I'm saying is I can help anybody.

Matt:  So you're saying I am literally the worst-case scenario. What an asshole. Hey, great job, great job, coaching, way to start, way to start us from a good spot.

Welcome to The Mindful Midlife Crisis, a podcast for people navigating the complexities and possibilities of life's second half. I'm your host, Billy Lahr, an educator, personal trainer, meditation teacher and overthinker who talks to experts who specialize in social and emotional learning. Mindfulness, physical and emotional wellness, cultural awareness, finances, communication, relationships, dating, and parenting all in an effort to help us better reflect, learn, and grow so we can live a more purpose-filled life.

Take a deep breath, embrace the present, and journey with me through The Mindful Midlife Crisis. 

Billy:  Welcome to The Mindful Midlife Crisis. I'm your host, Billy Lahr. Thank you for tuning in wherever you are. That's right, baby, I'm back, guess who's back. Back again, Billy's back. Tell a friend guess who's back. Guess who's back. Guess who's back, guess who's back. Just like the greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan said after coming back from his early retirement, I'm back. I've got those two words for you and I'm excited to continue helping you navigate the complexities and possibilities of Life's second half. Can I get a Ric Flair? Yes, it's good to be back behind the microphone because I love helping you guys out there. I love doing this kind of thing. I've got this new, no-BS GPS guide Defining more purpose and passion in your life that I'm gonna share with you, because I am so sick and tired of people telling you to follow your passions, because that is complete and utter nonsense. Purpose and passion are destinations, not starting points. So if you need some help getting you moving in the right direction, I want you to join me over at the Mindful Midlife Community at www.mindfulmidlifecrisis.com, and you can get my free six-step roadmap To living your life with more purpose and passion. That's what I've been working on the last few months when I took this break. It feels good, though, to once again share how practicing intentional and mindful living over the last 10 years has helped me navigate the trials, tribulations and successes of my own Midlife crisis, which I'm still navigating a bit too, but being more intentional and mindful has helped me process my ruminating thoughts by anxiety, my little stress levels, in a much healthier way, by reducing my emotional reactivity and impulsive behavior, all of which are on high alert oftentimes. But in turn, you know, doing that has helped me improve my relationships and communication with others, as well as be more consistent, disciplined, patient and productive in meeting my life goals. And I always laugh at this, because people will say to me Billy, you seem like you're a bit high-strung, seem like you're a bit too intense, a little too high anxiety to be a mindfulness coach, and all those things are true. I am not your average mindfulness coach sipping green tea and meditating on top of a mountain. I am. I'm all those things high anxiety, high intensity, high energy. But I practice mindfulness so that I can be this level of obnoxious, because if I didn't, I would be an out of control asshole. But these are the same skills and strategies and resources I use in my own personal life, based on years of research and experimentation, so I can seize more days in the second half of my life and and like I've said here, there are still days when I'm a hot mess. But my hope is that by sharing my experiences, as well as the experiences of my guests, you'll see that you are not alone in your experience. So if you're looking for a way to better navigate whatever you've got going on these days, visit www.mindfulmidlifecrisis.com. Join the Mindful Midlife community and let me be your GPS, defining more purpose and passion in your life. First of all, now that I got through all that, I just want to thank each and every single one of you who continue to listen to the show, who found the show while I was releasing the meditations. I hope you found those meditations valuable. I hope you found those meditations useful. I'm taking them off of the podcast platform Because I just want to go right back to episodes if you're like. But wait, where do I find those? You can go to The Mindful Midlife Crisis YouTube page. All those meditations are there. Or you can join the Meditate and Mingle sessions. I'll talk about those a little bit too, but you know it was hard for me to take three months off from the show, but I needed that time away to just regroup after traveling around Asia for nine straight months. I didn't drive a car for nine months. That is mind-blowing to me as an American to not drive a car for nine months. The only time that I ever drove was when I drove that scooter, which was that's episode 87, if you want to hear more about that which was me overcoming my fear, that's for sure. But it's been an incredible two-year odyssey and I'm looking forward to sharing more experiences with you moving forward. But I also recognized when I came back just how much I needed to step away from the show because I was experiencing burnout in a lot of areas in my life. So I listened to my body and I listened to my heart and I listened to my mind and I decided to press pause on the recorder. But, like I said, damn it feels good to be back behind the microphone. Not only that, but after listening to some of the solo episodes, I realized that not all of those are good. They sound kind of flat, they're a little bit boring, they didn't have the same pop, they didn't have the same energy and I missed the chemistry between my good friend Brian on the bass and me. And you know Brian is still out living his rock and roll dreams with Gen X Jukebox. And if you're not following Gen X Jukebox on the social medias, make sure you do that. You can go ahead and multitask just for this short moment, unless you're driving, then don't, please don't. But give Gen X Jukebox a follow on the Instagrams and the Facebooks and the TikToks. And also, if you're going to follow him, you might as well follow me too at mindful underscore midlife underscore crisis on Instagram, because that would make me happy. And I want to hear from you because I missed you, just like I missed my brand new co-host. I wanted to bring some life back to the show, so I reached out to a dear friend of mine and asked him to be my Ed McMahon. He said he preferred our senior. I told him to shut up and do what he's told. So I'm very, very excited to welcome back to the show my brand new co-host. You know him from the season recap episodes the always entertaining, the one, the only, Matt Hazard. Matt, what do you have for us today?

Matt:  Like a fool, I went and stayed too long. And now I'm wondering if you love still strong. Oh baby, here I am, signed. See you delivered, I'm yours, I'm yours.

Billy:  Oh my God, I'm seriously, Matt Hazard. Your voice could bring tears to my eyes every single time. I love love when you serenade me. Thank you so much for coming back to the show. Thank you for agreeing to be my co-host. After that deadbeat, Brian on the base decided to be all basie and base all over the place.

Matt:  Yes, sir you are correct sir; you said Ed McMahon.

Billy:  I don't think our senior had a co-host.

Matt:  Now that I think about, it, it was just the dog pound, right? Oh, that's right. Over here in the dog pound are all my people who, whatever, whatever they were doing, that they were doing.

Billy: That's right. That's right. Arsenio could just carry the show by himself. He was great. That is what separates me from Arsenio. I'm just so happy. I'm so happy to see you. You got a lot going on these days and we're actually going to talk about that in next week's episode, so make sure that you tune in for that. I think it's going to be a really powerful episode for a lot of you to tune into. I'm so happy that you're here because, a I miss your face every single day and, b I needed to laugh more when I was doing the show and not laugh at myself, because that's what crazy people do.

Matt:  And boy, I listened to those episodes. Billy, when you laugh at yourself, you sound like a crazy person. So it's good. It's good. I'm glad that I'm here. I really do appreciate it. I'm so glad that you asked me to do this, so I feel very honored for the opportunity and I'm excited to see what the show becomes.

Billy:  Yeah, me too. It's good to have you back. It's good to actually be back in Minnesota. To some extent, it's been a weird three months. If I'm being honest, I think the biggest highlight for me was, after months of over promising and under delivering, I finally launched my intro to mindfulness course back in August. I launched it on my birthday. I'm still leading these meditate and mingle sessions. They used to be called the virtual mindfulness sessions. I changed it to meditate and mingle because that's really what we're doing. We're just meditating for about 10 to 15 minutes and I'm leading through a guided practice. It's not just people sitting looking at the zoom screen and not saying anything to each other. It's a guided practice. So if that's something that you're interested in, I do those every Monday evening at 8 pm, central time. If you want more information about that, click on the show notes. You can click on the link there for meditate and mingle. I'm also leading these live guided practice sessions on the luvo app, l-u-v-o. I do that every Wednesday at 8 pm, central. If you don't know what luvo is, it's a self care app with a daily tracker for water intake, step count, sleep analysis, gratitude and mood balance. Not only that, but you can even join live sessions with real coaches. Like me, I'm leading those live sessions. They also have live yoga sessions, live healthy eating seminars, live gratitude practices, and it's all completely free. It's pretty great. There's no catch to it. The developer is this wonderful man named Sanjib Nandi, and he's designed this app to help you feel happier, healthier and loved. So if you're looking for a way to track your overall well-being and access resources to live your best life, download the luvo app. And no, I was not paid to say that. I just think it's a really fine app and I just want you to check that out. Things have also been a bit complicated. Since I've been back, I've dealt with more rejection than I anticipated when I came back. Matt Hazard, here's a question for you. Okay, have you ever had anyone end a relationship with you because they said to you that they don't find you attractive? Not that they thought that, but they said I just don't find you attractive.

Matt:  No, no, it's never happened to me Now. Now, Billy, I will say I've had relationships not start under those circumstances a lot of times.

Billy: Yeah, I'm gonna tell that story later down the road, because it all deals with rejection and I think navigating rejection is something that we should all learn. But I'll tell you that I almost wish that maybe I had done something like truly revolting, like run over her cat, or you know, she doesn't have a cat but like something like that, where I could be like oh yeah, I can understand why you'd be upset, but having this, that that ambiguous, I don't think I'd have find you attractive. Oh my god, that was a.

Matt:  Billy, I find you attractive.

Billy:  Well, I appreciate that, and I find your beard attractive.

Matt:  It's very bushy right now. I got to take it down for a said life event coming up here but yeah, right now it's. I'm on about five weeks of my six week. I hit a barber every six weeks to clean it up, and it is a mess right now, sir, but do you shampoo it?

Billy:  How would you do for self care for that beard?

Matt:  So I have for my beard care regimen. I have a wash and then I use beard oil, because so I have a wash for the shower that I use probably twice or three times a week at most, because otherwise you can dry it out, and then I actually have a beard oil that I will also use kind of on opposing days to kind of remoisturize. But it's not a huge care regimen or anything like that, it's just I don't shampoo and condition it though, like I do with my head hair.

Billy:  I think I have talked about this before, but I can't grow a beard because I have patches on my face. So in my 20s, I did have a sole patch. It wasn't Scott Ian length, but I did think that that was cool. But now when I look at old photos of me with that sole patch, I'm like, oh, that was not cool. When I was 15, I also had a rat tail. So I have had some questionable. Wait a minute. When you were in high school, didn't you have like really long hair After high school?

Matt:  Yeah, I was 21, 22 and I grew it out to about 17 or 18 inches long, because I know, because I donated it when I cut it off and it was long, curly like a solid wave, like Fabio kind of curl.

Billy:  Yeah, it was a good look.

Matt:  It was for a man who's six foot four and pretty like. At the time I was as unhealthy, I was probably 275 pounds or so and that was not a great look. I see pictures of that now and it's very cringy Like why did I not have success with women so bizarre?

Billy:  I feel like those lifestyle choices and like my rat tail and the landing strip that I had and your long hair. I think that would be reason enough for someone to say I just don't find you attractive, and then we would be managing those feelings of rejection then as well. And I just think like there's a lot of emotional growth that can come out of rejection, even though it sucks and it can sabotage us and jade us in a way that could potentially rob us of enjoying what is around us and who is accepting us, and we definitely do not want to push those moments or those people away because we're projecting our feelings of rejection onto them. So we'll come back to that in a later episode sometime. I think that idea of rejection and not only that, but I also endured some professional rejection here too that I want to talk about as well in that episode. Also, speaking of rejection, my summer living situation fell through. Now, matt Hazard, I want to say thank you because you did offer me a place to stay when I came back to the States. I did not accept. I was able to figure out a situation, but that was very, very kind of you to offer me the room. That you did. I'm sorry I didn't take you up on that offer, but I'm not a fan of young kids.

Matt:  That's understandable. I'm also not a fan of young kids and I have two of them, so I get it. Especially my own kids. I love them dearly, but there are days where I'm like, could I not have these right now, in the moment? I think every parent has that at times. That's the thing.

Billy:  I just want parents to be honest about it, like I get it. Being a parent, I know it's magical and I know it's rewarding, but be honest, not every day is all the time every day. Yeah, yeah, you know, every child is like a star in the shining sea, as Louis CK once said. No, some kids suck. Yeah, yeah.

Matt:  And well, the thing is, I think for a parent, it's important to note like I feel rewarded as a parent every day. There's a moment every day where I'm like this was a great moment, that you know, my son said something to me that just struck an incredible chord. But then sometimes there's four straight hours where I'm like can I just not be here? Could I just? I just need space, I just need to go away and not see these people, for these tiny terrorists, for a little while.

Billy:  Oh, my God, oh man. So here let me ask you this I was in this situation where I actually had to go back and stay with my dad for the month of July because when I landed from Seoul after this long flight, I arrived at my buddy's house thinking that I was going to be house sitting for him for the next two months, and there was already someone there and I was like, oh hello, how does that happen and that was, there was a communication breakdown, and when I walked in and it was a woman and so I imagined that that that was unsettling that a strange man walked into the house and was like, hi, I'm here because I'm friends with my buddy Roli. And she was like, yeah, he mentioned that you might be stopping by, but he wasn't sure if you were going to. And I'm like, oh, okay, well, and who are you? So, needless to say, that situation did not work out and I went and stayed with my dad Not my ideal living arrangement, but my dad is an amazing cook, so I can't complain too much. Let me ask you this when your kids go, are they gone? Are they gone for good? If they come back at 46, are you going to be like, hey, what's up?

Matt:  Well, I'll be 81. That's if the older one is 46. That said, I feel like my kids will always be welcome in my home, whether or not that is like an extended period of time. You need a week, you need a month to crash. You're always welcome here. If you want to move back home in your thirties or something, get your shit together, man. Figure it out.

Billy:  Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm doing now is I'm figuring out, trying to get my shit together, and I don't want to run into a situation where I have children move in with me when they're 46. So I went ahead and got myself a little vasectomy Sweet. I've seen this how I have no desire to have a children of my own and it was a painless procedure actually, because I did that no scalpel, no suture procedure that Brian on the base talked about in episode 9 and has actually told the story to each of us at least a dozen times. I have heard that story about the doctor performing a magic trick on his balls Mm-hmm, yeah, how many times Because we've heard that story a lot.

Matt:  Yeah, I've heard it at least three times personally. Yeah, at least, yeah minimum.

Billy:  Yeah Well, there is no magic trick performed on my boys, but if you're interested, it really was painless. I was up and moving about the next day. I didn't need to sit on peas or anything like that. It's wwwezvesectomycom, so the letter is ezvesectomycom. Dr Shue, he's the man. I really enjoyed him and that's weird to say.

Matt:  Yeah, did he grab your balls, and that's why you enjoyed him.

Billy:  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw, that is it. That isn't why I enjoyed him that isn't why I enjoyed him. I thought he was very professional. No, I believe you, he was very, if you're in Minneapolis, if you're in the Twin Cities area, if you're in Minnesota or if you're in Florida. I think he goes back and forth and he does those and he's got a very gentle touch. It's great, it's good. But I will say this there was that 0.1% of me that thought maybe I want to save some sperm or maybe I want to keep the boys, in case I want to have kids. But I'll save that story for another day too. I know some people out there tune into this podcast because they like to know where I am in the world. Obviously, I am currently back in Minnesota, but by the time this episode comes out, I will be somewhere new, and I'm keeping that a secret for right now. So stay tuned and you will find out where I am in the world In the meantime. Yeah, yeah, that's what we call a teaser in the biz Intrigue. In the meantime, if any of you are traveling to any of the places I visited the last two years, like Portugal, spain, puerto Vallarta, korea, thailand, singapore, vietnam or Japan not bragging Please reach out to me and I'll help you navigate your travel plans, because I love doing that kind of thing. I like sharing my experiences from those places, especially Korea, which is still very near and dear to my heart. I had a friend of a friend reach out to me because she and her son were doing a two week trip to Japan and Korea, so I helped them plan out their stay in Seoul. And my new friend, edgar, who I met in Hanoi back in February, was taking a trip to both Japan and Korea, but he was trying to cram way too much in too little of time, so I gave him some advice on what to cut out and what to prioritize when he was in Japan and Korea. I just love having those conversations, so feel free to reach out to me. I think I have my little Calendly link and you can schedule a call with me in the show notes, so feel free to take a look at that. Like I said, I like helping people plan out their adventures, not only in travel but in life as well, which is why I've committed myself to this intentional living coaching not necessarily mindfulness coaching, but intentional living and here's what I mean by that. When I look back on when I have been both successful and mentally at ease content, it's been because I have been intentional around my daily routines and how I structure my time. I talked about that in the daily routines episode. I've done so many episodes now that I can't remember what the numbers are, which bums me out because I used to have them all memorized, like some freak that just had this rain man memory.

Matt:  You’re a savant. You’re a savant.

Billy:  Well, thank you, I appreciate that. Yet another reason why I have brought you on to the show is because words of affirmation are my love language and you often fill my love bucket. Don't get cute with that. So I'll tell you this that when you structure your time, that doesn't mean you need to be completely rigid, but it does mean you need to be consistent, disciplined, patient and self-compassionate. So, moving forward, my plan is to share my roadmap for finding your purpose and passion in life because, like I said at the beginning of the show and like I've said a bunch of times before, this whole idea of follow your passions is just complete bullshit and it drives me bonkers when people talk about follow your passions. If you don't believe me, I just want you to know that in the last three months, I've had a lot of conversations with executive coaches who work with high performing CEOs, and every single one of them has agreed that follow your passions is ridiculous. Passions is not a starting point, nor is it a lighthouse guiding your path. Passion is a destination. So, again, if you want to learn more about how to arrive at your passion, go to wwwmindfulmidlifecrisiscom for your free NoBS GPS to finding purpose and passion in your life, and be sure to tune in week after week, because I'm going to be sharing tips and strategies about how to manage your ruminating thoughts, your anxiety and your stress in a much healthier and productive way, so we can pave a path towards living more intentionally and mindfully. How does that sound to you, Matt Hazard?

Matt:  I mean it sounds really nice. The one thing I will say that always makes me think of the following your passion thing. I agree it's utter nonsense. I think that people have proclivities towards the things that you have a talent for. So I found out at a very young age that I could sing and people would tell me, hey, you can sing. And then that made me want to sing more. And something I'm dealing with my kids a lot right now is like, hey, you got to put 10,000 hours in at something that you want to be really good at If you want to have this passion. That 10,000 hours thing I think is very real and you've got to have that time. And my daughter thinks she's a good singer. Right now she can hold a tune at seven, but she's not a good singer because she's not, it's just a fact. She just hasn't had that 10,000 hours. Now people are telling her she's a good singer and I'll tell her that too, because I want her to hear that she has a natural talent for it, she has an ear, she can hold pitch, she has some power in her vocal. So I encourage that because then go put that 10,000 hours in and see if that's a passion for you and if you have no interest in it after 200 hours, then that wasn't meant to be. And it's not a passion you know. It's a talent that you have that you naturally progress toward. That's the first thing that I think of when I think of following your passion. If everybody could follow their passions, everybody would be in an astronaut. It's not a realistic thing. Follow things that you have a talent for and then see if you can create passion for that.

Billy:  Yeah. And so just to kind of tell people what's in this no BS GPS guide to purpose and passion For me, like I said, purpose and passion are destinations. I kind of look at purpose as your home and passion as your vacation home, if you want to think of them as destinations, like that. So how do we find purpose? We find purpose by understanding and accepting what our current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are, and then we explore our curiosities. So we just kind of seek out what is it that I'm curious about? What do I want to learn more about? And then we find the people who are going to amplify those curiosities and seek those curiosities with us and who synergize with us. And synergize maybe a word that I never thought that I would use, but I feel like that's the same as chemistry, right? That's why I like doing the show with you, that's why I like doing the show with Brian. On the base we had good chemistry, we had good synergy and we were able to amplify the message, and that then turned into this purpose of helping people navigate the complexities and possibilities of life's second half. But we had to be consistent with our purpose. We needed to be disciplined with our purpose, we needed to be patient and we needed to be self compassionate. I mean, we put out episodes week after week after week, and we did that for free and I edited those episodes for free. My definition of passion is if you're not willing to dedicate the next eight weekends and do that thing for free, then it's just a hobby and we need to stop conflating hobbies with passions. In order to turn your purpose into passion, you need consistency, you need discipline, you need patience and you need self compassion. So that's what I'm working on, that's what I'm providing people. That's what we're going to be talking about in the show is how to foster those things, how to cultivate those things, and an easy step for you, an easy gateway into all of that, is to join me on Monday evenings at 8pm, central Time for Meditate and Mingle, where I lead a small group through a short guided practice that focuses on foster and curiosity, openness, compassion, awareness, gratitude, acceptance and non-judgment, and really my purpose there, too, is to demystify what it means to be mindful, demystify and simplify and make it applicable and practical this idea of mindfulness. And then we followed up with a discussion around how to best use that practice moving forward in your life and if you're listening outside of North and South America, you can either do the time zone math yourself or shoot me a message and request a meditate and mingle session In your time zone. I would love to lead a meditate and mingle session with you wherever you are in the world, and here's the thing I invite you all to join, because you are not alone and there is strength in numbers. We want to find our community. Community is a big part of this idea of finding a purpose and exploring our curiosities. So if you want to be part of that community, go to wwwmyofamilylifecrisiscom. Join the Myofamily Life community and let me be your GPS, defining purpose and passion in your life. And listen. If you're skeptical about this whole mindfulness thing, I get it. I'm sure you're tired of people telling you to be more mindful because it's overused by people who have no idea what that actually means and they want to sound fancy. But again, my goal is to demystify mindfulness for you so that it feels more practical. Mindfulness is simply being aware of the present moment without judgment. You don't need to sit cross-legged on top of a mountain or along a riverbank to practice mindfulness. You can practice mindfulness by taking three deep breaths in and out through the nose before getting out of your car and heading into work. Today, in fact, if you're listening to this episode on your way to work, that's something I want you to do. That's a little something, something that you can do to bring a little bit of mindful moment to your day. Just bring awareness to what thoughts, feelings and emotions are present and allow them to just be. No need to judge them, no need to label them. Just see them for what they are, observe them and in doing so, you'll tune into what's going on with you in the present moment, which will provide the space for you to respond as opposed to react. And if you remember to take those three mindful breaths and just sit with what is present multiple times throughout the day, congratulations. You are practicing mindfulness and that is also intentional living. And if that feels good and you want more strategies like that to feel even just a little bit better, let me guide you through that process so you can reflect, learn and grow. Anything you want to add, matt Hazard.

Matt:  Yeah, so I actually was thinking about that this morning to Sunday, because I am terrible at. I know, for example, that I need to stretch every day because of the type of workouts that I do in order to keep myself fit without pain in my body, I need to be stretching more and if I took 15 minutes a day to do it, I would feel great. And I don't, I just don't do it. And I thought about that this morning. I was walking my dogs. I walk my dogs almost a mile every single morning and I turn the corner at the end of the block and I looked up and it was that red sky, sunrise oh yeah, clouds and it was so striking to me and I knew I was going to be doing the episode today and I just stopped and stood and took about five deep breaths and spent a moment kind of thinking about where I was, what I was doing, what the day was going to bring, all of the things that are going on in my head right now. And it took 15 seconds and it was like this kind of resetting moment and I knew that it was going to be. You feel better every time. You do that categorically and I never take the time to do that, and it was only because I knew I was going to be doing this episode today that I actually stopped. I would have noticed the sunrise anyway, but taking that moment and just kind of reflecting and like God, how beautiful is that. In that moment I think that I need to be the. I'll be a good guinea pig for you to see if I can start to practice mindfulness in a more meaningful way in my life and report back to our listeners about how that is impacting my life in a positive way, hopefully, right yeah.

Billy:  And I think that'll be good feedback for me too, because if you can't get your shit together, then like who am I going to be able to help? But I mean, you're a little bit further along in the lost cause world, but I think, like if I can help you, I think really what I'm saying is I can help anybody.

Matt:  So you're saying I am literally the worst case scenario. What an asshole. Hey, great job, great job, coaching, way to start, way to start us from a good spot.

Billy:  I kid it because I care and because I love you more than most people in my life. So I love you too, buddy. Thank you, fella, I appreciate that. And listen, if you're like Matt and you're trying to bring more awareness into your life and you're trying to be more mindful and you're trying to be more intentional, I just want you to remember this that progress is not linear and our growth looks more like the stock market. Some days were up, some days were down. I lost a bunch of money in the stock market today, but I'm not pulling my money out of the stock market right now, and here's the thing. I'm not going to reap the benefits for a while. But if I play that long game, if we play that long game and we're consistent, disciplined, patient and self-compassionate, you're going to see that the stock market always bounces back, and so can you. So if this episode inspired you to invest in yourself in a new way, please do me a favor and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. I would also greatly appreciate it if you would share this episode with the people in your life who may find some value in it. Remember, the purpose of the show is to help you navigate the complexities and possibilities of life's second half and I hope this free and useful information provides some insight that will help you reflect, learn and grow so you can jumpstart your life. So for Matt Hazard…

Matt:  That's me! 

Billy:  This is Billy. Thank you for listening to The Mindful Midlife Crisis. May you feel happy, healthy, and loved. 

Take care, friends.

Matt:  Bye.