083 - Prevent Burnout by Living Your Purpose with Bunny Young

Welcome everybody. Today, I am pleased to introduce you to Bunny Young Bunny Young is a stuntwoman turned businesswoman. And I mean, how else would you start a than that? That's pretty cool. That's that's good. That's the show right there.

Thank you for coming out. I got a chance to speak with her in the interview. And really. Was impressed by how clear she is about what she's doing, how powerfully she's moving through the world and doing it on her terms. So a lot of what we're going to talk about today is preventing burnout by living your purpose, but also going to allow the conversations we usually do to go where it goes, because I think she just has so much to offer.

So first of all, thank you for joining us. Welcome, Bunny. Well, absolutely.

I hope I have stuff to offer for you listeners.

You'll do great. I'm going to really quickly read the bio here, and I just like to read bios. Keep it simple. After being diagnosed with a heart condition at an early age and depending on the service dog for a higher quality of life, he focuses on using each day to fully deliver our purpose within the world. She founded her company, A Better Place Consulting, to empower and educate businesses and organizations about the impact of work life alignment. Money coaches, business owners to overcome adversity and combat, personal and employee burnout.

It's not uncommon to find her keynoting in the morning with a Fortune 500 company and ending the day teaching burnout, prevention to law enforcement, military and correctional officers and a world of covid and uncertainty, Bunny is being sought out nationally to speak on personal wellness. And like I said, I really think you're going enjoy this. So thank you again for joining us. What I want to do is just first start out, maybe share a little bit about your story of how you got into this and what led you down to sort of this path and get involved in this work.

So that's a very long story that takes you from birth to today, and that's basically anybody's story of how you answer the question of how you got here today.

You can't answer that question without, of course, evaluating each and every experience and good, bad and indifferent that you've had. And so I thought I wanted to be anything other than an entrepreneur actually had this conversation with my daughter this weekend because she said when I was her age, what did I want to be? And I wanted to be president. For those of you listening, that is no longer anywhere close to my aspiration of being president of the United States.

So it's the permission that my parents gave me to kind of fail and fail forward and fail hard. And I said I wanted to go to college. I took it to as far as I could at that time in college and got a Masters degree. I wanted to help people. I wanted to be a therapist. And I still am a licensed therapist. But I found that the people on my couch were complaining more about their lack of trust in themselves and their jobs and their lack of feeling like they were valued at work.

And so what I decided to do was to leave the safety of my office and go into these companies and help the companies empower individuals to trust themselves and empower individuals to fulfill their value. And I couldn't find a job that necessarily outlined that. And so I made one and then I made several others and I just found my daughter. And I watched this little cute robot film that the robot says, find a need, fill a need. And that's her joke.

That that's that's me. That's my own family's entire joke is when we go on vacation, if I find some kind of gap between what's provided and what's needed, I'm making another company. So currently I have five, including a nonprofit. And it's it's a beautiful thing to be able to have the gift. I think that's one of the things I was given of being able to to start things. I'm definitely the visionary, though. Wade told you I start stuff and then there's amazingly detailed, organized people that come in behind me that finish the work.

And I do it until it no longer serves. I believe that I'm serving it and it's serving me. But that's also what led me to the kind of hours that I work is I needed something that served my lifestyle, my health condition and my family. So there's a couple things there that you said that I really liked, first of all. A lot of people use this term serial entrepreneur and nine times out of ten, when somebody tells me they're a serial entrepreneur, it means that they've started a bunch of stuff had failed.

They jumped on to something else or they're about to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge or just, you know, sort of shady stuff. And there's this term I've been hearing more recently called being multi passionate, which is great business. Obviously not great if you're married.

Don't be multi passionate there, but or at least tell them if you leaving in whatever great marriage advice on the list. Anyway, what I found is I listen to Seth Godin on there was a talk or something, but he talked about being a freelancer and he said it with pride. And Seth Godin, high level dude and.

I'd always heard of freelancing being something that you did until you found a real job or that serial entrepreneurs were people like you couldn't focus. And I have a few I literally I'm involved in four businesses at the moment. And the best way I explain to people is I figured out how to make it work and I can still, you know, work for days. I can play my job on the weekends and I'm not looking to scale. So that's at least for me.

Nobody I'm not selling it or not selling it, but I'm not looking to sell. I am more of a lifestyle entrepreneur or that's more of my thing. Or at least while our kids, my wife and our kids are, what, 14 and 11. I'm enjoying the stage in this phase. So I like working from home. I like that when something comes up, I can be there in an instant, not as a helicopter parent, but to be involved.

And it sounds to me like you've put your lifestyle first. And I used to tell people, I said Wade you your lifestyle first. So the customer comes first and it's not. And I get obviously we've got to do good stuff for customers, otherwise they won't pay us. That's that's obvious. Or at least to me, that's obvious. How did you.

Not only choose to, but almost have to put your lifestyle first. And how did that inspire what you do? Because you seem clear about your role that you initiate things, but then you have a team of people that finishes it. So at least a lot of people miss that. How did you build around that and then how did you build the team around that?

So walking out of the doctor's office with a diagnosis of a heart condition. I felt like it was a complete and total gift to instead of basically when we look at this bell curve of our lives, we spend all of this time working and saving. And then at the very end of our life, we can enjoy life. And I was like, oh, well, I don't have that luxury. I don't have that bell curve. I don't have tomorrow.

And in actuality, none of us really have. Tomorrow is a guarantee. But to kind of receive that from an individual in a white coat, I was like, well, what are the things that I really, really want to experience? So I did all of the things that I don't recommend that you do. This is where we put the disclaimer in the podcast. But I had the opportunity to go be a stuntwoman and it was like, OK, well, heart condition, strong woman like, sure, why not?

And what I realized, though, as a stunt woman and I'm going to use that parallel, is that the character that I played was valuable when she showed up on stage. If she was always on stage and if she was playing every part, the crowd would not have gone as wild as when I walked out on stage and did the fight scenes that I did and got all the cheers and kicked butt. So that's kind of my life is I'm going to show up and add value where it's meant and where it's most potent.

And then the rest of the time I'm going to be backstage and I'm going to be preparing either for the next scene or taking care of myself and recovering from the epic battle that I just had. And I've got a team out there on stage that is taking care of the rest. And so I always was aware that there is a team. I've always played sports, the being a stuntwoman and understanding the risks involved. If I tried to do everything and be everything to everyone and simultaneously light myself on fire, do a motorcycle stunt, a car stunt, a high fall, and what's called a slide for life, which is a combination of repelling and ziplining, that's not going to lead to a very sane nor safe life.

And so I've decided what role I'm going to play and when I'm going to play it. And my primary role is as me. And then my secondary role is showing up for my family. And whatever energy or whatever is left as far as time in the show gets dedicated to my companies that I show up in the most valuable way that I can. And it's funny that we were kind of joking about marriage, because I know I'm a visionary. I know I show up and I get super excited and I start stuff.

And so my husband and I have talked about the fact that people are like, oh, I want to get married. And and that's exactly how it's it is when you're a visionary and an entrepreneur is you've got this honeymoon phase and then you've been married for ten years and you're like, oh, this sucks. I got to still wake up and do this every day. This is a company I don't want to run anymore. And I love my husband.

He's my best friend. But it's just like as a visionary, like its work when you're in a long term relationship, whether it's with a business partner, whether it's with a company, whether it's with a husband or a spouse or, you know, just somebody or in a relationship with it is work. Because as visionaries, I recognize that I get excited about starting stuff and fixing things. And when you're in a marriage, it's like you wake up and it's know effort to not make it vanilla every single day.

And none of my companies, including being a stuntwoman, are vanilla.

Well, you know, that's one of the things I tell people. My experiences having come from the insurance industry background, Insurance is you. That's Insurance and Toyota. And some of the stuff that's really exciting might not make you a lot of money. And that's OK. If you can balance those two and you can almost separate, you know, some people say, well, I want to do what I love and the money will follow.

Maybe that will maybe that won't. I know people that that does happen. I know people don't. I know people that have a business that's very boring and then they have their personal life outside. But it's steady and it's predictable. They're like Wade, I've got that. And I can you know, there's there's a couple of different ways to do it, but. I found that. While at times when people say Wade, 4-Day Work Week, that's so selfish and that's not OK.

What are you aiming for? There's people that live in all sorts of levels of abundance. And most of us have for I mean, I'm in my late 40s, I used to make less than I made now. And I and I did OK. I survived. It's OK. And. Everything as simple as as simple as choosing what's most important, you first putting your family first. I really like it when I hear you talk about a little bit more about putting yourself first, even for the family.

I know the whole oxygen mask thing and that analogy, but I imagine you have even a more unique perspective on that of how you still choose what's most important. And it doesn't mean your customers don't get what's good. It means actually, you've got to be more clear about what exactly it is that you're really good at. Deliver that and be so humble and so clear about what you're just not good at. And I think for a lot of people, if you have an ego, that can be well, we all do.

But if you really have a hard time with that, it can be very difficult. And yet. You know, something you'd said to me in our interview, we talked about doing not just doing what you love, but doing what you're made to do, share a little bit about that, if you don't mind. And then also, again, how your unique situation has made you look to yourself first, then your family, then your work.

Absolutely. First of all, you have an ego. Go meet a three year old because they're going to tell you exactly what they're willing to do and what they're not willing to do. And they'll give you mad perspective on setting boundaries and confidence and all of that. And if you need a three year old to meet, you should meet mine because she is the the queen of setting boundaries and taking time for herself. So I'm telling you, when she doesn't think that you are being nice, so to be able to have I took a picture of her and I put it up on on social media, on my Instagram account at Bunny Young has six legs, if you want to see it.

But she has like the sunglasses on. Her hair is up. She's in this, like, rainbow tutu. And I'm like, what if we all just showed up? Like, exactly as we were feeling that day, like the very next day she could be like in a Harley Davidson outfit. And they're not sponsoring this podcast. But, you know, just I was like, what if the entire world just had the mind of this three year old just with permission to be herself?

One hundred percent. And then I kind of realized, like, that's the value. That really is the value is being one hundred percent yourself. But I can't show up as one hundred percent myself when I didn't sleep that well or I didn't get enough to eat. Or like I laughed because I said there are days when I'm running around and it feels like I make breakfast, lunch and dinner, because first off, the three year old is insatiable.

She's just like that giant kit from Star Wars. And I'm always giving her food. And then it's like, wait, did I feed myself? And yes, we talked about the oxygen mask because I can't keep up with her if I can't keep up with my own life and I have a heart condition. So I've got to be uber sensitive to it. And it's something that we do not hide from our children. We do not hide from our family.

I do not hide it from my clients. My clients know when we engage in a 12 month contract or we used to engage in three month corporate contracts, that I have a heart condition. It's almost guaranteed that I'm not going to be doing all of the work with you for all three years, not because I don't want to, but a I might be dead or be I'm not going to put all of my energy and effort into you for those three years.

And so taking care of yourself first is saying that I'm the valuable one. Even if you have a job, you can't show up and deliver on those things that that company hired you for without taking care of of yourself. That's just the basic foundation. It's Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And if you're unhappy, you're less productive. You make the company less money. And so why companies don't understand this more and don't prioritize mental wellbeing more kind of is flabbergasting to me.

But at the same time, why adults don't say and demand. So space for self care and for self wellness and to be able to not just fit it in when it's convenient, but to make it the most prioritized thing on the face of this planet, because at the rates, the depression and anxiety are going, we're not going to have a workforce. You think that we're experiencing an epidemic? The real pandemic is in the mental health and it has been and it's just getting worse.

And so guess what Wade alluding to is that my heart condition did prioritize my own health. However, there's mental health, emotional, spiritual and physical, and my heart condition has to do with my physical. But how I responded to having a heart condition and the choices that I made and the attitude that I have has everything to do with my spiritual, emotional and mental perspective around that heart condition. And that's that's that's so huge.

The whole you know, maybe there's more dimensions, but so many people talk about those men for physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. And I just tell people, when you look at the stereotypical Western world, it's all about physical, intellectual, like how smart am I and how fast can I run? And if you look at the stereotypical Eastern world, there's a little bit more going on of the emotional spiritual. If you just left brain, right brain, you can do it all these different ways.

But so many people are operating one dimensionally or two dimensionally and they're wondering why they're not happy. They're wondering why they're burnt out. And the simplest analogy, I've just came to me, or maybe I heard it somewhere, is if you had four horses pulling a stagecoach and two of them are going one direction to go in the other direction, you're going nowhere. And yet when something's aligned, if you see something as simple as brushing your teeth, if you believe on a spiritual level, that's a good idea to brush your teeth and you know how to brush your teeth and emotionally feel good about brushing your teeth, or at least you'll feel bad that people think you have stinky breath, you brush your teeth and it's very it's all alignment.

But when you look at people, whether it's their dreams or just even coach people on, you know, selling a product, well, do you know the product? Well, kind of. So do you believe in the product? Well, not really. So how do you feel about that? Well, I feel like a pushy salesperson. So are you going to take action? No.

And and yet somewhere over Wade, I need the money. So there's all these conflicting things. When there's an alignment, it's so much easier. And certainly to your point, as far as you know, the toll it takes on organizations, more and more people will ask me Wade, what 4-Day Work Week you talked about helping entrepreneurs a lot. And I'd like to start with entrepreneurs because they have more choice to make these decisions.

And yet, you know, the big elephant in the room in any organization is the cost of employee turnover that alone as far as why you wouldn't have whatever it is, flex work week 4-Day Work Week or possibility to earn it. Not a gift, not a OK, we're just going to throw money at you, but like anything else, a chance to earn it. I still don't get it. And some people are seeing it more slowly. But turning over team members or employees is costly.

Having people that are not excited to be there is costly. I know I my name's on the door. I get four good days a week at best.

My employees are going to get five, really tell me about that or or you make like really bad cakes four days a week, but on the fifth day, you're just like this gourmet chef. Seriously, what's so different? And we get so caught up in this. And one of the things that you shared with me that I thought was very cool and maybe show about about how you told me that when you can show up like one day a month and be awesome, still make a huge impact and still make a very solid income.

How do you really make that determination about what it is that really is making an impact? Again, not just and I think you have this premise, but feel free to shift from this. I believe the impact precedes the income or the result in some way procedes income. Otherwise, people say, OK, you get paid once and then people say, OK, that person was a clown or they couldn't do it.

How do you know what that impact is that you do? How do you deliver it? And then also how do you help the other person see it? Because sometimes as coaches, we can do miraculous stuff in person, like didn't know something three minutes ago. You tell them like, oh yeah, but I knew that. And like, you got to be kidding me. You didn't know that I'm looking at this, but now they're like, yeah, I really don't feel like paying because, you know, I know this or you just told me.

And so now I know. How have you been able to do all three of those again to identify what it is, deliver on it, and then perhaps equally, definitely equally as importantly, get paid and recognized for it.

So when I show up live somewhere and you're getting me to answer your questions as you're asking them and my entire brain, my entire focus, my do not disturb is on my computer. My my phone is shut off. You're getting one hundred percent of my value. I'm not thinking about my kiddos right now. I'm I'm here with you, the listeners. And when you're getting that, you're getting my decade's worth of experience and knowledge as well. And so money is a made up thing.

Like we literally printed. We used to use shells. We still barter. And my value is tremendous. I believe that not in an egotistical way, but I believe it in the transformation that I've been able to make in my own life first and then in my other life, in my clients lives. And I say my own life first is because I would never advise you to hire a coach or hire a professional who cannot do for themselves what they're promising to do for you.

So if you have a financial adviser that doesn't have their own financial assets in order, that's a good indicator that they're not going to be able to do it for you. And so it was very important that I was able to go through the experiences that I did and identify what it was that was my value and what it was that was not my value. And then go down from working eighty four hours a week to less than two. I mean, Wade and I talked about it in our interview, he's got four days, I have less than two.

But I've really set boundaries up around that and found ways to share my experience and my knowledge and my value in ways where I don't always have to show up live, such as this podcast. You're listening to it. We recorded it live, but there are hundreds of thousands of people who are going to listen to it across the nation, across the world. And I'm not going to be there with you live. A piece of me is with you in spirit.

And I hope that someday we get to connect live. But I've found ways that I can create value and have it be a multiple return on investment and not just trade my time and my energy for a paycheck over and over and over again. And please understand that I don't have any judgment for that. I just want you to understand that the hour that you're sitting in a seat somewhere does not equate to how much you're actually worth. And answer that question.

What what are you worth? What what is it that value? And when I became a mom, I had my coach ask me the question of how much it would take for me to leave my kid at home and go and be one hundred percent present for a client. And trust me, that number got big really, really quick, because I'm a very valuable mom. I'm the only person in this world that can be my child's mom biologically and spiritually.

Somebody else could raise my daughter and she and they there's two of them could call them mom. And my mother spends a tremendous amount of time with my girls. But that childhood could only be made possible by me being there. And so if I'm there, it means I can't be somewhere else. And if I'm there, my grandmother used to say this when I would sit in school, and it's probably one of the reasons that I was a straight-A student.

I'm going to spend as much time in a classroom as somebody who gets a C, so I might as well get an A.. So if my butt's going to be in the seat as mom, I might as well be there and not on Instagram and not checking my email and not at somebody else's beck and call. And as a therapist, there was always an emergency. There was always somebody else's family who threatened being the priority over my family. And that's why I and I can only speak for myself made the decision because thank goodness that there are therapists in this world who can hold that space and can be there because we definitely need it.

But I can now show up in a business and in a company and say it in a way as a third generation entrepreneur and through my various experiences, that somehow makes me more valuable in that space than it was. I was sitting in an office across from a single person for an hour. Gosh, there's so many things there, so you and I share the mental health background of masters and mental health and psychology and did some of the work there and similarly found the frustration of, look, I've got people across the table for me that semi interested, some interested, some not so interested.

I thought, you know, how could I leverage what I do to to reach more people? Certainly for us. I was raised by mother who stayed at home. And again, this is not an ad for for those to do it or not do it or judgment. But for those who are considering just you know, what my mom at all showed me was, look, there's going to be times when your children are ready to share with you.

And if you don't get to choose those times, you have to be there for those times. So my wife stays at home, I work from home, then choose to work from home.

I've chosen not to scale a business and. That time passes, they don't hold it against you, just literally like like like a mood like like anything, it just passes. They're no longer that Insurance and then you get the how is school good? What happened? Not much, same as yesterday. They're literally just not inspired to share. They're not holding you back or holding it back from you. Not being mean. But there's a time when they're really just and they just start talking and they start sharing.

And all the things you'd want to know are right there. And you get to hear that. And for me, it sounds like for you to being a parent is a very serious calling and a vocation. And I remember my sister is so dedicated with her children, her kids are all older than my our kids. And I remember watching her and people would say, oh, she's so lucky. And I look at, you know, she used to be a kindergarten teacher and she stopped doing that so she'd be a stay at home mom.

And she put all that energy, just like you said, my wife and I said the same thing. We can't put this energy into the Soul Work kids. She was working at a runaway shelter. We can't do that. And our children. So we're going to have to choose and we're choosing for this window of time our children. And in our case, it's two kids. So it's not 50 kids. It's not a thousand kids. We can only give a certain level of quality.

And yet again, without judging anybody else, the return on investment in the child, not that we get everything, we want a doctor to help us do what we say, God know, but we get this person that we're getting.

First of all, we're literally blessed to watch their journey unfold.

And I think that Khalil Gibran wrote about your children not being yours and don't you've heard that one. But basically, you know that you're there was either of you, but not by your friendly words, but basically you're there to sort of help them along their journey. But they're not yours. So they're not many use they're not for you to decide who they're going to be. They have their own plan of what they're going to do. If you even have more than one child, if you have two children and your family has been together, you know that there's there's DNA, there's something going on there that's not just environment.

There's more than just environment going on and yet being able to understand that that's so important. And in my experience, the world, not that the world is just to you, but you start realizing that certain things aren't as important. And again, there's no knocking material possessions if you've got the money and you can drop ten thousand dollars on a watch, and that's easy for you. Great.

It's when you do that and it's costing you a trip with your family or something else or time or you're working extra hours. I have a car I've kept for 14 years and I always did the math those times. I mean it's like fifty four thousand dollars. It's probably saved me and I just need to go to the beach index. I work from home. It's our second car now. My ego could want another car, but then also I'd have to go earn the money for that.

And again, it's not about something. It's a Wade Galt. You know, I want to be present for my kids, but also for me. I don't have a heart condition. I have a head condition. If I don't get to the beach and play my volleyball, I turn into a jerk and and everybody's got some version of that. Whether they realize or not, my wife is just become very clear to point it out for me. And even with covid that I stopped going to the beach for a while and then went back and and the kids were like, oh yeah, there is.

That's very different who you are.

So I think that's something that's so huge. Tell me about this. You and I talked about this and I thought you had a good perspective on that. It was. There's no work life balance, there's just life, and in your body, you talk about alignment. What's that look like for you and what's that feel like for somebody you work with after they get to experience that?

So you just have life, you know, and you just have this value that you you bring to the world and. If I have the honor of showing up in a space with another human where I can help them increase their understanding of their own value, not increase their value because it was already there, but increase their understanding of their own value, then that's such an honor. And being able to understand that there's. Not work life and home life, there's just life like on your tombstone, there's not going to be two separate.

You know, explanations, there's going to be one, there's going to be one life. And what do you want that dash to represent and what do you want people to say at your memorial service? What do you want to be remembered for? And it's not going to be being at work at 10:00 p.m. at night. And I actually I there is a very well known launch coach that I got in a debate with because he was saying, you know, sometimes to in order to do your lunch, you're going to have to stay up three days in a row.

And I was like, that's ridiculous. You shouldn't be in the position that you're out. You should not be advocating for people to sacrifice their emotional and mental and physical well-being like that's making people sick. And you should never make yourself sick or decrease your value for the sake of your company. You're making yourself less valuable to put more money in a bank account. And No. One, your family is not going to care about the money in the bank account when you're gone.

But they are going to care about those bedtime stories, they are going to care about you showing up and you being there and being present. And we are watching this documentary on Eleanor Roosevelt. And my daughter saw this sign that said Colored Waiting Room. And my daughter sat there and explained to me we passed it so she could explain to me what that was in her perception. And to sum it all up, she said right now, today, what we need to do is if I am white and mom's black and I have five dollars, I need to give her, I should give her.

I choose to give her three dollars and I get two dollars because we have some making up to do. And I'm sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, I have watched so many diversity and inclusion facilitators in the past six months, five months in here under my very roof, I have this brilliant mind who of her own volition is understanding that this world needs equality and needs justice. And so it was kind of this aha moment that it's like I'm not just facilitating my clients, reaching their full understanding of their value.

I'm literally just facilitating my children, being able to have permission to reach their ultimate value. And the person in my life who did this best is my mom. And I'm so blessed. And there's a 10 second funny story around that in the aspect that when I made the choice to go and do more speaking, I was looking at somebody who could be part time office manager, part time with my daughter, because at that time I only had one and my mom was helping me.

But my mom always said, I want to be grandma. Grandma, we her name is Grandma, but or mama. But we she said, I don't want to be a nanny. And so I got all these like resumes and all this kind of stuff. And then I had this heartfelt conversation with her that's like who better and more qualified to help me with my company and help me with my daughter than the person who inspired me to start my own company and who.

Did an amazing job, my mom never raised her voice once at me. I literally broke that record, I think in my daughter's like second year of life, like my aspirations for that sainthood that my mom achieved. She still hasn't raised her voice at me. And trust me, listeners, I have given her hundreds of thousands of reasons to raise her voice at me. And so that's really just her value. I believe my value was bringing this child, these children into the world in her value is to continue to support these amazing creatures that I birthed.

But she is definitely having a huge impact in raising. That's awesome.

And I think. You're going to make me cry, Wade. Oh, I'm sorry. I just think so many people that I talked to are are seeing something that's a faster or a quantity thing.

And it's funny, I keep having that come up. That theme keeps coming up in the interview. The people I meet that are happier are more focused on quality. Doesn't mean they don't want quantity. I love them all. It's very clear I'm good for quantity. Very happy to get lots of money.

But there's also certain things and I was just putting together just an idea on something of a community that I'm going to be starting an online virtual community of supporting people kind of like a mastermind thing, but a lower price point. And so I started of course, I love a million people and then I start, but then I do a little spreadsheet on a spreadsheet geek. So in there I put well, in order to help each person, each person is probably at least going to need 15 minutes of my time every year just as a concept, because otherwise I'm just trying to throw a bunch of people inside a membership program which might or might not get some of me.

Obviously, I want to leverage team, but I thought somewhere in some point, I don't know exactly what's going to look like. But I know this from my software company somewhere I'll be needed. So I can't just skill to infinity and have there be no need of me. And very quickly I realized, wow, I don't want a million people, I don't want one hundred dollars. I wanted maybe somewhere between one hundred and a thousand people tops because I realized what I want to do live at a certain level and then it got to a Wade you think there might be other people that also do 4-Day Work Week?

I mean, do you have to be the only one? I know you've got the domain. That's really awesome. Wade, but there are other people that maybe want to do this, that want to help people, or there are other people that want to help people live their purpose. And again, literally and it's it comes from a I think a very. Loving place, if I want to help millions of people. But it's like, OK, but Wade, that's very great and the whole statement starts with I what about the other people out there?

They're looking for their purpose and maybe they also want to help other people. And it might look slightly different. And I think so much, especially if we're in the, you know. The mental dimension, if we're in the left brain, the Western world, at times the numbers seem like more.

One of the authors I've listened to or read actually, Jitu Krishnamurti would talk about, you know, how many people would always ask him how many followers he had, as if and this is this is going like one hundred plus years ago, as if that were the measure of whether or not the message he was sharing was truthful. I have a lot of followers. It must be truthful. I think we've seen enough examples on social media that just because you've got a lot of followers doesn't mean necessarily that what you're putting out there is something that is really valuable.

But what I'm seeing is there's a way you're living your life that is very present moment centered and very focused on tomorrow not being guaranteed. And I know a lot of people say, well, you know, it sounds kind of like, well, gosh, if I only had a heart condition like Bunny Young, like, OK, you know what, I wish for that. That's not something that you wish for. That's something that I pulled a gift from it because you could have just as easily said, well, this is for me.

Why this? Why that. Why me and what not. How do you keep that focus on.

Having today be a focus for you and how do you help your clients do that? And the reason I ask is that it's a long question, but something I've learned and it sounds like you've learned it, too, and I'm learned assumes it's accurate, but I'm pretty sure it is, is that we can help people make shifts in different parts of their life. So when I was in the mental health counseling world, if I had a person I was talking to that had had physical abuse or worse, abuse, the process from the psychotherapy and on some level or counseling is to talk about the thing that happened.

And yet at the same kids in the anger management group and we'd play some fun games. And then I also did some stuff. I talked to them about the business they might want to Groer and they could gain back their power talking about finances and kind of plan and set boundaries like, yes, I'm worthy. But if you turn the conversation to the physical or the worse abuse, the sexual abuse, they would shut down. And my reaction was, OK, if I can, that that channels blocked to a certain degree or it's a real tough channel.

But if I can help them in any way, I dress better, cook something and feel good about themselves, then eventually some of that confidence that would sort of translate into over other areas. And it sounds to me like you found that in the work side, that, again, it doesn't have to be this really melodramatic vision of what I've got to go into a nonprofit to help people. I can also help people where I'm at. And I might also choose to have a nonprofit as you do.

How do you balance those and how does present moment awareness help you do that? I grew up in a military family and I'm an active duty military spouse, mission vision, core values have been at the center of whether I was always aware of what those were called or not. They were always at the very core of my childhood and my adulthood. And I remember one of the worst things. And if my parents ever listen to this, I don't want my father to take this personally.

One of the worst memories I have of my childhood is my father simply telling me he was disappointed in me. And that's not because I measured my value on whether or not my parents were proud of me. It's because I measured my value against my own core values. And so if I did something that went against my own core value, which in this particular incident I did, I went against something that I felt was wrong under peer pressure. And I sacrificed one of my values.

And so in the moment and always and especially throughout this week, because as we're reporting this live, it was election week and I have had numerous conversations with everybody from Fortune 500 companies to government agencies regarding the mental well-being and that election stress has caused in the workplace. And if we come back to our mission, our vision and our core values, is the conversation that you're having in the debate on Facebook making the world a better place for me? This is a question I have to ask for me, because at the end of the day, my vision, my nirvana, if I were to wake up tomorrow in the world, was 100 percent the best it could be.

There's nothing I could do by getting out of bed to make the world a better place. Then I wouldn't have to get out of bed. My vision would be accomplished. My mission, how I'm accomplishing that is through my companies, through the work that I'm doing with my daughters, through the modeling that I'm doing and showing up for them. And my core values are what keep me on that road. And so if I am fulfilling my vision and my mission and not sacrificing any core values, then my clients really will never.

No, that it was me, because it will be their values, their mission and their vision that they can take and going back to being a therapist, if a kiddo can feel empowered and feel like they have value and feel like they are leaving their office with your office with a purpose and a reason to live and a reason to not be angry and something to focus on to fulfill in their life, that anger will not accomplish. At the end of the day, it should be them.

That's the hero of the story, not us as the therapist, not me as the coach or the consultant. I should merely just be in the background because otherwise we're creating dependency. And in order to always win, you're going to always need me. And I don't want that for the world. I don't want the world to always need somebody to save it. The world's perfectly capable of saving itself as long as each and every individual person realizes that they have a purpose in this world.

And I believe mine is to make the world a better place. Now, one of the things you know. And I'm pretty sure you probably know this in the mental health counseling field, the psychology field, one of the worst things you can do is to take credit for the success of the people you help, because then that means you got to take the blame when something doesn't go right.

And the closest analogy I can think of it is the attorney that believes in the system but knows that sometimes the system won't work. In other words, the attorney that says, OK, I believe in a system, it's not going to be perfect, but I would see people that say, well, I did this or did that. I remember I was working with a young man and he had been, you know, cutting and stuff and we'd done different stuff.

And he was part of the group sessions. I did. And I did individual sessions with him. And he had stopped cutting for about three or four weeks. He'd been cutting every day. And I kept getting all this our way. That's great what you're doing. I'm like, well, now he's working really hard and he's doing this. And then sure enough, eventually he starts cutting again. Wade, what did you do? I'm sorry, but you're giving me way too much credit here and way too much blame.

This is not I mean, I'm doing my best and I didn't do anything heroic and I didn't do anything irresponsible.

I followed the process the best of what we know. Listen to him. You know, nothing. Again, nothing special, nothing subspecialist, nothing horrible. But it was one of those things he realized, look, I don't have the ability to make this person be something different, and yet when I look at my 14 year old son in my 11 year old daughter, who I am and how I care myself every day, my gosh.

And I know it's insane. So people say, oh, it's another saying, it's so true. They learn the lessons and sometimes. I'll watch them do something I'm like. Wow, where did that come from and because the answers that came from exactly what I so wanted to teach them, but I didn't know how and somehow the combination I believe there's a God.

I'm not saying I believe there is one some something beyond me and something inside them that I believe is innate and part of them. And, yes, something that had to do with somewhat of perhaps them at some point seen me do something well or aligned. They said, wow, that's that's awesome.

But even still, it's like it's awesome that they did that, because for me to take too much more credit for that and it sets up a roller coaster. My goodness. Because that's the parents that have such a hard time when their kids do, you know, stupid stuff, as if we didn't do stupid stuff when we were younger. We didn't push the envelope.

It was absolutely perfect. You can ask my parents or I'm sure I have I have not one time.

One hundred percent. Perfect. I mean, that's why they stopped at me. And I'm an only child. There you go.

And, you know, of course, the other the other alternative explanation of that, too, is, you know, Wayne Dyer talk about guys like you. You're poor, you you're a first child. You have to do everything. And poor you, you're the baby. And everything was given to you and poor you. You're the middle child. They just you get no Retention. And even worse, you're the only child they had, you know, like, OK, we're not doing that anymore.

So. Yes. And you can make it whatever story you want it to be your baby.

So that goes back to what you you and I talked about earlier is if you're not going to put your sanity in your self care first for you. Put your sanity in yourself, care first for everybody else that is watching you and is modeling their lives, whether it's your team members, whether it's your kids, to some extent we have influence on our parents. You know, it's it's. I can't say that my own self care. I have literally walked out of that doctor's office feeling like I had a blank check to do whatever, I had permission to live life to the fullest.

Then I had my first daughter and then I was like, you know. Everything's changed. I want to do everything possible in order to make sure that I can see her graduate high school, college get married if that's what she wants to do, whatever she wants to accomplish. And then I was blessed with our second kid, and I'm pretty sure our second kid is going to be the end of me. But she's amazing. And, you know, I'm I'm just so in awe of the opportunities that I'm given in my life.

And I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. And I just want to make sure that I remain dedicated and focused on not being right or not being wrong, but on my purpose and staying steadfast in my purpose and so that they can stand there, whatever amazing Irish wake they have in celebration of my life and say that that dash between whatever dates may come meant something, meant something not to me, but meant something to them. And I'm not saying that I'm here just for my kids or that I'm here just for everybody listening to this.

But I am here for the world. I'm here to serve a purpose. And my daughter, if you ask my oldest what I do for a living, she says, I save the world. And I think it's the cutest thing. But it's also the closest I can to describing what it is that all of us are here to do, because all of us are here for a reason. And we've seen what humanity is capable of and we've seen what social media is capable of.

And so just imagine if we use those powers for good. I mean, look at the last Star Wars movie, right? Like we can use those powers for good. My husband's going to be so proud of me that I somehow managed to bring Star Wars in here because I am totally not a nerd. So I really hope I get those wife points. That's awesome.

I'll make sure I'll make sure we'll make these one of the clips that we put on. Yeah. And something that people get so caught up at, I think, is they assume that passion equals purpose or vice versa. And, you know, my simple understand is if passion equal purpose will, then you'd be married to a lot of people because you can be passionate about a lot of people. You might not want to marry a lot of people. And maybe that's a horrible example.

Maybe that's a perfect example.

I don't want to be married tomorrow. I'm good with that.

I don't know exactly what you I have a strange sense of curiosity of people who have more than one spouse that with all the love and respect in the world, how do you know the difference or when you're coaching a client, how do you know the difference between something that's their purpose or something that they're just passionate about that maybe they still want to engage in, but it's not their purpose. And and how do you make that or where does that where does that show up for you?

Because then sometimes you get into conversations about of Wade, what can I monetize or what can't I? Or it's my purpose. But it's my this there's all these different categories, you know, how do I activate that or what do I do with that? So I have a service animal and I did start a nonprofit on service animal education, and I've had a lot of people that both in the corporate world and in the PR world say your story and you need to focus on this.

This should be a route. My board knows this, so I can say it on the podcast. I'm stepping down as executive director of the organization that I founded and I created, because while it is my passion, I don't believe that if I woke up tomorrow and every single corporation had an inclusive awareness of service, animal etiquette and every hospitality, restaurant, hotel, airline industry understood my story of having a service animal and how to positively do you see what I did there?

You positively interact with individuals who have six legs as I identify that my work would be done. And so that's the difference for me between my passion and my purpose is because I would be making the world a better place and I am making the world a better place through what we do with possible. And that's that's the name of the service dog nonprofit. And I know that we're making the world a better place through that work, and that's why it's a mission of mine.

However, if. It's not my vision, it's not my my purpose, because if I arrived at that destination, I don't feel and this takes self awareness, right? We talked a lot about self care. There is a lot of self awareness that comes into being a good stuntwoman, being a good business owner that. My purpose would be fulfilled, that my vision would be accomplished. I think my work would still be done and that I'll be laid to rest when my work is done.

Awesome, yeah, and I think. Goodness, there's there's a few things there, one sometimes will definitely be over marketing of, you know, plain that is your car. OK, well, I'm going to be I'm going to be the person that identify overidentify with something that is an incident or a condition as opposed to defining who you are, first of all. Second of all. I think, wow, you just really hit me with that, I just thought, OK, if everybody we're working a 4-Day Work Week or had the opportunity and ironically, that's coming very quickly.

And I didn't make up the movement. And I'm not I'm part of something that's going on it.

I'd say, OK, that's a very good thing. I certainly wouldn't be done. It's I think it's, you know, maybe just the difference between, you know, episodes versus chapters versus entire novels or whatever. It's a part of it for sure. I just think of something, you know, you hear people talk about your life purpose to your life. Purpose is what you do. If you had one hundred million dollars in the bank and you can do whatever you want, I said, oh, that's your ideal lifestyle.

I thought a million dollars in the bank at party and have a lot of fun.

And of course, events probably get bored. But that's not necessarily my purpose. My understanding is almost the exact opposite. What will you do even if you don't get paid? Well, I'll make sure I raise my kids the best I can. I'll make sure I do these things. And for me, somewhere, it's in there. And yeah, there is a compulsive nature to it, almost to the point of when authors say what's the thing that you dedicate your life to it even though you know, you know, you might not complete it and you might have to have somebody else carry the flag.

So your ego would have to say, look, you didn't do it, you didn't do it by yourself. But it's some point you say nuts, OK, I'm going to still do that. Then I think that's the part that to me sometimes. Amazes me of whether it be in any organization, military, government, churches, organizations, you can find any flaunting those organizations and say, why would you be somebody that would be a lifer in one of those organizations?

And or you can find the people you'd say, wow. And I know you must have. I've met people that are in the military that as much as I wish there weren't war, I think most of us are pretty on the same page that I realize that there's this real world necessity that there's got to be something there or something. And I'm humble. I don't understand it. So when somebody says to me, look, my vision or what I part of what I'm here to do is make sure the world is a safer place.

And yes, I'm willing to stand in front of a bullet or this or that. As much as my idealist might say, oh, gosh, I wish the world were different, say, wow, that's that's something.

And the closest thing I know of for me is the family part. And again, you have me thinking I'm I have to think about what what what are some other things. And I'm not going to put it on a list of 20 of the things I have to do this week is that that would be beating myself up.

But yeah, definitely like what is that thing that you keep doing as opposed to some sort of obligation that you have to do? Because when you have a heart condition body, therefore you have to be the heart condition person forever, because that's just that's now defined you so well.

So for our listeners, I'll go I'll go deep and then I'll I'll bring it back up. And on a more lighthearted note for you, I've had the honor and pleasure of working with our United States military service men and women. And, you know, tomorrow, as we're recording, this is Veterans Day. And when you talk about post-traumatic stress, you're meeting an individual who has all servicemen and women, have signed a blank check payable upon their lives for our country and our freedom.

And when you encounter somebody that has post-traumatic stress, they are no longer in uniform. However, their purpose is still to fulfill that check. And there are many individuals, whether you have post-traumatic stress or not, that struggle with post military life and reintegration into civilian life because essentially what they're being told is their purpose. Is fulfilled when it's really not our freedom is still at stake, and so to find ways to integrate individuals from the military into civilian life where they can still fulfill their purpose is something I think that I am very proud of a lot of companies for stepping up and doing and understanding how important that is, because when you're asking an individual to sign that blank check and then you're saying, OK, it's over, it's not over for them, it really isn't.

And it's very difficult in your mind. To understand that, unless you've done that, and I have not, I just have lived it as a spouse and a daughter and a granddaughter and I've watched it and I've worked at it both from the psychological perspective and in business with companies that are have that have veterans initiatives. So first and foremost, if you're listening to this and you've served our country in any capacity, I want to thank you for your service.

Secondarily is to understand if you're a part of a team and that having a purpose and having an aligned purpose, such as we do when you have a battle buddy in the United States military that is so powerful, it's so powerful to have a purpose and to have a team on board with that purpose, whether it's your family or whether it's somebody at work. So we're we're going to show that for a little bit. Just shake it off, take a deep breath as we're we're going to come back and go, hi, real quick.

And on a light note is I remember Peyton Manning, who I am, a total diehard Colts fan. He won the Super Bowl for the Broncos. Everybody knew he was retiring. Right. Like everybody knew he was retiring. And they asked him, are you going to retire? He goes, I'm going to go get a Budweiser. And it was like, wow, it's like in. And he was basically saying, look, my purpose today was to win this game with my team and now I need to go sit down and figure out what my purpose is, because football has been my life.

And he's talked openly about this. Football's been my passion. I've always known that I was going to have a life after football, but I never actually thought about it. I never actually considered it because I gave the Indianapolis Colts and the Denver Broncos my all my purpose was to be their leader and to be there. Not if you talk to any of his teammates. Have you talked to Tony Dungy who coached him? He was there as the CEO of that team and he dedicated himself fully to that purpose.

Now, do I think his purpose is progressive commercials? Probably not. But I believe that, you know, that's a really lighthearted example of looking at somebody who is passionate and had a passion for football, but their purpose was not ended after not being a quarterback in the NFL anymore.

That's awesome. Thank you so much. There's so much wisdom and perspective that you shared today and. It's funny because the you and I are both young enough that it feels weird to use the word wisdom and at the same time, when you see things happen enough times, you say, OK, there's more than just a pattern. Sometimes I talk to my wife, but psychology is just patterns. I mean, some of it is there is biology and chemical stuff, but for a lot of people, it is unproductive patterns, reproductive patterns or habits.

If you want to call it what you're doing, how you're impacting, I have no doubt it must be. First of all, I have no doubt where your three year old got it from somewhere. So that's very clear. But I think so many people are are looking for somebody to give them permission. So just in case you're waiting. I know you are. I am. Go do your thing. Be the person you're looking to be. There's so much great work out there.

If you're still waiting for permission, listen to Wayne Dyer. Listen to Bernie Brownless. And gosh, there's so many people out there, Tony Robbins, do your thing and really encourage people to do that. And it's funny, I have not ended up one of the episodes like this, but there's so many people waiting for somebody to tell them. And I think it really is an internal thing. And and as much as you can listen to different growth coaches or whatnot, sometimes it happens just you figure it out and you do your thing.

But thank you for sharing that and definitely the distinction between purpose and what we're going to do and focus on living a quality life. Gosh, there's just so much here. So thank you so much. Money for coming out. Where can people get in touch with you if they want to learn what you're up to? Some of your initiatives and we'll put all the you know, the, you know, have to spell it, we'll put it on the show, notes and whatnot.

Where can people get in touch with they either want your help with a corporation or just to learn more about what you're up to.

Yeah, the best place to find a little piece of sanity is a better place. Consulting dot com forward slash get started. You get a free e-book on how to stay sane during insane times. And I know that link will be in the show notes. I always love connecting on Instagram. So if if you want to follow me on Instagram at Bunny Young has six legs because I have the service animal and send me a direct message and that that's a great way because your journey and how I can help is going to be different for for every listener and and Wade side.

If you're if you're looking for commission member, this is a psychologist or a therapist joke. The voices in the back of your head love you and they're giving you permission. So because oftentimes we we say that there's nothing from a therapist perspective, we know that there's nothing more negative that can be said to you other than what you've said to yourself. So just remember the voices the Macura had love you and they give you permission. Awesome, thank you so much and thank you for listening, as always, look forward to helping you help more people make more money and less time.

Do what you do best so you can better enjoy your family, your friends and your life. Thanks for listening.