Special Guest Expert - Eric LaCour: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Eric LaCour: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Daniel Aaron:
What does it take to create a vibrant, thriving life? First, the sad news is that Thoreau was right. Most people are leading quiet lives of desperation, lacking in meaning, fulfillment and vitality. But we choose more. We choose to create extraordinary lives. And the art of vibrant living show entertains you with inspiration, empowerment and education to create your life into a masterpiece. It's time. Let's vibe up. All right, y'all. Hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome to the Art of Vibrant Living show. I am your host, Daniel Aaron, and I'm delighted that you are with us. Whether you are here now live or by rebroadcast. We have an amazing show today. A super cool dude who has developed himself in fascinating ways, both in the in the worlds of business and art and athletics. I said both. That was three. Did you follow it? That's what we do here. It's all about vibrant living. And sometimes that means shaking things up or breaking out of our normal routines. So y'all, I'm so glad that you're here. I'm so glad that you are up for creating more vibrancy in your life that changes the world. And let's get right into it. My guest today, Eric LaCour, I met just last year. He reached out to me because he was coming to the island of Maui, where I live, and he does some really fascinating photography and film making work. And we hit it off and I said, Yeah, I would love to work with you. And he did some amazing work for me. And as we moved forward in that creative project and I learned a lot more about him and his really interesting past with fashion and celebrity photography and his also working in Breathwork as I do so, he's really a Renaissance man doing amazing stuff and I could say lots more, but let's hear it directly from him. So y'all, welcome to the show. Eric LaCour. Eric, welcome. How are.

Eric LaCour:
You?

Daniel Aaron:
Awesome. I'm so glad you were here. Thanks for being on the show. And before before we get into it, I got like 400 questions I want to ask you. You've got expertise in so many different cool areas. Let's let's start with this. So would you give just a little bit of the background on, you know, how you've how you've evolved and what brings you to this point in your life?

Eric LaCour:
Yeah, I mean, I just started I was always in the arts as a kid and a big part of my story, I'd say, is that I was like an athlete and an artist. So I had kind of felt like there was this conflict in my life between like none of my art friends were friends with my jock friends. So that created that's a big part of my story. So literally in high school, I basically was like the starting running back, but also won all the art awards at the same time, which is kind of funny, but I was not good in writing. And maybe we can talk more about that later because like, I've gotten more into what I was told when I was a kid that I was not good at and that I should just focus on photo video or at the time it was art drawing and painting. And then from there I moved on, went to LSU. I'm here in Louisiana, by the way, and I just went to college. I didn't really feel like I had too much of a direction. I just knew I was good at art and eventually found photography and, you know, drawing and painting. It was mind blowing when I was able to take make a piece of art in just a click, right? And then when I finally was developing, that was back when we developed with film. I'll never forget developing the, the, the first image coming up in the darkroom. And I was like, oh, this is what I want to do. And my thinking at the time, honestly, was like. Don't want to work behind a computer like I want to be able to do this, this and that. You know, I want to be in the field working, catching, you know, documenting the world. But and now we're behind the computer all the time. So from there, I studied. I went deeper into studying and moved to California, went to Brooks Institute of Photography. And from there I started assisting different celebrity photographers and eventually shot a few things. Eventually, I think I had my first billboard when I was like, It was like 2000. Uh, let me think. 2000, Probably eight ish.

Eric LaCour:
Like 2000. Like just before the. Just before the crash. The 2008 crash. Right. So when that happened, um, I literally just had to. I ended up moving back to Louisiana. Like, I had a studio in Los Angeles and, and felt like I was, you know, doing pretty well. And then all the clients literally just dropped off. The fear was so strong at that time and moved back to Louisiana, helped helped started a website with my sister and other like fashion type stuff and then moved to New York. Um, so I went to New York and started working more in that celebrity field, right? And, and eventually I just started kind of getting sick of it. I, I even, there was a time where in fact, my recent newsletter, you know, this is an interesting thing I like to talk about is like the subconscious mind and and the in our body this this will come up later in breathwork And the way I understand it, it's like your subconscious mind kind of hides your pains, right? So. So it numbs you because it doesn't want to feel these pains and whatnot. Right? So but we also forget, forget things. So one of the things that just came up recently as I was journaling and so in my recent newsletter, I wrote about, um, how I got this carpenter job for a little bit. I was just assisting these carpenters and it was for the fashion companies and. And it really made me sick. Not only was I taking pictures like on the side, I was shooting parties, I was shooting Vogue parties. I was hanging out with people. We were shooting celebrities in a different format, right? So before it was more celebrity editorial type stuff. And then I took some jobs as like a party photographer. So I was like up all night. I just could not live that nightlife all the time. But what made me really sick is whenever I went into I took a carpenter job and we were working. We were building these elaborate rooms and we're building elaborate window displays for like, what do you call it, Victoria's Secret Versace. I mean, I was delivering.

Eric LaCour:
I spent so much time in Hugo Boss and like, rearranging stuff. But what made me sick was that we would fill up dumpsters of trash, right? Of particle board, plastics, glues. Just toxic stuff. Right? And we'd work for four weeks on this project and we'd go build out a room with, say, it's like a 50s style, maybe even an old gas tank. We could really make anything that was it was actually a fun thing. I actually loved it. It was like the artistic part of me wanted to be a carpenter for a little while. I was like, But I had invested so much at this point into photo video that I kind of got out of it. But. We would make this stuff and fill up so many dumpsters and they would use it for like a weekend. Like I think it might be 3 or 4 days to show off their collection and then we would have to go in and take it all down with instructions to destroy. Right. And so it was around that time where I was, you know, I was in the middle of doing it and I was like, oh, it makes me sick. I'm taking a saw and I'm sawing this all this nice furniture apart that we we built these these pieces of art that would go on the walls. And it was around that time, like, I really I mean, I don't know if it was the chemicals I was breathing in at the time or the or the actual like the feeling that it had of the waste that we were doing. And there were times where I had to drive the truck to go dump all that stuff. So that being said, what that leads me to is now I am my passion is to help amplify the stories of coaches and people that are making a better a change in the world for good. You know, So and I really do believe, like entrepreneurs and coaches are leading that change for better in the world today.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah. Nice. Well, thank you for sharing all that and what a fascinating journey. I think for so many people that that world of fashion and celebrity stuff seems like so glittery and exciting and for you to actually get the experience of being in it, I'm sure there was a part of it where it was like, Oh, this is, you know, so cool. And but then quickly it was also like, whoa, wait a minute, there's a underside to this that's not so great. And part of what you said about construction I think is beautiful. Of course, you know, I'm always thinking about spiritual leadership and who are the great spiritual leaders of our world. And there's one quite well known one who was known to be a carpenter as well. And part of what what that's all about, right? Carpentry in some way is about building. It's about creating. So for you, being someone who's so creative and who who wants to give value into the world, there's an obvious contrast between building and creating. And you know, what's going on with these these fancy photo shoots that are really I mean, honestly, they're just designed to get people to spend money, right? And and there's other aspects to them as well. So I love the way your journey has evolved. And, you know, having got to know you a bit and experience your work, I can see how all of that fed into it, fed into what you're doing now. And that's a beautiful thing as well. Um, so, so many directions we could go. And I for sure want to talk about the concept of story, which you just brought up a little bit. First though, you, you shared something with me separately that I think would be fascinating for people to learn about. And you said a little bit about it here, too. This this dual world you were in as a kid, like star athlete and star artist. And for sure, in our culture and especially in school, we often put those very far apart. And I know that that was a struggle for you in some ways in your life. So, you know, what's that been like and how did that shift for you?

Eric LaCour:
How did it shift, honestly? Well, one of the people I just like to mention that I'm very passionate about is Leonardo da Vinci, because he was kind of known for this as well, for like being physically fit and and also an artist and and whatnot. So he was revolutionary, obviously. But for me, where it really changed, where it was around the time I was working, as in that carpenter doing carpentry work and. I was also I had just started training jiu jitsu maybe three years before that. So it was around 32, 33 years old. And I'm in I'm in New York and I started training jiu jitsu. I was training at one of the top gyms in the world, Marcelo Garcia's. And I'm still like a big fan. So, you know, really miss training there. But the point is, is that around that time I was really into Miyamoto Musashi right? So Miyamoto Musashi is a if you don't know who he is, he's a famous samurai and he's known for having 60 duels to the death. And and I'm, I literally read like 3 or 4 books on him. And in fact at one gym that I was hanging out with at, I was not Marcelo's, but another gym I would visit in Brooklyn, Master Skya. I would I would tell the stories which those will take too long. Maybe I can fit one story in here later. But the point is, is that one of the nicknames I had, I had my hair, I was in my total. You know, I was doing yoga every day, which I still do a lot of yoga. But I had a I had a man bun and and they called me the White Musashi, you know, and which was a cool name. Like part of me wanted to be like, whoa, why don't I just be this jiu jitsu badass and be the white Musashi? So my studies in him, it was one day where I was reading his stuff and it turned out he was an artist as well, like in the novel, which isn't completely true. But in the novel he carves a sculpture in exchange for a sword at some point. Right?

Eric LaCour:
And then as there's some other scenes as well that I'm blanking on. But but he has a quote that says Every warrior should have a peaceful art as well as a killing art. This is the twofold way, and that is to this day, it only because it spoke to me so much on a certain level, because I was always like, should I be doing this or should I be doing that? And it's like, no, they're they're together. It's like, that is the key to me, to a balance in life, right? So I just you can translate that, right? So you're not really going to learn how to kill, you know, I mean, jiu jitsu, I'm learning how to kill, but I relate that to being physically strong and having aggression and being able to to take whenever you need it. You drive. You got to drive for it. You got to be able to push. You can't be passive all the time. Whereas a lot of times we think about art and creativity, which is true whenever you want to. Creativity really comes when you're able to quiet the mind and be and just let go of everything. So so it's kind of the opposite of that. So finding that balance, right? So to me it is having a physical practice and having more of a mental practice or a creative practice, right? So for me at the time it was jiu jitsu and photography, right? And so at this point in my life, it's kind of a mix of yoga and jiu jitsu. I mean, I really just do something physical every day and then also try to be somewhat creative, try to write a lot more these days. Um, now that I've gotten over the cliche that you, you're only good at one thing or whatever, that was like, that's something that I wish I would have learned a lot sooner, you know? So, um. Yeah, I hope.

Daniel Aaron:
Well, that's great. I mean, I love the way that evolved for you. And I mean, it points to a couple important things I would say, because most of us grow up with these this philosophy that life is binary, that it's either or. And as we evolve, we start to get the realization that actually there's a greater level of a greater level of truth, which is it's both and right, both. And, and so it means, you know, yes, a killing art or a martial art or even if we step out of that just meaning like strength and vigor and physical vitality. And then on the other side, it's also about the heart and love, you know, and there's the the quotation that we want to have a soft belly and a strong spine. And I remember when I was a young man practicing judo, I was living in Northampton, Massachusetts, and I would go to the dojo like four times a week. And as I would walk from the dojo to the shower room, it was in this big warehouse, and there was this huge poster. And the poster had like some kind of cool, like calligraphy design with a samurai warrior on it. And the quotation, I'm sure you've heard it, it said, Never give a sword to a man who can't dance. Right. And I think what it points to is like and one of the part of the Warriors creed or the samurai creed is if you're angry, then you've already lost, right? You can never enter into a fight when it's ruled by anger. Right. And we could we could talk lots about that. Last thing I'll say, though, is I have a friend who's an entrepreneur. He was an MMA fighter for years, like professional fighter. And then the last few years, he's transitioned into being an entrepreneur. And I was talking with him a few weeks ago and he's like, you know, the thing about entrepreneurship is you don't expect it. Like when you're an MMA fighter, you expect it's going to be hard. You got, you know, this rigorous, you know, physical training and then you, you know, you literally get beat up. That's part of your how you make a living.

Daniel Aaron:
But entrepreneurship, it's just as hard. It's just a different kind of hard. But nobody tells you that. Yeah, Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's great what you point to and also that the way we do one thing is the way we do everything. So being able to excel. And again, you mentioned Da Vinci. What a great what a great example of somebody that said everything I do, I want to do it the best I possibly can. And, you know, he's just such a testament to what that produces in art and outstanding contributions to the world. So. Now your work like if we talk about entrepreneurship, right? You had this great career in the fashion and celebrity world and now you transitioned because you found that a little bit vacuous and you've moved into something that's more satisfying. And that's how we got connected. So what's your what does story mean to you and why is why do you have such a passion for that? Mm.

Eric LaCour:
Um, let's get to the story in a minute, because there was so much we just talked about and that you brought up that I want to kind of like because a big learning for me, honestly. I mean, we're all. All this is like yin and yang, right? So it's like the more I've studied yin and yang, like we don't realize how important the softness is. There's a quote, and you may know it better than I am, but I do. But it's your ability to the the amount of power you're able to put out into the world is directly proportional to how well you can rest or how soft you can be. Right. So it's it's almost like I think about like bouncing a ball. Like the harder you throw it down, the higher it can go, right? So so that was a big learning for me back in the day or, or I learned that from a breath. Teacher Dan Brulé was really how to relax. But but Yin and Yang, I know people personally that are. Having a hard time in life and. I don't I hate saying this because it almost feels like it should be wrong. But. But but there's but it's also like there's no other way, Right? So if there's a up, there's a down, there's a front, there's a back, there's a side, there's a left, there's a right. There's a hot, there's a cold. There's a, you know there's a dark, there's a light. So does it mean that I mean life is suffering. So therefore it has to be suffering if we're going to have some good times. Right. I mean, it's probably more like, you know, ups and downs at a at a lower level ups and downs and higher level ups and downs. Right. So depending on where we are or what's going on in the world. But um, yeah, I just it just makes so much sense when you understand that everything's up and down and you're less likely to get upset about having a hard time or about working too hard or about whatever it might be when you understand that's the deeper understanding of, of yin and yang for me.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah, that's. Sorry, Go ahead. You were going to say more.

Eric LaCour:
It was just that. Yeah. So and then and then that applies to a well-rounded human. Right? Art, creation, reflection, creativity, ideas. And then there's building. There's the more masculine feminine is more of the softness. Soft and receptive and nurturing. Which kind of brings me to one of the things we were starting to talk about was like nurturing. There could be too much nurturing. There could be too much structure, there can be too much chaos because chaos is important. Chaos is related to ideas and new things coming about. But you got to take that chaos and make it into order, Right? But there can be too order, can be too restricting too. Which is which brings me up brings me to the idea of like the some say that, you know, the society we have here is the most abundant, like America is the most abundant nation that's ever existed. And it could be because of this and we're experiencing this in life right now. It's like we get too much to the left and then the right is like, Yo, yo, yo, you're going a little too far. And then we go too far, right? Which we were before it went far left. We were more maybe you could say we were too, too far right. And then. And so they're like, Hey, yo, you need to come back this way, you know? So we're keeping each other in balance. And in the same way that stories are used to transform society and to translate ideas, you know, we keep each other saying we all keep each other sane through, through talking and through calling each other out. Um, so it's important. I think that stuff's important because there was one time in my life where I was just like, everything should just be nice and hairy fairy all the time and. And that just leads to worse stuff. But, but you have to be open to talking and having Yeah. Kind of rambling now, but yeah.

Daniel Aaron:
Well, no, I'd love to bring together a few of the pieces that you said and really echo them because you said some really profound things in there and we were talking about a little bit before. It's not either or. It's about both. And, and I think where we often get confused in in life and when we're in a teaching role or a coaching role or more accurately, when we're in a student role or a client role, we we want we want the answer, right? We want someone to say, this is what you should do. And, you know, sometimes that's cool. Sometimes that works. Though there are no there are no formulas that work all the time. Because if your goal is to get from here to here, you know, a good coach or teacher is going to say, well, right now you're a little too far to the left. That means you got to go to the right. But it's going to be different from everybody. And some people might hear that and say, oh, we all need to go to the right. Well, no, you were right on track or no, you were all ready to the right. Right. So there's this great expression I learned from one spiritual tradition earlier. It said at the gates to the promised Land. There's there are two pillars. And on one pillar is a symbol for healing. So. Okay, well, that that makes sense. Healing is part of evolution. We all need that. The other one was paradox. And I remember when I first heard that I was like, paradox. Well, and it's like what it means is it's as we evolve, we get to hold things that seem contradictory. But in the, in the greater truth, they are the same. And, and I'll give one example that I learned from one of my yoga teachers years ago that I love is like if we think about energy, yoga is the movement of energy, right? And if I am wanting to put energy through my arm, well, if my arm is weak and flaccid, right, there's not going to be much energy moving through it. Right. On the flip side, though, if I try really hard and I put a really squeeze it like this, well then I'm going to block the energy, right?

Daniel Aaron:
So like one of the principles of yoga is it's right action or just the right amount of energy. So it's this combination of softness and strength and the yoga tradition. It's theorem Sukham. And, you know, for all of us in our life, part of what and I love like I call this the show is called The Art of Vibrant Living. And the reason I call it that is because it is an art. There isn't one thing like, well, become a martial arts master and then you'll have a great life. Well, no, you need maybe that will help. But there are other components and it's an art to see how we integrate all of these pieces. Does that make sense?

Eric LaCour:
Yeah, I love that. You know, I like to say tension restricts flow, right? And actually in jiu jitsu, I mean, I'm teaching white belts these days and and have a student of mine and, and he was getting on top of me and he's being all tense. And I was just like, when you're on top. So this is cool. This is yin and yang of jiu jitsu. If you don't know anything about jiu jitsu and this is what I tell new guys, I'm like, just on the top. Be wide and heavy and on the bottom, be tight and a ball, right? So in jiu jitsu would be wide and heavy on the top. So you can just kind of keep yourself even by being. And the more relaxed you are, the heavier you're going to be and, and you'll hold them down a lot easier. But what's really interesting is if you do the opposite, if you're on top and you're all tense, more likely you're more likely to get rolled like people are going to get out from underneath you. And so does the yang of jiu jitsu is be wide and heavy on the top, Tighten the ball on the bottom.

Daniel Aaron:
That's yeah, that's perfect. There's like again, there's no there's no one way to do everything. Life is this constant evolution. I think of that a lot to do with morality too. That's like something I've studied a lot in my life and why in some way religions are popular is because they try to simplify it for us. And, you know, there's a level where that can be useful. Like, hey, it's probably a good idea to say it's a rule, don't kill each other. Like that's probably that's probably a good thing to have that rule. However, is it possible that that rule would be not useful at a certain time? Well, that opens up a whole nother can of worms. So I don't know if we want to go there, but. Yeah, in fact. So let's switch gears for a minute and get into speaking about story, because I know that that's been a big passion for you and we both love the work of Joseph Campbell. And, you know, a lot of my own work is about story as well. So how did you move into that work and what does it mean for you now as a filmmaker?

Eric LaCour:
Um, well, I come from a life. It's this is really funny. It's like coming up. It was like painter and painting. When I was a painter, I hated photography. And when I and then later I fell in love with photography all of a sudden, and I was like, okay, I'm a photographer. And then while I'm a photographer, I was a photo snob. I looked at filmmakers like they were just like, Why would I do that? I'm I'm a photographer, right? So I'm like, I don't know. It was just it was an ego thing, right? So you just thought you were cooler because you could just do more with one image as opposed to tons, you know, thousands of images. So eventually I got into photo and and I got into filmmaking and I started realizing, like. The story is almost more, Oh my God, dude, this is the yin and yang of of filmmaking is like the film which Yang is order. Yang is light. So Yang would be the film, the video, the picture that you're looking at now and then the the the. The yen would be more of the story or the as far as I think now, I'm kind of just talking kind of thinking I hadn't really thought about this. This idea just came to me. But so I realize how important is the yin and yang? They both are so important, right? So I used to just put all this weight on light and framing, and now I started realizing how important the story was. And. And not that I didn't think it was important before, but I'm also a big I'm into psychology, yoga, all this stuff. And and then I ran across Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey. Um. And it's just powerful. It's almost like it speaks to our subconscious mind. You know, the hero's journey speaks to our subconscious mind. Basically, we all. There are things that we all experience as humans. And if you don't know Joseph Campbell, he basically studied all religions and mythologies and found these events that are happening in all and and and why they speak to us. There's all these events that are happening in these stories from religious figures, but also from mythology.

Eric LaCour:
And there's a reason that these things speak to us because it is us. They they all speak to us in different ways without going through the whole thing, because there's a lot of different versions. And I have a little bit of an imposter syndrome. I am definitely don't consider myself a you know, I aspire to be a Hero's Journey scholar, I guess you could say. But in my studies recently, what I really just speaks to me is like just the beginning of it. I mean, if you're not familiar with the hero's journey and how it fits with people for the audience is like just the beginning of it. It starts with a normal world. For me, the normal world was the one time that I can remember was when I was in college and I had just gotten the camera and I just started photography and I had this internal passion, right? So and then there's a call to action. And I had my aunt took me and was like, What do you want to do? I was like, Well, I kind of want to study photography more. Have you looked at schools? And she showed me the school in California and and she, she called them right there and like put me on the phone with them. And, and they were like, Well, you should start the session. We have one session starting in two weeks, but you should probably do the one. That's because that's kind of soon. And I was like, No, I'm going to that one. You know? I was like, That was my call to action and I want to say it. I took the call to action. I went into it. And that's where, you know, eventually, after I took the call to action to to go to photo school, you know, that's when I encountered like guides whenever I got into to California, met friends that kind of guided me throughout my, my my journey as a photographer. In fact, I have a good friend, Jason Barber's a lot I'll never forget. He he's the one who really he saw my work. At the time, I didn't know what I wanted to do and he saw the work I was doing with portraits of people.

Eric LaCour:
And he took me to his house one day and he started showing me these art books of Richard Avedon and and and Helmut Newton. And he was like this like celebrity photography, high end fashion, fine art, portraiture. And I was just like, oh, so, so hero's journey. That was my normal from normal. Like, that's something you'll see in a lot of movies is like, you start with the normalcy, there's a call to action. It's usually an internal. A lot of times it's an internal conflict or not a conflict, but necessarily a urge or a yearning. Um, Star Wars Luke Skywalker wanted to be a fighter pilot and then and his uncle is like, you need to stay here for a little bit longer. And then and interesting thing about that call to action and this is what speaks to me because I have a friend, I have a family member that's close to me that needs to hear this, but I don't know how to say it to her is that basically it's like this is a deep learning of of facing discomfort. Right? So she's not taking calls to action. People are giving her calls to action and she's just like, I'm staying comfortable. And so what happens in the hero's journey is if you stay comfortable or if you if the call to action, something happens to you, it's either it comes like I said, it comes from the outside. It could be somebody challenging you to something, but it could also be an internal drive or yearning, right? So you have this internal, but if you don't see through it, you don't you don't answer the call to action. Things get worse. And then you have to maybe something happens that you have to do it, like with Luke Skywalker, his grandparents or his uncle and aunt were burned by the empire and he had to go. And then he encounters a guide. That's another part of it, right? The Inner encounters, uh, Obi-Wan Kenobi. And he has this guide and multiple guides. And then there's the next level is crossing the threshold. Threshold crossing the threshold is where you're entering this new adventurous world. And then eventually you're like, meeting trials and tribulations.

Eric LaCour:
And. And it just keeps going from there. Like I said, I'm not a scholar. There's different versions of it. So if anybody wants to send me any info you got on or any interesting takes on the hero's journey, I'm into it and would love to look at it.

Daniel Aaron:
Well, I mean, that's great what you said. You get you get it is a big concept, so it's challenging to lay it all out in just a couple minutes. I'll add in a little bit, though, and then flip it back over to you because yeah, I mean, Joseph Campbell, as you point out, he's. The really the origin of consolidating this information. And for people that are like, what's this? I want to get more into this. You know, there's a great video series years ago with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell. There's the book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Eric LaCour:
I don't have the actual book, but I found the cover on my desk.

Daniel Aaron:
Oh, perfect. Perfect.

Eric LaCour:
Taped up the edges. So carrying it around with me didn't mess it up too much.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah, well, and it's. I mean, it's such a good reminder because. And why all those stories are so popular, whether it's Luke Skywalker or, you know, Bilbo Baggins or, you know, any of these, like, epic films that we love and novels. There's always this, this. Yeah, as you said, there's this call and then there's this journey, and then there's the challenge, and then there's the allies, and then there's the villain and then there's the overcoming. And guess what? That's our life. That's all of us. We're all living some version of that. And so when we that's why it's so, so great to see that played out in front of us in in film is we say, Oh, that's what's going on. And we make sense of our own challenges and tribulations. And, you know, and you might not say this yourself, so I'm going to point it out to people. One of the great things about your work is you from the framework and understanding that you have of it, you're really good at helping helping others make sense of their own hero's journey. Right? And I know that that's a big part of what you do with your work. It's, it's, yeah. Bringing your love of the the art and science of photography and film and bringing that and you need that. But it's also understanding, helping people understand where did I come from, where am I going? What did I overcome? Who are my heroes? So do you want to say anything about how you do that in your work with people?

Eric LaCour:
I mean, that's what I say. It kind of happens on its own, Like, right. I remember it happening with you when we interviewed a little bit. Some things came up that you had forgotten, which is amazing. That's just another testament to talking, right? So when we are going through our story and we're finding these elements in our life, things come up that we forget about. And that's even happened to me today on this call, like we think in conversation is a powerful thing that I've learned more recently. And so whenever I do do these brand stories, I look at I look at it and I kind of look for these things happening in their life. And I'm not so structured, so hard structured that I have to use every piece of it. But for the most part, yeah, I'm looking for that stuff and people will see it and they realize and that's the most powerful thing about it, is it's subconscious subconsciously speaks to us. The the hero's journey and story in general subconsciously speaks to us because we all put ourself in the place of the character. Right? And that's that's the most powerful characters are the ones that are believable. The ones that seem like you could be them and they're experiencing the same things you have. So you have them experiencing the things you have. And then then they they encounter different ups and downs. But one of the one of the things that happens a lot is or have a great a good teacher of mine Michael Hansen taught me was. I mean, one of the simplest versions of a story, it's like. Uh, normal. You have a desire. Something is in the way of that desire or something you want to attain something your drive and you're attaining something. And you. And there's something in the way, and you have to get over that. But also, whenever you get and this comes from the hero's journey as well, when you get that thing, once you acquire it, you have to sacrifice something. Some sort of sacrifice happens in your life. So it's almost like we have to let go of things in life in general. Like for instance, if I wanted to do more of, you know, I can't do yoga every day if I want to start writing more in the mornings or something like that, right? So where am I putting my time? So.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah, that's that's great. And there's more to say about that. But I'm going to pop up here. We got a great question and I'm curious to get your perspective on this because it's related. So Brian asked, how often has taking immediate action produced positive results in your life? Right. And that's clearly part of the hero's journey when you know the hero's originally in the zone of comfort, but then something compels them forward. So does the question make sense? What do you think about that?

Eric LaCour:
Yeah, I think it makes sense and that's something we all have to learn over time. I mean, there's that's that's a hard that's a tough thing to really say yes or no, because it feels like whenever I. It's something to learn, right? So to trust yourself, there's a certain trusting to trust your, your, your, your desires or your your judgment of a situation instead of having to. Because sometimes we've got to reflect, but we can reflect way too much. You know, sometimes you can think your way into a hole, you know, so you just kind of have to trust that you're making the right decision or trust all the knowledge you have from the past is is meant for this moment to make that choice and to and I guess you could say it, it comes down to a gut feeling, right? So you learn to listen to your gut. And we all know how we've all had. I'm sure everyone listening to this has had a time where they were trying to make a decision and they made it based on logic. And they're like, logically, this is here, this is there, this is there. This is a great decision for me. And then you do it. And then you realize like, oh, I had this gut feeling not to do this and it didn't work out. And so there's some intelligence going on in our bodies that is higher than than our logical minds. And that blows me away too. I love stuff like that. So that's something I can get into with yoga. There's a I'll just keep going with it, a study or not a study, but there's a story. Um, of of or the idea is basically that your gut is like a friend. Your gut. Your gut feelings are like a friend. Right? So your friend is a friend that wants to hang out and he's calling you over and over. He calls you every day and you never answer. Right? So eventually that friend gives up. Right. So same thing with our gut. We have to reestablish, reestablish our connection with that gut feeling. And you do that through yoga, meditation.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah, well, nicely said. And and I love the question, too, because, you know, it was it wasn't there was something specific in the question. It wasn't just how often has taking action produced positive results in your life? It was how often has taking immediate action produced benefits in your life? And part of the way I think of it is just like you said. And if we if we look at the martial arts perspective on it, right, it's so much about martial arts and this applies to to life training as well, is developing these good habits and reflexes, right? Most martial arts have this part of the tradition called the kata, Right? Which is the forms where you just practice the forms you're not actually in like sparring in that moment. You're just learning them. And so the classic example is from The Karate Kid, right? Where Mr. Miyagi has young Daniel painting fences and waxing the car. And, you know, he's doing this over and over again and he thinks, you know, I'm just, you know, doing this old man's work here. But then he learns that this these habits that he developed were to train him. So they were built in instincts. So in the heat of the moment, he knows how to block the punches. Right. And so much of our life, I think, and whether it's meditation or breathwork or yoga or even art, all of that is to help us develop the the awareness and the insight and the intuition so that when when life is happening in the moment, yes, we can trust our instincts and we can be immediate action. And the great thing about immediate action and I'm really passionate about this because this is one of the things I know for myself. I come from a background of being fearful and careful, like I don't want to mess up. And in my family of origin, there was a lot of I'll just make it simple and say a lot of abuse. So part of my early patterning was like, I don't want to do what they did, so I'm going to be careful, right? But at a certain point it's through the immediate action that then we see the consequences, the results, which then give us the quick feedback, which then allows us to adjust.

Daniel Aaron:
So we evolve much more quickly when we take immediate action. And it also implies this like trust for life and trust for ourselves. Like, I don't need to be perfect. I need to be in action, I need to be evolving. And this is one of the basic things I work with my clients on from the beginning is saying. To learn how to trust ourselves implicitly and and root out the old judgments and ways that we pull ourselves down and and to be able to create ourselves first in our own mind and heart and then through action in the world. So I love the question. I get passionate about it. And I brought up something in the midst of that, though, that I know is an area where you are very experienced and passionate to, which is the realm of breath and breath work. So since time is flying along and there's so many things we could talk about, do you do you want to say something about your experience with breath and what it means to you and why it's important for other people to.

Eric LaCour:
I think one of the things that. Not. I wish I would have learned longer that I would like to like I try to tell my students because I do teach yoga occasionally or a few times a week, I actually teach yoga. So one of the deeper learnings of of yoga or that I've learned it was really 20, 21 where I did a breath, like it was a 21 day breath workshop where we lived in a tent and practiced deep breath work every day, almost just about every day, sometimes twice a day. Right. And the whole point of it was, is the deeper understanding is that all of our experience, our life, our body remembers everything that ever happens to it. Right? And so there's things that have happened to us. There's also stuff that that has passed on. And actually we could talk a little bit about this in a second. Is that the way I see it? Karma The real understanding of karma is like your body's memory of everything that happens to it. But the, the the meaning of trauma is everything that the body's memory of everything that happens to it. So it's those subconscious habits. And to, to really change your life is to change the subconscious habits is to is to but but also release them, right. So to get rid of the old which which manifests as like tension in the body for the most part I think I see it like it's almost like a numbing right. So the best example I have is, is so I'm on my way to jiu jitsu one day. And I'm I get hit from behind. So I'm taking a left and this SUV, full speed hits me behind. I think he was probably 55 or something, spun my car and rolled me. Right. So I was okay. You know, I, I remember I braced myself. I mean, I did have a concussion, but I also caught myself while I was rolling. And so it wasn't too bad. Um. After that, whenever I would drive after that, I was literally like every time I'd take a left, it was like, Whoa. Like I was nervous driving just in general.

Eric LaCour:
But taking a left was the hardest thing for me. And then but from understanding CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, where you if you have somebody that's afraid of a an elevator, you talk about an elevator one day and the next time you look at a picture of an elevator and then eventually you go and look at one and eventually you get in one and eventually you let the doors close and then you ride it right? So you've got to ease your way into it. I you know, I had people that said you need to go to therapy. I'm like, I don't need to go to therapy. I know that. I just need to face this thing over and over. And so I just continued to face it and eventually it went away. But the interesting thing about this is understanding that there are things that have happened to us in our in our we have ancestral trauma like that your body remembers. Right? So your your DNA literally has subconscious habits and you don't even remember it happening. Right? So so imagine in your life you got things that like, what if you can only take lefts? You always got to take make circles or something to go to, to take a right, you got to do a circle. So you're just taking you twice as long to get wherever you're trying to get. But if you can face, you know, learn to face that fear. Which kind of brings me to another thing. It's like, so in the breathwork, a lot of the things that came up to me was fear. And you might cry. You might you have to feel those emotions, right? So the repressed emotions, the only way to get rid of repressed emotions is to feel them, to allow them to flow out the body. And then you make space for new, um, new habits and feelings if anybody gets a chance. If you haven't seen the movie, I mean, it blows my mind that this stuff is in movies these days. And it was in the Pixar film, um, where the jazz musician goes to Earth Soul. All right, So in Soul you, there's a scene where the little soul has all this black stuff, right?

Eric LaCour:
So I'm totally screwing up. You'll see it. But in the, in the movie, there's literally a scene where a soul where it's a monster and you think it's just a monster. And then these little spiritual guys go and dance around it and do this meditation practice, and then all that black stuff starts falling off. And at the time you think it's just a monster. And then all of a sudden underneath it, it's a little soul. And that's exactly how you feel when you come out of very powerful breath session. It like traumas, anxieties, repressed emotions are like weight and in fact, repressed emotions take it. It takes effort to hold that stuff in. So it's almost like every day we're walking around, like if you get home and you and you're tired and you're like, I didn't really do anything today. I don't know why I'm tired because you might be holding in a lot of hits, you know, like you're like it's like you're walking in doing this all day, holding it in, holding it in. But once you feel it and you allow it to flow, I mean, this is a big thing for men. Obviously. I was taught not to you know, I didn't show my emotions for a long time and I still don't. But but I know how to release them when I need to. I have ways. I have. I show my emotions, you know, with my girlfriend and whatnot. But so the one of the experiences I had was in that 21 day Breathwork workshop. That's where I really learned this on a deeper level. My first breath session, I kind of let loose and I felt that lightness. It's almost like you take these sand bags and just like you've been walking around with sand bags on your shoulders and you did not even know that they were there. You take them off and that's why you feel like you're floating. That's why you feel like you have people say they feel like they float out of a yoga studio sometimes because it happens from yoga studios to. What if I got off track from what I was talking about?

Daniel Aaron:
Well, that's great what you said. And, you know, I'll echo a little bit of it. And is the experience that we all learn from childhood is to not feel things. And at a certain point it's unsafe. Like as a little kid, I don't want to I can't feel certain things because I don't know how to deal with it. I don't know what's mine and what's other people's. So there's this survival mechanism which is rather than feel, I push it down, right. And repression and suppression of the technical terms for it. The analogy I use a lot is it's like holding a beach ball under water, right? And we've all had that experience. We can we can do that and we can do it for minutes and days and weeks and months and years and decades. Right. But as you said, it takes energy, right? So and it results in just showing up as a a shell of our potential. And what happens when we do. And there's lots of different styles of breathwork. And I just encourage people to like really go for some of these therapeutic kinds of breathwork the ones where you're doing fast breathing, where there's an intention to heal, to release therapeutic styles of breathwork when we really do that, the emotions, just like the beach ball comes to the surface sooner or later, it's like the emotions come up to the surface, as you said, so that we can feel them and let them go. And when that happens, it's like, Wow, all this energy is released. The world looks brand new. There's so much benefit that comes from it. And what's amazing is we didn't even know that, you know, for all this time I was expending energy and limiting myself from the full range of emotions and life. And then we realize, like, wow, now I'm free. I didn't even know I was in jail. And it's just so incredibly liberating. It sounds like that's what you experienced in your first time.

Eric LaCour:
Yeah. I mean, so the deepest learning that I got from all this is that understanding of repressed emotions and that understanding of your body, um, remembering everything that happens to you. And, and so, and Sadguru in his book, in his book, Karma literally says he says. Releasing the body of karma is the deepest practice of yoga. And that just blew my mind. I was like, Oh, so like, we have habits. Kind of like whenever I got in a car and I couldn't take a left. There's things that we do where we don't even in the same way that somebody might drive to work on an off day. Like how many things did you do on your way to work? And you didn't even realize it till you got there that you were it was Saturday, you know. I mean, I've heard stories of doing that, but that happens. Maybe that happens to me when I walk in my office, you know, because I'm working at home. I'm joking. But but yeah, I just think that is just such a powerful to me. That's the I mean, if Sadhguru says that's the deepest training, I'm like, Dude, that's I wish I would have learned that so much longer. So in a way, it's like we're getting rid of old bad habits, old stresses, old anxieties and, and, and making space for newer habits. So that's, that's what the use of this of like, deeper breathwork and, and, and feeling your feelings is all about.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah. Nicely nicely said. I often think because I started with yoga and yoga practice and breathwork right at the same time in my life, 1996. And for a while it's like they were both beautiful paths, but I didn't see where they intersected. They're like, you know, train tracks that never came together. And then eventually I realized, like, yoga is the slow, steady path. And Breathwork is like the super highway to awaken. Just so much happens so fast. Oh, he's got something for us. And then that's good actually, because then I want to make a transition to make sure we let people know you're back. Yeah.

Eric LaCour:
I just had my air conditioner is making some noise. Um, I had something really that I wanted to say too, and I lost it, so. Breathwork. Well.

Daniel Aaron:
I'm sure it'll come back, but.

Eric LaCour:
I got it.

Daniel Aaron:
So there it is. Okay, You're saying sorry.

Eric LaCour:
So you're saying that the Breathwork is fast tracking it. So for me, like, I read the book Breath, right? So in the book Breath he talks about James Nestor talks about how the Wim Hof method is like the the shove or the violent shove into presence. Right? So one of the reasons for that is that when you stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, you got to think about what that sympathetic nervous system is done for us. Right? So it makes you super present, right? It it it sends all the blood to the organs. You're not resting and digesting. You're in fight or flight response and you're like, where's the tiger? Like, I'm ready to run and fight from a tiger. So it heightens your and that is presence, right? So like a lot of people have a hard time understanding like, you know, everybody's saying it these days like, oh, you should be more present. You should, You're like And then you start thinking about being present. You're like, No, you're not really being present. Presence is more of a listening. It's more of a feeling the world around you. Right? And that's just powerful to me. So, so the violent shove, like he said, that was violent shove. And then after I read that maybe less than a year later, it was actually six months after I read that book, I found out the more violent shove is the rebirthing brother.

Daniel Aaron:
Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, and sometimes that's of great benefit to all of us too, to just wake up, to break out of our old patterns and really see them starkly and to get a quantum jump, super powerful. And in the same way, psychedelics can be helpful to people or they can be imprisoning if they become habitual. Um, and we could, we could go on and on and on about that. Time is flying along though, and I want to make sure that people know one how they can get in touch with you because I know part of your work, because I've experienced it myself, is this really phenomenal thing of helping helping lots of people. But I know, like coaches and teachers especially, to be able to understand their own story and communicate it via this most incredible medium called film, which is so popular and ubiquitous these days. And on that note, you've you've offered a free gift here. So can you let people know how they can reach you? And can you tell us about the gift?

Eric LaCour:
Yeah, So actually so a big part of my what we do and I usually don't do this until somebody, you know, it's an official deal, right. But I decided for people that have are watching this show or that find out through the show if you just mention that we'll do I'll give you a free story building process is what I call it. And typically it's usually honestly like when we do a legit one and it's it could be a week, every day for an hour, but we'll keep it at an hour for this. So. But it's very valuable. So we will talk. I'll ask you some deep questions. We'll just do a free story building process and you can take that story and get somebody else to make a film. If you want, you can try and make it yourself or you can actually use that story because story is so powerful. Um, I mean, we didn't really get too deep into how powerful story is because story is one of the those things that we we can't help but listen to. So in that sense, subconsciously, we can transfer information through a story. We can change people's minds through a story we can do. We can attract people to our business with a story, but we can also, you know, vulnerability is courage. So when you are vulnerable about yourself, people feel attraction to you. If they if they correlate with your why with you, why you do what you do, they're more likely to call you up as a coach to to, to work with you. Right. Or, or invest in your business and whatnot. Right. So it's all about the why. And there's other parts to the story as well. So like the fight and then there's the contribution, like what's your contribution to the life? So there's these elements as well as the elements that we know from the Joseph Campbell's Hero's journey, of course. But yeah, so if anybody either messages, Hey, I saw you on Vibrant Living show or you just go to liqueur studio.com and you can book a call there's a link there.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah beautiful okay well and and it's up on the screen now your calendar appointment setter and what's the best way for people to reach you.

Eric LaCour:
Um, I would say that that's the best you can. You can literally comment on my socials, on social, on, on my Instagram is probably where I'm most, um, most prominent. My Facebook was just hacked. So that's not, I mean, please come at me. I only have 23 friends now. I need, you know, I need to get, get my friends back up. And so, honestly, if you see my Facebook, I can't access that right now. I don't know why Facebook does this, but somehow I'm trying to get that worked out. So Instagram would be best at this moment or the link on my on my YouTube. Sorry, the link on my website liqueur studio.com. Okay but you can just in case you need it we got Eric at liqueur studio.com would be the email.

Daniel Aaron:
Perfect All right well and let us make the quick transition into the final big question Are you ready for that.

Eric LaCour:
Uh oh. I didn't know that. I didn't know about this.

Daniel Aaron:
Oh, yeah, Yeah. This is the totally unscripted, unplanned, while the whole thing is unscripted and planned. But the last question I have for you, because you've done so much work on yourself, you've invested in so many different areas in creating your vibrant life. If you had to boil it all down to one piece of advice for our audience, what would you say? What's the most important thing for someone to do or not do in order to create their vibrant life?

Eric LaCour:
I think the thing that comes to my head right now, the most important thing to create your vibrant life would be the understanding of what the way I see the the true self is actually awareness, right? So awareness, we can move that, right? So we can put our awareness in our thinking mind the thinking minds in the in the future or in the past. And when you're there, you're not necessarily present the thinking mind or the sorry, the awareness You are awareness. You're not your eyeballs. You are that which is looking through the eyeballs. You're not your ears, you're that which is listening through the ears. So you are that which is experiencing this bodies, this body in your life, in this world. Right? So I think a lot I think a lot goes from there. Right. So that can help you be more present. And and most of us these days feel like it's more prominent every day that people understand how important presence is, how how important it is to be able to shut off that thinking mind. So the way I see it and my and I honestly didn't read this anywhere because I say this this is my thing is presence is experiencing, presence is experiencing. So feeling touching, tasting, smelling. Um you that is presence. That is if you can't figure out how to get out of your head, go. And I had a friend that literally talked out of a of an episode. He had some mental thing going on and he called me, you know, flipping out. And I said, Hey, all I did was I directed him to the present moment because he was thinking about this thing that could be happening that wasn't happening. And this other thing that might have could have happened shouldn't have happened. And he was totally delusional about it. And I was like, Bro, look, none of that happened. That's not real. So he was in his car and I was like, just feel your feel your stairwell. Take a breath. Look around. Look how beautiful is the sky today. Because I see it. The sky is beautiful. You're not far from me, you know? And. And he, to this day calls me Sensei. Since that episode, he's, like, calling me his spiritual teacher. I'm like, Whatever, man.

Daniel Aaron:
Well, that's powerful. And I love what you said, that it's, you know, awareness is the key. It's like there's a great saying in Las Vegas, you must be present to win. So and let's let's wrap it up there. It's been such an honor and pleasure to have you with us. Eric. Thank you for contributing so much for the audience. You'd be foolish not to take Eric up on his offer of a brand story consultation to help understand who you are and your hero's journey. So I definitely encourage you to do that. And to all the viewers and listeners, thank you so much for tuning in, for being not only interested in your vibrant life, but actually doing something about it. You're learning about this and applying what you learn is so powerful. It makes a huge difference in the world. So please know that your learning matters, your life matters. You are loved and it's important. So thank you all so much for tuning in and we'll see you next week. Aloha. Hello. Mahalo for tuning in to the Art of Vibrant Living show, y'all. I'm Daniel Aaron and may you live with great vibrancy.

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