Special Guest Expert - Paul Larsen: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

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

Daniel Aaron:
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. Aloha, y'all. Welcome to the show. I am Daniel Aaron, your host. This is the Art of Vibrant Living show and I am so excited to be with y'all today. Whatever today it is, if you're watching by rebroadcast, that's also today. It is always today now. And part of why I'm so excited is we've got an amazing guest that is going to blow your mind in visual ways. Even so, I will tell you this first though, what is the Art of Vibrant Living show? It's a program. It is an opportunity. It is us. Entertaining, inspiring, hopefully. And most of all though empowering you to live your most vibrant, thriving, amazing life. So my request don't just be entertained and inspired. Also do something. Make it practical. You're going to get some deep wisdom and practical insight from Paul, so please try it out at home, apply it, experiment and then hey, let us know how it's going. On that note, if you would like to be in conversation with me, if I could have the honor of getting to know you and support what you are creating as you move into an even more vibrant life, that would be super cool. I would love it. Please reach out to me. Daniel at Daniel aaron.com now. Paul Larson. Check this out. He's gone from flipping hamburgers on Main Street to leading HR for Wall Street. Paul has lived and thrived with imposter syndrome his entire life. Shall I repeat that has lived and thrived with imposter syndrome for his entire life? As the founder of Find Your Voice Coaching Institute and now a Wharton Business School executive coach, Paul has successfully partnered with hundreds of incredible leaders worldwide to help them build a personal brand of compassion and confidence while leading from a mindset of growth and strength. Living sober now for over 33 years, Paul has come to realize that the only voice we need to find and listen to is our own voice. Paul. Thank you. So here. Daniel. Daniel.

Paul Larsen:
Daniel, I loving it. I'm absolutely loving it. You know, I, I listen to your that that how you so eloquently introduced me and I'm like who is he talking about? You know, there's there's that that imposter trigger just never ends sometimes. And it's like, well, I think he's introducing you, Paul, because you wrote that introduction. So thank you, thank you, thank you. It's it's an honor to be here and honor to be with you. And an honor, honor, honor to serve your audience today.

Daniel Aaron:
Oh, my brother, I'm so excited to have this conversation. It's been a while in the making, and I've already got 433 questions for you. Um, so before though, I get into my agenda and all the, the, the gold and gems that I want to bring out from you, I have the advantage, which is we've met a little bit before. Our audience may not yet have had that blessing. So would you be up for telling us a little bit about this, uh, journey of yours, how you got to this? And I imagine. But let's make sure that you will speak about this cheeky line about imposter syndrome, because I didn't know you could thrive with it. I know about the living. I'm joking a little bit, but yeah, we'd love to know more about that too.

Paul Larsen:
Yeah, I know that's to to borrow your phrase earlier, that is mind blowing, my friend. When I bring that out, you thank you for that. And you know, you know. My life is is a constant storybook that we can choose to turn the pages. We can choose to write new chapters. We can choose sometimes to throw that book away. And I've had an incredible, what I would say an incredible, blessed, inspired life where I've made some significant mistakes and had some wonderful successes. But the second part of my life, that second part of that kind of mind blowing experience, occurred in 2009. So not that long ago, although I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm entering my sixth decade of life. And in 2009, my father, who was an absolutely incredible person, um, absolutely incredible parent, absolutely incredible human, passed away, transitioned. And while at his memorial service on a beautiful June day, just, you know, just so happens, uh, a beautiful, beautiful, sunny June day, I'm listening to people talk about what he meant to them, which, by the way, Daniel, when you have a memorial service, that's what you want people to talk about, is what, you know how wonderful that person was. That's that kind of plays, the script. I'm sitting there and I knew this. It was not a no surprises because he was he was a he was an absolute gentleman from that greatest generation. And I'm listening about about 35 minutes through these, these wonderful, um, these wonderful testimonials. I thought it became about me like, oh my gosh, what are they going to say about me? What are they going to say about me? What are they going to say about me? Like, like, what am I doing in my life that is going to foster this legacy, that is going to foster people like these people talking about what, what what he meant to them in their lives. What are they going, what am I doing? What what what have I done now? Taking a step back, really, you know, on that. I'm sure I had done lots of wonderful work. I'm not. I'm not burdening myself with the with the with the rat hole or the rabbit hole of saying, no, Paul, you've never done anything good.

Paul Larsen:
But it wasn't deliberate. It wasn't intentional. And up to that point, I had been in many corporate roles in the in the business world. Had a ball with that and got I got laid off. I've gotten fired. I've had incredible promotions. So I felt like I ran the roller coaster in the corporate world. I had every type of emotion. And I knew that that was not what I was supposed to do going forward. I knew that I had something else to do. I knew I had a mission, a message, a calling, if you will, to help people in a different way than what I was doing, which was which, which was in a traditional business environment. And that was 2009. So I packed up my proverbial little suitcase and didn't really go anywhere, but packed it up from the corporate world, unpacked it into the world of coaching and consulting, and never stopped and help people to sort of find their voice, that inner voice of inspiration, that inner voice of passion and that inner voice of clarity, the values. Because that's what I did. We don't always have to have those big aha moments, um, you know, in life where you need to find that, like I did with my father's, uh, incredible memorial service, uh, his celebration of life. But how do we open ourselves to that? How do we make ourselves available, and how do we make ourselves approachable? And from that point on, from 2009, my second life, to borrow the to borrow, uh, a gaming term, my second life began and I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed it immensely and have been able to blend that with my first life to create a journey that is incredibly transformative.

Daniel Aaron:
Wow. Okay. Thank you. That's beautiful. So, okay, I went from 433 questions to 522. Now, um, because you just said so many beautiful and important things there. Let's go with this, though. You. You had an epiphany, an aha moment, and realized there was more. There was a calling for you, and you packed up your corporate suitcase and you headed off into entrepreneurship. Right. And I'm imagining that you, like me, encounter a lot of people still that want to do that, have done that, are afraid to do that, wish they could do that. You know, all these different permutations of that line sounds like for you, it was a fairly instant like, we're going, right. Um, what I guess two questions. What what does it take to to do that? What did it take for you and for the people that are maybe on the fence or afraid about it? Um, what what would you share with them about that process? Yeah.

Paul Larsen:
Beautiful questions, my friend. Beautiful questions. And I still am afraid sometimes I still have that vulnerability. I still have that. What am I doing? And so to your point, um, so, so, so somebody said to me once, you know, in terms of when, when I wrote my book a few years ago, when you think of of a huge task at hand, like writing a book, like entering the world of entrepreneurship, like starting a business, like leaving the confines of your comfort zone, that that, you know, like what you're doing up here is you're breaking that algorithm, which is so conventional that we have structured and created through all of our years of life. And my algorithm was very, very structured that it ran a protocol. I worked in technology, I worked with technology leaders. So I was used to sort of the if then conditional statements and, and all the things that that, that the how tech runs. And I realized that one thing I needed to do was to do something different. I needed to break the algorithm. And when I say break it, I didn't necessarily mean like it had to be a large scale, transformative break because that's very scary. Plus, those things don't really stick a lot. I knew it had to be just a little bit of a kind of a crack or a little bit of a little bit of a wound, right? To just kind of break some of the circular thought patterns up here. And the way I did that was when I learned when I got sober 33 years ago, back in the 90s, one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time, whatever, whatever, whatever that time frame is. Well, if you think about it, what's in front of us when we're present is all we have. That's where we are. When we think of the future, it can be all encompassing. So when I wrote my book, it was overwhelming for me to think about an audience. But if I wrote to one person at a time, if I speak to one person at a time, if I coach to one person at a time, it becomes so much more manageable.

Paul Larsen:
But more importantly for me, it becomes so much more inspirational. So what I did is when, when, when, when it became apparent that I was going to leave, that those corporate confines and go out on my own to do that in such a way, that's like, let's create a little bit of a break. Let's do what you need to do from a science perspective, which is preparing for that. Um, you know, it's fine to find it's wonderful to, um, to, to follow your passion, but we have to eat, you know, we've got bills to pay. We have rent, mortgages, whatever it might be. We have. Hello? It's like, oh, yeah, I want to go follow my passion, but I, I'm used to a certain type of financial obligations that I've created in my life. So there's the preparation side, which is the science, which allowed me to kind of prepare to enter into the sort of unknown world. Then the art of it was preparing me emotionally. The other was preparing my mind, my IQ, the artist preparing me emotionally, preparing me. To your point, Daniel, for the risk, for the failures, for my imposter voice which was saying, are you crazy, Paul? You don't belong here. You're a fake anyway. You're a fraud anyway. And I thought to myself, because that this is what was playing up here, I thought, well, if I'm already a fake or fraud, then why not let me just go out and do it? It's like. Just like it actually, that's where that's where it snapped for me about imposter syndrome to say, wait a minute. If I already think of myself sometimes as a fake or fraud or that I don't belong, then even more reason for me to be here. What's the harm? It's not going to. It's not going to hurt. So that allowed me to kind of go out. And I thought to myself, okay, what's the worst that can happen? Well, you can fail miserably. You can embarrass yourself and perhaps some other people, family, friends and so forth. Are you okay with that? And I'm like, yeah, I'm okay with that. And could I go back and get a job if I needed to go back and get a job?

Paul Larsen:
Did I trust myself inherently in here to go and just go back into the conventional world, pack my little suitcase back up in the corporate world and go back and find a job, whether in the corporate world or whether at an incredible company like a Target or Walmart or Starbucks that have incredible opportunities. Absolutely. And once I went through and worked myself through that, then it became, you know what? I might as well try it anyway, because if I'm okay with the failings that was going to come from that. And by the way, I have, I have had, I've had, you know, I've made mistakes and so forth, then it's going to be okay. So I think it's about really, really thinking and and having conversations with yourself or with a thought partner that you trust that can support you in a very science and art way. In other words, they can, they can. They can support you both from the, the, the the mind and the heart about what you want to do.

Daniel Aaron:
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, and you know, something came to me. I never thought of it this way as you were speaking. You described, uh. What's. Okay? What's the worst that could happen? Right? Fail miserably. Right. And in some way, part of what I heard. Is if we if we play bigger and bigger games in some way, we can't win, right? Because there's always somebody else bigger and better. However, if we can't win, that also means we can't lose, right? We're not playing not playing that win lose game anymore. Um, and I and I, and I get Paul what you're saying about the art and science. That makes a lot of sense. And the heart and the mind. And I think I know some things about what would be the the science and mind and head parts of preparation for that transition. What what can you tell us about the, the heart and the the heart and the art parts of that preparation or.

Paul Larsen:
Yes, I appreciate that. And and because the science is we, I like to think sometimes that we live in a very science oriented environment. You know, we follow rules, guidelines, checklists. There's all, you know, there's lots of ways that we should or and do things. But the art, you know, it's it's sort of like, okay, we have a might have a fixed way of doing things to borrow. Carol Dweck's, you know, mindset. Um, the fixed way the fixed mindset is going to be a certain way and it won't change necessarily. And sometimes that can be okay. There's a certain way that you do something with your money, you plan your finances, etc., etc. I get all that, but the growth, why was I doing this? I went back to ask myself the question when I when I was having that whatever that was epiphany in in my dad's service, why was I doing this? Why did I feel like I was so constrained that I really needed to kind of like, break through? What was it? And it was because I had something else to do. And it wasn't it wasn't to go do another project at the beautiful company I was working with at the time. It wasn't to go promote somebody else, it wasn't to go hire another 20 people. I had something myself to offer. I had something to contribute. I had another way to serve. And that's what it came down to is how am I going to serve? And that's where the art came in for me. So what the art did, Daniel, is it prepared me when I thought about the emotional fulfillment. In other words, um, when we think about our self-worth or what I like to call our self wealth, you know, that richness we have that, that, that then full embodiment, um, our self-worth. But I, I wrap it in this self wealth and I'm like, I've got more to give. I've also got more to replenish. I'm probably like up to here at that point, and I wanted to be up to here, or I wanted to be up to here with that fulfillment and with that, with that vibrancy, you know, that you talk about that you live.

Paul Larsen:
That's what I wanted. And I knew the science was only going to get me a certain way because I had followed everything. So I knew it was going to be the looking at it much more from the emotional quotient. Um, much more from that intelligence, obviously, of our emotions I and then wrapping it and then really what it came down to is and I still use this to this day when I work with, when I work on myself and certainly with clients. But what's what is what's that work of art that I'm creating? It became so apparent, Daniel, that my father, whether deliberate or not, had created a work of art in his life that impacted so many people. That was a constant, uh, um, consistent thread that day that I heard. I wanted to do that, but I wanted to do it. I wanted to author it in such a very deliberate and purposeful way that I was serving the community in a way that people that I had a gift, I had a talent. I wasn't quite sure what it was yet, but that I could unveil and, and and help as many people as I could, even if it was just going back to what I said earlier. One person.

Daniel Aaron:
Mhm.

Paul Larsen:
Thank you.

Daniel Aaron:
I just paused a moment because that's that's just so beautiful what you said. Right. I immediately I think of the, the Hindu term dharma right. Sanskrit term dharma. Like what. You know, what's your true purpose. And then I think of the, the Japanese term ikigai, right. Which to me goes beyond Dharma in a cool way. I'll leave that aside for now. As much as I love to talk about that concept.

Paul Larsen:
Yeah, an amazing concept.

Daniel Aaron:
It's an amazing concept. And I also I think of. What you described about your your father creating art through his life. Right. And I don't know how I don't know how this came about for me. I, I named I had like a business tagline going back almost 30 years that was make your life a masterpiece, right? And only recently, I don't know, five years ago, maybe I remembered this magical moment with Mahatma Gandhi, right? Where somebody, somebody interviewed him. I guess this was near the end of his life. And they said, Mr. Gandhi, do you have a message for the people? And his response? My life is my message, right? Um, and and I thought, wow, you know, you, me, anybody in the audience, none of us are meant to be Gandhi. However, our masterpiece, Life and mission is just as important, right? Just as valid. Um, so that brings me around to. You've touched on it in different ways. And this this idea of imposter syndrome, would you flesh that out a little bit more for us? Like what? You know, I talk about it all the time. So I got my ways of speaking, but I want to hear from you about it. And and also because I know you've got, you know, your own personal journey with it if you're willing to share any of that.

Paul Larsen:
Absolutely. My friend. Um, and I just love what you said about that. The message, the masterpiece. Absolutely. Because I think we all have that. I think we all have that within. But it's how to your point. It's how we choose to use that, and it's how we choose to use it with ourselves and how we serve others with that. And like you were saying, we don't all have to have these grandiose stages and these grandiose, huge communities and tribes. We we all impact one person at a time, no matter who we are and no matter where we are in life. And we never want to understate that. Mm. Um, so thank you for that because that, that, that when you were saying that I was just going through the journey right now of just kind of recentering myself back down here, my chair with what you were saying, because it was so beautiful and just the way you connected all of that. Um. At the same time. Sometimes I think I'm a fake and fraud. So where does that come in? Like what? You know, I've got a message. Oh, did you know that message, Paul, is, you know, a fake or a fraud and ba ba ba ba. You know, I like to say that back in, back in the corporate world, the corporate world gave me so many beautiful gifts. It really did. It just it just it just it just, you know, it just I was like this, this one of those, uh, big gift box that just keeps getting, like, unwrapped and boxed and unwrapped and be re, you know, rewrapped and boxed. And then you put tape over here and you use the old day old wrapping paper and, and I just kept getting unveiled because I kept saying yes to certain things in the corporate world. Remember, the corporate world provided me a wonderful, um, container. So it allowed me to say yes to certain things. Um, as you had said earlier today when we were talking, which allowed me to kind of step out of my comfort zone within that, within that laboratory. Because of that, I took on some incredible jobs and I got these incredible jobs, and I remember taking on a role as what they would call this is this was the time of time of the decades where everybody was a chief.

Paul Larsen:
Chief this and chief that, and chief da da de da de da. And they go, you're going to be chief people officer. And I'm like, what? You know, what the heck is a chief people officer? Now of course I knew what that was. And another word for it is chief human Resources officer. And I was like, oh my gosh, if that doesn't sound clinical, if that doesn't sound like I should be walking through with a white jacket on and looking at everybody's, you know, cubicles and checking people off, I didn't know what did, but immediately I, I knew I had the capability and talent based on my based on my experience and just based on what was known in here. But my ego started saying, wait a minute, Paul, you've been playing at this level down here. You think you can really play at this level up here, what we commonly call the C-suite. And this is a $3 billion company. So it was it was a significant organization. You think you can play up here, Mr. Larson? You know, you really are a fake. You really are a fraud. And, you know, now I can start laughing about you, Mr. Larson, because if you think you're going to be playing up there with the big boys, you're going to be going back to JP morgan's board of directors, because they were one of our holding companies. And you're going to be reporting on the board of directors, and they're just going to be laughing at you. And then, Paul, you're going to get that tap. This is the other part about imposter syndrome, Daniel, that we think we're going to get a tap on the shoulder and people are going to say, we know that, you know, that you don't know anything and that you've got to leave now. You've got to go. You know, it's time for you to go, you know? So it's that proverbial unmasking, hence the word imposter, imposter syndrome. One of the myths about it is, oh, just get more confident, have more confidence. I can be a confident imposter. Daniel. I can stand on stages. And I have at all hands meetings, town hall meetings, board of director meetings in New York, in the big Wall Street, these ornate rooms and I can it stand up there with confidence.

Paul Larsen:
And inside I'm like going there is no there there, there's nothing going on. So I realized in that moment during during the course of this that my whole life I had had these feelings. I had kind of swam through some of them. I had kind of avoided actually confronting them. Just like when you're we're kind of, you know, you know, going in a lake or a river and we're kind of going downstream or upstream or we're just kind of like avoiding some of the rapids or or heading out to the shore, whatever it might be. But we're kind of avoiding things. This is this moment in time when I got this job is where it all was the perfect storm, that proverbial storm. And I remember my coach at the time, I was kind of talking about a little bit of these feelings, and she says she looked at me and she said, do you feel like a fraud? And I looked at her like, what? Like who? Who says that, right? Who asks that question? Except somebody who really knows what's going on. And I looked at her and I just felt like, like the bells rang and the music and like. And I go, yes, a fraud, because it's like a fraud. And she goes, oh, she went like this. She goes, you have imposter syndrome. Like, like, oh, you have a cold or go get some cigarettes. You just have a throat lot, you know, you have a sore throat. It's like, oh, imposter syndrome. And I was like, I literally like, had not heard of it. And I go say what? Like, what is this? Like? You just you just took me through this whole thing, and you just kind of diagnosed this in like five seconds, and my whole world is, like, turned upside down. I might as well be flipping on my head right now because it's like, what's going on? Because imposter syndrome, Paul, it's when it's when you have these feelings of feeling like a fake or fraud or that you don't belong, you're not good enough, etc., etc., etc. she goes, it's really a feeling that you have to be someone else to be successful.

Paul Larsen:
Mm. And that's what it is. That's what imposter syndrome is. So when I, when I Daniel, it was like whoa, I won, I won I was like I won because it had a name, it had a name. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. You know, it was like, oh my ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. It's like I got it. So what I did is I, I leaned into it. I just leaned into it. I did all the research I could on it. Surprisingly, this was quite, quite a few years ago now, 20 plus years ago now. But surprisingly, it there wasn't a tremendous amount of research. It was out in the in, in the, in the community. But it wasn't like there was a ton of empirical data on it. But it is a real thing. It's a it's actually a phenomenon, not a syndrome. But it took on the name of syndrome. It's. Some point was categorized in the late 1970s. But here's the best news. Here is the best news ever. Hold on. So it's kind of like when Oprah gave her cars away and she's like, you get a car, you get a car, you get a car and you get a car. Everybody, almost everybody has experienced imposter syndrome of 90% of successful professionals. Mm. When I read that and I. And I was like reading it and I and I, and I revalidated it and revalidated it up to 90% of successful keyword, successful keyword successful professionals. Remember, I'm in human resources, so I work with some folks sometimes that aren't as successful, but they were called performance. Um, performance challenges sometimes? No. We're talking successful professionals have experienced imposter syndrome at one or more times in their life, if not their whole life. Like like for myself, once I read that, it was like, ah, great company. I'll make this work. I'll figure out what I need to do with it. And no, I'm not going to try to overcome it because that just sounds so tiring and fatiguing. And I like to kind of be able to put my feet up at the end of the day.

Paul Larsen:
And as an introvert, kind of watch some dumb TV with cat on my stomach and just enjoy life. So I wasn't going to continue to do a lot of overcoming of it. I wanted to integrate it into who I was. And so from fast forward to who I am today, imposter syndrome whenever I am triggered. With an impostor thought or the imposter voice. And it still happens. I just say good on you. It means you are messy to your point earlier. It means you are growing. It means you are colorful. It means you are doing something new. Because our imposter voice, our imposter life, our imposter avatar lives in the fixed mindset. It wants to keep us in the fixed mindset. It's going to judge us in the fixed mindset. And so when it is triggered and it tries to bring us back like the old proverbial get off the stage with the big hook kind of thing. That's because we have stepped into the growth. We have nested into the growth. We are. We are dabbling with our paint. To your point around the masterpiece in the growth. And it is all good. So I am like, I sit here and I am I, I, I consider myself an imposter syndrome mentor because I know what it's like to live with it. I like to think, say, that I came out of the womb with imposter syndrome, and I have learned to thrive with it because I integrated into who I am, I recognize it who I am, and I validate it. And when you do that in your life, you know, because, Daniel, you are an incredibly insightful and aware individual. The more we are aware of that. The more it can, it more it becomes part of us and we begin to dilute it. We take away the power. Mm. When it's over here. And it's something that we have to overcome, so to speak, it still has power, and it keeps building up that power. Uh huh. Yeah. Try to overcome me now. Now it's like. Yeah, it's part of me. Yeah. So every now and then, I still have those impostor thoughts.

Paul Larsen:
And I just like to think, oh, there we go. Pastor thought, what am I doing right now? That's that's that's creating it. Oh, yeah. Look at this. I am doing something different. Mhm. And and then it just becomes integrated into who I am.

Daniel Aaron:
Holy moly. I went from 533 questions to 2040. Oh my goodness. Okay, that was awesome. Thank you. Um, and thank you for so clearly, uh, elucidating what imposter syndrome is and for sharing with us your experience of it. And. I mean, a couple reflections come for me around that. There's the what you said about overcoming it, right. To me, that's like the. That's like cutting a tomato with the wrong side of the knife. Right. Um, and what you said about integrating, it's like flip the knife over, use the sharp part. Right. Either one could probably work. One's going to make a mess that we don't want necessarily, and not result in the clean slices that we want.

Paul Larsen:
The, um.

Daniel Aaron:
The next reflection that I often.

Paul Larsen:
You've seen me in the kitchen obviously. Now. That's right. I mean, I swear you could not have picked a better analogy. I mean, this is like, this is there's no accident. But to the fact that you're choosing cutting tomatoes with one side of the knife. Yes, sir, I have, yes, absolutely. The analogy fits with. Especially with imposter syndrome.

Daniel Aaron:
Awesome. Now, if I was if I was Sherlock Holmes, I would I would reveal that I saw one tomato seed on your lapel or something like that.

Paul Larsen:
Yeah.

Daniel Aaron:
However, I did not, I did not, um, I am a big fan of Sherlock Holmes though. Um, and you said something else. That's brilliant. Um, about the way I interpret it is the appearance of confidence as compared to true confidence. And I remember a friend of mine years ago, guy I had known I had known him for years, and I just admired him because because he was so confident, you know, and he just, like, didn't seem like he like I'm always like, you know, did I do that right? Am I saying this right? Am I an imposter? You know, I'm like, I'm having all these thoughts. And then this guy is just like cruising forward and I'm thinking, man, I want to be like him. And then we're we were one day we'd moved to Omega Institute. We were like, just. I was just on the beginning of my spiritual journey. I was going back 30 years and. In a big meeting. Everybody's introducing themselves with their their peers, their cohorts, the people in the journey with them. And and he said. I'm not as confident as I look. I was like, whoa! I mean, one, he just, like, outed himself about that, which, of course, was incredibly confident.

Paul Larsen:
Exactly.

Daniel Aaron:
It's like there's so many sides to it. Um, I thought that was brilliant of him, and it impressed me. And then the last reflection before I ask you one more question is. Or next question. I got so many, um, what you said about when you stepped into that role, right, that the perfect storm role and and that's what, like, really triggered off all the imposter syndrome to the next level where it had to get addressed in some way, like in some way prior to that, maybe you kind of just, you know, keep that in the shadows a bit, right? I remember for me, when I was early 20s, I played judo martial arts, and, and I was the slowest learner on the planet. Right. Like I was so inept at it that I don't know how it is that I kept going. Right. And I'd been playing for years. I joined a club in, uh, where was it? In New Orleans. And amazing, amazing teacher there and barely spoke English. A little Japanese guy. He was like, two feet tall. Um, he pulled me aside, one and ferocious. He pulled me aside one day, and he said. And at the time I had dreadlocks down to here, if you can imagine that. And so he called me affectionately. He called me Fuzzy Head. He's like, come, come fuzzy head, fuzzy head, come. And I was like, okay, yes, sensei. And he says, you, you could be black belt. I was like, yeah, I don't think so. And he said, from now on, you only play with black belts. You can't play with yellow, orange, green or not even brown. Only play with black belts, you know. And at the way I understood martial arts at that point in my life, there's only one answer. When the sensei tells you something and it's yes, sensei. Right. And so the next phase of my judo life, um, was essentially me going, you know, landing on my back, landing on my face, getting flipped, getting thrown. You know, because all the black belts were so much better than me. Um, but he, you know, he did me this great service, which is he didn't give me an imposter syndrome out.

Daniel Aaron:
He just said, that's what you're doing. And, of course, I made a lot faster progress when when that happened. So. And I want to rewind one more step with you. Um, and get a little more granular, because we've spoken about your transition from the corporate world into being an independent entrepreneur, consultant, coach, and. I'm thinking of several people in my midst right now, whether clients or colleagues who either again, have made or haven't quite made that transition. And one of the you referred to the corporate world as a laboratory a few minutes ago. Right? Sure. Um, and laboratory means to me it means like, okay, there's some there's some safety, there's some confinement. It's like a dojo. It's a practice zone. Exactly right. Um, and one of the big challenges I'm seeing for several people right now is going from the security of the finances that come in that, uh, laboratory to being an independent entrepreneur, which doesn't mean you're going to get a salary. Um, so how would you advise or what do you suggest or what's your experience around that part of the transition?

Paul Larsen:
Yeah, I'd be, uh, a beautiful question. And, you know, an incredible, uh, critical question. Right. Um, and you're absolutely right. You know, and also when I say that, like the corporate world is or was a laboratory life is that way, too. Life can be a laboratory. But who has to create the lab? Then we do so when we leave the confines of a certain laboratory, such as the business world, the corporate world, family relationships, whatever it might be school. We then have to create the next lab unless we move into it. But if we move into our own entrepreneurship and we move into our own self, because that's what I consider entrepreneurship to be, is a manifestation of who we are and what we're going to do and how we're going to serve, just in a different way. We have to create that structure. And to your point, we've got to make sure that our structures are such that we have the predictability. If that's really important to you, we have the predictability of the financial obligations, of the relationship obligations, of the structural obligations. Um, so we make sure that all of that occurs in such a way that, that. Applies your science piece to the art piece. So what I mean by that, Daniel, is this this goes back to what I did is when I decided the first was the piece, was the decision not to avoid, not to avoid what was within me and to do something about it. The second piece was then to say, well, today is Tuesday. I'm not going to be leaving on Thursday. You know, I'm going to take enough of I'm going to take enough of, quote unquote, the planning, the preparation, which goes back to the science. There's plenty of ways in which we can do and we can make things predictable. Now, the question then came up as, as, as I stated earlier and as you just asked so eloquently, what was I prepared for in terms of the risk I was willing to take, the vulnerability I was willing to take? You know that the the your colleague when you were at the Omega Institute and he says, I'm not as confident as I appear to be.

Paul Larsen:
Not only was he outing himself, and not only was he revealing himself, but he was showing an enormous amount of vulnerability to all of you in that moment and helping to kind of set that tone. Well, that's what we do when we go out on our own as well. How vulnerable was I willing to be? How much time, how much structure, how long was I going to play with this experiment in my new laboratory? Was I going to give it three months? Was I going to give it six months? Was I going to give it 12 months, or was I going to give it even longer before I would need to make a decision? So I gave myself 14 months. I don't even know why I landed on 14. I like even numbers of seven and seven was easy for 14 months. I planned each month out. Now I'm a creative kind of guy, so to kind of plan everything deliberately was like, okay, this is this is I'm not avoiding this. I'm going in and making some plans to put the laboratory the structure in place for each month. So at the end of 14 months or sooner. I would have enough data. You know, that's a word for me. Like, you know, it's like data, daddy, you got to have data. Like. Yeah, I just kind of like to feel it, you know? But no, you got to have data. And I knew I needed to have data. It wasn't just I couldn't just feel it to say, is this sustainable for me to have a lifestyle in which to serve myself and to serve others? And I think what happens with a lot of entrepreneurs I see, Daniel, is when they take those steps out and they have their first few, you know, their first few mistakes, their first few failings, which I had thousands of those actually. Um, and then they all of a sudden retrenched back. And I had planned for that, and I had gone in and really kind of planned to say, yeah, I'm going to be making some missteps here because I don't even know what I don't know. Now, this was back in 2009.

Paul Larsen:
Fast forward to to to where we are now. My gosh, there are so many resources available to us, so many things that are that are available to us that are even like, like no charge, that are incredibly full of richness, um, to really help us along on that journey. So it's it's again, it goes back to I keep bringing this up, but it's a blending of the art and science to making sure that emotionally, are you equipped to deal with this? Are you are you going to be are you willing to be vulnerable enough? Are you motivated enough? Are you able to go in and really look at the landscape that you're going to be creating and, and, and choose that and then and then create your results? So I had to have like a dashboard of results around all of that. And that's what I did in terms of helping me step out. So when the 14 months came up, I forgot all about the 14 months because I was already on my way. So when that anniversary appeared, um, it wasn't a decision I needed to make. It was like, bam, there, you know, it was something that was, um, I was already on my way, so I didn't need to, like, say, do I go or no go.

Daniel Aaron:
Well that's great, thank you. And part of what I get from that, too, is by giving yourself that level of planning. You knew that, okay, 14 months, that's going to come at some point. And and I know that I'm going to be okay until then. So for those 14 months and it didn't take that long, you were able to relax and trust and you weren't going, oh, am I going to make it? Is it going to work? And, you know, you weren't in that kind of scarcity or fear because of the data, because of the planning? Yeah.

Paul Larsen:
You just touched on a word that I I'm so glad you brought up scarcity. You know, we could come from a place of scarcity all the time. We can come from a place of of of, you know, that that that lacking. And if I knew that if I what my father had given me at his celebration of life was abundance. He had an abundant life. He had a life that he that he created for others. And that's what I wanted to do. So I wanted to come from that place of abundance, not scarcity. If I if I spent the first 14 months like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, do I have enough money? Do I have this, do this, that, you know, then I was just going to get more of that and I would never get out of that, that, that roadmap, that freeway, that highway. So I had to set my mindset in a place of abundance versus scarcity to know that the next 14 months was going to be one of growth. It was going to be, to your point, earlier, messy. But it also could result in the colorfulness, the vibrancy and the the, the, the, the, the enthusiastic response that the world could give to me, that I was on the right path. And that's exactly what I received.

Daniel Aaron:
Well. And as you as you say that, I think you are the poster child for enthusiasm. So you know your just just the way you are. You know, the energy that you bring to every moment in the conversation. Of course, the world gave you that enthusiasm because the world is a reflection. Right. So yeah.

Paul Larsen:
Well, and to your point though, and I really appreciate that and I do I live a very inspired life. I want to live a life of, you know, you and I have talked about this early in our earlier conversations, but a life of flow versus friction. And so I look for things to integrate, to blend and to just to just be flowing. But this enthusiasm is real. And for an introvert like me who would, who would much rather sit by myself than to go out and mix and to go out and meet a bunch of people, but who would much rather sit by myself. But for me to be, wow, this is wonderful, I love this, I love serving others, I love helping people, but it's one person at a time. And for me, that's where that's what replenishes that enthusiasm, that enthusiasm, that energy, that vibrancy, and ultimately my inspiration for what I do.

Daniel Aaron:
Hallelujah, I love it. And as a, uh, extreme introvert, I relate greatly. Um, now great sadness overcomes me in this moment because I see the time is just ticking away. And. And now I'm up to 3000 more questions. So I pause on that and check with you. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you would love to speak about today?

Paul Larsen:
You know, Daniel, I think. I go back to sort of I, you know, when I talk about my imposter syndrome, it's so easy for all of us. And thank you for this opportunity, by the way, but it's so easy for all of us to. To wear different masks in life. And I'm always, I always tell people, um, myself included. Um, people that I work with, people that I might just talk to on, on the bus, people that I meet. Um, at, at conferences and so forth. Be careful of the mask makers in your life. Be careful of surrounding yourself with people, including yourself, who are going to help you wear a mask. And what do I mean by that? When I received that promotion that I talked about earlier, there were people that came up to me that said, Paul, congratulations. Congratulations on that promotion. You are so lucky. You are so lucky to have gotten that job. You were in the right place at the right time. And you know, Daniel, those people might have meant the best and they might have had this incredible experience of, of, of of wanting me to feel really good. But what they were doing with those comments, whether they knew it or not, was diminishing. My own capabilities, my own self, my own voice. And when I agreed with them because I did agree with them, I'm doing the same. So I am putting on another mask. Mhm. So, so I just want to say to people. Be who you are, you know, stand for yourself. Don't let people put masks on you around that. And more importantly, don't wear a mask yourself. Be vulnerable enough to be who you are out in the open, which takes an enormous amount of courage. You know I love it. I, I live with the three C's curiosity, courageousness, and creativity. I try to do one of those each day if I can, and if I'm having a slow day, it might be, you know, one of those each week. If I, if I if I want to rest, but to have that courage to really be who you are, the world needs all of us to be who we are. And we. I love to say that, you know, we can't change my you know, my job is not to change the world. My job is to change myself and evolve myself so that our world will change. Because that's how that's how we make change is one step, one person, um, at a time.

Daniel Aaron:
Hallelujah. Thank you. All right, now, since you brought up the three C's and whether we've spoken about courage directly or not, we have spoken about it a lot today. Right? Um, curiosity is obviously an underlying flavor of our conversation here. Creating right. Creation. Creativity. I've heard you, if unless I'm mistaken, I've heard you use the phrasing a couple times in our conversation that you created X, Y, or Z created these results sometimes. And I'm thinking about, well, it doesn't matter what I'm thinking about, I'm sometimes not the results that you necessarily wanted. Yet I heard you speak about creating those results. Right. And and I love that because not everybody will one realize that to admit that, and my sense is part of the reason is because if we really take the responsibility to say, I created that it's a slippery slope or a fine line that could be blame self-recrimination as opposed to on the other side, which is empowerment and more creative ability. Would you speak a bit about that? I have a feeling that this is an overt part of your your wiring. Yeah.

Paul Larsen:
I appreciate that. Every result that I have in my life, I create, I choose, I choose, every decision, I choose every action. I choose every thought. You know, I, I just, I we live in a world where we, we're, we choose like we're worried about what clothes we wear, what cars we drive, where do we go to eat, the friends that we have, you know, what's what am I going to put on Insta today? You know, we're choosing all this, but we don't choose what goes in here. We don't choose our thoughts up here. So I try to slow down, um, and do a thought diary where I choose all the thoughts I have that then precede any action or decision I make so that I'm not doing everything in just a reactive mode. I'm doing it in a very deliberate, responsive mode. So all the results that I have that I create, the relationships that I create, no matter if they're successful relationships or relationships that could use more nurturing or relationships that could go bye bye, I've created those now, certainly I might have co-created those with the people in the relationships. I certainly understand that from a partnership, but it's still my decision. It's still my thoughts. It's still my actions. Because I've learned to slow. He wouldn't maybe have known that in the last hour or so. How we how I'm talking. But I've learned to slow myself to understand all the thoughts that I have up here. We can have anywhere. What's that study that was done? National Science Foundation back in 2005 said, we can have anywhere from 12,000 to 70,000 thoughts running through our mind, and they're all just trains of thoughts. But it's my it's it's my choice if I'm going to jump on that Amtrak or I'm going to jump on that freight or just let that train go right on by. And those decisions then that come out of that are my own. And I've learned this started back 33 plus years ago when I got sober, when I used to blame alcohol for everything in my life, and I used to blame masking myself with alcohol, coloring myself with alcohol, and blaming alcohol for everything in my life.

Paul Larsen:
The interesting part about my life at that time was it wasn't all that bad. I was a functioning alcoholic in that sense. But. But when getting sober, I took I took one of the biggest I, I took one of the biggest blames I had away. And Judge Judy was sitting in its place saying, it's all you, sir. There's nothing here to blame anymore. So it was very raw and part of my recovery and part of that living sober for the last 33 plus years has allowed me to really own those decisions. The alcohol the alcoholic piece has, has, has, you know, I, you know, living that one day at a time is beautiful. But it, it it that the co-creation that I have with the universe is just that everything I create, it's me I've created that there's no one else, you know. And have I had days to your point where I've done something, I've created it and it hasn't been as successful, and I judge myself on it. Of course I'm human. There's a beautiful I have a beautiful thing I put up on a, on a screen when I'm doing a conference, and it's one of those big hello tags. Hello. I'm. And it's got every emotion on it. Hello. I'm jealous, I'm envious. I'm happy. I'm motivated. I'm sad. Everything. And then at the very bottom, the name is human because that's what we are. And we. I own all of that. So of course I have the emotional peaks and valleys like everybody else, and I own those. And and that's what I try to do for myself on a daily basis, an hourly basis, a minute by minute basis. And that's what I hope to bring to my to the folks that I, that I encounter or I work with, uh, in today's world, that's the message I try to, um, uh, I try to convey.

Daniel Aaron:
Mhm. Beautiful. I love that and I, and I connect, I own that, right. I'm creating everything. I own that. And you said you spoke earlier about I like to call it wealth, right. Yeah. Um, the you know and that's like ownership of self and our creations is a powerful creator of internal and external wealth. Right. So, Paul. So many people watching live or by rebroadcast, I am sure will want to be in touch with you. How's best?

Paul Larsen:
Um. I'm available. Uh, my website at Paul n Larson. Larson.com. Anyone can shoot me an email at any point. I know email might be sort of the old style mail nowadays, but I love receiving email. They're like little gifts and I get to sort of like and I'm happy to answer everybody's questions or thoughts or whatever they may have. And that's my email is Paul at Paul and Larson. Com and then being somebody who lives in the digital world, which I actually love and I enjoy, and I've created wonderful boundaries for myself and filters. I'm available on LinkedIn or Facebook business or Insta and Twitter or I believe it's now known as X, so people can find any, any platform for me to, to, um, connect with me. And I would so welcome that I would be absolutely honored.

Daniel Aaron:
All right. Awesome. So again the websites Paul n as in, uh, never never land Larson l a r c n.com. And so that brings us, Paul to the the last question, the big question, the impossible question. Going back to what we said earlier, there's no way anybody could get this question right because it's so big, which also means you can't get it wrong and there's no way to lose. So would it be okay if I ask you the big question?

Paul Larsen:
Of course.

Daniel Aaron:
Bring on the big question.

Paul Larsen:
Like the big salad, the big salad. You've got.

Daniel Aaron:
You've got so much amazing experience, so much enthusiasm and heart and wisdom. If you had to distill it, boil it down, some bring it all into one thing. What's the one thing that you would say to help people live their most vibrant, thriving life?

Paul Larsen:
Uh. 86,400 seconds in a day. Don't waste one.

Daniel Aaron:
That is awesome. I love it. Thank you.

Paul Larsen:
Yeah. We can we we will get wronged for 10s. And we will spend 600 seconds trying to undo that wrong. Now, when these. When this starts clocking down, guess what? It's clocking down towards my friend. And I know that now where I'm at in my life. So don't waste one.

Daniel Aaron:
Carpe diem. Awesome. Cool. Paul, thank you so much for not not just, uh, having this time with us. Also for, you know, the the amazing courage and heart you've shown in your life what you've overcome, the wisdom you've created, being a a man of service in the world. It's a beautiful thing. And, um, uh, really appreciate who you are. And thanks for being with us, Daniel.

Paul Larsen:
Thank you so much for the opportunity. Thank you for all that you do for our world. And just I so appreciate you and I so appreciate our time that we've had together today.

Daniel Aaron:
Awesome. Thank you. And y'all, our beautiful people in the audience I love you. I love that you're here. I love that you're interested in a more vibrant, thriving life. Again. Please do try this stuff at home. Take on some of what Paul said. How can I apply that even more in my life now? And please join us again soon. We got more fun, more wisdom, more joy. Thanks y'all! 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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