Self-Awareness. How we create our reality and why this is important for business and life

Welcome to the Thinking Big Podcast. Today we get to talk with Alexandra Holcbarova from the thementoringeffect.com. She is a visionary and has the ability to bring out the best in people and uncover their full potential.  She grew her own businesses in a range of different global markets including Europe, Thailand, Bahamas, and now Australia.  On her journey, she discovered so much around human potential and experienced how to overcome a physical and mental crisis with the knowledge and tools that now she teaches others. Today we will discover: Self-Awareness is the first step to success in leadership, business or in everyday life. Judgment & comparison = suffering.   Your thoughts influence how you feel So today, we are thinking big into our own self-awareness. Connect with Bob Gentle at the following social media link: Website https://thementoringeffect.com/ Email [email protected]   3 simple steps to self-awareness. https://thementoringeffect.com/ Leaders are Readers, here are some free books for you to get. Free copy of Think and Grow Rich http://bit.ly/free-think-and-grow-rich-ebook   The 14-day Think and Grow Rich Challenge https://bit.ly/tagrchallenge   Free Audibles book http://bit.ly/thinkingbigaudible   Connect with Sean Osborn at Thinking Big Coaching http://www.thinkingbigcoaching.com https://www.instagram.com/thinkingbigcoaching/ https://www.facebook.com/thinkingbigcoaching/   Until next week, remember to always think big Thanks for listening! It means a lot to me and to the guests. If you enjoyed listening then please do take a second to rate the show on iTunes.  Every podcaster will tell you that iTunes reviews drive listeners to our shows so please let me know what you thought and make sure you subscribe using your favorite player using the links below. Episode Transcription SUMMARY KEYWORDS people, self awareness, business, thinking, traveling, programmed, day, talk, life, means, important, friends, create, absolutely, perception, australia, story, aware, world, decisions   00:00 You are listening to the thinking big podcast. And it is such a pleasure to have you listening to the show. And today we're talking with Alexandra from the mentoring effect. And she is a visionary, and has the ability to really bring out the best in people and really uncover their full and true potential. She herself she's grown her own businesses in a range of different environments from all over the world, including Europe, Thailand, Bahamas, and now she's in Australia. And on her journey, she's discovered so much around human potential, and experienced how to really overcome physical and mental crisis, and the knowledge and tools that she's gained. That's what she's teaching others down. So today's show, we're going to talk about, you know, self awareness and how it's the first step to really any success, whether it's in business or in health, or in or in anything that you're doing. So today, we're thinking big on ourselves.   01:01 Welcome to the thinking big podcast with Sean Osborne. The show helping you think bigger into your life and potential Sean believes by equipping you with the tools, strategies and philosophies required to be successful in all aspects of your life you can achieve anything you believe in empowering our own growth makes a deeply positive and lasting impact on our lives, community   01:23 and our world.   01:24 Now, here's Sean,   01:25 Alexandra, I want to welcome you to the thinking big podcast, and I know the listeners are gonna get a huge amount of benefit from the stuff that you're going to be talking about. Now, before we get into get into all this great stuff that you do. Tell everyone a little bit about yourself and kind of how you got where you are. It's an interesting story.   01:47 Thank you very much, and really appreciate to be here. Thank you very much for inviting me. And I didn't expect that. Okay, I will talk about myself. I will try to be very quick. Well, yeah, I'm in Australia. I don't even know how I ended up here. But I was traveling a lot and always having businesses. And my background is basically having 10 years of even management and catering, working for Red Bull and working as a coach for American corporates, having been out of business, but it was in Thailand. And there was more restaurant bar, or coffee shop with some small food, healthy food. And yeah, I after that, I think I stay in Thailand around for years. But as we know, you know that all vacation destinations are not very pushy. That means you just do your business, you know, a little bit, I would say a holiday holiday way. It's just different, I would say a different set up. And after that I moved to Bahamas and I did some tourist tourism business there. And yeah, ended up in Australia in last five years. I'm living in Perth, Australia, and I was running two businesses, but the one of them, it's already closed because of the events. And that it was not really sustainable because we don't have any events scheduled for 2020 and 2021. Because all governments basically don't know what will happen.   03:18 Right? And we were Yeah, we were running community events. And Mr. Schreiner even, you're even looking at 2021 as being limited already.   03:27 Well, it's a it's different because I so I have my family still in Europe, and I can see how every country is reacting, or I would say his reaction on on cases with COVID-19. And the crisis is really having different development in each country. And I thought and I really hope that we will be able to travel in December, and I will be able to see my family over Christmas. But it looks like they starting their you know, second wave. We have fine here. But Melbourne is not fine. That means it's all changing every week. And I don't like to predict, you know, the divorce thing. But I am prepared. And that's why I decided to build more the other business that I have. And that's the mentoring effect. Because I believe people need education, people need self awareness. People need someone that will inspire them. And that's the same thing that you do. Because I believe this is the time that the world is suffering and other people suffer. I know a lot of people are really successful, what is great, but as always, you know some sadness and fear in the world. And I believe this is this time and people need us. That's all that's all. Yeah.   04:38 So you have done a lot of presently How do you lie to me I didn't get a travel until later in life. It seems like I was kind of sheltered and didn't get a lot of do a lot of traveling. I'm telling you, the world absolutely opened up even from a mindset standpoint and a self awareness standpoint. When I started traveling on maybe 10 1012 years ago, that really changed my self awareness personally.   05:08 Yeah, I think that's big thing traveling. And knowing the cultures and also knowing yourself when you are traveling and staying in the country for a little while, I always said when someone is traveling, go, don't go to you know, hotel and stay in hotel where everybody's you know, having their vacation, but travel with people travel, the way that you can actually be touched by culture. And you also get to know yourself if you're able to adapt, if you are able to accept and I think this is huge. It's definitely helped helped me to to be more self aware and be more open.   05:48 I would say, What is your what's the favorite place you've been to in the world?   05:54 My favorite place now when I'm in Australia, because I'm so far away. It's definitely Europe. And I would say Slovakia, you know, Czech Republic, Croatia. But when I'm there, I also miss Australia. And it's really hard to say I love I love Thailand and I love Bali. Probably that's there are two countries that I'm able to create. I'm able to connect with myself, I'm able to connect different way probably with people. And yeah, I think I just different vibes, I guess. Yeah, that means they're probably Thailand and Bali. It's, I believe it's like a mecca of people you know, that they want to create. They want to grow, they want to do something more in life.   06:39 Yeah. And that I, we I was able to go to Thailand, I think maybe a year and a half, two years ago. And I absolutely loved it there. It was, it was fantastic. Although I won't get into the naming of their cities, because whoever named some of those cities, just a genius. I'm sorry. We won't go there. So on self awareness, tell me what do you think? Is self awareness? What do you what does that? What does that look like? For you?   07:12 That's really great question. Thank you. Um, self awareness for me is to knowing myself knowing what is going on around me, that means be aware of my environment, and how my how environment is influencing me and others. And also, it's a, it's part of emotional intelligence, for me, to be self aware, is to really understand what I'm thinking, how I'm thinking, and what are what the thought is triggering me, while thought is making me feel better, it's more like you are able, when you're self aware, you're able to, I wouldn't say control yourself, because we don't want to be really controlling. But I would say you really can influence your behavior to get better results. Maybe that's the way to say it.   08:04 Right? Yeah, I think that a lot of our program software, I think we're programmed at a very young age up to age five or six of what are programmed. Self Awareness is what, you know, we were brought into the world and and we learned, what was programmed into us what was around us, you know, the people that our parents were with, you know, the things that they did the things that they look, it's like language, you know, we learned language based on just being enculturated in that. And I think that's, for me self awareness for a long time. I didn't, I didn't try to change my self awareness. So I just lived by the self awareness that was programmed into me. And until we figured that out, we're gonna continue debt for me, from a self awareness standpoint, we're gonna continue down that same path forever and ever until we until we realize that till we become aware of that, and yeah, that's huge. Now, how do you? Again, I think we've been kind of pre programmed and we can definitely change when we when we want to, but how do you really create, you know, our How do you think we create our realities and, and things that for us?   09:24 I will touch just that. What do you just say? Because I think that's great. What do you what you just mentioned, that's exactly what is happening. We are programmed. And in thinking about that, that we don't know even how we are programmed because we are programmed, actually from the age from one to three. That's really scary because we even don't know what happened that time when we were young, that young, and we don't know in what kind of situations we were. And I always say parents, like just the small thing like, like your kid, your children are playing around. You know, you have your visitors and they're playing gold around and two years or you know, one and a half, three years old is running around without beta, you know, when you scream at a child, like, go to take it, you know, you can run like that, you know, you can run naked for example. And that's already something that sentences can already program the child that in their 18, maybe 16, they will be a little bit shy to go on a beach in betas or you know, show a positive body like it will be really uncomfortable. And, and those small things are programming us and based on that, as you said, based on filters, we are creating our perception, or our reality. And that's, that's the first thing that I was going to talk about as, as we started with self awareness, because to knowing how we create our perception or reality is most important thing to actually have better life, or increase self awareness, or make better decisions, or get a better jobs or have better partnership, or be better parent. That's all major thing to know, like how that works. And that's when you mentioned that we are programmed, like something happened outside of us, like is any external event that is influencing us, we always put our perception on that you probably experience a lot of things, you know, like, you're going to movie for example, of a friend. And and I always say there's the major thing when you can see how we see the world different way. Because you go into the same movie. And when you going out from the cinema, your friend is like I didn't like the movie. And you're like, Oh, I love the movie. That means that's already really two different perceptions. Right? One see what I think basically,   11:46 yeah. And how we, I always tell people how, you know, don't believe anything you see. It's I mean, it's because it's all based on what your reality is. And there is your reality is not reality, your reality is just how you, you happen to see things and work. And we I'm telling you, we are picking up things left and right from all of our senses, what we see what we hear what we taste what we smell, we're picking up all this stuff, and it's all going through our own. I call it a BS, or our belief system, our own bullshit that is filtering everything through. And we see it how we want to see it. Yeah,   12:24 yeah. And that's also when you're working with clients, because I believe you're working with a lot of clients that you can't really guess what they think when they started talking about their story or their their issues, or, or whatever they want to talk about with you. You can't really say like, I know you, what are you talking about? Because you don't know. And that's what I'm always saying to all coaches as well. You can't really say I know, or I understand. You need to let the person to really, really go deeper in their story in their world in their perception. And until you are super, super connected, I would say and you can see with their eyes, you can't really say You understand, right? And I think that's a big thing as well.   13:06 Yeah, and I'm a big proponent of people need to be self awareness. And if you look at the word education that actually comes from the word have to learn within, it's to do go it's, it's all within we all have to and if anybody tells me, this is what you need to do. Nobody knows me, like me, I can look and see and look at their steps and say yes, I want to I want to do that. That that is a great idea. But how does it internalize to me how does it because nobody knows me? But me? Nobody.   13:37 And and that's so funny because that's exactly how our conscious and unconscious mind works. That means if someone actually tell you you have to do this, or you should do that our unconscious mind is straightaway fighting, and is saying no, I don't want to do it. It's just reaction on on what is happening we have programmed that by it's it's how our mind works. And I would love to touch when you when you mentioned beliefs and all that programming because there are major fields they create or they they are helping us to, to see you know the world different with different eyes or through different eyes. And that's also when you sit when you mentioned beliefs, there are memories as well. Those are values what is important for us what is priority in our life? And also it's it's I think I mentioned memories, but attitudes are decisions we made before and and all those small things around us are what creates us actually influencing us unconsciously and we don't know about that or majority of people don't know about that.   14:37 Yeah, I call that we're flying on autopilot. We have no idea it's just it's just going on autopilot. And you know it's funny you mentioned that it's I've often explained to people it's like when you go and you you've wanted something for a while and all of a sudden you buy it let's say it's a car and you buy I called the Volkswagen a pack but if you if you want this car you want this car and you say me finally get it The second you get it, you drive off the lot, and all of a sudden, you see those cars everywhere. My wife does the same thing with shoes, she'll buy shoes, and it's like, shit. Now I see him, I see those same shoes. They're like, once we become consciously aware of something, our subconscious thinks, okay, that's important to us. So now I'm going to pay attention to that out there. And now all of a sudden, there's one, there's one because our subconscious thinks it's, it's important.   15:28 Yeah, that's so great, we'll just say, because that's exactly where our focus go. Basically, we starting to see the things because we are focusing on the things that we never really focused on before. And it's so important, I will actually probably touch the base, because this is coming to the, to the basic how we create this reality and how we actually feel. And I think that's, that's another thing that people, if people will start to be aware of their thoughts, they can actually change the reality or the perception. But I always if I can, if I'm made share, it's like a small story to understand where I'm coming from. Absolutely. Because it's probably something that everyone experience because I'm talking always about the dinner like you are preparing dinner, just imagine that you're preparing dinner for your partner or friends, or his anniversary dinner or something before is very important for you. And now there are two sides of things like how we think or how we react or respond. And I always compare it like, okay, that partner or a friend is not coming and he's not answering the phone is not answering the messages. And naturally, we are getting frustrated. I don't know if you experienced something like that before. That you probably can imagine, like we are angry and our stories started to grow the way that we're coming from fear, we're coming from anger, frustration, that means we're really coming from that reaction side. And our story will be or he doesn't love me or he doesn't want to come or he's not respecting me, or maybe he's with someone else. And and all that would happen is basically our other thought story that we created. It's really triggering us to really negative emotions. That means we are angry, frustrated, and based on that emotions that we created with thought and story. We are overreacting when the person coming home Actually, we probably started to scream or we started to be like, Oh, yeah, you light and we are angry. And the thing is, what I'm talking about is the result, that probably you're not going to talk that evening, maybe the dinner Will you know end up in rubbish bin,   17:39 I'll be in the doghouse.   17:43 And it's not really nice evening, but when we are actually self aware. And and we know that our thoughts are creating that reality that we can start to think about better story than means just change the story. And when we when we are writing for a partner or a friend and it's late we can start with thing. And it comes from love, I always said come from love and compassion first and very subtle thing Dubai. Okay, maybe he started with business partner or, or starting work. And he's probably said or she's probably said that she's missing the dinner, she's missing out on great dinner and or something happened. And that means I should probably count down and think about that person how I can actually that person may have I can make him or her feel better, but they will come home late. And that's absolutely different story that makes us feel actually really good and calm. And we don't react, but we respond that means the person coming home, I guess you can already, you know, imagine that you are actually welcoming the person you're happy. And you're probably having that result of the evening that you have to get a great dinner together and, and probably talking about what happened. And I believe that's much better result. And I say this example because it's very basic, and probably a lot of people can connect with with coming or waiting for someone with dinner. And that same in business. If you respond or respond you can have better results is the same with parenting is same with the friends and in any situation.   19:21 Yeah. And a lot of times you know us as human, I don't know if it's just by default or what but we always think that the action is what causes how we feel. In other words, something happens and and that's what causes it. And I go back to it. Not too long ago I was in a in a car accident. And there was three of us. And I got out and I'm like that's that's what insurance is for, you know shit happens that's, you know, not not too big of a deal. Everyone's okay. Another guy got out and he was absolutely irate. I mean, he was pissed off. He was yelling he was screaming and I had to sit back and think okay, you If the accident is what caused people to get mad, if that's what caused him to get mad, then everybody that got in an accident would get mad. So it's not the action that caused it. It's the meaning that we put on that action that actually caused, you know, he, you know, he put a meaning that he was gonna be laid, he put the meaning that he was gonna cost him money. He he put meanings on on that accident. And that's why he was mad. It wasn't that had nothing to do with the accident. No, it's how we perceive things and how near the meaning that we put on things that, you know, it's never the action. It's never never that.   20:36 Yeah, it was it was your story, like you said, you know, like you you actually got out from the car, and you were like, oh, everybody's Okay, that's great. Your first story or first thought was positive, basically, because you focus on other people, you sold them there, okay. And you, you came from love because you care about us. And that make you also think different way. And that thought make you karma? Exactly the meaning you said, you know, you put different meaning and different story on the event. And I think that's so important to understand that we are actually creating our reality. And if we are able to be happy, and it's just such a big thing to understand that it's just a thought. Yeah, we are just a thought away from being happy.   21:25 Thought away from being anything that we want. Yeah, exactly. Positive or negative. Yes. You're one negative thought. Negative two, I think it goes both ways. It goes up, it goes down. It goes both ways.   21:39 Think about that. It's just such an amazing concept. Because I think it was Sidney banks. He was talking about three principles. And three principles are actually mind consciousness and, and thought. And he's always saying there is nothing else. It's just a thought. Because it is what it is. That's all what it is. The world is just a thought everything what we decide to do, what we do, or what we are not doing. That's all just limiting belief, a limiting belief is again, just a thought.   22:07 Yeah. Yeah. Good that I think it was a Dr. Richter or Viktor Frankl that said that, you know, the only thing we have 100% control of is the time between we get an input, and how we respond. We have 100% control of how we take that input, how we take that action, and how we respond. That's the only thing that we actually have 100% control of. Yeah, yeah. And oh, go ahead. Go ahead.   22:36 I was just thinking that probably great thing to add, to this conversation is that we are actually having seven around 70,000 thoughts a day. And when you are thinking that you're not self aware, or you are not actually living conscious life, or you're not trying to live conscious life, and you're not available, you're thinking, you don't have any idea what kind of choices you're doing and decisions you're making. An and we have from that 70,000 thoughts is around 20,000 choices we do daily. And I think that's really crazy number and I'm talking about things like you know, what kind of water you pour into your glass? Or what, I don't know what, like you start to walk first, you know, it's left or right. It's just small things. Right? can actually if once all your day?   23:24 Yeah, absolutely. And that to me, that's why one of the reasons for me meditation or gratitude stuff in the morning is so important. It gets me really in the right frame of mind the right step the right, you know, it gets me in the, to me the right vibration to be in. And, and for us, I think it's kind of it's, you know, I think we're both kind of in the same mindset. But for people listening, you know, what, what are some of the benefits that you see, in increasing our mindset, increasing our self awareness? You know, what are the benefits that that people will have when they start? I know, I've got tons of stuff that that on that, but for others, I mean, it's it's such a huge thing, you know, and what are some of the benefits that you see   24:11 how it's exactly what you say, tons. But as a comparison comparison for me, when I was actually not having any meditation or any any habits in the morning, any rituals that it will actually helped me to be self aware or have I'm thinking how I'm preparing myself for a day, for example, that was really huge difference in my working day. I was, I was able to focus now. Like I'm able to focus now and don't be distracted when I'm actually starting the day with meditation or, or doing things very consciously. I'm really trying to think about step by step like what I'm going to do during the day. What is my intention? That means that that has really a huge influence on performance. And because because we are all business owners and what have you, you're ready No, that is so important to work effectively or efficiently and, and that's the majority of people, they don't understand that small thing like morning ritual can change their life or they their day and performance. The benefits are also it's about health. Like, that's actually even like cardiovascular diseases, I think you can, you can avoid them by being calmer and respond responsive, not reacting. That means you actually have you increase your emotional intelligence and you're making better decisions in your work with your team, you actually start to also Elisa a little bit different way, that means it helps you to connect better with other people, even deeper connections in your relationship, you can definitely build up deeper relationships with friends. And with kids, when you're a parent. And there are benefits like you can land the better job if somebody is looking for for work. If you are building up self awareness, you can definitely land a better job and better position. You can have better finance, you can have huge success in your business. Every successful business person will tell you that they meditate or they do something like that, or they they are aware how they work, how they make decisions. And the biggest thing is probably that making conscious decisions. I believe that was big thing for me to really understand, based on what I'm doing decision, because I'm angry at someone or because I can really sit down and say write down pros and cons and and really see what will be the benefit of decision. That means to learn how to read to respond is so important. And we know we can save people's lives when we are responding and reacting. Yeah, I don't know, it's a huge like, it's a lot of very health benefits for brain, you you really can live longer, and have better better thinking. And yeah, I don't know, it's just so many. Probably, health is for me, probably most important that I feel so awake, I feel so energized. I guess that's the method.   27:09 And what's funny is, when I first started getting into this, I would see people doing things like morning rituals that you talked about. And I would think oh, that's just some woowoo you know, crap that I was that no one actually does. You know, I remember years ago listening to Tony Robbins, and you know how he got up every day and, and, you know, did his priming and did his you know, doing all the stuff? I'm like, Yeah, yeah, that's bullshit. But they, but here's the thing. You look at successful people, and they all do it. It's not some woowoo it's not. It works. It absolutely works.   27:48 And it is really funny because I was I was the same exactly what you said, I was like, Ha that can change your day, when you will have morning ritual that can change anything, you know, any any habits. But when you think about creating healthy habits and rituals, I would, I would say we don't need to call it rituals if someone you know, doesn't like the bird. But it's some kind of discipline that you have around your morning, that you're able to say like I'm waking up at five, for example. And I have my 30 minutes yoga, I have 10 minutes meditation, at least. And I'm always evaluating what happened last day, the day before, and thinking about my intention and what I want to achieve the day ahead. And for me that that just that small thing, just calmed me down and prepare me for a day. And I will be very honest. Last week, I had one or two days that I didn't do any morning ritual because I felt funny, I don't know, I wasn't really focused. And because I didn't do any morning rituals, I was so absolutely opposite of productive. Like that day was a disaster. I didn't do anything like I ended up to you know, scroll down Facebook and didn't want to do it. Right. Don't do. I don't really scroll down through social media. I'm trying to focus only you know, I have one hour for social media, I'm posting and doing advertisement and whatever I need to do. Or I'm talking with my digital marketer, and that's all and I'm not scrolling. I just ended up scroll down and thinking all over the place. And I think he was all over the place. And that was really a big example or a big wake up call for me again to say, Oh, yeah, now I can see my morning rituals works. And I really need to do that because it's setting up my day to be successful. And it's setting up me to be more focused and I'm actually much better with clients as well, but I'm actually doing my morning rituals. And yeah, I think it's important for everyone who never ever tried just probably I will I will such as to start with small thing. Yeah, but very small thing just to take a piece of paper having next to your bed and and start a journal. What do you think about First thing in the morning, what is your first thought? And started just noticing yourself, you know, like who you are? How do you think just small thing like that just to really go back to your heart and and see how you think how you feel and what you mentioned, gratitude is amazing just to really think about one thing that you're grateful for.   30:20 Yeah, that can absolutely change your day. And it actually to me when when you when we do this stuff, and we do it consistently, obviously, there's days that we don't do it tell me we're obviously not. Nobody's perfect. We always do this, but it does to me. It changes my perception of things. It changes my decision making, it changes everything that I do when I'm in that, right. I call it a vibration. But when I'm in that right vibration, I make much different decisions, I make much different. I kind of liken it to health. So when you're trying to get healthy, and you're you're not at that vibration, you're not at that consciousness, it is so hard to do. It's like, it almost seems impossible. But then once you do it, and you get into that vibration, you get into that self awareness, it almost becomes like how did I not do this? And I think that's where that it puts you in that in really in that space? Or in that vibration?   31:24 Yeah, I love Jesus say that. After that we are thinking how, how come they can do it, how they can live like that. It's so funny how that change exactly like you change your life, you change your perception and your mornings and your vibes energy. And I will be very honest, from the time that I'm really looking inside, why I'm how I'm thinking and what I actually really want. And that's what I will probably suggest to other people, if they can think about when they are in business, usually solid traitors has you know that that issue that we are so much into business. And we don't have time to work on business, but we don't really know where we are in business. And instead of thinking about yourself, who you are, and we want to be and how you want to show up. And it's connecting me with people and clients a little bit different way. And I love it because it's just really being there for my clients and understand what they want. And all those small things like habits and rituals and being focused is actually helping to achieve that result probably just really recommended, especially with for people, they they really work for themselves. And it's really hard. I know, it's hard, especially now under lockdown people that sell only and that's the time to really do those small exercises.   32:47 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it's like we have to, I don't care what we do. But we have to be more if we want more we have to. So I know we're you know, to me, it all starts with personal awareness. And and and you know that our mindset, our self awareness, but it's all it all starts with us. But it does, it affects our business, it affects our careers, it affects everything it spills over, but it does, I do think that it all starts with us. And we can't, we can't be better. Until we until we are better. You know, we've got to get to that level before we can. And what's funny is you you kind of mentioned this, but when we get to these upper levels, we start attracting people. In that level, we start seeing, you know, like the Volkswagen, you know, once I once I now I'm at at level eight, let's say now all of a sudden, I didn't even see these level eight people over here that I can do business with. But now, hey, look at all these level eight people. They're there. They're everywhere. And we attract what we do me we attract what we are.   33:48 I have really personal experience. And that's really well sight. What it has mentioned is I mean, I came to Australia, I was I was going through some personal issues of trauma. And I was very that was my probably bottom that I hit. And it's so funny when I see that now, and I'm looking at the events and how I how I like how I was in and what kind of energy I had to spread. I was thinking like what I'm spreading out like I was really probably sad. I was very down and I actually attracted that kind of people. Yeah, I got all those friends that were really down. They had like past depressions and it was just so different. And when I actually broke on myself and was that it was probably major thing that I really started to focus on is personal development because I wanted to be you know, old Alex like the Alex that I know. And I remember and there was these fun laughing having friends and fun and grading business, all the things that I actually I kind of couldn't find it. And when I found it again I was Yeah, I just have amazing people around. And even my clients changed exactly what you said, I'm just having exactly clients that I want to work with. And it's all marketing or messaging or energy. Because I always said, when people are focusing so much on digital marketing, because I'm doing a lot of courses around business. Always think about yourself, and your intention behind the post, or, or message or picture. Anything. What are you putting out there? We'll come back to you. But you need to be really intentional. And you really need to be honest and coming from heart. Right? And yeah, that's probably   35:36 Yeah, absolutely. So do you know you're you're in Australia? The only thing that we get here from Australia now? Do you guys actually have shrimp on the barbie? See, the only thing we have is the only thing we have is Outback. Outback Steakhouse. That's the only thing we have. That's Yeah. Oh. Oh, man. See, I had to ask that. That's, that's. So what is your favorite out of all the places you've traveled? What has been your favorite culture? I think culture really does develop our self awareness. And it's like when I go to one of my favorite places is turkey going to going to Turkey, I just the vibration, the the culture just really. I know, it invigorates. Me it's it's something that really, really lifts me when when I'm in that, that environment. And I think that I think the environment that we put ourselves in, really helps dictate our self awareness, it dictates you know, who we are? Again, I think Jim Rohn said it, you know, people you hang out with the most is you become the average of that. So when we put ourselves in these cultures in these in these places, then, you know, we we tend to be like that.   36:57 Yeah. Yeah, that's, it's very interesting question, because I actually never really think about that the way that you just ask. And as I mentioned, that, for me, when I was alone, traveling was probably a great time. Because it's, it's really, like you have time to connect with culture and people. When you are with your family, it's not that easy, because you're staying with your family. But when you're alone, you're you're looking for people to talk and, and you're discovering more and that's why I will love to travel by myself as well. And I just probably Bali was was the place that made me very creative, creative, very excited, very driven. And I was amazed by places because the nature there and and also there is a lot of people, they they trying to discover, they trying to develop things that all I can, you know, like new thinkers and people very eager to achieve something and by the same time, they are very calm and connected and happy and, and chilled. That means it's kind of like they came to environment to really prepare, be prepared to hard work, but that of an environment is actually calming you down. I guess it's really like an opposites, like a two poles. And that that's vibrant, probably I love it there. And it's a beautiful place to start even start a business, you know, take your laptop and start to create. I really like that I know. But on the other hand, I love Italy, and I love Croatia. And probably because it's connected in my childhood and all my friends. We always travel there. We spend so much time on yachts and just having fun. And talking about business, talk about family talk about, you know, music. There was always just I would say that that is the time that I really don't try to brag, but I'm going to Croatia and Italy. And he's really just traveling and just eating beautiful food.   39:04 So Croatia, that's an interesting story. Do you know who the President of Croatia is? Oh, no,   39:11 I don't know. Actually.   39:13 I'm pretty sure it's Croatia. I'll have to go back and jump but I went to school with her. Really? Yes. Yes. She was in the States as a as a as a as a foreign exchange student and went to went to school with her.   39:27 That's really funny. Story. Yeah.   39:31 Yeah. Because, yeah.   39:35 So you've got two things up here that are that are really great things. You've got the three simple steps to self awareness. That is a downloadable thing. And then you also have the 21 day challenge for boosting your business. Those are great things and can you tell tell us a little bit about those because people can actually go up and download those and actually also watch the videos on the 21 day. Challenge.   40:01 Yes, thank you very much for asking about that. The, yeah, the PDF reader with three simple steps to self awareness is basically all the stuff that we already talked about. But it's simplifying the things that you can do for yourself, even, you know, two, three minutes at your home, you don't need to be prepared, you can just start to do it and build up your self awareness with three simple steps like journaling, writing your morning thought that I already mentioned, and take your cell phone judgment. Voltron is explaining PDF, it's very important because judgment and comparison are really decreasing the energy from our brain. And we actually perform on lower levels, though, as we tried to really avoid comparison and judgment. That's, that's another thing that we can probably talk about another hour.   40:52 Yes, at least. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. No, I'm just saying that, you know, the, you know, the, the download that you have on the three simple steps, it's such an easy thing. But it can make such a huge impact on our lives, it seems so simple three, you know, three things. But I guarantee if you actually go and you do those three things every day, you will have, you will have changed in your life. No doubt about it.   41:23 I absolutely agree. And that's why I tried to simplify that. And I know people are like, Oh, this can change my life. Those steps can change my life. But I see exactly what can actually those face steps can change your life forever. Yeah, I mean, it's important. And that's why it's awesome. They're so easy.   41:40 Yeah. And what people don't realize is when you start changing, you know, we talked about it a little bit in, in part of this podcast, but when you start changing things, you start looking at things different. So you start attracting different things in your life. It's not just those three steps. But those three steps lead to many other things that are byproducts of steps. Yeah.   42:01 Yeah, you're changing your perception, you're changing your emotional intelligence, you're changing your decisions, your choices, and you at the end, changing your results to be greater and better.   42:11 Yes. And that's what we're, that's what we're all here for.   42:15 Yes, well, I   42:16 absolutely want to thank you for for giving us your time being on the podcast it out, I'm telling you, this stuff is I, I believe in this more than I believe in most things, because I know for a fact, for me, this stuff is absolutely changed my changed my life, hands down, doing this, and all of that, I can tell you 100% guaranteed anybody listening, if you see anybody that is successful, I don't care if they're successful at sports, I don't care if they're successful at business, I don't care if they're successful in relationships. They do this, it's it's that simple. If you want to be successful, you have to be self aware, you have to control, you've got to control your own thoughts. Not not your programming. Not not the world. But but you.   43:11 Yeah, thank you very much for her for this. And I thank you very much for having me. And I love to talk about that, because I think is most important thing right now. And my self awareness as well, you know, helped me to grow my business and, and my amazing partner, she'd been my partner like, amazing relationship and amazing relationships with my family. And, yeah, I just can't recommend that more to just try, just just do it for seven days, just try for seven days, or you know, 18 days, whatever works for anyone. But as you said, it's most important thing, and and I believe we should really, really start to be aware of what's going on. And I hear more people say, Well, I don't have time. And right now, if you don't have time right now, all that's going on. If you don't have 10 minutes to take right now, you didn't have frickin half the time. I'm sorry, but it's now like right now more than ever. So again,   44:09 thank you so, so much. Such a huge inspiration in such great, great stuff. And I know that people are gonna get that, that download to people just do it. spend seven days trust me, just do it. It will, it will help will help change your life.   44:27 Just do it. Yeah, just try to   44:28 be like Nike just do. Well, thank you again. Thank you very much. And we will talk later.   44:35 Yeah, thank you very much on this pleasure. Thanks.