Pause To Flourish
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Audio Transcript:
If you've come to this podcast, ready for someone to share with you all of the solutions and have it all figured out and articulately lay it out in the next 15 steps you need to make, like many of the posts we see out there, I'm sorry, I've let you
down. There are other folks out there that do that all day long.
But if you've come here ready for a genuine sharing of the journey and an authentic reveal of maybe there's some wisdom, maybe there's some tips, there's some goodness there, and also some failures and learnings and all that in between, then hey,
you're at the right place. So, 30 days ago, a little over that, actually, I walked out of the emergency room with a new level of resolve, which those experiences sometimes can do.
I went all in on a mission to take control of my health, and I thought I was doing okay, but I had a shock, a surprise, and we talked about that on this podcast.
But I came out of there, and really the last month and a half, or a little less than that, I've been really improving key things, you know, diet, movement, sleep, those kind of things, looking at all kinds of different metrics and supplements, just,
I mean, I'm throwing everything I can at it. I'm not going to get there again. And I'm happy to share some of those details if you guys are interested. But along the way, I noticed something strange.
And even with all that I was doing, and it's still a short horizon when you talk about health, but generally, you know, as many of us are, I want results, I want those things. But I realized I was kind of missing something. I was still felt off.
And it wasn't until I paused, and I mean really paused, that the breakthrough came and hit. I mean, the clarity that followed is reshaping how I'm thinking about my health and about business, about life, everything.
You see, you know, I think there's this cultural obsession with doing more, optimizing every moment, grinding through. Maybe it's just me. But I see that I feel that I live that.
The entire business that I've found it is wrapped around optimizing workflows and improving things in every little. And I mean, it's down to the milliseconds and movements and all that. But I guess maybe, I don't know, call me Kacharian.
I whatever I call a classic. It doesn't matter. This is not profound.
Many of you get this. We've done this. But it's just a reminder to me that sometimes the smartest move that we can make in moments is to just pause, just stop, just let that cycle dwindle down a bit and allow us to see the pattern.
And so that's where we're going to go today. Not just through the personal health journey. And I just wanted to give you an update on that.
I told you guys I was going to be transparent there, but deeper into how I think discernment works in this world today and why stepping back may be the most radical, high leverage thing that you can do all year or all month or whatever it is.
So anyway, as I mentioned with my health, I have been eating better, sleeping more intentionally. I'm tracking HRV. I don't know if you guys are doing that.
That's heart rate variability. Tracking that to see the trends going up. I'm pushing movement and lots of different supplements, stuff in the experimenting with all kinds of things, timing and stacking and strategies and whatnot.
I've really been giving it everything. I've been disciplined. I've been data driven and also anecdotal, trying to watch how I feel and those things.
I don't want to miss that. But again, it felt a little incomplete. And once I unplugged for a bit and took some moment in nature and stepping outside of the metrics and the pressure and had a long drive, that pause brought some clarity.
And in that moment, I suddenly saw the business, my energy, the family, my patterns. I saw it all differently. And dots just began to connect.
It was super weird. And I know this sounds like duh, of course. But the clarity didn't come from doing more.
It came from pausing. And it just reminded me, I mean, in this world today, that we were pushed to stay plugged in and know everything and react instantly and just be on top of everything.
I think maybe the most powerful thing we can do is just pause. Just pause, breathe in. Because in that stillness, I sense we regain our edge and we maybe re-learn a little bit how to discern.
You know, this notion of where we are in society today, and everything's going on, the macroeconomic moment. I don't know where you are in your life. Maybe that's part of it, and where I'm at.
I'm in mid-40s, late-40s, and where I'm at with family and business and things. Maybe this is just how this works. Maybe if you're in your 20s right now, you're not thinking this way.
I don't know. But for most of history, I think power came from controlling access to information. And, you know, obviously, there's more power there, too.
But think about it, whether it was a country or the churches or whatever else, the more information you had, you could leverage that in ways. And I'm not trying to land base to any countries or churches or whatever.
But if you're a student of history, you see this.
Whether it was a translation or it was data or it was knowledge of how things worked or whatever else, controlling that information and only letting out what worked for your benefit, that was where power came from.
And that's how you controlled masses. And since now, the real skill is more about discernment, because the information is out there. You can find the truth, but good luck, right?
I mean, in all the news and all the data. Oh my gosh, we have so much more information at our fingertips today in this generation than all the generations previous to us combined had. You know, it just is mind-blowing what we have.
And I think it's less about having the information. Now, it's more about being able to discern the information, recognize the patterns. And this isn't a doomsday thing.
I actually think that's awesome because what humans are, I think, innately we're great at generally is pattern recognition.
And that's what we've, you know, you look back throughout our history, it's really looking at patterns and then reacting to those patterns is what is what allowed us to evolve and do the things we do. So it's kind of cool.
And that's the whole signal through the noise thing. But it's more than that. So I guess I'll give you some examples.
And these maybe these are great examples. But you know how over the years, if you followed the Bill Cosby story, and this isn't a great story, obviously it doesn't end well.
But you know, if you grew up in my generation as a kid, you saw Bill Cosby everywhere. And it was, I mean, gosh, this pillar, it was awesome. He's America's father for the most part.
He was on, you know, they had the, you know, all the kids shows he did and everything, and the magic marker and all that stuff. And like, wow, this guy, you darned his things, kids say they darned his things, all that stuff.
But society, throughout that time, he was also constantly on interviews and stuff, talking about putting Spanish fly and women's drinks and stuff like that. And it's like, what?
And there's a documentary, and I don't remember the name of it, but it was on HBO Max or Max HBO, whatever they're calling themselves now.
It's fascinating to see how the truth was there the whole time, and we didn't hear him as a society because we weren't looking. And it wasn't until some accusations came up and more and more, and I don't know the facts.
I wasn't there for any of that, obviously. But just the whole notion of that, of it was out there in plain sight, but we missed it, that's crazy.
So I think discernment for us is being able to see the truth that's maybe there all along, but it's overlooked because maybe it's not wrapped in a headline or it's maybe wrapped in lots of headlines, and that trend or that push of what we think we
need to do gets lost. You know, another great example is where, you know, it was popular back when I was maybe in high school, they may go through cycles, maybe they're popular now or maybe they've been long forgotten.
Well, there's pictures that you would have to almost, it just looked like wavy lines or something, and you'd put it up close to your face, this is how at least it worked for me.
And as I would draw it back slowly and relax my eyes and not focus on the picture, but begin to just kind of let it happen, all of a sudden you'd see like a pride of lions laying in a field or zebras or whatever, whatever the picture was.
And it was cool and you'd see it, you'd be like, wow, there it is. Then you couldn't not see it.
And it's that kind of thing I'm talking about, I guess now, there's a couple of decent examples where it's there, but if you're looking too hard or you're focused on the details, you might miss it.
So sometimes you got to just kind of let it float back and get out of there.
I mean, in politics, media, tech trends, whatever, people, and me, I mean, it's all of us, we tend to bounce from belief to belief, headline to headline, kind of what's popular, what we're being told to believe in.
I mean, certainly, in politics, you can see that for sure, but even sports or anything you're following, you can see you're kind of conditioned to believe a certain thing. And if you don't step back, you just kind of get swept up in it.
You lose your inner compass. And at least I do. This happens to me.
And I begin chasing urgency and forget, really, what is the truth? And we all have things we do in our lives, whether it's church or it's social groups or it's readings you do or things you do that help us come back to center.
So I'm not saying we're all devoid of that. But man, the amount of noise coming at us in a daily basis in whatever role you have, it is hot. And it's a lot.
And so I think that's a big challenge. So I guess, you know, what are... How do we build discernment?
I mean, there's probably a lot smarter folks out there that can tell you about that if you're interested more.
I guess for me, though, one of the things I need to do, and I've certainly embraced this as I've aged, as a kid, I didn't do much of this or younger, in the young adult. I actually was more kind of pushed it aside, saying, I don't want rituals.
I don't want these patterns and I don't want my life rolled by a schedule and all this stuff, right? Silly stuff, I guess, at the time, but whatever. Hey, you're a rebel without a cause.
But now kind of pausing and taking in some of those rituals are important. I mean, pattern recognition only comes when you stop staring at the same wall, right? And I'm doing that through early morning, solitude, walks, sauna, nature, all the things.
And even again, just stepping out of my current situation in life, whether I'm dad or I'm CEO or whatever, stepping out of that for a bit, you know, the old statement, you can't see the forest for the trees kind of thing.
You can't see the forest really until you step off the trail. And I think that for me is something I'm going to continue to do. Now, they could be...
I mean, you could look at huge, long, like, you know, go monk mode and go for a week at a time or multiple weeks, take a sabbatical, those kind of things. Certainly, that's valuable. And I would certainly encourage you to do that.
When I've done that, it's always benefited me. But even just in your cycles, find moments. And maybe you guys are doing this and killing it.
I'd love to hear about it if you are. I'm sure many of you are. And I've had times better than others.
And I've been one of those times where I'm just recognizing it. And I guess that's part of it too, is embrace the cycle. I think it's okay.
In my business, a lot of times folks will say, well, you read stuff or whatever. And I've said it myself many times, you got to work on the business, not in the business. Well, that's true.
But also, there's value to working in the business. Because you, especially if you're a founder, no one's going to see that business exactly like you.
And I hate to say that out loud, because it sounds arrogant, and it sounds like I don't trust the people I work with. I do. They're awesome, and they see it.
It's unbelievable. But they still need me in my unique way, and I need them in their unique way to look at the business. So while I'm not doing the things I used to do when I started it, I started the, you know, you're doing everything, right?
I think there's still a need to be in the business. But I find cycles where, OK, I'm too far in or I'm in too much. I got to back out a bit.
It allows other people to grow. It allows you to step aside and see strategy. And that's what happened to me this past week.
As I unplugged a bit and was on, you know, long drive and had some stuff to do with, and had a great trip with one of our suppliers, Honeywell. They were really gracious. I was able to go to the PGA Tournament down in Charlotte.
It was cool. It was a neat experience. But in that time, I had a bit of downtime to my mind.
Just I wasn't planning. I didn't see this coming. And my mind just kind of opened up.
And all of a sudden, I saw some huge strategic things we needed to do within our business. And it wasn't I guess I knew those kind of, you know, it's weird in the background, but the pattern all of a sudden became clear.
As the picture came away from my face, it all of a sudden became clear and I knew, ah, this is what we need to do. Likewise, some stuff around family kind of popped in, some stuff around community.
So in my three main focuses of where I want to show up best, I got clarity. And it was just it's silly. It was just on a silly pause, but it reminded me that I need that kind of stuff.
So I think all right, so that's one. I think a second thing is diversifying input without drowning in it. Like, you know, I don't know how many times I've tried to reboot my inputs.
Oh, I'm going to get these these three sources and whatever else. Yeah, it's tough stuff. But I think one of the important things and I see this, I think we all see this right.
And maybe you don't see it in yourself. Maybe you should try to look at it. I don't know.
It's up to you. But echo chambers are real, especially now with social media, more and more with algorithms sending us exactly what we they think we want.
The moment you read an article in the conservative side, you'll get all kinds of conservative stuff. You read something on the liberal side, you get all kinds of liberal stuff.
And it will pull you down that echo chamber, that cistern of that angle, to the point it's almost radicalization that's happening. And if you allow yourself, you can be radicalized.
And that's why you're talking to somebody and you hear them talking, you're like, really? Do you really believe what you're saying? And I'm not saying there can't be extremes and there's realistix for extremes.
That's fine. But just for me, I can't afford to be an extremist that completely ignores other realities. So for me, in the roles I play, I got to get out of the echo chamber.
I got to read from the fringe. I got to listen to them posing sides. And then again, pausing to let it marinate.
So I can't do that every day. I've got to look at more of a weekly cycle, try to get a kind of tap with what's going on daily, just kind of a headline thing, a political kind of headline. And then it's about getting exposure elsewhere.
And this is where some folks will talk about reading fiction and different things. That all lights it up.
So, I guess, looking outside and making sure I'm balancing my inputs, not overwhelming inputs, but balancing inputs, and then again, pausing to let that stuff marinate. So, that's my second thing. And the last thing, just trusting my brain.
And that's tough because we believe there's more out there. And this overwhelm of AI right now, it's awesome. It's a great tool if you're not using it.
Boy, you might want to figure it out and just start using it. But wow, the amount of dependency you immediately feel you have with it, it's like, oh, I'll do this, I'll do this. And it can be a little bit of a brain numb.
And you see this, actually, some folks, their critical thinking skills are dipping because they're relying on AI to do some of that. You know, how we use AI will become important. And figuring out how you use it best is certainly there.
But I can't I love I leverage it as a force multiplier for me not to replace my brain. And I think just like I mentioned earlier, one of the things that make humans interesting and I think I think really magical is is our ability to spot patterns.
We're biologically wired to do it. And but you cannot it's hard to spot patterns when there's so much noise going on. You need a little bit of silence.
You need you need to pause long enough to hear your what your subconscious is screaming to you, whether it's your body, whether it's your emotions, whether it's your business model, whether it's the political world, whether it's religion, what
spirituality, whether it's your family, whatever it is, that your brain is seeing patterns and it's ready to present them to you. But if we're constantly distracted by inputs, ah man, good luck, good luck seeing them.
So anyway, I don't know, this is not earth shattering or brand new, but it's cyclical. And I guess that's it. I try to embrace the cycle.
And if you're on this journey with me, I'm in one of those cycles. It's time for me to step back a little bit and look at how best I can serve the areas I want to serve, but in a way where I'm on it instead of in it kind of thing to a certain degree.
So maybe it's less parenting, honestly, which is weird. Maybe it's less push on the kids. Let them breathe a little bit.
It's pulling out of my business a little bit from a working in the business and let others grow and flourish and see it more from working on the business or strategic section.
Again, your mileage is going to vary on all this stuff, but that's where I'm at. And for me, I think that cycle is part of what Flourishing looks like in the modern world. It's not nonstop productivity.
It's rhythm, it's intention, it's depth. It's stepping back just long enough to hear the deeper signal that's out there to see that bigger picture as it goes further away from you, to let your soul catch up with your ambition.
You know, flourishing, I guess, you know, means partly building that discipline of discernment. And it starts with the courage to pause. So that's it for today.
If this resonated with you or helps you in any way, please let us know with review, share with someone you think can benefit maybe from a pause or does benefit from pauses. And you think they listen to this, say right on, man.
You know, I just aim to impact if one of you are listening to this episode today and it's helpful to you, that's awesome. And so if it was, I'd love to hear from you. So leave a quick review wherever you're listening.
And thank you for taking time to step back with me. And as always, I hope wherever you are today and whatever it is you're doing or not doing, I hope you flourishing.
Alex Reneman is the founder of Mountain Leverage and Unleash Tygart and host of Flourishing w/ Alex Reneman. For 20+ years he has worked as CEO of Mountain Leverage, honing the concept of flourishing and experimenting with it in the business. In July of 2024, he decided to begin to share this idea with others, which led to his podcast, social content, and the plans for other initiatives in the future.
