Activate Your Audience!
Welcome to Activate Your Audience podcast! Here, you'll find a range of episodes discussing all aspects of brand activation and audience engagement, from the latest industry trends to expert insights and best practices.We will delve into topics such as events and experiential marketing, business tips and tricks, and creating experiences, all with the goal of helping you achieve your goals and drive customer engagement.Tune in to learn from the experts and get inspiration for your own brand activation strategies. Subscribe to stay up-to-date on new episodes and join the conversation on @BeImperial on Instagram. Let's activate you, your brand, and your audience together! Learn more about how IBA can support your even'ts team at your brand activations https://iba.imperialbrandingagency.com/i3ba
Activate Your Audience!
Cal Callahan - From Market Floors to Mindful Shores, Charting and Unlearning the Course
Join us as we sit down with Cal Callahan, for an eye-opening conversation about his journey from a high-stakes Chicago trader to a seeker of personal wellness and discovery.
Ever wondered how life's uncertainties shape our identities? Surviving the Route 91 Music Festival mass shooting left an indelible mark on Cal. Together, we explore the aftermath of profound experiences, delve into the role of trauma in catalyzing personal growth, and unpack full engagement.
But it's not all heavy introspection. We'll also share laughs and insights on the importance of humor and structure to break the rules in order to best navigate life's challenges and the significance of reevaluating our goals and practices. Plus, Cal shares heartfelt stories from his journey of fatherhood, highlighting the power of curiosity and compassion.
Join us as we embark on The Great Unlearn journey with Cal Callahan, where introspection, high performance, and entrepreneurship meets laughter, structure, and balance in life's beautiful chaos.
Tune in now and discover the transformative potential of embracing life's trials with grace and resilience to live a truly successful and fulfilled existence, day by day.
Check out Cal Callahans Podcast https://www.thegreatunlearn.com/
Want to produce brand activations you are proud of? Learn more about our I3BA package, a THREE IN ONE DYNAMIC Brand Activation SUPPORT service for experiential teams, agencies, and brands.
Subscribe to stay up-to-date on new episodes and join the conversation on Instagram, @beimperial let’s activate your audience!
Subscribe to the podcast for more great episodes!
Share and comment below to let us know what you think.
Need help and support activating your audience? Check us out here
Learn more about IBA
If you are part of an events team, brand, or agency seeking support to leverage your experiential projects, email us at hello@imperialbrandingagency.com
Connect on LinkedIn
See our work
All right. So today a very exciting episode we speak with my buddy, john Callahan, aka Bunker Cow. Right from back in the day, he is our host of the Great Unlearned podcast and a principal at Unlearn Ventures, an investment fund and incubator for forward-thinking projects. He's been on a journey to explore the great unlearning in order to align to creation and help others through his journey on how to do this. Welcome to the Activate your Audience podcast.
Speaker 2:Bunker Cow, that is from the archives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I still have the workouts as like saved screenshots that I'll do to this day.
Speaker 2:No way. Oh, that's great. Yeah, just to give people a little context, I so I was a trader in Chicago from 95 until 2013. And when I left I would say the last probably six years of training, I really got into fitness and health and wellness and the like and started a bit of a coaching program for a brief period of time. It really went, you know, headfirst into that and one of the things I did a place I would work out in, you know, in Chicago is my garage here in Austin. I have its own separate structure. It's called the Bunker. It was my name for it. So, yeah, my Instagram handle was Bunker Cal for a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh gee. There's definitely a lot of magic that I'm sure happened there and what may be processing to the great unlearning, maybe like one of the first things, right your body connection to getting into this next phase of life, would you say, Wow, it's actually making me a little emotional.
Speaker 2:There was so much about my life in that period. You know I was really trying to make it. I think a lot of us have this idea that we're trying to make it and that we're never there. And fitness was a way that I tried to make it and as well as you know the traditional forms of success around money and the like, but it was just another form of not almost like lack of self-acceptance. And I trained really hard and a lot of people would say, wow, you look great and for your age and you know all the things, and that just, unfortunately, can perpetuate that idea that I'm doing the right thing for the right reasons. And what I found is, in my pursuit of that success, I was pretty alienating, um, in some ways to my family cause. I was so focused on this fitness thing and being the best version of myself, um, that I was lacking real connection, not just to my family but to myself. And you know, as I woke up to what was going on and I would say that happened probably around 2017, I physically started to soften, I lost some muscle and backed off the training, and it was the first step of me starting to open up and not, you know, try to live in this comparative nature of what everybody else is doing and see if I can be as good or better. And again, fitness can just be one of those avenues and it's, I would say. More recently, I've been able to be in a good relationship with that through training, some intense workouts from time to time and taking time off when, as you know, over the past week, I've been dealing with a little something in the, in the chest, and have backed off the training and that would have been really difficult for me back then. I don't know that and that would have been really difficult for me back then. I don't know that I really would have been able to do it. But today, you know, I feel really good. I did a light workout before I got on today, just to move a little blood and not punish myself, but it's such an. It was.
Speaker 2:The training was such an integral part of this unlearning for me and to tuning into what do I actually need right now, modalities that can be really beneficial, except when they're stacked on one another, day after day after day, with hard training and the stress of life and trying to create what I'm trying to create with my podcast, the Great Unlearn, and putting out more media, it becomes too much on the system. I didn't have the connection to my body back then to say, oh you, actually you shouldn't cold plunge. Today it's going to be a little too much stress on your body and you can work out, but you're going to need to go really light today and it's just all this like more intuitive work that I've really been orienting towards. It's what made me a really good trader.
Speaker 2:You know, being a trader, you know I was on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Sure, there's a lot of math involved, there's, you know, the minds involved in that sense, but it's very much a sense of does this feel like the right trade? And being able to pull the trigger on these trades when it maybe doesn't make sense with the math, and so that's you know, I've started to recognize that that was my gift as a trader and it's my gift as a human and I think it's all our gift is to tune into that intuitive nature and we can only do that. When we is to tune into that intuitive nature and we can only do that when we can get out of the mind, and training can be great for that, when we're too much in the mind to go really tire the body. For me it allows my mind to turn down a little bit and then ideas can flow through from what I'm really meant to be doing versus what I think I should be doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so true. I mean, the first thing that sort of stands out there to kind of anchor on the last point, is this sort of rigidity right, and if we look at I think it was Aristotle's golden mean right of too much versus not enough. And if you're playing, say, the algorithm of social media, the business landscape, you're rewarded for these things that are oftentimes addictions. Right, like addictions are not the cocaine, sex and gambling, they're your relationship to yoga, to meditation, to cold plunges, to good things, to being a workaholic, especially those type of addictions that, as we know, they get rewarded right, not only by society and by status within ourselves. More dangerously, right Of like man, I'm killing it, I'm making it to the detriment of us falling on the other side of that golden mean of one a blind spot, which is the most sort of pernicious thing about it. We don't know that we don't know.
Speaker 1:And then our family and our situation starts to you know, develop their sort of pathologies, and so I, family and our situation starts to you know, develop their sort of pathologies, and so I think calling out that sort of you know aspect of the landscape, whether it's on the trading room floor, in business, as a person trying to stay fit and live a healthy life, as somebody who's naturally overachieving or working towards creating value there is. It's difficult if you're not aware of rigidity being a factor and of playing your own rules right. So it sounds like you started to wake up, as you mentioned in unlearning, to figure out what your rules were. Was there a turning point that helped you? Helped you not try to measure by somebody else's race, to not fall into you know the mimetic traps of just miming what you know this entrepreneur, this fitness guy or this sort of person did that helped you establish your own sort of principles as it pertained to you, without affecting the more fundamental things of life love, you know unlearning, learning, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really really well articulated, and I would say that rigidity was my middle name and I didn't know any better my wife did. She kept saying, god, you're doing all these things, but you're so goddamn rigid, like just you know this idea and it's a good friend of mine Boyd Vardy kind of introduced it to me to have enough structure in your life to leave the structure. So don't be so rigid with it, but set it up. It could be daily habits, it could be anything within that, but have a framework that you're able to leave that framework. And I would say, if there was one moment that I could point to, it was in 2017, october 1st.
Speaker 2:I was in Las Vegas at the Route 91 Music Festival mass shooting and you know, while I was at the concert, while the shooting was happening, something shifted in me. I just started to. I had this sense that nothing. Something shifted in me. I had this sense that I had worked so hard to build and create in this facade. None of it was there to save me. In that moment, there was nothing I could really do except surrender to the situation. I didn't know what was actually going on. I didn't know if it was one person or if there were many and if there were people that were going to come on to the you know the concert grounds and you know have have their way with us. Fortunately that didn't happen. But I, I just kind of laid everything down and when I left I went on a journey. I would say it took me about 18 months to figure what was going on.
Speaker 2:But I started to question everything and at first it's terrifying because, as I would say in particular, as men, we live in certainty. We do things with certain goals in mind. Our partners come to us Most of the time they don't want the certainty, but that's what we usually show up with and that decisiveness can be really beneficial, especially for me as a trader and to navigate life. The issue comes when uncertainty is introduced. Issue comes when uncertainty is introduced and for me, just sitting in that long enough to question nearly everything and that's what really became this, the backbone of this unlearning journey for me, what is real, what is real for me? What is true for me? I know what I've been told, I know what I've been shown, but what is my experience actually show me as my truth?
Speaker 2:And getting to the other side of that was a massive weight off my shoulders Because in that kind of when they call it the dark night of the soul, whatever you want to call it that uncertainty, it can be terrifying, especially when you've built for me, built this whole identity around success and showing up a particular way, and it's like, well, what if none of these things matter? Or what if they don't matter as much as I thought they did, or in the same way, and being able to separate from that and see that these things were just things that I did or do for to make a living, or these different masks that I put on to show up in different ways. What if that's just a part of who I am? But really deep down, there's this greater kind of soul calling that's really is the one that I want in the driver's seat and it's like just trying to give way to that has been, I would say, over the past six, seven years has been my work, and there are times when I'm in beautiful flow with it and there are times when I feel like it's back in 2013 and what just happened, you know, and I think being able to have some grace for myself around that and a little humor and to remind myself that I am human.
Speaker 2:But that's part of what I'm trying to share, particularly with the podcast and bringing people on there who are going through their own unlearning. Um, and and bringing people on there who are going through their own unlearning and in the in the many different ways that we're all called to it. And I love the podcast as a platform to just ping the listeners for is there, there's any nugget in there that resonates with you in your own life and can that inspire you to just make a shift or to go a little easier on yourself, like, look, we're all a bit messed up, we're all trying to do this thing, we've all been indoctrinated with a lot of conditioning, by a lot of people that are well-meaning, some not so much, but that's either here or there, and so just to be able to be kind of in the experience and I would say the biggest thing that came to me through this was just trying to be curious about it- Sure, there's a expansiveness and curiosity, right Like back to even traumatic experiences, right Like a shooting, divorce, death, life.
Speaker 1:Life will bring us experiences and more often than not, I believe you know, if we are not intentionally which is sort of attention in and of itself if we're not intentionally seeking some resistance, then naturally life can throw it our way. Or we will manifest it, or it's just life that happens. But I like the idea of you know, it's not even that I like it. I think it's just life that happens, but I like the idea of you know it's not even that I like it. I think it's maybe some sort of truth, ism of some sort of just the biggest, baddest motherfucker can still get killed. You know, you could train as hard as you can, you could be the richest person, you could be the smartest. You know we've heard there's always someone tougher, someone smarter, but it doesn't matter if you're in a concert, if you're in any sort of situation where, no matter what you've done, your life could end, and that sort of finiteness, that finity of life can really anchor us. And without having to experience trauma. Unfortunately, sometimes we do need the dark nights of the soul as different levels capital T or lowercase t trauma. They're the things that will sometimes wake us up bettercase t trauma. They're the things that will sometimes wake us up better than anything. And they're the things that sometimes I believe are what we need right. And so, if we look at what we've experienced at different levels, we can use those as signals to sort of anchor us back to what you said, the curiosity, because, again, it's not a one size fits all right, it's a journey, as you said. We're all trying to figure it out. Nobody knows how it all ends right, we all have an idea, we have perceptions. As you said, we've been programmed by society, by well-meaning parents, by agendas that aren't as well-meaning and, at the end of the day, that's why it's funny for me for people like oh, the government's after this and the government wants you, they're going to get you like. You could stress yourself out, you could set up your bunker, you could set up these sort of like do it Cool, but they're going to get you right. And it's one of those things where why not just again, not be blind to things and, depending on what any individual believes, it's more about ensuring that we are, like you said, curious and accept that uncertainty, which is a dance. We want to bring the order and chaos in alignment and that is work and that takes a sort of you know.
Speaker 1:It makes me think of like the flow versus deliberate practice argument. The flow, people, you know, if you look at like the science of it Cal Newport was talking about this recently like everything's flow, we want to get in flow. It's just flow. It's like, yeah, but if you study the best guitarists, the best orators, the best fighters, flow is what you get after you put in the deliberate practice work and that shit sucks. That shit is your neurons are wiring. You feel frustrated. It's not just happy, lovey stuff and unfortunately there are a lot of agendas and we are complicit in it when we just want the easy shortcut in either direction. Easy shortcut of let me just hustle hard, let me just be 24-7 nonstop, or let me just let the woo-woo energy come to me and make me rich, healthy and wealthy. Right, it's more of this thing of balancing that flow and if we experience life as we experience things, learning to know that we don't know and also to dance with it, better, wouldn't you say?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love that idea that ultimately, I think one of the greatest epiphanies I had was that there's so much that I don't know. There's so much that I don't know, wow, and I'm not meant to know. I get to know it through my own experience. But just allowing for that idea to come in and to be okay with that, again back to this idea of certainty, back to the way we're unfortunately brought through the school system of certainty there's a right answer for most, all of it, and you're expected to get that right answer. And I think the most important things that I've found in life there is no right answer, there's just curiosity and to have your own relationship with it and it's not measurable relationship with it. And it's not measurable. And that's challenging for a lot of us, particularly when we like a scoreboard to see if we we did a good job. And I think it goes back to this idea of structure to leave structure form. To leave form, you need to put those reps in. If your meditation practice sucks right now and you can't get it keep showing up. And and I solely speak from experience I've had kind of a long bout with it in some ways where I feel like it finally popped about six weeks ago. I was like, oh, this is of seemingly nothingness to 30 minutes of deep connection to each member of my family, to the work that I'm currently doing, to the work that I'm meant to be doing, and it all unfolded in a way that I wouldn't have expected, because I had never experienced that. But it was because, I believe it was because I continued to do the work, even when it was hard, it didn't seem to bear any fruit. It's this idea of continuing to cultivate the soil so that when you know, at the lack of sounding woo-woo, like when the soul is ready, you know those things start to come through, but it is. It can be super frustrating when you don't feel like you're going anywhere. And I've spent look up until a few months ago. I felt like I spent the better part of three years in this flowy state that really wasn't bearing any fruit and I finally woke up to it like well, dude, like something needs to change because you've been in this state At that point I hadn't really measured how long, but it's like if you don't shift something, you're going to continue to be like this in a year, four years, eight years, 12, whatever, and do you want to look back and have spent that time?
Speaker 2:Uh, how you, how you have the last three years and I, I, I just didn't see that as being the path I wanted to to travel and, and so I just became more intentional around that and I tell you the biggest thing for me there were a lot of factors, I think, that allowed me to kind of pop out of that kind of tunnel-y experience, but I would say, in particular, it was this reliance on stimulants and it was nicotine, it was a lot of caffeine. Occasionally it was microdosing, occasionally it was Feel Free, which is a Kava Kratom product that I'm an investor in and that I really think is a tremendous product. But, like anything, it's all in the dosing and I was leaning heavily on that as well as these other things. So I would get up every day and I would just get on a regimen of whatever I felt like I needed to go and to produce, and it wasn't until early February. I was like this has to stop, because I can't continue on this path. There's something I'm missing, and what I realized was it was A. My natural ability to create energy, my chi and my creativity was gone. I had really just it felt like no direction and I didn't have structure, I didn't have a daily practice beyond this. You know, quote unquote, meditation that was setting me up for success.
Speaker 2:And so as I came off of those things and kind of one fail swoop, first couple of days were hard. I was tired, I knew that was going to happen, so I just didn't schedule much for those days, I just rested, which isn't always easy for me. But I recognized that that needed to happen. I needed to give myself that and then by day three the energy started to build and then I just kind of took off and I've just been creating from that moment on and I have such a vision for where I want to take.
Speaker 2:You know kind of what I meant to do in the world, and I'd never had that vision. And so it feels really good to have a North Star to kind of orient towards as I make decisions every day. You know, you and I and everybody listening here, we're faced with a ton of decisions every day and they can be really challenging. They were challenging for me when I didn't have any kind of North Star. It was very easy for me to rationalize and to make decisions that weren't in my best interest going forward. And so, with these kind of bigger visions, I get to tune in to each of these decisions the best I can and decide if it's bringing me closer to these things that I want to create and bring into the world or is it giving me further away from that. And I don't always choose, you know, the one I would prefer to choose, and that's yeah, that's part of the journey and I'm okay with that, and it's just recognizing that and not beating myself up about it.
Speaker 1:That's so good, yeah, and I think of you know kind of a good time now, spring, right, we sow this sort of seed in the spring and it sounds like that's what you came to.
Speaker 1:And if we go back to what we were talking about, between deliberate practice work that is not sexy, it's not easy, it's difficult, annoying, you know hard, and then the flow state and that sort of you you mentioned continuing to show up, that is, us planting the seed now, even as you mentioned, when it's annoying, when we're not seeing results, trusting that there's longevity in that right, and through these dark nights or through this sort of working within the physical world, the metaphysical world, and then the woo-woo, the spirit, the other aspect that's part of the dance that we were first mentioning right, of making sure that you have the structure, you have the work, you're putting in the soil, the seeds, you're doing the actual thing that is required for a tree or your crop to grow, and then also practicing faith and with grace, also tapping into that thing that is beyond us, that we don't see, and not over indexing on any one of those right, because I feel like that's what gets us.
Speaker 1:Have there been any other sort of frameworks or tools that kind of help you balance that sort of self-activation and and holistic growth, because we know we've mentioned it's not a, it's not one thing or the other and it applies to people differently. What sort of structure has or flow or any of these sort of things?
Speaker 2:as far as tools have helped you, I'd say, you know, each day I have my non-negotiables and I used to think that was a pretty rigid thing until I really anchored those in what I'm here to create. One of those is not a new concept, but to read 10 pages of self-improvement, self-help, some sort of nonfiction. That is about creating a better connection for me and what I'm meant to be doing, and so I like to anchor with that as well, as I like to sweat or move every day. I feel like that's just a good practice and for where I want to be in 25 years, it's really important for me to have an active body. I also it's important for me to connect to the goals I've set and again, I was never a big goal setter. I never understood it. It was never taught to me in a way that I could connect to it.
Speaker 2:And, as I was just mentioning this idea of when setting these goals the 25-year goals with a vision big enough to kind of hold it all, and then the annual goals it allows me to move through my day with a lot more clarity, and so really just setting into that practice allows me to connect to what I'm meant to do for the day, and I do that every morning I sit with those things and throughout the day I'll sit with my goals at least three times without having any of that structure to just go with the flow through the day.
Speaker 2:And I would say, even with this bit of structure, there's a lot of really good flow for my day and I think it's just continuing to refine this idea of structure, to leave structure without the rigidity, and when the rigidity comes in, just question where is that coming from? And generally for me it's this old pattern of wanting to achieve, sometimes for achievement's sake, and it's okay, because that idea, that mindset created a lot of abundance for me. And when that's the only tool, it can be super challenging, and so it's for me. It's that discernment around when to access that, to really go for something, and then when to just allow things to show up in my life and pay attention and not feeling like I need to be the driving force of everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's huge man and one of the things that really, again, it's. It's such a clear thing of how it's. It's. Nobody can give you the formula right. People can guide you and give you tools, but it's like Steve Jobs or your idol in business or whoever they had to do things that got them where they got right. Like you, you are where you are because sometimes, for better or worse, maybe despite of, maybe because of these tools, it was what we had. Right?
Speaker 1:I've been working on fear from, say, my teens to my twenties and that drove me right. Then it was pride and then it was anxiety, and then maybe a family came like we all use what we have at our disposal. And so I think it's like those same people, the Jeff Bezos will now tell you hey, go, do you know the red light therapy and the ice bath, and? But they're speaking from a different position. And so, say, a 20-year-old college graduate is like, yeah, you know, I just need to do more of the ice baths and get more in this energy flow. And it's like, yeah, do that, but don't forget to get where he got.
Speaker 1:Depending on, again, your own individual journey. That depending on again your own individual journey, that's not going to make it for you right, the whole idea of replicating the outcome instead of the work, and so that sometimes can get confusing. And so what I hear you say is you've set up these guardrails that sometimes by accident, sometimes by sheer will, sometimes by grace, you know, divine intervention, or just because of who, we were not always from the best burning, not always from the most clean burning fuel. Right, it could have been again from anger, from resentment, from fear.
Speaker 1:I set a structure in my twenties, 19 year old, trying to not be poor, trying to not be, you know, uh, taken advantage of trying to, all of these things that were based on ideals, that then, as we mature, if we are aware of it, life is going to give us a kick in the ass, or we're going to wisen up, or we're going to develop the discernment to. Then, you know, as we mature, and maturity could be at any level of your life, right, we're maturing until we're a hundred plus, which, again, with this fitness, will get us there in the sort of resume. But it sounds like, yeah, having this, this frame of the structure, helps us really pivot towards more clean burning fuel.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I love that you brought that up. One of the things I'm very careful to do is to not kind of encourage anyone away from the experiences that I had that were challenging. Go follow all the fitness stuff and try to reverse, engineer and do all those things. I think, again, it comes back to having your own experience. Don't take my word for it, don't take your word for it. Go do those things and when they don't work for you or maybe they do work for you, they just didn't work for me in the long run, but they did get me to the clarity that I have today in some of these areas.
Speaker 2:And there's going to be other things that happen today and going forward where I'm going to hit my head against the wall and have to do it the hard way until I figure out what the proper path is Um, but I think, having your own experience and again, don't don't just do all the cool biohacking things that I may be doing, like like, live your life and be okay with what you're learning. And it's the classic we never really learn much from our successes is when we get it wrong, in a sense, although that's even questionable, but when we don't maybe go down the easiest path. That's when we really have our own aha moments and we understand, and we know things versus knowing about them, and I think that's a big distinction. That's why I love having you know, this idea of having your own experience. You get to know something intimately, versus taking my word for it, your word for it, ram Dass' word for it, jeff Bezos, whoever You'll just know about it, and that's not super helpful in the long run.
Speaker 1:That's so true. I hear too like with you know, it sounds like we either come to this point or we're taught. Some of us, you know, maybe didn't have the best upbringing or we just had habits, Right, and so learning about these things are not bad in and of themselves. Right, there are tools that we need to try, but even when it comes down to it back to the meditation, the yoga, anything that is good you still have to take self-responsibility. Nobody's going to pay your bills, nobody's going to come and save you that whole idea, but you're the one that is having to take responsibility.
Speaker 1:So, instead of you asking Andrew Tate or XYZ person how to do this thing or go about this way, like, you need to look at what has brought me these results. What am I? And it's sometimes it's hard, right. Sometimes it's like I've been a shitty person, or my character has not been up to par or my skillset is not. You know, and, as you mentioned, having the grace, having the humility to be like that doesn't mean I'm worthless, that doesn't mean it's not possible, and that's where most of us, especially as men, but anybody in today's society or social media driven society or just modern day can really be sort of wanting to abdicate that, that agency, and let somebody else steer for us. And I think one of the best frameworks again, this is what has helped me is just fundamentally thinking about, which I think you mapped out really well of just the mind, right, the intellect, with your goal setting, right, the body of resistance training, right, this physical being of that, training it to do hard.
Speaker 1:The spiritual right, the connection to source, the connection to even your purpose, can be spiritual. And emotions, right, the part of us that feels that comes from that, whatever that means for you, right, that sort of non-negotiables that you mentioned seem to touch on those things. So that's where we have to do the work of practicing that agency and be like for me you know I love nonfiction, I didn't read fiction for the longest time and something within this sort of like emotional intellect, like let me pick up Steinbeck, right, and John Steinbeck will write some of the shit that, like you, would hear Carl Jung talk about in a very narrative, like structure, and so that to me fills the emotional and the intellectual side of things. But it's what works for me until it doesn't, or until it changes. And again, as I train my body, as I train my mind.
Speaker 1:It's sort of like finding those grooves within those squadronities right, those ideas that make us up, and then fitting that in a place or in a position. That takes work. It takes you, taking the agency. Yes, look at the pros, look at the cows, look at the greats who are doing something in your community, in the world, but not for putting them on a pedestal, not for hero worshiping, which we know is counterproductive for everybody, but for just a map and then applying it to your structure and your reality.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that and it is very easy to put people up on a pedestal from the little, slight view of their life that we're led into and it does. It ends up putting us in a kind of lower position and we really have no concept of that person's life. And I love using what they're doing as an inspiration, like what are they doing that actually works within my life? What are the principles behind it that I can incorporate? And then just give yourself the space to play with that. And you know, it's like it could become all so damn serious with this stuff. I mean, I know I speak from experience and that's not fun either. That creates a whole different level of stress. Or trying to do all the things like geez, I've been there and I may go there again, I don't know.
Speaker 2:The idea is to pick up on it sooner rather than later, if and when it does happen. But I think this idea too. I love the idea of reading fiction, when you start to notice those nuggets of real world kind of you know whether it's Jungian psychology or something you know you read in a Adyashanti book. But it's like I always found that so cool, like, oh, this book is so much deeper than I would have thought, right, and it can be really fun to read in a different way, to download these principles that can be really these guiding principles in our life, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how would you? I feel like this is the best question in terms of framing what we would do. I don't have kids, right, and you, as a father, how do you teach this sort of golden mean that we were talking about earlier, the not too much and not enough aspect when it comes to certain things like, maybe even like depth of knowledge, right, like, as you said, there's so much that we think we know at a surface level? Right, you were alluding something to that regard and really, sometimes it just takes the time and, as we were saying, the grace.
Speaker 1:But how do you teach your kids? Because I know we know what we know from experience. That doesn't mean we always either have the depth of knowledge or that we can, we can give the advice, but no advice, I would imagine, is as dire, maybe, as the advice we would give to our kids. So how do you teach them to live that sort of full engagement golden mean when it comes to, let's say, like competition, right, if any of them are in sports or academia or whatever it is, you have to let them learn. But how do you give them that guidance for the golden mean without being helicopter, parent, et cetera?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the same way I try to live my life, and it's allow them to have their own experience. And if I see my son, who's really competitive in basketball, I see him acting in a way that I think he's acting like an asshole or something like that. I won't scold him for it, but I'll just get curious like, hey, what's kind of what's going on? And generally when I do that, my perception of why he's acting like that is completely off, because something else is going on with him and uh, it has nothing to do with basketball or his teammates. There's just something in his life is creating anxiety, and so then he's putting all these eggs in basketball and when that doesn't go well, he gets super frustrated because that's one of the things he excels at, and so it's just always a reminder for me that what I'm seeing on the surface is not what's going on, and I mean for better or for worse.
Speaker 2:You know, my kids are 21, 18 and 16.
Speaker 2:We've really tried to give them the space to have their own life experience, not to say we don't parent and guide and do that, but we are definitely not helicopter parents and we want to continue to build trust with them so that when they do something that maybe isn't great, it's not automatically a punishment and a consequence.
Speaker 2:It's let's talk about this and maybe sometimes there is an appropriate consequence for it, but we don't jump to that, like I think a lot of parents tend to.
Speaker 2:We want to just continue to understand what's going on in their life and I may have an idea and be right about like a major thing, but there's so many other little things in all of our lives that affect the way we show up or don't show up and act and lose our shit, that it's like that for everybody and my kids aren't a reflection of me in the sense that I think a lot of parents think they are, and so I want them to be their own individual souls and to live their life and to know that I'm always here, no matter what they do Doesn't mean I won't be a little bit bummed about a decision here and there I will be and I'll let them know in a way that hopefully I can couch it through some questions Doesn't always happen.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I get right to the point and say that was super fucked up. But yeah, it's just having an open dialogue and really trying to listen and creating the space where they can actually share and they don't feel the fear of getting in trouble. For them wanting to, you know, come clean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's beautiful, I think, with that sort of advice that we give right, and you pointed out something really powerful which is, like you said, it's for everybody, right, we don't know, we think we're acting this way. You think our kid, our neighbor, the random stranger that cut you off, is acting in a certain way, but we don't know, and so it's like advice, right, like we would give you great advice if we love you. If I've talked to a friend you know a lot of friends of mine that have kids they'll tell me what they would say, and sometimes I watch them like you know. You should tell yourself that exact same thing you just told your kid. Right, and I'm like sometimes, by hearing them say that, it's like, wow, that's advice that my inner child or your inner child or all of our inner child needed to hear.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a huge anchor point of having that sort of grace and having that space not only for the other. Right, because you as a parent, you as an entrepreneur, you as a member of society, as part of a community, you will reflect how your business operates, how your family operates. To some extent, right, there's other people, there are their own individuals, but to some extent there is a reflection of that, especially if you're trying to lead, especially if you are, you know, sort of managing, or again back to providing service and value. You're in a position of responsibility that requires you to have this again paradoxical grace that is sometimes back to what we originally started with it. It sometimes butts up against this hard-driven we got to go, you know, 100 miles per hour. We got to kill the enemy. We got to, you know, stay ready, like that kind of thing which has its place in time.
Speaker 1:But without that grace and that space and that curiosity, our kids are not going to feel it right, we're not going to feel it in our inner kid, right, and the same things that we know intellectually back to depth of knowledge, as we give ourselves the experience in time and space. That is a good, I think, picture of like how much we're always ready to learn, because the more we do that for others, the more we can do that for ourselves. It's like that cycle, the more we do that for ourselves, even sometimes where words don't even have to be said, sometimes with kids in either direction, the parent that just looks at their kid and their kid's like afraid, but then that kid may be orderly and structured. That kid may not come back home. That kid may not bring his grandchildren back home, right, or the parent that sees his kid or the kid that sees their parent, and they don't have to say anything no-transcript.
Speaker 2:I want them to feel seen and heard and their feelings validated. Even if I don't necessarily agree with their assessment of their friend or whatever they're having a hard time with. They need to be validated because their feelings are their feelings. It doesn't mean I agree with them, but they need to be seen and heard and I think that is just continuing to build that trust. And you know, ideally, when, if and when the shit hits the fan with any of them, I I really want to be the first phone call. I want them to know that they can trust me to give them advice or just get them out of a spot, not because I'm always going to get them out of a spot, but because they know that I'm not going to jump to conclusions and try to, you know, penalize them for some place where they you know they they kind of fucked up.
Speaker 1:That's good. Yeah, that's true In terms of even what we need for ourselves. If they feel seen and heard, why wouldn't they act somewhat in accordance with what they know? Right, or at least feel the safe space? And back to ourselves. If we are wanting and asking, or at least we desire, for the people that we love to be seen and heard, it goes back to that reflection right, we have to see and hear ourselves. And heard, it goes back to that reflection right, we have to see and hear ourselves.
Speaker 1:So, with that, what sort of you know, maybe programming, as you and I, I think, initially started talking about when you and I first connected, um, when we were trying to achieve these things, and sometimes these rewarding, uh, mechanisms or experiences that tell us we're doing a good job, but they can lead us to not see or hear our calling, to not see or hear our journey. What advice or what experience has helped you again in sort of finding this curiosity and this mindfulness to catch yourself? Like you said, we are human and we may find phases and times where we will steer in that direction more. But what do you think will help you or what would you share to somebody, whether it's your kid or client or you know, our audience, um, especially if they're leading teams. To come back to that sort of curiosity, as we are naturally drawn sometimes by these, these factors that put us in this other mode, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for me it's when I feel like I'm in this super driven, tight kind of tunnel vision this is what needs to happen, and with the caveat that sometimes that's what's required for the task at hand. But when I'm finding that's my MO from day to day, it's like this curiosity, like, like, why, like what's the goal here? What you know, it's this idea of curiosity and what is driving Am I inspired by the work I'm doing or is there something underneath it? My need for acceptance, my need to be successful, my need to do these things to earn love, which is a childhood thing of mine. And, like I said, it's okay to tap into these pieces of ourselves.
Speaker 2:You know, I love Adyashanti's couching of this idea of resume virtues and eulogy virtues.
Speaker 2:And the resume virtues are the, quite frankly, are the things that we do to get hired for a job, that make us good employees. And the eulogy virtues are those things that we want people to say about us. You know, at our funeral and I think, when we wake up to the second half of life or at least for me, it was this great recognition that all those resume things were really cool and they created some cool opportunities for me. And I don't want people to talk about any of that shit at my funeral. I want to be something different than that and it doesn't mean that you askew the resume piece when kind of creating this eulogy path. It means that there is a coming together of the two and the balancing, and that's balance in harmony, to be able to do on the one hand and to be and ultimately to be able to achieve that there's a greater sense of being that I think needs to hold that container, because it's pretty easy to be when you're not doing anything.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I think we can all resonate with doing without being, but marrying those two, which, again, there's no real way to score it at home except to tune in to how you feel home, except to tune in to how you feel. And are you inspired when you wake up to go get on with your day? And, frankly, when you go to bed at night, are you excited to wake up the next day to do the things that you're called to do? And I think that's probably been the biggest indicator for me is that when I'm going to bed at night, just the excitement of waking up the next day and it doesn't always happen, but when I'm in that space, it's magic. I know that I can create whatever I want to create. I just need to wake up the next day.
Speaker 1:That's big. Yeah, the doing and being is big. No-transcript mean it's like this forever right and back to like training. Sometimes that sort of wiring of over anxious was what made me get activated and act, you know, proactively, or it worked until it didn't. And back to this balance of it's okay to feel shitty and things might still be moving, exactly Just like on the other side, it's okay to feel great, and if you're measuring by somebody else's score or the algorithm, great feelings don't mean great things. Right, if you're just on a high and on this thing, that doesn't mean you're moving forward. So I love that man.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm going to kind of highlight what it stood out for me and then please let me know if I missed anything or anything you want to add on. So first is the sort of course that you're running in the race as an individual, making sure that you understand having structure to leave structure. I think that's a powerful guide for running your own race, but also building that sort of order and chaos that we need to manage uncertainty. Running your own race, but also building that sort of order and chaos that we need to manage uncertainty. The second point is questioning the balance between getting out of our head and in our lives. Right, you mentioned getting into our body as a way to both get out of our head, but also remembering the soul aspect of that. We can get into our bodies as well as be intellectually driven and goal driven, but the soul aspect is a big part that will help us discern a bit better.
Speaker 1:The next point is just knowing that everybody's trying to figure out. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on, right, even your greats. Everybody has some sort of luck, everybody has some sort of good and bad luck, and you need to sort of figure it out on your own. Take models, understand there are ways to learn, to not have to reinvent the wheel, but nobody knows what's going on. To some extent, right, and I think that's that lends itself to the next point of just giving yourself grace, you know, giving yourself this sort of, I think, door that lets you get into this curiosity, walking through the grace helps you. Uh, you mentioned, you know. Again back to, I think, aristotle. It's like the less you know, the more you know, the more you know that you don't know. Right, it's like that saying about the uh, the greater the shoreline of your knowledge grows, the fast vastness of the oceans of what you don't know comes to mind. Right, like you, more you know, the more you just you see how vast this ocean is.
Speaker 1:And lastly again, you are not what you do but be. And that balance of eulogy and resume doesn't mean the resume is worthless and just you know, be a hippie and live out on wherever. Nothing wrong with hippies. But, just, you know, having this sort of balance of being and doing in a way that is productive to who you are right and to also, I think again, live really unlearned and at your highest potential. Anything else that you'd want to add there?
Speaker 2:that I might have missed. No, I mean, that was a beautiful recap. I guess the only other thing I'd say is this idea of you know us kind of tilling the soil and still doing that work. There's also this idea of weeding the garden, too, and really starting to remove the things that are getting in the way. And if we are quiet with ourselves and we really ask, is this really supporting the work I'm doing or is it getting in the way? For me, it was, as I mentioned, my reliance on stimulants, and that dependence was really hindering my ability to move forward, and it took me a while to get honest with myself about that, and when I finally did and I had the courage to just say I'm done, everything changed. And so I think there is this really taking stock of our lives, and I'm not saying overhaul everything, I'm saying just start to remove some things that are really getting in the way of you being able to create the garden that you really are aspiring to bring to the world.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful, brilliant. Thank you so much. Besides the Great Unlearned podcast, you can find it on all the platforms. Anything else that we could join to follow your journey? Anything else you'd want to plug in?
Speaker 2:I would say, just, I'm pretty active on Instagram calcallahan and then the website for the podcast and everything else is thegreatunlearnedcom.
Speaker 1:Beautiful Cal lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, three kids, two dogs and a pig named Petunia. Cal's own podcast, again the Great Unlearn, shares conversations with some of today's leading experts and performers to help men and women unlearn the way in a new way of being. Thank you so much for being on, Cal, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Thanks brother, this was awesome.