How To Improve Your Experience With Existence And Enhance Your Relationship With Life With Jem Fuller

[00:00:00] Jeremy: I think it was the great philosopher, George McFly, who said it best when he said you can do anything you want. If you set your mind.

[00:00:06] Zach: But our guests this week would argue. That's not exactly true, but that shouldn't stop you from pursuing your dreams and goals anyways, as it will likely lead you to a happier and more fulfilling.

[00:00:15] Jeremy: Coming up our conversation with the author of the book, the art of conscious communication for thoughtful men gem.

[00:00:21] This is the fit mess conversations with world-class experts in the fields of mental, physical, and emotional health. And this episode 

[00:00:30] Jem Fuller: I don't necessarily believe that you can have anything you want. I don't necessarily believe that you can say I'm going to go and create a multi-million dollar business and it will work.

[00:00:39] I do believe you can improve your experience of existence in this moment. I do believe you can enhance your relationship with. life I believe that you can improve that slightly. You can, your day to day experience of, of wellbeing and happiness.

[00:00:54] You can improve

[00:00:55] Now, here are your hosts, Zach and Jeremy. 

[00:00:58] Zach: Welcome to the fitness brought to you by athletic greens. Thanks for listening while you're doing whatever it is that you're doing right now. I'm Zach, he's Jeremy. We've been through all kinds of struggles and ended up stronger because of them. And we want to help you do the same. So if you're sick of your own shit and you're ready to make a change, you are in the right place.

[00:01:15] Jeremy: And making a change is exactly what we're talking about today. Starting with a mindset. In any of this self development work? I think it always has to start with a mindset shift. Like we say every week. And like Zach just said, you have to get sick enough of your own shit that something has to change for me, it started with an injury and a fear of a physical debilitation later in life that I've talked about a lot here 

[00:01:36] for me, that was close enough to rock bottom. It was enough to force me to change my behaviors and take action toward living a healthier, better life. Our hope, is that through the kinds of conversations we share here with you each week, that we can help you make the same kind of change before rock bottom, or if you're already there point you in a direction that may help.

[00:01:52] Zach: , And I'll say , when you do hit the rock bottom, right? You, you do have to make that choice. You have to take that action. You have to change your mindset but once you start doing that, and again, you need to start with small changes. Once you start having that success, you've made one change and another change and you look back at how far you've come.

[00:02:10] The motivation for me is not rock bottom anymore. The motivation for me is to continue growing. , if you are at the rock bottom point, you have to remember that at some point, your motivation will change. Right? You're going to go from, I need to get out of this hole to, I love change and I love making myself get better.

[00:02:26] , but it's a long process. I'm sure you've gone through that too. Right? Jeremy.

[00:02:30] Jeremy: Well, yeah, and the beauty of rock bottom is there's only one place to go and it's up. 

[00:02:33] Zach: I don't know. Whenever I'm at rock bottom, I do tend to go left and right. A lot and explore it down there quite a bit. , I really soak it in and spend my time and make sure I know what's there. , No, I, I I'm joking. I don't, I really do try and get back up, but I do when I am at rock bottom, I do try and pay attention.

[00:02:50] And my rock bottom is different now. Right. It's, it's a little bit higher, but I really, really, when I'm there, I focus on it and remember it and really committed to memory of what it feels like. So that when I am, , a little bit higher, I don't forget what that's like. And I can continue to motivate myself in, in a different way.

[00:03:12] Jeremy: It can be a fantastic motivator to, to help you avoid getting there again. And, and I'll tell you, I am better than I was when I started this path many years ago, but you do fall down all the time and you keep getting hurt and you have to keep getting back up. So any illusion you have that by meditating or doing yoga or, or any, any of this stuff that we talk about?

[00:03:36] Any illusion you have that that is going to fix you and that you are one day gonna wake up and everything's just going to be glorious. It's not, it's just not, this is a lifelong thing. And it is an effort that you have to make every day to keep trying to improve and keep trying to change so that you don't revert to your old ways and end up with the same kind of pain that put you on

[00:04:00] this path. 

[00:04:01] Zach: Yeah. And just remembering too, that like the higher you get in this journey, your brain still remembers how to feel rock bottom. It still has all those pathways to make you feel like you're so much lower , than you actually are. So for me, like, even though I'm like, , eight steps ahead of where I was two years ago, , when I do fall down, I really only fall down two or three steps, but it feels like I fell down the entire eight steps in the moment.

[00:04:28] And just recognizing that you really didn't fall down that far, , your mind just goes there naturally. , it's a path really well-worn and it can just turn on it in an instant. And it's up to you to fix that.

[00:04:39] Jeremy: And that's why your commitment to this work is so important and deciding that no matter what, you're just going to keep doing whatever the things are that you implement every single day to live a better life, 

[00:04:50] Zach: So that's just mindset. But for me, , having that memory of rock bottom keeps me plugging away at all the different places where I need to put effort in to keep me away from rock bottom. My nutrition, working out things like that. , we really need to have your body operating at the levels it needs to be at, in order to function appropriately.

[00:05:12] And that's why I started taking athletic greens. 

[00:05:14] I started taking athletic greens because I really needed to have a sufficient. That tasted great, gave me all the things that I needed. , and I didn't want to have to take 10 pills a day or, spend all of my time cooking all the meals.

[00:05:28] I try and get my nutrients from food, but let's face it. We don't get everything we need every day from food. So athletic greens was a great solution for me. It tastes great. Gives me everything I need for more energy, better gut health optimized immune system. 

[00:05:43] It has less than a gram of sugar and there's no nasty chemicals or artificial anything. And it actually does taste good. And for what you get, it's less than $3.

[00:05:51] and right now is the time to incorporate better health and athletic greens is a perfect start to make it easy.

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[00:06:16] Jeremy: our guest today knows rock bottom pretty well. He hit it himself and it was enough to make him change his. It's a life that's been an extraordinary one full of adventures. He has been an actor, a singer, a songwriter, a barefoot backpacker, a fire dancer. And now he's an expert in mindset and communication, leading retreats around the world.

[00:06:35] Our interview with gem fuller begins with his rather ordinary upbringing. 

[00:06:38] Jem Fuller: was your ordinary kind of middle-class upbringing in a suburb in Melbourne, a city in Australia, , all kind of pretty standard. And then, , the normal life things happen that. Painful life. Things happen that we all go through.

[00:06:53] And when I was turning 18, my best friend died on a motorbike. And that was in my last year of high school. And that sent me on a bit of a spin. , then, and then as soon as I finished high school, I just needed to get 

[00:07:03] to the other side of the world. I Just wanted to get as far away as possible. , 

[00:07:06] I had grown up traveling a little bit.

[00:07:08] I was born overseas and my father was , from a different country. So 

[00:07:11] we had traveled a little bit. But I always 

[00:07:13] had this curiosity about the big wide world. , so pretty much through most of my twenties, I was either traveling 

[00:07:20] somewhere or, or, or somewhere else, earning money 

[00:07:23] to keep traveling. And the countries that I was most interested in were the countries that were 

[00:07:28] culturally and geographically as different. 

[00:07:31] To where I grew up. And with the benefit 

[00:07:34] of hindsight, now I can look back 

[00:07:35] and perhaps understand subconsciously why I was drawn to, , very different countries to where I grew up. And it was this, this curiosity around cross-cultural connection and cross-cultural communication. I really was interested to talk with people from very different backgrounds to me.

[00:07:54] You know, whether that was a religious background or a cultural background or a geographical background, that was just very different to mine. And I was always on this kind of mission, unbeknownst to myself in my twenties to connect with these people and find out what we had in common. And that makes sense to me now.

[00:08:10] So through my, my kind of wild, adventurous days, I've I did everything from fire dancer to tattoo is to kindergarten teacher and volunteer in third world countries and, , healer and all sorts of different things. Then jump forward to when I first became a father in my early thirties, and I thought, wow, I better get some sort of job or career to provide for these kids.

[00:08:30] And I ended up working for an international travel company because I didn't know what else to do. , had a pretty successful eight years with. Climbed the climb, the corporate ladder, so to speak and ended up the last three years in a senior corporate leadership position with a lot of staff and a lot of zeros behind the numbers that we had to crunch and learnt a lot about leadership learnt about human behavior, learned about things, you know, fun things like neuro-linguistic programming and profiling, that kind of stuff, but also found out that I really wasn't built for.

[00:09:01] This pressure to drive net profit growth month on month on month. And I was caught in that rat race and essentially deeply unhappy drinking too much alcohol and not seeing my kids working 14 hours a day, that, that old story. And then I had my midlife awakening in my early 

[00:09:18] forties, my midlife crisis slash awakening and, um, 

[00:09:21] and everything changed.

[00:09:23] And I did a lot of 

[00:09:24] work on myself. I lost my job. 

[00:09:26] , I came out of a marriage that had gone too far south. I lost my house. I pretty much lost everything 

[00:09:30] except my kids. And that was nine years 

[00:09:32] ago. , and I started this coaching journey. And since then I've become an executive coach. I run retreats in the Himalaya and Bali and the deserts of Northern Australia.

[00:09:42] I work with CEOs across the government and private sectors and not-for-profit sectors. And then most recently, , have just written. , the art of conscious communication for thoughtful men. So it's a story with a happy ending so far. , I'm about to turn 51 and my boys are about to turn 18 and 16. So they're becoming young men themselves, and we live in a beautiful, beautiful place down the coast by surf beaches here in Australia.

[00:10:07] And I've got plenty of time to surf. I drink a hell of a lot less. I spend more time like kids, I even exercise more now, which is nice as well. So yeah, that's. 

[00:10:17] Jeremy: I want to zone in on the point where you went from the typical corporate ladder, having it all to it all going away and making that shift. How much of that shift happened? Intentionally. And how much of it was sort of forced upon you? Do you, you mentioned you lost your job.

[00:10:34] You were let go, or you decided that's enough. I, I need a different, a different path. Tell us about that point where everything shifted for you. 

[00:10:42] Jem Fuller: Yeah. So it, it was a combination of. 

[00:10:47] , stuff happening to me and I'm doing it in inverted commerce, because I think there's a deeper conversation around how much we attract , through our behavior. Like, you know, at the time I was forced to leave, it was a very unceremonious. 

[00:11:03] Jeremy: Right. 

[00:11:03] Jem Fuller: Um, and I was literally walked out of the building and accused of a whole bunch of stuff I didn't do.

[00:11:08] It was very unfair and I was on the phone to lawyers and I could have gone down the unfair dismissal path, but the employer had, had thought about that. And the, the handshake that they offered me was only just a little bit short of what I would have gotten if I had to go into court and it would have taken a year and yada yada.

[00:11:24] So I decided to just take it and leave. So yes, I, yes, I w I was fine. But I look back now and I think that I sabotage, , I think my behavior leading up to that point gave them enough reason to do that. So I don't, I don't feel, I don't blame anybody for really anything that's happened in my life. I believe that I've created it all.

[00:11:46] I mean, certainly there are things that happen that are out of our control, but I believe that we have, we have some choice around how we choose to receive. To those events. Um, but that, that happened just shortly after quite a remarkable night. And I, I don't know how, , his spiritual or not your listeners are, but this is just what happened.

[00:12:04] I sit in a men's circle have been for a long time, and it's a group of men. We sit around a fire, we pick a theme and we talk about a theme and what it means to us. No alcohol, no drugs, just a conversation. And one night we decided to have a north American Indian sweat lodge. If you guys heard of it,

[00:12:23] Jeremy: Sure. Yeah. 

[00:12:23] Zach: Yeah. 

[00:12:24] Jem Fuller: Oh, you're in Canada.

[00:12:25] Of course. You know what 

[00:12:25] I'm talking about in Australia, in Australia, people don't know what I'm talking about. Um, so we had a sweat on Aboriginal, Australian Aboriginal land here in Australia, and I had an out of body experience. I was, you know, it was probably because I was in a sweat. It was a really hot sweat.

[00:12:41] And I was in there for a long time 

[00:12:43] and I went into a trance and had an out of body experience and became my five-year old. And I was flying around as this five-year-old and I figured this out later on that, up until the age of five, I still was at the age of innocence. And then it was when I was at the age of six, that something happened that really rocked my innocence.

[00:13:04] Um, when I was six years old, I started to run this racket, but it's a very human racket that I'm not good at. Know, I'm not good enough for the love of my father, essentially. That was the relationship that I pinned it to. But prior to that, I mean, there was no question of not being good enough. Life was good and easy.

[00:13:20] Right. Um, so I had this amazing out of body 

[00:13:23] experience. I went home that night and, and had a very, very, very lucid and prophetic dream kind of woke up in the morning. And I knew exactly what it meant. It was like, wow. I've had this background belief up until the age of 42, that I'm not good enough. And when we believe something, we tend to become our own self-fulfilling prophecy.

[00:13:45] Right. 

[00:13:45] Jeremy: For 

[00:13:45] sure. 

[00:13:46] Jem Fuller: We distort the information around us to match our beliefs. So something will happen and we go, oh, I knew I wasn't good enough or sabotage. So I had a career that was heading in a very successful direction and in way, You know, I, I sabotaged it and that was because I thought I didn't deserve. And so that was the bit that kind of happened to me.

[00:14:06] I didn't plan that, but then I got really curious about the plasticity of the brain and can we change our beliefs? Can we change the wiring? And so I started reading a whole bunch of books, including Joe dispenser and all these sorts of people. And then it became very conscious and very intentional. And I went to work on myself and I literally through.

[00:14:24] Just repetition, Dheilly daily repetition of repeating to myself. I'm good enough. I am enough. I do deserve happiness. And so then I consciously changed the wiring and then things changed. Then I, then I got myself out of the toxic marriage. Then we had to sell the 

[00:14:41] house. , and I'd already lost the job, but then I started creating this life that I've got now.

[00:14:45] So initially it was, it happened to me. And then from then I took it on board and went to work.

[00:14:50] Jeremy: Yeah. 

[00:14:51] Zach: Wow, that's an amazing story. , , the question that I have for you is about mindset and, , you know how things that we can do to change it, but man, you, you just went through the gamut on, on changing your mindset for sure.

[00:15:05] Jem Fuller: Yeah, I did a took about six to 12. Of high repetition before I started to notice any change. And in those first six months, I didn't even know. 

[00:15:17] I didn't even believe it. You know, I was saying to myself, whenever I was alone, I wasn't doing it in public. Otherwise I would have been locked up, but whenever I was alone, I was saying out loud, over and over and over again, I would even be driving and make up a song.

[00:15:30] I am good enough just the way I, and I just kept saying it over and over. And I thought, gee, I hope this 

[00:15:36] works. You know, because I'd got to a point in my life where, and I'm happy to be vulnerable. My anxiety is around not being in. I had kept under a blanket of shame. I hadn't told anybody.

[00:15:50] And they had manifested in my, , my sexual ability or which kind of disability. And in my marriage, I developed a real 

[00:15:57] sexual dysfunction, anxiety attacks, inability to be able to perform, 

[00:16:02] not feeling good enough. And I was so ashamed. I didn't even tell anyone my, my 

[00:16:05] wife obviously had to go through this as well that no one knew, not even my 

[00:16:09] best friends, because I felt so, so ashamed.

[00:16:13] , thankfully through this work, , that's all changed, but at the time I didn't even believe it, but I was so 

[00:16:19] desperate, because I was born, luckily I was born an optimist and I had this one glimmer of hope going, surely the second half of my life doesn't need to be this horrible. Surely not surely.

[00:16:30] There's a way, you know, so I grabbed onto these. And I, and I pinned my hopes on them and I went this neuro plasticity work that I'm going to engage in. I'm just really hoping it does something and sure enough, over 12 months I started to believe it. Those neurons started to wire together. And now it's, it's a, it's a belief.

[00:16:51] It's just a reflex, automatically firing set of neurology where I, of course I'm good enough. How could I not. You know, and so I am on a little bit of a mission to share this story and 

[00:17:01] help other people who want to improve their relationship with self, their state of mind. Um, because when you, when you change, as you guys know, when you change in here, when you improve, what's going on in here, your experience with life improves. So yeah.

[00:17:17] Jeremy: So with that. You know, I, I have glimpses of that. I'm, I'm in sort of a wave right now where, where I feel like as long as I make a decision and take action on it, whatever I go after is going to work, 

[00:17:28] it's 

[00:17:28] fine. 

[00:17:29] Jem Fuller: Hmm. 

[00:17:29] Hmm. 

[00:17:30] Jeremy: then, you know, 

[00:17:31] I, I've also, I've 

[00:17:32] battled depression my entire life. And certain times it will rear its ugly head and all of a sudden I'm not good enough.

[00:17:38] And I don't deserve to be in the 

[00:17:39] same room with my family. And I don't deserve the 

[00:17:41] love of people around me. And then it's, uh, you know, it's a long climb to get back up. 

[00:17:46] That's that's maybe more of the opposite extreme. I imagine that in our audience, there are people 

[00:17:53] like you, people like me and a lot in between that hear things like you can accomplish anything you set your mind 

[00:17:58] to.

[00:17:58] You just got to set your, your intention 

[00:18:00] on something and 

[00:18:01] go after it from a practical standpoint, 

[00:18:04] from just getting just really into the, uh, techniques. What do you recommend to 

[00:18:09] people to, 

[00:18:10] to change that mindset, to change the wiring? Like what, what can people do aside from, you know, maybe they don't have access to the sweat lodge, you know, and maybe they don't want to sing to themselves in the car or whatever, but what would you, what do you recommend to people to, to, to make that switch, to get that mindset where it needs to be to, to, 

[00:18:26] let go of all those demons from the past and really go after whatever it is they 

[00:18:29] want in their life. 

[00:18:31] Jem Fuller: Yeah, so a couple of minutes. 

[00:18:34] And I will get really, 

[00:18:36] practical with you. But the first thing I want to say is that I don't necessarily believe that you can have anything you want. I don't necessarily believe that you can say I'm going to go and create a multi-million dollar business and it will work.

[00:18:52] I do believe you can improve your experience of existence in this moment. I do believe you can enhance your relationship with. life I believe that you can improve your, your, your, your equilibrium. I believe that you can improve that slightly. You can, your day to day experience of, of wellbeing and happiness.

[00:19:14] You can improve. When I set a goal for something, you know, I've got a goal to sell a hundred thousand copies of my book this year. We just, we just published a book. And so I've set a goal. I've got zero attachment to that number. If I only sell a thousand copies, I will be as happy. As if I sold a hundred thousand, cause my happiness, my sense of who I am and my happiness doesn't rely on some future goal coming true or not anymore because they don't always come true.

[00:19:42] So I think it's a fallacy to say, you can do whatever you want, because I don't know if you can, but you can certainly, , create habitual practices that improve your relationship with yourself, which is, is your relationship to the past. And your relationship with the present moment, which then in turn flavors, the future you create, for sure.

[00:20:02] So now to get a little bit more practical, , 

[00:20:04] this relationship with self, this, this, this, this gentle, nurturing and curating of your state of mind is a practice it's like yoga. You don't get good at yoga and tick a box and go, right. I've done that. I don't need to do yoga anymore or Pilates for me. It's.

[00:20:21] Right. If I stopped doing Pilates, my body deteriorates, 

[00:20:24] Jeremy: Sure. 

[00:20:25] Jem Fuller: I need to keep doing Pilates, otherwise my back will start to play up. So it's a practice. Meditation for me has become a practice. If I stop meditating, my mind starts to get a bit cranky again, you know? So it's a, it's something that we need to create some habitual practices and the practice of self acceptance. , I believe is, is a really worthwhile practice. Okay. So self acceptance really is understanding and allowing reality because in reality, you are exactly who you're supposed to be right now, 

[00:21:01] apparently because they are, 

[00:21:03] Jeremy: Right, 

[00:21:03] right. 

[00:21:04] Jem Fuller: so you 

[00:21:05] Jeremy: Otherwise we'd be somewhere else Right. 

[00:21:07] Jem Fuller: It'd be someone else and you shouldn't be someone else. Apparently you should just be you with all your bits and bolts with all your stuff.

[00:21:14] You're 

[00:21:14] the perfect version of you in this moment right now, of course, we look to improve evolve as we move forward. But in this snapshot, in this moment, right now, you're exactly enough of everything to be you. So that's the first thing of going. Okay. Well, here I am. Self-acceptance is an acceptance of the past. And it's a practice. So to get technical now for you, I find that putting things on vibration through language, through words, I saying something out loud is helpful, and we could go into the science of that, the vibration, the neurons firing together. When you say something, those neurons have to fire together, right?

[00:21:52] So saying something out loud on repetition. Daily. So there's a bunch of sides now, showing affirmations actually do something neuroscientifically they actually do something. So you set a little sticky note next to your bed with your affirmation on it. Or, you know, whatever your affirmation is, today's a great day and you say it every morning, you create a habitual practice.

[00:22:16] So now for me, I don't have the sticky note next to the bed. It's just become habitual for me to meditate, say my affirmations and then get in the shower. So we're creating a routine each day, but I believe saying things out loud helps, , contemplation. So you said not everyone goes into a sweat lodge and has the, the awakening moment. If you can schedule some time for contemplation, you know, we're so distracted these days, these things just, you know, you notice someone go and wait for the bus and they've got a two minute wait for the bus and this straight onto their device. Nobody sits still doing nothing anymore. Right. So set aside some time for contemplation, just sit for 10 minutes.

[00:22:56] Don't meditate. Don't do anything. Just sit and contact. And if you listen really carefully listened to that subtle dialogue with self, you know, cause there's always those thoughts going, just listen to the quality of the self-talk, what's the quality of your self coaching? Like, are you horrible to yourself?

[00:23:14] Do you use horrible expletives and, and, and damaging words to yourself? Or are you kind to yourself speaking really? Just to get curious around what's going on in here and then change. No. And when I say just change it, it's very simple, not easy. I know it's not easy, but it's, let's keep it simple. I'm going to choose the words I say to myself about myself, and I'm going to say them out loud 

[00:23:40] Zach: I know for me getting to a point of self-acceptance , was really, really hard, but once I got there, I hit another roadblock of if I'm okay, where I'm at now, and I've got these goals. How do I get the motivation to move beyond where I'm okay with?

[00:24:00] Because a lot of the change that I made was because I was so uncomfortable and not okay with who I am. So you said it's, it's easy to say. , once we get to that self acceptance piece, how do we continue to motivate ourselves to grow and get better and do better? 

[00:24:18] Jem Fuller: Yeah. So I've waved into my sense of identity, my ego, , who I think I am, which has been volitional. And by that, I mean, on purpose, I've very conscious. I've created a sense of who I choose to be who is gem and I've put into that sense of identity. So my sense of identity is I'm a kind caring, loving, 

[00:24:43] passionate, compassionate action taking man. So I've put 

[00:24:47] action taking in there. So when I 

[00:24:48] say this to myself every day, which I 

[00:24:50] do, I've, I've identified as someone who takes out. 

[00:24:56] Alright, I've created that. And I think what happens is that when we, for me anyway, I'm not sure if this 

[00:25:03] happens for everybody, but I've coached, , 

[00:25:06] many thousands of hours.

[00:25:08] And I've noticed this in, in the humans 

[00:25:10] that I've worked with when we took our boxes of our needs. So some certainty and 

[00:25:14] some varieties, some significance connection, you know, and our sense of identity is pretty healthy. We tend to naturally 

[00:25:21] move towards contracts. Humans naturally want to make a positive difference in somebody else's life, whether it's just their partner or their children, or for some people it's their community or for some people it's globally.

[00:25:35] So that, that drive to contribute is there, if you think about that, drive to contribute and foster that, nurture that and find something in life that you are passionate about, it should be. You know, and you can marry 

[00:25:48] that together with your natural talents. Then you've got a purpose. Then you've got a meaning to your life.

[00:25:53] That is not 

[00:25:54] just survival, you know? And when we have this passion or this purpose, 

[00:25:58] , that creates the drive to try and make a better future, whether it's just for you or for your 

[00:26:03] family or for your committee. You know, so it's about finding something that, that means something to you and leveraging 

[00:26:09] mitigators, just self to go.

[00:26:11] Do you know 

[00:26:11] what I'm not going to just sit by and let that be what it is. I want to do something to try and improve, you know, that piece there, 

[00:26:19] Zach: I asked the question for a lot of our listeners and I think that was probably one of the. things that really changed in me. Once I went on this journey was, and that's why we do the show. Right. I'm trying to give back, I'm trying to do things for the community and help people navigate the same kind of struggle that I went on.

[00:26:39] That's I mean, that's where the name of the show came from the fitness.

[00:26:41] Jeremy: and I think there's something to the idea also that, uh, you know, when, when you are struggling to just get comfortable and to have that self acceptance, there's so much numbing of just the. But when you do get to the point of self-acceptance, it becomes easier to see beyond just being okay. You suddenly want to pursue, how can I feel even better?

[00:26:59] It's funny how it just sort of feeds on itself where before you reached that point, it's just a constant, how can I numb? How 

[00:27:05] can I just 

[00:27:06] make this go? 

[00:27:08] Jem Fuller: Yeah, that's so true that it is, , and it's, uh, , to any of your listeners who are, who are wondering 

[00:27:12] about, you know, if I come to a complete, a place of complete 

[00:27:16] acceptance of myself and the status quo, if I come to a place of acceptance, does that mean apathy? Does that mean that 

[00:27:23] I will? I'm excited, accepting of everything right now.

[00:27:26] I'm just going to let it all go. And it doesn't mean that like you just suggested when you come to this place of acceptance and 

[00:27:32] okayness, so less, less 

[00:27:34] suffering, there's this space that tends 

[00:27:36] to naturally fill with how could things 

[00:27:39] be if I went and did this, 

[00:27:41] you know, so acceptance doesn't mean 

[00:27:43] apathy.

[00:27:44] It just means, you know, I'm not trying to

[00:27:47] control the things you can. know, and, and fi, and that gives you more 

[00:27:52] bandwidth, mentally, emotionally physiological. It gives you more bandwidth to focus on the things that you can improve. And I think we have a natural desire to evolve in a positive direction, unless you're part of the tiny minority of the human race, which is unfortunately psychopathic and they can't help that.

[00:28:10] So put them to the side and I'm not talking about psychopaths talking about the rest. No one wakes up in the morning going, how can I go and hurt or how can I go? And cause damage 

[00:28:18] Jeremy: I don't know. We're, we're pretty big in the psychopath community, 

[00:28:23] Jem Fuller: Yeah, well, you know, I'm not going to stay politicians and talking about, I'm going to say general 

[00:28:29] Joe blow. You may, you may. And your listeners, right? I'm just going to presume that most of us wake up in the morning going, I want to try my best,

[00:28:36] Jeremy: Yeah. 

[00:28:36] For sure. 

[00:28:37] Jem Fuller: you know, so when you decrease suffering, it does open up more space for doing good, good stuff. 

[00:28:42] Jeremy: Yeah, we have just a couple of minutes left, which to me indicates, we will have to have you back on because I'm fascinated by your book, which we have just barely even mentioned. , please tell us about this book and sort of your 

[00:28:54] passion behind it and 

[00:28:55] what people are going to find from your book. 

[00:28:57] Jem Fuller: Okay, so super quick. , I started 

[00:28:58] writing about 

[00:28:59] communication because, , through my hours of coaching, whether it's coaching executives or, or, you know, individuals. And couples coaching relationships as well. People trip over in communication.

[00:29:12] And quite often 

[00:29:13] we want the same grade at a good hour to loggerheads with each other in the miscommunication. So that's why I started writing about communication. And also more broadly, the world seems to be, seems to be deteriorating. 

[00:29:26] Into we're losing. We're forgetting how to communicate. people are shouting at each other across these digital divides of political difference or ideological difference. And they're just shouting at each other and that's not doing anything, you know, cancel culture and public shaming and all of this stuff. I don't believe it's helping the situation. I think we need to remember how to communicate more effectively. So I started writing the. A book writing mentor of mine said, you need to 

[00:29:49] pick an audience.

[00:29:50] And she said, I think this book would be, go really 

[00:29:53] well for men right now because men have been culturally indoctrinated with old stereotypes 

[00:29:58] that are dysfunctional. And so I want to do what I can to help men improve the brand of men. Um, so I wrote it for men, but funnily enough, it was published in November last year.

[00:30:08] And it's women who are buying it, picking it off the shelves and then reading it and then taking it to their husbands or partners and saying, honey, can you please write this 

[00:30:15] Jeremy: this this sounds very familiar to our show. We very much, when we went in with the same idea and we hear from women all the time, I wish my husband or my boyfriend would listen to this show. It's so 

[00:30:24] Jem Fuller: Yeah. 

[00:30:24] Jeremy: this happens,

[00:30:25] Jem Fuller: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's the story of the book.

[00:30:29] Jeremy: and I would love to dive more into that with you. Another time we are up against the clock here. So where can people find out more about you, your coaching services? And of course,

[00:30:37] Jem Fuller: So they can go to gem fuller.com, J E M F U double L a r.com. That's that's me, but I can get the book from the website or from Amazon. Just jump onto Amazon and search for gem fuller and you'll find.

[00:30:50] Jeremy: Jen, thanks so much. This has been a really just fascinating conversation and let's do it again.

[00:30:55] Jem Fuller: Yeah. Nice to meet you both.

[00:30:56] Zach: Our thanks to Jim fuller author of the book, the art of conscious communication for thoughtful men. You can find links to him and his work in the show notes for this episode at the fit mess, doc.

[00:31:06] Jeremy: There are so many great takeaways from that interview. I wish we had so much more time with him, , it all starts with making a change. And that starts with compassion and acceptance. You have to get okay with who you are and where you are and where you came from for you can really start to look forward to who you want to be in and the life that you want to live now. Maybe you can't be the next Jeff Bezos, but setting any goal that points you toward a better action will result in a better.

[00:31:30] Zach: Yeah. He said two lines in there that I actually like, as I was re-listening to the interview, like I paused it and went back and listened to these two lines again, and they just, they really resonated in me and it was improve your experience of existence and enhance your relationship with life. And it was just like, wow, it, it, it's kind of that simple.

[00:31:48] Like I know it's easier said than done, but holy shit, like it's just. That's a little bit like you don't have to become a billionaire. You don't have to start a massive business. You don't have to be an Olympic level athlete. You just have to be a little bit better and he have to have that self compassion and enhance your relationship with your life.

[00:32:11] I love that.

[00:32:12] Jeremy: And it just hits on what we talked about a couple of weeks ago about the idea of just. Becoming the version of you that lives the life you want to live. So if you want to be able to run around with your grandkids, you physically have to be able to do that whenever that time comes, if you want to be able to run around with your kids now, and maybe you can't, then you got to do something about it.

[00:32:30] If you want to eat better, you have to make the choices at the grocery store that are going to put the right food in your house so that you're not tempted by the bad choices that we tend to make over and over again. It's all about just creating the life that you want and taking the action toward making that

[00:32:44] life around. 

[00:32:45] Zach: Yeah, those all sounded like really great examples, but I got to go back a couple of episodes, my goal I'm stealing from Alan miser. I wanna be able to wipe my ass when I'm 105.

[00:32:54] Jeremy: That is a good one, a lot of great advice in this interview also, but I also want to encourage you that, you know, it doesn't take going into a sweat lodge in the forest or in the desert to make a massive change. You can just do the small things. Like he said, repeating affirmations every morning that tell you that you're good enough eating a little better, try some yoga, try some meditation, whatever it is, do those small things, but do them over and over until they become habits because those habits are the things that will guide you towards.

[00:33:22] That you're capable of creating 

[00:33:23] Zach: and if you want help with forming or keeping those habits, or you want to just have some accountability, you can join us in our Facebook group where you and fellow fitness listeners can connect from monthly challenges, accountability to reach your goals and just a supportive community.

[00:33:39] There.

[00:33:39] Jeremy: You can find that link at our website, the fitness.com, where we will be back next week with a brand new episode. Thanks for listening.

[00:33:45]