Transcription
Hello and welcome to this episode of Natter with Ne. Today I have the wonderful Brian King, who's a neurodivergent relationship coach, with me to share his story and just generally talk about his attitude to life. Welcome, Brian.
Well, thank you so much, Ne. It's thrilling to have this one-on-one conversation. And I'm used to seeing you in larger groups online, but I think this is the first time it's just been the two of us, so I'm looking forward to it.
Cool. Yes, we do kind of cross each other's paths a lot online, don't we? But, um, yeah, so when you filled in the application for me, you said that Viktor Frankl was one of your, um, greatest inspirations. Can you tell me a little bit about that? I'm sure most people listening to this would have heard of him, so I'd like to know why he's an inspiration for you.
His seminal work is a book called Man's Search for Meaning, and it talked about his time in the concentration camp. And what he discovered there is that the people that found some kind of a purpose for hanging on are the ones that survived, whereas the other ones that lost hope had to be the ones who died. And in his case, the purpose that he found in this experience was he needed to make it to the end. He needed to survive it so he could tell his story so it would never happen again. So he gave himself a purpose that was as big as humanity. I bet I told the world about this. And with something that big, it can really help you hang on. And if he can have that kind of hope and resilience in a concentration camp, I can sure as heck do it with anything I have to face. So when I start to get into the "oh, woe is me," I can go back to Viktor Frankl and just say, "Okay, wait a minute, get off this horse. This is a waste of time and energy. Let's find a better perspective."
Cool. So do you think we all have a purpose as such, or that we can find that purpose?
A purpose is something we choose. And just from, in my case, it comes down to what is a big problem that I want to solve in life. And because I have autism and ADHD, so do my three boys. And I know what a corona viper tank it is out in the world now. And my large purpose is I want to create a more compassionate world for my boys to live in.
Mmm-hmm. So you've got to become that person so that it's not just show, it's not just talk, that it just flows naturally.
So your purpose is to create a more compassionate world for not just, I suppose, neurodivergent, but everybody, in a way? Because if we're all more compassionate, then that just kind of ripples out, doesn't it?
Oh, it helps everybody. Yeah. I mean, when you see how guarded people tend to be, 90% of the memes I see on Facebook these days are some form of "leave me alone," "don't knock on my door," "you know, how soon are you leaving?" It's like the next person has become icky.
Yeah. Yeah. Continue. Sorry, processing is all there.
And that just really speaks to how disconnected we've become and are becoming. So, I really emphasize connection a lot, being mindful, being present with each other, how to create those opportunities so that you're looking for more than just "don't touch me."
How close are you? Yeah. I mean, funny enough, that's one of the reasons why I, um, started this podcast was to connect through story, because story is one of, one of the things that, you know, we do use to connect. And people have said to me, "Oh, I don't have a story." And I'll say, "But you do. Do you remember when you were talking to your friend yesterday and you told them about that time you went shopping and what you bought?" I said, "That's a story. We all have stories."
Some people may not think it's worth telling because of all the comparison they're doing.
Exactly. But we all have stories. And I think, you know, if we take this back to purpose, sometimes our, the meaning we give to our stories is what gives us our purpose as well. Would you agree with that?
Absolutely. It's how the meaning that we assign to the events of our lives. You know, this person treated me this way, therefore, what do you do with that? Is it, therefore, "I guess we just weren't a good fit"? You know, we tried to get to know each other, but we just couldn't meet each other, you know, in the middle, so we decided to, to part ways. As opposed to, "Man, that person must really think I suck. I can't imagine they're probably talking about me to their friends right now." And that's the story that you create yourself.
Yep. We all, we create all those stories. Um, but just thinking back to, kind of, Viktor Frankl and the, the stories he must have had, I mean, living in that concentration camp, living in those circumstances, and to be able to keep going. Do you think that takes a certain kind of person, or can we all do that?
Well, he was a psychiatrist, so I imagine he had a lot of good tools going in. But I don't know any tools there are on, "This is how you do concentration camp." But, but I, I imagine that he was one that leaned towards that meaning-making as opposed to him just discovering it in the camp. I don't imagine that he went in there super negative and discovered meaning. So, it's possible. You know, I wouldn't doubt it that he went in there with some capacity to already think this way. Now, I'm, I've always been incredibly curious, and so much so that over time, I've developed an increased capacity to spot nuance.
Yeah. And that's, that helps me get, help people get to the things that nobody else spots, you know, them or other therapists. And it's, it's an inherent skill that's been refined over the years.
You're like a basketball player, maybe, maybe naturally coordinated, but if they don't practice those skills, they won't be a good athlete. So, that's just kind of how I see it.
Yeah. So, we, we have to practice it.
Practice, practice.
Even if you're good at it, practice.
Yeah. Because you've got to maintain that level of proficiency.
Yeah. And so you've said that, I mean, obviously you said that you have, um, ADHD and autism, and how would you say that having a purpose has helped you?
Well, it helps to persevere when my brain is extra glitchy and won't let me do anything. Because there'll be times I want to think about something, but I'm too foggy, or I'll want to write about something and the words just won't come. In the past, I just might have said, "I guess I'm just not made for this. Why am I fooling myself? You know, I, I got to give up on it. It's a waste of time and energy." But now, it's just like a storm. I'm going through a bad storm. It's going to pass. And when it does, and I can think clearly again, then I jump back in.
Cool. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things, I mean, because I, um, when I started off on this whole journey, I mean, I was diagnosed with clinical depression years ago, and I started off this whole kind of self-improvement journey. And I came across Louise Hay, and she has one of her affirmations that she uses, "This too will pass." And that's kind of been like a mantra of mine for a long time now. So whatever I'm going through, whatever is happening, you know, some days I do get those icky thoughts in my brain, and I just, yeah, "This too will pass." You know, it's, as a human being, those are inevitable. Our brain just vomits those negative thoughts out, often at a higher rate than we can manage them. So learning how to just let them pass on by.
Yeah. Oh, I don't need to give this thought any attention. It's just going to pass on by anyway.
Yeah. And that, I think, was the hard, I mean, that was one of the hard bits for me. You know, when I first started meditating, I started trying to have a completely clear brain, and then I would try to kind of like, make the thoughts go away, I guess. But then I realized, yeah, I don't have to make them go away. I can just not engage with them. And I use the analogy, like, if you're standing at a bus stop waiting for a bus, you're only going to get on the bus that you really want. You're not going to get on the first bus or every bus that comes.
That's a good analogy. See, you're just going to wait for one bus.
One of the misnomers about meditation is that idea that you're supposed to clear your thoughts.
Yeah. What it essentially boils down to is that you can observe your thoughts without jumping on for a ride.
Yeah. That's, that's the primary skill. If your brain goes clear every now and then, great. Enjoy it. But that's not the goal. And too many people make it hard for themselves thinking that that's what they've got to accomplish.
Yeah. We don't have to. I mean, I've learned, you know, the hard way that I don't have to, um, engage my thoughts. That I can choose the ones I want to think about, and the ones I want to, you know, go down that road with. Um, and I can leave the ones that are going to take me down a rabbit hole I don't want to go to, to one side.
If you're really big into calling out your gremlins, one of the benefits of watching your thoughts is something really catastrophic can pop in there like, "Man, I'm worthless." And you can stop and say, "Wait a minute. Where did that come from?" And then you can just kind of sit with it and be curious and see what it has to say. And then you think back to an event where maybe you were embarrassed, and it's something you haven't gone back to, but now you have an opportunity to give yourself some self-compassion. Invite that part of yourself to embrace the perspective that you now have, and help it do a little healing so it's not so afraid to be seen.
Yes, I guess that, yeah, that works too. And I've done a lot of that as well. Yeah. But, but that's, those are skills that you develop. It's not just something, "Oh, well, I'll just, this is what he said. Do these steps." No, not quite that simple. It, like everything, it takes practice, doesn't it?
It, um, takes practice. But I also think when we, you know, if we come back to this purpose, which is what we started off this whole thing with, um, our pur-, our purpose takes practice as well, doesn't it?
Well, you don't land on it the first time, I'll tell you that. It's something that gets refined over time because ordinarily, unless you're, you're born with such a clear sense of yourself that you know what's you and what isn't, you know, the person that's always been to the beat of their own drummer. But when you first start out, it could err towards people-pleasing.
Yeah. "This is a purpose that will get me included. It will make people pat me on the back and say, 'You're such a good person.'" But then maybe you invest yourself in that and find it's not fulfilling whatsoever.
Yeah. And then getting to the point where you understand that your purpose needs to be for you, not the expense of others, but it's got to be something you care so much about that it's not open for committee.
Yeah. You would, you would do it whether someone else said, "That's stupid. Why are you doing that?" Well, that's one opinion. Sorry, I'm gonna go back to it.
Yeah. And I guess, I mean, yeah. If we think back to Viktor Frankl, I mean, his purpose was, yeah. I mean, one, it kept him alive, and two, it was huge. I mean, whether, well, whether, I mean, hopefully, you know, it will prevent, or we will never do as a human race, we will never do again what happened then. Um, though I think there are places where we're coming close to it.
Yeah. Some, sometimes I wonder because there are a lot of monsters in this world. There are, but there are an awful lot of good, very good, very kind and compassionate people who I think aren't being seen, or they don't feel like they have a place in the world at the moment. I think, for me personally, I think the world feels quite disconnected. I think there's a lot of fear out there.
Yeah. And particularly, I would say where you live in the, in the States, and the leaders have done a good job at making people suspicious of each other.
Yeah. And then they start to gather in their little silos, and whatever vile they feel towards the others just seems to intensify.
Yeah. And I think, I think online presence has exacerbated that as well, because you can join these groups, can't you? Where everybody seems to be the same as you, and actually, where you're really just a very small proportion of a huge,
Yeah. And if it's all validated in that group, it just makes you feel much more empowered, even if you've got bad ideas.
Yeah. Those of us, like you and I, we, we do our best with our online presence to keep planting seeds that there's another way to approach this.
Yeah. And hope enough people take it upon themselves to contemplate it, maybe even have a conversation about it. The people around them, "Hey, can we do this differently? No, this isn't working for any of us." Now, it doesn't seem to be working for a lot of us, does it?
I mean, I, um, I tend to try and avoid the news because I just don't like the negativity. I don't like the fear-mongering. I would love to have a newspaper or a news outlet that just gives us positive news. You know, all the good things that people have done in the day.
I think one might exist. I don't know. I heard about it years ago. I don't know if it's still around, but it's worth a Google.
No, we'll have a Google, because I think I'm gonna revisit that, too. You know, I want to hear about the heroic things or the acts of generosity. I don't want to hear about the latest crime.
Yep. Yeah. You want to hear about, um, yeah. I mean, over here, people knitting toppers for the, for post boxes. And I belong to a Facebook group. I don't knit, but I belong to a Facebook group where they share these, and some of them are awesome. You know, they're just amazing. They have nativity scenes for Easter. They have, or for Christmas, they have Easter bunnies for Easter. You know, they have, when, um, there was a World War memorial thing a while ago, and they had, um, you know, um, lots of knitted post, postbox toppers with soldiers on. And, and it was just amazing.
Pardon? How would that? I think it's a very British thing, but it's, um, it's a very positive thing to do. And it's fantastic when you're out walking, you just happen to see one of these things, knitted things on top of a post box.
In my town, they encourage local artists to paint the fire hydrants.
Oh, that's cool. I think we have one fire hydrant that's Darth Vader, another one that's R2-D2. And then there's the big, uh, power boxes that control the, the traffic lights. They'll even let people paint that, and they'll paint a big garden on it and flowers, and it really brings a lot of to the town.
That's quite cool, actually. I like that idea. But I don't know. I mean, I don't know if we do have fire hydrants over here, not that I've noticed. But I can imagine, I can't imagine we'd be allowed paint post boxes because they have to be red so we can tell they're a post box to post our letters. Um, but yeah, that sounds, that sounds very cool and very positive and very uplifting.
Neat little ways to invite people to have more of a stake in their community.
Yeah. By, like, "Here, I made this for you. Here, I painted this. Enjoy it." It's just, it's a different spirit. And I don't know too many communities that do that. You know, they have their annual festival where they bring in the carnival that they put together 30 minutes ago, and I want you to risk your life on it. And food that's guaranteed to clog your arteries before you go home. That's typically what the carnivals are like around here. And, yeah, there's not much else to bring people together.
Yeah. I mean, we have a few things where we have, um, where I live, we have something called the Community Brain, which is run by a chap called Robin Hutchinson. And they do lots of festivals. And, um, he writes his own stories. And he's b-, he's done a lot of festivals based on, um, his stories. So, we've got one called "King Soup," where they make a leek, where they make a leek and potato soup, and everybody's invited to bring a leek and a potato, um, to this festival. And they have a stage set up, and they tell the story, and then they serve the soup.
That's wild.
It is. That's really cool. It's, um, and they also have one that we have, the, uh, Stithians Sardine Festival, where everybody parades down to the river, and we pretend to catch some sardines.
They're really comfortable. My goodness. They firm your imagination under those circumstances. I don't know that I could participate otherwise.
Yeah. But, um, they, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just brilliant. But like, there's only a small se-, section of the community that get gets involved in these things. But a lot of it is, um, again, it's the, as you said, the artery-clogging food that's available, and, you know, the beer and things. And that's what people go for. I go for the live music and just for the, the fun and the camaraderie, you know.
Um, man, that would be something to experience once, because there's, there's a bigger story in that, in terms of the participants. How did you feel going? What were your apprehensions? Then once you were in it, what did it do for you? What did it stir up? And then share that with the community that's opting out, cuz maybe it'll draw them in.
Yeah. I mean, it, it's just so nice to have something like that in your community, to have something that, you know, feels like yours, but is also belongs to everybody else. There's a real personal aspect to it.
Yeah. But I also think, yeah. But I also think our story does that for us as well. Which is why I have invited people to come and share stories on a podcast, because I think we can see things in other people's stories, and just listening to other people talk. If we feel lonely or disconnected or scared or frightened, just something somebody else says in a story they're telling about themselves, even the most mundane, boring story, can actually flip something because we relate to it.
Oh, a simple metaphor a person uses, but to you, it's just how you see things.
Yeah. But to someone else, like you said, it just clicks something, and they go away with, you know, their jaw dropped, and they're really turning it around. You know, there's something my dad said one time. It just rolled off his, his mouth. He didn't think much of it, but it has completely influenced my work ethic, because he, we grew up, my parents had their own business installing security fire alarms, those real complex phone systems. And I had spent the day working with him, and, you know, those, those pull boxes you have for the fire alarms. He was checking it over and over again to make sure it was perfectly level. And, and I was getting a little impatient. You know, it was the end of the day, tired. I said, "You know, isn't it, it's okay? Can't we just go?" And he says, "Why do a bad job when you can do a good one?" Boom. And that's just his thinking.
Yeah. Um, I mentioned it to him one time, and he kind of gets thrown back when someone gives him credit for something because of his own self-worth issues. But like you said, it's just little things like that.
Yeah. Little comment, and it can just be pivotal.
"Why do a bad job when you can do a good one?" Now, I suppose there is incentive to do a bad job if you get called back and get more money for it. But, well, you know, or someone to try to do the least worst job they can do. They, they try to be close enough.
Yeah. But I think most of us do try and do the best we can. We don't always allow ourselves to do the best we can. We want to, but then we, we're also hesitant to take on the risk as well. You know, the, the failure, the tripping and falling along the way.
Yes. Yeah. So, we say we want it, but we don't always want to work for it.
Yeah. We do. Yeah. We want, um, we want the praise for a job well done, but,
And I get that. I see that sometimes with, you know, my business and stuff as well, like, how far do I go out on the line here, you know, how, because if I put myself out there and that doesn't work, then, yeah, what are the potential costs? And of course, many of us tend to catastrophize it. "I'll, you know, I'll be humiliated. I'll be run out of town. I'll become the pariah." And none of that happens. You know, you can, you can screw up miserably, and by next week, people have forgotten it. They've got enough going on in their own life. And, yeah.
Except you, we never forget though, do we? We tend to make up. And that, that's again where our stories come in, isn't it? We make up all the stories, and we accumulate all of our failures like that's our resume. Now, the resume is what you did with that. These are the skills that I now have. These, this is the kind of thinking I can add to any kind of creative process because of what I've done with those experiences.
Yeah. So, did I get up and try again, or did I pack it away in the suitcase of, "Oh, oh, I'm a failure," and I carry that suitcase with me forever? The, the one that keeps falling and getting back up and learning new things is the person I call resourceful. So that's all you really need to say. You know, "I'm willing to go in the trenches and make mistakes and stuff my elbows and, you know, learn from my errors." And those lessons have made me resourceful. I know how to take the poop and turn it into fertilizer.
Yep. I love that. But then our purpose is what keeps us going with that as well, isn't it? Because if we have that broader, wider purpose, the, the purpose being one that pulls you.
Yeah. So if you find yourself in the quicksand or the mud, and you can just look at your purpose, and you find your footing, you find a ground that allows you to keep going forward. And I don't, not sure which comes first, but resilience is an important aspect of resourcefulness because you've got to see yourself falling, learning from it, and there's always that capacity to get back up and keep going.
Yeah. But I mean, I always say resilience is not burnout, though. It's not, "Oh, God." No. You know, good, good resilience knows when to take a rest, right? And resil-, self-care is an aspect of resilience. What do you need to do in order to keep moving forward? Can't do that on an empty tank.
Yeah. So, rest needs to be a part of it. So, yeah. Right on. So, you said you, um, follow Buddhism. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? How that helps and what it does for you?
Well, I had cancer when I was 18. That was my graduation present from high school.
Wow. And my family, as is, as dysfunctional as it gets, you know, not dealing with their emotions. They'd rather yell at each other than talk it out. Very reactive, very insulting to one another.
Mmm-hmm. And, and here I go. I get sick, and I'm really, really vulnerable. And they're, they're watching me with my hair fall and everything. So the attitude went up. And if I tried to talk about my feelings, I needed to get over it. I needed to suck it up. I needed to, you know, quit asking for attention. I wasn't getting any support from my family.
Okay. Wow. That must have been hard, because this was the late '80s. We did not have the internet. And we'd all just graduated. So I didn't have access to my support group. So I was in virtual isolation through the whole thing emotionally. And I was looking for anything I could hold on to to make some sense of it, the situation, because I was furious that there was nobody there for me. I was depressed because, you know, what if I die? Are the doctors being honest with me? My doctors were not, they were being vague in what they were telling me.
Yeah. And my, at that time, the local library was just a few blocks from our house. So in between chemo sessions, when I was feeling up to it, I'd walk down to the library and I started looking through books on philosophy and self-help and psychology. And that's where I came across Taoism and Buddhism. When I began reading the ideas that you don't want to hang on to your past, in fact, you can't. And here I was thinking, you know, "I want my old life back. This sucks. I, I wish this never happened." And I'm learning, "No, no, no, that's not how it works."
Yeah. You let it, you let it go. It's not you. You don't need to become that. The idea of finding so much power and life in the present, as opposed to trying to grasp at the future that you may or may not have. So those ideas were exactly what I needed, because the things I was so upset and dissatisfied about were the past and the future. Well, also the present, but I, I thought of the present in terms of, "This shouldn't be this way. It should be like this."
Yes. Yeah. All that comparison, comparing to the pra-, to the past, or "This should happen faster. It should be better," looking at the future. And all that time that's just making my present miserable. So, I spent a lot of time really getting into what I understood about how to apply those things. And then, fortunately, in the early '90s, I found a, a Zen Buddhist temple. No, not the ones like in Japan that looked like huge. It was a gathering run by an American Zen master, and I studied with him for a couple of years. I got initiated into the faith, kind of like a baptism kind of thing, and I've been following the path ever since. And it's been pivotal in my worldview, my ability to get over a lot of deep traumas that I didn't know I had, and to just continue to be kind to myself when I'm tripping through life, trying to continue to work my purpose, you know.
And does it, it obviously, it sounds like it's very, very helpful and it keeps you in your present rather than,
Yeah. I, I, I have a, a lot going on physically. You know, I'm in pain daily. And, hang on a minute. My daughter's trying to get hold of me. Sorry, you're muted. Okay. Where were we?
Um, was talking about Buddhism.
Yeah. I'm, I'm going through a lot physically because in the years since chemo, I've been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which affects the connective tissue in my body. All of it.
Yeah. That's ligaments, tendons, muscle, fascia, uh, the things that hold my organs together. So, it's not as strong as it might be in an ordinary person. So, yeah, I'm just uncomfortable all the time. Using my body creates problems. And I also have multiple sclerosis.
Why? Because I'm lucky. So I work out of bed. I'm in bed most of the time. I, I don't get out much. So I really dig deep into what's in me, what's in my purpose. Just reminding myself what it means to be alive and how amazing that is, regardless of my circumstances or what kind of body I have. Doesn't keep me, you know, hunky-dory.
Yeah. All the time. There are times when I get stuck in the depths of it because the reality of this also sucks.
Yeah. I mean, I can imagine. You're only human, after all, right? So, so trying to find that balance in my thinking so that there's always room for gratitude, but also give myself permission to have the feelings that go along with this experience. Yeah. Sometimes I want more. Sometimes this isn't good enough for me. And, and there are times where that really drives me to challenge myself to find out I can do more than I thought. But I don't want to get stuck in the, "No matter what, my life's not good enough," because there's plenty about it that I can feel tremendously blessed about.
Yes. Um, yeah. I mean, your body might not work the way you want it, but your, your brain certainly does work.
Yes. Thank goodness for caffeine and, yeah, omega-3s and whatever else keeps my brain working well.
Yeah. And I know, I mean, I know from, you know, following you online and seeing you in other communities that you do have support.
Yes. You know, you have a supportive family, you have, you know, other support. And I guess I couldn't do it without the support, but the support is also acquired. It's relationships I've built over the years because of my continuous self-improvement. So, it's not, it's not luck of the draw that I'm surrounded by the people that I have.
Yeah. No, I was just about to say that. It's, it's because you've worked, because you've worked. It's the person you are.
Yeah. Entitlement does not bring you a support system like this.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you were sitting there moaning all the time about everything, people probably wouldn't hang around. They get exhausted after a while.
Yeah. Yeah. And they wouldn't want to give advice because it's never taken. Probably a lot of excuses as to why it'll never work. Or you say, "I tried it," even though you darn well know you didn't. But the truth is, you don't want to try anything. You just want sympathy.
Well, yeah. I think, I mean, I think there's room for sympathy sometimes. And, oh, yeah. And in a way, sympathy, empathy, as a way of letting the other person know you get it.
Yeah. But not as the primary support you give them. No, it needs, I think we all need to be kind of held so that we can move forward.
Yeah. Feeling safe to move forward. Yeah. A lot of the, the traumas I've dealt with in the past couple of years are because I had an incredible spouse, and still do, who can hold that kind of space for me.
Mmm-hmm. Where I feel safe enough to go that deep. And it's not always easy to find someone like that. In fact, people may go an entire lifetime not meeting anybody like that.
Yep. Don't think I have yet. In some cases, I, I was ready to do the work. I just didn't know how to get there. Yeah. And then certain life events brought it to the surface, and I knew I had to deal with it, because shoving it back down was just going to make things worse.
Yeah. So, how would you recommend somebody who's, um, sat in that kind of "oh, oh, woe is me" kind of situation, and they don't know how to get out of it? What would you say to them?
Well, one of my first things is to go back to the story. What are you telling yourself is happening right now? Like, right now, what are your options today? What are you telling yourself is possible for you? And let them sit with that. But maybe they think, "Man, no matter what I do, I, I just don't get anywhere." Okay, that's what you think is possible for you.
Yeah. What's the point of taking action on anything? You just feel there, sit there feeling helpless. So those are, are some of the questions I tend to ask people. And of course, they can ask themselves that, see how many excuses come up. But, "You don't understand. I'm different. It's so hard for me." And there are some things that may be genuinely out of your reach. In my case, there are a lot of things I can't do.
Yeah. But if I think my worth lies with being able to do those things, you like, "Oh, I'm not athletic enough." That's why the ladies go like, "Yeah." Well, you think that's the only criteria? One thing that put my mind at ease when I started having to use a wheelchair is my, my wife and I talked a lot about going on trips where we could explore and climb things. And I thought, "Well, I'm failing her because my body can no longer do that." Then I started coming across Instagrammer accounts where the husband was in a wheelchair, and the wife was standing next to him, and he had kids, and they were living a full life. As much as people tell you on Instagram that is. Yeah. But the idea that this was doable, that life could continue, that to me gave me a tremendous amount of hope, because before that, what I thought was possible for me was rejection, rejection, rejection.
Yeah. So, being able to turn that around is so important. Get other points of view on your situation, you know, instead of believing that you've got the clearest perspective on things, especially when you're in that poopy mindset.
Yeah. When we're in the middle of that pile, we don't see anything but do we?
Oh, yeah. No. No. "This is how life smells. Don't you get it? Come closer. You'll see."
Yeah. Well, we need a little holy hand sometimes to dig us out and to just change that perspective. And that can be just as you said, seeing an Instagram account with somebody in a similar situation doing some of the things you want to do, or, you know, listening to somebody else's story and having a purpose along.
Yeah. Yeah. And having a purpose, a wider purpose than just, you know, sitting in your stinking pie.
Yeah. Because that too is temporary. The flies will come along and they will pick it away.
Yep. Everything is, unless you turn it into fertilizer.
Yep. Well, this has been amazing, Brian. I think I could talk to you all day, but I think this is a lot of fun. I, I'm glad we did this. You ask a lot of great questions. Thank you. Maybe we, you can come back another time.
Anytime. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much. And, um, yes, everybody, I will leave Brian's details down below if anybody wants to get in touch with him. He's absolutely amazing. Follow him everywhere. Thank you, Brian.
Thank you.