The Self-Development Foundation — Mindful Self-Awareness in Life & Work

Tony: You’re listening to The Present Professional, where we explore the intersections of personal and professional development.

John: To change your experience of life and work with every episode.

Tony: So tune in, grab your notebook, and let’s go. Let’s go.

John: Wow, the first episode. The first episode of a long string of everything that we’re going to put together to help change the lives of our listeners. This is going to be quite a journey, my friend, and I’m excited to start it with you, Tony. Conscious Conversations to develop your life, career, and business through relationships, growth, and well-being. Such a powerful line and there’s no better way to start it than with self-awareness. As what is self-awareness and why is it important? To kick off this podcast, that would be the best way to start because it really is the foundation to anything that we do in the realm of personal and professional development. It starts with understanding where we’re at, like where we are at this moment. And Tony, where are you at this moment?

Tony: Man, well thanks John for that wonderful introduction, man. It’s such a powerful question to start off with. For me, where am I in this moment? Man, I’m with the listeners right now. I hope that I’m with somebody who’s like, man, what is conscious conversations and what does that even mean to me? It’s something I may have come across the word consciousness, but how can I unpack that even more? But for me personally, man, I’m in a great space, especially when it comes to self-awareness, something I want to talk about later in the show, but doing the work matters. And I can definitely say that I’ve been doing the work. I’m not done with the work, but when it comes to self-awareness, I’ve been doing the work. And I think that that’s the most critical Key to self-awareness is doing that deep work to understand who you really are, you know, know thyself That’s a very old line But it still rings so true even today. I agree.

John: I agree There’s it’s the the same the statement that it’s a practice. I Right? Yeah, right. It’s like there’s no there’s no like oh Now I’ve meditated for so long now. I now I know myself and now I’ve arrived. Yeah, it’s a daily exactly It’s a journey. It’s just like, just like a muscle. Like you can, you can not work it and it can shrivel up and go away. You can be in that state of mindlessness, just letting life happen to you. But then it’s being in the practice and working that muscle every day. And There’s, so there’s one, there’s one quote I want, I want to, I want to bring this up for, for the listeners. I was in, um, this was in yoga teacher training and one of our, one of our teachers said, you’ll never know when you need your practice until you need your practice. And I was like, Man, that is so right because it’s something that I’ve been able to rely on, something that I’ve been able to go to in dark times and in light times just to either appreciate what I have, appreciate where I’ve been, where I’m going. It’s just a way to kind of step back into that seat of the observer, right? And when we talk about, like doing the work, like being in the work. What are some of those practices that you consider your work when it comes to self-awareness, Tony?

Tony: Well, I mean, you said a few things that I resonated with. You talked about that mindlessness. And I think that even for people who are going through a loop of mindlessness, it’s good to be aware of that. I think that’s one of the first steps to self-awareness is just recognizing where you are. and maybe not liking it or being okay with it, but at least recognizing where you are. And I love that quote about your practice. You know, another great quote that’s very similar to that I heard in the past few days, it came from Dr. Strange. And it was, you better fight like your life depends on it, because one day it will. And I’m not a yoga teacher, but I do fight every day to make sure that I’m living my best life. And I think that’s part of my practice, is trying and making sure that as I go through the journey of life, I’m recognizing what I do and where I’m in. I was just telling a friend a few days ago that, man, I have this, and you know this, but listeners don’t know this, but I have a massive calendar that I use, and I’ve condensed it a lot over the years, but I use it to keep a record of certain things of what I’m doing and where I’m at, and just really things I want to work on. Right now, it’s kind of simple. I pretty much write down in a calendar what time I wake up every day. That just helps me see my own stats. I’m a huge sports fan, really huge basketball fan. We’re in the playoffs now, NBA. Everybody knows everybody’s stats. Oh, so-and-so is averaging 27.2 points a game. I’m like, do you know what time you wake up every day? Like, do you know your own stats? Because that matters. Like, if you are highly productive and you got a lot going on, but you’re waking up at like 9 a.m. and you wonder why you’re getting the results that you’re getting, you know, that’s the key to self-awareness. And for me and many people, they would say that waking up early or having a morning routine is a huge part of that process of self-awareness. So that’s one of my practices right now, John.

John: that it’s keeping those stats and right, not so much as right, keeping the stats to let it like in judgment. So it’s not that, not that you’re there judging yourself or something, but you’re aware of the patterns and like noticing those things that what might have influenced my sleep that day. what might have, what might be some positive things that when I was on like a great streak of waking up at the same time, it’s just bringing that into your awareness, right? As opposed to it being kind of like, you know, disciplinary.

Tony: Yeah, you know, and you talk about practice, right? I view practice like every day is an opportunity to practice. You know, like even doctors, medical doctors call it practice. I used to wonder why they called it that. Now, like on the journey of self-awareness and meditation, what I realized is that every single day is an opportunity to practice how you, for me I’d say, practice how I wish the perfect day went or practice how I went my best day went. So even if I don’t do everything I wanted to do or even if I don’t wake up super early, It’s okay because I can try again tomorrow, I can try again the next day, I can try again the next day. One of the keys to self-awareness also is giving yourself grace and giving yourself the space to be okay when you’re not doing your best or you’re not performing at optimal level. It’s literally okay because you’re human.

John: Wow. I love that. Giving yourself grace. We could do a whole episode on giving yourself grace. Let’s put that down in the notes.

Tony: It’s so powerful these days because you got social media right in front of you that tells you this and tells you that and people are doing this and doing that but it’s like some of it is real and some of it is not. You have to know your truth. You have to know your own life and what you want it to be like so that whether or not you compare yourself to someone else or not, you know what your everyday is like so that you can achieve what you want to achieve in your life. We need to do more of that. It starts with giving yourself grace.

John: I agree, and giving ourselves grace. We’re getting into a lot of different ways that we can experience self-awareness and what it is, why it’s important. It’s a practice. It’s giving ourselves grace. It’s noticing our patterns, noticing our behaviors, and being curious. I would add curiosity is Such a you can’t have one without the other that you can’t be mindful and self-aware without being curious about what’s happening being curious about the qualities of this moment the qualities of this conversation and the curious about the human in front of you, curious about what’s possible for you, what’s new, what can you bring, what can I bring into my life? What am I missing? What am I missing? What am I overlooking? It’s a constant questioning when you’re aware, but then also you have to be aware to question. It’s almost like mindfulness, self-awareness, and curiosity are backs and fronts to each other, like heads and tails of the same coin. Yeah. In saying that, there’s another thing I want to clear up here for the listeners is mindfulness and self-awareness. They’re kind of two words that are thrown around in really even in pop culture these days and in business speak and everything now. It’s been kind of this whole mindfulness movement that I love and I I’ve seen them maybe misused in a couple ways. So how do you feel about this? Let’s define what they mean separately to each other. I’ll go first. So to me, it’s self-awareness is the main definition. It’s your awareness, but then mindfulness is the quality of your awareness. Like, am I being mindful or mindless? And that is the quality of your awareness. So when I think self-awareness, that’s being aware of my thoughts, feelings, actions, how those thoughts and feelings create my behaviors, how they’re all intertwined. And now self-awareness and the quality of my self-awareness can be mindful, it can be mindless. The same thing with external awareness. My awareness of you in the conversation can be mindful, or mindless. It’s a quality of awareness whether it be about yourself or someone else or your environment and I think that’s all I have to say.

Tony: I mean, it’s so good though, because like with mindfulness, I don’t disagree with your definition at all. And I’d say with mindfulness, one of the things that’s different about it is that when you’re mindful, you’re being self-aware of everything the self-awareness comes with, but you’re also being more self-aware with how you interact with other people too. Because mindfulness is, I’m going to pause judgment when I’m in a conversation with somebody. and I’m gonna listen better because I know that I can go off on tangents or I know that I can listen. I know sometimes I don’t actively listen. Self-awareness is recognizing that you don’t actively listen. But mindfulness is the practice of you trying to do the things or improve upon the things that you’re self-aware about. Some people are self-aware and they say, you know, I’m not a good listener. I’m aware that I’m not a good listener. Mindfulness is when I’m interacting with another human being, I’m going to practice being a better listener because of my past or because of what I’m trying to improve upon. I think that when it comes to mindfulness, especially when it comes to business or in the workplace or organizations that people work for, If we were all more mindful about how we interacted with each other, it would make for a much more harmonious place to work or a harmonious place to live, even if one person is more mindful than the other and just trying. Sometimes you have to be that light and be that spark for the place and the people that you’re around, even though you may be the only one. That usually is the case. But once you turn that light on for another person, then they can go and do it for the next and for the next and for the next. So, you know, mindfulness is not to be taken lightly. It doesn’t just need to be on a t-shirt. It’s in practice. Yes.

John: Yeah. Amen. Yeah. Wow. And where we were getting where you were getting to there with mindfulness and in the workplace and like not to be taken lightly that it’s almost a responsibility. Mm-hmm that you know as as aware beings wanting to create a more beautiful world and you know a better world that is more connected like we have a responsibility to to be present and mindful of the things that may hold us back, our tendencies that may not be where we want to be, and taking action on that. And that takes awareness to take action. So you acknowledge what’s going on, you become aware of the behaviors in the situation, aware of your self behaviors and the environment, and then you take action. Yeah. And so, you know, when we’re thinking about this being a responsibility and, you know, for our listeners, I know we talked about, you know, a couple of things and practice and why it’s important, what mindfulness is, and now let’s spend a little bit of time Giving some of these practices talking about some of the ways that that we handle our responsibility in Being mindful and I know you mentioned the one thing with your calendar But is there anything else that you want to share with our listeners that they could try on? today

Tony: Absolutely, so when it comes to self-awareness and mindfulness, I’m going to give a few tips here that are actually agreements from one of my favorite books by Mr. Don Miguel Ruiz with the Four Agreements. I feel like out of all the books I’ve read, that The Four Agreements is one of the foundations of self-awareness and mindfulness because he gives four things that we should practice every day and be mindful of. And they’re simple, but they’re so rich and deep. The Four Agreements is a great book. I recommend it. The first agreement is be impeccable with your word. The second is don’t take anything personally. The third is don’t make assumptions. And the fourth is always do your best. And it’s the second one that, you know, I wanted to touch on because when it comes to mindfulness, when you’re interacting with other people, as I was mentioning earlier, you have to realize that people are where they are and they are not necessarily coming at you or for you or for any particular reason, more than likely they’re going through something or they may be where they are. They may be stuck. They may be in a traumatic environment. They could be in a constant routine of mindlessness. But when you are being mindful and you’re trying to turn that light on for someone else, you have to work on not taking anything personal. because that’s the practice of mindfulness is listening correctly, listening with a lens where if someone says something that may offend you, you have to be above the offense and be okay with understanding that that may be where they are, but that’s not where you are. And you shouldn’t let certain things take you under or make you feel a way that causes you to have to respond in a mindlessness way. Meaning, if someone says something to you that’s offensive and you have the ability to correct them or say something, maybe you should, but you should at least be mindful enough to recognize that maybe it’s not me that they’re talking about or attacking in this moment. Maybe it’s deeper than that and maybe I should be the one light that they may come across today that can help them work through what they’re going through. Because we’re all going through things.

John: Hmm. Yeah that it’s it’s like setting the ego aside. Yeah being able to not react Not be in judgment and not have to get everything right to keep this ego picture intact but being able to Take a step back and be curious about what might they be going through that curious questions. I love what you said about Being that you might be that one light in their day. I Like you might just you not reacting might be there one light in that whole day. That’s so true. So true. And, uh, and beautiful. And it’s like, if, you know, you know, if every one of our listeners today can be a light for one person, just think about the impact that that could have.

Tony: Mm.

John: I’ll just take that in for a moment. So that really brings me to a part of one of my favorite pieces of mindfulness. And I love that you brought up the Four Agreements. I love that book. It is so foundational, so simple and powerful. But some of the most powerful things are simple. That’s another episode. Power and simplicity. So, I want to bring up one thing that’s, and we haven’t talked about meditation yet, and I actually love that we haven’t talked about meditation yet because that can be one thing that I feel deters some people from mindfulness practice or self-awareness practice. This means I have to sit there and meditate. But there are many different ways to meditate. Meditation is a practice. It’s a tool for cultivating self-awareness. It’s one of the tools, right? And you can have many different kinds of meditation. Yes, there are many different kinds of sitting meditations, whether it be guided in different ways, whether it be transcendental, whether it be breath, neti neti, there’s a whole bunch of different ways that you can go about sitting and meditating. But then there’s also moving meditations, being aware of your heel and toe hitting the ground as you walk around your neighborhood. There’s the physical asana practice of yoga, being aware of your movements, your breath sensations. It’s cultivating focused awareness in the present moment. And there are so many different ways you can do that mindful eating. Like what does every bite feel like? What is the, what’s the temperature of it? warm, cooler, did the next bite get a little bit warmer? If you’re eating something cold, did the next bite get a little bit cooler? If you’re eating something hot, did the flavor profile change slightly when there was a berry included in it? It’s like there’s little things just being aware. Taking a shower is a great one. Like it’s the best place to kind of daydream, sing a song, but then like actually it could be the temperature of the water, like the air on your skin, like the quality of the soap. Like there’s just like so many different things that you can experience in a place where you can be mindless, like a place to be, to practice being mindful is a meditation practice. Period. And one way that I look at meditation, I have a quote pulled up that I looked at yesterday, and it’s a Viktor Frankl quote from Man’s Search for Meaning. So, mindfulness. So, between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. And that is one of the definitions that I speak to a lot when I talk about meditation, that it creates that distance between stimulus and response. Because a lot of people look for, well, what do I get out of this? You know, okay, I’m sitting here for 15, 20, 30 minutes. Why? I’m bored. I should be doing something else. I could be doing this. I could be doing that. But it’s, it’s time to refocus your attention, to notice that you’re going down that thought of, I should be doing this and come back to noticing the qualities of this moment. And when, and when people ask me, what do you get out of it? Concretely and that is my answer you get distance between Stimulus and response. So before you react to something you can make a choice Like you mentioned in you know in the offhand comment from someone like do I want to be that light if you were there? Reacting from you know, a primitive defense fight-or-flight response. You don’t have time to consider being that light and So it’s a way where you create that gap to where you can make a choice. And that is the concrete result, the neurobiological result of meditation that I’ve experienced personally and that I give to people when they ask that question.

Tony: You know, one thing that people who don’t meditate, as you talked about, that gap or that fear between starting and the intimidation that it probably could have, is that when you meditate and when you are active in your mindfulness and self-awareness journey that deep, what you realize is that there’s actually, there’s really, real life, a rhythm of the earth that’s happening. And you’re either with it or you’re not. And most people are not only because 1A, they probably don’t believe it. And 1B is they just don’t know it. And when you are meditating, when you’re actively calm and searching for that, that rhythm and that feeling, you can, like you said, that heel toe, when you walk, you can be walking with the rhythm of the earth. When you think and when you pause and when you when you’re driving, when you’re There’s so many ways to just be present all the time. When you talked about the different facets of meditation, it made me think of a piece out of the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0, which is to watch yourself like a hawk. That’s a part of self-awareness, is to watch yourself like a hawk. If you take yourself and put yourself high upon a pedestal, or not like a pedestal like you’re in an ego way, but put yourself in the air and watch yourself go through the day and watch yourself respond to people and watch yourself do various different things throughout the day, you can see where your energy is and where you could improve upon, and that’s self-awareness. That hawk piece and that watching yourself like that, it really is built upon and energized the more that you meditate. Because the more that you can sit in your stillness, the more that you can say, I’m gonna take three minutes of my day and just sit still and just be. The more that you do that, the stronger that that hawk is, the stronger that you can watch yourself go throughout the day or go throughout your life and then pinpoint and pivot. different directions and navigate different energies when you’re challenged by people who are not necessarily on the same journey as you and It just it just makes you so much stronger when you meditate I know we’re gonna get into that in another episode and multiple episodes because that’s a part of being present and being the present professional, but you know, I just want to shout out meditation and hope that Either our listeners can agree or our listeners can give it a chance and it can just start with literally 30 seconds. It doesn’t have to be 10 minutes. If you can sit still for just a few minutes throughout your day, you can change your life. I promise you.

John: I agree and a big proponent of meditation and it’s a huge part of my life I know it’s a big part of your life as well and if you were to give our listeners who maybe have never meditated before and you know they’re starting to get interested kind of listening to this conversation what would be one piece of advice that you would give them as they start their meditation journey?

Tony: Well, one piece of advice I would give is, like I mentioned a second ago, to start small, I’d probably say get you a playlist, and this is more like concrete, technical kind of advice, but get you a playlist that has music with no lyrics. Like, start there, because I love music. But what I learned over the years is that subconsciously the lyrics that I’m listening to can affect you, right? And so it’s not that the music is the problem, but it’s the liver of the music sometimes. the person that is going through whatever they’re going through and they’re talking and they’re recording their life and their songs and they put it on a track and you’re listening to it and then you’re feeling it but what is your soundtrack to your own life? And sometimes if you just start listening to a good solid beat or even some classical music or just something with no lyrics, you can start to think better and you can start to be more clear-headed. And when you’re meditating, you can use that same music with no lyrics to just kind of put yourself in a calm. And the reason why I brought up music and using music with no lyrics and things like that is because when you’re first starting off, you’re going to be distracted, the high-level distraction. You’re going to be distracted in your own thoughts and then you’re going to be distracted by everything around you because that’s just how it goes. But when you can block out the noise with some music to help you and surround you, it drowns out all the chatter a lot easier and a lot better. If you need playlists, hit us up. I’m sure both of us have playlists that we can share, maybe even drop it in the show notes or something. But I’d say YouTube has plenty of playlists to listen to that are long, And just kind of get in the habit of listening to more music that doesn’t have lyrics. It will really help you think better. And I’d say lastly that, and I don’t know if you agree with this, but I know I’m at a place now where I don’t need any music to meditate. It don’t really matter. I can sit still. and meditate, and it can be loud and, not loud and chaotic, but it can be whatever’s going on around me, and if I’m meditating, I’m meditating. And that’s years of practice, though. It didn’t start as soon as I started.

John: I’m with you there. My morning meditation is silent. There’s beauty in silence and there’s more opportunity to observe what’s happening internally, externally. I think there’s also merit to having something to focus on as well, to focus the attention on music. on a guide and that’s something that we’ll do we will include some some resources in the show notes that will make sense for people starting out whether that be some playlists yeah let’s do a playlist that you know we both recommend and then I’ll also throw out Insight Timer because, well, one, I’m a publisher on there and it’s a free library of guided meditations from teachers all over the world. It includes free music, different teachers to interact with, guided meditations, and I think that’s another good way for folks to start out is being guided by a teacher. And it helps to guide the mind on a path to kind of putting it to bed, like putting the monkey mind to bed and following the teacher’s words in your own mind can free up some of that mental space, like similar to the sounds and like you mentioned, the music drowning things out. I think that’s with a teacher and a guide, it’s kind of like, It’s kind of like stepping into the water step by step to let it drown out. And so I think that can be a really powerful tool for people getting started in their meditation practice. And if I were to give people one piece of advice in a meditation practice in cultivating their self-awareness, it is consistency is far more important than intensity or duration.

Tony: Can you say that again? Say it again for the people.

John: Consistency is far more important than intensity or duration. Unpack that for us, man. It’s far more powerful to show up every day for five minutes than one day for 30 minutes. Building it in building the practice into your life consistently is far more powerful in training that mental muscle and creating that distance between stimulus and response. So I would recommend, even if you’re sitting for one, two minutes, like sitting to close your eyes, sitting to focus on one, focus your attention on one thing, to have a short guide, one song that you listen to, something, do one thing every single day. That would be my number one piece of advice to starting and experienced meditators. Like whatever is comfortable to be consistent.

Tony: make it happen. And I like to give people, I love that. And I like to give people real life tips too. And I’m going to say that when you are starting off, whether you start off with 30 seconds or a minute, like, like John said with consistency, don’t be Don’t beat yourself up too much. If you do three minutes a day and that’s all you got, and if you can get up to three minutes a day, that may be all you need. Three minutes of meditation a day really, in the morning especially, it really, really, really will change a lot for you. You’d be, it’s three minutes. I do it longer than three minutes, but if that’s all I got sometimes, that’s all I got, and sometimes that’s all I need. It’s like medicine, it’s medicine for the soul, man, really.

John: Mm-hmm, I agree. Well, I feel like we’ve unpacked this on what is mindfulness, what is self-awareness, how to cultivate it. One thing I think would be good to close out with is, let’s go back and forth here and answer one last question. Why is it important to you? Meditation or self-awareness? Self-awareness. Why is it important to you personally?

Tony: That’s a good question. Makes me wonder where I started. I think it’s come with age and wisdom, but like getting older and just kind of wanting to be a better human being. But you really can’t maximize your potential without knowing who you are on a deeper level, not just who you think you are. I’ve taken different tests, I won’t call them personality tests, but strengths-based tests and even personality tests and emotional intelligence tests, various different things, reading different books and spending time with different people, being curious. about my mind, about what I can do, different things like that. And I mean, to have a beautiful life on the outside, you got to have a beautiful life on the inside. And the inside matters way more than the outside. You know, I had years ago, came across this amazing like picture And it’s basically a picture of, like, an individual looking at two different backyards. One backyard was ripped up to shreds, horrible, dirty. Grass was high, like, it looked like just ratchet, right? And then the other backyard was beautiful, flowers, sunshine, and just all these different things. And it basically was like saying in the picture, you choose. you have the authority and the ability in your life to choose which backyard or what lifestyle, what mindset, what heart, what insides that you have for yourself. And when I looked at it, it immediately resonated with me because, you know, like you talked about earlier with meditation and what you put inside your body, the food you eat, the things you put inside your mind as well, the things you read, the things you listen to, the things you think about, All that is self-awareness. And for me, I know that I’m not perfect by any means, but I do know that because I am self-aware and I try to do the work every day, that I probably give a lot of good, positive energy, even more than I know. And that’s only because I’m self-aware. And, you know, it’s a journey every day. I’m trying to get better in different parts of self-awareness because, you know, it’s tough when you are running and going, have a lot going on. But as long as you have a foundation to lean upon and go back to, it’s almost addictive to want to continue to be as self-aware as possible and show up to the world better than you did yesterday.

John: Wow, I’m glad I asked that question. That was really powerful, man. Really powerful. Why is it important to me personally? I resonate with a lot of the things that you said, a lot of the things, and I’ll add that something that’s always been a big part of who I am is exploration. I am intrigued by and drawn to a new frontier and when growing up and even going into school and the reason I chose my undergrad degree was because it was on the frontier of energy. It’s like, wow. Great. And always kind of looking for that new thing, experimenting with the ways that people think, the way that I think, hearing different perspectives, exploring different books that are in conflict with each other, like constantly exploring. And the self, both lowercase S and capital, and capital S is a never ending frontier. that it’s someplace I feel not comfortable in, but comfortably uncomfortable in, in that there’s so much to learn, and it’s been a frontier that I’ve been exploring for a long time, and it feels like there’s still so much ground to cover, and that’s not daunting in any way. It’s actually quite beautiful. that we have this whole life to explore that frontier of self. And that’s why it’s important to me, because it’s something that I’ll continue to explore until the day I die. And then who knows? And even then, maybe keep exploring. Maybe next time around, we explore a little bit more. But, um, Yeah, that’s why it’s important to me. And, uh, I’ll go ahead and just pose that to the listeners to close us out. And, you know, why is it important to you? If you’re still listening at this point, like there’s, there’s a reason why you’re here. There’s a reason why self-awareness is important to you as well. So start exploring your frontier. You’ll never know what you find, right?

Tony: Yeah. And the beauty of life is when you realize how much you don’t know and how small you are, then you can start your journey.

John: Set that ego aside. Right. Man. Well, Tony, this has been amazing. I’m so excited for all of the week’s worth of episodes that we have coming up to share with our audience. And no one, no one that I’d rather do this with. So. And it’s just, we’re basically just broadcasting what we did every time we met up over the past six years anyway.

Tony: Exactly. Exactly, man. And it’s been a journey the entire time. So it’s like the journey will continue, we’re just recording it now.

John: Right, right. And we’re happy to share it with you guys. Thank you guys so much for listening. We will put some of the things that we mentioned here in the show notes. Please, please subscribe to the podcast. Listen to us. We’ll have a episode coming out each week. for you guys to explore a little bit about what it means to be a present professional today. And yeah, I guess that’s really it.