Brandon Hawk: Episode 339

Transcript

[0:01:22] Brandon Hawk: I was born and raised in a very small town, 3,000 people, my dad was a professional bull rider and he didn’t want us to go that route so we became tennis players. I became a successful tennis player at a very young age and yeah, was able to be on the US National Team as a tennis player at the age of 15 and won a round in the main draw of the US open at the age of 17 and accomplished my goal of playing in Wimbledon at the age of 20 and so I was able to experience success at a very early age and I get to experience both sides of success at a very early age. It is a part of my early background and from that, I was able to partner with my dad’s business, also a corporation that we created together and also at the same time, I was pastoring a church and speaking three to five times a week with different programs and different services that I had created. That has been my background and then I took my school of transformation that I created when I was a pastor and I turned that into a for profit company that has now become my coaching company where I coach elite achievers, CEO’s, entertainers and professional athletes.

[0:02:51] NVN: I’m sure you hear this word a lot but wow, that is just stunning and you were so young for such success. I noticed when you were talking about success, you specifically said that you experience both sides of success. Talk to me a little bit about what you mean by that?

[0:03:12] Brandon Hawk: There was a great side of just understanding some of the principles of success, especially external success, right? I was able to align to those and just the ability to accomplish some really cool things, travel all over the world from the age of 14 to 24, 30 to 40 weeks a year to be with people who were playing at the highest level of their sport and their craft and their field. Just so valuable. Then, also, to experience accomplishing my dream that I’ve had since I was a little boy and seem that it did not fulfill me. That the outside does not fix the inside and actually all those years of bypassing my heart to produce a result, I had to come to terms with that and I had to feel all of that, I had to feel all of the emotional pain. So yeah, I was able to see at an early age that the outside doesn’t fix the inside and that once you do accomplish your external goals, there is a season that you will have to feel your internal emotional reality as well. Yeah, that was huge for me. I think that’s the greatest gift that tennis gave me, travel was one of the greatest gifts and then also, getting to experience that the outside does not fix the inside.

[0:04:34] NVN: You, today and throughout your life it sounds like, work or are around a lot of high level, seemingly aspirational people. Talk to me a little bit about how common it is, even amongst this set to conflate the ideas of success and fulfillment?

[0:04:55] Brandon Hawk: I think it’s very rare for someone that has achieved a lot to feel nurtured by their success, feel connected to their success at an internal level, that’s why business is booming for myself. Because so many high achievers, they may understand the science of success but definitely do not understand the art of fulfillment. What good is it to have external success if you can’t feel it. It only creates a bigger gap between you and what you’ve been able to accomplish. That gap is the gap that’s excruciating to these high achievers and the people that I work with.

[0:05:35] NVN: Why does that gap occur in the first place? It’s interesting to me that you say, people feel disconnected to their success because, presumably, these people are putting a lot of effort, a lot of time and energy, a lot of themselves into achieving that success.

[0:05:54] Brandon Hawk: We you get down and we un-layer, right? We unravel in my process, I have a process of unraveling and allowing these individuals to come into connection with the core of how they feel and who they really are, beyond what they do. We go back to some of the roots, right? Why do you achieve, achieve, achieve, do, do, do, produce, produce, produce? What is it for? Why are you doing what you’re doing? And it goes back to some early childhood stuff of that’s how I received love. I received love through my achieving. I received value through my performance, I received greater connection with my parents when I did well, versus when I threw a tantrum or my hyper-achieving definitely got me some of the needs that I was needing of approval. Some of those things that we need early on in our life, we receive and we learn how to get or manipulate through our achieving and producing. What we uncover is that a lot of this achieving, a lot of this hyper-producing, hyper-performing is really about just wanting to feel loved and approved and connected to.

[0:07:10] NVN: That strikes me as potentially a very scary thing for people to give up. They’ve learned this way of being and of achieving in order to gain love and approval. First of all, do you find that with your clients and second, if so, how do you help them move beyond that?

[0:07:31] Brandon Hawk: Yeah, we find it, we definitely find that spot on which they can build from. It does take some – like I said, some un-layering and that’s what this book is about, it is that journey from the head to the heart, from performance to connection, it is that journey and how to get there. How to get there on a micro level, how to get there on a macro level and yeah, I go into my process, I call it the 'down, down, up process' and you know, it is tough, we have to go through a couple of different layers and the first layer is our identification with our role. You may be – "I am Brandon the professional athlete." "I am Tim the leader, right? Tim the CEO, I am Tim the good boy, the achiever." And so we’ve got to break through that role, that’s a tough layer to break through because that mental construct has protected these individuals and has produced so much. But now it’s also keeping the things that they desire out, keeping love out, it’s keeping connection out, it’s keeping this deep connection with coworkers, family, friends, children. It’s keeping all of that deep connection out. And so we have to break through that zone in that layer. You know, I am what I do, I am what I have, I am what other people think, that’s a big part of breaking through that zone.

[0:08:58] NVN: I’m curious, when people come to you, is there any sort of general tipping point, people reach? Where, for whatever reason, what they’re achieving is no longer enough and they want to find that deeper layer.

[0:09:15] Brandon Hawk: Yeah, they start to realize that they’re the problem. People that come to me, there’s a measure of awareness that they go, "Okay, I’m the common denominator." And they don’t know how to fix it but there is an understanding that, "Okay. My business, my marriage, some of these things that are important to me. I’m the common theme here." That’s why the book’s titled You. You are the answer, you’ve been looking for really. You are that which you have been seeking. The issue is that this process, you can’t go around it, you can’t go to the side of it. It has to go through you. That’s why there’s an intensity, there is an intensity to this process and there is a deconstruction. But what I’ve been able to do is help people deconstruct personally where they don’t have to deconstruct everything else in their life.

[0:10:01] NVN: Okay. You have to have some incredible stories. Is there one that really stands out in your mind in terms of someone who has been able to get down to that 'you', to their true essence, into the heart of matters and what is that transformation look like for them?

[0:10:18] Brandon Hawk: Probably my greatest story is myself. This book, even my work is really an opportunity for my own healing, you know? I teach these stuff because I want to work through it myself and have worked through it and want to continue to work the program and the process. I can speak for me and I can speak for many of my other clients. But my own journey from being such a hyper-achiever to now actually being able to feel deeply with my children and connect to them on an emotional level, to be able to connect to my wife at a deep level of empathy and understanding may be my highest achievement. Because that’s not always been the case. I have many stories like that from many clients, you know, when you go inside on the heart, the heart energy is a very big, vast, energy and it always pays dividends and profits, right? So within, so beyond and so when you tap into this space, exponential growth, increase in profits, those are some things that are a part of it. I mean, it just happens. But my clients and with myself would say that those things are great, those things are awesome and a great perks but the main thing is, I have found myself again and my friends, my family, they feel me and I feel them.

[0:11:37] NVN: How does that change your life on a day to day basis?

[0:11:41] Brandon Hawk: On a day to day basis, just being able to be known and to be seen and to be felt and to be connected to. Yeah, even allowing your success to nurture you. That’s so beautiful. Think about just this book that I’m writing and it’s coming out on the 3rd and to allow that this is an accomplishment that I’ve wanted to happen for a long time now for that to be able to nurture me. To be able to connect with that success is a big deal and what happens to most high achievers is they do not allow themselves to connect emotionally to their success, so they end up resenting their success. Their businesses, the big things that they built now become something that do not feel good, that doesn’t feel good anymore. When something doesn’t feel good anymore, what do they do? They’d end up using their power to tear it down. That is usually what starts to happen with these individuals, they’re in the process of tearing down these big structures that they have built, whether it be their marriage or their business but they’re in the process of sabotaging themselves so that they can feel. That’s the second stage and we go through that identification with role, that identification with our giftings and we move beyond that to the next layer which is the emotions. How you really feel and at that top layer is anger, frustration or oftentimes anger turned inward which is depression, right? That’s not acceptable for most of these individuals. We have to go through that layer, anger, rage, frustration, depression and we go all the way down into sadness that I’m just sad that life has not worked out for me fully. I’m just sad that I feel disconnected from my family, I’m just sad that I don’t have connection with my parents, there’s just a sadness that’s there. Once we get down into that sadness, you can’t selectively open. Once you open yourself to the rage, to the anger, to the sadness, then you can also open yourself to the bliss and to the joy, and to the happiness and the excitement and the celebration. But you can’t selectively open. What starts to happen, once we process a lot of that stuff, it’s a lifelong journey of processing how we feel, we now are able to open ourselves to joy, to bliss and we’re able to now start to create from joy rather than from suffering. That’s a whole different animal when a high achiever starts to create from joy rather than from pain.

[0:14:12] NVN: Absolutely. This is such powerful stuff and the thing that I’ve been thinking about is you’ve been talking is when you started to move into those place, you were so young. So young. It sounds like there is such an element of self-awareness and accountability to this. What do you have to say to people who are later in life and just beginning to crack this code that there’s something missing and they need to unravel and get to some of those deeper layers?

[0:14:46] Brandon Hawk: There’s no greater journey and you’re never too late, there’s no greater gift that you can give the world, your family, your coworkers, your employees than the gift of opening yourself. You said it, right? When we open ourselves emotionally, the byproduct of that is self-awareness. The greatest currency of our time right now is self-awareness. For someone to be aware of themselves and aware of others, that level of connection, that level of value, that level of relevance pays massive dividends to yourself and to others. This would be so advantageous for someone that is older. Because it will only increase their connectivity, their relevance and then you add the wisdom that they have on top of that, you want to talk about super relevant, right? We’re stepping in to this wisdom age, you know? We have an information age where you can access all the information on the internet that you need, we’re starting to see schools becoming obsolete, all these structures are becoming obsolete because of all the information that we have. What it is moving us into is this emotional relevance that creates this profound wisdom and we’re entering into this wisdom age, that people who take this journey will emerge as leaders, especially the older ones. Because they’re so rare.

[0:16:05] NVN: Love that idea of a wisdom age versus an information age. That makes a lot of sense to me that that would be the next step but I haven’t really heard anyone else talk about that.

[0:16:16] Brandon Hawk: Yeah, the youth or whoever, anybody, we can’t transfer of our wisdom through a power over structure. The way to transfer now our wisdom is through emotional connection. Through openness, through vulnerability at a heart level. And a lot of people have wisdom and knowledge but they don’t have a bridge or a pathway to transfer that information. Think about a boss, right? That has all this knowledge but everyone tunes him out or her out. Why is that? Okay, think about a parent, right? That has all these wisdoms that they’re wanting to pass on to their children but their children tune them out. Why do they tune them out from the information and wisdom that they’re wanting to pass along? It’s because there’s not an emotional bridge, there’s not a vulnerability, there’s not an openness, there’s not an openness, there’s not a pathway to get there of connectivity. This process gives you that pathway, gives you that path to creating a transfer of wisdom where people really do want to listen to what you have to say. It comes through vulnerability. But that does take a person that’s willing to become vulnerable with how they feel. That part right there, I call it the hell in the hallway. There’s a little hell in the hallway, there’s a little messiness that happens right there, the great sifting and the sorting inside of yourself, you have to really step into your emotional age and that’s uncomfortable, it’s awkward and there’s no other way around it. But the ones that make it through that part, oh goodness, it’s pretty special.

[0:17:46] NVN: Yeah, I just love the way you termed that. There’s a little bit of messiness there. Because, I think we’re so scared of that, we’re scared of those feelings but you're right. Once you move through it, it’s fine, you look back and it’s a blip on the radar but it feels like such a bigger deal than a little messiness in the hallway when you are in the thick of it.

[0:18:07] Brandon Hawk: Well because it is breaking down protective layers. It is breaking down that first layer. I am what other people think. I am my reputation. I am what I do. It is doing its job as well, it is breaking down that protective layer that you have protected yourself with, those mental constructs that have kept you safe but also kept you disconnected. Those are the things that are being attacked through allowing yourself to live from where you really are emotionally. And what I see with these individuals that I worked with, the great gap is their 50 year old sages or 75 year old — you know these brilliant individuals with high esteem but emotionally they are about 8 and so that gap from 75 to 8 that feels like a pretty big fall. But here is what I have seen in the events that I do, the different master-hearts or masterminds that I do and I am a part of with these individuals, the ones that own their eight year old emotional self, they’re the ones that own the room. It is interesting to see that when we are in a room together and all of these individuals that are going through this process are in this room together, the ones that own their emotional age, they end up becoming the leaders of the room not the one who is trying to spout all of their great wisdom or trying to lead from their high esteem. It is the one who owns their eight year old emotional self the greatest, those are the ones that emerges the true leaders.

[0:19:33] NVN: And does this come back to that idea of vulnerability?

[0:19:36] Brandon Hawk: It definitely does. It comes back to the idea that vulnerability is power. It is the new form of true power and science is proving it in quantifying the power of the heart, different things like that, which is proving that the heart, speaking and living from the heart has an electromagnetic frequency that’s a thousand times greater than that of the mind. So all of these things are being proven at a scientific level that vulnerability truly operates at a much faster higher pace than any other frequency.

[0:20:07] NVN: Wow.

[0:20:08] Brandon Hawk: So think about someone that is just a boss or a coworker that is opened up and they have lead with their heart, what does it do? It sucks the room in, right? The room sucks into them, it’s like everybody is there, everybody is listening, everybody is connected. They all of a sudden become very relevant. So think about a leader or a boss that is willing to live that way. The relevancy, the impact that they have is astronomical.

[0:20:29] NVN: I was going to ask you for listeners who are just starting to think about or feel these things, what some little red flags are in their lives that they are not fulfilled. But the more we talk and the more I stop and think about it, I am thinking that we all know that. It is just a matter of being willing to recognize it.

[0:20:52] Brandon Hawk: You know that there is a massive gap. You know that you are over giving, you know that you do not feel fulfilled. Yeah, you know all the signs and one of the biggest signs is over giving. You give, give, give and do, do, do and produce, produce, produce but you resent the people. You resent what you have created, you start to resent those things that you are giving to. You start to resent your job, you start to resent your marriage. So blame and resentment is massive signpost to show that you are trying to work this thing from the outside in rather than the inside out.

[0:21:27] NVN: There is research out there, I think it is from Brené Brown and I have stumbled upon it a couple of times and it hits me every time because I think it speaks to what you are talking about, which is this idea that the happiest and most engaged people out there are the people who have the most established personal boundaries. And at first that seems non-intuitive but I think it goes back to what you are talking about. They are able to know where they’re at, what they needed to get from that place so it doesn’t feel depleting.

[0:22:00] Brandon Hawk: I call them boundaries of value. Boundaries of value are created by giving within your capacity and understanding that your capacity is like your fuel gauge on your car and if you’re always on empty that is not cool and what a lot of these individuals do is they write emotional hot checks. It ends up eroding the connection that they have with themselves, their families, their friends and their employees and there is up front promises but they can’t bankroll those promises. Because the capacity is not there and that does not lend itself to workplace synergy. It doesn’t lend itself to cohesion, it doesn’t lend itself to momentum and giving within capacity is the quickest way to create momentum in your own life and in your workplace. The hard part is, like I said, to go from over giving to giving within capacity, it will cause you to have to do some things differently. You will have to start saying no. 'The sacred no' is something I talk a lot about. Having the ability to say no is a very powerful thing and it actually increases your value and protects the connection, whether it would be with your children, the ability to say, “Not right now but when mommy or daddy has more energy, you can guarantee that that energy is going to go towards you.” That is a very healthy thing to do.

[0:23:22] NVN: You’re right. I mean, speaking as a parent that is something that can be very difficult to put into practice but it strikes me that in doing that, you are demonstrating to your children how to create those same boundaries and how to give within their capacity, like you are talking about.

[0:23:39] Brandon Hawk: Yeah, we train our children and we train our employees and we train everyone in our life how to treat us. By giving within capacity to our children, here is the issue though. Why don’t we do that it sounds so easy, right? Oh yeah, it is so easy just give within your capacity. Well to do that, you then will have to feel the feelings that come up when you say no. So when you say no to your child, let’s say you’re Christmas or let’s say whatever, what do you end up having to feel? Guilt, right? The unprocessed guilt that is in your body and that is that second down I am talking about. You then have to feel some of those uncomfortable emotions and allow those things to come up. But it is so easy to what I call create guilt and shame exchanges with people that we love and so instead of us having to feel our own feelings, the discomfort of that, we end up over giving and we create codependent relationships built out of guilt and shame. Whether it be a church, whether it be a family, whether it be a business, it happens in every structure these codependent exchanges that are built out of guilt and shame protection. And you give, give, give to your children since we are on that topic, we end up giving, giving, giving to our children and they end up feeling not-grateful, why? They get the transfer of guilt and shame not the gift that you are giving them. And so you’re like, “Well I did all of this for you and I did all of this for you, the employees.” And they’re like, “Oh no you didn’t. No you didn’t. We did all of that for you.” And so that’s the breakdown. When you live that way with a child, when you live that way with an employee, when you live that way with a spouse, what you're giving is not really a gift. You are actually taking in the form of giving, which is heavy. But also deep and great and awesome to see that a lot of my giving has been — and that is my own journey. A lot of my giving, a lot of my doing, a lot of my helping was really taking.

[0:25:38] NVN: It’s honest. I mean I think that that is a point that probably a lot of people can resonate with. But you are right, it goes back to those behavioral patterns from when we’re young. This is all passed down.

[0:25:50] Brandon Hawk: Oh yeah. So now you start getting into some of the deep childhood trauma. So I call it dense energy. Emotions are just energies in motion, right? They are just energies in motion that are in our body. And some of those get stuck, those dense energies get stuck inside of our body and get triggered and old trauma and unhealed emotions or stuck emotional energy all it wants is resolution but we make a big deal out of it, right? “Oh that feels bad when you say that. That doesn’t feel good. Oh I don’t want to do that, that person doesn’t feel good to be around.” Well what are we really saying right? My dense emotional energy is triggered when I am around that person or when you say that and so instead of blaming those individuals, I teach my clients and I am teaching the world how to process that emotional energy without having to use blame and demonization. Because an inability to process our emotional trauma has created the structures that we live in today and that is just takes a large structure like our government. How people are elected in the way that we govern in the United States. Why is that level of demonization okay? Why is the great separation that we experience at that level with the blame and demonization, why is that even okay? Well that is all a byproduct of unhealed emotional trauma. It is a picture of what we do on a micro-level it just shows up on our macro structures. And so I have a belief that there is no greater work on the planet right now than this emotional work. Because this emotional work is what is creating these external structures of separation. These external structures of divide and what happens to a person that comes into unification with themselves in everything that is happening inside of themselves, what do they end up creating externally? What do they end up creating in unity. But a person that is disconnected from how they feel, what happens to their rhetoric? Their rhetoric becomes very disconnected. Their structures become very divisive and disconnected, because why? They are disconnected from a big part of their operating system and so I believe this new book is about my coaching journey. This is about my own journey of my own life. It is about the process I work through with clients. But it is also the beginning manifesto of really how to create greater unity on the planet and how to unify some of these global structures that are built from separation and disconnection.

[0:28:30] NVN: That is so powerful right now. Because I think for a lot of us, all the things that seem wrong or broken can start to feel very overwhelming. Like we can’t do anything about that, it’s so big. But I love this idea of taking personal accountability and how that energy just sort of builds up and results in larger change. It makes sense.

[0:28:57] Brandon Hawk: It makes too much sense and oftentimes the hardest things are the things that are most simple, right? It is easier to blame our government. It is easier to blame certain people that are heads of government and heads of state or it is easier to blame a spouse. It is easier to blame someone other than going, “You know what? My blame is a byproduct of emotional energy in my body that I am not willing to feel.” And it is easier for me to say that person is wrong and bad rather than to deal with what comes up inside of me and what that person triggers or mirrors back to me. You know it is radical but to say, “I am Trump,” and “I am Hillary,” I am these mirrors and to take that level of personal and I want you to hear this word, responsibility, right? The ability to respond, to take that level of ability to respond to what is happening inside of you is very foreign to us been for the few that do, the level of congruence and empowerment and yeah, just personal integrity. The world is seeking those individuals and those are the individuals that are emerging as leaders in the planet right now.

[0:30:17] NVN: So for listeners who are really feeling this right now and they are motivated, what is the first thing that they can start to do to put in practice, right now, to jump on that motivation outside of buying the book, what one little tweak can they do to start to bring this into practice in their life? Even in a little way.

[0:30:38] Brandon Hawk: I think it is just awareness, getting aware of all the places in your life that you feel resentment that you feel blame and that you want to blame or you want to resent or you want to put your power outside of yourself and just create a little space and say, “Okay, I see that I am blaming this person and I am seeing my blame and resentment isn’t working. And I am just willing to be right here and to do something a little different.” Instead of going out with blame and resentment, I just challenge you to go in and just be with what is happening in your body. It is called the 'three A’s'. That is very simple, become aware of what is happening to me. Once you become aware then you accept that feelings that are going off inside of you. “Okay, well I am not going to blame and resent this people or this situation, I am going to accept what is happening in me. Oh this is new,” right? "This is new." But did you know when you feel it, you can heal it but what goes unfelt can’t be transformed and so now you are allowing yourself to feel because you are accepting these feelings and then what emerges as you start to feel and flow these energies and motion that we call emotions that we have demonized, what happens when you start to be with those and they dissipate in about 90 seconds. There is a new level of clarity. There is a new level of inspired action. And you start to see situations, opportunities and individuals with a whole new lens not through the lens of your emotional pain but now, you start to see this situations opportunities through a whole new lens and now the inspired action start to emerge. So most individuals live for manic action out of scared energy or unprocessed pain. Now you are living from inspired action. That is a whole different way of living and the potency level increases in what you are able to accomplish and do becomes exponential. And so the three A’s, awareness, acceptance and inspired action, leaning into that would be the first thing that I would start with.

[0:32:42] NVN: I love that 90 second stat. We can all be a little bit uncomfortable for 90 seconds.

[0:32:48] Brandon Hawk: Yeah, we can be on that treadmill for 90 seconds, right? A little emotional fitness.

[0:32:53] NVN: Exactly. Wonderful Brandon. Is there anything I haven’t led you to through these questions that you want to make sure you get in here?

[0:33:05] Brandon Hawk: Yeah, I think I am super excited about this journey from the head to the heart, whatever we want to call it. From perfection to connection, from religion to love, you know I have called it a bunch of different things. But it is the same. It is really the unravelling of fear, the unlearning of fear and the reconnection back to our higher self and learning to live from our true you. Who you really are and once we reconnect back to who I or you really are, what we are able to create from that space is we start to step into our genius. We start to step into a life that is lived from love rather than for love, from connection rather than for connection. That may just sound like a wordplay but it’s not. It is a radical shift in how we connect or how we live life and to bring success and fulfillment together, I don’t think there is anything better.

[0:34:07] NVN: Yeah, who doesn’t want that.

[0:34:08] Brandon Hawk: That’s right and they can and here is what I want everyone to know, they can play together. It does take bravery, it does take courage, it does take a season of awkwardness. But I mean you can get more performance based, you can get someone who is so codependent upon his family, I mean I lived with businesses together, we ran churches together. We all lived in the same block and to go through that unravelling with businesses and family. And if I can do it, if I can attempt this process and start to come out the other side, anyone can do it. I would say I was the epitome of dysfunction in this way and programmed to live from the outside in. Yeah, I just want you to know right now whoever is listening that if this is resonating with your soul, there is hope and there is a way through and there is a way out. And the answer that you’ve been looking for is not outside of you but it is you. And I would love to help you rediscover that you are the answer you have been looking for all along.

[0:35:06] NVN: Beautiful. Thank you so much Brandon, that is a lot to think about.

[0:35:11] Brandon Hawk: Yeah, we just had dinner didn’t we?

[0:35:12] NVN: Yes, we did.

[0:35:16] Brandon Hawk: Nikki, thank you so much for creating a space just this level of awareness and transformation to happen. Thank you.

[0:35:23] NVN: Yeah, of course. It is such a pleasure having you here and I know that I am going away and think a lot of this stuff. So thank you. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Author Hour. You can find Brandon’s book, You, on Amazon and a transcript of this episode as well as other episodes at authorhour.co. For more Author Hour, subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and if you’re feeling it, we love reviews. Thanks for joining us, we’ll see you next time. Same place, different author.