Shownotes

Most people are waiting to find their purpose. Adrian Starks says that’s exactly why they’re stuck. The podcaster, voice narrator, professional speaker, and entrepreneur behind Your Purposeful Life returns to the show to share with Lesley Logan about the real cost of perfectionism, the salmon’s lesson on fighting your purpose, and the daily self-reflection practice that quietly rebuilds your direction. This one’s for anyone in a rebuild season, ready to stop searching and start moving.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• Why saying “I don’t know” is the most underrated leadership move.
• The three cycles every purposeful life moves through on repeat.
• What happens when you stop checking in with your own purpose
• The two questions Adrian asks instead of just journaling his thoughts.
• The real difference between nice people and kind people in your life.

Episode References/Links:

• Adrian Starks Website – https://adrianstarks.com
• Your Purposeful Life Podcast – https://beitpod.com/purposefullife
• Adrian Starks on YouTube – https://beitpod.com/adrianyoutube
• Adrian Starks LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/feed/?nis=true
• Adrian Starks Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/adrian.starks
• Ep 191. with Adrian Starks – https://beitpod.com/ep191
• The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish – https://a.co/d/0iNbLUAL
• Are You My Mother by P.D. Eastman – https://a.co/d/0clbpmbU
• Submit your wins or questions – https://beitpod.com/questions

Transcript

Adrian Starks 0:00
Your purpose in life is not something you find, it’s something that you do, and that is going to change. It’s going to evolve with time, and that’s okay. Having self-doubt is okay; not knowing everything is okay.

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Lesley Logan 0:13
Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast, where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I’m Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I’ve trained 1000s of people around the world, and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity, and it’s the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring bold, executable, intrinsic, and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and be it till you see it. It’s a practice, not a perfect. Let’s get started.

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Lesley Logan 0:55
All right, Be It babe. I’m gonna keep this short and sweet, because you’ve got some gems, some nuggets, some magic coming at you. We have one of the best conversations I had at the beginning of this pod, episode 191. Our guest is Adrian Starks, and he is back, and he is back with so much. It’s so fun how a difference of a few years can make when you’re living your life and you’re following your purpose and reflecting what you can do and what you learn about yourself that you can share with others. So here are so many amazing tips on helping you find your purposeful life. And if you love Adrian, go check out his podcast, Your Purposeful Life.

Lesley Logan 1:29
All right, Be It Pod, we have a guest back. I think, honestly, this might be the biggest gap from the first episode to the next episode. So, Adrian Starks, we have a lot to talk about. We, one, probably have to reintroduce you to everybody, and then two, we have to hear what you’ve been up to, how you’re being it till you see it. So, tell everyone who you are and what you’re rocking at these days.

Adrian Starks 1:48
Well, it is so great to be back, Lesley. Let me tell you. My name is Adrian Starks, of course. I’m a podcaster, voice narrator, speaker, entrepreneur, all the good stuff. But yeah, that’s who I am.

Lesley Logan 2:01
Are you reading books? Are you a narrator like that? Are commercials what we’re doing with it? I mean, a great voice.

Adrian Starks 2:06
We’re reading books, we’re narrating for commercials, we’re doing a lot of things.

Lesley Logan 2:11
Cool, that’s so fun. How did… okay, we have to talk more about that. But first, so we had you on for episode 191, and I was on your pod, and we really had a great time because you had some really great “be it till you see it” moments. And I think maybe we can go back a little bit of the be it till you see it where we left off to here, because maybe I missed it, maybe I didn’t get as excited, but I can’t believe narrating commercials and stuff like that. That’s got to be so fun using this amazing voice you have to do what you’re doing. So take us back a little bit, so we can get to the present.

Adrian Starks 2:48
Okay, so how did I get into that? Well, that’s a good question. I started out as speaking, professional speaking, and then I just started making connections along the way, started auditioning for certain things. I did a lot of things on certain platforms, like reading for children’s books, I did some audios for other people’s books, and then one thing led to another. The next thing I know, I’m getting offered opportunities to do other things, like narrating, and it’s fun for me. I enjoy it, and I love it. So that’s where I’m at today, doing that, along with podcasting, along with just being it till you see it.

Lesley Logan 3:20
Yeah, how has your podcast changed? It’s been like almost 400 episodes since we’ve talked, so that’s like at least two years.

Adrian Starks 3:28
Yeah.

Lesley Logan 3:30
Because when we start our podcast, we have an intention of what it is, and then we evolve. The podcast has to evolve. What have you kept the same, and what have you realized that as you’ve changed, you’ve changed?

Adrian Starks 3:44
Wow, the podcast has evolved, and I’ve changed over time, in a way of not so polished like I was before. Before, I was very astute, and I had to talk about this, talk about that, and make sure all my answers are correct. Now I was like, you know what, there’s some things I just don’t know, and I’m gonna show certain sides of myself that no one’s ever seen. So now people are seeing the comical side of me. I’m into comics, I’m into a lot of fun things, comic cards, comic books, superheroes, of course, reading. But the podcast has evolved in a sense of me now just… I’m not looking for the answer of purpose. I just want to understand what people’s perspective of it is, and that has changed.

Lesley Logan 4:30
Oh, I understand that. I get that, because it’s called Your Purposeful Life. And I love that you’re like, “I thought it has to be astute. Everything has to have an answer, because that’s what everyone wants.” Everyone wants an answer. I have these students in this mentorship program, and they asked a question, and I talked for seven minutes. My fathom is like that’s like a monologue, and I was like, “I have fully answered your question, and I want to acknowledge that it doesn’t sound like there’s an answer in there because you want yes or no.”

Adrian Starks 5:01
That’s the truth.

Lesley Logan 5:01
But it’s such a lot of questions about our life and the things that we do. There’s nuances; there’s things that might be too much purpose for you and not enough for someone else. And so it’s complicated.

Adrian Starks 5:14
It’s very complicated. And I go by the philosophy of Socrates. He said that “I know that I know nothing,” and that is something that is very courageous to do in this day and time. Yes, we want to be knowledgeable about things. Yes, we want to have things that we give to people that are correct, because, like in your case, when you’re teaching people, you want the knowledge to be there for them. But there’s a lot of cases where there’s just some things we don’t know, and that’s okay. That’s what learning is for, and being able to be a person in your field and be a leader, and say, “You know what, I don’t know, but I would like to find that answer out with you, or find some type of solution to what this is.” And that’s where I feel like we’re living now in this day and time; people are looking for solutions, but they’re also looking for connection to that solution.

Lesley Logan 6:06
Yeah, and I think there’s a trust to be built there. There has to be something that there’s an alignment. I actually remember when I first became a Pilates instructor, I think I had to know the answer to everything, and I have found that my clients and the students I teach, they might not love when I say, “I don’t know. Let me think about it,” but also I may never know. The person I studied under has passed, the person he studied under has passed, like there’s just going to be some things we don’t have an answer to. So I think it’s very brave and courageous to be like, “I don’t know the answer to that, but this is what I know, and I know enough of this to keep going in this direction.” Being a recovering perfectionist and overachiever, I used to really need someone to tell me the right or left turn to take, and I’ve gotten better at going, “Oh, I’m going to take this left-hand turn, and based on the information I have, it should get me where I’m going, and if it doesn’t, we’ll get as far as we did, and we’ll figure it out.”

Adrian Starks 7:05
That is the same way with me, too. You and I both share that common theme of being the perfectionist and wanting to have, we call these Type A personalities, they want certain things a certain way, and that’s okay. But there are times where you have to just let things flow. I was thinking about this the other day. I had a day where everything seemed to be going against me, and I was trying my best, because I’m very stubborn, to make things go the way that I wanted them to. And the more I did that, I found that there was more resistance, something got delayed, something didn’t happen, something fell through, and then I realized that, okay, I’m going against the nature of things. And when we go against the nature of things, when we try to make things perfect when they’re not meant to be, that’s going to be major resistance, because everything has to flow a certain way.

Lesley Logan 7:57
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 7:57
I’m all about looking at nature as a way of teaching, and if you look at the salmon, so I’m from the Pacific Northwest, here in Seattle, and the salmon, when they go upstream, that one last journey to lay their eggs then spawn, they go upstream. That’s the last thing they do when they get there, is do that, and then they die. Now, the question remains: is it the exhaustion that gets them? Is it just that that was their purpose, like we’re going to go back, we’re going to give life, and then that’s it? Well, there’s a number of things going on, but the true essence is that that journey against the flow of the river, that’s what exhausts them. So, by the time they get to the top and they do their thing, there is no energy left to go back.

Lesley Logan 8:47
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 8:48
And when I look at our days and our lives, and when we’re going against the grain of what our purposes are, then that creates major resistance. It makes us feel like we’re not worth it, makes us feel like we’re not perfect. It makes us feel like we’re incompetent, and the answer to that is that we’re not. We’re truly good at where we are. We can always be better, but we don’t need to be perfect.

Lesley Logan 9:11
Yeah, I interviewed someone about being 1% better every day, and eventually that just is too compounding for me. I’ve done math, and that’s a lot, for the recovering overachiever. 1% better every day, and it’s like some days you’re gonna be 3% worse, because you made a mistake that you had to go learn and unravel and go back, and that requires… there’s just things, it’s a lot of pressure. But I do think that as long as your intention is to be a learner and to continue to put out what you feel your creative spirit is, then you’re going to make mistakes, but you can recover from them and keep going, and you learn more, you have better muscle strength. Some days when you’re having those resistances, you actually just build stronger resilience for what you’re going to do, because the closer you get to the thing that you want, you’ll have a lot of rejection along the way. People doubting that your idea is a good one, and you need to strengthen your resilience, so you can get to where you want to go. Because when you get there, there’s going to still be some doubters; it’s going to be even more, because now you’re more known for it. And so now there are these people who are like, “Who do you think you are?” And it’s like, I think I’m the person who’s been working on this for 20 years. Where are you? You just got here.

Adrian Starks 10:25
Exactly. That’s what people see, they see the outcome, they see just that result. They don’t see the build-up to it.

Lesley Logan 10:31
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 10:32
And it’s like when you look at trees when they grow, you don’t see the roots that are deep into the ground that have spent years getting its grounding so the tree can go upward and it can balance itself. You only see the blossoming of the tree, and we forget that there’s a lot going on in the dark here, a lot that’s causing this tree to be the way it is. And I love the fact that you said learning too, because that kind of rang a bell with me when I talk about purposeful living. There’s three cycles, and one of them is learning. We have to be constant students of ourselves and our environments, learning what is actually going on in my environment, what am I not getting, what mistakes am I making, what can I improve, and then that learning process will trigger the second step. Once you realize that, that second step is growth.

Lesley Logan 11:19
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 11:20
We trust what we’ve learned. Right now, we’re beginning to put it into action a little bit. We’re starting to apply it, like, “Okay, this didn’t work. Let me dial back here. Let me try this now. Let me try something different. Let me try a different road. Let me not go down this road anymore.” And then, once you do that enough, that growth, then we move into the third part of the cycle, which is self-expression. That’s the complete trust that now you’ve learned it, you put it into action, and now you know what works and what doesn’t work for you. Now you’re just going to have some fun with it. Then once you start having fun, the confidence builds up. Okay, now let’s learn some more, let’s grow some.

Lesley Logan 11:58
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 11:59
And you just keep doing that over and over through your lifespan here on the planet. And the beautiful thing is, like you were mentioning, you don’t have to be perfect doing it, make a mess, and then clean it up as you go.

Lesley Logan 12:10
Oh my god, I think the best things… I look at them in my office at the end of the day, and I’m like, “Yeah, we did some great work here.” Maybe that’s the ADHD that just puts things down instead of putting it away, but at the end of the day I look and go, “Oh yeah, if I thought I didn’t do anything today, I was wrong.” Clearly, I’ve been in every place in this room, I’ve done all these things, and I think that’s a sign of a good day. It’s interesting. I think another part of that growth process you’re talking about is putting yourself around people who are the next step ahead, because if you end up doing all of that, and then you’re just surrounded by people who haven’t done that, it’s really easy to either get a little full of yourself or to stop growing, or think that there’s not another level. I’ve always had some great friends in my career that are about seven to 10 years ahead of me in age or in the profession, and I love it because they are always telling me what their complaints are, and I can go, “Oh, well, I don’t have to experience that complaint. That sounds like a terrible thing, that sounds really exhausting.” If I just change it now, I feel like I’m a little bit… not skipping ahead, but just having stronger guidance towards where I’m at and what I’m doing. So it’s almost like the HOV lane on the freeway. I’m still going to be in a little bit of traffic, but it’s a little less, less people.

Adrian Starks 13:33
No, I agree with you. I love that, because it’s so true. We do need to surround ourselves with people that uplift us, inspire us, and also show us what not to do. We can learn two ways: learn what to do and learn what not to do. A lot of times, learning what not to do is even bigger than learning what to do. It saves you time and energy. And we also have to be careful, too, with people that are around us that may be, not intentionally but unconsciously, pulling us away from that thing that we really want to do for ourselves, for our communities, for society. We get used to just being the person that’s like, “Okay, we’re good, we have a good time, and we get along.” But is this person really, or this group, are they really challenging you to grow? Are they really allowing you to see things that you need to see in order to move forward? And it’s hard. It’s really hard to think about that consciously, because we get so used to just being in the group, and we can talk a lot about self-reliance, but we need each other.

Lesley Logan 14:40
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 14:41
You can never ascend alone; I believe that completely. Back in the day when I was doing my professional speaking on stages, I was in Canada, I was speaking, I thought it was all about me. I was like, “Hey, I got the answers, I’m teaching everybody.” Then, boom, COVID hit. Humbleness, you know. It was like there was nobody around, because I was just by myself, and I was just doing my thing. I didn’t have that group or those people to reassure me to say, “Hey, okay, you need to recalibrate here. We’re doing this over here, you might want to take a look at what we’re doing.” I didn’t have that group, and I’m glad that you said that, because there needs to be people that kind of challenge you. But at the same time, when you hit a pocket where it’s like, “What do I do? How do I get better?” then you have that group to look to, or that person to look to, as an example.

Lesley Logan 15:40
I agree. I think it’s really easy, and I see it happening now, because it’s almost like we forgot that there was a COVID. My schedule, even though as intentional as I’ve been, it’s been very busy, and people are like, “Oh, when are you coming back?” And I’m like, “Probably not till 2028. I have not accepted any gigs for next year. I’ve not accepted any gigs.” I’ve got an idea that I need to do, and that’s gonna require me to be at home, and I’ve got another idea that won’t happen unless I’m at home, so I gotta do that. And people just look at me like, “What?” And I’m like, “This is how busy I was pre-COVID.” And then during COVID, it became very clear who my friends were because we were just at the same places at the same time, and who my friends were because they wanted to talk to me even when we weren’t running into each other. So that really helped me go, “Okay, these are the people who care about me, no matter how they benefit, right?” And then these other people, they’re not bad people if that’s all they want to talk to me, but it’s just that it’s interesting to note who you want to share things with. But I think we have to realize that there was this beautiful time that helped us reflect on where we were going, and we got this reset, and how we used it hopefully was intentional. And then now we’re back at it, and it’s so easy to forget what that was. I’m seeing people fall back into the patterns of pre-COVID, and I’m like, I need to have intentional relationships. And speaking back to your podcast, my purpose is something that will probably change, will change as my life goes on, but if I’m not paying attention to it, I’m not gonna realize that; I’m gonna be doing five years ago’s purpose.

Adrian Starks 17:19
It’s true. In the purpose thing, it’s not what you find, it’s what you do, and it’s constantly evolving with you. We talked about in the beginning, you were asking me about what changed and what brought this about; it was just the changing of my purpose. I realized that there were things now that… okay, now I’m interested in this, or now this is moving into this direction because of these external situations that I can’t control, so how do I adapt? Thomas Carlyle, he was a Scottish philosopher, and he said that a person without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder. What that means is that when you don’t have a rudder in your ship, when something comes around unexpectedly, your ship just starts spinning and it goes off course. But when you have a rudder, meaning you have a purpose, something you’re working with, no matter what’s happening, you can navigate and be like, “Okay, let’s make a little adjustment here. This may not work, but we’re still going to go ahead with the plan.” The plan is just altered a little bit, and that’s what it is to be purposeful. It’s just actively knowing that this year was different than three years ago, and so this year, what can we do that matches the frequency and energy and intensity of where we’re at right now? And that’s what I’ve come to realize, it’s just you don’t have to look back and say, “This is where I was, oh poor me.” A lot of people felt this way, and I felt this way, like what happened to that spark, what happened to that person that was doing all these things over here? And I have to come to a reality check. Life… shit happens. Things happen, and we can’t control them, but we also have the amazing ability as human beings to adapt and adjust.

Lesley Logan 18:56
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 18:57
We’re the only species on the planet that can do that. All the other things of nature and animals, if there’s a cliff, they just keep going because they know they got to get on the other side, migration-wise. But when it’s us, we’re like, “That shit ain’t working. This is not working, we’ll go over here.” That’s our ability to do that, and that’s why I said the purpose, it’s like you can guide it, it doesn’t necessarily have to pull you, and that’s where we get our true self-creative factors coming from and just making changes that we need to make in our lives.

Lesley Logan 19:30
Yeah, so I want to go back to because you know what your podcast has become now. Brad and I have been making changes to our pod, and we were on our vacation in Europe, and we’re listening to a podcast, and it started with like… I say we’re gonna stop playing the music before the ads. Why are we doing that? Because if we want it to sound really produced, we have great producers, they’re listening to this, you guys are amazing, love you, but they’re great producers with or without that. And all these other podcasts I listen to, they don’t have the music going into it, they just go into an ad. And that’s kind of annoying, but you know what? How the podcast gets paid is for ads, so sorry, that’s how it’s paid for. These things cost a lot of money to do, so we’re doing that. And it’s like, “Well, what else?” And I’m like, “You know, I’m actually bored of this. I’m actually tired of that.” And then you’re like, “Oh my god, but my listeners are so used to it, people don’t like change.” But also it’s like, “But this is my podcast, and I have to like doing it.” So, what are some changes you’ve made, or decisions you’ve done? And then, did you think about how did you… did you tell the listeners, or you just did it? How did you do it?

Adrian Starks 20:34
I have to say, to be honest and fully transparent, I did not tell my listeners I was going to take a hiatus off. I just did it. And what’s interesting is that listeners… they begin to listen more because they missed that space. There’s this saying that people don’t miss you until you’re gone.

Lesley Logan 20:53
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 20:54
When people don’t hear from you, they get very curious. I always say this to people, I say, “I’m incubating.” They’re like… “I’m cooking up some stuff here, I’m working on some other things that I’m just incubating right now, but there’s still things you can listen to.” And I think that it would be nice to tell our listeners that, “Hey, I’m going to go on a five-month hiatus here, or six months, or seven months.” But in all honesty, I don’t think that would be… for me, that wouldn’t be a good idea, because then they just stop listening. They’ll just start moving on to something.

Lesley Logan 21:23
Yeah because they know, “Okay, they’ll be back in six months.”

Adrian Starks 21:25
So they’re like, “Well, he’s not gonna release anything new, so we’re just gonna move on to the next person.” And some people will do that, but I think that at the end of the day, we’re human. If we’re taking off and we’re gone, we’re gone. And when we come back, then we can explain, like, “Hey, I was gone for a minute. This is what’s been going on.” People want the real these days, and they want to know what is going on in your life.

Lesley Logan 21:48
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 21:49
Like I remember when professional speaking was so polished, everyone was on stage, they had suits and ties on, and I’ll never forget I started out with a suit and tie. For some people, they can feel good; that makes them feel great. But I was like, “This is not me, I can’t be this person.” So I stopped wearing the suit and tie, I started being myself, wearing casual clothes. Then the podcasting industry kicked off, it boomed. It started back in 2018 is when it really began to take off, and at the podcasting stage, I was beginning to do the same thing: well-polished, all this stuff, and then I realized, no, not me. And the podcast over time has changed, it’s evolved. You will see different perspectives of myself. There was one person asking me, “Do you think you should take down the episodes from the very beginning, because it’s so not in alignment with what you’re doing now?” And I said, “Absolutely not.” I said, “This shows transparency, that I started with this idea, now we’re moving on to these things, and it just shows the purpose, how it’s constantly changing.” And that’s where we’re at. But yeah, back to your question, I kind of went on a tangent there, but back to your question about whether you tell people or not: I think no. I think we do what comes natural, and yeah. In this day and time, everyone wants attention. I’ve noticed this on social media, I’m gonna have to say it, I’m gonna have to bring it up here, it’s been on my mind a lot, everybody wants attention, everybody’s doing podcasting right now. Lesley, you’ve been around for quite some time, you’re a veteran in podcasting, but the people now… everybody, birds, cats, dogs, they all have podcasts now.

Lesley Logan 23:26
I know everybody wants.

Adrian Starks 23:27
To be on a podcast, and you know what? It’s saturated the market. We’re competing with people who don’t really have a passion for what they do; they’re just getting people on their show to talk to. I know some people will disagree with that, and that’s okay, but this is my perspective because I’ve seen it. When we feel a certain way, like something doesn’t resonate with us, it’s okay to pull away. That shows we truly are in our essence. We’re not doing this to impress, and we’re not doing this hoping you stay with me and follow me. If you connect with me energetically and you really like what I do, then you’ll go with the flow. I understand it’s a business for us too, and we have to continue to do the things that bring business, but at the same time, it is what it is. You just have to know that if you’re feeling a certain way, either do it or don’t do it. I have this thing I do: if I’m not feeling an episode, I’m not going to get on a mic. I’m not going to talk if I’m having a shitty day, sorry for my language here, but if I’m having one of those days where I’ve encountered someone or done something in business and it’s just not sitting right with me, then I’m not going to get on the mic. At that point, that energy is going to come across, my head will be somewhere else, and I’m not truly present. So, I think it’s great for us to be able to take time off and just step away for a bit.

Lesley Logan 24:49
I appreciate you saying that. There’s this one podcast that Brad listened to, and the guy was like, “I’m taking off three months. Here’s why I’m doing that, and here’s what’s going on.” He was very honest. He said, “I’m having some burnout, I feel like I’m overworking, and I want to put some new systems in place.” Then he said, “And here are the things I created for you.” And I thought, Oh my god, why would you do that? You are tired. It was very thoughtful, but that was just extra work just to get to the finish line. And this other podcast I listened to, I realized, like, a couple, because he’s a Friday podcast, it’s True Crime of the Week, and so obviously it’s very topical, it’s very like time sensitive, and like after a couple weeks I was like, oh, that’s interesting, I haven’t heard from him in a bit, right, and then it kind of just went on, and the other day, two weeks ago, he came back, and I was like, oh, they’re The True Crime of the Week, right, I was so excited to see it in my lineup, so I like hit it, and he goes, yeah, it was supposed to take a two week hiatus, and I took four months, and I apologize, it’s been a while, but I really.. this is what I didn’t know. There’s a lot going on that just.. it felt like I didn’t feel like I could talk about true crime with all the heaviness that’s going on, and I didn’t have the words to say what I was feeling, and so I just took time for myself, and I was like, you know what, I actually hold nothing against him, because I actually found that to be even more honest. It was like I needed time off, because I’m a big fan of, like, I’m not going to share anything with the world unless I fully processed it, because then, and I learned this from Tiffany Haddish, from her book, The Last Black Unicorn, she’s like, if you have fully processed it, then no matter what people say, it’s just going to bounce right off of you, right, but if you haven’t fully processed it and you shared it, you’re gonna take whatever they’re saying personally, or you’re gonna be offended by it, or you’re gonna get frustrated, or you’re gonna feel like you defend yourself again. And so I’m often late to some of the topics that are online, because it takes me a little bit to go, well, how do I feel? Does that bother me? Why does it bother me? What’s going on? And then when I’ve processed it, then I’ll, then I’ll share it, and I find, like, I think it’s better to be human, and social media is a problem. Podcasting, oh my god, there’s so many. I’m proud to say this podcast in the top 1% of all podcasts in the world, even with all the crap that’s out there. But, like, I find that sometimes I’m like, oh, I should have more followers or more likes on the posts that I have based on my career, but I won’t do the click bait stuff. I refuse to do these three exercises, help you trim your waist. It’s like, no, if you’re perimenopausal, good fucking luck, and your hormones.. like, I’m sorry, there isn’t, you know? My girlfriend was like, “Just say these three, and then, and then get them to click and go sorry, there is none. Go talk to your doctor.” I’m like, that is just going to get people mad, like that would piss me off. I felt lied to, so it’s not my style. So, I think, you have to stay true to yourself, and sometimes that means just honoring the pause. But also, Adrian, I feel like that requires self-reflection. So, what are you doing? Because it feels like you’re quite knowledgeable about yourself. What do you do to make sure you’re checking in with yourself? Do you journal? What do you do?

Adrian Starks 27:41
So, I would say that the first thing I do is I ask myself questions. I know that a lot of people talk about journaling, and that’s part of it, but in all honesty, I just ask myself, what’s going on? You just gotta sit down somewhere and just say, okay, what’s going on? What am I not happy about? What do I want? That’s the big thing. What do I want? And then you start thinking in your head, and then thoughts start rolling. And as those thoughts start rolling, write some of them out or record them. Either way, document them somewhere. Then I ask myself, what do I want to do? Not like what do I want to do in five years, because that’s just too much processing in a time where you’re just like

Lesley Logan 28:23
I agree. Just here to harm me, but I do know what I have told my team is I want to be retired in 10, but what I want to do in five is like a whole different story.

Adrian Starks 28:33
It is, and we put time frames on ourselves, or we put this limit of like, I got to be here in five years, it’s a good marker to get you going, but it’s not necessarily something you need to be focused on, like that’s what you, that’s how it’s going to end up, like it could be a number of things that happens between that point that brings that goal about, but like I said, there’s, and I have to be careful the word goal, because the goal I feel is very saturated too, and I use it in a different term, I use goal as this, g o a l, get out and live, do something. Yeah, I use that as that’s what I use for it. It just teaches me that when I said something, it forces me to get outside of my box and start living a little bit. Scare yourself a little bit. Say I’m gonna go over here, I’m gonna fly over here, I’m gonna spend time over here, or I’m gonna do this, do something that’s just out of your comfort zone to get you out of that rut. And then that’s what I do. So, once I’m out of the rut, then I’m like, okay, now let’s sit down and let’s look at creating a plan. But the first thing is, you got to get yourself out of the rut, you got to do something just to move, move your body, so to speak, right? You tell your clients this, move your body, you got to move, move, move your thoughts out of this head, and to put it somewhere else, but I do that, so I do a lot of self-reflection of asking myself, what do I want, what’s going on, and then I also remind myself of what I’ve been doing. You’ve got to give yourself a pat on the back, because whatever you’ve been doing, it’s been working.

Lesley Logan 29:58
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 29:59
And a lot of times we have high expectations for ourselves because we live in a world of comparisons, and it’s very easy to do that now. Because when you go online, it’s not just people who are very successful out there. You can see your friends, your family, and you’re like, “Oh, hey, they flew over here and went to the Bahamas. I’m stuck here in this area over here, I can’t even do this.” And then you start down-talking yourself.

Lesley Logan 30:24
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 30:26
This happens with people in relationships and business and social environments, and so I think be careful with comparisons.

Lesley Logan 30:32
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 30:34
So I make sure I don’t do that. That’s why I get away from social media sometimes. I’ll spend maybe a few days detoxing. I won’t even look at social media, and then I’ll just kind of sit in the dark a little bit, so to speak, away from technology, and just ask myself questions. I do reading a lot. Reading is a big part of my life. You mentioned a book before, and I love reading books. I don’t necessarily read the whole book. I do what I call check-ins, so I will find something in the book that resonates with me, and then I will reflect on that

Lesley Logan 31:07
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 31:08
Along with my other things.

Lesley Logan 31:09
Yeah, I like the talking to yourself, because journaling for me is really great, but it’s really easy for it to become a to-do list. Like I could be, “Oh, don’t forget that.” But if I am out walking my dog, I mean, maybe it’s because I have ADHD and I’m an Aquarius, so I live in my head, but I have these interesting thoughts pop in and I’m like, where’s that coming from? Why am I thinking that? What have I been doing? And I love the pat yourself on the back with what you did do, because I do think most people, the reason they get into comparison is because they’ve forgotten what they did do. It’s why this podcast has a Friday episode where people have to share their wins, because I really think people need to realize there’s a lot of wins. And we had someone in one of our groups who was like, she had her best friend’s mom die three months ago, and her best friend died two weeks ago, and she’s like, “How do I still work on my goals during this time?” And I’m like, you don’t. You’re going through something. Loss is real, and we all grieve very differently. And maybe someone can work on their goals because they’re not tackling the grief right now, it’s not hitting them, and it hits them in five years. I don’t know, there’s different things, but I can’t sit here with the life experience I’ve had and the business coaching I’ve done and go, “Yeah, just do one thing a day.” No. Did you shower and sleep today? That’s great. Did you actually eat some food? Are your kids still alive? You’re nailing it, like you’re going through something. I think people aren’t realizing that the Bahamas trips are not the win. The win is, especially when you’re in something, the win is that you got up and you tried again today, you know? And I think reflecting on that is really important. I do think asking yourself what I want, that is, because I often think people ask themselves that five years ago but forgot to ask themselves four and three and two and today. And so they forget why they’re doing what they’re doing, because that’s not what they want anymore, but they never checked in.

Adrian Starks 33:03
They never checked in. And here’s the catch: the answer won’t come to you right away, and it’s not supposed to. You’re asking something deeper inside yourself that hasn’t been listened to with all the noise. So, once you put that there and you say, “What do I want?” then overnight, who knows? You may wake up in the morning and you’ve got an idea about something, so that’s coming from that deep part of you. And there was a Howard Thurman, he was the mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and he said that the greatest and the longest and hardest journey ever is a journey inward. And we avoid that journey because we don’t think there’s anything there. The answer is inside of us. We just don’t take out time to really probe and ask ourselves that question. We’re very good about asking other people questions, but we don’t want to ask ourselves questions, and that’s something that has evolved with me. It’s like, okay, you’re good at asking questions and interviewing, but what about you? What’s behind that skin of yours? What’s going on? What’s going on, dude? What are we doing today? You want to start checking in and being like, okay, what’s really the problem here? You got irritated with this person, they didn’t do anything to you. Then you got to pull yourself aside and say, okay, what’s happening?

Lesley Logan 34:16
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 34:17
Why am I upset? And that’s that self-reflection of like, okay, you’re upset because there’s a number of things that you’re ignoring that you’re putting to the side, and you’re feeling like people don’t see you because you don’t see yourself.

Lesley Logan 34:30
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 34:30
So therefore you’re putting that on other people, and that’s where we have to be very careful with ourselves and just be patient and be kind to ourselves more often, because that was a problem I had. I held myself to very high standards, that I had to do this, I had to be this way, I had to be well-polished. That’s why now you hear some curse words coming off of me, because I’m just being natural.

Lesley Logan 34:54
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 34:54
I mean, I can go off and say all these astute, know all these great words, and make myself look very articulate, blah blah blah blah, but at the end of the day, it’s like, how am I showing up right now? That’s the truth, and that’s what people need to hear. So, I would say, yeah, talk to yourself, ask yourself questions, and be careful with who you ask information from.

Lesley Logan 35:20
Yes.

Adrian Starks 35:21
Because that’s what gets you in trouble. And a lot of times with people working in environments where they may not be around the people that they choose to be around, I want to get to these people too, because a lot of people out there, they’re working in environments they don’t really want to be in, but they have an objective to get the hell out of there. But in the meantime, you’re with people, let’s just say the work world, seven, eight hours a day, and then you’re dealing with those people, and then you’re trying to get out of that environment. Well, you have to be careful what you listen to, how you conversate with them, and for goodness’ sake, don’t ask them for advice if they’re not doing what you’re doing, or if they haven’t dove into what you’re learning. Do not ask them, please, no, don’t confide in them. I don’t care how nice they are. There’s this thing too that came up about nice versus kind.

Lesley Logan 36:09
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 36:09
And people get in trouble with this. It’s like, okay, they’re a nice person, great, but do they have good intentions towards you? And most likely, it’s probably not.

Lesley Logan 36:18
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 36:19
A kind person, they just want to do good, they don’t need nothing from you, right? So, a lot of people get mixed up in that, so be careful. I would say to people, when you’re in that moment where you’re vulnerable, the vulnerable state, guard that.

Lesley Logan 36:32
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 36:32
Be careful, be careful, be careful. And one more thing about the grieving that you mentioned: I lost my father a few years ago, and I’m still grieving because he had such a powerful presence in my life. So, grieving is not something we get over. We’re supposed to learn to live with it. And I’ve cried multiple times, and every now and then, sometimes I catch myself, I’ll just tear up, but you know what? I let it flow, because that’s how he impacted me.

Lesley Logan 36:59
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 36:59
And for the person that you just mentioned, I would advise for them not to ignore that. If you have a moment and you’re with somebody, tell somebody, “Hey, you know what? I’m having a moment right now. I need to step away.” It’s okay to tell people that.

Lesley Logan 37:15
It’s actually kind. It’s kind because you’re being super… you’re actually being real authentic. You’re feeling your feel, and you’re letting people in like, “Hold on, I know we’re supposed to have coffee right now, I just need to have a moment.” And you can however you want to have that moment, go into your car, take the extra time, whatever that is. But I do think people think that they have to get over a loss like that, and the grief coaches that I’ve interviewed on this podcast, what I have really understood is that you don’t. That’s why grief is so hard. Your brain has to learn new rhythms and new patterns because that person’s not there, and that person was part of a blanket that you’ve woven of your life, and so you’re expecting that person where they repeat, and they’re not. So you have to weave a new pattern for your brain. It takes time.

Adrian Starks 38:00
It so takes time, and that’s all we’ve got. At the end of the day, we only have time. And time doesn’t go backwards, it doesn’t go forward, it’s just right there. And when we’re grieving something, or it could be not just someone in our family, could be anything, could be a loss of an opportunity, that’s a grieving thing. It could be a loss of a business or something. I mean, it could be anything. We have to just be mindful that we’re human, and don’t blame ourselves and don’t beat ourselves up internally about it. We have to just know that this is something that’s happened. Now, what can I do that can move me forward? And sometimes it’s just going to take time. Patience is what we have to have.

Lesley Logan 38:43
Yeah, also people don’t realize that you could be excited about the next step, and there’s still grief for what you left behind, you know? Like, I was so excited to move to Las Vegas, I still grieve that I closed a studio to do it, and I was very proud of that work, and I wasn’t really actually ready to close that studio, but this is really exciting. So, something can be exciting, and there’s still a loss that’s there that you have to go, “Oh, what about that am I bummed about? Where…” You have to let those feelings happen. And I think that the more people actually self-reflect, the more they’re going to find purpose in their life, they’re going to figure it out. I find like people are looking to others to figure out their purposes, and I want to go back to your advice thing, because I really think people have to hear this 17,000 times. And I love that you brought up like you can have that job that pays the bills, but don’t ask those people for advice. That might even be family too. I love mine, they listen to this pod, and sometimes I’ll tell you personally, I’m not asking them for advice. They’re not entrepreneurs, their face is not the business. If they say the wrong thing, they don’t have people who will be disappointed, like hundreds of people, you know. So, they’re not the best people for advice. Could I tell them things? Of course, that’s different, telling people something, sharing your life with them is very different than asking them what to do. And so you really might need to take some time to write down who would be the best people in my life to ask advice from. If you don’t have those people, like when I was first starting out, I didn’t have money or mentors, I had to go, okay, I’ve listened to podcasts starting like 2012, 2013, I’m like, “This person makes a lot of sense. This is the person I’m going to infer advice from,” and I would search their pods to find the thing that I thought might be an answer to my question. Sometimes it’s that. Sometimes you don’t even know the person you’re asking advice from, but be intentional about that. I agree.

Adrian Starks 40:33
Yeah, being intentional and just knowing that you’re going to vibe with people a certain way. There are some people out there in the industry when I first started that I liked, and some that I didn’t really vibe with. Didn’t mean that there was anything against them, it’s just that everyone’s different. So, advice I would also give is that don’t look at someone for their popularity, look for how they make you feel.

Lesley Logan 40:55
Beautiful.

Adrian Starks 40:56
Don’t look at someone and say, “Oh, they’ve got millions of comments, they’ve got millions of likes. Oh, they must know a lot. Let me listen to them.” No, nope, nope, nope, nope. That’s something that’s going to get your attention; it’s designed that way.

Lesley Logan 41:09
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 41:10
How do they make you feel?

Lesley Logan 41:12
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 41:13
No, how do they make you feel? How do they sound when you listen to them? Could you listen to them all day? Could you listen to them in your times of need? How do they make you feel? That’s the important thing of connection that we’re missing today. We’re so quick to look at the external, like, what has this person accomplished? Cool, then they’re credible. Awesome, I’ll follow. Awesome, I’ll subscribe. Awesome, I’ll comment.

Lesley Logan 41:35
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 41:35
They have a person over here, they may have a lot less, but they got a lot more to offer, and you’re passing that up because you’re just looking at numbers here. It’s like I would encourage people that now is the time for us to find guidance that aligns with our purpose of being. And everyone, there’s over how many people are on the planet right now?

Lesley Logan 41:56
It’s like 8 billion.

Adrian Starks 41:58
8 billion people on a planet. I heard this stat one time. Out of 8 billion people, no matter what you do in life, 5% of people are not going to like you, they’re not going to vibe with you, you’re not going to connect with them. 5%. So, my math may be really off, I’m not going to even say it, but it’s in the millions.

Lesley Logan 42:20
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 42:20
That you’re gonna have a disconnect with people, no matter what you do. You could be well-polished, have everything together, and someone’s gonna come around and be like, “Ah, they’re phony.” They’re gonna talk some shit about you, because they just don’t connect with you. They have no idea.

Lesley Logan 42:35
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 42:36
About your background, your pedigree, what you’ve done. They just want to.

Lesley Logan 42:40
We all do it. We all do it, like you see something on your Instagram out of social, and you’re like, just the first second, don’t like it. Moving on.

Adrian Starks 42:51
You move on. You’re like, “Hey, I’m not interested in it. What is this? This is silly.”

Lesley Logan 42:57
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 42:57
And that’s part of us. We just have a natural sense of either we connect or we don’t connect with certain things, and I think that in this time we’re living in now, people are very overstimulated.

Lesley Logan 43:07
Yes.

Adrian Starks 43:08
There’s so much information, there’s so many solutions, there’s so many offers, and we don’t know where to look. It reminds you of like when you’re sitting down and you have that night where it’s a movie night, right? And you’re just like, “Let me watch a movie, let me watch a TV show.” And all of a sudden you got all these options, applications, and you’re going from this application to this application, this application. Before you know it, it’s like 30, 40 minutes later, and then you just give up and say, “You know what, damn it, just pick something, pick anything,” because you’re tired of looking.

Lesley Logan 43:41
Yeah.

Adrian Starks 43:41
And that’s what’s happening with us. We’re just picking anything now we think is going to entertain us or bring us some type of joy.

Lesley Logan 43:48
Yeah, because we can’t handle being bored. Adrian, I could talk to you literally for more hours, but we do have to wrap this up. So we’re gonna take a brief break, and then we’re gonna find where people can find you, follow you, listen to your voice for many, many hours, and your Be It Action Items.

Lesley Logan 44:01
All right, Adrian, where do you hang out? Where can they listen to your podcast?

Adrian Starks 44:06
Okay, so you can listen to my podcast anywhere, pretty much. It’s called Your Purposeful Life with Adrian Starks. And go to my website, adrianstarks.com. You can listen to the podcast from there. You can go to my YouTube channel, which has the videos. You can also listen to some audio, I have affirmations that I’ve been doing lately as well.

Lesley Logan 44:25
Oh my god, do you have, if you don’t, you should have a Patreon for affirmations because if people are paying for you to be a narrator, can you imagine every day you read me an affirmation or a mantra? I love that.

Adrian Starks 44:39
I can do that, Lesley. Yes. They could go to adrianstarks.com. I just want to keep it simple for people, go to adrianstarks.com, all my social media handles are there, and you can just go wherever you choose and just be inspired and listen. And if you can, yeah, definitely subscribe to the podcast, it always helps. Share it whenever you can, but more importantly, just know this: that your purpose in life is not something you find, it’s something that you do, and that is going to change, is going to evolve with time, and that’s okay. Having self-doubt is okay, not knowing everything is okay. And now we live in a time where you’re never too old, don’t put an age on anything to start something new, or to pick up where you left off with something.

Lesley Logan 45:27
Oh my god, those are Be It Action Items if I ever heard any. Like, you just led right in, and I’m obsessed with all of them. Great. Adrian Starks, I’m so happy we did this. We’ll have to do this again. You’ll have to be a person who keeps going back on, because you just have so much great wisdom. You guys, share this with a friend who needs to hear it. Share with a friend who’s stuck on like, “What’s my purpose?” They need to hear this, because it’s like that Dr. Seuss book, like, Are You My Mother? You know, it’s like that’s not how you find it. It’s got to be some self-reflection. So, thank you. We’ll do this again, and until next time, my loves, Be It Till You See It.

Lesley Logan 46:03
That’s all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

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Lesley Logan
‘Be It Till You See It’ is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @be_it_pod.

Brad Crowell
It’s written, filmed and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan
It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell
Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music and our branding by designer and artist Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan
Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell
Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.