Shownotes

Everyone seems to be searching for their “purpose”. Is there really a way to discover what is meant for you? What are the steps that can be taken to truly step into your purpose? Adrian Starks joins the podcast as a man dedicated to helping others achieve their purpose driven lives.

If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co. Or leave a comment below!

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In this episode you will learn about:

• How living with purpose changes your life
• The first step in discovering your purpose
• The three reasons we are here on this planet
• How to create space to be curious and be purposeful
• The bridge to being more purposeful and growing beyond your environment
• What it means to be in an active state
• Did we train our mind to accept things that please others?

Episode References/Links:

• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxZH37YbKdYm1fT-bVg_ZLQ
• Website: https://yourpurposeful.life/

Transcript

Lesley Logan
Hey, Be It babe. How are you? Welcome back. Thank you for being here. I am loving, being back in my podcast room, recording some guests, especially because all of these guests I have been waiting to interview for months. Actually, one of the things that I had, it was intentional about a few years ago was that I wanted to take December’s off. And in order to do that, I had to get, you know, a 12 months of work done in 11 and kind of less. And I started that about 2020. And what that allowed me to do was have December off in 2021. And then that allowed me to have it off in 2022. Why am I telling you this? Because if you want to make change, you actually have to make a change … I know, that’s like, duh. But seriously, you actually can’t expect things to just happen. So when I wanted to have December’s off, I didn’t get to have that December off that year, which was when I got to part of it, but I got to actually do the work to be it till I see it to have the next December off and the next December off. And so that meant, meeting amazing people like today’s guests, Adrian Starks. Months ago, asked him to gonna be on the podcast months ago, and then going, by the way, you won’t see anything open until January because that’s all I had. I had to block things off so I could get things done. And so this guest I’ve been so excited to have on the show, he has an incredible podcast called Your Purposeful Life. I’ve been on it, you must go listen to that episode and the episodes that came out around it, and all the episodes just binge out actually. Because what Adrian is helping you do is be more purposeful with your life. And there isn’t one way to do that. And I’m so excited for you to hear his words. First of all, his voice is gonna blow your mind. Second of all, there’s so much honesty and vulnerability in this episode. And I really want you to listen to that. So if you’re on a walk, enjoy, if you’re driving your car in traffic, I hope that we help you get past any negative nancies that are out there on the road with you. And let us know what out of this podcast helps you live your purposeful life. Lets you be it till you see it. I want to know. And so you will and then make sure you tag the @be_it_pod. And if you have any questions, feel free to send those in. We’ll make sure put them in the recaps. And until and you know, help you out in any way we can because we’re here to help you be it till you see it to enjoy imperfections in your life and with our guests Adrian to help you live your purposeful life. And so, here is Adrian Starks.

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Lesley Logan
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 thousands 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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EPISODE

Lesley Logan
All right, Be It babe. I’m so stoked. First of all, I cannot wait for you to hear the voice that’s about to appear on the other side of mine. In this moment, but I have an amazing guest here. I got to meet him by being on his incredible podcast. And so when I got to know him more, and got to hear what his story is, I was like, “Oh, my God, you have to be on the Be It pod.” Because if Adrian has not been be it till he saw it then I don’t really know who has. So Adrian Starks, thank you for being on the Be It Till You See It podcast. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you’re rockin at these days?

Adrian Starks
Oh, well, I’m happy to be here. First of all, Lesley, thank you. And yes, I’m Adrian Starks. I am a podcast host of Your Purposeful Life. I’m a speaker, narrator, entrepreneur and writer. So I do a lot of things. And right now I’m just hanging out in the purposeful life world and just being it till I see it. You know what I’m saying?

Lesley Logan
I do. I do. Was like, was, were you always living your purposeful life? Or like, did you come upon something that was like, “I need to be more purposeful?” How did that come about?

Adrian Starks
Hell, no. I have to say, it took some time to get there. I used to be one of those people that would ask the question, What is my purpose? What is my purpose? And the universe never gave me an answer back. And I kept getting myself into constant messes, which I call the human mess. But I never learned for them until eventually, I decided that I was responsible for my own mess. And I had to figure out how to create a better process. And this hit me probably about a couple of years ago. And I realized I said, Oh, wow, it’s not what is my purpose? It’s what do I want to be purposeful towards? What do I need to do on my end to make some changes happen? What energy do I need to shift out there to create something different that I really want to experience? And it took a lot of mistakes, a lot of challenges, a lot of going through the motions. But eventually, I got to the point where I was like, “This is my sweet spot. I’m going to be here in my lane, and anybody that gets in his lane, they better be rolling with me. If they’re not, then I’m gonna roll past them.” And that’s where I’m at now, with my life of just energetically being purposeful about what I do.

Lesley Logan
So there’s a few things that I really love there. First of all, the human mess, human mess. I’m like, aren’t we all? And I also, thank you for sharing like that whole like, “What is my purpose?” Because I have a lot of people like, “I don’t know, my purpose is.” And it’s like, I think we’re expecting it to just like … you know, like, the world stops and everything glows, and it’s like, “Ah, this is it.” And you’re like, here’s what, here’s what it is. And it’s actually, you know, I think that’s a lot of pressure. You know, like, so much pressure, like, we’re, we don’t all have to cure cancer and become president of something. Like we, you’re, you know, but so I love that you’re like, “How do I be more purposeful?” What a, what a great way to take action in your life, instead of waiting for your purpose to find you. Or for you to be able to find what that purpose is. How did you start like with one thing at a time, like what how did you start becoming more purposeful? Like, what is that first step?

Adrian Starks
The first step is finding out or self discovery. You got to dig in deep in yourself, you got to learn how to start dating yourself again. It’s really the truth. You got to start learning how to ask yourself questions. What do I want to do? Where do I want to go next? What do I want to experience? And you have to get crystal clear on that. And I remember this quote from Thomas Carlyle, he is a Scottish philosopher. And he said that ‘a person without a purpose, it’s like a ship without a rudder. You can’t go anywhere.’ So at some point, you have to ask yourself, “Okay, what do I want this thing to be?” And you have to know yourself first. I know it’s hard for a lot of you to hear that because you’re like, “Oh, I know myself.” No, you don’t. No, you don’t. I’m still learning about myself as we speak right now. And there’s so many things that you haven’t asked yourself about, or even decided to go in and do what we call an interrogation or or questioning of yourself. Sometimes you have to go on your own nerves and say, “What the hell is wrong with me right now? And why am I doing this? Why am I choosing this path? Why am I choosing these people? Why am I choosing this?” When you start asking that question, then you’ll dial back and the answer will come in silence. So back to your question. My purpose came in many different forms and fashions. And now I’ve just learned to take a few of them and blend them in together.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, I love that dating yourself. I think so often people, they do things because they’ve always done that way. This is how I sell. Like, there’s a funny story that it will all make a point like my in laws. They, the my mother in law was making the turkey and she like, “Cut the top of the turkey off and put it in the oven.” Just every year cut the top of the turkey off, put in the oven? And finally someone goes, “Why did you, why are you cutting the top of the turkey off? What are you doing?” And she goes, “Let me call my mom.” And she calls her mom. And she’s like, “Hey, Mom, I’m cooking the turkey. The way you cook the turkey? Why do you cut the top of the turkey off?” And she said, “Well, my ovens too small for full size turkeys.” So like, I think we don’t realize like we’ve been doing things like we do these things. Because the way our parents did them, because we’ve always done them that way. Because that’s how everyone does it. And we’ve like until someone goes, “Why don’t we go? Why do I do? Why do I like my eggs this way? Why do I get up?” Or like what what are those, you can’t really know yourself. And then you just keep like you’re walking through life. And it’s a, it’s this, it’s Groundhog Day.

Adrian Starks
It’s a Groundhog Day. And the greatest journey is to journey inward. And I have to say this to the audience today. The longest and hardest journey is a journey inward and you’re not going to figure everything out right away. So don’t put that pressure on yourself. You don’t need to know everything. There’s some people that will say they do. And if they do say that they’re very silly humans. Because they don’t know everything. And if you did, what else is there to learn? And I always have this this thing too about the best version of yourself. I don’t like that term. And I’ll tell you why. When we say that I want to be the best version of myself. Then what else is there once you hit that ceiling? (Lesley: Yeah.) Where else you’re gonna go. You’re here on this planet to do three things. That’s to learn. Some of us are hard at learning. We don’t want to learn our lessons. I was there many times and I still am at some point. I can be a hard head. Two, we learn and then we have to grow. That means we have to take what we’ve learned applied into action. You talked about this be it till you see it. You’d learn something, okay, it’s not there right now. What do we do? We start acting toward that thing. And then with the growth, yeah.

Lesley Logan
Yeah. So okay. So, learning, I love that you said like, well, some of us just don’t wanna be wrong. That’s why I think that learning is hard. Because you could end up being wrong like you could have been how many Thanksgivings, just to, they cut the best part of turkey. Do you know what I mean? Like … (Adrian: It’s true …) So, I don’t want to be wrong, I think like we’re, if we learn, we might be like, “Oh, we might have to like do it differently.” And then that’s really scary action. By the way, I said in the intro, this podcast, if you keep skipping through, you’re skipping through a good stuff. Action is a, is the antidote to fear. So if you’re scared of that, like take action, it feels really good. And then growth can come from that because you get clarity. I do love, thank you for saying that I’ve, because we always say I wanna be the best version of myself, but then it’s almost like a period. It’s like a p… I got like a peak, you know, and I have an episode that I will already have come out by the time this one does. But the guest was like, Keri Ford. So like, you know, it’s a mountain with no peak. Like, like learning about yourself and growing is like, you’re just on a mountain with no peak. And that can sound really depressing or could be really exciting. I’m like, what views are up here? What these are up here? And what am I gonna learn up here? So, on this journey, did you ever get frustrated with yourself? Because it’s not like you can go from like, trying to, like do everything right? And like, and then going to like looking for your purpose and then getting comfortable with like, I’ll never actually like I’ll never be done.

Adrian Starks
… I’m glad you asked that question, I want to address two things. When I say purpose is when I say purposeful, because I’m constantly in the action of, of dating myself and getting familiar with my purpose and putting it into the action of energy and serving. So that’s why I say purposeful. What I want to get back to is the growth, I mentioned the learning, the growing, the third step is full expression. And this is where the purpose really manifests itself. This full expression is now the truth that you have and the trust you have and honoring yourself to know that I’ve grown so much and I love myself so much that I am willing to do this now despite the fact that may not be seen as perfect or the best. And that is what I called the cycle, learn, grow and fully express and in that is a human mess. Shit happens. Things come up. People come in, they come out, you make mistakes, but it’s like this canvas of paint that you just eventually you’re smearing things and eventually start seeing this reality called your life, unfolding. And like, “Oh, I can see why that happened over there? Why spilled that over there? I can see why this happened over here.” And then that chaos that we call problem. So we call disasters are basically things unfolding, that we truly don’t understand that eventually, at some point when they come together for the purpose of what we’re doing, we will understand and be like, “Damn, that’s what that was all about.”

Lesley Logan
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Like there’s a situation I was going through over the holidays and I and I was like noticing myself kind of like being like a victim and like being a victim of it. Like, why is this happening? Like, I can’t believe they’re doing this to me. Why, like all this stuff. And it’s like, then like there’s this like part of me that’s like, actually been learning so much. It’s like, what the fuck are you saying to yourself right now, you’re actually doing this right now. Like, you know, you know that this is actually going to be this is actually muscling you up for the next thing. And I don’t know, when I will look back and go so so glad I went through that. But I do know that it will work out that way. Because I to this day, it will be 10 years ago, this summer that I became homeless, totaled my car. And the studio, I rented space from close, like it all happened in the same month. And I remember literally when the third thing happened, just like what else do you want to take? Because I don’t want to take it with me. Like, I don’t want to move into the new place with any of the shit you’re going to take. So just take it now do you need a burn a fire? Like, what do you need? Right? And, and I knew in this like I had this like moment of like, this is all gonna be great someday. It really sucks right now. So it does take time to get to that spot where you can go, “Okay, what am I can learn from this? Where is this is going?” Like, and being curious in there. Were you always a curious person, or did this come as a moment? You’re like, I gotta be like, I gotta figure this out.

Adrian Starks
Oh, get out of my head. That was gonna talk about curiosity today. I’ve always been a curious person. Since I was a child. I was always that kid that was asking questions. And here’s a little bit of my story. When I was in elementary, I had a lot of teachers that were, they didn’t know what to do with me. I was very outspoken. I was very just energetic. And, to this day, my parents really were happy that they did not allow the teachers in the school system during that time. I’m 41. So I’m an 80s kid (Lesley: Yeah.) to shut me up, you know, (Lesley: Yeah.) 41 word up. They don’t even use that term anymore. But …

Lesley Logan
It’s okay. We’re bringing it back. There’s a lot of …

Adrian Starks
We’re bringing it back. We are tired to being in the background. 80s kids are popping up.

Lesley Logan
Oh, we’re gonna put it on a quote card.

Adrian Starks
We’re gonna do. We’re gonna bring it back. Yeah, remember cassettes, you remember CD. So yeah, during that time, I was very energetic. So the school was trying to put me into what they call medication. They claimed I had ADHD. And they really wanted to put me into a corner. My parents said, “No, he’s just, he needs to be taught a different way.” So it was little backlash from that. So I was remember getting my desk at this time, they can’t do this. But I would have my desk placed all against against the back wall of the room. And I was told not to turn around to talk to any students. And these are the things that trauma wise I grew up with. And I shut down for a very long time as I got into my middle school years because I associated talking with getting in trouble. (Lesley: Yeah.) And then my curiosity dropped. (Lesley: Yeah.) I was no longer interested in conversations with people. I just thought that if I say this in class, I’m gonna be quiet. (Lesley: Right.) But here’s the flip side of that. During lunch, I would always go to the library and eat because I became kind of, I wouldn’t say antisocial, I got scared of talking to people. (Lesley: Right.) And I started reading a lot. I started dissecting philosophers, poets, I started looking at all these things of the past and I fell in love with the art of poetry, Maya Angelou, I fell in love with people like James Baldwin. I fell in love with people like Ralph Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, I can go on and on and on, Wayne Dyer. I fell in love with Earl Nightingale, all these true voices pioneers. And I realized that, oh, also Louise Hay. And I realize there was a part of me that was missing. And so I got curious again, if I started reading a lot, and that curiosity came out more and more as I got older, I started asking questions, I started poking the bear a little bit, so to speak, I started challenging people’s perceptions. And I lost a lot of friends and behind that. A lot of people kind of just … just went with the wind. And that’s okay. I understood that I was speaking a part of me now that needed to. So back to your question of curiosity. That’s when it started when I started going to libraries during my middle school years. But at that point, I’m still curious, like, every day I want to know something different. (Lesley: Yeah.) I’m curious to know, why are you having a messed up day right now? I’m curious to know you know, what’s going on with this. You seem very happy. I’m curious to know well, why did you just tells me that this information is the only information I need to hear right now. Why is this the most important thing in the world? Why is this scaring you? Why do I feel the way I feel? Curiosity is what allows us to really be perceptive, and to see things like opportunities. And this is one way to get out to. (Lesley: Yeah.) With your purpose, if you really want to create a purpose, you got to be open to things that come up. You gotta be like, I see that door opening right there. I’m gonna go right through that damn thing. Even (Lesley: Yeah.) if it’s like close, I’m gonna go through it. I might get my foot caught in it, but at least I got a little bit of it. You got to get curious that way. You got to get curious enough to make a mistake to tell you know, someone that maybe I don’t know this. Can you, can you enlighten me on what your what your thought process is on this? That curiosity just never leaves me.

Lesley Logan
Yeah. And I just want to highlight here … Did you hear that rewind, if you’re curious enough to be able to make and be okay of making a mistake like that, because that’s how we learn like that is if you’re listening this and you want to get into business of any kind, I’m gonna tell you right now, you learn more from mistakes you make in your business than the things that go the way you planned. When things go the way you planned, you know, actually idea of like, what of those things that you did worked, but when you have when it doesn’t go the way you plan, and you can actually go, “Oh, well, here’s where we actually could have done something. Here’s we could have done something.” Like you can learn from that. So, all of this actually just takes time, though when you open to it, we have to actually create space for this. How how are you able to create space in your life to get curious and to take time to like work on your purpose and like work on being purposeful?

Adrian Starks
Being alone. I love my alone time. I’m what I call a hyped up introvert.

Lesley Logan
Oh, Brad calls me a high functioning one. My friends think I’m an ambivert. And we might be ambiverts. But I hyped up introvert. Okay, I’m in. Tell me more.

Adrian Starks
Okay, so this is what I mean by this. I love my alone time. I love quiet space. But at any point I can, I can gel with people. I can get into a conversation. I can walk into a room. I can really highlight people and really get and have fun. But I need my time to decompress. I need my time to re energize. And that comes from silence. I like to go and just be by myself. I love the ocean. I’m a water sign. So anything with running water soothes me. I go there and times to think ask myself questions. And I do a lot of I would say note taking, people call it journaling. I call it note taking because I take notes on my day and what I’ve been going through, that’s my alone time. That’s how I really learn more about myself. And I really find a way to, to re energize so to speak. So I like I like to be alone. But at the same time too much alone time. It’s not good enough for me because in my brain starts thinking too many things and I need to get around other people.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, I can thrive an alone time. But if I’m alone too much, then I actually can overwhelm myself with all the thoughts. And I … Yes, yes. Yeah. So um, I want to go back you before you were doing all the things you’re doing now, which you know, your podcaster, narrator all these things. Can you explain like, the bridge? Because I think a lot of people listen to this. They’re like they’re trying to work on the thing, or they have an idea of what it is that they’re like way more purposeful. They want to be it till they see it. And it’s hard. Like I think some people think it’s a light switch. Like I closed the door on this life. And I open the door on this life. And there’s actually, there’s a whole hallway y’all that you had to go through.

Adrian Starks
The hallway is long too. You can be crawling your knees at some point. And other point, you feel like you’re Spider Man, you’re crawling on the walls trying to avoid this door. It gets crazy. Yes, the answer to your question. Yeah, it was not a light bulb moment. Well, no, it wasn’t a light bulb moment for me where everything just happened. I used to work in a call center. So this a little bit of my background here. I have a degree in exercise physiology. So I worked in personal training for quite some time, but I really loved helping people. So then I got involved into the medical field, because I don’t know for some reason I thought I could do more. And I ended up in a call center in Seattle for about nine years. And here’s the funny thing. The call center was a calling to the centering of my life. I learned a lot of communication skills there on the phone, I learned how to talk to people, how to help people, how to see things from their perspective. And with that, after my seventh year, I got really tired. And I was just not wanting to go in and I don’t know if y’all feel this way. But if you ever went to a job and just pulling that door open seems heavy, minute you walk into the room, the atmosphere chokes you, and all you hear is just voices and you’re just like, “Damn, I wish I called out today. (Lesley: Right.) I should have called in sick.” That’s how I felt the last two years and then I had to change something. I started looking at what I wanted to do differently. So I knew that I really wanted to get more into the self improvement world. I was really inspired by the people I’ve mentioned earlier and one person in particular, Les Brown really inspired me. And I was like, “I want to be a speaker. I didn’t want to be a motivational speaker. I wanted to be a person of change agent, a voice.” And every time I would answer that phone a call center, they would think I was some automated system, they would say, “Hey, what are you doing here? You should be like doing voiceovers or something like that. Why are you answering the phones here?” And I’m like, “No. Well, thank you for that. Thank you that.” I get that all the time. It hit me like, “What the fuck am I doing here (Lesley: Yeah.) right now.” Sorry for my language. But I gotta say that to express that emotion. (Lesley: Yeah.) It’s like, what am I doing here right now? I’ve been here for too long. Where else can I go? Then I started looking at options for myself. And what I’m getting at here is that wherever you wherever you are, you must grow beyond your environment, don’t have an environment, try to change you, you have to change yourself within the environment and get so big enough in your thought process and how you feel about yourself that that damn environment can even hold you anymore. Things become easier when you do that, when you start focusing on things outside of yourself, like doing things other than work. So what I used to do is during on Fridays, this is my favorite part, I would take the bus to go back home. But Fridays were happy hour. So I would always go down into the lobby on Fridays. And I would sit at the table. And I write out my list of five things. Why I deserve my dream? I write up five statements every Friday, and people will come down the stairs, the elevator, “What are you still doing here? You should go home, have fun, it’s the weekend or come with us to happy hour.” I would say, “No, this is my productive hour. I’m gonna sit right here. I’m gonna write out these five things. And when I am done, then I will get on my bus.” And every time I did that every Friday, and this is what it took for me to grow beyond my environment. And what happened was I started getting opportunities to speak. I started traveling to Canada, right across the street in Vancouver. So I was speaking at schools, I started speaking at events. And next thing I know I’m doing some talks, professional talks. And one thing led into the other because I kept thinking about that vision. And remember y’all I’m gonna go back here, Thomas Carlyle, that Scottish philosopher I mentioned earlier, the quote, ‘a person without a purpose, like a ship without a rudder. You’re not going to go anywhere.’ And if you ask a captain, like, “Hey, what is your next port of destination?” They can tell you because they know what it is, regardless of what kind of weather comes their way. And that environment couldn’t hold me anymore. Because I knew my destination at that point. I wanted to get out of there, first of all, but I wanted to get more involved in public speaking and narrations.

Lesley Logan
Yeah. I love this because it’s like, I like a picture. This is like your happy hour, which is actually, like, the irony is like they’re going off to happy hour for that moment. But you spent this purposeful hour to create happiness in your life now. Like you’re like do you know what I mean? Like you’re not at that call center anymore, you’re doing the things that like, really light you up. And I also like I always tell people, you know, paste into the things that people are telling you all the time or asking you all the time because they actually think that you’re the expert in that, like the fact that like every time someone’s calling in, they’re like, “Why are you, why aren’t you, why aren’t you reading my audible book? (Adrian: Exactly.) Why are the person helping me with my password?” You know, I think, thank goodness, you were listening, though. I think, you know, to go back, like where with that whole? Like, what is my purpose? I was like waiting for a light bulb. It’s like, oftentimes, you’ve been hit over the head with it, y’all. It’s the things that people continue to ask you about. Or to, like, share with you like that is, that’s what they are seeing you as, and they’re a really good mirror for for us. You know, so can you talk about some other things that you’ve done, that have helped you go from like growing too big for your space from that space? And then and to that got you to where you’re doing today? And like what that looks like, because I know our peeps are like really big. They like to take the notes, they want to get the details they want to kind of know, how did you get there?

Adrian Starks
Great question. Well, sometimes you have to do things for free. I did a lot of volunteer work. While I was there in the call center. I would drive up to Vancouver every other weekend and volunteer for a workshop for about two hours. And what I did was I was studying under a person who was teaching workshops, they were actually a professional speaker. I just reached out to him and said, “Hey, I really like your style. I’d like to learn from you. But I also understand too that is not for free. Is there anything that we can bargain with? Can I come and volunteer? And while I’m volunteering, I can be a sponge. And whenever you need me to do I will do.” Did that for two years, went back and forth. And I was up there so much people thought I live there. So I I put in that time and I didn’t get paid for it. I did free talks, didn’t get paid for it. I was on social media, didn’t get acknowledged for it. And this is what it means when you’re in an active state, sometimes the world will not know what you’re doing and that’s okay. But when you start getting active enough and you start growing, people will begin to watch, they will begin to listen, they will begin to see that you’re being good to you see it. And then they start saying, “Oh, this person is not going anywhere. Freakin consistent. What’s going on with that? I won’t check this person out over here.” But there were times where Lesley I lost confidence in myself. I’m gonna say this right now. We, I think people put on this perfectionism mask, this is what you talk about, right? Is they make you like, I made it here. And this is what you got to do? No, it ain’t that easy. It’s not that one step. And it’s like, are you gonna be here? No, you’re gonna have to fall on your face a little bit. You got to get, get your elbows dirty a little bit. Is going to happen. If you don’t want that to happen, then stay comfortable. But if you really want to get outside that comfort zone, you’re gonna have to trip and fall a little bit and try some things out that may not work. There are a lot of things I did that did not work. I was with some people and partner with people, it did not work. So I tried something else. And I cannot say that, that I planned exactly how things are going to be. I had a plan, but I let things unfold. And as they unfolded, I decided, okay, this works. This doesn’t. Let me keep this over here. This works. This doesn’t. (Lesley: Yeah.) I just kept doing that over and over again until I got it right. I allowed myself to feel. I allowed myself to make mistakes. I allowed myself to, to celebrate … that’s another thing too. When I had small victories, I celebrated myself, I went out and bought myself something I really wanted. Say, good job. (Lesley: Yeah) Patting myself on the back, you know. (Lesley: Yeah.) People are saying, “Yeah, good job.” But it feels so good when you tell yourself, good job. It doesn’t need to be a grandiose thing, just something minor. And so if you’re on a nine to five or anywhere right now, and you’re trying to figure out how to get the hell out of there. Don’t think about that right now, think about what can you start getting involved with that can change your energetic state, wherever you are. Because what happens is when you change your energetic state, like I did, I walked in that call center, that door wasn’t heavy anymore. I walked in, like I owned the freaking place. That was like, what would it be like my own displays? How would I act? How would I be? Who would I talk to? And that and believe it or not, I got offered opportunities to move up in the echelons of command. I didn’t want it though. I’m out of here.

Lesley Logan
Well cause you change your energy and so people noticed. (Adrian: Right.) I love that you share that you did things for free. And that a lot of things didn’t work. Y’all it’s a numbers game. More likely than not most of the things aren’t gonna go the way you …

Adrian Starks
Lesley you know what? They said Babe Ruth, the home run hitter. Actually, Hank Aaron had more home runs to him. But they said that with both of these two combined, they had more strikeouts, and he did home runs. But no one knows notices that strikeouts, the only notice the home runs and successes like that people (Lesley: Yeah.) only notice the effect, they don’t see all the causes that created that effect.

Lesley Logan
That thank you for pointing that out. Because that’s I mean, it’s I, my husband has a course called like 200 rejections to success. He’s like, if you go out and you try to get rejected 200 times on same thing, you will have all the clients you want to have because eventually you’ll start to learn like what peaks people’s interest? What are you saying that actually people like you’ll hear all these objections, you’ll start to be able to pre like bust those objections before they even come at you. Like, you’re going to have more potential clients say no to you than yes to you. Because you couldn’t be like, that’s just how it goes. Like not everyone’s the right person for you, or they don’t understand it, or that’s not the right time. And I think we think oh, well, five people didn’t like what I said, so I’m not good enough. And I’m not going to do it anymore. It’s like five people? You know, like, like, out of out of 7.8 billion people on this planet, five people said no, and you’re gonna stop. You know. So I think also people don’t realize how much you have to do to put yourself out there that is you don’t get recognized for or you don’t get acknowledged for and you don’t win you don’t get paid. But that doesn’t mean you don’t learn something from it. And it doesn’t actually change the course of your life and help you with that purposeful life.

Adrian Starks
It’s true. It’s saying that there’s over 7 billion people on the planet and out of that 7 billion there’s gonna be 5% are not going to like you no matter what you say or do. Think about that 5% converting to now 500 million people that you’re trying to tiptoe around. Don’t do it. I tried at one point. Don’t do it. Then you end up hiding. You end up hiding everywhere you end up holding your words back. As you said, you know, Lesley you and your powerful phrase, self care isn’t selfish. You stop taking care of yourself because now you feel like if I do this with this person at this energy in here, that this person then they’re going to like me. I stopped that pony ride a long time ago. (Lesley: Yeah.) It’s like I come from a heart of intention. If you don’t like that, then don’t like it. I won’t lose any sleep, I promise.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, you know, I think well that’s where the that’s where it’s, it’s really hard to unlearn that you’re supposed to be liked by people. Like you know what I mean? Like all these things. Like don’t brag, because that’s gonna make people not like you. It’s not gonna make people feel good about themselves and don’t. And so all these people are doing all these things like for you don’t talk in class, because no one’s gonna like you because that’s, that’s different. And like …

Adrian Starks
That messed me up for a long time, Lesley. Let me tell you that that mess with my psych for a very, very long time.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, I mean, how could it not like it’s like, it’s, you know, I mean, the new I don’t know if the new kids with all the different ways they can learn are actually in a better state. I hope that they are because but I do recall like my parents, my parents, my mom is probably supposed left handed, but they forced me right handed because we can’t be different. Don’t be different.

Adrian Starks
Same thing would happened to me too. (Lesley: Really?) It is.

Lesley Logan
So I wanted to be left handed, but I had to be on a right handed world.

Adrian Starks
I’m a lefty. I’m a lefty by nature. So this is the funny thing just to not to hijack what you’re (Lesley: No.) saying here. I just have to add to say, my mom did the same thing to me. I come from a family of left handers and my grandmother could not stand my mom did that. But here’s the funny thing every time now, I’m around my mom and I’m eating. I use my left hand because I’ve never slept part of my brain never stopped and she’s like, “You’re still using your left.” Like I do. I open everything with my left hand. I eat with my left hand. I grab with my left hand, but I write with this hand. Well, my right hand.

Lesley Logan
Oh, that’s so you’re like a nice ambidextrous, it’s, but it’s so like, those are like the first things that actually change us to conform, and really do mess with like how we feel safe expressing ourselves in this world. And it’s such a shame that this happens because we have so much unlearning to do and if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, “Oh my God, that happened to me too.” Like, your new journey gets to be curious about using the hand that you actually probably like what will happen if that you know, like what can be what can you learn from that? What can you start to open your eyes to and other things right then that it’s not your fault that these were the things that people chose to do to you and your education. But if you continue to live that journey, that is something you choose, you know, like we can actually and we can choose to live a different way we can choose to get curious and try to unlearn. It might take you years, it might take you the rest of your life on this planet. And but I mean, what else were you doing?

Adrian Starks
Exactly. Well, be on this planet is powerful thing. What else, what else, what else are we doing here for? Right. Experience.

Lesley Logan
Right. So I want to go into because we on your … Y’all, if you haven’t listened to the episode I did on Adrian’s podcast, Your Purposeful Life. Please go back and listen to that. It’s so good. But you said something to me when we got off the air. You used to call it A Purposeful Life. Am I correct? Is that I get that correct? And then …

Adrian Starks
… yeah, good question. It was The Purposeful Life Show. And the reason why I changed it was because I realized that it wasn’t about someone coming and finding the answer to purpose. Like coming to the show. I’m like, “Oh, that’s what the purpose of life is all about.” No, it’s your purposeful life. And when you come to the show, you’re listening to amazing people like Lesley. And Lesley’s energy may resonate with you that could turn on the switch for you to be like, whoa, I need to really look at that a little bit deeper for myself. And within that investigation that we talked about earlier, going deep inside y’all, then you start looking at your purpose a little bit differently. And your purpose is different for everyone else’s, it’s not a one size fits all approach. That’s why when I when people say things, especially in self improvement world, I may, I may, I may step on some toes with this, and I’m not calling out any names, but I’m gonna have to go ahead and be wrong and say it. There’s a lot of people that will say, “Well, you know, I’m going to help you live your best life. I’m going to tell you what it’s like to be successful.” Bullshit. There’s not a person out there that has the only cure all answer. That’s why less … 7 billion people on the planet. You are designed to resonate with certain people. There’s certain people I don’t resonate with. I don’t want to listen to. I don’t care for really. And there’s some people that may feel the same way about me and that’s okay. That’s why it’s your purposeful life, because you can decide on the show who you want to listen to, who wants to resonate with you. But not one person has the cure all. I don’t have the cure all. (Lesley: Yeah.) I’m still trying to figure stuff out myself. But I hey I’m willing to say it. (Lesley: Yeah.) I’m okay with that. I’m not perfect. And if anyone out there says they’re perfect, run. (Lesley: Yeah.) The other direction, like run and don’t even look back.

Lesley Logan
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do love like the most certain person in the room wins. I think that’s really important for people to know when you’re trying to help people with whatever your thing is. Like you do need to know that. People are not going to trust you if you are not certain about what that is. However, if that person is certainty as they have the actual key to the kingdom for you, and they’re giving that same key out to every single person. It’s not possible.

Adrian Starks
That’s what the problem is. And I like how you brought that up, because I didn’t clarify that. In this field that we’re in we’re experts in what we do. There’s a thing called professional speaking and I do speak on changes and challenges. I’m an expert in that. It’s what I do. You ask me questions. I can I can address, I can show you examples, I can show you action steps. But I will not tell you that this is the only way to do it. (Lesley: Yeah.) I will not do that. I will not say that, don’t go to this person over here, or this person, you come to me because you’ve heard about me through word of mouth. That’s where the action expertise comes in. But when people say something, they say that this is the only thing you’ll ever need. (Lesley: Yeah.) No.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, I mean, and that goes fruit nutrition, y’all. That goes for money management like. So you know, and I, what I why I brought it up is like the intentionality of words. And how it changes, what can what people can come. So you had ‘the’, and then you change it to ‘your’, and it really does allow for permission and freedom of people to learn from a different person’s purposeful life. Without that person just like making a general statement. This is how I had the purposeful life. This is like, you know, I think I think we, as humans forget, like, you can change a word like this is happening to me, this happening for me, like you change a word, and it can actually open up possibility or can shut things down.

Adrian Starks
Absolutely. And I like that you said that too. It’s for a reason. That is your because it is your life. I can’t live it for you Lesley, can’t live it for you. But you can decide how you want to live it. And you need tools. Remember that cycle, learn and grow and fully express. We learned from others. We learn what to do more of. We learn what to do less of. And on that show, it’s about the human mess too that we go through. And when we express that human mess, and we laugh at ourselves and say, “Damn, I don’t know how I got through it, but I got through it.” Someone resonates with that. Because they they’re going through that too right now. Right now in the in the market in the world, we have too many people out there that are just being perfect or trying to be perfect. And if you notice that people that you think are perfect, something happens, and all of a sudden you’re like, “Whoa, I didn’t know they were going through that. (Lesley: Yeah.) I didn’t know this was happening. I didn’t know, how could that be they got a perfect life.” (Lesley: Yeah.) That’s not, they don’t have a perfect life. They have a life that you deem is perfect, because you’ve been conditioned to believe that. The other day, we’re all human. And we’re learning.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, at the end of the day, we are all human. And how cool is that? That’s, you know, where perfect is boring, as I say all the time. And also like, I did an episode with Alan Stein, Jr. and he said, this is such a like, I like this is just such a, he said in the history of basketball, the history of the NBA, there has never been a perfect game. There’s never been a game with all these, the best of the best at what they do where the there’s not a player who doesn’t make a mistake. There’s not a foul. There’s not this and so it’s like we’re not robots. This is not an AI thing. This is like if you when you create things, you can create perfection if you want but that’s gonna be contextual, because someone else might be like, “Oh, that that strokes wrong.” So, oh my gosh, Adrian, I can keep talking to you forever. I do want to have to just have other hangouts. I gotta get to the Northwest for sure.

Adrian Starks
We have a, we have an 80s hangout. We talked about the 80s.

Lesley Logan
Oh, (Adrian: 80s movie, 80s music.) 1,000%. On OPC everything is done in the 80s. We use 80s and 90s rap to like title classes. (Adrian: I’m telling you it’s the best.) It is the best you know, all y’all elder Millennials are gonna change the world you might think that we’re we’re different but we’re actually the best.

Adrian Starks
We are. Just just to say it quickly here. We are the, well here’s the thing. Think about the 80s. We were in the middle of everything from tube set TVs to cable to very first started the first internet when it was a dial up we had to wait like 10 minutes to go online to moving into CDs and then all of a sudden we move into the first mp3 ever this is before the iPhone. Yeah, okay, so first mp3 ever and then we moved into DVDs that we experienced a major shift and change of everything, technology wise.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, and we all help to get rid of some low rise jeans to stop bringing them back because no one looks good enough. Just say, just say well, if you are an elder millennial listening to this or a millennial and general, celebrate that and that’s the first practice and celebrating yourself, and we’re gonna take a brief break and we’re gonna find out what you can listen to your purposeful life and also, Adrian’s BE IT action items for you. Alright, Adrian, where can people find you, follow you, listen to this voice more?

Adrian Starks
We’re gonna keep it simple. Just go to yourpurposeful.life, the website, yourpurposeful.life. It is still in motion in action. Okay, so we’re still building it up. But go there. Listen to the podcast episodes, download into your favorite podcast platform, scroll down that page and join the YPO community, as well have amazing takeaways, questions that I’ll be addressing, things coming up from previous guests like Lesley and reaching out to them getting some advice about some questions you may have. Go there, yourpurposeful.life.

Lesley Logan
I love it. And also everyone just so you know, your website’s never done. So if you just like you’re never done learning your website is never done.

Adrian Starks
It’s true. It’s very true. Oh, and go to the Your Purposeful Life with Adrian Stark’s YouTube channel. Subscribe, because we have videos out weekly on that channel. But yes, back to what you were saying. Websites are never done.

Lesley Logan
Never done. They’re never done. Okay, real quick, bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted action items we can give to the be it community, what do you have for us?

Adrian Starks
Okay, so I’m pretty sure alot of you’ve heard a lot of these things. But I’m gonna say somewhere at the top. Stopped believing everything you hear. That’s the first step, get curious. Question people, question yourself, but do it in a respectful way. Do it in a respectful way. That’s the first sign of self. That’s one of the first steps to self maturity. (Lesley: Yeah.) And if you really want to change, you have to be able to change your current paradigm, your current story and how you currently do things. I don’t want to make this hard for you. But you have to do. That it starts with you first. And you got to start questioning things, people and your own motives. If you can’t call yourself out on your own shit. How can you get mad if people don’t hear you, don’t respect you? How can you get mad about that? So to create some magic out here, you got to get honest with yourself and start really challenging you. Sit yourself down and get at it. Go to work.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, I love that. Y’all, I just want highlight like, not only like don’t believe everything you hear include the things you tell yourself. We tell ourselves some woppers that are not true about ourselves. (Adrian: … talk.) Yeah, yeah. Oh my goodness, Adrian, you’re amazing. You’re so great. I love that you’re doing what you’re doing and putting out in this world because you are helping people be more purposeful and that is only going to make this world a better place. So thank you so much. Y’all, how are you going to use these tips in your life? Please let us know, tag the @be_it_pod, tag Adrian Starks. And until next time, Be It Till You See It.

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Lesley Logan
That’s all I’ve 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 this show and leave a review. And, follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over on IG 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 help others to BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!

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Lesley Logan
Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network.

Brad Crowell
It’s written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli.

Lesley Logan
Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.

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 our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can’t see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can.

Brad Crowell
And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.