Gay Hendricks has served for more than forty years as one of the major contributors to the fields of relationship transformation and body-mind therapies. Throughout his career, Dr. Hendricks has coached more than eight hundred executives, including the top management at firms such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, and KLM. Along with his wife, Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks, he has co authored many books including Conscious Loving, The Corporate Mystic, and his latest, the New York Times bestseller Five Wishes, which has been translated into seventeen languages. Dr. Hendricks received his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Stanford University. After a twenty-one-year career as a professor at the University of Colorado, he founded the Hendricks Institute, which offers seminars in North America, Asia, and Europe. He is also a founder of The Spiritual Cinema Circle. In recent years his passion has been writing a new series of mystery novels featuring the Tibetan Buddhist private detective, Tenzing Norbu. Ten’s first adventure was The First Rule Of Ten, followed by The Second Rule Of Ten and more to come. (https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B000APFFK0/about)

In this milestone 400th episode, Lesley Logan interviews Gay Hendricks, the visionary author behind “The Big Leap.” Dive into his wisdom on breaking through self-imposed limits, the significance of receiving care, and the magic of wondering. Explore how to identify and live in your zone of genius while mastering the art of time. This episode offers a rich blend of storytelling and practical guidance to elevate your life, relationships, and career.

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 beit@lesleylogan.co.

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:

• How “The Big Leap” helps dismantle upper limiting beliefs.
• The importance of letting things in and receiving care.
• The power of “wondering” to discover one’s genius zone.
• Why the more heartfelt your commitment, the faster it will manifest.
• The importance of daily commitment and perseverance in writing.
• The inspiration and influence behind Gay’s Hendrick’s daily inbox.
• Owning your time and making conscious choices on how to use it.

Episode References/Links:

• Hendricks Institute – https://www.hendricks.com
• Foundation for Conscious Living – https://www.foundationforconsciousliving.org
• Hearts in Harmony with Katie and Gay Hendricks – https://www.facebook.com/relationshipadvice/?sk=app_2392950137#/relationshipadvice
• Foundation for Conscious Living Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/fclconnect/
• Foundation for Conscious Living on Twitter – https://twitter.com/@fclconnect
• Big Leap Home on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/bigleaphome/
• Gay Hendricks on Twitter – https://twitter.com/GayHendricks
• Gay Hendricks on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/hendricks.gay/
• The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks – https://a.co/d/020Tk7mK
• A Year of Living Consciously by Gay Hendricks – https://a.co/d/0dkEdg1M

Gay Hendricks 0:00
We go around all the time looking for answers outside ourselves and asking gurus and teachers and things like that. But what’s rare is to actually just genuinely wonder about it yourself for 10 seconds or 10 minutes, just to wonder what is it I most love to do? That’s the key question is what do I most love to do? A second key question is, what do I most love to do that makes a contribution to other people?

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INTRODUCTION

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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Lesley Logan
Oh my God, Be It babe. Hi, happy episode 400. And I hope you saw whose name is my guest today. And if you’ve been listening to this pod, you’re like, yeah, Gay Hendricks, I’m like, yeah, Gay Hendricks. We’re gonna (inaudible) Gay Hendricks on the Pod today. And I’m even more obsessed with this person than I was going into this interview. I can’t even get words out. I’m so emotional. I love this man. So much. More importantly, I think I love the relationship he and his wife have a lot. Like clearly affects him and makes him a man he is today. But also how truly giving and loving and generous he is for all of us. You know, this man is a true sign of abundance and like abundance mindset, because he wants all of us to live in our zone of genius, every single one, and he doesn’t want a single one of us to self-sabotage are get in our own way. And he has been trying to teach us these tools for as long as he could write them. And for that I’m so grateful. And the fact that he is episode 400 is I never thought this interview would happen. And there’s very few things that happen in my life now that are not a result of me understanding my upper limits since 2019, it might have been 2018, but definitely 2018. And so I can’t wait for you to hear this episode. I can’t, I can’t wait. And so thank you, Gay Hendricks for being on the show. I don’t know if you’re listening to this intro. But thank you. And thank you every single one of you who listens to this show. If this is your first show, hi, I must look good. Thanks for being here. But, get his books. And I didn’t even know he wrote 51 before I interviewed him. So now I have a bunch to go and read through. And I really hope our paths cross again. And I don’t even know in what way they will. But I truly hope that they will because he has so much more to teach us all. And this interview I hope is the nugget of information you need right now. And I can’t wait to re-listen to this interview because there was so many moments that I thought I knew what he was talking about and I got another level. Not a different lesson, another level, a deeper level. And it just shows that we are not, my friend, Erika Quest, would always say, well,we say we’re not concrete we are constructs. Humble the Poet. It is, this interview is so representative of that. So, thank you for being here. Episode 400 is here and it is the one and only Gay Hendricks—someone who’s been on my dream list to have on this podcast for years. And on the recap episode, I’ll make sure Brad and I share, like I think he might have even recorded when I was like, oh my god, Gay said he will be on the show. I literally like threw my phone on the ground. I couldn’t believe what I just read. So, anyways, here is Gay Hendricks, the author of The Big Leap and Your Big Leap Year and 49 other incredible books.

Okay, Be It babe. I’m gonna be honest, I’m trying really hard not to fangirl. I’m so excited for our guests today. Gay Hendricks is in the Zoom house. He is here. He has no idea. But I have had him on the list for being on my podcast since we launched in 2021. And the time that he responded, it was this random, on Christmas day, I was like, I need something more inspirational. I’m gonna re-listen to Gay’s book. So I was listening to his book on Christmas morning on a walk and I tagged him on a story and I kind of just like out of like loss, I was like, if anyone knows how to get this man on my pod, it’d be really great and you have responded. So Gay, thank you so much for being here. You are the author of Your Big Leap and then Your Big Leap Year, can you, in case anyone who’s listening has not heard about how amazing you are, can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at?

Gay Hendricks 5:10
Well, thank you. I live in California and Southern California. I’m a psychologist by training. I got my doctorate at Stanford almost 50 years ago now. And so I’ve been practicing in one way or the other for the last 50 years. And to my great advantage, I met in 1980, the woman who would become my wife and mate and colleague and co-author for the next 44 years Kathlyn Hendricks, she goes by Katie to friends. And so Katie and I just celebrated our 44th anniversary of the day we met back in 1980. So that’s been the dominant force in my life over the past bunch of years. So we’ve written, I think, 10 or 11 books together, co-authored books. And some of mine are written by myself if she’s off doing something else that particular year engaged with a different project. So she just got back, actually last night, from speaking at a conference out in Chicago. And so we’re having a happy reunion today as we speak. I’ve always been a writer. My mom was a newspaper reporter. And so I kind of grew up with the clacking of a typewriter in my ears all the time. Unfortunately, my mother chain-smoked unfiltered cigarettes and drank black coffee all day and all night. And so if you got nearer you were in this miasma of coffee and cigarettes. But other than that, she was fantastic inspiration as a writer, because she had a deadline to meet every day, and which I think was 7pm when she had to get her stuff to the newspaper. And so she weaved frantically while I was doing homework, I could hear that typewriter going. But mom tells me I’d been writing stories and things like that, since I could hold a pen pretty much. So I’ve always been a writer and I had the great, good fortune of in my, let’s see, I would guess I was 22 or 23, when I discovered the field of counseling, psychology and transformation, and all the things that are very commonplace and well known now, but they were not very commonplace or well known 50 years ago that, you know, no self-help book existed or anything like that. So it was a very unusual time. And so I got very fascinated in human trends about human transformation. Because I became my own best customer in the sense that as soon as I started discovering psychology and counseling, I started working on my own issues. And at the time, I was overweight, and I myself smoked heavily. I was in this really toxic relationship, and working at a crappy job, or you know, everything was just going wrong in my life. And fortunately, I had a big wake up and enlightenment moment when I was 24 years old, where I kind of saw where all my programming came from. And I saw all of my emotions that I’d never expressed. And so it was like the lights going on inside me when I was 24. And ever since then, I’ve been on a mission to uncover more and more of my own genius and my own shadow and help other people. I think Katie and I counted up and we’ve had about 4500 couples now through our seminars and about 20,000 individuals. So in the past 50 years, we’ve been busy working with people in a very practical way here in our office, where I’m sitting or out in the world and seminars and things like that. And so both of us are very committed to the same types of things and are very fascinated by the same kinds of things. So, if possible in life, get yourself a good mate to work with, who’s also your best friend, that can be the greatest blessing ever. I’ve had, I’ve enjoyed that for almost a half century now and there’s nothing like it.

Lesley Logan 9:17
Okay, so you answered some questions I had just like as I read The Big Leap. I actually listened to it a lot. I love, I love your voice. I love the way you read your book. I, if you feel like a really dear friend who’s like coaching you through something so, love listening to it. But I’ve read it and I’m like, it’s part of my like, recovering perfectionist overachiever inside of me, it’s like, how did he just like do this and how are people doing this? And it sounds to me like you’ve been doing this for, you know, 50 years. Maybe, maybe it’s like, we have to give ourselves permission these things that uncover our genius take time. And just for people who have not read The Big Leap, you should go get it and then also in Your Big Leap Year you talk about our zone of genius and our different things, can you kind of describe that for everyone? So when we say genius people know, it’s not just like your smarty pants, it’s like, it’s it’s part of you right?

Gay Hendricks 10:14
Now, one of the, well, there were two really big points in my book, The Big Leap. And then this new book is a day book that breaks it all down into one day at a time kind of thing. But the two big points I really wanted everybody to know, is something I call the upper limit problem, which is, I’ve been all over the world I’ve, you know, worked with all these folks for 50 years. And I can say that one thing that human beings have in common, whether I’m in Brooklyn, or Mumbai, or the Bronx, or wherever, it’s everybody’s trying to get out from under their upper limit problems. And most people don’t know where their upper limit problems are located. They think they’re outside themselves. But what I point out in The Big Leap is that each of us have our own kind of self-sabotage mechanism that we have had oftentimes since childhood, in the form of old limiting beliefs, like, the most common one is the belief that you’re fundamentally flawed in some way, that you’re the wrong height to the wrong gender, or the wrong skin color, or the wrong age, or not pretty enough, or whatever it is, whatever it is we built in as our own upper limit. And every time we get beyond that, we’ve had ways of sabotaging ourselves. And so that’s the upper limit problem. And in The Big Leap, I show people how to get in under the hood, and kind of dismantle that. And we can talk a little bit more about it. But I want to mention that geniuses are what I found, as people got out from under their upper limit problems, they became fascinated in finding out what they were really best suited to do in the world. And I, you know, like at this point, I’ve worked with people who like might be the CEO of a big Fortune 500 company, they’d look from the outside, like they’ve got it made, but on the inside, they feel like they’re dying, because they’re operating in their zone of excellence in the zone of what they know how to do. The genius zone is beyond that. It’s in the realm of what do you love to do and what inside you is yearning to be expressed. And that is another thing that human beings have in common, wherever I go in the world, human beings are trying to open up and finding out what their real genius is, they may not have that language for it. But you know, everywhere, I get the most amazing email because of The Big Leap, people write me to tell me about their big leaps and that kind of thing. I always say I had the best inbox in town because now all I have to do is hit a button and wow, you know, I see these beautiful things. So everywhere around the world, you know, I got an email from somebody in the outback of Pakistan who had to walk 25 miles to some place to get the book, you know, and really amazing stories like that. And they’re, they’re obeying the same pool as a person is in Beverly Hills, who just had to send their butler down the street and get the book and bring it back. But everybody is got this in common, this yearning to express who we really are and what we’re most uniquely suited to do, and blessings upon you and others like you who are in your genius zone now who have discovered that and can help lead other people into that. So I want to express my appreciation to you for every moment you worked your tail off to get into the genius zone, and now being in it, staying in it, you know, that’s another trick there is to it.

Lesley Logan 13:59
It’s like a muscle.

Gay Hendricks 14:00
It is, you know, or like core strength and Pilates. Why would I use that example?

Lesley Logan 14:08
Okay, so thanks for bringing up the upper limit. And is it, okay, because when I created this podcast, Be It Till You See It, it’s because people were asking me how I stay confident and I was like, inside sometimes I’m so scared because it’s outside my comfort zone. And so here I am telling people to be it till they see it, which is like, there’s a principle called the as if principle, acting as if you already have what you want, right? Which is not the same as being your zone of genius. But if you figure out your zone of genius, is you’re gonna have to step into that. And part of that, to me is like, acting as if you know how to be there. Right? But every time we act outside of our comfort zone, as you’ve said, we upper limit ourselves and so I find that like, as I’m encouraging people to be it till they see it, if they don’t know what their upper limits are, they’re going to get there in their Be It moment and then have to pull back because we self-sabotage and something, you guys, and in Gay’s book, you can learn all the different ways you do it. And one of the ways I discovered that I would upper limit myself is that I would, something would happen that’s amazing, and then I would look for all the things that weren’t finished yet. And I would go, yeah, but we haven’t done this, this, this, this, this, and this, like, I just would list them all out. And so because I read that I was like, every time I was like, oh, that’s just me upper limiting. I can, those things need to get done, but I can still celebrate this amazing thing. So, it’s really awesome to have that kind of awareness of how we get in our own way.

Gay Hendricks 15:32
Yeah, and most of it happens before we can think for ourselves, you know, a lot of these old limiting beliefs get installed at a very early age. And oftentimes, you know, two, three, four, five years old, you’ve already soaked up those limiting beliefs about what you can be in life. I had an amazing experience recently. I don’t know if you heard but I broke my femur back in 2023. I’ve been, I’ve had, I have a rod and six bolts, and (inaudible).

Lesley Logan 16:05
You are so lucky that they could fix it, you could also die.

Gay Hendricks 16:10
Oh, yeah, 100 years ago, I would have been in a real pickle. But I had a bad slip and fall out in my backyard near, it was a rainy day, and I slipped on a thing. And I went straight down on my knee. Anyway, busted my femur up royally. I’d never broken a bone before. And I hadn’t even had a cold in 25 years. And so I was unused to receiving care. And I realized what an important thing it is, especially if you’re a giver to get good at receiving and letting things in. And so that’s been one of the big messages of this whole experience for me. So anyway, I’ve had some personal experiences over the last year of really seeing where my own limitations were in letting people care for me, and, you know, just kind of letting myself rest. And I have written 51 books in 50 years. So I’ve been a busy little fellow. And so it was so rare for me just to kind of lay back and let myself not do anything for 10 seconds or 10 minutes. But, so life will present to us whatever the issues are, I think just in the regular old process of living, but a couple of the big messages in The Big Leap, especially, is to get busy wondering about what your genius zone is. And I want to draw a big red circle around the word wondering because wondering is an underutilized human superpower. Because if you think about it, we go around all the time looking for answers outside ourselves and asking gurus and teachers and things like that. But what’s rare is to actually just genuinely wonder about it yourself for 10 seconds or 10 minutes, you know, just to wonder, what is it I most love to do? That’s the key question is, what do I most love to do? A second key question is, what do I most love to do that makes a contribution to other people, because see, human beings, we’re contributors, we want to reach out to other people. We may not let ourselves do that, but that’s who we are down inside. You know, we’re I always say there are two types of people there are glommer and splitters. You know, there are a lot of people who like alone time, they don’t like people as much. And that’s great. But we all have inside both the glommer and the splitter. We all need union and we all need individuation—being our own person, thinking our own thoughts. So as close as Katie and I are, we have tremendous room in our relationship for each other to be interested in different things. She’s interested in a whole bunch of different things that I’m not interested in, I’m interested in a whole bunch of things that she’s not interested in. Some of them we share, you know, like I’m a baseball nut and I’ve gradually trained her over the years to be a Dodger fan, (inaudible) she’s not naturally given to that, but on the other hand, I have not ever chosen to go to a dance performance or a ballet or modern dance until I met her and now I’ve been to dozens of them and really liked them. So, hopefully, people when they get together, will let each other be individuals and also find crossing points where they’re in union, too.

Lesley Logan 19:40
Thank you for sharing your story about even as recently as a year ago, discovering some ways we can limit ourselves because I think it’s really easy for us to go okay, I figured out my zone. Okay, figured out my upper limits, check check check. And we can just move on to the next thing but it’s an awareness we have to develop and then it’s something that will creep back in in different ways, especially when something uniquely different happens. I’ve, that’s odd. So 10 years ago, I fractured my tibial plateau. And I bruise the head of my femur. And it was really hard for me because I was used to just doing everything on my own, my parents raised me be very independent, not need help from anybody, because then you owe them something. Right? Like that whole idea. And so I remember driving, going to the doctor and I was with my now husband, we’d been officially dating for one week, everyone, he said hey, he’s like, I really like to feel needed. I really like to help people. So like, you’re gonna be okay, because I’m going to help you through this. And I remember looking and going, you’re just gonna have to do it because I’m not so good at asking. Like, I’m not gonna be able, I’m not sure I can ask you yet. And it was this really interesting few weeks of trying to like, noticing the different fears that came up, like worry that came up because I was in this new uncharted terrain. I’ve never broken a bone before. What happens when you’re like, you can’t walk on your leg. Like there’s all these different questions that come up. And it’s really can be overwhelming. And situations like that can bring back those upper limits, which we have to be aware of. So we know what’s going on. Like, I could actually go okay, this is just fear that I’ve got, because it’s not happening to me, there’s like things I can learn from how do you help people figure out what their upper limits are? And then I guess if there’s time, you know, what are some ways people can figure out their zone of geniuses as well? Like, in your Your Big Leap Year, you give us that hmm, I wonder—and I love that. But I’m just wondering if you have anything else for us?

Gay Hendricks 21:42
Sure, well, first of all, take a snapshot or what some of the upper limit actions are that people will engage in, probably the number one upper limit activity is worrying. It’s, I just urge everyone to just spend a day or two watching your worry thoughts. And here’s my prediction, you will find that 99% of them are about things that you cannot possibly change or control. They’re just spinning wheels in the mud, waiting to get some traction. And so just take a look, you won’t believe me until you study it yourself. But notice that most of your worry thoughts are not about something you could actually make any difference or do. Some of them are, you know, you might have a worry thought, oh, gosh, though, (inaudible) or the washing machine is making a funny sound. I’ll call the manufacturer and find out what happens if it’s making that funny sound. That’s not a worry thought that’s a practical thought about taking care of good things. That’s the use of the human thinking function. Where it gets out of control, of course, is when we overutilize that and start trying to plan the contingencies of every possible thing that could ever go wrong. And so you eat up a lot of your time and energy, looking for what’s wrong and what’s needs to be fixed and things like that, rather than looking for what would bring forth your genius. And so the big question everybody needs to live in is how can I expand my genius this very day? How can I do more of what I most love to do this day? How can I spend more time doing things that make a contribution to other people, but not in a martyr sense. You know, just to make a genuine contribution. There’s somebody that could make a cake as a genuine contribution. There’s 10 others that will make it as a martyr and not enjoy every moment of it, you know, and whatever tastes good either. So I, I think that one of the best things we can do is use our inner world as a laboratory and become the scientist that studies your inner laboratory because you’ll find yourself worried. That’s a big upper limit. Okay. So when you’re doing that, here’s what to notice. Notice that it’s being driven by fear. One big thing to do to unhook your upper limit problems is to make a friend of fear. Get used to seeing when fear occurs in your body. Because every time you’re doing an upper limit, you’re scared. And it’s so important because if you realize, oh, I’m scared and I’m cranking out mental scenarios of all the possible things that could go wrong. The best thing is to just notice, I’m scared because there’s no way you can create all the scenarios in your mind to deal with that. One of the one of the turning point relationship moments in my relationship with Katie was we had made a vow to each other when we got together and decided to make a commitment to each other. But we made certain vows like one was to reveal rather than conceal, to always be looking for anything we hadn’t said. Another one was to take responsibility in a healthy way— hmm, why would I be creating this argument right now? Rather than, why are you doing this to me right now? You know, that’s a benign way of taking responsibility. I’m not saying blame yourself. Oh, why am I doing that again? Taking it on as a scientist. Hmm. I just noticed that I blamed dear. Here, let me look at what’s going on in me. So here’s just one moment. I was, I found myself criticizing Katie for something. I think she was a half hour late or something like that, coming home. And so I was talking to her in a kind of irritated tone of voice and I had this realization, oh, I sound irritated, angry. But what I’m feeling is fear in my belly. I noticed that and I just blurted it out, I just said that I said, you know, Katie, I just realized, I’m sounding like, I’m criticizing you, but what I’m feeling is fear in my belly. And I remember she suddenly just looked at me raptly like, oh, you know, like, we were in a process of discovery together. And that’s what I mean by taking on your inner world, like a scientist and anthropologist to discover all these things. So what I said to her was, let me just take a second and figure out what I’m scared about. And so it only took me about two seconds, I tuned in, and I realized I just blurted this out, I said, I’m afraid I’m going to lose you. And she kind of started like that, you know, I say, I realize, I’m trying to, when I criticize you, I’m trying to keep you away so you won’t get close enough to me so that it really matters if you leave me. I’m a, you know, it was like this little thing that had been down in my system. And there were some historical reasons why I might have felt that way. My mother, shortly after giving birth to me sort of disappeared. And so there was a kind of an imprint there of not having that person there. And so, you know, who knows what kind of things those old imprints can leave on us. But what I’m saying is, sometimes there’s you know, a, quote, good reason for it. But still, I’m doing it in a relationship when I’m 34 years old. I don’t have to repeat that over and over again. And so just by copping to that old pattern and copping to the fear, that changed our relationship completely. And so that was a real life example of revealing rather than concealing.

Lesley Logan 28:03
Yeah, I this is, I really like how you are asking us to have that awareness and also like sharing what is coming up, because it does take away its power. And as you mentioned, like, you don’t have to keep repeating it. Because a lot of the things that we’ll have, you know, as you expressed in your book, and you guys will go read it like, we have ones that we tend to use, those are our go to upper limits, and a lot of it is because of fear we’re feeling. And because there’s something new happening, we’ve stepped outside our comfort zone. You know, living in your zone of genius is amazing, and unique and different and scary and not and like it should feel comfortable but, our brain doesn’t know that.

Gay Hendricks 28:48
It’s actually, yeah, one of the greatest things that when I was learning to be a psychotherapist, back 50 years ago, one of the things the professor said, one thing I want to remind you of, I’ll be reminding, you’ll be reminding other people of it 50 years from now, he said there’s no such thing as a grown up. That’s a good thing to keep in mind, you know, that. I wanted to also mentioned that the whole subject of creativity becomes increasingly important in relationships and in life in general, the older you get, and that’s a key to it too. Because if you can make a real life real time commitment to getting more creative every day and owning more of your genius opening up to more of your genius. It starts with a commitment. You have to start somewhere by taking a stand. And the more heartfelt you can make about that commitment, the faster it will manifest. The universe likes a head commitment, okay, but it loves a head and heart commitment. That’s why I tell all my students, the longest important journey they’ll ever make is only 12 inches from here in their heads down to their heart to get your head and your heart in alignment and working together. Because then that gives you an unstoppable power to bring forth the things that are most important to you. And if you don’t, well, I think in one of my books, I can’t remember, I think it’s in The Genius Zone. I found this quote from the Gospel of Thomas going back 2000 years, the gospel of Thomas was one of the gospels that didn’t make it into the official Bible, but they were floating around and people were reading them at the time. And I don’t know the whole history of why they didn’t put that in the Bible. But maybe it’s because of a couple of things like this. One of the quotes that Jesus is supposed to have said was, if you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you, if you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you. Wow, you know, think of your clients and you think of yourself, you know, like I think of myself and all the years I spent with unfulfilled potential eating at me, I feel so blessed that I discovered that at age 24, because I have people in here all the time that are closer to 74, and are still working on bringing forth what their true genius is.

Lesley Logan 31:25
I love that. And I think you’re right, I think that that verse is very fain and gives a lot of people more independence. What a beautiful quote. Okay, so you wrote Your Big Leap Year, which is a daily book. And I will say like, when I came across it, your posts came up on my feed and I was like, oh, oh, this is amazing. Obviously, like, you’ve written 50 other books. The reason to write this, I feel like, since I’ve read the other ones, it’s almost like, I wonder kind of like why you decided to write a daily, as opposed to just saying, hey, guys, just go read the amazing books. I read already. And also, like, as I’m reading these, I feel like the project has to be humongous. Because breaking up all of your excellent work into a daily bite-sized piece for us to understand. It’s, it’s wonderful. It’s absolutely wonderful. But I guess I would just love to know, like, what brought that,what was the impetus behind that?

Gay Hendricks 32:26
Well, it came in from several directions. I mentioned my sweet inbox every day. And so I’ve collected hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who wanted something like that, you know, Hey, have you considered writing a calendar or something, a day-at-a-time book. And I know, those are very popular. And I even wrote one many years ago called A Year of Living Consciously and it was, it was popular for a number of years. But anyway, they are hard to write because you have to, you know, take an idea and distill it down to something that somebody can do in one minute or 10 seconds or two minutes. And so an idea and a guided meditation or an idea and an intention to set or something like that. But anyway, it does require quite a bit of kind of diamond cutting, you know, fine-tune, paste intensive things, and rewriting. But you know, it was I just set myself the task of writing, you know, 10 of them a day. And sometimes I’d exceed that. I’m a disciplined writer. I love to write and I love to write in the morning. By about this time of the day, like here in my part of the world, I’m recording this, I think at nine o’clock in the morning, by this time of the day, I’m finished with my writing, I’m an early riser. So I wake up at 4:30 or five, something like that. And I meditate and have a cup of coffee, and all those kind of things play with the cats and my wife likes to sleep in till 7:30 or eight. So I have those couple hours where it’s just me and the two cats. And so I, a disciplined writer, after I meditate and all that I come in, and I sit down and I will usually work for a couple of hours in a kind of a zone, you know, I get into the zone. And so once I’m in the zone, didn’t matter if I write two of those or 20 of them, you know, as long as I’m still in the zone, and then at a certain point, usually around eight or 8:30 whenever my wife happens to be getting up, I’m usually about the end of my writing time. And so anyway, I wanted to say that a lot of people, I’ll come back to why I wrote the book, but a lot of people think that writing is about inspiration, but it’s a lot about perspiration, too. It’s a lot about daily commitment and showing up. You know, they always say, how’s the definition of a writer, it’s a person who writes, you know, so whether it’s 10 minutes a day or two hours a day like I may do, it doesn’t really matter as long as you’re getting into your creative zone and it doesn’t have to be writing, it could be just about anything. We say around here that creativity is anything that has the capacity to surprise you. So at least once a day when I’m writing, I’ll write a sentence. And I’ll stop. And I’ll say, wow, where did that come from? You know, and it comes from the fact that I’ve been doing it for my life. But it also comes out of nowhere. Because if you’re open to inspiration, these little happy surprises will happen. And so look for those kinds of things that give you that permission, I wanted to come back around to why I wrote the book, there’s a wonderful publisher. I’ll give him the name Joel. And he works for one of the big publishing houses. And I’ve known him on and off for 30 years at least. And interestingly enough, he was at the one time employed in a bookstore and hand-sold our book, Conscious Loving, when it came out 30 or 35 years ago. So anyway, we have a rich, long history. And he called me up one day, and he said, hey, I have a great idea. Have you? Have you considered writing a day book of The Big Leap? And I said, my first thought was, you and 1500 other had that genius idea. What took you so long? And, but he has other books to publish, too. So he’s, but he’s a Big Leap fan. And he wanted to get the word out to more people. And so he was another inspiration for writing a book. And so when the publisher himself calls you and says, you know, we want to publish your book, would you please write it? I’ve, you know, I said, okay, that’s a good cue from the universe. And as that happened, I was soon to be engaged with the process of not going anywhere, sitting around nursing my leg, you know?

Lesley Logan 36:56
Yeah, you didn’t have a lot of other things to do with a broken femur.

Gay Hendricks 37:01
So I went into this reality tunnel called the medical establishment, you know, and so I’ve been very used to going and getting my bones X-ray and everything. So the long drama of hurting myself, but it gave me a good excuse to sit around not to doing anything else. And so I, I, for a period of time, I stopped running around giving keynote speeches and doing all the things that are lucrative additions to my life. But I decided just to focus on the book for a while, and it worked out just fine.

Lesley Logan 37:35
I really love it. I love the hmm, it’s just, it’s fabulous. And I also love you guys can start at any day of the year. So you don’t have to start on the January 1st, it just starts on the day you start it you pick it up. Okay? I have. Yes.

Gay Hendricks 37:50
As it happens. I have one here behind me.

Lesley Logan 37:53
Me, too. My copy of The Big Leap I gave to someone who was at my house, it was literally upper limiting in front of me. And I was like, you have to read this book. Just keep it and pass it on, I will get another. So I, okay, in The Big Leap, you have a whole chapter on Einstein Time and Newton time. And I have to say, the first time I listened to it, I was like, where’s this chapter? This whole section, it seems like its own book. And then the second and third time I like went through it I was like, oh, this is this is a genius chapter. This is the thing we all need to know. Can you tell me a little bit about how you decided for Einstein, and that Newton time chapter in The Big Leap and kind of because it’s just, it’s fascinating, fabulous. But it really the first time I was like, this is the whole this is like out of left field.

Gay Hendricks 38:44
Yes. Well, first of all, thank you. And I appreciate you appreciating it, because it was my favorite chapter in there. And it’s actually the one probably that generates the most email from people saying, wow, I’ve been thinking about this for 10 years. And I just got it, you know, because a lot of times it takes a while to sink in. But here’s the thing. Okay. Sir Isaac Newton, great genius. Look him up some time, amazing human being. But he changed physics by naming some things that nobody had figured out before. So picture him under the apple tree, the apple falls off and bonks him in the forehead. Oh, there’s a force—gravity, where would that come from? Oh, that’s interesting. It’s almost as if the Earth has some kind of an iron ore inside itself. It’s not all dirt all the way down. So, observations like that, 300 or 400 years ago, were big time or like, you know, looking up and saying, wow, the sun doesn’t go around the Earth. We’re going around the sun. You know, that’s what made everything makes sense. They didn’t have to have all these complicated physics of things that suddenly went. And so in came this tick-tock version of time. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction Tick, tock, tick tock. That happened to coincide with the birth of the industrial revolution where people had to start showing up on time when the whistle blew. And if you were five minutes late, more than five minutes late, you got your pay docked for that for the hour. And so people became more and more conditioned over the hundreds of years, to bind themselves very carefully to that notion of tick-tock time. As you would expect, though, human beings, being who we are, and our lovable, slightly maddening ways, will often have an imperfect adaptation to time like some of us become highly time-conscious. And we’re the ones that show up a minute early and get tweaked because the rest of the people haven’t shown up in their seats. I used to be one of those, believe it or not, for my first grade birthday. What did I want more than anything else? I wanted a wristwatch. And the one I wanted, I remember, was the outrageous price of $2.99. Man, but I worked up courage to ask for it. And my granddad and my grandma and my mom pulled their money to get me that $2.99 wristwatch. So I became the only kid in the first grade to be sporting a wristwatch, you know, so I became the timekeeper for everything. Now the other adaptation to time is to be a time slacker. You’re the one that shows up five minutes late. And everybody says where have you been? And you’re the one that doesn’t show up, and people have to apologize for so, of the two, which one was yours, Lesley, my dear?

Lesley Logan 42:03
Oh, I’m the person with the watch. My dad is like, if you’re not five minutes early, you’re five minutes late, and I live by that. And I’m gonna tell you right now, my husband is a time slacker. He’s like classes at six. So we’re walking in the door at six, we’re fine. And I’m like, no (inaudible) in the locker. We have to say, we have to take (inaudible) or not on time, we’re not ready for class.

Gay Hendricks 42:25
Yeah, so of all the people on earth, who, when a time freak, go out and marry, you want to find one that looks like an automatic fixer upper project for you to engage for your life done.

Lesley Logan 42:40
He’s helped me be late for some things we are working on it. I’ve helped him be more on time, he’s helped me be more late.

Gay Hendricks 42:48
Well, I’ll say I’ve had more fun with that, that dynamic because in every audience I’ve ever spoken to, it doesn’t matter if they’re people in Calcutta or wherever, you know, everybody has their own adaptatin to time. Now, here’s the thing. Beyond Newtonian time, is what I call Einstein Time. And let me tell you how that works. Because when Einstein came along, it explained a whole bunch of things about physics that Newton didn’t get near, he couldn’t figure him out. And one of the things that Einstein had was his theory of relativity. And I’ll explain it to you just like he explained it to a group of people that happen to be I think, 15-year-olds, he was asked to explain theory of relativity to some high school people or something like that. And so he said, basically, that an hour with your beloved goes by like a minute, whereas a minute sitting on a hot stove, goes by, like an hour. And why is that? In other words, he was getting at the thing that time expands or contracts, depending on the quality of our experience. Wow, big time shift there. Because when I realized that, and by the way, I have a picture of Albert Einstein, one of my prized possessions on my wall is an autographed picture of Albert Einstein that my wife gave me for winning my first, I’m tearing up a little bit because it was, you know, sort of a expensive thing, but she gave it to me for my birthday. And I was very touched by it and work near it all the time. But Einstein, one of the things in his notebooks, he talks about wandering about a particular problem in physics every day for 27 years. Okay, that’s a good wonderer, you know, before you finally kind of cracked the problem, you thought about it and wondered about it for 27 years. So wonder, is this incredible tool that human beings have access to that I want to inspire you now to wonder about how could you transform your experience of time? No matter where you’re hearing or watching this now and in the future, how can you transform your experience of time? So it was never an issue for you. So you are never late, never early, where you were always exactly where you needed to be at the time you needed to be there. What would need to happen for that to happen? Well, that’s the shift into Einstein Time. And it goes in several steps. One step is to start noticing where you complain about time, or where you address other people about time in a limiting way. For example, I caught myself when I first started studying this 30 years ago on myself, I, I kind of cracked my own time problem back in the 80s. And so I realized that one of the things that I did was I use time as an excuse, in basically telling a lie to other people. And I would always say something like, somebody would want to talk to me about something. And I’d listened to what they had to say. And then I would say, hey, listen, I wish I had time. But I’ve got this other thing I got to do. Okay, so that’s using time as an excuse. What’s the excuse for it? Well, it avoids the more vulnerable thing of saying, I don’t want to talk to you anymore, right now. You know, that’s kind of a different communication and those kinds of things. It’s true. But we usually don’t blurt those things out to other people. So you can administer your own dose of that first start with a little homeopathic dose of telling the truth in safe ways before you start actually doing it out there in the general world, because you will get, you know, if the grocery boy asks you, how are you today? And you say, well, actually, I just switched my meds and I’m feeling f* up. You know, that’s, that might be the truth. But it’s a little bit of truth is a blunt weapon, you know that. So you have to moderate your dose of it to get by and be successful in the real world. And the moderation is owning it all, owning it all, owning time. And so when people say, do you have a moment, I will sometimes, if I like them, I’ll say, I’m where time comes from. Because that’s the bottom line thing in Einstein Time. You take responsibility for creating whatever way about time you want to create, but you do it out of your own chosen creativity, not on an adaptation you may have taken on when you were in junior high school, being the being the slacker or being the, you know, why is everybody running late? You know, where’s the teacher, you know, she’s supposed to be here. So I think that the big thing is to make that move where you kind of go from thinking of something out here as where the problem is to saying, how could I make up my own relationship with time where I was impeccable in the material world and showing up where I needed to be when I agreed to be there. And I’m also in charge of making up as much time as I need to express my genius. That’s a big deal. Because the more you can commit yourself to bringing forth more and more of your genius every day, then what you’re doing is you’re on a path that human beings hunger for all over the world, and you’ve chosen to be on that path, the path of expanding your genius, and what better way to spend your life. You know, there, it being your endless quest, no matter what out wherever else you’re doing. You may be the you know, president into this, or the head of the Safeway, grocery store. But what you’re also really interested in is bringing forth more of your genius and your employees’ genius.

Lesley Logan 49:37
Yeah. Oh my gosh, okay. You’re phenomenal. You’re amazing. We’re gonna take a brief break because I feel like we’ve been an Einstein time if, this is amazing. We’re gonna take a brief break and we’ll come back and find out where people can find you work with you and your Be It Action Items.

Alright Gay, where do you like people to go? Do you want them to read books? Do you want them to go to your website? Where should they hang out with you?

Gay Hendricks 49:59
Oh, yes. Come to our website, that’s where all the information is gathered. And that’s hendricks.com with a C-K-S. H-E-N-D-R-I-C-K-S. And although I met Jimmy Hendricks, six years ago on spell my name differently without the x, so hendricks.com and there, you can find out also about how to jump over to our nonprofit foundation, if you want to look at all the free videos and stuff like that kind of self-training materials we have over there for couples and individuals. So that’s the main place and of course, the books are wherever you get your books. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, your local Best Seller, bookstore, those kinds of places, look for us there we’ll always be there. And the big thing, though, is to every opportunity, if you think of, if you even think of one of these, use it as an opportunity to wonder about how you can bring forth more of your genius at that moment.

Lesley Logan 50:59
Yeah, that’s I think the best thing we can all take away. That’s like our Be It Action Item right there. You don’t know this. But I have tattooed on my thumb. I’m left-handed. So, I tattooed on my left thumb it says, I wonder. I did it probably in 2020. Because I used to grab our dog and hug her in the morning. I used to go Gaia, I wonder how we’re going to… and like, I would just like blurt out a question. And I would let it like, hanging out. And what happens is, you know, in 2020, everyone’s lives change in a big way. And for my, my, for me, and my husband, like our entire business stopped and how we did things change. And I realized I wasn’t in wonderment more, and I had, so I need to see it every day. And so I love how much you ask us to wonder.

Gay Hendricks 51:54
It’s human being’s underutilized superpower in my view, so the more you wonder, the more beautiful life becomes.

Lesley Logan 52:04
Yeah, yeah. Gay, you’ve given us so much. You’ve given the world so much. I mean, 51 books. Thank you so much for you coming on the show. Truly, this an honor. And I feel like you’ve given us a lot of different things to think about. So thank you. Thank you for being you. Thank you for (inaudible) us out there and you know, everyone, how are you going to use these tips in your life, make sure you check out Gays books and also go to hendricks.com. And I hope you wonder more, and share this with a friend who needs to hear it. 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 and others 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 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.