Transformative Resilience: Navigating Life's Lows and Achieving Peak Fulfillment with Eli Libby and Kyle Nelson

Join us in this emotionally charged episode as we host Eli Libby and Kyle Nelson, co-founders of Peak Fulfillment Men's Coaching. With a decade of entrepreneurial experience, Eli and Kyle share their powerful stories of overcoming personal lows, including surviving the devastating Campfire in Paradise. You will learn how resilience, self-awareness, and discipline became the pillars of their coaching approach, enabling men to achieve unprecedented levels of fulfillment.

Discover the unique bond between Eli and Kyle, where mutual respect and shared experiences drive their success as co-founders. From childhood challenges to adult traumas, you'll discover how these life events shaped their empathetic coaching style. Dive deep into their origin stories, understanding Eli's profound empathy forged through his parents' divorce and Kyle's lessons in leadership and love from his father.

In this candid conversation, Eli and Kyle unveil pivotal moments that fueled their commitment to guiding men towards fulfillment. Eli shares his experience facing a miscarriage and losing everything in the Campfire, while Kyle reflects on navigating a divorce and the collapse of their business. Witness the birth of resilience and mental fortitude as they turn personal tragedies into opportunities for growth.

As certified life coaches who have walked the path of lows, Eli and Kyle unpack the tools, exercises, and self-care practices from their 90-day mastermind and accelerator course. You will learn how they leverage their own experiences to relate to serial entrepreneurs, offering a unique blend of expertise, compassion, and proven strategies. Discover the art of being relational leaders in a world that often leans towards transactional approaches.

Fasten your seatbelts for an emotional journey through self-awareness, discipline, life purpose, goal-setting, and ownership. Join us in uncovering the wisdom behind the five pillars of fulfilment with our esteemed guests, Eli Libby and Kyle Nelson. Welcome to a transcendent episode of the Transcendent Minds Podcast.

Eli & Kyle's Website:https://www.peakfulfillmentcoaching.com/

Transcript

PMD: 0:00

Today I have the privilege of hosting two remarkable individuals, Eli Libby and Kyle Nelson, co founders of Peak Fulfillment Men's Coaching. With a combined decade of entrepreneurial experience, Eli and Kyle bring a wealth of knowledge and a deep understanding of the transformative power of self awareness and discipline. Eli Libby's journey is rooted in a childhood marked by challenges fostering a profound sense of empathy that fuels his passion for guiding men towards their peak potential. On the other hand, Kyle Nelson's path is intertwined with entrepreneurial successes and personal lows driving his commitment to teaching men that fulfillment is within reach through ownership, purpose and meaningful goals. And together, Eli and Kyle co founded Peak Fulfillment Men's Coaching, specializing in empowering men to reach unprecedented levels of fulfillment in all aspects of their lives. Today I want to dive into their personal stories, their motivations behind their coaching mission and the core topics they explore on their own podcast called the peak podcast. So fasten your emotional and mental seatbelts for an insightful conversation on self awareness discipline life purpose goal setting and ownership as we explore the five pillars of fulfillment with our esteemed guests, Eli Libby and Kyle Nelson. Welcome to the transcendent minds podcast. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you for the intro as well.

Eli: 1:37

We're excited to be here.

PMD: 1:39

It's great to have you guys here. And let's just kick off by, I want to understand how do both of your journeys with successes and lows contribute to the unique blend of expertise, compassion, and proven strategies that define your coaching approach at Peak Fulfillment.

Eli: 2:02

That's awesome. Call I'll jump in there and kick things up. How and I have been a yin and yang partner going back about 10 years ago. We met at a dinner and it was just from there we felt that there was this interesting bond that none of us had really felt before. And that journey propelled us into multiple different ventures, some highs and lows that I'll get to here in a second. But what I think is really unique about our bond. is the power of respect. Kyle and I have an incredible amount of respect for each other, both in our personal and professional life, where there's really no need to argue over things. And I think that has allowed us to get through some of those really deep lows at an accelerated rate where most co founders, but we talk a lot about co founders and the power of that in our entrepreneurial talks. But that power to be able to respect each other and move past things and figure out, okay, here's the action plan and actually execute on that has really driven us to some of the successes that we've had and I would call the failures that we had absolute successes because of that power to work together, solve problems and execute on the next steps.

Kyle: 3:14

Add to that even though we are certified life coaches, even though we've read the books, we've been to the seminars, we listen to the podcasts, we do all the things that people are working on themselves still, we have gone through an immense amount of lows in our life, immense amount of trauma, and a lot of times where we had to seek resilience in life and the biggest pain point that we're trying to help men with is no matter how low, you can get in life, there's always a positive and an up to really elevate yourself. And there is no ceiling. So many men think there is a ceiling in their life, right? And as coaches, mindset coaches and helping men with that for me personally, all the coaches that I've worked with, I want to work with people that have gone through that before. They've gone through the motions, they've understood, they've educated themselves and they've shown that time after time, using those same pillars of fulfillment that we talk about can be applied to any situation that you're going through. So we just really try to lean really hard on what we've gone through, that's what we know best, and the tools that we've used to really get unstuck and really remove that block in order to move forward, get some momentum and really chase our dreams in life.

PMD: 4:28

That's beautiful and I want to also delve into your origin story. Was there a specific childhood experience that you believe significantly shaped your empathetic approach to coaching men?

Eli: 4:44

Yeah, absolutely. So I can chat a little more about my personal story as an adult. But in childhood, my parents also went through a divorce. I went through a divorce, spoiler alert for the audience. But my parents went through a divorce. And what I learned when through the coaching that Kyle and I have done these kind of mental boot camps that we've been a part of, where you dig down, break yourself down to the lowest of lows, and then continue to build yourself up. I learned through that process that I built empathy through the kind of root of my parents divorce where we would exchange back and forth to my mom and my dad every single week and I had this feeling of man, like I just left my dad. He's probably alone. I'm thinking about him. I need to call him, make sure he's doing okay. Check in on him. And then I would switch over to my mom's my dad's house. I'd be with him, but I still wouldn't be fully satisfied because I felt now my mom was alone. My mom needs help. My mom needs support. So I built this empathetic muscle at a really young age for people to care and kind of protect people's feelings and make sure that I was there for them as a crutch. And that's where, that's part of the fuel today in helping guys and being there for men that are going through something. I think that is really at the very deepest core of who I am, very empathetic towards people. And I always just want to help people. And that's really from a childhood where it stemmed today.

PMD: 6:18

Thanks Eli.

Eli: 6:19

Yeah, absolutely.

Kyle: 6:21

Yeah. Growing up and still to this day, my father is my number one he's my best friend. Eli knows he's one of Eli's close friends as well. He is a servant to people. He's a leader and all he knows is love. And so watching him growing up, understanding that the more you pour into others. The more you'll reap in life, right? And so seeing him and the things that he would do, he would, he was a natural leader. And so I would watch him just step up and just say, Hey, I'll help with that. I'll do that. Let's go help this person. Hey, Kyle, it's Saturday let's go, even though I'm not part of the Rotary, let's go to the Rotary and help them clean. Like we would do so much. And so through that, I found through loving on others, you become a magnet of, people wanting to pour back into you and so watching how empathetic he was and when I was down or hurt or, he could tell I was having trouble at school or whatever it is, he would come to me as a friend and he would come to me lock eye to eye and I would know in that moment I was the only thing that mattered. And so feeling that at such a young age and watching my whole life, even till today he is still the same way always pouring in and helping people. I just built an armor of empathy for individuals and i'm so blessed that you know he was the man he is and watching him help create the man I am today and whatever I can do to help other men love on them and really just share with them the tools that I've learned. Share from my role models in life and then hopefully learn from them as well. Is really important to me. Definitely just watching my father. I didn't have too much trauma growing up as a child. That was later in my adult years, which we'll go over, I'm sure. But yeah, just watching the way he would just always be willing to help was truly what built me.

PMD: 8:09

And what I'm hearing from you guys is there's, it's an important distinction, what I call the hell narrative is what can I get whereas the heaven narrative is what can I do? And it's like, what can you do to uplift others? Because by doing that, you uplift yourself as well. Was there a pivotal moment that you can share that fueled your commitment to guiding men towards fulfillment?

Eli: 8:38

How do you want to jump in first for me to roll?

Kyle: 8:40

Yeah, absolutely. As an adult I had, November, 2018, I had pretty much the two worst things that could ever happen to me happen within a 48 hour period. My wife and I went through a miscarriage of our second child. And the next day we experienced the campfire in paradise where our house burnt down, our city burnt down, my parents house burnt down. So we lost everything and we were homeless with our child and dog. And by the way, my parents were, they didn't know what to do, so I had to be the backbone of the whole family. And so I saw so many people struggle through that and luckily at the time, I had an understanding of self awareness. I had an understanding of resilience and an understanding of You cannot let the past define you. You have to define who you want to be by the actions that you're taking in life. And so through that experience over a one to two year period, I learned so much about the importance of finding that momentum that you need in order to develop and create the life that you want. And there's so many people that went through so much pain through that and I just, I kept witnessing it and I was like, I'm in the same situation as these people are. We all had lost during this and I was dealing with a miscarriage that I wasn't able to cope with until recently this past year. And so at that moment, I told myself, I was like, I know my purpose in life is to really help men, find fulfillment, find their North Star and their purpose and where they're heading. Because if you don't have that, you're just going in and out of lanes. You don't know where you're going. You're going forward, but you don't know where that path or that highway is taking you. Through that understanding, the biggest word for me is resilience and really understanding having a growth mindset and push myself, into the uncomfortable to become comfortable with those things was really a pivotal point in my life.

PMD: 10:34

And what was the backstory for those who don't know about the fires?

Kyle: 10:38

Yeah. Yeah. So Northern California, the past 10 years has just been burning down. Essentially, there's fire after fire every season and the campfire burnt down the city of Paradise and the city of Magalia, which was 58, 000 people were displaced. 18, 000 homes were burnt down. The whole city, completely. It was like Armageddon. It was gone and it was the most costly catastrophe in 2018 in the world. And the most costly wildfire in the United States ever. Putting it into perspective, it was a lot and what I went through trying to escape that fire and leaving it was a whole nother traumatic event. But yeah, it was a very hard time for some, and Eli, he was in Chico, which is a 10 minute drive from Paradise, and so he was going through all of the emotions as well having to now help people that are displaced, having to deal with the aftermath of 58, 000 people entering a city of 100, 000 people that's a lot to go through yeah, the ups and downs of that fire was really, it was international news, everybody, it was on every national news, and it happened quick, too, but then, you 24 hours, the city was gone.

PMD: 11:41

I always think in birth and death cycles and whilst it is tragic and it leads to a lot of frustration and there's loss and there's regrets and there's all kinds of emotions that come into play. But there's also something that it gives birth to as well. And like you were talking about earlier about resilience and it pulls those threads out of you that you probably would never have used in a quote unquote normal situation.

Eli: 12:17

Yeah, mine roots back to about two, two and a half years ago and this kind of comes back to as the more we talk about empathy and where my roots come from, I hold this really like immense accountability for people that are in my life and how their emotional state is, and as a Co founder with Kyle of a business that we had I feel this immense pressure to provide for my employees and make sure that they can put food on the table for their families Anyways after COVID, we, our business kind of grew substantially, we hired and staffed up like crazy and then it all of a sudden really started to crumble down and we had to make some really hard decisions in the span of, legitimately like the 11th hour before payroll otherwise, the whole ship sinks. So now we've got to slice off our entire staff. But in that period, I was going through a divorce as well. And within this two week period went through a divorce went through the business basically crumbling, which was my livelihood as well. And I had to, Kyle and I both had to lay off basically our whole team. So my accountability muscle to them, I felt like was completely diminished and at the same time, in that two week period, I lost my uncle who was this guiding North star kind of mentor for me. All in the span of two weeks and I realized that I can take two paths. I can either crumble down, be stuck my entire life, have this as this kind of negative cloud over my head my entire life, or I can build a mental fortitude and figure out how to build mental fitness and come back from this. And then not only do that, but how do I spin that into a positive and how can I influence other people? Because I know that is my purpose in life, is to influence men and influence people and bring them up. Show them that the glass is half full. So that mindset shift was a a binary decision for me. It's either go this way and be miserable your whole life or go this way and turn this whole thing into a positive and teach other people that if you're going through a divorce there could be a reason that happens. I believe that everything happens for a reason and today, I'm a living, breathing testament of that. If that did not happen, I wouldn't be anywhere near the fulfillment and happiness that I have today and I believe that created, like Kyle said, this incredible mental armor, or this mental fortitude that I mentioned before, that I can now teach and train other men how to get through that. Because the worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to you. No matter what that is and what we're teaching at Peak Fulfillment is in this 90 day mastermind and this accelerator course really is how do you have the tools, the gear bag, the exercises, the worksheets to be able to take that and implement and to create those self care practices and that mental fitness to be able to tackle anything in life. That's what we're doing for serial entrepreneurs because Kyle and I can relate very well to them. Because we are serial entrepreneurs, we know what they're going through and their personal lives and their professional lives. How do you balance that stuff because of these massive lows and highs that we've had we've been able to accelerate our experience more than most people because we've taken immense risk. And today we're in a spot to be able to teach that we've packaged it up and be able to and teach that with our experiences and our learnings and again, that empathetic muscle that both Kyle and I have we've learned to be relational leaders versus transactional leaders and I think that's why we have this magnetism around us and what we're doing, what we're trying to do for men and that's where we are today. That's how I've pivoted my trauma, my low into what we're doing.

PMD: 16:11

There's a big difference between being stuck in blame and avoidance or marching along that same line into the camp of truth and responsibility. And you can either be the victim on one end of the bar or you can be the victor at the other end of the bar. Exactly. And that's the greatest gift we're given is the gift of choice. So we're given the yes and the no, so we can make those choices. And was there a specific turning point that led you to co found Peak Fulfillment Men's Coaching and why do you believe in the unique blend of expertise, compassion, and proven strategies?

Kyle: 16:54

Over the past couple years, a couple years ago, Eli and I just found that we weren't fulfilled really at the end of the day. We had another podcast. We were helping men, not just men, but individuals in a very indirect way through our podcast. And we just felt like there's just something that is calling us to do more. And it's not this, we had our business at the time working for another company as well and had another business. And so we're just like, man, this isn't it. This is too much. This is not where our legacy wants to be in the impact that not only we want to make that we know we can make. And that impact doesn't need to be millions of people, a hundred thousand people. It doesn't have to be thousands of people. If we can share what we know and what we've gone through with other men and help build them up. That's really want to be and so literally we just grabbed some coffee one day And I was like, we just looked at each other and we knew there was something like what's up, dude and he's we're both just yeah, we're both not fulfilled right now. What do we do and we just did a brain dump and we're like, all right, we're going to become mindset coaches and we're going to do this right and it may take a while to build this and understand our messaging and our marketing and understand really what are the pillars that we want to rely on and talk about. And really, what can we offer people? And it just happened. And then we were just thinking, man, we love the mountains. We love the chase to the peak of a mountain and the trails and the outdoors. We live in central Oregon, which has the cascade mountain range, which is beautiful. And we want to associate that with it and literally we were like fulfillment the peak of a mountain Peak fulfillment like it just came to us. It was really cool but yeah, you probably could have more Eli, but it was really just this moment of both of us coming together and that's what happened with another business of ours called Results Imagery that we've had for seven and a half years now where we help e commerce companies with photography and video production. We're like, dude, there's more to this photography thing. How do we figure this out and scale it at an international level and we literally grabbed a beer and a burger and we're like, all right, let's do it and so there's just this energy between us that when something's up, usually we're aligned with those feelings as well.

Eli: 19:05

And Kyle hit it on the head with the buzzword legacy. That really stems everything. I could repeat what Kyle said, but I'm not going to do that to the listeners. So I think what makes us fulfilled and Is that giving and pouring like Kyle said earlier with his teachings from his dad is pouring love into people. But how do we do it for our market? We need to do something that we relate to we have experience in and men, we understand typically have a wall up. There's a little bit of an ego as well, and there's a lack of vulnerability. That is changing today. So how can we speak to those people and how can we offer a plan to fulfillment for them and then bake on top of that, can we create a legacy. Between us that we have helped X amount of men get past mass trauma in their life. Have we helped them get past divorces? Have they helped them have the courage and the mindset to get out there and get up and go to the gym every morning at five before they help their families out? What can we do to help them out, even if it's a small thing? And that's really that heartbeat behind the company and how it was formed.

PMD: 20:12

I love your dedication to teaching men that fulfillment is within reach and that's really evident in your mission of peak fulfillment coaching and your whole aim is to educate and inspire men to take ownership of their lives and to find their purpose and set meaningful goals and lead lives filled with purpose and fulfillment. How do these principles shape your own life and how do you convey their importance to your clients?

Eli: 20:43

That's an amazing question. We try and do everything based on our experiences. So when we start diving into our teaches and what are our teachings and what are we going to offer? It comes from those pillars of fulfillment. So those are born from our experiences and by that things that we've implemented in our lives to change and to create, or at least keep us on the path to fulfillment. Because fulfillment really is an ever engaging type of, something that we're always going to chase. I don't think anybody is completely fulfilled. And it's all about that journey. And that's why we talk about this path, this trail that you're climbing to fulfillment. But a big one, at least for me, I'll let Kyle jump in too is self discipline really becoming powerful and passionate about being disciplined and being and taking ownership. We've been running companies for the last 10 years. Ownership was one of the most unique things that I pulled away from that, which is at the end of the day, you are the top dog and you make all of the decisions. And if something goes wrong, you have to take ownership for that. And once you realize the power of you own all of your decisions that you make and or you trust an employee and you give them the ownership, to me that was like just a massive light bulb that went off. So that teaching is something that I personally have always instilled in myself as a leader and something that we're trying to bring to the table along with self discipline as well, having that drive and visualizing before what are you trying to accomplish? And then setting that discipline that every day you have to go after that and you have to make a move. And if you don't make a move on that, your goal will continue to stay as that distance away. I always believe that if you're not doing something that day, if you're not getting 1 percent better, you're not getting anywhere close to your goal. The combination of those two things, I would say, are some teachings that we've practiced before implementing them into our program.

PMD: 22:46

Nothing happens until something moves, right?

Eli: 22:48

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Kyle: 22:51

I just add one thing to that real quick. Something I learned a while back is, what I like to call the spotlight syndrome, where we are so In our minds, thinking that everyone is thinking of ourselves and of us and our spotlight is always on when in reality, no one is thinking about me, right? They may think good, positive thoughts. You may be coming up in a memory or handy talk to that person, but we are always so inundated thinking the spotlight is on us. Yep. And the second I realized that. I was like, okay, people aren't thinking about me because when you get in that mindset, you're thinking of every single small little move that you do, everything you say, everything that you may be embarrassed about, you have anxiety about, you have stress about, people are thinking that's all they think of you. That is what they define you as. And when I started realizing, people aren't thinking about me, they're not really thinking about me. The anxieties I have, and this, whole, perceived vision of Kyle that's just in my own mind and starting to apply that to self awareness, and being aware of that, and understanding, you're in your own lane, and you need to make the movements that you need to do for yourself to find fulfillment and not let what you think others think of you, get in the way. And so ever since I developed this self awareness of this spotlight syndrome that I think all of us really run with in our life, once you can remove that spotlight and say, okay, no one's in my way, no one's thinking of me, if anything, they probably think well of me and they might want to ask for some help themselves or whatever it is. That really helped me understand I don't need to worry about what others think. And I know that's kind of cliche and grade school, putting into the perspective of a spotlight really helped me. And so that really helped with my journey of self awareness and understanding that every behavior I take is, every action there's a reaction. That was very helpful for me.

PMD: 24:49

I love the spotlights syndrome because a spotlight lends itself to attention. Yep. There's a spotlight on you, but when you have an intention and you intend, then that's more like a laser and that is much more penetrative and longer lasting and if you do marry those two things, your attention and your intention, then you get focus. But if you only have one part of the equation, then that can lead to lack of self worth, and all the rest of it. As coaches in your own right, how do you balance the unique blend of expertise, compassion, and proven strategies to tailor your coaching approach to each individual?

Eli: 25:40

That's an awesome question again. So a big part of it is you know, taking them through how we do it is taking through an onboarding process and we listen, we have some certain questions that should be able to pull through and pull out some of those deep down experiences if we can really get to the core of their values, we can really find where the misalignment is between their values and where they are today and where they want to go. So for us, it's really about, I keep saying it, but it is about listening and then at that point, we can tailor programs and tailor custom goal sheets and pass them the right content. And then bring them into the right groups and the right communities that can help foster where they are and where they're trying to go with other guys that have gone through that path. Like Kyle said earlier when we look for coaches ourselves and how we envision our students wanting to look for a coach is they want to be around people and they want to be coached by people that have already paved that path and we try and fit men in at those different angles that they're looking to progress in their own lives. And it, Kyle, does that hit that on the head? Or anything else?

Kyle: 26:49

Yeah, just something I wanted to add. We have two ears, one mouth. Shut up and listen. Understanding who, what, like Eli said, is their values and understanding deeply what makes them move. What is their fire? What is it? Yeah, when that fire is not ignited, how do we reignite that for them so they can be a momentum fireball in this world and be the light that people need to move forward? Eli and I, we have very different things we've gone through, but the cool part about us is, both the events that we talked about, we went through them together. He was there for me. I was there for him. So we were able to look through their eyes a little bit, sit in his shoes and really understand that. But really, when we're talking with men and we're working with them we just lean into each other's experiences and what we've learned and sometimes I can't speak to stuff, but what I can do is tell you, I went through something similar. This is how I really recalibrated my mind in order to work towards that and whatever that is for people. So it's understanding you don't have the answers to everything. I am not your guru. I am not your God. I don't have the encyclopedia of information to can do fulfillment in life, but I can create a path and I can create the tools and as long as you utilize these and you follow our system you can craft out that path. You can do it yourself and that's part of fulfillment. Once you've gone through you need to go through the work in order to really feel fulfilled It's not just gonna happen as we all know. Material wealth typically doesn't bring happiness to people it may give them freedom of time, It may buy them some items that they want or fund their children's college, whatever that is but you're still working. There's still an emptiness in a hole that you need to fill from that you've always had. And that's one of the reasons why we work with serial entrepreneurs. Because we understand that so many people, their climb and their path is to material wealth. And then when you get there, it's not, it's helpful. Money is a good thing. It's nice to have. But, it's not the end all be all. And I think a lot of the programming that we all have as children and going to college or working hard in corporate America, starting a business, raising it, it's to money. That's what we're doing. We're working our whole life and educating ourselves for more amount of money and when you can just replace that with other intentions in your life and the focus that you put on that material wealth that you ran towards Imagine if you put that focus into you and your wife or your children or your health or you know whatever it is that you're looking for in life. You can move mountains for sure.

PMD: 29:26

The beauty of you guys is you have a visceral experience. It's not an academic pursuit. It's like boots on the ground. You've been there. You've done the work of it. You've experienced the highs and the lows of it. So now you can become those beacons of transmission for others who need to go on their own path to set their feet upon their own path and I think that's a very important thing to, to be able to have that visceral experience. How do you both personally define fulfillment and how does this definition guide your coaching methodology?

Kyle: 30:02

That's something that we get asked a lot, you named your coaching company, peak fulfillment. Does that mean you're promising fulfillment? It is the goal and actions that you're doing every day to move towards that. Fulfillment for me is the journey that you're going towards and the work that you're doing because during that growth period and all the stretching that's happening, all the uncomfortable feelings, that is just going to build your mental fitness and your mental muscles so strong. Knowing that with every trauma and every situation that goes in life, whether it's a positive or negative, you know that you have that armor ready to go and that you can be resilient, pop back quicker to where you were or to grow yourself from those situations. So for me, fulfillment really is the understandment of whatever situation happens in life. You can go back and find that happiness and learn from that to really find what am I supposed to learn from this? What am I supposed to reflect on? And how do I grow myself moving forward? So I wouldn't say fulfillment is a pinnacle thing and that's what, one of the reasons why we call it peak fulfillment is so people understand that it's all about the journey of life. And at the end of the day, like we all say, when we're on our deathbed, do we look back and did we say we worked 40, 50 years in corporate America or, the corporate life? I had a nice amount of money in retirement. I was happy. I did the things I felt like I should do. Or did you leave a legacy and make impact on this world where people are talking about you for generations and people say, man, when they're on their deathbed, I'm so glad I talked to Kyle and Eli because they shifted my mindset to want more in life. And so I just look at legacy. I look at the journey. And I just look at this ongoing growth mindset that we all need to have and really cultivating that to understand that no matter what your wish or goal or dream is that you can reach it with the right tools.

PMD: 32:05

I can see you're providing a real education because I think part of the problem is that we are inculcated to follow a curriculum, which is designed to fulfill an economic imperative and that's supposed to make us happy because we get the job, we get the white picket fence, we have the 2. 2 kids, and then we lose consciousness after 70 or 80 or 90 years. Yeah. And if that's it. then I'm ready to leave this planet. As distinct from having a true education, understanding about your emotions, understanding about your mental construct, understanding about decision making. So in navigating the challenges that men face, what role do you believe self awareness and discipline play in achieving lasting personal growth?

Eli: 33:00

That's awesome. When it comes to self awareness and discipline and lasting personal growth, self awareness is the root of everything. Throughout our entire program, we talk about self awareness is that gateway drug essentially into fulfillment, into personal development. If you lack that, if you don't have that, we're going to help you find that and just fine tune that muscle. Self discipline is, I think, the next layer to that is once you can be self aware, you can read a room. Not only read a room that you walk into, but read yourself and how are you approaching a situation knowing your triggers and knowing other people's triggers and other people's stressors and how to approach that situation, I think sculpts the best leaders. I think if you look at some of the best leaders in the world, they have an incredible amount of self of self awareness and then they layer in self discipline. And that allows them to grow and create these accolades that they've done today. That's just something that we're really pushing on for our students is develop that self awareness and then self discipline will come very quickly after that. And it's almost a natural offset, a natural wake off of self awareness is come self discipline. At least that's what I've seen in our experience so far.

Kyle: 34:15

Yeah, I truly believe that everybody needs someone to wake them up into the world of self awareness. Yeah. There are so many people we all have conversations with. We see their actions. We see the things they may be posting on social media or the things that you're just like, You don't have self awareness, you're not being aware of like your actions and your behaviors. And just not giving it your psyche, the focus that it needs. And so if we can on a podcast, hopefully say one little nugget that's wow, self awareness. I get what the word means, but what does that mean and they can start deep diving into what that means. That is so fulfilling for us. That is like the impact that we're looking for. And so as we go through our coaching program, we're really teaching men. You get to the point, which I'm like this, where every decision I make, I have an unconscious self awareness trigger to make sure that I'm making the right decision and what that domino effect is going to be and the ripple effect that will happen from that. And the more that you think that way, the less energy and time it takes to make decisions. And you understand decisions that you need to sit on and the decisions that you need to actually think about and really put time into because so many people that aren't self aware they'll stress about what's for dinner to an extent of they're so unproductive for two hours because they're freaking out if they're having chicken or beef and that's so real. I know people that are like that with decisions and they're sitting there, but if you can just have just a dose of self awareness and understand that some decisions don't need to have so much stress in some, you do need to think about and sit on and maybe meditate or prayer over whatever that is that you use as a tool is very important. And then with self discipline, self discipline and ownership go one and one, knowing that when you give your word to yourself, you keep that word to yourself. And then if you don't do the action that you told yourself you would do every day, every week, every month, you need to reflect on it, right? And you need to embrace that failure and learn and self reflect. Man, I see that this habit isn't working because I'm not doing it. There must be a reason why every day I'm not doing that habit. How do I change? How do I be more self aware about it? And how do I make it so it works for me for the goals and the milestones I'm trying to reach?

PMD: 36:29

It brings to mind, when people say self conscious, I flip it on its head, change polarity and say, be conscious of self, self awareness, have an awareness of self, but which self do you need to be aware of? Do you need to be aware of the self that's free? Do you need to be aware of the self that is we could really philosophize about all the different selves all of a sudden, that's part of the clearing house of the subconscious mind. For me self awareness or what I like to call awakened awareness really serves as the compass that guides me through the labyrinth of life. Because if I have an understanding or I can stand under what that self awareness means in a deep and intimate level. It's not just an introspective exercise, but a transformative and transcendent journey. And through that journey I gain clarity on my strengths, my weaknesses, my core values, and really pave the way for authentic growth and a profound connection with not only myself, but with others as well. So in effect, it becomes the lens through which I can navigate challenges and make decisions aligned with my true self and foster meaningful relationships.

Eli: 37:51

Love that. I love the last part he said about fostering meaningful relationships and how all of that is an offset of creating a meaningful relationship that has depth, that has a depth to it. That's really interesting.

PMD: 38:02

It's the same thing with self discipline again, you mentioned self discipline and even when you look at the word discipline, it's being indisciple. You're being in disciples to something and, if you have a discipleship, then that becomes your superpower that propels you towards a destiny like you, mentioned earlier, Kyle it's about doing the work. You've got to build the density, because if you build the practice, or you build the density, you're consistent with that, that creates that density, which then creates the trajectory for your desired destiny. In the face of adversity and the inevitable ups and downs of life, that self discipline for me anyway becomes the anchor that ensures I stay committed to my goals, or I prefer the word promises, but that's another thing, but I stay committed because when I'm committed to something, it means that I reduce my options because that to me is what commitment is about. It means I'm not going to go chasing after every shiny object syndrome. Your whole ability to engender an environment where coachees can cultivate and maintain discipline is not just about adhering to a routine, but it's a testament to the word that you chose is resilience and determination and through that self discipline, they can unlock their inner potential and harness their strength that they need to overcome the challenges or the obstacles on the path to their own fulfillment. So it's a superpower.

Eli: 39:52

Absolutely. It is a superpower. We've said that multiple times.

PMD: 39:55

Can you share an instance where self discipline played a crucial role in achieving a significant goal in your entrepreneurial journey?

Kyle: 40:06

I would say it was year two or three with one of our companies and we had about three employees. We felt like we were starting to build a team and we were making quite a bit of money at the time the business was, and we had people in place, like a person that was managing the smaller team. And we started to take our foot off the gas pedal, Eli and I, we took her hands off the rudder and we said, okay, we're going to see this team go, we're going to start focusing a little bit on other stuff. Or how do we grow the company? How do we work on the company not in the company. And within a month, bank account dwindled to a dollar and 29 cents, we were like, holy crap, what did we do? We were way too young in our infancy with this company. And so Eli and I said, okay, we got it to where it needed to be in order to think we could take off that take off the time in the business and work on the business, we can do this again. And then from the next 30 days, we worked so hard on sales and processes and marketing and everything in our company. We had the strongest month ever, and we knew for 30 days straight. We could not stop working. We didn't take days off. We got in like it was like 6 a. m. We left like a 7 p. m. And we knew that we cannot let this happen again. And most likely we probably can't take your foot off the gas pedal. It was a great learning, but that 30 days was so much self-discipline between Eli and I and we just kept each other going. We were coaching each other in a very natural, authentic way. After that moment with Eli and I, we were very, I think Eli, we were very inspired where if there is something in your life that is throwing you at such a low that it was such a curve ball that you didn't even know was gonna happen, right? Yep. If you just work at it and put the time in, you can fix it. You can change those actions that you had reflect on, man, that's what we did. We should probably not do that again. Look what we can do in 30 days. Like how motivating and inspiring that is with the company moving forward. So that was one moment in my professional career that I was like, wow, self discipline is real. If you just stick to it and keep yourself and another accountable you really can move mountains. It's your laser. There it is. The laser.

Eli: 42:25

That's one that I definitely put my finger on as well. Another one would be early on in that same company, we closed a really large order. We were responsible to do all these photos of these shoes. Hundreds of boxes of shoes. And because we, yeah, because we. probably lacked a little bit of the intent to focus and create an absolute amazing deliverable. We were just trying to rip through them because we had so much work behind that and what happened was without a with a lack of self discipline, we ended up having to do this full thing three times back to back because we didn't have the discipline to really understand the client's directions. And we kept missing the mark. We're responsible for missing that and so we had to have that laser that intent that third time we took us three times to learn that to really say okay. This is exactly what we need to do This is the angle we have to shoot every single shoe that is per client direction. We have to be disciplined to that small story very small kind of inkling and In the grand scheme of things, but it was a small thing that shaped a larger mental focus and mental fortitude.

PMD: 43:39

That reminds me of a story when I was a photographer I'm still a photographer, but I remember. Somebody gave me a bunch of clothes, like a whole rack of clothes. I knew nothing about photographing retail. Cause I was mainly models and landscapes and calendars. And I had to spend all night in the studio with the owner learning how to position these clothes, how to have the right bench, to lay them on and all the rest of it and the right lighting. But you know what? It was a crash course in discipline for me because part of me was like, Hey, I just want to go home. this is beyond my remit here. But I thought, no, you know what? I'm going to take it on. I had that laser like focus, thought nothing is going to stop me. I'm going to deliver to the client because I promised. I promise them, and I'm not going to go back on my promise. So in that vein, how do you help individuals cultivate and maintain self discipline, especially during challenging times?

Eli: 44:46

That's amazing. A big part of that is what we call the, this gear bag that we give them. That's an outcome that they take away. And not only do they have that accountability build up, so they have to be disciplined to us, disciplined to the course, disciplined to the community members of the course, and the program, but what they do is they get a walk away with repetition of, doing reps in the gym, right? That is discipline to work on that individual muscle. I know you have a lot of background in that as well. It's the same thing as through this program they're constantly doing over and over doing these different types of worksheets and exercises to fine tune that, that discipline muscle. So they walk away with that. And that's how we're helping craft and sculpt that so that hopefully after if they choose not to continue. they have that ready to go. They know how to come back and implement that. And they can implement something that may have been a different scenario, but they can spin that to what they're currently working on and their current challenge that they're facing in their business or in their professional life or their personal life.

PMD: 45:49

So consistency builds that density as distinct from where people go into intensity and then they back off. So consistency beats intensity.

Eli: 46:01

Exactly. Exactly. Once they do it for a certain amount of time, they say two weeks or whatever to develop a habit. We try and pound that into them as well and also accountability lies, like I said, lies closely in there. If they pay for something, they're typically a lot more motivated and accountable to themselves to get that work done. And it's just creating that discipline even when it's hard to do, you have to break through that, that little mental barrier. And that's when you really grow.

PMD: 46:28

There's this little man that sits on your shoulder and whispers in your ear and makes a vibration in your mind and goes and then you rationalize yourself into immobility by bringing out all these stories. I only know because I've done it myself.

Eli: 46:46

We have two.

PMD: 46:47

Why is self-discipline considered a fundamental pillar and how does it contribute to a fulfilling life according to your coaching philosophy?

Kyle: 46:58

I think I'm gonna lean on this is one of the number one questions I like asking in our one-on-one onboard, or even in our sales process. And we don't really sell to men. It's their decision. If they wanna do it, this is the information we have. We're not gonna bug you. You know what's good for you. We ask. You're coming to us because a trigger word of fulfillment something in you is like man there's something going on are you stuck in a constant work focus mindset? Or have you been experience lots of anxiety and stress lately? Are you longing for fulfillment outside of material wealth whatever that is and we asked them in 90 days What does life look like to you right now? If you do not take this step and working on yourself and recalibrating your mind it looks like the same It actually probably looks worse Okay, cool. What does life look like for you in 90 days if you were just to focus once a week with us on a call, we teach you some principles, such as self discipline, and you get to the mindset and the path that you're looking for. What does life look like. It looks pretty good. It looks like maybe I have a better relationship with my wife. I'm not working as hard. I was able to maybe get rid of some unhealthy habits that I was doing. Unproductive habits, both personally and professionally. Okay, cool. What do you think it takes to get there in 90 days? I maybe need to set some goals. Maybe I need to be more aware of my thoughts and actions. Cool. What is it every day that you need to do and work on? What is that called that you're working every day? That's self discipline, understanding the promise that you made to yourself to move forward. And so without self discipline everything else in this program can't work. If you cannot be disciplined to yourself and show yourself the accountability that it needs to know that North Star in 90 days is this, and you need to work hard at it and stretch yourself and grow and get comfortable with the uncomfortable, then we can't help you. But if you're willing to listen to us and understand this is the gear bag that you have, or that we have for you, and one of the number one things is being disciplined to yourself, because obviously you had some discipline to yourself building this amazing business, or busineses, right? How do we apply that to your mindset and your mental in order to move forward and really to say okay 90 days I'm going to make a difference in my life and it can extremely change the rest of really perpetuity of your whole life. Without self discipline, you can't progress in life. You have to have it. And, you're three days strong on a certain thing that you're working on with us. And oh, I messed up. It was a busy day. I couldn't get to it. That's fine. Reflect on it and promise yourself I'm restarting now and I'm going to move forward and prove to myself and prove to my accountability partners and community that I'm part of that I'm aware to, to move forward. Love it. That was beautiful, Kyle. Yeah. Thanks.

PMD: 49:43

I'd like to talk to you about life purpose because I see that you assist individuals in uncovering, embracing their life purpose. Why is life purpose a focal point in your coaching methodology and what transformations have you observed when individuals align with their purpose?

Eli: 50:06

Yeah. A big part of that was actually some inspiration recently from a Netflix show called The Blue Zones and there's this area in Japan where every single person within the community, a blue zone again is centenarians, the biggest density of centenarians, people over a hundred. They do a common practice that they do is what's called Ikigai, which means that is their purpose. So everybody in the community follows their Ikigai and every day they wake up. The decision is does this decision or action that I'm doing align with my ikigai? If not, then I'm not doing it. And the amount of happiness that comes from when they find their purpose, finding their purpose is a whole nother thing, and we help men look back into their past. What is that purpose? Again, for me, I shared in the beginning, which is empathy, positivity, and be there to support people. That's something that's my purpose to inspire. Once they find that, every decision that they make and every time they pursue and get closer to that purpose in life. They're happy. They just live better lives. They have better balance. They love live longer lives and they can just create a better legacy. So that was really honestly a relatively recent, not recent, but that's an evolution of purpose and how we bake that into our teachings.

Kyle: 51:22

I think, purpose is what's simply what is the fuel to your fire that's keeping you going every day. And a lot of people, they struggle with that because we just start with what do you think your purpose is, right? Let's just see what they say, what do they come out with? And a lot of people are like I don't really know. What is it that you enjoy in life? What fuels your fire? What brings you bliss and happiness? Oh, sports brings me bliss and happiness. I'm a big fan of this team. Cool. So you really enjoy that chase and the unknown of sports and that hunt to see if your team's going to do well. Yeah. Okay. How can we apply that to different parts of your life? Exactly. And if it's sports and if that's that adrenaline that you like, that you need and that dopamine of watching your team, that's okay. How can we integrate that style of thinking into your life every single day. Maybe when we're talking to this person, every time what their trigger is and what gets them understanding is you apply every scenario to sports instead. Then that helps them understand. Oh, I get it. I get what he's saying now because of this game You let them riff you let them talk about that because you see that's their fire and so I think Relating to all of these different tools and all these different things and pillars that we talked about to what their fire is and understanding what that purpose is so big and for me personally my purpose is constantly kind of morphing every year. I feel like it's something different right because i'm like man, it's more defined It's more I really understand this and so when you just set yourself on a broad purpose in life moving forward You will find year after year gets comes more defined and defined You know, every day and once you have that as your North Star, you're always looking at and you're following towards. It's just such a great feeling of fulfillment that you're like, okay, I know where my dart is going when I throw it. I know that it's going to hit that center because I'm so focused and I'm so trained mentally that I know how to get there. Purpose is such a cool thing to talk about. It's such an unknown for most people and it's really cool to see people once you start aligning what makes them happy in life. They start to understand, okay, I do have a purpose that I can find really deep in me. It's just how do I understand what that is? And it takes time and a lot of work.

PMD: 53:27

Purpose is a guiding light that illuminates your journey towards a fulfilled existence and I passionately advocate for the exploration and definition of a life purpose because I consider it the driving force behind my meaningful actions and decisions because I recognize that when I align My pursuits with my life purpose, every endeavor becomes infused with a sense of significance and fulfillment. So it's not just about what I do, but understanding why it matters to me on a deeply personal level.

Eli: 54:10

That's amazing. That's exactly right. Yeah. It's that depth that we keep talking about.

PMD: 54:14

I'd like to talk to you about goal setting because I see it's the roadmap that transforms dreams into tangible realities, if you will. Was there a personal experience where effective goal setting played a key role in your entrepreneurial successes?

Eli: 54:35

Yeah, for us, it always has come back to the at least the quick answer would be around financial goal setting projections building out, if we want to leap full time into something, what does it take a financial goal for us to hit a number of clients? Cash flow? What does it take for us to be able to commit and do that? Now, once we figure that out, we just work backwards in many micro steps that we say, Okay. We've got to hit this goal by this month in order to stay on track to that goal. And you can break it down even further. And that's something that we teach as well, and a lot of people teach it is break it down into small, attainable and actionable goals that you can feel accomplished, because that's a big thing is if you miss a goal, it's maybe it's too large of a goal and you miss it and now you become discouraged. So we try and focus on micro goals to get to a larger macro goal and financial planning, financial goal setting in order to have the goal of being able to step and go full time into that has been something in multiple ventures that we've trekked through.

PMD: 55:43

And how do you guide individuals into setting meaningful goals that really contribute to their overall fulfillment?

Kyle: 55:52

Yeah, a couple things. One, having them understand if you don't have a goal, you're just the blind leading the blind in the dark. You're not going to get anywhere. You don't understand where you're heading. You don't understand where everyone else is. There is no meaning and purpose behind the work that you're doing. And having meaningful work every single day towards a goal is very important. And I love how you say promises because that's more strong to your core. No, this is a promise I'm making to myself in three months I have to get to you saying that changes my mindset. I'll also, but, understanding, helping men, when we ask that question, where do you want to be in 90 days? Okay, that's where you want to be. Let's set a pin right there. That's a milestone. It's not necessarily a goal. We're going to say it's a milestone because that's going to be multiple milestones to get to where you truly want to be. And then just breaking it down. Like you, I was saying from macro to micro and a lot of that goal setting that we do with people, with men, is they have to come up with it. They have to understand, if this is your goal what are the steps you need to take? And goal setting really is just another way of self discipline. But more people understand, smart goals, and how to set them, and what they need to do. To move forward to that. It's a great way to really install self discipline in people. And so we use goal setting more as a tool for them. After 30 days, our first goal setting exercise we do we bring up look at the self discipline you just had. You had the you, you had it in you the whole time to get there. You just applied it even without even really knowing it.

PMD: 57:28

It's something that I've been looking at is the distinction between goals from promises because in the realm of personal development or self growth and commitment. The distinction between goals and promises for me carries quite profound implications because goals are for me are like aspirations and they're often dynamic. And they're subject to change as circumstances evolve, but on the other hand, promises represent more of an unwavering commitment and they're steadfast and they're resistant to the ebb and flow of life's challenges. But the thing is, while both serve essential roles in personal growth, the nature of promises for me provides a very unique framework for accountability and resilience. Because goals by their nature are adaptable. They respond to shifts in priorities, unforeseen challenges and the natural evolution of our aspirations. And that flexibility, whilst it's beneficial in navigating life's twists and turns, it can sometimes lead to goals that wane. or lose their initial vigor and the goal set in the heat of inspiration may gradually phase fade, sorry as one's enthusiasm diminishes or priorities shift. So I think setting goals is a valuable process for personal development. The Inherent flexibility can make it challenging to maintain consistent focus and determination over time. So this adaptability is both a strength and a potential pitfall because goals might lose their initial urgency or significance whereas when I look at promises in contrast, they carry a sense of permanence because making a promise entails a commitment to a specific course of action, but it's grounded in deeply held values or convictions. So the very nature of the promise for me implies a higher level of accountability and an expectation of unwavering dedication, making it less susceptible to the fluctuations that can really affect goals. So I think it could be a powerful anchor in personal development offering a level of resilience that goals may lack. I'm not poo pooing goals at all. But I think the firm commitment inherent in a promise. Cause we don't want to break promises that provides a constant reminder for me of my dedication and it fosters a sense of innate responsibility and innate perseverance that endures even in the face of challenges. Any thoughts on that at all?

Kyle: 1:00:35

I am so inspired by that. Yeah. Like honestly, the mind shift of like you said, the unwavering responsibility you put promise, especially when you're a man of integrity and someone that when you give someone their word, your word, it's your word. And you stand by that doing that to yourself is so hard in so many people, when you say goal setting, it's Oh, it's another goal. If I don't make it then what's the big deal. But if you put it in perspective of a promise and you break that promise to yourself, what is that showing? What is that showing? yourself, who your real character is and learning from that.

Eli: 1:01:13

That's absolutely true. Absolutely true. Yeah I couldn't agree more. I think that is so inspiring to hear you say that I'm on the same page as Kyle there.

PMD: 1:01:25

Any parting words and where can people find you?

Kyle: 1:01:29

Yeah, if you're a man out there, a serial entrepreneur that is looking to really recalibrate their mindset, enhance their self care practices and daily doings, and really create balance in the actions that you're aligning every single day with your professional and personal life, we can help you do that. And by the way, it's within 90 days to get that acceleration of your mind in the right area and that's going to be at PeakFulfillmentCoaching. com. We would love to have a conversation and talk apply for our mastermind and see if it's a good fit for both of us and see, if we can help you get to where you want to be in life.

Eli: 1:02:02

And in reaching out to us, it's just Eli and or Kyle at peak fulfillment, coaching. com. We can help you out. We can chat through what you're working through.

PMD: 1:02:10

What's been your experience today?

Eli: 1:02:14

I think it's an incredible conversation. I hope the audience takes away something or some little nugget, like Kyle and I said, just grab something. You were a fly on the wall for the last hour and 15 minutes. What can you take and what can you implement today in your life that could create that path towards fulfillment?

Kyle: 1:02:33

All three of us talk about these subjects every single day of our life. But when you get people together that talk those things every single day. I think it is so powerful and I'm taking away. I was a sponge. I absorbed so much from your knowledge and wisdom, and I really hope that your listeners and audience are like, wow, this is a cool, it's the same, it's the same message, but it may be a different view on it, a different angle. Definitely where I'm coming from, especially with the promises thing, I'm implementing that in my life. A hundred percent. 100%. Absolutely love that.

PMD: 1:03:06

Thank you so much, Kyle and Eli. It's been a real honor and a privilege and love to have you back at some point. Thank you so much for coming on the Transcendent Minds podcast. Thank you so much for having us. It was an honor. Absolutely enjoyed it.