#324 Rethinking work-life balance and redefining success with lifestyle engineering, with Zach White.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

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Please note that while an effort is made to provide an accurate transcription, errors and omissions may be present. No part of this transcription can be referenced or reproduced without permission.

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Zach White  0:00  
First, you're recognising that all things are created twice. It's first created in our mind and our thoughts and our spiritual life if you want to think of it that way, and then it must flow to the second creation, which is action.

Agi Keramidas  0:15  
Welcome to the personal development mastery podcast empowering you with the simple, consistent actions needed to master yourself and create a life of purpose and fulfilment. I'm your host, Agi Keramidas. And my mission is simple to inspire you to take action towards a fulfilling life. In this podcast, I invite myself inside the minds of remarkable people and I distil their wisdom for you. So if you're ready to find practical insights that you can implement right now, make sure you follow the podcast and get the episodes as soon as they are released. This is episode 324. And I will say here as a quick reminder that for the time being the podcast has one episode a week, it's Monday, and not to us you are probably used to. And to hear the details behind this listen to episode 318. If you want to live your life by design rather than by default, then today's conversation with my guest, Zack White is for you. By the end of this podcast today, you will discover why you must forget about work life balance, how to master your mindset. And you will also learn practical steps to apply the principles of lifestyle engineering into your life. Let's dive right in. 

Agi Keramidas  1:48  
Today, it is my real pleasure to speak with Zack white, because that you are affectionately known as the world's best lifestyle engineer. You have over a decade of experience in engineering, career and leadership coaching. And you're passionate about engineering leaders and teaching others how to engineer success. Zack, welcome to the show. It's such a delight to speak with you today.

Zach White  2:14  
It's so great to be here. Thank you for having me, love your energy, love what you're doing with this show and your work. So what a pleasure. Thank you.

Agi Keramidas  2:23  
Thank you very much. And I will send my compliments back to us. I appreciate it very much. Today we'll we'll talk and I'm very excited about the topic of this conversation we'll talk about engineering success, but also quality of life at the same time because for many this to go in opposite directions. Before we go towards there, give us a bit of your background and understanding of your journey in particular, some key defining moments that turned you over the you know, the person that you are today doing what you're doing.

Zach White  3:08  
Well, I left Purdue University with my mechanical engineering degree, very excited to get into my career and become successful, right, whatever that means to us. And if I'm being honest, at the time, I had no idea what that really meant other than get to work, start, you know, getting smarter and working harder. And I guess the only strategy I really knew it worked for me all through high school valedictorian college did very well at Purdue. And all I knew was keep learning, keep working. And eventually it'll work itself out. Right? It always had. And, for me, this sort of dream of becoming a very successful engineer and moving up the career ladder and having a high title and a big paycheck, and all the things that come with career success. You know that that whole dream, that vision consumed a huge amount of my focus and energy. And I got married right out of college and starting to build a life and just checking all the boxes, and I'm sure anyone can relate to their version of this story, you just sort of get into it. And after a year or two, you start to realise it's not like school there aren't, you know, semesters and final exams and, and these logical end points and it starts to get a little bit tricky, and I got my master's degree in engineering and checked another box and just kept working towards this this thing called success. And, unfortunately, it for me, I became very one dimensional and what that meant I was focused purely on career success, I neglected to take care of the rest of my life. My marriage started to suffer, you know, setting boundaries and being intentional about my health and my relationships with family and friends. My faith I started to leave on the sidelines and about six years after starting my career, I woke up one day with a meeting on my calendar that I had never expected to have with a divorce attorney. And to back it up just a few weeks before that I had come home from a work trip where I was so busy working at this factory, from dawn till dusk and really enjoying it, you know, I loved my work. And I was just grinding it out and putting in all these hours, and I came back from that trip. And instead of greeting my wife at the door, I walked into an empty house, there was a note on the table that said, Hey, this isn't working. I'm with my parents, I think we need to get a divorce. And it crushed me. It absolutely crushed me. It's the last thing I ever wanted. I didn't see that coming. And I looking back, it's because I was lying to myself about how things really were. And I ended up divorced and depressed and embarrassed, and willing to trade all of what I thought was success, to just have a do over at that moment. But of course, there are no do overs. In that moment. You you deal with the consequences. And in that place of grief and, and suffering, you know, the grinding my face along rock bottom is what it really felt like to me, I realised I needed, I needed help. And I hired both a therapist and my first coach. And so we talked about defining moments, this was it for me just realising there must be a different way to approach life, where I can still pursue success. It's not like I gave up on the idea of person, you know, reaching achievement and going after goals, I still wanted that. But I didn't want to suffer this way. Again, I needed to look different. And that began the journey for me of exploring your personal development in a whole new way, wondering what it meant to really find balance and fulfilment in life. And ironically, the less I focused on solely pursuing career success, and began to pursue these other areas, my career exploded, I ended up with five promotions in five years, doubled my income had incredible success at work. But I was working less hours, I was finding way more joy in the process. And having so much fun. Like it was it was a whole different experience. And now I'm remarried, I'm super thrilled to have learned many lessons through that hard time. And I've actually taken everything I went through as an engineering leader in the trenches and failing through my own burnout experience and the divorce and have created now a methodology that really aligns with what you described at the very beginning, how do we engineer success, but also our life and we call it lifestyle engineering. And while I work with engineering leaders exclusively, because that's my zone of genius and passion, the truth is these concepts are relevant for everyone. When we talk about this balance between success and fulfilment,

Agi Keramidas  8:06  
we will talk about lifestyle engineering, for sure. Thank you for your answer. There were a couple of things that came to my mind when I was when I was listening to you the first you you would you talks about becoming successful, whatever that meant, which you hadn't thought and when we realised that the first time that I actually thought What is Success to me, I was over 40 years old. So until that time, I just just assumed but had never really considered what does that mean? To me, it was a very vague concept. And I think many people can relate to that when, you know, so carefully what does success means to them, because it's completely different from person to person. In there was something that you said that you realise that that moment, that dark moment you had or that rock bottom moment that you were lying to yourself? That's what you said. So I had a question. When you started working with your coach and your therapist, and you change those thoughts, changing your mindset, what's one thing in particular that you realise that you were lying to yourself about?

Zach White  9:29  
There are two big blind spots, two areas where I one actively lied to myself and the second is lied, but I didn't actually know it. It was truly a blind spot for me, and I'll tell you both. The first was doing what I call taking passive action and convincing myself that that meant I was moving forward, specifically in the area of marriage which was Where I failed miserably. So what that looks like is, you know, hey, you know what my marriage is really struggling right now. So I'm going to go down to the bookstore, and I'm going to get a book about how to be a better husband, or how to reconcile in marriage and have a healthy, strong marriage. And I'm going to read that book. And I'm going to dedicate time and energy towards becoming a better man and a better husband. And by doing that, that's going to check this box that I'm taking care of this really important area of my life, that is my marriage. And on the surface, that does sound like a great thing. And I did read the books, it's not like I bought them and left them on the shelf I, I did actually read them. But I did not do any of the things that the books set, right I didn't, I didn't actually change, I didn't really take action in a way that was going to bring life and vibrancy and intimacy back into the marriage. I just convinced myself that, well, I'm working on that area. But, but that was just a way to rationalise the fact that well, it's really a painful and rocky area of my life right now. But at least I'm doing something so I cannot put it in its container. I don't feel guilty anymore about the fact that I have a bad marriage. I'm, I'm working on it. But those actions like listening to podcasts or reading books, while they're great. Those aren't the actions that actually create the transformation. It's what you do with that information that matters. And I was not actually applying it, I was just convincing myself line was that this would help. So that's the biggest thing. And I mean, you could copy and paste that lesson into so many areas of my life where as long as I was spending some time thinking about it, or learning about it or studying, I would tell myself, that meant I was making progress. But it didn't. It's not the truth at all. So that's number one. The blind spot was that I kept looking at what I was doing for the source of the problem. Okay, what what is it that I'm doing right now that's creating the conflict or the challenge in my marriage? What is it that I'm doing right now that is slowing down my career growth? What is it that I'm doing right now that's making me so unhappy. And what I've discovered on this side of failure, is that so often burnout, we want to believe that it's caused by what we're doing. But burnout is not caused by what you're doing. Burnout is primarily caused by what you're not doing. It's by the things that are no longer happening that need to happen to keep your marriage healthy, it's by the things that you've stopped, that keep you healthy, like sleeping or eating nutritious food or working out, you know, it's the stuff that's missing from your life, that actually leads to the downward spiral, the reduced energy, and the burnout. And I got so focused on what was on my calendar, that I neglected to consider all of the things that had fallen off. And that's where the real issues lied is I had stopped doing the very things that had gotten me to a wonderful relationship in the first place, the very things that had led to career success in the first place. And so that was a huge blind spot for me. And it's something with engineering leaders, now we really focus on to say, hey, you know, it's not just what you're doing. Let's talk about what you're not doing as well.

Agi Keramidas  13:47  
I think that's a great distinction there. And that blind spots that you realise that it was a blind spot for many. It is a blind spot, completely. And so thanks for this very, very good point that you made there. So, Zack, tell me about lifestyle engineering, then what what do you mean by that? Exactly. And why does it matter?

Zach White  14:15  
Yeah. The first thing that's important to understand lifestyle engineering is first to break down a phrase or a paradigm that's really popular right now. And that's work life balance. Everybody wants to pursue this ideal that we call work life balance. And I do believe it's meant to well, but I hate the model. I think it's a broken paradigm in terms of how to think about this. Because as soon as I say work life balance, what's the thing that pops into our mind? You know, we think in pictures, so when you see work life Exactly, yeah. And if those who are listening to podcasts, Maggie and I are both taking one hand on each side, and we're kind of moving them up and down like it's a scale, as if on my left hand is working on right hand is life and somehow, what what's the goal? Is the goal for life to be heavier? Because it's more important is the goal for them to be the same? What do we really mean by these two terms? Why isn't work a part of your life, like, it's a very confusing picture. And what we end up doing in practice, then is saying, Well, I'm unhappy at work, or I feel like I've been working too many hours. So I'm going to do more life to make up for that. Well, what this at an extreme case starts to look like is, I hate my job. So I party hard on the weekends to enjoy my life. And then I go back on Monday morning with this sense of dread. And I hit the snooze button as many times as I can, because I don't want to go to work. And the extreme of this actually becomes something closer to bipolar that it does balance, right? It's like, no, no, you can't make up for work that is not working. By living more like this, this is a broken model. So lifestyle engineering is recognising that you're a whole person. And that what we want to do is design or engineer a lifestyle, which means work. It means relationships, it means faith, family, health, giving, all the things that make you you in a holistic picture and saying, Well, what is the flow and the dance and the balance between all of these things, that allows me to wake up every morning, excited about what's on my plate for that day, with a vision of the future that inspires me to work hard and struggle well for and a set of values and a purpose as a true north in my life that guides my decisions, so that I can take one step in front of the other with extreme confidence that it's going to lead me in a direction, that in the end, I won't lay on my deathbed with regret. But I'm going to lay there and celebrate with gratitude for what I've been able to give back and accomplish an impact in this world. So that's the the shift in terms of why lifestyle engineering. And what's interesting is some people might say, well, well, how does that help me in my career? Well, you actually, before we hit record today said one of my favourite phrases that how we do anything is how we do everything. Yeah. And when, when every area of your life is being considered and engineered, and they're all moving up, you get this beautiful upward spiral of energy and momentum where, you know, as my health improves, my relationships improve my career improves, that feeds my soul, which allows me to invest more into my relationship and intimacy. Like, all these things start to feed each other. And that's the really, you know, compounding beautiful experience that we want, versus constantly feeling friction, or like, we're, we're fighting just to keep up with what's on our plate. And, you know, for me, that was my, my experience of life for so long. It just felt like going from one hard thing to another with no real strategy or plan at all. And you just like, the symptom is when you say, you know, what was your best part about the day yesterday? Or what was the best part about last week? And when you hear someone say, Well, I just, I'm glad I got through it. Yeah, I'm just glad I made it to the end of the day. Yeah. If that's the kind of language you're hearing from yourself, or from someone you know, or love, that's a great indication that they're not, they're not doing this, you know, the way that is possible, because if all that you can celebrate is that you got through it. Now, that's not living. That's, that's just surviving. Exactly, exactly. And so that's the premise of lifestyle engineering.

Agi Keramidas  18:53  
I'll take a quick break for a very important message. Your ongoing support as my podcast listener means the world to me. That's why I'm extending a special invitation to 10. Listeners like you to join me for a 30 minute zoom, call and discuss your podcast experience. And to express my gratitude, I will give you a copy of my first book, which is ready but not yet published. So you will be one of the very first people to read. Don't miss out on this opportunity to connect with me and exchange insights and read my book before it's available publicly. Click the link in the show notes to arrange your call or email me I get a tiger Jeremy does.com. Now let's go back to the episode. What you were just saying about surviving rather than leaving again, it's something that many find themselves into and looking for the end of the week or the holiday or Christmas or whatever. Exactly. A small event might Uh, hopefully change things for them, even though it's temporary. And I liked you said something, when you were saying about people who hate the job, and then they try to party hard to compensate for that you can't really make up for sure if you have a work that drains you. And that's, again, a good consideration for, you know, if you're in completely the wrong career. My opinion and I will speak very generally is that it's never set in stone. And when you realise that you hate what you're doing, you can't wait for the weekend. Thin Indeed, it is something that you can and probably you should change.

Unknown Speaker  20:54  
I will

Agi Keramidas  20:55  
stick a little bit more here about this, this work life balance that you said, because I think it's, it's important, it's something I haven't talked a lot in the podcast before and realise, you said that it is a broken model. And you said that, you know, once you start engineering your life into improving different aspects of your life, like your finances, your relationship, your social life, or whatever these categories are, then the others start to go up, it's kind of spiralling up. And you reminded me of that phrase, that rising tide lifts all boats, so all the aspects of your life will improve. So I will ask something practical now, for someone listening to us now and finds this concept fascinating about, you know, engineering, his or her life the way that they want. What's one practical step one can take right now to move towards that direction.

Zach White  22:07  
Let's start with something really tiny and easy just to go from zero to one. And then I gotta let you decide. But what we could do then is maybe zoom out and talk about it in a bigger picture way, and how we would take action across this entire blueprint that we call lifestyle engineering. But here's, here's a quick, easy thing to start if you're hearing this and you say, Yeah, I agree with the concept. I resonate exactly with what you said, I feel like I've, I'm lucky just to have gotten through my week last week, that's my life right now, what do I do? Well, lifestyle engineering won't work for you. If you don't have the ability, and the courage to choose something that you want, and take action to go get it. We must be willing to courageously take action in our lives, or else submit to whatever it is we're experiencing now and say this is it. And for me, that's a completely unacceptable answer. But as a coach, I'm not here to tell you what to do with your life. But I will tell you, if you want more, you're not going to get it by staying on the couch and being comfortable and unwilling to take action. So your choice, but let's flex that muscle, let's start building a practice in our life every day of choosing something that you want, and taking action to get it in the small things stop being so passive. And so I'll say, living life by default instead of by design. That's the distinction, right? It was so much just living on autopilot or by default, and we want to get into the driver's seat Start Living by Design. So here's an example. Let's say you love good food. Okay, today, I want you to decide what dinner would make you absolutely thrilled to sit down and eat. Maybe it's a favourite restaurant that you haven't been to in a while. Maybe it's a dish that you can cook and prepare for yourself that you love. Let's decide right now what that food is, and change your plans to make it happen. Like, go do it. Call your spouse, get the family, make the reservation, go to the grocery store after work, buy the ingredients and make that food. And then when you sit down and you eat it. Take a moment and celebrate the fact that you created an experience that you wanted, literally from nothing. And I say from nothing because before this moment when I planted that thought into your mind, you might not have ever considered what would make you absolutely ecstatic at the dinner table tonight, but now you are and decide, okay, Zach, That's so silly. It's trivial whatever. But But no, it's not trivial at all. Because in that little micro example, what are you doing? You know, first, you're recognising that all things are created twice. It's first created in our mind and our thoughts and our spiritual life, if you want to think of it that way. And then it must flow to the second creation with which is action. Stephen Covey made this concept known in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People a long time ago, but you then took a thing that only existed in thought, and you made it real. And at the end of the day, that is all we're doing with everything we want us to say, Okay, I found an authentic desire from within me. I put that vision in my mind. And then I took action in my life and in the real world to make it happen to make it real. And you might face some resistance, like your spouse doesn't want to go to that restaurant tonight. Well, that's a barrier, what are we going to do? Let's, let's figure that out. Maybe you don't see the ingredient that you need. When you get to the grocery store? Well, that's a barrier, you need to figure that out. In life, when you go after your vision, it won't be one phone call one step one action, you're going to face barriers, you're going to need to take action and figure it out. But when you start getting used to the fact that, oh, I can design a reality that I love. And there are always solutions, if I'm willing to keep moving forward, and keep that vision central in my life. That's the lifestyle engineering skill, set the muscle. So let's start small man, I use dinner as an example, we could pick 100 other examples, right? Who is someone that you want to talk to, that might make your day a little bit brighter? Do everything in your power to get that person on the phone today, send them a text today, shoot them in email today, you just start taking these little micro moments where you say, You know what this would bring joy, fulfilment and happiness into my life, I'm going to take an action right now to get started. So that'd be my encouragement, because frankly, if you can't do that, if you can't do it in the little things, then you're not going to have the courage to do it in the big things. So let's just start small and easy. And you may find it's actually quite fun to just begin getting into that designed life, even in the tiniest things, and it will ignite that fire inside you, it'll awaken that part of you that was designed to do this in the first place, I really do believe it's a unique and uniquely human characteristic, that we have this ability to bring things from thought into the real world. And so let's use that gift. And when you start using it, then you're gonna want to know well, now how do I use it to do the dream job to, to the dream house to the dream relationship? You know, these big things that we go after? And the truth is, yes, there's more steps, there's more strategies involved. But the core principles the same, let me pause there for a moment, maybe you can respond, if you want to go deeper. They're

Agi Keramidas  28:01  
saying about building the muscle, you have this action. And I think that's what I wanted to iterate from your response. That the small things when you get used, and you train yourself to take action on small things, then you can easily do the same thing with bigger things and bigger things. And eventually, you take the massive action you need if you want to shift your life or do really big changes, that will take you out of your comfort zone. And if you're not prepared, or if you haven't exercised that muscle of decision taking of that discipline to decide what I'm going to do. Then that stage of you know, envision it in your mind, which many do others don't attend, the actual next step is to take action on it, because that's what's going to convert it from a mental image to reality or to I'll use the word manifest. I mean, you didn't use that word, but that's the word that came to my mind. And I know it's not exactly a word that is very connected with engineering. It goes more in different directions. And now since I mentioned that there was actually something I wanted to see your views on, Zack and it's it is a little bit of changing direction, but you know, the engineering background very analytical mind that's how you you trained and you operate. I am also the same I'm not an engineer, but I have trained as a dentist than I did a master's degree I'm very analytical last person. So the logical side of me is very, very strong trying to find You know, the reasoning behind decisions behind swords, etc, and so on. However, on the other side, I am also very spiritual, I have this intuitive element that I will use very simple words. Now, I don't want to overly complicate the message because I want to keep it very simple in order to ask my question to you that I have this intuitive side or the inner side or that I trust very much. And that many times, if you put the logic and the analytical mind to descend this or make a decision based on that they can be on different ends of the spectrum. So my question to you is, how do you ask, also as an engineer with his analytical background, but also having the spiritual side? How do you navigate those two seemingly opposite sides,

Zach White  31:06  
seemingly as the right word? Because in no way do I see them as, as opposites I see them as two sides of the same coin. And great wisdom is to stand on the edge of the coin, and be able to look on both sides, right. And so here's the truth, I am same as you mentioned, I'm I am stronger, I'm more naturally wired in the analytical and logical, the IQ side of my being. But I also, like all humans have a, a feeling emotional, intuitive, and spiritual side, to my being as well. And I do believe we need to be open and willing to explore and tap into both, there is not a right or a wrong approach, certain, you know, aspects of each side will serve you in different ways in different situations. And in many times, you need some of both, to solve life's most complex problems and get to where you want, wants to go. But I really quickly maybe just to debunk the myth that somehow engineers don't need spiritual life or faith, or vice versa, that people who are more intuitive or feeling through life or spiritual in nature, don't need to consider strategy or tactics or analytical approaches to think so. Your engineering, let's just take that as a skill set or a premise, great engineers, if they only relied on what is known. And the equations and the formulas and the things that you can find in a textbook today, around the world of of engineering, if that's all we focused on, you would never see the breakthrough innovations that are born out of some engineer having a spark of innovative genius that, frankly, has no basis and what's not your what, how did we start sending signals through the air in electromagnetic waves? Whose idea was it that I could send my voice? If you're from my cell phone to a satellite and back like, before we even knew that that was a thing. Someone had a an intuitive notion, what if this were possible? And it was a thought it was something spiritual in a way, before it was later proven? Oh, here is a formula that articulates exactly what's happening in that. And now we consider it part of engineering, but at the time, the first person who said hey, what if we can turn a mechanical signal of vibration from your voice into an electrical signal and send it over a wire? Some did, I would have thought you were absolutely nuts. That was not in the realm of engineering at the time. Right. And so I just want to give people this realisation and you know, similarly, people who are deeply spiritual, you're going to have these things that you're doing in life that are helping you get results that are very logical and analytical in nature. So so just be open to that, that there's both sides are necessary. And when we bring them together, that's where the real magic happens. At least that's been my experience. So for me, the key is not is one right or wrong. It's my own awareness of where am I operating from right now? And do I need to flex and flow between these to solve whatever problem is in front of me? And so just as an example of that mindset, you know, people who come from the world of the emotional and the EQ world or the coaching world, we talk about mindset all the time most engineers dumped, we like to talk about strategies and tactics. Well, mindset is the foundation of the model that we teach and coach at my company for engineers and a lot of them. So what? Why what? What's the point of that? That's very fuzzy. That's very soft. That's not, it's like no, no, it's essential to strengthen your mindset to get the result that you want from the strategy. If you have the wrong assumptions, if you have the wrong thinking, then the action won't serve you. Right? It's no different than the tone of your voice. When you talk to your intimate partner, you know, you can use the same words with two different tones, and you'll get different result results, right? It's the same thing with mindset, you can take an action in your career. And with one mindset, you'll get no results with a different mindset, you'll get incredible results. And so we always want to dance between these two,

Agi Keramidas  35:49  
if you will, since earlier of getting that awareness of where am I operating right now. And there were some things that you you mentioned there that I think really give a beautiful answer to that. Seemingly, as I said, you know, different sides of the coin, which which are not, it's been a really fascinating conversation, Zach, and I do have a few last quickfire questions to wrap things up. Before I go there, I understand you have an offer for for the listener. So tell us about this. And where will you direct the listener that has found all this conversation fascinating and wants to take the next step, the action, as we were saying earlier, because it's not just about listening to it, it's doing something with it?

Zach White  36:45  
Exactly. Well, first, a huge thank you, for anyone who's been joining us and listening to the conversation. And I recognise in myself, when I hear something, you immediately want to know, well, how do I do that? I'm ready to take the action. What does that mean? What does that look like? And so I would be honoured to extend the offer to have a free 75 minute coaching session to work on that game plan or that action plan for you. If you are in the stem, you know science, technology, engineering, mathematics fields, where I focus on we'd be honoured to set that up for you. If you're in a different, you know, domain of career, it's probably not the best fit. But please feel free to tune in to our podcasts. And there's great content there at the happy engineer podcast.com. But if you are an engineer, or you're in these fields, and you really want to take this to the next level, we'd love to give you a gift of that free coaching time. So to do that, jump out to the website I just mentioned, I know, I'll put that in the show notes. It's the happy engineer podcast.com. And at the top right, there's a contact link, click that. And you can either book a call right from the website for a short chat to get onto our calendar, or you can send us information in the contact form. And please let us know you heard about myself and what we do at Oasis of courage through personal development mastery, this incredible podcast, and we'll get you set up with that, that free coaching.

Agi Keramidas  38:07  
That's brilliant. Thank you so much for this. And, Zack, let me ask you then, if you last quickfire questions, and my first one I always ask to my guests is What does personal development mean

Zach White  38:20  
to you? The word personal is the first word and that for a reason. So to me, it begins with an inside out. Approach, personal development starts from within. It's about you. And it's about peeling back the layers of what parents Culture Society companies has told us we're supposed to want and what we should be masters in and saying, What do I want? And what do I want to become a master in? So that's the first piece and then mastery, of course, to me, there is no endpoint, personal development, mastery, it's about going and growing in that journey for the rest of your your life. There is no endpoint that's part of it makes it so fun. So probably a longer answer than you looking for in a quick fire way. But personal development to me is making sure it's from within, and it's ongoing.

Agi Keramidas  39:17  
I agree 100% With the ongoing thing very much. And the hypothetical question, Zack, if you could go back in time and meet your 18 year old self, what's one piece of advice you would give him?

Zach White  39:31  
818 year old Zach needed a lot of advice. But if I could pick one thing I would tell 18 year old Zach to stop pretending that you're not afraid. Stop pretending that you're not afraid. Because so many of the things that I suffered through college and through those first six years in my career, were caused by this belief that failure or things that would not go my way that I needed to avoid them at all costs. And I needed to act like I had it all together, I needed to be seen as perfect in so many ways. And that fear, I never faced it. And I was lying to myself, like we talked about earlier. So stop pretending that you're not afraid. It's okay to be afraid. And in fact, that's what courage is all about. It's not about no fear. It's about facing the fear and doing it anyway.

Agi Keramidas  40:30  
Absolutely doing it in spite of fear. Zach, I want to thank you very much for this intriguing conversation and for the wisdom you shared with us. Today, I want to wish you all the very best with your mission and the work that you do. Any final thoughts on the subject and parting words?

Zach White  40:53  
Stop waiting. Stop waiting. Success without fulfilment is failure. And so if you're pursuing a big goal in life, if you're listening to personal development mastery, looking for answers and strategies and tools, you're going to find them here. He's got amazing content, and you're going to find those things. But the truth is, if you're waiting for something, stop waiting, because it really starts now. And you already have more than enough to begin taking the actions that will change your life. It doesn't mean there aren't gaps. There will be you'll bump up against roadblocks you don't know how to solve yet. But I promise you that the journey can begin right now. So stop waiting.

Agi Keramidas  41:36  
Thank you for listening. Your support us my podcast listener means a lot to me and I value your input in shaping the show's future. And that's why I am inviting then listeners like you to join me for a free 30 minute zoom call and discuss your podcast experience. Your insights will play a key role in making the show even more tailored to your needs. And to express my gratitude, I will gift you a copy of my first book which is ready but not yet published. That means you will be one of the very first people to read it. Don't miss out on this opportunity to connect with me exchange insights and read my book before it's available publicly. Click the link in the show notes to arrange a call or email me I get I get me does not come. I'm looking forward to speaking with you. Until then, stand out don't fit in!