Porch and Parish The Podcast
Our mission is to make sure every Zachary resident feels heard and engaged! Hosts Mike and/or Jen Gennaro facilitate candid conversations with local leaders, influencers and innovators in Zachary, Louisiana and beyond with the help of producer Mike Holt. New episode every other Monday at noon!
Porch and Parish The Podcast
What's On Your Backburner with Albert Pellissier
Get ready to uncover the secrets of reigniting your dormant dreams with the inspiring Albert Pelletier, a motivational speaker dedicated to helping others find fulfillment. Discover how Albert's transformative Man Camp Retreat series has been making waves by empowering dads to become more present and positive in their families. We'll also delve into his unique three-step process from "What's On Your Backburner," designed to help you overcome obstacles and passionately pursue those dreams you've set aside.
Feeling like life's on repeat and missing purpose? You're not alone. Many of us grapple with the "Is this all there is?" question at some point. Join the conversation as we explore the journey toward personal authenticity and fulfillment, sharing stories of career changes and passions rediscovered. Whether it's furniture making or owning a goat farm, we emphasize that meaningful activities don't always have to be financially driven, and living out those dreams on your back burner is possible in small ways.
We also tackle the hidden obstacles we face in reaching our personal goals. Learn how childhood beliefs and subconscious barriers can hinder your progress and how resolving inner conflicts can lead to unexpected breakthroughs. Albert sheds light on the power of retreats and self-help techniques, offering motivational insights and reminders that it's never too late to pursue your dreams. Tune in for a compelling discussion on aligning with your true calling and overcoming internal struggles to achieve success.
Hey, Baton Rouge, this is Albert Pelletier. Keep listening to Porch and Parish the podcast.
Speaker 2:Ever had a dream that you just couldn't seem to get off the ground, a passion that fizzled out, leaving behind a trail of what-ifs? Life has a way of sidelining our desires, but what if you could reignite that spark? Today we're joined by Albert Pelletier, a man I've known for years and whose insights have had a profound impact on my own life. Albert's not just a motivational speaker. He's a guide, helping people navigate the tricky terrain of unfulfilled dreams. He and his wife also own the Pink Elephant on Government Street. Through his transformative man Camp Retreat series, he's helped grouchy dads become more of a positive and present force in their families.
Speaker 2:Through his unique three-step process, outlined in what's On your Backburner, albert is helping countless individuals rediscover their passions and move forward with renewed purpose. In this episode, we'll delve into that process, exploring how to identify the obstacles holding us back and reignite the fire within. If you're ready to dust off those dormant dreams and tap into something powerful, then stay tuned. As always, we're here to bring you the best of Zachary in the Baton Rouge area through engaging conversations every Monday from our Virginia Street headquarters. This is Portion Parish the podcast.
Speaker 2:Stay tuned because the lightning is coming up. Looking for a family outing off the beaten pathot over to breck's far park equestrian center for a unique experience? Far park offers guided trail rides throughout the fall. Starting on september 22nd, you and the family can enjoy the fresh air, beautiful scenery and quality time with loved ones perfect for all ages. Follow the link to sign up. Spots are limited, okay, and we're back with the lightning round. Um, albert, because I know you, I've I've crafted some of these questions specifically for you.
Speaker 1:So first, please tell us about your unique anniversary gift exchange tradition well, my wife and I were coming up on 35 years of marriage. So you know, when you've been married that long, it gets tough to, you know, even think of a anniversary gift. So usually about a month in advance, my wife will say, hey, what do you want for your anniversary? And I'll say you know, I really don't need anything, I don't want anything, you don't have to get me anything. And she'll say, okay, so we're, we're just going to agree not to get either of us a visit, you know? And um, that goes about till three days before.
Speaker 1:And then she checks in with me uh, hey, I just wanted to check and make sure you didn't get me anything, did you? And I said, are you kidding? Of course I got you something. You know, I'm not going to show up on our anniversary with no gift in hannah, you know you may have made that deal, but I know it's not a deal that you really wanted to. So then she goes into a complete panic. I joke with her that I really hadn't gotten anything yet. And usually what we end up doing is deciding to go in on something together. So it'll be like, hey, you want to go somewhere, I'll buy the plane tickets, you pay for the hotel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not going to mention the taxidermy thing uh, you know she's kind of over that oh okay, that was last time I checked in. Well, can you you know?
Speaker 1:early on she was into, yeah, taxidermy, being an antique store owner, yeah, and it was easy. You know, I could just see something really crazy like a zebra or a fox or a bobcat and uh, but at some point she was over it and then she became impossible to buy for?
Speaker 2:Well, I went to your house for a New Year's party and then you had like a baboon on the wall and like a giraffe and all this and I know you're not like a big game hunter.
Speaker 1:Everybody who came over in those days did think that we were big game hunters. We didn't shoot a single thing. No, I love animals, love animals. I wouldn't. I just wouldn't do it and uh but they were just old. Uh, you know, vintage taxidermy that people were collecting. Usually, you know, that's the kind of piece that a husband has and, uh, then the wife says this has got to go and they would end up at my house all right, I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that. I've I've, uh, offered that deal to many hunters, so so I've got like ducks, all kinds of fun things. So, um, all right. Next people call you sir, lunch a lot. What is your favorite diner and why didn't we just do the podcast there today?
Speaker 1:Probably cause it's too noisy, but uh, I would say in the city it's really probably has to be Zeeland street market. Yeah, Love that on Perkinskins road um what's your favorite dish there uh, really, I like the pecan smoked brisket with um cornbread dressing and gravy gotcha, it's old school, yeah, but I've had it. I love that place. You know the menu rotates, so you can always get something different yeah, uh, do you like louie's? I do like louie's. I love the burger I do too.
Speaker 2:That's. That's all I get. I've ordered the same thing for 20 years.
Speaker 1:I just get the big cheesy lou there was a time, uh, in my early career I was in the publishing business and we worked out of that kinko's right there on state street, yeah, and we would stay all night. It was 24 hours. Louie's was 24 hours and I ate a lot of those burgers at 4 am.
Speaker 2:I can tell you yeah, yeah, there was just an. It was a little bit more authentic back then when it was just 24 hours, because you know that the grease would never come off the floor you know it was a perfect little place. Yeah, I'm sad now it's only open in the mornings I know, I know, but still I bring my kids there and I screenshot all the old college friends and just say look, you know my kid's six years old. Here we are at Louie's and yeah.
Speaker 1:I only feel good for the owner that he doesn't have to run that thing 24 seven.
Speaker 2:I know he's happier. Oh, that's impossible. All right, please give a big shout out to the family and pets.
Speaker 1:Okay, hello, wife and kids, and the only person that has a pet is my oldest daughter, who doesn't live with us anymore because everyone else was allergic. So she's got a little poodle named Pepper, and we do love that dog.
Speaker 2:Great man. All right, let's get into some of the content today. So you know, we saw that you wrote your classic hit here. What's on your Back, Burner, Using Dormant Desire to Relight your Fire, and just had to have you on. So thank you for doing this and congrats.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. It's been, it's been a fun journey, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, speaking of journeys, take us through the journey to personal authenticity. Let's just jump right in and shed light on your passion for helping others.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's when, if anybody, gets to the point where you're asking yourself is this all there is? Maybe some people might call that a midlife crisis, but if you come to the point in your life where it's get up, work, pay bills, come home, make dinner, go to sleep, get up, and you just feel it's just over and over the same thing, yeah, At some point you're you are going to ask yourself is this all there is? And I did get to that point.
Speaker 1:It was um, I was 48 at the time and I felt like I had accomplished, you know, most of what I thought I would do in life. And I just wondered uh, you know I I don't feel fulfilled, I'm not enjoying it that much. You know, I don't feel fulfilled, I'm not enjoying it that much. And at some point everything that was going well took a turn for the worse and that kind of made me ask the question okay, I'm pretty sure I can put some effort back into it and get it to where it was before it took a downturn.
Speaker 1:It was a little bit of a probably a economic downturn at the time that just made my businesses take a turn for the worst, and I thought to myself well, if I do that, I'm only going to go back to where I was, which was still wondering is there something else besides just survival? And so it led me to ask the question you know, what is it that makes a person happy? And so that's where the journey started was trying to investigate what is the secret to really feeling fulfilled and being happy.
Speaker 2:I think that's a perfect question. I mean, what else is there right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you know it's, it's. It's a hard one to solve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean the short answer to it, Mike, was you really do have to do work that's meaningful, and I think that is the problem right. Most people you're doing, whatever job you happen to fall into and whatever industry or career that just you know presented itself to you yeah, probably.
Speaker 2:Most people.
Speaker 1:Some people know what they want to do from the time they're in first grade, but you know, I was never one of those people. But they want to do from the time they're in first grade. But you know, I was never one of those people. But you know, is the work that you're doing meaningful?
Speaker 1:and most people say no yeah but it doesn't mean, you know, when you're, say, at middle age or you know even younger, I do find people earlier and earlier asking themselves this question. Usually you can't necessarily just shift careers because you know you've got a mortgage, maybe you have kids in school, you have a car, notes to pay, and so you don't have the luxury of just like doing whatever you want to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like I gave my father-in-law so so much heartburn because I just did whatever I wanted to do. Jen's always been like the stable one and I'd be like, yep, I think I'm going to go make furniture, and he was like good God, no.
Speaker 1:You know what I do. Remember that face now that you say it.
Speaker 2:That was seven years of life. It went by in a flash.
Speaker 1:But you know, but you know you're an anomaly, aren't you Somebody who will pursue?
Speaker 2:I guess you, You're an anomaly, aren't you, of somebody who will pursue. I guess you know I've been, I've taken my licks, though.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, that's how you learn, right? Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean for doing those things. You know, now I'm at a really wonderful job and we do Porch and Parish and there's meaning and stability in some of it. I think stability might be that word that a lot of people struggle with. I think stability might be that word that a lot of people struggle with, I know. For me, certainly, that was always. Why can't I have stability and creativity? Because that seems to be the mix right.
Speaker 1:It's just hard sometimes to make a living out of your passion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:But if you don't have anything that you're doing, that you're passionate about or has a lot of meaning're probably not gonna. You're gonna feel like something's missing. Yeah, yeah, and so I know when I would talk about this. You know, maybe I'm at a gymnastics uh, practice. My son was doing gymnastics, that's at the time. And when I talked to you know, the other parents next to me, they all seem to say the same thing, so I knew it wasn't just a problem, you know, for me. But at some point I really nailed down that you have to pursue something that you're passionate about, that's fulfilling to you. And the advice I usually give people you don't necessarily have to make a living at it, so that eliminates too many options for people if they think, oh, I have to switch to this and make a living so it can start as a hobby or just some kind of initiative you've had or a goal or a dream. And usually what I find is when I ask people that question, which is the title of the book, is what's on your back burner?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they know what it is. That's crazy. Yeah, I could tell you mine. Your title is excellent because it does elicit well what is my forgotten dream is kind of what it seemed to speak to me.
Speaker 1:You want to share yours, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:I own a goat farm, but it was always in the mountains of North Carolina. But now I've come to realize that my roots are in Louisiana, I'm staying here, but some sort of some sort of homestead with some acreage. So I've always just tried to live out the back burner stuff, Even when I'm living small. I'm just gonna, I'll go farm up my 0.25 acres, you know like, let's do it, I mean you really figured it out, but again, I'm going to predict that you're a rare bird.
Speaker 2:Well, I have been to your man camp. You know that was maybe 10 years ago now, Could it have been? I was man camp class six. That was probably about seven years ago, about seven years ago, and you heard, jen, it did change me, yeah, a little bit less grouchy when I came home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's the secret you know it's because if I can turn people on into the direction of doing something that means something to them, it does make everything else a little more. You know, easy to deal with. Yeah, it's easier to go to work in a job Maybe you don't love if you also have something going on that you're pursuing, something that you've always wanted to pursue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, um, so the the this book strives to solve a central issue that most are struggling with. These dreams that we hold onto, that are all but buried alive, and I'll use some of your words. You describe them as having a faint heartbeat, and a part of you knows resuscitation is possible.
Speaker 1:Um and look, that comes from the fact that if I ask you the question, what's?
Speaker 2:I'm crazy, just mentioning this, but for me, when I when we moved from our very stable subdivision into this massive project, uh, this real estate. You know what would you call this? We're in 120 year old Victorian right. It's just an adventure, that's all it is. I, um, I noticed I was, I was like doing a lot of farming in this subdivision, in my backyard, and people were like, why, why are you, why do you live here, what are you doing? And I said, um, there was something inside of me, like when I was a kid, there was nothing that made me happier on planet earth than finding a box turtle. And that's where it all started. I just started finding box turtles again and keeping those, and then I was like you know what? Now it's going to be rabbits, now it's going to be some turkeys, and then we're going to add more. And that box turtle was like my swing key Whenever. I would think am I on the right track or not? Does it make me happier than that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, is that weird? No, it's not weird at all. Again, I think you're totally unique because most people just I don't think they really pursue it.
Speaker 2:Yeah but that was a back burner item. Yeah, what about you? Do you want to talk about yours?
Speaker 1:Well, the one that really got me going is at first, I just wanted to share what I was learning on my own journey.
Speaker 2:I was in a serious self-help book, phase of my life where I was just reading book after book. We met in Toastmasters and I think I've met you during this phase.
Speaker 1:During that time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know I just wanted to. There's so many good nuggets in these books, yeah, that I wanted to share. I just texted a friend of mine one morning something you know a one-liner and he said can you send me one of these every day, okay? And I thought, well, I mean I'm reading every day, at least at this point. And so, yeah, I'm going to send you one a day, okay. And then, as I met other people and they found out about it, that list grew until every morning I was sending it to about 200 people.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And um, and then I said, well, how could I really sort of share what I'm learning with more people? That's probably why I went to Toastmasters to get into public speaking, which led to the National Speakers Association, which led to a group of people who were really trying to figure out a way to do it for a living. And then, once I was there, it's like, okay, what is it that I really want to share? And eventually I had gone to a breakout session and one of the women there was showing you how to do retreats, and so I said this is really the format for me, because what I really want to share, it can't be done in a 45 minute keynote necessarily. Yeah, and I want to spend more time with the person to give them the, the background, lay the groundwork to really understand what it is that can can change their life yeah, I.
Speaker 2:What I like about you is that I think if you're running the speaker circuit, you're you're telling, but your retreats are listening and it's just a big difference, you know know, it's just.
Speaker 1:I want to deliver a transformative experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the book essentially is just the process we were going through at the retreat to achieve the transformation. Now it's a little bit different than the one you came to seven years ago. You know it was refined and evolved over the years.
Speaker 1:But eventually we just came up with sort of a cocktail of exercises that if you did them in sequence you could really just walk out the other end and just know something about yourself that you didn't know before. Yeah and uh, when we left one of the retreats, one of the guys said you know, albert, this, this is your book. And I said what do you mean? He said what we just did is a book. And I went home and I thought about it and I said yes, he's right. And then I wondered can somebody take themselves through this process on their own? And so really it was an experiment and so I wrote the book. I started giving the manuscript to advanced readers just to see hey, can you follow these directions? It's simple, but without someone explaining the context. Sometimes it's like I was curious if people could do it on their own, and when I would meet with whoever read it, and when they told me what happened to them, I said, oh man, I like I've got to get this out because it will work, you know, for an individual.
Speaker 2:I like it, um, even more because I know you and the author's voice. And then it's funny. That's like one of your big characters. The first time I met you you were at Toastmasters telling a story about when you're in the frat and driving the bus somewhere. I just uh, you had the whole audience rolling and you know you're winning the best Toastmaster of the Day award and all this, but it's funny. So the three steps from what I'm gleaning is knots, correct, Character mining and golden dialogue. Yeah, Do you want to kind of just touch on those real quick, or is it too much to go into? Well, it's.
Speaker 1:You know, of course I can't explain the whole thing, but let me just go to the fundamental first part of the first exercise, you know. So you know, Mike again, you're unique. You think of something crazy goat farming, turtle raising, having gardens in your suburban backyard. A lot of people just put anything that they're interested like that they do, put it on the back burner and they don't take any action, I find, typically because in their mind it's not big enough, it's not global enough in scale, it won't make a living for them. They don't have the time or the money. They have this long list of what I call just practical reasons why they can't do it, either now or, you know, maybe ever.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they think that's the reason they're not doing it. So the first phase of the book I call it not therapy and you have these little knots that need to be untangled and need to be unraveled, and the essence of the knot is it's just something that you don't realize. You're thinking about your goal or your project, your initiative. You just don't realize consciously that there's another reason that you're not doing it, and so the first step is for me to help someone reveal that to themselves.
Speaker 1:What is it really that's keeping me from doing it that they're unconscious of, and it happens in 10 minutes. You want to go through a little thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, okay.
Speaker 1:So the goat farm in.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, let's do it. Yeah, where was it?
Speaker 1:going to be West Virginia.
Speaker 2:There was just this perfect goat farm that belonged to poet Carl Sandburg in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
Speaker 1:Okay, North Carolina.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I never figured out where it could be, because goats don't like to be on wet ground. They don't, they don't. You know, you'd have to have a high piece of ground in louisiana to even do this okay, so it needs to be dry okay so.
Speaker 1:So that's like a practical yeah you know reason that you might not do it, okay. So here's what I want you to I want you to close your eyes and I want you to imagine that you're actually doing it. You have the goat form.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, yeah. What I want to know is, now that you're doing it you know it's already done. You don't have to figure out anymore how you did it or what needed to be done to get there. Yeah, you're running it Right. Okay, it's. What do you not like about it? Now, now that you're doing it, what is, what are the things that bother you about this new reality that you've created?
Speaker 2:oh, that's weird, okay. Um, well, I might not be close to rouses, okay, so yeah, that's that's right. Um, it's inconvenient and and yeah, okay, what else, you know, um, I may not have a lot of help because my kids are busy and my wife doesn't like goats or need anything that they produce, or like. Nobody wants to drink goat milk, or I. I don't want to be, uh, I don't want to have to sell goat milk or goat meat, okay so. So why am I doing it? Right why are we even doing this?
Speaker 1:okay, so it's a zoo. Yeah, okay, so this is perfect. Yeah, okay, here we are in three minutes, right, right, you, you've started a list of reasons that you really don't want to do it. They would just be pets.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:If we sat here for 15 minutes, you could come up with a list of 20 reasons not to do it that you weren't aware of when you told me. Yeah, how happy and excited you were when you told me about you know this thing that you might want to do right one day. Yeah, okay. So that's the problem. Okay, the back burner idea or goal that everyone has.
Speaker 1:It's kind of romanticized a little bit yeah yeah, and when I get them to sort of project into the future where, whatever their dream has happened, they literally can come up with a list of 100 reasons why they wouldn't like it.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so now you don't consciously realize that you have this list. Yeah, you just think well, it's because you know my family's in Louisiana and I can't move to higher ground. Or you know things like that Right right. You know, I don't have the money or I don't have the time. The practical reasons is what you think is the reason why you're not doing it. The real reason you're not doing it is because there's this other, hidden aspect of yourself that doesn't want to do it.
Speaker 2:Got it, and so do you have to do battle with that and then do it anyway, or do you just need to figure out if you really want to do it?
Speaker 1:Well, here's the thing you probably do want to do it on some level Okay.
Speaker 2:I just want to smell the smells of a barn. Yeah, but you know it's totally romanticized.
Speaker 1:But this sort of subversive character that doesn't want it to happen.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:It is part of you, but it's a part of you that you're not aware of, and they have a personality too. You know this other part of yourself, and it knows you better than you know yourself, and since it's sort of hidden from you, it's always going to win, Got it. You can't outsmart, you can't outwill, you can't push, you know overpower this other part of yourself that doesn't want to do it. It's impossible. So anyone who's ever had a goal that they didn't achieve, I swear to you, if you give them to me for 30 minutes, I can help them discover. Okay, here's the real reason you didn't do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I used to have a goal of when I was in real estate make 15 million dollars. 15 because it had to be specific, it had to be an odd number, all the stupid stuff. But I never ended up making 15 million dollars. And I was like, well, I'm sure I'm trying hard, but even if I could sell that much it would have been nice, but um, it always. I think I recognized the inauthentic, inauthentic elements in that. Quicker than something like a goat farm, you would have even more around that, yeah, there would be other things that would come up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when, if we did that, yeah, and it points to you've heard the expression we're our own worst enemy, okay. What we don't realize when we're saying that is the enemy, is really this sort of unconscious aspect of ourselves that has already decided they don't want it to happen. It's not going to happen, okay, and so essentially, what you have is an inner conflict that you're not aware of, your inner change manager it's just like um, you know there's, there are a lot of reasons not to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you're not conscious of them, yeah, so a lot of people will go through their entire lives not really realizing why they didn't do it.
Speaker 2:And they just feel like failures.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they feel like failures. Or oh, it just wasn't in the cards for me. Or if I only, you know had a big inheritance, or if I was wealthy like somebody else, or if I only lived some. You know it's just a lot of excuses and, you know, to me it's the biggest tragedy because I know what's really going on is they just need to.
Speaker 1:You know, discover, you know, reveal these knots and they're really like slip knots. They're so easy to really untangle and untie. Now I will tell people this Before they come do work with me, come to a workshop or something I do online Zoom workshops and things like that. I said I hope you really do want to do it, Because if you do this process, you're going to find yourself on the way to doing it, which can be scary. I talk about it, I dream about it, but now I'm really, you know, on my way, because what happens is when you untie the knots, you just find yourself leaning into it and doing things you know sending emails, making phone calls.
Speaker 1:It starts to just happen. Weird, it's crazy yeah.
Speaker 2:What's on your back burner? Oh, that's scary.
Speaker 1:So you got to go unearth all of the things that you you set aside and you can do it in a week, yeah, and usually I encourage people to do it with someone else, because you start to realize, oh, wow, it's not just me and um, so part of the phase one, the not therapy is what I call it, and you know, I say not therapy with a k because it's not therapy, but it's, you know, it's just extremely therapeutic. Yeah, and when two people do it together and you, you read your your list to the other person and then they read theirs to you, both people are just shaking their head like, oh, I can't believe. This is really what's at play here. Yeah, but it's true.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's. It's creating a dialectic between the, the shadow self, like you described right, and then the, the, the guy that shows up that you think is living your day, and so then you get truth out of it right? Exactly.
Speaker 1:It's your. It's your. It's really just expanding your, your conscious mind to things that you believe, that you're don't realize, you still believe. And the thing that was really so shocking to me is, you know, the first time this started happening was when I did try to get into real estate and I was doing a Tony Robbins course.
Speaker 2:This is dangerous to combine Tony Robbins and real estate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you know, and what I realized was when I was a young boy, my dad told me a story. He was a bartender in the French Quarter.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we would go stay at his house on the weekends. My parents were divorced and he would come home late. We got to stay up late. That was a good part. But he would say, oh man, there was all these rich guys in my bar tonight and they own hotels and they were rubbing elbows with the politicians because, like, that's how you make money, you have to be connected and do these insider deals, he said. But you know the real reason they're in my bar on a friday night, it's because their wives and kids can't stand them. Yeah, and they would rather be here than home. Yeah, now, I heard that as a 10 year old boy and I didn't really totally understand what he was saying. But yeah, it registered in that if you wanted to, you know, earn your 15 million, like you referred to right.
Speaker 1:That, in my mind, you'd have to be in a bar on a Friday night, you know, rubbing elbows with politicians, which is not something that would appeal to me. And so I had this inner conflict that, on one hand, I wanted to get into real estate and, you know, become wealthy, but on the other hand, the hidden aspect of myself believed that if I did that, I would become estranged from my wife and children. Yeah, scary, okay. So, in other words, there's no way I would have taken the steps I needed to take, as long as I believe that on some level, but didn't even know I believed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can empathize completely with that.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, as soon as I, as soon as I resolved that and you know, kind of updated that belief, I jumped in in January of 2000 and you know it was, it was crazy, and four months I had 10 apartment units and and then I really went crazy after that. You know, before, before I knew it, I had 10 apartment units and then I really went crazy. After that, before I knew it, I had like 60-something apartment units in a very short time.
Speaker 1:But it wasn't going to happen until I came to the truth of resolving this inner conflict. So this is really the thing that I would want people to take away. If you're not doing pursuing your goals, the only real reason is you have an inner conflict that you're not aware of yet. Amazing.
Speaker 2:And that for some people that conflict can be whether the desire is authentic or not. Right, like for me. It goes way deep down, kind of like for you, like money, bad Money makes things bad. I don't know why it would, but it does.
Speaker 1:So you know, here's the thing about each knot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It actually comes from a lesson you learned while growing up.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 1:Part of the process can be. If you really want to go deep into it, you can track down every single knot and find out who said it to you, where you learned it. You can remember when Okay, One of the guys that we spoke of earlier who had done the retreat he said when we were doing this, he goes. I can't believe this. Every one of mine came from fifth grade. Yeah, Now, this was a man in his 60s. Wow, yeah, Realizing that everything that was holding him back was lessons he learned as a fifth grader. Wow, and look, it was the same for me when I was doing this work, you know, in my fifties, I was just constantly dumbfounded. I just couldn't believe, I didn't want to believe that as a, as a grown man, that that the things that were sort of um, you know, I don't want to say controlling my life, but, but certainly, you know, making me have to maneuver around it it was just stuff that came mostly from childhood.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and just, it was still there in my fifties, okay. So think about this. I mean, you know, when do you ever go back and dig it, dig all that up?
Speaker 2:yeah, you know, probably never amazing that's just one of these, I mean, and so, look, that's the one that's probably the most important to understand.
Speaker 1:The the next phase really is just to identify the characters. You know they have a certain voice and so you know you talked a little bit about kind of the money consciousness voice. You know money is bad. Okay, that character probably shows up in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, in your life talked about my, the practical father-in-law voice. What the hell are you doing? You know, so you can. My dad's voice, like all of them, yeah, yeah, they're all, they all become like like a personality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you're right, and so what we do? The second part of the process is to kind of identify those characters and sort of learn what they're all about and where they came from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, like, what's their history, when were they born? You know why did they come out. So then, once you know the character, then the final phase, phase three, is to resolve your, your inner conflict with these characters. Now, if you don't resolve them, they're going to work against you in the in secret and you won't know exactly why. You know you're doing something or not doing something. When you bring them into the light, you identify the character. Then you have a conversation with them. So the third phase is golden dialogue, where you really talk to them like they're a different personality, and it can be done in a journal form and live in person. We do it with chairs and somebody gets up and sits down in a chair and talks to their partner. And it sounds crazy. When I'm giving the instructions, people are kind of wrinkling their nose and saying come on, man, really. But when you watch somebody do it and talk to an inner character, you know you have no idea what they're going to say. That's hilarious, you really have no idea.
Speaker 2:And when people start to see it, when you witness it, you really realize like, oh my God, this is crazy because that personality has its own whole, whatever reason for being yeah that, that you're kind of like taking something out of toastmasters there as well, like this big speaking exercise of you're gonna talk to your inner self, yeah, on each side of the table, in front of everyone yeah, not, look, that's the part that takes.
Speaker 2:You know a little bit of courage, like if you're gonna have wind, wind Once somebody gets into it, though they forget anyone's in the room. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they just roll with it. And it's just so fascinating to hear an inner aspect of yourself talk back to you and tell you what they're thinking and why they do what they do. Yeah, and so the way that we resolve these characters is these characters, on some level, want the same things you want. They just have a different way of going about getting them and usually it's unhelpful from sort of like the person you are today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so you make a deal with your character. You find out what their needs are, what they want, and and this may sound like you know you're schizophrenic, right, it's really. You know, maybe on some level, you know, you always do have different personalities inside, but you can make a deal with your character once you understand what's their motivation and what they want. And so what happens is this force that's working against you all your life. Up to this point, from the you know, when it was, uh, the inception of this character, till now, they've been working against you. As soon as you make a deal with them, now, all of a sudden, all of that um energy, they become your ally yeah, so it goes from adversary to ally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now, as strong as they are and as much as they know about you, they're on your side and this is why I say things start happening, because you're no longer working against yourself. This is cool.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I have a burning question to ask you. Go ahead. So you know, look, we're in Louisiana. In the South A lot of people have religious upbringings and you know there's a godlike voice that guides people right when you're on that path. Can that be mistaken for a character? Can you build that character in and actually be working in opposition to that voice? And it may be inauthentic? That's a really kind of deep and tricky question.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing. So, okay, if you're a religious person, you believe in God, which I do. Yeah, right, what does God want for you? They want you to be whole, don't they? They want you to have self-love. Would anyone's God want them to be anything other than totally accepting of themselves, their true nature?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, all this is is taking a part of yourself that you've judged as wrong at some point and decided that they don't need to be in your life, yeah, and tried to suppress it and push it down into the, to the subconscious mind. And they're trying to operate and be good people and be authentic and bring the full force of their being, but yet they've judged themselves in so many aspects as being wrong that they're really just operating on partial capacity and and on some level, they don't fully love and accept themselves, you know, as as the way they are, so I I feel like it's definitely in line with what god would want from you. Know, for you is to accept yourself fully.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess the question was also asking can we also accidentally build up the wrong voice for God inside? That's kind of saying something counter to what may you know.
Speaker 1:I think you can hear the difference, I guess, is the bottom line you know these characters. It is really just you and it's just a programmed belief. That is not true. Yeah, it's just something that you believed or came to believe.
Speaker 1:Maybe someone told you you know, a parent, a teacher, a grandparent, a friend, and at whatever age you were, as you're trying to learn about what the world's all about, you sort of adopted a belief that served you at the time, that doesn't serve your growth any longer, but yet it's never been refuted in any way, and so now it's holding you back, the calling the back burner idea and goal. I think that's the driving force of God letting you know that this has always been there, that this desire has always been there, that this is something you should pursue, because normally that desire I've never come across where it's anything harmful. It's always something that's either helpful to someone else or some way you want to serve, or just something you want to do that creates joy for yourself or your family, your kids or neighbors, and you're holding yourself back from that, from these beliefs that are just not relevant anymore.
Speaker 2:It may have actually been the religion teacher or the pastor's voice, or something. I mean not a God force. Yeah, it could.
Speaker 1:It's just something that no longer serves the calling. Yeah, you know, when I say back burner, ultimately it's your calling Gotcha Gotcha, and that is a different voice. I don't think you know we're talking about. You know, getting up and hearing it, one of your characters is is probably not god in that sense where you know they're going to say. I think the the god voice for me is it's just more of a knowing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not really words, it's usually just like it's not Morgan Freeman, it's like you just know.
Speaker 1:You just know what to do. Yeah, you know what it's telling you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Without words, right, right, and that drives. So I think this really gets yourself out of the way of your own destiny. Yeah, and you know, I hate to say, not everyone's going to do it in their lifetime, and to me that's, you know, a tragedy.
Speaker 2:What about people who are in trouble, Like if they're sick or, you know, financial duress, anything like that? I mean, do you have anything to say to them today? You know if, for instance, there's somebody that wanted to be a pro golfer but they got a leg amputated?
Speaker 1:or something. Well, I think there's always a way for you to take whatever your life experience was and and do something positive with it. You know, um it's like the old adage of the mess is the message interesting.
Speaker 2:Have you heard? You heard that before Never.
Speaker 1:It's where you take your struggles and your challenges and then you can use that to to advise some someone. I will say from a practical sense when my, my mother-in-law she's she's no longer with us, but when she was in her final years she had a hospice nurse, and so I would get into a conversation with her and and she said really, my clients fall into two categories. One is at the end of the life. They really realize that they did the things they pursued, the things they wanted to pursue, and they led a good life.
Speaker 1:And she says and the other half get to the point where they realize they didn't do the things they wanted to do and they're bitter yeah because what happened was, by the time they really started bringing it up to the you know a priority, they no longer had either the resources of the physical capacity to do it yeah and so it was like really kind of a stark warning there, you know, there's two forks you can take.
Speaker 1:You're going to either live a life of bitterness and regret at the end for not doing it, or you get to it early enough that you just do the things that you're called to do. Yeah, and so I feel like I'm helping get the message out or at least give people a framework where they can get over something that's in their way that they're not aware of. Yeah, to not end up one of the people with regret.
Speaker 2:There's a sense of urgency to it there is why I like gary vaynerchuk so much, because he's like look peak in your 60s. Um, you know, there's still time. If you're sitting here listening to this today and you're 40, you still have the world by the tail and you're just healthy. And you, I mean, come on um yeah, plenty of time yeah yeah, well, call it there and let people know where to get the book and where to find you.
Speaker 1:So it's on amazon and you can I got my copy yeah, it's what's on your back burner.
Speaker 1:uh, if you want shortcut, you can go to backburnerbookcom and that'll take you to my webpage, which has a link to the book. It also has the worksheets that you'll need to sort of do that little exercise you and I did of like, hey, what don't you like about this idea, now that you've done this goal that you've thought about? And then there's other resources in there too, as my next online workshops and things like that. If you, if you don't want to do it on your own, I'm always happy to to to guide people through it in small groups on.
Speaker 1:Zoom and just help them get over. It's just some of the trepidation of like digging it it's. It is fun. I think most people have fun when they do it and you definitely learn something about yourself that you didn't know, are you still doing the man camp retreats? I didn't do one in 2024. But I am part of the reason of doing the book is to find a bigger platform so I can attract more people to do retreats.
Speaker 1:So, I like the workshops, I like going and speaking to groups and, yeah, I definitely want to keep doing the retreats Awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, it was a gift to have you up here today in Zachary, just 30 minutes north of where you are in the hip zip. But, Albert, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1:Thanks, mike.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't, wait to read your next book too.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm going to have to start working on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it for this week's episode of Porch and Parish. Be sure to catch us on local newsstands or online at porchandparishcom. Huge thanks to Albert Palaszczuk for sharing his gifts with our community and for finally inking that bestseller, and to all of our sponsors, who make this content possible and free. Don't forget to support them, and don't forget to support them, and we'll catch you next week with another inspiring conversation. Thank you.
