Grief & Pizza

[00:00:00] This is grief and pizza, a podcast exploring the highs and lows at the intersection of business and emotional wellbeing. In this episode, we spoke with Joe Hudson from Art of Accomplishment about how emotions influence our decision-making and how embracing intensity impacts our lives and businesses.

[00:00:14] Joe, it is so awesome to be here with you again. We got to meet in the summer in Tiago Forte's workshop, our mutual friend. I had never heard of you or your work before, but everyone that had attended that event was raving about your work and we could see the impact on everyone that had done your work.

[00:00:34] So we were very curious and it was such, such a pleasure to get to work with you and to hear the way that you showed up. In that mastermind and the way I think you really directed the shape of that mastermind in that your suggestion to ask questions instead of give advice was like that kind of set the whole tone.

[00:00:54] I think for for the mastermind for us. Yeah. And vice [00:01:00] versa. Just by the way. It was you all who suggested that I look into Mattia to help run the business, and he is now working full time, and what an absolute pleasure to, uh, so thank you both. Yeah, that was amazing. Yeah, I was so delighted to hear that. So amazing.

[00:01:17] Um, so obviously we had to go a little bit deeper after meeting you. We needed more Joe. And so we signed up for your connection course, which again, I think a good chunk of the folks in that mastermind had done. So we signed up for the course, did the five weeks and, um, I'm not sure if we communicated this with you or not, but.

[00:01:34] In the second week of doing that community, um, connection course, our, uh, dog of 14 years passed away and it was honestly such a gift to be going through your course at the same time that that was happening because, um, as Ben and I learned, you know, grief is one of the most complex emotions and I think neither one of us had had the opportunity to go through.

[00:01:55] Really experienced that emotion so deeply together, and it was the most [00:02:00] connecting experience. And so I just wanted to kind of say, you know, thank you. And just so grateful that we had the support of your tools while we were going through that process. Uh, yeah, um, seems so counterintuitive with grief that way.

[00:02:15] There's like a, I think it's East African tradition that talks about how Uh, grief is like what breaks the veil between you and your ancestors and which is, you know, from our point of view, our society, that can mean a lot of things, but, but it does like create this like deep sense of connection. I noticed grief allows me to connect deeply with myself, with others and with like, um, the fleetingness of it all and the infinite of it all.

[00:02:48] So I totally understand what you're saying. I'm so glad that you got to, that you got to, to do that and to do it together. Did you, did you do the connection course where it's just you two the whole [00:03:00] time or did you interact with other? Oh, great. We did ourselves the whole time. I was actually just thinking right before we started this, like what, what kind of differences have you seen when people do it like together as a couple?

[00:03:11] Is it more or less challenging or just different? Or like, do you, do you kind of analyze that in the work at all when you're like, you know, if you have a couple, do you recommend they do it together? Um, depending on where the couple is and what they're doing. Uh, I've noticed some things usually clearly helps with their communication.

[00:03:30] They usually get through some big stuff that they've been like rocks that have been in the way of their river, so to speak. Also, uh, usually sex increases and it gets better. So, um, all those things are pretty cool. Uh, uh, I think there's benefits on both sides of it. I, what I noticed is that if a couple is really in a deep, really triggered by each other and they like, can't speak very easily to each other, then it's better that they do [00:04:00] it at least the first time without each other.

[00:04:02] And then, but you too, I find her, you know, you have a nice set of like, you're very close and connected with each other and it's like sweet to see you together. So in those, in those times I would always recommend doing it together the first time. Yeah. So it depends on where it is. And yeah, I think that Just better, more connection is really the end of it.

[00:04:23] And then also I have seen a couple of people, there's that triggering exercise in there where you learn how to handle triggers. And I've seen like this one couple, I remember we did, we did it live and I saw them like work through like 20 triggers, like not, not just like, Oh, we did it. But like it healed something in them because they went so deep into that exercise.

[00:04:45] Like, so they, they didn't just practice. Getting over triggers, they healed the triggers that had been there for a long time. It was amazing. And they even, they recognized that they looked up there like, but that was like, you know, like two years of therapy and like [00:05:00] 20 minutes. Yeah, that, that I've seen.

[00:05:03] Yeah. My, my experience of the, of the course was that it actually improved the way that I showed up in my therapy sessions. Because I was much more comfortable with like, you know, okay, like I'm like, I'm going to lean into this and allow myself to get triggered, even when the therapist said something that I Kind of disagreed with about myself.

[00:05:20] I'm like, okay, well, let's actually actually let that kind of settle and think about that So it just it's really enough enabled me to like show up a little bit more fully in those experiences That idea of you you often use that term in embracing intensity as you know and and your tagline for your podcast, which I love is like the you know, eat more ease in your life and more ease in the business and I think we have this like idea that Thing, like things that are difficult aren't easy, but like they, they produce this like ease in your life where you've got this like ability to stable stableness and ability to practice being triggered and then, you know, then those things [00:06:00] become enjoyable.

[00:06:01] Um, can you say more about that? Cause like, I think this idea of like enjoying discomfort is really notable about your work. Yeah. Um, there's two things about it. The first one is that most of the time. If we think about what's an efficient car, we think about the car that uses the least amount of gas and, um, we don't think, you know, like the super sports car with a V12 engine is the efficient car, but somehow or another in life, we think if we're like moving fast in our business, we're being efficient and it doesn't mean we're being efficient at all.

[00:06:34] And in fact, like as a venture capitalist, I got to see how. Much more capital company needed to get growth if they were trying to grow very quickly. So to me, ease and enjoyment are the way that you can best judge efficiency in your life. Meaning if everything's a struggle, then there's a lot of energy going to stuff that is not directly benefiting you.

[00:06:57] And if you, and then [00:07:00] if you can really focus on, oh, how do I make this thing that I'm doing enjoyable, have more ease. That's not saying that. I'm going to go do other stuff because it's not easy, right? It's taking the task that you have at hand and creating that ease and enjoyment in that task. Then you become a lot more efficient.

[00:07:19] Then the question becomes, well, what's the best way to do it? And the best way to do it is to feel into the inefficiency, right? So if you're in a company and you want to, um, like create efficiency. You can't do it without like looking at where all the spots are and like paying attention to them and putting your awareness there.

[00:07:37] Similarly for us, if, if you're not feeling the discomfort, then you're not feeling the place where you, you have the ability to gain efficiency or gain ease and enjoyment. And so, and I would say embracing intensity, I have noticed to be the best leading indicator of personal transformation. When I see someone.

[00:07:58] consistently lean into the difficult [00:08:00] emotional experience to have the difficult conversation, I know that their life is going to transform exponentially in short order. I love that. I'm assuming that's sort of a, a top down thing, right? Where it has to sort of come from leaders showing that it's acceptable.

[00:08:16] It's okay. Like this is actually what we need to be doing because it must be. Um, tricky at a team level when you're sort of expecting all people in a team to be able to have these more difficult conversations. I'm curious kind of how you see that, um, responsibility of a leader, I guess, to show that it's important for us to be able to.

[00:08:36] The, the, the responsibility of the leader is to make sure every conflict tension, um, create something more productive. So meaning, oh, we can have a conflict and we get to a better solution. We can disagree and we get to a better solution or or the company has become better. Our working relationship is better.

[00:08:58] And so if, um, [00:09:00] if a leader of an organization is set up an organization where that happens consistently, people will speak up and they'll share what they think and they will have the hard conversations because they know if I do that everything gets better. And if they avoid conflict that won't happen.

[00:09:16] And if in an organization they, um, have tension and they don't resolve it through avoidance, that won't happen. Or if everybody's job is to be nice, that won't happen. So I've seen like, organizations where everybody's really sweet and lovely and they're nice to each other, and they just, they don't lean into that difficult stuff and so they don't make improvements.

[00:09:38] What are some of the ways you can, like, I guess, bake that in? Or is it, uh, like certain exercises or like, how can a team actually start to integrate that as like part of their DNA? Yeah. Um, there's lots of tools that will help them. And that's one of the reasons that we created the connection course, which is what you two did was to, it was created for an [00:10:00] organization.

[00:10:00] Um, that particular version of it was created for an organization so that they had a common grant, a common language on how to handle conflicts so that it would be productive and useful. Um, that's one thing. There's a lot, there's like how you do that in a meeting, which is. Asking, like, what is the problem statement we're actually trying to solve for?

[00:10:22] Oftentimes, a group tries to solve a problem and they, they, they never get anywhere because they unknowingly don't even agree on what the problem statement is, right? Like, like one, one, one person thinks the problem statement is how do we build a phone that sells the most? And somebody else thinks the problem statement is how do we build a phone that most people use?

[00:10:44] And those are different. Those are going to be different phones. Um, and so and then they don't understand the criteria of like what the solution set is. And so that's where the flow. So there's lots of techniques, but one of them is to learn techniques. One of them is to be the [00:11:00] example of it. So not allowing them like owning the defensiveness when it's there.

[00:11:06] If a leader owns the defensiveness and says, this isn't how I want to be, If they get defensive or they show that like defensiveness is not Something that we do here because defensiveness is often where or when people start yelling at each other get angry That's when a lot of it ceases or when there's conflict of wings.

[00:11:23] So leaning in themselves So setting that example is also a really a big deal. I tell everybody Who comes and works with me? Your job is to tell me when stuff isn't working if you don't do that. You're not doing your job Mm hmm Period. Because I, I need to hear when stuff isn't working for people and it doesn't mean that it'll change, but I know there's some wisdom in it and I know it'll change something that we do.

[00:11:49] Those are, those are some, there's, I mean, there's a lot there. You could write books on that one. One of the things I'm curious about is how you see the relationship between productivity and emotions. Oh, wow. [00:12:00] Yeah. Uh. So the, okay, so the, the, so first you have to talk about what the myth in our society is.

[00:12:06] The myth in our society is that you can make a logical decision. You can't, it's like neurologically impossible. Uh, if you pulled the decision making or the emotional part of your brain out, your IQ would remain the same and. Your, you would take like a half an hour to decide what color pen to use. It would take you four hours to decide where to have lunch.

[00:12:28] And so where people have had this happen, their IQ stays the same, but their entire life falls apart. So there's this idea that, oh, I just need to be rational and I'll just make a logical decision. But that's actually just impossible. And so if you think of productivity as two things. Like I would narrow my productivity down to the decisions that I make and the relationships that I have are two of the main factors.

[00:12:58] Um, I can make a [00:13:00] decision on productivity like, Oh, I'm going to use this system or this system. That's going to have a huge effect on my productivity for the rest of my life. I'm going to do this job or this job. I'm going to write the book or I'm going to start a YouTube channel, whatever those. That's a huge part of it.

[00:13:15] The relationships that I hold and the ease. If there's a lot of drama in the relationships, that's going to really slow down productivity. Um, and then the last thing is like how much internal energy am I putting towards fighting myself? And how much energy am I putting towards being in flow? And that is emotional.

[00:13:35] So the decision making is an emotional thing, meaning We make a huge amount of our decisions based on wanting to feel loved, wanting to feel like a success, not feeling like a failure, not wanting to feel conflict, whatever the emotions that our upbringing have made it that we don't want to feel or want to feel, that's what we're making the decisions on.

[00:13:58] And so That's one. [00:14:00] Relationships clearly, like if you look at like a marriage and there's a marriage conflict, there's a lot of things that go into it, but one of the main things is, okay, what's the emotions you all are avoiding? Like you talk about, people talk about walking on eggshells. That means I'm avoiding an emotional experience with my partner or, um, uh, when they remove their love, I feel like I've done something wrong.

[00:14:23] That's emotional avoidance. Like there's a, yeah. I feel, um, ashamed when they yell at me and then that makes me defensive. All of that is an emotional experience. So, so the decisions we make are emotional that affects productivity. The, the relationships we hold have a big emotional component that affects productivity.

[00:14:46] If you're fighting with your co founder or not fighting with your co founder. And then the relationship with yourself, which is. I see when people are judging one another or judging themselves, it's because they're avoiding an emotional experience underneath it. [00:15:00] Uh, when somebody is in shame, when somebody is beating themselves up, when somebody is, um, second guessing themselves, yeah, or perfection, all is an avoidance of an emotional experience.

[00:15:12] I'm sure you, you know, wouldn't be shocked to know that in our own teaching around, uh, topics about productivity and software and all that stuff, it feels like more and more we realize, you know, what we're not doing. What we're teaching is not really just tech, right? It's the, uh, the FOMO, the saying yes when you really mean no and that sort of thing.

[00:15:32] So even that's a decision, right? To say yes to take on new projects when you actually mean no and you actually know that you don't have time. So it's, it's been really interesting to almost feel like we're moving more and more toward supporting people emotionally or having them be a little bit more honest with themselves in their own processes, because that's where you're going to get, uh, It's less projects to manage.

[00:15:53] You can't make more time and you can't manage more projects. We need to be more realistic about what really matters to us. Right. So I'm sure you're not [00:16:00] shocked to hear that. Yeah, it makes sense too, right? In each one of those I'm saying yes. When I mean, no, because I don't wanna feel like I'm letting them down.

[00:16:10] I don't want to feel unloved, I don't want to feel disappointment, whatever that is. Oh, I am, I, um, I am taking on more than I can chew because I don't want to feel or 'cause I, I'm trying to feel, you know, every one of those decisions is like that. I think as, as someone who. I think previously may be identified as a people pleaser.

[00:16:30] I definitely recognize that in myself where you're saying yes to everything. You're like, I'll find a way. I'll somehow like squeeze more hours, which of course just leads to disappointing more people, right? So it's that it's almost like a tunnel vision where you can't really project out into the future.

[00:16:43] You're like, what's the feeling to avoid right now, but you're not really thinking about you're deferring that emotional labor down the line, right? I would say increasing, I have a, on our podcast, I have a episode called the golden algorithm. It's so simple and yet it takes forever [00:17:00] for it to like actually fully hit somebody is my experience, unless they just happen to be ripe for it.

[00:17:06] But the idea is that the emotions we avoid, we invite in, in the exact way that we try to avoid it. So I don't want to disappoint you. Therefore, I'm going to say yes to something that I can't do, which means that you're going to have depended on me, which means you're going to be even more disappointed when I, like, that would be an example, or I don't want to, uh, I don't want to be emotionally abandoned.

[00:17:33] So when you, when I feel like that's starting to happen, I get angry, which pushes you away, which makes it even more likely that I get emotionally abandoned. Like every one of your repeating pattern has that quality in it. Uh, mine, everybody's repeating pattern. I'm avoiding inviting. So with that in mind, you have to.

[00:17:52] You have the view framework in the connection course, and I'd love to hear you kind of just describe that briefly and like, does that transition into the decision [00:18:00] making course in terms of like being in that being in the view state for yourself, but that helps you make better informed decisions? Or is it something different there?

[00:18:08] Yeah, so the view is, so there's a tremendous amount of communications and and like how to have conflict courses. Um, ours is the connection course. What I noticed is that Um, as I went through them in my life, uh, with my wife or with business partners as like every one of these fuckers can be weaponized, like it doesn't, they can have like such a beautiful idea behind them.

[00:18:34] But if the consciousness is different than it can be weaponized, right, whether it's NLP or, or even, um, nonviolent communication, I've, I've seen, you know, that happen. And so. And what I noticed when I saw the bat, like I went around the world for this one and like looked at these people could have conversations that change people's lives consistently and and I saw [00:19:00] that they were, it was all about the frame of mind.

[00:19:02] It wasn't about the technique. And so for me, I put a very simple technique behind a apparently simple frame of mind. And that's why Everything we're doing in that is this frame of mind we call view and which is vulnerability, impartiality, empathy and wonder, vulnerability, not meaning being weak, vulnerability, meaning that you will say the thing that's true to you, even if it's a little scary and speaking your truth, even when it's a little scary, impartiality means that basically nobody wants to be managed, um, nobody wants to be forced into a situation.

[00:19:39] So How do you have a conversation that isn't using force? That's allowing someone to find their own truth instead of imposing your management or truth on them. Um, empathy is being with somebody. Some, some folks are very in somebody, like they believe the whole conversation and some folks are like, I'm not going to feel that, you know, baby [00:20:00] cries on the plane and.

[00:20:01] 20 people get annoyed. It's like, that's not empathy either. So, it's about how do you be with a person in their emotional experience, not in the person. And then wonder is curiosity without an answer. It's just like being in that state of awe and wonder of like, what is happening? Like a little kid looking at a, like an anthill and going, what?

[00:20:23] It's not like, how many answer in there? It's, it's And, and if you find yourself in that state of mind, conversations are insanely productive and very useful and connective and all those things, how that relates to decision course, we're not using the view framework at all, though, um, some of the tools might be the same, not the curriculum, but you know, if you've done the view stuff, you definitely have a leg up and doing the decision course.

[00:20:52] Um, But with the Decision Course, the similar thing is it's all about the emotional acceptance. So [00:21:00] what we're doing is basically holding the way the best way to say is we're holding each of our emotions in view. How do I relate with my, to my anger in view? How do I relate to, um, my fear of being rejected in view?

[00:21:14] How do I relate to wanting to please people in view? And how do I fully embrace those and experience those, not by trying to get rid of them, but by being in wonder with them, being impartial to them. And so, and that's the basis of the course. Because if we, if I make a decision trying to feel one way or another, I've limited a ton of options.

[00:21:39] Right? Like, so for instance, if I, there's no way that I could start a company if I can't, If I can't be willing to accept failure, I think a lot of people don't start their own company because they don't want to feel failure or they don't want to feel that sense of deep responsibility. Like I'm responsible [00:22:00] for these folks that are working for me.

[00:22:03] And so if you can't feel those things and invite them, then you can't make any decision that's going to make you an entrepreneur. So a certain amount of decision options are just taken off the table. If you're willing to feel that, if you're like, yeah, I can, I can feel like a failure, that, that doesn't, that doesn't bother me.

[00:22:21] I actually see that I can find freedom in feeling like a failure. And all of a sudden your decision making, you have more options and the clarity is really clear. If you look at most people making decisions and they're having a hard time with it, it's because they're trying to make the right decision instead of the decision that's right for them.

[00:22:40] And they're, they're looking at it like. They're looking at it like, um, how do I get to where I want to go instead of how do I be who I want to be in this decision making process? And to do that, you have to be willing to feel whatever consequence is going to come from it. That reminds me of one of your podcast [00:23:00] episodes, I believe, where you talked about a couple going through the motions of feeling like they had ended their relationship or grieving that that person had died or like actually feel every part of that as though it had ended.

[00:23:11] So that sort of took that, that fear away. So you're sort of practicing feeling the hardest feelings that you're avoiding in order to make a better decision moving forward. It kind of reminds me of that. That's what it is. Yeah, we give we give certain tools for people to be able to feel all the things that they're avoiding feeling to help them make decisions.

[00:23:29] And so we ask people to come into the course with some decisions that they're trying to make. Then we give them a whole bunch of tools on making those decisions. And what seems to happen one is it was a Um, really intense, apparently, um, shocking, but people make all these big, really great life changing choices, um, while they're in the course, cause we asked them, you know, we're looking at the real life stuff that's happening [00:24:00] and, um, yeah, it's really, it's really exceptional that way.

[00:24:03] And then you also walk away with all these tools on how to do it. Yeah. And can, can you give some examples maybe of some of the, the bigger decisions people have been able to, to make you take business? Uh, should I get married? Should I get divorced? Uh, should I take the job? Should I start my own business?

[00:24:19] Um, how should I pivot my business? Um, how, how do stopping major, making the decision to actually stop really destructive habits, um, changing their habit, bad habit, good habit profile. Uh. Yeah. And, and a lot of it, a lot of what happens is actually, that's actually not, interestingly, I haven't thought about that.

[00:24:43] That's not actually the big change that happens in the decision course. The big change that happens in the decision course is the underlying, the major underlying issue that messes with all the decisions usually seems to get healed. So one [00:25:00] woman, she realized somewhere along the line, like, Oh, every single decision I make is an attempt not to be Seen as selfish, so I'm not making any decisions for me.

[00:25:10] And so what she really worked on was like, what does she have to do to allow herself to feel that selfishness? And therefore she walks out the other side, making decisions of self care instead of decisions of caretaking. Another one was somebody really realized all of their decisions came from a place of like, Oh, I'm, I wasn't allowed to feel empowered.

[00:25:32] And so I'm doing everything I can to feel unempowered in my decisions. And so, Oh, I'm, I'm now allowed to feel empowered. I can invite that and empowerment is a totally intense emotional experience. If you haven't allowed it, right. It's everyone's like, yeah, I want to feel, I want to feel empowered, but. And yet I want, I want to feel excited and, and as soon as they feel excited, they hold their breath.

[00:25:55] It turns into anxiety immediately. It's like the, the, the [00:26:00] positive emotions are just as hard for people to feel as the negative ones. And so people come in and they'll feel that empowerment. And then all of a sudden all their decisions come from a place of empowerment instead of from a place of making sure that they, that they don't get hit basically.

[00:26:15] Cause every time when they were a kid, every time they acted empowered, But whatever. But some parent was like, no, you don't get to do that. There was something, I think it was in one of the podcasts as well. You said something along the lines of at a, it was at a conference or something and you would ask people to feel angry about something and then people could do that for quite a long time.

[00:26:34] But then just, okay, now feel joy. And it's like, it's so difficult to, to maintain that state for a very long period of time. I was just like, man, that's so resonant for me. It's, it's so difficult to just like lean into like a positive emotion because it's It's generally not something that we, like, sustain for very long periods of time.

[00:26:53] So, that's been just such an unlock for me that it's, you know, like, sometimes I just sit there and go, like, I'm gonna feel joy [00:27:00] now, um, and just try that for a little bit, and that's been, like, actually kind of triggering my brain to, like, remember what that's like, and so that when somebody said something appealing and good, and I'm like, oh yeah, that's the time where I feel joy, and it kind of comes up a little bit easier now.

[00:27:15] So that's been really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Excitement is the same way. There's actually even more benefits to it. So yes, like feel learning to feel that stuff is great, but there's also a dissolution of ego that happens when you allow yourself to feel something all the way through. And a compliment is one of the best expressions of this, right?

[00:27:38] So when I say ego, some people, I want to define that. Some people see ego is like, I'm so cool. I mean, ego is self definition, so if I, I'm shitty at that is as much ego as I'm great at that. It's a limiting self belief about yourself. Um, I'm, I'm lazy is as much ego as, um, [00:28:00] I am a great guitar player. So, so if somebody gives you a compliment, typically the way it works in our society is I say something like, Wow, I'm so grateful or I'm really impressed with how smart you are.

[00:28:14] Someone will normally go, Oh, thanks. Or they'll be like, Oh, no, I'm not that smart. You're the smart one. Or 10 other things that are basically saying, I think you're lying to me, right? That's, I mean, that's, that's the version that, that, that is really the hit. It's like, I don't trust your compliment. I think that you're being dishonest with me.

[00:28:34] Is what, not that anybody means to do that, but that is the, that's what ends up hitting. And so then of course you get less compliments if you reject all of them, people are less likely to give them to you. Whereas if you feel it all the way, if you're just like, oh, and you let that all the way in and somatically it feels like it's just like, it's like a deep tissue massage.

[00:28:53] It moves through you. Like that's uncomfortable. Oh shit. And then it goes all the way through you and you allow yourself to feel [00:29:00] like the, the joy and the goodness of that. You are less likely to walk around defining yourself as not smart, right? That part of your ego dies. And the other thing that dies is you stop constantly looking for accolades.

[00:29:15] Like, they feel great when they happen, but you're not that hungry ghost of, like, looking for approval but never digesting it. Yeah, so there's a lot of other benefits to allowing the joy in. Yeah, and I think what was so interesting about like processing that that grief when our pup passed away is, you know, Ben mentioned it sort of felt like his emotional range expanded and realizing that grief wasn't just about feeling sadness, but you're you're going to this place of like exceptional joy and celebration of life as well.

[00:29:46] And it just sort of felt like Oh, wow. This emotion has like so much to it that it sort of busts open your whole emotional range. And because I think we were in the connection course, getting so much permission to feel, to not resist [00:30:00] emotions, it sort of allowed us to just like, just bust it out, just bust it open as deep as we possibly could.

[00:30:05] And it was so rich and so difficult and so lovely and. All of it was just, um, just again, a really incredible experience. So I just wanted to thank you again for, yeah, it was, and I started, I started looking at. The compliment of emotions in a, in a similar way where I was, I was thinking like when I would feel angry, like I would think about like, well, what's on the other side of that?

[00:30:28] And, and it would make me more curious about like, well, what if I, and I think you've said this before where you're kind of like, what's the reverse of that? Like what, you know what, you know, and so like, I'm thinking about it as like, what's around the corner or like the inverse or what complements that emotion.

[00:30:42] And like, what if I were to, you know, You know, go to that place of resolving this emotion and actually just go there. And so it, it kind of, it, instead of just sitting there wallowing in the anger or wallowing in the sadness or the grief, like I can, I start to look for that other side of the thing and just like, Let it sit there and really feel it.[00:31:00]

[00:31:00] And then like, it kind of just like dissipates in a way that I'd never experienced before. So I was like in this place of, it felt a lot, like I was like, this is, and this is a new emotion. I've never felt this before. And it was like so profound that it made me look at love as the, like just around the corner of grief, like so differently.

[00:31:18] And I just felt so connected with Maria in that moment that we almost had this like shared consciousness experience of grief. And it just felt, it felt like it was outside of me. Othered in a way and then I could just like actually take like here. It's it free it It was free like I was able to free the grief and then it just kind of like Like floated around outside of me in a way and it was like really a profound moment.

[00:31:41] So interesting Yeah, there's a couple things that brings to mind. The first one is the same I have which is Every time we allow our heart to break we increase our capacity to love and you're like you're describing that perfectly like the heartbreak of The death of, of [00:32:00] this animal you love for years allowed you to love each other in the moment better and also probably the whole world and forever, not just one time, but forever.

[00:32:10] Your capacity to love has been increased. Absolutely. The, the, the metaphor that I use to describe that thing about like what's around the corner, I use a slightly different metaphor, um, which is, and it's the, it's a, in traditional Chinese medicine and traditional, Tibetan Buddhism and traditional Ayurvedic medicine kind of the is like a similar to description that what I'm about to use Which is you have an energy and let's call that energy anger And if that if that energy is kinked one way then it's like I'm not angry and if it's kinked another way It's like nice dress.

[00:32:48] And if it's kinked another way, it's like fuck you you son of a bitch

[00:32:54] And so that's like the resistance. All that is just resistance to that energy. If that energy is [00:33:00] unresisted, if like, if you have allowed itself to move and feel all of it so that it's not resisted, not kinked toes, then it turns into determination and clarity. It looks like Gandhi. It looks like Martin Luther King.

[00:33:15] It's this won't, I can't accept this. But it's not, you haven't closed your heart, like the heart is still open where there's not, for instance, there's nothing that we get angry about that we don't care about. Like anger is a, like, what do you want? If I want to know what somebody really cares about, it's where they get angry.

[00:33:33] Like that's and so, but that care has overwhelmed them and they're resisting it to such a level that it creates this tension in their system. And so it gets kinked. And so each of our big emotions has that has the resisted side, which is what we call the emotion in our society, right, which is anger or sadness.

[00:33:57] But then there's the unresisted side. So that [00:34:00] grief turns into this deep love. The anger turns into this clarity and determination. The fear turns into exuberance and excitement. And it's the same energy. It's just resist or unreason. It's as common as facial expressions. You know, everybody, when people feel a certain way, they smile, the heat map of their signature is the same.

[00:34:19] It's very, it's very consistent. How they get there is inconsistent. Meaning, like, how they resist is different. Unresisted is very much the same. Meaning, like, the way you resist, some people resist anger with passive aggression. Some people resist anger with outright aggression. Some people, you know, beat themselves up.

[00:34:39] Right? Those are three different ways that you can kink that hose of anger, but when it's unresisted, it looks very similar in all cases. I think what's interesting about that too is it's easy to Uh, project or make assumptions about why someone's showing up the way they do and they're like, you know, they're an asshole or we write people off, but, um, they may [00:35:00] be sort of resisting in a way we don't understand because it's not the way that, that we would have done it.

[00:35:04] So we can make a lot of assumptions about people that I think we often don't really know what's sort of underlying or what those, those motivations are. Or most likely that they resist in the exact way that we resist and we don't like that in ourselves. Oh, yes, that's a fair. So that also happens and, and yeah, in general, if you can see the person clearly, the only, only choice you can have is compassion.

[00:35:30] Meaning like, say somebody comes at me and steals my car. It doesn't mean I'm not going to stop them. It doesn't mean I'm not going to pursue not doesn't mean I'm not going to draw a boundary or call the police or whatever I need to do. But if I, if I close my heart to them, if I, if my, If I constrict, then that's my pain, and that's a, a direct, that's a direct, um, pointer to the thing in myself that I can't love and that I [00:36:00] can't accept, the thing I'm not allowed to, that I can't feel.

[00:36:04] And so, so it, it's not that you don't do things in the world, it's not that you don't draw boundaries, but it's like, it, to me the measure is like how, much is the wall up? How much do I have to protect myself? How much do I have to defend or how much can I realize that like my inherent goodness and that there is nothing to defend.

[00:36:24] And when you see it in yourself, it's really hard not to see everybody else's goodness in that same way. Yeah. And are all of our confusion. Yeah. Yeah, I'd agree with that. There's something about, um, again, like going, going through the course and giving yourself permission to feel more emotions and having more self compassion that you kind of inevitably can't help but have more wonder for others and more compassion and curiosity about why why people are showing up the way they they are.

[00:36:50] So, um, Yeah, just a really beautiful, beautiful process. Um, and as someone who, like both Ben and I have done a lot of therapy, we have a lot of these emotional conversations, but I'm [00:37:00] curious for people that are thinking about joining your course or just kind of, uh, entering your world, like, do you get a lot of skeptical people or people who maybe just don't understand or maybe don't know what they're in for when they sign up for one of your courses?

[00:37:13] Uh, they kind of don't know what, uh, what they're about to embark on. Um, well, those are three distinct questions. I get most of the skepticism. So we haven't talked about my background here, but so I was a venture capitalist. And so part of what I do is I just coach 12 leaders and then I will go into their companies and help, uh, get more functional teams happening.

[00:37:36] And that's where I'm going to meet most of my skepticism. Um, however, what I do is so tactical as an example. So I walked into a. This is my classic example. I walked into an organization, it's a C suite, it's like a couple billion dollar market cap company. CEO introduces me and seven minutes later, he passes it to me.

[00:37:59] [00:38:00] And the first thing I say is, I just noticed that you spoke for seven minutes, nobody listened to you. So I just want to go around the table and figure out, I want each of you to tell me what makes you not listen to the CEO. And then I asked the CEO, what made it okay for you to talk for seven minutes without people listening to you?

[00:38:15] So you can be skeptical until that happens, you know, they're like, so the stuff that we do is so hands on, like, you'll notice that there wasn't a tremendous amount of talking in, in the connection course, right? Yeah. You just like, it was like, hi, do this experiment, see what you learn, do this experiment, see what you learn.

[00:38:37] So it's, I don't set it up so that somebody has to believe what I say. I set it up. So it's like, Here's an experiment and you figure out what works for you. You take your lesson from it. So you all walked out of the connection course with different lessons potentially than the other person, another person.

[00:38:55] The reason is because like. I don't believe in this idea [00:39:00] that I know what the next good thing for you is. I, I believe in the idea that you know what the next good thing for you is. And so, do the experiments and you get to learn the thing that you're here to learn. And what I notice is people who've done the Connection Course multiple times, or, um, AOA a number of times, or other things, it's like they get completely different stuff out of it the next time they do it.

[00:39:20] They're running their own experiments and they're learning what's, what, what's next for them to learn, not what I tell them is important to learn. Yeah. And so that, that I think, that's part of the design of the course, is to do it that way. All the courses is to do it that way. I'm curious what the process was like, uh, knowing that a lot of the work was done in person first, and I think you've done such an exceptional job of taking something that you wouldn't think scales, like group coaching, if you can call it group coaching, um, to make something like that, that scales and it actually creates emotional transformation.

[00:39:54] It's very impressive. I think it's hard to do. Were you yourself skeptical of being able to translate this work [00:40:00] into an online I Experience or, or sort of what was that translation process like knowing that it still has an incredible impact? Totally. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Like if it wasn't for COVID, it wouldn't be here.

[00:40:12] Period. Like I just got bored in COVID and Tiago called me up and he's like. I've been bugging you for years to do an online course. I was like, online courses won't work. I was fucking dead wrong. And I remember I was sitting, I was sitting, I have like this hot tub in my backyard that I've engineered to go to like 112 degrees.

[00:40:33] It's super hot. And I was sitting in there like spinning. Um, if you stay in there too long, you kind of spin a little bit. And, uh, and, and I was like, I didn't learn with these tools, so it must be teachable in a different way. And that was the realization where I was like, okay, I can do this thing. [00:41:00] And then, everything we do is lots of experiments.

[00:41:03] So we just did lots of experiments. I brought people in, I did online, I would teach online people doing the things and then looked at what clicked and what didn't click. , like we did, we did hundreds of iterations on all of our online courses to make sure that they Mm-Hmm, , they had a huge impact on people.

[00:41:22] Incredible. Yeah. You've done, and we've done, and it's crazy. We have, and we have like a, like a 98, maybe it's now 97, uh, scaling, but percent completion rate. Our completion rate's crazy. And so we know it's, it's, it's working. Yeah. I imagine. I'm just guessing that word of mouth is a big part of, of how you guys.

[00:41:40] I think it's the whole thing. I think it's like word of mouth. And then, and then somebody is like, let me verify. They listened to the podcast and then they do it. I, as far as I can tell, that seems to be the process because we, we do not have. You know, we don't, [00:42:00] we're just starting a YouTube and I started doing Twitter just a little while ago and so I, you know, there's no other real way for people to find us is except for word of mouth.

[00:42:10] Yeah, I imagine it's hard to communicate, sort of. You know, like, whenever I do a course that I love, like, I sing it from the rooftops, I'll write a blog about it, I'll tell people about it, because I want, you know, whether it's a teacher or a coach or whoever, I want more people to hear about their work. So I imagine you sort of somewhat depend on other people, you know, doing that with their networks as well.

[00:42:33] Does that, does that provide a challenge, or is it just the nature of the work, and that's okay, that maybe the scale of it won't grow as fast as, paid advertisements or something like that. Like, do you feel the tension of it being based on referrals? Or is that just sort of the magic of how it works? Yeah, there's so many ways to answer that question.

[00:42:53] I don't, I don't really care. I mean, I would like it to grow, but I'm agnostic [00:43:00] on it. Like it, it, I want to treat it the way that feels great to me and then let it do what it needs to do. Um, That's where, what I'm, and I'm learning that more and more. I'm learning more and more like, uh, we have a webpage. Is that the webpage that I want or is that the webpage that is going to get people in the course?

[00:43:23] I don't care. I want the webpage that I, that feels like an alignment with who I am and who the organization is. I don't mind putting the effort in, but I, I don't, what's more important is that everything is an expression of the work. So if I'm going to do. Twitter, I want that to be an expression of connection and emotional fluidity and enjoyment and ease.

[00:43:45] And if we have a company, I want it to be enjoyment and ease and emotional fluidity and love and non defensiveness. And if we do it that way, then however it wants to grow or die is absolutely fine with me. I would far rather [00:44:00] feel that alignment and consistency in everything that I do than be successful.

[00:44:06] Because. I have been extremely successful in my life and it, it does not bring happiness, but being aligned and consistent and, and enjoy that brings happiness. And as far as I can tell, it also makes really good money. And so far, I really like it because supporting communities is huge for us. Like the, if you, you to learn.

[00:44:29] View. Great. And that's wonderful. And, but you have each other, which is great. And then if like your mom and dad, some people have taken their mom and their dad, all of a sudden their whole family life has transformed or their community. And that, yeah. And so then they have this base of support around them and then the whole community grows and thrives and transforms.

[00:44:49] And to me, that's great. So the way that it's growing is really quite lovely. And it's, and in fact, I think typically the only discount we give is like for community. [00:45:00] Uh, because that's, that's the thing that's really important. I think we do some, some, uh, you know, some referral things for people, but, but generally I think that's all we do is just word of mouth.

[00:45:11] I don't need it to scale. Yeah, there's a product guy John Cutler that developed this thing called the North North Star playbook and he talks about the the metrics that exist outside of the the actual, you know work being done or whatever and so he would say like a View participant sharing it with a family that would be a that would be a North Star metric like how many times has this been sent down to to a community or something versus like The number of sales that we have.

[00:45:38] So the sharing is more indicative of the health of the business versus the actual money that you're making. And I think you, you said it really nicely at the retreat was that everything you create, you want to have a consciousness that comes from you. And that sounds like what you're kind of describing by saying, like, you, you're not super concerned about the, you know, the outcome, but more about the, that it feels in alignment [00:46:00] with, you know, the consciousness that you want to create and put out in the world.

[00:46:03] Yeah, I, the only thing I would. It's not particularly my consciousness, but yes, there's a certain consciousness, meaning, um, like the long term vision of the platform isn't a place for my teaching. It's a place for other people who have done the work consistently over time, producing work that only they can produce, just like the stuff that, like the connection course only I could have produced.

[00:46:30] And, and then the platform can support them in that process too. So I don't want it to be a, like a, the Joe Hudson show. Like so recently, um, the other guy in my podcast, Brett Kistler just did a, uh, retreat on fear and he did action sports for years. And so air sports and you know, um, high lining and stuff.

[00:46:52] So he. He did a whole thing on fear, but he did it in Moab and then everybody went and did like high lining across this [00:47:00] 500 foot crevasse and like, and so like he could only, it was only him who could do that. And I was so happy that that's like on the platform. So to me, it's like the more important thing is like, are we a platform that's acting in this way of like non defense love empowerment?

[00:47:19] We're, we're putting that out into the world and where that intersects with getting cool shit done in the world. And Kim, there'd be a whole platform of people doing this over time, more open source than one person's knowledge, because there's just stuff that I will never be able to teach. And there's angles that I, it's, you know, it's beyond me.

[00:47:39] So I want, and I want that level of community and support and so that it exists past me and without me. Do you find it? Difficult or maybe not because of all the work that you've done to separate the things of only Joe can do this versus this is the sort of other consciousness like there must be some ego there where people think, [00:48:00] Oh, like only I could possibly do this.

[00:48:02] And we, we struggled to know how we can scale. Like what truly are the parts that only I can do or that I bring to the table. So I'm, I'm just kind of curious about the way you think of that. Yeah. Um. That's a good one. Yeah. I mean the, the, the, right now the constriction in the business is what is the stuff that only I can do.

[00:48:20] Right. And some of it's just very like, like there's not going to be a lot of people on the team right now that a company is going to pay whatever 35, 000 a day to come in and do something like, so there's just certain like revenue streams that are somewhat dependent on my name. And, um, to me, the question is.

[00:48:43] I'm constantly looking to do less, so I'm just constantly looking to see if there's somebody else. And then the only question becomes, of course, somebody can do everything that I do. It's just a matter of time and commitment and resources to get them there or hiring the [00:49:00] right person. So my thought process is everybody can do it.

[00:49:03] It's not going to look exactly the way I do it, and that's okay. Um, but the question is, is the resources like, Do we put the time and energy into building that, or do I do it? That's really the bigger question that I'm usually in. And so some of the things like getting facilitators and coaches, that's been so far like a five year process, and we're just getting to a place where they're starting to create their own courses, and um, or run hours without us.

[00:49:30] Yeah. And so, so sometimes it's going to take that long to do it. But I'm, I'm not in it for the short term. I'm in it, I'm in it to To have something that is beyond. Whatever I could produce. Well, yeah, you've got, uh, incredible facilitators who really At first I was like, oh no, we don't get to, like, work with Joe, but your facilitators are wonderful, and it was just really great to, to get to spend time with them.

[00:49:54] Yeah, and then doing the Q& A at the end, that's the place that, like, right now nobody else quite does that. That was [00:50:00] cool. I feel like even those Q& As I think I watched a Q& A you did in, uh Tiago might have been the building a second brain group and just watching that the ping ponging and just the sort of The way a single question can disarm someone It was just very magical to watch and I thought oh, yeah, we're definitely signing up for the connection course.

[00:50:21] This is happening so it's just really I Trust you and I trust your work and I know that we're just We're on for whatever ride that's going to take us on. But for people that maybe don't know about your work and just more about the decision making course, is there anything that you'd like to share or, or, you know, say to anyone that might be on the fence about investing in the course?

[00:50:40] What's, um, what's something that you'd want a possible participant to know? Yeah, there's a couple, there's a couple questions you had in there. The first one is, um, worried about investing in the course. And I'll just say something that I say to like CEOs who are. [00:51:00] Too busy. And I'm like, you're, you make one good decision.

[00:51:03] It can save you two years. You make one bad decision that can cost you a company. So the amount of time you work is not the important thing. The important thing is the decisions that you make. That's not, that's true for everybody, frankly. And you can decide you're going to start Google or you can start a tire company.

[00:51:23] That one decision is going to have So if you don't think that learning how to improve your decision making just by like 5 percent won't turn into 3, 000, which is what the course costs, check, like, check your math, you know, there's like plenty. So, um, so the question isn't really, is it worth it? The question is, is can, can we actually provide that?

[00:51:46] And that, that I have no way to prove that. Um, but people seem to know if it's right for them or not. As far as something to know about the course, generally, it's it's an intense process for folks. Um, we're [00:52:00] really asking everybody to be, um, At their own pace in their own way to be with emotions that they've avoided for maybe a large part of their life And it's a very gentle process, but doing of it's not so hard But the change that it had that that creates in your life It can be very quick and and a lot so it's like it can be opening up a fire hose of change in your life so If, if you don't want to see like a potentially a lot of transformation, don't, don't sign up and there's somebody listening this and they're like, yeah, that's me.

[00:52:36] Yeah. That's you do not do that. Like if, if you really want some sense of stability and be how you were and how you're going, you know, like that, it's not going to, it's not great if it's. If you are interested in, okay, I'm like a whole bunch of my patterns that have been holding back are going to change and that's going to be uncomfortable for a bit, then then then it's fine.

[00:52:58] But that would be the warning that I would [00:53:00] give it. It can be uncomfortable for a bit. Don't sign up if you don't want your life to get awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I was laughing on the podcast where Brett will ask you a question like, well, what are the, what are the benefits to doing that? And you're just like, well, you just like, just list off like literally every, every good thing could pop, you know, there's going to be so much goodness, but like, yeah, there's always a.

[00:53:21] A huge list of benefits to working on your emotional fluidity. Yeah, it's all, I mean, it's difficult to explain like, Oh, what's the benefit of the connection course? Wow. As it turns out, it, you know, it turns grief for a dog into, uh, a law, uh, an undivided love between two people, right? Like, it's like, how the hell do you like describe the benefits of it?

[00:53:44] However. Some people, if they, when they get in touch with that love for the first time, like I seriously, um, when they get in love with that, you all were like, Oh, this is wonderful. This is amazing. Like, that's cool. Some people are like, Holy fuck, I'm scared. Like that's not ready for that. Yeah. They're [00:54:00] not ready for that.

[00:54:00] And so I think that's my warning. My warning is like, you know, if you're ready for, yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, we're I don't know, I'm excited for, for some better decision making and just confronting some of those demons. So, um, super excited, but again, for anyone that's just, uh, you know, listening to this, what's the best way.

[00:54:22] To tune in to you, you've got your podcast, Art of Accomplishment, um, the connection course, obviously, which do you think people need to do the connection course before decision making or can they dive right into the decision making course? They can dive right in. It's better to do the connection course for sure.

[00:54:38] But we had 14 people last year who had not touched us at all. Wow. And it started with the decision course and they completed it, loved it, gave us. Glowing recommendation. So it definitely works. Um, if you've done the connection course, then definitely this is the best next step for sure. And there's [00:55:00] little stuff that we, we do to, if somebody hasn't done any of the work, we do a little stuff to fill, fill them in so that they have a chance to touch in on it and make sure they have the skills needed to get there.

[00:55:12] Amazing. And is the art of accomplishment.com the best way to, uh, to sign up for that course? Um, for the course, it's, um, view Life slash Decisions or art of accomplishment.com is the best way. Um, I think we're pretty soon gonna have like a couple of the rapid fire coachings on YouTube, so you can see that I would assume it's art of accomplishment.com.

[00:55:34] Um, we have a couple of those coming up and we have some stories of transformation. People who have. Like describing their transformation, just as you did about like what happened with the dog, they've described that transformation and, and pretty soon, like next, in the next, like by February, something, I'll start actually doing some teaching on YouTube, which will be, I mean, I hope it feels like we got, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely excited to see more of [00:56:00] that for sure.

[00:56:00] Yeah. And Oh, Twitter F U Joe Hudson. I put out stuff there pretty regularly. That's been fun. That's been like poetry. I've, I've enjoyed it. I was surprised, but I've really learned to enjoy it. We're excited to, I don't know, remain in your sphere of influence and just continue to learn from you. It's been such a joy, Joe.

[00:56:22] Really appreciate your time and your wisdom and the massive impact you've had on us and the way we show up. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks. Thanks so much, Joe.