Dai Manuel | How To Create A Lifestyle You Want

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Joel: Hello and welcome to the publishing for profit podcast. This is your host, Joel Mark Harris. Today we have a very interesting guest on dive Manuel, who is a fitness coach. He’s a mentor. He’s a author, keynote speaker. There’s very little that this guy does not do. So we talked to him about. About his trip from Bali.

He spent five years traveling. He had a difficult time growing up and, uh, was overweight. And we talk about how he changed his mindset to overcome, has health issues to, um, grow as a person and what you can do to change your mindset and change your life. So hopefully you enjoy this episode.

Hello and welcome to the show. It’s great having you.

Dai:  Pleasure to be here. It’s nice to reconnect. It’s been a lot of years, actually. It’s been a while. Yeah,

Joel: it’d been a while. Um, well yeah, like I was saying, off air, it’s, this show has given me a huge opportunity to reconnect with a bunch of old friends and basically just, just chat with them.

So it’s been really great. So I wanted to start off. Uh, you had a recent health scare, um, you had surgery. Can you tell me a little bit about what was going through your mind there? And, um, has things shifted since then?

Dai: Well, it’s so interesting, right? How. Yeah. I’ve been in the wellness industry, like go on the space, helping people with just living healthier, more active and happier lifestyles for, for 25 years, amendment 25th year.

Uh, I didn’t naturally come from fitness though, like I was morbidly obese as a teenager. So from age nine to 14, I was really overweight. Uh, and all the typical cliches that, uh, are usually attached to that or, or the stereotypes, if you will. Uh, I was living them. And also, you know, to date myself a little bit now, uh, I’m 43 now.

And so if you do the math and go back, you know, about 30 years, childhood and obesity typically weren’t found. Those two words in the same sentence, let alone them side by side. Uh, you know, it’s now a major global issue. Uh, but back then it was me and one other guy on the entire school was in that state of unhealth.

So going through that process, I already. Sort of developed a new mindset around feeling good, like feeling healthy, feeling, you know, trying to do something that reduces the aches and pains, helps me have better energy, helps me manage stress a little bit more effectively. Just really prioritize. It became a pillar.

A core value for me is my wellbeing. So I have a specific relationship with L, you know, that’s why I embraced it as a, as a career path as well. And a number of years ago, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. And you know, auto immune diseases are very prevalent. It’s, I mean, you, you get a room of a hundred people and you throw a pebble out there, you’ll probably hit okay.

Somebody with an auto immune disease. It’s just the odds are stacked against us, and I’m not going to go on a pulpit here and talk about why I believe that it’s so prevalent, but I definitely think there’s some trends and we’re seeing this happen more and more, but there’s such a varying degree of. Of ailments, if you will, on these, these sort of chronic conditions.

In my condition, in my case, I have no ah, neutrophils and neutrophils. So your bone marrow produces some, some beautiful stuff. You know that that helps stave off infection, helps fight fevers, viruses, that kind of stuff. My bone marrow is really healthy, produces a lot of great stuff, but my body’s killing off this component of the white blood cells called neutrophils, which.

Leaves me with nothing. No, no line of protection. And so what happened just a few weeks ago was I had an infection STEM from just something minor. You know, just a little minor ailment. Next thing you know, after about a week and a half of dealing with a fever and hoping that things get better, uh, ego gets the better of me.

Um, and, and not to stereotype men, but it was an in region of my body, you know, a lower region where I was like, I don’t really want to go and show this to the doctors, you know, like a it. And next thing you know, this minor thing that most people would never have an issue. It turned into an abscess and it was getting worse and worse.

And, uh, it got to a point where after three days of not sleeping because the pain was so bad, and I was like, okay, my wife was actually the voice of reason. She was like, you’re going to the walking clinic.

And it is, and it’s funny, right? Like I, I’ve worked with people and I help them through stuff like this. And meanwhile, I wasn’t, I was not listening to my own best advice. And, and I think a lot of us that work as coaches or mentors, we have that tendency at times that we know what to do, but sometimes we just don’t do it.

And, uh, I found myself in that same situation cause you go, it was getting in the way. And, and I went to the walking clinic, the guy looked at me and he’s like, you got to go to the emergency right now cause I can’t help you. And, uh, and then, you know, three days later, surgery later, um. Fever, broke, uh, the abscess was drained and, you know, um, now just over a weekend and I’m feeling back to normal, right?

I guess I got some antibiotics, but what really I took away from this, you know, is that health is just so finite. You know, it’s not an infinite, uh, it, you know, it is very finite. It’s also very sensitive and delicate to the standpoint that, yeah, as much as we think we’re living a certain way and making the best decisions and taking the best actions, you just never know.

You just never know. And I think Cove has been a prime example of that. You know, it’s a, it’s a virus. It’s a mutation on an existing virus that we’ve already got a lot of information, a lot of data, and a lot of history with. Uh, over the last 15 years, however, this new strain, Whoa, look what it’s doing.

It’s, we can have it globally. You can, we have anticipated that. Could we have made decisions based on that? Well, in hindsight, I guess you could say yes, but let’s be honest, we’re just living life day to day and we expect things to stay as they are. And then one little thing comes in there and it challenges our status quo.

And so I just, going through this experience has made me just realize, wow. You know, sometimes the smallest of things that just need a let us on our sides, you know, creates a little bit of discomfort, but not enough for us to want to make a change. And I’ve realized that I’ve gotta be much more in tune with my own body to the standpoint that as soon as those little things start to needle at me.

You know better to be overly cautious than not cautious enough. And a, and I’m living proof of what happens if you don’t pay attention and you let it go on too long. It’s like, Whoa. You know? It was pretty extreme. So yeah, I’ve got a, just a sort of a, a reminder of what health is, especially for me and how fragile it can be at times.

So, so you

Joel: have to be really careful with Kobe. Then.

Dai: I do. I, I’ve been, I’ve gotten very, very little, very little, which is really hard for me because I’m just, I am a social being. I, I do like connecting with people in person. Uh, and so shifting to that as well as my family’s had to make adjustments because of my autoimmune issue and being in this, my hematologist joke, she’s like, Oh, you should just live in a bubble.

I’m like, yeah, whatever. Like, I’m not going to live in a bubble. We’ve, Oh boy. Uh, and, uh. So we’ve had to make certain changes and be paying attention to certain things. So, yeah, uh, I’ve definitely had to make some adjustments and, and you know, the transition has been pretty smooth, but it’s also created its own fair amount of challenges, but we’re all experiencing them and you know, and it just, and mine’s not really unique or special.

There’s a lot of people that are in those. Susceptible States of their health. So they’re, they’re a little bit more high risk, and I’m definitely one of those individuals. Um,

Joel: do you have any advice around. Like, I guess just keeping a positive, maybe positive attitude is not the right term, but a good mental state around a covert people who are in your situation who have to be really careful and who have to limit the contact of people.

Dai: You know, I, I, I’ve had my moments, right? I feel like it’s been a bit of a roller coaster in these last few months because emotionally, uh. It’s just, it’s challenging, right? Like w we are social beings. I really believe that, you know, we are people that for sure need contact on some level. You know, to go a whole life without that would be very challenging, I think for majority of people, if not.

Oh, people, you know, like you look at the early studies that that happened, I mean, many, many decades ago, but they looked at babies when they were first born and they didn’t have immediate contact. The fatality rate was far greater than babies that had regular contact from the time they’re born. And so I think there’s something to that.

Uh, so it affects us emotionally, psychologically, even physically as well. But all these things are tied. And, uh, I always try to recommend people that, you know. Give yourself permission to just stop everything that you’re doing. Take a deep breath, reflect on the things to be grateful for in the moment.

And if you’re healthy right now, you’ve got a roof over your head. You got food in the fridge, in your belly. You’ve got healthy family and friends out there in the world. There’s much to be grateful for. You know, before we started recording this, you know, we were talking about that, right? This, this, this perspective on life and the fact that, you know, things could be worse.

And, and so I think it’s a really celebrating and appreciating the things that are good that are going well for us. And don’t forget those because I think it’s easy to minimalize those things, right. To, to, to marginalize them to the point where all we can focus is on the negative. And you know dr Joe Dispenza and say Robbins, they have that, that saying that where your attention goes, your energy flows.

And I think you know, you can focus your attention wherever you want, but remember that’s where the energy is going to go. So do you want to go towards something that’s negative or do you want to go in towards something that’s positive? I try to err on the positive side and it’s not always easy, but it is a choice.

It is a choice, and that’s why I say creating a little bit of space for you to just take a step back, take a deep breath, and reflect on the things that you have to be grateful for right now. Sometimes that’s just enough, just enough to interrupt that pattern just long enough that you can say, okay, okay, I’m starting to go down that negative path.

Ooh, let’s pull it back a little bit. Reset, refocus. And then get back to it. You

Joel: talk a lot about your five pillars and you know, previous interviews, uh, on your website. Can you talk a little bit about what those are and why they’re important to you?

Dai: Well, I think we all have core values, you know, and maybe some people aren’t as clear or haven’t really defined what those arts then, but I think for anybody that’s listening to this, you think about like, what are the things that are really, really important to you.

You know, like th these things that you truly value and they probably are these underlying ideas or beliefs that actually dictate a lot of your choices and your actions, even how you react or act depending on the situation you find yourself. And the easiest way I can put these into a framework that we can understand, uh, at least.

Be able to conceptualize it is, I’ve found that a literation works really well, and it’s also probably the writer in me. You’re a writer as well, Joel. So you know this, uh, I, I use five F’s and I use, um, a metaphor of a home. And. If you envision a house and you’re going to build a house, and I’m going back to my grade school, I’m not an artist.

So my artistic, uh, I, I’m no Bob Ross. Okay. So, you know, I’ll draw the four walls, I’ll draw a roof. And, uh, usually a foundations firm grasp and nutrients versus in the sky, but they’re very remedial. And I will look at that house though, and that’s our standard idea of a house. Well, there’s a foundation.

Upon which we can struck this idea of what a home looks like. And if we make this home analogist for our life. Well, how would you want to construct your life? What would you like your life to be made of? You know, what’s gonna allow you to weather the storms or the earthquakes or whatever comes at us as we live this life.

And so I use this idea of the five S where there’s fitness, family, faith, and finances. On a with an overarching roof of fun, built on a foundation of health. And for me, these are very important. You know, they’re, they’re values that if you were to ask me the same question 20 years from now, my answer would probably deviate very little.

It would probably be almost the same. And that’s how I let people know. It’s like whatever you believe to be true to you right now, things that you prioritize as important in your own life. They’re absolutely true to you, and chances are we have the same conversation 10 20 years down the road. I bet you the same ones will come up again.

And that’s how you really know that there are these integral values that, that you integrate into who you are. And family’s really important. But family could also be relationships with others. It could be friends as well. It could be associations, community. But this idea of this, these, these closer bonds.

You know, we are very communal people. We need these important, these relationships, I believe, to, to truly function at a high level. And so family’s a priority. For me. Fitness is just a direct conduit to improve our health. So remember we talked about this foundation of health. Well, do you want a dirt foundation or do you want a marble foundation?

You know, and, and what do we do to reinforce that foundation? So the home or the life that we erect on top of it. Has the best opportunity to thrive rather than just simply survive, right? And so fitness, I know if I do certain things and move my body in a certain way, practice certain type of, uh, a proactive approach as it relates to even my nutrition, you know, which I cost by under the fitness umbrella.

I know it gets me in a good situation where I have a better opportunity to just feel good energetically. You know, to also stave off potential health scares. Not to say that it’s guaranteed. You know, I live a healthy, active lifestyle, but look, boom, I just got sick. You know? And it happens. Fortunately for me, it doesn’t happen that often.

And, and I, I truly believe that it’s because I have this, this focused effort to try to reinforce that foundation through fitness, finances while we live in a global economy. And if you want to be someone that collects experiences like our family is, we don’t collect stuff. We’re very minimalist and that’s why we’ve been traveling the last five years, is that when we have a lot of stuff to track around, but we do like to collect experiences, but for many experiences in the world and to live in different cultures.

It takes money. And, and so having a, a solid understanding, uh, or at least a mindset around being financially responsible. I think it’s important. It’s just in the world that we live, you know, and if there’s a communist there, I can join and I don’t have to pay for anything anymore. And it provides me everything that I ever wanted.

Great. I haven’t found that place yet. So finances remains one of the yes. And then a faith. Right? It’s this idea that there’s something greater than, or greater than us as a sole unit, as a unit. Uh, you know, and I believe that, um, mine’s nondenominational. And so for some people it is religious based. It’s wonderful.

That’s great. I, I love that. For me, it’s more about just leaving this planet as a better place than when I, than it was when I got here. You know? And then the roof of fun, if you’re not having a smile on your face to every day. There’s something not going right, you know? And so that is sort of the five S in a nutshell.

And I invite people, just draw the home, have the four walls, the roof, the foundation. You define what those values are to you. This is just one that I found works for me. It’s one that I share with people. Some people relate to it. They might take a few of them, but they might add in a couple of their own.

That’s cool. It’s your life. Do that, you know? But don’t just not define it because by defining it, it at least gives us a little bit of clarity as well as confidence, given situations where things may not go according to plan. You know? Uh, and that’s where I found those core values to be very instrumental, is when challenging times have arisen.

And, and been put in front of me, uh, because of that solid understanding and the, the, the constant reinforcement of those walls. Uh, I have some good habits. I have some great people and some amazing support that allows me to weather those situations better than if I didn’t have those.

Joel: That’s awesome. So when you mentor somebody or coach somebody, do you start with the five F’s?

Is that like a good place to start?

Dai: I find it’s a good generic place to at least give some understanding.  I think a lot of us, and I’ll speak from my own personal, uh, side of things especially, is sometimes taking these sort of.

They’re concepts that may not be natural or instinctual, like we just don’t have a general understanding because our points of reference may not be there. Like we, when you start talking about, well, what’s your core values? Some people might be like, I don’t understand what you’re asking. Like, I don’t even know what a core value is.

So if you don’t have that basic understanding of what some of these terms are, it’s really hard to see how it fits into your own life or how can you even benefit. So sometimes I find it’s just even a conversation and being open to doing some self reflection. You know, asking ourselves questions and, and I find that’s always the best place to go.

You know, I’ve, one question I love to ask people is like, what do you want? And people are like, well, what do you mean? What do I want? What I want to watch on Netflix, what I want for dinner tonight? Like they’re thinking about really the immediate, not really the whole big question of like, what would you want for your life?

Because I mean, we can sit by and just let life happen to us. Or we can take a proactive approach and actually set in motion certain things. You know, or choose to go a certain direction, take certain actions, make certain decisions. So we can be proactive in the design of our own life. And I love this idea of life design, lifestyle design, because it very much implies that there’s purposeful action being taken.

You know, like you’re actually saying, okay, this is something that I want for me, for my family, for my life. So I’m going to do something proactively to get me closer to that realization. And. Some people just, well, that is speaking from some clients and even myself at certain times in my life where things haven’t been going my way and I feel like the world is beating me down.

So she wanted, I was morbidly obese as a teen. I’ll tell ya, I had a very much a victim mindset and it was really easy to point figures, fingers at all the reasons why things weren’t going right. Rather than ever reflecting back on myself and asking the question myself, well, what could I do for myself to change my situation?

And there’s a beautiful quote, and I don’t remember who said it, but it’s this idea of the fear of change, right? Like when we fear the idea, you know, that the prospect of when we, okay, sorry. When the fear of not changing is greater than the fear of change, we know we’re ready to make a change, you know?

And so that’s what, and it’s happened to me many times. I’ve gotten to that point where I’m like, gosh, yeah. I’m not liking where things are at right now, but I’m more afraid of staying exactly as I am and having to endure this because I can also tell and be honest with myself. Well, if I continue to do the things that I’m doing that’s producing these negative results, do I anticipate them.

Getting better by me not actually doing anything different. You know, Einstein had a theory on this, right? And, and so quite literally, and it’s, it’s that self-talk, that self reflection and just that giving ourselves the space to even ask the question and think about the answer. And, uh, it’s not necessarily easy stuff because I think a lot of us get caught up in the day to day.

Life happens whether we want it or not, you know? And, and, uh, it, it is easy to, to find ourselves feeling overwhelmed at times. And, um, yet, and this is something that I, I’ve had to address in my own life at times. Like I used to play a lot of video games in my twenties, you know, and then I got into golf as well.

And when I started looking at golf and video games. Versus some of the other things I wanted in my life. I realized all the time that I was invested in these other activities. It was more actually a form of escapism for me. I was avoiding doing the things that I knew I wanted to do because I knew it would make some positive changes for him.

Yet. I was more afraid of the idea of actually going for those things because I was afraid of failure. I was afraid of not actually succeeding. And then, so why bother? You know, and, and, and this mindset that it’s really easy to fall into that trap. I don’t know if you’ve ever been down that path as well.

Joel: Definitely. I think that’s right.

Dai: Yeah. Yeah, sure. So,

Joel: so you were talking about having a victim mindset as a teenager. What shifted in your life to make those changes to become more healthy, to eat right. Um, and, and what can somebody do to that recognizes that in themselves and how can they make changes?

Dai: The cool thing about change. Is that it’s a guarantee. And what I mean by that is, you know, Buddha said 2,500 years ago, this too shall pass. But everybody, when they hear that quote, they are not going to presume, Oh, if something bad is happening, don’t worry that we’ll get through this eventually. But he was also referring to all the good things in our life, you know, because everything has a time and a place.

But it also. Hits a point where it just isn’t any longer. Right? Like it, it just, I mean, think about some of your happiest moments in your life. We can reflect on that. We can think back on it. We can try to relive it as much as we can, but it’s only in our mind now, like we can’t actually have that again.

It ended. And so this idea of this too shall pass, really just ties into this, this given law, and this absolute truth is that nothing stays the same. It’s always changing. Now, you can either look at that as a negative or you can embrace that. I mean, it’s one of those things. It’s like I, yeah, I don’t want to die.

I want to live forever, but I’m also a realist. No one’s figured out that one yet. You know? So I can either run away from that fear on knowing that it’s always going to be there, but try to avoid it and never deal with that. That added stress and that anxiety that comes around that, or I can just look to, to embrace it, accept it.

And then just live the best life as I can and give him the time that I have, you know, every day, making that active choice. So this brings us back to, to this idea that change is going to happen, whether you like it or not. But it happens instantaneously. Like as soon as you choose to change, you put in motion change.

Like it’s, it’s really, it starts with an idea. And that idea eventually will translate into hopefully some actions. And those repeated actions over time will start to make gradual shifts that will compound over time and a really good way to see those changes. And. Obviously being someone that started in the wellness space, in the fitness industry, I worked as a trainer, as a coach.

Uh, you know, going through those changes myself, took about 20 months and it really was not anything super fancy. It wasn’t anything super complicated. Realized I was 14, almost 15 at the time. I just started to move my body. With a better purpose, meaning that I was proactively making a decision to go out and for me it was mountain biking.

So I would go and ride my bike and I’m totally dating myself. My dad will let me borrow his Sony Walkman, you know, the old yellow ones.

So you know exactly what I’m talking about. Memory, we’d have the autoplay and it would flip, right? So I would listen to one side, and as soon as it flipped to the next side, I would then know that it was time to turn around and come home. So I would be out for anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes of just cycling.

And I was, I was fortunate, I lived in a small town in rural Ontario, so there was lots of country roads to explore and lots of Hills. So I got a variety of intensities in that time. And so I would do that. Almost every day I just get out and move my body. And then I also educated myself on nutrition and just trying to understand, okay, the effects of sugars.

You know, what does pop do for me? You know? And just starting to understand this thing called calories. What does that even mean? You know? And, and starting to veer more towards just eating whole foods, less processed, who’s less things out of boxes, right? Less sugars and just little bits every day. Just trying to.

Not necessarily end entirely. All these these habits that I had, but rather just shifting them and yeah, I didn’t notice any big changes the first few days, let alone the first few weeks. But over time of doing this consistently every day, man, things started to change. Started to release some of the fat. I started to put on a little bit of lean muscle mass.

My body also started to embrace some of the testosterone that was being brought into my body at the time because I was late to get into puberty as well. Based on my state of health is they started getting healthy. It kickstarted puberty, which also provided some benefit. And, uh, you know, 20 months later I had literally shifted my, my health.

To a point where now is perceived as a healthy, active individual. And with that came a different perception of myself and a certain confidence. So actually what got me excited about coaching and mentoring people, because people started asking me questions, man, how’d you do this? What do you do? You know, can you help me?

And I loved helping others do the same thing to at least get started on these journeys. And uh, and that was sort of the origin story. And anybody that’s listening to this, watching this, literally, I was like, just focus on one thing that you want to change. There’s one thing, maybe it’s just eating more whole foods or eliminating sugar from your diet, or maybe reducing it so you don’t have sugar.

Six days a week is only one day. You allow yourself to have some sugar, but just these small little things. Maybe for some people, some of my clients, I’m like, I just want you to get out and walk for an hour every day. That’s it. That’s it. I don’t need you to change your diet. I don’t need you to change anything else.

Just every day I want you to get out and just walk for an hour. It’s incredible what happens when you start doing something that really creates this positive shift. Inside of us, you know, because energetically this, this energy that we feel when we start to live a little bit healthier start to do something that shows ourselves that we love ourselves, that we actually care for our wellbeing.

It compounds very quickly and in a positive way, and it opens up so many other possibilities for us where all of a sudden we realize, Whoa, I, I. You know, I can actually do this, I can make some changes and I can feel the benefit. And that’s very contagious. And those small little changes can lead to big changes just because now you have the self belief and self confidence that you actually can do it.

And, uh, I, I’m more about empowering people to learn how to do it on their own then rather than have to rely on me and I tell it to a lot of my clients, I’m like, yeah, w we’re going to work together for a few months, but my goal is by the end of those few months, you can look at me and say, dye, I got this.

Yeah, I got this. I know exactly what I got to do. This is my lifestyle. Now I’m on, I’m on deck, I’m ready to go, let’s play. You know, and uh, and I find that sometimes you just need a little bit of handholding to begin, but once you got it, you got it. You can’t unlearn that. You know, who is your

Joel: first mentor and how did they help with your shift in perspective and, and make changes in your life.

Dai: When I really think back on it, you know, my parents were great mentors just by role modeling. You know, they, they were very much self starters. Uh, they were both entrepreneurial in spirit and, and also in vocation. Um, they always had. Well, my mom always had a side hustle, even though she was working full time in the health space as well.

But as an RN, a registered nurse and a healthcare provider, and my father was a vet veterinarian, so he had his own practice after he graduated the partner. So, you know, seeing their work ethic was very impactful for me. And understanding that, you know, it takes hard work. It takes dedication, it takes consistent effort to create certain results.

They weren’t exactly great role models on the health side though, you know, like, and, and, and so I recognize there was certain things that I learned just by being around them, by being there, their son. Uh, but then on the flip side, there was also certain habits that they had that weren’t conducive to me living a healthy, active lifestyle.

And so when I started to recognize that as like, okay, well this is where they can really help me, but. I need help in these other areas. And I was really intimidated at the time to even set foot in a gym. So that’s why I said, you know, my parents bought me a mountain bike. They saw that all of a sudden I wanted to make a change because I wanted to do something different before that, you know, it goes with people that love you.

They’re like, Hey, let me help you. Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that? And I’m like, no, because I don’t want to do it. You know? Until I got to that flip the script in my mind, wanting to be the person who was actually doing it for me. For my own reasons. Uh, it was a lot of empty, uh, suggestions. And, uh, so then, yeah, that’s sort of just stemmed off in, into that, uh.

That lifestyle being formed. And eventually as I gained some confidence that I knew what I was doing, I sought out other people to be my role model or mentors. And that’s when I finally decided to set foot into a gym. There was a lot of fit people there, you know, and I was still a quite an overweight teen and I was very intimidated going into that space, but these people need it.

Feel very comfortable. They were open to me asking questions to just observing or watching, and uh, and that was wonderful. You know, it really got things in motion for me before I was even in my twenties and then. I’ve had a few mentors since then. But the beautiful thing is we all have access to mentors, to coaches.

I mean, YouTube is a wonderful resource. Ted talks are a great resource, amazing podcasts like your own. Again, great opportunity to learn. And it’s just being someone that has a habit of learning. And, uh, and I think that’s ultimately what I want to put across is that my parents were very good at instilling that in me on a young age.

Awesome. So you

Joel: were traveling for five years, and I think it was two years in Bali.

Dai: What, what

Joel: sparked that will travel and what did you learn along the way?

Dai: Yeah, well, I was, you know, our family, I, for 17 years, I worked within a very specific. Space. You know, I was a founding partner of a company, a retail operation, and soul fits equipment, and, and I really loved it.

I thought that was what I meant to be doing. You know, like when you really find that thing and it aligns with your passions, your purpose, you know, you just, you feel like, this is it. This is my why, this is what I should be doing. But then things started to shift. You know, as I was aging, as my kids were getting older, I realized I had other aspirations, other things I wanted to do.

I also saw that my kids were getting older and that time with them was dwindling. You know, that opportunity to, to be a full time family. Was creeping away. And so my wife and I, you know, bless her, she was dripping on me for a few years before I finally committed to the process. But she was dripping on me.

But this idea of traveling as a family and I just couldn’t wrap my head around it cause it wasn’t something that was ever even on my radar. But you know, as those ideas were planted, the seeds were planted. They started to, to, to sprout into potential. And me being able to actually have a vision of what life could be like, what would this mean for us?

And actually giving myself permission to dream again and going through that process was awesome. And it got to a point where I was like, you know what? I want to do something different. I really do. And it was scary because 17 years in a career path and thinking that this is where I’m meant to be, this is it, and I’ll do this till the day I die kind of thing.

And all of a sudden that being put into question. It’s a scary place to be. You know, and anybody that’s gone through significant career changes or big lifestyle changes, you know exactly what I’m talking about here. It’s like, Oh my gosh, is this really happening? Yes, it is. Oh, okay. Here we go. You know, I don’t really know where we’re going to go or how it’s going to work out, but what the hell?

Let’s just give it a go, because what’s the worst that can happen. And for us it was like, okay, well we both leave our careers. We pull the kids out of school, we give away all our stuff, pack up our SUV and start traveling. What is the worst that can happen if things don’t go? If I’m not able to start earning an income online, and if I’m not able to continue to diversify my finances in order to ensure that we can continue this lifestyle, this, this, this.

Decision to be nomadic and travel as a family? Well, the worst case scenario was while we’d come back home and maybe we live with our parents for a little bit, get our feet on the ground again and get careers again, and just the way we go. That was really the worst case scenario. Yeah, and when, when you go through that process, you know, as, as a Tim Ferriss calls it fear setting, right?

When you go through this process, it’s really. Asking yourself, what’s the worst thing can happen? And let yourself paint some wild pictures. Go for it. Yeah. The world could end. Oh, well then I’m grateful. At least I went and did something a little bit different, you know, like, but realistically, the worst case scenario for me and what my wife and I, where it was like, we run into money, we’re not able to continue traveling.

We’ll have to come back home and, and get jobs again. Okay, no problem. I can live with that. Can you live with that? Yeah. Okay. Let’s do this. And so over those five years, he traveled around North America. My father was ill and after he passed a few years ago, we were like, okay, we can go overseas now. And so we often for Bali because Southeast Asia, it’s a nice little hot spot.

A lot of digital nomads there. A lot of people go to ballet is a destination location. It’s third world country, but with all the first world amenities. So there’s a lot of positives there. We committed to go and live there for three months and just try it out. It was three months, two and a half years.

And, uh, and, and for anybody that’s ever been to Bali, and even if you haven’t, trust me when you get there, it’s just a wonderful place. Amazing people, great food, amazing. Whether it’s beaches, it’s jungle. Uh, it’s just a wonderful, wonderful place. And, uh, had my kids not wanting to come back to Vancouver for high school, we’d still be there.

To be honest, we’d still be there. And, uh, but we learned a lot through those travels. And then we traveled around 70 stations, different countries, because that was our home base was in Bali. And it’s really easy to travel around to different parts, uh, one year when you’re there. So, yeah, that was sort of it.

And I, I encourage anybody, you know, if you have a desire to travel, we’ll travel. Let’s do it. Figure out a way to make it happen. You learn so much through traveling.

Joel: Awesome. BCIT

Dai: you

Joel: recently you wrote a blog post about the power of the spoken word. And this is something that I am very passionate about cause I,

Dai: I really, truly

Joel: believe that we don’t understand.

The power of our words. And they can be, it can be positive or it could be negative. And a lot of the times we will say something and we won’t even think about it, but the impact that word, those words have on the person receiving them can be really, it can be life altering, you know, it can be, you know, just something casually said on the playground, like, you’re stupid or you can’t do this.

And people carry that for the rest of their lives. Um, and I would add to that also the power of the written word. Hm. As well. But can you talk a little bit about that, that blog post and, and what that means to you and why were you inspired to write that?

Dai: Well, for one thing, I find that the, the self-talk, right?

Like it’s the words that we use to, or. The things that we say to ourselves and when nobody else is around, right? How do we actually perceive ourselves? How do we want to be perceived? What do we say about ourselves? What’s that? That my, you know, the mind’s eye. How does it see you, what we are and, and, and perceive what it is we’re doing?

And when you really start to reflect on yourself and your life and your choices and your actions. And you start to pay attention. You just become mindful of some of these aspects. You start to realize that some things are more or less a self fulfilling prophecy, right? Like we, we speak into existence, uh, an influence.

A lot of the, the, the results that happen in our life. Uh, and one of them started with us just thinking about it. And then articulating it, maybe writing it down. You know, and I try to stay away from the term manifesting or manifestation cause I know once you get into that, the whole law of attraction idea for some people I know that their eyes glaze over, like whatever.

I think there’s definitely some, some truth to it. From a psychology standpoint, you know, there are subconscious. We’re programming it all the time, all the time. You know, there’s a thing called the reticular activation system, and it’s this idea that, well, let’s put an example. Anybody who’s gone out and shop for, for something, maybe it was buying a new car.

You start to do some research. You decide, okay, I want a new car. You, you narrow in on a particular model. Right, or brand and a certain color even. And all of a sudden, you know, you’ve got this in your mind that this is sort of the vehicle you’re interested in, but all, and now all of a sudden, you know, within weeks of that idea being formed and you consciously bringing it to our awareness, we start to notice in the street these vehicles popping up.

You know, we’re not more than we ever noticed before. And it is this power of the subconscious that we can literally program it. To, to, to help us achieve certain things. And there’s a reason why this happens. You know, when you look at the chemical makeup of the brain and you know, dopamine, we want dopamine, we want the rewards, and, uh, even the serotonin, these things.

Our brain wants us to achieve those like little aha moments. Yeah, we do. We want it. We’re wired for this stuff, right? And so understanding this and accepting this, as you start to go down that path of learning how this all works, you can start to be a little bit more proactive. You know, in, in how you’re programming the mind and how you’re programming your perception of yourself or ultimately shaping your life.

And I, I’ve been very guilty of negative self talk, you know, uh, many times in my life, especially when I was a teen, you know, just like I’m fat. Nobody likes me. I’m worthless. You know, I hate me. I looking in the mirror, I break down crying often, you know, like I, I, there’s very little photos of me back then and I did a lot of external work to change my external, but I didn’t really start understanding and I had to do a lot of internal work because those ideas and those, the mindset that I formed at that time, at that low period of my life, I carried that forward into my twenties and the minutes of my early thirties.

And it created a whole other, uh, uh, a cascade of other problems and challenges. And because I was always doing something to try to establish my, my self worth. Right. And for me, I turned to alcohol and drugs, even though I’m building a fitness brand, a company, and very respected in my industry. On the flip side, I was doing a lot of things that were directly opposed to that and you know, call it a double life, if you will, like I was, I was not a great pillar for what it means to live a healthy, active lifestyle.

Because on the flip side, I was doing things to sort of escape this negative self opinion. I was looking to get validation from others and not necessarily people that. Would be considered positive role models. You know, I’d go out with the boys, go drinking, do things that I was doing, things just to try to validate and find and get value from others and for it to be perceived a certain way, you know, to feel like I was enough.

And really what it came down to. And it wasn’t until my early thirties that. I finally understood that and I started doing things very purposefully to change how I perceived myself. That kind of language. I used to talk to myself. So, you know, this idea of the power of, of the spoken word and the power of the written word, or the power of our thoughts, it’s an incredible, the influence that has an S in our everyday life, especially as it comes to programming the subconscious, because the subconscious is always going to look to prove us.

Right. You know? So if we’re thinking negatively about something. We’re going to want to prove that that’s true. Okay? Can we get a dopamine hit. So if you’re thinking that I’m fat, I’m at a shape, nobody likes me, I’m constantly thinking that subconsciously. We’re also looking to validate that, to prove it.

True. And Anthony Robbins really goes into great detail on this kind of idea. So I always recommend you check out some of his Ted talks or something. It’s free content. He speaks to this quite often. You know, this, this, this power of, of just. The self perception and how we can influence that through what we read, our inputs, right?

What we read, what we think, what we say, all these implants influenced the outputs. Uh, so, so that’s, that’s where it’s right. Where I was going with all of this. This is, this little side story is just that choose your, your, your inputs wisely. You know, and this goes right down to association and the power of association.

Jim Rowan says, we’re nets some of the five closest relationships that we have, right? And, um, when I reflect back on some of my lows, I can see why I was at that status in life. And I looked at the influence I had around me. There’s no wonder why I was very comfortable in that state because I had nothing challenging me to go beyond it.

You know? Uh, so that, that’s a place where I like to get people to start. Just start with looking at who do you associate with and how are you feeding your mind? And if you change those two little things, it doesn’t take long for changes to start to, to occur in a very positive way. And, uh, and also your subconscious will start to shift as well.

And as you start to shift that, whew. And it’s amazing what happens when that door of opportunity starts to open and the opportunity to do things differently. Because then you realize, all I gotta do is walk through this. Keep walking through this door. And it’s very empowering, very empowering. And it, it goes direct, um, opposition to that victim mindset, you know, become much more focused on our own hero’s journey.

You know, this idea that, okay, I’m on a journey, I’m going to encounter challenges, but the why, the, the goal is so much bigger than than me. I’m going to keep going for it. And, and, and so you even look at challenges as, as opportunities to learn and grow. No, not as these things that limit us and hold us back.

And, and actually, uh. Can derail. It’s not the case anymore.

Joel: I really believe the people that you, I think you know such good advice there. For me, I think probably one of the, if not the most important thing, is who you surround yourself with. I think that may be the most important thing, honestly, that I believe it’s more important than, than like your knowledge, what you learn.

I think those. Five contacts, contacts, you know, 10 people that you hang out with. It’s, I believe it’s the most important thing in life. Honestly. It’s, it’s, it’s so important because you associate with, with those people and, and you, you feed off each other if it’s good, if it’s bad, whatever. Right? So, great advice.

Dai: Um, thank you. It’s, uh, it didn’t come easy and sort of just came through.

Joel: Lots of experience.

Dai: Just a lot of work, right? Like, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s one of those things, right? It’s like, Oh man, if I knew this when I was 20 gosh, life would be a lot different today. But sometimes we just have to go through the process.

You know, we just got to go through the experiences. We gotta have the experiences, but do we learn from them? You know, and I think it comes to a certain point where you just gotta reflect. You gotta self-reflect, you gotta take an opportunity. You need to look back on some of the most challenging moments that we’ve had in our lives and say, okay, well how did that positively actually impact me?

Because all the challenges that I’ve endured and I’ve lived, Erin had to face and work through it ultimately brought me to where I am right now. You know, and I can’t see myself being where I am right now, had I not injured those. And so it really opens our eyes to like, okay, maybe there is meaning in everything.

Joel: I want to switch a little bit and talk about your book and I want to make sure I got the title right because there’s a, it’s a long subtitle. So diamond fuels, whole life, fitness manifesto, 30 minutes for healthier body, mind and spirit. Um,

Dai: so what inspired, yes. What

Joel: inspired you to write this.

Dai: well, let me put it this way. I think a lot of us, at least a lot of the people that I’ve connected with over the years, especially while I’ve been in the fitness industry, there’s a lot of. Obstacles that I think we erect ourselves a lot of. Uh, I often joke if you use an excuse more than once, it’s just a bad habit and disguise.

And I think it’s really easy to feel overwhelmed. I know I get that way at times where I just. I build things up to be far worse than they actually are, because then it’s easier to justify why I’m not doing certain things that I’ve said are important to me. Like maybe exercising or ensuring I get to bed on time or eliminating how much sugar I, you know, just certain things that I know in the longterm I’m wanting to align with the kind of life that I want to be living, and yet I’m doing things that.

Are in direct opposition to that, you know? So the whole life fitness manifesto stemmed from. Literally five, almost six years of my wife and I hosting free Sunday Funday workouts, one, whatever the retail stores that I had in the back, we had a little gym and we would invite people to come join us on Sunday mornings to have a workout.

There’s always body weights based or functional fitness equipment, you know, so, so basic equipment like medicine, balls, bands, tubes, you know, just stuff that’s really accessible for people and also very simple to use. But it was a community of likeminded individuals coming together to unconditionally support one another.

And when you create that kind of a community, it’s really neat to see how people start to shift. You know, their energy shifts, their, their attitude of themselves and others shift. And we had people as young as like 1314 coming with the parents up until their seventies so we had a quite the gamut of different types of people, different types of backgrounds, different types of sizes and ethnicities and all that stuff.

But we all came together for a very common reason. That was to support one another and living our best life possible. And with a simple focus on health. And wellbeing and positive mindset. And it became ultimately a testing ground for me to, to try some of the workouts, try some of the talks, the way I speak and encourage and motivate or inspire or educate people.

And we learned a lot through those years and it ultimately became the seeds. Which were planted and ultimately became the book that it is today. The whole life fitness manifesto, and it’s a lifestyle program. It’s not really something that you start and then you stop it. I encourage people to maintain it.

It’s only 2% of every 24 hours, so 30 minutes a day you move your body with purpose for 15 minutes. You just five minutes of mindful meditation, 10 minutes. Personal development. It’s very little as far as a commitment is concerned from a time standpoint. But the compounding effect of this day after day after day, it’s immense and it’s really, it’s concentrated self care.

The only people that can prioritize self care in our lives is ourselves know. I haven’t found anybody that’s willing to pay me to look after me. I would love that. That’d be awesome. Wouldn’t it be the best job ever? I’m going to pay you to work out and eat well. Awesome. Sign me up. I’m in. Yeah, I haven’t found that yet.

And so we have to recognize that we have to prioritize that time for ourselves because if we don’t do it, nobody else will. And once you find a system that works and you have a community to support you, and you know, we have an online free community for people, the programs even free. It’s, people always laugh.

My publisher doesn’t like it, but I give it all away. Right? I’m just like, here you go. Cause I just, I want to make an impact. I want to help people. It’s part of my own legacy of trying to shift things in the world. And so it’s just a really simple format. It’s, it’s simple in concept. Uh, it’s easy to, to follow through on if you’re willing to make a commitment to oneself.

And after 28 days of being committed to that routine, you can start to see how this can be emergent to a lifestyle. People say, is that all I got to do? I hear this all the time. No, but it’s the least that you’re worth. Yeah. At the very least that you deserve is 30 minutes of your own focus, energy on your self care to improve your body, your mind, your spirit, because this translates into every other aspect of her life.

Once you start focusing on this and you prioritize some time for yourself, Ooh, man, things just started to change, and I always tell people, they’re like, well, what’s the catch? I’m like, there’s the cat just free. Here you go. Just do it. Commit to it, and do it. Yeah, and people are like, well, I don’t know how to do the exercise.

I’m like, well, listen, my wife and I recorded all the videos. You do the workout with us, we lead you through a 15 minute workout. We do five minutes mindful meditation, and then we give you some suggestions on what you can read or listen to or watch for the personal development. It’s like super simple.

I’m like, dude, give me 30 minutes and I can change your life. As simple as that. And, uh, and it’s been a lot of fun. It’s been very rewarding. And so that’s, that’s it in a nutshell, you know,

Joel: with what was, was there a point that you said, okay, I got to write this book, or was that just sort of a natural progression.

Dai: Well, you’re a writer as well. And especially when you’re someone that creates a lot of digital content, you probably find that people, well, you start to be branded as a certain individual, a certain beliefs and certain ideas and, and certain values. And, and we often talk to those values in a way to inspire, to educate, to motivate people to, to.

Take charge, maybe their businesses, maybe their life and their family. Lots of different reasons. We have certain things that we’re passionate about. And so I became known as I started sharing on social a lot of my own personal views and started blogging my own personal journey. Uh, 14 years ago, people just started asking questions.

You know, and often I would take a question and turn it into a blog article. You know? I’m like, what? Because if there’s one person thinking this is probably, or sorry, one person asking, it’s probably a lot of people thinking it. And unfortunately Google proved that to me. Right. And have people who are looking for those questions or answers and over time it just, I felt it was something I needed to put out there.

You know, cause it was just too many people with the same objections coming to the forefront and asking for help. But I wanted something that was accessible, something that was scalable as well as something that was effective that provided the results. If people followed through with the commitment and yeah.

Gotcha. Appointment was like, I can’t not write this book. You know, I got to put this out there. And, uh, it’s been a very rewarding process. And the neat thing is you don’t make money on books. Thank you. I mean, I guess you do if you’re like, you know, uh, JK Rowling or Dean Koontz, or, you know, these guys that sell millions and millions of copies, but, uh.

It’s the opportunities that the books provided me has been so rewarding. You know, many, many keynotes, working with some amazing association, you want some fantastic brands, just, it’s opened up a lot of doors for me to make further impact in people’s lives, and that’s how I always looked at it was here, this can help change people’s lives, but now it’s also given me opportunities to, to take that one step further and be much more engaged with individuals and or associations to help facilitate those transformations, which is a big reason why I do what I do.

So writing the book has been a great exercise in that, in that, um, motive modality.

Joel: Cool.

Dai: Uh, what

Joel: is your writing process like? Do you, I mean, do you like to write in the mornings or do you like, is there a creative time for you and, and how do you go about thinking about writing?

Dai: It is, I do not have a fixed process.

I’m not like a Seth Godin that writes every morning. And, uh. I’m going to just vote it for me. I sort of just, when inspiration hits, uh, often if I’m asked a question and I see the question recurring sometimes in some of my groups on Facebook, I’ll see people have a conversation on some topic and I’m like, Oh, that’s a really good topic.

I can add some value around that. Right? I’d like to learn more about that. For me, a lot of times just cause I want to learn about something. So a lot of the blog articles on my site are geared to help people with lifestyles, right? How to live a healthier, healthier, happier life.

Things that they can implement and see some positive changes for shifts. And so that’s sort of what works for me. But if I had to choose a time of the day to do it, it’s usually early morning. I’m an early riser. I’m usually up between four 30 and 5:00 AM every day. And uh, I like that. Some call it the witching hour.

Right. For me, that’s my, which know I should say, is that before the world’s a week. It’s me, I’m alone at my laptop or in my living room having a coffee or on the balcony. Like it just, I feel most creative and most at ease at that time. And so for me to create something, it tends to work. Sometimes it depends on how much research I have to do on the article.

Um, or when I’m writing. It might take a little bit longer, might have to do some more research, you know, having more citations and whatnot. But for the most part, it’s just like, what is the main message I want to. Get across to people. And what is that key thing I want them to take away from this, that if they take that idea away and they actually do something with that idea, they’ll see some positive changes.

That’s really at the nut of everything. And, uh, I prefer speaking. It is, you know, it wasn’t how I started, but it translated into that. And that’s sort of why also the power of the spoken word is. I love doing keynotes. I love speaking to groups and organizations, facilitating workshops, retreats. It’s like I love being there to help others in person or online now virtually to to facilitate or create a space where people can.

Explore some of these ideas and subjects and shifts. Uh, I really enjoy that aspect. Uh, so I look at the online space is a great opportunity for me to create more options, the offline. And, uh, that’s sort of how I’ve perceived it the last 10 years. How can

Joel: somebody get, who wants to speak more? How can they get those keynote speakers and how can they, they, uh.

Just get more speaking engagements in

Dai: general? Yeah. Well, stage time I think is important. And for me, I knew that I got very anxious speaking in front of groups. Um, I used to use alcohol as a way to overcome well that, and then when I stopped drinking over 10 years ago, I realized, okay, well I really gotta figure out a way to deal with some of the social anxiety when it comes to speaking.

That’s where I joined Toastmasters, and I’m a big fan of Toastmasters. It’s a nonprofit organization, and I think this is why it gets kind of a bum rap at times is because it’s so inexpensive to join it. People treated it as such. You know, it’s one of those things cause it’s all volunteer driven.

Everybody that’s part of the organization that keeps that thing going. It’s all volunteer based and the costs, it would be a member of the Toastmasters club is very inexpensive. I mean, if it was $10,000 to be there, I think people treat it very differently. Right. But I looked at it as just a, I had a mentor at the time and I asked, he was a professional speaker.

I said, well, what do I have to do to become more like you and be comfortable like in front of a group and said, go join Toastmasters. Literally that was on a Friday. That Monday I went to my first Toastmasters meeting and I haven’t stopped since. That’s just over 10 years now of going to Toastmasters and I absolutely love it.

I love it. It’s been a great opportunity to get better at speaking in front of people, telling more effective stories, connecting with people, even the body language aspect, inflection, like there’s so many minute aspects that make. Impactful talks and impactful stories. We always hear it. You know, it’s like people don’t remember what you say.

They remember how you made them feel. Right. And I find it through talking, through, speaking through keynoting, that there’s a great opportunity to do that, to make a great impact on people, uh, in their lives. And so. When it’s, I started going down that path. I had about a year under my belt at Toastmasters.

I was, I started looking for free opportunities to speak. Just just get out there and get stage time. Just start talking. Meetup groups were one of the first waves. Then I looked at small conferences and events and went around the city. Yeah. So here in Vancouver, and then from there I also looked at media opportunities.

Is there opportunities to do any PR type stuff? No, and fortunately for me, I was building a social profile online as someone that knew a lot about health and wellbeing. So I got on the radar of some, some radio shows and some local TV and even newspapers. So there was opportunities to then again, continue sharing a message, telling the story.

And it just were stemmed from there to the point where, you know, a lot of my keynotes have been booked through. Stations are referrals now, and there are people that have come across my platform online, seen a video that I’ve posted, reach out, Hey, we’re looking for someone to come speak at our organization.

Would you be open to it? Yeah, of course. You know, and, and it sort of stemmed from there, but I always say to people that want to do more speaking. Stage time. Just get out there and tell your story. Just get out there. Podcasts are a great opportunity to, to, to be able to share a story, to connect with new people, new individuals, new audiences.

Uh, but you just gotta keep, keep getting out there and there’s so many great opportunities. I know right now with Kobe, it’s a little bit more limited, but I found that the amount of podcast interviews I’ve done since since February, your over year, it’s like almost triple. And the same amount of time over the last year.

And, uh, cause I do look at that stuff. And I think I’ve had 30 podcasts in summit interviews since. That’s, that’s crazy. That’s a lot. Right? But people are looking to create content. They’re looking for people that are subject matter experts, authorities, people that have a story to share. And, uh, that’s why I tell people, just get out there.

People need to hear your story. They need to hear it. They just don’t worry about all the, this, the, the, do this. Don’t do that. Just. Sure, you know, get out of your head, get into your, your heart and just connect. And remember, everybody’s got a story to tell. You know, we all do. And, uh, so that’s, that’s sort of what I recommend when people are just getting going.

But of course you have more questions that I always encourage people reach out to me. I’m happy to direct you a couple of other places where you can look. Cool.

Joel: So I wanna wrap up with this last question.

Dai: What. Book

Joel: most influenced you in your life?

Dai: So there’s been a lot, you know, and when I think about different phases of my life, there’s been different books.

When I think back, like 20 years ago, one of the most impactful books that I read is the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. You know, I absolutely love that story. It’s a, it’s a work of fiction, but the underlying message is very powerful. And I, I, I love it. I think it’s just a great book. A great story. But this idea that a lot of us are out there seeking certain things, but often we already have exactly what we want before we even start the journey.

And so it’s also that reflection within and that value proposition. And. I am worth it, you know? And I am enough. And, and, uh, so there’s a lot of cool things there, so that, that was really impactful. Um, but most recently, some of the books that I’ve read that have really impacted me, and especially last month, actually, I just read Viktor Frankl’s man’s search for me.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. What a story. Like, just incredible. You just, you know, for people that aren’t aware of his story, he’s a Holocaust survivor. You know, he was in his mid twenties. He was a young psychologist who ended up being shipped off to Auschwitz with a lot of the other, um, people at the time. Uh, and. He survived.

But he has a very interesting perspective on suffering and the role of suffering in our lives and, and how to find the meaning, no matter the situation that we find ourselves, no matter the hardships that were, were, were enduring. And, uh, just this idea that we can always choose. To, to lead a life with dignity and, and yeah, it’s, I can go into more details on it cause it’s fresh in mind, but I would encourage people to read that one.

I just think it’s, I think everybody can learn something from that book.

Joel: Yeah. I got that book from the library and I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal, but I think I weighed over a year because there’s that many holes on. It’s also, people are still reading it. So many, I mean, yeah, so many years later.

So, yeah, very. I definitely, again, yeah, I’d echo your sentiments that it’s definitely worth checking out for sure.

Dai: Yeah, for sure.

Joel: Anything else coming to mind?

Dai: Oh gosh. I’ve got a lot. Yeah. Well, the big leap is a great book, especially when we start talking about the negative self-talk, the limiting beliefs holding us back in our life.

Uh, it’s a great book, essential ism. Um. It’s another great book, really helping you understand what is essential versus non essential in our life and our businesses. You know, that that whole idea of the fear of missing out, FOMO is very real for a lot of us, especially myself. And after reading Greg McCown’s book essentialism, I started to realize that, you know, getting really clear on what do I want, what versus what, I don’t want.

What can help me be more aligned with what I want versus not. And really just starting to be able to say no to certain things, like no is a complete sentence in itself and being okay with that. Like just no saying no to people and, and not feeling so beat up or guilty about that. Or are we doing the very Canadian thing is apologizing for saying no.

I guess it’s just getting my head around that. So that in the last five years have been something that’s been very useful for me, is being able to just say, no, this isn’t a fit. This is a fit. Thank you. You know, just. Really, yeah. Being integrity with my word, but also I actions and, uh, and being okay to just say, no, this isn’t the right opportunity for me.

Joel: So di, thank you so much for being on the show. Really appreciate it. Where can people find you if they want to reach out and

Dai: connect? Fortunately, I’m really easy to find because of my unique name, and my parents were, had some foresight there, I guess before search engines became the thing. Uh, diamond.

Well, Dai. Last name, Manuel. I mean, U. E. L a. If you can type that into Google, you will find me and my blog, 1500 plus articles on it now. Uh, but the neat thing is all my social media platforms, it’s just my name, so you can find me real easy. I’m most active on Instagram and Facebook. So I would say to people, just reach out and ask a question.

Say, Hey. How are you doing? I heard you on Joel’s bog asset. What’s going on? How are you doing? I, you know, you said this book was great. What do you think? Like, I just might, people reach out to me, ask a question, let’s start a conversation and a lesson. All right? Life is just way too short, not to be open enough to just.

Say hello to somebody, and now, uh, you just never know where that hello will take you. And, uh, I’ve realized that I lived a lot of my life not being willing to say hello because of my own issues, my own self confidence, my self worth issues. So I want to let people know it’s okay to say hello. It’s okay to say hi and smile, make eye contact, say hi, how are you doing?

And, uh, because once you start doing that, you realize, Oh wow. They were thinking the exact same thing. It’s just somebody’s got to go first. Someone has to say hi first. So just be the person that says hi first, you know?

Joel: Cool. That’s a great place to end it. So thanks so much and have a great rest of the day.

Dai: Hey, listen, I really appreciate all the amazing content you put out and how you’re just a wonderful light of inspiration for a lot of us, especially during this time. And just thank you for the opportunity to connect with you and your audience and looking forward to sharing this with people.

Joel: I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you for listening to publishing for profits.

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