S02E43
[00:00:00] Paul Harvey: 'cause,
[00:00:00] you know, if you go for the big promotion because that's success, when you get there, you suddenly realize that your hours are no longer relative to the hours you're supposed to work. You're now working more long, the longer hours you're seeing less of your family doing all these bits and pieces, you weren't expecting a lot of times, success is not what people think it is.
[00:00:21] Uh, Define what success is to you
David Dowlen: Welcome to The Fallible Man, podcast your home for all things, man, husband and father. My name is Brent and I am The Fallible Man. I have a guest on who is a fellow podcaster, Paul Harvey of the life passionate business podcast.
[00:00:42] Paul, thank you for joining us for the show today. It's a pleasure to have you on.
[00:00:46] Paul Harvey: Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be here
[00:00:50] David Dowlen: now, Paul, you are a podcaster. And, but this is not all where you started. Right? Uh, I was looking through your bio and this is kind of where you feel like you found a calling after doing other things for years.
[00:01:06] Paul Harvey: Um, I've been in marketing for 30 years. That's for the car I was doing. I was in development in, in, down in London. I lived there and, uh, I had grown tired of, of corporate world. And so my wife and I, and we had, we were late parents because we were both just turning 40 when my son was born. And, uh, we wanted something different from the London life.
[00:01:32] Cause we, we live in a lovely road. It was a perfect place to live in London. I knew five people down that street and had only been into one of their houses because it was just commuter belt. No one stayed there. And then weekends, everyone did their own thing sort of thing. And so it was all we need to be somewhere else.
[00:01:48] And so we ended up moving to Scotland, a long journey on that one, how we got here, we ended up moving to Scotland and, uh, yeah. And you know, so I'm a Londoner in Scotland, which is, and I'm very far north. I am. I'm 23 miles east of internet. I couldn't have gone much further north, actually, there was a bit further north, but not a lot.
[00:02:08] Um, so I am like 600 miles and London. And, uh, so when I came here, I started in the marketing world and I stayed in marketing, but it was for myself and supporting smaller businesses. So I enjoyed that. I had a lovely time. I really enjoyed working with over 200 different businesses. You know, bakers, all sorts of real people doing real kind of jobs.
[00:02:30] Uh, it was very different from the corporate world where I was in. So it was a really, really interesting time when I first moved here. And, and for 10 years I had a great time really, really enjoyed it. And it was after the financial crash that I started to struggle with marketing because I could see the consumption side of it was just starting to really pull on me.
[00:02:52] I could really see how it would just burn in the planet for the sake of. Yeah, it's all about making money. It's making more and doing more and doing more. And he's like, well, when does, when is, when is enough enough? So at that point I started to reevaluate kind of what I wanted out of it and what I wanted to, I wanted to work for.
[00:03:12] So I acted a major kind of shift of clients at that point. And I moved away from any than it was kind of living fast, moving stuff or consumer stuff. And I moved into more people that were doing things like. The I could perceive how to value had a human value. Uh, so I worked with people like I worked with a death coach for many, many years, and I say like, you know, what does a death coach do?
[00:03:38] Well, a death coach helps people plan for their deaths because, you know, we're all gonna go at some stage. Right. And, uh, and like, you know, people don't plan for it. And it's like, and it was, it was a fascinating journey discovering about the idea of end of life planning. Hmm, I can talk about that. Everyone doing things like that, you know, with different people like that.
[00:03:57] And so that's where we're at, where my, my life went to. And then in 28, 20 17, towards the end of 2017, my father died and he was, he was 89 years old and he did not want to be 90. He died two weeks before his 90th birthday. Uh, he was. I mean, I, uh, my father lived in Essex and that furry, but I appreciate you.
[00:04:22] Uh, you S so you weren't. So the sense of that is that's like 500 plus miles away. And I had moved to in Scotland, in the course and where, when we were in London, my parents moved down to London. They moved away from me first. So I didn't feel any, any qualms about moving away from them because he'd moved away from me, you know, years before.
[00:04:41] So, um, but when he died, it was a bit of a light. He had a tough old 20 years off, my mum died. He didn't really, it didn't really connect with his own life. What I realized, you know what I was looking back at it. I realized that he lived vicariously from my mom for many, many years. And then after that he kind of existed for 20 years.
[00:05:07] I thought got older. He really is not kind of living a, he didn't live his life. Why, what was that about? I want to start it to look at him, look at his journey and think about some of the things that he'd responded to these. I realize a lot of those things were in me. I realize I had a lot of similar traits.
[00:05:28] And then there was, I was just thinking about my life and what was doing, you know, not God, nice house here. And I had all the trappings, I've got family to my son. I've got one son, wife, and we had friends and bits and pieces, but I suddenly realized that I was just as cynical as my father, what had become.
[00:05:43] And I was on the journey on that road. And I had a cold heart freely realization wonder that I didn't care where they lived or died.
[00:05:56] I'm here for my son, but once he's gone, what does it matter? And that was really, really hard when I realized that I actually didn't care either way. And so that's when I thought this has got, I've got to change this. I've got to bounce it. So this is where I started reaching out to people that, well, look, other people must know how to do this life thing.
[00:06:14] It can't be that difficult. Other people must know the journey and what we're and what we're doing here. So I started reaching out and asking Congress, having questions and asking conversations with people. So like I was asking about what are you passionate? How do you measure success? You know what determines it sets?
[00:06:29] Cause he can't be money. I mean, all right. I know money is good, but once you get to a certain point, you only have any drive one car at a time at a time gone, you know, you hit him one at a time. No. How much money do you need? All right. If you're sending rockets to Mars, you might need a bit more, but you know how haven't.
[00:06:46] Uh, so we had those, I started asking those questions of people and then it came the contribution idea of contribution and meaning. And so that podcast went live in 2018, January, 2018. It's like the podcast, it's the podcast problem. Isn't it. You come up with the idea, you start doing the podcast, creating it, and then you won't release it.
[00:07:05] So I had all these, I was holding these things back because I was too scared to put them out in the world. And then in 2018, I launched it in January, 2018. And so we're up to over 200 episodes now. Wow.
[00:07:19] David Dowlen: Congratulations on that. Okay. As a young podcaster, I, I, I think I would like 53 or no more than that, but not much more than that.
[00:07:30] So that's a, that's a lot of episodes to go through. Yeah,
[00:07:34] Paul Harvey: it is. It is a lot of episodes that goes through. Right. And, you know, and you learn a lot in the journey. You learn a lot, but what I have discovered over that, over those 200 episodes, Is that there's no right way to do life.
[00:07:51] There's no bloody meaning to it other than the meaning you choose to give it. Absolutely. Because you know, you, you talk to different people from all over the world and one person will give you their Christian perspective. And one person will give you their Jewish perspective on person will give you their Muslim perspective and so on and so on.
[00:08:10] And every. Thing in between there any one journey or story that is any different than anybody else. It's just the story that they believe. And they sit too and they work with, and it works for them and it works for them. Who am I saying?
[00:08:29] David Dowlen: Well, we all, we all need something external almost to, to find meaning the seams in our lives.
[00:08:36] We need some kind of hope or belief to grasp onto and cling to. That creates meaning for us. Right.
[00:08:47] Paul Harvey: I think it's, we have to decide for ourselves what that might be, and it doesn't necessarily have to be external. It could be just as easily be. I accept there's no meaning. And I accept each moment as it comes.
[00:08:59] It could be just like that. And I have met a couple of people that are very much like that. Um, Tell one to SEDU. I think his name is he's a, he's a guy in, in, um, Canada and he discovered he was talking about the station by his mom when he was, uh, uh, a young man about like eight or nine. Um, and he kind of says the past is the past and the future hasn't happened yet.
[00:09:23] And today is all that matters.
[00:09:27] David Dowlen: I actually just had a conversation. Uh, what day is it a. I think Saturday, I was talking to a young podcast or out of Australia who does a life coaching on how to let things go. Hmm. And, uh, other than struggling with the fact that his age really, really showed through, he's very young gentlemen getting started in his life and it's like, ah, you, you have a lot of.
[00:09:56] Um, college, age ideals, but, uh, listening to him that's that was his approach was like, there's just not a right answer. There's no specific meaning. I just, I just kind of experience everything as it happens. And that is, that is what life is. It's like
[00:10:14] Paul Harvey: quantitative takes a lot of younger people have, I mean, I'm 58, right?
[00:10:19] So when I started personal development, which probably was 30 years ago, It was books. It was tapes and it was events. And there weren't that many, I certainly weren't many books around and there weren't that many tapes around and you have to go to this specialist bookshops to find them, you know, youngsters.
[00:10:35] Now people now can actually go and look on YouTube and they can find a role or a Ted talk or anything. Like you can find this information anywhere now. And so I think there's a lot more opportunity for people to, to discover personal growth and to discover those things with them.
[00:10:51] David Dowlen: Oh, yeah, it's a golden time to, you know, work on yourself.
[00:10:55] It really is that we have more opportunities now between podcasting and social media and YouTube. And I mean, all the many platforms I love, I can't count many Ted talks. I probably sat through, uh, just re re watching them on YouTube and stuff like that. It is an ideal time if you want to grow, but there's also.
[00:11:18] An ideal moment to get distracted from growing, because there's just so much stuff out there. That's just entertainment. That is really easy to lose the personal growth stuff too. Uh, how many, how many hours do people watch like cat videos and junk like that on YouTube, right? It's
[00:11:36] Paul Harvey: a, oh, the, these things are incredibly addictive on there.
[00:11:41] I mean, and then they're designed to be, I mean, you know, that is that. And they live there. They know what they're doing when they design these systems to do
[00:11:49] David Dowlen: okay. I lost three years of my life to a video game, actually tallied up time, played on one particular game over the course of about eight years. I literally have lost three years of my life to one video game in particular.
[00:12:01] And I had no idea at the time that I was investing that kind of time in it until I actually, it has a feature in it where you can, uh, get a recount of how many hours you've played a certain character. So I added all of my up. Oh, that's a that's three years of my life. Wow.
[00:12:17] Paul Harvey: That's but it's interesting. My son's a gamer.
[00:12:20] I know. And we kept him off games for years. We w w w we, he went through Stein education. So he went through an education system, which doesn't w which basically encourages you to restrict their media usage. Um, and we, and we did, we were certainly as many years up to, up to the age of 11. He wants now. Uh, which he, on some level says he regrets, but at the same time, he also recognizes the value of it because he has a far greater imagination than a lot of people have because of that time, when he had to use his imagination.
[00:12:50] But he is making up for it big time now. Cause he didn't go, he's gone into game development.
[00:12:56] David Dowlen: Oh, okay. Now I just pay to be a gamer.
[00:12:59] Paul Harvey: Well yet, well, he's not quite there yet. He's still studying it. So that's the point I'm but he is, you know, absolutely. Putting the hours in to end gaming nowadays. Cause that's just what he does.
[00:13:10] That's, that's how it is. And he, and he's met all his friends across the world because of it. And for him, if he, if he does put in 80, 90 hours into a game that just proves the game is a good one, right?
[00:13:22] David Dowlen: Yeah. Yeah. I got a friend who's a streamer who gets paid to play video games. Oh wow. I was like, wow, you, you figured out a trick there.
[00:13:30] Didn't ya? But, Hey, I ask all my guests is what is my question? I got to ask the important, the important one here. Okay. What is your favorite ice cream?
[00:13:44] Paul Harvey: Uh, that kind of again, yeah, that's kind of involved over time. Actually. I used to let rum and raisin quite lot for years and I used to quite like that was, this is an unusual flavor. And I guess some of the chocolate cookie ones are quite nice. I, yeah. Sorry. I'm just a bit of a, just a bit of a tar with this one.
[00:14:00] I go over wherever, like in the moment.
[00:14:03] David Dowlen: I know I can appreciate that. Cause there are days that this sounds good and there are days that it's like, I really want this, you know, I go through all the, go through swings. Uh, I, I have my regular ice creams, but every now and then I'll see like a nice fruit based ice cream, like strawberry or something, or huckleberry walking through the store.
[00:14:20] And I'm like, you know what? Sounds really, really good. I can, I can do that. So,
[00:14:26] Paul Harvey: so we've gone to ice cream app development is a distraction tactic.
[00:14:31] David Dowlen: No, it's a, you know, I actually started asking my guests that probably the beginning of season two for my podcast, just because it's, we all have so much in common as humans.
[00:14:44] Right. But we all have our individual. And it also just tends to lighten the mood a little bit people, uh, people aren't expecting me to ask about ice cream. I'm sure. It's not a question. You get asked a lot of podcasts often. Not often, but I it's fun to see people react to it too. It doesn't always even make the final cut.
[00:15:03] In fact it frequently doesn't, but it just, it lets people take a breath and go, oh look. Yeah. Real people here. It's it's uh, you know, we're recording, but it's a real thing. It's just something fun because people are so individual. I had someone to tell me a gentlemen in Sydney who was burnt fig in almond, and it's some kind of high end.
[00:15:24] There's a chef in Sydney. That was one of her things.
[00:15:28] Paul Harvey: There was, um, there was an ice cream that was done in London's at the time, years ago. I think it was fish and chip ice cream or something. One of those kind of like, you know, Yeah. Things you don't need to dry bloomin' hell Heston bloom until he did his snail porridge.
[00:15:48] Another thing you don't need to try as well, my goodness.
[00:15:54] David Dowlen: So, yeah. So you started on this podcasting adventure and you got 200 episodes down and it's life, passion and business. And that's, that's what you're talking about. That's what you're focusing on this.
[00:16:06] Paul Harvey: It is. And I know very much about the midlife journey. I mean, that's a midlife man. I recognize what I bumped into with my father dying.
[00:16:14] It wasn't just him dying. It was it's the trigger point in midlife. We all have a midlife crisis or men do or women do now, women have it physically because their body changes. And so they get that warning that it's happening and they're going to have a mid, you know, that their body is changing. So that starts to happen for them.
[00:16:35] So they know they're entering midlife, but we done men don't. I mean, we do have physical changes in our body. Um, you know, I mean the pubes grow, go gray. So, I mean, that's a physical change. I just, one of those things you don't think of that. Oh, they do, but you know, Other than those, we don't have the same physical changes that women do.
[00:16:56] And one thing I noticed that for most midlife change in men, it's triggered by an external situation. And mine was triggered, triggered by my father dying. I recognized that my, I was not happy in my life, and I think it happens to a lot of men who they've either been in a job for many, many years. Uh, and the.
[00:17:18] All the trappings of that job. And they got told me sitting back and going, I've got another 30 years of this life like this, what am I going to do with it? You know, how do I want to live? And those things are really, really, really important to, to think about, you know, when we're young, we plan our life. To some extent, we've got this success model that gets given to us study hard, do this, do this, do this, do this, you know, and it it's a crock the whole success model because most people don't find any or they don't find happiness and joy out of it.
[00:17:52] Right. But it does keep dust, get the ball rolling. And at some point you have to define your own success model. That's why success has a massive question. The podcast, because it is a massive quick, how do you define success? What is going to be a good day for you? Yeah, so, so, and I think when we get to that midlife point, we've got to actually reevaluate what we want to achieve between now and the end, because at the end, we'll come.
[00:18:20] You ain't getting out of this boat alive. So yeah, that's what I, I might, my focus these days is this idea is supporting ideally men from the midlife midlife crisis and helping them take charge of it. So, yeah, I think there's this thing about. We've got to ask ourselves the important questions we've got to ask them.
[00:18:43] Not just once at once, you know, once a year, every week, every month. What's the important question. What do I want, what am I passionate about this week? What was I passionate? Where was I? Where was I in my joy this week? What was I happy about this week? What was good? Can I do a, write it down? I mean, I journal every single day now because I recognize how valuable journaling is to me.
[00:19:06] And I, and I asked myself questions in my journal constantly. So he, to one of my questions, I was asking questions in my journal over the weekend. The one of the questions that came up is are you looking for approval? And I don't look cool. Chris, I'm looking for approval. Everyone's looking for. Yeah. So, I mean, on my podcast, I asked for, it would have a lot to like share and, and review the podcast.
[00:19:29] Why? Because I want to approve it,
[00:19:34] you know? But when you get to that midlife age, you know, where where's my approval going to come from? I do. I do I, am I, am I chasing it? Yeah. Social media makes us chase approval. Cause it makes us look.
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[00:19:51] David Dowlen: It's I, I have eight different social media accounts as the fallible man on, on like eight different platforms, not counting multiple pages on some of them. And I despise social media too. Like I always have, but looking at social media, it's like, wow, we we're just we're crushing people because everybody shows off their best moments you don't see.
[00:20:16] Right. I mean, so we do post. You aren't seeing on this side of my camera, right? You're you're seeing me, but you don't see this side of the camera and to have the lights look a certain way in the room, look a certain way. And the coloration, you're not seeing that there are arms around me with lights and above me and behind me and right.
[00:20:38] To get a certain look. Polished clean. Right. And that's how every social
[00:20:44] Paul Harvey: media, the mind does the green screens playing up today. I've got this funny gray area over here for some reason today. So yes, I know.
[00:20:54] David Dowlen: Um, that's, that's all social media is, is people at their most polished, perfect moments. We see those guys with the perfect bodies and we're like, and they starve themselves for, I was watching them.
[00:21:08] It was, it was a Q and a for that show, the Witcher, and they were talking about the main characters, uh, seeing Henry Cavell and great, great actor. I enjoy his work a lot of times, but they were asking about this one scene where he takes a bath in the show. Right. And he has to be shirtless. He went like three days without eating.
[00:21:27] At dehydrate himself for a day and a half,
[00:21:31] Paul Harvey: it's called shredding. You have to do shredding to do that so that the muscles stick out. Yeah, that's right. So you have to do
[00:21:39] David Dowlen: I see those interviews, uh, I watched another actor talk about playing Tarzan and the diet he was on for months and months and the workout regiments.
[00:21:48] And he's like, As soon as they like into production on the movie, I went out and ate like three pizzas because all I've eaten was nothing but clean protein and vegetables for, to look that shredded, you know, he wasn't huge. He was just completely shredded, right. The very lean, uh, thin natural, but just shred it out.
[00:22:10] And he's like, I had, I had breakdowns during shooting where I just broke down. It's like people don't understand. Those are the polished moments and those aren't real, that's not reality at all. It was, it was interesting. You were talking about the change brought on by your father's passing. Um, I just lost my father back in July and, uh, he lived here for my family, my mom and I only, I took two weeks off.
[00:22:39] I have a full-time job. But I took two weeks off to attend to him in his final days. Cause, uh, he's a big guy. My mom just couldn't handle him by herself anymore. My dad's 6 5, 300 plus pounds, 400 pounds. And so I had taken a week off to help in the final week and then some time afterwards. And when I went back to work, all I'd been doing for weeks is being with my family and working on the podcast.
[00:23:06] That's. No, no nine to five, nothing else like that. Right. I went back to my nine to five job and was like, this feels so hollow and empty because I'm just sitting at a computer desk working there's no, they would, I I'm a hiring manager, so they would replace me tomorrow. I know. Cause I'm the guy who does it.
[00:23:25] Right. And so walking back into that, it's like, this is my life and this just feels so empty. That's part of the reason I do the podcast. So it's very interesting to me that that is a big motivator for you.
[00:23:39] Paul Harvey: Well, that's a motivated cause it's like, I mean, this is my, this is my day job, you know? I mean, this is what I do.
[00:23:45] I do this all the time. So, uh, and that's because I, I get a poll. It's funny. I did the podcast. I did an interview a few months. When COVID hit last year, I released the last of my marketing clients. I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say, yes, we should keep spending your money because it's going to work.
[00:24:06] Even though we're in a global pandemic, I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say, yes. So I, so we kind of like, look, let's let's, let's draw a line and they can see what happens. And I've never gone back because it's like, I just don't want to go back. So, yeah, so that we we're resourced enough to keep the podcast rolling and do this, and that's what we're looking for.
[00:24:25] And that's what we're doing. We're turning this into a business and I'm right. And I did, and I did virtual events last year and, and that's, that's my future. I, I, I think I'm a better presenter than I am a marketer. Well, it's certainly where my passion lies anyway. I'm certainly, and this is for me, I think that's, that's the journey for me about my life, passion and business and my midlife, I, my mid-life, um, work.
[00:24:48] You see my mid-life change, we're starting the podcast and that's where I got my jump from. That's not going to be everyone's journey. I think everyone needs to do the work and find out what their journey is going to be. And that's the point. I think by the time we get to midlife people who stopped doing the journey, they literally just coasting.
[00:25:08] They're coasting that life and you've got to put the fan. You've got to actually do the work all the time.
[00:25:18] David Dowlen: But by that time we've settled. Right? We, we bought into the, what they tell us in school, get, do your schooling, get an education, go get a job, buy a home, get married, have a couple of kids. That's that's it.
[00:25:33] Yay. Yeah, you achieved right. That is the sales pitch. And when that.
[00:25:40] Paul Harvey: That's the American dream that gets old around the world. Really?
[00:25:43] David Dowlen: Yeah. And that's, I I'd love to say it's just the American dream, but I mean, it's been sold and packaged and shipped everywhere, but we, we bought into it at that point. And I think there's a point where you, your heart just breaks a little bit of that crisis point and you're like, really, this, this is the, well
[00:26:01] Paul Harvey: you've had it.
[00:26:01] You've got it now. Haven't you? Because you're now you're sitting at that crux point, cause you've gone into it back into your role and you're kind of going, what's the. Yeah.
[00:26:09] David Dowlen: Yeah. It's like a,
[00:26:12] Paul Harvey: all right, I'm going to reverse it reverse. Now what's your plan for getting, yeah, that one, I don't
[00:26:18] David Dowlen: actually have a plan, uh, that I wish I could say I was that organized.
[00:26:23] I started this journey with the podcast and it grew from possibly writing a book to social media. So I would have an audience to a podcast to YouTube, and I wish I could say I actually had a plan. I suck it. That is my big, biggest weakness in business is I am a horrible at marketing. I don't know my head from my tail man.
[00:26:45] And so getting out in front of people, it's not like I'm making any money doing this at this point, costs a lot of money for all the money I've put into this, but I don't have a set plan and I kind of wish I did. But at the same time, I also kind of enjoy the fact that I don't, because at
[00:27:02] Paul Harvey: the moment I just feel fulfilled.
[00:27:04] I started this podcast without a financial plan on it either. I know a lot of people start a podcast with a monitorize, that monetization plan book clips from the beginning. I didn't. So, you know, w we have, that's what we do virtual events, and we do an idea coaching and I do a focus coaching and mid-life coaching.
[00:27:25] So that's why I do those sorts. That's how I fund it. Yeah.
[00:27:29] David Dowlen: I, I was at a seminar. I spent last weekend and a YouTube conference all weekend. And one of the things one of the guys was talking about, you know, I don't really know, I want to start a YouTube channel, but I don't really, I said, look, if you wouldn't do it without ever getting paid, don't start that channel.
[00:27:49] If you walk into this thinking, I'm going to use this to make me a fortune. And that's why you're picking that subject. You're going to burn out so
[00:27:56] Paul Harvey: quick. Putting my marketing hat back on, which I have taken off, but I will put it back on briefly. The way to do this is to find the problem that you're looking to solve.
[00:28:09] Find the audience who that, who have that problem, and then create the product around them. And the problem with the solution that you have
[00:28:19] David Dowlen: for. I would agree. I I've heard that advice for bill business, but the only additive I think for me, I had to throw in was I have to be passionate about it and believe it are, I can't, I can't sell stuff to people or even fixed problems.
[00:28:33] I don't care about, I just can't, it's not in my nature.
[00:28:38] Paul Harvey: Yeah, I understand. Absolutely.
[00:28:40] David Dowlen: I, I've heard lots of, uh, very wealthy businessman throughout, throughout that advice with the, you know, find a problem that needs solving. Package it and sell it. Right. And it's like, that's, that's great. But I, I can have asked anything that I don't believe in, but that's what I feel like I would do if I didn't love, wasn't passionate about it.
[00:29:04] Kind of like, that's how I've gotten through life a long ways to where I'm at now. So
[00:29:09] Paul Harvey: yeah. Yeah. I think. There's a double edge on that one. It's like, do you have to be passionate to make money? Or can you be passionate outside of this? And the, and there's a lot of people that have that viewpoint that yeah.
[00:29:23] You make your money and you, and you put your patient somewhere else. And there's is that Japanese philosophy guys got icky guy. Have you heard of that one? Okay. So it, it kicked guy, it's a Averne diagram with several, with four circles. And in each circle is what you're passionate about, what the world wants, what you're good at and what you get paid for and where all those circles converge is where you can make a, make a good living and be happy.
[00:29:55] David Dowlen: Okay. I've seen, I've seen a diagram with that. I just didn't know what it was called. Yeah. Now for years I've gone with the, I do the job. I don't particularly care about that makes the money while I try and do other things. Sorry.
[00:30:11] Paul Harvey: Well, that works. Here's your life. You do it. How you choose. That's the point?
[00:30:16] David Dowlen: Well, I'm trying to change that now. I'm trying to get to what I love and what I'm passionate about and find a way that it makes money. That that would be lovely. I'd love for this hobby to pay for itself because I'd like it to be more than a hobby, but, you know, we'll get there right. Will come.
[00:30:32] Paul Harvey: It
will happen.
[00:30:34] David Dowlen: So. Uh, we're going to roll there, our sponsor real quick. And then guys, we're going to get into, I have some very specific questions. I would actually like to ask you about going into the second half of the show. So we'll be right back
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[00:31:27] David Dowlen: And we're back guys with Paul Harvey. The life passion and business podcast, and he is dropping some great wisdom bombs. I got to admit this show is not going anywhere close to where my notes are. And I'm totally okay with that.
[00:31:40] I think
[00:31:41] Paul Harvey: we're curious what your notes had on them, where
[00:31:44] David Dowlen: you're delivering way, way better than I could have planned it. So that, that works. But I really wanted to ask, I saw it in your bio because I'm a huge believer in the idea that asking the right questions can change every. I mean, just phenomenally change everything for you.
[00:32:05] And I saw that in your bio, you talked about, you brought down to five questions that just redefine everything for somebody. And I would really love to get into that if you would share.
[00:32:18] Paul Harvey: Well, those are the questions that I ask every guest on the podcast. I mean, it's very simple. It's like, we've talked to them already.
[00:32:24] It's like, what are you passionate about? Is the first one. What is your reason of being here? What are you passionate about? What do you, what do you do now? What is interesting about that passion question is that
[00:32:38] sometimes you can track it right? The way back from childhood. A lot of my guests did something as a child or experience something as a child. And what happens is they find a career in later life and that passion is coming out, that childhood discoveries coming out. So that is quite, yeah, quite clear in some of those really obvious when that, when that kind of thing.
[00:33:05] And then once you've established a passion, you have got to understand what success means to you because you know, we've already touched on that. This idea of the success model is something that we were sold, but I have met so many people, so many people on the podcast and externally the podcast that get the goal that they were told would be good.
[00:33:27] They buy the fast car, they get the big house, they get all these things and they just find themselves. Let's just run that bloody mission. 'cause, you know, if you go for the big promotion because that's success, when you get there, you suddenly realize that your hours are no longer relative to the hours you're supposed to work.
[00:33:45] You're now working more long, the longer hours you're seeing less of your family doing all these bits and pieces, you weren't expecting a lot of times, success is not what people think it is. Uh, so define what success is to you. Yeah, success to me a successful day to me is a day that's filled as a productive day.
[00:34:06] It's not going to be a hard working day. There'd be a productive day. I will have achieved three or four things that I wanted to achieve in the daytime. And for me that's success. I'm not, uh, I, I spent years making bloody long to do lists. Beating the crap out of myself at the end of the day, if we're not completely half of it, I'm wondering why I felt so miserable because I, you know, I set myself up to fail even before I started.
[00:34:34] David Dowlen: Okay. Can I pause you right there, guys? Hear what he just said? Busy does not equate to productive. We, we are. We value busy-ness and the society. Especially in various cultures around the world, right. We value busy-ness instead of productivity,
[00:34:57] Paul Harvey: it's matchup to be busy, you can say to your mate out all today, you, you can really grunt it out.
[00:35:05] You know, that makes us feel like good men. Cause he grunted out.
[00:35:10] David Dowlen: So, sorry. Sorry. I had to point that out. I think. I have read the four hour work week by Tim Ferriss. And it's the whole premise of the book, right? I don't know if you've read that
[00:35:21] Paul Harvey: one or not. And he, it, cause it didn't actually do four hours, but it solved the book title.
[00:35:29] But the point is what verus is about is do the one thing. It's the same thing as the upper book. It's the one thing that's another bloody brilliant book. What is the one thing that will take you forward? And you do the one thing, the one thing, the one thing you keep doing, the one thing, the most important thing that takes you forward, but the success thing is define what success means to you.
[00:35:54] That is really critical. I know all of my podcast, guests, all I guess, is that because I choose them particularly, I guess, I guess it's difficult because I can, I'm looking for particular kind of guests. So I guess they all say the same thing, but they don't really. Yeah, I'm looking for people that have found, um, the answers to something.
[00:36:15] And they're in, in that kind of happy light. I'm not looking for people that are grinding. So I guess if I was to talk to someone who was grinding, they would tell me that's their measure of. The fact that they might be dead in five years in my heart from a heart condition or something is not really something I, you know, but that's the point you find it for yourself.
[00:36:36] The third question is contribution. So as humans, we can be totally selfish, but the greatest value. That I have found from all of my guests. They all say the greatest founders when they realize that they are contributing to other people when they giving something to other people. And for me, my contribution is the podcast is, is sharing this message.
[00:37:02] That's that's from my perspective, but it's the idea when we can do something for others, support others, help others make a contribution. You make them feel good and you make yourself feel good too. And that's the most amazing part about it because, you know, you've helped someone, if you changed someone's life, how good is that going to make you feel?
[00:37:27] You know, there's no, there's, there's nothing better than that. Really nothing better at all. And, but I've also added a new layer to that contribution question over the last few months. And I ask people now, how do you contribute to this. 'cause one thing that did occur to me, he's all well contributing to other people.
[00:37:46] If you contribute to others at the expense of yourself, that's not serving you either know, but the, the, the old adage in marketing and business terms is put your own oxygen mask on first, you know, the old take to take the, um, the airplane model, because if you don't put your oxygen mask on, you're going to pass out, but it's the same in terms of contribution to yourself on a daily basis.
[00:38:11] So eating right, getting enough sleep, exercising, doing some kind of meditative practice, asking yourself the right questions. You know, for me, my day starts with writing. There's always yoga or some kind of physical exercise. I run a lot these days. And it's all about keeping my body because it's an older body and I recognize if I don't keep it.
[00:38:38] Well, that's another thing my father and I didn't have the best relationships, but he's taught me so much. Oh know, his knees were a terrible mess. By the time he was in his eighties, he was like, yeah, we're going to get needs like that. But it is about these needs. I've got here. Cause my clicking by the time I was 50 click anymore, I have to say, cause you know, I've, I've put the work in over the last few years to make sure that I've got reasonable needs and now I'm running.
[00:39:02] So, yeah, but that's the point contribute to yourself as well as, as well as others.
[00:39:09] David Dowlen: It's very valid these days. I've heard several people talk about people are coming around to at least that thought process. Finally, it's like, wait, if I don't, if I don't take care of me, how can I take care of anybody else?
[00:39:21] Paul Harvey: Oh, you you're in the you're in the best place for you. Cause I mean like, you know, my medical care is paid for, you got to pay for your own medical care and I've seen the bills you've got pay. Oh my
[00:39:30] David Dowlen: goodness. I just don't go to the doctor three. I just don't go to the
[00:39:37] Paul Harvey: doctor. Well, I know, I know it's what happens in the states and you're just thinking the doctor and it was the same here in the, in the, in the 1940s and fifties.
[00:39:45] David Dowlen: And you ever see the old Garfield cartoon? Like the newspaper. Okay. So Garfield is the big orange fat cat that likes was on my mom and my best friends loved Garfield. So she had these all over her room and there's this clip that always stuck in my head. And it was OT the dog sitting next to Garfield on a tree branch.
[00:40:06] Right. And it was, the commentary was, it's amazing what you can do if you don't know you can't. And so I kind of adopted that in my brain. So. There's nothing wrong with me. If I don't go to the doctor and they tell me, I don't know, there's something wrong with me, right? Isn't that?
[00:40:22] Paul Harvey: No, I don't think so. If that works for you, Hey, what am I saying?
[00:40:29] David Dowlen: Sure. It's not actually healthy, but you know, it's kind of the way my brain works. If I don't know it's wrong, then it's not really wrong
[00:40:36] Paul Harvey: indeed. But I mean, on, on that story, you know, like, I saw, uh, a, uh, an interview, one of the politicians, uh, years ago, who was instrumental in, in starting the national health service in the UK.
[00:40:53] And he met, he went to see an old lady and an old lady. This isn't the 1960s. And, you know, the health service has been going a few years. I think it started in 1958 to the health service. So. And you went to see her on your way on the doorstep doing your canvassing. There's a, they do when she's in cheer.
[00:41:10] Oh, do come in. I'd love to talk to you. You know, so he was quite famous. So she went, he went and had a chat with her and she said, I need to thank you for the health service. And I went on this conversation and he discovered that she was still paying for her children's illnesses. She was paying the doctor like five shillings a week or whatever it was for the children's illnesses that they'd had like 30 years ago.
[00:41:34] And like she, now her kid didn't have to do that, you know? Cause that, because the health center has made that change. So yeah. Is one of the things that does define us in the UK. I think I sympathize,
[00:41:46] David Dowlen: my oldest daughter is nine. I'm still paying for her being born. Right. Okay. She was in the hospital for a week cause she was a preemie.
[00:41:55] And so we were in the NICU for a week and she's perfectly healthy now, but we were in the NICU for one week and she's not. Nine and a half actually. And we're still paying that bill.
[00:42:07] Paul Harvey: Yeah. And, and the point is you are the most, one of the most. Affluent nations on the planet when you can't solve that problem.
[00:42:17] But there we go. We're not going there. I guess I
[00:42:20] David Dowlen: love my country. I won't pretend we're perfect.
[00:42:25] Paul Harvey: Anyway, the other question, the next question, I always ask my guests because a lot of it is to do with, um, business stuff. So the question I always ask. Is what is the one question you want people to ask themselves?
[00:42:39] And the reason I ask them that, or ask or view, and it's about, uh, it's about that, that launch pad question. And I think we all ought to have that. It's not like what's your subject. What is it that you like to talk about? Because when, when you feed someone with a question that they can ask you something.
[00:42:59] It just, it's just, shit just allows you that opportunity to have that have the conversation that you want to have with people. So it's very much relative to people on the podcast now, but I think there is a value in having a question or having someone that you want people to ask for themselves. It's a good conversation piece.
[00:43:19] And then the final question that we always ask our guests is what's the meaning of life. And it's the one that has had all sorts of answers from nothing to love to God, to everything, you know, when the kitchen sink, because there is so many answers to that question because we're all human and we all have to define it for ourselves, but that's the point.
[00:43:43] We have to define it for us. So why I
[00:43:46] David Dowlen: say that goes back to the beginning of the conversation.
[00:43:50] Paul Harvey: Well, it does. And I think Paula, the issue is, is that certainly 40 years ago in this country, Christianity was much stronger than it is. Most people went to church or at least went to church once a month or, or at some point they did something, some kind of formal religion.
[00:44:11] Um, and the priest told them what the meaning of life. And that was it. They didn't even think about it because the priest had told them. But as that form of religion has passed has, has passed for, I won't say the majority, but a lot of people, you know, Christianity is not as powerful as it, as it once was.
[00:44:31] It doesn't have anywhere near the followers. Maybe your country's different, but certainly in the UK, it's not the same. No,
[00:44:35] David Dowlen: it's shrinking everywhere, I think.
[00:44:38] Paul Harvey: Yeah. And I think that shrinking has produced a vacuum, which people have to fill. And sadly they're filling it with Netflix and retail therapy. Yeah.
[00:44:51] David Dowlen: All mighty
[00:44:51] Paul Harvey: Amazon. Yeah. That's really, that's really good, but yeah. Good. They told that if you buy this, you'll feel better
[00:45:01] David Dowlen: right back to social media influencing. Right. They're happy there. They're happy. Look, they have this that makes them happy. We, we know into people's lives. Just feeding that retail therapy. We look at everybody else and want,
[00:45:18] Paul Harvey: but that is the critical question. Isn't it? Like, what is humanity for what w what is our purpose?
[00:45:28] Do we have a purpose? You know, some people, you know, a lot of people said that we are spiritual beings, living a physical reality, living a physical existence. A lot of people have said that to me, you know, we're a soul or spirit for busy living, living a physical. This could just easily be a virtual realities system that we paid our money and we stepped into
[00:45:54] you. You could, it could just, as he could, you know, he's perfect. I appreciate it. It's perfect. But you know, when they stick atoms in the atom smasher, the bits that come out. All the same and everyone, you know, it's the same staff and we are all 99.9, 9% know thing. So, you know, it's like, there's just gaps in between us.
[00:46:18] So, you know, it could just be a very, very clever virtual reality machine.
[00:46:23] David Dowlen: I work in the, uh, in the it industry for a living my normal nine to five job, I work in the it industry. And we all joke about that. You know, it's like, oh, we're, we're just plugged in the matrix. The nineties movie, the matrix it's like, yep.
[00:46:38] That's where it's all plugged in the matrix. We're just,
[00:46:42] Paul Harvey: yes. Well, when you look at, I mean, I mean, it is a very seductive idea. Cause when you look up kind of coincidence and stuff and things that happen, I mean, I did an event last year. One of my live events I did was called spirituality and it was idea of this duality about living in the real world, in the spirit world.
[00:47:00] This idea of. How we deal with spirituality and in life. And then it came about because a lot of my guests have spiritual experiences that change them, but they don't call it that they call it luck. They call it all those bits and pieces, but you can see where always hit them like a Polacks and they're gone.
[00:47:20] And it's like, and it's been a spiritual awakening for them because they've changed how they've worked. And some of them are, you know, I've acknowledged. That's what it is in some of them. So I did this event rise and then the conversations I had with people, some of the stories that came out from this with people, I was talking to a Jesuit priest, a it to rabbis, all sorts of people on this, on this event.
[00:47:42] But some of the things that happened, like someone guided that someone gave that a push, because it's like, if you said that would have fall into place, it wouldn't. How did that fall into place like that? Yeah. I mean the Jesuit priest, he will say it's God. I mean, he, he, he, um, he. Was a priest in Pinochet's in the, in now where he's Punisher, where was that regime?
[00:48:06] Chile. He was in Chile during the Pinochet regime, which was a fascist regime, you know, make taking people off the streets. People disappearing, people, dying all over the place and it was a really bad place to be. And he was there serving his country. And there were many times that he was almost kidnapped, almost killed and there was always something which saved him and stopped him from getting got at.
[00:48:30] And he would just say it was the grace of God. And you can't argue with a guy, can you read it? Cause like he, like he survived. Uh,
[00:48:38] David Dowlen: it'd be about like, are you a mother Teresa right. Lived and served in a population of highly contagious, you know, individuals who are basically damned once they get the disease.
[00:48:50] As far as their lives and living among them for how many years serving those people. Yeah,
[00:48:58] Paul Harvey: absolutely. And now with the operator, with the machine, making sure you're fine. Anyway,
[00:49:09] David Dowlen: so these are the five questions guys, and you can ask yourself these questions. Okay. You don't have to wait to be a guest on someone's show. You don't have to. Have someone intervene in your life. You can ask yourself these five questions and really start to hone in. On who you want to be and where you want to go.
[00:49:29] This, these are, these are phenomenal questions. Thank you for sharing.
[00:49:33] Paul Harvey: It's his powerful stuff. If you start doing, if you start using it really is. And I, and I say, I run my life on it these days. This is, I mean, it is my life. I, you know, I journal it's here by my, by my, so it's never far away from. I know I do all sorts of stuff basically, but it very much is along the lines of the five questions.
[00:49:54] What would be success for me today is one of the questions I often ask myself.
[00:49:59] David Dowlen: I always liked to leave, leave, get my audience with something actionable. Okay. I, so take notes, rewind the show. If you need to take. Write down these five questions, try for a week. I'm not asking. You can admit to anything long.
[00:50:15] I'm not asking you to radically change your life today. I'm asking you to write down these five questions and start your morning every day for the next week. Just see where it takes. You see if it changes who you are. See if it affects you. Everybody's going to react differently.
[00:50:33] Paul Harvey: Edit that a little bit for you.
[00:50:35] I think it'd be easy to do the first three. I think the last two are a little bit difficult, but if you were to look at your day and say, okay, what am I passionate about today? What would I define as success today? And how could I contribute today? Just taking those three things or for one, you know, for a week, you'll be surprised what comes out of it.
[00:50:57] Now, contribution could be as simply as. Having a nice conversation with a checkout where someone at a checkout changing someone's day, just asking someone something nice about now. So how are you how's your day been today or is that just do it? That is a contribution changing someone's day.
[00:51:14] David Dowlen: It is. I agree entirely.
[00:51:15] We often make that way too complicated. Everybody. Everybody thinks when you ask something like that, what, what earth shattering and scientific discovery are? You know, what crimes against humanity? Now, how did you treat, how do you treat your waitress
[00:51:29] Paul Harvey: tonight? The homeless guy coffee,
[00:51:31] David Dowlen: right? Where you nice to hear bright barista.
[00:51:35] Did you treat your coworker with a little courtesy and respect when maybe they didn't deserve it? And a contribution can be, we try and scale this up for some silly reason, but man, it's just about day-to-day life and how you interact with other people and the impressions you leave on. I used to ask my daughters before they went to bed.
[00:51:56] Every night, I asked him three questions. What are you? Three things you're grateful for. What is one thing you did for somebody else today? And what is one thing that somebody did for you today? And that's how we ended the. Because I wanted them to foster that mindset and start thinking about those things that have value.
[00:52:19] Paul Harvey: Well, great questions to do for children. The gratitude thing is wonderful stuff to do because it allows them to actually see valuable.
[00:52:28] David Dowlen: Guys. I'm not sure we can actually end stronger than that. So I'm going to say be better tomorrow because of what you do today and we'll see you next time.
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