S5E6 - Francios MRP
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Shawn Buttner: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome to the Meaningful Revolution podcast, where we interview people about what they're passionate about, to inspire you to follow your passions more so that you can be more engaged in your career, relationships, and health. Today's guest is a former commando paratrooper, a husband, an entrepreneur, and a tsunami survivor.
As a high performance coach, speaker and author, he helps entrepreneurs, CEOs, and executives show up in a way that they've never done before to achieve greatness. Through his coaching, speaking in writing, he wants to transform the lives of 40,000 people are 10 times the amount of victims of the double natural disaster he survived.
It is my distinct pleasure to introduce Francios de Neuville. Thank you, . It's a pleasure to be here. So excited to have you here. And real quick, did I get your name correct?
is good. . Okay. Okay, Fran. Okay, [00:01:00] cool. Alright. In today's episode we're going to be talking about time and how we only have so much about it and Francois has written a book. And we'll talk about that later. We'll have a link in the show notes, but before we get into that, let's learn a little bit about Francois.
First off, why is the topic of only having so much time important to you today?
S5E6 - Francios MRP -1: Learned to listen the hard way and that's my message. I wanna make people understand that we do have a finite amount of time, and we all know that. We all know that we are born one day, we're gonna die one day.
That, that's obvious for everyone. The problem is that we tend to live our life with this illusion of infinite time. and I'm sure you can relate to that. All the listeners can relate to that. The, day you said, oh, I'll do that next week, next month, next year. And we keep postponing our best life for later.[00:02:00]
And this is some something that I was doing. And although I was living a great life before this realization, before that happened to me, but still I was living my dream since, I was a kid. I was traveling, discovering the world that was so amazing. But I was in Colombia thinking, oh, I cannot wait to be in Japan.
I was in Japan thinking, oh, the Philippines, that's gonna be great. I was in the Philippines thinking, oh, Indonesia is so great. And I kept doing that all the time. And I realized I'm living in the hope of a better future, even though my present is amazing. But somehow, by doing that, it takes away this fully appreciation of the time we have.
And when I said, I realized that the hard way, one day I, stare at death in the face and I realize, oh, what time is short? Or life is short. Time is ticking. . I like Satu saying it's not time. It is your life ticking away. It's a bit harsh, , but this is so true and this massive realization that I had, like I need, I wanna shake people and help them [00:03:00] understand that I got a second chance, but not everybody will.
So I wanna make it most of this second chance that I got and support other people to make the most of it first . And one of the thing that I said, usually we, tend to wait for things to go sideways or to be bad before changing something. Or you don't need a needed experience to start changing your life ob.
Absolutely. Now you don't need to wait to have the divorce paper on the table to start putting effort in your relationship. You don't need to be in the hospital bed before thinking, I'm gonna take care of my health right now. And that's the message. Because this is a choice that we can make. This is something we can do every single day.
We can. We create ourself. Every day is creation. . And so when we realize how much power we have and how much ownership we have about our life, it's empowering us to shape it the way we really want it to. And once again, because time is finite, you better do that today and stop postponing it final. I absolutely agree with that statement.[00:04:00]
And, as a, coach myself helping people realize they have more agency or ability to make choices in their life is, yeah, it's an easy win for a coach, but it's also immensely powerful. So I absolutely love that message. So I'm curious now could you actually tell us about a time when so you hinted that you were in all these amazing places waiting for the next time.
Is there a time in your life where that really became concrete and it forced you to face the illusion that we have forever to get everything done? Yeah. I'm gonna share with you this moment that I will never forget. I was on a beach, I was hanging in a tree almost being swallowed by this deadly wave, devastating everything on its way around me.
Hundreds of people were yelling, trying not to drown, not to escape from the collapse in building that was caused by the earthquake. That happened just a few minutes before. So I was [00:05:00] in the tree holding the trunk on one side, on the other side. I was holding a five year old girl that I rescued from the debris of the hotel behind.
The tsunami was coming so fast. I remember looking at this little girl in the eyes and she looked at me so terrified. I was like, it's gonna be all right. In my mind, I was just thinking, you liar, we're gonna die . And when I had this, moment thinking, oh, this is the last moment of my life was that, it was that everything I could be or do and I knew the answer, no.
I could have done so much more. I could have been so much more. And I took my phone. I wanted to call my wife and say, Hey, goodbye. Sorry. and I got thinking about this afterwards I wanna create a life when I don't need to take my phone to call my loved one today, I'm about to die to say something they don't know.
They should know everything. I should not need a last phone call before I pass away. When I was in that tree, I realized that the thing that matters [00:06:00] the most was not my car, my computer, my bank account, the size of my business, the number of followers I had. that matters. What I was thinking about is the smiles, the people that I spent time with, the emotion that I shared, the feelings that I accumulated in my life.
Those are the memories that I remembered. That was the thing I was thinking about. And so in that moment, it really sh made me realize afterwards, of course, in the moment I was like, . Yeah. Am I die right now? . But all of that came to my head when I deconstructed all of those thinking, I realize I got it a bit wrong.
The way we are chasing success based on other people's metric, what we are really chasing in life, is it what we truly want? Everything that we are really after, it doesn't really matter. We always think it's about the object or the stages or whatever it is. No, it's always about the feeling we hope to have when we are gonna [00:07:00] have that or do that.
And so that shifted so many things in the way I live. Cause I keep asking myself, am I pursuing the right stuff? What do I wanna experience? What is the feeling that I want to feel? And you realize you wanna feel love. You can feel love in a million different ways. You wanna feel excitement. You can feel excitement in a million different ways.
The problem is that we tend to attribute one feeling to a specific thing. , I'm gonna feel comfort when I have a mention on this hill next to the lake, or I'm gonna feel good about myself when I have 10 million followers on Instagram or whatever. But so we attribute a feeling wrongly to one specific stuff, and we miss out on all the other ways that we can create this feeling in our lives.
And so that gave place to a lot of of introspection and reflection. And I realized I need to change the way I live my life. I need to live with more intentionality and I live to need to live with more commitment to what I [00:08:00] really want to create. And so going with this, it's about I need to stop postponing my best life for later
That was a slap in my face, but that didn't come so fast because after this event, it was obviously very traumatic. 4,000 people died that day. I lost a lot of friends. and I've seen so much suffering. I went to a very dark place. I was so mad at life. I was so angry. Seriously I, was like, I had no face on anything anymore.
I was angry at life. But then weeks passing by, I realized for all the people who died that day, for all those people who didn't hide a second chance, I was still there. I was still alive. So I felt that I had the duty to make the most out of it, just at least to honor the memory of the people who died.
And that day when I felt this empowerment to, I'm gonna make the most of the time that I have from being a victim, I really became a survivor. Same situation, [00:09:00] complete different mindset, complete different perspective on it. And I'm not shy to say today that it did turn my life, it did change my life for the better.
It was very traumatic. The pain is never gonna go away, but it really shaped who I am today. And to use this quote that I use a lot sometimes. Beautiful gift, corrupt in ugly paper. I love that. We can all relate to that. We cannot relate to painful experience in the life that actually turned out for the best that this loss created new opportunities, eighties.
And so when we can take perspective to whatever is happening to us, we can really learn to separate ourself from the suffering. Because let's be real, pain is happening. You have pain in your life and you will again and everyone. And because pain is the bad, pain is just a signal from the body to say it's like, Hey, there's something that doesn't go well here, like physically or emotionally.
So we should not like be [00:10:00] scared of pain. We don't like to experience pain of course. But thank It's amazing it's there because if it wasn't there, we would die with no warning. We would just be like suddenly no problems. So pain is really this message to say, Hey, you need to adapt something.
You need to. is the suffering is what we do with that pain. And usually we grow up and we get less and less good at dealing with the pain because we don't want to accept it. You're like, I don't wanna have that pain in my life. I'm gonna refuse the fact, I'm gonna refuse reality. And so as long as we don't accept what is, we create the suffering.
I know it's hard to say, but suffering is a choice. I'm not saying it's easy, obviously, because you would've asked me like when it happened four years ago. Hey, suffering is a choice. I would've punch you in the face and say, , what? You know what? Yeah. Because I was not, there yet. But I wanna share this message to everyone.
That suffering is a [00:11:00] choice. And you can choose to let go. You can make that decision. We need to understand that because you stop suffering, that doesn't take the pain away. Ignoring the pain doesn't take it away neither. We need to allow ourselves to fully experience whatever we experience and make peace,
nightmares. Sometimes I wake up and I think about those people and the pain is still there, but I don't suffer about it on the daily basis because I accepted it somehow. And as, difficult as it is, I'm sure some people might be judging me like, oh, you accepted the death of 4,000 people. That's easy for you.
You survive. Yeah. Okay. I agree. , whatever people can think. I don't care. I'm in peace with myself, with the feelings that I experienced that day, and I think this is the, it's in the power of everyone to be able to make peace with reality and decide to stop suffering so we can keep moving forward. And the moment we stop suffering, we actually [00:12:00] step away from this stages of being a victim.
right? And we become, Victor, become a survivor. We implore ourself again. And so from that position we are actually able to rebuild, reconstruct, and that's all we want. So this is an exercise I love to do. Whatever trauma you have in your life, when you share the story, where do you stop? Do you say whatever.
I, I lost my leg in a car accident and I can never run again. You said I lost, I saw all my friends die and I feel miserable. This happened to me. Or what if you say, you know what, one day of the car accident, I lost my leg there. But that taught me that I need to make the most of the body that I have, I need to honor, I need to respect whatever I've been given and make you feel when you say that you have this, lesson that comes out of it, you have this empowerment that comes from the pain, from the difficulty, from the challenge. And if you [00:13:00] can change the script in your mind, and when you say the story of your pain, of your struggles, you immediately follow up with the lesson with the growth.
You IPO yourself to a level that, that you cannot even imagine. I guess you, you agree with this you, probably see also in, in this journey of personal growth. Definitely. If we only could, as people learn the lessons we need to learn without all the painteds attached with it that would be ideal.
But yeah, you can't Would we learn though? Would we learn? Yeah. How effective would it be actually be? And I, love that the exercise of where does your story stop when you have this traumatic event because think in the realm of therapists, like they deal exclusively with that Your story stops.
Yeah. When the trauma happens and you stop living. And so how do you get back into that [00:14:00] presence? How do you get back to that new version of yourself after one of those events? Is, such an important question. Yeah. We all need to answer. I'm not saying it's easy. No, . Exactly. And I'm not saying it's easy, obviously it's very complicated to do because it takes a lot of, that's, that goes with a problem that we have.
We don't like to take full ownership or whatever is happening to us because it's easy to blame events, circumstances, people, or whatever, external things around us than to actually face reality yourselves. Now, I'm not saying it's always your fault, like obviously being in the tsunami it's not my fault.
I didn't ask for it. I didn't volunteer. For sure enough, things happen, but a lot of time in my life I realize I'm responsible here for being there, for doing that. For that behavior, for that thinking, for that, those words that come out of my mouth and when we can be aware about the situation we are in and take ownership of what we should take ownership [00:15:00] on and stop trying to control what we cannot control what is not indi zone of control. We become su superheroes of our own life. Because suddenly we realize I'm the one writing the script here, , I can go the way I want to go. Yeah. That's so imploring and that's what I realized that time.
And so when I realized life is so short, if I keep living like this, I'm gonna end up with regret a hundred percent. I'm gonna be again, because it's gonna happen again the last day of my life, . And that day I'm gonna be the thing did I learn the lesson? And I don't want that day to have any regrets. And so one word that I completely banish from my vocabulary is the word I should, every time I say I should, I'm like a lack of integrity.
I promise myself to live every single day of my life to the fullest and inspire others to do the same. The word I should. , this def it doesn't happen in Id life if you keep saying I should, you have regrets later, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And so just to say it again, success, fulfillment, and extraordinary life, it doesn't just happen.
It [00:16:00] has to be intentionally, consciously created, and that's the power we all have, and that's the responsibility we can all take. Yeah, I absolutely love that. And, as you're talking about, the word should one of my favorite analogies is when you married your spouse, did you say, I should take care of you in sickness and health?
Or did you say shall, because if you said should, you're probably not getting married that day. , for sure. So yeah I, love that ownership of Yeah. It, it's you in the moment recognizing it's time to act it's time to get in the game. So that's so powerful, I hope. listening at home you, have a note and you like underline it and star that, because I feel like that's such Yeah.
An important thing, no matter what life throws at you, you ha have every moment to choose an action or not, and to be in integrity or not. And it's so [00:17:00] important that you follow through with that action of integrity. And a hundred percent, I would say to people, it takes courage to do that. It takes effort and it's highly uncomfortable to do a reality check, to look at your life and say, where am I at right now?
Where do I want to be? And just to be okay for being wherever you are and saying Hey, I'm here. I wanna be there. This is in my control. can start changing today. I can start being in motion tomorrow. And this is a choice, this is a decision. And the reality check is hard to do. But the problem is that denying how you feel, because we all have feelings about how we are in life, right?
You look at yourself you go to the gym, you feel your body, you look in the mirror, you look at your bank accounts, you look at whatever your relationship, you have clues of the reality. Sometimes we try to ignore that, to not feel your feelings. Now, hint, not feeling [00:18:00] your feelings doesn't make them go away.
ignoring the pain doesn't make it go away. doesn't make your problem suddenly disappear. No, it does not. This deal is there. You decide not to address them. That doesn't help anything. So it's about having the courage to face the situation. Having the courage to listen to the clues. Having the courage to say, Hey, I'm not where I wanted to be, but you know what?
I promised myself that I commit today. I declare I'm gonna do the work to get there in the moment. You start, at the moment, you start being in motion then, magic happens. Yeah. . Absolutely. Yeah. It's such a beautiful sentiment and it does take there's so many, I encourage is such a, weird word cuz it's not really concise cuz it could mean so many different things.
It's doing the thing that you're avoiding in your life, feeling the thing you're avoiding in your life. Running up a hill in a hail of bullets. If you're in the military, it could be putting [00:19:00] yourself out on social media for the first time and to worry about the judgment that comes with that.
There's so many different ways to, to show up and act to, to live that ideal life. So I love that idea. So I'm curious. Yeah. Just as a, follow up question to this very traumatic tsunami event that happened in your life. Not to minimize that, but could you maybe illustrate a couple of examples of how you were before and after?
Just to contrast where. Maybe there are times where you put off something or you weren't in, in that brave integrity area where now something came up after the tuna and you're like, no, let's go. Yeah, no, definitely. I would say that before I had, after nine years in the military, I decided to quit everything just to follow a child dream.
So I was already there [00:20:00] and thinking, I need to do things now because later is not gonna really work. And so I did some of those scary steps to start creating the life I wanted to. Now still, I had a lot of wishes. , I wish I had a better buddy. I wish my health was a bit better. I wish I would do that differently, or I wish I had that kind of friends, et cetera.
And I was doing something that the majority of the population is doing. You wish for something you don't have. And so you complained because you don't have it. And so we do all of that from time to time, but complaining is really not helping. And so after this trauma even happened, I realized that everything is under my control.
Everything that I can control is under my control. And so I build a discipline of reflecting on what is in my control and what is not of my control. And to decide that, you know what, whatever is in my control, I'm gonna do whatever I can [00:21:00] to use that power I have over things. And whatever is not under my control, I'm gonna do whatever I can to let go, to stop trying to control what I can't.
And this simple, don't know if you're gonna call it, the mantra of formula of things to follow really helped me a lot because it's raining. Ah, damn, it's raining. Can I control it? No. Okay. So what can I control? My behavior, my, my response to whatever. I can control this, I can. . I think shortly after I read the book from Victor Frankl, men's Search for Meaning, and this book was profound, it really put so many things into consideration for me thinking like if he could do that in the death camps, if he could change his, mindset and his psychology, ma, I can, whatever situation I'm experiencing right now compared to what he lived there is nothing.
And so that gave me back a lot of power, a lot of control over my life. And so I would say that definitely a few things that I can do differently. I use this this [00:22:00] formula, I would say, to analyze events that happen in my life. And secondly, I don't say I should, I don't wish I transferred the wishes into goals, and I make sure that I stop post spending my best life for later.
To be able to do that, I had to dive deep into what is my best life means. And I realized him I was 27 at a time and I was like, I never really took the time to deeply define how I want my life to be. And when I was talking with the people around me, I realized actually not a lot of people do. We all think we know what we want until we get it.
And ah, that was not that. I'm still empty. I have this million dollar in my account that I wanted to have. I have the portion wanted to have I have the multiple business, but I'm still feeling miserable because we are chasing success just to realize that it is fulfillment that we are after.
But because the whole world turns around success because this is what people show. You see a picture of someone [00:23:00] on, social media that is very successful. You don't see the feeling and fulfillment is a feeling, right? Everybody can smile on the photo. That doesn't mean that the life is great
And so I realized I was basing everything that I wanted in Life on success that was displayed by other sources. But this doesn't reflect the fulfillment. And as Tony Robbin says, success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. Because you feel so miserable when you have everything you want.
but you feel empty. And so I realized let me put success aside. Let me see what is really fulfilling me. And this profoundly changed my life. Profoundly changed the way I show up every single day because no, I know what I stand for. I know what I want despite the successful faade I know deep inside the feelings that I wanna experience on a daily basis.
And this changed everything. And so from this, I created this, formula to guide me. Like success and fulfillment in life for me is based on three things, to be great, to do good, and [00:24:00] to live epic. So what does it mean to be great? To be great to me it means to learn to master your body, your nutrition, your movement, your sleep, et cetera.
Learning to master your. things that you wanna learn, the resilience, the discipline, the virtues you wanna live by, et cetera. To learn to master your emotions, right? To deal with the pain, to deal with the suffering, to deal with all the feelings that we are experiencing every single day, and to learn when to use them, when to not trust them, right?
And lastly is the spirituality. Learning to master my spirit, to feel what are, what is bigger than myself? What do I belong to? So that's the first part to be great. The second is to do good. In doing good is finding what is my purpose. And I don't really like to talk about finding your purpose because it puts so much stress on me when I was younger I need a purpose.
Everybody has a statement. I don't, I'm miserable. I have no purpose in my life. For, I think the purpose is not found, it's created and it takes potentiality and, if we don't have it perfectly right, it doesn't really matter. That's something we keep constructing days after days, [00:25:00] right? So doing good is finding out what do you want to, what is your purpose, but what do you wanna contribute to contributing to make the world a better place?
It sounds a bit cliche, but. with all the people I work with. Every time we talked about contribution, there is never a moment that someone said, oh, my purpose in life is some completely istic. There is always a dimension of other people. It can be the planet, it can be humans, it can be animals, but there is always a sense of contribution.
So that's the question I would ask myself. What is the contribution that I wanna give to the world? So that's the second part of doing good. The last part is living epic. And what I mean by living epic is defining your own success, your own metrics for success. So I really know what I'm after and I know the feeling I'm chasing and going with this is what are the things that I want to experience and learn in my life?
And so if I put everything together, I wanna be great, do good, and live epic, I'm for sure if I follow the steps, I'm gonna create success and fulfill my life, whatever form it is. And so to get there I need awareness about my situation. [00:26:00] When I'm aware about where I'm right now and where I want to go, I need to take ownership because I need to realize this is my call, this is me.
doing the work. Nobody is gonna do it for me. Nobody is gonna ha be happy for me, right? You cannot delegate success and fulfillment. This is your own journey. So otherwise, the awareness, taking the ownership of it, and then committing to take action. I know we know one action doesn't lead you anywhere, , right?
It's not like you wanna give one hug, one more hug to your wife or your partner. That doesn't gonna show love for the rest of your life. It's a continuous action over time. And so to have sustained action over time regarding your health, your personal growth, your intellect, the way you show up, et cetera, you need to build self-discipline.
And that's completing this, practice formula to gain awareness, take ownership, take action, build discipline to keep doing it. And then you go back to the first part, where am I? Awareness, ownership, action, self-discipline. And you keep [00:27:00] doing the loop and you realize it's never gonna be over.
And that's great because actually life is this transition. Life is this journey from one point to the other, and it's never really one point to reach. It's, there is always something to grow. And so I also had to relearn to appreciate the process of creation. And that's something I was not so good at that I was completely always focused on the goal and thinking I just wanna get rid of the process, I want the goal.
And that changed also everything. One of the best metaphor that I, can share with is to learn, to celebrate the success, to learn, to enjoy the step and the process. I was, I went to Tanzania to climb the Kilimanjaro years ago. And if you ever seen Manero, this is a massive volcano in the middle of a plane.
So it's like flat and then in the middle of it's very impressive. When I arrived, the first thing I looked at it, I'm like, Oof. That's gonna be a tough walk to get there. . They wanna [00:28:00] started working. I was looking at the summit. Dang, that's really far. Day two, that's still very far. Day four, I'm feeling going away from it.
I was like supposed to be there in four days, . And then I turned around and I saw that I was already above the clouds. But I was so focused on looking at the summit that I forgot where I was coming from. And so that's a little bit a pitfall of high performers is that we are always looking for what next.
I can do more. I can be more, and it's great. I love being obsessed and chasing the horizon. There's nothing wrong with that. As long as we take the time to look back, to acknowledge the path we're taking, to acknowledge the journey, and to learn to enjoy the process of. . So this were a few things that I really learned at that moment that put a lot of perspective in my life and much more intentionally in the way I show up, in the way I live.
Awesome, awesome. So the, there's a lot of really good stuff. I have a page of [00:29:00] notes right now as, you're talking. I love that metaphor of the mountain, and I think a lot of the work we do as coaches too is helping people turn around and look back and own the feeling of how far you've come because like, you said, like we're always on to the next thing.
So I, I say that and I leading into this question. If you could start a meaningful revolution, which to, to me it's a fulfilling transformation. So there's a couple of language things that you, were Yeah. Had just shared where I'm like, okay, this is pretty good. So it sounds, like you found that fulfilling transformation for yourself or that authentic movement.
If you had to name your meaningful revolution, what would you call it and what would be the, components of it? That's interesting. There are two things that are coming to my mind. The first would be find [00:30:00] revolution just distinct to, we are understand that our time here is short, and from there we import ourself to make sure that we are gonna make the most out of it.
And so the main message from that would be, stop responding your best time, your best life for later. Now I was starting with this, or another one would be, Excellence, just this one word, excellence movement. Because when this event happened to me and I decided to be the best of who I could be and support other people, I was like, okay, but how do you do that?
How do you make the model of your life? And that's how I went deep into personal that I realized it all comes to one thing. It's personal mastery. You need to learn to master yourself. need to deal with the software and the hardware that we've been given and, this is really the, journey.
And so if everybody was aiming for excellence, I think word would be in such place. Being willing [00:31:00] to acknowledge our fault, acknowledge your limitation, and move forward with that. Being willing to ask for help when we need it. Being willing to say, Hey, I'm not the best at that, but I'm working on it.
I'm dedicating to getting better. And to me, this word excellence, if everybody would take that as a mentor. I love this quote from Said, every day in every way, I'm getting better and better. Oh, that's something I keep telling myself. Every morning I wake up before I go to bed every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better.
And I ask, did I not go learn something, go do something. Send that text, give that phone call, give that hug or, whatever it is, right? But I think if every human on the planet would be willing to get a little bit of that way yesterday, every single day we would have a collective growth. Like amazing. We would change the way the planet, the behavior of human.
We would change the relationship. We would change everything. And [00:32:00] so I think the excellence movement could be something very powerful. Awesome. I, love that adding on the benefit like, painting that picture of everyone focused on just getting a little bit better every day as a human being in whatever way that is a better parent, a better musician.
A better, yeah. Barista a better the list goes on and on, but that dedication to just turning the dial up a little bit every day over a year if you just do 1%, that's 365% more. That's not proper math, but you get the point so it works. No, exactly. And what I love about that is that you don't need anything to do it.
You don't need more tools, you don't need nothing. We can do, there is absolutely no excuse to not get better than you were yesterday. It's, it just comes down to a decision that's just, it. A decision. I have a chapter in my book when I say be great or make [00:33:00] excuses, but you cannot do both at the same time.
That's true. Love that we either make excuses for ourself. We just, and that's, I've been diving deep into that for the moment because I'm. I'm quite hard on myself. This, is what I learned in the military and it works well for me and it doesn't work for everyone and I think it's not a good option for sure.
Now we need to demonstrate self-love and self-compassion. Very important. Now, what I wanna provoke people is when you used self-love or self-compassion to justify your lack of self.
That's it. I'm going four times to the gym, or I'm gonna do this or not do that. And they're like, ah you worked hard yesterday or That was a long day at work. Or, you're too tired. You should not be too hard on yourself. , no, never. Just a fine line there, because we should not fall into the tribe to say, I'm gonna justify my lack of commitment with [00:34:00] self-compassion.
That's not going to lead you to success for sure. And so it is, I think, again, taking ownership of this reality and be careful with our mind because it's all a mind game, right? To not do that. So we keep progressing and daring and encourages to confront the hard truth when it's there, confront the brutal facts and say Hey, I take ownership of it.
I decided I'm not going to the gym today. I'm screwing up. That doesn't serve my purpose. That doesn't lead me to this path that I want to take. Just get your thing together and go do it. , right? I think you deserve self-love and self-compassion. If you are doing your very best, if you're not doing your best, just Yeah. Just kick yourself in the ass. Just go do it. This is what it takes. think a lot of people, and I think that's the problem with the society. We want success today that we wanna do the thing that leads to success tomorrow, right? we all been there, and in the society when everything goes, [00:35:00] Lose the ability to wait for transformation, but transformation takes time, right?
Secondly, we are more and more willing to too soon. Everything in our life is made for our comfort. Marketing has just bombing us with things that are easy, faster, cheaper, let effort, et cetera. Every time we don't feel really great, we take our phone, we open the computer, we watch a movie. We have immediate hit of dopamine all the time, and so every time things are getting a little bit difficult, a little bit challenging Ugh, no, it's too comfortable.
I quit. And I think it's especially problem for the younger generations, older generation, they'll learn to deal with what it takes to reach the goal, like to stick more with discomfort. Nowadays, we cannot immediate comfort in effort, so we lose this ability to delay gratification. . And I think that's something that needs, that We all need to keep in check in the pursuit of rules [00:36:00] to realize, hey, my goals here, they're not gonna happen overnight.
Absolutely not. Success does not just happen. It takes time. And I need to remind myself of that. So I keep adapting my behavior in alignment to where I want to go. Yeah. The, thing that's sticking out for me as you're explaining this, and I, agree. So growing up, my dad was a carpenter and one of the things that one of the values he instilled in me and my younger brother was like, always do your best.
It's always a hundred percent. And if that falls short, that's where the self-compassion could be. Because I, I think another way to say what you were saying is if you're giving yourself. Grace and compassion, but you're not acting in integrity to your best self then that, that's an excuse you're just doing a psychological coping thing.
But if you put everything out, you gave [00:37:00] your full effort and you still you're making a piece of art and it's just stick figures cuz that's the edge of your ability. That is something to be proud about. That is something to be like, okay, like maybe that's where I'm at today, tomorrow I can try maybe not doing stick figures in that particular weird example I pulled from my mind, but yeah, it's that are you acting in integrity or are you giving yourself an excuse? And, then there's also the fine line are you burnt out and like you really do need a break. There's, so many different ways you could take it. It's, why a lot of people I think hire coaches to.
Be that sounding board like you've been working, you need to look back. You've done so much for yourself, for your family, for your organizations. Maybe you just need to go walk outside a little bit more and that'll shift your percept perspective or get your butt into action buddy. Yeah, No, you're right.
And thank you for bringing [00:38:00] this, precision because I think that's a problem that leads to burnout is that you do your best, but the result is not matching your expectation or you don't have success, and that's the moment when you should give yourself that compassion and self love. And if you don't, then you keep being too hard and it's a negative spiral, yeah. So I think this is really the moment, like you don't do your best. Just get your shit together and keep doing the work. You do your best. Give yourself so much love and compassion, and if you don't have to reach success in one day, but just keep going and celebrate the successes. I think that goes like also to the celebration and the acknowledging all the struggles that we face.
Because a part of it, yeah. , I was sharing if we could just push on a switch and be successful, would you do it? I think most people would say, yeah, I would do it, but I can't say, if you want, let's see, you have a beautiful mountain, you wanna get on the top. There are two ways to get there. The first one you do, you by and you train before and then just start the expedition.
You get on the summit after weeks and weeks, you [00:39:00] stand tall on it. You're like, yeah. Or you get dropped by an helicopter. You're gonna be on top. But I can absolutely say that the feeling are not gonna be the same. Obviously not. And so I think if it would be instantly successful, it would take away the pride.
It would take away the, feeling of fulfillment that we get from going through the hardship. And that's something also another chapter in my book that hardship is temporary. There is always an end. I love this quote from John Lennon who says everything is gonna be okay at the end. And if it's not okay, it's not the end.
Yeah, . I love it. And this is something that I, really practiced a lot when I was in my training in the command Paratroops. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I knew when I started me that I'm gonna suffer for next coming five, six days. It's gonna be very hard. I'm gonna be like, I wanna quit.
But I know that eventually I'm gonna be having a heart chore, a warm meal, and sitting in my bed. And like I kept thinking that hardship is temporary. I can grow through the difficulties now because it's not [00:40:00] gonna be forever. And that's a good reminder. That's for everyone. We all go through hardship. This is part of life.
We should not want them. This is what makes us human right to experience the full scope of our emotions. So that's great, but we need to remember that one day it's gonna be better. Yeah. Yeah. I am thinking about that. I have an uncommon belief when it comes to. What makes people feel fulfilled in life, and that is we create challenge, right?
You don't want something that's so out of your skillset or capability that it crushes you, but you don't want something too easy so that you don't appreciate the, process, like you're just saying if you fly to the top of, oh, can you hear me now? Oh, no. Are you back? It's happened a couple of times with you.
It usually comes back. Okay, cool. It's back. All right. What, I was [00:41:00] saying is yo know people want challenge in their lives and there's a lot of people, you, there's this movement, at least they talk about it here in the States, a lot called quiet, quitting, where you show up to your job and you just put in the minimum effort.
The ti you're, they're the hours that you're supposed to. And it's a really interesting conversation because on one hand, If you're with an, abusive employer who has hired you to do the job of five people, and you're going crazy. Like it's healthy to set boundaries to say, I'm not gonna work weekends, I'm not gonna again how about now? Yeah. I don't know. Do you think it's on my head or in, because you just cut. I have no sound anymore, just so Oh, no. Yeah this, happened a couple of times when you were [00:42:00] going and you it recovered and caught up. Oh, okay. Oh, sorry. No, that, that's fine. You're like, you're on a roll. I didn't wanna, I could still hear you and I didn't wanna stop you, but and now you're, gone.
Okay. Okay. No, sorry. No, keep going. I just hope I don't miss so much of what you say. Okay. talking out. Right on. Right on. go, for it. Sorry. Yeah, I'm trying to remember where I was now. With the quiet quitting. Oh yeah. And then quiet quitting. It's people set either setting boundaries or it could be viewed as people not trying to go that extra mile cuz they're not really passionate about what they're working on.
There's a, fine line there. I forget why I brought that up. This just completely got slight track. I wanna jump on that because we [00:43:00] see in marketing all the time do promises of seven figures in seven days. 2 million followers in two hours Beachbody without working out weight loss bill, whatever.
We, we are offered shortcuts all the time and people buy into it. People like why I cannot blame anyone. We are wired to stay away from pain and discomfort and choose immediate gratification, right? We, wanna go away from whatever is difficult. So we wanna have shortcuts or brain try to conserve energy.
We are wired to be lazy. The problem is that there is no shortcut for success. There is no shortcut to become a great leader. There is no shortcut to become a great partner, husband, wife, son, daughter, friend, whatever. There is not, we need just to do the work. And going with this of the society gives us everything we want instantly.
We are used to not ate pain so much. We are used to this dopamine hit all the time. And so we are like, I don't have what I want right [00:44:00] now. I don't have time to do the work to get better. I don't have time for the transformation, whatever. So people quit too soon. Yeah. Definitely. I think it's a really a problem right now.
And we see the, love the, turnover is so high in companies. People come, they stay for a few months huh? No, they change and they change But mastery takes time. You need to reach a certain level of mastery and autonomy in whatever you do to really start developing passion about it.
Absolutely. And to, piggyback what I, the point I was trying to make was with, quiet quitting too, is when you get in that mode of not putting forth your best effort, that over a long time leads to misery or restlessness, and it leads to people, oh, I should try something new because this doesn't matter.
I don't feel it deeply. Yeah. Yeah. And if it's that instant dopamine hit if you're not familiar with struggle or you've never lived through an [00:45:00] economy with like global recession that lot of people are talking about, Due to a lot of factors of the last couple years. Yeah.
How do you weather that in a way where you're not completely broken or miserable in the process? Is a big question? Yeah, it is. And I love what Brendan is sharing. If you want more, you have to be more, this is so foundational and I can share a story that illustrates that. When I was in the last day of my commander, power Trooper training, so it was after four months of suffering, four months we're so complicated.
On the last day, we were tested formally, I say formal because we were tested every single day, emotionally, physically, psychologically, whatever. But this last data would start like this. We would have a five meter high road park core. So we just had to go from the streets and roads and stuff without safety line.
Just after that, we would have an obstacle run for. . So this, run with different [00:46:00] obstacles that when you're finished, the only thing you wanna do is to throw up because you're so exhausted and your heart is beating all of your chest. After we would have a carry carry the man carry someone on your shoulder with a weapon and a chest whipping and everything and run a certain distance under a certain time.
And so we were exhausted. But the final, test, the one we were like, ooh, what's called the Speed march? And it's a test that has been used by a lot of different armies all around the world based on something that happened during the Second World War. So there is a heroic it's to, to honor the memory of some paratroopers that did something here.
And so we have a lot of pride going to this exercise and we wanna do it good. And so it is like we have to complete a 16 kilometers run 10 miles under 100 minute. So we are in full combat uniform with the boots. We have the helmet, we have the chest vibing the magazines, we have the weapon, we have the shuffle, we have water, et cetera.
So you would say 16 kilometers underneath, under a hundred minutes. [00:47:00] That's doable. You trained soldiers. I wanna remind you that we are exhausted after four months of training, plus all the tests that started early morning, right? The thing is, we were not allowed to have a watch. Meaning that the only way to get to the finish line on time was to give a hundred percent from the first step was to give it all. You couldn't manage that time. You couldn't say, oh, I have 10 minutes left. I need to go faster. No, no, way to know. So you have to push, from the very beginning.
And that's really where I learned what it means to show up as my best that change everything. And I keep this, memory and this story with me everywhere I go and think, am I showing up? Am I as my best today in this situation? And I think the more you dare you to ask yourself that question, and once again, to go back to having this reality check, the better you can adapt your behavior.
Yeah. I love that idea of are you paying attention to the task or are you checking at the, looking at the [00:48:00] clock to see where, you're at. So that's super powerful. I wanted to shift gears a little bit and I'm curious, do you have any uncommon mindsets or beliefs? Cause there's a lot of people that talk about we only have some amount in time.
We get the second chance. There's not a lot of people, but there are folks out there. Yeah. One of our mentors, Brendan Bashard talks a lot about that. Yeah. Do you have a, any beliefs or mindsets outside of what other people say? It's a little bit uncommon or a little bit more unique to you? I can tell I didn't reinvent anything. my message. I think if you look at all personal growth, all the books that have ever been written, they usually re-share the same ideas in different language. And there's still power in that because something that one of the guru, the leader in [00:49:00] personal development world would share you will not especially resonate with it, but sometimes you would resonate with the world with someone else.
And so I think everybody is start find their own truth. But it's we all go through the same things. We all experience the same feelings. There's just the context that is different. That's it. That's what I can share. . Okay. . Right on. I absolutely love it. Now, I think we already shared this, so usually at the end I, ask folks to share a way to get started into the topic.
So if you wanted to live fully, and we did talk about that you want to be great, do good and be epic, meaning Yeah. The, is to be aware of what's going on currently to take ownership of your situation and then commit to taking action and that next action of integrity. Is that like the best way to get started or is there another [00:50:00] way for folks who, if you're, if they're listening right now and they're like, maybe I'm not giving a hundred percent in all the areas of my, life that I want to how can I switch that?
Yeah, I think it goes back to this simple four steps of taking increasing your awareness about your situation. And I think this is one of the most complicating things to do. The awareness and the ownership are very hard because it's taking all the responsibilities that goes with it, and usually we don't wanna do that because the moment you take responsibility for whatever situation you're in, you're like it's maybe partially my fault and no, I can do something about it and I'm gonna have to do something about it.
Sometimes this is one reason of people, they don't share their dreams because they're too scared that if they share their dreams, they're gonna have to do something about it. Right? I think this is a very limiting way of going through life. There are two [00:51:00] ways to live. You can either maximize your life experience or minimize the struggle.
I would say that the majority of people, they try to go through life by minimizing the struggle, meaning trying to have at least pain and suffering as possible. There's a few percentage of the patient who's trying to mix, maximize their experience, and they actually take the time to define what is a great life.
to define the way they need to show up. And in this exercise let's you do it with a coach, you do it with your journal or you do that with your best friend on the stroll in the woods, whatever. I think this is something we should be doing, and if you've never done it before, it should be today. And we should support kids to start having this conversation.
I, don't wanna go deep into the system, but I feel that , we go through school, et cetera, and we are not good at life when you get out of school. We have some knowledge, but I, not always useful. I'm not saying it's bad what we learn at school, but I'm saying like we are missing crucial skills about [00:52:00] communication, relationship, money dynamics, about fulfillment, about understanding our emotion, understanding our mind, understanding our own psychology.
We don't do that at school, which is a pity because this is what most adults are struggling with in their life. Like I cannot imagine that the educational system still did not change. When we see all the people who feel like so much hurt and so much difficulty to, go through life like that, should ring the bell, right?
I think as coaches, we do by, being able to support people to go that path to actually get better at life. That was the whole concept of my book is, was really a book to support people to get better at life because this is the only way to create a great life. . Yeah. Awesome. All right, so with that said before we wrap up and share where people can follow up, and again, I'll put those in the show notes.
Is there one thing that you haven't shared on another podcast or form of content that you could [00:53:00] share with the audience today? Maybe that you haven't already?
Can you give me a minute here, ? Oh yeah, of course. We ask the hard questions. I know. I got you. If you're thinking, so yeah, you got me. So you want me to share something that I never shared on another platform or whatever? An idea, believe a thought, or that's what you call any of those story message that you haven't really been telling people yet.
It could be, it's pretty open. So whatever feels, whatever moves you in the moment.
Okay.
sorry, I'm wording it. Yeah, [00:54:00] it's fine.
I don't know how to start it. Sorry. One more second. You're great. Take as much time as you need. Yeah, so there is another message I could give is that we don't always have what we want most, but we are always responsible to make the most of what we have. I, it's been more than five years that when my wife we're trying to have a child, and unfortunately we've been going to this unexplained infertility, meaning that we don't know, doctors don't know why, but we just cannot conceive a child.
And it's not on her. It's not on me. We don't know. It's probably both, but no idea. And that was [00:55:00] one of the, another very big trauma in our life because we went through a lot of medical procedures, ivf, et cetera. Trying, to make everything we could to have this thing that we desired most.
And since I'm a kid I, love children. My mom was a teacher. My wife is a teacher as well. I've been a scout leader for years. I really love children. I always saw me as a father. And since this whole thing started, you were like, I had to face the reality that maybe I'm never gonna be a father, I'm never gonna be a dad.
And I was very painful and emotionally and physically, I can't describe how, in how it impacted my wife, myself, and a relationship together. It has been very, a traumatic event. It's, a, in the moment, but also grieving the idea of being a parent. Now. We had a lot of conversation about that, trying to say what's the point?
We're trying to make everything perfect in life, or at least driving for excellence. But they are things that we are just not gonna be able to have. And this is all of our [00:56:00] control. And that made us realize that you can do whatever you can, but you're not always gonna receive whatever you want the most.
It's not always, I wish it for everyone, but sometimes the reality is not there. But it's always our choice to make the most of what we have. And we hear a lot. I know it's nothing new here because what I'm saying is gratitude. But sometimes it goes so deep that I could not really have gratitude about anything because I was constantly focusing on the only thing that I really wanted.
I didn't have like my car, I don't care. 10 clients, I don't care. Six figure business, I don't care. I just wanna be a father. Just give me that. And making peace with the fact that I'm never gonna have that. And I know I just, it happens for everyone in a different context. Once again the, feeling of grieving.
The feeling of being disappointed by not receiving something. What we truly desire, it hurts. , it's always in a [00:57:00] responsibility to look at what we have and being grateful for what we have. And I think that's a reminder. I can hear this reminder to myself every week, every month. It's not because we know it, that we really do it.
And so I would bring, encourage people to cherish what they have. And that goes again, with this illusion of time because in our case, we cannot have what we want. So there is a future we can never have. But a lot of time we live with things in the present and we only realize the precious it is the moment it is taking away from us.
And so it really invite people, it's time to reflect on what they have. And we all have something to make us happy, to make us feel good. Just right here now. And if you think about it, the ultimate goal in life is to feel good right now. . This is really what we all after in whatever [00:58:00] form that takes, because it's different for everyone. And that's great. We all have a different creativity, different expression of self.
But when you realize the only thing that we aiming for is to feel good right now, it's wait, I can do that today. I can do that just now. Putting a smile on my face and going in my heart and saying, Hey, I'm alive. This itself is a gift. It is. And so whatever project that we have, what are the future goals and targets and objectives, it's great.
Let's keep having them because that's pulling us forward. But we should not forget to acknowledge where we are right now and cherish the precious things that we have in life before they're taking away from us. That's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing something so personal. That's I can't imagine how hard it is.
And with me and my wife talking about starting a family too, and. Being a little bit older this is definitely something that's on my mind starting a family and will it [00:59:00] happen, will it not? How will it impact our relationship? And I think it's a really awesome example of everything we've talked about today.
Okay yeah, we spend so much time maybe focusing on the one thing that we don't have, but we live in abundance. So many of us live in so much abundance and you can define yourself on the one thing that you really want, or you can define yourself about everything else that you do, you're lucky to have in your life.
And I, I think that's a really beautiful message and I think it's something really important for people to be thinking about. Yeah. So you're not miserable not successful and miserable, right? Because that's like the opposite of what we do as coaches is we, don't want that. You said a very powerful word and I wanna highlight it.
You said define yourself. And would say define yourself, but who you are [01:00:00] and how you show up. Don't define yourself, but your goals and the future because it does not exist and you can have the most beautiful vision to support people, et cetera. You can still be a person lacking of integrity right now today.
Your mission, your vision doesn't make you how you show up today. So define yourself by how you show up today and not how and who you want to become later. That's a supportful takeaway as well. Yeah. Oof. I love that. Alright, Francois, we are at the end of our time. I'll, put this in the show notes, but what is the best way for people to, to find your book or follow up with you after listening to this powerful interview?
I would love people to just connect on LinkedIn with me. I love to meet other extraordinary people. I love to grow my network and just learn from all other people that I have connect with me because we are all together growing together. This is I didn't, can I say all of that again still? Sorry. Yeah, of [01:01:00] course.
Go for it. . I'll be super happy if people can connect with me on LinkedIn. I love to connect with new people and learning from everyone around me. My book is available on Amazon. You can also download the first chapter for free on my [email protected]. So I'm really looking forward to connecting with a lot of people.
Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So again, those links will be in the show notes below. Franco all thank you so much for being on the meaningful revolution. I am so thank, glad we got to have this conversation. And if you are listening and you are delaying something, if you are putting off something, if you are not living in integrity, get into action today.
Trust us, it, you will feel better afterwards. Even if it's a hot mess, even if it's a struggle, it's definitely worth it. So with that said thank you for listening to this episode of The Meaningful [01:02:00] Revolution podcast.
