Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep 10 A Chat with Case Kenny: Love, Growth, and Self-Discovery
524 Plays4 months ago
I got to hang out with the author of "That's Bold of You", Case Kenny. We chatted about everything relationships, from why "settling down" sounds like a buzzkill to how love should actually make your life even more awesome. Case’s fresh perspective on love not just being a source of fulfillment but an enhancement of your already amazing life resonated deeply with me.
We explored the importance of maintaining individuality in a relationship, breaking harmful cycles, and the true essence of confidence. This conversation is a beautiful reminder to live authentically, embrace growth, and, most of all, to love yourself first.
Dive in and discover how you can amplify your life experiences, enjoy the journey, and let love find you without forcing its hand.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Misunderstood Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello, beautiful souls. I'm so grateful that you're tuning in. Welcome to my podcast, Misunderstood, guiding highly sensitive people through an emotional dark age.
Sensitivity as a Superpower
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm your host, Candice Van Dal, and I'm honored to embark on this transformative journey with you.
00:00:17
Speaker
Have you ever felt like you didn't quite fit into the world around you or even your own family? Like your sensitivity was a burden rather than a gift. If so, you're not alone. And here's the truth. Your sensitivity is not a flaw. It's a superpower. It's what allows you to feel deeply, to connect with others on a profound level, and to access a higher realm of consciousness.
00:00:38
Speaker
And on this podcast, we're going to explore how to harness that power and use it to create a life of purpose, passion, and true confidence. Here in this sacred space, we honor your sensitivity as the gift it truly is. Get ready to embark on the journey of unapologetic emotional honesty and next level healing. Let's dive in together.
Introduction to Guest Case Kenny
00:01:00
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome to Misunderstood, Guiding Highly Sensitive People Through an Emotional Dark Age. I'm your host, Candice Vandell, and today I'm so excited about our guest. I first found this guy on Instagram, and I loved what he was saying. He is known for these Mindfulness quotes that are very positive and to be honest they're like simple things that hit profoundly and i just love that anyone who does a little bit of deeper dive. Is authentic who celebrates the weirdness.
00:01:32
Speaker
who just wants you to be your authentic self, I'm into. So I want to let you guys know about my guest. If you don't know him, here is his intro. Case Kenny is an author, mindfulness expert, and the host of the popular podcast, New Mindset, Who Dis? Part of the SiriusXM media network. Since Case launched the podcast in 2018, he's been delivering practical insights on personal growth and mindfulness practices, empowering listeners to lead passionate purposeful, and joyful lives. Building on the success of the podcast, Case transformed new mindset Houdis into a lifestyle brand with the launch of a collection of mindfulness journals, providing his audience the tools to adopt journaling as a powerful daily practice. Case has also created a variety of mindfulness mental health focused products sold by big box retailers like Target and Walmart. On Instagram,
00:02:25
Speaker
Case captivates an audience of over one million followers with his meaningful red, sharpie messages. His viral quotes have gained widespread attention resonating with influential names, including Haley Bieber, Viola Davis, Jessica Elvis, Snoop Dogg, and many more, and featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America, Forbes, and others. In 2023, Case wrote his best-selling Best-Selling Book, that's bold of you, guiding readers to let go of self-judgment.
00:02:53
Speaker
Case regularly conducts in-person guided journaling workshops for diverse audiences, including communities like Soho House, corporate groups, NFL teams, and universities. Please welcome my guest,
Moving and Life Changes
00:03:07
Speaker
Case Kenny. Hi. Thanks for having me. Awesome. Are you in Chicago right now? I'm in Miami. I moved down here about two years ago. Oh, wow. That's amazing. Yeah, you wouldn't know it given how pale I continue to be, but I do live in Miami.
00:03:21
Speaker
Awesome. I, I'm originally from Chicago too. So when I saw that, I was like, Oh, I get it Midwest. I'll be back in Chicago at some point. We're going to probably buy out there, but for now, I'm just trying to soak up the sun. Nice. Is there any specific reason you moved to Miami?
00:03:38
Speaker
That the sun is the sun, but you haven't found it yet. I've been coming down here for years. Yeah. Yeah. I've been coming down here for years and it's always just, you know, felt like a cool opportunity. And then my lease ended and my girlfriend's lease ended at the same time. So we decided to move down. We were only going to be down here for six months and then it turned into two years. Um, so it's been nice. We've met a lot of friends and it's, it's a cool city.
00:04:02
Speaker
It's so funny like that. I was in l LA forever and my boyfriend moved to Atlanta and we reconnected. And so last year I moved to the East coast as well. So now I'm in Atlanta and I'm like, Oh, I'll be here three months and we'll figure it out. And it's been 11 months. like Yeah, I feel like that's life for you. You just keep finding more and more reasons to stay. And yeah, Miami's great. Miami's got a bad rap. People are like, oh, it's for, you know, strip clubs and scammers. And I mean, sure. Yeah. But it's also got amazing people. Like I've met some really good friends. There's a lot of like wellness circles down here. It's awesome. So you know, believe it. Find what you're looking for.
Humility and Self-Discovery
00:04:41
Speaker
Yeah, that kind of goes into my first question with you because I myself lived in Las Vegas for a couple of years with my ex-husband and I was like, Vegas, it's crazy. But honestly, I lived in Summerland, which is like nature and mountains and people have such a wrong idea. And one of the things I was going to ask you about is like, for me personally, after doing so many years of healing, I feel like wherever I am, I actually find home wherever I am.
00:05:06
Speaker
I'm you know vibing with whatever i had no idea who i hang out with i live in the woods now in the mountains and i'm like okay anyone i run into on the trail i'm obsessed with i'm like these are good people everywhere i go so i can start by asking a little bit about your journey but also you know i see in your journey you're really just raw and real and all about being authentic and i wanted to ask you how you would define your true self.
00:05:33
Speaker
How would I define my true self? ah Well, i I certainly think it's it's changed and is changing. And I think like that's the but the best thing. I was talking to someone yesterday for an interview and you know the temptation was really there in this interview because it was for the press to be like, I'm Case Kenny, I'm an expert at this, an expert at that. And you know I've got a lit agent, I've got an agent, a manager who like, okay, no, you've got to be an expert. like We have to brand you as an expert at this and that.
00:05:57
Speaker
I think if there's anything I've realized through this whole thing, mindfulness, introspection, creative outlets, it's the more you do this, the more you realize you don't know. So I think it's a essential requirement of people. If you're looking at people and you're like, should I trust this person or does this person know what they're talking about? To see how humble they are. And for me, I have to be humble because I realize how much I don't know. And every time, the more I do these things, I realize you know, the more there is to discover about myself, the more opportunity there is to reinvent aspects of myself. So to answer your question, I don't really know. I don't really have a great answer for you. i could I could put some words to it and it'll sound nice, but I mean, I'm 36 and I think I've changed every two to three years, like fundamentally as a person, as a man, as ah as a boyfriend, as a writer, as ah as as a brother, as a son. um And I think that's how it's supposed to be. I think we get in dangerous territory where we
00:06:53
Speaker
say this is who I am, and that's that. I think there's certain elements of yourself that you should never let go, of course, and it's great to define yourself, but for the most part, I think this exercise is an exercise of humility and evolution, and that is a requirement to becoming your best self, whatever that looks like. So that is my non-answer.
00:07:15
Speaker
I absolutely love that because, know you know, I've been um teaching and building courses and stuff for the last 11 years. And one of the things people say to me is the reason they come to me is I will never say I'm a master at something. I'm a guru. I always say I'm just healing and I'm kind of showing you the way I've gone. If it resonates with you, great. But when people say, Oh, I'm a guru and I'm this, I'm like, Ooh, question that because that can change in any moment. and I think the more humble we are, we become,
00:07:43
Speaker
more in a flow of becoming and that becomes the confidence like for me i don't know about you i like talking about confidence a lot because people always say like how do you define your confidence and like that i'm always open to being wrong to something upgrading to doing something different to making mistakes i find joy in that because then i have more wisdom from an experience how would you maybe feel about confidence or talk about how someone can gain it.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'd say it's in line with what a lot of people say, which is, you know, confidence comes from evidence and evidence comes from action and action comes from introspection. So by the transit of property, confidence is introspection. So I mean, you know,
00:08:22
Speaker
you We could define confidence as you know not caring what other people think or you know knowing that you can recover from anything. like we could it We could put some like um you you know outcome reaction to it, but I think for the most part, it it always comes from evidence, evidence of trying and failing, evidence of being vulnerable, all these different things. um and you know Your willingness to do those things comes from introspection, knowing that you should do those things. so you know For me, it comes from that. It also comes like in a sense lately in my life from, like I don't even know the right words for it. it's like My confidence comes from having a ah clean conscience like that I'm not like you know wronging anyone or being selfish in one aspect or being negative in another. like That's ah kind of like an empowering thing to know. I was writing quotes earlier. I was literally just writing them.
00:09:14
Speaker
you know, about the temptation there is to become like the people who
Optimism, Trust, and Personal Growth
00:09:18
Speaker
have hurt you. It's a very natural human thing to do. You see in the example set for you, you kind of follow it, or you've been hurt objectively, and it kind of turns your heart cold and you become that bitter, resentful, hurtful, selfish, spiteful person. And to not do that, I think is the ultimate confidence builder.
00:09:36
Speaker
to To say that someone or the world or ah groups of people tried to hurt you and tear you down, but you refused to do that What better bigger confidence builder is there than our refusal to become like those people and stoop to their level? so I think there's a lot of a lot of levels here, but ah You know in in a less sexy way really does come from introspection I love that I one of the things I focus on a lot in my work recently is being a cycle breaker. And one of the things that I see in generational trauma is that hurt people hurt people but once you do that shadow work in that deep inner child work you learn that oh my mother was wounded by her mother my father was. wound it So it's like this generational thing it happened to you but it's not personal and a lot of people think that they're a victim and when you feel like you are a victim yes you might have been victimized for sure something happened to you but when you continue hurting others you're actually doing the exact same thing and continuing that trauma and one of the things that like you said in my work.
00:10:34
Speaker
It becomes very liberating to live in your integrity and no i'm a good person like no matter what happened to me i'm not doing that to someone because i know what it feels like instead of i need to get justice on this negative feeling let me do it to you so i can feel powerful in that way it's a completely different paradigm of how to live free and so i love that you said that.
00:10:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think there's even even a more zoomed out practical addition here to what you're saying, which I love, which is I just did an episode on it, I read it in the Harvard Business Review, where um this is within the context of the workplace, but I think it definitely transitions to general life. But they showed that people who have cynical attitudes towards life, that is, they think everyone's out to get them, you got to step on a couple people's necks to be successful, you got to stab some people in the back, it's doggy dog, it's competitive, you got to Do what you gotta do, match energy, but don't leave, don't give too much right, cynical worldview. Those people, and we've been taught in life, our parents have taught us that that's what it takes, man. like The world's cold, dark place, you gotta protect yourself, you gotta watch your back, and sometimes you gotta do the dirty stuff. like We've been taught that that is the key to elevation and success and and happiness and fulfillment. And they showed that specifically within the workplace, people who have that mentality,
00:11:47
Speaker
earn less, are promoted less, and are less fulfilled. And the flip side of that would be optimism. So the headline is that ah optimists make more money, are promoted more, are happier, so not just the workplace. but you know and And what makes an optimist an optimist? The the thesis of the of the article, which is also mine, which is make trust your default in life.
00:12:09
Speaker
And not like naive trust, like you trust the dude on the corner of the street, but you you approach interactions with positive intention as the background for all of them. And then you react, talk about confidence, knowing that you can react to whatever, but you let people in, you let them in, and then you see what happens, and then you protect yourself. but they show that those people who have the optimistic for cynical mentality towards life make more you're richer they're happier you're happy that's fantastic you're promoted more so all these things i mean i think there's a layer of of practicality here when it comes to not closing off like.
00:12:45
Speaker
is natural and whether it happened in your childhood and you've been carrying this and nursing it and finding more evidence of it or whether it's more recent or whether it's driven by social media and everyone's saying how men are crazy and women are this and everyone's out there get you like whatever your input is to resist that and be an optimistic person you know there's so much upside and that's yeah you know my mission but yeah Yeah, I love that because what that kind of reminds me of is, you know, boundaries and discernment. A lot of people think, and you said it very clear, society says that if you act this way, you'll be successful. What I always say is, well, I like to talk about society versus universe. And I give universe my power because a lot of people, when I started this career, ah you know, a million years ago, people were like, how are you going to make money as a spiritual coach? And like,
00:13:30
Speaker
Oh i'm not worried about that i'm worried about this mission that i have to like share truth and if people like it awesome and what's funny is this career is much more fulfilling and lucrative and abundant and connected. Then my other career which was modeling and acting i'm like oh society right now i'm like universe so it's kinda funny how when you when you have the i guess courage.
00:13:51
Speaker
to follow what feels good to follow that mindset that people say oh you're delusional if you think this and that and you're like okay cool let's see it makes me feel better and healthier my body's relaxed my nervous system feels healthy so i feel like a lot of people have that block between well if i'm not this way i won't be successful.
00:14:10
Speaker
So many people come to me and as they awaken their spiritual gifts or their empathy or they heal from trauma they're like i'm afraid that this version of me won't be enough and i'm busy saying well that's the version of you that you were born perfect for your purpose and all the conditioning took you away from that version now you're back from that version i want you to just trust me and try it so i know what i wanted to ask you what were you doing before you were doing that.
00:14:37
Speaker
I worked in advertising for about 12 years. I ran a sales team selling advertising technology, which honestly was great. like I referenced it a lot as like a coming of age tale. like I always say, like if I can give two really practical pieces of advice to people, I say you should work in sales at some point in your life.
00:14:55
Speaker
whether it's selling cars or selling advertising technology, and you should wait tables at some point. I think between those two experiences, you'll learn a lot about yourself. You'll learn a lot about other people. But um yeah, doing sales for... I ran that team for about eight years.
00:15:10
Speaker
ah That was, I mean, it taught me so much about myself. Like I used to be like, I didn't like to talk, uh, public speak. I was pretty introverted, pretty shy. I'd rather listen and talk. And, um, you know, it just, it really showed me that I could build something from zero. I could become the person that I wanted. I could overcome awkwardness and expectation and all these different things. So like, I really owe a lot of my current confidence to just the, the grind of sales. Yeah. But it was it was great.
Self-Relationship and Redefining Relationships
00:15:42
Speaker
Yeah. And also the humility of waiting tables. I mean, those two things together of learning how to self promote from something that's really of service, but also have humility to relate to all these different people is you need both to be successful and to feel good and to feel connected. So I really love that example. I wanted to dive in because a lot of my listeners really love talking about relationship and I feel like relationship to self.
00:16:06
Speaker
in my experience is a complete mirror to the relationship we have with others. A lot of people talk about narcissistic relationships in my groups and things. And I always say, well, the best gift you'll get from that is learning how to truly love yourself. I wonder if you have any experience in that, because I know you write a lot about relationships too. And if you wanted to share some insights. On narcissists. On relationship in general. Yeah. Well, I got to talk to you here. Do you have an hour?
00:16:33
Speaker
I mean, you clear your schedule for that. I mean, I've i've done you know so many episodes on that. um I don't know. I mean i think like the best thing we could do, frankly,
00:16:47
Speaker
like I'm a little at war with like terms like narcissist and gaslighting and love bombing and these things because the internet has just gotten a hold of them so much so that we've attached labels to things before we even have time to analyze them and we categorize people instantly and that's the cynical attitude that I think we need to overcome. So perhaps you share the same worldview. yeah I think we need to escape that. I like joke that like when we're in a relationship with someone, whether we know it or not, like we're we're in a threesome. We have we'd let someone else in that relationship ah metaphorically without us even like realizing it, whether that's the internet at large or something something your friend said about something. like We are so in our heads about what the right way love should look like.
00:17:32
Speaker
that we we we sabotage ourselves. And certainly, you know there are people who are narcissists, you know the whatever, 2% of the% of the people who deserve that quality, sure. For the other times, people are doing hurtful things. And that's the reality of life that I think we we need to come around to. And that's you know that's a conversation about standards and boundaries and awareness, like the practical stuff.
00:17:56
Speaker
um that I think requires just practical thinking. um But you know for the most part, i i a lot of my work is less like you know rules around dating or tactics around dating, and it's more around redefining what the point of a relationship is in the first place.
00:18:13
Speaker
Because when we're so in our heads about people being narcissists and, oh, is this love bombing? No, that's just that's just enthusiasm. like think Conversations like that, outside of that, like I just really want to encourage people to remember what the point of a relationship is in the in the first place.
00:18:29
Speaker
um you know and For me, it's a very simple definition. It's to amplify the happiness that you've already found for yourself. It has to be an amplifier. It cannot be a completion. it can't be a I can't build my life until I have a partner. It can't be any of those things because that's when we get we become blind to a lot of elements of reality. So it has to be an amplifier.
00:18:48
Speaker
amplify means there has to be something existing so it is our obligation to ourselves to find love and joy within ourselves first and foremost and i know that is a cliche but there's a reason i cliches or cliches is because it's so freaking true the point of life is to have a partner to do life with it's not necessarily to build life with And I think that's an important distinction because, yes, in a sense, like when you have a partner and you have a family and you build a legacy together, you are you are building something from the ground up. But the the language is a little sketchy because, you know, it should be you are a whole person. You found a joy. They are a whole person. They found joy. You come together and you do life together. You have two individual pieces coming together who maintain elements of their individualism. And that's fantastic. But you're not saying,
00:19:37
Speaker
Oh man, I can't build the life of my dreams until I have my partner. What does that mean you're doing in the in the in the meantime? You're just whittling your thumbs? like What a passive negative draining way to look at life. So I really want people to rethink the the purpose, the point of a relationship so that there isn't that pressure, so that we don't make mistakes, so that we don't misjudge people, all those things, but it's an uplifting take.
00:20:00
Speaker
I love this. i was um I was on a hike last night with my boyfriend and we have an interesting story. We were together 15 years ago and ah broke up. I married someone else, didn't talk for a whole full decade and got back together. Yeah, got back to together three years ago. It was very like divine intervention. We always knew we'd end up together, but I kind of Forgot that idea when i married someone else and had a whole life but it did work that way and so we we're talking about it last night and we're like gosh it's so funny how. These days marriage has been so redefined and he's like yeah a lot of times people get married because they want someone to make their life better go. Excuse me i got extremely happy i don't need anyone to make me happier make my life better i want to share it with someone who's also happy in them.
00:20:45
Speaker
selves in their autonomy and he's like, yeah, but that's not most people,
Healthy Interdependence in Relationships
00:20:49
Speaker
Candice. And it kind of hit me like, I think it's starting to be, but I think it's true. The old paradigm of relationship and marriage was very much different. It was very much based on security. It wasn't like, oh, let me be my full version and then meet my full version. It was like, let's become somebody together. And I think that kind of, you know, opens up a lot of codependency and opens up a lot of, you know, compromising of self and, you know,
00:21:13
Speaker
I would be the first person to say i never in a million new years that i would get divorced but when i did it wasn't the worst thing in the world i mean we just literally grew in different directions but i feel now like one hundred percent more in my power because i'm not um doing anything or waiting for someone to fill me in some way or take care of me in some way.
00:21:34
Speaker
When you become all the things that you're looking for and people say, but it is cliche. They're like, find them when you're looking for. I did become that. And now the one I was looking for was all those years ago, but I wasn't ready. And I didn't love myself in that way back then. And I remember him telling me 15 years ago, he's like, you need to go learn to love yourself. And here I am in this other version and he's back. And I'm like, geez, like,
00:21:58
Speaker
like Partnership that is conscious wants you to be your whole version, wants you to be in your power, wants you to have autonomy and be happy and have your friends. I just went on a girls trip last week and like last month and he's like, I love it. How was it? And that is having like interdependence. What do you think about codependency and relationships and interdependence and keeping autonomy? What are your thoughts about all that?
00:22:21
Speaker
um I have a book coming out next year that literally the catalyst for it was, I think independence is a core requirement of a relationship. I think independence is should be something that grows in a relationship. like You should be more independent because of your relationship. and that That thinking came from something called the dependency paradox, which is literally just an observation and in child rearing and adolescence that the closer a child feels feels to their caregiver, the more independent they're empowered to feel. i am Makes sense, right? you know how your Your toddler knows that their mom is going to take care of them and love them, that they're willing to jump off a table you know in ah in a roundabout way. and i was like I was like, if that's true in childhood, that the good kind of dependency, not codependency, the good kind of dependency and connection between a caregiver and a child, if that's true then, that should be true in a relationship in that
00:23:11
Speaker
you should have a closeness that inspires both of you to be independent. And that is how our relationship should be. And we need to get away from this thing of, Oh, he wanted to play golf today and not hang out with me. Something's wrong with our relationship. No boy craziness. No. So, and you know, um, some of that, you know, there's nuance to that, but, um, I saw that and I was like, man, ah I gotta write about this. So I am writing basically a book about, about that.
00:23:36
Speaker
Um, eight and you know, even like the, the terms that we throw around, like, uh, big reason I'm writing this book is because I don't like the term settle down. I think it gives up such a bad promise to a relationship. yeah like The only way that that's accurate is, yeah, of course, you're settling down in the sense of you're not dating other people. okay But otherwise, that is a horrible selling point of a relationship, settling down. No one wants to settle. Settle down. First of all, it's got the word settle in it. Second of all, it's got the word down in it. like It's just horrible. When you said that, I was like, can we say settle up? like That's a little better.
00:24:12
Speaker
Spoiler alert, that's what I call it in the book. But oh ah yeah, like again, it should be an amplifier. It should be a moreness. It should be a a more of everything, physical, emotional, travel, cultural art, like the whole thing. So I would say that. And then also I was going to react to what you're saying earlier. You know, anytime like a young, I'm 36, a younger person, someone in their like early twenties, you know, comes to me with, you know, frustration about dating.
00:24:37
Speaker
I feel like you know we all become our parents or something and in in a sense. I'm like, you're so young. like Trying to find your soulmate when you're 22 or 23 or even like 26, to me just like feels a little forced. and you know Again, who who am I to judge the timing of your life? If if you find your person that young, that's fantastic. But again, the pressure to to have this thing figured out so early. like Dating in college,
00:25:05
Speaker
Sure if you feel really drawn to this person before the most part love your life you know give yourself ah a long road ahead to to have some fun and create some joy so they could be amplified down down the road don't look back and realize that you held yourself short because you were obsessed by finding this completion.
00:25:25
Speaker
And yeah, I think it's something you said earlier. I mean, I think there is a lot of history and ah cultural and and parental think expectation here that I think in a couple generations will be completely different. But you know um you know we're not too far removed from the 50s and 60s where ah marriage was literally, to your point, a security element. So you know those things are still very much so within culture and and upbringing, but you know we need to give ourselves time I think timing to your point i think timing is everything and sometimes we don't know the timing and sometimes we try to force the timing and i think that the middle ground is probably where the the sweet spot is.
Timing and Personal Growth in Relationships
00:26:03
Speaker
I just love this you know in my i'll just say a few things about what you just described in my twenties and i was traveling the world doing my career doing my thing and and i remember thinking i wanna get married if i have kids until later so i wanna not feel like.
00:26:17
Speaker
They screwed me. I didn't get to be me. Like I was very into that. And now I look back, I'm 46 now. And I look back at, you know, I got married at 34 and I felt like that was perfect. And I decided not to have kids during that time. And now back with my love at this age, we're like, none of that mattered. What mattered is what we experienced, what we explored, what we went through, what we grew through. It makes it such a deeper experience to yes, have an idea about how you want life and then relax.
00:26:45
Speaker
and allow what's actually supposed to happen because it will be right. And if I were to ever tell you 15 years ago, I'm going to be back with my, there's no way I would have believed any of these events I couldn't have. And when I saw the events and how they happened and I look at other friends of mine, and many people going through divorce at my age, it's like, wow, I really see like a lot of those women that settled down settled down because they wanted the security. And by the way, these are some of my best friends who are now shifting out of things.
00:27:15
Speaker
they are feeling so upset so frustrated and i ask them specifically is that what you wanted to do and what their answer is is well i thought doing this would get me that. I do not live for the expectation i live for how do i feel now and i'm excited to see what may or may not happen it's that freedom of like letting it show you instead of needing it to be something i think that allows our timing to align with that secure attachment to self in life.
00:27:44
Speaker
Yeah, I like that a lot. Yeah, I mean, it comes back to the core of you know what is the point of a relationship? Is it to finally start the life that you've always dreamed of? And I think a lot of that thinking comes from parental expectations and examples set for us. at oh you know you know Family, kids, house, like that is the goal of life. and I would never discredit anyone who's, they say, my my purpose in life is to be a father or a mother. like I think that's great. like Some people truly feel so drawn to that and they don't care about anything else.
Finding Joy Beyond Romantic Love
00:28:17
Speaker
But i think there's a lot else to life like i like contrast them but i think there's a lot more to life than just love like i think love is an incredibly powerful purposeful one of the top three at least points of being alive and connecting with other people but there's many kinds of love there's platonic there's friends there's business partners there's love for the world and love for joy and like there's all these different types of love there's you know your work there's creativity there's spontaneity there's curiosity there's all these things that i think we're just so quick to dismiss as being secondary or to your point and your friends point things that you'll get when you find your love that i think we've we've like lost sight of the order of operations.
00:28:59
Speaker
know good old PEMDAS from school. I think we've we've forgotten that, ah you know well I guess we've realized that there is no order of operations and love doesn't have to come first. And then also it's like,
00:29:13
Speaker
Love certainly can give you new versions of all those other things together. like I'm so fortunate to have that with my girlfriend of you know the moreness that we get from life that brings more joy and spontaneity and curiosity and travel and adventure in these things into into our lives. But you know we can have all those things in life.
00:29:30
Speaker
They might just not be at the at the same time and that's okay. You could live a life of great intense curiosity, enjoying success and fulfillment and financial ah independence and then you could find your love. like There's no set order to these things and we need to not put that pressure on ourselves.
00:29:47
Speaker
I absolutely love that. One of the things that I was thinking about when I started doing what I would call my mission, my purpose work, this work in the world, it just it's just I just obsessed with what I get to do. I feel so lucky. When I made that or found, I guess, my passion from within, it took so much um pressure off whoever I'm with because I'm like, this is my passion. like You don't have to be my everything. You don't have to be my passion. You don't have to be the source of all of my
Independence in Relationships
00:30:16
Speaker
happiness. and I think that when I like to coach women about finding their purpose and their autonomy and their independence, they're afraid to do that because we've been taught in a way like we need to need someone to feel safe. That's so codependent thinking. But when they find their thing and do it, like for me, I know whatever happens in my life, I still have this.
00:30:36
Speaker
I still have me it's in me and i want my person to have that so when i see him doing his career me do mine and it lights me up because'm like i love watching him do his thing that has nothing to do with me and it's amazing and together we get to.
00:30:49
Speaker
celebrate and make it even more exciting to share it with someone. But when somebody or your love relationship or you're waiting for that is your everything, it's over responsibility in a way. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. You do you, I do me and together it's even better. It is the truth. Yeah. Yeah. I think that is the bar. That is where the bar should be. I can't imagine a relationship where But, you know, I can, but I don't want to. Where, like, all you have is each other. You know, that that sounds like a good thing, but to me, that's like a horrible thing. yeah Like, need lives outside. Like, but for me, for instance, so I'm very independent. I'm always doing weird shit. but I'm always traveling and speaking and writing. My girlfriend is a DJ. So she's in the club until 4 a.m. I'm usually with her, but sometimes not. Like, we have such great parallel independent curiosities.
00:31:42
Speaker
and career paths and drive, like we're so, so, so, so driven towards each of these things. And I think it creates such a healthy balance. And i again, not everyone wants to do that. Some people want to work their nine to five, come home, play some football and whatever. yeah But like have that element there, have that element of identity outside of each other. Otherwise, I don't know. It might not be the world's worst thing, but I just think there's so much more to like, I saw someone the other day talked about um how like happiness is meant to be shared.
00:32:12
Speaker
I thought that was really beautiful. like I found a lot of happiness and in my individual case Kenny life and so does my girlfriend. and bring We bring that together and it's a beautiful amplifier and it's this great thing that we both bring this happiness and we share it together as opposed to having no happiness.
00:32:29
Speaker
and creating it together to your point it puts all the pressure on the relationship to be the focal point of your universe and i think that's that's tough and especially like i had a conversation with someone the other day who just had a ah ah son and he was feeling a little vulnerable about it because he's like man.
00:32:46
Speaker
He's like, now like my wife's full attention is on this on the child. He's like, I you know no longer get a focus on some of the things that used to bring me joy. I'm feeling a little, I'm feeling weird. I'm feeling some emotions here. I'm feeling jealousy, resentment, these things. And I was like, yeah, I was like, well, first of all, i don't I don't have kids. I don't really want to give advice there, but I think that's a pretty common thing when you bring ah life into life.
00:33:11
Speaker
It you know changes everything but that's why it's important before you do that you find different sources of joy in your life and you go all in on them by yourself and then you bring it with a partner you amplify it and then you can have that you know bringing ah a life into the world but yeah. all It's also knowing those choices. like When you make the choice to have children, there's going to be a period of time where ah she's with the kid and and and you know and you need to have your outlets. and Something else you said that I wanted to touch on because I really freaking love your example of you and your girlfriend. like You both are entrepreneurial. You're both creatives. You're both doing this. ah Same with us.
Compatibility vs. Love
00:33:48
Speaker
and What's funny is many, many years ago,
00:33:50
Speaker
I thought, oh, I need a grounded one because I just want to fly and do my thing. And what I've learned over time as I've gotten older is when I'm, when I've been with someone that is that secure sort of nine to five or or whatever. Yeah, that's cute. But also I can't actually live the life that I created because I created this career where I can work from fricking anywhere, right? And it's been like this for over a decade. And if you have to run your business here,
00:34:16
Speaker
That might stifle my creation a little and so i love that you said that because i've been shifting a lot lately and i've been really. um Just appreciating the fact that we're both free in that way neither one of us had kids neither one it's weird how it all worked out right like we go into that forever but it worked out in the way that.
00:34:37
Speaker
Our lifestyles are very compatible. And I know compatibility in love. We can talk about that a lot. Like it's not always the same thing. It's not the same thing, but to have love and compatibility, it's fucking amazing. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. I mean, I've talked about that before. I mean, those are things that we confuse a lot, especially when we're younger. Um, and we, oh my gosh, we have so much in common. Like we're both Aries and we both love. was's like That is compatibility. And that's like very important, right? Physical compatibility.
00:35:07
Speaker
Compatible values and you know sports alliances whatever like cool cool stuff but like that most certainly is not love and that's where we start to develop this like negative worldview I think a lot of times when we're young and that we keep finding compatibility compatibility compatibility and it's like it never takes the next level so we're like I'm not enough or no one's serious or love is dead or dating apps are the worst, then we just get in our heads because we keep finding compatible people. You and I are probably compatible with thousands of people, tens of hundreds of thousands of people in life, base level compatibility. And if we confuse that for love and we strike out 10,000 times, we're going to be like, well, love, it doesn't exist. Of course not. So I think from an optimist perspective, it's very important that we realize that compatibility is
00:35:56
Speaker
is shared likeness, physical attraction, sense of humor, the basics, important stuff, of course. i I think it would be difficult to have love without compatibility. But love is not compatibility. Love goes much deeper. We can talk about love being ah you know a choice, not a feeling, and and all these
Different Approaches to Relationships
00:36:11
Speaker
different things. But I think we need to get over that hurdle of thinking that compatibility means love is soon to follow, which definitely isn't. And you know I think that's the gift that of life sometimes, frankly.
00:36:23
Speaker
you know On that point, I will say for a lot of women, we find love and then there's not compatibility. but it's not Is it love or is it attraction? and A lot of people get confused about you know chemistry versus real love. and so I think a lot of women, especially sensitive women that I work with, they fall in love too fast because they're looking for an attachment. and What I like to always share is when you learn,
00:36:47
Speaker
to be securely attached to self which is based on every single thing we just talked about today like having your own autonomy and independence individuality you're creating a secure attachment to self and then you're not needing to connect with others so quickly you're kind of checking it out to see are we compatible yeah is there ah an attraction that could become a love is there morals and values and integrity shared there that could become something over time and so i love all these aspects of redefining things and really like figuring out what works for us versus what we think should work or what we think we're gonna get. It's just how you feel. Yeah, i'm I'm like an internet compiler. There's this tweet that went viral like a year ago that basically said this was someone's opinion. They said that women start men from 100 and subtract and men start women at zero and add. And I think that that's the idea of like women sometimes coming across a man.
00:37:39
Speaker
And they're like, oh my gosh, we've got XYZ in common and he's this and I'm that 100, 100, 100, we put but women, maybe put men on this pedestal because they want that completion. And then the tweets are that men do it at zero. And for a woman, you got to add to that. And I don't know whether that's true. I'm sure you could find support for both. I think the right answer of which we're circling here, of course, would be in the middle.
00:38:01
Speaker
fifty fifty strong sense of self strong sense of awareness between compatibility and love and attraction and all the and you know all these things and you know you start at fifty you have that default to trust that we're talking about with optimism and you add or you subtract from there but you never all in because you truly don't know someone you do not know someone until you have conflict And I always say like the beginning of dating is not real. And I don't say that in a cynical way. I say it in in a sense of, yeah, when you first meet someone, you're wearing your best, you're being your funniest, you're being your nicest. Like you need to break free from date three and four and get to the real stuff. So you just need to give yourself time. And within that time to avoid obsessing, you need to have a life outside of them. So all these topics are intertwined.
Final Thoughts and Episode Wrap-up
00:38:48
Speaker
totally intertwined. You got to check things out and you got to have and enough confidence to give yourself the time to do that. So this has been really fun. I know you got to go soon. So I wanted on to ask you, is there anything you wanted to leave us with or where to find you or what you're promoting right now? Some last um insights, yeah whatever you like to share. yeah i don't No, of course. so Thanks for having me. yeah I always take the opportunity to talk about myself or what I've learned. so it is It is gratifying, so thanks for having me. no mean It's instagramcase.kenny. That's where I do all my writing. I wrote a book um the other year called That's Bold of You, which is about a lot of these topics as well, about you know refusing to define yourself by different terms like
00:39:25
Speaker
Too loud or too quiet or too much or too eager or too difficult these things that society has really placed upon us or our parents or whoever may be um So if you're looking to kind of reinvent yourself or step into who you think is your true self You could pick that up and then now yes the podcast I've done 630 episodes just a little quick chats like this. It's called new mindset do this Awesome. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure getting to know you a little bit and everything that you're doing. And I just love everything you shared. So I'm really looking forward to everybody checking you out and listening to this and sharing and just thank you so much. Yeah. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. You're welcome.