“Trust that your struggles serve your mission.” – Lisa Cherney
It is ironic how we are living in a very radical society and still continue to be imprisoned in the phony display of who we really are. In this episode, Art and Lisa Cherney talk about how we can get f*cking real and feel good about it. They discuss why many people are afraid to show up in their authentic selves and how this compromises expectations, what causes stress and anxiety, and how to live in your truth. Nobody wants to settle with a sham because we know it is always of lesser value. Only if and when we become real can we assign ourselves the value we deserve. Tune in and find out how the 12 GFR commandments can change your life forever!
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Listen to the podcast here:
Highlights:
01:18 The Start Of Colorful Language
06:48 Dropping The F-bomb
16:43 The Judging Game
21:42 The GFR Commandments
26:33 Do Not Compromise Your Expectations
38:03 The Root Cause of Stress and Anxiety
43:30 Live Your Truth
Are you afraid of being judged a fake or being judged because you’re real? Tune in as @myexpectation and @LisaCherneyGFR shares how you can show up in your most authentic self! #expectationtherapy #podcast #authenticself #gettreal #selflove… Click To Tweet
Resources:
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Quotes:
04:51 “Life can be a matter of moments… Live life in the moment.” – Art Costello
13:21 “Creating a new relationship to the word [f*ck] is liberating.” – Lisa Cherney
20:22 “Allowing and appreciating other people’s circumstances and experiences… breeds self-love and self-acceptance.” – Lisa Cherney
33:59 “Be who you are and your life will blossom.” – Art Costello
42:33 “Trust that your struggles serve your mission.” – Lisa Cherney
46:35 “Find where you are holding yourself back and do whatever it takes to get out of your own way.” – Lisa Cherney
49:12 “We are unique and we are who we are… Living to who you are is what is important.” – Art Costello
Meet Lisa:
In 2014, after 15 years in business, Lisa Cherney got f**cking real and dismantled her successful 7-Figure business. She was proud of the financial accomplishment but it did not make her happy. Lisa learned that just because something is successful and people like it, doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it. She always knew she had a low tolerance for not being happy, but now she knows her mission is to help other mission-based business owners get f*cking real so they can get out of their own way and help more people. Lisa is host of the ground-breaking Get F*cking Real Podcast and founder of the GFR Squad, a lively community that gives people permission to get f*cking real in order to better fulfill their mission.
Transcription:
Art Costello: Welcome to the Shower Epiphanies Podcast. I couldn’t be more honored today to have Lisa Cherney with us. I met her at the new media summit in San Diego. She struck me and I have this thing about, I don’t know if it’s classifying or what you want to call it, but I classify Lisa as bold, beautiful, brash and ballsy.
Lisa Cherney: Oh, I like that.
Art Costello: She is Dynamite. I just loved her from the stage. She’s so polished. She’s spoken on many, many, many stages. She has her own podcast called, Get F***ing Real, which if you know my podcast, we have not dropped an F bomb on the show once so this is going to be good because I think people need to be who they are and true to themselves. I think that we’re going to have some fun with this today, Lisa. So with that being said, Lisa, can you take us on your journey, your story.
Lisa Cherney: I can. You’re commenting about the F and it really gives me guidance as to where I’m going to start. So I was a junior high young lady sunning myself out in my backyard of my suburbia home in New Jersey for the junior prom. And my dad called me inside and said, I have something I need to share with you. And now I had some vague awareness that my mom went for some testing at the hospital that morning, but it was kind of like, bye mom, you know what? I’m going to go outside and tan myself for the junior prom. So they came home from the hospital. Their faces looked like something was wrong. And my dad told me that my mom’s biopsy came back positive for breast cancer. And at that moment it was like a grown up in an instant, like all of a sudden it wasn’t about the junior prom. It wasn’t about what my friends were wearing or whether my date was gonna match my dress or whatever. It was like my mom could die. I had this awareness of her mortality. I had this awareness that life is short. I just was a complete change of perspective. And from that moment on, I had the awareness of, I need to make sure that I am enjoying my life because you just really don’t know, you just do not know. So my mom went through chemo and quote unquote battled cancer for probably about a year. After that, she wound up having one of her breasts removed and she became quite a different person after she survived that. She became bold, beautiful, brash and ballsy. And one of the many things, social constructs, and belief systems and rigidness that she let go of was around using colorful language. It was like this before and after. Like before cancer, it was like, Oh, Lisa, you know what I have a younger sister who’s five years younger, like, Oh, Lisa, and you know, Jennifer, watch your mouth. Oh, watch your mouth. It was like, watch your mouth. Because she was like, this policing kind of energy. And then afterwards she’s like, say whatever the F you want, I do not care. That is not important. I kicked cancer’s butt and I’m not going to edit myself anymore. So colorful language was fully acceptable in my house, into my senior year of high school. From then on, I didn’t use it because I could, it’s really just more words for self-expression. And I could share more later on about why I chose to put the F word in the name of my show and in my movement. And so that’s where it all began,
Art Costello: You touched my heart because in 2006, I lost my wife of 35 years to ovarian cancer. And I do know that moment when you hear those words, it came back positive. It is life changing. It does change perspective. For me, it really actually started a long time ago because when I was 18, I went to Vietnam as a Marine and that opened up my eyes. That life was not about Art Costello, that it wasn’t this elongated event. Life can be a matter of moments. And I learned at a very early age to live life in the moment. I think that that’s the biggest lesson that I took from Vietnam, but I understand your feelings about it. And it does, people don’t know who has experienced cancer or is close to death in their family. Don’t know the magnitude of perspective change in their lives because, boy, it changes our perspective. It makes it real. Now, I understand the get fucking real part of it because it does. It doesn’t matter. Words hurt and I’ve done a whole podcast on words, but what hurts more is not being authentic to who you are and to the feelings that you have and your expressions of them. I tell people all the time, I love you because–
“Life can be a matter of moments… Live life in the moment.” - Art Costello Click To TweetLisa Cherney: Me too.
Art Costello: You don’t get those chances all the time. And when you run into people, for me, it could be somebody in a subway, it could be on a bus, it could be on a podcast, it doesn’t matter. I’d run into people that I just genuinely find love in my heart for that person and I express it. A lot of people can’t handle it.
Lisa Cherney: It’s true, they can’t. I say, I love you too, to my clients. And one of the ways that I know that I’m supposed to be working more closely with people is when I do feel that love in my heart and it genuinely bubbles up from me. And when we sign off from our calls, and I do boxing and it’s just like, love you. I genuinely love them, their mission, what they’re up to, like holding space for them, it’s just who I am. So I’m right with you.
Art Costello: Can you tell us something about your clients? I mean, I know somewhat about them, but I know that you work with a really successful group of people and help them become even more successful. Knock down some of the things that are blocking them from being authentic, genuine.
Lisa Cherney: Yeah, thank you for asking. I have been an entrepreneur for 20 years and I’ve been working with folks that are mission-based purpose space, passion driven, those types of folks usually selling or marketing themselves. And 20 years ago I had a company called Conscious Marketing, and my inclination without really knowing much about spiritual stuff, law of attraction or any of that, there wasn’t any of that around. There was no social media y’all if you can think back that far. But I knew when Corporate America kicked me out and I decided to do my own thing, I realized that what I needed to help people was to authentically express their passion about what they were doing and who they were so that people that they really wanted to help could say, YES. That they knew what they were saying YES to. And then they were attracting people that really appreciated them. I used all my marketing, training, and selling background from corporate and advertising. I started to focus on entrepreneurs, but I knew it was different for them, it was so personal. So conscious marketing was about getting people out of their head and into their heart to find those words. So if you fast forward now, my 20 years journey of doing that and also having my own personal evolution in the process, because that’s how it happens for the mission driven entrepreneur. We’re just growing, and changing, evolving. So as our business, so now after holding space for six and seven figure business owners or people that are wanting to surpass those milestones, I have a beautiful study of hundreds and hundreds of these folks and holding space for them over long periods of time, like year long, sort of like inner circles, masterminds, those types of things. And I got to see how they got in their way over and over again. I would find myself saying the same things or asking them the same things.
So a year or so ago when the GFR mission was birthing bubbling up through me, I realized that that’s the space that I wanted to, like, I wanted to hold that space. The space before they can have the brashness and the ballsiness to put their marketing out in a way that they want, or have a sales conversation the way they want, they had to really look at, how am I not authentic? How am I not speaking my truth? Where am I in my own way? And that’s where these 12 GFR commandments came about, I’m sure we’ll talk about more here. And that’s where I realized I needed to help these mission-based folks get real, but Art, get real was just not urgent enough. It wasn’t like in your face enough. And as my husband likes to say it, wasn’t Jersey enough, you know? And so that’s where I added the F and it was very intentional. I even enjoy talking about, using colorful language and beliefs about it because I think it just illuminates the authenticity, that kind of edge of authenticity that people are often dancing with. So my clients are really up for GFRing, you know., They’re like, I’ve done all the things, the systems, the tools, the blueprints, the strategies, like I bought all those things, I tried it all other people’s ways and I’m doing my thing. But I’m really not, like, I know I’m meant for more, I know I’m supposed to be out there in a bigger way, but I’m not so ideal. The client knows that they are indisputably the number one thing that’s in their way.
Art Costello: What I really, really find interesting about this, when you were speaking about dropping the F bomb and using it, I went back and I had a vision in my head because when I was a young mental health counselor at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, we did work because I was a burly man, a manly man, a former Marine, they used to let the patients beat me with the bataka’s. Do you know what bataka’s are?
Lisa Cherney: Yes, those padded things.
Art Costello: And they would go out on the tennis court at the facility, and we would go out there and the patient would pick up the bataka, I would try to incite them and to start beating on me to get rid of that pent up frustration. What I found interesting about what you just said and about that event was, there was something about it. Once they could say, fuck you Art and start beating me, they changed. They actually physically started to release. And believe it or not, so many times in male, female, old, young, it didn’t matter, they ended up in my arms crying, just releasing and letting everything out and going. I would just tell him it’s okay. It’s okay, you can’t hurt me, just keep going. But there’s something about dropping the F bomb that relieves people’s inhibition. And I had never even put the two together till you just mentioned that right now. I mean, I knew that it was powerful work that we were doing, but I didn’t realize the relationship between the bataka’s, and the F word, and the actions of beating someone and releasing. But what you do is probably get people to release by dropping it and being able to get them to say it and feel comfortable saying it. They drop the facade that they have and they start getting real.
Lisa Cherney: Yes, yes, yes. And I love that you put those two things together because it is such a vivid illumination of the power of colorful language. It’s such a beautiful testimony to the space that you could hold for people that you did back then, and that you do now on your show. And I have had women, particularly women, talk about the liberation of using the word, and the sort of empowerment of the word, and them creating a new relationship to the word is liberating. That there may be some negative association with the word. It could be, when they were growing up in a violent household, that was a word that was thrown around. And so they’ve always had this, I don’t like that word, don’t use that word, but now they can use the word and it could be about their own activation and their own power. So it’s quite an interesting sort of study of that word through this mission that I’m on.
“Creating a new relationship to the word is liberating.” - Lisa Cherney Click To TweetArt Costello: I was just thinking, when you were saying that my adverse reaction to the F bomb has always been, that it was not classy, that somebody who used it wasn’t educated. Of course I’m 72 so I come from a whole different generation. My father used to teach me and used to say, sugar will get you a lot more than spice and what you say matters. So I grew up with, but being in the Marine Corps where it is called for language was very, very clear. And it was done with a lot of intent, but I’ve always shied away from it. But boy, you’re changing my mind today, I mean, if you can help somebody become more authentic, real and let go of those inhibitions and those self-defeating patterns that they create, my goodness, what work you’re doing. I mean, it’s really powerful.
Lisa Cherney: I love that you’re having that illumination and adding the element of not being classy, and I know the show is about really unearthing where the origin of our beliefs and our stories. So it’s interesting, just that one word, we can have a whole show. On the story that we create around that word and to put on it a classification or a socioeconomic label. And of course, if our parents want us to make it better than they did or have more than they did, they’re going to give us rules and things to follow that have us, that they believe will help us create the life that they want us to have. And it’s interesting that language and speech can play into that.
Art Costello: Well, the other thing that was interesting when we started the show, you said that you were from New Jersey. I was born in New Jersey. You are? Where? That is so hysterical because I was born in Maurice County, which is just the County below where you are in Bergen County. And that’s funny, yeah. My husband often loves to joke about my Jerseyness and I got to add Jersey to everything Well, that’s what I was going to talk about because when I go back to New York City and I’m around New York, you hear the F bomb dropped a lot more than you do when I’m in California. It must be really interesting for you moving from New Jersey. But I was here in Texas in Austin and we had a neighbor that moved from New York City to Dripping Springs, Texas, where my ranch was. And my late wife was such a prim and proper San Diego girl. I mean, you did not drop the F bomb. I mean, everything was prim and proper. Well, this lady from New York moved in down the street and her and her husband walked up to introduce themselves, and we walked out to meet, and then we brought him in our house. Every other word out of her mouth was the F-bomb. Do you know my wife never talked to her again? They were wonderful people. And I tried to explain to her, I said, some parts of the country, it’s part of the vernacular and it’s how they are. Don’t judge, they’re very fine people, they were great and all that, but she couldn’t get over it. She had a very difficult time ever getting over anything that was done that she did not think was prim and proper. It comes from her pure terror from her father who would not let her sit down cross-legged in pants or any outfit in their living room. I mean, yeah, it was pretty wild. So anyway, I did want to get off on that. But it was interesting because we do have certain parts of the country where I think, because of the population, we just raised differently, there’s just different ways. From the Northeastern, to the Southern, to the Western, to the mountain country and all that. The important thing I think is not to judge, not to judge.
Lisa Cherney: I agree.
Art Costello: You got to see through all the facade sometimes to get to the real person. Because oftentimes, they’re hurting. Oftentimes, they’re happy and it’s for us to just tap into what they are at the moment. Live it and be there for them no matter what. I mean, that’s what friendships are about. That’s what relationships are about and all that.
Lisa Cherney: Yeah, I totally agree. It’s something that I talked to my daughter about probably on a day to day basis to keep her mind open when she’s having certain interactions, whether it’s with a teacher that she’s not happy with, or a peer, or a coach to why didn’t her scope of, Oh, they’re mean, they’re nice, they’re cranky, whatever it is to people, and they’re having an experience, and to give context. And of course, this is giving herself love so she could, if she could be allowing and appreciating of other people’s circumstances and experiences. And my experience, I believe that that breeds self love and self-acceptance.
“Allowing and appreciating other people's circumstances and experiences… breeds self-love and self-acceptance.” - Lisa Cherney Click To TweetArt Costello: Yes, powerful. I’m glad that you’re able to teach your daughter. I tried to teach my granddaughters, I have four granddaughters and I’m trying to teach them all that. This social media and all the different things. The tech talks, the things that you see now that are just so, I don’t even want to say. I mean, they just don’t make sense sometimes.
Lisa Cherney: It’s a very limited moment with no context, really.
Art Costello: And there’s no filter. I mean, there’s no context to it. Some of it’s just video for shock value, but anyway, that’s a whole another thing.
Lisa Cherney: We need to do another show.
Art Costello: We could do three or four shows. Tell us about, we’ve got into a little bit about how you help clients. But what are some of the obstacles that you do see that you do see from them? What do you think the major one is, for people that are very successful, what stops them from going that one step up, or the two steps up, or the three steps up. Is there something that really, really resonates with you that you see more often than not?
Lisa Cherney: It’s such a great question. The gift of birthing GFR and dropping into the distinction of the 12 GFR commandments was, for me, to distill the answer to that very question and my experience over the last 20 years. So there’s 12 ways, and these are not contrived like, Oh, I didn’t need a lead magnet that I could put out there. And I just came up with this stuff. This was like, before I even had GFR distinguished, I was like journaling and I was asking myself, how do you help people? What are the problems you’re solving? And all the things we ask ourselves when we’re trying to distinguish a new offering, or brand, or whatever you want to call it. And these 12 things materialized. And then for each of the 12 things, I’m a trainer, I’m always like, how do I get people to get something? So I created a question for each of them that had people, if they can ask themselves that question, it will help illuminate like, is that commandment, that’s what they’re called now, the one that’s getting in their way. So there’s 12 of these things, Are.
Art Costello: Can you share them?
Lisa Cherney: Yeah, I will definitely share. I want to answer your question so I’m dropping into the one I want to share most right in this moment that I think that it’s one of the key ones that gets people in the way. And since we’re talking about the F word and all that, this is the one that I want to share. It’s commandment, it’s GFR commandment number three. And so there’s a commandment and then a confession question that’s sort of about that commandment. So the commandment is, don’t worry about being normal, proper or polite. And the confession question so your listeners could see if like, Oh, is that my commandment that’s going to give me the breakthrough? The confession question is, where am I not speaking my truth? Where am I not speaking my truth? So I find that the idea of people not speaking their truth is so critical for the mission based business owner. So let me just talk about the sort of the plight of the mission based business owner that makes them unique. One of the key characteristics is it’s personality. They’re a coach, they’re a trainer, they’re therapists, they’re doctors, they’re an attorney, they’re a realtor. But like the thing that they’re putting out there that they’re receiving money for is like a part of themselves. It’s part of their heart.
It’s like something they’re called to do, and it’s their own special twist on it, and they’re taking the risk to put it out there as such. So when it’s rejected, or it’s slowed down, or stalled, it just feels so personal. And I think our spirits are our business as a mission driven business or is a spiritual journey, it is a spiritual path to enlighten you through your business. And I’ll say we, because I’m that person too, when we’re not speaking our truth and we’re worrying about being normal and proper, which you’re talking about, or even polite, we’re really trying to appeal to the masses in some way and worried about pissing someone off. Like we are not speaking our truth. So therefore, we’re watering down, diminishing, graying out, blurring out, really diluting the thing that we’re supposed to be saying. The thing that we’re supposed to be holding space for, the thing that we’re supposed to be ballsy about in our own way. And I think that, to me, is the thing that blocks money, that blocks impact. It just blocks it that’s why I was talking about the people that I’m most up for working with right now, realize, damn, I’m the thing that’s in my own way, I bought all the things, that I have all the things, and I know all the things, and I ain’t using it, I don’t know why. And so they’re up for that exploration, I like to call the GFR commandments, the roadmap for getting real. So number three is a real juicy one,
Art Costello: It resonates with me. I mean, it really did. I had read some of your website and some of your info, and I had seen it, or had already, heard already, touched me. But one of the things that I was just thinking about was, I write a lot about expectations. My book is Expectation Therapy and all those kinds of things. What role do you think expectations play in people’s reluctance to be who they are?
Lisa Cherney: What role does expectation take in, can you say it again?
Art Costello: What role do expectations in people in revealing their truth? Because I have such a unique take on expectations and how they affect us. Yours may be different, much different than mine is.
Lisa Cherney: Yeah. So I would insert the word story for expectation. So what is their story about how something is supposed to go? And when they feel like, when they are projecting into the future about how they think something should go, they also have a story about, well, if I do this, then that’s going to happen. And if I do that, then that’s going to happen. And then maybe if I do this, that’s going to happen. And oftentimes it has to do with worrying about what people think.
Art Costello: I want to give you a different perspective to use because you will find this very useful. I think in your work, my theory on expectation is that God planted the seed of that expectation. Every man, woman and child, it is solely ours. No one could take it from us. We own it. We live it. The trouble is we let other people’s expectations start to develop and form our expectations instead of living to our core expectations. So one of the first things that I think that will help you is get people to identify their core expectations. Because once you do that, and you own them, and you live them, no one can touch my three are, our love, compassion and integrity. Those are my three core expectations. They rule my life. You cannot blow me off of anything with even dynamite or a bullet. I will take a bullet for my expectations. I do not compromise them. I have lived the happiest life in the world because I have done that since I was nine years old. Because when I was nine, I was abandoned and had no one to tell me how to live my life, I had to figure it out on my own. And what I figured out was I am in control of my destiny, my future and my world. And the way that I did it was that I had core expectations that I was going to live to. And things that happened around me were not for me, or the things that were happening to me were not happening to me, they were happening for me. They were all meant to teach me lessons. And that’s how my life has always gone. And I’ve done everything I’ve ever wanted. I’ve been in the entertainment business, I played minor league baseball. I mean, I’ve done everything that I’ve ever wanted in my life because I lived to these core expectations and I always know that everything’s going to always work out. It always does it, you just have to live it.
Lisa Cherney: Where did you get that idea when you’re age nine?
Art Costello: It’s funny you should ask. I was so lonely and abandoned that I used to go up to a hill next to our farm. And this farm was, we had no running water. We had no indoor plumbing, and had an outhouse. We just barely had electricity. It was so filthy and that you wouldn’t want to live in it. The house that we lived in in New Jersey before we moved to Upstate New York was a beautiful place at New Milford, New Jersey at 447 right-side Avenue. I remember it was a gorgeous home, beautiful, had everything, and my parents decided to move to this farm and it left me so abandoned. They actually split for a while and everything. But what happened was I was so lost and so depressed that I would go to this hilltop and lay on my back, I would ask God, what is going to become of me. I wanted to know what was going to become of me. Made this journey many, many times. Finally, one day I was laying on my back and I heard this voice deep inside of me that just said: “Your job is just to do, just to be faithful, just to be who you are.” And I made that journey so many times and listened to that voice that it became so ingrained in me that I started figuring it out that it was my expectations that mattered, not what other people. Because where we were was in such a bad place, because the people in the town where we lived were so cruel, the teachers were cruel. I mean, we were considered white trash. We were just considered white trash and it left me with such bad feelings. And I was not, I knew I was better. I knew all of these things, that there was something, some greatness waiting for me somewhere and I just had the limit. So I mean, that’s basically how the story went.
Lisa Cherney: It’s an amazing story. And it’s so self-propagating that it’s unusual for it not to be an external influence, but for it to be something that bubbled up from inside you, or God or whatever your belief is around that. And that you listened, that bubbled up and that you listened.
Art Costello: I had no one else to listen to. I had no one else that I had to learn to trust myself. I was literally forced into taking care of myself and my sister, my little sister, because my concern was for her and myself. I learned, and I think that’s how I became so compassionate for people. Everything I’ve done in my life has compassion for other people. One of my core expectations is compassion. It just works out. It’s funny. It’s so ironic that what we expect actually manifests itself in our lives and that’s the power of expectation. And that’s why when people will identify their core expectations and they will be so solid in them, it is absolutely life changing. And it’s so simple. There is nothing vastly spiritual about it, it is just simple. But you know, we tend to not want simplicity anymore. We are too complicated like, we’ve got to have all these complicated answers when sometimes the answer is in the simplicity of it. The other part of it for me is I believe in fundamentals. If you want to build a house, you have to have a great foundation. If you want to build a spiritual life, you have to have a great foundation. If you want to build a great business, you have to have a great business foundation. And our expectations are at the foundation of who we are. That’s why when we’re at New Media Summit, I end our spiel there with, everything starts and stops with an expectation. Because I will challenge you to tell me one thing you do that does not start or stop with an expectation. It’s the catapult for our growth as human beings is our expectations. That’s why the caveman was able to survive all of those eons of time in conditions that we would never think of. And why we’re going to survive as a nuclear man, because we adapt. Our expectations are limitless. They are bound in this creativity that is just incredible, and we just stop fighting it and just go with it. Be who you are and your life will just blossom.
Lisa Cherney: Amen. Amen, and you, my friend, we’re just–
Art Costello: I sure was, sorry.
Lisa Cherney: Which is no, no, no, okay. So that’s sorry, so let’s just look at that sorry. I actually teach, when I talk about GFR Commandment, number three, don’t worry about not being normal, proper, polite. I teach you, you need to be on your soapbox, which is your fire in your belly about the thing that you know to be true, that you’re here on this planet to help people with. If you are not on your soapbox, you are not tapping into that super power that you have that makes you unique as a mission, purpose driven person. So you, my friend, I loved that I was lighting up because you were on your soapbox apologetically. And then as soon as I called it a soapbox and you said, sorry, that’s bullshit.
“Be who you are and your life will blossom.” - Art Costello Click To TweetArt Costello: I don’t want to steal your time.
Lisa Cherney: Oh, no, no. Well, I’ve already gotten an idea that I need to air this interview on my podcast. So like now, I feel like we’re both sharing and it just feels such a beautiful co-creation. I think this in and of itself, even though you’re supposed to be interviewing me, could be on my podcast, I just love it. I love what you’re, and I love that you have taken that nine-year-old, the clarity that that nine-year-old had, that that nine-year-old lived and that saved your sister’s life. And then went to be a man, and go into the military and do all the things that you’ve done. I love that you have been able to distill it down to something as simple and foundational as expectations.
Art Costello: I came to fruition for me, when Vicky passed away on September 16th, 2006, I fell apart. I fell apart again. I was that little nine year old moss lonely boy. And after about a year and a half, two years of drinking and being foolish, trying to bury grief and all that stuff, my kids came to me and said: “Dad, you promised mom you weren’t going to do this.”
Lisa Cherney: Wow.
Art Costello: You know what I did? I went out onto the lawn of the ranch at 2:00 o’clock in the morning and laid on my back. I looked into the sky and I asked God what was going to become a me, again. And I heard the voice and it said: “Listen buddy, I’ve given you all the tools. You just need to use them.” And do you know that those words reinvigorated me? And that’s how everything became with Expectation Therapy and the work that I do now. Even though I had been working in the psychology field, and did everything I wanted on the construction company, I did all these things, it brought me full circle to what God’s purpose was for me, to change people’s lives. And really that’s the mission. That’s the mission that I’m on, I believe that we all have to see the expectation and this. And once we learn how to master it and learn how to manage it, I believe that we should teach every child in school how to manage their expectations. Where does all anxiety and stress come from? Unmet expectations. You want your husband to take out the trash, he doesn’t do it. You want your kids to park the car in the driveway to the left side, they don’t do it. You want them to be home at midnight, they don’t do it. I mean, there’s any number of things that you can imagine that are unmet expectations when they keep mounting, and mounting, and mounting, and we don’t know how to manage those expectations. That’s when we go awry. And then what happens is once you have all this anxiety and stress, we chemically start to break down in our brain. And when we break down chemically in our brain, then the control is almost out of our hands because it’s very difficult to go back and recreate those chemicals in our brain. The serotonins, and then melatonins, and all the different things that are affected by stress and anxiety. But it’s very basic, it’s very basic.
But once we teach children how to manage their expectations, their disappointment will be managed because it becomes, what happens when your parents don’t do what you want them to do? What happens when your teachers don’t? What happens when your friends don’t do it in your schools? And then what happens if somebody on social media says you’re fat and ugly? You either have the choice to believe it, or not believe it, or manage it, and figure out what it is, but you’ve got to do something. If it overcomes you and you start letting it affect you, by what I call collective diminished expectations. Collective diminished expectations are what governments, churches, advertisers use to control the masses. Because once you have control of the masses expectations, you control the masses. We’re seeing it right now in the political arena with all of the stuff that’s going on. Instead of doing what’s right in the country, we’re arguing about all this political stuff. And I mean, there’s all kinds of different ways to look at it but they’re trying to manipulate us, both sides, I’m not talking about one or the other. Instead of doing what’s right, what is politically right for this country? What is constitutionally right? I get often asked, isn’t what you teach very selfish? And I say, no, what it is is self care.
Lisa Cherney: I totally agree. And that’s one of my core values of self care and self love.
Art Costello: If you can’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else.
Lisa Cherney: Exactly. It’s got to start, talk about foundation, if you can’t love yourself.
Art Costello: That’s what it’s all about.
Lisa Cherney: Yeah. And thank you for sharing about your journey that happened after Vicky passed because it really illuminates one of the core distinctions and that’s something that I highlight in my GFR Podcast is what I call the GFR wormhole, which is the journey that [inaudible] driven entrepreneur takes to uplevel their business or their mission through their own personal experience. So it’s that struggle that serves a purpose. And so all of your struggles served a purpose for you to do all the minor league baseball, entertainment, construction, Marine Corps, mental health counselor, I’ve been writing them all down, I’m in such awe, it took you through that whole journey. I could totally see how the confrontation of your own expectations with your wife’s passing. I mean, that’s so, it kind of rocked you to your core. To re-imagine the value of expectations around your life, death is so powerful. And then for two years, integrating and sort of avoiding the next level of your mission, thank God your kids confronted you. And now, here you are, renewed passion, and bigger, and a soap box that’s taller, it’s just beautiful.
Art Costello: Thank you. I just think it’s part of my journey. It’s evolution. You talked about how we evolve and it’s part of the evolutionary process that we all go through. What always intrigues me is–
Lisa Cherney: And there’s a commandment for that, trust that your struggle serves your mission.
“Trust that your struggles serve your mission.” - Lisa Cherney Click To TweetArt Costello: Oh, wow. That’s beautiful. What really bothers me is that people, I get very distressed when people don’t live their truth. I go out and not talk to our man that comes by, and the garbage truck and everything. And at Christmas time, I bring them cookies and stuff like that, used to leave them a 12 pack of beer but don’t do that anymore because I don’t want to encourage it. I give him cookies now. But he always says to me, he says: “Your kindness is always just so great., You just treat me with more respect than anybody that I’ve ever had in my whole 18 years of doing this job.” And I said: “This is because you’re valuable. I said this because I do value you.” And he said something to me the other day about it. He said: “You said that you value me and that meant the world. But you know what? I value you.” And I said: “See? See how it works. I value you, you value me. That’s the way the world is supposed to work. As long as you’re doing what you want to do, and you’re happy and you’re fulfilled by what you’re doing, I have no problems with it. What would bother me is if you wanted to be a doctor and you were sitting in this truck.” And he said: “Well, I never had that encouragement.” And I said: “Start thinking about what you want to be when you retire from this.” Because if you’ve done 18 years of it, you’re getting near your retirement with the city and all that. I said: “Think about the things that you want to do.” And I’ve got them thinking, I’ve got them thinking.
Lisa Cherney: That’s awesome. I love that. What a blessing you are. You’re that neighbor.
Art Costello: I just want people to know. It’s not just him, it’s everybody I come in contact with.
Lisa Cherney: Well, you’re an extraordinary person to take that level of mindful connection with the people around you.
Art Costello: Well, I want to support them because I want you to know, because I’ve done everything. Being 72, I can honestly look back at my life and say, I’ve done everything that I’ve wanted to do because I do what I want to do. I don’t let it stop me. Nothing’s ever stopped me. Yeah, I can’t go out today and be a catcher on the Dodgers or anything like that, you know what I mean? Physically, my strength is probably not where it was and I couldn’t compete. I mean, I could still play baseball, but I want people to know that they can be who they’re meant to be. It’s identifying it, and learning, and thinking about who it is, and then don’t let anybody stop you from your journey.
Lisa Cherney: Yes. I think that’s where we have such a core commonality in our mission. You know, that’s what the GFR movement is about. Wake up and let’s get real about why you ain’t doing the things you really want to be doing and how you’re in your own way. Commandment 12 is find where you are holding yourself back and do whatever it takes to get out of your own way. To me, if there was just one that would be the one, because it is really holding space for people for that transformation. I have a group called the GFR Squad and it’s 20 bucks or 200 for the year, it’s just a little skin in the game to have you show up. We do a monthly confession call where we talk about one of the commandments that month and some people just listen and some people confess. Like I just wanted to have something, Art, that anybody could do. Like anybody could do 20 bucks a month, nearly anybody could do 20 bucks a month. And it’s a way to say, you know what? I’m up for it. Like I’m ready. I see that there’s stuff in the way, and it’s slowing me down and it’s not just about not knowing the perfect marketing strategy. Like, it is me in some way. So the GFR Squad is, that’s what that’s for. In addition to the monthly call, there’s a bunch of other benefits you get to see the videos, my water bottle, like this is a new business model for me to have this, the marketers would call a low end membership. I don’t care what you call it, or what the strategy is, or how hard supposedly it is. I know that my people come in and they don’t leave whatever that, funny, I’m a marketer, there’s like a roach trap. It’s like a Roach Motel, they check in but they don’t check out. I mean, the GFR Squad is really, it’s because the people let their hair down and it’s not about putting up airs, and it’s not about being all shiny and bright, it is about being real and having real conversations. So I’m right with ‘ya, Art. I don’t know that I have different ways of going about it. I wouldn’t necessarily feel called to talk to the people that collect my garbage and I’m really checking myself about that. I do feel like I smile and connect with way more people than most people do. And about my day in a very authentic and present way, and you definitely, I feel like go the extra mile, perhaps I go the extra mile and other ways, I’m sure I go the extra mile and other ways with the mission based folks that I–
“Find where you are holding yourself back and do whatever it takes to get out of your own way.” - Lisa Cherney Click To TweetArt Costello: We’re all different. We’re all different and that’s the beauty of it. Because you don’t, if we were all like me, it would be really, I mean, you’d see people going–
Lisa Cherney: It will take forever for the garbage people to get the job done.
Art Costello: Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of things. But that’s what is so great about it, we are unique and we are who we are. That’s the idea about living authentically, living to who you are is what is important. We’re getting near the end of our time, unfortunately, and it went so fast. But we’re going to do it again, I can tell. I want you to be able to tell the audience about where they could get a hold of you, how they can get a hold of you, tell us all the things you’re doing and take as long as you want.
“We are unique and we are who we are… Living to who you are is what is important.” - Art Costello Click To TweetLisa Cherney: Thank you. So we’ve talked about so much of it. So now it’s just how could they do it too. So we talked about the GFR commandments and we’ve talked about two, or three, or four of them. I want you to be able to get your own copy so you would go to gfr.life/12c, as in one, two, and then the letter C for commandments. And it’s this cool, colorful thing to print out, and I call it the roadmap for Getting Real. It’s super fun so go get your copy. See which one, it’s not about doing all 12 y’all overachievers, it’s reading the confession questions and seeing which ones lands with a thunk between your eyes. And that’s the one that I could probably give you the biggest, like a very surprising breakthrough in the shortest period of time. So gfr.life/12c for the commandments. And then for that GFR Squad that I talked about that easy entry thing, gfr.life/squad, S-Q-U-A-D, and we’d love for you to join me over there. It’s where GFR on a day to day basis, like I show my underbelly and I love having a smaller community in this conversation with me, so gfr.life/squad. And then the podcast, my podcast, if you want to hear other wormholes stories kind of similar in spirit to what Art was sharing about just that one phase of what after Vicky passed away, and sort of what he went through, and then how it created his expectation work. We have story after story of people that have really struggled jail addiction, debt, trying to commit suicide, all of that all on purpose, all in service of their mission and extraordinary stories. And then you get to hear the mess, but then you get to hear the purpose of the mess. One gentleman, I love this example because it’s so straightforward where his wife passed away suddenly and he thought he was prepared because he’s a finance guy and you might’ve met him at the New Media Summit as well. He realized after she passed suddenly and he confesses on my show, really what happened and how she died. He realized he wasn’t prepared. He has a business now called Prepared Fathers, and that would not have happened any other way, other than him going through that, really struggle, that’s experience. So the podcast is about inspiration, fuel to keep you going and it is about to know that your struggle has a purpose. So if you’re needing any of that, please look up the Get F***ing Real Show in any of the podcasts places, Spotify, Apple, all the things, and get your commandments and join us in the squad. And then we would get to play together.
Art Costello: Lisa, I want to thank you for being on the show. I’m going to encourage my audience, all this information will be in the show notes and we’ll put them out to you so that you can contact Lisa and get real with her, that’s what it’s all about. Again, Lisa, thank you. I’m honored that you have been on the show. It’s really been a pleasure, I’ve really enjoyed it and we’ll do it again. We got to do it again.
Lisa Cherney: We gotta do it again. It’s been a blast, thank you so much.
Art Costello: Heather White, go ahead and take us out of here and we are done for today. Thank you everybody for being on the show.
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