“All it takes to be in action around a commitment is just the decision to do so.”-Jamie Damsker
Commitment. What is it? What does it mean to be fully committed? This is just one piece of this mind blowing episode. Jamie Damsker is an exquisite guest. He and Shirley will have your mind creating all kinds of possibilities, not only for this new year, but for each and every day moving forward. Don’t miss this one!
Highlights:
02:35 Thoughts For The New Year
10:22 A Powerful Creator and Leader
13:13 What It Really Means To Be 100% Committed
23:46 What Makes Commitment Hard and How To Make It Easy
29:05 Thought-Creating Machines
32:04 Why Don’t Most People Get What They Want?
35:11 Forward Thinking
40:25 No Regrets
Tweets:
Why do many people fail to get what they want?- Because they think they can’t. Join @SfbaldwinOwens and @jdamsker on how to #getwhatyouwant #breakyourthoughts #becommitted #movetoaction #livewithnoregrets
Quotes:
07:15 “When there is this deadline, people feel that if they miss it, then they can't start…” -Shirley Owens
13:32 “When we're committed to something... 100% committed. It means we do what's required.” -Jamie Damsker
21:50 “Not every commitment has to be an incredibly hard, life-shattering or life-changing thing. It's even the more mundane ones, but you start stacking them up.” -Jamie Damsker
35:51 “If you can break (your thoughts), at least start to question, you can create outcomes in your life that are at times bigger and bolder than you even dare to imagine.” -Jamie Damsker
37:28 “Commitment to something creates possibilities that you likely can't describe now because if you're describing them now, they're likely within the constraints that you're living within.” -Jamie Damsker
37:44 “If you're open to possibilities, and you're committed, you just might discover what you don't even know yet. And there's a lot that goes into that and it takes commitment to do that.” -Jamie Damsker
39:13 “All it takes to be in action around a commitment is just the decision to do so.”-Jamie Damsker
Connect With jamie:
Jamie Damskeris a Public Speaker and Leadership Coach. His professional life began with a distinguished career as a US Air Force Military Officer and Aviator Fighter in aircraft. Upon leaving the military, he found opportunities to make profound impacts on technology, deployment and strategic consulting for clients in both the public and private sectors. Jamie has led men and women in combat, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross as well as other awards. He helped build consulting verticals into multimillion-dollar businesses and facilitated international corporate acquisitions. Jamie left that behind when he came to realize his true passions are public speaking and coaching. He enjoys creating laughter and insights in public speaking engagements and in a more intimate coaching relationship helping clients live into their own dreams.
Transcriptions
Shirley Owens: My guest today is Jamie Damsker. Jamie Damsker is a public speaker and leadership coach. His professional life began with a distinguished career as a US Air Force military officer and aviator in fighter aircraft. Upon leaving the military, he found opportunities to make profound impacts in technology deployment and strategic consulting for clients in both the public and private sectors. Jamie has led men and women in combat earning the Distinguished Flying Cross as well as other awards. He helped build consulting verticals into multi-million dollar businesses and facilitated international corporate acquisitions. Jamie left behind when he came to realize his true passions are public speaking and coaching. He enjoys creating laughter and insights in public speaking engagements and, in a more intimate coaching relationship, helping clients live into their own dreams. Welcome Jamie.
Jamie Damsker: Thank you. I appreciate it, Shirley.
Shirley Owens: So you and I know each other, and I met you, I don't know, it's been a couple years ago when you actually were a personal coach for my husband Jeff, and I have grown to love and respect you so much since then. So I'm super excited for you to be here today, not only to share who you are with my listeners, but also because I know you have so much invaluable insight and I would love for people to be able to have access to you.
Jamie Damsker: I appreciate that. Thank you Shirley, it's an honor to be here with you.
Shirley Owens: So we're starting a new year and I know you have some insight wrapped around that. I'd love for you to just kind of open up, I want to let you lead a little bit today. I usually lead my conversations, but you're amazing, and I want to let you talk as much as you can. So if you don't mind starting with the new year and maybe some thoughts wrapped around that.
Jamie Damsker: Sure. And I appreciate that. And what occurs to me is to say, I know what you want me to speak about and I will, and that sort of starts us in the middle. So we may have to do a little kind of unwinding of that and we can do that, but I just wanted to share that with you and your listeners. What you're referring to is my comment about as we approached the new year, and happy new year, by the way, and this happens every year by the way, there is a greater and greater onslaught messaging wise. Usually social media is the most of these messages that say, Hey, the new year is coming, here's that milestone, January 1st, 2020 to turn over a new leaf, or create the thing you always wanted, or be the person you always want to be. Inspiring, no doubt. And then of course with it being the new decade that was piled on top, it's not just new year, it's a new decade. And just being bombarded with that, it occurred to me that while the people who are sharing that message do so from truly a good place, they really want to help people, it occurred to me Shirley that that is a double edged sword. And what I mean is, it's great to have a milestone, a place to come from. But the other side is, and this is where we're going to have to unwind it a bit, the idea of these societal milestones, like a new year, or fill in the blank, your birthday, Christmas, what have you, it reinforces this structure that's in place that can also be very constraining. And what I mean by that is, if all your focus is on these big dates that everyone around you tells you must be a big date and that's when you have to do something, what's your experience with the other 364 days of the year? Why is May 7th insignificant, right? Or October 15th, or what have you. So it just had me ponder, just what is the cost? And then to add on top of it, what if you missed it? Like, I want to pause and say there's nothing wrong with our construct, right? I want to know what day of the week it is? I want to know that if I want to go to Chick-fil-A, better make sure it's not Sunday. Or if I want to go call a friend, I want to make sure it's not 3:00 AM where they live.
So there's a lot of usefulness to structure. I want to know when you get paid, or when you're expected to be at work. So I don't want anyone to hear it. You need to just be out there and total chaos. There's incredible utility in the structure we have in place, and most of us, if not almost all of us go all in with that. So much so that we just don't see ourselves stepping outside of that. And what happens if on January 3rd, you didn't do the thing that you got all geared up to do through the month of December because of all of these great means, and what you set yourself up is 2020 now awash. And then the guilt that comes with it, like, I don't understand how or why we continually drive ourselves to that knife edge where it's either going to happen or not. And for some people, it's works great, and I applaud them. Came January 1st, they completely altered something in their life, and I want to tell you that it's the rare person who that works with. It's just not how our brains work. We don't operate from a place of we get motivated, or we read something, or we just psych ourselves up. It's something bigger than that, and that that kinda goes into neuroscience, which is really foundational to both my public speaking and my coaching. So I'm going to pause there, take a breath, and ask if you've got any questions about that, or what you would want me to expound upon.
Shirley Owens: Well, not really. I guess I do, there has been all this confusion, and I've had a little bit of that too with, you know, half of the world's saying, start today, it's new year. Like, hurry, hurry. And I get that because then all of a sudden everyone is panicking like, it's January 13th, I haven't done anything yet. Is it all a loss like you're saying? And then the other part, I see a lot of people say that resolutions, and goals, and all of that is just out the door and there shouldn't be anything. So I feel like there's this, I'm kind of like, well, I'm setting goals, I'm resolving to commit to do whatever it takes to reach those goals, whatever. But like you said, I feel like I do that all the time anyway. And I think that when there is this deadline, people feel that if they miss it then they can't start in February, or in June, or so. Yeah, I've noticed that.
“When there is this deadline, people feel that if they miss it, then they can't start…” -Shirley Owens
Jamie Damsker: No, I agree with that. And the bigger question I would ask is, what had them not do it up to this point, and thinking that a significant, supposedly significant calendar date is going to alter something to now make it happen. That's where I would, if I was in a conversation with someone and we're talking about what they want to create in their lives, and what they say they're committed to, I'd want to look at, what doesn't have them in action today. Like, why isn't December 28th the perfect day to start if that's when you declare you're committed to it, you know? And the last illustration I'll give of this would be, and this one sounds rather cliche because it's used all the time, you know, look at the gym, the first two weeks of January, right? All the resolutions, it's packed, the diet food flies off the shelf, because the resolutions to get in shape, and then go and check on those same people in March, and April, and may, right? And I think you know where I'm going with that,
Shirley Owens: Right. And I also see people stuffing their faces and being lazy all through December saying, well, I'm going to start on January 1st. So they're kind of like going backwards instead of even, with the thought of going forwards or going backwards first. I have seen that a lot.
Jamie Damsker: Right. And yeah, anytime you look outside of yourself for inspiration, and in this case we're talking about outside of yourself to the calendar, or it could be outside of yourself to a motivational speaker, or outside of yourself to even, even a spouse with the best of intentions, when it's outside of you, I'm going to bet against you every time. And I don't say that to be negative, I say that because that's just the reality of it. Our brains operate from a place of habits and patterns, and we always go back to our status quo. Now you can change that, and we can talk a little about how you can do it, but it's not going to change because of something outside of you. never. It could be temporary, you may get some uptick or some incremental change, but normally, we wind up going back to our status quo. And that's why the gym is empty on March 2nd.
Shirley Owens: Yeah. So I get that because my favorite subject and the thing that I always talk about is how, like in my book, Get What You Want from a Man, we talk about who I'm being, looking within myself helps me to be able to create that relationship, right? And so, and I know that my work and your work is similar, so I'd love for you to, I am a guest, I'm somebody that just heard about you and I'm meeting you for the first time, who is Jamie Damsker? What do you do?
Jamie Damsker: Fair enough. So my profession is, I'm a leadership and performance coach, and I'm a public speaker. And specifically on the coaching front, I've worked with corporate leaders, I've worked with people in the medical profession, entrepreneurs, military folks, marketers really runs the gamut, really anyone who is committed to transforming their life. And I'm fond of saying getting out of their own way because there's no one else in it. So that's what I do as a coach. And then my speaking is perfectly aligned with that. I speak about leadership, and performance, and influence, and change, and collaboration. And it's underpinned by neuroscience, and it's interactive and a very funny talk that I give. And the idea there is in the hour or so that I'm with a group of people just to, first of all, you know, give, show them an entertaining time because I want people to be entertained, but more importantly leave them with some insights that they likely haven't thought about how our brain works, why we do what we do, and why we don't do what we don't do. And when we can be awake to that Shirley, because it's not going away, your brain is going to be there. It really gives us access to making those changes that I was alluding to before that are not fleeting like the resolutions that we do. So that's what I do professionally. And I would say, you know, who is Jamie Damsker? I'm a powerful creator and a powerful leader in the world, and I'm committed to helping others uncover their own capacity and see that in themselves.
Shirley Owens: I love it. And you're also a husband, you have the cutest dogs, and like, you're a person. And I love that you talk about helping people, I think one of my favorite words that I talk about a lot is awareness. And I think when we know, when we can understand what we're doing and why we're doing it, it creates an awareness, right? So what does it even mean to be committed to myself? What does that even mean? I have people ask me this, and I'm sure if I'm listening to you and I'm like, wow, I want to have all of this, what does it even mean, Jamie, to be committed to myself?
Jamie Damsker: Will you allow me to slightly alter your question?
Shirley Owens: For sure.
Jamie Damsker: Thank you. So the question that I see being useful is, what does it mean to be committed? What comes after the word committed to me isn't as interesting, and it's very specific to the individual. And you said committed to myself, and so if you'll allow me to do that, simply, when we're committed to something, 100% committed, it means we do what's required and that's it. There's no footnotes to that. And what I'd want to point out is there's also no fine print to that definition, how I hold the word committed, a very special word to me, and thank you for bringing it up. There's no asterisks that says, unless something gets in your way, or unless there's an obstacle, or unless someone else frowns upon it, like commitment and you feel it. You DNA, when you're committed to something, look, you're committed to a lot of things. I know some things about you, Shirley, and you're committed to having created this wonderful podcast, and there's likely lots of obstacles that gotten away from the time you had the thought to do it until today. And before we started our interview here, you shared a bit about your demographic of your listeners and how widespread globally they are. That's remarkable, not everyone has that success. So bring it back to the people I use as examples, and I don't judge it, the ones who go to the gym in January and they're gone on by Valentine's day. There's nothing wrong with that. But what I would tell anyone who scratches their head and says, I don't know why I can't keep up with it. It's really simple, you're not committed. I had a conversation with someone earlier today and we talked about commitment, and there's so much that happens in your life when you can gain clarity around not just what you're committed to but what you're NOT committed to. Because short of that, Shirley, what I find we wind up doing, we're highly inefficient in life and we're dancing with the things that just cross our path. Because we really haven't got clear with ourselves about what's important, what I'm committed to, what I'm not. So if nothing is important or a commitment, then everything becomes [inaudible]. And when everything becomes a commitment, you get comments like challenges with work/life balance, or I'm over committed, which by the way, I would challenge anyone to say who says that, no, you're not over committed, you're not committed.
“When we're committed to something... 100% committed. It means we do what's required.” -Jamie Damsker
Shirley Owens: Right.
Jamie Damsker: Because commitment comes with self-accountability. So maybe I can tie this into your question about what does it mean to be committed to myself? Well, committed to myself is just committed. Because the value to you, if you can get clear about your commitments, and even the priorities of your commitments, because sometimes, believe it or not, they can conflict with each other. Seven and a half billion people on this planet who, some of them you can count on are going to attempt even unintentionally to make a mess in your life. And that's where knowing what you're committed to, like it's that North Star in your life. And when you've got that? Man, it's like life is so easy. You can really show up as a leader in your life because that North Star is there. And by the way, it can change, there's no doubt about it. Your commitments can change, and that's okay too. You don't have to go down with the ship if things change in your life, and something falls out of favor with you, and something else comes in, I think that's critical. But when I'm committed, Shirley, there is NOTHING that gets in the way of me being an action to create the thing I'm committed to. And there's also no guarantee in life that you're going to create it.
Shirley Owens: Right.
Jamie Damsker: I could be committed right now to become an NBA basketball player, and look, I'm 5"5, and there have been 5"5, 5"6 professional basketball players as possible, a little bit younger than me, likely not going to happen. So maybe that's a silly example because I likely would make that as a commitment, but there are things I'm committed to that at some point, things get in the way that despite my incredible commitment to it, there are things that have just revisited, and how I experienced that is just as important to be a leader. So I got a little bit rangy on your question--
Shirley Owens: No, I like it. Yeah, I like it because this is a good example, I feel like, and correct me if I'm wrong. But a couple of years ago, I committed to be on the keto diet, and I didn't really know exactly what it was, and I made a commitment that day that I was going to go on it, and then I starved for the next 24 hours because I realized that I had nothing in my house that I could actually eat on this diet, true story. So it was late in the evening, I didn't, I can't remember why I couldn't get to the store, but I'm like, I'm committing, and Jeff would tell me: "You just need to eat, just eat tonight and start tomorrow." But I already committed so I can't, I'm just going to starve myself. So I literally went for like 20 hours without food. Really researched it during that time because I started something without knowing what it was. But I wasn't going to bring my commitment to myself. And I committed to that diet for a year and a half, and I didn't cheat one time, and I lost 14lbs. And everybody around me, I mean, granted I didn't have 40 pounds to lose, but everybody around me that had been on this diet just been losing like 35, 40, 50lbs, and I lost 14lbs, and I just never lost anything else. But I did not relent, I had set a date to where I would, I had hip surgery actually, the doctor said: "I don't recommend you being on this diet for this healing process." So I went off of it for that a year and a half later.
But during that time, what I did realize was I had better focus, and I had less bloating, and I had all these positive things that happened. But mostly, I would say I felt so much power inside myself that I said, I did not eat a speck of sugar for a year and a half, I did not go against myself. So I was sharing this with everybody, and I was saying to my friend, to my sister, to all these people who were really wanting to lose weight and that was one thing that they were wanting to do the this diet for. And I would tell them this is the greatest thing ever. You just do it, it's super easy. It's so easy, and they're like, Oh, I could never do that because I'm alone too much, I would cheat, I'd give in and just cheat on myself. Or somebody dropped off a loaf of bread and I would eat that. So there's all these excuses, right? Why they couldn't do it. And to me, in my head I was like, this is the easiest thing I've ever done. I just said I was going to do it and I did it, and it's so easy. But that year I wrote my book, I've done a ton of stuff in that time and it came from the power of that first commitment that was actually, when I look back it's probably is a pretty hard commitment for someone to give up. I loved food, food was my whole life, but I didn't want to, you know, it was very easily given up because I made that commitment to myself. And I hear so many people say, Oh, yeah, I did that once for a week or two. I committed to that once, and it's the same thing. It's like for me, and tell me if that's kind of what you're thinking. I didn't necessarily get the results that I thought I was going to get, but the power that came from me saying I was gonna do something, committing to myself, and I was the only person. It didn't matter who saw me. It didn't matter if I was home alone all day. There was no way I was going to go against that commitment to myself. And I literally starved myself for 20 hours because I was not going to go back and start on a different day. I started that very day, at that moment, and then figured out what it was I was committing to.
Jamie Damsker: That's awesome. That's a beautiful story, thank you for sharing. And yes, what you're also describing about the people around you, even your husband telling you, Oh, come on, just eat. Not only do you have to create the commitment inside of yourself, and at times that can be challenging. And not every commitment has to be some incredibly hard life shattering, or life changing thing, right? It's even the more mundane ones, but you start stacking them up, and you start to build that muscle in your brain. I'll say something else about that in just a moment from the neuroscientific side that you start to realize, you know what? When it comes to creating a commitment, I'm pretty invincible. And you stop looking for those excuses why you can't do it. And then what becomes even as challenging is the people around you. And it's normally the ones who you're closest to, your loved ones, unwittingly, they become the biggest external challenge to talk yourself out of a commitment. And I'll give you a quick example, so I do intermittent fasting, and so I don't eat breakfast. I haven't had breakfast since the day I committed to doing it, which is last year at some point. When the holidays came up and we had a lot of company in our house, and there was a plan on, I don't remember if it was christmas morning or new year's morning for a big breakfast, there was quite a few pleadings with me to, "Oh, just eat breakfast. Oh, come on, just eat be sociable." And I'm used to having this conversation with people, so I was actually smiling as I'm getting that from my family thinking, yeah, happens to me too. I didn't relent for the same reason you said, but think about if you're not 100% committed, you could do that.
“Not every commitment has to be an incredibly hard, life-shattering or life-changing thing. It's even the more mundane ones, but you start stacking them up.” -Jamie Damsker
I'm 99% committed, what I've really done is I've created a crack in my armor to always just this, whatever it happens to be can get in. And when you're 100% committed to something, there's just, it's airtight and it takes work to get there, there's no doubt about it. And what I would contribute to this conversation from why it's hard, why commitments are hard, and I tie that into why is change hard? We, at our oldest part of our brain, which is our reptile brain, we operate from a place of patterns and routines, and we always do that, that's what draws us back to our status quo. There's really only a couple things that are going to have us change that. One of them is passion, and I didn't say motivation, I said passion. And the second is pain, or trying to avoid pain. So a lot of times we change because the proverbial house is on fire and we can't stand it anymore, and that just triggers something, and next thing you know, boom, we've done it. And I've heard stories about someone who's been morbidly overweight, and for whatever reason, something happened in their life that gave them a reason to want to live a long life, and they couldn't deal with the pain of immobility and all that, and they just did it, like in the blink of an eye, they made the commitment done. Or like you, you're so passionate for your health, that doesn't matter how painful it was at first, you are committed to being on the keto diet and for as long as you did, I mean, it's remarkable, but those are all inside of you. As I said before, when we look outside of ourselves for the motivation, or the guidance, or whatever it happens to be, it's short lived. You can have accountability outside of yourself somewhat, but you still need it on the inside too.
Shirley Owens: So something that I do know about you is that you're really good at having people look inside themselves and pulling that out everything that we're talking about. And maybe you could just give me a little bit of somebody that doesn't know what commitment is. I know you just explained that, but now you've explained that to them and they're still saying, yeah, but how? And maybe you can go a little bit into the neuroscience. I love your speech, I've heard some of it, you have a video on your website that shows a lot of your personality and your intelligence, and that type of thing, I love it. But maybe kind of give an example of where do you start with somebody, because a lot of listeners, and a lot of people come to me and they're like, I get all this information. I love all this information, but where do I start? And it may even be the question that I ask at the end that you could even go into right now, and that is, everybody who's listening today, is there something or somewhere that you would have them start. And you can decide to wait until the end to tell that, or you could tell me where you would start with a client that just calls you on the phone because they heard this, and they just want to know where do you even start to figure out like, it's easy for you and I to commit to ourselves because we work that muscle, right? We know how to do it now, and we know how powerful it feels, and how beautiful it feel and you're like, Oh, my gosh, how could anyone not want to do this? But somebody who's living in their default mind and in their default mode, what is it that you have, because I know you have it, I've watched it work, that help somebody to see that within themselves, that they actually do have that power and that ability to create that.
Jamie Damsker: So we have an hour and a half, right?
Shirley Owens: I know, I know, I wish we could talk for three hours but time goes by so fast. Something quick, something simple.
Jamie Damsker: Right. So I feel like I have an advantage when I'm with another human being, and that is, I know the person across from me regardless of how they experience themselves, has an unlimited capacity to be a powerful creator in this world.
Shirley Owens: Yeah.
Jamie Damsker: I mean, an unlimited capacity to create really whatever they want. And so, you know, the natural question there may be, well how do I see that in myself if you see it in me? Right? And so, that's part of my work is helping someone see that in themselves. And then how you can be out in the world with other people? But the place that I would start looking, and this is a statement, not a question, your thoughts aren't real. Shirley, we have between 30,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day, we're thought creating machines. And I want you to know that that'll never change, it's just what our brain does. It creates these thoughts, and we have been conditioned to believe them. This running monologue that goes on in your head, it's exhausting because with rare exception, we believe it all, right? We believe the good, we believe the bad, we believe the doubts. Well, what percentage of those thoughts do you think really useful to you as it relates to creating what you want in the world?
Shirley Owens: Is that a question for me?
Jamie Damsker: Yeah. Take a guess. Of those 30,000, 60,000, what percentage do you think is useful?
Shirley Owens: I would say 3%.
Jamie Damsker: Oh, you must've read my notes, that's right. In the ballpark, it's less than 5%. So you've got nearly 95% of your thoughts are absolutely not useful as it relates to you looking to create whatever you want to create in your life. And yet we believe them. In fact, if you think about the ratio of 95 to 5, the goodness, the good ones, so to speak, the useful ones, they are buried under an avalanche of the non useful. The self doubt, I don't matter in all that. So the work that I do with people is let's at least explore the possibility, like no one who's listening right now has to believe this. I'm not trying to convince anyone, but I hold it out as an accurate statement as it relates to creating an experience of your life that's beyond what you can imagine is to appreciate that YOUR THOUGHTS AREN'T REAL. And then your thoughts create the emotions to go with it, They're not real. If I can come from that place, Shirley, they're still gonna be there, but it can allow me to let them come by, they're there. The thoughts are there, like, I'm not good enough to do this. There's no way I'm ever going to become a public speaker as an example. And I can show you evidence to support that.
Shirley Owens: Right.
Jamie Damsker: And if I don't have the evidence inside of me, I promise you I can find someone. For whatever baggage they're carrying, whatever reasons they have, are going to make sure that I know I'm not going to succeed. And I won't go into that, but there's a lot I can say about why other people do that. To you, they look to keep you from having that remarkable breakout for yourself. Well, so you have the evidence. Well, imagine that if you believe the thought, and you believe the evidence has supports the thought, is it any wonder that most people don't get what they want? Which I know that's the name of your podcast, Get What You Want. I turn around and say, why do most people not get what they want? And I'm sitting here telling you they can, right? So here's a discrepancy, most people don't get what they want. I know that almost all of us can get almost anything we want, and yet the chasm between the two is bigger than the Grand Canyon. And the only way to close that chasm, this is the secret sauce, and this is what's so incredible, it's all inside of you, all of it. Now, if someone would even pause for a moment, they heard me say that, and give them and honor themselves to think that that just might be true for them just for a moment, like something inside them could shift, Shirley, and they could walk through the world differently. They could see things as possibilities that the moment before they didn't, that's where people can get or create what they want, but they've got to get past this idea that their thoughts are real, and we have evolution working against us. Evolution wants you to be tribal. It wants you to be part of the status quo because if you're not, you're going to go out and you can get eaten by a saber tooth tiger or crushed by a dinosaur. And that's really, really powerful inside of our brains how we operate. And that's why 99% of us, to bring this full circle, I talk about the framework of society, calendars, and dates, and times. That's why most of us, without question, live inside the constraints that they see from society and that they've created for themselves. And they'll never question it because their thoughts tell them that's the way it is, and our thoughts must be true. And I'm just telling you, look, you can break that, at least start to question it. I can promise you, you can create outcomes in your life that are at times bigger and bolder than you even dare to imagine. And that's what gets me excited to be with people and do this work.
“If you can break (your thoughts), at least start to question, you can create outcomes in your life that are at times bigger and bolder than you even dare to imagine.” -Jamie Damsker
Shirley Owens: I believe you. It's the same. I love it.
Jamie Damsker: And thank you. Thank you for that question. It was a powerful question, I appreciate it.
Shirley Owens: Of course. I see what you're saying. And I've experienced it personally, I know you've experienced it, and people that are close to me have experience it, and sometimes we even get into, or I should say sometimes I get in my mind that what I'm teaching or what I'm saying is nothing of that much importance to the world. And then I realize that, wow, so many people operate from, like you said, this default way of thinking inside this box that's just holding them back from actually knowing that there's this really amazing thing around us called ourselves that we can create anything we want from. And yeah, it's crazy.
Jamie Damsker: It is. And for the folks who say things like, well, I don't know what I want to create, or I've got fear around it. To me, it's really useful to explore that, to start to peel that back, to get to what's underneath it. And when people can look at what's underneath it, because it's all stories they pile on top, you know? And the final story is the excuses and the reasons. But if they burrow down, this is not therapy by the way, this is forward-looking, but it's good to look at what is underlying all those reasons and excuses and then move past it. You said something a moment ago that reminds me, this is so big what we're talking about, and it's clear to me, Shirley, that every time I go to, I like analogies, analogies work for me. I like to tell stories that I think it's how we relate to people. Every time I tell an analogy or a story about a bigger thing, I'm really clear it makes the big thing small, and I don't know how to avoid it, right? I just don't, but it's a risk. So I'd ask anyone who hears an example, an illustration of, we talk about commitment or what have you, I promise, it's so much bigger than that. I guess in an example I would give you is, if you and I were trying to come to terms with the enormity of the universe, okay, let's say the universe and we can't because it's just that big. So instead, as a proxy for it, we talked about the galaxy, right? Like we can talk about the Milky Way, galaxy, and there's known dimensions, and even that's big, but it's a way to neck it down. But it puts it in terms that we can relate to. I still wouldn't want to lose sight of the idea that, no, but we're really talking about the universe, and it is X, X, X times bigger than the galaxy. Well, it's like that with examples of, we talked about commitment of your diet or my intermittent fasting, and I would ask anyone who's listening to this, we're trying to process the idea of commitment is so much bigger than that. It's like commitment to something creates possibilities that you likely can't describe now because if you're describing them now, they're likely within the constraints that you're living with it, right?
“Commitment to something creates possibilities that you likely can't describe now because if you're describing them now, they're likely within the constraints that you're living within.” -Jamie Damsker
Shirley Owens: Right.
Jamie Damsker: It's that old expression, you don't know what you don't know. Well, if you're open to possibilities and you're committed, you just might discover what you don't even know yet. And there's a lot that goes into that, and it takes commitment to do that.
“If you're open to possibilities, and you're committed, you just might discover what you don't even know yet. And there's a lot that goes into that and it takes commitment to do that.” -Jamie Damsker
Shirley Owens: Yeah. And I think that, I feel like the word that kinda comes with that is power. I can't explain personally what power feels like because I think it feels different to everyone. But for me, committing to something and knowing that I'm committed to it, it doesn't matter if anyone else knows, it just creates something super powerful inside of me that makes the next commitment, or the next hill that I needed to climb, or the next thing that needs to be done easier and smaller than the first one that I committed to.
Jamie Damsker: Yeah, I agree. And the outcome of the result is the experience of living of your life. And we're all gonna be dirt, someday we're all good going to be dirt. And what you choose to do between this day and that seems like what I just said sounds kind of cliche because people seem to say it all the time, but most of us, and I don't say it to be melancholy or to have people sad that life is finite. On the contrary, I say it as to give someone an opportunity if they want to say no more, all the things you and I are talking about, Shirley, all it takes to be an action around a commitment is just the decision to do so. It could be in a nanosecond, it could take days or weeks, depends on the person, but there's nothing outside of you that you need just like you don't need to wait for January 1st to start something, nor do you have to lament the fact that didn't start on January 1st. Today is the absolute best day to powerfully create what you want in your life. There is no better day than today, I promise you. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow doesn't exist yet, it is today. And if people can approach their life that way, then you don't hear things like I do so often about, Oh, I feel like I'm wasting my days, or I'm spinning my wheels, and yeah, it's now.
“All it takes to be in action around a commitment is just the decision to do so.”-Jamie Damsker
Shirley Owens: I love it. So this brings me to my question that I ask everybody, and normally I kind of have an idea of what they're going to say, and for you, I have zero idea what you're going to say, but I always ask, is there anything that you would change? Are there any regrets? Looking back, I guess I kind of do have a feeling of what you're going to say, but I want to hear your answer to that. What regrets do you have in your life? Or is there anything that you would do differently? Like have it to do all over again?
Jamie Damsker: Right. And those are two different questions, but I'll combine them. I have no regrets. Doesn't mean that a one time in my life I didn't, I used to be a MASTER at doing an autopsy on my life, you know, up to that point. And finding everything you should it turn left and not right, all of the shoulda, coulda, woulda's. And that is not only is not useful because it creates worry, and it creates regret, and it creates emotions that aren't useful to create moving forward. I mean, it also absolutely gets in the way. So here's an analogy I would use, if I am looking going forward to paint like a French impressionist, okay? And in the easel when I walk up to it already has a painting on it that let's say is, I dunno, postmodern, and that's what I see in front of me always. I don't know how I can then powerfully create and effectively create my French impressionism. What I'm saying is, if I can let go of the past, because it doesn't exist anymore.
Shirley Owens: Right.
Jamie Damsker: And that's easier said than done. I understand that, I'm not trying to gloss over that. Most people, their entire present, they base it on their past, like I did it like this in the past. Oh, it's going to happen again, like we play that, well I don't have a blank canvas in front of me to create going forward. It's just muddy with all the stuff from the past. So not only am I living in the past and walling in all that useless emotion, and all of that that comes with it. There's no way I can see possibility in the future if I'm dragging that around on my back. So no, I don't have regrets. That doesn't mean that I can't cherry pick things I would go back and do differently. But I look at that more objectively, like, yeah, I guess if I was to go left or right, I wonder what would have happened if I went left? And I want you to hear the distinction between, I wonder what would've happened, you know, from a place of curiosity of going left as opposed to, Oh, man, what was I thinking going right. Because everything that's happened in my life, Shirley, everything leads me to being here on the phone with you right now at 4:54 Eastern time, on January 14th, and because there's not another place on this planet, I want to be right now at this moment. And I know that everything that happens in my life up to now has me here. Why would I want to change it?
Shirley Owens: I love it. I feel like you and I could have 15 more shows and we could base one episode on one word, and we might have to do that every once in a while, actually. I love it.
Jamie Damsker: I love that.
Shirley Owens: I think what happened today was very powerful, and you gave a lot of insight, and unfortunately we can't talk for 14 more hours, but let's definitely do some more shows. But I would love it if you could just tell everybody where they can get ahold of you, your website, and then I would encourage them to go ahead and look at your website. Listen, watch a little video, read about you, listen to your little speech that you give. I love it, even just a little, I don't even know how many seconds it is, it's very useful. So tell us how we can get in touch with you.
Jamie Damsker: Thank you. My website is jamiedamsker.com, that's J-A-M-I-E-D-A-M-S-K-E-R.C-O-M. And it'll give you a sense of what I'm about, both as a coach and as a speaker, and as it as it relates to my speaking, which I'm REALLY excited about growing that aspect of my business because that's the newer part of it that I added to compliment my coaching, I'm so excited to share that. And I talked to a small group of company executives to the hundreds or thousands of people at a company, or industry event, and globally. I'm someone who's not shy about traveling around the planet, so I'm open to doing that. And as well as the coaching as well, there are no geographic limitations to anything I do, nor should there be. But I would say, yeah, check out my website, my contact information, or the contact form to get in touch with me. And honestly, if anyone, anything came up on this conversation, Shirley, that just has a question or wants to have a conversation, I am open to that. I told you I'm committed to serving others, and I don't know how to do it unless I'm in a conversation with them.
Shirley Owens: And I do know that I have sent people to you before, and I know that you are busy and you become busier all the time, but you definitely make time to have conversations with people. So thank you so much for being here today, and I know that we're going to have more conversations online, so I'm really grateful, and I just can't wait till this comes out until everybody gets to hear.
Jamie Damsker: Wonderful. I'm looking forward to it, and thank you again for inviting me on, Shirley, you really honored me by doing so, and I appreciate you for that. You're wonderful and I love you. Thank you.
Shirley Owens: Thank you.