Ep219 Gordon D Melville - The Vault: Unlocking Your True Worth When Success Isn't Enough

Gordon D Melville 0:00

We allow the physical part to mess up the spiritual part, which we can't see, but is absolutely just as real as the physical stuff we're seeing. But if we can't acknowledge that, then we're either pushing it away or it's not allowing us to be able to help us peel off those layers in a safe way.

Mike O'Neill 0:18

Welcome to get unstuck and on target, the weekly podcast that offers senior leaders insights and strategies to not only lead with competence and vision, but also to achieve groundbreaking results. I'm your host, Mike O'Neil. I coach top level executives on the power of ethical leadership to forge teams to be as united as they are effective in each episode, join me for insightful conversations with leaders just like you providing practical advice to help you get unstuck and propel you and your company forward. Let's get started. Most leaders work hard to succeed, but too often, they tie their worth to what they do instead of who they are. As an executive coach, I've seen how easy it is for high achievers to look successful on the outside while quietly feeling out of sync, drained and stuck. Today's guest, Gordon bevel, known as the long bearded guy, is a breakthrough mentor who helps leaders reconnect with their true identity, not just their title. We dive into how real leadership transformation starts with owning your real value, not your KPIs, not your resume, not your latest win. Gordon shares a different way of thinking about leadership, showing how legacy isn't built someday. It's built daily, moment by moment, through who you be. If you ever wonder who you are beyond your role, or you felt disconnected from the deeper meaning behind your work. This conversation is for you. Let's get into it. My guest today is Gordon Melville, breakthrough mentor, emotional intelligence expert and a spiritual guide for high impact leaders ready to transform not just how they show up, but who they are. He's known by his clients as the vault confidential. Gordon has helped men navigate affairs, addictions, breakdowns and breakthroughs, all while holding the deepest trust that you can imagine. He's not just offering mindset shifts. He's guiding soul renovations. At the core of his work is one powerful idea, you are not what you do. You are who you be. Welcome. Gordon,

Gordon D Melville 2:51

thank you so much. Great to be here. Appreciate the opportunity, Mike.

Mike O'Neill 2:54

You know, when someone sees the title of this episode who I be, you might kind of go, you know, Mike can't spell, but I love this expression. Tell me a little bit about how that might have come about. You

Gordon D Melville 3:08

know what? It's an interesting thing, because I think a lot of people don't understand who they really, truly are. And so when I, you know, I learned with some of my pro athletes, one in particular, an NFL gentleman that he retired while we were working together, and he reached out to me about three days later. He's like, Gord, I don't know who I am, and I'm like, You're the same lovable goober you were three days ago, like that. He said, Well, I'm not an NFL or anymore. And I'm like, I understand, but that's not who you are. That's what you do. And so to separate those things out, we get so much of our identity, a lot of times, especially men, from what we do. And so if we're not working, we're not being productive, in which case we don't see any value in ourselves. And so to be able to separate that out and go, nope, and I ask it that way, on purpose, who you be? I ask it that way because I'm trying to do a pattern interrupt and then want them to stop and think about it. Because if I say, Who are you being? A lot of people don't, it doesn't land the same way, and they don't take it the right way. So when I say, who you be, they stop and go. It makes them stop and actually think, what did he just ask me? And like I said, most people can't answer the question, and when they do try, they tell me what they do. And so I find, I think that's a foundational piece of my work, that underneath mindset, underneath process, underneath all these other things, even worse than value, I have to understand who I'm being before I move into anything else or the rest of it doesn't work.

Mike O'Neill 4:36

Gordon, you work with high performing leaders who probably look successful on paper, but I suspect on the inside, they're exhausted, misaligned. They may, in fact, be questioning who they really are. What are some signs that a high achiever might need to pick up on who they realize they. They're out of sync with their true worth.

Gordon D Melville 5:03

Great question. A lot of times the people that so the two avatars for me are ones, pro athletes, and the other one is like, I say high performing elite man. And a lot of times the former, the athletes, is a different deal. But with the with them, high performing men. A lot of times, those people are those guys are 4550 years old or more. They look on the outside like, yep, everything's together. And, you know, we were all taught, if I get a good education and I work really hard and I'm good, I'm a good guy, that everything will be fine and I'll be happy. And what they're finding is they've got all the stuff. They have the house and the cars and the cottage and the boats, and they from the outside, they look like they're one. They got all together. Everything's good, but something is Miss. They feel like something's missing inside. They're like, I did all the things. I've got all the stuff. I was told I would be happy, and I'm not. And so now they're looking for significance instead of just stuff, right? They think of they start to think of legacy. Pro athletes think about it their whole career. What's my legacy? What's my legacy? And I think they're more tuned into it than most men are, right? We think of legacy as an end of life thing, and it's not. Legacy is something we well, you think about it. At any funeral you've ever been to. Do you hear anybody go? Well, he had a great house and a great car and a beautiful wife and a big bank account and a boat. And do we all hear that at a funeral? What do we hear? Well, he did this with me, or he spent time here, or I remember this one time when we laugh about whatever that story is, what we're doing is pouring into legacy is what we've poured into people. We do that every day without realizing we're doing it. Everything, this, this show today, this podcast today, it I'm pouring into you. You're pouring into me. We're pouring into whoever the audience is. It's is somebody that you see at the grocery store or the bank, or somebody in your travels, or somebody on the road, when we you know, we're in we have a lot of roundabouts up here. I don't know if you have roundabouts down there, but you know, if it's something that it looks like somebody, maybe you felt they cut you off, and we got all animated. And we're right, if they will probably never see them again. But if they could speak at our funeral, what would they say? They're going to say, You know what? I think he thought I cut them off because that's what I've poured into them. A smile. Something is as benign as just smiling at somebody as you go by. We think of this, and I'll give you this real quick story with that I got from Reader's Digest years and years and years and years ago, we think of I need to spend time or money or have influence somehow to be able to impact people's lives. We talk about dropping pebbles in the pond and watching the ripples that affects other people in their lives. That affects and we have this misconception that that takes time, or that I have to know the person or right so the story, and it's true story, young man in New York City, and he was a loner, no family, no friends. He went to work, he walked home. He walked 10 blocks to work, 10 blocks home, and worked. And when he got home, he would have some supper and watch some TV, went back to bed, would do the same. He's like, my quality of life is there, I could disappear and nobody would ever know. And so one morning, he made a pact with himself, I'm going to walk the 10 blocks to work and home today, and if nobody smiles at me, I'm going to end myself when I come home. And New York City people have been there. It's the first time I was there. I said to somebody, have a nice day. And they're like, don't tell me what kind of day to have. I'm so I'm just trying to be friendly or just, you know, but, but so I'm not sure that's a great place to have a pack like that with yourself. But as he tells the story, he he walked to work 10 blocks. Nobody smiled at him on the way home, one gentleman smiled at him, and like I say, in the grand scope, one smile. No big deal on that day, it saved a young man's life in the blink, I get goosebumps in the blink of an eye, like there was no relation. He didn't know him. And the weird part is that gentleman that smiled at him could have gone home and gone I'm not making an impact. He saved a life that day he'll never know. And so, you know, no money, like there was no relationship, no time in the split second, and that wasn't I realized after about the 1000 times sales and telling the story, he didn't drop that smile was not a pebble dropped into that young man's life. It was a tsunami. It literally flipped his life over in the blink of an eye. He saved a life. And so we have that power to be able to do that with each other, if we're paying attention. That's legacy, that's that's what we're leaving behind. That young man is alive because of that smile, what that what that other gentleman did for him without even realizing he did it. And and so, you know, I think we can make that kind of an impact. Impact if we're paying attention. And that awareness, and I talk a lot about awareness, you can't fix something until you're aware. Right? When I get triggered, I get I have a I'm human, so there's a little bit of a visceral thing there, the reaction, but I catch that very quickly, and then I get excited. And my friends think I'm crazy. Oh, why do you get all excited when you get triggered? And I'm like, because a trigger is an unresolved trauma. So if as soon as I get triggered, I'm like, Oh, there's another one. I can view it. Because if I'm not aware, I can't fix it. If you're standing you're an alcoholic standing in front of a group, until you can stand there and go, I'm an Hi, I'm Gordon. I'm an alcoholic. That's awareness. Until you can do that, it doesn't matter what the programs are, it doesn't matter what you plug into. 12 Steps are not going to work if you can't come to that awareness and ownership of what you've done or who you're being well for yourself, even that introspection, less than 3% of the population does any kind of personal development because it's hard. It's not easy, it's messy, it's painful. I might lose people around me. There's so many things that that come into that, and so most people don't do it. Literally, 97% of population doesn't do any kind of personal development. And so, you know, being able to connect with more people in terms of not just what I'm doing, but even making people aware, making guys aware. Hey, smile at people. Think of legacy as a daily thing. What are you pouring I tell my three sons. I got three teenage son. What legacy are you pouring into people today? Because that's what you're leaving behind you every day we do it.

Mike O'Neill 11:37

Yeah, I've never heard legacy described that way. I've always heard it in the context of, What do others say about you after you're gone? And what you're trying to do, if I understand this correctly, is try to stress to our viewers, to our listeners, that you're creating a legacy in real time.

Gordon D Melville 11:59

Yep, absolutely. That's exactly right, being able to look at again. It's an awareness around what am I? How am I interacting with my world? That's what people remember. That to your point, yes, that they remember how you interacted with them. Well, I can get in front of that and reverse engineer it, right? But one of the best exercises I do with clients, pro athletes and entrepreneurial men businessmen, is to sit down and write their own eulogy, not not present tense, not if you died now, 40 years from now, when you're 85 or 90 or 95 or however long you want to live, what does your you? What would somebody give a eulogy about who you are, who you be then. So what have you achieved in your life? What have you been able to where you've gotten to? And I don't, I don't want to use the word become, because I don't think we can't become who we already are, right? So we think of it as growth, personal development. It's growth. It's not growth. It's peeling off the layers of crap. When they asked Michelangelo about David, how did you see that he was already there? Michelangelo said he was already there. All I did was chip off the rough parts. And I think that's our life is chipping off the rough parts. And then do we have the courage to do that? Because it's painful to peel that stuff off, all the crap off our life, to reveal who we truly be. And so, you know, but that happens every day, every day, every day, every day, every day. And like I said, it's an awareness piece around what am I leaving behind me? I can, like I said, reverse engineer it by being the person today

Speaker 1 13:36

that

Gordon D Melville 13:38

the eulogy they're they're going to talk about what's happening today, right? So it's, it's yeah, the awareness around who I'm being and those that all ties together, right? Who I be, what my work, intrinsic worth and value is, that's all going to come out in that eulogy.

Mike O'Neill 13:59

You've stressed that only 3% of the population even goes here, and you've mentioned how you work with even a smaller percentage of of those but let's go back to this a little bit, and that's it. You've you've said you're not your role, you're not your title, you're not your KPIs. So how do you help high performers? You mentioned the eulogy example, but how do you help them make this leap from their identity kind of wrapped around their doing to an identity more by being

Gordon D Melville 14:36

again? Another good question, it's, I don't think it's a leap. I think that's part of the misnomer. Everybody thinks, Oh, I've got to do this great, big, massive. It's not a reframe around that is, again, I think it's just being aware when I sit and talk to a guy and let them provide a safe and I believe most men talk about, oh, I don't want to tell right, if I walk up to you and go, Hey, I'm. Like, tell me how you feel. You know, let's discuss your emotions. You're gonna go get away from me. You're like, I don't like, get away, because that's what we've been taught. And so being able to be aware of that and giving them a safe place, I find most men will open up to somebody that they trust, feel safe with and are not judged. And so I share right at the beginning a lot of times with people that as a I'm showing you that, but the semi colon, right? But I'm heart centric, but that semi colon is international sign for suicide survivor, and I share that at the beginning when I first started to share with guys, because they realized very quickly, okay, he's going to be transparent and vulnerable. He's going to just sort of put it out there, and it allows them. It's not permission. They don't need my permission, but they realize, okay, to hear somebody that's safe. He's not going to judge me, and I can just that's where the vault, that name moniker, came from, by somebody saying to me, I can just give you in all my deepest, darkest stuff, and it just goes in and doesn't go anywhere. And so once to the short answer to your question is, I just provide an open space where they can open up, and that's the biggest being able to talk about it, right, giving them a place where they can exchange that idea and let those things out of them that they can't seem to let out, or don't feel they're comfortable or safe to do anywhere else. They do that with me. And so in that process, as they do that, they realize this is I'm not like you say. I'm not my KPIs, I'm not my bank account, I'm not my titles, I'm not what I have, I'm not my stuff. I'm not even what I do, who I be at the base, foundational piece. And I'm a spiritual human. You're a spiritual human, you know, I can share with you. I believe all of us

Speaker 1 16:53

are,

Gordon D Melville 16:56

who we be, is this very specific thing, and I think we're all exactly the same thing. As far as who we be, it's not complicated. We as humans. We want to complicate the crop out of everything. And it's, it's not at all. I can share if you want, but there's a I think we're all who we be is is exactly the same thing. And if we can understand, and that's why I say, when you let them talk, they've talked themselves into you. Ever done that where you you have a question, you start to talking, you're saying it or sharing it with somebody else, and you're like, I think I answered my own question. It's okay. I think I got the answer. What happened? An awareness. By sharing, by letting it out of you, by talking it out loud, you heard what you were thinking, and it allowed it to come out, and you figured it out. And so I use that do that same kind of thing for guys,

Mike O'Neill 17:46

when you mentioned spirituality, and I'd like to go there for a few minutes, and that is spiritual depth in a in a business world, you know, you've talked pretty openly about your connection to Papa, and you bring spiritual language into kind of a business and leadership space, and that's often pretty rare. How do you see faith, meaning and identity intersecting in the lives of leaders,

Gordon D Melville 18:15

I think, and my dad and I talk about this a lot, and he asked, Hey, how does how does your and I separate religion and spirituality, because religion is man made. Our finite brain trying to understand an infinite and we just keep screwing it up. So I I'm not a fan of organized religion, per se, but spiritual, anybody that's doing really high level personal development knows that there's something out there bigger than them, however you want to identify that, whether it's Papa or God, or if it's, you know, Universal Intelligence or source, or however you want to describe that, that being we all understand, high develop people that are doing that kind of level of personal development understand intrinsically, there's something out there bigger than themselves, and so, you know, a fully well rounded person has a spiritual piece to them, whether they whether they acknowledge that or not. And I, I typically will use the illustration of Prince Harry, because Prince Harry abdicates the throne, wants nothing to do with with his family, and he brings Megan to come to California to do their thing. But is there anything Harry will ever be able to do that will ever change the fact that he was born to Prince Charles and Lady Diana? No, his birthright is royalty, whether he acknowledges that plugs into that and lives out of that, are all completely different issues. And excuse me. And so in our lives, I think exactly the same thing is true, Papa. Who we be for me, and that's just my own, my own personal thing. We're all everybody is a child of a king. We're all Papa's kids, and I call him Papa because of my relationship with him. But we're all. His kids, all of us, so you and I are male children of a king that would make us princes, our wives, our princesses. At a base level, who I be is royalty, my birthright, your birthright, all of our birthright is royalty, whether we acknowledge that, plug into that, and live out of that. Are all completely different issues. It doesn't change. What is I can say, you know, gravity, oh, that's crap, but if I step off the roof, it's going to affect me, whether I believe in it or not. And this works exactly the same way for me. We all have this spiritual peace, this connection we're built with a connection Papa just isn't love. Is not an attribute of Papa. For for me and I believe he is love. So anywhere I see it love, he's there already. He's it. So if I can't acknowledge that there's somebody out there bigger than me, there's a power out there bigger than me, I'm limiting my ability to be able to grow. If you're familiar with quantum and fourth dimension and some of those types of ideas that this stuff is already there. People all gored that manifesting stuff. I got a buddy that used to tell me that's crap. And I'm like, Okay, why do you say that? And he said, Well, I get his bad stuff. And I'm like, great. So we had this little conversation. I'm like, Are you a negative person mostly, or a positive person mostly? And as we talked through it, he goes, I think I'm a probably a negative person mostly. I'm like, right? Do you approach things from a, you know, a good place or a bad place, from a lack or an abundance? Oh, and we talk about that, I think lack. And I'm like, great, so what's showing up in your life? Lack and negative. I said, then manifestation is working exactly the way it's supposed to. You're just not manifesting what you want, because that's not what you're putting out. I have five sentences of empowerment, and the third one is which I talked to my sons. It was something I did with my middle son years ago. He was in grade five, but that middle sentence is, I'm a magnet, what I put out is what I get back. That's a biblical concept, right? And so it it if we're focused there as part of who we are, and I don't think it matters whether it's business, it's like, it that spiritual peace is always there. And I'll ask clients, Are you a human having a spiritual experience or a spirit having a human experience? And the one I'm thinking about, usually he hummed and hot a little bit. He goes, You know what? I think I'm a spirit having a human experience. And I'm like, That's exactly what's happening. The problem is, a lot of times we allow the human experience, because we can see it and touch it and feel it in our five sentences. Senses can see it and experience it. We allow the physical part to mess up the spiritual part, which we can't see but is absolutely just as real as the physical stuff we're seeing. But if we can't acknowledge that, then we're either pushing it away or it's not allowing us to be able to help us peel off those layers in a safe way.

Mike O'Neill 23:10

You know, Gordon, with the core theme of getting unstuck, can you share a moment where maybe someone came to you and they were stuck? They might be wrestling with identity. It could be shamed, it could be burnout, but whatever it was, something clicked in working with this person that changed everything. Can you give us an example

Gordon D Melville 23:33

of that? Sure, there's lots of examples of that. And you know what? I think we've already kind of touched on it, once people get into a space where they know they're safe and not judged, and can share that a lot of times, that's what flips that switch, because there's so many people that don't even realize they have a choice. When I when I say to somebody, you will not hear me say I did tell in a story, I said, Hey, while I was in New York, have a nice day. I used to say that to people, but have a nice day is kind of a make the best of whatever happens. And so I say to people. I've always said to people since then, make it another great day. And then recently, in the last probably 90 days or so. I'm a big choice guy. We are where we are because of decisions and choices we make. That's just the reality. We can like that or not like it doesn't matter. And as people look at me and go, gorge, your body is letting you down, right? Your your pain and your chicken, your body's letting you down, I'm like, No, I let it down. I ignored it for 30 years. This is the consequence of this, decisions and choices I made to ignore it, I'm reaping that now, and so if I can understand and take ownership of my choices, then I'm taking literally a great book by Jocko Willink. Is Extreme Ownership for that very reason. I'm taking 100% ownership of where I am. And so if I can get a guy to plug into that and take ownership of where they are right now, it's not because of an ex, it's not because of a previous boss or a boss or it's not because of parents or life, none of that matters. Taking ownership of everything going no, no. You know what I am, where I am because of the choices I made. I chose to work in that place. I chose to be in that relationship. I'm 50% responsible. People go, Yeah, but I I have, I have responsibilities. I got I've got bills. I have to have a job. Great. I'm not saying quit before you have something else. I'm saying find something you prefer to do. You have control of that. You don't like your job. Jerome used to say, if you don't like where you are, move, you're not a tree. You can move and but we I think when a lot of people go, I don't have any choice. I'm like, you always have a choice. The challenge is, we don't like the options. We see that's the problem, or we're afraid of the devil. We don't know. So we stay with the devil we know, and then we bitch and why and complain because our life isn't what we want it to be. And I'm the type of human that I'll call a spade a shovel, right? I may punch you in the throat, but I'll put a phone book on you first before I hit you with the bat, so that there's no mark. I talk about leading with love, but I also talk that sometimes that's tough love, because a lot of times our ego wants to protect ourselves, and so we are I don't need that or that, that if we actually stop and think about it for a little bit, and we're really honest with ourselves, I remember this one athlete said to me years ago, he's like, Gord I he Got stuck with another, with another mentor, with a coach. And I'm like, okay, he said, I think. I said, why do you why did you stop working with him? And he goes, because I think I grew him. And I said, why? What make you feel? Think that? He said, Well, he came, he kept giving me the same exercise over and over and over and over and over and over and over. We didn't move past that. And I thought for a minute. I was like, Okay, so is that because you he didn't know anything else to give you, or because you didn't do the exercise right? And in there was a big, long pause, and he was humming, Han, we're looking at each other on the screen, like you and I, and he's like, Oh yeah, you know what? I guess. If I'm honest with myself, I didn't like the exercise, so I half assed it and didn't do it the way I probably should have. So he was, wasn't willing to move past it until I actually because it's all building. All of this stuff is building on right? I expand, and then I grow on that, and then I expand, and then I write and it's not and I talk expansion. What I'm saying is, once your mind is expanded, it can't go back. So once you hear the information, it can't go back. You can't forget so it's always going to be there. And so the coach wouldn't go past it. And so I tell people, I'll lead with love. It might be tough love. And that's where somebody that you and I know real well said to a guy that she had just met, you need to talk to Gord and and one of my mentors. And he said, why? And she said, because, you know, the conversations those real deep ones that you can't share with anybody else, and that's to your question. That's where usually we get stuck. I can't move past this, and so it, we bury it, and we don't deal with it. She goes, Gord is the guy you have those conversations with that you don't think you can have with anybody. Can have with anybody else. He provides that vault, that safe place where you can trust that there's no judgment he you can just share. And a lot of times like I say, once we get it out, boom, away it goes. And unstuck. We get unstuck. We're holding ourself back. I talk a lot about being in a cage that we made for ourself. It's a cage we built, and we're sitting in it with the door open and the key in our hand. We can leave it whenever we want, but we find for a lot of time we sit in that cage long enough, well, it's protecting me from what, you know, I need. It's permit it's limiting me. I'm in a cage. I can't get out, I can't I can't be who I want to be. I'm being restricted, right? But we're sitting with the door open and the key. What happens over time, though, if I sit there long enough, decades and decades and decades, eventually I close the door and throw the key out where I can't reach it anymore, and now it's protection against everything outside, and now I just it the whole frog in the pot story right now I I can't leave because I've immobilized myself. Fear, anxiety has stopped me from being courageous and stepping into who I'm supposed to be, stepping into my empowerment again, if I go back to the I can't become who I already am. We're already children of a king. We're already royalty. So peeling off the layers of crap, the human stuff, to be able to see and be who I'm supposed to show to. The world, right? There's two kind of components there. One is, Can I do that? Be courage, courageous enough to do that for myself. But then can I also stand in that, in that spot, and be courageously, showing who I really, truly am to everybody else in the world, right? We all want to be unique. Oh, I gotta be unique. Be you. That's unique. Nobody else can do that, but we, we have these Superman moments when we put our hands on our hips and go, I'm going to be unabashedly, unapologetically me, and if they like it, great, and if they don't like it, I don't care. And then somebody we love or trust questions that. And instead of standing in that empowerment and going, No, no, I'm going to be me, we turtle and we put our masks back. Oh, they're not going to love me unless I'm this other person. And we wonder why we're messed up. We don't know who we're being. We don't know why we're intrinsic worth and value. And then we're acting a part that isn't really who we truly am, right? Not who we really are. And then we wonder why situations confuse us? Well, this is how I would know. This is how I would respond to that or act to that situation. But that's not how my character would act to that situation. And then we I get confused. Now I get stuck. Put put the stuff down. Take the take the mask off. Well, they won't love me, then they're not. They didn't love you anyway, I said to my wife last year, I prefer to be hated for who I am than loved for who I'm not, to the right to the core of if they hate who I be, no problem. Somebody, one of the athletes on the team I work with, he said, Well, you know, maybe people don't connect because of the of the appearance. And I'm like, Well, I thought I chewed on it a lot, and I came back to him, I'm like, You know what? Everybody didn't like Jesus either, didn't like the look, didn't like the message, didn't like whatever it was, right? So I'm in good company, and I know I'm not everybody's cup of tea, and I'm okay with that, and I think that's where the linchpin for a lot of us is, we can't be okay with that, right? Can I stand alone when everybody else is flying in my face. Can I be a salmon swimming upstream when everybody else is going, No, no, take the easy way. I laugh. To put some levity to it, I find it very interesting that there's a stairway to heaven but a highway to hell. I think that's very interesting, right? Very small people going up, lots of people going in the other direction. And so, you know, people have said to me over the years, find out what everybody else is doing, and then go the complete opposite direction. Because following the masses is a problem, because sometimes the M is silent, so it's a matter of being able to say, No, you know what? I'm going to do my own thing and stand in my own empowerment. That's what I was designed with, that we're all designed to do, right? So, yeah, a lot of times we're the we're the stick, the unstuck. All I have to do is it, let myself out, let myself go. I'm the only problem. That's my first sentence of empowerment. I am the only problem I will ever have, and I am the solution. It's 100% ownership, right? There isn't another problem. If I have a plan to move forward, nobody's got a plan to stop me. There just isn't then we don't stick to that plan.

Mike O'Neill 33:21

So Gordon, that's a wonderful point to kind of transition as we start to kind of wrap up this conversation. If someone's listening right now or watching and they're nodding along, but they feel disconnected from their own worth, what might be one small step they can take this week to begin coming back to who they are

Gordon D Melville 33:47

again. Another great question i i would there's two things that I talk a lot about or that I propose as real easy, simple things, we can go way deeper. We don't have time for that real, real quick, easy stuff. Find a nature place, find a conservation area, or, you know, a big open field, or drive out into country someplace, take your shoes off and just walk on the on the ground. Walk on the on the dirt. It It sounds ridiculous, but it absolutely grounding. And a lot of times, if you just stand in a space, or sit in a space where there's nature, it'll suck a lot of that out of you, like instantly, you'll feel better immediately just sitting. And it's because you're connecting to Papa, you're connecting to source in that space. That's one way, the other way is to write stuff down. I journal in five different journals every day, and so I find I call it retching, right when I'm angry or frustrated or whatnot, instead of calling a buddy, if I called you and said, Hey, I'm struggling and I'm frustrated, Can I Can we talk? You have a minute to talk, even. If you're having a crappy day, you're going to say yes to me because you want to be of service. And so we get together, I call, we talk, and basically I pee into your brain. I just unload all this crap. If you're not, if you're not trained to be able to not let that affect you, you're now standing there with all the crap you had before the call, and now you've got all my crop, and you're like, oh, it just makes it even worse. So a tool to be able to let that out is to I call it retching. And if I go to my my journal and I sit down and I just start to let it out, if I'm what we call it, I need to vent, right? But if I'm venting with you, I may not use all of the names, because you might know some of those people, and I probably will not use language that's colorful because I don't want you to look at me different. So I'm sanitizing, so I'm not really venting the way I should be anyway. So it's not really effective for me either. So to write it down, I can be as offside all the right names, all the I can use whatever language I want. No one's ever going to read it. It's mine. It. It's mine. It's the weirdest thing. Once I do that and get it out of my it's so it gets off that hamster wheel. We just let that hamster wheel run and run and run and run and run. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And that's part of the problem. Once I sit down and write it out, I get it out of me in a way that hasn't affected anybody else. All of a sudden I feel better right? It in it, it allows that flow. It takes away the dam and allows the flow to come back. Even better, go to nature somewhere and take a journal with you and and right next to a waterfall or next to a pond or right, and journal and just write it out exactly what you're feeling. Just write what you're thinking, what you're feeling, just like that. Go change.

Mike O'Neill 36:51

Great suggestions. You know, as we kind of wrap up, I want to invite our listeners to kind of reflect on this. If today's conversation stirred something in you just don't brush it aside. Take a quiet moment this week, get outside, just you and the journal and ask, Who am I without the title, the output or the hustle? That might be the most important question you ask this year, and every conversation I have with leaders who are wrestling with growth and identity, the truth is always this is what rises to the surface real leadership begins when you remember your worth beyond what you do you know Gordon, thank you so much for showing up with such presence and depth today, before we Close, where can people connect with you or learn more about the transformational work that you

Gordon D Melville 37:46

do? There's two way they can just send me an email. Is the vault confidential@gmail.com send me an email is direct, or you can jump on YouTube if you pump in the long bearded guy. And I know that's a little bit out of the left field, but there's 100 episodes of my podcast. They but you can sit and listen to similar type stuff, find a topic that that you resonate with, and then and then be open to allow that right, stop yourself from putting it into a box and going, No, no, right, don't write when you're writing that stuff you're not writing, this is what I do. It doesn't matter what you do, right? It all those things are soft things. They're which a lot of times we don't give ourselves credit for, but being able to do that, and so that's the easiest way. Is either email me directly or or jump on put the longer the guy in any social media platform you'll find me. I'm

Mike O'Neill 38:40

going to encourage people who typically listen to watch this episode. You'll know why that's his email address, a long bearded guy, Gordon. Thank you.

Gordon D Melville 38:51

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. Been a pleasure,

Mike O'Neill 38:54

you know, and to everyone who's tuning in, be it watching or listening. I hope this episode with Gordon has helped you get unstuck and on target. Thank you for joining us for this episode of get unstuck and on target. I hope you gain insights to help you lead with competence and drive your organization forward. Remember, at bench builders, we're committed to your success, your leadership excellence and your strategic growth. If you've enjoyed our conversation today, please leave a review rate and subscribe to keep up with our latest episodes. This show really grows when listeners like you share it with others. Who do you know? Who needs to hear what we talked about today, until next time, I encourage you to stay focused on the target and continue to break new ground on your leadership path.

Speaker 2 39:59

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