Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
0:05

Welcome to Transacting Value, where we talk about practical applications for personal values when dealing with each other and even within ourselves. Where we foster a podcast listening experience that lets you hear the power of a value system for managing burnout, establishing boundaries and finding belonging. My name is Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and we are your people. This is why values still hold value. This is Transacting Value.

Jim Taylor:
0:34

For me, values are the foundation of everything. Values are basically the roadmaps of your life. They're the indications of where you want to devote your time, your energy and all your resources, and so it's so important that people understand what their values are.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
0:50

Today on Transacting Value. What do you do when everything you know fails Repetition, training habits, routines all gone? How's that possible? Can we just forget something we've done for years? Whether we dream of becoming world-class athletes once we're along ago or actually are, we can still momentarily doubt ourselves. Fear versus danger, faster heart beat, quicker breathing, anxiety, stress, adrenaline, fight or flight Instantly our confidence is shattered. But how is that possible? Our newest contributor has dreamt, been and even currently is still a world-class athlete. Plus, he holds his Doctorate of Psychology and routinely counsels other athletes about the impact of their value systems for consistent, positive mental impact and exemplary physical performance.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
1:36

Dr Jim Taylor is a contributor to Psychology Today, husband, globally ranked Alpine skier and current triathlete title holder. He's adding value to our perspective through his Take the Shop mindset and practical applications of personal values Welcome to our March Core values of collaboration, connection and belonging and folks. Without further ado on Porter and your host. And this is Transacting Value. Jim, great to be here, looking forward to our conversation. Me too, for sure. Just so we're clear, can I call you Jim? Do you prefer Dr Taylor? Dr Jim, what do you go by?

Jim Taylor:
2:09

I'm casual. People know I have a PhD in psychology, so hopefully they'll see that I have some credibility. I'm also a human being, so I don't need the doctor for any sort of like prestige or anything like that. So happy to call. You can call me Jim.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
2:21

Okay, and use a doctorate, a PhD, I guess, in psychology. Exactly Okay. And so what does that mean? Because psychologists, in my sort of stereotyped perspective, sitting in a chair, somebody lays on a couch, is that your field or what do you do?

Jim Taylor:
2:36

Well, I don't practice clinical psychology. I don't deal with mental illness. I deal with personal development, I deal with athletic and other forms of performance and ultimately helping people becoming and staying mentally healthy in their lives. So I focus on more the positive side of the psychology, not on mental illness, psychiatric disorders and so on.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
2:56

Okay, and maybe I'm misinterpreted, but I'm pretty sure you just said athletes. Is that a primary client base for you?

Jim Taylor:
3:02

Yes, so I do a lot of work with athletes. My sort of broad area in one area of my work is performance psychology. So I work with athletes, I work with business people, surgeons. I've done some work with the military performing artists and that side of my work is all about helping athletes and other performers achieve their goals. And because they feel like they have the physical and technical and tactical aspects of their sport down well but they're not able to execute on the day of the performance, the game, the race, et cetera, and they feel like it's way. So they come to me to get their mind working for them rather than against them, the YIPS?

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
3:40

I think I've heard that called.

Jim Taylor:
3:42

That is one area in golf that you hear the YIPS too is being very psychological. Yes, what?

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
3:48

are they Actually? Where was this? Where do we see this? Simone Biles right Gymnastics, I think most publicly, most recently. What are they? What is it? You just forget how to do stuff.

Jim Taylor:
3:58

Yeah Well, the YIPS is one specific area where golfers it's best known as although it does happen in some other sports where they just get stuck and they're not able to get their body to execute, so they just can't swing the club, they just can't hit the ball properly. Simone Biles, it's hard to say, there's a term that they use in gymnastics and I forget what it is, but it's basically where they lose confidence, they get anxious, they're not able to focus effectively and they're not able to send the right signals to their body, so their body's not able to execute. And so she was in a position where she you know, obviously gymnastics is a very dangerous sport, high-risk sport and she made the very intelligent decision to not put herself at risk, even though it was in on the biggest stage of her life, the Olympics.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
4:44

So this is like a stress response, a mind-muscle connection or imbalance, or something to stress.

Jim Taylor:
4:50

Right. It is fundamentally a reaction, a physiological and psychological reaction to some situation that's perceived as threatening, and it triggers the fight or flight response and it creates tremendous physiological anxiety and doubt and distraction and it basically puts them in a position where they can't execute.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
5:08

A fight or flight response to danger. But this is something like well, let's say, let's say you, you were an athlete, right, like you were a skier. You've got all sorts of titles so you'd know what you're doing. You probably, in most cases, even know the route down the slope, like you know the science. You've practiced, you've trained. What's the danger, aside from the obvious inherent risk to you, know 80 miles an hour on ice.

Jim Taylor:
5:32

Right, and so very often this perceived risk it's not physical risk, so it's not really about, you know, death or serious injury. I mean, if you participate in these high-risk sports, you're going to have to accept that. That's part of the deal, and if you can't, then you just stop doing it. But what happens is this gets sort of very evolutionary in a way. So through 250 million years of evolution since we climbed out of the primordial muck as lizards and more recently the last 250,000 years since we officially became homo sapiens on the Serengeti, we've developed our survival instinct and it served us incredibly well. It of course enables us to survive and pass on our genes and keep the species alive. The problem is that what worked on the Serengeti 250,000 years ago and before often doesn't work now because in a way, evolutionarily, we've jumped the tracks. We are no longer guided by evolution because of civilization, because of technology, but we still react to the world the same way. So what happens with these athletes who all of a sudden, out of the blue, just freeze up and get they get the yips, or they they're not able to execute in something like gymnastics is that their primitive brain perceives this situation as life threatening, even though, yes, there is high physical risk. Clearly Simone Biles is incredibly capable of managing those risks, but what happens is a different kind of threat. So it's not. It's not a physical threat, it's a psychological and emotional threat. And this is often where it comes from unconscious places. It comes from stress and it comes from things unrelated to the situation, but it manifests itself in the performance. And so they have this reaction fight or flight.

Jim Taylor:
7:14

And as I said before, what worked on the Serengeti 250,000 years ago doesn't work now. So for her, fighting, you can't fight the beam, you can't fight the florex or the vault or the uneven parallel bars. But you can flee in two different ways. You can flee by being tentative, by still trying to perform. But doing it tentatively and tentatively in general is dangerous because you're not all there physically, psychologically and emotionally. So by being tentative you actually put yourself at greater risk of the thing that you're most afraid of happening. So in that case the best thing to do is flee, and fleeing sounds like a bad thing, but in some cases it's an intelligent thing. So Simone Biles made a good choice, because if she had tried to perform in that mind space, she could very likely, at the very least, have failed miserably, but got physically injured as well, and so she made the intelligent decision to walk away, when she just felt like this wasn't the right time to execute for me.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
8:15

And so the opposite of this, I assume, is envisioning success. And you know you get this a lot with power lifters, for example, or even in the Marine Corps, as I've been training guys or whatever. Do things that you see yourself squatting the bar. Whatever the load is, chances are higher you'll be able to accomplish it within reason of physical strength and capability, but that's the opposing end of the spectrum.

Jim Taylor:
8:35

Completely. Yeah, so it's the difference between trying to avoid failure, which is psychologically or emotionally or physically is perceived as threatening in terms of producing some sort of harm, or focusing on success. If you look at success, you're going to do things to pursue it, and I make this really important distinction in my work. That probably boils down everything I do in terms of psychological and emotional challenges, difficulties that athletes and other performance have. Is this distinction. Do they perceive the situation as a threat or as a challenge? And the threat is usually failure, humiliation, letting people down, disappointment and challenges pursuing your goals and success.

Jim Taylor:
9:15

And if you perceive a situation as a threat, you are putting yourself psychologically, emotionally and physically in a place where you're basically guaranteed of failure even before you begin, whereas if you view the same situation as a challenge, it's like bring it on, let's go, and clearly massive distinctions in all different ways.

Jim Taylor:
9:35

If you're threatened, you go into a physiology that's bad, you get really tight, you hold your breath, your drone's going crazy, psychologically you're negative, emotionally you're feeling fear, frustration, anger, all these different negative emotions. So you're basically creating a total psychological and emotional and physical state that ensures failure. But if you view a situation as a challenge, positive thoughts, highly motivated, relaxed but energized, super focused on performing well, and that creates a psychological, emotional and physical state that's the exact opposite of threat, that prepares you and sets you up for success. An important part of this is that it's entirely in your mind, so the situation's the same. It's going to be a tough situation, for sure, but do I perceive it as a threat or do I perceive it as a challenge? And so much of my work is helping athletes other performers make that shift, if they're in threat mode, to perceive the situation as a challenge that they pursue.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
10:36

Yeah, so we've got a couple situations like that, I think, when I was well. For example, I don't like heights, I don't like flying Not that I'm afraid of either, I don't really care enough to be afraid of either I just don't like them. And so I don't know, I don't jump, you know what I mean. Like, it's just anything where my feet leave the ground. I don't know why. It's a thing for some reason. Anyway, when I listed in the Marine Corps, one of the first things that we come up to, especially at Parris Island, at bootcamp, which is where I went, is an obstacle course. And yeah, I mean you can see videos on YouTube, maybe even you're familiar, right, obstacle courses are not a new thing. Ninja Warrior and these other things like they exist, but it's standardized in the Marine Corps. Now, some physical training events you go through for time, or you go through with an increased load, or you go through as a team and you've got to keep something from touching the ground Ammo cans, a litter, you know, whatever. Well, the first time we call it slick. You're not wearing any additional gear or equipment, it's just you and shorts, a T-shirt and tennis shoes and you go through it and they get you exposure to the course. They demonstrate it. A drill instructor or somebody goes through it first and they explain the events as they go, and that's by design, right. So there's a safety mechanism, there's a teaching mechanism, but the biggest hurdle no pun intended to get over is internal For each individual.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
11:52

In my case, like I said, I don't like heights. Well, a portion of that course is I mean, it starts out you've got to jump and grab, basically a pull-up bar, navigate some things in the beginning, and then you end up 10 or 12 feet off the ground and there's like I don't know what it is in diameter. I'm going to make this up and say it's a 14 inch diameter log, but it's hefty and it's give or take 10 feet off the ground. Well, it's just far enough away where you can't reach out and grab it and it's just big enough around where you can't hopefully hang onto it. But you're already standing on a platform, essentially a bar that's maybe six feet up. So now you've got to jump from an elevated position to a higher position that you're not likely going to get over in one jump, right.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
12:36

So I remember standing there and maybe it was physical conditioning, maybe it was mental, I don't know, maybe it was both. I just remember from my knees to my ankles there was more shaking than I could control and there was nothing I could do about it, no matter how much I said this is fine, there's no big deal. And people are going past me like it's nothing, just vaulting this log, and then you jump over on the other side, land on the ground and continue with the course. And I remember I stood there for what felt like 10, 20 seconds just staring at this thing. It was wet, I didn't know how I was going to land, I was worried and apprehensive and anxious.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
13:12

And I think in hindsight and now I've done the course multiple times but at the time, in hindsight, I think it came down to my lack of confidence in my own abilities to control the outcome.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
13:24

And I don't mean the variables, I mean my performance technically, physically, to be able to land on my feet or brace or whatever I had to do if I fell.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
13:33

And I feel like a lot of those opportunities, let's say physically or even athletically, but maybe even academically and just as an individual a lot of those opportunities to grow we'll call them not challenges necessarily, let's say opportunities to grow come down to when it's doubtful in our heads, a lack of confidence for any number of reasons. But I think that's also why personal values carry an impact, or having conversations about values have an impact. They give us opportunities to mitigate burnout and establish healthy boundaries and these other things as well for our performance and guide us through life. But when it comes to, let's say, physical performance even, I think it also gives us a what do you call it? A headspace to get into to help us get through these situations, to view them as opportunities, by setbacks, or challenges, by roadblocks, for example. Is that something that you've identified as you've worked through with people as well, that maybe that's a place where values can have an impact?

Jim Taylor:
14:31

And what's interesting about it and this is something I get into quite a bit later in my work with high performers, because it's the deep stuff in way. Values in the foundation, but they're not something you can get to right away. It's a journey you get through on your way to getting to your destination of achieving your goals or becoming the kind of person you want to be, and so, for me, values are the foundation of everything. Values are basically the roadmaps of your life. They're the indication of where you want to devote your time, your energy and all your resources, and so it's so important that people understand what their values are. Because I talk a lot about we're fueled by different things.

Jim Taylor:
15:08

The goal to perform your best and become the best version of yourself and be incredibly mentally healthy is to be fueled by rocket fuel, pure rocket fuel. But the problem is, as we're all human beings, we create, we develop and put into our tanks a lot of contaminated fuel, and that contaminated fuel is our things, that I work at a lot unhealthy values. And the pure rocket fuel starts with your values, because whatever you value, you're going to want to fully realize that value. So if you value giving and compassion and kindness. That's going to be the fuel that drives your life and you're just going to be driven down the direction of philanthropy or charity or giving to other people. The other side, if your value is to make a lot of money, that's where you're going to put all your time and energy and resources into making money. So the ideal is to really know your values and I sit down with people I work with, with my clients, and I ask what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing? And I look to see how pure their fuel is or how contaminated it is, because, unfortunately again, we live in a culture that's dominated by, for me, some pretty unhealthy values and whether it's wealth, fame, physical appearance, selfishness, these are all values that are out there and they're communicated very powerfully through our popular culture and, unfortunately, through technology, and there's always been unhealthy influences in our society. But now, through the internet, they can be there 24 / 7 and it's hard to resist the messages that we get because they're powerful and they're prolific and they're contagious and so powerful.

Jim Taylor:
16:49

Exercise is to sit down and think about really, what do I value?

Jim Taylor:
16:54

What's my why for whatever you're doing?

Jim Taylor:
16:57

And if you can get rid of the contaminated fuel, and some of the most common contaminated fuel that I see are overinvestment, where you're just like your self-esteem, your self-identity, your self-identity is way overinvested in how you do and what you accomplish and that actually gets perfectionism, fear of failure, being too focused on results, expectations and pressure. This is all contaminated fuel that's been internalized by so many people in our culture and so many of my clients and a lot of my work is about getting rid of the contaminated fuel, because if you can get rid of as much contaminated fuel as possible, you can probably never get rid of all of it, because we're human and so if, but if you can get to like I don't know 95% pure rocket fuel, then you can't not give your best effort in the toughest situations, through all kinds of adversity, because it's like not being yourself, because ultimately you want to be true to your values and you want your values to drive who you are and what you do and how you feel and what you think and how you interact with others.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
18:03

Well then, I think this is a pretty solid opportunity. So this is a segment of the show called developing character, developing character the segment where we talk personal values, past and present.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
18:13

All right, so for anybody new to the show, this is going to be two questions that are entirely about Jim's personal values, and how that sort of has played a role is where we're going to take this and Jim. These two questions answer as vulnerably or as in depth as you want. It solely up to you. Frankly, nobody here myself and you know you well enough to judge you any other way, so feel free to be as comfortable or open as you want. Now saying that, this first question, while we're talking about your personal values, or anybody's for that matter, I think a lot of that is rooted in where we grow up, how we grow up up to I don't know what mid 20s, I guess, when we start to realize some of those things, maybe even 30s and 40s when we start to realize some of these things. So what were some of the values that you grew up around or that you were exposed to as you were growing up?

Jim Taylor:
18:59

Yeah. So I sort of divide my life into three parts. One is my early development as an athlete Because, as you indicated, I was a world ranked Alpine ski racer and sports have played a whole role in my life to this day where I'm now a world ranked elite age group triathlete. So sports have played a major role in my value system, in my development. The second is just my own personal development as a person and the struggles I had when I was younger, through adulthood, and you say that you know we grapple with these things well into our 40s. Well, we grapple with them all our lives and you want to grapple with them all your life, because at 20, at 30, at 40, even at 50, you might not be ready to fully confront those challenges. So maybe some of the values, some of the attitudes and beliefs you have about yourself, some of the emotional challenges, your personal baggage so it's a lifelong journey and it's never too late Because I work with a lot of young people, teenagers, but I also work with a lot of really successful people into the 30s, 40s and 50s and 60s even, and they don't come to me, especially the adults, because they're trying to make more money to be more successful. They come to me because they're not happy and they've lost touch with who they are and what their values are. So the second part is just my own personal development and that's been a huge guide in the third part of my professional life and in my work, because I can't separate who I am as Jim the person from Jim the professional. And my professional work has also shaped me because I'm in a helping profession and all the challenges that my clients often face are ones that I face as well. So my work informs my own personal development. So with that all said, let's start with my athletic life. So I began skiing at three. I began competing at nine. I went to a boarding school in Vermont just for ski racers at 13. And my goal was to be the best ski racer in the world. But when I went to this boarding school, it's called Berkman Academy, it's in northeastern Vermont.

Jim Taylor:
20:50

I was four foot nine, 89 pounds. I was really small and I was late to develop physically. Plus I was shy, I was introverted and I didn't have a lot of confidence and you talked about confidence being so important and I thoroughly agree. And I struggled and I wasn't motivated either. So when you take all those factors in me and added a lack of motivation to work hard, I was doomed. I had no chance and fortunately I had two coaches who saw something in me that I didn't see in me and they pushed me really hard. Sometimes they kicked my butt and they didn't do it in ways that now in coaching wouldn't probably be considered legal. I mean, they didn't do anything bad to me, they didn't hit me or anything like that, but they weren't particularly nice and I'm sure, being in the Marine Corps, you have had some officers above you who also weren't quite as nice and gentle and supportive as you'd like them to be.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
21:38

Yeah, we didn't have too many gentle people. Yeah, that's fair.

Jim Taylor:
21:41

But I reflect back on them and I so valued what they did because they believed in me and I didn't believe in me. And then one summer I was 16. I was getting ready to start my summer training program, conditioning program for the next season, and I had an epiphany. And I don't know where it came from, but I just woke up one day and said if I want to be the best ski racer I can be, if I want to achieve the lofty goals that I have, however unrealistic they were, Josh, I needed to start working hard.

Jim Taylor:
22:08

And ever since that time it was like June, when I was 16 years old I've been an incredibly hard worker and it became a fundamental value and I don't believe in overachieving. You can't overachieve. All you can do is achieve as much as you're physiologically and genetically capable of. So overachieving would be my being a center in the NBA. Josh, I'm five foot nine. It ain't gonna happen Because I have limits and we all have limits, and anybody who tells you that you can be the best just be. If you put in the time, they're lying to you. But what we can do is find our own personal greatness.

Jim Taylor:
22:44

So some of the values that I developed through these struggles as young athlete where everybody was always bigger than me, everybody was always stronger than me was do the hard work, persist, respond positively to adversity because sport and life is filled with adversity and really just believing in myself that I could do it and I didn't always do it, but it enabled me to do it as well as I could and to get as far as I could. And so those are fundamental values that I care with me through my academic life, as you suggested, through my professional life, and they've enabled me to become successful. And other things helped as well. I mean, I'm a pretty creative guy and innovative.

Jim Taylor:
23:22

I think about things in different ways. Those things are all important in my professional life, but it starts with doing the hard work, persisting and just basically showing up. I think Woody Allen, the director actor, said 90% of success is just showing up and a lot of people don't. And I'll get to the 10% when I talk about my personal development and those lessons, those hard life lessons of being this little guy with big dreams. They taught me what it took to get where I wanted to go, to achieve my goals and to view life as a challenge and not a threat. So that's my athletic life messages.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
23:58

Can I ask you a question real quick about that, before you move past it? When you were talking about I'm pretty sure it was around the time you said you were 16, but when you're talking about as a teenager, I had to tell myself that I could do it to build my confidence, even though I couldn't always do it. So you're telling me, as a now world-class Alpine skier and just individual who's learned all of these things self-taught or otherwise, that you've also found ways to view failure positively.

Jim Taylor:
24:29

Yeah Well, that is a fundamental value as well in how is how you view failure, and probably the number one reason why young performers come to me with their parents, them and me, is because of fear of failure. They don't know. That's why they're coming at me, but that's at the core, because we live in a culture now that sends the unhealthy value that failure makes you a failure and that leads to fear of failure. And if you're afraid of failure, you're never going to be as successful as you can be, because in order to be successful at anything, you must be willing to take risks. But by definition, the nature of risks is that you might fail, and if you're more concerned about avoiding failure than you are about pursuing success, you're not going to take the risks. So you might still become pretty good because you're smart or you're strong or you have some athletic abilities or so on, whatever the avenue of your life, but you're never going to be truly successful. And so a lot of my work is about shaping the value, the definition, the meaning of failure, because in our societies it's all about winning, getting straight A's, beating other people, the most money, the fanciest cars, and if those are your metrics, you're always going to feel like a failure, because there's always going to be somebody richer, better looking, more athletic, who has more of everything. So a lot of my work is about getting rid of the fear of failure. You see, if you think about it, Josh, the most successful people in every walk of life failed frequently and monumentally on the way to success.

Jim Taylor:
25:57

Okay, examples Abe Lincoln he lost his first, I think, seven political campaigns. JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame Her first Harry Potter book was rejected by 32 publishers before she found a publisher. Michael Jordan didn't make his junior high basketball team. That's basketball lore, and you find this with every great performer.

Jim Taylor:
26:18

And if you remove the fear of failure, you liberate yourself because nothing's going to hold you back, because if you fail it's like disappointed, sure, bummed a little bit sure, but you're going to be okay and you can get back in the game.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
26:32

I think it was Kobe Bryant, I can't remember and I'm going to probably miss quote this also, but I'm pretty sure he said, when he was asked about fearing failure or fearing success based on a certain circumstance which I can't remember off the top of my head now, that it's neither to view them both equally, as a learning experience, as an opportunity for growth, to manage stress, to manage anxiety, and then, all things considered, I suppose you could say, working through this sympathetic, nervous response, that there's no real need to fight or flight, it's all just continue and that makes all the difference. I'm assuming now saying that this has been you growing up. These are lessons you've learned to present. So my second question what about now? What, then, are some of your values now that help you work through some of these things that you stand on or that you try to practice, emulate, encourage others?

Jim Taylor:
27:25

Again, as I said before, I have sort of three pillars of values in areas in my life that have impacted my values. The first I just talked about my athletic life. The second has been just my own personal development, and so I used to be very insecure and I used to be get really nervous before I interacted with people. Like I said, I was shy, I was introverted I still am introverted, of course, but I'm not shy, that's for sure and I was basically approaching life in a state of fear. But I had what was, for me, a breakthrough experience when I was 17. And I tell the story to my clients. It's totally goofy and it's a little embarrassing, but I think it really illustrates a fundamental value for me that I've lived and expressed in my life.

Jim Taylor:
28:06

I used to be terrified of girls. I wanted to ask them out. I just couldn't. I was so scared of them and one summer between finishing high school and going on to college, I decided enough. So I was working as a carpenter in an aircraft plant outside of Hartford, Connecticut a summer job, and I know it's kind of weird, but I set goal, I'm I'm gonna ask five girls out. So I use a lot of techniques that I use with the athletes and the performers that I work with. I use positive self-talk and imagery and breathing. And that summer I asked five girls out. They all said no, okay, success or fail.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
28:42

Yeah, well, perspective, I suppose, success to a certain degree.

Jim Taylor:
28:45

No, no, no, no. There's no perspective here. It was a total success. Why? What was my goal?

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
28:52

Okay to your goal. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, talk to five girls, ask them out.

Jim Taylor:
28:57

Right, I couldn't control whether I got five dates. Was I disappointed when they all said no, of course. Was I surprised? No, because some of them were way out of my league. But the goal was to ask five girls out because that was within my control. And so when I got to college, it was a lot easier. And here's the value lesson. Two value lessons Take your shot and no regrets.

Jim Taylor:
29:19

So Wayne Gretzky, the hockey GOAT, had great one of my favorite quotes I missed 100% of the shots I didn't take. Most people are unsuccessful. They don't get what they want because they're afraid to take the shot. What are they afraid of? They might miss. And yet great performers in every walk of life are willing to take the shot because it's the only way to score. And if they miss, they know they'll get another chance. So a great Michael Jordan Nike poster said something like I was given the ball 26 times with the winning shot in my hand with 10 seconds left, and I missed. Most people wouldn't have taken the shot, but he believed that if you keep taking the shot, at some point you're gonna score.

Jim Taylor:
30:00

And so I've applied that to so many aspects of my life. In my social life. I finally found somebody who would go on a date with me, finally found somebody who would marry me a number of years later. And in my career, in my current athletic life, all through my life, I've been willing to take the shot and what enabled me to do that was I was willing to accept that I might miss, that I might fail. And again, I had plenty of rejections with women. I had plenty of failures in my work life and my academic life, but I kept being willing to take the shot and that's led to a place where I am now, both professionally, still athletically, and also personally, where I go after what I want and I don't always get what I want, but I get a lot of what I want and that leads into my second value.

Jim Taylor:
30:43

But no regrets. So here's my goal in life I wanna be on my deathbed when I'm 156 years old and I wanna look back at my life and go. You know things didn't always work out the way I wanted, because that's life, but I have no regrets. I took every shot I had. I went for every opportunity, every chance I had for something good. I was willing to ask, I was willing to step up, I was willing to try and I live my life that way Because, again, life's disappointing, sometimes life's sad, sometimes it's tragic. But I didn't wanna look back at my life and go. I wish I'd done that. Yeah, I would rather go back and say to myself things didn't work out bummer, but at least I tried.

Speaker 3:
31:26

All right, if folks stay tight, we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

Speaker 5:
31:30

The impact of a meal goes well beyond feeding our bodies, because when people don't have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, they can truly thrive.

Speaker 6:
31:39

like Marta, and now we'll hear from our class valedictorian, who, with our hard work, never ceases to amaze us. Please welcome, Marta Moreno.

Speaker 5:
31:53

And Alex. Hey, Alex, how did the interview go?

Speaker 6:
31:58

I did it, I got the job. I can't believe it. I knew it! Let's meet up later to celebrate. And, Diego. Mom! I got first place at the science fair with my volcano project! That's amazing sweetie! Congratulations! Because when people are fed, futures are nourished and everyone

Speaker 5:
32:01

Mom! I knew it. Let's meet up later to celebrate. And, Diego Mom, I got first a place a a the cienceairithyolcanoroject ! p v m w f s s cience fair with my volcano project. That's amazing, sweetie. Congratulations, Because when people are fed, futures are nourished and everyone deserves to live a full lifee . h tundefined Join the o A to end h h now. . org/ act slash act now A public service announcement brought to you by Feeding and the ad council.

Jim Taylor:
32:31

I didn't want to look back at my life and go. I wish I'd done that. Yeah, I would rather go back and say to myself things didn't work out, bummer, but at least I tried.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
32:42

So this takes some foresight, though, right, because, like there's got to be, let me put it like this so, let's say, you work with people or this is just internally for any particular individual listening to this, but you gain enough confidence and experience and insight and knowledge, competency, let's call it to broaden out your tolerance for risk, and you decide this, take the shot. Philosophy this no regrets, lifestyle or mindset applies to you, and every time a challenge comes up, or at least an opportunity that you perceive to be a challenge, comes up, and you hit what I call a fuck it button, where you just send it Right. There's this like I said, I don't like heights, and there's this perfect moment that comes to mind every time we had to go do a swim qualification. You're up on top of the diving board and, depending on the height, depending on the qualification you're going for, it starts at 10 feet above the water. I'm a better fan of like I'll dive or I'll sit on the side of the pool and then slide into the water. That's where I'm comfortable, that's my speed, right, but you got to do it. Everybody's got to go through it again.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
33:51

This all happens at Paris Island. Well, in San Diego for the Marine Corps. But this all happened for me at Paris Island, where it was the first opportunity for me to learn me, and I knew I didn't want to do it. But you get up there and everybody's behind you I mean physically, they're all in a line waiting to do the exact same thing, but there's a drill instructor there on the edge of the board it's not a spring diving board either, it's a fixed platform but standing on the edge and he tells you, because it's been demonstrated, it's been explained. And now you imitate and go through the training, right. And so he says all right, cross your arms and look up, look down, look left, look right, make sure nobody's under you, make sure there's no obstructions. It's a training ism. And then he says hang 10 toes. Now you're in boots, but the picture is still there. Right, go to the edge of the platform. And you've looked and you're stuck. I mean your body is rigid, because if you bend a little bit, obviously you belly flop, you fall on your back, any number of things can happen. And so one to control the risk for injury on behalf of the trainers. All of these things are in place.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
34:55

And then for the trainees, the Marines or the candidates, wherever we are, for safety and habit of action, habit of thought. But you get there and you put your toes over the edge of that platform and you're 10 or 15 or in some cases, 30 feet up. You go to the naval academy. Did you know? It's a three story. Drop the top of their high platform into the water is if you had to drop off a boat or whatever else to be simulated there. Yeah, everybody graduating has to drop off. I'm not going to the high dive, I'm not going to the naval academy.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
35:23

As soon as I found that out, I said absolutely not. No, but I'll tell you this right, going through it, and you start to get into those moments where, whatever the driver is, whatever the trigger, whatever the catalyst happens to be, that's when that button appears and you can choose to hit it or not. But in most cases, you know, if you understand there's a difference and this is my working philosophy here that I'll put to you If you understand there's a difference between danger and fear, I think then you're a lot more likely to hit the button right. The inherent danger, meaning the controls are in place, there really isn't that much. Okay, well, now I'm not as worried, but on the other hand, I'm afraid, which means I can control. Being a bit more bold or courageous, I think you're more likely to hit the button. Are those some experiences that you've also run into with clients or within yourself?

Jim Taylor:
36:16

Yeah, I've got a couple of thoughts on that. First of all, this is also an evolutionary thing when you're standing on the edge, your permanent brain doesn't know the difference between it's on the Serengeti 250,000 years ago and you're going to die and the situation you're in All you see, you're in a very unfamiliar situation and, by the way, there are three things we humans don't like unfamiliarity, unpredictability and lack of control. And this is an evolutionary thing because in the Serengeti, 250,000 years ago, if you were in a situation where there was unfamiliarity, unpredictability and lack of control, you're probably going to die. So it's wired into us evolutionarily. What you experienced there was your survival instinct in fight or flight. But what you also had had and what separates us from animals, is we have the cerebral cortex and, most importantly, the prefrontal cortex. I call it the PFC. It's related to executive functioning. It enables us to weigh risks and rewards, short-term, long-term consequences, to consider our options and ultimately to make the deliberate decisions that enable us to override our primitive instincts, our primitive brain. And so what happened to you was you engage your prefrontal cortex and what that does? It reroutes the information from our primitive brain, which is wired to immediately and instantaneously and powerfully send a message when we perceive the situation as a threat. And if we just followed primitive brain, you weren't going to jump. But what you did you engage information, knowledge and your surroundings. To engage your prefrontal cortex was redirects the messages from your primitive brain to your prefrontal cortex, which basically turns the volume down on your primitive brain and turns the volume up on your prefrontal cortex, enabling you to make the choice, the decision, to jump. So that's number one.

Jim Taylor:
38:02

So again, the way I put it is that when we make these sort of choices, we're often resisting 250 million years of evolution, and our primitive brain has been practicing this for that long. But we've only had this ability to reason, to make choices. Well, 250,000 years versus 250 million years, that's like a blip of a blip of a blip of a blip times thousand or a million, I don't know in time. And so at some point in the very far future, long after we're disintegrated, we may evolve. So our survival instinct doesn't exist anymore, because it doesn't need to, but for the time being we have to override it. So that's a challenge.

Jim Taylor:
38:44

So, getting back to your jumping situation, there are two things you use to talk about fuck it. I have a thing that I call the fuck it attitude, and that's where you basically fuck it. And that's not saying fuck it to the thing you're doing, it's saying fuck it to the outcome If I fail. Oh well, and related to that is the idea of taking a leap of faith. So you've talked about confidence and competence. All those things are really important. And they're so important because generally, what threatens you is you feel like you're not capable of handling the situation, sure, in a very primitive range, that you're going to die, even though you're not going to, but you don't believe you can. But it's difficult to just go from I have no belief that I have the capability to survive to I have complete, 100% belief that I can survive, because you never know until you do it, just like running marathon. You can be, you can train hard and you can believe that you can do it to some degree, but until you cross the finish line you never really, really really know if you can run a marathon, and that applies to anything. I have this idea of taking a leap of faith. It's like I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm pretty sure I'll survive and so I'm just going. And illustration I don't know if you're a fan of Indiana Jones, but the third movie, indiana Jones and search of the Holy Grail At the beginning of the movie here's a map that's going to lead him to Holy Grail.

Jim Taylor:
40:04

And the Holy Grail it's again, biblically speaking it's the cup from which Jesus drank at the last supper, and if you drink it it's supposed to make you immortal, or something like that. And so the entire movie is about in search of the Holy Grail and he's following this map through all these adventures and the typical Indiana Jones stuff. And he comes through Petra Jordan it's an old archeological site and he goes out the back end and he's in this door and there's this bottomless chasm in front of him and across the way is the room where the Holy Grail is and he's looking down. He's like, how do I get across? And here the consequences of failure are dire. He plummet to his death. But he looks at the map and there's a picture of him stepping.

Jim Taylor:
40:51

The picture of this symbol, of this guy stepping into a business, says take a leap of faith. And I encourage you, go to YouTube and do a search for it. I share it with my clients all the time and it's a wonderful little scene about two minutes where he's like there it's like leap of faith, like what's up with this. But of course he's Indiana Jones, he's the hero and he's got to be the hero at the end of the movie. So he jumps and what happens is an invisible bridge. He goes across the bridge, gets the Holy Grail hero. End of movie.

Jim Taylor:
41:19

So this is an extreme case of a leap of faith where the consequences are dire. In most situations that we are in, the consequences of a leap of faith are not dire. The worst thing that happens is you don't get the job, you don't get the girl, you don't have a successful athletic competition, whatever it might be. And so that's another person of value of mine that if I'm not sure, if I don't know how this out, things going to turn out, but I'm taking the shot, I don't want to have regrets, so I'm just taking a leap of faith. And the more you do that, it becomes less of a leap of faith. And this has happened in my life at first asking a girl out at first that she might say, yes, totally the faith, because I didn't have any evidence to support that there was any reason that I would be successful.

Jim Taylor:
42:06

But athletically, professionally, personally, the more I took. I took the leap of faith, it became less about faith and it became more about data evidence that if I took the leap of faith I would become successful. I would succeed in that particular leap of faith. And so it becomes an open spiral where with each leap of faith it's less a leap of faith and more about I can succeed. This can work out and it didn't always. But the more you take a leap of faith, the more you take your shot, the more likely you will find success at some point. So that also fundamental value in my life. I was willing to take the shot, take the leap of faith and see what happened.

Speaker 3:
42:47

All right, folks, sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value. Imagination. Pass it On from PassItOn. com.

Jim Taylor:
43:21

Fundamental value in my life. I was willing to take the shot, take the leap of faith and see what happened.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
43:27

And then deal with the feedback, the rejection, the whatever space you ended up in as a result. Obviously it can't just be a controlled chaos sort of fall and glide right. You got to understand I'm going to land somehow. There's got to be some anticipation.

Jim Taylor:
43:40

Right and you. I learned to accept that I would feel bad, so you know, being rejected, especially if it was somebody who I was really attracted to. Yeah, I was really sad, I tried and you bummed out for a long time, but it never stopped me from going back and trying again, not with the same woman, but somebody.

Jim Taylor:
43:56

Yeah, I'm not a stalker, but the idea is that I accepted that I might get hurt and again, whether it's socially or professionally or athletically, I might not do well in this triathlon. But I knew that I'd be disappointed, but I'd be okay. And then I was going to keep trying until I got what I wanted, for something approximating that, because you don't always get 100% of what you want.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
44:23

Sure Rolling Stones, I think, taught us that. So, Jim, I got a quick question for you. You had mentioned, basically you know, as you were growing up as a teenager and how you got into athletic type instances where you stood on some values and realized some things about yourself, and then obviously, personally, how you've developed over the last few decades and grown as an individual. But you're a doctor. You've obviously got some sort of professional experience and academic prowess where you can stand on. What are some applications where you've seen your personal values be an impact or reflection, I guess, within your professional life?

Jim Taylor:
45:00

A little bit of both. So if you look at the values that I've discussed so far, they've been sort of very self-focused on how I can be the best person I can be to get what I want to be successful. And I think with a PhD in psychology and being in a helping profession, that's exposed me to a whole different set of values that are other focused meaning, focused on other people and, I will admit, this sort of blurs between my professional and personal life and it's affected my professional life for a long time. For most of my life I was very still insecure into adulthood. I was very defended, I wasn't open emotionally and it definitely cost me in terms of my different kind of relationships, both personally and professionally. And so the more I was involved in my professional life and again, personal, professional life very much went in parallel the more I matured as a person and the more I explored my own issues, my own baggage, my own life and, as you suggested earlier, this isn't just a journey that I do alone. I mean it takes a village to raise ourselves, even in adulthood and as I work through a lot of the things that cause me to be defended and not open to people, it enabled me to develop a certain set of values, both in my personal life and my professional life. That has helped me in my relationships of all sorts, so my personal relationships, my family, my kids, my friends, as well as my collegial and professional relationships with clients.

Jim Taylor:
46:25

And that is another value for me is emotional vulnerability being open, and it ties in with all the fear, failure stuff. Because being emotionally vulnerable two things First of all, our culture does not support or encourage emotional vulnerability because it views it as weakness. So if you're emotional, especially for men, that means you're weak. But in fact, emotional vulnerability and openness takes incredible strength. Why? Because when you make yourself emotionally vulnerable, you're putting yourself at risk. You don't know if the person you're being vulnerable to is going to respond and return the vulnerability, or whether they're going to shut you down or use you or manipulate you or try to hurt you.

Jim Taylor:
47:07

So again, it's all about risk and the possibility of failure, and failure in this case is rejection of some sort. And for me, rejection is the most powerful and painful form of failure, because the natural thing is say what's wrong with me. And that's what makes failure so threatening, because it's not a failure of the situation like, oh, I didn't have a good race today or I didn't do that well in the exam today, it's, I am a failure. There's something wrong with me inherently and nobody wants to admit that and that's incredibly painful to think that someone didn't want to see me again on a date, let's say, because there was something wrong with me. And yet the only way to develop healthy, meaningful and deep relationships with anybody at any level professional, personal is to be emotionally vulnerable and take that risk. And that's a hard thing to do.

Jim Taylor:
48:03

And it was really hard for me because I was armored up emotionally from the get go, because I was this little kid when I was young, physically slow to develop, I was shy and introverted and I was bullied and teased and I wasn't very successful. I didn't do very well in school, I didn't do very well athletically for a long time. So I was like getting these messages from the world that were not good, so I better armor up, and I did and it protected me when I was young.

Jim Taylor:
48:30

But that castle that I built I'm using another protective metaphor here the castle that I built with really big, really high walls and a big gate to protect me from the rotting hoarders, the hoarding marauders excuse me who were trying to attack me. I was protected as long as I was in the castle, but do you know what that castle became? No, a prison. A prison I couldn't leave and nobody could get in, anybody, even people who cared about me. And so part of my journey has been taken off the armor for that metaphor, or opening the gates and walking out among those hoarding marauders and realizing two things First of all, that if they were going to torture me and beat me to death, so be it. Nothing I could do about it.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
49:11

Oh acceptance?

Jim Taylor:
49:12

Yeah, exactly, but the other side of that is they might be pretty good guys and they just wanted to have a good time with me and party and whatever the hoarding marauders do. But the idea is that being able to accept that when you make yourself vulnerable, there could be some times when it doesn't work out. It's going to hurt a lot, but I would survive. And going back to what we talked about before by opening up, literally, if the viewers could see me, I'm opening my arms wide and this is a metaphor, and actually an actual physical metaphor I use with my clients is that before you go to do something, open your arms, because it's a physical manifestation of opening up to the world. And two great benefits of this. One is you can fully express everything that you are. You're not going to hold back at all. Plus, when you're opening your arms, you let other people in, because generally, if you open your arms like this and you're with a friend or a family member, what are they going to do?

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
50:09

They're going to hug you.

Jim Taylor:
50:11

Recipient exactly, and so as I develop this ability to be emotionally vulnerable and to just be open with people and tell people what they think and what I feel and if I'm going to cry I'm going to cry Then that helped me in my work because I was able to develop really genuine connections. So I've always been perceived as being really competent Professionally. I was always respected but I wasn't always well liked because I was not very open. I was defended I wasn't mean or anything but I wouldn't connect with people. As I began to embrace this value of emotional vulnerability and openness, people started to come in. I started to develop better perclusional relationships, my relationship with my clients. They saw I was human and I was a role model for them.

Jim Taylor:
50:56

But also I was showing that it's acceptable, it's okay, you can be vulnerable here. They trusted me more Professionally. I became again. I was always very competent at what I did, but I became even better because I was embracing my humanity and by doing so I was communicating that you can embrace your humanity, and part of that humanity is we've talked throughout this podcast is you're going to fail and it's going to hurt sometimes.

Jim Taylor:
51:21

But the thing is about emotions is that emotions are two sides of the same coin. You can't just cherry pick your emotions. You can't just say, oh, I want to feel happiness, enjoying excitement and pride and passion and compassion and kindness, et cetera. In order to feel all those great emotions, you have to be willing to feel the bad ones. So sometimes you're going to feel super sad, hurt, lonely, angry, frustrated, disappointed, and it's going to hurt a lot sometimes, but in most cases you'll survive and the reward is that you get to feel love and compassion and joy and happiness and all those other things.

Jim Taylor:
51:57

So it's taken me a long time, many decades, to get to a place where I finally am happy, where I'm at peace, where I'm connecting with people, and an incredibly long and painful journey and what I hope to do in my professional work, especially for the young performers. I work with the young clients I work with anywhere from like 12 years old oh, haven't started to do that work now, so they don't have to deal with it when they're 30, 40, 50, 60. But it's never too late. I work with people in their 60s and 70s and they still have years ahead of them, and so why not make them better?

Speaker 3:
52:33

All right, folks sit tight, We'll be right back on Transacting Value.

Speaker 6:
52:38

When it comes to making plans, you are the best. What about those roundtrips that you plan in advance, which are perfect on your way there and perfect on your way back? Or those meetings with friends for which you make a group chat three months before so that nobody or anything is missing? Or your daughter's first birthday party? You planned it with such dedication that, instead of the first, it felt like our quince. The same way you plan each detail for those moments. Start planning to protect you and your loved ones from a natural disaster. Sign up for local weather and emergency alerts, prepare an emergency kit and make a family communications plan. Protecting your family is the best plan you can make. Get started at ready. gov/ plan. Brought to you by FEMA and the Adcouncil.

Jim Taylor:
53:38

I work with people in their 60s and 70s, and they still have years ahead of them, and so why not make them better?

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
53:45

Here's a point for you, and I think this is going to, for the sake of time, close this piece out, but you brought up a couple evolutionary points earlier and so not for the sake of you know, whatever criticism or comparison might come of this, just as a point of reference, non-evolutionary from a perspective there, or let's say, religiously based. So in terms of a Christian perspective, Jesus growing up and as he becomes more of an adult, dealing with rejection and this cross to bear and obviously all of these other physical things, the thorns, the sword, the spitting, the rocks, the whatever I think there's a prevailing prevailing may be the wrong word. I think there's a growing opinion of what's in the Bible, for example, being not physically literal in lessons where the lessons are more applied to our spirit, which, in my perspective, is not religious in its entirety. I think at least what we do physically, or what happens to us physically, is one dimension, one aspect of this human condition, or let's call it conditioning to being human. I suppose there a second being, maybe emotional or behavioral right, how we act out, what's happening in our heads, because nobody else is there but us, right, and so it's how all of these things manifest, and maybe it's not always physical, maybe it's just an outburst that's in our head, an adrenaline rush, for example, but mentally, this other domain or aspect or dimension of ourselves being human, I think, is how we think, maybe even consciously, control our thoughts. Let's just refer to that, for the sake of a baseline here, as self control, and you brought up being guarded and putting up walls, I think, to a certain degree, and an even more positive angle against the things that get you further away from your goals. Guard against those things, right, but that sort of mental aspect and dimension, I think, is something that's inherent to our human condition as well.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
55:51

Probably, though, our values are not physical. They may manifest that way. For sure, I value teamwork and I'm going to shake his hand after the soccer game or whatever, right, okay. But our values aren't physical. Our values aren't necessarily emotional or behavioral, and to a certain degree they're mental, as much as we think about and talk about them critically and consciously. But I put values and character and morals in more of this spiritual dimension of the human condition, and so if you were to take it from that perspective, and then the cross that we bear and all of these, call it what you like, for right now I'm going to call them metaphors and stories and parables that are actually in the Bible.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
56:32

Well, if those apply to us spiritually, for the sake of Jesus or whatever direction you take, your faith for the things that you can't handle, which is why you take them.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
56:43

On faith, these leap you talked about earlier, the things, the uncertainties, the unpredictability well then, spiritually, growing into this person and you've become now Jim, from who you were, I think a lot of that, even biblically, is the mark of progress for every individual, human or humankind across the board, right to being able to learn to deal with rejection and then come out on the other side saying it'll be okay or forgive them, for they know not what they do type metaphors, right. And I think a lot of those things spiritually get overlooked because they get tied to religion and people say, well, that's Christian and I'm Islamic, or that's, pick a religion, that's and I'm the other, or whatever applies right, and it's so much division and just incivility for no reason. But I think there's a lot of overlap and so talking about values like this and seeing the impact of values like this gives us the opportunity to bring these things together.

Jim Taylor:
57:36

So I agree completely and, yes, I do come from an evolution perspective. At the same time, I have tremendous respect for people of faith and, if you look at it, there's different explanations for why we are who we are. Some are scientific, some are religious, some are metaphorical, whatever, but the bottom line is the same stuff applies whichever direction you're coming from in terms of your religiosity and faith values and all the things I've talked about are totally the same. They're just not just overlap, they are, for me, the same about. You know 98% of it.

Jim Taylor:
58:08

So it's really and hopefully I haven't offended any people, any of your listeners, because really what this is about is like how you want to live your life and what's driving you, that is, your values and where they come from. That's entirely up to you and but the important thing is how you express it in your life, those values in your life, what kind of person you are in your life, and so, regardless of, again, where you think with, the source of your values come from, the important thing is do you live a valued life, both for yourself and for humankind? That's the bottom line for me.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
58:42

That's really the really could be the goal for anybody. You know, it gives us the opportunity to be able to move towards something when you don't know a goal you could attain. Well, you know what, at least I can be more empathetic, at least I can be more whatever, develop a stronger character, at least I can work on me. And I think that always gives us something to chase and something to strive for. When you say, well, I can't find a job, I'm not getting paid enough. Do I pay the electric bill by the groceries? Right?

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
59:07

Even in those moments where we're not really thriving, we're just focused on surviving, there's still an upside to the day where you have something in your control and I think that alone counts for a lot where you start to regain some control or semblance of it Look, jim, I appreciate the opportunity man. And then sort of working our way back out, talking through what these values did for you, how to apply them, but more importantly, in my opinion, how to help ourselves is the biggest thing we can learn. It's sort of a mark of maturity, in my opinion, where you start to realize you can stand on your own. You know once you leave the nest or whatever analogy you want to use how you handle failure, or your willingness to accept that you will have to handle failure, how you deal with people and setbacks, and maybe even shifting those to challenges, changing your perspective and looking at them as opportunities. I love them in.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
59:54

For the second time, though, which we are out of actually. So you're writing for psychology today. Obviously you're writing articles, you're working with clients, you've got you know your own website and all of these things, but if people want to reach out to you, learn more about you any of these things you're teaching any of your insights how do you recommend people do it? Where do they go?

Jim Taylor:
1:00:13

Yeah, well, I don't know if you've heard of this thing now called the internet and these websites, and I actually have one, amazingly enough. So I have a website, drjimtaylor. com, and probably 95% of everything I've ever written is up there for free. And if they go to my blog and I've got different categories and it's all there. And if people want to talk to me more, whether it just ask me a couple of questions or retain me in terms of working with them more formally, I've got my contact information, email address and phone number and so on. I'm also on social media. Let's see Twitter, instagram, facebook and LinkedIn. Stay away from TikTok, but that's all the story.

Jim Taylor:
1:00:54

Another fundamental value for me is this colleague of mine that writes a lot about identity, in terms of what drives you, and he is a great exercise, and he, the exercise is this complete the sentence my purpose and passion in life is to fill the blank.

Jim Taylor:
1:01:11

My purpose and passion in life is to fill the blank, and this is this really is what your value is, and it took me a long time to answer this as I matured, and my answer to this question is my purpose and passion in life is to create and share ideas that help people achieve their goals, become the best versions of themselves and be as mentally healthy as possible.

Jim Taylor:
1:01:30

Everything I do, I don't do it for the money, for the glory, for the fame. That's what drives me and what's so value about having such clarity is that I can't not do that. To not do that, to not fulfill that value, would be for me to be inauthentic, for me to not be me. So I have to do it, and not any sort of bad have to do way, but just this is how I have to live my life, to be aligned with my values, and that's made me happy, successful. By my definition. I'm not a rich man, but I lead a rich life and I do earn a nice living, of course, thankfully, and to have healthy, good relationships. That for me, again on my death bed when I'm 156 years old, that's a life well lived.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
1:02:15

That really is the best we can hope for. I think, somewhere on a scale between what you just brought up having a richer life from that perspective and being able to look back and smile at what you've accomplished or the opportunities you've had or all of the moments that didn't go your way, and sort of at least look back and enjoy the journey. I think that's the ideal. But again, we're out of time. I appreciate the conversation. I appreciate your time, your insight at willingness to talk through a lot of these topics which, in my opinion, aren't as well publicized as they probably should be and aren't, as let's say, effectively taught as they probably could be either, judging by the amount of people that have all of these similar issues. There may be some other way to broadcast it better, but time will tell. Anyway, again, I appreciate the opportunity. So thanks again. Thank you for coming on.

Jim Taylor:
1:03:04

Pleasure to talk to you guys. Great fun and interesting to have a conversation about things that are important to both of us. So thank you very much.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
1:03:10

Yeah for sure. And for anybody again who's new to the show or anybody who's a continuing listener, all of the links for Jim's website and social and to get to that blog, depending on the player you're using to stream this conversation click see more, maybe click show more, something to that effect under the player and in that description you'll see links to Jim's website as well, so you'll be able to get there if that's easier for you to navigate. And you know what, Jim, I gotta say frankly. I gotta thank Bermond Academy, I gotta thank your wife, I gotta thank all five of those girls back in high school and whatever you've gone through the setbacks, the rejection, the insight, the growth in my opinion it's not something we can do on our own and I assume it wasn't something you did on your own. So to everybody that helped you along that journey, I gotta thank them as well.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
1:03:54

Thank you to our show partners and folks. Thank you for tuning in and appreciating our value as we all grow through life together, to check out our other conversations, merchandise or even to contribute through feedback, follows, time, money or talent and let us know what you think of the show. Please reach out on our website, transactingvaluepodcastcom. We stream new episodes every Monday at 9am Eastern Standard Time through all of your favorite podcasting platforms, and we'll meet you there. Until next time. That was Transacting Value.