 Hi, Paul Scanlon here. Thanks for taking the time to click on my podcast. I want to spend time focusing on my primary passions of leadership, personal development, communication, growing big people, and I hope that these podcasts really help and add value to your life and to your journey. Thanks for tuning in. Case, thanks for being on the show with me today. There are so many people across my European audience that won't know so much about you as opposed to my American followers who may know about you. So just tell us a little bit about what you do and I think I'd be interested to know and they would about why you do what you do would be interesting I think to start off. For sure. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It means a lot. I'm a big fan of yours. I mean, so by trade, I'm a podcaster and I'm a writer. It takes a lot of different forms. I do a lot of fun things with music and quotes and books and things like that. But everything I do is around mindfulness. My definition of mindfulness, which is just self-awareness, the practice of being honest with yourself. So everything I do, I create a lot of content. I podcast, I write on this as it relates to your career, as it relates to your your self-esteem, as it relates to dating and relationships. That's what I do. So the reason I do it is I'm just so sold on the power of self-awareness, on the power of empathy, on the power of vulnerability. I used to be a rather closed off kind of robotic guy. I'm 33 now. And the past five years have just been really transformational for me as far as who I've become, the man I've become when I decided to be honest with myself, when I decided to stop ignoring feelings, when I decided to be sensitive. It's funny. I live in Chicago and everyone knows me as the guy who just shares his feelings for a living because I put up quotes around the city. I have a podcast where I just talk about how I feel. It's this total 180 from who I used to be. But I'm just so on board of how much happier and more fulfilled it's made me, the more in touch with myself I've grown to be. So I turn around and I talk about it and I write about it. And that's pretty much it. So what in your past, even going to your childhood now, is there a narrative you can track that explains what you're doing now and why you're doing it? Or was there some big life-changing thing you've gone through that put you on a different trajectory to what you expected? Yeah, I think so. I think a lot about that. I mean, I talk a lot about like attachment styles and things like that. And I try to be vulnerable and go back to my childhood. You know, I don't know. I think it was just a cultural, you know, family thing as far as, you know, a little bit of hesitancy to be, you know, totally feeling centric. I started the podcast when I was 29. I was kind of blindsided by a breakup. I basically came home one day and she had moved out and that was the last time I saw her. And, you know, through that, I popped out of that and I was like, whoa, you know, what's going on? Who is Case? Like who is Case Kenny outside of a relationship? Because I was very identified and my worth through that relationship. And also at the time, I was very invested in my career. I had a sales career at a technology company. And I was very invested in that. So who is Case outside of a relationship? Who's Case outside of my career? And I was like, man, I don't really know because those are like the two biggest areas of life, right? And I had, I had revolved so much of my blueprint around that, around trying to find the right way around following a path that I was like borrowing from other people. So I started the podcast as a result of the breakup. And I was like, I'm just going to start talking about these things. And then it kind of, kind of blew up. And I always say like, I encourage everyone to go to, to go to therapy in some form. I think it's so incredibly powerful. I myself, I don't go to another therapist because my form of therapy is twice a week on the podcast where I sit down and I talk through these things. So I'm so privileged to be able to live a life where I create content that helps other people, but it helps me in the same way, if not more. So, you know, break up to starting the podcast to three years later, it's just, it's just been growth, growth, growth. And, you know, it's amazing to be able to have it help other people. Yeah, that was kind of the catalyst for me. And you talked to me in five years, I'm sure there'll be another catalyst that's like Case 1.0, the 2.0 to 3.0. And I just love the fact that I have more to learn. And I can sit down and share it with other people and people can relate. It's really quite amazing. Are you speaking in case to a certain niche or most common issues that you feel are coming up for people in your demographic? And what are those things that you feel you particularly are interested and drawn to speaking about? Yeah, it's funny. It's a good question because I started the podcast, I was like, I want to talk about mindfulness. Mindfulness is self-awareness. Self-awareness is honesty. Honesty is happiness. So on and so forth. I never set out to talk about dating relationships. Because I see a lot of that on your social media. Yeah, that's the direction it's gone. And it's the funniest thing because I think I'm woefully unqualified. I'm 33. I have a girlfriend, but I'm not dating. I don't have kids. I'm not like the hallmark of success, although I guess what is the what is the qualification to talk about relationships? But I never set out to do that. But, you know, I started doing the podcast and I got lucky, got a lot of traction, and people were like, hey, we need mindfulness in dating. And I was like, well, I guess that makes sense, because what's the most area that's ripe for frustration in life? It's relationships, interpersonal relationships. So that's the biggest one. That's where I spent a lot of my time. And I'm glad I do because it's made me a better man as it relates to dating, a better partner. It's made me more intentional. And that's the direction it's gone. And it's funny. And then as I start talking about these topics, I've learned a lot about who follows me and who listens to me. It's mostly women, which is really interesting as well. Never set out to build a follower base that's mostly women. But, you know, I'm trying to evangelize for men to be more mindful and sensitive. But along the way, it's great to learn from women and get in their minds and understand how they think. And, you know, I mean, yeah, but to answer your question specifically, it's a lot of dating content and friendship, anything relationship driven where there's ambiguity, and we can kind of redeem ourselves through mindfulness. I'm there. And I love talking about it. Other common things that you find are recurring that are coming up for people around the issue of relationships, romantic relationships, how to treat one another, how to manage a breakup, how to argue well, or so on and so on. Are the common go-to themes that you think people are battling and struggling with? Yeah, 100%. I mean, to boil it down, I mean, I've done hundreds of episodes on dating. So I've talked about every little interesting subject. But I think like the biggest one that I see is this idea of why. Like, why do we do anything in life? Like, for starters, why do we even date? Like, most people are like, well, what do you mean? Of course, we date. We're not supposed to be alone. Like, it's biological. We're supposed to leave a legacy. We're supposed to have a family. And I always hear an answer like that. And I would never shame anyone. I'd be like, that's a good answer. It's a solid answer. But I've always been one to say that you need a little bit more selfishness. You need a little bit more self-focus on why. It's like, well, what is your partner going to offer you in the same way that you're going to offer them something? And I just think that's so important because what I've found to answer your question is they're just so much ambiguity around why we do what we do in a relationship. Like, why are we dating someone? Why are we trying to prove our worth to them? Why are we trying to get them to choose us? Why are we doing these things? And then it's like, whoa, you start thinking about those things. And then that's how you get into attachment style. That's how you get into love languages. That's how you get into all these things that are fueling the why. And it just becomes a lot more powerful. Because then if you understand what is motivating you, then you could become more intentional. Like I look back at my twenties and dating as a man, which is different than dating as a woman is like, I was just dating just to date. There was no intention behind it. And I think once you're able to flip that script, it helps you a lot. You put up with less, you have higher standards. You're not ashamed of being single. That's a big one. I talk a lot about that. People are, there's a stigma around being single. So I would say that. Why? And obviously it's important in every area of life, but especially so in dating. You know, as a baby boomer generation, I'm 64 now case. I grew up in this belief system that you, you were supposed to date and marry and settle down and have kids. And then your life was kind of complete relationally. And people stayed in those marriages for decades, even though everyone knew it wasn't working. And so my generation, including my parents that I watched, got trapped in that belief system about relationships. And so I'm certainly happy to see, you know, my kids and grandkids growing up in a world that isn't as tethered to that mindset as it used to be. And also navigating the territory of what is the new norm? If there is such a thing relationally now all across the world that they're looking at and comparing themselves to. It's an interesting time to be in the space you were in, don't you think? Absolutely. I mean, it's always weird to say COVID has been very kind to the space I'm in because people, I think, have realized the importance of hitting reset in so many areas of life, mental health, especially just inner peace, mindfulness, everything. So I mean, I think it's, I think it's amazing. And like, I love what you said, like, regarding dating, like, and like expectations, it's like, yeah, I borrowed from my parents generation of like, what the expectation is. And one of the exercises I always do is like, I find it very helpful to like think forward in order to create a roadmap for yourself. And one of the things I always do is like, I talk to people who are like, they're feeling the pressure because they're 30, they're 35 and they're single, or they're 26. And they're just so they're, they don't want to be single anymore, because they want a partner. And I would never shame anyone for wanting a partner, of course, but I'm like, think, think ahead. Like, of all the things you might regret in life, I don't think being single is ever something you'll look back and be like, man, I regret being single. And like, I talked to, I talked to my parents, I talked to, I talked to my grandparents, I talked to older generations. And I always ask them that question, what do you regret? And I've never heard that come up. I've never heard them be like, in their 60s or 70s, and be like, man, I regret being single. It's just not something you regret. And like, I think it's a powerful exercise to look forward and think about what you might regret. And the very things you might regret is what you just referenced staying in a relationship that doesn't serve you. Yeah, exactly. You know, one of the things I do case is I have a mentorship group and I mentor people in that group online all around the world. I was speaking to them yesterday about, and central to my why and what I do is to awake people and guide them back to their essential self, back to their internal home, to reconnect them with themselves is a big driving part of what I do. I was talking to them yesterday about this idea that when you make your home in someone else, you give them the power then to make you homeless in any behavior they have that rejects you from the home you've made in them. And I think romantic relationships are particularly prone to that happening, don't you, where people abandon themselves for someone else, which makes the breakup all the more traumatic, because you didn't know that you were doing that. And these movies about completing each other, and you completely me and you're my forever home, all of that language actually isn't helpful, is it? I don't think so. I so agree with that message. I mean, I talk a lot about that. And it's the cliche idea that it shouldn't be two halves coming together, it should be two holes. If I used to hear that advice, it would have been like, all right, cool, cool, cool. But it really is true. And that's why I'm so adamant about people not rushing out of stages in life that are uncomfortable, namely being single, or after a breakup, and resorting to acting out of fear and ambiguity of being alone. The thing that I talk a lot about is the difference between being alone and being lonely. And I would never discredit someone who genuinely feels lonely, of course not. But it's like a lot of times we associate something like being single with being lonely, we don't take the time to realize that, okay, I'm alone, but I'm not lonely. Like we buy into the cultural stigma that not having a partner means you're lacking something. Not having a partner being physically alone means you're prone to be lonely. And yes, it's true, but it's not always true. And that's why I'm just like so adamant about people trying their best to take the pressure off themselves. Because I mean, you're absolutely right. If you're putting your happiness and your finish line in place of someone else, well, to your point, it can be taken away. And what does that do for yourself? So yeah, I'm still on board with that message, absolutely. How's your attachment style changed? What is your current attachment style, Kason? How has it changed and evolved over the years? I don't think it's evolved, if I'm honest. It's dismissive. It's a very dismissive attachment style. But I think I've evolved as far as my awareness of it. I think previously I was of the type to be like, I always leave people before I get too close. I don't need someone else because I am very independent still. And I love that about myself. And I think older version of me saw that as a flaw, saw that as like I'm broken in some way. Whereas now I just realize, okay, these are the cards that I've been dealt. You know, I can't do so much about my path that evolved me to this point. But now it's about balance. I mean, I think anything in life is about balance. It's about how you innately feel as a human, how you're wired as a human. Like I always think it's funny. I'm like, who wired humans? Like we're so prone to like negative thought processes. And I don't think you could totally rewire yourself, but you could arm yourself with additional habits and mantras and thought processes and perspectives to combat that. And so for me, it's understanding that I do have these dismissive tendencies and why I have them. And I can lean on that when I try to act on them. You know, it's one thing to have a little bird in your head saying something. It's another thing to act on them. And I've just become much more aware of that. So, you know, I would like to think one day that I could grow to be much more stable and confident in that way. But I think the awareness is step one. I think particularly for men, it's like I've done a couple of episodes on attachment styles. And then they're like, I don't, I have no idea. I've never heard of this before. And that used to be me. So I think the simple identification of these topics and awareness of them is step one for sure. But yeah, I think through my, my life is, yeah, 100% dismissive style. I think it's real. I think it is still relatively unknown is the attachment style concept and language case. To what degree do you think too? Because I thought about this a lot in my life because my attachment style for most of my life, I think was anxious. And I didn't connect the dots between that behavior in my adult life with my childhood trauma. I never even used the word trauma about what I went through as a kid until recent years when that word seemed to be more accurate to what I'd suffered. And then when I began to connect the dots between my childhood experiences with a violent alcoholic father and so on, to my adult behaviors, I got this narrative then through my life of why I grew up with this anxious attachment style. And it began to help me to deconstruct that behavior where I was defaulting to it. But I still think when I tried to talk to people about it or use the term was that what are you talking about? I'm going to begin to see other people's attachment styles. Once I understood mine and had a language for it, I think it's Brene Brown says once the things language, it's less threatening and less powerful. So I still think it's unknown territory for a lot of people, but such a massive help once you discover it, don't you think? Absolutely. I mean, I love the point. I love everything you just said. I think that the term trauma is one that I think a couple of years ago is like, ooh, trauma. It feels dramatic, right? It feels dramatic because the statement is real trauma. Exactly. Great. That's the word for it. Trauma traumatic. It feels dramatic. It's exactly it. And for all the times I bemoaned the culture we're in for a lot of reasons, I think now we're in a culture where someone says trauma and people are much more accepting because trauma isn't just physical. It isn't experiential in the grand sense. It's very emotional. And I think that's great. And I think to your point, the words we use are very important. They're very, very important. Like, for instance, I just did an episode on this idea of people who get attached easily to others, which is a subset of attachment styles, of course. And I'm like, we beat these people up and they beat themselves up because they're like, I get attached easily. And that makes me such and such. I'm like, let's rebrand that. You don't get attached easily. You're just emotionally honest with yourself to the extent that you act on how you feel. As long as it's a healthy kind of attachment. I'm like, okay, so we're rebranding. It's not I'm attached easily. It's I'm emotionally honest. It's like, the words we use are very, very powerful. And the same way I talk all the time about the idea of the stories we tell ourselves, what are the narratives we tell ourselves? It's like, you know, like, whether you believe in God, you're faith based, or you're just karma based, or you're I believe in the power of the universe, like, what are you telling the universe? Are you repeating a story of what you don't want? Or are you repeating a story of what you do want? And it's these little things that I think are just so important to help in giving us guidance, like, for instance, with like a trauma based, you know, habits, or a foundation like that, it's like, yes, of course, you have to be able to face that trauma and understand it. But at a certain point, it's like, are we going to repeat the trauma as a narrative? Or are we then going to say the trauma taught me what I deserve? And I'm going to repeat the narrative of what I deserve. It's like, I always joke, it's like, if you keep telling the universe what you don't want, how do you expect to get what you do want? It's like, there's there's got to be some connection there. So I'm just so big on the power of identifying, whether it's trauma, or insecurity or doubt, identifying what it is, and then moving towards what it is that you want, rather than focusing on that narrative over and over and over again. And that comes down to words, and words are powerful and sentences are powerful. And I just, I love the English language for that reason is there's so many better ways to describe what we want, rather than what we don't want. And I just, I just encourage people to really lean on that. I was saying to the tribe yesterday, the mentorship tribe that I have, that I think too, what happens looking at my parents, for all my dad's dysfunction and violence and drunkenness, I guess he was a product of his own parenting, you know, from his own dad, my granddad, who I didn't know. And I think what happens is, you know, emotionally homeless people hook up with other emotionally homeless people, then they have kids that they can't pass anything better than that on to. So we now get emotionally homeless kids growing up in those homes, who get into dating really, and so it goes on, you know, that pattern. So somehow, you know, what you're doing, why appreciate what you're doing so much case is speaking into that space and breaking that almost generational default cycle, I think I slipped into, and not knowing how to break out of it. So I want to talk to you a little bit about self-awareness that you touched on a moment ago, because statistically, as you probably know, and in my experience, this is true, 1890% of humans is estimated have little or no self-awareness. And therefore, why is that? Because when I understood self-awareness and began to study it and reach for it, for a level of consciousness in my life, I became aware how few people were self-aware. And so the statistic to me seemed true. Do you think that's accurate in your experience? Why is that? I've never heard that statistic, but I so believe it 100%. I mean, yeah, I hate to make grand statements, but I genuinely think self-awareness is the key to 99% of our problems. We're throwing out statistics here. Genuinely. And that's my business. My business is journals. I've built a large business around journaling. I believe habit formation around self-awareness is the ultimate self-awareness. It's one thing to be self-aware on a Tuesday. It's another thing to be self-aware on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. That is the key. And I think we have to break barriers. It's hard. It's not easy. And I think there's so many layers to it too, because I talk about this idea of the difference between a fact and a feeling. And a lot of the times, we all have feelings, of course. A lot of the times, though, those feelings are not real. They're just feelings. They're anxiety. They're overthinking. They're insecurity. But the problem is if we're not practicing true self-awareness, we'll take a moment of honesty where it's like, I feel unlovable. And we'll be like, well, I'm being honest. Therefore, it's true. And that's not the case. A fact is not a feeling. And if we're not, if we don't take time to really develop a self-awareness muscle where it's like, we can feel a certain way. We can be honest about it. But then we can fact check it and be like, just because I feel this way, is it true? No. Next. That's the ultimate. There's self-awareness 101, which is identifying how you feel. Because as a man, I think very closed off sometimes, we're like, I can't feel insecure right now. I don't have time for this. No, no, no, no. Step one is saying I do feel insecure. Step two, is that a fact about you or is that a temporary feeling? Well, it's temporary. Okay, now what am I going to do about it? So I mean, self-awareness is not a button. You can flip. But it's so rewarding once you develop it as a perennial evergreen mindset that you don't turn it off. And I encourage, I wish we can get more men on board. I think the reason that a lot of women gravitate towards my content is it's just maybe more natural or women are much more vocal about the idea in publicly. But yeah, that 80 to 90% statistic seems accurate. And I think it's something we need to fix, certainly. Yeah. And I think one of the gifts of that to me has been, as I mentioned a moment ago case, that the gift of self-awareness to be able to identify and interrupt your own false narratives that you didn't know were running in the background of your life, that were conditioning all outcomes in your life. I wasn't aware of the presence of those because they were so far back in my consciousness that I didn't have the self-awareness distancing to like a drone hover above it and see this narrative, as I mentioned about trauma in my childhood. And then when I became more self-aware and committed to be intentional about developing that, it became an affliction too, because it is an affliction to be self-aware around people who are not. Yeah, it's really difficult to have. That's why I think therapy is so good for people, because at least you expect the therapist to have enough self-awareness for you to be yourself around them. And I think that culture is much more common in America than it is in Europe of people having therapy. It's still viewed as a weakness here, as is much stuff around mental health, as you know. Do you think that's true that self-awareness also is a little bit isolating, the more self-aware you become, or it's almost the more isolated you become from being able just to chat freely as you are? Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, I mean, it really is true. I think the fulfillment you get from self-awareness is enhanced or detracted by the people you surround yourself with. Definitely so, to your point. Therapy has become this cool and vogue thing in America right now, and I love it, even though sometimes people don't practice it, practice what they preach. At least it's become a narrative that it's cool. And yeah, I mean, I think about that. I think about everything in general. It's just like, I wish we can come up with more commonality around the truths that we all universally believe in and follow, and those could be moral truths, value-driven truths, faith-driven truths, whatever it may be. But I think if we were more open to that fact, we would support other people who are more self-aware than they are. And it's just like the soundbite that I always say, and like any time I talk, it's such a leading light for me. And as it relates to breaking generational trends, whereas it relates to breaking free of something you've long assumed about yourself, is this idea that the soundbite is, there's no right way to live your life, but there is a wrong way. And the wrong way is to think that there's a right way. And I like that a lot just because it's like, I think about my life, and in my 20s, I feel like I really backed myself into a corner. I need to find out what that person is doing because they have it the right way. I need to date my parents because they told me that they were happy in their 30s, so I need to do it that way. I need to be like that dude who's out at the club on a Friday because he's single and he's living his best life. They have the truths. I need to find their truths and copy it. And what really helped set me free was the fact to our whole conversation is that you get to decide what is true for you. And you get to decide that through self-awareness and not just base level self-awareness, but to your point, self-awareness that goes deeper and deeper and challenges those assumptions that we've held for maybe 60 years. And I think that that is the ultimate power is that self-awareness allows us to create truths for ourselves, standards for ourselves, expectations for ourselves that are ours that we didn't borrow from other people or generations or culture or media. And that's the ultimate gift we've been given and no one can take that from us. So I love that. I think to the power of unlearning case, I think unlearning is the most undervalued kind of learning unlearning. And I realized as I became more self-aware and I began to detach and uncouple from learnings I'd inherited. And this is part of the problem I had too with the affliction of self-awareness to use that term is that it makes you realize I learned some stuff that was faulty from day one, but that version of me that learned it didn't know that. I now know on reflection I should never have bought into that and the people that taught me it lacked the awareness to know they shouldn't be teaching me that. And the point the problem I had in more recent years is when I was unlearning things that were not serving me well the people that taught me it was still in my life and I love and respect them. So to unlearn something when the people that taught you that are still in your life and you love and respect them it feels like betrayal and disrespect to say I don't believe that anymore. I am not doing that anymore. I won't be there anymore. I'm not involved in that anymore. When you love the people that taught you it and because of their lack of self-awareness they can't keep all of that intact. It's like you're either on my side or you're not. That's rude, disrespectful. I've really struggled with that tension to say I'm stepping away from this but I don't want to step away from you. You know what I'm saying? Man, that is powerful. I mean it's so true. I mean it's like that's why it's like unlearning, retraining, resetting isn't as easy as just journaling for a month and setting a new list and calling it a day. It's like the relationships in our lives, family. It's brutal. I'm so curious. I wish I could get in a time machine or live for 200 years and just look at generational evolution because obviously your generation or parents generation is so different from my generation and Gen Z. I'm very curious about how that evolves as far as the values that are passed down especially in a society that is much more perspective-driven now. For all the amount of time we spend bemoaning TikTok and social media it's like it has really opened up the perspective that for every right way there's a wrong way but is that really a wrong way or is that the right way? I don't know and I think future generations are much more open to that fact so I'm very curious how that's going to affect people in future but I mean not to detract from what you said. I mean that's so true. This stuff is not easy and a lot of times it takes tough decisions. Imagine being a self-aware person in Donald Trump's cabinet, in Donald Trump's government. I mean good grief. You know what I'm saying? When you saw these political leaders the same with our guy Boris Johnson, these political leaders that seem to have a complete absence of this level of consciousness we're talking about here and to just have a little fragment of that what a game changer that would be in decisions they were making, policies they were setting, conversations they were having, energies they were putting out to us in the world. I think it's a huge thing. I know we touched on this amongst other things but you mentioned it. It put my antennae up for the self-awareness thing because I think we self-awareness 10% need to find each other. We need a support club. I don't know I mean I think politics man that would be ripe for a revolution if we could hire a self-awareness test when you go in and then you test bi-monthly to make sure that they're maintaining their level of self-awareness. Right. Yeah I think we would rather on that basis have Oprah running the country than Donald or Biden for that matter or Boris in our case. No you're right and I think too I think that's what people realize that people like Oprah for instance has much wider influence and following and power and authority yet she has no external power or government or authority because humanity realizing we are drawn to people who we know love us before we drawn to people who lead us but we know don't give a shit about us you know kind of thing but care about themselves. I think all of that revolution and that evolution in the world is why you are in the space you are in I think you are on the cusp of something case I'm you know 64 so I'm watching it happen and trying to learn and be open in my generation to say to kids we got it wrong don't repeat our mistakes. That's what love what you're doing with your massive following on social media and also this is important your massive engagement to me tells me a lot. Well thank you yeah I mean to my point everyone makes fun of me because I'm always being like thank you thank you thank you but it's like I am privileged to be able to do what I do the fact that I can walk around Chicago taking little pictures and put it up and thousands of people will comment or share or whatever it is I'm not bought into social media like I don't I don't really care about growing a following there it's necessary for business but what amps me up is the fact that I'll do a post and I'll look at the metrics and 50,000 people shared it I like that is great and and not just women but men and everything in between however you identify like I think that is what excites me that because like my friends used to clown on me they used to make fun of me okay so okay I don't go share your feelings like they didn't mean it in a harmful way just guys being dudes but like I'm glad like that's shifting and I love it that's what I love and I'm privileged to be to play a smart a small part in that revolution and the narrative is shifting to your point it's like I think people have a bullshit meter now and we don't want we don't want leaders who lead just with charisma we want leaders who lead with values and honesty and self-awareness and people who ask questions I think just someone who is a question asker rather than a an answer giver is like that's what we want we want people who are self-aware and open to other perspectives and so yeah I am I'm very excited I wish I could live longer and and see everything you know go to you know 2030 you know 20 to 2300 and just see see what happens but uh yeah we'll see but I you know I love being able to do this one of the things I've been doing around the world in recent years when we could all travel and I put everything online is a seminar on servant leadership and my observations being that we have had this pattern for generations of putting people into leadership who weren't first of all servants and you can't bolt you can't bolt servant hood on later to leadership there wasn't that in the first place you can bolt leadership on to servant hood but not the other way around if it wasn't there to start with nothing that's why people like Nelson Mandela was so adored because he clearly entered political world as a lover of people he spent years in jail sacrificed and suffered for what he believed in and so when he got in power the change was huge in South Africa because of who was in charge and so I know we both want to see a lot more of that but I do think my grandkids growing up in this generation I'm hopeful if I don't live to see it that the world will see this massive shift in the nature of the kind of people that finish up being in leadership in all walks of life I'm hopeful about that let me ask you before you go and I'll let you go case because I saw and heard on one of your posts and podcasts about your your optimistic nature you talked about being an optimist I know there's a lot of bad stuff happening in the world and in America racism political division economic division and so on and so on why why are you optimistic and how do you sustain that yeah I always joke that I'm wired optimistic and I think that's true but it's also a choice like I have a choice I have a choice why not choose the one that makes me feel better about my future and the future of the world I'm in and then like I back into it by trying to be as pragmatic as possible and the example I always give that always like I think self-awareness is logical if you create logical leaps where the answer is always yes or no you could follow that through to the outcome that is most compassionate and redeeming so like the example I always give myself is like we have plenty of examples in our lives where life went from good to bad right so many examples right you get broken up with you get broken up with your health deteriorates someone close to you dies bad things but we have proved that life can go from good to bad quickly then what is stopping us from believing the opposite what is stopping us from believing that life can go from bad to good quickly like that's a logical leap that I can make every time and if I have proof of one and likely proof of the other why can't I just make a choice to believe and put my eggs in the other basket and like I do and it just feels better because you know optimism begets gratitude gratitude begets you know positivity positivity begets more self-awareness and the whole thing is psycho cyclical so like I believe in that and I try to support it with logical leaps and patterns that I see in my life and I just choose to believe that and it makes me more powerful and it makes me believe in myself and then to our conversation it empowers me to create a narrative that supports that and if I'm if I have two choices in life why not choose the one that if honestly it feels better feels better to be optimistic I think everyone would want to be that way but also it empowers me to act on it so proof of one I can believe in proof of the other and I'm sticking to it and that's what I believe and I encourage other people to try to find their own proof that version works for me but it's just coming up with whatever proof exhibit a exhibit b works in your life and I just I just think that's that's the way we could train ourselves it's a practice it's a muscle you don't just turn a switch to our point but it's it's very worth it well it's hugely attractive in what you're doing is clearly from the engagement that you get on your social media and through your podcasting I think what you're doing is fantastic I really appreciate what you are doing we need more case kennies in the world we desperately do and we need more case kennies in in power and in authority and in all spheres of rule and governance in the world so good only for what you're doing it's lovely to meet you're a great human hey let me know case for my listeners um how can we find you any new things coming up that you'd like to tell us about product resources events and so on well thank you that that means a lot coming from you and thank you for having me on I enjoyed our our little chat here uh yeah it's just case.kennie on instagram that the podcast is called new mindset who dis if you go to new mindset who dis.com you can pick up my journals I also have some really interesting candles that have guided meditations attached to all things mindfulness and I enjoy it but thank you so much for having me on appreciate it well thanks again for listening to today's podcast I hope we found it beneficial and I know time is precious come out of the photos or but I would love if you would take the time to write a review or comment and above all maybe subscribe to my podcast channel thank you