SNS 164: Saturday Night Special – Interview with Jem Fuller author of The Art of Conscious Communication for Thoughtful Men

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 164.

[00:00:05] Jem Fuller: I'm Jem Fuller. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to communicate with kindness, even to yourself is key.

[00:00:24] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

[00:00:33] But the question then is that what is success? So I've made all this money. I've got two houses and two cars and have three kids and I've got the thing and we go on vacation, but I'm deeply empty and I'm, there's no meaning real meaning to my life. Is that success? I don't know if that's success.

[00:00:50] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, [00:01:00] then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:17] And tonight's Saturday night special. I interview Jim fuller. I asked Jim to share with you what brought him to write the book, the art of conscious communication for thoughtful men. Jim also shares what he sees as the four major parts of communication. And Jim also shares with you how his coaching is focused on helping you communicate.

[00:01:37] One reason I like to bring you great interviews. Like the one you're gonna hear today is because of the power in learning from others. Another great way to learn from others is through reading books. But if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible.

[00:01:58] Go to inspired [00:02:00] stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And instead of reading, you can listen your way to learn from some of the greatest minds out. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast.

[00:02:26] Jim fuller has lived a colorful global life from barefoot backpacker to corporate leader, fire dancer, and traditional tattooist kindergarten teacher to motorcycle courier Beuse and reflexology to labor and travel consultant. Now his time is as partner and father, coach facilitator, and retreat leader.

[00:02:45] He is the author of the recently published book, the art of conscious communication for thoughtful men and can be seen delivering his TEDx. Talk on YouTube. Welcome to the show,

[00:02:54] Jem Fuller: Jim. Scott. Thank you so much for having me on.

[00:02:58] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. [00:03:00] Jim, we talked a little bit about in, in the intro about your book, the art of conscious communication for thoughtful men.

[00:03:07] And first off, I love the title. But what brought you to the point in your journey of deciding you wanted to write this book?

[00:03:17] Jem Fuller: Yeah, that's a great question, Scott. Because things evolve and the next thing we know, we find ourselves doing something and then it's with the benefit of hindsight and some retrospection we can think.

[00:03:27] Wow. Okay. So maybe that's how I got there. We connect the

[00:03:30] Scott Maderer: dots with reverse. We never connected while we're living yeah,

[00:03:34] Jem Fuller: yeah. That's exactly right. Okay. So having connected some of the dots in reverse look, I came to communication. I've been passionate about. Communication my whole life and especially cross-cultural communication.

[00:03:46] That doesn't mean I've been good at it. I've been terrible at communication in many situations in my life. And that had me curious as well. Why is it that in certain situations we trip over and stumble in our words and we miscommunicate in the other [00:04:00] person doesn't know what we're trying to express.

[00:04:02] And then what, why is it that in other contexts we're actually fine. But then more recently after many thousands of hours of coaching and specifically coaching leadership, but also coaching relationships more broadly, it became pretty clear to me that so much of our so much of the confrontation or conflict or where we trip over in leadership and in relationship is in communi.

[00:04:29] And quite often you'll have two parties who actually are on the same page. You

[00:04:34] know,

[00:04:34] Jem Fuller: they work for the same organization, say perhaps, and they both want the same outcome, but they're really at log aheads and it's in their miscommunication that they're tripping over. So that had me interested in communication and then more broadly looking at the state of play globally and how more and more in recent years, there are groups of people who have identified with their politic or identified with their [00:05:00] ideology or identified with their difference.

[00:05:03] And they're shouting at each. And it's upsetting for me as someone who has a deep love for humanity to see humans just shouting at each other over their difference of opinions. And to see that it's not actually evolving the situation or creating collaborative. Solutions to these problems so it's frustrating to watch the art of communication, somewhat dissipating or deteriorating.

[00:05:28] Anyway. So that had me writing about conscious communication and conscious, just meaning more aware So I believe the more aware we are in communication, the better we can be in our part of the communication, whether that's as, as listeners seeking to understand, or as the person delivering the inform.

[00:05:47] And I was writing the book more broadly. I engaged a book writing mentor here in Australia, and she suggested to me, Jim, you need to pick an audience you're writing too broadly and it won't get picked up off the shelf. So you pick someone and [00:06:00] she said I think this book would land really well with men at the moment.

[00:06:03] I dunno about for you where you are Scott, but here in Australia there's a change a foot in terms of the cultural paradigm and stereotype of what it is to be a man. And it's the old way, ways that we indoctrinated our boys are outdated and need to change. We need to evolve this whole thing of suck it up, be a man grin and bear it, toughen up, harden up.

[00:06:27] Don't cry like a girl all this stuff that used to happen. Intergenerationally is not serving us. When I say us as in humanity, it's not serving us anymore. We need to evolve. And so I'm passionate about that. And so that's how the book became for thoughtful men.

[00:06:45] Scott Maderer: So do you think you mentioned about how so many groups now are shouting at each other and things.

[00:06:53] Do you think that's new or. Just different because of the media [00:07:00] and what's going on with that what makes it worse now than it was. 20 years ago, 50 years ago, a hundred years ago, or is it really just the same? It's always been this way.

[00:07:11] Jem Fuller: Look, I think that's a wonderful question. And and you, and I could sit and talk about that for days.

[00:07:16] so look I think there's a few factors, at least a few factors at play here, so let's. Presume from our understanding anthropologically of us as a species that we've always been aware of difference and that has been dangerous. And so we've had been tribal and we've been some, if there's a different tribe that are different to us we come from a place of fear and, and.

[00:07:40] Mistrust, shall we say there's, that's always been there to some degree. That's not to say that we haven't been able to figure out how to communicate and cross community socialize. So if you take the Australian abies, for example, for 60,000 years of being on this continent, there were different nations, [00:08:00] many different nations, but they had ways to communicate cross nation, right?

[00:08:05] So that's always been possible as. But then in recent years we've had the rise of the internet and we've had and then more recently the rise of social media. And so you have this natural tendency towards tribalism where, wow, you look like me, or you think like me, or you believe like I do.

[00:08:25] So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, we're gonna flock together and support each other, even though I don't know you and I've never met you, but. You believe in the same version of God as me. So let's band together and let's shout at the other people who are not like us, who don't look like us or don't believe like us.

[00:08:41] So that's just become more prevalent because of social media and the internet. However, There's another factor that comes in as well. And I don't know about you, Scott you are, you're a global community person, right? You speak to a lot of people, you interview people, you speak to people, you like me would [00:09:00] see.

[00:09:00] There's so many good people out there. Yeah. There's so many people like us who are on a mission to do good work and connect and have good conversations and try to do our bit to make the world a better place. There's so many of us, I think it's the minority that have been played by political agenda.

[00:09:18] And by the algorithms, which are also algorithmic, but also the people who utilize those algorithms to create divide, create this political identity thing that's going on create this cancel culture, because they've got an agenda, which is to divide us. However, I reckon. That's a very Aussie thing to say, isn't it?

[00:09:39] I reckon , I believe that most of us are good and most of us are kind and most of us want the best for our fellow humans. I think it's a minority that really wanna try and destroy each other. Well, and I think sometimes too, that many of the people that are in that group, Honestly believe that [00:10:00] the message that they're spread is for the best.

[00:10:02] Scott Maderer: Yeah. It's not that they think they're obviously there's exceptions to that. There are people that know they're doing wrong and are doing wrong on purpose, but yeah, I think most people believe that they're being a good person or doing a hundred percent thing. Do you, would

[00:10:16] Jem Fuller: you agree?

[00:10:16] A hundred percent? Yeah. Completely agree. And so my exacerbation. And my hope for a refocus onto improving the art of conscious communication is not personal at all. I don't have any personal judgment at. It's collective and it's a hope for us collectively to improve our discourse.

[00:10:37] But yeah, a hundred percent people believe that what their, the soapbox that they're standing on will make the world a better place. They really do. It's just the methodology when people try and cancel each other and shout at each other and try and ruin each other's lives, it's that's not helping your course and

[00:10:55] Scott Maderer: going back to what you said earlier about two people in the same organization that may actually have the same [00:11:00] goals. And yet they're at loggerheads. I think a lot of times the political discourse it's like the broad goals are the same, yeah. We want good for society.

[00:11:09] We want people to succeed. We want happiness and chicken in every pot and all of the other what, whatever. Little thing you can come up with. Yeah. What we argue about is, but how do we get there? yeah. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about communication. What, why why do you think communication is so fundamental and important across so many different areas of life?

[00:11:34] Jem Fuller: Wow. It you just said it is completely fundamental. Why? I think that to be the case is that let's look at any number of examples. First of all, as a species, the human race could not have evolved. We wouldn't be here today. If we hadn't figured out how to communicate and socialize and work together as teams, we weren't the fastest fiercest animal on the Savannah planes.[00:12:00]

[00:12:00] We were weak and very vulnerable. And it was through working together in groups and that, and therefore being able to communicate that we actually managed to evolve. So it's at the very heart of our ability to exist as a species. Then we look in more nuanced ways. So for example, to take an idea, you have an idea and

[00:12:20] you

[00:12:20] Jem Fuller: think, wow, I've got this idea.

[00:12:22] I'm gonna, I'm gonna create a podcast called inspired steward. Now that to take that idea into this reality, that you've created Scott where it's a real living, breathing thing that you do, you wouldn't have been able to do that if you couldn't communicate the idea. So the whole idea, would've just stayed an idea.

[00:12:39] Einstein's brilliant ideas around physics and mathematics wouldn't have made a difference at all. If he couldn't communicate. So we need communication. Like that communication is the bridge between isolation and connection is this human driving thing that we have, we're driven to connect and isolation, we fear because it's not [00:13:00] good for us.

[00:13:01] It's communication. That is that bridge and then more broadly. So if we look into an organization or if we look even more broadly to the global. Communities communication is the only way that we can harness the power of diversity and create true collaboration across differing ideas to solutions, to, to global problems, pandemics, inequality the global warming. these bigger problems are problems for us. All, not just for some of us, they don't discriminate. They don't mind where you grew up or what you look like or what you believe in. They're global problems for all of us and they need global solutions.

[00:13:43] They need us to come together and without effective communication that ain't gonna happen, so that's why I'm passionate about communication.

[00:13:51] Scott Maderer: So let's talk a little bit about the book itself and in the book you lay out kind of four parts of communication, and I believe you [00:14:00] start with communication self.

[00:14:01] Is that from what I recall, can you talk a little bit about. Why do you start with self communication? And why are you including that as part of communication? Because up to now, we've been talking about kind of group and cross people. And yet it I noticed you started with self in the book, which yeah.

[00:14:18] Yeah. Why there .

[00:14:19] Jem Fuller: Before I answer that question or just to explain a little bit of my thinking and the way I perceive life from the human experience is that there is this apparent duality. I say apparent because it's only from the human perspective, this duality from a universal perspective, everything's all one, right?

[00:14:37] But from the human perspective, we have day and night, we have yin and yang. We have masculine and feminine. We have north and south, we have all this apparent duality. So in this conversation also, there's an apparent duality at the one end of this scale of duality, we are a part of a greater.

[00:14:53] And we're all a part of that system. So we're not actually separate from the system we are of [00:15:00] that system. Every time you breathe in oxygen, every time you drink water or eat food, you are very literally consuming atoms from the system and you are changing cellularly as of the system. So on the one end of this duality, you and I are of the same thing, brother.

[00:15:17] Right then at the other end of this scale

[00:15:19] Scott Maderer: that you ever what's more the same thing as the stars and the right, everything at some level we're made of star dust. I completely love that as an idea and a concept too.

[00:15:29] Jem Fuller: Yeah. Yeah. And very literally. Not some woo.

[00:15:32] Hippie kind of, oh, we star us brother. No. We very actually literally are. So let's talk about

[00:15:38] Scott Maderer: the waste product of stars, scientifically produced all other elements. So thank you. So all at an elemental level, so yeah. You're absolutely

[00:15:47] Jem Fuller: correct. Yeah. So at the one end of this human experience, we can appreciate that to some degree and then at the other end of this human experience, it's all about me from my perspective, cuz I'm in the center of my whole experience of life.

[00:15:59] [00:16:00] I'm the common denominator everywhere I go. Whether I'm talking with you or my children or clients, I'm in the middle of it all. So I'm in the middle of perceptually. I'm in the center of my experience of the universe. Sure. And so now I'm getting to the point of why I think this relationship with self is the place to start my whole experience of everything.

[00:16:21] As yours, our whole experience of everything is in our mind. So we receive information from the environment around us, through our sensors, through our touch, taste, smell, et cetera, we receive bits of information. And then we re we represent these bits of information as a very real projection in our mind.

[00:16:41] So if the whole experience of life is in my mind, then the quality of my mind matters, right? If it, the and the current state of mind, Matters. If you're in a terrible state of mind. You can walk outside on [00:17:00] a beautiful day, subjectively beautiful day, but to you, it's terrible and everything's going wrong.

[00:17:06] And everything it's clunky and horrible in your experience is horrible. Why? Because of the state of your mind, you could be in a beautiful state of mind. You've just had something wonderful happen. Your relationship is in a humming place. You're feeling love and you walk out on a cold and rainy day and it's beautiful.

[00:17:23] You're singing in the rain. What's different, your state of mind. So our state of mind, really a lot, has a lot to do with our relationship with self, because our relationship with self is our relationship with the past and anything that we are unresolved within the past is hanging around in our current state of mind.

[00:17:43] So if our current state of mind determines our ability to communicate with the outside world, then I believe the place to. Is in a healing, a resolution, a continual love enhancing relationship with self. I think we need to really start to love [00:18:00] ourselves and improve the communication with self.

[00:18:03] I know I'm going on a little bit here, but I'm passionate about this, Scott. If you pay close attention to the quality of the language you use, when you're reprimanding yourself, it's terrible. We speak horribly to ourselves. We use words against ourselves that we would never use to a loved one or even to an enemy, and so I believe that if we pay some closer attention, some contemplation, some more subtle and more conscious awareness of our relationship with self there's, a lot of improving that we can. There's a lot of improving, so I believe that's the place to start.

[00:18:37] Scott Maderer: Yeah. I once actually had the pleasure. I was talking to a group of several hundred entrepreneurs.

[00:18:42] All of these people ran successful businesses of various sizes not small businesses for the most part all of them were people that most people would look at and say that they're success. At some level. And one of the questions I asked was how many of you have a voice of some sort that [00:19:00] talks to you in your head?

[00:19:01] Either out loud or with pictures or images you have an internal voice. Of course every single hand went up and I said, now how many of you keep your hand up? If that voice is nice to you and every single person's hand went down, yeah. And it's like, how could we be in a room of 500 successful people?

[00:19:19] Yeah. And yet all of us would say that the voice that we have in our head talking to us yeah. Is not nice.

[00:19:26] Jem Fuller: So that, so that begs the question then that then makes me think, what is success? What is success is that this thing we got sold by society. And it's not that there's a, an evil, bad person there trying to mastermind this.

[00:19:39] This just happened right. For us as a species, capitalism just happened. And we think that it's a good idea. And to, to in many ways it is. But the question then is that what is success? So I've made all this money, I've got two houses and two cars and the three kids, and I've got the thing and we go on vacation, but I'm deeply empty [00:20:00] and I'm, there's no meaning real meaning to my life.

[00:20:02] Is that success? I don't know if that's success.

[00:20:04] Scott Maderer: And I, yeah, one of the places I start when I'm working with clients is figuring helping the. Them to define what success needs to look like for them. Yeah. Because again, I think there's what instead we usually do is we develop somebody else's definition of success and say, that must be success, and it's yeah, but their success, maybe their success, and it may even be success for them. That doesn't mean it is for you yeah. That's right. I left a corporate job. High income, all sorts of perks that people empirically would look at and go, dude, you got it made.

[00:20:42] And to go start my own business. And because I could work from home and see my family more and spend more time. Yeah. That was worth it to me. Yeah. And was success to me where literally lots of people around me looked at me and said, Why are you giving up all of this [00:21:00] success that it's but I'm not

[00:21:01] Jem Fuller: Yeah. Yeah. So how that's so true.

[00:21:05] Scott Maderer: How do you talk a little bit about how the book or how you're coaching, how do you work with people on communication? What is the process or the paradigm that you use?

[00:21:18] Jem Fuller: I believe that to create sustainable change, it needs to, we need to create habitual change in perspective.

[00:21:26] So the way we look at something and habitual change in practice. What are the daily, what are the daily practices that I can initially have some discipline and accountability around to create that over time become habitual. So then I don't need to discipline myself. It's habitual for me to wake up and practice this thing, or to have a perspective in this way.

[00:21:49] So that I believe that's the foundation of it. And then always we can be learning. So as a coach and in the book, I suggest. Easy to implement [00:22:00] not easy to have the discipline around, but easy to understand concepts, little, 1% shifts in the way that you see things and do things that over the longer term, make a big difference.

[00:22:11] And then as a coach with my clients, I hold them accountable. So anyone that's working with me, I'm on your case, coming from a place of love and support. You don't create the actions to take, and then a month later, you haven't heard from me and I'm going right. Did you do what you said you were gonna do now?

[00:22:27] I'm there constantly, come on, you can do this, you can do this or you're doing it. Let's go. So accountability is a big piece of how I help my clients. And then we can always be learning ways to improve after in the book after this conversation with self and.

[00:22:43] Improving this relationship. Then I start to talk about comms with others so through understanding human behavior, we can get much better at communicating. If I understand your behavioral style at a macro level, then I can adjust my delivery to land more effectively with you. I. [00:23:00] If I understand that you are somebody who prefers dot points and big picture, and you're looking forward to the future and you're a visual person, then I'm gonna change my language in that way.

[00:23:09] As opposed to communicating with someone who perhaps prefers a lot more detail is past assurance based. So they look to the track record of something and they prefer me to slow down my presentation. I'm gonna do. Because people say to me, Scott, oh but then I'm not being authentic.

[00:23:25] If I'm speaking quickly and big picture to one person and then slowly in detail to someone else, then I should just deliver in the way I deliver. I say yeah, but you're making it all about you. What's more important. You and the sound of your own voice or the success of the communication itself.

[00:23:43] That's something, the goal, right? Why are you communicating? Are you wanting this person to understand something or feel something or know something? And if you are, or even do something

[00:23:53] Scott Maderer: Your boss trying to get an employee to do something, cause that's the, what I've seen the most is, but they should [00:24:00] just do it, yeah. Cause I've told them to and it's No and how's that work and how's that working for you? Yeah. Is it working? No, it's not. So change the way you, so maybe change. Yeah. So yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. So what

[00:24:15] What are some of those you talk about the easy to implement and understand concepts, but what would be an example of one of the, one of the practices that you would encourage people to start.

[00:24:27] Jem Fuller: Oh, one of my favorite habits to create pause often, and it sounds too simple to be effective, but it's incredibly effective. I actually first heard these words from a keynote speaker at the mindful global leader forum in Sydney, Australia in 2014. And there was a meditation teacher from the states'.

[00:24:50] And it was just the right timing for me to hear this man speak. And he said a couple of things that, that landed with me back in 2014, one was know the [00:25:00] work he was talking about meditation, know the work, but do the work as in do the work. And that landed with me. And so I started dedicated practice back then, but he also said, pause.

[00:25:12] That's all he said, and I was like, wow what does he mean by that? Like quite, just literally just pause, which is what he meant. And so I turned it into a practice which has now become a habit that I call pause moments, and I share this with all of my clients. So a pause moment is when you have just finished doing something before you're gonna do the next thing, or when you're in the middle of something, if you can to pause and just for a three to five seconds, Take a breath and just notice what you can notice.

[00:25:42] Just notice your breathing, notice your heart rate, notice your thoughts, and then continue. So these pause moments only take five seconds, but they become a little micro recalibration to your place of equanimity to your calm center. [00:26:00] And I love using them when I'm running late. I personally have a value where I don't like to be late for things.

[00:26:05] I don't mind if you are late to a meeting with me, I used to that used to annoy me, but I don't mind anymore of anyone's late, but personally, I like to be on time if I'm running late for something just before I open the laptop to come into that zoom meeting that I'm late for. I'll pause, take a breath.

[00:26:21] And then continue. Now I'm only five seconds later than I was going to be to that meeting anyway, but I'm showing up now from a place of calm centeredness and especially for leadership, this is massive. You can put these pause moments before you respond. So someone comes in and says Houston, we've got a problem, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:26:40] And you're about to react and say, I told you to do it. there's this energy level here. If you can pause, take a breath. And then respond. It's a much more powerful and effective place to come from in leadership. So there you go. There's something, if you can create habits to pause often throughout the day, I think it's beautiful.

[00:26:59] Scott Maderer: [00:27:00] And I'm gonna, I'm gonna call something out just because it's I think it's important. Notice that pause, like you finished a task and you're gonna get ready to start another one. Didn't involve. Using that pause to check email or look at Facebook on your phone or yeah. Yeah. It's actually really

[00:27:17] Jem Fuller: pause.

[00:27:18] Really pause. Do nothing for five seconds.

[00:27:22] Scott Maderer: Seconds. Yeah, because I think that's hard for a lot of us. We wanna fill that five seconds with something. And think that's the pause. It's by definition, that's not a pause.

[00:27:32] Jem Fuller: yeah. A hundred percent. Thank you for that qualification. Yeah.

[00:27:35] Scott Maderer: So before I ask you some questions that I like to ask all of my guests is there anything else that you think is really vital for the listeners to hear about your coaching or the book.

[00:27:45] Jem Fuller: Yeah, look just generally something that I think is really helpful and not just in a conversation about communication or leadership, but helpful in general in life, start to get curious about your ego. Now ego, I don't believe [00:28:00] is a bad thing at all. I, ego is a necessary part of functioning as a human being.

[00:28:04] We have to have a sense of identity who we think we are apparently cuz we do and it's here and I believe it's here to stay. So I'm not talking about getting rid of the ego. I'm just talking about developing and curating a healthy awareness of your sense of identity because it's driving the bus most of the time.

[00:28:27] This is the part that doesn't pause. This is the part that's constantly telling you this. Now this, and it goes from thing to thing. And for a lot of us, we're actually asleep. So it's a, it can become a superpower to the more aware you are of this ego, which is desperate to defend, to jump in and justify and to judge others and to hang on.

[00:28:48] And the ego grips very tightly onto the way we think things should be. And I believe that, excuse me, there's a lot of scope for functionality improvement when we can just loosen our grip a [00:29:00] little bit on, on our idea on the way we think reality is because there's a wide world of difference out there.

[00:29:07] And there's a lot of there's a lot to be said for us coming together and cross culturally communicating and connecting and collaborating. There's a lot to be said for. That only happens when you just kinda loosen your grip a little bit on your sense of who you think you are and how the world should be.

[00:29:24] So yeah, look I talk about that in my coaching and in my book and I think it's important.

[00:29:30] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. So one of the questions I like to ask all of my guests you, my brand, you referenced this earlier inspired stewardship, and I use that lens of stewardship to frame a lot of the conversations that I have.

[00:29:44] And yet in the AB in the spirit of communication, I've discovered that you different people hear that word and hear different things. So when you hear the word stewardship, what does stewardship mean to you? And what does that understanding? How has that impacted [00:30:00] your life?

[00:30:01] Jem Fuller: Yeah, I it's a, to me it invokes a quite a beautiful role.

[00:30:09] The role of the steward, which is to take care of affairs to to manage the affairs, to keep an eye on things and make sure that they're happening as they should be. So stewardship is a role of honor and a role of service and a role coming from the heart because it's wanting the best for the person you are the steward for, so I hadn't, until I came across your podcast and had a chat with you, Scott, I hadn't thought about stewardship of your own affairs. I for me, stewardship was a role that someone played to look after the King's steward would look after the King's affairs for him but this idea of stewardship for self was beautiful.

[00:30:49] I thought that was really lovely. Does that make sense? What I just. Yeah.

[00:30:52] Scott Maderer: It has to it's your understanding?

[00:30:54] Jem Fuller: Ah, yeah. Right? So of course it makes sense. I'm hoping it made sense to you.

[00:30:58] Scott Maderer: No, I think it [00:31:00] makes sense to others as well. So how does that understanding intersect with kind of your life or what you've been through?

[00:31:08] Jem Fuller: Until my midlife crisis slash awakening until such time I had a subconscious belief. I E I wasn't aware that I even had it that I wasn't good enough that I wasn't enough that I didn't deserve all happiness and abundance and success and love. And I didn't deserve that. Which was an erroneous thought.

[00:31:27] But it was there. And I know a lot of humans have this thinking because I coach a lot of humans and we share this once I started rewiring that and changed my belief, very laboriously, very manually, very repetitively changing my belief that I am enough and I do deserve happiness, abundance, success, et cetera.

[00:31:48] Then I started to take on the role of steward. For myself for my own wellbeing, and so I started to beautifully take care [00:32:00] of my affairs when I say my affairs the areas of my life that were going to lead me to better health mentally, emotionally, spiritually which then brings the success in inverted commerce, what that is for you.

[00:32:14] So being a steward of myself means. Making sure that I meditate every morning, making sure that I exercise most days of the week, making sure that I drink enough water, making sure that I practice my affirmations of self-acceptance and love, making sure that I take action on my mission because that's my purpose in life, so just managing all these areas of my experience of existing that are going to give me the best life possible. So that's what it means to. This is my

[00:32:44] Scott Maderer: favorite question, Jim, if I had invented this magical machine and I could pluck you out of the seat where you sit today and transport you into the future, maybe 150, 200 years, and through the power of this machine, you were able to look back on your [00:33:00] entire life and see all of the ripples and connections and impacts that you've left behind.

[00:33:05] What impact do you hope you've left behind on the world?

[00:33:09] Jem Fuller: I hope in some way I've been a part of helping people move through their fear of difference and open their arms to each other. Yeah. That's what I really hope because. We are, we have so much of the fundamental stuff that the most important stuff we actually have in common. Whether you are, whether you grew up as a Muslim in north Africa, in a war torn country, or whether you grew up as a shepherd in the Himalaya mountains in Northern India, or whether you grew up as a farmer in the wheat belt of Australia.

[00:33:49] When I sit down with all of. We all need food and shelter. We all bleed the same color blood. We all need love and [00:34:00] connection. We all will do anything for our children. We all have these fundamental things in common. Exactly the same. And so for someone who loves humanity and life it's sad for me to see people so afraid of each other and so caught up.

[00:34:17] It's a long answer to your question, Scott, but I really hope that in some way I'm helping people come together.

[00:34:23] Scott Maderer: So what's coming next for you. As you continue on this journey, what's on the roadmap.

[00:34:28] Jem Fuller: Oh, lots of exciting things. The book being published and starting to get rave reviews is wonderful for me that I've never had a book published before.

[00:34:37] So the art of conscious communication for thoughtful men doing its wonderful stuff is great. And the TEDx talk supporting that. And then this year we are building. And and that I look, we've built it already. I can invite people along. We've got a community that we're building and there will be a mastermind for this at some point in time.

[00:34:59] But the [00:35:00] community that we've launched and we're building is around the modern leaders communication. And and so it's people who are post pandemic figuring out how do I communicate with my team and if my team stays dispersed if they're still working from home a lot, how do I communicate and still inspire and still bring them together and still keep them connected to purpose and mission through.

[00:35:24] Digital platforms, for example, or through the dispersion of distance, and what does that look like? So we're talking about that and I'm providing some roadmaps and some strategies and some tools for leaders to do that. Yeah, that's what I'm excited about building.

[00:35:37] Scott Maderer: You can follow Jim on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram as Jim fuller. And that's spelled J E M F U L E R. Of course I'll have links to that as well as his Ted talk that he mentioned, which is found on YouTube and that Facebook group over at modern leader. Comms C O M MMS or of course you [00:36:00] can find out more about Jim and what he does in the book and his coaching over@jimfuller.com and I'll have links to all of that in the show notes.

[00:36:08] Jim, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener?

[00:36:11] Jem Fuller: No. Thank you for your time. Thank you for listening. I really hope that there was something in our conversation that was useful for you.

[00:36:17] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.

[00:36:45] All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed [00:37:00] until next time invest your. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.