✨ True Wealth with Betty ✨

"If you’re not terrified it’s not it”: The 'Lifestyle First' Blueprint for Multi-Passionate Entrepreneurs w/ Alex Baisley

• Betty Cottam Bertels • Season 3 • Episode 2

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What if your big dream isn’t a plan, but a message from your body—asking you to walk toward the life that will shape you into who you’re meant to be? That question sits at the heart of this conversation with Alex Baisley, creator of The Big Dream Program, who went from a decade of cold, soul-numbing commercial diving to designing a lifestyle-first business that blends family, travel, and deeply meaningful work.

We dig into the practical magic of authenticity and why it’s the strongest filter you’ll ever use. No more costumes, no more “chamber of commerce” personas. Alex shares how mentors like Tad Hargrave helped him build an ecosystem where work and life enrich each other instead of competing for hours. Think road-trip workshops with kids crafting in the back, swims between sessions, and a community that hosts, feeds, and becomes lifelong friends. Along the way, we tackle the staggering reality that 86% of workers are disengaged, what that costs us, and how to chart a way out with small, structural steps—even if you’re exhausted from a full-time job.

If you’ve collected degrees and modalities and still can’t pick a lane, Alex’s “specialist vs experience designer” lens is a release valve. You don’t have to choose. Name your place, define your people, and design experiences that weave your many passions into one cohesive, profitable offer. Time starts working for you when you stack functions: one trip, three outcomes—income, family, adventure. Terror becomes a compass, not a stop sign. And the real payoff isn’t just revenue; it’s becoming someone you actually like being.

If this resonates, tap play, then subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Ready to design a life you love?

From Betty: Being in business means being visible. Being ethical in business means not using dodgy tactics, of course, but also being authentic in how we present ourselves ~~

The trouble is… Many of us carry wounds around being seen, accepted, and celebrated as the individual we are.

Left untended, these wounds divide our will, i.e. we end up with conflicted desires:

Part of us wants to be visible to grow our businesses, but another part of us is absolutely dead set on staying well and truly within the shadows… Because that's where it's SAFE.

…whether that means literally hiding under the duvet (I've been there 🥸),

...mega procrastination & self sabotage

…or pretending to be someone we are not, so as not to stand out (I've also been there 🤫).

The push & pull can be utterly EXHAUSTING.

But the good news is, it's relatively quick & easy to fix, once you access the level of the subconscious mind, using a modality such as hypnosis.

Download my free 2 hour workshop, and I'll teach you how you can set yourself free from past hurts, and leap confidently in the direction of your dreams.


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SPEAKER_06:

Our our big dreams, including what I'm doing with my life, are messages from the inside of our body somewhere to our heads.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

In in a language our head can understand, saying walk towards that thing, yeah, and become who you want to be in the process. I think I my theory is that that's why we have and so me creating a business like I did forced me into all of the most vulnerable areas of my life as if it was designed that way. Like you could not possibly oh my god, it's making me cry. Yeah. So that I would have to deal with more of my vulnerabilities. I could have had any other business in the world or a job and not have had to deal with the this turns out to be my calling, and it's gonna take me right through the fucking swamp.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

Um to get there. And so that's why I think we're we're quite rightly and terrified, you know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host Betty Cotton Bertels, blues singer, Buddhist, mum of two, and former global shoestring adventurer, turned hypnotherapist and mindset coach. I believe that by healing our past and changing our beliefs, we may achieve not only the external successes, the house, the relationship, the money, the impact, but also internal success, the ability to actually enjoy our lives, because it's the joy and happiness that makes it all worthwhile. Join me as I invite friends, colleagues, and esteemed teachers to discuss means of enhancing enjoyment in our lives, following our inspiration as individuals to create whatever it is that lights us up so that we might radiate that energy out into the world via our businesses or our day-to-day lives with the intention that all beings may benefit. I believe that this is where true wealth lies. Welcome to the show. Well, hello and welcome back to the True Wealth Podcast. It's been a little while since I put a new episode up. This episode was recorded before the summer holidays, and it was such an enjoyable conversation, and it's with great pleasure that I bring it to you today. So, in this episode, I talk with Alex Baisley, who is the creator of the Big Dream programme. He went from being a completely disengaged commercial diver, which I was quite fascinated by, really interesting, but it was a career that he said was literally killing him. And so he went on to do what he does now with the big dream program, in which he helps other people to build a life and business that they love. And it's like grassroots, you know, starting with what you want. What does it what do you want your lifestyle to look like? And start at the ground up and build it from there, you know. What what's your vision? How do you want it to look? What do you want your lifestyle to look like? And how can you build a business that works around that? So this is like so exciting for me. It's one of my favorite topics of conversation, and I loved hearing Alex's story. So he talks about his journey and reveals the philosophy that he learned from his mentor and friend, our mutual friend, Tad Hargrave. And we have a real love off for Tad at the beginning, which was good fun. But what he got from Tad is that I mean, maybe you know this already. Hopefully you know this, but it's good to hear it again. Authenticity is everything, right? Authenticity is a great filter as well. Because when we show up really truly as ourselves, the people who like that and like our vibe come towards us, they're magnetized towards us, and the people who don't go find someone else. So being yourself is a great filter, and it attracts the right people who are gonna love your work to come towards you, and um anyone else can, you know, it's it's also a kindness to them, right? Because then they don't come into your world thinking that you're a certain thing, and then they find out later that you're not. So if we're if we show up exactly as we are, completely unapologetically, which is what I love talking about, then that's a kindness for everyone. So this is what Alex did. He, you know, from this lifestyle as a commercial diver, this career that he said was literally killing him. He started asking, like, how could it be different? What could he do? And so in this conversation, we dig into to this idea that he struck upon, which is imagine if I could get paid to do this, like whatever this is for you. Um, you'll hear what it is for him, and you'll hear his game-changing advice, really. Like, I love, I just I just love it. I love him, and I love everything we talked about, and I loved hearing his story, and I hope you will too. But what what he talks about is how you can build a lifestyle first business. So he tells the story of how he was able to take his kids on a massive road trip across North America whilst also running his workshops. Wow, that's a cool idea, isn't it? Really cool. And this life-changing distinction between being a specialist and an experienced designer and how to combine all your diverse interests into a single cohesive and profitable offering. Like what if you could take all the different threads of what makes you you and put them all together to create this package that you adore um offering because it's like everything that lights you up, imagine that. So cool. And then yeah, just like prioritizing your time, creating time to do what you love. So if you're one of the people who is really struggling, really feeling disengaged from your work, feeling maybe it's a bit soul-destroying, or like you just you're ready for a change, you're ready to start doing something that lights you up, then this conversation's for you. I'm so excited for you because you're just gonna love Alex Paisley. Um, yeah, this conversation is all for you, is like, how can I find a way back to a path that feeds my soul, whilst also possibly, hopefully, maybe feeding other people's souls in the process. I just know that you're gonna love my conversation with Alex. He's so much fun. Um, yeah, and if maybe this is what you need, the big dream program by Alex Baisley. Enjoy. Hello, and welcome to the podcast, Alex. Hey, it is so good to have you here. Welcome.

SPEAKER_06:

Thank you so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

How how are you? Oh, sorry, I spoke over you. What did you say?

SPEAKER_06:

It's a great opportunity.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Well, I feel the same.

SPEAKER_06:

Um where are we doing your uh podcast with um uh Tad Hargrave, which I really liked. Uh a con you done you've done a few, I think, but the last one I saw was about culture, culture making, and it was it was a fantastic conversation. So I won't be, I don't think I could be quite as smart as that fellow, but I I'm excited to be here having a chat anyway.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, he's fab, isn't he?

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, he is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I think we have a mutual love of Tad Hargrave here. Uh and he he seems to pop up in almost every conversation, like everybody loves him. What a great, what a great thing to be in the world, hey. Yeah, that's loved by everyone.

SPEAKER_06:

Well, in your core, well, I tell you what, I wouldn't have a business without him, but but also even if I did, it's not just the marketing, it was far more than that for me. Is he uh he was the first person really that taught me that I could be myself in business because prior to that I didn't know that was an option, so I was doing the chamber of commerce thing, dressing up in uh you know, nice clothes and dress suit and trying to peddle my Reiki services at the time. Like the whole thing is just embarrassing to think about. But it wasn't because I was dumb, I just never saw it done any differently. I thought, well, this is how business works, I guess. Yeah, and then I encountered Mark Silver first, and then uh shortly on the heels of that, uh Tad Argrave. And and that, I mean, the biggest gift I got out of him was well, the marketing for sure, but was the fact that oh, I can be myself in my business. You know, I ditched the dress shoes, I've never worn them since. They're still in the pod. And I just I guess over the years, just learned I could be more and more uh me and figure out even who I was, frankly, through through the business. So uh yeah, so lots of lots of appreciation uh to Tad in my life. I I just don't know what it would look like without him.

SPEAKER_01:

What what do you think it is about Tad that makes him so special? And and just before you answer that, anyone who's listening who doesn't know him, I imagine most people now are familiar with Tad, but but really you need to check him out if particularly if you're trying to grow a business in a way that marketing in a way that feels good, he's the man. All right. So what do you think it is about Ted that that that helps? Because I you're not the first person who said that, and I feel the same. Like he something about the way he is allows it's like gives you permission to be how you are. And and isn't that like what we should all be aiming for in life? To give each other permission to just be who we are as individuals, and I know that's your thing, what you do.

SPEAKER_06:

Well said, so well said, yeah. And it become then business can become. I I knew him when I first knew him, my my first session with him was I think 2008 or seven, and he was radical business in those days. He changed for hippies a while after that.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06:

And uh did he have short hair then? Yeah, he had short hair, yeah, yeah. And uh I yeah, the per the permission thing. And I I guess when we see someone being themselves in any endeavor, whether it's business or or the way they write, you know, is very themselves, the way they do anything in the world is very them. It uh it's not just that how would I put this? It's like it's not that it gets just that it gives us permission, but it gives us the idea to do it in the first place, right? Yeah, um, there's a lot of cookie-cutterness going on in in life. We try to figure out who we are as adults, and uh, we're not necessarily trying to copy people, but it's a lifetime of work to figure out who we are in the first place. It doesn't happen overnight, and it's not just a choice, it's uh it's like riding a bicycle, it takes practice, and and then when we see people doing it, I think that it gives that uh impetus to even attempt it in the first place.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so something about just how Tad is and anyone else who has a similar effect in in their work, you know, uh something about how the individual, the teacher is um being relaxed in who they are, yeah, without pretense.

SPEAKER_06:

It's just yeah, it's you're right. It's just wonderful, isn't it? Yeah, and as Tad himself would say, it's a great filter too. Um the reason you know a lot of us don't do like do business the way I was doing it, you know, try to pretend all the time, um, is because we think that's what works, and we're trying to pretend right we're you know, we're trying to pay bills. This is how business worked, and uh to see that it uh to Tad's point, it's a great filter because if you just not I presume Tad's like me, not everybody likes who he is, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_06:

That's kind of normal and natural, that's a natural world. Um, but but it's a good filter because it's more attractive to the right people who would want to study with him or learn from him, and it's it's kind of not attractive, I presume. Um kind of hard to imagine what that's how about I'll speak about myself, like I presume more myself I am, I filter out the wrong people.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, helps right, yeah. And then the people who do come come already um enamored in some way, you know, already open to what you're offering, and and then the connections are that much better, right? And and the work becomes easier and everything just flows so much better, and that all stems to this ability to just be up front, uh, you know, with um what we're presenting, how we present ourselves, which is difficult, isn't it?

SPEAKER_06:

And you know, yeah, it sure is. I suppose we're by I mean, you could probably speak to this far more uh cleverly than me, but I'm thinking that you know it it's bio we're biologically wired to not want to be kicked out of the herd. Correct, yeah, and so we're very careful about what we say and how we do it and they fit in and so on. So it is uh an exercise in bravery to attempt to be ourselves and see what happens, but ultimately it's also the only thing that works. So there's that where we're kind of damned if we do, damned if we don't, might as well be ourselves, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, uh I love that. Um it's funny that the kinds of people that that have gathered around Tad in this world of like ethical hippie marketers or business people, you know. Uh I I always think they tend to be the kind of black sheep, you know, the people who and and a lot the same, you know, often clients who come to me is like they've they've been on the outside sometime.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And uh yeah, but there's something about claiming that um instead of pretending not to be on the outside. And Jeffrey Van Dyck, I often come back to this point when do you know Jeffrey?

SPEAKER_06:

I do, I do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I had him on the podcast, and he said one thing that just really stayed with me like it's lonely being that person on the outside. You know, you feel exiled somehow, and and it's not until you put your stake in the ground and you put yourself forward and say, Hey, this is who I am, and I'm out here and I'm on my own. And suddenly you're not lonely anymore because all the all the people who have been people felt the same, right? And then you find your people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

I think that's one of the biggest gifts I've had in 20 years. Well, coming on 20 years with the Big Dream program now, and uh, that's one of the biggest personal gifts I've had with it is uh attracting people into my life on a daily basis and having the kinds of conversations, be the same for you and your work, I bet. Um that I was that were largely absent from my life in my previous career. And I remember I used to be a commercial diver, that was my first career. And I remember working for the last few years of it on salmon farms in Ireland. I was living in Ireland at the time, and uh I remember the end I didn't like the career and it didn't suit me and I was trying to get out of it, so that's another story. But anyway, I was on the bow of the boat coming back in from the day's work with the fish vet uh that would help try to keep the salmon alive and healthy. And we just ended up having this big chat about life, like dreams and family, and you know, just a deep, rich conversation. And it's odd how much it stands out. That's the kind of conversation I have every day with with clients now, you know, and and and I'm so grateful for it because that was a rare thing in those days. I would attempt to have those conversations, and the people I worked with, lovely people, just not so terribly interested in those kind of conversations. And and uh so I felt starved for it. And um, I remember on the boat that day, he was telling me about his wife and him and their dreams for the future and stuff. And I remember thinking that day, this is long before I ever heard of things like life coaches and so I remember thinking, can you imagine if I can get paid to do this? I remember the thought clearly in my head. It would be years before I would discover that, yes, in fact, I can't get paid to have conversations like that. And also the fact that the world seems to be, unfortunately, a little bit bereft of good question askers and good listeners. And I seem to have, amongst all of my weaknesses, I'm pretty good at those things. So uh people are quite happy to talk to me about these big life stuff, big life things, and to think, my god, uh A, how needed I've discovered it is, and B, how I did I saw no models around me at the time for people that could do that. If I was born 10 or 20 years after that, I would have grown up seeing things like life coaches and stuff, but yeah, I didn't.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's like a a new thing, isn't it? But wow, gosh. There are a few directions I'm like wanting to go here, but I think what I'd love to do is just take ask you to kind of go back a little bit, Alex, and paint a picture. Tell us a bit about your early life story. You mentioned this diving and salmon and island. Um yeah, I'd love to get a sense of well, first of all, where if you yeah, where where you grew up, um what I mean, I I've got the big the first question I've got written here for you is why are we all so lost? So maybe that might come in later. We can kind of circle back to that. Or but interest, you know, how did you end up doing something that wasn't aligned? And you've touched on that a little bit in that you thought that that that this wasn't even a possibility. Um, the asking these kinds of questions, having these kinds of conversations, no life, there was no model of life coaching at that time.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But I'm curious, and I know that you've got children from having listened to a different conversation. Um, so I'm curious as well, and you might be able to tie this in, I don't know, but I'll ask a few things and you can go where you want to go with it. Uh, I'm curious about, I suppose, the limit, how you ended up going down what we might call an a not very aligned path for you. Like what was it about your early life that caused you to go that way? And then how you what effort what you've learned from that uh and you brought to your parenting.

SPEAKER_06:

That's beautiful. You might have to reign like certain things. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'll see what I can do. I'll forget, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm exactly the same, Alex.

SPEAKER_06:

Uh so thanks for helping me with that. Uh I'll do my best. And thanks for thanks for asking. You know, it it is it is a special thing to have somebody ask and and want to listen to uh a person's story. I guess that ties into my job, you know, in a way. But uh yeah, I grew up, I I guess some of the themes in my life growing up that are relevant at least to this discussion are that I I I think I from a very early age, I I don't know how young, I always felt I was here to do something in in the world. Uh and that I would figure that out. And I I was quite quite good in school, I won some scholarships and so on. And I think even in my own heart and mind, I figured I would just figure out what I'm meant to do in the world and I would start doing it, ideally by 20 years old. You know, and where in the world were were you at this point? This was New Brunswick, uh Canada, uh uh a city, a now city, a town then called Merrimachi on the Meramachi River. And uh yeah, that's where I grew up. It was a kind of a small town life, which has its good points and it's not so good points, of course, you know. And that was one thing that no fault of the town itself, but I was the kind of person that really wanted to see the world and and get out. You know, I I was one of those people as a teenager, like, get me the hell out of here. Um anyhow, I I, you know, scholarship and I I was good at sciences and math and whatnot. So I and I I figured not just find my thing in the world, but I always wanted to help the world some, you know, somehow. I still don't know if that's hubris. Like, am I just trying to be hero or well, I I continue continually, you know, question that. But what I will say is that I've got to help a lot of people over a lot of years, and I will say life is a lot richer. To use your wealth term, there's a lot of life wealth to thinking back on the people that I've not only been able to enjoy spending time with them, getting a ringside seat to their journey as they start a business or follow their dreams that they shelved for 20 years, and all of a sudden I'm the guy they're dusting them off with. That's a fucking special feeling, right? And you know, and seriously, but anyway, there's a lot of meaningfulness to that. I was just sitting on the back deck with my wife two two nights ago, reflecting that she's a florist and has been her whole career that I've been doing the Big Dream program. And the stories she comes home with is she's she's deeply connected with a lot of people's lives as a result of being a florist because she uh she's there for all the special and tough occasions in their lives, you know. And I said to Kathleen, I'm so grateful that compared to our earlier jobs that we got to have careers, jobs that in which we got to feel like we made a difference, you know, uh meaningful. Anyway, so that's what I wanted when I was young, uh whether hubris or not, I wanted to help people and and you know save the world.

SPEAKER_01:

And what age, uh if I can jump in, Alex, um what age were you when you realized that, would you say?

SPEAKER_06:

I don't I don't know. I don't know, but I certainly had it by the time I was 15 or 16. Yeah, and I I got a scholarship to leave school a year early and go to an international peace college. Oh wow, uh thousands of miles from from home. And I as you recall, I was pretty you know excited to get out of my small town. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Where was the college?

SPEAKER_06:

It was called uh Lester B. Pearson College, and it was in Vancouver Island. Oh, wow, nestled in the forest on the side of the ocean. That's a long way. You you almost couldn't get any further within the same country, yeah. Same country, that's right, and it was magic. 200 kids from 74 countries, all similar ages, all chosen by their province or their country to represent the country or province in the school. Oh my god, Betty. It was how old were you? 16 to 18. 16.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was what was it like being away from yeah, yeah, sounds like it getting away from this small town.

SPEAKER_06:

I loved it, and me other people. It sounds like I'm throwing my family in my small town under the bus, but it's not so much that it's just I had to do and I wanted to get started.

SPEAKER_01:

Amen to that. I uh like I'm I'm trying not to jump in as I'm listening and for the people who are relating to I'm relating to everything you're saying, and it's like taking a lot of willpower. And also, you know, I'm feeling a lot of emotion as you're talking, you know, really recognizing, especially when you're talking about your wife and your um her being a florist, and you know, both your gratitude is palpable, you know, for for the for the work that you've been able to do, both of you, you know, to to to be there with people at poignant moments in their life, you know, and and that is an honor. And I feel that too, such a privilege. And to be able to use your skills, I mean, if if it's like me and I'm guessing it's similar, you know, that that were dormant somehow, or they were for me, it was so frustrating. I always wanted to intervene in people's lives. Like that's not so helpful, you know, until they're paying you and suddenly it is.

SPEAKER_06:

That's right. Yeah, yeah. We pount, we we want to help so bad we pounce on it on people.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_06:

You're having trouble sleeping. Well, let me tell you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so it takes some kind of discipline, hey, to like to I think that's true of all gifts.

SPEAKER_06:

So let's call it gift. I think it is, you know. And if if you have gifts, everybody listening has gifts. Sure. And and I I heard this quote, I don't know if it's true or not, but I was told that in medical school, or at least this person's medical school, um, in the first week of medical school, he was asked, the students were asked the question what's the difference between medicine and poison? And so people had all these guesses as to you know what the difference might be, but the answer was dosage. That's the that's the difference. And point according, according, I'm sure some smart person can think of you know some exceptions to that. But but true enough, when I thought of some of the uh medicines that people take to get well, they're made of toxic subs, you know. And anyway, but I think that's true of of gifts, is that we can open on them too. It's almost a lifetime of work to realize that we don't have to put out every fire and we shouldn't put out and we can't as well, we can't, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but and that takes a while to realize, doesn't it? And I I I've been there too, you know, just wanting to fix everybody, seeing the problems, trying to jump in and and save everyone, and and just realizing that people have got their own journey and that they have to be ready. And when they're not ready, you can probably do more damage than than help when by trying to wade in. So yeah, just like learning that you know, all fire needs air, doesn't it? Like to all those passions and desires, I see them as fire, they all need air to really get going.

SPEAKER_06:

So yeah, uh it helps uh to make those discernments. I find you probably find this too in your business that uh once there's once there's enough clients, like when when there's enough people coming through, yeah, that almost forces the issue because it can't can't possibly you know do stuff for other people. I've run out of I've run out of hours in in the day. Well, that's not true. I'm still trying to way out of that one. I'm writing a book at the moment.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh you Alex.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, and and I and I have I now I have I had the big dream program for 18 years, and it was just all about what am I doing with my life, but I never had an actual program. It was a business within which workshops happened, one-on-ones happened, and stuff. There was no comprehensive program until the 17-year mark. Wow. Last last year I opened it July, and so now I feel why I'm saying all that is is because I feel like that is allowing me to skirt the problem of oh, I can help more because I have a one-to-many product.

SPEAKER_01:

One to many. How's it going?

SPEAKER_06:

It's going great. Oh my god, I'm so proud of it. You best not ask me about it because I think I would just brag like the whole time.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, come on, like let's have a minute of bragging. Let's hear it, let's hear it while we're while we're you know getting so close to let's let's hear about the big dream program.

SPEAKER_06:

Well, I I think you know that would tie back to the story, why it's meaningful to me. Like what's in it is relevant to what I'm about to say and why it means so much to me, is because I didn't find way to continue the childhood story. I didn't find my way. I tried all kinds of different things, took degrees and diplomas and whatnot, and I still joined a rock band. You gotta you.

SPEAKER_00:

Did you? Yes, Alex.

SPEAKER_06:

You gotta do certain I played keyboard in that band. And then I I used to play in pubs on the side singing folk folk tunes. And um, so I had all these things on the go, but all the while there was this it I was trying to find. You know, this is all just it was fun, but it was a certain amount of deep craving that I'm I'm here to do something, I don't know what it is, and I really want to know because I really want to get started. And so there was always this tension underneath it, but I still had to earn money, and so I I am uh um finding a job. I'll cut make the story shorter. I I found a job with a fisherman off the coast of Nova Scotia, on the coast of Nova Scotia, who was diving who was uh fishing for sea urchins, um and needed needed divers to do it, and sea urchins are like the things spiky black things, yeah. Yeah, they come in different colors. These ones are green, okay, and it's it's caviar inside them, and so it's quite a it's quite a market.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06:

But um, so anyway, long story.

SPEAKER_01:

So you're diving for these things, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, that was my first diving job was diving for these things. And I was just gonna do it for the year whilst figuring out you know what I'm really supposed to be doing with my life. It was fun, it was adventurous, cold. Uh, but it turned into 10 years of my life. Like it, and that was never the intention, it was never my calling in the first place. It was just um to get some money, you know. And 10 years later, I was still doing it and really starting to fear like I was missing the boat. On uh I'm gonna waste my life. Like there's something.

SPEAKER_01:

What kind of age were you at this point? Is this pre-kids?

SPEAKER_06:

Oh, yeah. Uh just on the cusp, in fact. Uh, I'll have to do the math later, but I think I've already been about 30 years old and still, yeah. I was I was still 30 years old, still diving and still very unhappy uh with it. And by that time, two well, a few things. One is I just wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing, two is I was freezing cold. I don't have the body type for diving like over years, I was cold all the time. And um, and thirdly, was it was not meaningful to me. If it and I was okay at the diving itself, but commercial diving is just a way to get someplace to do manual labor, like construction stuff. Yeah, so the diving I was okay at, but the actual construction type things, I was never very good at it, and I never got better, so I always felt like be behind and not as not as good as the people around me and stuff. And anyways, I keep looking that way because I keep a picture of me diving on a fish farm.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, look at that.

SPEAKER_06:

I keep it right there, so I always remember what it felt like when I when I meet a client who's doing something that's killing them, and yeah, I remember anyway. But to cut to the point and to answer your question is I used to go to this coffee shop every Sunday in Galway, Ireland, called the Bridge Mills Coffee Shop with my latest self-help book because there was no internet much in those days to learn anything from.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

Trying to figure out my life, so I would go get whatever self-help book, like I can't even remember the names of them.

SPEAKER_01:

So you went, sorry, there's a bit we bit missing. So that you went from Nova Scotia diving to Ireland diving, yeah, with a stop in Cayman Islands in the middle there.

SPEAKER_06:

So that was all diving career. I was diving in in Nova Scotia, yeah, New Brunswick, and then I taught diving in the Caribbean for a year with my wife. We together this whole time. Yeah, I met her when I was 21 and she was 23, so she's part of the whole journey. Ah, nice, and uh and then um so you're in Ireland and you've got and then then we went to Ireland. I was singing Irish music in a bar in the Caribbean every Thursday.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, have you got an Irish connection, Alex?

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, ancestry, ancestry.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

And so I grew up singing that kind of music and and folk music and stuff. Anyway, so obviously, if there was a proper Irish person on the island who who could do it, they would have got hired. But I didn't I seem to be the only one around. Oh, so I got the job, and uh anyway, long story short, is uh despite all of this Irish connection and singing songs every Thursday and getting paid for, I had never been to Ireland. And so my wife and I decided we we were two kids with backpacks, is what we were, really, you know. And so after a year in Cayman Islands, we said, let's go try Ireland, and we we stay for the summer. I got a job on day three or four very quickly, and uh we stayed seven years.

SPEAKER_01:

Did you?

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, yeah, and I had two two kids there.

SPEAKER_01:

You had your kids in Ireland, so they're Irish.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, they're one's gone back.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, really? Yeah, oh wow.

SPEAKER_06:

Just before I talked to you, I talked to Lai in uh County Wicklow.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh gosh, not so far from me. I'm in West Wales.

SPEAKER_06:

No, very close to you, in fact.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. So we got to Ireland and you were looking at your self-help books, and then what happened?

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, in the coffee shop and and desperate to get out of diving and desperate to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing with my life.

SPEAKER_01:

And yeah, interesting they're supposed to, isn't it? Really interesting that there's this, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

Except for, yeah, you're right. And then language is important here because I don't know if it's true that we're all supposed to do something. I don't know if there's a destiny or a fate. I I don't know the answer to those questions. I enjoy those questions, but I but I think all I can know, all I know is that I felt it deep in my body, right? That it is perhaps I don't know what it might be like for someone with amnesia, you know, who who had a home and now is wandering around going, where's my home? I I I know somewhere. I don't know if that's a fair metaphor because I've never had that, but I it felt like maybe something like that. Like, you know, I know, I know there's a spot for me.

SPEAKER_01:

So there's a sense of like knowing it's not right, but not knowing what right is. I think a lot of people can relate to that, and I'm I'm sure you know that because you they're all circling around you.

SPEAKER_06:

Totally, yes. And I read a statistic, one of these global statistics that has a lot, anyways. 86% of the world's workforce, according to this Gallup poll, is disengaged with their work. 86%. Now I know there's all 86%. And but amongst the population of people who do have some choice in the matter, not everyone does, but those of us who have some choice in the matter, and I'm sitting in an engineering office or I'm underwater diving, or I'm you someone, you know, whatever career they're in, and they hate it. Yeah, like it's not them. If they love it, there's no problem. But if they don't, there's this deep soul disappointment, you know, going, of course they're disengaged. And you know, I don't remember, well, I do remember what disengaged felt like, and it's it's a horrible way to go through life.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, Alex, at this point, I'm gonna circle back to the question I I one of the questions I asked a little while ago, which was about what you've taken from your work into your parenting.

SPEAKER_06:

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, because I'm really I'll let you think about that for a second while I while I explain why I'm asking, because I've got a six-year-old and a nine-year-old, uh, two girls, and so I'm kind of in the thick of it right now. Um and really, you know, my my work is all about the the internal narrative that we carry through our lives. And you know, I tend to work with people when they're they've already found out the thing they want to do. So they've come to you, I don't know, they've done the bit of like, okay, what is my thing? They've seen the thing, and then they go I uh how how could I do that, right? Because a lot of the time it's big or it's scary or whatever. Yeah, so this is my this is my all the time, it's big and scary.

SPEAKER_06:

I work with I I've got to the point now after 18 years that if a client is not terrified, I don't think they've found their their call. I don't say I don't say that, but I've just had the chance to work with people over years now, and uh yeah, I've seen a pattern that I can pretty near set my watch that I'll see them again in two years. I I bet, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

What you mean if they're not terrified, they'll come back.

SPEAKER_06:

Oh wow, yeah, and I have a theory on that. Um, yeah, tell us the theory is that our our big dreams, including what I'm doing with my life, are messages from the inside of our body somewhere to our heads, yeah, in in a language our head can understand, saying walk towards that thing, yeah, and you will become who you want to be in the process. I think uh my theory is that that's why we have and so me creating a business like I did forced me into all of the most vulnerable areas of my life as if it was designed that way. Like you could not possibly oh my god, it's making me cry. Yeah, so that I would have to deal with more of my vulnerabilities. I could have had any other business in the world or a job and not have had to deal with the this turns out to be my calling, and it's gonna take me right through the fucking swamp, yeah. Um to get there, and so that's why I think we're we're quite rightly and terrified, you know, yeah, yeah. I'm a paralytic introvert for starters, uh-huh. And I am for I'm in a business, and if it the business is to work, yeah, and I'm gonna get to work with people, I have to force myself to be visible, I have to force myself to talk to people. I like talking to people, but I'm terrified. Yeah, and so you know, about I was another thing I was saying to Kathleen is just that after 18 years of this, I'm just so grateful for who I became inside, yeah, in the doing of it. Like yourself. Well, I shouldn't speak for you. For me, I'm still a work in progress, uh, for sure. Still, I still stumble, I still have some things, you know. But I'm just so because I don't know if any other business or or path in life would have brought me into these places where I learned that I was okay to be there. And uh that's that's that's the win. If I had to drop the big dream program tomorrow, yes, I would cry and and throw my toys out of my pram. But I get to keep the win, you know?

SPEAKER_01:

Like who you become in the person.

SPEAKER_06:

I'm just a different person now than before. And I and mostly to to my point is I I I mostly like it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_06:

I I like being inside my skin most of the time. That's that's a nice thing.

SPEAKER_01:

That's uh if we could all feel that the world would be a different place. Okay, and but and now that was my fault. I asked a question and then I went and then I went and off in a different direction. But um, yeah, because I'm curious and you know, about how all of my work is about looking at I see the person in the present day, and then I'm looking at their childhood with them in hypnosis, and I'm looking at where the the point at which the limiting belief or the negative idea that's blocking them doing the thing, I'm looking for where that dropped in.

SPEAKER_06:

Um treasure hunting.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_06:

And so very worthwhile.

SPEAKER_01:

It's it's such it's such fun, actually. But so I'm curious uh about if there's anything that you could say about your upbringing, um and also your parenting like anything that you're consciously including in your parenting, um, with a view to supporting your children to presumably you're you're supporting them, I'm I'm sure you are, in you know, not going down the wrong the wrong path.

SPEAKER_06:

That's a great one. That's a fun question, too. And I wouldn't I wouldn't even I'm not even sure if I'm great at it. Well, first thing I will say is that uh I've been very aware, I suppose, that as a dad, my ideas uh may suit my clients better than my kids.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

Um, so I've been very hands-off. Sometimes I wondered if I was too hands-off in the advice department. I'll have to ask my kids that.

SPEAKER_00:

How old are they, Alex?

SPEAKER_06:

Oh, they're 21 and 23, 20 and 22. Shit. You just you just that's okay. It's all right.

SPEAKER_01:

Um they won't know when we recorded it. No, that's right. Yeah, it could be any time. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06:

And they're uh and they're off quite quite rightly, you know, off in the world uh doing their own thing and have been for quite some time. Let me start with that. And but just before that, is that that is another thing I'm I'm grateful for. Like one of my main tenets in the Big Dream program that I suggest for people to consider is to figure out their lifestyle first, what they want in the life, and then see how the business can fit within it, or or even in such a way I talk about ecosystems and habitats all the time in here, such that the business actually improves our daily life versus becomes a big weed that takes it over, or or compared to what I see is in the mainstream model, which I call a separate model, which is you got your work, you got your personal life, and then you got you, you know, or I beg your pardon, family, you know, whatever, like compartmentalized, yeah, compartmentalized, and it's it's it's horseshit because it doesn't work, it's not completely true. Yeah, it's like having a wetland and a woodland and not thinking they affect each other because they're beside each other, it's impossible. And so uh why why I'm saying that is that I was a Reiki master. That was once I got out of diving, I was in Reiki, and I and I don't have to be labored at this point, but I did five years full-time as a Reiki master and had a clinic and talking and um I opened up a Reiki clinic the same way as every other Reiki clinic I had seen in my life. This is relevant to parenting, I'm coming back around and which meant I had an office that I went to every day. Meanwhile, I remember being in the office in the afternoons, especially, especially if it was sunny out, and wondering what my kids were doing, or wondering, wishing I could be with them, yeah, like doing something, and here I am stuck in the office, even worse when it wasn't even going that well. I didn't have quite enough, you know. So I'm there working on a business plan by myself, and yeah, and like to look back on that now, the problem was so so obvious was that there's many ways to do Reiki, and an office is one of them. And I purposely chose an environment, a daily lifestyle that wasn't actually how I prefer to live. Never mind being a parent. And so it wasn't long after that that I thought, okay, lifestyle first. I I sometimes throw out uh there's a I have a uh story on my website called the barber story that I don't have to say right now, but it's about two barbers who are twins, and one opened a shop and one was became a traveling barber, traveling to old folks' homes. They were both barbers, but only one found his calling in the store. And so, my my point uh for those that it that this is the right message for, it's not for everybody, but for those who want to hear that this is what works for them, is that build the think about the lifestyle first, which is what Barbara Two did, and then drop the trade or the craft or the business into it. And so to get back to the parenting, that's what I ended up doing. Once I realized all that and saw the barber story, is I gave up the office and I started uh doing online things, I started working from home, I started seeing clients in my living room, and to my eternal gratefulness, um, Tad taught me how to take my workshops on the road, and so I did giant six-week road trips with my two kids across Canada with the kids and around the states. It would have been my wife too, but she doesn't like road trips at all. Okay, she gets kind of car sick, and uh anyway. So I said, Well, how could I take the kids?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, how old were they at that point?

SPEAKER_06:

Oh, they were, I don't know, like we a couple of years, I don't know, somewhere between six and ten or something.

SPEAKER_01:

Same as mine now, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

Wow, god Alex, you're brave men. Almost 14,000 kilometer road trips, each of them, and uh just had amazing adventures and in large part with a few wobbles, uh, workshops I taught along the way paid for it. And so that's fun. That that whole model was completely new to me. Yeah, was that what if I do start with the lifestyle first? And so in my case, it was what do I want to do for the summer? Do I want to be stuck in the office? No, I don't want to be stuck in the office, but I still need to earn money somehow. And so can I set it up so that I can be swimming and camping and road tripping with the kids, yeah, and still earn money? How how could that happen, you know? And then the and I didn't earn a bomb, but I earned better money than if I had stayed home in the office. That's true. Wow, and the second thing is over two years, 1200 people came to my workshops. Jeez, yeah, a box full of uh feedback forms here that I go through once in a while, and some of them became clients for years. People still reach out and pay me for work because they were on my workshop uh 14 years ago, you know, somewhere and so that whole lifestyle first thing. So that's that's what I would want to say about parenting, is just self-servingly for me, never mind then, is that I was scared of missing the boat. Um, I knew full well that they were gonna walk out the door when they were 16 or 17 because they're so independent, of course they're gonna do that, barring in reasons not to, and that's pretty much what they did. They weren't 16, but I knew they would walk out the door one day, and I had this window of time to get the most out of it. I could no, I wasn't perfect, no, I didn't grab every moment, but because I was scared of this day they would walk out for 16 years, it forced me to get off the couch more often than I would have otherwise, you know. Oh so that is beautiful that I could discover that if uh there's a different way to template a business that starts with the lifestyle first, and the examples that I give, including my own, were it can even make good sense financially to do it. Amazing, yeah. I never got rich, I I was always kind of paycheck to paycheck, but at least I could do it for the most part, and what a win!

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my god, and the memories that you must have made.

SPEAKER_06:

The second thing I would say about parenting though, though, and and that's because I just not sure if I'm an expert at this, is follow your curiosity. If I had one piece of advice for kids, follow your curiosity because curiosity itself is a powerful force and it's very engaging. Uh, I said 86% of the world was disengaged with their work, is the opposite of that. And so if you're following your curiosity, even if you don't know where it's leading, it's still more likely to lead us to the right place than any kind of mental intellectual structure to descend.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So as parents, if we just can be watching for what the children are interested in, and just you know, without not too heavy-handed, but just support them in in yeah, figuring that out and following what's interesting. Yeah. Nice, beautiful. Okay. I I I feel I don't know where the time's gone, but I feel like we're, you know, somehow we've got uh, you know, near the end of the time we've got. And um yeah, you've answered some of these questions. I'm just looking at my list here, see if there's oh yeah, okay. Um what about you know when somebody's you know, you mentioned like that point at which you still gotta earn money. Maybe you're supporting a family and you're really not following your dream, and you're feeling that soul-destroying feeling of being in the wrong thing, but it's paying the bills, and there's like it that it just feels like such an unworkable situation for some people, doesn't it? When you just feel so stuck, so trapped in something that is killing you.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Have you got anything to say to that person?

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, I do, and and to start with, it was my Reiki career that taught me the damage to our bodies, at least for the people that I saw from that kind of situation. Uh, where if work is killing us, it's literally killing us, you know. And I completely have so much. If a person is stuck and can't make a different choice, then I would I would give them all the hugs in the world and say it's tough and you're not broken. The word isn't completely well, it's very not fair in some ways. And I'm so sorry if you're stuck in that uh position, and I hope you can get out of it at some stage. But for those who have some choice in the matter, or at least over a few years could work themselves into a new choice, yeah. Uh, one of the I mean, obviously it was different different advice from different kinds of specialists, but uh, the advice that helped me a lot was that you don't have to choose. Uh, a lot of clients come to me and they have been following their curiosity, but there is a second stage to doing something with that. And the first stage is that they end up with four degrees and three modalities, and they're a Reiki master, but they also love uh wild foraging and they also love canoeing in the wilderness. And they're they're trying to think, you know, should I be a wilderness guide or should I be a yoga teacher? Like yeah, constantly thinking of the label, which one of my interests should I choose? And that's where I got really stuck for for years. Yeah, and most of my clients get stuck. If a person comes to me and I'm the right person for them, it's usually because of that problem.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, like there's too many interests, too many. How do I pick one?

SPEAKER_06:

Right, and they all feel important. Meanwhile, deep down, I'm pointing out my gut, I don't know where it is, but somewhere in their body, they're craving there's something I'm here to express in the world, which one is it? Yeah, and that's where I got stuck too, until I discovered there's a completely different way of looking at it, and you don't have to choose, and you shouldn't choose, frankly, if you're this kind of person, which is there's specialists and there's experienced designers. Those are the words I use anyway. A specialist is I'm a plumber, I'm an architect, I'm a master, I'm a doctor, I'm a surgeon, etc. The world needs specialists, and some people love being a specialist. Yeah, the person with 18 modalities and still loves the canoe and is not a specialist, generally speaking. I wouldn't say they're an experienced designer. Yeah, experienced designers are all around us. We just don't often think of it as a business model, but it's a very valid business model. People who have retreat centers or experienced designers, do they just teach yoga? No, they they have wild edibles, they have canoeing, they have basically anything they're interested in, they can serve on the plate of a retreat center. Yeah, and it's the fact that they have many interests and life experiences that makes the darn thing work. If they were to choose one thing, the whole thing would fall apart. Who wants a retreat center with one thing happening in it? And so I I I obviously have templates and you know a bit of a system to this, but I suggest for people to consider what it would be like if I got rid of choosing altogether, pick a working title for your business right now, call it Alex's Place, Betty's Place, whatever, just a working title. You don't have to tell anybody else, yeah. It's like a restaurant or so, you know, a retreat. And so it's Joe's place. And now make a list of all your favorite games and all your favorite things and start throwing them together into offerings, you know. Okay, we're gonna canoe in the morning and then we're gonna do this, and then but you know, and the equivalent of for online things, whatever. Yeah, and then uh there's another question to just figure out who are the right who's for this. Who do you want to work with? Probably not everybody, but who do you want to work with, and sort of figure that bit out and basically serve the combination of an experience design to those people, and that's what my audience are doing, and it can set them. It can take well, it can take months or years to build, of course, but yeah, but the concept alone sets them free overnight, as it did me. Yeah, so um, for those, it's a fit for listening to this. If you're in that position and you're doing something you don't want to do, and if you have those many interests and that's the problem, you can't choose, consider what it would look like if you didn't. Yeah, like very interesting things happening in Betty's place, not just me. So, and then that equals a business. I mean, if we circle all the way back to Tad Hargrave, he's got marketing for hippies. I don't know, I don't think he calls himself a marketing coach, that I've never heard him say that anyway. He has a place, a metaphor place in which many different things happen, even his culture work for that matter, right? Yeah, um, it's like it's like you have a retreat center, and in his case, but then you deploy it however you want. In his case, he's got an online place, yeah, and then like a traveling circus tent, and he travels around the room and he follows the marketing for hippies tent, you know, in your tent because you know what. Um, and so you can then deploy it in a way that suits what the lifestyle you want, and so trying to piece these together uh does it make it easy? No, but life's hard anyways, you know, and it might as well at least feel like we're on track, and those kind of things I find can help people feel on track overnight if they're willing to put the work into it afterwards.

SPEAKER_01:

And if someone's working, you know, full-time and there's just not that they're tired um from the work because it's draining doing something you don't love.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, you know, what what do you suggest? Do you have clients who come to you who are still in that full-time situation? Like what how do you help them?

SPEAKER_06:

If not more, in that situation. And that's where I mean, I'll make a pitch for myself here, but I think that's where a person needs a structure that someone else built. Interesting. Help them go through this quite clearly. I got a structure, you know, across the program. But even if it's not me, I think when we're when we get home, and I remember what it's like. You get home from work, and especially if then you're into being parents and all that kind of stuff, there's a particular kind of thinking required to do what is it, divergent thinking when your mind goes when you're trying to think of possibilities for your it requires a particular kind of brain space that is absent in those times of life. If you knew, if you had a list and you knew exactly what to do, then you could sit down from six to six fifteen and do the thing, you know. And so that's why I suggest if they can take someone else's course or something who've already built the structure, then you sit down at 615 and you know exactly what to do next, you know. Oh, yeah, even if you only have 15 minutes, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to build my course, even for my clients, because the people who do my course are getting more out of it than my when I had one-on-one clients without the course. Yeah, interesting. So it's it's a structure they can distilled follow. Yeah, and it's not it's not a perfect structure in the world. No structure is perfect, it's that it is a structure. Yeah, at a time when the whole problem can feel nebulous and hard to get your head and your heart around, you know, in snippets of time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, beautiful. And so this is really happening. People are people are signing up, working full-time, signing up for the big dream program, and allocating 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_06:

Well, I'd say it's a little more than that. I was kind of just saying that that time frame, but overall, I suggest a person needs about three to four hours a week, would be ideal to then.

SPEAKER_01:

And you can find that it's funny, isn't it? Because this week I literally have been so busy, Alex, that that I was meant sitting in. Meditation last weekend, and I and I said to myself, I've got so much on this week. It's literally the busiest week of the year. How am I going to manage it? And um, because mainly like kids stuff, end of term, summer fair, where they go to a waldorf school and it's like everything's oh nice, yeah. Uh so yeah, everything's handmade, and then I'm support supporting them with their entrepreneurial efforts, you know. Oh my god, so much going on. Remember that so well, many. And uh, but I but I realized, you know, I had this idea, like I was kind of perpetuating the idea like no time, no time, no time. You know, everything I was doing was like, no time, no space, no time, no space. And then I just I've managed to carve out half an hour just to sit quietly. And I realized, ah, yeah, I have all the time I need. I just need to not waste it. And I have been wasting it with flipping social media, right? So I just took my SIM card out of my iPhone and I put it in one of these old Nokia. And I tell you what, Alex, my week has been amazing. I haven't opened social media, I haven't opened any news site, I haven't, I haven't wasted any time. I feel amazing. I'm so smug.

SPEAKER_06:

That right there, you turn that into a course.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, right. Yeah. Look, I might not manage much more. I don't know. This has been what it was Sunday, it's Friday now, you know, it's been five days.

SPEAKER_06:

What experiment, brave one too?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I need the smartphone for like for podcasts, so I I I'm still carrying it around, but it doesn't have you know connectivity. So that's quite good. I can't when I'm at the house, I I I just can't use it as pointless, but I can have music and I can have podcasts.

SPEAKER_06:

You get it, use it like a computer online. Yeah, yeah, right, right. It's so liberating. About time though, is that I can get I'm a uh uh ambitious to a fault sometimes, and some of my faults are ambition and overwork and stuff. But um, what I will say is that this ecosystem model I'm describing, as as I illustrated even in my own example of taking the kids on the road trip, the ecosystem model does a really nice treatment on our time available time because three things are happening at the once. I'm spending time with my kids at the workshop, they're doing crafts in the back and adding it to the workshop, frankly. And so the kids are there in the workshop, yeah. Yeah, and then we're swimming afterwards, and we're we're being hosted in people's homes, so we're having this constant engagement, really beautiful families who are feeding us, and and we're sometimes we're tenting in their backyards. Cool. So guy take us take us out on a boat ride, but it all happens at the once. Like if you think of the separate, I have to go to and then I come home, and with whatever time I have left, I'm gonna spend some time with the kids, you know. Yeah, and then in the separate model, there's never enough time, but with the ecosystem model, often things can be blended in such a way that we accomplish three important things in in the same time it would take to do one. That can help a lot with time.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that was the that was the sound bite that Alex I loved that. Oh my god. When you yeah, just I'm just gonna let that sink in a minute. When we allow the different priorities that we, you know, the different things we want to spend our time doing, when we find a way to blend them, yeah, we're saving time and we're doing we're doing all the things.

SPEAKER_06:

And I would say even one step more if you'll if you'll I'm using the metaphor of the uh the three sisters companion planting method that was made uh famous, of course, by indigenous folks for centuries here in in North America at least, and it has its cousins all over the world, which is you plant maize, corn, and beans together, as I'm told. I'm not a gardener, but I think I have the story right together, they grow way better than if you planted them separately. So it's not just that they each get to the size they would have separately, they get more of size, you know, and they protect each other and stuff. And so I think something similar happens with this in that the um the these experiences we design for ourselves that include our life and our work, often the pieces improve, enhance the other pieces, and so everything as we say where I'm from, a rising tide rises all boats, yeah. And so we've got the one initiative that right that rises several aspects of life all in the one hour or all in the one journey or all in the one weekend. Isn't that amazing? And and that that's a pretty cool effect.

SPEAKER_01:

That is so beautiful, and as you were saying that, I was getting the the image of you know, recently I've been, you know, since being in marketing for hippies world and similar places and really helping people and like you do as well, with um helping people be more themselves in their business, and and how that's like um this permaculture way of planting as well, isn't it? That we that when we are growing in the way that we grow, we actually support the other beings around us and that we serve each other and feed each other underground. And yeah, that's how it's supposed to be, it's not supposed to be monoculture, right?

SPEAKER_06:

Right, and and you're right, like the efforts uh seem to be more effective. Yeah. If part of our dream is to channel some kind of thing to to people directly, like I'm a singer-songwriter, or I'm an entrepreneur teaching courses, or in some manner, my dream is to express myself to other people. If that's the case, then the more myself I am, yeah, and the and do a bit of filtering, as Tad would say, so make sure I have the right audience there. Yeah, um, then I actually do far more for them in that state than if I'm only half being myself. And so it does, you're right, it does seem to solve a bunch of problems all at once.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah. I kind of want to ask a big question. I don't know if we've got time because there's a oh I also want to say us us uh so I'll I'll say the question, um, and then we can let it sit for a moment and see if an answer comes through. But the question that that really I find is like the elephant in the room here. What did you say? 86% of people are disengaged in their work. The question that's that's there is like why? Right, how did we get here?

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah. Um yeah, so if there was 86% of anything in the world that that was bad, we would consider it an absolute emergency and we would attempt at least to solve it. Like that it's it that statistic is wild. Yeah, it's wild and it's very, very, very sad. And circling back to the parenting and so on too, that and this is I hope this is not guilt-inducing for everyone. But if I had stayed in the diving because I couldn't get out of it, or didn't know how to get out of it, or never found my way to the big dream program, I um I would have been a different uh husband, a different father, and a different man inside myself. And I don't think it would have been great, frankly. And uh, and so just the the the human loss behind that 80 per 86 percent figure, again, setting aside social justice issues in countries and people that can't do any different, I get it. Of course, yeah. But there's so many of us that do have some choice, but we don't have a uh a method or a way or a template to set us free so that we can do our thing uh in the world, and the the the the loss to all of us with that 86 percent just brings tears to my eyes, right?

SPEAKER_01:

And you and here you are, and I am Alex, doing our little bit to to try and do something about that, you know.

SPEAKER_06:

I'm feeling goddamn lucky and grateful to be able to do it, right?

SPEAKER_01:

What beautiful work.

SPEAKER_06:

Wow, it's pretty good. You're probably the same. I I don't know who gets more out of the relationship, my clients or me. Sometimes I finish a session and I got paid for it. I'm thinking, I just got more than they did. Yeah, and plus like you, I get to talk to experts in all sorts of you know, they have life experience that I don't have, and I learned so much from them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I recently I've had this spate of NHS doctors coming to to see me. So funny, you know, like if I'm it's so funny that I am what they need, you know. Like if I could tell that to 16-year-old me. It's so interesting that I just went off and lived a wild life when I was young. I, you know, I never and and and there they were like working towards something. And I was so I felt so less than, you know, that I I was never doing the the thing, the you know, getting the qualifications, and now they're coming to me.

SPEAKER_06:

Isn't that awesome? And because you both presumably uh uh put a lot of dedication into your adventure, yeah. Those adventures were different, you end up with this, you know, pile of gifts and and life wealth uh uh that that becomes very useful to each other. Presumably, if you broke your leg or something, one of those people will be quite helpful.

SPEAKER_01:

So helpful, so helpful. I love I love the RNHS and I love everybody working in it. I, you know, and I don't say this to criticize at all. I'm just baffled. You know, there's the part of me that's like, how has this happened? You know, amazing. Um just yeah, the last thing I wanted to say, uh Alex was that I didn't I was gonna mention this before we hit record, but I didn't get to I I said I'll start recording and then I'll tell you. But I I was saying I had a connection to um Canada and it my connection is that that my um my grandfather is from Labrador. Yes, yeah, and so um yeah, I have like native kind of Inuit um ancestry.

SPEAKER_06:

Do you really? Yeah, isn't that remarkable? And and um Labrador to the UK, how did that happen?

SPEAKER_01:

Ah yeah, well, oh gosh, there's a whole podcast there in itself. I mean, he was so he was in uh Northwest River, and I'm just zooming in on Google Maps, yeah. Happy Valley, Happy Valley Goose Bay, it's called okay. Um, tiny little place. I've been there actually, and uh yeah, his his father died, they had a bit a lot of children. Um, the father died falling fishing, falling through a hole in the ice. Yeah, and my grandfather was given to the mission as a child, which actually, given there were so many children, they had so little, actually going to the mission turned things around for him. He learned how to radio. Um, and then he incredible story. He actually he wanted to sign up for the British RAF. And uh he something like the story goes something like he he caught the last boat to wherever it was down the river before the winter freeze. Um like to sign up for the to join the British Air Force, right? And um it was the last boat before the winter freeze, and he was he packed his snowshoes in in his pack, you know, thinking, well, he was actually underage, and he it took that boat to wherever it was he had to go, and they they let him in, I think. I don't don't know how it happened. Um, but he joined the British Air Force and then he came to Britain. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

Wow, wow, wow, you do have not you have not just a connection to Canada, that's a pretty adventurous. It's cool, isn't it? Yeah, and then Labrador is one of the places in Canada. Canada's so big, of course, that a lot of Canadians haven't been to it, you know. And Labrador would be one of those places that very few of us have been, frankly.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's it's quite it's just amazing. I mean, just looking at the map as I am now, there's just so little for a Brit, it's really quite hard to comprehend the vastness of the landscape, I think, and the and the wilderness there.

SPEAKER_06:

Before we hit record, uh we were talking about the artwork behind. So, yeah, David Blackwood would be an artist that you would really like to look up.

SPEAKER_01:

I that's exactly what I thought when I saw it.

SPEAKER_06:

The whole series called Down on the Labrador, and you would relate to that. David Blackwood, I'm just gonna I'll write that name down.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my word, it's just if you're listening, um behind Alex, there's a lovely etching. You said it was a print of an etching by an artist called David Blackwood.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, who's a famous Canadian uh he I don't believe he's alive now, but he he definitely a famous Canadian artist uh in the museums and such. And yeah, and uh he he grew up in uh remote outport in Newfoundland, uh early summered there, and um had quite an effect on his life because he painted the whole rest of his life, he painted it.

SPEAKER_01:

Newfoundland, yeah. And and now I have um my cousins who grew up here with me in in Britain, they emigrated to Nova Scotia. So I have um cousins in Cape Breton. Yes, yeah. So so one one of these one of these days I'm gonna bring the family over. You must.

SPEAKER_06:

You must all the listeners who don't know it, you must do the cabot trail drive in in Cape Breton. Yeah circumnavigates the the cliff. Oh, that sounds good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, amazing. So uh I think that that is us at the end of our time together. Sadly, Alex, it's been such fun. I've really enjoyed talking to you. Um, and I really feel like you know. Oh, yeah, there was one other thing I was gonna say just before I stop, which is another as you were talking and I was biting my tongue, like don't interrupt, don't interrupt. But another similarity was that I was also in a rock band playing um playing keys.

SPEAKER_06:

I hope you were better than I was.

SPEAKER_01:

I was appalling, Alex. Appalling. I think I just got in because I wore a dress. I'm almost almost certain of it, but anyway, um, yeah, beautiful.

SPEAKER_06:

So all those adventures, uh they do feel like side adventures sometimes at the time, but it's great now at my age. I'm just in just into my 50s, and to look back and to have had all those rich and eclectic experiences, don't realize how much they add up to a rich life later looking back, and not just looking back, but who I am, how I stand in the world today, you know, is fed as much from uh standing on tables, belting out songs in a pub, to any of the you know, spiritual or or or self-development work that I did, you know, and underwater actually taught me more about being a human than almost anything. Yeah, it's so beautiful. Yeah, so all of these side adventures, whoever's listening, you you've probably had a few if you're listening to Betty Fox. They all add up. I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_01:

Totally, and that is actually why I called the podcast True Wealth. It was like realizing that all these things added up to a wealth that was not monetary, you know, and and a wealth that's really gonna matter, especially once we get older.

SPEAKER_06:

It's gonna matter that we have it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, thank you so much, Alex. I feel like the listeners are gonna really enjoy this one.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, maybe you maybe you can come again. I feel like we could have another, easily have another conversation um down the road.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, sure would, Betty.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, beautiful. Okay, so if you've been listening and you're curious to hear about the big dream program, Alex, would you tell the listeners where to go, how to find you, what's coming up in your world?

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's uh bigdreamprogram.com and or Google Alex Baisley, that'll do too. And uh I there's just two ways to to work with. Well, I have free stuff, I got starter pack and stuff. I mean, that most people would try that out first, and uh but there's two ways to work with me, and most people choose both. It's uh some one-on-one sessions and and this curriculum that I built. It's uh I'm gonna brag there. I'm it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_06:

It's very practical. Let me let me finish that point because I started saying uh ages ago here that I was in this bridge mills restaurant or coffee shop every Sunday trying to figure out my life before I would have to go to work Monday diving in the ocean again every Sunday, and that went on for a long, long time, and I would be years figuring it out. But I built the program for that, Alex. That that that was always in my mind as I built it. Zero fluff. There's a lot of substance, but there's no fluff because that man needed something, yes, that would take in his heart and his passions and his spirit, but I had to be practical, otherwise, he could never get out of diving. And so I tried to bake it in, you know, to be as efficient and practical as possible. It sounds like I'm doing a sales pitch. I'm not, I'm just so I so wanted to give him something like that. And it took me 17 years to to do it. And so if there's anyone like him in the world, then it gives me tremendous satisfaction and a sense of, you know, as an entrepreneur, you there's a sense of safety too. Like you don't want to give something to somebody that's half-assed, and they're not going to be very happy with, and you know, it doesn't feel very nice. And I'm very happy to give them this. I think you're proud of it.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, yeah, yeah, and it's great, isn't it? When you create something you're proud of, it's a good thing, and it's good to be able to say that and brag about what was good. Let's just be honest and stop uh stop pretending. Yeah, beautiful. Thanks so much, Alex.

SPEAKER_06:

Thank you, thank you. So nice to be here and and uh hello to anybody listening.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, okay. Uh we'll no doubt invite you back for uh for round two. Thanks for coming. Hi, it's Betty again. Oh my goodness, thanks so much for joining me for this conversation with Alex Baisley. And you can find more about Alex and his work, the Big Dream Program, at bigdreamprogram.com. And just a reminder, yeah, this the Big Dream Program, it says here on his website on bigdreamprogram.com, it says this is for the folks who feel they're here to do something very unique and helpful in this world and have a more sane daily lifestyle for themselves. But for all they're trying, figuring out what their thing actually is has remained elusive because the trouble is they have so many interests and talents that they can't choose which one is their thing. So this program is for the people who can't choose and maybe shouldn't choose. So maybe it is about like weaving together your beautiful, beautiful, unique tapestry of your beautiful, unique work and your voice and your opinions and ideas. Yeah, if this is speaking to you, maybe you're feeling stuck in a rut, ready for a new thing. Maybe you need to get out of the wrong job, you can't find the time or headspace to figure out how, and you're ready for a zero fluff practical structure. Hey, I think you might just want to check out bigdreamprogram.com because honestly, as you heard today, Alex is a total dude and he'll sort you out. Um, yeah, such a beautiful conversation with Alex. Thanks so much for joining me and us, and I will see you soon for another episode. And as always, please like and subscribe and share this episode. It really helps me if you do that. If you've enjoyed it, of course. And if you want to find out more about me, you can do so at truewealth withbetty.com. All right, that's it for now. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye.