Episode 29 – Unlocking Transformation: The Power of Self-Development with John Geraghty

Todd Bertsch: 0:10

Welcome back to the Bolt Podcast. I’m Todd Bertsch and I’m thrilled to be your guide on this inspiring journey of personal growth and leadership. Together with my guests, we’ll dive into transformational stories, uncovering how small, intentional changes can create massive positive results in your life. From overcoming challenges and setting impactful goals to building lasting habits and living with confidence, health and positivity. We’ll explore it all and, if you’re ready, to embrace a growth mindset, and unlock the best version of yourself, then let’s spark that transformation today.

Todd Bertsch: 0:46

Today’s guest is John Geraghty, an optimal performance coach, speaker and author of the Prism of Perspective. John’s journey to becoming a sought-after leader and his personal and professional growth was shaped by his own life-threatening challenges, including overcoming alcoholism. Through his resilience, he reshaped his health, mindset and definition of success. Now John helps seasoned business leaders align their decisions, relationships and well-being with a long-term vision of fulfillment and impact. As a creator of Fitness Presence, he is redefining how we approach exercise, making it more effective and injury-free. John’s mission is to inspire others to tap into their full potential, cultivate deeper connections and step into a life of purpose, joy and impact. Listeners, get ready for an inspiring episode on how to tap into your full potential, John. Welcome to the Bolt Podcast, my friend. Thank you so much.

John Geraghty: 1:49

Todd, I’m so excited to be here with you. We’ve had an opportunity you were on my podcast and I’ve also had an opportunity to listen to quite a few of yours and love the work you’re doing. I love your heart and where you’re coming from, so I’m really excited for this conversation.

Todd Bertsch: 2:03

Yeah, man, it’s great to have you on the show. Thank you for joining early. Most of my West Coast guests are much later in the day. I’m a morning person. This is when I am, like, at my best. So really I appreciate you jumping on because I know this is super early for you, but I have to imagine I think you’re an early riser.

John Geraghty: 2:20

I’m an East Coaster, so yeah. I’ve been up for a few hours by now.

Todd Bertsch: 2:24

Yeah, good, good. So, yeah, you and I are so aligned right when we talked and that’s why I wanted to have you on the show. I have so much respect for what you’re doing and the intentionality that you bring into everything that you do, I think is really powerful, so I’m excited to get into this, john. So, to kick things off, just tell us a little bit about these challenges, this life-threatening challenge that you endured, and how did this really influence your life and becoming the leadership coach that you are today.

John Geraghty: 2:57

Well, thank you for that. I think it’s really helpful to think back at. How did it go off the rails? Why did it go off the rails? What was alcohol providing for me? And I started drinking at 14 years old and up until that time in my life I had my family. You know my family dynamics. My parents divorced when I was pretty young. My father was completely out of my life and you know so. My mom was very loving, but you know, we were living in a space where stuff was starting to change and so when I went from being like an excellent student and pretty athletic and everything and between eighth and ninth grade is really where my life seemed to crumble- and it seems odd, but like that summer it’s.

John Geraghty: 3:37

And right at the beginning of that school year I went from always felt like I was a facade right, I was an imposter, but I was like I was an imposter that was having success, and so I didn’t really believe in what I was doing in myself, but I was still creating a lot of great outcomes. And then over the summer I get really bad cystic acne, you know, like one of a hundred people or thereabouts, you know, probably get it whatever you know. So pretty bad. And it went from being a pretty attractive kid that had lots of cute little girls to a person that I found to be hideous looking. And then I went from being kind of like what would have been the best student in my middle school.

John Geraghty: 4:12

And the day that high school started I met in class the kid that will ultimately become our valedictorian in high school and our teacher in our social studies class gave us a semester assignment and it was, yeah, I forget what it was, but what I do remember is he turned his in the next day and it was completed and I looked at it and I was like, wow, I’ve never done anything like that.

John Geraghty: 4:31

And so all of a sudden like I wasn’t really that cute, maybe I wasn’t really that smart. And then in PE class I’d been the fastest kid in my middle school. And then James Shanks beat me in the 50 yard dash, so everything like I think I had had been held holding onto this like I’m the best. I didn’t really believe it, but I would. The results were kind of showing up that way. And then all of a sudden, like immediately everything collapsed and about three months later I got introduced to alcohol and I blacked out the first time I ever drank. Blacked out, got drunk the first time I ever drank and did that for 15 years.

John Geraghty: 5:05

So all through high school, all through college and the beginning of my working years, I was a functioning alcoholic, in that I would show up. I didn’t perform really well in high school, I didn’t perform really well in college, and so everything was falling apart and I tried to get sober a bunch of different times. But right around when I just turned 29, october birthday, right at New Year’s I’m looking at my life and I’m looking. I have some skills right. I’m a pretty good communicator. I had some success professionally in sales, but I was looking at it. I’m like no matter what if I keep drinking. I couldn’t deny the fact that I was going to end up in jail, kill someone in a car accident, just totally sabotage my life. And so I knew I had to get sober.

John Geraghty: 5:50

And at that time Anthony Robbins was just coming out with his personal power series and my roommate had purchased it, and so I listened to it and there was a section in it on I think he calls it the Dickens pattern. I’ve kind of used it. I call it the Scrooge pattern because it’s really about Scrooge and it’s the idea that when, if you think about Scrooge right, the way that they shifted his behavior is they had him look at his past, his present and his future. Right, the ghosts came and they showed him like here’s where this behavior has cost you in the past, here’s where it’s costing you in the future. This is what it’s going to cost you. And so that’s literally the use that pattern to challenge, to really look at where alcohol was taking me.

John Geraghty: 6:37

And we were always moving toward pleasure and away from pain. So, up until that time, even though there was destruction in the alcohol in my life, I still, on whole, saw it as a pleasure, right, as something that would relieve the insecurity or the discomfort. And I had to switch it so that it felt really so bad. The idea of like, okay, I’m going to end up in prison or under a bridge, or having killed some you know really bad stuff which I wasn’t under a bridge, or having killed some you know really bad stuff which I wasn’t that’s probably what would have happened. And so once the association became so strong, then I was able to begin to put together days, right, and I, because the Anthony Robbins stuff was so impactful I leaned into I didn’t do AA, I leaned into personal development, and I, since that time. I’ve read a book a week for 30 years, essentially.

John Geraghty: 7:27

Oh gosh Of personal development, communication, relationships, organizations, whatever it is that I felt the need. But I began to be a learner and I think I was also trying to make up for the 15 years that I wasn’t, Because I kind of blew off school. I got through, but me and the dean’s List we’re not that familiar with one another. So I began to be a learner and I got really interested in what got me into coaching, I think eventually, was you know, some people are like people don’t change. I’m like no people. People change. I became a different person. You know, I transformed my own life and it changed me so much and the reward was so great that it began to be something that I felt like I really needed and wanted to share with people. And so I got into the financial services industry, which was a career that I was building. In that industry I had a period of time, just a short, brief period of time, where a bunch of clients three clients at big life-changing events that didn’t have to do with their money, it had to do with the rest of the way they were living their lives. I thought, hey, maybe I can expand what I’m doing. I thought I’d do both, but I was just once I started coaching and developing. It was, you know, it was the thing that lit me up and I was like you know what? I got a long time to go here with my career. I’m gonna do what lights me up and that’s really how I got into coaching and development.

John Geraghty: 8:51

And I’m a learner. I love to learn. Obviously, I read, you know, read a book a week and then what that allows me to do is, if you’re really a learner, what you you learn to teach, right? I don’t learn to keep it inside, I learn to share it, just so that those natural attributes that I was suppressing so much came into play. And it’s been a really fun journey. I feel like I’m living authentically doing this work. So, yeah, it’s kind of how I got started.

Todd Bertsch: 9:19

Man. Thank you, john, for being vulnerable and sharing that intimate details. Wow, what a story. Vulnerable and sharing that intimate details Wow, what a story. I mean good for you. I mean kudos to you, for not a lot of people will, on their own, make that choice. We all have the potential, the capacity, the innate ability right to change, evolve, but you still have to make that choice.

Todd Bertsch: 9:42

You know, I do believe in a higher power and the fact that you, that book, that message right, was brought into your life and it sounds like it had a tremendous impact on you. You had to make the choice right to make that next step. But that came into your life and it sparked curiosity in your mind. It said, hmm, what if? What if I did things a little bit differently, what would my life look like? And look where you’re at today, brother. I mean and I love what you said about reading I never really thought about it like that, but that is powerful.

Todd Bertsch: 10:16

I’m going to quote that, quote you on that. You know you learn to share and you know it’s interesting. You and I and we talked about this on your show we have almost identical parallels. You’re just a little bit older than me, but I went through the same thing about the same age and, interesting enough, went down a similar path, and it’s interesting how we find our path and our journey and our purpose in life. I think the most effective and powerful coaches are ones that have been through some trauma or some really life-changing event, like you and I have, because I think you have to go through something to really build that resilience and that deep empathy for people and to be able to share that in a vulnerable way opens yourself up, get you out of your comfort zone, and people can look at that and say, wow, this guy is real, he’s authentic, he’s been there, so I think he can help me Right, and it’s I don’t know, it’s just really powerful. John, thank you for doing that and sharing that with us.

John Geraghty: 11:21

Yeah, you know, like you mentioned curiosity, I think you know when we’re curious, both about what you know maybe we’re consuming information on the outside but really curious about ourselves, right, and we take the time to think about, like, what do I really believe in? You know, what are my beliefs? Not something I, you know here, believe this, right, but really looking at your life and say, what do I believe in? What’s my purpose? Like, why am I here?

John Geraghty: 11:47

One of the things I think I like to think about is, like, if you were, if you were God, right, if you were God and you were responsible for creating values that were emanating out into the universe, what values would you choose? Because that’s essentially what we’re doing, right, we’re living our values. We are a center that puts out into the world right, it radiates out into the world what we believe in. And if we’re living those values, you know, we are in effect creating more and more, kind of, like Gandhi said, right, be the change you want to see in the world. And I think curiosity, taking the time to know who you are and what you believe in, allows you to be.

John Geraghty: 12:28

The name of my company is Courageous Authenticity, and I think it’s because, if you know who you are and you’ve done the work, you can be courageously authentic, because you now you’re not there by accident, right, it’s not. You know if somebody, if many people, are going to see the world differently, right, everybody sees the world differently. But if you are solid on what you believe, because you’ve done the work, it’s okay that other people may judge you. Or you know, okay, they’re judging you because their values are different than yours, that’s okay. But if you know what yours are, then you can really lean in. And I find that to be a really great place where curiosity, you know, curiosity has played a huge role. Yeah, absolutely.

Todd Bertsch: 13:08

We always say at our office we have core values which we really believe in and stand tall. You know, at the end of the day, we just want to hang our hat right on the rack and feel good about how we handled ourselves, the relationships, our clients, the work that we’re doing. If we do that, there’s nothing else we can do. You know, our clients, the work that we’re doing If we do that, there’s nothing else we can do We’ll feel good about it. So the work’s going to be there tomorrow. But aligning with those core values is what we set out to do.

Todd Bertsch: 13:35

And, john, this is a great segue into the prism of perspective. I mean, this has been kind of your life’s work and it’s very unique and I love learning about it on your show and I really want to spend some time here because this is a really cool model. So, if you can take us through what the prism of perspective is all about and it starts with your life and your beliefs, right, your mindset it really does. Yeah, and then this was a book. You have a podcast about this. One-to-one coaching Like this is really the center of who you are and what you’re doing. So here, man, the floor is yours, take us through, educate us.

John Geraghty: 14:16

So there’s a quote that I love and Robert Box I believe he’s a English philosopher, mathematician, and he said all models are wrong, some are useful. I hope Prism of Perspective is useful and we’ll send out the graphics on it so people can look at it if they really like it. But if you’ve ever seen the Dark Side of the Moon album cover, which most people have?

Todd Bertsch: 14:38

Yeah, that was the first thing. When I saw that, I said, oh.

John Geraghty: 14:41

Dark Side of the Moon. So the idea is, if you think about how light works, right, white light goes into a prism and then it’s refracted and it pulls out all the different colors of the rainbow, but all those colors are actually inside the white light. And so if you think about our lives, I look at the prism having three sides, right, so our life comes at us like white light and all of the opportunities, all everything that’s in the world is coming at us in this way, and then we’re going to filter it through the three sides of the prism, which I call our beliefs, our energy and our presence. And so the beliefs the most powerful influence in your life is your identity. Beliefs, because they act as a thermostat for your life. Right, you’re not going to act significantly outside of what you believe is true, and I know that you do a lot of visualization work, you do a lot of affirmation work. You know those are the things when you get clear. Right, you’re affirming what you believe to be true about yourself. And so you know you never want to say anything about yourself that you don’t want to be true, and you do want to say about yourself what you do want to be true and it can be aspirational.

John Geraghty: 15:51

I mentioned the name of my company is Courageous Authenticity. When I named it, there was still growth, right, but I mean I was not as courageously authentic as I wanted to be, but it was a value that I had. I was like I want to live a courageously authentic as I wanted to be, but it was a value that I had. I was like I want to live a courageously authentic life. And so, like you said, visualize what does that look like. How do you affirm that into your life? And so you create these identity beliefs, which, to me, are your life story, kind of your hero’s journey. How’d you end up here? You overcame all these different things. You know, I shared a little of my hero’s journey. Right, your purpose from where you are today, right, it has to continue to evolve.

John Geraghty: 16:28

So I’m 62. And so a lot of people have this vision, especially business owners and entrepreneurs and things along those lines, and maybe they built the business that they wanted and they have a clear vision for that, but they might find themselves at 62, really unclear about what they’re going to do next. So what is the impact you want to have based on your current skills, talents, gifts, passions. How do you want to employ those to make a difference in your life? So you can think about okay, I want to arrange my energy and my attention in a way that’s on purpose living on purpose, right, not accidentally. I’m living with intention. I’m living on purpose. Then you think about what are the values right? Not accidentally, I’m living with intention, I’m living on purpose. Then you think about what are the values right? So we talked a little bit about that. How do you want to show up what’s most important for you to emanate into the world? If there was tons of that energy, if there was tons of that in the world and you were trying to create the ideal world, what would that be? So now you know I’m going to live on purpose and this is how I’m going to show up as I try to create that outcome. You get clear on the vision.

John Geraghty: 17:29

I like to think of it from a few different sections. I like to think about the impact I have with my relationships, my family, the community, professionally, but also me, like how am I evolving? What skills am I developing? What’s going on physically right? I want to think about when I’m 75,. I want to be physically functional when I’m 85, I want to be physically functional. I want to be able to do the things I want to do. So having that vision of an 85-year-old still being able to crush it, you make different choices than if you’re somebody that’s 62 and says I’m in pretty good shape for my age, right, or you know, I don’t even know what that means Like cause you really shouldn’t be diminishing as long as you’re doing not overwhelming stuff. That’s the other thing. We can stay physically vital by just doing the basics right. There’s biohacking galore out there, but I’m like, okay, 90% of it. Are you getting enough sleep and rest? Are you eating food that’s nutritious and whole and gives you all your vitamins and micronutrients? And I supplement I think supplementation’s good. I also take hormones because I’m 62 and I find that I live better that way.

John Geraghty: 18:43

Are you exercising enough that you’re challenging your body? You’re creating a physical environment that your body has to continue to be ready for. In a way, our body is a representation. Our current level of fitness is a representation of the environment that we’re forcing it to live in, and so if your environment is like you’re sitting back on a chair clicking, you are in perfect shape to do that, right? You come home from work, you sit down on the chair and you’re like, okay, yeah, I can’t really walk very far. Why would your body give you the capability of doing something you never ask it to do? On the flip side, if you consistently ask yourself, your body say, hey, you know what, we need this strength, we need this cardiovascular, we need this cardiovascular, we need balance, we need coordination, we need flexibility, right? If you consistently tell your body like, okay, in our life, this is stuff we’re going to need, then your body will continue to hold on to it and most likely continue to expand in its capacity for a really long time. And so I think that’s good.

John Geraghty: 19:44

And when you think about the beliefs, when you start to believe those things, you start to see opportunities for it. Right. And so the beliefs beliefs about yourself. Next are beliefs about others. How do you see others? Because we’re in a collaborative world, and if you have judgment about different groups of people and you’re starting to separate yourself, martin Luther King said you can’t influence people for whom you have contempt, right? So think about how you’re seeing different groups of people. Are you looking at how you’re different or are you looking for opportunities to work together and collaborate right.

John Geraghty: 20:16

And then, finally, how do you see the world? Is it a dangerous place? Are there scarce resources? Or is that just a story? We’ve been sold and at some level the brain’s wired to look for danger. But if you flip that and start to say we live in a really safe world, think about all the things that happen where someone doesn’t get hurt, there isn’t a crime, it’s way more safe. Right Magnitudes. You think about abundance. Any person listening to this podcast is living with a level of abundance most likely that kings didn’t have. Regardless of the amount of gold they had or whatever they had, they did not have the abundance to impact the world, create the world, connect with the world, travel the world that we have. So the stories we tell ourselves to me, so many people are like no, don’t tread on me. Somehow or another, we’re being tread upon Top few percent of people in the richest country in the world and life is horrible and it’s a terrible thing, I believe, if we flip it and have gratitude which I know is another one of your big things.

John Geraghty: 21:13

There we go Be grateful, because your gratitude shifts what you’re looking for. You look for what’s great in the world.

John Geraghty: 21:19

You look for you know what is that, and so that’s the beliefs piece. Energy piece is how do you generate energy? And I look at it three ways fundamental, psychological and flow. Fundamental is the things we talked about exercise, nutrition, sleep, rest, the middle part, positive psychology practices. We talked about affirmation, gratitude, forgiveness, compassion, visualization, breathwork, meditation, mindfulness, journaling. All of those things are tools.

John Geraghty: 21:52

I like to think of all of those as like clubs in your golf bag, and you should probably be somewhat adequate at all of them, but there’s probably a handful of them. You want to play all the time, right? You probably play your three wood all the time. You play your five iron or whatever it is. You want to have some go-tos that when you get anxious or you get frustrated or whatever you’re like. Oh, I know what to do. Let me change the way I’m breathing, let me change the way I’m standing, let me get really mindful and be in the present moment. Right? What are the practices that you have access to? What tools have you developed so that you can really thrive?

John Geraghty: 22:22

Then the next piece is another area that I love is really about how do you live in flow, because there’s a huge difference between how we show up based on whether we’re in flow or we’re in overwhelm and flow? For those of you unfamiliar, it’s defined as a state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best right, and so when we think about that, it’s like we’re tapping into our greatest resources. And you ever show up somewhere and like your state’s just not right. You can’t even think of anything. You’re like oh, my name’s Todd, what’s my last name? Right? But other times you almost are amazed by what you’re capable of. Well, the difference is how well you’re tapping into your highest and best resources, aspects of your capabilities, right, always cognitive capabilities. Even physical stuff is cognitive. The muscles are there, but the brain and the neural system is what’s making everything move. But if we’re in flow, in that space, right at the edge of our capabilities, without going into overwhelm, we tap into a cocktail of neurochemicals, neurotransmitters dopamine oxytocin, anandamide, serotonin, endorphins.

John Geraghty: 23:30

So it’s almost like we’re taking this super drug peak performance cocktail, but it’s perfectly designed to allow us to optimize our lives. And so when you’re thinking about energy, are you in flow? Did you find that space where you’re challenged but not overwhelmed, not bored? You don’t want to be bored because there’s not enough. You don’t want to be overwhelmed, you want to be right in that Goldilocks space. And so, being intentional about finding Goldilocks and building it into your life through the way you intentionally calendar your day calendar, your week calendar, your month calendar, your year, think about I want to be putting in times where I have rapt attention. I’m focused exactly on what I want to create. It’s got all of my attention. I’m going to go hard and I’m going to give myself a little recovery time and I’m going to do it again, and those things give you the energy to go, bring that vision that you had to life.

John Geraghty: 24:22

Last piece is presence, kind of the Viktor Frankl space between stimulus and response, and so when you think about that you say, okay, I want to be present. And kind of the mindfulness practice. A lot of these things work this way, right, so the beliefs are empowered by the practices you have down here, and so is your presence right If you have a good mindfulness practice, breathwork practice, something that might trigger you. Otherwise, you’re like, oh, that’s cool, I can get back into my state so that you can act in alignment. I think of it as self-awareness, situational awareness, and then influence. And so self-awareness to me is understanding what are my identity, beliefs and how am I showing up right now. How do I bring them together? So, all of a sudden, I get triggered and here’s how I want to behave, here’s how I’m about to behave. If I’m present enough, I can go oh, let me pull those together. Right, you know? And even if I misbehave over here, I hopefully have the integrity to say hey, you know, what I responded to you in a way that you know was out of alignment. That you know I didn’t mean that and I came at you too hard, so you may even mess it up in that present moment if you’re not right, but then you can recover.

John Geraghty: 25:30

Situational awareness is paying attention like, hey, I just did this. How’d that person respond? How did it hit them? What’s important to them? Because we’re going to do this collaboratively. If we’re going to do anything that really matters, we’re going to do that and when we understand our beliefs, our energy and our presence. That allows us to live our lives as creators and partners and collaborators. If we don’t, we end up looking at the world as if it’s dangerous. It’s against us, people are against us and we live our lives as victims or whatever. And so the rainbow part of this, the different colors are how are you showing up? Low level is victim, fighter, negotiator, contributor, and then you get into collaboration, partnership and co-creation as you move up and it’s really a vent, energy, vibrational lift. So that’s kind of that. And so, through the Prism of Perspective, the book is a story about someone who kind of goes through that self-awakening. It’s like a self-development novel, I would call it.

Todd Bertsch: 26:26

The podcast.

John Geraghty: 26:26

We really look at people’s lives through that and I encourage everybody to kind of look at your life and think about, like, what are your beliefs? Are they really empowering you? Are you telling yourself a story that gives you access to your highest and best so you can create what you want? Are your practices around foundational energy, positive psychology practices and even scheduling? Are you getting yourself to the place where you can really rock and you’re really accepting responsibility to be present, to live in alignment with your values? Because it’s cool to have them stated, but if you allow yourself to act outside of your vision, it’s important. Victor Frankl says the most important thing is a space between stimulus and response, where we can choose our behaviors and our attitude. So, regardless of what’s happening, we can always choose that and get back in alignment. And those things together, I think, are really great tools to help people continue to grow and develop and become who they want to be. And that’s the yeah, you’re right, that’s what I’m passionate about, that’s the work I love to do and that’s really a lot of the framework about the coaching and development that I do. Really, looking at those different elements, and I think of them all as like little dials that you can dial in tighter, like, are you dialed in tight on your identity, beliefs in a way that they are compelling and inspiring and clear, and you know what that means? And are you looking at how you see other people? And are you like one of the talk about compassion as a practice?

John Geraghty: 27:51

I used to do this compassion meditation where you kind of start off with yourself and your family and you build your way out being compassionate, you know, and you, over a few minutes you’re like all of a sudden compassionate with the whole world. Well, I was doing that practice and I was realizing I’m like, okay, I’m kind of lying to myself because I have judgment about this group and I got judgment about this group, and so what I had to do is really figure out where were my judgments, where were my separations, and think about, okay, how do I practice compassion specifically in that area? And think about how do I move from? If you think about energy, right, so you might have really really really low energy with someone a hatred energy right, so you might have really really really low energy with someone a hatred, a contempt, dislike, you know, pity, sympathy, empathy, compassion and love would kind of be an escalating scale and so figure out, like with this group, that I’m prejudging where are they for me and how do I figure out, okay, how do I incrementally move upstream?

John Geraghty: 28:44

Those are the things that we work on a lot in our work, and the people that I love to work with are successful business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals who are mature, kind of 45 to 65 range that want to continue to thrive, want to challenge the belief system that we’re at the end. This is a period of my life. I believe that we should really be crushing it. We have more capabilities, more skills, more experience, more insight than we’ve ever had. This is not the time to get off the playing field. This is the time to dive in and think about. What do you really want to create in every aspect of your life, you know, so that that we can make that happen?

Todd Bertsch: 29:27

Ooh man, john, that was incredible dude. Oh my gosh. Wow, that was. I mean you and I, I’m all about all that stuff Like you were talking. We talk about all those things and just kind of micro pieces man, that’s a that’s a hell of a model and we’re going to show this. We’ll have it in the video as well, so when you send the graphic and we’ll have links to all your stuff in the show notes.

Todd Bertsch: 29:51

I absolutely love this, john. I absolutely love it. I can tell you’re passionate about it. I believe in all this as well. We talk a lot about this on the show.

Todd Bertsch: 30:00

You know, I think for a lot of listeners it’s just about getting started. So hearing this sounds like a lot and I love the golf metaphor I’m not a golfer for a lot of different tools, right, a lot of education and knowledge about each one of the clubs and the weather and it right, there’s all these different things and it can feel overwhelming and that’s how a lot of people see personal growth. It’s like, wow, john, that was great. I absolutely love that. But man, how do I get started? So and I know you work, like you said, and I love how intentional you are You’re like I’m working with 45 to 65, that 20 year span, like this is my group and I absolutely love that.

Todd Bertsch: 30:57

But what if there’s somebody who’s maybe younger than that that is struggling? They have the curiosity, so they are open, right To some degree to at least exploring this. How does somebody get started? Like what would be a first we? We talk a lot about just making a small shift, just getting started. Right, don’t. Don’t be afraid of all this Just get started with one thing what would you recommend? I?

John Geraghty: 31:25

think the recommendation is somewhat bespoke, based on where the individual person is right. Are they really having challenges around their energy? Are they having challenge around self-confidence? Are they having challenges around their relationships, you know. So what I think that is important that you’re bringing up is you don’t have to, you don’t address it all at the same time, right? You really think about okay, over the next 90 days, where do I want to grow? What is the area that I’d like to get better at? And one is kind of doing an audit, figuring out like where are you and, being honest, Do a life audit.

Todd Bertsch: 32:01

Yep, I have a tool for that.

John Geraghty: 32:03

Yeah, yeah. So you know, pick up Todd’s tool around. You know how do you audit yourself in these different areas. Give yourself an evaluation. You know where are you on a scale from?

John Geraghty: 32:14

I’m horrible at this. I’m in a bad space all the way to where I’m totally crushing it, and then looking at it and saying, okay, where is the place that, if I were to make a change, it would have the most significant impact in helping me create the life that I want? And for me, one of the most important things I’ve learned is all growth is incremental and compounding and so, wherever you are, all you have to do is challenge yourself a little bit at the edge, become a little better. So, if it’s, if you say you know what I don’t really I’m kind of always like looking out in the wind to figure out like who people want me to be, rather than looking internally Then I would say, okay, it’s probably important for you to think about really what are your values? You know what? If you looked at the world and you looked at all the different things in your society, where would you like to have some impact and just get directionally clear about your purpose and get directionally clear about what that would look like and think about okay, what are my gifts, what things am I going to use? Because I know a lot of us don’t recognize our natural gifts because they come so easy to us and we don’t really think like, oh, this is something that really adds a lot of value. But look in your life and think about how have you solved challenges, how have you met, overcome obstacles, what were the gifts you were using? And get kind of clear on who you are. This is what my purpose is, this is what I’d like to create. Here’s who I want to be. And then think about okay, now I’m going to take those and put those to use on an ongoing basis. And what is wonderful is that there’s a long tail of human development. In other words, we keep getting better and better and better, but we get a lot of it at the beginning.

John Geraghty: 34:09

Right, the difference between being in the bottom quartile as it relates to someone who understands who they are, what they value, what their gifts are, et cetera, and even just kind of moving up to like being in the middle of the pack huge difference. And then you just take that from there. So think about, like my story when I was 29 and I was alcoholic, right, you know, my next steps weren’t like cool, I’m put the drink down, I’m rocking the world. Right, it was. I’m a little better and for me dependability was a bad issue. Right, dependability to self and others. Right, integrity on what I said, my word. So gradually building that, build your confidence. Right, when you hold commitments to yourself, all of a sudden you’re like I’m a little bit more dependable than I used to be and then it allows you to kind of build from there. So I think that’s critically important.

John Geraghty: 34:57

I think you have to have energy. So energy practices, I would say you don’t have to get really rigid with anything. You can move there incrementally. Begin to move right. If you’re not really moving. Begin to challenge your body, awaken your body.

John Geraghty: 35:15

One of the things that I say that, I think, is I say it intentionally to get somebody to like look at you like you’re a jerk. I’m like man, I love my body and I don’t. I’m pretty fit and all that stuff. But what I love is that I do love my body, right, I treat my body in a great way. I love it, just like I love my wife and I treat my wife really well and I love my kids. So do you have a loving relationship with your body, because your body will love you back, whatever you do?

John Geraghty: 35:42

You’re maybe familiar with the saying you can’t out give the universe right, so you can’t out contribute to your body. When you start to do things, little things, eat whole foods and nutritiously, in proper amounts, and do some movement, that you’re awakening your body. All of a sudden you have a relationship with this thing you’re going to take everywhere that is now rewarding you in every second now. So I think those are you know. I look at it again. I think the identity beliefs piece like understand who you are. Spend some time with that and you can write your stuff down. But it’s all dynamic, like whatever you come up with today, it should continue to change. Your purpose is going to continue to evolve as you understand more. Your vision is going to continue to evolve. You’re going to have a different understanding of what is it that I really value? You’re not going. This is not going in stone. Have a different understanding of what is it that I really value. You’re not going. This is not going in stone.

John Geraghty: 36:30

This is an introductory, just getting clear on what it is you want to do and how do you want to move? And the same with the exercise piece, right? I exercise every day and I have for a long time. I’m pretty, I’m very consistent there and I you know. But what I do is I just make sure that I’m using my body, my bar, to get over. By the way, to say I exercised because I worked out for 15 minutes who can’t do that? It’s 1% of your day. Literally, 14 minutes and 24 seconds is 1% of a day. So it’s 1% of your day and if you take 1% of your day and invest it in this thing, it will pay you back for the other 99%. The return on investment is so huge.

John Geraghty: 37:14

What I think is really important is recognize, wherever you are, your body’s going to adapt to the environment that you put it in. And you don’t want to go like, say, you’re here physically and you want to end up here, right, you want to end up here. Today’s exercise should actually be right, here, right. It doesn’t have to be where you think you’re going to end up, just gradually compound and I think that’s true physically. I think that’s true whether you’re trying to learn technical skills or communication skills or how to be comfortable in relationships or high-stakes conversations begin where you are. Only place you can begin.

John Geraghty: 37:42

I actually heard you quoting lao tzu the other day. Right, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. All of our journeys begin from one step, and I think that right before that, in the Tao, it says something along the lines like know where you are right. So your journey from a thousand steps starts with just one step. But a thousand miles starts with one step. But it also starts where you are. You don’t ever get a Google map that says you know, here’s where you want to go, and they don’t bother to figure out where you are.

John Geraghty: 38:12

So start where you are and then incrementally compound and grow in ways that light you up and think about how much fun growth is right. It doesn’t have to be this, you know. Think about like this is you creating yourself that, like michelangelo and the statue of david?

Todd Bertsch: 38:32

you’re familiar with that story uh, yeah, I was actually getting ready to talk about it, so go ahead and go for it?

Todd Bertsch: 38:38

yeah, it’s we. We all have everything that we need, like marble. We’re just chipping away at it right to find right less, more. And that’s the beautiful thing. We all have curiosity. We all have the innate ability to change. We just need to make the simple choice to look underneath the cover, right, and do an audit and don’t be afraid. A lot of people are afraid of what they’re going to find. You are doing some good things, so celebrate those wins first. You are an amazing person and, yes, you probably have some things you so celebrate those wins first. You are an amazing person and, yes, you probably have some things you got to work on too. But that’s what this is all about.

Todd Bertsch: 39:14

I do the life audit every six months. I just want to make sure I’m staying aligned with who. I want to be right To myself, but also to others. And I think an important piece here that a lot of people don’t realize and we’re talking a lot about ourselves right, working on ourselves. But here’s the thing guys like we’re working on ourselves. It affects every single relationship in our life. But you’re going to be a better husband, a better wife, a better spouse, better partner. You’re going to have better relationships with your kids, better relationships with your colleagues. You’re going to be better in your profession because you’re going to have more clarity. You’re going to be able to solve problems better. You’re going to work at a higher performance. There are so many benefits to this. You just need to start and you have what you need, right.

John Geraghty: 40:08

Absolutely. I love the way that you say that you know you have what you need. And when you think about personal development, like you said, call it personal development it’s like self-actualization right, that’s how Maslow talks about it. Like thinking about and self-actualization is a continuous thing. You know, I don’t know, you’re not going to land on a self-actualized. It’s a process, right. And so, wherever you are just continually evolving into, like who are you meant to be, I saw something recently. It said something along the lines like aging is the gift we get to finally become who we’re meant to be, or something along those lines. Right, and so aging and maturing, we’re continually progressing, pulling off layers.

John Geraghty: 40:47

Right, the statue of David is. They’re chipping away. Like David was in there. He didn’t bring marble and glue it on. All of that was in there, and everything in your life masterpiece is in there and you were really thinking about is like okay, what are the things that are keeping me from really showing up? A client of mine I was talking to yesterday who has done very well in so many ways for herself, and she said you know, one of the things that feels difficult is because she’s expanded so much. You know, sometimes she feels like she’s almost dampening her light so that others don’t feel insecure or threatened or judgment in a particular way.

John Geraghty: 41:29

Yep, I can relate to that and what I love. Are you familiar with that quote by Marianne Williamson? Our deepest fear no, I’m going to share it. I love it. It says our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we’re powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I to be? Brilliant, talented, fabulous and gorgeous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You’re playing.

John Geraghty: 41:54

Small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We’re all born to shine, as children do. We’re born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us, and when we allow our light to shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. When we’re liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others. And so what we?

John Geraghty: 42:20

What it’s really saying, if I, if you listen, if you know, in my interpretation of that is it’s our responsibility to continue to grow and to shine right, to let the light shine to, to, to, to, like you know if there’s an alcoholic out there, that’s, you know, been drinking for 15 years and they feel like you know, they lost it and they missed their chance. Hopefully, my shining light says you know, you didn’t. You know there’s still great stuff. Yogi Berra used to say it’s not over till the fat lady sings. Right, and the fat lady doesn’t sing for a really, really long time. Right, the fat lady doesn’t sing for a long time.

John Geraghty: 42:59

So wherever you find yourself and I know that I’ve had real doubts about what was going to happen for me in my life you know if there’s somebody out there listening that’s struggling with that you know that you can just incrementally compound great choices with lots of screw-ups in between. Right, I’m not at all going in. If you don’t screw up at all again, everything’s perfect. The number of times I screwed up, from when I was 29 and got sober to today is countless. Right, so many. That was a wrong turn, this was a wrong turn. But if you pay attention, just like a GPS wrong turn, go this way, wrong turn, go this way we will compound and end up in an amazing place and curiosity. I’m more excited today about what my future holds than I’ve ever been, and I don’t know what that’ll be, but I have ideas, I have purpose, I have vision and it’s going to go in that direction and it will also change. Right, that will change.

John Geraghty: 43:54

And so all of those things are dynamic and I think, if we can let go of the feel like, oh, we have to do this perfectly, we, we, wherever we are, is not the right place. Wherever you are is where you are, like that self audit, like jumping on a scale. No one ever got heavier because they jumped on a scale. They may have found out they weighed more than they thought they did, but finding out the truth doesn’t change the truth. It just gives you a solid foundation from which to build right, and so you know where to start. Yeah, let’s do that work, get comfortable with it and make this the adventure of your life. It is the adventure of your life. It’s the evolving. It’s make your life a masterpiece. Think of yourself as David Right and think about how am I going to continue to move in that direction?

Todd Bertsch: 44:37

Beautifully said, John, you know, and it comes back to one of my favorite quotes by Robin Sharma. He says you know, the best time to plant a tree was 40 years ago.

Todd Bertsch: 44:47

That kind of sucks. But the next best time to plant a tree is today. So maybe you didn’t plant that tree when you were in your 20s. You can do it today and like you, my friend, like I’m 54 and I am just getting into my groove, man, right, really just finding myself and becoming the best version of myself. And I’m looking ahead at 20 years, I want to keep doing that same thing. I want to see my grandchildren and I want to be out playing in the ocean with them, right, living a vibrant life and being flexible and being able to move and to do all the things that I’m doing now. So you can start today. You can start today. You just need to make the choice to look under the sheet and say who am I, where am I at, like John says, and just take one small thing journal Journaling and gratitude practice to me are the two easiest.

Todd Bertsch: 45:41

It’s free, it costs no money and it’s that reflection point. Just reflect, right, and that’s the audit. If you’re journaling, you’re starting to write about where you’re at, how you’re feeling, getting in tune with your emotions, and it’s okay to do that. It’s a good, healthy exercise. It doesn’t mean that you’re pushing off all the negative emotions. You’re just being more attuned. What are the glasses you’re wearing right now? What is the lens through which you see the world? Because that’s all the beliefs, that’s your mindset. Just be curious, really just be curious. We all had curiosity at one point in our lives, when we were a kid. We just need to ignite that spark and tap back into it.

John Geraghty: 46:21

Yeah, curious, and enthusiasm, right, enthusiasm, actually, I guess. Entheos means God within, right, so it’s like spirit within.

John Geraghty: 46:29

However, you want to call it Right and so like have that enthusiasm that you can transform. So I want to get like. So anyway, I got sober at 29,. But even though I was doing a bunch of different things, even though I’ve always had pretty good understanding around exercise and nutrition and things on those lines when I was in a career, I switched from when I first first got into coaching actually, it was right when the market crashed 2008. And so all of a sudden, I moved from a career that I had built up and was like oh, look at me, I’m awesome, I’m going to do this other thing.

John Geraghty: 46:57

And then all of a sudden, I got hit with some economic challenges and things along those lines stress, I wasn’t sleeping as well. I got up to 235 pounds, which is clinically obese for someone who’s six foot tall, and I also had a ton of aches. I had a lot of inflammation in my body and things along those lines. So I was 45 at the time and the only reason I’m saying that is today. As a 62-year-old, I would say I’m as fit and healthy as any 62-year-old that I know at all.

Todd Bertsch: 47:26

Dude, you’re a beast. You’re a beast Like. Check out. We’ll have links to his YouTube videos with him on the beach showing you some exercises. You are in tremendous shape Like shine that light man. Like you said, you are in great shape.

John Geraghty: 47:40

I’m physically more capable than I’ve ever been in my life and I worked in the fitness industry as a 25 year old. Capable than I’ve ever been in my life and I worked in the fitness industry as a 25-year-old. So at 62, working out 15 minutes a day, it doesn’t take everything the consistency and to have transformed where I was at 235, clinically obese, having a lot of. I remember one time my daughter came my daughter was five, I think she came out into the backyard and she came out and she was like oh, my freaking knee. And I was like you know, your little kid says something. You’re like I shouldn’t laugh, but this is kind of funny, right.

John Geraghty: 48:17

I was like Sky sweetheart, you really shouldn’t say that. Like where’d you even hear that? And she goes like this, like a dog, you know. She tips her head and she’s like you’re freaking knee, you’re freaking back, you’re freaking shoulder. So it puts me out like I know that I was running around complaining about physical aches and pains as a 40 year old and I don’t as a 62 year old.

John Geraghty: 48:40

I know that I had chronic back. I don’t want to describe it like it was always there, but but every year or two I would be a couple of days where I could hardly move because my back would just seize up or whatever. And I haven’t had any back pain whatsoever and I’m super flexible. And so I look at it and I’m like it is not that hard to do. I think one of the biggest disservices that the Not everyone in the fitness industry I’m not saying everyone’s telling the story, but they make it seem like it’s so hard.

John Geraghty: 49:11

They give me, like you know, the idea like you have to lift heavy. I’m like, okay, what does that actually mean? What does it mean? I don’t lift weights. I haven’t touched a weight in 15 years. I create resistance internally, fighting my own body. I say kinetically, I use gravity. But what does it really mean? Heavy just means that you’re challenging your body to do something that’s kind of hard for it. It doesn’t mean you have to go over and, farmer carry your weight around Again. I think there’s all these stories about what you have to do and make it seem like it’s so hard. It is not that hard art. You can make your body adapt physically and continue to get better and better and better by just challenging yourself on the edges of your capabilities and try to do it as many different ways as possible.

Todd Bertsch: 49:55

Yeah, I think if we just reframe it, in fact, let’s not call it exercise, let’s just call it movement, cause essentially, that’s all we need to do is just get up and freaking move.

John Geraghty: 50:04

I’ll say freaking.

Todd Bertsch: 50:05

there you go, scott, freaking move. You know, like let’s just get up and move, that’s all it takes. You know, a lot of us sit, like myself. I sit at a doggone computer all day long and I got to be conscious enough to just get up. Thankfully, I drink tons of water and I got to pee every five minutes, but at least I’m getting up and walking up and down the stairs. It can be tough, you know, and we need to spend a little bit of time and, like you said, I love how you, how you frame that like 1% of your day.

John Geraghty: 50:34

the ROI on that right 1% 14 point, some minutes.

Todd Bertsch: 50:39

That’s not that long you can. I know everybody’s got different commitments in life, but you can. You can work in five, 10, 15 minutes a day just to walk. You can even do it in parts. Yeah, you can even. But you can work in 5, 10, 15 minutes a day just to walk or just to stretch.

John Geraghty: 50:48

You can even do it in parts. Yeah, you can even do it in parts. And the other part of it that I think is really important is like you talked about sitting around. We talked about flow a little bit. So flow when you’re getting flow, flow is wrapped attention right. You can really only there’s periods of time 60 to 90 minutes where you cycle through these processes of focus and you really need a little period of recovery.

John Geraghty: 51:07

When you tap into all those neurochemicals we talked about, it actually is very energy intensive and you need to go refill up your machine 10 minutes at the end of that 90 minutes or something along those lines. So in those 10 minutes there’s different things you can do. So you can do a five-minute workout, do some air squats, do a few push-ups, you know stretch. It doesn’t have to be that much. If you were to consistently do three of those a day, 15 minutes, while you’re working, your performance at work would go up. You’d have greater focus and you’d begin to do that and as you start to reconnect and fall in love with your body and love the way your body become embodied, you’re most likely going to want to go do some other things right, because you’re going to have this new relationship with your body Right there was this, this one book, I think it’s called Energize.

Todd Bertsch: 51:59

There’s two authors. One is the sleep doctor, Dr Bruce. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him, but yeah, he coined himself the sleep doctor. But anyhow, he talks about just that time period after lunch, Like for me, like one to two o’clock man, I am just dead, there’s nothing I’m going to do. That’s going to be worthwhile. But he said to try this one thing and skip, like skip, go out and skip. So I started doing that throughout the office. I have enough space in here that I can just kind of skip around it. It seems silly as hell and it looks silly. I want to capture it on video one day. But I tell you what. It’s just like smiling. You get that instant boost of dopamine right, that hit and you’re like, oh man, I feel alive, I feel awake and so just little things like that you know, but so I just wanted to mention that.

Todd Bertsch: 52:48

but you and I do, we can go on and on man to mention that, but you and I do, we can go on and on man if, if I need a coach and I think a lot of times, you know, sometimes you just need help. You know, if, if you’re listening to this, you’re like man, this sounds good, I just don’t think I can do this on my own. Reach out, check out, john, or there’s a ton of. I mean, there are a lot of coaches out there. Do your research and find somebody.

Todd Bertsch: 53:04

that lines but if I were to hire a coach again, unfortunately I have a really good high performance coach right now, but, john, I would hire you, brother, in a minute and I would recommend you in a minute because I’m so appreciative of the work you’ve done and continue to do, and that’s just it. Like John said, we’re not perfect. We’re just trying to be 1% better every day, but we’re embracing the journey. That’s it. I don’t see this as something that ends. I’m going to continue to do whatever I need to do to be the best version of myself for me, and you owe that to everybody that you serve your teammates, your direct reports, your family, your kids right your partners. You owe it to everybody else as well, but you got to do it for yourself and you got to make that choice. So, john, this has been incredible man. Thank you so much. Appreciate it, man.

John Geraghty: 53:55

Just a couple of quick hits. Love the work you’re doing. Yeah, thank you.

Todd Bertsch: 53:58

Thank you, We’ll continue to have our conversation. A book a day or a book a week? Man, I’m not going to try to I’m a listener now by the way, I’m a listener now, by the way. I’m not going to compare myself to you because I’m going to have imposter syndrome on that Audible makes it a lot easier.

John Geraghty: 54:12

It does, and you can speed it up.

Todd Bertsch: 54:14

So cheating a little bit, but it’s okay man. I still like the old school book, but that’s all right.

John Geraghty: 54:27

Two books that changed your life or that you would recommend for somebody that’s thinking about getting into a personal growth journey. The first book that really impacted my life and this was a long time ago, but I still find it to be one of the greats is Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

Todd Bertsch: 54:35

Somebody else said that. On the last, I mean Stephen Covey man, it’s a big one but you can go in and out of it.

John Geraghty: 54:43

You can go in and out of it, but it really does have you.

John Geraghty: 54:46

It was the first introduction that I ever had to paradigms, which is really the concept of perspective right it’s like how you look at the world impacts what you see, and so you know Stephen Covey was a real pivotal one for me. A lot of my work is the. A lot of what I do today is around creating flow. You know I have a program called the Flow Cultivator and so I got exposed to that work. You know it’s Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the guy that wrote it in the book Flow, but probably the book that, if you’re going to dive deep into how to create a high flow lifestyle, I would say the Art of Impossible by Stephen Kotler I get his newsletter yeah.

John Geraghty: 55:29

That does a really good job of laying out not just how do you find flow right, which is being at the edge of your capacity, but how do you build a lifestyle of consistently finding that corridor, challenge skills, balance and grow forever. Yeah, so I think that’s beautiful when you do find it.

Todd Bertsch: 55:42

I’ve found recently. I found some pockets of it here and there. I’m like, oh, I think I’m in the flow, man, it’s just you know, and and for the most part I’m not in the flow all the time, you know, which gives you a greater appreciation for when you are. But if you can taste that, you’re like, oh, man, if you can understand what it is that gets you there right.

John Geraghty: 56:01

So if you understand that you’re in flow, when you’re at the edge of your capacity without going into overwhelm, when you have clear goals, immediate feedback, you’re in the challenge. Skills, balance, when you have curiosity, passion, purpose, autonomy and mastery, there’s link, there’s ingredients, and once you understand the ingredients and you understand how it works, what’s going on neurochemically, what are the timeframes, you can spend much more time in flow. And then the other thing I’d say is find out how you access flow right. So there’s different ways. Some people get in through deep thinking, some get in through big risks, some through embodiment, some through what we’re doing right now, which is crowd-pleasing, right. So, communicating in front of people or performing Find out access points into flow that really work for you and try to get in there as much as possible, because it increases your productivity by estimated 500%, according to McKinsey, increases your learning from 200 to 700% and increases your creativity by 400%.

John Geraghty: 56:54

So if you think about, like I want to create those environments because it’s going to, it’s going to take whatever capabilities I have and amp them up and it’s fun, right, it’s where you feel your best and perform your best. It’s not like, oh, you feel shitty but you get a good outcome. It’s like no, it’s joyful. All the neurochemistry, it’s like having the perfect endogenously produced, you know, and so it’s really cool. But anyway, this is so much fun. You do a great job, man. You really love the work you’re doing and so grateful to be on your show here today.

Todd Bertsch: 57:24

Yeah, John, I appreciate you and everything you’re doing. I look forward to just continuing our journey together and our conversations. Absolutely. Have a great day. You too, thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Bolt Podcast. You’re on an inspiring journey of growth, transformation, and joy and I’m honored to be a part of it. If you found this episode valuable, please like, share it with your friends and consider leaving a review. It means the world to us For show notes, and resources and to subscribe to the weekly Motivational Monday newsletter. Please visit toddbertsch.com and don’t forget to follow us on social media at the Bolt with Todd B for more inspiration. Remember, real change doesn’t happen overnight. Folks Start small, stay consistent and watch as your growth unfolds. See you next time.