Steven Shewach Joins Us On The Steve Jobs Inspired Join Up Dots Podcast
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Introducing Steven Shewach
Steven Shewach is todays guest joining us on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots podcast.
He is someone who used to call himself an RNT, which for us that dont know what that means its ” A Recovering Negative thinker.”
Well actually he considered himself a lot worse than that, but kids could be listening so we’ll leave it as that.
His life was not good, his relationships weren’t working, and all in all things were not in a good place.
But he decided that it didn’t have to remain that way.
How The Dots Joined Up For Steven
He realised that the life that he was leading and experiencing, was actually being directed by the thoughts that he allowed to pass through his mind on a daily basis.
He was actually creating the miserable existence that he was living.
But could he get out of it?
Could he rewire his brain to focus in on the positive aspects of his life, therefore changing direction on the path he had been leading for decades, in effect taking responsibility for his own happiness.
Well, with a huge “Yes”, our guest not only did that but now calls himself “the Mantor” as he helps men from across the world to focus in on their negative actions and reprogram the way they operate on a daily basis.
Well let’s bring onto the show to start joining up dots, as we discuss the words of Steve Jobs with the one and only “Mantor” himself….Steven Shewach
Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such weighty subjects with Steven Shewach such as:
How Steven came to the realization over only three days that his life needed to change….and how he needed to do it!
Why he hated nothing more than seeing a positive person up close!
How he realized that reality was there to be “Mucked about with”!
And lastly……
How he envied women as they had bags to carry their stuff around in, and men just had pockets!
How To Connect With Steven Shewach
Return To The Top Of Steven Shewach
If you enjoyed this episode with Steven Shewach why not check out other inspirational chat with Alfie Best, Roz Savage Rob Moore and the amazing August Turak
You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy
Audio Transcription Of Steven Shewach Interview
David Ralph [0:00]
Hello, and welcome to Episode Five of Join Up Dots. Today’s guest is someone who used to call himself and are in T. If you’re wondering, well Alice is a recovering and negative thinker. Well actually considered himself a lot worse than that. But kids could be listening. So we’ll leave it as bad. His life was not good, his relationships weren’t working. And all in all things were not in a good place. But he decided that he didn’t have to remain that way. He realised that the life that he was leading and experiencing was actually being directed by the thoughts that he allowed to pass through his mind on a daily basis. He was actually creating the miserable existence that he was living. But could he get out of it? Could he rewire his brain to focus in on the positive aspects of his life, therefore changing direction on the path he had been leading for decades, in effect, taking responsibility for his own happiness? Well, we have a huge Yes, our guest Not only did that, but now calls himself the mentor, as he helps men from across the world to focusing on their negative actions and reprogram the way they operate on a daily basis. Our guest today is Mr. Steven Shewach
Yes, as I said in the introduction, we’re speaking to Stephen she whack today. And I’ve had a little bit of a problem leading into this and all the computers have gone belly up. And I’ve been clicking here and clicking there, but I can see he’s lovely, attractive face looking at me on skype at the moment. So hopefully, when I am Say hi, hello to him. He’s gonna say hello back to me. Hello, Steven. How are you, sir? Hello to you. How is life in America today?
Steven Shewach [2:09]
life in America today is wonderful as it is every day.
David Ralph [2:14]
Is it is it genuinely wonderful every day, because I’ve heard that your winter this year has been a bit brutal to say the least.
Steven Shewach [2:23]
It has been I live in the Pacific Northwest, on the western seaboard in Portland, Oregon. And it was a fairly light winter, except for the five days that my wife and I couldn’t leave our house because of the snow.
David Ralph [2:36]
And so that was a special snuggle times in your life, was it?
Steven Shewach [2:40]
Sure. Yeah.
David Ralph [2:42]
I’ll bet you asked for that snow to come down just to get that
Steven Shewach [2:47]
my wife wanted it more than I did, because she’s a school teacher. So she didn’t have to go to work for a few days.
David Ralph [2:52]
And so so do you work at home on on a daily basis?
Steven Shewach [2:56]
Yes, I am definitely someone who uses my computer, to interact with the people that are my clients. I do some face to face work in the city that I live in and hope to be travelling more doing live events at some point. But I definitely work from home, I don’t have an office.
David Ralph [3:18]
So as the introduction was saying, You call yourself the mentor. And you help people reprogram their their brain rewire their brain? What does that actually mean though rewiring yourself?
Steven Shewach [3:32]
Sure.
The the technical term, at least in the scientific community is neuro plasticity. And it has to do with the neural networks of our brain. I am not a scientist. But basically, it’s, you know, everything that we do, is based on our thoughts. It’s based on our belief systems and our constructs of what happens in the mind. And then it tells our body, you know, our brain tells our body to do things and move muscles. So in terms of perception, what we how we see the world and what we think reality is, what I figured out is is that we can play with that. It’s not you’re not just given a particular way of seeing the world. And you’re stuck with it. If you want to muck around, you can. And so I did. And so instead of saying neuro plasticity, which is a fun word, but it’s hard to spell, I talked about rewiring the brain because people understand they get that image of literally a bunch of wires and a circuit breaker box. And you just start pulling things around. And it’s not quite so haphazard, is that but you can change the flow of electricity, so to speak, or the way that your thoughts manifest inside of your head to a perception or a lens that is more positively oriented.
David Ralph [4:57]
Do you know so that was probably the hardest thing that I did? Not to go. So what do you mean? What do you mean and jump in? So you’re saying, as far as you’re concerned that you can muck around with reality?
Steven Shewach [5:11]
Absolutely.
David Ralph [5:12]
What does it What does that mean? No.
Steven Shewach [5:16]
Well, reality is what we decide it’s going to be.
David Ralph [5:20]
Right? Well, yes, yeah. But how can you muck around with something? You know, is it? Is it your perception? Is that where reality comes from? Or? I
Steven Shewach [5:31]
think so. I mean, I think our reality comes from many things. Our childhood, our parents, our teachers, our clergy, mass media, all of these things, they put thoughts into our minds, right, and life is hard. Okay, well, how do you know that? Well, maybe, because that’s what your parents told you. And you saw that working hard. And they were blue collar workers, and they were always struggling, is that a fact? Or is that just someone someone’s version of reality, but someone else might have a different version of reality. So what happened to me was, I had a very limited scope of how I thought the world worked. And it mostly started with what I kind of a scarcity mentality, I believed I had, and I don’t know how I got this, in my mind, it’s and I don’t really care so much about why that happened, or how that happened. All I know, is I figured it out. And I did something about it. But I believed that I had a finite amount of certain things, a finite amount of intelligence that could never grow. I had a finite amount of prosperity potential, you know, earning potential, I had a finite amount of, of love, that I could give out, and that I could probably handle receiving. And so what happens when you have the scarcity mentality, and and even worse, I thought that someone could come and take little chunks, little pieces off of my tiny little nuggets that I had, that couldn’t even grow. And so when you have that perspective, you defend it. Right? Yeah, you’re like, they’re backed into a corner with a big claw. And anytime anytime someone comes near your little stash, of whatever you think you have, and it’s never going to grow, you just kind of lash out at them. And what that looks like, in the real world, when you have this, this thought process, or this way of taking information and stimulus into your brain, it looks like a megalomaniac narcissist, asshole, which is what I used to be for decades.
David Ralph [7:54]
So the fascinating thing, in that whole statement for me was, usually say that you have these beliefs. And I don’t dispute that in any shape, or form, but you don’t really care how they came to be. Because if you sort of found out how they came to be, wouldn’t that be the easier path to fixing yourself?
Steven Shewach [8:16]
Well, sure, I mean, to some degree, but listen, I’ve I’ve been in a fair amount of therapy over the years in my life. Starting in my teenage years, my parents were getting divorced. And on and off throughout my adulthood. I tried all different types of therapy, psycho analysis, masters level counsellors, cognitive based therapy, I was on low level depression, drugs, antidepressants at certain points of my life. I mean, I’ve tried a bunch of things I’ve tried working on myself, I knew something wasn’t right. And I just was having trouble getting a feeling of satisfaction or fulfilment in my life. And the truth of the matter is, is that when you go to therapy, and I’m not disparaging the mental health community in any way, but I got lost, I went down rabbit holes, and I might be there for weeks on end with a particular therapist about what happened to me when I was seven years old. And I just don’t know how valuable that is. Yeah, I’m, you know what I’m saying? So, what I’m more focused in on is, can I see that something isn’t working for me, or it’s holding me back? And can I think about how I might be able to change that so that it doesn’t feel so misery inducing? And so like, internally, having a sense of personal suffering, that I was bringing upon myself?
David Ralph [9:45]
And was is that makes sense? Yeah, it makes total sense. Was it and I could dawning realisation but you had a problem and you needed to fix it yourself? Or was it just like an epiphany?
Steven Shewach [9:57]
Um, I would say it was a little bit of both. I wish I had a storey that was like, you know, rays of light shone down on me and the angels were singing. It wasn’t quite like that. But I did have what I call the big insight about two years ago. And it happened. I actually made a timeline of what was going on with me at that time. And, excuse me, I I do believe that it came down to about a three day period.
David Ralph [10:28]
That’s amazing. And it free free days.
Steven Shewach [10:30]
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s it what what happened was, I was my wife and I were in couples counselling. We had been married for a couple years. I was already on my second marriage. My first one didn’t work out. I call it a starter marriage. We had, you know, no, no house, no kids, it was just kind of a do it yourself, walk away kind of a thing. And I was also so we were in couples counselling, and the couples counselling was in amazingly making things worse. If I don’t, it was it was a bizarre thing that happened to me. But what it was, was the therapy was shining like a big spotlight. Yeah. On my distortions. I was delusional. I was what I call functionally delusional. Like I, I was around and I was in the world, and I was working and you know, could maintain financial accountability and things like that. But I was delusional, about how I saw the world.
David Ralph [11:36]
The Dickens tell you that you were delusional. What did they do?
Steven Shewach [11:40]
What they told me was, you’re a jerk. You are my you know, your narrow minded, you are bossy, you are always on my case about things. That’s what it looked like from other people. Because when you have 07, love, zero self worth, you replace that by externalising on to other people, what you want, like everyone’s a mirror, you’re you’re a mirror to me, whatever you say, I either agree with it, I see myself in you, or I don’t see myself. But either way, we get glimmers into our own perspectives by interacting with other people. And so a lot of things used to trigger me. So I would when I was projecting, I mean, this is classic psychological understandings. Fun, you know, foundational concepts. When you tell someone that they’re not doing something, right. You’re really talking to yourself, right?
David Ralph [12:42]
Yeah, absolutely.
Steven Shewach [12:45]
So I used to tell people, I used to try and control people. I was like, the director of their lives, I was writing their own scripts. And instead of letting people be who they were, I was trying to get in there and muck around with their own minds rather than work on myself. And that causes massive, massive relationship problems over and over again, year in and year out for decades. So are you a very strong
David Ralph [13:10]
character, Steven Shewach. That the fact that so many people were saying, You’re a jerk, you’re this you’re bad, but you still kept on the same path.
Steven Shewach [13:20]
strong character, I guess I’m someone who can get impassioned about things. I care about certain things. I used to care about too many things, to the point that I was trying to control other people and how they thought how they behaved, how they acted. I care about fewer things, but I probably care about them more. Does that make sense? No.
David Ralph [13:42]
It makes it makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense. I i understand everything you’re saying. But as I said to you before we started recording, I’ve always been a happy person. I’ve always just loaded along. Nothing ever bad happens to me. You know, I am the classic squiggles, my breakfast and the bluebirds make my cup of tea. It’s just, it’s just always as it is. And if I go into an airport, and there are 1000 people trying to get a higher car, I will just walk past and get the first hire car. He just naturally happens to me. And people say I’m lucky people sound be some people sound bad. So although I’m, you know, I’m fascinated what you’re saying. And I totally understand what you’re saying. I find it hard to actually link it in any way to my life because we’re so sort of how to work. Yeah.
Steven Shewach [14:33]
Well, that’s fascinating because I wrote a blog post about this, that has a swear word in it. So I will switch out the swear word, and it’s called, hey, positivity gurus. f you stop being so on empathetic. And what I’m trying to say in that title, certainly, it’s a little bit of shock value in a title like that. But people like you, in my old me, I couldn’t stand people like you. I couldn’t stand people who seem to have figured out kind of the secret of life of that not getting their feathers ruffled, not getting worked up about things, able to just let things roll off their shoulder and not getting worried or anxious. You were like, without knowing it, you know, people like you were like my nemesis. Yeah, yeah. And nothing infuriated me more, actually, than having someone with what I call a default positivity, lens or orientation.
Then when they would say, Hey, man, just do it. Or stay positive? Or, you know, it’ll be all right. And, or the what I call the Grand Poobah of them all like the granddaddy is, don’t worry. I’ve used all those don’t would tell telling someone to do? Well, it’s I’m telling someone who has a negative default orientation, meaning when stimuli comes in interacting with another person, a car, usually driven by another person, typically, I mean, really, everything kind of comes down to people who are doing things except for acts of nature, perhaps, but like, let’s say it starts raining. I would be upset about that, rather than just take it for what it was like you’re that’s literally arguing we were talking about reality before. you’re arguing with reality that can’t be changed. What? It’s funny that you say how can I change?
David Ralph [16:43]
It’s funny that you say that, because if it’s raining here, my wife always goes, Oh, it’s raining. And I always go always on your wet sunshine.
Steven Shewach [16:54]
I mean, that’s fascinating. That’s fascinating. It doesn’t bother you. And and for the longest time, tried to figure out why someone like yourself was born that way. Wasn’t your parents to what you asked before, I’m less interested in how that came to pass. As opposed to me getting over to your side to your default. I just had to work a little harder to get there because it just didn’t happen automatically. But it’s it was infuriating for me for the longest time to have someone suggest to me that in an instant, I can and should just pick up the pieces of my miserable life and move on. As if it was that easy. Hmm.
David Ralph [17:33]
And so what was your response to them? When I gave up?
Steven Shewach [17:39]
In my head, I was swearing profusely at them.
And feeling awful and dejected, and,
and can jealous probably an envious of, you know, are what are they on? Are they they must not? They’re not really living a real life. They’re faking it? Or they’re sugarcoating it or something I really didn’t understand it. And what happened was, I call these people by the way, the people like you, forever pauses, p o z, z OS, I made up that word, meaning forever positive. Like that. Just you’re just there, you’re always you’re always feeling positive. And you know, there’s a lot of people who, who are in this space, like the gurus who write books, and they’re trying to sell their products to people like me, and I don’t think they understand it. That’s why the title of this blog post is saying stop being so Annette pathetic. If you in the same way that you said, you just don’t get it. It’s not even in your DNA to like, see something in a negative way? No, you’re right. So you’re the You’re the last person in the world. Who could tell someone like me or the old me? How to fix it. If you’ve never felt low level chronic anxiety and depression for decades? How could you possibly tell me because you have no empathy if you’ve never felt that before?
David Ralph [19:17]
So if we if we get back to those free days?
Steven Shewach [19:21]
Yes.
David Ralph [19:22]
Well, because that that is the classic Join Up Dots. I think that that is the fundamental point of your entire existence, where you are now those free days. And yes, I find that amazing. But most people go, Oh, it was a three year progression, it was two year progression, or whatever. But you can actually know it down to three days. So if you’d be good enough to tell us what actually happened over that period of time.
Steven Shewach [19:47]
Yes. And let’s be clear, I think that a bunch of things were happening prior to that, that were setting me up for what appeared to actually be three days. You know, there were lots of things that had been happening and understandings or lack of understandings that were moving me in that direction, but in that period of three days, and I often talk about, you know, how people have, I’m going to answer your question, by the way, David, I promise. But you know, people have these like life altering moments, they have like a near death car crash or something like that. And they walk away, you know, the car is completely mangled. And somehow they walk away with with not even a scrape on them. And in that moment, like they’re like they say, their life flashes in front of them. And they, they have a completely different perspective about life after that. It’s a transformative moment, that started with possibility of ending their physical presence in their physical body, you know, in this realm that we will live in. And, and it shifts for that, and they value their life. They value the people in their life. And they say, I will never waste another day, I will live every day as if it’s my last that kind of stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’m, I’m fascinated by that process. In fact, I wrote another blog post, about maybe I should start a business that creates near death car crashes, but it will but but nothing ever actually happens. I think I can make a tonne of money, getting people so scared Groundhog Day, you know?
Steven Shewach [21:33]
What, yeah.
David Ralph [21:36]
Cliff and then All right, the next day,
Steven Shewach [21:38]
you drive them over a cliff. And at the very end, you know, there’s there’s some kind of a trampoline at the end, and they don’t actually die. But but they get the they get the the result of that. And I’m fascinated by that process. And so for me, instead of a car crash, thank goodness, it wasn’t something that serious, but I was, I was looming towards a second divorce. And so we were in couples counselling. As I mentioned, it was focusing a tractor beam of light on my distortions and delusions, I was projecting things on to my wife, I was an individual counselling also at the time. And our fights were epic. They were you know, door slamming, screaming, yelling, awful fights. And I got to this point, this threshold, that I said, I cannot live my life like this anymore. I can’t function with this kind of drama and stress, and insanity that keeps coming up in my life over and over again, I just can’t do it. And I tried to project into the future. And I said, if if I get divorced, which will be both humiliating to me, and super sad, I’m going to find myself probably in another relationship in a few years, having the same situation happened to me. And then I started thinking about other relationships in my life, I started thinking about other, you know, jobs and career. And I started saying, I’m going to keep fighting myself never satisfied about anything. And so I had this succession of thoughts that happened. And I said to myself, wait a second. I’m the common denominator in the middle of all this, like a math equation, or I’m sure you know, over in the UK, peanuts, the cartoon, perhaps there was a particular character named pig pen, who used to walk around with a little dust cloud down and dirty kid, I was like that, except my dust cloud was a drama cloud. And it was swirling around me all the time. And I was at the centre of it. And so during that couple days, the therapy that we were in couples counselling, I was literally reading lists to the therapist about all the things my wife was not doing in the marriage, I wrote lists, like, you know, not cleaning properly, not folding the laundry properly, insane. And I saw this and I was like, I was able to get a little bit out of my own head to see the insanity of that. And so this succession of thoughts went like this. I created this drama over these decades, I created the strife and anger and resentment. And all of the people like yourself, I wanted to get to you, I wanted to get to your way of seeing the world. And so that’s when I said, Wait a second, it’s a choice. I have been choosing this negative lens, I’ve been choosing to be a victim I’ve been choosing to externalise and blame other people, which means I had never had any personal power, and I never feel satisfied. So that means that if that’s a choice, I can choose to feel positive, I can choose to feel joy, I can choose to feel happiness. But that’s an awkward thing to do. If you’re not used to doing it. It’s like a, you know, training a new muscle group or learning how to do a new, a new skill set. And so I made two proclamations. Actually, I made one really big Proclamation. Around that time. During those three days, I said to my wife, I will never fight with you again.
David Ralph [25:25]
And did you believe you know,
Steven Shewach [25:29]
and I didn’t know how to do it, but I just didn’t see any other way of stopping this insanity. So I went from, I’ve been choosing this old way that hasn’t been working for me to then claiming 100% responsibility and accountability for my life, up until that point, to that moment, and for the future, all of it. And in that process, I started to feel powerful. And I’m not talking about power over people. I’m talking about a sense of peace and alignment. And I don’t want to say controls probably not quite the right word, but a sense of expansion. Yes, and, and mastery, and understanding that my ego was I like to make up lots of names. And so I now have diagnosed what I had for all those years. And its own e s, which stands for obese ego syndrome, right? Okay. Yes. And my I fed my ego, really awful bad for you thoughts, in the same way that we feed our bodies, bad awful, food, empty calories. So I was feeding myself negative self limiting lack of self love, perceptions, thoughts about who I was, how I interacted with the world, what I had to offer the world, how I what kind of value I could bring to the world, and in it, and then, as part of that, I gave away all my power to everyone else. And I said, you you ever The world is responsible for making me happy?
David Ralph [27:16]
Did they think you were having a breakdown? Because you know, if you’ve been a certain way, all your life, and then suddenly in these three days, you were becoming a different person? Surely those people are so used to you being in certain way must have gone? Hang on, hang on what’s happening here?
Steven Shewach [27:35]
Um, well, it was, you know, having a realisation in your head. And the feelings that go with it. The sense of expansion you’re talking about that can stick and stay inside for a while. So
David Ralph [27:48]
you didn’t show starting these free days? You didn’t just?
Steven Shewach [27:51]
I don’t think so. I think so. Yeah, that was it. But it. Yeah, that was a very good sound effect, let’s go.
But what I started to do after that was I started to explore all kinds of things that I never would have thought, were even in my, my, my frame of reference in my purview. I started reading about spirituality and just open to all kinds of experiences. And what I was talking about before about the scarcity mentality, there’s a really good framework that was helpful for me. And one part of what was happening during those three days was a book that I had been reading. And it’s called mindset by a US based psychologist named Carol Dweck, who I believe currently is now teaching at Stanford University. But earlier, when she did most of the research, it was at Harvard University in Boston. And, and she talks about a framework that has two mindsets, a fixed mindset, and a growth mindset set. So you have a growth mindset, you were just born that way, which is awesome. I had a fixed mindset, I changed my fixed mindset to a growth mindset. And so you look at a situation and you see potential, you see possibility, you see, you know, options. And I see the same thing, whatever it is, we could be looking at a physical three dimensional object, or just a scenario where, you know, something happened and it might have might have caused strife for me. And you were like, Well, you know, this is not ideal, but I’m going to choose to see it’s the whole glass, half full, half empty, yeah. But she went really deep into it from a pedagogical perspective, doing research. And her model of fixed versus growth mindset. When I read the book, I was going through my memories, and I was plugging in little moments from from my life, where I was feeling really sad or angry. And I would plug it into this, and it’s out the other end came this confirmation that I had had a fixed mindset my whole life. Now, I still have a fixed mindset about certain things, but I’m aware of it. But generally, I switched by default reaction to most things to a positivity orientation. And one of the most noticeable places where that that that I can see that was is in my driving habits. I was a road rage driver, no, I took a my wife was right on the fence with saying she was never going to drive with me again. Because I would be enraged by other people. And there, it was almost as if you know, this obese ego, I thought, I own the road, like, you know, how dare you be driving slower than I want you to drive in front of me making me late, you know, to an appointment or whatever. Yeah, yeah. So now that I, I realised that listen, everyone is operating at different speeds, literally in their cars, but in their minds, they don’t need to all match up to me, everyone’s kind of doing their own thing. And we’re just working together somehow for the greater good of humanity. And once I was able to deflate my ego, and see that I wasn’t the centre of everything, and be able to focus my attention on to understanding other people and where they’re at, instead of expecting them to be who I wanted them to be. My life got easier by a thousandfold.
David Ralph [31:46]
And that’s the key thing. I think, in every episode that I discuss these these subjects with people, once they find their thing, then everything becomes easy. Once they find their passion, when the money that they’ve been striving so hard, doing 5060 hours a week becomes easy. Why do you? Why do you Why do you think that is? Such a truth that so many millions of people will say, Yes, that’s true. But we still find it hard to believe until they actually occurs to us.
Steven Shewach [32:23]
Yeah, well, I mean, just to the last part first, and then to the to the other part of your question about when something happens to us. Like you read something in a book. It’s just words, right? I mean, they’re just ideas, they’re just thoughts. You can say you understand how something works, versus knowing how something works. To me, there’s a difference. There’s a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom comes from directing experiencing it through your mind or your body, or both. Were you truly understand something? Because it happened at a visceral DNA level? As opposed to, oh, I’ve read about that, or, you know, things happening in other countries. But it’s just knowledge. Is that, okay, so, so that it helps answer the first part of your question about when people are searching. And they’re wanting a sense of alignment, fulfilment, peace, joy, happiness, contentment, all of those things. I actually classify that under a bigger heading, which is the word love. And so when you when a person and these are just my opinions, I can’t prove these to be facts, again, to what we first started talking about with reality, my reality is only mine. I’m not even sure if I’m talking to you right now.
David Ralph [34:00]
No, ma’am. I’m here. Promise you
Steven Shewach [34:02]
okay? All right, if you would close.
Steven Shewach [34:06]
Okay, good. Um, obviously, yes. But but we’re, we’re, I said, I only understand it from my reality. And to that end, I was searching and searching and searching for a long time. And I thought that all the things that I wanted, were outside of me. And this is a very common thing that happens to people. So they’re looking for money, or they’re looking for another person, perhaps for in a relationship, where they’re looking for, you know, career and stature and recognition. And those are all going to send you down a path of never feeling like you get it, that this is what I think. And so
when it happens for someone, what they’re really doing
is they are claiming, or reclaiming one or the other. Probably reclaiming, but they are reclaiming their
Unknown Speaker [35:15]
personal
Steven Shewach [35:18]
sovereign power as as a living breathing.
Yes, I was trying not to use the word authentic. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the word everyone
David Ralph [35:29]
uses it going statement using
Steven Shewach [35:31]
except it’s, except it’s overused. But the fact of the matter is, that’s an ex, that’s really the best word that fits there, so I’ll just use it. So and what we’ve done over the years, especially as we move from childhood into young adulthood, and finally into adulthood, is is, again, for no specific reasons, by means of people or society, but what tends to happen is, is that people cover up that authentic self, with social expectations, with beliefs about who they’re supposed to be because of stereotypes, perhaps. And so they’re moving farther. Sorry, further and further away from that original source of who they were. And then then comes the problems, then comes the feelings of I’m not good enough, or I don’t understand why I’m having relationship problems, or I’m never successful enough. All of the I don’t, I don’t have blank, blank, blank comments. Yeah, I don’t have I
David Ralph [36:42]
tell you, I’m gonna give you my personal beliefs now. And that is only my personal beliefs. But first of all, I’m just going to play the iconic speech as the show’s based amount of Steve Jobs. And please, once once we listen to this, I’m gonna tell you what my my train of thought is around all this. So um, let’s listen to what Steve says again.
Steve Jobs [37:06]
Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards, 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future, you have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.
David Ralph [37:41]
Now, my belief on this, and this is started to become evident to me over the last maybe four or five years is, yes, you’ve got to go we’ve got you gotta go with destiny, karma, and all those other things going going forward and just you know, try stuff. But if you actually, all of us stop and look back at our lives, we will see key parts when we were having a good time, we were enjoying ourselves, we were feeling complete, we were earning more money. And if I look at all the things that have led me to this point, they were pretty much the things that I found easiest, I found it easier to communicate about it easier to connect, I found it easier to do a Skype call, I found it easier. Now what I’m doing now, hopefully is going to make a huge difference to people’s lives. And hopefully, people will be listening to this on the way to work on the way home to work. I’m thinking Yes, I can do something different with my life, I just need to find that. Now my belief is we all actually know what we should be doing. We just actually have to look back and look at the times when we were happiest. And if we can find those Connexions, then that’s going to give us a bloody good indication of what we should be doing with our life. That that’s what I think anyway.
Steven Shewach [39:00]
Yeah, I think
I mostly agree with that.
And the reason I say mostly is because
it’s relative to what we what what you might say was a happy time for you. And what I might say was a happy time for me. Yeah. So that’s, that’s where the mostly comes from. But interestingly, I, I’m fascinated by chronology. And I use that in my own life, to understand milestones and things that have happened to me. So I’m very data driven. That’s just how my, my brain seems to like information structured. So in the same way that I mentioned, I made a timeline about all the things that kind of have happened to me over the last couple of years. And that’s how I was able to isolate those three days, I also made a timeline of how I was able to claim my, my, my current, and likely last focus of mine professionally and personally, as long as I’m here on Earth, working with men. And so I started making little timeline of things that gender issues that I didn’t understand or that I was struggling with. And I’ve been able to trace them back to my teenage years. And so when you talk about going back and connecting the dots, that’s exactly what I did. So I just updated this timeline, by the way, with a memory of when I was 16 years old. And I thought it was really important, because my father had one to get a man purse or a man back. Okay, he had one that’s very your thing to do. Perhaps you’ve had one or you have one, but more than one United States. Okay. And United States. It’s not very common pink with
David Ralph [41:08]
some. What’s that pink with bow on it?
Steven Shewach [41:12]
really, honestly, and? Yes, in bejewelled.
But, so I and I remember thinking as a 16 year old, part of the reason I wanted one was because my dad had one. Yes. But the other reason was, is, why do women get a device to carry their stuff around, and guys have to shove it in all their pockets. And I wanted that, like, I wanted that now that I know, kind of benign, stupid thing when you compare it to equal pay equal rights, and all that kind of stuff. But the point is, is that I can trace back things relating to gender questions or inquiries that I had, from my teenage years, all the way up until now. And link that together, connecting those dots, certainly has been helpful to me, and has given me my ability to say what my mission is now from here through the rest of my life.
David Ralph [42:14]
And this is amazing, isn’t it? Because if I look at your CV, for example, I was looking at it last night, because I like to do a little bit of research. And you had a hell of a lot of jobs for you know, it was like a job every three weeks, it seemed on your timeline. And then once you hit your path, it started to slow down, slow down, and now being the mentor. That’s it. Nothing else is encroaching into that at all. It’s just going on and on and on.
Steven Shewach [42:44]
So in terms of Jobs, I mean, yeah, I’ve been exploring and looking, I do have a wide set of interests are relatively wide. I mean, I’m into technology that’s been consistent through my life, I’m into design and architecture and building that’s been consistent in my life. I’ve been into energy entertainment. And that’s been consistent. I’ve had jobs and all those fields. But when I also look back through the decades, I see this connecting of dots relating to gender, my own masculinity, questioning what it meant, what it what it was, what was supposed to, what does it supposed to mean, to be a man and a very great need and desire to have male friendships that were that were deep and not surface and peripheral? So when I do look back and see how this has all come together, it’s really amazing. Because kind of to what you said, it makes sense now, but that whole thing of you have 2020 vision when you look backwards? Yeah, I mean, certain things, a lot of things make a lot of sense. Once you’ve looked back, the question for me is, is and that Steve Jobs quote is, how do you use that as a launching pad to to forge and create the future, because the future is just the right now in succession, one after another, that is the future. So that’s why I have such a strong belief system, about the power of my thoughts, and the energy that they hold, the intentionality that they hold, and how that creates from this moment forward, what will happen with me, and the rest of the world with me and the people that I interact with, with me and things that, you know, have, I don’t want to sound too, Rui. But, you know, everything’s got a vibrational frequency. And the more I focus on my positive aspects of things, and not limit myself by having negative thoughts, I see more and more things happen, that I truly want, that truly match what I’m desiring now. And they they manifest. And so it’s a, it’s crazy, I thought it was all a bunch of craziness before, but I can tell you from my own experience, and that’s all I have is that it works. I have literally attracted certain people with certain skill sets into my life. To help me build my business, I have, I have more, I don’t have more men than I can handle in my life. But I, I went from a place of being completely void of having male friendships to having a a tonne of them. And I do what I call man dates with men. And I’m going to be writing extensively about the process of dating another men, man for friendship. And I’m using the dating world as kind of my platform to explain that because I think a lot of men have trouble having deep friendships with other men. So I’m going to teach them how to do that. And I just get so much out of those moments, that and it helps me be a better person in that moment with them. And when I return home, and I interact with my wife, like it all carries and connects through when you choose to see possibility and potential, and rather than problems and limitations.
David Ralph [46:42]
Well, I think that’s true, I think generally, people migrate towards good people, end of storey, you know, I I can’t think of one Uber successful negative person. And I was sitting there trying to rack my brains as you were talking. It must be positivity link with action, the ability to overcome the fear that stops you doing anything. And then the make up as you go along, see, see what happens. And if it doesn’t work and just change direction, and don’t have to consider yourself a failure that it didn’t work. Just go it was part of the learning curve.
Steven Shewach [47:21]
Right? Well, that whole idea of failure as opposed to, oh, that that moment or that thing I did, I didn’t get maybe the result I was looking for now I have information and I can go do something else that’s different, as opposed to being down on yourself about it. And you know, people who talk about being perfectionist. I think and you also use the other word about fear, I think I like to discern fear as physical, you know, physical body, bodily fear, getting chased by, you know, a bear or wolf or something like that. Most of the time, when people are talking about the fear that they have about, oh, I don’t want to, you know, I’m, I’m afraid to talk in front of a group or something like that. It’s anxiety and it not fear. And it’s because of lack of self concept, lack of self love, that is causing what we often think is something that’s not part of our brain, you know, like, oh, there’s a voice in my head, and it’s telling me, I’m, I can’t do this. That’s you. That’s you. That’s not some external voice unless you’re possessed or you believe in, you know, religions that have belief systems about external things getting implanted into your heads, I choose not to believe that I choose to believe that, if that voice is heard in my head, it is part of me and I can have a calm discussion with myself and decide to give that thought a different meaning. Is that number one changes
David Ralph [48:57]
is that the number one thing that you’ve feel, ruins not ruins people’s lives as too strong, but means that people don’t get the life that they want that simple voice in the head fear.
Steven Shewach [49:13]
Ah, I think it’s I think we tend to be our own worst enemies. And that enemy is the talk that we the things that we say what I call the, the old recordings, which are neural networks, in the same way that your your hand knows how to go pick up a cup of tea, and your muscles know what to do. And you can take your eye hand coordination, you know, how far away the cup of tea is. That is all that’s all habituated muscle activity. The same thing is true for our thoughts. So if but, but if you have negative thought patterns that you don’t think about, they just come up. Unless you become aware of them, you will continue to do things that aren’t in your own best interest.
David Ralph [50:06]
And can you become aware on your own? Or do you need to go to the mentor or other people like yourself?
Steven Shewach [50:12]
You don’t you know, I listen, I I’m adverse to dogma and saying there’s only one way to do anything.
My way is one way, it is not the way
I did it by myself, actually. So I just know I can help someone probably do it faster and easier and smoother. But it’s, it’s is something you can do yourself. But it’s also something that you can get help with. And if it’s not me, there’s 1000 different perspectives that you could take on this. But the end goal is are you taking care of yourself? Are you in your power? Are you acting? Are you are you talking to yourself thinking thoughts, that build self love within yourself that allow you to then take that out into the world and interact with other people by giving an exchanging love, through integrity through empathy, and with justice. That’s important to me. And I have somewhat mostly figured out how to do that most of the time, I am not perfect, I am not enlightened, I am not the Buddha.
But I’m aware, and awareness is a key part of it.
David Ralph [51:33]
Well, I think that is a powerful point, to bring us to the last part of the show, which we called a sermon on the mic. And this is where really I hand over presenting duties to you, and you speak to the audience, you speak to yourself, you speak to your younger version of yourself. And just really tell us your beliefs of what life can be like, you’ve been for your dark periods, you’re now in the lighter area now and I wish you all the best in you know, future successes. But um, I just want you after the after the tune has played to just let us know what’s going on in your head, and how we can create unstoppable motion just if we take a bit of action.
Steven Shewach [52:19]
We go with the best bit of the show.
Steven Shewach [52:39]
Okay. Well, here’s, here’s the most important things I’ve learned in my life so far.
One, my reality is created by me, I get to choose how to take every piece of stimulus and how to experience it. Number two, spending time going back into the past and ruminating or wishing endlessly towards the future has almost no value. It’s the present that counts. And that creates my future. Number three, being totally accountable and responsible for everything that has is and will happen to me has given me the ultimate power. The greatest superpower I believe that any human can have which is the power of choice. Number four, I think I didn’t say that that was number three. But number four, simplifying the way I perceive my existence in relation to my consciousness, the physical world and other people has allowed me to be more aligned, centred and positively oriented. Number five, relationships are the foundation of the human experience. The ultimate relationship is the relationship we have with ourself, and diminishing one’s ego equates to more positive naturally flowing relationships outwardly. Number six, like attracts like, therefore negative thinking attracts negative experiences. And conversely, positive thinking attracts positive experiences. Number seven, creating storeys for other people is the express route to endless frustrations when they don’t quote unquote, Act, the way that we wrote for them to act in our storey, the only store you get to write is your own. Number eight. Love is the ultimate positive emotion slash experience. And it begets more and more love. Number nine, there is an infinite intelligence, or whatever else you want to call it, God or source of which I and I believe everyone else is a part of, and being in alignment with that infinite intelligence is natural and effortless when you choose to believe it. Number 10. beliefs are thoughts that one holds as true facts. And they in turn drive our behaviours, oftentimes in unhealthy and self limiting ways. Therefore, discerning which beliefs for you are helpful and which ones are not, is a fruitful endeavour to embark on. And the last one is the pursuit of joy and love. And less misery is the foundational ideology that guides my life from now on, which is why I created the website. Love more, hurt less, because those four words are the whole point of life for me now.
David Ralph [55:49]
Brilliant stuff, Steven Shewach. Thank you very much. I’m glad you mentioned your website. But is that the best way that people can connect to you?
Steven Shewach [55:58]
That is a excellent way that people can connect to me love more hurt less altogether.com. And I’m also on Twitter, which is my last name at she wack sh e w a CH but easier is to just type in the hashtag the mentor, and you will find me instantaneously with that hashtag.
David Ralph [56:22]
Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. I’m like all the guests that I have, I could really make these shows for our conversations. I never really want them to stop. You’ve been so open and generous. I wish you total best of luck and good wishes for all your future ventures. And come back and speak to us again. Because certainly I’m sure there’s going to be more dots that we can join up. And remember, Join Up Dots is the only way to build our futures. Thank you very much, Steven Sheila.
Steven Shewach [56:52]
Thank you, David.
