Nick McGowan (00:01.476)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Adam Dorsey. Adam, what’s going on man, how are you?

Adam Dorsay (00:11.886)
I’m stoked to be with you and the green room conversation was absolutely epic. You are definitely my people.

Nick McGowan (00:18.271)
And I appreciate that. love these sort of conversations. The amount of times that I have conversations where it’s like, shit, we just need to hit record, go. This was totally one of those things. We started off talking about sports and getting into psychology and just all this different stuff.

Adam Dorsay (00:24.66)
Hehehehehe

Adam Dorsay (00:33.762)
Don’t forget Philly, man. We talked Philly big time.

Nick McGowan (00:36.427)
We can’t forget Philly, but I’m sure most people listen to this. If they’re not from Philly, if they’re not a birds fan or Sixers fan, or probably like this fucking guy and his fucking Philly sports teams, you’re probably just a little jealous because your team is in the Superbowl and we’re moving along.

Adam Dorsay (00:38.558)
Yeah

Adam Dorsay (00:43.982)
You

Adam Dorsay (00:52.59)
I am absolutely you have no idea of my envy. I’m so bummed because we if you think about it, the Niners on paper have one of the greatest teams of all time and yet for some reason they just couldn’t make it win this year. So it was was it was a painful season as we’re the last few but I hope they’ll find their groove again.

Nick McGowan (01:02.144)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (01:05.472)
Ugh.

Nick McGowan (01:11.981)
Well, you know, I saw something last night, I think it was, or the day before, Deebo is walking around New Orleans in an AJ Brown jersey because he hates that they lost to Kansas City and knows that the Eagles lost and it’s our chance to be able to redeem for the entire NFC basically.

Adam Dorsay (01:29.61)
And as you say, redeem, I’m thinking of the word read. mean, AJ with the book on the sideline. I mean, one of the most baller moves I have ever seen in any sport at any time. What a cool dude. What a cool dude. got it. I’m gonna I’m gonna send him my book. I the likelihood of it getting to him is low, but I will be sending him my book.

Nick McGowan (01:41.193)
man. I know and that’s a-

Nick McGowan (01:51.276)
That’s funny, I wonder how many people were like, shit, send him a book now, go!

Adam Dorsay (01:53.804)
I send it exactly I think I don’t I know I’m not anomalous I think everybody’s fed that anybody who’s written a book is like I gotta get to AJ Avalanche

Nick McGowan (02:00.698)
Yeah, he’s probably like, I can’t even fucking read this much. Like, this is insane. I want to I want to get into that a little bit, because I think that’s a big thing to talk about, especially A.J. Brown had even said, like he was suicidal. And people can look at these big sports stars and think like, my God, you have all the things that you want. How could you be suicidal? And it doesn’t matter if you have all the money in the world, all the things. You also have a ton of pressure. There’s a lot of shit that goes with it, which

You can have the same feelings as a single parent or somebody who’s just in a really tough spot trying to grow their business or something. But man, before we get into that, why don’t you tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s a little odd or bizarre.

Adam Dorsay (02:40.366)
Sure.

All right, so I’m a psychologist in private practice. serve primarily men. I gave a TEDx talk on men and emotions. Yes, they have emotions and they are data that we need to explore from time to time to become more emotionally rich. mean, if I was to tell you, hey, Nick McGowan , I’m going to put a whole bunch of, you know, black electrical tape onto your dashboard of your car, you would like say, what the hell’s wrong with you? And I say, well,

If you’re not listening to your emotions, it’s basically the same thing. I you don’t know how full your gas tank is. You don’t know, you know, anything that you need to know when you’re driving through life. And we can be basically driven by our emotions. We can act them out or we can talk them out and, or we can be in the driver’s seat as it relates to our emotions. done.

podcast in my 250th episode love that just love sitting in either chair whether I’m sitting in Nick McGowan ‘s chair or my chair for this interview I’m beyond stoked to do it it’s called super psyched my Nick McGowan name in high school was enthusiasm it was given to me by the drummer of the band I was in I was in a garage band and the drummer is like dude you are enthusiasm and so super psyched was kind of an obvious out shoot from that idea I was born connecting to people and that’s one of the reasons I had to write this book

And I’ve created resiliency programs for you Facebook where I worked for four years with their counterterrorism and child safety teams and I’m continuing to do that work with other companies like Digital Ocean where I’ve been to last seven Father of two boys happily married really stoked to be married have not call myself the hair club for men Psychologist if you remember the hair club for men guy would say I’m not just the president of the hair club for men. I’m also a member So I’ve sat on both sides

Nick McGowan (04:27.809)
I’m also a client.

Adam Dorsay (04:30.71)
of the room in the therapy office. I’ve I’m committed to doing therapy myself to this day, but I was into the service long before I thought I would be providing this service. And I think it’s made me a better therapist being on both sides of the room. And Wynn just blew my door open, so I’ll be right back.

Nick McGowan (04:42.624)
Hmm.

Adam Dorsay (04:57.518)
Man, that was bonkers. We’re having some crazy weather in California right now and literally I guess I didn’t shut the door fully enough in my… Today I’m in my backyard office and the door blew open but here’s some… I’m gonna be three odd things about me. sure. Sure.

Nick McGowan (05:09.586)
All good.

Nick McGowan (05:14.401)
time out. Let’s let’s do a cut back in because I’m just gonna cut that. I think you ended at a good enough spot so we can just cut back in. so three, two.

Adam Dorsay (05:23.223)
Okay.

And here are three things about me. First of all, I crack my nose. I don’t know anybody else who cracks their nose, but literally I push on the side and it relieves certain head tension. I don’t know why I’ve always done it. That’s a weird thing. Another weird thing, I speak fluent Japanese and it coming out of my mouth, it looks odd is all I can tell you. I lived in Japan for about three years and I studied the language for two years in college and just, you know, love Japan. And the third thing is I’m obsessed with numbers.

Nick McGowan (05:32.96)
Oof.

Adam Dorsay (05:55.628)
Like I think about numbers, I think about the relationships between them. And what’s really weird is my younger son has this trait, so it appears to be genetic. did not ever to my knowledge, tell him about it. He just came upon it. So there’s something in my genes that seems to predict that numbers are a thing to us. They’re very meaningful.

Nick McGowan (05:56.105)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (06:19.968)
Hmm. There’s sacred geometry. There’s all the numbers, all the things that go into everything and the world is made of math. But as an artist, sometimes that math goes right past me. My partner and I joke at different points. Like if we have to build something or put something together, like I, I build a couch for our tiny house that has a, it’s like a toy chest in a sense. You can open up, put stuff in there. put this thing on in it and all that stuff.

Adam Dorsay (06:23.5)
Mmm. Nice. Right.

That’s right.

Nick McGowan (06:48.511)
But I was like, I need help with this because I will math it wrong. I won’t know like it has to have a little bit more or a little less. And I started to do some of it. And I asked her to step that to help. And he was like, put a measure down. Let me help you. I’m like, well, man, we want to talk music or like sales and shit like that. I’m all about it. But the math side just sometimes I thank God for the calculators we have our Texas Instruments phone basically at this point.

Adam Dorsay (06:52.814)
What

Adam Dorsay (07:15.266)
Dude, that’s the best. My older son actually took his room and he actually gave my wife and me. This is not the younger son who’s obsessed with numbers, but my older son literally wrote out a blueprint of exactly how he wanted to sign his room. So it was like the art and the math in this guy. And for art, I have got nothing. I’ve got nothing. If you want me to draw something and draw it with all of my greatest intention, it will look like the world’s shittiest stick figure. that is, that is, that is my best art. So I look to you and think,

Nick McGowan (07:30.537)
Nice.

Adam Dorsay (07:45.172)
wow, isn’t it great that there is diversity in terms of the gifts that we carry? I think, you know, like in Lord of the Rings, somebody’s got to be able to, you know, be a legless and use an arrow. Somebody’s got to be like a gimme and use a hammer. And then you got the you know, the wizard with the magician. So fantastic. We need we need diversity in this way and in virtually every way. And so I’m a huge fan.

Nick McGowan (07:50.197)
yeah.

Nick McGowan (08:01.416)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (08:07.839)
I’m a huge fan of diversity in general. And we don’t have a long time on this episode. And I don’t know if we should get into the politics of things. But I think from an

Adam Dorsay (08:20.246)
I usually stay out of that lane, but I have a feeling that you can infer.

Nick McGowan (08:24.103)
Yeah, well, can stay out of it, but I realistically, I think from a top level of it, diversity is just like, if everybody on the planet was like you, you who are listening, or you right here on the show with me, if everybody was like you, if everybody was like me, I would probably fucking hate it, because I know I can be a dick, I can be so many different things, I can also be super awesome, but at the same time, I would just fucking hate it.

Adam Dorsay (08:43.554)
for sure.

Nick McGowan (08:51.667)
And we think we would like it, but no. So we need diversity. We need these different things, but there’s also little lessons that we can learn from each other. Like the math side of things. You and I can talk about that.

Adam Dorsay (09:01.93)
Of course and I’m just thinking in terms of marriage like what if you offline where you and I were talking about a personality typing system a non-pathological typing system called the anagram where each type is different and it’s a really it’s one of my favorite and most I think most sophisticated of them. My wife is a three I’m a seven. I’m more the enthusiast and the excited person she’s like more of the like let’s get stuff done. If I was married to a fellow seven who was just like me we’d stay up all night and we’d get nothing done. We would just be

Nick McGowan (09:29.181)
Yeah.

Adam Dorsay (09:31.316)
having a great old time and we would be definitely SOL. So I’m so glad for the diversity in my own marriage, let alone in other teams. mean, had Temple Grandin, who is this brilliant, famous autistic woman who has all of these incredible gifts. And she was describing the space shuttle Columbia’s disaster. And she said, if somebody had been on the team who had my visual strengths,

Nick McGowan (09:32.936)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (09:41.032)
Yeah.

Adam Dorsay (09:57.09)
That thing would not have blown up because I would never have let the blueprints get by. The blueprints would have been, that’s right, she would have seen it. She would have seen that. And so neurodiversity is a thing. mean, cultural diversity is a thing. I’ve lived in Japan, I’ve lived in Spain. mean, you learn so much when you get out of what you think is normal and you find out, wait, there’s so many different ways of doing this.

Nick McGowan (09:59.207)
Yeah. They would have changed the O-ring.

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (10:22.408)
Yeah. Well, think about the podcast. How many incredible people have you met just having conversations either on your podcast or getting onto their podcast? Like even if you and I talk a number of times throughout the rest of our lives, this will be one of the situations where it’s like, you know what, man? I’m glad to know that that dude’s alive. What a cool thing.

Adam Dorsay (10:26.541)
Yeah

Adam Dorsay (10:40.654)
I feel that way about you, Nick McGowan . I mean, for sure. You make me happy. I’m happy that you’re alive. And I love that you’re in Walter White’s suburbs, living in a tiny home. Gotta give props to Walter White. One of the greatest characters of all time. And it was full on.

Nick McGowan (10:48.765)
Backyard, yeah.

Nick McGowan (10:59.222)
yeah.

Adam Dorsay (11:00.43)
Albuquerque, but what I’m driving at is I mean you are really cool and you’ve already taught me something that I didn’t even know about this service where you can actually take care of people’s pets for free and like I If we don’t talk like what do we learn? Sure, we can learn from the internet and from Wikipedia and AI but learning from a person over ideally a Philly pressel Nice big has

Nick McGowan (11:12.732)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (11:26.398)
Or some border ice?

Adam Dorsay (11:28.646)
Wait exactly my god what are I, what are I, yeah I mean like this is how we’re supposed to be. This is how our brains are meant. I mean sure I’m not, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna take a shit on technology. I love technology but not at the exclusion of what you and I are doing. What you and I are doing is the way that we’ve behaved for the millennia.

Nick McGowan (11:43.399)
Yeah.

Adam Dorsay (11:47.694)
Our brains haven’t changed for at least 35,000 some estimate even a hundred thousand but our outside realities have changed so Vastly and so what you and I are doing right now. We we can’t lose this man

Nick McGowan (11:59.709)
know. But there’s so everything is cyclical. And I’ve been on this planet for 40 years. I’ve seen some cycles. It’s interesting to see like mullets and shit come back now because I’m like, I remember that was a thing when I was a kid. And then it wasn’t a thing for a long time because it wasn’t a thing. And yeah, and now people, they’re just all rocking it, you know, like, we, we talked about sports and you asked about Kelsey and all that the guy who replaced Kelsey.

Adam Dorsay (12:13.39)
For sure. Oh yeah, it was a bad word for a long period. Now my son… I know, I know.

Nick McGowan (12:28.669)
was on the sideline last game because his back was hurt or whatever and they flash over to him and he looks like he is 82 all over like just 1982 straight out of high school this big curly fucking permish hair and it’s like, that’s cool now. But it’s a cycle. So all this stuff is a cycle. I saw something last night about people are buying more books because of tik tok, which is a wild thing. Yeah.

Adam Dorsay (12:42.628)
that’s the best.

Adam Dorsay (12:51.178)
What? That’s counterintuitive, I did not know that.

Nick McGowan (12:55.61)
I’m not on TikTok. I’m barely on social media at this point. I think there’s some toxicity to it. The show got shadow banned, I assume from Instagram pretty quickly because we talked about suicide and like, you know, healing and they were like, Nope, we can’t have that. But there’s, I think there are things where people will think, well, paper products are going to go away. People are no longer going to want to read in person conversations are going to happen. COVID everybody got shut out and then we’re all on zoom calls and meetings like this and all that.

Adam Dorsay (13:00.91)
Hmm.

Adam Dorsay (13:10.743)
my gosh.

Nick McGowan (13:24.934)
but it’ll still like water, we’ll find a way where it’ll just kind of move how it’s gonna move. But it does take us tying into the emotion side for us to be able to realize what’s going on within us to then open ourselves to have these conversations. I’m gonna out you right now, Adam. I think we’re friends enough at this point. As a seven, you can have a conversation with fucking anybody about anything. The people that aren’t sevens, the people that are a three, two,

maybe a little harder. I mean, I’m a four three. So the three and me still wants to be seen and shown and all of that. But there are other people like nines of the world where it’s, that’s not their jam. They want to keep the peace. They want to keep all of that, but still just being able to have an open conversation with somebody in a space like this, that is a way for people to be able to learn something that isn’t just a bullshit talking head on Instagram or tick tock or something like that. There’s good stuff that’s out there, but there’s also just a lot of

Adam Dorsay (13:56.176)
Hehehehe

Nick McGowan (14:23.1)
curated bullshit is the safest way to be able to put it. And I think for us to be able to have these conversations and talk deeply about the things that are impactful to us that can open up to others. I’m glad that you brought up emotions. I’m a four. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Enneagram, I’m fucking emotional. For those of you who listen to this show, you know it.

Adam Dorsay (14:45.422)
and probably one of the reasons they listen because they relate. No they probably are like yeah thank you you’re speaking to a part of me.

Nick McGowan (14:48.149)
Yeah, they’re like, this guy’s nuts. Yeah.

Yeah, and I appreciate you saying that. It’s a good point.

Adam Dorsay (14:54.784)
And you’re talking about the talking heads. mean, you’re talking about artifice. I mean, nobody wants to talk to somebody in a mask. I mean, come on, let’s be real. Authenticity is such a big deal. And I was so stoked to see somebody like Brene Brown just come out and do a Ted talk and just be real. She wasn’t expecting to get more than a thousand hits, maybe 10,000, but then it did it viral partially because she was real. When you think about the greatest music of all time, we love it because it’s real. It hits a part of us. It connects with us. That’s the reason I wrote this book on connection.

Nick McGowan (14:59.291)
No.

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (15:22.458)
Yeah.

Adam Dorsay (15:24.708)
is because I want people to feel connected to something that is real and even the definition for connection which seems to be the precursor to everything we want has not really been well defined. So like let’s talk about how do we actually authentically connect to ourselves to others to the world and something greater like this is this is the jam if we’re gonna live if we’re gonna be alive while we’re living let’s not be limp handshakes let’s not let’s let’s actually like show some freaking vitality.

Nick McGowan (15:28.994)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (15:49.508)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (15:54.053)
there’s work to be done, though. There’s a lot of internal work to be done where certain people, and I’m sure we joked about Philly. A thing about Philly that I’ve learned from different people all over the country is like you guys are crazy. There’s a lot of like anger and all of that and like, yeah, sort of but at same time, we’re passionate. Like if we give a fuck, we’ll let you know if we don’t give a fuck. We’re still gonna let you know but we’ll tell you and you’ll totally understand. And if you don’t fuck off.

Adam Dorsay (15:56.63)
Adam Dorsay (16:20.192)
My perception is that that Philly folks are often kind of what we call it kind of a coconut presentation hard on the outside, but so soft on the inside. Just like the night. mean, I’ve I’ve met the nicest people in Philly and sometimes in the first meal like God, that guy’s kind of a hard ass and it’s like go out and have a yingling with the guy and you find out the guy’s a a lot. So lager with the guy you find out like the guy is just amazing and will defend you in every which way you like.

Nick McGowan (16:27.802)
For real.

Nick McGowan (16:34.714)
Yeah a blogger

Nick McGowan (16:48.591)
Fight to the death, yeah.

Adam Dorsay (16:49.73)
For sure. So I’m a fan and I’m a fan of the diversity of this country. want I mean, each state has really great attributes and virtues and it’s pretty incredible. If you think about these United States and how you know how diverse we are in terms of the cultural presentations. So I’m really grateful for that as well. But yeah, I mean, I’m looking for authenticity and so are you. I mean, let’s I was trained actually, you know, not to self divulge and I

Nick McGowan (17:13.423)
Yeah.

Adam Dorsay (17:18.582)
Listen to a really good lecture by a super brilliant psychologist and said, you know what? Judicious use of self-disclosure helps build the relationship. And these are the things that people end up.

actually growing from. So I made a choice to start doing that both clinically and I outed myself as a person who suffered with depression, who suffered with anxiety, who’s had ADHD and dyslexia and has life has not been a bowl of cherries the whole time. I’ve always shown like a happy face but sometimes on the inside I was like crumbling and feeling like there is no future, there is no hope. So

I relate to this this thing called life and you’re right There’s a lot of inner work that has to be done in order for us to be more authentic for us to peel away The stuff that got in the way of our birthright we were born to be connected with people and yet somehow along the way We were shamed or whatever else it was Insert homophobic or misogynistic term here, but we were told we shouldn’t be how we are being and so we basically walk around with armor and so this

Nick McGowan (18:03.428)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (18:19.831)
Yeah.

Adam Dorsay (18:29.73)
the trust, the courage it takes to break through that armor and the pain that is incurred as we are healing. It is like, I mean, it’s like lancing a festering pussy wound. You have to do it, but it hurts a lot as you’re doing it.

Nick McGowan (18:45.656)
my god, yeah. It can also be difficult. Like I have conversations with people that are way, way deep into their path, well on their journey, 4050 years deep into it, others that are just starting off and there’s wisdom and experience you can get from any any part of life. You know, I could talk to some 16 year old kid that could say something to go, huh, hadn’t thought about that. Likewise, with an 85 year old or whatever. But for us to be able to self awareness is the biggest thing.

Adam Dorsay (19:07.82)
all the time. For sure.

Nick McGowan (19:13.114)
I think for us to be able to actually be self aware to understand, you know, I’m feeling these sort of ways and I don’t know why. Or like what I’m saying with the Philly people where they can just be like, well, they’re really angry. Maybe they are. But I also suspect that some of that is generational and regional trauma. That’s still in their bodies that they haven’t gotten rid of. They also just wear it as a badge of honor because I get up, I put my fucking shoes on and do these fucking things and fuck these people and blah, blah, blah. And like, what the fuck? But for us to be self aware,

Adam Dorsay (19:29.39)
Hmm.

Adam Dorsay (19:36.271)
Hehehehehe

Nick McGowan (19:42.923)
and to seek our own authenticity. And it’s not a buzzword salad sort of thing. Like we’re just not saying the word just so it’s like, these are the things that’ll get more likes and shares and all that nonsense. This is like, who you are is who you are. But we all go, I want to be so unique. A lot of people do. I want to be so unique. I want to be like that guy. That doesn’t make any sense. But it can be hard not to in the world of information, in social media, and all of those things. So,

tie into this kind of quickly here. I know you got to stop soon. But tie in how emotions and how the work that you do ties in that authenticity and what people can take from that to be able to use and learn from

Adam Dorsay (20:25.838)
Absolutely. So one of the things I do with guys I work with is I help them identify emotions. Oftentimes they’re only able to identify like simple kind of surface emotions like annoyed and stressed. And oftentimes annoyed means I’m angry. also can mean I’m sad and hurt and I’m actually grieving. And stressed often means I’m scared. we go so there’s joy is a hard one for people to even admit to like joy like what the hell is that? So

Nick McGowan (20:33.357)
Yeah.

Adam Dorsay (20:55.15)
We want to experience the colors of life. I mean, we might get a 96 inch LED TV and we talk about how amazing the colors. Well, what are we doing inside our bodies in terms of emotions? We really need to listen to those. One of the things I hear all the time is a middle-aged man who says, yeah, when I got down on a knee to ask that woman to get married, I knew I shouldn’t, but I was told to shit or get off the pot, so I did.

but I knew it was wrong really deep in my guts. So I really try to help men because I’ve been there. I try to help men give voice to their emotions, figure out what they mean and what to do with them. What’s the best use. Sometimes it’s just noticing that it’s there and that’s enough. And the emotion goes away or, you know, cause they feel like they’re gonna stay forever, but they don’t.

In some cases, it’s an incentive to quit a job or to leave a relationship or to say, you know what, this friendship is not serving me. This friend is the exact opposite of Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting. The guy, I love that scene because Ben Affleck is such a good friend to Matt Damon. says, listen, I want you out of Southie. I don’t want to see you on a Friday night drinking a beer with me, wasting your life. Go get it.

And we become the average of the five people with whom we spend the most time. I really believe that. That was something that was said by Jim Rohn many years ago. And I don’t know if there’s actually been scientific studies to corroborate it, but I believe it. You got to choose your friends wisely. We got to be more intentional. And a lot of that comes from emotions. mean, Anthony D’Amassio out of MIT actually examined what happens to the brain when all of the emotional centers are gone. We can’t make

Nick McGowan (22:21.675)
Yeah.

Adam Dorsay (22:41.74)
decisions without our emotional centers. No decisions happen without factoring in emotions as a data point. So yeah, we can act all hard and walk through life like, whoa, But we’re not gonna, we’re basically walking through life with armor. We need to find a way to take off the armor. Sometimes we need that armor. Sometimes we’re in unsafe situations. And I’m not saying walk through life, you know, with belly up as if you’re a dog.

Nick McGowan (22:56.247)
Thank

Adam Dorsay (23:10.542)
But I’m saying I’m saying have more range one of the things we know that is central to psychological health is Cognitive flexibility versus cognitive rigidity. We don’t want to be rigid. want to be flexible. We want to have range We can’t just be one thing when I was growing up back in the 80s talking about 82. I know that haircut. I mean

Nick McGowan (23:21.463)
Hmm.

Adam Dorsay (23:32.362)
What we’re talking about was we had three versions of masculinity that I was aware of that I can name right now. One of one, James Bond, another one, you know, serious and hardcore rock star. The other one was like the super jock like Joe Montana. He was, you get my era. But what I’m driving at is I identified with none of those exactly. There were, there needs to be greater expanded definitions of what mass being any gender means, but

Since I specialize in working with men, talking about masculinity here. We need a range of what that means. And thankfully we got Jim from the office, very different expression of masculinity. It’s definitely a dude that we want to hang out with. We’ve got people who are like some of the like we’ve had Tyrion from Game of Thrones, one of my all time favorite versions of masculinity in the form of a dwarf.

Nick McGowan (24:13.014)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Dorsay (24:26.934)
becomes the most charming he’s probably a seven on the Enneagram I loved him absolutely hilarious and genius and kind transformed we saw him at the very beginning so yeah what I’m hoping for is that people will find their thing their truth because we know that we’re actually even able to lift more weight as we’re bench pressing when we say something that is true versus something that is not true if you say something that is patently false while you’re trying to bench your max

Nick McGowan (24:37.579)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (24:50.955)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Dorsay (24:55.808)
and exert your mass of, for many, there are some people who can, but for most of us, we will bench harder and stronger when we are in our truth. That is interesting.

Nick McGowan (25:07.743)
yeah. There’s a pendulum swing to it as well. You don’t want to wear the armor like you’re saying constantly. But there are times where it’s probably not safe and yeah needed. Just like when people will say, you know, if it’s Mother’s or Father’s Day, and they’re like, if your mom or dad are around, you need to go see them. But you have to add in if it’s safe to and that goes for all situations. Like you got to be able to show your emotions if it’s safe to. And there’s also systems that come into play. Some people

Adam Dorsay (25:15.544)
Definitely needed.

Nick McGowan (25:38.038)
It’s not safe for them to just be how they are. And that sucks and that is really difficult for them to be able to figure that out and figure out what their authenticity is and who they truly are while the rest of the world is telling them you can’t be or some guy in some big office is signing a piece of paper and say you’re not allowed to be or you can’t do this and can’t do that. And you still have to find your way through it. It can be easier for some people to find some things. It can be difficult for others, but

For those that are on their path towards self-mastery, what sort of advice would you give them?

Adam Dorsay (26:11.01)
Yeah, I would really want them to find their truth and truth is a fluid thing. But asking yourself good questions, not crap questions like I’m going to. This is a stupid example, but it’s it’s real. Let’s say I lost my wallet, which actually happened a few weeks ago. I could ask myself how could you be such an idiot?

In my case, how can you be such a fucking idiot? And that is basically like a Google search in my brain. how could I be such a fucking idiot? Well, I’ll get a hundred results of times that I was an idiot, but that doesn’t get me any closer to my wallet. A better question is, where did you see it last? We want to basically…

Nick McGowan (26:42.997)
Yeah.

Adam Dorsay (26:52.684)
Cultivate a wiser mind that asks good quality questions to ourself because we’re constantly in dialogue with ourself The question is are we asking ourselves good questions? Are we asking ourselves crap questions? Are we feeding ourselves with compassion or we feeding ourselves with absolute self-shaming statements? We don’t do well under the supervision of a tyrant a tormentor. We want a kind mentor mind that will help us basically

pave the way for our more authentic self to show itself. So I started asking myself better questions like where do see it last? Who else could you ask? Ask my wife she didn’t know. Then I finally went through my calendar and asked myself where was I over the past two days? One thing that wasn’t written down was that I was actually at the tailor. was getting my jeans tailored. My wallet

Nick McGowan (27:36.469)
Hmm.

Adam Dorsay (27:45.454)
was probably in the jeans. I called the tailor and she said, oh yeah, I’ve got your wallet. I was like, why didn’t you, you got my number. Why didn’t you call me? I didn’t say that. I was thinking that myself. I’m like, this is probably the last thing I’m going to be doing with you. I think I’m going to be finding another tailor who would call me to totally meet. regardless, I asked myself, it was the byproduct of asking better questions. That is a stupid and simple example of how we can go through life. If we ask ourselves better questions, if we

Nick McGowan (27:50.397)
Yeah.

Adam Dorsay (28:13.09)
Basically bring in a kinder coach a Phil Jackson a Steve Kerr into our head We want to be in dialogue with that the part of your brain that believes in you that talks to yourself as if you’re Its best friend that says hey, let’s find out. Let’s get curious. Who are you? Why is this not working? What is it that you’re needing? basic big open-ended Questions not the yes-no’s but the big how why what where when these types of questions

And that is cheering for you. People on the outside may shit on us, but it’s our absolute need to not do that, to not buy into that.

We do not get better from self-adulating. Self-compassion is the way the Navy SEALs use it. They get better and faster results from it. Chris Germer, who’s one of the greatest researchers at Harvard on this topic, told me this on my podcast. And I’m so grateful to him and Chris Neff, who’ve been like the pioneers. If you want good outcomes, if you want self-mastery, self-compassion, speaking to yourself kindly, using a wiser mind, asking good questions, hanging out with people who believe in you, thinking Intentionally like who do I want to spend my time with you at you brought up the parents? Don’t just go see your parents because they’re parents if they are actually Traumatizing to you figure out ways to engage with them or not But that that is your that is your That’s your right and I also believe that our birthright is joy happiness and vitality

Nick McGowan (29:42.365)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (29:53.157)
I totally agree with that. I think it’s a great way to put that. Something to add would be it can be really difficult if you don’t do your internal work to then show grace to yourself. If there are traumas and situations that have happened in the past that make you feel a certain way because you’re automatically triggered, then you’re basically fighting uphill. And this has come from somebody with massive experience with this because I’ve gone through that. I’m still going through those things. We’re all on a lifelong journey.

But doing that internal work will help with those to be able to be in a better spot to go, well, I’ve dealt with this stuff before. Where did I leave my wallet? Instead of going, you fucking idiot. And just being like, I put the wallet in duds in my fucking pants. OK. Then going along instead of just beating yourself up, which is typically based on some sort of trauma.

Adam Dorsay (30:33.441)
Hahaha

Adam Dorsay (30:37.996)
By the way, and by the way, Nick McGowan , my first question to myself was, how could you be such a fucking idiot? And then I stopped myself. So we can always, we can always pivot. We can always hit control, alt, delete. We can always change the system defaults. But one of the most important thing is catch yourself in the act. Use a blue pen. You don’t need to use a red pen and say bad, bad, bad you just like, Hey,

Nick McGowan (30:46.099)
Yeah, and then pivot.

Ahem.

Nick McGowan (31:00.018)
Yeah.

Adam Dorsay (31:02.574)
Is this serving you or is this not serving you? And for sure that question did not serve me and I did find my wallet, which was pretty great. And it turns out I’m not an idiot. know, so that was like, don’t don’t don’t deceive yourself. You’re not.

Nick McGowan (31:10.343)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (31:17.395)
But I have to say that I’m sure if we had like, those sort of situations turned into like an animation or something, it’d be fucking hysterical. Because there are times like even dealing with stuff like our tiny house where I’m outside cursing like a little cartoon because I’m like working through that shit on my own. And then I’m fine.

Adam Dorsay (31:25.452)
Yep. dude, that was-

Adam Dorsay (31:33.73)
Guess what, Nick McGowan ? Guess what? Guess what, brother? This is gonna be a Nick McGowan and Adam collab. We gotta do this. Let’s make the cartoon. I’m all in, man. That’d be so fun. That’d be a great way of illustrating it.

Nick McGowan (31:39.315)
Make the animations? Alright, I’m in. yeah, that’d the real shit where people are like, what the fuck is this? Where the fuck is my wallet? You’re an idiot. Fuck you, brain. Fuck you, brain. Well, man, I appreciate your time. I appreciate being on here. We could probably talk a lot more and I hope that we do at some point. Before I let you go though, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Adam Dorsay (31:50.476)
Yeah, I’m all in man.

Adam Dorsay (32:03.789)
Ditto.

Adam Dorsay (32:07.982)
Absolutely, dr. Adam dorsay.com is my website dr a dam dor say calm my books available on Amazon it’s doing well it’s been blurbed and praised by people like Mel Robbins and Guy Kawasaki and Dan pink I’m really grateful and of course Laurie Gottlieb is one of my all-time favorites you’re talking about AJ Brown AJ Jacobs is the guy who wrote the foreword for it I’m so grateful for that they can find me on you YouTube with my two TED talks Let’s see where else of course on any platform for my

Podcast which has had people like Steve Kerr on and as I mentioned Temple Grandin some really really good folks and Man, just hit me up. Let me know what you think and if you got any questions, I hope to have some answers

Nick McGowan (32:51.858)
Again, Adam, it’s been a pleasure having you on, man. I appreciate your time.

Adam Dorsay (32:55.808)
Nick, right back at you. Lagers on me.