Hello, hello, and welcome to Borealis experience.

I'm your host Aurora. And I'm very delighted to have Eric

winters with me today. We had a quick chat and yeah, got to know

each other a little bit. And what strikes me is that Eric is

working towards yeah awakening and enlightenment and helping

people to reconnect to their heart.

The most important mission and vision that I heard from him

today is to live an authentic life that if we don't live

authentically, we will regret it one day. And all too often, we

are not aware that we are living a life to please other people,

or in order to belong to a certain group of people. And

then at the end of the day, when life is over, we think about

what we could have done, we think about

our passions or desires that we neglected in order to fit in in

order to not upset our dad or a mom. And it is a huge awakening

to be aware of this. And I'm very excited to be talking about

this with Eric,

would you like to invite us a little bit into your life into

your past? And how was your journey? Like? Were you always

aware of your steps of your choices? Or did you make

mistakes in the past and learn from them?

When did your journey of awakening start?

And yeah, we just go from there.

My goodness, Aurora, hello, from Sydney, Australia. How long do

we have? Right? I'm going to try to keep this fairly condense.

Where did my journey of awakening start? I used to live

in the UK. I grew up by the seaside in England, hunting for

crabs and shrimps. In rock pools, I had a very happy

childhood, splashing around looking for for wildlife. And

ultimately, I went away from home study that I thought I was

going to be the next David Attenborough. That's a

confession, Aurora, my my mission as a child was the next

person on TV talking about little animals scurrying around

in the background, to speak in soft voices about the marvels of

nature. And I still love nature today. I love immersing myself

in the natural world and moving through it. But I'm not, you may

not have seen me on any TV documentaries. Instead, what I

found myself doing was moving into the world. of it, I became

a computer consultant. And I was working in very high pressure

organizations. If you work in it, there's generally an

emergency happening. It's really one emergency after the other.

So for example, we might be managing the computer system

that IBM uses to help Qantas to sell airline tickets. Now, when

that system stopped working, there's a lot of excitement. In

the office, there's a lot of phones start ringing, because

the fines are very, very high. So I worked in a lot of places

where there's very, very high pressure, I worked in Munich for

three years I worked in, in

Scotland for eight years, the Abu Dhabi in the United Arab

Emirates in the Middle East for two years. And in Australia,

what I noticed was it was the same, it didn't matter which

culture I was in, it didn't matter how intelligent and

experienced people were, there were some leaders, when the

pressure was on, would find the best in themselves, they could

manage their minds under pressure. And not only could

they get the best out of themselves, they could get the

best out of others. And it was wonderful to watch. But there

were other leaders just as clever, just as smart, just as

experienced. When the pressure was on. We begin to panic a

little get a little anxious as you might, but then they

couldn't manage their experience. And they would

unfortunately, infect their teams with their worry. And

everyone's performance would drop and problems would take

seven or eight times as long to solve. And I was curious, I

thought well hang on. What's making the difference here? This

and I discovered this wonderful world of sound

Science, I've been on a lot of research into how we can manage

our minds under pressure, how we can do that, how we can get the

best out of ourselves, how we can choose to show up as the

kind of people we'd really like to be, when things are tough.

When things are easy, it's not so hard to make good decisions.

It's when we're all under pressure, that when you're when

things are difficult when there's been loss, when there's

been disappointment, setback, betrayal, it's under those

circumstances, that all of us find it harder to make good

choices. And I discovered, to my delight, that there's a lot of

different strategies that people can use. And these are skills,

skills that we can all develop, to get better at doing what's

important.

But hard, doing what's important, but hard. And you

were talking earlier on about authenticity.

And this word is bandied around such a lot. Now you've got to be

authentic, you've got to be authentic, and it can kind of

wash over you. But I suggest there's actually nothing more

important in life than authoring your own life, let's just say

developing the skills to decide what's important to you and

authoring a life. That's as close as it can be. To that I

live in Australia, but a wonderful Australian palliative,

Candice or called Bronnie Ware,

was taking care of people in the last few days and weeks of their

lives. And she was with people, hundreds of people during those

last days. And throughout her work, she kept hearing the same

lifetime regrets again and again as people confided in her and

let her know what they really regretted.

And Ronnie published a book called The Top Five Regrets of

the Dying. And the number one regret of the dying, now directs

my mission in life. Because she heard this more often than

anything else. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true

to myself, and not the life that others expected of me. I wish

I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, and not the

life that others expected of me.

It turns out that Courage isn't something that we're born with.

And we've either got it or we haven't. It's something we do.

It's something we do, we it's an ability, which every single one

of us can get better at, we can get better at choosing to do the

hard thing when it's important. And so what I do now is I go

into organizations, small charities, big corporations, and

I help professionals at all levels in organizations to

develop mind skills, really their mind skills, so that they

can one identify what they care about. What's what's actually

really, really important to them, not what their parents

say, not what their culture says. And the culture has an

awful lot to say about what people of a certain age from a

certain background with a certain skin color, what they

ought to aspire to know. We try to tease that apart expectations

of others.

And identify Yeah, actually, what lights me up, what ignites

me? What fuels me, personally.

So I help people to identify that and then I teach them the

skills and they're just, they're just skills we can all practice

them to get better at noticing fear, and discomfort, and worry

what what will someone say if I do this, if I really go for the

career that I want? If I really ask this person out and I risk

rejection, if I attempt to learn this new I don't know it could

be a new technique, new skill playing a musical instrument.

What if I fail? What if others laugh? I help people to manage

their minds that they can be with anxiety and fear, not to

get rid of it. Not to get good luck with that. Good luck

getting rid of fear. But what we can do is get better at being

with not the suppressing and pushing away, not exaggerating,

but allowing

and dialing down a little guarding down a little but being

with fear whilst we take actions that are aligned

aligned with lives which are our authentic to ourselves. That's

what I do now. And that's what really drives me each day. It's

hugely rewarding Aurora to to see people increasingly live

their own lives that are true to themselves. I, I can imagine

that. Yeah, to see to see someone finally step up for

themselves and to live their true life speak their truth is,

is so beautiful to to witness. And what you mentioned, as well

as that is a lot of fears and doubts coming up once you are on

that path. And to know that fear and anxiety is part of our

lives, I feel a lot of times, we try to navigate through life

avoiding these uncomfortable feelings. And we think this is

that this is success. But it is not it is pushing through, going

through allowing those feelings to be there, but not feeling

dominated by these feelings and then ending up giving up.

What I would like to know, Eric is, did you notice once you

started being authentic and living your truth, that your

relationships around you changed? Did you lose people?

Did you gain people? How was your personal experience with

becoming authentic and walking your truth? Hmm. Well, I think

on the the occasions in which I have conspicuously done

something important that matters to me,

others to have noticed and to have fed back to me and said,

Oh, I wish I could do that, for example. So I was living in

Scotland for eight years. And I loved Edinburgh. And it was it

was very cold. Very. And I was ready to warm up between quite

frank, I was ready to warm up a little bit. And I was offered

voluntary redundancy. And a lot of people saying no, don't

leave. It's a very dangerous world out there, stay safe, stay

in the comfort zone. It's voluntary redundancy, you don't

have to take it stay where you are Better the devil you know,

Better the devil you know. And that I think that was the first

time I took a really bold leap. And I gave up my work, I had no

job to go to. But I just chose now I'm going to step out, I had

to make a decision quickly, I was told I had a week to decide

whether or not I wanted to accept, this is the full payout.

And I did it and I I went off to work in the Middle East. But a

lot of folks that are I wish, I wish I could do something like

that. start afresh go on an adventure or something.

And there were a number of occasions. And you know what I

think we all model behavior all the time. I think we all

underestimate just how impactful our own behaviors are. To

others, we underestimate our impacts. We are all influencing

other people every day, in everything we do. So if you do

take a courageous move that's observed by somebody else.

It's a ripple effect. It will ripple out to other people and

other people's acts of courage ripple towards me to and I feel

myself, you know, on a lake, if there's a ripple, it sort of

lifts things up. As the ripple goes out, it lifts everything

up. On a lake, it might just be ducks. But in real life, when

you do something bold or or something courageous, we're all

moved by that and we're all as the report comes out, it's like

we're all lifted up a little by the acts of courage of other

people. So I allow myself to be lifted up when I notice other

people doing courageous acts. And it helps me to be a little

bit more courageous. This is very beautiful, really sad. And

I know people will understand exactly what you're saying.

Sometimes. So I feel that this ripple effect of courage and

bravery triggers people and challenges them because they

don't feel like they have the same tool set as you and there's

jealousy and criticism coming up.

Which is also good because then they can reflect about it and

see oh, what what can I change? What do I have in my power? How

how do you recommend dealing with people? For instance, you

expected support from

and all of a sudden you realize

they are not there yet, and they are not supporting your new

path, your courageous path? Yes, yes. And it's almost a certainty

that there will be others who disapprove. Yes, in life, they

will. And that that's, that's going to be part of taking

courageous action anytime we lift ourselves up. Because you

may be embarrassing that if you take a bold move, you're

reminding them that they are not living, potentially not living a

bold life that's authentic themselves. So expect to annoy

people. But what I would say is that, yeah, how do we navigate

that.

And we need to resource ourselves Aurora, so that we

have the resilience and the capability to to be with this

discomfort. I, I've written a book called swipe right on your

best self. And in it, I described the three human

predicaments. That if left alone will hold us all back. So it's

not that we're defective or flawed. We're supposed to be

fearful. And there are three human predicaments animals don't

have that hold us all. Living smaller lives, keep us all sort

of constrained and captured.

But there are simple steps. And I'd like to share a few of them

with you now. Right? So people don't don't need to get the

book. But there are, there are three mindsets that if we

practice them, will enable us to be with disapproval of others,

and still be able to choose to do what's that what matters.

The first mindset that so important to cultivate,

let me just take a step back, all of us are, our courage is

depleted by our culture. So it's my opinion, that we all of us

live in a culture, which is continually telling us that we

are not enough. So you look at advertising, what it's really

saying is, you aren't looking at this poster. Do you see how

you're not popular enough? Did you see? Do you see how you're

not attractive enough? Can you tell? You're not rich? not rich

enough? Are you? Are you as Richard and popular as

attractive?

Do you have that car that speed but whatever this is, our

advertising works. It creates a sense of neediness and lack. So

we get these messages. How often do you see an ad Aurora? How

often would you say in your life? Do you see an advert

promoting something that you don't have? I would say I'm

bombarded with those match messages. And all social media

makes it even worse. It is it is not like an ad but it's as a

people. And this creates a gap. People as well. Right? Because

of comparison. Yes, Elysee? And well,

you're so right. I think it's almost like we've been machine

gunned with advertising messages anywhere you place your eyes. If

you go outside, there'll be adverts. If you turn on your

computer, and it's social media, yes. It's not only saying look

at these things you don't have, but also look how much happier

everybody else is. Yeah, you see, you're not happy enough.

And you would you wouldn't be if you got us, our fragrance,

everything would change. If you were to get the fragrance we're

selling, then suddenly, you would be

everything would be fine. And if it doesn't work initially, then

you haven't bought enough of it. You need to you need to read

those. So

the problem with all of this is, mentally we get it we know what

advertising does. You look at it, you you understand. But when

we're exposed to advertising our conscious mind understands what

they're doing. But our unconscious mind believes it, it

drinks it in. It's true. I'm not that attractive. Yeah, that does

hurt a little bit. It would be nice to be more popular. It

would be nice to have more money, to be more more to be

more. So inevitably, we feel less. We feel less.

There's a solution to this. And there are no billboards

advertising it because nobody makes money out of it. And this

is ancient wisdom. Ancient the stoics knew this 2000 years ago,

Epictetus said, if you'd like to be happy, learn to want what you

already have.

Learn to want what you already had. So I call this attitude,

defiant gratitude. It's defined because the world

All this telling you,

you're not enough, you need to buy more, you need to be

different. You're not enough as you are not rich enough, popular

enough all the rest of it.

So if we can appreciate what we do have in life.

We're not saying that's how I'm going to stop there. But if we

can just value the things that we do have the ability, I'm

talking to you and you're around the other side of the planet

Aurora, we're talking in real time. We it's easy to take

miracles for granted.

But we live in a miraculous age, I can get a book out of the

library for nothing. And nothing. Can you imagine? How

amazing that would have seen just for most of human history.

I know books are quite recent, but they were precious items

they were they were like solid blocks of gold books when they

first arrived. Very hard to get them. Now you can get any books

you want. I've got hot and cold running water Emperor's for most

of history have not had hot and cold running water. We live like

Emperor's Aurora. And we can we do your Empress Aurora and

Emperor Eric, you're in charge of Canada, you're doing a good

job. Um, I'm struggling a bit with Australia. But we all of

us, we all live like Emperor's. So let's acknowledge it. Now, by

spending just a few moments each day just we're not talking about

wallowing in this few moments. Just valuing what we already

have connections,

sunlight, a roof over your head perhaps, or maybe something to

eat

a hot coffee, small things.

practicing gratitude for brief bursts actually emboldens us we

become emboldened. We're more capable to do what's difficult,

even in the presence of disapprove potential disapproval

or anxiety. So that's the number one attitude defined gratitude,

cultivate that.

The second mindset, which I encourage people and show people

how to develop, I didn't just tell people go away and get to

find gratitude, we have a lot of exercises. But the second

mindset that we practice developing we get better at is

one of self compassion. And I'm very inspired by Christine nefs.

Work, and the world's leading researcher on self compassion.

And Christine shows that people who practice self compassion are

more courageous, they are bolder, when we are kind to

ourselves, you didn't choose Aurora to be born into a human

mind. Thank you very much. With worries and fears and doubts.

You didn't pick your parents, I'm imagining, I'm guessing you

didn't pick your parents, you might not have picked your

schooling, you know, an awful lot in life. We didn't choose

but bang, here we are.

I mean, a human body, it's got a human mind. It talks a lot. It's

very, very worried. Here I am, you're entitled to have a little

bit of self kindness for your predicament of being in a human

body. Now, this isn't the same as letting yourself off the hook

and saying, oh, I'll just indulge myself in, in chocolate

alcohol. That's not very kind. That's not a very high thing to

do to yourself. Christine talks about fierce kindness, sometimes

the kindest thing we can do to ourselves is give ourselves a

kick up the butt and get out there and start doing things

which are truly kind for us. It might be changing our diets a

bit.

I can confess to that I ought to be a little bit more selective

about what I'm eating during our current Sydney lockdown.

Could be exercising a bit, it might be applying for a

different job.

I don't know what. But she says we should be practicing not just

tender kindness but a fierce kindness. Kindness is the first

part. But in her

her package of self compassion, she also includes

mindfulness. And she says the ability to be able to be honest

with yourself about life's difficulties, not to exaggerate

them and not to push them away to to just be honest. And to

hold it in balanced. Awareness. Actually, you know what? The

thing I'm going through just now it is tough. Yeah, I'm, I'm not

going to deny that. I'm not going to sugarcoat it actually,

these circumstances I'm going through right now. They are

hard.

And she says being honest with yourself is a key component of

self compassion. It's not

kinda pretending everything's fine here. Everything's fine.

And men, especially women, increasingly, but women are

under pressure to soldier on. stoically misuse of the word

stoic. But that's what we say, soldier on. I know, I'm not

worried, I'm not worried everything's fine. putting on a

brave face. That is a dishonest way of living. And people will

do that if they don't know how to be with discomfort, it is

possible to be with worry, fear, doubt, anger, resentment, all of

those things, but to hold it in your hand in balanced awareness,

and not have it overwhelm you and have you acting in unhelpful

manners. So I teach people how to develop self compassion with

balanced awareness.

And the final mindset, that I help people to develop and show

people how they do it in workshops, that come back, and

they get better and better at this is living with what I call

courageous authenticity.

So the first thing is, they decided what would a life that

was more authentic to themselves look like? What would they be

doing more of? What values would they be doing more of maybe

it's, they'd be doing more learning, or maybe they'd be

taking care. Or maybe they've been putting off painting in

their lives, maybe at their hearts, you know, their parents

said they should be an accountant, doctor and a lawyer.

And a lot of parents do, and which is why a lot of students

leave in the first hour 30% of doctors, I understand, only do

it because their parents said they, they'd be really proud,

we'd be so proud if you became a doctor.

But it's not just medicine. A lot of people carve lives in

order to please others without knowing it, without knowing it.

So help people to identify what would be a life that would be

meaningful to you. And it might not include very much money,

actually, it might be you know what, I just love to grow things

I adore growing, I love using my hands.

I love to use my hands, I love painting or pottery or, or

showing people guiding people through cities, showing them the

history, I don't know. But I help people to identify what,

what brings them alive, what helps them to experience more

vitality. So that's the first part knowing what but the second

part is the courageous part. It's discovering how they can

take steps that manifest or demonstrate authenticity, whilst

they have the discomfort. The worry that others might not

approve the fear that they might fail.

Failure is a terrible word, the fear that they might get

feedback that they prefer not to have.

And it's a set of skills actually doing things with

discomfort. A lot of us wait longer to do that thing. When

I'm ready. They'll say Aurora, I'm absolutely going to do this.

I'm going to go for that career. When I'm ready. Now what I

really mean is, when I'm absolutely confident that I

cannot fail. And that is a tragic thing to do. To wait

until you're ready. We need to learn to take action before

we're ready.

Parents

are never ready. For children. There'll be no kitchen kids on

the planet. If all parents said no, we're waiting to where we

were truly prepared to raise a child. You learn through the

doing. And most of life is like that we actually get better. By

doing what I I'd like to I like to say to people, I've run

workshops on how to write a book because I've written one. And

the first thing I say which alarms people I say to everyone

is I need you all to know it's really important that you cannot

write a book. None of you. None of you can write a book. I say

you don't have to. You don't have to, you just need to begin

and get better. By the end, you will have written a book.

But we learned to do things by going through them.

Yeah, so that's the third mindset. So that's what I teach

people to do. And it is so rewarding to see people

cultivate greater authenticity. And this is a development thing.

It's not like overnight, you wake up and then

I'm now going to leave my job in finance and move to an island

where I'm going to raise sheep authentically. I've just

developed the skills to you know, we don't do that. No, this

is this is more

All incremental steps, but people love progress. It's

progress. That's rewarding, huh, not not the end point. It's

progress. So we savor the progress. Hmm. So it is, it is

truly like, such an important mission that you're on,

especially during COVID times now I feel because a lot of

people have the time to reflect about the last couple years or

months and realize, Okay, what did I do with my life is this

where I want to go back to or do I want to see life in a

different way?

That's truly inspiring. And what I love most about it is that it

is very simple. It is like,

going to the gym and having to learn to strengthen a muscle

that you've been neglecting, or you knew you you never knew you

had. And people can start today, they don't have to, I don't

know, go back to university or spend a whole lot of money,

there's tons of content out there, where people can learn to

train their mindset.

This is so Yeah, beautiful. And I'm so excited to be talking to

you and connecting with you here.

We're slowly coming to an end here, like Time was running away

quickly, I would love you to

talk a little bit more about your book, I want to put it in

the show notes. But the title of your book is gonna be a lot of

millennials out there. And I want to make sure that people

Yeah, know about you a little more and how they can connect

with you, contact you and where they can find your book. But

tell us a little bit more about your book.

So I've titled it swipe right on your best self simple steps to a

bolder life with fewer regrets. And most of us now are familiar

with dating apps. It was Tinder, I think, who started this this

model of you're presented with a face and a little bit of

description about someone. And if you see something you like,

you point to it, and you swipe right. I actually learned Aurora

last week that 30% of all relations, relationships right

now, were formed online. So it's become very, very mainstream. It

was a bit new and novel recently, but now it's very

ordinary people. And it's not just people we choose, we can

choose pizzas. on Amazon, anything you choose, you swipe

right. So swiping right means yes, I choose that. And if you

don't like it, you swipe left.

In life, we spend quite a lot of time thinking about the people

we'd like to date to live with to be with. But there's a person

that you spend even more time with your dating partner. It's

yourself, it's yourself. And what a lot of people don't

realize is that actually we get to choose what kind of people

we're going to show up as we have choice points throughout

our life, we get to decide in this interaction with someone,

how am I going to be and we get to prioritize, actually, I'm

going to be considerate, or thoughtful, or caring, or be

persuasive, or I'll be encouraging. I don't know what,

but different situations call for us to step up and

demonstrate different skills. And it's a choice, it's a

choice. So my book is about helping people to choose how

they are going to be, we spend so much time thinking about what

we're going to do, or I've got to write this report, I've got

to give this talk, I've got to send this blog post, we think

about the task, where we don't think very much about the how we

are going to be. So that's how the book got the title. That's

what it's about. I'd like to reassure your listeners that

actually you don't have to be by the book in order to find out if

it's of interest to you. On the very front page of my website,

you can download the first 40 Pages for free. And actually,

you'll know after reading one page, you don't even need to

read 40 I promise you'll know after reading the first page, if

this is a book, which is going to resonate for you, you'll be

able to tell from my writing style. So the web the website is

Eric winters.com.au.

If your listeners any of y'all

Since I'm sure some of them are, are based in Australia, and yes,

you can get the book, if you like it, you can get the book

from me by ordering it from my website, you get a signed copy.

But if not, if you're in Canada, if you're in Germany, if you're

in the US, you can order it from all online booksellers it's

available everywhere, and in paper form and kindled form.

If people would like to stay in touch, I would love them to

connect, either on LinkedIn,

or on Facebook.

All of my talks and workshops are described on my website,

because this isn't, this is something I, it's my mission now

is to share the skills yes, they're in a book. But we don't

actually develop skills. By reading, we, we get a taste, we

get a taste for, like the taste of that we get, we develop our

skills by doing. And there are lots of exercises in the book.

So people can practice by themselves. But I do deliver

talks and run workshops, live online, across the planet now

helping people to develop these skills. That doesn't matter

where you are.

Wonderful to give a talk or run some workshops to an

organization, anywhere on the planet to help your people to

live lives of greater courageous authenticity. Hmm. Such a

beautiful ending to this episode. And thank you so much

for providing all these. Yeah, contact possibilities that we

have to keep in touch. And, yeah, I'm very touched by how

lively and enthusiastic you are about this topic around

authenticity, it is truly important for people to

reconnect to themselves and know that they have magical, like

forces and potential roaming inside of themselves. And they

just have to learn to Yeah, let it out and see it themselves not

needing other people to give them approval or anything but to

see it themselves. Thank you so much for the bottom of my heart

to be here, Eric.

It's a pleasure and thank you for the work you do in spreading

important messages to a very broad community. It's been my

honor.

Beautiful. Thank you so much.