Matt: Hello friends.
Welcome to the optimist podcast today.
I'm your host, Matt drank on and today on the podcast we have Mr.
Les McDaniel less.
Here's a little background on him.
He's an amazing human he's.
48 years of age, 27 years married to his lovely wife.
Heatherly four children and a bonus son-in-law.
He's very competitive.
I first met him at the front row dads event at one of our retreats where he taught me the ways of the trader Joe's sliced mangoes.
He's also in the exchange community as facility.
And less is such an incredible human being and this discussion we're going to go deep in a number of places.
He is someone who's truly overcome many challenges.
Some of those challenges, if you can imagine he was a boy growing up named Leslie, and that doesn't say
at all right there, uh, he is, uh, not as tall as the average human.
So he grew up shorter, a little bit smaller with the name of last, but just imagine that being the place we start.
No, there was opportunities with bullies and school and he Chronicles part of that in our discussion.
Also, his wife had a
Les: stroke that was an incredibly challenging time in both their lives and
Matt: how they came back together from that he Chronicles that our discussion as well.
Les: Um, one thing that you should know about less.
Matt: He's a very humble person.
So he won't talk about himself with great accolades.
And I will, I will gladly share a couple of his accolades when he was in real estate.
He was involved in largest corporate real estate deals in the history of his organization.
This is back in Texas, a number of years ago.
And so we had massive success in real estate.
He also now, uh, is a coach now and I'll lead you to his website and he'll give you some information on how to connect with them.
Last is just an amazing
Les: human being.
He's a, he's a
Matt: great person to listen to channel.
Because he's got a great, a great heart for loving, caring about all people, some things we talked about today on the discussion.
If you can name the problem, understand the solution.
He likes to ask a lot of questions to get to understand exactly what it is that the problem is before he tackles it.
When you're having cases.
Make something of it.
The less is someone doesn't sit still.
He likes to continue to take positive action towards and whatever it is, the objective is, uh, he believes going head first into your fears.
He Chronicles his story today in the podcast.
He's always open.
He's always willing to be curious.
So get ready and Buckley your seats in for a shallow dive.
At first, it gets deep, fast in this discussion.
This is a truly amazing human being.
I love very much things, less McDaniel.
Welcome.
Les: Hello, and welcome to the eternal optimist podcast.
The show for optimists by optimist.
This is the show for people who see the good in the world and want to make a positive difference in the lives of their families and communities.
Each week, you'll hear inspiring stories that will get you thinking big and playing more offense in life with your host and high performance.
Coach Matt drink on
Matt: my friend Les McDaniel.
Good morning.
Less.
Les: Good morning, sir.
How are you coping?
Matt: We are fantastic today.
It is great to have you on, I've been looking forward to this for some time.
You're one of my favorite people in the universe.
So no pressure.
Uh, let's have a good time today.
How the heck are you today?
My friends,
Les: I am.
I'm doing pretty well today.
You know, life is, life is just a, a wonderful rollercoaster ride that I enjoy.
I just, I I'm finding ways to find joy in almost all circumstances getting to do stuff like this with you, makes it even all the more.
Ah, ah, well,
Matt: you're too kind.
I'd love to dive a little bit deeper.
Just kind of get right into it right away.
When you say that you're finding joy and you're able to find circumstances and find joy in the circumstance, what do you mean by that?
What's an
Les: example.
Oh my goodness.
There's so many different examples, but I think that we live in a world that has, has a desire to live in one of two
dualities it's good and bad or right versus wrong or joy versus sadness.
And there's this.
Struggle that I think that our world has, and that I'm dealing with in my own life, which is, you know, my wife has got chronic myeloid leukemia.
You know, I've just recently kind of discovered that some of the, my past traumas in my own life are not totally fully healed.
And yet there's, there's a, not a resistance in me to wanting to welcome that challenge, to welcome
her, her cancer, to really begin to dive into what that looks like.
Well, we're jumping right in aren't we, but, uh, I'll tell you that one of the, I was listening to Rahm Doss this morning.
He has this saying that is all suffering is showing you, is where your mind is still clinging.
And the idea for me is very much that that is a deep rooted thing within me, that I recognize that anytime that I
feel sad or I'm suffering and it's, and you can even be suffering in.
Honestly, but anytime I feel that what is really going on deep within me is this thing that I'm holding onto
this idea of what life should be, as opposed to the reality that is present at this particular stage in my life.
You know, we have a lot of things going on, besides that we got, you know, my, my son is leaving the nest, if you will.
And he's the last of my four kids to leave the nest, uh, this.
And there's this sense of excitement that comes along with that and a sense of sadness.
So it's like, there's both of these things walking hand in hand at all times in our world, there's never a situation where something is lately joyful.
It's always letting go of something in order to gain some.
And so I think the joy for me is living kind of as best as I can.
And, and in perfectly with an open hand, not with closed fist, tightly held so that, you know, onto whatever it is
that I think I should have, but just being open to what, what is ever next.
And, and it is, it is a, you know, it's literally like a roller coaster where you're rising to
the top of that roller coaster and you start to grip onto the rail.
And then there's a sense of you finally, you get over that hump and the joy comes all of a sudden you can start to feel
your hands lift up in the air and feel that joy of that freedom, just that free fall and knowing that, oh, this is great.
I know that every feels that way about it.
Matt: So you went deep, fast, less.
Uh, wow.
I didn't even ask the question about what are the challenges that you've overcome in your life.
You just went straight into one and, uh, thanks for sharing that with this.
Les: That's where joy is.
So how else could I describe it?
You know,
Matt: Well, I think that a lot of people that might be a foreign concept of, you know, this is a great challenge.
This is something that has a potential for a lot of pain.
It is a lot of pain.
When you say your wife and you say cancer, you know, that certainly brings up kind of a queasy feeling in my stomach.
It feels painful.
And even to even talk about that and your next statement afterwards is around, you know, being able to find
the joy in things, you know, I'd love to just back up for a second since you've you took the ball and ran with
it, man, but let's back up a second and I'd love to outline some of these challenges that you've had in your life.
What they've taught you and how you've gotten to this place where you are in your life right now.
So could you back up for a second and share with us, what are some of the challenges you faced?
Let's kind of deconstruct what they've taught you and how you've maintained joy
Les: throughout th I mean, it is a deep subject and, and I really I've been on this journey of, of depths.
If you will.
For quite some time.
And it's so it's, it's really kind of hard, especially considering that even recently, I've, I've ran it and
come into a group of guys that have just been really supportive of me, not to mention that for our dads.
That's another group of guys has been incredibly supportive to me.
My life has it.
Hasn't been a.
Cherries or whatever, whatever the great sayings are that it's always easy.
I've been very blessed, but it's blessed because of how I think I've decided to look at life, my quest and
pursuit of how I want to see the world versus what maybe is really playing out is probably where that comes in.
I've never been.
Um, even as a kid, I should say I was never someone who just was like status quo.
I was, I was born into this world, a runt named Leslie that's where, that's, where,
Matt: that's, where it began right there.
I mean,
Les: you, you know, you are born and you're the smallest kid in your class for years and years and years
gear you're on the first day of school, your teacher says Leslie McDaniel and you're like, That's me.
And then, you know, it's less, it's less and like less, as much better.
I mean, that's the complete opposite of more and, you know, big, it's not necessarily something that we always think of as positive in our world, so
that it created in me a deep curiosity around people and how to navigate that world where I didn't get my butt handed to me everyday by bullies.
And so I learned how to befriend them.
I learned how to, how to connect.
Each and every person that was in my world and how to, how to survive and thrive in many ways, just as a result of that, you know, I was a funny kid.
Um, probably more out of, I was able to take the jokes first and foremost.
And then I learned how to start to create a world where I could make people laugh.
My teachers laugh.
I was kind of the class clown that they loved, but it also came with a lot of struggle.
You know, I had, I had some, uh, I've had many times where I was raised in the church and the church was, I always took things that were in scripture.
Very literally I really felt deep down in my soul that we were supposed to live this particular way that Jesus lived.
And at that time, that's all I really knew was this particular way of like, this is how we live and I
would ask questions and I would, and they were the, you know, basically.
W why is it that homeless guy coming to church with us?
And why isn't that homeless guy?
Our neighbor shouldn't we love him too.
And, or I would just try to understand people and why they would do things the way they would do them.
And, and I would know people that were, seemed really good on the outside, but I could hear the, this judgment that would sometimes come from the.
That sounded like.
Yeah, but they, they kind of have to do certain things and conform to certain patterns.
Well, that made me a target too.
You know, that made me a little bit of a target because I was always trying to find ways to open the door to people.
And, and when it felt like no
Matt: less, if you could, if I could interrupt you for a sec, when you say it made you a target too, can you think back to a, uh, an incident or a time
where there was a bully or where you were a target, uh, something that maybe the audience can relate to in the moment?
Can you describe
Les: that?
I'm trying to, let me see if I can go back in way back.
Matt: And for those of you listening right now, Les, he is not that old.
I believe less helped you.
You're right.
About 45 right now.
I
Les: believe I appreciate that.
48 48.
I don't know.
Let me see if I can go.
I haven't thought about one.
That goes way back.
You know, I, I, there were many times in my life where I found myself standing up for people that, that were in the midst of getting bullied.
I do have one, I do have one, you know, one of my good friends, one of my best friends when I was in high school, decided
he thought it would really be a good idea to get in a fight with a guy who was a quasi gangster and was a part of a gang.
And in the wonderful west Texas town of Abilene.
You know, I was like, what in the world are you doing?
And so I knew what we were getting into.
I knew this guy, I knew who was going to be showing up to this fight.
And I'm like, I'm going to go with you and we're not going to end up fighting.
I showed up.
And, you know, I looked at the situation and I saw one guy over here who's, uh, who had a, uh, a particular sawed-off type weapon in his trench coat,
which was just like hilarious that he thought he was hiding it, several others who were packing and the guy who was about to fight who had a knife.
And I, I just literally looked at all of these guys and I'm like, guys, here's the.
None of this is going to go down for the good for anyone.
You know, you, this got you, who's got your gun, you're gonna pull it out.
And then what you're going to, you're going to kill shoot.
And over what two guys who are just trying to settle this something that's a disagreement about some girl or whatever it was at that particular time.
And the irony of it was is that I was both the friends of these guys that were also gangsters, because I told you I learned this way of being able to manage.
And I was also the friends with this other, my best friend, you know?
And
Matt: how did the gang quasi gangsters take it when you said this?
Like, what are they looking like
Les: right now, when I appealed to reason, literally they, they were, they were all kind of like, oh yeah.
You know, I guess that makes sense.
Uh, in the end, there was some yelling, there was some screaming that everybody left and it became nothing
and nobody fought, nobody swung a punch in it and it looks that way.
And I would put myself in that place pretty regularly.
And in defense of not just the person, like my, it wasn't just about my best friend.
It was about all of us in that moment.
And I mean, looking back it's like, that was just stupid.
Right?
It was like, why would you show up to a gang fight where there are going to be guns and knives with nothing, except for your words.
Matt: I mean, maybe you're you're, you're young, you're in high school.
You, you have this idealism.
You want to stand up for people to stand up for the little guys, stand up for your friends, by the way, you are the little guy and you're standing up for everyone.
So you had this huge heart and you want to do good.
Let's keep moving.
So you go through high school.
We, we, I get a sense of who you are as a human.
Uh, you've got a huge heart.
Are some of the challenges that are coming in the next decade of your life and in the twenties.
Les: I mean, twenties, you know, I was a good Christian kid.
I'd kind of conformed a lot of things.
You know, I was, I was this kid who had actually, when I, and I got married young, I mean, I got married when I was 21 years old.
And so I've been married 27 years now or almost 20.
So.
I had an amazing world with her, but, and we were very involved in church at that particular juncture.
And literally I remember knocking on some of the people's doors when they wouldn't show up for Wednesday night service and
having this kind of gentle conversation about don't forsake the assembly and all those other kinds of stuff.
That's pretty hilarious and conservative, but, but still within me was this reading of, of this great story and learning about this unbelievable mercy and grace.
And as I started to do that, we started to work with people that were.
But at the same time my wife was pregnant.
We had a pregnant drug addict who moved in with us and we helped her, you know, along that path just by loving her
and just, just being there for helping her get into a house at one point.
And you know, all of it was, it was good and it was meaningful.
There was all the, a lot of things around that that were just unique about how the church responded, which
was not necessarily always the way that I thought, or should it be.
Uh, versus the reality, which was that, you know, you, when you help people, it doesn't mean that they're going to turn out exactly.
Like you hope it doesn't mean that they're going to flip a switch and all of a sudden be good people or conform
to the way that we think that I think it should look what social standards are and all that kind of stuff.
And it was just, that was one of the many conversations that I've had over the years with people that were different than.
And learning how to love people and realizing that some of their choices don't make them bad, that we are all just kind
of products of our, of our upbringing, of our circumstances and that it's not easy.
And that, and in that it, it started to well up in me, like, what does this mean for us to be loving?
What does it mean to love our neighbors, to love our enemies?
Like, what does this, what does all this mean to really begin to love people no matter what, no matter where they're at.
And I, and I was radical in some ways about that and very defensive of those who were underrepresented in our.
And it's just such a deep thing for me that that, uh, has been a problem in my own mind because it's, it, it leads me
to be in, in many ways, looked at like that those who are underrepresented.
And I don't like that because I, I, my family and, you know, it, it would be like, literally my family, my parents, if I was to say, Hey, I really liked this.
I want to love this other person.
That's out here on the fringes and bring them into our home.
And my parents be like, well, we don't want them here for Christmas or Thanksgiving.
That's not what.
And it's not that they aren't loving or wanting to be that for those people, it's just that it breaks,
breaks them out of their mold of what it's supposed to, they have created, and it makes us all uncomfortable.
And it's always messy, you know, the way it has been for many once in my life.
And it drove me to actually go back and get my masters of divinity at Abilene Christian, because I was just
so tired of feeling like I was this odd ball and how I was viewing things.
That was good.
And amazing and empowering.
And at the same time, it just created a, uh, in many ways, a greater distance between myself and those who
cause it, it literally was like, yes, we are supposed to live this way.
Or we have the opportunity to live this way.
It's not the way we were supposed to.
We can be those who provide that in the world.
Matt: Sounds to me like you are in this time in your life and your twenties, you're still have this place of love.
And I say still because you still have it today too.
Like, this is, this is the core theme of you is love.
Is.
And even when this ideal of love is something that others around you that are close to you that are important to you, even though they may not
see it, the exact same frame, you're willing to be uncomfortable because you believe so strongly in it.
And this presented challenges because others don't see it, the same frame that.
Les: And, and I'm, I'm just willing to be curious.
I mean, I think, I think I've just, I don't know who it was that told me when I was younger.
That there's nothing that I can do to shape God, to change God or to change the creator or whatever you want to
call this source that, that has of all things, this thing that does what it does.
And I can't break that.
And, and the more that I, I felt free to do that, the more, it, it both sort of made me feel sometimes like an outsider, which wasn't true.
It just is what it made me feel like, because I curiosity often made, created fear in others because of
the, you know, we, we, as humans, we want to be, we want to believe.
We want that space of feeling like we belong somewhere.
And when, when we start building that belonging around belief systems that are always shifting, always
changing, it creates a little bit of uncertainty that we don't want.
We want to be certain about this afterlife thing or whatever it might be.
And we're willing to forgo even happiness now, which is the most bizarre thing we're we're, we're willing to take on hell on earth.
For an eternity in heaven, for lack of a better word, this is sounding awful, your spiritual and religious and it,
everything is spiritual my book, but I don't mean to be religious in this.
This is life like that.
The essence of life is, is fundamentally grounded in our ability to understand the tensions that we live in.
And when we start to think that there is some way for us to capture a secure.
In some form of understanding of God or defining God or a defining community or whatever, we start to alienate
ourselves and others from what it truly means to be human, to be truly a one with co with creation and with.
I mean, we do this in all sorts of ways.
I mean, look at the west compared to the east, you know, we call the east woo and the west is what, what are we
dogmatically entrepreneurial driven to success and driven to these other things.
These are all related to this very question of, you know, what it means to love one another.
And, and when we are, the more we separate ourselves into the mindset of creating our identity around certain beliefs or
around certain practices, the more we start to create a world that separates.
From the fullness that of joy that we really want to experience.
I'll give you one example of one more example.
Like when I want to, when I seek security and I build up walls around myself and I have enough money and enough savings in a, in a great business and
you know, all these things, the first thing that I have to do is I have to set security systems up security cameras.
I need to arm myself and I need to find ways to get.
To maintain that security.
That's not, that's not security.
That that means I'm insecure.
It means that I have to have all these things in order to be okay.
And so it's the very thing that when we create that security that we think we want we're in at the very same moment, we
are embracing the fullness of insecurity because now we don't want to lose it.
Where is that holding on tight to the things that we, that we have without a flexibility for something else to come along.
That's suffering.
We create it's minor and it may be luxuriously suffering.
It may be all sorts of things, but it's still suffering because we have this fear of losing what we've gained.
Matt: Well, I'm following everything and I'm jumping from Lily pad to Lily pad with you here.
And I'm trying to figure out, you know, how I'm suffering with some of the luxuries.
I don't want to lose.
Right.
Uh, and, uh, but I don't have all the, you know, the, the heavy artillery and security system to keep them here.
So part of me wants to have a divergent thought here, but I'm not sure how to approach it because I feel, uh, right now that everything you've shared,
I feel like if love is what you're seeking, are you telling me that that is something that we can lose?
And that is something that, because we're seeking love, we're suffering.
I
Les: think that I think it's a, it's more long and, and I'm thinking in an extreme extremist, because a lot of times,
the only way to really capture the full essence of something is in extremes.
If I have a stranglehold on my wife and I won't let her out of my sight and I have to be writer side at all times, and I want her, wherever I go, is that.
Is that meaning if I, if I'm, if I'm so bent on being it, being secure in my, my relationship with my wife, that I have to hold onto it, is that love or is it loving
when I can be trusting and I can let that go and I can let my wife be who she is and explore life on her terms and not have
to see eye to eye on every single thing that's going on in my world, but still be able to embrace her and love her despite
our differences, or maybe because of our differences and allow that to flourish, because that is what true relationship.
We experienced this in front row dads, you know, it's this idea of the ability to the, the yes.
And it's our ability to sit with one another, despite our differences and love one another.
Now, imagine if we started to raise up I ideas or ideologies around front row dads that says, it looks like this, and it has to be this way.
The moment that we start doing that is the moment that we actually start pushing people out because they're not conforming to the way that we want it to.
And, or we're in, we're starting to huddle around certain ideals of what it looks like.
And we're always trying to create boxes around that so that we can find ways to protect the identity that we're raising up within that as the way of
being, and that's not free, that's not loving, it's loving is, is the idea that when it rains, it rains on the good and it rains on the evil.
Matt: So let me reign it back in here to summarize what I've just feel that I've put some dots together here, uh, with your mentality of being curious.
And being open to what's happening next and the whatever's coming yes.
And be inclusive with that.
Love can take any form, you know, and I, I appreciate the way that you've made that distinction for us.
Cause love to look this way to some person over here.
It could be, uh, you know, being very close and, and having that the, the day by day connection where you are texting each other back and forth all
the time, it can be very tight like that, or it can be very open and what you would, what you would call it, trusting where we don't need to do that.
It can be any way.
For anyone.
So it's it's curiosity.
It's yes.
Les: So just to differentiate a little bit on that is that I think that the idea of when, when we have to hold onto something
and we have to place our identity in it, and it actually keeps someone else from being free to be who they are.
I wouldn't call that the definition of love.
In fact, that's what we would call abuse and most, most relationship.
When we, when it's now the texting back and forth and the, you know, the intimacy that, that, that we can create and how that plays out is, is totally free.
But it's when we start having a stranglehold on something, when we start trying to control the behaviors
and the, and the, and the way that somebody else does and lives this life.
That we, it gets on the edge of first and foremost, not loving ourselves because we're not able to, we're
not able to love ourselves or see ourselves outside of something that exists outside of us, that person.
And it keeps us from truly expressing that fullness of what it means to, to be.
Forgiveness caring for one another in compassion.
And I think we just have to be careful in our world of, and this is why we have such a split in our world right now,
Matt, is that, you know, we, we have this idea that it has to be, everything has to be completely right or wrong.
And then everybody has their definition of what that looks like.
And that's not very loving and we can see that play out.
And the way things happened on January 6th of what was it, 20, which happens to be my birthday, by the way, it's like a sad thing that I got on your birthday.
But you know what, at the Capitol where, where people are raising up and ready to go and take over, you know, something
about that, that's built on ideologies belief systems as though we know.
And there's just this level, there's this place in our world where we, we begin to have to understand that we don't know
everything and we don't have all the answers and that it's going to be messy.
And my marriage is going to have ups and downs.
We're going to fight and then we need to forgive and then we need to have intimacy.
And then we need to, you know, and we have this cycle of things.
And over time that begins to that's freedom.
It's the freedom for it to go to all the different places.
It needs to go in order for it to continue to grow and be, and, and be what it truly needs to be.
I mean, I think you would probably agree with.
I want my wife to be happy.
And if I ever am in the reason why she is not truly able to find joy in this world, and I am limiting
her in any way, at least for me, I want, I want her to be free from me.
I want her to be free to be able to leave.
And it's in that where the excitement and joy of life comes.
That's the rollercoaster ride.
It's the, I don't know if this is going to be able to be.
It's the uncertainty of is this, is this gonna go off the rails?
That's where true life happens.
It's in that tension between the, what, you know, the good and the bad.
Matt: So in that tension between the good and the bad, where love can happen, where joy or sadness can
happen, what you are sharing in your message overall, is that in that space?
Of that duality.
That's where life is.
That's where the true joy can be found.
And there's going to be sadness too.
You're going to have both, there's no middle ground that we should be seeking.
We should be able to accept that joy or that sadness and live
Les: life with love.
And this is where the challenge comes in seeking the middle ground is probably where or the overlap of life.
How can we fall into this place of recognizing the, the, I don't knows instead of making bold claims of
everything we think we know, you know, I, man, I, you know, I'm trying to.
Practical example.
And yet it gets really hairy, which is part of the challenge of being that I've faced is that most of the time I want to deal with the heavy, heavy, hard hitting.
Matt: It sounds like it.
Cause you've gone pretty deep.
Les: Yeah, no, I mean, I do.
I've told you, I don't, I don't, I don't know how to swim in shallow waters.
I really have struggled with that.
Matt: Well, let's, let's bring it back to something you shared.
That was very, I mean, potential for a great emotion in the very beginning.
I mean, it kind of got me welled up thinking about the first thing that came out of your mouth earlier was
you were talking about this challenge of finding out your wife has cancer and you know, that's something that.
Now we'd never talked about before.
I'd love to, if you're comfortable with it, I'd love to kind of dive into that.
What are we facing right now with that?
What's the challenge and what's, what's it teaching an analysts
Les: on the one hand, I have to recognize that, you know, it's not that the cancer is not something I'm personally struggling with.
And so when I say this and I'm talking about.
There are some very real emotions that she may not be in the same place as I am or, and vice versa.
She's got challenges.
And yet she's got some comforts around that, that I don't have.
So, you know, my, my way of dealing with this is, is honestly to just be listening.
And I know that she has struggled deeply with this.
And thankfully, this is not a death sentence.
This is chronic myeloid.
Leukemia is something that is very treatable.
It's a bone marrow situation where.
Can make all sorts of pain and inflammation occur.
And so she's just been in a lot of pain.
And this is after in 2016, having had a stroke.
And so she's no, we are together.
We are no strangers to suffering.
She has had her share of the one who's dealt with it mostly physically, and which has created emotional traumas as well.
But when it comes to how this has played out is.
Which is a funny thing to say as well after the stroke we saw what the, what kind of teacher it was.
We saw how life's curriculum transition for us into what is, what is life teaching us?
And it drew us closer.
It's helped her appreciate the, um, the goodness of life in ways that.
I think a lot of people miss when they, when everything seems to be easy, when everything physically seems to be
going well, she is incredibly driven by health herself and always has been.
And I mean, I remember when she woke up from the stroke, for example, the first words out of her mouth, and I didn't know what I was going to wake up to.
What was the question of, what did I do?
She had a stroke and her first questions are, what did I do wrong?
And I think that we live in a world where there's this perception that we have to do all these things particularly, right.
And that there's some particular right way to live life.
And that when we experience something that is like suffering or consequences or crisis, that we have done something
wrong rather than just understanding that life, life just has kind of got its own life has got its own life.
Matt: When she asks you that question, I
Les: just, I just got up and hugged her and was just thrilled to hear her voice because I literally didn't know what I was going to wake up to that, that morning.
It was like five in the morning.
And so I think there was just an appreciation.
So I just told her, man, you did nothing wrong.
You have no idea why this is occurred and we're going to figure it out and we're going to work through this.
And we did, and it was a journey.
And it's the same thing now, you know, so there's a lot of, a lot of questions about what's the right path for treating this kid.
And there is no right path and you can always change your path.
You can always decide to do a different type of treatment.
And, and so she wants to, I think, but that comes, that's all wrapped up in a fear of life ending that's end of suffering.
And there's this stigma of suffering and this stigma.
Prices and things that happen in our world that our news makes.
So, I mean, really think about how much the media makes such a big deal out of all the stuff that is happening
in our world to the nth degree, because for the sake of entertainment, but it creates fear within us.
And it's fear of dying.
It's fear of sickness, it's fear of suffering and all these things, rather than us being able to explore
those things, they tell us what we're supposed to believe about them.
They tell us what the outcomes are supposed.
And when you're in it, though, you have to start shutting those voices off and you have to start asking for and seeking truth about what does this really mean?
You know, did I do something wrong?
Is there something more to this that's going on?
Is there something about this that there's a lesson in?
And so we've just been seeking those lessons and they're, they're not easy.
And some days, you know, it's miserable and other days it's, it's incredible.
Last night had an incredible joyful moment.
In terms of just talking about how, how, like every single experience my, your health and my health
represent health for her and, and her sickness represents our own sickness.
When we start to get outside of our individual selves, when we stop, we stop being so narrowly focused on making sure I do every single thing.
Right.
That I get to do no matter what, at all costs I succeed, I will win.
I will.
All the things that we sometimes get focused on in the west that very masculine energy, it loses sight of the nurturing side of the very feminine energy.
And we need both of those things.
And so she represents for us that nurturing side.
Yeah, I am now living into the nurturing for her caring for, and that's not my gift, but I get to exercise that, which makes me a more whole human.
And in that moment, when I'm healthy, she's able to highlight that and say, I am so grateful for you and
how you are currently expressing your health and your journey.
And it's in that full picture that she doesn't feel alone, that she feels like she's being supported and
that she feels, and I feel supported because I get to support her and him.
It's that expression of, of our oneness as, as humans, that when we can begin to start unifying around the collective situation, then we grow into a more
whole human being and a whole oneness, something beyond human being is where we start to begin to live life as a part of creation and experience all joys of it.
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Well less, you've gone, uh, as expected.
You've gotten super deep.
I think we're way down here in the Mariana's trench.
We're in the deepest waters known to humankind right now.
Uh, I'd love to bring it back up.
Let's let's come back up to, uh, to, to the level just a little bit below the water.
And I love to ask you about, as you're finding all these challenges with all your wife's health, you said she had a stroke,
uh, and now recently the cancer, how are you responding, reacting, leading as.
And this time, I mean, how do you keep up, you know, the face or the attitude when it comes to parenting your fortunate?
Les: I'm real.
I mean, when it sucks, it sucks.
And when I make mistakes as a result of being caught up in my own emotion or my own feelings, it's an opportunity for me to, to ask for forgiveness.
And I, I, I really do believe that we exist for the purposes of creating a world together, where we have a saying that we exist to take the paintbrush of.
Colors of chaos and mixing them on the pallet of life for the purpose of creating the masterpiece, P E a C E that we, we desire.
And it's that essence of love and forgiveness that creates that compassionate opportunity.
And the chaos is like the chaos is the colors is a real key to this.
When we are having those cattle moments, it's an opportunity for us to make something out of.
I get stuck in it.
And I drown in the pink colors, but to really be able to find ways to create something new out of it, this is what nature does, right?
It's like a seed falls from a tree and dies so that it can then create something else.
Another tree and fire burns up things.
And then in its place, it is the thing, the fertilizer for the next thing to grow.
And that's the that's what is nature.
And we have within us, we have that with.
Matt: I want to highlight something you just shared here for our audience.
And I took a note here when we're having chaos, make something of it.
Uh, I love that.
I think that that's, that's amazing.
So whenever things are getting thrown at you a hundred miles an hour and they're curve balls, and it's, it's the most
challenging thing, or it's the easiest thing, whatever it is, it's thrown at you, whatever chaos comes your way, make
Les: something.
And, and I'll.
And so I'm going to get real about myself right now, because I think that that's an important piece for me to be honest with is that I do speak very esoteric.
Sometimes I, I get it all the time and it's honestly, one of the things that has created this, the deepest challenge and struggle for me.
I'm not saying it in a special way.
I I've asked.
I've been.
God and source or whatever, to remove the way that I think about life and just make it simple.
Like, let me just be a white 48 year old middle-class male Republican or, or liberal.
I don't care.
It would go either direction.
Just, just make it simple for me so that I can just cling to something and, and it just doesn't work.
And it puts me in a place where I feel I have felt alone.
It is, it has created trauma from me from a perspective of being in business with powerful men and women to, uh, being
someone who, who really wants to push the limits of love and, and open the doors to, to everyone to just be loved.
And I have often felt like.
Very alone and all that.
And, uh, some of my own traumas and the challenges that I faced, even with my wife.
I mean, sometimes, you know, the way I see the world drives her insane because of the fact that everything is.
So let me tell you a story and, you know, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, I am learning to embrace this side of me in a way that has been challenging.
I think that there are a ton of people in our world who desire to be able to start to think outside of the boxes that
they've been put in and the core of my being, that's what I want so desperately.
And yet I also am afraid.
I'm afraid of continually standing outside, looking in on people who seemingly are happy and dressed, right.
And look right and successful and, and all these things.
And I'm afraid that I can't make a living doing it.
And I'm afraid that all, like all those things still play out in my own.
I mean, th this is the reason that I exist.
I exist for the purpose.
I believe of just of, of showing people that they can be free to be who they are.
And that means that the most limiting belief that someone may have, it is true for them.
And it is true for me too.
And others have, have maybe seen a bigger picture.
That truth or that belief that some of us have, uh, about whatever it is, is just a small piece of the picture.
I just want to be able to help people expand that picture in such a way that they're starting to see more
of life experience, more joy, not to get caught in the lines of dogma.
That simply say, if you are suffering, if you are poor, if you are broken, you know, if something's going on with you, you've done something wrong.
I want to help people to see the chaos that they're feeling and help them establish ways of creating
the life that they want from that, because that is so valid and so important for all of our stories.
Matt: You want to help them.
You exist to show people they can be free.
You want to help them see that they can be free of this.
They can be in chaos and be free of those shacks.
What are you doing yourself to free yourself from this?
Cause it seems like something that you definitely struggled with yourself.
How are you freeing yourself?
Or what's the process you're using to work on freeing yourself less?
Les: Well, curiosity continues to be my key for one.
It is working with people and coaches and other plant-based substances that I've done in the past.
I'm just willing to go down any path that is available that is represented by love.
Like the only we'll call it law.
Dogma, if you will, is that it has to, it, it has to be.
It has to be with an intent of, of something bigger than myself and, and that, so if I, if I'm working with someone, I want to know that
they are someone who's not just, I'm not just hiring them to fill their pocketbooks, but that they are, they
recognize that they are in this for the greater good of all, when I can work with more people like that.
And I can start to listen to other people's stories.
Th then literally the name of my company is epic fusion.
It's where our stories become fused together.
And when stories are fused together, when my suffering is fused with your suffering, my suffering
feels lighter and energetically, it puts off light, literal light.
It helps other people begin to see their story as valid and good as a part of the greater story.
And so when we can do that with one another and what I do that for myself, it's knowing you.
It's why I'm a part of front row dads, because when I'm with you guys, All of the things that I've struggled with,
where I'm at with my kids and being about to be an empty nester, it's in service to the greater good of front row dads.
It's allowing me to help other dads realize that this thing that they feel so chaotic about is an opportunity for
them, them to find incredible joy and love and grow closer to their kids rather than to start to create rules that try
to manipulate and control the situation for their own, for them to feel like, oh, look, my kids are upstanding since.
No man.
It's like, let's get this shit messy.
Let's understand that life is just messy.
And it's fun in that, that state.
I mean, there's a reason why we do things like the tough Mudder and run hard races and do stuff that you know, where we get to just be playful and be kids.
Cause that's where, that's where the essence of life is for us.
Matt: Yes.
It feels like the environment you're creating or the environment you seek create, or be a part of with epic fusion with front row dads, with anything you
were a part of is an environment where, uh, curiosity is championed, uh, where we can come together and lay off any shackles of need to be a certain way.
Look a certain way.
Open curious towards some vision, some purpose.
And if the purpose is say, it's front row dads or the purposes, you know how you serve people through epic fusion, it's
when we're in alignment and purpose and we're open and curious, we can find love.
We can find,
Les: yeah, it's my commitment is to be transparent in that endeavor is.
It is to own the fact that I am esoteric and be proud of the fact that I bring that to the table while at the same time being completely transparent about
the fact that I'm struggling to do it, that it's messy, that I'm, I have my own fears, but the way that I deal with my fears is that I go head into them.
You know, we're going into a, for a dad's event next week.
Right.
And I'm already setting the intention.
I mean, all the guys will not appreciate this if I literally do this, but to be completely naked.
Yeah, man.
My life is a struggle right now to allow for the fact not to not to pretend like I am some sort of trauma free, you know, hero.
That's going to show up and save the day of anybody or what, but no, it's just that I'm going to contribute real life experiences to the fullness of the group
that they're also going to be willing to do the same when the tendency is, as you know, we, it's a powerful group of men.
So the tendency or the.
The temptation I should say is to put on a facade, to put on a mask that allows a certain side of me to be seen
so that others may look up to me or think of me a certain way so that I can achieve some goal or some outcome
in my life that I think is important to me, the things that I'm clinging to, I want to go out like this.
I want to be open for my ego to be challenged.
I want to be open for my bullshit to be called.
I want to be, because I think it's, then that I, I can truly experience, love, both giving it and receiving it because there's nothing that you will ever find.
You'll you're never going to be able to look at me.
And when I run for president one day, that's not going to happen and pull out a bunch of stuff and say, oh yeah,
well, you did this when you were, and you did this and you did this, I'm going to be like, I've always said that.
That's always been there.
There's never been a moment that it hasn't been there.
What else do you want to say?
I'm, I'm owning my stuff.
What are you hiding?
You know, that you feel like you need to point it out.
So that, that is where I want to be in my life.
Not just with throw dads, but in every aspect of my life.
And my suffering comes when I don't, when I'm not true to.
My suffering comes when I start to hold onto the things that I tried to protect
Matt: myself with.
What I'm hearing is if the future vision, what you're creating in your life, what you seek to create in the lives of others
is a place where they go ahead into their fears with openness, with curiosity, and laid on the line and play all in a.
When they do that, they have the chance to be authentic.
They have a chance to find love.
And that is where, you know, this duality, this joy, the sadness, you know, the left, right?
Whatever, whatever the duality is, that's where they can see that they can embrace it.
They can learn to love through it.
Oh, and a quick, a service announcement front row, dads retreats are not naked retreats.
Just want you to know that everyone out there, you know, but back to it is that we are creating an environment
where, uh, openness curiosity that can help us get to a place of.
And that's how you deal head on with challenges and fears, uh, is openness, curiosity and play all
Les: in.
Yes.
There's a statement that I heard recently that if you can name the problem, you already understand the solution.
And I think that that's a real key to this is that when, when I CA when I go around and I hide my problem and I don't
name it out loud, I'm actually denying any opportunity for myself to succeed at finding a new way to approach it.
I actually am limiting my ability.
To come to new outcomes in this world.
So I think that's a, I think that's a really important key for any of us that are out there trying to make it in this life and, and find ways to be successful.
And because then we start to uncover other ideas about what success looks like.
It becomes more of that relational aspect because it really literally, it's only about me and you and other people that we surround ourselves with it.
That is the only way we actually understand our existing.
Th there is no existence without the rest and until we can be free to be that, then there's, there's no way for us to truly appreciate.
Well,
Matt: let's name a problem, then let's do one quick exercise.
Then we'll move.
We'll wrap up with our last question.
If you can name the problem, you can understand the solution.
And let's say the problem for example is I'm a 48 year old, uh, husband with several children.
And I have a wife who's been diagnosed with cancer, uh, recently in that, whatever that is, that that's, if that's the.
Right.
Is these life things, these challenges then help me understand what's the solution.
Les: So in that moment, the solution comes down to.
There is, there is nothing to fix that, that in this cancer, that the, that the opportunity here is for me
to love my wife, unconditionally, that healing comes when I can help her understand she's not broken.
That healing comes when it's not about the cancer at all, but it's about the state of her own resistance or.
Welcoming of all that life has.
And, and, and I don't do that by telling her, like, that sucks.
What I do that does not go well, does not go
Matt: with yeah, it doesn't work well.
When we try to coach our, our spouses a public service announcement.
Yes.
Les: I represent an unconditional dedication and commitment to her.
No matter what.
When, when she is in the throws of this is awful, life sucks.
I am angry.
I'm mad that I hurt.
Um, and I just go in there and I can hug her and I can love on her and do so imperfectly.
And then in return, when I have days where I am like, this sucks that this is what's going on with you.
And I'm angry that we have to spend our time and energy around something that I just wish I could take on for you or whatever.
And she can look at me.
She goes, it's going to be.
And we enjoy, I love you for feeling that way, but it's going to be, that is where the solution is.
It's not in, it's not even in seeing cancer as the problem.
The problem is that I see cancer as a problem.
That's the problem.
The problem is that I began to think that it shouldn't be here.
And so when I can just begin to embrace it, this is what it's supposed to be.
And now how does, how does love express itself in this particular moment at his best?
Then I become a part of something that's the greater good for?
Not just, it's not about me because let's be honest.
If I, why else would I not want.
It's an inconvenience for me.
I mean, more than it's an inconvenience for me, because this is the only way I know how to express my world.
It interferes with, if she's not feeling good because the cancer then guess what my intimacy levels go down,
her anger or her sadness goes up, which means I have to be available.
And that interferes with my plans.
And I like, but if I can just let go of all that, if I can be open ended about it and just allow it to
be, and then be responsive in the moment, then it begins to be something that is rewarding for both of us.
And it allows us to now be experienced love in a way that is whole.
And I can't, I can't say, you know, when we talk about oneness in marriage, one is in marriage is literally
just that freedom to be able to love one another unconditionally, no matter what to forgive.
And to allow the chaos to be the thing from which we birth new creation from.
And I will go back to that probably for the rest of my life.
It is such a key piece of, of life for us.
And I have, we have moments where we're like, yeah, I wish we could get rid of that.
But I think at the end of the day, with everything that we learned in everything that we come to and everything, that, all
the things that we are growing in, like, she's, she'll tell you, she would not want to go back and not have a stroke.
What would we have?
What would we lose without.
What would we be missing in our relationship with ourselves, with our kids, with our, with the world.
Yes,
Matt: that brings up a great point.
I mean, every challenge that happens is an opportunity for wherever rat to evolve, to be in the moment and be loving towards, you know, our people in the moment.
Uh, I love the thought here and I believe it's one of the tenants of modern psychology, you know, is this
thing that, you know, learn to love and appreciate the things that you don't want.
And they'll have no more power over you and you can be present with them and it's okay.
And I love everything you've said, uh, unless I'd love to a speaking of love.
I love to build a bridge here to our last question.
And I know we could go on for hours because we have before and we already have today and let's go to something very specific and tangible.
The last question I love to ask.
I like to give you a runway on this one, just let me, maybe we say, you know, take a minute or a few, uh, to think about and share.
If there were a piece of advice you have to, someone out there, someone who has a challenge that they have
endured, they're overcoming someone that wants to create an exciting future.
Any piece of advice, any one specific piece of advice you'd love to offer.
We'd love
Les: to listen.
I think there are a lot of people who are really suffering.
Today who feel very alone in that suffering who feel isolated, who feel like they're broken, like there's something wrong with them.
And, and it's a lot of it because they they've got this idea of what they are supposed to be, what life is supposed to be for them.
And I think the question becomes is how can you see your suffering in service to the rest of humanity?
How can you begin to ask the questions of what teaching does our entire.
World need today that can be taught as a result of what you were going through with your own suffering.
Because I think right there in that space is the place where your suffering becomes shared, not where you feel alone, because it's easy to get sucked inward
on suffering and want to, you know, become reclusive and, and cover up and become dark in his, stay in the darkness.
But we need that suffering.
We need you to share that story because when we, when your story becomes.
That's a part of my story.
Energetically creates light for the rest of us to begin to find more, hope, more joy, more life, and we get to surround you with that.
So, um, it's really about just how can you integrate your suffering into life so that we may be able to see the light in you through it.
Matt: Awesome.
Uh, you did not disappoint today.
You went so many places today, all back to the theme of love and being able to accept with, with an open heart and with a curious mind, whatever's happening
right now, not as a problem, but as an opportunity to lean closer into the people we care about and to serve the world.
And I love the message today less.
So one of the reason I love you, can you share a one last, I'm going to ask you to share how.
Connect with you.
If they want to find you on any social media or website, how do people
Les: find out more about less?
Sure.
Well, first and foremost, you can email me.
Don't put me on your spam emails.
If you're actually listening to this and like, oh, well there's somebody else I can put on my list.
Now email me.
I mean less, which is with one S at epic fusion dot light.
That's epi.
Fusion F U S I O n.life, my website, which is about to blanch here, as soon as epic fusion.life as well, you can check me
out on all my social channels, which has less, is more life or less is more.life.
Uh, Facebook, I got a page, their Instagram, all those things less is more all with one S I had to adopt
the affirmation of less is more to overcome being less in my life.
Matt: I like that.
Can you share with our audience, one thing just came to mind.
Can you show their audience?
What is your license plate look
Les: like?
Ah, it says my license plate.
I can't, I can't show it to you, but it says love w N Z, which everybody goes, what does that mean?
I got love wins 30 years so that when I'm honking at you and screaming at you and giving you the finger,
you can look at my license plate and you can know that love wins.
So love me.
Matt: Hopefully, not too many people are screaming at you.
Uh, as soon as you go buy them that big truck.
Les: Yeah.
That doesn't have it.
You know, love wins is the key.
That is it for all of us.
Awesome.
Matt: Well, thank you so much less for, uh, taking the time to share with our team today.
And, uh, we love you much appreciated and, uh, look forward to seeing it the retreat soon.
Les: Absolutely.
Thanks for listening to the eternal optimist podcast.
You can check the show notes for information about today's episode, and please share the show with that friend who is wanting to think bigger.
We'll see you next time.