Inner Work with Steli Efti

163: Krishnamurti on the Simple Truth Within You

Steli Efti — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 16:00:00 +0000

We won't find truth outside of us. There's no system, no organized set of teachings, no framework of thinking that will lead us to truth. Ultimately, the only place where we find truth is within ourselves. Reading passages from Jiddu Krishnamurti's Total Freedom reminded me once again of this big adventure that awaits each of us: to seek within ourselves.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep163

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162: I Lost My Teeth (And Maybe a Bit of My Mind) In a Weird Dream

Steli Efti — Tue, 09 Aug 2022 16:00:00 +0000

I’ve been having so many intense, vivid dreams lately - so intense that I feel tired and unsettled even after waking up. I knew these dreams were trying to tell me something about myself that I couldn’t see with open eyes during the day, but I didn’t feel like analyzing them or dealing with them in the moment. But one of the dreams that I couldn’t shake is a very common dream that many people experience, but one that is pretty unusual for me - dreaming that my teeth are falling out. In this episode I do some live dreamwork to decode and dissect the underlying message this dream was trying to reveal to me.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep162

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161: Demons by Dostoevsky: How to Laugh From the Heart & The Dangers of Snap-Judging People

Steli Efti — Tue, 02 Aug 2022 16:00:00 +0000

I’ve been reading Demons by Dostoyevsky and there are two small anecdotes from the book that immediately resonated with me—two topics that many of us as humans deal with throughout our lives. The first is the impulsive act of judging others too quickly and the arrogance we must overcome to give one another a fair chance. The second is the lost ability of being able to laugh from the heart. So often in life we wear masks to protect our own self-image and gain approval from others, but at a detrimental cost to our true inner selves. Talking more in this episode about the profound wisdom and depth I discovered from these passages and how I’ve seen these topics reflected in my own life.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep161

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160: The Brothers Karamazov

Steli Efti — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 16:00:00 +0000

Today I want to share with you one of my favorite books of all time, The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. I loved the experience of reading this book so deeply that I already can’t wait to read it again. It does a wonderful job of portraying many major life themes in a profoundly delightful way. I found so much beauty and wisdom contained within each page that it has stuck with me for days, and even weeks, after reading it. If there’s one book you read in your entire life, let it be this one.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep160

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159: Creating Inner Harmony: How to Unite Conflicting Parts Within Yourself

Steli Efti — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 16:00:00 +0000

Rather than feeling present and peaceful, I felt fragmented and frustrated in recent weeks. My nights were filled with uneasy sleep and weird dreams. And in the course of the days, I struggled with confounding urges: When I worked, I wanted to take a break. When I took a break, my mind kept thinking about work. And the same was true for other areas of life: For much of my day, I was doing one thing, while some part of me felt compelled to do something else. And just recently was I able to make sense of all this.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep159

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158: 3 Months After Darkness

Steli Efti — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 16:00:00 +0000

I recently finished listening through about a hundred mini recordings from my week in total darkness, which was a very intense experience to relive. While reflecting on my dark retreat and the time since then, I’ve realized it’s been a very challenging and intense 3 months for me post-darkness. I also didn’t anticipate how different coming out of this experience would be compared to other types of retreats I’ve done. I’ve been in such a sprint for the last 3 months that I’m still digesting many of the insights and lessons I uncovered while in darkness, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes me close to a year to truly internalize this experience.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep158

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157: I'm Definitely Not Above This

Steli Efti — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 16:00:00 +0000

This topic is something we’ve touched on previously but it’s a theme that keeps popping up for me. It’s the notion of “you are not above this”. I keep finding myself in situations where a thought or feeling arises that I’m not comfortable with and my first instinct is to reject it. I think to myself, I’m above this, I’ve evolved beyond this feeling or action.

It’s human nature to reject the parts of ourselves we aren’t comfortable with. But this only further distorts our own self image. We have to acknowledge that if we’re having this feeling, then it’s our current truth and we have to claim it as our own. It may not be who we strive to be, but it’s still a part of who we are whether we like it or not.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep157

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156: Because the Wheel Keeps Spinning

Steli Efti — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 16:00:00 +0000

We all know life is full of ups and downs, yet it’s so easy for us to get frustrated and torture ourselves when the pendulum of life suddenly swings from blissed out harmony to chaos and struggle. We must remember that life is a wheel that keeps spinning. These moments and feelings, both good and bad, aren’t constant. The sooner we can fully understand and internalize this, the easier it gets to just ride the waves and enjoy the journey.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep156

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155: This Moment Still Has a Lot to Give

Steli Efti — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 06:07:00 +0000

Great joy overcame me one day before the end of my dark retreat: I was about to go back into the world. Tomorrow I would see my children, embrace them, give them all my love, and receive theirs. An almost ecstatic bliss enveloped me, and I wanted to cherish this state as much as possible. But then another realization dawned on me: blissing out on anticipation would cost me everything the present moment would have to offer, all the lessons that were still waiting for me in the dark.

This episode is a short audio diary I recorded during my dark retreat in March of 2022.

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154: Don't Be Spiritual. Be Honest Instead.

Steli Efti — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 16:00:00 +0000

There’s a quote by Byron Katie that’s been stuck in my mind. It reads, “Don’t be spiritual, be honest instead. It’s very painful to pretend yourself beyond your true evolution.”

I love it because it ties back to this inner work journey I’ve been on of going deeper within my own psyche and emotions and learning to be fully present and in the moment. I haven’t fully internalized many of the moments of clarity that I’ve had throughout my journey yet. Sometimes I will pretend myself beyond my true evolution, because often times the truth is not that pretty. We stumble around truth and pretend to be spiritual when in reality, simply being honest is the highest level of expression of spirituality.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep154

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153: How to Do the Work - I’m Overwhelming Everything Right Now

Steli Efti — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 16:00:00 +0000

I recently came back to a book I read many years ago called Loving What Is by Byron Katie. She has a really great self-inquiry method called The Work that I’ve been putting into practice daily for the last couple of weeks. It’s a very simple 4-question framework that is so practical and pragmatic that anyone can do it. In this episode I’m breaking down this method, the inner truths I've learned about myself and the lasting positive impacts it’s had on me in just the last 2 weeks.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep153

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152: Treat Everyone Like a Child (Especially Yourself)

Steli Efti — Tue, 31 May 2022 16:08:00 +0000

I've been pondering a quote lately from my favorite Dostoevsky book, The Brothers Karamazov, which reads, "we ought to treat everyone like little children, and most importantly ourselves."

It got me thinking about the way we are with our children - how loving, patient, lighthearted and encouraging we are when we're parenting these tiny little humans. Why can't we be this way with everyone in our lives, especially ourselves? How incredible would the world be if we could remember to treat one another with this same level of tenderness and also extend this grace inwardly to ourselves?

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep152

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151: When Our Plans Don't Pan Out

Steli Efti — Thu, 26 May 2022 16:00:00 +0000

When I was 18 all I wanted to be was successful, which at that time to me just meant rich. I pictured myself with the fancy car, expensive apartment and crushing it as a business man like Gordon Gecko in Wolf on Wall Street. But something I’ve been reflecting on lately is how glad I am that plans I had for my life when I was younger didn’t work out. My life now is tremendously richer in many more ways than I ever could have imagined at 18.

When things don’t go according to plan it’s usually for a reason we aren’t quite capable of understanding yet. It’s important to maintain a level of humbleness and grace (and a little bit of humor doesn’t hurt either). I’ve learned that getting upset won’t change what’s happening in the moment. And maybe sometimes things don’t go according to plan so that better things can fall into place.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep151

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150: How the Crushing Weight of My Expectations Made Me Wanna Quit on Life

Steli Efti — Tue, 24 May 2022 16:00:00 +0000

Ever wake up and think of all the things you gotta do, and it just destroys you? I can't tell you how many times I woke up feeling miserable because of everything I'd have to tackle on that day. In my younger years, it would actually make me cancel everything and fall into a depression. Later I learned to willpower my way through my responsibilities, no matter how I felt about it, and that was a great step forward. But if you do that for too long, it eventually eats up your soul. You become very good at what you're doing, but you're also disconnecting from yourself. When the first thing you do every day is suppressing your feelings about what you will do today, you lose touch with yourself, and the longer you do this, the higher the price you eventually pay for it.

Today, I tried something different. A very simple tweak that made a huge difference—I'll talk about that in today's episode.

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Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep150

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149: All your problems start with a lie (Dostoyevsky's truth)

Steli Efti — Thu, 19 May 2022 16:00:00 +0000

Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth", wrote Dostoyevsky. And the longer I live, the more I realize this to be accurate. So many of life's problems boil down to struggles with truth. It's not just the lies we tell others: It's mostly the lies we tell ourselves, the truths we'd rather avert our eyes from. In short, it's the lies that we don't recognize as such, that often trip us up in life.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep149

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148: The Only Reason You’re Ever in a Hurry

Steli Efti — Tue, 17 May 2022 16:00:00 +0000

How often in life are we hurrying from one task to another on any given day? Or rushing hastily to reach the next big milestone ahead of us? I've been pondering this recently and had the realization that when we are in a hurry to do something, it's usually because there is an underlying fear of never getting there. We must remember that it's only by remaining present that we can take the necessary steps, at the right pace, to reach our end goal.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep148

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147: This Has Been Tried. This Is Certain (Love Conquers All Doubt)

Steli Efti — Thu, 12 May 2022 16:00:00 +0000

I've experienced love in so many new ways over the past year, have deepened and widened my relationship with and understanding of love so much—I was almost tempted to call this episode "The Power of Love", like a cheesy pop song. In this episode, I share some of these experiences, and how they moved me in sometimes unforeseen ways.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep147

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146: The Numbing Speed of Life (What Coming Out of Darkness Has Taught Me)

Steli Efti — Tue, 10 May 2022 16:00:00 +0000

Spending a week in complete darkness would be an intense experience. That I knew. What I didn’t anticipate was how intense it would be to come out of the darkness. In fact, re-entering normal life was an even wilder adventure than the dark retreat itself, and it profoundly changed the way I view the world.

In this episode, I share how coming back into the world of light has altered my understanding of myself and others, how we relate to our environment, and how we deal with the incessant ferocity of daily life.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep146

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145: The Light of Inner Darkness (My Dark Retreat Experience, Part 2)

Steli Efti — Sun, 08 May 2022 16:00:00 +0000

Darkness has illuminated my inner world. With nothing to see outside of me, I began to see things clear within: fears I didn’t know I grappled with. My complicated relationship with love. Mysterious light visions. While I shared the physical aspects of my dark retreat experience in episode 144, in this episode I focus on the emotional and psychological aspects.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep145

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144: Into the Darkness - My Dark Retreat Experience, Part 1

Steli Efti — Thu, 05 May 2022 16:00:00 +0000

I recently attended a dark retreat. I was in complete and utter darkness, alone, for an entire week. It was one of the most intense things I've ever done and I haven't really shared much about it with anyone until now.

In this episode, I will share the physical experiences of living in true darkness for five days, how my experience evolved as the week went on, and some of the initial learnings I’ve had about myself in darkness.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep144

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143: Turn Anxious Thoughts Into Peaceful Presence

Steli Efti — Tue, 03 May 2022 16:00:00 +0000

Recently I spent a week in complete darkness at a dark retreat. And very soon, I was faced with something I didn't expect: Anxiety. I wasn't even halfway through my first day of darkness, and out-of-control anxious thoughts kept appearing, and I had no idea how I'd make it through a week of darkness.

Until eventually I realized what the cause of all these anxious thoughts was, and how I could transform all that nervous energy into peaceful presence.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep143

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142: The Young Monk, the Old Monk, the Tiger and the Barking Dog

Steli Efti — Tue, 26 Apr 2022 16:00:00 +0000

I’ve been pondering a story for the last couple of days that I want to share with you. It’s a story I first heard at an ashram a few months ago about a young monk, a tiger and a barking dog. While it didn’t really move me at first, it’s been recently popping up in my mind, so in this episode I’m dissecting the metaphors and exploring it’s many meanings.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep142

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141: Listen to the Echoes Inside of You

Steli Efti — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 16:00:00 +0000

I just spent a week at a darkness retreat - all day and night for an entire week, I was alone in a room in complete darkness. It was a very intense experience - it felt like climbing Mount Everest with your mind. I knew returning to “normal” life after would be an adjustment, particularly since the work week ahead was going to be a very challenging one.

I decided to start the week with a small experiment to ease myself into work, and I discovered some surprising learnings as a result. In this episode, I share what I did and the importance of taking mindful breaks to do some inner listening. There's a lot that can be learned from the inner echoes of our own minds.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep141

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140: The Miracle of You

Steli Efti — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 16:00:00 +0000

An important point that I need to keep remembering is that it’s truly a miracle how adaptable we are. The capacity of a human being to heal and transform and overcome obstacles is tremendous. We are always healing, fixing and overcoming.

We need to remember that no matter what difficult situations or feelings we’re experiencing, we aren’t alone - millions of other people have or will also experience the same thing as you. Don’t let the “I should be better” syndrome creep in and create unnecessary fear and tension in your life. At the end of the day, everything in life can be fixed or changed.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep140

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139: The Feeling Was Inside of You Before You Knew

Steli Efti — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 16:00:00 +0000

How much of who you are in this very moment can you fully see and accept? It’s one of the hardest questions that life asks of us every day. In this episode, I discuss the human experience of how different situations bring out feelings that are already deep within us and the courage needed to seek out the underlying meaning contained within our own emotions.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep139

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138: Who is Your Heart-Donkey?

Steli Efti — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 16:00:00 +0000

I’ve been spending my mornings lately reading “The Essential Rumi”. I find his writing to be so beautiful, touching, creative and poetic and I’ve really enjoyed starting my days with reading his words.

One of the poems in this collection that has had a profound impact on me is “After the Meditation”. I’ve been stuck on it for the last week, re-reading it every morning and finding new meaning within it. In this episode, I discuss and dissect the poem and the concept of finding your “heart-donkey”.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep138

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137: The Challenging State of Non-Doing

Steli Efti — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 16:00:00 +0000

It’s been a very large part of my personality to define my self worth and the value I add to the world through what I’ve accomplished in a day. But I’ve learned that no matter how many to-do items I cross off my list, there’s never a sense of completion.

I’m now embracing the art form of non-doing. Non-doing isn’t the physical act of literally doing nothing, but a state of mind to achieve - peacefulness, awareness, presence. It’s the embodiment of an empty vessel, letting things happen through you and within you, but not being or becoming those things.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep137

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136: The Black Hole of Not Enough

Steli Efti — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 16:00:00 +0000

There’s a part of me that’s resurfaced recently that I haven’t had to face in months. It’s the part of me that is relentless in downplaying every single thing that I do - the inner voice that’s constantly whispering in my ear “you are not enough”.

This feeling is like quicksand; the faster I try to overcome it by filling my day with more actions and accomplishments, the quicker I drown. It took me a while to realize that "enough" is an attitude - not a physical or external state you can arrive at. It’s a conscious decision you have to make that requires a lot of courage. It begs the question: if life doesn’t owe us anything, why do we owe anything to life, or to the world?

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep136

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135: The Empty Calories of Discussing Other People's Lives

Steli Efti — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 16:00:00 +0000

Since moving back to Europe, I’ve noticed how much the conversations around me involve other people that aren’t in the room. Something about this is off to me—gossip isn’t something I consume or surround myself with. I don’t like it or find any value in it. But as I started reflecting and thinking about it more, it dawned on me that there are layers to gossip and different ways to experience it.

In this episode, I discuss all of these layers—the dangers and negative effects of gossip, but also the necessity of being validated by others and the challenges that come with navigating this fine line.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep135

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134: Do Your Inner Work At Home

Steli Efti — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 17:00:00 +0000

Where you do your inner work matters. Spiritual trips like retreats, yoga and meditation are vacations. The real inner work is done in the every day life - in your house, with your family and especially with those people in your life who are the most inconvenient. The ones that get under your skin and expose your inner wounds are your spiritual teachers, enlightening you to darker inner truths you carry inside of yourself.

In this episode I talk about the importance of doing inner work at home around family and the challenges I still face with this process.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep134

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133: What We Hate, We Embody

Steli Efti — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 17:00:00 +0000

This concept is something we’ve discussed in previous episodes, but there’s more to this idea that I want to dig deeper into. It’s the notion that there are two sides to the same coin - that what we hate about others, we embody within ourselves.

In this episode, I share a few different stories and anecdotes about my mother and her life that helped me realize that everything in its extremes is always wrong. The truth never lies at the extremes, it’s usually oscillating somewhere in the middle of the entire spectrum of life.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep133

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132: The Tyranny of Practicality

Steli Efti — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 17:00:00 +0000

“Shut the fuck up and do it anyways” used to be my mantra. I lived my life in such a disciplined, pragmatic way, which was great for producing results but I was so out of touch with my own thoughts and feelings that it was creating a negative impact in my life. I realized there is tyranny in practicality.

I’m not saying there’s no use in being pragmatic, but life is not always about being practical. How effective is it to think in such a disciplined way when it offers zero flexibility?

In this episode, I discuss the spectrum between practicality and flexibility and the challenges each side of the coin demands of us.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep132

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131: The Hidden Mirror of Truth

Steli Efti — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 02:58:00 +0000

You can’t be upset with others and at peace with yourself at the same time. Whatever negative thoughts you observe about someone else or the world around you is a direct projection and reflection of something you’re dealing with within yourself. I've been practicing this for years, and yet, it's still challenging to live this truth daily.

We’ve talked about this on the podcast before, but in this episode I’m diving in a little deeper.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep131/

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130: I Want to Be a Mystic When I Grow Up

Steli Efti — Sat, 26 Feb 2022 17:00:00 +0000

For the last 2 to 3 months I’ve been pondering the concept of mystics and the idea of mysticism. To me, a mystic is someone that is placing the mystery of life at the center of their being.

As someone who has lived so pragmatically for many years of my life, I found this concept to be wildly exciting, adventurous, and beautiful. I previously lived my life in a way that had so many steps and routines, it was working against me - hindering me from moving forward in the ways I wanted to. So now, I'm embracing a more mystical approach to experience a more expensive reality.

In this episode, I talk about the dangers of living too practically, why flexibility and living in the here and now is so important, and striking a balance between these two concepts.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep130

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129: Those Who Don’t Believe in Magic Will Never Find It

Steli Efti — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 17:00:00 +0000

I had an interesting experience recently at 4AM one morning where my hands turned into a tree. Not literally, of course, but they felt heavier, thicker, and larger than they really are. To me this was a symbolic display of how I was feeling recently with my two young sons. I had been constantly on the go and trying to be super dad 100% of the time - it was wearing me down.

This experience reminded me of an old truth - there’s as much magic in the world as your heart and mind is open to receiving. And there’s none if you choose to close yourself off from it all. If we remember to just do less, to relax and enjoy a bit more and go at a slower pace, there’s a chance to perceive some of the magic in the world in between every day moments.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep129

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128: The Danger of Puffing Away Clouds of Worry

Steli Efti — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 17:00:00 +0000

I recently had such a stressful dream that when I woke up, the feelings of worry, anxiety and guilt within my dream continued to linger long after I was awake. Typically when I have these little negative thought clouds, I’m able to effortlessly puff them away and return to a sunny state of mind. But I knew this dream was trying to tell me something, so I did an IFS meditation to decode this dream and what it was telling me about myself.

In this episode I walk through my distressful dream and discuss the consequences of puffing away negative thought clouds instead of confronting them head on.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep128

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127: What Is Your True Intention?

Steli Efti — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 17:00:00 +0000

For the past month I’ve been doing a daily practice of asking myself one specific question multiple times a day. It’s a very simple question and it isn’t some magical, life-changing technique, but it has been extremely illuminating in helping me identify certain patterns in my life. The question is “what is your true intention in this very moment?” And the answer I get most often is a hard truth to face: to avoid doing something else.

In this episode I discuss how this daily practice has helped me add more purpose and clarity in my day to day life by being more intentional with my actions, no matter how big or small they may be.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep127

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126: Bring Death Into Your Day

Steli Efti — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 17:00:00 +0000

I’ve been genuinely excited about returning to Germany - getting the chance to hug my children and see my mother, my brothers, my friends and loved ones. I had a moment of clarity when thinking about this upcoming reunion, and while it sounds cliche, I realized that every day is a gift. It’s not a given that I’ll make it to Germany. Tomorrow is never promised.

In this episode I talk about the concept of inviting death into my day - not as something to fear, but as something to deepen my appreciation and gratitude for each day and all the wonderful gifts I’ve been given in life.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep126

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125: My First Water Fast

Steli Efti — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 17:00:00 +0000

I recently did a five day water fast, with 4 days of juice fasting (2 leading up to and 2 after the water fast). In this episode, I share how I prepared myself for the fast, what I experienced, and what I learned about my relationship with food and life simply by withholding food for a week.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep125

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124: Experiencing God

Steli Efti — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 17:17:00 +0000

This episode is a deeply personal one in which I discuss my relationship and experience with God. Even talking about it now is still something I’m getting comfortable with. The way I experience God specifically is tricky business—it’s partially a science, partially an art.

I’ve been instilling certain practices into my daily life to help nourish this connectedness and by doing so, I’ve discovered that not only has my level of worry and stress decreased dramatically, but my appreciation for life has increased exponentially.

There’s so much I have to share about this and while it can be awkward or hard to put into words, this episode is my way of sharing this genuine experience with you.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep124

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123: How to Live a Thousand Lives

Steli Efti — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 16:00:00 +0000

As I was meditating recently, I had a realization - something I already knew, but was shifted into crystal clear focus for me. It was a beautiful moment that further clarified my tremendous gratitude and love for books and reading.

One of the most amazing experiences to me with reading is that you get to enter new worlds through different human beings—you get to live a thousand lives through many different books if you read them with an open heart and mind.

In this episode I discuss my love for reading and books, the journey I’ve had with reading throughout my life and how books have allowed me to live infinite lives through the stories they tell.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep123

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122: Next Level Anger Management: Appreciating My Inner Truth Teller

Steli Efti — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 17:00:00 +0000

I've spent a good amount of time over the past 2 years working on the anger that I thought I didn't have. And for the most part, I thought that I was good by now—I felt I had a good relationship with my anger. Until something unexpected happened: I got angry, and I hid it (even from myself). And then my jaw started to get painfully tense again, and it wouldn't relax. I started to work on it, tried all kinds of techniques that I have in my anger management toolbox, thought I had resolved the underlying issue—but my jaw still was tense. Ultimately, I learned that there was something for me to learn which I wasn't ready for, and I would never have uncovered, if it wasn't for my anger and its physiological manifestation, the tense jaw. It took a couple of days of inner work, which wasn't pleasant, but in hindsight, I'm incredibly grateful for the lesson learned.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep122

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121: The Impersonating Mind

Steli Efti — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 20:00:00 +0000

Listen to your heart. Get in touch with your body. Trust your intuition. All of these are easier said than done, because they require something from the mind it doesn't like to do: relinquish control. The mind always wants to run the show, and it won't hesitate for a moment to pretend to be all these different parts of ourselves, putting on the costume of the heart and imitating it's voice, telling us what it, the mind, wants us to hear, rather what the heart is actually telling us. In this episode, I share my daily experiences of unmasking the mind, and what I learned from doing so.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep121

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120: Englowment: A Recent Experience Along the Path to Enlightenment?

Steli Efti — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 14:09:00 +0000

I recently had an experience where I came close to what I believe enlightenment might feel like. This happened a few days after attending a silent retreat and going on a walk in nature—the intense state of pure love I experienced I'm now playfully going to be referring to as "englowment". It was a beautifully terrifying experience that was almost too much for my mind to comprehend. But since then, it’s led me to a new state of happiness and peace I haven’t previously experienced in my life. In this episode I’m sharing more about this experience and the lasting, positive impact it’s had on me for weeks after.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep120/

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119: Discovering Silence: 7 Ways I Practice Silence Daily

Steli Efti — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 17:00:00 +0000

Silence is an essential element of inner work. But in modern life, it's pretty much as rare as a precious metal. It's so easy to always be distracted, constantly consuming some kind of information or entertainment, engaging in some activity—we've got infinite ways to keep our minds busy. You have to consciously create silence in your life. Silence is the space in which insight and wisdom can grow, and in silence you can hear your inner voice loud and clear. Silence is holy. In this episode, I share 7 ways I create silence in my days, and how it has transformed my life.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep119/

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118: The Courage to Not Hide Your Struggles

Steli Efti — Sun, 09 Jan 2022 02:18:00 +0000

This is part of a conversation we've had in August of 2020, where we discussed the courage it takes to share your weaknesses. Many people think that I don't care what other people think about me—but nothing could be further from the truth. For most of my life, I cared deeply about impressing others, and I got very good at hiding my own struggles and weaknesses—not only from others, but even from myself. And I even judged people who shared their weaknesses openly, was repulsed by it. But healing doesn't happen in hiding—healing happens in the light.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep118/

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117: The Power of Timing

Steli Efti — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 09:38:00 +0000

Recently I've been experimenting a lot with timing: changing not so much what I do, not really adjusting my habits, but simply being more mindful of when I do these things. And I found that even doing the exact same thing can have an immensely different impact on my life just because of when I do it.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep117/

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116: Bewunderung—Keeping Your Sense of Wonder Alive

Steli Efti — Sat, 04 Dec 2021 12:17:00 +0000

There's a German word I really love: Bewunderung. It's commonly translate as 'admiration', but that doesn't quite capture the full meaning of the word. In this episode, I talk about the art of keeping and cultivating a sense of wonder about life, and the people in your life.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep116/

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115: Study Less, Do More: The Surprising Truths IFS Revealed

Steli Efti — Sun, 28 Nov 2021 07:29:00 +0000

I've now been studying Internal Family Systems (IFS) for a long time, and it's taught me so much about myself that I decided to take an online course on it. But I don't really want to learn more about IFS to know IFS. I want to learn more about IFS so I can use it for my own inner work. And so rather than mastering the theory of more aspects of IFS, I decided to instead really focus on applying what I learned to myself, and just do one exercise I found particularly helpful again and again—and it led to some surprising discoveries about myself.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep115/

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114: Why You Need to Remind Yourself of the Greatness Within

Steli Efti — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 10:21:00 +0000

A lot of spiritual practices try to teach you to become something or someone else, achieve a certain state of being. But you don't need that. Inner work is not about getting to some magical place where everything will be different. It's about living your own truth.

You already are what you need to become. You already know what you need to know.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep114/

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113: Michael Ende’s Weird Short Story: Einer langen Reise Ziel

Steli Efti — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 04:18:00 +0000

We chat about a surreal short story by Michael Ende named "Einer langen Reise Ziel" (Destination of a Long Journey). It's the first story in his collection of short stories called Das Gefängnis der Freiheit (Prison of Freedom), and how "search and you shall find" might sometimes mean something very different from what we commonly assume.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep113/

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112: Don’t Listen to This if You Want to Learn Anything

Steli Efti — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 02:58:00 +0000

I won't even try to describe what this episode is about.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep112/

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111: Tricks of the Mind: I Was Thinking My Feelings

Steli Efti — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 06:22:00 +0000

I've always been a very cerebral person, relying primarily on my intellect to achieve my goals and solve problems I encounter. For a very long time, I equated the mind with myself. I viewed the body as a vehicle that just carries my mind. But as I started getting more in touch with my feelings, I also started paying more attention to my body—and began to realize that it's so much more than just a vehicle. The body has it's own wisdom.

Recently I decided to pay more attention to what my body tells me—and soon caught my mind pretending to be my body.

When you bring mind, body, and soul in harmony, when you connect the different parts within you, then you also become whole and feel more connected with everything around you.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep111/

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110: What’s the Difference Between Presence and Awareness?

Steli Efti — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 12:40:00 +0000

I've often used the words presence and awareness interchangeably—but they're really not. They're two distinctly different things, and in this episode, I discuss the difference, and talk about my recent experiments with awareness.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/presence-vs-awareness/

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109: Michael Ende, Practicing Patience, and the Power of Doing 1 Thing Wholy

Steli Efti — Sat, 06 Nov 2021 10:02:00 +0000

Here's a conversation we've had about Michael Ende, Author of The Neverending Story, Momo, and other great books. We then touched on the beauty of poetry and song lyrics, going on awareness walks, having 1-on-1's with my sons, how interpreting my mother's dream put my patience to the test, the difference between patience and persistence, turtles, being time-poor or time-rich, having a Momo moment, eating mindfully, reclaiming lost phone time, my new routine of doing nothing for 30 minutes in the morning, having richer experiences simply by being more aware, the hidden costs of multi-tasking, the power of doing 1 thing wholy, and how we can let random little items determine our path in life if we lack awareness.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/iwp109/

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108: Magic Mornings: The Power of the Day’s First Hour

Steli Efti — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 08:02:00 +0000

How do you design your optimal morning? Every night as we sleep and dream, we enter a profoundly altered state of consciousness, we process and integrate our experiences of the day. Rather than immediately jumping into tackling tasks for the day, or distracting yourself with social media, build a set of morning rituals that become your transition from being asleep to being awake.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/magic-mornings/

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106: Should You Do X? Only if It Gives You Energy

Steli Efti — Sun, 17 Oct 2021 17:38:00 +0000

It's so easy to lose yourself in all the things you "should be doing". It's so easy to come up with an endless list of things that would be good for your career, your wealth, your well-being. But if you do all these things, more often than not you'll end up climbing a ladder that leads you to the wrong place.

There's a better way of choosing what you do: Do more of what gives you energy.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/should-you-do-x/

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105: Embracing Life’s Perfect Imperfection

Steli Efti — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:37:00 +0000

What you most reject is what holds the greatest potential for growth. Whether it's a feeling you don't want to feel, a person with whom you have a challenging relationship—it's typically what you want to avoid that reveals your deep truths.

Which is one of the reasons why I try to embrace life's perfect imperfections and practice doing my inner work. When I wake up feeling down for no good reason at all, and nothing that I do gets me out of that funky state? Not the yoga, not the meditation, not the espresso, not going for a walk, not listening to music, not a conversation with a good friend. Rather than trying to not feel that feeling, or to "get over it", I try to embrace it. Work with it. Listen to what it has to teach me, and try to find my way of flowing in the stream of life.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/lifes-perfect-imperfection/

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104: Fixing Other People’s Problems Instead of Dealing With Your Own

Steli Efti — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 03:48:00 +0000

Imagine having a friend with a drinking problem. You can clearly see they're on a path that'll lead them down a bad road. You offer your help and invite them to stay with you in your home. You'll take care of them so that they can get their life together. Except, that your friend doesn't think they have a drinking problem.

But you insist and convince them to accept your help. You house and feed them, find books, set them up with coaches and support groups... only to find that they keep drinking in your room while you're out working.

What do you think are the chances that this will actually end up helping your friend?

And more importantly: What inner work are you avoiding in your own life by dedicating yourself to this unsolicited rescue mission?

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/fixing-other-peoples-problems/

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103: My Fear of Stagnation: What if I Stop Changing and Evolving?

Steli Efti — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 11:30:00 +0000

Every year I want to change, evolve, level up. I hate stagnation, fear it. There's nothing more terrifying to me than the thought that I could have peaked already, that it's never going to be more than what is now. I still think that the wish to evolve and grow is fine. But being terrified of the possibility that this won't happen? What good does that do? So in this episode, I ponder the question whether I should try to make peace with the possibility that maybe there won't be any next levels for me.

I also want to be the kind of person that has something to offer: whether that's entertaining stories, enlightening conversation, or valuable advice. When I meet friends, I feel a desire to give them something—even if it's just a good time. But sometimes being with friends is just about that: spending time together, without feeling responsible for making it a great time.

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Transcript:  
[00:00:00] One interesting conversation that I had with Basti in Greece was a conversation about the urge or need to be valuable for me. It's such as that. I mean, there's certain themes in my life, right? I always want it to be worthy and valuable and significant. And I also want it to always be impressive. Like impressing people was important, living a significant life.  
[00:00:27] Was always important feeling like my life is valuable that I'm using this gift and doing things with it, that it seemed worthwhile. That always, as far as I can remember, was very important to me. And for the past, maybe 20 years, I have talked and shared this theme and we talked about this the very first time we talked about doing an old.  
[00:00:49] The project was in Thailand in the car and we're debating who the fuck is, Steli FD and where's the journey going next and what do I have to offer to the world? And what do I care about? What makes me special? [00:01:00] And I remember us talking a lot about this drive that I have for growth and change. And I've always talked about this theme that if I look back at the last year, And I don't think Steli a year ago was an idiot and didn't know shit.  
[00:01:14] It makes me afraid. It brings a certain type of panic to me because it makes me feel like, well, I guess I've wasted. I, nothing has happened. Like I still think the stuff that I thought a year ago. Well two years ago is right. And a more or less the same person that terrifies me. That means nothing really of significance has happened in my evolution.  
[00:01:34] I mean, we talked about me being a bit more self aware sometimes of some of the funnier versions of this, right? Some of the things that seem less valuable, like being in the pool, playing with my children, but then staying long in the pool so that other people see how amazing of a dad I am like that kind of.  
[00:01:49] And I've noticed it more, more present. So more often than not, I could tell sometimes these little moments where I would consider how I would be [00:02:00] perceived by others an hour from now or tomorrow morning or something else. And then I would have to tell myself, well, who gives a fuck? Just relax. Right. Just relax.  
[00:02:09] So Boston comes to visit me and Sophia and the day busty showed up. His flight was arriving at like 6:00 PM in Greece. And my mother was visiting in the morning to spend a day with me in the city in Greece. And I woke up and instantly I could tell that I was super nervous in the morning. It's another feeling that it's so funny.  
[00:02:29] I felt this feeling so much in my life in so crazy now to me, that I never realized that I was feeling nervous now. Feel it. I also remember how I related to it before and it almost breaks my mind. It always makes me go, how did I feel this? And did not know it? Like, how is that even possible? It breaks my mind.  
[00:02:54] It is also like a, it's both a blessing and a curse, right? It's always a curse where you don't know what to do [00:03:00] with the feeling when you are afraid of it, when you run away from it, when it scares you overwhelms you, it's always a curse. It's sucks. It's much better not to feel it. If you want to be operationally functioning, you could like go out on a stage and bring an amazing talk that excites, you know, thousands of people.  
[00:03:17] Because he didn't feel it. No, no, no, no, no, no. I don't buy that. We will see next time I have to go on stage, but I don't think that that was it. I think that I always intuitively utilize my nervousness on stage in the right way and I would do it. Like, I don't think that that was the thing, you know, what, what not quote unquote feeling nervous.  
[00:03:34] What it gave me is unfortunately, Much less of a present it's bit. You would say in German. It's sort of like not pitiful, but it's just, it's not awesome. Right? It's not like that great of a thing. Do you know what it gave me? What he gave me was that an hour of five minutes before going on stage, when people would approach.  
[00:03:55] And I would talk to them if they would be impressed that I seem to not [00:04:00] care. And then they would ask me, do you never get nervous? And I would go, nah, not really in their mind. They'd be like, wow, this guy is better than me. Wow. This guy's coolness. That's really all I got out of it. So nobody saw that I was nervous and people were impressed by how cool.  
[00:04:19] You know, bougie. I was like, I was just like, ah, a minute before going on stage, I could be doing something else because I can't be bothered. And then it's like stage time and everybody knows Steli the moment his feet touch. The stage magic happens is on, is more than impressing people before and after then it helped be on stage.  
[00:04:36] It really didn't do that much on stage for me, I think. We will see that that's true, but it was more that it was more, you know, even friends, family, employees, like employees would hang out with me team members before I would go on stage and they would get nervous and then they would be impressed that I wouldn't be nervous.  
[00:04:55] That was the benefit I was collecting from. It is not showing people. I'm just a fucking. [00:05:00] I want it to be above that feeling. I'm not nervous. I don't give a fuck. And part of it is true. I mean, I do give a lot of a fuck, but part of me also doesn't give a fuck. Say it's a bit of a mixed soup. There's lots of ingredients in there.  
[00:05:12] One of it is that I do not care and there's lots of ingredients in there that are, that I care a lot. Right. There's a beautiful contradiction in there, but I never wanted any. To look at me and go, ah, look, he's shitting in his pants because he's about to go on stage. That to me, seemed to week. And so I never gave anybody that satisfaction and I never gave myself the shame that I would've felt back then by somebody coming up to me and me having to go, I can't talk to you right now.  
[00:05:38] I'm too nervous. Sometimes somebody would give a talk and they would say something like this to somebody else. Or they would very obviously be nervous walking up and down reading their paper. And I would just go. Amateur, you know, I was just like, huh? I would never say anything. The grading I've always been very encouraging and nice outwardly, but in my mind, I'd be like, I can't believe this.  
[00:05:58] Person's still nervous. She's done it a [00:06:00] hundred times. Why is she so nervous? It was like childish. The way I saw nervousness is like, we can childish. And so I was like, I never going to have anybody see me in that state. I mean, I started this very young. I didn't know I was doing this. I really didn't know.  
[00:06:15] I didn't think I'm going to hide my nervousness. I just didn't feel. The nervousness. So I was like, oh, I guess I don't have it. I'm not sure if it helped me be brilliant on stage. I think it helped me more protect my ego before and afterwards, because I would have felt ashamed if people knew that I'm nervous.  
[00:06:31] I thought that I care too much or that like, I couldn't go to the bathroom this morning because I have a talk at 3:00 PM that kind of like, I'm so nervous. I like these warning signs. You know, go take a shit the day that I would give a talk, but I wouldn't notice that that's kind of out of the ordinary.  
[00:06:48] Maybe this relates to some tension in my body, you know, holding on, you know, being afraid to let go that was blind and deaf to all these sides. I did not know. And then afterwards we talked about [00:07:00] this, even before I realized to some degree what was going on, that I would get off stage, get showered in love and praise, not accept any.  
[00:07:06] Run back to the hotel room and I would emotionally like collapse. I would just energetically being exhausted. I would think I didn't do this much today. I woke up check the email. I went to the venue. I had a coffee. I went on stage for 30 minutes and I came back to the. Like I didn't do this much. Why am I this exhausted?  
[00:07:25] And now I think, well, I carried a lot of nervousness and a lot of excitement, a lot of energy in me. And then I released it very violently on stage to the crowd and I had to hide all this other stuff that was going on in front of me and in front of the world. It's a shit ton of work, but in my mind, it was a cool, calm as a cucumber.  
[00:07:44] And then work this morning. I just walked to the venue, drink a coffee, went on stage. Okay. The stage thing I had, I'll admit 30 minutes. I give a talk that took energy of 40 minutes to an hour, but why am I this done for the rest of the day? It's like, yeah. Well, [00:08:00] coming back to nervous. I thought, why am I nervous?  
[00:08:05] And then I thought, well, my mommy's coming to the city and I want to show her an amazing day. Like she's not just coming and visiting me at home. She's visiting me at this really beautiful apartment. And I want to give her a great date, show her a little bit of my world. Like we'll go to beautiful coffees and restaurants and eat really well and show a little bit of the good life that my.  
[00:08:25] It's not as exposed to as I am. So is okay. There's some nervousness because I really want it to be a beautiful day for her. And then I thought in shit, buses coming. And he's going to arrive. And typically I would want to have something great planned for tonight and I would want to be like sinking up and chatting.  
[00:08:43] And now I'll have to tell him, Hey, my mom is here all day, come to the apartment. I'll give you keys. But tonight you're on your own. I'm going to dinner with my mom again, mentally. It was totally cool with that. I was like, I know him. He's totally cool to be on his own. Like there's no problem there whatsoever, but there was a part of me that's [00:09:00] still.  
[00:09:00] Nervous about it, nervous about having a guest come and not attend to the guest felt kind of weird. And then when my mom showed up, finding enough on the drive, her friend was driving her to the city and I could tell on the phone that my mom was super stressed out. Can't find the street. Where should we stop that?  
[00:09:18] A dad? And I'm like, mom. Relax. Do you know, there's a white tower in this aisle? Nicky is a very kind of known landmark. I'm like, just let him get out there. I'll go and pick you up there. And I can just tell she's like, okay, but can we stop the car there? And th and she's just like stressed. If she's, she's like escaping some refugee camp or something, but it's just like coming to hang out with me.  
[00:09:41] I go to pick her up on the way back. Old Steli was in my head and was saying, why is he always so stressed about these little things? Like, she's just here to hang out with our sunlight. I could tell she didn't sleep at night. She was like, so nervous and stressed about the whole thing. And then I thought, well, motherfucker, you right.  
[00:09:57] You're nervous. You're nervous about the same [00:10:00] thing. Why are you? And then I thought shit all these times that I judged her overreacting to things I might've overreacted. Hidden that from myself. And so I didn't know, it didn't show. And so I go pick her up and I hug her and I go, how are you doing? And she's like, I'm doing well.  
[00:10:14] And then she started telling me how her friend was too nervous and too stressed about little things in the drive here and everything. And I'm like, mom, I think you also sounded a bit stressed to me. She's like me. No, I'm totally calm. I'm not stressed. I'm not nervous that dah, dah, dah, dah. I'm like, okay.  
[00:10:26] And then as we walked, I told her mom, you know, what's funny this morning I was nervous. And she's like, you really? And I said, yeah, And she asked, well, why. I said, because you are coming today, I realized it's really important to me to spend this day with you and make sure that it's a beautiful day for you.  
[00:10:46] And so I got nervous because you said, ah, you don't have to be nervous. You know, I was also very nervous for today. And then she's like, and then like, it's like five minutes ago, she was like, I'm not nervous. I'm not stressed. And she said, oh, you don't have to be nervous. And then she start. [00:11:00] Just like a waterfall.  
[00:11:01] Just tell me all these stories and just talking to me. And we ended up having a beautiful day together, a really, really beautiful day that I'll treasure forever. And the next morning I go to get my new tattoo and my next friend is showing up and I go, what is it that I. Appointments, any time a friend is arriving, a guest is arriving and I can't attend to them.  
[00:11:21] And my mind has to say, it's totally fine, but you know, I can tell that I'm a little stressed about it. And so I paid attention to this and over the next two or three days, multiple times, I had this nervous voice in my head that was saying, you're not. Well enough as a guest, like this is not an impressive enough visit for these people.  
[00:11:40] For the guests as a host, this is not an impressive enough visit. Look, Sophia really wants to party and go wild and you don't feel like it. And you went out one night and did a bit of that. He would want to do that for four nights and you didn't. And I had a bit of a anxiety around that all, should I go out tonight?  
[00:11:57] Should I create something crazy tomorrow for him? [00:12:00] And then I thought about Boston, like, oh, busty. He always wants these types of experiences. And I didn't give him any of that. Maybe I should do this and that. And then I thought, huh. This is not Disneyland. I didn't promise a specific, I just promised some time with me.  
[00:12:12] I didn't not my job. Just let go. And funny enough, just a few hours later, and busty brought this up the day before at breakfast, he asked me a question and part of me didn't want to answer it because I thought if I answer, I have to answer fully. Fully, this is going to take a lot of energy for me. It's going to be a very vulnerable story and something that's very important to me.  
[00:12:34] So I'm going to exhaust a lot of energy and I kind of just want to sit. Eat my breakfast. And I had this back and forth for just a split second in my mind, and I decided to share. And so I went into like sharing that story and sharing these insights and we had a big conversation about it. It was all great.  
[00:12:50] But afterwards I was depleted. So the next day, as I'm having these thoughts, busty starts talking about, and he said, you know, what I've noticed about you Steli is that [00:13:00] it's incredibly important for you. To create value and to be valuable. And he's like yesterday at breakfast, I could tell that you didn't want to tell the story and then you still went ahead and did it.  
[00:13:13] And I feel like you did it because you felt a responsibility to share that with me, to give me what I wanted. And I just want you to know. It doesn't matter. I don't need you to do anything. I love you. And you don't have to do something for that. Like you could just, you could just chill. You don't have to give me your wisdom.  
[00:13:29] You don't have to advise me. You have to do all these things. I just love you for who you are, which was both beautiful as a statement from him as a friend. But I could tell. Internally, I am at odds with that statement. And I could tell that part of me was thinking, yeah, sure. Like this weekend, I really don't have to do something crazy.  
[00:13:46] We had a good time. I don't need to create things for people. And I've gotten better at reining that urge back or calming it down at times. But on the flip side also have another voice of me that says bull shit. If I never [00:14:00] advised you, if I never helped you out all these times that you needed help. If I that.  
[00:14:05] Shared wisdom with you. If I wasn't who I am, if I hadn't done all these things that you found attractive and valuable, and that have helped you and benefited your life and created some type of enjoyment, who would I be? And how would you relate to me? Right? Like, of course we all are worthwhile creatures by birthright.  
[00:14:26] Every baby's as lovable as the next one, but there's also a part of me. That's like, well, but if you grow up to be a, an adult, that's not doing anything for anybody, including themselves, how are all these people are going to be? You know, what is driving that love then? And that admiration based on what you just breathe.  
[00:14:45] Is that it out a part of me thought, well, maybe it's not an all in all out, right? Maybe it's you create value to do nice things, but you are not a slave of that. You don't have to do that all the time obligated to do that. You could create a ton of [00:15:00] value. And then the next couple of times we will meet you.  
[00:15:02] You don't do anything for them. Right. And you don't have to, and you don't tell any impressive stories and you don't share any crazy wisdom. You just hang out and laugh or relax. Or be tired of be sad. And that's that, that's how you are these days. And then he brought up the question and we'll have to discuss this another time of, well, what would happen if in the next 10 years, nothing significant happened.  
[00:15:26] Like you didn't learn anything, great new wisdom nuggets. You didn't change to this complete new person. You didn't develop totally new hotbeds. You didn't experience completely new things. What have been the next thing. You all who you are today, you know, the things you know today, you look like you look today, you live the kind of life that you live today.  
[00:15:44] You know, why would that be that bad? Like, you're a pretty dope person. Like why, why would you have to change? And I told him, I completely agree now, as I think about it, This should not terrify me, but in reality it deeply, deeply [00:16:00] terrifies me. Right. It terrifies the, I fucking, you know, shit in my pants. If I think even in five years, I'm the same person as I am today, not intent.  
[00:16:10] And I think there's something interesting there to explore for me a bit further. Again, that drive makes me who I am. It's not about like crushing it or letting it go, but it's about understanding. That drives some times is also in the way of me just being right and like being too stressed about having a week where nothing has happened or a month, or having somebody visit me and not creating an amazing experience for them, that creates stress.  
[00:16:36] So it was interesting to hear him challenge me on one of the things that I've taken away is that. Pride in, you know, one of the things I'm most proud of is that the last two years ago, Steli and today's tele were very different people. I fucking love that. I'm so happy about that. It gives me pride and joy.  
[00:16:53] So maybe it wouldn't be that bad if that didn't happen in the next two years is challenging thought experiment.[00:17:00]

102: Decoding Dreams: Seeing Hidden Truths With Eyes Closed

Steli Efti — Mon, 27 Sep 2021 10:04:00 +0000

Ever since reading Carl Jung, I got interested in dream interpretation, but most of the time I don't feel like interpreting my dreams. A dream I recently had though made me think that there was a message waiting for me. So in this episode, I go through the exercise of decoding my dream.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/decoding-dreams/

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101: The Art of Accepting Help (When You Think You Don’t Need It)

Steli Efti — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 17:32:00 +0000

Oftentimes the people who think they need help the least are the ones that need it the most. I've always been a giver. I always loved to help others. But asking for, and receiving help, that was something I struggled much more with in some areas of my life. And I know plenty of people for whom this is true as well. So in this episode, I talk about the inner work involved in accepting that we need help when we do, and receiving the blessings that life sometimes has in store for us with humility and appreciation.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/accepting-help/

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100: The Courage to Be a Degenerate

Steli Efti — Sun, 12 Sep 2021 15:29:00 +0000

After 100 episodes of intimate navel-gazing and serious inner work, it's time so start sharing some of the silly goofing around we do in between. Expect nothing meaningful from this episode. We're talking Jocko Willink, Charles Bukowski, the courage of degenerates, and the cowardice of choosing to live your life in the safe harbor of propriety.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/courage-to-be-degenerate/

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099: The Neverending Story: How We Narrate Our Every Moment

Steli Efti — Fri, 10 Sep 2021 15:35:00 +0000

I started paying more attention to the soundtrack of my live—that inner narator that constantly makes up stories about what it is I do. And I started experimenting with it: What if I change the narration? What if I switch it off? What if I give my narration a theme, so that whatever I do is viewed through and guided by that particular idea?

The way we talk to ourselves is a big part of inner work, and I revisit this area of my life every once in a while and learn something new, try something new, and more often than not am surprised by what I find.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/how-we-narrate-our-every-moment/

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098: The Potato Chip Friendship

Steli Efti — Sat, 04 Sep 2021 15:44:00 +0000

Recently while on vacation in Greece I was looking for some more lighthearted literature and picked up Charles Bukowski's Ham on Rye. Well, let's say it wasn't exactly the feelgood read I sought, but the story of the potato chip friendship stuck with me.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/potato-chip-friendship/

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097: What My Insecure Loser Friend Taught Me About Self-Esteem

Steli Efti — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 15:51:00 +0000

First of all: My friend is not an insecure loser. He's an amazing person that I enjoy to spend time with and learn from. But he sometimes thinks that others think of him as a loser. And let's be honest: Deep down, most of us are scared on some level that we're losers.

I'm very good at exuding confidence. I can walk into a room and people think I own it. But that's not always how I feel inside. And after spending a week with this dear friend in Greece, I discovered new layers of my own self-esteem.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/insecure-loser-friend/

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096: Kissing My Mother’s Feet

Steli Efti — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 15:28:00 +0000

I was recently on vacation with my family and shared a very special moment with my mother: For the first time in decades, I felt like the child of my mother—and her being my parent. I've stepped into the role of being her protector, coach, caretaker, and teacher for such a long time that I forgot what being a child even felt like.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/kissing-my-mothers-feet/

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095: What I Learned From My Grandfather

Steli Efti — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 18:04:00 +0000

It was 2007, I had just moved to the US, when I received a call from my brother: My grandfather had died. I was his namesake, and his favorite grandchild. People always told me how much I came after him. He was a larger than life character, always believed that I was special, that I was destined for greatness. I had learned so much from him, and now he was gone. I felt terrible. And then somehow, I felt the desire to write him a last, final letter. In this episode, I re-read this letter for the first time in many years.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/papou/

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094: Fatherhood Odyssey - What My Son’s Neediness Taught Me About Myself

Steli Efti — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 07:58:00 +0000

My youngest son has a seemingly insatiable desire for attention from his mom. Sometimes it escalates into awkward neediness, and it hurt me seeing my son feel this way. I tried to step in and "save" him from feeling this way—but to no avail. Only his mom's attention would do. And recently, I wondered: Why does this affect me so much?

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/my-sons-neediness/

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093: Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky

Steli Efti — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 13:09:00 +0000

In this episode I share my thoughts after reading Dostoyevsky's Crime And Punishment. A much more effortful, and less rewarding read than I had hoped, but I do love how deep it goes into the central theme of the story—which is what happens when we go against our own moral compass.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/crime-and-punishment/

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092: Meeting My Inner Endurer

Steli Efti — Sun, 08 Aug 2021 05:16:00 +0000

I've yet again learned about another part of myself: It's the part that I call The Endurer, and it's one of the parts that my core Self hasn't fully integrated, or even acknowledged enough. I like to highlights other parts of myself that seem more impressive and heroic. But much of inner work is seeing all of yourself, and often what you find is humbling.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/meeting-my-inner-endurer

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091: Lying Is a Delightful Thing, for It Leads to Truth

Steli Efti — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 04:29:00 +0000

"Lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth" wrote Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment. We discuss how you arrive at the truth through lying, and then about the twisted lies of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, how her insistence on denying her own truth eventually leads to her ending her life.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/lying-leads-to-truth/

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090: The Dangers of Overcorrecting Your Mistakes

Steli Efti — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 07:12:00 +0000

Sometimes we don't learn from our mistakes at all, and we keep repeating them again and again. And sometimes we overcorrect our mistakes so much, that we just replaced one mistake with another mistake.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/dangers-of-overcorrecting/

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089: Don’t Give Advice, Create Connection

Steli Efti — Sun, 25 Jul 2021 03:40:00 +0000

I recently had a conversation with a friend who's been through a couple of challenging months. And as he shared his struggles with me, my initial response was to share how I in the past had overcome struggles similar to the one he had described. And now, the conversation was going well... but it wasn't really flowing. We weren't connecting as friends. It was more like a coaching session—but that wasn't the point of our conversation. I'm not his coach, he's not my mentee. We're friends. And as I noticed this, I switched gears. Rather than trying to present him solutions, I started to just share some of my own recent struggles. And that instantly changed the dynamic of our conversation. Now we were connecting as friends, just shooting the shit, laughing, having a great time—and funny enough, the impact of our conversation was probably much deeper than if we'd have continued down the "coaching call" path.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/advice-vs-connection/

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088: Stop Hiding Your Enthusiasm

Steli Efti — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 06:50:00 +0000

This episode is an outtake from a conversation where I realized how I stifle my enthusiasm because I want to protect myself from the pain of embarrassment and disappointment. One of the greatest things about my younger self was how passionate I was about my dreams and goals (I talked about that in episode 82). I decided to stop hiding my enthusiasm, and embrace that sense of unfettered excitement. There's too much inner work to be done, and I can't let my fear of looking foolish get in the way.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/stop-hiding-your-enthusiasm/

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087: Less Discussions, More Decisions

Steli Efti — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 09:09:00 +0000

Many years ago in the early days of Close, my cofounders and I would go out for dinner once a week to discuss the business. These discussions were good, but oftentimes they were just that: discussions. At some point, Anthony said: "Let's stop talking about all these different things and make a decision. What's one thing we can decide right now?"

This was gamechanging for us, and in this episode, I share how I'm using a similar framework in my personal relationships and in my inner work.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/less-discussions-more-decisions/

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086: The Joy of Inner Conflict in Tolstoy's Writing

Steli Efti — Sat, 10 Jul 2021 05:29:00 +0000

One thing I love about Tolstoy's writing is with how much insight and empathy he's making the characters of his novels come alive. I learn so much about myself, and humanity in general by reading Anna Karenina, a novel written more than 100 years ago—much more than I've gained from reading a hundred books on psychology. In this episode, I'm geeking out on some of my favorite characters of the story, and like the beautifully lighthearted Oblonsky.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/inner-conflict-in-tolstoys-writing/

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085: The Dance of Anger: Are You Over- or Underfunctioning?

Steli Efti — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 02:01:00 +0000

One of the most insightful books on managing anger I've read is The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships, and in this episode I discuss the concept of overfunctioning and underfunctioning.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/dance-of-anger-over-or-underfunctioning/

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084: How to Change the Way I Feel About Germany?

Steli Efti — Sat, 03 Jul 2021 01:10:00 +0000

I grew up in Germany, and spent most of my life there. And yet, I never felt at home in Germany, never liked living there. If Germany was a family member of mine, it would be a heartless, cold, disapproving stepdad—that's how I'd describe it.

But I don't want to feel that way. My family lives here, many of my friends live here, and whether I like it or not, Germany will be part of my life for the rest of my life. So in this episode, I'm wondering how I can improve my relationship with Germany? What kind of inner work will it take to make Germany a place that I like staying at?

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/the-way-i-feel-about-germany/

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083: The Beautiful Wisdom of Anna Karenina's Derailing Marriage

Steli Efti — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 09:22:00 +0000

I've been reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina recently, and absolutely love this book for the sharpness with which he looks at relationships, and how people communicate. There's so much wisdom within these pages, about misunderstandings beyond repair, painful truths and the convenient lies we sometimes hope for.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/anna-kareninas-derailing-marriage/

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082: What Would I Want to Learn From My Younger Self?

Steli Efti — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 09:24:00 +0000

There's a popular interview question I've been asked many times: What's one piece of advice you'd give your younger self? To me, a much more interesting question if I could travel back in time and meet my younger self would be: What could I learn from my younger self?

In this episode, I share my thoughts around that, and in a way, I do meet a younger version of myself: By watching an interview Scobelizer did with me just after my arrival in the US 14 years ago.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/learn-from-my-younger-self/

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081: Meeting My Inner Narrator

Steli Efti — Sun, 13 Jun 2021 12:26:00 +0000

I recently had another IFS session on an elliptical, and this time it led to an unexpected encounter with my inner narrator.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/meeting-my-inner-narrator/

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080: Make Your Inner Critic Part of Your Creative Practice

Steli Efti — Thu, 03 Jun 2021 11:14:00 +0000

Whenever you pour your heart into a creative endeavor, those critical thoughts can derail you.

"You can't do this."

"This isn't good enough."

"Who do you think you are to even try?"

(And yeah—I'm holding back here. The voices in my head are much harsher.)

You can try to fight these voices. That's been my go-to-strategy for much of my life. "STFU, I'm gonna do it anyway."

That works. Sometimes. But over time, it also gets very, very tiring.

Now, I'm trying something different.

I listen to these voices. I appreciate them for speaking up, because I know: They have a reason for saying these things. There's an underlying positive intent. I might not always understand that intent, nor agree with it. But I do believe that these critical parts of myself have my best interest at heart.

This is changing me, and changing the way I work.

I noticed this again on the second day of my 30 day creative writing challenge.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/inner-critic-friend/

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079: My 30 Day Creative Writing Challenge (Another Elliptical Session)

Steli Efti — Mon, 31 May 2021 11:11:00 +0000

I've had another inner work session on the elliptical, and this time I've addressed a major emotional challenge of mine: chronic tension.

I've had a very vocal inner critic that used to be the driving force in my life, and it drove me to success in many areas of my life. But it came at a high cost. I felt miserable.

Part of my inner work journey has been to free myself from that critical inner voice. But now I wonder if silencing my inner critic just led to it manifesting itself in chronic tension.

I gotta acknowledge that my inner critic is an important force in my life. I just don't want it to be that harsh, disapproving voice anymore. Maybe channeling that energy into the form of a challenge is a healthier choice.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/creative-writing-challenge/

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078: My Elliptical Inner Workout

Steli Efti — Sun, 30 May 2021 08:42:00 +0000

I've recently had an interesting experience doing an IFS (Internal Family Systems) audio workshop while working out on a threadmill. There's something about working out physically while also doing inner work with your mind that I sparked my curiosity.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/elliptical-inner-workout/

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077: My Full Body Meditation

Steli Efti — Sat, 29 May 2021 14:14:00 +0000

About a year ago I had my first therapeutic MDMA session, and one of the biggest gifts that stayed with me is a type of meditation. This is the first time that I talk about this meditation and what it has done for me—and while I found it challenging to articulate this in detail, what does come through in this conversation is how immensely valuable it is, and how it has become a core part of my inner work practice.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/body-meditation/

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076: Who Is My Inner Critic?

Steli Efti — Wed, 26 May 2021 21:06:00 +0000

I'm highly self-critical by nature, often to a fault. A good amount of the inner work I've been doing over the past 2 years has been about reigning that part of myself in. But now that I'm exploring the IFS (Internal Family Systems) I had a realization: While my inner critic has been the dominant voice in my head for most of my life... I don't actually know much about this part of myself.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/who-is-my-inner-critic/

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075: Why Naming My Feelings Was a Gamechanger

Steli Efti — Mon, 24 May 2021 11:46:00 +0000

I've talked about how out of touch with my emotions I was here many times. One of the things that helped me changes this tremendously was a very simple exercise: I simply started to name my emotions. In this episode, I share how I've benefitted from naming my feelings, and why it's become part of my inner work routine.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/naming-feelings/

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074: Are You Fragmented or Fully Present? The Art of Handling Inner Conflict

Steli Efti — Sun, 16 May 2021 01:35:00 +0000

In this episode, I talk about when parts of myself are at conflict with each other. I'm the type of person that's very good at pushing myself to do things, I've got a strong inner pusher. But there's also a part of me that sometimes just want to relax, take it easy and goof off. That in and of itself is fine—we all have those parts in us. The problem arises when these two parts of myself work against each other. If I want to relax, but my inner pusher keeps screaming at me that I better take care of all these things... well, then I'm neither relaxing, nor doing work: I'm fragmented, not fully present. And that's not how I want to live life: I want to be all-in, fully engaged and present.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/fragmented-or-fully-present/

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073: The Parts of Myself I Want to Get Rid Of

Steli Efti — Tue, 11 May 2021 12:40:00 +0000

In this episode I talk about an idea I've been exploring for a while now: That we're all made up of different parts, and how they often conflict with each other.

There was a time when I thought the best way to deal with the undesirable parts is to just eliminate them, to get rid of them. Now, rather than looking at an isolated part, I try to first understand: What's the function this part fulfills in the larger system?

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/parts-of-myself/

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072: My Journey as a Liar

Steli Efti — Thu, 29 Apr 2021 13:31:00 +0000

There's a reason why being true and authentic matter so much to me: I know what's on the other side. When I was young, especially during my early teenage years, I lied a lot, habitually. In this episode, which is a conversation I've had back in September of 2020, I share my long and winding path to truth and authenticity.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/my-journey-as-a-liar/

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071: Am I Too Deep in the Rabbit Hole of Introspection?

Steli Efti — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 11:07:00 +0000

The past couple of weeks being back in Germany, I've started doing what Germans do a lot: think, and think, and think some more. It got to the point where it feels out of balance: too much introspection, too much heavy self-analysis, too much thinking and reflecting, and not enough living for the moment. At least, that's how I interpret what these two weird dreams I've had recently are meant to tell me.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/too-much-introspection/

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070: They Both Die at the End

Steli Efti — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 01:46:00 +0000

Here's a book recommendation: They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera. A very quick and easy read, but one that moved me nonetheless and that I gifted to my nephews and nieces.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/they-both-die-at-the-end/

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069: I've Lost My Way by Never Getting Lost

Steli Efti — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 00:53:00 +0000

There's a magic to going into a situation completely open, unprepared and without a plan, and improvising your way into a beautiful dance.

Even though there's always the risk that instead of a beautiful dance, you just stumble and fall flat on your face.

But if you're not willing to get lost, you'll never find yourself in an unexpected place. Being willing to get lost, to waste time, to look foolish, to make mistakes, is the price of admission.

Part of inner work is understanding when it's the right time to plan and prepare, and when it's the right time to let go of your plans and improvise.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/lost-my-way/

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068: A Beautiful Dance in the Sky

Steli Efti — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 05:40:00 +0000

I never would have expected that pigeons could teach me something about myself—but some of life's most valuable lessons come in surprising ways.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/beautiful-dance-in-the-sky/

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067: How to Change Yourself: Slow Adjustments vs Instant Transformation

Steli Efti — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 13:26:00 +0000

I've been reading a book about personal change and anger, and one paragraph early on in the book stood out to me:

[If we want to change ourselves, we should do it] very slowly, no matter how crazy or self-defeating our current behavior appears to be.

It exists for a reason and may serve a positive and protective function for ourselves and others. If we want to change, it is important to do so slowly so that we have the opportunity to observe and test out the impact of one small, but significant change on a relationship system. If we get ambitious, and try to change too much, too fast, we may not change at all.

Instead, we may stir up so much anxiety and emotional intensity within ourselves and others as to eventually reinstate old patterns and behaviors, or we may end up hastily cutting off from an important relationship, which is not necessarily a good solution.
- The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner

In this episode, I talk about the benefits of slow change, and why radical transformations are often more sizzle than steak.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/change-slowly/

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066: How Can I Be More Accepting of Others?

Steli Efti — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 07:21:00 +0000

I've been wondering how I managed to accept some of the people in my life fully—just the way they are. I'm blessed to have many friends in my life whom I love and care for, but there are very few people whom I fully accept, whose flaws and shortcomings I can have in my life without getting irritated about them. I just know that's the way they are

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/be-more-accepting-of-others/

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065: Fatherhood Odyssey: When Teaching, Make It Fun Before You Make It Right

Steli Efti — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 08:43:00 +0000

While homeschooling my two sons, I witnessed my younger one just in the midst of that special phase where you learn to read and begin to make sense of words. And I (once more) realized the importance of fun: When teaching a new skill, don't stress out about getting it right and avoiding mistakes. Don't constantly correct every mistake. Instead, teach how to have fun with that skill, and afterwards the momentum of fun carries you forward like a stone rolling downhill, rather than it being an uphill battle.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/fatherhood-odyssey-teach-fun-first/

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064: We feel the truth

Steli Efti — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 15:48:00 +0000

I do believe that we all have an intuitive sense for truth. We know the truth at all times, we feel it, we can sense it deep down. But for a variety of reasons, we cover it up, we edit it, we apply a filter to it, we hide it behind logic or stories we're attached to.

Here's me riffing on the idea of this inner "truth sense".

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/we-feel-the-truth/

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063: Don't Solve Other People's Problems

Steli Efti — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 12:44:00 +0000

One of the questions that reading Kafka has brought up in my mind is: How much pain are we causing others by trying to carry their burden? How much of the help I'm providing to others is really in the long run taking away their potential blessings?

Part of Inner Work is about looking beyond the surface of what's obvious and see the deeper ramifications and motivations of our actions, and this episode is me digging into that.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/other-peoples-problems/

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062: My Ridiculous Subconscious Thoughts

Steli Efti — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 23:07:00 +0000

Here's another episode that can be tagged with "aftereffects of reading Kafka".

Little Voice In My Head A: "Steli, it's 11am and you've not done anything yet".

To which Little Voice In My Head B responded: "Well, fuck you, I don't have to do anything if I don't have to!"

And both of them got into an argument they've been through thousands of times over the past couple of years. But it always happened kinda just below the level of consciousness, where I've never really been fully aware of this micro-battle.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ridiculous-subconscious-thoughts/

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061: Fatherhood Odyssey: Remember to Have Fun

Steli Efti — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 08:56:00 +0000

Another beautiful insight that came out of some time I spent with my two sons recently was this: Remember to have fun when you do fun stuff.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/remember-to-have-fun/

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060: Reading With Steli: The Trial by Franz Kafka

Steli Efti — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 23:07:00 +0000

I recently started reading The Trial by Franz Kafka, and there's one thing I really love about this book: It has already raised so many questions in my mind and made me think thoughts I wouldn't have pondered if it weren't for this book. This episode is just me sharing my reading experience while I'm halfway through the book.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/the-trial-kafka/

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059: Fatherhood odyssey: The power of nonjudgmental encouragement

Steli Efti — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 03:48:00 +0000

Now that I'm back in Germany, I'm spending a lot of time with my two sons, and there was a beautiful experience of trust and courage we've shared together that I want to capture here.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/fatherhood-nonjudgmental-encouragement/

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058: Steli returns to Germany: A lesson in presence and priorities

Steli Efti — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 12:22:00 +0000

I've never had a great relationship with my Germany, even though I was born here, I grew up here, I have family and friends I love here. I never liked living here. And whenever I came back to spend time in Germany, I always like coming back to a place I didn't belong, nor wanted to be.

But because Germany is such a big part of my life, I wanted to find a way of coming back without feeling that way. And this time around, I asked myself a very simple question to create clarity. I asked myself: What's the most important thing for me during the first few weeks here in Germany?

To me, the answer was simple: I want to spend quality times with my loved ones here. And as long as I accomplished that every day, as long as I shared real quality time with loved ones, where I'm fully present in the moment, then for me, that's good enough.

I won't stress about anything else. If I'm not as productive as I want to be, if I don't get all the things done that I want to get done, if I don't work out as much as I want to work out, if I don't give my time and energy to every friend in Germany that asks for it right away, if I say no to people when they make requests I don't want to fulfill, if I don't eat as healthy as I want to eat, if I don't sleep as well, if I don't stick to the routines and habits I've established for myself, if I don't practice being the best version of myself in every aspect of my life—that's fine. I won't stress about it, I won't beat myself up about it.

It means that I'm fine saying no to a lot of things. Funny enough, I've given entire talks on that topic for startups.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/steli-returns-to-germany/

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057: Read books your own way

Steli Efti — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 06:48:00 +0000

Some books have literally been life-changing, epic adventures in my life. I wouldn't be who I am if it weren't for these books.

But if I've read books the way most people read books, I'd probably never have experienced any of that.

Today I discuss my deep love for books, my appreciation for everything they've brought into my life, different ways of reading books, and much more.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/read-books-your-own-way/

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056: Storytelling and the audience's capacity to open up their hearts and minds

Steli Efti — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 11:32:00 +0000

In this episode we geek out about the art of storytelling, and it's magical ability to touch and move us, to think new thoughts, to live life in new ways.

Books discussed:

Story by Robert McKee
Dune by Frank Herbert

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/storytelling-touch-audience/

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055: Ok, now I'm punching pillows (Anger management adventures)

Steli Efti — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 01:00:00 +0000

One of the emotions I still haven't found a good way to relate to is my anger. For most of my adult life, my way of handling anger was simply to suppress it and pretend it didn't exist at all. Getting angry meant that someone else had power over me, someone else was able to control and impact me—and I didn't want to allow and admit that. So I pretended to never get angry—not only to others, but to myself as well.

Now there are blessings in disguise, and there's also such a thing as a curse in disguise. I'm great at sales. The downside of that is that I'm also great at selling myself stuff. In this case, the believe that I'm not angry. It wasn't only that I pretended to not be angry to others, I made myself belief to not be angry.

But you know how it goes with emotions: If you suppress them, whatever they're meant to express comes out in other ways. In my case, it's a what I call my OLD TESTAMENT JAW. My jaw becomes very tense. Painfully tense. Out of control tense.

I'm a big believer that our body can be a great source of wisdom and insight. And so I figured this tension is trying to tell me something. I spent around two painful hours trying to listen to what it had to say—and eventually (re-)learned an important lesson (that I had conveniently forgotten).

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/suppressed-anger-choking-me/

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054: How my jaw pain forces me to face unpleasant truths

Steli Efti — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 01:00:00 +0000

I don't know how to explain this to people who've never felt it, but I've been suffering from jaw tension for quite a while now. It comes and goes, and I never really know what triggered it until I did some deep introspection.

I believe it's forcing me to confront truths I'd rather not face. Like a harsh and unforgiving teacher, it won't relent until I learn my lesson. It won't let me leave the table before I finish eating up all of the bitter truth soup in front of me.

I recently had a situation where I got angry about something, but wasn't honest to myself about it. I had a fear and I pretend to not feel it, even to myself I couldn't admit that I was scared. And when I realized that, I got angry at myself for pretending, for not living my truth. It took realizing and admitting all that, until the bitter end, and only then did my jaw loosen up and I found some relief.

So in a way, my body is conspiring with my higher aspirations. It's keeping me real. It makes me do the inner work even when I don't want to.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/jaw-pain-truths/

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053: I just can't relax

Steli Efti — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 02:02:00 +0000

I was out on the balcony on a sunny day in Austin. It was a nice day. Everything was fine. Beautiful music playing. My day's work was done. And that's when it hit me:

I'm good at many things—but relaxing isn't one of them. Even when you see me chilling, inside of me, there's so much tension, so many things I try to fit into any given unit of relaxation.

I'm constantly reaching for more, forever striving for something else, incessantly trying to live up to some chimerical ideal, always attempting to climb an insurmountable peak. I turn everything into work, judge myself and others very harshly. It just never stops.

It's just who I am today. Maybe one day I'll change. But for now, that's me.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/i-just-cant-relax/

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052: A year of self-discovery and intense inner work with Ryan Robinson

Steli Efti — Sun, 21 Feb 2021 04:04:00 +0000

Today I'm talking with my good friend Ryan Robinson, one of the most disciplined people I know, and also one of the most prolific content creators. But that's not what this conversation is about. 2020 has been an intense year for Ryan, a lot of personal transformation, and I saw many parallels to changes and realizations is in my own life.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ryan-self-discovery/

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051: Do your work in public

Steli Efti — Fri, 19 Feb 2021 06:54:00 +0000

In this episode, I talk about our podcast, and why it's so different from the content we've created in the past.

Most of these episodes are unstructured conversations and explorations of random themes of my life—there are no actionable takeaways, no bitesized nuggets of wisdom, and oftentimes no answers to the questions we pose.

And at the same time—it's the most honest content we've ever created, the stories are more real, and while it often doesn't lead to a clean, neat work product, we're on our path to building a beautiful body of work, and it's a labor of love.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/work-in-public/

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050: You can’t be upset with others, and at peace with yourself

Steli Efti — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 01:00:00 +0000

Most of the episodes of this podcast are me talking about a topic that’s currently on my mind—oftentimes meanderings that don’t lead to a clear conclusion, or challenges I’m facing that yet lack a satisfying solution. It’s inner work in progress.

Today is a little bit different: I’m sharing an heuristic of my inner work that's tried and tested. It’s been valuable for me thousands of times, and it’s been part of my daily toolkit since 2008. I always carry it with me and make use of it all the time.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/upset-with-others/

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049: Why you should archive all your emails today

Steli Efti — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 01:00:00 +0000

I'm the CEO of a very successful software startup. 8-figure revenue, thousands of customers all around the world, employees spread out all across the globe. I know what email stress feels like. In fact, I was stressed out AF about my email inbox. Until my friend and co-founder showed me how to overcome it years ago. It's worked for me, and for team members and friends I've shared this advice with. Today, I want to share it with you too.

Shownotes: http://steliefti.com/email-stress/

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048: What it's like to love a fighter with Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

Steli Efti — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 01:00:00 +0000

I'm excited to release our first ever interview on the Inner Work podcast. I spoke with Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu.

If you're really into Muay Thai—maybe you're familiar with the amazing work he and his wife Sylvie are doing together.

But even if not, I'd encourage you to check out this episode!

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/love-a-fighter/

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047: What happened to my mind when I stopped consuming content for 1 month

Steli Efti — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 01:00:00 +0000

There's a reason why I grew a multi-million dollar company through content marketing. I'm good at content because I've consumed a ton of content in my life—starting out as a child where I spent all day every day in front of a TV.

I was basically raised by a TV. From the moment I came back to school to the time I went to bed, I was in front of the TV. And while I barely watch TV anymore—I've simply replaced the TV with other forms of media consumption. Podcasts, YouTube, Netflix, Twitter, etc.

In this episode, I talk about my addiction to consuming content and using it to distract myself from thoughts and feelings I want to avoid. It's a conversation I've had in the first half of December 2020, and at that time, I had for the first time in my life not mindlessly consumed any content for 30 days straight.

If you're hooked on content consumption too, give it a listen!

As always, I love to hear from you.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/content-fast/

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https://steliefti.com/pacing-myself-full-speed-until-the-fuel-runs-out-isnt-a-good-strategy/

046: The soul of little things

Steli Efti — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 01:00:00 +0000

I've been very out of touch with my own emotions, wants and needs for a long time. And much of the past year has been about getting to know myself better: What do I want? What do I really like? For myself, not for my company, my family, for my team, for my career, but for me myself, just Steli.

And one thing I do know about myself is that I was a very utalitarian person, praying at the altar of productivity. "Get shit done" was my mantra.

And recently, I discovered that I can surround myself with objects that give me positive energy, that sing more harmoniously with who I am and what I want my life to be.

In this episode, I talk about how my good friend Juan, who happens to be a plant. I talk about the veneration of objects in Japan, and the power of caring for things beyond the fact that they are tools we use to do something.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/soul-of-little-things/

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045: Fatherhood odyssey: 5 success rules for 5-year olds

Steli Efti — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 01:00:00 +0000

A while back I was driving my sons back home with the car, and they got excited about a dope looking sports car they saw. And it led to something I almost never do: I shared advice on how to be successful in life with them.

In this episode, I'll share it with you too, but more importantly—how they reacted to me sharing these lessons. Just a beautiful little moment that's dear to me as a father.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/fatherhood-odyssey-5-success-rules-for-5-year-olds/

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044: The half-assed life: Be one of the few who fully commit

Steli Efti — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 16:50:00 +0000

Today's episode is a rant about the power of commitment. It's something that's so rare—to see someone being fully committed, to truly go all in, to not hold anything back. I want to see and create more of that in the world, and less people who spend most of their time half-assing whatever they do.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/the-half-assed-life-be-one-of-the-few-who-fully-commit/

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043: I got rich slowly, but here's how you can get rich quick

Steli Efti — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 07:30:00 +0000

It took me a long time to get rich. It still feels weird to say this about myself. But financially, I’m definitely rich. What’s funny is, I’ve been rich long before I even realized that I was rich. It was actually through conversations with friends that I eventually realized: Fuck yes, I AM rich.

I care much less about it than I thought I would. I’ve heard rich people say this many times before, but: it really doesn’t make much of a difference in my life.

Now, that’s not to say that the human animal in me is above it all. I still want more money. I still sometimes get ensnared by the prospect of making money. I still sometimes struggle to say no to enticing financial opportunities, and one thing that I can tell you is: the more money you have, the more tempting opportunities come your way.

In today’s episode, I’ll talk about my struggles when it comes to resisting these temptations, and most importantly: I’ll talk about how you can get rich much faster, and with much less suffering than it took me.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/i-got-rich-slowly-but-heres-how-you-can-get-rich-quick/

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042: McGregor vs. Poirier 2 - Looking foolish in the name of progress

Steli Efti — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 06:14:00 +0000

I was surprised to see McGregor get knocked out by Poirier this fast. But one thing that’s been bothering me about McGregor is that I don’t think he’s been picking the right sparring partners to prepare for this fight. None of his sparring partners really had the chops to seriously challenge him as much as he needed to be challenged.

And it reminded me of a principle I’ve been trying to put into practice myself for many years: the willingness to look foolish in the name of progress.

It prompted me to ask myself again:

Are you putting yourself out there enough?
Are you humble enough to seek advice in areas where you need it?
Are you willing to expose yourself and risk getting your ego bruised?

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/mcgregor-vs-poirier-2-looking-foolish-in-the-name-of-progress/

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041: LSD & Martial arts: Finding my flow in fighting

Steli Efti — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 05:51:00 +0000

In this episode, I talk about a breakthrough I've had in my martial arts after a training session on LSD.

In my training of martial arts, there are periods where I'm on a very intense schedule, practicing five, six, or even seven days a week. And then there are periods where I train only once or twice a week. And then there are weeks where I don't train at all.

And I noticed that oftentimes, when I pick up training again after a couple of weeks of not training at all, I've always leapfrogged to the next level of skill in some area. I discuss this in the first part of the episode, and then later share a major breakthrough I've had in my practice after a shadowboxing session on LSD.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/lsd-martial-arts-finding-my-flow-in-fighting

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040: Pacing myself: Full speed until the fuel runs out isn't a good strategy

Steli Efti — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 03:21:00 +0000

Here's a conversation where I talk about the importance of pacing myself and managing my energy throughout the course of a day.

I have a tendency to go full speed whenever I feel energized—until my tank runs out of fuel and I crash hard.

Today, I practiced breaking that pattern. When I felt excited or inspired by an idea, I didn't immediately rush into action. I stayed with that feeling first, and acted more deliberately. Or at least, I tried. Turns out breaking deeply ingrained patterns isn't that easy, but like so many things in Inner Work—it starts with awareness. You do the best you can right now, and if it matters enough, you keep practicing until you get better at it.

Shownotes:

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039: Intimate art, loving playfulness, and my secret guitar

Steli Efti — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 14:56:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, I ordered a guitar. I spent most of my teenage years chasing the dream of becoming the world's best guitarist, practicing all day, every day... until one day when I realized I'd never become the greatest. And from that day on, I've—with a few rare exceptions—never touched a guitar again.

Until THIS day. When I held this guitar, it felt magical: the beginning of an intimate, private love affair, a holy communion, a secret bond between me and my guitar.

In the first part of the episode, I talk about another nascent love of mine: sailing. I've been wanting to learn sailing for a long time, and my first actual sailing lesson was quite sobering. The first 20 minutes of this episode is dedicated to this, but the tldr is: it wasn't much fun. Be free to skip to minute 20 where I talk about the guitar.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/intimate-art-loving-playfulness-and-my-secret-guitar/

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038: I visited an alternative healer

Steli Efti — Wed, 30 Dec 2020 11:41:00 +0000

Here's another very personal episode. If you're looking for sales, startup, and business advice, skip this episode, it's not going to be a good use of your time.

If you want to get to know me better as a human being, particularly some of my private struggles and the inner work I do, then maybe this is for you. However, be aware that it's another raw recording: an unstructured, meandering conversation without a clear ending or an actionable takeaway.

I talk about my challenges with happines, visiting an alternative healer, never feeling at home anywhere, and many other things I'd usually not share publicly.

So why am I sharing it now?

For one, look at the name of the podcast. What you hear in this recording is inner work in progress—and that's not always pretty.

And secondly, it's easier to share this now with you because this was recorded in the last week of July—and a lot has happened since. I do feel happy. I have a vision for a place that I'll make my home where I truly feel at home. I'm much more in touch with my own feelings.

And finally, after I published Episode 31: Listening to myself: A bad day many of you told me that sharing my inner struggles helped you.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/i-visited-an-alternative-healer/

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037: Feeling my tiredness fully

Steli Efti — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 14:40:00 +0000

Here's a personal conversation I've had with a friend back in September. I've been feeling tense and tired for a very long time, and I wanted to allow myself to just feel this feeling of tiredness more, rather than do what I usually do: trying to overcome my tiredness, and just push it away.

And when I did this, I realized that I've never really paid attention to my tiredness. I was never that aware of what tiredness actually feels like in my body.

On this day, I got to know my own tiredness better, because I just stayed with it and experienced it fully.

There's no major breakthrough or magic revelation in this. I'm just sharing how I experienced my own tiredness in a new way for the first time.

Looking back at it today, I can say that getting more in touch with myself, my feelings, my body has drastically improved the quality of my everyday life. I'll share much more of this in future episodes.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/feeling-my-tiredness-fully

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036: The wild wisdom of Zorba the Greek

Steli Efti — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 01:34:00 +0000

One of my favorite reads of this year was Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. I love Zorba’s practical wisdom and zest for life. He manages to see the everything and everybody as a miracle worth celebrating, while also recognizing that we’re all just sacks of bones and flesh and flaws, and that everything we do is probably meaningless in the end. In many ways, he’s embodying the principles of inner work for me. If there’s a man who’s mastered the art of living in the present moment, it’s Zorba.

This book has made me laugh, feel sad, think deeply, and moved me in many more ways. In this episode, I share my favorite from the book—and hopefully inspire a few of you to read this beautiful story.

As always, I'd love to hear from you:

https://steliefti.com/the-wild-wisdom-of-zorba-the-greek/ (includes episode transcript)

035: Way of the Warrior: Getting real

Steli Efti — Sun, 06 Dec 2020 04:55:00 +0000

Here's another Way of the Warrior episode, where I share lessons I learn while practicing martial arts. Today, I'm going to talk about the difference between theory, practice, and real-world application.

There's a certain technique I've practiced many times and understood well—or so I thought. Let's just say it was a very humbling session, where the idea I carried in my head wasn't fully aligned with the reality that unfolded on the outside.

In this episode, I discuss the big gap between theory, a scripted practice scenario, and the real world.

Whether you practice martial arts or not—we've all had situations we confidently walked into, self-assured that we'd be able to handle this well, only to then be taught a lesson. The first instinct naturally is to say: "Oh fuck!"

Now it's very easy to then go: "This didn't work out. I'm not made for this," and throw in the towel.

But if you practice inner work, you do it differently.

You still say: "Oh fuck..." but then you go: "Interesting. What can I learn here?" You already ate the humblepie. You already have that taste in your mouth. Now see how you can grow.

Transcript: https://steliefti.com/way-of-the-warrior-getting-real/

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034: When Siddhartha met Buddha (and walked away)

Steli Efti — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 05:55:00 +0000

I recently read Herman Hesse's book Siddhartha, which tells the story of a man seeking enlightenment. From a young age on, together with his best friend, he sought spiritual teachers and mentors to learn and guide him. Because he was a very dedicated disciple of these different teachers, he excelled in many practices, but soon reached a point where he became dissatisfied with what they could teach him, and that despite their life-long spiritual practice, they still were far from enlightened.

He embarks on yet another quest for a worthwhile teacher—this time, the Buddha. He recognizes that the Buddha is indeed enlightened, and is everything he's hoped to find in a teacher. Yet, he decides to not become a disciple of the Buddha, but instead let his own life be his teacher. And that's the moment in the story that was most interesting to me—when he decided that the best way to evolve spiritually was not to obey the instructions of a teacher, not to follow in the footsteps of an enlightened person, but to instead find his own way.

To me this resonated with me because a lot of my inner work this year has been around finding myself again, building a relationship with myself, realizing how important is to spend more time with myself, instead of just being outward focused.

As always, I'd love to hear from you:

https://steliefti.com/when-siddhartha-met-buddha-and-walked-away/

033: The story of the boob flashing goddess

Steli Efti — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 13:06:00 +0000

In the summer of 2019, I went on a boat trip around Ibiza with a group of good friends. Now in this episode, I tell a story about a random woman who flashed her boobs, but that's only what this is about on a superficial level. On a deeper level, it's about the attitude we bring to live: to not take ourselves too serious. To remain playful, have a bit more fun, a bit more wild, a bit more spontaneous, and the impact we can have on someone else.

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032: What makes you come alive at work? A purpose-finding exercise

Steli Efti — Sat, 14 Nov 2020 04:26:00 +0000

What's the driving force that keeps you excited, motivated, and makes you come alive?

This is not always an easy question to answer, but in this episode I share a simple way of uncovering your purpose at work.

Think about the last 3 months. What were some of the best moments you've had at work? The moments you were most alive, most excited, most inspired? And what do these moments have in common?

For me personally, at the time when I recorded this video, the answer was change and growth.

First, it's when I myself change. When I change what I believe, when I change how I act and think, because that's when I grow.

Every year, I review the year that has passed, and I ask myself: How have I changed? How have I grown? If I think back to the version of myself I was one year ago—do I think that version was a total idiot, that version of myself was completely wrong?

If the answer is yes, then that's actually pretty exciting to me. But if the answer is no, I feel devastated, because I've basically just wasted a year without learning anything meaningful, where I had no true growth.

The other thing that really excites me and makes me come alive is when I can help others change and grow, when I can get them to take action.

What's the driving force that makes you come alive at work? Take some time to reflect and go really deep on this question. Maybe you've done this a few years ago and you have an idea—and if that's the case, then challenge yourself and ask: "Do these answers still feel true to me, or am I just repeating my older self, and there's actually something else that brings me alive today?"

Reflect on your best moments this year and see how you can create more of that, how you can honor and bring out more of your true authentic self and share it with the world.

As always, I love to hear from you:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/steliefti_purpose-findyourpurpose-purposedriven-activity-6733223655448350720-KTCE

031: Listening to myself: A bad day

Steli Efti — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 05:46:00 +0000

This might just be the most uncomfortable piece of content I've ever published. I recently had a lousy day, and captured my mood and thoughts in a rare, ad hoc voice memo. I want to share this with you, because I believe there's value in realizing that we all have down days.

But rather than just throw the recording at you, I actually listened to it again and added my comments to it afterwards. This way, you get both the raw, bruised-up version of myself on a bad day, as well as myself reflecting on it.

Heads up: This is a very experimental format. I feel uncomfortable sharing this with you. Heck, not too long ago I'd feel uncomfortable sharing this part of myself with even close friends. But inner work is called work for a reason: Oftentimes it means doing the thing you don't feel like doing.

For transcript and comments: https://steliefti.com/a-bad-day/

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030: Ti Perimeris - What are you waiting for?!

Steli Efti — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 05:30:00 +0000

How much of our days do we spend on our image? How often don’t we do something we feel like doing, because we’re concerned how others might perceive us? How often do we do something we don’t feel like doing, simply to portray ourselves in a certain way to others?

What a waste of life.

Today, I want to share a personal story with you that culminated in a wild, shirtless night in a tiny bar on a Greek island.

Stop letting your ego get in the way of living life fully.

It’s too easy to get caught up in our own sense of self-importance. Let go, and celebrate life fully.

029: The story of 3 beggars in Thessaloniki

Steli Efti — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 02:13:00 +0000

I'm currently with 2 friends in Thessaloniki and want to share the story of 3 encounters with different beggars we've had here, and what we can learn from it.

One beggar was an aggressive hustler, a young boy who probably was forced to work for a gang.

One beggar was an proud old man who was selling pencils, who said that he's currently out of work and wants to make an income.

One beggar was an apologetic old lady full of sorrow that kept telling pitiful stories.

In today's episode, I share how each beggar moved us in a different way, and conveyed a different lesson about ourselves.

Transcript: https://steliefti.com/3-beggars-in-thessaloniki/

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028: Way of the Warrior: Desperation made me pull another man's pants

Steli Efti — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 14:12:00 +0000

A few years ago I fell in love with martial arts, and it’s become a great source of learnings and insights for me. In the Way of the Warrior series, I’m going to share these lessons with you—and I find that most of them are relevant not just in the context of fighting, but also in other areas of life.

Being in the ring is a very humbling experience for me, and it forces me to look at the world with beginners eyes. In the ring, nobody gives a fuck that I’m Mr. CEO. And that’s a beautifully honest way to be.

In today’s episode, I talk about two recent realizations I had while training. The first one is about how being pushed to our limits can make us do things we wouldn’t normally do, and why people commit acts of desperation.

The second one is about using compliments as a way to implicitly ask your training partner to go easy on you.

As always, I’d love to hear from you!

Transcript: https://steliefti.com/way-of-the-warrior-desperation-made-me-pull-on-another-mans-pants/

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027: Negative self-image? What a little girl taught me

Steli Efti — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 09:48:00 +0000

On a recent summer night I witnessed something touching and magical that I want to share with you in today’s episode. If you have a negative self-image, or simply want to build a more positive self-image, it’s well worth the ten minute listen.

As always, I'd love to hear from you!

Transcript: https://steliefti.com/negative-self-image-what-a-little-girl-taught-me/

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026: Fatherhood odyssey: Homework struggles

Steli Efti — Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:32:00 +0000

Being a dad also means dealing with a lot of mundane little issues. Things like making sure your kids do their homework.

To be honest—I’m not big on homework myself. I was terrible at school. I don’t think school is a great preparation for life.

But I do strive to look at mundane little issues and ask: What’s an important life lesson that’s contained in here? What’s something meaningful that I can pass on to my sons?

Recently, my eldest son kept saying he’ll do his homework later. Inevitably, the day turned into night, with not enough time left to actually do the homework.

Not only did it mean he wouldn’t be able to present his homework, it also affected his little brother and me, because we didn’t get to spend some quality time playing together.

My eldest son very much comes after me. When he realizes that he failed at something, he can be very hard on himself.

On the one hand, I want him to set high standards for himself and strive to live up to them. On the other hand, I don’t want him to beat himself up. I want him to learn the lesson and use it to become a better version of himself. I want him to cherish his wins and learn from his mistakes.

In this episode, I’ll share

how I dealt with my son’s homework struggles,
how I deployed storytelling to teach him the importance of fulfilling your responsibilities
how I shared my own challenges to help him have compassion for himself

Finding the right balance between self-discipline and self-compassion is a challenge I’ve been grappling with myself, so I’m not surprised to see this in my son. Hopefully, he’ll learn this much earlier than I did.

As always, I’d love to hear from you. Drop a comment here https://steliefti.com/fatherhood-odyssey-homework-struggles/

025: Out of touch with my emotions

Steli Efti — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 15:46:00 +0000

I've been out of touch with my emotions for a long time—without even knowing it. In this episode, I share how this realization dawned on me.

I also share how I'm using an "emotion tracker" to become more aware of my own feelings.

As always, I'd love to hear from you. Get in touch:

024: The Angry Samurai

Steli Efti — Sun, 17 May 2020 11:13:00 +0000

What do you do when you get angry?

Do you let the negative, desctructive shadow-side of anger take over?

Do you just control or suppress your anger?

Or do you have ways to transform the energy that comes with anger into creative work?

My oldest son recently had more frequent angry outbursts, and I made up the story of the Angry Samurai for him. I'm a huge believer in the power of stories, and I believe that storytelling is a great teaching vehicle.

But as I was discussing this topic with a good friend of mine, I realized that I myself have some work to do when it comes to dealing with anger.

This is not the typical episode format we have here—it's a actually a recording of a conversation. But we decided to turn it into an episode and share it with you, because anger is one of the core human emotions we all have, and yet few of us have probably mastered our own anger.

As always, we'd love to hear from you!

Get in touch:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/just-tree-your-path-steli-efti/

023: The moment I realized I would be great at sales

Steli Efti — Thu, 14 May 2020 08:06:00 +0000

Salesmanship is in my blood. I discovered 20 years ago that I have a natural talent for it. Closing deals always came easy to me.

In this episode, I share the story of my first major close. And more importantly, I share why my greatest strength was also the flipside of my greatest weakness—and how I finally overcame that.

You can also check out this episode as a video: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/moment-i-realized-would-great-sales-steli-efti/

As always, I'd love to hear from you!

022: Just a tree in your path - A short story from Mike Tyson's book IRON AMBITION

Steli Efti — Thu, 07 May 2020 13:26:00 +0000

Today I want to share a little story I read. The story is about Cus D'Amato, an infamous boxing trainer, most known for training Mike Tyson. But his influence on the boxing world went way beyond just Iron Mike.

He was one of the first boxing trainers that really focused on the importance of mentality in combat.

He really focused on the mind, not just the body. And he was interested in hypnosis, the subconscious mind, affirmations, positive psychology. And he used Mike Tyson as a star pupil to apply some of these philosophies and instill a mentality in Mike that would make him the most feared fighter alive, still one of the most iconic boxers of all time.

https://twitter.com/Steli/status/1258316677353107456

021: The only asset worth investing in during this crisis

Steli Efti — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 01:06:00 +0000

Many friends and fellow entrepreneurs come to me for investment advice during this crisis. The first thing you need to understand is that I'm not an investor. So don't put too much stock into my advice.

That being said—I do have strong opinions.

There are a lot of attractive opportunities out there nowadays: gold, cryptocurrencies, foreign currencies, certain stocks that took a dive due to the crisis but will almost certainly come back strong once things get better.

I believe for most of the people that are going to read this, there's really only one thing you should invest in right now:

You yourself.

Unless you yourself are a skilled investor, I don't think that you should make big investment decisions during this crisis in anything other than yourself.

How can you invest in yourself, and grow?

Maybe this is the time to build a side business.

Write that book, and promote it. Experiment. Learn something new. Stretch yourself beyond what your current limitations.

Level one area of your live up. If you already had a side business, start investing into ads, make the design look real slick, sharpen your copy, ramp up your marketing, improve your product, sharpen your skills by signing up for a course or finding a coach.

But invest into something that's actually yours, and that doesn't rely on a currency moving one way or another, or a big multinational corporation hitting certain revenue numbers... invest into yourself. It'll not only save you a lot of anxiety when things don't go the way you expect them, but also sharpen your focus on the things that really matter: those things that you can actually impact yourself.

As always—I'd love to hear from you. Hit me up on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/only-asset-worth-investing-during-crisis-steli-efti/

020: What questions should I ask myself in this crisis?

Steli Efti — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 00:57:00 +0000

1432 days ago I started a little routine:

I begin every day by asking myself five essential questions.

Answering these five questions creates clarity and vision for my day, before I engage with the daily chaos of my work and life, before I step into action.

I actually write down the answers to these five questions, but as I've now done this for almost four years in a row, there's one thing I discovered:

It's not always the same questions that matter. The questions that are the most meaningful to me change over time. My life changed, I went through different phases in my life, and some of the questions that were really helpful for me at one point started to become useless. There was no point in asking me those same questions over and over again.

And a few weeks ago I noticed that the questions that seemed really meaningful at the beginning of the year now seemed useless. They're no longer relevant to me.

So I sat down and started brainstorming questions that would be more impactful to answer during the COVID-19 crisis.

Here's what I came up with:

What can I learn right now?
How can I grow in this environment?
How can I serve people and the world today?
Where are hidden opportunities?
What is the change that is about to happen?
How can I adapt?
What are the benefits of these tough times?
What would I do if I had opposite beliefs?
How can I decrease anxiety in the world?
How can I help people cope better?
What can I do to make one person's life better in the next hour?

Now I haven't settled on the five questions I'll ask myself daily moving forward yet. But I'd love to hear your thoughts!

What do you think are valuable questions we should ask ourselves right now?

I'd love to hear from you: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-questions-should-i-ask-myself-crisis-steli-efti/

(Check out the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/eV8YyvOX8PE )

019: How to be a wartime CEO (and why everyone needs to

Steli Efti — Sat, 04 Apr 2020 15:24:00 +0000

This episode is not just for CEOs—everyone should adapt a "wartime CEO" mindset these days, I believe. The COVID-19 crisis is leading us farther into the unknown with every passing week.

This is a different format than what I usually publish—an almost hour-long conversation where I explore the concept of peacetime vs wartime CEO, and how to make decisions in times of crisis. As always, I'd love to hear from you!

Connect with me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steliefti/

018: Your feelings are FAKE NEWS

Steli Efti — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 02:25:00 +0000

I'd love to hear from you! Drop a comment at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/your-feelings-fake-news-steli-efti

During the COVID-19 crisis, it's hard to figure out whom to trust. Governemnt agencies? Politicians? The media? International organizations? Medical experts?

Whatever your take, the one source of information we all need to put under heavy scrutiny these days is our own feelings and emotional impulses. The more stressed and anxious we feel, the more we need to reality check ourselves.

017: Why most startups don't invest enough in their best people and customers

Steli Efti — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 22:15:00 +0000

I call it the squeaky wheel fallacy: When you run a startup, there will always be vociferous customers and team members. They'll be very vocal about all the challenges, problems, and struggles they encounter with you.

And because they ask for your attention, they get it.

On the other hand, there are those that are just silently performing:

Team members that deliver results without making big waves about it. Customers that keep paying you for years and years, without ever making much of a fuzz and requiring many support or Customer Success resources.

And because they are not asking for your attention, in most typical startups, they don't get it. Even though they deserve it.

In this episode, I share how to not become a victim of the squeaky wheel fallacy, and how to allocate your time, attention and resources in a smarter way.

016: The Gratitude Tracker for Entpreneurs

Steli Efti — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 11:02:00 +0000

If you're the kind of ambitious person that's always looking ahead, there might be one thing you can do to grow even more: reflect on your successes and count your blessings.

In today's episode, I share how I train my brain to be grateful for the good in my life—both profesionally and personally.

I've never been good at celebrating my successes. Whenever I achieve a goal, I always move the goalpost further away. My inner voice always just tells me: “Okay, on to the next one.”

When I was younger, I thought that's a good thing. But in recent years, I realized that I missed out on an important element of life. Which is why I started building a daily routine and practice around it, that's had a huge impact on my life, and the life of the people I share it with.

In today's episode, I'm sharing it with you too. Put this into practice in 2020, and if it has even half the impact it has on you that it had on me, it'll make your life so much richer and more fulfilling.

Give yourself a moment to be grateful for all the good that 2019 has offered you, and allow yourself to be excited for what's ahead in 2020 <3

Connect with me:

https://www.instagram.com/steliefti/

015: Want that startup job? Let your CV tell a story

Steli Efti — Sat, 21 Dec 2019 04:33:00 +0000

Thousands of people apply to join my our startup every month. Lots of “why you should hire me”-style pitches coming my way. Once you’re on the receiving end of screening job applications, you realize: CVs suck. Almost nobody is good at writing CVs—even badass marketers and great sales people are surprisingly bad at it.

I’m pretty sure I missed out on hiring some amazing talent, just because the CVs they sent me unsold me on learning more about them:

A list of places they studied and worked at, that doesn’t tell a story, doesn’t convey a compelling message, doesn’t give me any sense for why this person is the right fit for the role. So yes, thank you, but no.

In this episode of the podcast, I share why you need to make your CV tell a story, and how to do it well.

Connect with me:

https://www.instagram.com/steliefti/

014: Building a Remote Sales Team? Avoid These 3 Common Mistakes

Steli Efti — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 10:30:00 +0000

The future of work is going to be more and more remote. Not just for designers, developers, and marketers, but also to sales people.

But you can't execute the same remote playbook that you applied with your remote engineering team—sales is a very different kind of work, and sales people are uniquely different creatures.

There are 3 common mistakes I see again and again that ruin remote sales teams.

Mistake #1: Hiring inexperienced sales people.

Mistake #2: Being too nicey-nice.

Mistake #3: Ignoring the need for social team interaction

In this episode I share how to avoid these 3 common mistakes that ruin remote sales teams.

Connect with me!
https://twitter.com/steli
https://www.linkedin.com/in/steliefti/

013: Creating Reality Distortion Fields

Steli Efti — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 06:15:00 +0000

Steve Jobs wasn't the only person who could create reality distortion fields. Most really good sales people do it all the time.

And while it can be a great blessing in life—it can also be a curse.

I know this from firsthand experience.

At some point, you become so good at sales that people will buy whatever you're selling.

You become so good at understanding how to talk with people that they'll get on board with your proposal.

And in some cases, what you're selling might be an idea that seems right to you... but is just plain wrong. Yet, because you can sell it so successfully, it seems right to others as well.

I've been wrong so many times in my life. In some cases people are successful at pointing it out to me. But in many cases, I was more successful at championing my idea, and we invested a lot of time, energy, and resources into executing a project that was doomed to fail from the beginning.

I wish I hadn't created those flawed reality distortion fields so successfully. All that time and energy could have been invested more effectively.

Over the years, I learned how to create a "reality distortion field barrier". Basically, a strategy for protecting myself and others from being blinded by an idea that's shining bright, but leading us astray.

And this is what I share in this episode of the podcast: a way to protect yourself against the risk of being too good at sales.

012: How to Practice Gratitude

Steli Efti — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 01:18:00 +0000

What are you grateful for today? It’s one of the most important questions I ask myself every day. I once said that appreciation is the currency we pay the universe with—and I still think that’s true. So at the end of each day, I ask myself: Have I paid what I owe? Have I settled that bill with the universe?

In today’s episode, I talk about gratitude, how I practice it in my own life, I share what I’ve learned from asking my two sons what they’re grateful for every night when I put them to bed, and I leave with you two “gratitude exercises” that’ll help elevate yourself today.

011: Want to Become a Top 1% Sales Pro? Master the 4 Levels of Emotional Competence

Steli Efti — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 13:50:00 +0000

No matter what you sell and who you sell it to—sales ultimately boils down to a transfer of emotional energy.

That's how you win deals; by changing the way people feel about buying your solution.

Everything else is not a sale—it's merely a transaction. And the kind of sales person that is basically a "transaction manager" is the kind of sales person that will be made obsolete by advances in automation and machine learning.

On the other hand, if you're a sales professional with a high degree of emotional competence, your skills will be even more in demand than they are today. And your paychecks will be much larger.

There are four levels of emotional competence:

state awareness
state control
state influence
state protection

In this episode, I'm giving you a breakdown of these 4 levels, and an actionable strategy for mastering them.

I really learned this lesson almost 20 years ago from a tie salesman in a little boutique in the south of Germany. After listening to this episode of the podcast, you can check out that story here https://blog.close.com/tiesalesman

Comments, questions, thoughts? Let me know on Twitter @steli or LinkedIn!

010: When a Sales Prospect Goes Silent, and You Don’t Know Why... Do This!

Steli Efti — Sat, 16 Nov 2019 02:31:00 +0000

Have you ever been in the middle of negotiating a deal, trying to close a contract, and then something stalled the deal—but you didn’t know exactly what?

Maybe the client has gone quiet and is unresponsive even after you’ve followed up multiple times already. And you’re starting to get worried. Has this deal fallen apart?

What should you do next?

I’m going to be candid with you: You messed up. You shouldn’t have let things get to this point in the first place.

And I know exactly how it happened. If this scenario describes a situation that you’re familiar with, I know exactly what the mistake is you’ve committed.

Fortunately, there’s a pretty simple solution to help you never end up in this situation again. That’s what I share in this episode of the podcast.

009: Turn Rejection into Progress with This Old-School Mind Hack

Steli Efti — Fri, 08 Nov 2019 11:11:00 +0000

If you're facing a lot of rejection, here's an old-school hack I learned early on in my sales career.

You might have heard this before: The trick is to just turn every rejection as a stepping stone on the way to your goal.

Work out the math. If out of 100 people you ask for a yes, 95 give you a no, and you want to get 1 yes per day, then make it your daily goal to get 20 nos.

In this episode I dig deeper into why this reframing technique works, share some personal stories, and a few extra ideas to help you make it even more effective.

Want more of my advice on handling rejection? Check out https://steliefti.com/rejection/

I'd love to hear from you! Hit me up on Twitter @steli or LinkedIn

008: Broccoli & Sweat

Steli Efti — Sat, 02 Nov 2019 05:06:00 +0000

Most of us are spending too much time searching for a better way of doing things, and not enough time actually doing them.

Yes, there might be a better, more efficient way to lose weight than eating more broccoli and breaking a sweat at the gym.

Eating better and working out more works. And it probably works better than at least 70% of the diet systems, weightloss books, slimming widgets, fatloss supplements that all add up to a multi-billion dollar industry.

You already know what to do. You just don't want to do it.

And the same is true for most things in life. We already know the answers to most of the really important questions. We just don't like them, so we're looking for something easier.

That's the trap.

So take one problem you've had for a while and ask yourself: "What's the simplest way to solve this that at the same time I really really don't want to do?"

There you have it. Your answer. Now go do that :)

Don't wanna? Well, welcome to the club.

Think I'm wrong about this? Let me know on twitter @steli

007: How to deal with rejection

Steli Efti — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:46:00 +0000

It's one of the most valuable skills in my life: The ability to get rejected, and keep moving on. In today's episode, I share my principal thoughts on dealing with rejection. Most importantly, how to not let rejection slow down your momentum.

If you feel that your reaction to rejection has been holding you back from being all you can be, listen to this episode. I'm even gonna work with some of you personally to change the way you handle rejection.

006: The Path to Creating Great Work? Create a Lot of Crappy Work First

Steli Efti — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 11:15:00 +0000

Content is so obvious, so often. Useless. No value. Yet, others are touched, amazed, impacted, and inspired by the most obvious truth of content consumed.

Different people, perspectives, and points in their content journey:

Sparks interest
Generates surprise reaction
Feels compelled to share message

Challenge of crappy vs. quality content:

Practice creating and sharing content
Publish all content - good, bad, or dumb
Stimulate engagement and discussion

If you forget how much fun you have creating content, it becomes work. It’s not so fun anymore.

Acknowledge, honor, and appreciate your knowledge and expertise with something that needs to be taught, valued, and shared.

Reasons why you’re driven toward or away from your passion:

Decisions are important and matter
Cynicism leads to naive and childish decisions
Continue to grow, but never grow old in your field and skills
Extreme changes motivated by wrong stimulants and ideas

Mastering one’s self is definitely difficult. Find a way to recommit to growing and maintaining your passion!

Links and resources:

005: Knocking Down a Bully

Steli Efti — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 09:01:00 +0000

The first time I knocked someone down during a fight, they collapsed and couldn’t continue sparring.

I‘m not bragging or super tough, but it felt good. It inflated my ego.

My opponent was younger, shorter, bulkier, muscular, and aggressive.

Every gym has a few of them. Those guys who didn’t get the memo that sparring should not be a fight to the death.

When faced with frustration and fear, most of us decide to never spar again, ask the bully to take it easy, or ask a trainer for help.

It’s the bully in the classroom who makes your life hard. This isn’t school, and you’re not six years old. You can’t run and hide, or go to your teacher, crying for help.

Bullies are everywhere. They could be your managers, investors, co-workers, or opponents.

You can’t create a world where you never have to deal with bullies.

Whenever I’m in a new environment, I try to be overly nice and respectful to make myself and others comfortable.

Mental side of martial arts:

Focus on being technical, light, loose, timing, and skills; not trying to hurt someone.
Show no signs of weakness or emotion - no pain, no exhaustion - just keep going.

Otherwise, expect the bully to beat you twice as hard. No matter what you do, the bully doesn’ t stop making you the victim, as long as you let them.

Despite limited sparring experience, I’ve never been knocked out.

Who’s actually the weakest? Me or the bully?

Show Notes:

How to control and deal with a bully:

Match aggression
Escalate session
Stay confident and calm
Take lucky shot
Intent isn’t to injure
Apologize for inflicting pain
Bully wants to be friends

Links and resources:

004: Never Ever Stop in the Middle

Steli Efti — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 06:00:00 +0000

Here’s a Steli Efti exclusive just for you!

Never, ever, ever stop in the middle.

I’ve given that piece of advice several times, but never publicly; until now.

No matter what you’re doing—a sales presentation, keynote speech, podcast recording—finish it.

Keep going, even if your inner voice tells you to stop: This isn’t going well. I could do this better. I wanted to say something different. Can I stop and do this again?

No! There are no redos in real life. You can’t start over.

Don’t stop in the middle of a performance and get out of character. Make it part of your performance, instead of trying to rewrite history in front of a live audience. Don’t bore them with your insecurities. It’s not entertaining, engaging, educational, fun, exciting, or valuable.

There’s a certain discipline that it takes to learn to keep going, when you think things aren’t going well.

Never, ever, ever stop in the middle or beginning. Finish what you started. Then, you can do better next time!

Show Notes:

When your natural impulse and instinct is to stop:

Finish what you started.
Overcome the obstacle.
Manage the challenge.
Get good at keep going.

Links and resources:

The Hard Thing About Hard Things Book by Ben Horowitz

002: How I Lost the Joy of Public Speaking

Steli Efti — Tue, 07 May 2019 07:30:56 +0000

When creating and preparing for speaking engagements, my process is brief, but painful.

I suffer a lot during each “joy of birth,” but always follow the same formula: Open laptop, open PowerPoint, and think about what to say.

It’s fun for me to step on a stage and interact with the audience. I’m good at it, and people enjoy listening to me.

So, why isn’t preparing for talks and speaking as much fun as it used to bei?

Show Notes:

Peace vs. Wartime CEO: I know what to do in a crisis and what’s most important.
Self-belief and Confidence: I’m amazing on stage, but not perfect.
Lesson Learned: If I don’t act, things will go terribly wrong.
Make compromises, tap into creativity, and take on new topics.

Links and resources:

Close Blog

Close YouTube Channel

001: This Podcast Shall not be another “To Do” Item

Steli Efti — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 21:45:23 +0000

Welcome to the first episode of The Steli Efti Podcast. Steli is the co-founder/CEO of Close.io, startup/entrepreneur advisor, and author of The Ultimate Startup Guide To Outbound Sales.

Once again, Hiten Shah, is by Steli’s side to offer support and content. Hiten has successfully started two SaaS companies, Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics. He’s also an advisor and investor.

If you tuned in to listen to Steli and Hiten talk about the business world, that’s a different podcast. The Steli Efti Podcast focuses on other topics he’s passionate about and stories he wants to share.

Show Notes:

Podcast Purpose: Outlet to create and share different types of content and wisdom.
Top Priority/Goal: Needs to be fun; not a “To Do” item.
Lessons Learned and Results: Why are you listening? What are you getting from it?
What to (Possibly) Expect:
- Interviews with people that Steli’s been wanting to talk to and learn from
- Short episodes to share a moment of inspiration or insight
- Extended format to go into detail on topics
- Question-and-Answer sessions

3 Key Points:

Create different types of content, and share different types of wisdom.
Do something without the pressure or responsibility to accomplish something.
All work and no play…focus more on fun, than work and business.

Links and resources:

The Ultimate Startup Guide To Outbound Sales

Crazy Egg

KISSmetrics