How to Stop Sabotaging Yourself Using the Power of Breathwork with Jeremy Ginsburg

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Self doubt can sabotage any great idea. How do you stop self-doubt from taking over and calling the shots? On today’s show Jeremy Ginsburg talks about using breathwork as a way to clear mental clutter, gain clarity and lead from a place of confidence.

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Kyle Gray: (00:37)

Hello, and welcome to the Story Engine Podcast. My name is Kyle Gray, and today on the show we have Jeremy Ginsburg. Jeremy Ginsburg is known as the fearless coach. He is an expert at helping people transform their energy, both how they are physically feel and how they mentally feel. Then using that to create amazing results in your business and your life.

 

Kyle Gray: (01:04)

Jeremy is going to walk us through some exercises that we can use to transform our energy to meet any challenge. We’re going to learn how to change the inner stories that we have about what’s possible, what we should be doing and what’s holding us back, and how to transform those into something empowering and exciting.

 

Kyle Gray: (01:31)

I’ve done a lot of work personally with Jeremy, and I have appreciated the results I’ve been getting over the last two years working with him, so I’m excited to share his brilliance with you on the show today. Without any further ado, let’s hand it over to Jeremy.

 

Kyle Gray: (01:50)

Jeremy Ginsburg, welcome to the Story Engine Podcast.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (01:54)

Thank you, Kyle. It’s a pleasure to be here.

 

Kyle Gray: (01:57)

Now we’ve known each other for quite a while, and there are hundreds of topics that I think we could explore and fill a whole podcast with. But I would like to allow you to introduce yourself to the audience. And will you tell me a story about a defining moment in your life that has led you to where you are in the world today and impacting the world in the way you do?

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (02:21)

That’s a great question to kick us off. And yes, this was about 2018, early in 2018, and as you know, I’ve dealt with chronic pain, chronic headaches, migraines, a lot of fatigue, different health issues have come up. And at this point, I was sleeping most of the day. I just felt so tired. I was just not in good shape. And I was visiting my parents, and mainly my mom and dad didn’t say it exactly, but they were like, you can’t just sit around here. You have to seek help.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (03:00)

So, I ended up going to a doctor who prescribed me a pharmaceutical, and mostly given my background and my self-discovery healing journey, the Western medical industry hasn’t been able to find a root cause for my pain. So, the story that they were telling me is we’re really sorry you’re getting a lot of headaches, and we wish we could help, but the best we can do is you take this pill and the first three months are going to be very painful, and then maybe it’s going to help you, but we really don’t know what’s wrong with you and this is the best we can do.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (03:36)

At the same time, I had a call with who is now my spiritual teacher, and in this conversation, I was explaining my symptoms, and for the first time, someone understood and wasn’t phased by anything I was sharing. And basically, he had this very woo-woo way of explaining things and how I’m a spiritual being, and I come into this body, and I’m sensitive and using all these words that I didn’t understand or agree with at the time. And mainly I had this decision, where on one side of my shoulder, I have the industry or culture that I grew up in, and they’re saying, “We don’t know what’s wrong with you but take this pill, and maybe it will help. And it’ll reduce the pain from an eight to a four at best.” Right? And that didn’t really excite me, and I had on my other shoulder, this spiritual teacher who is super kind of out there, I’m not really sure what’s going on, but he’s telling me I’m special, and I’m unique, and this is all a part of my superpower, and I’m learning to access this infinite energy that I’m not so accustomed to working with.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (04:43)

And, at that time, I chose the latter. I decided to work with this spiritual teacher and not take Western medicine, pharmaceuticals. For me, it’s just put me on this deeper path of exploring who I am. Exploring the unknown, questioning myself, moving into what I’m avoiding or what I’m doubting, and just discovering more truth on the inside and the outside.

 

Kyle Gray: (05:08)

And so what do headaches and health look like now? Have you found a way to transcend a lot of these things? And yeah, what have you learned in this journey to understand your health?

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (05:26)

That’s a great question. I’ve learned that everything is connected, and it’s also a lot more simple than we often make things out to be. So, I used to play the victim role, where I wasn’t sure what was going on with my health, and I would kind of play this, “Ah, why me? And ah, I don’t know why I’m in pain, and nobody knows. And I’m just frustrated.” Where now as I’ve taken this approach of being more mindful and aware and just simply noticing my energy, noticing the subtleties, noticing what my mind is doing, noticing my emotional state, noticing my physical state and realizing how it all is pretty logical, even though we can’t technically see a lot of these things or measure them in Western science. And so it’s opened myself up as well to a lot of the practices that we’ve discussed. A lot of new tools that are ancient techniques that we’ve just lost touch with that are still equally as powerful and way less expensive.

 

Kyle Gray: (06:24)

When I speak or coach, one of the things that I encourage people to put into their talks is a universalizing statement, and what you would say in this case is, “For me, it was mysterious headaches. But for you, it could be this or that, or this.” For me, and I’m talking about me, I’m no longer quoting you. I had a similar health condition show up, some different signs of pain and fatigue, and anxiety, all appearing in their way. But what you’re describing, these kinds of mysterious symptoms aren’t necessarily that uncommon, especially for people who have a high calling, who are ambitious, who want to make an impact on the world, like a lot of the listeners here.

 

Kyle Gray: (07:13)

It was a headache for you. But what are some of the other ways this same issue shows up in your client’s businesses?

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (07:29)

I would say whatever the loudest voice of resistance is. So, for some people, that’s doubt, I’m not good enough. I’m not sure if I’m worthy of this. For other people, it’s maybe a shame or competition. I need to be better than someone else. And for others, myself included, I didn’t listen to the voice, so it manifested in physical form, and then it took on the shape of a headache. But stress, anxiety, workaholism, depression, fatigue. It shows up in different flavors for different people, unfortunately.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (08:06)

But I would say the biggest thing that people feel like is holding them back is what they need to explore, and that can become their path for more significant expansion.

 

Kyle Gray: (08:16)

You’re saying the symptoms of my headache, or jaw pain, or anxiety, or even just being in a business, or just that feeling that you’re here kind of in your life and you want to be two or three degrees of magnitude higher because you know it and you feel it.

 

Kyle Gray: (08:47)

What are some of the steps we can do to discover these underlying stories? 

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (09:07)

I would say the first step is becoming aware. Looking in the mirror and just looking, and not creating any stories, not rationalizing, not numbing, and just becoming aware of what’s going on. Because if you’re lying to yourself and you’re creating this story, well, oh, yeah, I could take care of my body, but the business of this place and I need to go out for drinks with this person, and so-and-so. We create these stories. But these mental stories and what we attach to them, that becomes what we believe in, and it’s just not true.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (09:43)

So, step one, I would say it is becoming aware, and whether that’s talking with your friends, hiring a coach, therapist, mastermind, opening up with your partner. Some space to share these things as well. And that’s what I would call support or space. It doesn’t need to be supported. You could do it on your own if you’re independent. And then the third step I would say is tools. So, actions, intentions, tools, and that’s where I’ve got a significant supply. If anything, too many tools these days to share with people.

 

Kyle Gray: (10:20)

Well, I’d love to hear more about some tools to get some awareness. I’m standing in the mirror, and I’m tired of looking at myself, so what do I do? Do I ask myself a question? Do I read a journal? Do I assess the feelings that are coming up? What is this process of becoming aware, and what’s the first step to opening myself up to, hey, maybe there’s a different story here?

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (10:47)

That’s a great question. To begin with, especially if you don’t have a coach or a mentor or someone you trust to teach you these techniques, I would assume that everyone’s got at least one or two or even more tools or activities or habits that they’ve thought about exploring, but they haven’t taken action.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (11:05)

So, maybe they’ve watched a documentary on something, or they saw a video about it, or their friend got super into something, whether it’s yoga, meditation, breathwork, journaling. I would say start with the least foreign because you’re going to feel the least resistance towards that. Otherwise, if you’re working with a physical trainer, you start with what the physical trainer tells you, or you work with a coach or try to figure out who you trust, and you can access tools from that as well.

 

Kyle Gray: (11:35)

Oh, a little bit of a jump from this, but I think it’s a good transition question now. I think one of the significant challenges I faced, especially early on, and I think this is a big problem for a lot of us, is primarily as entrepreneurs, we’re taking on a lot of information. We have a lot of different expectations. We’re probably comparing ourselves to others.

 

Kyle Gray: (12:18)

And so it can be hard to understand my authentic self, and how to bring those parts of me forward. And that voice compared to the, maybe I should be doing this, or I should be expecting this, or I saw this on a webinar. So, how can we tune into what’s genuinely us and not this kind of bullshit expectation that has been surrounding us?

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (12:54)

That’s a great question. I would say if you’re on a super tight budget, I would record yourself doing video blogs, vlogs and then watch them, and you’ll notice, you’ll pick stuff up and say, “Wow, oh. Ooh, that sounds like my dad. ” You’ll start giving yourself advice based on what you’re saying. 

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (13:15)

It’s also beneficial to journal. There’s a quote that I love, I forget who said it, but it’s, “I don’t know what I think until I read what I write.” So, that’s a great way to gain perspective because that’s all you’re going for here view. Because what happens is as a culture, we’re so addicted to our thoughts, that we act upon them without realizing that it’s just a thought, and we don’t need to react. And so if you practice meditation, that’s a great way as well. Breathwork, I found it is excellent for those who can’t meditate. We do breathwork. It’s an efficient route to the same headspace, and you can feel much more relaxed and calm.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (13:58)

And lastly, it sounds so simple, but honestly, as a culture, especially men and especially entrepreneurs, busy people, it’s all just a matter of space. Just having someone who’s going to sit across from you and listen, and then maybe they see something that you weren’t able to because you’re so close to it. It’s almost like they just kind of hold up a mirror, and then they ask one or two questions that help you go deeper and deeper and deeper, and only having a safe space to share that, whether it’s a friend or partner, or a mastermind, doesn’t need to be something formal or paid, it can be anything. It’s about having someone who’s going to reflect you honestly what they see, and not giving you their story as well.

 

Kyle Gray: (14:40)

I think there’s a lot of truth in that, and I experienced the same things in marketing. I help people put together their talks and their messages, through the story. Which requires an outside perspective 

 

Kyle Gray: (15:00)

It’s beneficial to have one. But I would say even if you don’t have one, and on that journaling exercise or listening to yourself doing a video blog describing, something that I think would be really helpful and something that I’ve learned that I didn’t quite hear, and that is going through it, and you start to react in specific ways, “Oh, I shouldn’t have said this.” Or, “Oh, it was dumb that I said that.” And I think it’s important when starting to reflect in this way that you don’t necessarily believe the thoughts that are happening, but then you observe your responses to it.

 

Kyle Gray: (15:39)

And if you can notice, “Oh, I’m thinking this when I talk about that.” So that’s when you can start to see the stories because you’re allowing your judgmental mind to focus on an external thing; Like video recording, and this opportunity to catch and observe it and see what you’re saying. And I would offer the idea that you don’t necessarily have to believe that first impulse thing. It’s just something that’s like I was mentioning before, has been trained into us. And so, but by actually seeing and noticing those and noticing your responses, I think it is a precious way to start to understand some of these stories that may or may not be holding us back or changing our perspectives.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (16:31)

Beautifully put. I would even add that I rarely believe thoughts unless you’re creating them willfully. From my experience. At the same time, I encourage everyone listening to this to find their truth, find what works for them, because I didn’t get here today by following the advice of other people in which I did not agree.

 

Kyle Gray: (16:51)

So why don’t you tell me about some of the people that you’ve worked with? Give us some examples of the stories or blocks and how they showed up people’s lives. How did that change for them with insight?

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (17:17)

Yeah, so I’ll leave his name anonymous for confidentiality purposes, but we can call him Jay. And when Jay came to me, he was running a reasonably successful business, but inside he was dying. He felt so unpowerful. His confidence was low and had accepted the fact that this may be the rest of his life. He just depressed, not very happy, but he has this business on the outside that looks great. On the outside, it creates what looks like freedom. But on the inside, it was all coming from fears arising from lack. So Jay has an incredibly inspiring story. At 18, he faced a decision where he had to choose between staying with his family, or leaving, and then his family would never talk to him again. And so he decided to go.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (18:09)

And so, ever since then, he developed all these fantastic strategies on how to make friends, how to gain influence, how to get jobs, how to get people to like him because he had to relearn how to function in society primarily. And that got him to amazing places. He was able to shoot to the top of companies and start his own business and find amazing people. But then later we realized that it could only take him so far because it was coming from this place of lack. It was coming from fear. He was primarily in survival mode. And so he’s got to put food on the table and make friends, so he doesn’t go crazy. And he needs support. And he’s still running these old programs 10, 15 years later when it comes to business.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (18:54)

So he goes into a new business meeting, and on paper, everything looks fine, and the deal’s about to happen. But in his head, he’s freaking out. He’s anxious. “Oh, what if they changed their mind? What if this? What if he finds out I’m a fraud?” All of these voices are just sabotaging the situation. So what we did from day one is we started using tools to practice recreating the scripts on the inside.

 

So as you know, breathwork is one of the main tools I’m excited about now and for the last four years. He now creates a new response where the mind says something, and then he steps in and says, “Hey, wait a second, I’m going to do some breathwork, raise my vibration, feel much better. And then go into this situation with a completely new perspective.”

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (19:39)

And since then, his business has grown, his proposals are way bigger, he feels more confident, he’s leading bigger teams. Essentially when you work from the inside out, your business becomes a reflection of you. So the more you grow and expand, the more you’re able to step up and lead to your full capacity.

 

Kyle Gray: (19:59)

That’s something in entrepreneurship that was maybe at first daunting to me but has become more and more of an attractive and exciting idea, and it’s becoming more and more the core focus rather than the results. But to create the business that you want, you have to become a different person, and you have to grow and develop yourself and undo these kinds of stories and strengthen and become aligned and in touch with these deep parts of you. And I think the process of becoming an entrepreneur again, it makes you better.

 

Kyle Gray: (20:41)

And I think that that is one of the greatest treasures of the journey. It’s not making a billion-dollar Snapchat startup exit or anything like that. Or even like something maybe a little bit more along the lines of a lot of the listeners here of just achieving, building a business that allows some financial freedom so that you can work when you want to work and travel when you want to travel. The really deep and powerful thing is, who do you have to become to create that?

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (21:19)

Yeah, exactly. And it’s super empowering, especially for people just getting started, there’s a lot of unknown. So it challenges you. Who are you when you’re learning how to edit the video for the first time, and you have to learn these new buttons and programs that you have never heard of, but you have a deadline the next day. Who you become when you show up in a room with someone you’ve followed for the last three years on a podcast, and they go and introduce themselves. How do you respond to these situations as your dream starts coming true? And it’s beautiful. This is making me miss the come up the first few years when every other day I’m like, “Do I know how to make any money? What’s going on?”

 

Kyle Gray: (21:58)

Well, and on that, this is a really good opportunity. I want to hear about some of the tools that you work with and that you work with your clients with, but I want to touch on this question. There’s a lot of coaches here. I’m a coach; you’re a coach, and some days you’ve got to show up and deliver for people, but you’re not feeling it. Maybe your energy is low. Maybe it feels like you have a hangover, even if you weren’t drinking. Or it’s just not your day. But you still got to show up and do the coaching call. Are there things that you do to take care of yourself and transform your energy? How can you handle yourself in those moments and deliver quality coaching even when you feel like you’re the one that needs it at the moment?

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (22:50)

Well, first before I get into that, I just want to say that it is powerful to lead with vulnerability. And so there are times when I’m not in my power, but the way I open up has far more of an impact on my clients because I’m not trying to be the superhero who always has my shit together. This perfect coach, look at me, I’m strong, I make all this money. And I feel like that’s a new paradigm that we’re getting into where if you’re the leader, the CEO, the boss, the manager, being honest, being open, being vulnerable is a very effective way to increase trust and connection and rapport with whoever you’re working with. So I just wanted to have a little disclaimer on that. But getting into the tools, one thing that I’ve brilliantly done by accident is I teach the tools that I love to do as well.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (23:40)

So sometimes we’re on a call, we did this on our last call, we did a round of breathwork together where it’s win-win because I get to feel the benefits, you feel the benefits. And also we’re in this energy together where we’ve just done this practice. And so I find breathwork to be the most effective, efficient way. Literally, I’m talking five, seven minutes, you can transform your state super fast.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (24:05)

And secondly, a more internal mental or spiritual practice is just having faith in yourself, having trust that even though the mind’s going crazy. “We can’t do this; everyone’s going to laugh at us. This is never going to work.” Just tuning that out and saying, “I trust myself. Let’s go rock this person’s world.”

 

Kyle Gray: (24:24)

So let’s dig into breathwork because I think a lot of people listening don’t know what that is, what that entails, what that looks like. Can you tell us a little bit about, maybe give us some examples of what breathwork looks like, what it feels like, and I know you’ve studied a lot about this, so maybe even describing some of the physiological things that happen when we start to use our breath intentionally?

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (24:53)

Sure. I like to talk about it, like going to the gym, but just for your breath, for your diaphragm. And so essentially you get the same benefits from exercise. You get the same neurochemicals. You’re able to manipulate your autonomic nervous system, and this is all proven in science. It’s a controlled meditation, that’s how I like to put it.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (25:17)

But there are so many different forms of breathwork. There’s a ton that comes from yoga; there’s the Wim Hof method that I’ve studied in. There’s another one called SOMA; there’s DMT breath. There’s all these different names. We’ve come up with a brand called Infinity Breath because, from my experience, again in my journey, I studied two different breathing techniques that are probably the most popular ones outside of yoga. But neither of them were really able to cure me completely. I was still in pain.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (25:49)

And so what we’d like to do is invite other people to experiment with their own body and find their own breath, because there’s so much you can do on a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual level, all with your breath. So it really depends on what you’re looking for. As far as physiological responses, I mean-

 

Kyle Gray: (26:09)

I want more energy, and so does everybody else on this podcast, so what do we do to get it? What’s more energy breathwork?

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (26:17)

More energy. So if you want more energy, breathe deeply into your belly and then up to your chest and just find a rhythm. So we use the four elements in infinity breathwork. So we start with water. So you just breathe in and out. And the point here is really just to get out of your head. So breathe in, and I would say 30, 40, 50 times, whatever feels right, long enough so that you get lost in the flow if you will. And then we do an exhale, breathing out, retention. And this is where a lot of the positive components, and you could skip this step, but I wouldn’t recommend it early on. And then you can hold your attention for one minute, two minutes, an extremely long time. And then when you take that next breath in, the fire breath, and when you hold that, that’s when you’re going to feel the energy.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (27:14)

So what you’re doing is going from the parasympathetic nervous system, rest and digest. At will, you’re going into the sympathetic nervous system. So you get to control your body, you get to control the stress response, dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline, cortisol, and norepinephrine, all the good stuff. It’s chemistry at a deep level. And then after that deep inhale, we have one final one, sorry. Exhale with the air, soft landing. So that’s just to make sure you can come back and be rested and relaxed, so you don’t stay in the distressed state for too long.

 

Kyle Gray: (27:49)

And you can repeat that process, and it doesn’t take longer than a few minutes to go through that whole thing once. I agree with this style that you can go to, there have been times where I’ve used this exact same exercise. I get home after flying all day, and I still have a couple of coaching calls. I’ve been working at workshops or speaking at events before, and I’m like, “Wow, I’m super tired,” and I just laid down on the floor and start working on that breathwork for 10 or 15 minutes. And then sometimes I’m like, “Wow, I’m feeling amazing.” But I think a more realistic thing is like I go from, “Man, I don’t want to do anything,” to, ” I can get through this day,” which is a win.

 

Kyle Gray: (28:34)

And also, kind of a disclaimer, I think especially starting out and especially if you’re just listening to this podcast and you’ve never tried breathwork before, and you start doing your first three breaths, and then you’re like, “Oh, my God, this is going to take so much longer. This is so much work,” and you just stopped doing it. But I would encourage people like you can if you just get through if you can take these big breaths where you fill up your whole belly and your whole chest and just in and out. And if you can get to 20 or 30 breaths and you’re really committing and really like working on filling up your whole body with air, you’ll start to feel it already. I remember not early on, and you start to feel kind of tingling. Not unlike if your fingers were asleep and the blood flow was coming off, but then all of a sudden.

 

Kyle Gray: (29:25)

At least this is my experience, and maybe it’s different for other people. But you start experiencing things. And I’m not sure exactly which chemicals are happening, in my personal experience, but I feel this. You’ll be surprised at how long. Another thing that sounds totally crazy, especially right when you’re starting out, is holding your breath at the bottom of your breath. And after doing that, after going through this thing, doing 30 really big breaths, 40 really big breaths, 

 

Kyle Gray: (30:00)

And then holding your breath at the bottom. You might think, oh well, If we just tried it right now, we could probably hold our breath for 15 seconds or something like that. But after this, you can hold your breath for a minute, a minute and a half, maybe two or even more. Again, it starts to create a deeper feeling, an experience, which feels really good.

 

Kyle Gray: (30:23)

It’s one of my favorite things to do. Just starting out in the morning to go from just rolling out of bed, to turn on the teapot on. Then you just get to lay down and rest and take care of yourself a little more. But it’s a great way to wake up and transform and shift the energy.

 

Kyle Gray: (30:41)

Again, my favorite part is after this, taking a big breath, and then holding it in, and squeezing your belly, because your body just feasts on the oxygen, and it’s so happy. You can really feel a lot of this happening. It’s so simple. If a skeptical person in their first few breaths might discount it, but it’s so surprisingly simple and surprisingly powerful. You can do it on your own. But yeah, there’s lots, lots to add.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (31:16)

I’ll just add a simpler version as well. Because in the workshops, I can tell some people are skeptical when I tell them breathwork can increase your creativity and inspiration, and all these things. If you just do 30 rapid breaths, it’s technically not hyperventilating because you’re doing it while you’re in a controlled state. Hyperventilation is when you’re not in control, you’re panicking. So your body takes on the response, and you feel this disconnect, and that’s why it’s scary and dangerous for the body. But this is not hyperventilation. You’re doing it, your own control.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (31:52)

So just take 30 deep breaths, 30 deep breaths, in-out, in-out. Then skip the retention and just breathe in and hold. If you want to actually measure this, do as many pushups as you can, just regular breathing. Then do 30 deep breaths in and then hold. Then while holding the breath, you’ll be able to do more pushups than when you were breathing. That, to me, dispels all doubt, and people feel amazing. It’s quite powerful.

 

Kyle Gray: (32:23)

That’s true. I’ve experienced that before. You can definitely, even if you haven’t done pushups in a while, you’ll be surprised at what you’re capable of when you supercharge your body with oxygen.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (32:38)

Yeah, and what I love about it is just so empowering. Where I come from this background where I’ve had so many doctors, and healers, and psychotherapists, and different medicine people tell me they could help me and they weren’t able to. This is something that’s naturally available. It’s free in every country, and it holds power to heal your body. Your body knows how to heal itself. It’s just a matter of showing up, believing in it, and giving it the time and space to do so. So once you have that aha moment or it’s like, “Whoa, I just did this simply by breathing,” to me, that’s a powerful moment.

 

Kyle Gray: (33:17)

Something that I’ve really noticed about you and I think what’s really defining about a lot of the work you do is you help people transform their energy in many different ways. I think breathwork is a great example of transforming physical energy.

 

Kyle Gray: (33:35)

But there’s a lot of times, where either I may be expecting a client, and then they bail out on me, or something goes wrong in my business, or I’m facing a challenge, or usually I’m facing a really big uncertain decision. I’m not sure whether to do option A or option B. You’ve suggested a lot of ways for internally shifting the energy, shifting the mental story as well. One of them that I’d love to chat with you a little bit about, I was just working on one of these exercises this morning, it’s called Kylego.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (34:17)

Yeah, do you want me to explain that?

 

Kyle Gray: (34:18)

Yes, please.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (34:19)

So this is funny, we were talking about, yoga and that stuff that’s proven for 1,000 years. This guy, his name’s Kyle, he has a friend named Diego. One day they just made it up and called it Kylego. That being said, it’s very effective. Essentially what you do is you talk about the future as if it has already happened. And so for example, I could say, “Wow, it’s 2025, and I just made my first million dollars, and it was so cool. Once I went on Oprah, and my book really blew up, then I started to do X, Y, Z.”

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (34:55)

Essentially you’re using your mind to jump ahead to the future so that it can create possible roadmaps for you that are empowering, that is exciting, that is inspiring. You can use your mind to be creative rather than destructive. So say a client doesn’t show up. You’re thinking, “Oh, he’s not going to pay me. This is stupid. My whole day is going to be off. What do I do for the next 45 minutes? How am I supposed to make up for this?” whatever story is going on. From my point of view, anything you do is going to be better than just listening to that voice and feeling sorry for yourself.

 

Kyle Gray: (35:30)

It’s pretty much an anti-Kylego. Most of the time where we’re doing the exact opposite of it, where we imagine ourselves in the future as miserable. Because we messed up and didn’t do that thing or, we did one thing wrong. At least I have seen myself in those kinds of modes. And taking the time to think about that, and think about your future in a positive light, and encourage yourself, and yeah, imagine yourself being successful. Simple, yeah again, very, very powerful.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (36:05)

Exactly. So say this situation, a client blows you off or doesn’t show up, that’s harsh language. Then you’re thinking, “Oh, the next three clients are all going not to show up, and my whole day is going to be wasted.” Whatever story you’re telling yourself, take a step back.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (36:20)

Then I really believe, and my coach preaches this, the best tool, the right tool at the right time. I believe, asking yourself, “Hey, what’s the best tool to use right now? How can I move this energy?” if Kylego shows up, you essentially recreate the story. This is going to help everybody who’s interested in your podcast because they already are interested in stories.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (36:40)

So now, instead of writing it out, they get to speak it out loud. Instead of this victim’s story, “Ah, he was late, he didn’t call me. I’m the victim here.” You can say, “Oh, wow. So Kyle didn’t show up for my podcast interview. But then I saw an old friend. Then we went out to the park, and then he told me about this new business meetup that I was going to. “I went to the business meetup, and I ended up landing six clients that night. So it turned out to be this amazing miracle in disguise. Because at first, I was frustrated, but it turned out that life was really in my favor.” You’re recreating a story that feels empowering, and that’s open to possibilities.

 

Kyle Gray: (37:20)

That leads to a really interesting question that I have. Again, just speaking to the masculine type that I am. And I’d recommend when doing this exercise just record it on to a phone. I think when I try to write Kylego exercises, it’s too easy to self-edit because I can’t write as fast as I think.

 

Kyle Gray: (37:51)

So I’m just talking, and what the real magic starts to happen. You’ve got to do it for four or five minutes. During those first four minutes, it’s honestly kind of junk. It’s okay, and you’re thinking positively. Maybe it’s not exactly all junk, but it’s like you’re still thinking in your think brain, and what you should be doing, and your strategic everything.

 

Kyle Gray: (38:16)

But once you start to get past that, and you start to feel like you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, then you start to really open up to new and surprising possibilities. Sometimes, it may turn out exactly the way that you described. I went to this meetup and found six new clients. But it’s more about just focusing on the opportunities before you instead of the negative or any challenges.

 

Kyle Gray: (38:45)

I think it’s really similar to an episode, an interview we had with Mark England a couple of months back on how we need to be very specific with the language we use in communicating with others. This is just a matter of translating that language into yourself.

 

Kyle Gray: (39:01)

The question that I have now and one of the earliest challenges you gave me was trying to see my autoimmune condition that I had as a superpower. I did not like that idea at all in the outset. A lot of the things that are really holding us back, they’re frustrating, they’re the enemies, and we want to get rid of them or eliminate it and things like that.

 

Kyle Gray: (39:34)

Overtime working together, and through a lot of different projects, I’ve started to see it as a gift. It’s helped me find a unique group of people that I can work with and impacted my business. It’s taught me a lot about myself and not just managing my own health but managing my mind like you’re saying because the mind can create a lot of these things. You started this story off talking about your own challenges. I’d love to close in hearing how your headaches and what challenges you have become your superpower.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (40:15)

I would say it’s become my path. It’s opened me up to new parts of myself that I didn’t know it was there. It’s brought me to different communities and different crowds that I would not have sought after myself. And more importantly, it’s brought me more truth than I could ever learn in school or from teachers or from my family.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (40:41)

It’s just been this teacher on the inside that’s there to remind me who I am, to remind me of my power, to remind me of my deepest truth. It’s also given me a ton of inspiration to actually stand for something in this world, and not just be another entrepreneur who gets by and makes a lot of money and maybe do some videos or music here. Rather really share a message.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (41:07)

For me, my life has become my message, I’m a living example of the things I believe in. I don’t really go out and preach it very often to other people. But it’s forced me into this opportunity to walk my own path, to discover what things mean to me. Then as a byproduct, I felt so inspired and called to share with other people. And now, it’s become my main business and source of income, where I’m able to help other people with things that I learned from this.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (41:36)

If you would have told me that three, four years ago, I would’ve been excited about the idea of making money. “Oh cool, I get to try all these things, and breathwork and plant medicine, and go around and teach other people, and I get to win in this game.”

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (41:50)

But for me, the most fulfilling aspect is being able to take my life experience and watch other people’s lives transform in a blink of an eye. Sometimes based on things that I just stumbled upon three years ago. And watch other people be able to grow and benefit based on the things that I’ve learned because I took the difficult path, if you will, or the road less traveled.

 

Kyle Gray: (42:17)

Well, Jeremy, it’s been a pleasure discovering a lot of really simple and actionable ways to transform our energy internally, externally, and in the world around us. Where can we go to learn more about you and to follow more of your journey?

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (42:33)

Yeah, thanks. It’s Jeremyginsburg.com. You can follow me on Instagram as well at Jeremy Ginsburg. If you’re interested, I could share with you a breathwork video on YouTube that you can post in the show notes, maybe?

 

Kyle Gray: (42:49)

That’d be a great thing. Yeah, we’ll absolutely do that.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (42:52)

All right. So then you can find my YouTube there.

 

Kyle Gray: (42:55)

Perfect, okay. Jeremy, thanks so much for joining us on the Story Engine Podcast.

 

Jeremy Ginsburg: (43:00)

Thank you, Kyle, much love.



Kyle Gray:

Thanks for listening to the Story Engine Podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes and resources mentioned on this episode and every other episode at thestoryengine.co

 

If you’re looking to learn more about how to use storytelling to grow your business, then check out my new book, Selling With Story: How to Use Storytelling to Become an Authority, Boost Sales, and Win the Hearts and Minds of Your Audience. This book will equip you with actionable strategies and templates to help you share your unique value and build trust in presentations, sales, and conversations, both online and offline. Learn more at sellingwithstory.co. 

 

Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next time.