Pyschosynthesis and the Path of Self Discovery | Tim Van Ness

TIM VAN NESS: 0:00

Successful people and actually organizations, they do 1 thing really well. They connect, but they connect in 3 ways they connect with who they really are with their own selves. So when you see somebody who's like really at the top of their game, really in, in any industry, you especially see it in the arts and in sports, but people who are really successful are connected with who they really are, with their values, with what they believe, with their why

JON A: 0:28

All right. Welcome to the New Age Human Podcast. I'm your host, John Astacio. Today, we're talking with Tim Van Ness. Now, Tim is a certified psychosynthesis life coach. He's got a passion with helping people connect with who they truly are. With their own inner wisdom and knowing. Now in today's episode, we talk about his personal experience with psychosynthesis, what that actually is and how he uses it to help his clients. You can take advantage. And peek into some of the techniques yourself and learn a little bit about that too, for yourself and for your business now, before we get started, just want to give you a reminder. If you want to help build the show and support, leave us a 5 star review on apple podcast. That helps us a lot. And if you don't listen on apple podcast, you can always go to new age human dot com and leave reviews straight on the website and contact me if you have any questions. So Let's get to the show. All right, Tim Van Ness. Thank you for coming on to the show, brother. How's it going?

TIM VAN NESS: 1:26

It's going really well. Thanks for having me. It's nice to be here, man. This has been a long time coming, actually.

JON A: 1:31

Yeah, we've been going back and forth. I enjoy our conversations and we're, we're doing similar things. We have a similar, thought process when it comes to how we want to help people and, uh, it's cool to, to connect with someone that has your experience, your background. And there's a lot of stuff going on that led up to where you're at now being a certified psychosynthesis life coach. And I hope I said it right. what got you to do that of all things?

TIM VAN NESS: 2:00

Good question. I, well, I've, I've known about psychosynthesis for many, many years. My dad was actually, uh, he ended up after I went off to college, he went off and got a PhD in transpersonal psychology. One of the things he studied in that course of study, which was from the California Institute of transpersonal psychology, which is now called Sophia University, uh, he studied psychosynthesis. So I have known about it, uh, and. There's one of the primary training grounds for psychosynthesis in the Northeast is about a half an hour from where I live in Amherst, Massachusetts. And many years ago, I worked at a place called the Men's Resource Center. There was two doors down from the Synthesis Center. Uh, so I've known about psychosynthesis for a long time and probably three years ago, I found myself wanting to do some therapy work, individual work. And I thought I should reach out to the synthesis center because I've known about them for a long time and I like the concept. And so I did, and I ended up working with a guy named John Shotland, who's in Brattleboro, Vermont, which is about 45 minutes from where I live. I'm, I'm in Orange, Massachusetts, about 75 miles west of Boston. So I started working with John and after working with him for a year or so, he is a faculty member for the psycho spiritual institute in Florida. Which has a coaching training program in psychosynthesis and. He started talking to me about, you know, Tim, we're really looking at the need for more male trainers in psychosynthesis. Most of the people involved in the Psychospiritual Institute are women. It was started by two women. And so he said, you know, based on your background, your experience, I think you'd probably be really good at it. So we started talking and I started looking at the program and I figured I should probably go through the program. Yeah. Even before I consider, you know, is this something that I can teach? So I looked at that program and there's another program out in California run by a woman named Didi Furman. Didi is one of the kind of grandmothers of, of psychosynthesis training in the U S and ran the synthesis center. Near where I live for many years. So I'd known, I think I'd met her once or twice and I've known of her for a long time, but I looked at these 2 different programs and decided on the, the psycho spiritual Institute program and in Florida. And I completed it actually just a year ago. This past weekend was the, the 1 year anniversary of our graduation.

JON A: 4:48

Wow, the timing is actually pretty interesting.

TIM VAN NESS: 4:51

It is. What

JON A: 4:52

could you break down? What is Psychosynthesis?

TIM VAN NESS: 4:59

As I said earlier, it's a, it's an approach to transpersonal psychology, or it's a form of transpersonal psychology. Transpersonal psychology is the study of psychology that goes beyond trans, just the study of personality, or study of psychology, I should say, that goes beyond just the study of personality. So it's a, it's a whole system approach to psychology. It's a, it's a form of positive psychology. The term positive psychology has gotten a lot of, uh, airplay these days. Basically, it's a kind of a spiritual approach to psychology, informed by, somewhat by Carl Jung's work. Uh, the idea being that we are not our personality, we are not our body, we're not our thoughts, we're not our emotions, we have all these things. But who we are in our core essential self is something different.

JON A: 5:57

Got it.

TIM VAN NESS: 5:58

Who's the person that's starting to recognize, you know, I feel crappy today. Well, who is it that's saying I feel crappy today? It's not the crappiness. It's not all the stuff that's informing, you know, we're having a difficult challenge in our relationships or we're thinking we're worried about stuff. Those are functions of who we are, but who we are in our core essential self. Is this core essential self that actually is connected to something grander beyond ourselves and is also kind of connected to the collective unconscious as Carl Jung talked about sort of something again, something bigger than us. And so psychosynthesis see seeks to help individuals connect more deeply with who they really are in their course, essential self. Like that, those really private moments when you're in bed at night and you're, where you're really pondering those existential questions. Who are you really in your essence? And how can you work with and have a relationship with all the different psychological functions, our thinking function? I used to think of these, of these as different bodies. We have these, we have a physical body, right? Uh, but like one of our, one of my favorite spiritual teachers of all time said, Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. So Jedi Master Yoda talked about We basically are the force. We are not our bodies. We are luminous beings, not this crude matter of flesh. Right? So with that concept, we have the, we have a thinking body. We have meant our thoughts. We have an emotional body, all the feelings that we have. We have our physical body and the sensations that we have, sight, smell, sound, taste, all that stuff. in psychosynthesis, we talk about three others, intuition, imagination. So some people really see in pictures. You know, their, their imagination is very vivid and then the, the impulse. Yeah. And then the impulse desire function, which, you know, that's like, like, I want chocolate now. Um, you know, so these are the functions of our psyche, but they're not who we are. And so psychosynthesis seems to synthesize all of these different aspects of who we are, so that we can be more connected to who we are in our core, in our essence, so that we can live. Our most fulfilling life on purpose.

JON A: 8:34

Beautifully said, Actually, I like I want to go back a little bit. I like how when you got exposed to this you didn't say hey I'm going to just get certified and just hit the ground running you said I want to experience this to make sure that I can help people with this. I want to go through it first, which is huge in a world where there's a lot of get rich quick theories. Uh, you, you can fall into the rabbit hole on, on, on, on YouTube and all that. Uh, and and just for me, because of what I do and I research and everything, every other commercial is like, Hey, do you want to work from home? And hey, this, hey, this, hey, that. And it's like that skill of helping people find their true calling and their true self by synthesizing and understanding The different aspects of themselves trying to grasp at everything is very important, and I totally feel that. what was your experience going through that program yourself? I want to know.

TIM VAN NESS: 9:42

Yeah, it's interesting. I was just, I'm now just friends and colleagues with John Shotland, who was, I am not doing therapy with him anymore, and I actually stopped because he was one of the faculty members, so we didn't want to have a conflict of interest there. So he's really a colleague and I got together with him for dinner the other night, and he was asking me the same thing because we were sitting with another colleague, another psychosynthesis colleague, and we were just talking about our experiences of trainings and stuff. It was really interesting for me because I was very different, I think, than a lot of the other students in the program, because I've already been a coach for many years. So I wasn't really going to learn how to be a coach. I was really going to learn more about psychosynthesis and the specific skills and toolkit that psychosynthesis provides as a coach. I've been doing leadership and executive coaching for years, and I've been a facilitator and doing leadership development, training and organization development and change consulting and stuff like that. So, so I wasn't looking for a coaching thing. I. I already have, I've been a spiritual seeker all my life and I have my own spiritual path. So I wasn't really looking for that. A lot of students when we first introduced ourselves and 1 of the 1st calls, a lot of the people were there to learn. What coaching is and how to be coach they were learning about kind of having a spiritual life. A lot of the people were had been seekers, but they'd never really tapped into anything that worked for them. there were people that were really excited about having access to a community. I have various communities in my life, so I wasn't there was a lot that I wasn't looking for in an in a way. There's a lot that wasn't really new. I also knew a lot about psychosynthesis just because I've known about psychosynthesis and I had been working with a psychosynthesis coach or therapist for several years. So, and he had taught me a lot about psychosynthesis and using the models and the frameworks and the language and all that. So there wasn't in a lot of ways. There wasn't really a lot that was new. And yet it was still a very profound experience. And I feel like I learned a lot and again, the language, the tools, the specific models and frameworks around psychosynthesis and having more ability to articulate them and talk about them and use them and put them into practice into my, into my own coaching. So I was, it was great because I was a, well, we, we did a lot of practicing of court coaching. Of course, you have to have a certain number of hours. So we practiced with each other in, in the class. Yeah. Uh, and, but I've also, I also had my own coaching clients and my own coaching work. So I was integrating psychosynthesis concepts and language into my coaching practice. And that I found really valuable as well.

JON A: 12:35

It's interesting how you came in there with already. A lot of knowledge and you're under your belt and, uh, already being a coach of sorts several times for several years. And yet you said you said it's it still was a profound experience. What about it was profound? Was it the inner journey? Uh, or was it more of like the revelations? I'm very curious.

TIM VAN NESS: 13:00

D all of the above. Uh, it, it was my own energy. One of the things that happened in the very first class, they sent out this list of things that you had to do to prepare and be ready for. Uh, and. And they said, you know, please read this email carefully all the way through, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I did. I did it. I did it. I did it all. I was all ready. I was kind of excited. So I get that. And I, I, I have to say, I, I had a very difficult time in school. My, my background is I'm, I'm an artist and a creative and the traditional public school system was not designed for somebody like me. Many of your listeners may be able to relate to this, I suppose. Uh, so I had, I hated school. Honestly, and I had a difficult time in school and, uh, all, all I really have is an undergraduate degree. Uh, I have a bachelor's in music education, uh, and never went on to, to do because I hated school. I was like psyched to finally, finally graduate. And it took me seven years to graduate from college. I bounced around a lot. That's part of why, but, so the idea of being a student, and this was sort of the first time I had really been a student again. You know, matriculated and paying money for education. So that first class. 1 of the 1st things they said was some of you have not filled out the so so and so form. It was something like, you know, the letter of agreement form where you agree to all of their, you know, what it means to be a student and what you agree to do and how to how you behave and all that kind of stuff. And they were like, you know who you are. And I'm like, I don't know what they're talking about. How did I miss this? And I instantly felt shame. I instantly went back to being in middle school and feeling like I'm stupid and I'm a bad student.

JON A: 15:06

Wow,

TIM VAN NESS: 15:07

so that became some fodder to work on and I realized that's what we call in psychosynthesis a sub personality. It's my scared little boy that's terrified of doing it wrong and being a bad boy and not being smart enough. All those things, a lot of people are more and more familiar now with internal family systems, internal family systems was very much informed by psychosynthesis, sort of borrowed from psychosynthesis. Uh, so they call, they talk about parts work and psychosynthesis, it's called sub personalities. So it gave me an opportunity to really look at that old hurt, that old wound, that old part of me that is a limiting belief ultimately. Because there's that part of me that thinks I'm stupid and I'm not smart and I'm not a good student and here it is again, like, see, that voice in me, that sub personality had all sorts of new data. See, Tim, I told you, you know, you've been avoiding it for all these decades, but here you are once again, you're a bad student and you screwed up. And you didn't read it carefully enough and you didn't fill out the form and they're calling you out on this very first call. So the whole process, you know, 1 of the things I liked about this program was they, we use ourselves as fodder for learning the material and we,

JON A: 16:37

a challenging thing.

TIM VAN NESS: 16:40

and it's not something I'm unfamiliar with. At some point, we'll probably get to talking about playback theater, which is a big part of my training and in playback theater. It's a form of improvisational theater. And we practice by telling our own stories and playing back our own experiences. That's how we practice. So the approach to education wasn't new to me. and, and then I also, the other thing I'll say to finally answer your question, the other piece of the answer is by the end of the training program, which is about 10 months. I really felt like I had a whole new community of people that I fell in love with I wasn't expecting it. And in fact, the whole thing was on zoom. The whole thing was except for the last intensive weekend. There were several intensive weekends throughout the program and the last intensive weekend was done in person. And the end of the intensive weekend was the graduation, which was also in person. So that was another really cool thing. Cause I, I ended up going down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for the graduation and for the intensive weekend, I finally got to see all these people that I've been meeting, Like this on zoom or whatever and, you know, relationships that got pretty deep because we're coaching each other on our own personal stuff. And again, kind of people that I kind of fell in love with. And I was like, oh, my God, it was so exciting to see these people. And through that experience, it also made me realize how important these people and how important this process had been.

JON A: 18:17

Now, um, a silly question. They, they do say the camera adds like 10 pounds. Was everybody smaller for you when you met them or?

TIM VAN NESS: 18:27

it's a great, yeah, yeah. it's, it's true that the cameras make you look, look different. it was more just, you know, we're just sitting here at our desks or standing at our desk. So all you see is this. So when I got in person, it wasn't so much that they, you know, looked thinner necessarily, but it was like. Oh, wow. You're, you're a lot taller than I thought you were, or, oh, wow. You're a lot shorter than I thought you were. Cause you can't tell people's height by just, they're sitting at their desk in front of a zoom camera, you know? So that, that, that was the thing.

JON A: 18:58

yeah, I

TIM VAN NESS: 18:59

or like, oh, wow, you're fatter than I thought you were.

JON A: 19:02

yeah, right. That's not the best way to, you know, yeah, that's not the best way to meet someone in person and just like right off the cuff. Oh, wow. Uh, you are looking very different. Um, but that's got to be amazing. And that that tests to the. Just the importance of meeting people in person, and we've gotten so used to, like, there's pros and cons, obviously, with going digital. I mean, right now, we're doing it digitally right now where we're connecting, but it's, you know, it's the next level thing. I can only imagine just meeting up with people. maybe we can go on that tangent just a little bit. I'm curious what your thoughts are. When you're working with people with clients, what are your thoughts on the digital world affecting people in general on their journey with making those connections? Because you're a big connections guy. So what are your thoughts on like, what's a good way to balance the two? Right?

TIM VAN NESS: 20:04

Well, that's an interesting way to put it, balancing the two. And we do kind of have to do that now. It's the era where we're, we are balancing the two. You're, you live probably like two and a half hours away. I could have driven down to your studio or we could have found a studio to meet in or something, you know, uh, we could have done that. And yeah, it takes time. And it takes more money because they're, you know, gas money and all that kind of stuff. I've spent the last over 25 years doing leadership development training and facilitation of groups and teams. Um, really nothing. At all that can replace being in person is just absolutely not the same. And coming off of what sparked that question, this, this in person intensive training at the end of a nine or 10 months zoom experience, you connect with people very differently in person. Now that's not to say, that's not to say you can't do it virtually. It's possible. And it's not the same. So herein lies one of the psychosynthesis principle, which is a similar principle to improvisational theater, as it turns out, which is both and holding both of these truths at the same time. I used to talk. I used to call it the theory of multiple truths. It's possible to connect via zoom virtually. And it's not the same as in person. Both are true. so if we are in this world going to balance it, I think finding the balance is the trick. And finally finding the commitment and the resources to actually bring people together is worth it. And more and more and more and more. I hear people actually hungry and starving for in person connection because people know, we know, like, we know it's not the same and yes, there's all sorts of data you can do. And I'm sure there's data. You can show that, you know, it's a fact just as effective and business works just as well. And the truth is, we all know. Or most of us really agree and know and so 2 things about my work. 1 is yes, I'm a connections guy. I've been working with this idea of of. Helping people connect with who they are with their own inner knowing so psychosynthesis is a great tool for that also and it's partly because especially in Western society. Sometimes I want to blame Descartes. I think therefore I am. There's there's an orientation to rational thought. There's an orientation towards, data and research. And over the last 10, 20, and especially 10 years, there's been a lot of neuroscience research and a lot of behavioral science research that for me, not that it's not valid, but there's part of me that ruffles a little bit at the idea that there's now neuroscience research to prove some of these things that we know and things that artists and healers have known for thousands of years. Like being in person is a more powerful experience than being on zoom. Like, we know this. Do I need a research study to tell me that it's true? For whatever reason, though, we have a tendency to in this society to really only believe it if it's scientifically proven and I'm concerned about that because I think it gets it gets us away from being connected to our own knowing and our own truth. Because we don't trust our own. We don't trust ourselves. We don't trust our own knowing and our own truth. Well, I could be wrong. I could be like, you know, I could have some psychological process that's, you know, making me believe that I'm. Yeah, and do you feel like you are like, no, that's not to say again. I mean, I'm not, I'm not down on research and, you know, there's, you know, there's, there's validity and there's a place for science and there's a place for research. And what I'm concerned again is the balance. Do we, do we lose our own sense of knowing what's right for us? especially in this age of, you know, fake news and all that kind of stuff. It's like, who do you believe?

JON A: 24:38

Yeah.

TIM VAN NESS: 24:39

Every media outlet has its own agenda. I'm sorry. Every media outlet is paid for by somebody who's trying to make money. So who do you believe? What do you believe? And how do you know? And we end up actually believing the things that resonate with us the most, regardless of the network or regardless of politics or whatever it is. If something feels right to us, we'll believe it.

JON A: 25:05

Mhm.

TIM VAN NESS: 25:06

And

JON A: 25:06

know, that reminds me. Okay. Okay.

TIM VAN NESS: 25:08

one last thing, and then that, it's not very often that we hear something and we're like, oh my god, that's totally different from what I always thought. And then we're ready to go down that road to explore it and understand it more.

JON A: 25:26

I love those. I love it when it happens when those things happen to me where and it might sound contradicting because someone provides you a thought or concept and you're like, I never thought of that. And I like getting lost in that new rabbit hole because it reminds me of just having a flashlight. And realizing there's another door and now you have a bigger house, right? You're like, yes, it's like finding 20 in your pocket and it survived the wash, you know? But when you were talking about like inner guidance, that reminded me of something that I think a lot of people can relate to observing, which is the effect GPS had on people where people are driving off the road into the water because they value. The machine that is telling them to go

TIM VAN NESS: 26:21

Turn right, right now, on this road. There is no road, but I'm gonna turn right anyway, right?

JON A: 26:27

right? How many times I've had a GPS where it was a rental car and it was just one of those things that they gave you and it wasn't updated and I was circling. A block, like 3 times because I didn't know the area. And so I had to rely on something outside of myself. And then I was like, you know what, let me, pull out the brain of mine that I haven't used in a while, which reads signs, uses logic and. Understands direction of, like, the water's to your left land is to the right. I know that it's forward and more inland. I'm not going to need to make another left now. It's, it's on the, you know, like, stuff like that.

TIM VAN NESS: 27:12

And I'm looking for a Best Buy, and they have a big, huge, yellow sign, and it's like, if I use my eyes and look around, it's like, Okay. This, this side street that has absolutely nothing on it is definitely not taking me to a shopping center. Yeah.

JON A: 27:26

Yeah. And, or just, uh, for, for myself as a, I would say. Elder millennial. I asked someone, Oh, where is this place? And if they're not from the time of having access to GPS for 10, 12, 20 plus years, they're going to give you actual directions on how to get somewheres. And myself, I'm like, Losing patience because I'm like, just, I just need the address and then I can figure it out. I just plug it in. It's not like you go to, and, and it's kind of scary because I remember someone giving me directions. It's, it's the second left at that light. You're going to see a sign or you can see a church and this and. My attention span has gotten worse. So to your point, it's, it's so crucial to, to learn about and strengthen your intuition and then build those connections because that is, there's, it's, there's. It's just different, you know, it's different from going to a place where, you know, where everything is at your, your, your hometown and you can map out the whole town in your mind and, you know, all the side streets. But imagine if that you were like that for yourself, it will be so much easier to make decisions. It will be so much easier to. Um, see opportunities that are aligned with your passions and know that it's your passion and not someone else's passion and so on and so forth.

TIM VAN NESS: 28:55

Yeah. John, I know you're normally the one asking questions here, but can I ask you a question about that?

JON A: 29:00

Sure.

TIM VAN NESS: 29:01

Have you ever, and this is really for everybody. I think, have you ever like in that, that setting that you were talking about, you're, you're using a GPS and you're essentially lost or you can't find the thing. Have you ever just done that thing of just like stopping for a minute, listening inside, like, Okay. If I didn't have any other information, which way would I go? And then just start driving and trusting it.

JON A: 29:28

I've had to do that because I lost signal, you know,

TIM VAN NESS: 29:32

Yeah.

JON A: 29:32

or, I do remember that I have done that. I haven't stopped and pulled over and just kind of sat in silence like that, which would be a great thing. It was more of like, I got to, Get somewheres at a certain time. And you know what? What makes sense is that, for example, if you're from the Northeast area and you've ever driven, from New York into New Jersey, that is anxiety because there's 10 different signs and the decisions that you need to make and maneuvering around cars needs to be quick and safe. That would be a place that if you don't know where you're going ahead of time, there's no way to read those signs and be able to avoid a car cutting you off in aggressive traffic. So it's 1 of those things where that would be a perfect time where I go there. I'm like, where am I going? Okay, I'm going to Jersey. Okay. And then. I know they live off of, uh, whatever, 42. And then I'm just like looking for that number. I'm not looking at GPS is confused. And I'm just like, and, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel, and you're just weaving in and out of cars. So yeah, that's, that's definitely happened to me. I'm guessing that's happened to you.

TIM VAN NESS: 30:47

Yeah, yeah, it is. And, um, you know, that's again that that's that thing of trusting your own inner knowing and not that it always leads you in exactly the right place. But, I mean, I've definitely had the experience of of this is slightly different, but, you know, going down the road and having having a little nudge inside that says turn left now and. And like, well, that's not the way I normally go, but I can go down that way. So it's like, okay, I'll follow that. And then I found out, find out later, or I see later, there was a, there was an accident. You know, along the way, so I'm a big fan of, of developing that well, in psychosynthesis, I was mentioning 1 of the functions is intuition. So developing that intuition and developing that, you know, again, because I think we, it also comes down to the nervous system. Really? Because we get like going from New York into New Jersey, you know, it's like, wait, which bridge, which tunnel? Oh, my God, I'm going the wrong way. Um, and it's very anxiety producing. And so we're kind of in fight or flight all the time when we're driving in that kind of context. And we're trying to follow GPS and we're on this thing. It says follow this blue line. But it doesn't realize that I'm up on this level and not down on this level. And on, on, on this level, you can kind of go off here, but on this level, you can't, and it's like, turn right now. It's like, I can't, there's no exit for me. It's in the other, you know, and there's something about slowing down. And, you know, what happens in fight or flight as, as we know, and, you know, thank you neuroscience research. I suppose this, you know, it's 1 of the things that explains why it's happening. But when we go into fight or flight, our frontal cortex shuts down. So does our digestion, which is why we kind of get that sort of sick pit in the stomach feeling when we're nervous. Right. but our frontal like, our rational thinking function isn't working when we're in fight or flight. So that's where we're like, we're listening to directions. And if we just stop and slow down and take a breath. It can help us bring this back on and we can start to think logically. Does it make sense to turn left when actually I want to go over the river?

JON A: 33:01

I like that a lot. And that's something that's like one of my biggest challenges that I've gotten all so much better with where you find yourself in this loop of trying of being stuck on something because you're stuck in fighter, fighter flight. And then later on. You realize, oh, okay, you know what I did waste a couple hours because I could have just done this. So, yeah, I appreciate that comment for sure. I want to give you a chance to talk about what you're working on right now, because you said that you're, you're doing a couple of different things and, uh, I want, I want you to be able to share with the audience, something that, you know, what you're working on and how they can contact you and any advice you can give them based off of our conversation.

TIM VAN NESS: 33:46

sure. Any advice to give? I know we, we talked earlier about things that might be valuable to listeners right now are people who are in transition and on some level, how to apply what we've just been talking about this trusting yourself thing to finding work that's important to you and valuable to you in your life. And I've been in a bit of a transition. I had some health issues come up earlier this year. And interestingly, they coincided with a decision I made to let go of 1 of my primary clients. I had been a contracted to a firm that was doing a lot of leadership development training. I'd 19 years. And for most of the time, it was a really great experience, a really great company, but the original founders had sold the company and over the years, things had really changed and gone downhill. And the company I found was no longer really living its values and really treating its people. As well, as I think would be worthwhile and as a result, they were losing a lot of people and they ended up losing me and they, they lost another facilitator to, like, me that had been doing work with them for a long, long time within the same week. And so, It was and the health at health issue that I'm dealing with has to do with my heart. So it was really interesting because there was a way I realized that my heart was kind of broken by this firm and, uh, my heart wasn't really in the work anymore. at least dealing with the office. And so I'm continuing to do a lot of the work that I've done. Vanessa and company has been working for over 20 years. Almost 20 years, 2004 is when I started Van Essen company and our focus is around helping organizations live values, develop leaders and nurture culture. And we offer programs for teams and organizations, coaching for individuals and teams and consulting to organizations. So I do all of that. A lot of the work that I've done in the last number of 20 plus years is working on the concept of leadership. Or executive presence, and so I'm continuing to clarify and recreate my own model and frameworks around leadership presence and executive presence what it means. I'm also really working like we talked about around a concept around connection. So, 1 of the things I started realizing is successful people and actually organizations, they do 1 thing really well. They connect, but they connect in 3 ways they connect with who they really are with their own selves. So when you see somebody who's like really at the top of their game, really in, in any industry, you especially see it in the arts and in sports, but people who are really successful are connected with who they really are, with their values, with what they believe, with their why. Thank you, Simon Sinek. they're also really connected with what they're doing in the moment, what they're talking about. They really believe it. They really understand it. They have a way of articulating it. They're really connected with the content of what they're doing. And then lastly, they're able to really connect with their audience. And there are skills that are associated with all these things. And I have a, I have a model and a framework around this to teach those skills about how to connect with yourself, with your content and with your audience to be successful. That also weaves into coaching. And so, yes, I'm a psychosynthesis life coach and I've been doing leadership and executive coaching for a number of years, so. And teaching, coaching, actually teaching a coaching program. So I'm interweaving the, the psychosynthesis skills and tools into the coaching work that I'm doing.

JON A: 37:46

Wow. And I like the point that you brought up and you highlighted how, and it's just perfectly brought it home. The most successful people out there know who they are and it makes perfect sense because Of all that happens when you know who you are and it's a beautiful place to be and there's so many ways to get there. but it's, I believe one of life's most challenging journeys, if not the main journey, right? And I feel like there are people that have success, but if they don't know who are and haven't made that true connection, something's going to to happen that forces their hand, whether I don't want to say a car accident, but like, I've just heard, like, they went way off track, forgot who they were, got lost in the sauce and then woke up in a hospital or woke up at rock bottom and were faced with the mirror and then went to the next level beyond that. And, uh, I really feel like you, you summed it up pretty well. You summed it up pretty well.

TIM VAN NESS: 39:04

Thank you. And it's, it, it is tricky and you're right there, there are a lot of people that are very successful that don't necessarily do what I'm doing. They don't connect necessarily with people. They're just really good at what they do, and they're really skilled. And they get skilled at, you know, ignoring the things that I'm talking about. I'm, I, I question how sustainable it is. So there, there are organizations that are really, really successful and make billions of dollars by screwing everybody else over. And they don't necessarily, they aren't necessarily the organizations that last. in perpetuity. so, and sometimes they are. So it's a tricky thing. It's like, do you really need to do this stuff? It's like, no, you don't. Perhaps if you're really good at a very, a variety of other aspects and dimensions of business. And I mean, you bring up a good point. Are you really happy in the long run? And are you really living your life's purpose? And a lot of people who don't. Come to a place. It's usually called the midlife crisis, right? That they start to realize my life on the outside and on a book looks perfect. You know, I've got, I've got the house. I've got the family. I've got the job. I've got the cars or whatever and something's missing.

JON A: 40:28

Yeah, it's true. Well, this was a fun conversation.

TIM VAN NESS: 40:32

Sure was. Thanks, man.

JON A: 40:33

we're gonna, we're definitely, there's other subjects that I want to talk about another time. So, we're definitely gonna, I would love to have you back on the show. This, this was a great conversation. I'm glad about how it went. So thank you so much for coming on the show, man.

TIM VAN NESS: 40:49

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.