ProductiviTree: Cultivating Efficiency, Harvesting Joy

ProductiviTree #24 Elevate Your Influence - Align Identity & Impact - David Waldas

• Santiago Tacoronte • Season 1 • Episode 24

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In this episode, we dive into the power of aligned living with David Waldas, exploring how to harmonize your inner identity with your external impact. Discover actionable strategies to amplify your influence, communicate with authentic confidence, and create a personal brand that truly resonates. David shares his unique insights on mastering visibility, owning your voice, and achieving meaningful career growth.

Takeaways

  • Aligned Living is about working with our energy field.
  • Our identity can shift significantly when we align with our true selves.
  • Unhealed traumas create barriers to authenticity.
  • Flexibility in our inner world is crucial for personal growth.
  • Authenticity is essential for bridging inner values and professional persona.
  • Oversharing can be a misconception of authenticity in the workplace.
  • Service to others enhances our influence and effectiveness.
  • Stabilizing our energy field increases our influence as leaders.
  • Heart-brain coherence is vital for effective leadership.
  • Humanity's collective consciousness can influence the Earth's electromagnetic field. It's all about being authentic.
  • We can navigate things before they're happening.
  • What do we want to authentically create?
  • Do you want to influence leaders or followers?
  • We all need growth.
  • It's about service, not about us.
  • What you do matters.
  • Don't be afraid to look.
  • Our greatest selves reside underneath our coping mechanisms.
  • Remove the masks and be ourselves.

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Have questions or suggestions? Email us at info@santiagotacoronte.com

David Waldas is a performance advisor, educator, and intuitive strategist who helps high performing leaders and entrepreneurs unlock clarity, dissolve misalignment, and live from their deepest operating truth. A former high school teacher, head coach, and successful entrepreneur, David developed the Aligned Living System after years of working with high achievers who felt off despite outward success. His framework fuses neuroscience, energetic principles, and practical tactical tools delivering a repeatable system to live, lead, and perform in alignment with your highest self. David holds a master's in education and has spent decades guiding individuals and organizations towards transformational shifts. In 2021, he founded the Aligned Living Foundation. a nonprofit dedicated to empowering and highly sensitive teens with the tools to navigate the world without losing themselves in it. His work is rooted in a simple truth. Your power expands when you stop performing and start operating from who you David is also the author of Insights, Influence and Flow, a practical guide for leaders to stabilizing flow, enhancing intuition and operate from alignment in high stakes environments. David, welcome to ProductiviTree Thank you, Santiago. It's great to be here. Excited for our interview and to share a line, living with everybody. Can you tell us a little bit about what is aligned living? Sure. You know, it's funny that when I first had the experience with this and you know, it's as I started to talk about this at the beginning, this may sound a little bit woo woo. And you know, as we were talking before we started the recording, it's great to have science back up everything that is that Aligned Living is, but it really is about working with our energy field, something that's actually measurable, something that influences us from other people's energy and we influence other people with our energy. And so It's a system that really helps us get in touch with how are we showing up in the world and aligning with ourselves versus walking into the world, feeling everybody coming at us, responding to that and always being in this kind of a reaction to what's happening around us. And when we step into that place where we feel who we truly are, we align with that and we bring that energy into whatever we do rather than going in feeling into whatever it is that we do. All of sudden we become the authority. We become the leader. We become the one that others are in training with and actually responding to. And so, um, you know, the system that I created is actually, it was a spontaneous experience for me where all of a sudden I was just in that state and I knew how to take people here and I knew how to replicate it and was able to break it down into a system. That's the line living system now that's repeatable, measurable, uh, and highly effective for us to get in touch with who we are at our core. and bring that into everything we do and let that drive how we show up, what we create, what we desire, because we're always so compromised by all the demands and the feedback we're getting from the world around us and from everybody else. And there's a lot of strong influencers out there that can take us down roads that are really not right for us. And when we get to be our own influencer, as far as what we feel we want and what's right for us, it's amazing how often it's very different from what we thought we wanted. It's very different from who we thought we were. Our identity shifts quite a bit because so much of our identity is intertwined in that feedback loop that originates outside of us. And when we originate it inside of us, we go, yeah, that doesn't seem so interesting anymore. Actually, this does. And we started making some fundamental changes and a lot more clarity about who we are and who we're not. Let's go back later to your framework and your repeatable system. But what was the pivotal moment in your life where you built up your philosophy and your systems? Yeah, you know, it's funny because I was that super empath who I was just describing, you know, that walks into a room and feels everything happening. And for a lot of us, that is the experience. You know, we go into a situation and we can feel people's resistance. We can feel people's openness. And we're trying to navigate all of that experience. It can be kind of intense for a lot of us and it can be hard for us to hold our own power in it. Or we feel like we have to really overpower everything because of that intensity. And so I was always playing that game with my surroundings of, who am I in this and, managing what was happening. And so, um, you know, this was actually in, uh, 2016. I, I had this experience where, uh, you know, I was driving my car and all of a I just, my state of consciousness altered and, you know, I was always very intuitive and, and be able to kind of be in that world, but I would get a little drifty into that world. wasn't as grounded as I wanted it to be. but I was also as entrepreneur in this business person and his father and these very grounded concrete ways of being. was a school teacher, I was a soccer coach for a long time. And instantly they married where I was able to be very intuitive and be very grounded at the same time and be very tapped into me without so much external influence. And so that spontaneous experience is really what shaped it and then bring that and experimenting with it. And I remember this, when I when I felt like, wow, this is so powerful. um I was actually in a kind of an office setting and I always had a tendency where there'd be something in the office that I just seemed to trigger and somehow they'd become my nemesis and I was like, gosh, why is this happening again? You these old patterns. I was, so was in this office part-time and I could feel this one woman who just the moment I walked in, she was just triggered by me. She was trying to have a lot of influence in the office and she didn't like the way people were responding to me. and, uh, you know, kind of taking my ideas, going off of my influence. And so one day we happened to be there, just the two of us, maybe after I'd been there for a month and I could feel her coming and she was getting all stood up and she came and just started laying into me of like, you know, ever since you got here, you know, nobody listens to my ideas anymore and you're this and you're that. And before, I could feel myself kind of like, want to go back and throw it back at her and go, you know what? Share your, and and wanted to start that battle and I stopped and I just, you know, use the tools that I teach and dropped in and didn't move like who I was inside myself. I didn't react. I didn't, I had the bandwidth to just let her like go into this kind of ragey attack and just go, you know, I can understand why you feel that way. That's gotta be frustrating. I'd, I'd probably go talk to the owner and you know, see if there's a way for you to have more influence. And I, and I didn't move and she was just like, Kind of like spun out even more and left and then within Next two weeks all sudden she was coming to me for advice and she was asking me to help her with her clarity I'm like gosh that woman would have been my nemesis before this she would have been the person I was butting heads with the person I was always battling with and Instead we became allies. In fact, I became kind of a mentor to her Because I wasn't willing to engage with what was coming at me instead I stayed in who I am and what I offer and didn't move and I was like the power of that and how in control I felt of myself and the situation. Whereas before I would have been like, oh, listen lady, you know, like I've got something to say back to you and I'm going to, I'm going to throw this back and forth and just like, it was just, it felt senseless. And so instead I just held my stability and she chose to be my ally instead of my nemesis. And I was like, wow, this changes things for me because I could see the trajectory that that creates. You know, having a workplace nemesis is is never a good idea. And I actually started to like her, you know, and she started to like me. And so it was really a fun transition. And like, this is a whole new world. I don't need to have an enemy. This is great. Many people struggle to connect their inner values with their professional persona. Many people is not at work who they really are. So what are the fundamental principles you advocate for bridging this gap and being yourself? Yeah. And so the biggest barrier to us being ourselves is our unhealed traumas, our unhealed experiences where we create these coping mechanisms. And so one of the things that's always surprising people when I first started working with them is how their identity shifts. You know, that we don't realize how much of the way we operate, the way we know ourselves is based on some experience we had as a kid that created dangerous areas inside of ourselves. and go, this is a place I need to avoid. This is something that isn't safe for other people to see in me. This is a part of me that I need to operate around. And it's usually blind. We usually have no idea, but we start shrinking our inner world smaller and smaller and smaller of where is it safe for me to operate from. And we become more rigid. We become less flexible. We become less aware of ourselves. And we become more locked in on this is how I need to do things because this is where my safe lane is. And we don't know we're doing it. But when we look at our lives, you know, how flexible do we feel? How, you know, like me before that situation with the woman I was just talking about, like, how would I handle that? I would have gotten into an argument with her, but there was something safer inside me now where I can let her spin out without me moving. And so when we start to expand what's available to us inside of ourselves by really clearing out the old trauma, clearing out those old coping mechanisms and getting more authentic with ourselves, all of a sudden these things that, you know, We all feel there's something inherently wrong with us inside and we build on top of that foundation. And we may forget that we think there's something, you know, inherently wrong with us, but it's under there. And so if we don't look at it, if we don't pull it out, if we don't really demystify it, because there's not really something wrong with us. mean, of course there's something wrong with all of us, right? We all have had these experiences, but it's not wrong. And when we allow ourselves to have that humanness and look at that, all of a we're not trying to hide anything. We're not trying to prove anything. And you see it in a lot of leaders that have been around for a long time when they just, you know, they're at that point in their life where I don't have anything to prove anymore. I've already proven it. And really, why do we feel like we have something to prove? Because we think there's something inherently wrong. And if we can get in there and uncover that and break that apart and go, you know what? I actually like have a deeper relationship with myself and a deeper understanding of who I am. And I'm not using these same coping mechanisms anymore to protect myself from what I don't want to see in myself. All of sudden that gap between our external persona and the authenticity of who we are starts to shrink more and more and more until we just actually really embrace that sense of vulnerability because it doesn't feel vulnerable anymore. When there's nothing we need to hide and protect, we're massively vulnerable. We're always trying to build a shell on the outside of it so nobody sees it and people think we're this, not that. They don't know our greatest truth about who we are and the struggles that we have. Once we bring them out and expose them to ourselves, go, actually, it's not that big a deal. It's not that bad. And we're not afraid to let other people see our vulnerability because we're not hiding anything anymore. Cause we weren't really hiding it from them. We were hiding it from ourselves. And, uh, and, once we get clean and clear with it, all of a sudden we're free and it is about freedom of expression, freedom of self. And if we don't have that, we're not authentic. How does someone begin to identify their core values? And why is this so crucial for a line living? Yeah, you know, it's, uh it's, it's, I think it's similar to what I was just talking about is who we think we are is our coping mechanisms. You know, something happened when we were seven years old, know, dad yelled at us and said, you know, whatever, you know, like, why are you doing that? You're embarrassing the family. And then we were like, I got to not embarrass the family. got to not, I really need to fracture off and abandon this part of me that maybe is impulsive or that's a little bit, you know, too expressed. we And we shut those off. And so it's always about going back into a deeper understanding of who we are and who we're not. because we're often operating in our coping mechanisms and we're trying to build off of that rather than who we truly are, what we often build is something that we don't want by the time we've created it. And we can always look at our lives and go, you know, am I really enjoy? Am I feeling like this authentic excitement in the morning when I get up or am I going to create something where the drive actually comes from, got to create this. I got to prove this. And when we're there, you know, we're always walking towards something that we're not going to want by the time that we have it. And I help clients all the time, you know, I call taming the monster. Like they've created something because they were proving something like I was able to grow my business to this. And, know, this is my, know, we broke a million and we broke 10 million and now look, well, now what? Like, well, I've achieved it and now it's a pain in my ass. Now it takes all my time to manage it and maintain it. And I don't I don't want this thing. And so great. How do we tame it and bring it into what serves you? It's, uh, it's all about authenticity. Yeah. In your experience, what are some common misconceptions people have about authenticity in a professional setting? Yeah, that I, you know, there's definitely the ability to overshare and to reveal too much, right? But there's also, you know, this idea of protection. And I think that it all comes down to how safe do I feel? And if I don't feel safe, and if I'm managing a team that doesn't feel safe, or I'm running a company where there's a culture where people don't feel safe to express themselves, we're getting these smaller, you know, limited versions of everybody that we engage with. And so the culture of safety, the culture of people authentically showing up, I think it is uh a top down, you know, leadership model that, you know, there's a short sightedness around. And when people feel safe, they actually allow for greater authenticity. And so there's this mixture of what is the setting that we're having? And, you know, are we doing the work inside of ourselves to get comfortable with who we are so that it doesn't feel vulnerable, that it doesn't feel like an overshare, but that it actually is something that we're offering to others. And, you know, when we're, we tend to get so worried about who we are, how we're showing up, how we look, how people are perceiving us as opposed to what is this person in front of me need from me? How can I be of service to them? And the moment we make that transition into serving others instead of ourselves, we forget we exist. And when we forget where he exists, we're the happiest we ever are because we're in service. When we're in, you know, trying to, how do I respond to this? What's the next question? What's the, you know, how am I showing up? Like any of that stuff, you know, we get really just smaller and smaller and smaller and tighter and tighter and less and less safe. But when we're in service and go, you know, what do I need to share that's really gonna support this person? What's gonna change this? How can I contribute to this? Not about me, but about the project. Not about me, but about the person in front of me. And when we stop making it about us, all of a sudden, you know, we show up in a way that people enjoy a lot more, people appreciate a lot more, a far more effective way. But the moment we're inside of ourselves going, you know, like this high self-awareness that's, you know, just, oh, you know, it's struggle. And struggle doesn't create what we want. You mentioned influence at the beginning of this conversation with the story of this lady. How can people increase influence? By being themselves. Yeah. So one of the things that we do with Align Living, one of the first things we do is learn how to restructure our energy field. And again, it's not a woo woo thing. It's measurable. know, it's something, anything that's alive has an electromagnetic field to it. And that field can be run in very different ways. It's, know, the earth has one. You may have seen it, it's called a toroidal field. And so if you've ever seen a magnet, like a lot of times people have a memory from earth science class where teacher put a magnet down on a piece of white paper or desk and threw iron filings on it. And it made this shape. And that's a toroidal field. That's electromagnetic field. And we all have it. And we have the ability through our own intention to organize it in a different way. And we can have it set up where we're just reading everything around us, or we can have it set up where we're ourselves at a deeper level. And so when we change that, it... It changes everything. I realize I might be getting off track. you repeat the question again to make sure I'm uh actually answering it rather than just going off with. how to increase your influence by being yourself and being authentic. Right. Right. And so when we learn to stabilize that, um we're stabilizing our intentions and our clarity comes off of who we truly are. But something happens uh in a very clear way of influencing others through our electromagnetic field, which, you know, it's invisible. So we kind of think of it as magic, but it's nothing magic at all. When the teacher threw the iron filings onto the magnet, all of it became visible. And there was a study that was done and actually was in Barcelona, Spain at the ESA DE school. It's like renowned business school. don't know if you're familiar with it or not, but they were trying to decide ah how to figure out who the emerging leaders are. And so they did these case studies where they found they could repeat over and over again and very quickly within a couple of minutes of being around somebody or a group, they could predict who was going to be the leader of that group. And so what they did is they hooked up these graduate students to EEGs and EKGs. And, you know, metrics, they measured their vital signs. And, you know, then they put them into these groups and they gave them case studies and groups of like five or six. And then they observed and said, let's see who emerges as a leader and what metrics can we get to predict who's going to be the leader? And what they found was that within a few minutes, something would start to happen with the physiology of everybody in the group. And what they, and they said, well, it's just super predictable. Whoever's the most stabilized internally. becomes the leader, whoever's vital signs are the most stabilized, not whoever's the smartest, not whoever has the best ideas, not whoever's the charismatic or the most attractive, but who is the most stabilized. And when we learn to stabilize ourselves, something happens at the electromagnetic level where other people look to us as the leaders and it was predictable and repeatable over and over again. And this is the part that I think is the most fascinating and really proves the idea that information is shared through our electromagnetic field because not only did people look to that person as a leader and go, they're stable. I'm going to find my, my stability outside of myself. I'm going to find it with this person. They actually started to sync up their physiology as well. And so their metrics started to, to match up and replicate the metrics of the leader. And it's kind of fascinating to think that we can have that much influence by stabilizing inside of ourselves. And if we don't, we're unconsciously looking for somebody to stabilize off of. And we look at the leaders in the world, they're all very locked in on themselves. But a lot of them are locked in on there because their ego, you know, and they're not taking people where it's right for them. They're taking people where their ego wants to go. And so if we're going to leave from our authenticity and we lock in on ourselves, what actually happens with other people's electromagnetic fields is they don't tuck underneath us and go, thank you. You know, you're better than me. Show me the way. And of course, that's not what they say, but it's what they do. They actually replicate in their own field, their own alignment and their own connection with themselves. And there's this cohesiveness that happens, this coherence where actually you come into sync. And what they find with the leaders too is that the heart and the brain are actually in what we call heart-brain coherence, where there's a really clear balance and communication flowing back and forth between the heart and the brain. And the most interesting part of that is that we think of the brain as like our master kind of that's in control of everything. But the information there's actually in our heart, there's neural cells very much like the brain has. And there's actually more information that goes from the heart to the brain than there is from the brain to the heart. So the heart is actually driving so much of what the brain understands. The brain releases the neurochemicals into the body and the body responds, but it's being driven by the heart. And you know, it's not what we're taught. And so when we start to look at ourselves through that lens of how do I stabilize, how do I bring myself and my heart and my brain into coherence? And you know, that's measurable to these biofeedback devices that we use to check our heart brain coherence. And the moment we use these online living techniques, we go into heart brain coherence and we stabilize. And then other people stabilize off of us and replicate it in their fields. So it's really fascinating the science behind what we're doing. Let's get a bit more technical on this uh science part. How do you measure alignment, stability and electromagnetic fields? Is there a device that can do that? What is the unit of measure? Yeah. So, know, there's, it's really a frequency thing. And so, you know, one of things we look at is heart rate variability, but these biofeedback devices, there's a, there's a organization called the heart math Institute. that was a huge influence for me. And they're the ones that, uh, that have done so much of this research. And so I actually have their biofeedback devices, which is just a little clip you put on your ear and it's, it's simplified. It looks like a meditation app where You know, you, they, have tools on there where you can train yourself to go into it. But the line of living tools I found is the moment we go through them were there. And so I'll often use that, that device or, I haven't used it in a while, but what I would use it for was to just, for that, the visual and the metric feedback go look, you're there. And now you know what this feels like. And once you know what it feels like, it has a very clear signature to it. And then we can set the metrics aside. um but they're so powerful and helpful for getting there. you know, it goes a step further with how this works as well. And this part to me is so fascinating. One of the the HeartMath Institute has done is they've put these sensors around the world. It's called the Global Coherence Network, I believe. And they have put these sensors that measure the electromagnetic fields of the earth and of the people. And they're stationed all around the world. And so, The electromagnetic field of the earth is measured in what we call our Schumann resonance. And the Schumann resonance of the earth can fluctuate a little bit. It's fairly stabilized. But if we get something like solar flares hitting the earth, that's a huge electromagnetic burst that hits the earth. It can affect the Schumann resonance. And there's a feedback loop between all of us on the planet and the Schumann resonance of the earth. And when that gets disrupted, it tends to disrupt our electromagnetic fields as well. And what they found, and this is so fascinating to me too, is that This feedback loop doesn't just run from the earth, this huge, you know, giant electromagnetic field to humanity. Humanity can also run and affect the human resonance of the planet. And this was proven on 9-11 when the attacks happened. They actually found that there was this huge surge in humanity moving into its heart. And it brought in this incredible coherence in each individual between the heart and the brain and their electromagnetic field surged because our heart, when we're in our heart, Our electromagnetic field is so much bigger. It's actually the electromagnetic field created by the heart is 60 times bigger than the electromagnetic field created by the brain and so this is where we have this huge fields and what they found is when when the attacks happened on 9-eleven that the the humanity had this huge burst and in in the people on the planet, but then the human resonance of the of the planet itself based on the feedback from humanity went into this huge surge in the Schumann resonance. And so we realized that it goes both directions and how we are, what our consciousness is, how we're operating, how much we're in coherence with ourselves, how much we're in our hearts actually affects the planet itself, which then feeds back and affects us. And so there's this constant feedback loop going that, you know, almost all of us are completely unaware of, but we're always being affected by it. And so when we actually become clear and utilize the tools and align ourselves. It's all about being authentic. It's all about being who we truly are. And whenever we're wandering out in these areas that's not us, letting ourselves, you know, really kind of abandoning ourselves, letting ourselves get out of sync, out of resonance with ourselves, out of coherence with ourselves, we're always creating things that ultimately we're not gonna really, aren't gonna serve us because they're not authentically us. David, in a world obsessed with social media metrics, how do you define authentic influence? Yeah. Um, great. You know, I want to add one more thing to that. That's sorry. I realized I didn't add is the, um, the Schumann resonance when it, when it really, when the earth responded to humanity and humanity's surgeon heart, this, this is so fascinating to me. When it happened, you'd think, you know, how long would it take from, you know, people becoming aware of the tax, how long would it take for humanities heart surge to happen? It was actually 40 minutes before the attacks happened. And so at some level we were aware of it before it happened. We hear about like, you know, like animals going to higher ground before a tsunami or animals acting odd before an earthquake and realizing we have that too. We're just so distracted by everything else that we don't feel it. And so this ability to feel ourselves much more clearly and deeply, we actually can navigate things before they're happening. you know, and some people, you know, for an earthquake, I, I know for myself, I'll feel like, something weird's going on. And then a few minutes later, an earthquake will happen. I live in Southern California, so I get to practice it more often than most. I just wanted to add that first, because I think it's so fascinating to think that we are like animals. We're just, our brains are always overriding this innate drive we have to know a deeper truth and to be more tapped in. So sorry, so your question then was about influencers and you mind repeating that again for me? about, yeah, a little bit. yeah. When we measure influencing by social media metrics these days, what is truly influencing? Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I work with a lot of high performers and I've worked with people at different levels of success. And the funny thing to me is that there's a certain place where we have a lot of influence. And, you know, I've worked with those people that the mainstream responds to really well. And then there's also people that are kind of the next level of authenticity and the next level of deeper influence. And the mainstream doesn't respond to them really well. You know, the, they'll, there'll be somebody that's offering something that, you know, has, you know, 5,000 people at their event. And it really appeals to people that are willing to go to a, to a certain level of self-exploration, to a certain level of clarity. And then there's people that are like, you know, we're, going all the way in. We're going like, we're not hiding anything from ourselves. Like this is the highest level of personal development and you know, they have a thousand people in the room or a hundred people in the room. And it's really interesting how that works. But for each of us, I think there's a sense of what do we want to authentically create? Who do we want to influence? And it's so easy to get caught up in numbers going, I have this many followers or I'm influencing this many people. And to me, I don't have that many followers, but the ones I have, I know I'm making a massive difference in their life. And so are we looking at the metric being who are the people that I'm influencing and the influence they have on the world? And that's really, for me personally, that's who I work with. I work with people who are massively influential, but not that many of them. And then there's, you know, the metric most people are looking at is how many followers do I have? How many people are out there? And, you know, what is the influence of that? And so for me, I'd much rather have 10 clients that are each influencing hundreds of thousands. than me influencing hundreds of thousands because I know that that's, that's really where the best, uh, you know, use of my energy is. And so for each of us, what is the best use of your energy? I don't think there is a, a uh right answer across the board, but really what's right for you as an individual and how do you want to show up? And I've had clients that have had these massive followings and it becomes this burden on their back. And they're like, God, I don't want this responsibility because I realized a lot of the people I'm influencing. have this neediness to them where they want to just me to take them somewhere. And it's exhausting to me. I want people that I'm inspiring to find their own power, not people that are, you know, just continuously looking to me for the next answer. And then they shift their following and their following shrinks. And they go, God, it's so nice to have these. I'm actually influencing these leaders now instead of influencing followers. And so do you want to influence leaders or followers? that's a leaders is a much smaller group than followers. And they may tell say they're the same thing, but they're not. And when we get really clear with ourselves, like, don't want a hundred thousand or a million followers. want, you know, people that want to lead and, and lead from that place of authenticity. And that's going to be a smaller group. And that I'm good with that. So David, we often hear be yourself. But what if yourself needs development in certain areas? How do you balance authenticity with the need for growth and self-development? Yeah, yeah. And I mean, here's the secret is we all need growth. You know, like there's something that it doesn't end. You people go, I've worked with clients and I go, there's something coming up around this. They're like, I already resolved that. I'm like, did you? You know, okay. And we resolve things to the level at which we've expanded. And when we ask more of ourselves, when we want to show up in a more authentic way, when we want to reveal ourselves more, we want to have a bigger influence, the first thing that we're confronted with is ourselves. And so, you know, we really, it's all about our own personal development and about being able to show up in that authenticity. And if we're not willing to deal with ourselves, um, if we're not able to go, you know what I, of course I have these other layers that I'm, I'm going to need to work with. I have these old traumas that show up. have these old coping mechanisms that show up, but the more we can know what they are and go, I'm working on this one right here. And something that happens is I work with people for a while is that they, we create enough. space inside of ourselves. Remember how I started the conversation saying when we have all these areas we're afraid to look at and afraid to touch that are off limits to us, our bandwidth gets tighter and tighter and tighter until this is our operating. We get become very rigid. We go, oh, I can't look at that. I can't look at that. It's all very, you know, much happening unconsciously behind the scenes, but our choices get really tight and really small. And when we expand that place, all of a sudden we can feel really confident and comfortable with ourselves at the same time as going You know, there's this thing that, God, I repeat this pattern. And it's funny, I see it in my childhood and I've repeated it ever since. And we still feel strong and powerful, but knowing that we have something we're working on and to go, yeah, we always have something we're working on. If we're growing, we're getting confronted by ourselves. And so that should be like a badge of honor. But we also have to hold our truth, our certainty, our authenticity and the vulnerability to go, yeah, this area isn't my strongest. And when I coach people, You know, and we get into areas where I know I still have a lot more work to do, or I haven't really created a level of resolve for myself around that area. I'll just say, so, you know, that's not really my expertise. In fact, it's something that comes up for me sometimes. And so that's not something I can support you with. You know, I can recommend somebody that can, and here's where I know my greatest strengths are. And here's where I can help you. But when we think, and I had this thoughts for a long time, like I need to pretend I'm like excellent at everything and I've got it all figured out rather than, yeah, that's not my strong suit, you know? And so let's get somebody that does have that as a strong suit and let's bring them in. Let's get them as part of the team. Let's get a coach. Let's get somebody to influence this because that's not where my greatest gifts are. And the more developed we become, the more we realize what our greatest gifts are. And we don't want to be a jack of all trades. We don't want to be, pretend we're great at everything because we're not. Because when we become at a level of mastery about something, that becomes what we do and sure it can transfer over into developing mastery in other areas. But once we get so good at certain things, it becomes really clear to us that by comparison, we're not that good at these other things and we have no business leading in those areas. And it becomes comfortable going, yeah, that's not really an area I lead in. This is where my genius is. And once we identify that genius, we feel real comfortable not touching the areas that aren't our greatest. And it's just like yeah, I'm not great at that, but I am great at this so I don't need to you know, that's okay Let's bring somebody else in that is great What is the biggest mistake people make when trying to increase their visibility and influence? I think it's very similar to that, pretending like our experts and stuff they're not experts in. And when it's so obvious when people talk like they have something to prove, right? You know, they're coming from a very different place when they want everybody to know that they're an expert, when they want everybody to know how smart they are, when they want to tell you rather than demonstrate it, letting it be self-evident. And we all know the areas that we feel really powerful and strong in, we let it be self-evident. And it's a funny thing, the areas we don't, we try to prove it. And whenever we're you know, speaking from place, I want people to see this in me, or I want to make sure they understood that. And then we overemphasize a point over and over again, because we want to make sure people see it in us, rather than just trusting. It's so clearly me, I'm not trying to resolve something by having you see me. It's already resolved inside me. I know who I am. I know that this is an area of excellence. I know that this is an area of struggle. And so I don't need you to reflect these back to me. I'm already clear myself. And so when I can come from that place, I'm just trying to be of service. And the moment We're on ourselves going, did they see that me? Do they think I'm amazing? Did they see how I'm struggling with this? We're playing a game where there is no winner because we're not serving the people that we're here to serve. And we're just getting ourselves in this story. I mean, kind of the irony of it is how 90 % of people operate. And so if I'm talking about this and you're going, God, I do that all the time. Of course you do. Like that's what we've been trained to do. Like it's what we see in the people around us, but we can also be the first ones to unhook. We don't need to keep playing the game other people are playing. And when we do, it's so much freedom and so much expansion. It's like, I can breathe again because I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm already enough and I'm continuing to grow and become better at what I do. And it's so much easier to grow and become better at what we do when we're not worried about how we're being received or, um you know, that we're just focused like, oh, I want to actually get better at this because I know I can help more people. Now I want to get better at this because I want to embarrass myself or because I want to make sure people see how great I am. It's the backwards way of looking at things and it's how 90 % of the people do it and it takes us down. And then we're always hiding something, trying not to be exposed rather than just going, yeah, I'm not great at that, but I'm a master at this. Let me help you with this. David, let's do rapid fire questions. Five questions in 30 seconds or less each. Number one, top three books that have shaped your philosophy. Yeah, you know, it's funny when I wrote ah my book, The Science of the Heart, which is a HeartMath Institute book, volume two, where a lot of those experiments came from. Seeing the science behind it really helped me. ah You know, another book, The Sourcefield Investigations by David Wilcox, who's the guy that's kind of out there, but he compiled all of these experiments that basically prove that there's something going on that we can tap into. There's something happening at another level. uh that were absolutely amazing and it just made it really concrete to me. then, Bo Easton has this book called, There's No Plan B for Your A Game. And it's all about really figuring out what your genius is and just going after it and not backing off that, not getting distracted, not giving up. Because it's the people that go home that live the mediocre lives. It's the people that unhook from what they're really here to do. that compromise and quit. They go home and then they don't get the life that they want. Number two, one habit that has dramatically improved your productivity. You know, I mean, it's it is the Aligned Living system when I'm in that space, which is, you know, I was joking. It's about I call the Aligned Living, not Aligned Moments. And so it's really about living from that place. But of course, we get triggered and pop out of it periodically. And how quick can we can we write our ship? But from that place, I'm always massively productive because, again, it's always about service. It stops being about us, which sounds really ironic by getting really deeply in touch with us. It becomes not about us. But that is what happens. your go-to tool for staying aligned and focused. I guess it's the same answer because it has the same result. best piece of advice you've ever received. um Man, think that, gosh, there's so much advice. When I was in college, I was so good at bullshitting. I was so good at finding ways to get out of doing things. I remember I had this professor once and I was like, I didn't get the paper done, but that's all right. I can go in and smile and bullshit him and tell him a story. And I was like, Oh, you know, this happened, this happened. And I was just waiting for him to go, Oh, okay, David, just get into me, you know, by next week. That's fine. And then he goes, so with all that going on, you couldn't have gotten this done. You know, is there a way you could have still found to get it done? I was like, well, yes. He goes, all right. So it's late. I was like, Okay. He's like, all right, well, that's going to be 20 % off your grade. And, know, I handed in by tomorrow where it'll be another 20 % off. And I walked out of there. This guy is Corey Cipriani was this professor I had in college. And it's funny. It's one of the few professors names who I really remember. Cause he just, it was one of the greatest lessons of like, who am I trying to bullshit? Like, why am I trying to bullshit this? And he just cut right through it going like, what are doing, David? Like you matter. And, and, and I, and I've heard this similar message from other people like, What you do matters. How you show up matters. And if you think it doesn't, you don't realize how you're affecting other people and you're not taking yourself seriously. And so take yourself seriously because you matter. And what you do matters. And it sets an example. And you're always a leader. You're either leading people down or you're leading people up. And again, it becomes about service, not about how do I get out of this thing or how do I find a way around it. It's what I do matters. If I get up and leave and wander away or I'm talking to other people and distracting things, what I do matters. And uh when we look at ourselves through that lens, we have to operate differently. Number five, what is one thing that you believe that most people disagree? ah That by continuing to look at our weaknesses uh at the same time as we're owning our strengths is really how we become the most powerful uh version of ourselves. And I think most people spend their lives trying to avoid, you know, the areas that they're weak in as opposed to resolving them. And the more we resolve, the more we remove stuff from the category of I don't want to touch it. I'm afraid it over to I'm resolved in this, even if it's not my greatest thing, I'm clear about it and I don't need to be afraid of it. And so we don't need to be afraid of ourselves. And we're always afraid to look inside and what we're going to see. And that's where our greatest gifts are. And instead of looking outside, we need to look inside, not being afraid of ourselves at all and turn over every stone and and be authentic with ourselves. And that drives everything that gives us complete freedom where no longer are we, uh you know, Trying to hide, no longer are we trying to present something that's not us. No longer are we creating things that aren't what we want ultimately, because we're trying to prove something that we haven't resolved inside of ourselves. David, as we wrap up, what is the single most important takeaway? You hope our listeners will implement or start doing, even if it's something small, this podcast is about giving tools and people actionable uh insights and feedback. What is one thing you want the audience to take away today? To get curious about who you truly are underneath the coping mechanisms, underneath the traumas, our most beautiful selves, our most powerful selves resides underneath those things. All the stuff that got stacked on us in life, all the things that we made other people uncomfortable with that we felt like we needed to shut down, underneath all that is where our greatest selves are. But we're afraid to look, because we're afraid to go through that experience of the rejections, that experience of... of embarrassing ourselves, experience of being in trouble or seen in a negative light. But underneath all that is where our greatest selves are. Most of us operate on top of those things in this inauthentic way that feels authentic. But until we break through those barriers and go deep inside, we don't know what our authenticity is. And that's where all of our freedom and all of our joy and all of our self-expression and all of our service of what we're really here to offer back to humanity is. And don't be afraid to look, because... Once you break through that veneer, that thin layer of, my God, I'm embarrassed, like this is like the worst parts of me, underneath that is the best parts of us. And we don't get to see them because we're so afraid to look. So don't be afraid. Where can people know more about you, get your book and get in touch? Yeah. So my website is my name is David Waldis w a l d a s.com. And, uh, I know there's a link to, to get my book, which, um, there's a link to, uh, work with me. I do small groups. I also do one-to-ones and I train coaches and what I do as well. And, um, you know, the, the, the small groups are great. The, I only worked with a few one-to-ones and you know, it's people that are really wanting to, to go to that deepest level. You know, it's an exclusive thing. It's an expensive thing. there's an application process. It's, not for everyone, but the people that work with me one to one, you know, it's their life becomes a different life because they're able to move through all those things that, they've been unwilling to look at and find out who they are on the other side. And of course the group programs do that too. And that's what my book's about. Um, but, yeah, those are the ways that people can work with me. David, thank you so much for this conversation, for your energy, for your authenticity. And if there is something I'll take away from this conversation is that we need to look within and remove the masks and be ourselves and enjoy to the max this life. David, thanks a lot. It's been a tremendous pleasure to have you here today. Yeah, beautiful Santiago. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate you having me here. Thanks so