There's a lot of talk about mindfulness these days, which is fantastic.
I mean, we all want to be more present and self -aware, more patient, less judgmental.
We discuss all these themes on the podcast, but it's hard to actually be mindful in your day -to -day life.
That's where Calm comes in.
I've been working with Calm for a few years now with the goal of making mindfulness fun and easy.
Calm has all sorts of content to help you build positive habits, shift your self -talk, reframe your negative thoughts, and generally feel better in your daily life.
So many incredible options from the most knowledgeable experts in the world along with renowned meditation teachers.
You can also check out my seven -minute daily series to help you live more mindfully each and every day.
Right now, listeners are on purpose.
Get 40 % off a subscription to Calm Premium at calm .com forward slash J.
That's C -A -L -M dot com forward slash J -A -Y for 40 % off.
Calm your mind, change your life.
Imagine the strength and the resilience you'll have when you're able to become better even from someone who's bitter.
When you're able to grow, even when someone's trying to guilt you.
When you're able to find a shift, even when someone's trying to shame you.
Imagine how powerful you become when you can transform, turn anything into gold.
That's what the real Midas touches.
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose.
I am so excited and grateful to be here with you right now.
Thank you so much for making the time to tune in, to become happier, healthier, and more healed.
I love having these check -ins with you, whether you're listening every day, multiple times per day, every week.
It means the world to me and I love the fact that so many of you come up to me and share your stories and so many of you share it on Instagram and TikTok.
It's unbelievable and I deeply appreciate those of you who are leaving reviews.
It makes a huge difference to podcasters, so thank you so, so much.
Now, today's episode is inspired by something I saw posted from a creator called Kim Perretts on TikTok.
And she said she was trying to find the original creator who said it, who I believe was Stariel Hope.
Now, what they were sharing was this insight.
And I loved it ever since I heard Kim say it.
I absolutely loved it and it was this idea that everyone you meet in your life is either a mirror, a window, or a door.
And I really love this concept.
Make sure you go follow Stariel Hope and Kim Perretts on TikTok who've really helped popularize and share this concept because they're making other amazing content as well.
But today I wanted to share my own reflections on this idea.
I wanted to share some of my own viewpoints, some of my own beliefs, and maybe some of my own directives of how to think about this clearly.
The first one is a lot of the people we meet in our life are like a mirror.
Now, what does that mean?
It means they mirror back to us our flaws.
They mirror back to us our mistakes.
They mirror back to us our triggers.
How many times have you met someone where they mirror your dark side?
When you see them, they show you some of the challenges you're dealing with.
They expose you to some of the flaws, some of the intricacies, the nuances of some of the difficulties you might be going through.
When you look at them, you're reminded of what you still need to improve.
Now, sometimes these people can come in forms that are overtly helpful and sometimes these people come in the form of someone that we don't like at all.
When someone shows us parts of ourselves that we're not comfortable with, we struggle to be comfortable with them.
When someone truly acts like a mirror with us, it can be one of the most difficult things to deal with because we don't want to see that about ourself.
So often we discard, we disregard, we distance ourself from these people.
Whether they want to help us or not is a completely different story.
But what I do know is this, the information they're giving us, the signals they're giving us, the insights they're giving us are helpful.
Sometimes the most helpful people in your life will feel like they're unhelpful.
Sometimes the most powerful, profound messages you'll receive will be from the most difficult messages.
Sometimes what you need to hear will come from someone you don't want to listen to.
Let me say that again.
Sometimes what you need to hear will come from someone you don't want to listen to.
Sometimes you'll have to face something from someone that you don't want to see.
And sometimes you'll have to understand something from someone who's misunderstood you.
A lot of the times the lessons we need to learn, the things we need to change, the shifts we need to make come from people that we don't want to hear about it from.
But here's the thing, the message is more important than the messenger.
What we need to learn is more important than the person who brings the lesson.
Often what we do is we don't get the message because we don't like the messenger.
Often what happens is we don't grow because we don't like the person who's inviting that growth.
What we end up doing is postponing our own potential.
What we end up doing is pushing back our own progress.
What we end up doing is pulling away from our own purpose.
Take a moment to just reflect who in your life has been a mirror positively, in the sense that they were helpful, they were tactful, they were not critical.
And who has been a mirror in your life that was maybe more uncomfortable?
They could have said it nicer, they could have been better themselves, they could have held themselves to a higher morality and value themselves.
But what could you even learn from them?
I know this is hard, I know it's difficult, and I know it's complex.
Because once we've labeled someone as negative, we usually think that anything that comes from them is the same.
But I remember in the monastery, we were always taught that we should be able to find in a toxic place.
That doesn't mean we see them as positive.
It means that we believe that we can learn something from anyone.
We can gain something from anyone.
But it's hardest and harshest when the messenger isn't easy and isn't in flow and isn't someone that we can easily digest something from.
I get it, I've been there, I know what that feels like.
I would have learned so many lessons earlier had I not judged the teacher.
And now I've started to realize that the lesson is the most important thing.
The universe, God, the energy is trying to share something with me.
And I can ignore it because I don't like the messenger.
But then there'll just be another messenger who has to find their way through it to me.
It's almost like an alarm tone that you don't like the sound of.
It's still trying to wake you up.
You may not like it, you can change it if you don't like it.
But the point is you still have to wake up.
And often in our lives, we're constantly getting wake -up calls.
But because they come from people we don't like, or we don't like the sound of them, or we don't like how they carry themselves, we press snooze.
We push it off. So I want us to really reflect on that.
Who in your life has been a mirror that's triggered you, that you know was exposing you to a higher truth, that was pushing you to a higher standard, but because they didn't do it in a way that you didn't like, you ignored them.
You ignored the message.
You didn't take it seriously.
And take a moment to ask yourself, what were you being called to do?
What were you being invited for?
How can you disconnect the message from the messenger and digest the message even if the messenger doesn't know how to deliver it?
I'll give an example.
Let's say you order something off of Uber Eats, DoorDash, whatever it may be.
And the delivery person didn't deliver it perfectly.
They left it a few doors down from yours.
Or maybe they delivered it, but it was slightly squashed.
You're still going to eat it because you want the nourishment.
Now you could sit there and be like, oh, I wish they delivered it properly and I didn't want my burger to be smashed.
Of course, I don't want to smash burger either, but you get the point.
Sometimes we're complaining about the delivery that we don't get the nourishment.
If we can challenge ourselves to learn even from the most unlikely unwarranted places, imagine that kind of mindset that you have.
Imagine the strength and the resilience you'll have when you're able to become better, even from someone who's bitter.
When you're able to grow, even when someone's trying to guilt you, when you're able to find a shift, even when someone's trying to shame you, imagine how powerful you become when you can transform, turn anything into gold.
That's what the real Midas touches.
The ability to turn criticism into creativity, the ability to turn feedback into future motion, the ability to turn mistakes into mega success.
It's a powerful trait, one that's extremely hard to follow, one that's extremely hard to do because we think the message is disqualified if the messenger is unqualified.
But I'm here to tell you this, I've learned the hard way.
Take the message. Take it even if you don't like the messenger.
Reflect on it, introspect on it, disconnect it from the messenger so that you can truly digest it.
The next thing that these two wonderful creators shared and popularized was this idea that we also meet people in our life who are like a window.
And they talked about the window as someone who sees more for you, who sees more for you, who sees more potential in you, who shows you a portal into a new space, a new world.
I'm sure you've met people that showed you your potential when you couldn't even realize it.
When you met people who showed you a vision that you'd never even considered before.
Someone who opened the blinds and opened the window and let the fresh air and the sunlight in when you were in the darkness.
What's interesting about this type of person is that often when they first show us the light, we're almost like vampires.
Like we like close our eyes and we're like, oh, I don't want to see this.
There's literally happened to me the other day.
Riley woke me up to go to my workout and my first reaction was like, why did you wake me up?
I didn't want to wake up.
I'm so tired. You should have let me sleep.
And she's like, how am I meant to know?
And then afterwards, I was like, I'm really sorry.
I'm really happy you woke me up.
I was really glad I got a workout in.
Often people who show us the window, we may even often show them the door.
When they're seeing more for us, we may even discount that and say, you don't love me for who I am.
You don't see what I do have.
And that may be true.
It's not that you're wrong.
They may be condescending.
It may not come in a great tone either, but chances are it's because they believe in you in some way.
That doesn't mean you have to believe in their dream for you.
Doesn't mean you have to chase their dream for you.
But maybe it will give you a glimpse into what could be possible for you.
People who create wider possibilities in your life and possible options by showing you windows and glimpses can be some of the most profound people in your life.
I remember I used to have a mentor.
He used to always say to me, Jay, we'll find your potential when you go through pain.
He was opening a window for me, a vision.
And I used to think to him and say to him, hey, like, come on, I know my potential.
And then when I went through pain, I was reminded of that window he'd opened me, exposed me to.
He would also say to me, Jay, you're an entrepreneur.
And I'd say, no, no, no, I'm not an entrepreneur.
He'd say, no, you are.
You're a leader. And I'd say, no, no, I'm not a leader.
How many times have you said no to someone when they have a vision for you?
I used to also think he had no awareness of who I actually was, that I've grown and expanded.
I've recognized that he was so right about so many things.
And that's the interesting thing about the windows that come into your life.
Hopefully they stay long enough that you can thank them, but a lot of them leave before you notice their impact.
That's true of the first one too.
Some mirrors come into our life and they may not be permanent mirrors.
They were there for a moment.
They were there for a fleeting experience.
And of course, we may move on from some mirrors.
We don't have to hold on to a mirror if it's negative for us, if it's unhealthy for us, if someone is raising things for us that are so triggering and so hurtful, sometimes we want to break the mirror and we may drop it.
We may run away from it.
And then in hindsight, with time gone past, we can begin to value it.
Similarly, we do that with windows.
In the moment, we may think, well, you don't know me.
You don't understand me.
You don't recognize me.
But actually in the long term, we think, well, I'm so glad they showed me that window.
One thing I began to realize is just because I don't see what someone else sees, it doesn't mean I have to walk away.
When someone sees what I don't see, the first thing I do is I ask them, how do you see that?
Where do you see that?
Why do you see that?
It's a point of being curious.
I think we have a natural reaction.
When something doesn't perfectly match, we almost disregard it rather than being curious about it.
How can we be curious about it?
How can it be truth to it?
How can it be value to it?
How can there be some basis for it?
And we can also ask some of our doubts about why that doesn't work for us, why it doesn't make sense, why we can't make sense of it.
Why it doesn't feel right right now.
And that's the key.
Just because it doesn't feel right right now doesn't mean it can't be right one day.
Just because something feels wrong right now doesn't mean it can't be right one day.
And something that can feel perfectly right right now may not feel right one day.
So don't focus so much on whether something's right or wrong.
Allow it to be what it is.
Which is that it's okay right now.
It makes sense right now.
I think what we often do is we want something that makes sense right now to make sense forever.
We want something that feels right now to feel right forever.
And then what happens is when we discover that it's no longer what we want, we then look back and think, oh, I wasted a lot of time.
Oh, I wish I knew this before.
And what we do is we discount and invalidate the last few years.
You didn't get something wrong.
You did the best with what you knew then.
And guess what? You'll make more mistakes because you're only doing the best with what you know now.
And that's okay. That's totally okay.
Stop beating yourself up for not learning the lesson earlier.
Stop ridiculing yourself and criticizing yourself.
For not knowing things before.
Stop hating on the past version of yourself because it got you here to the present.
It got you here right now to this answer, this solution, this resolution, this point of change, this pivot in your life.
You got here because of that mindset.
It protected you. It provided for you and now it's your pivot.
Often what protects you one day may harm you.
And your job is only to realize the day that it turns into harm that you let it go.
Your job is not to look back and make the past feel like a waste of time or irrelevant or insignificant.
So when you meet someone who shows you a window, be curious.
When you meet someone who shares a vision with you, be curious.
You don't have to follow it.
You don't have to pursue it, but be open to it.
Aspect of the types of people we meet in our life, this person said was a door.
These are the people that open doors for us.
They are a door for us.
They're a path for us.
And I like to edit this one.
I feel like it's someone who opens doors for you.
These are usually what I call the in -betweeners.
I promise you that you have a friend today.
You may have a job you love.
You have something in your life that's meaningful and you forgot the person who introduced you to it.
Whether it was a book, whether it was an album, whether it was a person, whether it was a job, whether it was a community center, a sport, whatever it may be.
There's someone in your life who introduced you to something amazing.
They opened the door to something and you've forgotten who they are.
And that person who opened the door for you, it's kind of like if someone opens the door for you at a mall, you walk through it.
You may never know who they are.
You may never even ask who they are.
You may smile and say thanks.
Imagine the people that are doing that for you in life.
There are people literally opening doors for you in life that we forget, we leave behind, we move on from because we moved forward.
Take a moment to send that person a message.
Take a moment to thank that person.
Take a moment to acknowledge that person today.
Maybe send them a message, send them a note because that person's amazing.
They opened the door for you.
I wanted to add one more to this.
I think we also meet people who are like keys, people who unlock parts of us in the most beautiful, gentlest of ways and the way that fits perfectly, right?
With the window, it was someone showing us a window.
With the door, it's someone opening the door.
It's with the mirror.
It could be harsh. It could be easy.
But with the key, everything makes sense.
Everything unlocks.
Everything's the perfect fit.
And sometimes you have to try a lot of keys.
To find the one. Right?
Imagine you've got all these keys around your, you know, a big key chain and you're testing each key to see if it works and one fits kind of half and one gets stuck and one doesn't quite turn the lock.
It takes a lot of keys to find the one key that unlocks it all.
And that's what life can be sometimes.
Like, especially romantically where, romantically we've had a lot of mirrors.
People who showed us the worst parts of ourselves, the best parts of ourselves and maybe even showed us broken mirrors.
I think that's a really interesting part of it where really in relationships, what we're doing is we're both holding up a broken mirror and we're reflecting broken parts of ourselves and the other person to each other.
With the window in a romantic relationship, someone shows it.
But we may not be ready yet.
We may still be in bed going, I don't want to see anything right now.
And often we live to regret that we end up thinking, oh, well, I wish that person who saw my potential could still be here right now.
But guess what? That wasn't their role.
Their role in your life was just to move you in that direction and you weren't ready for them yet.
And that's okay. And then we'll meet people who opened doors and maybe they are the people we forget.
They're the people we leave behind.
Let's not do that. Let's remember them.
Let's thank them. Let's appreciate them.
And finally, they'll be the key, the rarest of them all.
People that are hard to find.
People that other people try to pretend to be false keys until we find the right one.
What does this mean for us?
It means that when you meet someone, reflect on what role they played in your life.
Know what they did to you.
Maybe not even what they said to you.
What role did they play?
And how did you leave them a better person?
People may not leave you better off, but you can leave them better off for yourself.
People may not leave you happy, but you can heal to happiness yourself.
People may not easily help you become better, but you can help yourself not become bitter.
I wish you all the best in your relationships.
I wish you all the best in all of your endeavors.
Remember that I'm forever in your corner and I'm always rooting for you.
And again, don't forget to follow Kim Perret's and Stariel Hope on TikTok, amazing creators putting out great content that I think you'll love.
And I'm so glad to both of them for introducing me to this idea that hopefully I've remixed today.
Added some of my own thoughts and reflections in a way that is helpful to all of you.
Thank you. If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with Dr.
Daniel Ayman on how to change your life by changing your brain.
If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with a healthy brain.
You know, I've had the blessing or the curse to scan over a thousand convicted felons and over a hundred murderers and their brains are very damaged.
