Think Differently. Solve the Impossible.

Show Notes

RAJ Lifestyle and Wellness Coaching

Website: https://www.raj.coach

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drjones.coach

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Transcript

My guest today is Ryan Jones.

Ryan has a master's degree in transformational coaching and leadership.

Ryan brings a unique perspective to health and wellness.

He's fascinated by the intersection of role-playing games and adult development, particularly how games such as Dungeons & Dragons can offer a path to self-discovery and self-actualization.

He's currently pursuing a doctorate degree.

We're going to talk to Ryan about personal growth, gaming, and how playing games, particularly ones in which you play a role as a character, can offer you a path to self-discovery about who you are and what you're passionate about.

I'm interested in learning how Ryan fits this idea in his coaching practice as a life coach.

Welcome to my show, Ryan.

Hey, Daniel.

Thank you so much for having me.

So tell me your backstory, how you got into coaching.

A PhD is a pretty big accomplishment.

Even starting one, getting accepted, and that presupposes you.

You have college and masters.

You're quite serious about this.

At first, the idea of a game too doesn't seem as serious.

It's fascinating.

So tell me your short life story on how you got to your point in life coaching, helping others, and also believing, hey, there's something we overlook.

How about this role-playing game concept?

Yeah.

So I was an actor to start off with.

First time I went to school, I studied acting, and I really got a sense of like, I really got connected to my body, one, because I had to study myself as an instrument.

And so I started doing meditation and yoga and connecting with myself that way, lifting.

And then I was also doing human study, like, who are you?

What is it that you want?

What actions do you take to get what you want?

What's in the way?

And so learning how to observe people from a morally neutral position, just like, here's what you're doing, here's what you think, here's what you feel.

And then relating with the character very personally.

I see you as an actor, of course, you had to get in the head.

The character, be the character, yeah.

Yeah.

And it's really important as an actor not to judge the character, because then you're going to be commenting on the character instead of really being the character.

Yep.

You'll be in your head too much instead of in the moment living the character, you'll be thinking, you'll be thinking too much.

Exactly.

And so I acted for many years.

I met my wife.

We went on a series of really wild adventures together, getting married, having a kid.

We did some personal development work together at an organization formerly known as the Wright Foundation, that has since closed down.

But I got exposed to this really sophisticated model of human behavior and that resonated a lot with what I'd learned as an actor.

And I was like, man, I could really sink my teeth into this.

So we went deep on it.

At the end of the first year of that program, I was like, I really want to go back to school.

I want to be Dr.

Jones.

Like, I want to do this.

And I started coaching people.

And finished my undergrad online.

Did my masters.

And now I'm in the doctorate here.

Nice.

And then how did you figure out a way, or are you still working on it in your PhD program, to, well, the concept, explain the concept.

Particularly, is it Dungeons & Dragons, the game, the role-playing you think is most useful, because there's so many characters or something like that?

Yeah, so gaming has always been a big part of my life.

I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons since 2004, and just getting together with my friends and making up characters, making up a world, and having adventures has always been something that's really appealed to me.

I've always loved fantasy and science fiction novels.

So it's a part of my life that's been a real consistent pulse of interest and engagement.

And as I've been kind of gearing up and starting this doctorate program, I've been like, man, like, how do I, like, what do I do?

Like, what do I study?

What do I contribute?

And I went to a convention this last year for the first time in a long time, because I've been really busy.

I've been, you know, married, kids.

So I haven't had time to maybe engage with the hobby in the way that I had in the past.

But I went back, and I was like, man, I...

The gaming hobby?

Yeah, the gaming hobby.

So the Gen Con is the best four days in gaming.

It's, you know, 70,000 people once a year come to this convention center and just share the love of gaming.

And I got to participate in that.

And I realized, like, man, I really want to make this a bigger part of my life.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much of what I was learning through my coaching practice and through the social, emotional, intelligence skills that I've been building.

And that really applied in a tabletop game where there's a group dynamic.

So it's a bunch of individuals coming together to do something together.

There's...

For those who...

I only played Dungeons & Dragons once with my nephew because it was Christmas last year, and it was his thing.

For someone who's never played D&D, as they call it, explain the game real quick, how there's so many characters, and how, like you said, you create the story.

Like there's a master gamer that you pick, and he writes the story or something like that.

Yeah, so in a tabletop role playing game, you have a group of people come together to essentially tell a story.

And usually, within the structure of the game, one of those people will be the game master, or the referee, essentially, who say, okay, I know the rules, and I'm going to adjudicate the rules, and I'm also going to present the players with a world to engage with.

And villains and allies and events, things are happening.

So the one player is kind of taking responsibility for the world around the players, and then all the other players at the table have one persona that they've created.

In the Game Master, again, for those who have never played it, because, like, well, I just make up my own game, kind of, there's already a certain number of characters in places you can go and things you can do and skills characters can have.

There's a huge book, a lot of possibilities.

And the Game Master's picks and chooses, kind of like you're God and you're creating your own world with people and what they can do, right?

Oh, then you let the people actually pick who they want to be.

Something like that.

Yeah.

And in the best games, the players have created characters that want something for themselves, that have some kind of objective, something they want to do and impact they want to have.

And then the DM-

How do you do that as a player?

How do you get to do that?

That's a great question.

So-

I can't remember.

I remember-

But I do remember, I got to pick, do you want to be smarter or stronger, or have a magic power that you can throw, breathe fire or turn invisible?

You get to pick stuff, right?

Yeah.

So there are-

Exactly.

There are choices in the character creation, and depending on what game you're playing, many people are familiar with Dungeons & Dragons.

That's the most popular one.

But every game system will provide you with an idea of a setting, like what kind of a world does this game take place in?

What kind of characters occupy this world?

What do characters do in this world when they're trying to overcome obstacles?

And that might be, like in Dungeons & Dragons, I might be an elf and I use magic and I cast fireballs or magic missiles.

And then I might play in a post-apocalyptic world where survival is really important.

We need to find food and water and negotiate peace with another settlement.

Or maybe we're film noir detectives and we're solving mystery.

There are so many different settings in which a tabletop role-playing game can take place because there are so many different stories that people want to tell.

And so you really have...

It's not like playing Monopoly or Candyland.

Candyland, where you just roll the dice and move the player forward.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's highly iterative, highly replayable.

Possibilities like infinite possibilities.

It just comes to the game master to design a game that either people like playing or not and then people get to pick their characters.

And they really don't know how well those characters are going to work in the game, because they don't know the plan that the game master has, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the game master knows things that the players don't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So how do you work that into your...

Yeah.

So this is an emerging area of interest for me.

It's an emerging kind of field.

There's a kind of an emerging interest in the use of tabletop games for therapy, for leadership development and organizations, and for education.

And so I'm hoping to add to that body of academic literature and kind of that body of knowledge.

You know, the leadership one's interesting because I've only played the game once with my nephew and my brother and sister-in-law.

So we've got some young people, some old people, the game master, my nephew, who he wants to win the game.

But in terms of leadership, for those again who haven't played the game, you can, and correct me from wrong, Ryan, you can team up.

Other players can strategize, right, to overpower or win or the challenge working together, right?

Yeah, and in many, I would say in most cases, the players make up a party.

So they're together in a group and they have some kind of unified purpose, whether it's beaten the big bad guy, saving the princess, getting the treasure, slaying the dragon.

We're all working together to try to overcome obstacles to get to an outcome.

But you're also trying to win the game, meaning in the end, only one can win, right?

That's actually not true.

It's totally collaborative in that the win condition of the game is did we tell a cool story?

That's how you win, is you tell a really engaging, immersive, fun, interesting story together.

So you don't get killed in Dungeons & Dragons?

You might, and that might be really cathartic and cool potentially.

You're saving your friends from the breath of the dragon and standing in the doorway against the horde while your friends escape.

You know, that's a cool possibility.

And then say there's only one player standing because everybody gives their life for the one player.

I can't remember how the game is over.

We couldn't finish the game.

It was a holiday weekend and we played it for a couple hours.

The Game Master designed it so complex that we didn't have enough time to finish.

When you say the winner is the best story, there's no ultimate winner in the end.

Yeah.

So it's very much like if you read, like what's your favorite fictional story you've ever read?

Well, I don't read a lot of fiction.

Too much of a scientist or a busy person to read fiction.

Maybe something from your childhood.

Well, it comes to mind, the John Grisham, the Stephen King pulp fiction, basically.

If I get time down, I'm reading something that it didn't win some award for outstanding literature.

It's a good story, but it's a great story.

And so in every story, you have the events that occur in the book.

But then something happened before then.

So there's a backstory that all these characters in the world have.

And then what happens in the book happens.

And then the events theoretically continue beyond the end of the book.

That's how they write a series.

Exactly.

When there's a best seller, like even Star Wars.

Well, we have Star Wars in the future.

How are we going to keep going?

Oh, we'll do a pre-Star Wars.

And then a pre-Star Wars to that, yeah.

Where Darth Vader was a kid.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

That's exactly right.

Okay.

All right.

So then in terms of coaching, I'm getting idea how you could observe someone who they choose to be.

So I think for a lot of people, we create characters a little unconsciously.

Like I just I'm making choices because that's what sounds appealing at the time.

But there's I think a lot of what happened in any creative act, we draw on ourselves for the creative act.

So whenever I'm creating a character, I'm creating some reaction to myself.

Either the character is aspirational, like something I wish I was, or something I wish I wasn't.

Done that, yeah.

Done that in the game, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

And we kind of do that automatically.

Like it's something we can't help but do.

It's also safe.

It's safe because I feel I can do it in the game.

Where in real life, maybe I'm not a kick-ass martial arts, you know, Kung Fu guy, I get my butt kicked.

But in the game, I'm going to choose to be the guy who can, you know, has that skill.

Like, don't mess with me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or maybe the magician because I'm too much of a scientist in the life and I'm like, oh, you know, I'll be the magic guy.

Yeah.

Well, and that like, like so the so you've got this like martial artists that you want to be.

And then there's there's something about that that's really appealing to you.

Like, can you say a little bit more about that that archetype or that kind of person?

It means I can I can walk down the street and not be so afraid.

I can take care of somebody else better if they're being hurt, just like in the movies, be the hero.

Yeah.

So so so in the game, you're then acting out this kind of aspirational journey.

Well, in that same game, I'm also distracted.

Well, if I'm only strong and I have no brains and no magic, it's kind of like putting all your investments into one stock portfolio.

So I'm going to choose more strength being a stronger martial arts guy, but I still need a few ingredients just in case I need some, a little bit of brains and a little bit of magic.

So you're kind of playing like I want to play into this archetype, but not all the way.

Well, I have no idea what my nephew is the game master has in mind, and I could get killed real easy if it turns out strength didn't do you any good because I'm too powerful of a magician, and I just did magic on you or something.

There's a lot of possibilities with that game.

That book on choices is pretty thick that you can pick from.

Yeah, and so how the coaching comes into play is like, let's see, where are you in your life right now?

What are the stories?

What are the perceived limitations?

What are you feeling?

What's present for you?

And then what kind of character would help you work that in this kind of safe environment?

Whether that's an interpersonal skill or whether that's like a self-efficacy thing or a scarcity thing or what?

So you don't actually have your clients play a game.

It's kind of cool.

I'm getting where you're going with this.

You take kind of like it's the Hollywood formula for storytelling.

You have a hero, a villain, a story.

Somehow you are, by asking the questions like you just asked me, it says if you're relating it to a game, but you're not really playing a game.

Well, and so there's this idea in gaming of like a session zero, where we're gathered together.

We're not ready to start the story, but we want to set up the story.

We want to build our characters together.

We want to get a sense for like what's important to us as a group.

What kind of game do we want to play?

And in that environment, in that session zero, I might guide someone to like, like, man, I'm really just feeling super pissed off about like in my relationship with my boss at work.

Like, okay, what's that about?

Well, I'm, you know, I'm feeling really disaffirmed.

Like, I feel like they don't like me.

So here's this issue of like being likable or being liked or being disliked.

So then we might say like, well, how do you want to, how do you want to like lean into that?

Well, maybe I don't give a about being liked.

Maybe I just want to be on, maybe I just want to be like a disagreeable person.

Like I have a lot of trouble with that.

I try to be really agreeable all the time and I want people to like me.

And this guy's just not like me.

And we're in the coaching session now, right?

Where you're pretending.

OK, so so then you might say, OK, well, I'm going to play Grog Narc, the barbarian, who doesn't give a f**k about, like, who doesn't give a f**k about being liked.

And we'll just see how that feels.

That's the character that this person's playing.

So then we go in, we have a session of play, they have a social interaction where they're at a ball, and rules, you know, the rules are really important, and it's important to be liked, but this character is like, no, I'm not gonna be likable.

I'm gonna break the rules, and I'm gonna engage with my anger in that way.

And da, da, da, da, da, we get to the end of the session, and then we do a debrief.

And we essentially say, like, what did your character do?

Like, what struck you about what your character did this session?

You know, what were they thinking and feeling?

You know, what did you think and feel about that?

Cool.

It's almost like you were stepping out of yourself for a while, and you could say and do things you couldn't do unless you stepped into the character.

Yeah, with the idea that by opening up those possibilities in character and trying things you wouldn't normally try, that maybe you learn something about how the world works or how you are that's a little different from who you were before.

And then you can go out into your life and say, okay, five times this week, I'm going to say no to somebody, or I'm going to break a rule on purpose.

I'm going to break a social rule on purpose and see what happens.

I was almost like kind of being an actor.

Like if I had another session or two with you doing that, which might really get me excited to come to a session because, well, you have to play a game.

It's not really coaching session, it's a game session.

Yeah.

Maybe you have to get in, you know, it's fun.

It's fun.

But then like you're as an actor, like you were, your clients potentially could kind of like pretend they're John Wayne, or pretend they're the character when they're confronted with the real situation in real life and just do like they did in your office.

Exactly.

And so it's that rehearsal.

It's like, I'm rehearsing a set of skills that I haven't had historically, but that this character possesses.

We're just taking that, like, they've got it.

So I can, and that's how we learn.

How children learn to do something new is by pretending they know how to do it already.

In absorption, by seeing someone else in absorption and.

Well, even exactly it.

So it's so it's by doing that rehearsal in the game, when the when the environment shows up in my life for this choice to be made, I've now run the I've run the neural pattern already.

So I'm already primed to take the risk that I would not have historically taken.

Like you practiced.

Yeah, exactly.

Nice.

And so how many sessions might this go on before something changes the game or the character or they say, you know what, I didn't like being the strong guy.

I want to pretend I'm the smart guy.

And you okay, let's let's play it that way.

Like you can change characters.

Yeah, yeah, potentially.

I mean, the cool thing about role-playing games is you can play a one-shot like you did with your nephew.

You can play one time and it's a whole thing.

Or you can play short adventure that has four sessions in it.

Or you can play, I played in campaigns that lasted two or three years where you're playing the same character throughout and you're watching them grow and you're growing along with them.

Nice.

Yeah.

And is this something you've already started to do with your clients, or is it something that you're kind of working out with your doctorate degree and whatnot?

Yeah, it's something I've studied.

I've definitely started to network in with the people who've done kind of the foundational research in this area.

Sarah Lynn Bowman and this concept of bleed, this idea that we bleed ourselves into the character and the character can bleed out into us as well, is some is foundational to her work.

I'm starting in January.

I'm going to do a beta test, because as far as I can tell, nobody's done this with a coaching model before.

People have done it with therapeutic models, but this will be kind of a new thing that nobody's done before.

So I'm going to try it and see what goes.

It doesn't sound like it could do any.

It sounds great and wonderful.

Why do you think it hasn't been done before?

That's a good question.

I think that until recently, Dungeons & Dragons has kind of a fraught cultural history.

But I think with the recent advent of critical role and stranger things, I think that and also with the pandemic, I think people are kind of waking up to how fun it is and how nourishing it is to sit down with other people and create something together that has no other...

You know, there's no...

It's not going anywhere.

It's intrinsically valuable.

One idea that came to my mind when you were telling me about the history and how you got into this and back to there was the conference, which you hadn't gone to in a while, is that accidentally, kind of like you invent something you didn't know you were looking for, because you were being your authentic self and already had the interest in gaming, you didn't go out and try to make a derivative of an existing coaching method.

You're like, what if I took what I did, what I like, my passion, and had an interest in and worked it into my practice?

And maybe a lot of people think that's not possible.

You can't work something that you have an interest in, and you were able to, because it's you.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it is a very...

It was funny to...

When I was coming home from the convention, and this idea started to occur to me, it was just, it was like a snowball.

It was like, oh, oh, duh, oh, duh, oh, absolutely, of course.

It's like, how did I not think of this before?

It's like, there's the individual and their relationship with themselves, like, that they're accessing through this character.

There's the individual and the relationship between people that theoretically they're close with or are going to become closer with, because a game is interactive, and so you and I are, our stuff is going to come up, and it's going to come up in the game, and we're going to...

So there's a cool individual dynamic, there's a cool group dynamic, there's a cool...

You have a dedicated facilitator, so it's just like so many of the pieces...

That opens the expansion for possibilities, meaning I hadn't thought of unique characters.

Would there be a situation that sounds kind of risky?

You could do with couples therapy really well, probably.

Yeah, yeah.

Where you'd have two people live in the same room with you.

Yeah.

As a coaching, as you know, as a coach.

Because normally, you do coaching sessions privately, right?

Yeah.

But yeah, and there's...

Yeah, so that the...

One of the reasons this is really appealing to me, actually, is because I think there's a real...

I'm getting to the point where I feel good charging more money than a lot of people are comfortable paying because of my level of expertise and my doctorate, you know, having...

pursuing a doctoral degree.

And so I think a lot of the people that would really enjoy working, with me, it's a little financially inaccessible to work one on one.

And so having an opportunity to gather a group of like five or six people who can like buy in at a lower cost point and get a ton of value and have a lot of fun together.

There is value in just sitting and watching somebody else transform, especially if it's the same issue you're having.

You don't even need to speak if you see someone, especially something like suicide or going to work and being frustrated with your job or being weak and wish you were strong.

So many common things.

You just watch someone else and go, wow, I can do that.

I can take that home with me.

Yeah, in the coaching model I work with, we call that co-voyaging, where I'm along with you on your ride, and I'm applying it to myself.

As you're learning and growing, I'm learning and growing along with you.

I think you absolutely nailed that.

So I'm trying to imagine when this is in place, more than a beta, it's really done.

Yeah.

Would I go into your office, and on the walls would be posters with characters to choose, or you'd hand me a book, kind of like the Dungeons & Dragons, like a Bible to choose a character from?

How would it actually look and feel in your office?

So there's a game I'm kind of co-developing.

I really wanted to build a game that would, because Dungeons & Dragons is wonderful, but it's not designed for personal development.

It's a war game.

And so I'm working with someone to develop a game that would be specifically designed where the mechanics themselves facilitate the emergence of the people who play the game.

And so in any given group, we would gather together and decide, hey, what setting are you guys drawn to?

Do you want zombie apocalypse?

Do you want high fantasy?

Do you want grungy sci-fi?

What kind of world do you want to play in?

So would it be like if they don't do it in Dungeons & Dragons, but if the game master asks the characters, players help me design the game like that?

Yeah.

So that the players themselves have a lot of agency in the world and in the story.

So they're really making an environment for themselves that will facilitate their emergence, that they're going to be deeply engaged in.

And then they can all create characters together.

And be like, oh, so these are the kind of characters that occupy this world.

These are the kind of issues we're interested in as people that we want to play with in the game.

And so what kind of characters deal with these issues, you know?

Whether it's like firefighters or detectives or adventurers or what have you.

So instead of musicians and knights in shining armor and wizards, it would be firemen, accountants, engineers, regular people.

They like to be characters that are real.

Sure.

Or talking animals.

Or it could be anything.

Okay.

Yeah.

And we can present a palette of options.

Absolutely.

But ideally, the players are taking, the players are doing all the work.

They're the ones who are generating the world in which they're really going to fly in.

And then my job as a facilitator is to hold space for them, to self-organize, to do the thing that they need to do, and then to reflect and provide them with crises, to provide them with difficult problems that they have to solve in character, and that I may not even have the answer to, you know?

So I haven't even decided what the solution is.

They really need to be generative.

They really need to be creative and discover for themselves how they're going to accomplish this.

And then the, I think that the satisfaction available in that style of play is much higher than I've got.

I as the GM, I already know who the big bad guy is.

I already know what everything is going to happen.

And you all are on my thrill ride.

That sounds depressing.

I think that's why people are depressed.

I have to go to work.

I have to go to school.

I have to take the subject matter.

I have to get beyond time.

It sounds like the real world.

Yeah.

Why we have problems.

Yeah.

But you got to live in the real world.

So I guess you're trying to make it better for people.

Yeah.

So what's in the near future?

Where is there?

How is it developing?

Yeah.

So I'm doing work with an organization called Lead RPG, and this is a dude named Joe Lasley, who's developed a game model that he takes into organizations, and so doing some coaching and some work with him.

They just finished a really cool Kickstarter, Tabletop EDU, where they're building a book to provide teachers with the tools necessary to accomplish learning objectives with their students in classrooms.

And so I'm doing some consulting with them and kind of helping them run their Discord.

And then finishing my degree, I'm going to be at GenCon, I'm going to be at PAX Unplugged, I'm going to be at a bunch of conventions this year speaking and doing events, and then running this beta, and then running an alpha group, and then kind of launching this kind of coaching model.

So also notice you are a martial arts guy for kind of somewhat the real thing.

Especially yoga, I saw your hand stand or push up, it was a sideways push up, not a hand stand, not a push up, two hands on the ground, but your legs are out like you're doing a push up.

I couldn't do it.

You have a love for martial arts as well as the gaming.

How does that fit into your coaching practice or is it a completely separate business?

Yeah.

So the tabletop RPG thing is a new kind of direction I'm headed in.

But I will always and forever be a holistic person.

Like I'm a dude with a body and a breath instrument and a voice.

And so it's like, I love to sing, I love breathing, I love the Wim Hof, I love martial arts, I love sparring, I love...

The Wim Hof is the guy who jumps in the cold water in the middle of winter, right?

Yeah.

So it's really like, I'm creating a life for myself where I feel really fantastic in my body, where I've got this really robust, beautiful set of relationships.

And so those are some of the modalities that I bring into my coaching.

And it just depends on what people want, you know?

I work with a lot of different kinds of people.

To me, it's like you're still working because key to your discovery on how to do gaming in an innovative way that no one's doing, and maybe a really effective way, no one had even realized how effective it is.

Once you get started, you would only have gotten there if you stayed authentic.

So to me, it's like Da Vinci, he went and painted the Mona Lisa, but he was an engineer.

Maybe he need to go to paint the Mona Lisa to stay somehow authentic in his head and his brain and his thinking.

And he's really working, because if he didn't paint it, he wouldn't be able to design engineering, even though he's not getting paid to do both.

So I just wonder what's part of that, just part of who you are.

So you have to, it's technically like it's related even though it's not directly related.

Yeah, it's like, I love this word.

I feel kind of full of myself using it, but like polymath.

Like I'm someone, I have many deep interests, and what I find is that they're integrative.

Like things from acting relate to like-

Oh, right.

Yeah, good point.

Reacting to, yeah.

Well, you know, it all kind of, it all is, it's all connected.

The tool bag.

Yeah.

And the more I work with people, the more I see how people's lives are like really, really, really deeply connected.

All your activity produces who you are and your experience of life.

And so being mindful, being conscious, and being intentional about every element of your life can only help you become like an integrated, like a mature, you know.

Not cutting one thing off, because if I was DaVinci doing the engineering and I said, you know what, I got to focus on engineering, I can't paint today or this week, or I'm just never going to paint or play or sing again.

And you wouldn't be so creative as an engineer.

Yeah.

Don't realize you just destroyed, hurt yourself, hurt everybody.

It's funny, one of my clients is a conductor, and he had the opportunity to work with a, I think they were in Colorado, it was an amateur orchestra, but they were all physicians.

So they're all like medical doctors.

And he said they were some of the best amateur.

It was like they rivaled professional groups in many, many ways, because they were like highly educated, highly engaged in their lives, and they maintained this creative outlet while they were doing their analytical.

We're so biased.

I am, I'm one of them.

If I just saw them before you told me they were also physicians, I would think they're great.

Well, they are great.

But once you tell me they're physicians, or if I buy a ticket to the show knowing they're physicians, for some reason now I don't think they're as good as musicians.

Why do you suppose we feel like we can't identify people with more than one hat?

Like they have to pick a hat.

We can only recognize them doing one thing great.

That's a good question.

I think that one of the troubles I think we have as humans is we tend to view the world and one another and ourselves as fixed.

So we tend to...

And it's just a natural thing to do.

We create categories and boxes for people.

And that's just something...

Because it's very efficient.

And so I think one of the...

And then we become really attached to those models of how people are.

I mean, you see it in...

Like when a family member tries to change, or when you try to change and you go back into your family, people assume that you're a certain kind of way, and it's difficult for them to see you in another kind of way.

So I think it's very natural that we do that.

And I also think it's one of the great issues that we have to deal with kind of in our own psyches, is learning how to see that we are all in process, and we're all changing all the time.

I use DaVinci so much because it's so common.

If you're sick of hearing me saying it, imagine if you saw DaVinci painting, and you said, who are you?

Because people like to say, what do you do?

If you ask DaVinci, what are you doing?

Well, I'm painting.

And then he's the same guy who's inventing something spectacular invention.

What do you say to people when they ask you what you do?

If he said he was a painter, you'd never know about his engineering.

And if you saw him do an engineering, you probably think he can't do an engineering.

He's a painter, right?

Right, Ryan?

So what do you do when people ask you, what do you suggest people do when people say, so, so, Daniel, what do you do?

Yeah, well, I think, I think it's okay to be misunderstood by people.

And so I think there's a level at which it really is like, it's okay for people only to know a part of you.

But I think that the more closely people want to, the more close someone wants to be with you, the more deeply they want to know you, the more opportunity they'll have to understand who you really are.

And at every juncture, you simply show them who you are in that moment.

Like, I generally say, you know, I'm an emergence coach.

But I'm also a martial artist, and I'm also a dancer, and I'm also a singer, and I'm also an actor, and I'm also a dad, and I'm also a gamer.

And so I think that's just how we are, you know?

Or if someone asks you who you are, I say, I'm Daniel Stih.

Some people, they look at you like you're in a headlight, so it's not what they're expecting.

Because Da Vinci would probably say, I'm Leonard Da Vinci.

What do you think that I would say, painter?

I wouldn't say engineer.

I would say, I'm Daniel.

When people ask me that, I coach them for like, what do you really want to know?

You want to know how much money I make.

That's what you really want to know, right?

What do you do?

Yeah.

They're fascinated by, how's the guy have long hair?

He's doing what he wants to do.

Is he getting paid to do that?

How much does he make?

Judgmental.

Yeah.

Whereas I encourage them, you're a realtor and you want to be a dance instructor.

When someone asked you, what do you do?

You got to think about, do you want to sell a house?

Say realtor, do you want to invite people to your new authentic dance coaching classes?

You got to pick.

Yeah.

Well, it's that like we, and there's nothing wrong with this, but we construct personas.

It's like even authentic personas, even if I, in this conversation, where you and I have been really like with one another, I really felt like you felt me, and I've been feeling you.

This is a snapshot of who we are.

That's who I am right now.

But there's a definition of authenticity that I really love that says, authenticity is being true to who I'm becoming.

So there's this, and it goes in with this idea of emergence, that there's something in me that's always emerging.

I'm always in a process of organizing myself, and something's in the process of expressing itself through me.

And it's like, two days from now, this version of me won't be authentic anymore, you know?

I think it's a better way to open up a conversation, too.

If somebody asks you that, it's an opportunity to inspire them to be more than they can be, or be something they want to be and are dragging their feet.

How did you just put it, Ryan?

I am aspiring to become, I am off.

What did you say in terms of?

I'm being true to who I could become.

Nice.

I'm not recreating who I've been, but I'm in the moment.

Opens a whole line of dialogue for a story on whoever you're speaking with, both yours and their back story, and their future, and what you're doing, and who you want to be, and so forth.

Yeah.

Because who we're becoming is sourced into who we've been.

It's like Daniel Stih is here in this moment with Ryan, and he's becoming a fantastic podcast host.

But that person is based on, Daniel Stih was once five years old, and had a certain kind of relationship with his mom and dad, and you know.

Yeah.

So this guy, I have to ask you this because I have you on the show, the cold water guy that jumps in the lake in the winter.

Oh, Winhoff.

Yeah.

Winhoff.

So I watch his videos, and Russell Brand is a fan of his.

I'm not skeptic.

I'm just like, well, what if his body is made for that, built for that?

Like I grew up in the desert.

I'm acclimatized to going without water for two days on a two cups of water somehow that shouldn't be possible.

What if he's built for that and yet he's encouraging people to do it, that it's just good for him?

What do you think?

Is there really validity behind what he's doing?

Should everybody jump into the lake in the middle of winter?

Well, so Winhoff is a pioneer.

He's a madman, he's a shaman.

That dude's out there.

But I think he's pointing towards something that is very real.

And I can only speak really to my personal experience in the little bit that I've read.

So I'm a California boy.

I grew up in 72, sunny, all year round.

And then I moved to Chicago, where it is cold, six months out of the year.

And I started doing these cold plunges.

I started doing cold showers.

I started jumping in the lake every day during the winter.

And the second year I was doing it, I went out for a run, and my body went, oh, nice, the cold.

And it was the first time I'd been like, oh, my body likes this now.

My body wants this now.

And I've gotten a lot.

It's really helped me with some depression that I had had in the past.

I think it's a really, for me, the highest value is spiritual.

I feel like I've done a lot of work with psychedelics and stuff like that in the past, and not so much anymore.

But doing the cold plunge and getting through that first minute of my body was-

Is it because psychological, I can do it, I did it, or physiological, like something in the body, the bloodstream, being shocked like that actually does something.

Well, so there's well-documented epinephrine, norepinephrine gets released in the system, so you're getting a hit of powerful chemicals, and then there's a several-hour spike of dopamine afterwards.

So it's really good for upregulating and then getting, oh, man, yeah, life is good, like, I'm grateful.

I'm grateful to be allowed to make it.

Yeah.

Well, that's a simple explanation.

The shock ink releases a bunch of dopamine, which makes you more happier.

That's a simple explanation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Are there other ways you can get it besides jumping into cold water?

Oh, I'm sure.

I know like people who get tattoos, say they report the runner's high is not the same but similar.

I think for like bang for your buck in terms of time and efficacy, cold plunge is really, really effective.

Yeah.

And then for me, every time I go to do it, I am scared and my body is like, please don't do that again.

Please don't do it.

Please don't.

Please don't.

Please don't.

And then I do it.

And for the first minute, it's torture.

It's so intense.

The sensation is so intense.

My body wants so badly for me to get out.

But then after that first minute, the body relaxes and I get just like crystalline clarity of mind.

And I've had some really extraordinary kind of like spiritual, meditative moments in the cold.

Just like, again, like the kinds of experiences that I haven't had outside of psychedelics, I've had in the cold.

Interesting.

It's interesting to hear that you can get it somewhere in the ways.

It doesn't make sense to jump in the cold water.

It's the most predictable, easy.

You can get cold water most everywhere.

Way to do it.

Knowing that it's not directly associated with the cold, more the shock and the dopamine, I'm going to have to process, think about that for a while, see if I can come up with some...

Well, people probably have, like you say, the runner's high, another easy way besides jumping in the cold water.

Well, and if you ever want to...

I always recommend start with cold showers at the end of your shower.

Just dial in the cold, hang out in there a minute.

In the desert, like Phoenix, especially in the summertime, there's no such thing.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's colder water, cooler water, but...

Yeah.

In fact, the swimming pool, you can't even go in the swimming pool in the summertime.

It's beyond lukewarm.

It's not even pleasant.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

But, you know, you can drive north and jump in the lake, but we don't have Michigan cold water.

Yeah.

It may not be the same thing.

Is there anything else we haven't talked about that you want to circle back to the game or your business coaching and how you're going to do the gaming with that?

Yeah.

I guess just to plug myself, I'm Ryan Allen Jones.

My website is www.raj.coach.

So super easy.

It'll be in the show notes.

Oh, sweet.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, I'm...

Raj.coach.

So you took the URL, Coach, instead of com.

Yeah.

And it's your initials, Raj.coach.

In details, it'll be in the show notes.

And then, one last thing.

Do you see...

We mentioned how you're like a Da Vinci, a polymath, you're doing different things.

Is there a way you might try to integrate?

Jumping in the...

Okay, we'll go to my office, we're gonna play a game, then you're gonna do some pushups on your hands, and then jump in the cold water lake, because it's holistic, holistic.

So my dream is I want a master's program where I get people for like two and a half years, and we get to do martial arts, we get to do like bodywork, we get to do breathwork, we get to do meditation, we get to do critical thinking, and writing, and and oratory, and just like building a really comprehensive person who's so capable of like doing what they need to do in the world.

Then like, like this like warrior poet, kind of philosopher king, like...

Well, like a real life coach, not just someone who everyone's like, you got to niche in your life coaching if you're a life coach.

Well, if you're niching, what do I do if I have a question about business and you're a relationship coach, and I need a business coach, or I need a health coach?

You know, they're doing it to market themselves, so people funnel, but it seems holistic, and long term, it better quote life coach.

Yeah, well, like, I don't know, I've been working with people for like four years at this point, and we hit everything.

Like, they've lost weight, they're working out, they're working on their relationships, they're finding the next gig, or trying to do better at work.

It's like, it all connects.

And so unless you really feel comfortable with people's whole lives, you're not going to be able to affect them at the level that you could if you were.

And you might help them great in one area, but if they're weak in nine out of ten other ones, what's that going to do?

I can go to work perfectly, I come home, I have no relationship skills.

I talk to my partner, great, I go to work, I can't talk to people.

I have no...

And my business is bad, yeah, it's all important.

Good stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, thanks so much, Ryan.

It's interesting and I wish you the best.

And maybe we can have you back in six months or what not.

And you can give me more rundown how a visit to your office, not to jump in the cold water, but to play the games.

Sounds good.

Sounds good.

Thank you so much, Daniel.

It was really a pleasure.

Thanks, Ryan.

Take care.