All In: Allen Morris' Radical Transformation from Achievement to Meaning

Allen Morris: 00:00:00

I roll the dice on big multi million dollar

Allen Morris: 00:00:04

real estate deals every day.

Allen Morris: 00:00:07

I fly airplanes at high speeds and high altitudes.

Allen Morris: 00:00:11

I'm a pilot.

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I'm a scuba diver.

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I race cars.

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I do all kinds of crazy things.

Allen Morris: 00:00:19

And maybe one of the things that drives me, I had to ask myself, is

Allen Morris: 00:00:26

maybe, maybe you're trying to prove that you're not afraid when you are.

Allen Morris: 00:00:30

Um, uh,

Tim Winders: 00:00:41

What does it truly mean to go all in on life?

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Especially after facing a potential life threatening health scare.

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Welcome to Seek Go Create where today's guest, Alan Morris shares his

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transformative journey from the brink of a medical crisis to a profound

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personal and professional rebirth.

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Alan, CEO and chairman of the Alan Morris company has not only led his

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company to new heights, but also embarked on a journey of self discovery after

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experiencing severe, unbearable pain.

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Unexplained headaches that made him reevaluate his

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purpose and approach to life.

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After ruling out a brain tumor, Alan used this turning point to reshape his

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life and leadership style, leading to the creation of his book, all in how to risk

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everything for everything that matters.

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Join us as Alan discusses how he transformed adversity and

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opportunity, not only continuing to excel in the business world, but

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also enriching his relationships.

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And finding deeper joy in life, Alan, welcome to seek, go create.

Allen Morris: 00:01:45

It's great to be here with you today.

Allen Morris: 00:01:47

Thank you.

Tim Winders: 00:01:48

Glad you're here too, Alan.

Tim Winders: 00:01:49

Hey, Alan, just tough question.

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Just to get started.

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If someone asks you with, with the bio you've got, which is massive, by the

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way, I didn't read it all because people have to go, we only have 60 minutes.

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We don't have that long.

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You got quite the bio, but if someone asks you what you do.

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What's your, what's your response typically

Allen Morris: 00:02:08

it's really probably is simply aligned with our company, mission.

Allen Morris: 00:02:13

And that is, uh, what I do is inspire, impress and improve

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the lives of other people.

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Whether it's with real estate or whether it's in my writing or my

Allen Morris: 00:02:23

speaking or, in my relationships.

Allen Morris: 00:02:26

That's my, that's my goal and my passion.

Tim Winders: 00:02:29

has it always been that way?

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At what point did that kind of get crystallized?

Allen Morris: 00:02:36

I found myself getting bogged down in the business of my business

Allen Morris: 00:02:43

and all of my overwhelming commitments.

Allen Morris: 00:02:46

And what can happen when we get overcommitted is we can lose our joy.

Allen Morris: 00:02:51

And I had lost my joy.

Tim Winders: 00:02:54

so one thing that kind of, I'm going to go back to your bio that

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I sort of alluded to just a second ago, it, I read your book yesterday and we're

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going to talk a good bit about that.

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We're going to cover a lot of things here and background and stuff like that.

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And, and I read.

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At the end of the book, it lists out, it kind of has your bio and Alan,

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there's a lot of stuff in there.

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You mentioned just getting, how we could kind of get filled up and bogged down,

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but, but yet we do want to achieve and accomplish, while we're on this earth.

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What is it that led you to, first of all, let's just talk about, let's talk a little

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bit about the filling up of that bio.

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Is that something that was intentional?

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Did it just happen?

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Or, or were you just going at it trying to fill up, say, I think it

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was like on my Kindle, like six pages towards the end of the book, if it,

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if I sound cynical, it's impressive.

Tim Winders: 00:03:55

Okay.

Tim Winders: 00:03:55

I want to, I want to, I want to say that at the same time,

Tim Winders: 00:03:58

tell me more about That how that

Allen Morris: 00:04:00

I think you got the long version, which would, which when

Allen Morris: 00:04:05

I read that, it starts to give me a headache because I, I, I, I suppose

Allen Morris: 00:04:12

of the addictions that I, that I've got, one of them is an achievement

Allen Morris: 00:04:16

addiction and, over commitment.

Allen Morris: 00:04:19

you'll see a trail of, a lot of commitments and a lot of, involvement

Allen Morris: 00:04:24

in a lot of different things.

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some accomplishments.

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but also, a little bit of the craziness that my life, has become and, and why

Allen Morris: 00:04:35

I hit the wall in my personal life.

Allen Morris: 00:04:38

But, on the, on the business side, we just broke ground on

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our 90th development project.

Allen Morris: 00:04:45

Um, and, we're developing projects in nine different cities, across the country.

Allen Morris: 00:04:51

and I love what we do, but it's, it can, it can get out of hand, when it's combined

Allen Morris: 00:04:57

with other commitments that are more than, more than any person can happily enjoy.

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what is the, what's the downside just in, brief terms

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to having those type of commitments.

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I know you mentioned hitting the wall and we're, we've got time here.

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There's, there's some things we're going to go into.

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Don't, don't, don't, think this is a light

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conversation.

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We, we don't, we don't surface level stuff here at seek, go create.

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We kind of go deep, but just, just briefly, cause a lot of people

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would be extremely impressed.

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And I was, by the way, mostly I'm impressed that we're

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both Georgia Tech graduates.

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And, and we could chit chat about that a little bit, because that,

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that immediately lets me know that I'm, I'm in, some good company, but,

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and it actually may feed into some of this conversation because people

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us just saying that tells something about us, but, but talk about the downside.

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To, to being overcommitted.

Allen Morris: 00:05:57

what happened in my life was that I I had lost my joy in the

Allen Morris: 00:06:04

midst of trying to please everyone else by Uh, helping and trying to serve

Allen Morris: 00:06:13

or participate with everyone else's, things that they wanted me to do.

Allen Morris: 00:06:18

Together with, all of the things that I set out to try to achieve and accomplish.

Allen Morris: 00:06:23

And in the process of achieving and accomplishing, we can lose touch

Allen Morris: 00:06:28

with what we, what we really want.

Allen Morris: 00:06:31

what, what we want is probably the easiest question to, to ask.

Allen Morris: 00:06:37

an increasingly difficult question to answer, because when I, when

Allen Morris: 00:06:42

I ask myself what do I want, uh, there are layers to that.

Allen Morris: 00:06:46

And when I get down below the layer of what it is I think I want, to what

Allen Morris: 00:06:51

is it I really want, um, I discover that, I may be staying very, very busy.

Allen Morris: 00:06:58

And not enjoying what I'm doing.

Allen Morris: 00:07:01

And, that led to my burnout, where I was trying to accomplish and do

Allen Morris: 00:07:07

everything and just got burned out.

Allen Morris: 00:07:10

And it's a plague, and I think, in our country, certainly amongst leaders that

Allen Morris: 00:07:15

I know, um, and CEOs that I know and, and, have friendships with and work with.

Allen Morris: 00:07:22

Um, where they may be very, very accomplished, but their

Allen Morris: 00:07:27

accomplishment has come at a great cost to them personally, and the

Allen Morris: 00:07:32

relationships they have with others.

Allen Morris: 00:07:34

certainly was true in, in my case.

Tim Winders: 00:07:37

So you mentioned you use the word addiction.

Tim Winders: 00:07:40

It is something I'd written down in, in my notes here.

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This is actually been a theme that's come up a few times here on here on the show

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with people that successful and I'm air quotes for anyone listening to audio.

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If you're watching this on video, you saw my air quotes successful.

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But yet they mention addictions we would almost classify them as addictions

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that are okay by social standards, but yet they have some repercussions.

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Addictions like, I'm going to rattle off a few and then I'll let you just chime

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in and all because you've been around people and you brought it up, addiction,

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addiction to, achievement addiction to my addiction was to more, I was working on

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businesses and every time I had a thought, I thought I needed to start a new business

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or company and had someone who was on that said they were addicted to tomorrow

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and it was, it was always the future.

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They were always addicted to the future.

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And all of these were males, by the way, I've never.

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Had this issue with females that have been on here.

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They, they may have things other, addiction to expectations

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or something like that.

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But I know from reading the book that you had someone advise you at some

Tim Winders: 00:09:01

point go hang out with AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, and do a deep dive

Allen Morris: 00:09:06

Yes.

Tim Winders: 00:09:07

And I didn't get the feeling that you had an alcohol.

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or substance abuse issue at that time, or at least I didn't read

Tim Winders: 00:09:14

that in or may have missed it.

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What was that all about?

Tim Winders: 00:09:18

And let's, let's layer this addiction mindset or this addiction, that we have.

Tim Winders: 00:09:25

Maybe

Tim Winders: 00:09:25

men have it.

Tim Winders: 00:09:26

just talk more about it just with what I said there.

Allen Morris: 00:09:30

addiction is a, is a hard word, and it can be, confusing and a real

Allen Morris: 00:09:34

turn off to a lot of, a lot of people.

Allen Morris: 00:09:38

and so let me define it, first, that an addiction is any behavior that we continue

Allen Morris: 00:09:44

and persist in, even after we know that it's hurting us and or those that we love.

Allen Morris: 00:09:54

So we could have any number of areas in our life where we're persisting in,

Allen Morris: 00:10:02

self damaging behaviors and behaviors that are hurting those that we love,

Allen Morris: 00:10:07

and we continue with them, and, we don't know why we, uh, can't stop.

Allen Morris: 00:10:14

Um, and so that can be, a work addiction, um, a codependency addiction, a,

Allen Morris: 00:10:22

an addiction to achievement or an addiction to, substance abuse, where,

Allen Morris: 00:10:28

social drinking turns into more, um, and where food turns into more.

Allen Morris: 00:10:36

And we continue to eat or we continue to drink or we continue to work.

Allen Morris: 00:10:40

in excess, beyond what is healthy and when it starts to hurt us and starts to

Allen Morris: 00:10:46

hurt those around us in our relationships.

Allen Morris: 00:10:49

And we'll often see that, uh, the tip off to that is often the conflicts

Allen Morris: 00:10:54

that we are experiencing in our relationships or in our physical

Allen Morris: 00:10:59

health or in our emotional health.

Allen Morris: 00:11:03

So, that's what I think of when I think of addictions.

Tim Winders: 00:11:06

So why is it, especially with men, that We have this situation

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where some of our addictions, not all of them, cause obviously some

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of them, we don't have to go into substance and sexual pornography,

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all these, all these ugly ones, but yet the addiction to achievement, the

Tim Winders: 00:11:29

addiction to more, the addiction to work, addiction to our role in our title.

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It seems to be acceptable in our culture and society.

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How does that cause us issues?

Tim Winders: 00:11:43

Because many of us would say, but it's good that I'm addicted to work.

Tim Winders: 00:11:46

Isn't it?

Allen Morris: 00:11:49

that's a really, really good point.

Allen Morris: 00:11:51

And that's one of the things that makes the particular, those particular

Allen Morris: 00:11:55

addictions, sticky, hard to, recognize.

Allen Morris: 00:12:00

hard to accept and hard to recover from because they're surrounded

Allen Morris: 00:12:05

by lots of positive reinforcement.

Allen Morris: 00:12:08

Um, when you, when you over commit yourself to people in your business and

Allen Morris: 00:12:13

you work long hours, you get rewarded with a lot of attaboys and praise and

Allen Morris: 00:12:18

maybe accomplishments in the business.

Allen Morris: 00:12:21

Or, where you're helping people in the business and they tell you how great you

Allen Morris: 00:12:25

are so you get lots of reinforcement.

Allen Morris: 00:12:28

Or even if you're volunteering in your, in your church, and volunteering

Allen Morris: 00:12:33

way beyond what you should be doing in terms of your personal well being.

Allen Morris: 00:12:38

Health and in the time that you have, uh, you people may tell you how

Allen Morris: 00:12:42

wonderful you are and how indispensable you are and all of your volunteering.

Allen Morris: 00:12:46

And so you get all this positive reinforcement that reinforces your

Allen Morris: 00:12:51

dysfunctional behavior, reinforces that, that addiction where you've

Allen Morris: 00:12:56

gone above and beyond a healthy giving and a healthy contribution to where

Allen Morris: 00:13:01

it can actually start resulting in.

Allen Morris: 00:13:04

resentment, and in my own case, I would give and give and give until I

Allen Morris: 00:13:10

began to resent all the commitments that I had, resent the people that I

Allen Morris: 00:13:15

was serving, and actually resenting God because I'm supposed to be a good

Allen Morris: 00:13:22

person and give to other people, right?

Allen Morris: 00:13:24

I'm, I'm not enjoying my life and, I should be mad at God because, all I'm

Allen Morris: 00:13:29

doing is trying to be a good person.

Allen Morris: 00:13:31

Well, we can find ourselves in these traps in our lives when the stories

Allen Morris: 00:13:36

that we've told ourselves and, this is, this is how a lot of us, feel

Allen Morris: 00:13:42

when we get stuck and we feel stuck and we don't know how we got there.

Tim Winders: 00:13:46

in the book?

Tim Winders: 00:13:46

And I recommend people get the book all in YouTube.

Tim Winders: 00:13:49

Talk about, I'm going to go back to the AA because you just brought up the

Tim Winders: 00:13:53

spiritual component of, of God and church.

Tim Winders: 00:13:56

So I'm going to, we, we don't shy away from that conversation here, by the

Tim Winders: 00:13:59

way, we like to bring the kingdom of God and business and all of that together.

Tim Winders: 00:14:06

One of the things that came to me, I was, as I was reading the book yesterday,

Tim Winders: 00:14:09

Alan, I was thinking to myself, many of These addictions are also idols.

Tim Winders: 00:14:16

And, and we know we're warned about having idols above our spiritual walk.

Tim Winders: 00:14:21

It, we, scripturally we're warned of that, but I guess I wanted to ask

Tim Winders: 00:14:26

you, cause I think you referenced this some in the book, but I

Tim Winders: 00:14:29

wanted to ask you about it here.

Tim Winders: 00:14:31

You brought up the spiritual component of AA or Alcoholics Anonymous,

Tim Winders: 00:14:37

or even Al Anon for the families of those that are associated.

Allen Morris: 00:14:41

Mm hmm.

Tim Winders: 00:14:41

Let's go ahead and layer it in here because I, I,

Tim Winders: 00:14:44

this is my belief that it's very difficult to talk about addictions.

Tim Winders: 00:14:50

It's very difficult to talk about what really matters without

Tim Winders: 00:14:53

having a spiritual conversation.

Tim Winders: 00:14:55

Some people might go there.

Tim Winders: 00:14:57

I could tell you're not that way.

Tim Winders: 00:14:58

So let's go and bring the spiritual into it.

Tim Winders: 00:15:01

What did you notice with AA related to God?

Tim Winders: 00:15:05

Conversation.

Tim Winders: 00:15:06

What have you noticed in your journey?

Tim Winders: 00:15:09

You mentioned being mad at God and you thought you were doing everything, right?

Tim Winders: 00:15:13

I'm sure.

Tim Winders: 00:15:14

But yet you had no joy.

Tim Winders: 00:15:15

And you know what it says counted all joy in the Bible.

Tim Winders: 00:15:18

Why do I not have joy?

Tim Winders: 00:15:19

so where

Tim Winders: 00:15:20

did, where did that spiritual start creeping back in?

Tim Winders: 00:15:23

Or what did you learn about yourself from a spiritual standpoint as you

Tim Winders: 00:15:26

were going through this journey?

Allen Morris: 00:15:28

It was very embarrassing.

Allen Morris: 00:15:31

I have to tell you.

Allen Morris: 00:15:32

It was very embarrassing.

Allen Morris: 00:15:34

I'm meeting with my counselor, my coach, one day, and he says, Alan, would you be

Allen Morris: 00:15:40

willing to do anything I ask you to do?

Allen Morris: 00:15:42

And I said, I don't know.

Allen Morris: 00:15:42

You asked me to do some pretty weird stuff.

Allen Morris: 00:15:46

He said, I said, let me think about it overnight, and So I

Allen Morris: 00:15:49

thought about it overnight.

Allen Morris: 00:15:50

I thought, if he asked me to do something really, really crazy,

Allen Morris: 00:15:53

I could, I could just fire him.

Allen Morris: 00:15:56

That's the way, that's the way a lot of us CEOs think.

Allen Morris: 00:16:00

And I came back and I said, okay, Bo, I'm willing to do

Allen Morris: 00:16:05

anything that you want me to do.

Allen Morris: 00:16:07

I'll consider it.

Allen Morris: 00:16:09

And he said, I want you to go to AA meetings.

Allen Morris: 00:16:12

I want you to go to 60 meetings in 60 days.

Allen Morris: 00:16:17

And I'm, I say, AA meetings, alcoholics, anonymous.

Allen Morris: 00:16:25

Why would I go to an AA meeting?

Allen Morris: 00:16:27

I'm not an alcoholic.

Allen Morris: 00:16:29

He said, because God is there.

Allen Morris: 00:16:31

I said, Oh, great.

Allen Morris: 00:16:33

I'm an elder in my church.

Allen Morris: 00:16:35

I'm the chairman of the board of a Christian ministry, which is one

Allen Morris: 00:16:39

of the things I did on the side.

Allen Morris: 00:16:41

And you want me to go to AA meetings because God is there?

Allen Morris: 00:16:44

Just slap me in the face.

Allen Morris: 00:16:46

And I thought about it.

Allen Morris: 00:16:47

What I really realized is.

Allen Morris: 00:16:49

What do I do if somebody recognizes me at an AA meeting?

Allen Morris: 00:16:54

I was really concerned about my image and my, my, my personality, my

Allen Morris: 00:16:58

persona, my, my role in the community.

Allen Morris: 00:17:01

I'm kind of a big fish in a little pond here.

Allen Morris: 00:17:04

And, and, and so a couple of my buddies that were also CEOs said when we were

Allen Morris: 00:17:09

out of town, let's go to an AA meeting.

Allen Morris: 00:17:11

We'll go with you together to one of these meetings.

Allen Morris: 00:17:15

And I sat in that meeting with my buddies, um, in, in a town in Colorado where

Allen Morris: 00:17:22

I figured no one would recognize me.

Allen Morris: 00:17:25

And.

Allen Morris: 00:17:26

I was dumbfounded by the honest, vulnerable, powerful stories that

Allen Morris: 00:17:33

people told about the truth of mistakes they had made in their lives.

Allen Morris: 00:17:39

I had never heard anybody share stories like that at a Chamber of Commerce

Allen Morris: 00:17:44

meeting or or even at my church.

Allen Morris: 00:17:47

certainly not safe in my Sunday school class or, or any other group that I was

Allen Morris: 00:17:53

in, and I was just so impressed with that.

Allen Morris: 00:17:57

Later, I discovered Al Anon, which is Family and Friends of Alcoholics, and I

Allen Morris: 00:18:03

realized they had exactly the addiction that I had, which is codependency,

Allen Morris: 00:18:11

because the Family and Friends of the addict are the ones who enable the

Allen Morris: 00:18:16

addict by tolerating that behavior over and over and over again, and not

Allen Morris: 00:18:22

having healthy boundaries in their lives around the, the, addictive behavior.

Allen Morris: 00:18:28

And that was the spiritual component that I discovered.

Allen Morris: 00:18:32

It was, the honesty, the vulnerability, the truthfulness that I wasn't

Allen Morris: 00:18:37

used to hearing any place else.

Allen Morris: 00:18:40

and was a place where people were connecting with their higher power.

Allen Morris: 00:18:44

Um, and it was beautiful.

Tim Winders: 00:18:46

So contrast that.

Tim Winders: 00:18:48

All right.

Tim Winders: 00:18:48

So you're, call it a church going guy.

Tim Winders: 00:18:51

You obviously served in church settings, but this is what I just heard.

Tim Winders: 00:18:57

I'm going to make a statement and you either correct me or

Tim Winders: 00:19:00

argue with me or nod and say yes.

Allen Morris: 00:19:02

Sure.

Tim Winders: 00:19:04

So you spend all this time in church circles doing the right things,

Tim Winders: 00:19:12

but yet you really, and this is your counselor coach that said this, God is at

Tim Winders: 00:19:16

these AA meetings almost like he said, you may not find him in that church setting,

Tim Winders: 00:19:21

but you're going to find him here.

Tim Winders: 00:19:24

And is, is that the case?

Tim Winders: 00:19:27

Is that, is that where you saw God or more of God or got a different perspective

Tim Winders: 00:19:32

of God or tell me more about that?

Allen Morris: 00:19:34

think that's what, yeah, I think that's a great question,

Allen Morris: 00:19:38

and, and I, I think that's where I got a different perspective.

Allen Morris: 00:19:42

That there's a certain kind of freedom that I felt when I would go to an

Allen Morris: 00:19:47

AA meeting, sitting in a circle of grace, where nobody's judging me.

Allen Morris: 00:19:54

Where no one's posturing to look better or sound better, but just being real.

Allen Morris: 00:20:01

There's so few places that I know in life where you can be in a

Allen Morris: 00:20:06

confidential setting and be real.

Allen Morris: 00:20:09

And explore the truth around what you're feeling and where you feel like you may

Allen Morris: 00:20:14

not be succeeding in an area of your life.

Allen Morris: 00:20:17

Or in a, an important primary relationship in your life.

Allen Morris: 00:20:22

or in your life purpose or your calling.

Allen Morris: 00:20:25

And when you're in a safe circle, like that, it can be

Allen Morris: 00:20:30

transformative in a person's life.

Allen Morris: 00:20:32

I found that to be true when I, when I had my medical crisis too.

Tim Winders: 00:20:36

One of the things you mentioned was that you found your joy.

Tim Winders: 00:20:41

through this process, but the, the question that came to my mind was,

Tim Winders: 00:20:47

you ever have it in the first place as a child growing up going through

Tim Winders: 00:20:52

college, Georgia Tech and Harvard and, and because one of the things I want

Tim Winders: 00:20:57

to say this that I observed, and this is sort of related to the question.

Tim Winders: 00:21:01

And it seems as if shortly, either at a young age or at most of the considered

Tim Winders: 00:21:10

young age twenties, you were sort of being groomed to step into a very

Tim Winders: 00:21:14

adult role of running the companies and being on boards and things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:21:19

So I guess back up, tell me, did you have joy growing up or did you find

Tim Winders: 00:21:26

it for the first time with this long process that we're going to talk about a

Allen Morris: 00:21:33

I think I had a lot of joy in my life as a child.

Allen Morris: 00:21:38

And I think most of us do.

Allen Morris: 00:21:41

It's when, the rules of our families of origin, the rules of our community,

Allen Morris: 00:21:49

um, the, the disciplines that are put upon us, Uh, the restrictions and the

Allen Morris: 00:21:57

expectations of others start to pile on top of us that we can gradually,

Allen Morris: 00:22:03

layer by layer, start to lose our joy.

Allen Morris: 00:22:07

And I believe that the process of reclaiming that joy and refinding that

Allen Morris: 00:22:14

joy is to go through those layers.

Allen Morris: 00:22:17

And we, we become.

Allen Morris: 00:22:19

We, we, reclaim our joy layer by layer as we go through, the discoveries

Allen Morris: 00:22:26

in our blind spots, that some would call as the, as the, the psychologist

Allen Morris: 00:22:31

Carl Jung called our shadow.

Allen Morris: 00:22:34

That as we peel another layer off of our shadow and see one more layer of truth.

Allen Morris: 00:22:40

About ourselves that we restore our joy piece by piece and, and I think that's

Allen Morris: 00:22:47

also, not just what psychologists and psychiatrists write about and talk

Allen Morris: 00:22:53

about, but it's also, what Jesus talked about, that, that in, in him in this,

Allen Morris: 00:23:00

This spiritual journey that we take, that we will find an abundant life,

Allen Morris: 00:23:07

that God intended for us to have.

Allen Morris: 00:23:10

So a lot of it is restoring our childhood joy as adults that we lose over time

Allen Morris: 00:23:18

because of the, the, all the experiences of life that we have, the betrayals,

Allen Morris: 00:23:24

the disappointments, the failures, the conflicts in important relationships.

Allen Morris: 00:23:30

All those things that all of us experience can rob our joy layer by layer by layer.

Allen Morris: 00:23:36

And the opportunity that we have when we go all in to look into the truth

Allen Morris: 00:23:41

about our inner secret life, we can start peeling that onion of discovery

Allen Morris: 00:23:47

and layer by layer, restore our joy and restore our, our clarity of purpose.

Allen Morris: 00:23:54

and calling in our lives.

Allen Morris: 00:23:56

And with that comes, an empowerment that I think, that God intended

Allen Morris: 00:24:02

us to have in our lives.

Allen Morris: 00:24:04

whether we're, whether we're, in business or in a profession or whether in,

Allen Morris: 00:24:09

we're, whether we're raising a family.

Allen Morris: 00:24:12

Or, whatever it is that we're doing.

Allen Morris: 00:24:14

of those can weigh us down.

Allen Morris: 00:24:16

from excess.

Allen Morris: 00:24:18

And that's where we can restore our joy.

Tim Winders: 00:24:20

As you were saying that the images of my granddaughters who are

Tim Winders: 00:24:24

four and two came to mind and you you are correct that that childlike joy that

Tim Winders: 00:24:34

childlike faith we could also call it that you know Jesus spoke about that

Tim Winders: 00:24:39

it is interesting how life can start things to us so that then we get to a

Tim Winders: 00:24:46

place where we need to then go all in again when I think My granddaughters

Tim Winders: 00:24:53

are all in, they are all in on joy and enjoying life and the moment.

Tim Winders: 00:24:58

And you know what?

Tim Winders: 00:24:58

I support that.

Tim Winders: 00:25:00

in all in, I want to say this, I enjoyed the read.

Tim Winders: 00:25:02

It was great.

Tim Winders: 00:25:03

There was a stretch in it where you made some, what we would call

Tim Winders: 00:25:08

maybe pop culture references.

Tim Winders: 00:25:10

You referenced within a very short period of time, the movie city slickers.

Tim Winders: 00:25:17

And then you referenced

Allen Morris: 00:25:18

Ha, ha,

Tim Winders: 00:25:19

musical group, the Eagles with the song Desperado, which dates

Tim Winders: 00:25:22

us by the way, there are some people now that don't recall the early

Tim Winders: 00:25:26

seventies and you and I probably still remember the early seventies somewhat.

Tim Winders: 00:25:30

And then you went to what I believe is one of the greatest movies of all

Tim Winders: 00:25:32

time, which is the empire strikes back.

Tim Winders: 00:25:35

And you talked about the force within that.

Tim Winders: 00:25:37

And I'm teasing people to want to go get the book cause I'm not going to

Tim Winders: 00:25:39

give them what you talked about, but I'm leading to a, to something here.

Tim Winders: 00:25:43

I think the empire strikes back is one of.

Tim Winders: 00:25:47

The best of all of that arc.

Tim Winders: 00:25:49

And really, if we want to put movies, I want to say, I watched it on an

Tim Winders: 00:25:53

airplane recently, Alan, I actually had one of my granddaughters in my lap.

Tim Winders: 00:25:57

So I couldn't really listen to it, but I put on the subtitles and you

Tim Winders: 00:26:01

know what, that movie still holds.

Tim Winders: 00:26:03

It is still a great movie, but one of the things that came out of the empire

Tim Winders: 00:26:08

strikes back is probably one of the.

Tim Winders: 00:26:12

Biggest daddy issues, father issues scene of all time, when all of a sudden

Tim Winders: 00:26:20

Luke finds out his father is Darth Vader and how's that for a segue to go

Tim Winders: 00:26:26

into discussing father issues, right?

Tim Winders: 00:26:28

Men, men in general, if you talk to any of them, I had dinner, my son, he he's near

Tim Winders: 00:26:35

us here in Arizona where we're spending a little bit of time and we had dinner last

Tim Winders: 00:26:39

night and I'd already, I'd read your book and you'd mentioned a few things about

Tim Winders: 00:26:43

your father and some things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:26:45

Men in general, fathers are issues for them.

Tim Winders: 00:26:51

Either use your story or talk generally, talk a little bit about why

Tim Winders: 00:26:57

or, or what's going on with fathers and why is that such a challenge?

Allen Morris: 00:27:04

I think that, the issues that men deal with, um, are generational

Allen Morris: 00:27:10

in that, I realize that, the, the challenges that I had relating to my

Allen Morris: 00:27:16

father and wanting to earn and win his approval is something that, that he grew

Allen Morris: 00:27:23

up with and that his father grew up with, and that his father's father grew up with.

Allen Morris: 00:27:30

It's, it's a generational wound, as we would say.

Allen Morris: 00:27:35

and in, um, John Eldridge, in his book, Wild at Heart, says every

Allen Morris: 00:27:40

man um, takes a wound in his heart.

Allen Morris: 00:27:45

And it's invariably given to him, either intentionally or

Allen Morris: 00:27:50

unintentionally, by his own father.

Allen Morris: 00:27:54

And so we have generations of Men that have an unhealed wound in their heart,

Allen Morris: 00:28:02

because I believe he's correct in this, having worked with hundreds and

Allen Morris: 00:28:06

hundreds of men and hosting hundreds and hundreds of retreats for men and

Allen Morris: 00:28:11

hearing so many stories of so many men.

Allen Morris: 00:28:14

In a closed confidential setting that, this is, this plays

Allen Morris: 00:28:19

itself out again and again.

Allen Morris: 00:28:21

And one of the ways that I think we experience that is when we discover

Allen Morris: 00:28:28

that beneath all the different, uh, things that drive me is a feeling

Allen Morris: 00:28:36

that I'm not quite good enough.

Allen Morris: 00:28:39

That I'm not quite good enough and I need to prove that I'm good enough.

Allen Morris: 00:28:42

I need to prove that, that that, that I can do everything

Allen Morris: 00:28:47

that everyone expects me to do.

Allen Morris: 00:28:50

and it doesn't matter whether you're the, the, the CEO and chairman of the board

Allen Morris: 00:28:54

of a big company, or if you are, in, living in obscurity, we all carry that

Allen Morris: 00:29:02

same core wound, that number one, right?

Allen Morris: 00:29:06

That we're we're afraid we're not good enough.

Allen Morris: 00:29:09

And number two, we're afraid we're going to be found out

Allen Morris: 00:29:12

that we're not good enough.

Allen Morris: 00:29:14

And so that drives a lot of our self protective behaviors to create these

Allen Morris: 00:29:19

personas, these images, to not let people into the truth about ourselves.

Allen Morris: 00:29:25

And so that creates a type of isolation.

Allen Morris: 00:29:30

where we can only have a certain level of intimacy.

Allen Morris: 00:29:33

Maybe we would like to have this kind of intimacy, but we are only

Allen Morris: 00:29:37

experiencing this level of intimacy.

Allen Morris: 00:29:40

and part of that is because we're protecting ourselves because of the

Allen Morris: 00:29:45

things that we're afraid people are going to find out that we're not good enough.

Allen Morris: 00:29:51

And that drives a lot of people to a lot of outwardly success.

Allen Morris: 00:29:55

In show business, in business, in the professions, in all areas of life.

Allen Morris: 00:30:03

My, my uncle was the editor of Variety Magazine in Hollywood, and his

Allen Morris: 00:30:09

close friends were all of the famous actors whose names I could mention

Allen Morris: 00:30:13

that you would know very, very well.

Allen Morris: 00:30:17

They had a saying in Hollywood that celebrity is a mask

Allen Morris: 00:30:22

that eats away your face.

Allen Morris: 00:30:27

You wear this mask long enough, this persona, this image that

Allen Morris: 00:30:32

you want to portray to the world, long enough that you forget what

Allen Morris: 00:30:36

your real face even looks like.

Allen Morris: 00:30:39

You really don't know.

Allen Morris: 00:30:41

And so the idea of the sacred inner journey is to

Allen Morris: 00:30:45

rediscover who we really are.

Allen Morris: 00:30:49

Because whether we're, whether we're, a movie actor, or whether we are

Allen Morris: 00:30:54

just acting on the stage in our own neighborhood or in our own families,

Allen Morris: 00:30:58

we're carrying these personas that are keeping us from connecting with,

Allen Morris: 00:31:04

the truth about who we are and seeing the blind spots in our own lives,

Allen Morris: 00:31:09

which is where the healing comes from.

Allen Morris: 00:31:10

Look,

Tim Winders: 00:31:14

of questions kind of related to this, this concept of our

Tim Winders: 00:31:20

interaction with Father, with our fathers is we read in the scriptures that we

Tim Winders: 00:31:26

are to look at God as Abba Father.

Tim Winders: 00:31:29

Some, some people even use this word Father God.

Tim Winders: 00:31:31

We hear that quite a bit.

Tim Winders: 00:31:33

does it do for us if we have challenged relationships I'll, I'll even connect

Tim Winders: 00:31:40

some dots with you because you brought up, the God, your God relationship earlier,

Tim Winders: 00:31:44

and you mentioned it with your father.

Tim Winders: 00:31:46

What does that do for our view and relationship with God when the father

Tim Winders: 00:31:51

relationship on the earth is impacted?

Allen Morris: 00:31:54

I didn't realize how that affected me.

Allen Morris: 00:31:57

In terms of my spiritual life, but as my coach gave me the 12 step program

Allen Morris: 00:32:04

to work through in this workbook that I was working on one day, in

Allen Morris: 00:32:10

a little, pub down in the Florida keys where I could find solitude

Allen Morris: 00:32:15

and nobody would see me and know me.

Allen Morris: 00:32:16

I'm working diligently in a corner booth on this notebook.

Allen Morris: 00:32:20

And, and there's the picture, it says, uh, fill in a picture of, of, this is

Allen Morris: 00:32:27

just a circle, draw a picture of how you see your father looking at you.

Allen Morris: 00:32:35

And I drew a picture of how I saw my father looking at me, and I described it

Allen Morris: 00:32:41

as he was loving and caring and interested in me, but just a little disappointed

Allen Morris: 00:32:48

that I wasn't doing all that I could do.

Allen Morris: 00:32:51

And then it, I turned the page and it said, now draw a

Allen Morris: 00:32:54

picture of how you see God.

Allen Morris: 00:32:57

And I thought, Oh my God, that's what I just did.

Allen Morris: 00:33:03

That became my view of my heavenly father.

Allen Morris: 00:33:07

That became my view of God.

Allen Morris: 00:33:09

I did not realize that I had created God in my own image, in

Allen Morris: 00:33:14

the image that I had of my father.

Allen Morris: 00:33:17

So when those of us have problem relationships with our fathers, which

Allen Morris: 00:33:23

is very many of us men, we have to realize that we may be taking that

Allen Morris: 00:33:29

image of a very imperfect, wounded, father that we had growing up.

Allen Morris: 00:33:36

And we are recreating our image of God in His image, which is going to limit,

Allen Morris: 00:33:43

Our, our spiritual growth is going to limit our sense of freedom and an

Allen Morris: 00:33:51

understanding of grace in our lives and that, um, that we have the freedom to

Allen Morris: 00:33:59

fully feel and Fully engage in life, fully be creative, uh, because we're

Allen Morris: 00:34:06

not recreating, ourselves and recreating our image of God in the image of all

Allen Morris: 00:34:12

the failures of our own earthly fathers.

Tim Winders: 00:34:16

Yeah, it's tough.

Tim Winders: 00:34:17

And I, and I know that, Men, women have a little bit of a different situation.

Tim Winders: 00:34:23

My wife has dealt with some issues with her father, but it's almost like

Tim Winders: 00:34:27

there's this never quite good enough then transfers into our spiritual walk.

Tim Winders: 00:34:33

And so we're never quite good enough.

Tim Winders: 00:34:37

And like we said, we could go back to your resume and your accomplishments

Tim Winders: 00:34:41

and they are, you know, Superior.

Tim Winders: 00:34:46

Great.

Tim Winders: 00:34:48

Yet if they're never quite good enough.

Tim Winders: 00:34:51

So, all right, here's, here's the tough question.

Tim Winders: 00:34:53

You ready for the tough question?

Allen Morris: 00:34:56

Sure, bring it

Allen Morris: 00:34:57

on.

Tim Winders: 00:34:58

layering them in here, man.

Tim Winders: 00:34:58

We're going deep here, Alan.

Tim Winders: 00:35:00

We're not, we're not, I, I am the father to a 30 year old, awesome young man.

Tim Winders: 00:35:07

I know you, I think there's a son that you have this working in your organization.

Tim Winders: 00:35:13

So you mentioned earlier that this was generational.

Tim Winders: 00:35:16

You mentioned the father issues.

Tim Winders: 00:35:18

We've talked about how it impacts people's relationship with the heavenly father.

Tim Winders: 00:35:25

What do you and I have to do so that that generational stuff

Tim Winders: 00:35:31

doesn't keep passing on to our sons?

Allen Morris: 00:35:36

Yes, our sons and our

Tim Winders: 00:35:38

Yeah, our children, because

Allen Morris: 00:35:40

yeah,

Tim Winders: 00:35:41

said it's generational and we look at our parents and we

Tim Winders: 00:35:43

said, Oh, they did the best they could.

Tim Winders: 00:35:44

And we're doing so, because I, I'm concerned that I'm doing some

Tim Winders: 00:35:48

of that and I'm aware of this.

Allen Morris: 00:35:52

I've got three daughters, two stepdaughters, and, a son, and my son

Allen Morris: 00:35:58

is, 33 years old now, and he is now the president of our company, very talented,

Allen Morris: 00:36:05

and each one of my girls is very talented in different ways and has enormous gifts.

Allen Morris: 00:36:12

And I want the very best for each of them.

Allen Morris: 00:36:15

but I also have to, show up with the truth that, that, I still

Allen Morris: 00:36:22

carry the remnants of the, the expectations and the disappointments

Allen Morris: 00:36:28

that I felt I got from my parents.

Allen Morris: 00:36:31

And I think the thing that is the healthiest thing that I can do is

Allen Morris: 00:36:36

with my, uh, son and daughters is for me to show up authentically, to

Allen Morris: 00:36:43

recognize that, that I am imperfect in a million different ways, that I have

Allen Morris: 00:36:51

shortcomings in a million different ways.

Allen Morris: 00:36:53

that I want to love them wholeheartedly and without reservation, and that I also

Allen Morris: 00:36:59

want to speak the truth in love to them.

Allen Morris: 00:37:03

And it, since they are now all adults, uh, I am not, Um, I am not making life

Allen Morris: 00:37:11

decisions for them, but I am available as a, an advisor when they want my advice.

Allen Morris: 00:37:21

And, so I have to, uh, prove that I respect them as adults.

Allen Morris: 00:37:29

And not be trying to impose my decision making on them, but to give them, advice

Allen Morris: 00:37:39

and express concerns or ask questions.

Allen Morris: 00:37:44

Um, but also, let go of trying to control them.

Allen Morris: 00:37:50

and one of the ways I first learned this was I learned that I should ask them ahead

Allen Morris: 00:37:55

of time if they would like to, like my advice on that particular subject or my

Allen Morris: 00:38:02

observations on that particular subject.

Allen Morris: 00:38:05

And if they said, actually, Dad, no.

Allen Morris: 00:38:09

Then I would prove to them that I was an honest person and really cared about

Allen Morris: 00:38:17

them by not giving them my advice.

Allen Morris: 00:38:21

Because my natural tendency would be to say, but, what I think you

Allen Morris: 00:38:25

should do is, after they just said they don't want my advice.

Allen Morris: 00:38:29

So what they're doing when they say they don't want my advice is they're

Allen Morris: 00:38:32

testing me to see if I am a trustworthy, safe person or not a safe person.

Allen Morris: 00:38:41

Because I can be in a, I can be in a very controlling mode, and when I'm in a

Allen Morris: 00:38:47

controlling mode, I'm not a safe person.

Allen Morris: 00:38:51

And um, they may say no and then later come around and say, when

Allen Morris: 00:38:56

they see that, that I honored their request, they may come around later

Allen Morris: 00:39:00

when they're in a receptive mood and say, Dad, what do you, what do you,

Allen Morris: 00:39:04

what do you think about this thing?

Allen Morris: 00:39:06

And I can say, here's what I would have said to you the other day.

Allen Morris: 00:39:09

I feel the same way now.

Allen Morris: 00:39:11

Um, and, maybe that's helpful to you.

Allen Morris: 00:39:15

what do you think?

Allen Morris: 00:39:16

And then solicit their insights.

Allen Morris: 00:39:19

But this is a, a, this is a way that I think we start healing

Allen Morris: 00:39:23

those generational wounds.

Allen Morris: 00:39:24

Getting back to your question of how you don't How you stop

Allen Morris: 00:39:28

recreating, the generational wounds.

Allen Morris: 00:39:31

I don't think we, I don't think we entirely do

Allen Morris: 00:39:33

that.

Tim Winders: 00:39:34

I was going to

Allen Morris: 00:39:34

but I think we could,

Tim Winders: 00:39:36

I was going to ask you, how hard is that?

Tim Winders: 00:39:37

How hard is that to be that authentic versus you use the word control.

Tim Winders: 00:39:45

It, I, I, I find it difficult.

Tim Winders: 00:39:48

I'm aware of it.

Tim Winders: 00:39:49

I think I'm doing okay.

Tim Winders: 00:39:51

I would probably give myself a B minus.

Tim Winders: 00:39:54

Would you give yourself?

Allen Morris: 00:39:58

Some days, some days I get myself higher grades than other days.

Tim Winders: 00:40:03

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:40:03

So anyway, Alan, one of the things that we do here is we, we have this subtitle

Tim Winders: 00:40:09

that's called redefining success.

Tim Winders: 00:40:13

And then we throw

Tim Winders: 00:40:13

all these buckets in there of leadership, business and ministry,

Tim Winders: 00:40:16

which basically is a lot of

Allen Morris: 00:40:18

Mm hmm.

Tim Winders: 00:40:19

those of us.

Tim Winders: 00:40:20

Type people do,

Allen Morris: 00:40:21

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:40:22

but to kind of dig a little bit more into what all you

Tim Winders: 00:40:26

covered in all in, and also to kind of move us to a place where I think

Tim Winders: 00:40:30

we could really leave some good, some good tips and maybe some teaching

Tim Winders: 00:40:34

things for the person listening in.

Tim Winders: 00:40:37

I was going to ask you at, I think I'm getting the ages right here if

Tim Winders: 00:40:41

we need to adjust this, but I was going to ask you if you could what

Tim Winders: 00:40:47

success was for you at the age of 45.

Tim Winders: 00:40:52

if I read it correctly, I think it was around 47 that some big

Tim Winders: 00:40:56

shifts started occurring for you.

Tim Winders: 00:40:57

Is that right?

Allen Morris: 00:40:59

Right.

Tim Winders: 00:41:00

if you can, let's back up and tell me in however way you want

Tim Winders: 00:41:05

to, how you would have defined success.

Tim Winders: 00:41:09

If you were being interviewed back then, they didn't have podcasts

Tim Winders: 00:41:12

then probably, but if you were being interviewed and someone says, Alan,

Tim Winders: 00:41:16

how do you define success at 45?

Tim Winders: 00:41:18

What would you have said?

Tim Winders: 00:41:19

What do you think you would have said?

Allen Morris: 00:41:22

I think, I think there's a whole, uh, Cluster of things, that,

Allen Morris: 00:41:28

that, I, that I would, I would define as elements of success for me, and those

Allen Morris: 00:41:36

are related to my particular personality and my, uh, my childhood wounds that

Allen Morris: 00:41:44

I bring to the table that I cover up very nicely as a 45 year old CEO.

Allen Morris: 00:41:51

I would say number one, earning the respect and admiration of other people,

Allen Morris: 00:41:58

other professional people, other CEOs, and other community leaders.

Allen Morris: 00:42:03

I would say having a, a business that is successful and, growing and, creating, in

Allen Morris: 00:42:13

my case, developments or, or transactions.

Allen Morris: 00:42:17

That are considered worthy and, profitable in the community.

Allen Morris: 00:42:24

I would say, being a, a generous person.

Allen Morris: 00:42:29

Who's supporting good causes in the community and giving of my time to

Allen Morris: 00:42:36

community causes, whether it's on the Board of Directors of the United Way

Allen Morris: 00:42:41

or the Chamber of Commerce or all these other non profit organizations, and And,

Allen Morris: 00:42:47

and also being, in a, some leadership role in, in my church at the time and

Allen Morris: 00:42:53

also, having, a, a well ordered home.

Allen Morris: 00:42:58

And a, um, a loving relationship with my wife and my children.

Allen Morris: 00:43:04

And, I saw my children starting to have trouble, particularly one of my, one of

Allen Morris: 00:43:09

my daughters was getting into a lot of trouble, uh, around that time, um, that

Allen Morris: 00:43:16

was one more stress point in my life.

Allen Morris: 00:43:19

And so when I was 47, I started having the severe headaches.

Allen Morris: 00:43:25

After putting my daughter in, she got suspelled from one school, moved her into

Allen Morris: 00:43:30

a boarding school where she got expelled from that school, and then took her

Allen Morris: 00:43:34

up, put her in another boarding school that was more severe and more severe.

Allen Morris: 00:43:39

kind of a, a locked down school in a sense.

Allen Morris: 00:43:42

And I, I, I tell the story in my book of, driving back to the airport

Allen Morris: 00:43:48

alone because my, my wife had her own problems and she was not able

Allen Morris: 00:43:53

to travel with me because she was, emotionally breaking down and I couldn't

Allen Morris: 00:43:57

understand what was going on with her.

Allen Morris: 00:44:00

And, I'm driving back from, to the Burlington Airport after

Allen Morris: 00:44:04

dropping my daughter off at this godforsaken place in Maryland.

Allen Morris: 00:44:07

Northern Vermont, and I'm weeping alone in the car, in my rental car, driving

Allen Morris: 00:44:13

two hours back to the airport, feeling like, how could I have failed so terribly

Allen Morris: 00:44:19

as a father that I would have to leave my precious, beautiful teenage daughter

Allen Morris: 00:44:25

in this godforsaken place up here?

Allen Morris: 00:44:27

I didn't know what else to do.

Allen Morris: 00:44:29

And it was, it was two, within two weeks of that, that between that conflict in

Allen Morris: 00:44:35

my life, the conflict I had going on with my wife, the conflict I had going

Allen Morris: 00:44:40

on with two executives in my company that were at war with each other, that

Allen Morris: 00:44:44

I started having these severe headaches that the head of neurosurgery in my

Allen Morris: 00:44:48

hospital, preliminarily diagnosed as a brain tumor, and said, let's get the MRI,

Allen Morris: 00:44:53

let's find out where your tumor is, and then we'll know what our options are.

Allen Morris: 00:44:58

And it turned out, in the end, that, I was creating these severe headaches myself.

Allen Morris: 00:45:03

with what was going on in my life that I was disconnected from.

Allen Morris: 00:45:08

And, and that's when I healed what was going on inside.

Allen Morris: 00:45:12

It stopped all the headaches.

Allen Morris: 00:45:14

And it also started healing the relationships in my life.

Tim Winders: 00:45:18

So one thing that I'm always fascinated by, and and I was

Tim Winders: 00:45:24

going to mention them later that I know y'all have retreats and meetings

Tim Winders: 00:45:27

and all with the groups y'all do with all in, but I have this theory, Alan,

Tim Winders: 00:45:34

and I'll just go ahead and mention it here and I'll let you respond to it.

Allen Morris: 00:45:37

Great.

Tim Winders: 00:45:38

I am fully aware that we can make significant change in

Tim Winders: 00:45:45

our lives developing a plan, making a decision, and going about doing

Tim Winders: 00:45:52

things, blah, blah, blah, change.

Tim Winders: 00:45:56

However, the most significant change in my life Has typically been around

Tim Winders: 00:46:04

catalytic events like the one you just mentioned for me It was in 08 all of

Tim Winders: 00:46:09

our companies Were seven figures and all in real estate and i'm sure you can

Tim Winders: 00:46:14

tell some stories about that time too

Allen Morris: 00:46:17

Yeah.

Allen Morris: 00:46:17

Ha,

Tim Winders: 00:46:18

so my theory Is that most people are aware that they

Tim Winders: 00:46:23

can go through some methodical change and make things happen.

Tim Winders: 00:46:29

usually it's a two by four across the head, literal and figurative

Tim Winders: 00:46:33

with you that, that causes change.

Tim Winders: 00:46:36

Speak to that, especially now that you're seeing other leaders in

Tim Winders: 00:46:40

these groups that y'all are doing.

Tim Winders: 00:46:42

Give some input because what we'd love to do is I'd love to get people by the

Tim Winders: 00:46:46

collar and say, is a wake up call, but yet sometimes we just need those situations.

Tim Winders: 00:46:53

So thoughts.

Allen Morris: 00:46:56

Yes.

Allen Morris: 00:46:57

frankly, I had two different CEOs independently call me yesterday.

Allen Morris: 00:47:03

that both had just finished reading my book.

Allen Morris: 00:47:06

And, they said, can we talk?

Allen Morris: 00:47:09

Because they could relate to the stories in the book.

Allen Morris: 00:47:13

Because they're very real and very gutsy.

Allen Morris: 00:47:15

And, they don't leave out.

Allen Morris: 00:47:17

many details, in terms of the reality of life that, that is

Allen Morris: 00:47:22

true about what we're all facing.

Allen Morris: 00:47:23

And I don't, I get tired of books and, and, and people's

Allen Morris: 00:47:28

talks based on platitudes.

Allen Morris: 00:47:30

I, I like stuff that's real life.

Allen Morris: 00:47:32

And, and, If we could just make a list of the 10 things we needed to

Allen Morris: 00:47:36

do to fix our lives or to fix our businesses, why don't we just do them?

Allen Morris: 00:47:42

The answer to that is that the biggest problem is not the actions

Allen Morris: 00:47:47

we need to take, but ourselves.

Allen Morris: 00:47:49

The biggest problem is what's going on in ourselves that's causing us to make.

Allen Morris: 00:47:54

The decisions that we're making and carry the attitudes that we're carrying that

Allen Morris: 00:47:59

are creating the ongoing blocks to our success and what what I found that I

Allen Morris: 00:48:06

never anticipated, never a part of this.

Allen Morris: 00:48:10

I just wanted to get healing in my life.

Allen Morris: 00:48:13

I wanted to get rid of the headaches.

Allen Morris: 00:48:15

And I found I could get rid of the headaches by, connecting

Allen Morris: 00:48:20

with what I was feeling.

Allen Morris: 00:48:22

And I was, let me tell you, I was in the remedial class on healing.

Allen Morris: 00:48:27

My, I went to a retreat and, and the facilitator of the retreat said,

Allen Morris: 00:48:31

Alan, what are you feeling right now?

Allen Morris: 00:48:33

I said, I feel fine.

Allen Morris: 00:48:34

They said, no, no, what are you feeling right now?

Allen Morris: 00:48:36

I said, I feel good, I feel good.

Allen Morris: 00:48:38

That's not a feeling.

Allen Morris: 00:48:39

What are you feeling right now?

Allen Morris: 00:48:40

He says, I don't know.

Allen Morris: 00:48:42

I, what do you want me to say?

Allen Morris: 00:48:44

I, I, I just couldn't go there.

Allen Morris: 00:48:48

Apparently I had been trained in how not to feel.

Allen Morris: 00:48:53

Finally, he said, look, I'm going to give you a card here, uh, to put in your

Allen Morris: 00:48:57

pocket with these six feelings on it.

Allen Morris: 00:49:01

Mad, glad, sad.

Allen Morris: 00:49:04

Tender, excited, or scared.

Allen Morris: 00:49:10

Now you just, you just carry this in your pocket and pull it out 500 times a day and

Allen Morris: 00:49:15

ask yourself, what am I feeling right now?

Allen Morris: 00:49:18

And just pick one of those.

Allen Morris: 00:49:20

Okay, I really did it about 10 times.

Allen Morris: 00:49:23

but, I was surprised to discover how many times I was feeling anxious,

Allen Morris: 00:49:30

or concerned, or worried, or, which are all nice words for scared.

Allen Morris: 00:49:38

Because I, I'm anticipating problems in the future, problems down the

Allen Morris: 00:49:42

road, problems here and there in running my business or in, in

Allen Morris: 00:49:46

my family or in, my activities.

Allen Morris: 00:49:49

to discover that, that, I was, was afraid about a lot of things, a lot of the times.

Allen Morris: 00:49:57

And I would never admit to it.

Allen Morris: 00:49:59

Maybe I've spent a large part of my life proving that I'm not afraid.

Allen Morris: 00:50:06

Because I am.

Allen Morris: 00:50:07

I roll the dice on big multi million dollar real estate deals every day.

Allen Morris: 00:50:14

I fly airplanes at high speeds and high altitudes.

Allen Morris: 00:50:19

I'm a pilot.

Allen Morris: 00:50:20

I'm a scuba diver.

Allen Morris: 00:50:22

I race cars.

Allen Morris: 00:50:23

I do all kinds of crazy things.

Allen Morris: 00:50:27

And maybe one of the things that drives me, I had to ask myself, is

Allen Morris: 00:50:33

maybe, maybe you're trying to prove that you're not afraid when you are.

Allen Morris: 00:50:38

So this is part of the discovery, start peeling the onion, as I

Allen Morris: 00:50:43

describe it, to discover what is it I'm really feeling inside.

Allen Morris: 00:50:47

And how is that driving me?

Allen Morris: 00:50:49

And how is that affecting my business?

Allen Morris: 00:50:53

And when I got more and more freedom from those fears, I could

Allen Morris: 00:50:57

redefine myself in a different way.

Allen Morris: 00:51:01

And one of the results is our business has grown 20 times over from the

Allen Morris: 00:51:07

successful business I had before.

Allen Morris: 00:51:10

And we're building beautiful, award winning projects.

Allen Morris: 00:51:14

Every project we build now is, wins awards.

Allen Morris: 00:51:19

And because of that, it's an expression of my personal passion and joy.

Allen Morris: 00:51:25

And creativity and we say no to profitable projects that do not inspire us.

Allen Morris: 00:51:31

Because that's not our mission anymore.

Allen Morris: 00:51:33

Our mission now is to inspire, impress, and improve the lives of other people,

Allen Morris: 00:51:38

inspire people with the beauty of our projects, impress them with the

Allen Morris: 00:51:43

excellence of their experience and improve the lives of everyone we touch.

Allen Morris: 00:51:48

And that's not just my personal mission statement.

Allen Morris: 00:51:51

But it's the mission statement of our company that we have on our mugs, that

Allen Morris: 00:51:55

we have on the wall of our conference room, that we have in our reception room.

Allen Morris: 00:51:59

So, everybody knows what it is.

Allen Morris: 00:52:02

And we can always challenge that.

Allen Morris: 00:52:04

And they can challenge it and say, Hey, are we truly

Allen Morris: 00:52:06

inspiring people with this thing?

Allen Morris: 00:52:09

Are we truly inspiring people with that thing that we're doing?

Allen Morris: 00:52:13

and, and this is what's made my children and my family and my extended family

Allen Morris: 00:52:18

all of a sudden in the last 20 years, become all very interested and engaged

Allen Morris: 00:52:24

in what we're doing as a company.

Allen Morris: 00:52:26

And they all want to invest together with us and be a part of what

Allen Morris: 00:52:29

we're doing, voluntarily because it's exciting and it's inspiring.

Allen Morris: 00:52:34

And.

Allen Morris: 00:52:35

Wow, we're getting wonderful feedback from people.

Allen Morris: 00:52:39

So this is, this is how it is affected my real life and how it's

Allen Morris: 00:52:44

affected our very real, uh, company.

Tim Winders: 00:52:47

And I do want to, I do want to say that I've got on my browser

Tim Winders: 00:52:51

right here on my computer, projects tab on the Alan Morris website.

Tim Winders: 00:52:58

And you are absolutely correct.

Tim Winders: 00:53:00

These are, these images these projects are absolutely stunning.

Tim Winders: 00:53:04

We'll include a link down in the notes cause people need to go take a look at

Tim Winders: 00:53:08

the, take a look at those and check them

Tim Winders: 00:53:10

out.

Tim Winders: 00:53:11

But, we started that with just the ability to.

Tim Winders: 00:53:17

deal, to deal with things and to kind of move through it.

Tim Winders: 00:53:20

That, and it sounded like what you were describing is what's in the book.

Tim Winders: 00:53:23

We don't have time to go into it much here, but that shadow work, is that

Tim Winders: 00:53:26

the shadow work that you talk about?

Allen Morris: 00:53:29

Yes.

Allen Morris: 00:53:30

Yes.

Allen Morris: 00:53:30

It's what we do.

Allen Morris: 00:53:32

it's just a part of the, part of the safe, experience.

Allen Morris: 00:53:37

That we provide people in our weekend retreats.

Allen Morris: 00:53:40

that's become so popular among CEOs and other leaders.

Tim Winders: 00:53:43

So Alan, the book all in, and the subtitle is important.

Tim Winders: 00:53:47

How to risk everything for everything that matters.

Tim Winders: 00:53:52

The.

Tim Winders: 00:53:53

I could guess the purpose of the book, but as an author myself, someone

Tim Winders: 00:53:58

who's written something recently, I had this realization sometime during

Tim Winders: 00:54:03

the process that God may have had me writing this book as much for me.

Tim Winders: 00:54:11

As for someone else who was reading it now, I'm, I'm not putting words

Tim Winders: 00:54:14

in your mouth, but what was the process of putting it together?

Tim Winders: 00:54:19

did that have any impact?

Tim Winders: 00:54:20

Cause you, there was some, there was some deep, deep stories

Tim Winders: 00:54:25

here that you went through.

Tim Winders: 00:54:27

So my, my question is not necessarily what's, what do you

Tim Winders: 00:54:30

want the reader to get, but what did Alan get from this process?

Allen Morris: 00:54:35

it was a cathartic process for me.

Allen Morris: 00:54:37

It was, when I, when I realized, I don't know who's going to read this book.

Allen Morris: 00:54:42

And I can't really worry about whether I'm going to make them happy.

Allen Morris: 00:54:46

I've got to just tell the truth.

Allen Morris: 00:54:48

I've got to kind of get it out, my truth, the truth of the men that have

Allen Morris: 00:54:52

allowed me and given me permission to share their stories, and, and it, it,

Allen Morris: 00:54:58

it helped me clarify my message and how I wanted to share this with others.

Allen Morris: 00:55:04

And whether anybody ever bought the book or not.

Allen Morris: 00:55:07

But now we've already gone into a second printing, and the Young Presidents

Allen Morris: 00:55:11

Organization just distributed 1, 300 copies of the book last month at

Allen Morris: 00:55:16

their Global Leadership Conference for CEOs from around the world.

Allen Morris: 00:55:20

They came for their annual leadership conference, I'm

Allen Morris: 00:55:25

being asked to speak on this.

Allen Morris: 00:55:27

All over, Australia, Ghana, Ecuador, New York.

Allen Morris: 00:55:33

It's, it's California where we're being, uh, pulled in a lot of different

Allen Morris: 00:55:37

directions because, it seems to have just.

Allen Morris: 00:55:42

In telling the truth has touched a chord with a lot of men and women

Allen Morris: 00:55:47

and now more and more women who have said, why, what, why don't

Allen Morris: 00:55:52

you make this available for women?

Allen Morris: 00:55:53

we do now.

Allen Morris: 00:55:54

And we're, we're having ongoing women's retreats and women's forums.

Allen Morris: 00:55:58

And we have a women's program director for our charitable, organization

Allen Morris: 00:56:02

called all in leaders Inc.

Allen Morris: 00:56:04

Uh, so we have all the same programs for women that we have for men.

Allen Morris: 00:56:08

And, it's, it's very rewarding.

Allen Morris: 00:56:11

I, I, I'm having less and less time to run my real estate business

Allen Morris: 00:56:14

now, and so I'm glad my son is taking over more and more of that.

Allen Morris: 00:56:19

it's just, it's, it is, I, I, how could I say, it's so rewarding to

Allen Morris: 00:56:25

have gone through that process.

Allen Morris: 00:56:27

of writing, just to help me get the clarity.

Allen Morris: 00:56:30

And one of the gifts that I hope the book is to people, so they don't have to take

Allen Morris: 00:56:35

a three year sabbatical that I took to get this all straight in my head, I want

Allen Morris: 00:56:41

to give others the chance to read the book and get started on this journey.

Allen Morris: 00:56:45

and not have to take some long sabbatical to do it.

Allen Morris: 00:56:49

So hopefully it'll be, it'll be an open door to reconnecting with,

Allen Morris: 00:56:54

with your joy in the midst of the trials and challenges of life.

Tim Winders: 00:56:57

Yeah, I, I, I enjoyed it.

Tim Winders: 00:56:59

I was able to read it in about a 48 hour span, was actually, I liked, sometimes

Tim Winders: 00:57:05

spread books out this, we, we had this deadline, so I wanted to read it

Tim Winders: 00:57:09

as quickly as possible.

Tim Winders: 00:57:11

But who do you think it's for?

Tim Winders: 00:57:12

If you were to define who it's for, I know as authors, we say sometimes,

Tim Winders: 00:57:17

Oh, it's for anybody who reads it and it needs to, but did you have someone

Tim Winders: 00:57:21

in mind other than what you were going through yourself that you thought this

Tim Winders: 00:57:25

is someone that needs to read this?

Allen Morris: 00:57:28

absolutely.

Allen Morris: 00:57:30

I would say it's somebody that is not satisfied with their life,

Allen Morris: 00:57:35

with something about their life.

Allen Morris: 00:57:37

Where they are.

Allen Morris: 00:57:38

Where they feel stuck in some area of their life.

Allen Morris: 00:57:42

They feel stuck in a relationship.

Allen Morris: 00:57:44

They feel stuck in their profession.

Allen Morris: 00:57:46

Um, and they want to know how to get unstuck and get the freedom

Allen Morris: 00:57:51

that they want back in their life.

Allen Morris: 00:57:53

And with it, the joy.

Allen Morris: 00:57:55

that's what, that's the person that's going to really grab on to the book, that

Allen Morris: 00:58:00

I found that people that call me, like the two men that called me yesterday,

Allen Morris: 00:58:03

both of them were feeling stuck because of some things in their life, their, their

Allen Morris: 00:58:08

marriage, in one case a marriage, the relationship with a father, a relationship

Allen Morris: 00:58:13

in, in, businesses, and And this is where they started to find some, some real

Allen Morris: 00:58:18

freedom, and want to go further with it now, and they want to come to retreats.

Tim Winders: 00:58:22

interesting to me is that we all believe that our situation is

Tim Winders: 00:58:26

so unique and different, yet you read the book, you just told the stories

Tim Winders: 00:58:32

of the two CEOs and we start seeing repetitive things that are, that are

Tim Winders: 00:58:38

there and not that there aren't still unique situations and the names and

Tim Winders: 00:58:42

all are different, but anyway, Alan, Where can people connect with you?

Tim Winders: 00:58:47

Find the book websites.

Tim Winders: 00:58:49

What, what, what all would you like to give here?

Tim Winders: 00:58:51

We'll include all that in the notes, but go ahead and share for the person

Tim Winders: 00:58:54

that's listening that may not be able to check the notes while they're

Tim Winders: 00:58:57

driving or something where they can find all of this great info from you.

Allen Morris: 00:59:01

Great.

Allen Morris: 00:59:02

The easiest place to start is the website, allinbook.

Allen Morris: 00:59:07

com.

Allen Morris: 00:59:08

Just very simply, allinbook.

Allen Morris: 00:59:10

com.

Allen Morris: 00:59:13

And you can get, that'll launch you into all the access to the book,

Allen Morris: 00:59:16

information about the book, and all the other resources that are

Allen Morris: 00:59:20

available through our charitable organization called allinleaders.

Allen Morris: 00:59:25

org.

Allen Morris: 00:59:26

Uh, that, allinleaders is, will get you into that.

Allen Morris: 00:59:30

And, we have webinars, we have one on one coaching.

Allen Morris: 00:59:34

We have retreats and conferences all available that have all

Allen Morris: 00:59:38

grown out of the, the book.

Tim Winders: 00:59:41

Excellent.

Tim Winders: 00:59:42

Well, I'll definitely say that anyone that has been listening in here at Seek Go

Tim Winders: 00:59:46

Create for the 250 plus plus episodes, the message of all in and what you're talking

Tim Winders: 00:59:53

about is a great fit to what we're doing, because that's very similar missions

Tim Winders: 00:59:59

and that is to help people get to that place of like you brought up early joy or

Tim Winders: 01:00:04

getting to what it is that they believe they're created for and on this earth.

Tim Winders: 01:00:09

So anyway, Alan, we are seek.

Tim Winders: 01:00:11

Go create those three words.

Tim Winders: 01:00:13

I'm going to allow you to choose one and why just it resonates more.

Tim Winders: 01:00:17

Seek, go or create.

Tim Winders: 01:00:18

Which one do you

Allen Morris: 01:00:19

I'll tell you, it's go all in to seek, to

Allen Morris: 01:00:22

seek the truth about yourself.

Allen Morris: 01:00:25

That's where the, that's where the, that's where the answers are.

Allen Morris: 01:00:28

To look into the truth about yourself, to seek.

Tim Winders: 01:00:32

Amen.

Tim Winders: 01:00:34

Thank you, Alan.

Tim Winders: 01:00:35

This has been so enjoyable.

Tim Winders: 01:00:36

I highly recommend you get the book all in.

Tim Winders: 01:00:39

I've got it on my Kindle here.

Tim Winders: 01:00:41

All in.

Tim Winders: 01:00:43

How to risk everything for everything that matters.

Tim Winders: 01:00:46

Like I said, I did read it over the last few days, extremely enjoyable, extremely

Tim Winders: 01:00:49

valuable, started poking at me and getting me thinking about a lot of things.

Tim Winders: 01:00:54

And I truly appreciate that.

Tim Winders: 01:00:55

So I appreciate you writing it, Alan.

Tim Winders: 01:00:58

We're SeekGoCreate.

Tim Winders: 01:00:59

I appreciate everyone for joining us here.

Tim Winders: 01:01:01

If you want to support us in any way, you can always go to seek, go create.

Tim Winders: 01:01:05

com forward slash support.

Tim Winders: 01:01:07

If you like what we're doing, you could support us financially, make

Tim Winders: 01:01:10

comments and just help us out there.

Tim Winders: 01:01:12

I appreciate Allen for joining us today.

Tim Winders: 01:01:15

I appreciate you for listening in until next time, continue being

Tim Winders: 01:01:20

all that you were created to be.