blog, coaching, Life Coaching, lifecoaching, Mindset Transformation, personal development podcast, podcast

How to Live with Intention During the Tension

We all know that there’s a lot of, tension, right now in the world. We can’t even just say America because this is a global pandemic. There’s a lot of uncertainty so living with, intention, relieves stress.

A few weeks ago I was looking at these large groups and wondering If I would ever again be comfortable at a concert or a parade with thousands of people? Will our consciousness around this, tension, be changed forever?

Listen to the full interview

Introduction Intentional living in the Tension

So how do we traverse this, tension, with, intention? We shouldn’t always just react, we should have some, intention.

Meanwhile, one of the things I also want to mention is, intentional living. Some people are have the, intention, to live intentionally. The people who practice, intentional living, are called, minimalists. What, minimalists, do for intentional living is they intentionally live with few possessions. They do that because, intentional living, with only the items that support your purpose, is one of the ways to live with, intention. So, minimalists, are saying “we don’t need all this stuff, we’re getting rid of all this junk and we’re going to practice, intentional living.

Minimalists, made me remember or think about the tiny homes movement.

Thane Marcus Ringler on Intention in the Tension

Thane Marcus Ringler, is a former professional golfer turned speaker, writer and development coach living in Denver Colorado with his wife, Evan. Thane’s mission is to help others live and work better. He’s passionate about speaking to the journey from the journey and is striving to empower this generation to take ownership of their lives and never settle for less than they’re capable of.

Thane is the host of the “Up and Comers” show – a podcast all about the process of becoming and, intentional living, while sharing stories from other inspiring Up and Comers. Find out more about Thane and his work on, intention, in the, tension, by visiting him on the web.

Alright, I’m going to digress a little bit from the normal start to my interviews, because, I love your podcast the Up and Comers show because I love stories. Stories are a good way to teach as you said; you do stories on, living intentionally. Do you follow the format of the American life podcast? They perfected storytelling and became the first popular podcast.

Thane – Thanks for asking. It’s been a really fun journey of about four years now. Obviously when you do something for that length of time, it changes a lot as you do it. It kind of shifts and iterates into different forms; but ultimately it was mirrored off of similar shows like the Tim Ferriss show or even the Joe Rogan experience. In that, they’re long-form interviews that are more of a dance than a system, with the length of time being on average with interviews around 90 minutes.

It allows someone’s story to really be told. People that are, living intentionally, like you said earlier, in this, tension, because I think that is the big difference between, intentional living, and maybe normal living.

What is Intentional Living?

Myrna – Yes, I love hearing how we can do, intentional living. Whether it’s intentional for personal growth which is basically my, intention, learning something every day and not to be reactive, living intentionally.

Thane – Everyone does have a story to tell and I think those are really fun to hear from other people mine. I grew up in Kansas, the Central heartland of America and ended up going to California for college, spent about 10 years out there in LA. Vastly different cultures just socially and interacted with a lot of different peoples within that timeframe. I did play golf.

My whole life I was an athlete and competitor; I ended up getting to play about four years professionally, that was a really neat journey. I felt very blessed to have that opportunity in the second half of my career when I faced that injury that repeated about five times over a year and a half that sidelined me for a lot of it. That was very frustrating; but also diversified my interests.

During that time, I started the podcast with a buddy of mine. Thereafter, I started on my journey of writing the book that you talked about last time. From Here to There was my first book and that was really about the experience of playing golf. My whole life in a high level taught me about how to pursue excellence in any field and then from that I kind of went on building a speaking career and pursuing more opportunities as a speaker.

That was a really neat adventure. This coaching practice has kind of been the main focus outside of professional golf for the last three years, working with individuals on personal and professional development.

Using the power of intention to get unstuck in life

A lot of times that involves three types of people:

People who are stuck and want to get unstuck.
Some who are transitioning or starting something on the side and want help with finding the right path to follow or even the feedback that they need to hear on how they can develop to set themselves up for success.
Then, finally people who want to level up in their work or in their lives and need some extra accountability and objectivity to do that.

https://myhelps.us/life-coaching-part-1-who-am-i/

That’s been a really fulfilling process for me, I help people live with, intention. Playing golf I was more focused on myself and not other people. Most recently, this year I got married at the start of COVID and moved to Denver where my wife and I now live, and that’s been a really sweet transition even though so much change is going on in our world. We’ve definitely experienced a lot of that even personally.

This fall, I’m really excited. In November, the two online courses I’ve been building are going to be finally released and that’s been the next chapter that I’m really excited about.

Myrna – So, how does the, power of intention, help when you’re stuck, afraid alone like many of us during this pandemic?

One of the areas that you mentioned that you coach is helping people who are in the stuck place in life. I would probably think that most of the people that are coming into the life coaching conversation is stuck somewhere, right?

Well as humans, we all are to some extent constantly either stuck in a circular movement. Usually that means digressing or decaying in some way where we’re growing, we’re moving forward and there’s really in between there’s no sitting on the fence in the middle of those two sides, at least not for very long. I like to think, as humans, I think our natural default if we don’t make a choice is to go down the path of least resistance and not live with, intention.

Intentional living is going with the flow

So, if we don’t choose, living intentionally, we’re going to be going downhill. Our brains are designed that way. In order to go upstream or the path of most resistance, we have to have effort and, intention, which is ultimately discipline. Discipline is effort, and, intention, is saying “I’m going to choose to go upstream and I’m going to put forth the effort to do so by rowing or whatever the illustration”.

I struggled with this idea that in practicing, there’s a practice and performance mentality. I think this would be helpful for what we’re talking about. Here, the practice mentality is saying “I’m going to hold myself to a higher standard with, intention.” I think I can achieve, intention, because of practice. It’s okay to fail in practice because, there are no consequences; but I’m going to try to reach a level that I didn’t even think I can reach”.

That’s good training for, intentional living. When we come to a performance, if we maintain that mindset and we keep failing to reach that super high level we start beating ourselves up – like “Oh! You suck, you aren’t good enough, you’re never going to get there, and you’re never going to perform.

Thane – What we are speaking about is self-awareness. A lot of times, having a self-awareness to know what we need ourselves – means we need to understand ourselves. I think the three primary tools of self-awareness are journaling and reflecting which is just sitting with a pen and paper. Now looking back on a situation or a day or a moment or our lives and understanding it more clearly. That’s feedback, you’re thinking about having a person in your life whether it be a coach, mentor, family member, a close friend or confidant who can help you see more objectively; because we are inherently subjective.

Then there is meditation, just being able to sit in the present moment and remove the distractions that cloud our vision and by using those three primary tools. We get way better at seeing ourselves clearly, so that we can steer ourselves better and live with, intention.

Myrna – Self-awareness and meditation, that’s awesome.

Intention in the Tension

What does it mean to live with, intention in the, tension?

Myrna – When I researched, intentions, what came up was Justin Bieber’s song –intentions, he’s talking about shower you with my, attention. These are my only, intentions. So, let’s dive in and talk about these, intentions, in the, tension.

Thane – The, intention, is really the reason behind what we do. So, intentional living, is just infusing a why, a reason or purpose into our daily lives, our daily thoughts or daily actions. Again, it doesn’t happen by chance. We don’t default into this, we have to choose it and so a lot of it really revolves around purpose and identity. In the whole phrase, intention, in the, tension, my co-founder of the podcast; Adam Setzer came up with that term.

I think it’s just a catchy phrase to show that in life we face, tensions, we all know this very well right now in the COVID 19 pandemic. There are people that are on the one side of the, tension, (always wear masks). And there are people saying, “no don’t ever wear masks.” Everyone’s at a different place, some are following President Trump saying this pandemic is nothing and it would go away and some people are so fearful, they stay home, because there’s a lot of, tension.

So, those are just two myriads are the more permanent or pressing right now; but every single day we have, tension, that we face even from exercise.

Tension during the COVID 19 Pandemic

Try getting married during COVID, like I did. You have, tension, as a newly married couple during COVID 19. The point of, tensions, isn’t to pick a side and then just rest on that side. A lot of times with, the power of intention, the best place to be is in the middle, in the gray, in the messy, tension. By choosing a side, we eliminate the, tension, but really that isn’t the best place to be.

The best place is to be in the middle. When we’re living in the, tension, we have to infuse, intention, and a purpose or reason. Why? So that we can be able to see both sides with some fairness, with some objectivity without camping out and saying okay I’ve already made my mind. I already know everything and I’ve already arrived. That is never true for any of us in life, so a lot of it revolves around recognizing that there are, tensions, and then understanding our purpose and our identity.

Myrna – There’s a lot going on right now. Everybody is talking about how divorce rates has just shot up, because people are forced to be together with, tension. There’s a lot of, tension, because there’s no outlets; but I like what you said, I’m a Christian and I was just finished reading this really fabulous book, Think like a Monk by Jay Shetty and one of the things I learned from that book is that we don’t always get back the love from the people we give it to.

Jay Shetty shared a story when he was in this monk. He’s complained to the senior monk that he was giving all this out this service and love and he was not getting anything back. Then, the senior monk told him that a lot of times when you give out love, you don’t get it back from the same people but the universe always send it back.

So, we are giving out love to let’s say a spouse or children or something and we’re expecting it back; but love like Jesus said love your enemy as your friend. You should know that the foundation of the Bible is ALL LOVE. It’s not necessary that you’re going to love somebody that loves you. If you love your enemy, then obviously they don’t love you back.

So, if you have the, intention, that you’re going to love unconditionally and maybe it’s will boomerang back to you, even if it’s not from this person; but you’re going to get it back somehow. That actually makes it easier.

Hope and the Power of Intention

Myrna – What do you think helps us live full of hope and live with, intention, in 2020?

Thane – HOPE, as you earlier mentioned is I believe, readily available for anyone at any time. I think hope is the fuel that comes from just reframing our perspective on things. When your perspective is simply your view of a situation, an object or yourself and guess what that can be viewed from many different places, hope in 2020 as you rightly said is something that more and more people are feeling hopeless.

I think it starts just by reframing our perspective. My book “Catalyst for Hope”. It’s really just talking about four catalysts or four simple perspectives that I’ve found to unlock a lot of hope in my life.

We can always do this and it’s very simple. The fact that we are all in process that has not finished yet, is not over. We get to keep going forward and we get to keep moving. We still have a choice and a chance to live, breathe and do work in this world. Be a part of the change we wish to see.

In conclusion

Myrna – Tell us about your online courses, you told me you have two of them. One is “Growing Self-awareness” and we have talked about that, which is great. Another word for Self-awareness is “Consciousness”.

I thought I heard something the other day about one of those books – Think like a Monk that he mentioned, that consciousness is the biggest way to live with, intention. I mean it’s a word that everybody throws around and nobody knows what it is. However, self-awareness and consciousness is like hope. What I mean is, if you practice it and you live in it, then it’s the biggest thing that you can do in your life.

The other book title is “Developing Discipline”. Of course, as a professional golfer discipline is big. Discipline is the most fundamental component of being a good leader. Meanwhile, being a good leader starts always with self leadership, you have to be able to lead yourself well before you can lead others.

Thane – I’m all about growing self leadership for myself and for others. These two courses, I believe are going to help with self-awareness and discipline being fundamental aspects. In the two courses, what people can expect is they’re both eight-week courses and so it’s self-directed meaning – if you want to go faster or slower, you can.

I recommend eight weeks and that’s how it’s set up because it gives us enough time to really put these things into practice. Then thereafter, start shifting our identity and the way we see ourselves with these things so we can start saying I’m not just pursuing discipline, I am a disciplined person and that’s the shift that we want to make in those eight weeks.

Additional Resources