Jimn Kyles 0:00
Welcome to the unstuck and unstoppable podcast where we help you move your life forward. If you’ve ever wanted to make sure that you’re living a life without regret, and that you’re focused on what really matters, then you’re listening to the right episode podcast today. I’m your host Jimn Kyles, and I’m here with Jolea Garza. Hey, so excited, but it’s gonna be a great episode. Great episode. So pumped, we’re gonna be talking about living the life without regret. Have you ever regretted anything? Yeah,

Jolea Garza 0:28
you know, I think it’s so? Well, one. Yes. Within two I think that so many people have. And so I’m really excited to unpack this today and talk through some of the top regrets that people have

Jimn Kyles 0:38
salutely Well, today, we’re gonna be talking about Chapter Four of a book that I just wrote. It’s called unstuck and unstoppable. If you don’t have a pre ordered copy yet, or pre ordered your copy, yeah, go get it go the website. Yeah. Jim collins.com. Yeah, you check it out. Um, so? Yes. What do you think Kevin? We got our cameraman over there. You like it, Kevin. We’re so thrilled to have you. If you’re watching through video, or listening through podcast, he is our technical director who helps us with all things technical praise God, Kevin’s got his copy. And we’re so excited. It’s an advanced reading copy. But it’s released publicly November 8,

Jolea Garza 1:18
November 8, we’re getting close. We’re in the month of August, like we are almost there. And I’m super excited, super

Jimn Kyles 1:24
excited. And here we are super pumped. We’re talking about life without regret. In today, it’s been heavy on my heart, the fact that we live life. But sometimes we’re not living the right life. Every day time passes. But just because another day comes and goes does not mean that we’re focused on the right thing. Yeah. And as I was doing the work on this book on stuck in unstoppable, it was very fascinating. I came across an actually a book, you know, the author of lady who were Yeah, Bonnie, where she’s an Australian nurse. And she spent several years taking care of patients during the last 12 months of their 12 weeks of their lives. So when they’re on hospice, and she actually ended up writing a book. In Australia, it’s called the Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Yeah. And so as I was researching the book, really, really just asking God to help me craft in a book, whatever I needed to help people to come unstuck and then become unstoppable. This book was so fascinating, because she said, as she was taking care of people that were dying, there were reoccurring regrets that they had read. Yeah. And net fascinating. She said, there were so much the same, that it’s it was shocking. And so she ended up creating the book and wrote about it. And what I found so fascinating, was that throughout the book, one of the ways that we become unstoppable is that we learn to focus on four primary building blocks of life. And so really, the first one is discovering your identity, right? Second one is living with purpose, what I’m supposed to be doing right now, the third part is living a life of vision, which means I’m going somewhere not drifting. And then the fourth one, which is what I really thought the whole book was going to be about was paradigm, subconscious, subconscious pattern of thought paradigms. And, but what I found fascinating in her book, and you and I, as we’ve read online online, is that those building blocks of life can be found in the Five Regrets of

Jolea Garza 3:36
the, I love this so much, you know, even for me, and I often have this pair in fact, I was even praying, praying it the other day, you know, God, I just want to live out my fullest potential. You know, I want to not only just do great things, but I want to do everything that I’ve been called to do. And this was probably one of my favorite chapters reading the book, you know, the few times that I’ve read the book, and I love it, because truly, if I can avoid some of these regrets, you know, or start to avoid some of these regrets or be aware of of the things that people have done in their lives that they wish they hadn’t. Man, what a big impact. And I think that when you identify these regrets, when you don’t live and have these regrets, then you work live closer to your purpose, right, so excited about

Jimn Kyles 4:21
100% agree. And it’s fascinating, because in her study, and she just found you’re talking about construction workers, doctors, lawyers, didn’t really matter. The career field path didn’t even matter, necessarily the geography or the way they were raised their background, the reoccurring regrets, were all the same, right? And the only caveat that I would say to this is if you’ve been listening to us for a while, you know, I’m a pastor, we get to pastor a church July as the executive pastor here leads the church and the staff. The only thing that I would just say the warning would be these regrets are are things that we need to focus on not having ourselves, but it’ll never replace the greatest thing that we have to do in my opinion is always have a relationship with God, right? So I can focus on how I’m not going to have these regrets. I’m going to try to live a life scrape without these regrets in my life. But if you don’t connect to the One who created you, which we believe God is the designer of humanity, and he is the one that gave us breath in our lungs and life in our bodies, and so you can focus on not having regrets, regrets. But if you’re not connected to the one that created, then you’re going to miss it anyway. It’s like building the ladder and find out the end of your life, the ladders against the wrong bill.

Jolea Garza 5:39
Yeah, and I love your book, because there’s even an opportunity to take that step and a guided opportunity at that, man again, pretty

Jimn Kyles 5:47
well. And I’m so excited, because even in the book, I tell my story. Yeah. And always live for God hadn’t always been a pastor. But I found God in my early 20s, and just radically changed my life. And I’m a businessman, before I was a pastor, still currently do business and other opportunities. And so it’s not just the fact that I chose a career path of ministry, it’s the fact that I needed God because I was desperate, so great. And I just want to encourage you, if you if you want to know more about that, email us, we’d love to connect with you and grab the book, you know, will lead you through the guided tour of hey, how do you begin a relationship with God? So let’s dive into the Five Regrets because that’s what I’m excited about anytime. The first regret that she found was

Jolea Garza 6:30
the first one is I wish I have the the courage to live a life true to myself and not the life that others expected me to live true to

Jimn Kyles 6:39
myself, not to live up to the expectations of others. And you think, man, I’m an adult? I don’t care what people think.

Jolea Garza 6:47
Right? All the people who are like I live with? Yes, yes. You will call yourself the black sheep. When you make those decisions, right? You’re like, Ah, I called myself, the black sheep of the family. Sometimes I didn’t do the things that I was supposed to do.

Jimn Kyles 7:03
Yeah, people find themselves even as a black sheep. It’s like, I will never do that. Because my dad said you Right, right. said you would? Well, you’re really living up to the negative opposite of what? You’re still not about that. Yes, life. Yeah. And really, when you pin this regret down, what we discovered, and really at the very core of it is that we have this regret, because we never discovered who we really were, oh, good, your true identity. Yeah. And so as I just want to help those who are watching or listening, you know, the first thing that you’ve got to do if you’re gonna become unstoppable, and you’re gonna get unstuck, is discover the identity that God gave you, and then begin to live that out, regardless of what people what other people think what people say what people think

Jolea Garza 7:49
I just a word to all my pleasers out there. So that we have two different ends of the spectrum, you have your rebellious over here who are like, I’m gonna do the opposite anyways. But then you also have your pleasers, and I think a lot of pleasers, actually, and if you don’t have to identify yourself, do you love doing things for other people? Do you care deeply about what other people think, feel and experience when you help them and all of those things? So if you are a pleaser, you know, one of the things you have to learn is that pleasing people does not define who you are. And a lot of times that is so deeply linked on the side of who you are. It’s like, okay, I’m great at taking care of this person. I’m great at doing all these things. And that becomes the identity. As long as I’m living the way they want me to be happy. I’m

Jimn Kyles 8:32
happy. Yes, but you’re living a false, right? You’re, yeah, you’re carrying someone else’s way. Yeah. And then you get to the end of your life. And that’s

Jolea Garza 8:39
what you think that’s who you are. And so what this regret is saying is that a lot of times we lived our lives being defined by what everybody else wanted us what everybody else thought we were versus going back and figuring out who God actually created us to be.

Jimn Kyles 8:55
I love what she said, the courage, the courage to live a life true to myself, Okay, and just have to realize you’re not gonna make everybody happy, right? But you will become truly alive. And I just want to encourage you, and we got great resources, Jim collins.com, go check it out. We’ve got some worksheets to even help you uncover someone says, I don’t know my identity will go to the website. We’ve got to document that I actually just begin. Who am I right? You got to answer you got to answer the question Who am I to depart and take away everything? You know, the money the house, sell everything by yourself with nothing else? Who am I? Yeah. And it’s one of the toughest questions I write about it in the book. There’s, there’s a whole chapter to identity. It’s the toughest question I ever had to answer. As a young businessman at the age of 22. I had my twin brother and I own seven properties. I opened a restaurant at the age of 2324. We had over 30 employees, and then through a series of events, we lost everything right? And I’ll never forget coming face to face with this question and it’s really the journey Need the book is a 20 year journey of what God taught me 20 years ago that has brought me to this moment. And the question I couldn’t answer was, who am I? I’m like, Well, I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a failure. This and as I know, take away those things. Who are you? And that’s the question. When you answer it will keep you from living this life. That’s

Jolea Garza 10:20
great. And there’s a process, there’s such a process, you know, I even think about years, yeah, it’s layer after layer. So this is not an overnight, you have to be willing to take the step and actually move forward and and go through this process. But even for me, you know, I even think about growing up, I was in a house with doctors and lawyers and, and so the expectation was that you will be a doctor lawyer, and that is all incredible. And so I had to learn. So you know, in high school, I did debate and so I was traveling, I competed nationally, on the state level, and I competed. Well, it was a great debater. Come on at the movie, but, but I did really well. And so what I learned though, because I was I would always say what my parents told me was, I’m gonna go and be pre law, I’m gonna go to school and be a be a lawyer. And so every time anybody would ask me is like, what are you going to be? I’m gonna be a lawyer, right? Just because that’s what was expected of me. Going through five years of being in that program actually learned, I really hate all of the reading and research that goes into preparing for these events that I was a part of, but what I do love is speaking and so there was even in that moment, just diving in and uncovering of, I may not be a lawyer, or that might not be what I’m passionate about. But I am a great speaker. And I do love that. And there was an identifying a baptism for everybody. Yeah. And it’s yes, it and it was a it took a lot of courage. For me to say, this is not the path for me. But I’m way more fulfilled now than I think I would have been had I ever taken that step well, and

Jimn Kyles 11:48
we’re praying that you have the courage to take steps and we want to be on the journey with you the second regret. Well, she said, I wish this is what they said, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

Jimn & Jolea 11:57
Oh, that was a big one. For me. Interesting. This is a huge one for me. Yeah. Yeah,

Jimn Kyles 12:02
the you think Man, I’ve just got I’m gonna work so hard and provide for my family, I’m gonna do whatever it takes to get to the dreams and the goals that I have. But it says she was shocked at how deeply regretful these people were, at having worked so hard, and their entire existence being wrapped around

Jolea Garza 12:23
their entire purpose. So you’ve said something in the book, and I want to read this, it says that there’s nothing wrong with working hard, but when the time when your time gets out of balance is often because you don’t truly understand your purpose. I thought that was so good. I actually have a note in my book and my copy of the book, because I was rereading this when I was on maternity leave, you know, I had a baby back in February. And it was so funny. But there were a couple of weeks. And I wrote it down in your book, where I said, I felt like I had completely lost my identity, because I was not working. And I didn’t know who I was anymore. And so being at home, not being able to work not being able to connect with the things that like I was used to doing. There was a really tough few weeks where I was just like, who am I? Do I have any value? Am I worth anything anymore? Yeah, what an interesting season, or what an interesting regret, and one that I’ve personally experienced, that I don’t want to experience for the rest of my life.

Jimn Kyles 13:19
Well, and I love to what you need to know and what what I’m hearing in this and I write about in the book is, purpose is multi dimensional. So you find purpose in what you do. But that’s not the only place you find your purpose. You have purpose in your family, you have purpose in your marriage, you have purpose in your ministry. You know, I’m a believer. And so if you’re a believer, what is your purpose in your local church? Are you leading a small group or you’re part of a surf team? You know, and that’s where it’s just we’ve got to recognize what the regret was. I found all my purpose in all of it. Yeah, work too hard. Yeah. And had I been in almost hate this word, but it’s been more balanced. You know, I don’t think there’s real balance,

Jolea Garza 14:03
I call it rhythm. There is no balance there is simply rhythm. But what

Jimn Kyles 14:07
is saying is that when you look kind of like it the will of life, it’s just okay, I’ve got purpose for my family purpose for my marriage. And

Jolea Garza 14:15
yeah, I think a lot of people live their lives, like going into their nine to five or showing up to work. And they’re, this is my purpose. My purpose is to just work to provide. And this is much more than just working and providing.

Jimn Kyles 14:27
Yep. So take an assessment. Where’s all my purpose coming from? Is it just this one area? And it’s hard to step back when you’re winning? Oh, yeah. Especially you’re successful where I was entrepreneur. I mean, it’s like, the more where it is going great. Yeah, what you want to give more? Yeah. And what we’re saying is just maybe slow the pace that’s great and get a little more balance of where your total purpose in life comes from so that you don’t have this regret because the goal of today is we don’t want you to live a life with regret. Get to the end of your life and say, Man, I wish I wouldn’t have said the word regret,

Jolea Garza 14:57
says I wish I’d had the courage to express my My feelings. Wow, it’s a big one that is a big

Jimn Kyles 15:02
Yeah. So you know what she’s saying is the fact that the way you feel really matters, and that we’re afraid to actually tell people how we feel because we don’t want to be rejected or some people just don’t want the confrontation.

Jolea Garza 15:15
It’s funny. I love this, you know, I’m cracking up, because I’m like, if you’re ever on social media, I feel like everybody expresses their feelings about everything. But I think maybe it’s not just opinions, but it’s actual feelings. Like, are you not just airing how you think, or your opinion about things? And what’s happening in our world on social media? But are you having actual conversations with the people that you love, but with your kids, and telling them how you feel about them, telling them how you feel when things aren’t going great? telling them how you feel when things are going good? And I think that’s probably the disconnect.

Jimn Kyles 15:48
Well, I would even put a word around it vulnerability. Yes, yes. It’s so we live, we live in a very hard society where everybody has opinions, but nobody’s vulnerable. Yeah. So what we like to do is we like to, we like to shoot at people and then duck and cover and pop shots, constantly. And what we’re looking for, and even here is that, man, I’ve got a place where I can be vulnerable. And I’ve got relationships with people, here’s what I’d say, real relationships. So I would just say, this didn’t actually this one wasn’t specifically for a place in your life like purpose identity, but But what it is talking about is relationships. Yes. And that’s the key to life. So I’ve always seen as relationships are the currency of life. And so you’ve got to have people that that whether it’s at your job, whether it’s at church in your small group, and I like to have groups and all those areas, but you’re doing life together, and real relationships, not just where only 1% A year yeah, yeah, you’re just listening or kind of just you’d never have any disagreements, I would say if you’re in a relationship or have relationships where nobody’s ever disagreed, you probably never been open. And transparent.

Jolea Garza 17:00
Yeah, vulnerable. There’s a great book by actually one of your dear friends Kevin Jarrell naked and unafraid. And I absolutely love this book, he talks all about vulnerability and the risk that it takes to be vulnerable. But so there’s so many rewards in being vulnerable, and being okay with sharing how you feel about

Jimn Kyles 17:21
and the thing that will help you with being vulnerable. And I guess this is the one that does fit with it, it will, if you have a vision for where you’re going, then it you realize if they won’t be vulnerable, and I can’t be vulnerable, they don’t meet the vision of where I’m going. And so I’m going to, I’m going to find some new friends, I’m going to find some people that I can, because my vision is to have healthy life giving relief in

Jolea Garza 17:42
in your marriage. So like if you have vision I love you talked last week about an affair Proofing Your Marriage and a lot of the communication that goes into that too. And the truth is, if you have a vision of we’re going to have a healthy marriage, then you have to communicate you have to be

Jimn Kyles 17:59
vulnerable. So yes, well and so we’re gonna work on that vision. And then we’re gonna find the right people that help us get to that place where we can have authentic open communication and relationships where we be our true selves. Yeah, and express our feelings. It’s great. Not always just our opinions. Number four,

Jolea Garza 18:16
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Wow, this was another hard one for me. I’m like oh my gosh, I’m living life with so many regrets. I really because I and I live this regret because of the I wish I hadn’t worked so hard, you know, and I think you know, maybe you’re a three like me which threes on the Enneagram are performers and we’re all about doing great work and we’ll just kind of put everybody else aside the longest we can get a lot done. And so the truth is though this is such a big one I am often just praying that God would send me great friends and send me great relationships. But then also that I’ll have the ability to maintain those relationships and check in takes a lot of intentionality for me

Jimn Kyles 18:58
well and there’s no easy way around this this is something that I have actually done a pretty good job in my life. You know, I’m always worried about people that have best friends, they just met someone and they’re your best friends. I’ve got friends that I’ve had for 1015 20 years and it’s just one of those things if I if I could just speak into it is that you’ve got to calendar those moments you know every six months every three months I’ve set aside time where I put it in my calendar that I’m calling you know got like Kim tell Glasgow has been a dear friend many many many years you know and I could go on and on and tell you probably know a lot of them I Brandon’s clearing them here and you get to talk to you. Yeah, and I just think that if you understand you can get everything you want out of life, but then find yourself surrounded by an amazing or on an amazing Island all by yourself so true. And I think the same is true with your kids and your family. Just because you’re blood doesn’t mean that the relationships are gonna last i i Even would say one of the big regrets that I hear from people being a pastor at the end part of their life as they didn’t spend as much time staying connected with their kids or their cousins or their parents. And so really saying, Look, I’m on a journey, and I’m not going to be on a journey by myself. What’s that saying? If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far go together. Yep. And so we want to go together, we want to keep in touch and, and you’d be surprised. Sometimes you’re like, Well, I think it’s gonna be awkward, but it’s not awkward. If that many people are like, Oh my God, you got back in touch with me, you stay connected with me. And so go back and do whatever it takes to rebuild and rekindle some of those

Jolea Garza 20:37
relationships, friends and family. I love that you mentioned family too. You know, for me, I love that word intentionality. Intentionally so important. I’ve this has been a journey I’ve personally been on over the past few years is, is whenever somebody is on my heart, just texting them and reaching out. Even with family, we do a couple things. We have dinner every night together, you know, and so it’s the intentionality of putting away checking out and checking in with our kids. And then even you know, have grandparents and people that you know it wouldn’t it sometimes it seems inconvenient to go visit them but man to take the time to go and see your family members and go and connect with them. It’s just so important.

Jimn Kyles 21:12
So important. A and now we’re on the last regret the regret. Number five,

Jolea Garza 21:16
I wish I had let myself be happy. That was so fascinating. Yeah, me, I circled the Word. Let Yeah,

Jimn Kyles 21:24
I was so fascinated by let myself be happier. And this does fit into the one of the four building blocks of life. This would be your old pattern of thought, your old paradigms, your old subconscious pattern of thought. And so what I found here, and even I go into actually two chapters, the chapter 10, and chapter 11, of the book that in talks specifically about patterns of thought paradigm is that you can have all the right things in life, and yet internally, not allow yourself to enjoy what not only you achieve, but God allowed you again to you to achieve how many people have you know, I was thinking about even marriage? It’s like, man, what they’re gonna leave me or what it’s too good to be true. Oh, my gosh, I’m just waiting on the way. Right? Yeah. And so you sabotage and we talked about this last month, yes, self sabotage, is that you go in and you sabotage, what really should be enjoyed. Wow,

Jolea Garza 22:28
I just love that I just said it’s a choice. It is, is a choice.

Jimn Kyles 22:32
And here’s the thing, it but here’s what I would say it’s a choice to begin to work on it. Because for some of you, it’s a subconscious pattern of thought, which means to you, you didn’t even know it was a choice. And you’ve never even realized, hey, it’s been like this, but I can change it. And so I would just encourage you, there was the National Science Foundation did a study. And the study said that we have anywhere from 16 to 60, or 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts in a day. And of those 95% or negative 80% are repetitive. Yeah. Can you imagine? So subconsciously, whatever trauma you experienced as a kid, maybe trauma in a relationship, as a young adult, if you don’t deal with it, whether it’s your marriage, whether it’s your work, whether it’s your kids, in every facet, financially, whatever it is, no matter what you get, it’ll never be enough. You’ll never be satisfied. And he or she saying, Man had I dealt with this man, life would have been so much, but I’d be at the end of my life not having just lived but lived a happy and fulfilled life.

Jolea Garza 23:38
Yeah. And it’s the retraining to be able to see the good in life and see the blessings that you have. At the end of the day, I’m not gonna just say oh, you’ll be happy when you learn to when everything is good and when things are working out, but to learn to be happy in the ups and downs and in the midst of all the storms I love that saying you’re either walking into a storm in the middle of a storm or walking out of a storm or you’re going in the same cycle. And that’s the truth and so you have to learn what it what it is to be happy and be content I love the word content Yes, even when things don’t look the way you thought they were supposed to or even when you don’t have everything that you you would like and I think that word contentment is big but it all goes back to paradigms and all goes back to how you experienced and what what filter Absolutely

Jimn Kyles 24:24
you experienced well and I would encourage you if you want to go back I talked about this on a Sunday service she’s go to our YouTube page anchor bend Tx and then look up unstuck and unstoppable and there was a message that I did called subconscious pattern of thought your your paradigm and I really talked about that. Here’s not only how it affects you, but how you can really begin to change and tip the change the way you think at least that’s the process. Yes. And then also go to Jim cars.com. We just uploaded a thinking sheet We’re excited about it. And so what we want you to do is just take an assessment of what are the thoughts that you’re thinking throughout the day, which is a little tough, I’ve done it great, you don’t even realize what you don’t realize. And so then that way, you get to say, okay, these are positive, these are negative. And then the key is you can’t change everything. But what’s the primary pattern of thought is sabotaging your happiness? Yeah. And I love what you said, trials always come, they’re always going to happen. So how can I stay joyful and content and happy even in the midst of what’s what’s happening, that may be a delay, I remember even the book, we were going to release it last year, but there was a delay we didn’t. And I remember feeling depressed and angry and frustrated. But now I’m more excited than ever, because we’ve got the podcast, we actually updated a few things in this book. And so there’s so many cool things are gonna happen. But I saw how God took a situation that was very frustrating. And now there’s great joy to see, wow, he was working it out. So it would be better than F right?

Jolea Garza 25:56
I just sometimes I was like, I kicked myself all the times that I was upset and frustrated and angry and sad, and laid in bed. And that’s, you know, it’d be for things that weren’t working out right in the moment versus just being like, it’s okay. Like, God’s got it, you know, we’re gonna make it through. And if I knew God’s track record before, he has always come through, and I feel like that’s a big piece of being happy. But even on the thinking sheet, I love that it’s just helping you identify the thoughts, because a big half of the battle is just knowing that it’s not necessarily having every solution to how to fix the thinking. But if you know it, you can begin to attack it.

Jimn Kyles 26:30
It’ll take that and then I always look at this, what’s the one thing that if I addressed right now would make the biggest difference in my life. And that’s what you want to do. And I just want to encourage you go back and listen to the regrets. Yeah, there should be in the show notes as well. And so let’s start working on this. So we get to the end of our life, and we say, man, we live a life well lived. And we’re excited to help you with that. Now a few things is we end we have an ebook at the website help unstuck. If you fill in stuck right now, it’s absolutely free. Just go and download it. It’s about a 12 page workbook, it’ll help you just identify some ways that you might have gotten stuck. And then four things you can do right now to get unstuck. And so we just want to help you move your life forward, then just go subscribe if you if you’re listening to this for the first time, which is subscribe. We’d love to be delivered to however you consume your content each and every week.

Unknown Speaker 27:21
Absolutely. We always want you to teach the content as well. I love this. take something home to your spouse or your workplace. Take it to your kids and just share one thing that you’ve learned this week on today’s podcast. Yeah. And

Jimn Kyles 27:32
then we’d love for you to engage in the online community where Facebook page we get a lot of people joining us and engaging. We’d love to hear your story what’s happening and stay connected with you.

Jolea Garza 27:42
Yeah, and we always love your feedback. We want to hear how this has impacted your life suppose to Review share your thoughts. Wherever you listen to this podcast.

Jimn Kyles 27:50
So many of you have already done that. It just keeps us encouraged and just helps us in the rankings. We should love that and then last share the podcast Would you just find one person that you could share the podcast with and help them get unstuck and become unstoppable another life? Well, we’re excited. We’ll see you next week and I’ll see you next time.