Reese Brown (00:28.15)

Jeff, thank you so much for joining me today, taking the time to be here with me and talk a little bit more about you and your journey. And I'm sure we'll get into scuba diving and cycling and all sorts of things. So I'm just so appreciative of your time this morning.

Jeff Seckendorf (00:47.801)

Yeah, great. Great to be here.

Reese Brown (00:50.626)

The first question that I always like to start with just to kind of set the tone for our conversation is what's one thing you're grateful for right now?

Jeff Seckendorf (01:00.768)

Oh God, everything. I mean, health and fitness probably more than anything, right, that I'm coming on 70 and still walking, not injured, riding a bike, climbing mountains, skiing, running around like a crazy person. So yeah, I think that's the biggest thing that I'm not walking around unable to do all that stuff.

Reese Brown (01:07.181)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (01:10.763)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:17.677)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:26.798)

Totally. What do you think has been the biggest thing that has allowed you to retain and or maintain that level of health and wellness?

Jeff Seckendorf (01:38.072)

Mindset. It's all mindset, right? It's just understanding that you can't not do the things that keep you healthy. Right? So I train, you know, on a bike like six days a week and I don't miss workouts and I pay attention to nutrition and I just do all these simple things. You know, I go to the gym, I work with a personal trainer, I do all this stuff that I think just really...

Reese Brown (01:47.83)

Hmm

Jeff Seckendorf (02:06.944)

you know, everybody knows to do, but I think not everybody does.

Reese Brown (02:12.398)

Totally. It is the difference between knowing something and putting it into practice, right? Which really is bridging the gap between the mental and the physical and bringing those together. I think that's so important in so many different ways. Well, the second question that I like to ask everyone that will really open up our conversation is what is your story? I know that's kind of a big open-ended question, but whatever you feel called to answer in this moment, we can start with.

childhood or we can just start wherever you want to, but I would love to know your story.

Jeff Seckendorf (02:49.064)

Um, I think that it, for me, it's really about just being, um, alert to what comes up. Right. I think my whole series of careers, the three or four of them have really always been sort of serendipitous or it seems serendipitous, but it's, it's not really. It's just this idea that, you know, when I'm ready for a change, I just keep my eyes open enough.

Reese Brown (02:59.896)

Hmm

Jeff Seckendorf (03:18.704)

and always willing to say yes to anything. Right. So, you know, I started as a child photographer and, you know, all through high school and blah, blah. I was worked, I ended up working for newspapers and wire services and national publications and all that as a photographer. And then one day I had an opportunity to get a job at a TV station shooting video. And I just said yes to that, even though it wasn't what I knew how to do. And I did that for four or five years

photojournalism experience into photojournalism with a video camera, moving picture camera. And then I had an opportunity to do a huge freelance job that was going to pay like the same amount of money in three weeks that I was making in a year. So I quit the job, took the freelance job, and then parlayed that into a freelance video business.

And then at some point somebody said, hey, can you shoot one of these on motion picture film? And I'm like, sure, but I had no idea how. So I figured that out by hiring the right people and all this other stuff. And that started like a 30 year career in the film industry, shooting movies and commercials and things like that. So it's just been willing to just say yes to whatever comes up and figure it out. And if it turns out not to work out, who cares? You still have the other thing. And I think that

Reese Brown (04:44.012)

Right.

Jeff Seckendorf (04:46.528)

I think that's the thing, you know, you always still have the other thing. So.

Reese Brown (04:51.022)

Totally. Where do you think that willingness to say yes comes from? Because I happen to absolutely agree with you. I'm certainly someone who has had several different careers and even now, I'm balancing several different careers and freelance gigs. But I've also attributed a lot of that to just, you know, if you want to say yes to something, you find a way to make it work and you say yes and you never know what you're going to learn or gain or progress through from this new experience.

But I don't think everyone has that sense to lean into accepting things. Where do you think your capacity to say yes comes from?

Jeff Seckendorf (05:33.016)

I don't know. I don't really have an answer to that question. I've just always been like this. And I spend quite a bit of time speaking on living with purpose. And I think part of it is just accepting the fact that for most people, when you ask them what their purpose is, it's about serving others. So when you put that together with this sort of inborn,

Reese Brown (05:45.358)

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Seckendorf (06:01.156)

bit of tenacity that I've got just to do stuff and be able to say just yes to try things and you know, pivot if it doesn't work and all of that. I just think it's, you know, it's something that comes really naturally to me and I think people can develop this, but hopefully it will get developed before it has to be.

You know, it's like, you don't need to hit bottom before you stop drinking or something like that. Right. So I think as long as you start looking around, like when I turned 60, eight or nine years ago, I was like, I'm going to stop running on my birthday. So I was doing triathlons. I've been running for 50 years and I just decided all of my friends who've been running for their whole life have bad knees, hips, this, that the other. So I just said, look,

Reese Brown (06:27.618)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (06:31.671)

Right.

Jeff Seckendorf (06:54.468)

I love the bike. I don't need to run anymore. And I stopped literally on that day. It's the last day I've run. And, you know, for me, it was just like, I'm looking at the writing on the wall and I'm saying, well, I could run another. Whatever. I could keep doing triathlons, keep triathlons and I'll probably. Not be able to do anything. So I quit and it was great. So for me, it was like, what's the end goal? Well, the end goal is go another 10 years without injury.

So how do I do that? Well, let's just stop this thing that I kind of really like, but doesn't serve me and move on to something else. So here I am 10 years later and super not injured. So it worked, right? But I think you just have to try stuff and be willing to try stuff and just, you know, take a shot and see what happens and be willing to fail. It's like, okay, well, that was a bad idea. I got injured anyway, or that was a bad idea. I really miss it. I want to go do triathlons again, something like that. So I don't.

Reese Brown (07:26.932)

Right.

Reese Brown (07:32.888)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (07:42.091)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (07:49.198)

Totally. And being able, I think one thing that you said is like the willingness to pivot too, right? It's like sometimes you just have to throw a bunch of things at the wall and see what sticks. And if it does end up failing, it's like, well, we can go back to the thing that was there before or we can try something new again. And life really...

Jeff Seckendorf (08:03.088)

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Seckendorf (08:06.328)

I think you have to be smart with it though, too. I think, you know, I've seen lots of people fail by, you know, leaving something solid, trying something that's sketchy, thinking it's going to be the world's new sliced bread. And then you have, when it doesn't work, there's nothing to pivot back to. So I think, you know, if you're going to play, then, you know, figure out the risk reward. Right?

Reese Brown (08:35.294)

Totally.

Jeff Seckendorf (08:35.712)

If the risk is too high, you know, it's like risk versus consequences, right? We wear a seatbelt, not because we're going to crash into a tree every day. We wear seatbelts because if you do crash into a tree one time in your life, the consequences are high. So, so I think when you start looking at risk reward, risk homeostasis, all this other stuff, you have to start to look at it and say, well, you know, I'm willing to take this risk.

Reese Brown (08:44.011)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (08:54.881)

Exactly.

Jeff Seckendorf (09:05.705)

and I understand the consequences.

Reese Brown (09:07.638)

Hmm. Yeah. One thing that my dad always says and really raised us with was this concept of being able to take risks, but those calculated risks where you do understand the consequences on both sides, but also not being afraid to go there. And I think, at least in my experience, you have kind of people that fall on either side of the spectrum where even when a risk is really worth taking.

There are people that are still averse to that and really don't want to put themselves out there. And then you have people who, like you said, will take a lot of risks, even if that consequence is really high and it's maybe not the highest risk reward metric. How do you think you've honed this kind of middle balance of being able to take smart risks that have really paid off for you?

Jeff Seckendorf (10:03.476)

You know, you read a thousand self-help books about making money and they're all written by people. Well, I've been bankrupt 16 times and I always come back from it. And I just think that's the dumbest thing ever. Right? It's like, well, does that make you smart or does that make you just a financial idiot? So you know, I think it's just, you know, balancing out the idea that, you know, you don't have to fail.

But you can, right? And I think a lot of people go into these things saying, well, it'll probably fail, but I'll learn a lot from it. Well, that's just crap, right? I mean, that's just stupid. So, I mean, be willing to fail, but, you know, not at a point where it's like some badge that you wear, you know, because, oh my God, I did, you know, you hear this on publish, on writers too, you know.

Reese Brown (10:36.906)

Mm-hmm

Reese Brown (10:56.405)

Yeah.

Jeff Seckendorf (11:02.664)

I sent my book to 46 publishers and the 47th took it. Well, that's great. That's tenacity, but that doesn't change your financial life, your responsibilities, all this other stuff. So, I think it's really just a question of, be smart, just understand what the outcome is, pick a goal, and if you don't reach it, do something else before you plummet.

Reese Brown (11:19.959)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (11:26.698)

Yeah, totally. One thing that I'm really interested in that I think is kind of in the subtext of the conversation we're having here. And when you talked about a little bit ago about really talking about living with purpose is bridging this gap between the things that we say we want and we mentally like, these are our values, these are our ethics, this is who I want to be, this is how I want to live my life.

but then the actual life that we live. And oftentimes those two things don't match up for a lot of people. Like we can have this really rich mental world and all of these ideas, but then the lived experience almost doesn't quite back it up. And I think your example of, you know, my end goal is I wanna be injury free at 70. So I stopped running when I was 60.

like switching to low impact exercise is a great example of, okay, these are the things I say I want, and I'm doing a behavior to back it up. In your work with living with purpose, how do you conceptualize and discuss the bridging of that gap between the things we say we want are spoken and thought about values and the actual like rubber to the road day to day life?

Jeff Seckendorf (12:51.408)

I mean, I think you have to be willing to live it or don't start. I mean, you know, if you have a job and you show up and it's nine to five and you make enough money and you're super content and you think that, you know, taking a risk is gonna upset that apple cart too much and not give you the room to whatever it is, play with kids, play with grandkids, just, you know, then don't take the risk.

That's all. I mean, how many people do you know have been trying to lose 20 pounds for 20 years, right? And it's not that hard, you just eat less. But, you know, it's, you know, stuff like that's just not rocket science. You just have to want it badly enough. There's a book out called, How Bad Do I Want It? That is, I can't remember who wrote it, but it's a really interesting book. It's chapter after chapter of people who...

Reese Brown (13:38.197)

Mmm.

Jeff Seckendorf (13:49.408)

athletes who have gone after an event, a project, an Olympics, a race, this, overcome something. And it's really stories of how badly people want it. And if you don't want it, great, don't start. But if you don't want it and you start and you don't get it and you complain about it, well, then you're in a circle that doesn't make any sense.

Reese Brown (14:08.972)

Yeah.

Jeff Seckendorf (14:19.0)

I think the first thing you do is you look at it and say, how badly do I want this goal, whatever this goal is? Do I want to lose 20 pounds? Do I want to quit a job and be my own boss? Do I want to write a book? I've done it too. I've got like probably 20 screenplays that are like 30 or 40 pages in. I have this great idea. I start and then I just like, oh, can't finish that. But then I just put it away. I don't stare at it for two years and say, oh my God, I got to finish this screenplay.

Reese Brown (14:23.331)

Mm.

Reese Brown (14:40.578)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (14:47.834)

Mmm, you kind of cut your losses and on any sunk time

Jeff Seckendorf (14:54.116)

Yeah, that's another good point is there's another book that's really, really interesting, um, by a woman named Annie Duke, who was a professional poker player for a long time. She wrote a book called quit and it's phenomenal read about, uh, about quitting. When it's good, when it's bad, when it's, you know, you know, again, she played poker, right? No one to hold them, no one to fold them, all of that. And there's so much interesting stuff in there.

Reese Brown (15:07.33)

Hmm.

Jeff Seckendorf (15:23.724)

You know, in poker, she's saying, don't quit while you're ahead. Quit while you're losing. And I thought that was one of the most interesting things in the world. She said, if you're winning, keep winning. If you're losing, stop losing. And you can take that as a metaphor for anything. Right. I mean, if your job is winning and you love it and you just don't have any responsibility and you come home every day and you feel great and blah, and you're winning at that job, well, they just keep winning. Right. But a lot of people.

Reese Brown (15:39.447)

Right.

Reese Brown (15:50.966)

Yeah.

Jeff Seckendorf (15:53.308)

I know over my years will upset the apple cart just for the sake of it. You know, don't like stability, don't like success. You know, I think fear of failure, I had a friend of mine who's a sports psychologist say to me one day that fear of failure and fear of success go hand in hand. So I thought that was interesting. I hadn't looked at it that way.

Reese Brown (15:58.798)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (16:16.631)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (16:21.294)

Totally. Why?

What do you think it is that-

I, this is an interesting phenomenon, but you've spoken a lot about how these qualities that you have is just this kind of innate thing that it's like, I've just always had this thing that makes me, you know, hone in on.

being present and saying yes, and all of these really great things. What do you think that difference is between people who maybe don't have that quality? Is it that they haven't focused on honing some of these abilities and mindsets? Or do you think that that's innate as well? What is the root there? Maybe psychologically?

Jeff Seckendorf (17:11.68)

No, I think it's curiosity. I think that's a simple way to do it. You know, I've always been curious about stuff. So, you know, when I left the film industry and started a scuba certification and training agency, it's like, I was curious about how can I parlay all of what I've done over my lifetime into an education program that happens to be around scuba, right? So a lot of it is curiosity. Um, you know, I'm, I'm training for, uh, an hour record on the bike, right. And

Reese Brown (17:13.591)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (17:31.406)

Mm.

Jeff Seckendorf (17:39.948)

A lot of it is curiosity as to whether my body can do it. And once I establish that that's what I'm curious about, now I'm in this crazy, expensive nutcase five-year training program to see if it can come true. But it all starts with some curiosity and then you go back to, you know, risk reward. So I don't think it's anything super.

crazy. I just think that if you can take some curiosity and parlay into something really fun and see if it goes anywhere and it doesn't, I mean, I've also seen people say, well, I'm going to quit my job, start a business, blah, blah. And then you've got like a family and a spouse and whatever who's like, well, now you're not making any money.

Now you've got four years in front of you to build a company that may or may not work. So it's that, it's how do you manage the risk reward again? But I think curiosity is where it starts. I think if you're, if you're not curious, great, don't be curious. Go have fun, do what you can do, whatever it is. If you're curious, go try to figure out ways to explore that curiosity without destroying your life along the way.

Reese Brown (18:38.444)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (18:46.476)

Right.

Reese Brown (19:01.566)

Yeah, safely and with intention behind it.

Totally. So I want to go back to something you mentioned a little bit earlier where you've done a lot of work in talking about living with purpose. And a lot of people say that their purpose is rooted in serving others, helping other people. And yet we have a society that some would say is pretty selfish. Like it's really difficult to not be because we are the center of our own universe. That's just how

any human being experiences life. What do you think it is that drives humans towards wanting to serve other people while still being innately, in the truest sense of this phrase, self-centered?

Jeff Seckendorf (19:54.676)

I think that's a good question. I think that when I speak on purpose, I am being so, so careful never to judge in these talks. And I've had one or two of these talks on purpose go a little sideways because I get judgy like that. It's like, well, you should be living with purpose. You should be doing this, you should be doing that. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh my God, all I've done is say should for an hour. So, you know,

Reese Brown (20:22.07)

Mmm.

Jeff Seckendorf (20:24.448)

When I looked at that really carefully and I said, well, I'm going to keep doing these talks on purpose. And we have this really cool little project going called the Institute of purpose. I'm so, so careful not to judge anybody. So when I talk about purpose. I talk about me. That's it. You know what I'm doing. What I like to do what I've done in my life. And now that I'm on this bike ride. This training for this bike ride. It's like

You know, a lot of my purpose is about fitness and training and getting stronger and seeing if I can, you know, be the fastest guy in the world at 70 for an hour. That's my goal. So I talk about this, but I never say you should do it. Reese, you should run like the fastest marathon in the world, or you should, you know, sail a boat faster than anybody else, whatever it is.

Doesn't matter. But if you judge it, if I judge it, then I'm not serving anybody. I'm just, you know, then I'm talking out of ego, right? If I sit there and I talk about myself, which of course, who doesn't want to do that, and I sort of explore these things I've done and how I'm doing them and the idea that, you know, I've taken on this, this crazy fitness thing, ostensibly because I want to set this world record. But.

Reese Brown (21:34.028)

Right.

Jeff Seckendorf (21:53.108)

Also, because it's keeping me so strong and so healthy and so fit that, you know, it's, it's very much a two sided goal. Right? It's like, right, because, you know, there are additional hour records to set after 70, like 80, 90, somebody said 105 year old our record, right? He rolled like 12 miles. So I want that. You know, I want to ride 13 miles when I'm 105.

Reese Brown (22:02.474)

Yeah, it supports all these other goals along the way.

Jeff Seckendorf (22:22.468)

But again, it's like, I can then take that and I can frame it in a way that says to a group of people, this is my purpose. I wake up in the morning to, you know, and I spend 12 to 15 hours a week training because it makes the other 40 hours super easy. Right. I mean, I do a crazy hard bike workout that I don't think I can complete and I finish it. It's like, well, that was really hard. Now I've got to do this.

Reese Brown (22:22.606)

I love that.

Jeff Seckendorf (22:53.636)

You know, project for scuba.

Reese Brown (23:02.378)

Nope, you are all good. We just... Yes, yes. No worries, we're still here.

Jeff Seckendorf (23:04.488)

We're still talking, right? I just hit the mic cable, okay. And so what I was saying was, I don't remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically you just keep, you know, you put yourself in this position where it's like, I'm just going to present, and then give you an opportunity to look at me as a mirror and say, okay, well, he's doing this.

Reese Brown (23:13.342)

No, you're so fine, don't worry about it. You.

Jeff Seckendorf (23:34.276)

And he doesn't seem crazy. He just seems motivated. And I don't want to go set a bike record, but you know, what I may want to do is. You know, finish this garden that I started 10 years ago and is now a bunch of weeds, right. And what's the end goal? Well, you know, it's going to cost me 10 times more than going to Trader Joe's and buying zucchini, but it's going to be a hundred times cooler to take it out of my backyard.

So you just figure out the fun factor, the cool factor, and the goal factor, and just put it all together and just go try to do something. So for me, it's really about just presenting the idea that I've taken something that seems very self-centered, very self-centric, a personal solo hour record, and I've framed it in a way that I can present it to people and say, well, that's my purpose, what's yours?

Reese Brown (24:11.647)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (24:34.606)

Hmm. Yeah. Right. More as a

Jeff Seckendorf (24:35.6)

without judging it.

Reese Brown (24:40.718)

to ignite curiosity within someone else as opposed to saying, right?

Jeff Seckendorf (24:43.408)

Yeah, sure. And that's what we're doing. I mean, that's when you say my purpose is to serve others, it's not to build them a house. I mean, that could be a purpose, that's cool, but it could be, I'm gonna go fix my garbage disposal in my house that I have. You know what I mean? It's like, it's just get doing something, get going, get moving.

Reese Brown (24:53.408)

Right.

Reese Brown (25:03.442)

Yeah, totally.

Reese Brown (25:07.666)

Right. One thing that I think is so fascinating about this, like you said, you're framing this thing that seems so self-centered innately, but when you were describing falling into these talks centering around the word should and stepping into more judgment, that feels like you're talking from a place of ego, a place of, you know.

maybe a little bit more hierarchical of I figured this out and this is how you should do it and that feels self centered, even though you're talking more pointedly at the other. Whereas when you step back into I'm just presenting my story, even though the content of that is more about you, it feels less egocentric and feels more Maybe

grace-filled for your audience in that they can find bits and pieces of gems and wisdom. Why do you

Jeff Seckendorf (26:08.336)

Right, and the content is not about them. The content is always about me, right? I never do anything other than say, this is what I'm doing.

Reese Brown (26:11.999)

rate.

Reese Brown (26:16.458)

Right. Which it's fascinating to me that feels less egocentric. So what do you think that kind of paradox sits in?

Jeff Seckendorf (26:30.98)

Oh, I think it's, um, it's motivation. I mean, we see this in really, really crappy instructors, right. Who teach for all the wrong reasons, right. Who teach to show off. Right. And this is the worst scenario ever. And I've seen this, you know, I have this scuba training system. I've been running forever and you know, I've trained a gazillion instructors over the years, both in scuba and in flying. And. You know, the most important thing.

Reese Brown (26:43.555)

Mm.

Jeff Seckendorf (27:01.488)

So in Unified Team Diving, my company, when we bring in an instructor candidate, most important thing is why do you want to teach? It's the very first thing. Why do you want to teach? You know, is it because you want to share this incredible experience that you have with others and give them the opportunity to explore the way you explored? Or is it because, you know, you know so much and you want to show everybody how much you know.

And that is complete recipe for disaster. So, again, I think when you look at this, it's like, yeah, I think you made a really good point that when I stand up and I talk about purpose for an hour and I'm only talking about myself, it could feel like ego, but it doesn't. Ego is me telling you what to feel. It's me telling you how you should live your life and how you should be of service and all this other. And this, you know,

This is one of the classic issues. I don't know if I want to go down this road, but in historic organized religion has gone sideways in a lot of cases because it's prophylacizing what you should do. It's not suggesting what I do and it works for me and maybe you could try something like this and see if it works for you. So as soon as you tell people what to believe, what to think, what to do, that's ego.

Reese Brown (28:17.175)

you

Reese Brown (28:25.314)

Totally.

Jeff Seckendorf (28:31.1)

talking about yourself and saying, hey, I'm just a mirror. That's not ego, that's consciousness.

Reese Brown (28:39.498)

Wow, I love that. And as long as you're comfortable with this, I would love to go down this road because I think that religion, spirituality is inherent in purpose and in how we make meaning, right? So I think it's important. Right, no, absolutely. And yes, well that, and I think it really, let's start there. How do you personally define purpose?

Jeff Seckendorf (28:55.74)

Well, those two things are different.

And that's the key.

Jeff Seckendorf (29:11.292)

I don't have a definition, you know, canned definition for purpose. You know, I mean, everybody has one, right? What you do to wake up in the morning, it's why you do things, but it's not relevant. You know, what's relevant is what you do, not how you label it. So you know, what's your purpose? I mean, you could just, you know, why do you get up in the morning? Why do you do what you do? Well, you know what? I fix cars. Why do you fix cars?

Reese Brown (29:17.483)

Right.

Reese Brown (29:26.047)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (29:37.676)

Yeah.

Jeff Seckendorf (29:40.752)

Well, it's fun and it helps people. Oh, look, it helps people. So you can find that where you are. My wife is medical. Well, why are you medical? Well, I love it. It's challenging, it's fun, but it really helps people. So it's that secondary thing that I think is primary that there's a road to help people and it's different for everybody, but it's almost always there.

Reese Brown (29:44.184)

rate.

Reese Brown (30:07.31)

Totally.

Yes. And I think what you said is so important that it's like it feels secondary, but it's actually primary. And that when we do like kind of a root cause analysis of these things and you get down to the true kind of core of this, that really is the lead thrust behind it. Something that feels so hidden within our daily practice is actually the thing that should be at the forefront of our

And I think to kind of connect back these two concepts of purpose and making meaning, for me, you have to find that purpose. That's what informs how we make meaning, right? That there is this kind of interesting communication between those two things.

Jeff Seckendorf (31:00.36)

Yeah, I mean there's a thousand ways to describe it and I think that's one of one of a thousand good ways to describe it.

Reese Brown (31:06.474)

Yeah, totally. And I think it should be deeply personal as well. To return to the question of organized religion, I happen to agree with you that the should of, you know, proselytizing and preaching tends to alienate more people than welcome them in with curiosity and openness.

Reese Brown (31:32.046)

Can I ask what your experience with spirituality has been? If you're not comfortable sharing, please do not feel pressured to share at all, but.

Jeff Seckendorf (31:39.524)

Yeah, I mean, I don't think I want to go totally down that road in this talk, but I am interested in making sure that I speak to people from a basis of good consciousness. That's really what I care about. I don't care about what anybody's religion is or anybody's spirituality is. It doesn't make a witty difference to me if it doesn't affect me.

Reese Brown (31:46.156)

Absolutely.

Reese Brown (31:56.601)

Mm.

Reese Brown (32:07.747)

Totally.

Jeff Seckendorf (32:09.852)

their religion is better than my way of life. And so now you're forcing it on me, which is what we're seeing, right? In, you know, the mucking up of church and state. So, you know, when people take their religious beliefs and decide to force it on somebody, that's not religion, right? That's just control, right? And that's, I don't believe in that at all, but.

Reese Brown (32:35.954)

Yeah, right.

Jeff Seckendorf (32:39.684)

you know, believe what you want. You know, it doesn't make any difference to me what anybody believes as long as they don't tell me what to believe. That I have the ability to read, to explore, to go to a thousand churches, to go to a thousand temples. You know, I'm doing a trip to Japan in May and we're gonna, you know, be able to go through lots of these Buddhist and Shinto temples and learn a lot about that, the history and that, you know, those...

Reese Brown (32:48.75)

Sure.

Jeff Seckendorf (33:09.084)

those sex and denominations and it's really interesting to me because it's just another thing to learn of which I can take this and I can take this and I can take this and I can take this and you know in that situation I think great. I have friends who do everything religiously, spiritually, all of that and they're all different and no one's better or has a better idea than the others. As long as you don't tell me what to think.

Reese Brown (33:33.642)

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think that your practice of, you know, it goes back to this root of curiosity, like wanting to learn from as many different practices as we can, but take what works and leave the rest, right? Like there is this deeply powerful thing of, don't throw the baby out with the bath water, but being able to kind of parse out what is to extend the metaphor.

the baby and what is the bathwater within different things and how that helps you personally be a better person or be the best person you want to be or be your favorite version of yourself or any of those things.

Jeff Seckendorf (34:16.38)

And that's not to take away from community, right? Which is one thing church can do well. It can do it badly, but it can also do it really well. So when you start to figure out what you like or what you believe or what you've learned and you wanna hang out with like-minded people, well, that works really well, right? Because then you're not having to tell somebody what to believe, because that's what the community does. So, you know, I don't wanna say it's all bad because it's not, but it is...

Reese Brown (34:32.212)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (34:42.67)

Totally.

Jeff Seckendorf (34:45.188)

you know, we do want to be careful that we're not using community to make our desire to tell you what to believe stronger.

Reese Brown (34:58.57)

Absolutely. I completely hear that. And I do think that community, while vastly important for every human being to have and to find these groups of like-minded people, when you have a really big group of people, it does make that

Reese Brown (35:18.69)

the oomph behind a should feel more powerful. So I absolutely hear what you're saying in terms of finding this balance between, you know, community, but also curiosity and having both of these things. Yeah, totally.

Jeff Seckendorf (35:33.285)

Yeah, no, I think it's important. I think it's important.

Reese Brown (35:39.99)

Yeah, okay. It is so exciting to hear about your trip that you're going to be taking to Japan and exploring these different temples. And one thing that you've gone back to a couple times is the idea of consciousness and presence. And even at the very beginning of our conversation when you said being able to say yes, that is rooted in presence for you. Where has that belief and mindset come from for you? And why do you find it so valuable?

Jeff Seckendorf (36:10.888)

the ability to say yes.

Reese Brown (36:13.314)

this practice of consciousness and presence.

Jeff Seckendorf (36:20.184)

Oh, you know, I think that's a learned thing in a lot of cases, right? It's how we grow up. It's what we're, our families give us. It's what our communities give us. That's just the way that I was plopped into society. Right. And, you know, I feel fortunate to have been there, you know, so it's just always, it's always been there with me. It's just, you know, you know, my parents, my grandparents, my family condoned. Try stuff, try stuff.

try stuff. That's how I got into photography, right? My uncle gave me a camera when I was six, right? A little Hawkeye Brownie. And, you know, that just started down the road. But again, once that started to turn into something, then, you know, my father condoned it, right? He was like, well, cool, that's good. Keep doing it. Let's build a darkroom together. Let's, you know, show you how to do plumbing, putting a sink in your darkroom. I'll show you how to do fiberglass. So I was able to kind of take all these things and

I was just fortunate that I had these opportunities to be in a family that, exploring stuff was condoned, not, my dad, PhD dad, when I eventually told him that, I was accepted at like five colleges and I'm not going to any of them, he was like, taking it back for like five minutes and then he was like, okay.

Go for it, see what you find, see where it goes. You can always go back. And so, I just think I've been fortunate to be in that situation, and I've been trying to pass that on to the people who are in my life now, who are young and impressionable, are grandkids and stuff like that.

Reese Brown (38:04.534)

Yeah, absolutely. And I think a word that used in this description is like condone and encouraging an environment of trying things really is so unique in a lot of families and really important. Cause I think kids do have this natural inclination towards curiosity and wanting to try things. And I think unfortunately it can be kind of taught out of us as we grow up and feel like.

practicality needs to take a bigger role. And like you said, curiosity and taking risks should absolutely be tempered with practicality and reason and all of that good stuff. But being able to maintain that is really powerful. Do you feel like...

How have you been able to transfer these lessons that you were given as a young person and taught to kind of embrace curiosity and trying things? How have you taken lessons that you've been given and been able to turn it around and be a teacher, an educator in these ways? One, as father, grandfather, but also as an entrepreneur and an instructor of...

many different things, especially in the fitness world.

Jeff Seckendorf (39:28.624)

So that's a very good question. And what I've been doing over the years is I have this program I do where I train corporate trainers. So train the trainer program. And part of it is getting to a point of mastery of something. So through a ton of work and a ton of readings and things like that, I've come up with this very simple path to mastery exercise, which is

how do you get really good at something? And the first thing that we do is we take, well, what are you good at? And learn, you know, and look backward as to how you figured out to get good at that. And the process is discovery, training, practice, teaching. Okay, those are the four steps in it. So, like I can use flying, right? Cause I'm a lifelong pilot. So discovery.

During airline deregulation in the late 70s, I was traveling a lot for work and I was getting flights cancelled all the time. So I thought, well, I'll just learn to fly. Right. That'll really stick it to US Air. So, so I went to an airport and I plopped my $50 down and I took the introduction flight. Right. And it was crazy. Hooked 100%. So that's discovery. OK. I want to do this. Training. Well, that was easy.

Right. I just signed up. Right. And over the course of the next bunch of months, I trained, and I eventually got a private pilot certificate. Then practice. This can take like two weeks or two lifetimes. Right. So then starting to fly more And more and more. And then I bought an airplane and then, you know, I got an instrument rating. Then I got a commercial certificate and I got to a point where I was good at flying.

And then I became an instructor. And the day I became an instructor was still just the day I was in that practice time. But once I started teaching, and you can't bluff, especially in an airplane, you start to realize that, well, now I'm really, really understanding this. Now I really get it because I can break it down and explain it to somebody. So that process of discovery, training, practice, and teaching.

Reese Brown (41:34.335)

Mm.

Jeff Seckendorf (41:53.384)

once you have something in your life that you can put into that framework, now I want to do something else. So now let's say, okay, I want to write a book that I have no idea how to write a book. Well, books have structure. There's a lot of craft to writing a book or a screenplay or whatever it is. So discovery, okay, I read a cool book. I want to write a book training. Now go learn how to do it. Learn the craft part, right? Which is the same

I trained to become a pilot. Now I'm gonna go take online courses, go to classes, go to book groups, whatever it is, to learn how to actually create a three act structure and within the three act structure there's chapters and within the chapter there's a three act structure and blah, blah. And then practice it. Write your book. And then once you really have it pinned, you can teach it and that's where you anchor it.

So you can take something you're good at and apply it to something you wanna be good at, knowing you've been through it once, you can be through it again. So that's kind of a long road to how do you figure it out. But then what I've done in all of these different three or four things in my life that I've been good at, filmmaking, flying, scuba, cycling, right? That's kind of it. Is when I get to the stage where I'm...

Reese Brown (42:59.743)

Yeah.

Jeff Seckendorf (43:19.08)

comfortable and I feel like I'm ready to master it, that's when I start teaching. And it's a lot of it's self-serving because I know that as I teach I get, but we have this thing we say with instructors is when the student learns ten things the instructor learns a hundred, right? And that's that mastery point that comes from teaching. So I think that that's why I've always embraced, you know, the education part of these things I've done in my life.

Reese Brown (43:23.565)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (43:37.719)

Right.

Jeff Seckendorf (43:48.888)

and done well, you know, filmmaking, flying, scuba and cycling. Um, because it gets me to that point where there's no faking. You have to just either have it mastered knowing that in mastery, you're always learning, right? The martial artists say the day you get your black belt is the day you start to learn it. So that's, it's a long answer to a short question.

Reese Brown (44:06.687)

Right.

Reese Brown (44:10.302)

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and no, that's it's beautiful. And I think it really speaks to the importance of again, curiosity and that it's a never ending road, and kind of this mirrored relationship between student and teacher that one cannot exist without the other and both inform each other and both in some ways are teachers and both in other ways are students and that's

really the beautiful part of education is that it is this symbiotic relationship that serves both parties. Yeah.

Jeff Seckendorf (44:46.48)

And you can start at any time. I mean, like, you know, I've said this before, I'm a year away from 70 and about two years ago, I started teaching track cycling. You know, basically, you know, it's not a career, but it's a cool part-time thing and I love it and it's cool. But you know, I started now, right? It's like, I'm not stopping. I'm just continuing to try to find new things. And as I teach, I learn more and I get better and blah, blah.

Reese Brown (45:06.668)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (45:14.058)

Right, you discover something new to want to explore. Where do you think that desire to continue this exploration even at, you know, an age that a lot of people I think look at as, well, I'm good. I did the thing, I can relax. And it seems like for you, it's like, I've done the thing. That means I get to continue doing it and trying and exploring.

And at the beginning, you spoke to that about mindset. What is that mindset?

Jeff Seckendorf (45:48.156)

It's the same thing. It's just curiosity. It's just wanting to keep going and you know people keep constantly saying why don't you just retire and You know I've got a pat answer for that now, which is I could retire, but I do the exact same things I'm doing now, but without the money So why would I do that?

Reese Brown (45:49.662)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (46:05.67)

Yeah, yeah. Well, and it's like, why, the idea of like this job that you retire from so that we can then go do the thing we want. It's like, let's try and merge these that we can.

Jeff Seckendorf (46:17.552)

Well, then you missed, then you missed. I mean, how many people retire and die?

Reese Brown (46:21.129)

Exactly.

Jeff Seckendorf (46:25.392)

you know, like a year later. It's like, well, you missed, buddy.

Reese Brown (46:27.276)

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I totally agree that the, yes, I agree. So we keep kind of coming back to these same principles of curiosity, motivation, presence, saying yes, openness. Is there something besides your own lived experience and the way you were brought up and raised like...

Where do you attribute this kind of underpinning mindset and attitude to? What is, if we were to do a root cause analysis on the importance of curiosity to you, what would that be?

Jeff Seckendorf (47:15.264)

You know, I've never tried to pin it down like that because I kind of don't care You know, it's just who I am and who I become and Not to make it selfish then I try to share it and that's all I Don't really have a bigger Answer to that. It's just you know, I'm having fun and I try to share it

Reese Brown (47:19.679)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (47:30.647)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Reese Brown (47:40.286)

Yeah, no, and I think that, you know, sacred simplicity, sometimes it really is as beautifully simple just as that. Okay, to be mindful of time, I have a couple questions that I always like to ask every guest, so I want to make sure you have plenty of time to do that. One is just open space in light of our conversation and what we've discussed. Is there anything that you want to

return to, anything you'd like to clarify or something that we didn't touch on that you think is important that we cover and get to.

Jeff Seckendorf (48:18.66)

No, I think it's just, just say yes. It's like always just say yes, right? When opportunities come up, be alert and say yes, and then figure it out. Just don't give everything up before you figure it out.

Reese Brown (48:29.16)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (48:33.29)

Right, right. Follow-up question, the be alert piece, how would you help someone hone their alertness if that's the piece that they feel like they're missing?

Jeff Seckendorf (48:49.276)

You know, I think you need a marker for that. And for me, the marker is, will this be fun? You know, it doesn't have to be profitable. You know, I do lots of things that are profitable and I do lots of things that are not profitable. That's the nice balance. But I don't do anything that's not fun, period. I mean, that's it. It's like, you know, bring me a project that's not fun and I'll just say no.

Reese Brown (48:54.507)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (49:14.144)

Yeah.

I love that. That's so important. And then to be able to find, cause I think so often there's this like false dichotomy of, well, if you're having fun, it's not important. You're just like slacking off. And it's like, actually it's

Jeff Seckendorf (49:26.296)

If you're having fun, it means it's working. And then I think it's also important to believe this idea that do what you love and the money will follow. Which for me took about a million years to prove because that took a little longer to believe fully than it took to demonstrate it. But once I really got that.

Reese Brown (49:31.666)

It's... No, no, you're good.

Reese Brown (49:39.306)

Yes.

Reese Brown (49:50.414)

Sure.

Jeff Seckendorf (49:53.904)

Then I found out it's true. And I think that's just, you know, allowing yourself to make money off of stuff that's fun. And not feel like, well, you know, I have a job, it's not fun, but that's where I make my money. And then I go, you know, play baseball with my kids and that's fun, but that doesn't make any money. I coach, you know, high school, whatever.

Reese Brown (49:55.839)

Yeah.

Jeff Seckendorf (50:18.276)

And that's not supposed to make money, so it can be fun. But this thing where I go to work every day makes money, so it's not fun. That's ridiculous. That's just ridiculous. So use fun as a marker, a baseline, and then know that if you do what you love, the money will follow, and it's true. And I'm saying that from the position of having enough money to live. It doesn't look like it's true when you're broke, right?

Reese Brown (50:37.806)

Totally.

Jeff Seckendorf (50:45.296)

But then you have to go back and say, are you broke or are you poor? Because they're very, very different, right? I've been broke in my life, but I've never been poor. So I think if you break those two things down, you can look at it and say, okay, well, it's funny and it's profitable, that's a win-win-win, right?

Reese Brown (50:51.126)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (51:05.598)

Yeah, totally. And I do think that it's, fun should be so intimately tied to purpose, right? And I think when we talk about these kind of heady concepts, people are like, oh, well, that's very serious work and it's very, hmm. It's like, no, it's actually deeply fun to get to know yourself and what lights you up and what makes you wanna go teach someone else about something, what makes you wanna get out of bed in the morning, yeah, so.

Jeff Seckendorf (51:31.684)

Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Reese Brown (51:35.05)

I love that. Final question to round out our conversation. What is one word to describe how you feel right now?

Jeff Seckendorf (51:48.413)

Uh, gonna have some fun. Today's gonna be fun. I don't know what it is. It's gonna be fun.

Reese Brown (51:53.866)

Fun, no, that's perfect. Well, this conversation has been deeply fun for me. I really enjoy discussing these things and it's always so great to be able to talk with experts in their fields and especially someone with as many different fields as you. It's lovely to hear about that journey and how it has informed the work you do. So thank you again so much for.

Jeff Seckendorf (52:00.04)

Good. Yeah, me too.

Reese Brown (52:22.634)

all of your time and energy during this conversation. Is there anything else that you would like to throw out there before we sign off?

Jeff Seckendorf (52:29.616)

No, I'm good. I appreciate the time.

Reese Brown (52:31.69)

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much and I will be in touch very soon. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Jeff Seckendorf (52:36.584)

Okay, thanks, Reese.