Discover the Magic Within – Part 2

Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
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oh This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management and training.

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There’s a great adage, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I was ready, I was open, I was willing. Keep your heart and mind open. And whether it’s a mentor like Uncle Mark or this book or some other form of inspiration, it’s out there. Put away your ego and see that there’s helpers all around. Hi, I’m Eric Vickery, president of coaching at All-Star Dental Academy. With me today is Alex Nottingham, CEO and founder of All-Star Dental Academy. He’s also the author of

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the book, My Uncle the Magician. This is a two part series, this is part two. And I gotta say, again, Alex, how much I enjoyed the storyline of the book. You being your friend, your partner in business, and knowing you for over 10 years now, I gotta say, I didn’t know any of that, of course. And knowing you in the version of who you are today was like…

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thinking, oh, well, he was just always this way. He was always wired to go to law school and he was wired to work for Tony Robbins. And this was really cool for me as your friend to see some insight into what helped you become the successful human being that you are, what Heather is as well. And so I’m excited for this second part for us to do a deeper dive into that. But before we do that, why don’t you give us just a brief overview of the book?

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Just give us some insight into some things we talked about, like who is your uncle, the magician, the process tools. Let’s try to catch you up. We talked about last time. So the premise of the book is simple. The world is an illusion. It works by magic. And the magic is your perception. As you change your perception, you change your world. Magic equals perception. That’s the core premise. And this book is a true story about me and my uncle.

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and other characters. course, Heather’s a big part of it. My wife, and it’s something that we all can relate to about facing difficult times in life and having the fortune of having a mentor or someone that comes to our aid and can help us navigate the world essentially. And, and that’s the core of the book. My uncle is a physician, OBGYN.

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I was always fascinated by him ever since I was probably 12, 13. People may think of him as eccentric, but when you read the book, as you mentioned last podcast, he kind of gives this aura of very wise man, like a Socrates or Dumbledore, if you will. You called him guru. He wouldn’t say that. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yeah, Obi-Wan, sure. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan, Dumbledore. uh

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He would love, we talk about certain movies, he loves movies. You talk about that in the book and the hero’s journey. And I was on my own hero’s journey. That could be a whole nother podcast about how the have down here, this is Alex’s hero’s journey and his uncle is the guide. Talk a little bit about the hero’s journey because that is a theme in the book that you’ll follow. and basically hero’s journey is movies are founded by this and it’s kind of a natural process that we all follow. And if we’re aware of it, we can be a little bit more.

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active in our manifestation. And part of a hero’s journey is the mentor, the Yoda. come up and they Obi-Wan, they help you along the way. This is Star Wars references or a Dumbledore if you’re Harry Potter, so on. So my uncle helped me through a difficult breakup in college. He taught me the process. And this is wisdom, timeless wisdom, as well as psychology, even movie producers and Nobel Prize laureates that

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came together, this group, to figure out how the world worked. And he was part of that group. He was trained by the group because they were actually looking for physicians and therapists to learn this stuff, to bring it to others, to implement it. So that’s the process. And the book goes a little bit more into it from Uncle Mark’s words. And as I mentioned, my uncle helped me. We talked in the last podcast about meditation being a very powerful tool to move from a state of

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fight or flight to a state of calmness and sanity, which is a word that my uncle would use, which is essentially seeing clearly, being calm and rational, nothing woo woo about it. Just be sane. And so that’s kind of in a nutshell we talked about last time. Yeah. Yeah. Good overview. In last time you talked about the breakup with a girlfriend, obviously that all of it was news to me reading the story, but there was, there was obviously

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More happened later. You get married to Heather. You have a child, Zachary. You started an amazing business. You help your father out. So just kind of give us some insight as to in the process, what happened later from this, I guess, starting point of the breakup. reached this point. mean, happy wife, son, house is paid off, successful business, basically financial free. And I’m like, I won the game. Mic drop.

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done. This is great. I should be really happy. My uncle’s like, great. He made a life. I’m like, yeah, but something wasn’t right. Something was off. Here we go again. If we all think about our journey in life, it’s not just one where we’re having different battles in life. I mean, these were mine. Others have to go through cancer or a death of a loved one. But for me, out of the blue breakdown and I had generalized anxiety, which means I didn’t know why I was anxious.

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And it wasn’t a particular trigger. I was just anxious all the time, panic attacks. And I tried everything. Uh, was scared to do medication. I, maybe it would have been easier if I could just had this quiet desperation, but I still did my job. I still spoke. I still led all star, but I wasn’t depressed, but inside it was just like, ah, I just, and it’s tough because being an achiever, Tony Robbins coach.

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achieving all these things and then feeling like nothing can work. Like I’m, I want to do it, but it just doesn’t happen. It’s like those thoughts are coming. Those feelings are coming. I just couldn’t shake it. And I remember even sitting with my son and I couldn’t even sit still with him and play with him. I was just my whole body and

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And it’s interesting, know, as I prepare for the interview, it’s like, I write this down, I think about it, but then talking about it, kind of get choked up um about what I went through and about also thinking about other people, lack of joy. But just, I felt like eventually I would get through it. And I just also feel compassion for so many people because I think the hardest part of that is not knowing what’s happening. It’s like trying to fix it and not knowing and thinking I’m alone or something’s wrong with me.

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even go to the hospital and they’re giving me Xanax or something like, no, you’re having a panic attack. Nothing’s wrong. Your heart’s fine. And I’m like, Oh, did I break myself? Right. Cause burnout was like up something broke. So that’s where I was. So it went from the girlfriend, you know, the other one to now this. And so that was, that was a difficult time. I have the imagery of the stock market ups and these downs of life. And it was like, Oh, you’re going, you have this business and then you’re down here. And then

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This is where the inner critic shows up. He doesn’t show up when you’re at the bottom. He shows up when you’re at the top and you start having these thoughts and then you have anxiety going on. All these things are happening. And then you’re still trying to have this face of, hey, I’m running a successful life. And yet there’s these things going on. And so you have your uncle to turn to. how did you get out of that dip in life? How did you overcome it? What did you learn through that process?

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I’m glad you mentioned inner critic. That’s something that we do see in the book quite a bit and why the breakdown. I wasn’t using the tools. I wasn’t really following the process anymore. And I founded ways to avoid or suppress issues. So there’s a mental suppression, just, not going to deal with that. Or there’s like certain feelings, uh, avoided, uh, the certain inner pain.

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overworking is an avoiding way and just do more of that and pushing. you and I have had just side conversations about things, but I mean, the book is an, another level of in depth vulnerability that you’re sharing that I didn’t know about, but I have seen the shift in your, I don’t know what the right word is temperament or like the level of calmness that you engage in things or your approach maybe is what I would say.

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fall into tools. So you’re going, things are going well, you abandon the process, boom, crash. So I’m like, here we are. And for an achiever, as you know, not being able to fix something, not being able to control something almost makes it worse. It’s like that finger trap, the more you pull, the harder it gets. That’s kind of how I felt for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And so you’re in there and, you did learn that you weren’t using the tools. How did you overcome and dig your way out of that next valley?

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So for those who ever deal with anxiety or depression, I think there’s parts of the book that can be very helpful or burnout. Uh, and also I think it’s good for everybody to read this just in case you ever do get it or see somebody that gets it or how to prevent from getting it, I think is really good. I wish I learned these tools before. mean, part of them was from the process, but part of them was deepening into the process, but it’s not what I’m feeling. It’s what I’m not feeling.

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It’s not what I’m feeling. That’s what I’m not feeling. That’s a problem. So I’m thinking anxiety and these, these feelings were that this is a bad feeling. It’s because I’m not feeling something else and it’s a lack of feeling. And so I use the tools, meditation, introspection. I face my fears. It’s one thing uncle Mark taught me a lot in the book face to fears. I allowed it to pass through me. And you’ll see these great imagery in the book about how I had to face certain fears and

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In the beginning I was afraid and panicked and other times I later eventually Part of the hero the hero wins at the end, which is nice uh You’re here talking about it. So right so I pass it obviously I win and Well, I say win, but I’m able to go to healing and stop trying to fix myself Because fixes is band-aid and more get to know myself love myself accept myself yeah, the principles are just

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Very healthy is what I would say. And you said face your fears. was reading, I was thinking, you gotta get these things up and out. you have to, the more you bury and you stack and you bury and you stack, it’s like that old saying, like you’re sweeping things out of the rug, band-aid, you’re not helping anything. It’s just, you’re gonna run into it later on. It’s gonna trip you up again and you can pretend all you want, but it’s not really being an authentic healthy.

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May those words are backwards. A healthy person who’s authentic. You know, you’re pretending to be healthy. really see yourself move through it. So your uncle’s here. He’s in the process. How are those things helping you navigate out of this as well? So what’s interesting in the book, and this is, this is also part of the hero’s journey, which is cool, uh, is that my uncle’s a mentor and in the hero’s journey, I have to face the dragon alone. You have to face that adversity and we allude to it.

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It was interesting is there wasn’t much my uncle could do. He reminds me of the tools, he was always there for me, but this was a battle. I had to fight alone for the first time. And I remember even with my wife, mean, she was there for me, but I didn’t want to overshare because it was bringing her down. But she would have, she’s so noble that she would have sit there and taken whatever I tell her. But I realized I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to hurt her. But I knew she was there for me if I needed her, but I needed to work through this.

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But I do recall a lesson from Uncle Mark about the selves, that we’re not one person. And so in the book, we talk about the three selves. We have an inner self, that’s memory and emotion. It’s kind of like some people call it your inner child. So typically it looks like or acts like a child, like six, seven, 12, whatever the different ages, a middle self, which is our logic and reason, and our higher self, our connection to inspiration or purpose when we feel, ah, I have a vision.

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You know, something that fills us up. And so it’s understanding that we’re, we’re, these selves. Now the higher self kind of comes through grace, meditation, prayer. You can kind of connect to it, but you don’t control that the middle self we can control the middle self is logic and reason. And we need the middle self to be able to navigate, but often it’s our inner self where we get into trouble because again, what’s happening, what I realized suppressing. I tell the inner self tough.

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Right? So when the middle self is an act, the middle self has to keep the inner self in check like a parent. What I realized in my case is the suppressing was I didn’t want to hear what the inner self had to say. It was scared, it was afraid. I don’t want to hear it. Ignore it. Run away from it. And eventually that will crack. Eventually the inner self is going to break through because there’s just so much being pushed down that it’s going to come out. And so what I had to do is do more inner self work.

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more understand my parts, understand I’m not just this ego of, of Alex and the successful. Cause again, that doesn’t mean when you’re feeling like this, none of that meet JDMBA means nothing. Money means nothing. It’s nothing. It’s not important. Your mind isn’t working the way you want it to work. was about recognizing that and accepting all of me when I was able to accept the fear, the sadness, the, uh, judgments. I accepted it all.

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I loved it all. built a relationship with my inner self. I did that work and a lot of love and compassion. And part of the love and compassion is like, okay, I’m in pain right now, but I’m going to sit with you. I’m going to be with you and I’m not going to run away. And it took a couple of years to heal, uh, anxiety, to heal what I was going through. And so, uh, whenever that arises in me, I

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I know how to be with it. And I think part of this is as well, this is a toughie, is not being afraid of more emotional turbulence and just knowing that I can get through it and that others, example for others to get through it. But when that comes, instead of fighting it, find ways of being with it. When you can separate,

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I have this inner self, this little kid, and then you have to develop that parent within saying, I love you, you’re good enough. One of the tools that Uncle Mark teaches is going into a mirror and saying, I love you. And it’s hard to do that, but I’m so grateful for it. I wouldn’t have it in another way because it was a fuel to be able to go deeper and to, I find myself less judgmental of people and myself, because as I judge another person, I’m judging myself.

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except all the good or the seemingly bad, all of it in myself and others. And, uh, yeah. So those were some of the inner inner self work. I want to make sure people are hearing what you’re saying. I’m to pack just for a minute. So this inner self is everyone is dealing with this. This imagery of, of like a child, a very emotional child. And, and how do you parent it? How do you speak to it? How do you guide it?

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And you have, then you have your middle self that’s reasoning and it’s a larger, and it feels like, okay, I’m more in tune with that. And I have, I have some ability to, don’t know if controls is right word, but, touch base with this portion of who we are. And when that, you know, self-talk, when that, uh, meditation, when those tools that you’re using, you’re, you’re able to approach there to get to the inner child, unpack up and out, get those things out and get healthy so that the higher self can truly be living.

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this passionate life can chase vision and not just be depressed going to work and having burnout and all of this. So it is interesting that the way that’s labeled and described and how we face those things can be, people put different words on it and all sorts of different categories of language, but it really boils down to the same thing is how healthy are you at the core of who you are? And so many things to say and unpack there, but. um

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When you think about people who are listening to this, who now going to buy the book and get into it, what are you hoping that people take away from that, from reading the book? I would say that you’re not alone. There’s a great adage, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And I think that was true for Mark and myself. I was ready. I was open. I was willing. And I think that’s what I tell people, keep your heart and mind open.

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And whether it’s a mentor like uncle Mark or this book or other, some other form of inspiration, it’s out there. Uh, but you know, put, put away your ego or anything there and just open your mind, your heart, see that there’s helpers all around. And this podcast could be that helper who knows. And, uh, it’s just, that’s what I would say to people is that, uh, you’re not alone and there’s always help. Yeah. Yeah. The hero’s journey.

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That arc of, you know, all of us have struggles in our arc. All of us are the hero in our own story, but we need guides. We need people who’ve been there before, done that, struggled with it, fought through it. and I often will say, why are we, why are we going through this? And a lot of times the only thing we can really say is, well, at some point we’re going to need to help someone else to go through the same thing. And we become the guide in those scenarios. And you’ve gone through something that on the other side of it,

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um the healthy side of it, you’ve been able to now look back and say, okay, I get to now be the guide here and support others that are going through the same things, the challenges of life, anxiety, to frustration, burnout, all of it. And so happy that this tool is out for them. Where can people pick up this book? Sure. So we’ll put some in the show notes.

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It will be at All-Stradental Academy for sure, but you can also go to alexnottingham.com There’s an order button you can order from every major retailer is available in both hardcover and ebook. We have a great great publisher we’re happy so grateful for and so that’s where you can pick it up there if you let Heather know Heather at All-Stradental Academy.com if you got the book she’ll throw at you in a nice way a whole bunch of

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All-star resources. We always want to take care of those listening to the podcast and following all-star, uh, additional, uh, free training as well. And like Eric said, if the book resonates with you, uh, share, uh, get somebody a copy. This is what it’s all about. It’s about paying it forward. I said this, I in the first podcast is like, why am I doing this? All of us at all star built a great company and great life. I was given a special.

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teachings method and even just that love and support sometimes even beyond the words you can just feel caring from a step uncle not my blood no obligation and he would do this for everybody uncle mark would help everybody one by one and this is a way that he he will live on through this book and through so many people wisdom it’s like when you see someone who’s got wisdom you capture it listen to it share it

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And it’s the idea is just paying it forward. That’s it. Yeah. Yeah. This is a true example of that sort of process and tool of paying it forward and helping people realize what’s going on internally so can fix what’s going on externally. So, very, very powerful tool. Thank you all for listening. Please share this podcast with others who may be interested in this, or maybe they’re having challenges in their life that they’re trying to figure out how do they navigate through? Share this with them.

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And we thank you for listening. Thank you for being a part of the All-Star family. And until next time, go out there and be an All-Star.

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We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at AllStarDentalAcademy.com