Thrive In Spite of Life's Challenges; Lee Baucom

Lee Baucom believes you can thrive regardless of what life gives you. Lee holds a Ph.D. and is a Thriveologist and Life Coach. For the past three decades, he has studied how people thrive, applying that information in his writing, teaching, and coaching. He is the author of seven books, three focused on how to thrive. And he is the creator of the Thrive Journal, a daily process to steadily increase thriving in everyday life. Lee is also the host of the Thriveology Podcast, providing weekly lessons and interviews on thriving since 2013. As a teacher and speaker, Lee discusses the importance in finding meaning and living purpose, so that people create the impact desired in life.

Listen & Subscribe on: iTunes / Stitcher / Podbean / Overcast / Spotify Contact Info

• Website: www.Thriveology.com
• Podcast: The Thriveology Podcast by Lee Baucom
• Book: The Immutable Laws of Living: The Inspirational Blueprint to Living Your Meaningful Life by Lee Baucom
• Book: Thrive Principles: 15 Strategies For Building Your Thriving Life by Lee Baucom

Most Influential Person

• Jack Canfield
• Growing up it was My Mom – she was always helping us to recognize our emotional intelligence.

Effect on Emotions

• It's easy to be present when you're in a good mood. My challenge is when I'm upset about something. It's not like you're saying I'm not upset. Mindfulness is saying, ok, I'm upset, now what do I do about it.
• One of my practices has always been to have an activity where I have to be fully immersed. Scuba diving used to be one of my activities. Scuba diving meant that as soon as you starting getting ready for it, you'd better be thinking about that. That's all you did.
• The person who was my instructor and then my dive partner told me, it was like a mini vacation. For however long you're under water, it's only that. That was fully immersed, fully present, you can't be thinking about anything else.
• More recently my activity has been Jiu Jitsu. Jiu Jitsu is a practice in mindfulness because the last thing you want to do it let anger take you over when you're in the midst of sparring because this is not your enemy.

Thoughts on Breathing

• I've always been very interested in breath and breathing. In my childhood I did Taekwondo and my instructor was always talking about doing diaphragmatic breathing.
• I was a chaplain for a number of years and I used diaphragmatic breathing to calm people down. You could watch their oxygen level just shoot up just by me coaching them through that. They used to call me into the ‘ER' just to help people get through an anxiety attack.

Suggested Resources

• Book: Eckhart Tolle Books
• Book: Thrive Principles: 15 Strategies For Building Your Thriving Life by Lee Baucom
• App: Elite HRV Lee Uses an Apple Watch and an Aura Ring to monitor heart-rate variability. This app tracks your heart-rate variability

Bullying Story

• I was probably the antithesis of a bully. I was Mr. Nice Guy for a long time.  That was something that I really tried to live into and anything that challenged that was difficult for me. We had moved about a year before and I didn't have a lot of friends.
• I had these sketch pads and I wanted to sketch, but part of dyslexia is dysgraphia and my drawing and handwriting was terrible and nothing good was coming out of the sketching. So there was this guy and I thought he was my best friend and he liked to draw so I gave him my sketch pads and didn't think anything about it.
• About a week later he started handing out these sketch pads saying I had drawn these soft porn kind of pictures on them. It was so anti-who-I-was. I was a straight-laced, going to church kid and my father was the pastor. I was respectful and this was nothing I would have drawn. I knew that I hadn't done it.
• It went around the circle and people were laughing at me and pointing at me and I saw him do it. It took me a while to figure out all it was and people were coming up to me and asking if I really drew all these pictures. I didn't. So that was the bullying moment. It left an impact. My mom was a guidance councellor in school and so I went to her and told her the situation.
• She said two things. She said if you put fuel on a fire it will burn hotter. If you let it go, it will burn out. Somebody else will be next up. You're going to have to decide whether you're going to put fuel on it or leave it alone.
• The second thing she said is, consider the source. I thought, why would that person act that way, why would he be hurtful to me. I realized it had nothing to do with me, it was his need for attention. Once I used those tools, I could look at him with empathy. I didn't have to become the enemy. It took about a week and it blew over.

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