Kay:

Hey family. Welcome back to the Kay & Shi Show.

Shi:

This week, we’re featuring some of our favorite books and authors and we cannot wait to share these with you.

Kay:

We are so excited to get into it. So, each day of the week, Monday through Thursday, you’re going to get a different author with several books that we’re going to discuss, and then of course you’ve got your Friday Roundup episode.

Shi:

Love that, and love where we’re starting off this week, which is Kay and I’s number one recommendation for a book. If you only take one recommendation, this is the one that we would give you. We love all of these books and all of these authors, but this is the most transformative book for us and that’s the book “The Untethered Soul” by the author, Michael Singer.

Kay:

Now, when we first encountered this book, it was the fall of 2019 and it was recommended to us from a stage by Tony Robbins, who said that he gifts this book to people in his family for Christmas and if it’s good enough for Tony Robbins to gift to people, we figured that maybe it could be a gift to us.

Shi:

What we love about this book in particular “The Untethered Soul” is the insights inside of it. You actually don’t get to know the author at all in this book, but you do get to know his story in his next book called “The Surrender Experiment.” So, if you find yourself listening to or reading “The Untethered Soul” and you really enjoy it, then we would highly recommend the other works by Michael Singer. He’s even got a new book coming out in May of 2022 called “Living Untethered,” how to take kind of the principles and the theories out of “Untethered Soul” and apply them to your life. But that big, most transformative idea out of “Untethered Soul” that was just soul-shaking for us was this idea that you are not the voice in your head.

Kay:

Now, the voice in your head is something that you are probably pretty dang familiar with. In fact, let’s just get familiar with it really quick. You know I’m going to say a sentence, or a quick phrase and I just want you to think it back to yourself. Okay. So, let’s just go la-la-la-la-la. Now you think that in your own brain. Ready, your turn. Bet you heard a little voice in there, didn’t you?

Shi:

Now, if you heard that voice singing la-la-la that means that you in fact have this narration inside. Most of us do. Yes, there is a very small sliver of the population that only thinks in pictures and does not think in articulation of language. But most of us hear a voice in our head dictating and narrating our entire lives.

Kay:

Now, one of the biggest, most transformative things that came from this book was the idea that if you can hear this voice, that if there is something or someone or some entity inside, that is the listener of that voice. If you can hear it, then who’s listening?

Shi:

Right. Like that alone, just pause and stop on that for a minute. If I was solely the voice, I wouldn’t be able to hear it. If I was solely my emotional experience, I wouldn’t be able to feel it right_ So, this idea that there is that voice in your head, but that’s not you, that’s not your 100% entire identity and your soul articulating to you. It’s actually a function of your brain, right, and it helps keep us alive and it helps us discern our environment and make fast decisions and we love our voice. In fact, your voice can be your best friend and your number one encourager, and your thinking partner. But it, for many of us, can be a very detrimental neurotic inner roommate as Michael Singer likes to say that if somebody outside of us was talking to us in the way that sometimes our voice narrates inside of our heads, we would call them crazy and we would kick them out. This realization for us allowed us to feel that separation and then start to get back into the driver’s seat where we can say, I understand and hear what you’re saying, voice, and I’m not even going to banish you or ask you to stop, but I’m not going to accept or receive that as my identity.

Kay:

Well, if you’re anything like us, you know, like Shila said, sometimes that voice can be less than constructive. Have you ever had thoughts in your own head? Like, you know, you’re looking in the mirror before you leave to go out and you find 18 flaws, right. You’re looking, your hair looks funny and oh, I feel weird in the clothing that I have, or I’m not looking forward to what’s coming up in this space and your thoughts end up harming your emotions or making you feel a certain way. Then you kind of get through it and you’re like, man, that didn’t feel very good, or my inner self-talk isn’t very constructive. But that degree of separation and understanding that that talk isn’t you, that you are the experience of that brain function. You’re the experiencer, or at least you’re another part of that just helps you to bring some awareness that you don’t always have to believe the not-so-nice things that your brain might say to you.

Shi:

So, this book is all about untethering your soul from that voice and allowing your soul to be what’s in charge, be that awareness, that energy, that spark, that spirit, whatever it is that you want to call it. It is the listener to that voice, and it is what we can put into the driver’s seat that consciousness piece. And we hope that this little dive into this one concept from the book maybe intrigues your interest enough to either listen to the Audible or read the book. It’s definitely our number one recommendation and a great place to start here in our book club series.

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Kay:

Alright, we’re back again with another episode here in book club. Today, we’re going to talk about Brené Brown. Many of you have likely heard of Brené. She recently released a book called “Atlas of the Heart,” but she has many best-selling books. But the “Atlas of the Heart” has also taken off with her HBO special of the same title and we just love Brené and have been students of hers for almost a decade.

Shi:

And she’s been teaching and researching for decades. She lives in, I believe, Texas in the Houston area. She’s a tenured professor and researcher and really focuses on emotions, particularly starting out with the emotion of shame. She was a shame researcher for a long time and has expanded her emotional portfolio and research portfolio quite a bit since then. But her work has really helped bring the ideas of vulnerability and authenticity into organizations more so than I think anybody else’s work at this time.

Kay:

Well, I have loved what Brené has brought forward. The subject of shame and vulnerability, especially as it plays into workplaces, hasn’t been something that has been touched a whole lot right? You think about work. You think about the office environment. You think about business, right? Do emotions have a place in business? Most people would likely say no, but Brené came forward and said, well, people have emotions and people have a place in business, which means emotions have a place in business too.

Shi:

Understanding how they operate and how they guide the decisions that we make within our organizations and within our own selves and within our lives is incredibly fascinating. Pick up any of Brené Brown’s books and you will love it and you will be fascinated, and if you are an Audible user as Kay and I both are, she reads her books and as time has gone on, she gets more and more keen to developing the work towards a listening audience. She says, look, I listen to Audible and books all the time so I’m going to make this really easy for you as you listen. So, I just finished listening to “Atlas of the Heart.” There were several times where it starts to get a little researchy, and then she’ll say, let me read that to you again and break it down because this is really pivotal. I don’t want you to miss it. If you’re driving, like listen to this. And you’re like, oh yeah. She’s like, literally talking to me right now and she’ll go over it and it’ll just be so transformative and informative.

Kay:

Well, this newest book and corresponding HBO special “Atlas of the Heart” has really been impactful for me personally, because it is an atlas of emotions. So, she goes through the 84 emotions that we know through research exist within a human heart and there were a few of those that I didn’t even know existed that were really great to kind of understand. The concept of the book is that we are rooting language into the emotional concept so that people can accurately describe how they feel in a moment to help other people understand where they’re at. She says, “If we have a common language, that’s backed by research, we’ll find that we can more easily help share where we’re at with others.”

Shi:

Right. Well, that’s exactly what an atlas does for a map. So, she’s giving us the atlas to our emotions and to the feelings that our heart feels. You know, what she reveals in this latest work is that after surveying thousands of people about what emotions they experience, on a daily or a weekly basis. Lots of emotions were named, but three were overwhelmingly named as those reoccurring emotions and that’s happy, sad, and mad and what a just kind of disappointing outcome for the human experience to get boiled down to those three emotional dimensions. Because as you listen into the book, we really do have so much more depth and breadth with our emotions and once we’re able to articulate and identify those emotions we can more easily navigate where they’re trying to protect us or help us or guide us in ways that are more constructive and less detrimental to our relationships and to ourselves.

Kay:

You know, there are so many amazing things that came out of this particular book and some incredible insights and takeaways, but because these are short episodes, I want to leave you with a quick, short thing that I just thought was so stinking impactful. She said in the book that we experience emotional pain and physical pain in the same exact part of our brains and that the anticipation of this pain either emotional or physical is what drives fear. So, just going to go through that again. We experience that emotional pain and physical pain in the exact same part of our brain. So, when you say I have a broken heart and it hurts or I feel uncomfortable with the way that this conversation is making me feel you’re right. It’s okay that those emotions give you physical reactions because it is real, and it is being processed by those same exact centers in your big, beautiful brain.

Shi:

And as much as we love Brené Brown, who’s coming up next is a giant in the industry and in our world and I’m betting, you know who he is.

Kay:

We’ll be at you next with Tony Robbins.

Kay:

So, one of the cool things about being Kay and Shi is that we get really cool access to really cool people.

Shi:

Right. Sometimes we even get to interview those really cool people and when we do, we put them into our exclusive celebrity interview series that’s available to all of you at kayandshi.com. Trust us, you want to hear what some of these people have to say?

Kay:

So, we’ve got five influential people with five really cool interviews that we know you’re going to love, and we just want to give you that backdoor access that we occasionally get. Because anytime that we can bring our family along for the ride, that’s what we’re here to do.

Shi:

Right. If you want to hear from America’s super nanny, Deborah Tillman. If you want to hear from Dr. Bruce Lipton. If you want to hear from John Maxwell, then you’ve got to get over there and get that celebrity interview series right now.

Kay:

Go to kayandshi.com. That’s K-A-Y-A-N-D-S-H-I.com to get these interviews. We can’t wait to have you there And remember, we’re rooting for you.

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Shi:

Next up in our book club series, we’re bringing you the author, Tony Robbins.

Kay:

Now Tony has had a great influence on Shila and I’s life. Shila started listening to Tony Robbins material way back in like 2013, I think, and it was 2016 when we found ourselves at our very first Tony Robbins live event.

Shi:

And it was absolutely transformative as it can be and if you’ve ever been to a Tony event you know. If you like personal growth and development, and you also like high-energy club-like experiences, this is the cross-section that you need to investigate because it is totally worth it. But even if that does not sound like you’re seeing what Tony Robbins brings forward in his writings, in his teachings, and in his books, it should be your scene because it’s incredibly powerful information that everyone should know.

Kay:

Now, you might know Tony Robbins is a big-time kind of life coach for celebrities and somebody who does these big events that are really focused around figuring out your own internal values and those sorts of things. He’s mostly known as the author of “Awaken the Giant Within.” I know that they even released “Unleash the Power Within” which is the name of his banner event but there is a book of that same title. But Tony has taken a little bit of a shift in the last three books that he has released into helping people understand more about how to deal with finances and their health.

Shi:

So, he’s the author of “MONEY Master the Game.” It was a gigantic volume of his quest to go interview the most financially successful people in the world and find out what were the ways that they managed their money, not their mindset, but the actual mechanics of how they managed their money. Then he released a book called “Unshakeable” which is all of the best principles out of “MONEY Master the Game” without all of the interviews and quite so many pages and then most recently he has released, as Kay mentioned, a book about health called “Life Force.” That is really amazing and what he argues in this book about your health in particular, and then through his work in general, towards our own lives is that you really want to claim becoming the CEO of your health or your own life. Becoming the manager, the person in charge, not just accepting what society deals to you, what a doctor says to you, what a parent has classified you as, what a teacher may have said to you. But really becoming your own CEO and manager and looking at how to best grow your life business in a way that’s profitable to your emotional state and your ultimate fulfillment.

Kay:

One of the things that I appreciate so much about Tony Robbins as an author and kind of what he’s taken within these last few books that he has released is that he has access to some of the most incredible thought leaders in the world, and not just thought leaders, but successful doctors, people who are on the cutting edge of technology, of science, of health, of money, of investing. I mean, people like Warren Buffet and Ray Dalio are contributors to “MONEY Master the Game” and people that he was able to sit down with in helping others understand. So, he takes his access, and he opens it up to the general public in a way that helps you create a financial portfolio or a body portfolio in a way that can create just more longevity for your health and for your money.

Shi:

I love that Tony Robbins opens up his metaphorical Rolodex and shares his connections and what they’ve learned with everyone else, and that’s what we’ve tried to do as well through our Celebrity Interview Series. We’ve been able to interview many celebrities and that series is available to you. If you go to kayandshi.com you can find it. But in Tony’s books, he brings forward a lot of really practical advice. He always does come back to the fact that you could be the richest person in the world or the healthiest person in the world or the most abundant person in the world. But if your mindset and your internal game and experience are sour and not enjoyable, then your fulfillment and happiness in life will be greatly reduced and limited no matter how much on the outside you have. So, always coming back to that governing principle for Tony, especially how do you maintain and protect a strong mindset that allows you to stay optimistic and motivated through even the hard stuff.

Kay:

So, as we dive in just a little bit into some of the things that we’ve understood and learned here in Tony’s books, that mindset piece has–I think–been one of the things for Shila and I, that Tony was able to instill within us in going to his conferences and things. But the practicality that comes through these books, now they can be a little bit long. Let us tell you. I mean, they’re huge books. I think “Life Force” is like a 22-hour audio endeavor if you were a listener like Shila and I are. But they are practical and filled with practical advice of things that you can do right now to start helping yourself become more financially free or more fit.

Shi:

So as much as we love Tony and could go on and on, and don’t worry, he’ll be frequent mention on the Kay & Shi Show. We’re ready to bring you our final author of the series, someone we love and respect, and that is the amazing First Lady, Michelle Obama.

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Kay:

Alright, family final installment here in book club. We have one of our very favorite authors. She’s only written one book, but my goodness was it transformative for us both. This book is called “Becoming” and it’s by the wonderful Michelle Obama.

Shi:

This book is a memoir. It’s really, you get to sit and take a front-row seat to Mrs. Michelle Obama’s growing up and young adulthood and life, and what it’s been like to be in that co-pilot seat to the first black president of the US and what that rise was like. It’s an inspiring tale, and it’s mostly a story, which I love because there’s so much imagery and so much to connect to on a human level. Yet when she will stop on a teaching point and give you some of that gold, it just hits so deep and in such a beautiful resonating way that I think only the kind of lesson that’s extracted from a life story can.

Kay:

Well, many of us watched her life story kind of play out in the media and in front of us as she spent nearly a decade as our nation’s First Lady. In the book she talks about when they were having to do media training for her in the very beginning of Barack Obama’s campaign and as the campaign was growing steam, and that she was coming across as what she says is a stereotypical, angry black woman on her interviews that she was doing. People were starting to say things like she’s aggressive and she’s angry and she had to go through training in order to learn how to make different facial expressions and speak in different tones that allowed her to not give that impression. But seeing evolution from the image of the First Lady that I carry in my mind of the epitome of grace and understanding that that had to be something that she worked on and worked through was just so interesting to observe and to listen to.

Shi:

Yes, that story, in particular, I think really highlights why she chose to name the book “Becoming” and a quote from the book she says, “For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as a forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.” And so, she’s sharing with you insights from her journey that’s behind her while still recognizing that she’s a work in progress as we all are and that’s exactly what we should be, and that as cliché as it is that is about the journey and trying to really embrace that and then find a way to become that best, fullest expression of who you’re meant to be even in the face of people saying that it should be different or that you aren’t valid or that your kind is different. I mean, the amount of racism and hate that she’s experienced is pretty ugly and pretty nasty, and for her to be able to come out the other end so mature, so compassionate, so–I think–observant is another lesson in and of itself.

Kay:

You know, one of the major lessons from the book that actually struck Shila and I on a very long-term level is this idea that she brings forward, that it’s hard to hate up close. Now, it’s no secret that the United States’ political climate is full of–I would say–hatred…

Shi:

Yeah.

Kay:

…from both parties and can be really difficult. But as she toured the nation, as she came alongside people, as people came alongside her and learned that she was a good person, and she learned more about what it meant to be a veteran’s wife, or a military wife, or a military spouse. As she learned more about the struggles of the nation’s people, she really centered around this idea that the closer we can get to one another, the more compassion and empathy that we hold for one another, and it really does get summed up well in that quote, that it’s hard to hate up close.

Shi:

I love that she brought it’s hard to hate up close and Kay and I say that to this day and always attribute it to this book and there are so many just beautiful pieces. A story that will stick with me forever is her learning piano from the woman who lived downstairs from them when she was a young girl and going to her very first recital and the piano that she had to play at in that recital didn’t have a broken chip on the middle C. So she sat down at the keyboard and didn’t know where middle C was and that downstairs neighbor who had been teaching her quickly realized what was happening, walked out on stage, showed her where C was, and she was able to perform her piece there. But I think there’s just a lot of symbolism in that story.

It’s such a simple story and it’s kind of mundane. It’s something that can and could happen to any of us and yet through stories like that, we get that seat and that behind the curtain view of her as just a human being, as just another person like us, even if she’s reached this major level of achievement and that all of us are going to be products of our environment. If you only ever learn on a piano that has a chipped middle C, when you sit down at a beautiful clean keyboard, you might not know where to start, even though you know what to do once it does get started. So, there were just so many beautiful moments in this book that we really enjoyed.

Kay:

We would absolutely recommend all of the books that we brought forward this week. Michelle, Obama’s “Becoming.” Again, Tony Robbins, pick one of the five that he’s released. All of them are amazing. Brené Brown with–I think she has 10 titles–”Atlas of the Heart” is the newest and the one that we went over. Then, of course, Michael Singers’ “The Untethered Soul.” We hope that you’ve enjoyed book club. And family, if you’re on our social media channels, on our Instagram, or in our Facebook group, we would wholeheartedly request that you come on down, let us know what your favorite books are. We would love to know from you what we should add to this book club so that we can bring you even more in our next round of book club. Thanks so much, guys.

Shi:

Have a great weekend.