In this episode, Justin Dux chats with Noa Shaw. Noa Shaw is a certified life coach who guides his clients to become better versions of themselves by helping them identify and understand their purpose and achieve what they want in life. Whether you’re searching for more meaning or fulfillment in your personal life and relationships, or seeking to establish the confidence and accountability to realize your business, career and leadership goals, Noa can help you chart your path and develop the tools you’ll need to grow. With over 20 years of experience working in addiction treatment and helping clients rebuild their lives in the aftermath of trauma, Noa specializes in helping guide his clients from the depths of darkness into a life filled with beauty and light.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:
- Noa’s background
- How to approach everything with a good mindset
- Attitude of gratitude: what it means and how to implement it in your life
- Why it’s beneficial to meditate before an interview
- How Noa’s past has gotten him to where he is today
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BOOKS AND RESOURCES:
- Noa’s book: Stop Thinking Thoughts That Scare You: A Selfless Help Guide of Practical Tools to Eliminate Fear and Anxiety and Live a Life of Abundance
- Connect with Noa on his website, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
TRANSCRIPT
Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.
Justin Dux (00:00):
Welcome to CareerCloud Radio. CareerCloud.com is your resource for tips, tricks, and tools to shorten your job search. Become a modern job seeker by listening to these episodes or reading articles on our website, job hunting sucks. We are here to make it better with us. Today is Noa Shaw in his debut book, Stop Thinking Thoughts That Scare You: A Selfless Help Guide of Practical Tools to Eliminate Fear and Anxiety and Live a Life of Abundance. Noa shares the tools he developed as he managed his own demons to find peace, but I don't want to read more of his lengthy bio. I want to put him in his dreaded job interview chair that we're all in once or twice a year. So I start every episode with the same interview question. So Noa, tell me a little bit about yourself.
Noa Shaw (00:54):
Well, Justin, thank you for interviewing me and give me an opportunity to come in today and talk to you. I've lived an incredible life filled with peaks and valleys filled with some of the highest highs and the lowest lows. And what that's created in me is a resiliency. Is that a knowledge that when things aren't going, according to plan that I know that by continuing to walk directly forward and doing the next indicated right action, whether it's a big action or a small action, I'm able to overcome anything in my life.
Justin Dux (01:31):
That's a great opening. And it gives me a perfect follow-up question because we've just faced one of the most difficult down economies that some of us have seen in our lifetimes. Some others listening might be the second or third time, but what feels different this time is it's not as obvious. What is that next step forward? And so having you on the show today now is kind of like bringing an expert of feeling stuck and getting unstuck. Because for most people listening, they're just stuck still. What should we do next?
Noa Shaw (02:06):
One of the basis of my book, one of the overall arguing, and I don't really say this in detail, is that the thing, if you're going for a job, if you're going for anything, a relationship, whatever it is, we have to start with ourselves and we have to have a good mind. We have to approach everything with like a good mind. So I talk a lot about things and techniques that I've learned over the years from people I thought were friends that in retrospect, we came healers and teachers and guides, and that's how to bring your mind to bring it to a peaceful place, to then begin becoming productive. Do not talk to people on the go. How you doing? They say I'm super stressed. You know, people have jobs. They say I'm super stressed. I can't find a job or I have a job.
Noa Shaw (02:53):
And my question is always, is this stress helping or hurting the go? No people, I love the quote. I work better under stress. No, not that's a lie. Nobody does. You might do well with structure. You might do well with deadlines. That might be something that motivates you, but stress has been shown to have a negative impact on you physically, spiritually, and mentally, physically. It's a measurable, it's measurable that the body works less efficiently when we are stressed. So when we're looking for the next thing to do, if you're looking for a job and you want to just start with something very simple and you can read my book, or you can just start writing a gratitude list every morning. Because when I don't have a job that begins to become my identity, and I begin to identify myself as somebody that's, I don't have a job.
Noa Shaw (03:49):
I'm not working. I'm job seeking. I can't find a job. And you aren't. That is not who you are. That is just something you're walking through. So if I stop and I go, okay, I know that I'm going to get a job. I'm 57 years old. I've had jobs all since I was, I think I had, my first one was eight years old. I've had a million different ones, but I've had periods where I've looked for jobs. That doesn't mean that I'm a person that's unemployable. That didn't become my identity. It just meant that I was looking for a job. And so people put all this pressure on themselves and they, and they start to distress when calming our mind and reapproach it and say, okay, I'm not a person that's unemployable. I'm just the person that currently doesn't have a job. I'm moving towards getting one. I'm doing all the things that are appropriate to get one. And I'm going to get one. So there's taking a few minutes in the morning and write down the things you're grateful for. It's a practice called an attitude of gratitude. That's what I call it. I do it every morning.
Justin Dux (04:53):
Gratitude. I do a powerful, I've kept some lists now and gotten up to over a hundred items that if I review you that list, you can't get to item number 85 after reading straight through from one to 85, without already starting to feel like a completely different person for the rest of the day. But I want to ask the obvious question, Noa, are you suggesting they should just be grateful. They don't have a job, or is it grateful for everything else they do still have.
Noa Shaw (05:21):
It's finding yourself in a state of grace, in a state of gratitude and not focusing our internal energy, our mental energy on what I don't have and start focusing on what I do have. And growing from there, when I start counting the things, I don't have my life, then I just add the jobs of that. Then it becomes this overwhelming mountain of like, I don't have this. I don't know if that's everything that builds up Hayden. They start counting all the negativity. It becomes very distracting and it's directing her energy, not towards getting a job, but sitting around. And morosely thinking about what I don't have
Justin Dux (06:00):
Facing difficult times. It's really hard to not feel like you can't see over the edge of the hole that you're sitting in, everything around you, dirt everything's around you crap. And so what would you say to people who are feeling so stuck in their job search that just the thought of being grateful sounds foreign to them. You know, like, I don't know, man. Like I wouldn't be in this place. If I could find gratitude. There's something about through that, you know,
Noa Shaw (06:31):
That's a self fulfilling prophecy and the reverse is true. You won't be in that place if you do practice gratitude. See, okay. If I wake up in the morning and I'm going to go look for a job for that day, or I have an interview that day and I wake up in the morning and I start thinking about this impending doom of this interview and what happens if I don't get this interview, what happens like instead of going all right, I work for the morning. I'm grateful for my dogs. Unconditional love. I'm grateful that I have a place to live. I'm grateful that I ate a meal. I have running water. Like I'm grateful for the friends that I do have. And I start putting my mind in a better place. Then when I'm approaching it, when I'm approaching and looking for a job or potentially interviewing I'm in a better place to interview because I'm in a more positive place of mind, that positive state of mind is impossible to access with negativity with.
Noa Shaw (07:25):
I don't have, when I have, when I look at the real abundance of my life, even in moments which have been tough and challenging, my life is abundant and it's beautiful. And if you're listening to this broadcast and you're listening to this podcast, you have a phone or some way you've listening to this, you have access to the internet. I'm going to go ahead and guess you have food, shelter and clothing. Like if you have food, shelter and clothing, you're doing better than billions of people on this planet. You're going to wake up tomorrow and not have running water or wonder where a meal's gonna come from. So it's taking the time to change our mind, change your mind, change your mind, change your outlook.
Justin Dux (08:04):
I'm coming out of it because it was something you said a moment ago about like you're using the example of having an interview on the calendar. That is definitely something to be grateful for, but I definitely have talked to some job seekers. Who've been dismissive of all the milestones. That means they've passed and reached getting just that far. That means your resumes in good shape. That means you've got a resume and it's not a blank white piece of paper. That means you've got a targeted job and people are starting to respond to what you've written on that piece of paper. Maybe your network starting to click and activate. Like I think as a brainstorm hearing, you suggest this, I'm thinking you kind of work backwards too. So if you find one thing to be grateful for, and your example of the interview work backwards, there's probably three or four more things you should be grateful for there too. Yeah. And to help, what is it that you said there possible something about the opening of that wasn't there before you had a phrase that sounded pretty,
Noa Shaw (08:59):
Sorry. I probably lost a home, you know, being open to the possibility that you might get the job, you might th that it's gonna work out. That there's a beautiful life ahead of us for all of us. And that I, you know, I operate from a place that I've been in such deep, dark places and I, and people can, you know, we'll talk about more about that later, but everything has always worked out. So I take that knowledge and I know that if I'm okay, right. I've been okay before I will be okay. Again,
Justin Dux (09:31):
Let's go back to the title of book though. Stop thinking thoughts that scare you. I like this for the job seeker career space, because it's approaching a negative that is kind of delicate to talk about. And w we as coaches and podcast hosts and everyone in this career space, we definitely talk really positive most of the time, but that's because we know how dangerously close. We are to a very trying time for people. It's very personal, very hard to fight against those feelings of identity like you were talking about. And so we, we often stay positive for that reason today. I wanted to open the possibility to let some of those negative thoughts out so that we can put them on the table and address them. Right. So why did you name it that stop thinking thoughts that scare you?
Noa Shaw (10:23):
It was taught to me by a Buddhist monk many, many decades ago. And he was also a very interesting guy. His name was Al he owned a laundry company in Mexico and he was, he was also a practicing Buddhist for 50, 40, 50 years. And I used to call him up for advice and I would call, and I would complain about some girlfriend problem or some job problem or whatever I was going. And he would just say stuff. They get thoughts that scare you and hang up on me. And he was much older than I was. And I'd be like, oh man, cranky, idiot old, man. He didn't realize he hung up on me. I called back. And he like stopped thinking thoughts that scare you and hang up on me again. I was like, God it. And they call him again. He didn't stop thinking.
Noa Shaw (11:01):
Then I was like, then I finally got it. He was giving me the wisdom without going into a long rambling explanation. The longer version of it is so many of us. So often default to a negative mindset. You can be on the road to an interview and say to yourself, God, if it doesn't work out, what am I going to do? And how many of you has that bill going to be paid? And what's going to happen? If that doesn't go well, that doesn't know what we get in this negative mindset. And instead of switching to it, like, man, what if everything works out? What if I get this job? How awesome is that going to be? Or what if this interview leads, maybe not this job to a better job than I think I'm at that I don't even know about. See, that's the thing about the world.
Noa Shaw (11:49):
And the universe is always when we begin to spin positively and we begin to rev up the energy, the real energy of the world, it's not anything religious or even spiritual. It's just real. There's an energy to this world. Einstein talks about it. He said that if there's any religion, the energy is a religion because that's the religion of energy because it's just true. So that energy that we event that vibrational frequency that we begin to on that, man, I feel so good. Like an old interviewing trick that I, and it was talked to me about. My father was to sit in your car and turn up the volume as high as you could a new radio and sing on the way to an interview. I used to sing on the way to every interview, play a song, or, you know, we used to be, it was cause that tapes back in the day, then it was CDs. Now you have your own personal playlist on your iPhone or Android, which I don't believe in. What's your
Justin Dux (12:41):
Go-To song. What's the song you love to belt out.
Noa Shaw (12:45):
Oh man, I guess if I was going into interview right now, I've probably got a little Molly crew. I'm sweet own Freebirds, always a good one stairway to heaven. I love the rock and roll, you know, and I love songs that I know most of the lyrics do. I'm terrible at lyrics, but physically singing has been shown to change your body composition on a cellular level. And so mentally it's great for you. It's shown shown to be a positive and it also warms up your voice for the interview. So you speaking more clearly and you sound more confident. You're not like, can I get a little water? You know, they always offer you a water and you always like take that water because you're chugging it down because your throat's so dry, but your throat's not going to be dry if you've been singing for the whole ride or as much a chunk of the ride. So you're going to be warmed up emotionally and spiritually. And then you're going to start spinning with that positive energy and the person interviewing you is going to feel that energy and going to react to that.
Justin Dux (13:42):
Yeah. I grew up on musicals, Broadway musicals. And so like, I'm probably going to go to a show tune from the name of the character or the setting was Charlemagne, but I'm trying to remember Pippin. That's the name of the show Pippin. There's some really great songs about, or just an overly optimistic character that just right. Is, you know exactly what you're kind of describing. I won't sing any of it for you now, but I grew up on the record of Pippin. Like we were playing vinyl in my house growing up and I, that was a record we would just have on all day long. Sometimes you talk about selfless help versus self-help. And I liked the sound of that phrase. So why don't you tell some of our listeners what you mean by that?
Noa Shaw (14:28):
So, and every, a lot of what I learned is always in hindsight, when I'm writing a book and when I came up with selfless health, it was a reaction to an era, one of many arrows, cause I'm 57 years old. I've been through a lot of areas. But I remember in the nineties I was living in LA and I remember walking into a borders book. I dunno, bookstore, if you've ever been in one or a member of them, they might've been gone when you were young, because you're much younger, but there was a borders
Justin Dux (14:54):
Bookstore, Harry Potter. I know exactly where, okay.
Noa Shaw (14:57):
I remember walking in and looking to my left and there was like all these people and there was an entire section and it said self-help. And that was the first time I really noticed that self-help had like exploded commercially. It was just a big section. It was right. As you walked in, there were best-sellers everywhere. And there were all these like popular books. And I think what happened in my amateur psychology observational of societal psychology is that people talk about the millennials as being really selfish and the gen Z ears and gen X den dues. And I went, okay, what happened was all the people that spent all that time, reading the self-help books were just focused on themselves. So how can we be surprised that their kids are really focused on themselves? We learned by watching our parents, we mirror that. So what I discovered through my living is that I'm best suited and my life is best suited when I'm not focused on myself, but when I'm focused on helping other people, that's when my life really begins to grow. That's what selfless help is. I help not even because I expected to help my life because I want to help people. And I found that to be my mission. And that's the best thing I can do. I think the best thing any of us can do for ourselves is to help other people in big ways and small.
Justin Dux (16:22):
Absolutely. But your comment has brought about revelation because I think there's also, especially in America here, cultural shift occurring right now underneath us, like a tectonic shift where so many people don't have the luxury of thinking about others. Maybe their bills are too urgently due or their finances are tight. You know, think whole concepts of wealth, inequality, and wage stagnation come to mind that I don't, I won't get into. But the point is, if you can't afford to think about somebody else, it's very difficult to, to get your mind off of your own needs. And you know, if you don't have a roof over your head, you've got to figure that out first, I can make so many other analogies that are cliche, but I'm starting to recognize selflessness is somewhat of a privilege and a luxury. And what do you think I was at?
Noa Shaw (17:17):
Yeah, hold on. Let me, I don't think it has anything to do with how much you have, because I've worked with so many people who have absolutely nothing. I've worked on skid row in Los Angeles with people who are living on the streets and they come in and they start to change their lives. By helping others, you can be kind to somebody and that's probably worth more than any money. You could give them kindness, empathy, sympathy, these are all free and you can practice them. And you can be nice if you're going to get a copy of the morning, let's say you get a call. Let's say you have enough money to buy a coffee at McDonald's or Starbucks or wherever you go, or Dunkin donuts, whatever your local barista is. And if you're just nice to the person, if you're just like, if you read their name tag and you say, Hey, Justin, how you doing today?
Noa Shaw (18:15):
Oh man, thank you for taking my order. I appreciate that. And then the person who makes an answer to you would be like, Marsha, thank you so much. Have a great day. Do you know what a difference that'll make out of like the thousand people they see in the morning? You're the one person that went out of your way. And then they're going to be in a better mood and they're going to be kind to somebody. And that ripple effect, that butterfly effect is enormous. So it's not about money. It's not about financially supporting somebody or helping somebody when you're able to great. But if you're unable to, there's nobody that can't afford to be kind. Right.
Justin Dux (18:50):
And while you were talking, it made me realize too, that like you used it as an example earlier, but it's such a great one to keep coming back to the job interview is today, right? What are you doing in the morning? What are you doing in the afternoon? What are you doing right before the interview? Like you said, singing, you know, but like how do you craft your perfect day? Leading up to the interview. It's not working on your answers. It's not working on your resume. 30 minutes before you step into the interview. No, no. Have yourself the best day you can. And if that means going to get a Starbucks today, bring the kindness with you. Don't be sitting there thinking about yourself while you're in line. Give it out as an energy, as a frequency. And that'll be showing up in your job interview because you've been practicing it for all morning long or hopefully your entire life.
Noa Shaw (19:36):
Another thing that's free, which is great to do before a job interview meditation. Let's say you're sitting in the parking lot and you've been singing and you're all excited. And you want to calm your mind down because you want to give clear, concise answers you want to be present. So you can just go to YouTube and type in five minute guided meditation, 10 minutes, whatever you need. And just sit back and listen to sit in your car before you walk in, give it, do it 20 minutes before. So you just give yourself that, that ability to calm our brains down when our brain is calm is when we are operating at our absolute best. And that's where you want to be. When you're going to go sit in front of somebody and have a conversation and remember interviews or conversations stopping. When we think about it, like as big, like end all be all, you know, like notice the other person that's doing the interviewing and realize they have a job and there's pressure on them.
Noa Shaw (20:33):
And they have to fill the position and start creating a friendly atmosphere. Hey, how you doing? Notice the things that are on their desk. There's a calendar. There's a picture of the kids, like picture of the wife, whatever. Like, oh my God, is that your wife is that your kids they're beautiful. Like look at your lake house. Like whatever it is that they have a baseball. They're like, oh, are you in the baseball? Like anything that you can do to say, because we all as human beings, we want to be seen. And this person, man, or woman has 50 or 75 people coming in for this job. They've gone through, they've gone through all the online resumes they had called about them. And they've got it down to five or 10 people. And now you're one of those five or 10 people. How are you going to stand out?
Noa Shaw (21:15):
You can stand out by noticing who they are. How are you doing? They'd be like, how are you doing today? Like, okay, great. I'm really excited for the interview. Stop and go. How are you doing today? How's your day going? Like that little thing will throw. It will be like, oh my God. Again, it's kindness. It's helping other people. It's noticing that the person is in your life has a job. Like you, you want something from them. Why not be nice to them? Why not care about their lives and really make yourself stand out from the crowd? Because so many people these days, even if you're friends and their stuff, they'd be like, how are you doing? And they'll be like, oh, let me tell you. And they go, duh. They tell you all the problems everything's going on. And they very rarely stop. And I, you know, am I normal answers? I'm doing great. How are you doing
Justin Dux (22:00):
Etiquette and professionalism, get in the way. Then I like your, the stay on that example of you know, in the banter section, I call it a job interview. Maybe they're saying, hi, how are you today? And then you, like you said, you respond back. I'm great. How are you? There's a moment. There there's a chance, an opportunity to watch their facial expressions, see how they react. Cause there will be some people that make the choice to stay super professional faced. And you know, Michelle Obama would say, fix your face. You know, it doesn't matter what texts they just got from their daughter. It doesn't matter what email they're just hitting, send on before you step in the room, like they're going to fix their face sometimes and you can catch it and then use that as a clue as the type of personality they have. But other people might just joyfully respond. Oh, I'm really great. Thanks for asking. And that's another clue to your point.
Noa Shaw (22:50):
And again, I will say go back and be like, if kindness costs me the job, I don't want that job. I don't want that job. It's not the company I want to work for. It's not the place that's meant to be. And that was really it, me being nice was the decision-maker. If they saw that as a negative, then I don't want to work with them.
Justin Dux (23:08):
Excellent point before we take a break, I want to ask a little bit more about who you are now that you mentioned it. Because I realized I did kind of skip right over that. Now that you've been talking so much about how are you? I went right into the author, Noa. I went right into the book title that you've written and spent hours writing. And then I went right into the heart of the anxieties and fears that scare us and sticking our thoughts. Let's take a step back and talk about who you are and where you've been.
Noa Shaw (23:37):
Yeah. Is it podcasts for five and a half hours long? It's
Justin Dux (23:41):
As long as I want it to be? No,
Noa Shaw (23:45):
You know, I grew up around in and around New York city and I was involved in drug dealing and crime from a very young age, as well as doing drugs and drinking and, and everything you could think of in the seventies. I was a cocaine dealer. I was I was a 15 year old kid. I was at CFD for selling tens of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine every night. And I became hooked on cocaine
Justin Dux (24:08):
And weed alcohol. I went in and out of rehabs for decades and, you know, finally hit a, had a good bottom, you know, I mean, I've tried to kill myself three times. I've had contracts out of my life. I've had people physically tried to kill me. I've had people shoot at me. I've had people stab me. I've been to some very, very, very dark spots ever been without a job.
Noa Shaw (24:32):
Oh yeah.
Justin Dux (24:34):
That would be funny. I was doing, I was purposely juxtaposed with,
Noa Shaw (24:38):
I will tell you a funny story. And this is sort of apropos of what we're talking about. I was in such bad shape, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. I was living in Utah and I was basically unemployable. I was drinking a gallon of bourbon a day just during the day. That was until I went out at night. I was waking up at 10 o'clock in the morning, grabbing a gallon of bourbon at the state ID, Utah state store, where you could buy liquor and drinking that gallon during the day. And very clearly for about a three, four week period. I was being taken care of by these two route. My college roommate and his brother were like very loving and kind of they're let me get this out of my system. I was sat in my apartment for about almost a month with firmly. I was so delusional that I believed I, somebody was getting ready to knock on the door and offer me a job. I didn't need to look for a job. I didn't need to open the papers that somebody was going to knock on the door and offer me a job completely, no basis in truth whatsoever. It was just something that I'd made up that I was like, cause I was like, I was a low self-esteem suicidal, crazy person within and also an ego maniacal at the same time. Like I'm so awesome. Somebody is just going to show up and offer me a job.
Justin Dux (25:55):
This is interesting because it's not that you're saying this is some sort of advice or like others should do this. You are literally saying that was downright stupid delusion. Like
Noa Shaw (26:06):
No, there was insanity.
Justin Dux (26:08):
Yeah. Coming off of alcohol and that much alcohol it's no surprise that some thoughts like that might get stuck in your head.
Noa Shaw (26:16):
Of course, of course. And then I've gone to interviews, you know, even sober going, oh, I killed that. I'm amazing. I killed that interview and I didn't get the job and I didn't understand it. And what always happens to me is that I might not understand anything in that moment. But when, when I promise this to all of your listeners, when you do get the job that you're going to get, and it does work out and you do find that great job working for the person, you ended up there for awhile and you love it. You may move on at some point, but you're going to look back and go. I'm glad I didn't get that. And because I did end up here and there's an old thing that I like to say rejection equals protection. So when I, sometimes I don't get a job.
Noa Shaw (27:03):
It's not because I'm not right for it. You know, there may be a million factors. There may be somebody who is literally starving to death to pay their children, get their children food on the table. That might need it a little more than I do. It's about that perspective we gain when we travel on at a heart attack this past summer, during the middle of the pandemic in June, and somebody was like, I'm so sorry you had a heart attack. I'm like, no, I'm glad I did. They're like, what do you mean to go? I said, well better me than somebody who doesn't have insurance. I was still getting my insurance paid for by the job that I'd been laid off from. And I was able to cover everything and it all worked out fine as opposed to somebody who was down and out and broken, not living, living paycheck to paycheck or just barely getting by on unemployment. Then racking up these like tens of thousands of dollars of hospital bills after a week in the hospital under constant observation. Like thank God it was me and this heart attack. Didn't destroy somebody else's life.
Justin Dux (28:03):
Wow. It's such a unique perspective, Noa and disclaimer, you know, my father had a heart surgery for the second time in his life, March of 2019. So this year, no, it would have been 2020. Then my year is off. It was 2020 because this year, March was the one year anniversary. So I haven't been able to see him because of the pandemic. And that's not what I'm grateful for. I'm grateful that he's still alive a lot. You know, like I'm grateful that when this pandemic is over, I'll still be able to go see my dad. We're lucky. He, we look at it like he's on borrowed time, but your perspective on your heart surgery or heart attack is unique because of how difficult it was for him.
Noa Shaw (28:51):
It's taken years of like learning. None of this came easily to me. You know, I had to bang my head against the wall for a long time until I realized that if I stopped banging my head against the wall, it stops hurting.
Justin Dux (29:06):
Just soundbite right there. Just, I stopped banging my head against the wall. It stops hurting like the life lessons here from Noa Shaw here, people like that. It's so critical. It's worth repeating.
Noa Shaw (29:18):
Yeah. Stove hot. Ouch is a great way to live your life. So hot out, hot out
Justin Dux (29:25):
Part of why I didn't bring all of those facts in details out that you just revealed. I knew them from some of the context of your bio and stuff like that, but I didn't want to pull those out immediately because I also wanted to make another point for the listeners. And you've already made this point about minute three in that was sometimes your journey. Doesn't become part of your story. And so I wanted to set Noa up here as the expert that he is and the person who wrote this book before I showed you who he was, we do this as job seekers, a lot, especially a few need to pivot your career. You need to make that first impression of who you're going to become new, this new job, this new skill set or something. And then it's okay to go backwards into the journey and talk about where you've been. But I saw that narrative forming in your life as well with all that long list at the beginning, you called it lows that were very low. And I got to say, your lows are lower than most people's, you know, in terms of where you've been, how do you hang up that phone on yourself? You said it a moment ago where you said this Buddhist monk would hang up the phone and stop thinking, scary thoughts, hang up, click. We got to do it ourselves.
Noa Shaw (30:41):
Well, that's all the things I talk about is the re is redirection of thought is redirection, kindness, redirection to helping others, redirection of gratitude. That's everything I think of how helping others, like even in the smallest way, everything I can do to change the narrative. There's who I think I am. And then there's who I actually am. And one of the little pieces of work in my book with very little work, it's just exercise is to find three friends of yours and ask them to tell you, like you give them, give you three words to describe you. I've had a bunch of people write back to me and be like, oh my God, my friends gave me these words. And I would know that they'll always be words that you'll never use to describe yourself. Instantly. If I had to describe myself, like I'm bald, I'm overweight. And I'm like, I'm bald and I'm overweight. It's like, that's where I start. I start with two things that are like negative in my mind. But when I asked my friends, I see you're loyal, you're caring, you're joyous, you're gentle. You're strong. Like, so we change the narrative by asking others who am I? Because I'm the worst judge of me. I will give you a list of like 18 things that are wrong with me. And maybe like, and I also wrote a book, you know?
Justin Dux (32:06):
Yeah. That happened on similarly. Similar happened when I was interviewing the author of an overachievers book, Heather well-pleased she's I was lamenting to her at one point late in the interview. Like, you know, I just don't know if I'm an overachiever, Heather I've I've got a day job. I'm hosting a podcast and I'm a mock interview coach at night. I don't know. And she's like, well, well, well, Justin, you just listed three things that, and two of them clearly make you an overachiever, like slow the train there. I think you don't realize how different that is than the average person. I feel that way about myself, to your point, it's a blind spot. I feel like I'm just this novice podcaster or amateur at all these other things I do. But I, I put this out there because this is what I like to talk about. And what
Noa Shaw (32:50):
I like to do is the professional blog guests or look like, right.
Justin Dux (32:53):
I don't know. I got them. Like,
Noa Shaw (32:55):
Why can't you just drop the edge to and just be a podcast? Yeah, exactly. Yes. I have a podcast.
Justin Dux (33:02):
Exactly. Right. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, we'll do our recurring segment out of context. Frank Blake was a guest on career cloud radio on November 9th, 2020. But the difference
Speaker 3 (33:15):
For instance, going to be who is willing to put in the preparation ahead of time to win.
Justin Dux (33:20):
I'd like to remind you that Frank site, my job ology.com offers an an interview preparation course packed with one hour of lessons that will differentiate yourself from the competition. Learn how to present yourself as the most qualified candidate in these four modules, career cloud listeners get half off the current price with the code career cloud lowercase, one word don't dismiss this discount opportunity. You will get the full value of learning from an expert and maximum confidence in your next interview, you can download a free workbook or even just purchase the first lecture before buying the entire course. So head on over to my job, ology.com,
Speaker 3 (34:01):
You gain a tremendous amount of confidence just through preparation. So if you put in the hard work ahead of time, you're going to show up to the table so much more complex.
Justin Dux (34:12):
That website is spelled M Y J O B O L O G y.com. My job ology.com. Welcome back. We're talking with Noa Shaw, the author of stop thinking thoughts that scare you, a selfless help guide of practical tools to eliminate fear and anxiety and live a life of abundance for our segment out of context, I take something you've said elsewhere, maybe on another show or written down and put it back in your face to see if there's new context today, based on the conversation we'd been having. And I selected a very personal quote that I I'm hoping you're willing to talk about. Quote, my actions are my actions, but I have a disease and quote, could you tell us more about that?
Noa Shaw (35:08):
I'm an alcoholic that term alcoholism, addiction, whatever you want to use from it, it's a disease it's been classified by the American medical association, a disease in many, and we're around the world. It's recognized as a disease. What I'm saying there is that I never forget that I have a disease is that it's not an excuse for anything I do, but it's sometimes the reason that I do some things is because my brain is not wired, you know, completely right. And that disease has led me to some dark places which has caused some trauma in my life and trauma can affect. And we've just learned recently, learned trauma can affect memory and reaction times and things like that. So I never dismiss anything that I do or I've done, or I will do. I never say, you know, oh, I'm an alcoholic. That's my excuse.
Noa Shaw (36:04):
It's that I've done this. I have a disease. And now part of me being sober, not having an active disease is also being whole holding myself accountable for my actions and when necessary making amends to people and saying, you know what, I'm sorry, not sorry that I have a disease. I did that just, I'm sorry. I will never do that again. And I like to call it an amends because I'm sorry. Means I got caught and amends means, I say to you, I promise you if I come to the same place in the road, I won't take the same direction again. I won't do that again. So, and that's different than I'm sorry, because I'm sorry. Means I got caught. So yes, I have a disease that doesn't excuse on behavior, but I will have behaviors that that may be part of that. And I will do my best to clean up that wreckage in your life and in mine.
Justin Dux (37:02):
What question are you tired of getting after you revealed to people that you're, you have this disease?
Noa Shaw (37:09):
I don't want to sound trite, but anybody that's asking me a question, I would never be tired of a question because I lived most of the first part of my life as this like closed down wall, lack of emotion, unsympathetic. I didn't, we, we were taught, you know, very young age. A lot of guys taught me, don't cry. We don't show emotion. You know, I've, you know, I broke bones and didn't show emotion people and I'd get massive fist fights and get jumped by six guys. I wouldn't cry and I wouldn't show emotion. And then physically and emotionally people just tear me down and destroy me and I would never show emotion. So now I'm so happy to be open. And I'm so happy to be a guy that people approach and they feel comfortable asking questions that just happened to me today. I met a girl, I did a talk, one of the zoom meeting with 40 models and they were all young and beautiful and I'm in New York city and they're all gorgeous.
Noa Shaw (38:07):
And I met this girl and we started talking and Instagram and we started texting and I sort of, you know, she's 26 and absolutely beautiful. And I sort of like had this, you know, imaginary relationship, like, you know, my head spins, you know, somebody that beautiful paying attention. You're like, oh my God, is this going to be my girlfriend? And we're going to get married are going to have beautiful babies because she's gorgeous. And I'm okay looking. And she actually came and took my SoulCycle class. Then we sat down for breakfast or lunch afterwards. And I realized that I was there to help her. And she started talking about her suicide ideation and the dark place that she had just gone through. And I realized I was just there to help her. I'm just in her life to help her. I'm not there to like have sex with her.
Noa Shaw (38:49):
I'm just there to help her. And I'm so I'm happy to be answer any questions. And every time I go on a podcast, you can ask me, I will ask me anything. I don't care. I'm an open book. I'll talk about the things I've survived. I'll talk about my PTSD from violence and attacks. I'll talk about the sexual assault I suffered when I was a younger kid that I didn't recognize until a couple of years ago was sexual assault because it was female and male. I was 12 and it was a 14 year old girl. And I didn't realize that what she was doing was wrong until two years ago. That was when I was 12. And I've told this story a million times, all I'm an open book and I let people know about me.
Justin Dux (39:31):
I'm just taking a moment. I mean, you've revealed a lot there. You know, that's a lot of story that I think just needs a moment of space before I ask my next question, because I know exactly what I want to do with that moment, but this is difficult stuff. And I want to be sensitive to that, but you know, it is a career advice podcast and I don't think that's irrelevant. What you've just said. I don't, I think this is a taboo subject that is difficult for any show to talk about, let alone crutches, you know, outside of a one-on-one session. So we're doing it a little bit more publicly, because like you said, we're open books. And I just want to say that there are job seekers that are struggling with all the things you just listed, including the occasional interview that goes so well.
Justin Dux (40:19):
And then you get a text from the hiring person and they're like asking for a date and you're like, no, I want the job. What, what, where did this just go? You know, like that's inappropriate, but it can happen. And it does happen. And that's the whole reason that it's, it's a problem. And then, then back to your point about just being in people's lives sometimes because you can help an old lesson, I got was dots on a page. There's a lot of people we meet in work and life. You know, business conferences, zoom meetings, soul cycle classes that become a dot on a page. Maybe you exchange phone numbers. Maybe you get an email. Maybe you connect on LinkedIn later, whatever. The reason that you now have a connecting point, you don't know all the connections yet, who they're going to introduce you to what opportunities they'll present.
Justin Dux (41:06):
You, you know, things like that. And to your point, like you can start to think about the possibilities and get really excited about a new job opportunity. Like, oh, this salary is going to be so great for me. And we're going to be able to buy that new house and we're going to be able to pay off these bills. I can get really wrapped up into this fake future, so to speak. And sometimes you got to come back. And what would you like to say Noa? Before we close out the, to a job seeker, that's worried about revealing. They have alcoholism or maybe they don't need to ever bring it up. But what would you say to them as knowing they're out there trying to get a job right now, maybe there's somebody who's dealing with an assault or inappropriate behavior from a former coworker, and now they want to get a new job. But now that trauma is on their mind. When they think about submitting applications, like I think it comes back to identity, but I want to hear, hear your thoughts, that those are just some of mine
Noa Shaw (42:02):
When it comes to trauma and alcoholism and things like that. And great life, not shattering, but big life events. I don't think you ever have to dimension that in a job interview at all. Again, these are not things that define me. There are things that happened in my life as I am today. I'm just a regular man walking into, apply for a job. What has happened to me happened? Here's the most important part. I got the help I needed. I learned how to say, please help me. And I sought out help for whatever I've gone through from professionals and friends and come comrades in my journey of self healing, of healing, not self, my journey of healing, people that could support me and help me. And I clear that wreckage before I go in to a situation now, very critically. If somebody interviews you and says, you want to get a date, please screenshot that and send that to the HR department of wherever you interviewed immediately.
Noa Shaw (43:07):
Like don't even hesitate. Don't worry about your job. Think about the people that are coming after you and how they may not have the strength that you have to do that. And the women and men, you may be protecting down the road because this person does not deserve to have that power, but it deserves to be documented, highlighted and submitted. Whether it's the HR or whoever is the person that you would submit it to and realize that again, sort of like we spoke about earlier, any place that employees, that person is not a place I want to work. That there's a better life out there. And it's protection. It's protection. Rejection is the university's protection is what I, what I say. And so, you know, there, there are things are going to happen in our life. We're going to have challenges. Everybody has some listen, just because I wrote a book and I've had some crazy, insane things happen to me.
Noa Shaw (43:59):
I always said this to the girl that I was having lunch with today. I said, we live in New York city, too. It's very busy in the streets. Your back, that's it. If you walked out of the street, you walked out of this restaurant and everybody had a dry erase board hanging from their neck, with their problems listed on the dry erase board. You would walk down the street and there's nobody who you would switch problems with. You would take your problems home every single time. I have you go sit in a meeting with a boot bunch of people. And you look at all those people there. And they had their, they had their zoom screen was their problems. You there's nobody else's problems. You take your bringing yours home every single time, because no matter what you're going through, somebody else is going through. Everybody in this world has their to deal with.
Noa Shaw (44:50):
I've worked. As I spoke about earlier, I've worked with skid row homeless people in Los Angeles. I've also worked with some of the biggest rock stars in the world. The biggest athletes I've worked with fortune 500 executives, CEOs, C-suite executives of some of the biggest companies in the world. And they had the same problems as people in the homeless, on the streets. A lot of fear, anger, disillusionment, pain, not being seen. We're all common. We're all the same animal. And as soon as we understand that the car find our commonality and realize that we're okay exactly as we are and we're going to be okay, and we're going to be taken care of and provided for. Then we start to find them deal with that sense of ease and peace in our life.
Justin Dux (45:38):
So how can people get your book?
Noa Shaw (45:40):
That you can get all of my book, they can buy my book on Amazon. You have to look up, stop thinking thoughts that scare you on Amazon. They can also look me up please. And I say this very openly. And I say this, everybody guests reach out to me. I have a website, Noa shaw.com CLI that has my email that goes directly to my email. You can email me Noa Shaw, N O a S a J w@mac.com. I may see.com and Noa Shaw, 26 on Instagram. I answer all my DMS. I respond to everybody and I've done a bunch of podcasts. And I got a lot of messages. I respond to everybody. There's nobody that goes overlooked. You might sit in my inbox for a day or so if it's Instagram, because it's been a little overwhelming with the book and everything, but I will get back to you.
Noa Shaw (46:27):
I promise to get back to you. And if you have reach out for help, if anybody hears anything that I said today, and they want some help with it, I'm a certified life coach. I've been doing that for about 20 years. So if you want some help and you can't afford it, I'll figure out a way to, to work with you. And maybe just give you some little advice. If you can't afford it. I work on a sliding scale with people. So because it's my I'd rather help people than go like, well, this is my price. If you can't make it, just pass you along, let's figure out a way to work together. Let's work towards it.
Justin Dux (46:55):
That site again was Noashaw.com. Noa is without the letter H
Noa Shaw (47:02):
Yes, sir.
Justin Dux (47:03):
And oh, a well, thank you, man. So much for being on the show and being so transparent with us today. These are issues that could probably afford to be talked about more. I think they're going to benefit from hearing somebody with so much experience with these topics, whether it be from people you helped or situations you've lived through in your life. I think that lens at a certain amount of credibility to be the person to say, stop thinking thoughts that scare you and hang up. CareerCloud Radio is a production of careercloud.com. Please review this episode on iTunes. We really appreciate it a lot. And thank you for listening.
