Why Your Childhood Still Controls Your Life | Keith Mercurio

Cold Open [0:00]

Keith Mercurio: 80 to 90% of a human’s personality and character is fully formed by the age of eight. You start to discover that it’s a whole bunch of little kids walking around in adult costumes. 

Introduction [0:09]

Charles Eide: This week I’m cleared for takeoff. I have my friend Keith Mercurio coming up. Keith is a leadership coach who helps guys like me develop themselves and understand the things that are holding them back.

Keith Mercurio: I go to the jungles of Costa Rica. I’m seeking the ancient wisdom of the Amazon, hoping, praying, just anything that I will be healed and, and I meet my shaman Chris. And Chris from Pittsburgh. All of our decision making and everything else is reactivity of the mind. And the mind is far better understood as the nervous system of which the brain is only a portion than we have all it that gets piled and programmed into us, and then we keep getting these results in our life as far as relationships, success, whatever the world just is, acts as a mirror.

It shows us what we need to heal. It shows us what we need to work on. It shows us what we need to sit with. Used a great phrase in here, stabbed us in the back. Okay, well [00:01:00] that didn’t happen. 

Charles Eide: Felt like it, 

Keith Mercurio: but we’re emotional human beings. I don’t care how logical you are. You’re governed by emotion. You’re governed by the nervous system.

Most personal development and most coaching and everything else is deep in the thought process, thinking your way through things. And we tend to try to think our way through how we’re feeling, think our way through how we’re thinking, think our way through problems and everything else. But what I have started to realize, and that is having such a profound effect on it, is.

Welcome & First Impressions [1:28]

Charles Eide: Keith Mercurio. It’s so good to have you. It’s great seeing you, and you as well, 

Keith Mercurio: Charlie. I, I, uh, been too long. I’m always, as I mentioned, this is the second time I’ll say it, but I’m always, I’m always struck by how tall and handsome you are 

Charles Eide: coming from a guy that’s taller and better looking. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. This is, this is, don’t, don’t try to return volley on this.

This is, this is my observation, and I, I think it needs to be known. You’re even better looking in person than you are on camera. Oh my 

Charles Eide: gosh. 

Keith Mercurio: This is important for [00:02:00] the public to know. 

Charles Eide: Blushing over here. Good. I remember the first time I met you, 

Keith Mercurio: Uhhuh. Yes, I remember this 

Charles Eide: too. I walked in your office. Mm-hmm.

And you’re in this beautiful corner office with the windows. Mm-hmm. Up at the top level of some building. And 

Keith Mercurio: yeah, the US Bank building in St. Paul, let’s not pretend like I was, whatever, 

Charles Eide: a 

Keith Mercurio: Fortune 100 

establishment. 

Charles Eide: It looked amazing. Mm-hmm. And I walked in and you were wearing this like bespoke blazer with these loafers, and I was like, who is this?

And we had a great conversation. I feel like we were like instantly friends. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Felt 

Charles Eide: the same. There was just so much there. And, uh, I can’t wait to dive in and just like learn about the beginnings of it. You are a leadership developer. You develop leaders. 

Keith Mercurio: Oh God, I think that’s far too much credit.

I’m I, I’m a leadership coach. 

Charles Eide: You’re a leadership coach. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think the, because we can get this right outta the gates, like I, I work with already extraordinary [00:03:00] leaders. Then what we would say is like, then we unlock like a level of magic on top of that in their ability to influence, in their awareness and, and how they show up.

But I mean, everybody I work with is already like insanely successful. You know, wonderfully equipped, humble seeking, I mean, remarkable people. So, 

Charles Eide: so when you say magic, what, there, there are certainly people I’ve met that are like, wow, you’re really impressive and incredible. You’re kind, you’re gracious.

But then there is those people, there are those people. My English is, I’m still working on it. Uh, that you meet and you, you go, there’s something different about this person. 

Keith Mercurio: Mm. 

Charles Eide: And I can’t, I can’t put my finger on it. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: So when you said that extra level of magic that made that like really hit me. Yeah.

What, what is like, what is that thing? 

Impressive vs. Authentic [3:54]

Keith Mercurio: Well, I think, you know what’s interesting is you started with a really important word, which is impressive. And, [00:04:00] um, I think so many people, and I’ll speak just for myself in this regard, you know, have spent most of my life in an effort to be impressive, right? So to to gather the skills or the traits or whatever the components are that make others say wow.

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: Um, and, uh, 

Charles Eide: so like a corner office with a beautiful blazer mm-hmm. And the loafers you were wearing. 

Keith Mercurio: Make no mistake, brother. All the, all the, all the different ways that if I dress myself up, maybe I’ll feel like I’m enough. 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

Keith Mercurio: Right? So that’s that, you know, and, and, and so often, at least for me, again, speaking only for myself, that’s, that’s all ways of sort of masking or trying to dress up the insecurities that are, you know, below the surface when it comes to the, the sense of worth.

But, um, you know, when you, when you talk about like, then where people sort of elevate to another level, because my experience in, in life thus far has been that that is a really. Damaging, dangerous and fleeting pursuit, because what it does is it leads [00:05:00] to an entire existence of, uh, seeking external validation because you can’t be impressive if there’s nobody to be impressed.

Yeah. So what ends up happening, what happened for me was that I just spent my whole life trying to, trying to, um, accrue and draw, you know, admiration and validation, and that’s all the impressive parts. And I’m not saying that they’re bad or, or unwarranted or that everybody ha shares in this, but for me, it was so one-sided that it was dependent upon external validation that I completely lost and, and, and basically didn’t even, you know, discovered I never had the capacity to in fact, validate myself internally.

Right. And so there was this massive gap between, um, external appearance and internal worth, self-worth. What I think when you talk about like impressive and then to that magical level. You know, I recently, um, saw a study, uh, it was a, a scientific study, I think, um, on Instagram [00:06:00] and, uh, and it was, 

Charles Eide: I love a good 

Keith Mercurio: Instagram scientific study.

Yeah. We’re just, we’re just gonna cite Instagram. Um, but it was real, but it was talking about this, they, they were measuring vibrations and, you know, the, one of the highest vibrations that people experience is love and to be loved, to experience love, to feel love. One of the highest vibrations, but even higher than that was the experience of authenticity.

And so 

Charles Eide: higher than love. 

Keith Mercurio: Yes, yes. And, and what people are really drawn to that I would say, brings people into a level of magic is when there’s such an honest integrity, the inside and the outside are in such total coherence, such congruence that it vibrates at a different level and people are drawn to it in a way that is almost like magic.

It feels. Otherworldly. And I would say in a lot of ways it is because it’s, it’s bringing in like a humility and a clarity that [00:07:00] really, I’ve only seen people develop it from, uh, their, their belief in something greater than them. You know, whether it’s the collective consciousness, God’s consciousness, their faith, their um, their spirituality, the depths of their belief system, but they, it takes a ton of courage to face so fully one’s own insecurities, own fears, own shadows and dark spots that, um, you really can’t do it alone.

You have to believe that there’s something greater humanity, God, et cetera. Uh, that’s, that’s supporting you in that effort. And, and then when that occurs, I, that’s when I experience people who vibrate at what feels like a magical level where it’s doesn’t even come from them. It comes through them. 

Charles Eide: It’s interesting you say that one of the most, uh, one of the highest performing episodes that we’ve filmed is with Jay Stroman and Jay.

He’s the man behind the curtain for [00:08:00] basically any retail you’ve ever seen. Mm-hmm. And you know, like his company makes all the tables in the Apple stores globally. Like his stories are incredible. He is impressive. But I think the reason that it was such a heavily regarded, like just so highly regarded was he was so authentic during the, during the podcast.

He was so honest about his own mistakes and shortcomings. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: And I think you’re right, it does cause this kind of like extra level of connection with people. Yeah. But how do you get there when you’ve got these insecurities? Like I think about like, I’m impressive. Look at my this and my Range Rover and all this stuff, you know?

And it’s like, yeah, you’re right. Stuff. That’s just stuff. I 

Keith Mercurio: saw the Range Rover. It is very nice. I knew it was yours too. Jesus did. I know it was yours. 

Charles Eide: But, but all of that stuff, you’re right. That stuff doesn’t make you happy. 

Keith Mercurio: Oh, well that’s, so here’s the great gap that occurs. There are a [00:09:00] few things that you just hit on that I, I wanted to touch.

So, you know, the great gap starts to occur. So if everything is, you know, a, a search for external validation, right? What’ll end up happening, and, and I’ve seen this so many times with the people that I work with, is they start to accrue more and more and more circumstance, circumstantial evidence of their impressiveness, right?

And of course, it drives if, if there’s an insecurity, it’ll drive a leader to do more and more and more and build a business. Entrepreneurs are notorious for this, right? Like that, you know, oh, if I just get to this place, or this place, or this place, and it’s the next goal, it’s the next goal, it’s the next goal.

But if that journey is an outward in journey of accruing these data points that are meant to make us feel like enough, right? Once I’ve done that, then I’ll be worthy. Then I’ll feel good about myself. Then I’ll have been successful, then I’ll, and what most people can relate to at any level in their journey is they get [00:10:00] to that point and they don’t feel any more fulfillment at all.

Than they did previously. In fact, they might even feel less because what starts to happen is the gap between their net worth and their self worth begins to grow even greater. And the larger that that gets, the more you start to see people lacking that fulfillment and really feeling depression, anxiety, like a sense of what is this all about?

And I mean, that’s such a part of, I think, the midlife discovery for so many people, especially men. But truly for any entrepreneur who’s, who’s, you know, or, or you know, somebody who’s aspired to multiple roles in their career and they achieve ’em, they get wealth, they get the house, they get all of these things, and then their net worth has grown exponentially.

Well, their self-worth has remained the same, and that gap leaves ’em feeling even more empty. 

The Net Worth vs. Self-Worth Gap [10:54]

Charles Eide: So the self-worth obviously hasn’t kept up with the net worth, if you will. How, how, [00:11:00] how does someone like me work on. The self-worth part. How do I, how do I help the self-worth continue to grow so that you don’t have a big gap?

And how the heck did you figure all this out? 

Keith Mercurio: Well, the so important, probably disclaimer here is the part where I say, and we’ll remind you, I know nothing. Okay? And, and the, the more I learn, the less I know. And so to say I figured anything out, good God, I, I would never suggest such a thing. But I have sought, and sought and sought the wisdom of many.

And I have felt the, the absolute implosion of getting to a certain place in life and discovering that, uh, I had never truly done the work to develop the character that I aspired to, nor the sense of internal validation and self-worth that I, uh, would’ve needed to sustain. Some of life’s pressures. And then that’s where I crumbled [00:12:00] and, and made a number of mistakes that really, you know, tore the life I knew apart.

And so, you know, it was in that seeking that I, I found some really wise people who were able to, to offer me some insights. And most of what I’ll share with you today and share with anyone that I’m working with is this premise of simply what I’m learning, right? Here’s what I’m learning, here’s what I’m seeing.

And, uh, and so I’ll answer a couple questions here. One, you ask like, how does somebody do this? Because so often, you know, Maxwell talks about the law of the lid and that your team will never grow. Um, as, as you know, to the point that you’ve passed, your team will never grow past the point that you’ve grown to.

Okay? Now, I think that this is actually much better from my observations, demonstrate, uh, demonstrated in, it’s not that the height to which you’ve grown, but rather the rate at which you demonstrate continuous growth. And you’ll create the [00:13:00] velocity at which your team will grow. And so that means that there’s a constant humility to the learning and a vulnerability in admitting I was wrong here.

I made a mistake there. Um, I’m actually discovering that I, you know, that I wasn’t right about that. Or learning to apologize quickly. Um, you know, letting people know, wow, I was wrong to speak to you like that. I, I, I raised my, my tone. Uh, and rather than the justification that so many leaders find themselves in, well, if they were just, you know, if they would just get it, if they would just get bought in, if they would just, you know, that I needed to respond that way.

So, 

Charles Eide: Hey, how about you stop being such a stupid idiot? 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, I’ll try, I’ll try being nicer if you try being smarter. And so there’s like this, there’s this, this, um, constant justification of our behavior because what’s happening is. We’re still reacting from. And now this will answer the next question.

How do we start to do this? 

Personality Formed by Age 8 [13:58]

Keith Mercurio: 80 to 90% of a human’s [00:14:00] personality and character is fully formed by the age of eight. All right? Now this is what the science non Instagram science is, what the actual science shows us. Uh, and the only argument is whether it’s 80 or 90%. And so what you start to realize is that nearly every program that’s operating a 99% plus of human behavior comes from the non-conscious, the unconscious, the subconscious, whatever you wanna call it.

So it’s not what we’re thinking, it’s what we’re actually feeling. It’s from our belief system. It’s these deep, deep parts of us that are inherent and they’re patterns. They’re programs that run over and over and over again. And when you start to realize that 80, 90% of what we do, who we are, and what we believe came by the age of eight, you start to discover that all people are, and this is what I do my best to remember in coaching and, and in life when I can.

It’s just. It’s a whole bunch of little kids walking around in adult costumes. Truly, that’s what we are. And you know, we get confused [00:15:00] because we want to believe that we’re the, how old are you now? 

Charles Eide: 41. 

Keith Mercurio: You just, yeah. 41. Um, oh, I was bummed. I couldn’t be at your 40th birthday. Hmm. 

Charles Eide: We had a lot of 

Keith Mercurio: fun. I know you did.

I would’ve loved to have been there. So, you know, 

Charles Eide: big old ranch party. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. That’s 

Charles Eide: cool 

Keith Mercurio: dude. And then another thing I, you were 

Charles Eide: missed, 

Keith Mercurio: dude, this, but this is another great point. Like, so I know the right thing to say is that I’m so happy for you, for the ranch, the success, everything else, but the reality, my first thought is, I’m so fucking jealous of you.

Charles Eide: Mm. 

Keith Mercurio: Like that’s the first emotion that I have. Mm. It’s envy, it’s jealousy when I see someone achieving at a level beyond that or as I wish I could. Right. And, and I have to be aware, like that’s that little kid inside of me. Sees somebody else with a toy or, or money or a life that that’s better and bigger.

And that goes, I want that. That’s not fair. Right. I have to become aware of that and like acknowledge that, not beat [00:16:00] myself up for it. Right. And just, just listen and go, okay, what is it really going on for you right there? Right. Well, what is it? It’s once again a sense that I’m not enough. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: I’m not doing enough.

There’s something wrong with me. There’s something wrong with my pursuit. And so, 

Charles Eide: but we don’t stop and think that, do we? We just let the program run and we go, screw that guy and we don’t even think of it. 

Keith Mercurio: Ex And then, and then if we can, we’ll find the reasons, the circumstantial reasons. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Oh, he’s lucky.

Or he’s got family inheritance or he’s got, you know, uh, somebody gave him that. Yeah. Or 

Keith Mercurio: whatever. Possibly strong hairline. Yeah. It’s just Right. We’ll, we’ll find these things that we can cite that. Because they got that. They have that. Right. And so that’s all the rationalization and the work of the ego to try to keep us perfect.

Right? So we make something. So it helps us make sense of 

Charles Eide: where we are. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. And it helps, helps us make sense, which is very important. That’s, that’s a critical insight. We need to make sense of things. Human [00:17:00] beings need to make sense of things. And so we’re always trying to put things in a pattern. And those patterns were mostly developed in the nervous system by the age of age.

Charles Eide: Geez. 

Keith Mercurio: And so, so like the mistake is we, you know, Charlie, you might be like, well, at 41 years old, you know, I know better. I should know better or whatever. Or I’m, you know, and, and the mistake is you start to think you’re the 41-year-old version of Charlie without realizing it’s like an accordion. You’re the zero through 41-year-old version.

Those parts never go away. They’re embedded in the process, in the program. Right. So now, and with 80 to 90% of the influence being from those ages zero through eight. 

Charles Eide: 80 to 90% of the influence is from that period of time. Yeah. So everything you add on top of, that’s just nothing compared to it 

Keith Mercurio: comparatively.

Right. Unless, unless you start to do the work to go back and work within the original programming to start to listen to it and understand it. 

Charles Eide: Is this why a lot of [00:18:00] people do work on their inner child e 

Keith Mercurio: Exactly. 

Charles Eide: I mean, they hear this all the time and now I, I can’t, can’t help but say that seems a little, of course, inner child.

Really? 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: But now it’s starting to make sense. 

Keith Mercurio: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: So you’re saying reprogramming the inner child almost that zero to eight. 

Re-Parenting the Inner Child [18:18]

Keith Mercurio: To, to bring it even further into the, you know, to the, the, the terminology that makes most people resist. It’s the re-parenting of the inner child. 

Charles Eide: Oh my. 

Keith Mercurio: That’s the premise.

Charles Eide: Like, you have to re-parent your inner child. 

Keith Mercurio: That’s it. 

Charles Eide: What? 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. Yeah. And 

Charles Eide: so how the heck do you do? I have so many questions right now. 

Keith Mercurio: Yes, good, good. 

Charles Eide: How do you do that? 

Keith Mercurio: But see, that’s, and there’s, by the way, beauty, so I commend you ’cause curiosity is such a wonderful place to start. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Right. Rather than the resistance.

So, you know, you might note, like, I think you, you know, you even noted like an inner child. Like I’m an 

Charles Eide: all adult over here. Okay. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah, yeah. Big tough man. I’m a [00:19:00] big boy, right? And so the ego wants us to believe that this, right? Because it, the moment that we have to go back and start to do that work, well there’s a vulnerability to that.

There’s an enormous vulnerability to that. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: I mean, just for, for two. Men in their forties to be sitting here talking about reparenting the inner child. Like this is a, this is, uh, something that most, this 

Charles Eide: wasn’t on my Bingo card for today. 

Keith Mercurio: And it’s not, and it’s, you know, and, and so, you know, the, the, the, the work I, I’ve been, um, one of the great influences in my life more recently has been David Day and Fisher and, 

Charles Eide: uh, David, David Dayan Fisher, 

Keith Mercurio: David Dayan Fisher.

Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

Keith Mercurio: And, um, he, he is actually a phenomenal, uh, social media follow Instagram follow. More importantly, his book The Map was a, an extraordinary read, but what he has his teaching along with, and then I’ll just, I mean, we’re just going for it right along with the, you know, I, I’ve sought, um, multiple trips [00:20:00] to, to Costa Rica to sit with the shaman and, and to experience and, and learn from there sense.

So you’ve done a bunch of different 

Charles Eide: things. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m a, I, I join a cult every year. You know, like, it’s just very, very, very important to continuously immerse myself in some very cult-like experience for a little while. 

Charles Eide: Sure. 

Keith Mercurio: And, uh, see what version of me comes out. Yeah. Um, but 

Charles Eide: so you’re just taking a sampling of the discovery of yourself throughout all these different experiences?

Keith Mercurio: Yes, yes. And I mean, I do it primarily in my ongoing quest for some sense of peace and progress and, and, and joy and fulfillment, you know, that has been elusive for me in my lifetime, despite achieving plenty of successes beyond which I, I was supposed to have been happy, supposed to be enough, and I’m, you know, and I, I struggle still and I see it in so many people.

So yeah. I keep seeking and I keep sharing what I’m learning. 

Keith’s Turning Point [20:56]

Charles Eide: Where was that turning point for you when you realized I’m [00:21:00] not happy and I have a lot of work to do? 

Keith Mercurio: Um, well. I mean, I think the, you know, probably, well, I can point to the saddest day of my life. Um, it was the day, it was the day after my dad’s funeral, and we had just lost him to Alzheimer’s.

Although actually that’s not fair. I won’t, I won’t do him to this, that disservice we lost my dad to the fact that he chose, despite his altered state, he chose to stop eating and drinking because he was not gonna let Alzheimer’s beat him. 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

Keith Mercurio: One of the most courageous acts I’ve ever witnessed. Wow. So it was the day after his death, uh, his funeral, excuse me, which was 18 months after my mother’s funeral, and, um, the day of his funeral, I said goodbye to my wife and my dog as, uh, that was the last time I saw her, uh, heading into our [00:22:00] divorce, uh, which had just become the next, um.

Had just been put in motion the week between his death and his funeral. Oh my gosh. And so I woke up in this hotel room, um, completely alone. And I just had this extraordinary sense of everything I loved was gone. Some of it by way of just life, but so much of it by way of my own failures and missteps and, you know, the things that I had done that cost me that marriage.

And oh dude, I cried and cried. Sobbed, sobbed, sobbed. And it was in that moment that, you know, it became really clear to me. It was like there was no one left for me to take care of except for me. And that was the one person I had never [00:23:00] truly taken care of. Now, I don’t mean that in some selfless way. In fact, it was in the most selfish way.

I would take care of the parts to feel good, the ways to numb myself spending money looking good. It wasn’t like that. I took care of that shit, right? But I didn’t, I did not ever learn how to care for the little kid, right? And so in that moment, what was I feeling? Well, I was feeling the abandonment of a child that had just lost everybody that loved him, everyone he loved.

And it was as though God said in that moment, like, all right, buddy, 42 years I’ve been trying to teach you this lesson. Like this is an inside out job. Uh, now there’s no one else for you to take care of. There’s no one looking after you. There’s no one checking in on you. You know, don’t get me wrong. I have amazing friends and family, but like, there’s nothing that replaces.

The parent or your partner. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: [00:24:00] Right. And, and, and in that moment it was just like God said to me like, all right bud, like you gonna figure this out now, or what? And so that was, that’s what, that’s what started the journey, you know, that’s what really, or, or that’s what really, um, there were many things, like everybody loves to have the, the one point where everything changed.

That was one of many, and by no means was it like low point on the way up. I mean, it got worse from there. It got really worse, a lot worse from there, and a lot more painful from there because to start to strip those pieces apart and face that shit, all the ways in which I was constantly, you know, seeking validation and, and coming to grips with the way that I related with women, the way that I related with money, the way that I was, you know, seeking all this stuff.

That was a very, very painful journey to, to go down and. You know, you discover all of these things were mechanisms of trying to mask and create. For me, [00:25:00] validation, I realized I shouldn’t speak for anyone else. I realized these were all ways of masking and, and trying to create validation for a little kid that never felt like he was enough, never felt worthy, felt like there was something wrong, and there was something wrong with him.

And so, you know, you ask, how do you do this work? Well, the, the, the first part of it, and Fisher talks about this, and I had the chance to do a call with him that was absolutely extraordinary. And, you know, it begins with, and, and I think most importantly is it starts with the breath. You and I already did the physiological exhale.

All right. Phy, it’s, it’s a, you know, the deep breath. 

Charles Eide: Tell us how to do it again. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. This was Huberman. I got the chance when I was working with, um, I interviewed Andrew Huberman recently. 

Charles Eide: Oh, cool. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. Along with Peter, which, um. Wow. Yeah. That was fascinating. Yeah. And also he’s, he’s in the news for not great reasons lately.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Um, but, uh, nothing [00:26:00] can take away the wisdom of both of those men and what I was able to learn. But Huberman talked about this, uh, extraordinary, um, this breath that they discovered, which was an interventionist bit of breath work, meaning that you could interrupt and, and reset the nervous system with a simple breath.

Charles Eide: Hmm. And one breath. 

Keith Mercurio: One breath. Yeah. Well, kind of two. Okay. So it’s as deep an inhale as you can take through the nose. And then at the top of the breath, when your lungs are full, you, you catch one more sip of air and then you do a, a long exhale out through the mouth. 

Charles Eide: Can we do one? 

Keith Mercurio: I’d love to. I’d love as many times a day as you can.

So.

Charles Eide: That’s so calming. 

Keith Mercurio: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: How often do you do that? Are you like the weird guy on the airplane? 

Keith Mercurio: Yes. Oh God yes. Oh my God, dude. 

Charles Eide: Well, you don’t like flying. 

Keith Mercurio: I hate turbulence. I like flying. I like the smooth part of flying. I don’t like the turbulence part. Dude. I was literally doing them. I, because we were laughing about you and I earlier about [00:27:00] when I flew with you, uh, last year and, um, 

Charles Eide: we were coming home from Austin, 

Keith Mercurio: I think.

Yeah, yeah. 

Charles Eide: And you hitched a ride with me. 

Keith Mercurio: Yep. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, 

Keith Mercurio: yeah. I came back up hitched a ride with you. 

Charles Eide: It was 

Keith Mercurio: a 

Charles Eide: bad 

Keith Mercurio: day. And you are an extraordinary pilot. It’s one of the things I admire most about you is how seriously you take it. How good you are at it is, is remarkable. I, it really is. Is talk about impressive.

It’s, it’s extraordinary. 

Charles Eide: Thanks. 

Keith Mercurio: Now that said. That ride was fucking terrifying. Can we swear on this podcast? Yeah. Okay. Thank God. Because I, this, it’ll be done in 10 minutes if you limit me. So, um, so I mean, absolutely. I was a wreck. Yeah. I was a wreck. Yeah, you were. And you were just, were just like, oh, no big deal.

Everything’s great. You know, just like easy as could be. 

Charles Eide: And that was pretty light turbulence. But I remember that day because we were flying along and when you’re talking to air traffic control, you hear everybody else talking. Yeah. And it was Delta Southwest. Everybody was like, Hey, is there a better altitude?

Because we’re all getting beat up. And I just remember a TC being like. All [00:28:00] altitudes have turbulence right now. And I remember looking back at you being like, I don’t think I’m gonna tell him that.

Keith Mercurio: See, that’s just good parenting from you to me because I, I didn’t need to, I didn’t need any more information. Remember. I 

Charles Eide: was like, it’s getting better sooner I, it’ll be all right. 

Keith Mercurio: Oh God. Oh, that’s amazing. Now there’s, there is something to be said. I’ll share this quick little, um, I’ll intervene with this quick little piece of information that I think is really powerful.

Uh, and when it comes to, to how you’re able to impact and influence people, um, what we tend to do is we wanna try to make people feel better by saying to them, you know, oh, this, this won’t be so bad. There’s a great, uh, there’s some great research around this with, um, with phlebotomists or nurses who take blood and, and, you know, use needles.

And, um, and what they found was that, uh, patients who were told, uh, this won’t hurt very much, or it’s just a little pinch experience, more pain 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: Than the ones who said, now this is gonna hurt. And so when we tell people something’s gonna be actually. As bad or [00:29:00] worse than it is, their experience is actually less pain.

Charles Eide: So it’s the opposite of what you think you want to do. 

Keith Mercurio: Exactly. Exactly. This is such a big part, and this is such a big part of how we try to manage people’s feelings and manage our own experience, and also how we even sometimes do the same with ourselves, but that that power, so like for example, if you have to have a difficult conversation with somebody, instead of saying to them, oh, you know, hey, please don’t be offended, or, you know, like, you know, Hey, you know, look, this is just, it’s something that I’ve noticed.

Instead just say, you say to them, um, Hey, I’m gonna share something with you that’s gonna be hard for you to hear, right? Or it’s gonna be difficult to hear, or it may hurt. And you let the person know that. And then as they’re now braced and you go into the very direct delivery of the information, you’ll actually see people much more able to, to accept and hear and process the information that you’re sharing with them.

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: And so. For what it’s worth, I guess, in that [00:30:00] moment. So 

Charles Eide: I should have said, it’s gonna get worse, man. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better. And uh, and I suppose, although I don’t know, man, I don’t think anything was gonna help me that day, but yeah. But that is a really powerful tool for people to learn how to deliver difficult information.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: All right. So look, I don’t wanna, um, miss though to just circle back. So Fisher’s work and that idea of the, the parenting of the, the, the re-parenting of the inner child. So it starts with the breath. And you know, what we need to understand is, is 99% of our behavior comes from the unconscious. The unconscious.

So that’s the, the subconscious mind, right? So we talk about the mind. Now, if I asked you to point to the mind, where would you point? And I don’t know what you’re gonna say, but I mo I’ll 

Charles Eide: probably point to my head. 

Keith Mercurio: Right. Okay. So nearly everybody points to their head. And this is probably the greatest disservice and misunderstanding we have as human beings because the mind.

The subconscious mind is processing 11 million bits of data per second. [00:31:00] The conscious mind 

Charles Eide: prefrontal, it sure feels like that sometimes. Well, fair, 

Keith Mercurio: fair. Because of overwhelm. Now here’s why. Because the conscious mind, the prefrontal cortex, the logical portion of the brain where we do critical thinking, it can only handle 50 bits of data per second.

Charles Eide: And we’re getting 11 million. 

Keith Mercurio: 11 million. So what’s actually making up all of our decision making and everything else is reactivity of the mind. And the mind is far better understood as the nervous system, of which the brain is only a portion. And so, I don’t know if this is like the Joe Rogan PO Podcast where people can pull up like an image or whatever.

Sure. But if you look up, you know, nervous system, actual, all right, so just like nervous system actual, and pull up the images. It’s these. Incredible images of of the brain and the eyes and this whole body of a nervous system, it looks like a little alien. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve seen it. It looks like just a million tree branches.

Yes. In the shape of a body 

Keith Mercurio: going all through the body. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. And that’s where we start to [00:32:00] understand that the way we’ve actually learned to be us is very, very little of it is in the brain. That’s only a portion that is a processing center. But it’s actually the entirety of the nervous system is the, the non-conscious or the unconscious.

So most personal development and most coaching and everything else is deep in the thought process, thinking your way through things. And we tend to try to think our way through how we’re feeling, think our way through how we’re thinking, think our way through problems and everything else. But you know, Tony Robbins even shares that the most powerful compulsion known to human kines remain consistent with one’s own identity.

And we think of that in the language of the I Ams and I am nots, like how we’ve come to understand ourselves to be. But what I have started to realize. That is having such a profound effect on me is much more powerful than the thought of who we are is the feeling of who we are. That we will remain consistent with the feeling of who we are, the emotional sense, the [00:33:00] physical sense of what it feels like to be us, which is the nervous system, of which 80 to 90% of it was programmed by the age of eight.

Charles Eide: Whoa. 

Keith Mercurio: And in that it was programmed and a narrative was attached to it. 

Charles Eide: A narrative was attached to it. 

Keith Mercurio: So we inherited the first part directly from our mom, literally in the womb. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

Keith Mercurio: And then the next 80 to 90% was programmed by the household we were brought up in the, the little bubble that we were raised in.

Mm-hmm. Whatever that looked like with a bunch of, mind you, eight year olds. 

Charles Eide: Teaching us 

Keith Mercurio: being our parents. Mm-hmm. Being the adults in our lives that just looked like parents. ’cause they’re just little kids dressed up in adult costumes, doing their best to teach us what we’re supposed to know and then creating how we’re supposed to feel.

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: And so we create this whole narrative and this feeling of being us. And so the first times that we get in trouble or discover that we’re not safe or discover that we did something wrong and we, we, we’ve only got the prefrontal [00:34:00] cortex of an 8-year-old, a 6-year-old, a 5-year-old. And so we start to attach narratives to that that say things like, there’s something wrong with me.

I’m not safe, I’m bad. Right. And we start to develop these little talk tracks that live and they start to take root. And then those in concert with this whole sense of being the body now we feel like we hear them up here, but we feel them throughout the mind, throughout the nervous system. 

Charles Eide: And you said mind as you’re touching your chest.

That’s right. So you’re really saying, my entire body is my mind. 

Keith Mercurio: A far greater understanding of the mind is to understand that it is the entirety of the body. It’s the nervous system. We are programmed to feel things faster than we can think them. This is how we survive. 

Charles Eide: We can feel them faster than we can think of.

That’s correct. Because you’re getting 11 million and you can process 50. Right. So you have to survive through being able to deal with those 11 million. 

Keith Mercurio: Exactly. And the 11 and, and that non-conscious has already programmed these feelings 

Charles Eide: to 

Keith Mercurio: protect us. Protect us. [00:35:00] Okay. So now things happen when we get older.

Right? So maybe you’ve developed an inner narrative that says something like, um. I’ll use an example of my own that, that comes up that I think people can relate to. And you’ll, I, I mean, I talk a lot about myself. I, I some ways selfer, some ways pretty 

Charles Eide: fascinating discoveries you’ve had. So talk away. 

Keith Mercurio: Well, the hope is, is for people to learn from it, but it’s the best.

I, I speak for myself and then let people draw from it what they may, but, you know, for me, I have this, this inner narrative, but like that I, it’s very clear to me there’s something wrong. There’s something wrong with me, right? There’s something wrong and there’s something wrong with me. How 

Charles Eide: long have you had that?

Keith Mercurio: Since I was a child, A 

Charles Eide: kid. 

Keith Mercurio: As young as can be. I, I, I, I mean it’s, and I don’t even find too much power in going back to find the, the moment, although that can be sometimes really like upleveling and stuff like that. But I’ve got, I mean, I’ve got some stuff that, you know, I discovered in my, my work with the shaman when I drank ayahuasca, some stuff that I [00:36:00] saw from, from my past that, whether it’s real or not, I, I can’t even be sure, but it’s somewhere in there that it came out.

So, um, you know, that, that kind of gives me a pretty. A pretty clear image of it. But now, right, let’s say I’m, you know, pursuing a romantic relationship or something and I don’t get a text back for a while, instead of all of the logical ways of thinking my way through that as an adult version of me might be able to do.

Instead, I immediately default to that feeling there’s something wrong, there’s something wrong with me. And so now I start communicating from a desire to get that feeling fixed. 

Charles Eide: You wanna fix it, 

Keith Mercurio: right? 

Charles Eide: Because you’re uncomfortable now. 

Keith Mercurio: Yes. And so, and, but here’s what’s happened is I’ve outsourced my validation Right.

Charles Eide: To someone else. 

Keith Mercurio: Exactly. So now for me to be okay, you need to tell me I’m okay and you need to behave the way I want you to behave for me to be. Okay. Alright. And so [00:37:00] now this is where the controlling and the manipulation and all these things are, are coming from. Now, 99% of people and myself for years and years would just come to the conclusion like, well, no, it’s just rude to not get back to me.

Or, I just want to know that you’re okay dude. So full of shit. Like when I actually started to uncover all these layers, I’m like, no, it’s not about me making sure you’re okay. It’s me wanting to feel okay myself. And so now I’ll use what? I’ll use a little bit of that guilt that I inherited from mom, right?

I’ll use a little bit of that, just a little serving or Catholic guilt. And you know, now my text is, Hey, can you just get back to me? I wanna make sure you’re okay. Right? Something like that. And so and so now I’ve used a little guilt to make that person respond. 

Charles Eide: And you’re saying now, like you learned, you do that.

As a way to get what you need from them. 

Keith Mercurio: Exactly. 

Charles Eide: So, so you’re working on not doing any of that now? 

Keith Mercurio: Oh, I mean, a million things. So the first thing now, right, 

Charles Eide: we’ll make sure I respond to you immediately from now on. 

Keith Mercurio: Well, this would be the ultimate manipulation 

Charles Eide: I got [00:38:00] called Compulsive the other day from Big D Dan telling me that I respond to my text too quickly.

Keith Mercurio: Oh, that’s adorable. 

Charles Eide: I was like, I think I’m gonna put my phone down, Dan. 

Keith Mercurio: I would, I I need to find the female version of you then. That’s, that’s perfect. Somebody who’s constantly getting right back. That would be amazing. But the, the reality is like, so, so now this is the, how do I do this, right? So how do I do this?

Fisher’s Breath & Inner Dialogue Method [38:23]

Keith Mercurio: So this is from Fisher’s work. So I start with the breath, okay? Because what’s gonna happen is in that moment, something’s wrong. There’s something wrong with me. So now the narrative starts, the breathing goes shallow. What’s happened? The nervous system is remembering what it feels like to be me as a little kid.

It’s 

Charles Eide: spooling up, 

Keith Mercurio: right? Because when you’re a little kid, right, you didn’t just do something wrong. You didn’t just do something, but maybe you didn’t do any of those things at all. But somewhere in that you did something, your source of everything, your parents reprimanded you, shame, guilt set in, and then negative 

Charles Eide: consequence, 

Keith Mercurio: and then that became the feeling.

And so instead of being able to put an applicable, you know, [00:39:00] as when I was five, being like, you know, wow, you know, dad must be really overtired from working two jobs, right? I am. My response to how he responded to the way I went to bed was, there’s something wrong with me. 

Charles Eide: Hmm, 

Keith Mercurio: okay. Because that’s the inner narrative.

But then this thing continues to live on within us. And so the nervous system creates that feeling. So the first step is that breath, right? Start to capture the breath, and then the internal dialogue starts me with that, with the child, with the little kid that’s still in there. So hand to the heart

starts with reassurance. I got you. I got you. And then you learn to ask the question, what are you feeling right now? What are you feeling? All right. And if you listen again, this takes the courage, but you listen to the little kid now, the little kid will answer you back. And Fisher told me, he said, you’re gonna be amazed.

He said, you are gonna be [00:40:00] amazed at what you hear. Now the logical 40 whatever year old version of me is gonna have all of these explanations. Well, I’m just worried about this person. I just think it’s rude. I, they’re being disrespectful. They’re right. But what that little kid will say back, and I’ve discovered ’cause I listen, is he’ll say something like, I’m just, I’m scared.

I’m all alone. Okay? And you start to listen and it’s gonna sound like that. ’cause it’s not gonna be the words of a 44-year-old that can justify everything. It’s gonna be the words of a little kid that just is sharing raw what the emotions are. The experiences, and now you have the chance with all of your new faculties.

Right? How old are your kids now? They’re They’re much older. 

Charles Eide: 15, 13, and 10. 10. Okay. 

Keith Mercurio: So we can take the 10-year-old, right? Because now if the 10-year-old came to you and said, [00:41:00] you know, dad, there’s something wrong with me. Imagine how you would react to that. I mean, could you ever consider looking at that child at 10, at eight, at seven, at five, and thinking there’s anything wrong with that child?

Charles Eide: No. 

Keith Mercurio: Fucking perfect. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, 

Keith Mercurio: they’re perfect. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. So now, but instead as adults to suppress that fear, we tell ourselves all that. We talk all this shit to ourselves. Like, toughen up, be a man. Be, you know, you’re 

Charles Eide: fine, 

Keith Mercurio: you’re fine. You’re gonna be fine. You know, whatever. You’re 

Charles Eide: better than them, 

Keith Mercurio: right? And so that’s how we talk to ourselves instead of letting that child be heard.

Then reparenting. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. So how do you reparent now that you’ve heard that voice? 

Keith Mercurio: Well, let’s start here. I mean, and, and you know, I can maybe offer you some, some insights, but if I were to ask you, you know, if your child came to you, it’s, you know, one of those babies of yours came to you when they were 6, 7, 8 years old and said, there’s something wrong with me.

Or they said, your dad, I’m scared. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: What would you say? Would you tell ’em they’re not? Would you say you’re not [00:42:00] scared? What would you say to them? 

Charles Eide: Uh, if they said they were scared, I would tell them that they don’t have to be afraid ’cause I’m with them. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. So there it is. Right? I got you. 

Charles Eide: Mm, 

Keith Mercurio: I’m here.

Charles Eide: Yeah, you’re not alone. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. So now that’s that conversation. Now if they listen now, now maybe you learn to ask ’em a question too. Tell me what are you afraid of? I’m afraid we’re gonna be alone. Oh, right. But you don’t tell ’em they’re wrong. 

Charles Eide: You don’t tell ’em they’re wrong. 

Keith Mercurio: No, 

Charles Eide: no. 

Keith Mercurio: Oh, you go, oh sweetie. Of course.

And I remember that moment that I was first doing this after he taught me, and I couldn’t believe, you know, the voice came back and said, I’m scared we’re all alone. And I just, my heart broke. Right? Because the adult version of me heard, the little kid went, oh my God, buddy. I completely, that’s, that’s totally fair.

I completely understand why you feel like that. We’ve lost a lot of people that we love[00:43:00] 

and then suddenly right now there’s an opening there and now there’s the ability to say, but I’m here. And we also have a lot of people that still love us. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: We’re gonna be okay. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: You’re gonna be okay. And so now this is the reparent of the parent of the version that didn’t exist. 

Charles Eide: Right. I can tell this makes you really emotional.

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Is this, 

Keith Mercurio: is it the, is it the tears in my ass? 

Charles Eide: Well, yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, I can tell you’ve really worked hard on this. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s hard work. But I think what, you know, beyond my own experience for myself of what makes me emotional is when I think about how many people are living in this state and they don’t have the guidance or the permission to have these conversations with themselves.

You know, and like, you know, when you start to, like I said, you know, I, I, I see people in the world and when I remember, and I forget often we should [00:44:00] talk about that. But, and I remember that this is just an 8-year-old walking around in an adult costume. Suddenly that aggression that you see demonstrated in traffic or in the world, it’s, well, that’s just a really scared little boy, right?

Or that person that’s seeking attention, you know, and you kind of, you’re like, oh God, you know, look at this person online doing this or that. And then it’s like, oh my God, that’s just a little, that’s a little girl that just wants to know. She’s seen. 

Charles Eide: So it gives you a lot more empathy for the rest of humanity 

Keith Mercurio: to

the, the softness that has come from this, the softness that has come from this is, uh, extraordinary. Yeah. You know, and there’s so much of it is about first the softness for the, for me Right. And learning to take care of me. And then how much more equipped I feel, you know, that I can be there as [00:45:00] a, you know, whatever, a guide for others.

Charles Eide: I’m just sitting here processing all of this as you’re explaining it. And, you know, my 50 bits of information are running outta control. But I think about the, um, emotion that this has brought to you. Do you think everybody has that in them if they start discovering it? Like, I, I, for some reason I have. I don’t know why, but, and maybe I just haven’t done the work and that’s very possible.

But I have a hard time thinking of the 8-year-old version of me. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: And talking to him. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: You know, maybe it’s ego, maybe the ego is just so overpowering. That’s like, shut up kid. Get out of the way. I don’t know. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: But I do, like, I, I, I admire the reflection that you have done and you are doing right in front of me and I go, do I have that in me?

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. [00:46:00] So, you know, again, prefacing that I know nothing, I believe with all my heart. You have this in you entirely. Um,

and I, I, I mean, everyone does. Everyone does. It’s just science. 

Charles Eide: Do you think we all carry around? Like deep seated childhood insecurity. Do we all have it? 

Keith Mercurio: A hundred percent now, 

Charles Eide: because I think about my childhood and I’m like, I had a pretty great mm-hmm. Upbringing and a very loving household that was really encouraging.

Yes. I was always told, you can do and be anything you want. I never had a parent that was telling me I was stupid or, you know, and which I know is very fortunate for me. 

Keith Mercurio: Yes. 

Charles Eide: Right. 

Keith Mercurio: Yes. What a gift. Absolutely. 

Charles Eide: You know, and I thank my parents all the time for that. I mean, every birthday card I write ’em, I’m like, I had the best upbringing you could have given me.

Yeah. [00:47:00] 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: But do you think that there’s more to the story? 

Keith Mercurio: Certainly. Certainly. Because look, to live for a day is to be hurt. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: You know, you told, let’s take an example. Uh, you, you recently shared that your partner had let you know that he was gonna be moving on with his life and from the business.

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: And what was your initial reaction? 

Charles Eide: Initially I was hurt. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: So think about that. That that’s just, that’s a perfect example. This is someone else, an adult telling an adult, Hey, I’m taking this next step in my business. But the feeling is to be hurt. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Well, why? 

Charles Eide: Because I didn’t wanna be alone.

Keith Mercurio: There it is. There’s the little kid. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: There’s the little kid brother. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: That’s not, dude, look at what you fucking accomplished. Once you process through it, you’re like, this is gonna be great. I’m gonna be able to do these things. I’m gonna be able to, you got through, you got to the other side.

But that initial reaction was the [00:48:00] hurt. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, it was. 

Keith Mercurio: That was the little kid that just goes, I’m, I’m all alone. What do you mean you’re leaving me? 

Charles Eide: So the goal’s not to get rid of that kid. The 

Keith Mercurio: goal. Oh, far from it. Far from it. And that’s the thing. So the 

Charles Eide: goal is to get in touch with it over for for good 

Keith Mercurio: and to heal it.

Just to heal the little kid that has these natural fears. These natural fears and every child experiences them no matter how. There, there, there’s, you know, the, the buzzwords are, uh, in regard to trauma, right? Well, trauma is just an injury, right? And there’s these wounds that occur. The question is whether or not they get healed.

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: So when, look, do you have moments, Charlie, where you react disproportionately to the thing that is taking place? 

Charles Eide: Absolutely. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. So if you have 

Charles Eide: a, I had it happen today. 

Keith Mercurio: Tell me, 

Charles Eide: well, I can’t share the details. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. 

Charles Eide: But I had a situation that seemed a lot bigger and worse than, than it actually was after about [00:49:00] an hour of looking at it.

Keith Mercurio: Okay, good. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. I can’t, I, I can’t share it right now. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So after, uh, after an hour of, uh, of 

Charles Eide: Yeah. And talking it through with some other people. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. So 

Charles Eide: I got, I got more like, oh. Okay. It’s gonna be fine. 

Keith Mercurio: So after an hour of thinking about it, you discovered you were overthinking. Yeah.

Great. Alright. 

Charles Eide: I mean, true. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. Well, but what it is, and I have a, a friend, Emily Romano, extraordinary coach, she has this saying, she says, overthinking is under feeling. Because what happens is we have, so something happens and it triggers an old wound. So I see it all the time in coaching. I’ll be working with somebody and suddenly I’ll see this disproportionate emotional reaction to whatever just took place.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: So we can use hypothetical, but you know, in, I mean, you, you’ve got the example, you know, with, with Mike letting you know he was gonna be moving on with his career. Yeah. And you immediately, you go to this, I’m, I’m hurt, right? Yeah. But you don’t process it as the little kid that’s like, ah, I’m hurt. It [00:50:00] immediately turns into a new narrative about something he’s doing.

Charles Eide: Mm. 

Keith Mercurio: Right. 

Charles Eide: Sure. 

Keith Mercurio: He’s doing something wrong, not. Right. It’s so it, it starts to manifest itself in another way. You see people that have like incredible reactions where they feel disrespected, right? They’ll use language like that. Well, that was disrespectful. I don’t trust that person. All these things, these are little kid manifestations, because those things aren’t real.

There’s no such thing as disrespect. That’s not a real thing. It’s a made up concept. Show it to me. Right? It’s an experience that we have, and it’s a story that we tell. Okay? And, and in it, these disproportionate reactions, like we, what I, what I call it when I’m working with somebody is that somebody just got poked in a wound.

Charles Eide: Oh, 

Keith Mercurio: because there’s something there unhealed in them that when that person said, I don’t agree with that idea. They heard you’re stupid. Right? They heard that they felt. The old programming that was from their childhood. And I, dude, I work with all of these amazing people. We were constantly [00:51:00] finding the pattern that goes back to a wound that didn’t get the healing that it deserved.

Charles Eide: You know, this is so interesting that you’re saying this right now. ’cause as you’re talking about it and you were saying it’s bringing up something from the past. Yeah. I think entrepreneurs and founders, actually, we really struggle with this. Mm. Not necessarily our childhood, but let’s, I started my business at 18.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I’m 41 now. I mean, I’ve had about every possible scenario you could have thrown at me. Yep. Thrown at me. And I’ve gone through the pain and frustration of that. I mean, being in the events business through COVID, like I’ve had every type of people issue you could imagine. I’ve had people leave for competitors and stab us in the back.

I mean, I’ve had it all. And I think it’s interesting because as we grow and evolve. Our, our spidey senses go off and remind us of something that happened before. Mm-hmm. Even though probably it’s not as big a deal today as it was, [00:52:00] you know, eight years ago. Yeah. Like, it hurt you way worse then, because whatever happened was way more impactful to you and the business when you were smaller.

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Maybe. But now that the business is bigger, that type of issue doesn’t warrant that type of response anymore. Right? 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: And, and so it triggers that, but it triggers it as if it’s this big huge deal because it was back then. Right. 

Keith Mercurio: Very good. But, but what I would show you is that, that original, like that 18-year-old version, so you used a great phrase in here, stabbed us in the back.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. Well, that didn’t happen. 

Charles Eide: No, it felt like it. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. So notice again felt like it, 

Charles Eide: felt like it. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. Again, we’re, we’re emotional human beings. I don’t care how fucking logical you are, you’re governed by emotion, you’re governed by the nervous system. 

Charles Eide: Yep. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. So it felt like it. 

Charles Eide: It did, 

Keith Mercurio: right. It felt like it got, I got stabbed in the back.

Well dude, I can promise you we could go back and you’re gonna find a much earlier [00:53:00] episode of a friend or a loved one or somebody betraying you, stabbing you in the back. That was something that you learned as a kid, that feeling that you learned as a kid. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, I can think of it. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay, so, so now when that happened at 18 or 20 or 22 or whatever it was, it wasn’t that moment that felt stabbed at, that was it 

Charles Eide: was just recalling.

Keith Mercurio: Exactly. Exactly. And that’s the wound. 

Charles Eide: So we just go over it. Even we go through it like it was the original time. ’cause we never really addressed the issue. 

Keith Mercurio: Exactly. We feel it because it’s now, it’s a wound that’s still open that just got poked. 

Charles Eide: So it’s just a big red button you just go and hit. 

Keith Mercurio: Right.

Exactly. 

Charles Eide: So how do you get rid of the button? 

Keith Mercurio: Ah, the same way we just talked about. What are you feeling? Breathe. I got you. What are you actually feeling right now? 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: And we go and we listen to that kid. 

Everyone Carries Childhood Wounds [53:49]

Keith Mercurio: So you talked about the fact that you had this incredible upbringing. You have to understand no parent is perfect.

Right? Certainly your parents wouldn’t pretend at all that they were, they had their own shit that they were carrying. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, for 

Keith Mercurio: sure. So the [00:54:00] only one that can ever do this work with you is you, nobody had parents who got this right all the time or even had the insights of what the child was feeling to know how to get it right.

Charles Eide: Yeah. You can’t outsource this stuff. 

Keith Mercurio: No. The kid is just reacting and experiencing whatever’s going on. He’s not gonna be able to sit there, you know, and, and explain. I promise you, your parents hurt your feelings. I promise you. Your parents said things, did things that made you, that trained you, oh, I have to be this way to get love.

Or I have to, you know, even, even some of their best traits might have been that when they were encouraging you and loving up on you. This isn’t about finding fault with the parents. In fact, what it is most of all is finding, again, compassion and softness and forgiveness for everybody who’s trying to just do the best that they can.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: With no fucking playbook. No playbook. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. I mean 

Keith Mercurio: that it takes less, it, it takes less certification to be a parent than anything else on earth. 

Charles Eide: I mean, we had our first, when I was like 25, I mean 25. What do you know [00:55:00] at 25? I mean, honestly, you think you know a lot. 

Keith Mercurio: I, I, I sure thought I knew a lot more than I think I know now.

Charles Eide: You know, you’ve, you’ve tipped me off to an idea. I used to think that the only thing a business like an entrepreneur. Couldn’t outsource. ’cause think about it, you’re in the job of delegate and elevate. Right. You, you, you get people to do the things that need to get done for the vision of the business.

Sure. Right? 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: One of the things you can’t outsource is, is your physical wellbeing. Okay. You must do that work. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: You’re the one that has to do the reps in the gym. Yeah. You have to choose what you eat. You have to, you have to do that work. Mm-hmm. And I have plenty of entrepreneur friends who realize that when it was almost too late 

Keith Mercurio: mm-hmm.

Charles Eide: Then they put in the work. And you, it’s incredible to see what’s happened. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: But now I’m starting to realize it’s not just your physical wellbeing that you have to do the work on. It’s this stuff. I gotta be honest, dude, I poo poo the idea all day long [00:56:00] of like talking to your inner kid. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: I’m, I’m serious.

Yeah. Like, I’d be like, well, are you gonna go talk to your inner child? Yeah. Like, you know, dig up the wounds of the past. Like, to be honest, like. Yeah. Before this conversation I thought it was the dumbest, ridiculous crap. And now it makes total freaking sense. 

Keith Mercurio: Dude, I, I followed, thank you for saying that.

First of all, I so appreciate that. Geez. All of it. And by the way, if you still wanted to tell me that you don’t believe it, that’s okay. 

Charles Eide: No, I have 100% understood what the value is. 

Keith Mercurio: Good, good. And, and I’m, I’m, I’m thrilled. And I Not 

Charles Eide: sure I want to do it. 

Keith Mercurio: Ah, very good. Very good. Very good. And you don’t have to, but inevitably, eventually right, you’ll likely be faced with confronted with the work that hasn’t been done.

It’s inevitable. 

Charles Eide: So you might as [00:57:00] well do it sooner. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. Now I, I think, uh, maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. It’s not my job to tell you when to do it. That’s not my job to tell that my only job is to do it for me. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Is to do it for me. Now, my actual job is to be hired to guide others where I see fit. And the best way I can say that is as a coach, I’m, I just do my best to be a mirror for people, to show them what I’m seeing, to show them to themselves.

Okay. And, and in Fisher’s work, he talks about life is just a mirror. And so we’re born in perfection. We’re born in total perfection. Then we have all this shit that gets piled and programmed into us, into our nervous system. Now we become this little reactive nervous system. Mostly dysregulated. ’cause I don’t know.

I mean, did, and I’m, I mean, I love exploring and I really love how, how amazing your parents were. Mine were too, by the way. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Extraordinary. Extraordinary. I was very, very fortunate [00:58:00] with how I grew up. And it didn’t, that didn’t shield me from these. You know, inherent natural things, belief systems that were part of the religion, part of the faith, part of the time.

All of these different things, part of their own circumstances. So, so now we become this little, you know, ball of what our nervous system is just operating on a program over and over and over again. And then we keep getting these results in our life as far as relationships, success, whatever. Some of them wonderful, some of them not, but all it is is the world just is acts as a mirror.

It’s just constantly showing us to us. It shows us what we need to heal. It shows us what we need to work on. It shows us what we need to sit with. It’s not anybody else. It’s never anybody else. Once you move past that, and even when you’re a little kid, even if you’re going through horrific things as a little kid now, it’s not at that point.[00:59:00] 

There’s only so much you can do, but as an adult to heal from it. It’s still you. It still has to be you. Nobody can do this work for you. 

A Lifelong Journey [59:11]

Charles Eide: Is this a lifelong journey? Is this like a, you’re always seeking this or is it like, no, I did this work. I’m good. 

Keith Mercurio: Oh God, I don’t, well, I don’t know. I can tell you it’s as, since this is all of my life that I’ve lived, it’s a lifelong journey.

’cause I’m not anywhere near it, but I’m a little quicker. Little quicker. 

Charles Eide: Are you more forgiving? 

Keith Mercurio: Oh god. Of others. Extraordinarily, yeah. Of self. I’m getting there. I’m getting there. 

Charles Eide: So you still have moments where you’re like, you don’t forgive yourself? 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah, dude. I mean, I like, I, I, I, you know, I mean, I failed as a husband, you know, horrendously and.

I think about, uh, what that work was, you know, that I was to do. And I see now like it was [01:00:00] a mirror. It showed me the work I hadn’t done. And my complaints were with her, her, her, her. You’re, you are not focused on being a good wife. You’re not showing up in these ways. You’re not doing it right again.

Because why? Because I was outsourcing my validation. So I needed her to be a certain way, for me to be okay. And a like, just think about how exhausting that is for the other person. I mean, fuck, 

Charles Eide: exhausting, 

Keith Mercurio: exhausting, you know? But also that’s just me hiding from me. It was just me hiding from me. So then I look at the hurt that I caused and yeah, that’s been really hard work to forgive myself for that.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Really hard work. 

Charles Eide: Do you think you’re there yet? 

Keith Mercurio: No. No. 

Charles Eide: You’ll get there. The mindset like yours. Come on. 

Keith Mercurio: We’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll see. And that’s 

Charles Eide: just put some dirt on it and you’ll be fine. 

Keith Mercurio: So, so I was speaking, I spoke at an event a couple years ago with Bradley. You know Bradley? Oh, I love 

Charles Eide: Brad. 

Keith Mercurio: Of course you, yeah, [01:01:00] Brad’s a good friend.

Yeah. Oh, fucking perfect. I 

Charles Eide: love Brad. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. Great, great. So we 

Charles Eide: were just on the phone talking about my podcast studio. 

Keith Mercurio: Dude, you’ll love the, go ahead and bring up that Keith McCree was talking about the, the, the re-parenting of the inner child. He, Bradley follows me up on stage. You know, I’m talking about like all this, you know, this gentle softness stuff.

And Bradley’s like, you know, Keith would have you say that you’re supposed to be up here being nice to your little child. I say, give that kid a kick in the ass. You know, I’m like, Jesus Christ. And, and what’s so perfect? And Brad, you know, can fucking do what he wants with this. Said like, Brad. Yeah. But that in that moment, I just want, I was like, oh man.

I was like, that’s just a little kid right there. That was literally 8-year-old Brad. And the only way he knew how to handle that shit was to say some dumb shit like that. 

Charles Eide: Brad, I know you’re watching dude, 

Keith Mercurio: to try to get a laugh, right? Because it was uncomfortable for him. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: You know what I mean? 

Charles Eide: Yeah, 

Keith Mercurio: yeah, 

Charles Eide: yeah.

So that’s fine. But that’s part his brand too. You know? 

Keith Mercurio: It’s 

Charles Eide: Get Off your ass. 

Keith Mercurio: Of course it’s, yeah, it’s great. And like, and I’m not here to criticize it. [01:02:00] 

Charles Eide: No. 

Keith Mercurio: I’m not here to criticize it, but, you know, give me, 

Charles Eide: that is pretty funny though. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. Oh yeah. It was great. And now for me it just, I was like, Aw. Right.

Because I know enough. Like that wasn’t, he didn’t do anything to me. That wasn’t a shot at me. 

Charles Eide: That’s funny. 

Keith Mercurio: That was his shit, not mine. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Well, think of how many times we always look at, uh, when somebody says something critical of us, we always immediately go, oh my gosh, I’m so terrible. 

Keith Mercurio: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: Or, you know, when really, a lot of times.

When people say nasty things to you, it’s just a reflection of who they are. 

Keith Mercurio: Indeed. But I just wanna ask you for a second, so you have that experience when, when you’re criticized that you internalize that 

Charles Eide: it has happened. Yeah, for sure. I’m a human. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. So I’m, I’m asking in, in the course of this conversation I’ve shared with you, like my little internal narrative, this, like, this thought, there’s something wrong, there’s something wrong with me.

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: Right. Did has anything occurred to you that you have that’s sort of a [01:03:00] program like self-talk thing that’s negative where you go to, to some version of that?

Charles Eide: Yeah.

Growing up I wasn’t very popular and I didn’t, I didn’t really excel at sports. Mm-hmm. Or, or really any of the extracurricular things. I wasn’t a great student. I knew I wanted to be in business, but I didn’t ever have. I never had external validation through high school or, I mean, I was just, I wasn’t a good student and I wasn’t really, I wasn’t good at anything.

Mm-hmm. And I didn’t really have like a friend group that made me feel like I was at home. You know, I was always kind of a lone wolf. And so, yeah, there’s been times where I have thought to myself like, what am I doing wrong that I can’t, I mean, when I was, especially when I was in like high school, like, what am I [01:04:00] doing wrong?

That I’m not being accepted by people? 

Keith Mercurio: Perfect. So just, that is so fucking beautiful. So there’s your narrative. What am I doing wrong right now? I, I would guess if you backed it up a little further, it’s even less about the doing and more about the, what’s wrong with me. 

Charles Eide: For sure. I think we all have that to some degree.

Keith Mercurio: Alright. Well, 

Charles Eide: maybe. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah, but I mean, speak for yourself in this moment. ’cause if you do, that’s what matters. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. And, and sure. I think we can find comfort in the collective that, that we do. I mean, this is what I’m offering Sure. Is that all humans, I, I believe, have some version of this. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: But you know, I’m, I’m here thinking about you in this moment.

And so if you were to look at, like, if you’ve got an internal narrative of there’s something wrong with me, what am I doing wrong that’s causing people not to like me? And then start to map out the life that you’ve created. Right. You could, I suspect very [01:05:00] easily start to see the parts where the impressive parts, the seeking the external validation.

Charles Eide: Yeah. I’ve created reasons for people to like me that, that I think they’ll like me. Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: There you go brother. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Alright. 

Charles Eide: So it is, it is funny though ’cause I. It was probably, I don’t know, six or eight years ago where I started making enough money to be comfortable. You know, those years where you transition from being like dirt poor.

I mean, we were on food stamps when we were early married. I mean, we had nothing, nothing. And that further drove me to be like, something in me is not right and I need to fix it, and I’m gonna go get what I, what I deserve. Some of that was also drive to provide for my wife and kids, right? Like, I don’t want them to live like that.

Uh, 

Keith Mercurio: so 

Charles Eide: yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Sorry, what were you [01:06:00] gonna say next? 

Charles Eide: Well, what that did is it created a, a drive in me to prove to myself that I can I do a value? And then I went harder on. Improving our business and growing it and finding purpose in what we do. And that’s where I started to find happiness because I realized it doesn’t matter what Range Rover you have or where you live, it doesn’t matter what watch you have on your wrist.

And trust me, I have plenty of ’em. They don’t make you happy. You know, you hear it all the time. Well, stuff doesn’t make you happy. Well, that’s true. Mm-hmm. What’s made me happy is finding purpose in, in other people’s joy. Mm-hmm. That’s where I find my happiness. And so I made my mission here at my company.

I don’t care about the money. Mm-hmm. Like money is like oxygen to a business. You have to have it. But I want to see our people happy [01:07:00] and live the life that makes them happy and that has brought me joy and purpose. Not stuff, not the new Range Rover, not the new whatever. Right. Those things are fun, but those are just a like a.

Side effect of doing good for other people. And I kind of had it backwards from very early on. 

Keith Mercurio: Mm. 

Charles Eide: It was like, maybe other people will like me if I have nice stuff. It was like, no, people will like you when you help them. 

Keith Mercurio: Very good. 

Charles Eide: So that’s been my mission is just mm-hmm. I want to help my team. I want to help my family.

I wanna make people better. I wanna provide stuff like that. 

Keith Mercurio: All right. Now I wanna share something that I’m hearing that’s on my heart. Yeah.

External Validation & “People Will Like Me If” [1:07:47]

Keith Mercurio: People will like me if, 

Charles Eide: yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: So you’ve elevated your purpose in a gorgeous way, right? A very Christian way, way of serving. Right. Way [01:08:00] of showing up as a community man, as a dad, as a husband, as a provider. And I’ve watched this because I’ve worked with so many people who have elevated their businesses in this way with this purpose.

Oh, this is what brings me joy now hearing this story from this person who bought their first house and this person who did, and this is fucking wonderful. Right? Yeah. This is a, a fabulous way of being in what it creates in the world. And the world operates because of people like you. It truly does. I admire so much and so many of the entrepreneurs I work with are born of this spirit.

What you’ll notice is that the root language of the spirit is still one of insecurity. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: People will like me. If so, then I watch these amazing entrepreneurs. They sell their business and now they have 150, 250 million.

And now for a little while, you know, checking the bank account kind of feels pretty good. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: And the [01:09:00] private flights and the next house and everything else might feel pretty good. And then if the inner work hasn’t been done, brother, the walls come crashing down because people will like me if, if I provide this for them, if I provide that for them, if I create an industry, if I create a business, if I create a job, if I create money, if I create experiences, and that’s still all the language of external validation.

My purpose is still being driven by what I’m getting 

Charles Eide: them liking me. If. I’m gonna pick up the check at dinner. It’s gonna be great. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. And fucking dude, that’s okay. And I wanna make sure that I’m really clear about this. Don’t stop doing that shit. Especially tonight when we go out to dinner. Don’t stop doing that shit.

Alright. I, I am fully here to support, I think as providers, as men serving that purpose. I, trust me, I’ve, I’ve experienced the loss of providing for people and it’s, it’s, it’s, there’s an emptiness to that too. It’s [01:10:00] really, really meaningful to keep doing that. And we should, and we should and you should. I, I am not suggesting differently.

What’s really important though, is to not confuse that with you being enough, because that is still all a model of external validation that is still all performative. If I do this, then I get love. 

Charles Eide: Why do you think we default to wanting external validation? ’cause it seems to be really common. 

Keith Mercurio: Well, this is where you have to go back to your parents.

Okay. Because our original source, the original currency of life is love and validation. So our parents teach us to be the way they want us by way of love and validation. We get love and attention when we do good, whatever good is to them. It could be being polite, it could be being [01:11:00] handsome, it could be being a good boy.

It could be being tough. It could be being, you know, a good student. It could be, you know, being a pretty girl, whatever it is. That’s the original programming. And so the child unable to making the distinction learns if I do this, then I get love. And if I don’t do this, then love is taken away. So if I do these bad things or if I’m bad, I lose this.

If I’m good, I get this. And so now the whole map gets programmed in the child, in the nervous system imprinted. And now that feeling of being us becomes our programming. And so now little five, six, 7-year-old Charlie, through no fault of his parents, but entirely the doing of his parents learns. If I’m this way, I get love and attention.

That’s the original currency that we seek. And [01:12:00] so then the rest of our lives are spent until we start doing the reprogramming, the rest of our lives are spent. Most people with no awareness of this, just chasing the love and attention, the validation. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: It’s just natural. It’s just what we do. 

Charles Eide: It’s age old.

Keith Mercurio: It’s age old from the beginning of time. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: This is how parents raise children. 

Charles Eide: Now you got me all worried about how I’ve raised my kids since they’re all past the age of eight. I’m like, oh gosh. 

Keith Mercurio: No. Don’t worry about They are, dude, they’re fucked. All right. You’re gonna make a, you’re gonna have to make a new one if you wanna start over, right?

Charles Eide: Oh my goodness. Oh, okay. Well, I would, first of all, I’d like to do this. Okay. Will, will you come back and we can talk even deeper on some of these ideas? 

Keith Mercurio: I’d love to. If, if that’s what life, and, and 

Charles Eide: I would love that the world allows, I want to talk more about some of these other principles you teach. I think there’s so much value that I, I mean, I got so [01:13:00] much value here.

This was incredible. But I want to have you back ’cause I wanna talk more about these things. 

Keith Mercurio: Let the coach in me do what I do though. What, what specifically for your audience? Because the, the people that listen to this show admire you so much and they, they, they gain so much from, from what they see you doing.

Yeah. So what will, what will you do with this? What will you do with this as far as your actual key takeaways? You know, putting you on the spot and, 

Charles Eide: no, no, no. You’re not. I mean, yes, you are putting ’em on the spot, but I already have thought about this. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. 

Charles Eide: I think the, the initial, the first thing I’m gonna do that I’m gonna implement, and every single time I do a podcast, I walk away with something that’s just life changing.

This has been so life changing to do this podcast. 

Keith Mercurio: I bet. 

Charles Eide: Because of this. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah, of course. 

Charles Eide: So the first thing I’m gonna do is I’m gonna use the, the breath, take a pause and just take stock [01:14:00] of what that actual feeling is. And I’m just gonna remind myself, I’m gonna remind my little child. It sounds so weird considering what I could, I could hear it.

Could you tell me? I’m just like, I could what? Hear 

Keith Mercurio: it. 

Charles Eide: I’m gonna, I’m gonna try it next time I feel this, which happens. I’m my probably all the time. Yeah. I mean, probably don’t even realize how much it happens. I’m, I’m going to, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna remind myself that everything’s gonna be okay. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah.

You’re okay. I got you. 

Charles Eide: I feel like there’s so much burden that could be gone if I could get in this habit. 

Keith Mercurio: Ah,

Charles Eide: is that not, 

Keith Mercurio: say more on that. I know we gotta wrap up, but say more on that. 

Charles Eide: Well, I just, 

Keith Mercurio: it’s your fucking studio. What do you be wrapped to? Wrap up. Do anything you want. 

Charles Eide: I think the. I think there’s a lot of burden we carry, especially as entrepreneurs, we carry a lot of burden because we’re carrying the weight or we think we’re carrying the weight [01:15:00] of the organization and its people and the families and your family and the expectations and all the things that you have to uphold.

Part of me just wants to let that crap go, buddy. Just go, I don’t care. But the problem is I, but I do care. Like I care about that. ’cause if I just said I’m give, I don’t care. 

Keith Mercurio: Yeah. I can’t wait till Jessica watches. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. She’s gonna be like, what? What the fuck, 

Keith Mercurio: Keith? 

Charles Eide: No, but I think it releases you of a burden.

Yeah. That, that you need. To prove something. 

Keith Mercurio: So this, this is so good and this is the decoupling that I’m talking about. I’m not suggesting that you stop providing stop driving, stop being who you are. It’s just not any longer fooling yourself or allowing yourself to hide from the reality that what we’re seeking is this sense of feeling like enough.

And if you’ve got it in your mind and [01:16:00] your body from childhood, there’s something wrong with me. What is it about? What am I doing that people don’t like? People will like me if. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Keith Mercurio: Then this is still all gonna be a really painful discovery when no matter how much you’ve created, no matter how much you’ve done for others, no matter what, that you still have the sense that I’m not enough.

You know, I, I think if, if you were willing to, to, to really sit with it, you know, I suspect that you, and I think you’ve said as much today that you can, you, you do feel that, you do have that sense that the burden is not to provide. You’ve already provided, dude, I’ve seen your, you, you guys have enough money, you’re gonna be fine.

You’re gonna be fine. All right. And everybody here can find another job. All right? Everyone’s gonna be fine. So clearly there’s something more, and I want you to keep, but you can start to decouple it. I do this because I choose to, not because I have to, in order to feel like enough. And as you continue to decouple and, and start to just like, [01:17:00] recognize what’s driving it now you start to become conscious of that choice.

And it’s no longer a burden. It’s a choice. ’cause it’s a burden right now. Because how else are you supposed to operate? It’s the only thing you’ve known since you were a child. I have to do this in order to feel like enough, in order to be loved, in order to be liked. 

Charles Eide: It’s a hell of a motivator. 

Keith Mercurio: It is. It’s the ultimate.

Which is why there’s nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing wrong with it, 

Charles Eide: but we become a slave to it. That’s right. So you’re saying quit being a slave to it if you 

Keith Mercurio: want. 

Charles Eide: I love it guys. If you want, dude, you are, you are a great teacher and I’m really grateful for you and I’m grateful for our friendship.

I’m grateful for the work that you are doing in yourself so you can share it with me. I, I, I mean that, and I would like to ask you one last question. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. Please. I, I also wanted to ask if I get to share one last story. 

Charles Eide: Why don’t you share your story first? 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. Alright. [01:18:00] 

The Shaman from Pittsburgh [1:18:00]

Keith Mercurio: So all this work I told you, I, I, you know, I go and I, I I am broken.

Okay. Broken to bits, and I go and I seek, you know, the, uh, the, the ancient wisdom of the shaman. I go into the jungle of Costa Rica. You know, 

Charles Eide: Jesus can take your brokenness right now. 

Keith Mercurio: Ooh. You know, you know, I met Jesus. 

Charles Eide: You met Jesus. 

Keith Mercurio: I did. I did 

Charles Eide: story for another day. Maybe 

Keith Mercurio: that, uh, when I come back, I’ll tell that story.

Okay. Okay. Fascinating. Because it involves the same shaman. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

Keith Mercurio: Involve, involves the same shaman. So I, I, I, I go to the jungles of Costa Rica. I’m seeking the ancient wisdom of the Amazon and, uh, and just, I mean, hoping, praying, just anything that I will be healed, right? That this pain will be taken away of, of how I’m experiencing myself.

And, um, and, and I meet my shaman Chris. Fucking Chris from Pittsburgh. 

Charles Eide: You [01:19:00] shaman’s name is Chris from Pittsburgh. I was livid. I thought he was gonna have like 

Keith Mercurio: a, a cool, mys, mystical name. I was, of course. So did I think about my disappointment? I’m like, I can’t tell my friends that my shaman was Chris from Pittsburgh.

Like this such bullshit. So I’m down there, I’m beside myself. I’m seeking the ancient wisdom of the Amazon. I, I mean, Pittsburgh isn’t even the oldest city in Pennsylvania for God’s sakes. Like I am. I amm pissed. You’re like, 

Charles Eide: what? 

Keith Mercurio: So, but like so many things, right? This is the moment to learn, right? Like, oh God, now I’m not some, I’m not.

Something’s wrong with me. I’m not. This isn’t real. If he’s not who he’s supposed to be. Well of course this man would turn out to be one of the great guides in my life. And, um. And are you familiar with Ayahuasca at all? 

Charles Eide: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: All right. The basic premise, it’s a psychosomatic effect. So you drink this medicine, it, it sort of interrupts the ego.

It, it breaks the, the, the processing of the conscious mind so that you have total access to the non-conscious. And some would say access to God’s conscious. It’s considered the feminine form of God. It, it’s really, it’s [01:20:00] very powerful, very beautiful, but it creates a psychosomatic effect, which now makes a lot of sense if you followed everything we’ve talked about scientifically.

’cause what happens is you suddenly have insights and memories, and you go back and you see certain things, or you learn certain things about yourself that become clear again. And then the body has a physiological effect where it purges. And it purges through sweating. It can purge through crying, it can purge through your stomach, your gi, and one of the primary ways that it purges through vomiting.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Okay. So this is, now this makes sense, right? Because if you read like, uh, Bessel VanDerKolk’s book, the body keeps the score. It’s just further evidence of this science that the mind is the body and we, we retain memory in the body, in the nervous system, trauma is trapped in the body, et cetera. So you have this in, in sight, and then suddenly you have a psychosomatic effect, and you have a physiological reaction, and you begin to purge.

So here I am, I’m, I’m going through ceremony with Chris and I, I have this moment where I discover, uh, that there’s, you know, I, I, I feel like the medicine is telling me one thing. I go and I, I say, Hey, you know, the medicine’s telling me [01:21:00] I don’t need any more medicine. And he laughs. He goes, ah, this is a trick of the ego.

And he gives me another cup. He goes, drink. And we laugh and I go back and I ask the question. I said, Hey, show me what else? My ego is lying to me about. And suddenly I start to see this entire experience of my life. And I realized that like the whole reason that I was still trying to handle my divorce the way I was, was so that I would get my wife’s approval.

And then I started to look at all the women that I’ve chased for approval in my life. And it went all the way back. And I, and I get back to the, the OGSE, my mom since 1982, seeking her approval, right? And I start to have this incredible purging taking place, and I’m out on the front lawn and they give you these buckets, you know, and I always knew I had this, like, bottomless pit of my need for validation.

And I remember having, it’s God’s very funny this way. I remember I’m just, I’m, I’m, you know, just over this bucket, vomiting over and over again. And, uh, and I remember laughing to myself, I go, oh, I finally found the bucket that I can fill with my need for validation. So, so then I, I, in that moment, I, I look to the heavens, you [01:22:00] know, mom’s now passed, right?

So I’m talking to her, I go, Hey mom, I need you to know that I’m done seeking your validation. You know, and like 30 seconds later I look back up and I go, and I would really appreciate if you tell me you’re proud of me for that.

So, so I, I have this, I have this incredible experience and, and then I go back in and I’m like, I’m sharing this, uh, you know, regaling Chris with this tail. And he goes, uh, you know, and he, and he and I, and I, you know, and he goes, well, Keith, this is, uh, this is good because you realize that you’re gonna forget.

Because that’s what we do as human beings. We forget, and then we remember, and we forget. We forget what’s important. We forget what really matters. We forget that it’s all about love. We forget that none of this shit really matters, right? And then we remember, and we have these profound moments. You know, you’ve written down some notes, things you’re gonna take, you meet all these amazing people you remember, and then you forget.

So in [01:23:00] an effort to, to remember and, and realizing this whole thing, I, I decided to keep myself a, an a, a clean, empty bucket. I brought it home and I would write myself little love notes. And this became my way of filling my own bucket. Yeah. In fact, one of them, very funny, um, I was dating a girl briefly, and she came over and she had asked me if I was seeing anyone else.

I was like, no, I’m not. And um, and then she came over and she saw my notebook open on the counter, and there was this note, and it was like, Keith, I’m so proud of you for the man that you’ve become. I love your courage. I appreciate your, and she goes, who wrote you this note? And I’m like, oh, I, I actually wrote me that note.

She’s like, fucking hell, you did. She And I had to prove it. So 

Charles Eide: that’s the earliest handwriting I’ve ever seen. 

Keith Mercurio: I had to prove it by matching the handwriting. She was like, all right. So anyway, I started filling up this little bucket, you know, and then, um, and I get home, uh, one day from a particularly tough trip, and I’m, I’m going to the bucket to, you know, kind of.

Experience my own validation, right. To just comfort myself and whatever. And my cleaning people [01:24:00] had come through and they’d emptied the bucket. No. Yes, of course. And that’s such a gorgeous metaphor. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Keith Mercurio: Because there is no having it full. There is no, and it’s a daily practice. It’s a daily, daily practice.

Yeah. And so for you and for your listeners and anybody who’s been kind enough to, to stay with this thing all the way to the end, that’s my wish for you and for them is that we take a little longer to forget and we’re a little bit quicker to remember. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. So I, that brings me to my last question.

Keith Mercurio: Mm-hmm. 

Legacy [1:24:34]

Charles Eide: When everything’s done, and you are a distant memory. 

Keith Mercurio: Hmm. 

Charles Eide: What do you want the world to remember about you?

Keith Mercurio: My ego. Would want them to remember the impact I [01:25:00] had. Remember me as a good man. Um, all the impressive parts, having a good heart, doing good in the world. Uh, my ego wants all of those things,

my,

my heart. And I think if I listen to my soul,

just hopes that they have a little more love for themselves and others because of whatever little bit I was able to share. Even if none of it is attributed to me,

Charles Eide: there’s no doubt that’s for real. You’re already doing that, dude.

Keith Mercurio: Nah. I hope this is true, but thank you. [01:26:00] 

Charles Eide: Thank you for joining me. I absolutely love you, man. 

Keith Mercurio: I love you too. 

Charles Eide: Come on back. 

Keith Mercurio: I will. I’ll thank you. 

Charles Eide: Thank you. If you like this episode of Cleared for Takeoff, make sure you leave a comment, subscribe, turn on notifications. Of course, share it with somebody that you think would love it, and of course, check out my company EideCom.

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