Ryan is a second-born middle child. Anyone who puts stock in birth order dynamics just learned a lot about Ryan from those two pieces of information.

In this episode, we interview his older brother Brandon, who has lived in Japan for the past several years. We start by discussing the differences between American and Japanese culture, and what it was like to pack up their entire lives into 16 bags and move across the ocean.

"I am a specific person. I have specific gifts and abilities that are unique to me, and I also have limitations that are also unique to me, and this does not detract from who I am as a person or the types of things that I can hope for. But it does mean that I need to be able to be realistic about the times that I can help and the times that I can't. Because if I can't be realistic about that, then I'll hamstring the impact that I could be making, in favor of the impact that I can't make. So in the end it became a process of, 'Let's not make it anything; let's just see it.' "

"People use their head to establish the direction and their heart for the method, when really it should be the other way around."

"It's not about understanding the truth; it's about understanding your place within it."

"You're looking to your insecurity voice for validation, when you should be looking to it for growth imperatives. It's not telling you wrong, you're listening wrong."

"We want people to get to know us, not contextualize us."

"I don't have to understand why they do what they do, to accept that that's what they do."

TIME CODES:
5:30 - Downsizing life
12:11 - Getting our dad back
17:26 - Father wounds and childcare workers
27:12 - The tension between our desire to help and the limits of our helpfulness
41:51 - Japan Brandon vs. America Brandon
45:01 - Addressing the problem vs. solving the problem
59:00 - Feeling like a foreigner in your own land

GRATITUDES:

• Brandon is grateful that his collection of hard-earned life lessons can and will be passed down to his kids as just the way the world works.
• Abby is grateful for the roles Ryan and Brandon have played in her own self-actualization journey.
• Ryan is grateful for his brother for modeling what it looks like to "run his lap" of parenthood.

  MODEETS:

• Join Ryan's tribe at patreon.com/truenorth11
• Get life coaching from Abby at IndigoCoaching.net
• Catch Ryan on TikTok at @the_holistic_mystic
• Watch us at TinyURL.com/TrueNorth11YouTube
• Email us at hello@truenorth11.com
• Stalk us at truenorth11.com

🦴😬🎵🎁