The Courage to Evolve: Insights from a TV Star's Journey to Health and Knowledge

Embark on a final transformative odyssey with us as we sit down with Ricky, whose riveting pivot from television fame to authorship and consultancy unveils the vital interplay between learning and action. Ricky's tales of surmounting life's peaks and valleys illuminate the importance of nurturing a growth mindset; he masterfully demystifies the danger of knowledge stagnation without the courage to step forward. As we dissect these poignant experiences, our discourse serves as a beacon for those yearning to shatter the shackles of comfort zones and the perpetual cycle of over-preparation, guiding you towards the empowering harmony of education and initiative.

Ricky Powell

• Email: ricky@LifelongHappiness.com
• Tel: +1 805-279-4222
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lifelonghappiness/
• Calendly: MeetWithRicky.com

Meanwhile, a narrative unfurls into a heartfelt exploration of veganism, a journey catalyzed by eye-opening literature and documentaries that reveal the far-reaching benefits of a plant-based existence. As we weave through this tapestry of health, ethics, and ecological awareness, Ricky and Tanya join the conversation with their fresh takes on the New Year's resolutions craze. They advocate for meaningful, intentional living beyond the confines of a calendar date, prompting a reevaluation of our daily pursuits of excellence. Tune in and let our stories resonate within, potentially sparking the embers of transformation waiting to ignite within your own life's journey.

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Transcript

Voiceover: 0:03

Tales from the Wild, stories from the Heart. A journey into the mind and soul of fired-up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion. As we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

Shireen Botha: 0:36

Ricky, I'll pop in here with another question and I'm sure Tanya will take over. I just want to know out of your road. As a business owner, entrepreneur, you went from in front of the camera to the behind the camera, to a business consultant, to writing books. What were some of the biggest struggles you had to face and how did you overcome them?

Ricky Powell: 1:05

Great question. You know, I think that one of the things we have to encounter and work through and it's kind of it's ironic in a way, because I did a presentation a year or two ago on creating a growth mindset, right, and so, because you know, there are these two mindsets one is fixed, one is growth and really many people think that we just people with fixed mindsets. Their belief is that, you know, we grow, we learn and then we're done. You know, we graduate school, that's it, it's over, we're not learning anymore, we're done, we're as smart as we're going to get, we're as creative as we're going to get. All of that is a fixed mindset, which is really such a tragedy in a way, because that's just not, that's just not reality. I mean, the exciting thing is that really there is this growth mindset that we all have, and they talk about neuroplasticity and how our brain can you know, grow and we continue learning and lifelong learning is so important. So, as I was preparing for this presentation, all of a sudden I thought is there a downside? Is there a downside to a growth mindset? So I just typed it in and it was very interesting.

Ricky Powell: 2:29

The answer that came back made perfect sense, which is that the one caution or downside of a growth mindset can be that you get so caught up in the learning and the growing that you don't do anything, that you don't act on anything. And so we've all probably heard that expression knowledge is power. Right, have you heard that Knowledge is power? We hear that our whole lives, but that's not really the whole story, because how many things do you know that you should be doing that you're not doing? Or you may be doing one or two or three things that you are doing that you shouldn't be doing, and so really it's about action. It's knowledge plus action is power. Right.

Ricky Powell: 3:18

So you have to apply what you learn, and so I think during all of these years there was so much learning and experiencing and going to seminars and programs and and all of that, and it's almost addicting, in a way it can be. I think that's an interesting issue too. That's a whole nother subject. Right.

Ricky Powell: 3:43

Like my wife and I had different, you know, opinions on issues. To work at a gym for years and of course we all know with a gym, like, can you walk into a gym and expect to do you know one set of curls and be done forever? Of course not. Like you have to work out on a daily basis. Well, our minds are the same way. So if you go and you attend a seminar or go through some sort of experiential learning, that's just the beginning, that's not the end. I mean, our minds are the same way and so, again, it's having this awareness of how we are as humans.

Ricky Powell: 4:18

And so for a long time I got stuck and then I decided that I would write the book. It's making those decisions you have to decide, which is like cutting off all other possibilities from that decision that you're making. I decided I want to write a book. I did. I did it fairly quickly because I had a plan, I had a whole method that I learned to help me write the book. So I think many times there's just almost too much information and it's easy to get lost if you let yourself.

Tanya Scotece: 4:57

Excellent point. Yeah, excellent point. I think for me, when I take away from that viewpoint, ricky, is the I kind of again leave the motto that the destination is the journey. Right, so it's just a different way of thinking. So if you think about it, instead of like, okay, I'm going to go to school because I want to do this or I want to get this job, it's almost like this evolving kind of like fluid that I think that's what takes. Or for me I'll speak for myself personally that's what kind of gives me the drive or the initiative to keep going.

Tanya Scotece: 5:34

When my younger self, it was like you just kind of, you just exist, or you just do something, and then, because there's always an outcome, it balances. So, like when I was growing up, it was like most of the people in my hometown of Hartford, connecticut, were going to school. It was limited and it was almost like you didn't go to college unless you had a reason to go. So if you wanted to be whatever a teacher, doctor, lawyer, nurse, whatever it is you just didn't go because you didn't know why you were going. Where now my philosophy? Is any of the listeners out there that if they don't know where they want to be, or they need some inspiration get into a school or an academic or a program, because that will get you in with people of like-mindedness to expand your mindset. So it doesn't matter what the vision or the dream is, as long as you have one to begin with, and it can evolve.

Ricky Powell: 6:28

Yeah, absolutely. It is so important it really is to look at those things and understand that anything is possible. It's so true.

Tanya Scotece: 6:39

Yeah, especially in the United States and I know we have Shireen here zooming in from South Africa, so we speak even on cultural differences. But the United States, from my viewpoint, it's like immediate gratification for most things If you want it, you buy it. If you see it, you do it, whatever that may be. However, when we talk about lifelong learning and just learning for the growth, to help people, to help ourselves, to inspire others, that's where I think the heart of it is. We can all take action.

Tanya Scotece: 7:10

If you save enough money, you can buy the house, you can buy the car, but with education, when you decide that I'm going to just do it, not because there's a job with a price tag associated with it, not because there's a company car, but just because you want to do it, that's what, in my opinion, motivates a lot of the folks. And even at our college, at Miami Dade College, in our funeral program, most of the students most, not all, but most are non-traditional second and third careers and they just want to be in the funeral world. They don't even know what it's about. They're just like I'm here and that's the best place for them, as opposed to every other reason for people. I'm too old to do this, or like the fear factor, I can't do this. There's not a reason, because it doesn't make sense, but sometimes the things that don't make sense are the things that truly make sense in the long run.

Shireen Botha: 8:08

I love that.

Ricky Powell: 8:08

Exactly.

Shireen Botha: 8:09

And I think that is I've lived on both the sides of that. Saying so, I really believe the destination is the journey, whereas before the pandemic I was like journey is the destination. Like I was working to buy the house, buy the car, secure my retirement, I was doing all that was never enough, needed more money, work more hours. So before the pandemic, very much like that. After the pandemic and on this new road that I've been on since then, completely the opposite, excuse me, completely the opposite, where I really do think that the destination lies in the journey. And today, my goodness, I think every I mean I've just come back from Spain.

Shireen Botha: 9:05

I did the Camino Santiago, not the whole end, just a portion of it, but regardless. There are things happening in that journey that told me, sherene, you're in the right place, you're right now, this is exactly where you are meant to be. And it just was like okay, good, you know, it's not that I needed it, but also I needed it in the same way, just to say, hey, you know what, you don't know where you're going, you have no clue what your life's gonna look like in 10 years time, very opposite to what you were before the pandemic, but right now. Right now, you're exactly where you're supposed to be and I am thoroughly enjoying this road and this journey Completely new at least, and my eyes have been opened up to a different life. So, excuse my voice, I don't know what's going on.

Tanya Scotece: 10:06

Shireen, But I think it's a valid, you know like, very valid like for the pandemic. I think many people feel or felt like you did as far as, like it literally pivoted people or it stopped people. But some things stop people regularly Health right, some people you know have like, for example, like a heart attack will stop somebody, or diagnosis of cancer.

Tanya Scotece: 10:27

So big things come along our way that can stop us, to make us like, wow, maybe I can't do this anymore or I have to shift. So when things come along our way, and sometimes we resist it because it's like, oh, I can't keep doing what I've been doing, but some of us are on a treadmill that's just this hamster wheel, just the treadmill. So sometimes those things that come your way, that make you stop, think and shift, really are there for our better selves, like for the goodness of everything, personally, professionally. But sometimes you know it's what's the old data Like hindsight is 20, 20, right, you don't see it in the midst of it, but reflecting on it we all, most of us can at least say that it was worth it or we are in the right place at the right time.

Shireen Botha: 11:14

Absolutely absolutely.

Ricky Powell: 11:15

Yeah, it's funny, it reminds me. Just prior to the pandemic, at the beginning of the year, I created a presentation called something like, you know, 2020, the year of perfect vision, right, and then, ironically, our world changes it just in a heartbeat. Our entire globe changed overnight, and what's interesting, though, is the more we got into it and dug deeper and uncovered so many things that are still being uncovered today. It kind of circles back to that original thought of 2020 being the perfect vision because of the awareness. How much awareness has come up in terms of what was being fed to us and what the reality was and what we were led to believe and what was the truth, and there's so much information to be aware of, and I think it's a great starting point just having that awareness of every single thing that we have to battle on a daily basis as humans, you know, and to stay focused and on track.

Tanya Scotece: 12:33

Right. When you say like the perfect vision, it's a beautiful statement because it's like you know, here we were in a world that literally stopped right. So it was almost like you know, like no one was at the beach, no one is flying in the air, so the world literally stopped in so many dimensions to where it was a perfect vision to be evaluate right, to kind of restart and so, in a very eclectic way, it is the perfect vision. We're able to stop the world. And I mean what other timeframe? Maybe the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic? Aside from that, it's like our world stopped and we were able to see clearly with a new set of eyes.

Ricky Powell: 13:22

Oh yeah, Absolutely, it's so true. You know, there was once. I remember there was once, I think, a musical called Stop the World, I Want to Get Off, and I don't know. Just that title just came to mind, but it's so true.

Tanya Scotece: 13:40

Yeah, I know there's a song on that. I don't know about the musical, but there's a song I Stop the World. I think I know that song.

Ricky Powell: 13:46

Oh, okay.

Shireen Botha: 13:49

Ladies and gents, I just want to squeeze in here and talk about the non-profit that we're going to support for this month. We and our hearts are going towards mercyforanimals. org. That's mercyforanimals. org. Ricky, please just speak about it a little bit and tell us what it stands for, what it means to you and where we can go to support it.

Ricky Powell: 14:14

Yeah, absolutely so. I believe their website is mercyforanimals. org. And so I discovered well, really, I kind of discovered the whole philosophy and lifestyle of veganism over 30 years ago from a book called Diet for a New America that was written by John Robbins. As in Robbins, as in Baskin Robbins Ice Cream, which is big in the States, probably is not in South Africa. But John's father started that company and his uncle was Baskin. And so he sort of shun the family fortune and wrote a book called Diet for a New America.

Ricky Powell: 14:56

So for two and a half years I just cold turkey, went overnight and did it. I slowly went back to eating everything because back then it was so much tougher to survive that way. But I always wanted to get back to it. And so this time, about six years ago, I found a documentary called what the Health on Netflix and I watched it and I said that's it, I'm done. And from there I watched every documentary, I took a deep dive.

Ricky Powell: 15:28

I volunteered for the Animal Rights Conference and there's so many great reasons to do this, and one is for our own health. There's so many health benefits. Dr Michael Greger wrote a book called how Not to Die and largely based on this topic. And then for the animals, of course it's like it's a no brainer because it's so scary, because there are these aggag laws where people can't even go to these factory farms where it's like the Holocaust every day, you know, for these poor animals who want to live, you know they don't want to die and yet they're just suffering so much. And then for the planet is the trifecta. So for the environment and the world and the planet, adapting a plant based diet helps in that way to just saving just billions and billions and resources, whether it's soil or water or the rainforest or all of these sorts of things.

Ricky Powell: 16:29

So it just really became a cause that's near and dear to my heart. And you know a lot of people think, oh, I could never do that, or you know it's too hard, or whatever. But for me I can only speak for myself, of course but it was just one little mindset shift. It was like a little quarter turn of the screw. Well, power isn't even involved, it's just a whole mindset shift. And so every time I eat I feel great because of what I'm, what I know I'm contributing or helping, you know, do for the planet. So mercy for animals, you know they just they rescue animals and they have sanctuaries and they just do amazing, wonderful work for the animals. They give them a lot of credit.

Shireen Botha: 17:14

Awesome, I love that. So please, listeners, take some time, go in, check the website out and see how you can help. So that brings us to the end of the podcast. So before we go, I just want to quickly go around. So we have a little bit of a light hearted chats and a question. We're going into 2024, so we're releasing this in January. So, if you're listening, it's the new year. New, you talk about resolutions, right? Well, not everyone does resolutions. So do you write your own resolutions at the beginning of every year? And if not, that's great share with us either way, and if you do, tell us a little bit about one or two quickly of your resolutions that you've written for yourself. Ricky, what about you?

Ricky Powell: 18:09

My take on resolutions Shireen is that you can literally make a resolution 365 days a year. You don't need to wait until January 1, right like? And that's just always has been my thought process there's no point in waiting. Right.

Ricky Powell: 18:31

And for me, one thing I did, I did the whole diet thing and that has been great. So for me, one thing that I've been toying with is the idea of stopping, like not drinking alcohol at all, like just 100% wipe it out. And I've gone several months when I've, you know, not had a drink and I felt great. And so I think this time around I'm just going to do it like for the whole year and see how I'm feeling, and and it's easy to do because again, it's just those little tweaks in your mindset because at the end of the day They've done so much research and alcohol really is poison. It's it's poison for your body and I think, like when you can look at it in that light, it goes a long way in helping you kind of hang back and think twice, at least you know, before doing it. So that's, that's what I'm gonna do.

Shireen Botha: 19:28

I love that Tanya what are you back yourself?

Tanya Scotece: 19:31

So back in the day, I've done the resolutions and you know, sat there and you know whatever it was. So it was, you know, more exercise, you know losing weight and you know, third weekend, probably like every other person, you know it was kind of like it was history. So about seven years ago, I had a really significant mind shift, as Ricky is calling it, and I Live inspirational leadership. That's, that's my motto, that's what I do. So it's kind of like I just I don't put goals, I don't, I just live every day and if something comes to me as Many like the idiosyncrasies that we of life, I pay more attention. So I'm gonna focus for as I move forward it doesn't have to be 2024 just like my moving forward is to really pay attention to the thoughts, pay attention to the Manifestations and really pay attention when they do synchronize, because it's fascinating, it's, it's just absolutely fascinating when it comes together. So, and how about you, Shireen?

Shireen Botha: 20:33

Yeah, I've got to be straight to the point. I don't do resolutions. But on a daily basis. Try and be a better human, and that's what I always say. So Before we end the podcast, I just want to take a few minutes. I know the listeners have either connected with your story or connected with your career of some type, and they might want to reach out to you. So where can they find you, Ricky?

Ricky Powell: 21:00

Thank you so much, Shireen. Well, my, my direct number is 805 279 4222 805 279 4222. Also speaking of Calendly, I know we mentioned that I have my calendar set up at meetwithricky. com, so feel free to stop by there, and on LinkedIn, you can find me there too. Lifelong happiness is in the URL, but yeah, Ricky Powell, and Happy to connect there too, and, like I said, lifelong happiness will will be changing very soon, so, looking forward to that and I'd love to talk to anyone who would like to have a conversation. I can help in any way.

Shireen Botha: 21:47

Thank you Ricky. Thank you Tanya. What about you?

Tanya Scotece: 21:50

So, yes, so a lot of time on LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn, so that's the best place. Last name is S, is in. Sam C is in. Charlie O, oscar T, tom E, edward C, charlie E Edward. First name Tanya T A N Y A. All my contact information is there, so definitely connect with me. Would welcome a conversation about any topic that we've Discussed today, or one that you want to explore further. So, and back to you, Shireen, how can we contact you?

Shireen Botha: 22:20

Awesome. Thank you for asking. So, basically, if you want to reach me, you, Shireen Botha. I'm on LinkedIn. You can find everything there. For Friends from Wild Places, though, we have our website, friendsfromwildplaces. buzzsprout. com. That's friendsfromwildplaces. buzzsprout. com. We've recently opened a LinkedIn page Friends from Wild Places so please go and like, comment share, let us know what you think. We always love to hear from you. So that brings us to the end of that. Please download us on all the platforms Spotify, Deezer and we'll see you next time. And remember you got this and stay wild. Bye, guys, thank you, bye, bye.

Voiceover: 23:10

You've been listening to Friends from Wild Places with Shireen Botha. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast from the links to catch every episode and unleash your passion.