PDM 026: Are You Questioning Your Identity?

Patryk Labuzek: Who are you? What makes you you? What is your perspective? Does it matter? What makes up your identity and how do you allow people to influence it? Take a moment to embrace and think deeply about these questions while we roll the intro.

Narrator: Welcome to the home of Project Dream Mastery. Here at PDM, we are challenging the status quo of what it means to follow your dreams and how to unlock the power those dreams will bring to your life. The show experience will be unscripted, authentic, and transparent. So now sit back, relax, and get inspired with your hosts, Lucas Johnson and Patryk Labuzek.

Lucas P. Johnson: Welcome to another episode of Project Dream Mastery. My name is Lucas Johnson.

Patryk Labuzek: And I'm Patryk Labuzek. Let's start this episode with that very, very important question. I mean I think a question that has been posed to millennials. I mean from the Greek philosophers to the current date. Who are you? What defines your identity? A scary question at first. No doubt. And so how about we make things easier for you? And you know, you can think about analyze what we've got to say. And I'll ask Lucas. Lucas, who are you and what makes up your identity? What is your perspective on life?

Lucas P. Johnson: My name is Lucas Perry Johnson. I grew up with a loving mother, loving father, three older brothers. I am a dreamer, I'm a lover, I am an entrepreneur. I am passionate about the things that I love. I fight for what I love. I grew up in a town right outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It taught me to be not only a gentleman but allowed me to understand what it means to be a true person of this world. It contributed to my successes. It contributed to my failures. It has allowed me to become something that I never knew I could be. It's made me someone that's different in many ways, vastly different, unique, as some would say. We're all unique. So who am I? My name is Lucas Perry Johnson. I am me. I am someone that's constantly trying to evolve and become better, learning from my mistakes, growing, learning from you, Patryk, learning from our listeners, learning from the feedback we receive. But at the end of the day, I am the person I set out to be. And I allow people to pose those questions to me, sometimes even provide the answers that I don't so seek, like we talked about in a previous episode, Did I Ask? I'm the person that wants feedback.

Lucas P. Johnson: And I challenge people to find the best self that they are, the best self that they can be. And I'm also a believer of Jesus Christ. I mean He shapes me into who I am every day. I reach out to Him for everything and anything I need and I know that I always have an answer. That's who I am, Lucas Perry Johnson, and I am proud of it. And I'm constantly changing. So who am I in the question of what you asked? A person that just wants to be better, a person that is content with being who I am. And now Paddy, who are you?

Patryk Labuzek: Before I answer that question, I'm just going to say that this answer was absolutely amazing and wow, powerful. What you said there, can I quote you? Who I am? I am me. Think about this. I am me. It's absolutely amazing that, you know, you have so many different perspectives of who you are, and people have different perspectives on you. What you're saying, I am me. This is who I am and I'm okay with who I am. I want to learn, but I'm okay with the person that I am right now. I'm not a perfect person, not ideal. You know? But me. That's my identity. Myself. You're embracing that you're completely unique. You're different than anybody else in this world. You're one of a kind.

Lucas P. Johnson: Paddy, I was so scared, man, for the longest time. You know, we talked about imposter syndrome in one of our episodes. And my majority of my life was not necessarily spent in imposter syndrome, but I did a lot of presentations growing up. I've spoken in front of crowds. I've spoken in front of a hundred people, 200 people. I've spoken in front of even maybe a thousand people. And when I got up on stage like that, I scared shitless. I think anyone in their right mind doing that as a young adult, as a kid and having cameras on you growing up, like doing stuff like that and having family that loves you and supports you. And some of us don't have that, you know, have that circle, that tribe. But majority of my life, I think looking back, I was truly scared of being me. I was scared of my own identity. I think sometimes we still are as human. We have to be. We have to put ourselves back and do a reality check on that, that perspective are of our identity. But I was that scared, man. I was scared of being me. So when I come and I say that to you right now, man, for the longest period of time, I just wanted to be a people pleaser. I wanted to put things up on social media that got likes. I wanted to put myself out there in the world, but I wanted to impress someone or do something. And then it wasn't till I was 16 when I broke up, my girlfriend and I broke up of like a year and some change, like it really impacted me, impacted my balance of who I was. And I spent so much time being with her and wanting to please the world. But also, I was in love. And I forgot kind of who I was. And from that period on, I started Coachington with my, one of my good buddies, put up stuff to focus on just that, you know, figuring out who you are as a person and not letting anyone else shape that. So going back to what you're saying, man, it took a long time, a really, really long time to accept being me. So if you're listening it's okay. Right? You know?

Patryk Labuzek: I mean it's a straightforward answer and it all goes back down to it. Who are you? You're yourself. And accepting that you're you is a tremendous step forward. I mean it opens the world. It really does. What do you think?

Lucas P. Johnson: It does. Paddy, I mean we started Project Dream Mastery back in July of 2020. And since then, we have, I think we've overcome a lot of our obstacles and challenges in our life. We've changed perspectives of our own, but we also kind of changed some of the people that surround us by listening to our content. Paddy, I think I told you this, but we've received countless messages and responses from people that are in our closest circle, from people that we studied abroad with and so forth that reached out to us, sent us messages about this. We've enabled them to overcome things in their life that sometimes they didn't even know they needed to overcome. And I am grateful for you, buddy. I'm grateful for the people that listened to our stuff. I don't know how else to say is we are, our identity is made up of the tribe that surrounds us. If we don't allow them to enable us, then who are we?

Patryk Labuzek: Our identity is made up of all those people that surround us, our tribe. I couldn't say it any better. Our identity is influenced by the people that surround us. But in the current day and stage, it is to a large extent influenced by the people that follow us on social media and the people that send us messages on social media, the people that are first to judge. How do you take that, Lucas?

Lucas P. Johnson: It's really complicated to think about it that way. Because--

Patryk Labuzek: Exactly.

Lucas P. Johnson: For the longest time, man, I cared, I gave a shit about what people thought.

Patryk Labuzek: And I feel like all of us did.

Lucas P. Johnson: My goodness, man, some more than others. But it's amazing once you overcome that where you can go, man, we're putting content out in the world that I never thought I would do. Like YouTube is a different story. You know, you can hide it from different locations, at least that's how it was when we first started. You used to be able to hide it from your own city. Like people couldn't see it. You could except them from that equation. I was like, all right, yep, I want to impact people over there, but I don't want anyone to know I'm doing it around here. So, and the answer to that, I just say time is short. Life is short. Just get after it. Just get after it. I don't know what was greater. Recently, I had someone try to steal my identity. Actually they did steal my identity. I just found out yesterday, not something I wanted to bring up on this, but I think it's a nice segue into where we're going. Someone stole my identity and somehow managed to get $6,400 from unemployment. I don't live in the state that they declared on employment. I have been fully employed the duration of everything going on with COVID gratefully, luckily. But yesterday I wasn't in a right state of mind. I was having a chat with our partner, Eric, our business partner. And I had to take a step back because I was really impacted. And we had a meeting scheduled. I said, hey man, I can't, I just, I need to focus. And it really kind of hit home with me. I know we live in the century where cyber is everywhere and it impacts everything we do. But man, someone wanted to be me. And it happens so much more than it did in the past. But man, someone wanted to be me. Someone wanted to be me. Took me a long period to be just me, to be the weird self that I am, Paddy. It is kind of humbling. Right? But they don't get the benefits that come with being me, unique, the one Lucas Perry Johnson. I mean there's probably a bunch of Lucas Perry Johnson's out there, but I'm the one.

Patryk Labuzek: Completely. I mean at the end of the day, you know, that person on the gets your ID card. That's it. Your name. I mean your last name, your address, maybe age, date of birth. But there's so much more behind our name than, you know, just a label like that, that we've been given at birth. You know, you're a boy or you're a girl. There's so much more to it. There's so much more behind our name. There's the whole identity. Okay. So let's talk about what is identity, Lucas? What is identity in a nutshell?

Lucas P. Johnson: To me, identity is everything that makes you you. I mean that's your perspective, that's your circle, your tribe, your hobbies, your lovers, everything that makes you the person you are that makes up your identity. And our identity does change. I mean it can be your sexuality. Your identity is everything. It's fully encompassing of who you are. Now it's different than--

Patryk Labuzek: It's very fluid, isn't it?

Lucas P. Johnson: Yeah, it's different than perspective. Identity and perspective. Yes, they might intertwine, but they are two different things. You can be, you can have an identity that's completely different from your perspective. But your perspective makes up your identity. It's funny. Right?

Patryk Labuzek: Yeah. I'm just trying to analyze this right now as we speak. Yeah.

Lucas P. Johnson: My perspective is changing every day.

Patryk Labuzek: But your identity...

Lucas P. Johnson: Is also evolving. Isn't that weird? They are intertwined, but they're also not. Because your identity is made up of all these things. My hobby, I love to scuba dive as you know. And I know you do as well. We're going to go in Bali, Indonesia, but unfortunately, [inaudible Angelique tea]. I must've ate something. The hospital experience. All I gotta say is I'm grateful for the people that are in my, that make up me and make up my identity. Paddy and Eric, they were actually there, holding my hand as my stomach decided to cramp up altogether and I felt like I was pretty much dying. Right? Yeah, it was pretty awful. But Paddy, going back to your question of what makes up your identity, it's all those things. You know, my love for scuba diving, my love for entrepreneurship, you know, my tribe, my friends, you, your perspective, your inputs into my life but also the outputs I provide to you. You know? All those things make up my identity. And if you start to compromise on an identity, you can give some things. You give and take. But if you keep on giving, giving, giving, or taking, taking, taking, your identity evolves, your identity changes. So your perspective is just one part of your identity. Where are we going with our identity? Who are you? You know? I pose it back to you. Like who are you? What is your identity made up of?

Patryk Labuzek: So many things. Like you said, it's not one single thing that makes up an identity. It's everything. It's combined. It's compressed into my body. It's everything from my love to travel, my love to explore. But it goes way deeper than that. You know, my love for challenging myself, going outside my boundaries, meeting new people, you know, my love for scuba diving, the hobbies that I have, martial arts. And my education is another big thing. Right? Think about how your identity would have shifted, altered if you didn't go to the schools that you went to. And if you think about this now. Right? It's those people, the teachers, your friends, the union of students that were part of all your education. They had an influence on your identity, on your perspective. Am I correct in saying so?

Lucas P. Johnson: Yes, I would say yes, but I also want to throw something in there is when you are speaking, when you are bringing people in your life, you know that thing where they say that if you say something like three times, it gets engraved in your brain. You say it seven, it's pretty much solid. Just because one person impacts that on one day doesn't make it stick. Three times or seven times of having that person come into your life, maybe. But those people, yeah, they may make an impact in my life, but I don't allow those one times or those one or two times to affect my identity. So I know you're leading this, but I want to ask, I want to ask something to you listening is when was the last time you took a minute to really reflect on just who you are, one, and two, where you want to be? Have you really thought about the moments in your life that have taken shape and unfolded the way that maybe you didn't want or you wanted? Have you taken a moment to think about your hobbies? How about your perspective? You know, what exactly makes you who you are and who is stopping you from being great? Who is stopping you from taking the next steps? And not only do what we do in the show and believe in is defy expectations, dream big, and love deeply. But who is stopping you from achieving your own success, your own achievement?

Patryk Labuzek: Maybe it's important to ask as well, not who, but what. I see for myself, and we had a brief conversation before starting the show is I didn't know about our meeting, mine, yours, and Eric's because I didn't look at my phone. I'm trying to put my phone away during my time off in the weekends. And the reason for that is what has impacted my decision making, me being happy, my happiness was social media. That was a very, very big one because we are constantly connected to the internet. We constantly receive messages, comments, likes, all that kind of stuff. And it took me awhile to realize that what impacted me and held me back from reaching my full potential was, you know, people's expectations that were put on me.

Lucas P. Johnson: It feels like so many times we are trying to equate to everyone's expectations. We're trying to meet those expectations.

Patryk Labuzek: Yeah.

Lucas P. Johnson: We forget that we have our own perspective. And you know, when you asked me who I was, it took a lot to get over that. Exactly what you're saying. So man, I couldn't agree more. I think it's when we try to find ourselves through other people that we lose track of where we actually want to go and who we actually are.

Patryk Labuzek: That's just perfect the way you said it. Because when we, when you open Instagram, take it, right now, you will see all those perfect pictures, perfect life stories. But life is not perfect. I mean even the richest person has its ups and downs, stresses out, has anxiety. You know, they've got their own shit going on. Social media likes to portray things as being perfect. That's what sells. That's what brings them money. That's what gets the likes and followers. People don't want to see the negative side. They want to see beauty. They want to see this amazing part of your life. But the more you see it, that impacts you as well. You know what I mean? You start thinking, man, why isn't my life like that? Why am I being in Dublin right now and it's very cold outside and snowy? And thinking, why can't I be in Miami or Key West where it's nice and sunny, the sunshine state of Florida where I can sip my cocktail on a beach? What did I do wrong?

Lucas P. Johnson: I think sometimes we also get caught trying to live up to other people's expectations that we forget our own. And it's funny because we focus on defy expectations, but that doesn't mean we need to defy our own. We expect ourselves to achieve things. We expect ourselves to be great. We expect ourselves to be us, to be you, to be me. So, you know, sipping a cocktail on Miami beach, that's you, buddy. Who are you? You know, who are you? That's really a question. And I go, I kind of want to ask, what is your perspective? Like, does it really matter? I think that's when you looking at that social media presence, you feel like your perspective doesn't matter. Right? It's sad because our perspective is what makes us us. It makes up our identity. And too many times we forget that our identity is so amazing because our identity allows us to create great things. Paddy, you are the CTO of Coachington, but you're also our chief curator, man. You think about things in many, many different ways than I do and Eric does. I think about business. I think about how we can level up, how we can get the other concepts out in the world. You think about a different perspective on how we can make that a reality. What can we create? What graphics? How can we, what's the user experience going to be? And that makes you you. And you know what the best thing about that, man? Is you are the best you. You are incredible. And if you're listening right now, you are the best version of you. So if you accept yourself at your worst, you should accept yourself at your best. And vice-versa. Only you matter. Your family matters, but you are the only one that matters in your own self. And that's who you gotta really prove is only to you, only to yourself.

Patryk Labuzek: And such a gigantic lesson to learn. It's huge.

Lucas P. Johnson: That was, I knew it was deep. I'll pass it back to you. It's really, it's really crazy where we can go in just a short amount of time. And if you allow people's perspectives and to come back into play, just asking the right questions and allowing the people around you to provide the answer sometimes, to be the consultants and engineers in your life as we said in episode 25, Did I Ask. Did I ask? It's funny. We question our identity. So I'll pass it back to you.

Patryk Labuzek: Yeah. And you know, I've started off this episode by asking, who are you? We moved onto talking about identity, how it's impacted, what makes up identity. And you gave an absolutely brilliant answer because you accepted you. You know who you are and you know what makes up your identity. But a lot of the times, I feel people can't really answer that question. It's a difficult question. It really is. Who are you? How do you answer that? You know, I remember going back when you brought me onto Coachington, and you were like, Paddy, write a bio. What do I write? I mean I could write about the different successes I had, you know, in my education, whatever jobs. But how do you write a bio? How do you talk about yourself? It's difficult. It really is. And it comes down to self-acceptance. But I feel like if we were all perfect, if we all knew the answer to all these difficult questions, we wouldn't have an audience. I wouldn't be listening to different podcasts either or reading books. What's the point if we have the answer? So, you know, maybe our listeners, maybe you listening to this right now, maybe you do not have an answer to the question, who are you? What makes up your identity? And that's okay. I mean you've got a whole life to learn, to find yourself. You know? You just need to take steps, baby steps forward. That's what it takes. Who are you? What makes up your identity?

Lucas P. Johnson: Well said. We take too many steps sometimes though in the wrong direction. So if we take the right steps and we--what are the right steps first off? I mean that's a great question. I can't answer that because it's only you that can truly answer what steps you're going to take to get down that not so straight and narrow path, that one that's very curved and goes all different directions. It has obstacles and valleys and all that stuff that goes along that path. Only you can answer that. Right? I mean it's what are you going to do to take the step, multiple steps to get where you're going to go? And I think one of the things that you said earlier was talking about someone not being an expert or someone being an expert. If anything, this teaches you in this episode is that no one truly has a perfect answer. No one's truly an expert. I mean yeah, you can have technical skills and you can be an expert in coding. You can have all these things. But what's really cool in that perspective is coding, coding and computer languages, they are constantly evolving. I mean there's so many languages that have just kind of disappeared, even though that there's this corporations still using them. As they're using them, they're evolving. They're trying to move to the next one, which by the time they get to it, it's already going to be outdated. So what I'm going to ask you here is, is your identity going to be outdated if you don't allow yourself to grow, to blossom, to ask the right questions and do the things that make you who you are? Because if you don't start accepting yourself, your identity is going to be lost. You need to find your way. And sometimes it just takes asking the right questions, questioning your identity, sometimes taking the advice that's right in front of you. People surround you for a reason. And if you find the right people to surround you with the right perspective or unique perspective, as we all have, you'll find yourself not in a prison with four walls. You'll find yourself in a Coliseum with people surrounding you in every direction, wanting to cheer you on, fight for you, support you. I think, Paddy, one of the things about our identity is sometimes people struggle with their sexuality.

Lucas P. Johnson: And you know, I don't have a lot to say on that besides for the fact that we are our own self and you have to love yourself first and foremost. And if you don't love yourself because you're on the edge of, because you don't know where you are sexually aligned, no one said you had to be perfect. No one said that you had to align on this specific sexuality. You just got to find your way. And at the end of the day, I think for us, it's finding our love for ourselves and then allowing the world to figure it out on their own. Because once you figure it out and you put it out in the world, it's just you and you. Be the best version of you.

Patryk Labuzek: A hundred percent. Whether we like it or not, I think it's worth noting that the society that we grew up in, that we live in currently has an impact on our identities. I mean your identity, your perspective, Lucas, is completely different than what mine is, for example. I mean you grew up in the USA. There's not a huge difference between the USA and Ireland. You know, one might say, oh, obviously there's a large difference between those two countries. You are full ocean away from each other. Right? But then looking at it closer to home, the next country to Ireland is UK. And our perspective, our national identity as Irish people is much different than those of the English. Even though we're such a short distance away from England. Man, it's only a hundred miles. It's crazy. But those things, things like politics, our own countries, the society, they have an impact on our identity, whether we like it or not.

Lucas P. Johnson: Yeah. I mean that's a great topic to bring up. I mean not going into the details because we don't really believe in that here on the show is, you know, we don't really, most of the time we don't care because what we focus on here is finding what ways in your life that's going to help you build a better future. And right now it just seems that that political landscape is an ever evolving situation. And yes, it's important have your own perspective, but it's also important to embrace, to understand, to comprehend and to make your own decision just like you would anything else. So national identity. And mine's different than yours. Like you said, you're in Ireland. I'm in the United States. But it's also really funny how all of our countries have one thing in common. We want to do what's best for our people. Even though we might not think about it at our leadership level and at our government level, sometimes that's not what you think is happening. But really, at least in most countries that has as a free way of living in a society, in a democratic society, or, you know, the most important thing, man, is taking the perspective that people are there to support the people under them. They want to do what's best. So our national identity has one thing in common, at least one thing. And that's doing the will of the people for the good of the people and having the synergy to work with other governments to make things better. So identity goes a lot of different ways, man. That's really kind of cool if you kind of lean in and take a deeper dive at what actually encompasses identity. So Paddy, I want to actually ask you a question. You asked me who am I? And then we ask the listeners, who are you? Paddy, who are you? Who are you truly? Because a lot of the times we do a lot of the coaching and giving advice and talking about things that we've had to overcome, but we never truly open up about who we are. So who are you?

Patryk Labuzek: I can summarize in one sentence very easily. And it goes as follows. I am a creator that doesn't believe in boundaries. That's who I am.

Lucas P. Johnson: Patrick Labuzek. Creator who doesn't believe in boundaries.

Patryk Labuzek: I just came up with this right now on the spot. But that's what it is. That's a summary of my life. That's all the lessons that I've learned, all the questions that I asked. That's me in a nutshell. I create. Might not always be the best creation I've ever made, whatever that means, you know, at work or, you know, art-wise or, you know, podcast-wise or anything. But I create every day. I develop. And I don't believe in boundaries. I mentioned this countless times and I'm pretty sure you're all bored of it. But like I said, I believe the sky is not the limit. I mean it's been proven that sky is not the limit. I mean astronauts went to the moon. I mean we're going to be on our way to Mars. Like there is no limit. We can reach further and further. There's just things pulling us down, things that can be overcome by creators, by people who believe that there are no boundaries. That's who I am. And I have accepted the way that, I've accepted that not all people think the same way as I do. They will question what I say. And I'm okay with that. That's me. Like you said, going back to what you said, I am me and I'm happy that I am me because there's only one of me. You can steal my identity, like you said, but you can't steal my identity. You know what I mean?

Lucas P. Johnson: You can't copy. You can't be me. I mean at least not yet. No clones yet.

Patryk Labuzek: No. There's 24 years worth of things behind who I am. You can't just steal that. You know? There's no way. There's no way of stealing my background. I mean I was born in Poland. I live in Ireland. I lived in Australia. I lived in China for a year. A completely different society, surrounded by people with a completely different national identity. I traveled far and wide. Not every country, but that's the aim. And from every single experience, from every single place I've been to, I learned. Because like I said, travel for me isn't about seeing an attraction. It's about seeing the people, living the culture, learning something new from people with different opinions, perspectives, national identities, religions. And all of this together combined makes me me. All those lessons, I mean I don't think there's a point for me to start naming those things out because this show would just never end. I mean there's 24 years worth of experience.

Lucas P. Johnson: A lot of countries you've traveled to. I kind of want to, you know, what's really cool is every time you travel to a new place, whether it's in your own country, own state, whether it's in your own little town or so forth, village, wherever you are in the world, which is really cool, wherever you are, we're grateful for you listening. I think it's just neat when you get to travel and explore. And a lot of people, they say they don't want to travel. They don't want to leave. They don't want to go somewhere else. And I question that. I mean yeah, that makes up their identity. They don't want to do it, fine. That's cool. But the reason why you travel, the reason why you explore is because you want to see something new, you want to do something new, you want to make a new experience, a new memory. You want to do something new. All of this contributes to your perspective, changes your identity. When we went to or when I went to a country, I got off of my scooter and I was looking around and seeing the people. And I had my breath taken away countless times. I remember looking out as these children were staring at us and they were waving at us and hooting and hollering and giving us big smiles. And they wanted us to take, they wanted us to come over and take pictures. They wanted to talk with us, even though we didn't speak the local language. Like to me, took my breath away. Eating the cuisine from that area, from that country took my breath away. The way they treated me took my breath away. The people that surrounded us, my tribe, my circle at that time took my breath away. We live for those moments in our life that take our breath away. And maybe you don't have to travel 10,000 miles away or 20,000 kilometers or something like that. I don't know. One point, I had an equation in my mind here, but point being sad is you don't have to travel 10,000 miles just to find those moments that take your breath away.

Lucas P. Johnson: You've got to find those in your life right now. Because when you find those moments, life becomes so much clearer, your perspective is slightly altered, and you start to appreciate some things that you never thought you would. And sometimes you even let go of the things that you were worried about. Because there's a lot of people out there that have a lot worse than you do. Hard to believe, I know. And I know that there's a lot of people out there that have it worse than I do. And I'm grateful and humbled by that. And Paddy, there's so many times we get lost thinking that we have it so bad that we forget about those people out there to have it lot worse. Sometimes--

Patryk Labuzek: Completely. I mean we're fortunate to be able to do what we're doing here right now. I mean simple thing us, we have internet. We have electricity. And believe it or not, I mean some people do not have that. I experienced it first hand. I mean that's one of the reasons why I went to the Philippines. And I went there beforehand, but I wanted to do it a completely other way. I mean I stayed in places that had no electricity, no running water, no phone signal. It was something, it was a completely new experience, something I would--I mean I knew that these places existed. Yes. From books from movies. But I never experienced it. I mean I never knew what it was like. And let me tell you this, I mean it's eye-opening. It's eye-opening to see how fortunate you are to be where you are. Simple things like taking a hot shower.

Lucas P. Johnson: Yeah. Talked about that before. Simple things like that, running water.

Patryk Labuzek: We did. And I always go back to this one, this one specific moment. You know? That one thing, I mean hot running water. We take it for granted.

Lucas P. Johnson: We really, we really do. And I think it's really important to ask yourself is, you know, three pillars. How are you going to defy expectations in your own life? How are you going to keep following your dreams, dream big? How are you going to love deeply? What are you going to do to contribute to your overall success? What are you going to do to ask those things that you want to know but that you're scared to ask? You know, like those things, running water. What are you grateful for? You know, 2021 is a new year. And we recently just put up a post on our Facebook talking about just because it's a new year doesn't mean anything if you don't take action and make it a new you, to evolve yourself to become better. Just because it's a new year doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. It's just a number. Paddy, one thing I'm surely grateful for, it makes up my identity is I got a guy named Ollie over here. And Ollie is a five or four and a half month old Golden Retriever. He's roughly 55, 60 pounds. And my job doesn't really allow me to have a dog because I traveled so much. I did travel for work. And when the time came and COVID was here, I got a chance to do something I've wanted to do since I was seven years old. I've had dogs my entire life growing up. They were always rescues. But I always wanted to get a puppy and I wanted to raise it from the birth. I wanted to teach it. I wanted to train it. I wanted to take it through and I wanted to shape its own identity. I had that chance over the last many months to shape Ollie's identity and make him into the dog he is now. And he's sitting here right now, laying by the door. He's staring at me. Just sometimes I think he's listening because we get pets, not as just a companion. We get pets to hear us because sometimes and most of the time, they are the best listeners in the world. Ollie has sat here for the last few weeks that I've been back in Charlotte and has listened to me think about the moments and think about the situations and think about the stuff going on in my own personal life that I'm not always super happy about or I'm not proud of.

Lucas P. Johnson: And he just sits there and listens. And then when he knows that I'm upset, it's really interesting how dogs work and how they think and how they maneuver. He comes up and he'll give me a big kiss on the face or he'll come up and jump up on me and give me a, you know, as I like to call it, a hug. But over the last many months, these four and a half months. I got him at seven weeks. I have, I've become a different person. Not entirely, but my identity has changed and so has his. Couldn't have said it any better is this guy right here has allowed me to become something that I never really thought I would be. Because I've always had dogs, I didn't think just having another one would change it. But it has. So I want to pose one last question to you, and then you can wrap us up, is what has, in the last just period of time, impacted your identity, shaped you, made you think about things differently and pushed you to become a better version of yourself, the one that you didn't think was possible?

Patryk Labuzek: It's happened to us all. I mean all across the globe, COVID-19. As scary as it may seem, you know, to some it's a blessing. And I am still very confused whether I found it horrible or did I find it truly amazing. And I feel like it's a blend of both things. But because of it, I've started to appreciate a lot of things more. I've started to appreciate my time. I've started to appreciate being at home. I started to appreciate having friends close by, family, parents. I started to appreciate how precious travelling is, how easy it was to jump in a plane and just move or, you know, that's even me thinking, going abroad. I mean I can't even leave with the state of COVID right now in my country. I can't even leave my house to go somewhere farther away than a five kilometer radius. It's crazy.

Lucas P. Johnson: Wild, man. That's really, really wild.

Patryk Labuzek: But we learn and we evolve. And I've taken on board many, many lessons throughout almost a year now since it happened. So yeah, I'm grateful. And I do hope, you know, it eases down soon enough because there's so many more things to do, countries to travel to, people to see, stories to hear.

Lucas P. Johnson: There's so much more to life. And again, heart and prayers go out to those that have lost loved one during this period of time. But I will say that, Paddy, it's been definitely a period of time to allow us to grow, find ourselves, find our identity, find our perspective, do all the things that we didn't think we'd have the time to do. And one of those is spend time with our families, for those that are so used to being in an office. It was a rude awakening for some, and you're spending the majority of your time together. You start to figure out what actually works and what doesn't. And some of the time, this is the best thing that's ever happened to us. And other times, it's the worst. But we have time or we had time to figure it out. How did you best utilize it? So with that, Paddy, what do you have in mind for homework this week? It's a big week. We talked about something really, really special, and it's really amazing just to think how our identity is constantly changing.

Patryk Labuzek: Yeah. Well, first and foremost, I think sit down and think about what makes you you. And then start the journey. If you're not there yet, start a journey to starting to begin to accept you for who you are, for all the weird stuff that you do, the weird things that you say. You know, love you. And second thing, I think this episode, you know, that asks about your identity. We've talked in a previous episode, the imposter syndrome about feel these things. And I think it really nicely links what we have said here. So I would highly recommend you to go and check it out.

Lucas P. Johnson: Yeah. That's a great segue. I mean that's a really deep one too. And if you're in a point in your life where you're trying to figure out just what the hell is next, listen to imposter syndrome. Because sometimes we just don't know. We don't know that we have this disbelief in ourselves until we hear it from someone else that's experienced it to hear it from others that are going through it. And it's in those moments, we find the truth behind who we are. So Paddy, great homework for this week. Looking forward to seeing what's next here coming up. But if you have not already, please make sure to review the show. Subscribe, like, and share so we can reach more amazing listeners just like you. And you are amazing. You're one of a kind, just as Roman Atwood says, one of my idols. I'll forever say that. You are absolutely incredible and your identity is something that you need to go and find if you have not. And if you have already found it, live it. Live it. Be you, be you, be you. All of our shows are available in both audio, video, and written form so make sure to check out our website ProjectDreamMastery.com to access the full experience. Well, thank you so much for joining us here at Project Dream Mastery. We are super duper grateful for you, and we're grateful for every single moment we get to spend with you. Whether it's in the future or whether it's today, we hope that we have made an impact on your life. And we hope that you take at least one thing from the day and apply it to your life. Really incredible stuff that is continually being shared with us and really incredible stuff that's being shared with you. So if you have something to say, let us know, follow us and so forth. We know that we're not always perfect and we don't expect to be. We want to be in your tribe. We want to be in your circle. So take the steps. Follow us and make things reality. defy, dream, love. And we'll see you on the next episode of Project Dream Mastery. Thank you. And talk to you soon.