Squats & Séances

Perceptions, Pivots, and the Pursuit of Greatness with Allan Jay Santos

• Venessa Krentz • Season 1 • Episode 4

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What happens when you reach the pinnacle of success only to discover it feels hollow? In this profound conversation, personal development coach Allan Jay Santos reveals the unexpected journey that led him from Carnegie Hall performances to helping others discover their deepest potential.

At the heart of our conversation lies a revolutionary approach to purpose. Allan believes each person arrives with a unique gift to give, yet most remain blocked by external expectations and internal judgments. "The radical act is unobstructed expression and the courage to reveal the parts of ourselves waiting to be seen," he explains. His work focuses on helping clients develop self-trust and the capacity to access their deepest wisdom.

Join us for this illuminating exploration of purpose, intuition, and authentic expression. Whether you're questioning your path or simply seeking deeper connection with yourself, Allan's journey offers both inspiration and practical wisdom for living from the inside out.

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Until the next time - stay gritty you badass!



Venessa:

Welcome to Episode 4 of Squats and Seances. Today's guest is Alan J Santos. I had the pleasure of getting to know Alan over many years through our shared fitness community on the West Coast. Alan embodies many exceptional elements, as I think you will soon learn, and he brings the gift of attunement to inner guidance in remarkable ways. So here's a little bit more about my friend Alan.

Venessa:

Alan J Santos livesa life of inspiring excellent, embracing evolution and embodying wisdom. As a personal development coach, he works with people who know they're meant for something more but can't put their finger on what, and for those who see their next big leap but wonder if they have what it takes. His path defies categories. Alan has lived mastery in multiple arenas. He spent 13 seasons as a professional symphony bassist, sharing stages with Yo-Yo Ma, luciano Pavarotti, hilary Hahn and James Taylor, and performing at Carnegie Hall with the Toledo Symphony. He was also an in-demand yoga teacher, teaching and managing studios across the US as well as overseas. As a yoga athlete, he earned a national top 10 ranking in the Bishnu Sharan Ghat International Competition.

Venessa:

At the height of his musical career, alan hit a wall. Further achievement felt hollow and meaningless, and a divorce left him questioning everything he thought was solid. He took a sabbatical year from his orchestra position to navigate the internal frictions of his mind and emotions and to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do next. In this process he discovered his greatest gift helping others access their own greatness.

Venessa:

Allen refuses formulaic frameworks that mirror the external world's endless prescriptions of what you should do and who you should be. Instead, he creates rare spaces where excellence, presence and deep human evolution unfold organically. From the inside out. His clients develop unshakable self-trust, a deep self-love and the capacity to cut through mental noise and emotional friction to access their deepest wisdom and intuition. They don't just change circumstances. They close the gap between who they be and who they really are. He believes our moment demands more than optimization. It requires transformation. The radical act is unobstructed expression and the courage to reveal the parts of ourselves that are waiting to be seen. Wow, I am super excited to talk with you today, alan. I love seeing your face again it's been a minute and I'm hoping that we can touch on multiple different topics, including perception, purpose, intuition and living a life in the pursuit of greatness, so welcome.

Allan Jay Santos:

Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here, great to see you. I'm excited for your journey and just starting this thing and getting out of the world. And also just thanks for the acknowledgement at the beginning of this whole thing, so ready to dive in and just excited to see where we go.

Venessa:

Me too, and I'm learning some self-restraint. As a baby podcaster, I love to verbally acknowledge my guests and then I have to edit out all of my later, so you'll see me nod my head a lot. I may not audibly say anything.

Allan Jay Santos:

It just takes a few episodes of having to edit that stuff out before you're like I don't want to do that anymore. And it takes so much time to edit these little tiny things out before you're like it's just gone, it's amazing.

Venessa:

Before we get into all of the beautiful philosophical things I want to talk about today, one thing that I'm asking every guest that comes on the podcast is can you describe what gritty means to you?

Allan Jay Santos:

Gritty? Wow, great question. Yeah, for me, when I think of the word gritty, it's not just a matter of endurance and pushing yourself through something, but it's like there's something about the courage to really stay with the tension and vulnerability of really revealing yourself. That rings true for me with the like the grittiest people I know. There's something of their expression that comes through in the most challenging of circumstances, be that a physical act working out, et cetera or a cognitive act of staying with a problem long enough to solve it, or, like a grand purpose, staying with that long enough despite the challenges. So it's that expression piece that I think is also part of grit that I really like.

Venessa:

That's a good one. I love asking this question because it speaks volumes. Everyone has such a unique definition to themselves. Everyone has such a unique definition to themselves.

Venessa:

Thank you for sharing that. From professional bassist and yogi to what you do now as a professional development coach, that's a pretty radical pivot and when I first read through all of this instantly, my mind was drawn to the area of this pivot in your story. I just feel intuitively that there's so much there that could be unpacked. This was essentially the height of your professional career and sort of the bottom drops out in your at least in your professional life, maybe in your personal life as well. I was wondering if you'd be willing to share whatever you feel comfortable sharing about that experience and how this transformation happened for you.

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah, absolutely when do I start Becoming a professional musician in a classical music setting any professional musicians. It's very challenging To be a professional classical musician. You've been playing your instrument since you were a child. You've been playing your instrument for since you were a child and it's parallel to being a professional athlete. There's way more money at being a professional athlete and there's way more spots.

Allan Jay Santos:

For a classical musician who wants to play in an orchestra there are only a few orchestras in the United States, a few well-paying orchestras in the United States, united States, a few well-paying orchestras in the United States, and spots don't come available very often. So as a bass player, I might be lucky if I were able to take five auditions a year on a really good year. Sometimes there wouldn't be any positions open at all, maybe for a couple of years. Sometimes there'd be positions open for a really small orchestra couple of years. Sometimes there'll be positions open for really like small orchestra.

Allan Jay Santos:

So, because of the scarcity of positions available, there are a few hundred people showing up, a few hundred people who are very well qualified, who have been practicing their whole lives, who are excellent at what they do. Basically, any one of these people could probably do the job very well, but you've got a few minutes to get on stage and produce right there on the spot. So my whole life was geared around this and that going through the motions of going doing the training, going to grad school, actually getting a job, which I feel very fortunate. Yeah, it's just such a scarce environment that if you get a job, it's wow, I really did it and for me it was like a very I'm grateful for it every day every single day.

Venessa:

Is this like a tend to becoming an actor or an actress? Essentially, there's a pool of qualified people, it's inundated and you've been training your whole life Maybe a better parallel. I'm thinking like an Olympic athlete. These are the people that start. Their parents started them in these areas when they're small kids. How young were you when you started playing?

Allan Jay Santos:

I started playing electric bass. I started very late actually, so I started playing electric bass in high school. I started piano when I was very young, but it was like a few years of that no, I don't want to do that. But I picked up electric bass in high school and then, very quickly on, my teacher was a jazz player and he said you should be playing upright bass too. And I started there and then really dove into classical music. So I was learning jazz and classical and playing electric bass just playing all the music. And then when I got to college I started focusing on my classical technique. So I made it into orchestra and just a joyful experience of doing that and going on.

Allan Jay Santos:

At the very first years it was really just oh, I need to learn the repertoire. There's a standard repertoire that you have to go through. But by the end of my career I had basically played all the repertoire that I wanted multiple times over. I had performed at Carnegie Hall, I had given recitals across the country, I had taught at university. So all these things. I wasn't dissatisfied with my career. I thought I would be doing it for the rest of my life.

Allan Jay Santos:

But there was also a question of wow, I spent so much time and energy at the expense of a lot of different things, focusing on this craft of music. And now that I've done this and checked a lot of these boxes off of all the things I wanted to do there was just some questions I think I have some space to do something else. What would I be interested in? And yoga I was a yoga student for about seven years during my yoga excuse me, during my music career, which is very helpful, for just my body was so messed up, Stool and hunched over this huge instrument. So that was really helpful, for in a lot of ways, just my body felt great. My mental capacity was really really like. I felt like I was in flow again.

Allan Jay Santos:

And so this question of huh, what would I? What do I have the space for? Next, it's like just exploring different things. I started to teach yoga. I never wanted to become a yoga teacher. Then, all of a sudden, it was just like one day I woke up, I had taken a class and I was in the shower and this sort of hit came. I was like, oh, I guess it's time to become a yoga teacher.

Venessa:

I love these universal hits because I had one, which is why I'm doing this podcast. It happens so often to so many people. I feel like no one talks about it. So you got this huge hit and this is what I need to do. What type of yoga did you start teaching?

Allan Jay Santos:

I was practicing Bikram yoga exclusively, so I went to the teacher training. It took a little while to get the finances together and the time too. It was a significant amount of time nine weeks, yeah. So just trying to navigate that and taking some time off of work how all that would work. So it took some time to figure all that stuff out, but I ended up going in spring 2010 and taught and played music parallel for a long time and that felt really good. It was like wow, I'm teaching and that feels like it's giving back. I'm really enjoying the process of learning to become a better teacher. I'd always taught when I was a musician as well, so it felt like I was just increasing these skills in a new capacity.

Allan Jay Santos:

And the hard part about being a musician, especially a classical musician there's you go, you play the concert and there's this kind of like disconnect between the audience and stage. You finish the concert and that's kind of that's it. And sometimes it can like the concerts can be really incredible, but like the connection across the stage in the audience, that can feel a little bit like something's lacking or there's an emptiness there. So, yeah, so being just being able to give back to people and just seeing people. Progress was really fascinating and incredible. Technically learning how to understand the postures better, learning how to just communicate. It's like when I say lift your right hand up, and someone's like I laugh because you know my life as a coach, right?

Allan Jay Santos:

Which is there's all stuff like that. We have a hard time with the brain body connection and just learning how to communicate in a way that transmits that. It was just like I was fascinated by that exploration and just really loved it. So I did both of those things for a while and still back in my mind it was like I don't know, this still doesn't feel like what I'm searching for or what is that thing that I'm being called towards. And while I'm trying to answer this big question, I was married for 13 years and with my partner for seven years. Before that and things. Our life paths were just going in different directions. Nothing was wrong with how we were treating each other. There was a lot of love there. It was just like the marriage part of it wasn't working anymore. So realizing that during the midst of all this stuff was just like this tremendous. We ended up getting separated for a year, eventually leading to divorce, but it was this really just tumultuous time.

Venessa:

That's upheaval everywhere.

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah, and looking back on it, I realized, wow, all these years as a musician, that identity really gets calcified. It's who I became known as. So I was left without my partner. It's a huge sort of shift in identity, trying to figure out what can I do next. And I took that sabbatical year that I was talking about. I was like I can take a year off. I thought I was going to move into yoga full time. I was like, okay, there were a lot of teachers who were opening additional studios, so I was asked a lot to come out and manage and be mentored.

Allan Jay Santos:

And it wasn't until the sabbatical year that I was like, okay, I think I'm going to open a yoga studio Took a sabbatical year off, my orchestra started traveling around the country, moved and started opening yoga studios, and it's very quickly. Early on in that whole journey it was like a month, two months in whole journey. It was like a month, two months in. I was like, wow, this is just not at all what I want to do. And it was interesting because I knew I had a safety net I could go back to orchestra. But that felt like I was just going to go back, sign my contracts every year and I'd still be faced with this huge question and this huge gap of trying to answer what am I really here to do? So I was like I don't think I can go back, but I have no idea what I'm going towards.

Venessa:

So many people are there, there's this calling and know how to answer it, but I know that there's a missing piece.

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah. So what I ended up doing was the only sort of grounding I knew was moving back to Santa Cruz to be around old friends and family, and I basically did. I was in therapy at the time. I did what my therapist said I probably shouldn't be doing. She was like any one of these things is a massive transition and major upheaval, but you're doing all three at once. You're stripping yourself away from the environment, you've been in your primary relationship and your work life yeah.

Allan Jay Santos:

So it was about a year and a half of really dark times. Honestly, I think it was looking back. It was probably too much to take on, but I made it through. I don't know if I would do it a different way. It's just like the only way I could figure it out. And as I started to make it through, yeah, I was just staying with it and staying with the question. But as I started to make it through, I was in a bunch of therapy which was really helpful, like very helpful. I was really heavy and things were dark, like super dark those days. I remember one time I was walking home from the studio and I wasn't in a bad part of town, but it was just it was a city environment, so you just have to be smart. Yeah, aware.

Venessa:

Aware. Yeah, that's exactly the word that came to mind.

Allan Jay Santos:

And I remember walking down the street it was probably 10 at night after closing the studio, late class, 8.30 to 10 or something like that, or 8 to 10, 9.30 and then closing up and then walking home at 10. And I was in so much pain I remember thinking like I don't care. I just don't care if someone fucks with me tonight, because either I'm going to get to beat the shit out of someone or someone's going to beat the shit out of me, and either one's going to feel better than what I feel right now. Yeah, so it was really tough. A lot of suicidal ideation and that's just another question I couldn't answer. I was like what if it's no better on the other side of this? So that sort of dropped that question completely. If something feels worse than this, then that's what a mistake that would be.

Venessa:

I want an upgrade, not a downgrade.

Allan Jay Santos:

Thank you. So therapy was very helpful. It was like the one day a week that actually felt like, oh, I feel like I'm like part of this planet again and I would go and do my therapy session. I'd feel good. I'd just go walk around and actually enjoy the city, whatever, go to shops, have a meal out, stuff.

Allan Jay Santos:

But as I started to come out of that, I realized just talking with someone was very beneficial. But I had no idea. I was like I've completed my therapy, like that round of talk, therapy and working through stuff. I felt like I had. I didn't want to repeat the stories that I had been talking about and that it felt like it started happening. And at the same time I was like I do want to speak with someone, but I don't know what that is.

Allan Jay Santos:

And in the meantime, like a bunch of friends kept saying man, you should, the best thing you do is you help people with whatever they're asking about, whether it's like their yoga postures, how to? A lot of musicians would ask me to listen to them before preparing for recitals, before preparing for auditions, and one of the things I was asked a lot about was how do you remain so calm on stage? So I was very just. There's a lot going on inside but it's very calm. I had no physical manifestation of my nervousness on the inside. So I was asked about that a lot and I was like I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to be a teacher. I know that yoga seemed like that might be a thing and followed that. I also knew I didn't want to do like a four-year degree. I kept thinking about sociology or psychology, something like that, and that just felt like I wanted to do the thing now, not in four years.

Venessa:

So where you're at now, this is where that came from.

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah, out of that darkness. Really, it took a while to put the. I like this idea of you have to collect the dots before you connect the dots, and I just had a hard time. I had a bunch of dots and I couldn't connect what they were, so it took a while to be able to connect, like what is actually going on here and go beyond the identity pieces of. It's not a teacher, it's not this, what is it that I'm doing around people all the time? I just don't even notice it. And it really was that piece of hey. When I step in a room, somehow the game changes for everyone, no matter what I'm doing. I don't have to be teaching, I don't have to be doing anything, I might just be moving in a space, I might just be hanging out in space and somehow the space is elevated.

Venessa:

What I hear you describing for me. I identify that as energy. Your energy was at a vibrational level that people around you picked up on it. I'm so grateful that you shared about your struggles, because it's such a key component to our work is healing, and healing is not the absence of these experiences, it's not making them go away or pretending that never happened. That shadow must exist to appreciate the light that you now sit in. I've read somewhere once I watered the ground with my tears for months or years and now I have flowers.

Venessa:

During times of great transition or need is usually when spirit and I use that word because other words are more clouded for me when that energy shows up and points us to the internal work that needs to be done so that we can release, we can embrace wholeness with ourselves.

Venessa:

And it's usually during these really dark, challenging times of self-discovery that those huge perception shifts happen. I do think for some individuals that stay with their blinders on because it's easier to not process. Maybe that doesn't happen, but if you're willing to take them off and sit in that darkness, what happened for me is a fear had to just crawl all over me and I had to realize that it wasn't going to end me. These feelings I was running from, also having gone through a divorce after almost 15 years of relationship and being in an incredibly dark space and trying to bring two little kids through that with me not knowing what was next and being uprooted, it's an awareness that there's something bigger at play here than just your story in that moment. I'm curious when did you make the connection that helping people was also helping yourself? Heal.

Allan Jay Santos:

It's so closely interrelated. I think it's kind of that cliche of you have to put your oxygen mask on first. So I had made it through that time maybe not fully, of course there's a bunch of grief and stuff but I had made it through enough to realize and connect these dots and stuff. But I had made it through enough to realize and connect these dots. Oh, wow, the moments where I'm in the greatest amount of flow, where I am things are timeless and where I seem to be showing up just in my power, are these moments where it's not about the context, it's not about me teaching, it's not about me playing music, as much as I love these things. But it was those moments of someone would come up to me and say, hey, how do you stay calm during this thing? It didn't even need to be that big Like how do you do this thing? How do you do this yoga posture? How do you remain calm on stage during yoga competition? So it was that that I started to realize wow, that's actually the thing I love doing, that's the thing that comes so naturally to me that I didn't even realize I do it. No one, not everyone, does that, not everyone loves that. So I started to ask myself okay, what do I do if that is a thing? How do I magnify this energy? How do I magnify this essence of me? That's where I started to look towards. Where do I apply this energy? Like you could have if you think of a battery, huge battery, tons of energy in it, but if it's just a battery, it's not moving anything. You have to apply the battery to some mechanical thing for it to be able to move something. So I just needed a vehicle for the energy I had inside of me, and it took a long time to put that together.

Allan Jay Santos:

It was a few years after I finished therapy, completed that round of therapy, that a lot of people were just saying you should look into being a coach. That's what you're really great at. And I was like I have no idea what you're talking about, and every time I would look into it it was just as weird as the yoga industry. You can go to be certified as a yoga instructor right now. You can just go and do that right now without ever having seen a body, talked to anyone. You just get a certificate. There's also like very rigorous yoga training that take multiple years and real dedication to mastering the craft.

Allan Jay Santos:

So I was inundated with a bunch of what looked like shady stuff about the coaching industry and it took a really long time to understand this. Oh, wow, no, there's some really rigorous, very professional organizations doing some really good work, and it took a while to find my way into that and at the same time as I was finding my way into that, I just ended up being like I'm just going to find someone who can coach me and it just turned out it's like one of those another gifts. I was mentioning it to my roommate at the time and her housemate at the time, and my housemate said one of my great coworkers graduated from a coaching school not too long ago and I think she needs practice hours. So I said, okay, great, got in contact with her, started getting coached from her, and it was like as soon as I stepped into that space I was like, oh my gosh, all my friends were right. This is the thing I've been looking for.

Venessa:

Oh, it came together at the right time, and then you get your state of flow.

Allan Jay Santos:

Not only for myself, but what it could do for others as well. And I think there is that dual path, the craft of mastery. It's always inward for me at first, like the practice for myself, just because I love that, but also being able to transmit and help others just bring whatever they want to bring themselves forward. It's just for right now, it's like the thing I'm doing and it feels like what I'm here to do, and maybe it changes and takes a different form at some point. But this is, I'm all in on it right now.

Venessa:

Thank you for sharing how ironic it is to me that you were in multiple arenas where you had studied extensively and you had ascended as high as you could in the mastery of that craft whether it was your music or was your yoga and then the thing that actually drew you away was a gift that you innately had that came up organically through all of this, and that was the missing piece to your puzzle. Before we fast forward to present day and talk about what you do with clients and how this change is impacting the greater collective consciousness, I was curious what your thoughts were on any unseen guidance that you might have been unaware of during this process. For you, there's so many different theories out there and this is really touching on that spirituality piece whether you believe it to be a divine intervention, quantum theory, more energy Did you tap into some organized religion? Was this intuition for you? How would you describe it?

Allan Jay Santos:

For me, the way it occurs to me. It feels like both. It feels, it definitely feels like there's something greater than me. You call it spirit. I usually describe it as source. I'll call it God on occasion. I like that inner voice, but it shows up as an inner voice.

Venessa:

That's been my experience too.

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah, so it is part of me, but I know it's also greater than me. What do you?

Venessa:

think about the idea of the collective consciousness.

Venessa:

That's something that I had never entertained before as an idea and in my own spiritual path of feeling guided by something bigger than myself, which I also would attune to like a source, a place of coming from. For a long time I thought it was outside of me. Then I had one day, during one very profound meditation, a realization that everything was coming from in me and it came from a place in me that was connected to everything else, so within, but also outside. What are your thoughts on that?

Allan Jay Santos:

I think that's really beautiful. I have this declaration that I speak to myself every morning. It's like I am everything and everyone and I really I do love that idea that we are all an expression of source. Source is just infinite light and it gets refracted into. If you take a prism, the light comes through and it gets refracted into, into these different colors. So the light that is source. Each one of us is this different color of source.

Venessa:

Analogy. Yeah, I love that idea and it holds up For anyone. Any of my science geeks out there, go read some quantum theory. We are photons, we are made of light, and it is something that science is now able to really understand. That I think our more spiritually connected among us have known for a long time.

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah, that sort of blurring between that kind of quantum mechanics, physics, all that stuff, and spiritual ideas that are millennia years old, that is a really interesting gray area. The overlap of those two areas is just fascinating to me. In some ways it feels, wow, science is catching up to deep mysteries that have just been we've been trying to put words on for many years and there are no words to the thing. There are no words to the thing.

Venessa:

Sidebar. Do you have any? Have you read anything? Recently I have been working through Body of Health by Francesca McCarthy I'm probably not saying her last name right. She runs an intuitive medicine clinic out in Northern California. She really goes deep into some of the quantum theory of light and how our bodies are really made. All of that and it's been the first person that I've read that's been able to put together the science that I love so much with some of the non-materialistic things. I know these are connected, but I don't understand how.

Venessa:

Do you have any suggestions for anyone that might be wanting to read something.

Allan Jay Santos:

Not so much that ties together scientific rigor, western thought and that kind of spirituality. David Hawking's books come to my mind, very extensive body of work. I've only read Letting Go, and just pieces of it at that. That might be a good see if that. If you're looking for something along those lines, just go check out some summaries on Amazon. See if anything gives you a ping. See if you're pulled to anything.

Venessa:

That's my light reading before I go to bed at night.

Allan Jay Santos:

That's a great thing to put in your brain as you drift off. I mean, there's so many things.

Venessa:

So many theories out there, I guess I have my blinders on. If you're okay, I wanted to jump to present day. So you're fully vested in this work of personal development and working with a pretty diverse client base. I imagine One of the things that we were going to talk about today was what it means to live a purpose-filled life from the inside out. That seems to be one of the foundational hallmarks of what you're doing with clients. What does it mean to live a purpose-filled life from the inside out?

Allan Jay Santos:

There's a beautiful parable I heard not too long ago. I can't remember the country of origin or the ethnicity of origin, but it basically described like a baby comes into the world with its hands closed because it has a gift to give to the world. Every baby just has something to give. And I thought it was, yeah, really beautiful and really touching.

Venessa:

Yeah.

Allan Jay Santos:

And I think fundamentally that's the ground I stand on and how I want to see the world. Each of us has something to give that is important. I don't care about the world Each of us has something to give that is important. I don't care about the magnitude we get these ideas of. It's got to be this massive NGO that is building schools in Africa and creating all these different. If your gift is being the best father on the planet, that is an incredible gift to give.

Allan Jay Santos:

So it's like just understanding what the true essence of you is. What are you really here to do? And getting down to that takes some time, it takes some energy, it takes a willingness for the other person. So we get stuck in the world's expectations of what it wants from us, be it our parents, our friends, our schools, our churches, our religion, that we adhere to, our practice, the institutions we belong to, our communities. Every one of these has an idea of who we should be. But do we actually take the time and do the work to really have a fundamental understanding, not of only of who we're being, what we're doing in the world, the actions we're taking, the effect we're trying to have, our strengths and our weaknesses, but who we really are at a fundamental ground level. So I think it starts with that's the orientation of the work really trying to understand who the person is, and starting with that I really love.

Allan Jay Santos:

One of the things I love about my approach to the work is it's not only that like that's enough in and of itself, but where I really love to work and where I feel like I really thrive is also understanding the magnifying glass. We found the light. How do we put it through a magnifying glass and have it shine and really make the impact? You're here to move the world Like. One of the beautiful questions I have for people is what is the world you want to live in? And as you start to take a look at that and say, oh, I'd love to live in a world where, fill in the blank, and if you spend enough time on that, you're going to get to something really beautiful that you have agency to create, even in the smallest way.

Allan Jay Santos:

So finding the leverage point, that essence, can make the biggest difference for the most people in an effort to make the world a more beautiful place. And that's like the artist in me talking. It's like just want to make the world a more beautiful place and that's like the artist in me talking. It's like just want to make the world a more beautiful place. I think that's like the. If I had to summarize what happens in the work. That's so good.

Venessa:

I think most people walking around are zombies. It's like we have our head underwater or we have those blinders on. We're not asking these big questions. We're like I just need to get through today and I just need to get through tomorrow. And then, after you've done enough today's and tomorrow's and you realize you're on a hamster wheel and you're really not very happy and you're not really sure what you're doing or why you're doing it, when your clients come to you, is this sometimes the first time that they've ever had to pause and think what do I want? And often do they just not know when they get there.

Allan Jay Santos:

There's this kind of spectrum of people I've been working with lately, especially where life is pretty good for me. It's not a crisis moment for anybody that I've been working with by any means. Life looks pretty good from the outside, like all on paper. It's like wow, pretty freaking accomplished person. But it's that nagging sense that time is running out and there's something in there that they haven't. There's potential that they haven't accessed yet. So the spectrum actually is. There's some people who are clear about what the next stage is and they're actively stepping into it, but they're just fraught with am I going to get this right? Like, how do I show up? They're still tied to a past identity and there are like hints of people pleasing. And then also on the other side is like imposter syndrome. All these different kinds.

Venessa:

I was going to ask if that came up, that would be a big one yeah.

Allan Jay Santos:

So, as they're stepping in, it's just I know I can show up really powerfully because this is the thing I want to do, but I'm nervous about how I'm going to do that. And then, on the other side of things, it's like just that time it feels like it's running out. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do next, and the thought of me doing this thing, that I'm doing for the next year, seems fine. But five years from now, maybe not 10 years, that's going to be a major like bummer. If I'm doing the same thing I'm doing in 10 years, then what the hell am I doing with my life? So there's a little bit, a little bit of a spectrum there, but the essence of it is still the same Someone trying to reach in and unball their fists and give the gift that they're here to give.

Venessa:

Yeah, you had a quote on your LinkedIn page that I love. Can I read it real quick? This is a really good segue. So you said that true transformation happens at the intersection of rigorous self-inquiry, deliberate practice and unfiltered authenticity. I hope people first remember who they are and then keep going until they then live, speak and create from that place with unapologetic courage and beauty. I read that and I was like, yes, unapologetically, authentically being themselves, because when you are and you're in that presence, things just flow. After that, doors open that weren't necessarily closed before, but you couldn't even see them. Unapologetic courage. In particular, what does that look like when you work with your clients or for yourself, if you have an example?

Allan Jay Santos:

unapologetic courage. So when do we need courage? And let's start there, because there's two words here there's unapologetic and there's courage. So courage is just the ability to be scared and move in the right direction anyway. So unapologetic, when I think of this in the context that we're talking about, if we're moving in the direction that we're meant to go, despite the fear, and that direction is us truly giving the gift that we're here to give, us truly giving the gift that we're here to give. Being unapologetic about that is like being unbothered by others' opinions and judgments, your own included.

Venessa:

I feel like that one is the hardest. Yeah, the versus ego voice, that imposter syndrome. And that's actually one of the questions I wanted to ask is this resistance that comes up is usually, in my experience, it's internal self-sabotaging. If I could do this thing. But maybe I'm not the right person, Maybe I just don't want to be uncomfortable right now in my space. How do you help clients bridge that gap?

Allan Jay Santos:

How do you help clients bridge that gap. So every person's unique right. So it takes a while to understand the person and how do they see the world, how do they see themselves. But let's say Bob is sitting here on our podcast with us.

Venessa:

Hi Bob.

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah, and Bob says I want to do this thing, but I'm freaking scared as hell. I feel like people are going to judge me and this and that. What would you say to Bob?

Venessa:

you won't know unless you try, and I would also tell him that everyone else is probably more concerned about what other people are thinking about them than what they're going to think about Bob.

Allan Jay Santos:

Ultimately, underneath what you're speaking, it's like, bob, you're going to be okay. So you just say, bob, I know that's all normal stuff and you're going to be okay. So you just say, bob, I know that's all normal stuff and you're going to be okay. I think that's the first thing give it space for it to be okay. And that's the thing. Like, if someone's a parent, their kid comes up to them and has those kinds of fears, they have a response for that. They don't run from it. They're not like what the fuck? Get the fuck out of my face, that's what we do to ourselves.

Venessa:

We have no patience for ourselves.

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah, so the ability to just widen and make space for that part of ourselves, hey it's okay, I see you, you're going to be okay, just a little bit of space for it.

Venessa:

One of the things that I wanted to ask about was, from my own journey of self-discovery and awakening, I came to this radically profound and deeply challenging understanding that loving oneself unconditionally is the key. It's not perfection, it's not accepting the pretty parts. It's showing up for the dark and the ugly and the parts that you want to keep hiding and embracing those feelings instead of squashing them down and running from them. I feel intuitively that the work you're doing is really built on this and essentially you're helping souls reconnect the wiring of themselves and being okay with themselves first, so that then they can go out and be there in these other capacities. What are your thoughts on this kind of radical self-acceptance creating a springboard for unlimited success in a material world?

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah, I think love, self-love, is really at the heart of so much, of so much of just showing up as you I can't remember the exact quote, but this woman, emily Kwok I was working with her, she was one of the original, she was a woman in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu decades ago, so she was one of the few women entering into this gritty.

Venessa:

Oh, I'm instantly a fangirl.

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah, you should check out her podcast. It's called Master and Apprentice. I'll send you the link. Really beautiful conversations with her. One day we were talking and she mentioned to me this beautiful quote. I'm going to butcher it, but the essence of it was something like quote something. I'm going to butcher it, but the essence of it was something like showing up as your true self also includes all the parts of you that give you trouble and, I think, the ability to not run from who you really are, all these things, even our deepest fears about ourselves, but actually including it and incorporating it. But understanding that we're much wider. We have the space for that Sometimes. I'll talk about it like if you took a small glass of water let's say four ounces, and you had some food coloring and you dropped one drop of red food coloring into this four ounces of water, what happens?

Venessa:

You're going to get red water.

Allan Jay Santos:

Water turns red. If we're out on a boat in the pacific, off the santa cruz pier, and we drop a little drop of red water in there excuse me, red food coloring makes no difference. We don't realize that we're as deep and infinite more so than the ocean actually and that we can actually have the space for all these parts of us to be just like a little drop of red food coloring. Yeah and yeah. The path to really loving yourself like it is.

Allan Jay Santos:

There are the external things, like go on Instagram and type in self-love, you'll see people taking bubble baths and lighting incense and doing their I wish it was that easy, yeah.

Allan Jay Santos:

Getting massages and I'm not saying that's not a version of self-love the real acceptance of yourself, the real working with your own judgments of yourself. That's where you're able to really transform yourself and really connect with what spirit is trying to offer you, because, ultimately, the judgments we have about ourselves are the ones that we have about other people too. So by able to be loving to those judgments, we can begin to transform those and as we see ourselves as more loving, the ground we stand on is just more loving and what we see out in the world just is more love. Love begets love.

Venessa:

What I believe as well is that once you do that work with yourself, then you show up for others the way that you really want to, and it's not a forced process, it just flows out of you. If you hold space for yourself and all of your imperfections, we are on worst critic. No one's going to be harsher on me than I am on myself, and then I'd say, if I'm okay with all of that, then there's really nothing anyone else is going to do. That's going to fluster me.

Venessa:

I can show up and love them too.

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah, it's because you've cultivated the relationship with that inner voice. We have Bob, but let's have the I don't know what do we call him Jerry?

Venessa:

Yes.

Allan Jay Santos:

We've got Jerry on the other side, who's just a jerk, yeah. But if we're able to cultivate the relationship with Jerry to where he's included in the space but he doesn't overtake it, it becomes the same relationship we have to those voices outside of us.

Venessa:

Yes, it's almost like managing an energetic boundary with yourself, like holding this internal space of dilution available, and we're just limitless. I'm probably going to butcher the Sanskrit, but soham the I am, oh yeah.

Venessa:

And I think that is a great place to start know how to do anything else about. Self-love and bubble baths aren't cutting it for you. Go sit somewhere by yourself and just close your eyes and just repeat that to yourself while you breathe a few times. Even if you don't understand it, I feel that the body does and energetically things will slowly start to shift. Before we have to close, I wanted to pick your brain about the intersection with the physical body. Side note for anyone listening Alan, he's also a fantastic athlete. I've had the pleasure of coaching him in the past. The physical body plays a role in our overall picture of health in an optimized life. Where do you find these intersections in your work with individuals? The physical body with the psychological component, the neuroplasticity, and then also the spiritual that we've talked about.

Allan Jay Santos:

The body is just fascinating to me. So I think it's such a great entry point into so many different explorations. So a lot of times someone can be calcified over their identity and it can be really tough to pierce that armor. So sometimes you have to find like an orthogonal way or an indirect way of working on some thematic material before transferring it over to the domain that they're having the challenge in and where they're trying to make a difference. I know that sounds very conceptual, but it makes a lot of sense to me. For me it's central. It's also if you imagine you're just a brain and a central nervous system in a jar. It's hard to imagine, but if you take a second to imagine that it's like well, what kind of a life is that?

Allan Jay Santos:

You get to think yeah, you get to think all the things but you don't have a body. We live in our body, we move through our body. So our body is the first expression of us. So just the way we treat our body first, it's the container. So if we take care of it just on a mechanical level, the better we take care of it just on a mechanical level, the better we take care of it, the longer it's going to last, the more time we have here. So just on a very simple that makes sense to most people that would be a good baseline to start with we don't all do a great job.

Allan Jay Santos:

But, like also, the body and mind are actually one thing. We do have these separations so we can talk about it. The mind, the body, is taking in all of the inputs that are around us. It's the thing that's seeing, it's the thing that's feeling the temperature, it's the thing that's sensing. It's doing all this stuff before we can consciously think about it and a lot of it's getting processed but not filtered into the conscious Correct. So part of it is starting to bridge the gap also between the subconscious and the conscious.

Allan Jay Santos:

That's where the like tapping into intuition and intuition can be like this tricky, slippery thing. Shit, I have these experiences where things click and you can actually train it. Yes, you can. Yeah. So one other thing it's like how do you do that? You can start just being with your senses and that's the first thing.

Allan Jay Santos:

We've all probably had this experience of feeling I don't know, like an intuitive sense of what to do next. Good example Wow, I just met that person. He didn't feel right, she felt off. That's our intuition talking to us. Or like sometimes we'll go into the fridge and say, is this good Date? Sounds right, smells fine, but somewhere inside of us. We're processing this stuff. It's like our logical mind is battling against our intuition what we do with that. So this thing is like running all the time and the more we can tune into it, it is the source of like wisdom. I make a distinction between instinct and intuition. Yeah, instinct is the thing that is. It's important. It is a I don't want to call it a lower level of intuition, but it's like a more baseline. It's trying to just keep us alive.

Venessa:

Your reptilian brain is just like body function respiration, heartbeat. You got your mammalian brain that is a little bit higher functioning, but still not in the prefrontal cortex area where subconscious and consciousness need to live.

Allan Jay Santos:

Then intuition, if you can begin to train yourself to tap into it seems to be like guiding us or nudging us towards something I don't even want to put a value on it, Do you?

Venessa:

believe everyone is born inherently intuitive and that we lose the connection of that wiring as we age up and become more concerned with what everyone else is thinking around us and our ability to fit in? Or do you think that intuition is something that really just has to be developed once you're aware that it's possible?

Allan Jay Santos:

I don't actually know. What I do know is that, like kids, are oriented to what they love to do in the moment. That's the thing we lose because of we're supposed to be this, we're supposed to do this the expectations of life around us. I think yeah, I don't know. I don't know, I've never thought about that too much, but I think we are born with an innate intelligence of some sort, like a guidance system. I think that guidance system gets clouded over by all the things of what we're supposed to do. It's a good question.

Venessa:

There's different schools of thought out there on that, and it's something that I've been exploring. For me, it's a reconnecting of the wiring. To go back to my intuitive side, I was very intuitive as a child and I shut all of that down for a number of reasons. What kind of processes or steps maybe just one or two that you like to use to help people get in touch with their intuition again or for the first time?

Allan Jay Santos:

Oh wow, if we're talking about intuition, the very first thing you got to do that's important is to just find some stillness. This will go for almost anything. It could be intuition. It could be like how do I find my purpose? It's almost anything was going to be starting with stillness. Take I don't three minutes to do nothing, set a timer to do nothing, maybe it's five minutes. Whatever it is, it's meditating, it's not journaling, it's just sitting down and doing nothing and your mind is going to go bonkers.

Venessa:

Oh, it does. Yeah, this is a practice of mine because it's something I struggle with.

Allan Jay Santos:

If you do this for a while, it's like a snow globe. Shake up a snow globe. It's like just cloudy. You can't see what the picture is and like intuition is in the middle of that snow globe. We're too busy doing all this stuff. We've disconnected from it long enough that there's just we're shaking it up, so to take the time to just settle the snow and the snow globe, you will connect with your intuition. It's the first thing is you got to create space, space to look up at the blue sky. This is doing nothing, so you will start to feel just an internal something. I'm not sure where it's going to be located, but spend enough time there. You will feel something inside of you that is very still grounded. Comes to my mind. There's not a lot of words that come from it, it might be a whisper or two sometimes. If you can begin to feel that, you can begin to also start to understand what's happening throughout the day.

Allan Jay Santos:

And then I would just take it to simple, mundane things. Going out to eat, do I want this or do I want this? What do we do? Usually we open the menu and we scan through, and so that looks pretty good. What else? Oh no, maybe I'll have this. Oh no, but there's this. Wait, which one do I want? I don't know. Bob said this was really good, yeah, but I had this last time but now it was really good. So now I'm in this decision thing about which one is going to be better and I don't know. But like initially you were drawn to something, just try that, see how that works out for a while. Try going with your first impulse just for a while, in some really mundane, like zero consequence thing, like going to a restaurant.

Venessa:

We get so hung up on all all these decisions that we have to make and we overthink everything. Have you heard of the concept of using physical feedback from your body as a way to guide your decision? Through intuition, asking your body a question, saying body show me yes, and then maybe you lean one way or your balance shifts one way. Your body show me yes and then maybe you lean one way or your balance shifts one way. Your body show me what is no. And when you ask then question of yourself, maybe it's just do I want to go get coffee.

Venessa:

What do you think about that concept?

Allan Jay Santos:

I think it's a very good one. It's not one that I necessarily practice, in that that's not necessarily true. If you stuck out your arm straight ahead and you had a friend ask you, do you like eating dog shit? And yeah, and if you press down, there's going to be like a response. But if there's a yes question do you love this podcast That'll have a different response.

Allan Jay Santos:

Then you start to orient to oh wow, that's my central nervous system. It feels weak when I don't like the thing and it feels very strong and stable and sturdy when I do. You should try this with people. Yeah, I'm going to. This thing is happening all the time.

Allan Jay Santos:

Our body is taking in information, our mind's trying to process stuff, but this has its own sort of agenda. Another thing to do is just orient, get a range of. If you sit down and think of maybe it's not the worst thing you've been through, like a tough time, something that's challenging and you sit with it and put yourself there as much as you can, take five minutes and see what it was like being there. How'd your body feel? Start to get a sense of the physical sensation in your body. Start to get a sense of the emotion you felt. What did it feel like to? What are the sounds around you, what are the colors, is it super vivid, is it muted? And then just give it a rating. Like that challenging time.

Allan Jay Santos:

Get a rating from negative 10 to positive 10. And maybe it's a negative six. Then you have baseline of okay, that's what a negative six feels like. Then you go the opposite direction. What is a really fun time where I felt like I was in flow, where things were just taking care of themselves. You get a sense of what that feels like in your body and you really have to take the time to really imagine and make that moment present. But then you have a couple points of reference. Then you can begin to traverse the day and understand whoa, I'm in a negative two right now. What's going on Emotionally? What's happening? Okay, I feel this. What are my thoughts? Oh, I just got cut off in traffic and I think that guy's an asshole.

Venessa:

Whatever it is, oh wow, what's this?

Allan Jay Santos:

I feel really good right now. What is that? That's a seven Cool. What happened? What am I? Oh, I feel this opening in my chest. I feel light. I feel happy. That's the emotion. I feel light, I feel happy. That's the emotion I'm feeling. I feel joyful. What's going on? What are my thoughts? Oh, like this is the circumstance. This event just happened. That'll start to give you some feedback as well, and another way to navigate.

Allan Jay Santos:

We're always trying to like logic our way into things, which is not a bad thing. Logic our way into things, which is not a bad thing, but it's one piece and there's a whole other intelligence that is there for us to cultivate and listen to. I like to think of it like I use this example all the time. If you imagine a basketball player best in class, if you imagine a basketball player best in class, extremely good at what they do, except for you notice he's been playing with his right hand, only his right hand Dribbles, fake, everyone out, goes up, shoots all the shots, three pointers, one hand, and then you go up to him and say, hey, man, you're so good, but did you realize you could also play basketball?

Allan Jay Santos:

and do all the things with your left hand as well, His game would take off. It may take a little bit to on-ramp that skill, but just using our mind is playing basketball with one hand. If we can begin to cultivate a relationship to our body and really sense things and move through the world through this intelligence you unlock so much.

Venessa:

Wow, alan, this has been such a treat. I feel like you and I could just talk and talk so much.

Venessa:

You have given us such an incredible amount of wisdom and information. You have given us such an incredible amount of wisdom and information. I have no doubt that people are really going to enjoy listening to this. Especially those that are listening to this podcast tend to be the individuals that are asking these questions, wanting to know how to get in touch with themselves, wanting to understand what their role is in this greater universe picture. I think it comes back to that self-seeking piece of who am I first? That's what I have to learn first.

Venessa:

My body, my mind, my beliefs. What do I want? Anything else you want to add in closing?

Allan Jay Santos:

No, not really. Just thank you for the conversation. It's been really awesome.

Venessa:

It's been great. Please, we will definitely have to do this again. When concluding, I always like to tell listeners where they can find my guests, and so I want everyone to know that Alan has a Substack account he's called An Inquiring Mind where he explores the intersections of inner mastery and outer impact.

Allan Jay Santos:

You'll know this, but I post a little bit more personal stuff, like what's going on, as well as just things I'm thinking about. Substack is a little bit more developed pieces. If you go there, I would really invite you to check out. At the very entry of that Substack, the Inquiring Mind. There's a 12-part series called Seeing being Doing and if any part of what we're talking about resonates with you, probably explain more in depth in that series. So I go check that out. There's a lot there and if you spend a year, you can spend a year just going through that. Take one article each month and you're going to be in a fucking awesome spot when you get through with it.

Venessa:

Oh, I think I will do that myself. You've also got your podcast.

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah, I have one basically like one season of a podcast out called Touching Greatness. I really enjoyed talking with some of my colleagues from all these different domains I've been part of, some of my own coaches, some other people that I've just had, the brilliant people I've just had the honor of meeting at one point or another. So it's some really incredible insights in some of those conversations. So, yeah, I invite you to go check that out, just scan through, see if anyone just nudges you to listen.

Venessa:

Thank you for sharing all of that with us. Is there anywhere else that people can reach you? Do you want social media email?

Allan Jay Santos:

Yeah, on social media not on Facebook much, but on Instagram these days. Alan J Santos, I think it is Same with LinkedIn. My website is going through a bunch of major changes right now, but you can look there. Alanjsantoscom, and if you want to reach out for any reason about any questions or any anything. Really I enjoyed the conversation. You can reach me at just my email, alan A-L-L-A-N at alanjjysantoscom.

Venessa:

I'm going to include links to everything in the show notes so people can click and find you as well. It's been great to see your face and thank you for everything you shared today. I feel like it's going to reach the people that need to hear it and thank you for your time. Thank you. Namaste.