Communication Tips and More Networking for Introverts, Extroverts, & Ambiverts - Ely Delaney (Pt. 2) (The Transcript)
TL;DR
In Part 2, marketing strategist Ely Delaney moves from tactics to the philosophy underneath them: how the seven virtues of Bushido — the code of the samurai — shape his business and his life. He calls it “ancient intelligence, the other AI,” and makes a surprisingly practical case that respect and kindness are skills, not soft ideals. Along the way, host Dani Raschel Chou and Ely cover the three questions to ask before you hit send, how to disagree without losing yourself, and why, at the end of the day, none of it was ever really about email.
Key Takeaways
● Respect and kindness are non-negotiable and practical, not soft. For Ely, they’re the two virtues that filter everyone and everything else.
● You don’t have to like someone, or agree with them, to respect them. That single reframe is the backbone of the episode.
● “Ancient intelligence” (Buddhism, Stoicism, and Bushido) is all answering one question: how do you think, speak, and act well?
● Before you hit send on any email, ask three things: Is this helpful for them? Is it only beneficial to me? Would I enjoy receiving it?
● Stoicism teaches you how to react; Bushido teaches you how to act. Ely treats them as two sides of the same coin.
● You can give negative feedback with integrity as long as you keep it factual, not emotional. The moment it turns emotional, everything falls apart.
● Everyone operates from their own experience, so disagreement isn’t “right vs. wrong.” It’s often just two different experiences.
● The pause, that space between provocation and reaction, is where the reading turns into real change. Dani’s World Cup jersey story is the case study.
● Where you spend your energy affects your health. Ely calls the ambient negativity “chaos energy,” and argues stress is what really ages us.
● It was never really about email. Underneath the business, this is a conversation about how we communicate and how we treat people.
Question Subheads
What is Bushido, and why does it matter today?
What are the seven virtues of Bushido?
What does Ely Delaney mean by “the other AI”?
How are Buddhism, Stoicism, and Bushido connected?
What three questions should you ask before sending an email?
Which of the seven virtues matters most?
How do you give negative feedback without being a jerk?
What’s the difference between Stoicism and Bushido?
How do you respond to trolls, hecklers, and critics?
How do you stay calm when someone provokes you?
What is “chaos energy,” and how does stress affect your health?
What’s next for Ely Delaney?
The Full Conversation
Ely: My two top virtues for myself are kindness and respect. Those two circumvent everything else. If you can't show respect, I'm done. Don't want anything to do with you. Mm-hmm. If you can't show kindness, not interested. And so for me, that's actually why Bushido stood out so much because those were my virtues to begin with, and then I found out that, again, I use compassion and kindness interchangeably.
But I found out that those were two of the virtues of Bushido.
Dani Raschel: Welcome back to With Hat and Cattle, where we bring you stories from people who are walking the walk and leaving you better off for listening. Today, we have in the studio guest Ely Delaney, who is known as The People Whisperer. So, Ely, it feels like we're at a point in history where there was so much, there's so much division.
Ely: Yes.
Dani Raschel: And we can forget there's another viewpoint.
Ely: Yes.
Dani Raschel: And so taking the time to listen and understand where the other person's coming from can go such a long way, and it kind of feels hand-in-hand with what you're speaking into, like the nurture part to it.
Ely: Yes.
Dani Raschel: Right? Am I far off?
Ely: No, very much so. And it's... So, and, and this is ki- this kinda goes back to, like, uh, you know, I talked a little bit about the, uh, Bushido, which is the code of the samurai.
Dani Raschel: Yes.
Ely: You were, you were talking about that earlier. So I got into Bushido in 2020 after the world blew up and all the things happened, right? It helped me get through a lot of that, because I, there was a lot of other things.
I always tell people, it's like b- uh, COVID was the least of my problems when '22 or 2020 hit. Right.
And, uh, that was one of the things that helped me get through it. And, and I even took the seven virtues, and they're part of the book as well. But they go into, these are life things. These are, these are things that we should be doing on a regular basis, virtues that make humans better humans, which are things like honesty and integrity and respect and kindness, loyalty, all these...
I mean, you say these words, it's like you can't think of a bad thing about these. These are things that we should be doing on a regular basis, and you're, and you're very right in the fact that we are in a very chaotic, volatile society right now, and I think that's one of the biggest problems that we're having more so than anything else, and this is why the communication is so important because especially in 2020, so many people lost the ability to communicate properly.
And that's part of my, my goal, both in the book from a business standpoint, but in life, is to help people get back into that understanding how do you communicate. How do you... You, you don't have to like somebody or agree with somebody to respect them.
Dani Raschel: Right.
Ely: You can still respect them, and you can be very kind to them.
You can be kind to them. They don't have to be kind to you, and you don't have to like it, but if you can be kind to them, you are a better person by doing that. And we do these things. If we would, if everybody would stop and embrace these basic virtues, the world would be such a better place almost overnight.
And that's where we have to, we have to be the, the leaders in this arena. And we need to go back to this as, you know, I'm, I'm very much into go back and study ancient intelligence. It's the, it's the other AI. You know?
Dani Raschel: That's... If you haven't trademarked that, that's a pretty cool line.
Ely: Yeah. Yeah. It's a… you go back to the ancient intelligence and look at the things that, um, helped create some of the best wisdom of the world, and they were very, very core basic ideologies There's so much there.
You look at, you know, Buddhism, you look at Stoicism, you look at Bushido. These are the three that I focus on. And those three... And it's all about the, it's all about how do you think properly? How do you talk, act properly? Like, you know, from a Bushido or from a Buddhism standpoint, it's called the a- the Eightfold Path, and it's basically, right actions.
Are you doing the things you should be doing? Or are you doing the things you shouldn't be doing?
All of these things are what makes us better if we can, if we can embrace them.
And so that's kinda, that's kind of the path of where my, everything that I stand for goes that way. Obviously from a business standpoint, yes, I use email marketing. That is my specialty, and that's my tool. But it's all the same stuff. You know? The, everything I talk about, the stuff that I put in the book, I actually wrote, it's the seven virtues of email marketing, essentially.
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: And, and I took those same virtues, and I'm like, okay, this is what it means over here. How are you honest in your emails? How are you... You know, if you're sending an email saying, "There's only three left," but it's a PDF, that's inauthentic. 'Cause PDFs are infinite. You can make as many as you want. You know?
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: Um, I mean, s- silly, stupid things like that, but those are the things that actually make a point because then every time you break one of those virtues publicly, you lose trust. And, and whether you're using it in your business, which I think in today's world there's a lot of lack of- or just on a personal day-to-day basis in the communications of people that you talk to.
How are you being loyal to your family, your friends, the people that stick up for you? Because if you can be loyal to them, they'll be loyal to you. And we're not talking about anything fancy. We're talking about, you know, what would you say about them when they're not in the room?
Dani Raschel: Mm-hmm.
Ely: Say something nice. Don't say the negative stuff.
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all. Think that's what my mom taught me, right? That's where these things come into play, and- I think that, w- like I said, we're, we are at a very volatile point of, of the world, not just in the US, but in the world, that if we can make a movement and get more people to follow these basic virtues, these basic ideas that will help us become better human beings, it will make a difference and start growing to more people, and hopefully the world gets in a better place.
Dani Raschel: It's... Writing a book, so many people wanna do it, and it's hard to have the dedication to actually follow through.
Ely: Yes.
Dani Raschel: But you did, and listening to you speak about these seven virtues and how it tied into your email marketing-
Ely: Mm-hmm ...
Dani Raschel: it's obvious you're very passionate. What was the why that got you through to the finish line?
Ely: I'll be honest. The, the why to get it done was 'cause I was like, "I'm gonna get this thing done fast." Um, and I'll give you, go give you the whole timeline- Yeah ... 'cause it's actually funny. So we talked about the first two books, and those were like 2013, 2014, right? And then I just was not in a mood for a book for the longest time, which is so funny 'cause I am a writer, but I just wasn't in the mood for, for that.
And then it came back up just in the last few years, where a lot of people were like, "Okay, which of your books is about email?" " Uh, well, neither of them really. I mean, the first one has some email stuff in it, but it's, neither of them are really about email." They're like, "But you're the email guy, right?"
And I'm like, "Yeah." They're like, "So why don't you have a book on email?" I was like, "Well, 'cause I haven't stopped and written it." And I got asked that enough.
Dani Raschel: Uh-huh.
Ely: And I was like, "Well, man, geez, I probably should write the silly thing." So I started thinking about it, and I was very heavy into... I really actually wanted my next book to be around Bushido and these other philosophies that we're talking about.
And then I was like, "But I really need to put this one out there, especially considering I am the email guy and this is my business. I should write a book on email." And I was like, "Wait a minute. How can I mix the two together?
What if I did the seven virtues of email marketing?" And that's kind of where it started, you know, seven virtues that help you build relationships through email.
And so that's the subtitle of the book. And that's how it got started, and it was actually the day that I made it public that I was doing it-
Dani Raschel: Uh-huh ...
Ely: was, it was Oct- uh, October 31st, Halloween of this last year. You know Sheryl Powers, right?
Dani Raschel: Yes.
Ely: Okay. So I was the, MC for her author symposium. And so we were talking to authors, we were talking to publishers, we're talking to ghostwriters, a whole group of people, and I was like, "All right. I'm gonna make this public." And so I basically put it out right there I've been thinking about it. I had a bunch of people bug me about it. I'm gonna write the book, and so this is the book that I'm writing."
And at the time, I got a little ahead of myself and I was like, "And I plan on having it done before January." Now, this is October. I was like, "This is fast" ... end of October. Yeah. But I had, I had actually put together the outline, and the outline came so fast, I'm like, this is gonna be really easy for me to write.
Um, which ultimately it was, but life happens, business happens, you know, clients take priority, all that kind of stuff. So it took way longer than I wanted it to. But, it was kinda cool because I just kept pushing away with it.
And then, I got it launched April 14th. So, I mean, if you really think about it, it's like I didn't even start writing my first chapter, I actually started writing, Thanksgiving week of that year And just kinda kept going with it, and I was like, "Nope, I'm gonna get it done, get it done."
And it c- it still took longer than I wanted, but that's still, what, four months, you know, five months.
Dani Raschel: Extremely fast.
Ely: Yeah. And, and I... It's so funny ' I'm beating myself up over the whole thing. I was like, "God, this is taking forever." And then I was like, "No, wait a minute, dude. You know people who've been writing their book for, like, five years, and they still haven't finished it yet, so chill out."
And so I was really happy to get it done. Um, the motivation to get it done was because I knew there was a demand for it. A lot of people kept asking for it. I was very excited about the f- the crossover between the two sides of business and philosophy.
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: Um, and taking those two together was a very unique approach that I hadn't seen before. I thought that was kind of fun. And I'm very, very proud of how it turned out. One thing that's been the number one best piece of feedback that I've gotten from it has been so many people have read it, and they're like, "Ely, this is like sitting down, having a cup of coffee t- listening to you talk.
It reads so smooth, and it's so good." And for me, that means a lot. Like, even if they get nothing else out of it, which I hope they do, but if the fact that it, to them, it felt like me just talking to them. Yeah. Which literally shows this is what I do. I am a writer. Yeah.
But I write in such a conversational form that it is designed... That's what I want. That's my goal with it. And I do this with my clients, is I want to h- them to read it and hear my voice. When I'm working with my clients, I want to read it and hear their voice. And when you can do that, it's a very different connection.
It's a lot of fun. And so for me to get that kind of feedback from people has been amazing, and I love it. Um, and a lot of people are like, "This is really good. I expected it to be a boring book-" "... 'cause I'm not interested in email, but this was really good. I get it." I'm like, "Okay. Obviously, I did something.
It wasn't completely boring." Yeah. So that's good.
Dani Raschel: We typically meet weekly through the, through the networking group that we're a part of. And when you were talking about the book, one of the first things that came to mind is there's a series that ties, like, superheroes to... It's like Spider-Man and philosophy.
Ely: Mm-hmm.
Dani Raschel: Spider-Man and psychology, for example. And so when you mentioned that this tied in the, the Bushido principles-
Ely: Mm-hmm ...
Dani Raschel: to email marketing, I'm like, that's, that's cool, 'cause it's an unexpected pairing. But you're so right. It comes down to, at the, at the end of the day, the connection.
Ely: Yeah.
Dani Raschel: How are you connecting through, to a person through this medium? And with these seven virtues, for you, which one do you find at the top of the list? Like, if you could only fold one in, and I know, I know you're gonna-
Ely: That's always hard, yeah ...
Dani Raschel: you're gonna fold all seven.
Ely: Yeah.
Dani Raschel: I know personally. But if you had to pick one.
Ely: Um, so are you talking about related to email or in general?
Dani Raschel: Ooh.
Ely: Cause there, there, there's a different answer for each of those.
Dani Raschel: Ooh, can we do both?
Ely: Okay, we can do both. Uh, from an email standpoint, um, integrity because you need to stay in integrity with yourself, and, and I tell people in this, it's in the book, it's like you need to stop and ask these questions before you hit send.
Is this helpful for them? Is this only beneficial to me? And would I like, if I got this email, would I li- enjoy it? And think about your answers when you read that, because I had, I had a client that I went through this exercise with, and she was like, "Oh, yeah, I don't think I'd like that very much." And so she went back and rewrote her email.
So that is a really... it's a good filter to go by before you hit send on. And it, and it goes on, again, on anything. Email's my medium, but even posting on social media, same thing. Mm. but then on top of that, it is... Uh, so integrity is on that side. On a personal level, compassion, which is, to me, compassion and kindness are interchangeable.
Dani Raschel: Mm-hmm.
Ely: Uh, my two top virtues of my- for myself are kindness and respect. Um, those two circumvent everything else. If you can't show respect, I'm done. Don't want anything to do with you.
Dani Raschel: Mm-hmm.
Ely: If you can't show kindness, not interested. And so for me, that's actually why Bushido stood out so much, because those were my virtues to begin with, and then I found out that, again, I use compassion and kindness interchangeably, um, but I found out that those were two of the virtues of Bushido.
I'm like, "All right. I, I kinda like this thing. Let me check it out a little bit more."
Dani Raschel: How did you find it?
Ely: I honestly couldn't tell you where exactly it came from. Um, I think, I'm not gonna... I'm not positive about this, 'cause it was... That whole era of my world was very hazy during that time.
But I, I saw a meme basically that had a picture of a samurai, and it had the, It's essentially the samurai's prayer or the war- warrior's prayer. I read this, and I can't rattle it off unfortunately. I should know it by now as many times as I've said it. But I read it every time.
I have a great big poster on my wall that I read every day, just repeating it over and over again just to get it in my head. Like I said, you'd think I'd have it memorized, but my brain don't work that way. And I was like, "Okay, that's kinda cool." And then so I was like, "Okay, what else is there?" And then as I did some research related to, like, this quote and samurai, then Bushido came up.
And so then I went down that rabbit hole and figured out what the seven virtues were. And when I s- read the virtues, it was like, "I like this. This makes sense." Yeah. And this, that really resonated with me.
Dani Raschel: It sounds like it came when, when you needed it-
Ely: Yeah, absolutely ...
Dani Raschel: at a point in your life, and it's- that's why it resonated.
Ely: Yeah.
Dani Raschel: So I can, I can hear some of my friends. "Well, I don't do... I don't have a business, Dani. I don't need email marketing." But this could even be tied into the email you send to a friend-
Ely: Absolutely ...
Dani Raschel: to a family member. I mean, how many of us, and sometimes for us, those personal relationships- are, they're more intimate, and so the feelings that, you know, the reactiveness- can be a bit deeper. There's-
Ely: Yeah ...
Dani Raschel: there's a whole other layer. And so the, at the heart of it, this is about communicating. It's not about email marketing.
Ely: Absolutely. The... And, and I've, and that's cool 'cause I've had a lot of people say that, too, and which is good 'cause that's kinda what I wanted. It, it is about how to communicate. It's not... Email's my preferred medium because that's my business. But it does apply to anything and everything you do.
And when you think about these things, you're thinking about, "Okay, am I within integrity of what I'm doing? Am I being loyal to this person right now?" You know, if you're saying bad things behind their back, you ain't being loyal, right? Um, you know, are, am I, am I being kind? Which, you know, if people stop and ask that question, half of Facebook would go away, right?
Dani Raschel: Well, I'm sitting here. I, as soon as we finish, there's a Google review, and I… I intend to be the person that if I don't have anything good to say, I'm not gonna leave a review…
I left a Google review, and I think I even started it with, "If I could leave zero stars, I would."
Ely: Yeah.
Dani Raschel: And was not kind. Was very upset. I mean, sending off this Google review felt good in the moment.
Ely: Mm-hmm.
Dani Raschel: But here we are, years removed from the situation, and I mean, those, those employees were just doing what they were told.
It was at the time where, I don't, I don't know if you experienced this. You typically... you could just go renew your license.
Ely: Right.
Dani Raschel: But they were moving forward and doing the real ID- and so you had to bring in documents.
And some of that, you know, communication wasn't government being what it is, I didn't know, and it was at a time where after COVID you had to reschedule appoint- and like everything, perfect storm. It was a mess. Perfect storm.
Ely: Yeah.
Dani Raschel: And leaving this review in the moment felt good.
Ely: Mm-hmm.
Dani Raschel: And now I'm sitting here and it has bothered me on and off throughout the years- Right ... but not enough to remove it.
Ely: You know, so, so here's a thought on that. Um, there's two, two pieces to it. Number one, it's in the past.
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: You know, it's already done. It's al- at this point it's already done the damage, so it's not gonna make any difference at a- any point because it's been years. But also, I'm not a, I'm not opposed to... Like, there are times where, like if... Especially if you're looking at, like, restaurants or services or stuff where customer service is important and their customer service is horrible, they need to be aware.
So there is a way though to... You can give a very objective view, which may be negative-
Dani Raschel: Mm-hmm ...
Ely: but it's an objective view to give them that positive feedback, and I'm a big fan of that. So, like, I've had times where e- even at, like, at restaurants, if I have a bad experience, I'll talk to the manager and I'm like, "Hey, here's what's going on.
This is what was... You know, this is what was happening. This is how they dealt with it. I don't think that's appropriate at all." But I'm staying calm the whole time.
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: And I, I think that people, especially in today's world, so many, you know, so many people in customer service are just horrible. They're, they don't care, and so they need to be aware of that, and the management needs to be aware of that. So there's a way, and it's not a matter of don't say the thing, it's how do you say it? What words do you say?
Because you can be, you can give your opinion, you can give your experience, and it can be a negative one, but you can do it in a very objective way that doesn't make you look like a jerk.
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: And that to me is still... To me, that's in integrity as long as you're keeping things factual, not emotional When you start making it emotional, that's when everything falls apart.
Dani Raschel: Mm.
Ely: And, you know, we have emo- emotions. We're humans. It's not gonna... Nothing's gonna change that. But we need to learn, especially in difficult situations, we need to be better at controlling those emo- emotions.
So like a dir- uh, going back to like stoicism with Bushido, um, b- stoicism really focuses on how you control your emotions. And it's a, it's a lot to do with, um, how you react to the things around you.
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: So I'm a big fan of that, and I've studied, I studied stoicism many years before I got into Bushido. And, and one reason why I like the two, um, is because like Bushido, going opposite of stoicism, s- stoicism teaches you how to react, Bushido teaches you how to act.
Dani Raschel: Mm.
Ely : And so to me, the two are just opposite sides of the same coin.
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: And so that's why I am, I'm so into all of this stuff, is because they teaches us, they teach us how to act originally. So how do you put yourself out there? What are the things you say? Don't be trolling people.
So that's, that's the, the good side, the Bushido side, and then you've got the other side of if somebody's trolling you, how do you respond?
Dani Raschel: It can be so hard.
Ely: It can be. Yeah. You know? And, and this happens in everything, um, not so social media, obviously it's the worst in social media, but in person.
Um, you know, one example is like as somebody's, uh, speaking on stage or there's always just like a any comedy show, there's a heckler. There's always gotta be at least one. And, um, somebody can d- totally disagree with me, and that's okay. I mean, I was even actually on a podcast last week, and the host disagreed with me on something that I said, and I, I was like, "No worries."
"You know, based on my experience, here's what I think. This is what I, my results, this is my clients' results. And guess what? The most important thing is you just gotta test it and see what works for your audience, because everybody's different, and you might have a different experience than I do, and that's okay."
I'm not worried about it. Um, and somebody has... And that's the thing too. I learned this from, um, are you familiar with, uh, T. Harv Eker?
Dani Raschel: No.
Ely: Okay. So he wrote a book called Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, and he, uh, used to be part of... He... His company was Peak Potentials. They sold out and got bought out and all kinds of different things, so I don't even know where, who does what now. But, they used to do these big seminars, and one of the things that they did was toward, at the very beginning of the seminar, they'd have like, you know, 300 or 400 people in a room, sometimes way more than that.
And they'd say, "Okay, we got three days. We're gonna go through all of the stuff that we're gonna teach you guys, and some of it is gonna resonate really well. You're gonna love it. Some of it, you're gonna not like it at all. This is all coming from our experience. This is what works for us. If you don't like it, throw it away.
Don't worry about it." And I love the way that they said that because we all live from our experience. You know, I've had people literally say, "Well, email is horrible. It's dead. It doesn't work." And I'm like, "Yeah, that's, that's 'cause your s- that's your experience."
Dani Raschel: Yeah, I've heard that.
Ely: I mean, my joke says, we're literally on the back of the book, it's not, um, email's, email's not dead, your emails just suck. Uh, but, and I say that jokingly, but kind of serious. But we all have, we all come from an experience, and that experience is, is part of everything in our world. From growing up, to our family, to our friends, to our business experiences, where you live, the type of people you do business with.
Ely: I mean, there's so many factors in it. We could never all have the same experience. It's just not possible. And so I'm a big one of, if you're willing to try it, if what you got isn't working, try something new, try something different- and test it out. Be open to it. Worst case scenario, you were right, it doesn't work.
And if it doesn't, if it totally does not resonate with you, and there's things out there, there's a lot of stuff out there that I'm like, nope, ain't gonna do it because it does not resonate with me. It goes against my core values. And for some people, it worked just fine. They're making their millions.
Ain't gonna be me because it just doesn't work for me. I find it, some of it is I, to me, under my guidelines, it's unethical.
Dani Raschel: Mm-hmm.
Ely: Or just shady or just not very nice, and I don't like that. I like being known as a guy that's nice. And so we all, but we all have our experiences. And so with all of that, sticking to what works for you, but not shutting the door on everything.
Being open to listening, but then at the end of the day, it's okay to disagree. It's not that you're right, you're wrong, or they're right, they're wrong. It's just, it's a difference experience and a difference of opinion, and that's kinda where I land with most stuff these days.
Dani Raschel: You, here we were... I should've introdu- I should've just left it as The People Whisperer because we've gotten so many life lessons out of just your experience with nurturing people in, in email marketing.
Ely: Yeah.
Dani Raschel: Now, as, as you're speaking, I'm going back- You -
Ely: didn't think email was gonna, like, be, be something this deep, did ya?
Dani Raschel: No, I did not. And I mean, I felt, you know, I know you on, on this one level of, you know, SCN [Success Champions Networking], and you are our, our, our chapter president, and you lead the meetings, and I thought, "I kinda know where we're gonna go with this," and had, had no idea. And as we're sitting here speaking, you know, I'm going back to some of my therapy that I'd been doing since 2019, and-
Ely: Mm-hmm ...
Dani Raschel: so proud because last month my therapist said, you know, "Dani, I think you're ready to go on a, on an as-needed basis.” And, like, seven years later, right? Of doing the work.
Ely: Congratulations.
Dani Raschel: Thank you. But you were speaking to, the communications and not coming from a place of reacting, and I was going back to a moment where a couple days ago, it's World Cup time.
Ely: Mm-hmm.
Dani Raschel: And it's been so beautiful to see the US just open up to these other countries, and the other countries experiencing us.
Ely: Right.
Dani Raschel: And it's just, it's been so beautiful to witness the joy online. And there's so many countries participating in the World Cup. I do have my USA jersey. I am cheering for- the home team, but I do have a, uh, Mexican heritage background. And so I had a Mexican jersey on the day that Mexico was playing, uh, Czechia. And someone told me, “Mexican,” like basically they were like, "Mexican? You're American." And I was taken aback. One, I did not expect it from this person.
Ely: Right.
Dani Raschel: And I have found the pause ... what has helped is the pause.
Ely: Yeah.
Dani Raschel: And so I'm listening to, to what you're saying, and being under- understanding. Again, that, there is where the work, the homework comes out, right? Where you're reading… You can read all this stuff, but in the moment- where it's tested, that's where it's, "Okay." That's where, the work is... You, you see it in action. And I just said, "Yes, you know, I am Mexican-American," and they, they pushed back and said no.
Ely: Mm-hmm ...
Dani Raschel: Dale Carnegie, you can't win an argument. So I, you know- I was like, "Yeah, you know, I get it," and, and let it be. It was very hard.
Ely: It's so funny 'cause people, like those kind of comments, I, I mean, I would just like stare at them and go like, "Huh?" It's like, why would you even say something like that to somebody? 'Cause it's like, if you wanna support a team for whatever reason, and yes, you've got heritage in there, so that, that's a good valid reason.
Or if you're supporting a team versus the other team who also is not American, uh, huh? You're like, why, why would that make a difference? And who cares what jersey somebody's wearing? Why would somebody even... That, that, obviously that person is, is got their own issues. I- And so that is, it's good that you took the pause and, and didn't lash out because that's, that's not the good way to do it.
Dani Raschel: Right.
Ely: Um, but it, it amazes me... What's the best, the best quote that I just heard? Um, I think it's just hilarious, and I, I gotta get it into memory enough that I can use it on a whim. Um, you, you must, you must be very proud of yourself because no matter how hard wisdom has chased you, you can outrun it.
Dani Raschel: I read that one!
Ely: And, yeah, and I was like, when I saw that, I was like, that is the best comeback line ever. Um, because sometimes you have those conversations with people, and you're like, "Yeah, that's- that, that, I should use that one right here with that guy." You know, it's, it's good that you've gotten to a point where you can stop and, and make that pause, and stop, um, think about it.
'Cause first and foremost, yeah, the, the amount of energy that goes into a negative reaction is insane. I mean, it's so, it's so much energy that's gets wasted, and we do have a finite amount of energy.
Introvert, extrovert stuff has a lot to do with it, but also, um, positive versus negative, and more importantly, what we have going on today is chaos energy. And-
Dani Raschel: That's a good way to say it.
Ely: Yeah. When you have those kind of things, they're exerting energy to you.
I'm just like, "Why would you waste the breath to say such silly things?" You know? And then on your part, on the response side, it's like, don't bother wasting the breath and the energy. Save that energy for something good.
Dani Raschel: Mm.
Ely: You know, you can say something nice to somebody else, or you can have more energy to yell and scream and lose your voice 'cause the team got a goal, right?
Dani Raschel: Yeah, exactly.
Ely: Where we put our energy and where we focus our, our thoughts is so detrimental to everything, especially our health. You know, one of the things that I have found, uh, for me personally, and I, and I've got a lot of people that have, have brought this up to me. They're like, "You, you look really good for your age," which is cool, 'cause I see some people that are significantly younger than me, and I'm like, "Dude, whatever you're doing, it's wrong."
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: “Stop it."
Dani Raschel: Yes.
Ely: And, and a lot of it, honestly, it's not because I'm ultra healthy by any means. I don't eat necessarily the best stuff all the time. I'm okay with that.
Dani Raschel: I don't either.
Ely: But I always look at the fact that I think that what the hardest problem, what makes us older and what wears our body out is stress-
Dani Raschel: Mm
Ely: and where we spend our energy. And that's one reason why I've been so deep into all of the stuff that we talked about today, is because when you can come from that kind of calm and build that, that barrier to the negative and the chaos energy and all that kind of stuff, it helps you stay somewhat healthier.
There's things you can't, that have nothing to do with that you can't control. Um, but there's a lot of things, like I know people who they really, really look hard, and a lot of it has to do with 'cause they've had a lot of stress. Um, if you notice people that are very negative, they, a lot of times they look sickly.
And it's like you're, you're spending your energy on these negative things, and it's hurting you. It's physically hurting you.
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: I wanna avoid that.
Dani Raschel: 1,000%.
Ely: Yeah. Yeah. And so, so yeah, definitely how you react to silly, stupid things other people are doing is such an important thing, and I'm a big fan of just like, "You know what? Whatever. You do you. I'm, I'm cool."
Dani Raschel: When I prepare for these episodes, in my head I like, I like to do visualization exercises. And we're sitting at a kitchen table. Growing up, life happened around the kitchen table.
And Ely, sitting here with you, I feel I've put myself at such a disadvantage by not having a kitchen table here. And as it is, it's res- it's, it's kind of clicking together the, uh, the practices that- you've learned, these seven virtues.
How you’ve applied it to your life? The stoicism- Your voice is just so even-keeled and it, it has been so just calming sitting with you here. I wish I had a cup of coffee. You know, it has just been so nurturing for my soul, to steal one of your words-
Ely: Well, thank you. I appreciate that- That means a lot.
Dani Raschel: to, to sit here and have this, thanks, to have this conversation. So before we, we send you back to the Fort Worth area, you know, across the other side of the world, and please go get your oil changed and your tires aligned before you head out there.
Ely: Before, yeah.
Dani Raschel: What's next on your agenda? I'm, like, ready for the next book.
Ely: Uh, okay. Well, I promised myself I wouldn't touch the next book for at least six months. Okay. Um, which we're already halfway there, but I got, I got some other things I gotta work on. Uh, however, um, there is definitely gonna be another book.
It's going to be all in on the Bushido side of things. I have a sideline project. It's called Seven Fold Projects. Um, seven fold based on seven virtues. Fold, if you know anything about, um, the art of sword making, so you think of, like, Japanese katanas, uh, they fold the metal to im- to remove the impurities, and so that's where the, the name kinda was mushed together. Um, I do have a Substack that I just launched on that, so it's all in that arena. It's not about email. It's not about business. Um, the ver- the comments can apply to business or personal 'cause it is all about communication and how we deal and, and, you know, act and react around the world.
But that is a big direction that I am moving towards, doing more of that, uh, 'cause that is my passion. I feel like when this idea came together that I wanted to start sharing this stuff out, um, you know, like every year somebody comes up with a, a, their word of the year every January, which can always be entertaining.
Dani Raschel: Yes.
Ely: Um, when this- Mine is,
Dani Raschel: Mine is faithful.
Ely: Faithful? Okay. Well, that's a good one. Um, so mine, when this whole idea started coming together, was purpose. And-
Dani Raschel: Where are we sitting?
Ely: Yeah. It was, it was purpose, and it was like, okay, I think this is really, at the end of the day, out of everything that I do, I feel like this is my purpose.
And so I'm leaning more in that direction. The book is definitely on the back burner for a little bit, but there, there will be one, absolutely. No question about it. I've already got notes and stuff that I've been putting together for it, so when I'm ready, it'll go very fast. Probably faster than this one did.
And so that is a big piece that I really wanna go into more because we are in a, in a society right now that has all the chaos going on. We are high anxiety. We are very divided. Um, people have lost the ability to communicate, and I feel it's very important that we bring that back. And there are also, for me personally Um, I found that a, especially a older generation, we are finding that with everything that is changing so fast plus all that stuff, uh, we're feeling displaced.
We're feeling like we don't know where we belong. We're afraid to say something 'cause somebody's gonna get offended. Um, and th- and for a long time there was a lot of, um, there's a lot of stuff, you see it in TV where especially, um, the males in the family are talked down and basically said, "Okay, yeah, you're an idiot," and it's hurt so many people.
And right now, this is a big one that I've-- that hit me just a couple years ago as a fact, like suicide rates of men over 50 are astronomical.
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: And I'm like, "Okay, this is not cool." And I know where I'm like, I felt, I felt especially in 2020, 2021, in all that range, I'm like, "I don't feel like I belong anymore."
And the more I talked about it, I found so many other people who felt the same way. Especially, and I-- this is not catered to men specifically, but more men, especially older men, that they felt exactly the same way. It's like, I don't even know what to do right now. And so this stuff is very important to me, and I wanna put it out there, and I hope that it gets absorbed by all people of all ages because of the fact that if we all start thinking this way and start thinking about the virtues and coming back to that as our core baseline, there is no, there is no way to go except up.
It can only get better.
Dani Raschel: Yeah.
Ely: And so that's, that's where I'm leaning towards. I don't know how fast that's all gonna happen, but it's getting there.
Dani Raschel: Thank you so much for sitting with us, Ely. I, I personally know that this has resonated and it's hit home, and I appreciate you sharing your light with us.
Ely: Thank you so much. I app- appreciate it.
Dani Raschel: Before we close out, Ely said something in this episode about how many older men are quietly struggling. I don't wanna move past it. If you're in a hard place right now or you're worried about somebody who is, you can call or text nine eight eight. That's the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
It's free. It's there twenty-four hours a day, and they take calls about mental health, about suicide, and about substance use. You can also chat at 988lifeline.org. You don't have to be in an emergency to reach out. You just have to wanna talk to someone
Next week, Jeff Mercier, friend of the show, is going to be sitting across from me and encouraging me to tell my story. That's right, I'm the guest on With Hat and Cattle. Although, truth be told, I still think I'm working on getting my cattle. A lot of you have asked why the show sounds the way it does, and why I say I wanna help people level up their success, and how we're not prisoners to our path.
Next week, I'm telling you why. I'm a recovering addict, and that's my story, and it's the reason this podcast exists
It's a different kind of episode, but it might be the one underneath all the others. I'm Dani Raschel Chou, and this is With Hat and Cattle, stories from people who walk the walk and leave you better off for listening
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