Gerard Adams (@gerardadams) is an American serial entrepreneur, millennial branding expert, philanthropist, TedX speaker, and business executive. He is best known as a co-founder of Elite Daily, which was sold to The Daily Mail in 2015 for $50 million dollars. Gerard has been named one of the top 100 most influential by Business Insider and became a self-made millionaire by 24.
Currently, he’s the Founder of Leaders Create Leaders, a conscious leadership training institute empowering and equipping a community of impact-driven leaders for a better future.
Gerard and Brandon covered some empowering, insightful ground during the podcast, which you can listen to or watch on Youtube. In this written recap, we’re going to highlight the themes that stood out the most to us.
#1 Judging Himself (and the Shaman)
Judging. It’s something many of us struggle with and suffer over. Whether it’s the restaurant worker for taking too long, a cousin for the way they laugh, or ourselves for all the ways we think we aren’t enough.
When Gerard first met the Shaman on Journey 2, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“There’s no way, this is the shaman. I mean, I was expecting some Buddha-looking dude and it was just this guy that I just didn’t expect to be a Shaman.”
As they say, when you point one finger outward, three fingers point inward. Recognizing judgments are also wonderful teachers. These moments tell us what triggers us or makes us feel insecure. And from this place of recognition, we can get curious and ask ourselves what about this judgment, hollow label, or physical cringe has nothing to do with the thing outside of ourselves and everything to do with us.
It was during Ceremony that Gerard realized the way he was judging the Shaman was just a reflection of the harsh ways he judges himself.
“And I was just letting go of that same judgment that I uncovered in looking at the Shaman in myself. And how much I judge myself, how much I’m constantly judging myself for not doing enough, not being enough, all these things. And so it was a lot of that that I felt was being released. It was like I was finally done. I was like, geez, I’m just so hard on myself.
I’m just judging myself. And that purge was this release of all of that. Like finally letting it go of all this judgment.”
#2 Realizing His Purpose
Gerard has been building and creating business for many years, and he’s damn good at it too. And as he learned, no company built or sold left him truly fulfilled. This is a common theme we hear at 1heart… Doing or having what society or culture tells them is right and enough only for these very accomplishments to leave them empty or craving their next big thing.
It wasn’t until Gerard was reflecting in a moment of deep connection with the medicine that he found gratitude for all the hustling he’s done and what he realized he’s actually here to build. And that purpose is a platform for younger generations to see that they can create abundance and success in their lives too, with Gerard as a teacher, role model, and example.
“I was an entrepreneur that just came from New York City. I was a gritty young kid that didn’t have a college degree. I just was all about the grind and the hustle and building up my success brick by brick.
And so it was just this interesting moment where God was like it was for a purpose. And that purpose is for you to go and show others and give them hope and show them that this is possible and that they can create success for their lives. And especially the younger generation.”
#3 Prioritizing Himself & Embodying His Worth
As they say, we can lead a horse to water, but we can’t make them drink. The same is true for learning to prioritize our health and believe we are enough. A hundred people can say it a thousand different ways, but if you can’t feel, see, or believe your own value, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says to try and remind you of your worth.
Once we understand our innate values, we can begin to prioritize what’s most important to us. Rather than sacrificing our health, our sleep, or our relationships for our work or our vices, we can begin to prioritize these relationships, watch our damaging habits dissolve, and surrender to the beautiful, effortless flow of aligned living.
“And for me, 1heart helped me to create that balance. And so I stopped trying to hustle so much to the point where I would sacrifice my health. I would sacrifice my relationships and I flipped it and I started prioritizing my relationships. I started prioritizing my health. I started prioritizing being a match to that queen and to bringing a daughter into the world. My daughter Skyla is here!! And so for me, it was like my being changed. And from that place, everything became more effortless.”
Whether the chicken or the egg came first is an answer only a few truly know the answer to, and we are not one of those few. So whether your commitment to your health leads to embodying your worth or a feeling of being enough leading to prioritizing your well-being comes first, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you build a relationship with one and trust that the other will follow.
“The way it showed up in relationships changed, I just became more present. I became more present to what is important. I slowed down. I started letting go of the things that I thought I needed to do in order to be loved in order to be accepted in order to be worthy in order to be enough.
I let go of all that. And I started to actually embody that worthiness, embody that love, embody that acceptance. And from that place, I started to express myself. And so from there, everything started to become more effortless, whereas pre-1heart journey, everything was a grind, everything was a hustle.”
Thank you Gerard, for the beautiful wisdom and insights you gifted yourself, and now the world and our community. We are so grateful for your courage to have stepped into this work and smile ear to ear seeing how your life has transpired since your Journey with 1heart.
If you’d like support on where to start, how you can begin to feel your self-worth, or what it looks like to deeply prioritize yourself, maybe this is your call to join a 1heart Journey.
