For anyone who has hit a wall, whether that's a diagnosis, a burnout or just the quiet feeling that something has to change, this conversation with James Brett is the one to queue up.

More info, resources & ways to connect - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/james-brett

James Brett has lived a life most people only read about. He led high-stakes sales teams across Australia, Singapore and Europe, won multimillion-dollar contracts and collected the kind of corporate success that looks great from the outside. Then he got a stage three kidney cancer diagnosis, had a ten-centimeter tumor removed along with his right kidney, and nearly died from a bowel obstruction in the week that followed. What came next wasn't just survival. It was a complete rebuilding of who he is and how he lives.

In this episode of Even Tacos Fall Apart, James sits down to talk about the cost of running too fast for too long, and what it actually looks like to come back from rock bottom with more clarity than you had before. He's honest about the fear that comes with a cancer diagnosis, the identity crisis that follows when the career you built your life around disappears, and the quiet grief of having a parent with dementia on the other side of the world while you're fighting for your own life.

James now runs a boutique retreat space on the mid-north coast of Australia with his partner Lisa and works with coaching clients around the world. His approach pulls from Eastern practices like Qigong and Taoist energy work, neuroscience, non-duality and what he calls the inside-out understanding of the mind. The core of everything he teaches comes down to one shift: we don't experience life like a camera pointed at the world. We create our experience from the inside through thought, and when you really see that, everything changes.

We talk about the concept of radical wholeness, which includes waking up, growing up, cleaning up and showing up, and why doing just one of those without the others will only get you so far. We get into gratitude practices, how moods are contagious and what to do about it, why playfulness is seriously underrated in adult life, and how nature showed up for James in the most unexpected ways during his recovery.

James also shares his life hack for deeper connection in relationships, the eye-gazing practice he does with his partner every night before sleep, and the moment he saw a wedge-tailed eagle circle above him coming out of the hospital and just completely fell apart in the best way.

If you are a caregiver who has put yourself last so long you've forgotten what your own needs even feel like, if you are rebuilding after something that broke you wide open, or if you just have a nagging sense that there has to be more to life than the pace you've been running at, this one is for you.