Welcome back to Inside personal growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of inside personal growth, and joining me from Del Mar, California, not that far away. And I am such an honor, because I don't always get to meet my authors, but he and I now have met a couple of times for coffee down at the coffee shop. The better bus. I'm going to put a I'm going to put a shout out to those guys, because Jon and I like that place now, down in Del Mar on 15th Street. Jon, good morning to you. How you doing, Greg,

I'm doing awesome. So good to be with you. Well,

I'm gonna let you I've pronounced your last name several times, but I don't want to mess it up. Give me the pronunciation, so that I don't screw up your last name for the podcast. Sure it's Chandonnet. Chandonnet. So nice French name. Well, I'm gonna let the listeners know a tad bit about you before we dive into the questions about the book. I'm also going to let the listeners know that they can reach you at www, vibrant you academy.com that's vibrant you academy.com that's where Jon has his coaching platform and anybody listening, can it? Can get it, get more information there. So Jon is an inspiring author. This book is called Shadow Mountain, a journey from MS to the other side of impossible shadow Summit. Shadow Summit, yeah. Why did I say Shadow Mountain? Shadow Summit? Well, maybe it should be Shadow Mountain metaphor. Metaphor. Great. He's also the founder of vibrant you, which I just mentioned. He was Dias diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 27 Jon has spent decades redefining what it means to live a vibrant and fulfilling life. He is a full time coach and author. Through his writing coaching and online academy, he empowers individuals to embrace challenges, unlock their potential and live with purpose. His journey of resilience and transformation is a testament to the power of mindset, health and perseverance. This is the guy that's sitting on the other side of the screen. And so for all of you out there, we welcome you to the inside personal growth podcast, Jon. And why don't we just kind of hit it off? I'll get the title right. This time, the title of the book shadow Summit. It's intriguing, right, right? You know, mountains do give off shadows, right? What does this phrase in the shadow of the summit, you say lies the truth mean to you, and how does it frame? How has it framed your journey with? Ms, yeah,

it's a great question. You know, the mountain is the metaphor that really represents the ego. So in the shadow of the ego is the truth. So I had, I had to face my ego. I had to confront my ego. You know, I mean, I had a big, big job with a technology startup, and the MS caused me to have to back away from that as a 35 year old man, and you know, I was in the midst of, you know, ready to explode, and your profession is everything, and It informs your ego, and I had to confront that, you know, and I had to confront my ego physically, you know, because I was, I was an athlete, you know, all through School, and was running marathons and and doing mountain climbing and crazy outdoor adventures and pushing the boundaries, you know, but I had that I had to face down, that that was not the way that was serving my body

well, you know, You had a lot of uncertainty anybody with that. And you know, in it, from what I understand, Ms kind of creeps up on you. It just doesn't happen one day. And you describe ms as a disease that you say, hides in the shadows. How has the invisibility of the illness shaped your personal and professional interactions? In other words, you know, you just didn't wake up at 27 and go, oh yeah, I got MS, right. And I think any people out there today that are listening to the show that have MS, yep, they realize the progression of this dis ease. You deal with it, because you and I have met so many times in person, so vibrantly, you know? I mean, your company is called vibrant, you, right? And if, if it's, if it's, Mind Matters, your mind matters, because you're the kind of guy that's going to overcome this with the positive mental attitude, as they say, because I remember last time I saw you, and this is, I'm carrying on a bit here, but you said, I'm going to run again, right? And here I see a guy with crutches, and he's saying he's going to run again. That's what you told the policeman out in front of your car. Do, right,

right, right. That was helping me in my car as we're coming out of coffee shop. Policeman there, and you know, he's talking, you know, and there's some sympathy from him, and I'm like, You know what? Yeah, I'm dealing with this, but you know what, I'm gonna get through this and I am gonna run again,

yeah, yeah. So what do you what do you attest to, kind of this invisibility and how it's played havoc with your psyche and your mental psyche and her and your emotions and everything else. Because we said our intention today was to speak with people that are dealing with some pain and or suffering that's messing up their psyche, and this has got to be one that really messes with you. It

does, you know, because, because I look so able bodied, you know, and people have no idea that I'm dealing with it. So when I was first diagnosed, you know, as 20 at 27 I could be in denial, and I could, you know, I can, in essence, say, I don't have you and I could try not to associate with the disease, which was good. It was a good coping mechanism, and it allowed me to do great things over the first eight years. But during that time, it was creeping in, and I was over those first eight years, slowly lowing, losing mobility, functionality. I lost my mental acuity and ability. My hands were numb. I lost feeling, you know, I was falling down, you know, and but I would, you know, I'd always get up, and I could always just kind of brush it off and be in denial, like, oh yeah, I don't have you. That's just a momentary thing and but it messes with you, because over time, it wears you down.

Yeah? Well, you can tell you know, you have changed your lifestyle, obviously, but you also talked about the role of denial in your journey, especially early on, right? It's like, I think a lot of us go in denial when got something physical going on. Oh, that's not happening. So what was the turning point where you began to accept and integrate your MS diagnosis into your life. When? What did that really happen? Yeah,

so that was, that was eight years in after the diagnosis, and you know, at work, I had failed an online test at work because my mom was going in circles, and I was a project manager for eight years and more are in the company, you know, for 95% longer than most of the project managers in the company. And yet I couldn't keep the concept straight. I got a grad degree from MIT and, you know, to for my mind to be going in circles. That was real, that was really scary and and, you know, I was, I was in a speaking course at work as well, and my mind and mouth lost connection, you know, I was not fluid, and my my voice was also muffled, and so the combination of these things showed me that I was in trouble. And I asked, you know, I got the courage to ask the company I worked for for a full month leave of absence to improve my health at the Optimum Health Institute in San Diego. And I took that step. I mean, so you know, a question you're gonna ask me is, you know, what was the first step? The first real important step was facing my ego. Yeah, and asking my the company for four months off, because that's corporate suicide, asking, you know when you're in, yeah, it is. It is when you, when you step away from the line like that and show that and show weakness. If you show weakness like that in a corporate setting. I mean that it doesn't know. It doesn't always, it doesn't always play well.

Well, the good thing about you is your determination. You reinvented yourself. Let's face a lot of people out there today that think they need to live the corporate lifestyle. They have a lot of fear. Well, you had two fears. One, you had the MS. And two, you probably are afraid you're gonna lose your job. And three, then you start considering the finance part of it as well. Like, hey, right? How many? How am I? What am I gonna do now? Right? Wasn't expecting this, right? This wasn't something I expected. Although life does send us kind of messages that we need to learn from yours is protracted, because the MS has advanced a little bit further, yeah. But you know, I want to talk about this, this role of physical and mental film fitness, yeah, yeah, that's you're a coach, so you're coaching people all the time, yep, and the in the pursuit of these physical challenges, like you used to climb 14,000 feet summits and run marathons and all these kind of things, right? How did those physical endeavors influence your mental strength in dealing with Ms? Because when you first got it, you are still doing that right, right, right, right now you're telling me I can't walk a half a mile down on the beach, right, right. So, you know, obviously it's progressed, and you've seen it progress. And so this real personal question, how do you deal with that progression every day? And what's in your mind,

right? And I'm always looking for ways to improve my condition. You know, I mean, 20 years ago, I was in big trouble, and I look for ways to improve my condition, which is where I did that raw vegan detox. You know, a year ago, my MS morphed from relapsing remitting to secondary progressive. And I that that's a wake up call. And I didn't, when

you changed your diet, that's right, went to all, all fats, yeah, really carbs,

yeah. I'm 100% you know, on paleo, keto, you know, I 5% of my calories come from carbs, 5% right? I mean, you know, a lot of people, you know, 95% of their diet comes from carbs, and that's bad for me, because it leads to inflammation in my body. And so I had, I had to figure out how to get beyond that inflammation load. I had to free myself from that and

and I know, but you've done it, and I've done it. I'm out the other side. You did tell me it is hard to live off of just fat, and your body isn't process it, but you have gotten rid of the inflammation. So the you know, I'd say one of the things you wrote about was the importance of focusing attention where it counts, uh huh. And so that's one of the things, where you focused your attention, where it counts. How do you pro How do you, Jon, prioritize what truly matters in this you know, like we live in such a noisy world today, uh huh, uh huh. And I know you're a meditator, and I know that that's been a journey of yours and mindfulness and meditation and spiritual practice. But how do you help people who you coach get out of all of these demands and prioritize what truly matters, and remove themselves from such this demanding world and put themselves in a space where they can be more creative, more healthy and and and contribute more to their family, to the world at large, and live their purpose. Yeah, what would you tell them?

So, you know, I've come up through my journey. I've realized that there's really seven key elements to life, you know. And those are the, what I call the seven vibrance, and aligning with those is really important, because I leak energy, you know, literally, my nerves leak energy because they're afraid, okay? And so understanding those seven energies, there's physical energy there, there's emotional energy, there's professional energy, there's financial, social through the voice, mental and spiritual. So I'm very mindful of how I use each of those seven energies, and that those seven energies define 99% of life. And so I've got my operating system, my personal operating system, fine tuned to be mindful of those seven energies. You know, all day long, you know, I'm mindful of the 99% of what powers my life, and that has that's allowed me to free myself from the noise. You know,

it's, it's really, I think it's very clever. You know, these vibrant use, or the seven of them that you basically teach your coaching clients, yep, yep. You mentioned them really kind of toward the end of the book, yeah, yep, with, without giving too much away, right, the principles in those to the listeners would be important. So can you tell us what that you did briefly mention the seven, yeah. But what those seven are? Yep. And anybody out there today facing something how realizing where they are on the Severn vibrance, right? Yes, and how to actually look at it as a whole, yeah? Because it is a whole. I mean, when people look at their chakra, yeah, Crown Chakra here, right? And live through the energies of our body, right? I don't remember how many chakras there are, but maybe there's seven. There

are seven, okay, the vibrance are aligned with the chakras. Okay, so the physical is the root chakra, down at the base of the spine. You know, emotional is the emotional vibrant at the sacrum. You know, profession is at the sacrum, excuse me, the solar plexus. And then the heart is financial, the financial, the throat chakra is social, the voice, all the words. The mind is the mental chakra, all your thoughts. And then spiritual is the crown chakra. And so each of these seven energies allow me to understand. You know, am I connecting with people? Am I really connecting with people? Because connection energy fuels me. You know, my thoughts my mind is, are my thoughts serving me or not? Am I positive or negative? What time state Am I in around my thoughts? Am I in the past, the present or the future? The only place I can really live is the present. The only thing that can affect the future is the present, you know. So if I'm in the past, I'm in regret, you know. If I'm in the future, I'm in worry, you know. And so the only way you take care of all that in the mind is to be in the now, you know,

you know, that's an old statement that that my mom used to use, God bless her, yeah, she used to say, yesterday's a canceled check, tomorrow's a promissory note. The only thing you have is today, that's it. Yeah, and, you know, I understand that, but we have so many people in this world that you coach, that I coach, that allow the mind takes them to this false expectation appearing real fear. Yes, I'm not going to have enough. I'm going to be broke. I'm go, whatever it is going to be. They live 99% of the time. That never happens. But I have always said, you know that we live, Jon, in a world of making stuff up. Then we we believe the stuff we made up. So then we end up living what we made up, right? Yeah, which doesn't serve us.

You know, like all those narratives spin up in our mind, and we're all really creative, let's give let's call it out. You know, that's one thing. That's one thing everyone on this this session is, creative, and they can spin up some crazy narratives, you know. And those, those, do they serve you or not a lot, a lot of times, most of the time they don't. And so, how do you ground all that stuff, you know? Because that is, you know, the focus is, what do you want, what do you really want, and that that should really focus your energy and your action, you know, and how do you work on what you want?

What do you tell people? As I always say this to people that are coaches, because part of the job of a coach, advisor, yep, is to help somebody, and I'm just going to use this word because it works, is to help people get unstuck. Uh huh, okay, and when they get stuck, they're in a rut. And look, you've had your share of ruts. I've had my share of ruts. You even said that as this diagnosis with MS came up, that your relationships when you were really had to be more open. You know, I'm sure you found yourself in ruts at time, telling people and the and being so open had an impact, right? So my question for you is, if somebody out there listening is in a rut, speaking from two folks who've been in plenty of ruts, what? What a rut or that they're stuck? What's the best advice, you would have to trigger something they could do that would interrupt that thought pattern and move them beyond the rut or the stuckness,

talk to one person. To start talking to one person, because you speak your truth, right? You, you the words you stitch, say, speak your truth, and you, you'll inevitably talk about, maybe what you're dealing with, but inherent within that is you'll speak what I want is I want to be I want to feel better. I want to be better. You know that desire needs to bubble up and come out of you, and the only way for that to happen, to go from internal to external, is to speak with someone, and that's really key, is to externally, reflect what is happening inside your truth. You know,

so to be honest with yourself, right? And I think, you know, a lot of times we hide from being honest. We push it under the carpet. You know, we don't want to deal with our feelings having. MS, you've had to deal with every feeling and emotion you could imagine, including, you know, how do I manage these relationships with people in my family, with people outside of my family, with my clients, with all of that, and it's, it's quite a journey you've taken. And my hat's off to you, and I acknowledge you because it has been something that's not only transformed your life, but the actual impact that somebody like you can have on other people who aren't dealing with what you're dealing with

is is truly a blessing, right? Yes, there's times maybe you don't feel like it's a blessing. So no, it is, yeah, and it doesn't serve me to look at it any other way. Blessing, you know, Greg, the fact that you bring that out, that's Thank you. I mean, that's, you know, and those things you said thank you,

but well, you know you're like you and I have met a couple of times now, now we're on this podcast. Now the reality is, we've come become really close and shared a lot of things about our businesses and our life and whatever, and it's and it is, has a lot to do with, you know, somebody who's been empowered to work their way through something so monumental that has actually helped me break out of certain things too, and be totally honest and truthful, you know. So you know, you your book highlights the power of storytelling, and you're a great storyteller. Um, what role did writing shadow summit play in truly, you know, and I'm going to hold the book up for the listeners, did it play in your own healing and growth? Yes, right? This is as much a memoir as it is a book about people's personal growth, about how you

grew, yep, yep, yep, yep, and so that, you know, that took me eight years to write that book, The first version, yeah, it took me eight years. I mean, you know, I was not, I was not a writer of narrative prose. I mean, I was a rational guy. I was 100% rational. And in order to write narrative prose, you have to integrate the rational and the intuitive, you know, the intuitive feeling. And I was, I was emotionally literate, you know, you asked my son's mom, you know, I mean, I was emotionally illiterate, and that's what the experience of the book taught me was how to get in touch with my emotions, because you can't write a narrative, a book of narrative prose, without being in touch with emotion. Because all's emotion is, is, is the emotional current of a story, you know? I mean,

yeah, well, you, you did a good job of it, and I want to acknowledge you for that. And I want to encourage our listeners to actually go to Amazon. We'll put a link, get a copy of the book, and actually go to your website and and really, you couldn't be coached, and I'm saying this selfishly, by a better person. So if you're looking for a coach and you're in a rut, or you're stuck, or you think you're dealing with a life changing challenge, you couldn't be with a better coach than somebody who's already dealt with it. So my hats off to like, go to Jon and see if you're really experiencing that pain or suffering, and you're listening today, and you'd like some help. I'm going to say, go see Jon. Go right his website.

Yeah. And as a coach, you know, really, I listen. That's really what I do, I listen to people, and I mirror back their truth, you know, and that's, that's what, that's what a coach ultimately does, is assist people to live the life they want to live. I mean, that's what, that's my goal, that's my purpose, is to assist people to live their best life according to their innate, you know, abilities and skills, you know. And that's what a coach that's what a coach does.

Well, you're a good listener that I would say. Now look looking ahead, what, what is kind of next for you, and how do you continue? Plan to continue inspiring others with your stories and your lessons. You're a coach. You and I have talked about you putting this stuff online. You've got lots of dreams and aspirations, yeah. But I think for our listeners, it's like, okay, John's a coach. I can, I can hire him to help me. Yep, I can read his book. Yeah. But I want to let listeners know he's got a full on course this vibrant you the seven Vibrance. It's very well laid out, right? And truly, go to Jon's website and contact him, because he has so much more content than his. What on his what's on his website,

right? Yeah, yeah.

Is that what's ahead for you, is making the course available for people that need to get it at a reasonable price and

Exactly, exactly, yeah, you know, I've been, I've been perfecting it over the last 11 years, and so now I know it works, and now I need to figure out a way to make it of more of a available to everyone, you Know, more mass market available, you know, to touch that, because my goal is to touch more lives, because I believe everyone has their own best life within them, and a lot aren't, aren't manifesting it. To Use Your Words, Greg, you know, right? Just, they just not. They're not actualizing it. They're not taking action to manifest their best life. And so or,

or we might say Jon, that there they might be, but because of the ego, which is where you started from here, yep, yep, yep, the ego has always told them they're not enough, yep, and until they can turn off that story that you know what you do every day isn't enough, you got to do more. You weren't the straight A student from MIT or wherever you graduated. You didn't become that doctor. You have to truly become who you want to become, right, and you can't let the outside world actually mold you into something different, because you are then going to struggle right. You are going to have pain and suffering and beyond belief. So if you want to reinvent yourself, go to somebody like Jon to get reinvented. Right. Use the vibrant you content to do that right? What are the last words you'd want to leave our listeners with Jon with relation to like, some epiphany that they may want to try and discover, either on their own or with you, that would help them transmute, and I say this openly, transmute some area in their life where they don't feel good about themselves, their weight, their physical health, their emotions, their relationships. What might you say? Could be like a, you know, like an egg that breaks open and says, Yeah, here it is, scramble me, yeah,

I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, take a step, you know,

take a step,

take us, either it's a step forward or a step back, or a step up or step down. Who knows, right does take action and begin to move in the direction you want? And it doesn't. Doesn't have to be the perfect step, you know, right doesn't like, it's like, my story is messy. I i took a lot of, you know, step back, step down, fell down, you know. I mean, I was all at times. I was all over the place, but, but I took action because I wanted to improve my situation, you know,

well, you're a perfect example of taking a step because you have Ms. So you couldn't use a better analogy. Every one of your steps is intentional and rightfully so. It made we talked about slowing down. Jon, obviously has slowed down, folks, but I watched how every step has such meaning for you. So I want to thank you for being on inside personal growth, sharing your story again. For all of my listeners, you're going to go to www vibrant, u v, i, b, r, a, n, t, u, the U academy.com there. You can learn more. You can get in touch with Jon. You can pick this book up at all your best booksellers, but we'll put a link to Amazon. Jon, honestly, I can't wait for my listeners to get a hold of this podcast and to get in touch with you, and I really appreciate you. Namaste to you. Thanks for being on the show and spending some time sharing your story and journey with MS, how you've overcome some of your challenges and and really how people out there can move through the pain and suffering. Yes,

you know Greg, thank you so much. Just, thank you for allowing me just to share and see if I can, you know, touch someone who knows you are. Namaste, my friend. Namaste.