Your Real Number Right Now

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Here's a question that's worth sitting with. If someone asked you right now, on a scale of 1 to 10, how are you really doing? You know, not any polished answer, but the real one. Because most of us would hesitate because we know the difference between the number we say and the number we really feel. And today's guest has built an entire coaching process around that camp. Welcome

Meet Steve Parton

SPEAKER_01 0:28

back to another episode of Hadi Bay and Hadi Life. I am Syan, as some of you would know, and this is the show where we have real and honest conversations about what it generally takes to feel well in your mind, your body, your relationship, and your sense of self. My guest today is Steve Parton, a gestalt certified mindset coach, entrepreneur, author, and the creator of The Game of Ten, a registered coaching process that has transformed the lives of individuals, executives, and teams across the country. And was presented to the case study team at Harvard University in 2025. Steve has spent over 40 years, yes, four decades, building and running businesses before turning that lived wisdom into a coaching practice grounded in awareness, self-acceptance, and what he calls living at a 10. He's also the co-author of The Father, The Son, and the AHA Moment, written alongside his son Spencer. So that's a lot in there, Steve. So it's it's really good to have you here and excited to see where this conversation really opens up to.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Well, thank you very much, Sand, for having me on your show. And I'm looking forward to great questions. And hopefully I can answer to you and your audience and give you all the answers that I can do. And and thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yeah. Yeah, likewise, Steve. It's it's great to have you here. And you know, I'm excited to learn a little about what that entire process is that you know you have uh probably spent, I mean, four decades, and you have just compressed that into a formal, you know, structure framework.

The Aha Moment That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_01 1:57

So before we go there, I want to start somewhere personal, right? So since you have spent four decades as a business owner before you became a coach, and that's not really a small thing to leave behind. So, what was the moment or the accumulation of moments that made you say that this is actually what I really need to be doing?

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Well, I think it I was probably 45 years actually, because I took over when I was I'm gonna be 70 in September, and I took over when my family builds 22. So uh I'll have to change that. And what was my big aha moment was I had gone to put my at 36 years old, I had everything in the world that I wanted, and I wasn't happy. So I I brought myself to a therapist, and that's the first thing I said to me. He said, Why are you here? I said, I have everything in the world that I want. I'm not happy. That's messed up. I didn't use those words, I used the other word, and he laughed, and I said, How long is it? I said to him, How long is it gonna take and what can I expect? And he said to me, I usually I tell my clients three months, but you're halfway there. So knowing that you're messed up and haven't figured it out, and so within three sessions, I was good to go, and I'd figured out who I was. I had an awakening, if you will, major awakening during that time. And I realized who I was, and it took me a while to assimilate that, and really it wasn't it was I'm still assimilating, constantly assimilating, constantly growing, constantly awakening. I think awakening and awareness is infinite. So if you stop becoming awake, then you stop growing. And I love to grow and I love to learn. So I love sharing my thoughts, feelings, and emotions with other people, helping them understand theirs, and that's my passion right now. So I love it.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Hey

A Quick Listener Disclaimer

SPEAKER_00 4:05

dear listeners, before we begin, a quick note from Hildiman Pavick. This episode is created for educational and informational purposes only. The views shared by our guests are their own and may not reflect those of the host or network. Nothing in this conversation should be taken as medical, legal, financial, or professional advice. Please consult a qualified professional before making important decisions. We encourage you to listen with curiosity, think independently, and use this content as a starting point for reflection, not a substitute for professional guidance. Now, settle in and enjoy the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Wow, and I think that's that's you know a brutal reminder that you know no matter how old or you know how experienced you are, breakthrough in this context is not you know a single process, right? It's it needs to happen again and again, you know, as as you go through, you know, in any direction of your life. And I think

Why Life Is A Game

SPEAKER_01 5:05

you know you you summed it up pretty well. So uh Steve, uh the game of ten, when you know people first hear this, there's a lot of things that could come to mind. They might picture a performance scorecard or some kind of productivity system. So I'm curious to understand what is it? Like, can you walk us into what the game of ten actually is and why you framed it as a game also?

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Because I feel that life is a game and it's how you play it, it's how successful you are. And to be your authentic self is the winning of the game. And to be I agree. Yeah, you win. You're your authentic self, and what are you gonna do with it? Now that you know you can have everything in the world that you want, what do you want? Where are you? How are you gonna get it? What are your what's your idea and how are you gonna strategize to do it in a way that's respectful towards yourself and others? To be play fairly? The game of ten is about playing fairly, and as opposed to the game often played one through nine. So I'll keep this as simple as possible for everybody because it is simple, just not easy.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Okay.

Born A Ten Then Life Happens

SPEAKER_02 6:20

So we're appointed ten, everyone is appointed ten at birth, and then we have disappointments, we have trauma, we have person, put people, places, and situations that happen to us that we hold on to. And from the age of I think the Jesuits said, give me a child at zero to seven, I'll give you the man. And uh Bruce Lit Dr. Bruce Lipton says, from the age of zero to seven, we're in a state of theta. So everything that happens with us, for us, or against us, we hold on to in a hypnotic state, and we spend the rest of our lives living out of that hypnotic state of disappointment from that lens of awareness that we don't even know what happened, that we don't even remember what happened to us, but we know that it was something like abandonment, something like um abuse, something like um traumas. And it can be basic little disappointments, okay, that bring you down to nine, or major disappointments like abandonment of your parents, growing up in an abusive foster home or or uh adoption, what's it called? Orphanage, something like that, that's people are traumatized. And unless you have the right systems and learn how to let go, aka forgive that you can't get over it. So you see life through a lens of that trauma or disappointment. So I call that the game often played one through nine. And you have to take so I do a lot of work with eights, nines, seven, eight, nine, and ten. Okay. Tens of if I get a hold of a ten, they filthy discovery form, you're ten. What do you need? A friend, yes, it's lonely at the top, but you gotta find people who are also ten.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

So people who are tens, nines, eights, sevens, the lower down the awareness you are, you think the tens are crazy. What do you mean you're gonna do that? What do you mean you think that? So it's a level of awareness and it's a level of sanity too. The closer you get to 10, the more sane you are. And I mean that in a healthy way, that we're either sane or we're insane, and it's it's temporarily, unless it's chronic. Okay, I want chronic sanity.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yeah, I I I love what you shared, uh Steve. Uh those those are like you know, there's a lot of stuff that is shared. And I think to me it's a new vantage point because instead of seeing it as you know, when you are born, instead of seeing as, you know, you go like one to ten, you're seeing it as ten, and whatever happens, you know, you're coming down the order, and then you fight again to you know reach that ten again, right? That's that's a new vantage point, I mean, uh definitely for me. And I think there's a lot of things that did resonate with you. But curious to know, so if you could share us an example of, you know, what's the perspective of a 10, you know, versus maybe a 7 that you have met with so many people so far, you know, how how definitely do they think and because I I think I really relate with what you said, you know, it's loneliness at the top. I agree. I think, yeah, it is like, I mean, you know, as as far as I could think of, there's a level of isolation or alienation that you need to go through, or maybe you are in to achieve, you know, that 10. But uh, I mean curious to know from your experiences and you know, uh coaching other people, what is that you have observed with different levels. So if you could share it, maybe, you know, nine to ten, then seven to eight, and then one to six.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Well, okay.

What The Numbers Look Like

SPEAKER_02 10:22

First of all, you never cannot be ten. Okay, let's get that straight. Everyone's 10. Everyone. And we have to to be a 10, you have to see others as 10. But you also see that they haven't had the awareness or they haven't let go of certain people, places, or situations that happened to them in the past. So, in order to be 10, you have to see everyone as 10 and doing the best they can with the awareness that they have, that they are right in their perspective with the awareness they have. So you have to be unconditioned and unconditionally accepting of that's where they're at. That's okay. Okay. You don't have to have lunch with them, you don't have to be friends with them. You just have to say, okay, this is where you are. This is what yeah. So I would start with one to three. You people who are in there one to three, one is one's a suicidal. They are just life sucks, life has been bad to me. I want to die. Okay. And each time you go up to two to three, you have an aha moment. Well, true, life's not that bad. I'm not gonna do harm to myself or others. I know I'm gonna do some work on myself. It's through three, still pretty low level awareness that you know, probably in object poverty, probably life looks pretty bad. And what happens is when you're at these levels, you attract that level of people, places, and situations. So the manifestation is you get what you are, you attract who you are. So if you're vibrating at that level of awareness and operating, you are going to have to show every evidence in what life will present itself to you from that level of awareness. So, yes, they are right. It does at that level. So you have to have, I don't know if it's faith or the awareness to know that I'm changing my mindset. I am happy, I am healthy, I am wealthy or abundant, I am whole, I am perfect as I am right now. Life is perfect as it is right now. It doesn't mean you don't throw out intentionality saying, I'm going to be, I am wealthy, I am happy. So you can't break through unless you are happy where you are. You can't break through unless you are healthy as you are. You can't break through that that level and that resistance to that. So one to three, hard. Three to six, better. Once you get over five, you've you're halfway there.

Perfectionism And Letting Go

SPEAKER_02 13:12

And then this six and sevens and eights and nines, nines are the toughest to work with because they don't want to give up and they don't want to give up control. They've they've succeeded in life, they're perfect, they tend to be perfectionists and always striving for perfection, which is the highest form of self-abuse. So it's they will never be happy completely because everything's not perfect. So you have to see 10 is perfection on a platter, it is perfect where you are, and the the leap from nine to ten is letting go of control of life. So the paradox is when you let go of control, you have total control. And you're in alignment with universal source, universal God, universal awareness, universal the universe infinite of life. When you let go, all possibilities happen. And then you have to ask, then you have to ask what do you really want? And it is it in alignment with your values, your purpose, your mission, what's important? Is it something you you want to do the rest of your life? So follow your as I forgot this. Joseph Campbell, follow your bliss. Where's your bliss? Ten is content. Most of the time I'm content. Sometimes I have moments of bliss, you know? But it's pretty natural. It's but I never get depressed, I never get I rarely get angry. And if I do, I'll go, okay, where'd that come from? I didn't I call it psychic psychic flossing. You know, where did that come from? Hopefully I played hopefully I explained that to you.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Yeah, that was perfect. And the idea that particularly resonated to me was that, you know, perfect perfectionism is just you know, it's it's in theory. I mean, you know, this I mean I believe that nobody is perfect because there's always room to improve, you know. You can be no matter, you know, very good at a thing, you know, no matter what that is, and you could still look up and you know thrive to be better. I think that is that is what yeah. See if you want to say something to that. How about how about this?

SPEAKER_02 15:44

You are always perfect, you can develop your skills to do better as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

I yeah, I I I like that. I like that. I think that's of you know a new way of perhaps approaching it. And I think the thing about awareness that you said earlier, right? It it doesn't care how long you have been asleep in this journey. I think the moment you wake up, it's that decision that you decide to make that the game changes, right? And I think that's probably one of the most hopeful things that you can tell someone. So I I think, you know, out of all the things he said, Steve, I just want to ask you something on behalf of uh whoever needs it the most today. There's

For Anyone Quietly Exhausted

SPEAKER_01 16:28

someone listening, maybe who's quietly exhausted or who has been holding it together on the outside, you know, on the paper, but knows their real number is much lower than what they're showing to the world. So what would you invite them to think about and hear from you right now?

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Take a nap, get some rest, take care of yourself first. It's not, you're not doing anyone any favors by giving, giving, giving to others without giving to yourself first.

unknown 16:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Yeah. That is what my biggest thing. You can't help others unless you've been helped yourself. You can't heal others unless you're healed yourself. So it is not selfish in the smallest sense, it's selfish in the biggest. You cannot help save the world until you save yourself. So that's my biggest advice to people.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Yeah, I think that's important. That's an important one. And, you know, the most common example that I have in my mind is, you know, the instruction uh that you get uh when you, you know, when the flight is about to take all that, you know, you gotta put your mask on before you know you help someone. So I think that analogy really applies to pretty much every in every sphere of our lives. And Steve, I think this has been really, you know, an eye-opening conversation about how you see not just awareness, but how do you approach opportunities and you know thrive to be better as

Where To Find Steve And His Work

SPEAKER_01 17:51

well? But for the listeners who actually resonated with what they heard today and wants to explore the game of 10, connect with your work or just follow or want to follow what you're putting out into the world, including the book as well. Where can they find you and the book and the framework?

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Well, you can find me on my website and you can download a free book on my website, eCopy, at www.stevebartincoaching.com. And on it's on Amazon. If you'd like to buy a copy, great. If you do, please write a review. It's a parenting book, The Father, the Son, The Aha Moment, Tools for Helping You and Your Child Develop a Path to Happiness. It's written for parenting, but it's also written for people that don't have children who have an inner child to heal. And it's really about always healing. To be a great parent, you have to heal your inner child, or you're going to repeat the same patterns as your parents did with you. They were great parents, great. If they were not so great parents, you will repeat that. So if you want to break the cycle, heal yourself. So I think that's those are the two best places. I'm on LinkedIn as well. Check out, you can always contact me in any of those places.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

So Steve, I I really loved what he shared towards the end as well. And I think that's an important one. And definitely I'm gonna I would definitely recommend it to, you know, especially all the parents as well. And, you know, whoever wants to break free through that vicious cycle, like you said. So would have all the details in the show notes so that uh people could easily reach out to you and uh find you, find your book as well. And the game of ten, I suppose it's on the frameworks on the website. Uh, is that right?

SPEAKER_02 19:37

It's part of the it's part of the father's, it's part of the book that you'll see use for parents. I have a new book coming out in the next six months called The Game of Ten. So it's gonna be more directly not about parenting, it's gonna be about the game itself. And so I hope you're all listeners kind of will know they are always ten. And yes, you can improve your communications, you can your relationship skills, you can improve your skills, but you can't improve you. You are perfect as you are. You can never get perfect, you are perfect.

Playing Consciously Or By Default

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Brilliant. I think that really you know sums it up. And uh to the listeners who are listening to this, I would just like to, you know, invite you to think about from this conversation that you are always in the game. You know, that's one sentence, I think, which pretty much sums it up. But you know, just to add on, I would like to say the only question whether you're playing it consciously or by default, right? That is the question because you're always in the game, right? And awareness is that one piece, you know, one single thing which is real, honest, present. And I think that that has the capacity to really change the game. And that is what makes a difference between drifting through your life versus you know actually living it. So that's that's what I would like to add towards the end. But Steve, thank you so much, truly. Like in every answer that you shared, actually, there was something that did personally resonate, resonated with me, rather. So it it was truly, you know, meaningful conversation and a one filled with so much clarity. So thank you so much for a conversation like this, Steve.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. I hope you're on again and good luck to everybody and and I appreciate it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah, so to all the listeners who listen to this, folks, the suspend Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, which is part of the Healthy Mind Biopic Network, a global platform that is built on the belief that mental wellness is not a destination which you arrive at, it's a way of moving through life. And if today's conversation landed something real for you, maybe sit with it, reflect on what is that you might do uh really touch based upon and uh do share it with someone. Who you might need to hear it. And yeah, as as you go on about your day, just ask yourself the questions. And I guess that's all. This has been Cyan on Healthy Bind Healthy Life. And uh till next time, folks, take care of yourself, and uh, I'll see you in the next one.