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The Reload with Sean Hansen
The Reload with Sean Hansen
Being the "Extra Mile" Person - 214
Ever wondered if admitting weakness could be a sign of strength? In this episode of The Reload, I recount a powerful encounter with a respected influencer during a training event in Idaho. His heartfelt revelation about battling isolation in the Alaskan wilderness opened my eyes to the immense strength in vulnerability. Join me as we explore how our unseen efforts and connections impact each other's lives, urging a deeper appreciation for those everyday heroes among us.
Next, we uncover the hidden toll of striving for perfection. Being an "extra mile person" might seem commendable, but it often comes at a steep price. Drawing from years of experience coaching high-power executives and special operations veterans, I share candid insights into the emotional burden of always aiming for perfection. Delving into the toxic mindset that can arise from setting impossibly high standards, we discuss the importance of acknowledging this pressure and the negative impact it can have on our relationships and well-being.
Lastly, we dive into the transformative power of stillness and solitude. By confronting feelings of inadequacy head-on, techniques like journaling and reducing technological noise can offer a much-needed respite from the chaos. Through personal stories and client experiences, we explore how understanding deeply ingrained beliefs and letting go of them can foster personal growth and healthier relationships. This episode promises to offer valuable support and encouragement for anyone grappling with the relentless pressures of achievement, advocating for a more balanced and mindful approach to life.
Are you an executive, entrepreneur, or combat veteran looking to overcome subconscious blind spots and limiting messaging to unlock your highest performance? Feel free to reach out to Sean at Reload Coaching and Consulting.
Welcome to the Reload, where we help unconventional leaders craft the life they truly want by questioning the assumptions they have about how life works. My name is Sean and I'll be your host on this journey. As a performance coach and special operations combat veteran, I help high-performing executives kick ass in their careers while connecting with deeply powerful insights that fuel their lives. Hello, and thank you for coming back to the show. If you are a repeat listener and if this is your first time, well, hopefully it's a good one. So today's episode is it's a bit of a special one. So this episode is inspired by my recent interactions with someone that I have been listening to for quite some time, and so not too long ago, I attended a training out in the backcountry of Idaho, actually, and got to meet this individual whose show I routinely listen to.
Speaker 1:Individual whose show I routinely listen to and part of the reason why it's meaningful for me is on his show, and this was, I don't know, a few months ago, I guess. He was talking about a trip that he had done to the back country of Alaska by himself, and in the show he openly discusses the fact that when his sort of entertainment system broke and by system. I mean, he wasn't able to charge his phone, basically, but he was alone in the backcountry, in Alaska, you know, and the Bush pilot was not going to be there for a number of days and all of his electronics were sort of either out of power or crapping out in some way. Electronics were sort of either out of power or crapping out in some way and that being in that stillness and isolation started to get to him. And so, first and foremost, you know, I thought it was incredibly brave to admit that, because so often, especially when it comes to influencers, and I would say that this person, you know his following is quite large and I would say that he has the status of an influencer. And, you know, in the industry in which he works, being tough, being tough, yeah, that's definitely a plus. And you know the industry in which he's in. I think that's definitely a plus. And the industry in which he's in, I think I don't know, I mean, I wouldn't say that it actively denigrates people, that it considers weak, but there is very clearly a strong leaning toward being stoic, as I mentioned, tough, resourceful, nothing bothers me, nothing gets to me, and that's sort of the general cultural tone that I think, applies to the industry in which this person is operating.
Speaker 1:And so to be able to say, in front of however many thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that would listen to that episode, that it really started to get to them, this isolation, this stillness. I had a lot of respect for that and still do. And so when I got to meet him at the event and I got to see, you know, that he really genuinely cares about the training that was being given and making sure that the skills that were being taught were being learned and incorporated, and it was clear that there was this tremendous amount of care that he puts forward in his life, I think generally, and his family showed up a few times and we got to see the way that he cared about his family, and so I started to get a picture of this individual. He cared about his family, and so I started to get a picture of this individual, and that picture started to show me that this is an individual that is very meticulous and has a great deal of care and concern for the people in his life, for the goals that he's trying to accomplish, and all of this is incredibly virtuous and I thought, well, you know, hey, most of my audience and most of the clients that I work with would be described very similarly, and potentially there is some learning to come out of the story that he relayed. You know this, where it is that stillness becomes troublesome or difficult to bear and much of the work that I do with people is about either literal or metaphorical stillness I thought, well, hey, you know, what a great opportunity here to try to dig in and offer some value to that type of person. And following the course that I was at am in order to fix some equipment that I was going to then need to use for the course, and when I heard that it fell in line with this image that I had in my head. This person is someone who goes the extra mile. This person is someone who goes the extra mile and I want to, I guess, maybe take just a brief aside here and to talk on a tangential topic, but I think it's worth discussing. Especially if he ends up listening to this episode, I want him to know what I'm thinking and what's in my heart.
Speaker 1:We often don't know how we impact other people. We often don't see that effect come back to us in any way, whether it's in appreciation or sometimes anger, depending on whether we're showing up as our best self or perhaps our less than best self. But we often don't know the impact that we have on other people and vice versa. Oftentimes other people don't know the impact that they have on us.
Speaker 1:And when I reflect on hearing what he relayed in his podcast because at the time in the course I had no idea he got up at 3 am to make sure that the equipment that I was going to need to use was in good shape, all I knew is I woke up that morning, I showed up to where I was supposed to be and, boom, there was some equipment ready for me to use and it was like, oh, okay, cool, I mean, we did a little bit of fiddling with it, still right to just make sure everything was dialed in. But I didn't know. I mean, and to be quite honest, I just assumed that you know, this was just, you know, one of many things that he just kind of had laying around, and so to be able to hear, wow, like you know, he didn't have to do that, I could have. You know, he could have very easily just said, oh, you know, hey, the shop here has some rental gear, why don't you just go with that? And I would have been none the wiser and probably would have said, oh okay, yeah, fair enough. And probably would have said, oh okay, yeah, fair enough. And so, hearing it after the fact, what he ended up doing, it's meaningful. And I think he did it because he is this person, this extra mile person, and so many people that listen to this show and the clients that I work with are also that extra mile person. So I wanted to be able to not only express my appreciation for that, but also to be able to start to weave in, hopefully, some extra value here the extra mile person who has trouble or experiences some trepidation or disquietude being in stillness. So I thought, why don't we dig into that a little bit deeper Now? How to frame this up? Frame this up Is there benefit to being the extra mile person?
Speaker 1:Most definitely, in fact, in many ways, I think individuals would describe me as being an extra mile person, and the funny thing about coaches is they generally coach other people but are actually coaching themselves, and what I mean by that is the various issues that they've had to face in their own development, their own growth pattern, cycle, trajectory, whatever you want to call it. They end up gravitating to, or people, potential clients gravitate to them, and there's sort of a kinship there. And so this extra mile person is also me and so you know, luckily I get to reap the benefits of my own analysis here, hopefully, and with any luck put it into practice. So the benefits, or at least some of the main benefits, I guess that would come forward in being that extra mile person. I think generally what you see is a lot of career success, no matter what your career is. The person who has dedicated themselves to working harder than the next person. Yeah, I mean quite often, and I mean I don't know that it's a rule, but I would say generally, yes, you have more career success, more material success, more sort of tangible success than the person that is not working as hard. So you know no arguments there.
Speaker 1:I think also there's value in the fact that people come to rely on you. There are social bonds, there's social capital, if you want to call it that, social reputation, whatever that. You are the person that people can depend on, just like I could depend on him the day before he woke up at 3 am when we were having some difficulties with the gear that I was using, I already had the sense that all I had to do was just raise my hand and say, hey, you know, I've got a problem here, and that somehow it would be taken care of. Now I didn't realize it was going to be taken care of in the manner that it was, which is, you know, heartwarming for me, know, heartwarming for me. But there was just an inherent sense. Having heard all of his episodes and, you know, watched the videos and just had this, you know, I didn't just have it there was ample substantiation for my belief that, hey, this is going to get handled. And so that reputation, that social capital, I think, is definitely a plus.
Speaker 1:There's also intrinsic pride. I think that comes from being the person who does not leave things undone. And I don't know, at the risk of sounding like some crotchety old guy or something, I think that in society, you know, we have a lot of folks that they leave things undone. There's a lot of convenience that people subscribe to in society and I don't know, I mean, maybe it's always been that way, who knows? And in fact I guess, quite logically, maybe there, yeah, that probably is the case that it, in whatever era you look, there were probably the individuals who went the extra mile and then individuals who did not, who did not, and I think that there is genuine and respectable and valuable pride Now, not being prideful, but genuine pride in pride, completing things and being a person of your word, even if it gets difficult. And I think that this is really what separates the extra mile person is their word is good, no matter how hard the situation might be, which kind of leads into the next bullet point here, which is you get to test your limits and often grow beyond them and, I guess, to find new limits, right. So, but there's again also something quite valuable in recognizing, as a process, that we find limits in order to overcome them, in order to face new limits, in order to overcome those, but that we establish this inner faith, this inner confidence that, oh, okay, yeah, this is the process.
Speaker 1:I don't ever reach easy land. I get more facile, I get more accomplished. I get faster, more efficient, get more accomplished, I get faster, more efficient, more comfortable with overcoming challenges. I you know, a lot of times people say get comfortable being uncomfortable, and I think, yes, there is a certain de facto element of that. But what I would hope to draw your attention to is not just hey, like we're just going to live a life of discomfort and that sucks to. Is not just hey, like we're just going to live a life of discomfort and that sucks, but know that we actually get better at overcoming challenge and then not every waking moment of our life has to be filled with discomfort in order for us to be that kind of person. But on a factual level or on a practical level, yes, the more that you can be comfortable being uncomfortable, then generally also the easier it is for you to overcome challenges.
Speaker 1:Now, so far, you're probably thinking well, sean, I mean, gosh, you got all these extra mile people that you work with and they're listening to the show and oh gosh, I mean, so far. It sounds amazing. Maybe I should be an extra mile person, and I would argue that, if you are not currently an extra mile person, that it would probably benefit you to try it and to change your way of being, for a while at the very least, into trying to be this person that's always going the extra mile. Now, most of the people that I work with have been the extra mile person for a long time and they don't need any more practice with this, and, in fact, not only do they not need more practice, they actually would benefit from going the other direction, because as many benefits as there are to being the extra mile person, there are also costs.
Speaker 1:So generally and this is what I've seen time and time and time again and with the person that I'm thinking about right now, the person that inspired this episode, I don't actually know the tangible details of his life. I mean, sure there are some things that he said on the show. As far as I think, most podcasters and YouTubers end up at some point in time leaking certain personal details into their show, even if they're not attempting to create sort of a human connection there. That just I think over time, oftentimes you end up in a space where you mentioned something, but I don't actually know the tangible struggles that he might be dealing with. I know it at sort of a high level that he's always extremely busy, feels like he's always, you know, being torn in a variety of directions in terms of, you know, feels like he's working three jobs, things like that, but I don't know the actual issues and so you know I'm not speaking directly to his case. What I'm speaking to right now, when it comes to the costs and likewise also the benefits that I just mentioned, are generalized cases that I have sort of amalgamated over time based on all the people that I've worked with.
Speaker 1:So, with that out of the way into the costs, generally you spend a lot of your life being busy and there's a lot of noise and distraction in your life, always something to attend to, always something that's pulling at your attention, always something that wants to pull you this way, pull you that way, pull a different way, and there's no time to breathe and every time you go to take a breath there's something else that wants to jump in front of you and take your attention and and to really take a deep breath and to fully let it out. Often, for many of my clients starts this convulsive holding back of tears. Even you know, and for those of you who are not aware of the types of people that I tend to coach, I coach high-power executives and special operations, combat veterans, individuals, men and women, who are extremely tough, extremely tenacious, with forces of will that would make most people wilt. They're hard people and many of them have experienced a great deal of hardship in their life and that's part of what's made them so hard. So they're not these little daisies, and when we get them to a place of stillness and they really take in a breath and they really allow themselves to recognize all of the pressure that they've been operating under, it's like, you know just, they've had so many cargo ratchet straps ratcheted around all of themselves, you know, metaphorically, and it's been holding this pressure, in this pressure to perform. And when we start to ease that up, oh my, sometimes we risk losing containment, which is we'll talk more about that in a few moments here when we get into stillness.
Speaker 1:But some of the other costs that come with this are people often rely on you. So at this point you're like what are you talking about? That was one of the benefits is that people rely on you. Ah, yeah, yeah, thanks for catching that one. So when I say people often rely on you, it's nice until it's all the time, until you begin to feel like you are the one that is holding the show together and that if it's not you, then things will come apart. And then all of a sudden it becomes this tremendous stress that somehow this house of cards is going to fall down unless you're the one managing it all the time. House of cards is going to fall down unless you're the one managing it all the time, and this you know.
Speaker 1:As I said, this may not be relevant to the individual that I'm thinking of, but so many of my clients have shown up in this headspace, and so the attempt is to try to, you know, help them, challenge that belief. Another cost is perfectionism, and oh, I've got to make sure I rein myself in here because I can do perfectionism like nobody's business. That was my jam for most of my life, and that little inner demon pops up again every now and then. Still, to this day, as much work as I have done on perfectionism, the extra mile person quote, unquote extra mile person usually is a massive perfectionist. And you might think to yourself well, yeah, okay, but that's just high standards, sean, come on, give us a break. It's just high standards, and high standards lead to success, right? Uh-huh? Yeah, I don't disagree, until we reach a certain tipping point, and that tipping point is different for everybody. I have no way of predicting it. I have no way of giving you a tip or insight about where exactly it is for you, but what I can say is that perfectionism can very quickly turn into a toxic burden and can lead to a very negative mindset. That has all kinds of consequences for your relationships and, ironically, for your success.
Speaker 1:When perfect becomes the minimum standard, and here's the real kick in the ass Many of my go-getter, extra mile clients they were raised that way They've never known a time when perfection was not the minimum standard. And I want to emphasize that Minimum standard. And I want to emphasize that Minimum standard Like to get through the door you have to be perfect. They just think that that's how the universe works, that they are unwelcome, unwanted, nothing if they're not perfect, nothing if they're not perfect. So much so that I've had clients who have had all kinds of tremendous and very intense stress manifestations in their life because of this perfectionism burden.
Speaker 1:Are there times when we want to be perfect? Sure, but when, like I said, when that becomes the minimum standard, when you think or you believe, it's not just about thinking it, because most of the time this is the funny thing most of the time people don't actually think it. There's not a conscious thought in their head that says, oh, you have to be perfect and what's perplexing and, I guess hysterical in a tragic sort of way is that when I actually do this work with people you know and I show them or I mirror back their own vocabulary to them, and then we go to the dictionary yes, with highly educated, highly experienced people, I still have them crack open a dictionary or click on a dictionary online and we look at the word, the definition of the word, because so frequently optimal, optimized, you know, these kinds of words show up in the language of my clients and when you look at the definition cannot be improved shows up Meaning perfect, and so they don't have this conscious structure where they're like, oh, I have to be perfect, otherwise I'm worthless. They don't say that sort of thing, but there's a belief buried deep inside of them that is alive and well and that belief is, metaphorically an inner demon. It's the inner head trash, if you want to have a different label for it.
Speaker 1:But perfectionism, it can be tremendously costly and the burden that it shows up, the way the burden shows up with other people in our life is when you are a perfectionist and good enough, never is. That is a tough bar to meet and the people in your life, whether they're your family, your friends, your colleagues, you can really burn out some relationships with a perfectionist bent. And, ironically, when two perfectionists meet and if they have different views of what perfection looks like, oh, just take a seat and wait for the fur to fly, like you are going to see two people going at it super hard because they have different views of what perfect is and neither of them will relent because they're driven to go that extra mile. And this is where that toxicity shows up. And I'm trying to inject a little bit of humor here, a little bit of lightness, because quite frequently, you know, when I'm digging into this stuff with people, we really start to see fears coming forward, really sort of elemental fears, things that have been buried inside of them for a long time, typically since childhood. Oh yeah, we're talking about childhood. You know it's funny because, well, it's not funny.
Speaker 1:It's noteworthy that so many of the clients that I end up working with when we first start working together, they either outright say it or they imply, or they give some sort of vibe about. You know, don't come at me with that. You know that woo-woo, psychobabble, inner child stuff. You know this, this, the way that I'm performing in my business, the way that I'm leading at work. None of that has anything to do with me as a child, and so you know. And then a few months go by and they're like, oh, I think this had something to do with the way I was raised. I'm like, oh no, kidding, wow, well, maybe we should dig in a little deeper and try to figure out how to let go of some of this inner head trash.
Speaker 1:But it is that stuff leading to the last sort of major cost that I have here is it's that stuff that has us being afraid of coming into stillness. We're so often the person who is trying to stay busy, because if we go into stillness the demons will catch us. But if we're running, if we're doing stuff, if we're being valuable, if we're getting things done and we're staying ahead of the demons, okay, well then we're safe, or at least we're okay. We'll make it to tomorrow. And this is the life that most of my clients live. When they first come to me they're surviving 24 hours at a time they bury themselves in thoughts that happiness and joy are irrelevant as long as we're fulfilled, as long as we're contributing. And then, whenever I talk to them, oddly enough, they always tell me how unhappy they are, despite the fact that they're successful, despite the fact that they're making contributions to society, despite the fact that all of their actions would likely lead to the belief that they are fulfilled.
Speaker 1:And all the clients that I have are, by every typical standard metric of society, powerful people. So somewhere there's a gap and in that gap exist these inner demons and, as a very simple way of thinking about it, it's not enough. What do you mean? Not enough? I don't know. You tell me. I mean those who listen to the show on a regular basis have heard that phrase time and time and time again, and I keep saying it because it continues to be true.
Speaker 1:How does your not enough show up? Are you not strong enough? Are you not pretty enough? Are you not smart enough? Are you not powerful enough, not rich enough? Are you not a good enough? Parent, mom, dad, what have you Not a good enough? Partner? Not caring enough, nurturing enough? Maybe you don't provide enough? So that simple phrase not enough spins off into a myriad of applications, and that's really a big chunk of the work is beginning to identify. Where does that message show up? Where is it? That is quickly buried underneath other things, all the getting things done, but it's in there, it's in the dark recesses of your mind, of your heart, of your soul, and if you don't actually bring that stuff forward and expose it to the light and really take a look at it and really challenge, is this true? If it is true, let's say you're not providing enough. If that is actually genuinely true, and you believe it to be true when you look at it in the plain light of day, so to speak, then get off your ass and start doing. If it's genuinely true Now, with my kind of client, it's typically not true.
Speaker 1:They are typically already grinding themselves into nothing because of all the things they're doing. So then it begins a different struggle. But before I go too far, maybe let's talk about well, what can we do? What can we do about going into stillness If we're this extra mile person and we've got this head trash that we're dealing with and wow, you know, okay, this sounds like it might be a struggle. Sean, I don't know if I'm up for a struggle. I've got enough struggles. Hmm, true, you probably do. And, oddly enough, the extra mile person typically goes looking, unconsciously, at the very least, for struggles, for problems to fix. Why? Because it makes them feel valuable.
Speaker 1:So when we think about going into stillness and I'm thinking again about this person that's inspired this episode part of his profession is going into the backcountry and I recognize that that's a pretty small sliver of the population, but I want to include that in my thinking here. So going into stillness from a practical perspective is in many ways a trainable skill. Now, from my sort of cohort of individuals in special operations, specifically special operations, combat veterans who are dealing with PTSD from combat, many of them seek out the backcountry intentionally to get away from the noise and the pressure of being at the office or in regular life. For many of those who have had this combat PTSD and who knows, I mean there may be other types of PTSD that would also be benefited from this kind of stimulus reduction. But for many of us that are in that scenario, we actually really thrive going out of the complexity of modern life and it provides us this opportunity to get back to the simplicity of combat. Now, yes, can combat be incredibly complex in terms of all the variables that are playing out? You know where are different units, where might the enemy combatants be, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, there's a certain transactional complexity, but in terms of a way of being, it's very simple.
Speaker 1:The military is providing you food, food, shelter, water. Well, most of the time, food, water and shelter. There are times when that's not available and you kind of have to scrounge on your own, but those are generally rare in the modern military. There are a fair amount of stories that I've heard from Afghanistan, where that was maybe more so the case, especially at some of the remote outposts, but let's not get ourselves too distracted here. Anyway, the way of life is pretty simple. A lot of your basic needs are covered and your purpose is generally quite clear. Every day, you're going to go out, you're going to search around. You might get shot at. If so, shoot back, make it out alive. That is some of the simplest and most ancestral way of living that can be done in modern society, and many combat veterans seek the outdoors, the solitude, because of the simplicity.
Speaker 1:So, reframing your perspective on that even if you are not an individual who has PTSD, but maybe taking some of those words and saying, oh, huh, yeah, maybe there's something really beneficial in going into isolation, going into stillness that I have overlooked, instead of depriving myself of the latest Netflix or whatever. Maybe I can actually recognize like, oh huh, this could be, this could be a bit of a purge. You know, a technology purge and it just brings the noise down and wow what you know, what might be the benefits in bringing the noise down, bringing down all that static Right Now again, sticking with kind of the practical element here well, I think part of it again. Sticking with kind of the practical element here well, I think part of it again. Learnable skill is increasing the dose of being alone with one's thoughts. To start with, you can just have a journaling habit, whether that's morning pages, where you sort of brain dump three sides of paper and you don't let the pen stop moving. So even if all you write is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah until some other thought flows through the pen, great. If it's something more premeditated or contemplative, also great.
Speaker 1:There's, I think, a lot of benefit to having a bit of a prompt and whether that's reading a religious text of some sort or some sort of philosophical text, just as a way of priming your thoughts and hopefully also your feelings, your emotions. We do have them and they can be quite beneficial, despite what all my clients might believe initially. There can be quite beneficial, despite what all my clients might believe initially. But getting to this place of having a prompt and then putting the prompt away to let the prompt do its work, where you sit in stillness, where you are alone with your thoughts and your feelings, and maybe even your beliefs will sort of trickle up to the surface, and maybe even your beliefs will sort of trickle up to the surface. And then, if you wanted something more physical, you could go on day hikes. You could turn those into solo weekend camping trips, which might turn into solo multi-day trips, you know, with just the wind and the animals to answer back.
Speaker 1:There are also meditation retreats, silent retreats. Oh God, what do you? What? What you mean? I'm going to go to a place, I'm going to pay to go to a place where I'm just going to be silent for three days or seven days. Yeah, can be amazingly transformative. Yeah, can be amazingly transformative. There's also a darkness retreat. Oh boy, now we're starting to talk crazy and probably most of you are going to think this is absolutely nuts, but I'm going to say it anyway. So in a darkness retreat we well the person not you and I, but the person that does the darkness retreat. They are essentially in a sensory deprivation space for a number of days and there's no light, so they spend a number of days in darkness.
Speaker 1:And the individuals that I've heard accounts from, including a couple people that have done this, you know where. I talked to them in person and asked them about okay, well, what did you experience and what has been the impact of that experience? They said that one. It really helped with their sleep, and these are combat veterans who also, you know, had PTSD. These were combat veterans who also had PTSD, and so they experienced a really genuine reset of their circadian rhythm. I'm not going to say that this is true of everybody that does this. I'm just trying to relay some anecdotes here.
Speaker 1:And they also talk about confronting one's inner demons. I mean you are sitting alone in the dark for I think this one guy did it for seven days and, yeah, I mean you get to spend some time with your inner demons and have a lot of good conversation with them. Same actually applies to those who do a through hike, and whether it's the Appalachian trail or Pacific crest trail or whatever right there's, there's a lot of catharsis that can come when we clear the space and we create an opening for us to really sort things out, really have the confrontation, the confrontation inside ourselves. But it's hard. So these are some practical ways to sort of increase the comfort, the skill set of being alone, being in solitude, being in stillness, and I think oftentimes people underestimate the requirement to engineer your environment to deliver the goods.
Speaker 1:A lot of people believe oh you know, I'll just turn off my notifications, I'll put my phone and my devices on, do not disturb, and I'll be good. Yeah, you might be the person, you know the, you might be the exception. That proves the rule, but pretty much everyone that I've ever talked to, if they're being honest with me, they'll say, oh yeah, as soon as it got hard, I went and like read a book or turn the TV on or, did you know, answered emails or whatever. And so oftentimes I think we really benefit similar to the individual that I'm thinking about that you put yourself physically in a place where it's not possible, and for him, his technology actually had to crap out for it to not be possible, and for him, his technology actually had to crap out for it to not be possible. So even when we were in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, for instance, you can still bring enough entertainment and distraction that this environment doesn't actually show up, even though the raw ingredients are all around you.
Speaker 1:Having a smartphone or a smart device of any kind is just man. Those things are so powerful, not to mention even the apps and the way that the apps are designed to draw our attention. You know whether it's social media apps or game apps or you know whatever. Now, generally people are not training for isolation. This is not a goal that people have, and we are social creatures. We organize into social groups for a reason, so it's. It's not necessarily a skill set in and of itself to be good at being in isolation or stillness.
Speaker 1:So for me, the deeper discussion is about confronting what comes up when we go into stillness, aka the inner demons that we've been talking about. And here I have some tips. And it's really to be curious to begin to ask yourself questions. For instance, where do you feel or believe or have some inner voice telling you that you're not enough? Again, all the different examples that I gave previously Haven't done enough, haven't accomplished enough, haven't provided for your family enough, and on and on and on. And when you're tuned into that little voice that's telling you that you're not enough in whatever way. What face or faces or voice or voices are associated with those messages? Is it a parent or a childhood bully or an ex of some sort? Or perhaps it's? Maybe it's just a random image conjured up out of your imagination, but very frequently there is actually a person in one's life that created the seed from which this not enough belief bloomed and grew.
Speaker 1:Belief bloomed and grew, and it's useful to think of the imagery as a vine snaking its way through different parts of your life, across different chapters of your life. You know, it's interesting to see in my own journey and also to hear from clients how often they will say gosh, this thing again, how is this showing up all over my life? And it's like well, the dynamic or the issue or the pattern is the same. It just looks different from one venue to the next. And as humans that have never really been trained in this right, like when you think about your upbringing with your family of origin, it's probably not something that was discussed. And so, because work looks different from home, which looks different from dating life, which looks different from married life, which looks different from parenting life, different from married life, which looks different from parenting life. We think it's different stuff, but it's very frequently the same stuff. It just has different window dressing.
Speaker 1:So, once you've tapped into this notion of okay, there's a message that I'm telling myself here that I, deep down in the dark recesses of my mind, heart and soul, believe and remember. Beliefs trump feelings, which also trump thoughts. Every week I got people telling me really smart people, by the way all the things that they know I know I should do this and I know I should do that, all the things that they know I know I should do this and I know I should do that. Why aren't you doing them? I don't know. Because you believe something different. You know, or at least there's some part of you that believes something different, and that part of you is trumping everything else. So, once you are connected to the message, the negative message, the head trash message, and you have an association of where it came from, how might you bring those inner accusations to the foreground and simply sit with them, even though they might hurt, and you might want to turn away and quite likely will turn away at least once, to go, do something, to be productive, to be valuable, to not face this thing that is sitting inside of you To go be busy, but what's funny? So Ram Dass who, if you don't know who Ram Dass was, he was, you know, a guru and you know and helped a lot of people sort of deal with these inner struggles, and one of the things that he liked to say was no matter where you go, there you are.
Speaker 1:And this is perhaps another part of the benefit of being into stillness, being into isolation, is that it gives us an opportunity to be able to recognize patterns. So a second ago I was talking about how, you know, I've got all these clients that are like, well, how's this coming up again? And it's like, well, work, look different from home, and et cetera, et cetera, but that it's all the same pattern. And being in isolation, being in stillness, allow us the opportunity, the space, really to take a step back, to zoom out and to see the pattern on high, from on high. Excuse me, oh yeah, okay, my perfectionism shows up here, it shows up there, it shows up in this other place, in all these different venues. It looks different, but underneath it all I'm still perfect is the minimum standard and I'm burning out relationships or putting a lot of strain on the people around me because I'm always just, it's never good enough, and they're just. You begin to start to see the memories of facial expressions, of conversations that ended up being aborted. Because the person can see that you are not approachable. You will not receive the message that they want to give to you that because it's not perfect, it's still okay. You know, in corporate world we often say done is better than perfect, but a perfectionist is going to tell you to go F off and then they'll work after hours to get it done to perfection before it gets sent out the door.
Speaker 1:And I laugh because I do this, or well, I used to do this. I don't do this so much anymore, although there are still times when I do this. So I think that we can also laugh at our demons or laugh with our demons might be a better way of saying it that we can laugh while we do hard things like facing down those inner demons and really trying to get clear on. Okay, why do you have so much power over me? Why do I believe in you so strongly? What is it that I would have to let go of in order for me to be free of you?
Speaker 1:For instance, I was reading this book, fierce Intimacy oh good book. Recommend it highly, listen to it like eight times. Now, one of the benefits of driving to Idaho you get to listen to things. But when you think about where it is that some of these beliefs are painful and yet you're still subscribing to them, you are still doing them and even though they're causing pain, it's like a red hot poker or iron and you're sitting there thinking, man, this is going to burn my hand. And then you grab it and you're like, oh, this is painful but you won't let go. Why? Well, oftentimes and I got this from the book by Terry Real, fierce Intimacy oftentimes it's a way of maintaining a connection with a parent or somebody that was very meaningful to us.
Speaker 1:Maybe they were like that and in an attempt to have just, for example, mom or dad are both proud of us. Well, we'll do it that way too. And so oftentimes, letting go of a way of being can feel like we're being disloyal, can feel like we're, I don't know, maybe sundering the relationship in some way, or the connection, even if they're gone, even if they're departed dead, in case anyone's confused. But to have that conversation you need space and you need time and you need an absence of distraction and quote-unquote noise. But it's in facing the head trash that we can begin to figure out how to clean up the mess. And once you've let go of those inner demons, you have less stress, you have more peace and ability to rest and truly recover. Rest and truly recover.
Speaker 1:And in that clarity, in that openness, it actually allows us to see what our true priority is, not priorities. A long time ago I heard about this little factoid and every time that I've gone to the interwebs it's still there that before roughly 1900, the word priorities rarely appeared in print. And it wasn't until somewhere around 1940 that we turned the singular priority into multiple priorities. We turned the singular priority into multiple priorities and as a person who works with words, that's fascinating for me. Well, and to be clear, I don't work with words as like an author per se, but what I do is I work with the meaning of words. Again, it's the meaning of words that help us gain conceptual understanding.
Speaker 1:If you do not have conceptual understanding of something, if you have no way of representing a concept, it's very difficult for you to do anything about it, even to figure out how to place it in your sense-making of the world, so to be able to create that space and to be able to create the openness where the demons the inner demons are not just constantly whipping you and goading you to do more, go faster, harder. I think that often allows us to begin to see what do I really care about? Not what I've been told to care about, not what my inner demons have compelled me to care about, but what do I truly care about and how am I going to go about serving that in a healthy way? And another benefit that comes in being able to create this space is that all of a sudden we learn to ask for help, and sometimes that's with getting stuff done, you know, going back to sort of a more practical application. But on a deeper level, we learn to ask for support when we quote unquote, don't got it, because the extra mile person has prided him or herself on always I've got it, I've got it, I've got it. No, I've got that too. Hold on back away. No, I've got that one as well. All the got it's, I got it.
Speaker 1:But that's realistically impossible. You cannot keep that up your entire life, or 24, seven in your life. There are times when you don't got it, and the ability to really truly ask for support when you don't got it, and sometimes that does mean you can't get stuff done physically. But more importantly, what it means is emotionally. I'm really hurting here. I need help. In order for me to be better, I need help, I need, I need a hug, I need whatever. I'm all of a sudden blanking on different ideas. For me to show up as my best, I need X, y, z. Will you support me? Will you nurture me? Will you take the weight?
Speaker 1:Because the extra mile person that is nails on a chalkboard that is the absolute anathema of their life. Like to ask somebody else to take the weight is just oh, their head wants to explode. And if you're the extra mile person and you're listening to this, there's a good chance. Thinking about it and making their head wants to explode. And if you're the extra mile person and you're listening to this, there's a good chance. Thinking about it and making your head want to explode, and that's fine. You can begin to learn like, oh okay, yeah, my head won't actually explode if I have somebody else take the weight and I lay down and rest, even when other people are working. Oh gosh, what another good example. Man, the extra mile person sitting down while other people work. Oh whoo, them's fighting words. Right, and it's.
Speaker 1:You know don't mistake me, I'm not trying to turn us into lethargic do nothings. I think that there's power in service, there's power in accomplishment, but again, the people that I tend to work with, they've, they've done it. They've driven that sword all the way to the hilt and and past, like they're past the crossbar, and they're in a really unhealthy place because they don't. They don't know how to actually rest and recover and restore, they don't know how to ask for help, they don't know how to be in in true intimacy with people, because they're constantly running around doing stuff and telling folks how they got it.
Speaker 1:I got it Now. I got that too. So what I hope you get is the message of this episode that being a person of accomplishment is wonderful. Don't let it own you. Don't let it own you. Don't let the demons create a painful life when you are capable of confronting them with the power of stillness, the power of isolation, and I would dare say your ability to perform will perhaps go down in raw quantity, but from what I've observed, it will go up in quality. Anyway, I hope this has been helpful and, joseph, if you are listening to this and it serves a relevant purpose, I hope it helps. Until next time, take care of each other.
