You Do Not Need More Control To Grow

We break down why the next level of your life might demand more flexibility, not more force, and how real mastery means staying grounded while you stay fluid. We also look at how “strength” built from survival can harden your nervous system and block receiving, growth, and identity change. 
• using curiosity to release the need to control outcomes 
• balancing stability with mobility to avoid tension or risk 
• spotting rigidity disguised as discipline, toughness, or hyper-independence 
• learning to receive support without suspicion or defensiveness 
• treating adaptability as the real measure of strength 
• shedding old identities so new goals can fit 
• understanding “containers” changing as you evolve 
• placing attention on possibility instead of the lions in front of you 
• working with seasons of action, rest, structure, and surrender 

If you are a business owner, founder, coach, healer, or business professional, then the Embodied Leadership Collective is for you. Helping you grow your business on the outside, by becoming the CEO of your life on the inside. 

Find out more here

Transcript

Welcome And The Core Idea

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Once you see what you actually are, that you're an infinite, limitless being, you'll see that nothing exists outside of you. I'm your host, Derek Grant, and this is the Pathway to Your Results Podcast.

unknown 0:25

Bro.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Pathway to Results Podcast. It's your boy, DG. We're here. You know, I just I'm trying to think how to say this. I started to, and I do this probably more than most. I do this every day. Anytime that I have time to just sit, like usually it's on a plane, or if I'm like sitting waiting for a plane, or maybe I'm just maybe I'm just sitting in my living room. I just I I I'm constantly doing audits in the way in my relationship to this thing that we call life. Okay. And I started to notice kind of like my my overall uh disposition, and it was not always this way.

Curiosity Over Control

SPEAKER_02 1:10

It wasn't, if I'm being honest. I started to notice that I usually start to um like I I always know things are going to work itself out. Always. And then I almost I don't like, I'm gonna say I let go of control because I still do what I have to do, but then it becomes this I become like Curious George. Remember Curious George? Remember the little monkey? Remember? I become like Curious George. I become curious now to see how the universe is going to create this. And I just kind of like sit back and I watch and uh and and that like I know I can feel things inside of me when it's like move. Wait, no, stay still. Wait, oh. But my point of this is what I'm learning and what I'm seeing with a lot of people. Oh no, I don't say this in a negative way, but we don't, we're not flexible enough. Part of manifestation, part of you creating your life is there has to be flexibility. See, if you just have strength without flexibility, what's that gonna do? It's gonna create tension. Right? But if you have mobility without stability, you're gonna create risk. So there's a balance. There's a balance. So most people, here's what ends up happening: they're either rigid or super controlled, but yet you're disconnected, you're exhausted, you're tense, you're stressed out, you're a worry war, you're always constantly, oh no. Or we're super fluid, super free. Oh yes, I know everything's gonna work itself out, but you in a consistent system that's you want safe, you want stable, right? There is a balance. I'm telling you, I see all I look, especially spiritual, spiritual community, self-dealt, self-development community, they'll make you think all you got to do is uh put on a sundress, get some crystals, go sit on the side of a hill and meditate. And make sure you put those crystals on your third eye, and they'll make you think like, oh, you gotta do. I was over here, boy. They had me, they had me fooled, dupe like a mother. I was over here. Um they should have, I should have gone to the courthouse and changed my name to uh affirmation. I was writing affirmations down like a mother. I was, I just knew I'm gonna manifest the car of my dreams. No, you not. No, you ain't. You know why? Because you just sitting here just just writing and just you're not you're not actually embodying it, right? So my my my point of this is the key is to integrate the two.

Strength Needs Flexibility

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Right? So a tree that cannot bend will break in the storm. But a tree that has no roots will get ripped out of the ground during the storm. I gotta make sure I have balance. I gotta make sure I'm strong, but I'm flexible. I gotta make sure that I'm free, but I have stability, I have consistency. Do you see? And now when you do this, this is what we call mastery. Mastery is becoming fluid and grounded at the same time. Do we see how this works? Right? This is the this is this is we call it the yin and the yang. If you look at the yin and yang, the black side has a black side and has a white side. Well, the white side has a black dot and the black side has a white dot. You have to have both in it. You have to have equal parts. But here's the issue, you ready? Good God almighty. If I'm speaking to you, I apologize in advance. A lot of us built strength out of survival. I'm gonna go ahead and let that merlinate. I'm gonna let it merinate because I don't think you hear what I'm saying. A lot of us built strength as a survival mechanism. So, yeah, you became disciplined because you had to, because when you came home from school, wasn't nobody gonna be there. You became disciplined because if you didn't take care of your brothers and sisters, when nobody gonna take care of y'all. You became uh uh productive because you had to, or you weren't going to survive. You became hyper-independent. And then you mask it around the cloak of responsibility. No, you're not. That isn't it at all. And or or how about this? You say that you're tough, you're resilient, but really you're just emotionally armored. Really, you just don't want to allow anybody in, and you don't want to feel your wounds because of the trauma that you've endured. And now you say I'm mentally resilient, I'm tough. No, you're not. You're hardened. You see. But now internally, you're tight, you really can't relax, you can't receive. I told a client the other day, I said, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do this, this, and this for you, okay? You know the first thing he said? Why are you doing that? I said, Damn, brother. Don't you know how to receive? And I knew he didn't. And he said, I just feel like somebody's always trying to get over me when they try to No, no, hold on now. Hold on now, you gotta be able to receive. You see. This tells you internally that something's going on with you. You're tight. You can't surrender, you can't pivot, you gotta control everything. You can't hear feedback without getting defensive. Hmm? So now your strength, all these things that you've called that that that you refer to as your strength, right? Being disciplined, being productive, being hyper-independent, being emotionally armored, mentally tough, all of that becomes rigidity. So, here's what ends up happening now. If you have a rigid nervous system, all it's gonna do is mistake surrendering for danger.

When Survival Turns Into Rigidity

SPEAKER_02 7:02

So now I can't really surrender. I can't. And I want you to think of it like this. Think of it like a like a like a like a something that's super strong, like a hanger, right? A plastic hanger. Hanger's strong, it's supposed to hold up the clothes. If you ever had those hangers, the ones that are like they're not flexible, and when you go to like you move it the wrong way, it just snaps, breaks.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

This is what happens.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Now we we we we we can't bend. I teach my kids, you gotta learn how to bend. Life's gonna make sure that you bend. I I know I can't. Ruby can bend. She we, me and Carly, always talk about all the time. We always say, if something happened and she was out in the wild, oh, she's gonna figure it out. She gonna figure it out, oh, she's gonna be all right. Because she is, I mean, she's a secondborn, so you know, you know, secondborn, they they just they naturally more flexible. I'm the same way in my in my household growing up. It was funny, we were me and me and Carly had to go uh take Hudson for an AU tournament. So the three of us were out of town for a night. Ruby stayed at home with her grandparents, Carly's parents. So Carly, you know, she's very left-brained, right? Very, she's a square, very, you know, detail-oriented. She's gonna write down everything. I'm not gonna write down nothing. I'm just gonna tell you here's what it is. Okay, I hate to write stuff down, right? So she's writing down all the instructions for her mother and her father. This is what time Ruby has practice, and that's why Ruby couldn't go because she had practice. She said this, this, this. Here's the way you do her hair for cheerly, here's what she has to wear, her outfit, blah, blah, blah. Well, the next day, Ruby's practice got changed. So she was going to be done earlier. Carly let her mother know. On that same piece of paper that Carly had given the instructions to her mom and everything. When we got back home, Carly's like, I went and looked at that piece of paper, and Ruby had scratched out everything and wrote in the new stuff. She wrote it. I said, see, she she's gonna survive. That's one thing we ain't gotta worry about. She's gonna figure out a way. She the one, she's the one when she was a baby, she's the one who would get out of her crib long before she should have been getting out of her crib. Hudson, on the other hand, he's the complete opposite. Okay, he is not that way. He's very, he's more like Carly. He's very logical. He's a Leo, very linear. When he was a toddler and he had the baby monitor, he would, he was old enough. Instead of getting out of the crib on his own, he would say, Mommy, I'm ready to get out now. He was that old, it wouldn't get out of the crib. But Ruby, on the other hand, Ruby could barely walk and she's climbing out of the crib. My point of this is this flexibility and being able to adapt is a superpower. Okay? The strongest in the room isn't the one who's most rigid. The strongest in the room is the one who's able to adapt. Do you hear what I'm saying? Life is going to throw you things because life needs to ensure that you keep evolving, that you keep growing, that you don't stay the same. So it's going to throw you things. Test your flexibility. And this is what I mean by flexibility and rigidity. Ready? Hold on, hold on, hold on. Are you flexible enough to let go of the old identity that's no longer working in this season of life? I don't think you hear what I'm saying right now. Matter of fact, go ahead and get off. You ain't trying to hear nothing I'm saying. Stop being so rigid and holding on to an identity that you know good and well doesn't work. Please, I got a client that I work with. I'm gonna go ahead and say her name. She don't care. Everybody knows anyway. Haley Van Lith, right? I've been working with Haley for three years now, right? Haley is on her journey, right? Me and Haley, the depth of our conversation is, I watched her come a long way. But here's my point. Me and her are sitting there talking, and part of this offseason with her was to ensure that she lets go of identities that don't serve her. She has goals, she has dreams, just like we all do. And I told her, I said, I'm just warning you, when you adopt a new identity, and we went extensive, we went, I mean, we went hard this offseason of shedding identities, right? I'm not gonna say everything that we did, but let's just say she knows haste suits. All right. But here's my point. When you start to understand that when I shift my identity, the container that that identity was in is going to have to change. Okay. Do you hear what I'm saying? So now here's what ends up happening. I warned her, I said, look, just know when you start to change and evolve and you move into this identity of these new goals, the container, excuse me, the team that you on, things may change a little bit. So then she starts to say that. They're saying that they want to release me and they want to let me go and they want to trade me. If they can't train me, then they're gonna release me. I said, girl, what are you so upset for? Is this not what we asked for? Is this not what we wanted? Huh? Some of us over here don't realize when the blessing comes. Some of us don't realize when we getting what we asked for. My dad used to always tell me, so you better be careful what

Learning To Receive And Surrender

SPEAKER_02 12:00

you asked for because you just might get it. But the issue is the way we getting it ain't the way that we had in mind. And I told her, I said, I warned you, I told you. As you evolve, the containers gotta, you're gonna outgrow it.

SPEAKER_04 12:12

So she texts me and she says, I just practiced my last practice. I said, Yeah. She said they letting me go.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

I said, okay. And we had a call that day, you know, as normal, you know, anybody would be upset.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

And I said, Hey yo, congratulations.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

Welcome. Welcome to your new life.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

She said, Yeah, but I like I played in a preseason game, I had 20 points. I was literally eight for eight. I played perfect. I said, okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

But don't let that negate just because the circumstances now, that doesn't negate what you've done. That's actually proof that you are the new identity.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Do you hear what I'm saying, y'all? When you shift identities, everything around you has to shift. So I told her, I said, look, congratulations. Welcome to your new life. Have a seat right over here. I felt like a flight attendant. I felt like a spiritual flight attendant. Tell her, you go, here's your seat right here. Welcome to this new life that you're in. I said, I'm just letting you know that this is this plane is a little faster, so things are gonna change quicker. Less than 24 hours later, she texted me and she said, I got picked up by the Connecticut. I said, I know you were. I know you have. Somebody, what you thought you weren't going to do? Like, what? What you thought you weren't going? Like, it wasn't gonna change. So like everything is going to evolve with you. So now here's my advice to you: don't be so rigid this time. Because we just getting started. Remember what you told me, what your goal was and what we're working toward. We go, oh, you, oh, oh, you best believe. You gonna get there. But there's gonna be many sheddings and many containers that you're gonna go through. So this is why we gotta create inner stability.

SPEAKER_04 14:00

Inner stability comes with inner trust, right? So now I told her, I said, here's the deal. Here's the deal.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

You gotta realize that this stuff that looks like chaos, that looks like uncertainty, is really just what we call the acclimation period. The acclimation period meaning the container is acclimating to this new frequency that you're in. And your job is not to look at the container, your job is to make sure that you what?

SPEAKER_04 14:29

FOIF, focus on the frequency. Just focus on the frequency. Just be it. Okay. Trust and know that it's going to be exactly the way it's supposed

Adaptability Lessons From His Kids

SPEAKER_04 14:40

to.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

And she said, Man, I just felt in my nervous system. I said, Yeah, because at one point your nervous system it needed that rigidity because it had a fear of losing control. So now your nervous system is firing off like crazy. And these patterns were just protection mechanisms. That's all they were. But here's the deal: every protection mechanism will outlive its purpose. Meaning, every protection mechanism that you've created can only work to a point. Every identity that you adopt will only get you to a point. It can only serve you for so long.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

So now I told her I said, here's the deal. You know what we need to do? Here's what we do. Just make sure you do what you know you need to do.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

And then she sent me, she sent me the screenshot. We've been we've been kinda it's not a book book study that we have, but we're like, we both uh the Neville Neville Goddard collection. There's like ten of his books all in one. So she's been reading, reading the book, and she'll send me, send me screenshots and everything. And uh she what she sent was, it said, Many of us it was it was a story of Daniel in the Lion's Den. It says the story of Daniel is the story of every man. It is recorded that Daniel, while locked in the lion's den, turned his back upon the hungry beast, and with his vision turned toward the light coming from above, he prayed to the one and only God. The lions, who were purposely starved for the feast, remained powerless to hurt the prophet. Daniel's faith in God was so sc so great that it finally brought his freedom and his appointment to high office in the government of his country. So it says here, and this is what she wanted me to see. She goes, Most of us are finding ourselves in the lion's den, would be con would be concerned only with the lions. We would be thinking of any other problem in the whole wide world but that of lions. Yet we are told that Daniel turned his back upon them and looked toward the light. If we could follow the example of Daniel while threatened in any dire disaster such as lions, poverty, getting released, sickness, famine, whatever it may look like, if like Daniel, we could remove our attention, sorry, we could remove our attention to the light, our solution would be similarly simple. So what is my point here? You better believe when you're going through something, because you will go through something. What matters is what you are looking at. You better make sure that you choose wisely and you choose consciously. You can look at how you ain't gonna do it, or you could look at the infinite possibilities of how you will do it. You could look at how hard it's gonna be, or you could look at uh the story that they're gonna write about

Identity Shifts And Outgrowing Containers

SPEAKER_02 17:35

you when you overcome the odds to do it. Okay, so here's what I tell myself. I'm gonna just let you in my life to let you know. I know I'm gonna do whatever I put my mind to. I know I am. I know I am. Well, how do you know that? Because I said so. That's why. My life is gonna be whatever I say it is. If I say life is hard, guess what? I'm gonna experience life as being hard. If I tell myself I can do anything I put my mind to, you better believe I'm gonna do anything that I put my mind to. Do you see how this works? Whatever you believed will be true to you. So this is why I'm telling you, you better make sure that you put your attention where you need it in those times of adversity, those times of chaos. And then here's what ends up happening: you start to develop this disposition of only looking at the positive, only looking at the possibilities, only looking at the infinite. And you don't look at what you can't do. I'll never tell somebody, somebody asked me to do something, you never look at it and say, Well, I can't do that. That costs too much.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

Never, never, never, never, never.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Never.

SPEAKER_03 18:42

You know what the first thing I say?

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Well, hold on, let me think about it. When I say hold on, let me think about it, you know why I'm saying that? I'm really saying, hold on. Let me develop a belief system, let me develop an identity, let me develop a perspective that allows this possibility to take place. Give me some time real quick. I don't need long. I probably only need about 40 minutes. Let me just sit with myself real quietly, real quick. And let me develop and let me see myself as completing this already. So my point of this is don't ever say what you can't do. Never. The moment that you're saying that, you're negotiating with yourself. And my kids know we ain't negotiating with ourselves. Non-negotiable. Okay. So now let's look at this and we'll bring it home. Look at your look at your life. Look at your spine. Look at your spine. Yes your spine, what does it do?

SPEAKER_03 19:38

It holds everything upright.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

But the spine is stability, but it also needs mobility. If you got a rigid spine, you're gonna walk like a robot. You start to realize your heart. Your heart pumps through tension and then release.

SPEAKER_04 20:07

You see that?

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Your breath. You start to see that stability and mobility is really just a rhythm. It's a rhythm, it's a flow. So this nature that we refer to, because nature's natural, nature is nothing more than the pure divine. It operates through adaptability, it operates through stability. The universe is nothing more than structured movement. Do you see how this works? So, breath, think of it like this breath requires balance. If you hold on to it too tight, you'll suffocate. If you let too much out, you won't be able to inhale. You'll you'll you'll you'll I don't know you call it drowning because there's no water, but whatever that word is, suffocate. You're on the opposite end. You get what I'm saying. You see how this works. So now expansion requires both. Expansion actually uh requires surrender. Expansion requires uh uh being adaptive.

SPEAKER_04 21:27

So here's my point of the whole podcast today.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

The next level in your life, it may or may not, I don't know what what your life looks like, but it may or may not require becoming quote unquote harder or more rigid or tougher. It may require you becoming softer. Maybe it requires more structure, maybe it requires more freedom. Chances are it's gonna require both. So you start to realize. That nature, you look at the trees in the forest. Trees don't survive because they're strongest. They're the strongest. That's not why trees survive.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

They survive because they know how to bend.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

So, my advice, my challenge to you is to become so rooted and stand firm and open enough to keep growing, to keep evolving, to keep allowing. Maybe in this season of life, it's about structure, discipline, push, go, masculine energy. And then all of a sudden, something may happen. Word flips now. This season, now I'm in receiving, surrendering, freedom. I've gone through this, and that I'm gonna be honest with you,

Daniel In The Lions Den Focus

SPEAKER_02 22:45

that was really difficult for me. It was really difficult to move into this freedom stage. It was really hard to move into surrendering. This passivity, this feminine energy. Oh my gosh, it was so hard. I thought I felt guilty. I was like, what do I do all day? Okay, I did a puzzle, but I can't keep doing puzzles. What am I supposed to? Now I'm out of it. And then I started to realize that that too was a part of the creative process. That was part of the wave. You know, the wave has the up and the down, has the peak and the valley. They're both needed. So the goal is not to control, control, control, control. The goal is to be able to integrate both into your life. The masculine and the feminine. I'm not one of every, I'm not one of all. I'm a little bit of both. In this season right now, maybe we just gotta chill. Maybe I gotta tap inward and figure out what is it that I want to do? What is it that I really want to do? I just need to dream for a little bit. Maybe the season I'm in, it's about doing. I gotta create it now. I gotta take the action. I gotta take the steps. Only you know what that looks like in your life. But please know that any day it could change from moment to moment. Work, work, work, work, work. Chill, chill, chill, chill, chill. Chill, chill, chill, chill, chill. Work, work, work, work, work, work. And that's what balance looks like. So I told you that it can't be just too much one or the other.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

You can be strong and you can be flexible. Hmm? You can be uh uh mobile and still have stability.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

Don't have to be one or the other.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

You don't have to be all or nothing. I'm telling you from first an exam, don't be that. Don't do I was all or nothing. Please do not do that. Got me in a whole heap of mess. Now, I just feel the seasons. It's like when you lay on your back in the ocean. I haven't landed on the back on laid on my back in the ocean in a while, but I will here soon.

SPEAKER_03 24:49

Lay on your back. And just feel the current. Just feel the waves. Right? And you'll start to see that there's actually a rhythm. It's not random. There's a rhythm.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

And when you tap into that rhythm, you start to see that there's actually divine order in this freedom. And this thing that looks like it's just uh moving uh uh randomly. No, no, there's divine order. So now when I know there's divine order, what does that allow me to do? It allows me in those seasons when I'm just allowing to just trust.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Trust. This is a part of the rhythm.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

And then I'll leave you with this. In those seasons

Seasons Of Work And Seasons Of Rest

SPEAKER_02 25:30

when you are just on your back, letting the waves take you, that's the season you give yourself permission to dream. That's just that's the season when you give yourself permission to say, here's what I want to do in life. Here's what I want it to look like, here's what I want it to feel like. And like I told you on the podcast before, you're one of you're the only one of 117 billion. So you don't need any permission. You don't need anybody to say, well, yeah, you can do that. No, what do you want to do? And then you wait for life to show you and give you the prompts for you to do it. I could go on for hours about this, but uh go go go often, go create, go create your life the way you want. And know that it won't be all seasons of masculine, it won't be all seasons of feminine, it's gonna be a little bit of both. And if you start to look around and you start to watch, you start to see some, you know, the spiritual community, the self-help community, they want to, they like to make you think it's one or the other sometimes. It's not, it's both. Sometimes you gotta be a gardener, sometimes you gotta be a warrior. Right? It's equal parts. Sometimes you gotta be a warrior in the garden, sometimes you gotta be a gardener in the war. Sometimes you gotta be a warrior in the war, and sometimes you gotta be a gardener in the gardener.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Right?

SPEAKER_02 26:51

But having that ability to be strong while being flexible. I'm teaching my kids this now. Tell my son, I said, look, it doesn't matter who we play against. I'm preparing you to be prepared for anything, be adaptable. You don't want to be one of those kids where you can only play a certain way, a certain structure, a certain system under a certain weight, a certain style. No, no, no. We're gonna be, we're gonna be like the spine. We're gonna have structure, but we're also gonna have stability and mobility. I see this happen so often with kids who play basketball. You have AAU and you have school ball. School balls, you know, you got your coach, he's structured, we're running plays, but you get an AAU, it's like the wild, wild west. We just get a rebound, we go. It's fast break, fast break, fast break. And kids struggle with AAU because they're so used to school ball and structure, and we got to run a play. Or kids struggle with school ball because they don't know how to play and run plays, because they only know how they do AAU. I teach my kids, I say, you gotta be both be both. You gotta be both. You gotta be able to play in both types, and now you're adaptable. And here's the deal you ready? When you can adapt, you're always gonna be in the game. And I'm not just talking about basketball. You're gonna be in the game of life. You're gonna always be, hey, put me in, coach. I'm ready. It don't matter what the situation, what the season looks like, it doesn't matter because I can adapt. I'm ready. We can play, we can run a structured offense half quarter, we can get this thing out, let's run, let's fast break, let's get that thing out, throw the lob. It doesn't matter what it looks like, I can adapt. So go. Go be flexible. Go have stability and mobility all in one. And I'm gonna see you at the top. And as always, I wish you nothing but the best on the pathway to your results.