Letting Go of What Holds Us Back

Hosts: Chester Elton & Adrian Gostick
Guest: Dr. Bob Rosen, Psychologist & Author of Detach: Ditch Your Baggage to Live a More Fulfilling Life
Run Time: Approx. 45 minutes
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

With a world full of uncertainty—from global unrest to economic instability—it’s no surprise that anxiety is on the rise. In this uplifting and enlightening conversation, Chester and Adrian welcome renowned psychologist Dr. Bob Rosen, who brings both deep expertise and personal vulnerability to the mic. Bob shares insights from his latest and most personal book, Detach, where he outlines the 10 unhealthy attachments that hold us back—and how to break free.

Drawing on decades of coaching CEOs and working with global leaders, Bob introduces a transformational framework that helps people let go of fear-based behaviors and embrace a life filled with clarity, contentment, and connection.

“Detach doesn’t mean disconnect—it means freeing yourself to live with intention.”
— Dr. Bob Rosen

Transcript

With so much uncertainty in the world right now, from political upheaval to economic pressures, it's no wonder so many of us feel overwhelmed. What if there was a way to let go of the mental baggage that weighs us down and start living with more clarity and purpose. I'm Chester Elton and with me is my dear friend and co-author, Adrian Gosselin. Well, thanks Ches. The truth is anxiety is something many of us are living with every single day. More than 40 million adults in the US have a diagnosed anxiety disorder and tens of millions more carry just around a quiet sense of unease that affects their work and their health. Well, today's conversation is about hope. We're going to explore how to break free from those sticky negative thinking patterns that hold us back and begin to live a life that has more freedom and fulfillment. As always, we hope the time you spend with us will help reduce the stigma of anxiety at work and in the rest of your life. And with us today is our new stigma of anxiety at work and in the rest of your life. And with us today is our new friend, Dr. Bob Rosen, a world-renowned thought leader on healthy people and healthy organizations. As a psychologist, his work in personal and organizational change is recognized worldwide. He is the author of the new book, Detach! Ditch Your Baggage to Live a More Fulfilling Life, where he shares how to let go of the new book, Detach, Ditch Your Baggage to Live a More Fulfilling Life, where he shares how to let go of the 10 attachments that hold us back. Bob earned a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, Hale Pitt, and teaches at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at George Washington University's School of Medicine, known as the Revolutionaries, by the way, a great name for for university sports teams. Hey, Bob, we are delighted to have you here in the podcast. Thanks for finding the time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So talk a little bit, can you start with the personal journey here of Detach and this new book. You said it's your most personal book. So walk us through that journey that brings this into the world. Well, I'm a psychologist, obviously, and I've been a student of self-awareness and self-development for a long, long time. In my global travels in business, where I coach CEOs for many years of larger companies, I developed a real interest in Eastern and Western psychology. And the combination led me to really appreciate the power of positive thinking at the same time understanding the importance of impermanence and change and uncertainty. So it was 2010 and I had a dream. I was dreaming that I was wrapped up in ten attachments that were tied around my body and I wrote them down But it wasn't a good time to write a personal book like this and so I put it up in the attic and I brought it down in 2020 and I was starting to notice some real changes in society global decline and unhappiness And I was starting to notice some real changes in society. Global decline and unhappiness, a disconnection that people were feeling with higher levels of loneliness, a kind of systemic anxiety that was sitting over the world with diminishing trust and higher cynicism and more resentment. And people were just increasingly uncomfortable in their own skin. And I think today it's even worse than it was in 2020. So I wanted to write a book to help people and improve that condition inside themselves and to help them overcome their own standing in the way of their own success. And that's really why I wrote Detach. Came back and the book's organized around those ten attachments and I tell stories of people and I map each attachment to an aspiration, which is a positive way of getting out of it. So it really is all about anxiety management in some ways and helping you feel more joy and more freedom and better mental wellbeing. Excellent, excellent. So it's so funny when you say I had a dream. I immediately went to Martin Luther King. And I thought, wow, you know, that's usually the start of something pretty monumental. You talk about these attachments, these unhealthy attachments, and you had 10 of them in your dream and you fleshed them out in your book. Can you walk us through a couple of them and why it's so unhealthy to have these attachments? You know, the G and R quickly, the attachment to stability, to the past, to the future, to control and perfection, the attachment to success, to pleasure, to youth, to yourself, and to life. So... Well, I'm going to stop you there for a second, Bob, because attachment to life seems to me to be pretty important. I want to be attached to this life as long as I can, to tell you the honest truth. But I digress. Go ahead, start with a couple. Sure, sure. So let's just talk about what these unhealthy attachments are doing. Each one is driven by fear. And we're born with a kind of tabula rasa. Some of us are born with vulnerability toward anxiety, but most of us have a tabula rasa. And of us are born with vulnerability toward anxiety, but most of us have a tabula rasa. And over time we develop fears that we keep inside ourselves because they're painful to experience and express. And we then develop a whole story with mental baggage, our belief systems, our feelings, the way that we look at the world, our philosophies about life, and they actually become unhealthy attachments that we hold on to. And until we liberate ourselves from them, we're really stuck. And our brains get clogged up because fear stops the brain from working very efficiently and our mind experiences this baggage, this mental baggage. So that's really what an unhealthy attachment is. So let me give you an example. Stability is the first attachment and there's a ton of change out there but a lot of us are attached to stability but stability is an illusion because the brain and the mind is never stable it is always growing always responding to threats and opportunities it's highly adaptive and the mind actually operates that way. So uncertainty is reality. And every time we breathe, we breathe into uncertainty and that uncertainty is vulnerable. And many people have trouble living with vulnerability and uncertainty That's a real problem. So I interviewed a guy by the name of David who's an attorney He lived a very stable life controlled everything in his life But he couldn't get in a relationship Never found the job he wanted never took risks and he went to a mentor who told David, go out and open yourself up to falling down. And by taking risks, he eventually became assistant secretary of commerce. He got married, his whole life opened up because he moved from stability to agility. And that's just one example of one attachment that really holds us down. Now, one last thing about this, and that is that it requires that we live with just enough anxiety. I wrote a book in 1996 called Just Enough Anxiety. I mentioned too little anxiety, which is the face of complacency, and too much, which is the face of chaos. So just enough is that positive energy that moves us forward. But anxiety has a bad rap. Now some of us need professional help and medication, but a lot of us don't. We just need to change our attitude about change and recognize that change happens for us, not to us. We're seeing Neil deGrasse Tyson once and he said, he says, you know, when was the last time after college somebody asked about your grades? He says, never. He says, so take a class. He's talking to students. He says, take a class that's going to challenge you. Nobody cares afterwards. Learn something. And the idea is, you know, get out of that comfort zone. I understand that being attached to the past. How can I be attached to the future? Help me understand that and how to break free of that. Well, that's a very interesting one. Many of us are preoccupied by the future, obsessing over what is missing in our lives, and we're never satisfied with who we are or what we have. We're always worrying about what's to come. So that diminishes our confidence and peace of mind when we can't do it. So here's a perfect example. Everybody's worried about the stock market, but we don't have much control over that. So we're living in the future rather than getting comfortable in the present. So the antidote or the aspiration is learning to be content in the present moment. I always say we probably should live 10% in the past, remembering good memories, 20% in the future, which is planning and dreaming, and about 70% in the present moment. Of colleague Andrew, who is my attorney, and his story is in the book. He's incredibly brilliant and a really power attorney. He's written like 20 books, but he lives in the future worried that he's going to fall back into the neighborhood that was on the other side of the tracks that he had to work so hard to be successful. And I said, how many books do you need to write to be successful? And so he lives in the future and doesn't, sometimes doesn't enjoy the present moment. I'm the same way. I was attached to the future because I've had my own anxiety over the years. And I was attached to the future and I was also attached to success. And they oftentimes go together. Yeah, so the answer to that, Bob, is 15. 15 books is success. That's exactly the number of books Adrian and I have written. Yeah, I mean, you know, how much is enough? And a lot of people are constantly striving. I mean, one of the interesting things about the attachment to success is when our desire for success turns into a compulsive need for achievement, we got a problem because we define success from the outside in based on other people's expectations versus our own. And this is often driven by the fear of failure. In the fear of the future, which drives this attachment to success. So how do you get rid of it? You just have to get comfortable realizing that you have everything that you need right now. Excellent advice. I'm still gonna go with the number 15. As we talk about these other attachments. Everybody says 15 is the number. I've heard it said three times just today. Anyway, Bob, you talk a lot about the attachment to perfectionism and that being baggage. We talk about that a lot in our book, Anxiety at Work, that perfectionism causes a lot of anxiety, but love to learn more about that from from your perspective. Sure. Well, first off we are imperfect by nature. Yet how many of us are ruled by the need to be perfect? Well, keeping this quality inside would be bad enough, but we tend to impose our perfection needs on the people around us. And we fear looking inadequate, we fear making a mistake, and we don't fall in love with our imperfections, which is very important to our mental health. And when you combine that with an attachment to control, needing to be in control, you're gonna be chronically anxious all the time because you're not perfect and you can't control everything. And so that is a real big source of perfection. So what do you do? You fall in love with your imperfections. You confront that inner critic inside of you. You have to rebalance your work sometimes. And I like to say you have to manage with constructive impatience. You know, you got to create a healthy environment, but you're always raising the bar on people. That's a big one for a lot of business people. Oh, no question. What I'm kind of curious about Bob is is okay, so first off, let's kind of take a just a pause here for a moment. I'm kind of curious about, Bob, is, okay, so first off, let's kind of take a just a pause here for a moment. I'm sure people are wondering how they learn more about you. Do you have a website or someplace where you'd send everybody? Yeah, well, thanks for asking, Adrian. I do have a website. It's Bob Rosen.com. Very easy. We have just finished the development of a pretty powerful assessment that you can take that measures your 10 attachments and gives you feedback and recommendations. We also created something like a detached book club in a box where you can actually bring friends or colleagues or teams together and each one can talk about their own attachment and really learn from each other. So lots to do there. I wrote two books before Detach that were pretty relevant. One was called Grounded, which is a New York Times bestseller by the way, and it had it was all about the six dimensions of well-being, physical, emotional, intellectual, social, vocational, and spiritual health. And then another book called Conscious, which was really about being aware of yourself and others and why that's important to living an anxious, free life. So Jess, how many New York Times bestsellers is enough? What would you say there? Five. Five, oh, five. I just had one. For a writer. It's five, yeah, the number's five. For a writer, one puts the issue to bed. Exactly, well said. Well said. Hey, okay, so I want to bring that now back to the, I know you've been really good about bringing this to the working world, but okay, so I'm in a job, I've got a lot of issues going on. I'm guessing I'm bringing a lot of attachments with me, but maybe I'm in a little bit of a toxic workplace. Maybe I'm struggling with some coworkers. I've just got some issues that I'm fighting through at work. How does this all play in there? I mean, do they have attachments? Do I have attachments? Give me some advice here if I'm struggling at work and how this book can play in and your ideas play in here. Well, I mean, stress is caused by what's in our heads and what's in our environment. And the first thing we have to do is take care of our side of the street. And so it's really our responsibility to come to work healthy and emotionally healthy. And so I would recommend that we really put a microscope on these 10 attachments and try to figure out which one is causing you to be anxious and unhappy and unjoyful in your life. And there's a certain methodology that I talk about in terms of first becoming aware and then accepting the attachment and then looking at the why, what's the fear underneath the surface of that attachment and then what's the desired state, the aspiration that you're trying to create and then finally what what do you do? What are your actions? So a lot of business people are attached to the future as we talked about, success. They're attached to themselves, which is being sort of self-absorbed, sometimes selfish, losing the reality that relationships are what keep us healthy and particularly great friends and great family. And some of us get attached to pleasure. What does that mean? Well, when we get attached to pleasure, we may start drinking too much or smoking pot, or we may do drugs. We may engage in social media. Uh, we may shop, we may overeat. Uh, we may do excessive exercise. And what the reason why we do that is that we're uncomfortable being uncomfortable. And we actually pursue those pleasures to anesthetize or medicate ourselves from the pain that we feel. That happened to me. What I did was I had some back problems and I had some surgeries. And at age 50, I became addicted to opiates, Percocet and Vicodin. And I really had to look at why was I doing it? And the opiates were the perfect medication to get rid of the anxiety. Sure. And so what I had to do was really look at that over years. And after about eight years, I got sober and I've been sober for about four years. But here was a set of attachments to the future and success that led to an attachment to pleasure. Yeah, you know, it's interesting, Adrian and I talk about this all the time, this idea of being comfortable with being uncomfortable, and we're kind of of the opinion, can you really be comfortable being uncomfortable? I mean, isn't uncomfortable mean you're uncomfortable Walk me through that Bob. Well, it's a really good question the closer we can get to experiencing our most fundamental fears The easier it is to move through them. The problem is that people don't like feeling uncomfortable and so they never get to the bottom line fear that is driving us. It could be the fear of inadequacy, could be the fear of not having enough money, it could be the fear that you carry throughout your life from your father who sort of dismissed you every time you walked up to him and wanted to get a recognition of some kind. The fears come from all over the place. So unless we get in touch with those fears, the other thing is that anxiety as something bad. And too much anxiety is bad. But when we feel a moderate amount of anxiety, our body is telling us to pay attention. Pay attention to something inside us that probably hurts. So it's a very important skill. Bob, you know, we've we've done hundreds of these. That was one of the most succinct ways of of explaining anxiety and what we think that I've heard. So yeah, well done. Thank you. That's awesome. My pleasure. Well, it takes one to know one, I guess. Well said. Well said. Hey, I mean, you've got a busy life. You're a busy guy. And you said you've been through a lot yourself and overcoming and well done there. What are the self care tactics that you do every day that keep you grounded and thriving and unattached? Well, I have worked hard on my attachments to the future and success and pleasure. For example, I'm going into this book, I have dreams of how many people buy it and read it, but at the same time, I'm trying to reduce my expectations and just sort of throw it into the wind and see what happens. So a lot of it is attitude and perspective. I exercise six days a week. It's very, very important, even if just an hour or 40 minutes. And I try to follow the rules of successful superagers. One is a healthy lifestyle. Two is to confront your internalized ageism. All of us have attitudes that disparage older people including ourselves when we start to deteriorate. So falling in love with your aging self is actually quite important. I said relationships are really important. I have lots of great friends. I have a couple hobbies that are linked to my higher purpose and I try to stay youthful. I mean I'm at 70 in two months and so you know I try to live a youth of constantly learning. And so that's how I deal with it. But we each have our own, we each have our own path. And, you know, when you get to retirement, you choose one of two paths. You choose the path of fear and regret and disconnection or you choose the path of introspection and liberation and exuberance and we have a choice. That's great. You know a friend introduced me to a great song that was written about Clint Eastwood. You know he's still producing movies in his 80s and And the song is that Toby Keith, don't let the old man in, treat yourself. He says, that old man comes knocking and I just don't let him in. But there's a great line that kind of dovetails to what you're talking about. He says, how old would you be if you didn't know the day you were born? And I just think that's a great reflection. Hey, great stuff, Bob, give us the one big takeaway you want people to walk away from this podcast with. To everybody has their own combination, and you have a choice. And two is that detached does not mean disconnected, quite the opposite. It means letting go of your attachments and being free to focus on your energy that is consistent with who you are and how you want to live your life. Excellent. Hey, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for your time, Bob. Get his new book. It's called Detach. Ditch your baggage to live a more fulfilling life. The 10 attachments that hold us back. Go to his website, which is easy. It's bobrosen.com, if I'm not mistaken. And we're delighted to have you on the show. Thank you so much, Bob, for finding the time. One last thing, a little admonition, something for you to dream about. Sell a million. But no pressure. Thank you so much. It's really been fun. Hey, Chess, another really interesting session here this time with Bob Rosen, you know, professor, clinical psychologist, PhD, all sorts of interesting stuff. But boy, did you, did your kind of, you did your kind of tingly kind of feelings start where you kind of go, I may have some of these attachments. We all may have some of these and we need to start thinking about them. Anything resonate for you with this? I actually was amazed that I had none. Ah. I'm just kidding. Ah. Well, you're perfect in every way, as of course. Yeah, you know, a lot of people aspire to be perfect. I don't have that problem because I've arrived. Yeah, no, you know, clearly you could look at all 10 of those and go, yeah, that's me, right? You and I have written a lot about perfectionism, how we get caught up in that, and how we get caught up in success and all that. I thought it was really interesting as he kicked it off. He said, you know, you need to be a student of self-awareness. I thought that was a great admonition. You know, we talk about being a student of leadership and being continually curious. And I thought, you know, that's a good addition to that, be a student of self-awareness. Also, that all these attachments are driven by fear. That really stuck with me. They go, yeah, you're afraid that you haven't lived the life you should have, so you have that fear of regret. And then, gosh, am I doing enough in the future? His division of past, future, and present, I thought was interesting. 10% in the past. And he said in a positive, remember the good things. That's okay, right? 20% in the future, we should be kind of, at least know what we're doing tomorrow. Which you and I sometimes with our schedules, Wednesday, I think I'm in Toledo. Why am I in Las Vegas? It's clear I'm in Las Vegas, I just don't know why. And then 70% in the present. We've heard that from a lot of people to try to stay as much as you can in the moment. So right out of the box, those were things that really stuck with me. How about you? You know, fear, like you said, that really resonated with me as well because how much of our time coaching executives do we spend saying, okay, you know, Susan, what do you think's the worst thing that's gonna happen if you bring this idea up? Or Gavin, you know, why are you afraid of the CEO? And, you know, I mean, what's, are they going to take away your, your family, your loved ones? You know, there's so much fear. And, and what I really liked is he's saying, look, dig down, figure out what that is. Did, you know, I mean, honestly, did mom and dad not hug you enough? And you need something there. That's not bad. You're just accepting, you're finding out what it is. Do you feel like nobody ever listens to you when you talk? What is it? Holly's saying, just be aware of what is driving that fear. That awareness starts a lot of good things happening in your life. Yeah. My last takeaway, I love this, is the super agers. That was such a great, I studied the super agers. You know, he's gonna turn 70, right? This idea of, you know, engage with your aging self. There are gonna be things that you, you know, you can't do anymore. And there are gonna be things that you continue to be curious about. And the two paths of retirement was one with fear and regret. And the other one was- And the other one was- Introspection and- Excitement and- Okay, that's what it was. Okay, I wrote that down, but I missed the excitement, good. Yeah, excitement about the future, like, you know, what's ahead? Yeah. And it is interesting, you know, I just attended a dear friend's funeral. And the other thing he talked about was everything's attached to a story. And I thought it's really interesting, as our time comes, right? What will we be remembered for? And what will the stories people tell? And in the case of my friend, it was an overflow of church and wonderful stories about service and giving and being a great friend and being a great dad. You know, no one mentioned, and he was a very successful businessman, nobody mentioned his business. Nobody mentioned, you know, any numbers on his W-2 or that kind of stuff. It was all about, and Bob talked about that. He said, you know, I invest in relationships. I've got lots of friends and so on. And so that kind of excitement about the future, how am I nurturing those meaningful relationships? How am I taking care of my family? I thought it was really resonated with me in particular because I'd just been to my friend's funeral. Well, and yeah, and his push that, we don't live in the future except a little bit, but how many never satisfied with where we are. As you said about your dear friend, was that no, he was living in the present. And yeah, of course we all worry about the future now and then, but we can't live there. That's what creates a detachment. That's what creates fear. We can't live in stability because always being stable and safe will never get us where we go. because always being stable and safe will never get us where we're going. You and I would never have broken off from a corporation 12 years ago or whatever it was and created our own little world here and we've been able to travel around the world to just about every continent and spread this word. So good things have come when you break out of these attachments. Yeah, by the way, Adrian, it's 15 years. It's been 15. Same number of books that equates to success. It's how many years you and I have been doing it. Yeah. Well, you know, Marshall always talks to us about that, right? Our friend Marshall Goldsmith, I'll be happy when. Yeah. That's the toxicity that comes with living too much in the future. Well, great session. I love the name of his book, Detach. By the way, he says, detach didn't mean to be removed. You know, it was just letting go of those negative things. Detach, ditch your baggage to live a more fulfilling life. And you know who makes my life more fulfilling? I don't know if it's the same for you. I think I know, I think I know. Yeah, I think about podcasts, I think about dear friends, I think about fulfillment in my life, and one name comes to mind. Who is it for you? It could be the Dalai Lama, I mean, it could be Oprah, but for me, it's Brent Klein, our producer. So funny, me too. Yeah, he's the producer that takes our, as my Jewish friends in New York would say, the mishigash and makes it beautiful. We're so thankful and grateful for him and for Christy Lawrence, our wonderful booker, who does so many good things for us. And I've lost my place, so take it over. Hey, if you like the podcast, that's all good. If you like it, share it, download it. We'd also love you to visit thecultureworks.com for free resources to help you, your team thrive. We've got lots of ideas about leadership and culture. And you know what, Chess, we love speaking to audiences around the world, don't we? Virtually or in person, you give us the topic, by now we can speak on it. Exactly. And thanks to all of you who have tuned in. We know you have busy lives, you got things going on. Thanks for taking some time and spending it with us. We really are grateful for you and appreciate that. So, Adrian, I'll give you the last word. There you go. Until next time, we wish you the best of mental health.