The Devil You Don’t Know
In The Devil You Don’t Know, Lindsay, Cleveland, and their guests discuss personal growth and development by taking chances and getting out of your comfort zone. Topics range from whimsical to serious and everything in between but are always relevant to growth and development.
The Devil You Don’t Know
Why Trusting Your Gut Changes Everything
Most people don't trust themselves, constantly seeking external validation and living unhappy lives despite trying to please everyone around them.
• Self-trust means being comfortable with who you are rather than constantly seeking approval
• When you don't trust yourself, you give up command of your life and surrender your agency
• Setting boundaries aligns with self-trust and allows you to identify who respects you
• Family relationships often challenge our self-trust when we're expected to compromise our needs
• Trusting yourself leads to authentic relationships rather than people-pleasing interactions
• The Three A's for building self-trust: Awareness, Alignment, and Action
• Daily practices for strengthening self-trust include quiet reflection, setting boundaries, and celebrating wins
If you enjoyed this episode, check out Cleveland's new book "Waiting for White Jesus: Reclaiming Your Agency in a World That Tells You to Wait" now available on Amazon.
Please email us at Gettoknowthedevil@gmail.com
This is Lindsay, this is Cleveland, and this is another episode of the Devil. You Don't Know, lindsay, what are we gonna be talking?
Speaker 2:about today Self-trust, self-trust. Tell us a little bit more about that topic, and then we'll get into a little small talk.
Speaker 1:So I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately, because it's a theme that's come up consistently when I've been working with clients is that most of my clients are having to put on an act, send the perfect text, say the perfect thing, be the perfect partner or roommate or family member, or be this great employee, but none of them are happy and none of them are satisfied with their, with their jobs, their relationships, where they are in life. And one of the questions I started asking was well, do you trust yourself? Because if you trusted yourself, you would put yourself out there as is.
Speaker 2:But before but before we begin that, let's just catch folks up on on where we've been at for the last couple of weeks and what's what has happened and why there were some technical difficulties.
Speaker 1:We recorded a number of episodes, I think, when we were up in Vermont. Yes, and we well, I mean not me, because I don't know how to do anything technical, but somehow something happened and you lost them all.
Speaker 2:Yes, so you would think, after nearly two years of podcasting, that your boy Cleve would know that he had needed to make a backup file of anything that's recorded on the SD card. And I did not, and so I was in the process of editing some episodes a couple of weeks ago and gone in the vapor and I tried to recover him them, couldn't recover them, um, and that was just it also or two.
Speaker 2:I've been we'll, we'll do a whole. Lindsey assures me that we will do a whole other podcast on it. But, lindsey, what recently came out on may 28th on amazon? That was may 28th already, yeah, it's almost been a been a month. Wow, cleveland's first book, my first book, and it is called waiting for white Jesus reclaiming your agency in a world that tells you to wait. Lindsay, hey, I got a bunch of five-star reviews on it. I uh, some folks have written about it on medium. Um, pax Jones. I've done an interview with Pax Jones. Better Rods, a young lady in the UK, reviewed it on her website, get Set Happy dot com and you can read all about it. But basically, you know Linz is reading the book. What is the book about for the folks at home?
Speaker 1:Well, it's really about not waiting for other people to do for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is, I think, is a vital and important message, and we'll get into that in a future episode coming up. We'll do some. We'll do some discussion. I would love to talk to you about it. Oh, thank you. What else has been going on around here? I see you sitting on a new, my new sofa.
Speaker 1:I love it. I can't get up from it. Every minute I get supposedly pet proof. I'm not sure, sure. Well, we have not had a sofa in over a year because of all the renovations and everything going on um, so it was really nice to just get a couch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really nice. I think the cats like it. I think the cats were like wow, they got us a new scratching post slash bed to sleep.
Speaker 1:Dog tried to lay on it today too. I'm trying to keep the animals off of it. Yeah, well you're talking?
Speaker 2:talking about which set of animals? I don't know which set we're talking. The four-legged ones oh the four-legged ones, okay, not the other ones who are fighting over ice cream.
Speaker 1:Oh Lord, Ice cream and bagels and whatever else.
Speaker 2:Fighting over their right to be disrespectful. I demand to be disrespectful.
Speaker 1:I need a ride.
Speaker 2:Someone needs to give me a ride right now I live here for free, but we'll also get into that. That was with our family. That was one of the lost episodes. But getting back to the topic at hand, you know what you were talking about. What is this idea of self-trust? And so you said you know. Just to repeat what you said, you said frequently you found yourself working with people who don't trust themselves.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, it's come up with, especially lately, with relationship issues and living situations with my clients and I ask them all do you trust yourself? I have clients that are trying to date but they have to send the perfect text or be the perfect person, plan the perfect date, and then the minute that they don't hear back from someone, immediately they're freaking out and then they're sitting there judging themselves. Well, maybe you know, maybe what I said wasn't interesting enough and I was like yo, if what you said didn't interest the other person, then you should just be happy they didn't respond.
Speaker 2:Yeah, One of my professors, you know, speaking of that idea of like of this, this lack of ability to trust ourselves, especially when it comes to I must be perfect, Right, which is an idea like I can't, that's like.
Speaker 1:I think the people pleasing thing. It's a I can't. You know, I cannot stand to have people not like me, or it makes me really uncomfortable if people don't like me, and so therefore, I have to do things a certain way, even if they don't align with who I am, because I need to kind of compromise that in order to be accepted.
Speaker 2:And what I hear it, as is I. Since I'm not perfect, I don't trust myself. What does that sound like to you?
Speaker 1:Well, I think I mean, I do think a lot of my clients know that they're not perfect. They all understand the concept of being the cause and the solution to, like you know, 99.9% of their problems, as I say. But I think it's more about just not being comfortable with who they are and not really trusting in themselves, feeling like they have to be somebody else in themselves feeling like they have to be somebody else.
Speaker 2:When I work with men especially and I don't want to generalize- I've been called out for generalization by a number of people in my life, but especially recently, especially recently in husbands.
Speaker 2:you know who you are, but when I work with men, when I work with men, a fair number of men that I work with that don't trust themselves. Do not trust themselves because they are not perfect. And what my professor in grad school used to say is perfection is the enemy of good enough. And so, lindsay, what do you think he meant when he was especially in the, in the, in this, in self-trust, like? What do you think he meant by that? Perfection is the enemy of good enough, and how does that relate to your topic?
Speaker 1:Well, I think it actually relates to what I said to you, which is you are good enough for us when you were having all of that corporate America anxiety almost a year ago. Right, but it's that you can just be who you are, and if the people around you don't accept you, right, listen, you can try to be perfect, but you still, in some way or shape or form, need to be accepted. So you may as well be accepted for the version of you. That's the true version of you, rather than this made up version that's trying to please everyone else, because I really feel like people can see through that.
Speaker 2:And my own journey of how I've learned to trust myself is I know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at. One of the things that used to paralyze me in in in ice and I've seen with friends and clients, is I especially. I have one friend that, no matter what decision he makes in his life, he has to consult the peanut gallery. And I asked them why don't you trust yourself enough? Because, lens and this is a legit question what do you? What, what do you find happens when you need to make a decision and a person goes and asks 100 people 100 of the same question on the same. Well, what do I do? What do I need to do? What do I need to do?
Speaker 1:Well then they're doing what the other person tells them they should do anyway, so there's really no self-efficacy in that.
Speaker 2:And what I found is those folks are paralyzed, right.
Speaker 1:Well, they don't.
Speaker 2:They don't trust themselves enough to do something right, To make a decision, to make a choice to take a leap, and so how can a person build, in your opinion, build trust in themselves? What are some of the steps that you think a person can take?
Speaker 1:The first thing I do with clients is try to help them to relate to their thinking in a different way, right, and to really realize that it's their thinking in a different way, right, right, and to really realize that it's okay to not always be okay. It is like anxiety. You don't have to look at it as a negative thing, so to speak. It is just a trip into the future and it often doesn't come true, but it's just being able to kind of sit in those moments when things do come up with you and sit with the discomfort. Just being able to kind of sit in those moments when things do come up with you and sit with the discomfort. Let them be there and just be like, oh crap, I'm anxious again, or you know, whatever else it is that comes up for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, our friend Lori, who's a Star Trek fan. We had this whole discussion on it and I don't want to lose you folks in the audience who are not Star Trek fans, but many months ago we had a whole discussion on this idea of trusting yourself and there was an episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk gets split into two. Right, he gets split into a good version of himself and he gets split into a quote unquote evil version of himself. Now, the version of himself that was quote unquote evil was decisive, could make decisions. They weren't always good decisions, they were selfish decisions but he could make decisions.
Speaker 2:Right, the version of himself that was quote unquote good, was nice and kind but very indecisive goes to Spock in McCoy and is like I do not know what to do. And Spock looks at him and says are you giving up your command? And so when you do not trust yourself and then Laurie went on to speak about this is when you do not trust yourself. She was like she. She said that stuck with her as a little girl that I need to trust myself because am I giving up my command? And what does that?
Speaker 1:mean to you I like that Right. Well, when you don't trust yourself, you're never going to find that happiness Right or that contentment, or never do the things that really strongly align with you, because you're always sitting and making sure that you have the approval of other people and that other people tell you to yes, go for it, do this Right approval of other people and that other people tell you to yes, go for it, do this right. And when you think about it in terms of family, for example and I think you've experienced this a lot with your family, I know I have that when you go ahead and disrupt that status quo and you take control of your life right, it makes them very uncomfortable and I think that's another reason why people don't do it because they're so worried about not fitting in. And that's what that you know story that you're telling me about Spock kind of reminds me of. I want to make sure everybody else approves of it.
Speaker 2:Because I want to in quote unquote, because when you go back and look at the episode, laurie said the brilliant thing about the episode is there was there was redeeming qualities about the evil Kirk are, as Spock said, to the good Kirk, and Kirk realized that you are giving up your command. You are giving up the, the, the. You are giving up the, the, the, the self-determination.
Speaker 1:Right and you're compromising who you are for acceptance and approval.
Speaker 2:Right, right. And how many people have you sat down with and, under those terms, who have given up their command?
Speaker 1:Well, I would imagine almost every single one of my clients at some point or another Right, or they probably wouldn't be in therapy Right.
Speaker 2:And so why does giving up command of your life matter, or why does reclaiming command of your life matter?
Speaker 1:Well, I think I mean, depending on which one right, it changes the trajectory of your life. If you give up your command, then you're, you know, staying in this life where all right, it's okay, it's fine, I can do this. I'm not happy, but I can do it Right. But then, when you do take agency, you get to this other side of yes, I want to do this and it's so much better over here. It took some effort and some work on my part to get here, but it's better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I spoke to a group of school kids the other day and I was talking about it was career day at the local school and I spoke to a group of school kids and I was telling the story of my life and one kid and I talked about how I worked it at a corporate. I'll just say it is what it is. Because you Google me, you'll find me, right that I worked at NBC Universal for a number of years and great company. I will never crap on them. Right, they gave me a lot of. They made me in many ways who I am today. Right, but it got to a point in that relationship and not with the company but with my particular team that I wasn't a good fit there anymore. Right, and I'll acknowledge that I wasn't a good fit they. I wasn't a good fit for them and they were no longer a good fit for me. But when I was telling that story, a kid was like man, but you met, you met Kim Kardashian and you met Jimmy Fallon and you met Common and you gave that up and you probably made a lot of money. How did you make that decision? And I was like well, son, for you I would not recommend leaving behind a comfortable job until you've built up enough equity. But for me, I got to a point where I trusted myself enough to know and you can speak to this, and I'm going to give you back the floor so you can speak to this Because I got to a point where my wife helped me trust in myself enough that I could. And you can speak to this, right, and I'm going to give you back the floor so you can speak to this because I got to a point where my wife helped me trust in myself enough that I could and I actually said this to the kid that I could make my own money and make my own decisions.
Speaker 2:And do I make a little bit? Is the amount of pay that I get, you know, the amount of security that I get? Is it the same? Money is the same? Money is actually better in many. Actually, money is the same. Money is actually better in many. Actually, money is much better in many ways. But what's even more better to me right now is the level of command that I have in my life and the level of security that I have in my life. Right, and so, lindsey, now I want to kick it back to you and and tell the folks like how did you, encouraging me to trust in myself and have self-efficacy, help change the trajectory of my life, and it can help others change theirs?
Speaker 1:Well, as you know about me, I just tell people how it is. So I told you, I think, a few times you're good enough for us, so it really doesn't matter if you're good enough for those other people. And then I believe I said to you if you are going to keep complaining about that job and how unhappy you are and have all these sleepless nights and be panicking on vacation when it's time to go home and you're not going to do anything about it, then I'm not talking about it with you anymore. Right, right, end of story. I don't want to hear the complaining, I don't want to be woken up at 2 am because you have agita. I don't want you in the ocean with a pina colada having a panic attack days before leaving to go back, because if you're not going to do anything about it, then just shut up.
Speaker 2:True, true, true. Jack Canfield says if you have time to complain about it, you have time to change it. Right, and so trusting yourself, right. And here's the thing about complainers Right, when I was a Jehovah's Witness, there was in war, we could do a whole episode on Jehovah's Witnesses eventually, not necessarily in a negative way. But when we talk about my book we can talk about my background. But one of the true lessons that I did learn from them there is do not bang with people who are murmurers or complainers, because what does a murmur? And I think they got the messaging wrong because it was like, well, if somebody's murmuring and complaining about things in the congregation, you know those are, that's terrible. But why should we not hang out with murmurers and complainers? And how does that relate to not trusting ourselves when we associate with murmurers and complainers?
Speaker 1:Well, when people complain all the time, obviously they're not happy, but they're also not doing anything to do things differently, right, right, you know, I mean we've all had clients like that who just want to come in and dump on you for an hour. And I'm pretty much the kind of person I tell my clients listen. I don't really want to listen to the story. So, like, let's get out of the story and let's get into what's going on with you.
Speaker 2:Right. So we and not to put anyone on blast, but we know some people, several people in our lives who are having some personal struggles, right, and they've come and talked to us about their personal struggles. This is more than one set of person and, ultimately, who is responsible? And for most of them it's not a, it's not really a. I was going to recurse. It's not a complicated situation.
Speaker 1:No, it is not. They're making it complicated.
Speaker 2:Well, one of them is but this is something in your life that you should trust yourself, that you need to change Well and here's the other thing right.
Speaker 1:If things aren't working out the way that they are, then you need to change something. I always tell people if you want something to change, you have to change something Right. You have to trust yourself and change it Right. And you have to change something. You have to trust yourself and change it Right. And you have to change something you do. Nobody's going to come out and change it for you. I'm the kind of person where when I don't like something you know me I'm very vocal. I'll let you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:My favorite science fiction author, jason Pargin, has spoken. I've listened to him speak. I've read his writings for many, many, many years. He's written such book as John Dies in the End, futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. I probably said that backwards, and I think his most recent book that I read is this big. I'm starting to worry about this big black box of doom. But what the thing, especially in this big black box, this big black box of doom he talks about, is this idea that people rely on TikTok, people rely on Facebook, people rely on Instagram, people rely on the media, people rely on opinion to formulate a plan and trust all these external sources, but they don't trust themselves Right?
Speaker 1:Well, because they want to go with what they think is popular or what's going to attract other people to them. Yeah, I mean, that's really all that it is.
Speaker 2:And it makes me think of this idea of being adrift in a float because you don't know who you are.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's very true. I had lost my train of thought. There was something that I wanted to say to you, but it'll come back.
Speaker 2:It'll definitely come back to you. So I'm going to ask you, so I'm going to move on. I want to talk about self-efficacy, lindsay. What is self-efficacy, and how does it relate to trusting yourself?
Speaker 1:Well, it's a belief in yourself to actually take, you know, to take action, to take agency and then achieve something that you set out to achieve.
Speaker 2:And why does it matter?
Speaker 1:Well, it's the same thing. Going back to what we said earlier, is that you have to in order to you know, to actually grow within your life and to achieve the goals that you set forth. You know to achieve you have to have that.
Speaker 2:Very few people achieve things out of luck right, oh yes, tell, tell, tell me about it. So I was just having a conversation with you about it, Cause you and anybody who knows me and Lindsay, this is a both a good quality and a bad quality that when Cleveland gets on something, I'm like what?
Speaker 1:You can't stop talking about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like a dog with a bone. There's a, there's a level of persistence in there with me. Um, I was on a or uh on a Reddit thread of self-published authors, which I am one, and one person was on there. It was like I've written four books and no one's bought a single one in the last five years. And somebody asked them well, have you ever marketed it? No, I haven't trusted myself enough to market it. And the dude is like there are 8 million books on Amazon. If you don't trust yourself enough to market it, no one's going to see your book, and so the question that you need to ask yourself is think of a time that you believed in yourself before anyone else did. How did that work out for you?
Speaker 1:Well, I've always I was going to say what I was going to say. Now, I've always been the kind of person that just does what I want, and I will always say that. That's. One thing that people know about me is that what they see is what they get.
Speaker 1:And I think there's been times where you've even said to me oh well, if you don't come out, people are going to think you're antisocial. I'm like okay and right, and so you just have to be comfortable with who you are. And you have to. I mean, in order for your book to be successful, you have to go put yourself out there, you have to make connections, you have to write. But this is also what makes people different from one another, because I probably would never author a book on my own Cause. I know I don't like to talk to people Like I don't put myself out there, like that. That's not my personality. That's something that you're really, it's a strength of yours. So I know that you can go out there and you know, make connections and put yourself out there. That's not me, right, right.
Speaker 2:But each of us is different, right, and so, what are you good at? What are you good at, and do you believe in yourself enough to be good at it?
Speaker 1:Right, I mean, do you want to know what I'm good at? Yeah, oh.
Speaker 2:I know you, oh my no, I'm talking about making cookies. I haven't baked cookies in years. Oh well then I am talking about something else.
Speaker 1:You're crazy. No, I mean, I know the things that I'm good at. I think I'm very good at what I do. I'm great at meditating, I'm great at just being okay with myself the way that I am, and you know, I'm very content with my life. The only thing I want that I don't have is a house in the mountains that I'd like to be at every weekend. We'll get there eventually, the mountains that I'd like to be at every weekend. We'll get there eventually.
Speaker 1:But you know, and so, and I know, I know that, and I build my career on my strengths, right, right, and I, I don't, I don't believe for myself anyway, I do not believe in doing anything that I do not want to do, right, right, like my yes means yes and my no means no, and my maybe starts out as a no and I change later yeah, but I never say yes when I mean no, and that's what keeps me authentic, and I know that that's something that does drive you crazy about me, because I'm used to it. You like to go out and socialize, so sometimes I'll send you a loan and you're like people are going to think you're antisocial. They talk about you and I'm like all right, well, if they don't talk about, if they don't like me, they talk about me. Then maybe they won't invite me next time.
Speaker 2:That's fine, but I you know, and I have said that to you in the past, but one of the things I will say about going out without you now is people respect you. They're like ah well, yeah, that's our decision. We didn't said people know me, they know that what you see is what you get. I don't lie.
Speaker 1:I'm very honest about it I am an introverted person. I don't have a strong desire to be out socializing all the time, and if I'm going to spend time with people, it's going to be with people that I really enjoy spending my time with. Right Tonight we're gonna go see our good friends laurie and dave, because it's dave's birthday and I love hanging out with laurie and dave. No problem, I have absolutely does not. You didn't hear me today any at any time say I don't want to go out tonight yeah, no, not, not, not once.
Speaker 2:And speaking of trusting yourself, the dogs are asleep in the middle of the floor and the cat one of the cats creeped, creptpt, downstairs. And she's sneaking around them Is trying to figure out how to get around them.
Speaker 1:She's not sure where she wants to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think she's, I think she's, I think she's making it, she's making it, she's done it.
Speaker 2:She's coming to the sofa, yeah this is an example of where this was a video podcast. This is an example of trusting right, because this cat was like I am gonna creep past these chicks and she did it successfully. But I want to go back right to this, to what we were talking about before the cat. This beautiful cat distracted us is? We had a barbecue here, my cat? Yeah, we had a barbecue here the other day.
Speaker 2:And, um, the kids, my kids came by and this is an ongoing theme and if you've heard me talk about my family before, there is this idea in my family that I don't, that I don't really associate with them that much. Right, and and and and is and my brother is. Is it true? My brother is also in the same boat with my family? Is it true?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's true, right, it is, but it is not true because and as I explained to my kids, it is not true because I think I am better than my family. Right, it's just because some of the things that they want to talk about and some of the things that they want to do and some of the things that they want to be about do not align with me and because I trust myself and because I know who. I am now right, because the Cleveland that you first met nine years ago did not trust himself, and because he did not trust himself, I had to get approval externally from so many different people in so many different ways, and it left me so paralyzed in life.
Speaker 1:Well, and sometimes you still have a little bit of that in you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a little bit right, the old habits die hard.
Speaker 1:but because I know who I am, I know my purpose and I know what I'm about, I trust myself enough that I do not need to aggravate myself with a situation or people that you know, the tough thing about family is that we not we, I'm just, this is collective right as a society or as a group of people, believe that family can just treat you horribly and be toxic and be judgmental and be critical and that for some reason, you still have to be around them, when if that were anyone else in your social circle, you wouldn't spend time with them anymore. And so that's what people have to get over. Is that right? And I mean I'll, I'll put it on blast right now.
Speaker 1:Right, we had a barbecue and for the graduation and my grandmother is call. I'm calling her to offer an invite and you know I'm getting the grand inquisition about, you know, people that aren't living up to their potential in this household. And well, what's this one doing? Can't your ex-husband pay for this? And it's like no, and I was like no, I was like we're not even talking about that. And then the call ended and she hung up to then remind me that we're family and we always had so much fun together and there's certain members of the family that I should be inviting and I'm like you know, it's like everybody's got amnesia in this family, right? Nobody sits there and thinks about the lack of support and the lack of you know, like love that was given during difficult times, but they just want to so quickly brush that off and be like you go invite everybody, go do this. No.
Speaker 2:Yeah, trust my judgment that I don't want these people here.
Speaker 1:And only surround yourself by people who add value to your life and if it's not family, it's not family. I'm not saying go out and abandon your family, but you don't really you can socialize with them in the way that you want to socialize with them.
Speaker 2:But let me ask you a question, because you trusted yourself, and you were absolutely. I am not absolutely compromising my standards and inviting some folks that other people might think are questionable. Did the barbecue turn out terrible?
Speaker 1:The barbecue was great. It was actually really great because I recall you not wanting to have company I don't like having people over and then you had the best time of everybody. You had your apron on, you had your grilling tools, you were doing your thing.
Speaker 2:Who ended up having the best time out of everybody. My name is Dot and I am 98 years old, my grandma.
Speaker 1:She had the best time she had the best time.
Speaker 2:And she and if and if you, and if you didn't trust yourself and you'd invited and you'd have made a bunch of compromises, she probably Well, it would have made me uncomfortable, and I don't put myself in uncomfortable situations, at least not not on purpose.
Speaker 1:I do not put myself in uncomfortable situations. I do not feel bad. If you treat me poorly or we don't have a close relationship and something happens to you, it's like I don't blame myself, I don't have regrets. Like I said, if you ask my father, he knows who I am, right, right, right. And if you ask my sister, my brother there's not anybody in this world who I have relationships with that does not know exactly who I am and what I'm about.
Speaker 2:And it goes back to a conversation that I had with a uh, with somebody who I'm very friendly with, where I said the reason why you know my philosophy about why people are miserable and why some people are, said, the reason why you know my philosophy about why people are miserable and why some people are depressed and adrift or are alone and lost is because they don't have a purpose, they don't trust themselves. And this person says back to me well, don't you think that's arrogant? To trust yourself and have a purpose? Yes, in some cases, as the Bible says, he who thinks he's standing but where lest he should fall. So you should trust in yourself is not about hubris, it is not about, you know, foolish pride, but it's having a level of pride that says that I am an educated person, I am a smart person, I am good at what I do here and I and I trust myself enough to make a decision Right. And so to go back and to tie this all together to what we both were talking about, with both our families, was that the person then hit me back and was like well, do you have a purpose? And I was like yeah, I have a purpose. I was like I trust my I was like I learned a long time ago and I'm going to. This is not a blue podcast, but I will say I learned a long time ago that I'm an asshole right, I'm a nice asshole, but I'm an asshole right. And instead of fighting that instinct at times and I do have learned enough to pull it back right but instead of fighting that instinct all the time, this is who I am, this is who this is, this is who I am I'm going to use this power for good. I'm good Like Superman could use his heat vision to burn down a house. Power for good. I'm good Like Superman could use his heat vision to burn down a house, or he could use his heat vision to start a fire. So I'm going to use my assholery for good and I'm going to use it in a way that entertains, that enlightens, that helps people right, because I trust myself. I have this set of standards that I've grown to accustomed to.
Speaker 2:I left a six figure job because I trusted and my wife believed in me, and it was like this place is not making you happy anymore. You should trust yourself enough to believe in yourself, and even people that were there were like yo dude, you are not. You are not happy. Somebody just said that I texted a reporter from there, actually just texted me just now. I saw, saw, and you were like, oh, you haven't reached out to him in a long time. He's like he just I saw it pop up on my screen. It was like you are missed. But long story short, because I believe in myself and I have boundaries and I trust myself, I'm happy, I'm in a good relationship and I said you, on the other hand and I'm not going to say how I said it to him dated somebody who made you feel terrible and stupid about yourself for the last three years. And because I trust myself and I know that wouldn't make me happy, I did not and just dropped the mic and left it there.
Speaker 1:Right, it's very true, though. You know you make these choices and then you stay in them, even though, week after week after week, you're miserable. Right? You cannot, you can't change other people and you can't control how they're going to interact with you. So if you don't like it and it doesn't feel good for you, stop sticking around. Right? And I wanted to touch on something also that you had said about um. I think it was something about depression, right? And so, yes, depression is right. There is a chemical imbalance component to depression in some cases, not all. However, the thing is that we have to remember that.
Speaker 2:I lost my train of thought.
Speaker 1:You're talking about depression right Like we have to remember that if we constantly put ourselves in situations that make us unhappy, why would we feel happy? I tell my client, I have a client who I and I've seen her for a really long time. But I'm like, if you go to the same job every single day and I've known you for two years now and you hate the job every single day, there's never been a time where you've come to a session and said, oh, what a great day I had at work. I said why would anyone else in your life get a good version of you when you get home? Why would your kids get the best version? Why would your husband get the best version?
Speaker 1:Every single day you go there and then next you go to bed and you can't sleep because you know that you have to get up in a few hours and go there again. And it's this cycle, this perpetual cycle of misery, and that is why I don't work in any kind of environment that you've ever worked in. I do not work for anybody else, I work 100% for myself. And you know what, if I had an unlimited amount of money, I would also be living somewhere on like 50 acres and only seeing people when I wanted to actually go out and see them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to to. To tie in to what you just said about depression, Dr Mate, you know who has been, who was a big inspiration to me writing my book. Um, we both, we both started writing in our 50s, so I can only hope to have that upward trajectory. But he said recently in a talk about depression, about anxiety, about trusting yourself. He was like if you look externally to this world for direction and for guidance externally to this world and you see what's on the news every day, what did he say? He said you would honestly ask yourself what the do you remember what?
Speaker 1:he has exact words what the heck kind of world am I living in? I think he said right, we were listening to him talk about some of the conflict in the um, well, in our country, but also over in the middle east, and yeah, that, I think that was what he said. It was a clip, right, and just like what the hell kind of world am I living in?
Speaker 2:yeah, and that would be normal, because you are looking externally for, for a locus of control, when that locus of control, if you trust yourself, should be internal right and what he was saying was that you know, I know this place is crazy, but I can't let it impact me.
Speaker 1:but that's why he was saying we have so much like anger and sadness and, you know, so much turmoil all the time, like we live in a really chaotic world because most people are not happy.
Speaker 2:And so that brings me naturally into it and we've already segued into that topic about reframing right it reframing your life Right, and originally this was reframing to wait and to take time and to take stock life right, and originally this was reframing to wait and to take time and to take stock. But I think you know if we're going to go into it and how it listens to trust. What if waiting isn't about what you're hoping will happen but what you are preparing?
Speaker 1:to happen, right, right. And I also wanted to say that there's this it's not easy to shift right From this place of people pleasing and saying yes all the time and always doing because you think it's what you should be doing according to other people or according to the world, according to the media. The thing is, it's not, it doesn't shift overnight. You have to start putting up those boundaries. You have to decide what is acceptable and what's unacceptable in my life. What am I willing to be a little bit more flexible on Right. You get to choose those things and then you start to do the work. You do start to set those boundaries. You eliminate people from your lives who can't from your life, who can't respect the boundaries or always toe the line. You start to kind of trim that fat, so to speak, from your life and then you start to be more fulfilled.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Dr Mate would always attribute that to our needs to be attached. Right, and what happens is, when you don't trust yourself, you trust that attachment more than your self-determination. And then you're miserable when you're attached to somebody that you ultimately don't trust anyway, when you should have been trusting in yourself, right?
Speaker 1:Well, that's, and that's, most people. I think that that is absolutely most people in this world. I do not know that many people who walk around and love their life every day, do you?
Speaker 2:No, no, even I mostly love it, except for when all I want is to be happy. That's all. That's all I want is to be happy.
Speaker 1:That's all I want. That's all I want is to be happy, and I said that, you know, to the one living here. You know we'll talk about him in that other episode. But like the level of disrespect and the level of entitlement and it's like yo, you, you seem to be forgetting that you live here for free. You need to take some agency in your own life and I want peace in my house.
Speaker 2:So if you can't get yourself together and figure what out what that looks like for you, then I can't have peace in my house, which means you can't be here, because, on top of everything, my peace and happiness is most important to me and literally, you know, the conversation that we initiated in the conversation that we're going to continue to have on Sunday is about bro, if you trust yourself and you trust the decisions that you're making, trust me, you can go do them in your own house, right? You can trust me, you will be out of here by the end of summer, right? So, if you actually trust what you're doing and this is, this is, and this goes to all of you in the audience if you trust what you're doing and I do not mean this facetiously- it doesn't matter if anyone else agrees with it or not.
Speaker 2:And you get the choice. As Jack Canfield said, as the decision that I made it my six figure job, as I told that eighth grader who was looking at me in awe that I walked away from all of that is, I trusted myself enough to get out of a situation that I was not happy in.
Speaker 1:Well, and at the end of the day, it was also holding you back. And I think when we don't do that, it holds us back and we never, ever get to achieve that dream if we never take that chance. And I just I said to you I can't, you know, I can't. I really couldn't even believe you did that last summer. You were just like I'm out of here, I'm done, and it was like a split second decision that you made and you never looked back. You did trust yourself. They tried to get you to come stay. Can't you give notice? Come on. No, and you were like no, I'm out of here, like I.
Speaker 1:You know I value other things in my life so much more than I value this and you know when you do that, you have the ultimate success because you could sit there and you could have sat there and had the great medical benefits and a great paycheck and all these things. But at the end of the day, you didn't have your happiness, you didn't have the time to spend with the family, you didn't have the time to start, for example, writing your book and actually doing the things that you enjoy doing, because you were so busy, so many hours of every single day doing all this crap that everyone else was telling you that you had to do, yeah, so so what?
Speaker 2:I'm so what we're saying, and even to the, to the young man that lives here who very much wants to live his own life, then trust that you could start that life Well you've got to go live your own life somewhere else, because this is where I'm living my life and our lives don't really work together, right?
Speaker 2:And so if you and this is what I'm and this is the message to everyone If you are living in a lifestyle that is contrary to the rest of your family and it is making you unhappy, right, we're not telling you to do anything illegal or moral. Hey, I want to sell drugs and my family doesn't know. We're not saying that. But if you're gay, if you have a lifestyle that is alternative to your family, if you have different dreams or different aspirations than your family if you don't get along with your partner?
Speaker 2:if there's anything that you find is your truth, that you find is your truth. Trust yourself enough to get out of that situation that you are unhappy with, and trust your fate to yourself. Do not give up your command.
Speaker 1:Right, and remember when we saw Gabor Mate, the way he ended his talk in the city was basically figure out who the heck you are and, for God's sake, be who you are Right.
Speaker 2:Right, so I want to move on to our last topic, which is how can I build daily self-trust. What are? I coined something called the three A's, and I'd like Lindsay to take us through them.
Speaker 1:Well, first I'll say I think I touched on this briefly you just have to start actually making changes. And so by that I see your A's here awareness, right, that's the biggest trigger. For me is people who are not aware, which is me, but I work with my clients for them to identify what is their responsibility in the situation. And so when you start to become aware of how your own actions, your thoughts, your words, your behaviors are, you know, impacting the situation, then you can start to make the change.
Speaker 2:And then, once you do that, like I said earlier, you weed out what's not needed in your life, and I think that dovetails exactly into the next A, which is alignment, and so you have to be aligned with.
Speaker 1:Right. When you get rid of those things that don't work for you, that you don't like, that don't feed your soul, you're being a truer version of yourself, and a lot of what you do then is more aligned with who you are.
Speaker 2:Right which leads to action. Right which is title of my book, is Waiting for Way Jesus, which means that you don't are you or not. If you are waiting, it's because you're preparing for action no-transcript, right.
Speaker 1:So then you know what. Then you know, you have a starting point. Now you know what's not going to work for you.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right. And I've worked with someone recently that talked, that said, after a conversation with them, somebody that said so wait a minute, if I trust myself, then the only things that I should be looking for in life are the things that bring me joy, the things that bring me satisfaction and the things that bring me income. And I was like, wow, that's not what I said, but I'm glad that's what you took away, sir, because you're absolutely right. If you trust yourself, you won't need to. And if it's not the combination of the three, you know and I would add to married folks, you know, you know, you know, does it bring? Is it bringing joy to your relationship? If it ain't a combination of those things, then trust that, you don't need to do it Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't do anything that doesn't bring me joy, nothing, you know me, though.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do Intimately, but anyway. So, yeah, I don't know what you folks in the I don't know where your minds are going, but I'm talking about. I'm talking about intimately at the dinner table, because of the joy that you put into cooking your food. What are some everyday practices that people can put in a place to strengthen their trust in themselves?
Speaker 1:I think the first one is to actually just be quiet, watch what's going on around you. You know, see what happens within you, in your nervous system, in your body, in your mind, when things are going on around you.
Speaker 2:So really just kind of becoming aware of how you feel every single day. Be in the space, put your toes in the dirt, that's right, Just be, just sit.
Speaker 1:I say go home and visit yourself. That's what I say when I meditate. I have to go home and visit myself.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's nice. I like the way that put that. You know and visiting yourself goes back to what I thought you were going to say was your number one in trusting yourself is trusting your boundaries.
Speaker 1:I love boundaries.
Speaker 2:And how is setting boundaries aligned with trusting yourself?
Speaker 1:Because it's not. It's not putting up with things right, it's setting up your what are your non-negotiables and what works for you, and then from that you're able to see who can respect this and who doesn't.
Speaker 2:Right. In my book, one of the things I talk about is Zopa, and Zopa is the zone of possible agreement. Right? This is the zone that I can bang with you and I will go from the zero to 50. Anything outside of that 50, it's not in my zone of agreement. Anything beneath the zero is not in my zone of agreement, because I trust that this is what I want.
Speaker 1:I always say to people I adhere to a set of boundaries and standards in my personal and professional life and I expect to be treated a certain way. And it often works. It really does. There's very few people that toe the line with me. I think if they do, they know that they won't hear from me again. So cause you know, I actually have that really bad habit of getting rid of people with the quickness.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, you do, yes, you do, just not these pets, me, anybody else, but not the pets. How does celebrating small wins go to trusting yourself? If you don't know the answer to that one, I do, but I just mean you have to celebrate your victories right.
Speaker 1:You have to give yourself credit for what what you're doing and for the action that you're taking in your life.
Speaker 2:The crazy thing and I think it's because we've all been trained to respond to negative stimuli is you can have an equal number of good things and bad things happen in a day, and what do most people focus on?
Speaker 1:Oh, everybody focuses on the negatives, and especially that's something I bring up in relationships. If you're having trouble with your partner, okay, I understand that you don't like these things about him or about her, but oh, oops, I was trying to grab it. What if you actually stopped for a moment and thought about what are the qualities that you do like in that person, because there's a reason that you got together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when we look at some of the most, you know, materially, materialistically successful and not because I don't know anything about their personal lives they were all people who trusted themselves. Michael Jordan trusted himself. Bill Gates trusted themselves. Michael Jordan trusted himself. Bill Gates trusted himself. Donald Trump still trusts himself. Elon Musk trusts himself even more.
Speaker 2:Donald Trump and Elon Musk together. The media lies they were. That relationship was never going to last, but they trusted themselves because they didn't celebrate, they didn't get getting stuck on their losses. Right, right, none of these people got stuck. Michael Jordan never got stuck on how many baskets he missed. Donald Trump never got in, as much as the media tries to make him look like a buffoon. Well, he does a good job of that himself, but he never, he never was motivated by the amount of money that he lost. Elon has never been stopped by the amount of rockets that he's that have blown up or how many investments that he's lost. Right, bill gates did not, did not invest, did not get stuck on how many software products or whatever things they did that failed.
Speaker 1:They focused on what one right, right, right, and they did and they never gave up.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes and never giving up. So that means that not only do you celebrate the wins over over well, this is where I messed up and this is not. This is where I messed up, and it's not that you ignore the dumb stuff that you did. You learn from the dumb stuff that you did or the mistakes that you made but focus on how that mistake can get you to a win. Right, because if you only if you only trust that you're a screw up, then you will be a screw up, which means that you follow through on your commitments.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's a good place.
Speaker 2:I think that's a wrap up to wrap up the cats. Cat is trying to rest, but she's eyeing the dogs who absolutely are blissfully asleep, that's right, and we have to go see Dave and Lori tonight.
Speaker 2:Yes, and a little bit got to get ready. This was a good episode. We're going to folks. I'm going to do a backup of this episode. The next couple episodes. I'm going to do a backup for those that have been missing us. We are back and we're going to make sure that we record regularly. Once again, the name of my book is Waiting for White Jesus Reclaiming your Agency in a world that makes you wait. It is available out. It is on Amazon, exclusively for the next 90 days. The audio book is coming maybe one day, eventually. It depends on how the sales of this book do. If you are a fan of the show and you love Cleveland and Lindsay, please buy the book, because then Lindsay was like, well, anything you can do, I can do better, and Lindsay is now has a number of books that she is going to be working on.
Speaker 1:I'm probably never writing a book. You said that earlier, yeah but you and I said I could co-author.
Speaker 2:You and I are going to co-author a bunch of books.
Speaker 1:But you're not going to make me go talk to people.
Speaker 2:No, no, no no, no, no, I'll do that. I'll do that, but go out and find the book and, lindsay, I'm going to let you do the outro. So any closing words, or has this been?
Speaker 1:Another episode of the Devil? You Don't Know. We'll see you soon. Bye.
