The "I'm Ready Now!" Podcast
Ideas to help you when you're ready for change.
The "I'm Ready Now!" Podcast
EP 15: Rise Above with the Right Support System (Black Crabs--Be One And Die)
Ever felt like you’re stuck in a sea of mediocrity? Let’s tackle the “crab mentality” that often holds us back. Drawing inspiration from thought leader Dan Miller, we dive into strategies for overcoming this toxic mindset. Learn how surrounding yourself with the right people and cultivating self-leadership can lead to personal growth and success. Through real-life examples, discover the power of peer accountability and connecting your goals to a greater purpose. Together, we'll explore how to rise above negativity, pursue your dreams, and aim for excellence with confidence and purpose.
Welcome to the I'm Ready Now podcast ideas to help you when you're ready for change. I'm your host, isaac Sanchez, here. I share my musings on whatever it is I am reading at the moment, as well as any other ideas that I believe will help you break free from a standstill in your thinking in order to get you dreaming again. Thank you for joining me today. Well, I'm ready now. How about you? Excellent, so let's get started. Welcome back to the I'm Ready Now podcast. I'm your host, isaac Sanchez. Thank you for joining me. I'm excited, as always, to be together with you here. I look forward to this time. I hope you do too. And let's just jump right in as usual. Here are the reminders I like to share right at the top. First, there are those chapter markers on this podcast, so if you want to get straight to the content, use those markers to skip right ahead. No harm, no foul. I completely understand. Also, remember that in the description of this episode there's a link. You can tap that and text me, and you can leave feedback on the topics we're addressing as well. You can always email me at IsaacSanchez at Maccom. I look forward to hearing from you. So what's up in your world For me. I'm back on the throne. The drum throne that is the seat that the drummer sits on is called a throne, if you did not know. So I'm back on it.
Speaker 1:I've been playing drums since I was about 11 or 12 years old and I learned from my older brother, larry. He's been playing. He had been playing a few years before I had and I had really admired his playing growing up. I got to see him playing in large and small gatherings for church and, speaking of which, I had the great benefit, as I was growing up as a musician, of playing in a church. My dad pastored and they sang a variety of musical styles in the worship services, so that was some wonderful experience as a young musician Also. I did not know it at the time, but I had two major benefits growing up as a musician playing in church. One was I was playing a lot, at least bi-weekly, with a band. My most favorite professional drummer, a guy named Carlos Vega, is no longer with us, but he played for James Taylor, david Benoit, charisma Boss Gag, sarah Vaughan, trisha Yearwood, just to name only a few. I remember I had a chance to speak with him and he advised me to play with other musicians as often as possible and I realized, man, I've been doing that. You know the benefits of interacting with other musicians, your own musicianship as you react with other musicians. It's just something I didn't know was happening, just because I just love to play the drums, but that was one massive thing is that I was playing a lot with people.
Speaker 1:And the second is that I was playing in front of a live audience as a young musician several times a week. Again, because all the different things that were going on at church. You know there'd be these services. So I was there playing and so that helped a lot with preparation. You're going to be in front of people, so you want to get it right. It helped a lot with the calm, with having eyes on you, but learning how to just play through that kind of attention and just, you know, maintaining a good demeanor when you're up in front of people. So it was just. It's a huge benefit If you're growing up playing in church, man, you have a massive benefit just in those two. There are others, but those two for sure. So I've been playing for a while. It's really cool.
Speaker 1:I may have mentioned that I have a twin brother and we grew up playing the drums together after my brother, larry, who had been playing drums in my dad's church, moved on to lead the song service, lead worship, and so my brother and I took over the drum responsibilities and would switch off during service. Eventually he moved on to bass, so he got to do that and I stayed on the drums. So really cool growing up within the family, there, playing and learning from my brother and playing with my brothers. So it was cool. Music has been a part of my life since I was 11 to 12. However, in the past 18 to 24 months it's been very sporadic for me musically because of these incredible life changes I refer to frequently.
Speaker 1:So I stopped playing in churches because I could not find the time to rehearse or volunteer when my wife and I were preparing to get married and when we did marry. My two-hour commute made it extra impossible, with me getting up crazy early in the morning and getting home late. I just didn't have the time. When I say yes to a job at a church in particular, there's a time commitment that includes my personal prep time, getting the music ready, then the rehearsal time. Sometimes that happens during the week, and then there's the weekend time. I give up to the job itself. That could be six to seven hours on a Sunday typically, so it's a lot. But now that we're back in Orange County I'm beginning to be able to say yes to some opportunities.
Speaker 1:Well, this past weekend that happened. A church that I had worked for before began reaching out to me again. However, as much as I wanted to, I could not accept those initial job calls that he made to me because my wife and I were just busy with other matters. But this past week my friend Alex from this church reached out again and I happened to be free. So my wife and I made time to make this happen. She dropped me off at 6.35 in the morning on Sunday for a 7 o'clock soundcheck rehearsal and after a pair of services we were driving home by 12.30 in the afternoon. So she dropped me off for that morning soundcheck and left coming back for the second service because she didn't need to be there for those other couple of hours. So I took some video and we'll edit that and begin posting that on my YouTube channel and maybe some other social media, if that kind of thing interests you at all. So music continues to be good to me, so I'm glad it's wrapping up again out here in Orange County. Okay, well, let's get into today's talk.
Speaker 1:Dan Miller, in his book that we're going through the Rudder of the Day, encourages us not to be crabby. I say that with quotation marks, so let's find out what he means Don't be crabby. So that's how I tease this a little bit. Last time we were together, well, I played with Dan's title just a bit Black crabs don't be one and die.
Speaker 1:He shared a story in Robert Kiyosaki's book a well-known book, rich Dad, poor Dad about the characteristics of Hawaiian black crabs once they have been collected in a bucket. It's called a crab in a bucket mentality, and it's when a crab attempts to escape, another will bring it down. And so I read up on this a little bit more, and sure enough, it's fascinating to see this described or hear it described. And it's interesting to me, though, because you see some animals watch others making attempts on how to do something successfully jump a fence, avoid a puddle, etc. But not these crabs. You know, these other animals watch to see what they should do to help to be successful, so they'll watch the others, but these crabs actively pull the other down, so they have a short survival in the bucket. Let me read this to you that I read about these Hawaiian black crabs. It says, like most crabs, they can survive in a bucket for a short period of time by keeping their gills moist through a process called water breathing, where they use the water trapped in their gill chambers. But they need to be returned to the ocean quickly, as they cannot survive indefinitely out of their natural environment. So, knowing that you know they can die, instead of helping each other out when one of them's trying to escape, the others just simply pull it back down.
Speaker 1:So Dan starts with that story and then he moves into kind of asking like who are the crabs in your life and in my life? These can be people that are ridiculing our ideas, eager to push us down to their level of performance. Um, dan says, to quote him, people who feel trapped and are struggling at a low level of success are seldom the ones who will cheer you on to a new endeavor. Dan Miller says so I see this in the classroom sometimes with students who are in a group with other low performers. They'll set the standard for mediocrity and low achievement. You know their capital is in a certain look or a contrarian behavior, and so there's a pressure to keep that up, because that's what they're known for.
Speaker 1:Some of these kids break out of this over their high school career. For example, there was a young girl who came to see me to let me know that she made the change. She did not do well at all her freshman year with me, but she woke up to the nonsense and made up those missing credits. It was a lot of work for her and a lot of time, but with her new standard for herself, she had to do it and she made it happen. I love that she came to share that with me. Another student former student just shared with me last week that she's in an AP English class advanced placement and after failing my class last semester. She said this with a smile and a giggle. She finally took herself seriously and she was so excited to share with me because she knew just how much I was trying to convince her and others like her that they were capable of more. You know last year when they were in my class. Another example another young man shared with me that he is passing his classes now and that was a massive turnaround for him.
Speaker 1:So it's great to have these brief conversations, one-on-one with students who are eager to share that. You know they beat that. They decided to do more for themselves and not continue on with the mediocrity that was just kind of making things very, very bad for them. So, you know, this pressure to conform by others keeps them from escaping. There's that crab mentality. So the question then becomes you know, how can we move away from that conformity that too many times breeds mediocrities, just like these young people, and we see it in ourselves, we see it in adults. How do we move away from that? Because it does continue to breed mediocrity. Dan says you know, have that crab mentality and you die metaphorically I imagine it could be literally at some point, but he's talking metaphorically that if you keep that, you die to the person you could be because you're stuck and tearing down other people.
Speaker 1:So I went out looking. I found this wonderful article online by someone named Joseph Grenny, and the article is titled what to Do About Mediocrity on your Team. Now, this article was written more with the mind of leadership and how leaders can deal with the folks on their team that are not doing the level of work that they should be doing. But I loved it because, as I read it through, I just realized we're our own leaders, we lead ourselves, and so how does this work for us? So let me go through this. He talks about four leadership practices, and each one is kind of like a prerequisite for the next one. So let's apply this to ourselves as self-leadership.
Speaker 1:The first one that he says is show the consequences of mediocrity. Show the consequences of mediocrity. Okay, show the consequences of mediocrity. So how does that work? Well, ensure clarity between what you need to do and why you're doing it. Become very clear on those two things what needs to happen and why am I doing that? I love this advice because you start to begin to see okay, why does something matter? And there's this explanation in this article that says mediocrity lives in the gap between those two. Okay, so be clear about the consequences of your mediocrity. When you don't know what you need to do and you don't know why you're doing this man mediocrity. When you don't know what you need to do and you don't know why you're doing this man, mediocrity jumps right in, right there. I really love this advice.
Speaker 1:The second thing he says in this article is use concrete measures as influence. So measuring success is always beneficial. So let me read this quote. It says meaningful measures make poor performance painfully apparent. So goals that are connected to purpose will help us understand why excellence matters. So, whatever it is that you and I challenge ourselves to do, when we connect that to a purpose, a why, then we understand. That's why this needs to be done, well or with excellence, okay. So we connect our goal to our purpose and then we start to see okay, now I see why I have to step up my game here. And then next is it says the third element here is establish peer accountability. Now, remember this is for a business environment, so the leadership is helping the folks under them use peer accountability, but we're going to do that for ourselves. How does that look for us?
Speaker 1:First, they point out three things in this article. No, accountability equals weak teams. Accountability only to the bosses gets you mediocre teams. But peer-to-peer accountability is when high performance results in your teams. So here's a little bit of how they explain that. So everyone can challenge anyone in the spirit of the best interest of the mission. That's what's critical in that peer-to-peer accountability you put yourself in a situation where you're open to the challenge of your peers. Okay. So for us, who can we bring on board to hold us accountable? Look around you in your mind's eye and think, yeah, who could I go speak to and tell them what you're working on, what your challenge for yourself is, and to hold you accountable? I'd rather be held accountable by a peer and given the chance to do and be better before the issue becomes broader in terms of larger consequences. So, in other words, let's fix the problem while it's small, and that would be the advice that they're giving here.
Speaker 1:I remember having to deal with this years ago at work, where students were starting to come to me about a colleague who just wasn't kind of mailing it in, wasn't doing, you know, working at a level that they should be, and these were kids that were trying to learn English. And you know, it was actually pretty fascinating that these kids, this teacher, was just kind of showing movies in the class most times and you can imagine kids like yay, movie day, all that kind of thing, just a day off from work. But after a while they got tired of it and they wanted to learn. It was quite fascinating. So a colleague and I kind of talked about what the kids were saying and realized yeah, we don't want to bring this up to administration yet, let's deal with it on our level here. Give our colleague a chance to kind of figure things out and then go from there. Now, if after that they don't make the change and the complaints continue to happen, there was actually responsibility from us in leadership I was in charge of a department to then move that up to the next level, because you know the way it works. If admin finds out and then they find out that I knew and I didn't do anything to help out my colleague or let it be known to admin what was happening so they can deal with it, then the heat's on me. So there's a whole kind of hierarchy of that. But the notion here is peer-to-peer accountability. Right, let's keep it right there and let's help each other stretch accountability. Right, let's keep it right there and let's help each other stretch. So who can you find that can help you in the area that you're growing? Okay, and let's deal with this problem at that level.
Speaker 1:And the fourth and final one that they mentioned here is to speak up. I love this one too. Quote from the article high performance is a norm that needs to be defended regularly and vigilantly. Again, high performance is a norm that needs to be defended regularly and vigilantly. Right Guard that, guard that standard. And they say here you're going to be tested on this. Circumstances will come up where you can show that you are just going along to get along and that would look good. So remember, others are watching, that's their point. So when something comes up and you're the one that needs to challenge the situation, step up, step up. So it's imperative to step up and show that you are the defender of high performance outcomes for yourself and that you encourage it in others.
Speaker 1:Okay, so for us, that's this idea of yes, know, when it's time for you, jump on yourself and say listen, I need to take care of this, because this does not look good for myself. I'm trying to grow in these areas. I have accountability here and I need to make sure that this happens. I need to keep the standard that I set for myself, and that's where you have someone else. Hold you accountable to these things. They can speak up too. You give them permission to tell you yeah, you've missed the mark pretty by a lot this time and we need to step in and find out how can we fix this based on the goals that you are trying to reach out for yourself, okay, so speak out and make sure that that high performance that stays the norm, all right. So let's avoid those crabby people, the naysayers, the mediocrity around us, but let's avoid being crabby ourselves, okay, all right. Well, let's move into application for this. Again. Let's make this useful by creating some application here.
Speaker 1:Sometimes that means considering our experiences or our station in life. So grab your writing tools, digital or otherwise, and let's apply what Dan Miller's wisdom is for today who are the black crabs in your life and how can you avoid them or move on? And as you think about that, just remember this can get really dicey here because, unfortunately, in some cases, these can be people that are close to us. They could be family, these can be people that are close to us, they could be family, they could be friends, but we know that they just they have this kind of personality type that just kind of drags you down and when you try to aspire to something, just they're not there to encourage you. They're instead there to bring you down, and so we can't always avoid those people 100% of the time, but we can make sure that we set our boundaries with them in terms of how we interact with them, because we can't afford to have that kind of negative energy, negativity around us, affecting our attitude and what we're aspiring to do.
Speaker 1:So who are the black crabs in your life? How can you avoid them or name them? If you have to code name these people, in case someone looks in your journal, do that. Give them code names, but do something so that you know what you're talking about and you don't hurt anybody's feelings. People shouldn't be digging into your stuff, but you get the point I'd like to add to this.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to ask that you journal about a time when you made the successful jump from the bucket. Think about a time where you realize I have to move myself either out of this social environment, but you got out of the bucket, you know. So you know, as I mentioned as a side note many times, a change of environment geographical or social is the key to our successful escape from the bucket of mediocrity. So that's the second thing I'd like you to think about Journal about a time when you made the successful jump from the bucket. Successful jump from the bucket, remember.
Speaker 1:It's always important to look at when we have done something solid in the past, because sometimes we're going to end up in situations where we just don't think we have what it takes to make a move. And you got to be able to go back in your history and say you know what? No, no, no, no. I absolutely incapable of this difficult change right now, or this difficult move right now, because look what I did in the past. So you got to prop yourself up and look for that stuff. Okay, all right, so that's our application. So don't be a crab.
Speaker 1:That doesn't end very well, does it All right? What's on for next week? How about this Vocation, career and job? Three Ps in a pod. Dan Miller does not give that a nod. See what I did there. Well, let's you and I give it a nod next week when Dan begins to sort this out for us. It's consequential, so I hope you'll join me next week when Dan begins to sort this out for us. It's consequential, so I hope you'll join me next week. I look forward to learning with you.
Speaker 1:Okay, let me send you away with a quote here it is If you want to achieve greatness, stop asking for permission. And that's from unknown. Now, I like that. Maybe that's going to be my first tattoo. We'll see. All right, that's it. That's the quote. Think about it, act on it. Have an amazing week, friends, and thanks for hanging out again. Let's do this again next week. Thank you for listening. If you found this time together useful, please consider following this podcast and leaving an excellent rating. Thank you, as well as what you'd like to hear me address in the future. I would really appreciate that input. Again, I'm your host, isaac Sanchez. I hope today's thought serves you the way it has served me. Remember your next move is just one inside away. Have an amazing rest of your day. I'll see you next time. Stop falling. Can't stop falling now.