Stability Over Spectacle: The Power of Okay

Have you ever aspired to be "okay"? Perhaps that's what you've been missing all along. In this episode, Justin explores the often-overlooked wisdom of embracing okayness. Rather than rushing from hardship to euphoric highs, Justin makes a compelling case for stabilizing in a state of "okay" as the essential bridge to a sustainably joyful life.

Episode Highlights:

• Why craving constant greatness can lead to burnout
• The emotional relief of stepping into neutrality
• How "being okay" acts as a ladder out of chaos
• The power of vision and incremental improvement
• How accepting your okayness can enhance your view of the world

This episode is a must-listen if you’ve ever felt trapped in the pendulum swing between suffering and perfection.

Watch the full video episode at Justin Wenck, Ph.D. YouTube Channel!

Check out my best-selling book "Engineered to Love: Going Beyond Success to Fulfillment" also available on Audiobook on all streaming platforms! Go to https://www.engineeredtolove.com/ to learn more!

Got a question or comment about the show? E-mail me at podcast@justinwenck.com.

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Transcript

Justin Wenck: 0:00

Don't you think there needs to be something in between, something that bridges the gap between that life that seems so rotten and that that seems so sought after, and that life is that step that's the okay step, that's being okay, and it's okay to be okay. You're gonna be the captain of your ship. You're gonna be the one in the driver's seat, which is what I want for you. So I want you to be okay with being okay, okay, and once you're okay with being okay, you can then go for all these other amazing things. Are you ready to live a life with enough time, money and energy have relationships and connections that delight you? Are? You ready for the extraordinary life you know you've been missing? If so, then this is the place for you. I'm a best selling author, coach, consultant and speaker who's worked in technology for over two decades. I'm a leader at transforming people and organizations from operating in fear, obligation and guilt to running off joy, ease and love. It's time for engineering emotions and energy with me. Justin Wenck, PhD today, I'm talking about it's okay to be okay, period, end of story. Why am I saying that? Why am I going to do a whole show on saying it's okay to be okay? Because chances are, if you're a longtime listener to this show, first off, thank you so happy. Hope you've already liked and subscribed. If you're new to the show, then also welcome and you probably have something in common with those that are longtime listeners, and that's that you want to be living the best, most amazing life possible. And chances are, if you're wanting that, you might currently have a life, or have been having an experience of having a life that, for the most part, has been filled with maybe some less than amazing stuff. Maybe some aspects of life that have been downright awful, horrible, no good. Other things that suck, are crappy, are no good, or no bueno, or maybe make you just go, womp. Womp, whatever it is, I can relate with you, if you've, you know, heard from, heard of the book that you know, engineered to love. Heard my story I've talked about, you know, my family, my growing up, you know, my relationships, my challenges, all these kinds of things in previous episodes and other places. And we're not going to go into that yet. We're also not going to be going to the other end, where I think many of us like to go, which is, how do I get from all of this garbage, awful, horrible aspects of life to an incredible, most amazing, delightful life? And there's a reason why we want to get to that. I mean, one who doesn't want to have just the most phenomenal life that they have ever had. I am sure there are some people out there I do not know if I am going to be able to relate to someone who has zero interest, just like no yet we forget that a journey is made up of steps, and often we just want to go from the start to the finish instantaneously. It's a big part of our culture. It's a big part of what we've been habitualized to demand from fast food to microwave ovens and hula hoops and the Pac Man and get off my lawn. Not trying to be like an old grandpa, but I'm trying to show I'm trying to get across that we want what we want. We want it now. Otherwise, why even bother wanting it? And I think a lot of us, sometimes, I know me especially, have gotten into the like I'm not even going to want it. So I'm not saying don't want it. It's want it yet. Let's appreciate the steps it takes to get what we want, right? So let's take anything that you might want, like, maybe you've never played the piano and you want to be a decent piano player, it's going to be really, really fucking hard to play the piano if you never even buy a piano, and also, if you never even try to do a lesson on the piano. So what is this expectation of going from a life filled with challenge, of heartache, of anxiety, depression, whatever it is that you're like, oh my gosh, can't it get better than this, going straight from that to the most amazing, spectacular, phenomenal life that others are going to want to emulate and write stories about till the end of time. Don't you think there needs to be something in between, something that bridges the gap between that life that seems so rotten and that that seems so sought after, and that life is

Unknown: 4:52

that step that's the okay step that's being okay,

Justin Wenck: 4:58

and it's okay to be okay. You. I used to work with this, you know, great, great personal development coach, Michael burnoff. He's kind of a Tony Robbins type, great guy. I enjoy him much more than Tony Robbins, which is why I worked with him for many, many years. And he often said, okay is okay until it's not okay, then you know it's time to get okay again. And I took that originally as this, like, oh my gosh, I'm not okay with being okay. I want to I want to be better than okay. I want to be amazing. I want to be incredible. I want to be fantastic, all these other superlative things. And I've recently really started to embrace that okay is okay, and to just be okay can be a great step to really stabilize and be okay with because I started to recognize this pattern of I'd want to just have the most amazing, phenomenal time, especially when I'd go on my my adventures, which starting to release these adventure videos called Adventure Time on YouTube. So if you go to Justin Wenck PhD on my YouTube channel, you're going to find a playlist called Adventure Time, and it's already got one where went to Carmel by the sea and Esalen down in down here in Southern California. It's not Southern California, but it's in California. It's just south of me. And recently loaded one up. That's me of skiing in South Lake Tahoe in the spring, and got one for Guatemala coming up very soon. So definitely you want to check that out. And I've always wanted these trips to just be, oh, incredible, phenomenal, where I just have, like, these peak experiences that are incredible. And often I would, but then I would also have such heartache, maybe when things didn't go as well as I wanted, or, like, I'd get home and be like, kind of like, let down the come down and like, just like, Ah, now I'm back to my regular life. And what's regular life? It's not as good as I want it to be. And for the my most recent trip, which was a road trip up to Oregon to go to a Tantra festival, my goal was for it to be okay. I just wanted to be okay. Nothing that incredible, but nothing too horrible, just okay. And you know what? It was okay, and it was pretty damn enjoyable, because okay is okay, and it's better than bad, and in fact, it's good. So what is this like? This okayness, I liken it to. Here's how I think it's best to be like, is maybe most of the life when you know there's an expression of like, oh, just treading water. That's when life is just a struggle. Feels like you're going to drown. It's taken a lot of effort just to keep your head above water. And you're there in the water, and you look up and what do you see? You see an amazing water slide. It's like, oh, this thing looks so fucking fun. I bet it's gonna be. Would be great to get up there slide on down and enjoy this. Like, oh my gosh, this is so good. And so what is what is it that most of us have been trying to do? It's basically trying to get up to the top of that water slide, not by getting out of the fucking water and taking the stairs up. It's by trying to go back up the slide backwards. It's a lot of effort, and yeah, maybe you get a good run, but you don't have your footing. You can't enjoy the top. You don't even get to the top, and you slide back right down, and you're drowning, and you got to get yourself up and then get your back to treading water once again. So that's what it's like when you want to skip from you want to skip the step of being okay. Being okay is it's, it's taken the ladder to get up onto dry land and letting that become the new baseline, and just like, oh yeah, I could, I could. I could be here a long time. And if I want to go in the water, I can but it's so easy to get out. And then if I want to go up to that, that top, that peak of that water slide, I can climb up the stairs, and it can be sustainable and enjoyable. And I I can choose. I can choose to go down and ride that ride, and I'm the one that's choosing, how, when, what you know, some surprises might happen. Of course, that's just how life is yet, compared to, oh my gosh, I got to get out of here by going up the slide. It's backwards, and most of us have been living life backwards. And that's why I'm here to tell you that okay is okay. Live an okay life, and again, once you're sustained and stabilized that okayness, that's when it's time to go. For Oh, incredible, for better, for phenomenal, for amazing, for Oh, my goodness, this is better than I'd even imagined. Yet savor the steps you don't have to go from one extreme to another, because when you can. Have that stability, I'm going to tell you that it starts to be really enjoyable. And then even when things are quiet, it's enjoyable. And then when you're having the incredible experiences, it's enjoyable. And it's not going to be a big ping pong from one extreme to another, or it might, but your emotionality is going to not be as back and forth, because you're going to have that sort of neutrality. You'll be able to take that and, yes, enjoy things yet you're, you're not going to be trying to hold on to it so tight, because, you know, hey, no matter what, I'm going to end up okay. And then when life does, basically bring something really challenging, really heart wrenching to you, and maybe slam you under the water again, you're not going to be like, Oh my gosh, this is the worst thing ever, because, you know, it's so easy to just get back out of that water and be okay with being okay. And you're going to be the captain of your ship, you're going to be the one in the driver's seat, which is what I want for you. So I want you to be okay with being okay, okay. And once you're okay with being okay, you can then go for all these other amazing things. Just recognize it as an amazing step in a journey that will get you to that book that is written the way you want it to be written, and it's going to be a story that people are going to want to tell year after year, decade after decade, maybe for a whole lifetime, or many lifetimes. It's the life I want for you, it's the life I want for me, and I want to have amazing experiences for all of us in this great, amazing world. And thing is, once you start working this with yourself, you can expand this to how you view your greater world. Because often it's like, we want the world to be amazing, incredible. We want everybody to be doing great yet. What if it was okay? If the world's Justin okay? Because I think if we zoom out and stop focusing on how horrible things are and wanting there to be never anything horrible ever again, then some of these big, global, political things that are going on and all this stuff, we go like, yeah, there's some stuff that, yeah, that sucks. I can that can use some work yet. There's also some really amazing things going on. There's some people doing some great things in the world. And I guess overall, the world is okay, and it's okay that the world is Okay, and let's let the world be okay. And maybe the news, it's always telling us the world's not okay. Maybe I don't have to buy into that, or the social media and all these people complaining and just want to say how awful this group is, or that group is, or how they're the victim, or how they're so much better, all that stuff. Maybe that's just a bunch of nonsense, a bunch of bullshit just meant to get you out of your sense of being okay. What if you were able to just ignore that and just own that, the world's okay right now and I'm okay, my world's Okay, and that's okay, and let's own that, enjoy that for a bit. I don't know how that long that's gonna be, but let's allow that to be the baseline of life and our world for a bit, and then let's see from there, what are some steps that we can take. What's the vision? Right? Because that's one of the things that I've really noticed, is that there's not a vision. Nobody has a vision. They have complaints. They have complaints about how this person's bad, this group is awful. They need to not exist. They need to be destroyed. And depending on where you're coming from, I'm sure you there's a group that's coming to mind, yet there's going to be somebody else, and they're going to be thinking of you. So should you go away? Should they go away? None of us should go away. We're all valuable parts of this great, amazing experience. I liken it to a circle. A circle is one unified piece of geometry. Yet, what is a circle made of? It's made of distinct points. They're all an equal radius from the center of the circle, yet they're part of the circle. Yet they're also distinct individual points. If any one point attempted to go and be anything else or to get rid of another point on the circle, it wouldn't be a circle anymore. So simple, elegant, beautiful, mathematics, geometry shows us that there can be uniqueness and also part of a single, unifying oneness, a wholeness, and that is what our human experience really is all about. So when you can allow yourself. Be unique and being part of one whole that is the whole of humanity. And there's no need to try to change each other or harm each other. Again, it's very important that we don't harm each other. Will mistakes you made, yeah, they're going to be made because we're a little bit more complex than just points on a circle, and if that's the vision that we can have for how we interact with each other, for our world, and start to come up with other cool visions of how we would like energy to be, how we'd like health care to be, how we would like our economic system to be, right? I would like food to be and then we can be like, Oh, okay, things are okay now, and they could be even better. And then when there's these little problems, go, huh? Okay, we don't have to get too hung up on that. Let's address it, and it's addressed in a way that gets us to go in this direction that's going to be even better than okay. Yet we know we can get to okay because we've experienced it. We know it, and we embody okay. So with that, I want you to be okay, and I want you to see the world is okay, and note that this can be a great place to rest in, as long as you want own it. It's yours, and you can then make it even better. So with that, I want to thank you and wish you a good day. Thanks for tuning in to engineering emotions and energy with Justin Wenck PhD. Today's episode resonated with you. Please subscribe and leave a five star review. Your feedback not only supports the show, but also helps others find us and start their journey of emotional and energetic mastery. You can also help by sharing this podcast with someone you think will love it just as much as you do. Together, we're engineering more amazing lives you.