Who Owns Your Authority?

Welcome to The Art of Accomplishment, where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease. My name is Brett Kistler, and I'm here with my co-host Joe Hudson. Ah, good morning.

Good morning, Brett. How are you doing?

Yeah, doing well. I, I just got back from a, from an experience that I found very fascinating. There was a— I want to kind of keep the details sort of general here, but there was sort of a personal development, like, event that I went to, a retreat that I found very fascinating. And I really loved a lot of what was being taught. And there was also some aspect of it, some component that just sort of rubbed me the wrong way. And in this particular case, the flavor of it was, you know, these these teachings are, you know, this— these are the ways that we can free ourselves, and the world needs this. The world needs us to free ourselves from our constraints so that we can heal the world by healing ourselves. But there was a little bit of like pressure in it, and I sat with that through the entire retreat. Yeah, with this juxtaposition of there's so much goodness here.

Yeah.

And also there's this feeling of pressure. Yeah. And I could feel it in the people around me, like, buying it, like, yes, this is needed, right? Uh, and it just— yeah, it brought up this topic for me of, you know, there's, there's so much out there that people can explore on, whether it's a spiritual path or meditation practice, or whether it's a self-development workshop or some psychadelic facilitator they might sit with, or, or simply just a meditation app, or a church, or an AA group. You know, there's, there's so much out there. And that was one particular example of something that I see common in, in many of them. And I just wanted to sort of have a conversation about what are some of the, the signs of where a teacher or a path or a practice, where there might be something you want to look into here. I don't even want to use the word red flag, but yeah, just what are some of the dynamics that can occur?

I, I would say that there is like some red flags and there is some also humanity, and I, I think those get confused often. And they— so to be specific, there is no such thing as a perfect path. And, and if you believe it, then it's like a religion, it's like a faith, right? Because all path comes from human consciousness, and there is no such thing as a perfect human consciousness. In fact, I would say one of the, one of the signs that, that like there's a little bit of wonkiness in a path is like the idea that there's some perfection that can be reached and then you're done. I think that is part of, part of like what, what could be wonky. And so there, no, there is no such thing as like the perfect teacher or the perfect path or anything like that. I And at the same time, there's like some absolutely dangerous ones. And, and what's even weirder than that is that oftentimes the folks that I know who like end up in some of these dangerous, dangerous paths, often that's what they needed. Like, it's, you know, it's where they— it's like what they fell for, and therefore it's the hole in the consciousness that they need to look at. I mean, hopefully nobody needs to be, you know, branded or brainwashed or any of those things, or You know, I think there's been cases of people neutering themselves or like whatever, killing themselves, you know, like Jim Jones or whatever. So you don't, there's obviously some red flags there, but there's also, and there's also a process in that too, just to say that I have seen, you know, paths and teachers go from pretty healthy to pretty wonky. And I've actually seen once, uh, one go from a little wonky to more and more healthy, which has been was a fascinating journey to see. Um, so yeah, I think it's a really good discussion, and I think I would frame it as what to look for when you're trying to figure out how healthy a path is. The, the— but the other piece is that there, everybody comes with that kind of skepticism of the path, and oftentimes people don't get the most they can out of a practice because they're finding the faults in, in the system or the teacher. And, and, and finding the faults are important. So it's kind of this weird thing. It's like, how do you actually absorb everything and then discern instead of, I'm not going to absorb it because of discernment. It's a, it is a tricky balance and I don't, there's no perfect way to do it.

Yeah. That's, that's where I had some hesitance to use the word red flags. Cause once someone's looking for red flags, you'll find them everywhere. And especially if you're stepping into a process that is really powerful, it will bring you into resistance. And the one of the first ways many people's resistance will show up is in criticizing, finding all the ways it's wrong, putting yourself above it, separating yourself from it, separating yourself from the group. And those are beautiful ways to block the process so that you're, you know, those are also beautiful ways to make a teacher go nuts.

But let's talk about that. Let's first talk about, let's first just talk about you know, what to look for. And then let's talk about how the interaction between the group, the student, and the teacher all can like downward spiral or upward spiral, you know.

Yeah.

And how that can happen. Cool. So, I mean, what—

here's—

I mean, let— how about you go through the things that you, you see as, as red flags or as like, I don't know.

Yeah.

The way that you would judge how functional a path or or, uh, teaching is.

Yeah, yeah. In general, the first, the first thing that comes up is certainty. If it's being taught with certainty, I mean, there can be, there can be conviction and belief in the power of the practice, and if that's not held with wonder for its own blind spots, with space for space for resistance or dissent to arise. And also there's discernment in how much of that you allow to arise as a facilitator in a container. So there's a bit of a balancing act there and there's also recognizing where that is rebellion and that is actually just trying to break the container and how to hold that in a— So there's that balancing act. And that's one of the things that I would see is Just in general, if somebody is speaking to me with absolute certainty, or if I catch myself speaking with absolute certainty, there's a sign that there's something that I'm not willing to experience, probably some form of helplessness or not knowing. I, I would say— if they're a teacher, then I'm curious about that.

Yeah, I would say it's— I think often talking with certainty is a really important part of teaching, or people don't want to listen. For me, it's identification. The way I would describe it is identification. If the person is identified with their teaching, they think their teaching is the right way, that they're not— you know, I, I speak with certainty, and at the same time someone's like, you're full of shit. I'm like, yeah, absolutely. You know, like the other day I was with the CEO, for instance, and they were like, you made this shit up. And I'm like, yeah, just like you made up your company. We— that's what we're doing, we're just making shit up. That's how this works. So, uh, So like to be able to be in that space, to be non-identified with the teaching or the way, um, yeah, yeah. But, and, and there is— you're right about certainty and the fact that even though someone speaks with certainty, it doesn't mean that they will defend their teaching, or, you know, it's like a defensiveness that crops up, right? It's definitely a red flag.

Yeah.

What, what else do you see? What, uh, what are the other ways that you—

yeah, another, another one would be On one side of the coin, it's like a gatekeeping of authority, and on the other side of the coin, it's not continuously referring back to the authority within the student or within the guest or participant or any individual or any co-facilitator. And so a lot of the ways that that might show up is like, you know, this is a thousands-year-old tradition and my teacher, bestowed this upon me, and I'm, you know, reluctant to do it. Even like, if you want to be a teacher, you shouldn't be a teacher. It's only if you're like dragged into it. That's sort of a separate— that's a separate point there. But, um, but yeah, and this, this is another one where it's an interesting paradox, where if you have a tradition, it's really powerful, and you let anybody come in and do one workshop and then go teach it themselves, you're going to dilute what it is that you're doing. And powerful parts of it.

I would argue unethical. It's unethical to give like a sword to an infant.

Yeah, right. Because the powerful components of it will then get adopted by an inexperienced teacher's neurosis and they'll use it to control or create the situation that recreates the trauma that they're currently playing out. So yeah, again, it's another one of those paradoxes. It's like we go to a facilitator or a teacher or a coach because we expect that they have something to offer us that, yeah, if we have it in us, it feels obscured and we're looking for help with that. And there are many times where people are just really happy to be like in that position and say, yeah, it's— I'm connected to the spirits and they say this about what you should do. And then things get wonky from there.

Yeah, I would say that the way I speak to this one is delegation of authority, meaning if the people are delegating their authority to a teacher or the teacher is assuming authority over students, and that usually can look like very strong hierarchy or gatekeepers to, you know, like some levels of power that move up, that, that's usually a good sign of it. Um, but the— if the teacher isn't directly occasionally saying, hey, the truth is in you, it's not in me, it's a very important— that's a really important sign that the— that there's something else going on besides, you know, uh, uh, like, I would say there's more dysfunction in that situation Why, like, whatever would make a teacher want to have the authority over other people or that kind of a thing. And it doesn't mean that they might not know stuff that you don't know, but the one thing for sure is that you know what you should do next better than anybody, not better than any teacher. Teacher might be able to point out patterns and stuff like that, but your journey is yours and you're the authority of it. And that's, that's critical if a path isn't pointing there.

Yeah. And it might even be that eventually you reach the same conclusions, correct, that you are currently resisting. But the process of your resistance is actually where you're going to find what actually is true for you and not just take it for granted and then adopt a belief system that suppresses some aspect of your reality that, if fully felt, would ultimately perhaps results in having agreement with your, with this person.

Yeah, there's some others in there that are pretty, they're a little bit more direct. There's like, one of the things you just mentioned was, we have to save the world. That's a pretty big, that's a pretty big flag. Only we can do it. That's a pretty big flag. There's an us and them component of it. You know, we have to save the world from billionaires. We have to save the world from close-minded people. We have to save the world from climate change. Um, there's like that kind of, um, urgency and anxiety behind the spiritual tradition also shows some level of, of dysfunction. Um, there's also things like I've seen, like, this is true, I like one male teacher only teaching females and telling the females not to, uh not to talk to their husbands or boyfriends about what happens in the room. That's like, those are—

Framed control.

Secrecy, non-transparency. There's some transparency that you can't go all transparent, meaning let's say you have a week-long retreat, you don't want everybody telling everybody what's in that week-long retreat because then you destroy the, you know, things for other people. And there are certain practices that are really hardcore practices and you don't want people out there just throwing them around because people can get hurt, other folks can get hurt. And this is the hardest thing for me to actually go through. We ask just for people to ask permission from us to use our work. And that way, it gives us a chance to be in a communication with them and see if they're ready, how dangerous it's going to be, and give them a path to be able to share the work. But we ask that, but that's one of the hardest things we found to, because on one level you want full transparency and another level you have an obligation both to the work and to the people who touch it. And so that's, that's another one that's, that's because some of them are like very serious. Like you hit this level and then you get this door opened and then you hit this level and then you get this door opened and then people on level 7 are better than people on level 5. And that, that, that's really, that's a pretty big sign that there's some dysfunction going on.

Yeah, and that's just another example there is if you have one person who is supposedly at a certain level and then they are the ones because of that that are capable of seeing what level others are at and they're like the sole decision maker as to where— and this is difficult because what else is like a CEO or— Right. You know, there's just a lot of, a lot of ways that this paradox comes up in life, not just in, in a personal development practice. Yes. Another one is sort of the— I don't know, this shows up often as feigned reluctance of being in the role. You know, somebody who says, I just have to do this. It's not my choice. The world needs me to do this. And, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for the fact that it just is required of me.

So there's, there's a weirdness there because that's actually to some degree my experience, right? Not— I don't feel like I have to do it by any stretch, and I don't feel like the world is asking me to do it. But there is an experience of choicelessness in it. There is an experience of like, this is my calling and I'm— and I, and I, and there was, and there was indeed a reluctance to it. At the same time, me being reluctant created a lot of dysfunction. So, so like, me actually— I remember earlier on there was this learning that I had which was like, I, I was like, I don't have power here. I don't have any power because I'm constantly pointing to everybody else to be their own authority. And, and in that I created quite a bit of dysfunction and I had to learn, oh no, Power is when people think you have power. That's all power is. And so I have it because people think I have it. And to be able to own that and to walk in that space instead of deny it, uh, was really important. I would create a lot of dysfunction by not doing that. So on some level, I, I can definitely feel the— like, I'm pushed into this situation, is there's a feeling of being— or pulled into this situation. There's a choicelessness in it. And there's also like, and there's a choice that you made and you, it's an ownership of that and you have to be functional about it. So it's, there's a bit of a bounce there, but I understand what you're pointing to for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a, there's sort of an expansiveness or a contraction around it. And correct. When I, when I notice myself feel, feel a contraction, also others, other people in the group will feel a contraction, is when I feel the teacher contracted. Or the teacher, the facilitator, or whatever word we're using here. Yeah. If they feel some form of threat around what happens if they don't do this because the world will X or, you know, it's needed.

Yeah.

If there's some self-importance in it that's not being owned. If it's being owned, if it's like, I love feeling important and also I don't need you to see me as important. And I feel like this stuff is really important, but I'm not taking it so seriously as to believe that I know what's best for others and the world and what the world needs. Like, there's the arrogance in that of— or just, it's a really— the world is suffering and it needs to stop suffering, and I'm qualified to determine that. And therefore, we who have this secret knowledge are the ones, right, who are, who are needed. Somewhere in there, there's that constriction where I just feel myself close down and I can feel the constriction in the group. There's fear in it. It's, ooh, the world is dangerous and we've got to do this.

Yeah. What I really like there is there's a subtle pointer in there about, or a potential pointer of ownership. And it's like, if they can say, I think this is important, this is important to me, you know, I don't want to do that, but I don't feel like I have a choice is very different than I don't have a choice. Right? Like there's an ownership of their experience. And I think that, that in general, when I see teachers who own their experience as theirs, not other people's, that's a pretty good sign in general. That's another one. Yeah. And a teacher that always sees that they're learning is another really good sign that, that is constantly in a place of learning.

Yeah. I guess that relates back to the, to the delegation of authority. If the teacher is delegating their authority to what is needed externally from them rather than what is coming through them and feels like what they want and what they need. And yeah, there's— when, when we're in, in deep contact with who we are, we, we don't really know what we're gonna do next. It's not that predictable. And so it kind of comes from this place of, I have no idea what's going to happen next, and I'm just feeling called into this, and this is what I want to do now. And But when there's not an ownership of that, where it's like, I'm doing that because it's right, externally necessary that I do this, then that feels like the— where the ownership falls away.

I think that's another really good pointer of a teaching that I would have a lot more respect and trust for, what I would feel has more function, is when the— when they're not supplying certainty to folks. If a teacher is supplying certainty, if they're a certainty supplier, then they're just creating another framework instead of helping people see through all the frameworks. See, like, the freedom doesn't come from buying one set of thoughts. Freedom comes from not buying any thoughts. And that's very scary because most people are looking for some sort of ground and certainty. And so it's much easier to sell certainty than it is to sell lack of certainty. But the, but the functional teaching is not, is not selling certainty. As a matter of fact, there's this great— I think it's the— I think it's a Hindu tradition where they basically say, in the path, one of the last things that goes away is the teacher and then the teaching. Meaning that, like, you have to see through the scripture that none of the scripture is right, and you have to see through the teacher that the teacher isn't right. To get to what they would call, you know, uh, freedom. And so I think that that's a path that sees that uncertainty as a really important step in the process, is, is a really good sign of functionality rather than this is the way and it's finished.

Yeah, I would almost even say that that's— it feels to me that that's inseparable, not just like a last thing to fall away, but that's also part of the process of it. Working is to see through the things. It's like— and so another, another piece that I see here, which is, which can be a red flag, is like, what is the promise? If, if the promise of the path is some clear end state that everybody seems to be constantly seeking, and there's something magical about it, right, whether it's enlightenment or awakening, but it's not just about like what the words are, but it's about really what the sort of the— if there's like a state attachment to— yes, and then your problems will be—

then you're good—

then the suffering will end, then you're good enough. Yeah, that's another thing I watch for because it's— that will just continue forever. You can do all kinds of work on yourself and move a lot of, you know, trauma and still continuously organize your momentary experience around something that hasn't arrived yet in the future and around the notion that the present is not actually good enough.

Yeah. What's interesting is what's dawning on me in this process, I'm thinking about, you know, a friend, friends of mine who have a really deep and meaningful like Christian experience or really deep and meaningful Buddhist experience or Muslim experience where there is like this feeling of certainty in them. And, and so it's like there's some way in which I've seen some people in those things, in those experiences, where it feels like the authority is being handed over. And there's some people in those experiences where the authority isn't being handed over, meaning that like you could have a relationship with Christ as like, oh, this is my direct relationship with Christ, and this is where I go for the authority, is in that relationship. As compared to, this is my relationship with Christ and it is exactly that which agrees with my particular interpretation of this Bible. Or, you know, so there, even in that, even though that there is this way in which a certainty can happen in a religious context, there's still this individual authority in it. There's like the direct relationship with the meditation. And I mean, Buddha said, don't trust me. You trust your direct experience. And so I think that, that the relationship with Christ or Muhammad, or, or in the Buddhist context, it's even in this, it's, it's not saying you can't have that framework. It's saying that, is the, is the, is this particular form of Christianity pointing you back to your relationship with God? Is this pointing you back to your experience, or is this one of those forms of Christianity where it's follow the leader, it's don't trust your own, do the rules, follow the rules, that kind of thing. So I think, yeah, just to say that I want to make sure that people aren't thinking that we're saying all religious— all the ways of being religious are not beautiful.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and even just to bring in a, a different example, just to show that this isn't even about religion, there can be the sort of Western societal pattern of work hard all of your life to save for a future retirement.

Right.

And not pay. And because of that, not be really present and enjoying your life now as it actually is.

Yeah.

With an eye to the future. It's the same thing. It's like if somebody's selling me a product that will eventually get me to a place, but it's just a treadmill, then that's a red flag, you know? Or maybe I'll go on that path for a while and I'll learn something about myself, and it'll be ultimately healthy for me to have had that experience.

So let's go into that, because I do think that there's a lot of places that this— whatever we're talking about here is actually part of every part of our existence. But before we do, I want to talk about how these religious paths and traditions go sideways. Yeah, because I think One of the biggest misnomers there is, oh, this teacher's a bad teacher, or this teacher went berserk, or this teacher— as if it's not a relationship between the teacher and the people, and like it's as if it's not a group decision that's being made, right? So we talked about this earlier, so I want to bring it back to this, but there's lots of versions of this, which is, you know, as a teacher, you get attacked quite a bit, right? You get, you know, people are like, well, let me— what's wrong with you? You sitting up here thinking that you can, you know, have authority? Or, you know, you just like— there, people are looking at everything and, look at what you did, see, that shows that your consciousness is fucked up. And like, all, all that stuff happens, right? There's people right now listening to this podcast criticizing what was just said.

And absolutely.

And, and it's— and what that typically does is it creates defense in people. What that typically does is, you know, a good example of this, I've been thinking about, you know, doing more YouTube and Instagram stuff and putting myself out there. So I looked at like 3 or 4 people I respected who started putting the content out there, and I noticed that they all kind of went a little berserk. And I think there's 2 reasons that they all went a little berserk. The first one is that they have to put out new content all the time. And so, and people like, listening to people who are certain, so they put out their content with certainty and they believe their own certainty, it seems like. And, and therefore they just start thinking they know more and more and more than they actually know. That's part of the berserk process. But part of it is that everybody attacks them, and then they get more and more defensive, and they get more and more like armored, and they become more and more narcissistic. And it's, and it's not It's not— it's a relationship. It's a relationship with the audience. It's a relationship with the sangha. It's a relation. It's like that thing where people want— a lot of people want somebody with a halo, somebody— they want somebody who's perfect, and then they maybe even want to bring them down, down a notch, and take them down. And that whole relation, it's not, you know, it's like— and, and the other thing is it's incredibly lonely right? Like, when people view me as their authority and they're trying to please me, they're not being with me, right? It's, it's— they, they forget that I'm human and I have a heart and I'm a person. And, um, and so there's a way in which they sever connection with me. Um, and so part of the process is to, you know, if you're in a tradition, is to treat the person like a human. Not like trying to prove if they're the right authority or not, right? Like you're the authority. And when you know that, you don't need to prove it. You can just be with them as humans and with all their ups and downs and goods and bads or whatnot. You know, they're like, even if your teacher has like some crazy-ass power that you're like, what the fuck's going on, right? Like people see me do these rapid-fire coachings and they're like, holy shit, that dude's insight. Like he just like knocked somebody clear into their biggest issue in like 5 minutes. Fuck in 3 minutes. How did he do that? Yeah, and I'm still human, and I, and I'm still not finished, and I'm still growing. And, and so I think it's— that's true for every teacher I've met, no matter what they present as, like, these powerful things that they can do, these healings or whatever it is, these insights. And so I think that, that, that relationship back and forth between is really important. And if And then the other piece that's really important is like, what I notice is, you know, like we've gone to Burning Man and there's people who are like, yeah, man, I've been going to Burning Man for 15 years. Oh yeah? I've been going to Burning Man for 20 years. Like they even identify in that. And you see that happen around a teaching or a teacher where people start defining how good they are by how long they've been with the teaching or the teacher or how close they are to the teacher.

Yeah.

And that is super dysfunctional, whether the teacher is aware of it or not. Like that kind of like, uh, what do you, you know, like gatekeeping and ownership and identification, like super dangerous. And that has nothing to do with the teacher. The teacher might not have the knowledge to know like, oh, I have to stop that. So that's another—

yeah, that's a fascinating pattern that I've seen in, and this isn't, this isn't universal, but a pattern that I've seen where like a group has gone wonky. Is often that it's like the right-hand person who had like the most distortion and brought the most sinister stuff to the group, the most control. And perhaps they're in like, they're the one that has to maintain their position vis-à-vis another person rather than vis-à-vis their, you know, divine claim to authority. So whether it's the single second person in command, or whether it's just a number of people in the group, you know, people can come to this work and be like, wow, Joe, he's an amazing coach. I want to be a great coach. And I'll go through a bunch of courses. And I did this, you know, like, immediately, like, how quickly can I use this and do these things myself? And then I'd like start sitting down with my friends and start like, coaching the shit out of them without permission. Right. Ouch. And like, that would be—

yeah, yeah.

And you know, that's just like how you— I don't see any— how any teacher could avoid that occurring, especially the larger your, uh, practice or your organization or your group or your sangha grows. There's going to be a number of people who are taking it and trying to use it with maybe the best of intentions.

It gets even weirder is because usually the right-hand person likes control because they're really good at organizing shit. And so because that's what makes them the right-hand person, they can get a lot of shit done and they can organize a lot of shit. And so that like tendency for control also serves the group if they— but it can also turn into crazy wonkiness because the control gets, you know, hyper and protective and defensive and all that good stuff. It's, um, yeah, it's a, it's a total interesting phenomenon. And there is this other thing that happens too, which is like when you do cede your authority to a group, there's a feeling of safety to it. There's a feeling of being loved and accepted. There's a feeling of belonging that happens to it. And you see this in many, many religions. Like, oh, here's this way that we all agree on this thing together, and therefore we're safe, and therefore we can support each other. And, and, and it's a, it's a thing to be able to give that same kind of support and love and sense of belonging without ceding your authority. Like, it is a, it is a walk to take. And like you said, this is not just an in religious, you know, or spiritual or self-development things. This goes into all the parts of society.

We all want to be on the inside of something. It feels safe there.

Yeah.

And it's especially easy to feel on the inside of something if there's an outside and others, right?

Yeah.

But that doesn't have to be—

big red, big red flag there, right there. And then there's others, and you see this. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about how all this happens, not just in not just in, in kind of teachings and paths. It happens in— I mean, and one of the most obvious ones is this is like every political rant ever, right? Like, right, there's a good guy, that's us. There's a bad guy, that is pick A, billionaire, B, radical left, C, uh, fascist right, you know what I mean? Like progressives. There's always a bad guy, there's always a good guy, it's always us against them. There's always some fear lurking around the corner, then the world needs us or the whole thing is going to fall apart. And there's somebody who— and there's not transparency, and there's like, we know and they don't know, and there's some— and you're ceding your authority over to some religious or some political figure instead of thinking for yourself, or some news channel instead of thinking for yourself. It happens Exactly there. And what's really interesting is in our society right now, I was just reading this thing, it's really cool, is that cults used to just be religious cults, and now there's political cults. There's like cults of like political belief where— so it's like, it happens there, happens in companies, it happens in marriages, it happens everywhere.

Yeah. And also around national identity. One, one thing that I find really— this is also on brand for our podcast with a lot of entrepreneurs listening. Like, look at the common wisdom about how to write a pitch deck for fundraising. It's like, right, here's a problem. There's this big problem. Yes, it needs to be solved. Yes, there's inevitable consequences to it not being solved. We can solve it. Only we can solve it though. This is the team, right? This is the team that can solve it. And then, you know, underneath that, there's like the seeing, seeing the herd dynamics in investors and using some FOMO to get everybody to like dive in and like pile in on this investment before they, they miss out. And that's just how things are done. And the same thing occurs in marketing. If you look at a billboard for a beauty ad, Yeah, yeah, it's sexy, right?

Here's a way that we are special. It's like the whole thing pitches the way in which we are special, and you can be a part of this special thing. And we're special because there's others who aren't like us. There's an us against them. There's, um, there is, uh, we're the only ones. There's the inevitability of crisis if we don't handle this. You know, like, oh my God, everybody's gonna smell you and you're gonna smell horrible if you don't use our deodorant. It is literally the same thing. And, and, and the, and the reason it's the same thing is that a lot of folks, um, they, they, they want to own your authority. They want to own your authority because they think it's going to make them happy. They want you— they want to decide for you to buy the deodorant. And what's really interesting is that, you know, there's some really great books on this, but a CEO— this happens in a lot of companies. I've been in, and I've seen companies, you know, when I go in and work with folks in companies, I've seen companies that have very cult-like, um, experiences where, you know, they all have this very clear identity. There's a bad guy, there's a good guy, there's a time limit, there is an inevitability unless they do X, Y, and Z, and they firmly believe it. And to some degree, that's incredibly motivating for them. Another thing is that it makes very fragile companies. What I've seen is the really robust companies are the companies that are in debate. And there's great data on this. One of my favorite is the Aristotle Project done by Google, where they really talk about um, how a team that where there can be really free debate and everybody feels comfortable debating and the voices are, are all voices can be heard no matter how contrarian the viewpoint is, is what makes the most functional teams. So it's the same thing. It's like you can get away, you can, and it's the same thing with the religious traditions and the fact that, or the, or the self-development traditions, is that you can get a lot of benefit from there's a lot of benefit to be had from dysfunctional paths, right? There's a lot of cool tools and great learnings, and I've gone into some consciously and said, oh, I know there's some cool stuff in here. I'm gonna just not pay attention to these things, and I'm gonna get in, learn some stuff, get out. So there's a lot of benefit to them. And I think what happens as, as humans is we know on some level, oh, this is wonky, This is wonky, but there's some benefit. I'm not ready to give up the benefit yet. And so sometimes that wonkiness gets us instead of we getting out before it's too late.

Yeah. I also, I'm also curious to speak about this in, in terms of relationships, because a lot of this also a controlling partner, an abusive partner is the one who's like, okay, I love you, baby. You need me. You don't need those friends anymore. You know, everyone else is out there trying to get us. Or even just some of like the kind of more romantic things, like it's you and me versus the world, like, like without any of the other stuff, right? Like what? Right.

Yeah.

The versus.

And there's this social isolating and that's all the abusive. But I would say, wow, 90% of the relationships I seen, I have seen, there is an agreement that this person's the smart one and this person's not so smart or this one's the intelligent one. This one's the emotional one. Like, there's the ceding of authority all the time. How many times, like, oh, I can't do that because I need her to be happy, or I need him to be happy, you know?

Or they couldn't live without me.

I couldn't live—

me, or—

right. So all the time, and there's like somebody's need for control around a certain subject inside of a marriage creates, um, creates this same kind of level dysfunction using the same tools. Using the exact same tools. And, and, and what's cool about that, what makes— lets you see it, is that it is subconscious in most of the marriages that this is happening, and it is subconscious that it's happening in most companies, and it is subconscious that's happening in different spiritual, uh, traditions. It is not like— very few— I've met a couple, but very few of these people are consciously going, okay, I know how to manipulate a whole bunch of people. I'm gonna use, you know, pathos and ethos and logos, and I'm gonna, you know, do an us against them. And some of it's happening, but most of the time it's like they act— the politician speaking it actually thinks it. They actually think that there's somebody who's gonna come and get them. Not all of them, but like some of them. So yeah, it's just amazing.

Obviously there's those who are just manipulating people for the cash, and there's ways it's real. If you're gonna get into politics there's going to be mud slung. Yeah. So like, if, if you—

that's right.

If you are looking for a place where there's an us versus them in your life, get into politics.

Right. I think the last, the last piece on this one, which is all of this is a projection of our own consciousness, which is why I said that you might get into a dysfunctional situation, but it's often the thing that you need to learn. And so this is all happening inside of us. We have a voice in the head. For most of us have a very strong voice in the head, and we believe that voice in the head when it says, "You have to do this or you're going to be in pain," or, "It's only you that can do it," and, "Why haven't you gotten off the couch?" and blah, blah, blah. All those exact same things, the us and thems, the have to do it, the urgency, the That's all happening from the voice in our head talking to ourselves. And so all of this is just a projection and it all falls apart when you see it in yourself, when you can no longer believe the urgency, the us and them from the voice in your head, when you can no longer believe that your voice in your head is the authority telling you, you have to exercise more. Oh, you are right. And I am the bad person who isn't doing it. You know, like that whole dynamic is happening inside of us. And when you see through the dynamic and the voice in your head, then you don't fall for any of this stuff. You don't watch an ad and think, oh yeah, everybody will love me because I have like thinner thighs or whatever the crap it is they're selling.

Right. And nobody loving me matters because I don't love myself.

Right.

So, yeah.

Exactly.

So we're getting close to time here, but I have one more place I'd love to apply this. How has this shown up for you as a parent?

Yeah. Oh goodness gracious. That is— wow. Holy crap. I haven't even thought about that. Yeah, this is probably where most of my thoughtfulness, most of my attention goes to parenting teenagers anyways. When kids are young, you are the authority and you should be, and that's how it works. So, you know, like teaching them how to sleep and how to eat and teaching them how to be with their emotional experiences, it's your job and you are the authority. And whether you ignore it or you don't ignore it, you are training them. And so being conscious about it and being forthright in it, I think is really important. As they get older, the main thing you want to do is teach them how to be their own authority, right? So I often just didn't even give compliments to kids. There's some good research on this. And so with the kids, and it was so counter, it was so counter to how I thought it was going to be and how I thought I should have done it. But, you know, kids, like, they get their homework done and I'm not like, good job. I see that they're excited. I'm like, oh, I see how excited you are. Yeah. And I'll be excited with them because I don't want them to do their homework because I said to them, that's a good job. I don't want to be their third. I want them to learn to listen to themselves. And that's why today my girls do their work without any nagging whatsoever. It's like I literally had one of my daughters tell me, she's like, I've gotten straight A's and you've never congratulated me. What the fuck? And I was like, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

And I told her how proud I was of her and how I realized the work that was put into it, but it's so important to me. So maybe I overcorrected there, but it was so important for me to have them be able to listen to themselves and not tell them what to do. And then I had the exact opposite thing happen with Esme recently, which is crazy. Esme wanted to do a project, so I'm like, cool, do the project. I'll support you. And it just wasn't happening. It wasn't getting done. And, um, at some point I'm like, yeah, I don't really want to support you because it's not getting done. And she's like, what I need you to do is just tell me exactly what to do. And I was like, what? And she's like, yeah, I've never done this before. I have no idea. Like, I just need you to tell me step by step what to do the first time. I'm like, okay. And so literally we walked through like a basically a pipeline process to find like cool experiences that she can have. And we, and like I just step by step here and I like, she wrote the email and then I read the email, gave her my feedback and then every step, who do I send it? How do I send it? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And now she's doing it on her own. She doesn't need my help at all and she's running the process, but she literally needed me and I was completely, I'm like, I don't wanna tell you how to do it. I want you to be your own authority, right?

And she was like, it's like the authority in me says, this is what I want.

This is what I want. And maybe, and I think probably it was really important for us to get to the place where she just asked for it because then, and because then it was, I was not nagging. I wasn't, I wasn't, you know, telling her how to do things. She had, she had taken the step of asking me, which was, I think, really critical. So yeah, this is a huge part of, I see so many kids either rebelling against what their parents want or trying to please their parents and not having learned their own authority. And, and by the time they're 17, 18 years old, I think it's really important for their self-confidence to learn this is— they're, they're in charge of their choices, and they get to make mistakes and screw up and come for advice when they want, and they get to call in other authorities when it serves them.

And they're— they can bring that into awareness and not just have it be a default subconscious pattern of someone else knows better and I need this.

That's right. Yeah. And that's what I watch my girls do as they walk around and they look for good advice. And which was always my hope because I was, I was so ignorant that way because I had such a crappy relationship with authority. I thought all authority was bad. So I never got really great advice through my life from— and I was surrounded by great people who could have given me great advice. And so I'm really happy that they have that capacity to do that. And at the same time, know what's right for them.

Wow. Beautiful, beautiful teachings. I'm really glad that we're so 100% airtight correct about everything. Certainly.

Under all contexts. For every person.

Thank you everybody for listening. I really enjoyed this, Joe. Thanks for the conversation.

Yeah, pleasure. Total pleasure.

Yeah. Sincerely though, everybody, if you're, if you're listening to this and there's something that's like catching in you, like, ah, and you have a question, please send it to us. You can tweet it to us at Art of Accomplishment. You can also send us an email at podcast@artofaccomplishment.com or just visit the website website and reach out through there. And that's also where you can find our courses and anything else about us and coaching and all of our other offerings. Yeah, so thank you, Joe. Thank you, everybody. Yeah, I really love this conversation. This is a good one.

Me too. Me too. All right, talk to you soon.