The Art of Courage Stacking

What is the big goal that you have and how do you talk about that goal and why do you think you can't do that? And by working through courage, stacking, it started to help people see that actually it isn't that insurmountable. You've just got to kind of break it down. You're destiny to the Circle CE Project. Welcome to the Triple CE Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live life. Life. I'm your host, Ryan Spence, the big lore dropout, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip hop and big, hairy, audacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living the life you want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. So now with friends, I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat, and allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lit. What's up, people? Welcome to episode 17 of the Triple C Project. I'm recording this on a glorious day in the uk. We're having a great week. Summer has finally arrived and I'm here for all of it. I'm definitely someone who thrives in the warmth rather than in the cold, as anyone who knows me personally will testify. And that's why I love Singapore so much. Like just waking up and not thinking, oh, it's a good day, I should do X. I mean, every day was a good day, apart from when you rained, but the storms are pretty epic, so even just sitting and watching a storm was always a great thing. And it's funny because my. My youngest, my 4 year old yesterday, he doesn't often talk much about our time in Singapore, but he just got into the zone where he was really upset and saying he wants to go back to Singapore. And when I was asking him why, one of the things he said through his tears was, I just want to be in a hotel country. And I could really relate to that. So, yeah, both the kids were born in Singapore and so for them, that almost still seems a little bit like home. They've been there longer than they've been here in the uk, so they're used to that lifestyle. But hey, it is what it is. But, yeah, I'm here for this. I hope this son stays here forever. And look, I know as a. As a personal development geek, as a coach that I talk a lot about we. We choose how we want to feel, we create our own mood. But I'm human too, and I'd be lying if I didn't say that when the sun is shining and it's warm outside, I feel. I feel great. It definitely lifts my mood. So does it lift yours too? I know some people love the cold, but yeah, if you are a sun lover like myself, you know my people. English pastime of talking about the weather. What else has been going on? So as I record this, I'm a few days away from heading off for two days to a studio to record the audiobook for the Triple C method. Gain clarity, boost confidence and build courage so you can live life lit. And I'm quite excited. It's been a long time since I've been in a recording studio. If you listen to the show or you've read the book, you know I used to be in the music business so I spent years being in studios. I was really comfortable there. But it's been a while. So I'm looking forward to getting into a studio amongst professionals and recording the book. And it's funny because I read an extract of the book earlier on. I can't remember the episode number. I should really do this before I start recording. And what I found is that actually reading your own book is harder than it sounds. Even though you wrote the words, actually reading them out loud is. It definitely takes some practice. So I've been practicing that and hoping that I can kind of get there and get this done in the two days allocated in a way that makes sense and that will entertain you, the listener. So yeah, I'm a big fan of audiobooks, having resisted them for years. So I'm really looking forward to recording my own. And I'm a little bit of a geek in that sometimes I even get it on the Kindle or the hard copy and listen to the audio at the same time. I find I get through them quicker and I like to have the physical copy to kind of mark up notes as I go along. So if you're like me, this is for you. So the audiobook should be out sometime in late July. I'll be talking more about it. But if you haven't read the book yet, go and get your paperback or e book copy now available from Amazon and your favorite independent bookshop bookstore, Waterstones, Barnes and Noble as well. Anywhere else you can get your books. And yeah, go and read the Triple C Method. The Art of Courage stacking is actually in that book that I'm going to talk about today and I go a little bit deeper. So let's just move on to that then, shall we? The topic of today's show, the Art of courage stacking. So the triple C method, as you know, if you've been here for any amount of time, consists of three pillars. Clarity, confidence and courage. Why? Because looking back through my journey from big law lawyer, from where I was to where I am now, the big law dropout, life coach, yoga teacher, author, et cetera, all the things, they were the three core pillars that I needed to focus on to get me from where I was to where I am now. There's a whole host of other things within the personal development pool, things I had to work on within myself, but if I had to distill it down to keep it simple and to also just get you started as to what you need to start thinking about to move from where you are to where you want to be. Clarity, confidence and courage are the three core pillars. And I often say about courage that it's arguably one of the hardest ones. Because clarity and confidence you can do in private. You can sit and journal and write and think and do all of that without anybody knowing. But with courage, you've actually got to get out there and do something, take some action, and people are going to see that it's going to be public. And so that's what freaks out people out, that's what stops people moving forward. That's what lets people get all of this amazing information from books and things that they read and the things that they watch get really inspired and fired up, but then fail to implement what they've learned because they're scared of taking action. And when I was writing the book, I didn't want that to happen because I've been there. I have so many half read books or books that I've read and really enjoy, but not really taken anything practical out them, not really implemented the things that were talked about. And I didn't want that to happen with this book. And that's one reason why the book is relatively short and it's why the book is actionable. There are actual steps in there that you can take immediately after reading the book to start to get you moving, to get that ball rolling, both within the book itself and within the workbook that accompanies the book that's available for free to download. And one of the actions in the book is courage stacking. There's a whole chapter on the art of courage stacking and there's a whole section on courage itself. So what is courage stacking? Well, let me take a step back first of all. So back in April 2020, after I left Big Law. I knew I wanted to help lawyers and corporate professionals who were like me, who had felt stuck, who felt that they couldn't do anything else, but knew they didn't want to, what they were doing. And I wanted to help them move, help them see that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, help them see that they didn't have to do what they'd always done and they didn't have to be who they'd always been. Help them create that lit life. And so I knew I had to start to put myself out there, and it wasn't something that I was that comfortable doing. I had an Instagram account, which I never used, and I didn't even realize at the time that you could have a personal and a business account. So that shows you how little I knew. And I started a business account, business Instagram account, and I wrote two or three posts and I agonized them over them for weeks. I wrote and rewrote and got people to read them and give me their feedback because I was scared of putting myself out there. I just had this sort of fear of what people would say, what people would think. I mean, I was this lawyer in Big Law, and now I was trying to be something else, and people wouldn't take me seriously. And, you know, I mean, all of the things that you can think of that would run around in my mind or going in there now coupled with that, one of the things which I really loved was I loved watching TED Talks. And this is related, so stick with me here. I just loved watching people share these interesting, intriguing, amazing ideas on this red dot on a stage in different places around the world. And in my mind, wistfully, I felt that something which I would like to do, but again, going back to who I was at that time, there was no way I was going to sort of do that. But what I had to do was instead of looking at a TED Talk as this big, overwhelming goal, which it was, I couldn't start there because I'd spent a long time thinking about that and looking at it as something that was unrealistic and something that I couldn't do and therefore had never taken any steps towards actually doing it. So what I had to do was break it down. So posting on Instagram was effectively the first step, because I had to put myself out there. I had to at least start to share what was on my mind and see who my people were, see who was interested, see who wanted to listen, see if I could actually help the people that I wanted to help. And then from there I had to move to showing my face, actually getting on camera on Instagram stories or whatever it was, and talking, because people consume information in different ways. And I also had to find the medium which I felt worked best for me. So in September 2020, I set myself a challenge to show up and record myself on video every day. And by that time, if you think I'd started in April posting on Instagram, I'd already built up a few months of getting used to the process of being on social media. So then I was able to take the showing up on video, look back at what I shared already, and effectively stack that on top, because I'd already had evidence that I could share on social media and I wouldn't die, nothing really bad would happen. So I could then go to the next stage of sharing myself, talking to the camera, figuring that out. Then I had a podcast which launched at the end of September of 2020. And again, I always hated my own voice. I didn't think that people want to hear what I had to say. Again, all of those things going around in my mind. But by then, I built up a track record of sharing content on Instagram, I built up a track record of sharing video on Instagram. So I already knew that I had things to say. I knew that people were responding to what I was saying, and I knew that I had more to say. And I knew that I had more to say because the situation which I had been in back in Big Law, I knew other people were still in that situation, and I knew that they didn't necessarily have the insights that I had now that I was looking at it from the outside, and now that I'd gone through the personal development quest that I'd already gone down. So I took the podcast, I look back at the information I'd already shared, I look back at the consistent post on Instagram, I looked back at the consistent showing up on video on Instagram. And so I stacked a podcast on top of that. So then I kind of had three things on top of each other, and I was starting to build this wall which was helping me to get the courage to keep moving forward. So whereas starting a podcast back in April 2020 looks absolutely terrifying, impossible now, I already had evidence to back up that I could do hard things, that I already done things which were similar, and I could leverage that opportunity to take me to the next level from a podcast. And there are going to be some steps I miss out here, because one, I don't Want this podcast to go on for too long. And two, I just miss things out. Coaching. I never planned to be a coach. In fact, I actively resisted coaching when people suggested that I should do that because I just wanted to teach yoga. For me, yoga was the thing that really helped me deal with the stress, to start to look inward. And I felt that by bringing people to the mat, bringing lawyers, bringing corporate professionals to the yoga mat, teaching them yoga, meditation, breathwork, that would allow them to look within themselves and then to start to believe that they could do the things that they wanted to do. But I learned through the podcast, through conversations and responses I was getting from people, that having more of a sort of one to one connection with people and spending that more time talking through what was going on for them was actually going to be more powerful and more beneficial in conjunction yoga. So even though there were all the ideas, like who am I to coach again? All of the mind trash, I took time to just sit down and dump everything down that I had to go through to get me from where I was as that big law lawyer who had no clue that he could do anything else. And he was weighed down by limited beliefs to where I was at that time. Teaching yoga, loving it, loving discovering this whole new world and loving helping people figure out what it was that they wanted to do and get after it. And I dumped it all down and I tentatively just mentioned it to a few people and without any expectation, and it was immediately met with that sounds great. I'm really struggling. Will you coach me? I want to go through this. And again, if I had left in February 2020 and sat down in April 2020 and decided I was going to be a coach, I never would have done it. Because again, who am I to help people? Who am I to talk to people? Nobody wants to hear what I have to say. Nobody is interested in my experiences. But I already had the Instagram captions that I'd written and put out, the videos that I'd done, and all the responses to all of that, the podcast and the guests that I'd connected with, and the responses and of support and of people saying about the podcast, that really resonated with me. This really helped me to go on. So I already knew that I had something and I was already putting myself out there so I could then stack coaching on top of the podcast, which was stacked on top of the videos, which is stacked on top of the Instagram caption. So you see that I'm slowly building this courage to push the envelope, to take a Further step out of my comfort zone. And there are a whole host of other things then in between from sort of coaching moving forward. But I guess the next big milestone I want to move to is writing the book. Because as I've said before, I always said I'd like to write a book one day, but never actually committed to doing it for various reasons. Time, interest, people not caring what I had to say, not feeling I had anything to say. But I already knew through working with people as a coach, there were some common themes that were happening, both in terms of what they were struggling with and also in terms of what I saw could help them. And clarity, confidence and courage were three central pillars. As I said, they had helped me and I could see now that they were also helping other people as a foundation to the work that we were doing together. So then it just became a case of, okay, well, taking all of that information out of my head and getting it down into a coherent form whereby even if somebody wasn't sat in a coaching session with me, they could pick up that information and utilize it to start to change their own life in the way that they wanted to change it. So that's what made me then commit to writing the book. Because again, I had all of this information before going back. I'm going to run through it again. I had the setting of the business account on Instagram, posting on Instagram, posting video on Instagram, launching a podcast, starting to coach people, real, live, human, awesome people. So the book was able to move stacked upon that because I knew I had stuff to say. I knew I was comfortable putting myself out there. I knew I was helping people because people were telling me that. And so all of these things, again, just allow me to step to that, another, to that other level of courage. Then putting the book out, writing the book is one thing, but then actually putting it out, you deal with a whole nother level of mind trash. But again, I already had all of that evidence to sort of build upon. And then I spoke at a virtual summit earlier this year, the Summit for Lawyers, which again, was another stack, stack in my wall of courage. But I could stack that on top of the book, which I could stack on top of. You get the picture? I don't need to go through it all again. And then this week as I'm recording this, I hit another milestone. I actually spoke to a group of people in real life, no zoom, you know, after all of these years, actually sat in a room with real, live, awesome human beings, actually talking about the book and talking about My story and my journey. And I talked a bit about character as well, which is what gave me the idea to talk about it with you today. Because I know from sharing that it really opened a few people's eyes and it got them sort of thinking differently. I asked them at the start of the talk, what is the big goal that you have and how do you talk about that goal, and why do you think you can't do that? And by working through courage stacking, it started to help people see that actually it isn't that insurmountable. You've just got to kind of break it down. And so that takes me to TED Talk starting from April 2020. To do a TED Talk was far too overwhelming. But by breaking it down and stacking each of these actions on top of each other, now it's. I've got all of this evidence to support the fact that I can do. I have a lot of the skills, a lot of the experience already. It's now about refining that for doing an actual TED Talk, finding the people that I need to reach out to, to help me solidifying my topic for the talk, the actual getting up and talking, I've done it. The actual sharing an idea and a message with people, I've done it and I keep doing it. So I already have all of this evidence and all of this courage that I've stacked up to keep taking action. So whereas doing a TED Talk just looks absolutely ridiculous a couple of years ago, now it's something that is, yeah, I can do that. And whereas posting on Instagram in April 2020 just was absolutely terrifying, it's now one of the easiest things in the world for me to do. It doesn't even register. I just feel I have something to say. I'm going to say I'm going to post it, and it happens just like that. So this is courage stacking. Courage stacking is the art of taking that big goal, the big thing that is so scary and terrifying. And look, it should be. If it's big enough, it should scare you, it should excite you, it should feel a little bit terrifying. But then it's breaking that goal down into its component parts. And you don't have to know all the parts at the start, but just brainstorm initially and start with what you do know. And as other things come up, you can slot them into the process. And then you want to rank on a scale of 1 to 10, each of the components of the process. So 1 will be the least scary and 10 will be the absolute scariest. Where, oh, my God, I feel I'm going to die. I just can't do this, you know, and components, you can have multiple components at the same level. That's fine. But then once you've done that, once you've got that workflow, that, that chart, that visual diagram, whatever works for you, then the next stage is to actually do something about it. So the first thing you do is take the least scary thing on your list, the thing that's at a 1, and you schedule a time to do that as soon as possible. I say within 48 hours to kind of give you a sense, but no longer than that. Short is better, but no longer, because you want to get that ball rolling as soon as possible before you back out. And then I want you to take the next few things, I'd say probably between 3 and 5, and schedule those into your calendar for the next 10 days, let's say. And they can be small things. It doesn't matter. But what we're doing here is we're getting you used to putting yourself out there. We're getting you used to taking action. We're getting you slowly building your courage, stacking one action on top of the other. And then you repeat the process. As you work through the ones that are one or two, you can move on to the threes. You start to schedule those, and you should keep scheduling these within relatively short spaces of time so that you don't have a big gap, and then you have to start from scratch again. You want to keep that ball rolling so that you can remember, and you want to keep looking back, doing a review at the end of each section. So at the end of, say, the first three, look back at what you've done. How did you feel? What worked? Did the worst thing that could happen or the things that you thought would happen materialize? You know, I mean, did some great things happen which you weren't expecting? And what you're doing here is you're basically, you're building your courage. You're stacking one step on top of the. On top of the other. And when you look back, the thing which seemed absolutely terrifying and hard will now just be easy or at least easier. And the thing that seems so far away and unachievable and unattainable, you'll be getting closer to. And more than that, you're going to have this whole body of work that all of this action you've already taken to support the fact that you can actually get to where you want to get to. You can do the next hard thing in front of you. So that's the art of courage stacking. It's the process which I say I use to get me from walking out of Big Law, being elated, and then being like, what the fuck? How do I do any of this to the stage now where I am committing to getting a TED Talk before the end of the year. Whether that's scheduling more, actually delivering one just depends on what's going on. And I'm taking the steps to do the things I need to do to make that happen so it can be done. I'm no unicorn. I have no special superpowers. I'm just a geek about personal development. And I just take action. Once I commit to something, I just do it. So that's how I know that you can do it too. And that's why I share it. Because I want you to win. I want you to succeed. I want you to create the life that it is that you want to live. So I'd love to hear from you about whether courage stacking has worked for you. I'd like to take what I've talked about in this episode and apply it. Start with one goal, start with one thing, and again break it down to its component parts and start to schedule when you're going to do the things in order of from least scary to most scary and see if that gets the ball rolling. You've probably been sat on this dream or this goal for. For months or for years. By actually implementing this process, you're going to get yourself much further ahead in a matter of days and weeks than you ever otherwise would have done. As I said, you can read more about building courage and the art of courage stacking in my book, the Triple C Method. Go ahead, grab yourself a copy and then download the free workbook. And that will also give you the prompts and the questions to actually work through this process again. You can do that if you're a more visual person as well. Building your courage. It's not hard. You just have to commit to doing it. And courage stacking is a process that works, that I've used. It's a process that my clients have used to start to implement boundaries where they thought it was impossible to decide to go off and start new courses, to go off and get new jobs, to decide that they're not going to put up with what they've been putting up with, and to actively do something about it. So I wanted to share that with you today. The Art of Courage Stacking. Let me know how that works for you. And until next week, I want you to think about what it is that you want in life. Think about how you're going to get after it and start to build the courage to get it so that you can live life. Thanks for tuning in to the Triple C project. Before you go, I want to share something with you. When I was in Big Law, I struggled with limiting beliefs. I didn't have the confidence to believe that I could changed my life, that I could leave Big Law and do something differently, that I could move from a life of lethargy and create a life that's lit. That's why I created the confidence journey for people like you who are in the same position that I was, who are struggling with that confidence and need a boost to allow you to believe that you can do the things that you want to do. Confidence this journal is seven journal prompts that I've used and I still use to help me get from the guy who was too scared to post on Instagram to the guy who is now committed to giving a TED Talk, the guy who wrote a book, to the guy who launched podcast. You can do any of this too. All you need to do is stop boosting your confidence. So to do that, head to iamrinespence.com and download Confidence Journal. It's free, it works and it's going to change your life. Thanks for tuning in. See you next week. And remember, stop living a life lethargy and start living life.