Stepping Into Possibility: Session 2

So welcome everyone to session 2 of Stepping into Possibility. So the, the, what's going on here is I am workshopping some, workshopping the outline of my upcoming book, which is called Stepping into Possibility. And it is providing what I think of as kind of a 3-structured process for trying to define and step into and navigate your way to whatever's next in your life's chapter with a better, greater sense of purpose, prosperity, and peace of mind. And so what we did in session 1 was we just kind of— well, I'll— the 3 main sections are the first one I call Awakening, which is just waking up to this idea. And most of you are already kind of beyond this, but just waking up to the idea that maybe the game of life has been playing you instead of the other way around, and waking up to the programming and conditioning that's provided by our parental upbringing, by hanging out with our peers, going to institutionalized school, participating in institutionalized occupations. These are all leveraging elements of our programming that are tied to the the, the need for feeling safe, for belonging, uh, for earning status by doing what we're told, uh, and, um, and reaping the rewards that come with, you know, getting good grades, which means if you get good grades in school, you can go to another school where if you get good grades, maybe you'll get a good job, and if you get a good job, maybe you'll get a good spouse and a good house and a good car and all, all, all the trappings of the pursuit of happiness. And then, you know, what oftentimes happens is we find that the pursuit of happiness hasn't made us very happy. And so in this phase 2, where I call this phase acknowledgement, and the acknowledgement is that you can't win a game that you don't want to play. So if you've awoken to the fact that maybe the game of life is playing you and that you're playing a game that you didn't actually choose to play, it was just kind of designed for you to play. That you can start to think about how to play your game. And so in this section, what we're going to do— this is for me the most important section and is relevant to anybody because you're here, maybe most of, you know, some of you have already kind of been playing your game in one way, shape, or form, doing your own thing, some sort of freelancing entrepreneurial, creative enterprise, um, and maybe looking to gain a little bit more traction, gain a little bit more momentum, uh, make it a little bit more viable, sustainable, what have you. And so, uh, regardless of where you are on the trajectory of, you know, kind of going all in and full out playing your game, uh, on your terms without compromise, that what we're gonna talk about today is kind of basic foundational principles, practices, skills that are going to help you catalyze and close the gap between where you are and where you wanna be in whatever endeavor you're currently setting your, your sights on, on leveling up in. So, and then In a couple weeks, we'll have the final section, which is just about, which is about amplifying and building on that progress so that you're actually kind of living in that zone of genius and flow state more often and scaling or gaining momentum or gaining greater traction in that enterprise. So again, today is all about this, you know, what are the principles? What are the practices that you need to have? So we talked last time about, you know, our routines and default programming and conditioning and unlearning helplessness and escaping the identity trap. We learned about drop, to stop reacting to life, to maybe try to become more responsive by dropping the drama. Curbing our dogmatic thinking and starting to pay it— and to stop playing the blame game. And then to realize the importance of the relationships, that in order to, to close the intention-impact gap between what we intend to do and what we actually do, what we intend to say and what is actually received, that we also were talking about not measuring ourselves against other people and playing this competitive game and improving your network so that you can surround yourself with people that are going to support and encourage this journey. So today, the 3 Rs that we're going to talk about are receptivity, restraint, and responsibility. And again, if you take anything from the 3 sessions, those 3 words I think can really help you get closer to where you want to be in the game of life and closer to playing, you know, what I like to call your own game. Give Allison a chance to get in here. Hello, Allison. We're already started. We'll let you catch up. So let's, let's start with receptive. So again, receptivity, restraint, responsibility, starting with receptivity. Some of you have heard me talk about some of these ideas several times, but the biggest one for me is keeping open loops. We are creatures that crave certainty. I don't know if you've noticed, but the thing in the absolute shortest supply that I can think of is absolute certainty about anything. We just, we have two undefeated players on the field when we're playing the game of life. And those two players are time and randomness. Time is always passed and random things, unexpected things, unanticipated things happen all the time. And so keeping open loops is this idea that comes from And I think I referenced this in the last call, but it comes from a paper, a dissertation written by a Stanford student, I think a psychology student called, called, oh, I'm sorry. No, it comes from a Harvard Business Review article called Teaching Smart People How to Learn. Smart people. And some of you here might, like me, be recovering smart people. Smart people like to have their smartness validated. Recognized. We enjoy being right. We spend a lot of our time proving to ourselves and others that we, what we think and what we do and what we believe is right. And that we like to have our rightness validated, you know, by third-party proof, by our peers and by the people that we associate with. And so, and, and, you know, you don't have to look too far, uh, or too long to see that, you know, it appears that the rewards of the pursuit of happiness go to people that have a lot of certainty, even if it's about things that cannot be absolutely certain, or even when their certainty is based on beliefs that are absolutely not true, which I think is also sometimes called delusion. So the idea of open loops is just what it sounds like. If you have a fixed mindset around some sort of belief, if you're always in search of, you know, of alleviating your need for confirmation bias or your confirmation bias, then you want to strategically open that loop and then keep it open way past the time that you would like to close it. So the idea of open loops comes from this idea that, you know, we are creatures that spend a lot of time acquiring knowledge. Knowledge is simply information. Knowledge by itself is actually kind of useless. Knowledge doesn't become learning unless we apply it to our lives and it actually helps us change our thinking or behavior. And open loops is the idea of just holding space for consideration that maybe our certainties are not as certain as we would like to believe they are, that there might be room for alternative perspectives that are equally true, that opposing ideas can be held in the same place. And be equally valid. And that there might be actual wisdom that comes from the consideration of alternative interpretations, alternative perspectives. So it's just this whole idea of cultivating a greater sense of curiosity, maybe returning to that childlike sense of awe and wonder about things. And, and the whole idea really of just consideration. Just, just holding that space. Really, really hard for all human beings to do, especially hard from, from, for people that, you know, like to consider themselves smart. So I talked already about this, considering multiple and even contradictory perspectives. And so one thing that you can do around this is just to quest, you know, accept that you hold on to a lot of assumptions, that you cling to a lot of beliefs simply because you believe them, and that we are human beings, we're just, we're fraught with all sorts of biases, confirmation bias being one of the primary ones. But one of the things that I have found helpful, and I'm not I'm going to forget her name. I've read several of her books and I'm not always totally in alignment, but I think it's Byron Katie. But she has this framework that I love the first two questions of. She encourages people to ask yourself, is it true? And then you follow that up with, is it Is it really true? To which I would say, follow it up with, is it really, really, really absolutely true? And so just that idea of questioning your assumptions and maybe taking a moment to set your assumptions aside and reframe things as assertions. And so Cato will be familiar with Seth Godin's riff on assertions versus assumptions. Assertions are things that, that you hold to be true, but you hold them loosely and you hold them out to investigation, questioning, exploration by other people. Because what you want to do is you want to find the holes in your reasoning, the holes in the logic, Um, the, you want the lack of evidence to be, um, illuminated because with assertions, what you're trying to do is arrive at a clear, stronger version of the truth. You want to, you hold out assertions to make so that you can create better assertions based on any reflections, questions, criticism, um, or contrary opinions. And so open loops, stay curious, consider alternative and contradictory perspectives, and turn your assumptions into assertions so that you can come up with stronger assertions and, and close the gap between what you think is true and what actually might be true. Second is restraint. Dr. Jeff Spencer has, says that restraint is a champion's greatest asset. We are creatures that crave more. We think that more is better. We have talked many times about system reliability and that the more things that you add to any system, whether that system is to increase business revenue or increase market reach, or spread an idea, more is not going to get you closer. More will actually get you further away. A system is only reliable as its weakest component. And the, every element of a system operates on a percentage basis. Nothing is 100% effective. Nothing is 100% reliable. And so when you multiply all the percentages, you're going to continue to arrive at smaller and smaller number reliability numbers. So with this whole idea, so this more does not equal closer, and system reliability will be something we talk about on future calls where we talk about engineering luck. Like, how can you actually leverage time and randomness, make them allies, make them teammates? And how do you craft a practice and a process and a system that actually increases the likelihood that you'll get closer to what you want and mitigates the risk that you'll get further away or even worse, blow yourself up in the process? And so when you're looking at more does not equal closer system reliability, what you're doing is what's, what's my goal? What are, and I always say, break it down to 3 things. What are the 3 things I need to achieve this goal? And cut everything else out. So I think it's Meister Eckhart, the mystic Christian monk, has something about the— something about God or soul is achieved through subtraction, not addition. That the more things you can take away, the closer you will get to the essence and the necessary. So clear the cruft, get rid of all the things that you're doing that are not getting you, that, that are just clogging up the system and getting you further away because it's just adding more. And once you take, get rid of everything that's not essential, of those essential elements, what's the thing that needs to have the floor raised so that you're improving your overall reliability score? We've talked many times about pushing on the ceiling. If you have something that's operating at 80 or 90%, trying to push that up to 100% gives you a very, very small return on investment for the time, attention, and energy you put into it. Whereas if you raise the, the lowest percentage feature of your system, you'll get an exponential return on investment for, for that. So that's more versus closer. This, we've talked a little bit about this already, but just this idea that you don't need more knowledge. We always are going to like, what's the next book I need to read? What, what's the next workshop I need to take? What's the, who's the next guru? I, you know, that has that secret formula, that, that magic key, that secret system that's going to get me where I want to be. If you're, if you're looking for an answer that involves playing, learning and playing someone else's game, there's no way that that's going to help you play your game. Information is not the answer. You possess more than enough of knowledge. Knowledge is simply information acquisition. What you need to do is apply the knowledge that you have. Even better, apply the knowledge that will help you efficiently and effectively close the gap between where you are and where you want to be so that you can start to change your behavior and your attitude and step into your potential and your limitlessness and remove the limits that you've put in front of you so that you can close that gap between where you are and where you want to be. We call that sometimes compressing time. So you need that clarity, and, and about what's essential, and then you need to have the confidence to work on those things so that you can compress time. And along similar lines is, as you're defining what's essential, I think it's also really important to pay attention to your non-negotiables. Like, what are the things that, um, upon which you will not equivocate? And this comes down to integrity, this comes down to values, this comes down to virtue, which is your values in action. You know, we are— we all have espoused values that maybe other people don't recognize in us because they don't see them in the way that we act and behave in the world. Virtue is your values in action. And so, you know, taking stock of, you know, what are your guiding principles? What are your values? What's the vision of the world that you're trying to create? And in the pursuit of that, what are the things that are in bounds? And more importantly, what are the things that are out of bounds? What are the things that you will not tolerate? And that brings us to the third and final part of, uh, of this little riff rant, which is responsibility. And so what we're talking about here is, um, personal responsibility, right? We spend a lot of our time, uh, you know, before or maybe even during that awakening phase that we talked about last time looking out the window, what are, what are the reasons out there that I'm, I'm not happy, that I'm not getting what I want in life? Who are the people that are conspiring and standing in my way? You know, what's, what are all the, the relationships and the experiences I've had in the past that have caused, you know, whatever level of trauma, or that are creating narratives that are, that are holding me back? The answer does not actually lie in looking out the window or looking in the rearview mirror for that matter. The answer lies in looking in the mirror and taking responsibility for what is yours to take responsibility of, which is the way that you choose to see and frame yourself, your situation, and other people. And what you decide and do next. Those are totally within your power. It is— those things are your responsibility. And so last time we talked about, you know, stop playing the blame game, stop blaming your parents, your teachers, your competitors, your peers at work, whatever it is. And, you know, what are the things that, that you control that you can use to influence the results that you want? You have, you know, the, the, one of the things that the Stoics are really masterful at explaining is that everything in life, almost everything in life is totally beyond your control. You cannot control other people. You cannot control what, you know, social, economic, political forces. You cannot control environmental forces. Uh, you can't, you don't even have control over your body. No, you can spend all of your days putting nothing but nutritional food in your body and, and getting great exercise. And sooner or later, your body will fail you. The all, but even though almost everything is beyond your control, You possess everything you need to flourish and thrive in any circumstance or situation, which is you have the control over the quality of your thoughts and the way that you think about and frame yourself in your situation. And you have control over what you decide to do and what you actually then do next. And that's its own reward. The process is a shortcut and the process is a reward. If virtue is all that's required to live a good life, All you have to do to feel a sense of flourishing, prosperity, purpose, and peace of mind in life is to simply do what you need to do to the best of your ability. That is its own reward. That's all you're entitled to. You're not entitled to any rewards or outcomes. They may come. More often than not, they come as side effects of paying attention to the things that actually matter. Didn't really talk about this yet, but this ties a little bit into what we were talking about with the system reliability is mastering the fundamentals, mastering or paying attention to the first principles. Again, like what are the things that are the Stoics ask themselves, what does it take to live a good life? They decided that it came down to one thing: virtue, the quality of your character. If you pay attention to and seek to cultivate the content of your character, that, that will be enough to live a life that's worth living, to live what they called the good life, eudaimonia. What are the, what are the first principles, um, in whatever endeavor you have? What, what are the first principles that are important to you in terms of what it means to live a good life? And what are the fundamental philosophical or practical principles that you need to practice and hone in order to bring more of that into, uh, into your life? Because the more, you know, the fundamentals are called the fundamentals because they need to be, they are the things that are necessary. And so, you know, returning over and over and over again to these basic ideas, beliefs, philosophies, what have you, these basic principles that will help you get clearer about and closer to who you are, who you want to become, and what you actually want in life. And then just two last things around the responsibility, and then we'll open up to your, to your questions. But so this speaks a little bit to, you you know, what I talked about in terms of what you have control over and what you don't. But the, just this idea of responsibility is owning what's yours to own and letting go of the rest. So this idea of surrender, letting go of the things that don't matter, like letting go of your attachment to the opinions of other people, to the scrutiny and expectations of family, peers, critics, what have you. And then, and then back to this, the final thing is back to this idea of setting bumpers and guardrails and boundaries. Like, you know, what are, what are the behaviors that you allow into your life? What are the behaviors that you keep out? Who are the people, the kind of people that you allow into your life? Who are the ones that you don't? Just that idea of boundaries. Is something that is your responsibility. So I never advocate, you know, necessarily cutting people out of your life just because it feels in a moment that, um, they're not being supportive and encouraging. But in your day-to-day, you get to decide how much of your attention and how much, um, you know, validity you give the scrutiny and expectations of the people in your life. And so you can choose to spend less time with the people that maybe are not supporting and encouraging you in the moment and choose communities like this where you're surrounded by more people that are on a similar journey, that have similar values, that, you know, know the secret handshakes, get all the inside jokes. And, uh, and show up in the way that, that you show up or the way that you seek to show up. So there you go. Receptivity, restraint, responsibility. Those are the 3 key words, and those are some ideas around each of those things that will help you step into possibility and your limitless potential. And so with that, I think everybody here has got the is a premium subscriber, so you're all welcome to stay for Q&A and reflections and arguments and pushback and whatever you wanna do. Bad jokes. Anybody got some dad jokes? I'm running short on dad jokes.

Did I, did I tell you the one that I know that I learned to tell my— I heard it 2, 3, 3 weeks ago. To— in order to tell my dad, because he said, why didn't I ever tell him jokes? So then I heard one, I was like, oh, okay, did I tell you that one? Did that come up before here? It is, it is a dad joke. It is, uh, why— let me see if I get it right— why, uh, do the ships in the— in Norway all have barcodes printed on their hulls?

I don't know.

So you can Scandinavian.

Oh my God. Oh, that is terrible.

I know, it's short though too, which, you know, so that one.

Yeah, the latest one I learned was, um, what did the sushi say to the bumblebee?

Wasabi.

Oh, don't get me started. I can, I can, I, I have a call with my niece right after that. This, and that's, she's, she's the victim of, of all of my bad dad jokes. So bad dad jokes aside, any, uh, any questions, reflections, or, um, shared personal experience?

Oh, sorry, did one of my, uh, things— as you were speaking in the first part with receptivity, um, and talking about, you know, assertions and assumptions and things, part of what it reminded me of is, and something that I've, um, lived by as one of my favorite sayings, is foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, which I've kept with me ever since I was a teen. And it was— it's often misquoted, which I also find curious, usually by older people trying to tell young people they're foolish, and they say foolish inconsistency, but that is not what it is. It's all about stopping and saying, why do we do it this way? Why do we continue? Is this the best way to do this?

Am I right? Is that Nathaniel Hawthorne?

I think it's Emerson. Emerson, or else it's Thoreau, but I think it's Emerson.

No, I love that. Um, it is also a favorite quote of mine. I mean, that's, that's what we're always kind of fighting against, isn't it? We, you know, uh, why do we do it this way? Because we've always done it this way. Why have we always done it this way? Shut up. Go away. Right? So. Um, you know, Nazli comes from, uh, academia. I have spent some time in academia. I mean, this is probably the— was my biggest complaint with teaching at a really famous, uh, venerated New England private school was, I mean, it was, it, it, it's, it was run like the schools that you read about in a Dickens novel. And it was just impossible to me to believe that somehow we had not evolved beyond, you know, beyond this kind of punitive approach to, you know, dealing with youngsters who are, you know, they're all, they're just acting like youngsters. I mean, we've all been there. It was a long time for me, but I can remember, you know, there was no logic, reasoning, or evidence to support the way I behaved. It was just, you know, it was just the way I behaved. So I think, yeah, it's— that quote is great, Cato, because it's just a— it's another great way of another angle on questioning your assumptions.

Why?

Why do we do it this way? And, and what is it? You have to ask that question 5 times before you can arrive at any kind of real answer. Can you put the quote in the chat? Kato, if you put the quote in the chat, I will repurpose it in the— because I, I still have the chat. Yeah, because that's exactly what I'm experiencing in my present job.

So hence my departure. Yay.

No, Scott, it was not their academy. So, um, oh, I don't care. It's been, it's been long enough. So I actually got my start, my very, very first start teaching at Phillips Andover Academy. Um, that lasted for a minute because that place was nuts. Um, and then I followed one of my teachers to, the Kent School in Western Connecticut. Cato might be familiar with that one. Um, and that's— at the time it was in the top 10. I don't think it's anywhere near that now. I mean, that, that, that was— they had a boys' campus and a girls' campus that was separated by a mountain. And let me tell you, those kids still found ways to get together. But yeah, that was, uh, I'll, I'll someday I'll share my story about how the circumstances under which I was, um, I guess I can say that I left that position, but, uh, they might have seen it differently. All right, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds is the quote. I'm gonna drop it in here for everyone.

I had to make sure I was spelling consistency properly because there's two ways, and I am a terrible speller.

Yeah, that's why we have— that's why AI was invented, wasn't it? That's the whole point. That's a great quote. If anybody has— I mean, Allison, I know that you're working on, on something, and, and Nazli, you've You've got a project that you've been working on. Uh, Kato's got some, something cooking too. Um, you know, if there's, if there's a way that we can, if you have a direct and personal experience or situation challenge, um, happy to, to explore how some of these things might help with something specific and, and, uh, in real life.

I don't know, this is a— this isn't— this is something I've been working on for a couple of years right now, as far as an understanding of mine, which is I've always done things in what I think of as a circular way of working. So I'll work in patches, and I usually work in a focused way, but for a bit. And I don't, so sometimes it doesn't look like I'm working from the outside. It's part of this. And I learned this when I had my first theater job where the person who ran the theater worked in a very linear fashion, did a thing, finished the thing, check it off, did a thing, finished. And they were just like, you get your stuff done on time, but we never see you working. And I was like, oh, it's 'cause I kind of work in this other way. And I think of either there's a circle or actually, when I've diagrammed it recently and trying to understand it better, it's been more of a spiral. And sometimes it spirals into the thing and sometimes spirals out in different— or there's arms to the spiral and how I do work. It is not the most efficient way, but I do get my stuff done. Um, and, uh, I— and when you were talking about loops and open loops, and while it wasn't a direct correlation, it did remind me of, oh, maybe what I'm doing is I'm not closing loops is in a way that looks the same. And it's just a pattern that's always made sense to me in that work. So when you talked about loops, and it got me a new way to perhaps think about it and articulate this way that I do work, and I— because I've been trying to figure out ways to— what is the model and how do I explain this to other people?

Yeah, I think I will say that when it comes to, you know, in a way what you're pointing at, Cato, is productivity. And product, you know, there are productivity gurus out there that, you know, have all sorts of blueprints and roadmaps for how to how to, how to get more stuff done. And they are often really dogmatic about it. You know, like, you know, batching is a big one now. Like, you know, you, you do all of your social media on Thursdays, and you do this on Fridays and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What I have found is that everybody has different temperaments and tolerances around productivity and what is actually most effective and efficient for them in terms of how to get— like, I'm probably more like you, Kato. Like, I get it. People comment, like, I get an extraordinarily a large amount of things done. But if you watched me working, you would think, how does that poor guy get anything done? Um, but I do, like, I do really well with a bunch of tabs open and the occasional trip to social media or to email and then coming back. Like, I don't have I don't have that problem, like with letting my focus go somewhere else for a minute or two. But the greater, the even bigger thing around productivity is the understanding that productivity does not necessarily equal progress. And This is something that came up in a conversation with a, um, with a client recently who, you know, when, you know, we're talking like, what we're talking about in this whole idea of stepping into possibility is, okay, so where am I really? And where do I want to be? And what are the, the, the essential things that I need to do to get from point A to point B, right? So what we're talking about there is how do we create velocity? Because what usually happens is people have some sort of idea about where they want to be. They're actually not all that clear and honest about where they actually are. It's really hard to plot a trip on a Google Map unless you really know, have a clear definition of what the two, what the starting point and the ending point are. And here's, you know, here's the thing. So, so if you're not clear about where you are, you can, you can spend a lot of time going really, really fast, being really, really productive. And getting nothing meaningful done. You're just spinning in circles or you're spinning and, you know, you're, you're hurtling in the wrong direction or hurtling backwards or hurtling off a cliff or whatever. So you really have to have clarity about those, both of those things. Where am I really? Where do I really want to be? And what do I need to get done to get there? So let's say that you have that clarity of those two points, a lot of people then get tripped up by what are the things that have to, that need to get done in order to get from point A to point B because of our love affair with more. It's like, oh, I need to do this, this, and this. But wait a minute, here's a guru over here that tells me I also need to do a YouTube channel. And here's another one that says I need to build a webinar funnel. And here's, right? And so then we start doing, we're super productive. We're now doing a lot more things, but we're not making any progress because we've, we've lost, we've lost our focus on the things that are essential. But the last thing is what we oftentimes don't take into account is that if we know who we really are, what we're really good at, where we really belong, and know where we are know where we want to, and had this idea about where we want to be, as we are navigating our way toward that destination, we, we fail to remember that when we set those two points, we really had no idea that we couldn't possibly know what all the obstacles and opportunities that would present themselves would be. That part of that is time and randomness, and part of it is we just don't know what we don't know. And so this, we have to, and this speaks to your world, Keita, we have to have the ability to improvise. We have to allow ourselves to, um, I call it the reserve clause. Here I am, here's where I want to be, and that's where I'm going by doing these things. However, and if new information presents itself that require me to rethink my approach, my destination, um, I reserve the right to change my mind. And we actually have this, you know, we live in a very contractual kind of society in the United States. So we had this idea, like, if I said I'm gonna go there, I'm gonna get there. I'm gonna get there no matter what. And then, you know, the opportunities that arrive, arise that might help us get there quicker or take us in an even better direction towards a better goal. We ignore that. We just keep grinding our way to the destination we promised we were gonna head towards. Obstacles come up and, you know, instead of trying to think about how to flip those into opportunities or how we might work around them and which may also require some course correction or destination correction, we just keep grinding. And so that idea of the reserve clause, I think, is something that's really, really important. When I started my business, I had zero interest in being a coach. Zero. I actually was on record saying that coaching is stupid and I would never be a coach. I said the same thing about being a guitar teacher, and I taught guitar for 25 years in this little town of mine. So, but that's kind of, that's often the way that we're kind of programmed. Like, if we set a destination, we're just going to, we're going to head towards it no matter what. Um, so what I have found and what I would encourage you to consider, if, if, if life seems to be giving you an indication that maybe you're pointed in the wrong direction or is calling you into a slightly different direction, is to keep an open loop around that. Because what I have found is when I don't end up where I said I was going to be, but I end up somewhere, you know, just off to one side or the other, I've actually ended up in a far better place and get a far better outcome than with what I had considered doing in the first place. I thought I was going to be a speaker. I thought being a speaker was natural for me because of my music background, and I'm comfortable on stage, and I like running my mouth.

Obviously.

It took me like 6 speaking gigs to realize I fricking hate this. And it was out of desperation that I turned to coaching, which I instantly loved. Um, and so I was just really fortunate that life smacked me upside the head and said, no, you're not gonna do this cuz you suck at it and you're gonna do this instead because this is what life is calling you to do. So just, yeah, just, just encouraging you all to not get stuck in the productivity trap and not get stuck in the fixed mindset ideas around, you know, what you're really supposed to be doing and where you're really supposed to be going.

If I'm allowed, I'll just add a little something that occurred to me, that occurred to me, an insight that came to me a number of years ago. When I think somebody had said something about being human beings, and I thought about it. I said, yes, we're created to be human beings, not human doings. And we spend our time doing and putting all our value and our worth on the outcomes and the products of our activities and our efforts. And sometimes that pulls us away from just the being and the staying present and just recognizing and honoring, you know, who we are at our core. So that has helped me a lot. Sometimes when I get caught up on a little bit of productivity trap and I start judging myself and saying, am I not doing enough, or the outcome is not what I would expect given the amount of effort I've put into it, I always come away saying, wait a second, but who was I in? What was my intention? What was going on as I was doing it? And has there been some value that is not as materialistic, some value that is not as measurable to the outside world that— and I've learned that I really enjoy just the process of creativity sometimes when the outcome isn't that great. But still, I think to myself, but look at how much I learned. Look at what I was able to accomplish. Even look at some of the mistakes I made. Wow. I'll never make that mistake again because been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Now I could move forward. So anyhow, so that, that resonated a lot with me, the idea of just focusing on being human beings, not necessarily human doings.

Yeah, I, I've heard that and a lot of the things I'm reading speak to that now. The, um, Anthony DeMello's work and Eckhart Tolle and some of the other people I'm reading echo that sentiment. And I think it's really like people that show up in rooms like this need to hear that because we are frequently investing a lot of our identity in our productivity, in our doing. And we also, human beings naturally associate a lot of their identity with what they do. Whether that's in a role as a parent, spouse, whatever, or in, in a, you know, in the work that we do to make a living. And I would say that it's, it's, it's not so much about the balance, because most of us are, are way over to the extreme on the doing rather than the being. But it's finding that integrated. Like, I think it's okay to pay attention to both, like, to be— to pay attention, you know, to the being part. Like, am I, you know, mindful? Am I present? Am I listening? Am, you know, paying attention to my, um, my, my spiritual, uh, health and, and that sort of thing. And while still in pursuit, I like to— the, the, um, the phrase I always come to over and over again is to remember that we are sufficient as we strive. And so that, like, you're okay. Like you, you're okay as you are, and it's okay to want to be and do more and better. Just, you know, to, to, to your point, Allison, don't confuse doing things with actual, you know, fulfillment or meaningful things because Oftentimes the things that we end up doing don't have a lot to do with that sense of fulfillment, whether it's around identity, spirituality, or what have you. It's a great point.

And I heard you earlier talking a little bit about changing and It resonated with me. I know we're in the Indian about the pivoting. And I remember when we went into COVID, so many people were using that word pivot. Oh, I've had to pivot. I've had to pivot. I got so sick and tired of the word pivoting. But I recognize that in the being forced, being smacked in the face with having to make changes, a lot of people who who were stuck in ruts and hadn't even realized they were stuck in ruts suddenly had to challenge themselves to use parts of their brain and some creativity that they hadn't used and hadn't been challenged to use in a while. And I started hearing a lot of stories of people who were saying it was so hard in the beginning, but near the end they were just so thankful. I mean, they were quietly saying they were thankful for COVID, not thankful for people who died or all the horrible stories that came out, but They had personal stories that were really triumphant. They said, you know, had this not happened, I would've never had to rely on this or trust something that I was fearful to trust before. And look at what came out of something. I mean, it could only take the world being shut down to push me to this edge that I would've made these kind of decisions and received this kind of outcome. So sometimes some of the things we fear the most are the things that are the most transformative in our lives. And, um, yeah, so they have such great stories about that pivot and what it ended up being in their lives.

Yeah, that's a great insight as well. COVID was a forcing function, right? It's like we had to learn how to do things online. Because we couldn't do them in person anymore. There was, there was no choice. It was a forcing function. And you can, you can create those forcing functions. Like, I use the example in my last book that when I wanted, you know, my wife and I wanted to become full-time grandparents and we were both working 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. So the forcing function was, how do we make a full-time living working 2 hours a day so that we can spend 8 hours a day with our grandson? And we literally just blocked off our weekly calendars. Like, here's when, here's when Scott works, here's when Lisa works, here's when it's all Jasper all the time. And we, it, it, we created that boundary and guardrail so that we had to craft businesses that fit into those new parameters. And so sometimes, you know, to your point, Alison, sometimes the forcing function is forced upon us. And, you know, the good news is human beings have a long history and track record of solving wicked problems, often by working on them collaboratively and bringing their perhaps forgotten creative instincts and abilities into play, and their perhaps forgotten love of curiosity and consideration and those sort of things. Yeah, I was very fortunate in that my world didn't change at all. In fact, my world just got better because of COVID And again, to your point, Allison, I don't wish it again and don't, I'm terribly sorry for the suffering that it happened, but I was online already. And so it's, my life just got more, my, my situation just became normalized. Uh, yeah, that was, that was an interesting one.

Yeah. The introverts rejoice and the extroverts weeped and wailed and gnashed their teeth.

Well, some of the extroverts figured out how to be extroverts online. I gotta say. They did.

They adapted.

You could, you could, you could not get away from some, from some of them. Um, but yeah, also just really funny to me how many people became instant Zoom experts. Uh, you. We had at Akimbo been on Zoom from the very beginning. And so we're fortunate in that a lot of organizations would come to people in, in the leadership to say, hey, we need some help building online culture and learning all these tools. But often that was after someone that the previous week had been a social media expert and the week before was a digital marketing expert, the week before that was a leadership expert. Suddenly became a Zoom expert because everybody needed, needed help with Zoom. People are fascinating. All right, gang, that's a, that's a wrap for part 2. We'll do part 3 in just a couple of weeks, but really appreciate you all spending this time and your contributions to the conversation. And yeah, hope to see you on another call sometime soon.

Thank you, Scott. It's good to see you all.

Good to see you all. Thank you.