Does Your Environment Hold You Back?

So earlier we talked about building great relationships and how it relates to creating meaning in your life and how a lot of people define meaning through relationships. Well, today we're going to talk about one of the ideas that are one of the things that holds people back in general, and that's their environment. So it's related to relationships because usually you're in an environment with other people. But we want to talk about what you can do is in order to create that support network, to create that sense of connection and that sense of feeling free to go about what you got to do or doing what you got to do in your environment in order to succeed. Welcome to the Meaningful Revolution podcast, where we talk about people's passions and hope to inspire you to your own. We also answer the question, what if you could just add 1% more meaning to your life every day for the next year? So join us on this Meaningful Revolution. I'm your host, Shawn Butner, certified High Performance Coach, and we have a really great episode for you today. So let's get into it. Hey, welcome to or welcome back to the Meaningful Revolution Podcast. I'm your host, Shawn Butner again, and this is the podcast where we share ideas to inspire you to put your goodness and creativity out in the world. And we try to answer the question, what would happen if you added just 1% more meaning to your day every day for the next year? Because we believe that if you can't add that meaning, you can amplify the good that you're doing. So, like I had mentioned in the intro earlier, we talked about building great relationships, and it's such an important topic in this, this area of creating meaning and adding meaning to your day every day, just a little bit. Because, you know, it's relationships that help support us when we don't feel confident in ourselves, or it's relationships that help us shape and control the environment around us. Because that's the role of governments. That's the goal of corporations in a lot of ways. It's to create a culture, to create a structure that we can operate in and, you know, in society, too, to kind of streamline our productivity, our goals, our amplify our dreams. So, you know, great environments will help support you, will help mentor you, will help guide you, will help protect you from particular negative impacts, bad relations or environments will hold you back, will mess you up, will cause extra red tape. And so we need to kind of think of, you know, what type of environments we have in our lives, right? So we have our work environments, generally, we have Our community environment, we have, you know, our personal relationships environment. So maybe our home, it might be our community. There's so many different ways and angles. We can take a look at it. Those tend to be the, the major ones. And so, you know, when we struggle, right? And maybe you've felt this way in your life, maybe not. But, you know, if you've ever had a situation where you didn't feel support in a big dream or a goal or an ambition you had, you know, you shared with your wife that you wanted to start this cool business and she laughed at you or said, hey, you're gonna ruin us financially. You shared a dream with a friend and they made fun of you for it. You know, these types of things. Or maybe, you know, you just weren't clear on how you could advance or climb to higher levels of success because you didn't have an example, right? So we'll talk a little bit about that later here. But, you know, if you're around people that are not entrepreneurs, of course they're not going to be able to help support you or encourage you or give you confidence on how to succeed as an entrepreneur yourself, right? You need to get around other business owners in that particular case. Or if you want to be a better, you know, software engineer, you know, you got to get around people that are better software engineers and you'll naturally, you know, learn from them and, and become better in that regard. So maybe you've felt that, you know, certain people don't respect your ambitions for more, right? So again, like, you know, they don't support your dream. But, you know, there's also the, like, they call it the tall Poppy syndrome, I think in Australia, maybe England too. But, you know, who are you to want to do better than your family, to do better than the community you came from, you know, and that could be a really tough thing if you are economically depressed, part of the States or the world, and you're like, hey, I, I'm going to start some businesses. I'm going to, you know, try to, you know, make it get rich, have greater abundance and you have your friends and family, like, who are you to do this, right? And that can really mess with your head and prevent you from taking action and prevent the environment is fighting against your ambition or that ability to, to access more, you know, or consequently too, like, maybe, you know, you don't have a lot. An environment that has a lot of great mentors or people that have been down the path for you, right? And I think this is one of the great Things about public school is, you know, mixing and matching all sorts of people from all separate walks of life. You can meet people that might not be part of your neighborhood or your socioeconomic group or status level, whatever that is. And it can really help you have different models for how you could be in the world. But, you know, mentors or, you know, those types of relationships can be really, really important in advancing and being successful and achieving the things that you dream about. And then finally, maybe you just feel out of control of what happens to your job or your livelihood or investments or quality of life or the list can go on and on and on. But, you know, sometimes when we're not in a stable or certain environment, you know, we. We feel like we're at the whims of the world. And that can be scary. That can be frustrating. It can. If it persists or you begin to buy into it, you start to lose the ability to feel like your actions control your environment or control your destiny. And then you get into this mindset of, like, why even try? I've seen a lot of people in the past year as a coach that have been in this particular, like, why should I even try? Like, it doesn't matter what I do. And it's like, no, no, no, it does really matter what you do. And being defeated in that way is not going to change. Right? And that kind of angle and truth shifts them. But that's kind of what we're talking about in environment in a couple of different contexts. So maybe. I know many folks have felt this way that I've encountered, like I said, the last year or two, but maybe you've felt that way or maybe not. Maybe you know someone that has felt this way, or maybe you lead a team and there are people that are struggling in this particular way, you know, and it's important to talk about this in the context of work because I think there's this idea of the great resignation out there in the news and Google it, if you haven't heard about it yet, and we've talked about it a bit on the podcast, but I think it's describing a phenomenon of people that are leaving bad jobs or bad environments for better work environments, right? So it's the person who works, worked, used to work at a clerk at the grocery store and is now working at an Amazon warehouse because they have doubles the pay and they have stable hours where they're going in nine to five or whatever it is versus kind of having the schedule shift on them. All kind of crazy, right? So it's really caused a movement in that particular space. It could also, you know, be people that are giving up on areas. Right. There's been a lot of things here in the Bay Area about a lot of tech moving to Florida or a lot of people moving across the country to certain areas because they don't like certain social things that are going on that, you know. And I not here to say one way or the other, one way is great or not, but you know, these types of stories, I think you're going to notice a lot more out in the world. And so being aware of that, being aware of it's this environment component that people are seeking to be around higher quality or the people that are the best in their field or you know, people are trying to find the structure where they feel like they can thrive and you know, run their dream. You know, I think that's kind of the story. So really like if as we're talking about this, you know, I, I know I myself like left Arkansas years ago when I was working at Walmart because it wasn't the place where I felt really accepted or a part of the community or comfortable in a lot of different ways. And so, you know, I worked at Walmart for five years in software, met a lot of really great and wonderful people. And so it's not that the place was, it wasn't the people that, that really kind of messed me up. There were certain people that I didn't jive with or didn't have the same values with. And that's fine, you know, you're going to meet those people everywhere. It just seemed a little disproportionate there. And so after a while, you know, I felt like I was losing myself, right. I didn't have that strong social support and I didn't know where to find those folks. Right. And so ultimately the choice to leave that job, the choice to leave that state for me was to find more like minded folks, to find more people that I could connect with to get to a bigger area too. Being from the suburbs of Chicago, I was used to a bigger metro area. And so to just be around more culture and more things was important to me at that point in my life in my late 20s. So by the time I ended up leaving there and, and so ultimately though, like, you know, I moved to California, I was able to fulfill a dream of working for Apple. You know, after a long story, I told this story a bunch of times, I, I'll save you guys here. But I ended up moving to California and through you know, some finagling, getting a great job at Apple as a software engineer, which had been a dream of mine. So that felt good. Making that jump to an area that was different and just that sense of adventure was really great. And it worked out for me. Right now I'm a coach running my own business out here, and I love it. So that's, you know, so many stories of people heading out west or heading out east or heading to Texas or Florida or wherever, you know, to find their people, to, to, to feel inspired to, to do their best work. You know, there's a whole set of stories like that. So if you're. So what do you do? I guess here's the question, like, what do you do if you're. You feel stuck in an environment that's not helping you grow, helping you advance, helping you feel supported? You know, I got four ideas for you today, guys, on the Meaningful Revolution podcast. So the, the first thing is to just remember that you do have agency, right? So if you are feeling like, you know, I was hinting at before that, that people feel like they don't have control of their life, like, you have a lot more control than you think. You could make a crazy decision. And not that you should, right? You want to make sure you're, you know, there's a lot of factors to go in that make any type of big decision really great for folks. But you could decide tomorrow to be like, I'm done with this job I'm going to do. I'm going to go to culinary school and learn how to be a chef, because that's what I really want to do. And you could go do that, right. And there are ramifications. There are things you should probably consider the cost of culinary school in this particular instance, like, do you have any family responsibilities? You know, that. Those kind of things. And you can if you have, oh, I have family I have to take care of. Right? That's just a numbers problem, right? How much money do you have to have in the bank before you can make the jump to culinary school? You know, so you can kind of brainstorm. But that's getting into the what can I do? And going into that chain of what needs to happen in what order in order to make a smart choice for myself and my family, that's responsible. But you can, like, you could do that, right? You could maybe shift your job or role in an organization. You could, you know, move across the world if you wanted to. You know, like I said, there's a lot you can do to either shift environments, there's a lot you can do to maybe influence it. And that's the second point is encourage other people to help you create the environment that you want to live and thrive in. So what does that look like? It could be getting a group of people at your job to try to shape the rules so that the way that you guys split sales are more fair or different or more aligned with a company value, or creating a company value and culture. So it's like the leadership of shaping the culture of around you. It could be, you know, having weekly standing meetings with your family where, you know, okay, like, how can we live better together in our house? You know, and that open question of getting people on board, trying to define, like, what would better look like, you know, how can. What are some actionable things that we can actually do to help support that? And shaping of our environment or family culture or organization or whatever can really, you know, help you feel like, you know, you have a little bit more control over the environment and help everyone buy into that idea that it's something that we can improve upon. Third thing is to try to see if you can shape the rules of an environment. So if you're like, you're the boss of your company, right? This is pretty easy. You just switch the rule, you switch the process, you switch how things get done. And it's great. If you're someone that is working for someone else, that might be a little bit trickier, but, you know, leveraging your persuasion skills, saying, like, the company will perform at 100 times better if we do it this way, or however that conversation goes for you can be super impactful and really help you reach that next level. And then the fourth thing to do is, outside of actively trying to shape and change the things around you and lead the things around you is to level up your communities, level up your, you know, mentoring networks, and, you know, doing the work to find that inspiration out in the world. So what does that mean? That means if you're a business person, how are you getting around people either in, like, the local, like, chamber of commerce, the. There's the completely blanking on the name of the club. Like, like there's business clubs run by your organization and creating and knowing all of the businesses or all the people in your space, or knowing who the top programmer, who the top doctor is, who the top lawyer is in your field and trying, you know, getting in front of them or studying them or, you know, so there's a component of trying to figure out what other people are doing. But also building a community where you can feel like you're participating, that you're part of something and that you're helping each other move forward, right? You're cheering each other on when there's failures, you're learning from each other when there's successes, you have the sense of, you know, your people, right? And I think that can be a very, very powerful way to leverage your environment or to level it up, right? Because also sometimes the people that you grew up with have this idea of who you were in high school or how you were the last 20, 30 years. And you know, people grow, people change, and sometimes you just outgrow some of that stuff too, right? So instead of being around people that you've known since you were a kid who see you as a five year old, that the five year old that they love and knew and know, right, you get some new people who are meeting you as an adult, see you as an adult, treat you as an adult, and will challenge you like an adult or you know, like a business owner, a professional, those types of things. And I think that can really, really help you. So again, like, these are ideas on how to shape or break through any environment. If there's one idea that, that I think is the most relevant and that that is to level up the support, encouragement and mentor networks, level up the people around you and not necessarily get rid of the people that aren't either, right? So I want to make it very clear that I'm not saying if your spouse doesn't support you that you should get rid of them. Like that's terrible. You know, you might need to work on that relationship or you might need to know that you just need other people to fulfill that role of encouragement and support. If you're not getting it at home or you're not getting it from your friends or family or teams or whatnot, right? Maybe you create a, you know, you join a hobby or you join the influence group, right? The, or not the info. It's the inspired group that, that I'm running and there's a link in the show notes here where we will encourage you as you advance your professional life, as you advance your businesses. We'll help each other out, we'll cheer each other on and I'll facilitate that all. So if you're interested again, check Sean or community.sha.com or the link below here. But really, guys, like, the environment can be one of the biggest things. Your environment can be one of the biggest things that is impeding you or propelling you to success. And I want to say, like, there are ways for you, whether in my community or a community that you love, model trains or whatever, you know, there are people that want you to succeed. And it's been my experience that most people want you to succeed. Most people want to see you advance. And I, I think we need more encouragement and more of that in the world because there's been a deficit of it. So just plain and simple, that's, that's my belief. But go out there, guys, level up your communities, get that support that you need. And I'll see you guys in the next episode where we will be talking about, you know, focusing on the skills you might need to get to your next level. Just really finding your performance edge and really finding how you can, you know, learn and connect with what's meaning to you, meaningful to you through learning new things. So I know you'll love it. I'll see you guys then. Take care. Thank you for listening to the Meaningful Revolution podcast. 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