Gregory Russell Benedikt: Here's Why You Should Embrace Discomfort And Seek Change, According To This Experience Creator
29 Jun 2023 · 37 min
Stacey Lauren talks with Gregory Russell Benedikt about why discomfort matters for growth. He helps people chase their biggest dreams by pushing them out of comfort zones, a strategy he believes is essential for real change.
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I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.
Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. Well, guys, I brought on a Do the Thing favorite. Gregory Benedict is back again. He is someone that every time I do an episode with him, I always hear amazing things from people. And the time came again where I am exploring comfort zone in a deeper way, because I am doing a comedy thing about comfort zone. And I'm also considering doing a TED Talk related to comfort zone. And so I'm writing everything down and really exploring it. And I'm like, you know what? I want to expand my mind to a whole nother level and also help you guys with comfort Zone. Because, you know, the number one thing that people are asking for when they join one of my challenges is they want to get out of their comfort zone. And Gregory does that. And he also helps people reach their biggest dreams. And so that's why he is coming on to talk to you guys and to me to help us get to the next level in life. Because if not now, then when are we going to do it? So I am welcoming Gregory back to the show. Hey, Gregory.
Hey, Stacy. It is so good to be back. I always have so much fun in these conversations with you.
I know it's crazy. Whenever we talk, it just kind of brings this whole new space to whatever that thing is I'm exploring, and it opens it up in this really cool.
Way from my perspective. I think the reason that is is because you're someone who thinks of something and then they go and do it immediately. So every time we talk, I have a new job title. You have to do something you're up to. We're always iterating and changing and getting out of our comfort zone. And when you do that kind of thing, you have these fun stories to share. So I think that's part of it.
Yeah. And I love that you said that. And do you mind? Can we start off with what your title is now? Because when we talked just right before the show, I'm like, oh my gosh. That is the perfect thing for Comfort Zone. And it is what you're doing with people.
Absolutely. So I think the last time I was on the do the Thing podcast, I told people I was a human potential coach. And I've recently changed it to focus less on the specific words I describe myself as and more of what I really stand for. So now I'm just telling people I help people achieve their biggest dreams and deliver life changing experiences. That's really it at its core is I want to change people's lives for the better. I want to help them bring this dream, this huge, aspirational, unrealistic thing that they've always dreamed and thought about. I want to help them bring that into reality, into today and start taking the steps in order to live that dream life.
I think that's so incredible. And I love the fact that you've expanded what it is to give people even more of a visual of being able to do the thing, essentially.
Yeah. And this really came from me just working with a coach myself who's amazing. His name is Niyama. You know Niyama, you introduced us. But just asking, what do I love to do more than anything? What is my soul here to do? And Niyama helped me understand that my soul loves having curious conversations with people around what fires them up about what lights their soul on fire. And that's usually some dream they have that they've always wanted to do, but for one reason or another, whether it was a parent or a teacher or a coworker or just society at large, at one point told them, oh, you can't do that. You have to take that dream, take that off the table and go put it in a drawer and only look at it when you're by yourself and never tell anyone about it.
It's just amazing when you can show someone that it's possible to be able to reach that dream 100%.
And I've been thinking more about why me, what makes me a good person to do that. And on some days the answer is, I have no idea. That's when the imposter syndrome is there and when I'm feeling less confident. But on the good days, it's like I can just point to myself and what I'm doing. I used to work in finance. My dream was to become a coach that really fundamentally changed people's lives, that helped them do the thing they always wanted to do. And that is what I've done over the past almost three years. On June 26, it will be three years since I quit my job in finance. And if you were to show Finance Greg three years ago, my life now, he would just start crying of joy. He would be so excited and shocked and grateful.
Okay, so I have to hear. So what do you think as far as comfort zone and being able to get to that point? Right. And let's think about you and let's think about also the people that you help. How do you move someone that's in this zone of safety that just feels so supportive and so happy? Because there's really nothing wrong when you're in the zone of safety. It's just you have that ping of just wanting more. How do you move that person?
There's so many different ways to take this. There's the rational, logical arguments you can make. I think some of the best arguments on that front are in a book called the Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. He talks about how comfort is literally killing us. We haven't evolved to be comfortable, to live in these temperature controlled rooms where everything is easy. You can push a button and have pizza delivered to your door. You never have to leave. There's literally people who never leave their apartment because everything is delivered. We weren't designed to live like that. And humans, we thrive in overcoming challenges. And if you're too comfortable, the wheels start to fall off. He says that comfort is the reason we're seeing rising levels of anxiety, depression, loneliness, addiction. All of these things are coming up because life has simply gotten so easy. It's really funny, nowadays people pay hundreds, thousands of dollars to do things like Ironmans and these retreats where you go out into the mountains in the snow with Wim Hof. People are actually paying to do the thing, to hike the mountain that in the olden days like that was part of your daily life. Like you had to go to the top of the mountain to get food or water or whatever. So if you need some convincing of why seeking discomfort is a good idea and why comfort as a reward, as a way to give yourself. I don't know how to say it any differently than comfort as a reward. If you need convincing, there look to the comfort crisis. If you need more convincing from a scientific perspective, you upregulate genes. You literally unlock new parts of your DNA and your person by putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. So the more situations you can put yourself in, you unlock new parts of yourself and you actually become a better, different person. So that's on the logical. We're speaking to the left brain right now, the right brain, the creative side, the thing I would say is the most beautiful thing about the comfort zone is that it's so easy to get out of. And it's not easy intellectually. It's easy from the physical perspective. All you have to do to get out of your comfort zone is just put yourself in a situation that's uncomfortable. There's the bar is really low in terms of you don't have to get it right. You don't have to look good while you're doing it. You can sweat through your shirt, your palms can be sweaty, you can shake. I think that's the beauty in getting out of your comfort zone, is that the only thing required is accepting the challenge. It doesn't actually matter the outcome.
My God, there's so much cold in that.
Oh, my God.
That was really good, Gregory. So I have so many questions now, but let's start with what do you think the person is scared of to be able to get out of their comfort zone? Because, I mean, I even saw a picture this morning that was hilarious. And it's showing the person pulling towards the life they want, and then the life that they have is pulling them back. And it's such a great visual of kind of, I think, what happens in someone's head.
Oh, my gosh, I'm so glad you said that. So I'm going to try and get this right. And it's a study, and it answers your question. They did a study on rats where the rats were incentivized to move forward by the smell of cheese. And they were incentivized. Okay. So that was what was pulling them forward. It was a reward. Cheese. The scent. And then they also. The. The scientists wafted in the smell of a cat from behind them. So it was. They were running away from the cat. They were running towards cheese. And they had this little contraption that measured which pole was stronger. Are people more motivated to move towards something or away from something? And they found out that you're more motivated if you're running away from something. It's good to have both if you can be running towards something you love and away from something that you don't want. But using that almost fear or discomfort of where you're at is really powerful. And it brings up another thing that is called the region beta paradox. The region beta paradox says that you would actually be better off if your current living conditions, your current relationship, your current job got worse. Because as it got worse, you would have that spark. You would have the pain. The pain would get big enough to where you would actually Make a change. The most dangerous place is to be. It's not that bad. At least I have this job. At least I have this relationship. It's not good, but it's not bad. And you can just get trapped there. And so it would actually be better if things got a lot worse, because then you'd be motivated to change. But to go back to your answer, the reason why it's so scary is because you're uncomfortable. You will step into all of the things that you're afraid of. It's fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of being alone. It's all the things, mentally, that you're most afraid of. Those exist when you exit your comfort zone, and those are big and scary. But we don't give enough weight to all of the amazing things that also exist outside the comfort zone and all of the things. So it's really easy to forecast what could go wrong. It's hard to forecast what could go right. And all of the opportunities, the doors that open. We've talked about this over and over again. Once you get out of your comfort zone, people see you and you get connected to who you're supposed to meet.
I've heard that before. I think when you said that before, but it. It hit me. That is so true. Those people just come into your line of sight, and then all of a sudden, you're getting even more on your path because you're meeting the people when you need to meet them.
And if you're someone like myself, I'll use myself as an example. My comfort zone was in finance, and I wanted to do all of these big things. I wanted to start a podcast. I wanted to start speaking. I wanted to go on these epic wellness retreats. But no one besides myself knew about that because I was just in my little box. You have to take that step. You have to have. You have to give some sort of indication to the world, to the universe, to whatever, that you want something different. And I think that's when it starts to happen. If you stay within your little box, whoever is in charge of all of this maybe assumes that you're just good there and you don't need to go anywhere.
Yeah, you're reminding me of something that happened in one of the challenges, the dating challenge. Actually, someone had deleted her dating app, stopped paying for it right before the challenge was about to start. And then she ended up matching with someone on there after, where they reached out to her, and it turned out they're still together. I think it's been a year, and I Think my theory is the universe almost saw that she was serious because she stopped doing this dating app. And even though she ended up meeting that person on the app, she didn't get off the app because of him. She got off the app because of the challenge. And so it's almost like it became more present that that's what she wanted when she deleted the app. Anyway. Just kind of something coming to my mind right now.
It's so true, and I've seen it over and over again. As soon as you have the courage to tell the world what you really want, something big will happen. Something big will happen positively. You'll have an opportunity. And at the same time as that opportunity is unfolding, the universe will test you. The universe will give you this reward, this comfortable thing, to say no to that opportunity. And I've seen it happen probably four or five times with people who finally decide that they want to quit their job. And literally the next day or the same day, it's so uncanny how many times this has happened. They get a raise out of nowhere, or there's something where it's like, if you stay six months, then we'll give you this. And it's that test. It's like, oh, you say you want to quit your job, and you're willing to take that first step. Are you really? Are you really?
I would love to explore that idea more of the person that's scared to get out of their comfort zone and what comes up for them? The fear of failure, the fear of embarrassment, the fear of being alone. Let's kind of get in that person's head for a minute, because I think a lot of people listening have that right. What are they afraid that's going to happen with all those things?
I think a big one is change. Change is very uncertain, and with uncertainty comes discomfort. People are normally most comfortable when it's familiar and when they know exactly what's going to happen. So when you take a step out of your comfort zone in a new environment, maybe you're around new people, and it's the not knowing that is hard. We're not great at that. As humans, we want to know everything. We worry about the future because it's essentially us trying to forecast or predict what's going to happen. So not knowing how it's going to turn out, I would say is probably the biggest reason people are scared to get out of their comfort zone. If you knew that you were gonna go do an open mic at a standup comedy night and crush it, everyone was gonna love it and your comedy career was gonna take off, you'd be really incentivized to go do that. But you don't know what's gonna happen. It's so much easier for our minds to tell us that you're gonna bomb. You're gonna forget what you were supposed to say. You're gonna be all sweaty and clammy up there, and people are gonna laugh at you.
Yeah. It's so true. It is like the uncertainty is the thing that's underneath all of it. It's that they have no idea what's.
Gonna happen, which is interesting because we have no idea what's going to happen regardless.
Right.
We also have no. We have some control, but so much of it is out of our control that. Yeah, that just kind of hit me. It's kind of ridiculous to try and cling to the same thing in the comfort zone because it's going to change inevitably.
What do you think helps someone get comfortable around the uncertainty?
This is a trap I fall into all the time. I always want clarity and clarity and more clarity. And I think that's the most beautiful thing about stepping out of your comfort zone. I don't feel like I articulated this well earlier, but you just don't have to get it right. You don't have to do well. You don't have to do anything besides take that step and put yourself there. There's this quote that I love. It's called Jordan Peterson, and he says you accrue incremental wisdom as you implement your flawed plan. I love that because it gives you permission for two things. It gives you permission to not know now because you're going to accrue wisdom along the way, and you will figure it out. And it also gives you permission to have a flawed plan. Your plan can suck. It doesn't have to be right. It's going to get better. And the reason why I'm answering the question in this way instead of talking about how to get more comfortable with stepping out is because I don't know if you can. It's this. I don't know if you've heard the term mental masturbation. Think about it over and over and over again. Yeah, but at some point, you just have to go for it and knowing that the outcome doesn't matter. All that matters is that you accept the challenge. That's the piece that with my clients, we really focus on. And you can make it funny. You can talk about, okay, what's the worst possible way that this could go? And let's Aim for that. Give me your worst rough draft. Or make it fun in the sense of if you're worried about getting rejected or someone saying no, you make it a game. How many times can you get rejected? How many people can tell you no before next week? Things like that.
I love that. And you just said the word rough draft. And I talk a lot about rough draft goals on the podcast because I think so many people are needing to be so specific about their goals. And that's great if you have clarity on what you want to do, but sometimes you have an idea of what you want to do, but you don't know exactly how you're going to get it. And that's when I love the idea of a rough draft goal. But what you're speaking to is also whatever you put out can be a rough draft. So then there is no attachment to an outcome on it being good, because you already know it's not going to be good. You know what I mean?
Exactly. You give yourself permission to suck. I've heard that before. You've got to be willing to suck.
Yeah.
Because doing it poorly, and this is actually interesting because my brain was just trying to stop me from saying this, but doing it poorly is actually better than not doing it at all. There's some things where I'm sure you could make an argument like, you don't want to write a terrible article, but maybe you do, because writing that terrible article is better than no article at all. Because you'll get better. It'll get better. I think that's why when we talk, there's so much energy and we tap into this, it's you and I will hear an idea and we'll try it immediately. And maybe it goes horrendously in the wrong direction, but at least we try that thing. And then because we did that, we met someone, and then this other thing opens up. It's really just progressing the plot. It's not trying to get it right.
You're speaking to what's alive for me right now because I'm doing the sort of podcast challenge. We're in the first week, and I'm getting to see all the things that are coming up for people, you know, like, oh, what mics are good and what this and all the how to stuff. Right? And I'm like, you guys, here's your phone. I'm just asking you to record on your phone.
That's it.
No mics. None of that craziness. And it's funny. People are so scared to. Maybe it is that look dumb or not be perfect or whatever. And being able to release that ego that we have. And even though we might not be egoic people, but just the ego of just having to be perfect and to look a certain way. And the thing that I've realized, I don't know if you realize this too. The more you tap into that and show yourself, we'll use your term without the mask for other people. You're getting to know yourself on a much deeper level than you even ever imagined before. So you're not only connecting to other people at this no mask level and being able to bring people in for who you truly are. You're learning so much about yourself in.
That way, so much that you would never learn if you didn't try and do that thing. And it's the parts of yourself that I think are most important to know. It's those deep soul level interests and desires. It's the stuff that is buried in there so deep that the only way you can find it is to grab a shovel and start digging, to go deep, to put yourself in those uncomfortable situations where things come out that you didn't expect. So I love that. It's the self exploration. It's also exploring with other people. And two other things that popped into my mind that really help with the comfort zone. One is remembering that no one cares. No one cares. No one's paying attention to you. Everyone is so focused on themselves as the center of their universe that no one even notices. I get so many reminders of this in my own life where it's either a newsletter that I wrote or a podcast episode I recorded. People will come to me and they'll say, I loved this week's newsletter when you talked about this and this and this. And it's either not in the newsletter, I literally didn't even write about it, or they misread what I wrote and they're bringing their own stuff into it. And at first I would be like, oh, that's weird, I didn't write that. And now I just smile. It happened to me. Trying to remember. I was in a coaching conversation the other day. I asked a question that wasn't the best worded question, and they answered a completely different question. They created their own meaning to the words coming out of my mouth. And it was so much more powerful, though. People aren't paying attention to what you're doing.
Yeah. What's coming to my mind right now is I went to the Museum of Failure in New York recently and I actually got to interview the Founder of it which was really cool. And what was so surprising to me is as I'm walking through this museum of failure, I'm seeing all these failed product inventions. Right. Which is great because you're getting to see failures. Fine. You are going to learn from it, and it's how you innovate. But on the way out, they had this. Can't remember what he called it. You'll have to listen to his episode to find out the name. But basically there was this wall of chair failures where everyone got to put a sticky of what their failure was on the wall. And. And what still sticks with me right now is all the things people put on the wall. And it was things like not living up to my expectations. They were personal stories. They weren't product stories. It was like, oh, I went to college for four years and I went to college to be a doctor, and I didn't want to do that and I decided to do something else. It was. I'm not paying enough attention to my spouse. It was things like that. And I remember being blown away because in my mind, you see, share your failures at the museum of failure, which is all products stuff that I would see the failed businesses or failed things that people have done. But. And I even put a personal one, too. It's like people were so moved by the experience. And I asked him why he thought so many people wrote the personal stories. And he pretty much said, yeah, it's because they're just so moved by what they saw. And it was almost like now they have permission to be themselves. That that's what came out. And I just thought that was so fascinating. Similar to what you're saying, the interpretation people have when they see something, it changes the meaning of whatever it is you're even sharing with them.
Yeah. And what that brings up in me on the personal failure front is I got pretty clear a few years ago that the only way I could fail in my life is if I never had the courage to take that leap of faith. Because I was so terrified of getting to the end of my life and having all of these regrets, realizing that somewhere along the way I settled. I just gave up and accepted that this is it. There's a quote, Kierkegaard, the philosopher, says that man finds the level of despair he can tolerate and calls it happiness. I was so scared of that happening that I made a conscious decision that if I dare to dream, if I take that first step and start doing the thing, that's it. Failure off the table. And whatever happens next, even if it looks like failure externally, I'll know internally that it's not. So that hits me on the personal level. And then one of my favorite stories, just when we're talking about failure and pivoting, is Instagram. Most people don't know this story about Instagram that Instagram started as an app called Bourbon. It was a whiskey tasting app that allowed you to go to different whiskey bars around the city. Check in, you could drop a pin on where you were drinking whiskey, and you would share a photo of the whiskey drink that you were sipping on. It turns out that people did not care about the whiskey bars, but they loved the ability to share photos with their friends and they pivoted and they created Instagram. And that has always stuck with me.
I didn't even know that story.
And I'm trying to remember. Okay, the second thing, kind of going all the way back to the two things that are helpful to getting out of your comfort zone. One, realize that no one cares. No one is watching. And even if they are watching, they're completely getting it wrong. The other one is something called inversion thinking, where you take the problem you're working on and you flip it upside down. So instead of asking, how can I be successful? We'll take this back to the podcast. How can I start the best podcast ever? You flip it on its head and you ask yourself, what would I need to do in order to never start a podcast? Start a terrible podcast, stay in my comfort zone, not get anything done. And the answers that just come to mind off the top of my head is one, never record an episode. Never reach out to guests asking if they want to record with you. Spend hours and hours and hours researching which mic you should get. All of the things of figuring out how not to do it sometimes makes it fun and playful, and you can say, okay, well, obviously, I just need to do the opposite of that. Sometimes it's hard to find the right answer. It's really easy to find the wrong answer and then just flip it into the positive.
I'd love to also hear what your thoughts are in terms of putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. How can someone do that in a really safe, supportive way?
I think the key word there is safe and supportive. Most of the uncomfortable conversations or uncomfortable situations we're talking about are really safe physically. They're not going to get physically harmed. No one's going to punch you in the face. They feel psychologically dangerous because people could make fun of you, they could judge you. But some of the things that I know we're both familiar with are Toastmasters. What a great way to practice your public speaking skills in a club where everyone comes week after week to cheer you on. They want you to succeed so badly that people will laugh at your jokes before you even tell them. Another thing is doing an open mic stand up comedy. That one has a little more psychological danger because people aren't incentivized as much to laugh. You could have some of that judgment, but both of those things, you're walking away from those experiences physically intact. There's not a actual danger to those. Another really easy one is going on a long run, going on a long hike by yourself, pushing your comfort zone in terms of the physical element, working out, things like that. A great place to start is ask yourself, what are all those things that I tell myself I want to do that I haven't done yet? So maybe it's taking dancing lessons, maybe it's taking a cooking class. It's all the things that you haven't made time for yet because there's that slight edge, that slight uncertainty.
You just made me think of the bucket list challenge that we've got coming up where you're going to be an expert on that I'm excited about because I think this is going to be a fun place to be able to explore some of those things too.
That is such a good example because you make a bucket list because these are the experiences that you want to have before you die. You want to have them so bad that you write them down. You create this list. They're once in a lifetime opportunities and then so many people proceed to never have them. And why is that? It's because they're scary. It's because they're. Maybe they're expensive, maybe they're uncertain. They require you to take a chance. If it was super easy and comfortable to achieve your bucket list, everyone would have all the boxes checked off.
Totally. I'd love to hear how you're helping people achieve their biggest dream.
I love this question, what I'm doing right now. So I'm in a position of transition. I have been coaching anyone and everyone because I love coaching so much and I love connecting. So I have clients who are 73. I have a client who's 19 across all walks of life. And right now I'm transitioning to only working with people on their biggest dream. And what I'm doing is I'm holding these free hour long sessions called dream sessions where I say, look, I'm going to block out an hour on my calendar to Listen to you talk about your biggest dream. I'm going to ask questions. If obstacles come up, I'll put my coaching hat on so we can just get those out of the way so we can keep talking about the dream. But this hour is for you. It's for your dream. The only rules are we have to have fun and we can't be realistic. So many dreams die because people try and make them realistic, especially when you're dreaming it up. We can think about the details later, but you can't think about being realistic and the 12 steps to how you're going to implement it when you're in that ideation phase. So right now I'm trying to get as many of these scheduled as possible because one, people need to talk about their dreams more. There's not a lot of spaces that are safe enough to where you can really pour it out there and say, this is what I want to do more than anything and have someone affirm you and ask curious questions about it. So this is the beginning of my next step where I'm having all of these dream sessions. Most of the time that one hour is enough and we're complete. And I love to learn and I love to share. So usually I'm like, oh, you could read this book. Or if there's someone in my network that could help them, I'll connect them. That's normally how they go. But occasionally there's a dream that is so compelling, I see it in the person's eyes, in their soul, that they want it so badly that I say I need to work with you selfishly, because this dream needs to come into the world for my own well being and for everyone else. This dream needs to get outside of you. It can't die within you because you need it for your own personal fulfillment. But the world needs it too. And so if that's the case, I'll invite them into another conversation around what would it actually look like for us to work together? And it's going to be unreasonable, it's going to be outrageous, it's going to be expensive, it's going to be scary, all of these things. And so when you ask the question of how am I currently helping people achieve their biggest dreams? I feel like I'm just stepping into that. I've definitely helped my clients improve their relationships, go after what they want, improve their well being, but I feel like I'm on the precipice of really helping people change their entire life and achieve that dream and I want to put that out there. And almost get out of my comfort zone in saying that versus trying to make up this epic story of how it's happened in the past. I just want to let people know that's where I'm at currently and what I'm excited about.
Yeah, I think it's amazing. And I think you're showing right now in this moment how you're stepping out of your comfort zone too, just by even sharing it.
And I think the scariest part is saying no to people who want coaching around things that aren't their biggest dream. That's what's been challenging, and it's confronting me and my fears of all of the things. But that's what I'm clear I'm here to do, and I need to again. It's like the test from the universe. I say I want to do this. I have to say no to the people who it's maybe a dream, but it's not their biggest dream. It's not the dream behind the dream that's going to really make them pour themselves into this and change their world and the world.
Oh, could you tell us just one of the questions to help someone identify what their biggest dream is? Is there one you can give us a sneak peek at?
They're not preset. I normally just ask people to tell me about their biggest dream. And then sometimes they'll be like, oh, I don't really know. I don't have the biggest dream. And then oftentimes I'll flip it from the positive to the negative, where I'm like, okay, you're on your deathbed, you're looking back. What is the one thing or the three things that you regret most? Not doing? And we start digging into that. And it's not normally that the thing they regret is the actual dream, but beneath that is the virtue or the values of what they care about. And then we start talking about it in that way. And it really is a lot of just chiseling away and peeling back the layers to find it. There's some people who come in and they're like, Since I was 8 years old, I wanted to buy land and start this co op and all of these things. But a lot of people, it takes some massaging to get to it. But one thing I will say is that everyone has a dream at some point or another. You had a dream, maybe it was when you were little and now you forgot about it. But if you sit with yourself and ask yourself, what do I really want in life? If I could have anything, if I had A magic wand. My life could be any way I wanted it. In one year from now, what would I create?
What would be your number one piece of advice for people on breaking through the comfort zone?
I want to convey and revisit, and I'm gonna try and drill this home again and again. The number one piece of advice, the best thing you can possibly do is just do it. And I don't know a better way to say it. It's to realize that you win as soon as you take that first step. A lot of times we get false wins when we say yes to something. When we set the goal, we get that hit of dopamine. Sometimes saying you're gonna do things feels just as good as doing them. So it's not that piece of you win when you actually do the thing. And no matter how it goes, make it fun, celebrate that it could go really bad, and that that's a good thing. So the number one piece of advice to get out of your comfort zone is to literally, physically, tangibly move yourself out of your comfort zone and try something regardless of how it goes. That's a step in the right direction.
Yeah, it just makes me think, I mean, how we could really retrain people to just be excited about doing the thing, celebrating either the failure, the success, the whatever comes up from being able to do it. It's almost like a retraining of flexing the muscle, of just being okay with what is and getting excited about the do part.
The CEO of Spanx, her name is Sarah, and I'm blanking on her last name.
Oh, Sarah Blakely, I think. Yeah.
Yes, exactly. She's married to Jesse Itzler, who I love. I love his lifestyle. And she talks about how the question that her dad would ask her, and I think she has a sister or brother, the dad would ask not, how was school? How was your day? The question he would ask every night at dinner was, what did you fail at today? And they were celebrated when they had something that they failed at, they weren't celebrated. It was a kind of a bad thing if you didn't have anything that you failed at. So if we could flip, that would be the ultimate unlock. If you can flip, you think of failure and all of the things to it. Literally the only metric you should be measuring is if you're doing it or not doing it on or off.
Please share with everyone where they can learn about you. And then also, I forgot to mention your podcast earlier, so if you could share about your podcast too.
Absolutely. So if you were listening to me describe these dream sessions giving you space to talk about your biggest dream. I would love to have one of those with you. The best place to do that is you can go to my website www.gregoryrusslebenedict.com Click on the button that says Book a free. It might say book a free discovery session cause I haven't updated it yet because I'm just moving.
I'm just out.
Do that. We'll set up time to talk about your biggest dreams. That is the absolute best way because I get to know you on a deep personal level. It's gonna be fun. We'll have some laughs during the call. You will get more clarity on your biggest dream and it might lead to action. I hope it does. So that is the best way to talk to me about coaching. If you want to hear more of my thoughts and musings on life with my co host Vinny, you can check out the Dare to Dream podcast. We're on Spotify and Apple podcasts and all the things.
Thanks again for coming on today. I just always have such a great time with you. It's so cool to be able to explore these topics because I think we're always able to get to these really cool levels.
I always have so much fun. Stacy, thank you for creating this space and creating the space for all of the people you're helping. I think it's so amazing with these challenges you're doing. I couldn't say more good things about you and what you're up to.
Thank you. And for the listeners, do the Thing. Don't wait for opportunity. Create it.
Thanks for listening to the do the Thing podcast. We hope you you enjoyed the show. But even more, we hope you'll be inspired to do the Thing. Do you have a burning question on Doing the Thing that you'd like answered? How about an inspiring do the Thing story of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear all about it. Just leave us a voice message at do the Thing callcast co or email us@helloothethingpodcast.com Sam.
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