8 Strategies to Breakthrough

Welcome back, everyone, to the Journey Principles radio show. We are broadcasting to you live from that beautiful city of Oaks in Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm your host, Josh Pledsoe, and today I have the privilege to be guest hosting with you, sir, the master life strategist and the seed planner himself, Steven Skoggins. How you doing?

Doing awesome, man. Been a crazy, crazy day. Crazy week.

Yeah, slightly.

Nice job last week with our guest star.

Oh, thanks, thanks. She did all the work. She did all the work. I just sat there and twirled in my chair a little bit.

That's it. That's awesome. Cool, man.

Well, today's show is going to be special. It's all about roadblocks and you know a lot about roadblocks. We're going to talk about the specific eight roadblocks that might get in some people's way. What does someone mean when they say I'm stuck?

What they're really saying is, I've had a hurdle in my life that I haven't ever get over.

Or I am missing clarity in my life, or I'm missing sense of purpose and direction and meaning more than anything else. That's typical what being stuck means. It's. It's the absence of knowing what's holding you back.

Oh, I like that. So that basically, it's just lack of knowledge, really.

I mean, that's what it boils down to. Unfortunately, when you're. When you're just getting started on your journey, you're just trying to move forward and go somewhere special. One of the things that always happens inevitably is a lot of times you will get. You'll hit different levels, and as you hit each level, you have to. You have to go through a certain level of various roadblocks. Most of those roadblocks, I think as human beings, we typically focus on roadblocks that are more internal than anything else. Yeah, I'm sorry. External. So we focus on our relationships. We focus on the job we didn't get or the job we don't like, or we focus on who did what or how they did it. We kind of focus on all that stuff as a whole. Reality is most of the roadblocks we have to overcome are actually inside of us already almost every single time. When we do a deep enough dive and we actually drill in almost every single time, it has to be one or sometimes two of these roadblocks. Now, not everybody has. I think we all have all the. All eight roadblocks, but you typically have two or three that really kind of stand out. Really kind of come from your blueprinting. Really kind of come from some of your past behaviors, your infrastructure, your influences, a lot of the other things we talked about, which is why they're so hard to see. Yeah. You may see the symptom of so getting involved in a relationship and then being, hey, I want to be involved in the relationship, and no, I don't want to be involved in the relationship. Yes, I do. No, I don't. Yes, I do. Yes, I don't. The hot and cold feet kind of thing.

Sure.

Really what that is, that's a symptom of one of the roadblocks.

Yeah. Yeah, you're hitting on a good point there. And it's also important to note, folks, that when we start diving into these and we start picking them apart and talking about some of the triggers, some of the ways that you may find yourself in a roadblock and then how to overcome it, if you resonate with any of these at all, just be honest and hopefully you're by yourself and someone else is not nudging you. Like, yeah, that's. You just. Just write it down. Simply just take notes on it. And you're going to learn today how to recognize it and then how to overcome it at the end of it. So, Stephen, so before we dive into each individual one of these, I want to ask, like, how does someone end up being stuck? Like, this word stuck just sticks, sticks out to me. Stuck sticks out to me. Did you get that, Brian?

It sticks out to me because so many people are concerned about it. Like, they say, yes, that's me. I'm stuck. But how do they even get there?

You know, we can give a long dissertation on what that really means, but in essence, what it boils down to is you're unwilling to look at yourself. That's the. That's the quickest summary of being stuck.

That's the good hard choice right there.

Unstuck. Is to take a hard look at yourself in a pot in a constructive light where there's a lot of people. Even one of the roadblocks we'll talk about. I mean, it came from North Carolina. Yeah, we'll talk about. In a minute. Comes from a place of over criticizing yourself. Okay, so what, we use a word all the time called explore and discover. Yep. Right. Just exploring your. Who you are as a person. Exploring your gifts, your talents, some of your struggles and discovering your gifts. Talents and struggles. Yeah. All of that has to do with self development, if you will. It's all looking inside. Yeah. And most of us Struggle, because we keep wanting to fix the surface. Like I said, we want to change the relationship, we want to change the job. You know, we want to be stay at work so we don't have to deal with something at home or whatever the case may be. There's a lot of different things that go into that. But all that symptom, however, when you can dig down to the root claw, root cause, and actually get the right perspective, a lot of times you're able to really dig yourself out of a hole and actually see yourself with a positive light, with construct with. With constructive behaviors.

Yeah.

And really discover and explore.

Yep. You know, and you're talking about actually fixing the issue, getting down to the honest problem versus just covering up the symptoms.

Absolutely.

Awesome. Awesome. So you guys ready to get started? All right, let's start with the first one. The first roadblock that people may find themselves in is the avoider.

Yep.

Okay. The avoider oftentimes grew up in a low affection or affirmation household. Maybe they didn't get affirmation as much as they should. They struggle to see any problem areas, influence in their past, and they tend to verbalize it by saying, it's fine. It's no big deal, and they want to move on. So explain to us more about what an avoider is.

You know, a lot of us, you know, we see this with personality styles, too. My good buddy CeeLo taught me a lot of personality styles way back when.

Avoiders tend to have a hard time with conflict as a whole.

Yeah.

Yeah, they do, because they don't want to have to face what may come across as something that may harm them. So I'll give you an example.

You're a father, right. You got Asher right now. You're a literally loving father. Okay.

Oh, thanks.

You love. You love your son dearly, and you're always there for him, and you're always playing with him and trying to teach him, and you're correcting him at when you need to and all that good stuff. You're doing all the right things as a dad. Okay. Now, in my case, my dad did all those things, but he did them later in life. So I was in my 30s before we really started to kind of bond and connect, like, truly. Okay. Now, we bonded on the job site working, but it was work, and, you know, it's different. Yeah. But as far as any kind of level of real deep connection. So I grew up trying originally watching my dad avoid conflict at all cost. So rather than. I'll give you an example. So we Were in a financial stressful time going through some stuff, and we were going through it and only to find out that we had an opportunity to actually save our financial future. But my dad was going to have to make a hard choice, Swallow some ego, swallow some pride. And if he had done that, we would have been able to stabilize our financial picture. Unfortunately, due to his upbringing, due to the things that he dealt with, which in his lifestyle with his father, my grandfather was awesome, but he was not overly affectionate. You know, back in the. In the 40s and the 50s and stuff like that. It wasn't. It wasn't really cool to be hugging on your son or you had to be the tough guy, you know?

Yeah. Life was different back then.

It was very different back then, you know, so, you know, it was probably. I was probably 20 or so before my dad and I started hugging.

Wow.

Right. Because it wasn't ingrained in him to a degree.

That's important. Just a little side note, you know, the. The home you grew up in or the past you grew up in, just be graceful. Because your parents only knew what they knew, how they were raised.

That's right. Yeah. I mean, it comes down to discovering again. There's those words again. Discovering and exploring what made up the circumstances. Yeah. What were the influence. What were the spiritual influences? What were the emotional influences? What were the environmental influences? What were they. Yeah. You guys talked a lot about influences last week, right? Yep. You really kind of got in. Got in there and got in the weeds a little bit. Same. Same. Cause that's why last week you guys were able to uncover, this is how I began feeling worthless. This is how I began feeling like I didn't matter. This is how. And it all stem from that one belief system. Yeah. You see, I'm saying.

Yeah.

So typically, the, The. The roadblock of avoidance. You will find yourself avoiding big decisions. Yeah. You will find yourself avoiding conflicts. You'll probably find yourself avoiding close relationships. You will probably feel in a. You'll probably not necessarily stay in a state of hopelessness, but you'll find yourself not taking the chances that could actually reward your life.

So if I'm an avoider, would I also avoid things that challenge me? Would I also try not to push too hard, too fast, too long?

Yeah.

I'd like to stay in a safe place, is that same thing.

And that's the nest. The theology is your. Is you are trying to stay in a safe place.

Okay.

But in order to grow, you have to constantly get outside of your comfort zone.

That's True. Yeah.

So if you're not getting outside of your comfort zone, by definition you are what.

Stuck.

You see what I'm saying?

Complacent. Yes.

You know, so what we, what especially with the Avoider, what we're going to, what we try to do with people is we try to teach them how to confidently deal with. With the conflicts and the circumstances and decisions in front of them. Yeah. And a lot of times the avoider simply needs more knowledge. Yeah. And it's a safe place in which to have confidence in, to out overcome the avoiding.

So they can do it. They just need some more knowledge and a place where they can trust people as well. Yeah.

I mean, somebody's probably have to go out of their way to kind of begin that. Begin that level of trust. Michael Garner, a good friend of ours has it, does a wonderful counseling service out here in Clayton.

He's watching too, by the way. What's up, dude?

He does a great job of preparing a safe environment, you know, and really leaning in. Good listening skills.

Very good.

Right. Avoid. Avoiders need that type of soil to begin to shake that off. Yeah. Now I will say that when you can finally break through the roadblock of avoidance, being an avoider, your whole world opens up. Yeah.

I can see why.

Because you began to see opportunities where you once saw closed doors. Yeah. Because you're actually getting outside of your comfort zone. Yeah.

I heard a statement this weekend from a personal trainer. We're out there just sweating it and pushing it. And he goes, if you're sore, that means you're feeling change. Change is good. I'm like, yeah, but it still hurts.

It must have been one of those spartan races.

Yeah. It was one of those strange things to that. All right, so we talked about the avoider. They can conquer it by simply getting out of their comfort zone with a safe environment and more knowledge. Right, Right. There's more knowledge. Okay, let's move on to the pleaser. Alright. These are the people pleasers. We all know the people pleasers. Unfortunately, they get walked on far too much. They struggle with healthy boundaries and often feel empty and restless because they're giving themselves too much. They're also a giver or a pacifier. I want to circle back around to this pacifier there. And they have to give. They have to give to soothe their own anxiety about others being unhappy. I know. I got a good friend up in Virginia and she would make sure everyone is happy before she was happy to the point where it's like, it's, it's okay.

Make Great HR folks.

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure they can make great babysitters too, but they end up getting just. It feels like they get dumped on far too much and they're hyper attuned to other people's needs. Okay, so that's a, that's a little bit. Let's talk about pleasers.

Well, in essence, people pleasing is something I even struggle with to this day. Like I hate making people unhappy. Yeah, right. I, it's. And I'm a very determined, very direct person.

I just don't feel fairly bold.

Yeah, I'm fairly. What are they, what do they call it? Extroverted, I guess is the best way to say it. For the most part, however, when I go home, I reach. I kind of retreat. That's a safe place. Right. But let's go back. I want to, for people pleasers. Want to hit one, one specific area and that is. You said people please, people pleasers. I felt like saying that. Purple people eater. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of jumped in my head for a second. Sorry about that. Sorry. Sorry, America. But anyway, the people pleasers. You said the word giver.

Yeah.

They are over givers.

Over givers.

Okay, so there's giving, which is contribution and there's over giving.

Talking to them.

Right. So there's. I'm trying. Hello, Hello. Talking to the mic. I got. Talking to the mic. All right, so they're, they're, they're over givers. Yeah, right. They, they, what they do is they, it means so much to them to have your approval, have your understanding, your respect, have your affirmation. Yeah. That they'll sacrifice anything and everything for it. You'll see a lot of people pleasers, unfortunately, staying in abusive relationships.

That's true.

You'll see people pleasers going bankrupt trying to save your financial picture. Yeah. You'll see people pleasers laying, laying down things that really matter to them, that can really help them in their life. Yeah. As a way to help promote you.

Which then tears apart the relationship. I made a good friend down in Florida and he and I ended up in a no kidding. Like a five hour car ride back from the Keys up to Miami area, which is only supposed to take about two and a half hours.

Yeah.

Bad traffic that day. Poor timing. And we just got to start talking about there were different relationships and he just opened up and then we talked about the past three serious relationships that he had. And I knew that he was a high ass personality. I knew that he was a giver just because he was always making sure that everyone that we were around was taken care of. And I just asked him, I said, hey man, do you find yourself in a relationship? Let's talk about the three that you didn't really work out so well with. Were you over giving? He was like, yeah. I felt like I ended up being the one to give all the time. I said, did you find yourself gravitating towards taking people? He said no, they were actually givers. Until in the relationship he gave so much, he, it wasn't his fault, but they turned into takers.

Yeah. Because you over give. Yeah.

And then he was just restless in one thin.

The one thing that people. And this is something I've worked on for probably the last, I don't know, probably solid for like the last five or six specific years.

Right.

And that is actually having boundaries, knowing that it's okay to say no.

Yeah.

No. A good friend of mine told me that knows a complete sentence. You don't, you don't necessarily have to like say anything funny afterwards or put the word but behind it.

You know, my kids one time and they wanted to go do something and I thought it was not in their best interest. So the answer was no.

Yep.

Well why? Because I said no. You know, now obviously I'm more of the mind of like trying to explain because it's like, you know, it's okay to not take on somebody else's responsibilities until you've handled your own. Yeah. You know, so with people pleasers, a lot of time we. Part of the understanding the boundaries is learning how to set boundaries that keep them in the healthy lifestyle for themselves. Yeah. Whether it's the relationships like having quality relationships, non toxic people in your life or just having boundaries around your financial picture. We had a great, we had a great team member not long ago at one of my other businesses that was really good about loaning money to his parents.

Whoa.

Loaning money to his family, loaning money to his parents, doing all this kind of stuff. And unfortunately at the end of the month he would not have any money to feed himself. You see what I'm saying? You should not be giving financially to anyone out there unless your whole financial picture is in order.

This is a good place. Yeah.

Now give to your church obviously tithe and all that kind of stuff. What I mean is over giving to people to take care of their responsibilities because unfortunately you're holding them back from possibly learning what they need to learn, which is accountability, responsibility of their own because you keep bailing them out.

That's such a good point. It sounds like A pleaser would be the person to ignore the flight attendant, put the other person's mask on them and then pass out.

Kinda. Yeah.

Alright, so how do they, how do they overcome being a people pleaser?

The easiest way to overcome becoming a people pleaser specifically or staying in that zone is to actually spend time getting a healthy boundary system in all eight pillars.

Healthy boundary system and all eight pillars. All eight pillars of life.

Again, if you have, if you take one pillar, we have eight of them that we'd like to talk about.

Yep.

Okay. If you have two to three boundaries for each one of those that are built on a specific principle.

Yep.

Then the decisions already made before you have to make it, which makes it easier to say no, or this doesn't work for me, or this is not in my best interest.

Yep.

Rather than not having it all together and then you come and say, I need $100 and I got, I got $100 in my pocket, I got to eat for a week.

Yeah.

You see what I'm saying?

Yeah.

That's the biggest difference. Boundaries are the key to helping a people pleaser and having confidence in them. Yeah. And you also have to step, take a step back and not feel offended or somehow you're not affirmed or you're less valuable unless you help someone, which is a more internal issue. Yeah.

And folks, we're actually going to talk about healthy boundaries later. But you can get access to an entire resource and tool on healthy boundaries just by itself and something I'm going to mention up listed a little bit later. So now you get to miss. Now you're going to watch the whole show just to see what I'm going to talk about later. All right, let's move on to vacillators. A vacillator is their agenda often consists of fix the other person, they're the problem. It's not me, it's them.

Yep.

Ever been broken up with? It's not you, it's me. They're the opposite of this. They're saying, oh yeah, it's you, it's not me. They often feel misunderstood and seek to sell their point of view and story to avoid part of the problem. And when challenged, vacillators quickly feel all bad and are filled with shame. So to get to a point of the edge where it's not me, it's the computer, it's not me, it's the weather, it's not me, it's this. And then when they finally realize that it is them, they go off the cliff.

Yeah. I mean Ultimately, the word that comes down to it comes down to blame.

Okay.

Vacillators struggle with accountability.

Yeah.

As a whole, vacillating is actually one of the ones that I struggled with for a long time.

Really.

I took some kind of a little Internet exam one time on some of these actually, some of these are actually kind of in that, in that, in that format. And as I took it, vacillating was one was my highest. So when I would fail, I would immediately go into like, I suck, I'm horrible, I'm a horrible person. How dare I.

The program manager did something wrong system.

And on the, on the front side of it, I'd be, I would be incredibly defensive.

Yeah.

So if you didn't like my idea, my concept, if you didn't like how I was handling something, you went to war. I went to war first. Oh, wow. Okay. So that's the, that's a vacillator in a nutshell. They all, they also kind of are wishy washy to it. They're, they're non committal to a certain extent.

Okay.

They have a hard time with a commitment. Commitment level. For me, when I, when I dug back into all the way down. Right. To figure out where, where this was coming from. When I did my, my discovery, my exploration activities, for example, that we do, when I went through that myself, what I uncovered was a lot of that came down to security. I constantly felt like I was going to have a lack of security, like something was going to be taken from me. Because in my life I've ridden a. One heck of a wave up and down. You know, having, having some moderate success as a child, parents doing well to all of a sudden not having, to not having parents for a little while. Yeah.

A lot of instability.

Having, finding love and affirmation from a grandmother and then my grandmother passing away, starting off in a, going to, moving from a single wide trailer to a nice house and then losing the house. You know, all of these various things was like the rugs keep constantly taken out from under you. Yeah. Which makes it hard to trust. It makes it hard to feel secure. And because of that you're never really sure which way you're coming or going. On top of that, because of that aspect, you're also going to the situation. Well, I really can't trust myself. So therefore I'm going to go ahead and lean into my ideas.

Okay.

It's a way of self preservation, a way of self protection.

Right. Try to go into protection mode based on how many times you've been Burnt in the past. Okay, so what are some common traits a vacillator might be able to recognize? Like, I feel, yep, I'm definitely a vacillator. Or they feel it bubbling up again.

You know, the easiest way to understand it is, is it always someone else's fault? Do they have a hard time pulling accountability, saying, hey, I'm the buck, this stops here. You know, we were having a conversation with one of my team members, one of my other businesses on the way here, and it was a, you know, it was a light hearted conversation overall. You were actually in the vehicle and we were talking to him and I just asked him point blank, I said, have I ever broken my word to you? Yeah. He's like, well, no. All right, so why are you. Why do you have anxiety right now?

Right.

You see what I'm saying? Yeah. But it's because of the rug being taken out so many times. Yeah. And some of that commitment stuff kind of related to it. Vacillators will blame. And it's always someone. Because of that, it's always someone else's fault. Yeah. They have. They have a hard time or they have an element of always being defensive.

So always on guard.

Always on guard. Always willing to go to war and will actually overcompensate a lot of times with anger or frustration or even tears to a degree to get control of the situation.

Wow. Okay. So what do they do to overcome and conquer this vacillating roadblock?

It comes down to accountability. Okay. It comes down to controlling the things you really can control.

Okay.

It comes down to becoming a better listener. It becomes to come down. It comes down to fighting the. The need to feel defensive when a lot of times that you're just. You're helping understand someone else's opinion. Yeah. A vacillator's greatest sentence in the world will always be, can I help you understand? We've said that sentence a thousand times. Yeah. Because it's a powerful thing. It allows an open door and allows hearing to happen. Hearing to occur.

Okay.

So that's one of the best, best and easiest ways to spot one and then begin to work on it is the buck stops here. Yeah. That was it for me. That was the one, the one sentence that I dealt with that say that since one more time, the buck stops with me. The buck stops here.

Okay.

You know, ultimately, if you make a bad decision here or any of our team members at Journey principals make a bad decision here, ultimately it's my decision. Right. At Che, for example, my other business, my large Company, same kind of situation. If a team ever makes a decision, it's a bad decision. It's still my decision because I hired them.

True.

Yeah. I didn't. I may not have spent enough time with them. So in a roundabout way, it's all about accountability.

All about accountability. If they can't trust themselves, find someone that they can trust for that accountability. Right, Absolutely. It's also important for them to know it's probably good to think, hey, it's okay to mess up. If you do mess up.

Yeah. It's called grace.

Own it, but give yourself some grace. You're a human, you're going to mess up. Your ideas are not always going to be fantastic. All right, let's move on to controller. Now, I promise we will not spend the next hour talking about this because Steven and I both have a past of being controllers and even sometimes today we find ourselves doing it and he has to call me out or I have to sort of respectfully call him out in a way to say that, hey, let the other person talk. Alright, so let's talk about controllers. Controllers can feel threatened when given anyone else the kind of power or flexibility. This one was a big problem for me a long, long time ago. They often feel, well, if they would have done it my way, it would have been much better. That might have been true. But it's not always the case and they don't realize that the control is their way to deal with feeling helplessness or powerless. Right. So let's, let's dive into that. You know, let's try not to spend the rest of the time on it, but let's try to educate.

Well, the root cause of a controller typically goes, goes back to a scenario where they had lack of control as they were growing up. In other words, they were, they were put in circumstances. Situation where they had zero control. Yeah. And so their first clinging moment to actually digging themselves out and feeling a sense of security and peace.

Yeah.

Is to try to control everything. Right.

When they first get that people that are close control.

Yeah. Not in my household, but people that are close to me, that are relentless controllers. In other words, it's everything is my way or the highway. And it comes more down to, it's, it comes more down to if I let you take this, if I let you have this, take this ball and run. If I give you the room, you're not going to do it like I would do it.

Okay.

Okay. Now here's the thing. So our creative, our creative team here at Journey Principles is, is terrific. Yes.

Yes, they are.

You guys have probably seen a lot of the newest graphics and stuff that have hit Facebook.

If you dig the video, put a comment up there and say something nice about it or something awesome, creative about it.

That was Brian. Totally Brian.

All Brian.

Right. Amber's done a terrific job recently. Well, she's done a terrific job altogether, but she's done a terrific job recently with some of the Facebook posting we've done. We've got some of the largest shares and likes and stuff, and some quotes that I put out, different live events and stuff, stuff like that.

And I know where you're going with this. You actually told me about a year and a half ago, two years ago, to release that creative idea control to the creative team. That's what they're there for. And, man, their stuff got really good. I was just being a controller back then and shutting people down.

Yeah, I mean, it's like I said, we all have gifts and talents to bring to the table. Creative people are naturally creative. They're constantly creative. Right. And you. You have to give them room to run. Now, at the same time, there's a flip side. You can actually be very creative and then say, you can almost have the other thing happen. You can be very creative and actually be a controller. So if someone tweaks your idea, doesn't like your idea, or wants to put a different spin on it, you can totally go the other direction. Right. But when it comes down to. Comes down to people, try to put them in their lane, let them run. Yeah, right. We sat down at a similar meeting, I believe, and I said, well, Brian's good with video. Let Brian roll with video. Yeah, I don't need to be involved in video. You want me on the camera, I'll get on the camera. But. Right. I don't need to be involved in editing. I don't need to be involved in doing some of the cool features that he does and words popping up and the. What he calls lower thirds and F stop, and all these different words that I knew nothing about two years ago. You know, I don't need to be involved in shading graphics or whatever like that. I may have an idea I may need to illustrate something to give to the graphics team and say, hey, look.

Here'S an idea on a vision.

But when I give the idea a controller, what I call reformed controller or controller, that's learning not to control. Here's an idea, and let it go.

We're controllers in rehab. That's who we are. We're controllers in rehab. All Right. So how can someone that does have controlling tendency.

Take control of that?

Stop it.

As it comes up? You know, this happens to me so often where I'll feel that controlling tendency come up, especially when it comes to my household. And man, I'm glad I showed up recently. I love. A couple months ago, close to a year ago. Stop. Stop talking. Stop controlling. Because my wife is just taking off like a rocket right now. But I want you to educate all of us on the same thing you educated me on about a year ago.

No, it's, it's. It comes down to you got to let them run. Right.

Be aware. Take a moment and be aware of the people that are around you. Just be aware. Look at them and look at the potential, the gifts, the strengths that they have, and then affirm those gift strengths and then give them something and let them do it.

Trust and believe in them.

Trust. It comes down to trust and believe. Yeah, it really does. Let them have it. Let go of it and focus on something else.

Yeah.

Focus on something that you're good at that is the strength or that's something that you're passionate about, you know? And so on a scale of 1 to 10, I'm a fairly creative person. Right. I might be a seven. I've got people here at JP that are tens and elevens and twelves. Right. Let them roll.

Yep.

Right. I'm good at strategy. I'm a 9 or 10 on strategy. I need to be strategizing, I need to be creating structure, I need to be forecasting. I need to be thinking through those things.

Sure.

You know, you're, you're, you have a really good gift of leadership. It's been developing for the last three years. Right. You're good. You're. You. Because of the control issue. How much, how much of greater of a leader have you become just because you began to work on your own roadblocks?

Yeah. You're not thinking about the other stuff that you felt like you need to control that was running you thin. You let the professionals take care.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I find that people. So people that deal with controlling issues on a regular basis, they're oftentimes the most anxiety ridden people on the planet. Yeah.

I was full of anxiety not too long ago.

Because you can't control everything.

That's true.

You really can't. Yeah. And the harder you try to grasp the harder the whole. The tighter you hold, the more it turns into jello and squeezes through your fingers.

Yeah. And I heard someone say a long time ago, you know, for early early stage stages of my military career was that you don't have all the ideas in the room, but if you go in acting like you have all the ideas in the room, you lose out on so many great ideas, so many great opportunities, because other people will just either shut down or wait for you to shut up and then go away. You'd have no idea what you just missed out on.

You also don't know what kind of opportunities are labeled for you.

Oh, my gosh. I mean. Right.

So you don't know what kind of relationships are in the room that you just turned off because you went a little too far. Yeah. You know, listening is always the best way for that. For sure.

Yeah. Simon Sinek says practice the art of speaking last. Man, that hit home with me when I heard him say that. That's been one of my things I practice is practice speaking last, you know.

And that's one of the things that I always do when I'm working with people too. Specifically when I'm. When we're doing strategy sessions. Yeah. Is I want to understand them. Yeah. I want to under. I want to be able to see before they can in many respects where the triggers are coming from. Yeah. Because if I can do that, then I can ask pertinent questions in a way to bring them and help them discover for themselves. Yeah. Right. So that's absolutely gold.

It allows the other one to offer up a stable influence. Otherwise, they don't trust you to keep going. So controllers, let go Lego. All right, let's move on to victims. So the victim folks will say victim mentality, but it's not a victim mentality, it's a victim roadblock.

Yeah.

This person can overcome this. This is. They may practice victim mentality or victim things, but this is not really a mentality. That's important to point out. There's a huge difference between mentality and robot. Right. So victims are accustomed to living without hope, and they don't often expect much out of life. They were taught that blaming was an easier way to gain than learning. It's a huge lie. They often feel that everything and everyone.

Is going to be much better off without them or they. They don't really need them. Even. Even though go so far as to. If you're trying to compliment them or lift their spirits, they'll quickly bring you back down. So let's. Let's talk about victims. What's going on there?

Let's talk about where the. Where victim mentality, victimization or victimization mentality typically comes from. Yeah. Most often When I dig in, when I dig into somebody's life, we're doing a strategy session. One of the things that we dig into and we find is that the person had a very, very, very toxic upbringing. Okay. They were often told they were unworthy, they were unloved, they weren't special. They were. In other words, they. You know, you have affirmation. Yeah. Then you have the lack of affirmation.

Yeah.

This is the opposite of. I mean, this is the opposite of affirmation. This is one. One or two, three levels below that.

Would you say this is one of.

The biggest robots that were telling the kids, kids, you suck. You'll never measure up. You're worthless. Right. What happens instinctively is that is. That creates a root in them where they always believe it. Right. So victim. So anytime something happens in their life, they only see the negative. They. They seldom see the positive that could have. That is present many times in the adversity itself. They focus on the negative.

Yeah, constantly.

They're in the hopeless. The word hopeless comes to mind more than anything else when we're talking about victimization. They are never. They never feel opportunity. They. They always live in kind of a pessimistic state.

And a lot of times, like I said, it's that I'm always. I'm. That. Here's what it is. This is one sentence. I was meant to suffer. Really, I was meant to suffer.

They've come to believe that they own it.

That becomes part of their Persona. So they're always expecting something bad to happen.

This sounds like a really deep hole to help someone get out of.

Again, what you focus on, you find. So if a person is trying to dig out of that hole, a lot of times on our strategy sessions, one of the things we try to do is we try to help. Help them see. Yeah. The benefit of the adversity that's coming through. A lot of that has to do with mentorship, Victor. Victim mentality is difficult, but it's not impossible. Okay. Hope comes from the belief that someone. Something possible could happen.

Sure, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Suffering, on the other hand, or the. Or the belief that suffering will always be present, always robs today of. Always robs tomorrow, and today of today's joy. Right. It always robs. Okay. It's one of the ones that I think people with struggle with the most, especially now at times in the world, there's a lot more people who are overly criticizing people, not kind of looking at themselves, unfortunately, and that kind of thing. They're the people that call you on a Regular basis, or maybe in order you feel the need to copy on a regular basis and tell them how bad your life is or, you know, this just went out. That just went out. This person doesn't like me. This person's talking. They always have a. Typically have a phenomenon kind of behind the scenes, which is. That's. Well, somebody's always talking about me. Someone's always some. I know that. I know they're. I know they're talking about me. I know they don't like me. That paranoia. It's an unhealthy paranoia.

Yeah.

And that typically someone who struggles deeply with victim. Victim mentality will live in that space, which is why they feel less hope.

So they're. They're less. They have less hope.

The.

It's almost like you paint the picture of Eeyore dark cloud, kind of over the head sort of thing. What. How do they get out of this? I mean, what's. It sounds like they're in a very, very deep hole. That's why it's so dark. There's no sunlight getting in that hole.

Even now. They're like, yeah, that's how I feel.

That's. That's probably thinking exactly.

Out.

Exactly.

So.

So how do they. How do they get out of there?

You know, the biggest thing that I think one of the best ways to do that is to constantly spend time with a trained professional.

Okay.

And what I mean by that is, you know Michael Garner, we mentioned earlier. He's. He's great for this. There's several. Dr. Jason Newsoms.

Absolutely.

There's several. There's several members or associates of the Journey Principles team that. They're really good at this.

Mama G. Karen Gilliam.

Yep. Match the strategy sessions we do. All of those are tools to help someone dig out. Yeah. I will tell. I will tell you that victim mentality thinking or victimization thinking as a whole. Takes some practice. Yeah. Utilizing the challenge thought that we. That we. That we talk about a lot.

Right.

You know, it's the. Well, everyone's talking about me too. No one's talking about me. Yeah, I'm fine. Yeah. You know, and if they are, so what. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It kind of goes to that.

So you have a challenge thought with it.

Right.

Which you've talked about at length. So they also need to know that they're important. They also need to know that little things happen, you know, they actually roll out into bigger things.

That's right.

I remember a conversation Nick and I were having at one point. I just said, Gosh, why does that person think like that? Like, I feel like I just need to go give them a hug, you know, slap an emoji with it. And she's. It just seems so dark. Like, why were they like that? And she just said, they don't understand that the little things that they do and the little things that happen to them have a bigger rippling effect on them, their life.

Yeah. Well, they also don't believe they're worthy of anything good.

Yeah.

A person who lives in a victim place does not believe they're worthy of anything.

For you and I, we understand life is what you make it.

I learned that life is what you make it. I didn't grow up believing that.

Okay. So maybe the same things going on with Victim Roadblock is they don't believe that life is what you make it. They may believe that life is just already laid out for them, and there it's just going to happen where they're. They do anything about or not.

People that live in the victim mindset let life happen to them. They don't. They don't do things to make life happen for them.

Okay. So how can they fix that?

Like I said, the best way to do it is to actually get with a healthy mentorship and coach.

Okay.

I had elements of victim thinking myself when I was kind of digging out of that homeless season in my life. Yeah. Everything would happen to me. You know, I. I didn't happen to think about the fact that, well, maybe I made a bad decision. Like, I walked off a job that was paying me a bunch of money. Right.

Yeah.

And then, you know, proceeded to lose everything. Like, that decision somehow didn't come into fruition of what I was going through. Right, Right. You know that I was not in the point where I was ready to look at myself. So there's gonna be honest. Look at yourself. It's gotta be healthy mentorship. There's got to be great coaching.

Yeah.

There's got to be a learning. You have to put learning above all. Right. You have to have a handful of people that can speak life into you because you have to replace all the garbage that was put into you before.

And then believe that stuff.

They.

All right.

Which takes time. It's almost like a double pouring.

First time and repetition.

Time and repetition. That's why the repeat.

That's right. That's right. All right, let's move in and sell.

Stuck in the shower, still washing their hair.

Well, you know, you're not washing your hair. Did you see that? All right, let's Talk about self sabotage. Self sabotage is not an act. It's a tragic process that puts people against their own thoughts and impulses. They have a deep sense of un. Unworthiness and extreme low self worth. They harm themselves in order to keep them in place where they see their value. And when they feel unworthy, when they feel unworthy, they will sabotage many of the eight pillars to hold themselves back down. This is when someone, you know, they can get the compliments, they can see the awards, accolades, and they quickly replace it with yeah, but I messed up on blah blah, blah or something like that.

Well, they live a life of what if, what if this happens? What if that happens? What if this, what if the world falls apart? What if they live in that space? You know, you have, you have the victimization or victim thinking here. Self sabotage, believe it or not, is actually one of, one of the, one of the steps moving out of that.

Okay, right.

So you go from feeling inherently unwanted, unworthy, to having a level of worth, but it has a ceiling to it. Okay.

So you don't allow yourself to go so far above it.

Exactly. So basically you're getting ready to take this promotion, right? This promotion is coming to you and you're excited about it and you're ready to go. And then about a week before you decide to go ahead and go do something stupid on the job, you just, and you can't explain why all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you're just like, I think I'm going to do this and it ruins that chance. Or, or you've been dating someone for a year, year and a half or whatever and things have been going awesome. Yeah. And all of a sudden, because you're getting scared, you're getting, you're getting, it's becoming real, you're beginning to feel right. They tend to avoid feeling. Yeah, right. All of a sudden you may go sleep with somebody else or may go do something stupid to sabotage just to mess it up. Self sabotage comes from a lot of different places, but it comes from the basic desire of feeling un. Unworthy and unloved or unworthy of what's coming. Okay, I'll give you an example. So when I was trying to get out of my own way, honestly, and began building a business and all that kind of stuff, my first, my first major hurdle, major challenge was actually fiddling like that. I was okay to be successful because I was at that time in my life, I was the black sheep of the family. No one at that time had stepped out on faith to the degree that I had and kind of really leaned out there and kind of really put myself out there. And then I began to become moderately successful. I began to get myself out of debt. The companies began to grow, the people began to grow, the things around me began to grow. And the very first thing I remember I bought a sports car one time in my 20s and the Joker sitting sat in the garage. I didn't want anyone to know I had it, you know. And in a weird way I'm kind of glad in some ways I'm glad because I didn't want.

Just a negative effect on my life. Had I just been like braggadocious, driving around, pulling the top down, all kind of stuff. But it came down to the situation was alright, apparently God feels like I'm worthy to bless me at this level. I need now I need to be a great steward of it. I can't be an idiot. I can't go to and go self sabotage myself. I can't go out there and do it, make a stupid business deal or lie to somebody or bring distrust into the business. You know, I can't do those things. I can't go and betray people on a regular basis and expect to be blessed.

Right, right.

That was my first major hurdle was feeling like it was okay to become successful.

Wow. How long did it take you to get over that?

Who says I'm over it? Right.

In this, in this grand scheme of things, God has been doing a lot of really wild, crazy things in my life recently. Yeah, he's opened a lot of doors. He's doing a lot of cool things. There's, there's obviously some things we can't really share on share out here right now that he's doing that if they.

Come to fruition will be, stay tuned.

Will be really stinking cool. And I have to be honest, I mean from time to time I don't feel worthy of doing some of the things that this may entail. Some of maybe some of the travel that may come with it, maybe some of the responsibilities that may come with it. At the same time I've learned to surrender and just be obedient. Yeah, right. I've learned to just lean in and say if this is what you want for me, that's what I'm doing. If you feel like I'm either worthy or you're going to develop me to make me worthy of this, then I'm going to, I'm going to lean in and I'm going to try to make.

Something happen that's a good, that's a good thing to end with a self sabotage. I also feel that way sometimes as well. When things start to change, they start to climb up. You kind of want to go back to what's comfortable and you already know because you've been there before. Now this new level that you have the opportunity to walk through that door that's been open, it's very uncomfortable. It's almost like, well, that's not really meant for me sort of thing. And then you start to backpedal. But I like what you said there. You said, lean in the direction and say, this is what you want. This is where I'm going again.

If someone who's struggling with self sabotaging behaviors. Yeah.

They probably need to have somebody that can speak life in them just as much as the victimization. Remember I told you it's like another. It's almost like a level of breaking through.

Yeah, absolutely.

Everybody that goes from victim thinking has to go through self sabotage in order to get to a healthy place.

Ah, that's.

It's one I have yet to see anybody to hop, skip and jump it.

Right. That's a good, important note. So as you're growing out of the victim roadblock, you're getting over that, you're conquering that. Now you're going to face the next one, which is self sabotage. Just a natural that makes perfect sense. They also need to know that affirmation is a big thing, you know, and put themselves in a place where they do feel worthy. Nikki was sharing with me that she, that's part of why she got involved with animals. And she put herself in the SPCA environment where she just, she, she hung around animals, you know, and she was able to help them. So we got a little bit of time left, about five minutes. We're going to roll through the next two. But not to cheat people. Then you got the enabler. The enablers, they see that their job is to save everyone. Save everyone. You know, save the mantis, the sea turtles. Yeah, yeah. And they have a spirit of repeated codependence and seek validation only if they can save someone else from just from destruction. Now, many people would say that the, the millennial generation is a victim, if you will, of an enabling parenthood. Right. Which we know to not be true because not all millennials are the same. It's just unfair to say that.

Right?

But the. This almost seems like everyone should get a trophy mentality to me. When I read this, I'm thinking like, yep, you're the coach that gives away trophies to everybody.

You know.

I kind of feel that. I kind of feel very similar way there. There's definitely like, there's definitely generations where they could have. They were either over parented or under parented.

Exactly.

Okay. Parenting is a balance.

Yes.

It comes with corrections just as much as it does with love and affirmation.

I hate, I hate, hate, hate having to spank my child. But you know, he needs to learn. I mean, we don't obviously go above anything, but he needs to learn that what he did was wrong.

Yeah. So let me. I'll give the better. The best example of I've ever been able to communicate. Enablement. An enablement mentality is the parent that has to save their son or daughter from a drug addiction or an alcohol addiction. Okay. They'll spend all kinds of money, they'll put all kind of energy and really probably, unfortunately what probably needs to happen is the child probably needs to learn that their choices lead to different outcomes. And then the child has to determine what kind of outcomes are. Do I really want.

Yeah.

The problem is, is the person begins to identify their worth with helping someone else. Yeah. So their self worth is tied to whether or not that person gets better or not.

That's good.

In many cases, once that person actually gets better, a lot of times the person actually goes into their own little mini depression because now there's no one to save.

So what do they do? How do they conquer this enabling roadblock?

Honestly, they're gonna have. It goes back to healthy boundaries. Okay. Having healthy boundaries. No means no. Yep. Don't be, don't say this is your last chance and then give them three more after it kind of deal.

Yep.

Put, put a, put something in place to kind of protect yourself. Maybe you have a mentorship. Maybe there's somebody around you that can help educate you and say, well look, you know, if I, if that you can bounce the fault. If I do it this way, what, what can happen?

Yeah.

Three option. Kind of a three option person. So when you can say, well, but this is how I think I. I'll do it. One, two, three.

Got it.

Right. So I'm gonna bounce some information off of. But the biggest thing that you can probably do to kind of combat enabling. Yeah. Is to actually focus on making your own life better and really focus on creating a structured and safe environment for yourself. Because enablers always in that always end up on a diving board or walk in the plank. Yeah.

Yeah.

And always on the tip of it. Right. You can. I watched a parent, unfortunately, they're their, one of their Children unfortunately stole something, embezzled some money somewhere, and the next thing you know, that parent spent their entire livelihood, their entire savings database. Right. To say. Or to pay for all that child's court cost, even though they knew the child was guilty.

You see what I'm saying?

Yeah. Because in their mind, they needed to save them.

And reality was the person probably needed to actually face the consequences of the actions. Yeah. And I would say that to my own kids.

Yeah. And they probably didn't learn anything from it because they were.

Well, unfortunately that the child ended up going to. Going to jail anyway.

Anyway.

And then they. And they. It's. And all their. And their entire savings that they had amassed for over 40 or 50 years was gone. Wow.

Jeez.

Right again, getting out of that savior complex. Right. But one savior. He's awesome. Lean into him. Surrender to him. Everybody else, follow the principles. Follow the principles and just be a good steward of what you've been given. And stop there.

That's right. All right, let's start, let's. Let's end with one of the most scariest ones, and that is the aggressor. The aggressor's greatest fear is losing control. So they have that controlling problem as well. They come across loud and abrupt before a disagreement so they can kind of gain control of the situation. Any unsolved, any unresolved anger is really at the heart of the root. So a couple minutes. What was aggressor like?

You know, the, the aggressors of. Of all of these, other than people pleasing the aggressor is probably the easiest one to start or smart a spot.

Yeah.

Yeah. Cuz it's pretty opening because anytime, Anytime the person is told no or they. And they're not going to get something that they deem or. I've had situations where aggressors have been like, well, no, you. You said. And you're like, no, didn't say that. And you had. You actually have witnesses is saying no, you didn't say that.

Yeah.

And they're still convinced. And the moment that you say no or that that didn't happen, they are like, oh, geez. Right. They go 0 to 100, 0 to angry in about five seconds.

Wow.

Okay. And they're doing that as a way to kind of prevent you from actually getting them to admit they're wrong. In some cases, aggressors are controllers on steroids.

Yeah, sounds like it.

Okay. Sounds like a controller. Could be. You know, we talk about, there's joke, not joking, but there's Things like OCD and things like that. So controlling doorknobs and all kinds of stuff.

Right. When I say.

When I say aggressor, this person's only mode of communication or gaining control or preventing someone else from having control or preventing from is to go 0 to 100.

0 to 100 in like less than a second.

Yep. Wow.

Okay, so how can I. How can I fix this? If I'm just through the roof in a second, how can I fix this?

Self awareness comes into play.

Great place.

Being humbled. Yeah. Unfortunately, aggressors typically learn the hard way, so it's being hit with that 4 by proverbial 4x4. There's the element of having to be humbled at the last minute kind of thing that tends to get there. They tend to get their attention.

Yeah.

Right. It's the element of becoming self aware that, hey, I just. I just answered a question and I went from 0 to 100. I need to be aware that that just happened. Yeah.

I need to be aware of my blood pressure as it's rising.

Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. We've had some aggressors that we work with that they had no idea that's how they were until you showed them video footage of one question being answered.

And watched and go, so they worked with a coach.

Right.

They worked with someone that they trusted. Is it safe to say that all of these roadblocks, in case anyone out there resonated with the roadblock or two, is it safe to say that they should work with a coach, should work with someone that they trust?

You know, I believe they should. And I'll tell you why is that. Because as clearly, if you feel stuck, if you've been stuck for a long time, either you're unaware that the roadblock is there or you're not really sure which ones that you really gravitate towards? Yeah. Okay. A coach, a strategist, someone that can help you, is going to be able to help you see things from a different perspective.

Yeah.

See it from a different angle. I've had coaches, I mean, I've had some really powerful coaches, really great mentors in my life, and all of them helped me see things from a different angle that gave me a different perspective, that led me down a different path and allowed me to handle my business and keep growing. You know, my constant thing now is I'm constantly looking for that new mentor. Right. As I continue to grow. Because if I continue to grow, hopefully they'll continue to grow.

Exactly. And that's a good. That's a good way to end it today, folks. In case you didn't get all that down, we did a lot. There's a lot of nuggets that Steven shared. This is all of us, right? Every one of us hits on this at some point or we know someone that hits on this at some point. Don't worry. The show is going to live out there. But you guys get, you get pre registration access to what we call the learning platform, the transform you online learning platform. The pre registration is coming out soon. This lesson is going to be in it and the healthy boundaries lesson is going to be in it. How to overcome conflict is going to be in it. There's a ton of stuff that's going to be in it and you guys get free registration and access to this. All you got to do is text TU online. That's the letter T, the letter U online to 33444 and just shoot them in your email address and we'll hook you up with the rest. We hope you enjoyed the show. We'll see you guys next week on the Journey Principles radio show. Take care. Take.