When Life Gets Hard

Welcome And The Whirlwind

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What is going on, my people? Good morning, good morning. And I know it's not the morning. I keep saying that. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 0:07

I'm good. It is morning for us.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

It is. It is. It is. It is. So the kids are finally back at school. So we have some uh free time to actually uh do this early on, which I'm excited for because uh that's when my energy is highest.

unknown 0:19

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

I know now. I know, I know, I know, which reminds me, remind me about the workshop as we get a little bit later because I really think it's gonna help people who are um diving deep into this topic, which is we're gonna talk about today is when life gets hard, right? We call it when life is lifing. One of the things is that I've come to realize is that everybody has different challenges that come up in their life, right? We say that life is 50-50, meaning 50% of the experiences that you have in life will be quote unquote positive experiences and 50% will be negative. You know, you'll get a flat tire, something will happen to you, like uh maybe an illness, an injury, maybe you twist your ankle, like you lose a job. There's so many different things that could be that 50% that are quote unquote negative. One of the main things that I think is our goal here in this episode, but also in life, is to not make things that are hard harder. And we're gonna talk a little bit about that today because there's things that people do that they're obvious to them, but things that they don't even know actually make this situation, this you know, life go going through difficult situations even more challenging than they were supposed to be. And so I want to help people be able to guide them through that. So, guys, you are listening to Modern Leadership Coaching. I'm Mark.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

And I'm Teresa.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

And this is where we talk about what it actually takes to lead people. Everybody is in a whirlwind of something, right? We call this the whirlwind of life. And it's obviously it's what you do in that whirlwind that really makes the biggest difference. But we see a lot of people who go down the path of making things harder on themselves. Life is hard enough. So let's actually take a different frame on this.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

First,

Life Is 50 50 Reality

SPEAKER_00 1:50

let's start off with why did you want to talk about this?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

I think it has a lot to do with um having conversations with people. Obviously, we coach a lot of people, we teach people how to uh, you know, ask great questions and coach and lead and stuff. Um, and what I have seen is a lot of people make life harder than it needs to be. And one of the things that always calls out to me is when I see pain that somebody is experiencing, um, I want to be able to help them. And I don't want to just help them by making it better. I want to help them by getting, giving them an understanding of what's actually going on. But really, I and this is something that I that I love when people tell me is I never even thought about it that way, or I never even knew that was happening. So I think a lot of times when I am helping to really bring things to the forefront for people, it's because I want to show them something that they might be doing or thinking that is actually causing extra challenge, extra damage, extra things that it was never supposed to mean, but in reality, they're just making their life harder because I don't want it to be any harder. We all have enough things that we are dealing with in life. So I want to be able to help people in that respect. So that's why this topic kind of like came up for me.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Okay. Yeah. And we're probably gonna talk a little bit about this later, the pain, right? That we we experience pain, but then there's suffering. Yeah. Right. And that's kind of like uh what you're kind of talking about earlier, is don't make you know something that's hard already harder.

The Goal Not Make It Worse

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Yep. So when we're talking about hard seasons, where do you notice the hard part stops being the actual situation itself?

SPEAKER_01 3:19

So for me, now that I understand uh how my brain works, I notice it when I start to become the victim, I start to point my finger at the outside world, I start asking myself non-generative-based questions. And I find that I start to ruminate in it. And I feel like when it's the biggest indicator for me is when my energy is down, not just in that area, but in multiple areas. If I find that I'm a little bit more short with you or the kids, if I find that I'm frustrated about like other things and it's carrying over, that's the biggest indicator for me is like I'm taking something which is a challenge and I'm making it a life challenge, meaning I'm moving it into other areas. The beautiful thing we talk about is when you get in front of opportunities and you really step into your energy, your power, what you're capable of, that is something that transcends everything you do, right? You can carry it into multiple areas. I mean, even the workshop that we're we'll talk about in a minute, like people got off that workshop, they were super pumped about it, they had great conversations afterwards. I mean, they're they're reaching out to people. They're they're trying to like help other people to learn this process. And it all started from that little spark of us kind of like putting it out there, right? Being able to share problems with a different spin on it, right? Being able to see, like we shared on the workshop, different types of problems and what could come upon you to accidentally have you trying to solve the wrong problem. But even that, it's like one of those ripple effects where it starts to now carry in a positive energy to your family. People sleep better. There's so many different things that I've already heard from people that it's crazy what happens when you're in that kind of energy. How I know is when I'm in the opposite energy, when I'm not sleeping well, when, like I said, I'm bringing it into other areas, when I notice I'm a little bit short, or I don't give somebody the benefit of the doubt. I'm like, okay, something's going on here. Let me take a look and analyze it.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah. And it never stays within us, right? Where it's we're going through something difficult and it doesn't just stay in our brains. I mean, a lot of it is happening in our brains, right? But I feel like what you touched on is really important that it always expands and it always translates into other areas of your life. So it never really stays contained in yourself.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Yeah, 100%. So let me ask you this. So you've obviously walked beside a lot of people who've gone through hard things, including me, you, and a lot of our other clients that we've uh been able to coach, right? So what do you see that people do that quietly actually makes it harder on them?

SPEAKER_00 5:55

I mean, this is kind of related to what I just talked about, is that internal mulling over things and just kind of ruminating in the hard. And, you know, we're we're talking about a different spectrum of hard, right? Because someone's hard could be someone's easy. It all depends on what you're going through. But I feel like you make it harder when

Signs You Slip Into Victim Mode

SPEAKER_00 6:15

you're just in it and just overthinking things and and creating that environment where it starts to creep into other areas of your life. And when I coach someone, there's that first step of actually telling someone what you're going through and maybe asking for help. But a lot of times people don't feel like they can express themselves or talk about these things because they feel maybe they're they're downplaying it. And then it just becomes much heavier. So that that's where I kind of see that that people will make it harder on themselves that way.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah. One uh couple things that come up for me is very much what you just shared in terms of how we go into solitude when we actually need to lean into other people for help, right? Or we convince ourselves this is not the right time to do this. I don't have the right energy. All of these things are going on in my life. And in reality, like if you were to sit down and think about that, you would actually probably come up with the opposite. Because this is happening, I need to do this. Because I'm in this situation, I have to reach out. Because, like, they always say one is too small of a number for success, right? For impact. And so those are some of the ways that we can do it, right? We can make life harder on us because we think we have to go through it ourselves, that we have to have the perfect scenario, that everything has to be aligned. And once everything is aligned and we have money and time and energy and all that kind of stuff, then we can do this. But those are the things that actually get you through to the other side. So I love that you brought that up because it's another way, it's the hidden way that we, believe it or not, try to trick ourselves into not doing the thing that would actually help us. I know I kind of talked about this so many times before, like how many times I've tricked myself out of doing things that would have been the next thing for me to do. And, you know, one, two, three years later, I finally did it. And I'm like, why in the world did I not do this sooner? Right. How many of you guys have experienced that where you've experienced a breakthrough and afterwards you're like, why didn't I do this sooner? That's because number one is I don't think you were maybe ready emotionally in in the moment. But number two is you have to be willing to challenge your beliefs to be able to do that. It's a hard thing to do. I know as a leader and as a coach, we ask people to do that all the time, but most people are willing to do that. And it's okay if you're not willing to do that, right? But at some point, if you want to make a change, it's really being able to challenge those beliefs.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah. And when you've caught yourself doing that, what's helped you see it another way?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah. So I am, I'm very logic-based. So what I mean by logic-based is I like like to look at how can I be effective? How can I be most effective right now? So and I sit down and I reflect on this. And by the way, the before I get to this, the the biggest thing

Rumination And Going It Alone

SPEAKER_01 9:05

is is I have a coach to be able to spot this for me. Sometimes it's you, sometimes it's somebody else, but I make sure that I surround myself with really high-level coaches. I always have a coach because it's very important to me to be able to spot things that I don't see. But when I think about that, when I think about reflecting with somebody and thinking this through, I use a lot of times logic, which is my focus, my energy, and my time is very limited. Do I want to spend it focused on what's broken, wrong, or missing, asking myself terrible questions, not being able to come up with a solution and not being able to get creative? Or do I want to process that and get into okay, this is where I'm at, but how can I be effective right now? What can I think next? What's my next step? How could I make this happen? And the quicker that I get into that, the quicker I get into possibility, the quicker I find the answer. And I I hope everybody really thinks about this. You've made it to where you are right now by being able to go through challenges and finding a way to figure it out. But yeah, whenever a challenge comes up, it's very easy to go back to, oh, this is it. This is over. But I want you to think about that for a second and the thousands and thousands of challenges that you've been through. What if you just considered for a second? You know what, I don't know the way through this, but I'm gonna figure it out because I always do. So when I think about being effective, that's that version of effective for me. How do I spend my time and my energy, my focus for me instead of against me? What I think is really powerful is if we're in a coaching session, okay, and I've seen this so many times, and I love it. And that is when you you're able to help the person transition from some people call it the victim, focusing on the reality, the things that are happening outside of you. When you get them to take control and they switch over to how could I do this? What could this actually be an important part of my journey that's gonna actually help me find a way of being able to accomplish this thing and then teach other people to do it? When you see that energy shift, it is incredible. And what I always like to remind the clients that we talk to is that was here even before we had this conversation. You just weren't focused on it. You were focused on spending time and energy in what's broken, wrong, or missing, which is normally how the brain operates. It's there to protect you. But when you can see it and you can actually now flip it and look for those creative opportunities, it will change your entire energy. So that's how I think of things is I think of like, how can I be most effective right now? And when I think about that, it just it puts me down the spot of logic. I don't want to spend any more time and energy on the things that are not working. I want to figure out a way. Because I I don't know about you guys. I know about you guys. You guys have very powerful brains. My brain is powerful beyond belief. It's just where I point it. That's whether or not I'm gonna make it harder on me or I'm gonna make it easier on me. That's what I just write, like to remind myself.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

So let me ask you this. Um, so you talked a little bit about pain versus suffering. Okay. What's the difference between the two? And I think this is a really important distinction for people to understand.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah,

Pain Versus Suffering Explained

SPEAKER_00 12:05

I think that pain is that feeling that you get when something hard happens. And it can happen instantly where you have this feeling of this is hard or this is challenging. Suffering is kind of what I talked about earlier is the rumination of it, the overthinking and the constant feeling that you don't have control over the situation. We're gonna experience pain because we're human, right? And you know, whether we're the best coaches in the world and we can self-coach ourselves, if something happens, we're gonna have a feeling, we're gonna have that negative emotion. But the the suffering comes when we just still feel it and still decide to ruminate in it. And it doesn't have to be something super serious, right? It could be, and you've mentioned this many times before, you know, you send a message and you're trying to grow your business, you send a message and that person doesn't respond. Like you have that initial pain of rejection or what what have you. But then just thinking about it and feeling like that particular situation, that's gonna just keep happening. For example, there's something that happened last week. There's a lot of stuff going on right now because it's the beginning of the school year and we have a lot of stuff going on, right? The business, my health, and everything. And I remember getting really frustrated because there was all of these changes that were happening. You know, one of the kids got sick, and all of these different changes in the schedule got me super irritated. And I I remember, I think, I think we were in the car, and I said, This always happens. I have to keep switching things around. And when I switch one thing, then I have to change it again because something else happens. And I just said, sorry, I'm venting. And then I moved on, and then it was fine, everything worked out. But sometimes I will just stay there and then just continually, this continuous loop of this perspective that this always happens, right? So that's where the suffering comes in because you're just constantly in that loop of negativity rather than saying, okay, this stuff happens. How do I move past this?

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yeah. I love that. So the whole idea about pain is that it comes from your thoughts, right? And so when you think that thought, whether it's automatic or on purpose, it creates that pain. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's the way we are as humans, it's just a part of the experience, right? But rethinking about it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again is when suffering happens, right? I want to take this to the opposite side though, too, because I want you to see how this actually happens, depending on what it is that we focus on. So I have a buddy, um, his name is Khalid. He spent literally 30 days in Rome. He went to Rome and Italy and all these different places, right? He came back and he started to uh shoot me a message and kind of like give me an update. And so I asked him some questions. I'm like, tell me about it. Like, what was your favorite part? What did you enjoy the most? What do the kids love the most? Those kind of things, right? And what happens is this is very similar to pain versus suffering, is when you rethink those thoughts, what was my favorite part? What was I most excited about? What did the kids love? You get to re-experience that entire emotion all over again. And we can think about this related to like, even if we're gonna go on vacation, right? And we think about how amazing it's gonna be. And then when we're on the vacation, it seems to be okay. But then afterwards, we can think about it and just get those emotions back again, right? The same thing is happening, but with painful situations. And so when you can look at that and go, oh, when I ask myself these questions, it gets me to focus on what's broken, wrong, or missing and it makes the pain turn into suffering. This is actually not helpful. And by the way, there's going to be scenarios where you're gonna want to do some processing of pain, whether you find a coach, a therapist, if it's having to do with trauma, something like that to be able to help you avoid the suffering. But when we think about these kind of things and how we can recreate it in our brain, it gives us this great word that we don't realize that we have when it comes to things in our brain, and that is called choice. If you've ever said this, guys, if you've ever been like, I mean, that makes sense, but, or I know, but it's because when you when you think about that specific thing, you may logically know about it, but logic is not what really gets you to move. What really gets you to move is to realize that you have a choice. You get to decide what your brain can focus on. Now, it doesn't mean that your brain doesn't have automatic thoughts that come. I mean, that's like 97% of them, right? But it does mean you have a choice which one you focus your time and attention on. And that's what we're talking about today is really being able to look at this and go, is this actually helpful to spend more time thinking about and ruminating on this, or talking myself out of doing the thing that would actually change this for me? Or is it time to get into a different energy? Because the beautiful thing is when you get into that different energy, it starts to permeate through everything you do. And before you know it, you're like, this was the best decision I made. This was so amazing. And you get to create that energy in other people. Because when you get to start sharing it now, everybody else gets excited about it. And that, my friends, is what you have today is you have a choice. You get to choose which way am I going to think on purpose? Now, I do want to share

Choice Mindset Workshop And Farewell

SPEAKER_01 17:25

this. Um, we did a workshop uh last week. I figure we'll keep it open for another week. Uh so if you go to modernleadership.us forward slash workshop, we talked about the two different types of problems that people experience. The reason why I feel like this is so much in alignment with what we're talking about here today is a lot of times when people are going down this path, they start to point the finger at a problem that is actually not their problem. Their problem is whether their brain keeps ruminating about it, trying to keep them safe, talking them out of doing things, and they're looking at it as the wrong problem to solve. And in fact, when you actually figure out what problem you're dealing with, it gives you the ability to be able to lean in to change it. Change is hard. Once you find out what the problem is, that means you have to do something about it. So I don't want just everybody to go to this workshop link and just uh dive in. I want you to commit to being willing to do whatever it takes to change if you're gonna watch this. Because if you watch it and you don't do anything with it, that's where you the beating up and the ruminating and all that kind of stuff happens. And if you decide not to watch this, it does not mean anything about you in terms of your potential as a human. I just want you to know we're gonna call out to something higher inside of you. We're gonna call it to the high performer in you. And if you want to watch that, definitely grab the link, modernleadership.us forward slash workshop. We'll keep it up for another week. Um, I know we also talk about HIMA at the end. There are a few more spots for that if it's something you're interested in, but that's not the point of this. It's to help you identify the actual problem you have. And if you find that your situation is actually you're making it harder on yourself, stop doing that. Stop doing that stuff. Okay, which is another great book that I read by Gary John Bishop. And reach out because we can help you with that. All right, everybody, thank you for leaning into this episode. I know a lot of you guys were on the workshop. I am super pumped to start him with some of you guys, but also the takeaways that people have shared with us. I love them. Those are ones that can literally change your life forever, but also the lives of those people that you lead, whether they're kids, people at work, people that you want to coach, your family. It's really where the impact goes is identifying the right problem and then making sure that people are making it harder on themselves. All right, guys. Thank you guys for doing what you do out there. Please share this with anybody you think would really use this. And of course, if you'd love to leave us a review, we would love to read them. That's like a way of putting into our tip jar. So thank you guys so much. Keep crushing it, and I'll see you guys next week. Bye, everybody.