Unleashing Human Potential – What Elite Coaches Want You to Know

Unleashing Human Potential – What Elite Coaches Want You to Know

Rob: [00:00:00] The idea that we have to be successful at every single thing before we take the leap is again one of those things that keeps people from achieving their potential.

Eric: When you push yourself you’ll continue to amaze yourself at how much you can do, at how far you can go, at how strong you are if you’ll

Steve: only.

It really is mostly fear that keeps us keeps my clients, keeps me from achieving full potential. Cause as soon as we enter

Trefor: discomfort, that’s when those words start to come right to the foreground. And so listen to them, introduce a discomfort, and then you’ll tune right into those and don’t let the words win.

Hi,

Eric: and welcome to the Living Richly podcast. We’re so excited to have you join us again this week for what is going to be a really special couple of shows. Today we’re joined by our colleagues at Rhapsody Strategies. Rhapsody is the A coaching company that actually funds the whole living [00:01:00] richly endeavor and has been a huge sponsor and really was the Genesis of where all this came from and sitting around the table are three of our, my colleagues, we have one that’s missing today our hats off to Catherine fair, who’s recovering from COVID she’s listening in to the show today via zoom.

We wish she could be here, but why don’t we go around the table really quickly and just introduce ourselves. Sam. We have returning to the show, someone who doesn’t, the farmer is, and actually we could say that today’s episode is three ex preachers and a farmer throw back to our other days, but great to have you back, Trev.

Trefor: It’s great to be back. Hey, I have to convince you all to become farmers. Four ex farmers. It’s great to be back. It’s great to be back. I know we got great stuff. And there’s such an overlap between what happens in what we typically think of the business world and the rest of our lives. You got one life, right?

It’s going to contain all of it. And so I’m really excited about this conversation. It’s

Eric: so great to have you back. This is like a throwback [00:02:00] to the early days of the podcast when it was just the three of us at your farm. At the farm. And so good to have you here. And of course, returning guests, Steve Osmond, Steve, you’ve been on a few shows with us now, but so great to have you in live studio.

Rob: You’ve always been 2d

Steve: before. Yeah. I’ve always been zooming in. This is so much better to be here in person and to look you dead in the eyes and have these powerful conversations with you. Very cool. So pumped to be here and really excited about the topics we’re going to be addressing today.

Eric: Yeah, it’s going to be a great, phenomenal conversation. And we thought we’re actually Rhapsody is a coaching company, of course, that we’ve had for a long time. It’s celebrating its 10th birthday this week. And so we’re all here celebrating together and marking a decade of changed lives and changed organizations.

And we thought we’d come together and talk about what after we’ve got just around this table, I did the math just before the show started. We’ve got. Got just about 40 plus years of coaching experience. If we add in Catherine, of course, who’s joining us via zoom it’s [00:03:00] over 50. We have over 50 years of combined coaching experience.

We have talked to hundreds of organizations now, thousands of leaders. And the first thing that I would like us to focus on and explore together is this whole concept. of potential. You’re more capable and able than you realize what when you think of potential and what roadblocks or conversations you’ve had with clients about it, what comes to mind for you guys?

Steve: I like this re spelling of the word interference and the fear part, interference. Make that the full fear word, interference. fear. Yeah. And it really is mostly fear that keeps us keeps my clients, keeps me from achieving full potential, not willing to risk something, not willing to go go for something all in.

One, one client that I work with talked to me about he never ever gave his best because he all was always afraid that his best wouldn’t be enough.

Eric: So he always

Steve: gave it just, 80 percent or 85%. What if I [00:04:00] go all in and it’s not good enough? So I think overcoming fear in whatever shape or form is key to reaching full potential.

Rob: And I think that the fear flows out of your beliefs. How, what you believe about yourself, what you believe about a situation. And what I love it, you said this at the beginning, and I think you alluded to this, whether somebody is who’s listening in as a business owner, a leader, an organization, no matter who you are, our beliefs drive our ability, our potential our willingness to step into that place of fear to conquer and overcome.

It all comes back to the language we use, the words we use The beliefs that we have will often limit us from our

Trefor: real potential. The beliefs become boundaries, right? Yeah. And we can see it, we’ve all done different kinds of training and you’re working with a trainer and they’re like, give me one more and you’re like, I’m done, I’m out.

And they push you and you deliver one more and you go, Oh, what I thought and believed was actually not true. My brain said, my belief said no more is [00:05:00] possible, but my body wasn’t done yet. And so we confuse that all the time, right? Like that, our thinking and our beliefs become those boundaries.

And we think our way to our level of success. And so as we shift that, we start to realize, Oh, if I am, if I’m capable of one more, maybe I could do two more. If I think, I’m not a public speaker. Maybe that’s not true if I, right? And so we start to get in our own way around that. And when we can shift our thinking, we start to unlock what’s possible and what’s doable.

And so we want to trust our thinking when it’s around safety issues, right? If you say, I’m going to, I’m going to deadlift 700 pounds and you don’t deadlift. I’m going to jump off this roof. So we need to, we need discernment to go. This boundary that I feel, is it a safety thing? And if it’s not, then it’s a growth thing.

There’s a growth opportunity in there. And I think that’s the really exciting part is, and I love that word around the fear, right? Because we, we [00:06:00] believe our way to our fears. We often think our way to our fears. And as we can start to connect the dots between those, we can rearrange them. In a way that suits us and suits our growth.

Eric: Yeah, I love that. I love that the boundaries or your beliefs or your boundaries, right? That we our experience often is what limits us. We talk a lot about the comfort zone and I’ve learned I used to say earlier on in my coaching career in my life that we, you get out of your comfort zone because that’s where you grow.

Almost with the notion of you want to get rid of it. But we actually all need a comfort zone. We need it. It’s where just like an athlete needs rest and recovery in order to perform at their peak. We need a comfort zone to go back to where things are a little bit more predictable, a little bit more safe.

And we can recharge, but I think when we live in the comfort zone, right? And that’s the exact definition, actually, of the when we talk about the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset doesn’t want to put itself in new situations for fear of looking incompetent, uncomfortable, falling on my face, making that [00:07:00] mistake.

And as a result, we limit. Ourselves from growing the leaders that I’ve worked with. I know you would say the same that have really achieved some amazing things are constantly putting themselves in these situations where they’re required to feel like, whoa, I think we’ve done enough shows on imposter syndrome to say to know.

With every new level comes a new devil, you’re going to feel that imposter syndrome all over again because you’re back in the beginners the place of the beginner where you feel like, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

Steve: And the thoughts that we repeat become beliefs. And so I love your illustration, Trevor, about the gym, the workout, the coach, Pushing you to lift, repeat that.

I had

Trefor: to sneak a coach in there as a critical part of the equation.

Steve: So when I’m working with clients, and I’m sure it’s the same for all of us is we hear a belief that is this thought that they’ve been repeating. And so as a coach, I’ll say, how about if we try. A new thought and let’s [00:08:00] repeat that thought like going to the gym.

It’s the brain gym or the gym and let’s do those reps. Let’s do those thought reps. And so those could be watching what we say to ourselves internally striking certain words from our vocabulary in a way that we’re keeping ourselves from repeating these negative thoughts or limiting thoughts and then rebuilding our thoughts.

Our brain literally building the organ of our brain to think new thoughts and have new beliefs. And then out of those new beliefs comes the fulfillment of potential. One of

Rob: my favorite questions I’ll ask clients when they say I can’t do that. And I’m sure we all do it. It’s, what if you could, and while I know, but I can’t.

Okay. But I understand. Okay. We’ve all established. You can’t. But what if you could, what if you started to what would that look like? Let’s to your point, paint the picture of what that possibility is, and then shift our language into how we begin to do those things, those very things that we’re saying we can’t do.

Trefor: And it’s [00:09:00] amazing, right? It’s amazing to see the transformation that plays out when you start to do that. So again, if we go back to the regular gym, the body gym, not the brain gym, the very often. At the beginning, the, our workout later becomes our warmup, right? And so it transforms that thing that our workout becomes the thing we use to prep to get, to go do a workout.

And so we see this transformation over time. We see it with clients where you start to raise those things and you start pushing on those beliefs and fear will come up. Resistance will come up. Worry will come up. Doubt will come up. All of those things. When they have the courage to step into that and to say, I’m going to do this thing.

It’s really uncomfortable. I’m afraid of, I’ve never done before. And they do it to see the person who emerges on the other side of that person who suddenly realizes that. Some of their beliefs are not true. And if that’s true about some of those beliefs, what else isn’t true that they’ve been telling themselves, you start to see how the organization transforms, you start to [00:10:00] see how the models as people are modeling their behavior on their leaders and see how those are transformed, it is huge.

The impact that it has, and it plays out in our

Eric: personal lives as well. Totally. The reality is fear cripples and faith empowers, right? So when we’ve. Fear taking that step because we might make a mistake or we’ve never done it before you use the word that client saying, but I can’t.

One of the five words that should be eliminated from our vocabulary because it serves no purpose at all. Actually, there’s very few things in life that we can’t do. I know for sure that I can’t fly. If I go back to the analogy of jumping off the roof, if I do that, I’m going to harm myself. So there’s a safety issue there, but often we apply that word.

What if you

Rob: could,

Eric: what if I could, then I wouldn’t be here. I’d be doing a podcast on superheroes. Okay. A Jedi’s who can fly a Jedi ninjas who can fly. That would be my show. Nice. Now, the word can’t there’s so many, there’s so few things where, when we apply that where that’s actually true and changing our [00:11:00] language I can’t, for example, I can’t be a public speaker.

I can’t lead my team effectively. I can’t reach my financial goals, whatever the can’t phrase is the reality is you’re better to say I’m struggling to do that. I find it difficult to do that because can’t. Closes the door completely on the past. It’s final. It’s there’s no open.

There’s no other way. But when you say I struggle with this. Okay, so let’s talk about that. It all right. Has it?

Trefor: I haven’t. I just haven’t done that yet.

Steve: Or I’m learning. I’m learning to do it right. And it’s contagious. When we start saying can’t as leaders, our team members hear it and then they pick up on our language, our limiting beliefs, and then it can spread through an entire organization.

Conversely, when we say we can or we’re learning or we’re growing or we’re developing, that is also contagious in organizations. And then you have this potential avalanche that starts to happen and your team starts to perform at a higher level.

Rob: I think there is [00:12:00] today an epidemic of chasing comfort and I get, I totally agree with what you said.

We don’t want to eradicate comfort, but comfort isn’t the end goal. You

Eric: don’t grow. So

Rob: you don’t grow. You don’t establish a personal best.

Eric: Where do you do that? You do it in the gym. You,

Rob: where do you get faster on the track, right? And you do it when you’re lifting. And it can hurt a little bit, not pain, but it can be just, it can be uncomfortable.

And this notion of always looking for the most comfortable way forward is cripples so many in business. So many just in life, because we’re always looking for what’s the nicest way. One of the things that I started to do quite a while ago at the gym is the, of course, at Orange Syria do different stations.

One of them is the treadmill and they’ve all got fans on them and I’d never turned the fan on. And I, sometimes I’m like, Oh, I’m hot. I’d like to turn the fan on, but I actually, it’s a mindset thing for me of saying, I want to be uncomfortable while I’m doing this because I’m pushing myself, not just physically pushing myself mentally when I’m willing to do that.

And it’s [00:13:00] so

Eric: simple. Put on a snowsuit when you’re doing it and turn off the fan. And then I’ll be impressed. Then you’ll be impressed. Then I’ll be impressed.

Trefor: Might be a safety issue then. Yeah, there was a safety issue. What one of the books that. I love, Rob, that you recommended to me, and you already know what I’m going to say, is it’s the Comfort Crisis.

And I love that book. It has been so valuable for me as well, because you’re right, we tend to seek comfort. We seek and biologically, evolutionarily, whatever, as a species, we’ve been working towards comfort. Throughout our existence, it’s like this rock ground is hard to sleep on. What would be more comfortable?

I’m cold. This fire is really helpful. This food, how can I make it more delicious? That’s been a trajectory, but we fall over the edge as well. When we lose track of what’s our capacity to engage in discomfort and to actively introduce it into our lives, right? So part of this move to the farm for us was we live in a house.

Without central heating we heat with a [00:14:00] fire. We’ve, we’ve had some real hot days the last few days, tricky to keep that place cool. We before I used to, you guys know, I love to fly fish and I do catch and release and I’m just out there for it. No, now it’s all fill the freezer, right?

Cause it’s about producing our own food. It’s like some of those activities and it doesn’t mean. I don’t engage in anything and I’m a Luddite or any of that stuff. It’s no, there’s a mix of activities that have become really important where I want to push myself and how I live day to introduce, to keep introducing discomfort because it requires a different mental posture, right?

It’s a more active kind of thought to navigate and to work our way through it as opposed to. Keep trying to escape from things because I fear we’re escaping the truest expression

Eric: of who we are. Strength, you never know how strong you are until that strength is required. And I think this is why pushing yourself beyond your level of current comfort or experience or expertise both as an individual, as a leader doesn’t matter.

These concepts apply [00:15:00] right across the board. When we talk about living fully being successful, I think is tapping into the Full potential that you have as an individual. And I remember years ago, as a teenager, hearing Tony Campolo say this phrase, it was a youth conference that I was attending in Washington, D.

C., and he said, when’s the last time you did something for the first time? Yeah. And I never. Never. Ever forgot that because he was alluding to the fact that when we play it safe, when we skirt up to danger or fear and then back away and say, no, that’s too uncomfortable for me. What we’re missing out on is discovering just actually what we’re capable of.

There’s always back to the analogy of the gym. I remember, My trainer back in the day in 2013 when I first started brought me in to do an assessment. I wasn’t even training yet. He was doing an assessment of my physical health. And it was like a 20 minute assessment and I was dead. I was like, I thought I’m not gonna make it.

I’m gonna die. Like he’s killing me here. And I remember him saying to me, Eric, If you’re going to do this, get [00:16:00] comfortable being uncomfortable. And it wasn’t long before I started to see that begin to change and being able to do things I never thought my body was capable of. And I think this is why a lot of folks turn to fitness as a place to. push their mindset because when you witness what your body is capable of when you push it all of a sudden your mind starts to go, where else have I been limiting myself? Where else? Maybe if I’ve been selling myself. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. We, in, in our home in Calgary, we have most of our square footage in our living room is Peloton equipment, treadmill, bike weights.

This episode brought to you by we’d welcome sponsorship

Rob: for Peloton.

Steve: Those things. You pull those thingy things. Oh yeah. Those, yeah. The thingy things. The thingy things. And one of the instructors, the instructors on the, yeah, the screen. She, you’re such an old man,

Team: that I’m on that thingy thing.

Eric: They faxed the instructions over to

Steve: you for your workout. It comes to you via facts. She looks at. [00:17:00] The participant, and she says, you can do hard things. You can do hard things. And of course, I’m running and sweating and think I’m going to, I’m going to die. I’m going to die. And she’s you can do hard things and that’s powerful.

And it’s true, but we can’t do them unless we’re willing to tackle them. Yeah. Tackling the. tough tasks, tackling the tough conversations, tackling the tough questions that we face in life. When we tackle them, then we can do them. And of course, sometimes we get punched in the face and it hurts and we whimper a bit and then we go back at it again because you and you and me, we can do hard things.

Rob: And sometimes we, to your point, sometimes we do get punched in the face. Sometimes we fail sometimes. Sometimes we miss the mark. Sometimes we don’t achieve that thing. We set out to, or it’s not pretty. It’s just ugly. Yeah. It’s just ugly. And that’s okay. The idea that we have to be successful at every single thing before we take the leap is again, one of those things that keeps people from achieving their potential, take the risk.

What’s the worst that can happen [00:18:00] if you don’t achieve what you’re trying to, you’ll at least be further down the road than you were when you started.

Eric: Again the notion of even if I’m not successful that comes down to how do you define success, right? How do you define failure? Is failure trying and missing the mark?

I don’t think it is. I think the only failure truly is the failure to learn from your experiences, right? But when we train ourselves to cower, when we train every time we choose. To step back instead of step up, we train ourselves right to retreat as opposed to advance. And listen, we’ve all had moments.

We’ve said this on the show probably a gazillion times. You can’t be growing and learning all the time. There are seasons of you’re going to be growing, you’re going to be pushing yourself. And then there’s going to be those seasons of rest and renewal and recovery. So you can consolidate those wins and then move on to perhaps the next area.

But we have to be conscious of the fact that when we choose to back down, we’re training ourselves in the very opposite [00:19:00] skill set that we’re talking about here. And when we face off with it, even if we fall flat on our face, we’re training ourselves to do hard things. We’re training ourselves. We are capable.

I have potential. I can do hard shit. And the more that we condition ourselves to do that, When the next challenge or opportunity comes along, it may be a whole new set of actors. It may be a whole new set, a whole new set of circumstances, but you go, I recognize this. I’ve been here before. This is just another one of those, right?

That

Trefor: word you’re talking about strength a minute ago, and that’s just echoing through my mind. And I think, When we’re being strong, we don’t feel strong when we’re being strong,

Eric: right? It’s like that whimpering,

Trefor: right? It’s it’s wobbly, it’s ugly, it’s full of doubt. Don’t look at me. It’s full of fear.

Sometimes it’s I don’t know if I can make it. I think I’m going to fail. I think I’m going to drop it. I don’t know if this is enough. That’s, those are the conditions of personal best. Those are the conditions of what strength in [00:20:00] action looks like when we’re testing our limits. And we need to embrace those feelings and that state and still recognize it may not be pretty, but we just did something that we didn’t believe we could do.

To bring it back to that notion of belief. Belief is just, belief is not fact. Belief is repetition. It’s anything we say to each other, say to ourselves over and over. It’s how advertising works, right? It is the same message over and over. We can choose a new set of messages.

Steve: Very true. And as business coaches, so we’re having, of course, human potential conversations with our clients, but we’re also talking about things like, what are you pricing?

Your service or your product and many times we find our clients are underpricing or undervaluing themselves. They don’t believe that it’s worth whatever X dollars and they have a number over their head that says it’s only worth 799 or whatever it is. And so as coaches, we get to say you are undervaluing your product and then you can see the [00:21:00] fear.

It’s maybe nobody will. So let’s, so within our job as coaches is to present a really clear business case, share the value, show the value and then shout the value. This is worth this. And it’s awesome when a client, I know Trevor, you’ve inspired me over the years to have these conversations about value and prices and and it really, It makes a huge difference when a business owner is confident in the services they can provide.

Eric: Well, a hundred percent and shameless plug many of our clients that we have worked with not only do find their value and often they’re like the higher priced in there like they charge more than most of their competitors and are still very successful. I remember one leader I was working with and he had this habit, like most of us do.

I know I did this for most of my life and I still do it from time to time a lot less these days, but where he would discount, he would inflate his weaknesses and his flaws and his shortcomings and he would put his strengths. And I remember saying to him in the conversation, I said, Arman I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but like you’re [00:22:00] constantly discounting anything good about yourself.

And it’s like your strengths. are on fire sale. It’s like they’re on and he laughed and he never forgot it. And even now when he’s talking to his teenage daughters and they’re like being coming down on themselves, he’ll stop he’ll encourage them. Don’t put your strengths on fire sale.

He’ll use that same language.

Trefor: It’s interesting because coaching clients choose us because they want to have change and transformation in terms of what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. But whenever I introduce the notion of changing price, every single one of them resists it. And so there’s a tension inside of, I know I need to change and transform and we need to change and transform.

But the moment you get to core issue, like what’s your value and how do you put a number, how do you price it in this context? The resistance rises up right away. And then we get to be there in that moment to start to work through, like, where’d that come from? Why is that? How does that play out? But it’s just so potent to see them start to rediscover their value.

Eric: Let’s face it. Human potential [00:23:00] really is about belief. What do you believe about yourself? What do you believe about how the world works and belief is repetition? I do agree. I think what is it? The average person will have 60 to 80, 000 thoughts any given day. 80 percent of those are I agree.

Negative and 80 percent of them are the same thoughts that you had yesterday. So talk about being stuck in a loop and then talk about the subconscious conscious mind where we’re only actively choosing. According to the latest research, we’re only consciously choosing our thoughts, feelings, actions, about 5 percent of the time.

And we’re on autopilot the other 95. The thing is in that autopilot, there’s all the helpful programs. There’s an app for that, for just about everything in your life, right? Yeah. But there’s a lot of bad program bad beliefs that just keep getting slight. I think a coach’s job, whether it be a business leadership coach like us, or a mentor does this for people on athletic coach, we’ll do this for their athletes.

It’s about shifting belief. It’s about putting belief into them, the word encouraged, right? Putting courage into another. And [00:24:00] often it does require that community or those supportive voices to help you begin to shift those negative beliefs that aren’t serving you well. If you were to speak to the audience directly to our listeners directly about this whole issue of belief in their own potential what might you want to say to

Rob: them?

For me, I think the very first thing I would say is start to pay attention to the language that you’re using. And I just started working with a I’ve been working with this client for about a year team and I introduced the five words you should never say at to should, you should never say.

Five words that don’t belong in your vocabulary. All right. Introduce that two meetings ago and I said, okay, here are five words that we’re going to, we’re going to get rid of these five words and there should, can’t try you got me on the spot and I’m blanking out. Never and always. Thank you.

Yeah. Those are the two that I always forget. I didn’t put you on the spot. See, I always forget them. I was testing you.

Steve: So far you’ve failed

Eric: On two words, two of the five, he’s only, Steve, he only failed, he’s only failed if he [00:25:00] failed to learn, he’s trying, I’m

Rob: trying to get the five words, you should try harder, you’ll never get it right, actually, you always make mistakes, you get them all into one, you gotta get them all into one sentence, anyway, I introduced this idea to the team two sessions ago, And they, it was really interesting to see how they embraced it and began to focus in on not only the language they use themselves, but the language that they were hearing from their colleagues.

And we came into the next meeting, which was just last week. And the energy in the room, because they had such a fun time over that month, realizing. How often they use the five words and how often they limit their own potential because of the language that they’re using. So I would say to anybody who is at a point of saying, okay, I’m ready to do this, start by paying attention to the language that you’re using and figure out the words that you need to change in order to change your beliefs.

Love that.

Steve: Love that. I would say at. Choose one [00:26:00] thought and start repeating it. So for me several years ago I was in a really dark place and I was listening to Bono on YouTube give a speech and He said this phrase The phrase is this is not a burden This is an adventure and that went right from his mouth into my heart and I say that phrase You All the time, there’s not a week for sure.

Sometimes it’s every day when I’m facing a tough task, a tough conversation or a tough question. I say this is not a burden. This is an adventure.

Eric: Steve is adventure. Did you reprogramming your brain with that phrase? I know that adventure. Is one of your three core values. If I’m remembering correctly, so was adventure your core value before, or did it become a core value through the reprogramming of your thinking?

Steve: Yeah, it’s probably a little bit of both, but I [00:27:00] did choose adventure first, working with a coach. And then of course, as that value moved to the front of my mind, I started seeing adventure phrases and it started jumping out. It was an unconscious value, but as it became more and more conscious. And then when I heard that phrase, I said, ah, that’s my mantra.

This is not a burden. This is an adventure. That’s a mantra. So anyway, point being repeating it. My energy shifts so significantly at 9:00 AM on a Tuesday morning when I got a tough day ahead of me, and I want to say, oh, poor Steve. Life’s so hard, and I wish this was easier. I wish it was comfortable. And then I have to snap my thoughts back into place.

And I say out loud, only my two dogs can hear me . And I hear myself, I say. Steve, this is not a burden. Yeah, this is an adventure. Love that you get to do. You get to do this.

Eric: Yeah. I love that. I love that. Tra, what about you? Yeah, I was gonna do that one too. . Ditto.

Rob: Ditto. . Oh, you should have spoken first.[00:28:00]

You always wait. Never. I always, never can’t Food. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Trefor: Dr. Sherry’s having a heart attack listening to this episode right now. One one piece of guidance. I would choose one thing to make yourself uncomfortable. So if it’s, I don’t like to cook, so I order in, cook a meal.

Let that be your discomfort. If it’s, I don’t like getting up early, just get up one day before. Like one day in a row when the alarm goes off, go outside do some, like the smallest thing to introduce a little bit of discomfort. And the reason I encourage that is one is the practice of it. The second is it prompts all those words.

Because as soon as we enter discomfort, that’s when those words start to come right to the foreground. And so listen to them. Introduce a discomfort, and then you’ll tune right into those. And don’t let the words win.

Eric: Yeah. I love that. I love that. I’d go back to the question, when’s the last time you [00:29:00] did something for the first time?

Which I think echoes much of what’s been said already. I think we, in this digital Culture, we become literally device zombies that can sit there and play the comparison game as we scroll through our feed and look at others who are perhaps doing and things that are that we look at and say I’m not as good enough and I’m not equal to them or I’m behind and put that away, stop comparing yourself and stop waiting.

Just start creating, start taking those steps to follow your heart. And I’m guarantee you when you push yourself, you’ll continue to amaze. Yourself at how much you can do, at how far you can go, at how strong you are. If you’ll only take the step, right? Let’s again, we just spent a lot of time on this and I didn’t want to end it.

Cause we had

Trefor: hardly anything to say about it. Let’s just say about human potential,

Eric: but let’s face it. We are in the business of transformation. That’s what we do for a living. And it’s also the journey that all Four of us, all five of us. Again Catherine can’t be with us in person and we’re [00:30:00] thinking of her right now, but it’s also our own personal journey of transformation and change.

I’ve often said I love being a coach cause it keeps me on the path, right? It’s hard to be talking change and transformation and human potential with other people without that. That mirror then reflecting back and say, Hey, where are you at? And continue to grow. But I thought a good segue here, a great second topic.

When we think of the things we really wish all of our clients really, and not just clients, but people in general really understood when we talk about reaching your full potential, living your best life is this whole notion of change. takes time. Change takes time, right? That progress is often incremental and it requires a lot of patience.

What has been your experience both personally and working with clients on this whole change takes time? A lot of fucking time. I said it slow for emphasis.

Trefor: Everyone wants change right now. Give me patience and [00:31:00] give it to me now. Easy button. Give me the easy button. I’ll have clients and I love you all and they

Eric: Was that a disclaimer that sounded like a disclaimer?

Here’s my problem, what do I do?

Trefor: And it’s just transactional coaching in a way. Fix this. Yeah, a little bit of fix it. And you know what, there is a role for us in that. Of course, yeah. But that’s the surface level stuff, right? That deeper change, that deeper transformation is a different game altogether.

And I 100 percent agree, change takes time, but change happens in a moment. But we have to prepare for that moment. And that’s the time piece, I think, very often, because almost everyone will tell me a story about how suddenly something shifted. And it’s often not quite when we expect it, or maybe not quite when we want it or need it, but it does happen.

But it tends to play out through practice and preparation. And What I what is ultimately endless repetition. This is why I really liked your point earlier [00:32:00] around choose a thought and repeat it. Like we do, that is literally how you reprogram your brain. And so to choose that, that, that time is around working through our fears, realigning our beliefs, getting more specific and taking more ownership of our thoughts.

And then it starts to happen and starts to click. And I think, to have the perseverance to stick with it when you’re not seeing the results yet takes a certain kind of courage and it’s courage because we don’t always trust the fact that we’re going to accomplish it or get there or do it, but we commit to the path.

Yeah. A hundred percent.

Rob: And it’s a journey that can be enjoyed. As you’re moving, as you’re on that path to take the time to find those moments to enjoy it. When I was in, when I was riding motorcycles, I, one of the, my favorite things was, would be to take a trip through the Adirondacks and you would you would be going all these valleys and curves and tight turns.

And suddenly you’re [00:33:00] backtracking and now you’re going up a hill. Now you’re going down. It was just this incredible adventure. It was this incredible journey that you’re on. Yeah. A Rhapsody of sorts.

Team: Full of twists and turns. Edit. That’s right. See what he

Eric: did. Oh, that waster. Oh, happy 10th birthday was, that was 10th.

Exactly right. It’s a rap and

Rob: that’s what change is. Change should be a journey that we enjoy where we’re looking going, oh, look at that. Look at what I just experienced there. And, oh, I’ve had a set. back or I’ve moved back to my old behaviors again, but that’s okay. Cause I’m coming around another curve and I have no idea what’s around that next curve or down that Hill.

And it’s in, in just embracing the moments along the journey of change. I love

Trefor: that Rob, that notion of being very present. The whole way through and not just focused on what’s that thing I want in the future or trying to become. And it’s we don’t want that to go away, but not for that to own the entire experience.

Cause then I [00:34:00] think being present helps us with that perseverance. I think if you ask anybody to say. Hey if we said, Hey, change takes perseverance. They’d say duh. Like I think people,

Rob: When

Trefor: Trevor’s

Rob: with his client, he goes,

Trefor: sorry Hey, sorry. That was my inside voice.

Oh, that was not your coaching voice. No, that’s a different. I think everyone knows that. Yeah, of course. And so then it’s about what’s getting in between your knowledge of that and your action around it, right? And I think that’s where our fears, our doubts, our worries, our beliefs kick into gear. And so that’s why I kind of love how we started this conversation.

And I think the sequencing is really smart because that first work sets us up. Continue that journey of perseverance toward, and I like the expression, toward revealing the truest version of who we are. It’s not just to be better or to have more. It’s let’s find out who I really am. Like, let’s peel some things [00:35:00] away.

Let’s build some things up that are in deep congruence and integrity with who I am or I believe I am or I believe I’m becoming. And let’s let that person come to the foreground.

Steve: Do you remember? Yes. The first time it was in, it was one of them.

Trefor: I

Eric: doubt it. I think he’s messing with, I

Steve: think we’re just telepathically connected.

I was on a clue. The two of us are not no. He’s very present. He’s very present. I have no idea what you’re to say the first time in one of our, cause we do training sessions together as coaches. We want to always be at the top of our game and developing. And the concept of desire paths came into a conversation and a desire path is an actual technical term, architectural term for that shortcut path.

So that you have that concrete. And the architect said, you have to walk on this concrete path. But someone says, and we’ve, we see these on playgrounds or school. Right up my backyard. There’s a perfect desire path. So [00:36:00] the person says, I know you want me to travel this path. But there ought to be another path here.

Eric: Yeah. And if you own a Jeep, that’s even worse. That’s even worse. Because things like curbs and roads and jumping curbs become so easy to do that you just do it.

Steve: Is this a rabbit trail? Is this one of these things I hear? It’s a rabbit trail. Keep him on focus. No driving required at all. Go back to the desired path.

Rob: Just stay focused. Stay focused. Steve. Yes. Let me finish my thought. , .

Trefor: Let me finish my thought. I feel Steve was on some kind of desire path. Yeah, I think he was on a desire path, right?

Steve: So the first time that shortcut, that new path. So maybe the old path is, I lose my temper every time something happens.

And I say that path’s not serving me well. I need a new path. I have a desire path. So the repetition part, so the first time you travel on that shortcut, there’s no. imprint made on the grass, right? The first, the second time, the third, 50th time, maybe there’s a little bit, but over time that get, that gets developed and that path becomes now a true option in [00:37:00] the moment.

And I want to read a quote. Yeah. Can I read a quote? This is by Henry David Thoreau, who says a single footstep will not make a path on the earth. So a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again to make a deep mental path. We must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

Powerful. And so repetition change doesn’t happen quickly. People don’t change easily. I. I do not change easily. I have to intentionally repeat thoughts, repeat words, repeat actions, get up early, whatever that might be. But if I keep doing it, I will change and not just on a emotional, spiritual level, but Physically, that new path, neural pathways, the neurons that fire together, wire together, and we’re actually forming a new path in our brains.

Eric: Love that. It reminds me of the quote by Eugene Peterson that he talked about a long obedience in the same [00:38:00] direction, right? And when you think though of the culture that we live in where our attention span is just ebbing away swipe. When you think that most people can’t watch more than four or five seconds of something Before they swipe to the next video, even if they like it we’re in an age of not paying attention to anything really. You can be sitting there watching a movie and you’re on your phone. You’re doing two or three things at once. I watched my my, my 18 year old, right? He’ll sit there and he’s got his homework going and he’s got a YouTube video playing on the TV about some game that he’s interested in while he’s playing a game, another game on his phone, like the, when we think of this concept of change takes time.

Change takes perseverance. It takes actively engaging with it over time. And I agree with you that it happens in a moment, but that moment only happened because of all the steps you took, like you staged that moment. And this moment may have been really dramatic, but there was a lot of non dramatic moments, a mundane routine, right?

[00:39:00] Difficult moments that led up to that. What do we, how do we help people in this day and age resist this goldfish sort of attention span, which they actually have a longer one than we do than humans do? Where does that come into play when people just don’t have the patience really for much anymore?

Trefor: Yeah I find the only path. there are the most predictable path there is to help them to tune into what really matters to them. And that’s why it’s usually major life events or major death scares snap people out of whatever it is we’re in to go, Whoa, what do I really care about here? If they see something really scary happened with one of their kids and suddenly start to realize I am not spending enough time with my family.

If they see a risk in their business start to play out going, Whoa, I have not been paying attention to this. If they [00:40:00] see something playing out like that, and unfortunately it’s usually fear based or some scare is required to snap them out of it. So that’s one version. The other is I think a process of, reflection and introspection and discernment about how do I want to live this.

I got one trip on the rock here, best we know. How do I want to experience this thing? What do I need to do? And if you don’t, or can’t, define or say to yourself what that is, Then you are adrift right? You’re just going to get washed around by every new TikTok, every discord server, every game, every whatever, and bumped around.

And it’s terrifying when you ask people to say, show me your screen time on your phone. They tell me, I don’t have time. I’m like, show me your phone. And, we talked about an act of discomfort earlier. Go a half day, make it to noon without your phone. Don’t look at your phone.

There’s discomfort.

Rob: And I think it’s, it, the sad thing is even. [00:41:00] There are times even when that traumatic event happens, the health scare, whatever, still won’t be enough to get people to be willing to start this journey. I hear from Wendy all the time, of course, in her when she’s training with clients is, a client will be working out for a month or doing something for a month and they’ll be like nothing’s changed and right.

And they want to give up and to have to come with encouragement. I. I don’t believe we are capable of causing that person to change that behavior. They have to decide they want it all we can do. And this is what I know. I do this with clients, whether it’s because I’ve seen it at their business, there’s a crisis, something you haven’t been paying attention to.

So now, okay, now I’m going to pay attention to it. And they pay attention to it until it stops being a crisis in the moment. And then they go back to old behavior. All I can do is continue to speak truth. And to speak the full realization of potential to them, they have to make the decision to embrace it and to take it.

Eric: Yeah, Keegan and Leahy and their [00:42:00] work, Immunity to Change, opened with this famous study where they these were all patients that had major heart conditions and had been told by their doctors that unless they made significant changes to their to their routine, to their eating, to their fitness commitments, right?

That they would probably not make it more than five or 10 years. That they were, their life was really going to be like, and it actually might’ve been shorter than that. I’m not, I can’t remember the exact details. What I do remember is that seven out of 10 made no change to their life. So it’s often I do agree with you.

Pain is a great motivator, right? It’s I hate

Trefor: that it’s a

Eric: great motivator, but it does. Like we tend to when life is compressing. against us. We tend to be more awake. We tend to pay more attention. But to your point, and I did this for years, I would do just enough work to alleviate the pain, numb the pain, and then get back to life as it was, right?

True transformation requires the commitment to keep going. But the and so that notion of it can be forced on you. [00:43:00] And for a lot of folks, it is forced on them by life circumstances that are very averse or you can lean into it deliberately. And it’s actually part of the entire model around living richly is get clear on who you are, get clear on what you stand for.

For Christ’s sake, we have like core values for companies and most individuals don’t even know what they stand for. We spend all this money and time and we help organizations do this, come up with a vision and a mission and values of where they’re going. And yet ask most people around that boardroom table now that they’ve settled on where their company’s going, where are you going?

And they don’t have a fucking clue because they have never taken the time to get clear about that. And even in moments of pain, that I think pain is a potential for change, but oftentimes it’s not enough. One has to really own that process. Just like you said, Pain is a

Steve: teacher, of course. The other approach that as coaches that we use that sometimes I think we underestimate its power is the power of story that people think differently when they are being told a [00:44:00] story.

So I know when I’m in a coaching session and I’m talking maybe principles like this principle one principle two principle three and they’re like And then I say let me tell you about another client who was going through the same thing and the energy changes, they lean in and now they are learning and they’re thinking differently.

They’re getting that epiphany or that aha or that awakening when they hear a story. That’s why storytelling is one of the oldest, most ancient practices. How children are raised and fairy tales and all the, I know you love novels and reading and we can’t forget that. That is an incredible tool in our toolbox as coaches is telling that story, whether it’s a cautionary tale, this happened to a client and it was so horrible or a courageous tale of look what they achieved when they made these shifts or in these changes.

It’s a powerful thing. Telling good stories. I

Eric: think that’s why community is so important, right? That surrounding yourself, of what are the [00:45:00] sayings, right? You become like the five people you hang around with most. Show me your friends. I’ll show you your future. The reality is who we surround ourselves with will either what is it a, I keep coming back to this such a powerful concept.

A talks about upper companions and lower companions. Lower companions are friends that are happy to see you stay right where you are because in the muck or stuck in mediocrity or whatever the case may be in there, in, in a’s case, stuck in addiction, stuck in, right? And the moment you begin to make some shifts, they feel very uncomfortable, right?

They don’t want you breaking free. They want you to fit in with them and you to be part of the misery, so to speak. Upper companions are those people who believe in you, but who call you higher, right? Who speak to that story, who help shape it. That story who helped speak back to potential and help you stay the course because change takes time and we tend to our ability to hold to anything.

I’ve seen this over and over again in business where leaders have given up right just before the breakthrough, right? The breakthrough is right around the corner, [00:46:00] but they didn’t have the patience or they didn’t have the the persistence to just stay with it long enough. So there, They want to start something else and then we’ll try something new.

And yes, sir, we do need to adopt. We do need to pivot. We do need to innovate, but sometimes all we need to do is stay the course, right? And keep going and the change will come. But it’s hard in the culture that we live in where we’re so impatient.

Trefor: And distracted. Yeah. Constantly distracted. Yeah. That’s where I think the wheels fall off is, we, one is because we’re distracted and second is because we use those distractions, they become a source of familiarity and comfort, right?

We talked about numbing, right? It’s very comfortable. You know the exact state, you know exactly how you’re going to feel. It’s not going to be bad. It’s not going to be good. It’s not going to get you anywhere you want to go, but it calms the nervous system. And I think people lean to that, but the distractions and to have the cause it’s the other big issue that people raise is time.

I don’t have enough time. And I’m like, so the second question after show me your phone is how often are you [00:47:00] distracted? A coach, you call it so many are by zoom and to watch their eyes flick up. All the time I’m like, I know you’re getting notifications. Like I, you can’t stop you from looking at them as they go through.

But to actually say, can we take 60 minutes and just focus on you? And sometimes that’s really uncomfortable for people as well to say, say, Ooh, I’m not sure I want to change, but I’m not sure I want it all focused on me. But that’s where we get our biggest leverage, right? To those desire paths.

The other thing I always find really interesting when I see Like at the architectural ones, you go, there’s the sidewalk, but there’s where people actually walk is at the beginning. It’s not there. And Mo you’ll see most people will follow the sidewalk, but once they see the desire path, everybody else starts taking the desire path as well.

Do you remember the video about

Eric: the the when did the guy, the dancing guy in the middle of a field and when did he become a leader? When the second person started dancing with him, and then eventually the entire crowd gentlemen, it’s been such a great conversation.

We’re going to bring this one to a close. moment, continue this [00:48:00] conversation on the next show but like the previous subject of human potential and reaching your full potential. If you were to speak to the audience right now, speak to our listeners we’ve got a, such a mixed audience of both business leaders, professionals, ordinary people just trying to live their best life.

If you were to encourage them. On their change journey, what would you say? Say to them? I would say because I’m gonna wrap up the show. So let me maybe go first. I would say until you get clear on the plot of your own story, everything will be a distraction. Everything will be hard and nothing will really ever come together because you’re actually allowing What you see online, what your friends are doing, what other people are doing to be what motivates you to go in a certain direction.

You are living a supposed life. Stop living the supposed life and start crafting your own. And you’ll have a lot more resilience to stay the course. That’d be my advice.

Trefor: Damn it. I was going to do clarity. As soon as you said that, I’m like clarity. I’m like, ah, yeah, played. We were, [00:49:00] that’s right.

The, so maybe what I would add to that is once you have that clarity, Don’t entertain all the thoughts that are gonna play out that are going to cause you to resist and come off that track. Commit to the clarity. Commit to that outcome. Commit to that life, that dream, that path, that state that you’re after, and don’t listen to all the noise in your head.

Steve: I would say be hard on yourself, but don’t be too hard on yourself. Beating yourself up. That inner critic stuff. I’m no good. I’ll never do this. Yeah, and here’s four coaches again. And I, it’s very clear that I can’t do this and I don’t measure up. That’s no good. So be tough on yourself with commitment and discipline, get accountability, get a coach but don’t be too hard on yourself because all of us are on this journey.

And perfection is an imaginary destination. Never the goal. It’s an imaginary [00:50:00] destination. And so I, over my life, the last. 10 or 11 years have been challenges. Sometimes I just have to pause. Even though I’ve got lots of gaps of where I want to be. Sometimes I have to just pause and say, Steve, you’re doing great.

You’re not where you want to be yet, but you’re doing great. Look where you were 10 years ago. You’re doing great. And pour a glass of scotch, celebrate. And then when it’s time dig back in and go that neck, go that next mile. Yeah. I love that. Practice makes

Eric: progress. Practice

Rob: makes progress. I would add maybe the last thought on this is.

Is you are the president, the CEO, the general manager of you, Inc. You have full control over you and your potential. No one else does stop making the excuse that it’s because of this person or that person or these circumstances or those circumstances, it is all within you to lead, you own it, you are the leader of you and be able to lean into that full Fully [00:51:00] you’ll be able to reach your potential for sure.

Eric: Gentlemen, such an amazing conversation focused on human potential and the the time required to make the changes that we want to make folks. We’re so glad that you tuned in again this week. Next week, tune in. We’ll have part two of this conversation where we. Promise to explore at least two more subjects and see where the conversation takes us, but so great to be together.

If you are listening and you’re a business leader or professional, and you’re looking to level up and take your business and leadership and team to the next level, do reach out Rhapsody Strategies. That’s what we do day in and day out is help leaders. Become the best version of themselves and lead winning teams.

And for the living richly nation, I hope you’ve enjoyed the show. These concepts again are not limited to business leaders at all. And we hope that you’ll continue to tune in as always. We encourage you to like share and subscribe. Let’s get the word out about living your best life. And make sure to go to our website, living richly.

me. That’s living richly. me where you can find information about two great things you can sign up for. One is the 15 day life vision [00:52:00] challenge, which is all about figuring out who you are and what you stand for. This is a free online experience designed to help you really think that through and get clear on the plot of your own story.

And also where you can sign up for the Living Richly Nation Facebook group. That’s our private exclusive group. I think we’re just over 600 members. We added about 100 members over the weekend. It was exciting to see that happen. But people that are on this path of living their best life and wanting to be in community with others that are on a similar journey.

So make sure to avail yourself of those resources. And until we see you next week, get out there and live your best life.

 

.