What to Do the Moment You Catch Yourself Self-Sabotaging

[00:00:00]What makes people, when they get so close to success, self-sabotage? Right when they're on the verge of having everything they want, they pull away.

[00:00:08]>> How many times have I seen this happen?

[00:00:11]Back in the day when record labels were still like really important for musicians, one of the times that they've said that they'd have the most breakups for bands is right after they got signed. So, it's not only I'm going to sabotage it right before everything goes right, it often happens right after everything goes right, too.

[00:00:30]And I don't know how many people like when we work with people and it's like, "Oh, here's the goal." And they start making the goal, that's when they get all anxious. And so, this is a cool thing to talk about.

[00:00:41]>> Yeah. And this just reminds me of a a time I was maybe 10 years ago, I went to this thing called the World Championship of of base jumping.

[00:00:48]>> Right.

[00:00:49]>> It was in Alicante, Spain. And the thing that's being measured is can you land on this little dinner plate-sized target or in the center of that target.

[00:01:00]And I'm just jumping, having fun during this during this event. And one day, it's like a 4-day event, one day I'm walking by the scoreboard and I glance over and I just see my name at the top.

[00:01:11]I'm in like first or second place and I'm just like, "Oh, [ __ ] I'm winning this thing that I didn't care about."

[00:01:19]And from then on, for the rest of the competition, I couldn't hit the target once.

[00:01:25]>> Yeah, right. Exactly.

[00:01:26]>> funny cuz I'm landing at the center of the target because accuracy matters when you're jumping in rocks and trees and whatever. So, this is something that I was used to doing to save my life, right? But the moment I was trying to do it to save my spot at the top of the list, I couldn't.

[00:01:42]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's exactly. And it's so common. It's so common for folks.

[00:01:48]>> Okay, so let's dive into how this works on a head, heart, and gut level.

[00:01:52]>> Yeah.

[00:01:53]So, the head is I have to think about myself differently if I win.

[00:01:59]>> Mhm.

[00:02:00]Right? So, an example of your jumping competition, it's oh, I might have to see myself as one of the best people in the world at this thing.

[00:02:10]Which means oh, there's some pressure on me. There's something some way that I have to now be in the world. I have to move through the world.

[00:02:16]I'm going to be seen in different ways and I don't particularly know if I want that even though part of me wants it, but I don't know if all of me wants it.

[00:02:24]So, the identity >> Yeah, the identity piece is what gets messed around with in the head.

[00:02:31]Emotionally, it's there's usually an emotion that goes with the feeling that is a little scary. And so, the just great question to be asking there is what would I have to feel if I do win, if I do succeed?

[00:02:44]And you think oh, I'd have to feel great, but great isn't always a feeling that you're used to or want.

[00:02:52]Most people if you say okay, like let's feel pleasure and play for a little bit, they they can only do it for 5 or 6 minutes.

[00:03:00]And part of that is related to the gut.

[00:03:02]And what's happening in the gut is that winning is an aroused state just like losing is an aroused state or being threatened by a bear is an aroused state.

[00:03:13]And so, as you get closer to winning, oftentimes it's >> Yeah.

[00:03:18]>> And the way to avoid this experience is to lose.

[00:03:24]>> Right. Take yourself out of the arousing experience.

[00:03:27]>> Right.

[00:03:28]>> Yeah, it's sort of like a metabolic thing on some level. It's just metabolically expensive to be aroused, so you might as well just chill. And you can easily chill the moment you're no longer on top of the leaderboard.

[00:03:37]>> Yeah, exactly.

[00:03:38]>> yeah, no problem. I'm just I'm just here to have fun.

[00:03:41]>> Right. And so, there's just like a there in general there's this level of arousal that people are used to feeling. There's like a window of tolerance for it. And if you get outside of that level of arousal, then you start freaking out, whether that's too anxious, or too happy, or too exuberant, or any of those too, like too much of it.

[00:04:04]And so, there is a way of just expanding that window of tolerance. That's like often something that happens. But, it's the same thing with emotions is there's a window of tolerance in emotions.

[00:04:14]And like most of what we're teaching often is how do people allow themselves to expand that window of tolerance with emotions. Cuz emotions are just sensation in the body. And so, [snorts] we want to manage them, we want them to be a certain way, we don't want them to be a certain way.

[00:04:32]But, if you're going to win, you don't get to choose how they are. And so, how much can you actually enjoy the emotional experience of it?

[00:04:40]>> Right. In my case, I'd have to feel excited.

[00:04:42]>> Super excited.

[00:04:43]>> I love feeling excited, but there's a nuance there where if I'm feeling excited in front of a bunch of people and my peers, and I'm excited about winning a competition, that would sort of fly in the face of my identity of [ __ ] competition, we're just here to be having fun together, and also safe.

[00:05:00]>> Yes.

[00:05:01]>> You know, like let's not introduce variables that, you know, make us put ourselves at risk for silly rewards. And so, in that thought process, in that belief system, which has its benefits, >> Yeah.

[00:05:13]>> also, I it would feel discordant for me to to be seen feeling excitement about winning >> Yes.

[00:05:21]>> that particular competition at that particular time.

[00:05:23]>> Right. Yeah, that's exactly it. And so, that's So, all of those things are are what's happening in that fear. And and it's really similar to the fear of failure. Which is interesting.

[00:05:35]>> Yeah. Yeah, so how is it similar to the fear of failure?

[00:05:39]>> Well, both have that nervous system arousal. Both have a set of emotions that you don't want to feel.

[00:05:45]Which is interesting. Mentally, you want to feel one, right? That there's a distinction. I want to make this distinction really clear. You think, I want to feel good, I don't want to feel bad. Like that makes sense to the mind.

[00:05:57]To the body, however, there's a level of feeling good that is scary, and there's a level of feeling bad that is scary.

[00:06:03]And they are just the level that you are not used to.

[00:06:06]>> Mhm.

[00:06:07]>> And so, the bigger the win, the bigger the bigger the possibility of that sabotage moment. The bigger the lose, the bigger the possibility of the avoidance uh whatever avoidance to to not have that emotional experience.

[00:06:22]>> Right.

[00:06:22]>> But they're still just experiences that are on the outer edge of our emotional capacity to enjoy, handle, love, hang out in.

[00:06:31]>> Well, such a fascinating double bind there, too, because depending on the size of your window of tolerance individually, this can show up in a lot of different ways. Cuz if it's a really wide window of tolerance, super success, ultra success might feel like too much for you, but you know, just general everyday winning can feel great and no problem.

[00:06:48]>> Yep.

[00:06:49]>> But if the window of tolerance is really small, you could feel really stuck between them, where I don't want to succeed, but if I don't succeed, I also feel like I'm failing, and I don't want to fail. But if I fail just less than this amount, I'll feel like I'm succeeding. So, like no matter what I'm doing, I'm stuck between both poles.

[00:07:08]>> That's right. And I think a lot of people are stuck between both poles. And the other weird thing is, that's just the emotional level. So, one of the things you'll notice with folks who are who have become super wealthy, who have gone from zero to billion, is that they have not all of them, but a lot of them have a mental model that they're smarter, better than most people.

[00:07:30]And so, they somehow that billion dollars is easy for them to handle because it's just evidence that they're winning the game, and they should win the game because they're smarter {slash} better than most folks.

[00:07:42]But that doesn't mean that the emotional thing is palpable for them or the nervous system situation is palpable for them. And so often times after they become a billionaire, they burn out. They can't get out of their pajamas for a couple of years.

[00:07:59]They're beating themselves up saying, "Why am I not doing the next thing?"

[00:08:03]Because they are no They've gotten the money, but that level of success was like, "Oh, I It was too overwhelming to be with it emotionally or on a nervous system level for a prolonged period of time." And so they extract themselves from the company or they extract themselves from doing things in the world so that they don't have to feel it. They become more anonymous. So that's That's another way. So it's it's actually all three of them have to be pretty well regulated if you're going to get and maintain success, which is why one those three reasons are often the reasons why somebody who's like won the lottery is poor 2 years later.

[00:08:41]>> Yeah.

[00:08:42]So that brings up the question, how do you allow yourself to experience the success, go into that higher out of your range of tolerance, be with that without the success accruing to your identity, making a new cage for you to be stuck in. Like, "Oh, I must be better than everyone because I have the success and now I have to be better than everyone or I will feel >> Yeah.

[00:09:06]>> some and and then feel stuck in that.

[00:09:09]>> So the cool thing about success it can be an identity obliterator.

[00:09:14]>> Mhm.

[00:09:15]>> Which is you I I never would have thought it. So the answer that I wanted to give you to that question was in the exact opposite way that you would have ever conceived of, right? Which is Like what we're taught is, "Oh, don't let success go to your head. Don't start thinking like you're so great because you've won."

[00:09:33]>> Mhm.

[00:09:35]>> And that actually creates friction in feeling good.

[00:09:41]Right? Oh, because if I feel really good about winning, let and I don't even feel great. Let's I don't feel like I'm special. I don't feel like I'm wonderful. I don't feel like I'm better than everybody. I just feel great about winning.

[00:09:54]>> Mhm.

[00:09:55]>> How do you differentiate that in your body between don't let it go to your head?

[00:10:01]And so the trick is to actually allow yourself to feel great about the success. It's like, how do I allow the full feeling of success in?

[00:10:10]And by the way, it doesn't have to happen after you've had success. It can happen before you have success. You can imagine your success and imagine feeling great about it. But that and as you do, your identity starts to unravel just as it does, right? We There is this great little meme I saw recently and it was on what was it? It was like Instagram or something. And it was a woman just on the floor and crying, just like bawling.

[00:10:37]And then the little theme said, "What the be What transforming your life looks like at the beginning."

[00:10:45]>> Huh.

[00:10:45]>> And I loved it. I was like, "Oh, that's that's brilliant."

[00:10:49]So that breakdown is traditionally what we think about like we're obliterating our identity, but it's not the only way to obliterate your identity. Like really allowing in a compliment, which is something we do all the time in some of our courses, you can just see people change the way they think about themselves. They have to allow themselves to feel bigger, more expansive.

[00:11:10]They see themselves differently.

[00:11:12]And allowing yourself to really feel great about your success stops the way that you think about yourself. It changes the way you think about yourself, as weird as that sounds.

[00:11:22]And it took me so long to like really understand that.

[00:11:26]>> Yeah.

[00:11:26]>> To really understand, oh, I get to just go, oh, right now I am talking on this podcast. Nothing is happening in the world, but I know I'm changing lives because of all the other podcasts that somebody are listening to right now or the YouTube videos that are somebody doing one of our courses right now.

[00:11:46]And if I don't allow that in, if I don't allow myself to feel, "Oh, wow, like the work that we're doing is changing lives, even when I'm sleeping? Holy crap."

[00:11:59]I will start to feel so burdened by the organization, by what I'm doing, by all the emails, by all the DMs, by all the people asking for my time and the 20, 30, 40 people asking me to coach this week and all that's just like, "Ah, it's overwhelming. You got to get away from me." Like, uh But if I start just, "Oh, this feels I'm allowing myself to feel really good about this."

[00:12:22]All that stuff isn't very overwhelming at all.

[00:12:25]>> Yeah, it's it's as though you're letting in the whole reinforcement loop of the reason you're doing the thing.

[00:12:31]>> Yeah.

[00:12:31]>> You If you don't let yourself actually receive it, then you have to use what some people call dirty fuel to like grind at it rather than what you're doing is allowing in the thing that charges you >> Yes.

[00:12:43]>> as some would say clean fuel. And I'm also curious though, how does that work in the reverse? If we allow in our failure, does that do the same? Cuz we've talked about how failure is, you know, some way you've decided to to define something and there's a way to define it so that it's all just learning and experimentation.

[00:12:59]>> Yeah.

[00:12:59]>> So you have actually succeeded when you failed, which can feel a little bit like a like a intellectual slight of hand.

[00:13:06]But also there's a way that like really just I've had times where, you know what? Like, I really [ __ ] up and this did not go the way I anticipated and that obliterates a certain identity of perfectionist or of knowing it all and it's a really good thing to have happen as long as it doesn't become a new failure identity.

[00:13:23]>> Right. Yeah, that's right.

[00:13:25]>> So how do you [clears throat] see that >> Well, actually the interesting thing is that the like one of the mechanisms, and we'll go into more later, but one of the mechanisms that works for not sabotaging success is the same mechanism that works for not like not creating your own failure, right? So, >> let your failure go to your head.

[00:13:45]>> Yeah.

[00:13:47]>> [laughter] >> Right?

[00:13:47]>> Yeah.

[00:13:48]>> So, so it in both cases it's visualizing everything that is happening and and and feeling all the emotions of a massive success and a massive failure.

[00:14:01]And so, I'll do this often with entrepreneurs where the entrepreneurs are are starting to have fear because things are going well or not going well and I'll be like, "Okay, I want you to imagine a complete failure of your company.

[00:14:17]And I could worst-case scenario and feel the emotion all the way through it till like the company's gone for 2 years.

[00:14:24]>> Mhm.

[00:14:25]>> And you've got a new job or whatever.

[00:14:28]Same thing, success. Feel the the feeling of success and like fully let it in, the whole thing. People are like looking at you on the street and they know who you are and people want your attention and they're kissing your ass and they're telling you things that they think that you want.

[00:14:44]Like feel the whole thing.

[00:14:46]And what's amazing is if they feel both their identity basically just changes in advance. You know, their identity already starts to not all the way, but it it starts to like crack and change.

[00:14:59]>> Yeah, there's somebody in the Decisions course that I was working with facilitating in our Circle Forum and they had a decision that was the fear was well, there's like on this side there's success, on this side there's failure and in exploring both of those options they recognized that it was the same series of emotions that they were avoiding in both cases. In each of the decisions and each of the success or failure modes, it was oh, everywhere I look, I will have to feel these same feelings that I'm avoiding. And if I can just welcome those feelings, all of this falls away. The decision, the fear of if I get it right, if I get it wrong, is just incredibly freeing.

[00:15:36]>> Yeah, exactly. And and to like allow yourself to feel the the arousal of all of them as well on the nervous system level works great for the same reason because essentially on the nervous system level, it is the same thing.

[00:15:51]>> Yeah.

[00:15:51]>> Right? And so that's why so many of the stories that we tell ourselves of success are stories of threat.

[00:15:57]>> Mhm.

[00:15:58]>> Right? So we can tell ourselves, oh, if I'm successful, tall poppy thing. I'm going to be the tall poppy and people are going to attack me.

[00:16:06]>> Yeah.

[00:16:06]>> That sounds like threat.

[00:16:08]Uh or I won't be uh I won't be like my friends anymore and they'll leave me.

[00:16:13]That sounds like threat. Oh, uh if I'm super successful, nobody will want me anymore. They'll just want my money. That feels like threat. And so the reason that our brain creates all these stories about what's going to happen to us if we're successful, I'm going to feel guilty that all none of my friends have made it. That's a threat. That's like oh, I I'm I'm under attack by myself.

[00:16:36]That we tell stories of oh, I will be attacked because the nervous system is like you're this is threat.

[00:16:45]>> Right.

[00:16:45]>> Because it's arousal.

[00:16:46]>> Right. So so we've talked about how this shows up in the head, heart, and gut.

[00:16:49]And now it looks like we're talking about the mechanism of action in the head, heart, and gut. Like on the gut level, whether it's success or failure, there's a sense of threat, it seems.

[00:17:00]>> The mechanism to work on that is to extend your window of tolerance on that arousal. And the way to do that is to take pleasure in it.

[00:17:07]>> Mhm.

[00:17:08]>> Right? Because arousal by its name can indicate something incredibly pleasurable.

[00:17:14]>> Yeah.

[00:17:15]>> But the our level of resistance to it is right is going to determine whether arousal is good or arousal is bad.

[00:17:23]And so when I say just to be clear about it, when I say take pleasure in it, that doesn't mean this.

[00:17:29]>> [snorts] [sighs] [gasps] >> Because often times that is I want to push that sensation down.

[00:17:37]>> Right, I'm going to take a breath to regulate myself not to really >> enjoy myself. And it's weird, so if you feel aroused and you're like, oh, how am I going to breathe to actually enjoy that arousal?

[00:17:48]It's going to be more like Right? There's going to be an enjoyment with it. It's not going to be I'm breathing to settle myself.

[00:18:00]>> Yeah. Yeah, it's like, oh, there's a sensation going on. I'm curious about it. Let's let it amplify it. Let's let there be more of it. Let's let it show up and like sink into the nitty-gritty like subtle textures of it.

[00:18:13]>> That's exactly right.

[00:18:15]And the same can be done for the failure state, right? Like, oh, I'm like my whole world is falling apart. You can do the same thing. You can take that breath and actually enjoy that state of arousal.

[00:18:26]And so and the more you can enjoy that state of arousal, the more you are capable of not making decisions that golden algorithm failure and making decisions that allow you the success. And that's the weird piece is that there is a golden algorithm happening.

[00:18:43]Right? Like, oh, I don't want to feel like a failure invites so you don't feel it, which means you invite that failure in a in a failure state by sabotaging your success.

[00:18:58]Right? Because that that that arousal that you're trying not to feel by pushing it down creates the failure state.

[00:19:06]>> Yeah. Yeah, and it's almost as though the fear of success is a fear of failure. It's just that you're afraid of success because you predict that immediately after your success failure will happen. If I succeed in such a way that my friends feel less than around me and pull away and I lose a connection with them, then I have actually failed in getting what I want. So the success seems like it's about to precede some form of failure. So feeling the consequences of that failure to expand our perception and see there's actually also ways that my I'm letting my friends down by not being successful.

[00:19:42]By like not being the person who could show up for them as fully as the person I possibly can be.

[00:19:48]>> Yep. I'll dim my light to make you happy is definitely a form of not showing up for your friends. Yeah. There's a couple of things here that I that are really important. I don't really see the difference in the fear of success and the fear of failure. I've never heard it described as to why and I think the way you described it is just beautiful. And it reminds me of this thing that I realized was that often times when things go well, your fear is that the other foot's going to fall, the other shoe is going to drop, whatever that is. And it turns out that the other shoe always drops.

[00:20:20]Like And from this moment, no matter what, something bad will happen.

[00:20:25]>> Right. [laughter] >> You know, at some point. And like maybe like the only time that that's not true is like the moment of death. But like >> Yeah.

[00:20:32]>> But then it's death is going to happen.

[00:20:33]So there's always just something that is going to happen and so there's always evidence that the other foot is going to fall.

[00:20:40]>> Yeah.

[00:20:41]>> And so that's it's an interesting thing because you can always prove it. You can there's always evidence for it.

[00:20:46]>> It's [snorts] interesting. I'm seeing this my my own story that I described earlier in a new light now where if I were to be excited about being successful at a base jumping competition, I'd be afraid that I'm actually propagating a culture of like toxic competition and a heightened risk in a sport where my friends are risking their lives with me >> Right. that people will die as a result.

[00:21:09]So, it's like literally the the threat of like causing death of my friends by being excited about a competition. And I can see how that was quite visceral. [laughter] And it turns out a lot of my friends died anyway. Nothing I was doing was stopping competition from being prevalent.

[00:21:25]>> Right.

[00:21:26]>> And I could have with the self-recognition of what was going on there, >> Mhm.

[00:21:31]>> I could have actually gone ahead and just slayed it in that competition and use the platform at the top to say something important about my recognition of how competition moves in me, shared it with my friends, and shown up for them in ways that I wasn't capable of without that recognition.

[00:21:48]>> And as the winner, talking about safety means more.

[00:21:51]>> Yeah.

[00:21:51]>> And you can't do that unless you actually let the feelings in and allow yourself to feel good about the success.

[00:21:57]>> Yeah.

[00:21:58]>> And that's the interesting thing is if you feel bad about the success because somebody else deserved it more or because why do you deserve it or because guilt or because, you know, you had the opportunities that other people didn't have the opportunities for, then you never feel good about success and then it's very hard for you to actually use that success in a way that's good for other people. Guilt typically makes it so you do not do things that are good for other people.

[00:22:25]>> Yeah.

[00:22:26]Which feeds the guilt. Yeah.

[00:22:27]Which feeds the guilt.

[00:22:28]>> end up then not getting the experience of showing up for your world the way you want to and getting to feel the impact on it. Which feeds the guilt and the stories and the belief systems and all the mechanisms of of this pattern.

[00:22:40]>> Yeah, exactly. And so, the other way I like to think about this pattern, fear of failure, fear of success, is that it's really just a fear of life.

[00:22:52]>> Mhm.

[00:22:52]>> Like if you really allow yourself to feel life, it's really [ __ ] big.

[00:22:57]>> Yeah.

[00:22:57]>> It's huge. It's like it it it like makes you feel permeable.

[00:23:02]It like it's like super expansive. It's it's a lot to really allow yourself to feel fully alive. And so we don't feel fully alive if we're not having success and failure. If we're like think about who feels the most dead inside and like somebody working at the DMV or some big ass bureaucracy, you know, like where where the most likely obviously there's people feel fully alive in those places.

[00:23:29]But if you look at where the most likely people are that just feel I don't know why I'm here.

[00:23:35]Like those people are in a place where they do not have big successes and big failures.

[00:23:43]Right? And the people who feel most alive where you're like whoa, wow, that person feels really alive. They're living life where big successes and big failures happen, can happen.

[00:23:53]>> Some of the times I felt most alive was in the midst of my biggest failures.

[00:23:57]>> Correct.

[00:23:57]>> According to whatever I was defining as a failure at the time.

[00:24:00]>> For sure. And and that same thing can be found in your successes.

[00:24:04]>> Yeah.

[00:24:05]>> Like and it's such a weird thing to go oh, I'm going to savor.

[00:24:09]I'm going to actually receive this success is the way that it hits my system. It's like oh, I'm going to actually receive this as support for the work that I'm doing in the world.

[00:24:20]>> Yeah. It'd be fun.

[00:24:21]>> nice to do that because it's it becomes a bigger than you. There's a difference between saying oh, I'm going to fully allow this feeling of success and enjoy the success.

[00:24:31]And I am going to fully allow this feeling of I am the one who made myself successful.

[00:24:40]Right? Like the And I think one of them is making it identity and one of them is not making it identity. It's recognizing that it's happening through you to you rather than you are the creator of it.

[00:24:53]And I mean, you know this business.

[00:24:56]You know any business, it's never just one person.

[00:24:59]>> Right.

[00:24:59]>> They can believe it, but it ain't it's never true.

[00:25:01]>> I mean, this is making me think of award shows, you know, where somebody steps up and they this it's a really fascinating thing just to watch somebody step up and accept an award. Because the way that they might deflect the success or the way they might give it to other people to avoid receiving it.

[00:25:17]>> Yeah.

[00:25:18]>> The way they might run a script of thanking all the hundreds of people who worked on the project >> Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:23]>> before them. But also the way that they might do that from like a deeply uh a place of deep gratitude and humility.

[00:25:32]>> Yeah.

[00:25:32]>> And the differences that you can see in the receiving. It's a really fascinating and that's would be an interesting study given it's kind of place in the center of much of our culture. The the the mega award show.

[00:25:46]>> One of my favorite award ones was I don't I don't care. It was a singer and he was just like, "I want to thank drugs. I want to thank my neuroses for always feeling like nobody loves me, so I have to prove myself. I have to thank like he he went through all the things that everybody's trying to get rid of >> Yeah.

[00:26:04]>> which propelled him into success.

[00:26:06]>> Right.

[00:26:06]>> Like like my my like body dysmorphia, my soul dysmorphia. Like he literally is like, "All these things are what drove me to having this." And it was this beautiful moment of seeing that like what we think of as success is not success if we are in an if we're not receiving it.

[00:26:32]>> Mhm.

[00:26:33]>> If we're doing it to prove something, it's like there's there's no success in it. There's no And so that's weird because that's another way that people actually sabotage the success in a more subtle way.

[00:26:45]Right? There's the obvious way is I just signed the record label and I and the band just broke up. But there's a more subtle way of I just had this amazing thing happened to me. I just sold I just IPO'd my company and I still have to prove myself.

[00:27:02]And I'm still not good enough. And I still don't right? That's the most That's a more subtle way to also prevent yourself from having the success cuz what's the success if it's not feeling >> Right.

[00:27:15]>> the success? Like, oh, I was totally successful but I felt like [ __ ] the whole time.

[00:27:19]Was it success?

[00:27:20]>> Or or the fear of if I actually let in the success, I'll lose everything that gave me the success that I that I attribute the success to which was the like beating myself up and pushing myself and grinding hardcore.

[00:27:31]I think my my favorite award-winning speech that comes to mind right now is Jim Carrey >> Oh, I love this one.

[00:27:39]>> he steps up and he's like I'm Jim Carrey >> Two-time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey.

[00:27:46]>> And you know what I dream of at night? Becoming three-time Golden Globe He's doing exactly the thing that I could have done >> Yes.

[00:27:55]>> in my if I like one the thing. I could do it without winning it, to be sure.

[00:27:59]But there's something beautiful about playing the game but not by playing the game but just being yourself, showing up and then transforming the game, playing a weird Uno reverse card like Jim Carrey did and propagating that back into your culture.

[00:28:19]>> Yeah.

[00:28:20]>> moment.

[00:28:20]>> It was. I loved his moment. It It remind I had a girlfriend in college.

[00:28:25]I don't know what was going on with her at this moment but um she had all A's. I don't think she had even a name minus.

[00:28:31]She was just like was going to be valedictorian and she went and purposely got a B in her last class.

[00:28:38]And I asked her, "What Why? What What What made you do that?" And she said, "Only God is perfect." Right? Which is like if you know the Arab uh the Persian rugs and stuff like that, they always make one mistake in the rug because only God is purpose perfect. And so interesting, if you're doing that as a form of prayer, if you're actually doing that because it's like like the perfect salmon dollar that gets knocked over by the Buddhists to show that like, "Oh, this isn't this isn't who I am." It's such like a wonderful identity.

[00:29:13]>> Yeah.

[00:29:13]>> But if you're doing it to maintain your identity, you know, to like not be the person, not be the tall poppy, then it's like it gets the exact opposite. And it's so interesting how the intention behind it is what's important, not the winning or the losing. And if you grok that >> It's the humility behind it, too. It's If you're doing this making it not perfect from a place of like like a deep bow, a prayer >> Yeah.

[00:29:40]>> versus >> keeping yourself small.

[00:29:42]>> Yeah.

[00:29:43]That's a very different >> Very different. Yeah. It's interesting because a lot of us think humility is a way of keeping ourselves small.

[00:29:51]But it's actually just I think that I love the quote, I think it was Ted Lasso's quote, I think it was, but it's like humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

[00:30:02]>> Mhm.

[00:30:02]>> And and there's a way in which allowing that feeling of success in your system actually makes you think of yourself less cuz you're less compulsive, you're less trying to get there or trying to avoid getting there.

[00:30:15]It's just like, "Oh, I can allow that feeling of success." And the weird part is the more, in my experience, the more these things are happening where I'm really allowing myself to feel success, the more success I feel in everything.

[00:30:28]That's the weird piece. It's just like, "Oh, like oh, there's like success that I feel in taking care of my daughter when she went to the hospital for her broken wrist from snowboarding is like that way I never would have felt that as a success until I've really allowed myself to feel the success of the business and the YouTube channel and all that stuff. Like allowing myself to feel that success allows me to feel success in like so much stuff. And that's the like that's the really weird piece to all of this.

[00:30:59]>> Feel the success in brushing your teeth.

[00:31:00]Feel the success in success in filling your gas tank.

[00:31:03]>> Yeah.

[00:31:04]>> Yeah.

[00:31:04]>> Yeah, it's it's a weird >> that it's like when you have one of those days where you're just on a roll.

[00:31:08]>> Right.

[00:31:08]>> It's not like there might have been one thing that went extraordinarily well and then everything else has just got the halo, the red carpet rolled out of this feels great, that feels great, that feels like success. Like yeah.

[00:31:19]>> Yeah, exactly.

[00:31:20]>> Yeah. So I want I want to leave people with something concrete that they can do to work with this pattern in themselves today.

[00:31:26]>> Yeah. Well, the obviously the first one is the one that we talked about which is visualizing very slowly whatever issue you're having, the complete failure of it and the complete success of it, feeling all the emotions along the way. Often times you have to do that like two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 times.

[00:31:42]Um so visualizing that, especially if you have something big like a company or a marriage or something that's you just really you feel like it's on the precipice of one or the other.

[00:31:53]So that's and I really suggest doing both. Like the the equanimity that comes out of doing both is amazing and the decision-making that comes out of both, even if you think I'm just scared of failure, I'm just scared of success.

[00:32:05]So that's that's one thing that's like very easy to do. The other one that you can do is do the golden algorithm work that we have, which is identify the emotion that you're trying to avoid and and learn how to feel it through emotional inquiry. And another one is expanding your window of tolerance for your nervous system. So how do you bring pleasure to your nervous system?

[00:32:29]The easiest way to do that is to bring pleasure to everyday life, brushing your teeth.

[00:32:34]But the other way to do that is how do you bring pleasure to arousal?

[00:32:41]Right? So, often times, even like even in masturbation, which is high arousal, you'll see a lot of people just try to get through it as quickly as possible instead of prolong it for as long as possible. And so, one way is to like in any moment of arousal, whether it's sexual or otherwise, how do you actually hang out in and expand that moment of arousal?

[00:33:05]So, you can expand your window for it so that you don't have that nervous system reaction.

[00:33:10]And then, the last one is to really deconstruct who you think you are.

[00:33:16]So, oh, who would I be? Like, am I really essentially any different?

[00:33:21]Essentially, am I really any different if I'm a billionaire if I'm not or if I'm a movie star if I'm not?

[00:33:26]You know, like we all know that on some level that's not [ __ ] true. Like we like there's oh, you're a movie star, they're happy now.

[00:33:36]>> [laughter] >> Right? Like that's clearly not true. I'm a billionaire, but I'm happy now.

[00:33:40]And so, what is it to actually rede- deconstruct that in your head? To to realize that none of the things that you think that are going to make you a success are going to actually change the essence of your of your of the human situation you're in.

[00:33:54]>> Yeah. And I think a a good like version of that deconstruction is if you think you're playing it small for other people's benefit, to really question like what am I actually taking away from the world?

[00:34:05]>> Yeah.

[00:34:05]>> Taking away from my community, from my family, from my friends by playing it small. If if what I think I'm doing is actually making myself more palatable or more team oriented or something.

[00:34:17]>> Yeah. Likeable.

[00:34:18]>> exploring those those stories and those beliefs.

[00:34:20]>> Absolutely. Yeah, great. Great. What a pleasure.