My “go big” bias kept my creativity limited. Boom! BS exposed. But would I ever see that BS if I didn’t put myself into an environment that challenged my way of thinking and doing things? Or might I have been tempted to avoid that challenge and comfort myself with thoughts that I’m a pretty creative guy who writes books about people’s blind spots and therefore wouldn’t have any of my own blind spots?
I could easily go either way. There are times where I think I have things figured out without even realizing I don’t know what I don’t know. The inner choice to either give into pride or fulfill my potential is what leads to the outer choice I make of what to pursue in life. This outer choice, or the physical action that I take in the world, leads to my results. Even though my outer environment of playing a game shifted something inside me, the first point of choice had to come from within me to challenge myself and not give into pride. In other words, the way I decide to “be,” proud or teachable, affects what I “do” and ultimately what I “have.” By choosing to “be” teachable, I “do” the action of challenging myself and “have” new insights.
Remember this: No victory on the outside will come without first having a victory on the inside. There may be a time where the choice that matters the most is the one you make on the inside.
How you choose to be matters more than what you choose to do.
You may not have a choice in how you live in the outer world, but you always have a choice in how you live in your inner world. No one else can take this freedom from you. Only your own mind can take away your sense of choice, which is why it’s potentially the greatest threat unless you get it to be in service to you.
What if the real question oftentimes isn’t “what can I do?” but rather “how can I be?”
“Good” Intentions Aren’t Enough… But They Kind Of Are
Focusing on “how to be” doesn’t mean what you choose to do doesn’t matter. It’s not cool to do stupid things because of good intentions. Good intentions don’t automatically make up for bad actions. It’s not all or nothing – from one point of view.
For instance, if I want to save an injured friend’s life, and I perform surgery on them even though I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, my good intentions are doing a disservice. If I really wanted to save their life, I’d also use my intelligence to realize I’m unqualified, and I would call a doctor.
The important thing to remember is that one noble intention, such as the desire to help others, taken in isolation, can actually be harmful. There are plenty of people with good intentions doing harm not because of their good intentions, but because they lack other intentions to provide balance.
The same is true with actions. Feeding starving children while letting one’s family starve isn’t “good” because it’s isolating one good deed at the expense of another good deed. This is why it’s impossible to call something “good” or “bad” outside of seeing the bigger picture. Is daytime “good” in nature if it’s not ever balanced with nighttime?
This is why the intention to gain knowledge, develop skills, and be resourceful must sometimes also be held in addition to the intention to serve others. You may not actually be able serve others effectively without knowledge, skills, and resourcefulness – although this isn’t an absolute. There are plenty of people who show up in the world without big brains sharing nothing more than a loving smile, and they do tremendous good for others with the gift of their loving heart.
Your intentions are usually the root of both what actions you take and how those actions are done. Just listen to someone give a compliment reeking of approval-seeking instead genuine appreciation. You can often literally sense the dishonestly in the words because of the intention behind them. Whether it’s the tonality, timing, word choice, body language, or something else, there’s often a subtly different action when there’s a different intention.
All your actions are colored by your intentions. You can try to hide your intentions, but those who can “see the unseen” will recognize the difference. Much like how the same words written in a different color could appear to be exactly the same to a color blind person while the difference would be obvious to those who can see colors. This lesson goes even deeper when you realize that just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or isn’t being projected by you.
A word of wise to the masculine types out there – the feminine can often sense intentions much better than you can. A woman’s intuition is an intention-detecting machine.
A person could say, “Intentions are everything.” Or “Intentions are something, but not everything.” Or “Intentions are nothing.”
Which of these do you believe?
Which of these is true for you?
Is there something else that’s true for you?
Why is what you believe true for you?
What would you say to someone who holds a different viewpoint?
If you believe intentions matter to some degree, what do you think and feel about people who say they don’t matter at all? If you believe intentions don’t matter, what do you think and feel about people who say they do?
If I ask someone making any of these statements about intentions, “Why do you say that?” and have them explain their reasoning, would this change things for you?
“Intentions are everything because they’re the root of all action. Nothing is done without first there being an intention from someone, somewhere. A doctor wasn’t able to save people’s lives until after they set the intention to learn how and set the intention to practice those skills. Intention is the first choice made that sets other actions into motion, and even habitual acts done without thinking may have started with an intention at some point.”
“Intentions are something, but not everything. If intentions aren’t balanced with the knowledge of how to apply an intention properly, it could be harmful. If someone has good intentions to help a student learn math, but then shows up unprepared and teaches incorrect information, the good intention actually backfires. The good intention to help is a starting point, but it’s incomplete if not followed up with right action.”
“Intentions are nothing, or at least very insignificant, because intentions themselves don’t change anything in this world. It’s only actions that make a difference. All the good intentions in the world won’t save us if a disaster strikes. In fact, good intentions have led to very destructive acts. It’s better to focus on just doing the right thing.”
Could you agree with all of the statements, “Intentions are everything, intentions are something but not everything, and intentions are nothing,” to some degree? Is it only what a person believes what matters, and/or is it about why they believe it? If someone makes a statement, could the meaning you give it be different than what the person saying the statement intends it to mean? Do any of these statements even have meaning until you choose to give them meaning?
You see, these statements have a very different meaning depending on the intention of the person saying them, and the meaning you’ve given to these statements. Could there be many people making statements you disagree with, that if you only could come to understand them better, you’d find you’re on the same page at heart? If someone says something you disagree with, do you choose to ask for clarification and come to understand their world, or do you automatically react by going on the offensive to prove them wrong, or on the defensive to prove yourself right?
Taken even further, could your own inner conflicts, the war with your own mind that pulls you in opposing directions of wanting to do one thing and then wanting to do the exact opposite, simply just be a misunderstanding? If you got to know the deeper intentions behind why you do what you do, might you find it all makes total sense? If you wanted to make peace with someone, wouldn’t you first need to understand their perspective?
One perspective I have about intentions is that one can hold many intentions – and must hold either broad intentions or multiple intentions or c
hange their intentions as needed to create a long-term balance.
If you truly have an intention to do good, you’d be wise to have the intention to know when to stop helping people that you’re enabling. You’d have the intention to gain the right knowledge and skills appropriate for your life. You’d have the intention to keep yourself reasonably healthy to the degree that you can control it so that you can show up in the world as your greatest self. You’d have the intention to face what makes you uncomfortable so you can grow yourself to be capable of handling life’s challenges. Most of all, you’d have the intention to actually frickin’ do the things you know to do so you’re creating real impact in the world with your actions.
Still Searching For Your BS
Perhaps you don’t fall into either of the two categories I laid out at the beginning of this section. You’re humble enough to admit you have plenty of BS, but still you’re unsure exactly what it is or how it’s affecting you. You need some more time to explore things. Here’s an insight. This exploration will be a life-long process.
If you don’t see how many ways you’re bullshitting yourself, ask yourself, “In what ways am I holding back from challenges that will expose my blind spots? How often am I pointing out the flaws of others instead of my own? How am I making myself wrong for being the way I am instead of making myself right by improving myself?”
In short, “How am I letting pride keep me from my potential?”
Warning: Pride will continuously creep up on you. You may be humble and teachable now, but once things start working for you, you’ll be tempted to say, “I got this!” “I know this!”
Not necessarily bad things to say, right? I mean we want some confidence and pride in our accomplishments, true? Certainly I wouldn’t advocate beating yourself up and guilt tripping yourself into changing. Isn’t that the whole problem with self-help that people do it because they feel there’s something wrong with themselves and they have to force themselves to change instead of accepting the wonderful beings they are in this moment? Or maybe by now it’s obvious that it’s not self-help that’s inherently the problem, but the intention of the person doing it.
Celebrating your success is important, but what matters more is not what you’ve done, but who you are being. Do you care more about your success, or your striving for success? Is it more about the outcome or the way you’re playing the game? Is this an either/or? Could it be a bit of both that’s important?
What if it’s a slingshot thing? Success can be one side of a slingshot where, the more you move towards it, the more you’re setting yourself up to fly into failure or mediocrity. This means, with the wrong intentions and focus, “success” can sabotage growth and prevent you from unleashing your greatest potential.
In the game that I was playing at the seminar, my team was scoring more points than all the other teams early on with our “win big” strategy. We were “successful.” It was only after we were told there was a way to do 5x better that I realized success was keeping us stuck. My team got so caught up in doing things the “working well way” that I didn’t realize there was a far “better way.”
It was believing the BS that success is “good” that kept our team from innovating and discovering a far easier and more effective way of playing the game. We were beating the competition, but still unknowingly falling far short of our potential. The only way to discover the better way was to stop doing what worked and fail a bunch of times until we discovered a new way of playing this game. We had to let go of our pride of being the best and doing what worked in order to reach a much greater potential.
Sometimes you must be willing to let go of what’s working well and fail to find what works even better.
What you’re doing may be working right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s not BS. Would you keep doing what you’re doing if you discovered a far easier, faster, and better way? What if the fact that you’re getting great results in life is only leading you to get complacent and attached to your current way of doing things at the expense of something much greater?
What if someone who wants to destroy you or others is willing to fail more than you are, so ultimately they become far more powerful than you, making you helpless against them? Don’t delude yourself into thinking that there aren’t those who would want to harm you or people you love. History shows how many innocent lives are ruined because good women and men let their pride blind them to impending destruction.
Remember, everything changes. Just because something is working now doesn’t mean it will keep working. Some people let pride blind them to the potential downfall of their relationships, business, or health even when signs are evident. It’s easy to see how many giants, whether people or institutions, have fallen when they slipped into pride.
While you can’t avoid pride, this isn’t about total avoidance. It’s about not staying stuck in pride; much the same way the key to freedom isn’t to avoid limitations that can actually be useful, but not stay stuck in them. You must make it temporary.
How do you keep yourself from getting stuck in pride?
The answer to avoiding getting caught up in pride, or anything else for that matter, isn’t to choose “not to be prideful.” You can’t really choose “not to choose.”
The question you must consider is, “What do I choose now besides pride?”
The short and simple answer is “growth.”
How do you choose growth?
You’ve already chosen it by reading this book. You’ve already chosen it every time you’ve allowed yourself to be uncomfortable. You’ve already chosen it when you were willing to do what you weren’t willing to before – assuming that willingness came from a place of wisdom.
Essentially, everything in this book is designed to help move you out of pride and into growth. Everything in this book is designed to help you do even more than that.
However, a book won’t be enough. Not even a book from Derek Doepker is enough to break you out of all your BS, as awesome as that dude’s books are.
What have you been shrinking away from?
Are you waiting for everything to be perfect, or are you willing to let go of what’s working for you and keep failing until you reach a whole new level of possibility?
How have you been holding back?
Are you waiting for someone to make it easy for you, or are you willing to do what’s hard?
Where have you been playing small because you fear your own greatness?
Do you need to keep reading this book, hoping it will give you courage for that one thing you’ve been holding back from, or can you act now in spite of your fear?
Do you need a book to tell you the answer, or do you already have the answer within you?
Your answers to these questions will constantly change, and the answer that shows up is where you can grow right now.
This is your next step.
This is your challenge.
Are you willing to put this book down and do what you’ve been putting off to experience the break through you’ve been seeking?
When making your choices, remember this:
You will be challenged to grow, willingly or unwillingly. Those who willingly choose to grow themselves will be able to break through the biggest problems while those who choose to shrink themselves will be squashed by the smallest problems.
Why You Should Love Your BS
I know I would be better off if I stopped procrastinating and did this right now…
I know I would be better off if I told this person how I actually felt instead of bottling it up inside…
I know I would be better off not worrying about what people think and doing what I love…
I know I would be better off caring more about my friends than the Kardashians…
Yet…
I…
Just…
Can’t!
Sound familiar?
You know what the problem is and how to fix it, but still, something holds you ba
ck.
Wouldn’t it be nice if all you needed to do to change your life was know how you’re screwing up and then know what to do instead, and then magically you’d just frickin’ choose to do it?
Many people are looking for what’s wrong and what the solution is, yet when they find the answer, it’s dismissed as “easier said than done.” Granted, the reason something is easier said than done is because you spend more time talking or thinking about it than actually doing it.
It’s not enough to know what to do if you don’t know how to get yourself to do it.
What bridges the gap between knowledge and application?
What is this “X” factor?
Before I figured this out, I got stuck in a depression shortly after my business of writing books and coaching authors became successful. Keep in mind that at this time, I was well-studied on personal development. I knew I wasn’t any of the thoughts that went through my head. I would meditate each day. I would practice gratitude. I did all the things those crazy people at seminars do to get themselves hyped up. I would let go of unwanted emotions. I even had outwardly good circumstances with my health, relationships, and finances – so good that 99% of the world’s population would be envious of how comfortable my life was.
Yet despite a high degree of self-awareness, doing work that I loved and that fulfilled a greater mission, and having my needs met, I got stuck in apathy, self-loathing, and feeling like no amount of good that I could do would ever matter all that much.
I was well aware of the psychology of what I was doing to myself. I sort of knew how I got myself into this state, and I even sort of knew how to get myself out of this state. Yet I stayed stuck there for months because I wasn’t applying this “X” factor.
Hell, I was even aware of the “X” factor, but I didn’t totally appreciate it.
That’s a hint…
The “X” factor became clear to me when I had an interesting thought after someone emailed me asking for coaching.
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