Posts in "defeat asshole brain" Category — Page 2

defeat asshole brain, listen to the podcast, make meaning

Coaching Quickie: Start a No Collection.

Are you afraid of hearing the word NO?

Do you avoid asking for help — or asking for anything that could lead to hearing a NO from another human being?

If yes, first and foremost, YOU’RE NOT ALONE.

Most of my biz coaching clients come to me so avoidant of the word ‘no’ that they never ask questions or make offers that could lead to hearing that word.

This coaching quickie episode of That’s What She Said will help you a.) stop fearing the word ‘no,’ and b.) actively celebrate every last rejection you receive.

Ready?

Start a No Collection.

Your goal is to make SO MANY asks of your fellow humans in the coming week that you collect 3 to 5 no’s along the way.

Starting a No Collection is an easy way of turning a word we tend to fear — ‘no’ — into a celebration of having asked in the first place. (Either you get a yes — WHICH IS FANTASTIC — or a no — which gets added to your collection! See how you win either way, with this one trick?)

Creating a No Collection allows you to assess your needs, ask for support with your most pressing concerns, and collect some help along the way.

By tracking and celebrating each one of the no’s you receive, you become less afraid of hearing no, less afraid of asking for help in general, and less afraid of making offers in your business. (Not everyone will want everything you offer! That’s par for owning and operating an enterprise.)

BUT WHAT WILL I ASK FOR, KRISTEN?

First and foremost: ask for help with invisible labor.

Any and everywhere that you complete tasks no one sees or acknowledges, take time to write those tasks down. Particularly tasks that make you seethe with resentment, that make you feel like you’re wasting your time or send you into despair, or that are in your business but do not require your particular gifts to complete. (For example: an acupuncturist client of mine recently hired an assistant to sterilize instruments, clean session rooms, and launder blankets and towels between appointments. Necessary work? Yes. Necessary work for the person who owns the business to complete? Not at all.)

If you’re seething with resentment about any tasks on your list, start there with asking for help! It can be paid help, bartered help, free help, family help, or friend help! The point is to ASK FOR HELP.

WHAT ELSE CAN I ASK FOR HELP WITH, KRISTEN?

Anything at all. Might I recommend support of some kind?

You can ask your friend to look over your new business product/service sales page and provide feedback about it.

Ask a colleague to hire you.

Ask to hire a colleague!

Ask for help with an area of business you find sticky or tricky: accounting, bookkeeping, graphic design, social media management, and/or consistent communication with your audience are places I’ve found that most business owners need support.

Ask for accountability around completing ________ [a task you’ve been avoiding for weeks/months/years/since Obama was in office].

As a business owner, I can 100% guarantee that you need help with something (or many somethings) at this moment.

I can also guarantee that specific requests for the support you need are the only way to get what you need, ’cause a money fairy or accounting fairy or structured time fairy is not going to drop out of the sky and makeover your life this afternoon.

👉🏻Should you need ALL THE HELP — hop on my KK on Tap biz coaching waitlist! When biz coaching spots open, you’ll be the first to know, and you’ll have me in your court for one full year. All the magic goes down online, so you can work with me from anywhere in the world!

Pro tip: specificity in your ask makes it easier for peeps to say yes or no.

Asking for an hour-long exploratory conversation is better than asking someone to ‘collaborate’ on an unspecified project that hasn’t yet been created.

Asking a colleague to text you on Tuesday mornings and ask whether you’ve completed the week’s bookkeeping duty beats asking someone to simply ‘be an accountability buddy.’ (For what? And how long? On which platform? Regarding which activities?)

Asking your partner to cook dinner on Wednesday and Friday beats asking for them to cook dinner ‘more.’ (I mean, they cooked that one time last week, which is technically ‘more’ than the weeks prior…)

Specific asks give a person an idea of what is expected, and when, and how much time it will take to complete the task. Because the other person understands the level of time, money, and/or energy needed to complete the task, they’re better equipped to give an honest answer and to be genuinely helpful when the time comes.

And if they say no, remember: you’re building a No Collection! Add it to the collection and keep on trucking!

YAH BUT HOW DO I ASK, EXACTLY?

There are an infinite number of ways to ask and I’ll roll through a few of ’em, but first: make peace with the asking itself.

Asking for help doesn’t make you weak, bad, wrong, or any other words your asshole brain throws around to keep you from completing this activity.

Asking for help makes you A HUMAN. We aren’t meant to meet 100% of our needs all by ourselves, but somehow the world makes it seem like being ‘self-made’ is the goal. We’re trained to need no one, ever, for any reason.

When you start a No Collection, you make it more likely that you’ll get the help you need to thrive at this moment.

If phrasing trips you up, here are 10 ways to frame the way you ask for help. The more specificity you can weave into these questions, the better:

Would you be willing to ____________?
Can you teach me how to ____________?
I have ____________ and you have ___________, can we trade?
Can you take a look at this [project/email/sales page/product] and let me know what you think about X?
Is it okay to call you/text you this afternoon about ___________?
I could use some help with _______________ this week. I estimate it will take X minutes.
Remember how [last week/month/year] you offered to _____________? I’d like to take you up on that offer.
I’ll give you ten bucks and a high five if you know the answer to this question. _____?
You asked if you could help and this is how. Here’s what I need: __________________.

WHAT ABOUT ASKING FOR MONEY?

Which clients or potential clients do you need to ask about hiring you, rehiring you, making a deposit, or pressing the buy button?

Because you can do that shit like BOOM. Make a list of about five people who have been circling your business and make a time-sensitive offer to each one. (More about making an offer that gets money in your bank account here.)

Maybe you include a 72-hour promo code with a ‘hire me!’ email. Maybe you offer a dozen roses or a massive discount or a huge bonus for buying within 24 hours. Maybe you extend an offer that hasn’t been doing all that well by making another pitch or two for your peeps to hire you.

So long as you’re asking your peeps to give you money in business, you’re doing the hard work of selling AND building your No Collection along the way.

Again, your goal is to gather 3-5 no’s for your No Collection in the coming week. Lemme know how it goes by shooting an email to k@kristenkalp.com!

P.S. Need help selling when you’re sick of saying the same thing over and over (and fucking OVER)…? I FEEL YOU! And also… Stay on it.

defeat asshole brain, make meaning

Simple + helpful ways to defeat asshole brain

After more than a decade of biz coaching work, I’ve noticed that solopreneurs struggle with asshole brain in VERY specific ways that often end in self sabotage. So!

Let’s walk through six really friggin common ways asshole brain will mess with you and your work.

I’ve been living with depression and its kissing cousin, asshole brain, for more than 2 decades now. PLEASE let yourself learn from this work without shame or guilt! Each subset links to a podcast episode or article of mine that will help you explore each aspect of overcoming asshole brain a bit further.

Asshole Brain will tell you to give up.

It will tell you to abandon…everything. Absolutely everything.

The specifics may include: your career, your work, your marriage, your internal goals, your boundaries, your hopes, your friends, and your fiercest talents.

Asshole brain always has a word about what you’re doing, why it absolutely sucks, and why you should give up. ALWAYS.

What if you go all in instead? <– This is the tale of losing many thousands of dollars on a business event, and why that was not the worst thing that ever happened to me.

More subtly, asshole brain will try to get you to walk away from the work you’re doing at this moment.

You sat down to work on that project or painting or piece of writing.

You’re finally answering those emails and DMs and voicemails and messages and texts.

You’re all set to begin tackling that organization project or those systems you need to set up or to create an email list to connect with your peeps.

But suddenly! The laundry! The phone! The need to doomscroll! The kids’ needs that aren’t at all urgent but WOW IT’S BETTER THAN DOING THIS!

Also you’re hungry! You’re tired! You need to ‘just check in on’ social media before you can begin! The toilet needs to be cleaned URGENTLY! And on and on it goes.

Asshole brain fights for control of your thoughts by letting you get to the knife’s edge of doing your work in the world — and then it pipes up about THE URGENT NEED TO BE DOING ANYTHING ELSE.

But. What if you get fierce about your priorities and identify the actions that actually move the needle of YOUR business forward? Lemme show you how to get started.

Should you find ways to do your work consistently, asshole brain does NOT want you to be seen.

When you enter into doing work that’s public in some way — say, for example, you’re a business owner who puts anything at all on the internet 😉 — asshole brain will curl into the mental equivalent of an armadillo under threat.

All armor.

Nothing goes in or out.

Remain still and hope for the best.

You’re basically in vulnerability bunker mode.

This armadillo phase results in hiding, freaking out, procrastinating, and possibly buying other people’s tools/prompts/done-for-you kits so you can have something to say. It might also end with repeating what ‘works’ even if it doesn’t enrich your soul in any capacity.

::cough aggressive sales funnels and tripwires cough::

Unfortunately, being truly seen is the only sustainable way to feel as if we belong anywhere.

If vulnerability gives you the heebie jeebies, listen to or read Vulnerability 101. I’ll walk you through ways to begin to be vulnerable online. (It’s something I’ve been doing for 11 years now!)

If your particular fear of being seen involves having an email list and sending zero communications per year, check out How to F*#*ing Communicate! This short class and workbook combo will help you figure out what to send, and when, with less stress and fewer freakouts. Promise.

Oooh another one! Asshole brain remembers every bit of training that you’re veering from when you decide to try something new. It wants you to do everything ‘right.’

Those college classes that weren’t helpful but were ‘official’ in some way? It remembers.

The courses and coaches and teachers and mentors who have had an opinion about your work over the years? It remembers.

Asshole brain will beat you up about all the ways you’re veering from the path, even as it also declares the VERY SAME PATH stupid and useless and then concludes that you should just give up anyway. (SEE HOW SNEAKY THIS MOTHERFUCKER IS????)

You don’t have to do anything the way everyone else is doing it. You don’t have to whip up business offerings that look like what everyone else is making.

You don’t even give a fuck about what your past mentors have said. <– I once paid $20,000 to take part in a mastermind and, over the course of the years following, to UNlearn everything I had learned in that space. Unlearning has been a deeply difficult and ultimately satisfying pursuit, ’cause now I can help you Go Your Own Way in business.

Should you succeed in making a thing! Asshole brain will try to negate the work you’re doing because it isn’t ‘official’ in some way.

Maybe you’re trying something new.

Maybe you’ve recently taken up a hobby.

Maybe you finished creating your next business product and it’s ready for launch.

Maybe you have written nonfiction all your life and you’d just like to write a single poem.

This is when asshole brain will remind you that you’re a [JOB TITLE HERE], not a [MAKER OF THE THING YOU JUST MADE].

It will also get really hung up on titles and certifications and degrees and ways that you can’t possibly be qualified to do the thing you just friggin did.

What if you let your deep knowing drive the bus? What if you didn’t listen to the voices that say you’re not qualified or certified or capable of doing the things you’ve already done? We can work around being ‘official’ when we’re in touch with our intuition.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, in which you are basically frozen in place! Asshole brain wants you to THINK about your work more than it wants you to DO your work.

When you think about writing the book or painting the painting or building the website or helping the clients or opening the studio or renting the office, you’re fine. Pin 3,000 photos of your dream office to Pinterest and your brain is SO FUCKING HAPPY. You’re SAFE. You’re in Imagination Land, flitting from flatlay inspiration to new website template idea to paint colors to furniture choices to planning your perfect bookshelf.

But!

Action makes asshole brain freak out.

When you call to make an appointment for touring the office or write another 1,000 words for your novel or investigate website hosting or send out the invitations to the open house, asshole brain goes into full blown freakout mode.

Making and sharing your truest work is vulnerable. And asshole brain doesn’t want to be vulnerable. (See: vulnerability 101 — you can do this!)

If you’re the thinking-about-it-thinking-about-it-thinking-about-it type, what’s the smallest bit of action that needs to happen in order to move your work forward? You’re capable of taking those steps.

If overthinking is a HUGE problem for you… The M-School podcast series will help you place some structure around your daily work, as well as help you reframe your weekly schedule in a way that’s both enduring and flexible. (M stands for Magic, and I’m fairly certin you’ll love everything about M-School!)

If procrastination, the need to go back to school or be ‘official,’ the constant critique of ‘you’re doing it wrong,’ amped up distractions, and the ever-present ‘just give up’ chant don’t take you out of the game, asshole brain gets more subtle.

In some cases, you’ll prioritize others’ work over your own. You’ll find no time for your ‘real’ work and let other people’s needs take over your schedule.

This is easy to do if you’ve got kids! You could take 30 minutes to work on that thing, or you could cut out early and go back to the ever-present needs of tiny beings. This becomes a habit, et voila! You’ve never got time to do YOUR work again.

Similarly, you might prioritize grant seeking or fundraising for your clients or beloved organizations, not yourself. You might convince yourself that you’re not that big a deal, and anyway the deadline for that grant is close at hand. You’ve got no time. You’ve got no chance. (AND there we are, back at ‘you should probably give up.’ Asshole brain is predictable that way!)

I used to spend HOURS ghostwriting for clients each day before I would work on my own blog or podcast or books or classes. It was only by consciously shifting my schedule to be mine first, others second that I shifted out of this mode of asshole brain.

In other cases, asshole brain might convince you that your career doesn’t allow for this — whether this is a promotion, a demotion, starting a business, stepping away from your business, or shifting gears into a new realm. Also it will say you should probably go back to school, thus delaying this shift for a number of years. It might even go on about how you should be at the next level (which doesn’t exist), and how your failure to be at the ‘next level’ means you should give up.

OH MY GOD IT’S SO CYCLICAL, ISN’T IT? WE’RE RIGHT BACK AT THE BEGINNING, WITH YOU GIVING UP. ::facepalm::

Asshole brain’s ultimate goal is to keep you safe. This often means saying whatever it takes to keep you small, stuck, taking no risks, spinning in overwhelm (here’s how to stop the overwhelm), overthinking your every move, and generally freaking out.

This should be the part where I have an AMAZING OFFER that will SOLVE YOUR LIFE. Alas! Asshole brain isn’t one of those things you can outrun or outmaneuver in a single move.

The work of overcoming your particular flavor of asshole brain is a lifelong endeavor. (Read: it’s a real pain in the ass.)

You can do this.

You can refuse to believe the worst things your brain says about you.

You can make shifts that help you get your work done with less static from your thoughts.

You can learn to be vulnerable with your work.

You can begin to communicate regularly about your business with your clients.

You can allow yourself to dream, to grow, and to expand without losing months to procrastination or overwhelm.

You. Can. Do. This.

If you’d like my help doing it, please check out KK on Tap. We’ll tackle your particular flavor of asshole brain while making strides toward creating your most profitable and meaningful business.

::high fives::

P.S. I love you, keep going.

defeat asshole brain, listen to the podcast

Let’s talk Bunker Mode.

Now that the threat of Trumpism has been beaten back enough for science to once again matter in these United States, I have enough energy to talk to you about 2021! Hello, hi, we did it! We made it!

In some ways, it feels like the year of 2021 didn’t start until January 20th — when we saw a new President safely and peacefully installed in the United States government.

I wept when Kamala Harris was sworn in.
I wept when Joe Biden was sworn in.
I wept for the duration of Amanda Gorman’s poem. Her words are a living reminder that poetry can help us reach for and name our deepest struggles, as well as frame hope in such a way that we can feel it returning to us after being hidden for a loooooong time.

Today, I want to share a metaphor that helped me to weather the past year. A metaphor is a small thing — just a string of words — but also an enormous thing.

Naming what we’re feeling has tremendous power.
Feeling less alone has tremendous power.
Being able to articulate an experience has tremendous power.

So, let’s get into some tremendous power.

Psst! This is an episode of my podcast, That’s What She Said! You can find all 260+ episodes here.

Let’s talk Bunker Mode.

I first heard this term at a workshop with Rob Bell and Liz Gilbert. An attendee said that she wrote a script for Hollywood and sold the rights to it! A film was made! The thrill of having her work made into a feature length film was amazing! And then, the reviews. The reviews were so bad — so mocking, so derisive, and so lacking in positive critique — that this woman stopped writing. For years. She wanted to know how to start writing again. (If I read the room correctly, she also wanted to know if she could start writing again.)

That’s when Rob introduced this concept.

Bunker mode is exactly as it sounds: some vital and essential part of you goes into a bunker of the soul and refuses to come out.

Circa 2021, most people I see are in some form of bunker mode.

You’re wildly disoriented (WHUT THE FUCK IS GOING ON???? times ALL THE THINGS).
You’re exhausted from trying to live up to new challenges.
You cringe at the word ‘unprecedented.’
You’re trying to adapt to new policies and norms.
At a fundamental level, you’re scared. Your sense of security in the world has been threatened.

You retreat internally to that place where no other human can reach you, then hunker down and hang out, hoping no one will notice that you’re gone.

In bunker mode, we’re surviving. Not dreaming, not planning, not processing our experiences, not dealing with what is happening at any level.

Just. Surviving.

The trouble is, our society doesn’t allow for bunker mode. We point to those we perceive to be less fortunate and say THOSE people are allowed to be upset. THOSE people are allowed to be freaking out. THOSE people are given permission to shut down.

But you? NO BUNKER MODE FOR YOU.

We expect ourselves to Just Keep Swimming — no matter what.

So what if we’re facing a global pandemic and economic collapse, heightened calls for a white supremacist uprising, an ACTUAL FUCKING INSURRECTION, and a few million lives lost around the planet?

‘Just BE NORMAL,’ our asshole brain says.

‘Stop having FEELINGS. DEAL WITH IT,’ our asshole brain chides.

So we push it down. We do our best to stop having feelings. We wring our hands in private. We want to talk about ANYTHING but reality. We eat to stop having feelings. We refresh the news with increasing regularity. We doomscroll. (Or at least, I did!)

Objectively speaking, any one of the events of the past year is enough to trigger bunker mode. We go down deep into ourselves and/or our screens, and we don’t come out until the threat is perceived to be over.

Personally, bunker mode was cemented when I saw a police drone the size of my VW Beetle hovering above the house in Portland last June. I shook for days. D-A-Y-S. I couldn’t concentrate. I had obsessive thoughts about living in a dystopian novel. I panicked. I cried. I withdrew and did breathwork as much as possible. I started doing yoga to be able to cope with being alive. Which brings me to the big question…

Are you in bunker mode at the moment?

If yes, you’re in good company. Most every one of my clients is dealing with some form of bunker mode or another! Some industries no longer exist. Other industries are on their knees, barely surviving. Not one client has reported that homeschooling children in addition to owning a business is The Most Fun Ever.

Bunker. Mode. Is. Normal.

Since part of my job is to share my deeply personal experiences and shine a light on the ‘hey this is a universal human experience!’ parts of my life, please allow me to share what I currently know about this phenomenon.

When you find yourself in bunker mode, LOWER YOUR STANDARDS.

Maybe in 2019 you could bang out some portion of your work in 23 minutes, but now that same task takes more like an hour and a half. That’s normal. That’s everyone. Most people I talk to say they feel like they worked twice as hard to get half as much done in 2020.

It’s hard to concentrate.
It’s hard to plan for the future.
It’s hard to know what’s going to happen, at any level, in the coming year.

Instead of trying to hustle like it’s 2019, beating yourself up for being unable to weather a global catastrophe unscathed…what if you acknowledge that 2021 is different?

What if you don’t hold yourself to unattainable standards of perfection — just for this year?

What if you don’t decide to quintuple your income by working 3x harder — just for this year?

What if you let yourself rest and take breaks instead of doubling down on time at your desk — just for this year?

Screaming TRY HARDER at yourself in bunker mode doesn’t help.

I can confirm for you that screaming TRY HARDER at myself internally each day didn’t help much. Neither did forcing myself to sit at my desk and work. Dreaming about holding workshops at various event locales around the world when travel is banned made it worse. Beating myself up for failing to bang out podcasts and other forms of communication at my standard 2019 rate made me feel like I had even less to say.

What if you could be kind to your being and your body for weathering this ‘unprecedented’ storm by going into bunker mode?

What if you could find ways to be kind to your spirit and your body each day?

What if you’re not WRONG for being freaked out?

What if it’s okay to feel overwhelmed and anxious, grief-stricken and hopeful — all in the course of a few minutes?

What if your thriving in 2021 could be measured by ANYTHING but the traditional trappings of success — minutes meditated versus dollars made, paintings painted versus followers gained, words written versus sales created?

What if you set your own standards for your time in bunker mode — and you let those standards be entirely joy-based?

Regardless of where you’re existing at this moment, I hope this podcast helps you frame your experiences within the context of normalcy.

You’re behind on email? Obviously.
You’re overwhelmed by all the changes to the world as you knew it? Of course.
Afraid of contracting Corona but unable to stay inside for every moment of every day or you’ll lose your sanity? ME FRIGGIN TOO.

You’re not alone.
You’re not broken.
And you are, whether you like it or not, deeply loved.

If you’d like my support for weathering 2021 in your business — bunker mode or not — KK on Tap coaching spots are open!

You’ll work with me and about 20 fellow Tappers for a full year. If you’d like to make more money and meaning in your business, keep yourself accountable for doing your work, or deepen your experience of being alive on this planet, I’m ready to help! Head to kristenkalp.com/tap and check it out, or shoot me an email by filling out the form below!

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May you find the resources you need to survive in bunker mode. May you be kind to yourself when you’re unable to do what was easy for you in The Before. May you rest when you need to rest; eat when you need to eat; and work when you need to work. May you feel 47% less alone when you hear these words. And may you know that bunker mode can’t and won’t last forever, even when asshole brain says it will.

defeat asshole brain, listen to the podcast

Let’s talk about 2020.

…in which I use this episode of the That’s What She Said podcast to a.) share every major thing I’ve learned in 2020 (vulnerability alert like WHOA), and then b.) challenge you to see 2020 a little differently. With less hatred, shame, guilt, derision, fear, and/or overwhelm.

This is NOT an exercise in the art of ‘good vibes only’ or spiritual bypassing.

This IS a dare. I dare you to mine the difficult and awful aspects of this year in order to find some of the depth and richness available to you right now. Even when you’re stuck at home and wondering daily if you’re going insane while doomscrolling and hoping today will just be OVER ALREADY.

Mostly, this is a perspective check so that you’ve got a fighting chance against asshole brain.

Asshole brain is the mean voice in your head that says you’re not enough while also calling you awful names and whispering that you’ll never be able to __________ anyway, so why even try? I’ve been calling it out for years now, and recommend you start here if the concept of asshole brain is new to you.

Grab a notebook, a pen, your headphones, then get to work!

P.S. Joy is not canceled.

defeat asshole brain, make meaning

Put it down.

Here in the United States, the ongoing pandemic is a long haul that’s basically straight uphill and entirely unknown. That means we urgently need to learn how to take breaks and rest, ’cause no amount of sprinting today can get time to move so quickly that it fast forwards to 2022.

Here are some asshole brain maneuvers to watch out for as we enter another season of As the World Burns:

Put down the binary.

“I’ve only got two options: A or B.”

A biz coaching client was outlining her options and said she could do A — which is the same thing she’s been doing that’s not working — or B, which is part-time for someone who’s treating her like shit. Both options were awful, but in her mind they were the ONLY options available.

In truth, you rarely have only two options. There’s always an option C.

Option C might be ridiculous or funny or awful or weird, but it’s still there! When I said I would rather my client take up a hobby of masturbating wildly than work at near-free prices for task-driven bros who in no way value her talent or her time, she laughed and shrugged me off. BUT I’M SERIOUS.

When it’s not ridiculous or funny, Option C is generally uncomfortable. It might seem like the impossible option, but Option C generally promises to pay dividends in the long term: quit the job. Move. End the marriage. Stop taking that work. Fire the client. Eat more greens. Ask for help. Hire the coach.

Put down your work.

Instead of being vaguely ‘on’ at all times — meaning you’re open to incoming needs from anyone at any point about any aspect of your business — choose times to be on. And times to most definitely be OFF.

Practice the muscles associated with picking work up at the times you specify, and then practice putting your work down at the appointed time as well. (Related: podcast #204, the quietly subversive 3-hour work day.)

As you learn to put your work down, you’ll also learn to draw internal boundaries that say, ‘now is not the time to worry about that problem,’ or, ‘I’m off and it’s not time to think about that client.’ There are many ways to gently remind yourself: now is the time for rest.

This hard off, hard on (heh) rhythm means that you clearly delineate and communicate times you’re working from all the times you’re not working.

A Hard Off means handling zero messages, communications, or work plans when it’s not work time. Personally, if you need me to do something after 4:20 p.m., it’s going to get pushed to tomorrow, ’cause I’ve got cannabis to smoke and an afternoon to enjoy. (Related: podcast #192, The Cannabis Episode.)

A Hard On (in this case) means messages, communications, work, and work planning are handled between the times of your choosing each day.

For more on how to work from home without losing your mind, check out podcasts 211-215, the Structure That Doesn’t Suck series! HOLY SHIT IT’S HELPFUL.

Put down your superhuman strivings.

The scope of work you can complete in this lifetime is human in size. ALAS.

We are each a tiny human part of all that exists, and when we operate from that human place we’re able to accept our true scope of work.

Asshole brain will continuously ramp up what we ‘should’ be capable of doing until deeming us absolutely useless for being unable to raise 17 children while organically farming almonds while running a multi-million dollar charity while holding a powerful government position while being so EASY BREEZY FUN about it all. (Sidenote: how does AOC’s lipstick always look so perfect!?)

As a bonus, asshole brain might blame you for every. single. problem. that exists in the world today!

Plastics in the ocean? WHY HAVEN’T YOU FIXED THIS.

Fascism continues to descend upon America? THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT.

Racism has been a problem through the generations long before you were born? STILL YOUR FAULT.

Of course, asshole brain is lying!

Systemic oppression and the manufacturing of millions upon millions of single-use plastics are NOT the fault of you and you alone! (This may seem obvious to you, dear reader, and yet my asshole brain kept me quiet and small for years by somehow making Me, Personally Responsible for everything that is and has ever been wrong with the world.)

Collective problems require collective solutions.

No human can solve any global problem alone.

Do your part, and help others do their part, and we’ll call it a win.

Finally: put down your pace.

Many of my clients finish up their work for the day and then feel horrifically guilty that they should be doing more.

Shouldn’t they be making ‘content’ calendars or ‘pivoting’ or ‘hustling’ or ‘leveling up’ or ‘CRUSHING IT’ or using every bit of time to be ever more ‘productive?’

Shouldn’t they be seated at a desk from precisely 9 to 5 each day, because that makes their job ‘legit’ in some way?

NO.

It’s okay to be done with your work when you’re done.
It’s okay to stop moving, communicating, and acting so quickly.
It’s okay to opt out of social media for a bit, for a month, or forever.

(Related, podcast #196: it doesn’t count if you don’t enjoy it.)

Please stop expecting yourself to write a book in a week or conquer your money problems within the next three days or to untie your work from your worth with a single flash of clarity. (Related, podcast #180: your work is not your worth.)

You are not a machine.

You are one human doing one lifetime of work.

The sooner you put down the vast and unreasonable expectations you have for yourself and for your power to make change, the better.

With you —

P.S. Breathwork is MAGIC for helping you put down the shit that’s no longer serving you.

Your first class is free, get it!