Deconstructing Conventional
Welcome to Deconstructing Conventional, a show fascinated by one simple question: How did we get here? How did what we call “conventional” come to earn that title? Is there a better way, and if so, what would it look like? This show is about deconstructing two things: Our individual biases, and the systems that run (or attempt to run) our everyday lives.
We do this deconstruction with an eye for where we can reconstruct something better that leads to flourishing societies, and robust physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. In short, this show is about questioning our assumptions and practicing systems-level thinking.
I’m your host, Christian Elliot, I’ll do my best to stay curious and humble. You do the same and we’re both bound to learn something. Welcome to the show. Prepare to have your thinking stretched.
Deconstructing Conventional
Christian Elliot: The Breakthrough Blueprint: How Bankruptcy Taught Me What Success Never Could and Why Hitting Rock Bottom Could be Your Fresh Start
Have you ever had your entire life upended in an instant? At 41, with a wife and four children depending on me, I found myself filing for bankruptcy after our fitness studio of 12 years collapsed. Standing amid the ruins of what we'd built, I had to make an impossible choice: accept the only job offer I had or bet on myself with no safety net.
That moment of crisis became the crucible for everything I now understand about creating breakthroughs in life. Through tears and raw vulnerability, I share how bankruptcy burned away everything that wasn't essential and forced me to rebuild with intention. The clean slate became my greatest gift—painful, yes, but ultimately transformative.
This deeply personal journey reveals three critical lessons for anyone facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles. First, you must define your "why" and what success truly means to you. My realization that I wanted work to fit around family, not the other way around, became my north star. Second, you need two defiant core beliefs: that failure is an event, not your identity, and that you are adequate to learn from mistakes. The virtues of humility and curiosity became my foundation, allowing gratitude to replace entitlement and fascination to overcome disappointment.
Finally, I discovered that breakthroughs require two types of people: friends who stand by you in your darkest hour, and guides who've solved problems like yours before. Both relationships demand vulnerability—accepting help when you can't repay it, and humbling yourself to learn from others and get gritty learning new skills.
What emerged from this three-year wilderness wasn't just survival but a completely reimagined life. The suffering had purpose. If you're facing your own wall right now, remember that perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. Your breakthrough awaits not by avoiding suffering, but by finding something worth suffering for.
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Hello everyone, welcome to episode number 55. I have what you could call an outside-the-box and highly personal episode for you today In true deconstructing, conventional form. This episode is a deconstruction and reconstruction of what became my personal definition of success. You're about to hear a raw retelling of a rough season of life that shaped me in very significant ways, but it is also a story about redemption and perseverance. So a little backstory on this episode.
Speaker 1:Being a coach myself, not surprisingly, I see value in having a coach and I'm someone who just likes to compress time and speed up my learning, so I don't have to learn everything by trial and error. And one of the areas where I want to grow professionally is as a speaker and communicator. So one of the goals of this current coaching program that I'm in is to write what's called a signature talk or something akin to a TED talk, and for me to be able to use the talk to find opportunities to speak at events or communicate the messages I feel put on this earth to share. So one of the fun things that has already come out of the program I'm in is that I got an idea for a new book, which is something many of you have been asking me for for years when are you going to write your book, christian? Well, I've started and I can tell you it is going to be punchy and paradigm shifting. I've had some serious aha moments hosting this podcast and I can't wait to get what I've been learning into book form. I think you're going to love it and I imagine it to be one of those books that permanently changes the way you see the world. I'll be rolling out snippets of various chapters in the weeks and months ahead, so if you want to watch the book unfold in real time, make sure you're subscribed to our newsletter. You can opt in for that on our website at healingunitedtoday, and you'll see the opt-in form in the footer of our website.
Speaker 1:Okay, back to the reason for this episode. One of the ideas my coach had was to take version one of my talk and crowdsource some feedback about how to make it better. What you're about to hear is good for some formats, but it's currently too long for a TED talk. But I think it's a good talk and it's hard to know what to cut. I have killed a lot of darlings to get it down to the length that it is, so what I have for you today is a bit of a departure from what I normally do on the show and, since many of you have followed my work for quite some time now, I wanted to invite you into something special, or at least something special to me. So, for context, what you're about to hear plops you down in the middle of 2017.
Speaker 1:That was, hands down, the hardest year of my life, and my coach not only rudely convinced me that that season of life was the story to use, but she then twisted the knife and made me tell the story in present tense, in other words, relive it, tell it as if it's happening now. And I say she rudely asked me to do that because it dredged up all the feelings and put me right back in those head spaces. So just a heads up. I got emotional three times recording this and I thought about re-recording those sections just to maintain my level head as I told the stories. But then I thought you know what? Why not leave them in? They are real and they are raw. You don't need me to tell you, but life is painful sometimes and maybe there can be something cathartic or healing for you to hear me experience real emotions and real struggle. So you have been warned, all right beyond the thrust of the talk, which is essentially helping the listener find the reserves to persevere through life's toughest challenges.
Speaker 1:I guess you could say, in exchange for this highly personal, unedited episode, I just love your feedback. So what stood out to you the most? What key lessons did you take away? Was there something I said that was exactly what you needed to hear? Or what can I cut? Where did I drift off? If you were an event planner, would you have a use for a talk like this? And if you have any suggested titles for this talk, I'd love to hear them.
Speaker 1:So please don't be shy about giving me some full frontal feedback. I am not fragile. Whatever you have to say, I can take it. So, okay, how can you give me some feedback? Well, there's two ways. You can shoot me an email at christian at truewholehumancom and just let me know what you think. If you're listening to this in Buzzsprout, there is an option in the show notes labeled send us a text message. You can also reach out to me that way, but know that, like with all the other episodes, that option is a one-way communication. So if you use that method, I have no way to respond to you if you don't include any contact info. Okay, two last thoughts before I play the talk For anyone interested.
Speaker 1:I also wrote a blog post about this story back in 2020. I will link to that in the show notes in case you want to read it, and the last thing I'll say is that please feel free to share this episode with anyone you think may be inspired by it. I hope you'll find this talk deeply uplifting and, beyond the feedback about how to make it better, I'd just love to know how it may have helped you climb whatever wall you are facing. So, whatever you're going through in life, do not give up. Okay, that's it for introducing this episode Without further ado.
Speaker 1:Here we go. I just filed bankruptcy. The one-of-a-kind health and fitness studio we spent the last 12 years pouring our hearts into is gone. I live in one of the most expensive cities in the country. I'm 41 years old, I have a wife and four kids to feed, no income, and I just turned down the only job offer I have. Have you ever felt backed into a corner? Have you ever had a pit of anxiousness in your gut? Have you ever had your faith tested to its limits? There are moments in life that test us, that make us wonder if we have what it takes to overcome adversity. What I hope to inspire in you today is the belief that suffering has purpose. I want you to hold on to the idea that whatever suffering you're facing, whether you perceive it to be a small S or a big S, it might be a rescue, not a punishment.
Speaker 1:I never envisioned rebuilding a life from scratch in my 40s, with six people to feed and no job I'll get to that part in a second and that I'd have to begin the rebuilding of my life with barely any money or worldly possessions. But that was the task before me. Yet in the midst of that, suffering was a gift, a gift of clarity and accelerated growth. When you have your entire slate abruptly wiped clean, it forces you to think about life on a different level, to ask what's really important. The must haves and the nice to haves quickly become clear. I didn't have a lot of choices in front of me when we were forced to close our business, but I did get to choose my attitude and what I focused on.
Speaker 1:So as I sat there, shell-shocked and trying to pick up the pieces of my shattered life, my wife was crying, I was crying and she looked at me with a look that says I made a vow for richer or poorer and she asked what are we going to do? Vow for richer or poorer? And she asked what are we going to do? After a few moments of silence came the next question what do you want to do to earn a living? It hit me in that moment that I had a clean slate. I could reinvent myself any number of ways. So, after a few more moments of silence, all I could come up with above the heartache and the head shatter was I don't know what it looks like, but I want this story that we are in right now to matter. I want someone who feels as wrung out and hopeless as I do right now to be able to find a way to a breakthrough. I want people to meet me and to look back on that encounter as an inflection point where they just say I shudder to think who I would have become if I had not met you. You changed the trajectory of my life and that was all I could come up with, but it was a start. So today I want to tell you what I learned about creating breakthroughs.
Speaker 1:So first let me define the term. When life is good, you don't need a breakthrough. The need for a breakthrough implies that if something doesn't change, there is a risk of an emotionally heavy, perhaps permanent, negative outcome that could be living with chronic pain or death or divorce or estrangement, financial ruin, the loss of a dream or missing out on life in a significant way. The need for a breakthrough also implies that what you're dealing with is a complex problem with no easy solution, but the pain you're in is almost unbearable. In short, a breakthrough is when someone overcomes a significant obstacle that many people never recover from. A breakthrough changes your life for the better and it tends to be permanent and keeps old patterns and old problems from resurfacing.
Speaker 1:A pastor friend of mine once told me that there are three main seasons of life. You're either just coming out of a hard season, you're in a hard season or you're about to enter one. So at some point in your life you're likely going to need the three key lessons in this short, humble talk. Maybe your struggle was or is financial. Maybe you're facing estrangement or divorce or the fear that you will end up alone. Maybe it's a mysterious illness or a disease diagnosis when the chips are down and the odds are against you. I want you to know that you are not without hope, and I want to teach you how to dig deep, how to have some grit and how to defy the odds To have the beautiful life that's possible. You are going to have to suffer something, but it is precisely that suffering that can make you a new person, way better than you ever knew possible. There will be many people who will promise you a winning lottery ticket, a quick fix to get out of the hard season. There isn't one. You're going to have to go through hard seasons in life and I hope today that in some small way, my story can help you dramatically speed up that process. So buckle up, brace for impact and let's get busy If you are going to experience a breakthrough. Who you are is about to change, but it's going to change for the better. It might even illuminate a calling.
Speaker 1:The first key lesson is that finding purpose in suffering requires that you know your why and your definition of success. There's a classic old book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. He wrote it to be a tome to answer the question of why some people succeed and others don't. After interviewing a whopping 25,000 people. He arrived at a shocking statistic when he asked people to define their purpose. Only 2% of people could answer the question of where they saw their life going and what specifically they wanted to accomplish. That 2%, not surprisingly, are the people who succeed. So in the last 20 years I've spent about 20,000 hours in the coaching trenches and I hate to say it, but I think that statistic is accurate. I am regularly surprised by the number of people I meet or coach who struggle to answer the basic question of what they really want, without speaking in broad generalities like make more money, feel better, lose weight, get married or be happy.
Speaker 1:I want you to join the 2%, so let me give you a major clue in finding your, why, your purpose. Here it is. It's not about you. You will not be able to satisfactorily answer any question about your purpose and enjoy any level of emotional satisfaction without an understanding of where your life positively impacts other people. Otherwise, your habits and work will just feel hollow and meaningless.
Speaker 1:Purpose is, by nature, others' focus. If you've ever thrown up your hands and said who cares, you just vocalized that whatever you're doing has to matter to someone. You cannot create a breakthrough by framing it as a willpower battle. Willpower is a very exhaustible resource. If your mind can't connect what you're doing to how someone you care deeply about will benefit from it, the reserves you'll need to overcome suffering will not abide in you. The best you'll be able to do is go on a willpower kick for a couple of weeks before you fizzle out.
Speaker 1:What you need is why power? For me, there could not have been an easier answer to the question of who cares my kids do. They need to eat and they need a dad who isn't angry or bitter or scared. They need a dad who is present and who will find a way. But here is an important paradox of what bankruptcy taught me why power isn't only about others. I also realized my needs are important. If I didn't do a respectable enough job meeting my own physical and mental, emotional and spiritual needs, I won't have the health or energy or presence of mind required to be able to meet my wife and kids' needs, which means taking care of me took on its own sense of purpose.
Speaker 1:What I want, what I need, dare I say, what I enjoy, also had to be a factor in the equation of this new life, or I would burn out and miss out. I realized it's selfish to not take care of me too. So back to that job. I turned down. Why did I do that? What compelling? Why made me do it? In a word homeschooling. If I had taken that job, my wife Nina would have had to get a job too, which means we would have had to forego job too, which means we would have had to forego the option of homeschooling our kids. That was a fork in the road. That was probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make. With no other offers. My only option was to bet on myself that I could figure out a way to make ends meet without a dependable paycheck.
Speaker 1:Talk about a gut check. The beauty of a clean slate or hopefully for you, an imagined clean slate is that it lets you ask the question what do I really value? It lets you no, it forces you to fast forward life and realistically imagine where it's going. It lets you ask questions like what life do I want to live? Where do I want to live? Who do I want in my life? What kinds of people do I want to surround myself with and what do I want in my life? A wise old man once told me everything you own owns you back. Everything you own can make a legitimate claim on your time and, in most cases, your money. So what do you want to be owned by? What's too little, what's too much and what's just enough? What does success look like? No, what does success feel like? How could I design a life where work fit around life rather than the other way around?
Speaker 1:The studios I used to run filled me with no shortage of purpose and it allowed me to feed my family. I loved that. It pushed me to constantly grow professionally. We were positively impacting so many lives, but until I had it all taken away, we were positively impacting so many lives, but until I had it all taken away, I didn't know to ask all of the questions I just asked you, but having my slate wiped clean helped me see that my prior life had me trapped. Working early mornings, late nights and weekends was a trade-off that worked before I had kids, but it was rough on family life. Having 40 employees helped me grow as a visionary and a leader, but it was also a constant source of new fires to put out. I had hit my crisis of limitations and my family had been dragged into that. That business owned me. There wasn't enough of me to go around and it was my family that was getting my leftovers. No matter what my life may have looked like from the outside, that old life didn't feel successful. A clean slate helped me realize I don't want to be that guy anymore. The job I just turned down would have sent me right back to being that guy, probably for a decade, and we would have been forced to give up homeschooling.
Speaker 1:What I realized was my definition of success centered around my family. Because I had the opportunity to imagine a different life, my criteria became simple. I realized there's freedom and upside in renting rather than owning. That would mean fewer things own me. I realized I valued experiences more than possessions. I value finding and conversing with people of character more so than networking for new connections. I lost all interest in keeping up with the Joneses and seeing my values clearly.
Speaker 1:My professional definition of success also started to come into focus. I wanted to create a job where I could work from home. I wanted to be able to choose my own schedule. Those two things meant that I could work from anywhere and thereby stop missing my kids' childhood and focus on parenting them while doing life together, and I could prioritize adventures over material things. As that vision came into focus, it gave me a way to aim myself professionally. I knew I wanted to create breakthroughs for people, but what problem would I solve and how would I do it? In the end, it was pragmatic. I needed to leverage what I knew a lot about and aim it at a complex problem people would pay me a living wage to solve. So let me tell you how I figured that out. Maybe it will help you, especially if you feel like you're in the 98% of people who struggle with the question what is my purpose? So let me give you this clue If it's like mine, your willpower is tucked away in your heart of hearts and it will most likely have something to do with helping people overcome a pain that is similar to the one you've suffered.
Speaker 1:Your heart of hearts is that sacred, honest voice inside you. It's the voice that speaks up when the inner critic is too tired to harass you anymore. Our heart of hearts is the voice that rarely gets airtime these days because we live in a culture without much mental white space. We have trained ourselves to pull out a screen and stimulate us as soon as we have a free moment to think. All the while our hearts' attempts to communicate start to feel like a foreign language. We don't live in a contemplative society. We live in an overstimulated, comparison-based society. We have become disciples of whatever is on the internet. That noise trains us to distrust our heart's honest thoughts. I've met so many people who are uncomfortable with their own thoughts and with quiet. Collectively, we just don't know what to do with our longings, and so we scroll and we look to others to distract us or to stir up longings in us. Maybe we can latch onto their. Why power? My friends? No one can live out your calling your story. So don't be afraid to tune into what your heart really wants. Let it speak.
Speaker 1:When we had our grand edit in life, we had weeks without internet access. So after the digital withdrawals passed, something else happened. I could take a deep breath, my heart rate slowed down, I could think again. Life forced my subconscious into the conscious, and the answer to what kind of work I wanted to do came to me through questions. What am I good at? What do I like doing? Where could I possibly roll up my sleeves and create a breakthrough for people? What problem would I delight in solving? The only thing that checked all those boxes was health. I am really good at helping people get healthy, especially when doctors can't, when people feel like they've tried everything. That's often when I'm at my best. My secret is something that beats in my heart of hearts it's my longing to be seen as a whole person.
Speaker 1:Part of what got me into health coaching as a profession was going to doctors who made me feel not like someone worth seeing, but like a lab test or a set of symptoms to be managed. It felt dehumanizing. My gift to the world is to see clients the way I want to be seen. I see my clients as whole humans, not a lab test or caloric equation lab test or caloric equation. But then I had to face reality. My big challenge was there is probably no industry that is noisier or more confusing than the world of health.
Speaker 1:I became painfully aware of how hard it is to stand out. I knew I would have to suffer, so my mantra became okay, christian, do the next hard thing. And so I did. I regularly ate bowls of rejection as I tried to package my skills and sell something. All the skills I did not have yet quickly became apparent. My shortcomings as a digital entrepreneur were rubbed in my face regularly. And what pained me, what pushed me to keep going besides my family, was knowing that I had better answers than my competition. It felt like a disservice to humanity to not find a better way to communicate.
Speaker 1:So let me restate this first lesson Without a strong why, without a clear definition of success, you will not push through the dark times. To find the bright side, you will play small. Why? Power is the vision of a day that you can picture yourself walking around in. That feels emotionally satisfying. If you don't have Y-power, you will not have the reserves to earn your breakthrough, and suffering will feel cruel and purposeless. It might even turn you into a cynical and bitter person. But clarity about what you want and who you want to matter to are the first steps to finding the redemptive purpose in suffering.
Speaker 1:But to find those longings, I had to be abruptly rescued from my own busyness. Bankruptcy forced me to stop scrolling and face my fears. I didn't have the luxury of obsessing over everything that could go wrong. I had to shift my focus to what could go right, and my definition of success tantalized me with a life that could happen if I didn't let fear win. And that leads to point number two. To find your purpose in suffering, you will need two gritty and defiant core beliefs.
Speaker 1:When you're walking through a tough season in life, it's easy to ask yourself questions like what is wrong with me? How did I not see this coming? My friends must think I'm an idiot. Why can't I get my act together? Why is nothing I'm doing working? Why can't I figure this out? That inner critic can be a mean bully and you will have to willfully defy him or her in order to create your breakthrough. A fellow entrepreneur and friend of mine let me know that the average entrepreneur files bankruptcy 1.7 times. So far, both of us are happy to report that we have beat the average by 0.7.
Speaker 1:Bankruptcy represents an epic fail. The worst part is disappointing people that depend on you. I had to fight the inner critic and a few external ones who wanted me to see myself as a failure. So here's the first gritty and defiant core belief Failure is an event, not an identity. Your failure to stick with that diet, land that job, find romance, succeed in business, whatever it is, is an event. It is not who you are. It's something that happened.
Speaker 1:I failed painfully, but I didn't last 12 years as an entrepreneur without doing anything right. Being an entrepreneur taught me that a lot of what I try won't work, and that's okay. When I fail, I've just reflexively learned to say well, that happened. Now what? Admittedly, when you're recovering from bankruptcy, that question comes fast and hard and repeatedly. My first webinar as a digital entrepreneur was kind of like a dumpster fire. The tech didn't work as expected. I lost my train of thought and, not surprisingly, no one bought anything. That was a painful night and I can still remember the disappointed look on my wife's face after it was over. Both of us had a tinge of despair.
Speaker 1:One of the deepest identity lies is the lie of pervasive inadequacy. Have you ever questioned if you have what it takes? Let me be more specific. Have you ever thought I don't know if I have what it takes to speak in front of people or stay disciplined enough to get fit or overcome an addiction or a chronic illness? I don't know if I have what it takes to attract a spouse or build a business or homeschool my kids. Do you ever have a nagging sense that who you are is not good enough and that someone might find out and expose your inadequacy? I've found that most people have that fear.
Speaker 1:So why do we fear inadequacy so much? I think it's because, subconsciously, we imagine it to be something that, if brought into the light, will estrange us from those we care about. It's a path to being broke and alone and friendless. And, my friends, there's a much healthier way to frame our shortcomings and our skills gaps. If I believed failure defined me and would estrange me from my family, I would have played small the rest of my life. That is why facing the fear of inadequacy is so important. When I had to urgently find a way to make ends meet, did I worry that the next thing I tried might not work? Absolutely? I did, but I had to stay in motion. There's no time for a pity party because the kids still need to eat, and I was force-fed the lesson that I have to get past feelings of inadequacy. And that helped me discover the second defiant core belief.
Speaker 1:The second core belief required to find purpose in suffering is the belief that you have what it takes to learn, and especially to learn from mistakes. You are adequate to try, and so it is with all of life, from learning to walk or to spell or how to ask a girl out or to speak a new language or to compete. Failure is part of any eventual success. The belief that you can learn and that you are adequate to try implies two key virtues humility and curiosity. They are like fertilizers in the soil of the human heart. They are the nutrients, the character traits needed to create the possibility for growth, learning and faith. Humility and curiosity are the virtues from which all the other ones grow.
Speaker 1:The amazing thing about humility is that it carves out a rich type of gratitude. It roots out entitlement. Everything you have becomes a gift. You begin to see yourself as a steward, a manager, knowing that possessions and experiences are fleeting and what matters most are our relationships. In my case, it took humility to accept gifts I couldn't repay, to overcome the embarrassment of pulling out food stamps at the grocery store or visiting a local food bank with my kids, or taking odd jobs like organizing people's messy garages, while my wife cleaned people's homes and worked as a checker at Target.
Speaker 1:Curiosity, on the other hand, allows fascination to enter the room. To keep you from getting overwhelmed by disappointment. It allows you to find the two all-important questions what now, and what can I learn from that experience? When humility and curiosity abide in you. They are the virtues that ground you, but perhaps most importantly, they bridle the painful emotions of struggle that keep you from being ruled by negative emotions. Curiosity and humility help you begin to see the value in suffering.
Speaker 1:Suffering, especially open-ended suffering, like mine was, will aggressively bring up your shortcomings and ask you to deal with them, but curiosity and humility can frame that new awareness of your shortcomings as a gift. Yes, suffering, especially bankruptcy, can be a crucible. It is a refiner's fire, it's hot and it hurts, but it's not the end of the story. Stated differently, as the Apostle Paul put it suffering produces perseverance and perseverance, character and character, hope, hope that, whatever comes, you will have what it takes to learn and find a way forward. So let me summarize lesson two here there is no such thing as a life without risk. So here's a question that helped me on the journey what do you want to suffer?
Speaker 1:It may have already clicked for you that there is no easy path in life. All sweet things we crave come from hard work, and our aversion to suffering is often one of the biggest obstacles to experiencing the sweet things in life. If you want to have an awesome marriage or business or state of health or so on. You will have to suffer through the lessons of what it takes to have those things. If you only take small risks, you will live a small life. That doesn't mean we go take big, stupid risks, but it is a nudge to take calculated ones, aimed at growth.
Speaker 1:If you tell me the size of the problem that stresses you out, I can probably predict the type of life you're going to live. Failure will happen, but failure doesn't define you. You are so much more than the sum total of the things that you did that did or didn't work out. You are adequate to try. No one can steward your life for you, so take risks. I would go so far as to ask who are you to not take risks, to not try to not see who you can become with what you've been given? Humility and curiosity are the virtues that will help you set a better sail against the headwinds of life. But to have the winds of life shift from being in your face to being at your back, there's one more key lesson we can't skip, and that brings me to lesson number three. To create a breakthrough, you will need help from two kinds of people, and both kinds will open you up to a unique kind of suffering.
Speaker 1:I had a good friend of mine who was justifiably flabbergasted that I turned down my only job offer. He gave me an earful and in his defense, it was a respectable offer in a field that I could have thrived in professionally. My friend knew me well and in his mind the job was a perfect fit and he could already see the redemptive part of the story. He wasn't wrong, could already see the redemptive part of the story. He wasn't wrong. But despite thinking I was crazy, he never quit on me, like any true friend would. He stood by my side. He helped me find odd jobs to pay the bills and he helped me make the most of whatever was next.
Speaker 1:And that story represents the first type of person you will need in your life when it hands you a setback. You need friends who can't necessarily solve your problems but who can do little things along the way to keep you going. They can listen, they can ask questions Even if words fail and they have no answers. They can sit with you and hold space for your emotions. They can meet practical needs because they care. They can help you move On moving day. Our friends saw a need and showed up out of nowhere to ride with us to the middle of nowhere to unload a U-Haul we couldn't have unloaded with the two of us and our four small children Without being asked. Our friends made sure we weren't alone on one of the toughest days of our lives.
Speaker 1:Here's the painful part it feels vulnerable to have needs Like I did. You will have to take on the mantle of humility and simply say thank you, and those two words will be all you'll have to offer. You will experience the pain of feeling indebted, with no foreseeable way to balance your ledger. But here's the important part True friends aren't keeping a ledger. When our checking account got down to double digits, we had no idea where the next check would come from, and checks would show up in the mail. That happened more than once.
Speaker 1:One day we woke up to find a box of food at our front door. In those instances you can't do anything but cry. I don't know where this came from, but I guess we get to eat today. The food bank we went to got to know us and on Easter they set aside gifts for our kids. I wish the Lord's prayer was give us this day our annual bread. But that's not what Jesus said. He told us to pray for daily bread.
Speaker 1:It's humbling to have needs, and I imagine that to be the point. Focus on the day in front of you. What can you do today? Do that and then rest. To this day, it is hard to talk about these stories without tears.
Speaker 1:Yes, there are a lot of bad people in this world, but there are also a lot of good ones. Suffering is a great equalizer. It reminds us of our frailty and it reminds us of how good it feels to help other people overcome suffering. In some seasons, you will be the one in need and in others, overcome suffering. In some seasons, you will be the one in need and in others, you will be meeting other people's needs. Sow your seeds well and don't be too proud to accept help. It hurts, but it will make something of you Okay. So that's the first lesson, the second kind of person that you will need. There is a second kind of person you'll need, and this one can also be painful. When you need a breakthrough, you're going to need professional help People who have demonstrated that they can solve a problem like yours.
Speaker 1:Sometimes they are in books or online courses or in person, but how do you find these people. Well, it turns out they are out there looking for you. It is estimated that the average person sees thousands of advertisements per day. Everywhere you look, you will find people telling you that they have the answers to your problem. They even have answers to problems you don't know you have.
Speaker 1:And one obvious thing I had to learn to become a digital marketer or digital entrepreneur was marketing. So for those of you who don't know, the job of a marketer is really to get you to believe two things. First, it's not your fault. You haven't solved the problem. And the second thing is to get you to believe that the only reason you haven't solved the problem is because you've not tried the new whiz-bang gadget, leveraged a newly discovered secret or met the right person. A marketer's job is to point out why your other options won't work and to get you to believe that their special answer holds the keys to solving your problem. I call it the ShamWow effect. Look here For three easy payments of $97,. This can be yours, and the good news is you'll barely have to lift a finger. But wait, there's more Order now and we'll give you twice as much of what you don't need, so you can add that to your supplement, graveyard Operators are standing by right.
Speaker 1:Here's the painful lesson. We have this myth in our culture that specialization equals solutions. If we can just find the right specialist, the right pill, the right course, the right side of the algorithm, it will solve all our problems. In reality, the more specialized the answer, the more likely it is to be an impediment to solving the problem. And working with a so-called specialist is often the path to a lot of emotionally and financially expensive wrong turns. So if you're in this situation where you need a breakthrough, you have to remember that you're dealing with a complex problem. Recovering from diabetes, chronic pain or an autoimmune condition is a complex problem. Building a business from scratch is a complex problem. Overcoming past traumas or figuring out why your relationships are strained are complex problems.
Speaker 1:It wasn't until I studied marketing that I invented the word partialist to more accurately describe specialists. It took me a while to see it, but a specialist is someone who studies a tiny part of a complex problem. But because they have the word special in their title and because they can describe problems well, we tend to think they have a comprehensive solution, when in reality they don't. At best they may have a puzzle piece when in reality they don't. At best they may have a puzzle piece. So let me give you an example from my own life.
Speaker 1:It is hard enough to learn marketing when you just filed bankruptcy, have no credit and can't afford to pay anyone to teach you anything. It's even more painful when you know you need help and you scrape together money for a so-called marketing specialist, only to find out in hindsight they can't actually help you because there were 10 other things that needed to be in place before their solution might have had any merit. That painful experience has happened to me multiple times while trying to rebuild life from scratch. Friends, there are no special silver bullet answers to complex problems. There's no winning lottery ticket, no shortcuts. You have to earn it. And you have to earn it in business and health and relationships. And here's another wrinkle Regardless of the specialist you go with, there's a good chance he or she doesn't even know they can't help you. Why? Because there's only one. You and specialists often have the hammer nail problem. When the only tool they have is a prescription pad, everything looks like it needs a pill.
Speaker 1:Since my professional lane is the world of health, let me switch to that lane to empathize with those of you who have learned how painfully confusing the world of health can be. In my opinion, specialization has ruined healthcare. In case you think I'm overstating it, ponder this. We have more so-called health specialists than ever. If specialization is the answer, why are our health statistics only getting worse? Why are six out of 10 people in the United States dealing with at least one chronic health condition? Why is 42% of our population obese and 75% of us are considered overweight? Why does the average American go on a diet 55 times in their life? What's the definition of insanity, friends, if specialization was the answer, those statistics would not be true. But instead of clarifying where diseases come from and what it takes to get well, specialization has made it more confusing. The silos have ruined the medical world and much of the alternative and coaching worlds and social media has only amplified the confusion, because everyone is peddling something special. So in case any of you in the audience are wrestling with a health challenge, let me take one minute to simplify the puzzle of health without oversimplifying it.
Speaker 1:There are only two reasons we get sick toxicity and malnourishment. Think of a diseased tree. If a tree has a disease, there's either something in the soil poisoning it or the soil is void of the nutrients the tree needs to thrive. Folks, we are the tree. Instead of treating the root causes of our sickness, we create fancy names for all the diseased leaves and for some reason, we call those who name the leaves experts. They're not. They are partialists looking at symptoms.
Speaker 1:So I had my own rants. As a budding digital entrepreneur, I lost track of how many times I got frustrated and shook my fist at the screen. Why is it not working? I did it just like the expert told me to. It was in trying to solve a problem that I was new to, namely digital marketing, that I began to see how much of a disservice specialists can be. Yet here's the rub how else was I going to learn?
Speaker 1:An important thing to know is that it's not the ones who have the best solutions that win in the marketplace. It's the ones with the most compelling message. The market will always reward the one who promises that there is a simple and easy answer to the challenges we face. Friends, solutions can be simple, but they are rarely easy. To create your breakthrough, you're going to have to think bigger and you're going to have to earn it. You're going to have to be willing to suffer. But as you persevere you'll speed up the process. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars on fruitless marketing specialists over the years and it has been painful. But with each hire I grow more discerning, I gain more clarity, and each lesson has been a stepping stone to help me find better answers faster.
Speaker 1:So let me summarize point three. Like me, you're going to need a few key friends along the way. They are the people who will pick you up when you're down and meet your needs when you can't. But you have to be humble enough to accept the help, knowing that you may never be able to repay them. That is okay. Don't let your pride rob them of the natural joy they experience in serving you. The good rule in life is to dig your well before you're thirsty. Make friends before you need them. Give and serve and love, and do those things without keeping a ledger. People notice, I promise. Do those things and you'll have the people come out of the woodwork to help you when you have needs.
Speaker 1:We would not have made it through our three-year wilderness without good friends. If you feel like you don't have any friends, here's what I'd do. I'd start reading every book or taking any course I can about how to find friends or how to be a good friend. I'd try to find ponds to fish in where I can find quality people. I would sow as many relational seeds as I can, knowing that not all of them will germinate, that's okay. Some of them will.
Speaker 1:Second, you will also need to pay people who are good at solving complex problems, not just special problems. So buy their books, take their courses and work with them one-on-one if you can afford it, except that you will likely hire some partialists who, in the end, aren't able to help you create the breakthrough you hope for. Like me, in your longing for a breakthrough, you will occasionally fall for the hypnotic effect of the ShamWow effect. Friends, those experiences are painful, but they're not a waste. They are called tuition, and paying tuition is the only way to sharpen your intuition. The sharper it gets, the closer you get to your breakthrough. So don't begrudge what you've tried that didn't work. Leverage it. Persevering through suffering will develop intuition and character and hope. Okay, as I start to wrap up, let me recap what I went over.
Speaker 1:We started with the idea that suffering has purpose. As the Apostle Paul put it, suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character, hope. No one gets a free pass from struggle in this life. Suffering isn't something you're going to be able to avoid, but it can have a redemptive story. It can be a rescue for you and for others.
Speaker 1:Finding purpose in suffering requires that you know your why and your definition of success. Your why isn't primarily about you. It's about who you matter to. But your needs aren't irrelevant. It's not weakness to have them. It's a weakness to think you shouldn't have them. It's that healthy mix of meeting other people's needs and your own that has the potential to make life sweet. So who do you want to matter to, and in what way can you take better care of yourself so that you can make a difference for others? What do you imagine success feels like? Imagine that day for a second, that life. What does your heart of hearts really want? Define what success looks like for you. Then you'll have the foundation to endure hard times and turn them into something beautiful only you could have created.
Speaker 1:To find purpose in suffering, you're going to need two gritty and defiant core beliefs. First is never forget that failure is an event, not an identity. You are not the sum total of the things you did that did or didn't work out, as if by doing enough things, whatever that is, you'll finally be allowed to belong. Do your best, but have the self-respect to honor your limits. Remember you are adequate to try. Some things you will try will work out, some won't. Either way, the outcome has something to teach you.
Speaker 1:I would argue that you have a sacred duty to find the lesson, painful as they may be. You have a sacred duty to pursue your purpose and see who you can become with the talents and abilities you've been given. Stay humble and curious, and it will be much easier to find the lessons and self-impose the discipline that will help you become a new person. To do that, you're going to have to lean into doing hard things. You have to be willing to stand in the fire to learn what you don't know so that you can overcome. Courage is like a newborn, so treat it delicately. Start small, but start Progress to bigger challenges as your confidence grows, and the more you do so, the more the winds will shift from being in your face to being at your back. And to create the breakthrough you will need help from two kinds of people. Both kinds of them will open you up to a different type of suffering.
Speaker 1:The reality of our human condition is that none of us knows everything, nor can we study everything or meet all of our own needs. Because of that, we all need friends and teachers and guides and teamwork to speed us up along the way. Many hands make light loads. To speed us up along the way. Many hands make light loads. Part of creating breakthroughs is accepting that need as normal and healthy and thus accepting the ache that comes with vulnerability.
Speaker 1:Finding friends and finding competent professionals requires trust, and a wise person accepts that sometimes that trust will be misplaced, even in well-intentioned people who may have tried hard but simply can't deliver what they promised. Sometimes you will be the professional who can't deliver. Other times you'll be the one let down by the professional who can't help. Stay in motion and let the lessons come. Let grace, humility and a strong work ethic become what you're known for. Go find your mentors and your friends and when you find good ones, practice vulnerability, be teachable and go deep. They will help you become the person you are meant to be. Remember that your perspective of who you are can be your prison or your passport. Speaking of passports, I want to show you what knowing your why, your definition of success and having the grit to do hard things can lead to if you don't give up.
Speaker 1:If you're watching this presentation, what you're looking at on the screen is a picture of me and my daughter, naomi, at the Parthenon in Athens Greece than Greece. This trip. It was the two of us, seven other parents and 15 other students, on a trip that marked the capstone of their classical conversations homeschool education. I didn't give up on that dream to homeschool my kids, and to me, this is what success feels like. Bankruptcy was awful, like people tend to say about having hard seasons in life. I would not wish that on anyone, but I wouldn't trade it because it taught me what's really important, because I had a strong enough why.
Speaker 1:I figured out the how and in that process I found work I love. I love learning about marketing and the human condition. I love podcasting. I love coaching. I love helping people heal so they can get back to their life. I get paid to create whole human breakthroughs. What a gift. Yes, life still has its challenges. They haven't gone away. I've just got better at handling them. It is so much easier to find gratitude and joy. Life owes me nothing. Everything I have is a gift. I'll steward whatever I have until it's time for me to hand it off to someone else. I don't know what rough seasons may be ahead, but I can say I'm really difficult to discourage. Now I live life with a peace and a calm that wouldn't make any sense to the old me, and I would have missed it all if I hadn't run into an intense season of life that clarified my definition of success.
Speaker 1:Life is hard. Do what you can to choose something hard that is worth the suffering. Maybe you'll end up visiting new places too. There isn't an easy path in life, but there is a path that leads to looping downward spirals of frustration and despair. But there is also a path that is an upward spiral that leads to more and more character and more and more flourishing and more and more peace. To get on that upward spiral you will have to learn to lean into suffering. So stop waiting for life to get easy. That is a myth. An easy life would only lead to you losing your edge and growing weak. Calibrate to the reality that life will continually offer you purposeful struggles. But as you persevere, your capacity to handle hard grows. Life is so much more meaningful when you are engaged in a struggle that is worth the effort. So, in summary, in life you will have hard times, but suffering has purpose.
Speaker 1:If your story is anything like mine, suffering will force you to deconstruct your definition of success, clarify what is really important and invite you to reconstruct something better. Suffering will humble you, invite you to reconstruct something better. Suffering will humble you. You'll realize that no one owes you anything and everything you have is a gift to steward. Suffering will also invite you to face your shortcomings over and over again, if necessary, until you learn your lessons well, and in that process, who you are will get an upgrade.
Speaker 1:Whatever hard situation you're facing, who you are will get an upgrade. Whatever hard situation you're facing, remember that you can't create a breakthrough alone. You'll need friends and mentors to overcome life's setbacks. So make friends before you need them and find the people who have experience solving the problems you are facing. Remember that you are worth it and that you have what it takes to try. That is how you improve. And, as I said before, who are you to not try? Don't numb out, don't blame other people, and as you persevere, you'll build character, you'll find hope and you might even find your calling. Imagine the story you'll have to tell and who you can become if you don't quit.
Speaker 1:Okay, that is it for today. If you've appreciated the principles and would like to go deeper with them, check out the Healing United PMA app. It is a great free resource to help you walk out a lot of the lessons in this talk, and you can connect with myself and other like-minded people there too. Thanks for listening. Okay, that is the end of the talk, so I'd love to hear what you think. What stood out to you? What can I do better? What audiences do you think would need to hear a talk like that? If you are an event planner looking for a speaker and this resonated with you, you can email me at christian at truewholehumancom. Okay, friends, thank you so much for listening and I will catch you in the next episode.
