Did You Know Being Humble Can Be a Bad Thing? | Joe Hudson

So from our earliest days we're taught to be humble. Humility is good, we're told. But what if it wasn't? Or what if humility had its place, but it also came with a potential dark side, one that potentially caused both us and those around us harm? This is one of the rich topics that I explore in today's conversation with Joe Hudson.

a co founder of the Art of Accomplishment, sought after teacher, and a legendary coach to CEOs and top leaders at companies like OpenAI, Alphabet, Apple and so many others, Joe has this extraordinary ability

to help you see what's been invisible in your life, to break free from self-limiting patterns and live with greater freedom and fulfillment. It's kind of like he's that one friend who sees past the shields Even the ones you don't realize that you put up, then helps you lower them, see what's real, and walk back into a life that feels

so much more connected and alive. In this thought provoking conversation, we drop into a profoundly liberating perspective on humility and authenticity One that just might challenge us to let go of the need to think less of ourselves and instead think of ourselves less. without fully occupying our place in the world without having to shrink to make others feel comfortable or conform to some dysfunctional norms.

And Joe also shares some eye opening insights on allowing and even welcoming difficult emotions without resistance, on holding goals lightly to remain open to life's surprising solutions and And the transformative shift of self-improvement to radical self-discovery. So excited to share this conversation. I'm Jonathan Field.

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It's fun to be hanging out with a new friend. Um, you and I spent some time in the mountains yesterday. Yeah. Hiking around, really enjoying ourselves. And um, as we were talking, we're kind of going along and chatting a little bit about what we might chat about today, and you teed up something that's been on your mind for a while now that I know you haven't really shared a whole lot about. Yeah. Recently it's this uh sort of like thoughts around the notion of humility.

And before I try and even describe what we were diving into, I'm gonna turn it over to you because it's not what I expected within the first th thirty seconds or so of you speaking. Right. And we're gonna dive into this. So take me then.

Th I think the original thought process and humility for people and for me and my experiences Humility is thinking less of yourself. And and then somewhere along the line, there's this idea that came into my head that it's not thinking less of myself, but it's thinking of myself less. Like just literally less thoughts about myself.

And now in my journey, what's happening is This uh phrase was taught to me and I think it's from the I think it's from the Jewish tradition that humility is I think the quote is like taking your God given place in the world. And and that's been really hitting me deeply right now in my own journey of There's a calling and you follow the calling.

even if it takes you somewhere big or small, significant or insignificant. And to actually have the moment of recognition that You hear the call and if you don't follow it that it ends in pain. And if you do follow it, even if it's not particularly the thing that you want to be doing, that it always ends up in s someplace where you needed to go, some place that other people need you to go.

Needs a uh not quite the right word, but something like that. So I mean it's uh it's so many curiosities around this. Um one, so when most people think about humility, m me included. Yeah. Right. The the thing that comes to mind is almost the exact opposite of something like a calling, of rising up, um of saying, I'm here I to do this thing and it's also I own it. Right. Yeah, like there's some ownership of the process, the experience. And the outcome?

You know, this steps into a place where when most people think of humility, or at least me, yeah. I think of the opposite. I think of the pulling back, the oh Well, you know, it wasn't me, it was something channeling through me, it was everyone who came before me. So it's a very it's it's a bit of a contrarian take on the concept.

Yeah. So I think that it the reason I I said it in the order I did is'cause I do think it is a order of operations thing. I think that there's a really important time to recognize that you're not responsible. So for instance, w the way we think about ego typically is

somebody who's like, I I can do anything, that's like big ego, right? You've got a big ego. But the way I think about ego is ego is anything that you use to define yourself in a limited way. And so a lot of people can take an insult better than they can take a compliment. So you can say to somebody, Oh, you didn't do that right there. Okay. Well what what can I do about it? But if you say, Wow, you just changed my life, they're like, Ah no, that's okay. It wasn't just me.

There's a I'm raising my hand over here. Yeah. A hundred percent. And if you actually let that through, if you actually let a compliment through and you don't call the other person a liar, which is basically what you're doing when you're saying, No, no, no. It wasn't that's not true. If you actually let that all the way through, it's in our coursework, I see it all the time is that

that it dissolves people's ego. It like it opens up so much energy for their system. But there is a r a recognition of doing both things. So for instance This morning I was on a call with some of the people I've been working with for a long time and we were doing this exercise of letting compliments in and we were looking at different ways to block the compliments.

And one of them was deflection. One of the ways to block a compliment was deflection. So somebody gave me the compliment, my job was to deflect. And they're like, Your work has changed my life. And my deflection was, it wasn't just me, it was like all the teachers before me. And as soon as he heard that, he saw, Oh, th that can be both a recognition of something greater than you, which is lovely, but it can also be a dis deflection.

For instance, if I look at any thought that I've ever had, I didn't choose any of them. I never said, I'm gonna choose to have this thought and then I had the thought, yet I call them mine. I don't call them gifts. I don't call them Something beyond my control. And the recognition that they are is a really important recognition because it allows you to not be so in control or so responsible. There's also a really important moment where you realize, oh, I have choice. I can control my destiny and

I can choose to not have those kinds of thoughts. You know, so both of them are really necessary. The way that I think about it is. If a hand is always like this, I think Our hand is always like this and

For those who are listening, Joe, just started with a closed hair and then an open palm. Yeah. Both of them, if they're always like that, they're cripple. And so you really want that flexibility. And so there is a way to deflect humility. There's a way to not be humble in the It was all me and there's a way of not being humble in the if really it had nothing to do with me.

Because if you actually allow it in that it does have something to do with you, there's a heartbreak, a a love that has to be accepted, there's a an ego destruction that has to be allowed if you're gonna really let it in.

I mean it's interesting also, right? Because when you deflect you're essentially denying the person who might be offering you some praise, some compliment. It may be thanks. Yeah. You're you're denying them The feeling of it landed.

Yeah. Like and that's a gift for someone. I mean, like Adam Grant talks about this. There's all this research on the what what's on commonly called the givers globe, right? Yeah. You know, like we actually get a hit when we when we're generous, when we're kind, when we s whether we say something, we give something, yeah. Whatever it may be. And when you when you deflect and you don't allow that to land.

It's almost like we're unintentionally doing like like a little bit of micro harm to the person who's trying to be kind to us. Yeah. I uh so while we were doing this exercise with the five forms of resisting the compliment, right? There we had these five forms and While we were doing it, I noticed I wanted to start giving backhanded compliments. I wanted to start like not giving compliments.

Because what's happening there is like there's people who really want to be seen, really wanna be appreciated and they're not getting it. But every time they get it, they don't let it in. They're deflecting it. So people don't wanna continue to give it to them. And so it's it's beyond just hurting them, it's hurting yourself because you're setting up an ecosystem where people aren't going to see you or acknowledge you or have g uh give you those compliments.

And so it's a it's a double harm that happens. And it makes people a little pissed, you know. Hey, I just gave you a compliment and you're just and you're spitting on it. A and a gentle spit, but it's a spit, you know? Yeah. I mean it We're wired in such weird ways around this stuff because there's like a social code. Yeah. That says, well, we're not we're kind of like supposed to answer that way in a way.

Like that's you know, like and and in especially in different cultures, you know, Australians tall poppy syndrome, you know. It changes by culture too. Right. And even family culture, you know, local culture, whatever it may be.

It's gonna change and and then as you're describing this, I'm remembering I think it was Snoop Dogg who was like receiving like uh maybe a Grammy or something like that. And he got up or maybe it was like MTV music, whatever it may have been. Yeah. And it's like, I would like to thank me

I mean he goes through all the reasons why he wants to thank like his younger self effectively for not giving up, for not listening to this and all this stuff and for And it's like the exact opposite of it's it's just like Not only am I gonna let it land, I'm gonna give it to myself and then let it land. Um but your subtler point about there's a difference between having it given to you and and receiving it is key.

I meditate every morning and towards the very end I always do like a a little micro version of a meta meditation, like yeah, I'll say yeah um yeah may you live with ease, may you be safe, may you be healthy. Yeah. Um may you feel love. And the reason I don't say may you be loved is because you may be loved. Yeah. But if you're not allowing it to land, it it kinda doesn't matter. Yeah, so yeah, two things on that. So the the first one I that hits me is uh you are being loved.

Like there's if you actually just pay attention, my experience of reality now is that like the whole universe is trying to love me. and waiting for me to let my heart crack open enough to to acknowledge that that's what's happening. And when I really look at, you know, now working with ten of thousands of people. I can almost boil it all down to like so much pain is just the fact that people aren't letting the love in.

So that's one aspect. The other aspect that happens is one of the things our mind says if we let in the compliment or if we're if we're letting ourselves be the tall poppy. One of the things is that we're scared that we're gonna use that power to hurt people. And so part of my job is to work with really powerful people. And what I notice is that if a really powerful person hasn't let in the fact that they have done this, that they are powerful, that they are capable,

to really actually fully let it in, then they're far more likely to get dangerous. Hm. Digging deeper into that. Yeah, so You know, t you could take, you know, a famous person who's incredibly rich, really successful, and you've yet they're lying about video games, about like how good they are in video games. As an example. So like what what is that? What's going on there? And it's because they're trying to feed a hungry ghost.

That they're enough, that they're capable, that they're deserving of love. They're trying to fill that ghost. But every time. They're fed, they're not digesting it, they're chewing it and spitting it out because they're not receiving the compliment. They're not actually acknowledging God's intended place for them. And so they'll think that it's a better place.

maybe to protect themselves, or they'll think they haven't done enough yet. They're still catching up at forty. There's all sorts of ways in which the You know, the mind plays a game, but all of it is not actually the acknowledgement of this is what's up, this is what's real. I have created a billion dollar business. I am creating a technology that'll change the world. And not very many people could do it. And meanwhile from the outside looking in,

Everything is astonishing. But the ghost is getting hungrier and hungrier and hungrier and hungrier and so starving. Exactly. So they have to do more and more to prove to themselves that they're valuable or that they have control or that they have influence.

And it becomes incredibly destructive. And it's very it's hard for a lot of my clients because most clients who want to work with me aren't you know, in the part of their cycle where they're saying, you know, I'm not good now, I gotta drive like da da da they're in the people saying, Oh, I gotta be really humble to protect not becoming that other person that I see.

And then for them to realize, oh, this is part of doing the the actual humble thing is to acknowledge it in a way that breaks your heart. And that's the thing is it you can acknowledge it and with a deflection. Yeah, I'm a I'm a world class teacher. Nobody can coach as good as me. Or I am one of the top one percent coaches. And that's all like the way I'm doing that is deflection.

Because I'm not letting it break my heart. I'm not acknowledging that there is also a gift in this that is not within my control. And so it's really both of those two things. It's allowing both the personal and the non personal in at the same time, which creates real humility. Because if you can dismiss it all, your ghost is still hungry. If you can't dismiss any of it, if you can't say It is olig, but

it and I am incredibly fortunate or that life is a dream come true that I never thought possible. Both of those things are necessary for the heartbreak, which is the disintegration of the ego.

So take me into the heartbreak side of this. How do we allow it? To write our hearts. Most people resist this idea of heartbreak like oh I don't want my heart to be broken. My experience is all the time. Right. What we're actually so it's heartbreak is heartbreaking open. And so what it's it's literally saying, okay, I have to expand my my ability to love has to expand to include this thing. Right? I should work out more. I'm chubby. Can I love that?

How much does my heart have to break open to expand to love that? To love both the fact that I'm chubby and also to expand to love the thing that's saying that I'm chubby. And that requires just a like a crack in your system to do it. As a matter of fact, I'm sure somebody's listening to that like I can't I can't love that voice. What do you mean love? Dude, now you just totally lost me. Right. It's like

Little that voice has been in my head and I've been doing everything I can for all the waking hours of my life to try and snuff it out. I've been going to therapy to change its mind. I've been trying to extinguish it because That is the voice of harm is the way a lot of people expect. Absolutely. However, that which you resist persists and all of what you just described is resistance and it absolutely

Some of it might be necessary actually, because again, this is an order of operations thing. And and I'll go into that in a second, but at the end of the day

Yeah, you've been doing all that year, all that stuff for twenty years. And guess what? It's still there. So you're just doing the crazy thing by repeating something that doesn't work. Um my experience is that so I mean we have this week long thing that we do, which is all about changing the negative voice in your head, and we get like a standard deviation change in in the positive direction, less negative self talk.

And we have looked at lots and lots of exercises and experiments that one can run. My experience is curiosity, far more powerful than management. What makes it say it that way? What's how does it feel in my system? What is what's the somatic response? What's its really good intention behind it? What makes it manage me like an idiot? What makes it manage me good and sometimes a not good? And you know, there's so many questions and to really actually

Be attuned and listening to it. That's that's one thing that really helps. At some point you have to get really angry at it because it's really hard to love something that you feel dominates you or that if you f feels oppresses you. If you have the feeling that something oppresses you.

then it's really hard to learn to love that. But once you realize like, oh, you have choice, you can dominate and not pay attention to it, then there's this space for love to occur. But the biggest trick is just how you respond to it. And so I'll give you a simple you we could do this right now if you want, but you if somebody just closes their eyes and listens to the negative self-talk.

And every time it says something that's mean or that it that you wouldn't say to somebody else or that you wouldn't say to somebody you love, and your response is ouch. Just sit there. Sit there for twenty minutes and just say out. Every time it says something and what you'll notice is it just s gets quieter and quieter and quieter.

Or you can say things like, Oh, I see that you're really scared and I'm right here with you, I'm not leaving you every time the voice says something. So there's a thousand experiments that you can run about how am I going to respond to the voice in the head?

And what you notice is the way that you respond to it, just like the way I respond to you, creates a different relationship. If I yell at you every time we're you know, we're on a podcast, you're we're having a different relationship than if I'm and so it's the same thing with the negative self-talk. So if so if you have a thought that comes into your head, let's relate it back to humility. Somebody's like like you did an incredible job with this project that you're working on. Yeah. Right.

My immediate response to them is n yeah, well, it was just the team. Like I literally just did w like what I needed to do. It's just and then the self talk that's going on in my head immediately is You're really incompetent, you're riding on the coattails of everybody else who made this happen. Right. And you have no business being here. Right. Yeah. Right. So like and that's a voice a lot of people have. Yeah.

Right. So your your invitations are what if you just sat there, let the voice in and every time it said that to you Ouch. Ouch. That hurts. Yeah. Give me some other ways to respond to curiosity. I see how scared you are and I'm right here with you. Uh you're absolutely right. You totally, totally. I hun I cannot deny that I'm writing on the coattails of others and I don't belong to be here, that it's all a gift. I'm with you. Or hey, how would it be to manage me a little bit differently?

Or Go fuck yourself. I don't care. Like the the modality is on Monday I'm gonna try to respond to it and I'm gonna try this experiment. I'm gonna respond to it in this way and see how it reacts. It's all about wonder still. On Tuesday I'm gonna r react to it this way.

I'm just running experiments with it. I'm I'm learning to understand it. The thing about negative self talk generally, it does self improvement rather than self awareness, self-discovery. And self-improvement is a lot less effective than self discovery. So we've all been telling ourselves we should be doing something for a decade that we haven't been doing it. We've all been telling ourselves, here's all the things that I have to do to improve that haven't improved. Rather than

being in self discovery, actually trying to understand ourselves deeply. And when you really understand yourself deeply, it just changes. The same way that once I understand how to talk into a microphone, I speak into a microphone differently. The way that once I understand a camera, I don't need to tell myself, be a better cameraman. You know, I just understand the camera. And it's the same thing with ourselves. We think that self abuse is the way

to have a better relationship with ourselves. But it's actually self understanding. And we have all these fears of, oh, if I if I give up the self abuse, I'm just gonna lie on the couch and drink beer and I'm not gonna do anything. But what actually happens is you have all this freedom. all this f free energy because you're not working against yourself all the time. You know, you look at a three year old.

They do not have negative self-talk and yet that that doesn't usually happen until seven or eight. And yet they do all sorts of stuff. They learn all sorts of stuff. They learn so much more in a year than we ever learn. Because they're not fighting against themselves. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. The Good Light Project is sponsored by PureSense. So there's something kind of subtle but powerful about the way a space feels when you walk into it, not how it looks.

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It's more interesting to me in a weird way. I totally like I feel like we've like so many of us have spent our waking hours trying to like In the process of fixing everything that we perceive has been wrong their entire lives. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Some people and you know, profoundly different levels. Um But it's almost like the entirety of our lives. It's like just just incremental pursuit of improvement towards some sort of

end where like, oh, like we quote, made it. We finally feel good with ourselves. We got X, Y, or Z, you know. Yeah. Um Rather than like your invitation, which is like What if you kind of let go of that? And and maybe if somebody's watching, listening to this, like, Yeah, no. Like they got there's things I wanna work towards. There's things I want to change about myself. There's things I want to accomplish or achieve, right? Okay. Maybe if we say

suspended just just f for a window. Yeah. Like what would happen y using your approach, which is so s I mean, we've talked about it, we both are true believers and experimenting your way to things rather than trying to think them through. You know, what if just an experiment? You didn't let go of that for life. Yeah.

But for for a moment. Yeah. For a little window. R uh how about like right now? Because the so for instance, y the idea is there's something wrong with you. But if you take this moment and you don't go into the past for evidence, and you don't go into the future for evidence, I can only find evidence in this moment right now. What is essentially wrong with you?

And I'm asking you, but I'm asking anybody who's listening. Like, if you do not go to the past or the future, if there's something wrong with you, it would be wrong right now. And yet if you look at what's essentially what is essentially wrong with you right now, there's never an answer. But what if there is? Give me an example. Um What if somebody um is sitting here now and they've just heard this question and they're asking themselves, okay, so

Um what it like in this moment, not in the past, not in the future. Like what what is wrong with me in this moment? Well, um, I have incredible back pain. Yeah. And how does that make you essentially wrong? So it's it's essentially Okay. So yes, there's discomfort in this moment for sure. So let's tease that out a little bit more. Yeah. Because I think that can get confusing. Yeah. You have back pain, but that's not you.

the you is the thing that you've been ever since the moment you came into existence until now. If it's not that it's not you. If it doesn't hasn't had to existed through the whole thing Right. I have a thought, it comes and goes. That's not me, that's a thought. I could cut off my arm. I'm still here, so it's not my arm. It's like what are you essentially is the question. So yes I can have a sensation.

You know, I could even say, hey, the problem is right now I want to kill myself. And I would say that's future, and that's something like what's right now. So take me deeper into how this helps. Because there's gonna be a thought bubble, you know, for listening into this and also say, okay, so

Interesting experiment. Yeah. Um maybe even interesting more broadly to say, like what if I just spent time really discovering? Yeah. Then trying to fix. Yeah. Um But if I do believe that there's something broken, or if I'm dealing with a struggle or a circumstance that I do want to be different, how does reallocating my energy to discovery rather than change?

Make me feel the way I want to feel. Yeah. So there's a whole there's a whole bunch in that. There's a whole bunch in that. So the the the first piece is Evolution happens whether you're telling yourself you have to improve or not. An oak tree evolves, when when is it perfect? When is it good and when is an oak tree good enough? When it's an o acorn or when it's a sapling or when it's a hundred years old or when it's two hundred years old, when is it good enough?

But yet evolution continues. So in the question there's this assumption that I have to tell myself I have to improve for evolution to occur rather than evolution just occurs. A three year old doesn't have to tell themselves, I gotta I gotta improve, I gotta improve and yet

Lo and behold, evolution occurs. So that's the first piece of it. Second piece is how do I feel the way I want to feel is another big postulate in there, which is My question response is how do you enjoy feeling whatever you're feeling? So I once sat with uh one of my teachers. His name was Adya Shante. His name is Adya Shante. He doesn't teach anymore and

And I was telling him what we were doing in our work when in what's happening. We hadn't seen each other in years and we're having dinner somewhere and his wife and my wife and And I said he said, like what's your work? And I said, A lot of our work is going from emotional management

to emotional clarity, which is the loving acceptance of your emotional experiences without the resistance. And so we're talking about one of those things, which is to allow the compliment, that feeling of joy in, but it's feeling of anger. And he said and he he was a meditation, non dual meditation teacher, and he said, That's ninety percent of the questions I get. How do I feel this way? How do I stop feeling this way? And that never leads anywhere good.

Instead, it's like, oh how how how can I be excited to feel sad? How can I be excited to feel heartbreak? How can I be excited to feel angry? That doesn't mean that I am taken over by it. It doesn't mean that I've lost myself in it. But it's it's that. So your question was If I want to feel a certain way, I'm not sure.

And you're gonna feel all sorts of ways in a day in the in the m in this podcast if you're listening, in our conversation, we both have had a hundred feelings. Whatever it is will come and go. Those emotional experiences will come and go. So I can't say that, but as far as evolution, as far as us continuing to evolve.

that happens. The other thing that's a a supposit supposition in the question is that there's something wrong that like that somehow I have to be better to be good enough to be lovable to Rather than, oh, I'm perfect as an acorn, perfect as a sapling. Yeah. And and I wonder part of like there's a there's a part of the supposition there also is that

To live a good life we need to feel a s a certain set of feelings. Right. And not feel a certain set of feelings. Or at least maximize a certain set and minimize or try and extinguish a certain set here. Rather than saying You know, what if a good life is allowing ourselves to feel the full sweep of emotion? Yeah. And um just letting it all in. Yeah. I was asked recently, somebody I was in in a conversation and people were asking you like How do you define mental health?

I w I mean such a limited question, so maybe it is sort of how do you answer that in a way you just don't step it in some way, shape, or yeah. Um but the thing that came to me right away was just You know, for me, and again, like I'm not gonna postulate that this is right for everybody. I said for me, I think the way I would define it is the the capacity to feel everything. But not grasped to anything. You know, it's too like a little bit of a little bit of a little

to cry. Yeah. Like when I'm when I'm heartbroken and to like not try and stifle it or feel it. To um like laugh out loud around friends and to just to let love land, to feel that gratitude, like to Yeah, you know, to to feel grief, to feel really sad. Yeah. When hard things happen. And and not Not to to allow it all in. To let it all in. Yeah. Um And also not to spend my entire life in any of it. Right. Yeah. Um

And but we like we have this sort of like Western overlay that says, No, no, no, that's that's not the aspiration. Yeah. The aspiration is as much good as possible and as little quote bad feelings as possible. Which is not possible. Yeah, yeah. Well there's all there's a whole bunch of weird things in that. So The first one is just a neurological thing. Neurologically speaking, a grand majority of our decision making happens in the emotional center of our brain. So it's not So therefore

Clear decision making isn't being logical. We're using logic to decide what uh emotion we're gonna feel. So when a person who has that part of their brain damaged, their IQ stays the same, but it takes them like an half an hour to decide what color pen to use. So if you think about just the clarity of decision making, it it comes from

I'm happy to feel one way or another way and therefore I'll make a decision that's actually good for me rather than to m to feel one way or another way. Because so many of our decisions are made to not feel like a failure or to feel loved or to feel at peace or to not feel like a loser. And so so if you are happy to feel all that stuff, then you make really great decisions, as it turns out.

Second thing is none of the feelings are actually negative or are really actually that uncomfortable. The resistance to them is ungodly uncomfortable. But if you are, whoa, I so enjoy feeling sad, sadness changes. It's like there's a pipe and let's say let's use anger and so there's this channel of anger.

And if it's kinked one way, it's nice shirt. Right? And if it's kinked another way, it's you son of a blah blah blah I hate you, blah blah blah. If it's kinked another way, it's if you loved me you would. Those are all kinks in the hose, but when that hose is not resisted, when you're fully allowing yourself to feel that anger, that anger comes out like Gandhi or Martin Luther King. It comes out with boundary and clarity, and dignity

And so it's the resistance that's uncomfortable on these all the emotions. It's the resistance that's uncomfortable, including the resistance to the compliment. The appreciation. If you actually let it in, it's really pleasant. It tickles. No Not me. It was my teacher. It's not me, it's the team. I have a a quote that sums it up really well, which is Joy is the matriarch of a family of emotions and she won't come into a house where her children aren't welcome.

And that's my experience is that when you fully accept all the emotions and love them and can't look forward to them, welcome them. And joy just happens a lot more often. And your ability to feel the joy becomes a lot deeper.

Which begs a question like how do you? How do you unkink the hose there? Yeah, like the and I guess maybe that cycles back to a stance of curiosity. Wonder is huge. Yeah. Yeah. I make a distinction between curiosity and wonder. Okay. It's arbitrary, but curiosity I just define as looking for an answer. Wonder is just I mean a little kid about it. And I find wonder is more effective than curiosity.

And yes, lots of wonder expression, your emotions live in your body, they live in your muscles. Right now, if I said to you, stop feeling, you have to constrict a muscle. If you're gonna completely stop feeling you're gonna constrict a lot of them. That's why resisting emotions hurt.

That's why that's the uncomfortable piece. Yeah, there's like a a little somatic connection there. Yeah. Exactly. It feels like everything's just tightening up. So there is an expression that's necessary and a lot of wonder. To really understand the emotional emotional system. Because we've been trained, most of us have been trained our whole life not to feel. What's that about? Don't cry. It's because b our parents didn't want to feel it. And their parents and their own.

push that down into this little corner of my body where it will slowly become cancer, some version of, you know, um Or I'm gonna push down the anger and be passive aggressive. So there's it always ends up getting leaking out, but it creates a lot of tension in the system. And the w and the fear is that if I am s really allow myself to be sad it'll last forever. If I really allow myself to be angry, it's gonna destroy everything I love.

if I really allow myself to be scared, I'm gonna be incapable. But it turns out if you really let yourself cry, you feel better. If you really let yourself get angry, not at anybody, meaning not not to control anybody. But just have an experience out in the woods getting angry, you feel more love. You feel less like destroying your world.

And if you really allow that sensation of fear through your system, you feel very capable. But our brains will tell us that the opposite. Because our brains don't get emotions. Emotions aren't logical. Our brains aren't supposed to get'em. I'm thinking also like the the opposite is true too, because a lot of times the story we tell us about quote positive emotions are the opposite. Like if I really allow myself to be happy

That's gonna end and then I'm gonna be miserable. If I really allow myself to love and be loved. They're gonna leave me, I'm something's gonna happen and then it gonna be devastated. It's like when we look at the the the quote aspirational emotions. Yeah. We tell the opposite story.

That's right. That's right. Totally. And and so so well seen. And that's why typically what I notice when people are in the journey of emotional fluidity, which is what my description for what you just said about allowing yourself to feel all the emotions and not be ruled by them. Is it's usually Anger sadness first. Some

depending like men in middle class America, anger is more accessible than their sadness and vice versa. But um and you do that and then the fear and then the peace, bliss, joy, love. That it actually happens in that order typically. You can't just jump to the positive things and actually have a full sensation of them.

Yeah. So it's like you have to there's there's almost like a pecking order. Yeah. Yeah. There's a foundation that has to be laid and but it also invites us to step into the stuff that we probably struggle with the most. And it's because Oh my God, if I really let the love in, I will be hurt. I will be dyst stomped on. And the answer is yen, I can't wait to be stomped on.

Because I have felt that before. I know how much freedom is on the other side of that. I know how much clarity is on the other side of that. If you can find a part of me that gets triggered, I am stoked. Like great, fantastic. Because that's exactly something I can't see about myself. That's exactly the place that wants to evolve.

So yeah, it's a I'm very excited about it. I'm excited to get triggered by somebody because it is more freedom for me. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Good Life Project is sponsored by Gab Wireless. So many parents are trying to figure out how to give their kids freedom without handing them the entire online world and the concern is real. Kids who spend more than three hours a day online are twice as likely to struggle with anxiety and depression. It's a lot to hold.

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I want to deepen into that, but there's something I don't want to let go of before we just yeah. If so much of this conditioning that says basically don't feel has been handed down through generations, often by parents, you know, like or whoever it may be who's Yeah. Who you want to have a sense of belonging with. Yeah. Um, so you can conform to whatever the norms were that were taught to you, the family norms, the local culture norms, the w you know. Yeah. Um Part of then saying,

Okay, so what if I actually start to allow myself to feel? What if I get like what if I allow a sense of wonder around all this stuff, all the feels? Yeah. Embedded in that, wouldn't there also be a potential And maybe this is one of the restrictions that stops us from doing it, is that we're effectively rejecting Um the the safety, the container belonging.

that's been passed down to us through our our family or whoever it was. Yeah, that's right. Where we want to feel safe, we want to belong. We want to be accepted. Yeah. We want to be seen. And part of that was buying into this notion that okay, so like You only feel a certain way or you don't feel. That's how that's how we belong to each other. Right. Yeah. So part of like saying, Okay, Joe, like I buy into this, I'll run the experiments. Yeah. Is also saying, Okay, Joe, I buy into this.

m maybe I'm gonna actually reject or be rejected by those people who I yeah really care about and they're still in my life. Yeah. That is true. There's no doubt about it. But you're already rejected by them. If I get sad, they will reject me means they're rejecting you for who you are, whether you're showing them or not showing them. You're already living in a relationship where the love is conditional.

You can pretend to be something that you're not by not crying, but then you're not loved. The thing you're pretending to be is loved, which is why you feel so unloved in your life. Not you particularly, but know what I mean. But and I mean probably me at certain points and probably almost everybody. Yeah. That's true. At certain points and probably a lot of folks right now. Yeah. Um joining us in this conversation, you know. And it It's an it's That was me for a lot of my life. I I

I learned that I could be really good at being a chameleon. Yeah. I could walk into a room and and a pretty good social awareness and understand like the culture. Yep. of a room and maybe that's also a family. Right. Or a group of friends or kids or a clique. Yeah. You know, and I could kind of scan the environment.

and sort of notice uh like this is how I would need to be yeah to quote fit in. But in my mind it was to belong. Yes. And I would I would sort of like form myself yeah into that person and then that that the person like that I'm thinking to myself, I'm l I' oh sweet. I'm w I'm literally I can walk into any of these groups, yeah, like this group, this group, this group, this group. And it's all good. Yeah. And meanwhile I'm still lonely. Right.

Because as you're describing, I'm not actually in any of those rooms. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. There's something there's something else about it that I find My experience is very similar to you. I used to even dress in a way that I could blend into as many I was like just neutral enough that I could flip into any situation in in my twenties. It was

A really similar situation. I think that the the other thing about you're saying that oh, if I feel a certain way then I'm gonna be rejected in in the society or in the I have a story about that. My first of all, if you have a young kid and you're really interested in this, there's Patty Wiffler has a book called Listen and the organization is called Hand in Hand K parenting. It's so valuable. It's Just amazing work.

And I'm doing this, which is basically being with your child as or having an emotion and loving attention without trying to get them out of the emotion. But this time it happens at a Whole Foods. So I'm at a Whole Foods. I got my two and a half year old just raging about wanting potato chips or some such thing, I can't remember. I'm containing her.

So, but I am committed. I am committed to allowing her to have her emotions and I'm gonna be in loving attention of them. So she is having the full thing on the floor. I'm on the floor of this whole food. And I'm just like I'm I'm I got you, I'm right here with you. I s really hear you want the potato chips. And we live in this little hippie town in Northern California and uh used to be a hippie town and and

And this little old lady hippie comes by and she goes, Are you okay? to my daughter And my daughter's like, I'm just having my emotions And then she went like right back into it. And so And yeah, well like I didn't disintegrate. I didn't get expelled from my town. She didn't get expelled from her town. That. But the other thing that happens is

As emotional fluidity comes, as you welcome all of it, there's a short time where like if you're allowing anger for the first time, you're gonna get angry more often. You let tears you're gonna get tears more often. But that that arc f starts going down all of a sudden Oh my I feel anger and instead of yelling.

Oh, I have a boundary. Okay, here's my boundary'cause I feel that I got that little bit of anger and I didn't repress it. I didn't think I was bad. I didn't wonder what did I do wrong because I'm angry. I didn't wonder what did they do wrong'cause they're angry. It's Oh anger. Oh boundary. Oh hey, could we not do this this way? Oh sadness. Oh that's a longing. Can I I'll express my longing?

Oh fear. There's something I'm not taking care of myself. So these things become signals and so you're not rolled over by the emotions and then it And then and you can get angry y and you don't have to get angry at anybody. You can go into the woods and get angry. You can get angry in a safe place. And it's weird because we're so scared of our emotions. One of the things fear does to the brain is it makes us into binary thinkers.

And so we're scared of our emotions and it's either we are going to hold it back or we are going to be taken by it. We are either going to hurt somebody with it or we are going to hold it back instead of, oh, I can just express it. In a way that's not shame based and not bad for anybody. Easier said than done. Yep. Yeah, yeah. No doubt. It's like I can have long hair all I want. So you're like, well yeah. Um and then, you know, like life happens.

Um and and it's it's funny also, right? Because I think um Early days of meditation, sort of studying Eastern thought, Eastern philosophy. You know, I I think I interpreted a lot of teachings as, you know, non grasping, lack of desire, sort of like the ultimate the aspiration. Yeah, there's an aspiration is to basically Not attached to anything. Which I translated to not feel anything. Yeah.

Yeah. Most people I started meditating. I meditated for whatever, seven years in a room most of well most of my time. And somewhere along the line I realized I'm not meditating. I am managing myself. I'm I'm not I'm not being with what is I am trying to create. What is Total

Torturing myself. I mean so the imitation is is really just like what if we let it all in? What if instead of and it And I guess part of the qu uh curiosity for me here is like, you know, do we have to let go of the aspiration to at some future point want to feel different or want our lives to be different or want something to like be changed in some meaningful way. Do we have to let go of that? Yeah. And and just focus on like what if I just

allowed it all in right now in the moment and and sat there in the place of wonder said, Okay, um, whatever it is I'm experiencing, huh. Yeah. Huh. Um, can we ha hold both of those simultaneously? Or does the future aspiration somehow stop us from doing the work of opening to sensation and feeling now that will maybe at some point actually get us the place you want to be. Right. So So that's the

But that's typically the way it works is we tell ourselves, Oh, so now I see I've heard that, so I have to do this. Right. And in saying I have to do it, you're guaranteeing that it's not gonna happen or not. Not gonna happen easily. Yeah, exactly. So that Exactly. So you're in fear, you're acting from fear, you learn slower. That's that's part of it. Um There is a nature of the early.

Part of the way that we evolve is because we our nature is to evolve. And so of course we're gonna have thoughts of evolution. I'm I'm mostly suggesting that the way to it is through wonder rather than through self abuse or drive. I d I don't know how to let go of the call. Which is the call to evolve. And Like I I'm I haven't tried. Don't have a particular want to try. I c I don't see that it's it's painful or bad. Um I often

however, don't have a specific outcome in mind or I'll I'll have the goal, but it'll be very, very loosely held. Because my experience is my goals suck compared to what happens. Like I I did not in my twenties say this is what I want my life to be like. I had a very different vision of my life. I am so grateful that that vision did not happen.

that this vision is so much better than I could have imagined. That the solution set that you can come up with from the place that you are now is not even close to the solution set that you can come up with with a place where you have learned to love yourself a little bit more or f felt more emotional fluidity or any number of things. So t I hold the goal because there's a directionality to it, but I don't really hold on to

that it's gonna look the way that I want it to look because life has a way of looking a lot better than my preconceived notions. Mm. I mean it's funny, there's um As you're describing that, what what came to mind for me is I've had plenty of conversations with founders, entrepreneurs really. This is exactly what I'm gonna build. This is what I want to make happen. This is I have a very clear goal and there's all this mythology.

gonna do anything that'll get you there. Like you have to be crystal clear about what the end point is. Yeah. And I've often said and there's data that shows well like, okay, so if you do have clarity around that thing, you probably are more likely to actually like achieve that thing. And there are different modalities to get there and different methodologies. Yeah. But the point that you're making, I think, is just so prescient, which is A. Is that thing worth wanting?

What about the universe of a bazillion other possibilities that you're excluding without realizing it by saying this and only this? Rather than what if I just allow myself to be really intentional about being and observing and and being in a state of wonder and evolving and letting things in and let that direct me like how

I tend to look forward and there's I'm a maker, like I just love to make stuff. Yeah. Yeah, but I do it largely I'm a weirdo in that like I'll write a book, I'll spend like two years writing a book. My publisher shifts me a case of books like the first thing. It's like, you know, like a case of like twenty four hardcover books. Yeah. And I'll just let it sit there in the box unopened for a couple of weeks. My wife is like

Dude, what? Meanwhile everyone's doing unboxings online and stuff like this. And I'm like It was never about the like the thing. Yeah. For me, it was just about the experience of like how cool is it that I'm growing, unfolding, and learning. Like, um, okay, so like now there's a thing at the end of it, awesome. Yeah. Um You know, and but but the whole the whole idea of

being really rigid about exactly how you want your life to unfold and they're working towards the things you want and the things you want to extinguish from it. Yeah. Um And that may actually get you closer to those things faster. But does that actu but but even if it does? You know Is that the life you're gonna want to be living when you got that? What have you done?

Completely ignore it along the way, but then the blinders on. Yeah. And I I mean, if you've spoken to that many entrepreneurs and I work with them, how many like hit forty five and they're like, I got everything I wanted, but I'm fucking miserable. Yeah. Happens all the time. I think that the there is also a huge amount of wisdom to holding a goal. Meaning, let's say I have a goal of reaching a million people. Not my goal, by the way.

Um, or I have a goal of a thousand people. Well, I'm gonna ask different questions. How do I reach a thousand people? I can go door to door and knock on a thousand doors So but if I'm trying to reach a million, I'm gonna have it different. So I think that th holding that goal is and having clarity on it is really what makes visionaries and the fact that Um I I I define a visionary as somebody who's living in a world as if it already exists. Gandhi existed as if he was a free man.

He existed as if India was free. When they walked under the salt mines and it was a half a million Indians and twenty security guards or whatever it was, a hundred security guards, and they just walked and got beaten down four at a time. So they were acting like free people. They weren't acting like like subjects. And and and so that if you can't see the reality, you can't live as if that reality already exists. And so I think that's the power of it.

You also can't catch the beauty if you're attached to it. So it's like having it, having that vision, having that clarity, but also. being okay with the fact that life is gonna serve up something a lot better if you're if you're paying attention. Yeah. And that there's the tension, right? It's sort of like, okay, get crystal clear about that thing, the vision of like how you want to be or what you want to to participate in making happen. Yeah.

And at the same time, you know, you gotta hold it lightly to the certain extra. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You know, um, to allow serendipity to enter the experience. Yeah. And wonder. Yeah. And that's where the humility actually is.'Cause if if it's not you doing it, there's no vision. And if it's not a huge gift, then you're not actually

you you're not seeing the serendipity. And so the to actually take your God given place in the world and that is it requires you to both see the serendipity, which is a humility of this is beyond me And walk into it, which is a humility of this is personal and I and it's me doing it. It's almost like... This shall be. And who knows? Right. Yeah, totally totally.

Wh which is and I agree with you. I think a lot of people who do astonishing things in the world somehow hold like find a way to to hold on to both of those and to let go of all of it at the same time. Yeah. Which sounds bizarre. Like if you're listening, you're like, My head is spinning right now. Yeah. I don't get this. Like how like and and

You and I love conversations like this, but I think sometimes people listen to that and they're like, but what do I do? Yeah. Like what like okay, so so I get this. I'm kinda nodding along. Some of these things really make sense to me. Yeah. Um But what do we do with this? Yeah, so the first thing in that question is uh

it's v it's pretty ineffective the c the question, what do I do? Not entirely, but often ineffective because what it's doing is it's cutting off the understanding. Oh, I have this epiphany. I if you're listening to this, there's some moment where you're like, Oh yeah. What do I do about it? And so you're not letting oh yeah, actually register in your entire system. And and again, so it's the idea is that you're doing

is gonna be more important than your understanding. But so that's that's one of the things. And so to actually allow The understanding to wash over you is one of the best things. The second thing that you and these are things you can do. The other thing that you can do is just have gratitude for recognition. Like really allow yourself time to be deeply grateful for recognition that you have when you have it.

'Cause that uh like deepens that washing over and deepens the understanding. As far as the Humility goes to Well there is the The are the how to talk how to react to the negative self-talk, that's some very good action that you can take. Another great one is to allow yourself to feel a whole bunch of emotions. We have something called emotional inquiry that we can give you a link to if you're interested. And that's a really great way to feel into emotions with a lot of wonder.

Um so that that's a great thing that can be done. Um the other thing that can be done is to Let me think of a way to put this which is um You can notice that you are not You can literally oh one way to do it is to notice that no thought you've ever had is yours and literally spend a hour noticing like I'm not deciding to have any of these thoughts, but the thoughts are arising. The other way to do it is somatically go to back to where the source of the thought is.

Described that for me, like what do you mean by that? It it is not a good way to describe it, but if you sit down in a chair and you just watch your thought come up, go back to where it came from. So we can just do that for a minute. We all have tons of thoughts, so for a silent a thought will come up in thirty seconds. And you just somatically go to where that thought arose from.

When you s say somatically, are you saying where do I feel it in my body? Yeah. Yeah. The physical sensation of where that thought came from. And and how does that help me? Do it for a long time. Yeah, yeah, no, no. I think it's great. I think it's great. I my and my response would be do it and find out. Because

Here's one of the things that I've learned is that when I discover something. So my I had huge authority issues when I was younger. And because I have authority issues, I didn't believe any teacher. I couldn't really allow for teachers in my system for a long time. But I really wanted to learn. So I would listen and then I would say

Heh, let's test it out. Let's see if they're right. So I would test everything. And in that process of testing everything, what I realized is I would do something, I'd do an experiment, and it would quote unquote work. Oh my gosh, if I loved my emotions, wow, they changed. The the the resistance was gone and oh my gosh. And I uh but then I started loving my emotions to get rid of them and it stopped working.

So what you discover is that oftentimes when in self discovery, if you're doing something to change your emotional experience, it stops working. Or if you do something to get you somewhere, it stops working. If you're meditating to get somewhere, it is far less effective than if you're meditating just to enjoy the hell out of meditation.

And so if I give like the destination of this thing, what I'm scared will happen is that somebody will hold that destination in their head and not discover what happens naturally. Which kind of defeats the whole point of it. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um there's a certain of faith amount of faith that comes with this invitation. Certain humility. Yeah. Yeah.

Early in the conversation, you you also brought up this notion of calling. Yeah. In this context, in the context of humility. Um tell me more about the relationship.

At some point there was a recognition that if I didn't follow the calling, it was really painful. It's very hard for me to describe what exactly calling is. So if this is frustrating for somebody, I totally understand. Um but I there's a knowing that, oh, this is what I'm meant to do.

I might not want to do it. I might rail against it, but there's a knowing no, this is the thing that I'm supposed to do. And then I realized if I didn't do it, because I don't want to do that, it always was got more and more uncomfortable until I did it. And when you realize that, then there's a choicelessness in it.

You don't get the choice of doing this thing or not doing this thing. You get a choice of having to be more and more uncomfortable or not having to be more and more uncomfortable. And there's real no choice there's really no choice in that. And when you recognize that, then that's a deep form of humility. Because it's it's a choiceless life.

Folk aren't go like that. They sure aren't. And and I think it's like massive determinism in a lot of ways. Yeah, it's not quite it's not quite the same way, meaning that's a great, great thought process. So the it's Not quite the same way because you can't get to the place of calling until you realize you do have choice.

So until you realize until you realize like, oh, I can shape the world into what I want to shape the world into, at least somewhat that I can say no to my boss, that I can not accept this abuse from my husband, that I can um, not live in a societal standard that I'm supposed to live in that I don't have to follow this career path and I don't have to have sixteen kids or two kids at and two point five kids at this age and live in this kind of a house until you realize that you actually have

the freedom to do what you want, you can't actually that you're not even you can't even be aware of the calling. And then there's a place where it's, oh, it's all a gift. That's also necessary to get to to to get to the place where it's like, oh, this is a calling. So when the calling comes and you see it and you understand it.

It includes all of that. It includes, oh, I'm being called to go and take action and do something in the world, which is going to require my determination and it's going to require my my showing up in a way that's uncomfortable for me sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't. And and it's also going to require the recognition that it's you're not responsible for this, that it is a gift.

And all of that requires a humility to get to the place of I have a choice, but I don't really have a choice, that that oak tree doesn't really have a choice. the dog doesn't really have a choice. And I get we do have choice. So it's like hold again, it's holding the dichotomy both at the same time. It is holding the the empowerment of choice and it's holding the faith of non choice. And if we can't do both of them, then we're still

our little personalities are entrenched and digging in and which is not the humility. Do you feel like we all If we allowed this space, if we ignore it, the if if we acknowledge that that you know in so many ways we do have choice. We have agency. Um which sort of seeds um the possibility of something resembling what we might call calling yeah to emerge. Yeah. And as you said, it like if we can't even get to the fact that like we have any sense of agency or choice, yeah, then there's no space

Correct and understanding calling to emerge. Like we can't because that would imply agency. Yeah, that's really well said. Because I don't know what it is, I'd never know what it is. I'm in my forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, whatever it may be. Yeah. Or maybe you're younger. Um maybe I just m don't ha maybe that's for other people. Then you wouldn't walk.

That's the first calling, one of the first callings. Reaching, understanding where your hands are. These are all the calling. This is like the natural tug of evolution. It is the thing that allows the birds to know where their migratory paths are. It's the thing that allows an oak tree I get emotional thinking about it. Our birthright.

We just have to create a ton of resistance to stop it. Which is where mo most which is what we do. It's how we live. Yeah. And it sounds like the way you're describing also is

You don't necessarily you're not really describing from and tell me if I'm getting this right. Like we're all born with one singular calling and like our like th it's this one thing and like that's it. It's like no, there could be a myriad of ways that we're called in different contexts, different seasons, different ways, different parts of our lives, right? And and like it's it's not just this one universal thing. It's just like it literally

We're being whispered to all the time. Yeah. Like all day, every day for the entirety of our lives and and part of the work is to create the space to hear the whispers. Right. And and you can only hear it now. Sometimes I get an idea where it's headed, but it's generally like th this right now, this thing is clear, I have to do this thing right now. And so

I see people get lost a lot looking for their purpose or their calling as if it's an abstract thing and then I'll know what to do from this point forward. It doesn't work like that. It's you know what to do this point forward because you took the next step on the path. I don't know what to do at the fork until I get to the fork.

I love that. Um feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well in this conversation. So in uh in this container of a good life project. Yeah. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life. Yeah. What comes up?

Be yourself. The authenticity of you is the good life. Thank you. You're welcome. Pleasure to be with you. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, Safe Bet you'll also love the conversation we had with Brene Brown about vulnerability, courage, and leadership transformation. You can find a link to that episode in the show.

This episode of Good Light Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young, Christopher Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good life project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube. Two. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and

inspiring. Chances are you did because you're still listening here. Do me a personal favor, a seven second favor. Share it with just one person. I mean if you want to share it with more, that's awesome too, but just one person even. then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered, to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter, because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project.

Good Life Project is sponsored by Gab Wireless. So many parents are trying to figure out how to give their kids freedom without handing them the entire online world and the concern is real. Kids who spend more than three hours a day online are twice as likely to struggle with anxiety and depression. It's a lot to hold.

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