#1481 - What Really Motivates You?

I have a wonderful podcast client who oftentimes we do not talk about podcasting at all . That has become a theme in coaching with Kevin and over the last two months or so of coaching , this person has come to me and said hey , do you mind if I vent for a little bit , because I work really well with verbally processing and then we'll see what happens .

And I said , yeah , sure , why not ? I feel like I'm a good listener , so let me just sit here and see what I can take from what you say . And therapist Kevin , therapist Kevin and this person that I'm working with is a therapist , so it's weird . Yeah , it's , I'm on the other end . It's very sure the therapist's therapist , therapist , therapist that is me .

Put it on a business card with his new glasses , with my glasses . Yes , I look the part now .

And she said Well , I've always been such a grinder , I've always been looking towards the next thing , the next thing , the next thing . That's just the way I'm wired . And I said , well , what's important is what's important to you now . What was important to you then as important to you .

And she said , and she sat there for a minute and really thought about it , excuse me . And she came back and said , honestly , no , and I think that's why I feel like I'm being pulled in so many different directions .

The thing that's most important to me now is being a present mother , far more important than achieving the level of quote , unquote success that I once desired , far more important than creating the external results that I once desired , far more important than anything else .

And I said , okay , based on that new information , based on that new awareness , what do we do ? And she changed everything . She changed almost everything in her life almost immediately based on that . What really motivated her was being a present , quality mother . What used to motivate her was a lot of external results and success .

Now , this is the beautiful thing about an episode like this Her saying I don't want to work as hard or as much , or I don't want to do the things that I originally thought I wanted to do . I want to be a present mom . That's more important to me . That's really good for her . Maybe that's exactly what she needs .

Maybe you're out there listening right now and maybe that was a season for you when maybe your children were younger , where you said I want to be a really I don't know why I'm losing my voice I want to be a really present , high quality parent . But maybe , as your children got older , they needed less of that .

And then maybe you said well , what really motivates me now ? Well , I'm getting a little bit older . What motivates me is being more financially free or learning more about this thing , whatever it may be . So that really is the topic of conversation today . Do you actually know what is motivating you ?

Because if you don't , you might not be able to leverage it the same . That's part one and part two .

If you don't know what motivates you , you might go get all of the quote unquote results that you wanted and you might end up not feeling fulfilled , not getting happiness , not wanting to do more of that , because those might not actually be the results that you truly desire .

in this analogy , your destination is a goal that you plug in the GPS . You plug in let's say , I plug in Kevin's address and it's an hour north of here .

Now , the moment that I plug that into the GPS , the GPS is going to route me to Kevin's place and if there's a detour along the way , it's going to say hey , take a right here , take a left here , whatever , whatever . But the gas in the tank is the motivation . What is the motive for action ?

The goal is one of the motives for action , and so what I wanted to talk about on this episode is something that I'm constantly thinking about when I coach people , and instead of the word motivating even though it's very similar is what are you optimizing for ? And I want to use my pets as an example .

I know I've been talking about my pets a lot lately , but I'm telling you I'm learning some stuff from Tucker , tilly and Tauriel . Each of them are motivated by different things . They're optimizing for something different . Okay , tauriel , from the moment she wakes up , she's optimizing for food . She wants milk , she wants food .

She is constantly trying to give love , to get milk from her dad . Uh , cause I'll . There's like this little saucer and I'll give her a little bit of lactose-free milk . All good , and she knows that if she , you know , comes near me when I'm in the kitchen , she's most likely going to get some milk , cause I'm a softy . So that's Tauriel's .

What she's optimizing for is food , food and milk . Tucker is optimizing to

be around his mom . So Tucker is six years old and when Emilia first got Tucker he was a rescue in a very negative spot and he was super , super attached to Emilia and he doesn't feel safe when Emilia is not around . He needs to always know where Emilia is , and so he's optimizing for certainty and his certainty comes from knowing where his mom is .

So when , when Emilia was away last week , Tucker was very sad the first day and then eventually was like okay , she's away . Now I'm going to start optimizing for food . And I told Emilia he's very different when you're , when you're not around , and what I mean by that is when you're around . He's always just trying to be around you .

He doesn't really care that much about being around me . He'll go for a walk with me , because I kind of nudge him to , but he would rather go with Emilia . He doesn't like to go for walks with just his dad when Emilia is at home . Okay . So again , tucker is optimizing to be around Emilia . Lily girl , tiger Lily , she is optimizing for love .

Whatever she just wants loves , cuddles , snugs . She just loves love . So Tauriel wants food till he wants love . Tucker wants Emilia . I . Whether we like to believe it or not , human beings are also unconsciously driven and are optimizing for very different things . I know some people who are optimizing their whole life around comfort . How do I feel good ?

How do I feel good ? How do I feel good ? How do I get comfortable ? How do I get comfortable ? How do I get comfortable ? I know other people who are optimizing for growth . Emilia gets uncomfortable constantly . She's doing uncomfortable things she's doing . Kevin and I were joking yesterday .

We were struggle bus and it was like , listen , I don't want to do these things , but I know these are best for my growth , that I know that my growth is what's best for NLU and I know that NLU is what's best for the world and XYZ .

So , and Then by the end of the night I'm optimizing for our and our , and then in the morning I'm optimizing for writing , and then in the afternoon I'm optimizing for coaching and podcasting . So all of us . We shift throughout the day and what motivates us is changing . It's it's dynamic .

So the question that I want to ask Kevin's question is what motivates you ? Mine is what are you unconsciously Optimizing for ? When I coach people , it's very important for me to know where their GPS is headed .

What , what destination did they plug in , and what you figure out is that a lot of times , people's goals Are outside of alignment with what they are currently unconsciously optimizing for .

So if your goal is to lose 20 pounds but you are unconsciously optimizing for comfort , you are in some serious trouble because you're gonna have to get uncomfortable to lose 20 pounds .

I love the name . Yes .

And he said I want to do what you guys are doing . I was okay . I was okay , if you couldn't pick us , who would you pick ? And there's a , an entrepreneur speaker Author named Gary V , gary Vaynerchuk . And he said I'd like to be like Gary V , because that's why I was shooting for at the time .

And I said , okay , and we dug , and we dug , and we dug and I said , on a scale of one to ten , how important it is , how important is it for you to not only have a family , have children , but be present and let's just say hypothetically , get your kids off the bus and how important is that to you . And he's like oh , dude , it's so important .

And we I kept asking questions

like that and I said I Don't , I can't claim to know what it's like to be Gary V . I don't know . I know what it's like to have our quote-unquote level of success and I can only imagine what it's like to be him .

But I said , brother , my fear for you is you're gonna invest the next three to twenty years of your life and You're gonna end up getting a result that you don't desire . If you want to get your kids off the bus , you're not gonna be an international speaker most likely .

Now I wasn't trying to reign on his parade and I wasn't saying it's not possible for you . When we first started this , I I told Alan , I said I don't want to travel for more than a week out of the month and we I don't think we ever have so Right , will we get opportunities later to do that in life ? I'm sure will we do it more ?

Maybe I don't know , but we'll see . So there is a way maybe to make that work .

But the conversation we had was I think you are motivated by impact , but why can't you just stay on the NLU team and get more impact that way and still get the other things that you actually value in life , like quality time with your loved ones , starting a family , that type of thing ?

Because my fear is , if you go the route we've gone , you're , you might not have those opportunities , you might not be able to live the life that you want . Because you're optimizing for what I want , you're optimizing , you're setting up , setting up your life based on what we want .

Because I wonder if you ever would have came up with that if you weren't on the team of podcasters . And he said , yeah , no , you're right man . And then he ended up stopping the podcast shortly thereafter , which some people might say , oh , that's sad . He stopped the podcast ?

Yeah , it is because he was , he seemed to be enjoying it and he was impacting people . But If it's not as aligned as him not doing it , then it doesn't make sense to do it .

I Thought that was really powerful .

You can , you can want it , but in the reality and this comes back to the want , love , hate

episode that we did a while back it's just a simple framework , w L , h and it's . If what Brandon wanted to was to have Gary V level impact what he loved was podcasting and impacting people . What he hated was not being able to pick up his kids on the bus every day that is gonna be misaligned . Yeah , it's gonna be misaligned , if that's a non-negotiable .

Now , when you mentioned that , kev , the level of impact I intend to have , the amount of success , health , wealth , love that I'm optimizing for , that I'm motivated to achieve Am I gonna be able to get my kids off the bus ? And and my practical answer is if I really , really , really , really wanted to , I probably could make it work .

I'm not super concerned if I'm not the one getting them off the bus , I'm just not . And so it all comes down to what are you unconsciously optimizing for ? What is your Paradigm ? Is it family first ? Is it fitness first ? Is it Wealth first ? Is it success first ? Is it significance first ?

And I think that you have to have an honest conversation with yourself because , yeah , maybe when I was a teenager , significance is what I wanted , but if I'm still running that same paradigm as a 34 year old man , or that old pattern , I might be in trouble . So you got to recheck in . I now understand .

Ever since I met Emilia this is a good example I Used to optimize for success over love . When I was in my early 20s and my teens , achievement mattered to me more than love , at least my actions to show that I'm not . I think deep , deep , deep down , love probably mattered more and I probably thought that achievement would get me love or whatever .

But the point I'm making is now . There's no question Emilia and my relationship with Emilia is way more important to me than any short-term success , and fortunately I'm with a partner .

I was just talking to her earlier because I have to move something from tomorrow , because Kevin and I are Going to record tomorrow , and I said thank you so much for being so supportive , because I'm very overwhelmed right now , and it's so nice to have another achiever , who's my intimate partner , because I'm free to fly .

And those are the exact words I used , like thank goodness , you're an achiever too , because she gets it . She gets it , and Whatever was motivating

you maybe a year ago , five years ago , ten years ago , what if that's changed ? And what if what you're doing and not doing on a daily basis is no longer aligned ? And I think that , checking in with what you're optimizing for similar to Tucker optimizing for Emilia , tariel optimizing for food or Tilly optimizing for love which one are you optimizing for ?

Or are you just running that same old pattern , even though it's not aligned anymore ?

So if you're , if you're motivated and it might sound counterintuitive but if you're motivated by not getting judged , you're never gonna do anything that creates the opportunity to get judged and you're gonna get stuck in this pattern of I am motivated by avoiding discomfort , pain , fear , whatever it is , and then you're gonna get Stuck there , unfortunately .

So that's a really good place to start . What are you motivated to avoid ? That would be my next level nugget , because that might , if it's for me . For a long time it was uncertainty , and I still don't enjoy uncertainty very much , but I would . I was very motivated to avoid it . I was really good at making excuses that would create the certainty .

So if somebody said you want to do this and I was super uncertain , I might just say no . Um , I'm motivated to say no . I'm motivated to avoid uncertainty . I'm motivated to not look at those fears . So maybe that might be a good , valuable question to ask yourself . That would be my next level nugget For .

So , yeah , a lot of times what we really want in life and what's going to fulfill us is on the other end of facing whatever that fear is . For him , it's uncertainty , it's risk , it's taking a chance , it's being judged , it's getting negative reviews , whatever it might be .

My next level nugget would be life is a dance between your deepest fears and your deepest desires . A lot of times , what we desire most is going to force us to face what we fear most . And are you more motivated by the life you really want or are you playing not to lose and avoiding your fears , which is very similar to yours ?

Or I would have been able to get more results in the stuff that I actually wanted .

It starts next week , next Tuesday , so Friday , Saturday , Sunday , Monday , Tuesday , four days from today . If you're listening to this episode , with the discount code , you will get 30% off the total purchase price and it ends up being $96 a month . So we have a payment plan where you can pay over the course , so you don't have to pay all at once as well .

And we're going to talk about life overall . We're going to talk about love , health and wealth A lot of the things we talk about here on the podcast , but at a deeper , more specific level , because it's only you and nine other people . You will be safe , you will be welcomed and you belong there . So please join if you haven't had the opportunity to yet .

So many things shared today not that I shared , but that were shared . I will definitely be joining again , not next Saturday as I will be out of town , but hoping for the following week . Thanks again for being so inviting and for creating a very safe and comfortable environment to open up and share with the group . Awesome Exclamation point . Exclamation point .

Exclamation point . That is exactly what we want at Book Club A safe environment to learn and to share . So if you want to join Book Club , it's every Saturday 12 30 PM , eastern Standard Time . I want to say Eastern Time , so I don't know why it needs to be Eastern Standard Time , eastern Time .

The registration link will be in the show notes and I hope that you join us . And again , you can completely keep your camera off , you can keep your mic muted , you don't have to have read the book , you don't have to be all caught up on the chapters and all that . You can just join , share as much or as little as you'd like .

It is a very safe space and we hope to see you there .

So what I've been trying to do recently is look back at old content and see what you enjoyed as a listener , community member , and try to revisit that topic with our new awareness , to add more value , because maybe you were struggling with then , struggling with it then , maybe somebody else is struggling with it now , who knows ?

So that's what we're going to talk about tomorrow . As always , we love you , we appreciate you , grateful for each and every one of you , and at NLU we do not have fans , we have family . We'll talk to you all tomorrow .