Skip Prichard on Mistakes and Success

recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes just consistent and creative effort

to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Skip Pritchard. Skip is the fifth president of O C l C, a global library cooperative that supports thousands of libraries and making information more accessible and more useful to people around the world.

Among skips many passions is his Leadership Insides blog, where he interviews authors and thought leaders and shares his views on a number of topics. His new book is The Book of Mistakes, Nine Secrets to Creating a Successful Future. High Skip, Welcome to the show. Thank you, glad to be here. It's a pleasure to have you on. We are sitting in the company that you are, the CEO of o c LC. You've got a little studio here, and so we're getting to record here, which is really great.

And it's interesting because my mom worked here years ago, so kind of a fun place for me to be right now, full circle, How long ago was that? That would have been in the eighties. I was probably like twelve. Well it's changed quite a bit since then, but our mission remains the same of supporting libraries around the world. And as listeners of the show, no, there's nothing I love more than a library, So good to hear that. Yes, my favorite places in the world. All right, well, let's

start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson, and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. What is a good wolf which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second, except as grandfather. He says, well, grandfather,

which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that paarable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well. To me, I think it is such a powerful reminder that what we put into our mind and what we put into our spirit is manifested in our life throughout all the input is what it's going to come out and output. And I think that we need to feed ourselves the best, feed ourselves the positive and uh, you see it over and over.

I mean I've just witnessed it in my entire life, my life story, the people I interview, the people who are consistently feeding that positive wolf, it's going to be a completely different outcome than those who don't. Yeah, it's such a important thing. And I was originally drawn to the parable heard about it when I was early in recovery, and it just it struck me as such a powerful thing. And it remains so today, this idea of you know, what you focus on is what what grows? You know.

I've been I've been reading the Dalai Lama has a multi part series on you introduction to Buddhism, and you know that was the Buddhist thing, right, it was the inclination of your mind. It is, It's certainly there, and you see it in most of the major religions and thoughts. Christianity will say as a man thinketh so he is, etcetera.

And you'll see it in in writings throughout the world, ancient world and modern world, because our thoughts translate into actions and behaviors, and and it just flows into our life no matter where we are, if we change what goes into our mind, it will change where we go. I remember zig Ziggler, I interviewed his son yesterday talking and he used to say that you can change where you are and what you are by changing what goes into your mind. And it's that same idea, and so

what do you want to put into your mind? And why we allow these things to come into our mind without being deliberate and mindful about what they are. We shouldn't just let someone just take over and just dump into our minds without being very cognizant of what is this? And do I really want this in my mind because it's going to show up and make a difference in

my life at some point. Yeah, And you know, listeners of the show know that I am not an unqualified proponent of positive thinking, right I'm I'm more a proponent of realistic thinking. But what I find so interesting is that almost all the time, there are multiple interpretations to any situation. And I try to remind myself if I am making an interpretation up, which is what we're doing most of the time anyway, why not choose one that brings me closer to the person I want to be

in the qualities I want to embody. Well, it's true. I think part of the journey of life is to realize that the lens is that you look at the world through is unique to you, and everyone's not looking at that same lens. And so if I look at it and say, instead of me imposing my lens on you. I want to understand your lens a little bit more, and yet I want to feed the good side. I want to feed the positive and kind of make the

turn that way. I want to look at you with positive intent I want to look at you with positive intentions. So I'm not going to immediately assume the negative and immediately assume you know this is the way it is, because oftentimes if I ask some questions, I realized, oh, Eric's looking at it through this lens, and that can actually help me. And so I'm going to learn to change my lens, maybe broaden my lens, and look at

the world in a completely different way. Yeah. One of the things that you mentioned in your book, and we're going to talk more about the book in a minute, but very early on you talked about one of the things that you learned early on was to look at everybody as a teacher. Everybody as a teacher. It doesn't matter where you go, what status in life they are, whether they are homeless, where they are mega successful, whether

the server in your restaurant, the flight attendant. They have something they can teach you, and I'm always interested in knowing what is that and how can I get that quickly because, um, just a little bit of refinement in my thinking or the way I look at things could

be all that it matters. Right. So it's just sometimes you're you're off course just two degrees and somebody runs into you and you just recorrect one degree and you're like, you know what, I can be a little bit more grateful in my life because that person is just overflowing with joy and I'm gonna try to emulate that person smile because I'm not smiling enough and or wow, you know that that person really is making a connection with me.

How do I how do I emulate that? And it just changes your thinking just one degree and that's all you need. So the book is called The Book of Mistakes, Nine Secrets to Creating a Successful Future. And I have to tell you I started reading the book. Um My mom l a couple of weeks ago and broke her shoulder and was in the hospital and I was taking an emergency flight back from Atlanta. I've had a ton

of interviews. I was really tired, and I was like, I got a grind a book out on the flight, and I was so relieved that it was like a story I have to say like I just because what I was craving at that moment was I would just love to read something like fiction, because I mean, I read nonfiction stuff at a frantic clip for this job, and I'm not complaining. And so when I picked it up and I read was like, oh this is a story,

I was so happy. So I'm glad to hear thank you. Well, you know, I I read like you do a lot for work, a lot to interview people, a lot to take in the information. But I was thinking about it and trying to write something that my daughter, who's twenty one, would want to read. She does not want to read these nonfiction heavy psychology business books. She wants to just be entertained, and so I thought, how do we entertain you? I was thinking about Jerry Seinfeld's why she has these

cook books that sneak in vegetables. Have you seen this for kids? So it's like zucchini and the chocolate chip cookies like genus, right, And that's kind of what I was trying to do, like sneak in the principles into a story where you're getting these healthy things, but you almost don't realize that as you go. Yep, yep. So we're not going to get through all nine mistakes, but

we're going to get through some of them. But I wanted to start first because very early you talk about a riddle that has perplexed you in your life and that you've always been trying to answer, And I think it is one of my fundament I think there's a few fundamental questions that orient my life and and this one is one of them, which is why the two people seem to have very different responses to the same circumstances.

You know, as a recovering addict, I've asked this question hundreds of times as I've gone Why did I get sober and people that I loved and cared about died? You know, they seem to be they seem to be trying to do what I was doing. They seem to be and so it's a it's a riddle that that I am always intrigued by, and I don't think there's easy answers. But but when you said that, I was immediately that's a kindred spirit because that's the question I'm

looking for. And I often ask guests that question really directly, Like you know, we have guests come on talk about post traumatic growth? All right, what's the difference between somebody has post traumatic growth and somebody has post traumatic stress disorder? What's the difference between people who are yuh, come out of difficult events stronger, better, more compassionate people versus people who become embittered and stay that way. So no easy answer,

but what what do you think? It's the study of my life. I said in that introduction. Our family took people in. They were abandoned, addicted, and abused, and they all had problems, that was the common theme. And as they had these struggles, as they had these challenges, you'd see somebody who would get off drugs, would get a job, would go to school and be successful. Because some of them lived with us for years. It wasn't like a night.

And then others would get back in that cycle of addiction or go back to an abusive situation in some cases, and you think, what in the world are you doing? And so that became a fascinating studies for me, and through the success literature, through psychology, through business, what is this right? It's the same with companies, some kind of cycle through these bad things. Others can move on, and um,

I think there's a range of things. I've interviewed over a thousand people, and I thought I had interviewed a lot of people. It's it's it's a constant thing and a whole range of backgrounds and lifestyles. And I really came up with these nine themes of things that people would kind of fall into, these traps, and if they mastered these nine themes, they tended to be more successful than not. So the answer to that riddle for me is the Book of Mistakes and these nine secrets that

can create a successful future. Excellent. So let's jump into Actually not yet, We're not going into the mistakes yet, because there was another line that you had that totally floored me. And so and it's the it's the second one of the second fundamental questions that I always ask. And you have a line that says, success is when you're filled with ambition and peace in equal measure at the same time. Because I'm always asking the question, how

do you balance these things right? Because on one hand, I'm so influenced by Buddhist thought, and you know, Buddhist thoughts sort of says and this is a vast oversimplification and reduction, but to some extent, the fact that you crave all this stuff out there is why you suffer. If you didn't, it wouldn't suffer as much, which seems to me absolutely true. And yet it seems there's this innate, built in thing to all of nature for more, more, grow, grow,

grows what the universe seems to do. So I've always felt these balancing you know, this question of how do I want to become a better person and be completely content with the way things are at this moment? And so I loved that phrase successes when you're filled with ambition and peace in equal measure at the same time.

So how do you strike that balance? Yeah, I look at it as that Buddhist piece, as the goal for many people and the Protestant work ethic that kind of formed the country of the United States and large parts of the Western world, and putting both of the good parts of those things together, because you want to have this growth, right, All all of nature is growth, All of this striving is to grow. I asked people, you know, if you go to um I was at Redwood, uh force,

if you're in mere woods. And it reminds me of this line from Jim Rown, how high does the tree grow answer as tall as it can And that's what nature does. And so success to me is that perfect harmony between this drive and peace. And if you you'll know if you're off measure with that, You'll know, like, I have this drive, I have this innate push, and it's it's agitating me. I'm not in the right place.

I don't feel peaceful. You'll also know if you go over too far and you're at quote perfect peace and so relaxed, not the perfect piece that you're really seeking, because you'll realize your equilibriums off and you're not growing, and then sooner or later that peace won't last long because you'll feel like, wait a minute, I'm atrophying. I'm not I'm not to where I need to be. And so getting that just right and keeping that going between those two things, to me is what success is all about.

That I'm growing and I'm peaceful in perfect now perfect measure at the same time. And you know what you know when you're there and you know people that are there because you can sense it, You're like, you're you're in your zone, You're you're just where you need to be. Why is that you start asking them and it changes for them. It may change in day to day, month to month. But you know when people are there and you sense a calmness, you sense a confidence in those

people because they have those two things in balance. Let's start with some of the mistakes, and the one I want to start with this mistake number three, which is accepting excuses. I find accepting excuses to be one of the most dangerous impediments to you being successful and fulfilled. And I remember one of the times it really became evident to me. Rich Gaspari was here in Columbus. He was a former Mr Universe. He was competing at the

Arnold and I was down there to interview him. He was actually coming out with a book called No Excuses, and he was determined to be on the cover of the bodybuilding magazines again decades after appearing on them before. And of course now he was the CEO of Gaspari Nutrition, which is in all of the nutritional stores, and he was a corporate executive and had a successful entrepreneurial business.

And I thought, how is that possible, you know, decades later, because most of us would say, we have excuses, you know, little arthritis, a little tired I got, you know, the kids. Whatever of that excuses it's kind of built in, and we tend to have people around us who justified those excuses, who say, oh, yeah, you know you're this or that, and he was just no, I would accept absolutely no excuses. And it really struck me. And if you if you look at the theme, if you research people who have

had success, they just don't accept excuses. Right, take your story of overcoming you know you can get off of drugs. You I'd watch these people that were through our house, Um, get off of drugs. There are addictions. The ones who didn't would often have a built in excuse of why they would come back to it. The successful people, whether it's in business, whether it's in bodybuilding, running sports, whatever it is, they don't accept excuses. They had this built

in personal accountability. They say it's up to me and that is extraordinary and they use all these things as a way to propel their goals. Um. I think of Christy Wellington, she's the greatest female endurance athlete of our day, she has won so many triathletes. Well, she gets hit by a car when she was competing to run, and that would be an excuse, right, for any of us would say, well, you know, hit by a car, what am I supposed to do? You know what she did?

She says, Oh, this is a perfect time for me to take up swimming. Well, that was actually the impetus for her to become the greatest triathlete. She hadn't even done triathlons. That mentality of I'm not accepting an excuse. This was put into my life as a as a barrier for me to learn something, for me to grow, for me to respond to, for me not to just let it kind of kill my route, but for allowing

me to just kind of grow a different direction. That mentality is extremely powerful and we can cultivate it, right, So feeding that side, we can cultivate either one of those And that's what you see, you know, your whole podcast. You can either feed the excuse or feed the personal accountability. Your choice. Yep. And I think this is an interesting and because I am a big believer in personal responsibility. But people hear that, and what they hear is blame.

There's a lot of listeners of this show, and you experience this with your family and child. There's a lot of people listen to this show. If they told us their story right now, it would make my skin crawl, right I the heartbreak of the people who listen, right, I know it's out there, and so people like that will often you know, and we've all got our hardship. And so when I when I say a responsibility, people often think, but I'm not responsible for what happened to me.

I'm not responsible for the damage. And it's absolutely true. But the thing I always come back to is there's nobody except you that can work on the healing. Nobody else will do that. And so again it's not a responsible it's not a blame, but you're the only one that can do it. You're the only one that can that can decide. I want to overcome, as hard as it is, I want to overcome Eric. I. I feel that because we would see horrific stories and things that

people should never have to go through. And so in putting that, in saying you know, let's let's have personal responsibility, accountability, it doesn't make light of it. It doesn't mean you don't need therapy before. It doesn't mean that you need to to kind of wrestle with some very difficult dark times that were put on you. But that happened. Now,

what are you going to do about it? And whether it's personal things that happened, or even in the corporate world, the most powerful thing to do is take charge of it move forward. I'll give you an example in a company I was running, I won't name which one, but somebody walked into the business meeting that we had lost a major client in. Came an email to me and it said, as the leader of the organization, it said, this person is to blame. This person was horrible, you know,

just on and on and on. That person had them to be coming in to present to us that Monday, not a very good timing. And instead of blaming, he walked in and said, I take full accountability for this. I did this, this, and this wrong. I'm learning from this on my own dime. I've purchased a plane ticket. I'm going to fly out to that client and I am going to apologize. I know that I can't win them back right now, but I'm going to win back

that business this year. I'm going to sign up and have a coach and use this as a way to get better. On and on and on. I mean, we were floored. You know what happened people walked into that meeting thinking this is somebody who's really, you know, a terrible, horrible person, And instead that person got a round of applause because it was so unbelievable that he took accountability

for the issue and was going to do something about it. So, whether it's personal or companies or whatever, it's that ability to say what's past is past, it's it's happened, But how can I take that, use it, make it better and and help grow both me and the people around me.

It becomes an extraordinary thing. And it's easy to get stuck in the past and what happened, and in many cases, in many cases moving on, it's not And so we want to surround and say, wow, if I was in your situation, there's no way that I could do this and the other I would melt, I would roll up into a ball, et cetera. I get that, and and there's a time to help people kind of cope through that. But then we also need to help people. Okay, now it's time to get up. Now we're gonna have to

start walking again, and let me help you through that process. Yep, yep, yeah. And it's it's not fair and it's not a level playing field. But again, at the end of the day, there's just a point where if not you, then who right? And the answer really is, unfortunately usually no one right. You have to take those first steps. There's something else that you talk about during that UM chapter. I'm just gonna read it. UM. You say, each of us has

a microphone inside our head. It's the most important microphone in the world. But we leave it unguarded. We let anyone step up and just blast us with negativity. The most successful people the ones who don't accept excuses. They guard that microphone like their security at a bank vault. The microphone in our mind is so very important to everything. It's the key into our subconscious mind. And we have a voice inside and it's our own voice at that microphone.

And then we let other people step up and take charge of that microphone. So so I may think the microphone in front of me in your podcast interview right now is the most important. In fact, this microphone in my mind is so important. I need to protect it. I need to guard it. I need to think about what is it saying? And am I going to allow this track? What we we let the track play? So What happens is we have these um loops that come on, right, and these loops just kind of come back to us

and come back to us. Now, wouldn't it be awesome if the loop said, Eric, you are so awesome today, nothing, nothing is going to stop you. Right? But how often does that loop come on? Probably not very often. The ones that tend to hook us, at least for me, are the negative ones of doubt, of concerns, somebody saying something negative, something somebody said once that is sticking there and you go to you go to give a talk, and somebody in your head is saying, you know, you're

not very good at openings or whatever. Right, this negative stuff, So we need to guard it, and we need to be conscious of it, and we need to be deliberate of it, and we need to control it. Right, So I learned you can actually hear that loop. And I will sometimes visualize an old set recording. I'll go over and change the tone of it, warp it out, and then I'll go and hit pause on that hit stop.

Then I'll flip over that cassette in my mind and I'll put on the positive one to say, well, you heard that skip and that's just not the way it is. Because I'm going to tell you the way it really is now. I'll do that deliberately. Some people think that's ridiculous. It's actually very very important because you control that microphone and you can allow yourself these excuses. But part of

it is you're letting that tape play. And the people who have caused you pain, why are you going to allow them to cause you pain today by allowing those negative loops play? Stop it, flip the cassette tape over. For those not knowing what cassette tapes are, what's a modern analogy? Here, hit hit the hit the shuffle button on your iPhone. I don't know, all right, change the channel, put something else on, put up, put on some great music that's gonna just rock your world, that gives you energy.

Anything like that to to change and guard that microphone in your mind, because it it's too important. We just leave it on guarded and we don't think about it. We think, oh, that's fine, and and we just it plays over and over thousands of times. Yeah, I think that, you know, anybody who spends much time in meditation will quickly realize that we are receiving most of our experience, we are not creating. It is showing up. You know,

you can't control what shows up. But but then we can take control from that point of do I want to allow it to happen? Do I want to do? I want to let that tape play? And I love the analogy of thinking of as a cassette tape you

change or um. The guys who pioneered acceptance and commitment therapy, they'll talk about like giving it a name, like you know that there's you know, there's there's Bob talking again, you know, and you imagine you know job, or you turn that voice into a ridiculous voice, or it's always of getting it's all. There are always of sort of stepping back and realizing that that voice is not you. It is just a habitual thinking loop that happens. That happens,

that happens. And the more ways that we can and you have to experiment with him, which one's helped me to disconnect, which one's you know, the tape analogy is a great one. Or assuming it's like the bad news announcer, right and giving him a voice. Whatever we can do.

But and it can be frustrating because at least in my experience, and and it's it's better now, But there were periods of my life where it was like, all right, I changed the tape and here thirty seconds later, here it is like, oh for crying out loud all day long. But that's the way the brain works and changing. Like we have the soundboard in front of us. If you could just turn one of them up, I would turn them up to like Alvin and the Chipmunks level if it was this deep voice, and I would turn it

way up. And there's whatever technique works. But I'm with you on that. But it it makes a measurable difference. But you have to be conscious of it. And you can't just accept it. You have to um let it play and then let it stop and change it and change change that recording, change that loop. You don't want to leave it on one that's negative, that is feeding

the wrong side for sure. Yep. I gave a talk last night about my entrepreneurial journey at a at a university here in Ohio, and um there's a I titled the talk Start where you are use what you have, do what you can. It's an Arthur ash quote and I think it applies to this, no excuses. Right start where you are, use what you have, do what you

can like from wherever we're starting. Whatever the the issue is, or whatever the baggage or the challenge or the thing that we want to accomplish, there's a way to start right where we are. There's a way to use exactly what we are. You know, who we are, all our circumstances, everything, they're all part of the path. Well, I think that's part of what makes it so interesting. If you look at everyone's a teacher because everyone's been through this experience.

And if if you're going through your day and saying, everyone's a teacher, everyone's here to add something to my thinking, to the way I'm approaching things, then you are starting where you are and you're adding those little micro adjustments that changes your day. Yep. Absolutely, all right, let's move on to another mistake, and I'm going to jump to mistake number six, which is allowing temporary setbacks to become permanent failures. Well, I wasn't that a big one? Uh,

temporary setbacks becoming permanent failures. There are some people, entrepreneurs especially, who often don't fall into this. They see everything as just this is a temporary setback, no big deal. Some people have this resilience mindset. Um grit we can read about in the literature is the key to this one. And successful people have grit. They are not going to allow a temporary setback stop them. I think about Jennifer

far Davis. I interviewed Jennifer far Davis. She won the record for traversing the Appalachian Trail two thousand plus miles. She was the fastest, and they said to her, a woman can't win. A hiker can't win. Someone going from north to south can't win. And she had all kinds of things. Her eyes were frozen shut, she was attacked by animals, snakes, insects, broke bones. It doesn't matter what happened, she said, where you could have flipped back and made

him an excuse. These are temporary setbacks. They are not going to stop me. And she went right along to break the record, which she helped for many many years. I think it was just broken a year or two ago. This is a mindset of grit and determination that you want to develop inside yourself to say this is my goal. I am not going to let things stop me. I am going to be determined whether it's this business I'm arting, whether it is a relationship that I'm repairing, whether it

is a personal goal of mine. I am going to develop a resilience that no matter what comes at me, I'm going to look at it as this is a temporary setback. I'm not going to let it define me as a failure, and I'm going to learn from it. I'm going to find another way. I'm going to do this. This is why many of the most successful entrepreneurs often have had two or three setbacks along the way, and then they hit it in the big in their big kind of way with the business that works for them

or that's most natural. So, um, yeah, this is something I think it's very important to cultivate. This this grit like determination that says I'm not going to let this stop me along the way. Yeah. I was to reference my talk again last night. It's obviously fresh in my

mind because I gave it. I was talking about how in entrepreneurial circles, everybody talks about failure now fail fail fail fail fast fail often that that, and it's true, what most of those things leave out is that how it really hurts, like and So this one is interesting because I think we think allow a temporary setback not to become a permanent failure means we just this stuff just rolls off our shoulders like it's nothing. It's not. That's not been my experience. Right when I have failed

or things have not gone my way, it takes. It hurts, it doesn't feel good, it takes digging a little bit deeper and going, like you said, all right, I'm not gonna let this stop me. But but I think often in the success literature, we just make it sound like we should just roll through this stuff, you know, unphased. And that's not been my experience. And I think so when people get phased, they think, oh, I must not have it. And it's not that it's of course you hurt.

Of course it discourages you. Of course all those things happen. But now what it'll be many years before AI takes the emotion away from this experience, and you do want to live through the emotion. You do want to feel it. In fact, it's the greatest teachers, So you don't want to speed through it. And yet having that grit mindset, having this way through is is such an important way because you're going to help others, You're going to grow yourself. And how fast can you bounce back from that? How

fast can you keep going? And and or can you still experience some of that pain and yet still have forward momentums? Right? Right, So it doesn't mean I'm stopped. I'm now way laid for three years. I can't do anything right. That would be a failure. Whereas I'm gonna

keep moving. You know what, I'm still in pain, I'm still not feeling right, this is still hurting, and and yet despite that foot forward, next step, next step, and um, and that's not easy, right, But how do you keep going through despair, through depression, through failure, whatever it is, personally, whatever it's, How do I keep going? That's not an easy thing. But having that resilience and that mindset of

I'm gonna keep going through pain. I've seen it over and over and it's you know, you see it obviously with athletes who keep playing, but you see it with people who are masking emotional pain, whether they're Latin masking business pain, competitive whatever it is, and and they're still moving forward. And there's something that you have to admire

from that. Of course, one of the greatest examples that we could possibly have comes this week because we've just witnessed this incredible comeback from Tiger Woods, who did not let temporary setbacks become a permanent failure. He was back again, back again, back again, and he was teeing off over and over until he came back. That is the definition of not letting a temporary setback become a permanent failure.

It's really easy to to see a setback as this just isn't gonna work, right, Like I have to watch that mindset and myself with with business, which is like, all right, that didn't we we did that thing and and almost nobody signed up and almost nobody wanted it, which means nobody wants anything, which is of course not true. It's like, okay, what's you know? All right, let me adjust this, let me adjust that, right, And so often it's just that it didn't work this time, you know.

And I think the Tiger Woods analogy is a good one, right, all right, I played in another tournament and you know, I didn't even make the cut. Laid in another tournament doesn't mean you'll never make the cut. It just means you didn't this time. And so what do you learn, etcetera. And what happened all the naysayers and critics on last Friday? And now they're all gone, and now every about a

celebrating him. Right. It's so, you know, people are also quick to come alongside us and justify our excuses and say oh yeah, you know, and kind of wallow in that with you. Much better to find someone who's going to be with you and help you through some of that stuff, to say, let's try again, let's get to

the next hill, let's let's keep your going forward. Ye. I've really been interested in this topic of emotional regulation lately and and it it seems to be a term for me that encapsulates so much of what we're talking about, because in my mind, emotional regulation is recognize what I'm feeling, allow it to be there, and then act according to

my values. And and so for me, that is that is like this fundamental Whether it's you know, addiction, right, whether it's eating better, whether it's building a company, it's always the same. It's like, all right, here's the negative emotion. We had a guest on the thing that clicked in my mind. We had a guest who's a he's a professor and the thing he studies is procrastination, and he said that procrastination is largely a matter of not being able to regulate your emotions in the same way that

addiction is. It's giving in to feel good. And the light kind of went off for me, and I was like, in't that kind of everything? It is kind of everything, And you know, it's fascinating you've been studying that recently because I have in a different way as well. I've been watching personality and reactions to things and even inside of myself to say, wait, I'm coming way out here and I'm trying to put a color on it, and I'm like, wow, I'm showing up, you know, maybe really hot,

really red, really intense. I don't intend to do that. How do I change that? I want to show up more blue, more serene, more cool with this and take that level down. The key is whether it's color, whatever you're using volume is it. Are you showing up to the people in the room deliberately, intentionally and let them be tools in your belt of Oh no, I want to show up right on this one, or um, I'm

gonna show up soft green. It just depends and and the ability to manage that and show up in the way that makes the most difference, because what are you really looking for. You're looking for influence, and how do your best influence. When you have the best self regulation first for yourself, you're gonna be able to influence others. If you're out of control, not regulating, you forget your influence.

Everybody's looking at you as a mess, right yeah, yeah, it is about that, and that's why I love that the two parts of it. One is recognize what you're feeling emotionally, allow it to be. It's this is not suppression, This is not like, oh I don't feel. But then decide who do I want to be? Act according to my values? Who do I want to be in this situation?

And I just so, we are quickly running out of time, and I think that we are going to wrap up this conversation, but you and I are going to talk about some of the other mistakes in our post show conversation. I could talk to you Eric. I forgot that we were even doing a show. I know, I know, I feel like we should have like a four hour episode, but but my Chris, Chris will have a heart attack if I let it go a whole lot longer. So UM,

thank you so much. We're gonna talk in the post show conversation about at least mistake five, which is staying in your comfort zone and listeners, if you want to hear the post show conversations, get a free UM mini episode every week where I talk about a teaching, a song and a poem that I am inspired by. You can go to one you Feed dot net slash support and become a member there. SKIP thanks so much, Thank

you for having me. It's been a pleasure by If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to one you Feed dot net slash Support. The One you Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show