Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Danielle Cobo: Are you feeling burnt out or disconnected? If so, this episode is your blueprint for aligning your career with your deepest desires. Today we're joined by high performance coach, Andrew Pierce. He bears all about his 2021 burnout crisis, revealing how chasing someone else's dream left him unfulfilled.
Andrew shares how to tune into your intuition to distinguish between forced desires and true callings. In this episode, you'll learn how willingness can be your secret weapon to overcome fear and achieve unstoppable success.
Danielle Cobo: Andrew, I was reading your story and you have been a high performance coach since 2014. So if there's anybody that knows how to overcome anxiety and stress and burnout, it's definitely you because you work with high performers. However, What I read in your story is that in 2021, you found yourself in a situation where you were experiencing burnout and overwhelm and stress, and it was affecting your business.
Can you share with our listeners a little bit about your personal story?
Andrew Pearce: Yeah, absolutely, Danielle. So for me, it was the end of 2020. So we were in, the early stages, mid phases of, COVID. And I'd had a good year. However, I had still, I wasn't creating business in the way that I wanted to, I really wanted.
The flow and the ease and the receiving and the results showing up, and despite 2020 still being a decent year, there was still the element of me pushing and chasing and doing some, figuring out. And, early 2021, I'd, moved back to Bali. My friend was having some success with,
online webinars and I'm like, Oh yes, although the lowest hanging fruit, I'm like, yep, I'm going to go after that and make that happen. Even though at the time I could feel within my body, I'm like, this isn't what I actually want to be doing. It's just an idea that I can see the potential of and I'm going to make it happen and go after it.
and so I did for a little bit until I really came to the point. I'm like, I don't want to be doing. I don't want to be pushing and making stuff happen in this way. I want to, I want to tap into that, flow and that, ease and that receptivity. And so I made the commitment to myself to trust and follow and prioritize my inner peace,which in the early phases of doing so, even though internally I was feeling more and more at peace, my external world didn't seem to be matching my efforts just yet.
in fact, I had to sell some shares to, pay rent and things of that nature. but I stuck the course of trusting what felt true within myself and within my body. And eventually things began to turn around. I see this
Danielle Cobo: a lot with entrepreneurs or even working in corporate where we see somebody else's success.
And then we believe that in order for us to be successful, we should be emulating what that person is doing. However, it may not align with our core values or what is fulfilling to us in what we enjoy, and then it becomes a misalignment and I can see why if, you fell on yourself in that situation.
Where you're chasing what somebody else is doing, but it's not what you want to do. It's counterintuitive. we definitely don't feel fulfilled. We don't enjoy it as much. And we're not going to reap the financial benefits because it's not in alignment with what we
Andrew Pearce: enjoy. Yes, totally. Yeah. And that was the situation for me.
So what steps
Danielle Cobo: did you take when you were experiencing this misalignment and saying, I know that this particular person is having success with their business and approaching it this way, but it's not what I necessarily want to do. How did you get it back on track so that you could be in the positive within your business business while also being in alignment with what it's fulfilling for you?
Andrew Pearce: Yeah, so first step was I got clear on what I actually wanted. A thing that I teach people is a distinction between actual desires and forced desires. And a forced desire is something that comes from fear. And the thing is, creating from force still works. People can create from force, but anything that's created from force will need to be sustained and maintained from force.
and a forced desire is a fear based desire. It's usually the lowest hanging fruit or something that you've seen someone else do that makes logical sense. It has societal influences and conditioning on it. The actual desire is it's the intuition. it's that guidance that you, don't know how it's going to work out just yet.
you can't see steps one through 10, but there's a felt sense within you. It's just like, Oh, what I actually want is I just want. ABC, I just want X, Y, and Z. So the first step that I took was checked in with myself. I knew that there'd be some fear, some judgment, some self doubt around the desire.
and I just checked in. I'm like, what do I actually want here? How do I actually want. business to happen. And in the process of setting that direction and getting honest with myself, I had the connection to the actual desire, which is a felt sense with this distinction, someone will be able to feel in their body, like, yeah, I can feel that that is forced.
And I can feel This is just what I want to flow. It's where the body opens up and there's some excitement. So the first step that I took was that, self honesty and set in that direction.
Danielle Cobo: And that's so important to listen to our intuition because so often we will look at something and say, this is what I should be doing, but if it doesn't feel right, And it doesn't align with, it doesn't feel intuitive to us, then that's again, where we know that misalignment, I know that one of the exercises I'll work with, when I'm working with my clients is.
To look at our business or if we're in our corporate environment and our job and write down specifically what are the activities that I enjoy doing and what are the activities that I do not enjoy doing either in my business or in my career and then it's looking at are there certain activities that I can delegate to somebody else or is it an opportunity to say this is what I'm doing and the activities that I love but Does this role support these particular activities, or is the area of my business supporting the activities that I enjoy doing?
So it's so important, as you're saying, to really look within ourselves and intuitively put those steps in place to build the type of business or job that we enjoy doing. Yeah, absolutely. You've talked a little bit about fear. Can you tell us more about, what are some pivotal moments to becoming unstoppable and overcoming that fear?
Andrew Pearce: Absolutely. So something else that I teach that's, so fundamental within just the fabric of the human experience is willingness. And, there is an ever fluctuating relationship between fear and willingness. If fear is greater than willingness, fear wins. If willingness is greater than fear, willingness wins.
And every single person. Has access to willingness, every single person has access to greater depths of willingness. And it's also, there's a very interesting conversation around where one is directing their willingness. So someone who burns themselves out, for example, and a key element of burnout being the energy that it takes to keep our emotions at bay and to fight our emotions on a daily basis.
they're not willing to slow down and sit with themselves and be with themselves. But they are willing to push on forward and take risks. You've got a lot of people in life who aren't willing to take risks. And so they go with the comfortable and the familiar. And so for me in this process of, developing the grit and the resilience, was a deep willingness to be with myself and to confront.
Some personal truths. So for example, there was, there was a question that was coming up of like, am I the loser in the group who can't get it together? And I know that if I'm asking that question, then I'm already feeling like that. which is a great insight into human behavior. If someone's asking a question of like, something of that nature, am I the loser in the group?
If the question is being posed, it's because the feeling's already in the body. And so with my willingness to look at those parts of myself and go to those depths, I faced the parts of myself that weren't in alignment with the new way in which I wanted to create and receive. And I think if someone's burned themselves out, they've got a willingness to take on risks and push, like I said, but their willingness is actually out of balance.
And I think. When it comes to grit and resilience and perseverance and stuff like that, I speak a lot to my clients about the fear of fear. It's not the facts that we fear, but the strong feelings and emotions associated when we are willing to be with ourself and be with our fear at depth. I think that is a superpower, an absolute unstoppable superpower, because if you're like, if I can go that low and handle it, which I have, then bring it on.
let's do it. There's not that fear of the dip. It's just like, I've been there. I've done it. I can handle it. And there's an absolute superpower in, in that type of experience.
Danielle Cobo: There is a big misconception for people that are very successful. And this is a question that I get quite often is I can never do what you do.
I can never be a speaker. I get so nervous on stage and I always respond. I still get scared. I still have a fear. I still get anxious and my hands get palmy and sweaty and. Those that are successful doesn't mean that they haven't had fear. I believe what you're saying is,we're going to experience fear and the value of sitting in that emotion and acknowledging it and recognizing it and then reminding ourselves the times that we have had fear and the steps that we've taken to overcome it and know that we've gone through it before helps us build the resilience to get through that fear again.
So as you were overcoming this fear and you were sitting in it and you were acknowledging it, recognizing it, what were some of the steps that you took to build the successful business that you have? And what advice do you give to our listeners? Today, who possibly are maybe considering taking a risk, who may be looking at other people and going, why are they more successful or have more friends?
Danielle Cobo: And I want to achieve those things, but they're still living a little bit, maybe in their comfort zone.
Andrew Pearce: so two things, I'll just add a little bit to the willingness is that with these, the, potential, like I was on the credit card at one point I had to sell some shares. I had a, what helped me in, continuing to follow and trust the internal piece that I was cultivating within was that I was willing to have to ask someone for money to buy a ticket to go back home, if that's what it got to.
I was willing to face. the shame and the embarrassment that would have come with that process. If I wasn't, I would have been, I would have gone back into forceful business. If I wasn't willing for the potential of that worst case scenario, I would have gone back into forceful business. I would have downgraded to a cheaper villa or something of that nature because I wasn't willing to face that potential risk.
So a step that was super helpful for me was exploring what's the worst case scenario here. And how willing am I to go the distance? because like I said, if I wasn't willing, a lot of people get caught up. I want it. I want it. Yes, I'm willing. And it's like wanting and willing are two very different things.
And, if I wasn't willing to face that potential risk, I would have avoided it and gone down a different path way sooner, you know? so there's that. The exploration of worst case scenarios and then being willing to go the distance. And then. I was really working on cultivating a deep felt sense of value, of embodied value, which required me being honest with myself about how valuable I felt I was, how valuable I felt my work was.
And so there were some admissions throughout the process of I think it's crap. I don't think it's all that good. I don't think I've got much to bring to the table. I don't feel like I've got much to offer. And I knew that throughout the process, that what was coming up was coming up to leave and be released because it was no longer in alignment with the intention that I'd set for myself.
And, yeah, the willingness to go the distance helped me to, trust the process. So those steps certainly helped in creating the I like how you
Danielle Cobo: brought up the willingness to ask. Because a lot of times there's this misconception that there's a weakness in asking for support, a weakness in asking for resources that we possibly might need if we want to go to that next level, or if we've found ourselves in a significant setback, and I see this for people that are Working in corporate environments, it could be they want to promote to the next level.
But are they taking that time and the willingness to ask what skills do I need to develop in order to get to that next step? where are my blind spots? Can you give me some transparency on maybe some blind spots that I may have that I can focus on developing? Would you be willing to mentor on sponsor me?
And as Entrepreneurs, the willingness to ask for guidance and mentorship from other people, but also the willingness to ask people, for support. If maybe we aren't achieving some of the goals that we want, we might need to get creative on, asking for referrals or creative ways of, different revenue streams within our businesses.
But I really like how you mentioned that willingness to ask. It's not a weakness. It's helping us get to the goals that we want.
Andrew Pearce: Totally. And something that will help, like, as you just said, like, it's not a weakness, something that will help someone be more comfortable asking for help is being willing to be seen as weak.
So if someone's like, I'm not willing to be seen as weak. And they associate asking for help and weakness together, and asking for help runs the potential risk of being seen as weak, and they're not willing for that, they'll shut down asking for help, even if it's the most logical thing for them to do moving forward.
So. If in that moment, they're like, all right, whatever I'm willing for the potential, not even a guarantee, but just the potential I'm willing for the potential of someone to judge me or see me as weak as a result of me asking for help. All of a sudden bang behavioral change and that person will then go and ask for help.
everyone's got willingness. It's just depending on where we're pointing it. And if someone's not willing to ask for help, then they need to understand that they are willing to tolerate their current circumstance. which is a whole nother can of worms that it opens up, but it's super powerful stuff.
Danielle Cobo: Okay. So say that again, because that is a profound statement If they're not willing to ask for help, then they're willing to remain within their current state.
Andrew Pearce: Yes. Yep. Said in another way. Another example is if someone is in a job that they hate, but they're unwilling to face the uncertainty.
Of leaving the job, being unemployed, starting their own business, and meaning that they don't do that, what they need to understand is that they are willing to tolerate a job that they hate where they're treated poorly. And the good thing about this bit of awareness is this lights a little fire. Under the, under the ass, because it's like, Ooh, I don't want to be that person.
I don't want to be, I don't want to be willing to tolerate that. And it's just like, well, you currently are, which is no shame, no judgment. It is what it is. But it, sets the wheels in motion for it to be like, okay, well. the scale begins to tip towards, I'm not willing to tolerate this anymore.
I am willing to face the uncertainty of change. All of a sudden, bam, things change. Willingness is so fundamental to human behavior.
Danielle Cobo: I can just feel my stomach turning, turning a little bit with that statement because it just hurts to even hear that statement. I can't even imagine if I was in a position either within a professional or personal life where I'm saying specifically, I know that these circumstances are not good.
I'm not happy. I'm not fulfilled. I'm burnt out. I'm overwhelmed. But I'm willing to stay in this state because I'm not willing to ask for help or not willing to make a change and to say that out loud to hear it and say it, that hurts.
Andrew Pearce: Yeah. Yeah.it can punch you in the guts. Yeah.
Danielle Cobo: That's the best way to describe it right now.
I feel like I just got punched in the guts of going, ouch, that's got to hurt. And it's a profound statement, but it's a real eye opener as to what are we willing to sacrifice the, willingness to possibly be viewed as. weak and asking for help, or are we willing to just stay in our current state and be unfulfilled and overwhelmed and burnt out and happy, but the interesting thing is when we look at some of the research that's out there, the research shows that a lot of people want to help, but they don't know.
How to help. And in actuality, when we help somebody else, we get an increase in dopamine, which is a, chemical that releases a happiness chemical within our brain. So when we help others, we get a release of dopamine. And so a lot of times when people say, I don't want to be a burden onto somebody else.
But in reality, when we ask for help, people. Get a release of dopamine and they fulfilled and happy be by helping somebody. So I believe that that's another shift that we get to make that it's not a sign of weakness. It's an opportunity to connect with somebody on a deeper level. It's an opportunity to learn from somebody.
It's an opportunity for somebody else to have, to experience joy and fulfillment because they are helping somebody else.
Andrew Pearce: Yeah, absolutely. it's an exchange. It's an exchange that, benefits both parties. yeah, when the willingness is, present. There's a shift in behavior and it's, this conversation's great because it will give the listeners a felt sense of the distinction between wanting and willing.
That's the eye opener. I think so many people that aren't experiencing the changes that they want are stuck in wanting, thinking that they're willing, but actually not being willing. But when you match your level of willingness with your level of desire, that's when you'll see the change. It really puts such a responsibility on self and kind of call out the excuses, the time, the money, the timing, the energy, energy got to get my mindset right, all of these things first.
And underpinning all of it is like if you're willing or not. And also that's something I want to throw in is that, not being willing is actually a statement of empowerment. There's no right or wrong. I've got a scale of willingness I've created. There's no right or wrong on the scale.
It's just where you are or are not. And to say, no, I'm not willing to stretch myself further right now is a statement of empowerment and, might be, what someone who's in a position of burnout needs more than anything else. That being willing to stretch themselves again and again and again, and it got themselves burnt out.
So just for everyone listening, when you're at a place of like, no, I'm not willing to do that. There's nothing wrong with that. There's no shame. it's a statement of empowerment and an honest answer as to where your willingness is at. Is the fastest way forward, because you can't, move forward in a nice, easeful flowing way when you're not being truthful with yourself.
Danielle Cobo: I want to add to that too, because you talk about, I'm not willing to add more onto my plate because of where I'm currently at right now. I'd also like to add that phrase of possibly what somebody might be thinking of adding onto the plate could be, that's just not a priority of mine right now.
There's a lot of times when people will say, well, I don't have time. Well, a lot of times we do have time. It's just that that particular task is not a priority for us at this time. There's, I could be spending my time. I remember at one point in my life when my husband was deployed and I had six year old twins at the time.
And I remember I had completely, I was sitting on the floor, my entire pantry is on the floor because I decided that it would be the right time to reorganize the pantry and make it this Pinterest worthy pantry and make it look all pretty, and then I looked around and saying, why did I do this?
Is this really a priority or is this causing burnout? Is it a want to do? Sure. I'd like to have this beautiful pantry, but is it something that needs to be added onto my plate? And is it a priority in comparison to all the other tasks that I'm doing, juggling of full time job and kids and, being the primary caretaker where the husband deployed.
So I believe a lot of times it's also saying. Is this a priority right now, and if it is, am I willing to make it a priority to achieve our goals?
Andrew Pearce: Yep. agree. I think it's good internal inquiry check in that can get us out of the judgment and the shoulds of, Oh, I should get that pantry done.
there's a freedom that comes from the, permission that we give ourselves to say either, no, it's not a priority or, or no, I'm not willing. So I think that's a great point.
Danielle Cobo: Well, before we wrap up our conversation today is what are other advice maybe you, give with our listeners, maybe some questions that they can be asking themselves as they are working towards that willingness and giving themselves permission to overcome that burnout and overwhelm and possibly anxiety.
Andrew Pearce: A great question is how willing am I to face and feel. X, Y, and Z right now, and there's such a power with putting right now at the end of it, because that will bring you to either a yes or a no. And there's no 50 50 with your answers. If you're sitting on the fence. By that's not a yes, by virtue of not being a yes, it's a no.
So a great question that, your listeners can ask themselves is how willing am I to face and feel whatever emotion it might be right now will take them to a yes or a no within themselves. If. The question doesn't have the right now on the end. it just makes it a bit too open ended and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm willing just, when I get all these other things in place and it's like, you're willing to now, but you're not willing to now, but you're willing to in the future, which is still just has that person suppressing
That emotion. So how willing am I to face and feel this emotion right now is a super powerful question when it comes to developing the willingness, the grit, the resilience to go to those scary parts within ourselves that we all got, that we most certainly all have. so we can face them, release them, get them out of the body, stop fighting them.
And Have a, new level of automatic, calm presence and peacefulness within ourselves. I'm also
Danielle Cobo: hearing, being by the questions that you're suggesting. We ask ourselves, it's a level of kindness to ourselves by asking it in that right now, it's level of kindness that we're in grace that we're giving ourselves.
And sometimes if we are willing or not, and maybe it's not a, never, it's just a not right now.
Andrew Pearce: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Well said. Well,
Danielle Cobo: thank you so much for joining the unstoppable grit podcast, very, some profound, statements and advice that you've given our listeners on how they can develop the grit and resilience to break through some of the roadblocks that possibly are standing between them and achieving their goals, not willingness to take risks and helping them define when it's the right time for them.
So before we jump off, where can our listeners find you? The best place
Andrew Pearce: to get me would be on my website, 'cause then I've got all my social links and free downloads and stuff there as well that they can access, which is, www.andrewdp.com. there's a d in between the Andrew and the P, so andrew d pierce.com is, probably the best place to go.
Danielle Cobo: Well, perfect. I'll go ahead and include that link, your website into the show notes as well. So those of you that are listening, just go to the show notes. You can scroll down that link will be included in there. And as Andrew said, you can go to his website, connect with him and all the social media and follow him.
He's a high performance coach and focusing on helping people overcome burnout and overwhelm, and definitely share some profound insights that can help apply to your life. So thank you so much for tuning in and be unstoppable.