The Inconvenient Truth About Growth

Transcript of the Episode:

Growth is not linear. And that is okay. Maybe that's even the beauty of it. Listen to this podcast episode, when you're having a bad day, a bad time, a bad year, or just a bad moment. And you want a reminder that everybody goes through it. Not only that, but you are going to be just fine. This is a very special episode today, my friend because I am getting raw and real and very, very vulnerable, from what could be perceived as the lower 50.

So my friends, and I have this theory. It's not really my friends and I, it's the entire Life Coach School. We prescribe to this theory that life is 50%, happy and 50% something else not happy, somewhere under neutral and that's okay. We tell ourselves that we want linear growth, we tell ourselves that we want to be happy all of the time. But ultimately, we don't, for various reasons that we won't go into in this podcast. But the point stands that every place on the journey is just fine. It's perfect the way that it is. And we often shy away from these moments, especially people who have a “following” or “audience” or they are the face of something. When's the last time that you saw Jennifer Aniston cry over heartbreak? When's the last time you saw somebody be so raw and vulnerable in that moment, it's very rare, because we're taught to just hide it away. But today, I'm finding so much power in it. And so much power in these thoughts. I've actually written you a letter, and I'm going to read it to you. Maybe you can hear my papers shuffling about as we do this.

One of my good friends and I, she's also my life coach, and she teaches within impacting independence. We Vox like every week, and Voxer is this walkie talkie app where you can talk for 15 minutes, and we just go we rattle off everything about our lives. And it's always funny to see the similarities last week, and this week, we've been talking about how we have been living in the past, and how that has really created like this negative moment in both of our lives. And instead of feeling grateful that we even have a past as business owners, we've been so caught up in the past and comparing that to right now that we couldn't see how far we've come. We're only looking at how things were different or better back then. And we're living from this place that's in such contrast with where we actually are and who actually are that it is causing so much discomfort for both of us.

And I imagined my first few years, I was just trying to keep my head above water. I was like so eager to learn. I had the capacity to stay late every day so I did. I also had just moved so I had zero social life. And I was getting my masters at the same time; I was finishing up my Master's at the same time, I should say. So the only thing that I had to do when I got home was more work. So just stay at work my first job really late. And then a few years in. That's kind of an analogy to where my friend and I are right now. I would turn back and look and think, Wow, maybe I did that much better back then maybe I'm actually not that great. Maybe this maybe that. And I would say negative things to myself, mostly because that's what I learned to do growing up in order to become better. But nevertheless, in both situations now having been in business for a few years, with teaching learners in schools, taking up quite less of my time than teaching you guys, I'm now looking back and saying, Oh, maybe I should, maybe I should have done that maybe, maybe this isn’t that good, whatever.

Whatever the case may be, I'm expecting my growth to be on a straight line. And the reason that I'm having so much trouble is because of that expectation, not because anything is actually wrong right now. And it's normal for us to think like that. Because that's how we're socialised. That's how we are brought up, you go to kindergarten, you go to first, you go to second, you go to third, so on and so forth. And we're also promised that we can have everything that we want to have, only if we follow the specific path that has been forged by our predecessors. And both ways of thinking are so wrong. And think about how much that holds us back. Because the truth is, growth isn't linear. In the real world, you grow, and then you contract, you take one step forward, and two steps back. And while we might get frustrated at that, those two steps back are good, they are normal.

When plants grow, if you were to see a time lapse video of a plant growing, you would see that it shoots up towards the sky at the baby plant sprouts up, opens its leaves up towards the sun, and then starts to contract back a little bit. And it shoots back up more, and then it contracts shoots up more, and then it contracts. So on and so forth, until that little planted acorn becomes a huge oak tree. But in those moments that it is contracting, does the plant get frustrated with itself, I really have no idea. I'm gonna say, for the spirit of this podcast that the plant doesn't, because it knows that it is still growing into that oak tree. It's just not in that final form yet. And that's okay.

Resisting against the contracting is what is causing us pain and suffering. If we saw it as normal, we would glide over it easier. I like to think of it like taking steps on stones across a river. And I've talked about this quite a bit in the past, because it's a metaphor that I really feel very drawn to in my life specifically. And how I got to where I am right now, you see, we often jump from one stone to another to another to another, some are stable, they're comfortable. Some are quite a bit off to the side. And we might throw our hands up and think why am I having to go to the side. Or we might go to the side and wonder if we are still on our path. But always, there's another stone ahead of us. And once we cross that river, we can look back to see how zigzaggy that path was, but maybe how beautiful it was, or maybe how adventurous it was. Because when we're walking in the woods, let's call a walk. But when we come across a river, and we have to jump across it, that gets us a little excited. Maybe it's just a little like, nervous so we don't get our shoes wet. Maybe it's I hope I don't slip, maybe it's wow, I get to jump across all of these stones. Or if you're like my kids, they're very excited to get their shoes and their socks wet. They want to get mud all up to their knees if they possibly can. It's part of the adventure. And it's what makes life worth living.

Going back to the idea that you can have everything that you want, but only when you follow a path forged by our predecessors. You know, we go to school, we go to college, we become teachers, a lot of people in this field, this is their second career. So for those of you guys, you have to applaud yourself, because many people don't take that leap from their first career that they're set up in, that's paying all their bills. Maybe they don't love it, but they have a life doing it and they could stay into a job that's so unpredictable. I'm smiling so hard right now because it's my favourite part of this job and you don't know what's going to happen. And it can take so many forms and facets, and every day is a different day and you constantly thinking on your toes.

But even at that, whether it's your job or something else in life, the pads that were created before us are not created in our highest interest, but in the interests of those who created them. And that's not to say that these things are wrong, or that they are bad people. But to say that we have to understand that the 123 steps laid out ahead of us by any one that we revere, including myself, have to run through your own internal guidance system. But often, we aren't taught how to listen, or trust our internal guidance system. And I do it too. At this point, I've spent more time and more money on business and leadership classes than I did my entire degree, including my masters. And it's wild to think about that, right. But still, I often don't feel like I'm qualified to run a business, it just sometimes feels like I am, I don't know, playing shop or something. Because I didn't go to school through a university programme.

Now, I do love that my current business coach, who runs a $10 million a year business, this is just one of his businesses, lives out of his van, in a city, or he owns multiple houses for his other real estate business. And just those differences between us, has allowed me the freedom to take what he has shared about creating a heart centred organisation that impacts the world in question every part of his practice, like he's doing something, right, but is it gonna work for us.

If you've joined the symposium, or if you're a member of clarity, or anything else that we really have done in the past few years, that man and advance crazy idea that we can run an impactful business, an organisation that offers servitude, as the core measure of success has already made your life better, some unknown behind the scenes strategy of our team, meticulously counting how many things you have to click on our site, in order to make your life easier, or all the ways that we look at serving you differently than any other entity has. It is all helped to make you a better teacher. And you haven't even noticed.

Now think about how that impacts your students, you being a better teacher, because some crazy person said, you know, I don't think that businesses need to run the traditional way. I think we can put our heart and soul at this first, that has helped you become a better teacher. And think about the impact on the lives of your learners. Now, you got that impacts. That's pretty big, right? Think about your ripple effect. When you do things that feel aligned to you, even if it looks different from what everybody else is doing. Even if it looks like you're taking a big step backwards. Even if it looks like you are off your “correct path”. Think about the massive impact that you are having on everyone else around you. Even if the aligned action is to simply allow for the contraction for your part of the plants sinking into the ground just a little bit more. Which admittedly can be hard to do, given the X amount of years that you've had your beliefs, but just think about how much more grace others will have for themselves simply by watching the grace you have for yourself. Grace permission allowing you, my friend are powerful beyond measure, even and especially when things don't look like they are going in your favour. Trust me on this. I love you. Keep going.

We'll be back next week for actual tactical tips. If you enjoyed this podcast episode, I would love it if you would leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Or just come slide into my DMs on Instagram at Allied independence. Together we are making the world a much better place and I'm so grateful to be on this journey with you.

You know that feeling when you've been rushing around all day. Your kids need food your students need to be scheduled. It's five minutes before your next lesson, and you have no plans. Teaching during a pandemic has had many challenges. Wouldn't you agree? One of which being it takes so much longer to plan for a remote O&M lesson, then he did to plan for a face to face lesson. But that's not a problem anymore because my friend we have got you covered. Your Allied Independence community stepped up. And we've bundled together eight remote O&M lesson plans that can be taught virtually or distance all created by your community and customisable to your individual students unique needs in five minutes or less. You want ‘em? I know you do. All you have to do is go to Allied Independence online.com forward slash remote R E M O T E and grab your copy. Eight free O&M lesson plans so you can start spending your time doing what you do best and that my friend is teaching.