E244 | Things Your Future Self Will Thank You For

Sometimes the best way to move forward is to remind ourselves of the past. Why?

Because adaptation is a purposeful process.

It requires reflection, inspection, and progression.

Today’s episode is all about answering the question “What advice would I give my younger self?”  Some points are obvious, but there’s also some questions that will challenge your assumptions, and give you the kick in the pants you may need to initiate the adaptation process.

• How should I be investing in myself to put me in the learning/ growth zone? (download the reflection questions for graphic)  – (10:00)
• What feedback/criticism should I be listening to and applying? (15:45)
• How do I know which relationships and experiences are worth my time? (37:10)
• What skills should I be consistently working to improve? (42:45)

Referenced Resources:

• Take Control Of Your Finances  – Free resource
• Valued  – Online course to help you take your career into your own hands
• Live Events – Gain experience training your people skills!
• What Drives You? – Drives Assessment Quiz

Now that you’ve had time to reflect on your experiences, if you’re looking for some guidance on the next steps to take in your career, we have the perfect event for you. Coming up soon, Brianna Battles and I are teaming up for our Art of Coaching Brand Builder event in Phoenix, AZ November 5-6th, 2022. At this interactive event, you will have access to Brianna, myself, and other members of the Art of Coaching team. We will give you the time, attention, and resources you need to vet your ideas and feel confident in the next steps you need to take to be successful.  You won’t get this kind of experience anywhere else.

We’re always looking for feedback!  Let us know what points did or didn’t resonate with you or if there’s anything you want to hear more about by emailing us at info@artofcoaching.com.

And if this episode was helpful, please do us a favor and leave us a review on iTunes and share the episode with anyone else you think would benefit from it.  We appreciate your support!

We also can’t forget to thank Dynamic Fitness & Strength,  Athletic Greens and BetterHelp for sponsoring today’s episode. We get it, you’re time poor and don’t always get in the fruits and veggies you know you should. This is without a doubt the BEST tasting greens powder out there and they want to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/coach!

At some level, we all struggle with unexpected challenges in life. BetterHelp is an accessible, convenient, private, and affordable therapy option to help you look at your problems a little differently, feel less stressed, and gain confidence. Visit BetterHelp.com/AOC for 10% off your first month.

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Brett Bartholomew  0:11  

Alright, tell me if any of these quotes resonate with you, money isn’t my primary concern. I just want to find something that allows me to provide for my family, and allows me to help more people, and allows me to do what I’m the best at. I’m just not sure what that is yet. Or I often question if I’m actually making the most out of what I’ve been given. And if I’m doing the right things to be successful, I just want some guidance to know if I’m on the right track. Or maybe perhaps, I wanted to take the next step for a while now. But I have people that rely on me, and I cannot afford to take a risk only for it to fail. 

 

If any of these apply to you, or you’re simply somebody that is happy with what you’re doing, but you still feel like you could be doing a little bit more, and you have passion for helping others and you want to get more clarity on how you can spread your impact and amplify that. And make sure that you check out our Brand Builder conference on November 5, and sixth in Phoenix, Arizona. Registration closes this Thursday, October 20 2022. And this is something we only do once or twice a year. Now for context, I put this on because when I transitioned careers, I really didn’t have much advice. I didn’t know how to charge what to charge for my time, I didn’t know how to define my niche. I didn’t know how to scale certain things. I needed a lot of help. I didn’t know how to manage the hiring process. 

 

And frankly, any resource out there was kind of, I don’t know how to say the term with appropriate words. But it was a lot of people just saying, Hey, turn out your business, live the life of your dreams, buy a Lambo, and I’m like, Hey, I just want something grassroots that allows me to put more of my work out there in a way that I feel proud of, and help more people. So this is that remember, your brand is nothing more than your reputation and the promise you keep to others. That’s it. It’s not a word that you need to dip, feel any kind of way about, you don’t have to have some big business, you don’t have to be an entrepreneur, you can be somebody that’s in a current job that just wants to build something on the side. Or you might have a business and you want to expand it and grow it kinda like us. 

 

It’s surfboard coaching started with me. And now we have a ton of other folks. I’m trying to be as clear as possible. If you want to get around other high level people that want to share ideas that want to avoid the tremendous costs of making the wrong decisions failing and the expensive mistakes you’re gonna make. If you do it on your own without a guide, go to artofcoaching.com/brand Right now, I promise you in the first day alone, you’re going to learn things that can save you over $10,000 worth of mistakes, mistakes that I made. Remember, it closes Thursday, October 20 2022. We have payment plans, we have different price points. We literally have tried to take every excuse out of this and remember, there is nothing more expensive than bad advice or trying to go it on your own and learning the hard way. artofcoaching.com/brand.

 

Welcome to the Art of coaching Podcast. I’m Brett Bartholomew. And at a young age poor communication nearly cost me my life. Now, I help others navigate the gray area of social interaction, power dynamics and communication so they can become more adaptable leaders regardless of their profession, age or situation. This podcast is for everybody who is fascinated with solving people problems. So if you’re in the no nonsense type who appreciates frank conversations, advice you can put to use immediately, and learning how others navigate the messy realities of leadership. You’re in the right place. I’m glad that you’re joining us. Let’s dive in

 

all right, I’m really excited to bring you today’s episode. This is going to be something that is quick, filled with value and hopefully prompts you to reflect a little bit. It is all about things that your future self will thank you for now remember, the first time I heard this, quote, do something today, your future self will thank you for and it caught my mind racing off hand. Of course I agreed with that we want to invest in the long game. But I didn’t take the time at that moment to really sit down and write what those things were. Now there are some things that are obvious, and we’ll mention them within the list. But there are some other things that I think will really challenge your assumptions and hopefully put you on a path to get really clear on some things that you need to improve or that you want to reinvest in so that you can be your best self moving forward. 

 

Now a couple of things. One, these are in no particular order, no particular order although I might say that the first one that I do, I really do think it is a number one. So if you had a gun to my head, and you said, Hey, no, you have to have a number one, I’ll tell you what, I’m gonna give you my number one right out of the gate. But everything else is equally important. But I just want to make sure we have this society that gets really Oh, you said this fourth, and I think that should be third. Who cares, everybody, these are things that I want you to use you to internalize. This is also not the end all be all list. I really take pride in sharing, you know, just being vulnerable with you guys, and being transparent. 

 

I have nothing to hide. And hopefully the 200 Plus episodes that we brought to you every week, in congruence with our newsletters, and everything else shows that we try to give away a lot of information for free and perspective is valuable. I mean, think about that. Just like when we read books, we get to learn from the lives of others. Hopefully you get that from some of my raw thoughts. So this is unscripted, unprompted, we want to give you some things to think about. As always, you can email us at info@artofcoaching or interact with us at The Art of coaching Facebook group, reach out for more details, and we can continue the top that discussion. All right, so you’re ready to get into it. Things your future self will thank you for 

 

Number one, and yes, this is my true number one. Work on yourself. relentlessly. Work on yourself relentlessly approach most situations in life where there is conflict. First thinking Where might I be the problem I as in you, me, us? Where might I be the problem and all elaborate here in a moment. But if more people during conflict just took the time to switch perspectives, and see themselves or their actions through the eyes of others, we would be way better off. We have a world that loves to blame everybody else. When they get in their emotions they get in their feelings, it’s always somebody else’s problem. I’ve had a lot of DMS, a lot of emails over the years where people say, hey, how do I deal with this person? How do I deal with this scenario? What do I do to convince this stubborn person? 

 

And one of the first things I always ask them is, Have you considered what you might have contributed to the issue? And lo and behold, the majority of people say, Well, you know, I tried to rationalize this, or I think I took the right approach and blah, blah, blah. Communication is a two way street. We know this. But when we’re angry, and things don’t go our way we forget it. And when we think of communication as this shared process of not only sharing ideas, thoughts and information, right, you have to remember that things get in the way of this process. So I want you to think about something think of the last three to five complaints that you’ve had, or disagreements that you’ve had. 

 

And no matter whether somebody else did something to really escalate that situation or whatever. Think about where you were the problem, you didn’t get that raise, what might you have done wrong, we had one person that for three years, you know, had been doing this and this and I didn’t get this raise? Well, after our meeting together, we also found that they never really spoke up, they never really asserted themselves. They always just thought that hard work. And those things were going to get them notice, they never asked. And so somebody in their office, did they self promoted, they not only did the same kind of work, and they tried to give it their best, even if our client had done stuff that was a little bit more nuanced, or, or integrated. But the bottom line is the other person that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and they asked, and it doesn’t even have to be something like that you can think about this in your marriage. 

 

And I think for any of you that are parents out there, or if you’re married, this is very evident, you might just blow up, you might lose it. But later that night, or early the next morning, you’re realizing you said some really boneheaded things. So work on yourself take accountability. I think just to further contextualize this, if there was one advantage I had in life, and it feels silly to call it this, it was me being hospitalized at a young age, that type of isolation, me having to stay on the eighth floor of this hospital for nearly a year of my life. And you’re not able to read certain books, you’re not able to watch TV, I mean, you are really, really, really isolated. And the only people you get to interact with periodically is other patients. And you have to do a lot of thinking. And there’s only so many people that you can blame in life for your problems. And nothing gets better if you don’t take accountability, take a step back, change your perspective and try to see things from all angles. 

 

Side note, this is also why we use a lot of tactical role playing at our workshops. When you roleplay not just as yourself with a counterpart, but you actually have somebody else play you. Somebody else plays you in that situation. It is one of the most illuminating things. And almost everybody that attends our apprenticeship workshops, say that is the most valuable part of the experience seeing themselves through the eyes of others. So work on yourself. Whether you’re trying to improve in your personal life or professional life, it will pay the greatest dividends. And then you will avoid being like most people in this world who think everybody else is the problem and they don’t take accountability. 

 

Alright, number two, and this goes hand in hand, invest in yourself. If you want to be the type of person that helps others, you first have to be the type of person who gets things done. You have to constantly seek ways to improve. And I don’t mean just reading books or even listening to this podcast and listen, I have a book, I have a podcast, I have a new book coming out, it doesn’t benefit me to tell you that. But you have to be somebody that actually does things that scare you, right? When you invest in yourself, I’m not just saying, oh, you know, I went to this workshop, or I did that, or I read this book, put skin in the game, do things that scare you. 

 

And if you don’t want to, that’s fine. You may not just be there yet, but except that your opinions are going to be limited your opinions, I should say this, the validity of your opinions. Now, of course, there’s somebody listening saying, hey, everybody’s opinions are valid, okay, fine, you want me to get really clear on my language, your criticism, your advice, you the way you view the world will be limited. If you don’t put skin in the game, and invest in yourself in ways that actually scare you, that actually require you to be at the forefront of something. You know, it’s funny, I shared this graphic one time. And the graphic, you know, the captain said, hey, it’s really hard to turn adversity into achievement, if you’re always staying in your comfort zone. 

 

And I showed what I think it was four different zones. So we know what our comfort zone is. That’s where people see controlled, create predictability, they kind of stay in these echo chambers, and they love and really surround themselves with confirmation bias, or sticking with what you’re already good at, or what you think you’re already good at. Then outside of that is the fear zone. This is where people that tend to complain and blame others and make excuses live, they don’t listen to advice. Number one, these folks don’t tend to work on themselves. And neither do folks that stay in that comfort zone in reality. The third one is the learning zone. 

 

This is where you experiment, you improve your self awareness. You think critically, you’re investing in building new skills, you’re doing things where you fail. And then in congruence with that as the growth zone, that’s the area where you have to face your demons, you have to improvise, you have in risk failure and ridicule. So somebody asked me when I shared that graphic, they said, how do you keep yourself in the learning and growth zone. And it’s simple. I try to constantly put skin in the game every time I put this podcast out, I risk ridicule. There are people that think, oh, you should do this, like NPR do this. Like Rogen, this is me and two other people working on this, right? 

 

We put ourselves out there, I run workshops, I share my work, I’m doing a doctorate, I’ve written a book, I can’t hide, I can’t hide. My ideas are out there constantly for people to tear down, or be inspired by or to ridicule, or to use to improve their life. And that’s how you keep yourself in the Learning Zone. In the past, you know, when I was younger, I thought I was learning if I was always reading and doing this, then of course, there’s learning involved in that. But true learning true absorption, the way you turn that into wisdom or knowledge, however you want to define that is to then apply that information, you need to apply it. And I’m going to give you a quote here, this might be a core soundbite that you want to utilize. I said it for the first time. Maybe in my book conscious coaching, definitely in my online course bought in, and we talked about it all the time. 

 

Do not confuse exposure. With experience. I’ll say that, again, do not confuse exposure with experience. There are lots of folks out there that think that because they’ve been exposed to an idea or that because they’ve been exposed to a situation where something took place, that they now understand it, that they now comprehend it fully that they now can apply that thing with skill that they now know better. You do not. Exposure is you’ve seen you’ve in or maybe interacted with this idea, this thing this circumstance, experience is you are directly responsible, you are directly responsible for guiding it, implementing it iterating it. 

 

I thought about this one time back when I was a strength and conditioning coach. I remember we had somebody it was an intern and I said hey and I’m changing the name for privacy reasons Jacob Do you want to lead the warm up today? And I was given this person an opportunity to lead to practice their skill to implement things that they had learned because they observed for a while and they said no good. I’ve already seen that. Seeing somebody do something watching somebody masterfully play the piano, watching somebody masterfully lead a group of people watching somebody or hearing about somebody build a business or do this is not the same as knowing how to do it yourself. It is not the same as knowing and it’s almost embarrassing we have to say that but there are so many armchair experts today. 

 

So many armchair experts that think they know better and part of this is the vehicles that We use right? There are people I remember, you share something on Twitter, that might be a reflection of your direct experience with something, some person that doesn’t even know you comes out of left field and criticizes it, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right. And these people think they know better, even if they haven’t done it. So investing in yourself, I’m pushing you further, don’t do it in the comfort zone, get out there and do stuff, invest in yourself that in a way that scares you, and pushes you, pushes you really pushes you. Hopefully, I’ve made that point clear enough. 

 

Now, I talked about investing in yourself and taking accountability, putting yourself out there, you see that there’s a common through line here. Another thing that your future self will thank you for is learning how to take criticism, Life and Leadership are absolutely full contact sports, you are going to get bruised, bumped, and bloodied. They are full contact sports, not everybody’s gonna like you. And some that don’t like you don’t even know you. And some that don’t even like you that don’t know, you don’t even like themselves.

 

Alright, a quick break in the action for a word from our sponsor BetterHelp, I want you to think about a time where you got focused on problems instead of solutions. I mean, a time where it just seemed like everything that went through your head was dark or filled with doubt. And you were always in this anxious reactive mode. Now, it can be tough to train your brain to stay in problem solving mode, when you’re faced with a challenge life or when they stack up. And I know this, because a couple of years ago, I made the decision to try to get my doctorate done or write a new book, become a new father and grow a business. And I thought, hey, a lot of these things are interrelated, I can balance this. 

 

But then COVID happened and a lot of other changes that I couldn’t have anticipated came about in my life. And even though I pride myself on being somebody who is an adapter, they stack up all of a sudden you miss one deadline. And then there’s something that you’re not that happy with, with some of the work that you did, and you start doubting yourself and all these things just start to encroach on your ability to think clearly. And these are the times that you actually need and benefit somebody to talk to, if nothing else, to have an advocate or a devil’s advocate even to help you look into problems a little bit more differently to help you get back to feeling like yourself, to help you feeling less stressed and more confident. 

 

So to that point, guys, therapy can be a huge weapon. And the first time I ever got therapy was when I was a teenager, and my parents were going through a divorce. And a lot of my friends had gotten into drugs, and I felt just alone and like I was in that dark hole. And if you are looking for something that is accessible and helpful to you, then BetterHelp is a great option. It’s convenient, it’s affordable, it’s private, and it’s entirely online. So when you want to be a better problem solver, when you want to get back to feeling like you therapy can get you there, visit betterhelp.com/aoc for art of coaching, again, that’s betterhelp.com/aoc  today to get 10% off your first month that is unparalleled. One more time, that is better help h e l p.com/aoc. To get 10% off your first month. 

 

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Not everybody’s gonna like you, and some that don’t like you don’t even know you. And some that don’t even like you that don’t know, you don’t even like themselves, by nature of us being social creatures, living in a world that is complex and chaotic, and they’re scarce resources, whether that’s social validation, or jobs or money or, you know, a partner, whatever, that sets the stage for us being in a place of conflict. And we’ve said this before, even when you think of miscommunication is the baseline of all interaction. You can’t read each other’s minds. You don’t know that somebody’s you know, heart’s in something for the right reasons. 

 

You don’t know this, you know, like, we have forgotten the role of context in our everyday life. And because of that, you need to expect that people are going to misinterpret your work. You need to expect and anticipate and know that if you just think of this heuristic, right? If you need to think if there’s any way that your words or your work can be misconstrued, it is likely to be misconstrued in the most egregious or worst way possible, especially if you’re using something like social media or you’re a public figure, when people can take sound bites wildly out of context. And all I’m telling you, it doesn’t matter. 

 

Think as if you’re on your deathbed, and you’re surrounded by a family and you’re pretty happy with your life. Are you going to remember what ledpipe420? Or attractguys62, or leadership_Guru _9 said about you someday? Are you gonna remember the one star review that you got on this? And that I mean, if you fixate on it, now, what you’re not hearing me say is ignore criticism. You’re not hearing me say that. You’re hearing me say learn how to take it. We all need constructive criticism, we all need to going back to number one, realize that we’re going to be part of the problem. So what criticism Do you listen to versus the criticism that you don’t? Well, there’s a lot of directions, we can go with that. 

 

But if the criticism is blanketed, and vitriol, I mean, it is somebody that’s just going in nothing they’re saying is really helpful. It’s more of like a personal attack. thing. Obviously, don’t listen to that, just because that could be somebody that had a bad day, that could be somebody that feels threatened by you, it could be any, any number of reasons. But if the criticism provides something that’s actionable, well, then listen in, even if you don’t like to hear it, if that criticism provide something that’s actionable, let’s say I’m going to making this up as I go along, let’s say you’re presenting to a crowd, and they say, didn’t seem enthusiastic enough, would have loved to see more energy. 

 

And let’s say you were maybe presenting on a topic, that kind of a solemn tone to it, it wasn’t supposed to be energetic. Or maybe you had gotten information that this was a crowd that you were supposed to be a little bit more reserved for, or something like that, where you might get defensive about that. But you shouldn’t take it personally. It’s just data. It’s just data. And I remember, you know, an example of this happened, I think, two years ago, to me, I was brought in by an organization to present virtually during COVID. And I always get on calls with organizations and say, Hey, what should I know? The you know, what can I do to make this great for you? Tell me about the audience. And the individual, my liaison said, you know, we’ve been bringing a lot of folks in for our staff education. 

 

And I feel like our staff has gotten a little entitled, you know, this is a group that really loves information, but almost feels like they’re owed it, and we don’t see them, apply it a lot. So we’d really love you to give a lecture that speaks to accountability, applying what you learn, you know, not falling victim to, again, your own confirmation bias or your own comfort zone. And just being the type of person that takes action, how do we apply our knowledge? And I said, Okay, that’s helpful. What kind of tone should I take? And they said, well, frankly, we’re reaching out to you, because we love the way you speak with urgency and conviction. 

 

We need this talk, which is essentially about a kick in the pants, taking accountability, and taking more ownership of these things, to also coincide with that tone. So you don’t need to do this or that and theatrics. But be you be convicted, great. Put together a talk, give it we kindly asked for some feedback. The majority of it’s good, let’s say 90%. Then there’s 5% constructive criticism Great. This slide was hard to understand really liked this would have liked more than that. The things that you can really use to build off of. And then I remember there was one, and there was one that really gave me zeros out of five across the board and said, felt like they were yelling the whole time felt like this felt like that. And it was clear that either this person was part of the problem. They were talking about that they wanted me to fix, because they basically said they learned nothing. 

 

And I mean, that’s a pretty extreme thing. I would like to think that if I went to a Crayola crayon conference, and they said, Hey, you just need to eat crayons, I would be able to take something that I learned from that, that’s just me being a competitive, accountable individual, you can learn from everyone, even if you don’t agree with them. But that was data that I just threw out. You know, and, and what I realized is okay, that tone wasn’t for them like, and I remember asking that liaison, I asked them about that situation, they said, that’s exactly what we’re talking about. Even when they’re given an hour of somebody’s time for free. There are some people that just if it wasn’t delivered, just the way they wanted, they rebelled against it. 

 

So remember that there is tight, you want to take constructive criticism, you want to get better. You want people to rip you apart in some cultures, especially the Netherlands, if they respect you. And of course, I’m not going to speak to everybody from that culture. But I have friends that live there, they’ll talk to you directly, they’re not going to worry about in America, we’re so worried about people’s feelings. Oh, this was great. I love dabba, my friend is going to come up to me from the Netherlands and say, this part was boring. This part was good. Overall, you looked a little tired, but I think you did, okay. And I’d rather have that along with some specific points, then way too much fluff on one end, or just somebody basically saying you suck, and they hate you, and they didn’t learn from you. 

 

But either way, you’re gonna get that criticism. And by the way, be thankful for it. Because you’d rather have somebody’s, I guess, at the end of the day, you’d rather have somebody’s anger than their indifference. I know for a fact my next book, about 50% of people are going to hate it. 50% are going to love it. You know why? Because there’s a lot of things in there that are going to make people challenge their conceptions of themselves. It’s going to challenge them ideas. And when you hold a mirror up to somebody, and you actually make them confront some uncomfortable truths, who do you think they project that on you. And if you’re a leader, and you’re an educator, that’s going to happen. So just understand that that’s part of the game. Understand, that’s part of the game. 

 

This next one’s pretty tight. And no, I went long winded with the last few, but I think those things are really important, and they’re gonna serve you the types of things you’re likely going to tell your children. So I think that they were important. Travel. Travel is one of the best forms of education. And for many reasons, I mean, one, you understand how much bigger the world is. And it’s so much bigger than yourself. And you know that by getting exposed to different cultures, now, a cynic and I have a good friend, she’s brilliant. She said that you know, she went on a trip, and she’s like, the trip was great. There are many things I loved about it. But the fact is, is I probably stayed internationally too long. Because while it’s great to hear different accents, and experience different cultures, eventually you realize, you know, people have the same needs, they have the same this, they have the same drawbacks. 

 

People in general are more similar than they are different. But she also knows that when she was able to take her children on this trip, the amount that they learned from being around different cultures, being around different ways of life is invaluable. And if you literally could take your kids, I know this is a hot take. But if you could take your kid that have formal education for a year, and travel with them, I mean, think about the things that they learn and think of the things you’d probably learn. And I know that’s a luxury, right? So that’s, I’m just saying you need to travel. And make sure when I say travel, if you’re an American travel doesn’t mean the all inclusive in Cancun, it doesn’t mean going to the Bahamas, I mean, really get out of your comfort zone really go places that are foreign. 

 

And I don’t know if anybody’s with me here. But the older I get, the more I’m really drawn to some isolated places, places where there’s just quiet. I know my wife, and I want to I mean, I guess if I had my way and things weren’t like they were in Russia right now, one place I always want to see was lake by call. I do want to go off the coast of Chile to Antarctica someday. You know, I we’ve been fortunate enough. We teach workshops in the UK and Europe. And we’ve been so many other places, and we travel internationally. So we’ve been really fortunate. I think I’ve taught in 30 some odd countries, and I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world. I wouldn’t neither should you. So make sure that you travel. 

 

All right. Another one, especially for those of you that are driven out there, I’m absolutely talking to a previous version of myself with this one as well. Never fuel yourself on the opinions of quote unquote haters or detractors. There are so many times in my career that I was guilty of reacting or responding or speaking to something as if the majority were against me. Now granted, give me a little break here when I released my first book conscious coaching, I was a part of an industry where there are a lot of insecure people in strength and conditioning. There are so few jobs at an elite level and it is such a polarizing field. There are people out Though that literally think this way of training is the best. And if you don’t do that, then you’re an idiot and a lot of martyrdom, you know, and a lot of people that think that tearing other people down is the way to get yourself noticed. 

 

So I remember when I came out with that book, I mean, man, there is so much great support. But there is a small coterie of people that Oh, you’re 30, what do you know? Why should you be writing a book and blah, blah, blah, and I acted as if that was the vast majority of reviewers we got. And you know, it’s funny, I’m an adversity drive. So it makes sense to a degree, I really enjoy doing hard things. I like trying to expose myself to these situations, because I want to know the truth about myself, always. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, just go to artofcoaching.com/whatdrivesyou it’s a free test, you’ll get to see it. Of course, nobody’s ever just one thing, we tell you to take it multiple times and in different emotional states. 

 

But I figured out that the energy I got from being mad, was so much greater than the energy I got from feeling love. It’s true. I remember Jay Z had this verse where he goes, people want to know what my Achilles heel is. I don’t get enough of it. And he was talking about how he just feeds off the blood suckers. And there’s a double entendre there. But the problem is, is if you constantly fuel yourself, on the opinions from haters, you’re going to realize that burns too quickly. And you’re not going to get too far, because you’re going to start poisoning the well and your message, all the other people that support you. 

 

And there’s been times even when I turned on the podcast, and I thought, Alright, I’m gonna go in on this and this, I’m like, Whoa, are you reacting to something that happened, and there’s one person, because there’s 100 other people out there that really want you to succeed for every one person that’s just angry at a situation. Don’t respond to it. Now it is okay. Right, you do need to stand up for yourself. I think we have this world now that thinks I’ll just let it go. No, periodically, you got to punch a bully in the nose, metaphorically speaking, right? Stand up for yourself. But if you are constantly relying on the fuel of kind of debate, or detractors and haters or whatever, something deeper is wrong there, go back to step number one, and I’m not trying to be rude, you just got to look at that. Like I said, that was me first. So you’ve really got to look at that and make sure that you’re not fueling yourself on that. 

 

Hand in hand with that is not pleasing everyone, I’m not going to extrapolate on that, if what you do is for everybody, it is for nobody at all. It is for nobody, I’ll be very, very concerned. If everybody loves your stuff, you guys aren’t even gonna like every podcast episode, we constantly pull the data, you know, I thought, ah, you know, people don’t want to just hear me they want to hear guests, we see solo episodes get way more engagement. Now, that varies on the guests and things like that, and varies on the time of year. But the bottom line is, if I chase every bit of data, I got like, I’ll never get anything done. So just quit trying to please everybody, relax, be consistent. And that’s my next tip. And all things that you do consistency will trump intensity.

 

There’s a lot here. Imagine just dumping all your money into one stock. As opposed to diversifying things over time. Imagine going out just working out so hard that the next day you can barely walk. I imagine going about everything in your life with that kind of intensity. But what you’re going to learn is not only are those things not smart for a variety of reasons, including putting eggs in one basket and whatever, but it’s not sustainable. And there’s so many applications, it’s almost overwhelming. I don’t want to talk your ears off. I remember even early starting our business. You’d see people come on social media, and oh my god, they just it was like this person has social media and they have a podcast and it looks like they’re everywhere. 

 

Three, four or five years later, it was like they disappeared. They just evaporated. They’re not there. In the meantime, there’s other people that nothing’s flashy, right? It’s our tagline fundamentals, not fluff. Just keep going. It investing. It’s not dumping it all in. It’s not yoloing it all into one stock or one thing, the Wall Street beds crowd. It’s dollar cost averaging. You can’t afford a stock that’s $300 Cool. Set up an account where you can drip $5 a week, $20 a week. That’s dollar cost averaging. You’re just inching your way you’re taking off little bites, little chunks. And guess what, over time you got a hell of an investment. 

 

And that’s the same thing. We challenge ourselves to put our podcasts out every week, two to three newsletters out a month. We’re always teaching we’re always testing our assumptions. We’re always doing this. And you know what it’s data are all of them going to be homeruns. No and man, I used to put a lot of pressure on myself for that. And I think some of you are doing that too. You think that everything you do has to be like the best or the greatest. And that fuel so many excuses. We had somebody the other day, it’s like, Hey, are you and I’m excited to see you in Phoenix. And we have at the time of this recording in November, we’re running our bank Brand Builder clinic. 

 

He’s like, in the past, I, you know, I’d said this was too expensive. But you know, the reality was that it had nothing to do with the money it was had to do with the fact that I was scared to fail. I always talk about investing in myself, that’s easy to do, if I’m buying a $5 book or a $20, this or going to a $65 workshop. But when it came to really put my money where my mouth is, I was so scared to fail, that what I meant by expensive is, I was scared, I wasn’t going to apply it. Because I doubt myself, I’m scared, I have these self limiting beliefs. And that was a big wake up call for me, I’d never heard somebody just admit it like that. But that’s true. 

 

It’s so true. So you know, just make sure that you think about that. And, and you remember that you’ve got to be consistent, you’ve got to be consistent. Don’t try to make everything your first and your last and act like I mean, you obviously want to rise to the occasion. But if you think that, my big break is going to depend on this, or I need this win, or I need this one project to do well, no, just more data, collect that data experiment, there’s a reason there’s iPhone one through 15, or 14, now, there’s software that’s 1.0 2.0, just get to that next point, only another brick by another brick. 

 

Here’s another one, invest in experiences, as opposed to things invest in experiences, as opposed to things I’m gonna let you guys figure that one out. But almost everything you have is going to end up in the dump at some point in time, and it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy nice, I definitely believe now, buy once cry once previously used to be way too cheap. Now I’d rather you know, buy a few really nice things and have a whole bunch of clutter. But either way, it’s all ending up in the dump. So invest in experiences, this goes hand in hand with the travel and the things that scare you and all those things, but remember experience and exposure to different things to invest in experiences. 

 

And this next one is going to be a little bit it’ll be interesting to see people’s replies, shrink your circle. Yeah, shrink your circle, you know, this idea of networking and social capital makes us think that we should have just as many people as we can in our network, and you never know when you’re gonna bla bla bla, we did an episode in the past that talked about networking. And the reality is a better term for it is social capital. And there’s two types, and we’re not going to get into it here. We’ll link it in the episode or I think it’s if you’ve taken our online course valued, we talked about it. 

 

Bridging and bonding capital, if you think about bridging capital, that’s people in your peripheral network, you lose your job today, you’re going to call them you’re going to reach out say, Hey, do you know anybody things like that? Bonding capital is the type of individuals that are going to bring you soup when you’re sick? They’re going to be the people that aren’t going to say a oh, you know, is there anything I can do, they’re just gonna do it, they’re going to do it, they’re going to check in on you, they’re going to be there, they’re going to be the ones if a zombie apocalypse hits, and you’re like, late to the fallout shelter, even if the zombies are within 20 meters of you, they’re letting you in, build more of that. 

 

Shrink your circle. Because the sad thing is, and I’m not trying to be cynical here, and I’m not trying to pop, you know, burst any balloons, but people will let you down. They will, they’ll let you down. I have friends that you know, once it became their wedding people that they thought they were their best friends, you know, didn’t show up for him didn’t do this. And you go through these stages in life, where you think people are going to show up for you and they don’t always and we get mad about it. But really, it’s a gift. It really is you need to celebrate that loss. And if you follow me on on Instagram, I talked about this, I think it’s on our YouTube channel to be grateful for the people no longer in your life. And I don’t mean I’m not talking about that in the context of death, of course, but be glad for the people that showed you their true colors that aren’t supporters. 

 

Because when people show you who they are repeatedly, you need to believe them. Everybody needs a little bit of grace, we all make mistakes, and none of us are perfect. But if somebody repeatedly doesn’t show up for you, they repeatedly let you down when it matters. Just realize that’s part of life. shrink your circle. It’s not about who you know, it isn’t like it’s not it’s about how well you know them. It’s about how well you know them it’s just knowing somebody I mean man you can make a connection gotcha job. And then if you if you watch Curb Your Enthusiasm you got foisted one that good of a job or they didn’t really tell you about this so they didn’t tell you about that shrinker circle I’m gonna leave it at that. 

 

Another one and it’s a big one. I’m going to teach my son learn how to think. Holy Lord. The world out there wants everything answered for him. What’s the best this? Hey, what’s the best form of exercise is the one you’re going to do? Yeah, but I heard running burns more calories than swimming. Do you like to run? No? Then who cares? Hey, what’s the best? I got this one a lot? What’s the best grad school to go to? Whoa, I don’t know, where do you live? What’s your goal? What do you want to major in? You know, just what’s the best certification to take? What should I, man just understand that it’s one thing to seek advice. But you know, understand the difference between wanting to be helped and wanting to be saved? 

 

It’s not wrong to ask the question, but lend more context, hey, I’m from this country. And I have this budget. And these are my goals. And this is what I value. Given that, would you recommend one of these two choices? You know, and then guess what? You know, then even then it’s a sticky wicket, because some people just want to get the advice of a bunch of people, because they don’t want to make their own decisions. And then when things go wrong, guess whose fault it is? Well, I was told to do this. And yeah, man, I don’t know. I don’t know. No, like learn how to think think first principles use strong mental models. I’m really big on this. You’ve got to learn how to think root cause analysis. 

 

Well, Deborah is always in a bad mood. Well, might, why might Deborah be in a bad mood? I don’t know. It’s just Deborah. No, there’s probably 20 other things. I don’t really like, you know, sharing a lot about myself. Well, why not? Well, I don’t know. It’s just I don’t trust a lot of people. Okay, well, what leads you not, you know, like, get to the core of these things. But when you have a world that seeks exposure, rather than experience, generally people don’t know how to think because they don’t have skin in the game, and they can’t deconstruct things. Got to have that. Alright, here’s one for you. Now the one and we’ll just do a few more. And then we can do another one if you guys like this, but hopefully this has given you value and giving you some things to think about. 

 

Surprise, surprise, constantly seek ways to improve and amplify your social skills. You know why? Because people skills are power skills, especially as this world continues to be come more and more interconnected. And because of domain expertise, no matter what you do, I don’t care if you’re encoding. I don’t care if you’re in strength and conditioning. I don’t care if you’re in finance, I don’t care if you’re a firefighter domain expertise will only get you so far. Yes, be ridiculously good at what you do. No matter what you do, do it damn well. But if you don’t know how to work with people, you don’t know how to influence people, you don’t know how to persuade people, you’re going to be in trouble. 

 

And by the way, I’m not just talking to are you good with people? Believe it or not, I’ll never forget when somebody said, Hey, man, I want to come to your one of your workshops. But I’m already like, pretty good with people, as if our workshop is like, hey, teach people, Hey, we’re gonna teach how to look somebody in the eye, say their name. No, we’re talking about dealing with people during chaotic circumstances when things go wrong, and guess what, and leadership and life things will usually go wrong. At some point, you’ve got to learn how to work through that. Remember, communication, and there’s many definitions of it is largely a process, a shared process of conveying ideas, thoughts, all these things. It’s constant, meaning making between two people. 

 

That’s really hard when you’re dealing with people from other cultures. But here’s the kicker, I’m going to tell you this is also including things like sales. And this comes top of mind, because the past version of me didn’t like that idea, either. You know, somebody once said, no matter what business you’re in, you’re in the sales business. Oh, no, I’m not I’m a coach. And I realized that wait, when I was in strength and conditioning, my job was constantly selling athletes on the value of doing this drill, or this mobility, you know, exercise or you know why squatting can help with sprinting, and all this, we are all in sales. 

 

If you’re an education, I don’t care. Like if you’re a teacher, you’re in sales, you’re conveying the importance of an idea to something you’re trying to persuade kids to stay engaged, you’re always in sales. And this is very interesting. I especially, you know, we don’t have this problem conveying this much with what we do at art of coaching with people in different fields, but we do still see it. In the field, I came up in strength and conditioning and fitness. It’s like, what’s really going on is people think sales and they are associating it with a bad experience they had that’s not sales. That was somebody that was just an idiot that didn’t, you know, really act as a trusted adviser and have your best interests at heart. 

 

That has nothing to do with sales. It has nothing to do with it. You’re constantly trying to sell yourself, hey, I can be a good parent. Hey, yeah, I can get there on time. Yeah, I’m the man or woman for the job. That is, and then even if you say well, Hey, Brett, Oxford Dictionary, if you say let me look up, Sal. Right. So there’s to give or handover something in exchange for money. Sure, guys. Leadership is a constant process of exchange. It may not always be money, it could be time. But guess what time is money. It could be information. But guess what it costs you money to get that information or you have to think of it in the terms of opportunity costs, it’s really easy for me to know what to charge for something. Because it’s not just the price of the thing. It’s what went into understanding how to put the thing together, package the thing, deliver the thing, you’re not paying market price for anything that you buy.

 

You’re paying for all the other aspects of it. I mean, how even grocery stores, they know that people walk out all the time without scanning stuff on the bottom of their car, you don’t think they account for that, that’s distributed across all their products. Another thing is, when you look at that Oxford dictionary definition of sell to persuade someone of the merits of he sold the idea of making a film about Tchaikovsky. Yeah, if you’re trying to inspire somebody, you’re selling them on the idea. So you better learn sales, it transfers to every single job, all things being equal, if you’re matched up against somebody else, that is an expert at a certain domain. If you have better people skills, communication, sales skills, sales ability, you are always going to have the edge. Because that is how things get done. They get done through people, they get done through people. 

 

So that’s huge there, too. That’s huge there to some honorable mentions. One, of course, it’s important to invest in yourself, that was one that I debated even putting in here, because you don’t need me telling you invest in your health, you do need me telling you that some of you, I think, make that too hard. You know, there was a version of me that invested in my health in a certain way when I was just a strength coach. Now, again, not everything has to be gung ho, if I can walk 45 minutes to 60 minutes, that’s great some days, other days, I can get a great lift. And there’s other I mean, there’s so many things in health doesn’t just have to be exercise, just do something, I don’t even care if you’re somebody that’s like hell, no, I’m gonna drink me beer and eat me ribs every day, cool, do it one last day, or maybe add an apple in there, literally just do anything. 

 

And you know, I tell my dad, say, Dad, you know, like, quit looking at it. And nobody’s telling you to get six pack abs and this and that, you need to just think every time you go for a walk, you’re adding perhaps an hour of time you can spend with your grandson. And just think about that. Because there are people that take better care of their car, or their house than they do their body. better care of their house or their car than they do there. But guess what, you can trade out your car, you can get a new house, you’re not getting another body. And if you’ve ever gone to one of those bodies, exhibits and I think if literally people could see inside their body, it’d be completely different. Again, you’re certainly not going to hear from me like, Oh, go on some crazy diet, Do this, do that. No, just like to something, drink a little bit more water take Metamucil before you go to bed, maybe go like make sure that you’re not missing two dental appointments, do something there. 

 

Bottom line, but if you don’t invest in your health, or the second one wealth, you’re in trouble. Wealth is a huge one there too. I did two unpaid internships, a graduate assistantship where I got paid $10,000. And you know, it was a long time into my career until I got a real paycheck. That was just the reality of the field that I started out. And there are so many coaches that are like, I want to help people I’m not in it for the money. And they use this as a sense of pride. Well, guess what? When you got to pay your bills, go into the bank and saying, Hey, but I’m not in it for the money isn’t going to keep them from turning the lights off. 

 

At some point you’re gonna have to grow up, you’re gonna have to realize that money is important. And two things can be true at once you can do a damn good job of what you do and do it for the right reasons. And make some good money while you’re at it comes down to how much do you value yourself? How much do you value your time because there’s nothing virtuous about being in a job that takes you away from your family and this and all those things that you love, and doesn’t pay a fair wage. You know, and this is why I’m a big fan of anything that you can do, where there’s commission opportunities or equity opportunities bet on yourself. I’m not telling everybody to go be an entrepreneur. 

 

But you know, we’ve said it before on this podcast, the three most addictive things to people are salary, heroin and carbohydrates. So you know, take control of your finances. And by the way, even if you are somebody that like well, I can’t invest in myself, man, you know, I don’t make this much money or whatever. Go through that budget. You’re spending that money somewhere. If you need help on this, we’ve created a free resource artofcoaching.com/money My father was a licensed financial advisor for more than 40 years. He helped us put this together so this is not Brett Bartholomew, an art of coaching pseudo experts, licensed financial advisor just basic thing on money and if you want a deeper dive, we have that as well, if you go to artofcoaching.com/courses the course called Valued has a ton on that. 

 

Now you’ll see some of those courses you may hear the term athlete and strength coach I made those courses when I was still transitioning. that part of my career, but you guys don’t need me to tell you that. If you’re taking a course on being stuck in your career trying to get out of a rut, it doesn’t matter what terms you’re using, like these things apply to you think about the books that you read, you can read a book about the military and not in the military, you can learn these things. So if you’re new to the podcast, don’t worry about, you know, the background in strength and conditioning, we all evolve. And that brings me to my next thing, and probably one of my last things is going to be two more things 

 

Evolve. You’re not supposed to say the same in your career. This is something else that I was incredibly influenced by in my field. It was like coaches scared to evolve you know, and they’d see in the sport world, the same coaches who said vilified money and branding would watch the sport coaches that they worked for. On Aflac commercials, or other commercials are getting paid millions of dollars. Think about it. If I’m a musician, It’s great to play music, I love music. But I still have to go out there and build that brand for myself. And I need to, you know, I might start a record label. And I might do this evolve in your career. 

 

People that are chefs become restaurant owners, evolve. And don’t be scared to take the leap. It’s okay, if you’re 38 68, whatever, and you’re no longer happy with what you’re doing. Bounce. Give yourself the advice that you would give a younger version of you. Don’t fall for the sunk cost fallacy. So many people stay in thanks. And you’re like, Well, I’ve put this much time into it. I can’t give up now. Don’t want to be a quitter. That’s how Las Vegas was built. I’m down $3,000. I gotta bet a little bit more. Oh, sunk cost fallacy. It’s as old as time it’s one of the basic principles in economics know when to walk away? It’s all right. 

 

Well, people aren’t gonna respect me, anybody that doesn’t respect you for taking a new path, that better suit you shouldn’t be in your life. See the earlier rule I gave you shrink your circle, don’t you love it, you follow these basic rules, things start to figure themselves out, you find out who’s supposed to be in your life and all that. It’s just part of it. It’s part of it. You know, I’ll give you two more. And then some honorable mentions. And we’ll be done. 

 

Accept and embrace, change. The fact that things change, the fact that you’re going to die, and the fact that we all have to pay taxes are the only three certainties you get in life, change happens. And that’s what survival of the fittest is all about has nothing to do with the strongest or the actual fittest. It’s the one most capable of adapting to change. Better embrace it, better embrace it. 

 

Another piece there is learn how to play the game. And I had to say this one, just because, you know, we’ve had somebody wants to just said, you know, the biggest thing that I learned from your stuff, at art of coaching that I wish I would have known sooner, but I was so stubborn about is you always tell people how to play the game, you talked about power dynamics and influence tactics. I didn’t want to do it. I felt dirty doing it. You don’t need to feel dirty doing that. Life is I mean, there is a game to it. Everything’s got politics. You know, that’s just the reality. We’re constantly we’re social creatures trying to compete. It’s a reality. You got to learn how to play the game, you got to learn how to read people, you want to learn how to do that. 

 

I’m not going to feel bad about the hard sell, get your butt to one of our clinics, we teach you why? Because I wish somebody would have taught me so I made it a product. This is all tied into my doctorate. This is my life’s work, we will teach you how to play the game the right way, an ethical way, so that you don’t get taken advantage of all you got to do is go to artofcoaching.com/events Meet us somewhere in the middle, I get that traveling is hard. I’m right there with you. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, show me how many events of their show Atlanta, Georgia, we’re traveling all the time, and I got kids and I got this and I got that too. 

 

I love you. But if you don’t want to learn how to play the game, and you don’t want to have to travel, you don’t want to have to invest in yourself. And you don’t want to have to do the hard things. Do not complain when you’re the one that’s on the losing end. And I’m trying to be respectful, but I’m trying to be the kick in the butt you need because there’s just way too many people that I don’t want to do like life doesn’t have it doesn’t matter in life, what you like it matters what you can adapt to. Please know that

 

The last one I’ll give you is obvious believing something bigger than yourself. Whatever that is. There are a lot of people that listen and we got more than almost 2 million downloads. There’s a lot of people from a lot of different countries, a lot of different nationalities, a lot of different backgrounds, whatever that is just believe in something bigger than yourself, you have to and you know, if these things are helpful, or you want some, you know, more pieces there, I’ll tell you this I’ll run through and a lot of them coincide with we have a sign in our house that says Bartholomew family rules, because the goal was to kind of give something to my son someday or my grandson so they knew and so you’ll see a lot of interconnectivity. I’m not going to elaborate on these but I’m just going to give you a list in case you want to listen back to it or adapt them or use them for yourself. 

 

Let’s just says, Hey, you know, one liners, always adapt, communicate clearly give things time, that’s a huge one right time generally helps you see things more clearly. put skin in the game, give ground to gain ground know that you’re not going to win them all. And that’s okay. Prioritize relationships, find humor in everything. think laterally, connect the dots between seemingly non connected things. Read broadly, care more about the details go the extra mile, it’s never crowded, be active, get your hands dirty. 

 

Right, you see a lot of interconnectivity. So I hope you guys enjoyed a little bit of just a trip inside my mind. Again, this isn’t going to be the holy grail of it. But I think it’s you know, if you could just give yourself if you wrote a few of these things down in your notebook, or you laminated on a card, and you just remembered them sometimes when you get frustrated. Yeah, I think it would help. You know, it allows you these, playing these things back helps you keep from making moments in your life into monsters, and losing your way. Please believe that I learned all of them the hard way, I’m only trying to help. 

 

If any of these resonated with you, please let us know. We want to make a difference. Please share this with some folks that you know, if you share the podcast, it helps us a great deal, leave a review. It doesn’t have to be you know, some big butt kissing thing. But we put a lot of work into this. And so it really means a lot. We’re a small family owned business, and how we compete with the big boys on Spotify and iTunes is really dependent on those reviews, we’re dependent on you spreading the word. More importantly, come see us. We’d love the opportunity whether it’s myself or coach Ali or Becca or Liz or Nate or anybody that’s on our team at the time that you’re listening to this. 

 

We’d love you to share. We’d love to be able to shake your hand a part of your life and provide you with more value. Remember, you can always learn more get tons of free resources at art of coaching.com artofcoaching.com/events We have a lot of exciting things coming up. My book conscious coaching is on Amazon and my new book is going to be coming out in 2024. You can learn more at artofcoaching.com/book and get on the waitlist. All right for myself and everybody on our team. I’ll talk to you next time.