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The Reload with Sean Hansen
The Reload with Sean Hansen
How Do You Know You Have a Problem? - 208
Do you ever wonder why high achievers struggle with personal fulfillment despite their success? Today, we promise to uncover the hidden challenges that even the most accomplished individuals face. Join us on "The Reload" as we explore the traits that define unconventional leadership and the transformative journey of self-discovery. We’ll unearth how the drive for career success often masks deeper personal issues, especially in relationships, and why recognizing when your usual strategies fall short is pivotal. With stories from my coaching experiences, we’ll emphasize the dual importance of internal reflection and external exploration for achieving a truly balanced life, urging a reevaluation of what really matters.
In our discussion, we’ll spotlight the critical need for honest external feedback, even for those who appear unphased by others’ opinions. Learn the value of 360-degree feedback and how insights from trusted colleagues and friends can illuminate areas for growth. We’ll also tackle the thorny issue of self-deception, illustrating how recognizing enabling behaviors is key to meaningful transformation. Through compelling examples, including the metaphor of moving your ladder to a new wall rather than starting anew, we reveal how existing skills and experiences can be redirected for greater success. Whether you are at the peak of your career or aspiring to reach new heights, this episode offers invaluable insights to enhance both your professional and personal life.
Are you an executive, entrepreneur, or combat veteran looking to overcome subconscious blind spots and limiting messaging to unlock your highest performance? Feel free to reach out to Sean at Reload Coaching and Consulting.
Welcome to the Reload, where we help unconventional leaders craft the life they truly want by questioning the assumptions they have about how life works. My name is Sean and I'll be your host on this journey. As a performance coach and special operations combat veteran, I help high-performing executives kick ass in their careers while connecting with deeply powerful insights that fuel their lives. All right, I wanted to break out just a quick episode here, based on some conversations that I've had recently, or at least in the last few weeks, and one of them was actually I don't mean to say it as a sort of minimizing effect, but one of them was actually, yes, very interesting to me. It was with a prospective client and the individual asked well, what kind of person signs up for coaching? And at first I had sort of a instinctive, automated response in my head like, oh well, you know, like people that are looking to X, y, z, looking to improve their their career track, looking to solve problems, looking to improve their relationships, looking to all of these very tangible goals that people have set with me over the years that I've been doing this. But it took a moment to pause and reflect and to try to understand, okay, what is the commonality between the various individuals that I've worked with Men, women, heterosexual, homosexual across a whole spectrum of different industries, different phases of life, different phases of career. Have kids, don't have kids. I mean I've worked with so many different kinds of people, really interesting people. I mean it's been a privilege to work with the various individuals that I have and I thought to myself okay, yeah, what ties all of them together, together, one of the fundamental aspects that connects them is their connection internally to curiosity. There's a core trait amongst all the people that I work with they are curious. They are curious, they are interested in learning Now, about what. That tends to vary, but at the very least, they're interested in learning about themselves and they're interested in learning about this experience of life. And how that plays out obviously is specific to each individual, but there is this fundamental curiosity. Additionally, they are all willing to look at difficult things in order to make their life, their relationships, their organizations better. So, in thinking about the topic for today, really what I'm focused on is how do you know that you have a problem?
Speaker 1:One of the things that I've observed in a lot of my prospective client conversations is that people who have garnered a lot of success or at least shall I call it traditional success, monetary success, career success typically have a very difficult time identifying when what used to work no longer is. And I've talked about some of this elements of this, I guess in other episodes. But one common trait I guess that I've observed, or characteristic, is that they are so often accustomed to being the person with the right answer that it's become I don't know, it's become virtually impossible for them to really truly deep down, believe that they're not seeing all the relevant evidence and that they're not making the right calculations, the right assessments, analysis, whatever you want to call it, and then making the right decision off of that. And that's an interesting thing to observe because so often, you know, when we hear people, some of the top performers out there, you know, a lot of times sports stars are interviewed, these highly successful sports stars, and they talk about their failures being integral to their success. And same thing in business. Business leaders are interviewed all the time and they talk about their failures being an integral part of their success because it caused them to really take a look at themselves or their process or their company or whatever right they went internal as well as external right, I'm not trying to be all Pollyanna here and just say, oh well, you know, it's all just affirmations. And taking a look at yourself and where you're the responsible party, I fully recognize that there is both the internal investigation or exploration, and then there's also the external, and that is what makes a holistic approach.
Speaker 1:And so for me it's really interesting when I come across an individual who has garnered a lot of success but who is holding themselves back, unknowingly, from even greater levels of success. You know, they think that they've tapped their potential, they think that they're playing to their maximum, but they're not, not even close. And it's, I guess, in some ways it's sad to see. You know, it's sad to see somebody that has all of this potential that is left untapped, and for them to not recognize that something is missing when they could very definitely use help. And it's not to say that they're incompetent somehow they're not. They are capable individuals, but in certain ways they're missing an aspect. They're missing something that would really help them.
Speaker 1:And quite frequently at least with the folks that I tend to work with, a lot of times it's all of that career and financial success that has cost them relationships. Now, it's not to say that they don't have relationships, although sometimes they don't, sometimes they're so hell-bent on the career success that they really don't have any genuine authentic relationships. They have a lot of networking that they do, and they have a lot of contacts, but they don't have genuine friendships. They did at one point and then those all just kind of began to wither on the vine because they didn't pay attention to them, they didn't care for them.
Speaker 1:Now some other observations that I've seen, and if this offends you then sorry, probably it's because you're doing some of this, but it's not my intention to offend you. These are just observations that I've seen and I'm trying to highlight them so that if it is something that does affect you or that you are manifesting that, you can actually then do something about it if you want to, obviously that you can actually then do something about it if you want to, obviously. So one of the things that I've noticed oftentimes, when I get up into a conversation with somebody that has this long track record of success and, you know, somebody recommends me to them. That's typically how this situation unfolds I get referred to them and then the conversation is largely well.
Speaker 1:I'm not really sure why I would invest in coaching and you know what exactly would be working on. And you know I'm just not clear, and that's fair. I mean, a lot of people don't know what coaching is about, and that's totally fine, and there are a lot of different types of coaches out there as well, so that serves its own measure of confusion. So, for me at least, and my process because I do deeper, harder hitting coaching it's pretty intense and it takes a lot of effort to take a look deep inside oneself to try to understand where you're not living up to your full potential, but to facilitate that conversation and to try to help people recognize okay, well, if we did decide to work together and we don't have to, obviously, but if we did decide to work together what might take up a year of coaching, which is another thing that tends to throw people for a loop. They're like a year, like a full year, yeah, a full year. And what's hilarious to me is that all of my clients, by the time we reach the end of the year, they're like, wow, has it already been a year? Yeah, so it's interesting and somewhat entertaining how quickly that year can fly by when you're doing deep work. So in these conversations with these prospective clients, the ones that have had a lot of certain kinds of success.
Speaker 1:Part of the substantiation of whether we would work together is to figure out, okay, well, what's off track and, interestingly enough, even though they self-describe as being very responsible individuals who own their actions and who own their feelings own their actions and who own their feelings. When we start to try to, or when I start to try to dig into what is it that we would be looking at, where is it that you're experiencing problems, I very quickly get sort of a I don't know a blast of blaming other people and blaming inopportune timing and blaming randomness. Well, that one just didn't work out that project or that business or whatever, and it's interesting to me. It's interesting, okay, well, you describe yourself as the person who takes ownership of something, and yet here we are in this pattern of you blaming everything else. And you know, for that matter, I perceive a real difference between blame and responsibility, and I've talked about that in another episode, so I'm not going to talk about it here. But to me, there is a very powerful difference between looking at blaming and looking at taking responsibility. But in either case, there's a lot of finger pointing outside in these kinds of conversations and again, it's not to say that other people or external factors don't have a role but when we're starting to look at why somebody might invest in coaching and what the benefit might be and part of that benefit is solving problems Well, we have to identify where an individual might need help, where a prospect might need help, might need help, where a prospect might need help.
Speaker 1:So, in order to make this a little bit more practical, I guess for you, if you're in a situation where you're thinking to yourself huh, yeah, maybe I should hire a coach, maybe that would be useful. But there's still a lot of you that says, eh, but why, you know, made it this far? Look at all the success I've garnered and likely you have garnered a lot of success. I can figure this out on my own. Yeah, quite possibly it might take a lot longer. But how do you identify when you need help? Well, the low-hanging fruit would suggest that you take external feedback on board and that can just be asking. Friends, colleagues, be careful if you're going to ask a subordinate, because a lot of times subordinates just tell you whatever they think you want to hear, because they don't want to be fired. Plain and simple.
Speaker 1:But if you can ask people around you, people that you believe would actually be honest with you and that have enough awareness themselves to take notice of yeah, it doesn't seem like you do this very well, or it seems like you always struggle in this kind of situation. Or remember when we were trying to do blah, blah, blah and you really came apart there. Now you may not characterize it as coming apart or screwing it up or whatever, because often people have kind of a positive self-reference point. I mean, yeah, it didn't go great, but it wasn't that bad Whereas other people might say, no, you really screwed that up. So in certain ways a lot of people tend to be gentler, I guess, or less critical, if I want to be more direct about it with themselves and in some ways you might say, less honest. So getting feedback from other people is really important and you know a lot of coaches out there, including myself. They'll run a 360 for you without you needing to sign up for an actual coaching engagement and a lot of times it's in that sort of diagnostic phase and sure, they will often charge for it because they're executing their time and putting forth their analysis to try to help you identify.
Speaker 1:Here are the key themes that came out of this assessment. We interviewed this many people and the interviews could be in person or they could be over the phone, or maybe it's simply just like a digital survey. I personally like the belt and suspenders approach, where you take a digital survey and then the coach does individual interviews with people. From what I've seen, that tends to really flesh out the details and helps people contextualize. Oh yeah, okay, this overarching theme plays out such and such way in my life. So whether you're doing it informally, by just kind of going to the people you know and asking them yourself, or whether you're doing it formally with a coach to do a 360 on you, asking them yourself, or whether you're doing it formally with a coach to do a 360 on you, that's the benefit. The benefit is that you get this comprehensive external view of how you are presenting to other people. And what's interesting is there's a.
Speaker 1:I mean I've worked with a lot of senior executives who again proclaim that they're very tough people who don't care what others think about them, meaning they don't care about if somebody has a poor opinion of them. And then when I suggest that we do a 360, they hem and haw and avoid it for months or, at the very least, weeks, and when they come clean about what the resistance is, they say well, I just care what people are going to say. It's like well, I thought you didn't care, I thought you didn't care what people's opinion was. It turns out that people do care, and oftentimes the ones that come across the most gruff and uncaring or disinterested about other people's opinions actually care the most. And if we're going to dive down this rabbit hole even a little bit further, they often care because they tend not to have truly that high opinion of themselves, despite all of their bluster and all of their bravado, and so they're afraid that they're going to receive criticism, which everybody does.
Speaker 1:There is not a single 360 that I've done, including ones that I've gone through myself, where people were like oh no, he or she's great, amazing, just keep doing, you're like a unicorn. No, that's false, does not happen. Now, sure, you might have a lot of positive things said, and typically that's what I've seen. People have a lot of positive things to say, and then they have a good chunk of things to say, and then they have a good chunk of criticisms and ways of identifying when we get upset or when we feel pressured or pinched or constrained or trapped or whatever the trigger is and where the ugly side of us shows up, the mean side or the less effective side at the very least. And that's so valuable. That's so valuable to have people be honest and say, hey, you seem to do these things really really well and you have a natural talent or I don't know how you got this, but, man, you own these things. You just you're all over it.
Speaker 1:And when you get into this other kind of situation, you fall apart or you become highly reactive or you become really unstable or you don't communicate clearly, and then the rest of us are super confused and the organization suffers. And you know, dah, dah, dah, da, da, because it's those areas, when you improve them, that everything in your life can start to look way better and you really truly can start to tap into this potential that you are not actually seeing. You think you are maxing out your potential and you are not, because you do not see the limit of that horizon. You're seeing something well short of it and thinking, oh, I'm pretty much there. No, it's because you do not see. So part of seeing more is taking a stark look at instances where you've set a goal and haven't reached it, but without automatically blaming outside factors or people. Right now I'm coaching another coach and that individual is coaching somebody that I know, and part of what's going on there is a lot of blaming external people and factors. Again, no, for now, just look at your part. But even there, you have to acknowledge that you have a part, and there have been individuals that I've spoken with where they did not allow themselves to see that they had a part to play, and that's something that blows my mind when it comes to relationships.
Speaker 1:When it comes to relationships, it does not matter how bad, wicked, stupid, intransigent the other party is. You're still part of that relationship, so you have a part to play. Is it the majority part? Yeah, maybe not, but what's funny is everybody always thinks it's the other party that's the bad party, and everybody always thinks it's the other party that's the bad party, and it's like well, maybe you should start by looking at your own house first. Get your own house in order. Well, my house is already in order. Oh, really. Well, if we were to ask the other party, would they say that? No, they probably wouldn't.
Speaker 1:I had clients that have cheated on their spouse and then, literally with a straight face, told me that it wasn't cheating because you know such and such sexual act didn't happen. And then I say to them what would your spouse say about it? Would your spouse consider it cheating? Would your spouse's family consider it cheating, like their parents, for instance? Would your parents consider it cheating? Would anybody other than you consider it cheating? I mean, I'm not trying to be a dick here, but sometimes we like to delude ourselves. And so, taking again a clean look at okay, I set a goal, I didn't reach it. There may have been all kinds of extenuating circumstances Right now, I don't care about them right now. Look at your part. That is one way to begin to recognize huh, yeah, I'm not. I'm not a hundred percent here.
Speaker 1:The third thing that you can do really tap into curiosity about whether you might improve how you were doing things or showing up. And really that ties into the fourth bullet point that I wrote for myself here, which is taking a hard look at where you are operating in a silo, about how the world works. So this element of confusion oh man, curiosity, sorry, this element of curiosity is or well, I guess. I mean, I guess you could be confused and therefore you should get curious about why you're confused. No, so, to get back on track, so frequently the conversations that I end up in, individuals truly believe that the way that they are viewing their world is how the world works. So there's a little bit of a shift there, right their world to the world. And I say, well, okay, that's how the world works for you.
Speaker 1:But the person next to you, whether it's a CEO that you know, a fellow CEO or a fellow vice president, or a fellow entrepreneur, or a fellow special operations combat veteran, which is you know, these are the groups I tend to work with. They can have the same experience but becoming at the world totally different. And so, again, when we think that we've maxed out our potential, it's often because we're trapped in our own silo and we've explored the limits of that silo and we don't recognize that, hey, outside this silo there is a whole wide world out there. But we're just so consumed with the view from inside of our own silo and how amazing we think that we're doing everything, that we don't begin to wonder hmm, maybe the things that I'm preoccupied with, or the pursuits that I'm chasing the things that I think are just so important really aren't? Huh, wouldn't that be weird? What would happen if I started to think that maybe the pursuits that I'm invested in are not as important as I have made them out to be? Would I have an existential crisis? Maybe you very well might, and I'm not joking around.
Speaker 1:That is a real consequence, and sometimes that's part of what holds people back. They've spent so much time investing in a certain way of being, in a certain way of viewing the world that they're terrified that maybe they did it wrong. There's this joke about you spend your whole career climbing the ladder only to get to the top and the ladder's against the wrong wall. And I've had clients that were like that. And I've had clients that were like that slaved and slaved and slaved and worked their butts off to get to the top of the ladder and then realized this is not where I want to be. But even in that seemingly glum scenario, all is certainly not lost, because there is so much training and learning and experience that has gone into that journey that people think that they're going to have to start from the bottom again.
Speaker 1:I was like no, why don't we just hop the ladder over to the other wall, metaphorically speaking. And so you know I'm raising that particular point because I don't want you to be afraid to look outside of your silo, but you have to recognize, first and foremost, that you actually are in a silo. And then how do we begin to be curious about what's outside of it? Is it to jump into another silo? I mean, that wouldn't be my answer. But if that's part of what helps create the process of curiosity and incorporating change and I guess there's some arguments, metaphorically speaking, of jumping from one silo to another silo, keeping it contained, not getting too distracted with the diversity of options that might exist out on the open prairie, so to speak.
Speaker 1:But in either case, going back to the mission at hand, how do you know that you would benefit from help or spoken, I guess, in more layman's terms, how do you know you have a problem? Well, if you're not curious, if you're not willing to look at what other people have to say, if you're not willing to at least look at where you've set certain goals and haven't gotten there, without blaming other people or outside factors, it's going to be real tough. But if you're willing to do any or all of those things, it's going to be real tough, but if you're willing to do any or all of those things, I think what it will do is it will open up certain vistas that you had never considered before. And because of the success that you've garnered this far in your life, I actually think that you really truly do have the foundational characteristics to create something wonderful in your life, but again in a domain that you've never considered before.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes there is something, there is one thing that has pierced their armor, as it were, and it's often relational relationship with their kids, relationship with their partner or their spouse. That is often the inlet that lets them know with their partner or their spouse, that is often the inlet that lets them know hmm, the tools that I have are not working on this problem set, but the funny thing about that, that relational piece, is that oftentimes the people in their life have been enabling them because they have been sort of a focal point of success. They've been sort of a gravitational well of success and the people around them want them to continue to be successful, sometimes altruistically, sometimes selfishly, because their own success is tied to this, this prospect's success. And so that's one of the difficulties of this. Figuring out that you have a problem is if you have a bunch of handlers quote, unquote or at least enablers around you that are not giving it to you straight, that are cleaning up some of your messes in the background or that are minimizing the hurt that they feel if you I don't know fail them in some way, right, fail to live up to your word, fail to take care of them, fail to acknowledge them, whatever, if they brush it off, if they continually say, oh, it's okay, it's no problem, don't worry about it. Well, yeah, I mean in that sense, how would you know and it's generally not until people around you start squawking and start telling you hey, you're messed up, that thing that you just did hurt, hurt my feelings, or you're executing a double standard, or you're being a hypocrite or whatever. Whatever the critique might be, it's when we receive those critiques that we can actually begin to recognize oh, not all is well here. So if you are a person listening to this and you find yourself actually being the enabler, maybe you need to have a kind of gut check moment with yourself and ask yourself are you really doing the person any favors by continuing to tell them that everything is fine, that it'll be okay, or would you and the prospective client actually really benefit from having greater honesty and greater transparency in your relationship, where you actually tell them no, that's not okay with me. I want you to change.
Speaker 1:One example of this that I think is easy for most people to grasp is, you know, alcoholism or drug addiction of some sort, and the family finally has an intervention. All the friends and family show up and they say, hey, dear friend, dear family member, what you're doing is not okay, it's harmful to you and it's harmful to us, and it's harmful to our relationship as well, our ability to be in relationship with you, and we are not going to accept this anymore. There will be consequences in your life. You may not care about them, in which case that will be a sad day for us, but we will not allow you to be in our life in the state that you are in, and we want you very much to be in our life, but we will not accept it in the condition that you are currently in.
Speaker 1:Get help now, get on the path, get on the wagon, whatever right, but until there are actual consequences in the prospective client's life, they will often just hang their hat on all the success that they've garnered thus far. So there are a couple different perspectives there for you One from the perspective of the prospective client and then one for the person that might be enabling them. Again, my goal is not to offend anybody, but I've seen this play out over and over and over again over the years and oftentimes the kind of person that I just described, the kind of prospective client that I just described, oftentimes does not sign up for coaching, whether with me or anyone else, and then that cycle continues for a long time and there's a lot of heartache that goes into that process until finally something blows up and it's like, ah, it didn't have to blow up. If we'd gotten to it sooner, it's very likely that we could have made some adjustments slowly over time. That would have led to a much better place.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I just wanted to. I don't know something inside of me just thought, ah, this might be a good topic to put out there. So hopefully it was helpful for you, hopefully there's some actionable parts in this and you know whether you find yourself the first person, whether you find yourself to be the first person or that enabler person that I talked about in the last few minutes. Dig deep, look inside yourself and recognize that quite possibly you're not seeing the full picture. Quite possibly you're not seeing the full picture. So, on that, friendly adieu, if you are enjoying this show maybe you're not today, I don't know, who knows but if you are enjoying the show, I would love it. If you would like, subscribe, follow, share all that other stuff and until next time, take care of each other.
