Episode 18: Courage

Mordecai and JD discuss the many facets of courage, procrastination, and delegation.

Timestamps:
0:00 - 4:01  Courage is I Can

4:02 - 8:08  The Inverse of Courage

8:09 - 14:13 Resumes, Eulogies, and Rescuing Bugs

14:27 - 28:11 Acting on Courage

28:13 - 34:30 The Other Side of the Coin

34:31 - 52:09 Procrastination and the Pandora's Box

52:17 - 57:07 The Power of Delegation

Writers Referenced:

1. Dan Sullivan, "The Gap and The Gain"
2. David Brooks
3. Michael Singer

Transcript

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:00

JD here we are, again. And my question for you is, how courageous are you feeling today?

JD Stettin: 0:10

I am. I am feeling like I can.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:14

You can?

JD Stettin: 0:14

I can. That's the hallmark of courage, the knowledge and

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:18

That's good! feeling that I can. That's good. I have to say, I'm feeling less certain.

JD Stettin: 0:29

Oh no, did we lose you? What are the periods? Did we leave you in one of the previous weeks?

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:32

So, getting to courage I was now just pushed right back into guilt about maybe not feeling courageous. So courage is interesting. So courage, I feel like is the first emotion that we've gotten to that's more positive. You know, we've done shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, pride, and now we're at courage. So one thing I was trying to pay attention to is, well, does this resonate as as much? Yeah, and there are certain parts of it that do. And as I'm reading about the ideas of courage and the feeling that it's about "I can" and the ability to confront challenges. In lots of ways, I love courage and I love kind of pushing myself past my comfort zone and trying new things, and doing

JD Stettin: 1:38

I feel like it reminds me of the old joke that this podcast and just kind of putting myself out there. And yet, it's very easy for me to see all the areas where I feel that I'm not being courageous. That was just kind of an interesting observation for me, just noticing my resistance to letting myself appreciate my courage as opposed to looking back and thinking I was courageous there, but I didn't do that. It's easy for me to see, as Dan Sullivan would say, the gap between what could be, and the "gain", which is what you're actually doing, or what you've done. I don't know if that's resonates at all with you, or if you're kind of just kind of Gung Ho with it. I heard when I moved to Texas, but I imagine people say in a lot of places, which is "Oh, you don't like the weather? Wait 15 minutes." I feel that way, sometimes with some of these emotion states. Like rereading the chapter last night, and this morning for the podcast, I felt like, oh, yeah, this like really resonates. I feel like I do spend a lot of time here. And this feels good. But I imagine if you had you asked me a week and a half ago and it was the middle of a very difficult time, I might have said I'm not and I don't really hang out there. So it does depend. But overall, this idea of, I can look at my feelings, I can handle them. I'm willing to take risks, let go of old points of view, explore new ones, the self empowerment, the willingness to explore a kind of spirituality and go from there. That feels the awareness of others. This feels like, again, not somewhere I'm always hanging out. But this does feel like familiar, comfortable territory in, in a lot of ways.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 4:02

You know, when we talk about all those emotions that I did very easily resonate with, let's say, if it your guilt, or fear, or anger, so I don't feel angry all the time. Clearly, right? It's like once in a while. Yet the fact that I feel it once in a while, I was like, oh, yeah, I get that. Right. But with courage, it's kind of the inverse, right? There there are lots of times where I feel courageous and feel the desire to do and act. But then I'm thinking about all the times that I'm not feeling courageous? Yeah, then I'm resonating with the void of them. I'm not thinking like, oh, yeah, I do feel guilty sometimes. But look at all times that I'm not feeling guilty, and then resonate with those times that where I'm not feeling guilty or feel fearful. So, one of the things I was thinking about is this attachment to feeling like it's more comfortable for me to feel the things that I'm not doing. Or maybe like even the life, this imagined life that I'm not living. He talks about that when you get to this point of courage that you may decide to do something different for a living, that you may decide to do jobs that will be of some benefit to the world. I have this fantasy that there's some other life that could be lived, where I'm just spending my days trying to inspire people and lift people up, and people are paying me millions of dollars to come and do that with them. Right? So there is this kind of fantasy of like, oh, maybe there's some other life that I could be living or that I should be be living. And then the gap is something that's comfortable to me to say. Like, oh, yeah, there's something else. There's more that I could be doing, or should be doing. And that's more comfortable for me then looking at all these amazing things. And look, I actually do get to get paid well to do what I love to do. And no, it's not going off on silent meditation retreats. So, there's definitely more comfort with looking at the glass half empty, maybe, than glass half full internally. If you would talk to me, you'd say wow, Mordecai is totally a glass half full person. But I feel like my internal monologue might be a little different.

JD Stettin: 7:28

That feels like a really good insight and self knowledge of maybe a proclivity towards finding fault in yourself, or finding the ways in which you're somehow not good enough and feel like you ought to be better. It also feels like a feature of the human mind and this sort of radar model that is constantly scanning and looking for problems, as opposed to looking around in wonderment and awe at everything that is already so awesome and perfect about life.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 8:10

What what do you think that fear is, that fear of of looking at all the positives that we've done and we accomplished? You mentioned a few episodes ago, I forget who that who the author was, but you're talking about about, like eulogy?

JD Stettin: 8:37

David Brooks.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 8:38

David Brooks, right. That is the eulogy character traits versus resume character traits or accomplishments. We should be focused more on the things that you want to be said about you at your funeral than about what you can post on your resume. And on those eulogy elements, I feel like I do pretty well at. I think about this sometimes, like they'll say that about me at my funeral. I think they'll have like a lot of nice things to say. But yet it's easier to look at the things that are missing from your resume than looking at the things that you're building up on your eulogy, so to speak. I don't know if it's a common experience or not. I think it probably is. But what that would be about?

JD Stettin: 9:45

I definitely remember mentioning that, and Lord knows what the context was. But I think for me, I feel critical or resistance of Brooks's idea of focusing on eulogy values and resume values, because that feels like another form of being overly concerned with how you're perceived rather than your actual experience. Like when you're dead, you're dead. And I don't think anyone relishes the idea that after they die, they'll either be completely reviled or forgotten. I mean, that doesn't feel exciting. But this notion of being overly concerned with either resume or eulogy, they both feel like kind of two sides of this coin that is worthless currency are fake currency. And that real currency is as much as we can, being true to the present moment and true to self. Whether or not people say nice things about us, I generally suspect that if we're mostly living in presence and we're able to let go of things, generally people will jive with that. But at the same time, I think part of what holds me back is being concerned with both resume and eulogy values. And like, Oh, it's so important to me that everyone thinks I am a good guy. And it's really important that people know that I try to make all these decisions consciously. And I don't do this, and I only buy things that are made ethically or whatever. I definitely spend a lot of time and energy concerned with those things in a way that I don't think, when I can step back and give it a beat, feels like really deep or important or truthful. It feels like it comes from fear and shame and guilt than it does from love or peace or or presence. I was thinking about it when the other night I found some small winged insect on my kitchen counter. My mom raised us to never kill bugs, cockroaches and mosquitoes maybe being the exceptions. Growing up, it was always just try and cup them, take them out outdoors. And thinking about that I had this moment of like, alright, well, I don't really want bugs in the house. But you know, I won't kill it because that's not what I do, and feeling that like sense of guilt and weight and noticing that. Then also thinking like, okay, that's there and that's one of the first places I go to as a motivator or reason to do or not do something. But then also like just taking a moment and looking at it like, Oh my God, this little living thing that's just doing its life thing in a way that's not all that different from me, or my cat, or the chipmunk. And I really felt this wave of love and connection and understanding come over me, between me and this little creature. The action was the same. I cupped him and removed him. But it wasn't out of the sense of as much of like guilt, or shame, or what would my mom think, or I'm not the kind of person who kills bugs. It really a came from like, oh, like, dear one. You're alive. You want to be alive. You probably don't want to be in my house. You can't reproduce here or do whatever. Let me help you if I can. I mean, who knows? Maybe I threw him out of the house and he got eaten by a bat. So I don't know if I actually helped. But so many of those eulogy and resume values and virtues feel like they're so fear and shame and like other person perspective based to me.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 14:16

I'm hearing that that that beautiful story, JD, and I'm thinking, Dude, you really have to get out more.

JD Stettin: 14:25

And that's also true.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 14:28

But I was raised the same way. I can definitely relate to that. You know, one of the things with courage is I think you don't feel the same amount of courage like that all through the day or just from time to time, right. But one of the features of courage is is action. Right? You don't feel courageous to go into battle and then you go play on your Xbox thinking about your willingness to go into battle, right? So I feel like there is something about seizing that courage and acting on it. I certainly feel that at different points of the day, like the morning, you know, like, first thing in the morning, especially if I like, if I'm waking up early, where there's just this open space, right? If I'm up at

5:00 or 5: 15:32

30 and everyone's still sleeping, it feels like I have the whole world open, right? You can think clearly. Now, on the other hand, like at 11 o'clock at night, I'm tired and to have meaningful conversation is challenging at that point. So I feel like that's also something we can be aware of. What are those times where we are feeling more courageous, and structuring our days to act during those those times? If I were to going to write a book, the right time for me is not at 10 or 11 o'clock at night. The right time would be

5:00 in the morning or 5: 16:23

30, where I'm feeling that that courageous energy. So that's also something that I feel like we can work, our with our natural clock. Maybe courage is also knowing it is also like a weather pattern, it does ebb and flow. Right? And so when you're feeling down, if you're not feeling courageous, it's alright. It just ebbs, the courage side ebbed, and then you'll wait for it to come back. But when it does come back, be in a position to do something, you kind of like stake yourself to that courage.

JD Stettin: 17:06

I like that. And it also makes me just wonder if being tired is actually in some way in opposition to courage, or if at 11 o'clock at night, like the courageous thing to do is say Oh, my body needs rest. It's 11, I've been up since 5:00 or

5: 17:29

30. The action I'm taking is whatever self care or putting myself to bed. I still agree in terms of using the energy patterns, I'm with you. Trying to write or do work at 10 or 11 o'clock at night is not where I am. I am in bed with a book or a show. So I think that feels really good riding that wave. But I do wonder about courage because it is definitely identified with action, but I'm trying to find some of the other parts. Self empowerment, self awareness, awareness of others, all these other things that are part of courage, feels like it can manifest in different ways, even if the the energy is low. I'm just puzzling through this with you. I wonder if as a just fun game or experiment in the evenings or when we're feeling tired, feeling into that and maybe checking is it actual tiredness exhaustion? Is it not tiredness? Is it actually maybe difficult emotions? Grief, guilt, fear? So we're experiencing a sense of shutting down? Or no, I actually feel like really empowered, really good about myself, and my life, and others. I'm just freaking tired, because I played tennis and worked and did a million things today. And I'm just flesh and bones. A meat wagon is I think what Rogan used to call

Mordecai Rosenberg: 19:21

So just recognizing that you can still it. have courage, even as you're going to sleep. I guess so. I'm thinking courage is like, why is courage important? You know, like, let's say for example, do animals have courage? That fly or whatever winged creatures that decided to fly into your house, was that courageous? When you see the cheetah that's going after the whatever elk or whatever they chase. They're putting themselves out there, but is it courageous? Or is it just what they what they do? Courage, I think, feels like a distinctly human emotion. I don't know if it exists in the animal world or not. But why do we have it? I think it's to spur action, you know. So you might feel like, okay, yeah, I'm feeling courageous tomorrow morning. I'm excited to get started on something. And the thing to do now is sleep to do that. So I think you can still be feeling courageous, but I feel like in order to stick yourself to it does require an action, to kind of scratch that itch.

JD Stettin: 21:17

Yeah, I think to scratch the itch requires an action. And, in a way, just thinking about the conversation we were having earlier about Michael Singer, like every other emotion state, everything else in this book, it's there to be let go of. So you could feel really, like courageous, and it's great and feel into it and feel good. And sometimes action is is the right result, or to your point, it's a good way to like stick yourself or tie yourself to it. And sometimes, it's a beautiful thing to just be like, ah, you know, at the end of a long day, like, really feel like empowered and compassionate. And great, I feel courageous, and sleepy. How beautiful is that to know that you don't actually need to do anything with it. Like you can just marinate in the courageousness. And, as you know, maybe he'll tell us next week in acceptance, which is a whole other fun conversation, somehow acceptance, being higher than courage. That kind of doesn't feel so intuitive to me. But through being with and letting go of courage that enables us to access, you know, acceptance, and all the other beautiful things that come next.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 22:46

Well, he does say, to your point. At the beginning of the chapter, he says, it's often easy to jump from any of the lower feelings up to courage merely by affirming our courage to look at and handle our feelings. If we're willing to look at fear, examine it, acknowledge its presence, see how it has inhibited our life and begin to surrender it, then our self esteem increases, right? So you're right that there is this courage, this inner part, the courage of the letting go path, and this spiritual journey, which seems to be just about this internal work of being comfortable with the uncomfortable. If something comes up, and it's late, and my kids are not going to bed and they are annoying each other, I don't want to feel angry or frustrated. I'd rather just kind of like, have the situation disappear. So I don't have to feel those things. But the ability at those moments to notice I'm feeling tired and frustrated, and just kind of feel into that. There is an itch that is scratched by doing that, by being willing to feel that discomfort of painful emotions.

JD Stettin: 24:30

That vulnerability is is a real strength in that way. Being able to access and to own like, oh, yeah, I'm feeling guilty and shameful about this. That's that's an act of courage. Yeah, to look at look at yourself and know that about yourself. And yeah, I love that. You can kind of jump from any of these lower states right up to courage just by being there and acknowledging them. And that's, I think, a really empowering thought. Yeah, it can almost leapfrog and like skip, you don't have to necessarily go from shame to guilt, fear to anger, pride. That's an act of courage and valor.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 25:22

What is courage mean? Like, you're not supposed to be a daredevil and say, well, I want to feel courageous so I'm gonna go enlist to fight with Ukraine against Russia. Sure if that's what you want to do. Fine, but you don't have to seek out those moments. But it's really, it's the courage to encounter every moment of your life with an open heart. And just to respond to that moment to what's being called from you for from that moment. And in our experience of each moment, there's a lot of like, emotions and thoughts like that come come from that. So just the ability to you know, if you, if you lose a loved one, God forbid, the ability to sit there in the grief, and not try to just drown it away. Right, that's courage. Look at the activities that don't feel courageous, that feel like they're addressing an issue for you, but not courageous, like if you're feeling burnt out and just need a drink. You just want to kind of turn off your your head. That doesn't feel like it's fine to have a drink. There's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't leave you feeling courageous when you're trying to turn turn off your head. Yeah, it feels like you know, if you're able to really let yourself experience whatever you're experiencing, and not turn your head off like that. I never thought about that as courage. But it does feel like a more courageous thing to do.

JD Stettin: 27:34

It's interesting. You mentioned, I think you said fear, but I think so often just culturally or my sense of it is courage feels like it computes courage, bravery, feel the fear, do it anyway, that sort of courage sits kind of in opposition to fear in a way. I think we were talking a little bit last week that like, pride seems like it's somehow in opposition to shame, or guilt. I actually don't remember, does he at some point in the book, talk about that, or make those comparisons?

Mordecai Rosenberg: 28:12

Not sure.

JD Stettin: 28:13

I don't know if we get there. But I wonder how true that feels with any of any of these other states that that they're almost feels like another side of the coin of each of these and they all interrelate in interesting ways. I'm not saying this is the only way but just thinking this idea of courage and fear, like you're scared or you're brave, in a way that courage doesn't feel like it kind of talks us directly to like guilt. You're guilty or you're courageous. I don't know, that doesn't feel like a natural opposition there doesn't exist this tension. And so I wonder and I was trying to find it, I used to have a bookmarked here, all of the different states. Okay, so just just to play with this. So we have like, shame and guilt, maybe talk to pride, apathy, or grief, talk to anger. Fear talks to courage, desire to neutrality. You know, you really want something you don't actually care anyway. Thoughts are as as we go, but there seems to be this interesting. I don't know almost like polar relationship between between these dots. Yeah. Kind of came to me when you're talking about fear.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 29:48

I feel like with courage, you know, one of the other sides of the coin, fear is what is maybe part of that other side. But I feel like apathy would be another one. Where it's like I just don't care. Like, eh, what's the use? I think that it would be interesting to look at how they they balance the balance out. You know, I do you think courage is it's an important thing that to protect, though. And there are certain things that I feel like our courage inhibitors. So like one of the things is I feel like procrastination. Like when you feel like you're procrastinating on something, right? There's like that one thing or a couple of things that are just lingering, and you're like I'm not gonna dive in to my day, because I know that I still have to get all those documents to my accountant for taxes. I remember in my first Strategic Coach workshop with Dan Sullivan, he started with, I think it's called, the joy of procrastination. He said that everyone feels this kind of like guilt or procrastination. It's like it's been living like rent free in your head for you know, for your entire life. Right? But what if, like, your key to unlocking happiness is actually procrastination. So he said, he starts by make a list of all the things you're procrastinating about. And then this is usually the next thing that's going to get you to like a 10x result, it could be health wise, or professionally is probably on that list. And so pick the three things on that list that would have like just really outsize impact? The first thing is just like acknowledging because we don't even usually don't write down all the things that we're procrastinating about this, they're just kind of swirling around in our head. So it's like, well just write them down. So the first step is acknowledging that you're procrastinating on these things. Then the question is, why are you procrastinating? So let's say if it's the getting documents to my accountant for taxes, right, the reason why I'm procrastinating is because I know, it's going to take me two hours of time that I just have to block and set aside to find all that stuff. And it's hard to try to do it when I have 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there. So okay, well, what can you do about that? Well, I guess I can schedule two hours of time to just get all get all the documents done. Right? And what's the feeling that you're gonna have, like, as you imagine, like, what's the feeling that you're going to have as a result? It's like, well, yeah, I'll feel just an immense sense of relief and confidence, right, that'll now be freed up. So now I can go look up, look at my calendar for the week and say, okay, Wednesday at two o'clock, I'm gonna block out two to four. It's, it's open, and I'm just gonna do that. Right. And once you once you do those things, it feels like taking care of things that you're procrastinating about, like it does unleash more courage and competence. And once you get that done, it's like, okay, what can I do next? So, as far as things that we can do to feed our courage, I feel like acknowledging the things that are living rent free in our in our heads and figuring out why we're not doing those things And then addressing them. I feel like each each step of accomplishment, sometimes even like these little things, like responding to an email. I certainly have emails that just kind of like sit for like weeks. It's like, someone sent me a resume. I know I need to look at the resume, and there's pobably a better result in interviews and all this and so I'm just not gonna look at that email yet. But when you do those things, and you clear them out, it does kind of give you a little little booster shot of confidence as you as you do those things.

JD Stettin: 34:31

Yeah, he mentioned, it's from this level, we get such things as success breeds success. Because of adequate functioning, there is positive feedback which reinforces confidence and allows greater self exploration as well as exploration of the world. And in thinking of your email example, just to play with that for a minute. So you said someone sent you a resume, and it's been sitting there for a few days or weeks maybe? And if your game to play with this, okay, so like, why haven't you responded or looked at it? You said, because it'll result in like maybe more work or interviews or

Mordecai Rosenberg: 35:13

So it's gonna require a certain amount of like brain activity. It's someone, it was a referral, right? If someone comes family member that they like, Oh, can you look at my niece's resume? Right, so I'm gonna have to look at it, it's probably not going to be an exact fit. But she's probably a very capable person. But I'm gonna have to like, look at the resume and then like, understand it. Do I think this is someone who's worth speaking to. Then there's going to be a whole bunch of follow up activities, right? So now I'm going to have to send it to maybe send it to some of my team members and to set up a series of a time for each of us. I guess I would speak to her first. But that requires scheduling.

JD Stettin: 36:08

Just to jump in, is there like a fear of your time being maybe wasted or used in a way that you don't want?

Mordecai Rosenberg: 36:28

It's like a gateway task. You know, it's like, yes, it's just a resume. But now it's a gateway, right? Because it's gonna result in calls. First of all, I don't like having to worry about follow up things. And now it's going to be okay, so I'll have a call, then I have to maybe I'll send it to HR, maybe it's sending to my team. Then there'll be follow up. Oh, I haven't heard from HR yet. You know, Is anything going on? Right, then the question of, is this someone that we want to consider for our team? And then there's negotiating compensation. It's a gate. Right? And then I have like, the person who sent it to me who might follow up. Oh, by the way, like my niece, really enjoyed it. Thank you for that. So it's like this gateway thing that's a Pandora's Box. Like it's, it's so just starting on it? Yes, it'll take me, I don't know, 10. Five minutes to read the resume. But we're talking about it now becoming an ongoing follow up item on my to do list. It's something else that I have to worry about, with a lot of follow up logistical tasks that may come from it. On the other hand, it could be really great and that would make a huge difference. And, you know, maybe having a great team member is phenomenal. And it changes a lot. We recently had a summer intern, and I did not interview them at all before they they came on. Other people on the team interviewed them. I happen to not really trust myself with interviewing people, because it's easy for me to like, I just kind of like fall in love with like, anyone I meet, and then I try to create positions in my head that would be good for them. So I usually defer to other people's discretion. But this person started and I didn't, I had nothing to do with it. Right. So if the reason why I'm procrastinating is because of all this like gateway stuff, the question is what's the least amount? What's the least amount of activity that I could take to get this done? Right? And what I could say is, you know what, I'm just going to hand this off to someone on my team and say, Look, can you speak to her and see what you think? And run with it? Now it's just becomes well, that's not that's a lot less daunting. So by identifying that what I'm what I'm worried about is the Pandora's box the question is, what could you do this without opening a Pandora's box? And yeah, there actually could be a pretty simple reason. That would still feel just as good for me to make that connection. Get it off my plate and just know that we're giving her a fair shake, and if they want to pull me in afterwards to meet with the candidate then fine.

JD Stettin: 39:51

And it's interesting to hear too, and I'm sort of hearing you say this and puzzling along with you and there's this way in which it's like I'm hearing your your fears about this being a Pandora's box, It's like, well, by not dealing with it, you're not actually like not making it a Pandora's box, you're just making it a Pandora's box for tomorrow or an hour from now. And again, I don't mean this in a critical way. Like, obviously I procrastinate. We all do. Like thinking about what it means, and in those moments, where we choose. You know, you see it, whatever, maybe you have it starred in your inbox, you keep it as unread, or whatever your system of organization and you see it, and it's almost like in that moment we don't have courage. We feel like, oh, this this task, this will overwhelm this, like, I can't, I wouldn't some way won't be able to handle this. And again, I'm just trying this out, maybe this isn't true of your experience. But But this interesting, as opposed to kind of the way you then came to where you're just like, Oh, of course, I can handle this, I have a team like, great. Or, of course, I can handle this, you skim it, you take five minutes, then you send it to your team, or you just write it to the person and say, Hey, sorry, sounds like super great person. But right now, it's not really what we're looking for. It's, it's so interesting. And I think about that, too, with these things that I have that I procrastinate. And I think I just added my method is, I read everything in my inbox, I don't like having things unread. And if it's something that I know I need to deal with, but for whatever reason, don't want to do or can't do now I just star it. And then I go back and check my starred messages. And sometimes the procrastination actually feels like a really good tool. You know what, I know, I don't have capacity for this. Now I know my accountant needs me to do these things. That's not going to happen today. And I know I'll have more time later this week, and it's not that time sensitive. So who cares? And then that way, I think procrastination is a real, like, it's a wonderful, can be a wonderful tool, and a gift. And you know, it makes me think of the old consulting interview joke about you know, you have an urgent task and important task and attack that's urgent and important. Which do you do first? Or how do you rank them? The answer is you do you know, the urgent and important one, then you do the important one, and you just don't do the urgent one. Because if they're not important, who cares. So sometimes, procrastinating also is a great way of seeing if something will even still be relevant. I had this with like buying my home. It's technically a condo, and I was supposed to set up a condo bank account, and my broker was telling me to do it. But the other unit that's part of this condo. This happens in Austin, when they break up these formerly one family lot into two separate parcels. They make like a two person or two property HOA. And I was like, it just doesn't make sense to open this bank account, because I'm going to need to reopen it or redo it when the folks next door buy their house and open it up. So I just pushed it off until we got very close to closing. And then I was like, hey, Russell, do we definitely need to do this? He was like, you know, let me actually check. We didn't need to do it. So sometimes procrastination is actually a great way of I feel like testing and maybe it's like, you know, maybe the person who sent you the resume wasn't actually serious. Or maybe they just like needed to tell their niece or whatever that I sent him the resume but they didn't care didn't pressure you. So anyway, that's just a fun tangent on on procrastination, it can sometimes be really cool. But sometimes I do think it is a lack of courage. It's like, I'll be overwhelmed if I do this. I don't have capacity for this now. Sometimes maybe there's even a wisdom in that too. Of recognizing, like, Oh, I'm actually not encouraged right now. I am feeling like overwhelmed and overloaded and not capable. Not that I can. I'm gonna leave this for a time that I feel that way.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 44:19

I guess like the courage you started the podcast with, right? The way they start the description of courage in the book, which is that it's the feeling of I can. And when you're not feeling courageous, it's the feeling of I can't. So I was feeling I can't open that Pandora's box and handle all of that, right? But if you start with the notion of like, no I can. There is a solution and so now why am I not doing it? It's because I'm worried about these things. Alright, well, what's the I Can solution and handle all of that. And we just came up with with you some good options. I can also, to your point about the bank account, like I can also just say no. I can also just say like, Thanks for sending, like, we don't have a fit for now. Right? And that's, that's, that's also I can. One of the things that maybe, you know, people can think about as far as courages, sometimes it's harder to be courageous, when you're just by yourself, in your own head. So like, this resume, like, I haven't talked to anyone about this resume that's been sitting in my inbox for however many days. But talking through it with you were able to come up wit the pretty simple solution just by kind of talking it out. One of the reasons why we're doing this podcast is that you're going through the spiritual journey feels like an I can't. Like, I can't get all the way up to love joy, peace, enlightenment, like, that's right. But by talking through them with someone else in partnership, then you can, you know, hopefully, find your, your path of if I can. So that's another thing I do this I actually with my wife, sometimes. She's not like familiar with multifamily real estate, but, like, on a Sunday night, I'll say like, can you kind of talk through my week with you? Before I would just do it on a in my notebook about like, Alright, let me look at all the things that have to do and, and what are the most important tasks for the week? But I find that kind of talking it through with, with, you know, with my wife, like, I'm able to just get more, she can ask questions like, alright, well, what would be the next step on that thing? Well, I have to call these three people. Alright, so let's, let's get a jump to that. But I feel like there is more I can that that will come out of dealing with things in conversation rather than on your own, at least for me.

JD Stettin: 47:16

I really, that really resonates. And I really, I really liked that. I think, sometimes, and especially if you if you too, dear listener can be self critical and self doubting, or, you know, we're raised to see those and live those things as virtues, sometimes being with others and seeing how they see us, right? Like I would guess, or maybe you tell me, but your wife probably sees you as like, very capable, very courageous, confident. And sometimes maybe you might be, again about this resume about anything doubting and questioning, and just the way that she would look might look at it or just be like, Oh, well, could you do this? Or have you thought of that? It just reminds you like, oh, yeah, I actually do have that power? Oh, yeah, I can. And sometimes having, like you said, someone else reminded us of that is so important. And I think there's obviously a lot of things we could do on our own. And I really, like you mentioned, Dan Sullivan, telling us to write down the things you've been procrastinating about. And ever since you mentioned his writing down desires, Ive been doing that as part of my morning pages every day. And that feels so cleansing and empowering, just to put it out there. And I sort of organized my you know, this isn't a strict Julia Cameron protocol. So don't tell her or Martin Scorsese. I don't want them coming after me. But I organize it with desires, things that are upsetting me in some way. And that could be fear, anger, shame, and anything that feels like unpleasant. And then gratitude as well. And I don't necessarily do all three of those categories every day. I kind of loosely have, I do two of them, and see where we go. But I love this idea of adding procrastination to it. But just writing these things down, getting them kind of in the Michael Singer concept, right? The roommate, right this roommate in our head, the self that's just constantly yammering away talking at us. Externalizing that sometimes is really empowering, and even in the absence of someone else by externalizing it I feel like it helps make that jump from the fear or the shame or the guilt to courage. It's not always instantaneous, but like we talked about some just writing it out and being like, oh, and I was thinking in your example You didn't mention it To me sometimes an email like that with a resume, there's like, guilt or the sense of obligation or like I told someone. Sure, send me your, you know, whatever is resume or yeah, I'll help you with this thing. Because in the moment, I was like, genuinely happier in the moment when someone asked me. I was feeling courageous and empowered, and I can. The moment I got the email or whatever was a different moment. And that feeling of like, oh, man, but if I could just take that and be like, okay, JD, you don't want to deal with this right now. Because part of it is there's this block this feeling of like, guilt or regret, or like, oh, I owe this person, there's an obligation. Just just seeing that can help you jump to courage. And maybe like you said, maybe the courageous thing is to say, actually, no, actually, Hey, friend. Sorry, I know, I offered this help, you know, last week, but I actually really don't have, you know, capacity for this today. Or, you know, we're not actually hiring in the end. And yeah, talking to talking that out with someone feels like a wonderful thing to do. But in the event that that's not possible. I do really love this idea of just writing it out. What am I procrastinating about? What do I not feel like I have the courage for. This came up for me a little bit with procrastination. My doctor recommended I get a colonoscopy because my dad had colon cancer at 50. So I think they used to recommend like it used to be 50 was the age you get screened. And if you have a history, you do it 10 years before, but now I think it's they lowered it to 45. So 10 years before 35 anyway. And I was waiting, because there's no immediate rush. I don't have any like warning signs. And it's all early. But I was waiting for six months to elapse. So I could, I don't I think insurance would pay for it, then whatever it was. And I knew that that was like, we had reached that threshold. And yet, like, I just wasn't reaching out to him to schedule it. I was like, Oh, I'll do it. I'll do it. You know, I'll do it. I'll do it. And then just last week, I think as a result of writing some of the down some of the things I was like struggling out there for my fears or upsets, I was like, huh, I haven't done this thing. And it's not very hard, it's not going to take very much time and it's not actually going to cost me any money. In the end. It sounds like and just noticing that and being like, Okay, well, why? Okay, number one, it's vaguely uncomfortable from what I understand. It's, uh, you know, however many hours or days and they'd knock you out, etc. These are all things that like, I don't want. Yeah, and yet I know that's actually good for me. It's, it is what I want. And it's this feeling of again, like, I can't like, I can't deal with this right now. That feels to me so much of the energy of procrastination, like I just can't do I'll deal with the colonoscopy later. And that's not something that's gonna go away. That's not like maybe a resume that someone forgets about, like, someone's got to put a scope up my bum sometime in the next few years. You know, to keep me healthy.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 53:20

It's, I have to tell you, procrastinate no longer. Great experience. All around. I had my first one like last year also, because I had my doctor do genetic testing. So there was like a very slight increased chance. But they just said might as well just kind of get one to know. The prep is great. It's the deepest sleep you'll ever have you feel so well rested afterwards. It's like, awesome. Oh, yeah.

JD Stettin: 53:51

There we go. I've been procrastinating. I could have had a wonderful experience. Pushed it off a month.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 53:54

Exactly. The other thing is like, I feel like don't like delegation is a, I have a, I have a virtual

JD Stettin: 53:58

Yeah, delegation. That's such a good reminder. And assistant team. It's actually two people that that I work another form of that being asking for help. In this case, with, right. And so I got an email yesterday with like, all you have these VAs, so of course. But sometimes even just these forms that I have to fill out for some kind of with friends and family. When someone asks me, like in a transaction. And so it's like, I don't know, four different friend, I'll reach out and say, Hey, actually, my car's at the forms. Like, that's the kind of thing right, I'm gonna

shop and I need a lift at 5: 54:21

30. Like, unless I have something procrastinate for, like, at least a week, not until they locked me out. But then I thought, oh, you know what, let else. I'm like, actually really happy to get the opportunity to me just give this to my assistants, and have them fill them out. I have a I've a call with them three times a week to go over emails and said, Oh, can you guys just fill fill us out? Like okay, sure. Right. So then that's, yeah, then they fill that as much as they can. I think now it's back in my Asana to like manage tasks. So there may be a couple things I have to do and we have to actually sign it. But that's, I feel like a doctor's appointment. Right? That's something where I would also procrastinate on but if I said like, to my assistants, can you just reach out to the doctor and schedule this? Much easier? So that's that's something. Delegation is definitely also great, maybe shortcut to courage and you should think of if you have a lot of those kinds of tasks, like a virtual assistant type of thing might be something to consider. help someone. Or a friend will call me be like, hey, I really need to run some business things by you. Can I buy you coffee? I'm like, Yeah, please. So remembering that too. That asking for help isn't or delegating even. It is courage. It is like an enactment of Yes, I can do this and sometimes being like, I need help. That's, that's not not courageous. That's, that's a beautiful, a beautiful act. On that note, I think we have to go so you know, everyone colon health. Keep your colons healthy.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 56:39

I'm definitely feeling more more courageous as a result of our conversation. So thank you, JD.

JD Stettin: 56:44

Wonderful. Yeah. Likewise, likewise, likewise. Feeling courageous, feeling excited. And, you know, still perplexed. So encourage that.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 56:58

Yeah, courageously perplexed.

JD Stettin: 56:59

And because we mentioned your VAs, just shout out to them. Thank them for all the help.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 57:04

Oh, yeah. Delegate Solutions.

JD Stettin: 57:07

Delegate Solutions, right. They're a part of how this all happened. So if you're listening--

Mordecai Rosenberg: 57:11

They're the key.

JD Stettin: 57:13

Delegate Solutions brought this to you. So thanks.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 57:15

All right.

JD Stettin: 57:16

Have a beautiful week. Talk to you later. Thanks, Mordy!