What's on Your Bookshelf?
“What’s On Your Bookshelf” is a personal and professional growth podcast exploring the intersections of passion, potential, and purpose - featuring multi-certified coach and leadership development consultant Denise R. Russo alongside Sam Powell, Zach Elliott, Tom Schweizer, Dennis LaRue, and Michelle King.
What's on Your Bookshelf?
129 UnF Yourself: I Got This! The Art of Self-Ownership
We explore Gary John Bishop's powerful message that no matter what obstacles we face, we already possess the inner strength to overcome them, though this doesn't mean we have perfect solutions or easy paths forward.
• Negative experiences rarely stay contained – they spread like toxic chemicals into all aspects of our lives
• There's no such thing as work-life balance because we have one integrated life where everything bleeds together
• Reflecting on past challenges helps us recognize our resilience and ability to persevere
• Getting connected to reality versus living in emotionally-soaked self-talk narratives changes our perspective
• Viewing life as a train track helps us see current problems as just one small segment of our journey
• Self-ownership means keeping your hands on the wheel and recognizing your agency in life's direction
• Life contains multitudes – both good and bad experiences that shape us into resilient beings
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Welcome to what's on your Bookshelf, a life and leadership podcast where we live out loud the pages of the books that are on our shelves, with your host, denise Russo, and Sam Powell.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of what's on your Bookshelf. This is our life and leadership podcast, where we're living out loud the pages of the books that are on our bookshelves. My name's Denise Russo, my friend Sam Powell and I are talking about a book called Un-F Yourself Getting Out of your Head and Into your Life, by Gary John Bishop. I'm really looking forward to this discussion with you today, sam, because it's all about how, no matter what obstacles are in our way, which was the series we just finished, that we got this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it right, and we explored that. We are willing to do this, that we are wired to win and no matter what we got this, this and that quote that he starts this chapter with is everyone has their problems and life isn't always perfect it never will be and you and I being friends, we we talk a lot about our problems. We share, and I think we both know this intimately. There's just always problems, and you know it's uh, but despite it all, all his point here is you've got this right. The negative experiences we have rarely stay contained to that one issue. They spread like toxic chemicals, they seep into the aspects of our lives. And so he starts this really with warning us that there are always problems and when we fixate on these negative experiences, they spread like disease, and so we've got to do something about that.
Speaker 2:He starts the chapter Sam. I highlighted it in capital letters, giant font.
Speaker 1:Ugg it in capital letters, giant font. I giggle because, like every other chapter is like a quote or, like you know, like something impactful.
Speaker 2:And this is just because it's true, there's times when you're going to feel down, or you're going to feel discouraged, or you're going to feel defeated, or you're going to feel left alone, or you're going to feel unsure, uncertain, unaware, unmotivated. I guess uns are. The point is if that prefix is on, the word is probably unpopular, but those things we do have controls over. I often tell clients that there's no such thing as work-life balance. You have a life, work is part of your life and it's important to balance your life. But there's no such thing as you go to work, act like one person, you go home, you act like another person, because it all spreads and bleeds. I would say so.
Speaker 2:He says spreads, I would say because he says it's a toxic chemical. I'm gonna say it bleeds because it seeps into everything. So let's say you're having problems with something personally at home or with your relationships, that will bleed into the way you show up at your best at work. If you're at work and you don't like what you're doing, you're not good at it, you're not surrounded by people that you feel aligned with and you don't feel like you have purpose, which are all four legs of the Ikigai table that then bleeds into your home life, and sometimes it's the people that we love the most that get the least of our attention, but the most of our pain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think your analogy of bleeding is really obvious point here, because it's those negative he's talking about, like those negative experiences, like they just bleed into everything and so, like I don't know how many clients I think every single client I've ever had in the career coaching space, one of the things that holds them back or has held them back, because it's always one of the questions I ask, like what's held you back to this point, from making this change already? Right, so I know what hurdles we have to go over. It's always like I just don't have the energy at the end of the day. Right, they're so miserable.
Speaker 1:There's so many little cuts throughout the whole day, throughout the whole week. By the time they get to the time for it, it's just bleeding on. They have no energy left, they've got nothing left to really give and like we did not with, like you're saying, families, friends, like all of that, like it carries over, and so we end up not showing up with the best of ourselves or even the part of ourselves we want to in the spaces we want to, Because all these problems bleed over into our days and they're like I said, there's no such thing as work-life balance. You have a life.
Speaker 2:It's all integrated and if you're wired to win, you got this. I don't remember which of the Rocky series it was I feel like we talked about Rocky a couple weeks ago, but, um, there was one of the Rocky movies and I can't remember which one of them but there's a quote. He says where think about it. He is bleeding all over the place, he's getting punched down, he's getting knocked down, he's getting defeated. Everybody said you're never going to be a winner, you're a loser in life, you're never going to amount to anything.
Speaker 2:And I remember in the episode or the series whatever the Rockley movie was is he says something to the effect of it doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down, it matters how many times you get back up again. And so this chapter is talking about that. That you came from reading last week that you're wired to win. And this chapter is about you got it. No matter how many times you get knocked down, you get something within yourself to stand back up, because your personal assertion should be that you got this. And he goes on to say let's just like, face it for what it is, put your personal problems into perspective, because if you really put all of your problems out on the table and looked at them, most people would be content to take their own and depart. That's a Socrates quote where basically they're like are you sweating the small stuff? Is it really that big of a deal in the end of the day?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that that's like, if you take that step back and it's like, okay, if we were to throw the world's problems into a pile, you'd probably just be like, yeah, I'm good with the ones I have, like I can handle these, and that's what the point of this is, like you've got this, yeah, and like he goes on, you know, from there to really say that like once you're getting yourself in perspective, like you have to, like to do that, you have to, he says, get connected to your reality, your real life, instead of your emotionally soaked self-talk narrative about your life, and like that I think is is key, right, like you know, you and I both raising, raising kids, and like how many times, as you know your kids are growing up that they're just soaked in the emotions of what they're feeling.
Speaker 1:They're learning how to deal with emotions and big feelings and all that sort of stuff. And I know like my son will say crazy things that are just so outside of reality. But it's because it's this emotionally soaked feeling aspect of his like moment in his life where it's like there is no rationale. It's that and like we all have that bias.
Speaker 2:We all have that emotional bias of like tainting our reality, of inserting all these biases into our reality because of how we're feeling, right like I think a good portion of the world's problems are because of that oh for sure, I can tell you numerous conversations I've had with one such person living in my little household that repeatedly would say my teacher hates me, I didn't get a good grade on the test because they don't want me to pass Instead of well, when did you start studying for your test?
Speaker 2:I don't think your teacher hates you. So, but let's also face the reality. This is about reality and perspective. So there is a reality for people and so maybe for you listening, there's something really challenging in your life, and I can promise you, I can promise you off microphone Sam and I have discussed really interesting challenges we both have as well. So, yes, we're here talking about this and how to solve it, but it doesn't mean that we have solved it for ourselves in some ways as well. This is life. That's the reality of life, and so, if you are someone listening and something really hard is happening for you in life right now, well, number one, I'm sorry that you're having to experience that. I really am, but the obstacle is the way.
Speaker 2:We spent weeks and weeks talking about how to look at your obstacle as the way forward. And what this author says because I highlighted this, because it's something that I'm dealing with right now in my personal situation is he says, if you're rolling your eyes and wondering, well, how does any of this help me solve my problems? Because the reality is we are probably reading this book, talking to you and you have a problem, how does this help me solve my problem? And he says it doesn't, I will tell you it doesn't. None of this will solve your problem for you per se, but you have to stop just sitting and wallowing in the problem and put some things into a reality-based perspective and focus on what we've talked about in past episodes. Focus on what is in your control to change, and then you have to let go of the stuff that is outside of your span of control, that you can't change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think about this, like you know, he says that you know, if everyone around you is dealing with their issues, even those that are worse than yours, then you certainly can. And, like that's one of my mantras that gets me through life of like, if other people can do this, I could do this before I can do this if other people could do this, right, like I got. This is sort of that like running mantra that goes through my life. But when I think about, like, what you're saying, it makes me think of the hardest things that I've dealt with in my life and that acceptance of it. And I've watched people go through the same thing as me, right, like I've, you know, especially when I lost my son.
Speaker 1:I immediately found, like other Facebook groups, like other grieving groups, people who are going through the same thing. They lost a child, they lost, you know, a child similar to mine. Like, I found all of that. But what I found in a lot of it was that some people weren't, were lost, weren't accepting, weren't, you know, were stuck in that space. I saw people who were decades down the road and stuck in that space and all I could think about during that time was that, how young I was and that I was like I. There's no way that my life isn't defined by this in certain ways, but how I define myself, how I move forward.
Speaker 1:And I observed a lot of people going through the same situation and some took it and did something with it that defined them in a way that was really positive. And some people let it define them in a way that made them stuck and made them feeling like they don't have this right, like they couldn't get out of bed even 10 years down the road. Right, there were some days and there are some days like that. Right, I mean, I'm years down the road now and there are days where that's tough, but I, I can't change that. This thing happened. Right, I can't change the loss that was there, but I've got this right. And coming around to that thought process and that mindset of you've got to control what you can control and you have to let go of the things that you can't, else you're not going to go anywhere that you want to.
Speaker 2:Something similar like that happened to me when we had the flood in 2009. So we had a disaster a FEMA disaster, a state-declared, nationally-declared, federal disaster from a flood, and it destroyed 1,800 homes, one of which was mine, was mine, and I can recall one day, sam, we had all of our belongings that were from inside the house now outside the house sitting in mud in the front yard on top of tarps, and there was Red Cross, samaritan's Purse, police tanks all kinds of things were trying to get in and out of the neighborhood to keep people safe, but we had to have all of our belongings literally exposed in in front of us, most of which was destroyed belongings because it was soaking in floodwaters. And there was a day that I remember very clearly, that that quinn and I were going through all the different stuff that we were trying to sort through, like what could go into the dumpster. We ended up having six dumpsters of things, taking our life away from us. But there was a neighbor across the street that was just sitting on the porch steps, just devastated, head in their hands, not moving, not removing things from the house, and just lost and just devastated.
Speaker 2:Years later, our house was destroyed and we had to leave. We couldn't live in the house because it was deemed unlivable and unsuitable for us to live in, and so we left, and years later the structure of the house had been retained. Everything inside the house, like drywall, everything down to the electrical wiring had to be removed before we vacated our house. Years later, I went back to the subdivision Sam, and there were still homes that had crushed-in garage doors, mold on the sides of the homes or algae on the sides of the homes, unlivable, boarded up windows, and it made me think about this experience that you could either let yourself get consumed by that bad thing that happened to you, or you can use that bad thing and let something happen through you, and in our case, I won't take the credit for it, but what happened in our case was Olivia and Vincent saw all of the good that was happening.
Speaker 2:Like this book this chapter is talking about. Don't tell me that when you're going through bad things, that good things are also happening. Don't tell me that if you're having a struggle in your personal relationship, that there wasn't a time that you loved that person. Don't tell me that there's a time when you're struggling at your job, that there wasn't a time when you were excited to have that job, and so he talks about in here and this is best to do with a coach, or even a therapist is reflect back on those things.
Speaker 2:What are the things that you can recall in your life where there was happiness? And if you can recall that, then do you believe you can never have happiness again in your life? And then he says you also should think about the things that happened that weren't so happy. And then he goes on to say if you recall the times of struggle, suffering setbacks, being knocked down, having arguments, breakups, getting a speeding ticket, paying your bills late Okay, when that happens, though, and all those problems you face, didn't you eventually overcome them? This is about resilience, and it's about tenacity, and it's about rising above, and it's about being able to pull yourself up, because, he says, you likely did, you raised up, you kicked it on and you, looking back, some of those problems might actually even seem a little bit silly now, and I think of a bunch of examples that, in the moment, they don't feel silly at all, exactly Like I think of a bunch of examples that in the moment they don't feel silly at all.
Speaker 1:Exactly Like I think we think about that a lot when we go back to, like, our adolescence, like the things that felt like the end of the world, like, oh, my boyfriend moved away, oh my girlfriend is mad at me, oh blah, blah. Like you think about, all these things are just so dramatic, like and he gives the example like I got a D on a test, like it'll be terrible, and like those things are just lips on the radar. And he, the exercise he talks about here, is like looking at your life as a singular train track that stretches all the way back and stretches all the way forward, all these things that you have already overcome. Like you did it, Good job. What makes you think you can't do it again? Like you said right, like when you look all the way out to the future, why couldn't you repeat successes? Right, you're wired to win. What are you trying to win at? What are you trying to overcome? Like you can definitely do that, you know, and I think that that, and like I always talk to people about you know, problems.
Speaker 1:I use this analogy a lot like, especially with coaching new leaders when I was, like in my corporate job and things like that of mentoring, always told people like you got to zoom in or zoom out and he talks about zooming out a lot here right, like, zoom out so far so that the problem you can really get the right perspective on it and you can really see it for what it is, or see it for how small it is, or see it for that one track on the whole train tracks that you've got. Right, it's that one plank, it's that one little section. You could do that. And I also encourage people to zoom in, right, when the whole track feels overwhelming. Right, it's like, oh my gosh, there's all this stuff to do. It's like, well, zoom in on what the next step? Right, you just move one step forward. And I think that that act of getting perspective by zooming out and zooming in helps us realize that our problems are, like, are overcomable. We can do it, you can do it, you have done it, you can do it again.
Speaker 2:He says as well, though, that he understands this isn't about sunshine and rainbows. Life is hard. We have a life and it's hard, and in this life, sometimes you have to do things. This life, sometimes you have to do things. He says sometimes you have to do things you don't want to, with people you don't like and in places you don't care for. People will leave your life as quickly and easily as they come into it. You'll lose money, things will break, your dog will die, but and that's the best part is the but. You actually have to turn the page to get to the but, but you will get through it, all the good and the bad, just like you've done in the past and before, because you are wired to win. You can get past it because you got this, and this is just another passing scene in the movie. That's your life story, and I circled that because our retreat, your signature story, is all about that. That in this moment, right now, today, whatever day, you're listening to this episode, this is one chapter, one, not even a paragraph, a blip in your life.
Speaker 2:I don't remember if I had said this in one of our episodes. I feel like I have, but sometimes I forget what we say on and off of the microphone or whatnot. But I was talking recently with my dental hygienist, who is a lady that's been cleaning my teeth for well, a long time, since the 80s, since the 1900s. This lady's been cleaning my teeth Since last century, since last century, and so we're friends because she knows my mouth more intimately than most anybody else, I would say, and so we were talking about a situation that's the kind of weird that I just love Yep, yep, still here for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so here we are, and no, that's not a two-way talking. It's sort of like you know, when you're talking to the lady that is cutting your hair, you can have a mutual conversation, but if it's a lady that's cleaning your teeth, she's the one doing the talking. So, anyways, her name is Beth and she's so amazing she's my most favorite person that even when I lived in Atlanta, I would fly to Florida just to have her clean my teeth for my biannual cleanings. Anyways, I love Beth, and so Beth was telling me this story, where it was about this, about what do you do when you're really dealing with something really hard. And so we were talking about, like, the death of a dog, which is like our loved ones, and so at the time we had just lost one of our most precious little babies. And she was telling me about a time when her son, who at the time was a teenager and now he's grown but she said I recall going to the beach with him after the dog passed, and she said to him hold out your hand.
Speaker 2:And they're at the beach and she gets 14 grains of sand, which you can imagine how minuscule that is in your hand. Right, she puts the 14 grains of sand in his hand and she says I want you to look at that for a minute. And she says now look out at the beach. How many grains of sand do you think are out there on the beach? And he says oh my gosh, mommy, I have no idea. Trillions and zillions and quadzillions and numbers we don't even know how to count. And she says is this the only beach there is in Florida? Oh no, there's this one and this one and this one. Is this the only beach there is in the United States? Is it the only beach there is in the world? Oh, no, no, okay.
Speaker 2:So the point being is she says look at these 14 grains of sand that represented the 14 amazing, incredible, awesome and loving years that we had with Spot Bruno, whatever your dog's name is. But now there's an eternity out there that's well beyond those 14. And so if you can focus on how good those 14 were and know that there's gazillions and trillions and zillions of better ahead, that we don't negate that there's the 14, but we also don't negate that there's the trillions and the gazillions that are still out there. And so the author quotes Aristotle by saying it's in our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. It's about reality, it's about perspective. There may be things we're dealing with that are hard, but the perspective of it is like how you said, is that in the scheme of the world and the globe and when you zoom out, are your problems really that bad?
Speaker 1:when it all comes down to it, really, yeah, yeah, and and I think when you do that, zooming out, you realize that life is complicated and life is messy and there's good and there's bad, and there's ups and there's downs, and there's hills and there's valleys, like there's all of that. But you got this right, like, like, that's like what he's. You know what he's really getting at, and I think we so often want to categorize into good, bad. You know all of that. But the reality is is that life is blended, life is, is all in the gray, is all. Everything is on a spectrum, right, and everything is is complicated.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of um, there's the of Walt Whitman song of myself. There's a stance, it's very long song of myself. There's a stance, it's very long, but like there's a stanza in that and one line of it gets quoted all the time. But the rest of it is beautiful and the quote, the thing that gets quoted all the time, is I contain multitudes, right, and so people use that all the time to be like I'm complex, complex, I'm complicated, but I think, like, if you think about life like I contain multitudes is so true, right, like there have been all of these hard things and there have been all of these good things and you have gotten through all of them. But if you zoom out on that stanza a little bit, it actually says do I contradict myself? Then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.
Speaker 1:And so I think that when you put that I contain multitudes into the context of the poem, it's life is always contradictory. Life is always. You know, I'm good and I'm bad. This was really hard, but I learned a lot from it and you are large, you can contain all of that. You've got this.
Speaker 1:This is how this works at the end and I was recently going through a training and it was talking about getting over objections. Right, it was a sales specific training. It's like where somebody says, oh, that's really expensive or oh, that feels like that takes up a lot of time, and you don't negate those things. Right, there's no, it's not a but, it's not. Yeah, this is expensive, but you get X Y Z out of it. Yes, this takes up a lot of time, but it's worth it. It was. You replace the but with and it's yes, this is expensive and it's also this this is hard and you can do it right. There are a lot of problems in life that pop up and you've got this right. You are large, you contain multitudes.
Speaker 1:And I think that, like when I think about that in that context, like this is very empowering when you look back. You have done this before and you can do it again.
Speaker 2:So if we think about this, last week was about winning and this week is about you got this it's about also ownership. You have to have self-ownership or you don't got this right, like if you don't take self-ownership on the reality in front of you, in the perspective that you have, then you don't have it. And so he says I got this doesn't mean you have the perfect solution. It just means that you have your hands on the wheel. You have a say in this, just like you've had a say all along, and it might not be easy. It might not be easy. It might not be easy, but you don't just take your hands off the wheel. You have to control the situation. And so next week we're going to talk about how you embrace things that are uncertain, because that's where it's hard, because now you're talking about well, how do you touch, feel, see, hear and think about something that's unknown?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's scary for all of us. Right's like we're coming out of this empowered. I've got this, but there's a lot of scary things out there. Right like you've been through pain in the past and you know pain will come, and you don't even know what pain will come. And you're right. This is about you owning it. This is you're your problem. Right, even when you've got this, when you feel like you don't, you're the problem because you're thinking you don't have this, but in reality, you do. And this is like you said. This is what this is about. It's getting over those mental hurdles, getting into this new mindset.
Speaker 2:Removing obstacles. If you haven't listened to that series, I highly encourage you to listen to that one first before you deep dive into this one, because those things that are obstacles often the author of that book said, are inside ourself. This guy is saying the same thing. If you want to un-f yourself and get out of your head and get into a better life, then you have to unblock your obstacles, you have to be resilient and you have to be willing to take your hands and keep them on the wheel and take self-ownership to be able to get into a different situation. So if this has been helpful for you as you've been listening, highly encourage you to get a copy of the book for yourself. Join us again next week. Share this with others that you know could benefit from it. Sam, what else do we want to leave our listeners with today?
Speaker 1:I would love to know people's thoughts. I love when I'm talking to people in my personal life who listen to this and, um, you know, do that. So reach out in the show notes is a million ways to get ahold of us, Please do. Please, just let us know one thing that resonated with you and, um, you know, we'd love to, we'd love to hear that, because that helps us know what. I don't know what else you want to hear from us, what other kinds of things you want us to talk about, especially as we're moving into the second half of the year. Here is when we start to plan for next year. So let us know.
Speaker 2:Let us know and I'm excited. Well, we don't share our books until we get closer to the end, but we already know the books that are coming and I'm excited for what's coming next. But for now, my name is Denise Russo and, on behalf of my friend, sam Powell, this has been another episode of what's On your Bookshelf. Thank you.