142 The Four Agreements: Breaking Old Agreements For A New Year

We close out the year by applying The Four Agreements to real life, focusing on how to break old agreements and act like a warrior who refrains rather than represses. The theme is simple: awareness first, action next, approach goals over avoidance, and integrity in the small steps that build freedom.

• recap of the four agreements and the year’s reading arc
• breaking old agreements to create new ones
• emotional mastery through refraining rather than repressing
• energy management and avoiding rumination
• self-care as operational readiness not selfishness
• mastery of awareness, transformation and intent
• parenting and modeling change across generations
• approach goals that focus on gains not losses
• tools for surfacing subconscious emotions
• doing over knowing and stepping onto the path

If you want a complimentary Agile Brain exercise to raise emotional awareness, message us and we’ll send it to you

Chapters

• 0:00 Year-End Check-In And Book Arc
• 4:54 The Four Agreements Recapped
• 8:59 Breaking Old Agreements
• 12:49 Resolutions, Parenting, And Mindset
• 17:39 Awareness As The First Step
• 22:29 Self-Care Versus People-Pleasing
• 27:19 Mastery: Awareness, Transformation, Intent
• 32:09 Addictions To Emotion And Energy

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 2:26

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_02: 2:39

Hello, 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 is Denise Russo. My co-host and friend is Sam Powell. We're going through a book called The Four Agreements, and today we are almost to the end. It's chapter six. Sam, we were just saying before we started the show that I can't believe not only how fast has this book gone, but how fast this year has gone.

SPEAKER_01: 3:08

I know. I was telling you that I had, I was going, I went back, I was re-listening to the kickoff of the year and um thinking about that because we're, I mean, we're just two episodes away from like the end of the year here. So it's yeah, it's crazy. And it's been such a whirlwind of a journey. I think for both you and I, like we've just had a lot going on in our personal lives. And and I think that we've just, I don't know, blinked and the entire year went by. And some years are like that, and I feel like every year speeds up. I just that's how it goes, I guess, because you get busier and busier. But it's um, yeah, this has been an interesting year of obstacles. And this book, like thinking about it, so we're at uh kind of a transition to the end of the book here. So we've gone through the four agreements, right? So we started this book with the domestication of you know, humans and our thoughts and our minds, and then went through the agreements, which the first was be impeccable with your word. The second was don't take anything personally, the third was don't make assumptions, the fourth is always do your best. And now we're talking about breaking old agreements in this, and right. And as I'm thinking about like how the arc of this whole year has gone, and I've got all the books behind me on the shelves, right? We did the five bold choices, we did the obstacle is the way, we did unalf yourself. And now we're thinking about how we make new agreements with ourselves after we've learned how obstacles really become our path and how to get out of our head and into our life, kind of despite what happens to us. And as we think about now and what we'll talk about today is really that in order to make new agreements, in order to move forward with everything we've learned the whole year, everything we've learned from this book, you've got to break the old agreements in your mind. You've got to break the things that are taking up space and you've got to replace them with the new things, right? And so I think about this all the time, especially as you know, we're raising kids, right? Big feelings, big emotions. I think I talk about how my son's a big feelings guy, right? Like, you know, he's he's got emotions that are are really loud and out loud. And a lot of times it's teaching him those skills of how to replace that, you know, action after the trigger with something different, right? It's not that you don't feel it, it's not that you don't experience the obstacles, it's not that you don't have all these thoughts. It's that you're you've got to be in the driver's seat. And this is really, you know, kind of about well, how do you do that? How do you break the old agreements and how do you then move into the new ones that you really want in your life?

SPEAKER_02: 5:39

So this episode, Sam, is likely coming out either the week of Christmas or right around, right? So if you're listening to this, we're right at the end of the year. And typically what many people do is they don't think about it this week, they think about it in two weeks, right? Like New Year's resolutions, I'm gonna lose weight, I'm going to use a planner, I'm going to whatever dot dot dot. And then I think research says that by February, most people don't stick to their resolutions. That's why like gym memberships that get bought for Christmas decline in February, and so there's an open treadmill for you if you go then. But even with what you're saying about your son, this similar things happen with me with my son. And I'm starting to think maybe this book is even a good parenting book. Because if you think about, well, I'll give you Vincent's situation. So sorry, son, if you're listening, but Vincent was, I just picked him up for the holidays, and he was talking about how hard it's been this semester more than any others. He's got one more to go before he graduates from college. And he was saying something like, you know, the classes are harder, the tests are harder. And I asked him in the car on the long drive back, is that true? Like, is it really harder, or is something else in your situation harder? And then he started just talking about, you know, well, the teacher this and this person that. And so when you think about what you just shared, which is the outline of this book, if you are impeccable with your word, which was the first chapter, talking about you really, really are thinking about the things that you think and believe and the things that come out of your mouth, then everything else changes in your mindset. Everything because maybe it wasn't harder, or maybe it was harder, but there were great lessons from it. I posted something today, even on my um on my uh personal social media about how sometimes the things we go through that are hard are the things that we learn the biggest lessons in, which was the whole entire purpose of the obstacle is the way. And you know, the guy who pushed the boulder in the beginning of that book, Sam, he could have said, Yeah, you're right, people who've already tried this. I can't do it. I'm not even gonna try. It looks too hard. But he didn't. He was impeccable with his word, which was simply him saying, It can be done. The obstacle might be the way. How do we know we've tried everything that we could try? And he didn't take it personal when the people were saying, Oh, you're an idiot. Why did you try this? You're gonna ruin things for us. Who does he think he is that he moved the rock? And he didn't make assumptions, he didn't assume that um by moving the rock, well, am I gonna lose friends because I've opened a pathway? Am I going to move the rock and find another obstacle on the other side? He didn't make those assumptions, and then finally, all he really did was his best, which in that moment he probably wasn't thinking, like, the best I'm gonna do is get a stick out of the woods and move the rock. He just did what he thought was the right thing to do, but it was he took action, which I think is how we ended that book saying you have to take action. So if this chapter is about breaking old agreements, for me, what it taught me going back through this chapter is if you want to have a path to freedom, the only way you can get onto that path is to take action by taking a step path in front of you. It's kind of like the poem from Robert Frost about where two roads converge in the woods. And I wrote a Forbes article about that. So if you Google, if you Google that and my name, you'll see this article. But the idea of the poem and the article and this chapter is you might be looking right at the path and it's there. You've you've seen this book with us now for weeks. You've been through, if you've been with us since the beginning, three years of the GPS and the map of the path. And it and the path is visible, but now it's a matter of taking the step onto the path. And so you've got this book, you've got the problems that come with the book, which the book says it's the book of law and the book of the victim and the book of the judge that come to play. So you might have the map, but when you have the book of the judge and book of the victim, that's what makes us prevent ourselves from stepping forward. So I'm curious when you saw this part of this chapter, how do we really not only just see the path to freedom, but start marching into it?

SPEAKER_01: 10:13

Yeah, and I think it's interesting. He defines, he says true freedom has to do with the human spirit. It is the freedom to be who we really are. And then he says that our normal human tendency is to enjoy life, to play, to explore, to be happy, to love. That part reminded me of Solve Happy, right? Like our default state is happy. And the argument for that case is that, like, look at kids, like, look at babies. Babies are happy unless something happens to cause them like out of a state of you know, happiness. And so when I read this part, you know, he says that it's time to stop the abuse, it's time to free yourself from the tyranny of the judge by changing the foundation of your own agreements. It's time to free from the role of the victim. And I think you're right, like you're standing on the path, you're standing on this. And this part of this book is hey, I told you what the four new agreements should be, right? These are the ways to gain personal freedom in your life. And to gain personal freedom means that you are becoming who you truly are, uninhibited, free to love, to play, to just enjoy life in that space, but you've got to take the step. Um, I sign every email, like if you're on my email list, um, my sub stack or anything, all my emails end the same way. It's always put down the popcorn and get in the game. And I think that that's what you're saying is like you've got to step onto the path. You're looking at it, you're holding the map, you're holding the space. And this is okay, now you've got to take action because nothing happens if you don't take action. That's what unf yourself is all about, right? Like get out of your head and into your life. Like you've got to um get moving and get going. And if you want freedom from the, you know, the judge and the victim, capitalized terms he uses here, um, then you've got to make the choice and take the steps. And he says that the first step towards personal freedom is awareness. And you and I, I think know this intimately from being coaches, from being people who focus on leadership development, especially, because that's what we teach as a foundational part of leadership development. You've got to, um John Maxwell says it, you've got to know yourself to grow yourself, right? Like you've got to become really aware of what your agreements are, what those you know repetitive patterns are that you following, that you follow. And then he said you've got to rebel and say, this is enough. You can look for a way to heal and transform your personal dream. And I like I've experienced that a million times over in my life. And I think so much of life is about what you choose to do. You cannot choose what happens to you and around you, but you can have you can really choose what you do with those circumstances. And I think that's really kind of what I took away here.

SPEAKER_02: 12:53

I love that you shared that because he couples it with the way you were talking about the sentence. I highlighted that sentence about the first step towards personal freedom is awareness. And on the very next page, he says, you can change your life anytime if you aren't enjoying your dream. And so this is a book that is about self-development, but our podcast is about life and leadership lessons. It's how you can apply these things, not just at work, but in your life, and not just in your life, but also at work. And one of the things that that I was thinking about while you were sharing that is that if you're going to develop yourself, that isn't self-centered, or it's not selfish. I'm, I guess I mean it's self-centered, it's centering on yourself. But self-centered as a word in this case doesn't mean selfish. It means like how we've said in other episodes that if you want to, if you're on an airplane, the flight attendant will say, if there's an emergency, if there's an emergency in this experience, put the mask on yourself first and then help others because you can't help others if you don't have the ability to have oxygen for yourself first. So Ruiz says that most of the time the problem is that we don't live our lives that way. We live our lives to please other people, to get be accepted by other people, to but we do that rather than living our lives to please ourselves. And I have this one friend, a good friend of mine. She um she was a big Disney fan for a long time. And so she got her joy when she was not happy going to Disney World, sort of like I do. And somewhere along the way, Sam, she found, you know, the person I'm talking about is Beth. So Beth um ended up finding um joy in going on cruises. And she goes on so many of them now that they kind of like give her certificates just to go for free. And she's like, Denise, it's cheaper now for me to just go on the cruise than to stay home and pay my electric bill at home. And it's a lot more fun. So she had started like there was one time when she went just by herself, and I think she was really probably a little trepidatious, a little scared to go on this cruise totally by herself, but she went and she found that she had so much fun just talking to strangers and maybe like reinventing who she wanted to be on that particular cruise. And she didn't have to go there and plan activities with her kids, she didn't have to plan what she was going to do with her spouse, even though she loves him and she goes on cruises with him too. She was going for herself and found joy in living out this dream that was just by herself. And so the author talks sort of about this, where he says, here's the thing that leads people to becoming Toltecs, which is a Toltec wisdom book. He says, the first thing is to master awareness of who you really are with all the possibilities. So if I think about my friend Beth, she may not have seen that until she experienced something that enlightened to her who really was she, what did she want to do, who did she want to be, how did she want to experience life as her, as the only person, not who she was to other people, the mom, the sister, the wife, the friend, the coworker. The second thing that the author says is that you have to master transformation, which is how you change, how you free yourself of domestication. So, in other words, if you're if you're in a job you don't like, you could stay stuck, or you can master transformation and unstick yourself. Now, it's not that easy when there's not a lot of jobs to be had, but it might even just mean you reinventing yourself with the skills, talents, and abilities that you have and putting them to use in a different place in a different way. Yeah. The third thing he says is that you master intent. Intent from the Toltic point of view is the part of life that makes the transformation of energy possible. And it's the one living being that seamlessly encompasses all energies or what we might call God. And so what it's basically saying is, well, what are your intentions? And if your intentions go back to the very first chapter, which is the um being impeccable with your word, then your intentions would be good intentions, right?

SPEAKER_01: 17:00

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And if you think about those three things, right? Like, I think that that really at the end of the day is you know, like what taking control of your life really looks like, right? Like being super aware of, you know, what you're what you're doing, taking control of, you know, just how you show up and what you do next and your you know your intentions overall. And I think, you know, he he says here that we are, you know, one of the things that gets in our way is that we are addicted to being how we are, right? We are addicted to the anger, the jealousy, the self-pity. We're addicted to the beliefs that tell us I'm not good enough, I'm not intelligent enough, why even try? Right. And like in coaching, we call those like limiting mindsets, right? Like, what are your limited beliefs that you have that are keeping you small, stuck, you know, back from you know where you want to go and the goals that you have. And, you know, and I think that if you think about what he's telling us and what you know gets to like toltic freedom essentially is, you know, is that it's the opposite of all of that. It's letting go of those feelings and those addictions and things like that. And he goes in to talk about how like every day we wake with a certain amount of energy, mental, emotional, physical energy that we spend throughout the day. And if we allow our emotions to deplete our energy, we have no energy to change our lives or to give to others. And I think that that's such an important point is that if you want to implement what he's saying, if you want to make these new agreements, if you want to replace the old agreements that you have, you've got to really pay attention to your energy. And that's what you're saying, right? Like you've got to take care of yourself first and foremost, because right, there's that old adage of like you can't pour from an empty cup, right? Like you've got to make sure that you've got enough energy left over. But I love what he's saying here is that our emotions drain us faster than anything. And I think that that's really true, right? When I think about myself, like I might wake up and start and have a really good day. And he tells a little story about that. Like you wake up and then you have an argument with your spouse over breakfast, and then the whole day is shot from there, right? Like, and how many times, like, how many times have I watched people do that? How many times have I done that? Where it's like one thing happens and all my emotional energy gets wrapped up and like overthinking this thing, right? It's that addictive feeling of like, I'm gonna be so angry about it. I'm gonna just be like victimized about it, like feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling. And then you have no mental, emotional, any energy left in yourself to deal with the things you need to. You can't show up for somebody else because you're not even showing up for yourself, right? You can't make the changes that you want in your life because you're spending so much time in that space. And so he really talks about, you know, taking um control of your emotions. And he makes a distinction that I really, really liked, and I'm trying to find it in here. Um, but oh, he talks about the difference between um repressing emotions and refraining. And so it's the idea that like we've all got these big feelings. We all have emotion, like we're all ruled by emotion at the end of the day, right? But he says the warrior, right? And this is the person who like fights the good fight here. The the warrior doesn't refrain from feeling those things or doesn't um repress feeling those things. It's not like, oh, I'm angry and have to push that down, right? Like that's what a lot of people are taught in in the world, right? Like, oh, it's bad to feel certain things. But the warrior feels it, but just refrains in what they do with that action, right? And I talk about this in my son all the time. You have the feeling, totally valid, right? That feeling is telling you something. Insert a small amount of space and then figure out what you want to take your action, like what the action is after that. Just because somebody chirps you in basketball doesn't mean you can go scream at them on the court because I'm gonna pull you out of the game, right? Like you've got to take a breath, figure out your reset plan, and then move forward so that you've got the energy you need to finish out whatever you want to do.

SPEAKER_02: 21:10

Yeah, absolutely. The author says the fact the brain is the factory of our emotions. And so if you think about it, a factory is designed to build and push things out. And so the brain is building and pushing these things out. And so we just did a six-episode special edition series on a book called The Emotionally Agile Brain by Dr. JD Pincus, who's the chief innovation officer of the company Agile Brain. In fact, we've said this on other episodes. If you want to learn more about your emotions, we are gifting for free, no strings attached, there is no hook. If you want a complimentary agile brain exercise, which only takes two minutes and it might open your mastery of awareness, the first thing this author says to have, we're giving those away for free. So you just have to message us and we'll send it to you. But the point is in that book, and with what you also just described, is that sometimes, Sam, the majority of the time, if you talk to Dr. Pincus, is that your emotions sit at the subconscious level. Well, the word subconscious means below your conscious level. So if you had a tool and you had a coach that could help you take something that is below your conscious level and raise it to the conscious level so that you have awareness, that's how you can make plans and steps and actions towards transformation. And then the third step being actually taking the action to that transformation. It seems to me that really that's it, but that you first have to choose the path you really want to be on. Because this chapter also said that these emotions we have sometimes are not helpers, they're actually parasites. And we allow these parasites to hurt us because it's easier to stay in the victim mentality and blame other people. And those parasites control your mind, which control your brain, which is the factory of the emotions. So now your emotions are all those other things that are not bringing you toward that dream that you're talking about, or the joy that you want, or the freedom to have a different space than you have right now. And so if you can get unsick, get rid of the parasite and get healthy, how much more might your life change if all you really need to do is put attention first on your beliefs and feed your beliefs healthy things instead of feeding them parasitic things?

SPEAKER_01: 23:37

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that there's like that's just the life-changing magic of this, right? Is that when you bring that awareness to what you're feeling, what you're thinking, and give yourself that like that warrior space to then, you know, not repress, but to refrain and then move forward, like you take control over so much, right? Like you can change your entire life for the good just by mastering, I think, that little space in between, like the awareness and the space in between. Like if you can just start to name those feelings, those thoughts that come through, and you don't have to do anything with them, just acknowledge what they are and put a little space before you take action on them, or before you spiral, before you feed into that addictive tendency of like, I'm gonna feel this way and be all, you know, worked up about it. Then you, I mean, one, you save yourself so much energy, like you have so much time and energy for other things. Like, this is something I've worked on a lot in my life. Like, I think anybody who knows me would say, like, I'm a pretty even keeled person. Like, you don't see me have like huge emotional like ups and downs, like pretty even keeled. And some of that, right, has been like in the early parts of my life, like just repressing some of those feelings, right? It hasn't been the healthy version of it, but I've worked really hard over the last you know few years of my life to feel those feelings and to then figure out well, what do I want to do with it? How do I want to bring awareness? And I will tell you, my life has is richer, deeper, better from going on this journey of really getting into this awareness and like I said, the kind of the warrior space after, because then it helps you like really like I just think like live in technicolor in a way that you don't when you sit in this, like, oh, I'm not gonna deal with it, or I'm just gonna spiral, I'm gonna let it take control of me instead of you controlling your own self. And like, if there's one change I could let people have, I think it would be one of those. It's a lot of work, it's a lot of work, but it's like worth it work, like absolutely, you know, for the most part. And it's funny, you were saying something earlier, and um, it reminded me of a TikTok I saw yesterday, and it was about a guy who wrote a book on parenting, and he's got like four pillars. I forget what the name of the book is called. I've got a bookmark to like check out and probably read uh here soon, but he's got four pillars. And he says, you know, most people like these three, like they're good. But the one that everyone wants to avoid is that modeling is the key to success with parenting kids. You've got to be the change that you want to see. You've got to be the person who stops that generational, you know, passing along of whatever trauma, whatever thing that we all do, right? It's like, oh, because my great-grandmother did it, my grandmother did it, my mother did it, now I do it. It's like you've got to be the person who models what you want your kids to do. So it's, and that is so much more powerful than the other three things that everybody wants to, you know, really go focus on. And I think that this is really some of that, right? It's when you get in control, then you've got space and energy for the people. And other people around you are watching the changes you're making in your life and kind of just want to level up with you. Like they want to come along on the journey because it's that curiosity of like, oh, what are they doing, right? What are they doing that's so great and so interesting? And so, you know, I think about that all the time, you know, with this. And um, yeah, it's just interesting. I just think there's so much more control in our lives than we give ourselves, than we give ourselves credit for.

SPEAKER_02: 27:15

I want to touch on one thing you have referenced a couple of times today before we close out our time with this chapter, which is about the warrior. Because the warrior, especially in what you just described about the change you're seeing in yourself and the change other people see, and the change you want to see for others, the warrior is fighting for you. It's not fighting against something else, it's fighting for you. And it says in the book that the warrior has control, not control over another human, but control over one's own emotions, control over one's own self. It's when we lose control that we repress the emotions, not when we're in control. And that the biggest difference between a warrior and a victim is that the victim represses and the warrior refrains, which is what you were just teaching us just now. But I think it's important to think about what is it that you that you need to fight for for yourself? And then go back to the beginning of the book. We talked about this right before we started the recording. Is that I've read the book, we've recorded it now. I'm listening to the episodes as they come out each week. And now I want to go back and reread it again to say, okay, I learned it, but now how do I really make sure that I'm really cementing it into my long-term memory, applying it, living it out loud, drinking deeply from these pages about being impeccable with my word, not taking things as personally as I do, even as early as yesterday, not making assumptions, which are easy to do when you are focusing on other people instead of yourself, and just always doing my best. And so for me, I think in closing for this chapter, I just want to take away that the path to freedom has to be more than just knowing something. It has to be about doing something with the knowing and doing the things that rid the things that are preventing the steps forward.

SPEAKER_01: 29:07

Yeah. Like you said, it's the it's becoming the warrior who fights for what you want, who fights for the things that you're trying to get. And since we're at the end of the year, and you started this talking about like the timing and people will be setting New Year's uh resolutions and stuff here quickly. Um, one of the things that we learned last year when we were um learning about the um the how of happiness, all the research based on happy, one of the things that um she taught us was that the goals that are more successful and the goals that make you happiest are approach goals. They are the things you are fighting to gain, not the things you're fighting to lose. So when you think about like, and so like I think this is a way for like what you said to put this into action is it's not, hey, I want to stop losing control every time I feel angry. It's I want to start what, right? What does that look like? What does the other side of that look like for you? I want to start putting a little bit of space between what I feel and what I do. I want to start doing whatever it's the difference between saying, like, I want to get in shape versus I want to lose weight, right? It's gain versus loss, it's approach versus you know what you're moving away from. And so, you know, when I think about that, and as we like next week, we'll wrap this book up. Think about that as you set goals for the year, and hopefully as you try to apply this book into your life of what's the approach goal? What's the thing I'm going after? What's the fight me as a warrior is going to go have for myself that's going to bring me something, gain me something. And those are the goals to go set for the year. Those are the new year's resolutions to go set. And I think it's one of the ways you easily go get in the game.

SPEAKER_02: 30:55

I'm looking forward, Sam, to next week with you because the last chapter is called The New Dream. This last chapter comes in the last week of the year as we say goodbye to the old and be able to celebrate and usher into the new. So it's been wonderful going through this book with you. You said before we started it that you you thought that maybe this book would be transformational in a way that we wouldn't know yet until we read it. And I guarantee that for me it has been. And thanks to you for uh for recommending this book on our list. It just so happened to be a book that was on the shelf for both of us, but had no cracked bindings. So I'm glad we went through it together. I'm looking forward to next week with you. And listeners and friends, thanks for joining us for another year. And we're uh we're gonna wrap up next week. We'll also give you a little sneak preview into what's coming into the new year. But for now, my name's Denise Russo, and on behalf of my friend Sam Powell, this has been yet another episode of What's on Your Bookshelf.