Latest / The Long Burn / Episode 25 - Is Your Success a Coping Mechanism?

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Episode 25 - Is Your Success a Coping Mechanism? · The Long Burn

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Long Burn.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is Joel Mallon, licensed professional counselor in Georgia, licensed mental health counselor in Florida, and today I am flying solo.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is just me today.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you get to hear these dulcid tones for the duration of the episode.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Wade and his wife Candace are up in uh Kansas.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's a uh what's it called?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: A conference that they're going to that they're actually going to be speaking at um regarding direct primary care and how that could tailor to a workforce and everything else.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: So they're both very excited about it.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Candace, not so much, but uh they're gonna do great up there.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so um in there instead, uh you you just stuck with me.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna kick it off today.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so kind of what I want to start off with is um, you know, we hadn't done wins and losses in a long time.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I guess I'm gonna do wins and losses and reintroduce that since he's not here.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I guess a win is uh closed on the house last week, uh, which is great.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh all that is starting to shape up.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're just a month behind to getting things in the house and getting things set up the way that they kind of were supposed to.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the house is slowly coming along.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's now a safe place for uh my son Gideon, and my wife is starting to, you know, cozy up to it a little bit, feeling a little bit more like home.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so those are all good things.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the challenge is just, you know, that the waiting in the interim of wanting something to be done and not having enough time to do it and just having to be patient.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, I don't know if that's a loss.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's just a reality of the way that life operates.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just trying to kind of check in with myself and uh trying to find a way to get some sleep.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I swear, whenever my mind is going 100 miles an hour, it's hard for me to going to sleep is not the problem.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's staying asleep.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so staying asleep has been very difficult.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've been waking up at like, you know, two, three, four o'clock in the morning, um, which isn't abnormal for me to be up early, but I would like to have more sleep than that.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully when things continue to progress and slow down a little bit, that maybe that sleep will kind of level itself out too.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, I'm trying to do the best that I can and trying to just stay on point with work and integrating here and being part of the community in Nashville.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Got to go to the Harvest Day Festival that was this past Saturday.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: They had a tractor parade and all kinds of other good stuff and a great turnout from the community.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to see a lot of people out in the streets and hanging out around the square there in Nashville.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, introduction for the topic today.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I would like to start off with is this idea of um success as a coping mechanism.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what are our motivations?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: What are the intentions behind the drive that we have individually to succeed, to accomplish, to build an empire, to be independent, all these other things.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so probably a lot of people have wildly different reasoning behind it.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I want to introduce something that's probably pretty well widely known in the psychology community.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's called the ACE test, A C E, the ACE test.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And what that refers to is adverse childhood experiences.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this was conducted back in the mid-90s, uh, somewhere between like 95 and 97.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there were two doctors, Dr.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Vincent Felletti and Dr.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Robert Anda.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so they were both um, they were both workers.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: One of them was at Kaiser Permanente, and the other one was at Center for Disease Control.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they conducted this study of around 17,000 adults in Southern California.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: What they found out was that a lot of the medical issues, the mental health issues that were plaguing that community were specified into 10 different categories.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: The three largest categories are abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then they break that down into subcategories such as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, physical and emotional neglect.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the dysfunction would be the substance abuse in the home, domestic violence, parent mental illness, parental separation, divorce, or incarcerated family member.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so they actually conducted this, like I said, over 17,000 adults did their uh interview and answered the questions for them to kind of try to draw conclusions.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like for the for people who'd had these adverse childhood experiences, what kind of an impact did it have on their life?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And was there any connection to what was happening to their functioning medically, psychologically, and all this other stuff?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And as we know, you know, uh the uh correlation does not mean causation, um, but whenever you see enough information uh pointing to something, it's pretty much established.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck, it's probably a duck.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: So they conducted this experiment, and what they have found after um interviewing the 17,000 adults, was that approximately 60 to 64 percent of US adults have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's not uncommon to have had at least one of these happen to you.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um but what they found is that you can get a high score on the ACE test, which is four of the categories that pertain to you, or even a very high score, which is six or more.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so just for those who had just a high score of four or more ACE, um, there's roughly one in six adults, about 16, 17% of the population score four or higher.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so with this, they uh they uh found different categories of susceptibility of things that were impacted by this.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so what they found out was that anyone who with four or more on the ACE test um was four to four point six more times more likely to suffer from clinical depression, 12 times more likely to attempt suicide, seven times more likely to be considered an alcoholic, four to ten times more likely to use illegal drugs, and then also uh higher problematic issues with severe anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so the chronicle, the chronic physical health conditions, the ongoing issues like heart disease, you're two to three more times more likely to develop heart disease, four times more likely to develop COPD.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's also a lot more autoimmune issues, cancer and diabetes.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: You are much more susceptible to these issues than an overall healthy person might not uh be susceptible to those issues.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, also issues of unemployment, education, financial impairment, these were also correlated with the higher A-score tests.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um and some of the issues of how this is identified is that they're they're looking at, you know, the mental health scores, the health scores, and also the behaviors that that come along with these things.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if there is any kind of trauma, now it doesn't have to be a significant trauma, it could be what we've called big T or little T trauma.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: I may have defined that before.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Big T trauma might be an event like um a massive car accident that leaves you medically disabled, whatever it is, that might be considered big trauma.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Little trauma could be, I don't know if I get home, if you know my spouse is going to be mad or at me or if my parents are gonna try to hit me or something like that.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um trying to use relevant examples here because the ACE test, these are all incidents that occur before the age of 18, you know, while a child is in adolescence during the developmental stages.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so some of the adaptive uh behaviors that come out of this would be like hypervigilance.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are living in an unstable or traumatic environment, you know, they they use the phrase, you know, keep your head on a swivel.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're always looking around, you're trying to detect danger.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that part of our brain is called the amygdala.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have an overactive amygdala that is constantly looking for any kind of threats in your environment, that it's constantly trying to detect, am I going to be okay?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is there some kind of problem around me?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, do I need to have more of a sense of control?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, whatever it might be, that hypervigilance uh sometimes is seen as foresight, you know, that you can anticipate something bad happening or you can be prepared for something bad happening.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there's times that can be a good thing, but there's times when it's like, well, you don't need to be hyper-vigilant, like you are safe, you're okay, but you your brain doesn't necessarily know that.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Another issue that comes along with that behavior is fierce independence.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the belief that no one is coming to save me, kind of that I'm on your, I'm on my own, I've got to do this by myself.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and again, these all there's different motivations for these behaviors.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: These behaviors are not uh they're they're not a diagnosis, they're just part of an outcome.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the other one is perfectionism in drive.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of these things combined is pretty significant in in the outcome of the ACE test.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I use this a lot with clients, especially if I feel like I'm kind of confused by the behavior or or the need for the behavior or where it originated from.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of times we'll we'll go through the ace test, and that will help me to have a better understanding of where some of these maladaptive behaviors originated from.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So let's jump back into this idea of um success as a coping mechanism.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So somebody who does have a traumatic environment or had significant traumatic experiences as a child, they don't want to be defined by that.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what's funny is if you know you see an adult walking around at Publix or something like that, how are you gonna know that that person has trauma in their past?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, unless they tell you, it's not like trauma is on your face or something like that.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes you can see, you maybe you can visibly see depression or someone's anxious or something like that, but trauma is not something that just you wear it on your face necessarily.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so people are terrified of someone finding out about their childhood experiences or childhood trauma, but in reality, that's something that is hidden behind the mask that we wear in front of everybody um all day long.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So going into this idea with a difficult upbringing, with an unstable home, what this kind of breeds is a constant survival mentality that even when the threat is gone, that you're not in the home with an abusive person anymore, your brain is almost stuck in that functioning.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so you may have worked with somebody, maybe it was a boss, supervisor, even peer, colleague, whatever it might be, that you know, they're like, Oh my gosh, they're a control freak, they're so controlling.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or they're just all about perfection, you know, they just won't tolerate anything that's not perfect.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a reason for that.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in my opinion, I don't think people really want to control someone else.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's that they want to know what's coming to be prepared for it, and what that does is it gives them a sense of safety.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we misunderstand control a lot instead of seeing it through the lens of safety.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: That the more that I can steer, the more that I can influence, the more that I can direct, the more that causes me to feel in control.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then that gives me a sense of assurance because I've learned I can only depend on myself.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, when I have control, I feel safe.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully that makes sense.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it makes sense to me.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it played out in a lot of people's different stories.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but whenever you understand control as a source of safety, you start to perceive the behavior differently.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of demonizing the individual or criticizing them or something like that, you understand that this is coming from a deeply wounded person.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so some of the um the high achievement and overcompensation that comes along with someone who has trauma in their past or scores high on the ACE test, um, the idea that I'm only safe when I'm winning.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, progress and momentum feels positive.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like success.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: That feels like I'm in control.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing is, you know, whenever you let's say you plan a vacation, um, you're gonna go down to the beaches in Florida.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: We just left there, but you can go if you want to.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if you're gonna take a beach trip to Florida and you're like, okay, we booked the the hotel or the B and B.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we figured out what beach we want to go to, we picked out all the places we want to go eat, we've done all these things, the weather's beautiful, and you go there and it's like everything is clicking.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, wow, I planned this, we're here.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like the no car breakdowns or anything like that.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: The B and B was super nice, the beach was beautiful, the weather was perfect.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think you would agree that that feels like control, but it's not, it is a coincidence.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now it may be a planned coincidence that you plan it during a time of the year when the weather is typically nice, but it's not a guarantee that that trip's going to be exactly what you want it to be.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: But whenever we try to kind of push that idea of control and it happens in our favor and things tend to go the way that we want them to most of the time, that feels like control.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Again, causation correlation.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it's a recognition that I'm not in control of these things.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: It only feels like control.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so part of the hyperfunctional coping that comes along with people with trauma is it looks like success.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like somebody who's very disciplined, it looks like someone who's very managed, who's very appropriate, who's very um aware of their surroundings and and what works in those surroundings.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um it is then reinforced because the individual gets praise from it.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Also, they see results from it.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so this success is something that that they continue to perceive as you know their safety because they get so much validation from others.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got the only safe when I'm winning dynamic, uh, you've got you know perfectionism on steroids pretty much.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we've talked about this before on here is the goalpost dilemma that if you achieve a big accomplishment or something like that, you feel empty just you know a day or two later and immediately looking for the next thing to accomplish.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because you need to feel that constant progress.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because even like let's say you buy something new, like let's say you get a new pair of shoes, and then somebody's driving and then splashes water up on the curb, now your new shoes are dirty.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: You already feel differently about those shoes because they're not this pristine untouched thing any longer.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're stained, they're tainted, you know, they're dirty.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we st we tend to see ourselves that way in our terms of our success because how long do we get to kind of park on the success of any given scenario, any given situation?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that time frame is even much shorter for somebody who needs to constantly be aware and reinforce that sense of control.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the idea of entrepreneurship is the absolute perfect hiding place for someone with these issues because it offers complete control over one's environment.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you are the boss, you are the business owner, you know, you are the top dog, so to speak, or something like that, you know, you are depending on yourself for success.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whether the business fails or flops, you know, you that's completely on your shoulders, and you're going to be the one to blame for that.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be a good thing, it can be a bad thing, but what it does is it reinforces the trauma because we're no longer in a peaceful scenario.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're in a high pressure scenario because that's what feels normal.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got the hypervigilance, fierce independence, uh, the crisis comforter, feeling comfortable only in chaos.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then also we've got people pleasing, keeping the peace, masking issues.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they tend to be people tend to be very charismatic, they're very adaptable, they avoid conflict.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, people may see them and just be like, man, they just get along with everybody.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the case?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or do they want to be perceived as liked by everyone?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because, again, that feels like success.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, part of this, like if if someone is a leader in a leadership position with some of these uh situations, you've got the tendency to kind of uh be addicted to the firefighting situation.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: That you may struggle during times of stability when things are calm, when things are organized and managed, that's going to feel dangerous because you're just waiting for the next thing to happen, or you even create a scenario where there's a new challenge or a new pivot.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so let's say that you know business is going well, but you're bored as the owner or the entrepreneur.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then you decide all of a sudden, let's uh just fire half our staff and really make this a challenge, you know, make more money.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and then that just kind of crashes and burns, but it's exciting because it's different, it's new.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: They crave uh change that leads to success or accomplishment.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so the problem is it leads to an isolation trap, is that this idea of being an entrepreneur in control is you don't often delegate, you don't often trust others with the business or with that success because you need that control of that success in order to achieve that sense of safety.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so the question is like, how do you shift from like a survival-driven mentality to a values-driven mentality?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And a way that you can do that is kind of the way I started this off today is you know, figure out what are your motivations, you know, what is it you want to achieve for?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is you just I want to be rich.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, why?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, if you make enough money, you're not gonna live long enough to spend it all.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you make enough money, you'll find out that you had a lot more relatives than you thought that you had, you know, and there's more drama associated with that too.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, what is the incentive?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: What's the motivation behind the success?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is it hey, if I'm the business owner and this is all under my thumb, you know, then nobody can hurt me.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that that's a good motivation.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: That may be an unhealthy motivation.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Another aspect is is learning to decouple your identity or your self-worth uh from your productivity, uh, from your uh your sales goals or from the financial portfolio or something like that.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people that believe that their worth is only tied in what they offer to other people.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm guilty of that.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I get stuck in that just like anybody else does, where I feel like I'm constantly pushed to do do do do do.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: No one actually cares about me for who I am as a person.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there's times where that is true.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's certain people that really only want from you, they don't want to just spend time with you.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: But that self-worth should not come from our job, it should come from who we are and and focusing on our values and values-driven behavior, values-driven goals, not just success-oriented goals.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Another one is transitioning from survival to presence.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this panic that comes when you have this fear of scarcity.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um when I was reading about this, um, it kind of I recognized something in myself.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have a fear of running out.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that that typically pertains to is anything that takes batteries or has to be charged.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I am meticulous about keeping things charged.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um and my wife has picked on me about this because I'm so worried about, hey, I need this thing, but now the battery's dead and I have to wait hours before I can actually use it.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've got different charging stations around the house where where I keep things plugged up.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll even double check something.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: If I know that we're going on a trip, I'll be like, okay, do I have my phone cable?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do, you know, are the batteries for the camera all charged and all this other stuff?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, a lot of other people just grab their camera bag and hope for the best.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot do that because I do not want to be in a situation where I wish that I was able to take a picture and my batteries are dead or wish that I had a flashlight, but it needs a charge for the next three hours.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's my fear of scarcity, I think, is when it comes to electricity and and batteries.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that runs into a lot of other things.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: The scarcity could be finances, it could be um more sources of success or productivity.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so the goal is to switch that over to vision and purpose.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what's the purpose behind what you're achieving?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it should be more than just money.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's stability, maybe it's a legacy for your family, maybe it's for a better quality.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um just like whenever uh my brother and I were homeschooled years ago and our parents made the decision to do that, it wasn't about, oh, shelter them from society or something like that.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, their motivation was for us to get a more quality education and a Christian education instead of going to the public school system.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's a positive motivation behind that because I met a lot of other homeschooled kids that um their parents' purpose was to absolutely keep them out of the public eye.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of where your weird homeschool kids come from.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So um it your motivation drastically influences the outcome.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: But you've got to have a vision and purpose for what am I trying to accomplish?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want the end goal to be?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want to feel when I get to that point and everything?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so some practical integration for that is, you know, are you checking in with yourself?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Are you checking in with your incentives and your motives?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Are you checking in with, you know, how am I, do I feel rushed or panicked lately?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do I feel calm?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do I feel it peaceful?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you can do that through uh through breathing, through journaling, through strength training, mindfulness, um, having a just a good conversation with a friend that knows you that can ask you the hard questions like, hey, when was the last time that you spent time with your kids?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: When was the last time you took your wife on a date?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when was the last time you did something you wanted to do just for fun?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we need someone like that to keep us accountable because you know, we'll get in a routine and we'll be killing it for a long period of time with absolutely no awareness of how many things have dropped off in the meantime because we're just chasing that success.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so part of the thing you can ask yourself is is that if you look back at some of your hardest, hardest business pushes, how much of that drive came from passion and how much of it came from a fear of losing control or failing?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Another question is Have you ever caught yourself creating a crisis in your business just because quiet stability?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't feel like enough.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the last one, how do you build a high performance culture without projecting your own survival-based anxiety onto your team?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, again, that drive can be something that can absolutely push people, but it can also push people to the breaking point.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we're thinking about this through the lens of the adverse childhood experiences, the individual who maintains that pace has spent a lifetime developing the coping skills to accomplish and maintain that pace.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Other healthy individuals that were not exposed to those situations, they have not built that skill set.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so they will absolutely break trying to keep up with the expectations of the high performer or the entrepreneur.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so these this is hopefully I don't know if this is relevant to anybody else, but again, I feel like this ACE test is very enlightening.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: It gives a lot of information of things where you can better understand yourself and better know yourself.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can understand where there's avoidance, you can understand where there's isolation, uh staying away from other people.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna actually read what the ACE test is.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so if someone's listening to this podcast um while they're driving or something else, you can kind of mentally check these off in your head.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a total of 10 questions.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it talks about all the categories that I addressed earlier on.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And again, these pertain to only incidents that happened during the first 18 years of your life before you became an adult.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: So um some of these are very direct, and um if that if you're concerned that that might be something that's a little too intense for you, you can go ahead and shut it off now.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: But for those who do kind of want to be able to do that uh quick audit wherever you are, I'm gonna read through some of these.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: So number one, did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you, or act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: If yes, then you get one point.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often push, grab, slap, or throw something at you, or ever hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: If yes, check one.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, did an adult or person at least five years older than you ever touch or fondle you or have you touch their body in a sexual way, or attempt to have actual oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse with you?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: If yes, check one.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, did you often or very often feel that no one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or your family didn't look out for each other, feel close to each other, or support each other?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: If yes, check one.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Number five, did you often or very often feel that you didn't have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you and take you to the doctor if you needed it?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: If yes, check one.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Number six, were your parents ever separated or divorced?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: If yes, check one.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Number seven, was your mother or stepmother often or very often pushed, grabbed, slapped, or had something thrown at her?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or sometimes, often or very often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist or hit with something hard, or ever repeatedly hit at least a few minutes or threatened with a gun or knife?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: If yes, check one.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Number eight, did you live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic or who used street drugs?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: If yes, check one.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Number nine, was a household member depressed or mentally ill, or did a household member attempt suicide?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: If yes, check one.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Number ten, did a household member go to prison?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: If yes, check one.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that is all ten of the ACE test questions.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, four is considered a high score.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, six and more is a very high score.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so some of these may have sounded familiar, and and hopefully, I mean, if you had one that was checked, you're like, oh yeah, that does sound like me.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's very common.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Again, over 60% of people have at least one.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: But to have um four or higher, um, it puts you in the 16 to 20% category of society.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is just information.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is not a graded test.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know that we that we have a score at the end of it, but it's not like, oh, I have a high score or oh, I have a low score or anything like that.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's an assessment to see where you're at.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: What are you dealing with?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the guys I work with uh that he gave an example of suitcases.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: He said that everybody has a suitcase that they have to bring to work with them.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's you know, their their mortgage, their family, their stresses, and all this other stuff.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he said it depends on how much you got in your suitcase, how much you can do at work.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I like that analogy.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was a good analogy that he gave.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so taking this ACE test, it essentially gives you a better idea of what's in your suitcase.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: What are the things that you are bringing to work with you?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: How is it inspiring you or motivating you out of compensation or out of passion to do what you do every day?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is something that I hope that you guys are are asking yourself these questions.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you're taking inventory of those motivations and trying to figure out like where did the origin of these behaviors come from?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is not a verdict, this is not a diagnosis, this is not a condemnation or anything like that.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: It just figures out where you're at.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because lots of people are still very healthy functioning adults, even if they had a medium to a high ACE test score, uh, because they've learned how to do the work to integrate those experiences, understand them, and try not to do things out of avoidance of those situations or those issues.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: So check in with yourself.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Figure out like why am I pushing for what I'm pushing for?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is it ever going to give me what I want, or am I just pouring into a bottomless pit where it's never gonna be filled, it's never gonna be better than it actually is.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you understand your motivators, you actually understand your fulfillment and your happiness.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: You understand your passion behind things.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if you need to listen to that again, listen to those questions again.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can also look at it online if you type in ACE test, because again, I did not write this or anything else.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a useful tool for clinicians.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and try to get an idea of better learning yourself, better understanding yourself.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it could be helpful for those around you too to understand some of that if it's something you're willing to share.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you do have that high test score, um, please don't be afraid to talk to a therapist or a clinician.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you that a good clinician does not judge, could critique, or condemn you based on what you did not choose for yourself.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: They simply want to help you find ways that you can work with those experiences and overcome them.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that's it for me today.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so hopefully uh Dr.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Wade will be back next week.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just depends he's gonna be running the roads a lot over the next couple weeks.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you may have to hear from me again next week.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's it for the long burn today.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is Joel signing off.
• 29:20
  unknown: Bye.