Latest / Repossible / re479: The Power of Quitting What’s Not Working (with Becca Syme)

Transcript

re479: The Power of Quitting What’s Not Working (with Becca Syme) · Repossible

• 0:00
  Speaker A: And I think this applies a lot to entrepreneurs. Where are the people who you're listening to? Are they on your team or not? Because if they're not on your team, maybe we don't listen to them. And that would be like a heart center question. And then head center questions would be if I'm overly head centered. There are things that I can learn from my heart and gut that I can't learn from numbers and facts and statistics.
• 0:29
  Speaker B: Becca just commented on my background. We've got the woody dark and we're gonna say important shit here. There we go. There's my intro. I just did it because I think that's what we're gonna do. I'm Bradley Schraviner. I'm in Becca Sime today and I'm thrilled to be talking to you, Becca. And we just a super, super brief our connection came from because we're going to talk about this stuff today. Our connection, our real connection came from Dublin, Ireland, where this is where we first met in person at least. And we had this just sort of irreplaceable, non copyable, again, uncreateable day which we couldn't create and we can't recreate and that in person. I want to get into that today. What did we do? We had in person great connection. We had smaller group and we had fun and it was all very like serendipitous and, and spur of the moment and beautiful like that. So, Becca Sim, I'm going to let you introduce yourself because you have like so many hats and titles that I can't even keep up with them. And I have way too many things I want to talk about today. But I also really want to talk about your Kickstarter of course, because that's kind of your, your thing at the moment. So. Welcome Becca. Nice to have you.
• 1:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for having me. My joke about myself is that I sort of claim to fame in the domain that I'm in is that my original book was Dear Writer your Need to Quit.
• 1:56
  Speaker B: So.
• 1:56
  Speaker A: So I became the quit coach. So my specialty is in knowing what to quit, when to quit, why to quit, sort of how to be good at quitting. Which is kind of a weird thing to be good at because I think quitting gets this nomenclature of like badness. Like, oh, don't quit, don't quit. But I'm like, no, no, quit things like quit stuff that's not good for you and especially quit things that aren't working or aren't helping. Like let's get those out of the way. Very quickly. And I got into place because I had been coaching, like, a high volume originally, of nonprofit people, business people, and education people originally. And then I started writing novels, and so naturally started kind of sharing the things that I had learned in those spaces with. With the people that I was co. Like, they were my colleagues at first, and. And they would ask me questions like, you know, well, you know, somebody told me I should be doing this, and I'm like, oh, no, don't. Like, you should not be doing this. But they had never run a business before. They were not entrepreneurs. Like, they were really writers. And so they had a lot of questions about kind of how to organize things in their professional and business life. And because my background. I'm a Gallup certified CliftonStrengths coach, I had been doing consulting, especially with nonprofits, like turnarounds, like, how do we take this business that isn't working great, or this nonprofit that isn't working great, and how do we kind of streamline it, make it more effective, make communications more effective, et cetera? And then I worked in the nonprofit arena myself, and I was a nonprofit executive director at 24. So, like, I have this kind of background of I care a lot about seeing us be effective, like, do only the things that bring us the rewards or the responses, which is how I got into CliftonStrengths and then got kind of obsessed with how people are successful and why they are successful at different things. And that's kind of how I landed in the place that I am now, helping authors know what to quit, what to keep, and what to question.
• 4:09
  Speaker B: Yeah. You know, this whole. It's. I like that you gave it a little caveat, like, quit has a bad rap. Like, oh, you're a quitter, and, oh, you. You gave up or just. So I'm kind of an English nerd. And like, I. There's, like, give up and give in, and there's a tiny little word difference in there, and they're so different. But when you say quick, because I'm. So. My recent series is called now what? And it's. It's about big changes. And, like, we were just talking about our mutual friend Janet. Right. And how she went from huge change. Yes, she went huge change. She went from the Pacific Northwest, sold her house, moving out of. Moving out of the US and goes to Mexico City. And I. For me, we're talking about decision making and stuff and what to quit. And so in a weird way, you know, also, like, in French, I think it's. Is it. Is it and it's to leave. Like, to quit is to leave something and to use that same verb. And so you. You leave behind. But that doesn't mean I'm some very visual person. And I. I sort of see things. So I can see Janet with her. I don't know, you could say baggage, which has all kinds of connotations, right? She's got her baggage and is. And does she have to leave stuff behind? Does she have to keep it? Does she have to leave some things behind to sort of arrive in that new place as that new person? So I love that you use this whole quit. And it's my French influence where I get to this leave behind element. But I. It's one of those things that's just so. I was going to say obvious, but clearly, if it's obvious, then I would have thought of it. We all would have thought of it. Because I think, oh, the next new thing, I kind of think I'm going to add on to the existing existence and I'm going to add this new thing. Now we're adding Mexico City, but we just added, well, you can't have Mexico City and Pacific Northwest. I mean, I guess you could. You could live in both places or whatever, but it's kind of. You're just. I can. And again, visual me, I'm like, I seeing a mountain of luggage. And you're saying quit. So you're saying, how. How do you find. How do you define quit?
• 6:33
  Speaker A: How do you.
• 6:34
  Speaker B: How do you quit?
• 6:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, for me.
• 6:36
  Speaker B: What? To quit.
• 6:37
  Speaker A: I actually like the kite, like the, The French word in the terms of like, to leave. To me, quitting is not a. Is not a giving up, Right? It's not a, oh, I. I can't do this. This is. It's like, no, you. You've taken on too much. Especially in the. The world that we live in, we get assaulted with so many things that we should. Should be. Quote, unquote, should be doing. And. And when people are told something, they're often told it with a lot of certainty, right? Like you watch a podcast and someone says, well, you should be using the pomodoro meth, so certain that you feel like you have to listen to them because you believe and you don't understand that you do this, but you believe that certainty and correctness are a relative scale that go up when each other increase, right? So, like, if you are very certain, clearly you must be very correct also. That's what we biologically want to be true. So if I hear you say something to me, with certainty. My response is like, oh, what's my certainty level like about that thing? If I have not heard of the Pomodoro and everybody talks about it and it feels like something that's really beneficial for other people, then I start to be in certainty equals correctness land. Not realizing this is so important. Not realizing that certainty and correctness have an inverse relationship to each other in the sense that you can be completely and totally certain and absolutely incorrect. Like you can be 100% certain and 100% incorrect. But the problem is for me, I can be 100% correct and 100% uncertain. So I can be believing the correct thing about myself, having the intuition that is actually right about what I should be doing. But because my certainty is low and lower specifically than someone else's certainty, I now believe that I'm doing it wrong or that I must be thinking incorrectly about it because somebody else is so certain. But it's primarily because our biology doesn't allow for the difference between the certainty and correctness scale the way it actually exists. Our biology would be much more comfortable if certainty and correctness increased with each other. So we get into this space where we just, we listen to content or we read books, or we take workshops and somebody says, they give us statistics, they say we, we. I have this thing in my, in my practice where we say, don't make brown haired Daniel babies out of things. Because when you make a brown haired Daniel baby, somebody tells you that Daniel is the most popular name among brown haired babies. Something like 90% of Daniels have that are born have brown hair. So I now have a brown haired baby. And I'm like, okay, this statistic that I know says I should name my baby Daniel because my baby has brown hair. But I know that's not how baby naming works because I've seen thousands of babies named before. Yet when somebody tells you that you should be on TikTok because 90% of the most successful influencers are on TikTok, you're like, oh, I better be on TikTok because these people are telling me statistics that have some kind of meaning. So essentially we make brown haired Daniel babies out of things that we just don't understand enough about the context to know they're not true. But we ignore our own intuition about something which might by the way, be 100% correct, that you should just be quitting listening to this particular person because they're not aligned with you. But you don't know enough about certainty and correctness and their inverse relationship to be Able to say no when you hear the certainty. And so a lot of what I do in my practice and in my business, even just in my podcast, is trying to help people understand what's really going on underneath some of those systems so that you can hear, like, why might someone say this? If someone believes with a lot of certainty that you should go on TikTok, let's take an objective look at that success and see if that's really going to be replicatable for you. But people don't do that. They're just like, oh, so take the. Okay, gotcha. Like, certainty equals correct. Right. So we just don't know enough about our own biology to be able. Able to say no to people who are very certain.
• 11:14
  Speaker B: Okay. This is so coincidental that we're talking. And we're talking about this because when we met in Dublin, Ireland, which I keep talking about, that. That I remember Sunday morning because I gave a talk and it was way too early for people. And I talked about decision making and I talked about mind, heart, and gut. Yep. Because I'm seeing very similarities in what you're saying, because I had, like, the mind, the analytical guy. I even have, like these characters.
• 11:39
  Speaker A: I've got the characters.
• 11:40
  Speaker B: I remember the Dutch German guy who's very, like, analytical, is like, we must do it this way because this is what the rule book says. Right. And then there's like the French heart.
• 11:50
  Speaker A: The French heart guy.
• 11:51
  Speaker B: Yeah. And so that's all passion and love. And then there's the gut. Yeah. Yes. Wow. Remember? And then there's the Marcus. Yeah.
• 11:59
  Speaker A: Or no. And Henri was the French guy.
• 12:03
  Speaker B: Yeah. And then the gut is gone.
• 12:06
  Speaker A: Like, yes, Go.
• 12:08
  Speaker B: Because you think, oh, my. Wow, that's a good memory. Yeah. Because he wants to call himself Go. Like G O. Because he's sort of like a California surfer dude. But the influence. And here's again the influence between the three among the three. But the French guy says, no, that's. That's way too, you know, simple. Go. We're going to spell it. G, E, A, U. And so who. Who listens to who? Because what if. Correctness guy. Martine. That was his name. Martine. Oh, yeah. I did the. Very much into alliteration. So M for mind and Martine. And so he. Let's say he's got all the statistics and all the numbers. And he said, okay, I'm talking about the same topics again. And he says, we should not move to Mexico. That makes no sense. We should stay in the Pacific Northwest because this is where we're from. And all that other stuff is too much change and craziness and what are you doing? And then the heart says, you know, but, but, but I, I love Matt. I want to try it. It's adventurous. That's. Who know, who knows what kind of excitement and, and, and fun there might be. And then go. Goes like in the line buying a ticket. Right?
• 13:12
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 13:13
  Speaker B: He takes action. And so with your, you know, correct. There's the certainty and the correct. Like how. Because I have these guys like arguing and how, how do you then herd the cats?
• 13:29
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 13:29
  Speaker B: How do you balance your own. Like you were like talking in graphs. How do you balance it to make the decision?
• 13:36
  Speaker A: So sometimes the answer is that each person is a little bit different in which of those three like to use. The Enneagram, for instance, has three centers with the head center, the heart center and the gut center. And very similar kind of methodology. Right. So when we use enneagram, which we use both strengths and enneagram in the bfa but when we talk about that, it's everybody has one of those three that is more active than the others. Right. So if you understand about yourself, like I'm always go, I'm always acting. And so I need to probably stop and listen a little bit more to the people who are giving me some intelligence and statistics and figures or I'm willing to pay the consequences of what happens when I listen to my gut all the time. And if I know I'm a heart center person where I'm always being very influenced by how everyone feels and the impact on everybody, then I may want to slow down and wonder if is there some old coding that's going on here that's making me be overly influenced by other people? Are the people that I'm worried about, do they have my best interest at heart? Right. We talk and I think this applies a lot to entrepreneurs. Where are the people who you're listening to? Are they on your team or not? Because if they're not on your team, maybe we don't listen to them. And that would be like a heart center question. And then head center questions would be if I'm overly head centered, there are things that I can learn from my heart and gut that I can't learn from numbers and facts and statistics.
• 15:17
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 15:17
  Speaker A: And that is just the fact that all statistics can be manipulated. Right. Like the. And the brown haired Daniel babies is one example. Like I could use that 90% Daniel is the number one name, has the highest percentage of brown hair name like namesakes. And I could use that as a way to try to convince a whole bunch of people that they should name their brown haired babies Daniel. And it would be a bad thing for me to do because that's not what those statistics are made for. Those statistics are descriptive and not prescriptive. So it is just a description of the state of the world. It is not a prescription for happiness or success. And too many people who are head centered don't understand that. That's the purpose of most statistics. Most statistics are just describing the state of life. They're not actually prescribing the way that we should be acting. But if you don't listen more to your heart and your gut, then you are not like you're out of balance in one of those spaces. So I think the goal is to know yourself. That's always my, my first step. Do you know where you tend to be more out of balance in and do you know where you might have a special gift? Like there are people who are extremely gifted in one of those three centers and then they should be leaning into it because the more they lean into it, the more it refines itself in how they make decisions. And the more that head center becomes more wise and the more the heart center becomes more smart and the way the gut center becomes more intelligent. Right. So. So yeah, knowing yourself I think is the first step.
• 17:03
  Speaker B: Okay, so I'm with you on the, on the go. On the gut. I'm also. Let's just do it. Let's just go.
• 17:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, you're activator. Yeah, I was gonna say you're a comfortable activator.
• 17:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, like let's just go. Let's just, let's just do it and we'll see what happens. Yeah, right. Let's just go to Mexico and we'll figure it out later.
• 17:20
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 17:21
  Speaker B: So how, so you say no, no thyself.
• 17:26
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 17:26
  Speaker B: And okay, so let's say I know, I know my gut is, is the main decision maker, but what if my gut gets me in trouble sometimes? Like I say, oh man, I moved to Mexico and like I apply, I don't have a job and even look at the visa situation, I need to get a visa, whatever. I didn't listen to the head as much. So if you know yourself, do you learn? Then okay, go calm down. You know, I know you really want to go to Mexico, but we need to listen to the, to the rationale element here. So is that just part of knowing yourself is knowing sort of who makes the decisions and, and who makes decisions this time? Chill out.
• 18:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's understanding the wisdom of perspective. So when you understand more about yourself. So like just let's take activator as an example of that. Like gut level, right. Body level action, decision making. So when you are driven highly by that, one of the upsides is you're also usually better at dealing with whatever the fallout is. Right. So you have this like desire to push yourself hard. But you also have increased your skills a lot in failing in being willing to take a chance on things. And being risk, being risk averse does not mean that you are always smarter. Sometimes people who are very risky can be smarter because they have learned from a lot of failure in the past and they know what's a real risk and what isn't. Right. So you have assets as that number one activator that could make you really intelligent about when to listen automatically and when to sort of check and stop and say, you know, hang on a second, did we did. Is this really what we are willing to pay the consequences of? So this is a, the move is a great example or starting a business or doing a brand new like supply chain or something in the current business that you have is a great example where it might be really fun and exciting to take the step and make the change. But are you willing to pay the consequences of what happens if you're wrong? And it's not a bad thing to ask that question because if the answer is yes, you're still going to do it. And if the answer is no, like no, it would be better for me. Like I'm having, let's say I'm growing my YouTube channel and I just hit 100,000 people on my YouTube channel. You know, I'm not even hypothetical, I'm not even making this up. It's just hypothetical. But let's say that I did that and then I wake up tomorrow as a number one activator and I hear about this, this new video platform that is brand new and is super cool. And as an activator, my very easiest thing is starting. It's hard for me to maintain momentum on something, especially the middle and the end of a project. Right.
• 20:19
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 20:19
  Speaker A: So then I could do two things. Yep. This is, this is how activators are. Knowing yourself is really important. So if you're having a lot of success at something and you're hitting the middle where it's now going to start to get really hard to continue.
• 20:37
  Speaker B: Right.
• 20:37
  Speaker A: It's not going to be the fun activator part anymore. Could you start a brand new channel and get to a Place where you are currently, of course you could, anything could happen. But if you have plans for this asset that you have built and you want to take advantage of it, it is worth pausing when you have that initial activation desire and saying, am I willing to deal with the consequences of losing this momentum that I have built? And is it possible that this is just my activator needing to do something different? And can I apply that same activator Energy to this YouTube channel? Could I start a new series? Could I start. Could I bring on, you know, start a new format, do something slightly different, reinvent myself? Could I ideate? And I know you have ideation as well. It could I ideate into something that's even more fun in what I'm currently doing? Or have I grown too big enough? Like, is this big enough for me to just let, you know, let rest now? And I really do need to start something new. And there is no correct answer, by the way. For some people the answer is, yeah, I'm going to start the new thing. And for some people it's not. But I think it's worth understanding about yourself what the tendency of people who are wired like you is so that you understand whether you should listen to that instinct or not. It's just a wisdom, right. About how to utilize your biggest gifts. Activator is amazing, but it can also work against you. Like in, in CliftonStrengths, our biggest strengths, we they're ranked 1 to 34. Of all the things that humans are great at, you have a top five. Bradley's number one is activator. An activator can be an amazing gift. We say it can either power the city or it can blow it up. Right? Like it's both directions. So activator can help you start something incredible and give you a lot of momentum, but it can also be frustrating in the middle and end. And we have a lot of activators who really struggle to kind of find that new beginning energy throughout the course of their whole career and they end up having to. To parse between. Is it more important for me to feel engaged and interested and energized at all times or is it more important for me to take advantage of this thing that I built and there is no correct answer. Every single person's answer is different to that decision.
• 23:14
  Speaker B: You know what was really fun? So I know, you know, I hit a hundred thousand last week and yeah, when I got the email, so exciting. And it's so funny that you, I mean of course, you know, activated, of course you Know this stuff. Becca. Damn it, Becca.
• 23:29
  Speaker A: But.
• 23:32
  Speaker B: So I. Because one of my instincts was, okay, done. Now what?
• 23:38
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 23:38
  Speaker B: Maybe croissants. That's what I do. I'm gonna start a croissant shop. That'd be a great idea.
• 23:46
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 23:47
  Speaker B: However, in the email from YouTube that says like, congratulations on your 100,000, they don't say of course, like, bye, bye. That was fun. You're done. Yay. See ya. No, they say I'm like a little silver star. And then there's this golden, there's this platinum. Then there's, I think it's even called like red platinum or something. And it's like a hundred thousand million, 10 million, 100 million. And so my little poor activator gut brain is like, oh, new goal, new shiny gold. Million million breath of that.
• 24:19
  Speaker A: Love that. I love that though.
• 24:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, that really helped me.
• 24:22
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 24:23
  Speaker B: Because part of it, like, because I've been working at this, it's been like been like eight years. It took me six years to get of not trying to get to 100 subscribers. Then it took me one year really trying to get to a thousand. That was the hardest. Then it took me one more year to get from 1,000 to 10,000. Then it took me one more year to get From 10,000 to 100,000. So it's just, that's really a.
• 24:48
  Speaker A: Because you narrow in on, on who you are really for, like as you get bigger and bigger and bigger, you narrow in on your avatar. Right. So it makes you easier to show to new YouTube people. And, and what's really cool about that is with activators who are writers, we often say, like, don't focus on the 100,000 word novel. Focus on 10 separate 10,000 word mini, like scenes almost like an episode. Right. So you, you finish one that's really exciting and fun and then you're like, what do I change to make it fun again? And then you make it fun again. And I think a lot of people when they hit these pieces of their personality that are struggles for them, right. Like all activators struggle unless they have other personality traits that complement it. But most activators struggle with finishing because they're really good at starting. And we call activator the ready, fire, aim strength. Right. So like they, they always are firing before they're aiming and they're really aiming at all. Why about aiming at all? Fire more sometimes. Ready. Fire. Ready. Fire. Ready, Fire. Ready. And sometimes not even ready, just fire, you know? Yeah. Especially for number one. But, but what's cool about that though. Yes.
• 26:04
  Speaker B: I'm sorry.
• 26:10
  Speaker A: Yeah. That's the most activator thing ever. What's funny is that so Bradley's number one. Right. So it's your biggest, best trait that you have. There are people in the world where activator is their 34. So it is the thing that drains them the most. It's the hardest for them. They can't do beginnings. They don't like starting new things. They don't like moving, they don't like change. So like there are people, this is how diverse and wonderful and wide the world is. There are people who. Your biggest and best and most amazing trait is the thing that's the hardest for them to reach for. So like you, you end up usually married to those people, by the way, which is, you know, kind of just the fun of life. But, but what's interesting about it too is that we can learn some of that from each other. Like if I'm around a high activator, I can get really excited about starting things just from like an empathetic space. Because I'm listening to Bradley talk about starting and, and moving and catalyzing.
• 27:13
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 27:14
  Speaker A: And that can make me get excited about it even if I don't have that trait.
• 27:18
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 27:18
  Speaker A: So like the traits are, are strong and they're gifts and they're incredible. And also like your activator is a gift to other people.
• 27:26
  Speaker B: Yeah. You know, that's a. Wow. You actually just really helped me understand. I had an entire. I first had a program called how to write your best book ever. But if a nonfiction book authors. Right. And it was terrible because we were all we got or perfectionists and we never got it done. And we're gonna, we're gonna procrastinate until kingdom come. And it was a bomb. And then like jokey, funny, stand up improv guy over here. Okay, scrap that idea. I know what we're gonna do. We're gonna do how to write your worst book ever.
• 27:59
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 27:59
  Speaker B: And it's, it was a total like, like satire. And I'm honestly, I want you to actually write a terrible book. It's going to be super short. We're going to use like Comic sans, you know, font on the front.
• 28:12
  Speaker A: Right.
• 28:12
  Speaker B: It's going to be. The COVID needs to be bad. Like, like award winning bad. And then I want you to have like Jack and Jill went up the hill and Jack left her. You know, whatever. Right. That's the whole story. And I, and I really wanted you to finish because. Because just like you're saying activator Start, start, start. Never finished. And so, because I would have people in the program and they say, oh, Bradley, you got me. I understand what you're doing here. And you got me to start. Good for you. You know, you, you won, like. No, no, no, we're not. You actually need to finish. Like, you haven't finished your cover, you need a subtitle, and you need an epilogue or whatever. And I would have them write these terrible books, and then finally at the end, they'd be like, like, okay, now I really get it, because I accomplished this thing. I finished this thing. I started. It's terrible. And by the way, I had a little. Had some dialogue for them to help them. I said, okay, when you're at the cocktail party and someone says, oh, I heard you're writing a book. How. How is your book? And you say, it's terrible. And they say, what? Excuse me, no, it's so bad. Bad? What do you mean your book's bad? Well, let me tell you. And then you have a dialogue right there. And, and the people, they, they would tell me, they'd be like, oh, my God, you, you've given me confidence to finish this thing. And then, not only. So I noticed your Golden Gate Bridge, right. So I lived 17 years in San Francisco, which is very close to Silicon Valley. The company I used to work for, we used to work with a lot of Silicon Valley startups in Silicon Valley. Their motto, or at least my motto for them, is fail fast, fail often.
• 29:52
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 29:52
  Speaker B: And I truly believe in it. And this must be activator in me. Go fail, and then fail fast. Because if you're going to procrastinate perfectionists on your, on your failure, well, you're not going to finish it. Fail fast, fail often. So finish that failure, get over it. Learn from the experience. Because I also believe we're going to learn more from failure than from success. Us. And so this works book ever program, I had people, they came back to the program and I asked them, I said, I'm like, you've already been in the program. What do you mean you want to do it again? They're like, no, no, no, it's fun.
• 30:24
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 30:25
  Speaker B: Oh, and you and I finished this thing and it's terrible. And we laugh a lot, and I joke with myself and I joke about failing and I learn. I thought, like, yeah, I know, I do this every day. Like, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry, mister, but not everybody does this every day. This is a big hurdle for me to overcome because I'm a perfectionist or because I'm a. Whatever. I'm a different with this or that. So, yeah, thank you for that because that really helps me understand and also helps me understand why a lot of people just did. Were not on board.
• 30:55
  Speaker A: Like, yeah, they can't.
• 30:56
  Speaker B: Worst book ever. Are you kidding? I'm gonna.
• 30:58
  Speaker A: I'm gonna.
• 30:59
  Speaker B: Wait a minute. I'm gonna invest time, money, and energy into your stupid program where I'm gonna write this bad thing that I'm gonna throw in the garbage. What a total waste of time is that?
• 31:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, people don't understand. Yeah, people don't understand how much we need to learn how to lower the stakes. Like, that's essentially what you were doing. And so when. If. When we're talking about quit, right? Like, what are we quitting? You're teaching people how to quit raising the stakes on themselves. Because so often we end up raising the stakes so much that we can't do the thing. Like, we have to make the perfect video. We have to write the perfect sentence, opening sentence. We have to do the perfect thing. And. And there are places where, from a personality perspective, that can be beneficial for certain types of people where they legitimately are here on earth to write perfect things and do perfect things. Like, there are people like that here, but it's not a high percentage of people. So, like, most of us would be better served learning how to quit raising the stakes on ourselves. Especially because, and this is like one of my. My, like, pet project things is talking to people about their biology. Especially because we don't realize that most of the reason we raise the stakes has nothing to do with what's actually going to happen. It has nothing to do with the reality of what you're perceiving in the future. You are not correctly guessing the future. You are not going to die if someone doesn't like your book or nobody buys your product or you do a failed YouTube channel. Like, you're not going to die, but your body thinks you will. So it keeps raising the stakes of you releasing it or starting it or doing the thing. And what activators teach us, essentially what Bradley's program would teach you, is to say, stop raising the stakes on yourself and do the thing so you can show yourself you can do the thing. And it's not dangerous to do the thing because you don't know that your body is subconsciously raising the stakes to the point where you think your whole life is at stake. If you fail at this and it's just not. That's an old tape. We need to talk back to it, deprogram it. Teach yourself that it's okay to do these things because you don't realize how much of your life is not under your control. Like it is being controlled by your biology and you don't know it.
• 33:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. I warned us. You. And I warned me, and I warned it that. That we have way too much to talk about, Becca and I here. And. But one thing sort of apropos of the moment is your Kickstarter.
• 33:33
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 33:34
  Speaker B: I feel that we could have an entire other conversation and talk about your Kickstarter, but I know you have. We have, like, 10 minutes, and I would love to hear. I'm not kidding. I'd love to talk again soon about your Kickstarter.
• 33:44
  Speaker A: Please have me back in more detail. Yeah, this would be great.
• 33:47
  Speaker B: Let's. Let's just wrap this up because I think a lot of. I mean, I haven't done this unconsciously. I know we're talking about your Kickstarter, but I think the core of a lot of this quit is what the. Exactly the kind of stuff we're talking about today, which I find. And also through storytelling and real stories and examples, we learn more deeply, you know, what this topic is we're talking about. But also, could you explain. So I know you're doing a Kickstarter, and I know not everybody on the planet knows what a Kickstarter is. Can you kind of explain, like, what a Kickstarter is and then what it is your Kickstarter? What is that? And what are you. Like, what's that all about?
• 34:23
  Speaker A: Kickstarter is like crowdfunding. Like, go fund me for projects that entrepreneurs do. And we at the. At my company, we've done a couple of different Kickstarter projects in the past, which were card decks to help people. The first one was to help people get unstuck. The second one was to help people gamify their energy so they don't burn out. It was called the energy Pennies deck. We did the stuck list first, and this time we're doing business phases. So, like phases of an author business. And by the way, even if you're not an author, this can help you because the business phases model is the same for every business. Like author businesses, entrepreneurs, everyone. And it's essentially 5ph that everyone goes through when they're building a business and understanding how to say no to things that are later business phase things, and then how to say no to things when you're in later phases that are early phase things. So knowing what the structure of the model that you're in, how systems and success work. And and we made a card deck to individualize this for you so that you could get some more kind of like in your pocket you have a little Becca being like don't forget quit trying to build infrastructure in phase one. You're still in research and development. The goal is iteration. Right. Etc and it goes along with the book. Right. Like there's a companion book to it to explain everything. And then I'm trying a thing like we were going to talk about these pop up events which is that I will, will organize a pop up event wherever you tell me to. Like you can pay for the, for the opportunity to pick where I will do a talk at and any of you who are listening to this can pick this. Like I, I will go wherever in the continental US or I think we're doing UK and Germany too as well because I'm traveling to both those places to speak for other things. And we'll organize with your calendar when I'm going to be there and we'll make sure that you can make it and you'll get to do dinner with me like a coaching session sort of. And then we will organize a pop up event where you are so that we can sort of Becca comes to you. And I did this because we have been doing these in person events with my community. We've got a big Patreon, I have a YouTube channel as well. We've been doing these in person events with my community and they have been the most transformational experiences that we have.
• 36:55
  Speaker B: Done because any person in real life.
• 36:58
  Speaker A: Person in real life, like I, we just did two of them in Las Vegas last week and we had like 50 people between the two events and we get to do these smaller groups. So you get to really kind of dig into your strengths and understand yourself and how you make decisions. But it gives you a chance to both talk to other people who are in similar places to you and then also to dig into this idea of being really gifted at something and what does it look like to be number one activator, number one input, number one strategic, number one empathy. Like what do all number one achiever. What do these things look like and how do you put them to use for yourself? And I found that these in person events are so dynamic and creative and, and interpersonal and connective that I really just can't stop doing them. So I'm like, I will do where. Like you tell me where to go and I'll go there and I'LL just show up and we'll talk about strengths and decision making all day and then we'll have some good food and, and call it a, call it a good day. So that's part of the Kickstarter as well. It's a top level, the pop up event of the Kickstarter. So you know, we've already funded, we've already funded.
• 38:14
  Speaker B: So yeah, I know you talk a lot about energy and energy pennies and so like I could imagine that and tell me what you think. But this, these in person, smaller events, you know, it's going to quote unquote, cost you energy. Becca is like on stage or leading the show or part of the show or whatever, Whatever. But then at least in my experience those, those events give me energy. I have plus energy with the smaller groups. And it seems like I'm on stage and I'm building and I'm doing it and I'm active, but I am, my battery is just being, it's, it's like maxed out. It's, it's in a positive good way. And so. Wow. And you are providing that. And so these, these people, are they this small group? Group? I guess it's not necessarily people already in your Patreon or in your world?
• 39:03
  Speaker A: No, it'd be anybody. Yeah, I mean it could be people, but it could be anybody. Like I had somebody who purchased one of the pop ups who wants me to come and do an event that she wants to open to the whole community. She lives in a particular community and she's like, I want to just offer this to my whole community. So could it be not writer focus focused? And I'm like, of course. I used to do consulting in non profits and education in business. Like I'm happy to, to customize this for any group of people you want to. And, and I just love doing this kind of stuff. But I, I also get a hundred thousand energy pennies from these like in person events specifically because there is something about this static information delivery system that we have on the computer that just doesn't do justice to the dynamic environment of our life. And what happens when I can be in person with people is, you know, you're listening to this YouTube video and as you're going along saying things you're like, what is this? What's that? How does this. Well, I, I have a 25 activator. What does that mean? I have a 17 strategic. What does that mean? And when I'm in person we can stop and we can talk about that and, and you can get your questions answered and you can feel like a part of the experience and then it helps you have a better experience with utilizing the tool. Specifically with strength. So I find the in person events to be a million times better than anything I've ever done, even from stage. I would rather do a 25 person event than do 25,000 people in an arena. Because I just love that, that seeing everybody feel empowered and learn the tool and, and leave feeling like they could transform themselves afterwards. Because I think this tool is just so powerful and so dynamic.
• 40:57
  Speaker B: But that's amazing. Like what you just said, like if they're watching this thing, it's a monologue. I'm like, oh, I'm getting, oh, I have a question about that right there. Could, could be pause. No, we can't pause. It's a video. But if it's a smaller group and you could say, say hey, wait a minute, I'm 25 activator and then pause because small group and you're there for them and well, let's discuss that right now. Yep.
• 41:20
  Speaker A: And it might help them to understand like why have I always struggled with this thing? And oh, I'm hearing about this thing. That, that this particular. So the, the one thing we haven't talked about that I think is important with understanding strengths is just how big the difference is when you have something really high. So when, when Dr. Clifton was first doing the research, he did this experiment with speed readers where he took two groups of speed readers through the same class. And neither had had any training before, but he grouped them together according to where their natural capacity was. Right. If you could read 90 words a minute is you went into this group. If you could read significantly better than that, like 350 was the median in that group. So they already started out very different. One was average, one was already above average with no training. And they went through the same speed reading class. And the average group went from 90 to 150, which was a good change, but it kept them inside the average zone. The above average people went from 350 to 3,000 words a minute. Yeah, like the increase was so significant. And I, I just, I wish if people could understand how much this plays a role in every minute of your life. Like when you are conflicting with someone, it's almost always, I can look at your strengths and their strengths and be like, oh yeah, you're a number one strategic. And they're 27 strategic. So they don't understand what you're saying. Here's how to change your language. So that they will now understand what you're saying, because we just can't communicate with each other at that level. But those talents are so innate and so instinctive that it's almost like it. It feels like just common sense for us to act that way, but our common sense is not the same as everyone else's common sense. So we end up with this. Like, this doesn't compute for me. And it's because there's a translation error. So a lot of what I want to do with strengths is try to help people understand. Like, no, this is. This is already in you. This is a way in which you are supremely talented in a way that other people aren't. And then we are having all kinds of experiences in life because of that difference. And then being able to talk to people in person helps that to land and gives them more tools and. Anyway, I could clearly talk about this for, like, years, but okay, you just.
• 43:45
  Speaker B: Led me perfectly right there because you could see that I could clearly talk about this for years. Here's what I want to do. I will come back. We're out of time. Let's. So one thing I found about YouTube recently that is super fun are polls or surveys, right? So I would love to do. And they're really. They work well. But I want to do a quick poll, and either you can tell me right now if you have this a weird number four, but there's four ideas. Do you have four ideas what we could do that you and I talk about again? Like, I want to have Becca on again. And what would you, dear listener, like to hear from Becca? We could talk. Clifton's drinks. We could talk. Quitting. We could talk. What else you got? What do you think?
• 44:25
  Speaker A: We could talk about energy pennies and energy management.
• 44:28
  Speaker B: It. Oh, energy.
• 44:30
  Speaker A: We could talk about business decisions for entrepreneurs.
• 44:38
  Speaker B: Okay, it's already four. That's already good.
• 44:40
  Speaker A: That's four.
• 44:41
  Speaker B: Well, that's clearly. You know what I think we should do? I think we should just have four more.
• 44:46
  Speaker A: I am happy to come back four times. Bradley, this was a blast.
• 44:50
  Speaker B: This was awesome. Becca, it was fantastic having you super fun on and accept that you nailed me on my activator. I'm like, ready, aim, fire. No, just fire.
• 45:00
  Speaker A: Just fire.
• 45:03
  Speaker B: Just fire. Thanks. Thanks, Becca. It was great. And clearly we have more podcasts to do, so see you soon. Bye.