Latest / RHYTHMS OF REST℠ Leadership Podcast / Episode 3: You Have a Plan for Everything—Except Your Life
Transcript
- Kent Murawski: You don't need balance. You need the right rhythms. How do I know that? Because balance means equality and life is anything but equal. Much like a heart where all four chambers work together, real success depends on four key rhythms working together in harmony, relational, emotional, spiritual, and tangible rhythms. I'm your host Kent Morosky and welcome to the Rhythms of Rest Leadership Podcast. where we build rhythms for sustainable success so you can slow down without losing momentum. Before we dive in, if you're achieving by every metric that really matters and you still feel like something's off, the rhythms of rest assessment will show you exactly where your rhythms are breaking down and where you are on the burnout scale. In less than five minutes, you'll have some real clarity of where you need to make adjustments. You can find that assessment at KentMoroski.com forward slash assessment. Let's go. You have a business plan, a marketing plan, a financial plan, a vacation plan, but do you have a plan for your life as a whole? I don't know how that sounds to you, but think about it. As leaders, we plan everything around our life, but never the life itself. Let me introduce you to James, a young business owner from Florida. I spent two days with James creating a rhythms of rest life plan. Now, the first exercise we did was to establish his personal core values, not his companies. Now, James in his mind, like many business owners kept wanting to skip ahead to the company values, but he resisted that temptation. ⁓ and here's why, and I helped coach him on this. Your company's core values are shaped by, ⁓ your personal core values. They're shaped by who you are as a person and as a leader. If you don't know your personal values, You'll have trouble clarifying your company's values. It's not that they have to be exactly the same. They don't. But if you're a business owner, ⁓ you lead an organization, ⁓ your business values will many times be shaped in part by your personal values. Okay. And so developing my own life plan didn't happen until my, like around my early to mid forties, James is 28 years old. I'm so excited that he gets to do this early because It took me 20 years to figure out that I didn't know how to integrate my life and leadership together. I mean, I had a plan for everything. Just ask my wife. ⁓ you know, everything is it related to work, especially, and for some parts of life, but I didn't know what parts were most important and how to put them all together in life and leadership. I didn't have a plan for some of the most important things like I don't think I had a solid plan for for my marriage. had somewhat of a plan, but it wasn't robust enough. I didn't have a great plan for my physical health or my mental health. It wasn't until after my second near burnout that I began to say, something's off here. ⁓ So James now back to James, James had a faulty belief running under everything that surfaced as he kept wanting to gravitate towards those company values. instead of his personal values. And that underlying faulty belief was this, you have to hustle and grind to be successful. Now he had gotten that from, like many of us from his past experience from, from growing up from, ⁓ you know, relationships in his life, different things, but you have to hustle and grind to be successful. That was the underlying, ⁓ toxic belief. And this is one of the most toxic beliefs in leadership, honestly. especially for young leaders, because ⁓ the belief is this that you've got to sacrifice yourself and everything else that's important to you to be successful. And it's BS. It's not that you never need to hustle. Don't get me wrong. It's that it's that the hustle is a tactic, not a strategy. According to Graham Cochran, ⁓ he says he's a, you know, online business owner entrepreneur has been very successful. He said, What to do is a tactic, when to do it is a strategy and why you do it is a principle. And principles work for all people from all backgrounds at all times. And that's exactly what your personal core values are. They're principles by which to operate your life, not just your personal life, not just your business life, all of it together. Hustle guarantees nothing, especially if your ladder is leaning against the wrong wall, right? Furthermore, hustle is only sustainable for a season. And as I like to tell leaders I work with, ⁓ a season has a specified beginning and end, right? If you don't have a specified beginning and end, it's not a season, it's a lifestyle. And many leaders mistake ⁓ a lifestyle for a season because whatever season that they find themselves locked in has no beginning. an end. Here's how a faulty belief works. Okay. That faulty belief creates a narrative. ⁓ In James case, you have to hustle and grind to be successful or I'm not doing enough. In other words, I don't deserve success. That faulty belief creates a narrative or thought. ⁓ That thought creates anxiety because you're living against a future ideal rather than a reality. ⁓ You know, what is enough? If I'm not doing enough or I can't be successful without hustling and grinding, what's enough hustling and grinding? Right? How much more do I need to do? You know, enough is a moving target if it's not identified. ⁓ That narrative or thought then creates a feeling. It creates anxiety, right? And that feeling of anxiety drives the action. It leads you to more. grinding, which then in turn reinforces the faulty belief in the first place. It's a doom loop. And most leaders don't even know they're in it. So let me just recap that. A faulty belief creates a thought or narrative. That thought or narrative creates a feeling. That feeling drives an action, which then reinforces the faulty belief and it just continues to go in a loop. If you want to change what you do, You have to change your belief. Okay. Your brain is literally equipped to rewire itself to create new pathways and new patterns. Just like athletes train their bodies into submission, you can retrain your brain. this is far from just motivational fluff. It's actual brain science. You're not stuck with the beliefs that you inherited. It's called neuroplasticity. And they used to think that At some point, your mind was, could not be flexible anymore, could not change. But we've since found out that that is not true. And you can rewire the, the neuro pathways in your brain by with, and replace faulty beliefs with new ones. Okay. So how do you change a faulty belief? Ask yourself this question about the faulty narrative that you're telling yourself. What else could be true? So you have a faulty belief. ⁓ You know, I can't be successful if I don't hustle and grind. What else could be true? Let's, let's give some examples. So, ⁓ the, another version of that I have to hustle and grind to be successful is I'm not doing enough. Well, what's enough and how do I know if I'm doing it? What else could be true? That's the question we're asking. Or this, how about this? Maybe the problem is something else that could be true. ⁓ maybe I'm not doing enough of the right things. That could be true. You could come up, I encourage you to come up with as many thoughts as possible about what else could be true. Then you have to replace that faulty belief with a true belief. And here's the catch. It has to be something true and different than what you actually believe. It also has to be believable. So it's true, different. and believable because if it's too grandiose, then you're not going to believe it, whether it's true or not. So you have to latch onto a belief that could also be true. That's not negative and sends you into the doom loop that you actually believe. Okay. That's how you replace a false belief. So example, I'm not doing enough to, how about this? I'm doing way more than enough and I can cut my hours in half. That might be true, but ⁓ the question is whether you believe it or not. And the answer is probably not. It's that's why it's probably not going to work because your brain doesn't believe it and your heart doesn't believe it. ⁓ So maybe the truth that you would believe is this. ⁓ It's not that I'm not doing enough. Maybe I just need to try something different. ⁓ Maybe I need to find a mentor that can help me think differently. Maybe I need to hire a coach that can help me. to change my mindset or to change the things I'm doing. Maybe I need to learn a new skill. Maybe I need to hire someone who has a skill set that I don't and sees things differently. See, suddenly the light bulb begins to turn on when we replace that faulty belief with something true, different and believable. ⁓ You know, money is one of those faulty beliefs that often trips us up. I know it has me in the past, still does sometimes. ⁓ The narrative that has tripped me up in the past is that I don't have enough, right? Many people have that narrative. I don't have enough. Even people with millions of dollars sometimes, I don't have enough and therefore they keep squirreling away, squirreling away, squirreling away and not spending anything. Why? Because in their mind, they believe something faulty. I don't have enough. The problem is they have never defined enough. It's a destructive narrative. It drives us to be constantly discontent and striving for some shifting goalposts that's constantly moving. If you don't define your enough number, you will strive for something you never reach because it's undefined. But also I've been in a place of truly not having enough. That's called poverty, right? Poverty is when we don't have enough. I've been in a place where we didn't know where the groceries were coming from. We didn't know where our next rent check was coming from. I felt like a failure as a provider. I felt like I could never get ahead. I felt like, you know what poverty feels like? And I know this because I've been there before. It feels like, like a heavy load ahead. Somebody takes a 200 pound weight or 300 pound weight and you're laying down on your back and they just sit in on your chest. That's what it feels like. That's what I felt like when I was in those situations. Now there's three parts to get getting out of that. First of all, change the faulty scarcity belief. Was it true that there was wasn't enough or was the reason that we're struggling was I was struggling was because I felt like I'm not enough. ⁓ You know, you can ask some questions to that narrative. There's not enough. I don't have enough. How about everyone struggles sometimes. And as much as I hated it, it taught me to persevere. It taught me to trust God more. I saw miraculous provision at times. It changed the narrative in my head over time, but I honestly struggled with it for way too long. Or here's another narrative that we could change that faulty scarcity belief. ⁓ There's more than enough for everyone, including me. See, that's the difference between an abundance mindset and a scarcity mindset. And I've made that shift and it's come through, through, you know, a long struggle at times, but I've made that shift. Second way to change a belief, this scarcity belief is define, I had to define my enough number. The amount of money I felt would be enough to take care of my family, save for retirement, live the way I want to live and be generous with my family, my friends and the causes I love. had to define that number. I want to encourage you to define your enough number because if you don't, you will constantly be striving for something you can never reach. Number three, scares challenging the scarcity belief. ⁓ always measure backward. ⁓ this idea came from Benjamin Hardy's book, the gap and the gain. And, ⁓ you know, instead of telling myself there's never enough, I was able to measure backward and celebrate my progress. And my income has tripled in three years. Now here's what I mean by measuring backward. ⁓ we have to measure progress from where we've come from, not against where we're going. If we look back and look where we've come from, then we can truly see whether we've made progress or not. My income has tripled in three years. That's progress. If we measure forward to an ideal goal that is undefined, we will constantly be living in the gap because we're measuring against a moving goalpost and we can never get there. So we'll constantly feel like we're not doing enough. We're not earning enough. We're not enough. We have to measure backward. from where we've actually come from. And that's how we, the real way to measure progress. You know, when I think relate back to that ⁓ poverty experience or experiences I just told you about that was for ⁓ ongoing period of years. Here's the thing about pain. Pain is never wasted unless you refuse to use it. Let me tell you what I mean by that. Victor Frankl was a Nazi prison camp, death camp survivor. He wrote the book Man's Search for Meaning, which is one of the best books of all time. If you haven't read it, just press pause on this podcast and order it right now. But after going through that experience, he believed that purpose came from three sources. Number one, a person to love that can be, ⁓ a meaningful relationship or set of relationships. It can be your faith as well. can be God. It can be people. It can be both. Secondly, a work to do. He believed purpose came from doing meaningful work. Work that obviously that's ⁓ somewhat subjective to you, but work that you feel moves the needle that contributes to society that does something good that provides you for your family. All those things rolled into one. meaningful work. And thirdly, he believed purpose came and he said this was most important, finding meaning in unavoidable suffering. So not just finding meaning in suffering, but suffering that you could use to help others. Suffering that was unavoidable, we all go through that, and suffering that could be used to help others. You see, every one of us is going to suffer, aren't we, in life? The question isn't if we're going to suffer. The question is, what will we do with it? when we do suffer. In my own story, I've had lots of those moments. But in particular, what shaped this rhythms of rest framework and the rhythms of rest leadership podcasts and newsletter and book that's going to be coming out in the fall. What shaped that was I had a fall down on the floor, full on nervous breakdown at 27 that I thought I would never get up from. I remember it vividly. was set to go on a weekend conference. And instead, when we were about to go out the door, I fell down on the floor. I curled up like a baby and I cried for what felt like hours. I had no idea what was going on. I was locked in this dark dark cocoon. I couldn't see anything. ⁓ I felt so stuck and, and anxious and depressed and overwhelmed. And I just felt like what is happening right now. ⁓ it took me months to climb out of that hole and it started really with backing out of every voluntary commitment that didn't give me life and energy. Now I don't mean obligations that I had. ⁓ I meant things that I had volunteer voluntarily committed to that weren't in my strengths and skills. I was just. It wasn't just that I was doing way too much. It was that I was doing way too much and I was neglecting many other important things, which now my rhythms of rest framework helps you to integrate all these important parts of life into one. ⁓ but now from that experience, I get to help leaders like James design a life that moves in sync. with their most important values and the rhythms and principles that are the foundation of a whole and complete life. Okay, that breakdown became the doorway to something greater. You see pain without purpose is just suffering, but pain with purpose becomes a foundation that you can build on. You know, for millennia, Jewish people have captured this in a single word. And you've probably heard the word before. That word is shalom. ⁓ But shalom is far beyond just peace. It does mean peace and it's far beyond a greeting in Jewish culture. It actually means wholeness, health, harmony, completeness, and get this vitality in every dimension of life. Isn't that good? Here's the kicker. And I love this. When shalom is used as a verb, it means actions that lead to a state of wholeness. I'm going to say that one more time. Actions that lead to a state of wholeness. Okay. You could say it this way. Shalom is the way things ought to be. It's not perfection, but it's wholeness. And wholeness isn't a destination. Wholeness is a direction. It's not somewhere we arrive in this life. It's a direction that we move in that we can grow in progressively and get better and better. That breakdown at 27 became the doorway into what I now call the rhythms of rest framework. It's a framework designed to keep your core life rhythms in sync so that you can move towards wholeness and integrity. Integrity, it does mean moral character. It's not less than that. But it's far more than that. The word integrity comes from integer and it means the same, same or similar thing as Shalom. It means completeness and wholeness. So let me briefly walk you through these four rhythms in the rhythms of rest framework. R-E-S-T. R stands for relational rhythms. That's cultivating deep connections that energize you rather than drain you. And even when your schedule is packed and life is full. E stands for emotional and mental rhythms. It's creating space to process, to reflect and to grow instead of just pushing through. S stands for spiritual rhythms. It means being grounded in your faith or a robust philosophy of life that provides meaning deeper than your schedule or deeper than the next achievement. And the T stands for tangible rhythms. This is caring for your body, your finances and your work in a way that your other rhythms. So much like the heart, all four of these chambers have to work together. If one is out of sync, you're going to feel it everywhere. It's going to feel even if you're doing great in three, you might not feel it as much but you're good. Something's still going to feel off. It's still going to feel like something's out of Let me bring it back to James as we close this, bring this towards a close. And I used to be a preacher, so bringing it towards a close means nothing. But let me try nonetheless. In less than 48 hours, James went from a general sense of where he was headed to a clear written plan for his life. James didn't lack purpose or direction. He just hadn't put it into words. He didn't have the container for it. Simple, clear, memorable, refinable, reviewable. A life plan isn't just one area of your life. It's about getting your relational, emotional, spiritual and tangible rhythms in sync so that you can move towards wholeness instead of being pulled apart. Okay, here's what James story really reveals. In his case, and I think often starts this way, ⁓ it starts with emotional and mental rhythms, the beliefs running behind or beneath your behaviors. When a faulty belief goes unchallenged, it doesn't just hijack your mindset, it bleeds into everything else and throws the other rhythms out of sync. So much of our lives is based on what we believe. What we believe shapes the narrative that we think. What we think shapes how we feel and what we feel shapes our actions. But when you name a belief, especially a faulty one and replace it, you're going to create new patterns, new energy, new behaviors. And that determines whether you're leading from conviction and clarity, or just reacting from anxiety and faulty ingrained thought patterns. So we've come now to our last. heart of every we do this every podcast. It's called your rhythms check. And let me start with a reflection question for you to think about. What belief about success are you carrying that you've never actually questioned? And what has it cost you? Let me say that one more time. What belief about success are you carrying that you've never actually questioned? And what is it costing you? Here's what I want you to do in the next 24 hours. Identify just one belief about work or success that drives your behavior and write it down. Not the behavior, but the belief underneath the behavior. The story that you've been telling yourself that you've never actually questioned. What is the belief behind that story? ⁓ If you could, I want you to drop it in the YouTube comments, DM me on social or just send it to my email. If you're on my email list, just one sentence about that belief. You'd be surprised how many leaders are carrying the exact same belief. And once you name it, it starts to lose power. I'll read every single one. I promise. Thanks for being with me here on the rhythms of rest leadership podcast. If this resonated with you today, You're going to love my bi weekly newsletter. Every other week I send out honest, practical insights to help you live and lead from an internal place of rest and wholeness instead of balance and burnout. So no fluff, just simple tools for my rhythms of rest framework to help you slow down without losing momentum. Just go to KentMoroski.com forward slash newsletter to sign up. It's absolutely free and you'll be the first to hear about any exclusive offers and get bonus content. I hope you have a great week.