Latest / Unlocking The Paradigm Portal / The Performer: You Call It a Decision. It’s an Exit.

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The Performer: You Call It a Decision. It’s an Exit. · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

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You made the decision before you were ready, and the moment you
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made it, maybe before the ink was dry, maybe before you'd even
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told anyone, you started performing certainty about it.
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Not lying. That's important to remember.
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You weren't lying. You genuinely believed the story
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you started telling, and you told it to your friends, your
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family, your followers, maybe your therapist.
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And you told it confidently, with the kind of forward facing
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energy that reads as someone who has their life together and
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knows exactly where they're headed.
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And somewhere underneath all of that, quiet, not loud, easy to
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ignore, was the part of you that knew that you'd move to get out
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of the hallway. And not because the door was
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right. Because standing still was
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starting to feel like something other people might notice.
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Welcome to the performer, and also welcome to unlocking the
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Paradigm portal. My name is Sarah.
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So on Monday, we laid out the whole hallway framework.
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So if you're just joining us, go back and start there.
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This series builds on itself. And then on Wednesday, we went
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deep on the accumulator, the one who stays in the hallway by
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never stopping, collecting courses, credentials, knowledge,
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motion, all of it. They're always preparing and
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never quite launching. So today is the other one.
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The performer doesn't stay in the hallway.
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The performer sprints through the first door they can justify,
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and then immediately, fluently, convincingly begins performing
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certainty about having chosen correctly.
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And I need to be clear about something before we go any
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further. The performer is not a liar,
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they are not a fraud, and they are not someone who is
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consciously manipulating the people around them.
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The performer is someone whose nervous system learned early,
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thoroughly in conditions that made complete sense at the time,
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that being caught not knowing is one of the most dangerous things
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that can happen to them. So they never get caught.
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They move before the uncertainty becomes visible.
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They commit before the doubt can show.
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They perform the confidence they don't yet have.
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And sometimes, if they're good at it, they perform it so well
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they almost convince themselves. Almost being the keyword that
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almost is worth staying with for a second, because it's not
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dramatic and it doesn't show up as a crack in the armor or a
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moment of visible doubt. It shows up as a quiet internal
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flicker, there and gone before they fully registered it.
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It's a half second of something that doesn't quite land right, a
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slight hollowness behind the certainty that they immediately
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paper over with the next sentence or the next decision or
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the next move. The performer becomes expert at
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the papering over. So expert that eventually they
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stop noticing the flicker entirely.
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But the body notices. The body is keeping score the
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whole time. So we'll get there.
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Stay with me. The performer doesn't show up as
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one type. They all share the same tell.
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So watch for the pivot, OK? The moment the hallway gets
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uncomfortable, the moment the not knowing starts to feel
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visible, the performer pivots into decision, into action, into
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a story about why this is exactly the right move at
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exactly the right time. And that pivot is fast and it's
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convincing, and it almost always is just slightly ahead of where
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they actually are. So there's three different
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variations of this, and I'm curious if you recognize
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yourself in any of them. Share it in the comments.
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OK, No judgement here because just so you know, I have been
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these two. So there's the decisive
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performer, and this is the one everyone admires.
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They make hard calls quickly. They don't waffle, they don't
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overthink. They don't spend weeks in
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analysis paralysis. They are, by every external
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measure, someone who's who has figured out how to move.
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And what nobody sees is how many of those fast decisions were not
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made from clarity. They were made from the
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discomfort of being in the hallway long enough that someone
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might notice. So the decisive performer is not
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afraid of making the wrong choice.
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They're afraid of looking like they don't know which choice to
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make. Those are completely different
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fears, and they produce completely different decisions.
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So the next one is the narrative performer.
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And this is the one who always has a story, a framework for
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what's happening, or a reason why this difficulty is actually
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growth, why this ending is actually a beginning, why this
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loss is actually a redirection. And listen, sometimes it is.
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Sometimes the reframe is real, and sometimes the story is true.
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But the narrative performer doesn't wait to find out.
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They build the story while they're still in the middle of
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the thing. Because the story is not just
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meaning making it's armor. It's a way of staying one step
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ahead of the rawness, of never being caught in the place where
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they don't yet know what this is.
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The narrative performer is brilliant and articulate and
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often one of the most insightful people in the room.
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They are also frequently performing their own processing.
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And then we have the momentum performer.
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They never stop moving long enough for anyone, including
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themselves, to notice they have no idea where they're going.
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There's a packed calendar, big energy, always on to the next
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thing, constantly generating motion that looks from the
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outside like direction. So the momentum performer will
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tell you with complete conviction about their five year
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plan, about the vision, about where all of this is headed.
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Ask them to sit quietly with you for 20 minutes and watch what
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happens. The momentum isn't the plan.
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The momentum is what keeps them from having to feel whether the
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plan is actually theirs. So these are three different
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presentations, but there's one signature underneath all of
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them. The performer cannot tolerate
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being seen in the not knowing. It's not because they're
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arrogant, and it's not because they don't value authenticity.
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In fact, a lot of performers will tell you that authenticity
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is one of their core values, and they mean it.
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But there is a gap between what they value and what their
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nervous system can tolerate, and the nervous system wins every
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time. The specific thing the performer
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cannot tolerate is the moment between.
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So the moment after the old thing ends and before the new
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thing is clear, and the moment where, if they were really being
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fully honest, they would have to say I don't know what comes
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next. I don't know if I made the right
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call. I don't know who I am without
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the thing I just left or the story I just outgrew.
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That moment is the hallway the liminal space.
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Seriously, go back and check out the other episodes so you have
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some idea if you haven't already heard these.
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And the performer's entire operating system is built around
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spending as little time there, in that hallway, in that liminal
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space as possible. So they perform their way
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through it. And the performance is so good,
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so fluent, so well rehearsed, so genuinely believed by the person
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delivering it, that it doesn't register as performance.
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It registers as strength, it registers as resilience.
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It registers as someone who has done the work and knows who they
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are until it doesn't anymore. So here's what the performer
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pays every door they Sprint through without actually
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choosing. Like intentionally choosing.
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And every commitment made to escape the hallway rather than
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from genuine readiness becomes a door they eventually have to
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come back and reckon with. Because you can perform
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certainty, you cannot perform alignment.
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Alignment has a physical signature.
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It lives in the body. It shows up in the quality of
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your energy when you're doing the thing, in the quality of
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your sleep, and whether you feel like yourself or like a very
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convincing version of yourself. And the performer over time,
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accumulates a gap between those two things because who they've
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they've performed being and who they actually are, they are very
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different. And the space becomes bigger the
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longer they perform. And that gap has a cost.
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Sometimes it shows up as exhaustion that doesn't make
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sense given how well things are going on paper.
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And sometimes it's restlessness, or a vague dissatisfaction with
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a life that looks from the outside like exactly what they
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said they wanted, sometimes as the recurring uncomfortable
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sense that they are living slightly adjacent to their own
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life. The performance is sustainable
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for a long time, and the performer is often incredibly
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capable. The motion is real, the skills
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are real, and the results are real.
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But the self behind the performance gets quieter and
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quieter and smaller, and at some point it stops asking to be
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heard. But before it goes fully quiet,
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before the showing up sideways, there's a specific kind of cost
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the performer pays that doesn't get talked about enough.
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They start to lose trust in their own perception.
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Because here's what happens over time when you consistently
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perform your way through the not knowing, you accumulate
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decisions made from escape rather than from clarity.
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And those decisions, even when they work out on paper, they
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leave a residue. It's a subtle, compounding
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uncertainty about whether what you think you know is actually
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what you know, or whether it's just the next performance.
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So the performer who has been doing this long enough starts to
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question their own reads, their own gut, their own yes and no.
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They can identify what's happening.
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They have the language. They can see the pattern in
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other people as clear as day, but when it's their own interior
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world, when they go looking for the solid ground of their own
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knowing, they find fog instead. And that is a particular kind of
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disorienting, because the one thing the performer has always
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been able to count on is their ability to read a room, to read
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a situation, to read what's needed and deliver it.
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When they can no longer trust that ability inside their own
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life, When the performance has blurred the line between what
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they actually feel and what they've performed feeling for so
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long, that's when it gets quiet. And it's not the peaceful kind
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of quiet, the kind where the self has just stopped trying to
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be heard over the noise. That's when it starts showing up
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sideways so the performer doesn't burn out the way the
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accumulator does. Stalled, overloaded, ready but
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frozen, the performer burns out by arriving, by getting to the
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place they performed their way into and finding out in the
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quiet after landing there that it wasn't where they were
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actually going. So the roots are familiar, and
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we covered the architecture Wednesday, but their performers
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specific wound has a very particular texture to it.
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At some point in a family, a classroom, a relationship, a
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community, this person learned that not knowing wasn't safe.
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It not just uncomfortable, not just something to push through,
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but dangerous, almost emotionally dangerous.
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Maybe the not knowing was met with contempt or abandonment or
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ridicule or emotional withdrawal, or the particular
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cruelty of someone who is supposed to be safe deciding
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that uncertainty was weakness and weakness was unacceptable.
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Or maybe it was subtler than that.
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Maybe the environment just consistently rewarded
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performance. You know, the confident answer,
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the fast decision, the polished presentation, and had nothing
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for the moment of genuine not knowing, the moment of real raw.
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I don't know yet. That moment never got witnessed
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and it never got held and it never got the response that
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would have taught the nervous system this is survivable.
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You can be in the not knowing and still be OK and still be
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loved and still be appreciated and seen and belong.
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So the nervous system did what nervous systems do.
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It built a system to make sure that moment never happened
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again. And it called the system
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confidence. And here's where it gets
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specific. Because the performer isn't
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always someone who lacks self-awareness.
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Some of the most self aware people that I know are
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performers. God, this was me for a long
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time. In fact, the performer who is
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also deeply curious about themselves, about the world,
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about why people do what they do, is in a particular kind of
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bind. Because their curiosity is real.
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Their reflection is real. Their insight is real, but
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curiosity without a stable foundation underneath it doesn't
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Orient you. It disorients you.
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So a curious person who is anchored in themselves will use
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that curiosity to find their way through the fog.
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They turn toward the confusion and they get clearer.
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The fog parts. But a curious person who isn't
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yet fully anchored in themselves.
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Their curiosity pulls them into the fog, the same quality that
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makes them extraordinary. That beautiful, relentless need
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to understand becomes the thing that takes them further from
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their own knowing when the ground shifts beneath them.
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So what happens? They perform harder.
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Because the curiosity isn't giving them answers, it's giving
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them more questions. And the questions in the nervous
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system that learned that not knowing is dangerous feel like
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falling. The performance is the ground
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they didn't get to build anywhere.
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So the performer in the dark matter hallway doesn't stand
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still long enough for the space to respond to them.
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Which is the whole problem. Because the hallway, the space
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between the old thing and the new thing, lined with doors.
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We'll call it the hallway of adjacent possibilities
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responsive to your internal state.
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It only works if you're actually present in it, if you're
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regulated enough to feel what you feel and honest enough to
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let the uncertainty be uncertainty before you collapse
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into a decision. And that is a really difficult
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place to sit. This is why they perform
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instead, and This is why the accumulator accumulates instead.
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And in that space of uncertainty, the performer
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collapses it immediately. They pick a door, not because
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it's theirs, but because picking is safer than standing there,
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and they walk it. They walk through it before the
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hallway has had a chance to show them anything, and they then
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they perform certainty about the door.
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So the severance hallway suits the performer in a particular
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way. It's controlled, it's purposeful
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forward motion with the appearance of direction.
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Doors that are assigned rather than chosen because assigned is
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easier than chosen. A sign comes with a built in
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justification. You do what you're told and you
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don't have to explain why you went that way.
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The performer will take an assigned door over a genuine
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choice almost every time, because a genuine choice
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requires knowing what you actually want, and knowing what
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you actually want requires being still long enough to feel it,
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and still is the one thing the performer cannot be.
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So I'm not going to tell you to slow down and journal about your
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feelings, although I do always recommend that I'm going to tell
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you what it actually looks like when the performer starts to
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come home to themselves. And I'm speaking from very
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personal experience here. It looks like a pause before the
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pivot. One beat, just one before the
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story starts, before the reframe kicks in, before the decision
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gets made to escape the discomfort of the in between.
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One beat where you let yourself not know sounds freaking scary,
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right? It's not forever, and it's not
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publicly, and it's not in a way that requires you to perform
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your uncertainty the same way you've been performing your
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certainty. Just privately, honestly, for
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long enough to feel whether the door you're about to Sprint
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through is yours or just the nearest exit.
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Because here's what the performer doesn't know yet.
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The not knowing is not what they think it is.
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They've been treating it like a void, like something that if
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they stopped long enough to feel it, would swallow them, would
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confirm the thing they've been running from.
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That underneath the performance, there's nothing solid, no real
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self, no actual knowing. Just the performance all the way
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down. That's the fear.
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Say it out loud and now hear this.
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The fear is the wound talking, not the truth.
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Because the the performer, this capable, fast moving, story
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building, momentum generating person has a self, a real one.
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It's just been performing so long it's forgotten how to speak
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in its own voice. The hallway is where it comes
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back, Not immediately and not all at once, but in the pause
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before the pivot, in the one beat of genuine not knowing,
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you'll start to remember. That's the dark matter hallway,
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doing what it was always supposed to do, showing you
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where you were always headed, if you can stay long enough to let
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it. Most people, especially
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performers, default to their comfort zone.
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They default to what they've known, to the family dynamics,
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to societal pressure, to cultural pressures, to financial
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pressures, whatever it may be. They return to that because then
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there's a story with it. Can you sit long enough in the
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discomfort to see if you're there?
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So the accumulator stays in the hallway by never leaving.
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The performer leaves before they've been there long enough
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to find out what it had for them.
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Both of them are running from the same thing.
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Both of them are paying for it in different currencies.
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And if you recognize yourself today, good.
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That's so good. The recognition is not a
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verdict. It's a door.
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It's a real one. It's 1.
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You get to choose. So next week we're going to go
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deeper into what it actually looks like to be regulated in
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the liminal space, what the nervous system needs, how you
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build the capacity to stay without sprinting or
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accumulating your way out. So until then, I have one
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request before you make the next move, before the next pivot, the
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next decision, the next story about why this is exactly right.
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Take one beat. That's all I ask.
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One beat, Just a pause, just one and let yourself not know for a
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second. That is my favorite phrase to
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hear from people and from myself.
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I don't know because that is so real and honest.
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And as a little Side Story, I had a doctor's appointment a
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couple months ago and I am the type of person that drills my
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doctor with questions. And I am like a 5 year old
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asking why about everything. Because it's my body, it's my
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health. You say something, I'm going to
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ask why and you damn well better have an answer.
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And I asked him why about a specific question and he fumble
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for a minute. I could see him scanning trying
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to come up with an answer. And he looked at me wide eyed
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and he said I don't know. And I just grinned and I looked
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at him and I said, I respect you so much.
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For the fact that you said, I don't know, let's figure it out.
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And I watched this bit of relief on his face and I could tell
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even though I was the patient, he was the doctor.
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He knew I saw him and that I appreciated the fact that he was
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so real. And guess what?
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We worked together. It was the best doctor
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collaboration I've ever had. And we figured it out together.
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And that guy has earned such high respect from me for being
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in that place of, I don't know, acknowledging it and saying it
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out loud. So this week, just take a beep
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and allow yourself to recognize where you actually don't know
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instead of jumping through a doorway.
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So I will be back on Sunday for a deep dive.
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I don't know what the hell we're going to do We'll see.
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I'm totally winging it and just going with what feels right
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because I am in a perpetual state of being in my dark matter
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hallway and loving it. It.
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It's scary at first, but God, it feels like total freedom.
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So come join me and please share in the comments.
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Where have you found yourself in the hallway?
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Have you found yourself in the Severance hallway?
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Have you found yourself in the dark matter hallway?
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Where are you feeling hung up? Let's work through all this.
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Let's like teamwork it all right, So I will be back like
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share, subscribe, hype, do all the things, whatever they are
21:39
and come back for more like let's keep growing together.
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I'm so excited about this. So as always, for your Friday
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today, just be real, not nice and let's keep tackling some
21:51
more paradigms. I will see you on Sunday.