Change Your Relationship with The Gap (In Business and in Life)

Speaker A: Hey there, One Thing family. Today I'm talking to my friend Hannah Soto. She's a five time entrepreneur and also an executive coach. And we're exploring the gap. The gap is the distance between where you are and where you ultimately want to be. And she and I have both observed some tendencies that high achievers and business owners have when they face the gap. They can try to chase it down kind of compulsively. They can hide from it. Right. An avoidance technique. Or they're going to use it as a tool to judge themselves. And we're going to knock out kind of the thinking behind all of those and how you can move to a more healthy, becoming focused kind of attitude with all three in this episode. Enjoy. I'm Jay Papasan, and this is the One Thing, your weekly guide to the

Speaker B: the simple steps that lead to extraordinary results.

Speaker A: Hannah, uh, welcome to the One Thing podcast.

Speaker C: Thank you for having me. I'm really excited.

Speaker A: We were chatting around about the gap, which is a hot topic for entrepreneurs and business owners and high achievers in general. Um, where did you first kind of start a relationship with learning about the gap and what it means to high achievers?

Speaker C: Right smack in the middle of it. Okay, so I was in a gap myself and I had worked with a coach and he kind of talked me through what a gap meant. I'd never related to Johan.

Speaker A: Is that how you say it?

Speaker C: Johan. Johan.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker C: He's Puerto Rican, so you would think it would be Johan, but he's also Persian, so. Johan.

Speaker A: So you were in the gap. Let's define what does the gap mean to you?

Speaker C: So gap is the space between where you are and where you want to be. Okay, so that middle in between, which

Speaker A: is a place where a lot of high achievers have gotten a lot of their accomplishments, they've gotten a reputation as people who have closed the gap. Closed the gap. Right? Here's the target. Go. Hit it. They hit it. They do that again and again and eventually, like, I should do this for myself, not for the man quotes, right? I should start my own business. That's how a lot of us got started. So you were in a gap. Was it a gap that you weren't able to close and that's why you were working with the coach at that point?

Speaker C: It was a gap that I wouldn't have called a gap. I would have called it a problem. I would have said, this needs to be fixed, solved. I need, like, something's wrong. And so I came to my coach saying, here's a problem I need to Fix. And I need your help to do that. Um, and since I've learned that you can also just change your relationship to the gap, because the truth is, is that even if I close that gap, there's going to be another gap in the future always.

Speaker A: So what was the nature of this gap? Was it like a leadership gap? Was it a skills gap? Was it a knowledge gap?

Speaker C: The gap that I came to Johan, in the beginning was one in my business. And so it was. I had had a lot of external success, but I was feeling a lot of friction personally. Now I say, you know, wildly successful and yet wildly unhappy. And the gap between external, um, performance

Speaker A: and internal peace, that's really something. Uh, I think a lot of people, until they've experienced it, don't know what it's like for people to say, oh my gosh, you're so successful while the things that you're failing at aren't visible. And so, like, that's where the imposter syndrome shows up and self doubt. But, like, they don't see all of my mistakes. While in reality, everybody who's kicking butt out there has got a million gaps going on. So you said something really interesting. You said, it's all about your relationship to the gap. What does that mean to you?

Speaker C: So we can't control our circumstances always, but we can control how we experience them. And, and so there was this really pivotal moment, and I'm gonna be vague because it has, um, some personal details, but there was a moment personally where I was experiencing my family in this particular way. And the analogy I was using is, it's like I'm in a pool drowning, and they're all just standing around and why won't someone throw me a raft? Or why won't someone, you know, jump in and help? Because I'm drowning. And then all of a sudden I said, what if I just stand up? What if there's only three feet of water? And it radically changed my relationship to the situation. No one else changed around me. My relationship to the situation changed.

Speaker A: Okay, I laugh not at your situation, but like, everybody's seen that meme of the little kid who's like screaming and crying until he realizes he can just stand up and he's in knee deep water. Got it. And so your relationship to the gap changed. Like, I go all the way back to like, Viktor Frankl. When you think of things like that, there's what happens to us and we get to choose in that space. And that gap is a different kind of gap. Um, instead of reacting to it, which is almost always at the emotional level, choose a more rational response to it. I kind of distinguish between reacting and response.

Speaker C: M. Yes. And I would probably in a similar way say, am I being reactive or proactive?

Speaker A: Okay, reactive or proactive. So you shared with me that in your work as a leader and your work as a coach, you see three patterns. Business owners, high achievers, whatever we're going to call them today, our listeners on this podcast, um, they either chase it, right? I'm going to hunt that sucker down, because that's what I do. They hide from it, or they use it as a tool to judge themselves. So let's tackle those maybe one at a time. So I think the chasing the gap is the one that I see a lot. It's maybe the most common form. Right. Here's the gap between where I am and where I want to go. That's where a lot of coaching relationships start. Right. That's the thing that you want to decide. You sit down with someone, what is my job for this six month period or whatever it is. What is my job? When that employee M walks into your office, says, can we close the door?

Speaker C: Right. We all know that feeling.

Speaker A: Yeah. Right. Uh, do you have time for a quick zoom? And you're like, are they quitting? What's happening? Right. You have all those moments, but generally they perceive it to be something. There's this gap between them and the outcomes about how they'll look at themselves. Like, I usually think of that, chasing it. I'll be happy when. Yes, I see that a lot.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: It's like, I'm miserable right now, but I'll be happy when we get to a million in revenue.

Speaker C: Exactly. And the problem with that is that you get to a million in revenue. And then there's something else. There's always going to be a, when this happens, I'll be happy. Um, and so it's understanding that what you're chasing is fulfillment and that if you aren't clear about that comes from inside, like that's an inside job, then you're always gonna be chasing. You're always gonna say, well, if I hit this, when I arrive at that, when someone gives me this acknowledgement, you're giving away your agency and you're saying, I'll feel fulfilled when this happens. And so you're just experiencing the gap as something to chase as quick as possible. And it's very fear based.

Speaker A: You're making your fulfillment conditional. Right. And ideally it should be unconditional. And we did a ton of research, like Dove deep into Seligman and all of these achievement. And one of my biggest ahas when we were writing the one thing all those years ago, 13 today in fact, as we're recording, um, that fulfillment happens along the way. That actually when we close the gap, we actually get to that milestone, that we're chasing that big one. There's usually a letdown. It's the opposite of what we expect. Because there's this now what? Right. I had this purpose. This was getting me up every morning at 4:00am um, to Chase, chase, chase. But now the chase is gone. Um, but the happiness or the fulfillment, which I think is a better word than happiness. I think happiness can be a little bit more fleeting. Whereas I can be miserable at work. Like it's hard day. I am in the trenches, I've got a trowel, it's 110 degrees. That kind of work, I can still come home and feel incredibly fulfilled and proud of my day. Even if it wasn't a fun day, right. But the milestones along the way, right, Those are the places where we feel the fulfillment. And at the end is where it actually could be disappointment.

Speaker C: I think if you talk to uh, professional athletes, let's even take football players, you talk to them the day after winning the super bowl. And I think most of them are gonna say, that was fun. But what's next? There's that drive of falling in love with the pursuit of something. If we choose to relate to the gap with love. Most people in these three stages are relating to the gap in fear. And if you can instead say, how can I be curious? How can I fall in love with it? Then the pursuit of it can actually be where you have the most fun.

Speaker A: I have found. Um, I had a great, like very casual conversation before. I was in front of a microphone actually. James Clear came to town and wanted to talk to us about how we marketed the one thing before his book came out and we were talking about he's a very physical creature. Have you ever met him?

Speaker C: I have not, not yet.

Speaker A: He's like a former top athlete in great shape and he's in imposing like, I think he's like 6 foot 4 or something. Oh, wow. I'm not used to looking up.

Speaker C: Okay, right. Because you're tall.

Speaker A: And we were talking about stuff and I think at that, that moment in time I had been chasing different achievements right in my health and tracking everything. And I'd just done like a hundred push up challenge and his little flex around it was so good. But it was such a Precursor to what we now know in the atomic habits. He said, I've found that I just chose to be the kind of person identity that goes to the gym every day and works out. And I find whenever I choose to do something like run a 10k or do a hundred pushups, it's never very far away because of who I've chosen to become. So if our identity, like, how do we manage our identity while we're chasing? Can we fall in love with the, uh, things that are a part of the pursuit? Like, I've heard it a million times as a writer, Fall in love with the craft and the product will show up. Yeah. Is that a true statement to you?

Speaker C: I think so. And I actually got to experience it in a brand new way last year. Um, I walked the Camino Santiago. So for anybody that's not familiar, It's a, ah, 800.

Speaker A: Spain.

Speaker B: Portugal.

Speaker A: Is it all the way to Portugal or just in Spain?

Speaker C: There are eight different routes. One is in Portugal. We started in France and walked to the coast of Spain. So it's 800 kilometers, which is about 500 miles.

Speaker A: How long did that take?

Speaker C: 46 days.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: Um, normally it takes closer to 30. But I did tear my quad, uh, like at week one and a half.

Speaker A: Right in the beginning.

Speaker C: Exactly. And so it really changed my relationship with suffering and with arrival, because my goal wasn't to just get to Santiago as fast as possible. I wasn't. You know, I could take a car and get to Santiago, but I wouldn't have become a pilgrim. And so I think if we think about our gaps, I'm not interested in getting to the destination because then I bypass the becoming and who do I need to become? And the gap actually is the place to do that.

Speaker A: I love that. And there's something poetic about suffering on a pilgrimage. Right. More than a blister.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker A: You were carrying your quad as you went. Oh, gosh.

Speaker C: And also many blisters.

Speaker A: Okay. And many blisters.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: I'm going to set aside my curiosity about how you tore your quad hiking. We're just not going to go there. Let's go back to this identity in becoming. Like when you're working with someone, maybe it's an employee, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a coaching client, and they're in this chase stage. Do you lean them into the identity part? Do you lean them into the. Let's respond, not react. Where do you go with that?

Speaker C: Yeah. So I always take the position of curiosity because it's to each client, it's a different path. And so the first thing is helping them be aware. Are they aware that they are relating to the gap in this way?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Um. And so asking a lot of questions and then sharing some feedback if they're open to it, and then also asking them what else could be possible. And so if someone is relating to a gap, um, let's say that it feels heavy is something they would say. I might ask them, well, what if it were really light? And it's questions that are probing for their own experience to stand up in the water.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I mean, it's just like the pilgrimage suffering thing. If you just had blisters, it wouldn't make a great story.

Speaker B: Right, right.

Speaker A: That's true. Yeah. If it had just been blisters. What if it had just been blisters, Hannah?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, I know. You would have traded that for a torn quad and 700 kilometers. No, I wouldn't.

Speaker C: No. So I'd wanted to do this pilgrimage for 15 years, and I had really high expectations going in, and they were totally blown out of the water because it wasn't just about the physical aspect or being in this beautiful country. We walked through villages that had 12 residents. So just these small parts of Spain, you would never otherwise. But the best part was getting to, um, like, transform myself. People when I came back home would say, did it change your life? You know, everybody wants to know. And I would say, no, because it actually changed me, and that feels more powerful.

Speaker A: What was your transformation?

Speaker C: The relationship to suffering is one I think that I had always seen suffering as something to fix. You know, there's. I'm a really great doer. I'm great in chaos. And so give me something to fix. That's a mission. I can go full send on that.

Speaker A: I did it.

Speaker C: Exactly. Exactly. And on the Camino, there wasn't anything to fix because I woke up every day, and I was choosing to spend the first 90 minutes with a really aggressive limp, because that's about how long it would take for me to warm up, to walk normally. And people along the path just knew me as the girl that limps. And, you know, when we finished.

Speaker A: That was your trail name.

Speaker C: It was.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: It was.

Speaker A: Got it.

Speaker C: Um, and there were, uh, folks that volunteered at some of the spots that we stayed that we ran into in Santiago, and they legitimately thought we wouldn't finish. And so it was just. I got to fall in love with, what can I learn from suffering? And when I stopped trying to fix, who am I becoming?

Speaker A: Gritty is the first word. I come up with. Right. Like, that was like you were finding the depths of your grit in that moment, and that serves you in the future. You may not tear your quad next time, but maybe you get a bad note from the irs. Maybe you suffer a life loss while in the middle of business. Happiness, these things happen. But when we learn that our limits are greater than we believed and that the things that are between us and our limits aren't things to be fixed, but explored, what a liberating thing to learn about yourself.

Speaker C: It really is. And you have that resilience. And then when something does go wrong or you perceive it as going wrong, it doesn't have to mean anything about you.

Speaker A: Right. Well, I want to dive into that, but before we go to break, I was going to say your next trail name. Let's just go with, like, true grit or something.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Instead of the Limping lady.

Speaker C: Great. More empowering.

Speaker A: All right, let's go to a quick break and then we'll catch everybody on the other side.

Speaker C: Great.

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Speaker A: Welcome back, everybody. In the we're unpacking three ways that high achievers, business owners kind of relate to the gaps in front of them. We started with this idea that their default setting might be chase it down, close the gap, which is kind of what got them there. I get it. The second one is hide from it. That's like an equal and opposite measure. How does that manifest?

Speaker C: So most traditionally you would see avoidance. They want to pretend that the gap isn't there, or they want to keep themselves really busy so they don't have to acknowledge the gap. Because if it's not there, then they don't have to deal with it. And they may not feel equipped to deal with it.

Speaker A: I've experienced that too. And when I work with someone who's really, really busy, one of the internal questions I may not articulate right away is like, what are they hiding from? Right. Because when you're really busy and you're tasking like a 1% of 1 percenter, uh, it creates this illusion of immense efficiency, effectiveness and productivity. Even if they are not working on what we would call the one thing. Right, this gap that they're hiding from, the fact that they're hiding from it is usually pretty significant. It might mean that it is very related to their one thing internally or externally.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: All right, so someone's really busy. I see that in the forms of tasking. I see that in over planning. Like I'm going to prepare to prepare forever. Like look at my amazing 78 point business plan. Right. And my fellow coach, Jordan, who was my coach for many years, you know Jordan, he's in our mastermind. Um, at one point he kind of helped me kind of. See a lot of times when people are doing this, they're preserving hope because if they can avoid actually doing the thing, they haven't failed yet.

Speaker C: Correct. Correct.

Speaker A: So where do you go when you see someone they're hiding from this gap? They're maybe busy planning whatever else is showing up. Where do you go as a coach?

Speaker C: Yeah. So I would first wanna check in on what the original vision was. Why was this something that was compelling to them? And when you're really clear on why you want something, it's a lot easier to move through the how or the what of it.

Speaker A: That reminds me of a Nietzsche quote I love. He who has a why to live for can face almost any how. And it's just the power of a big why.

Speaker C: Exactly. Not my original idea. Um, but to your point, someone, if they are, they're working on this 72 point plan, they can spend more time on that. They don't actually have to spend time being messy and swinging and missing. And often I will ask clients, what's the difference between, um, playing to win and playing to not lose? Playing to not lose is self preservation. You're protecting, you're swinging at what's safe, you're swinging at what you can win. And that will get you something. Right? It'll feel safe, it'll feel predictable. But what most people aren't asking is what it's gonna cost them. And we are moving through life not showing up for the vision and the dreams we have because we're afraid what's on the other side, but it's also costing us something. And usually when people actually sit with that, then they're willing to swing and miss.

Speaker A: So not getting it, not pursuing it, is going to cost them. So funny. My brain goes in both directions. Like, you'll also cost you something to get it correct. Right. What are you willing to say no to, to say yes to this thing? It goes both ways. But I think you're tapping into the why. Right? So you said if you do this, like, you'll be able to send your child to Juilliard. Isn't that important to you? Right. You remind them of. You can't motivate people, in my opinion.

Speaker C: It's gotta come back.

Speaker A: But we can remind them of the motivation they've shared with us.

Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. But if you don't pursue building this idea that you have or, um, replacing yourself within your business and learning to delegate in a more powerful way, and it is going to cost you something. And being able to sit with that cost, that's usually further out in the future. People want to think about what I get in the immediate time. But thinking about it from a longer

Speaker A: perspective, so many people, almost all of us, because we don't get maybe VC funding, we don't start with a team. Right. We start as a sole proprietorship. We have to wear all the hats. Right. We have to be the person who takes all the sales calls, and we have to be the person who manages the budget and pays the quarterly taxes. We have to wear all the hats. And one of the things that I see people hiding from, and it's sometimes from one bad experience, is you just said they're not delegating. Right. It's faster for me to do it. I'm better than someone else. And they don't see the cost. Right. That one hour a week that it would take them 10, 15 hours to train someone else to do. They look at the 10 to 15 hours as the cost, not the difference between that and the 52 hours they'll spend doing this task that they could just invest 15 and not ever having to do again.

Speaker C: Right. And I think the true cost is the 52 hours.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: You know, and Dan Martell says, um, somebody doing something 80% well is 100% awesome.

Speaker A: I agree with that. 100%. Yeah. That's a great, um. What's the name of his book? The Blue Book?

Speaker C: Buy back your time.

Speaker A: Buy back your time.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Right. That is like a. It's a manifesto for Getting help in your life. How do I delegate? How do I succeed? Through people, systems, and other things versus always having to have my hands in control. That again, comes back to the identity. If their identity is the one that closes the gap, well, what happens when they don't have to do that anymore? It's someone else on the team.

Speaker C: Yeah. And that's, uh, the truth about gaps is we're always telling ourselves stories. And so I started my business at a dining room table, an IKEA dining room table that somebody gave me. I couldn't even afford that. Um, my first apartment, and I'm building it, and it's all me. I am sales, delivery, all of it.

Speaker A: You even built the table you were working on, we'll point out.

Speaker C: Actually, I did assembly.

Speaker A: Yes, yes, with Allen Wrenches.

Speaker C: We know, exactly. Unfortunately. And when I hired my first replacement, it was, I had all kinds of stories about why I was the only person that could do this and why, you know, no one could do it to the level that I was able to. And all that was, was a story I was telling myself. It was the way I was relating to the gap. I was afraid to let go. It was very fear based. And when we're afraid in the gap, we're usually not making decisions that are in most service of our vision. And so if we can instead be curious and actually fall in love with the gap, what can I learn here? Who can I become in this moment? That's when we can find a better relationship with the gap.

Speaker A: Yeah. Can I come become the kind of person who succeeds through others and celebrates them.

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker A: Which is a really, like, once you get to the other side is maybe the most rewarding part of being a business owner is watching your people struggle like you did, Encouraging them to find their gifts and show up differently.

Speaker C: And then some people are actually doing it better than you ever could.

Speaker A: Almost always. Well, that's the nature. Like the, uh, metaphor I always use. If you go into a doctor's office, how much time do you actually spend with a doctor?

Speaker C: Yeah, not that much.

Speaker A: Now they have a team of specialists. If someone comes in and they will do your blood pressure, they will do your charts. If someone has to draw blood, the phlebotomist, you'll go do that. Like surgeon could do all of that, but they don't.

Speaker C: But they know it's not a good use of their time.

Speaker A: The surgeon is really good with the scalpel, they're really good with this. So they are preserving their one thing because they know that if they give that More time, they bring more value to the whole enterprise. And it takes a certain amount of faith to believe that's possible for us.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: In a service or product industry, how do I show up that way?

Speaker C: Right. And that's how, uh, I've experienced the power of working with a coach. We as entrepreneurs are so focused in the immediate and the problems to solve now that it's with the relationship of a coach that they invite you to say, well, what's the long term? What is the cost of this current behavior? How are you experiencing the gap? If it does feel heavy, how would it be to experience it as light and having that outside perspective?

Speaker A: Yeah. The famous question, uh, I think Tim Ferriss gets credit. What would it look like if it were easy?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Right. When we're making everything difficult and complicated. Great, great. Coaching questions, when you learn to recognize them, are everywhere around us. If we'll just listen to them and ask ourselves the answer before we go to the third way people deal with the gap. How long have you been personally working with coaches like you was? Was Johan your first coach?

Speaker C: He was. So I'd been part of masterminds, but everything had been in group dynamics. So, um, maybe you would call that group coaching. But Johan was the first coach that I hired one to one. And the difference of that feedback and that him knowing me and working with me on what is my vision, what do I want, what are the gaps that I'm experiencing, was really powerful.

Speaker A: Yeah. It's transformative. As a business owner and just so many people don't really understand what it is. How do you even define coaching when someone's like, well, what is it you actually do?

Speaker C: It's a great question. So the first distinction I like to make is between coaching and consulting, because a consultant will tell you what to do. They're the one with the answers. They have the plan. And I think a lot of people think that's what they want. And there's a time and a place for that, of course. But consulting, if I use my pilgrimage example, would be similar to saying, well, I can just drive to Santiago and I'll have arrived, but I didn't come. And so working with a coach is what allows you to become the leader that can run a $10 million company, and you become the leader that can empower a team. And so coaching work is, um, it starts first with the founder, the entrepreneur. It's the internal. We call it the soul line. A lot of times, people talk about the goal line. What is it you want to accomplish? What do you want to achieve. Um, and that's important. You have to have an anchoring vision. But it needs to be balanced out by the soul line of who is it that I'm committing to becoming or who do I need to become to make that vision a reality? And coaching is working on the becoming.

Speaker A: Right. Like, how do you become the kind of person for whom the outcomes I'm seeking are just the natural outcome of who I am.

Speaker C: Yeah. And then they're easy.

Speaker A: And then they're easy. I love that. That lines up perfectly with my definition of coaching versus consulting. I think of consulting as almost a dependent relationship. M. When someone's always giving you the answers or you're never really learning. And I learned a lot of the lessons we're talking about as a parent. M. Right in my hurry to get my youngest, Edward, to school on time and me to work on time, I would be very frustrated watching him knot his shoes. And I remember my wife just going to me and saying, every time you tie shoes for him, you're teaching him that he can't do it. You're building a dependent relationship versus our job as parents is like a coaching role to help them become adults that are fully functioning and, uh, can thrive in the world. And so I really had to tap into my inner patience to become a lace tying coach for my son.

Speaker C: Um, right. And in some ways, Wendy gave you that feedback. And that's a role even that a coach has is. Are you aware that this is how people are experiencing you? Are you aware that this behavior is contradicting what you say your vision is?

Speaker A: I love this. Like, we could go so many places. Like the spotlight. We just. The spotlight is always on us, in our heads. And so it's really hard to understand that everybody else is dealing with their own stuff and just getting that outside perspective. That's just huge. Just huge. Um, the last one, I think you use the word shame. I use the word judge. Um, we look at the gap, and our first reaction to it is some form of, I'm not good enough, I'm not enough. Where do you go with this?

Speaker C: So when people are looking at the gap like there's a problem either with them or sometimes with the situation. And there's, you know, emotions like anger or frustration or I don't feel good enough, maybe even imposter syndrome. It's important in that moment to distinguish that person and the gap as two separate things. The gap is not a reflection of who you are. The gap is actually a sign that you have a compelling vision the gap, uh, is an indicator that you have something really exciting that you're working on. And how can we celebrate that? And so that's the falling in love with the gap. You don't see it as a problem, you don't see it as something to fix. Right. My initial, um, start of the Camino, I saw it as something to fix. But you get to say, this isn't a problem, there isn't something wrong with me. And I actually can celebrate that. This is evidence of, of me becoming the person that I want to be.

Speaker A: I love that. If of all of the three chasing it, hiding from it, judging from it, this one is the one that probably gets you to the Soul line conversation the fastest. Because that's where they're starting, right. They're starting with a false sense of identity or a false judgment of their identity. And you're helping them reframe that.

Speaker C: Mhm. And helping them because some people aren't even aware that that's where they're starting from. They think that that's how everybody relates to a gap, or they think that's how they should relate to the gap they should themselves into. Well, of course I should be mad at myself because I want this thing and I'm not there yet. Or I reached, you know, 5 million in this many years, so now I should be able to reach 10 million in x number of years. And we just should ourselves into a hole. And that's, you're certainly not gonna be creative in that place. And our brain, when we're in a place of fear or judgment, it's, it's much more challenging to be creative. And it's also not a lot of fun. Like we, we built these businesses because we had something that we were excited about. And if you spend enough time in the fear and the judgment and the shame, what's gonna strip all the fun out of it and then you're really gonna get burned out.

Speaker A: Wow. Okay. That's like some big stuff. So someone's there, they're judging themselves. I think a lot of times one of the things that I try to explore is like, who said that going from 5 to 10 million would be as easy as 1 to 5? I want to try to figure out what's the avatar they have.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: That they're holding up in the mirror instead of looking at themselves. And my finding is almost always like, we all have our heroes. So you have a skier comparing themselves to Lindsey Vaughn. Not fair, right?

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: No, I'm an amateur. This person is a professional. And an Olympic athlete. Um, is that something you witness, that people are just picking the wrong role models too soon?

Speaker C: Yes. And there's also. I mean, social media has made it even more accessible to compare ourselves. And you're looking at someone's highlight reel. And they also might not be someone that's a peer. It could be someone that you admire, that you respect. But to expect yourself to be at that same place without paying the cost of entry, which is typically failure, swinging and missing and getting up and trying again. Most people are not willing to do that work for the vision that they want. And so because they expect it to be easy in the sense of easy, meaning I don't have to mess up. Easy, meaning I don't have to look bad. And we have these things that we're more committed to. Uh, I'm more committed to looking good, to feeling good, to being right, to being in control. And then that is actually keeping you from realizing your vision.

Speaker A: Well, is that a point where we bring it back to the why? Because, uh, sometimes I ask people, is this an aspirational goal or is this an internally driven goal? Because you said it earlier, like, if we can connect it, we sometimes call it the big why purpose, whatever, fill in the blank, then they can find a deeper level of willingness to suffer through it.

Speaker C: Correct?

Speaker A: Right. But how do you diagnose whether someone's chasing this gap that they've created for themselves? It could just be an excuse to judge themselves. And it's aspirational. Like, that's not even a goal that they should be pursuing, but someone else has told them. Versus how do you walk someone through that journey? Is this really your goal, or is this something you just took from your parents?

Speaker C: Right. So usually in that moment, it's some really deep questions that I don't know the answer to. And sometimes initially they don't even know the answer to, but I call it turning over rocks. So we just turn over rocks and see what's under there, what shows up. And sometimes the initial response is, um, oh, that's not me. Or that, you know, this is definitely something that I want. But the more that they sit with it, that as a coach, it's really important to be able to hold that space and sometimes share feedback, sometimes share observations and also give them permission to say, it's all right if you don't want that anymore, or it's all right if you never wanted that. And so it is common in coaching where someone will change their vision. They may have thought that they wanted 10 million, but then they name. I just thought that's what I was supposed to want.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: And actually it's more compelling to me to have this team dynamic or this level of profitability or time freedom, whatever is actually more compelling to them. That may still get them to 10 million, but that is no longer the primary goal. And when they're clear on what is a really compelling internal why, then they can pursue that more authentically.

Speaker A: The tell. I think we said it earlier, when someone starts shitting on themselves.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Should is almost always a sign. Right. It's a, it's a word that brings shame into the conversation. Just almost every time. It's almost always a sign of some outer expectation versus inner.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: That's the only time we use it. Well, I should have been there by now. Based on who? This is your journey?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: I interviewed a woman named Courtney. She's got a great book called, uh, Career Cheat Codes. It's coming out and she talked about. She imagines an infinite ladder. And when she's in this place and she's shitting on herself or she sees people shitting on themselves and it's because they're looking too far up the ladder. And she tries to remind people, look down between your legs. There's a whole line of people that are looking up to you. Right. So don't aim too far. We want to aim high. But in terms of judging ourselves, we should be judging ourselves against the next logical stage. Mhm. Right. We're in this learning journey, we're going to be screwing stuff up. That's just the nature of learning and growing. It's usually a sign that you're in the learning zone, in the growing zone. That might be the most important identity for someone to take on as the person who learns from their failures and is willing to embrace them for what they are versus some sort of deterministic sentence.

Speaker C: And even then to focus on my vision for being rather than my vision for doing. We can't always control the outcomes, but we can control the way that we show up. We can control who it is that we are, um, becoming and being even in those moments. So it's the difference between showing up to a vision and saying, I'm committed to this identity versus this outcome. So the outcome is I need to do achieve and arrive at X, Y or Z versus the identity is I'm committed to becoming this person. I'm committed to this habit of being and that you do have control over.

Speaker A: We used to do this thing called the annual goal setting retreat for couples. I Did it for like eight years. And I shared like an observation I had about my partner Gary Keller and the co author of the book. He's all about becoming goals, identity based goals. And when he sets goals, usually really big ones, his whole thing is, how do I become the person? And so the moment he feels like he becomes the kind of person for whom that's a natural outcome, he moves to ask, well, what else can I become? Right? And someone raised their hand and said, but wait, does he not celebrate? And he's like, no.

Speaker C: Oh, interesting.

Speaker A: And it just blew their minds. Like this room full of high achievers. Some of the top business people in our industry were there and they just could not get their head around the idea that you could write down a goal and not actually celebrate or focus on crossing that finish line before you diverted it. I remember, like him saying in coaching, and it's something that we say when we're working with people in their wealth building. When you truly internalize the identity of what it takes to be a millionaire. And those are the kind of person who naturally lives on less than they earn that sets aside money to invest. There's only a handful of habits that really matter for wealth building. And you're already a millionaire, but the measurement just hasn't shown up yet.

Speaker C: You're already showing up as that person that becoming.

Speaker A: Like, if we could just get more anchored in who we're becoming and get less judgmental about all of these finish lines and goalposts. Because my sense is these high achievers, all they do when they hit go, you know, they just move the goalpost every single time.

Speaker C: Correct.

Speaker A: So let's focus on the becoming and get out of this lifelong chase.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I would add to that that we can still also celebrate the becoming because so I focus with clients to have a celebration practice because I think as high achievers, we're always focused on what we want to do or who we want to become. And having, um, an acknowledgement of self for showing up even if you're still in the middle of the gap. The acknowledgement doesn't need to come at the Super Bowl. The acknowledgement can come because I've continued to wake up at 4am M to go to practice. But before the team starts. Yeah, celebrate that.

Speaker A: We naturally are always looking at everything we did wrong versus celebrating the little things. And so in my practice, I sometimes ask my clients, just want you to start on your phone. I just want you at 5pm Whenever you wrap up your day. For a lot of them, it's like 7 or 8pm can you just set an alarm and for five minutes ask the question, what did I get right today? Can you just focus their mind on the wins? Hey, I showed up to do my lead gen. I showed up to write my book. Maybe the output sucked, but I showed up again and again and again. And it starts to actually change your identity because you're just. It's an evidence journal, is what I call it. You're already collecting evidence of the transformation, but you're not giving yourself credit for it. So let's create the evidence and just build that habit.

Speaker C: And the beautiful thing about that approach is that you, when you are looking for it, you'll find it.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: So my husband and I have a practice. Every night we share what were five seemingly small things today that brought you joy. And then you just spend your day looking for, like the smallest thing that maybe you wouldn't notice otherwise. But when you're looking for it, you find them.

Speaker A: I love that. I will tell you, I have a feeling that when people listen to this, they're going to be texting me, saying, you conversation with Hannah brought me joy today. Uh, so you can tell Eric tonight, amazing. We did a good thing.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: A lot of our listeners, they love to have a small, tiny, manageable challenge. Um, what's one challenge we could give them before the next episode to maybe take action on some of what we talked about?

Speaker C: Yeah. So I think first, identifying which of the three stages of the gap relating to the gap that you're in.

Speaker A: Chase it, hide from it, judge from it.

Speaker C: Exactly. So which of those you relate to. And then saying, what would self compassionate Hannah say here? What would self compassionate Jay say here? And even just accessing that alternative side, that's still you and noticing, how could I fall in love with this torn quad, with suffering, with swinging, and missing with my third no of the day. Whatever the gap you're experiencing, how could I fall in love with this? And it will completely change the way that you relate to the gap.

Speaker A: Love that. Thank you so much, Hannah.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker D: This podcast is for general informational purposes only. The views, thoughts and opinions of the guest represent those of the guest and not productive or Keller Williams Realty LLC and their affiliates and should not be construed as financial, economic, legal, tax or other advice. This podcast is provided without any warranty or guarantee of its accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or results from using the information.