Confidence Classic: The MAGIC of Surrender with Kute Blackson

0:00Here's something most small business owners don't want to think about. What happens when something goes wrong? A customer slips, a shipment gets lost, a tool breaks, or someone gets hurt. You can lose thousands overnight. And most people only realize they need insurance after it's too late. That's why I like what Next Insurance is doing. They make getting business insurance as easy as ordering lunch online. You answer a few quick questions and Next figures out what you need. And just like that, you're covered. No phone calls, no headaches, no BS. Just fast, affordable coverage that actually protects you when things go sideways.

0:32Don't wait for a problem to remind you you're uncovered. Policies start as low as$29 a month. Get protected in minutes at nextinsurance.com. That's N-E-X-T insurance.com. Most people never crack open to surrender because they miss the phase in the middle. The phase in the middle is grieving. Surrender is a death. It's a death of your ego. It's a death of who you thought you were. It's a death of a phase of your life like, well, I'm no longer 20. I'm 30. I'm 40. I'm 50. it's a death of a dream, a death of a job. It's a death of something. And so to truly move on into, I'm going to embrace the new.

1:10You have to be willing to grieve for the old. And most of us never truly let ourselves grieve and we want to move on and surrender. And that's why we can't open our hearts to surrender because we're not truly letting go and grieving and honoring what was. I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. That's a no-see. I'm ready for my close-up. Tell me, have you been enjoying these new bonus confidence classics episodes we've been dropping on you every week? We've literally hundreds of episodes for you to listen to, so these bonuses are a great way to help you find the ones you may have already missed.

1:50I hope you love this one as much as I do. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet my guest today. They say when the student is ready, the teacher appears. That is the case today. We've got Coot Blackson. He's a beloved, inspirational speaker, transformational teacher. He speaks at countless events he organizes around the world, as well as outside events, including the YPO and EO. He is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, a select group of one of 100 of the world's foremost authorities in the personal development industry. Winner of the 2019 Unity New Thought Walden Award.

2:26Blackson is widely considered a next generation leader in the field of personal development. His mission is simple, to awaken and inspire people across the planet to access inner freedom, live authentically, and fulfill their true life's purpose. Koot, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. Okay, I want to get right into your book, Surrender, okay? Because I am the person, I am the type A overachiever my entire life, and I want to wrap my head around the idea of surrender, but I don't even know where to begin. Am I crazy? Or do you hear this all the time? No, I think it's quite normal, to be honest.

3:04I would say you'd be more crazy if we start the conversation by saying, yeah, surrender's easy. I love surrender. It's a piece of cake. That would be more unusual. I think more normal. And I'll break down why, if we can go deep into why that is. So it's really, you know, it's probably you and 7.49999 other billion people on the planet have that experience. But yeah, look, surrender, I'm really excited about the theme of surrender. I'm really passionate about it. For me, it's a calling. This was not the book I thought I was going to write. So for disclosure, I had to surrender to the book that was seeking to be written, because I wanted to write a whole different kind of book.

3:44I wanted to write a book that sells, the book that I thought would sell, a book I thought would be the best, a book I thought people would want. Because when you say surrender, people tend to go, oh, shit, and run away. But it was the book that was seeking to be written. So when I surrendered to that, everything flowed. So for me, surrender, I believe, is actually the most powerful thing that we can do. I just want to start off there. Surrender, I think, is the key to your next level. Surrender is the real secret to authentic manifestation. Surrender is the password for freedom. If you look at the great ones, and so for you type A achievers out there, you look at the truly great ones, Jesus, Buddha, Bruce Lee, Gandhi, Muhammad Ali, Bob Marley, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King.

4:33I mean, dare I say Elon Musk. On some level, they all surrendered themselves. and in the surrender to a deeper vision, in their surrender to the universe, to life, to their deeper calling, they were able to transcend their own egos, human limitations, and they tapped into another dimension of potential, another dimension of power. And I believe that's when they were able to access their greatness and life was able to use them in ways that perhaps was beyond what they even imagined for themselves. And so there's so many misconceptions, I think, in our culture today that surrender is weak, that surrender is passive, which is why we're afraid of surrendering.

5:19Surrender means giving up, waving the white flag, selling everything, moving to the Himalayas. Who the hell wants to do that? Surrender means being a victim, being left behind, being a doormat, being taken advantage of, that if you surrender, you won't manifest your goals, dreams, and desires. You're going to be homeless. You're going to be broke. if you surrender, you're going to get less than in life. And I'm actually saying no. If you surrender, what if you didn't get less, but you got more? More than you could actually imagine and project with your mind, with your will, with your personality, with your ego's capacity to create your life.

5:55Because the mind and the ego, which we can talk about too, is limited in its ability to see what's possible. It's limited in its ability to see what is beyond. And so surrender is a letting go of control, or I should say the illusion of control, because we think we're in control. And even when we think we're in control, many times we're really not. We just have the illusion. And so control is the master addiction. And it's the ego's strategy to try to control everything because the ego, ego's job is what we think we are, what we've been conditioned that we are. The ego's job is to reinforce his existence, to keep us safe and prevent us from getting hurt again like we were hurt when we were children.

6:40And so that's why we tend to control everything. They're like, if I can control everything, then I'll never be hurt ever again. And so it's so limited and it ends up limiting us. And often we end up being controlled in the drive to control. So surrender is letting go of control in a certain sense, controlling everything. It's a letting go of trying to force and manipulate life to fit into, once again, our limited idea of how we think it should be. It's limited because when we set goals just from the ego and the mind, we're not able to see the amazing infinite possibilities. We just see a small perspective and we get so attached to what we think we want.

7:20We get so attached to our goals, our dreams and desires, like, no, it's got to be this. No, this person has to be the one. and maybe they're not, but in our effort to force something to be, we don't realize we're limiting the universe, we're limiting the infinite, we're limiting the divine, we're limiting nature, we're limiting life. And so surrender is taking the limitations off of life, it's letting go of the idea of who we think we should be, how we think life should be, so that we can be truly available, truly open, to allow, to be receptive, to allow the life that is authentically seeking to happen to reveal itself.

7:59And it doesn't mean that you sit there and do nothing for the Taipei folks out there. It doesn't mean you sit there and I'm surrendered. I'm just going to sit on the couch and like sales are going to magically happen. I'm surrendered. I'm going to sit on the couch and like my soulmate's going to just knock on my door from the middle of nowhere. No, surrender means It's feeling, it's a shift from the question, just to kind of complete the context. The old ego-based model of creating life is what do I want? What do I want? What do I want? And it's forced drive. What do I want? Pushing, pushing, forced drive.

8:27The challenge is ego is limited. You can create life from the ego, but it will always be limited. The shift in the question is from what do I want to a bigger question. It's an infinite question. And that question is, what is it that life, what is it that the universe, what is it that my soul? What is it that life is seeking to express through me? And to feel what that is, to feel the deepest impulse of what life is seeking to express and to feel that, to attune to that, to align with that. And then once you're in alignment, you're like, this is what's true. This is what is in my integrity. This is what's authentic.

9:02Then you can align your thoughts, your feelings, your strategy, your planning, your go-getter personality, your actions, now in alignment with what's authentic rather than chasing something that is really not real, not authentic, yeah? And so it might mean when you surrender that you work harder than you ever worked. But what you're working for is, like, you think Jesus didn't work hard? Do you think Bruce Lee didn't work hard? Do you think Muhammad Ali didn't? Like, you think Mother Teresa was lazy and didn't work hard? They worked, like, 24-7. Mandela, Martin Luther King, nonstop, 24-7. But they were in alignment with the deeper vision of what was true.

9:44And maybe like, let's look at Mandela. Mandela surrendered. That took him to what, 26, 27 years in prison, somewhere kind of unexpected. So we could say, should he have not spent 26, 27 years in prison? Should he? What if he didn't? Two things. Would the consciousness of the world have been ready for and rallied behind him in the way that it did? and would he have developed, like to spend 27 years in prison, you have to go really deep in yourself. And so perhaps that was the universe's way of preparing him to develop the mental, emotional, spiritual soul force that he could come out and be that empathetic and visionary and compassionate to be able to move the world.

10:24So what if he didn't, you know? And so I think surrendering is that openness and availability. This is so tricky and so contrary to how we lived and been raised, right? And been taught from our parents, just culture, society, right? Like what's the right thing to do? I built my entire life. I built a lot of success in my career in corporate America from the grind, from the, I can control it. And if I can't, I'll go out and find another way to control it and I can make it happen. And it worked for a long time, okay? For a long time until it didn't. And I know you talk about this a lot. Most people want to surrender when they hit rock bottom.

11:02That's what happened to me, right? I got fired from my C-suite job unexpectedly, single mom. All of a sudden I had nothing. I felt like I had nothing. And I had to basically throw my arms up and say, where do I go now? I don't know what to do. I didn't call that surrender, right? I still don't even really understand it well enough, even though I've studied you so much. It's not tangible enough to me, right? But I'll tell you, the series of events that occurred when I maybe sort of surrendered in some way is incredible what happened to me since I've been fired. But I toggle back and forth between - It's natural.

11:40It's natural. It's awful. No, no, it's part of the process of life. You're like, you're so on course. Just know, here's what I would say. Part of surrender isn't just, oh, I'm fully surrendered now. I read the magic of surrender. No, part of real surrender is the ability to not even force yourself to surrender. Like, I'm going to make myself surrender because this becomes another ego strategy to control the process of surrender, which then keeps you doubly screwed, doubly not surrendered. So now my ego says, surrender. I'm going to control surrender. Now you're doubly stuck. So if you can just even begin by recognizing, I'm not freaking surrendering right now.

12:20I'm doing my control thing right now. And I'll explain why. Wow. Okay. Observe that. And rather than forcing and judging and like, what's wrong with me? If you can just surrender to the fact that in this moment, you're not surrendered. That's actually a deeper level of surrender where you can be with, wow, I'm not surrendered right now. And I don't have to judge my, just notice that and be with that and acknowledge that and surrender to that. You may not be fully surrendered in this moment and it's okay. and if you can just meet yourself in that space with a bit of compassion then there can be relaxation rather than surrender surrender but no surrender i need to surrender no i just need i'm what it's like i'm not surrendered right now let me and let me just be with that so here's the thing i think this might help as well i'm going to kind of break down the anatomy of why we don't surrender and i think this understanding will really help what i'll say actually before i do that is life is a process of surrender.

13:23So on some level, you can't not surrender. It's just how you're going to go about that. Are you going to part, how you're going to participate with the process of life that is happening? Because the moment you're born, we begin to age, then we turn 50, 60, hair falls out, wrinkles, you can't turn back to surrender. Then we die. We can surrender now. We can surrender tomorrow. We can surrender at the moment of death of those that believe in another lifetime. we're gonna surrender so surrender is the process of life and so here's what happens and why it's difficult for us as human beings or i should say why surrender seems difficult and i'm going to say why i say seems in a second it seems difficult and to a degree it is but here's why you have a kid you mentioned you have a kid as children we're born free like when your kid is born they're just like these light beings of divine energy they're not right they're just being light being pure they're kind of surrendered they poop when they feel like pooping and they don't judge themselves like ah what's wrong with me i'm pooping they cry when they feel like great why did i cry i'm waking my mother up they're just being whatever they're being right and you're pissed off upset type they're just still just googling and smiling and and they surrender to whatever it is that's happening whatever it is that they are they'll run they'll bang their head they'll cry then they're over it and they move on.

14:45They're not still four days later thinking about, oh, the time I banged my head four days ago on that coffee table. They're just in the natural flow of living the flow of the essence. They're surrendered. So what happens? It's like we were all that free once, but what the hell happened to us all as human beings as we hit 20 and 30 and 40? We incarnate and we were born into a preset pattern of conditioning. We met our parents. our parents, a condition based on their childhood and their parents and their parents and ancestral. Now we're born into a kind of ancestral conditioning from our generations.

15:23And maybe dad was an alcoholic. Maybe mom had mental health issues. Maybe they were fighting all the time. Maybe there was trauma, abuse, dysfunction in the family. Maybe they were great people, but they just didn't know how to meet our emotional needs. And that was painful. So two things happen in terms of why and how ego, ego, which is the source of resistance, why ego gets created. If we understand this, it can shift your relationship. The first thing is we begin as children unconsciously to learn a defense mechanism strategy to shut down, disconnect, and not feel the pain that's going on around us.

15:58So we start suppressing, suppressing, suppressing, suppressing, suppressing layers and layers of unfelt feeling, anger, hurt, pain, guilt, shame, fear, helplessness. We start suppressing that in order to function and survive, layers and layers and layers of unfelt feeling begin to build up and our true light, our true essence gets kind of hidden and buried underneath the unfelt layers of emotion. And also in that we learn all sorts of defense mechanisms and strategies in order to not feel. So now we become, we erect walls around our heart. It's a survival mechanism, walls around the heart. We begin to disconnect.

16:31We begin to shut down. We begin to, you know, analyze, go into our minds, we begin to go into like overachiever mode, because if I can overachieve, then I don't have to deal with my feelings, I don't have to feel helpless, I don't have to feel, you know, whatever it is that we're feeling, often it's helplessness, it's pain, so now we've become this thing, this defensive mechanism thing that we hold on to tightly, and now we're driving life this way, it worked for us when we were five, and we become this thing, we hold tightly onto that in order to never feel that pain again, worked for us when we were five, but now we're 25, when we're in a relationship, and now we're doing the same thing.

17:05Now we're 35 in a relationship, doing the same thing. And that defense mechanism is holding on ego, holding on. We're holding on so tightly to that way of being in order to never feel that pain again. Hence, we are controlling who we're being and how we're being. And if we think if we can control all these elements, I'm never going to feel how helpless and how painful it was when I was five and seven, et cetera, et cetera. So if we can just understand, that's how ego starts getting created. Ego, which is the source of resistance, is, it's not a thing. Ego is a process. Ego is a process of identification.

17:43Identification with ourselves as name, form, body, with ourselves as that way of being. So for instance, as children, we learned also, oh, who do I need to be in order to get love, validation, and approval from my parents? Oh, for me, as a kid, I'm a preacher's kid, I learned, oh, if I'm responsible, if I get all A's, if I'm good, if I take care of everyone, if I smile, if I'm nice, if I never feel negative, everybody loves me. Shit. Let me just do more of that. So, you know, I disconnected and betrayed parts of myself. So we learned to develop all sorts of roles, masks, personas, and identity that we learned to become, that we think now we can taught ourselves to be this person, Coot, right?

18:26Or John or Susan Donald or whoever our name is. We learn to become this person and we hold so tightly onto that, that gets reinforced by teachers and parents, society and those around us. We think that's who we are. The version of ourselves that we've been patterned and conditioned to be to avoid pain and get love. And now we've become this persona, the overachiever, the successful one, the driven one, the whatever, whatever you want to call it, the independent one. like, and so now we've become this person, we hold so tightly onto that, and we think that's who we are, but it's not. It's just what we've been conditioned to be, to survive, and that holding on is the survival mechanism to avoid pain and get loved, when we recognize, so we have to realize that we are conditioned, and we're not who we think we are, really, and that's why we often hit a limitation in our adulthood.

19:20That's what got us to that point, cannot get us to that next level, cannot get us to that level of true authentic greatness to fulfill our true soul's destiny. It gets us to a point, but we end up reaching the edge of the egos, who we think we are, egos, we end up reaching the end of the ego's capacity to manifest life. And that's often why we have a breakdown. That's often why we get fired in the spiritual context. That's often why these events happen in life to break us down, to force us to surrender, not because we're doing anything wrong, but to force us to surrender so that we can go deeper and crack open and find who we really are.

20:03So ego isn't bad. When we realize, ah, shit, what's stopping me from living in that flow is my ego, but I'm not my ego. It's my conditioning. And the degree to which we identify with ourselves as ego is the degree to which we are sometimes afraid of surrendering because it feels like, oh shit, if I surrender, I am dying. And it's terrifying for the ego. So if we can realize that and then have compassion for ourselves, like, oh, what's resisting and what's doing this dance. It's not me. It's just some of my conditioning and I'm not my conditioning and I don't have to judge it. I don't have to fight it.

20:48I don't have to force it, beat it into submission of surrender. Maybe I can just meet that with some love. Maybe I can just meet my, if we can see ourselves doing our dance, then maybe I can see it has a positive intention. It's trying to get me love. Oh, my God. It's like terrified of being hurt again. So I'm doing this dance. And if we're able to see that and have the empathy and then meet ourselves with love and compassion and mercy and kindness, so that when we are afraid, when we are acting out, when we are doing our thing, then we can hold ourselves and say, hey, it's okay. You know, it's that loving, it's that compassion, it's that empathy that begins to allow that deeper egoic part of us to relax and then surrender can start happening naturally.

21:47If your anxiety, depression or ADHD are more than a rough patch, you don't need just another meditation app. Takahitry makes it easy to see a psychiatrist online using your insurance in days. Takahitry is 100 % online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medication management for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, insomnia, and more. Unlike therapy-only apps, Takahitry is psychiatry. That means you're seeing a medical provider who can diagnose mental health conditions and prescribe medication when it's appropriate.

22:25All their 600 plus clinicians are in network with major insurers, so you can use your existing insurance instead of paying monthly subscriptions or out-of-network fees. You'll meet with an experienced licensed psychiatrist who takes the time to understand what's going on, builds a personalized treatment plan, and can prescribe medication when it's right for you. Your care stays consistent and evidence-based. Head to talkiatry.com slash confidence and complete the short assessment to get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's talkiatry.com slash confidence to get matched in minutes.

23:04Starting the year with a wardrobe refresh, Quince has you covered with luxe essentials that feel effortless and look polished. They're perfect for layering, mixing, and building a wardrobe that lasts. Their versatile styles make it easy to reach for them day after day. Quince has all the staples covered, from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup, to 100 % silk tops and skirts for easy dressing up, to perfectly cut denim for everyday wear. Their wardrobe essentials are crafted to last season after season. Their Italian wool coats are real standouts.

23:38They're beautifully tailored, soft to the touch, and built to carry you through years of wear, not just one season. The quality shows in every detail. The stitching, the fit, the fabrics, every piece is thoughtfully designed to be your new wardrobe essential. And like everything from Quince, each piece is made from premium materials and ethical trusted factories that are priced far below what other luxury brands charge. I can't tell you how much I am loving my new cashmere sweater. It's a staple for sure, and I can't wait to give one to my best friend for her birthday this year. It is timeless, gorgeous, and the softest thing I've ever touched.

24:16Which quince pieces are you interested in? I mean, from the bags, to the denim, to the sweaters, to the jackets, they're all incredible luxury high-end products without the high-end price. Refresh your wardrobe with quince. Don't wait. Go to quince.com slash confidence for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash confidence to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince dot com slash confidence.

24:54All right. You told us you were going to break down the anatomy of surrender. What does that look like? So just first step is that's understanding the nature of ego. That's, I think, why we don't surrender. that begins the anatomy of understanding why we are doing this right and so in terms of the phases of surrender at first we are often let's say unconscious right we're just doing what we're doing living what we're doing thinking that we are who we are this is me this is life and then we create life that will often ends up limited in some way we're unconscious maybe then we begin to become a little conscious we start questioning then maybe we start seeing maybe there's a different way.

25:34And now we're going to denial, a bit more conscious denial. And so now we're living a bit more in denial. Then the next phase is we realize, hmm, maybe there's more to life than what I'm doing. Maybe there's more to me than what I've been living. Maybe who I am, you know, maybe someone listens to your podcast and they're like, maybe who I am is not who I really am. And I need to question who I am. We're afraid to question who we are because like, oh, shit, if I question the way I am and who the hell am I ego freaks out starts resisting and so that next phase from from denial is resistance that's why we're resisting because it feels like who would I be if I'm not what I am and what I think I am which is not really what I am but like who will I be so resistance is a natural egoic human response okay it's normal completely normal most of us resist our entire lives, and then we die, right?

26:25And so resistance is natural. To meet that with compassion and empathy and love is the key to mount that resistance so that we can then allow ourselves to feel some of the pain, those feelings, those emotions, the pain, the hurt, the fear, so we can start feeling those feelings and releasing those feelings. Because as we heal and release some of those feelings that we have been trained to suppress from childhood, then we no longer have to stay in ego to hold on to not feeling those feelings again. And that's where the transformational process is. That's what the transformational healing process is really about with a therapist, with a guide, with a coach, through seminar, et cetera, et cetera.

27:05So feeling those feelings. So now we're in resistance. After resisting, what we tend to do in the next phase of surrender is we start negotiating. Well, maybe I can keep eating donuts in the morning and milkshakes and, you know, Big Macs and work out once a week and be healthy. You know, maybe my partner, even though they're abusive and they've been like this for 10 years and it's a terrible relationship, maybe if I change, they'll change. Maybe, you know, they've got potential. So we start negotiating with life. Maybe when I'm 72, then I can finally launch that book and live my purpose. We end up negotiating our lives away, so many of us, and then we die.