Master Change With These 4 Ps | Brad Stulberg

26:56And it's okay to spend a few years even focused predominantly in one room, but you got to have those other rooms available. Because when things change in the basement, you want to be able to go up to the kitchen. So when I have an article or God forbid, a book that flops, if that's my only room is as a writer, I'm screwed. But if I got the dad room or the athlete room, I can lean into parenting. I can lean into my progress in powerlifting. When I get injured at the gym, if I've got the writer room, I can lean in there. So diversifying your sense of self by having multiple components to your identity.

27:28You don't need to be quote unquote balanced. You don't have to do them all equally all the time, but you should never just have one component of your identity. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that over time, as you change, as things change, it's kind of like ourself as a river. That's the metaphor I like to use. So we're flowing, we're always changing. But without a bank on each side, a river is just random water. And it's back to those values. I think the banks of our river are our core values. So if we have our core values, how we apply them over time will be very flexible. If your core value is movement, maybe when you're a kid, it's just playing.

28:10Then maybe you're a competitive athlete. Then maybe it's Tai Chi. Then maybe it's walking. But that core value is still there to guide you as you evolve. So diversify your identity, have these multiple rooms, and then have these core values that as you flow over time, as your identity, as your process of becoming unfolds, your core values or what's going to channel that in a direction that makes narrative sense. Now this core values topic we've talked a lot about on the show, but whenever it comes up, our audience members feel a bit overwhelmed. We have a lot of perfectionists in the audience.

28:42And you have a list in the appendix of core values, and oftentimes they all sound great. We want every single one of them to be a core value. Who doesn't want to value movement and compassion and kindness and intellectual? and all of a sudden you overwhelm yourself with this core value plate that you can't possibly have enough rooms in the house for. So how do you actually whittle it down to understand what are those core values that really matter from a list that looks amazing and who wouldn't want all of those core values? It's hard. It's the hardest part of the acceptance and commitment process, I think, is doing just that.

29:21But if everything's important, then nothing's important. It's very cliche, but I think it's true. So I think a forcing mechanism of getting to three to five core values is actually really important. And it's not to say that others don't matter and that you don't want to be all 100, but it's to say like, these are the three to five hills I'm going to die on. Or like when there's a real big change, this is kind of my menu of options for how to respond to that big change. And a couple of ways. One is to think about people in your life that you really admire. And of the 30 that you're wrestling with, ask like, what five do you really admire them for?

29:59Because those are the five that you probably value the most. Another way to do it is to imagine yourself, older, wiser version of you down the road, looking back on current you. And what do you want older, wiser you to remember yourself for? And then a final way that appears in a lot of acceptance and commitment therapy manuals is this notion of like, what's going to be on your gravestone? And you can't fit all 100. So it's hard. I'm not saying it's easy to whittle down. And it's not that you don't care about all of these wonderful core values, but it's about saying like, what are the ones that are really essential?

30:34And when I go through this exercise with people, most people can tend to get it to like 15 to 20. And that doesn't take much time, but the process of getting it from 15 to 20 to three to five, that can take like two months and it's wrestling with things. It's combining things. It's kind of figuring out like, I like sport, movement, health, and wellbeing. And these are all kind of related. So like, what's the overarching thing there? And maybe it's vitality. Maybe it's completely different than tennis. You know, you end up, you start with like sport and you end up with vitality. Um, but I think just kind of wrestling with these and asking like being versus having?

31:10What's the underlying thing here? And then getting it down to three to five. And then for each of those, as we talk about, it's so important to really define them. Because everyone's probably worked for a company with core values on the wall, but that's it. They're on a pretty poster, and no one actually practices them. So these are only useful if you know what they mean, and you're able to call on them in day-to-day life. And then in that change, to channel them as a way forward. So a lot of the change that is discussed isn't of your control or isn't of your agency. So yes, there might be a time where you go, you know what, LA is for me, I'm going to move to LA and I'm going to chase this dream and I'm going to get on a plane.

31:49But there might be times where your career says, hey, there's no more work for you here in New York. We need to move you to Miami. And all of a sudden this change is forced upon you. And in that, you need to bring those core values to the forefront and say, okay, how can I act in these core values on a daily basis to find my homeostasis in this new location, to really ground myself in who I am in a completely new environment, meeting new people, and potentially making new friends and getting closer with colleagues and performing at my best. If you don't have those core values, or if you have a list of 50, well, that change is going to be very difficult for you to reorient yourself in that new environment.

32:30Exactly. I couldn't have said it better myself. Your core values are your sources of stability. That's your ruggedness. And you can take them with you pretty much wherever you go. How you practice them will look very different, but the actual values themselves, they can always guide your actions. And generally speaking, if we're acting in alignment with our values, what we're going through doesn't get easier, but we tend to feel a little bit better than if it's just total chaos. And this is the point that we try to make with all of our X-Factor members, which is if you get these core values correct, when you engage in them, your whole life is going to change for the better.

33:12You're going to feel that much more better because you're actually engaged in the things that are important to you. And if it's done right, they're also tied towards a goal. So by engaging in these core values every day, you're getting closer to your goal through what is important to you. So you wake up excited. And so we tell our members, don't worry about nailing this today as we discuss this. Get your three together and then we'll work in the next few weeks to see and round out what those other two might be because these are going to have a significant impact on how you go about the day and then how you see the world through engaging in these core values.

33:58And then lastly, what you said about why these need to be protected is so important. And there's so much in this world that errs on the side of, take it easy. You need to relax. You need to just go with the flow. Well, unfortunately, when it comes to these core values, if you have that mindset towards these core values, well, then they're not guiding anything, are they? You're still just twisting in the wind. These are going to be your rudder to get you to where you want to go. Why it is so important that you learn how to build boundaries around them and adhere to them. That's right. You guys are both just like preaching and I'm here for it.

34:47I think that the way that I like to think about it is it's okay to be super rigid on your core values and then be flexible on everything else. 100%. You look at evolution, change on the grandest scale there is, and the species that survive, they do just that. The attributes that they don't change are the attributes that make them who they are, because if they lost those, they would no longer be who they are. But then you better believe they change everything else. So they are completely non-dual, super rugged on the core values and then flexible everywhere else. And for listeners, it sounds like you do a lot of this good work in the X factor, but in case people aren't a part of that or are new to this, it also doesn't have to be that complicated.

35:30You know, a value of creativity might just mean 45 minutes of deep focus work on a creative project a day. It's amazing what 45 minutes of deep focus work on a creative project will do for a creative person that doesn't have that. Presence might just mean putting your phone away between 6 and 8 p.m., even if it's so hard to do, to be there for your friends, your spouse, your kids, if you have them. Movement or health could just be 30 minute walk, four days a week. So like the changes themselves are often small and simple and the effects truly are transformational. And that's why the core value alignment is so important because then it doesn't feel like effort.

36:07You don't have to muster your willpower if you truly value presence. If it's something that is a core value and is a guiding principle that you're rigid on, then And you're not going to have to muster your willpower every day to turn off your phone for an hour. You're going to recognize that as a core value, that's how you want to show up for the people in your life. And turning off that phone is going to get easier and easier. And it's going to go from an hour to two hours. So maybe it'll be on airplane mode for four hours. And you'll have that deep space to then be creative. You bring up a great point.

36:35When you hold all 50 core values rigid, you can't act on any of them. A lot of these core values are in opposition. And all of a sudden, that's why you're feeling stuck. That's why you're feeling unmotivated or that life may be meaningless because you haven't really wrestled with the tougher question of like, who am I at an identity level? What rooms do I want to decorate? Do I want to lean into in my house? And what things really aren't that important that I don't need to get flustered about because the media is telling me to or social media is or my friends are pressuring me to. when you actually understand your core values at a deep level, it allows you to move forward in a much faster way than those around you who are overwhelmed with all the different pressures that life throws at you.

37:16And it makes you so much more rugged throughout change because change is still hard, but it's a little bit less scary because you got your body armor on, or your identity armor, let's call it. And those are just your core values. And then the natural question that some listeners might be thinking is, well, can your core values change? And the answer is, of course. But even so, it's your current core values, and you're practicing your current core values that take you to your new ones. So they really do guard your evolution. I think that's the purpose of core values. Again, identity is a river.

37:49You're constantly flowing. You're changing. It's fluid. These core values are what's guiding it. And if they guide you to a new tributary and the core values change, that's great. Now, part of this that you mentioned earlier is this idea that when expectations don't meet reality, there is suffering. And unfortunately, our brain is constantly creating expectations. It's a predictive model of the world around us. And it's taking in past information and experiences, and then it's shooting out this prediction. And if that prediction lingers, or we're continuing to hold on to it, well, we're going to create immense suffering.

38:23So how can we quickly evolve and update these expectations to manage the change when it's not meeting our expectations? So for example, some members of our audience will hear the show and be like, you know what, I'm moving to a new city. And then they'll write us six months later and they're like, man, making friends in a new city is so much more challenging than I thought. I thought just changing my environment would naturally open up this new tribe of people and my dating life would be better because it wasn't good in my old environment. Again, their expectations created this reality that now they're wrestling with and they haven't been able to update and evolve that model in their prediction.

38:59and it's creating suffering. That's right. So I think the first thing is to try to lessen expectations. And this isn't to say commit to mediocrity or have low expectations. I don't think that's a good recipe for a meaningful life. But it's to lessen the importance that you place on expectations. So to be more willing to adjust and adapt them and to ask yourself, Like, did I have an expectation that maybe was right a week ago, but now something changed and it's different? And if the answer is yes, I mean, this is about just like letting go of that old expectation as gracefully as possible, knowing that even though it can hurt to let go of these expectations, it's actually the pathway to being able to take productive action and to deal with the situation that's in front of you.

39:55But this is a very challenging thing to do because our brains spend a lot of time thinking about the future and building up expectations. And like you said, they are a prediction machine. And when those predictions aren't true, it can be disorienting. It's like order, disorder, reorder. I think a part of disorder is expectations not being met. But I think this is one of those mental ninja moves that you can pull is just knowing this, like naming it can help so much. Getting to a situation and being like, ooh, the reason this is so hard is I didn't expect this was going to be the case, but here it is.

40:28So I need to stop living as if my expectation were true and start meeting my reality exactly how it is, how it is in front of me. What can you control that's not meeting this expectation? Right? So a lot of times - Separating what you can't control from what you can and then working on what you can. Exactly. Exactly. Through the journaling exercise of, okay, well, my expectation was I was going to land in LA and I was going to go to a meetup group and naturally I'd have two best friends and I'd have a social group and I'd be dating new people within a month. Okay, well, I went to the meetup group.

40:58I didn't meet anyone. I didn't meet the expectation. Well, then what's under my control? Going to the next meetup group. What's under my control? Texting the person that I met at the meetup group instead of waiting for them to ask me out to lunch or invite me to something, me taking control and moving things forward. So oftentimes when our expectations don't meet reality, it's your job then to sort through, well, what can I control to move me closer to that expectation if that expectation is really important to me. Yeah. I like how you said that a lot. This gets back again to like rugged flexibility.

41:30So it's not giving up in nihilism and despair because that's not useful, but it's also not, you know, judging yourself and being like, well, I should have been able to completely contrive this move to LA and everything should have gone perfect because that's how I envisioned it. It's a middle ground. Like, hey, this isn't feeling how I hoped it would. And that's really hard. And there's nothing I can do to fix this overnight. But here are some steps in my control that I can take having the expectation that they might not work the first, second, third time. It might take four or five times. I think this is especially true with friendship and intimate partnerships.

42:05We don't realize how often putting yourself out there and meeting people, they're just not going to be the right fit for the people that you want to hang out with, whether again, whether this is an intimate context or a friendship context. And that's just like a cost of finding someone that is like someone that you want to hang out with. So oftentimes like making, making friendships, forget intimacy, making friendships requires like a lot of work and false starts and inconvenience. And then you find a group or a person that's like, oh, like these are my people. And then it's all worth it. When you're making good money, it's easy to get complacent.

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45:05Go to quince.com slash charm 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 charm. Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash charm. I want to also go over the rationalizations that come with that as well, that we have to identify when we're doing that. so for the guy who maybe is who wants to be dating but he's not going out to create any options and then against everything that he's been told his whole life the girl in the office starts to look very attractive and then he starts to think oh maybe i should be asking out uh the girl in the office and then we get an email going hey there's this girl at work that i really like how do i go about doing that we have to go through this whole thing again of why are you doing that are you creating other options in your life.

46:00If not, you need to be so that doesn't happen because of the way we are wired in our biology. If you don't create options, options will be created for you. Now, this also goes to play of moving someone to a new place. And as AJ mentioned, well, I'm going to go to the meetup group and I hope I meet somebody cool and then I'll have a new best friend and I won't be so lonely here. And as you mentioned, not everyone you meet is going to be worth your time. And again, you have to be creating options and then have the ability to showcase your value in any social setting where people take interest and curiosity of who you are.

46:44And once those expectations are being set up and you begin to realize what it takes to meet your own expectations, let alone other people's, therein lies gaps that you are able to fill to show people without telling them of your value, which allows them to take that much more interest and curiosity and wanting to get to know you and befriend you. Something that came up a lot in my reporting is that friendship is a big part of the change that disorients us. We grow apart from friends. We have fallouts with friends. We simply just move geographies and grow apart. Sometimes it's really hot and messy.

47:28Sometimes it's cold. We make new friends. We make new really close friends. And then it's like, ooh, is my best friend no longer Jim from undergraduate school? And we often define ourselves, especially if we're a more extroverted person, by our friends. So when our friends shift, how we conceive of ourselves shifts. So I'm glad that we're spending some time here because I think this notion of social circles and friendship, and of course, intimate partnership too, but friendship especially, because I think people tend to have more comings and goings with intimate friends than intimate partners.

48:01And it's a big source of change in our life. Well, I think a lot of Western culture celebrates this idea of best friends for life. I mean, the hit show Friends, this idea that, you know, you should never lose friends. And if you meet someone in college and they're your roommate, and because of proximity, you share a time and space in your life together, then they should carry on through your 80s as a friend in your life. And then unfortunately, that view, you know, leads people to feel very lonely and isolated when those friendships don't work out. And oftentimes they'll find us and say, hey, I need some help in my social life.

48:34I need some help even finding romantic partners because I didn't realize that the person that I was a friend with was going to change. And I didn't realize that I was going to change. I had sort of hoped we'd both march through life in lockstep together, sharing the same views, sharing the same values, even though we never really had that conversation when we were having a couple beers in our dorm room together. So it can be very jarring and disorienting. And we've talked a lot about external change and change that's happening to us. But the relationship component, I think, especially when you look at the failure rate of marriage in the US, change is just not expected.

49:08We're not ready for it. And when it happens to us, it often leads to the demise of the relationship. And there's not enough flexibility on how we view other people's change around us. And there tends to be this rigidness of like, well, I have to cut him out of my life. I have to break that friendship. I have to break up with my friend or I have to go through divorce. When in actuality, I think if we had a healthier flexibility around people changing around us while we're changing, we could actually strengthen our relationships. And the Harvard happiness study shows that the quality of your relationships ultimately is the quality of your life, more so than exercise, lifting weights, what you eat.

49:46It really is those relationships in our lives. So in your research around change, what piece around relationships are you now viewing things differently as you go through change in your life? Ooh, this is so good. So I think that let's separate them into intimate relationships, romantic relationships, and then friendships. So for intimate relationships, I think the most important thing is to think of the relationship as a holding space for the partnership, for you as individuals, if you have kids, for the family unit to evolve and grow. And that is so different than how my parents and the baby boomers control, make mom happy.

50:31like the job of the relationship is to be, I think, and this is, I'm not a relationship therapist. This is just my, my theory out of researching this book is it's to be like an easy chair that like feels really comfortable to sit in, but to allow for a whole lot of flexibility and change in how you relate to your partner, how you relate to your children, how they relate to you, how, how, um, how the intimacy plays out, but then also to have those kinds of rugged core values that like Make the relationship what it is. So to have a few things, like, you know, I really love this person for these three things.

51:04And therefore, I'm going to be totally fine if they change in 19 other ways. I want them to change in 19 other ways. I think it's also really important not to feel like you need to change the exact same ways as your partner. Because then you get into all kinds of enmeshment and like, you know, resentment and all this stuff. Like, it's okay if your partner gets totally into Buddhism and goes to the Buddhist Sangha without you. You know, not the end of the world. as long as you have these underlying core values that bind you together. A lot of listeners will take our core values exercise earlier and say, okay, great.

51:35Now I just need to find a partner that has those exact same core values. And that's actually not what we're looking for. But what is important is to recognize and respect your partner's core values. So a lot of the disagreements and the surface level arguments, if you actually take the lens of someone's core values and understand what the deeper motivations are for people, these idiosyncrasies, these small things like leaving a dish in the sink or not taking the garbage out could actually be alleviated from arguments if you understood that, well, creativity is his core value and he's been strumming guitar, working on this new lick for the last two hours.

52:14That's why the garbage didn't go out. Okay, now I understand it. I have more patience and I have more flexibility towards my partner's core values where they're rigid and vice versa. And that's such a powerful exercise for couples. And we talk about it with all of our clients. If you have a partner, understand your own and then ask what theirs are and do the exercise together. And you'll understand each other in a deeper way so you can be flexible in the moments that require flexibility. And you can express, hey, this is an area that I'm rigid in because this is really a core value. This is really meaningful to me.

52:45And that's why that dish stayed in the sink and I didn't get to it. Versus creating the surface level arguments and disagreements that can tear us apart when we don't recognize our partner's core values. That's right. So I almost included a chapter in the book on rugged flexibility for relationships. I didn't because a lot of the tenants in relationships felt universal enough to the rest of the book. But I did create some bonus material for people that pre-order the book. And regardless if you pre-order or order it at all, like I'll send that to you to put in the show notes for your listeners.

53:17So y 'all can just have it. I hope people read the book because I think this is like a really important topic, which is just that. We got to take rugged flexibility and apply it to our relationships. The other thing that you're getting to, and I see this often with people that are chasing perfection, is that good enough over and over and over again is how you get to perfect. So expecting a partner to be perfect or have this, we look at the sunrise and we think the same thoughts. And we listen to the same music. That is a very immature way to think about relationships because everybody poops. And whether they're going to poop day one or year one, eventually it's not going to be all peaches and cream.

54:01And I think people want a perfect relationship. So they switch from perfect to perfect to perfect. And the internet and online dating gives you infinite possibilities to create the false expectation that perfect is out there. when I've seen the happiest, best relationships are people that are just good enough together. But after 30 years of being good enough, the end result is perfect. And I think, man, Western culture holds up perfection and it's just bullshit. Like it is a false expectation. It's chasing the Energizer bunny that's always 10 yards ahead. And the worst part about it is how do you handle yourself when things aren't perfect?

54:37If you're chasing perfect, you're not prepared for it. What tells me more about how you're gonna be as a partner for me romantically is what happens when things don't go our way, when we don't meet those expectations. Are you chastising the waiter? Are you screaming at the Uber driver because we're late to the airport? Are you yelling at the ticket agent because they closed the doors to the plane and we didn't get on the trip? Or are you understanding that, hey, there's a lot of things that were out of our control here. And in that imperfect moment, you can actually get closer with one another.

55:07And I think so much of the chasing perfect partner, I had a client ask, well, I have a list of questions. These are 15 questions that I need to know their answers on because if we align, then we'll most likely get married. That's a pretty high expectation, man. You do realize that the answers you had to those questions 10 years ago are different than they are now. And oftentimes, we don't realize how far we've come. And we think when we look towards the future, that change really isn't going to happen. We kind of feel like we're in this, especially in adulthood, like I'm in this finalized fixed state.

55:39Like I've done all this work on myself, all the self-development, I've been in coaching programs. I'm pretty clear on who I am now. And then you look backwards, you're like, well, man, I've changed quite a bit, but you can't really see the forward change that's on the horizon. So you make these false equivalencies like, well, these are the answers I'm searching for. And then we do the exercise like, well, actually, no, I have evolved on about seven of these just in the last couple of years after the pandemic. Well, don't you think your partner is probably going to evolve what their viewpoint is and what their answers might be through a relationship with you?

56:10Yeah, you're not marrying a person or partnering with a person in time. You're partnering with someone to be there as you walk your path, not even necessarily walk it exactly with you, but be there as you walk your path, and then you're going to be there as they walk theirs. And that's a much healthier expectation than I'm marrying this person. It's in the relationship guide. And if I was going to end up doing the full chapter, this is what I would have focused on, but it's the having versus being. Are you in a having relationship or a being relationship. And if you're in a having relationship, it's going to be really fragile because all that stuff's going to change.

56:41Well, what happens oftentimes in these situations now is, okay, so you find that romantic partner and you're willing then to give up on your social life. You're willing to give up and sacrifice your social relationships. And that change can be very jarring for people on the other end who maybe are single or maybe are in a happy relationship, but they still want to maintain that friendship. So oftentimes change romantically will then lead to change socially. That creates a loss in those expectations and a straining, if not completely breaking, of those relationships. So if we look at change from a social relationship realm, what does the science tell us?

57:17So there the science tells us exactly what you were alluding to earlier. Those articles that were going around about breaking up with friends, just stupid. You don't break up with friends. There shouldn't be a hostility towards friends. Friends can come and go throughout your life, and the same person can come and go throughout your life. And you should cherish the moments when they're there to support you. And if you grow in different directions, or you change, or you get in an intimate relationship that demands more of your time, or God forbid you have two kids, those friendships are all going to change.

57:53And if there's any kind of expectation that things were going to be the same as they were when, you know, whatever, whatever the golden days were, like, got to get that expectation out of your head. Don't put that much pressure on a friendship. You know, sometimes the best of friends are like people that were there for you 20 years ago, and then maybe you kind of lose touch with, and then 10 years, they're back in your life. And there's no, hey, what happened? There's no resentment. It's like, what happened was I moved across the country and you got a job in the minor league baseball playing a 182 game travel season.

58:23Like, that's it. And I think we do a lot of overanalyzing. You know, what does this mean? And oftentimes it just means like life is complicated and things are always changing, including our friendships. Now, does this give you a permission to be a flake and like to flake out on people? No. there's a big difference between like flaking out day to day and having some big shifts in your life that then lead you to new friends. You see this often with marriage, as you mentioned, with children, with recovery from major illness or diagnosis with major illness. So cancer survivors, people that have experienced really bad depression.

59:02You see this with people that retire and all their friends were through a work context. And there's nothing wrong with this. This is normal. The problem is a culture that says something is wrong. Of course your friendships are going to change when you got diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and none of your friends have had that experience. You can't expect them to have had that experience. And with that, there's this cognitive distortion of personalizing everything. So it's very easy to feel like, oh, well, they're doing this behavior specifically for a reason to impact me, negative or positive, when in actuality they may be going through massive change and they haven't had a chance to communicate that change with you and has absolutely nothing to do with you.

59:43And what would actually heal a relationship is you coming forward and being like, hey, I realize we've drifted apart. I still really care about you and I'm rooting for you. And I hope that fatherhood is going really great. I'm excited to meet your son or, hey, I realize you move cross country and work is completely new for you in this new job. And we haven't kept up, but I'm still here for you, man. I'm still cheering you on. And you'd be surprised how those little actions, those little behaviors, strengthen relationship far more than just making blanking assumptions like this person doesn't care about me.

1:00:15Now they moved across the country. I have to break up with them or I have to never talk to them again because of their actions in this relationship. Yeah, that's right. And the only last thing that I'll add here, and you all spend a lot more time thinking about relationships in particular than me. So you might have a more nuanced take, But I think that it's one of these catch-22s with technology, that it allows us to stay close to people that are geographically very far from us. But it can also have this negative impact if we don't develop bonds where we are. And I think it's easy to have a couple really good friends that are geographically far away, but it's hard to have all your good friends be people that are geographically far away.

1:00:58and this could just be my experience, but my experience is like proximity is actually really important for me in friendships. I can have, you know, a best friend I do in California is like a brother right now in my life. And that's not a problem, but like the almost brothers, but not really friendships, those aren't the same when I'm not in proximity. And I have many good friends now in Asheville where there is proximity and that's kind of back to like acceptance, you know, humans were meant to be in proximity. And again, I'm sure that there's all kinds of different temperaments and different people are somewhere on a spectrum.

1:01:34But I think that if you're struggling, one question to ask yourself maybe is like the proximity one. Well, with that, again, going back to our mind. So we'll glance at social media, we'll see a photo, and then our predictive model fires and goes, oh, fatherhood must be great for my buddy who moved to New York City. Like, I don't need to reach out to him. He just posted a photo of his son. When in actuality, that's a reason to reach out. And we encourage all of our coaching clients, what people are posting about on social, that might be really amazing, or it might be a way for them to have the social media mask when in actuality, they're struggling, but they want to keep that digital presence going.

1:02:11So each one of those moments, instead of relying on your predictive model and your brain saying, oh, they're busy, or oh, they're having a great time on vacation, use that as a moment to reach out and celebrate them, check in on them. Hey, I saw you came back from Italy. That sounded amazing. What's going on? What'd you enjoy? You would be amazed at how much those reach outs, whether in person or digitally matter to strengthening these relationships instead of relying on the social media and technology that seems to be feeding these stories about who people are in our lives. Yeah, I could not agree more.

1:02:43I think that's spot on is like, don't trust the algorithm. And like you said, generally, I think not even sometimes, I think generally it's telling you the opposite. So the more someone feels the need to post happy family pictures, the more my radar goes up of like something's probably not so happy right now. Not always, but I think often. So for those who are in the midst of change, what can we do to handle it? What are the four P's that you recommend? The four P's are to pause and take a deep breath, maybe take a week. If it's a really big change, if it's a health diagnosis, maybe take a month.

1:03:21And not immediately rush into fixing mode. But really pause and assess the situation. Accept it. Update your expectations. Then process. So once you're seeing reality clearly, ask yourself, what does this mean? Then make a plan, because we do generally have some agency. So given what's happening, given what it means, what are the various roads we can take to move forward, and which of those roads do I want to choose first, knowing that I can always adjust. And then we proceed. But we only proceed after we go through that process, which is very different than a reactionary mode, which are two Ps, which tends to be panic and pummel ahead.

1:04:08with panic and pummel ahead i just want to add there too sometimes retreating to a safe place so that you can observe right is the right thing to do it may not be going forward but it allows you an objective mind to get an objective mind to see the field and to see what's going on to make better decisions. Panic and pummel forward is not going to be it. I love that. You like my two-piece versus four-piece. Because it's true. That's what happens, right? Yeah, I've been there for most of my life. I mean, I think all men, and AJ and I grew up in a very blue-collar family, so it's just like you keep stepping forward no matter what punches are coming your way.

1:04:58It is counter-biology, because change does create a stress response. And that stress response fuels panic. I mean, your body is telling you to panic. So it really takes a higher level of thinking for you to go, hey, wait a second, let me pause here, not react in a moment where my body is wiring me to react. Yeah, and that takes a lot of practice. Something that can help with pausing is just naming your emotions. So when you name an emotion, you create some space between yourself and your experience of it. in that space is the definition of a pause. Mindfulness practice, I mean, if there is a point to meditation, it's this.

1:05:35It's to be able to create some space between immediate feelings, thoughts, urges, and what you do about them. And I think this is something that takes practice. If you're in the groove of just immediately reacting, it's going to be really hard to take a deep breath. And we can practice this in small situations in our life, like that email that we want to send, wait 10 seconds, give it another read. That text when we're in a really hot, emotional state, wait to fire it off. Yeah, don't send it. Yeah, maybe the answer is never send it. We can practice when the stakes are lower so that that muscle is fairly developed when the stakes are high.

1:06:14I love that. Thank you for sharing, Brad. You have five questions in the book. We'll save that for those who purchased the book. But a last question for you that we ask every one of our guests is what is your X factor? What do you think makes you unique and extraordinary? I think what makes me unique and extraordinary, oh man, I don't like to toot my own horn here. I was going to say like the people around me. I'm really blessed with good people around me. My partner, my best friend, my kids, my editor on the book project. But what I pride myself most on in my writing is I try to marry head and heart.

1:06:51And I try to take a very intellectual view, but also a very like heartful view. And we don't have a word for this in English, but in, um, in Pali, which is the Sanskrit, the word is Sita and Sita is like the mind heart. And I love that word because when I sit down to write, I try to bring that to bear. So it's not the mind or the heart, but it's the mind heart. So I aspire to that. Now, am I perfect? Far from it. But that's the X factor that I aspire to. Well, I can definitely sense it in your writing. Both books we enjoyed immensely. Where can our audience find more about the book, the bonus, and everything else that you do, Brad?

1:07:31Thanks. So the book is Master of Change, and it is available wherever you get books. You can get it in any format, so hardcover, Kindle, or audio. Like I said, I'm just going to give your audience that bonus because I know you all spend a lot of time helping people with relationships. If people read through that and they like it, then they should pick up the book. And you can find more about me at my website, which is just my name, www.bradstahlberg.com. Thank you, Brad. It was a pleasure. It's always a pleasure, AJ and John. Thank you.

1:08:11Johnny, it was eye-opening to learn that on average, humans go through 36 major changes in their life. And in fact, it's one of the main reasons that clients work with The Art of Charm is how to manage that change in their life, whether it's a breakup, divorce, losing a job, changing career, moving to a new town, oftentimes with change comes a shakeup in our relationships. And it can be difficult at times to rebuild or strengthen relationships through change. I agree. And when he mentioned that 36 major changes, it really got me thinking. I mean, I think for all of us, it's very easy to look back at the last three years of craziness just to see the changes that those three years have brought us.

1:08:55Absolutely. And let's be honest, sometimes we have control over the change. And as we saw over the last three years, we don't have control over some changes in our life. And mastering your mindset, creating a fluid sense of self and building strong relationships to help you with that change is really what we are all about here at The Art of Charm. This week's shout out goes to Ian. And I gotta say, AJ, one of my favorite parts about doing what we have been doing for the last 17 years is staying in touch with everyone that we have worked with over those years. And just recently, you had an opportunity to catch back up with one of our special ops guys who had come through five years ago.

1:09:37I know. It was great to see Ian after five years. I can't believe time has really flown. And to talk about the big change in his life, transitioning out of the military, and how all the skills he learned in relationship building with the Art of Charm boot camp and in our X Factor Accelerator program helped him not only build a great network to find that new role, but then to build strong relationships and kicking off his new role. And he's so excited to have found an opportunity in his career to utilize all these great skills he learned with the Art of Charm. Mastering change isn't easy. And that's why we're here to support our clients with all of those steps.

1:10:11And, you know, getting out of the military or making any great change, a lot of times people look at it and just think, well, I'm going to hope for the best. Why not be in control of that and drive to your destination? And surround yourself with people who are going through change in their own life. It's certainly easier to master change in your life when you're supported by those who are facing the same changes. 100%. Now, if you listen this far, my guess it's because you want more out of life and finally succeed at work, love, and life. If that's the case, then join us, the Art of Charm team, and other listeners just like you who are experiencing breakthrough conversations, supercharging their confidence, and growing an incredible network inside our world-famous X Factor Accelerator program.

1:10:56The X Factor Accelerator is where high-achieving, like-minded people meet, strategize, and unlock their hidden X Factor to make sure they get the most out of life's opportunities and unlock those doors keeping you from success. We kick off every month with a goal-setting strategy session. So you have a personalized plan of attack, as well as weekly implementation sessions with opportunities to practice your conversation skills, rapport building, and supercharge your charisma through powerful communication. Imagine what you can accomplish with coaching and mentorship with the art of charm. What are you waiting for?

1:11:31Join us today at unlockyourxfactor.com. All right, before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harreld and Eric Montgomery. We hope you have an epic week.

1:12:09Oh yeah, I love you You're my best friend

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