Why Comfort Creates Suffering

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1:06This is the Ed Myerling Show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. So excited about this week's topic because we're going to talk about challenging yourself, mental toughness, and asking ourselves the question of whether or not we are suffering in comfort. And I know that sounds like an odd phrase and maybe it's even counterintuitive, but I believe more people right now are suffering in comfort than at any time in the history of the world. Meaning that people that live relatively comfortable lives are still suffering on a constant basis. And I want to unpack why that might be. And I want to talk to you about your mental toughness, if that doesn't apply to you, and challenging yourself today.

1:43And again, when I cover things on the show, most of the time I'm covering topics that either you guys have asked about or that I need to cover myself. And I work through and you kind of share in the benefit, I guess, so to speak, of me working through these things after 53 years of being on this earth. So let's first talk about the distinction between pain and suffering because these terms are often used interchangeably. And I think people conflate them and get them wrong. Pain is something that's unavoidable in life. Suffering is not unavoidable. Suffering is of our choosing. I looked it up and, you know, really the definition is pain is a physical sensation indicating an event within the body.

2:18It could be a mental event, physical event. Suffering is an interpretation of that event. And it involves thoughts, beliefs, and judgments that we make based on the pain we're feeling. And it reflects a human experience of pain. So pain causes suffering when human beings allow it to. And so what happens is we start asking ourselves questions that cause suffering when we're going through something painful. Why me? This isn't fair. This is horrible. I can't stand it. So we ask questions, we make statements, we use words that make it worse than it is. Words are very powerful. One of the things I did kind of a deep dive on recently in an audit of myself is my phrasing, you know, and I can take situations, probably you can too, that are at one level and just with the words I use escalate it to a level that doesn't serve me, the people around me, my business partners, friends, family, etc.

3:07So look at the phraseology you use when you're experiencing pain. Do those words you use or the questions you ask yourself take it from pain to suffering where you start asking these things that don't serve you or using words to describe what you're going through that exaggerate it and now cause you to suffer. And so sometimes we resist pain. And when I say resist, I don't mean that we necessarily fight it. Sometimes resistance to pain is the way in which we behave about it. We almost believe we are weaker than the situation we're going through. Does that make sense? That it's bigger than us. One thing I've learned in my life is that for you, the pain you're going through is never bigger than you.

3:45It's never bigger than the God you serve. Whatever your faith beliefs are, very clearly you all know that I'm a Christian. But I can promise you whatever you're going through is never bigger than that. But there's some things we do in our lives that make us believe that that's true. And then it causes emotions that are terrible. We find ourselves trapped in a world of emotions like despair, anger, shame, unhappiness. And none of these things serve us. And so what happens is in the isolation of our minds, we sort of surrender and we live in some sort of suffering while we're in comfort. And so here we go today into some thoughts I have for you.

4:18I don't care if you're the CEO of a company, a professional athlete, a stay-at-home mom, a business person, a saleswoman or man. These things all apply. I believe that when you are comfortable, it actually can cause suffering in our lives. And I believe that people that are going through a difficult time, believe it or not, the mentally tough person, the person that gets themselves out of it, finds a challenge. They challenge themselves. By the way, those of you that are leaders in business, whether you're leading a family, you're leading a company of two or three or four people, or an enterprise of 25 ,000 people, I can tell you that great leaders challenge people.

4:53Great people challenge themselves. And so without a challenge, I have found most people suffer. Have you ever thought about that before? that maybe the root of some of the suffering you're going through is not that the challenge or the pain you're going through is too great, but that you have not challenged yourself in a way to grow that can offset or augment the challenge you're going through. And so oftentimes there's a lot of people, they've got a good job, money's coming in, maybe the relationship's not great or things aren't great with their family or there's a problem here or there, but they're just not happy.

5:25They're just not joyous. They're just not blissful. They're not pumped up. They're not excited. And that's because you need a challenge. You go, well, Ed, I got plenty of challenges, man. I lost my job or I'm going through a breakup right now. I have a challenge. Here's what I'm telling you. I'm telling you that if you find a healthy challenge, that it will override the emotions. And although you may go through some pain, you won't suffer. And so I believe a human being with a challenge, with a mission, with a cause, with a crusade, any one of the above is somebody who is not going to suffer. Isn't that ironic?

6:01But if you look at some of the happiest times in your life, it's when you were the most challenged. When you look back on it, man, that's when I grew the most, that you got something for your pain. And what you got from it wasn't suffering. You got growth, insight, idea, relationship, a new you, a new emotion, a toughness, a resiliency that you needed to get through the next thing in your life. And so mission one today is to convince you that I want you to find a challenge for yourself right now and to stay mentally tough and to push through it. If you're a leader in business, evaluate, are you challenging the people around you enough?

6:36If you're leading a family, if you're a mom or a dad, when's the last time you challenged your kids to do something great? Maybe not just their grades, but maybe it's something physical. Maybe it's to read a Bible scripture and report to you on it. Human beings love to be challenged, especially the great ones. When I was an athlete, I was always surprised by guys that didn't want to be coached hard by the coach. I wanted to be coached hard. I wanted to be challenged. It was a chance for me to get recognized. See, when you challenge people, you create an opportunity and a space that didn't exist before it to get recognized, for them to get significance, for them to be acknowledged, to be seen.

7:11So as a leader, you have to regularly be challenging people. Let me tell you something that they're not telling you, the people that work with you or your children or your friends. They want you to challenge them. That creates a space where they can say, hey, I did it, man. We did it. I grew. So not only do they grow, not only do they expand, but in many ways, they have a chance to get recognized. And most people don't feel seen. And so they suffer in quiet anonymity. They suffer in invisibleness because no one's challenging them. And worse, they're not challenging themselves. And so actually, there was an article that just came out yesterday.

7:45I was reading from a publication that said that people's obsession with being great is why they're suffering. and I have to tell you I just completely disagree with that greatness maybe the pursuit of money could lead to something empty potentially but you telling me someone who's challenged to want to get in better physical shape that that's contributing to them being suffering to to them to their depression no it's not someone who's challenged to grow emotionally to grow intellectually to grow in a new hobby a new talent a new behavior more and more our culture the world is trying to tell you, conform, be average, be like everybody else, blend in, join a group.

8:20People love groups right now, don't they? Don't people love groups? Because they can hide in that group. They love political groups. I'm this, I'm that. They love groups, clubs they belong to, and anything they can do to hide in a group is what people love, to conform. I believe the opposite of courage is to conform. The opposite of bravery is to be a conformist. I love contrarian people. I love weird people. Remember this weird, rich, normal, poor, and I don't mean just money. Although I do mean money. Most of my rich friends financially are a little bit weird, a little bit crazy. They got that thing, but they want to be challenged.

8:56They want to be great. They want to grow. They want to expand. As I say, often I'm addicted to the expansion of my being. And every time I've tried to just be comfortable, which is what the world tells you, be comfortable, just settle. Every time I've done that, there's a part of me that says, no, Eddie, you're supposed to do something great with your life. You're supposed to grow. You're supposed to help people. When you feel the most helpless, get the most helpful. Expand, grow. And I don't believe I'm in any form of suffering when I do that. It may be painful. It may be painful to grow, painful to change, painful to go through a difficult situation, painful to challenge yourself.

9:34But that's totally different than suffering. In fact, on the other side of pain, you ought to get something for your pain. I believe that all pain is temporary, so I remind myself of that. I think for a lot of people, their chasing of fame and money and celebrity and likes and all that does contribute to a great deal of pain. Whether they suffer is their choice when they don't get the likes or they don't get the money, or when they do get the money if it doesn't fulfill them. But don't conflate that with being challenged and not letting it grow you and expand you. You want to be challenged. You want to be recognized, at least by you.

10:11You want to make you proud of you. Maybe you want to make God proud of you. Maybe after that, you want to make your family proud of you. Maybe you want to make the world proud of you. There's nothing wrong with that. The most important thing is that you and God say, hey, man, you're doing it right. Hey, lady, you're doing it right. And so what I want to submit to you today is, are you down right now? Are you a little bit down? if you are pick a new challenge challenge yourself are you as mission driven as you used to be or as you need to be is that mission almost pours out of you like you bleed your mission and what is it if I asked you right now in two sentences tell me your mission your business mission can you give it to me and if you gave it to me would I feel something is it a crusade almost is it so passionate that it bleeds out of you that you can't even stop thinking about it most of the time?

11:03When's the last time that you deeply, deeply, deeply connected to your mission? If you have employees or subcontractors or independent contractors that work with you, how much focus is there on the mission and the cause and the crusade and your purpose? See, I don't think that you can get down when you are focused on your mission and your cause and your crusade. But I think oftentimes all the mixed messaging that we get in our lives, right? You got to do this. You got to make that. It gets so busy and you lose the reason you exist. The reason you feel you were born. The reason you're doing what you do as a business person right now.

11:40And how infectious is it through your organization to your clients? When people get around you, do they get this feeling that if they could just latch onto you, their lives are going to change? See, great leaders challenge people and they challenge people because they're so passionate about the change they believe needs to happen in people's lives. They're so passionate about that change. Something needs to change. So what's the change? Is it a change in you? Is it a change in your body? A change in your spirit? A change in your motivation level? Your inspiration level? Is it a change in the difference you make to your clients every day?

12:15And when people get around you like, man, this lady's on fire about this. This dude is unbelievably passionate. And maybe it's not loud. Maybe it's not even a spoken word. Maybe it's the written word. Maybe it's a look in your eye. But people got to get around you. They got to get a feeling that this person's causing change. They're changing our family. They're changing our business. They're changing our lives. You show me somebody who's on fire about their mission, and I'll show you somebody who's going to be successful, who's going to be happy. But you show me somebody who starts to focus on the phone script or focus on their problems or focus on the challenge or focus on the market and they lose focus of the whole reason they exist, this person's going to struggle.

13:00And so my reminder to you today is reconnect deeply like a level you've never been at before with your purpose, your cause and your mission. And if you don't know what it is, if you're sitting here and you're like, man, I, you know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. You got to find it. You got to start to ask yourself the hard questions because let me say something. People are looking for leadership right now. And by the way, that leadership may be in your family. It may be at the gym. It may be for one person. Maybe your friend, maybe for your team, maybe for your employees. People are looking for leadership.

13:35They're looking for somebody to inspire them. They're looking for somebody to aspire to be like. They are. They're looking for you. And you think, I'm not only that I'm qualified. The qualifications of doing something great is being deeply committed to your purpose and your mission. That's the quality, that it's sincere, right? Like, I got to be honest with you, the people that I follow in my life, they don't have to be perfect. They don't have to have all the answers, but I got to think, man, they love it. They love their mission. They're so committed. They want to change something. At the root of every mission, at the root of every challenge is a change.

14:11And when you change, miraculous things happen. And I got to believe there's something you want to change. Either it's in the world, a cause, a disease, a political thing, a group of people who are actually suffering that need to not suffer so deeply, something in you, something in your body, in your health, in your spirituality, in your mental wellness. The answers you're looking for are in your commitment to your passion, in your commitment to your mission, in your commitment to a challenge. Those are where the answers are. The answers of other areas of your life will be found in the deep commitment you make to your overall mission as a man or a woman.

14:56A lot of other things get solved when you figure that out. And what happens is we get into the isolation of our minds, the wrong phraseology, the wrong terminology. We make the story worse than it is. We magnify our problems to where we begin to suffer. I've said this many times, nothing wrong with pain, nothing wrong with it, but it's the isolation of your mind. So I don't want you to be comfortable. I don't want comfort. In fact, I'm going to say something crazy to you. Forget balance. Get a little wiggy, right? Like get a little like, wow, man, I'm something's changing. Something's shifting.

15:32Something is shifting. And that shift will come with you being challenged to do something with your mission and your purpose and your cause. Connect deeper, go deeper with it, reevaluate it. I don't know what that challenge is. Maybe it's a challenge to learn a brand new hobby. Like I think a lot of, you know, I'm learning about horses right now and riding. It's a challenge. I'm a very busy person. I've got multiple businesses. I've got a show. I've got a podcast. I've got a TV show. I speak quite a bit. I'm going through a significant health issue right now. I've got family. I have to manage, you know, relationships and money and growing and learning.

16:06I've got a lot going on. Me to add something else to my life is an awful lot. But you know what? I feel like when I'm challenged and I'm growing, I'm happy. I can't suffer when I'm growing. I'm in pain when I'm growing. When I'm in the gym and you're doing curls or bench or legs, you all know this, you're in pain. But if you've done it any length of time, you can't wait to get the reward for it. You can't wait to see your arms grow or your belly shrink or your legs get stronger or your ability to run and get faster grow. That's painful. That's not suffering. I want to ask you, what's a challenge you could take on right now?

16:45Is it something physical? I think one of the greatest places to change your life is to take on a physical challenge, whatever that might be. It might be a challenge to get a certain body fat percentage or lose some weight or get stronger or run an Ironman or do a 5K or walk longer than you normally walk. Whatever it might be, take on a physical challenge and compete for it. Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's a challenge to read 30 books this year or 50 books this year. Maybe it's a challenge to go see something. Maybe it's a challenge to get a certain amount of income. Maybe it's a challenge to work solely on meditation and challenge yourself to meditate every single day.

17:22But a human being that's challenged is a happy human being. A leader that challenges people is a real leader as long as they set the personal example. So what's that challenge for you? And if it's not a challenge, what's a mission you could go on? What's a crusade? And I know a lot of you listening go, Ed, I've got a lot on the plate right now. Okay? Like I'm not lacking for stuff to do. You sure? Maybe you're just in the pursuit of external stuff all the time right now, aren't you? Maybe you're one of those. I know I've been that person for 25 years. The pursuit of more wealth, the pursuit of more recognition, the pursuit of more growth, the pursuit of more business success.

18:03maybe the challenge you need to give yourself is to be finding more peace and to go on a quest to find a little bit more peace. Maybe you need a little yoga. Maybe you need a little more meditation. Maybe you need to give yourself a break of some type of a retreat you're going to give yourself a challenge to get on in the next six months where you go away for two or three days or a week on a retreat. Maybe the challenge for you is your marriage isn't where you want it to be right now or your girlfriend or your boyfriend and you aren't as close as you need to be and you need to challenge yourself to pay a lot more attention, to show them a lot more affection, a lot more love, to be a lot more present.

18:35Maybe that challenge for you is you're passionate about something right now and you need to get involved. You have lost a loved one to cancer and you're doing nothing about it in the world and you go, I'd like to do something about cancer. Or you've been a single mother for a while now and you know the difficulty of that and you'd like to do something to help single moms. Maybe there's something in your faith that you just go, I need to serve more. I need to give more. I need to be involved in the church more. I need to do a mission this summer. But a person with a challenge has a future. A person without a challenge has no future.

19:08You want a future. There's a lot of talk in the world about being present. And we all struggle with that. But one of the ways that you can be fully present in a moment, believe it or not, ironically, is having an optimistic future. One of the reasons we struggle to be present in the present moment is our angst about the future. And so we live there all the time. Our despair about the future, our worry, our concern, our lack of clarity about it. Ironically, having a challenge or a mission or a cause or a crusade will allow you to be present right now because you know where you're going. And so you can enjoy the present moment.

19:54And that present moment can be about the people and the moments and the growth and the reading and the listening to me right now. I know it sounds ironic because most of the people listen to my show are achievers and you're saying, Ed, I need another challenge. What I'm suggesting to you is a number one, either you are suffering unnecessarily because of the pain you're going through. And it's because of your language that you use. You make it worse than it is the story you're telling yourself. You're making it worse than it is. Or potentially it's the questions you're asking yourself about it.

20:27They're the wrong questions. Maybe right now the pain you're going through is trying to teach you something and you're missing the entire lesson from it because you keep focusing on why it's unfair. You got to change that. And the way you change that is you change the questions you're asking yourself, change the way you look at pain. Successful and happy people have a different relationship with pain. They understand they're going to get something for their pain. They understand God does not give you pain in your life so that on the other side of that temporary pain, he doesn't give you a permanent, beautiful gift.

20:55That gift can be a new friend, a new contact, a new relationship, a new lead, a new insight, a new mindset, a new emotion, a new thought, right? A new bank account. It could be all kinds of different things. My dad's drinking when I was a little boy. You'd say, well, that's terrible that you had to go through the pain of that. And I allowed that, that I suffered through because I was a little boy. I was defenseless. I didn't understand the things I'm telling you now. So I suffered while my dad was drinking. It was also painful. But as a grown man now that when other people in my life let me down, it's painful, but I don't allow myself to suffer.

21:29I change the questions I ask myself. I change my perspective. I understand God's trying to teach me something right now. I had a very close friend recently go through a very difficult bout with alcohol and drugs. A very close person, a friend of mine. And I thought, gosh, God, you're bringing this back into my life again. And I realized the reason that God brought that back into my life is I'm 100 % equipped to help that person and the people around them because you're most qualified in life to help the people you used to be. I know what it's like to have a loved one suffer or a friend suffer with drug addiction and alcohol.

22:02And so rather than when that happened to be a suffering experience for me, it was painful, but I didn't suffer because of my perspective about it, right? And so in life, I got to tell you, your perspective, your phraseology matters. And I got to tell you something, as busy as you are right now, something needs to challenge you different than it is right now. Maybe it's eliminating a few things, but I think you need a challenge. And my hallucination is for a lot of you, if it starts with your body and your physiology, it can impact all the other areas of your life. For me, people ask me all the time, how do you change your mental health?

22:35How do you change this? How do you grow in business? How do you get your ideas for books? Content. It's always with my body. Now, that's not true for everybody, but for me, when I'm training hard, one of the reasons I think I've been a little bit down lately is this health issue I'm going through has caused me not to be able to train to the real capacity that I'm used to in the gym and to do some of the things I enjoy doing, like golfing and other things. I just, I can't do them right now. And so I think it's affected my mental health. For example, like walking and breath work and light resistance training for me is really important.

23:08And so I've got a challenge for me right now. So I've actually created a challenge for me on my body weight and on my heart rate, ironically, and my HRV, my heart rate variability. So I've actually created some metrics. I'm challenging myself to get those better. And that challenge is getting me to do something that all great people want to do, to compete. and if you wrap all this in a bow, it's that a human being who's not competing, right, is typically someone who's going to begin to suffer. You got to compete for something. There's nothing wrong with that. You go, no, that's our culture. I'm not talking about trying to compete for the most likes or the most money.

23:43Although if that's what you want, go get it. I'm talking about competing to the best version of you. I'm talking about in your DNA, your cellular structure wants to be challenged. The reasons muscle grow when they break down, you're supposed to do that. You're supposed to go through the pain to grow them. The reason the mind expands when you challenge it is because it's how it's built. It's cellularly how you're built. The reason that when you do crossword puzzles and read and do different things that engage your mind, it grows. That's how we're built. It needs to be challenged. Spiritually, if you're not in whatever your scriptures are, if you're not challenging yourself to understand it deeper, if you're not asking for a deeper relationship with your creator, then you don't grow in that area and you begin to suffer.