Money Worries, Identity, and the Trap of Being 'Good’ (Coaching Episode)

Joe: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Art of Accomplishment, where we explore living the life you want with enjoyment and ease. Today we have a coaching session for you, and it's all about money, the money issues that we have on the surface and the root causes underneath. Bobby Hobert joins us today for this coaching session, and it is intense, so don't forget to breathe.

Bobby: Joe, one thing that's been on my mind recently a lot is abundance and really trying to call in financial consistency with my business. I left my job at the top of January to go all into my coaching business. This has been in the works, I would say, over the last seven, eight years. Graduating college in 2016, going down this self-development path, driving Uber full-time for three and a half years while building the first podcast, then pivoting, working at Liquid IV full-time while continuing to build my podcast, my brand, and continuing to challenge myself to grow.

And it finally came to a point where it was like it felt now or never. I need to take this step and I left to my career at the top of January with some runway, and this year it has been just, as I'm sure you've seen in your career, the clients that you've coached, it's been a rollercoaster of emotions and the timing of us doing this conversation today is incredible because I really feel like we're in a very tough spot where credit cards are ran up, cashflow is really low, we're looking into maybe having to liquidate stock market stuff to just get by. And I'd love to just explore, are there limiting beliefs of mine? Like I feel like there's internal things that are blocking me. I see the value that I bring. I see it in the interactions that I have with people or clients and I just wanna set the frame of just even that's what I'm bringing into today's call. And from there, I'd love to just see where we go or just anything that you can pull from me or challenge me that may help edge me and correct me in the right direction. 

Joe: Cool. So what makes you call it abundance, instead of say, I want to be filthy rich?

Bobby: Oh yeah, here we go. I think there's, a friend of mine called me out on this, I think it's me being scared to say that out loud, that I'm a bad person if I want to acquire a shit ton of money. 

Joe: Cool. What makes it, what makes you bad for wanting to have money?

Bobby: What makes me bad for wanting? 

Joe: Maybe that's even a better question? 

Bobby: That's maybe even a better question. I'm almost wondering are there beliefs from when I was younger, I grew up in a very blue collar household where I just made the association that if you have a lot of money, you've done bad things to make that money or you're all mighty and powerful.

Joe: Let's check the first one that you mentioned, or the second one you mentioned, are you how okay is it for you just to want?

Bobby: I think it's totally okay to want, 

Joe: Okay. Say something that you want, that you're totally like, there's no constriction in your body when you say it. Just, 

Bobby: I wanna make $250,000 a year.

Joe: Yeah. There is constriction in your body there.

You didn't say there was no love in your system when you're like, oh, I wanna make $250,000. It was, I wanna make $250,000. Like you had to tighten up and speed up to be able to say that. But let's just, let's stay away from money just for a second. I just want to get into want. What is it okay for you to want and what is it not okay for you to want?

And I don't mean logically, I got it logically, it's all good, but emotionally, nervous system wise, what is it okay for you to want and what is it not okay for you to want? So for instance, if you say, I want my fiance to be happy, let's hear you say that and see what happens. I'm sorry, your wife, not your fiancée. 

Bobby: You're right. Yeah. You're right. You're right. I want my fiancée to feel happy. 

Joe: Yeah. Okay. Now I want $250,000 a year. What's that one? 

Bobby: I want $250,000 a year. 

Joe: Okay. How is, how are those two things different? 

Bobby: Even me saying it the second time, I'm catching myself trying to be more gentle and calming and loving, so I, it's not even fair for me on that second take.

Joe: What I noticed is you were more loving, trying to be, and it actually tickled you. Like it I saw the smile, I saw like you got tickled. 

Bobby: Where does it tickle? What causes the tickle? 

Joe: Yeah. We'll get there in a second. So the question is just generally what are you allowed to want and what are you not allowed to want? If you had to guess and categorize.

Bobby: I want to, are we talking like emotionally? 

Joe: Just across the board. If you had to say It's okay for me, for instance, it's okay for me to want good things for other people. It's not okay for me to want good things for myself or it's okay for me to want emotional stuff, but it's not okay for me to want financial stuff. Or if you had to categorize what it's okay for you to want and what it's not okay for you to want, how would you do that? 

Bobby: It's okay for me to want to help change the world. It's not okay for me to want this abundance of money or want wealth, extreme wealth. It's okay for me to want to prioritize my own wellbeing. It's not okay for me to,

Joe: Yeah, it's tricky, right? So I'm just gonna take a shot in the dark, or it's not really, but we're gonna call it a shot in the dark. Who was the parent that you had to emotionally take care of when you were, like, who was the, who were the people? Maybe it was a kid that's a younger kid, but somewhere you were taught that your job was to take care of somebody instead of yourself, is my guess. Who or what was that? 

Bobby: It's a tough question 'cause I don't feel I had to necessarily take care of either of my parents. I had a, I have a younger sister, two years younger than me, but I feel that I looked out for her growing up and I tried to like when we were in high school, she, I felt was going down a different path. In the sense of the people she was surrounded by, I didn't think were the most encouraging, positive and I was around more scholarly type people. 

Joe: Yeah. That doesn't hit when I'm listening to you. 

Bobby: Okay. 

Joe: Typically, and so I may be wrong on this one, but typically what I see is that somebody who has this, I fall into the category, this desire to help the world save the world, help other people. A lot of coaches fall into this category generally. They had somebody that they were responsible for their happiness when they were young, and it was a subtle responsible for happiness. Like maybe it was I need to make sure they're happy so they don't get angry in the house. Or maybe I need to take care of them emotionally because they're always depressed.

Or there's a way in which. What the natural way of parents or some maybe other caregivers, is that their job is just to constantly be looking after the kid. But it's usually when there's this save the World thing, there's the other way that goes, which is their job is to take care of the parents a little bit and so, 

Bobby: I see if I go one layer deeper to give you more context when I say, I wanna change the world. What I'm really trying to say, now, like thinking about it is I want to help people live and create a life that excites them just the same way, when I graduated college, that was the mission.

99% went and got a corporate career and I was like, I'm going this my own path. And everyone was question marking and asking me why. So I think even if I go layer deeper, I wanna change the world in the sense of I wanna help empower others to step in and create that life that they want for themselves. 

Joe: That's what I'm talking about. Is there any place you can look at your childhood? I may be totally off, but is there any place you can look in your childhood and go, oh, I was responsible for the happiness of an adult where it wasn't my job? And I wanna just acknowledge this could be a very hard thing to do in a public podcast because oftentimes people feel like they're criticizing their parents, which is not what's actually, yeah. 

Bobby: I'll be honest with you, Joe, even this being recorded it's still, it's I feel extremely comfortable with sharing whatever comes up. I'm just really trying to be mindful and think about, is there a moment or am I just completely disregarding it?

Joe: Yeah. This wouldn't be a moment. This would be like a habit. Not like it would be a, it would be something that was consistent. 

Bobby: Yeah. I wanna say, because nothing is coming up that I don't think that's the case. 

Joe: Yeah. Let me explore in a couple other ways just to be quick about it. How often were you called selfish growing up as a kid?

Bobby: Not really ever, I don't think. 

Joe: Great. Okay. That then that probably explains that it's, that's not the pattern that's at play here. Okay. So going back, what is it that makes it bad to want money? What is it that makes it your job to help other people?

So right now you're in your head. Can you bring yourself down into your heart and belly? Just bring your whole body online as answering the questions? Yeah.

Bobby: I really don't know what has caused this, like this money. 

Joe: I don't need a cause, I just need like a, an emotional justification. We don't have to go into history for it. Just like what right now would make it wrong for you? 

Bobby: Tense, uncomfortable. Nondeserving. 

Joe: Oh, great. It is, yeah. Nondeserving. Cool. What makes you not deserve money?

Bobby: I haven't worked hard enough. I don't have the skill sets for it. The value I bring doesn't equal to the amount of money that I know I should be paid for. 

Joe: Okay, so Elon Musk really probably didn't work much harder than the guy who owns my local tire shop. Can you point to any place in the world where somebody's financial gain is deserved by the, or lack of financial gain is deserved by how much effort they put in? 

Bobby: No. 

Joe: Okay. 

Bobby: What separates Elon from the local guy at the tire shop? 

Joe: Yeah, that's a great question. There's probably several things, but let's not worry about him. Let's be solely focused on you. So what makes it that you have to add value to be deserving?

I assume this goes across multiple planes of your life, right? I'm assuming that getting love from your fiance means that you have to have a certain amount of value taking care of her, whatever. So what makes that transaction?

Again, you're in your head. Let's take you outta the head. Just look at me and say, Joe, you need to add value for me to love you. 

Bobby: Joe, you, Joe, you need to add value to love me. 

Joe: No, for you to love me. 

Bobby: Joe. You need to add value to love me. 

Joe: The other way. Joe, you need to add value if you want my love.

Bobby: Oh, I see. Joe, you need to, Joe, you need to add value if you want my love. 

Joe: Yeah. How'd that feel? 

Bobby: Not true. 

Joe: Yeah. So what makes it true for you?

Bobby: I dunno. 

Joe: If you had to guess, if you had to guess what makes it that you have to add value, you have to get effort to get good things in the world.

Bobby: I keep trying to come back to you and not get something in my head. 

Joe: Yeah. So imagine you have a kid, your fiance, and you get married, you have a kid, the kid pops out. You look at the kid and you're like, not gonna love you till you add some value. 

Bobby: No that's a dagger. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Bobby: I can feel that.

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. So imagine that kid grows up with that dagger. How are they gonna be at making money or having abundance, whatever the word is. 

Bobby: I said abundance. 

Joe: Abundance is a great word. The reason I mention the abundance is just typically, it means guilt over having money. 

Bobby: Wow. Yeah. That kid would be raised in a, not and if it feels like he would be a very needy person in the world. Always selfish. Being selfish for sure. 

Joe: How do you think, how hard is it for a coach to get clients if they have that sniff of neediness as compared to.

Bobby: It's extremely hard. The times when the energy feels needy. It doesn't come. And the moments when I'm completely surrendered and just non-attached it, it flows. 

Joe: But if you're saying my value is based on whether this person, then it's all, it's hard really not to be needy. 

Bobby: So it's standing true in my value, regardless of what 

Joe: I'm gonna keep on interrupting you, because what you do is that you come, the idea gets settled, and then you say, this is what I have to do.

So this idea shows up and then you immediately turn it into a task that you have to do so that you can be good enough so that you can get love. Do you see the pattern that I'm speaking to? 

Bobby: Say that again? 

Joe: It's happened. Yeah, it's happened three times in the call. So basically the recognition just happened, which is, oh I just need to stand in my value. And that became a to-do that you have to do. So that you earn whatever it is that you want to earn which destroys the epiphany.

The epiphany in itself is, oh actually let's go to the deeper epiphany. What is it that you have to do to deserve love? Do you have to stand true in yourself to earn love? 

Bobby: Just be. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Bobby: Just be who I am fully. 

Joe: How about who you are half? Do you deserve love, then? 

Bobby: Yes. 

Joe: Okay. How about who you are 10%? Do you deserve love, then? 

Bobby: Yes. 

Joe: Okay, so what made you put fully on there? That became another task that you had to do an almost impossible task, frankly.

You're setting up these massive hurdles for you to get love. So what makes you scared of it? What makes you scared of love? What makes you scared of abundance? What makes you scared of making a fuck ton of money? Because you keep on creating these massive walls to get there. 

Bobby: Oh man, this is good. 

Joe: In your head again. You've been trying to think your way out of this for at least five years, if not 25. 

Bobby: I've always been super self-critical. My mom has always said that to me. You are your biggest critic.

Joe: Is it happening right now? I see the sadness, but is the criticism also happening? 

Bobby: No, it's I just don't know why I put so much weight on my shoulders. Like a ton. 

Joe: Yeah. Clearly. 

Bobby: And it feels like it's been on me since when I graduated. I have to prove to myself, I need to prove to others.

Joe: Yeah. And then you, that weight, you supplement with this high positive, I've got it, we're going, yeah. 

Bobby: Delusional optimist. 

Joe: Yeah. Which is really another form of undermining yourself. 

Bobby: Is another form of undermining? 

Joe: Yeah. I know that's a weird thing, but you can do it means I don't actually believe you can do it. Like you're, if you like Bill Gates, you can do it. You can. You can make $200 bill. You can do it. You'd never fucking say that. That positivity is also a form of doubt, the way it runs in your system.

Bobby: So is it being less positive? Is it being less optimistic? Is it being more realistic? 

Joe: You're trying to find your task list? So that you can do the thing. So that you can earn the thing.

Bobby: I was gonna ask, how do I remove that?

Joe: Yep. Yeah. So if there's nothing you can do what's left?

Bobby: Just being. 

Joe: You're trying to get somewhere and there's this task list of things to do to get there. If you can't do anything to get there, like what happens to there? 

Test: It doesn't, it no longer exists. 

Joe: What does? 

Bobby: This creation of a destination. 

Joe: What does exist? Tell me what the destination is ultimately, what's the destination? So you've done the work, you've figured yourself out, you've fucking been the perfect a hundred percent you, and you've totally, completely in yourself. And you've got the million dollars in the bank and then what?

What did all that get you? 

Test: Feeling freedom, joy, excitement. 

Joe: Yeah. So if there's nothing to do, where's your freedom, joy, and excitement?

Bobby: Being felt into right now?

Joe: How does freedom, joy, and excitement attract customers, attract coaching folks? How does it attract money?

You're in your head again. 

Just feel the freedom, joy, and excitement you have and just see what does that feel like? 

Test: Lighter. Playful. Non-attachment. 

Joe: So even here, I'm gonna fuck with you. Even here, there's a little bit of trying in what you're saying. Trying, it's like you're trying to make it real or something. There's either freedom here or there's not freedom here. There's no trying that's required. So what like right now, are you free or are you not free? 

Bobby: I feel very tense. And maybe if I wasn't on this call with you, maybe I would feel a little bit more free, but right now I feel,

Joe: Even a little bit more free is not freedom. But I'm not talking about freedom to feeling. I'm just saying like right now, are you free? Technically? 

Bobby: Yes. 

Joe: So explain that to me. Explain how technically you're free right now. 

Bobby: I'm choosing to be on this call with you and after this call it, it's the canvas is mine to paint for the rest of the day. That to me would be freedom. 

Joe: Yeah. Has there ever been a day in your life where the canvas hasn't been free for you to paint for the rest of the day. Has there any ever been a time where you don't get to choose? 

Bobby: If I didn't feel like I had, was able to choose when I was working full time. 

Joe: Didn't feel like it, but were you? 

Bobby: Didn't feel like it, but I still had the choice.

Joe: Yeah. Crazy. 

Bobby: At the end of the day, I still could choose. 

Joe: Yeah. Do you ever perceive any moment in the rest of your life where your freedom isn't gonna have consequences, like getting fired or not making money or pissing off somebody or letting your kid down? 

Bobby: It will always have consequences.

Joe: So how can you be free if it's, there's always consequences?

Bobby: I dunno. I dunno.

Joe: And relief, look at the relief that came with that.

The idea of freedom that you've been living with is yet another hurdle that you've given to yourself that you have to jump. 

Bobby: I wanna let go of the hurdles. I know that I don't need external things to feel these emotions. I can feel them right here, right now. And I've been doing, I've been really deep into Joe Dispenza's work over the last three months and it's made it tangible understanding for me, but it's I know, I've always known I don't need these validation things to feel the way I want to feel, but I create the hurdles. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Bobby: I feel good and then some reason in my mind, the hurdle gets presented at three hours later. And I, and just, it's intoxicating. I can just feel it and it just ripples into how I show up across the board. And it's not the version of who I wanna be.

Joe: I wanna at some point touch on potentially the fact that story you are recreating right now is a, like you're doing it right now and it, so you've gone to tactic two. First tactic was, let me give a to-do list that I can do the thing to get. Tactic two is let me tell you who I am and I'm gonna define myself in this way so that I can't have the thing that I want. But the question that I have for you is, what makes you scared of this good thing, of this freedom, of this abundance of this like this feeling of oh, I feel fucking good? You have it, and you immediately create something to stop it. What's the thing that makes that scary to feel?

Bobby: That something's gonna get in the way and create the hurdle, that I will no longer feel it. 

Joe: That's true. 

Bobby: The valve will get turned and all what I'm feeling is now gone. 

Joe: That's what's gonna happen. For sure. There is nobody ever of any time in any ilk, no matter what the crazy mythology behind it is it went, oh, and now I feel great for the rest of my life.

Bobby: So it's a choice to feel great, essentially. 

Joe: No. What I'm saying is nobody gets to feel great all the time. It's always a pendulation between states. There is no permanent state.

There's a stateless state, but I'm not gonna go into that. No matter what, there's good days and bad days for sure. And maybe your good day in 10 years was, or your bad day, 10 years from now is the shittiest day. I'm sorry, lemme just try that again. And maybe 10 years from now, your bad day was the best day that you had today, but there's still gonna be good days and bad days, right?

There's still gonna be this up and down. So there's just, yeah, it's gonna be taken away from you. 

Bobby: And that's okay? 

Joe: Yeah. You're gonna finish eating an ice cream cone, but you're not scared of ice cream. You have an idea about it being taken away that makes the taking away not sweet. What's the idea? What's the idea behind losing a good feeling or losing money? Or losing love that doesn't make the money and the love and the freedom, whatever sweet?

Bobby: I don't know. 

Joe: If you had to guess whole body, guess not just brain guess.

Bobby: Can you ask that one more time? 

Joe: Yeah. What makes it that losing the thing that makes you feel good doesn't make the thing that makes you feel good sweeter? A really great meal would not be so great if you ate it 24 hours a day. 

Bobby: So true.

Joe: Even if you ate it every day at lunch, it would not be great soon. 

Bobby: Yeah. It would go from this fantastic meal to just the new standard. 

Joe: Yeah. So what makes it not sweet that these things pass? 

Bobby: Me. 

Joe: Of course we're gonna blame somebody. It's gonna be you. 

Bobby: My relationship with it. 

Joe: What are you not responsible for bad happening in the world exactly? Like your world, your existence, what part of it are you not responsible for? 

Bobby: External. Anything external. 

Joe: I'm saying like external is, you could say how much money you made this year would be an external factor, or you could call an internal factor.

I'm saying like, obviously you're not responsible for hurricanes, but it seems like you have taken full responsibility for your entire life. Anything bad that happens, bad thought, a bad emotion. 

Bobby: It's me. 

Joe: It's you. What just, I'm not saying it isn't true, but imagine for a second that you were completely not responsible for any of it, by the way, neither was anybody else. So you can't blame anybody and you can't blame yourself. What does that do if you do that mental experiment, what does that do to your consciousness? 

Bobby: It just feels like I'm walking in sunshine. I feel okay. I feel, bliss. Pure happiness, joy.

I don't wanna keep saying I feel like pressure alleviated off my shoulders, but there's not this weight on my chest. 

Joe: Yeah. So prove to me that you're responsible.

We'll track it right down to its root. You're responsible for not making money because of what?

Bobby: I'm not responsible for making money? 

Joe: No you are responsible for not making money. That's how your brain normally works, right? I'm not agreeing with that, but we're gonna just see logically if it makes any goddamn sense. So you're responsible for not making money. You tell yourself that. How do you justify that? What? What is it that you did or didn't do that makes it, 

Bobby: I'm not trying hard enough. 

Joe: You're not trying hard enough. That's great. And what makes it that you didn't try hard enough? 

Bobby: There's a million different ways to attract clients and you've tried four out of the million ways, so get on to work.

Joe: What made it that you only tried four instead of 10 or 20? 

Bobby: Time and bandwidth.

Joe: Time and bandwidth? And wait, so you're responsible for time? 

Bobby: No. 

Joe: Okay. 

Bobby: Well I'm responsible for how I spend my time. 

Joe: Okay. And how you spend your time is based on what your thoughts or your what, how do you decide how to spend your time?

Bobby: How I manage my calendar. 

Joe: What makes you, how do you determine how to manage your calendar? 

Bobby: Priorities. 

Joe: How do you determine priorities? 

Bobby: I choose it. 

Joe: Choose it. Okay, cool. So if you have choice then you could be held responsible, right? 

Bobby: Correct. 

Joe: Cool. So choose to stop having thoughts.

Bobby: I can't though. 

Joe: Yeah, exactly. You can't even choose what thought to have next. 

So your whole prioritization scheme that led to the time management led to you not doing six and doing six instead of four or whatever down that line. All comes from a thought that you can't control.

Bobby: This is rocking my world. 

Joe: What's crazy is I get it. Sometimes there's these moments where, oh, I choose is a very empowering thing I get to choose is a really empowering thing. There's also a time where I chose this as a very disempowering thing. And right now the whole, I have agency is very much disempowering you. 

Bobby: When you say I have agency, can you like, what do you mean by that? 

Joe: I'm responsible for the whole kit and caboodle of my life.

Bobby: My mind just always wants to be like, so I wants to just spit back the tasks, change this, do that every, everything you keep saying, my mind wants to go there. 

Joe: Yeah. That's the habit and you can't stop it. You don't even have control over that.

You basically have already turned freedom into something wrong with you. I have this freedom, this joy, this ease of I don't have to be responsible for everything, and now I'm responsible for the fact that my brain is telling me I'm responsible for shit. You've just gone meta. So here's a question for you. If you didn't feel responsible for your life, what do you think you would end up doing?

Bobby: Nothing. 

Joe: Ah, then you better feel responsible for your life then yeah?

Bobby: Because if I'm not choosing, which would be taking responsibility, then I'm just floating, it almost feels. 

Joe: Yeah. So when you were seven years old, did you do nothing?

Bobby: No. 

Joe: So how did shit get done then? Without this sense of responsibility to make the life and that you're responsible for every aspect of your life? How did that happen? 

Bobby: It was, the word is just like playful and curiosity at seven, right? There's absolutely, I know like the food is on the table. How do I want to, do I wanna go play, kick the soccer ball? Do I wanna ride the bicycle? 

Joe: Yeah, exactly. So you just experienced something that you called bliss, joy, oh it feels oh, that whole thing. So somehow that's gonna make you stagnant. But it didn't when you were a kid, that level of freedom.

But somehow the idea of I'm responsible for my entire life and that burden is going to make you productive even though it's for the last five years, made you stagnant.

Okay, we're gonna try something totally different for a second without going into the past or the future. Tell me what's wrong with you right now.

Test: My mindset. 

Joe: Say again? 

Bobby: My mindset. These beliefs, patterns. 

Joe: Right now? Your beliefs are in the future or in the past. Right now what's wrong with you?

Bobby: There's nothing wrong with me. I just am. 

Joe: Yeah. Then what's the, what are you trying to earn? What's the task list for? If there's nothing wrong with you right now?

Bobby: There is no is, there's no task list. It feels like Saturday morning. Just like freedom of flow and just, just is, yeah.

Joe: Even trying to keep it is a task list. 

Bobby: Keep that feeling? 

Joe: Even that is a subtle move to build a wall that you have to jump.

Bobby: Is what you're trying to say is coming back to just pure presence? 

Joe: Then that would be a task list. Now I have to be purely present to be happier.

Bobby: Oh God, I knew I was gonna get my world rocked on this and I love it. I feel like it's a sense of slowing down.

Joe: I'm gonna move out of the truth for a minute and then move into the practical, the tactical, and then I'm gonna come back to the truth for lack of better words.

If you're looking for something that you need to do, the most important thing is to get in touch with what's true.

So to say I need to be present isn't true. You don't need to be present. 

Bobby: I want it to be true. Is that different? 

Joe: I mean what's the truth right now? Are you present? 

Bobby: I feel very present. 

Joe: Yeah. Can you imagine a time when you could say, I know this sounds weird, but if you really stopped and said, am I present right now? Would you ever be able to say no?

Bobby: No. 

Joe: Because we're always present. That's the definition of it. So getting in touch with what's true is a far more effective tool than telling yourself you have to be a certain way.

Bobby: But what if what is true is not? 

Joe: Gimme an example. Right now you're free. Right now you're present. Right now you don't have to do anything to earn love. Now you have enough? Right now, people love you. Right now you're loving yourself.

Bobby: I dunno why even you saying you are enough, it just hits home. Wow.

Joe: So I wanna stay with the tactical. So there's two things that can very much help you with, from this perspective, from seeing this aspect, then there's a couple things you can do that can really help you with the financial abundance, which is where you started and where you came in. So one of them is so that constant internal critic that you spoke to that's happening, you don't get to control that. That's not gonna stop. Where you do have some space is how you respond to it. So basically what happens in your head right now, correct me if I'm wrong, is God damn, you should be doing more. Why didn't you spend more time? Why did you only do four things? You could have done six things. And you respond to that the way, think of the politician, you like the least, and you think about the accolades of that politician and they're like, okay, yeah. Whatever you say. Okay. That's how you react to that voice in your head, that internal critic. You don't really get to change the critic as much as you get to change the way that you relate to the critic.

So you could say, Hey, that's pretty bad management style. Or you could say, I see how scared you are. Or you could say, fuck you, shut the fuck up.

You could say, yes, sir. I'll get right on that. You have all sorts of options that you can respond to the way that voice speaks. And so your job isn't to do any of them. Your job is to experiment. So write down 20 of them and every day, or every two days, or every three days, pick one of them and then do it for that day or two days or three days.

So your job is to basically just experiment. You're not trying to get anywhere. You're just experimenting with, oh, what is it like to treat the voice in my head this way? What is it like to treat the negative voice in my head that way? What is it like to treat the negative voice in my head that way?

So that's one experiment, very tactically. The other one is that you and your fiance every day, 10 minutes a day, have a gratitude practice. It's an out loud gratitude practice where you feel gratitude. This isn't optimism, this isn't hope. This is, oh, I'm grateful, and feel that gratitude and speak from that gratitude about all the material stuff that you have in your life.

I'm so grateful that I have the ability to do podcasts. I'm so grateful that the podcast that I did created this amazing coaching session for free. I'm so grateful that we have food on the table. I'm so grateful that, I can go get a job and all the things. And you need to have that felt physical sense of gratitude. And so you'll say gratitude, you'll savor it like a good meal. She'll say a gratitude, she'll savor it like a good meal, and you'll just go back and forth like that for 10 minutes a day. Three months. It's an experiment. 

Bobby: Okay. 

Joe: And you're not taking that and saying, I should be grateful all the time. No, it's just, you're just being grateful for that 10 minutes for what's there.

And the reason that this is important, there's several ways that this works, but right now you define yourself as somebody who doesn't have enough this, enough that, enough the other thing, enough time, enough energy, and the blah, blah, blah, blah. This actually changes your self definition to somebody who has enough.

And if you walk around the world with I'm the person who has plenty, then you act differently in the world. So those are just two practical things that you can take away from this, but it's really important you're not doing these to get better. You're doing these as experiments.

As soon as you do, as soon as you do them to get better, they will have no effect that you want in your life. And you'll notice this in your tools that you've used, like you collected, you have collected all these tools in your life for self-development. They work for a while and then they stop working. And you'll notice that they work until you use them to improve yourself, which means you've taken the love out. They become a form of criticism and so the tool stops working.

Bobby: Wow. I'm so happy you said that part because the version of me would've went to start the gratitude to get to the marker. 

Joe: Yeah. It wouldn't have worked. 

Bobby: That's, yeah that's a common theme. 

Joe: If we can't, if we're trying to change, imagine somebody says, okay, I want you to accept an emotion, and so you're like, okay, I'm gonna accept my anger.

But you're accepting it to get rid of it. It's not really accepting it, right? It's like I'm accepting you, son in the house because I want you to grow up and fucking leave, isn't really accepting your son into the house. So it is like a deep welcoming of what is, it's not a I'm gonna welcome what is, I'm gonna be present so that I can be better. It's, no, it's like I, so I can be with what actually is.

Bobby: I love that. Experimenting and the gratitude. 

Joe: Yeah. That was checkin time. Yeah, time just disappears, so I'm like where are we? It does. 

Bobby: Yeah it sure does.

Joe: Yeah, so back to the truth. So I told you I was gonna go tactical and now I'm just get, go back to the truth. Like I give you like a little, like what's looking out behind your eyes right now? I don't need an answer. I just want you to get in touch with it.

Oh, you're really trying hard to get in touch with something that's naturally there. It's just what's, yeah. There. What's, yeah. Is there anything that needs to be done about that? Is there anything that you want that's not there? 

Bobby: It's all there. 

Joe: Yeah. And there'll never be a moment in time in your life where you, that's not the case.

Total pleasure to work with you.

Bobby: Man, full of gratitude. Joe. I didn't know where this convo was gonna go and I intentionally didn't do too much brainstorming or creating some expectation. I just knew when this got booked that something magical will happen and we're just gonna let it ride based on where we're at. But, I just wanna say I am so grateful of you, so grateful for this conversation. Grateful for how those that do get a chance to listen and how this may be directly relatable for where they're at and some things they're working through. 

Joe: So hang on a second I'm, because I can't get out of the coaching thing, I'm, I really appreciative of all that. But can you do that and feel it like you were in your character a little bit for a second there. That positive like character thing. Yeah, I feel that now you don't even have to say a word map. I feel that.

That I want to coach me. That other thing I want fucking nothing to do with.

Bobby: Oh yeah. Wow. I so appreciate you stopping me there. 

Joe: I appreciate you meeting me there.

Bobby: I will have all your socials linked up below, but are there any final thoughts? 'cause I want you to have the last words, Joe. 

Joe: No, dude. I want that ended just where it ended. I wanted, yeah, that's all. And yeah. 

Bobby: I will stop it right there. 

Joe: Okay, everybody, thanks for watching. I hope you got a ton out of it.

If you wanna find out more, come to artofaccomplishment.com. Sign up for a free course or follow me at FU_Joe Hudson on X, or just hit subscribe.