The Triple C Project

What If You Fly? Challenging ideas of what's possible

• Ryan Spence • Season 2 • Episode 96

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When faced with a challenge, what do you do?

Do you say Hell Yeah! and get after it, or Hell No! and shy away?

In this week's episode I explore why some challenges are embraced and others are shunned and the connection between fulfilling the expectations of others versus fulfilling your own expectations of yourself.

I give you a glimpse into the insights of my coaching clients and why the same thing that holds them back may be holding you back too.

I share a story from a recent yoga class to illustrate what can happen when you focus on flying instead of falling.

Photo of the yoga pose

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Speaker 1:

But when a challenge appears that is outside of that narrow lane, outside of the box, a challenge that isn't really, doesn't really fall within the expectations that people have for you, you're very quick to dismiss your ability to overcome it. You're listening to the Triple C Project. Triple C Project Welcome to the Triple C Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live life lit. I'm your host, ryan Spence, the Big Law Dropout, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip-hop and big, hairy, audacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. So now we're friends. I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat and allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lit. Hey, hey, welcome to episode 96 of the Triple C Project and as I'm recording this, I just come back from my first. I think it's my first, yeah, first in-person meditation, person meditation, slash, breath work teaching session, and it was fantastic. I was invited. So the place where I teach yoga one of the people that runs it was at a class on Sunday and, out of the blue, said I'm running this thing on Thursday and I would really like them to kind of have some sort of embodiment session at the end. It's going to be a long, intense day. Would you be interested? And there was that knee jerk thing in my brain which is like no, you can't do it, it's too short notice. You haven't done one in person before. You need time to prepare, et cetera, et cetera, um, but I'm used to overriding that annoying little voice. Now it's like, yeah, sure, I'll do it, it's fine, um, and it'd be great. So, um, I went today, did it. It's only short, about half an hour or so, and it was fantastic. Um, someone fell asleep, which is really funny, because in almost anything else that you do, if you were talking or presenting, if someone fell asleep, that would be a bad thing. But when, um, when I'm teaching um and yoga, particularly Shavasana, and people fall asleep, I think it's amazing, it's fantastic. It's even more of a validation of my work. Right, and there was some good chairs and some good insights and it did what they wanted it to do and I was very happy about that.

Speaker 1:

But that thing about the instinctiveness of the brain to say, oh no, you can't do that, to kind of throw up a roadblock. It's quite natural. It's the brain doing what it's supposed to do, which is protect you, to stop you from getting eaten by a lion, from doing stupid things, from getting yourself into any kind of trouble, from doing stupid things, from getting yourself into any kind of trouble. But it's like a hypersensitive trigger. It pops up when it kind of doesn't really need to be there, and I see this in my clients, and you'll probably recognize yourself in this, as I kind of give you this kind of synopsis of generally the sort of people that I work with.

Speaker 1:

Because, objectively, every client that I've worked with is successful. They're on the corporate train, they've got the status, they've got the salary and anyone looking at them from the outside would think they've got it, they've got it all together. They don't have a care in the world. They're going places. But the thing is they have the same fears and insecurities as everybody else and they frequently question themselves instead of trusting their intuition, question themselves instead of trusting their intuition and, like my brain instinctively tried to do when I got asked to deliver this session at short notice, they're quick to dismiss opportunities that fall outside of their comfort zone, outside of the box that they have found themselves in, that they're stuck in. They are quick to dismiss them as opportunities that aren't for them, as things to say no to instinctively, without any thoughts or consideration.

Speaker 1:

Is this sounding familiar to you? Can you remember a situation when you've done this? Maybe you did it today. Maybe something came up today and you were like sounds great, but nah, can't do that. It's natural, it happens, so they've got.

Speaker 1:

But the thing is that weird about this is that they you have got to the position that you're in, that outwardly successful job, career, status, by overcoming obstacles to get there, whether that's a ton of study and exams, or whether it was a perceived lack of social mobility and you kind of pulled yourself out of a situation, whether it's just a difficult life situation that you were in and you managed to claw yourself out of it. You've overcome obstacles, challenges, events to get to where you are right now, and they and you have done everything that's expected of them, expected of you, and you continue to do so, to do the thing that people expect you to do, to live up to the expectations of others, and because you've basically been doing that since you were a child, you're living to your parents' expectations, your teachers, your mentors, your peers. You become very adept at facing a narrow set of challenges with a viewpoint that, okay, this is a challenge and an obstacle, but it's just another hurdle I need to get over to get to the next promotion, to get the next bonus, to kind of get the next shout out, the next kudos. But when a challenge appears that is outside of that narrow lane, is outside of the box, a challenge that isn't really, doesn't really fall within the expectations that people have for you, you're very quick to dismiss your ability to overcome it. I know they sit with that for a little bit. I'll say it again you are very adept at dealing with challenges and obstacles that fall within the box, within the narrow lane that you are in, that you are expected to be in, that other people expect you to be in. So you're very good at fulfilling other people's expectations of you.

Speaker 1:

But anything that falls outside of those expectations falls outside of those box you are quick to dismiss as not available to you. So you do not fulfill expectations of yourself. Why is that Right? And if you're still thinking, well, but what do you mean? So when you are in your job, in your current role, and you go for the promotion, yes, there's some, probably some trepidation in there, some nervousness, some uncertainty maybe, but you still go through it because it's just the next step on the train that you're on, on this kind of game that you're playing.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it's just another part of the conditioning that you've been living with for all of these years that you've been living with for all of these years. But when you have the idea to do something outside of that, to go off and do something else, to kind of create this mission for yourself, this life you want to live, that doesn't fall within the status quo, within the conditioning that you've been brought up around, certainly that looks impossible and it's something which you feel that you can't do. It's something which you feel that is not available to you, as nice as it might be. And you are quick to let yourself down, in fact, quicker than you would let other people down. You're quicker to fulfill other people's expectations of you than you are to fulfill expectations of yourself or desires of yourself, yourself or desires of yourself. And this is kind of what I want to shake you out of and this is what I would shake my clients out of, because once you put the same energy into your own expectations as you do into other people's, you're going to be amazed at what you find, amazed at the things which you can do, the things which you can achieve.

Speaker 1:

And I want to illustrate this by talking about a yoga class that I taught recently as well, because I think it perfectly sums up exactly what I'm talking about, and you probably see some of yourself in what I'm about to say. So I was teaching a class recently, and we're about to move into a pose that I hadn't taught this particular group of students before, and so I invited them to rest a bit, take a seat and watch while I demoed the transition from the preceding pose that we were in to the one I was inviting them to get to. And I mean, the pose doesn't really matter, but if you're into yoga and you're curious, I was taking them from down dog to wild thing, and wild thing looks pretty cool, right? It looks like a pretty rockstar pose. If you don't know what wild thing is, I'm going to leave a link to a post I did recently about this very thing, which has a photo of me doing it, or you can Google it right, but anyway, I was taking them from Down Dog to Wild Thing so as I was demoing it, I could hear it was really funny, because I could hear some of the groans and gasps and some of the no chance, I'm not doing that, I can't do that Going around the room, and there were some nervous smiles as well.

Speaker 1:

So even those that weren't talking I could tell just by looking at the smiles on their face that they were thinking, yeah, hell, no, that's not going to happen, no way I can do that, it's just not for me. And that's initially what happens. Again, when something comes up that we're not used to, that's completely beyond anything that we've done before or anything that we may have seen for ourselves before. But you know, as I was guiding them and as I was watching them thinking to themselves that, hey, they can't do that and yeah, it would look great, watching them thinking to themselves that they can't do that, and yeah, it looked great, but it wasn't for them I was in the great position of being able to see for them what they couldn't see for themselves Because, as I say, most of them have been teaching for a few weeks now, so I'd seen them in class and I'd seen their commitment to practice and I just knew that they'd give it a try.

Speaker 1:

You know, it was one of those moments where it could easily have been demo the pose. Everyone's like, yeah, I can't do that, and it just changed the whole energy of the class and everybody just thinks this is all too hard and they never come back. But I trusted enough in them and in myself that that wasn't going to happen and that, despite the initial skepticism that they may have had, that they were going to give it a try and they did. They did Every single person in the room. When I invited them to kind of come back to Doundag and go step by step through the transition to Wild Thing, they did it and some people did it perfectly or not perfectly, but you know they got there and it looked great. Some people fell on the floor, some people had to make a few attempts, but they all had fun doing it and they all enjoy the process and they all challenged their idea of what was possible for them. And after class they were great, they were saying it was fun. They were saying you know what? I wasn't really sure at first, but I'm glad that I tried it and they were thanking me for sort of pushing them and for inviting them to kind of just try it out.

Speaker 1:

And this is what I want to encourage you to do. It's kind of what I want to do for you. You don't have to be on a yoga mat, but the principle is the same. When something comes up and you feel that that isn't for you and your instinct is to just dismiss it out of hand and not even try, I want you to ask yourself why and then ask yourself what if I did try, what's the worst that could happen and what's the best that could happen? Because the idea was coming into your mind, because it's something which, subconsciously, you probably feels good to you or seems interesting to you or that you're curious about. And by following our interests, by following our curiosity, we can not only learn so much about ourselves, but we can learn so much about what we can do and what we can achieve, and it can allow you to get over some of the fears that you have.

Speaker 1:

So take some of the tenacity, the resilience, the courage that you have in your job, in your career, to do the things that you are expected to do and apply them to the things that you really want to do. That skill you want to learn, that business, you want to start that book, you want to write that trip, you want to go on. Whatever it is that you feel called to do, that you feel interests you, you're curious about, that is going to change your life. Potentially. That is going to take your life in a direction that is different from where you're going, one that is more fulfilling to you, one that makes you feel more alive, one that makes you feel more lit. Then listen, ignore the brain telling you that's not for you, and ask yourself well, why not? Why can't that be for me? Why can't I try that? Because what if you enjoy it? What if you have fun in the process? And what if it doesn't necessarily work out the way that you want? But you learn so much about yourself, you have so much fun that it takes you down a path that you never even knew existed. So that's what I want to leave you with today I want you to start to think about fulfilling expectations that serve you.

Speaker 1:

I want to invite you to break out of that box once in a while and don't instantly dismiss ideas and things that come into your mind, that seem amazing to do, as not for you. Don't look at that challenge and think, hell, no, I can't. Look at it and think, hell yes, I can, I can at least try. And with that, you're going to find out so much about yourself and you're going to discover paths that lead to places that you never knew existed, and that's a beautiful thing. That's what happened for me and that's what's happened for so many of my clients as well, and the lives that they are living now are so much more in alignment and so much more lit than the lives they were living before. So it's possible, it's doable, and it's not all sunshine and rainbows. But, man, I tell you, it's a far better way to live, to wake up each day and feel alive, feel excited about what's coming up, feel, embrace the challenges that are coming along, because they are challenges. That really excites you and really gets you going, really make you feel like you're thriving, not just surviving.

Speaker 1:

So that's it for me this week, as always, tell me what you take away from this episode. What's an insight that you take away? What will you think differently about? What will you do differently? Maybe there's a challenge which you've been running around for a while and now you think you know what. I'm just going to go for it. I'd love to hear about it. That's why I do this to kind of get you thinking differently about the way that you do life and to ultimately guide you back to yourself.

Speaker 1:

Drop me an email, hey, at I am Ryan Spencecom Um, or hit me up Instagram at I am underscore Ryan Spence, or over on LinkedIn, ryan Spence Um, and tell me. Tell me what you take away, um, and leave me a review. If you like the show, if you take anything away from it, just drop a line or two and let someone know. Let someone know what the show has done for you, why they should listen to the show, what they can expect to get from this show. Share the love. It's not about keeping all our tips and resources and knowledge to ourselves. It's about sharing and creating that ripple effect. So if there's anything that you take away and if you're listening to the show each week, I'm sure there's a reason for that. So let someone know. Drop a review, um, and I'll be forever grateful for that too, until next week. Thank you, as always, for being here.

Speaker 1:

Stop living a life of lethargy and start living life lit. Thanks for tuning in to the Triple C Project. In the spirit of the Triple C, here's three things that you can do to support the show. Head to ratethispodcastcom. Slash triple c or over to your favorite podcast app and leave a review. Reviews really help people checking out shows to see what they can expect and how the show can help them. Second thing you can do share Share this episode. Share a previous episode with a friend, someone who you feel could benefit from what I'm throwing down on this here show. And number three, head to IamRyanSpencecom. Get on the mailing list. I'll be sharing news about the show, news about what I'm up to my new book start writing soon. So to be the first to be in the know, you need to get yourself on the list. Really appreciate you being here and, until next week, stop living a life of lethargy, start living life lit.