This short, little special episode is not for new listeners. If you just found my work, this will probably sound unnecessary, harsh or confusing, so come back to it later or don’t.

But if you’ve been listening to me for a long time, months, years, this one’s for you.

I want to be very clear about my tone before we go any further. This isn’t anger, this isn’t disappointment, this is respect.

If you’ve been around my work for a while, you already understand the main ideas. You know about honesty. You know about avoidance, nice guy syndrome, people pleasing. You know where you hold yourself back. You know the conversations you’re not having that you should you know your mental limitations. You’re not confused about what the struggle is and why it happens and yet, for quite a few of you, very little has actually changed in your real life.

Your behavior is still pretty much the same. You’re still avoiding the same decisions, still going quiet when you should be speaking and so on.

The reason I’m making this short little episode is simple, at some point, continuing to listen to content like this becomes a way of not acting, and I feel like I should address that, because it’s in your best interest.

There’s a fantasy that long term listeners fall into. The fantasy is that one day, Insight will turn into momentum and action all on its own, somehow, that clarity will eventually feel so complete that whatever actions you need to take will become obvious and they’ll be painless to do you’ll just breeze into them.

That day is not going to come.

If listening alone was going to do it, it would have happened already. It’s been long enough, months, years now. Problem is that insight feels incredibly productive all on its own. It gives you a sense that things are moving, but that there’s no cost, there’s no pain or discomfort to it.

You feel hopeful, you feel understood, and you feel like you understand. You feel like something fundamental has shifted every time you have an insight. And so it’s really easy to overlook that nothing has actually changed.

I don’t say that to insult you, really. This is just how the human mind works.

Your mind will happily give you a sense of progress. In fact, it will dope you up on insights all you want, promises what you’re going to do next Monday, a sense that things are going to be better in the future, that you’re there or almost there, it’ll give you whatever you want, so long as it doesn’t have to face any emotional consequences. You don’t have to do anything unfamiliar that will make you or others upset.

Real change is not actually that confusing. What you need to do next is usually very simple, very small, and you know what it is, but it is incredibly uncomfortable emotionally. So the reason you haven’t moved yet isn’t that you don’t know what to do, it’s that doing it would change how people respond to you, which would change how you feel.

You’re going to disappoint people. I’ve disappointed hundreds. You’re going to upset someone, and it won’t be quickly fixed. You’ll be misunderstood and misinterpreted. People will think you’re worse than you actually are.

You’ll be seen differently. That’ll be the main risk, and I think even more confronting than that, you’re going to have to let go of who you think you are.

Many of you are deeply attached to identities that you really like having, like, I’m a good person, I’m easy to deal with, or easy going. I’m an honest, decent person. I’m reasonable, rational. Those identities that you love, they will not survive the kind of behavior changes that you need to make. They won’t make it through to the other side of that. I tell you that from experience, and that’s not actually a problem. You won’t miss them.

The problem is you’re trying to change without losing anything, which is impossible.

Working with someone like me is not going to magically fix this. When you get coaching or that kind of support, what you’re really getting is the removal of excuses. Coaching doesn’t make these changes comfortable and makes them unavoidable, which is why some of you have stayed right here, listening, nodding along, understanding, binging on insights, but never actually crossing that line into serious behavioral change.

So here’s the fork in the road that you’re standing in:

• Keep listening. You can keep collecting insights and keep promising yourself that you’re working on it. Things are moving.
• Or you can accept something more simple, something harder, then nothing changes until your behavior does.

I’m not asking you to do anything listening to this. I just can’t pretend that listening is the same as taking decisive action. I can’t let you live in that delusion unless you want to be there. So if this agitated you in some way, if you feel uncomfortable listening to it exposed defensive, then you’re who this is aimed at.

You don’t need more information. You already know.