HerMoney Classic: Finding Success Without Losing Yourself
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This week's episode with nick bloom was not only about the remote work revolution and whether or not is here to was also about how to carve out the job that you want that's right for you, whether that's working remotely full time, going into an office of a weaker or maybe just going in once or twice a month. To do that, though, you may need to start rethinking what you want to do for work. And that starts with reimagining what success looks like to you.

That's why today I thought I would be fun to bring back one of our most popular episodes ever with brand stolpen. He is an expert on human performance and well being and the author of the practice of grounded ness, a transformative path to success that feeds, not crushes, your soul. In this episode, we talk about all the questions you need to ask yourself so that you can discover your core values and find success without losing yourself in the process. Here's my conversation with brad. Hey, brad, nice to see you today.

Hey, jane, it's great to be talking with you this morning.

Nice to be talking with you too. So let's just dive in and start with this. Most recent you heard me say, I think we all have examples of the wrong ways to be successful and the right ways to be successful. I i'm sure you are no exception to that. So what motivated you to write this book?

You know, I write not necessarily because I have something completely figured out, but I write to try to figure that out. That is a huge part of my processes, is being curious in trying to learn for myself. And I, as you mentioned, have experienced success in both different textures, one out of a feeling of compulsion or tightness or narrow ness, and success from a place of freedom, enjoy in love, in the result can be the same.

But the way that you feel on the journey, and when you get there, has a completely different texture. The more open values driven success feel so much Better versus the, i've come to call the, if then, kind of success. If I only write a best selling book, then i'll be content.

If I only get promoted to vice president, then i'll eliminate myself. doubts. And the great paradox is with that mindset, whether you succeed or failed, you often feel worse then the mindset of, hey, i'm OK where I am.

I'm grounded. I have good internal strength in confidence and I can still get Better. So again, it's the same point that you're striving towards, but the texture of the path feels much .

different as I listen to you describe IT this if then, model of success. First of all, that sounds way too familiar, but secondary IT sounds a lot like what behavioral finance experts call the hidden ic red mill, which basically holds that once we get what we want, we just want more.

Yeah in the book I read that the goal post is always ten yards down the field, meaning that you get to the end zone and you think that you've arrived and maybe your content for a day, a week, perhaps even a couple of weeks, but then eventually you want more. This is very much natural to our species wiring. When we evolved from apes and primates to humans, food was very scarce.

And if you had a big kill on the savana, you couldn't be content. You had to go out for the next kill because you didn't know when there was gonna a famine. And we've inherit that same wiring, except when we apply IT to various twenty first century types of pursuit.

So not in search of food, so we don't starve, but in search of self validation or promotions or so called the vests we get caught up on that hydrated tread mill. IT can also be called the arrival fallacy. I really like that term, which is i'll arrive if I just do this thing. And again, the great paradox and mention this earlier, is that the more that you hold that mindset, the less likely you are to arrive where, if you can release from any notion of needing to arrive, of needing to get something to be content in, focus on cultivating fulfilment and contentment right now, then you actually have a Better chance of succeeding.

So one of the things I know about how humans evolved is that we are very adaptable, right? We adapt to what we have. And it's why when we get a raise, it's not very long until we can't remember how we ever lived on less.

How do we get from that, if then, model of success to the kind of success that you're talking about, the sustainable model? And maybe before you give us the tactical steps, tell me how IT looks. I mean, what's different about IT?

So I think the most concrete way to explain this is IT is a shift from gold driven success to what I call practicing one's core values, success. So goal driven success is something is out there, and I really want to go get IT. Core values driven success is these are the things that are most important to me.

These are the things that I stand for, that I aspire toward. Here's how I practice these things. And i'm going to show up and practice these things everyday. And any goal that I achieve will be a by product of living in alignment with my core values. Another way to think about IT is there's nothing wrong with goal setting.

Goal setting is greater, helps us strive and achieve good things, but rather than set a goal because you crave what you think you'll feel and you get there, set a goal because the process of striving for IT or the journey to get there, alliance with one's core values. So to make this really concrete, let's say that someone has a core value of autonomy, and they define autonomy is control over how I spend my time and energy. That person might not want to pursue A V P role in a big corporate environment because you often don't have control over how you spend your time and energy.

So if you're driven towards your core values, you step back and you evaluate every decision you make. Is this in alignment with my core values? And your core values are like an internal dash port.

You have full control of whether or not you practice them. So IT starts again with the shift from defining success is achieving some external goal. To defining success is knowing your core values, living in aligning with them, in trying to select pursuits that allow you to practice them.

I love that you are an expert on human performance as well as well being. What is IT about living this way that improves human performance? Or how does IT change human performance? I think so many of us are used to driving ourselves really hard in order to achieve whatever IT is we categorize as greatness. So how is making this switch help us not get burned out?

So i'm gonna ask you, gene, in listeners, to come along for a little ride and and exercise here OK. So if you close your eyes for a minute and you envision a goal that you have been striving for, or that you think will make you content for me, I might be having a number one new oran's best seller. And now really tell yourself a story is best, that you can forget everything.

I just sad, and tell yourself a story that you need to have this school for you to be whole, for you to be happy, for you to feel fulfilled, you have to accomplish this goal. Now tell yourself the story that you are already enough. You have full control of your core values.

And any goal I pursue, including this one, is gonna be an alignment with my core values. And you're eyes are clothes, so you can see if that I can. What just happened is, in the first scenario, your shoulders went up in your facial muscles tighten.

In the second scenario, you drop your shoulders and you relaxed. And this has such an enormous effect on performance, because all this research shows that when we perform from a place of tightness or compulsion, like I have to get this, I have to win, everything's on the line. We tend not to perform as well verses.

When we drop our shoulder and we relax, we're more likely to enter a flow state. And the science behind this is complex. But the reason is actually quite simple because if you are so caught up in needing to get somewhere, you're not actually focused on the thing that you're doing.

You're focused on the goal of its ten years down the field. That will always be ten yards down the field. Whether if you already feel like your enough and you already feel like in the moment you're practicing your core values, then you're present for what you're doing. So that is the kind of IT by which performance increases. IT takes your mind off of what could happen in worrying about, stressing about what could happen, and puts IT, in the present moment, doing the thing itself.

IT also allows you, I would imagine, to enjoy the ride, right? I mean, when we're aiming toward a goal, whether that goal is building a business, buying a home, saving for retirement, whatever many of these goals they take years to accomplish. And if you've got your shoulders up the entire way, you're not to be able to enjoy IT. But if you can breathe through IT and maybe give yourself a little Grace, I don't know IT seems to me that IT would be a lot more fun to at least mark your milestones and take hard and take pleasure in what you're doing in this quest to get to your goal.

absolutely. I mean, the process or the journey towards a goal is ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of how we spend their time and energy standing on the podium, closing on the house, you know, cashing out the four o one k. Those events ranged from one second to two minutes.

But the hours in days and weeks and months and years, that's the process of striping towards the goal. So again, being grounded is about firmly situating yourself in that process. Being present for IT. Enjoying IT in the way that you do that is shifting. This model of success is something outside of me, two successes, knowing my core values in trying to build a life where I can practice them.

So let's get tactical. If i'm not sure what my core values are, how do I figure that out?

I'm so glad that you ask this question. It's a lot of the work that I do in my coaching practice is helping people figure out and define their core values. So there's a few ways to do this.

One way is to imagine yourself, ten, fifteen, twenty years down the road, an older, wiser, perhaps kinder, stronger version of yourself. And look back at your self today, your current Young yourself, what is that older version of yourself telling you that you are to stand for? What would make that older version of yourself proud?

Another way to do this is to find people that you really admire. They could be leaders, they could be teachers, they could be creatives, they could be business people. And then ask yourself, what do you admire about them? Is that their presence is IT, their authenticity is IT, their vulnerability is IT their powers at the reputation.

And often the things that we admire most in other people are the values that we hold in high regard. And then the third way that one can do this is whatever pursuit you're going for, it's really easy to get caught up in the inertia of like where you are in that minute. Think back why did you start doing this in the first place?

Most people that say you're building a business, very few people start building businesses because they want to get filthy rich. Some do. But most people it's because they like building things.

It's because of creativity. It's because of working with other people in their community. And that's another really good inroads to figure out your values. So let's say you come up with a list of values, health, wisdom, authenticity, vulnerability, respect, trust, mean, there's hundreds to choose from.

Well, that's only the first step because as we know from all those posters that hang in bedrooms with big core values, if you don't know what they mean and how to practice them, they're kind of irrelevant. So the second step is then defining these things. So in my case, presence is a really important core value.

And I defined presence is being fully there for the people and crafts that are important to me in any given moment. How would I practice that? IT becomes very concrete.

Phone is often out of the room starting at seven P. M, so I can be with my son in my wife when I am having a conversation like this. Phone nowhere near me, all browsers are closed.

IT allows me to be present. So you go from these very kind of high and noble things, like present all the way down to, i'm not gonna have my phone with me. I'm gonna meditate ten minutes every morning. So these practices, then later, up to these values.

what I love about that is when you said presence, I immediately thought, well, there goes the phone. That's the first thing. You think there goes the phone. You got to put the phone down. And the fact that that is how you practice makes this easier to wrap my brain around, right? That IT can be, once you come up with those core values, there can be some common sense to IT right, the autonomy as a core value. If you value this freedom, if you want to be able to construct your own day, well then yeah, that makes sense that you're not gonna work for a big bureaucratic company that wants to demand that your a but in a seat, right? Sometimes I think when we hear about practices like this, we make IT sound too hard and it's much more just establishing some good habits yeah and I can be very concrete and .

I think that's really important because core values that sounds lofty, but this is about things that you do day to day. There's a story in the book of a woman I coach. I'm gona call her dana.

That's not her real name. And one of her values was vulnerability. And SHE was the first woman in the first person of color on the board of this mega international company.

And SHE was really struggling to be vulnerable. SHE felt like he had to be all button up all the time. And as a result, he felt that he was often being very performative.

So in board meetings, when he was speaking to large group, SHE couldn't be herself. And the practice that we came up for her was, in any given moment, ask yourself, what do I really want to say? And then say something is close to that is comfortable.

And sometimes there were still some distance between what he said and what you really wanted to. But SHE tells the story to me where, after a coaching session, he was speaking in front of a large audience in africa. And SHE got up on the stage.

He was feeling in pasture syndrome. SHE was nervous, and instead of going into her Normal routine of altogether executive SHE did this practice, he said, well, dona, what do I really want to say? And the answer was, I don't know how I got here.

I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed, and that's why I need all your help and plotting the path ford for this company. That's why we're all in this together. And SHE said IT, and he said that he just felt like the biggest way was off her chest.

And of course, the reviews from the people at that meeting in presentation where the highest they bends and SHE stuffin this role. So again, you go from vulnerability of this big thing, that is the stuff of poets and song writing, down to, oh, i'm having a conversation with my friend and i'm holding something back. Can I use that as A Q to try to say something a little bit more in line with what I actually want to say?

amazing. Yeah, I love the concrete ness of all of this. Do you think this is harder for women than IT is for men?

I think that IT depends. And I don't want to pay in two broad strokes. I mean, first, I am a man, so I only know my own lived experience, and I can tell you that it's certainly chAllenging for me.

So i'm sure it's chAllenging for everyone. I do think that, particularly in a professional setting, women struggle with double standards. That men? Dt, so if you are vulnerable, then you are too soft, and if you're not vulnerable, then you are too tough.

And I think that hopefully that is shifting. And I think that is gona require a strong men to be allies and called bullet when they I see IT and it's going to a require fierce women to radically be themselves into live in alignment with their core values. So it's a roundabout way of saying I I think it's very contextual and IT depends. But absolutely, there's no denying there's all sorts of research that shows that in a professional setting, women are often held to a higher standard, and men do all kinds of mental genetics to try to rationalize IT. But IT just doesn't make sense.

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I'm talking with brad stolberg, author of the practice of grounded ness. Okay, burn out, right? So many of our listeners ers are facing burn out.

What's your best guidance for combatting this feeling? I don't even know it's a feeling or if it's a physical manifestation, right? What's your best guidance for getting through IT both day a day? And on a broader scale?

How much time do we have .

gene all the time you need if you can solve this one for us will keep going.

All right, i'm going to give him my best shot. Now the nuance of getting out of burnout is this fall, as sometimes when you are in a rut and you are exhausted, what you actually need to do is shut IT down and rest. Other times, when you are exhausted and you are feeling like you're in a rut, it's your mind body system tricking you. And the best thing that you can do is actually nudge yourself to get going.

How do you know the difference?

Yeah, that's the thing. So let me speak to the research behind the first because the little counter intuitive. So the latter strategy is what clinical psychologist called behavior activation.

And IT is the gold standard therapy iud way to treat depression. So depression, which is an extreme burn out to the amf degree, says, I need to stay in bad all day. I have no energy to do anything.

I'm so tired. And what behavior activation says is you can be kind to yourself, and you can dislike feeling that way, but the best thing that you can do is just get going, just do something. And I like to pair that with, try to take one small action, that in alignment with your core values.

Now your question is the million dollar question, and it's really hard to determine, what am I actually tired and is what I actually need to shut everything down? Or and I just kind of stuck in this burn out linguist ing a eraser. And what I need to do is both gently and firmly pushed myself toward action.

And IT gets even more complex change, because often times what people need to do is rest for, like a week, maybe two. But then after that week or two of shut down, they kind of get sucked into the inertia of not moving. And then the strategy shifts to kind of nudge yourself out of IT.

If there was a silver bullet or some tracker you could wear in your rist, that will tell you which one you need to do. I'd be a wealth person, but there's not the only guys that I can give here is to just pay close attention to what you do and then what you get from IT. The second thing that i'd say is if you are going to give that rest a chance, you actually have to rest.

You can't be on your phone browsing, social media, doom scrolling, that's not rest IT can't be only going to check emails four times a day, that's not rest IT also can't be i'm gonna take time off of work and go crush myself on the paton that's not rest. In the great paradox of rest, for someone that to burned out is rest is really hard. A tel tale sign of burner is you dread work and it's exhAusting and it's not something that you want to do.

But the minute that you try to stop, you get super anxious and you can't really stop either. So the first day or two of stepping back and taking a break can be really uncomfortable. So just know that and you kind of have to fight through those killings and telling yourself, hey, like i'm going to get to the other side of this, my mind body system needs this rest.

Now if you've been in a situation where you've kind of shut things down and it's been a week or two and you're sleeping well and you still feeling the sense of linguists ing the slowness that when IT can be really helpful to turn to that other strategy with researchers called behavioral activation, I call IT, mood follows action. So you don't need to feel good to get going. Sometimes you need to get going to give yourself a chance of feeling good.

There are a lot of days where I just don't want to get going. But I know that if I just put fifteen minutes into my workout, if I just sit down to right, and I always tell myself, if after twenty minutes, you want to quit or after fifty minutes you want to quit, you can, but just get going. And I have found so often, like the act of starting, then turns my mood around.

yeah, I feel the same way, mostly about getting out and exercising right during the pandemic. Often I have a running partner, but we just moved. And now i'm like searching for a running partner in philadelphy.

If anybody's listening, I love to run. And if you do, in eleven minute mile, i'm your girl. But I did push myself to get out the door.

I pushed, even if I was just, yeah.

even if I was just walking right, even if I just got out to walk and then run a little bit right, just a little bit of fake IT to you make IT, I think, is another way to put IT IT just works for me at least yeah.

in again, wisdom is knowing what to do when. Because sometimes the wise thing to do is not to run, is to take the day off. Sometimes the wise thing is to do is to realize that, hey, your my body assistants telling you that, but it's kind of faking you out in.

What you need is you need like a little jump start. And if there wasn't, as I said, if there wasn't easy answer, we d all be doing IT. So you just have to pay close attention to what you do and what you get out of IT. And then, of course, I think any time we talk about burnout IT is worth mentioning that IT is a slippery slope from burnout to clinical and idea depression.

And if you are having an inability to leave your space because there's so much fear associated with IT or if you are having thoughts that life is meaningless and they're just repetitive, or if you're having thoughts of self harm, then no amount of getting going is gonna help without seeing a professional be at a therapy of physician. So I think a lot of people are struggling with this more run of the millbourne t, but I think it's really important to know that if you cross that line, that's okay to lot of people are. But then it's time to seek up professional help.

Hundred percent. absolutely. I wanna just bring this around to the fact that we are a money podcast. We talk about money on this show. And so I want to try applying the principles of your book to the field of investing. I mean, you've said they transcend all domains, whether you are trying to launch a business or raise a family. So how do we find success as investors that we can feel good about, and that doesn't stress us out.

I'm so glad that you ask this question. So believe IT or not, my grandfather and my father or both in the investment business. So it's a family business and here I am writing books.

But because of that, I may be able to to take a shot of this question. It's not totally out of my warehouse. So a couple things. The first i'd say is that knowing your core values and how you want to practice them is a great road map to how you audio invest, because investing for the sake of more or investing for the sake of thrill does not make much sense unless your core value is be as rich as possible and have money, or, you know, be an emotional role costers.

So if you identify these core values and you ask yourself, what kind of financial set up will you take to enable me to live these core values, then that becomes your investing goal. So much like we talked about with career goals or life goals, that shifts from more, more, more for the sake of more to, hey, i'm gna die one day. Here's the life I want to live.

Here's what i'm going to need to have to support IT financially. I think the second big theme that applies is this notion of consistency in patients. So in the book, I talk about a concept that many folks that listen to your show might know, because finance, which is this notion of regression to the mean.

So if the markets really low, IT tends to come back to the mean overtime. And if the markets really high, IT tends to come back to the mean overtime. So rather than chase these incredible results, the goal is to become a Better average.

And I take that concept and I apply IT to life. We're all gonna have really great days, and we're all gonna have really crappy days. And if we get too hung up on those days, and we allow those days to completely force us to change our strategy of how to live, that our life is gonna a dragani rolla coaster ride. And I have to imagine not being approved, but I have to imagine the same as in investing, whether if you give yourself some time in space and you say, hey, I want this to work over a decade, not over a month or a year, well, then you don't get as attach to these highs, lows. And you can step back and say, how can my portfolio be a Better average over time?

I think that is particularly good advice right now as a whole generation of new investors, Young in particular, have come along and sign up for accounts where they're trading individual stocks, which provide that high feeling when you do IT right and inspire you to wanna get in and keep gaming. And long term, what we know from history is that it's not a game long term. IT is a process.

It's a habit. It's IT is it's it's knowing that the markets are the mean. And if you do as well as the markets have done historically for most people, that'll get you two where you need to go.

I'm so glad you said that I saw a commercial for one of these retail trading apps. I'm not any name names and IT was quite shocking. I mean, the commercial was like this Young adult woman that was bored and then gets this APP and starts winning and then calls her dad or her friends and says, you won't believe this, like, i'm up.

You can do this too. My day's gotten so much more exciting, and for a minute I thought I was a parity. There was nothing about long term wealth.

There was nothing about having financial autonomy or freedom. IT was as if they were selling a casino. And I think that that mindset is so dangerous, not just financially, but also psychologically.

Because if you haven't done the work and you haven't been thought ful about your investment portfolio, then you are just gambling. And that, we know is it's not something that's gonna lead to long term while being long term happiness, long term for filming. But again, it's part of his broader culture that's all about more, more, more novelty stimulation like the opposite of being grounded.

It's just constantly chasing brighten, shiny objects. So I have no doubt that these platforms will do very well. My fear it's gona leave a lot of people and not so well.

I think your fear is going to be proven out. I don't know when, but I think someday. Brad style berg, thank you so much. Great conversation. Where can my listeners find more of you?

So the book is available, uh, wherever you get books that's called the practice of grounders. And then my website is my name, W W W that bread starlink g that com.

Thank you so much. I hope will talk again.

Thank you, jane.

Thanks so much for joining me today on her money. If you love this episode, please give us a vive star review on apple podcast. We always value your feedback, and if you want to keep the financial conversations going, join me for a deeper dive.

Her money has two incredible programs, finance fix, which is an eight week program designed to give you the ultimate money makeover, and investing facts, which is our investing club for women that meets by weekly on zoom. With both programs, we are leveling the playing fields for women's financial confidence and power. I would love to see you there.

We'd like to thank our sponsor at all in financial engines. Her money is produced by hairy passed readers. ARM music is provided by video helper on our show comes to you through mega one.

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