How do you know when you’re truly “ready” to do the inner work? You may think you’re ready, but then find you’re not yet willing or able to endure the hardest parts of the process. We discuss the concept of being “ready, willing, and able” in relation to personal growth and spirituality, drawing analogies to real estate, business, and sports. We stress the importance of being open to doing the inner work and being prepared to face the discomfort brought about by personal growth. Once you get past the hardest yet most crucial phase, it’s important to remember that the journey is never over. Life will repeatedly hand us opportunities to learn how to handle discomfort and embrace challenges. The process, while challenging, leads to deeper self-understanding and realization.

And we use that language a lot because you could really apply this to any business. You're looking for customers who are ready, willing, and able. If you know, if you sell tires, you're not looking for somebody who doesn't want to buy snow tires. You're looking for ready, willing, and able people who are want to purchase your product.

So it really goes with any type of situation or any business that it is, is like you're finding ready, willing, and able individuals. And I think this is a great. Concept when we think about our own spiritual life in our personal growth life. And I use both those worlds because whatever word just made up anyways, whatever word makes sense for you of doing the inner work, uh, is this, this ready, willing, and able.

In your own journey, let's focus on the 100 percent inner side of the 200 percent life, and the first step is, are you ready? And I would argue, and I would make this assertion, that anybody who's listening to this is ready. And what I mean by that is that... If you weren't ready, you would, you would be so far away from this podcast or you would just be so far away from this concept that wouldn't even be like you would, you wouldn't even give it an eye blink, right?

It would just be remote. You would think it's all like very airy stuff. Like again, you just, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast at all if you weren't interested and you weren't ready. Now there's different degrees of readiness though, right? So it's like, it comes down to, which is like, um, I'm ready to, again, the Podcasts a couple weeks ago, I gave the example of I was ready to start visualization, right?

I was ready when I was 15, 15, 16 years old. I was ready for that kind of next phase and I was a step into being ready to do this work. So I would kind of check that box for most people. Now, the degree of what work you're doing is just based on the Where you're at, just like again, I think sports is a really good way to do this if you are playing, um, you know, professional, if you're playing lacrosse and you've never played before, being ready to learn a technique of how to hold the stick or how to cradle or how to tape your stick or what even equipment to buy, you're ready for that stage, so it's an Early stage, but you're ready for it.

And it's exciting. And every stage can have its own energy course. And then, you know, as you progress in the sport, you learn how to pass and you learn how to shoot better and you know how to shoot underhand. So there's all these different, I'm ready to learn the next technique, right? So just remember when you're ready, there's always a readiness to an eagerness and curiosity to get beyond where you're at, because what we don't want to have happen necessarily is, um.

You know, when you, when you're, when you're, this becomes the most important thing that you do in terms of self realization, self actualization, or know thyself, is you don't get stuck in techniques, and that's one of the challenges with techniques, is that if you stay in the technique long enough, and don't improve upon it, it can actually keep you where you are.

In this case, if all you did is learn how to cradle and never learn how to shoot, you would never really be an effective lacrosse player. Right? And so any of these things. So there's a, there's a readiness for each phase that is next in front of you. And it's sequential, right? It's definitely sequential.

There's no real fast track to spirituality, just in terms of your willingness to be willing, which we'll get to that in a second. Just on ready, I want people to understand that you should be curious and ready for whatever next stage shows up. Do you

[00:04:06] Adam: I think most readiness comes from a level of suffering. I think just most people are suffering in general, right? And that's not new, I think. But it's not suffering like people think it is. Like, most people wouldn't say they're suffering. But, you know, you getting pissed off because you're late and stuck in traffic is suffering, right?

You getting upset that your alarm clock didn't go off and now you're running late is suffering, right? You, you know, getting Frustrated with the way your kids are acting is a level of suffering. You are frustrated with or pissed off with the way one of your employees is doing is suffering. I'm not saying you don't handle those things.

We're not saying that. That's why I always say that. But if you're bothering yourself about that, you are, you are suffering. And that's what the Buddha meant when he said all, Hey, I figured this all out. All life is suffering. So it's, I just think that degree of suffering builds up. And I think in business a lot of times, And I've asked people, I've asked this, I've been asked this a lot, which is do you think you need to have the level of success you've had to want to make those changes?

I think it's different for everybody. Um, you take somebody like Will Smith, right, where he, he's very open about his like, hey, when you're, when you have nothing and you're aiming for the top. The whole ride up there, you have this hope that it's going to change once you get there, but then once you get to the top and you realize, holy shit, the same tape's still playing and I'm still suffering to the same degree now even more because I don't know how to get out.

That's a, you know, you realize what's next, and that's why he ended up going and doing a whole bunch of ayahuasca. I don't know how many he's done now, but he talks about it in his book. And then, of course, he's still not done because he goes up and has this emotional response with Chris Rock, which everyone in the world knows that whole thing, right?

And so, again, he's, you know, it wasn't right, but, again, he's showing you, like, no matter what work you do, you still get caught in all these emotions from the self concept. So, this readiness is about the, you're just, you're curious and you're ready for what needs to show up so you can do the next level of hard work.

But just remember that it is, next level technique, which... It's harder. So if you've learned how to do, like right now, my child, um, my oldest learned how to do, you know, addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, it's easy to help her with. Now she's in sixth grade and she's doing like area surfaces of cubes and half cubes.

And I'm like, I can't, I don't know the actual answer to it. Like, I can figure it out, but I can't explain it properly to you. I'm like, this is now becoming harder for what it is. And it's, and like I told her, I'm like, You already know how to do addition, so going back to learning addition is not testing you.

Now you're being tested in a different way. And life will test you when you're ready and you may have to learn a new technique or test you in a different way. So that's kind of readiness. Again, I think it's the right way. If you're always looking and willing, which is the next phase, willing to allow the next phase to come in, you'll be tested again.

And that's, this is where I'm now ready. And I start to see along my spiritual path that this is very, very hard. And we talk about the four phases of spirituality in 200 percent Life. We try to condense them into four, you know, one could argue that there's seven or three, whatever you want to do it. But, um, you have these different phases of spirituality.

The first phase is like this, this honeymoon phase, which I'm ready to it. And you start to feel like you want to, you said earlier, like, right? You just want to share with the world, right? You start getting this stuff and you want to hang a shingle and... Quit your job and be a spiritual teacher, right? I mean, it's just as you do and you, and you, and for good context too, by the way, cause you're like, I feel amazing and this is how people can feel.

And you just, you do really want to share, right? Like you, you generally don't want to do that. And at some point in time, usually it's six months, a year, two years, whatever. For most people, at some point they realize like, Oh, something happens. And you realize how, like a Chris Rock, Will Smith thing happens and you realize, Holy shit, I am so far from where I thought it was.

This was just the ego shape shifting and putting me in a whole different direction. I've got so much work to do. And now are you willing to do that work? And that's where, that's where the real rubber comes in there, which is like, am I willing to do the work that's required now to get rid of this part of me, for self realization, to know who I really am, because you have to remove that part that's blocking you, right, man, and it's like man minus mind equals God, and I was Um, and that is, that is, you're moving the ego self concept part to find that, but that willingness is, is a, um, you have to be willing to now go through that work.

[00:08:39] Adam: it's, and it could be lifetimes, right? It could be, Your entire life and multiple lifetimes that you're still doing this work, and it's so painful.

I mean, Oprah once said she was just like, right, she was like, you know, why does God have to give me this personal growth every single day? I just want a day off, right? And she's, you know, famous for saying that. It's like, it's true. Like, it's once you get down this and you're willing to put your foot on the gas and not take it off.

It is really painful. And then, but there becomes moments, much longer of peace, and there just starts to be a lightness to it. But guess what happens is, just like when you become a better, um, lacrosse player, sure, you can go out there and score on a lot of teams, you can score on anybody else that's below you.

You're gonna face a team that's harder, and that really tests you. And the same thing in spirituality, when your willingness, the more willing you become, at some point, the things that start showing up that you have to work through are harder than what you can imagine. It's like, and those are the things that become, you're like, wow, I've never felt this, such deep, intense pain that needs to be released, or anger, or whatever it is, or jealousy that's trying to move its way up.

Because in the beginning, When you're willing, it's, it still feels painful and you're like, wow, this is really real. This is, I'm letting these things go. But throughout the process, these bigger things start to be released. And this is where people always read, like, I don't think this is right. Like I'm starting to feel like I, no, no, no, no.

That's exactly right. Just let go more. Let go more. I can't handle let go more. And that's where you have to be, again, ready to take this on and then willing to be able to do it. It kind

You know, crap. And it's this feeling of, oh, I had it. Oh, I lost it. And it's like going each, you go through that each time you go into a deeper level of the onion. Yes.

And, and they are, and you, you can feel, at least for me, like I can feel them coming, right? Like all of a sudden I'm fine. All of a sudden, like you just get a little, like. They take a little like disturbance and I'm like, and you can, but you can feel that there's a rumbling just like the example that I would give is like it's clear as day and all of a sudden you see a cloud coming over and you're going, oh man, that looks pretty ominous.

And all of a sudden a couple of raindrops happen and you know the thunderstorms coming in, but it's a couple hours away, but you know it's coming and all of a sudden you start going in for cover, right? Because then all of a sudden, you know, the rain just erupts and everything and then it becomes sunny again.

It's the same thing here. It's like, you can feel it coming, it starts to show up, and it can be kids, it can be business, it can be, you know, anything. You can just be perfectly fine, and it's a little disturbance, a little disturbance, and all of a sudden you know that this is going to be a big one. And this is where a lot of spiritual teachers just, they really focus on, welcome it, appreciate it, actually thank it in that moment.

It's kind of like you would thank the rain for coming down and planting. You're going, thank you for coming up, let's go. Like, I'm excited for this. What can I get rid of now? That becomes a different, larger phase. You realize you can start handling anything that comes up because you just want to get rid of it, but that is the, that's where the speed at which this can start to go after years for me.

I mean, it's 20 years, right? I mean, really 15 years of the really deep work, but you know, even You 20 years and it's like, it's, I still, I tell myself I'm appreciating it, but in the moment I'm going, I don't appreciate this, right? Like, even though I'm telling myself I appreciate it, my mind's also going, this sucks.

Like, this is really hard. You're going, this is really hard, but that's, that's why you have to have, that's where willpower comes in of being able to stay centered during this. We talked about this in one of the podcasts, which is, uh, recently, which is, it's never about trying to. Relax the anger or relax the emotion that's disturbing you.

It's about you relaxing and truly are you willing to experience the heat of that emotion? Right? And that could be a really positive one and that could be a really low one. But are you willing to allow that to express itself? And that's the willingness, right? Am I willing to sit here and feel the massive amount of discomfort here?

You just said something that embarrassed you. Am I willing to sit there in the face of that and allow that to come through you? You just had a really tough time in business. You're, you know, you gave a presentation and it flopped. Can I sit there and handle what that felt like? That's the willingness right there.

That's what you have to be willing to do. And what a lot of people will say is, I'm not willing to do that. And you will use that language. I couldn't handle that if that happened to me. I wouldn't be able, oh man, I wouldn't be able to handle that if I blew that speech like that. Well then you're not going to be able to handle it and you're going to suffer.

And then you've now just worked backwards. That's why you're ready and all of a sudden something big happens and it's like, can I handle that?

You're kind of half in this narrative, lost and not doing. The inner work to let it move

[00:13:48] Caitlin: Yeah, so I, I mean, I feel it come up for sure and I, like you said, it kind of feels like it's like almost a little pain, like, ooh, that didn't feel good, but then it just builds and builds.

And you

[00:13:59] Caitlin: Yeah, and then, um, as soon as I can really sit with it, I try to, like the car, driving is a great place for that. Um, but I will find too, if I'm doing things, I am doing things, I used to, I try to just let the energy be there, but it's easy to get distracted or I can find myself starting to tell myself a story that keeps me from actually feeling the emotion of it.

And that's like where I think the ego comes in and it's kind of, can be a shapeshifter and be tricky. And even though I have the intention to handle it, um, I can still. I'll very quickly get lost in those thoughts that distract me from doing that work. That's

So you're now, you're glued to the voice and now you're lost again. So it's a willingness to hear the voice, allow it to allow your thoughts to be thoughts. Cause every thought that's ever come through is always gone, right? There's never been a thought that has stayed right. They've always gone either for the moment or what they are.

Same thing with emotions. They've come and they've gone. So you just, you recognize that there's a subject object relationship there. So they're not yours, but what are you willing to just. You can hear that voice and go, ah, it's just a thought. Again, you can play, that's a technique, right? A positive affirmation, or you can go to a mantra, or you can just sit there.

And, um, I guess in my experience, the bigger the things are, it's almost like I know the voice is going to be there, so it's like I'll be purposeful and just sitting. And again, driving's great, or just... You know, walking, because to me, I can, I feel like I can release a little energy when I'm walking and you just let it go and the mind's going crazy and you're going, this is wild.

Like, I'm just going to sit here. I know people think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of an interesting thing to talk about because there is a full physical disturbance happening. Right? I remember one of my original teachers, um, who trained with Romney Maharshi, by the way, right? Like, um, uh, back in the 60s, and he's 87, I think, now, uh, told me that for the first six months when he was releasing energy, he would throw up every time.

I mean, literally throw up. And he was a John Hopkins medical teacher, and he left because he realized that this way of medicine was not the way to do it, and, uh, and he's 87 now, or 84, now making bowls and still, like, in, you know, he's living his life, he's like, I'd be dead if it wasn't for this, but anyways, he, I remember always saying that, because I would have, like, a lot of people have, like, physical sensations, it's like a release of energy, you feel it physically, right, it feels like it's moving through you, like, it's almost as if, like, there's like a, like a, A big burp almost, or like, there's like an air pressure, a pressure that's there moving through you that you experience, and then it just kind of releases.

It can release through your heart, it can release through your mouth, through your throat, any of those type of things. It's just different releases, it doesn't really matter. If

And then it's going to

And I'm trying to really paint the picture here is that there's no prettiness to this. It's very, very painful, but it's, it's the path. If, if number one, your most important thing becomes. Again, we talked last episode about Steve Jobs, you know, sharing, you know, the autobiography of a yogi, which is really about self realization, um, as his last gift to everybody.

It wasn't some business lesson. There wasn't some, you know, legacy he wanted to leave. He said, you need to go figure out who you are. I mean, what a, what a wonderful way to do that, right? He could have given so many different things. He had years to plan for his death, right? He could have written a letter.

It's exactly right, yes. He's a pretty insightful dude, right? So he could have done all that stuff. Instead, he goes, you need to go experience this for yourself because that's the most important thing. Yeah. Because once you, and, and, and I'm just fully guessing here because I wasn't with Steve later on that time.

He was always into spirituality. He was very, I think he's a Buddhist. He practiced a lot of that meditation. And I think towards the end of his death, I'm pretty sure he, Most likely realized, I don't know what to what level, but he realized who he was, like really who he was and who dies and who doesn't, and then once he realized that he was like, everyone else needs to know this, and that's why he gave that out in that in that message, um, uh, and I think Mark Bonney off the CEO of Salesforce actually had a, you know, comments.

He was really close to Steve and early on, and he was like, Yeah, he's like this was his most important message about what he wanted. Realizing who you are, and that's what he wanted everyone to experience for themselves. So it wasn't like, let me teach you. It was more of like you go experience it for yourself.

And that's kind of that willingness, which is you're going to experience it for yourself. You need to go through the journey, you need to go through it. And then once you start going through it, you realize I can do this. I can do this. I can actually do this. And it gives, it does get is, is it's funny.

Cause like an oxymoron, the harder it gets, the easier it gets. Does that make sense? Like it gets, it gets easier because you know what's on the other side of it. Whereas in the beginning, when you start, you're like, this is really painful. I shouldn't have to sit in this heat. But again, it's what a lot of, um, teachers have written.

It's, it's the pain that passes all pain, right? And it literally, it's the pain that, I'm sorry, it's the pain that releases all pain. That's what, that's what it is, right? Ends all pain. Ends, yeah, the pain that releases or ends all pain, depending on how it's written. And that's the pain they're talking about.

It's this, it gets so burning hot, that's so painful, but then that pain is gone forever, and it, that pain releases the pain, and, and that, the only you can experience that, only you can do that work, no matter how many books you read or podcasts you listen to or concepts you develop in there, if you're not willing to do that work, you're not going to gain that experience.

Experience of knowing who you are at each level because there does become levels right you do experience Okay, now I know I'm not my voice so I can't know that maybe I know who I am But I and maybe it's the same for you is over time You start to really realize of like you get clearer and clearer on who you actually are.

I actually heard Michael say this recently just in the last couple weeks. He said at some point You get so clear that it's not even a question of who you are, and there's, and this is the first time I've heard him say this, he said it becomes so clear that you realize that you never were born and you never will die.

And it's in, you know, just, I always like death conversation, so it kind of just. Made me think of that, but it's like that, you just get so clear. It's not even a question. You just become so clear that you're not, you're nothing who you think you are. And that self realization, I mean even Maslow's Hierarchy in Need talked about this a long time ago, right?

At the top of the pyramid is self realization. And, um, so again, it's about the willingness to do this deep work and the journey that's going to happen from this willingness. The last piece, of course, is just able. Like, are you able to do it and how those techniques kind of come in there. But what I really want to focus on is that willingness and really painting the picture of how deep that work is for people that are doing this and are even interested in this because it is the hardest thing you'll ever do.

It is way harder than making money. It's way harder than parenting, even though that's incredibly hard. You are disrupting your entire, you know, uh, understanding of who you think you are, and that is a very uprooting, uh, experience to go through. It

Each step of the way, you get stronger and stronger, and you know, even though the next distance is incredibly long, that you'll be able to do it because you've built up to that point.

How am I supposed to do an Iron Man? I just biked for like 10 miles and I ran a mile and I can't even walk right now. I had to walk home. Um, and then, you know, I ended up doing, you know, 21 different triathlon races in like a four year period of time. And you like qualified? Yeah, I qualified for the, yeah, for the world championship for, um, and the Ironman races.

But it was like, and the funny thing is, is even every time I've done them, before the race would start, I would always be like, How am I supposed to do this? How am I supposed to swim two and a half, 2. 4 miles, and then bike 112 miles, and then run a marathon? Like, how am I supposed to do this? And the funny thing is, is the minute you get in it, that kind of moves away.

And you're just now in it, and now you're just, you're focused on the next moment, you're focused on the next thing. It's only the mind that will escape you from that. And that's what the same thing on your willingness here is you have to keep that Foot on the gas of, I'm willing to go through this, I'm willing to go through whatever life needs, and you've heard that from a lot of people that have passed before us and have reached these states of just, you have to be willing to let yourself go through it.

That's why I think this readiness to learn new techniques, the readiness to continue to grow, and then the willingness to do the work along the way to reach higher states of consciousness. And I'm not even going to use the word enlightenment, but just reach a new level of consciousness, and every time you do, it becomes clear, and you do gain on it.

You do gain on, you gain more experience, you gain the fact that you know you can handle it, but I will tell you, the bigger things start showing up. The things that you never even knew were down there, and you don't know how they got there. They could be years, you know, they could be when they were two years old, you stored that down there.

They could be from past lifetimes, you stored it down there. But man, some of them are, whew, and like you're just, you're sitting there in heat. I actually once, um, heard Michael say, if they get so painful, this is actually an email we were chatting back and forth, and he said, I've told people early in the 70s, I don't say this anymore, but he said, um, I used to tell people when it gets so hot and so intense to lie on the ground and, and just basically be like, take everything from it.

Like, and just, you're just lying on the ground and being like, You know, God or faith, whatever it is, take this from me, like just rip it out and allow it to go. Um, and he said sometimes that, that helped. I actually did try it once. I don't think it helped me. Um, but, uh, you know, I, I just think I was like in that moment, I was like, what, I just tried it and I was like, eh, I don't think this worked, but it might, right?

I just, it, it almost doesn't matter as long as you're willing to relax and release is what you're willing to do, but you're willing to allow the process to purify you. It

[00:24:42] Adam: that I think it's well The ready stage is a really important like because if you're not ready, you're not even doing the work, right?

Right, so the willingness is the hardest part, but the readiness is probably the first part It's like if you wanted to run a marathon If you've never thought about running a marathon, or you're not ready to run a marathon, it doesn't matter what training you get, you're just never gonna do it. So, once you're ready...

It's like to me, like, once your intent is pure, that you want to do this work, you, you can, you'll find a way to be willing, even if you, you'll fail many times along the way, just like you fail in business or in parenting and life, you'll fail many times along the way, but you will ultimately succeed because your intent is pure.

I've heard, um, well anyways, it's the, it's that intent has to be number one, which is that real readiness, and once I'm really intent, which is why we've talked about the past couple of podcasts, which is, what is your most important thing? What is your most important thing? What is your primary thing, right?

And that has to be that I'm willing to do the work. You don't have to say it like that. My primary thing is I want to know who I am. That's the ultimate question in life. Why am I here? Who am I? What am I doing here? And that only will come from doing the deep work to uncover it to fall back into realizing who you really are.

It can't be found in the mind. It can't be found in physical objects, which is what most people are doing. They go, I want to know who I am, so they go out in the world and try to build something. That doesn't work that way. The only way you're going to know who you are is if you're willing to shed. The blockages that are there, that are preventing you from knowing who you are, and that's the willingness to do the deep work.

And that becomes your path. Once you're truly willing to do that, and willing to let that go, which is, you know, I appreciate everyone doing this deep work, you just become in situations where you appreciate the moment, you raise the moment up, you're not taking from the moment, you're raising, and then you'll, you'll slip up a little bit, and kind of go through this process, but that is the ready, ready, willing, and able way, um, as it relates to Personal growth and spirituality.

Can you just say a

[00:26:53] Adam: continuing to do it.

Yeah, I think it's yeah I think you're spot on. I think the ableness is just that I am able you realize there's techniques That you're able to actually utilize so I can actually do this. That's why you start really small. Start with the small stuff that bothers you and you go, I'm able to actually do this work.

I'm able to do it. And then you gain this confidence and becomes a virtuous cycle instead of a vicious cycle. You're willing to do the work and then I'm able to do the work. And that ableness comes in there and builds the confidence or the stronger, the strengthening of your willpower to stay seated in these things as they become more and more of a problem.

Um, or the, I'm sorry, as the problems become harder and harder that you're let going of. So you end up becoming able to do the deep work because your willingness to sit there and it gives you the build, the ability to do it, the confidence, the willpower, and then the next technique will come in that you need or a future technique will come in.

But you just really get to be able to, to be there with the moment and appreciate it. I also think like being able, um, and when I think about that is, and we'll end with this, which is just like... I'm able to appreciate the moment. And if you're able to appreciate the moment for what it is, you're willing to do whatever the moment has asked of you.

If that means the moment is asking you to release something, you release it. If it's asking you to take action on something, you take action on it. If it's asking you just to simply appreciate it, you simply appreciate the moment.