Season 2, Episode 6 | “Course correction isn’t bad news—it’s the work. It’s the ongoing practice of staying awake and adjusting along the way.”

In this episode of Strong & Awake, Dane and Mitch explore the concept of course-correction and the inner dialogue that often holds us back. They discuss the importance of waking up, practicing with intention, and knowing your purpose. Through personal anecdotes and practical advice, they emphasize the necessity of voluntary discomfort in achieving a fulfilling life. The conversation examines the critical role of self-awareness, the pitfalls of perfectionism, and the value of community in personal growth. Tune in to learn how to quiet your inner critic, embrace the process, and correct course towards becoming strong and awake for love's sake.

Chapters:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:25 Managing Inner Voices
• 04:32 The Importance of Course Correction
• 06:37 Embodied Practice and Reps
• 12:05 Navigating Life’s Complexities
• 24:49 Course Correction in Work and Life
• 31:29 The Power of Community

Mentions:

• Tim Gallwey: Author of "The Inner Game of Tennis," which discusses the concept of two selves, self number one (the ego self) and self number two (the doing self).
• Scott Peck: Mentioned for his quote "Life is hard," highlighting the challenges of navigating life.
• Roger Federer: Used as an example of a professional athlete who maintains composure and presence in the game.
• Vincent van Gogh: Referenced for his dedication to his work despite only selling one painting in his lifetime.
• Plato's Cave: Mentioned in the context of people being unaware of the broader reality outside their immediate experience.

Anchor Actions:

1. Morning Rituals for Awakening: Start your day with intentional activities that ground you and set a positive tone. Consider incorporating practices like cold showers, breath work, journaling, or prayer. Avoid checking messages or social media first thing in the morning to maintain control over your day.
2. Midday Recalibration: Identify a time in your day, such as mid-afternoon, when you typically feel tired or distracted. Use this time to engage in activities that wake you up and refocus your energy. This could be a quick walk, stretching, or even a brief meditation session.
3. End-of-Day Reflection: Establish a nightly routine that helps you wind down and reflect on your day. This could include activities like stretching, journaling about your day’s accomplishments and learnings, or practicing gratitude. Aim to create a consistent sleep routine that ensures you get enough rest for the next day.

Join Us:

Our Membership Community (MWOD) is where we embrace discomfort as a path to personal development. Remember, it's probably not for you... but if we're wrong about that, or if you want to find out for yourself, visit us at MWOD.io 🦬

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Disclaimer:

The information shared on this podcast and any related materials from Men & Women Of Discomfort (MWOD) or Flying S Incorporated are for general informational purposes only. You should not use this information as a basis for making decisions without consulting your own medical and legal professionals. We aim to provide accurate and up-to-date information, but we make no guarantees about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability, or comprehensiveness of the content.

At Men & Women Of Discomfort, we promote agency and encourage you to carefully consider the input we offer. If you find it helpful, we invite you to take advantage of it, but do so with the understanding that you bear the responsibility of due diligence. By using our content, you acknowledge that you are taking opportunities at your own risk. Thank you for understanding.

*Transcript Note: The transcript of our podcast is AI-generated and may contain errors. We aim for accuracy but appreciate your understanding and feedback on any discrepancies.

Copyright 2024 Men & Women Of Discomfort (MWOD.io)

Dane: 00:00

As humans, you have two jobs... really three.

Dane: 00:03

Number one, wake up. Number two, practice with as many reps as you can so that you get stronger at a skill. Getting stronger to skill means you're going to see more available to you. It's going to get more complex before it gets easier. And be gentle with yourself. You're just getting access to the terrain you're playing in.

Dane: 00:19

And then third, know what you're doing it for. We like to say at Men and Women of Discomfort, we do all this to become strong and awake for love's sake.

Dane: 00:26

We're constantly correcting course because left or devices between the drift and the whirlwind and choices to get relief it just takes us in directions that aren't in alignment with this course correction we want to get to.

Dane: 00:38

We have the reps over and over and over again, and you can trust over time, you will bend in the direction of the thing you're wanting. And if you don't, the drift will bend you somewhere else. The storms will bend you in somewhere else. And the comfort certainly will bend you in ways that you don't want over time.

Dane: 00:56

As humans we prefer the path of least resistance. We crave convenience, the payoff without the price. But when our lives revolve around comfort, it doesn't deliver. Living in perpetual comfort leaves us weak and asleep. This podcast is an invitation to flip that script, to choose the unlikely path, to get the life you really want through voluntary discomfort.

Dane: 01:21

This is Strong & Awake. I'm Dane Sanders.

Dane: 01:25

Mitch, I have a question.

Mitch: 01:27

Let's hear it.

Dane: 01:29

Have you ever had an experience, and I know you have, but I'm going to ask it rhetorically, like, or pretend like it's not rhetorical, uh, where, where you're kind of in an argument with yourself?

Mitch: 01:41

Oh, like on the daily.

Dane: 01:43

Yeah.

Dane: 01:43

But how is that possible when there's only one Mitch?

Dane: 01:47

And yet it feels like you're talking, like there's two people talking, one's talking and one's listening. Do you ever experience that?

Mitch: 01:54

Yeah. And I think that's why in, you know, it's commonly depicted. You've got the angel and the devil on your shoulder. You've got this inner dialogue.

Dane: 02:00

Totally. I believe in angels and devils, but I think that's person three and four. I don't even think that's one and two .

Mitch: 02:06

That's true.

Dane: 02:07

There's so many voices going on in our head and, uh. And that's not even counting those we interact with. And I want to, the reason I'm asking is I want to actually start a conversation today of like, what do you do with those voices?

Dane: 02:23

Especially the voice, uh, like in the inner game of tennis, uh, Tim Gallwey talks a lot about this, these two selves, self number one, which is the ego self, really directing. Self number two, which is the doing self. The doing self tends not to say a lot. They're just busy embodying. They're in the thing, but oftentimes there's this, at least for me, this tyrant of a self number one that just is unkind and a little bit kind of cruel to self number two.

Dane: 02:57

And I didn't really have language for this for a long, long time, but Tim really helped me with this. And for those of you who haven't read the inner game of tennis really recommend it. But the, in my mind, A really helpful conversation today might be around what do we do with this highly critical voice, especially when that voice is actually trying to help us.

Dane: 03:14

It's trying to help us course correct, get to a better spot, but there's a way of doing that that I think is more natural and more effective, yet kind of counterintuitive. And especially for those who are looking to see change happen and are clear about the change they want to see happening The assumption on the front end is, you know, we're always a little off course, right?

Dane: 03:41

We're, we're, we say we want to fly in one direction and every plane that's flying anywhere is like doing this all over the place. The, the good pilot is constantly getting its bearings relative to where it's going and is course correcting and, and this, the same is true with a sailboat.

Dane: 03:58

It's always off course, like we're, as humans, we're always off course and we need to correct course. But oftentimes the voice of correction is coming from someone who isn't very kind all the time to ourselves. It's the part of ourselves that a little more ego driven, wants a certain result, but it's really in the stands.

Dane: 04:14

They're not even in the arena of doing the work. And yet they're the ones that's really, really loud. So I would love to spend some time today talking about what does it mean to correct course, like the idea everyone understands of the need for it, but how do we actually go about doing that and how could it be effective?

Mitch: 04:32

Yeah, I think one of the things to first kind of talk about as it relates to this, the inner voice, the inner critic, self one, self two, whatever you want to call it, is like, what are the scenarios in which we start to encounter these things? And we've talked a lot about the drift, the whirlwind, some of these different categories to kind of help frame this.

Mitch: 04:52

But I do think it's helpful to explore specifically in this context of course correction and this kind of inner talk that we have, uh, because. That's often when I find it is the loudest either feelings of shame of guilt of, you know, even just like aiming for perfection and like, yeah, I'm doing amazing.

Mitch: 05:11

Like, even that can kind of subvert, uh, direction. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so I guess the question would be like, when does this come up? Uh, and how does that kind of impact the presence of this, this voice in this dialogue that we have?

Dane: 05:26

Yeah. I know for me, again, the self one, self two conversation can be helpful.

Dane: 05:31

And I'm not speaking for Tim anymore. This is just my experience of these ideas, but there's a sense in which whenever self one feels threatened, they're going to look bad, be wrong, appear broken. Somehow be in some place of they're nervous. They want to self preserve. Um, where it comes up for me a lot is I'm playing pickleball and I really want to hit a shot and I'm, you know, or it could be any game, honestly, any competitive you want.

Dane: 05:58

There's some sense of stakes. You want to play to win. And it's a finite game. It's a fun game, but it's not in this moment. Not fun. Come on, man. Come on. Uh, being unkind. I think the first act Is to recognize, first, this happens everywhere all the time for all humans, it's very normal that these are things going on, but most of the time people are a little bit, they think they're singular beings, meaning it's just one person, but recognizing the distinction between the teller and the doer in ourselves is first helpful because then you can differentiate between what are, what is that inner voice, what is going on, however you interpret it, there's some inner critic, That is demanding a different result than you're achieving in that moment.

Dane: 06:47

And it it's cracking the whip and the opportunity is to first recognize that's happening. And then ironically, turn the volume down, turn, turn the volume. Like you can recognize, okay, you want a certain result. I get that. But strategically, what's the best chance of getting that result? How, what course should I correct in order to get the thing that I say I want?

Dane: 07:11

What, what am I trying to guide towards? The, the, that critic can give you a sense of the result you're shooting for, but ironically, the more you're conscious of, don't screw up, don't screw up, don't screw up, don't screw up, uh, the least likely you are, like, it's more of a self fulfilling prophecy. You're going to get to where that goes.

Dane: 07:31

It's when you think of that course correction metaphor. If you're, if anyone is listening, who's ever ridden a motorcycle, they recognize that if you're driving along, you're turning a corner and you're nervous, like you're going too fast or whatever, the worst thing you can do is look in the direction of where you don't want to go because wherever you look that's where you're gonna drive and as someone who's crashed a motorbike before I know that Feels it's not fun, but it's an exercise of a discipline really of having Really particularized focus almost like a relaxed focus is how Tim Galley talks about it Where we are just fixated on the result and not actually concerned so much about the mechanics We're more interested in clear, focused, what is a picture in my mind of the thing that I want to see happen.

Dane: 08:21

And first of all, you're more likely to get out of that bend if you're on a motorcycle, but in life, you're more likely to get the result that way. But if you don't get the result, what is not resourceful is to spend any energy on the outcome. Sometimes we have really horrible technique in a game or, um, You know, we make really bad choices and we just get lucky and we have outcome bias, right?

Dane: 08:47

Where we get the result we're looking for, but we did it in kind of a poor way. And that's not helpful. In other contexts, we do exactly the right thing and we don't get what we want. And that can tell us some weird mixed information, which is why it's so critical to first of all, just be awake. If you're not awake, uh, you're just going to be Driven by, did I get the result or didn't I, and I'm just happy with the result, but

Dane: 09:11

if we're actually interested in improvement and increasing our capacity or skill, what we really want to do is do it well,

Dane: 09:18

have great form, move in a direction where, whether it's in a conversation where we're trying to get a result.

Dane: 09:25

That we're looking for, or a skill like with our bodies, or even just relating in a way that is charitable and kind. I think the first thing is to notice, quiet the critic, because the critic tells us where to go, but you just need to quiet him down. And then just keep the result in mind as you go through that exercise, and The results will, in large measure, take care of themselves over time.

Dane: 09:53

Not in a singular rep because a singular rep can throw you off, but you have enough reps and you can begin to go, Oh, when I do this, I tend to correct more consistently. And, and I probably need to be a little bit more awake, more awake, more awake. And we're always drifting asleep. So how can we stay awake, notice and be present to the thing at hand that gives us our best shot at the outcome.

Dane: 10:14

But more importantly, it gives us our best shot of improving over time.

Mitch: 10:19

Right. There's so many things that I want to. Kind of highlight there. One is the, the importance of being awake. Like in order to course correct, in order to move in a certain direction, you have to have a course that you're heading in.

Mitch: 10:29

That's part of the awake part. One being aware that you're actually moving in a direction, regardless of if you're proactively moving there or you're drifting your way there. So I think that's important. Second is like the embodied nature of this. You know, you don't become a good tennis player by just sitting there envisioning the swings, envisioning the mechanics, reading all the books.

Mitch: 10:47

It's embodied. You know, you're, you're out there getting the reps in, like putting yourself in the situation when you do like have these, you know, wrestling matches or, or, you know, uh, inner monologues, inner dialogues between these two selves. Um, so I think that is, it's really critical and I think it's, it's feels obvious, but I think so many of us think.

Mitch: 11:08

Like in these extremes where it's simply like, do, do, do, do, do like, don't mind the feelings dismiss all criticism, dismiss all guilt. Or it's all in just this positive envisioning the future where I think it's like a lot more nuanced and that nuance comes with that embodied. actual exercise and practice.

Mitch: 11:26

And then third thing or fourth thing I've lost count is that it's not just about those specific moments. It is about those moments. Zooming out, seeing the bigger picture, playing the longer game, uh, I think is one of those really important things that A lot of folks can spin into, you know, discouragement, disillusionment, both positive and negative, thinking they're amazing or thinking they're the worst, uh, because they don't have that, that bigger picture.

Mitch: 11:58

And I say they, meaning like, I'm included in this too, a lot. Yeah.

Dane: 12:05

What you're nodding to Mitch, I think it's just the complexity of being a human being. And I think the more that we can give handles on what that means for folks, the better. So whether you're looking at it through the frame of Tim Gallwey's two selves, or you're just saying like, okay, me, Dane, me, Mitch, uh, we're in a situation.

Dane: 12:24

To recognize that every time we have an embodied rep at a thing, that is what it is. It's a micro moment. And over the course of a lifetime, if you zoom out, we have millions of these moments in whatever skill we're trying to develop. And we stick with tennis. Um, you know, one swing will not a skill make you need.

Dane: 12:46

10,000 swings, uh, or more. Um, and this is why we have reps. And if every time we do a swing, we hold up a scorecard and we're beating ourselves up. And, uh, it actually has a, it seems like, oh gosh, we're core correct course correcting by getting upset with ourselves. Ironically, we're distracting ourselves from the very natural movement.

Dane: 13:09

Your body wants to do things the right way. Whether again, it's tennis, Or it's even having a great conversation with your spouse or your kids, um, where you're showing up in a way that is not triggered, it's more neutral and it's curious, like, those are skills. So I can have a picture of what that looks like, and then I can be in the heat of a conversation where I'm really triggered, and I can, Sometimes say things that are really un, unkind to the person I'm relating with and a course correct would be how quickly can I notice that's what I'm doing, slow down, quiet the critic of myself and the other, and get curious, get neutral, have a more natural rep of the thing, where I'm more in tune with this true north version of me, which is, Oh, I'd like to be someone who listens, I'd like to be someone who is Maybe quiet first and make sure that the person I'm engaging with feels heard, that there's an opening for me to have a conversation with them.

Dane: 14:11

And what I've found is the more I can kind of zoom out like you're describing, and the more reps that I have, I now have a body of content to go, Oh, what is, what is a more nuanced course correction look like? Well, in this instance, if it's a sport, and I'm not really thinking like, I got to hit it down the line, I got to hit it down the line.

Dane: 14:28

It's more like. It's, it's kind of natural. You get a thousand reps and you start realizing, Oh, I have options. I see the court differently. There's just more dimension to the, the domain that I'm navigating. If I'm in a conversation with somebody, same thing, there's just more to see. And I think people who are asleep don't see very much and why I want to really break it down to look as humans, you have two jobs, really three.

Dane: 14:55

Two jobs are, number one, wake up. Number two, practice with as many reps as you can so that you get stronger at a skill. Getting stronger to skill means you're going to see more available to you. It's going to get more complex before it gets easier. And be gentle with yourself. You're just getting access to the terrain you're playing in.

Dane: 15:12

And then third, know what you're doing it for. Uh, we like to say at Men and Women of Discomfort, we do all this to become strong and awake for love's sake. And we say it in that order because it rhymes, not because that's the order it is. We're trying to get stronger. We're trying to be awake in the process, usually waking up is first.

Dane: 15:28

But even if it isn't, it's not just for ourselves. It's for this notion that love in ourselves, love in community. Uh, in those that we're in relationship with, we're constantly correcting course because left or devices we talked about all the time between the drift and the whirlwind and choices to get relief from those things by venting or whatever, it just takes us in directions that aren't in alignment with this course correction we want to get to.

Dane: 15:55

True North, what is it? The reps don't overly judge. Affirm the fact that, honor the fact that the one who's in the game, the self number two, is doing the work, and they're doing their best, and they're not off the hook if they miss the mark, but they get to have another rep, and try their way forward. So, I'm being long winded, but I, I want to just acknowledge the fact that humans are complex.

Dane: 16:21

And the more that we can have some frameworks in our minds and concepts on how humans tend to work in these situations, the more we can realize that our efforts to course correct don't have to be quite so unkind to ourselves, nor unkind to others, that we can just set the parameters, Create an environment where the work is done.

Dane: 16:40

We have the reps over and over and over again, and you can trust over time, you will bend in the direction of the thing you're wanting. And if you don't, the drift will bend you somewhere else. The storms will bend you in somewhere else. And the comfort certainly will bend you in ways that you don't want over time.

Dane: 17:02

And it's no small thing. It's no small thing to have a successful life as a human being. We're navigating a lot. Life is hard, says Scott Peck. And, uh, he's not wrong. And the question becomes, how do we navigate this difficult life? And I think course correction is just a really kind way to go, Oh, I'm just, I'm always course correcting.

Dane: 17:21

I'm always a little off. And this gives us a path to, to get on, on the path and then realize we're off again. And just know that much of what it means to be human is this exercise.

Mitch: 17:33

One of the, I think a lot of people can recognize the importance of course correction and the cost of not course correcting.

Mitch: 17:42

But I think there's also these kind of subversive things that we've touched on in other episodes and even in that presentation right there. There's, there's a difference between perfection and wholeheartedness between guilt and shame between, you know, uh, what healthy, real, true grace looks like and what letting yourself off the hook looks like.

Mitch: 18:02

Um, so before we get into kind of like the practice of course correction as this helicopter is flying overhead, uh, I'm wondering what are those kind of things that either we've tried in the past, uh, or that we've said, no, I've course corrected in the past. But it didn't work for me or, um, it, it, this, this is great, but that's not really how it works.

Mitch: 18:24

Like, what are those things that are kind of subverting our efforts in this category?

Dane: 18:29

Yeah, we talked a little bit earlier about outcome bias, and it's worth pausing there again. If someone is going for perfect, often what's veiled as perfect is they want a certain result. When someone is going for a particular outcome and they get that outcome, they might go, okay, I box checked, got it done.

Dane: 18:50

Um, and we know that's not what we want, right? Because we don't just want the outcome. We want the process that gets to the outcome. We want both. We want the means and the ends to work out in the direction we want. That's the first thing I'll say. The second is. If we're thrown off by getting the result we're looking for and we don't attend to the first then we really aren't course correcting.

Dane: 19:09

It's just like, Oh, we won the lottery. We got lucky in that moment. Great. But we didn't actually progress in any way. We just got a momentary outcome during a rep. So the first thing I'd say is that the second I would say is. When the critic is talking all the time, Hey, come on, man, you're, you find yourself, you know, you're playing a sport and you don't like the result and you're lamenting it.

Dane: 19:32

You're angry. You're frustrated. You're saying things that you would never say to a friend, but you're saying to yourself, like idiot. Can't believe you did that. Um, those are massive energy losses. Like you're losing Resource and there's a real discipline to stay contained to have a hold of yourself and be present watch any professional athlete and this is on display.

Dane: 19:57

One of my favorites I talk about constantly is tennis because tennis players who lose their themselves, they, they so immediately fall apart like you see instantly how badly it goes. And then you see the greats of greats like the Roger Federer's of the world who seem to have had this like remarkable sense of.

Dane: 20:16

ease even when they're losing because they're not actually concerned about the loss they're concerned about the moment they're in and if they can get their moment and they're in and they're locked into that they're less worried about the perfect score and they're more concerned about the wholehearted execution.

Dane: 20:32

So as we make the distinction between perfect and whole. It really is about a quality of presence and being in the thing regardless of the result. If you get the result that you want, that's a bonus. If you don't get it, that's a learning. And in either case, if you were in the thing, that's about as good as it gets.

Dane: 20:54

Most of the time, over time, you get enough refs in, the results will come in the direction you're seeking, meaning it'll improve over time. But, you could go your whole career and not get all the wins in whatever game you're playing, and still become a great player. Because you've been course correcting and been in the process enough, like in the work enough, where you're getting the gold from it.

Dane: 21:18

We see this all the time. I mean, Van Gogh famously sold one painting in his lifetime. One painting, but he was very clear that the work he was doing had value and he was so in the work, like, there's this great quote. I won't butcher it now, but he basically said, like, if it's going to be good in the future, that means it was good when I did the thing and time has shown that his work has been pretty good and for as troubled as he was as a person, he just stuck with the work that he did.

Dane: 21:49

He related with the work and this, this theme of like, you know, Embracing the work. Loving the work. Seeing course correction is not bad news. This course correction is what the work is. We're constantly, we get to wake up another day and ground ourselves and get into the work, whatever our work is, whether it's professional or personal, whatever project you care about.

Dane: 22:08

And you're in the thing and you, you're awake enough to go, Oh, okay. That's the minor tweak. That's a minor tweak. That's a minor tweak. And do that over time, enough reps, remove the distractions, keep self number one, quiet. And you'll just kind of wake up one day with a skill set where you'll go, how did this happen?

Dane: 22:26

Well, you were in the moment. And by the way, you won't even, every moment you pause to assess how is my skill going, that's a distraction too. Like acknowledge it, set it aside, course correct back into getting into the game. That old, um, let me just say one more comment. That old, uh, uh, high school musical, uh, movie from a million years ago, uh, get your head in the game.

Dane: 22:52

So many of us are kind of stained in our head. We have Zac Efron dribbling a basketball, um, saying the statement to themselves over and over again, the soul songs about it, but it's ironic because. Every time they're thinking about getting your head in the game, you're not in the game. Uh, every time you're hearing that kind of lashing out of self to self, that's actually not course correcting.

Dane: 23:13

It's giving you a sense of where you should go, but then you need to quiet that voice and just get into the thing. And, and that quiet is, um, for a lot of people, a haunting sound.

Mitch: 23:24

Yeah, to get your head in the game means to get out of your own head.

Dane: 23:30

Nailed it. Yeah, that's exactly it. And, and it's, I think we have a lot of examples because our world is so recorded and played back and there's so many pundits kind of commenting on what are they doing?

Dane: 23:44

What are they doing? Even, you know, Even listening to, you know, journalists talk to athletes like, are you stressed out right now? Are you this? And, and the smart athletes are just muting that voice. Like they're de signifying the question, they're dodging it. They have staged responses because they know that could throw them off their game.

Dane: 24:01

Their interest is to get back in the game. Get their reps and enjoy that process. Enjoy the course correction process. And that's where I found the most satisfaction, regardless of the result. And it's also fun to try really hard to win. This is this ironic paradoxical part to it, where you're still trying to play to improve, but you just don't get so, you don't take yourself so seriously if you don't get the result you're looking for every time.

Mitch: 24:28

Yeah, absolutely. We we've talked about, you know, we've been on the tennis court, been on the basketball court, been in high school musical, even in this conversation. I'm wondering what this looks like. As like a daily practice, you know, feed on the ground in the context of work and the context of family and the context of our day to day lives.

Mitch: 24:49

Like, what does it look like to cultivate this? Not just as a thing that we do every once in a while, but kind of a daily habit and it's constantly leaning towards this.

Dane: 24:58

Yeah. It's constantly like gravity, man. Like it's always going. And I think it's probably most helpful if we take one in turn. Like let's talk, which one do you want to talk about?

Dane: 25:06

Uh, which family, like there's so many categories, which, which let's get one.

Mitch: 25:10

I mean, I don't think we need to go into all of them, but you know, let's, let's talk about work. I think lots of listeners probably have that in common. They work in some capacity.

Dane: 25:20

That's right. And I think closely related to work is just having a personal practice, right?

Dane: 25:24

So professional practice, which is a subset of your personal practice is just having some context for what does, what does a. What does a strong and awake version of me do when they wake up? What does a strong and awake version of me do in the middle of the day when they're tempted to drift in their fatigue?

Dane: 25:44

What does a strong and awake version of me, especially strong and awake for love's sake, do at the end of the day to set me up for the next day? At the least, we need three course correcting times where we pause from our work and go, Where am I? Get your bearings and get back into the work. And that getting your bearings, uh, for me, every morning, looks like I get up and I get in a cold shower.

Dane: 26:05

Resist it almost every morning. I, I, I, I don't turn it on and wait and get in. I get under the, the shower head and I turn it to cold. And, Gasp. It hits me again and about seven seconds later used to be more like 18. I'm just in bliss. It's a great I've woken up here I am again Shortly after that I'm holding my breath before my cup of coffee I do it through a routine where I do some Significant breath work and and then I I ground myself and ideas that I think are the most real ideas in the whole world around Scripture and I pray for my friends and my enemies like anybody and and in that effort.

Dane: 26:45

I'm grounding to what I think is most real. I'm orienting, I'm calibrating, like it's a fresh day. Often just before that I'm, I've been sleeping and I have these crazy dreams and I'm tempted to like, get lost in weird directions. So I'll even like journal my way out of My headspace into a calibrating place.

Dane: 27:05

Now, these are just the habits that I've taken on to start my day. And you have your version. I think a lot of folks have very particularized ones that they've learned over time with very much with a bunch of reps, that these are the things that sets you up to start your day really well. Here's what I'm confident never starts people's days really well.

Dane: 27:21

They wake up and the first thing they do is they check inbound messages. Whether it be on social or their email or slack or whatever it is and all of a sudden they've taken the reins to their life and they've handed them over to what whoever reached out to them overnight and they do it out of a sense of dopamine.

Dane: 27:40

Interests or they all the reasons as well documented, but here's what I know right out of the gate. They are, they're just, they're not, they've not corrected course. They've actually thrown themselves into a void where whatever's in that void is going to take them wherever they want to go. And that's unfortunate.

Dane: 27:59

Every time I've ever done that, uh, and I've worked really hard to not make that my practice to start my day, man. Oh, man. I, it's very difficult to recover. I can get to the end of a whole day and go, I just literally threw a day away. We have so many, so few days in our lives to throw one away. It's just, ah, lamenting.

Dane: 28:20

So that's the first thing I say to start my day. I'd also say on a sustained day, like almost every single day, I get tired right around two or three. And at that moment, there's probably a bunch of exercises I can do. I have a standing desk that I can wheel up or down, and that'll get me up. Yeah. And that's a little thing that can be helpful.

Dane: 28:41

Stretching, exercise, movement with your body, taking meetings where you go walk around the block. All of these things can help in waking up, staying hydrated throughout the day. And then of course, ending my day, having an end of day ritual around how I set up my sleep, how I stretch. All those extras, how I floss my teeth, how I stand on, uh, this little, little mat of seeming nails, these little plastic thingamajigs that I stand on while I brush my teeth.

Dane: 29:08

All these things I'm often made fun of for them, but they're actually strategically in place in my life to wake me up. The course correct and keep in tune with the things that I know is my work. The thing I'm called to do in my life so that I can stay oriented to that thing. And some of that work includes things like sleeping really well.

Dane: 29:29

Like that's work to be, to have a committed practice that I would Get in my bed knowing that I have to be in bed for eight hours to get seven hours sleep so I can wake up and do it again tomorrow and be course correcting all day loving that routine, that pattern, that practice for me has been the biggest game changer and I'm not saying that my practice has to be someone else's practice, but if we aren't coming up with some intentional practice that's taking us somewhere that seems to be improving over time after enough reps have happened, where I'm willing to correct course all the time.

Dane: 30:04

Uh, I, I find myself in a really bad place and I don't want to be in a bad place. I want to be in a sense of like, I'm on purpose. How I'm spending my life is taking me a little closer to the skill and person I want to be.

Mitch: 30:19

On that note, you said at the very beginning of that, you know, when you're faced with a situation, a moment, a time of day to ask yourself, what would You know, a strong and awake person or me being strong and awake do in this scenario.

Mitch: 30:34

And I think that's really important because it, it doesn't just say what's my goal, what's the outcome I want. It roots itself in the moment, which is what we have. We talked about this when we said get to versus have to at the beginning of our series. And And it roots itself in identity too. Um, you know, what would this person, me do in this scenario?

Mitch: 30:55

I think something as simple as that question is so, so resourceful. And along those lines of like, kind of resourceful frameworks, questions, tools, you know, we do something in our community and want called, uh, Fess Up Fridays, where we get to kind of practice this kind of course correction. I'm wondering if we can, would, could end on that note about what that looks like and why that's resourceful, not just for, for someone to do in community with others, uh, but even as you start doing this, uh, within your own kind of practice, whether that's reflection or journaling time.

Dane: 31:29

Yeah. I think sometimes we can get in our own heads in a way that's not resourceful, right? And I also think there's generational things that are going on right now that makes this even more complicated. I've been in a lot of conversations with younger folks who are more natively digital. And they spend so much of their life, plugged in, in a disembodied state that they've actually developed skills in that state where they, they might, I don't know, disconnect at a level that I would argue is not resourceful to living a full and flourishing existence.

Dane: 32:02

They might be skilled in that space, but I, I feel for some of those folks because I don't think they realize That they're in a cave and that there's this world outside of this cave. It's like Plato's cave all over again. Uh, and, and they're, they've locked themselves in there. Um, and I, I, I would argue that community is the kind of vehicle by which you can discover, is your practice yielding what you think is yielding?

Dane: 32:30

Are you correcting course in the direction that's highest and best? And I know for me, oftentimes I'm not the best Uh, assessor of how my practice is yielding the fruit over time. And I had friends like you in my life who, in rough patches in my own life where, gosh, maybe there's something in my practice that might need a little tweaking.

Dane: 32:49

Um, because the way I'm showing up in life isn't in tune with who people have experienced me to be, or who I aspire to be. And that feedback loop is really helpful. That is, it's, I'm in tune. But to your point about Fess Up Fridays, you know, Religious traditions, especially Christian, uh, tradition has had a long history of confessional booths, right?

Dane: 33:11

And there's a reason why it's so powerful because all of a sudden I go from me and my head talking to myself about life. And am I happy with it? I'm not happy with it. It is my conscience in alignment with itself. And if it's not, we get to go to a confessional booth or not just to ourselves with our God.

Dane: 33:29

And we get to go to a confessional booth and say it out loud. Like, Hey, I missed the mark. I'm off course. And if you're in a good confessional booth, they're not going to beat you up about it. They're going to say good for you for saying that. How brave of you. Right now. Well, what did you learn? Oh, I learned this and this and this.

Dane: 33:45

Okay. What would you do different next time? If you, if you want something different, what would you, what are you planning on doing? How, how are you not going to drift there next time again? Not because you have to say anything to me, but because my role in this moment is to be with you in such a way where you get to correct course, because all course correction is self correction.

Dane: 34:02

It's not me correcting somebody else. I don't have that kind of power over people, even my own kids anymore. They're adults. Um, as young kids, I'm kind of course correcting them whether they like it or not, but as they age, increasingly it's on them. So now I get to be with them where it's kind of magical when they're like, I don't like where my life's going.

Dane: 34:22

If I'm smart, I don't correct with a bunch of advice. What I do is I listen. Try to extract more information because they can very naturally go, I don't, I don't want that. I do want this. And they start orienting their life to get that thing. And that's, that's pretty exciting. So in our community at MWOD to have a confessional booth around our practice and really helping people align.

Dane: 34:44

Do they say they're going to do one thing? They're going to live as their word. They miss the mark. They want to honor their word by course correcting. It's just an easy weekly thing you can count on. And people do Festa Fridays on Tuesdays. Thursdays, it's just whenever it occurs to you, it's like, good for you, like, course, don't wait till Friday, course correct right now, because there's no time like now to get back into now, and now is where all the action is, now is where we live our life out, and we can, you know, be in this moment right now, we are in such A more whole and true place to continue to become who we were made to become.

Mitch: 35:27

And if not now, then when? It's a question that we often ask ourselves, ask others, because that's, that's true. Like we just have now. Um. So if you're listening to this and you're wondering, or you're considering like, yeah, this, I would like to course correct, or I do recognize these things. I hear this critic.

Mitch: 35:47

I'd like to silence that. I'd like to, you know, start to develop this kind of practice. Um, you don't have to do it alone. We've got a community and whether you do it with us or not, it's so resourceful to not go it alone. Um, do you, do you want to say anything about how they, they might get involved in, in MWOD?

Dane: 36:09

Yeah, I, you know, I think a really just great exercise, whether or not people ultimately sign up or not, is to go to MWOD. io forward slash apply and just fill out the, fill out the form, fill out the form and don't even submit it. Just start a document on your own and fill it out. Just go through the process of.

Dane: 36:26

Clarifying for yourself, where are you at, what do you want, and I think then it can become self evident, like is this the right resource for what I want to go get, or is there another space I want to go find it, and there's a lot of great communities to do this in, but I will say humans were not made to navigate the complexity of being human on their own.

Dane: 36:46

They just weren't even if you're hyper introverted and that's an easy go to place to go introverts need people to and extroverts need people that aren't just extroverts that are actually there in community listening in different kind of forms and fashions. And, uh, what we have found is every age, every shape, every degree of health.

Dane: 37:08

Um, every different skill set, it's, it's kind of amazing, um, the diversity of our community, how this contributes to a very unique blend, even the way that we have large group conversations and tighter, safer for some conversations around. What it means to correct course, uh, that's what it is. It's a big invitation for that to happen.

Dane: 37:30

And, um, what's nice about MWOD is even though we prescribe a lot of things for people, it still comes down to the individual choosing it. We don't make anybody do anything. And I think that also is another dynamic where recognize that if you, if you decide to apply, and even if you join our community, um, we're not going to do it for you.

Dane: 37:49

You're going to do it for you. And we get to be with you in it and hopefully offer you some perspective so that as you course correct, you're moving in the direction that's most true to your conscience.

Mitch: 38:01

Hmm. Well, thanks Dane. Thanks Mitch. And just one more time, MWOD. io slash apply if you want to check it out and again, just fill that out.

Mitch: 38:13

Don't even have to hit send, but just take that as your first step of living now and course correcting.

Dane: 38:21

Men & Women Of Discomfort is our membership community and we are open to everyone but keep in mind our tagline is it's probably not for you if we're wrong about that or if you want to find out for yourself you can find us at mwod.io. The information and material that we're sharing both of this podcast or anything connected to men or women of discomfort or flying s incorporated it's all for general information purposes only. You should not rely on this material or information on this podcast as a basis for making any kind of decision.

Dane: 38:46

We do our best to keep everything up to date and correct, and we do a lot of due diligence, but the responsibility is on you to make sure that you're in sync with your own medical professionals that you wouldn't see what we're offering here as somehow a warranty or representation in any kind expressed or implied about this being complete, accurate, reliable, suitable, or comprehensive in any kind of way.

Dane: 39:00

It's critical you own your agency, which is at the heart of everything we do at Men & Women Of Discomfort, we invite you to take the input that we're offering and consider it for yourself. And if it's helpful, please do take advantage of it. But if you do, it's you who is taking the opportunity and we're assuming that you've done your due diligence with it.

Dane: 39:12

Thanks.