The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

Life of Purpose: Sarah Sarkis | How to Change Your Life Without Losing Your Mind

Join us for our Life of Purpose series this month as we revisit some of our most impactful episodes. Dive deep into expert insights and practical strategies on health, performance, and community, helping you achieve personal and professional fulfillment.

Sarah Sarkis, psychologist, writer and performance consultant, works to empower people to achieve long term change and growth through an entirely science-backed approach. We discuss a few relatable topics like parenting, social media, education and growing up before moving on to some deeper questions that ultimately unveil the profound psychology and tactical methods behind changing your life.

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Duration:: 1h 10m
Broadcast on:: 09 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

As you probably noticed this month, we're bringing you our "Life of Purpose" series and revisiting some of our most transformative episodes, tune in to explore expert insights and practical strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free "Life of Purpose" ebook. What you have to do is go to UnmistakeableCreative.com/Lifepurpose again. That's UnmistakeableCreative.com/Lifepurpose. I don't know whether or not you're going to make more money. I would certainly inquire about what profession the person was in, what's the ceiling, what are we looking at as the, right, we're going to look at it tactically, because there's simple things people can do, right? But the work that we're going to do is looking at what are the motivations for making more money if it's not survival, what's feeding it. What motivational source is it a healthy fuel or is it an unhealthy fuel, because I don't want you to make more money if we're just going to like leverage shame and like, that's not helping, right? So I want to look at the fuel source and I want to deeply understand your relationship to money, where did it come from? How did you get informed around money? What shaped you as a kid around money so that we can understand, okay, if you really just want to tactically earn more money, it's doable. There's more money to be earned out there. So what's getting in the way? I'm Srini Rao, and this is the UnmistakeableCreative podcast, where you get a window into the stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds who've started movements, built driving businesses, written best-selling books, and created insanely interesting art. For more, check out our 500 episode archive at UnmistakeableCreative.com. Sara, welcome to The UnmistakeableCreative, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Oh, thank you for having me. Yeah, it is my pleasure to have you here. So I actually came across your story by way of somebody on your team who wrote in. And when I did some dating, as we were saying just before we hit record here, I liked the fact that your work was backed by research, that you were actually a licensed therapist, as opposed to spouting inspirational psychobabble that doesn't lead to any real results. But before we get into your work, I want to start by asking you, what is one of the most important things that you learn from one or both of your parents when you were growing up that shaped an influence who you've become and what you've decided to do with your life? Okay, I love your question. Okay, so I'm going to separate them out. And each person, I think I can say something that's quite authentic. So from my mother, I think what she taught me was that it's never too late to start over. And from my father, I learned that you can survive much more than you think you can. So how did that impact the direction that your life has taken? Well, unconsciously, I think profoundly, consciously, I probably never really thought about it at any level until I'm in my mid 40s now. And that seems to come at least for women like with a very reflective stance and my experience working with men at the same thing. So that mid life sort of gives you a perch to kind of look back on. And so now turning a conscious eye to it, I see really clearly that it led to this ability, I think this ability that I have to just keep going, just keep on taking what unfolds in front of you and metabolize it and use it as fuel. And I think from really important from my mother is that, you know, I watched her as the same gendered child reinvent a life at 55. She and my father separated. And so that just relieved me unconsciously of any sense that sometimes people get like I'm too old or it's too late or, you know, all of that, for me, that just didn't ever dawn on me. How cross my head? Yeah, I guess the question for me, how do people undo that idea, that narrative that it is too late? I mean, I think one of the biggest reasons we, you know, for me, the motivation for creating this conference that we're having in April was the idea that, you know, your reality is malleable, but you spend your entire life believing that it's fixed. And yet the millions of people believe exactly what you're saying you didn't. And I wonder, you know, if you've gotten to the point in adult life, where you're stuck with this belief that, wait a minute, you can't go up and up and something, you know, particularly you go up in an Indian family, if we tell our parents something like, I'm going to quit this crazy job as a doctor or whatever and go pursue something that has no guarantee, our parents would question our minds, I mean, they question our sanity even when we do it when we're young. It's true. So how do we do it? How do we undo it? Yeah. How do you unwind that narrative? How do you unwind that belief? Well, the first thing is, it's a lot of work. And the second thing is, is that most of us, at least the people that I work with in my experience as a human, is that the things that really are at the helm of our directional compass, we aren't actually aware of, they are in the unconscious. So the first thing is, is you have to just become aware of what it is. I reference it as like these sabotaging patterns and these kinds of beliefs. When they hide in, I always ask clients, do you live by a motto? And what I'm listening for isn't something, I mean, it's great to hear it from the vantage point of like, oh, wow, this really like is an anthem they live by, but I'm actually listening for a different level of messages there, kind of the underbelly of it. So a lot of times you're going to come across these kinds of limiting beliefs that they're not even aware of by getting to unconscious content. And then it's a lot of work, you not always, there's an element of the unconscious, it's just completely adaptive to how our brain works, but there is a region of our unconscious that's governed by sort of whatever our traumas were, right? And I follow the Gabour Maté theory of trauma, trauma isn't what happens to you, it's what happens inside of you. And so that's a big enough bet that everybody's got something and I had to find one that was big enough to encompass all of it. And so, you know, eventually you're going to find these thought patterns, belief patterns, behavioral patterns, or habit tied, a lot of these kinds of beliefs. So then you're going to have to work tirelessly and doggedly to first learn how to observe when it's happening, then you can see it as it's happening, then you can get a shoulder length ahead of it. That process is grueling. So I wonder as somebody who's a therapist who has been trained professionally to help people with these kinds of issues, are you immune to them or do you find yourself wrestling with the same issues that you are helping your clients and patients with? Oh, yeah, no, not immune. Not immune at all. I am more human than otherwise and the goal isn't immunity, right? So because that still goes on this spectrum of trying to find like a cure per our human condition, it's not immunity, nobody's immune. And a lot of times, once I'm working with somebody, you can see elements of shame sort of melt away because I really believe this. And I'm very honest, I mean, I don't make the therapy hour about me by a long shot. I'm sure my patients would attest like, yeah, she's very, you know, kind of keeps herself out of it. But I do reference like, you know, I get it. This is really hard. I got all my own shit. I got my own stuff that hold me back. So yeah, now, unfortunately, were it to be just a thing. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think the role of parents in all of this is? What do you think the role of schools is in all of this? And one thing that I think that when I look back now at adulthood and I think about sort of what the role of schools is and teaching people how to manage their psychology, the role seems like absolutely nothing. Like I've said that to me, a high school guidance counselor was like a glorified secretary that helped me plan my schedule, no offense to those of you who are listening who are high school guidance counselors. But it seems like this is a really, really big issue that is left out of our childhood. We don't talk about mental health in the Indian community. It's incredibly taboo and it's incredibly stigmatized. You know, I mean, I literally for probably 36 years of my life thought therapy was for crazy people until I ended up in a therapist's office and I was like, why the hell did I wait so long to do this? I'm glad you had that experience. That's great, especially to have is your first experience. That's such a great question about especially the one about the role of schools. You know, it's hard for me as a parent and an imperfect one at that to kind of like theoretically pontificate about what the role of parents is because generally what I've found is that at the heart of most parents are people who really are doing their best and they love their children and they want the best for their children. So usually I try and parent work to really kind of again work with all the things you're touching on that are really important like there's cultural layers, there's ethnic layers, there's religious layers, there's gender layers, right? So I really kind of try to take it case by case by case. I know for me as a parent I'm trying to hold some really firm, non-negotiable boundaries while being flexible enough to stay open to who my kid is and I have an 11 year old and that's unfolding and it's ever changing. And so I have to be flexible with that and lots of things that I thought theoretically would be something I would either something my parents did that I would carry on or something they didn't do that I would have done and you know I mean as life teaches you what the hell did I know when it was theoretical, right? But the whole thing is really interesting because they spend the most hours there, you know. I think that and it inherently gets also tied up in a kind of heaven have not dialogue so a lot of times when I'm talking about this I hear from people and they're like well yeah that's great if you can afford you know a private school and it's true. But the education system is a space where if you can choose a charter school, if you're in a space where you can choose a private school that there's a lot of options of how your child's neurobiology, how their curiosity, how they approach learning versus thinking like I didn't learn how to think until I was a freshman at Georgetown and I sat in on is a class you know it's a Jesuit university, there's a class that every single freshman when I was there had to take and it's called the problem of God and you study Nietzsche and atheists and to me that was mind-blowing it was like I was sitting there thinking to myself like they don't want me to learn they want me to think and that's when I was like oh I could get and I was a mediocre student in high school and entirely disengaged from the learning process and my high school was a great high school I loved my high school but for whatever reason the learning style in a bunch of those classes didn't engage me but when I got to a college and it was really a different ball game that really sparked my passion so for me I chose a school in Honolulu for my kid that's a progressive education model and it's worked really well for him for who he is and I see him as a totally different learner than I was as a kid especially I mean he's in fifth grade and I remember fifth like we have long-term memory at fifth grade I remember fifth grade and I remember how checked out I was we all have dreams dream home renovations dream vacations we're sending our kids to their dream colleges but finding straightforward ways to turn those dreams into realistic goals that's where things get tricky mayoral understands that that's why with a dedicated mayoral advisor you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward and having the bullet your back helps your whole financial life move with you so when your plans change mayoral is with you every step of the way go to ml.com/bullish to learn more mayoral a bank of america company what would you like the power to do investing involves risk mayoral inch Pierce Fennerns Smith Incorporated registered broker dealer registered investment advisor member SIPC Ryan Reynolds here for I guess my 100th mint commercial no no no no no no no no no no honestly when I started this I thought only have to do like four of these I mean it's unlimited premium wireless for fifteen dollars a month how are there still people paying two or three times that much I'm sorry I shouldn't be victim blaming here give it a try at midmobile.com/switch whenever you're ready forty five dollars up from payment equivalent to fifteen dollars per month new customers on first three month plan only taxes and fees extra speed slower above forty gigabytes of city tales millions of people have lost weight with personalized plans from new like Evan who can't stand salads and still lost fifty pounds salads generally for most people are the easy button right for me that wasn't an option I never really was a salad guy that's just not who I am but new work for me get your personalized plan today at noon.com real new user compensated to provide their story in four weeks the typical new user can expect to lose one to two pound per week individual results may vary my dad works in B2B marketing he came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend my friends still laughing me to this day not everyone gets B2B but with LinkedIn you'll be able to reach people who do get a hundred dollar credit on your next ad campaign go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit that's linkedin.com/results terms and conditions apply linkedin the place to be to be new to market research with conjointly an all-in-one survey research platform you can access advanced tools and expert support without the steep learning curve make data driven decisions from day one start your research journey at conjointly.com that's c-o-n-j-o-i-n-t-l-y dot com since 2013 bombis has donated over 100 million socks underwear and t-shirts to those facing homelessness if we counted those on air this ad would last over 1,157 days but if we counted the time it takes to make a donation possible it would take just a few clicks because every time you make a purchase bombis donates an item to someone who needs it go to bombis.com/acast and use code ACAST for 20% off your first purchase that's bombis.com/acast code ACAST. I remember a very awkward sex education tape that's the extent of my memory from press grade and I remember I quickly figured out that I was not cool and that there were cool people and you know that is so you were right on cue because in fifth grade you're in latency age so you're just on the cusp of puberty unless you had puberty sort of early. You know we all know those kids in our circle when we were growing up who did and so yeah you're going to it looks like you're going to remember that the sex ed class that made sex sound awful and sterile and routine and then yes you're going to be worried about the path that you fit in so you were completely on time. Yeah it's funny because you're talking about having you know a kid be able to go to sort of a progressive school and in a lot of ways I see education as a one size fits all solution and one of the other things that as you were saying that I think about is the fact that being able to deal with your mental health it seems like it's really the only something that people have privileged really have the luxury of unfortunately I just and I wonder you know what do you think about that how do you deal with that issue because it seems like the people who really probably could benefit more so than the people of privilege are those who come from our less privileged circumstances what here I think about I posted this story on Facebook about your limitations versus the limitations of you know people who have real ones so I had this driver in India when I was there for about four months for sir or not four months for weeks for a surf trip and my cousin was telling me he said look what you get paid to do in a one hour talk this guy lives off of for an entire year and you know what he does he drives up a treacherous mountain road nine hours each way to take tourists up this mountain three to four times a week and I did of all the pictures that I wanted to get printed and framed that was the one that I intended to do that with which I will mainly because I wanted that as a perpetual reminder of how much easier I have it than that guy does perspective is everything yeah yeah you know you're totally right it's true and so you know when you're in training you're often like I was working in community mental health clinics and inpatient settings I did some forensic so I was in prisons and jails so you're in all these settings and you get trained in this sort of battleground where you're right at the kind of socioeconomic status is what either gets you past the velvet ropes or not and so it's true I do think we're in a period of time where mental health is being destigmatized in ways this is probably we probably owe a thanks to social media in this regard I have many thanks to social media but this is one of them where you know people are finding a forum to normalize the experiences of our human condition and for me you know I really shifted a couple of years ago my focus entirely away from sort of seeking out what is wrong with people and pathology into wellness and then I want to say something to your really good question that was embedded in there which is how do you deal with this as a therapist this sort of inherent baked in problem that the people that need good psychiatric and psychological care have the least access to it so for me ever since I opened a private practice I take a certain number of people per you know a percentage per my whole roster of people for like twenty dollars a session so that's how I do it everybody does it differently right some people do volunteer work some people you know figure out that way but for me when I became really clear that in order to work in the realm felt like it was really my strength I was going to have a private practice and that was going to necessitate you know working with people that could pay for it so that's how I solved it and you know it's been it's been for me a good solution so I have one other question about parenting and I have yet to find an answer to this question it's it's funny because I've heard so many different things about parenting despite not being apparent to me this is one of those things that I think like you I'm delusional and thinking that okay I'm gonna have talked to all these people so I'll be this very self-actualized enlightened parent but then people like Philip McCrudden who you know the guy could read a phone book and it's inspiring me like my favorite thing he's ever said about parenting is like no matter what you do you're gonna fuck your kids up and oh you're gonna fuck him up time so the question that I I've asked a number of people in your position is how is it that you can have two kids who are raised in the exact same environment but the exact same parents were given the exact same advice and end up with wildly different results based on that advice me and my sister a perfect example of that I don't know that I have the definitive answer on that but I would say this because I have an opinion on anything right but this is just an opinion I would say my experience has been that we come to the world with a temperament and temperament is fixed personality develops you know character develops over time and then you layer in as well that we have genetic components right so certain genetics get expressed you know certain ways then you have personality that develops over time as it interacts with its and ever widening environment but you also you know at the time of first you've been forming for nine months and epigenetically that's also been forming you until I think we come to the world with temperament styles and those temperament styles are fixed the role of the parent is to leverage its upside and mitigate its downside and every temperament style has two sides to the coin one side it's going to be your greatest strength you flip that same coin over and it's going to be your biggest vulnerability hmm it's funny because I think for me I always say you know I dealt with attention issues and a short attention spend my entire life yet the the flip side of that very thing is the fact that I have that allows me to focus intensely on things I care about in a way that I couldn't on things I don't give a shit about yeah 100% and universally you're gonna I have found and I'm not the only one that's found this that kids who in childhood quote unquote had attention problems I would even argue with that phrase that's that you didn't set a norm that has been called the preferred attention style but that doesn't mean you actually then you might have you might have been the small percentage of people when I did psych testing that said wow this really is sort of a neurologic attention issue happening that happened very rarely in my practice assessing people in that way most of us have our style if we don't fit the bell curve then we have a problem then we grow up with this narrative I had attention problems I would say probably your attention style is the same attention style that you see in a lot of entrepreneurs and actually it's often paired when the CEO level it's usually paired with some sort of dyslexic process in there as well it seems like the dyslexic brain learns how to read a room and see it gestalt see the whole system in a way that people who process things typically when it comes to reading don't and you later on see them age into these sort of visionary styles this charming leadership ability and all these these secondary muscles that developed as a result of a quote disorder that are now their best and are set and I think you're probably describing that you are another one of those people in in my experience of a long lineage of people who as a kid it was a problem and as an adult it's your care it's your golden goose yeah well it's funny because I think Simon Sinek told me once he said your why is that you're obsessed with people who are good at unusual things and when I look back at all the people I interviewed I said yeah that's a pretty accurate reflection of what I've done with my career and it's it's I didn't recognize that as until about a couple of months ago but one other thing I wonder about this you were talking about a couple of things when you mentioned you know social media has been a you know good thing in terms of destigmatizing mental health to me there's a paradox at play here because it's social media has also been one of the greatest causes of a lot of mental health issues and I can I can tell you this because every time I see my literary agent share a book by you know one of her other clients many of some of who have been yes here I think to myself where did I fuck up because this person sold a million books like why am I not doing that and I noticed like wow this is fueling my tendencies for envy and comparison which are wildly inaccurate but I so I wonder you know when you look at it from the mental health perspective yes we're able to destigmatize it by having a conversation about it and on the flip side of that a lot of this is contributing to our mental health issues yeah I'm so glad you're bringing this up and I've like so many thoughts okay um let me be clear right from the start that I am like touching the person who came reluctantly to social media and like I'm I'm essentially an introvert that is can be very outgoing um so I came very reluctantly and I knew it was holding me back when I thought about what when I think some 44 I thought okay let's say let's say you get 10 more years let's say that was your checkout time what would swing for the fences look like and for me I want you know I want to write a book and there's I know there's lots of people like um the late great Anthony Bourdain who like wrote one article for a pre magazine and then 12 days later had a book deal that hasn't been my narrative so I'm gonna have to slog it out like the rest of them and I'm gonna go 18 rounds and um and that's all right so I was like I gotta get in the game because everybody I spoke to was like you have to essentially have like an audience right so here I am I'm in the game now I've made some provisions I have somebody that I work with that does a lot of the stuff that feels like I don't want to do it or I don't want to take the time to do it so I've made some concessions and here I am and so I come reluctantly for all the reasons you mentioned and you're right I don't know that our job or my job is to even reconcile that that is true that yet again here is another example of how something has it's a coin and on one side it has all this great stuff and then you flip it over and on the other side it is the seedy underbelly of our human tendencies I can't reconcile that but what I can do as a human and as a therapist is like if I were working with you we would really look at that and we would start to take that pathway backwards that's a root system that's showing you faces inside yourself that have I call the injuries or you know pain points and it's a way to continue to learn about ourselves you know like we can't control the keyboard warriors we can't we we can't even really do anything about it but it's here and you know now if we're talking about kids like my kid isn't on social media you know you got to come up with provisions to help your children navigate this because a child's brain isn't as developed as an adult brain and neither is their emotional and psychological interior and so they are still sort of they are um it's like they're they're exoskeletal but they don't have a skeleton they're fragile they're they're soft underbelly is exposed all the time and we have to protect them from them but as an adult you know it's enter at your own risk know that you're gonna you're gonna bump up against yourself in there and you're going to bump up against everybody else's dog so yeah it's interesting to hear you talk about this I mean I know this sort of audience building thing obviously because I've lived at you know I've gotten the book deal I've done all that and I thought it was here mentally solved like we'll get to this because this is something that I've been thinking about is you know Ryan holiday was here just a few weeks ago and the funny thing is he said like no account no accomplishment is going to make you feel as good as you think it will and I'm thinking to myself and literally the next day Ryan posted a picture on Instagram of you know his eighth book hitting the New York Times bestseller list and you know I'm struggling to get past you know like a proposal for another book deal on book number three that's you know a whole other aside but I think that this is something and I came across this quote that I think is very relevant so one of the things that you said earlier is that there's certain aspects of our personality and temperament that are fixed and yet every aspect of our culture today every aspect of this sort of self-improvement narrative I mean hell the entire unmistakable creative is about becoming this sort of better idealized version of you that you aren't today and so this quote is something that I came across in Heather Havlesky's latest book you know what if this were enough and she said there is not a better version of you waiting in the future the best version of you is who you are right here right now in this fucked up impatient imperfect supply moment shut out the noise and enjoy exactly who you are and what you have right here right now and yet that is so hard to do that is so difficult to do because we listen to people like you come and talk to people like me specifically because we're not okay with who we are today and because we believe that there is some better version of us in the future that is better looking has more money whatever it is like this external accomplishment so how as somebody who is a therapist who does help people change their lives you literally I thought of the title in my head for your interview and that is how you change your life without losing your mind oh my god that's such a good title sometimes I get title envy that's one of them so we're good and it just rolled right off your tongue that's such a great it is really a it's a you know it's a great question and the truth is so for me I am in the industry of change that's the game I'm in people come to me because they want to change something but once they're in my lair as I like to call it they very quickly realize that my motto is that it is not in the doing it is in the being and people want homework from me and they want like all these like actionable things and most of the time once you've spent any stretch of time working with me you're gonna realize that I don't think you're broken I don't actually think you need improvement that is the guys under which you came to me change will happen because once we start to deeply self-observe and have radical self-awareness things lift we move through traumas we heal some scar tissue we challenge ourselves in ways that grow grows resiliency and grit so we grow and we change but it it you know it's uh that's not that's destination oriented and I'm not I've worked tired well first of all let me say this in my practice you pay me to not be destination addicted in my personal life it's something I've worked 44 years both consciously and unconsciously to release myself from my script that when I get there I'll be fill in the blank it's all bullshit it's not true you won't be when you get eight New York Times bestsellers you're gonna go home and still inhabit the carcass that you're walking around in right now and the basic elements of that is like it's you against you it's an inside job so you know um but I do believe and I I feel in my own life as a person and I see this with the people who end up in my office that they're changed sharpen but it doesn't it isn't actually my goal you know it's not what I go in looking for what I go in looking for is connection because it's always the relationship that heals basically and I go in looking to be um precursually curious about the parts of yourself that you aren't even aware of right now and those are my guiding first principles when we're working together and then you know my experience has been that we keep evolving or we devolve you know I mean I've certainly we have lots of examples currently of people devolving right in front of our eyes and um you know but there's always movement to change is always happening yeah so it's interesting as you're saying that you know I know that you work with Stephen at the Flow Research Collective which is all about high performance so how do those two things coexist how do you aim to achieve the kinds of levels of performance that you know people who Stephen writes about Stephen talks about achieve you know we're talking you know sort of the peer demanduses of the world you on musks the crazy surfers and snowworkers who are doing these just insane things which are you know levels of performance and destinations that everybody's trying to reach how do you have those two things coexist they coexist perfectly in fact I'd argue that you can't have one without the other if you take it this way when we when I talk about radical self-awareness like some of the levels that I'm talking about are at the self-regulation level literally the central nervous system right we can enter self-awareness we can do it through embodiment we can do it through breath sometimes you do it through pain sometimes you do it through loss sometimes you do it through envy you enter it in all these different arenas right and risk taking is one that puts you right there you cannot avoid yourself when all the chips are on the line can't it's just you up against you and so to me this work and I'm so like you know the turn of events of of connecting up with Stephen and getting to be part of what he's building at the flow research collective I'm psyched because for a long time I was working in my private practice this way with executives in Honolulu where I live um and thinking to myself like I didn't even know about this world really you know I'm this is like five years ago and I read one of his books and then I was like oh this is like exactly what I'm doing but at this deeply psychological level so to me like amirase in the whole if performance is your gig because you can't escape you at every single level you can think that you can but you can't and eventually everybody comes up against the edges of their what whether it's comfort zone or skill or belief in self you find your edges when you're striving for greatness mmm that's where I come in wow so I have one question about this related to performance then I want to actually go into a potentially tactical example which might be difficult given what it is but why do you get sort of varying degrees of performance so you know for example you know multiple people could go to Stephen Zero to dangerous seminar some will come home and within weeks they will be this completely transformed person or or they will be the kind of person who didn't go there in the first place but did and it was sort of an amplifier and I think this is just literally the entire self-development industry and so I wonder you know why do you get that like what happens why is it for example that you know two people could take an online course or even two people could listen to this interview and one will walk away with a significant improvement and another will just kind of stay in this sort of cycle of okay I need to find the next fix you know it's it's just an awesome question that I don't I don't know that I've ever been asked that way but now that you've asked it I'm happy and I have a couple things so one is it like you know if you show up to a house with a hammer you're gonna find nails or whatever that praises right so I'm a shrink so for me it's mindset psychology it's what's between the years and you know you can most of us can sort of ride into sometimes our even our middle age kind of on what we developed in our childhood you know our style of orbiting in the world but eventually the train stops and you got a kind of update you have to learn if the next level of performance whatever that may be you know you may be at any level in your life there's a next level that's why I opened the hour saying you know thing that I saw from my mother is that you can reinvent yourself at any time it's really true and so that sort of the first thing is that to me the rubber meets the road with mindset and psychology I have a particular sort of I think blend of talent and and fascination with how our unconscious operates I think it's where real work happens so that's my schtick but lots of people have a different space they like to work in right and that's great but then you touched on something else that's there I have observed that and this is not like for every science buff out there like I haven't done like double blind studies this is just anecdotes but what I've found is that there's also people who have um people reveal their sort of um their preference her growth and change and some people are transformers and some people are of all verse the vast majority of us are of all verse when you watch a we follow I am one of them I have to do things over and over and over again to learn and I require you know time and reflection that's sort of how I work but there are people who are transformers these are the people who you know do kind of they you'll see it in the um I used to see it all the time when I was working like in addiction treatment centers like some people would you know come come in once into an inpatient setting they'd stay 30 days and you know they you know next thing you knew they were stringing together a decade of kind of this new life um but most people had to kind of keep coming back right and and cobbling together the the learning pattern so you get lots of different types and then there are people for whom when I uncover the psychology piece of it here's the hard cold truth a lot of people say they will do whatever it takes you know it takes what it takes right um but actually they're busy you know doing their psychology which is mostly unconscious whether it's they're coming up with excuses or they sabotage themselves through you know time management issues or substance abuses or they and they have these habits and patterns and belief systems that they're not even aware of while they're consciously saying I will do whatever it takes I would this I was that but when it really gets down to what it would take they don't actually want to do that and part of the role of a therapist is when you see that should happening it's not pleasant and I don't like having to say to people I actually think you wouldn't do whatever it takes and here are five examples um but usually you know I have found over the years that people can hear it once they really are connected to you and know you know my patients feel the the respect I have for the human condition like I don't think I'm any better than anybody else I'm just a slob trying to figure it out too what does it take to drive innovation in today's AI driven world join executives from across industries as they dive deep into how technological advancements are redefining leadership from generative AI to cyber security cloud computing to sustainability the conversations with leaders podcast from amazon web services covers it all join the conversation and subscribe today available on all major podcast platforms at amika insurance we know it's more than a life policy it's about the 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been getting lately is driving me crazy and it feels like no matter how many numbers you block there's always another one popping up you could spend half your day just trying to block these spam text messages but here's the thing these spam texts are just the tip of the iceberg data brokers don't just sell your phone number they sell detailed personal profiles that can lead to more serious issues imagine waking up one day to find out that someone has taken a loan in your name and now you're on the hook for thousands of dollars you never borrowed that's the reality of identity theft and that's where incogny comes in incogny is a service that reaches out to data brokers on your behalf requests personal data removal and handles objections it's like having a personal privacy advocate working tirelessly to protect your data here's how it works you create an account and tell incogny whose personal data they'll be removing you grant incogny the right to work for you they contact data brokers on your behalf then you just sit back and watch them work they handle objections and keep you updated and the best part you can protect your privacy in just three easy steps and we've got a special offer just for unmistakable creative listeners if you use the code unmistakable at the link incogny.com/unmistakable you'll get an exclusive 60% off an annual incogny plan that's a huge saving and a small price to pay for peace of mind so don't wait take control of your personal data within cogny today let's reclaim our peace and put an end to those spam text messages and other data privacy issues once and for all so I think that that raises another question for me so we've had Justine Musk here who was Elon Musk's ex-wife to talk about the psychology of visionaries but as a follow-up to that I interviewed my old mentor Greg Hartle who he said something I think that was a harsh dose of reality but it was very true he said we don't acknowledge the role that talent and intelligence play in people's accomplishments nearly enough because he said that's not an inspiring story to say that oh Michael Phelps is Michael Phelps because he was born that way because that's his physique and his genetics or the fact that most people are not going to be the next Oprah Steve Jobs or Beyonce and yet there's a sort of narrative in popular culture I mean even if you look at for example somebody like Sarah Blakely's Instagram feed is incredibly motivating incredibly inspiring and let's be harsh and real here how many of the people who follow Sarah Blakely are going to follow in her footsteps probably not many if any at all and so I wonder what is your response to that do you think that there are certain levels of accomplishment like the Elon Musk's that just are not accessible to people yes yeah I do I think that we're born with aptitudes and within that aptitude like I was never going to become a theoretical physicist never it was never you know like I was never ever ever going to it wouldn't have mattered how much heart I had truly and by the way at 44 I don't see that as a um as a failure right or even a shortcoming I'm just like okay like move on from it um so people have aptitudes it's 100% true and um but I will say that that most people that I work with they overvalue the role like let's say once basic aptitude is met okay basic aptitude then within that spectrum like like I am somebody who has a basic aptitude for writing I've never been trained right but I've got my own style and I think it works okay um within this spectrum the only thing that would stop me from writing a book is me period that question is done and over in my mind and I'm okay if at the end of my life that you know I don't get it done I don't get it done but it's on me it's not the industry it's not social media it's not I didn't have time I have time for what I make time for but again I'm in the basic aptitude so it's true and that is it's true it is totally true but what I see in my office is a lot of times people use this aptitude theory as a reason why like oh well so why even start like I'm never gonna be that and like yeah look Elon Musk is Elon Musk because there's only one Elon Musk and by the way the world really sort of needs one Elon Musk and then a bunch of other people you can be clingy brilliant in their own way right all working together like we it all works out but I think you can have your version of whatever the gold ring is you know like whatever that is you can have that um but it has to be realistically based it you know like I was never you know there's lots of things I was never gonna do I was never gonna be a model on five three like it was never going to happen um so I do think honesty and knowing what your where your asset fly mmm wow so let's use a concrete example I think that likely people are going to be hearing this at the very beginning of the new year and I think one of the goals that we all think we want at the beginning of the year is oh I want to make more money this year so let's say that I came to you and said Sarah I'm you know basically choosing to work with you because this is a problem that I want to solve this is a problem that has persisted in my life and look where do we start like if I came to you and said that what would you even say to me if you came to me and said I want to make more money yeah I would be really honest and I would say the thing I said about destination stuff and I would say that basically what I would say is I don't know whether or not you're gonna make more money I would certainly inquire about what profession the person was in what the ceiling what are we looking at as the right we're gonna look at it tactically okay because there's simple things people can do right but I would say the work that we're gonna do is looking at a what are the motivations for making more money if it's not survival what's feeding it what that motivational source is it a healthy fuel or is it an unhealthy fuel because I don't want you to make more money if we're just gonna like leverage shame and push you toward like that's not helping right so I want to look at the fuel source and I want to deeply understand your relationship to money where to come from how did you get informed around money what shaped you as a kid around money so that we can understand okay if you really just want to tactically earn more money it's doable there's more money to be burned out there and so what's getting in the way yeah what is it inside of you that's getting in the way I bet you it's not behavioral you know it's not that you're not putting your resume in the right places there's something else and that the journey that we would go on and then there'd be things I'd have you do throughout the time that would surface as I got to know you at a deeply individual level but every human being that sees me here's this same shtick and everyone anybody that's listening is probably like oh god I know what she's gonna say um I would encourage every person who wants to embark on any process of um evolving to learn to sit still learn to be completely still in your own skin and bones and try to do it for 10 minutes of godspeed and then report back to me because that's the stuff I'm interested in that stuff sounds like you and I could potentially teach an entire course on this totally let's put it on our new year's resolution yeah I mean seriously maybe we should just teach a course together about the psychology of money I don't think you'd have any shortage of takers oh none and no shortage of data because it's one of the most um it is one of the most shaping factors we bump up against from the moment we come into the war from before just the medical care that money gains you access to shapes your relationship to money before you're even born well well so I want to go back to something that you said at the beginning of our conversation about what your dad taught you and that was that we can survive far more than we think we can and yet I think that I know this from my own experiences is that I have a tendency to catastrophize to think okay like the world is gonna fall apart I'm gonna be screwed I'm gonna be 50 years old living at my parents' house again and I love that you have me again the again is just like perfectly placed it's uh you know that's shame rearing its head so you mean how I think that for a lot of people often when I you know have conversations like this I think we all intellectually understand what it is you're talking about but emotionally understanding it and really feeling it is an entirely different thing so I know for example that every time I thought the worst was gonna happen things ended up being better so for example we were really kind of like okay how are we going to make more money this year and suddenly you know radio public starts a venture fund to specifically invest in podcasts and we literally fit all the criteria to the letter and we raise our first round of venture funding suddenly it's overnight a game changer in terms of how we can think about running unmistakable mm-hmm and yet six months before that I was beyond stressed out about how things were going okay so tell me the question so the question is even if we know that we can survive far more than we think we can why don't we in the moment embrace that how do we how do we deal with that in the moment and actually live that in the moment is really the question yeah such a great question um okay so this is a great example where and I see this a lot in high achieving people as a company included which is that um oftentimes we have a very sort of um we have like a a kind of love hate relationship with control and when we look at times in your life like that right six months you're so stressed out the outcome ends up being exactly in your favor right so it's like oh this is where people get the theory of like the universe has your back so here's the thing the universe does I don't think the universe has your back I don't have any evidence that you know things are gonna or we can orbit in that sphere but what I do know is this is that the outcome is going to be the outcome and the only thing and you don't know that outcome you couldn't have known six months earlier that this turn of events would happen and that your vision would perfectly fit the vision of the venture people looking to dole out doe right you couldn't have known that because you don't you're not a psychic you're just a human that just can only see into right now right none of us really know the future so the only thing you could ever really change would be shall you orbit around the uncertainty of those six months and that's where we can make a lot of inroads as we continue to do the work of self-awareness self-reflection all of that you can actually change how you approach the stress the perceived stress right little did you know you didn't even need to stress about that you were blowing out your adrenals for zip because the universe was going to unfold the solution or time was going to unfold the solution that would perfectly fit your need but you didn't know that so this is about control and uncertainty and that we can always always grow on I mean arguably it's the thing right yeah at the core of like people's fears of death that the core of hypochondriasis right fears about the uncertainty of the outcome of really sort of life and then these are many examples Wow I feel like I could do literally an entire part two with you because it seems like we've focused entirely on the psychological aspects but it seems like there's a part two here of okay what does this look like in practice for body and mind I'm guessing that's probably a large part of this as well right totally yes and there's um you know there's a lot that we do in the work as therapists and you know coaches and people working in this sphere that kind of unfold in the process of the work right yeah there's a lot of like tactical stuff whenever I'm talking about like self-regulation and anxiety or stress that's what that's what you are experiencing at a psychological level in those six months and it has a whole body cost right it's not just that it makes us uncomfortable the uncomfortable is actually the feelings that's the only language your body has and the sensations communicating that like you know your brain is releasing certain chemicals you're releasing cortisol you're living on adrenaline it's changing your physical stat your physical experience it influences us at a cellular level so you can really enter in points of change at any turn on that dial mindfulness does it who does it hydration does it sleep does it movement does it obviously stillness does I mean stillness changed me in ways that movement never could and so there's loads and loads of tactical stuff breath work and but the good stuff is down deep wow where it's just you against you right in the end it's just if you've ever watched anybody die and I have especially if it's somebody you really really love you there's a certain place in the process of death where the person has retreated to be deep inside themselves they are really really contending with themselves and that's where this whole all the good stuff takes place Wow I feel like I can actually talk to you for like another four or five hours about I do too so I want to finish with one last question which is how we finish all our interviews what do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable I know and I'm like every other person that I because I listen to broadcast all the time and you know I'm like I'm not going to be caught put it I'm going to come up with something I'm gonna be coming up with something that's just witty and fabulous um but when I play the game and I just received the question right um what makes us unmistakable are all the parts of ourselves we think make us fucked up they make us fucked up they make us different they make us you know stand out all those things are what make us unmistakably us and get to know those parts of yourself because it's the ticket it's the whole thing right there amazing um well I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your stories and your insights with us this has been one of my favorite conversations that I've had this year um where can people find out more about you uh your work and everything that you're up to okay so my website is doctor dr sarasarcus.com I can also be found on a monthly I send out monthly blogs from there at the padded room um also I'm working with Stephen Kotler and the flow research collective we're doing really cool stuff too so check them out and I write a monthly column for him shrink wrap that goes out to his newsletter so anybody that wants to sign up sign up and we sort of cover I get to cover like you know anybody that just listens to this will understand sort of the drive that you're gonna get from me in that monthly column and it's really fun and um provocative hmm amazing and for everybody listening we will wrap the show with that when you use SAP concur solutions to automate your business finances you'll be ready for anything except when you're trained to work is also headed to the comic convention with the mighty Zord on board who happened to bump into his arch analysis with SAP concur you can be ready for almost anything take control of your business finances today at concur.com hi this is jonathan fields host of the good life project where each week I talked to listeners about investing in the future by increasing their own vitality but when it comes to those financial goals whether it be saving for home renovation growing your child's college fund or travel life can make it difficult to stay the course by working with a dedicated maryl advisor you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward having the bullet your back helps your whole financial life 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