Ep #13: Hero’s Journey Series 10 of 11: The Resurrection

Hello, my friends.

Welcome to this week’s episode. So we are getting really near the end of the Hero’s Journey cycle. There’s this one, and then one more after this. So those of you that have been with me from the beginning, we’re nearly there. This one this week is specifically about coming back to life, about resurrection. And when you’re watching a movie, this would be the part where there’s that surprise that happens, where the hero realizes that the things that happen to them internally have made them a different person and that they are going to walk back into the world a different, changed person now. And this is, an actuality, a lot of times in movies, the actual climax. It’s not the battle with the dragon. That’s not the climax. The climax is when the hero realizes there’s a new version of themselves and that they they’re a changed person.

And so when you’re talking about this in your professional your personal life, there are some different things that are going to come into play here. So for instance, have you ever had something happen to you in your life where you will look at life after that event just a little bit differently now? It’s like, if you were looking at life straight on after that thing happened to you, you will look at it just from a couple of degrees, even everything that you view from then on is just a little bit different. Your filter is a little bit different because of the experiences you’ve had to go through in order to become that new person. So for instance, once I became a father, that was a big event in my life. Once people become a parent, a lot of times, there is a big change that happens to them in their life. They view everything—their priorities shift.  Everything that they kind of measure their life with can have a large change: the way that they prioritize their time, they prioritize the people they hang out with, the people they do hang out with might be different now—there’s a lot of different things that happen there. If you’ve ever been a parent, and you used to go out a lot with friends and there were a lot of, like, hanging out and activities and then if you become the first person or the first couple of people in your friend group to have kids, you know that all of a sudden, like, things are different now, like, you don’t interact with maybe those people the exact same way that you did before. And as life moves on, like they might go through that as well, or different things happen and it readjusts.

But you have changed and the way you are filtering information has changed. This also happened to me when I became a business owner. So there were several years there in my past where I had my…you would have called it a side hustle, but I was growing my business, the thing I wanted to be doing all the time as an entrepreneur. And then there was my nine to five job, or contracting I would do mostly with technology companies and consulting in order to bring in a regular paycheck. And I remember when I made the decision to become a different person, go on a Hero’s Journey of my own, to only do the things that lift me up, to only do coaching, to only grow our marketing firm as well, that there was a point that came where I stopped doing anything else that was safe.

And, kind of, I was tethered to that other work that I might have done. And that was scary at first. But once I did that and I became that different person, it was like, “I can’t believe that I was ever worried about this, that I was ever not this person. This is who I want it to become.” And it started to seem natural. But I started—when I first that first happened, I had some fears and trepidation and hopes as well. I hoped that this feeling would stay, but I was fearful that something would happen and then I would have to go back to the way things were where I was having to keep a foot in both worlds and I was never really a whole person doing what I really wanted to be doing. If you’re a business owner and entrepreneur, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. We all go through this transition. And if you are hoping to go on that journey, it will probably happen to you in some way, as well.

But there will be this resurrection point for you, this coming back to life, where you realize you’ve gone through the Hero’s Journey most of the way, and you are that different person now, that person that you hoped you could possibly become, that you were hoping that you could step into. Like, oh my gosh, that’s your reality now. And that is going to be your reality moving forward. And you might have that hope that this version of you will stay, but you also, on the flip side of the coin, might be fearful that that something’s going to happen, and you’re gonna have to go back to the way that it was. Or that you’re gonna mess up, and you’re gonna backslide. And that is so, so normal. You are absolutely normal to be feeling that way.

But once this happens, I want you to be able, when you’ve these feelings come up, I want to give you an exercise that’s been really helpful to me and some other people that we’ve worked with to help you with this. And I did not invent this. This was by a very smart man named James Clear and he specifically came up with a book that’s fantastic if you haven’t already read it. I highly recommend you pick it up. It will help so many different areas in your life. But it’s called Atomic Habits, again by James Clear, and he talks about lots of different ways to implement habits so that once you are a new version of yourself,\ and you’re hoping to become a new version of yourself and make things stick, and you are afraid of backsliding, that you use a filter to set yourself up for success.

So what I want to give you is a framework to be able to go “Okay, I know I’m a different person, now. I’ve resurrected. I’ve come back to life. I’m this different person. Now I have to re-enter my world. How am I going to stay on track? And so these are some ways that you can make staying on track part of your routine and make it joyful for you so that you want to do these things, which again, reinforces this new person that you’ve become and the results that you want to continue to get now that you’re new, this new person.

So there’s four parts of it and I’m going to give you a couple of examples of exactly how to use it and a couple of different ways that I’ve seen people use it, one in my own life and one in someone’s life that I love a lot: my wife. So one is: you need to make it obvious. Make it super obvious on how to make this part of your routine. Then you want to make it attractive. That’s number two, so that you want to do this thing. What’s something you can do to tweak it so that instead of having to, you know, feel and feeling dread, you might still feel dread (which is totally normal to go and do a thing), what is something you could do right before it that actually is kind of fun so that you look forward to doing the thing, the number three? How can you make it easy, make it as easy for you, as you possibly can? Sometimes when you have to do a task, it’s going to be hard. But how could you break it down into components that make it as easy as it possibly can be?

And then number four: make it satisfying. How can you make the payoff right afterwards immediately satisfying for you? So here’s a couple of examples. I love bodybuilding. This is something that I’ve gotten into that brings me a lot of joy, helps me get rid of stress, helps me feel like it’s immediate, and I get an immediate pump from it and it just it helps my mental attitude, endorphins, all the things. Love it. But being a dad, being a business owner, all these things, I have all these stories about how it’s hard to make the time to do it. So I decided that it needed to happen early in the morning. So I made it obvious to myself that in order to get up at 5 AM, which is when I wanted it to happen and still be able to do the morning routine with my kids and cook breakfast and get them out the door and everything I need to get up at 5am. So immediately, my brain start coming up with stories about why this is going to be hard. So I made it obvious by going to bed earlier so that 5am did not seem nearly as hard to get up. If I went to bed at 11 or midnight 5am, getting up, I—my brain would come up with all kinds of rationalizations to rule over and go back to sleep. I hit the snooze button five times. But if I went to bed before 10, I noticed through experimentation that 5 AM really wasn’t that hard. My body kind of wanted to wake up then, anyway.

So that was number one. That was how I made it really, really obvious to me by going to bed earlier so 5 AM did not seem as hard. Now, number two: I made it attractive immediately so when that alarm went off, I didn’t think, “Oh, you know what? I have to get up and now I have to go lift some heavy things.” I made it so that the first thing that I got to do was a reward. I’m going to stop my alarm clock, get out of bed, and the first thing I get to do is go downstairs and have an espresso and zone out for 15 minutes, sitting at the table with the lights dim and just staring out the window and just sipping that coffee. So I incentivize myself, I made it attractive by having the first thing that I get to do be something that’s fun, that I enjoy.

So what could that be for you? Then I made it easy by setting out my workout gear and having a workout routine that was easy to follow and it was on my phone. I didn’t have to think about what exercises I was going to do. I didn’t have to think about “Is there a clean pair of pants?” All that stuff. I did it beforehand so they’re just sitting out and I could sleep and get ready and go out, have my coffee, and then walk outside and know exactly what I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t have to think about it. So that is exactly how I made it easy for myself. Number three. And number four: I made it satisfying. Now, I’m gonna be a little vulnerable with you right now, But if you ever watched Saturday Night Live back in the day, when the former casts, there was this, there was this character named Pat and, Pat—no, no, it wasn’t Pat, it was a character named Stuart Smalley. That was a different character. Stuart Smalley. And he would, was a self-affirmation kind of Guru and so what he would do is he would look at me and he would say I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and Gosh, darn it, people like me.

And so I have my own version of that right now. See, I’m blushing right now. You can’t, maybe, can’t tell if you’re watching this on video behind the behind the beard, but I’m really blushing. But I made it my baby, I—what I do is I look in the mirror after I’m done working out of my workout, and I praise myself for doing it. Only praise. Not, “I wish, you know, my biceps would get bigger” or like, “Oh, I need to work on this part of my body” but only “Great job getting up this morning. You are being consistent and you were honoring the things that you said you wanted to do. You’ve done a great job, you already feel good, you’re already successful today by getting up and working out, and the day hasn’t even really started yet. “The kids aren’t even up and you’ve already accomplished something that’s really important to you. Good job.” And I say it out loud and it seems a little weird at first but I swear that’s how I make it satisfying for myself . And that’s how I keep myself on track.

So another example of this is my awesome wife. She decided that she wanted to become good at going and doing—oh my gosh, I don’t know how she does this, but they’re called cold plunges and if any of you know what I’m talking about, there’s all kinds of health benefits for it and resetting your system. And she is an amazing, like hot yoga person. And so she does all kinds of amazing active things, but she wanted to go and start becoming this cold plunging person. You can look it up if you want more information and these insane people, what they do is they go and jump in a cold body of water. And we live in the Pacific Northwest. So a cold body of water is called the Puget Sound and it’s not very far from us. So she literally can be down in the Puget Sound in five minutes or so, but she didn’t want to do it for the longest time because obviously it’s really cold and it’s a little scary and it’s you know, open water.

And so she made this something that she wanted to do and she made it obvious by going ahead and telling other people that she was going to do it and just going and doing it that first time. And she made made it super, super obvious by getting some of the gear that you need in order to do it so that she had this little package of things that she could just grab right away and head down in her swimsuit and a pair of dry clothes to change into. And she could go and she could just do it. Now she made it attractive as well by letting some of her friends know that she was going to go and do this and getting them to come, too. So she started to build a community around it of people that would go and do it with her.

First, it was just a couple of people and then after that, more people joined, and now there’s a whole community. She does this, where now there’s a whole community of people that like to do it, and she’s also gone and done it with a couple of other groups as well. So she’s normalized she’s, she’s made it part of who she is and she’s made it easy by putting together—that kit like I talked about, but also literally, she sets it next to the car in our garage on a little shelf so she can grab the stuff and just go and then she’s back, like, within 15 or 20 minutes, and she can shower and, like, it’s all done.  And she makes it satisfying by posting a lot of times to Instagram and showing people, like, this is something that they can do, and that you can do it as well. And that again reinforces the community and other people want to do it as well. And it’s like a perpetual cycle of this amazing habit of a new thing she wanted to do and now is a thing that other people do with her. And it’s part of who she is. And she stepped into that new version of herself. It’s just brilliant! It’s a brilliant way to go about it.

So these are just two examples of, of how you can make part of your routine reinforced, this resurrection, this coming back to life, a new version of yourself from the inside out where it becomes routine. So, using that Atomic Habits framework by James Clear would be super helpful. Make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying.

All right, my friends. That’s all I have for you for today. We only have one more part of this series next week and then you will have gone through the hero cycle from beginning to end. And I can’t wait to hear about some of the results you’ve gotten. Talk to you next week.