Ep71_GetUnstuck_full
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] So people come and hire me and my team because they're stuck in some part of their life and they can't get traction and they're frustrated. They know what they want. Usually they can identify. Cause I mean, I ask them, you know, what opportunities do you have? What are your goals? What do you want? And they can articulate something, you know, they want better health, better relationships.

They want more balance in their life. They want to have. Start this, launch this [00:01:00] product, start this new career change jobs. They got something in mind, which is driving them and they know they're stuck and they can't get that traction. I've been there. I know what it feels like and what I find is that great questions will get you unstuck.

And we're talking today about how to get unstuck, and it's gonna be focusing on these excellent questions that you can ask yourself and journal about and think about, and you can actually ask other people that are gonna get you moving the ball forward, moving your life forward. So welcome to the Decide Your Legacy podcast.

If you found this podcast helpful at any point, please. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast content, leave a rating and review. Tell your friends. Love to get it out there. That's how it grows organically. I wanna tell you about two risks I've taken recently. I do this because I want you to naturally start taking risks.

That's how you grow. It's damaging to your mental health. When you stay stuck in your head and when you play it safe, it's gonna help you. When you get out there, you do new things. You try, you learn, you grow. Even if it doesn't go well, you tried new things. So two things I did is one, I sent a YouTube clip that I just produced recently that I.

Kind of liked and it was on [00:02:00] friendship and had to tell a real friend from a fake one and all that. And I just sent that out to some friends who I don't talk to a whole bunch, you know, I just texted it to 'em out of the boil, probably wondering what are you doing here? But I just did it, you know, and I got some cool things, some cool responses from it and everything.

I actually created a three year vision for decide your legacy, my business. And I put it on paper, which was scary to me because it's on paper. I'm more accountable to it. And then I gotta kind of follow through. So, scary stuff. you don't know already, I'm Adam Gragg and I'm a legacy coach, speaker, podcaster, mental health professional for almost 25 years.

My life purpose is helping people and organizations find transformational clarity that propels them forward to face their biggest fears so they can live and leave their desired legacy. I talk about stuff you can talk to your six year old about and they're gonna understand. I also talk about topics that I struggle with myself.

I'm a fellow traveler. I struggle just like. Everybody listening here, I do these podcasts for me, probably more than anybody. Interesting. So, and I challenge you to listen, not just as a student, but listen as a teacher, as you're gonna teach something in the next 24 hours to somebody else that you've [00:03:00] learned from today.

This is the podcast you do not just listen to. So why is it important? To get unstuck. Well, for one, why do you wanna stay stuck? I mean, you're stuck for a reason and obviously you're uncomfortable there and you don't wanna be there. So I work with a lot of highly successful professional men, professional externally, money, high net worth career.

You know, people look at them like they're a great success, yet I sense, and they are deeply unsatisfied in parts of their lives. And so for me, That's a great client fit. I work with all kinds of clients and it's not just the one type of client I work with, but I find that I can relate and connect in a certain way with them because some of the stuff that they find very important and have given their lives to, and often even as an escape from things that have happened in the past, I can, I can relate to and I've seen the emptiness and I grew up in a family where, hey, you know, I had a successful, have a successful father, I had a lot of resources, yet I saw a lot of emptiness around me and some of the people and some of the [00:04:00] success that I saw externally around me.

And I really was driven to say, Hey, there's a lot more to life than that. And so I got into counseling, which involved evolved into coaching and got me to where I am now. And you know, I think back to when I was stuck, I wanted to create my first course in 2016. And I was really stuck. I couldn't get started.

I was just going over perfectionism kind of stuff in my mind. And I remember that I had a friend ask me a great question, you know, and it was, you know, what would you be doing if fear was not in your way? I. And another version of that question was like, what would you be doing if you had 10 times more confidence in this situation?

And my answer was, I'd set a deadline. I would chunk out the time, I would block out the content, and I would just say, Hey, I'm recording this thing all in one day. And I did. I actually had different shirts, so it looked like I was recording it at different times. I changed the shirts. In the video in the course, I still saw that course.

To this day, I still wonder how I got it produced and done in one day. I think it's great content still adds a lot of value, but [00:05:00] I committed to the process and it was great questions from close friends that got me started, which helped me to get. And make progress. So I want you to start with an action today.

Where in your life are you stuck? You wanna make progress, but you're feeling like you can't. You know, is it your health? Is it new sales? Is it professionally procrastinating? Is it grief? Dealing with grief, dealing with loss? Write that down somewhere. In your journal, which I hope all of you have, stop in your car.

If you're driving, speak it into your phone, put it somewhere. So that is what we're gonna be working on today. And these questions, you want to make progress in this area of your life, but there's a gap. There's like, you're here, where are you now? And it's not there where you wanna be obviously, or else you're not gonna be going through this coaching process. And then you want to get and close the gap. You wanna fill that, you wanna cross the bridge basically. And so what are you gonna do? So good, great coaching is gonna ask you the questions that are gonna get you to think about things you wouldn't have thought about and reflect and go deeper so you can answer your own questions in the process.

So [00:06:00] for example, I'm gonna give you some of my favorite questions. You know, I have a blog post that I wrote years ago, my 20 favorite Questions to Ask Clients, and I think I get about a thousand people reading that article. Every, well, sometimes more, sometimes less every week. I think it might average like eight, 800 people reading that article that I wrote so long ago.

And it resonates because you can journal on these questions, you can get them. To lead you in a different direction and to have that clarity that's gonna spark something in you where you're energized and you just have to take action because it's bigger than you, cuz that purpose is bigger than you. So clients come in and one of the first things I want to do is, and this happens every session, it happens in the group sessions, it happens in the individual sessions that I do, it even happens in a lot of the speaking events.

I want them to first identify what they want, because anxiety is driven by ambiguity. So what do you clearly want? What do you want outta this session? What do you wanna [00:07:00] leave with when you walk out that door, when it's done? What do you wanna leave with when you leave this training at your company or a public event training that I do?

What do you really want? And so we can dig deeper on that question and it can be, well, what do you wanna focus on today to get the most out of this conversation? Or you go a little deeper possibly, you know, why is this important? That's not a critical question. It's, you know, what makes it important for you to get and fill that gap to get to where you want to go.

And they're gonna give me answers. You know, like it's because I'm unsatisfied because my life is incomplete because I don't want to die today saying I didn't try. Because I wanna be an example to my kids. Something. There's gonna be some passion that comes out of that. And then, this is a great question, but it's hard a lot of times for clients to answer when I ask a great question, which, It's gonna get 'em to think.

I mean, sometimes they might answer right away, but I'll have clients sometimes they think for a minute. They think for two minutes. I don't say anything, you know, oftentimes I just make some, you know, [00:08:00] I, I journal my own thoughts in my notebook while they're thinking. It's not gonna force 'em to answer the question.

So you can take the time yourself to answer these questions. So what is the real challenge for you here? Tough one. I've had clients come back and say they think it's related to trauma. I've had clients come back and say they think it's related to betrayal. I have clients come back and say, well, the real problem is because I don't think I'm worthy of success because I don't believe that I can actually do that thing that I want to do.

I don't believe once I have it, it's gonna actually work and it's this self-worth stuff. That's the real challenge for them. Another. Question I love is, you know, how would you know if you were getting traction, you were making progress, how would other people around, you know, if you were making progress?

And these are all defining the problem of what. What they want to achieve. They're getting some definition, and again, it's gonna give them that, it's gonna give that them that clarity that they need to decrease the anxiety so they can focus on the problem. They're admitting that they have something they wanna work on, which when [00:09:00] you walk in the coach's door, my door, you know, you're admitting you have a problem you wanna work with, something you wanna make progress on. And I love coaching because coaching is something where you are. I'm not doing the work for the clients, I'm just asking the questions. They're coming to me and I feel as if I have a good intuition.

I know I have a good intuition as far as asking the right questions that are getting 'em to think about these things, but they're having to do the work of application and processing. But no one else in their life is probably asking them these types of questions. That are getting them to do the thinking and the reflecting that they need.

So another great question on what do you actually want is what are you confused on about this situation? Now that's important because it's gonna help them whittle down and define even more what they want. So they're confused about how to get there, maybe the steps to take, or they're confused about how they're gonna handle that success.

They're confused about how they're gonna. Hire the people to grow that business. And so then we define the problem very specifically. So in one session, it may be that they start off saying, you know, I wanna start a business. I wanna focus on getting to that business and getting [00:10:00] that business started. And then as we whittle it down, it's really, I wanna know how to identify a potential employee has the right values that I should give a shot to hire.

And it's very clear, and I can see this relief. On their face because now they've decided that I have something very specific that I can figure out in this coaching process that I can leave with, and they start having hope because it's not as, it's not this big broad monster. It's not this scary thing as much.

It's smaller. How do I identify how, if someone has the right values to hire for my business? So we start there. if you found this podcast helpful in the past or you find it helpful today, what you wanna do is hit the link to shatterproof yourself. These are seven simple steps. To better mental health.

You're gonna get some excellent content. It's brief, they're quick videos. There's a workbook. It's something you can go over again and again, it's free. You only get it if you sign up through the link. In this podcast, tell your friends. You don't wanna miss that. So the second thing, the first thing is you define what you want.

That's a great part of coaching. It's a great part [00:11:00] of getting unstuck. The second thing is, is you get some clarity on whatever that thing is that you're trying to solve. So you're getting clarity on what is really. In that gap that's keeping me from getting to that place where I want to go. And how do you get clarity?

Will you get clarity by doing more self-reflection? So I'm going back to questions here. So I ask quite, I like to ask clients, you know, what have you tried already? What have you tried already? Or What has worked in the past for you in this situation or in a similar type of situation? And then you pause there.

So this really is a great podcast for counselors, coaches to listen to. It's a great podcast for people that are stuck for my clients to listen to. I make this for me, like I said, but it's gonna have these types of questions that are real nuggets. So, you know, I'm kind of feeling a little bit like I'm see giving out my trade secrets, but that's okay.

I love you guys and I wanna be generous. So, and I'm always blessed when I'm generous. So I love these questions for myself and I think [00:12:00] as I look at this, like these are great things and I want to. Journal about tonight. So another great question is what has worked in the past, you know, what have you tried in the past that maybe hasn't worked, but what has actually worked in the past?

I, maybe I already asked that question, but what ideas do you have here? Love that question because people can't say, I don't know, that's a bad word. They can't say, I don't know. In my office, they can say, I'm gonna think about that, or, I wanna process that question. I wanna reflect on that. I don't really think I've done enough reflection on that yet to give a great answer, but I want to give a great answer.

That's a much more satisfactory response than saying, I don't know. I don't know. Is this a scapegoat? You know? It's like, I don't remember doing that. You know, someone said something to you and they cussed you out and they're like, I don't remember doing that. And because I was drunk, or because when I'm so angry I don't remember things.

Well, that's an excuse. Come on. You just don't wanna reflect on the fact and take ownership that you actually did something. I mean, maybe you were passed out, but you know, that's generally an excuse when you say, I don't know. [00:13:00] I love this question too. What advice would you give to your best friend here that would help them not to be stuck?

And then you gotta put yourself in a mindset of compassion towards yourself. You're not gonna give your best friend bad advice. You're gonna give them advice, it's gonna lead 'em in the right direction. So you're not gonna tell 'em to actually do anything. That's gonna be dysfunctional or destructive.

You know, like go from A to Z, or just go ahead and quit your job and start that business without any kind of planning or any kind of savings. No, a good friend's gonna say, Hey, let's take incremental chunking steps in this situation. Or they're gonna say, you have succeeded in the past and you can succeed in this situation.

It's a confidence issue. And how can we improve your confidence? How can you improve your confidence in this situation? How can you improve your confidence to go. From this point that you're at right now to the place that you actually want to get to. Great question. Helps you find clarity. So that's that whole second step.

Another great question is what changes can you make now today even that will help you to get there? [00:14:00] So you gotta think about in this situation, so let's say you're procrastinating all the time. And you don't really know why. And I've already asked you the question of, you know, what might be the core issue here?

And you identify that, okay, well I think I'm just afraid it's fear a failure, putting something out there. And then what might you do today that would get you unstuck? So what actions could you take today? And they could say, well, I plug into my schedule that I'm gonna get that product developed and I'm gonna at least create the outline for it or plug into my schedule that I'm going to spend time with all four of my kids over the next month.

One-on-one time and invest in their lives and just ask questions and listen and not be worrying about fixing them, but just get to know them on a deeper level. What can I do today? How would you approach this situation if you were 10 times more confident? That's one of my all-time favorite coaching questions.

Another one in this one is kind of interesting. I get clients to think about the future. I don't like to go back to the past too much, although the past is really essential cuz that is one of the foundational areas where people are stuck, where they have [00:15:00] to get past that and the limiting mindsets and the damaging self-concept that they have in order to actually be able to process some of the coaching questions, at least identify that, yeah, that is impacting my life.

But I'd love to ask clients, where will your life be in five years if you just stay in this place, if you stay stuck? What's gonna happen? And then sometimes if you just give yourself a couple different bullet point answers, I'll ask clients, you know, what else? Ask yourself that. What else? What else will your life be like?

And it could be something very destructive, you know? It could be that you're estranged from your kids and you're potentially dead from a heart attack and you're divorced and you're living with regret because you never tried. Cuz it's better to have tried and have failed than to have never tried at all.

But how would you feel? 90 days from now if you do make these changes, And then usually the answer is something positive. I feel good. I feel productive. I feel like I've made progress. Another question I love, and this one really comes from people [00:16:00] asking me often, well, how do I attract great quality employees?

Or how do I meet somebody that I can date, you know, a girlfriend, you know, that I can date that's high quality, that's I can trust and or you know, how do I make high quality friends? And I think that's a bad. Question. I think it's a bad question, which leads to bad answers. Cuz people say when they answer that specific question, you know, well, I have to work out more, I need more money or a better job.

I gotta get my life all in order, or whatever. Which isn't actually a bad answer by the way, but the better question is, you know, how do I become the kind of person, the best version of me? And if you come, become the best version of yourself, how do I become. A great friend, how do I become a great friend of myself?

First of all, you know, how do I become a great friend that'll help you become a great friend to other people? Love your neighbor as yourself. You know, how do I become the kind of boss that I would wanna work for? And then you, you throw off all the stuff that re relates to controlling other people or changing other people, or manipulating other people.

And it's just, I'm gonna buy faith, become a better person. There you go. [00:17:00] And. So the question I would ask clients here is to find clarity is who do you need to become to get what you want? Who do you need to become to fill that gap, to go from here to where you actually want to be? And then the third step.

Is to take action. And I'm thinking commitment here. So commitment to me is more than just putting something down on paper. It's actually saying that I am going to get this done. Now you may write a commitment down and then realize after you get further information that it was a bad commitment. And then you go ahead and make adjustments saying, I have new information.

I've seen that it is probably not gonna work out the way I thought. Or you someone else, you know, you say you're gonna hire them. And then in the process they go and they get arrested. For some crime, it makes them make it so you can't hire them. You know what I mean? So obviously you're gonna adjust accordingly at that point.

So taking action, some great questions to think about the actions that you were gonna want to take and to clarify that as well as I'll ask clients, you know, we've been exploring this topic today. You [00:18:00] wanna start this business and you wanna figure out how to identify the values in a high quality employee.

So what did you discover? What did you discover today about yourself or just discover in general? What did you discover today or what's the main thing that you want to take away from this conversation? Or what's some insight that you gained today from this conversation that you wouldn't have had? Have we not had this conversation?

What's most useful? What is one thing you can do to apply what you're taking away today? And so then I'll actually ask them to. Make a commitment so they're getting this clarity. And you'd be surprised. I mean, I'll go through a 45 minute coaching session with a client and I may really only ask five questions, but those questions lead me to asking other questions, which end up going deeper.

So it's, for example, you know, you ask somebody what they really want their life to be like. In 10 years, and then they share a bunch [00:19:00] of things and then you kind of pick up on one area that they are really highly focused on, and then you ask 'em more about that. So tell me more about that business you've just talked about and described that you're gonna want to have in 10 years and so it goes deeper in the process.

I'll ask clients too, can you recap what we discussed today and get some thinking, thinking through right there? And these can be uncomfortable for people at times because people don't want to think and reflect. Oftentimes, you know, they want you to tell 'em what to do. Yeah, I've been a counselor for so long.

I've seen that, you know, clients really, they want answers and tools and ideas, yet that's not often the best thing. I mean, it is when someone has clinical level depression and anxiety and, and, and trauma and grief and things like, you know, that are very specific mental health issues. A lot of times tools can be very useful and helpful, but when people wanna get to the next level in their life, you know, we're talking about something different here.

I'm not a consultant, you know, I'm not a. Therapist in that role, I'm not telling 'em what they should do. I'm asking them the questions that are gonna help them and inspire them to get where they want to go. And that aligns with my life [00:20:00] purpose of helping helping people find transformational clarity. So I'll have them specifically after they've processed through what their insights are.

You know, what do you want to commit to today? And I'll either type it out in an email that I send to them later, or I'll type it out in an email. Cause I do this with myself. In fact, I have an email of commitments I made to myself last week that I'm gonna email to myself to remind myself it has specific deadlines on it as well.

And I'll ask the clients too, that you're making this commitment. So when are you gonna get that done by? And sometimes they say, well, it's, it's like way out in the future. And I say, you know, are you sure about that one? Is there a a deadline that. Could be a little more challenging to you. And then they say, yeah, I get it done in two weeks.

You know, well, two weeks in the morning or two weeks by the end of the day, I wanna be real specific with clients. And they'll say, well, by the end of the day. Okay, great. So you made a commitment and I'm gonna ask you about this and who else was gonna ask you about it? And I'll challenge 'em to get some accountability.

So can you ask a buddy to remind you that you made this commitment as well? Helps 'em greatly to stay on track. Some other tips that'll help you [00:21:00] to stay on track. You know, once you've decided, cuz that's that third step that you're gonna take some specific actions. So you have two or three actions you're gonna take that are gonna help you move towards getting unstuck.

So you're moving towards that place that you wanna be. So putting reminders on your phone that pop up in the middle of the day. That you look at memorizing something. I mean, that is so great. I memorized some scripture verses when I was in my early to mid twenties that still come up. I mean, there's probably about 25 of them that still come up in different situations.

Like when I'm anxious, you know, be anxious for nothing. Or you know, when I'm feeling like I can't do something and I'm gonna fail, you know, and I, I have certain verses that pop up so you can memorize for yourself, you can memorize whatever. That self-talk is that's gonna get you to go in the direction of your specific goal.

You can memorize your life purpose statement. You wanna look at those things consistently. So to have 'em at top of mind. Position. So the first thing in the morning, you're looking [00:22:00] at, well, where do I wanna be? What are these three commitments that I have? And when am I getting 'em to get 'em done? You're looking at your legacy plan.

If you're one of my clients or gone through one of my courses and created a legacy plan, consistently, it takes five or 10 minutes. Why are we so lazy to not do something for five or 10 minutes? So you're gonna take action if you write it somewhere in your journal or you put it in. Dry eraser on your mirror in the morning.

So you look at those objectives or those core values, or the things you like about yourself, you read it out loud, potentially. You put it into your schedule, so you blocked it into your schedule. I'm gonna chunk this time to get this objective or this commitment completed. You get accountability as I mentioned before, so I wanna link in the show notes to.

Article, the one I referenced earlier in the podcast that I don't want you to miss, cuz you maybe possibly if you're one of my fans already read it before, but you could read it again cause it's gonna summarize and give you some of these questions that I actually shared with you today. So it's on my 20 favorite questions to ask clients.

So check that out. And those questions also are excellent, excellent journaling prompts. They can be really great at the end of the [00:23:00] day or in the middle of the day or in the morning. You're just gonna answer one or two of them. Whatever kind of resonates, whatever pops out. So let's go ahead and summarize, how do you get unstuck?

So, Figure out what you want. What do you want? What's this problem you wanna solve? Where do you want to go? You gotta get some clarity there. Find the clarity. So do the self-reflection, do the processing, find the clarity, be courageous enough to write things down and answer these questions so you're getting the kind of clarity which is gonna propel you to action, which is the third step, because you're gonna see these, aha, this compelling thing.

This really clear, passionate direction that you can move in. And it may be one thing specifically that comes out of that and you know you want to take action on that and you're gonna take action by committing and making and setting up a deadline. So, What resonates with you most from today? I want you to figure that out.

What is the one thing, two thing, three things that resonate most? Apply it in the next 24 hours. Do something. When you take action swiftly [00:24:00] after getting content that's inspiring. You're much more likely to apply it and apply it long term, and if you tell a friend about it. And you actually teach it to somebody else or even more likely to apply it in your life.

So what is it that you want to take away from today? It's probably gonna be an emotional risk at some level. So remember my rule, 30% of transformational change is getting insight. It's stepping back from your life, getting some. Insight. You're getting insight today from this podcast, but 70% or more is action.

That's how you make real longstanding change in your life. Have me out to speak to your team, check out my products. I can speak over live or over zoom. Don't miss. Subscribing to shatterproof yourself. Seven tips, seven simple steps to better mental health. I'm gonna sign off the same way. I do always make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're gone, you decide your legacy.

No one else. I appreciate you greatly and [00:25:00] I'll see you next time.