Ep88_FeelGreat
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode 88 of the Decide Your Legacy Podcast. Clients will often come to me saying they have low self-worth. They don't feel good about themselves, they're negative on themselves. And today I'm gonna talk to you about how to feel great about yourself. How to feel great about your life, and if you found this podcast helpful in the past, now subscribe.

Give it a rating and review on Apple or [00:01:00] Spotify, wherever you get your podcast content that helps it to grow organically, show it to your friends, spread the word so I can reach and help so this podcast can reach and help more people. So I'm your host, Adam Gragg. I've been a legacy coach and a licensed clinical family therapist for over 20 years.

My purpose in life is helping other people find self-confidence and clarity. To face the biggest fears and live their desired legacy. I aim to teach concepts you can talk to with your six year old and they can understand. And I'm gonna challenge you today to listen as a teacher that you will teach, commit to teaching one insight you gain from the day to somebody in the next 24 hours.

So something uncomfortable I did recently. A scary thing, and I challenge you to do the same because nothing is more. Important to your mental health or not much than facing your fears. And nothing is more damaging than playing it safe. Don't play it safe. So I addressed a concern that I had with multiple people, the same exact concern, and [00:02:00] I felt some pushback.

I felt some spin, but I stuck with it and I didn't give into my own insecurity, which I can feel great insecurity when I face fears, especially when dealing with people who I can somehow perceive maybe. Better than myself when my insecurity kicks in, whatever that may be. So I faced it. I actually went and dealt with it.

And second thing I did is I got some candles for my admin, my administrative assistants. And that's a risk for me. 'cause maybe they don't like them. You take a risk when you're vulnerable, you let go of the outcome. So this is the podcast that you do not just listen to. You get to be uncomfortable too. So let's start with an action.

What are things that you tell yourself when you beat yourself up? Damage your self-worth. Do you say that you suck? No one struggles like you do. It's that voice in your head. Or do you say you're better than other people, which people don't often realize. That's a self damaging thought as well. 'cause you're one-upping that comes outta insecurity.

You'll never be good enough. You're too old, you're too [00:03:00] young. You're not tall enough, you're not smart enough. How do you beat yourself up? Go ahead and write that down somewhere. Speak it into your phone. This question is asked so frequently, and I'm gonna give you six practices to engage consistently to like yourself, to build a life where you feel great about yourself.

It's not gonna come overnight. It's gonna take practices. These are practices that you can engage. And so what. Are things that you want to accomplish in a typical week. That's where people often end up beating themselves up 'cause they have these goals. They know they're wanna get up at a certain time, wanna go to bed at a certain time, want to engage in a certain level of exercise, want to eat a certain diet, wanna accomplish certain professional goals and personal goals.

And then imagine right now, Let's say you know what those things are, you can write those things down as well. What do you want accomplish this week or in a typical week? It's a really good week. Now imagine if you actually did 80, 70, 80% of those [00:04:00] things. You crossed 'em off the list. You got up at 5:00 AM five outta seven days.

You went to church, you journaled. You reached out to a couple friends. You spent some time playing golf and engaging in hobbies. You went to bed on time, five outta seven days in the week. You actually reached out to some family. Consistently, or at least a couple times, whatever, how would you feel? You'd feel great.

You would, because you showed up for yourself and you actually followed through. What the problem is, is that people have insecurity. They focus on pleasing others, they focus on their image. They focus on taking all kinds of time into image management. How do people perceive me? What do they think of me?

And they get sucked into being fake and not their genuine, true selves. And ultimately, when they go to bed at night, They can't look and say, well, I showed up for the world and did what God called me to do. No, they show up and say, I showed up for other people and did what they wanted me to do. Even though they may have tons of wealth, even though they may have a great success, [00:05:00] who are they working?

Who are they trying to please? Are they trying to please others? Are they trying to please and be the kind of person that God made 'em to be? Are they trying to please God in this process here? So it's a big problem. We waste tons of time and energy, and we have one life to live. Don't waste your life and live with regret at the end of your life.

People do not regret the risks they take. They take, they regret the risks. They don't take. The benefit of figuring this out and living a life you feel great about is your confidence and your self-worth is gonna improve significantly because you're showing up and taking these consistent actions that I'm going to, which I'm gonna talk to you about today.

When I was struggling so badly two years ago, almost two years ago, and I ended up in the hospital for not sleeping, I was grieving. I was dealing with a lot of loss in my life. I was reflecting on regret. I was focused consistently on how things have gone wrong, not how things have gone right. And I'm honestly a different person today and I knew [00:06:00] even then how I was not following through to take care of myself. In fact, the answer to improving how I felt about myself was right there with me and there were people telling me what to do, basically, my good friends who were giving me feedback on how to live and get my life back on track. But I wasn't doing it.

I wasn't taking the action. I was just sitting and worrying and being consumed by all the things that had gone wrong and I couldn't get out and I couldn't get out. You know, I had a really good weekend and I was thinking about some of the things that made it a good weekend. You know, I cleaned my car at least I detailed, cleaned my car some places that I had missed.

I went to coffee shop with my daughter and reread, called Coco Dolce. I cleaned the fish tank. Yes, I just felt good about that little thing. I went to church, I did some cooking. I did some simple stuff. And that made me feel good. At the end of the day, I was tired, but it was right there, these small things that I could do.

So let's go over these six actions you can take to live a life you feel great about. So, number [00:07:00] one, be generous. I. I've said it before, behavior is the most honest language. Watch how people live their lives. Watch how people treat others. If I'm hiring somebody, I want to know and see people in multiple settings, and I wanna see how they treat strangers.

I wanna see how they treat my other employees. I wanna see how they treat their family, potentially by inviting their spouse to dinner, potentially arrogance. Is not a good sign. When people look down on others or they're insecure on others, that's not a good sign. Generosity is a tremendous sign of hiring a good employee and knowing if somebody is a good person, how they pet a dog and play with a dog.

Believe it or not, that is something that you can get a feel for people on how they interact with. With animals, how they interact with themselves? Do they berate themselves or do they build themselves up? I had a good friend during that very down period. He's a good friend of mine now. His name is Don, and I remember every time I called Don, I mean I'm, I would say 90% of [00:08:00] the time I called Don, he would answer my call.

If he couldn't talk, he would say, I'll call you back. You know, I'm doing this, but he would, he was there for me and it might be a brief call. He's, he's kind of rough around the edges. Blunt, just tell, tells me the truth. But he would do it and he would show up. He was generous with his time. You can be generous with your time, your treasures and your talents, and sometimes people are generous with their treasures, like their money, but they're not really generous with their talents.

So some things you can do to work on being generous. You can mentor somebody you know, you could mentor someone that's getting outta prison. There's programs for that mentor somebody through Big Brothers and big sisters. You could mentor another professional in the field if they call you up and ask you to go out to coffee.

Well, don't turn 'em down. Give them generously. Give them information on the profession. They took a risk to reach out to you. Take time for that. I Try to often take time for that. Support a cause with your time, with your treasures, with your talents that you really believe in.

And so I really believe in mentoring. That's one of my passions. I have a good, good friend Joe, who's very passionate about homelessness [00:09:00] and he is involved in feeding the homeless and in providing goods and. Resources and he is out there like every week, every Thursday he's out there with these people and he just turned 80, believe it or not, and great person, inspiring person.

So be generous. Are you living a generous life? The second thing to do action, to take principle to follow is tell the truth. Wow. People spin, they evade, they. Don't do what they say they're gonna do. They're late like me to appointments frequently, which I'm much better now that I'm paying people to hold me accountable in this area.

People exaggerate, they one up. They talk about their achievements before listening and understanding other people and what they have achieved. I do this when I'm insecure. I want people to know what I've achieved and who I. You know, perceive that I am, you know, that's, that's embarrassing to even share that, but I get sucked [00:10:00] into that anxiety, that insecurity, and then I want people to know, and I can bite my tongue or I can just let it loose.

More often than not, I hope I bite my tongue because I know it's not gonna be coming from a healthy place. And it's really not telling the truth about yourself, because that's not my, that's not me, that's not Adam Gragg what I've achieved or who I know, or what kind of. Home I live in or kind of car I drive, or what my business has achieved, or who my family is, all those things are externals and they can be taken away and they're not a representation of my true character.

My behavior is judge me by my actions. Look at the actions of somebody else. Telling the truth is hard. Emotionally telling the truth. If someone says, how are you doing? And they're a friend, and you say, oh, great, but really it sucks right now for you. Well, that's not being honest is it? You don't have to go into great details.

Maybe you tell them that I don't really want to go into great details, but I'm not doing great. Pray for me, whatever. Or, yes, it was a pretty good [00:11:00] day, but I had a couple things that didn't go my way and I'm discouraged about that. That's emotional on emotionally honest communication. Some actions you can take is to identify where in your life are you not being honest, where you're exaggerating, where you're promising things that you can't really follow through on, where you're not, you're living a life in private that is different than the one you portray in public.

That you convey to other people that you live, where do you need to find some realignment? The second thing you can do to make progress here in telling the truth is you. Kim, go ahead and just start correcting yourself in the moment when you're not actually saying something that's accurate. Say, Hey, wait a second.

I wanna go back here. I was exaggerating, and here's the reality of this situation. That's hard in the moment. I know. Nine times outta 10 or seven [00:12:00] times outta 10, people are gonna respect that. It's a risk, I get it. But you're correcting yourself in the moment, not down the road after things have gotten outta hand.

Third thing, third action to take is show up for yourself. I. Being generous is not only showing up for other people, but it's also showing up for yourself because it's better to give than to receive. You're getting out there. So I committed to addressing this concern that I had, and it was a financial concern, and I felt like things were handled deceptively and I committed in my mind that I am going to handle this situation.

And so I didn't give myself an out. I just told myself in my calendar, I'm gonna do this today. And I drove to the office. I addressed the concern and I followed up and it was awkward and uncomfortable. I did find the right person. I was shocked that I actually followed through, believe it or not, 'cause I was intimidated.

But it was a great thing. I was honest. It was a good interaction, a good healthy interaction. But I showed up for myself this morning. I did not show up for myself 'cause I slept in, [00:13:00] and that's a bad habit. That I can get into at times and then I have to get back on track. 'cause I know that if I have one bad day, I gotta make a special effort to make sure I show up the next day in whatever area, whatever area it might be.

So if I set three objectives for the day, I wanna follow through and show up for myself. If I say I'm gonna work out after work, I'm gonna follow through. And this is gonna require going against my emotions at the time. So a major action you can take is you can show up for yourself. By leaning into the situation and actually doing it against your emotions.

So it's very uncomfortable and awkward and I wanna over prepare and have everything down and perfect before I go and engage and do something. But even though you're uncomfortable, even though you feel insecure, you still do it and say it, you still remember your objective. Which is the second way to show up for yourself.

For me, it helps me greatly if I remember my objective in the actual interaction or in that specific task. So what [00:14:00] am I really trying to achieve here? The objective can get skewed very easily. And even in conversations, other people can take you away from your objective. And so in this conversation that I had, my objective was to clarify one very specific issue that I was uncomfortable with.

And in the communication at times, 'cause I communicated with multiple people at times it was derailed and I was tempted to be sucked into the derailment by. Some comments being made about, you know, other areas and even assumptions being made about me that I had concerns in other areas, but I stayed on track.

I remembered my objective. My objective was to communicate on that one specific issue and to be heard on that one specific issue. When my, when I'm speaking, my objective is to give people content. I. That I'm trying to present. So my objective for me today is to remember, is to give you these six steps, these six principles to follow, so you can feel great about your life.

And if I've done that at the end of this podcast, then I can feel as if I've done my duty. Not perfectly, of course, but I've done [00:15:00] my duty. So if you found this podcast helpful so far, hit the link to shatterproof yourself. Seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. You'll only get it. Through hitting this link.

It's a video and a brief workbook. You won't wanna miss it. Check it out. So fourth. Fourth step to take is to set guardrails. So in order to show up for yourself and in order to tell the truth, for me, I have to have guardrails in place. And a guardrail on a highway is what's gonna keep the car from going off the road.

So you're gonna hit these guardrails before you go off the road and down the mountain, right in the mountains when you're driving in Colorado, or you're gonna hit a guardrail if potentially, if there's a. Guardrail in the middle, you're gonna hit that before you fall, when you fall asleep driving before you go onto the other side of the road and have a head-on collision.

So the guardrails are, people, their situations, their circumstances, they're things you set up in your life that are gonna protect you [00:16:00] from getting off track, and you're gonna feel really good about yourself when you stay true to showing up for yourself. The guardrails. And when you are honest with yourself, the guardrails are gonna remind you that you're starting to get into a dangerous area.

So before you go off the cliff, it reminds you that you're starting to get to into a dangerous area. And so when I make big decisions in my life, I have certain people I like to talk to consistently. My buddy Dave, my friend Brent, my friend Brian. Dave's wife, Melissa, and I, I have, I have many others too, so I apologize if I'm, if I'm keeping you off this list.

So, Ben and Nicole, I, I talk to my people in my family. I, I talk to my parents sometimes. I mean, and especially depending on the situation, there's certain people I talk to, those are guardrails for me because they're gonna see things that I'm not necessarily gonna see when I make a big decision. Am I off here?

Here's what I want to do. Am I off? I mean, am I not thinking about this right? I have a lot of fear about this situation, and they gonna help me and remind me that, no, you're doing the right thing here. Or be careful in that situation. And so my friend Nate, and actually his wife Tara, they've been excellent [00:17:00] guardrails for me.

And so if I'm dating somebody or if I have a new business opportunity, these are. This is my board of directors. These are people that know me well and I don't always agree with their opinions. And sometimes I make decisions that go against their opinions, but ultimately I know they have their my best interest in mind.

And if they're really super concerned, they tell me. And generally it's gonna align with what I know I need to do. So you find accountability in your life. That's one of the actions you can take to set up guardrails. Who are those people in your life who you can talk to about your goals and your vision and the things that are challenges in your life and the things you want to do, or an investment you might make with your time, or your energy or your treasures, or a volunteer opportunity and you're not really sure?

Who do you run it by? I personally don't tell people about my goals and vision, and because I don't, if I tell somebody to me, that adds a layer of accountability and then I can let myself down. And so I'll keep it inside. [00:18:00] But over time and through some little bit of maturity, I have learned to do it anyway because these people care about me and they're gonna help me stay on track.

So number five, fifth thing. Move outta your safe harbor. Everybody has a safe harbor in some area of their life. Where are you playing it safe? Are you hiding behind money? Are you hiding behind your looks? No. Are you hiding behind your career and not taking a leap? Are you not reaching out relationally and just staying in a safe space?

Thinking you have all the friends that you need and not inviting anyone new to do something, where are you staying and playing? It's safe. And so I was lucky professionally growing up to have professional courage, people not staying and playing it safe. Model to me, you know, and a couple people I think of is one is my, my uncle who is in the financial world and I have seen him take risks in his [00:19:00] life.

And another one is my dad and then many of my dad. And mom's friends, and these are entrepreneurial type people, and I've seen them take risks professionally, yet I haven't and didn't have the emotional risks modeled to me as much. Maybe not, not enough. So I would, I. See, I think it's safe to say that I've have a temptation to play it safe, not only because of it not necessarily being modeled to me emotionally, meaning opening up to people and risking connecting with people at a deeper level.

I have seen it obviously in the financial way and professionally, but not necessarily emotionally. So, great quote here is, 20 years from now, you will be disappointed by the things you didn't do. More than the ones you did do. Sail away from the safe harbor, explore, dream, and discover. That's H. Jackson Brown Jr.

I love it when I see my clients sail outta the safe harbor when they take a risk. You know, I can think of a client [00:20:00] and the last couple years, one guy, a musician, and had been working in the profession really as an instructor. I saw this great desire to go back out. To really make a career of being in the field as a musician.

And it was like we had a meeting every couple weeks or. Every week at times, and it was the same old thing. You know, I want to go and see if I can get some gigs. I want to get back into a band. I want to practice and get better. I wanna get back into the stuff I was doing 20 years ago. And there was some insecurity there, and we would talk about it, but I would hold 'em accountable.

I would mention it and say, Hey, what kind of progress did you make on practicing? And what kind of opportunities did you find out there where you could probably play? And one time, The guy came back, which this has happened to me countless times with clients, I mean, where they are resistant to actually making the changes.

And then they shock me when they come back, you know, a month later, and they've, [00:21:00] they've had three gigs that they've performed and they've been practicing almost every day, and they're back active in a band. And that was the case in this situation. It was like, who is this guy? You know? And so very encouraging, but a situation where someone moved outta the safe harbor and took some action.

And so some things, some actions you can take here to move out of what's safe is, you know, write something and then send it to people that are your friends and your family. Make a list of 20 people just write. Something. Tips on your profession or your passion, something that they could find helpful and useful.

Record something if you're a speaker or a music musician, or you want to just record a video to put it on YouTube because you enjoy teaching about astronomy, or you enjoy teaching about doing illusions, or you enjoy teaching about drama, you know, and want some. People out there to have information that you could, you could use that could be used to help them.

'cause maybe you have been and had a career in the performing arts and you can express or give people that information and help somebody. That's a [00:22:00] way to be generous and get outta the safe harbor. Yes, you could be judged, you could stand up to somebody who you perceive as doing something wrong just to get clarity.

'cause maybe as you talk about it, You're gonna realize that you're actually more on the same page than not. But you didn't get to that point until you actually stood up and said, Hey, this bothers me and I'm really curious to see how you got to this conclusion and this situation. And then you talk about it and hopefully have a very civil, healthy conversation.

And then number six, action you can take to feel great about your life is embrace the suck. And suck is one of my favorite words. I actually got this, that phrase embrace the suck from a friend who is a, a marine, and that was a, something that he learned with some of his marine buddies or learned in the Marine Corps.

I'm not sure if it's a marine saying or anything, but definition is that, you know, life has mundane, sucky parts to it. And if we can see that as a part of the process, To getting to where we want to go, then we can embrace it and actually find [00:23:00] some joy and pleasure at times, and not at times, but we can embrace it and say, this is really heading leading me in the right direction.

And so some things that suck, and believe it or not, I've used that word so much that my daughter says it without even knowing it sometimes, Hey, that sucks. I'll get a text from her. It really sucked, you know? And I'm thinking, well, I use that word a lot. You know how you kind of come to the realization that your kids.

Really model a lot of your behavior? Well, yeah. That's one of the moments where I figured that out with me. So some things that suck in my life, going to bed on time, it sucks. There's always something I'm gonna miss when I go to bed on time. So eating healthy consistently kind of sucks. You know, being on time kind of sucks, especially because I wanna blame other people for me being late or whatever I had to get done before I could leave the house.

Yeah, that sucks. You know, not. Reacting to my emotions in the moment, like just saying what I want to say and re restraining myself and stepping back and thinking it through. That kind of sucks in the moment. It saves me a lot of heartache. Long term [00:24:00] doing, getting up on time sucks. Working out a lot of times sucks for me.

A lot of times. It's a lot of fun, especially midway through the workout and I enjoy it and I'm listening to a good podcast or a book and stuff. But what is the sucky stuff in your life that you can embrace? I recently gave, I talked to my parents on the phone and it was a situation, it was an uncomfortable conversation.

And I shared with them something that they didn't want to hear, and then it sucked, you know? 'cause the call ended and I didn't like it, but I was honest. I. With them and they listened. And then when the call was over, I started second guessing myself. But it was actually really good. I was embracing the suck and it did, did the right thing.

I actually talked to my therapist about this today. So some actions you can take to embrace the suck. So bring your lunch to work all week. That may really suck for some of you to make it the night before. In the morning. Yeah, it might going to bed early or at the right time. Consistently during the [00:25:00] week, you know, five outta seven days, that could suck.

Cleaning something in your house that's been sitting or that you know is a project that you procrastinated on that can suck, but you're gonna feel better after you do it. And that's the whole thing with all of these. It's after you do it. After you start doing it consistently, you're showing up for yourself.

You're embracing the suck. You're being honest, you're being generous, you're following through, you're setting guardrails, and you're seeing progress, and it's living a life with integrity. At the end of the day, you can say, I've followed through and I'm being the person I wanna be. So if you want to improve and increase your self-concept, the way you view yourself, long kind of summary or short summary on this is live a life that you feel good about.

Do that consistently, and over time, your view of yourself is gonna increase dramatically. Your self-confidence is gonna increase dramatically. Show up for yourself. So, Remember my [00:26:00] 2080 rule insight is 20% a transformational change. You're gaining insight today. 80% is action. What action are you gonna take today?

What resonated with you most in the next 24 hours? Teach that concept. Talk about that concept with somebody else. Naturally take an emotional risk. Based on something that you have learned today, what's the inspiration from today? If you love this episode, tell someone about it. Share it with a friend, a coworker, send an email, send a link in podcast or Spotify.

That helps it grow. Also, if you're interested, have me out to speak live or over zoom. I can speak on a number of different topics. What I'm very passionate about talking to companies about right now is shatterproof yourself. Seven simple steps. To a giant leap in your mental health. Love to talk to you or reach out to one of my legacy coaches or myself to engage and I'm gonna sign off today the way that I always do make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for 10 years after [00:27:00] you're gone, you decide your legacy, no one else.

I appreciate you greatly, and I'll see you next time.