Unleashing the Power of Choice: Craig Beirdneau on Decision-Making, Values, and Voluntary Suffering

Speaker 1: 0:11

Everyone, welcome back to the Motion man podcast. We are continuing our mini series with Craig Birdknow, who is the premier performance coach to powerful people and he helps them see how powerful they really are. The focus on helping faith and family focus leaders and entrepreneurs. Welcome back, craig, and welcome back everyone to our third and final mini series episode.

Speaker 2: 0:36

It's gonna be great, best ones yet, right here I feel like Best one yet?

Speaker 1: 0:41

Yeah, best one yet. We're gonna wrapping up on this kind of this thought train, the thought train being we often hear so much about financial freedom and all the marketing materials out there, and it has this promise of abundance and happiness and freedom from suffering. In reality, we can put ourselves through a lot of suffering in the pursuit of financial freedom and we can find ourselves becoming slaves to this idea and we find that in the end, the idea is empty. This is concept that looking outward for success leaves us empty inside, and in our conversation we talked about how we need to look inward to that power of choice, to feel that emptiness. It starts there Feeling purposeful, feeling value inside of us and looking inward instead of outward for success and value.

Speaker 1: 1:41

And so then the question then becomes if we have this power of choice, if we stop telling ourselves the big lie I have to and we acknowledge our power and we wanna grow in our power, how do we then use that power to make quote, unquote the right choice? When do we know when to work? When do we know when to spend time with family? When do we know to spend our time and in service to our community or faith. So that's what we're gonna start off today and, craig, I wanna open up inviting your initial thoughts, reactions to this topic. How do we know what to choose?

Speaker 2: 2:17

I think the Silicon Slope Summit was last week out here in Utah and if you were to ask people, almost everyone thought what's your name? Okay, cool, what do you do? If you were to ask people who are you, they would be. A lot of them would be stumped. You get a lot of people like, oh, I'm gonna tell you what they do for a living, right, they'll tell you their job, their profession, their business, their company, whatever it is. Because, now, who are you? Right, like when you boil that down, who are you?

Speaker 2: 2:47

I think knowing who you are, your purpose, your mission, the things that identify who you are and how you identify, are crucial, right? I'll talk about values, and when we know, or make them the right decision, it's when it aligns with our values and who we are. And a lot of people don't know who they are. A lot of people don't know how powerful they are. And when you know who you are and you can just rattle that off, it's amazing. It's amazing to see, it's amazing to watch. Yeah, it's a really cool thing, yeah, so next time you're networking with somebody, just ask them like, hey, who are you?

Speaker 1: 3:27

And, I think, the power of identity. You and I are both people of faith, and so when I look at the Bible and we see the words, I am, when the Lord, when God introduces himself, he introduces who he is. I am Alpha Domega, I am the way I am, truth and light. If we were to introduce ourselves hey, I am Joseph, neary of honesty and integrity it's like what if you were to embody a value, and that is who you are and that is what you brought and created in the world. If you embodied integrity and you created integrity and all that you did, I think that releases the creation you create. What you put into the world is who you are, and this creation process, how we create power and influence our lives, is by embodying what we value, and the most powerful people, I think, that really influence us are people who move us with their character?

Speaker 2: 4:33

Yeah, they know who they are and they know who they are. They know why they're here and what they're doing and where they're going. Yeah, there's a song in Moana that actually talks about this. We know who we are, we know where we are and we know the way. Right, it's a really interesting if you can answer those questions. It's all. Yeah, it's so powerful.

Speaker 2: 4:57

You talk about, yeah, embodying values. Right, but we are the makeup of values and who you put out into the world. If you're not intentionally putting who and what you want to be out in the world, then you unintentionally put out things that you probably don't want in the world. You probably put out if you don't feel worthy, if you don't feel love, if you don't feel hope and strength and power. You probably put out the opposite, right, you probably, maybe you put out a slight anger and you can still absolutely put off great things. Don't get me wrong. You still put out great things that are meaningful to you, but it's even more meaningful when you are knowingly and intentionally putting them out and living it and embodying it, like you mentioned.

Speaker 1: 5:45

So let's bring this down to just like a day-to-day example, because I think it's really nice to talk about these lofty theoreticals. But what is this sort of like day-to-day that? I recently was coaching a client. She's a mother and she was worried and she was frustrated that some of her children during she's a coach she's a cheer coach, so when it's time for her to coach the other girls and she needs to shoe them off to a different class, they're very clingy. They don't want to leave.

Speaker 1: 6:18

So we started digging into this because she was also feeling really guilty about this and I asked why are you feeling guilty about this? I'm their mom. Why should you be there for them? Why should you be there for them? Because I'm there to protect them. Why are you there to protect them? No, what are you trying to protect them from? From danger. And one of the core beliefs was that if her children weren't near her, they were in danger. And she was anxious. Guess what she was putting off into the world that her children are in danger, away from her. So is it any wonder that the children didn't want to leave?

Speaker 2: 6:55

It's not any wonder at all, yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:57

Yeah, and so when we look at, obviously we have our biological bias. We naturally have some cognitive functions in our brain that help us to avoid pain, pursue pleasure and conserve energy. It's kept us alive. But I think as we pursue and look at being intentional with our choices, we have to start from a place of awareness as to why we're making choice. Are we making choice to avoid pain? Of what Uncomfortable emotions shame, embarrassment, rejection, failure, fear. So I think identifying the why of why we're making a choice really and I think this is where coaches such as Craig come into play, because we're looking at performance and sometimes you have to open up the hood and seeing why the engine's performing poorly or how we can optimize that performance and it's really digging in and identifying why are we making the choices we are, how are we presenting ourselves? And it really comes down to core beliefs and our values. How does it intersect with what you do, craig, and what you've seen in the world on a day-to-day interactions with entrepreneurs and business owners and just yourself as a parent?

Speaker 2: 8:24

Yeah, we've got something right our natural flight of five feelings modes right, our natural cognitive to conserve energy. It's really great at keeping us alive, but it's not great to help us live. Right, they keep us alive and they don't help us live very well. A lot of things get in the way of that. And I see it, yeah, man, I see it all the time. I see it in myself all the time and that's why it's not a crack.

Speaker 2: 8:55

Okay, good, you catch it and then you get to rewrite it. You get to be like, okay, this feeling is actually or this skilling is helping me. My body's in firefly mode, but staying in this is going to help me to push through certain things. The thing, the thing that comes to mind for me is when I do ice baths or cold showers which I do often and I have for a long time, they're just, it puts you into a firefly mode, but it's been such a big help for me, anxiety-wise, there's so many benefits to it. We can talk about it. Then we can have an episode just on cold baths, but it's yeah, I can assign meaning to it on a comfortable situation that will serve me and that will help me grow, and it's part of who I am now. And, yeah, when we talk about identity and we talk about these beliefs, they are huge. They are huge in how we interpret the things that are happening around us.

Speaker 1: 9:50

And interpreting the things around us. I think this really comes from this if we know what we value. For example, two of my core values is faith and growth. Let me just give an example of this in my recent as of today life, and how, when we anchor to values, we become powerful people.

Speaker 1: 10:12

One of the things that I have struggled with most of my life is the pursuit of pleasure, as we all do. I love, absolutely love. Love reading sci-fi, fantasy, the genre. It takes me away, and the fact that it takes me away. What does it take me away from? It takes me away of whatever discomfort I'm currently experiencing in life. I can recognize the feeling when I start craving listening to a good book or reading a book. It's this desire to escape, to find something new and wondrous, so I don't have to sit in whatever suck I'm currently in.

Speaker 1: 10:57

And because this has been a problem in the past of me not being present with my family, of me reading straight through the night, I sometimes develop an accountability system with my wife, just so I make better choices. And what does this look like when I travel? She's okay. What's your protocol? What's going to help you? I'm going to text you at 8.30. That's when I want to go to bed. I'm headed to bed, my devices are off, so I don't stay up making poor choices and reading through the night.

Speaker 1: 11:24

And on a recent trip I texted okay, I headed to bed in 10 minutes and I stayed up for two hours. I felt so much shame and when she asked me how to trip I was like, oh, it was great, it glossed over the fact that I stayed up reading and it felt weak. I was caving to, not wanting to fill this personal sense of disappointment until I anchored to my values of growth and reframed how I saw the situation. Life's not an on and off switch, it's a dial.

Speaker 1: 12:03

There's plenty of range, and I spoke to her and the feeling of being able to brave something uncomfortable, that courage to be willing to experience something uncomfortable, is one of the most powerful things you have. And I think that's why the ice baths are so incredible because you are willing to face something voluntarily that's uncomfortable for you and you're anchoring to something that really matters. And that's the power. And if you can look back at your life and say I have consistently, despite the discomfort, I have kept with what I value, that is how you measure success, I think, was I successful? What am I holding to what I value? What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2: 12:58

Yeah, there's. I'm just trying to pull something up real quick. There's a study done I believe it was Cornell, I'll find it. But there was a study done of people who purposefully put themselves in uncomfortable situations In the name of growing and becoming better at something. They saw like a two to three X growth over people who weren't putting themselves in uncomfortable situations.

Speaker 2: 13:28

It's a really interesting thought to actually seek this comfort. This is when our brain starts to light up us, and it's now. I want you to be comfortable, I want you to be 72 degrees in the summer and I want you to be 72 degrees in the winter. My life would say like 78 in the winter and for any of that. But it's your brain wants you to be comfortable, it wants you to be out of it, wants you to be out of these modes, and that's what it's designed to do to keep you alive, right. But when you seek uncomfortable situations, you talk about marathons, I think, and one of the earlier episodes, forcefully putting yourself into a marathon when running isn't how you're nature. That's uncomfortable. Running sucks. Some people get that run as high. I've never experienced getting high while running, so I don't know what it's like.

Speaker 2: 14:28

I have had ice baths, high though so I can. I can see what they're talking about there, but I still haven't gotten my way to go into nice baths. I don't know, she's one day, one day soon yeah. But it's like yeah, pushing yourself, pushing yourself and then putting yourself in uncomfortable situations creates more growth.

Speaker 1: 14:50

And I think also when we choose to embrace emotions that are difficult for us, that is actually where we find the most freedom, because we're no longer running away and closing the doors of opportunities.

Speaker 1: 15:06

If we're always afraid of rejection, we're not going to knock on the door to make the cell.

Speaker 1: 15:10

If we're afraid of being hurt, we're not going to lower the emotional barriers to reconnect and heal a relationship.

Speaker 1: 15:18

And so I think the voluntary choice that's the power to influence yourself, to do something uncomfortable, to bear uncomfortable emotions, allow ourselves to open up to the full spectrum of human emotion and experience and to take value in that, whatever it is, whether it's faith, whether it's love, whether it's courage you anchor to the value. You define that value in your personal life, how you think about things through that value mindset, and then you intentionally plan out how you're going to approach a circumstance differently through that value mindset, whether it's a growth mindset or a hope mindset, a patient's mindset, whatever it is. I think that's how we begin to really start embodying what we truly value, to find the most purpose in life. Because then, if you have your values, you can create your vision off your values, and then you can create plans off your vision. And then, all of a sudden, you have this plan and vision for your life and who you want to become, rather than what you want to do or what outcome you want in the world, and who you are, 100% within your control Period.

Speaker 2: 16:39

The end. End of this. No, I said something earlier that I think was really awesome. That made me think of one of the things that my coach loves reminding me, which is in the resistance is the revelation. It's when we lean into these moments, when we lean into something we don't want to do, and really understand what is it? Why is it happening? Why are we experiencing it the way we are? What's the meaning we're assigning it? That doesn't need to be assigned to it. So for one one, for me it's oh no, that's too hard. I think we assign meaning like that all the time. Something's too hard. What does that even mean that it's too hard?

Speaker 2: 17:20

And seeing a require more energy, effort, focus, determination, sure, like when you actually boil it down oh yeah, and then you tie it in perfectly with who do you want to be? Who are you? And then how do you be that person today? And then how do you continually become the person you want to become? And when you ask people that's why I think when you ask them who they are, it really it forces them to do a little check oh man, am I who I want to be? Am I becoming who I want to become? He talks about growth mindset. I couldn't agree more growing and learning and understanding and love and service and kindness and being sweeter to my children and how I react to them stealing milk and then having fake emotion and then how do I match that? It's all those things.

Speaker 1: 18:14

Hour. Hour is in the choice. Satisfaction is in the why you choose what you choose. I think, in the end, if we really want to have a purposeful life, if we truly want freedom and abundance, it's really in allowing ourselves to feel the abundance of emotions that we have, it can have having the voluntary choice to experience suffering for the meaning that we truly want to give it. I think that's really how, as entrepreneurs, as leaders, as parents, as people of faith, it's that ability to make a choice, to be who you want to be versus our natural avoid the pain, pursue the pleasure and conserve energy.

Speaker 2: 19:01

Yeah, yeah, eat, drink and be merry, right yeah that really is it.

Speaker 1: 19:09

So I think the purpose is really found in having the why for the suffering that we voluntarily take upon ourselves, whether that suffering is the stressors of starting a company, of starting a family, of going out and helping someone because, let's be honest, helping other people is risk. We're expending resources for an unknown outcome, but if we know what the outcome is inside of us, then it's inner control. Love it, craig. Any final thoughts to wrap up this concluding episode of our mini-series?

Speaker 2: 19:48

Yeah, we get to create our life every day and be who we want to be, and if there are things that are in your life that you don't want in your life, you get to choose. You are choosing by not removing them. You're choosing to have them in your life and, yeah, I always blow stuff down. For me, it's all coming down to faith and family. That's a big part of who I am and, yeah, I think God, or the universe or whatever you call it, is so good and there is so much unneeded suffering that we don't have to go through and there's so much good and power in the world that we can find right here right now, and it's people like Joseph who are leading the way, doing it and helping people find it.

Speaker 1: 20:32

Yeah, I don't even know, hey, craig, if there is a business leader, entrepreneur out there who feels like they'd be a good matchup to improve their performance with a guy who's faith and family focused, where can they get more of Craig Bird-Know? Yeah?

Speaker 2: 20:48

Connect to me on LinkedIn. Go to seekyourleadershipcom and schedule a meeting with me. I'd love to talk and take you to lunch. Network, it's all who I am and what I'm about, so it was probably the two easiest ways. You hit me up on Facebook, but I don't really check that. So, LinkedIn, go to my website and those are probably the two best options.

Speaker 1: 21:11

Everyone, this is Craig Bird-Know. He really is a powerful person. I've really appreciated his time and his thoughts and attention on this and, who knows, I'd love to have him back for another mini series in the future. Thank you so much, craig.

Speaker 2: 21:24

Thank you, have a good one.