0:05 foreign and welcome to the way to wow people making money I'm your host Kevin bemel and it's good to be here this afternoon I hope you enjoy what I've got planned for today it's a little bit a little bit different than some of the things we've talked about before um and but I thought that um well you know we're we're just we just finished the Jewish fall holiday season and I'm I'm sure many of you are not Jewish but uh you know being a rabbi I think about these things and I I
0:42 thought I would bring a perspective that's really been the focus of the last three weeks to the world of professional success to our our job hunting our our business startups and uh it it's a subject I don't hear um people talking about um very much if at all um and you know you there there's a lot talk that you hear about you have to have a positive mindset and you have to have uh you know stick-to-itiveness you have
1:19 to be resourceful and you have to have all these different things and and in various ways that that's all true I mean it's probably not a good idea to start a business thinking well I'm gonna fail right um probably not the attitude to bring into a meeting to discuss a job uh you know a lot of negativity most employers maybe probably all employers you know they they don't want to hear that and um um you know just as a side note um I I saw um uh a friend of mine uh um
1:56 a few days ago who had embarked on a a job hunt um and was really um absolutely committed to you know getting this this new job it was really going to change her life um there's some other things that I that are not relevant to this discussion um and she worked at and she worked at it she hired a coach she refined her tactics and she got close many many times but never landed that job that she
2:35 wanted and she was telling me about it and she told me that as a result after about over a year she just decided I I can't do this anymore I I have to do something else and so she decided to pursue professionally something else um candidly something that I think she is much much better suited for uh and you know as we're talking one of the things she says I I just I couldn't figure out why I wasn't successful in
3:11 this job hunt um and and yet this other professional direction that I've taken which I which she had tried before and and was not successful all of a sudden she's successful at it and I said to her well the the job that you were looking to get was never you and anyone who would get to know you would see this is not the right place for you to be and so it wasn't that she was even exuding negativity quite to quite the
3:47 contrary I think she was very upbeat very positive she's a very engaging person and yet you know and and she was going for you know c-suite level positions um I think people at that level they they have Insight that um helps them cut through a lot of um kind of fog in this process um and and I I you know I'm sure well I'm I know it was very hard for her to
4:23 face those rejections uh nonetheless I I do think she's much better off for them um and and her this this story has a point because it relates to the topic that I want to discuss today so I promoted this episode as the one factor that people just seem to overlook in their in their job hunt and it never gets talked about and that factor is pain so it here in the United States
5:01 especially um but and and I think in the west generally Our Lives tend to be geared around avoiding pain we live in very wealthy societies by the way this is not political commentary I think most of us would agree we have we live in a wealthy society that doesn't mean any particular individual is wealthy but Society overall you know I think everybody would agree is we live in a wealthy society and much that surrounds us is geared toward reducing pain increasing happiness whatever that might
5:38 mean right that's a whole other discussion and I think that oftentimes the avoidance of pain actually holds us back so it's it's very rare that we make significant changes in ourselves that we we grow as a result of pleasure pleasure encourages us to stay where we're at so we can experience more
6:13 pleasure paying necessitates our changing and hopefully growing in order to move to a new place that will be less painful okay so I I um I discussed this uh in my book and where's my screen share I want to I want to show a graphic uh from from the book I always forget to Click Share okay here we go it's coming up there we go okay so uh you know I I this was uh
6:48 something I wrote not long after I injured myself uh running and you know I mean right now I'm not able to run at all but at least I can walk and and the in the uh the industry the industry the injury necessitated my uh changing what I was doing and and it was it was painful um I I injured my achilles tendon to the point where um I couldn't even walk let alone run
7:23 right so I had to lay off for a week and a half I had to get custom orthotics I had to get an MRI and you know and I prayed a lot like please you know Lord um do not take away my favorite uh type of of exercise um and uh you know I did work through it I had a great uh Doctor Who who helped me out and and I got through it and as a result I was able to go on and this was before um I I ran a marathon so not only did I
7:59 recover from this this injury and move on move beyond the pain I was able to uh you know fulfill the it wasn't so much a goal per se but do this you know running a marathon I mean not a lot of people run a marathon by the way I'm not going to run another one ever again um but I but I did that one it was a worthwhile experience so I I think it behooves us to think about pain differently than we do
8:35 pain is it hurts of course it hurts I'm not suggesting we should think that pain doesn't hurt yes but pain is not a bad thing it's not something that we should avoid especially at all costs sometimes we should embrace pain because of what it'll do for our lives so pain really gives us two choices
9:11 and you see them there on the screen one is to push through it and the other is to change course and this is where it can be difficult because how do we know in which direction the pain is telling us to go right it's it's very very hard to know so I I think we we need to think about that and I'm going to share some thoughts on on this with you that
9:50 perhaps will help you come to a conclusion for for your own life so first of all well now I I can tell you for myself my default is to push through pain right this is how I ended up you know entering my achilles tendon because I'm out there running and I'm it's it's I'm feeling some pain it's like no I'm just gonna push throughout keep going and then I get to the point where I can't you know even walk let alone run right so uh that was probably you know the wrong decision to push through but oftentimes
10:25 the right decision is to push through now I would say this is mo more likely the case when we're talking about a relationship now I have to give a caveat here I am not talking about an abusive relationship if you are involved with someone who is physically or emotionally beating you up that is not that pain that you are suffering is not an indication of pushing through it okay that pain is an
11:04 indication that you need to change course okay now by the way changing course doesn't mean necessarily terminating the relationship what it does mean is taking action to stop the pain okay as opposed to just going along with the pain and working through it and hoping that something will change in the future no if if someone is physically or mentally abusing you active steps need to be taken to get you
11:41 out of that painful situation it may mean the person has to you know be put into a restraining order it may mean May mean that the relationship has to break up uh it it it may mean that drastic uh a situation but it may not it may mean that the person needs to get um psychiatric and psychological help and be absolutely committed to that um and may maybe temporarily living apart until the person um gets themselves uh under control or
12:16 or something like that um so I'm not talking about a relationship that's at that point okay but for the the um fairly typical challenges that happen between two people oftentimes the answer to the pain that that causes is is is working through that and and seeing where it might work you know where change and and discussion and and other
12:52 um other things can um build the relationship in a way that it is more mutually supportive than it was before um and and by the way even in a relationship look if if you have an absolutely pain-free relationship I wonder if that relationship is growing at all okay one of the dangers of so-called pain-free relationships is people are so disconnected that they don't there there is no
13:29 opportunity for by the way for pain or pleasure right they're just completely disconnected and that's that's not a good thing in fact it's really not even a relationship um you know you may have had circumstances where in your own life or maybe in your parents life or something two people are living together and there's you know little or no dissension there's little or no pain or at least little or no pain um uh expressed um and and you know people are going along thinking hey things are great and yet uh you know when all when it turns out
14:04 um you know there were there was there was no relationship there um and or there's some other relationship going on that you know that the the you know one of the people doesn't know about right there's a a betrayal going on or something like that so um you know pain-free in relationships I I would argue is is not the goal either so there needs to be a balance and and and the working through of pain oftentimes um Can dramatically strengthen uh
14:40 relationships so look one of the worst pains for example a couple could ever experience would be you know God forbid the death of a child um and the pain from that tends to do one of two things it either breaks the couple up or it brings them much much closer together than they were before so you know um and and and that's not to say you know obviously the death of a child is a good thing of course it's not um but the the what can come out of the pain of that um can be a a more resilient a stronger
15:15 more durable relationship so um in in the professional world so again a pain-free professional life is is probably a professional life where you are not meeting your potential now by the way you may say I don't care as long as I can go to work do my whatever 40 hours a week make the money I want to make and go home and do my other stuff that's fine okay
15:51 look that's part of your definition of success as they say I I probably shouldn't use Russian you know Expressions but anyway go with God as they say uh but for it but if if professional growth if greater professional success is your aim it's extremely unlikely that you're going to accomplish that pain-free you're gonna have to push through some pain and that pain may come from um taking on a challenge that is
16:28 you know greater than you think you might be able to handle and sort of getting your hands around new abilities new skills um absorbing new experiences all of that can be very painful especially really more emotionally painful hopefully not physically painful although that can happen too of course and emotional pain can manifest itself in in physical pain too right I mean how many of you have you know backache problems like but when I when when the when the mental stress gets really really high for me I start feeling it in the small of my back that that's how I know okay
17:03 something's got to change here okay or I'm under much more mental stress than I thought I was and now I've got to examine okay I'm in a state of pain what does this mean where is this coming from where do I need to grow in order to resolve that pain and get to a place where I'm better able to deal with the more stressful circumstances so all of that is part and parcel of Greater professional success and and it can apply whether you're an employee working for an organization or whether you're working for your own business I I will
17:39 say that if you have your own company you almost for sure will not be successful if avoiding pain is part of your business plan right I just I just don't know how it can possibly be especially if it's a newer business because you've got to build it it takes a lot of time a lot of effort a lot of growth you're going to be making mistakes you need to learn from those mistakes all of that is is painful okay and if you can accept the pain that
18:14 comes with it you will be much more successful much more quickly okay um than trying to avoid it all now hopefully you'll build the business to the point where I don't know you can hire some professional managers they can take over all of that you still have your ownership in the business and you don't have to engage with it every day I don't know if maybe that's your goal um I I would like to get to that point by the way you know I think that would be terrific um but but that's not the early stage of a business by any stretch of the imagination um and by the way even if you've
18:49 attained a pain-free business life or a relatively pain-free business life hopefully that's not going to be true of all the rest of your life so committing to what you're doing is it requires you to push through many many times in professional life that's what it takes and that's really that's why I said the story I was telling earlier about my friend that's where I think she she did the right thing okay she she got to the finals and and you
19:25 know she was one of two and she didn't get that one okay it was disappointing I know it was um but she you know she moved on to the next one and she moved on to the next one and she kept you know she kept a positive outlook and a positive attitude that was absolutely what she needed to do at that time in her life at that in that phase of her professional Journey okay so I don't want to imply that she should never have embarked on that I think her current success in a completely different area is at least in part perhaps largely in part
20:02 of the of her experiencing the pain of this job hunt and sticking with it and sticking with it because it taught her she had to learn something from that and I think what she learned from it is this is not for me okay and that's the second that's the second choice we have when we're experiencing pain it may require a change of course okay and and and that's perfectly valid now here's something that I'm working on
20:39 my daughter with so she's a teenager Life as a teenager is tough I can't countless people have told me to be a female freshman in high school is like is one of the most difficult things to be I'll I'll take it on faith I I was never a female uh High School freshman so I I can't speak from personal experience um I was a freshman at some point I don't know my recollection is wasn't so tough but maybe I'm remembering it better than it was but but she it's it's it's it's been tough on her and I I think she she's struggling at times and
21:17 you know look as her father of course that that that you know it makes me feel bad I wish I could uh you know relieve her of her struggles but I realized that it is through those struggles that she will grow and she needs to grow so to give you an example um she is a huge fan of Dungeons and Dragons um it's she has books on it that she's read I mean in Long books I I started reading one of them it's like wow this is really intense stuff here
21:55 um and she knows so much about it what she didn't have was practical experience uh playing the game and she really wanted she tried to put a game together herself but she just didn't have the experience to make it successful okay by the way good for her trying to put it together and that that's I I told her I thought that was very admirable shows a lot of you know self-starting and all of that right so it just so happened I I met someone a few months ago we became friends and he and his wife are big big time Dungeons and Dragons uh uh fans players whatever and and over the preceding several years he had learned
22:31 to be a game master I guess it's called so um I was telling him how interesting my daughter's would she be interested in um my putting a game together uh for her so she could learn I said I think so let me you know get her on a call the three of us and sure enough she was so excited over the top excited about this opportunity to play with someone who knew that she was going to be learning how to play it was it was really an ideal situation for her so she came to me um not too long ago um I think last week I believe it was
23:06 right yeah it would have been last week and she said Daddy um do you think um the the fellow who put the game together would be upset if I quit and that's just gotten like Silence by uh honestly I was very surprised and I'm like why would you want to quit you love Dungeons and Dragons and she said I'm not any good at it and I think the other players in the game
23:42 um they're annoyed by having to play with me because I'm not I'm not very good at it and so now and now by the way I I don't know exactly what feedback she had gotten last time she had played knowing the people involved I'm I was you know skeptical that they had expressed anything like that to her directly so I think this was something she was kind of feeling from inside we all get that right we get this sense like I can't do this and and and and since I don't feel good about how I'm performing
24:19 in this Arena other people must be picking up on and they they're not pleased to be involved with me right it becomes a whole sort of thing that spins out of control for us so you know I said to her you know baby I would talk to the game master about how you're feeling and get his thoughts because I said knowing him as I do I've think it's extremely unlikely that he's not enjoying playing with you number one and number two I would bet
24:54 he's worked with other players who felt the same way that you do and help them get beyond that grow in their ability to play Dungeons and Dragons and it became even more enjoyable for them so now uh and so you know she I think frankly somewhat begrudgingly said she would I I don't know if she has um I'm I'm interested to to uh follow up with her on that soon foreign in her case I think she was too quick to change course
25:31 right um she had much more to gain than to gain through sticking it out through pushing through it than she did through changing course right now by the way let me let me also say it it's her life I would I would never have told her you may not you may not stop playing no that's that's not that's not my place to do that I mean I'm her father but it's her life and for me to insist that she stay in a a a state of pain if you
26:08 will uh emotional pain um over this uh that I that I I don't feel is is the right thing for me to do what is my job as a parent is to ask her the questions and share with her the thoughts that she may not be considering in order that she can make a more informed decision for herself right and and and and and by the way I think that's um largely true in the professional world as well if we have an employee
26:44 someone or a colleague forget employee a colleague and that colleague is experiencing some pain maybe they're thinking about quitting the company well so um you know I think the tendency especially if we're their supervisor is is to uh you know kind of assess well do I want this person to stay or not and then use their pain in order to um get what we want out of the situation and I I I think that's um frankly a pretty selfish way for a supervisor to
27:21 handle things so I I think when we have a colleague who's experiencing pain self-doubt or anxiety over the size of a project or something like that our responsibility is to help them figure out why am I feeling this way what would need to happen in order for me to grow and or change so that I don't feel this way in the future whether it's here at this company or whether it is at
27:56 another company that's our responsibility as Leaders always now one of one of the places I learned that was in the military because for the most part in the military if you've got a colleague who's who you know doesn't like being in the military they don't have the opportunity to just leave if they're enlisted so they have a term of enlistment for them to leave before that term is up at best has some very negative consequences for them and even for an officer who you know
28:33 serves at the pleasure of the president the commander-in-chief still an officer has to go through the resignation process and while in general if an officer resigns that that resignation will be accepted it doesn't have to be accepted right and and the officers superiors do not have to recommend that it be accepted okay so people in the military they're kind of stuck there especially in the short term so it's it's not a possibility to say well I think you
29:08 better move on you know that that's generally speaking not the case so the challenge really is to help this person grow professionally so that they can stick it out they can push through it now they're they're by the way there are there are combinations of these things in the professional World especially if if you work for a large organization and or you have your own business so you may be experiencing some some difficulties in your business or for the company if the organization you're
29:43 working for that are really causing you a problem and and yet you feel like I don't want to close my business I don't want to leave this company but I just don't know what to do so maybe you can change course within your own company or with your own company and or within the organization so you know if you're um in some kind of administrative role and and you're experiencing a lot of pain over finances right maybe you have an opportunity to get into a different role than the company that will give you greater income earning potential maybe
30:19 you'll get into sales or something like that um and so you're in essence you're pushing through but you're also changing course at the same time and indeed of course you could argue any change of course is part of the process of pushing through and and and that's that's true uh within the professional realm though um you know we may not have the like in a small company they may not have the ability to have you do something else the the opportunity just may not be there and so changing course means
30:56 leaving the company which is a major uh leaving the organization which may be a major disruption not only in your own life but in the um in the running of the organization as well so it may be there that pushing through really necessitates that you push through in your existing position or something you know something like that now in your own business this is one of the key questions you'll be needing to assess periodically and that is you know if I'm bumping up against what seems like a barrier in my business and I'm not getting through do I just need to keep you know batting away
31:32 pushing away at it like that you know that what is the song uh um high hopes you know the ram is hitting the dam right and he's not making any progress but he has High Hopes right well so hopefully you're not in that situation where you keep bucking that down but you can't get through right and it's just purely High Hopes um with your own business you know you need to be strategic is the direction I'm going in going to be the direction of success and and I'll I will tell you for example in my real estate business the reason I eventually became successful was because I shifted
32:10 directions a couple of times um it you know fairly significant changes of directions and and that's really what in the end made the difference for me I was willing to exercise that kind of flexibility at the same time I push through I stuck with my business um perhaps longer than I should have that's that's just uh you know a separate issue um but nonetheless I did and and I and I got to the point where I was successful so the main point of all this and I'm I'm I plan to do a little a shorter uh show
32:45 today than I normally do because I just wanted to focus on this one uh idea is that pain is not necessarily A Bad Thing pain is an indication that we need to wake up become more aware and probably are poised on the uh on the point of the need to grow okay and and so you know as you're
33:20 pursuing your professional goals whether it's a job hunt whether you're already in a job but you're looking to advance yourself either within your organization or by going somewhere else whether you you have your own business or you're planning on starting a business don't avoid the pain it's it it short term you may feel like you're gaining something but long term almost for sure you're losing out now you may you may say well wait I'm sometimes I'm just so overwhelmed I couldn't possibly Embrace pain at that point okay I understand of of course there these are not hard and
33:57 fast rules you need to look at you know where you're at holistically what I'm saying is don't make pain avoidance your long-term goal sometimes you need to avoid pain in the short term in order to get through something else maybe you have pain in another area of your life and so to have it in your professional life too is just not going to work gotcha I'm I'm I'm there I've been there um having said that make look for opportunities to grow which means you're basically going to be
34:32 looking for painful opportunities right because growth comes through pain right and think about uh because one last uh sort of uh metaphor I think it is uh for growth you know sometimes um a child will have a growing spurt and they'll they'll feel achy because their body is literally growing so fast that their their muscles and tendons and such are are aching with the growth and and it's it's it's painful it's painful of course it is
35:07 um and and you know the the child needs Comfort um my my question would be though if you had your choice would you stop the child from growing would you stop the child from becoming the person that the child can be whatever that is height and Etc probably not right so as difficult as the pain is the growth long term is good for the child and it's good for us too so I um I put together
35:43 um this this this this uh picture here that you see on the screen it's a it's a little slide it's it's kind of a prayer and you see here at the bottom it's just a little bit cut off here let's see if I can get the whole thing right yeah there you go okay so um the uh I'll read it here of course you can read I know that God grant me pain that I may grow and the wisdom to know when I should push through it and when I should change course that that's that's my prayer I I I would like to tell you that I always pray that
36:18 and I don't I don't always pray it um you know candidly one of the reasons why I'm doing this show today is there's as a a reminder to myself that um I I need to do this um that I I shouldn't make my life purely about avoiding pain or or you know Finding pleasure that's that's not a healthy it's no healthier for me than it is for anybody else so you know I wanna you know kind of jump in the you know the the water here with you
36:53 um and so what I what I recommended you see at the bottom is is take a photo of this image with your cell phone so you'll always have it with you when you need it and you can and and when when life is tough pull it out you know when you see this this uh this you know football player you know soccer here in the US right of course um he's obviously in pain so the question I I I I don't know who he is to be honest but um I bet if we asked him and said would you rather have avoided this pain or would you rather be in this match trying
37:29 to win and I suspect he would say he'd rather be in this match trying to win that pain is a part of sports it's something every athlete who wants to accomplish things has to endure and just like we've been talking about in in relationships in professional life the question in sports too is do I push through the pain or do I change course right just decide great movie North
38:04 Dallas 40 that really that's one of the central questions to that movie it's a wonderful wonderful movie uh Mac Davis and um Nick Nolte from the 80s I believe if if you if you're interested in this issue of you know embracing pain for the growth that it can give us I highly highly highly recommend that you watch that movie it's it's a it's a wonderful investigation of this question um so you know I'll uh what I'll do is um
38:39 I will I'll post a link to where I have this picture on my website how about that and that way um if you want to be able to take a picture of it you can um and um and and maybe this little prayer will will be helpful to you um not just in your professional life although hopefully there but maybe in other areas of your life and by the way I wouldn't I wouldn't wish relationship pain on you uh on the other hand um I I would recommend that if if you're
39:17 if you've got a relationship where there's absolutely zero conflict and and it's been that way for a long long time I would recommend to you that you examine that relationship is it really as strong and enduring as you think it is or are have you um gotten to a place where you're you're really not seeing that there are you know festering problems um and and they just haven't been addressed so um God grant me the pain that I may grow and the wisdom to know when I should
39:52 push through it and when I should change course so that's that's what I have for you uh this week uh we're ending a little bit short so you got a little bit of extra time um and uh you know maybe to contemplate these ideas or if you have a question of course I'm always available to uh respond to your questions um my email address will be um on the YouTube um uh posting of this episode as always feel free to reach out to me if if if there's a topic that you'd like to see
40:28 addressed by all means let me know about that as well and I'd be happy to do so so um that's all I have for this week look forward to seeing you next week as I do every Wednesday especially now that the holidays are over there shouldn't be uh interruptions for hopefully for for quite some time and and so 12 30 p.m on the west coast 3 30 p.m on the East Coast an hour in for a mountain and Central time not to give them a short shrift and that just leads me to say a friend of mine who who helped me grow
41:06 tremendously and and it was partly through the sharing of of pain um and I think that's one of the reasons why I feel so close to her is is we both of us I think uh grew grew through the sharing of that pain and so Marie darling you are and ever will be my bell thank you so much for joining me today and I look forward to seeing you next week thank you