Why Successful People Feel Stuck: Redefining Success at Any Age

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsement for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates. Any questions or common should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W. Four WN Radio. This is Beyond Confidence with your host w park. Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional, and financial goals? Well? Coming up on dvparks Beyond Confidence, you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers who have stepped into discomfort, shattered their satus quo, and are living the life they want. You will learn how relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals.

0:52 Moving your career business forward does not have to happen at the expense of your personal or family life or vice versa. Learn more at www Don't divpork dot com and you can connect with v at contact ats dvpark dot com. This is beyond confidence and now here's your host div Park. Good morning listeners, and it's Tuesday, and so good to be with you. So very interesting thing happened yesterday. I was working with C suite executives from a company which is in the banking industry, and well you can call a bank, but still like the key is that, you know, we see the tellers and everyone in the front face, but at the back end of it, it is just like a new organization. And what was interesting, you know, we were talking about artificial intelligence and how slowly artificial intelligence is making its way in the regulated industries as well, whether it be insurance or whether it be artificial intelligence.

2:01 And yet the key is the one word that kept on coming back over and over again was maintaining the trust of their customers. So if you are looking to work with AI where you don't know when to get started as far as your career is concerned, or whether you're looking to keep that trust in your organization and grow your people, then definitely our book The AI Agency is for you because we use so many different strategies from there yesterday and they landed. So these are not just theories. These are practical strategies and tactics that I use in day to day organization. And of course, thank you for buying any of our books. We appreciate you, and if you reach out to me and share, we will be giving you a very special gift if you reach out and share with us that you've bought the book.

3:06 And without further ado, let's bring in our guest welcome chat. Thanks for having me today, looking forward to our conversation. Yeah, no, definitely looking forward to it. So Chad, share with has how did you get into you've gotten into organizational psychology? What drove you to it? Really it was a personal experience. Now just you know, kind of imagine you had a really rough day at work and you're in your car in a parking garage. You hear your coworkers leaving with the screeching around the corner of the dunk dunk as they leave the parking garage, and you're just stuck in your head, and even though from the outside you look successful, you're thinking, what have I done with my life? I'm a failure. That was me.

3:59 That's how I felt I'll tell you it's a very lonely feeling, and I can really get into despair. Now for others who've experienced it, it might be late at night staring up the ceiling from your bed, but it's that feeling of loneliness and despair that was really the catalyst for me moving forward to find out why even though I following this path that appear successful, not only do I not feel successful, I actually feel like a failure and alone. So that was kind of the catalyst that got me started. So let's rewind back a little bit. So you said that that was the catalyst. What happened before that? Tell us about your journey through the corporate world.

4:43 So moving through, I never moved with intention. I kind of moved away. Society told me I should be going or my family, and I never thought about it for myself, and I ended up in companies, one in particular that my value did not match theirs. This was subprime lending, you know, meaning that I lent to people with bad credit and it was to the point where I was actually refinancing people out of foreclosure. And you might think that's a good thing, but really it was just a way to tag on fees and costs and erode people's equity for the company's profit. And I didn't realize it at the time, but that conflict and values was eating at me on the inside and I needed to make a change because it's really important that I work with purpose.

5:36 And I think you might agree with this too. That you're having that purpose and really believing that you're helping rather than taking is something that you need for personal satisfaction. Oh, absolutely, I agree, And that is so critical because I'm going to come back to yesterday's story that I just recently mentioned. I love this client because they emphasize human in the loop. Excuse me that artificial intelligence is not here to replace people, it is to augment and support their people can grow. So I definitely agree that having that impact is so critical and having that purpose because if you're just out there after success, life is empty.

6:33 Yeah, and you have to be open to that change. If I just sat there feeling miserable, I don't think you and I would be having this conversation today. And to your point, it's the same with AI. You know, it's changing things, doesn't mean that it's kicking us out, but we need to embrace that change to learn, to be that lifelong learner, to be adaptable to new situations. So we take our experience and apply differently. Just because the world is changing doesn't mean that our experience is worthless. It's still there, still has value. It's an asset we've built over decades. So it's important for us to adapt it to the new situation so that we can continue our success journey.

7:16 M hm. So you mentioned that you were successful, but because your values were not aligned, it was eating at It was just eating the core that defined you. So in that moment, while you were sitting in that car, then you felt that, like that's it. Well, it's interesting because it's when people are telling you you're successful, you don't feel it. You're wondering, am I just not grateful? You know, I'm earning this money and I have a solid job. Should I Should I be more grateful for it? Or am I just crazy? Is there something wrong with me? You know? Why? Am I being as this success but I don't feel it? So it really took me digging down, and it wasn't instantaneous.

8:07 It wasn't like today, you know, and sitting in the car and all my problems were solved, and it was just sitting there and thinking, you know, what do I need to do to get to where I want to go? And then from there I started reflecting. It's like and I started to think about and one story in particular from the lending there was this woman who needed fifteen hundred dollars. The fees on the loan were forty five hundred dollars, and I told her this is really a bad deal for you. You can't do that, and she asked, what's the payment? I told her, and she took the deal. So it was then it was like, it's like, I am not helping people. I am hurting people. So I need to find something where I'm helping people. And that was started moving me and I started to pivot, you know, using my experience that I built up in a better way.

9:03 M hm. And you talk about your experience, So how long was it till you said, like, you know, it was it ten years, five years that I need to make a change. I need to shift where I'm going in my life. It came in stages, So that day I knew I needed to make a change. Over the next weeks and months, I started to think about how I was going to make that change, you know, switching jobs, which I did, and then from there I just continued to grow. So even up to this day, I still do it. A tool that I've learned, it was from It's a military tool that I applied to my everyday life. It's called the OODA loop OO d A And the first O is for observe. I observed where I was, what I wanted to be doing, How is making me feel, how I was impacting society. This is orient I saw where I was, I saw where I needed to go, and I saw the pathway there, so I oriented myself towards there.

10:08 The D is for decide. If you're going to make a change, especially a big one, you need to make a commitment, and that decision is that commitment, and most importantly is the A is to act. And I took action, you know, switching jobs, starting to do more volunteer work, you know, making sure I had time for my family, making sure I had time for myself, for health and exercise, all of those things. Taking action and continually kind of re evaluating where you are. Because what I wanted when I was twenty is very different than when I went today. So if I was still following the old path, I wouldn't be achieving the success that I want today.

10:49 M hm No, definitely. And you talk about you know, there are some hidden psychological traps that keep successful people where they're at and don't allow them to align their values and be truly joyful. What are some of those? So it's funny, it might seem odd by've taken them from economics. You know, I love economics. I have a master's degree in economics, so a lot of these concepts really impacted me. And one of them is the sunk cost fallacy. In business. A sunk cost is where say you're investing in a product and the product is not is not profitable at all, but you keep investing in it because maybe it'll be profitable someday, because you don't want to give up on it, so you keep investing.

11:35 Those costs are sunk, they're gone. You're not getting them back, so you're better off saying, you know, I should start fresh today. And it's the same with our careers and for other relationships and other things. We invest our time and effort, let's say into a career, and we keep investing and we're not getting from it. What we want, and no matter how much we invest in it, we're staring at what we want, but we keep pressing the gas and moving forward. That's some cost fallacy. So instead of asking how much have I invested? How can I change? It's better to ask if I were to start again today, would I be doing the same thing? And if the answer is no, there's a good chance you need to make a change. So it's important not to sacrifice your future just to honor the investments of your past.

12:31 Absolutely that some cost bias has so much cost associated because people have invested that time, money, and energy, and also there's a bit of identity piece and that self esteem attached to it that I took that step and how can I be wrong? So it's also going a little bit and accepting yourself, as you mentioned is with Udha observing and orienting it. Otherwise it's if I were to say in simple three words, it would be cutting your losses. It is. It's it's interesting though it's a little more complex than that, because you know, we have so we've we've earned that experience. So that's the thing people are afraid of. It's like, oh, I've wasted ten years of my life. I can't do that. It's not wasted. You've learned things you like for me with you know, the the mortgage sales that I did, those skills that I learned are applicable elsewhere. So it's not I I'm not cutting my losses. I am pivoting to something that gives me purpose. So that's that's a little bit of a difference where the business is cutting their loss. As people, we've earned that experience. It's something that stays with us that we could use. It's just we're able to pivot and adapt it and apply it to something that serves

14:01 others as well as ourselfs. Absolutely I agree with you. And also if you were to add another lens to an additionally to what you have said, is that there is a loss of feeling unsuccessful. So bringing on that lens that that's an experience that you're caring forward rather than as a loss. So that shift needs to happen between. That pivot, right because it confidence comes with action, but you still need to have that foundation. And a lot of times when you feel like you haven't achieved, or if you really have, you look back, you find you do have achievements. You may just have achieved them for somebody else. So seeing that you've had those achievements can help you as a foundation to build that confidence to move forward. So once you have that confidence to move forward forward, where should I go? And you've probably done this too. When you're kind of thinking what you want to do, write down a bunch of goals and you kind of figure out what you want to do. When I did it the first time after that car incident, I found patterns. I said, you know, one of my crazy goals was to write a book, then do public speaking, teach seminars, and I started to see that I wanted to help people find their idea of success. That's something that was meaningful for me, and I found that in

15:32 the patterns of the goals. So I came up with a twenty goals exercise that I work with clients on. So they write down their twenty goals from mundane to really crazy, and they find those patterns to see what directions they want to go. And then, just like the Uoder loop, it takes that action you need to really move forward and do something, and with that confidence builds and it's okay to not be good at it at the beginning. You have to have the courage to be bad at some thing until you're good at something. And the really good thing is you don't have to jump in with both feet. You can stick your toe in the water. Start a side business, start a hobby, do some volunteer work. Things are the size. You're not giving up your whole life, but you're trying new things so you can find that path that gives you satisfaction.

16:18 Absolutely, And the key as you're mentioning and as you're talking, is knowing what brings that satisfaction, because if you don't know that, then you know you could be going into multiple directions and still feeling that lack, feeling empty. It's about figuring out what brings you home, because you are your own home. And a lot of times what happens is that as you talked about, you know people, maybe you said ten years off mortgage lending experience. I had been in the corporate four fifteen plus years, and it was how can I leave and all that learning, where is it going to go? And that acceptance goes such a long way, and knowing that those skills are highly transferable really helps. So so many times people are hesitant because of the time and the duration that they have put in and they think like, oh, I'm here, I cannot go further. So what would you say where people say like, you know, success has an expiration date.

17:26 Yeah, it's It's interesting because it could feel that way. You've reached a plateau at work, or your business is not growing the way you wanted to, and you see other people growing what appears to be beyond you. The problem with that is that we're looking at their highlight reel. We only see a piece of it. We don't see the background. We don't see the arguments, we don't see the financial issues, we don't see the business failures and other things. We only see that a little bit, and that observation bias and kind of keep us from moving forward. It's important for us to really base our success on ourselves.

18:09 We have our mountain to climb, and to your point, we want to make sure it's the right one, and with all these influences coming at us, sometimes it's good to talk it out. What I recommend if someone's really stuck, you'll think of it like a car and a ditch. If your tires are spinning and you're just getting frustrated, and tired. Sometimes it's time to call for a tow truck. And in our experience, that tow truck would be a coach or a mentor or a trusted advisor. You know, someone who's independent, meaning they're not emotional like your family, but has the experience needed to help you and wants to see you do well. Talking it through without emotion in an independent way to get an understanding of what you've done, what you need to do. You know, what's an involved in moving forward? What are the risks, what are the benefits, so they can get an idea of that orient part of the ooda loop of where you want to go. The problem with asking friends and family is that they love you and they don't want to see you get hurt, and they may not have that experience needed so they could say, oh, don't just start your own business. You know how many businesses fail, but they really don't have the experience where a mentor or a coach who's done it before can give you that guidance to move forward so you can find that success.

19:33 Absolutely, and I love the analogy of toe drug is because you cannot account for unexpected all of the unexpected events in life seeking out help is such a critical part and it's okay, and that's usually one of the things that holds us back, and I know it has been one of the things initially. Level was transitioning that helped me back because you're used to helping others, you're not used to seeking out help, and then you do. There is so much power in it because you're letting go of so many things and creating space for possibilities and new things to happen. So as you were going through your journey, how did you go about it?

20:23 Well, I was really stuck. I mean I was in that ditch and when I was first introduced to the concept of a coach and I'm like, I'm going to pay somebody to talk to me. It just didn't make sense in my mind. But finally I did it, and from that point on, I have coaches for everything, and it's really it helps you leap frog. So it's when you're stuck and you're lacking the confidence and you really don't know the direction you're going in, you can find it out yourself through trial and error and move moving forward in this way. Up they didn't work way, I had to back up and go another way, And that's kind of how most of us do it trial and error, kind of blindly in the dark. Whereas if you have that mentor or that coach like I did, they really helped pull me out, so, you know, helping me with you know, identifying that I was not a bad person for doing the job. I was doing it just I had that job. And you know, now that I see that it wasn't for me, it's time to move on and how to get the strategies to get to be moving on and then from there how to grow Where where should I be learning? But not telling me what to do, not not being another influence on what success means to me, but being a guide, you know, drawing it out of me. So it's my plan, it's my success.

21:53 And then they're just kind of giving me that little oomph to go and get it. So that was what I needed. I needed that to truck. Oh yeah, we all need to trucks. And is it talked about like I've got the whole fleet even today, So as we talk about it, that people make a decision that Okay, I've decided I want to pivot. So how can they redefine success, especially when they're feeling stuck. Yeah, that's you know the three steps. You know, one light we talked about earlier, you know, to identify your accomplishments. So you just understand, yes, even though I wasn't doing it for me, I have the ability and a power to accomplish task and get things done. You know that that realization can you know, light a fire, you know, because when you're feeling stuck, you oh, I can't get anything done. I'm stuck. But when you realize you can get things done and you're able to kind of get that that engine behind you to push you forward, that's very powerful. And then again, identifying the direction you want to go in. So whether you write out your goals or you have some other strategy, or you work with a coach or a mentor, finding that direction, finding the mountain that climbing it will give you the most satisfaction.

23:12 You know, that is that is key to find the right direction because many of us were moving fast, but maybe we're going off this way when we really should be going this way, and we're not going to find our success over there because it's over here. And then it's taking that action, you know, being courageous enough to be bad at something until you're good at it, because no one's perfect when they start. So having that courage to be bad, but to being open to be to get better and find that path so know you can do it, find where you want to go and go get it.

23:54 Mm hmmm. Absolutely, And what are some of the scale like adaptibility and discipline and decides that that are crucial to success, especially in today's day and age more so than ever. It's a growth and learning mindset. It's building the foundation through habits. You're having a habit of reading, having a habit of learning, whether it's through classes online or somewhere else. Having a habit of trying and experimenting with new technologies that you were talking about AI. Just play with it on your own. You don't need your company to come and tell you, oh, this is your way of doing it.

24:41 Use it on your own, get familiar with it. It's something that's going to be very important in your life moving forward. So start playing with all the different products and you know, getting an idea of how you could use it to make your life better, and then to be open for new changes because we live in a very dynamic environment. So if we're able to be open to change, be willing to step forward and make the jump, to learn and to play around with these things. When it comes to time to actually use them, will be prepared. And that's that's the key, is being prepared. Mm hmm absolutely, because with the advent of AI, you know, what's here today is gone tomorrow. You may have one model today, another model has gone, one feature is available, another feature is gone. So you may find that because you know, before air was just part of the future.

25:40 Now it is there in today's everyday workflows. Not only that, but also that's going to impact just like the information industry did, knowledge industry did, so jobs are going to change. Entrepreneurship is going to change. So those two things that you mentioned, being adaptable with the growth mindset and having that discipline, creating that habit is going to help people not only in the short term but in the long term. So what would you tell professionals who are in the corporate They may not want to pivot and yet to dance with what they got.

26:26 Well, it's you know, some some jobs, like it's not like a teacher. Uh, someone might want to be a teacher their whole career and that's great, but it still takes you still need to keep on top of what's happening. So I got to use, uh the age stereotypes to uh to demonstrate what I mean by this. So, uh, you know, one, what are the age stereotypes? One is the lack of energy. You know, it's hard to say you're a high energy individual if you get winded walking up the stairs. So showing that you have that energy, uh to move forward and to grow in your position, whether you want to stay in that position and or grow and get promoted and things like that. Uh. The second is being stuck in their ways. And that's kind of what you kind of alluded to before. It's like, oh, I don't want to touch AI. You know, that's you know, it's something in the future, and that's uh, I want to push it away. We lean on our experience, and our experience is a two edged sword. It is great asset because we've built up all this knowledge and how to do things, but also build inertia where like that truck speeding down the highway, it's hard to stop and to switch lanes. So we need to make sure that we're adaptable, uh, and to you know, change with the with the environment. And then last, ye know, it's like the stereotype of the grandparent who needs the grand child to uh program the remote being technologically behind. It's important

28:00 and just to keep up with technology. I'm amazed that even in financial services, you know, decades and decades later, how many people are still kind of not familiar with Microsoft exel and that is you know, has been one of the mainstays in the financial area, but people are still kind of fooling around with it, not really being up to date with it. So's if you're that far behind, it can be easy to be left behind. So it's important just to keep up with all those things. That's what I would say, to maintain your health and energy, to be a lifelong learner, and to be adaptable to the new changes.

28:40 Absolutely, so tell us where you are at right now. And you talked about your book. Tell us more about that as well. I'm having a lot of fun with it getting on and talking to people about it. So my latest book, in Authentic Success, is really about finding what success means to you. You know, as we've been talking about through this this program, you know, society has this idea of what success should be. You know, money, starting a business. But what about the stay at home mom? Can the stay at home mom be successful? Of course she can because her definition of success is different. So I can't tell you what success means to you. You have to be able to discover that, and that is you know the path that UH started in an authentic success, and then you know there's a toolbox and a framework where you use the the OODA loop, you use lifelong learning to get to a point where you could find and achieve that authentic success.

29:47 Mm hmm. And what's thanks for your chad? I am been You're writing more and getting out and doing public speaking, so I'm having a lot of fun with it. Talking with people. That's one thing that I get a lot of satisfaction from. It's just a feedback from people and chatting with them after they've read one of my articles, one of my books are seen the presentation. I just I find that that's great. So even in your audience, everyone wants to reach out to me and give me feedback or ask a questions. I'm always open for that because that's that's I really find satisfaction from that. And what's the best way to connect with you. I would say through my website I anauthentic success dot com and there's links to all my social media uh, so you can get all my free content.

30:36 Fantastic. Are there any other thoughts that are coming to you to share with our audience. Just remember, no matter what stage of life you're in, uh, no matter what mistakes you've made in the past, there is a path forward. You have the ability to succeed. Shift your mindset from a failure mindset to a success mindset. Build your toolbox, whether it's technology or your processes that work for you, and move towards a success that's right for you. Your best years are still ahead of you because you're not too old and it's not too late.

31:18 Well, thank you Chad for joining us and sharing your wisdom with us. I'm sure people will find a lot of value in your book and discovering their authentic success. When you feel stuck, or even if you don't feel stuck, it doesn't it's good to take a beat and see are you on the right path or is there something else that's waiting to be explored. So thank you for joining us, and thank you oneerfl audience for being part of our family, because without you, the show would not be possible and our family would be incomplete. We love you. We are here to serve and support you reach out as you always do it. I'm so thankful. I'm very grateful to each and every one of you who reaches out and tells us what is it that you need help with? Who would you like us to bring next?

32:14 So thank you for being part of us and our family. And thank you on a tech Genius for all the tech support we get. Be well and take care till next time. Thank you for being part of Beyond Confidence. With your host did via Park, we hope you have learned more about how to start living the life you want. Each week on Beyond Confidence, you hear stories of real people who have experienced growth by overcoming their fears and building meaningful relationships. During Beyond Confidence, Vapark shares what happened to her when she stepped out of her comfort zone to work directly with people across the globe. She not only coaches people how to form herd connections, but also transform relationships to mutually beneficial partnerships as they strive to live the life they want. If you are ready to live the life you want and leverage your strengths. Learn more at www dot wpark dot com, and you can connect with W at contact atwpark dot com. We look forward to you're joining us next week