The Pressure Trap High Performers Fall Into | Between The Builds

Chris Fay: Welcome to Built with Purpose. I am Chris Faye, and this is the show where vision meets execution and leadership leaves a legacy. From design studios to innovation hubs and product lines to skylines, we meet the people building more than great companies. They're creating culture, driving impact, and shaping what's next. These are the stories and strategies behind how the world gets built with purpose. ⁓ Between the builds. ⁓ it was funny. As I was sitting here preparing for today's podcast, this is always a great opportunity to reflect back on the ⁓ leadership lessons and the guests that we had from the previous week. One of my one of my great buddies, Milt Lauder, who is a performance psychologist. He works with athletic teams, entrepreneurs, CEOs, large organizations really to help help make sure that they're getting the very best out of their own personal ⁓ ambitions. And so he's been a mentor and a coach of mine for ⁓ my gosh, eight years maybe, and have worked with him. and he's helped our leadership team grow significantly. And a lot of the dialogue that we have inside of our business has actually come from some of the teachings that that Mill has brought us. So it was really fun for the the mentor to be to ⁓ become the mentee as as we had this conversation last week. But what was funny is I was preparing for today. One of the topics that I want to talk about today was ⁓ what we talked with Milt about last week was removing the burden of expectations. Well, what's really funny about that is I'm sitting in my basement right now because ⁓ my son was sick today, my wife was out of town, and I had a tremendous amount of stuff to do at the office. And so dealing with that pressure and that anxiety of my gosh, I want to be there for my son. ⁓ I've got to make sure that I that I get all the work done that I need to get done and And get things done at the house so that when my wife comes home, things aren't a complete wreck. And you just find this absolute kind of pressure that comes over you. And I so I came downstairs to record this ⁓ between the build episode. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, dude, what am I talking about? I've got to give myself some grace. I've got to relieve this expectation that I have to be a perfect father, I have to be a perfect husband, I have to be perfect at work, and just to just to realize the expectation is really all placed by me. on me. And so, you know, that was really one of the things that I talked with Milt about last week because I remember very specifically one time we were going through a a session that that we that we have together and you know I was like man I've I've got to do this and I have to do this and I and I need to do these things and I have to do XYZ and I feel like I must do these things. And he's like just stop Chris just stop. He's like, do you realize that every single sentence that you're telling me is I need to, I have to, you know, I must? And he's like, what are you choosing to do? What if you replaced each of those prefixes with instead of I need to, I have to, I want to, but I actually choose to. I choose to stay home with my son today and take him to the doctor because I love him and I want to make sure that he's good. I choose to work from home this afternoon so that I can. be here to support him ⁓ and also have a a bit of time away from the office and know that the office isn't gonna collapse. I choose to record this podcast from my basement so that I don't have to put my team in a bad spot tomorrow when they're trying to run their production. And so I remember when I left MILT that day, I was like, dude, you you have hit the nail on the head. I'm putting these expectations on myself of all the things I have to do and I feel like people expect of me. But if I actually just choose to do these things, it reframes the entire ⁓ thought process about all the stuff that we have to do in our lives. So I took a little yellow sticky note, I wrote choose to, and it's sitting on my desk ⁓ at work. But I think about all the things that we go through as leaders every day. You know, gosh, I want to make sure we're creating a vision for the future. I want to make sure I'm communicating with everybody, not letting the ball drop. I wanna make sure we're closing the sale so that we can do XYZ. You I want to make sure I'm solving that problem and that problem and that problem. But the reality is, man, the burden of life's expectations are greater than any of us can shoulder. I've got a I tell I talk about having a pretty strong back and a pretty strong set of legs, and I'm I'm able to carry a lot of weight. One of the things that my career and my life has taught me is the ability to deal with a significant amount of load and stress. But that's not necessarily a good thing, is it? The world will throw as much at you as you are willing to take on and burden yourself with. And you have to be strong enough to know what to take on and what to shed away. And one of the most powerful sentences in our lives is no. And no is actually and can be a sentence in your life. Think about how many things you've said yes to. Hey, do you can you serve on this board? Hey, we'd love for you to be here ⁓ at our networking event. the other night. Hey, can you be on site with this customer? Hey, can you ha take, you know, an hour to talk to so and so about this? How many times do we as leaders say yes? And why is that? Well it's it's just because we're wired. We as leaders, we don't want to let people down. We want to make sure that we're shepherding our companies and our and the people inside of our companies and our families forward. We want to make sure we're setting the example and encouraging and inspiring them. And it is super lonely. It's a lonely spot to be in a leadership position, especially if you continually ingest all of the burdens that life will throw at you. So I've I've talked about this many times. The one of my one of my kind of favorite ⁓ books is is one called it's called The One Thing, you know, and it's it's what is the one thing that you can do such that everything else becomes ⁓ less important or unnecessary? And so you think about that in your life. If you were to look at the week ahead. What's the one thing that I can do in my life this week, in my business, in my family, in my personal life, such that everything else will become less important or unnecessary? And if you reframe that, and I did that last week. I was sitting there, I was like, gosh, I've got so much stuff going on. I was on the road. I was trying to take a little bit of time off with the family. I was preparing for this week. And I found myself looking at this huge laundry list of to-do items and all of the expectations that I had on myself to be there for my family and friends and business and ⁓ podcasts and all the other stuff that we do. And I found myself taking a step back and saying, Chris, just stop for a second. What is the one thing I need to do this week in work so that if I do it, I would, I would have made the highest impact on work. And if I do this correctly and I lean into this one thing at work, everything else becomes less important or unnecessary. And I was able to center on that one thing early in the week and I made sure that I focused on that. How many times do we find ourselves not being able to focus on the one thing and trying to attack too many things? We're trying to juggle too many balls in the air at any one time. And one of the things that we know is as we try and juggle too many balls in the air, something is going to drop. One of the things we talk about in our organization is getting beneath the waterline. And what that means, if you've ever studied ⁓ an iceberg, you know that you have the tip of the iceberg, and then the mass of the iceberg is actually beneath the waterline. Only the very tip top, the smallest portion of the iceberg is actually shown above the waterline. And how often do we just skip from iceberg tip to iceberg tip? This problem to this problem. I'm gonna tackle that for a little bit. I'm gonna go handle this. We're gonna do this with this team. We're gonna go over here and do this little thing. I'm gonna spend a little bit of time with my family. I'm gonna go do XYZ. And we literally just skip from iceberg tip to iceberg tip. When we're what we know is beneath the waterline is the mass of the iceberg with your family and your business and challenges that you're facing as a leader. And what if instead of trying to go across 20 or 30 different iceberg tips, what if we focused on one iceberg? One iceberg in our life where we could get beneath the waterline and get to the mass of the iceberg, where we can get to the meat of the issue and really get deep in the problems that we're trying to solve, the relationships that we're trying to grow. And so as I think about all of this, my conversation with Milt last week, we have this pressure that we carry as leaders. It's just innate. And we have this pressure that we carry as humans to try and be great parents and great spouses and great friends and great. business folks and you know all the things that we have. And if you ever on social media and you watch the news, that burden of expectation is reinforced every day. It's telling you how out of shape you are. It's telling you how unhappy you are. It t it's telling you how crappy your trip was because the person that just put a video out there about their trip seems so much better. And we allow these expectations to become weight and that weight then prevents us from being the best version of ourself. And that was one of the statements that Milt always told me is I wanna I want you to be the best version of yourself. The best version of yourself is gonna come from focusing and focusing on the areas of your life that you can make the highest and best impact. So today when I sat down and all of a sudden I started thinking about reflecting on on ⁓ this podcast and what we were gonna talk about. And I'm like, God, I gotta record this thing from the basement. I got my kids in the other room, like my wife's out of town. What am I gonna do? And all of a sudden I just took a breath and I'm like, you know what? I'm going remove the burden of expectation that every podcast has to be perfect. I'm going to remove the burden of expectation that I've got to be in the studio and it's got to be perfectly produced, you know, that I've got to make sure the sound is correct. That it's better for me to focus on being here with my family and getting the message out to you all than it is for this thing to be perfect. And so my challenge for you is this. This podcast goes live on Tuesday. That means you got Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday left in your work week, and you got Saturday and Sunday. So five days left in the week. Where are you feeling pressure in your life? Where are you feeling that burden of expectation? I have to. I need to, I must, I can't. Are those words resonating in your in your language right now? What if you eradicated those words from your language and replaced it with I choose to? And when you choose to, you choose to focus your time and energy and effort on the most impactful things in your life: work, family, relationships, your faith, your finances, whatever it is. What's the most important thing, the one thing that you can really lean into this week? In order to remove some of those expectations. And what are the some of the things that you just need to shed in order to enable you to go deeper beneath the waterline to the bulk of the iceberg? And I would encourage you to talk to somebody about that. Throw it out. Have an accountability partner. Hey, you know what? I'm going to shed this. I'm going to delegate this. I'm going to have somebody else do this so that I can really hone in and focus on the most important things in my life. And I bet. And I can tell you this from experience. I bet if you do that, you will feel the weight of pressure come off your chest, off your shoulders. You'll become a better leader. You'll become a better person. And guess what? You're actually going to do a much better job at whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish because you're focused. And you're focused with less pressure. So with that, I hope you I hope you all have a great week. We're coming into summertime right now. There's a lot of vacations and things going on and people are going all different directions. It's a it's a great time to spend ⁓ with your family if you have kids and you're at the house ⁓ with your spouse, with your friends, get out to the beach, get out the mountains, whatever it is that you like to do. And whatever it is that's going to remind you about the one thing, about choosing to, about removing the burden of expectations, would you just write that down on a sticky note or a card? And put it in your bathroom mirror, put it on your desk, put it in your car, wherever you're going to see it day in and day out, to consistently remind yourself where you need to be focused as a leader. And I guarantee if you do that, you'll find some amazing light at the end of that tunnel. So with that, I hope you all have a great week. We have an awesome podcast coming up ⁓ next week and some really fun stuff going for the summer. So y'all have great day. Thanks for another great episode. Okay, thanks for joining me on Built With Purpose. If you have enjoyed today's episode, subscribe, share, and like. us a review. It helps more bold leaders find the show. For resources and show notes, visit our website and connect with me, Chris Faye, on LinkedIn. Until next time, keep building great companies, cultures, and legacies with purpose.