Stop Ruining Your Life to Uphold Your Image

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Automatic transcript, lightly corrected for names, with profanity masked. Some passages may contain transcription errors.

Hey everybody, welcome to The Inner Circle. I'm Mike Brown, joined by my dear friend and member of my Inner Circle, Kevin Dahlstrom. Today we're diving into a tweet Kevin posted yesterday about his life reboot and he received over 40 DMs, which is absolutely wild. And essentially what he said is, life is never perfect, but I finally built the one, that I, the real me, wanted. So here's my message to you. You can do the same, but only if you muster the courage to make bold, scary moves. There will never be a good time to do it. Guarantees it will work out. Kevin, how do you think about bold moves and maybe unpack your reboot a bit? What I posted yesterday, which seemed to hit a nerve, as you said, I got more

DMs from that post than I can't remember the last time. It's been probably a couple years or more. And the post relates to one of my very closely held beliefs, which is that inevitably over time we tend to drift, right? Like we get into a routine, we get stuck, we get complacent, and I believe that it's very hard to have a great life if you're not willing to make at least one big bold, scary move in your life. And so I think a lot of people who listen to this probably know my story, but I'll summarize. I grew up in Texas. I'm a Gen Xer, so we're notorious for

I built the life that society told me to build. I did what I was supposed to do. I got my college degree. I got married. I joked that I had children like, you know, I did whatever like the white picket fence worked my way up the corporate ladder. And so on paper, through a lot of hard work, I built the life that looked great. Like it's in some ways the dream life. It's exactly what I was told. Success looks like. And then I had a bit of an awakening and I realized like this isn't my definition of success. And I mentioned in this post yesterday, there was a vivid moment for, there was a few like the a kind of catalyzing moments, but one of them was, I remember sitting in my executive office in Dallas looking out the window thinking like,

what the hell am I doing here? Like, I just don't want this. And again, huge salary, prestigious job big house in the suburbs, all these things. And so I hit the reboot button, which is, you know, it was very scary and move the family to Colorado, quit their smiles on the outs. I posted a picture of us, you know, sitting on our porch the day we landed in Colorado. We're all smiling inside. It's probably the worst I've ever felt like my marriage was falling apart.

My kids weren't happy with me because I just uprooted them from the only life they ever knew. I was so disillusioned on the inside. I didn't know what was next. I was discovering who I was. But I had a strong sense that we needed something different and we needed a major change to force a reboot. And so fast forward eight years and it worked. You know, I say all the time, and it's true that I've got the best life of anybody I know, of course, it's not perfect, but it's worked out really well. And so that informed my belief. And so I'll stop there. I mean, that's just an example of, you know, I think at some point, everyone needs, needs a major change, whether it's by choice or whether it's forced upon you. So let me stop there

and then maybe you can talk about a major reboot that you've experienced and then we'll get into how to process. How do you make a major change? What comes to mind for me is that I think almost everybody is about the life they are not living. And a real the real question, I think, that we're unpacking here is if you have this secret life or this secret fantasy of making you know, for me, I've had several through business. I've reinvented myself many times.

I made sort of uh hobbie out of burning down my identity and rebuilding, but the scariest one by far was my first marriage. I got married very young when I was in the military, you know, also kind of following the track. Just, just doing what I was supposed to do and you know the military you move a lot and and I was dating this woman and moved and wanted her to come with me and basically well if she's going to come you have to get married. So it just kind of unfolded I think kind of you know unconsciously and and the reality is at 26 years old you have no idea who you are and no idea who you're going to become and and over time

it just became very apparent over you know the next 13 years that we're dramatically different people we were not a match and there was a lot of hurt there there was a lot you know I didn't anybody in particular it just it became apparent you know that this was not the marriage that I had imagine and for years I tried to cover it up with everything else in my life so I just poured poured myself into business I poured myself into sports and hobbies and travel with friends I had

all this stuff and I and and I had this distinct memory we we moved to Colorado in 2016 and met all these amazing friends in our neighborhood and you know my ex was not particularly social and I I remember sitting by myself with these other couples and just thinking you know man I built a great life and and I don't need that I don't I don't need my partner to be here with me like I I'm really happy and I was convincing myself of how happy I was until one day I truly had I was in a group retreat with with my coach and who eventually became my mentor Philip McKernan and I was sitting at a hot seat in the front of the room and just all of a sudden

blurted out I don't love myself my wife doesn't love me and I think I want to get divorced and I don't even know where it came from I started crying and I was like whoa like I never even voiced that out loud to myself much less a room of people and it was the scariest thing I've ever done you patterns was like never be messy in public right like you can fight behind closed doors but we put on a front that everything is good going through a very messy and very public divorce that facade was just completely ripped away and and it felt very exposing and I mean it was truly

terrifying I mean it you know and there were times when you know I would say like if I knew how painful this was gonna be I probably wouldn't have done it and you know now I look back and see that as one of the greatest gifts I've ever given myself but it was terrifying. And now I met my new wife Claire who was a total match I married the female version of myself gift of being able to rebuild a relationship at 40 with these tools I knew who I was I you know I knew how to invest in a relationship properly and difference is so stark stark and is so fulfilling to have to have this relationship now but it was on the other side of

you know three to five years of of really painful personal development and you know it was tough and so I look back at that and and the crazy thing is and you know from this bold decision I didn't know that it would work out and in fact it was worse than I thought it was even again and yet now I look back at you know and see that as as one of the biggest catalyst to to also living the best life of anybody I know uh as you like to say um but it was terrifying and it got worse before it got better. That's um first of all uh thank you for sharing I think your story hits very close to home for a lot of people who will be listening to this

and I think you know I made a few notes while you were talking because there's a lot of powerful stuff there I actually got a little emotional when you were talking about your session where you kind of had that epiphany but um and by the way having directly observed Mike and Claire uh you know for many hours the thought that came to mind even before today when I just observe you guys is that's what love looks like uh so I love that's really beautiful to see so congratulations on coming out the other end of it but you know the thing is hard things are hard it turns out and hard things are messy hard things are uncertain if they weren't those things it wouldn't be hard it would be easy

and everybody would be doing it but the reality is kind of back to my core point you have to do hard things if you want a great life my story of relocating which was really more of a relocation it was you know it was a catalyst for rebooting everything um that was um you know that triggers every the idea of uprooting and moving but walking away from a relationship is trump's that like that's even even harder and so I want to transition into like how do you process it I think this idea of like getting worse before it's better holds a lot of people back and I often say

that you know it's all about fear I mean you and I talk about this all the time is like all these things ultimately come back to courage and and overcoming fear and I tell people like the post I posted yesterday a lot of people the DMs I got a lot of them were like I'm on the fence I've been thinking about doing this forever and my standard response is if it feels like a 50-50 decision it's not because you have to adjust for fear and fear always lands on the side of maintaining the status quo even if it's a miserable so like fear is what kept you in your relationship probably longer than it should have so if you adjust for that it's actually not a 50-50 anymore it's like an 80-20 that you need

to go make the bold change and so I don't know in the before we go nuclear and hit the big reboot button right and a great example is a lot of time clients will come and they're contemplating selling their business and the first question I ask is like do you want to sell because it's the right time to sell because

you've grown the business as far as you possibly can and the market conditions are right or do you want to sell because you're burned out and 90% of the time because they're burned out I said cool let's try to reconfigure your role inside of your business to see if you can fall in love with it again right minimum effective dose let's try and fix the business first and then if you want to sell on the back side of that cool that's a different decision so so I would say the first thing is figure out what the actual pain point is you're trying to solve and like so if you're fantasizing about this big dramatic reboot what's what's actually underneath that what what is the pain point that you're trying to alleviate and and try to make

that minimum change first yeah and then evaluate and then sometimes the thing might reveal itself is like okay yeah no I do need to make this big decision incredible advice and our you know I would label that as like test driving the change you can't do that with all changes um but with a lot you can our mutual friend paul millard writes a lot about the transformative power of sabbaticals for example like taking a break from work let's say it's three months and going somewhere ideally you know overseas experiencing a different life getting a taste of it often makes the the answer very very clear in fact I did that I didn't realize I was

really doing that at the time but we did a a one month came to boulder for a month before we relocated and it was like trying it on for size and of course the answer was what I knew all along which is yes we absolutely need to to be here so I think that's incredible advice this idea of like either taking a baby step or of of like trying it, on for size for a little while but let's say okay you do that and you realize the the big bold decision is the one that's actually you know staring at you um I think it actually, comes down to a question of identity right we because we tend to wrap our identity in in what we do or what we built you know and and my identity was largely

tied to being seen as the guy that has it all together well the guy who has it all together doesn't get divorced right so it actually had very little to do with the dynamics of my marriage or or you know what I knew I needed to do is the thing I was most afraid of was shattering this identity as as the guy who has it all together and again burning that identity was actually one of the best things I've ever done because the reality is no one has it all together and and all of a sudden letting that loose created so much freedom for me of of not having to maintain this carefully manicured image and really was a catalyst for changes in so many ways that actually

gave me the courage to you know get out of the oil and gas industry and become a coach and and you know I've done so many things as a result of no longer having to be the guy that had it all together but but it was that first big bold step of just burning that that whole yeah I think you say something like I reserve the right to be a completely different person than I was five minutes ago that's a good mindset to have yeah from my favorite quote from now on a lot one thing that I happened to stumble across when I was contemplating my big change was Carl young's writing about masks Carl young wrote a lot about midlife crisis actually and and the way he described a midlife crisis was he basically it basically said like we think of midlife crisis as oh kevin's becoming a different

person and it's actually the exact opposite your true nature is revealed and he talks about this concept of masks where you know we all wear masks just to to exist in society like you can't be completely unfiltered at all times right but uh and so masks aren't inherently bad but masks become a problem when you lose the person behind the mask which is when I read that I is like that's me uh I have like I'm wearing this mask that you know looks great from the outside right allows me to thrive in society but this person behind behind the mask is actually crying uh he's he's pretty miserable and I can tell you you know there's nothing more liberating than removing the masks and living

your true nature and I think that's a connecting thread between both of our stories is I through my reboot. I was able to express my true nature and you through your relationship change same applies. Yeah absolutely and I mean the reality is is you know at that point um I had no idea who I was without the burdens and obligations or or even the stories placed on me by society you know I was just like you I had gotten everything I was supposed to want uh that you know society says will make you happy and I woke up and realized like oh no this didn't work like who am I without all this stuff who am I without of my achievements if I if I if I stop being this

driven type of type A you know high performer military business guy who am I actually underneath that and and it's you know it's taken a decade to continue to burn those identities and continue the like the power truly is in the letting go of of realizing like actually my identity is just a collection of of stories and and patterns and emotions that that kind of fit together in this thing that that we call ego but none of that is who I am right it's like like who I am is is what existed before that and and so a question I love to ask clients is you know who were you before the world told you who to be that actually reminds me of one of my favorite movie quotes of all time from up in the air you know the quote I'm going to refer

to um so uh in the movie um George Clooney is basically like an HR executive and he's he's firing this employee who's like your classic like burned out middle aged guy and um George Clooney asks him for a lot of people is that's the drift I talked about is like we never intend to give up on our dreams it happens slowly like death through a thousand cuts and suddenly you wake up in your 50 or 55 and like who am I and um you know I think the earlier you can force that discovery

process of understanding who you are um either by choice or you know through a catalyst the uh the better maybe I'll close out with one of my favorite quotes and a rule that I tend to live by which is I would rather regret something I did than regret something I didn't do 100 yeah um far more people suffer from the consequences of inaction than taking too much action um and I'll close out about because when I tell my story one the most common pushback I get on it is oh great like here's a guy who made a bunch of money and then moved to Colorado how how is that hard or bold you know that's not practical for a regular person what I'd say is that I mean yes have it

the financial success I had before my reboot you know in many ways made made it easier but I will tell you very few people in my situation do and so if, if money was the only obstacle lots more people would be rebooting fear is always the much bigger obstacle and look it's a privilege that's earned like if you want to make a bit major change in your life it doesn't mean you're entitled by birthright to have that life immediately you know people often lose in my story that there's a 25 year period where I had my head down grinding to to to get ahead and yes that bought me a ticket or the privilege of rebooting so

it's not a birthright but what I always say is just get clear on the life that you want and it might take years decades to get there but get clear and do things that move you closer to that life do not do things that move you further from it absolutely and you know I think it really does come down to the courage but you know at at the same time I say you know there was a period when if I knew how painful it would have been I wouldn't have done it now you know seven eight nine years later if I knew what my life could look like right I would have done it years earlier in a way yeah and and that's your ignorance is bliss because things are all

I think that really is the takeaway is that you know if I could go back now and tell that version of me the life that I didn't be living today I think I wouldn't have been able to even process or hold how unbelievable things are on the back side of likewise when I started having these feelings of disillusionment years before I moved I would tell that guy to take aggressive action so I guess that's our message here is be bold you know test drive it if you can see what it feels like adjust for courage and then take action yeah I mean as my meditation... meditation teacher likes to say like you only get to be this version of you once

so you know the the regrets people die with on their deathbed are are rarely action and and almost always in action so take that be bold make big choices and and then roll down if you need good one all right talk soon