Wendy Roop: 0:00

Unless we are vulnerable and transparent and open and we're sharing and we're allowing ourselves to sit in our stuff and sit in other people's stuff with them. That doesn't mean take on their stuff, but how in the world are we going to then show up for other people if we can't do that for ourselves first? Welcome back to Culture is an Inside Job. Hey friends, scott, karen Taylor in the background, how are all of you?

Karen Benoy Preston: 0:31

Here Good.

Wendy Roop: 0:33

Yeah yeah, we were just talking about I'll just kick us off before we hit record. I hear this on every so many podcasts. Right, like I should have hit. We should have hit record before because we had all so many podcasts. Right, like I should have hit. We should have hit record before because we had all this great stuff we were talking about.

Wendy Roop: 0:48

But we were just talking about what was going on in our lives and a lot of hard things, a lot of hard things all and it seems like for some of us, all at the same time and good things, right, and so we were just talking about how joy and grief can coexist, and so we just thought, hey, maybe we'd talk a little bit about what is happening in our lives and and part of that as I just kind of drop in a second remembering that we have people listening to us. I think it's the importance of that is connecting with other people, right, karen can talk more about this later too, but you know she talks a lot about oneness, but it is like remembering that we how we all have things going on in our lives and we don't have to do this thing called life alone, called Life Alone, and sometimes you know, we're going through life and we feel like, and actually church this weekend. I think Pastor Charlie was talking about this, perhaps, but he was talking about from a relationship standpoint. But you know, sometimes we're in the highest of the mountains and then sometimes we're in the valleys and and, and so I love just how, maybe realizing that we're all human right, we have this podcast but we're human and and sharing what we're going through could be helpful, you know, for other people too.

Wendy Roop: 2:14

But also remembering the and right, even even when we're going through those hard things, there's also, there are also good things. So who wants to jump in? Karen? I see you. I see you writing.

Karen Benoy Preston: 2:24

Yeah, my brain's going crazy, yeah, um, yeah, what's coming up for me is just the word polarity, right. Grief, joy, uh, being connected and being disconnected, right. The internal perspective and the external perspective. Scott, we talked about how, for all the years of looking at all the things outside of you that you thought would make you feel whole, what the realization was really. The internal view was much more satisfying, much more content. Not satisfying, right, it was harder to look inside, but you got that sense of contentment and fulfillment as as a result of doing that deeper inner work rather than trying to find it outside of us, right?

Karen Benoy Preston: 3:22

Um, and the connection and the disconnection we talked a little bit about, like how we get older, how we might find ways to disconnect. I'm dealing with this right now if my parents not coming to Kelly's wedding and I don't have, I don't have much of an answer other than this is just their choice, this is their decision. They're not healthy, they're not feeling strong enough and it's upsetting so many people, and I've just kind of had to not let it be upsetting and just rather look at it from a polarity of it. Right, and as we see our parents aging and understand the challenges with that at the same time? How do we find a space of that? You know, connecting back with them, and maybe it's connecting back with him on their terms. I don't know.

Scott McGohan: 4:26

Yeah, I was with. It's interesting you say that I was with. You guys know who Nicholas Sparks is.

Karen Benoy Preston: 4:33

Mm-hmm.

Scott McGohan: 4:34

So he wrote that book and I think one of the greatest movies I've ever seen the Notebook. So he was telling me a story about him and his wife. They got married and his wife's grandparents were really important to her and they were really, really excited about going to the wedding. And the day of the wedding Grandma called and said we can't come and she was super disappointed, really sad and at the time Nicholas Sparks was writing books like Stephen King novels, right.

Scott McGohan: 5:14

So they woke up in the morning and she said put your tuxedo on and I'm going to put my wedding dress on and we're going to go to my grandparents and we're going to show them all the pictures of the wedding. So he goes over with his wife, sits with grandma and grandpa, goes outside with his grandpa, with her grandpa, and asks Tim a simple question How'd you two meet? And that's the story of the notebook.

Karen Benoy Preston: 5:45

Making it about them.

Scott McGohan: 5:47

That's a real story Meeting them where they are.

Wendy Roop: 5:49

That is a real story, wow.

Scott McGohan: 5:51

So I was sitting there like listening to this, like world renowned, you know author and um hearing that, and then when you, when you said that, I was like wow, I mean cause he was just like I had no idea why they couldn't come there or what was going on. Um, and you know what's funny, karen too, is I had to look up the word polarity. So, and one of the things that you said here earlier that particular state either positive or negative with reference to the two poles.

Karen Benoy Preston: 6:28

Yeah, right Grief and joy, right Finding the hand between them all.

Scott McGohan: 6:32

Which is really kind of cool, cause I think you know what we were talking about earlier with all of us is man, there's just a lot of junk. So I wanted to call this junk is an inside job.

Wendy Roop: 6:42

Yeah, today's podcast is called junk.

Scott McGohan: 6:46

you know, because you know there there are some times when we get one or two things coming at us, and there are some times when we get five or six and there's some times when we get nine or ten fire hose and it's just, you know, I, when I was young, I had no capacity to deal with any of that stuff because I was pretty selfish and pretty ignorant and not available emotionally, spiritually, and I had no tools, you know, and god kind of showed me what those tools were, and not that I want chaos and I want stuff to happen, but I'm just grateful that I get to move through it.

Scott McGohan: 7:25

And the other thing too is and I know I'm talking too much, but man, like I ride a unicorn every day and I'm and I think I'm pretty optimistic, but I don't always have to have the and I've just got a lot of like crap going on and I don't have to be as happy. As you know, I don't have to put on a show. And when we were on the podcast earlier and we or before we started, we started sharing all the junk that we're going through and that was just so healthy to get that out of our minds and out of our mouths.

Karen Benoy Preston: 8:07

Yeah, off your heart, yeah, that's super healthy for people.

Scott McGohan: 8:11

So don't hide behind what's going on. Man Get it out. There's freedom in that.

Wendy Roop: 8:17

Scott, that's when you're talking and it's different for all of us. But for you, you know, when you're about right, like I don't have to have a smile on my face, because I can relate to that too. That's how we naturally show up. So, like, for me it's almost like a guilt feeling, right, that if I allow those emotions or you know, to come out on my face and so forth, like I feel guilty about that because people have an expectation of something much different. So is that similar for you, or is it something different, right, when you feel like, okay, I got to show up like this, you know, and you don't really allow yourself just to really feel the way that you're feeling.

Scott McGohan: 9:04

Oh, oh yeah and you said it too Like I got to show up riding a unicorn with a smile on my face, and but you know, naturally too, that's kind of how I am, and I, I mean, I am shocked with all the garbage that I have going on. You know the grace that God shown me, right, and the troubles that other human beings have. And then when I look at my problems, they're big problems, there's no question about it, but they're not as big as what other people are handling and I can accept what I'm going through and not ignore it, right, accept it, as you said, karen, like look between the poles.

Scott McGohan: 9:41

I don't want to go. I don't want to go outside the poles because I used to go outside the poles. So I'd drink, or I'd buy something, or I'd fake my way Right and I'd act like you know I was, nothing was happening. And when I got alone, I got super sad. And now you know, now we're just taught how do we move through this stuff. Not around it, not under it, not over it. How do we just, how do we just pounce? How do we just, how do we just?

Karen Benoy Preston: 10:07

pounce. How do we go through it? Yeah, I, um might have said this before with you guys, but, um, when I first started coaching, I I recognized the importance of sitting in it. The importance of sitting in it, and a lot of it was my own stuff that I had to sit in. You know, um, and I had come to this analogy of the fruit tree and that in order for it to bear the fruit, it needs nitrogen. And where might that nitrogen come from? The number one source is manure. So if we can't sit in our own shit, then we're never going to grow.

Wendy Roop: 11:04

It's part of the pruning right. Well, it's part of the nourishment.

Karen Benoy Preston: 11:09

Right, it's part of the. You know, we emotions are a really important data source and because we look at them oftentimes and go no, no, no, I don't want to feel that we either projecting that it's bad, or judging that it's too hard, or that we don't sit in it, but yet we're missing so much data. So, scott, for you and I can tell you, I feel the same way so many times. I'm just continuing to go forward on my unicorn with a smile on my face and I'm not stopping long enough to get that beautiful little bits of data to inform me of where my opportunity of growing really is, of where my opportunity of growing really is, and then later on down the road what might happen?

Scott McGohan: 12:04

because I don't have that data. Yeah, I wrote a poem called the One More Ball and I'll Fall.

Karen Benoy Preston: 12:11

Will you bring that poem sometime to us?

Scott McGohan: 12:14

Yeah, and it was about you know.

Karen Benoy Preston: 12:17

matter matter of fact you just whip it right out, look at that.

Wendy Roop: 12:23

Yeah, she's like, I got my book of poems. That'll be his next book, a book of poems he's written a lot of them.

Scott McGohan: 12:28

It was uh, I don't know if, uh, I think I've got one more ball and I'll fall.

Karen Benoy Preston: 12:37

Okay, I got. I got some ideas on what this is going to be about this is going to be good.

Scott McGohan: 12:41

Yeah, because I think I've got.

Wendy Roop: 12:43

I don't know if I've read it. I know you told me about it.

Scott McGohan: 12:46

I can't remember.

Karen Benoy Preston: 12:48

Let's see I'm uh as he's searching, filing through all the poems you got start with the first one, just we'll get there hold on, I know where it is oh, oh, he knows where.

Wendy Roop: 13:03

It is okay, now he's. He's getting up from his desk okay, so talk amongst yourselves, yeah yeah, no, but is scott's? Yes, he found it. Did you find it?

Karen Benoy Preston: 13:19

okay. So the idea here is, as we are working through our stuff and we don't stop long enough to get really important reflective, and I just call it because I don't look at it as an emotional aspect, because it's too vulnerable for me to do, I just look at it as data. I can work with data because I'm cerebral, because the minute that I have to drop into that emotionality, then we got real. It's real, it's too real. And, like Scott said earlier, karen, you are emotional. Well, of course I'm emotional. I will cry with everything. I will cry with grief, I will cry with joy, I will cry and it's just, it's not, it's not a sadness, it's just. That's the overwhelming level of emotion that I come with everything. Yeah, so I have to be more cerebral, so I have to just look at it through the lens of well, where's the data?

Scott McGohan: 14:18

And and what do I do with that once I have it right? So you got your poem.

Karen Benoy Preston: 14:22

I do sweet, okay, because it was really how I handled problems before. It was performance plus the opinions of others equaled self-worth.

Scott McGohan: 14:31

Mm-hmm, it says one more ball and I'll fall. My hands move faster and Swift and everybody around me says I have such a gift. I say to myself I can handle them all. My heart says stop, I promise you'll fall. A ball for my career, a ball for commitments, a ball for charity, a ball for society, a ball for bills, a ball for others, a ball for friends, a ball for family, a ball for my children and a ball for my wife. It's sad. You see which balls come last. Yes, it's my family, with scars from the past. Excuse me, the phone's ringing. They won't care. I assume someone else's problem.

Scott McGohan: 15:05

One more ball in the air. My arms are so tired I can't throw that high. I promise no more, and that's such a lie. I pick up two, three, no, let's go four. And I look at my family as they walk out the door. What have I done? As I fought on my knees? I forgot about you. Help me please. God says with thunder, just let them fall. Listen closely or you'll lose it all. My family and loved ones. Where did they go? Just surrender. You'll be amazed with the love they show. Surrender your heart and, yes, you can have it. All it with the love they show. Surrender your heart and, yes, you can have it. All it's peace and love. You need not one more goal, but if you must play some more, I'll give you two.

Scott McGohan: 15:44

Here's one for me and one for you oh, that's beautiful so it's just that you know, I think it was more activity that was trying to heal yeah because I didn't know how to deal with problems. I just you know, I didn't know how.

Karen Benoy Preston: 16:03

But you knew how well to do all the external things.

Scott McGohan: 16:07

Oh yeah, and it's just such a mess.

Karen Benoy Preston: 16:11

We're trained. We're trained well, conditioned well to know how to do that.

Wendy Roop: 16:16

Yeah, and that's like that striving piece, right, like juggling all those balls and you were striving and honestly how to survive and not even thrive right and get to thriving right. I can so relate to that. Even last, you know, last year, I felt like that's what I was doing. A lot was just striving. And yeah, scott, that's. That definitely tells a story about you. Know where you were at that time to you to say no.

Scott McGohan: 17:02

And like it was I think it was jane fonda on some show, the other day that said no is a complete sentence. Boom, yeah, okay, needed to hear that. Um, I don't know how to say I don't. I don't know how to say no, so but karen, thank you, thank you for being vulnerable and sharing what's going on. And you know, wendy, all the junk you have going on in your life and the fact that we just have you know, as you said to Karen, just like oneness, so we just bring it together doesn't mean that at all.

Scott McGohan: 17:35

All it means is that you can be there with me inside of those problems and we and you can. You can teach me you guys have a lot more coaching capacity than I do, but you can teach me to sit in it. There's beautiful things in just sitting in it, because when you sit in it you can either dig or you can climb, but you got to sit in it. You can either dig or you can climb, but you've got to sit in it long enough to know which one are you going to do?

Wendy Roop: 18:07

Yeah, and as I'm sitting here talking the last few minutes, as we're talking about all these things, I'm relating it back to again why we're even together, anyway, right in in doing this podcast and culture as an inside job, and this is so related to that right, because unless we are vulnerable and transparent and open and we're sharing and we're allowing ourselves to sit in our stuff and sit in other people's stuff with them, that doesn't mean take on their stuff, but how in the world are we going to then show up for other people if we can't do that for ourselves first? So, and again, it's just coming back to the realization that we are all human just because we're a leader, even the highest level of executives, you know which. You've lived that, scott. You know you're still human and so it's okay to have all these thoughts and feelings and stuff.

Scott McGohan: 19:08

There was a really cool exercise we did at McGowan I don't know if you remember this, wendy, but it was called Red Dot.

Wendy Roop: 19:14

Yes.

Scott McGohan: 19:15

Yeah. So if you look at like a map on an airport or the mall, it says you are here. And so before every meeting, every board meeting, we would have this Red Dot exercise. And it was really. Everybody went around the table before the meeting started and said where are you right now? And allowed people to say like my parents are really sick or I'm not really all in today, and it was the coolest thing about that exercise is sometimes us as humans.

Scott McGohan: 19:47

if someone's not paying attention, we think it's against us, like they don't respect me, they don't like me and, and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's just life kicking their butt. And so you have a lot more grace when you have a better understanding, if people are being honest and they say what's going on, and you just have a empathy is available, grace is available, and and and uh, wendy's wearing this hat that says space and grace on her head.

Scott McGohan: 20:16

Gives you space and grace, to kind of like accept people for who they are and where they are at that moment.

Karen Benoy Preston: 20:24

Yeah, because we are all doing. We're all just doing the best we can at that moment.

Scott McGohan: 20:30

You guys coach a lot of people. I mean, if so, if I'm listening and I'm sitting in the mess and I'm in the gunk, how do you guys pull people out of the gunk?

Wendy Roop: 20:58

gunk or gunk and where is it coming from?

Wendy Roop: 20:59

And asking them some of those deeper questions that we don't typically ask, you know, ourselves or each other, and before we get, even get into that even more and Karen and I have talked about this it's, you know, making sure, first of all, that somebody feels safe and hear that I didn't say comfortable, because that's different than safe think part of our role is is to get people a little bit uncomfortable, and so it's asking them some of those questions.

Wendy Roop: 21:43

Um, and Karen, you know, jump in here but like I'll just some of the things that come off the top of my head, right, or um, you know, after understanding the pain points is is helping them to see what do they want, to be different, and then after that it's well, what is really holding you back from that? And then that typically is because of our inner critics or saboteurs or gremlins or whatever you want to call them. And so, just in that nutshell, there's so much work there, you know, know to do with someone to help them to get out of the gunk if they want to and you talk about this scott, right, like they have to want to. We can't force it, it's, it's just like an invitation, and what they choose to do with it, you know, is up to them. Yeah, I even think karen too is you.

Scott McGohan: 22:36

You two have probably seen people that are addicted to the junk.

Karen Benoy Preston: 22:42

Oh, I think majority they go towards it. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's huge.

Wendy Roop: 22:50

There's such a, we're fixated on it on it because I thought, I think and actually was just reading something here recently that you know spoke to that and part of that is because, call it, whether it's because it's our operating system or that's where we attach our value, and so if that goes away or gets better or whatever it's like, well, what's my story now? Or what's you know what? What is my value?

Karen Benoy Preston: 23:15

Yeah, my self-worth is tied to that fixation, tied to that mindset. Yeah, my favorite question to ask, once I've acknowledged and validated and helped accept the fact that this is where they are and whatever it would be, what is it costing you now to stay here? What's the future cost of complacency or status quo?

Scott McGohan: 23:40

Oh, say that again, that is.

Karen Benoy Preston: 23:43

What is the? What's the cost?

Scott McGohan: 23:45

I'm glad you never told me.

Karen Benoy Preston: 23:47

Right, what's the cost? Yeah, and, and you know, it's one thing to recognize that we've got these mindsets that are in our way. But most, you know, that's just, it is awareness is first we can't know, we don't know, but then we can have a really deep level of acceptance in it, be like, oh, yeah, okay, yes, this is it. This is why I think this way it makes sense. Now, what do I get to do with that? And that's that conscious choice. But we can't take conscious choice when we're still fixated on the way we are unaware of what we think. So, yeah, hard questions, right?

Scott McGohan: 24:31

You know for me and I know I'm talking way too much today- no, you're not, but I was. Peace was so foreign to me that when I got it I had to screw something up.

Karen Benoy Preston: 24:44

Well, I think that you know, if you go back and you look at the way that our society is, just, we've evolved, and I think Western society especially. But this culture that we are here to serve and to have any of that to be worthy Doesn't mean that we're going to abandon those goals or sit at home in front of Netflix all day. But we forgot our purpose, we forgot the why.

Wendy Roop: 26:03

Yeah, and when you know that connects back to to what Scott was saying about in your example Scott of you didn't have peace and it's almost like I think what you said is, when you got it you did something to kind of mess it up or what have you, and that's what we call self-sabotage, right?

Wendy Roop: 26:23

Oh yeah whatever those stories are, the little tea truths that we're telling ourselves. That's holding us back from what we really, what we really want and desire. That's when we can really get somewhere, when you realize what. What's holding us back from that. What's the what's the story.

Karen Benoy Preston: 26:58

Yeah, yeah, that's the reflective piece piece, the taking the time to get the data and that allows us to tweak and pivot along the way, because when we've crashed and burned, it's a whole hell of a lot more costly and traumatic and I told I don't tell my wife this, but you know, obviously we got one morning kicking up and we've got this like this image of of writing a new book. Sweet.

Wendy Roop: 27:25

I won't tell Shh, nobody tell she would kill me.

Scott McGohan: 27:30

But the title of it is um the gentle walk back to my tree house.

Karen Benoy Preston: 27:36

Mm.

Scott McGohan: 27:38

And so when you think so, if you're out there and you're listening and you're just like scared and tired and lonely, and I just encourage you to go back to that place when you were little, the place where, like what, what? Wendy said that you were safe, and where you are comfortable in your own skin.

Scott McGohan: 27:59

Your oasis, yeah where society doesn't pick at you. Go back and sit with that little kid, you know, and ask that little kid some advice, and that can be a really, really, really cool place, because if we don't go back there, then we're just fake. And I'm going to read this is a real short one. This is the very first poem I ever wrote and the title of it is I Am the Door.

Wendy Roop: 28:29

I Am what the Door? I Am the Door. Okay, I Am the Door.

Scott McGohan: 28:37

So the frame is solid and strong, full of vanity and pride. It's beautifully stained and pristine, but just on one side the core is filled with deceit and lies from the past. The hinges are oiled. Watch the greed. It will cast the deadbolt my conscious and there is no key. One knob on one side that only I can see. Please visit one more. Please knock and I'll hear. I'll surrender my soul and seed my fear. The door is getting weaker and I can't take it anymore From my knees. Please knock, for I am the door.

Karen Benoy Preston: 29:10

Beautiful.

Scott McGohan: 29:12

What a great perspective it's really just about that whole vanity where we're just trying to pretend to be something. Maybe, one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is like go be that eight-year-old kid today.

Karen Benoy Preston: 29:26

Well, I challenge there's even look at that eight-year-old kid and see what that eight-year-old kid needs from you now. Right, if you're able to have that conversation with yourself as the eight-year-old kid and like what might you, as eight-year-old, need from you now?

Wendy Roop: 29:46

Yes, because we forget that that eight-year-old kid is still within each of us. They don't go away, they don't. We just add all the other crap on top of it, and so I love that perspective, karen. Yeah, what would your eight-year-old self need to hear?

Karen Benoy Preston: 30:06

And most of that goes back to. They just were also feeling lonely, tired, broken and afraid. So they don't need to feel that way. But they don't know that they have a choice yeah, yeah, that's really cool.

Wendy Roop: 30:24

I love watching kids too, because they're just, you know, they're just, they're just available and they're in the moment, just 100 in the moment scott, the other and karen the other thing that I love that you brought that up about the eight-year-old kid Scott and that you shared your writing with us, because I think that's another thing we could invite our audience to also. Right is when this whole thing is around. Our episode today, right ended up really being around. How can we be real about what's going on in our life Again, whether it's on the grief side or the joy side, because the and you know we're, we, we typically are going to have both sides of that what. What are we thinking? What are we feeling? What's coming up for us? Because we don't spend enough time in that, and part of that, you know.

Wendy Roop: 31:22

You name two very powerful things that we can do is one, writing right, the. When we write and you know whether it's we're writing a book or a poem or whatever, it is how we are allowing ourself to get those emotions out. And some people say I'm not a writer and I'm like you don't have to write pages, like just free, write, like, say, I don't know what to write right now. Right, and eventually something comes out, and then the and then the second thing is that also is such a powerful exercise about thinking of that inner child within us and what, what do we, what do we need to tell that part of us, like they just need to know that they feel, that they feel safe and it's okay to feel all their feelings and all of those things and they're not alone in that. So I think those are, I think those are two great Can you two think of anything else?

Karen Benoy Preston: 32:22

that are are helpful exercises for us to do when we're in that place finding the end, finding the end right and just purposely looking at the polarities that are experienced right now, that we're feeling that we're sitting in and and acknowledge and validate both of them for what they, what they are and how can they, how can we find the and in them? I think that one thing that we talk about, but we might not bring it to the forefront, wendy, from a coaching perspective here is not necessarily needing to look through the lens of positive and negative, or good or bad, and right and wrong, and those are polarities, right, we. That's where it makes it even more challenging to see, because when we look at something as bad or negative, then it's really harder for us to find anything good in it. And there again, because we've got to find something good in it, otherwise we think it's bad. So good, bad, positive, negative, right, wrong all of them are unhealthy perspectives of the experience. Whether it's good or bad, right, we're judging.

Wendy Roop: 33:38

It is the point yes, which that's another thing that I think is really helpful is that when we can come from a place of non-judgment right, first and foremost with ourselves, because we we do judge ourselves typically most of us right judge ourselves so much. And then what happens when we judge ourselves so much, what are we doing to other people and situations? We're judging them and situations too. So, and when we say that and you've probably heard Karen and I say that before like we're not saying never judge, we're just saying to Karen's point do you have all the data points, do you have all the information that you need in order to then judge Right? So I think that's another healthy place to come from, too is questioning ourselves Like what, what am I judging about myself, what am I judging about others?

Scott McGohan: 34:33

Because that just puts us in a tailspin well, like the most powerful thing in all of that is just this really sick um dimension of codependency, like acknowledging, like what are your problems. So it's almost like a t-chart. So that would be a good idea to do to somebody okay, everything is going on in your life, what do you have control of? That would be on one side what do?

Scott McGohan: 35:01

you not have control of. That would be the other and then the other question that I love. What karen is saying is there's things on the left side that you have no control over. What does that cost in you? The things on the right side that you might be ignoring because of things on the left, what does that cost in you? And that would be some cool, cool clarity Like that might give me some space.

Karen Benoy Preston: 35:27

Let's spend an hour later today to work through that together.

Wendy Roop: 35:32

Cause. Yeah, I think we all need that, Don't we? I mean?

Scott McGohan: 35:38

like all that stuff and I'm not going to get like and I'm not whining because I would have a lot going on. But you know my son sitting back behind me, his son's not feeling well sick. His wife's uncle just passed away, sadly. My daughter and son-in-law are moving to a new house. My grandson has pneumonia, my granddaughter has a fever, my mom and dad, my mom's, um, I'm sick and then, um, I've got issues with my sister. I haven't seen her in a long time and I mean, and that's just the short list, that's what I'm sitting in today, Um, and just the capacity to be able to sit in that and understand what my part is, what my part is not where can I be helpful?

Scott McGohan: 36:26

where can I be useful? How do I keep my own sanity and all of that? And then and I'm allowed to be sad today- I don't have to smile today and I have neck surgery at 1230 because of a pinched nerve.

Wendy Roop: 36:41

Add that on top of everything, well hey look, there's a good thing to that.

Karen Benoy Preston: 36:45

That's going to put you to sleep for a little while, so all those problems will still be there when you wake back up. But for a little, while you won't need to worry about them.

Scott McGohan: 36:58

And then you know, honestly, too, what's even really cool about all of that is there are so many people that would take my problems and in New. York minute, they would take them and they would. They would thank me for my problems.

Wendy Roop: 37:12

So I have to, I have to realize, I have to realize that and it doesn't mean and I and I just want to say this to those guys it also doesn't mean they aren't real for you.

Wendy Roop: 37:22

I hear what you're saying and it's totally true, right, like that used to be, and still is a lot one of my lines it could always be worse and it can. We're like ah, my problems aren't like. You know, we don't give ourselves what's the word? Um grace right and really take care of ourselves, because we don't think that our problems are big enough. So just allow yourself to, yeah, give yourself oh, we missed.

Scott McGohan: 37:55

One other thing, too, is the fact that, like, I'm sitting here with two great people and they have tons of competence and experience and professionally, but they also are really dear friends too.

Scott McGohan: 38:08

So if you got some crazy stuff going up in your noggin and you don't want to write, and you don't want to make a t-chart, you know find someone that you really trust, um, and as someone that's not going to kick up the drama, someone that's not going to make it worse, and they could be younger, they could be older, but something that you can get the shenanigans they call them whirling dervishes there's whirling dervishes out of your head and throw them into someone else's ear and who knows what might come back on the other. On the other side, you'll feel lighter when you do it. So those what you said, wendy, too like those, are really good pieces of advice for people.

Wendy Roop: 38:50

Yeah, yeah. So when we, as we wrap up here, then, and we think about our question, that you know, when we say let's go inside and you know what can we give our listeners to really kind of sit with, you know, when we say let's go inside and you know what can we give our listeners to really kind of sit with, you know, after this and I think it's all the things that you just said, scott, right, and just what are those exercises that you can do that you know you will and you'll be accountable to, in order to allow yourself to kind of go inside and determine what is it that's coming up for you and what are all the things that you're facing, and what do you have control of and what don't you have control of, and the willingness to let go of those things you don't have control of. I think those things are a great start.

Scott McGohan: 39:37

I look back to that like serenity prayer is you know, god, grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can. And the third one's the kicker. The third one is and the wisdom to know the difference yeah, yeah, and that's always a good, that's always a good, that's always a good reflection for uh, for me.

Karen Benoy Preston: 40:05

Yeah, so that wisdom comes from taking the time to get the data.

Wendy Roop: 40:12

Yeah, that's right. Well, with that, this is a great episode and, uh, of just checking in with you know all of us and hopefully all of you listening. There's something, there's a key nugget that you can walk away with that might be helpful for you in your journey, and if there's anything that we can do for you, um, and if you have any ideas about topics or anything else, please let us know. Karen.

Karen Benoy Preston: 40:44

Scott. Anything else to add? Nope.

Wendy Roop: 40:48

Just be truth. Yeah, I love what Karen said Keep on, keeping on, just sit in it. Yeah.

Scott McGohan: 40:53

And you don't have to smile. Yeah, but you got to move. You got to move. Yeah, take action, yeah.

Wendy Roop: 40:59

Yeah, Awesome. Thank you everyone.