You Are Tolerating Too Much

I'm Alex Charfen, and this is the Momentum podcast. Made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers, and creators of all kinds. Those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum. So we call roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution.

Sure, we pay attention to their rules. But only so that we can bend them, break them, and then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny, we define it. We don't understand defeat, because you only lose if you stop. And we don't know how.

While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority. The few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future. And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters. Clearly the most important people in the world. Because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution and we always will be.

Welcome to the Momentum podcast for the entrepreneurial personality type. This is episode is titled You Are Tolerating Too Much. And I have news for you. Unless you have a system in your life, where you are daily offloading where you are uncomfortable, then you are tolerating too much.

Let me share with you why I know this, how I know this, and why people like you and I tend to tolerate far too much in our lives, tend to put up with more, tend to try and understand more, or rationalize more than the average human being. Let me explain to you why this happens to us.

So, every one of us has been in the situation, as an entrepreneurial personality type, as an evolutionary hunter, we have all been in that place where we have ... struggled. We have overcome, we have persevered, even though we didn't have the right amount of money, the right experience, the right time, the right whatever it was, and we have pushed through and become successful. And for a lot of us, this is where we actually have become who we are today. That period of struggle, that period of hardship, that period of trying to overcome is where we became who we are. So just imagine how deep those psychological patterns are that when ... we have, that when we struggle, we then succeed. So the challenge is people like us, on a daily basis, will overlook what bothers us, we will overlook what's challenging us, we'll overlook what's taking away our momentum. We will try and focus on the positive, we'll try and do what we did in those times, but what happens is, as a result, we tolerate far too much.

You know, this how I used to be in relationships with women. You know, until I met my wife Cadey, I always tell people, I was a complete train wreck. I didn't understand how to find the right person, I didn't understand how the relationship should feel. Like, my parents modeled a healthy marriage, but I never got to watch the model of like dating. So I was terrible at it. And ... I would often go out with someone, and this happened to me more than once, where we went out a few times, and then we were dating and then like I was in a relationship, but I didn't ever really know ... I didn't understand that transitions had occurred, where I was now in a relationship. And I had a terrible time. And I would put up with things, and I wouldn't say how I really felt, and I would continue to just like let what was happening happen and eventually, it would blow up. Like I would finally get the point where I was a powder keg, like I couldn't even do it anymore and I'd have to like just break everything off and it was ... like, that wasn't a healthy way to be in relationships, but I didn't really understand the difference. I didn't understand how to do it otherwise.

And when I work with entrepreneurs, it is incredible what we will tolerate when we are growing our businesses. I've had clients that ... some of the client issues that people have had, or some of the ... sorry, some of the employee issues my clients have had, have blown me away.

Few years ago, we were at a private Mastermind, and I was running a version, our version of hot seats, like getting people up in front of the room and coaching them and working them through issues. And ... I had a client who shared that she was having trouble with her receptionist, with a person that worked at her office. And she was kind of frustrated with her, a bit scared of her. Not like really loving having her in the office, and I said, "How long as this been an issue?" And she said, "Nine years." And I said, "Well then why haven't you done anything about it in nine years." And her explanations just didn't make sense. She said things like, "Well, you know, it's really hard to get somebody out of the chair and then put somebody else there and ... " and then she started saying a bunch of personal things, and then you know, like, "Well she's been sick and she had ... well, right after I hired her she had a baby, and ... " So, like we as entrepreneurs will explain away the pain we're in and we will tolerate far too much.

And here's another reason, I'm going to give you three, here's the third one. Or sorry, here's another situation. So, first me in relationships, then clients with employee situations, and then for all of you, like I want you to think about this. Growing up, what was it that you learned to tolerate? Most of us were in a broken system called the school, that for some of us it worked for, I understand, some of you were good at it. There are entrepreneurial personality types that learn how to get through school and do incredibly well. I struggled like crazy. But I know that it doesn't matter if you did well, or you struggled, you all either gamed the system or survived the system and you did a little of both. And in that gaming the system, or surviving the system, we get very deep rooted psychological patterns of tolerance. We tolerate that the situation is broken, we tolerate that we're not getting what we really need, we tolerate that, you know, we're not really creating momentum in that situation, we tolerate the pain of being stuck when we are either gaming or surviving that system.

And so, over time we learn that this is just how it is for us. And here's what I want you to know. That's not true. This is a fallacy of being an entrepreneurial personality type. We line up these types of experiences. We get emotionally disconnected from them, we don't really understand what we're tolerating and not tolerating. And we put up with way too much. Because we're focused on the horizon. We're focused on our outcome. We're focused on the hunt, we're focused on getting what we want to get. And it's easy to tolerate when you think it might make you successful, but fail forward, fail fast is a good way to get started but it is not a good way to run your life. And at some point, as an entrepreneur, you have to say, "stop", and stop tolerating what makes you uncomfortable.

And I get granular to macro here. So, on a granular level, like look at your life. Is everything in your life something that you really want? Is the stuff in your life what you really want? Like do you need all the clothes, all the stuff in your home, everything ... like if something's not giving you momentum, get rid of it. Because this in binary. The people, the places, the things in your life are either giving you momentum, or they're taking it away. Go through your home and look at stuff. And, you know, there's this incredible called the ... I think it's The Magic of Tidying Up, or something like that. But anyway, the whole thing with the book is, you hold stuff up in your house and you ask yourself, "Does this bring me joy?" And if it doesn't, you get rid of it.

So, on a granular level, like do you like what you're doing, do you like each day? Make sure that you understand you don't have to keep tolerating all of that.

Then to a macro level, look at the people in your life, look at the places in your life, like where are you going, what are you doing? You don't have to put up with doing anything you don't want to do anymore. I want to give you license to go through your life and ask yourself, what are you tolerating and here is the habit that will get you out of this.

It's simple, this is a strategy that we teach in our Momentum Planning System, in our ... Momentum Masterclass. And we teach a full planner, but if a system is elegant, you should be able to pull any strategy out of it and use it on its own. And that's how this planning system is, it will rewire your neurology to have you finding higher levels of success. But more important, with this strategy, you will offload where you are uncomfortable. You will stop tolerating too much.

Here's the strategy. Every morning, ask yourself a simple question. Where was I uncomfortable yesterday? Every day. And write down where it was. Write down that you were uncomfortable, you were irritated with the fact the light switch doesn't work in the garage. Write down you were uncomfortable because you tried to have a conversation with your spouse and you couldn't. Write down you were uncomfortable because your kids wouldn't get ready fast enough in the morning and you were late. Write down whatever it was that made you uncomfortable.

And dig a little bit. Give yourself a couple minutes. Because for people like us, when we acknowledge what makes us uncomfortable, when we write it down, when we take an inventory, we will start to change things. We will fix it, we will work ourselves out of those situations. We'll be more aware of getting in to them. We'll have a recognition of where we are uncomfortable, but here's the problem. We are such optimists, staring at the horizon, knowing that it's going to get better, trying to hit our greater goals, going on the hunt and making our kill ... we will put up with way too much.

And if we sit down, and we write where was I uncomfortable yesterday, everything shifts. And it might be hard at first. I want you to know that you might sit down and think like, Alex might be crazy, because I can't think of one thing. And if that's what happens, I want you to understand something. You've just become that much better at tolerating than most. Because the fact is, that for all of us, something makes us uncomfortable every day and if you're scaling and growing a business, your business isn't perfect and if things go well, it never will be. Because the only business that's perfect is one that's closed, and if you're scaling a business and there aren't things that are making you uncomfortable, something's wrong. Because identify the things in the business that make you uncomfortable, that's how you start filling in the gaps and that will create more momentum for you than you've ever had.

And so, every morning, if you're willing to sit down and write down where you were uncomfortable yesterday, you now give yourself 365 chances a year to start getting rid of that stuff, to start offloading, start modifying behavior, so that you lower how uncomfortable you are. You literally reduce pressure and noise because we know that's what lets our true genius shine through, that's how we really make a difference, that's how we make a greater effect.

And so, it's that simple. Writing down, seven times a week, every morning, where you were uncomfortable the day before. Now here's the challenge. You only have 365 chances to do this. Try and do it once a week, and you're just not going to get that much. Try and do it every few days, and you don't build the pattern, the muscle memory, the habit of doing this. Try and do it every once in awhile, and you're just going to get what's on your mind. But if you are willing to commit to this single daily habit of writing down where you were uncomfortable the day before, I have a guarantee for you. Your life will change, your contribution will grow, and how you feel about what you're doing and who you are will amplify over time in a way that you can't possibly understand. Until you do it.

Because there's two ways to create momentum. The first one is to get to launch velocity, is to actually create that momentum, is to move forward, but all of us are moving at a speed already. The second way to create momentum is to get rid of any operational drag you have, is to get rid of anything that is holding you back or robbing you of momentum. It is to stop tolerating anything that makes you uncomfortable.

And so for all of you, tomorrow morning, when you get up, before you've had exposure to electronics, before you've done anything else, do one thing. Sit down and make a quick list of where you were uncomfortable yesterday. And I want you to just take a read on how it made you feel to write those things down, because here's what I guarantee you as well. If you're willing to do this, each day you do there will be momentum in this process. You will have a clarity that you didn't have before. Awareness for people like us is everything. Understanding helps us get clarity, helps us create the confidence, helps us create the commitment to change things.

It's a simple question. Where were you uncomfortable yesterday? You answer it daily, and I assure you, your entire life will shift and change in ways you can't possibly imagine today.

Thanks for being with me here tonight. I want you to know that I answer this question each morning. Because I get to the same place, where I'm tolerating far too much. I get to the same place where I'm stuck, I get to the same place where I look up and I think why did I allow these things in my life? And I wouldn't ask you to write this down if I didn't know the profound affect it's had on me.

If you haven't yet, do me a favor, leave us a review on iTunes, let us know what you think. I would really appreciate it, and if you haven't yet, take one minute and download the Entrepreneurial Personality Type book, it might tell you more about yourself than anything ever has. It's at freemomentumbook.com.