Summary
Joe and Brett do a coaching reaction commentary on a session with a man who came in struggling with jealousy toward his wife’s best friend. Over the course of the session, the jealousy is revealed as a control pattern — the same pattern that shows up in his company where he gets frustrated when team members don’t stay in alignment. The man’s habitual place in the fear triangle is anger (the “bully” position), but he also shows remarkable introspection and self-awareness.
The breakthrough comes when Joe asks him to open his heart to the idea that capitalism isn’t perfect — the very viewpoint he’s been defending against. This forces him to hold two opposing viewpoints simultaneously, which dissolves the rigidity. The session lands on a key insight: every “no” from a team member, a partner, or the world is not something to reject but to welcome as new information that creates clarity and better solutions.
Joe and Brett then discuss how holding opposing viewpoints creates freedom, how the voice in your head contains both truth and non-truth, and how navigating from gut feeling rather than pure intellect leads to better decisions.
Key Concepts
- Every “no” is new information that creates clarity
- Holding opposing viewpoints simultaneously creates freedom
- Jealousy is control disguised as love
- Work patterns mirror relationship patterns
- Opening your heart to what you resist dissolves rigidity
Key Quotes
“Every no is a better solution to your product. Every no is a refinement of a process that can make you more efficient. And you’re trying to stop them instead of invite them.”
“Being able to hold two opposing ideas at the same time and see the truth in both of them — there’s a tremendous amount of freedom in that.”
“All jealousy is abuse. Jealousy of somebody is like I’m going to have a big emotional reaction to try to control you to do something else.”
“If you apply force to something it has to push back.”
“The freedom is not in the intellectual idea that’s coming out of my mouth. I’m always pointing to the thing that I think will show someone the possibility of freedom.”
Transcript
I’m always pointing to the thing that I think will show someone the the the possibility of freedom and the truth that I’m pointing to is the freedom not the intellectual idea that I’m that’s coming out of my mouth I think that’s just a really important thing to recognize not just in a coaching session but in your own worldview like as you’re approaching life being able to hold two opposing ideas at the same time and see the truth in both of them there’s a tremendous amount of freedom in that people really liked our recent rapid coaching commentary episode on stuckness yeah and uh that was a really good experiment we were just seeing how that would go and turns out a lot of people really liked it and have asked for more we’ve even had a couple people send in their own rapid coachings with you for for us to do commentary on so there’s already a little bit of a backlog there yeah that’s great so this is a this is a person from one of our courses who gave us permission to to use this session publicly and we’re really grateful for that and he came in and he started working with some kind of jealousy that he had around his wife’s friend and over the course of the session it was tied into the way that he seeks control in both his relationship and his company and he came to a really beautiful place of really loving people’s no uh as as new information that can help him make his company or his relationship or his life even better yeah I think the thing for me though that’s really important is if we’re going to do this is that we do it and it’s more based about the patterns that we see because I think that’s something that can really inform the the danger that we get into in this is that to mimic other people’s like um tricks or techniques or something like that really takes away the most important part of coaching anybody which is understanding yourself understanding people in general and that comes from personal exploration and and if you are ever interested in coaching just to say that every one of these conversations is a way for you to explore yourself it’s not a one-way conversation ever uh so let’s let’s get into it yeah so um what made you just cross your arms mulling over which question I want to ask because they’re both important to me okay what how does crossing your arms help you mold that over it creates tension in my body and it actually doesn’t help it’s actually a uh when I’m feeling awkward and that is something I do ah great so it’s a form of kind of protection of feeling awkward is what I mean you say yeah yeah absolutely let’s just how about let’s just be awkward okay okay hold on a second so there’s a lot going on already in this coaching session so the he’s announced a couple things to me immediately in this coaching section the first one is that his you know his typical way of like if if you have to think about him in the fear triangle right he’s probably going to be more in the bully section of the fear triangle right there’s like there like he doesn’t have any problem presenting with anger he does that immediately with that kind of cross armed defense of anger rather than say like oh I’m stuck or or I’m here to save somebody but the more important thing that he announces already is that he actually is quite um he’s quite introspective he knows how to feel into his body he knows how to say what’s going on with him underneath the surface level which means he’s done a like a considerable amount of work so typically what you’ll see is that when unless somebody else is also in that position of like oh I I understand what it is to get angry and that that’s a form of vulnerability when somebody interacts with somebody like this they’ll be likely to write them off because of the like the propensity for like the ER and the ensity for the defensiveness and not be able to see that whole secondary thing that’s happening which is he says he’s actually quite introspective quite thoughtful and and if you see right here on his face he like the idea oh we can be awkward together like this like and he just totally lights up it also tells you that he knows and has experienced the freedom behind the behind the the defensiveness or the anger so all of that I’d say is already happening that’s already we know all of that if we’re going to walk into this session with him wow yeah that’s beautiful yeah great let’s continue great what’s your question what’s your question um so there’s there’s a stuck Point um yeah for for listeners that aren’t seeing this on YouTube Joe just started going to kind of further cut through the awkwardness uh and it seems to have worked for everybody including myself watching this I’ve been somatically jealous of my wife’s best friend and after a year of therapy and a bunch of anytime her name comes up I can’t get over it oh wow cool how how how much of of this turns into abuse of your wife emotional abuse of your wife oh it’s it’s not good yeah it’s pretty bad wow so that was a pretty quick leap right there yeah yeah can you say more on that yeah well he’s already presented that he in the fear triangle his his habituated place is anger and so usually if that’s your place there’s going to be not there’s two things that are happening one is that you’re probably going to release the anger on somebody in our Society generally will call that abuse or emotional abuse and everybody will kind of recognize that including the person who’s doing the yelling whereas if it’s passive aggressive then often times the person doesn’t recognize that they’re doing the abuse and so they can’t actually see it so for me the question was not just like I wanted to understand his awareness and I wanted to understand the patter How deep the pattern went and by the way just all jealousy is abuse jealousy of somebody is it’s like I’m going to have a big emotional reaction to try to control you to do something else it’s the jealous person’s way of pushing love away as well as like say like wanting the love and affection but pushing it away at the same time so all of that would say there’s abuse going on there that would be the pattern behind it yeah yeah and the jealousy can also another aspect of it can be like a discomfort with someone else’s autonomy which can also point to the the control that later on will come up in the session absolutely and the cool thing about if you really watch him here he’s he’s like he’s he’s like yeah it’s not good like he he can admit it and see it and so there’s again he’s showing us that there is this Consciousness and so the availability is there like he you know often times you talk about there’s some forms of therapy that you do it’s like the the quote that I heard once was like 10 years later you can describe exactly what’s wrong with you but nothing has changed and then there’s this form of therapy where you can’t describe anything but everything has changed and there’s a whole bunch of cool reasons behind that I think the best explanation I’ve ever heard is that if you’re in Theta which is where we get programmed from 0 to 8 years old because that’s the brain wave that we’re dominantly in during that time period um you know it feels more like a dream you can’t quite understand everything that’s going on but things change whereas if you’re in more of a like typical brain state of say uh alpha or beta then typically what’s happening is that you can describe it all but you haven’t reprogrammed that subconscious that happens and is programmed in that 0 to eight years old so he but what he’s showing us is that he’s very smart he’s showing us that he understands himself at least on an intellectual level and he is also showing himself that he’s like there’s not a ton of Shame there there’s shame but there’s not like he’s not hiding it from us he’s like yeah boom this is what’s up with me yeah which shows a a lot of Bravery yeah yeah and and on the emotional fluidity level it’s also like the a sign that the emotion just hasn’t moved you can have the story you can understand what the pattern is but some underlying emotion hasn’t moved and that I think would link to the Theta as well like the emotion moving being in the emotional state of moving something that hasn’t that’s been stagnant uh has has a similar effect be Tred similarly that’s right there’s a lot of emotional movement that can’t be understood by the brain for sure yeah yeah yeah awesome let’s continue pretty bad I uh threw a giant tantrum of a psychological meltdown all through last year making her choose between her and me yeah only to realize it’s my own issue obviously hence the question yeah yeah yeah great Okay cool so you realize the jealousy you realize there’s an abusive quality to it what are you trying to control for in the jealousy yeah and right there that’s the the leap to control you’re he’s recognizing the jealousy you helped him immediately recognize the abuse he already saw it there but you brought it into the frame and now control right which is every time we’re in fear triangle no matter what you’re whether you’re in the in the victim or the you’re trying to control the situ it is fear oh I’m scared so I’m trying to control and that’s what creates the drama and that’s what creates all the pain so definitely that’s that’s why you would that’s that’s what made me ask the question all right if you could make something happen that would go oh I have that now I don’t really care about this relationship with her best friend what’s the thing you’re trying to that laugh right there yeah I’m curious what you see in that laugh so what I saw was that I asked the question the first way and it and it’s it’s hitting him it’s hitting him on a subconscious level he hasn’t like fully gone through that thought process so he’s like 404ing a little bit he’s seen he’s like more spaciousness is occurring and then I asked it a different way to make it more accessible to him and and then he the the laugh that I see right there is that he sees something about himself and not only does he see it but he can also see that it’s kind of funny that there’s like a there’s something in it for him and and so again not shame just like a lightness which is really quite sweet yeah awesome great uh a public company no no with the relationship with your wife yeah like I view this I view this person to be a Blocker in my life to the my hopes and dreams okay so if this person was like like 100% supportive of you and was like let me help you with the company then that would be fine or do you actually have to create the company oh no the company’s created but it’s like she’s like a rowing in the other direction you know what I mean it’s like an anti- capitalist type mindset that’s influencing my life oh I get it okay okay okay okay got it cool lovely um what stops you from loving the out of the anti- capitalist in you your wife and this woman because you just said capital and money is the sun I think it’s stupid if you do good for the world you should get paid for it and not hide behind cowardice okay hold on a second hold on cuz something big is about to happen but I want to talk about what just happened which is so a lot of times like people will be like oh you know Joe you contradict yourself this is a perfect example so if I recall correctly the coaching that I did right before this was all about this person thinking money was bad and we were like seen through that belief system and here he he’s like taking that thing and saying look Joe you just said money is awesome money is the Sun so like you can see like there’s this part of him and I’m about to almost contradict myself but the the important and if I fully contradicted myself that would be fine because the way I I think about it is like if I’m going to point to a tree I’m going to point to it differently depending on where you’re standing like it’s you know my arm’s going to move and so where he’s standing pointing to the truth is going to be different I’m going to it’s going to sound different it’s going to look different and his freedom isn’t in seen the goodness of money though there’s probably some freedom in that for him there’s still some judgment that he has around it or he wouldn’t buy into any of this stuff but but the bigger freedom is for him right now is to like hey what are you defending like why what makes you have to defend this so I’m just not po I’m just pointing at the thing I’m always pointing at the thing that I just a really important thing for to to recognize not just in a coaching session but in your own worldview like as you’re approaching life you know being able to hold to tremendous amount of freedom in that and and so that’s basically what we’re doing here and and I just say that because I think anybody who’s watching this like see what life looks like when you’re actually able to hold opposing viewpoints yeah and and in in a team you know that’s how conflict gets resolved when when all viewpoints can be held in the complexity of the overarching perspective yeah then then there’s resolution tension remains but yeah the conflict resolves yeah awesome and not hide behind cowardice yeah right and I noticed all the defense in that wait what like that your heart had to harden to be able to say that which means there’s something in you that believes that that believes that capitalism is wrong and capitalism is wrong I can give you 30 reasons why it’s wrong it does not create equal opportunity is just one of them that look was just like you Joe yeah so good he was like no I came here you just said money is the sun I came here to get my worldview verified and and it is verified but it’s also like it it’s but not at the exclusion of closing your heart not at the exclusion of being able to see the truth in other World Views yeah and we continue it does not create equal opportunity is just one of them them okay I don’t care about equal results it just doesn’t create equal opportunity go to where your grandparents came from and you can see it right there so there capitalism is wrong just simply I want to believe that too so yeah exactly so what if you don’t defend against that well let me actually get deeper my issue no no no no no just first what if you don’t defend against that right now just allow and and like actually have an open heart to the fact that capitalism is not not a perfect system money is not in any way a perfect system you’re thinking about it but I’m asking you to open your heart to it you have kids you have a daughter I notice when when you said he was thinking about it he was looking around you know looking as though looking for an answer and then when you said like go to your heart open your heart to it he like tensed his eyebrows down and closed his eyes it kind of went internal but there’s there’s some like tension in it yeah what do you see in that process happening right now he’s attempting to he’s attempting he’s like yeah there’s just it’s yeah and and he’ll get there mhm and so it’s like just it’s just loving patience at this point yeah because that’s what he needs for himself right because anything that anybody is doing to others you know they’re doing to themselves too right which means that he has his own thoughts that he doesn’t allow if he doesn’t allow the thoughts externally because he thinks he needs to be able to compartmentalize to be able to get stuff done to control so anything that I’m seeing externally I know is happening internally so if I start jumping in on it right now then I’m just reifying the part of him that thinks he needs to manage himself instead of just bring awareness to the problem yeah lovely I want you to open your heart I want you to open your heart to the idea that capitalism is not perfect the same way you open your heart to your daughter there you go there it was yeah anything get destroyed so what happened right there for listeners is that tension on his brow just dropped and you could see him land in his body yeah yeah like a hyper vigilance yeah yeah that’s going to help you build a better company seeing capital for what it is allows you to make a better company having non-automated vigilance will help you make a better company you think control is going to make a better company but that’s not how works here’s a guess that I have are you’re the CEO of a company how many recent CEO how many people is um uh just a handful of us okay so and have you managed a team before like a size team yeah okay so yeah my guess is I may be wrong but my guess is that one of the things that um has happened in your career is you think that you have alignment from the team and then people kind of do different things and stray and you get very frustrated cuz you’re like wait I thought all agreed on this yeah yeah so it’s the same issue that you’re dealing with with your wife and best friend or and her best friend awesome I love that tying tying both of those things together that really helps tie together even for listeners the way that our personal life patterns and our work patterns are the same thing yeah that’s right yeah like our him managing people like that managing the wife like that it’s applying force and the way that I think about it is that like if you apply Force to something it has to push back rather than oh how do I harvest the wisdom of the of the no which I think I think I I’m about to go into so let’s go there wife and best friend or and her best friend is that you are rejecting the no instead of excited about the no now he sees it you got it yeah every know is a better solution to your product every know is a refinement of a process that can make you more efficient and you’re trying to stop them instead of invite them every no provides Clarity maybe just a little bit of clarity but some clarity yeah yeah I completely actually agree with you great and the solution is the same as the one that you just got to experience what is it when you open your heart to the no you don’t accept it as I’m bad it’s a bad solution it’s a bad company you’re just like ah right there’s truth to that too yeah I can really see him sitting with this yeah and mulling it over there’s definitely there’s intellect online but it’s in his body trying to confirm deny look for evidence for against but is his body is there too now in a way that it wasn’t earlier in the session that’s right thank you so much Joe pleasure perfect time my chair moves that’s a sign from the universe rock and awesome yeah yeah well that was a cool one thank you thank you to this Anonymous person for uh for letting us dissect this session publicly just as a as a as a some just something about the know generally and the open the heart and the holding to opposing viewpoints um yeah I know we we mentioned it a little bit having the opening your heart and like opening the wisdom of the different viewpoints is really really profoundly important if you if you want to create like a certain level of freedom and this is includes like the thing in the voice in your head right so the voice in your head is talking to see the truth and the nontruth of everything it says to see the truth and the nontruth of all these things it really creates a very open perspective it can create a lot of wisdom it it creates a lot of spaciousness internally um what I notice is that when people start experimenting with that then they’ll be like oh I don’t know what to do like that’s true and that’s true and that’s true like they have this the problem of isn’t isn’t is the way I’ve heard it described it’s like yeah that’s true and it’s not true so what the do I do um but there’s only one thing that’s going to feel right when you do it only navigating from the mind right yeah and so let your mind do all the processing look at the spreadsheets look at the you know the pros and cons what you know do the intellectual debate it’s fantastic and then take a moment and like really feel like what’s what feels like the right thing to do and and give Credence to the frustration or the fear or the whatever it’s the same thing it’s like oh I’m going to open my heart to the frustration and the fear especially if you’re running a business that frustration is usually a good sign that like oh like we’re we’re not being determined enough or or we’re not pushing hard enough and and the fear is probably a good sign like oh there’s something that we’re not accounting for or there’s a risk that we’re taking that we need to risk adjust for or to be prepared for or whatever like all of those are really good signs and so it becomes a lot less about like on the intellectual plane it’s like oh I can see in the emotional plan oh I can feel all of it I can see all of it but on the like what to do is far more of a gut response is like there’s only one thing there’s only one thing that’s going to feel right and so if you’re playing with it if you go home you play with this and you’re start opening yourself up to nose also just consider like oh yeah and there’s just one thing that is your truth yeah and it’s going to be a feeling yeah yeah and and so one thing that’s common in this in many many sessions and kind of core to the work that we do is that like I’m and the question just here is like what what makes it that opening your heart to the opposing Viewpoint is so difficult for people ah there’s like so many one is you usually have to feel something you don’t want to feel to is you know the way that we create distinction is the way that we Define our personality so to be able to see the wisdom of the Biden side and and the Trump side man you’re going to have to let go of some of your personality you’re going to have to feel certain things you’re going to have to feel the the fear and the loss and you know those are two of the two of the reasons why it’s scary um I think the other reason it’s scary is because like you don’t get to be right anymore like you you can’t you can’t believe the voice in your head you can’t believe your own thoughts you know like I mean you’ve seen me do this where people are like you like you don’t know what you’re talking about I’m like yeah correct yeah like yes and but you just made this up that’s right like we all did and so so you don’t get to like hang on to any of that that you just get to to be and that’s that’s that that can be very destabilizing for people for a short period of time yeah and I I think in our culture being right is tied with being accepted being loved being so that’s if we’re not right it’s not just that it feels uncomfortable and groundless it’s also that it our entire body has Associated it with a loss of love that’s right so there’s so to to let ourselves not be right we have to open ourselves up to feeling the love that has been lost yeah that’s right feeling the love that can’t be lost which is even scarier yeah and the love that has been lost yeah beautifully said Thank you cool awesome that was a fun one thanks for doing that you Joe yeah man appreciate it all right thank you to Our Guest uh really appreciate thank you putting yourself out there that was a vulnerable one yeah and I hope I hope this serves you to be able to see it again in this format yeah yeah all right talk to you soon bye