Summary
Joe and facilitator Mina Lee explore overwhelm from multiple angles — personal, emotional, and organizational. Joe defines overwhelm as the moment you think you have to leave flow to manage reality, and simultaneously as the state of not fully feeling any one emotion. Overwhelm always has both an external trigger and an internal component of unprocessed feelings.
The conversation moves through practical strategies: using breath to regulate in the moment, then feeling through the feared outcome (the “false end”) to process the underlying emotions. Joe is precise about the distinction between intellectual understanding (“I know I’m overwhelmed because of my dad’s love”) and actual emotional processing, noting that intellectual insight alone can become just more weight.
They then explore overwhelm in organizations, where Joe argues that anxiety is empirically detrimental to productivity despite the common belief that overwhelm drives output. He advocates measuring overwhelm, driving flow rather than reducing overwhelm directly, and making it a team conversation. The episode closes with personal stories of breakthroughs — including Joe’s daughter acing a math final by surrendering to overwhelm, and a transformative moment between Joe and Mina in China.
Key Concepts
- Overwhelm begins when you leave flow to manage reality
- Overwhelm is the accumulation of unfelt emotions
- Anxiety reduces productivity despite the illusion it helps
- Feel through the feared outcome to dissolve overwhelm
- Breath is the lever for nervous system regulation
- Knowing yourself is the only real safety
- Pushing creates the opposite of flow
Key Quotes
“Overwhelm is the moment where you think you have to get out of flow to take care of yourself.”
“We think we’re overwhelmed because of x, y, and z… but what’s actually happening on an emotional level is that there’s all these big emotions and you’re not feeling them.”
“There is no psychological evidence that fear makes people work harder, act better, or make better decisions.”
“We can’t control our nervous system but we can control our breath and our breath controls our nervous system.”
“The only thing that can make you feel safe is knowing yourself. There’s no amount of money, no lover, no car or vaccination that can make you feel safe.”
“Slowest steady. Steady is fast.” — Marine saying
Transcript
foreign accomplishment where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease hey everybody welcome back today we have another special guest for you Mina Lee Mina is a coach and a facilitator in our community and she’s joining Joe today to explore the topic of overwhelm I hope you enjoy it hi Joe I’m Mina I’m really excited to talk to you about overwhelm today it feels like yes it feels like a topic that’s so rampant in society and I just so see so many clients created for different reasons and I’m a bit bewildered around it you know some people create it because they literally are like if I’m overwhelmed and if I make a mistake then I won’t be so bad or if I’m overwhelmed I don’t have to deal with all the in my private life or if I’m overwhelmed that means I’m working hard and trying my best you know or even for myself like if I’m overwhelmed I don’t have to feel the meaninglessness of everything yeah so I’m super curious today to talk to you about like what is it what makes us create it like how do we move through it individually and as a group in the collective so let’s dive in I wanna I want to but I but nobody knows who you are oh well I mean I guess some people do but I don’t even know who you are but I I want people to know who you are because I love I I love you so I want everyone to know who you are so who are you what’s going on here or can I introduce you can I introduce you yeah you haven’t you introduce me to mina was the first person to sign up for the first course that I ever did and so Mina has been working with me longer than any other person consistently which has been really fun and has moved into our own coaching practice and is doing amazing work in the world and that’s amazing but also uh just a really close family friend my daughter’s absolutely adore you there is a happening with one of our daughters just the other day was like I have a couple extra days can I go up and see Mina you know and I was thinking to myself hmm she must have something she wants to talk about with Mina and then she tells me about a new boyfriend and did it as like oh I know what she wants to talk about so it was awesome yes and they’re they’re the teachers are bringing to all my client sessions I’m like a nine-year-old told me which you know she was nine she was 15 she said this and I just feel so proud as I got to call them like goddaughter and I’m also super grateful just the role you play in their life so on a personal note thank you because it like the Earth Confidant and trusted and they look up to you and it’s really it’s so it’s so beautiful that like another thing about me is that we got to travel through China together and you know you introduced me around and we got to have all these cool Adventures where we got to learn and do all sorts of crazy things together and um and so I’ll say it right I got to Mentor you in a lot of ways and then to see you mentoring my girls is just it’s just been awesome yeah yeah okay yeah it’s been a huge journey of weaving spirituality in business or loving and doing with you yeah which is overwhelmed okay well I’m leaving of like doing and being in love and business and all of it um so the first question what is overwhelm at its essence intellectually emotions I mean it’s it’s definitely an easy way to talk about it is a form of fear it’s anxiety um but what I would say it’s the moment where you think you have to get out of flow to take care of yourself it’s the moment where you think that or at least it starts it starts there maybe it isn’t that exactly but it starts there there’s this moment where you’re kind of inflow and then something happens and you think you have to manage it you think you have to manage reality what does it mean to be in flow like in trust in safety yeah you’re like focused and going towards your goal let’s say you’re focused you’re relaxed you’re going towards your goal you’re in flow and so you’re not you’re not wandering you’re not you know you have a purpose and you’re going and you’re and you’re going towards it and you’re but you’re not stressed about it you’re not you’re relaxed and you’re moving and you’re going with the river so to speak and then and then all of a sudden you want something or something happens or somebody says something to you that’s scary and all of a sudden you have to manage reality you have to push you have to rub roll up River and that’s the beginning of the overwhelming and that’s the beginning of the fear in the system that’s like that’s the first moment so you have to manage this thing that you can’t so you’ve already lost there was this one time when you said overwhelm is when you don’t feel any one emotion fully yeah so that’s the other that’s the other piece of it too which is overwhelm is not allowing your we think we’re overwhelmed because of x y and z um I have a call and then I also have to get to this place and then but I have a big job thing and then I know Mike but what’s actually happening on an emotional level is that there’s all these big emotions and you’re not feeling them and so you’re not allowing them to pass all the way through you and so your system is is is overwhelmed with the amount of emotions that you have and so typically what I see is when people move through those emotional states the overwhelm immediately goes away and fear is kind of the beginning is not the beginning but a part of those emotional states that aren’t being felt all the way through yeah yeah and when we’re in overwhelm are we is our nervous system already always in that fight flight freeze triggered helpless yeah right yeah our nervous system is activated and it’s it and it’s in that fight fight or fleas freeze that’s right what do you think makes us create overwhelm yeah so there so I I heard you talk about that and so there’s like I I want to hesitate on that phrase like we create overwhelm I think there’s some place in the journey where realizing that you’re creating the overwhelm is healing because it’s empowering and you get to see that you have a choice and you get to choose to move beyond that choice but there’s another place in the journey where if you think I am responsible for my own overwhelm it just makes you more overwhelmed it’s just one more thing that you then have to deal with that’s on your plate that you’re scared of that you have to manage and so it depends on where somebody is in the journey um is is where the the usefulness of that feeling of oh I’m creating the overwhelm I’m responsible for it right and I don’t think you can see it you can’t until you you’re not responsible to it for it until you can see that you’re responsible for it if that makes any sense once you can see it then you have choice but before then you don’t so so there’s kind of an odd thing to that and how do we get to see it and how how do we get to see oh I’m creating this to avoid this or this right because I’ve mapped this versus oh yeah I just had multiple people in my life die I’m feeling overwhelmed this is systemic so how do we see through like when there’s great self-compassion and maybe whenever we want to inquire more into how it’s not serving us so I don’t it doesn’t matter to me if you’re in the in a war zone or if you’re in a multiple people in your life just died the overwhelm always has an external component to it and it always has the internal component of not being able to process those feelings um at a time that’s in a time that the system needs it to do so it’s not overwhelmed so I’ll give you for instance so uh we as you know both of our daughters went into hospital when they were really young with pretty serious issues and in both cases I was not processing the emotional experience I was handling doctors I was making sure food was you know and and Tara was in that particular case really able to handle like emotionally process those things and I think it was like day seven or ten of the first one where I was just like okay I’m completely overwhelmed I have to go and be emotional and do that thing where Tara could continue to kind of process the emotions and it more in real time not entirely in real time but more in real time so she had a more steady state that was going through that so there’s always this external peace to it and and so there’s always a chance to look inside and say okay how what needs to be processed what is it that I’m I’m I’m dealing with so in the case of those deaths like yeah there’s some of them there’s some big emotions there’s grief grieve have that experience it’s going to heal you it’s going to help move your identity it doesn’t matter how big it is outside or or whether it’s a war you know Walt Whitman as an example E Cummings both had Awakenings and more I would I would argue by reading their poetry and um and so it’s like it doesn’t really matter if you’re feeling overwhelmed There’s an opportunity to allow yourself to feel something and process it and because anything that you can’t process in real time typically means that there’s some more resistance to it that can still be let go so it doesn’t really matter so let’s say someone reckoned they’re at that first moment of recognizing oh I’m feeling overwhelmed how would you then recommend or go through or walk them through that process of then inquiry and unraveling yeah so it depends on the context it’s a great question so one context is I don’t have space in this moment and I do mean Moment Like This Week doesn’t doesn’t register but in this moment so then the best thing to do is learn like really great breath exercises there’s ways of breathing that can immediately you know enjoy breath or there’s different ways to talk about it like slowing down your breath making it equal I mean it doesn’t matter whether it’s yoga or whether it’s the Navy Seals like teaching people about breath and how it calms the nervous system the the quote I heard recently which I loved which is like we can’t control our nervous system but we can control our breath and our breath controls our nervous system and so so if you can’t deal with it in the moment you can breathe the issue with that is that a lot of people will use that breath to then oppress repress the emotions like okay I’m just gonna keep on breathing and then I’m never going to feel that and that can be a world of hurt so in some cases you’re in a business meeting you know you’re you’re in a hospital you got just the breath can immediately regulate the system out of overwhelm than otherwise then the but once you have the space and you’re feeling these emotions it’s it’s the best thing to do is like look at what’s the thing that you don’t want to have happen remember feel that so usually when there’s overwhelm there’s a false end just like in fear there’s a false end and you’re scared of the emotional result of that false end so oh my God if I don’t get this job done my boss is going to be mad at me okay so that’s that’s the moment the okay so feel through grieve allow yourself to have the full emotional process of having your Moss your boss mad at you don’t don’t I’m not suggesting don’t finish your work and have your boss mad at you though that might be fine I’m suggesting live in that reality feel all that experience allow it to move through you so that you know you can survive it and you’re not scared of it anymore and then that can do it and that usually that’ll come with like in the case of oh my boss will be mad at me it’s going to go beyond your boss mad at you it’s your mom or dad who were mad at you it was the critical parent who wanted you to the person who taught you that you had to be productive to be loved etc etc etc you know how when we coach someone like a lot of our role as a whole that really stable nervous system so they can explore these topics safely yeah so what if they’re in that state of overwhelm they’re by themselves how do they they do that breathing what’s the next question the next thing when they’re already overwhelmed and they don’t have somebody else too or something else to stabilize like even when we find out in Sessions hey you’re creating overwhelm you’re creating problems that feel really urgent so that you can feel needed like they get to that after a process of discovery but how could someone who just notices they’re overwhelmed yeah so there’s I think there’s so there’s so many things that you said in that the first one is that you know that that job of us to hold that really nervous nervous that very stable nervous system yes sometimes that is our job and um and I would so there’s something I don’t want um any coaches listening to this to think that that’s like a requirement and or something that should be done all the time and then the second part is uh so if you’re if you’re looking for the intellectual Discovery the emotions will bring it rather than trying to have the intellectual Discovery and then that’s going to allow for the emotions so if you feel the thing that you don’t want to have happen and ha and live through that in a very slow way that you can have all those emotional experiences it’ll become really clear to you what’s creating the overwhelm right it’s like oh I create the overwhelm so I don’t have to feel the um the absence of my parents love for who I was because it was only for what I did you know and so you’ll get to that naturally if you allow the emotional experience um what I notice is that intellectually people can come to that experience of you know they might get it explained to them or they might find out some way like oh I am I am overwhelmed right now because I want to feel alive or I am overwhelmed right now because um because I didn’t I want my dad’s love and I never got it Etc like they can have those things but that can only can sometimes just cause weight it’s like oh this is just about my dad’s love and now I’m still chasing it and oh I’m like I can’t get rid of it and what you know why it’s been 10 years I’m still chasing my dad’s Love by trying to please my boss you know like they so that is a bit of a slippery slope whereas if they actually have the emotional experience and invite it and welcome it the same way that you would do if you were um the same way you would do it as if you were uh like the Tibetan book of living and dying or the samurai like visualizing your own death like slowly through all those moments and visualizing your dad getting angry at you or your boss getting angry at you slowly getting fired all that will really allow you to have that emotional experience and then it becomes really clear on the other side the intellectual reasons for it yeah so I’m overwhelmed I’m scared when am I scared of feeling let’s feel that together yeah what am I scared of feeling what’s the result for some people the what am I scared of feeling is hard so it’s what am I scared of happening and what would I have to feel if that happened is easier because it’s pretty con it’s really easy for someone to identify oh I’m scared I’m gonna get fired I’m scared that I’m gonna be left I’m scared that somebody will get mad at me that those are easier to identify than the emotions so that’s that’s the main thing and also to know that I think the other thing that happens in that is that people think that the overwhelm is productive most people in our society go oh when I’m overwhelmed I’m productive so it’s good like I’ve seen I’ve seen bosses say oh like I’m I’m gonna put some fear into people because they’ll I they’ll they’ll work harder they’ll act better they’ll make better decisions there is no psychological evidence of that at all now obviously a little bit of like urgency can be helpful but not any kind of prolonged fear it it reduces our capacity to think it reduces how quickly things get done it it reduces our accuracy it reduces our capacity to learn so anxiety is really detrimental to productivity the weird thing is it’s a bit of a um it’s a bit of a mental illusion that we often think we’re getting more done when we’re overwhelmed right so you know and it and it’s a little bit like I’ve seen I saw footage of a tiger or it was a lion who hadn’t eaten in a long time and like and they couldn’t sleep and they were like up constantly looking for food and and you could see their nervous system was all tweaked and and I like they’re probably thinking they’re being more productive but they are clearly not as good of a hunter as the one that’s relaxed and you know licking themselves and hanging out in the sun and so it’s the same thing our minds often trick us into thinking we’re more productive when we’re overwhelmed for the people who are listening what are some somatic markers to tell when they are just in a healthy level of tension and normal level of stress versus when they’re in a state of overwhelm that isn’t necessarily helping like what are some somatic markers to tell yeah um well I want to say that somatically and I think some for some people intellectually is better markers than some people somatically as better markers so any of the fear markers like um for intellectually like uh um black and white thinking binary thinking false ends um uh those are all thinking you have to make a decision having some sense of urgency over a decision that’s false urgency those are all those are all markers intellectually somatically there’s often a feeling of pushing I have to I have to Gotta Get Right like there’s like this pushing that happens I think that’s a really big somatic marker the other one is that you intellectually antimatically like you’re more likely to forget stuff right like when you’re leaving the house you’re less likely and you’re calm and you’re relaxed you’re less likely to leave the keys if you’re overwhelmed you’re more likely to have to come back into the house several times the Marines have this great sayings slowest steady slowest steady steady is fast and and it’s like so that feeling of Rush is often very much an overwhelm but it’s interesting because you’ll see people do this when they start to get interested in this they’re they’re like oh my God I’m rushing therefore I must be overwhelmed and they’re like no no but I’ve got a good reason to rush because if I don’t blah blah blah blah blah blah and that’s like that’s a gold mine for self recognition all those are all the you know the reason and and and then to also say okay what made it that I didn’t set up my world so that I didn’t have to rush right so I’ll give you an example oh my God yeah but I have to rush because if I don’t rush then I’m gonna be late for this job interview right so the first question is is that true like is it better to call the job interview place and say hey I hit traffic I’m going to be five minutes late or is it better to come in all overwhelmed so that first of all so that’s and we don’t question that and so if you can look at that and say what made me think that it was better to rush and be there frazzled what’s that feeling what’s going on there there’s going to be a lot of juice there and then there’s also what made it that I’ve set up a situation where I wasn’t you know I didn’t give myself an extra 15 minutes to this big job interview what what made me create that level of anxiety and so those are all like fertile ground mm-hmm yeah I noticing myself like sometimes this sense of panic quickening of tempo and then also the eyeballs literally like are going left right so much faster like they can’t like hold the steady gives them like wow they’re really overwhelmed it’s exactly what was happening with the lion it was like they were like yeah yeah right whereas like most cats when they’re hunting they’re like super slow and they’re and this thing was like me like it was buzzing yeah yeah so let’s move into organizational too because one thing I’m fascinated by is when an individual change how that change ripples into larger systems yeah so how does let’s say a CEO leader they’re doing the work they’re like I’m trying to regulate my nervous system I’m trying to not create so much overwhelm in my life but they’re interfacing with an organization where overwhelm has been empirical and is rampant in the culture itself and let’s say they’re in a larger culture social culture or capitalist culture which also how does one who’s just that one interact with that resistance to let’s say even shifting because yeah everybody also has their own thing with overwhelms how does that one person start to shift an entire organization so I think the the first thing is they have to be clear on it in themselves I think if somebody’s become a CEO of a successful company when they’re clear on it themselves they’ll be the company will be clear on it and I’ll just give you an example of this which is you know there’s so many examples of this but apparently like Bill Gates used to take uh one week to go be by himself in a cabin every quarter as a way of you know getting back to whatever you could call it a center I’m sure he had a different word for it but to get out of the overwhelm to get to the greater Vision to think about things um you know Greenspan um spent the first 30 minutes of every day in contemplation um if you talked to Jeff Bezos right before he quit um being the CEO he talked about I gotta I wander until ten o’clock it works out whatever he wanders until 10 o’clock he only makes decisions from ten to five because his whole job is to make good decisions that’s all his job is it doesn’t do anything after five like so I just want to say that there are multiple people who’ve been very successful who have figured out that this is true that their overwhelmed doesn’t serve and doesn’t serve their company and doesn’t serve them and and then some of those even see it inside of a inside of the company that it doesn’t serve the entire company and I think some of them don’t some of them are like yeah I’m the decision maker so I can’t be overwhelmed but the line worker putting the widgets on the bigger widgets they should be overwhelmed because that’s going to improve and some people realize no actually that actually doesn’t improve you make more errors you have more you know recalls there’s a whole bunch of other issues that if you can actually like there is a a pace of getting things done that is optimal for every for every um for every project so I’m gonna play The Devil’s Advocate for a second and like yeah those stable companies that’s easy they already have so much money and let’s say we’re starting you know we’re trying to survive we have to get Beyond this first customer everything is urgent literally like what would what would you say to that I would say um I don’t want to buy from that attitude and I sure as hell don’t want to invest money in that attitude that’s what I would say yeah and and your people are burning out probably or they will shortly you know I think it’d be a harder thing to say to like somebody who’s the harder one is something where it’s like and with with something like a startup it’s easier to say that because you are making decisions and you have to get things done and they’re thoughtful things and you so you’re really trying to maximize your decision making it becomes a harder thing to say for a company that’s you know I have 20 people who are out mowing lawns and if they move just a little bit quicker then I’m gonna make an extra 500 you know a day so move quicker I think that’s the actually the harder place to see that how slowness can can be more profitable you know then then you’re looking at and then it can depend on the kind of business you know I mean I think the Reinventing organization’s book had a great thing about this with nurses where this nursing uh establishment that in I think it was Netherlands all the nurses had been they have Community nurses they’re supposed to take care of x amount of blocks of city and and they were getting okay you have 20 minutes to drive and you have 10 minutes to give him the shot and blah blah blah and and it was all becoming nickel and dime and became Tighter and Tighter and it was all driving efficiency and some guy came in and said FBS that’s not how we’re going to do it we’re going to stop and we’re going to have coffee with these folks and we’re going to find out what they need to be independent and and that’s going to be our priority it’s not going to be how quickly we serve them we’re it’s going to be how do we get it so that we don’t have to serve them and he took over the market and he took over the market partially because nurses want to work for him and didn’t want to work for anybody else so bada bing but the but the second bar they took over the market is they became I think it was like 20 or 30 more efficient and so if you’re constantly worried about that you know half a cent margin you’re gonna miss the major opportunity and so then that’s that’s another thing so so there’s a lot of reasons but it it’s more about don’t trust me if you’re a CEO like measure find out what’s the right pace for this particular Pro what’s the right pace what’s the race incentives do the experiments find out if I’m writing a novel most great novelists work about three hours a day they can’t write 10 hours a day every day and be successful they don’t you know they they either burn out or their writing becomes crap or whatever it is programming you know probably you can do for more than three hours a day and so and sales you know there’s a certain level of sales that you can do and still be productive and the job is to find out what that level is and what’s the mindset that is instead of assuming overwhelm is it and that’s the crazy thing is it’s all based on assumption so if you’re listening to this and you believe in your overwhelm it’s an assumption you have not tested it I guarantee you haven’t tested it I guess that goes to back to the first and third which is like how does so CEO realizes it they’ve decided they’ve gotten clear on it they’re like I want to do this in my organization yeah let’s say they have hundreds to thousands of people who are used to years of working in overwhelm yeah how do you concretely begin to and you can’t you can’t change what’s going on in their private lives stuff that contributes to their own overwhelm absolutely or their own pattern around overwhelm you know creating overwhelming work too yeah better feel blank how do you begin to shift that momentum in that system so many ways but then I mean I’m depending on the company I would have a lot of answers but the I give you the generic Baseline that I would start with the first thing I would do is I would try to measure how overwhelmed actually people are and this will be everything from attrition rate of good people attrition rate of bad people to asking them you know open-ended question about it or a good survey can tell you like are you looking forward to coming to work on Monday probably is a pretty good indication of overwhelm so I would I would first just find out I would Define the problem and find out really what the problem is and then I would try to find out what it is that’s overwhelming them I think most of the time people are overwhelmed in companies if it’s not just kind of their innate pattern is because they feel like they have the responsibility but they don’t have the authority to actually make it work and so it starts with overwhelming ends with despondency and so I would really be looking really carefully at you know where the decision making is happening and how people feel the other the other place I would go is I would look for um how the productivity I would start trying like if there’s some place where I know this product activity is X I would say let’s change the speed right so there’s a there was a company I was reading about I can’t remember the name but they were stand up paddle board company but the CEO very brilliantly said we’re an online marketing company that happens to Market paddle boards and um but he took his company to 30 hours a week like you could you couldn’t really work over 30 hours a week it was looked down upon and his productivity and his sales went up consistently more than his competition and so he was out there advocating for the 30-hour work week and I and and but for me the bigger thing is like oh he was driving flow in his company and that’s so I would think about it less as how do I drive how do I reduce overwhelm and I would think of it more as how do I drive flow how do I have people calm relaxed focused on game right and and and that amount of tension rather the kind of tension that takes them out of their game that makes them run back for the keys that makes them you know second-guess themselves that makes them oh my God I gotta talk to my boss because my boss is unhappy then instead of just making the call that you know going up six levels of asking people for approval so those are the things and then there’s going to be attrition there’s going to be some people in your company who that they are overwhelmed by their nature and and aren’t willing to do the work to become less overwhelmed and so you’re going to have to find those folks and get rid of them and and help them find a hopefully help them find a place where you know it’s a better fit so those are some of the things that I would do and mostly I would talk to people and ask them what’s the overwhelm how do we reduce it because reduction of overwhelm needs is like it’s a team sport so it’s not going to come down through a policy it’s going to come come with a discussion of like like I would open a channel on slack that says reduction of overwhelm as an example and say oh I’m seeing that overwhelm is doing this and this and this hey everybody give me ideas on how we can reduce overwhelming the company overwhelm is defined as spinning being non-productive in our spend being non-relaxed you know this it overwhelm is not defined as slacking off or wandering or you know so I would be really clear about the definition I’d really be really clear what it isn’t and then I would ask everybody for ways that we could do it examples of how people have been overwhelmed and that would be part of the cultural experience sometimes I see teams that are so overwhelmed that their the helplessness is really loud and they’re in a freeze around the overwhelm itself and it’s like when we go into the conversation like the prefrontal cortex literally like can’t come up they’re just like bro don’t know what to do and there’s like a sense of collective freeze in it of itself you know yeah so when they’re in that place where they can’t they’re not even here to ideate what would you suggest give them a break get him out of the office yeah if they can’t if they can’t if they can’t what you’re basically saying they’re so overwhelmed they can’t think so now maybe you don’t need them to think if they’re cutting Lawns or picking apples um but you need them to think for most modern jobs and so you why even have them there unless they you know unless they can think I’m like right now for instance I I is a great example I go into companies and oftentimes the I’ll go in with you know the CEO has invited me in and their EA will be the one communicating I’ve found this space and we’re going to do it here and blah blah blah and some of the EAS do that in you know three emails less than five senses each and some some EAS do it with 20 emails and each one of them are like small novels and I can tell you who’s overwhelmed just by that right because they’re trying to make sure everything’s right and catching every little piece and da da it’s like oh you’re overwhelmed and the other ones are like oh what’s the like they see the least that’s required to do an excellent job is there ever overwhelmed without fear it’s a great question no no you’re at the very least you’re scared of feeling the feelings that are coming up the last part of that though is just just because that’s there it doesn’t mean if you feel your fear the overwhelm goes away though meaning that they’re they’re sometimes needs to be a lot of other things that are moved and sometimes moving the other things make takes the fear away so I just don’t want to be able to think like oh I’m overwhelmed therefore I’ll feel fear the the question is I’m overwhelmed how do I feel safe that’s the more accurate question is it’s like it’s overwhelm is a sign that you don’t feel safe um inside of yourself or outside of yourself and and and and there is knowing yourself is the only safety there’s no amount of money that can make you feel safe there’s no lover that can make you feel safe there’s no there’s no car or or vaccination that can make you feel safe the the only thing that can make you feel safe is is is knowing yourself feeling safe inside of yourself knowing that you have a home to go to at any time that’s what can make you feel safe because then all the bad things that can happen are not relevant they’re like yes they’re there and they could happen and yeah yeah you know when I go through the emotional movement there’s all I realize that it gives me clarity about what needs to be done but oftentimes there’s like some boundary or something you need to stop doing or just um yeah some way in which I’m not taking responsibility for for it and then typically when the action comes I’m like oh so that’s this is the third part that I want to talk about transforming the overwhelm it’s like the gift on the other side of the overwhelm um like for example if we see Ukraine and then I want to talk really personal but like for example in like the entire country you could say is overwhelmed and I see everything that I read long form articles the journalism is like so many people are coming out and activated and doing something and there’s a huge sense of community and and tying together yeah and so it’s like what differentiates when you know we feel overwhelmed and we’re it turns into this empowered sense of community or you know that’s one example for them you know with with even your daughter like her story around oh let’s just put it right against Russia yeah I’m sure that those Russian soldiers feel very overwhelmed right and it’s not building anything there’s no it’s just disintegrating stuff yeah right so how like what you know what determines when we as humans move through one versus the other and in the Ukraine situation you know there’s a common enemy so I can see how that all has always United people but in business and family when there’s that lack of common enemy it’s almost like we make each other the enemy yeah it’s the meaning that you make of it that’s why I was so at the very beginning I was so precise about it’s like I’m not you know me and the fact that I’m not like very conscientious about like the way that I look or you know the way the website looks I’m not like okay that’s the wrong font I’m not but I’m really precise about this kind of thing because it and conscientious about this type of thing because it makes such a huge difference if somebody makes the meaning of it um I’m bad or they’re bad in the overwhelm then it’s going to be destructive and if somebody makes the meaning of it oh I have an opportunity here’s a great way for me to change this is something for me to learn there’s you know there’s a way for me to understand myself better I look forward to my overwhelm men if you make that meaning of it it’s far more likely to be productive and so it’s really about the meaning that you make of it and so that’s why for some people it’s really important that the meaning is I am I I’m empowered and this is something that I created but if they’re blaming themselves then it doesn’t then this is something I created becomes just more overwhelming and so that’s that specifically so it’s it’s how you make the meaning of it in the Ukraine Russia thing the the meaning in Ukraine is that we want to survive we can survive and we are going to beat off this enemy and in the Russian the meaning is this is a stupid War why are we here we’re just fodder and and yeah we’re getting treated like so we’re gonna treat everything around us like and so it just it’s what it’s the meaning that you make up the overwhelm and that’s where the choice is yeah yeah that’s where I want to end us on a few stories yeah of where you’ve really seen breakthrough ways of where people have made meaning it’s really served I love to hear one story where you’ve done it in a business I love to share it as my story I know she’s open to the the overwhelm with the math test and how that led to so much yeah share share it let me start with that one and I want to hear one from me Pete too so we can really end on a personal like personal transformation around the overwhelm so um so one of Joe’s daughters Esme she she had told me you know doing the math finals was always challenging and difficult for her and it would always take her a really long time and she would come out with the grade that she didn’t necessarily like and I remember this past year when she was about to go into the math final she they lost she lost the family dog like the night before and you and Tara her parents were on a retreat with us so there was no parent home her with her little sister about to take a math final the dog was lost her younger sister was freaking out feeling maybe partially responsible for the dog I mean it was like complete and intense challenging overwhelmed yeah challenging and she told me you know she went in and she was feeling so overwhelmed to a point where she was just like oh I have to just let go of everything that I can’t control because it’s too much I’m trying to control everything and that all that’s left is just trusting myself showing up as I am knowing that I’m enough and that’s it and it gave her incredible focus and she left the the math exam an hour and a half early with the best grade she’d ever gotten like surrendering to that overwhelm actually gave her Focus trust in herself not trying to control what she couldn’t and I was just wow I was like wow yeah yeah that’s a great story yeah um a business one I think I could create a business one and one between you and me in the same situation I and it’s going to be almost an opposite um one we were sitting there we were in China and we were visiting that group of people who had like figured out how to like build a 50-story building in like whatever it was three days or something because they had this special kind of Lego set on an industrial size and we were sitting in there like side office and about a media conversation and um and there’s a way in which you weren’t being respected or honored and you weren’t speaking up in a way like they were it was like oh this is the conversation between like the people who know something and and I said that that was unacceptable and you were we were having coffee afterwards and you’re like why is that unexpectable and I was like oh because I’m here for you I’m not here for this business meeting like that I’m here for your growth and and you got overwhelmed in that moment because and because you were scared to let that much love in that was huge we’re really just looking out yeah I remember that and you were like yeah it’s just not the most important thing you’re the most important thing and you’re about to say your next sentence and I just burst out crying and it was like like loud and you looked at me like so surprised you’re like what is happening what just happened was and I was like yeah I’ve just never been loved like that that I was more important than the content the PowerPoint the slides or the business that was happening yeah and that that’s a moment of that overwhelm occurred you actually allowed the emotions to move through really quite rapidly there was that fear of being loved that level and then you moved right through it and then we entered a flow state in our the rest of our China travels together where we just were like everything was just went beautifully and smoothly and wonderfully and so that’s I give that as an example of how to handle the overwhelm in such a way they can immediately change I mean from that point on every conversation we had with anybody turned into like somebody crying somebody having a realization somebody somebody going holy crap out on the floor of that like five-star restaurant in Beijing because you kept apologizing and you were like if you apologize to me one more time I’m gonna beg you beg you and you said you got on the floor of that like fancy Duck Restaurant and back to her she almost cried just to get you off the floor and she never said I’m sorry again oh I forgot about that one yeah and it just like then that big smooth and you know all of those contacts that we met then paid off for you and future endeavors and like it’s just that’s that’s how it works if you can move through the overwhelm instead of tightening down feel the feelings and then all of a sudden that flow State comes in again and that’s that’s the example I would say is there any last story you want to share maybe from your own experience around overwhelm and how transformative my own experience um there’s this recently there’s been this thing happening inside of my system where I’ve been noticing how much the pushing creates like the subtle overwhelm so I see something that needs to be done in the business and if I turn towards it and I do it or I’m very clear oh this needs to get done then it just kind of flows everything happens and it seems like it happens slower but it ends up happening happening a lot quicker as soon as I push oh my God we have to get this done and I’m and I manage it I notice that I lose myself in the process that’s one thing I noticed that I start moving at a quicker Pace it’s another thing and I notice that my enjoyment goes down and I notice I I’m like at the end of that day I’m like oh I just need a break whereas if I immediately catch that moment of push and say oh what’s what’s actually needed here and and how do I get back into myself and not go into the management of a situation everything just seem slower my impatience walks in and it’s like wait wait wait so the other day there’s a decision that needs to be made in the business like what are we going to do next year and because we have to buy or rent facilities and every all the facilities get rented early you got to make these decisions really early to do any kind of event and so I’m like oh we have to do this event and and I’m some I noticed I was pushing I was like okay like I got to get this thing done and I thought oh how about if I ask the slowness what it wants to do like it’s like because part of the reason I want it the part of the the it’s a little confusing but part of the decision that I was making was trying to figure out how do I not be overwhelmed in my next year so it’s it’s easy to do that for me if it’s like if it’s like oh I don’t want to do that right now but if you have whatever fifty thousand dollars on a rental place for something and then you have 20 people coming or 50 people coming you can’t say oh I don’t want to do that I feel overwhelmed like you you need to show up and be there for people and making this decision like you know a year in advance so you’ll have no idea how you’re going to feel and so it’s like where so I was like well I’m asking for my intellect what if I ask from my slowness what if I just go to the part of me that is that knows that stability and calmness and ask that like oh what do I want to do and so I did I can’t wait for the answer and the answer was more will be revealed what did I expect to ask slowness like to ask slowness like well what’s the answer it’s like well this is the answer and go do that right now it was no slowness was like it was like yeah you know just relax it’ll come to you you know more will be revealed you’re fine what was the decision then that decision hasn’t been made yet more literally way to make the decision more will be revealed it was just it wasn’t way to make a decision what the answer that came was more will be revealed and so I was just like oh right I am pushing to make this decision and it’s and the wisdom is don’t push to make it it’ll like stay focused be on point but don’t don’t force to make the decision and if I look back in my world like the more I have forced Force the situation to make a decision usually the worst the decision so I’m I am operating so that’s a that’s an example of of oh yeah this is silly example but a good one just happened you guys can’t see but she’s laughing hopefully at me a little bit yeah that was right that with as all of you Mina what a total total total pleasure oh I’m so glad that we finally got to do this I wanted it for a while me too yeah okay thanks for listening to 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