Summary
Joe and Brett explore how to evaluate the health of spiritual traditions, teachers, and personal development paths. They identify key signs of dysfunction: certainty without openness, delegation of authority to a teacher rather than back to the student, us-versus-them framing, urgency-based motivation (“the world needs us”), secrecy, hierarchical gatekeeping, and promising a definitive end state. They emphasize that no path or teacher is perfect, and that the same patterns show up in politics, marketing, corporate culture, marriages, and even the inner critic.
They also discuss how teachers go sideways — not just through their own failings but through the dynamic relationship between teacher and students. Constant attack from students breeds defensiveness; students wanting a perfect authority figure creates a codependent spiral. The same cult dynamics of certainty, us-versus-them, and authority delegation appear in pitch decks, advertisements, political movements, and controlling relationships.
Joe shares how these insights apply to parenting teenagers — the goal is teaching children to become their own authority rather than performing for approval or rebelling against it. He describes learning to celebrate his daughters’ excitement rather than giving external validation, and a moment where his daughter asked him to be directive, which he recognized as her exercising her own authority by asking for what she needed.
Key Concepts
- Authority distorts reality for leaders
- Authority issues are not seeing humans
- Internal authority mirrors external
- Certainty as a sign of dysfunction in teachings
- Us-versus-them signals fear-based control
- Teachers and students co-create dysfunction
- Seeding authority feels like belonging
- The inner critic uses the same cult dynamics
- Teach children self-referencing
Key Quotes
“If the teacher isn’t directly occasionally saying ‘hey, the truth is in you, it’s not in me,’ that’s a really important sign that there’s something else going on.”
“Your journey is yours and you’re the authority of it. If a path isn’t pointing there, that’s critical.”
“Freedom doesn’t come from buying one set of thoughts. Freedom comes from not buying any thoughts.”
“We all want to be on the inside of something. It feels safe there. And it’s especially easy to feel on the inside of something if there’s an outside — an others.”
“All of this is just a projection. It all falls apart when you see it in yourself — when you can no longer believe the urgency, the us-and-them, from the voice in your head.”
“Power is when people think you have power. That’s all power is.”
Transcript
welcome to the art of accomplishment where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease my name is Brett Kistler and I’m here with my co-host Joe Hudson ah good morning good morning Brett how are you doing yeah doing well I I just got back from a from an experience that I found very fascinating there was a I want to kind of keep the details sort of General here but there was sort of a a personal development like event that I went to uh Retreat that I found very fascinating and I really loved a lot of what was being taught and there was also some aspect of it some component that just sort of rubbed me the wrong way and in this particular case the flavor of it was you know these these teachings are you know this these are the ways that we can free ourselves and the world needs this the world needs us to free ourselves yeah from our constraints so that we can Heal the World by healing ourselves but there was a little bit of like pressure in it and I sat with that through the entire Retreat yeah with this juxtaposition of there’s so much goodness here yeah and also there’s this feeling of pressure yeah and I could feel it in the people around me like buying it like yes this is needed right uh and it just yeah it brought up this topic for me of you know there’s there’s so much out there that people can explore on whether it’s a spiritual path or a meditation practice or whether it’s a self-development workshop or some psychedelic facilitator they might sit with or or simply just a meditation app or a church or a a group you know there’s there’s so much out there and that was one particular example of something that I see common in in many of them and I just wanted to sort of have a conversation about what are some of the the signs of where a teacher or a path or a practice where there might be something you want to look into here I don’t even want to use the word red flag but yeah just what are some of the Dynamics that can occur I I would say that there is like some red flags and there is some also humanity and I think those get confused often and they so to be specific there is no such thing as a perfect path and and if you believe it then it’s like a religion it’s like a faith right because all path comes from human consciousness and there is no such thing as a perfect human consciousness in fact I would say one of the one of the signs that up that like there’s a little bit of wonkiness in a path is like the idea that there’s some Perfection that can be reached and then you’re done I think that is part of part of like what what could be wonky and so there knows there is no such thing as like the perfect teacher the perfect path or anything like that and at the same time there’s like some absolutely Dangerous Ones and and what’s even weirder than that is that oftentimes the folks that I know who like end up in some of these dangerous dangerous paths often that’s what they needed like it’s you know it’s where they it’s like what they fell for and therefore it’s the holding the Consciousness that they need to look at I mean hopefully nobody needs to be you know branded or brainwashed or any of those things or you know I think there’s been cases of people neutering themselves or like whatever killing themselves you know like Jim Jones or whatever so you don’t there’s obviously some red flags there but there’s also and and there’s also a process in that too just to say that I have seen you know pass and teachers go from pretty healthy to pretty wonky and I’ve actually seen once uh one go from a little wonky to more and more healthy which has been was a fascinating journey to see um so yeah I think it’s a really good discussion and I think I would frame it as what to look for when you’re trying to figure out how healthy a path is the the but the other piece is that there everybody comes with that kind of skepticism of the path and oftentimes people don’t get the most they can out of a practice because they’re finding the faults in in the system or the teacher and and and finding the faults are important so it’s kind of this weird thing it’s like how do you actually absorb everything and then discern instead of I’m not going to absorb it because of discernment it’s a it is a tricky balance and I don’t yeah there’s no perfect way to do it yeah that’s that’s where I had some hesitance to use the word red flags because when someone’s looking for red flags you’ll find them everywhere and especially if you’re stepping into a process that is really powerful it will bring you into resistance and the one of the first ways many people’s resistance will show up is in criticizing finding all the ways it’s wrong putting yourself above it separating yourself from it separating yourself from the group and those are beautiful ways to block the process so that you’re you know those are also beautiful ways to make a teacher go nuts but let’s talk about that yeah let’s first talk about let’s first just talk about you know what to look for and then let’s talk about how the interaction between the group the student and the teacher all can like downward spiral or upward spiral you know yeah and how that goes to it cool so I mean here’s I mean let how about you go through the things that you you see as as red flags or as like I don’t know the way that you would judge how functional a path or uh teaching is yeah yeah in general the first the first thing that comes up is certainty if it’s being taught with certainty I mean there can be there can be conviction and belief in the power of the practice and if that’s not held with Wonder for its own blind spots with space for space for resistance or dissent to arise and also there’s discernment in how much of that you’re allow to arise as a facilitator in a container um so there’s there’s a bit of a balancing act there and there’s also recognizing where that is rebellion and that is like actually just trying to break the container and how to hold that in a so there’s there’s that Balancing Act and and that’s one of the things that I would see is is just in general if somebody is speaking to me with absolute certainty or if I catch myself speaking with absolute certainty there’s a sign that there’s something that I’m not willing to experience probably some form of helplessness or not knowing I I was either a teacher then I’m curious about that yeah I would say it’s a I think often talking with certainty is a really important part of teaching or people don’t want to listen for me it’s identification the way I would describe it is identification if the person is identified with their teaching they think their teaching is the right way that they’re not you know I I speak with certainty and at the same time someone’s like you’re full of shit I’m like yeah absolutely you know like the other dads with the CEO for instance and they were like you made this shit up and I’m like yeah just like you made up your company we that’s what we’re doing we’re just making shit up that’s how this works so uh so like to be able to be in that space to be non-identified with the teaching or the way um yeah yeah but and there is you’re right about certainty in the fact that even though someone speaks with certainty it doesn’t mean that they will defend their teaching or you know it’s like a defensiveness that crops up right it’s definitely a red flag yeah what else do you see what what are the other ways that you yeah another another one would be this on one side of the coin it’s like a gatekeeping of authority and the other side of the coin it’s not continuously referring back to the authority within the student or within the yeah the guest or participant or any individual or any co-facilitator um and so a lot of the ways that that might show up is like you know this is a thousand zero tradition and my teacher bestowed this upon me and I’m you know reluctant to do it even like if you want to be a teacher you shouldn’t be a teacher it’s only if you were like dragged into it that’s sort of a separate that’s a separate point there but um but yeah this is another one where it’s an interesting Paradox where if you have a tradition it’s really powerful and you let anybody come in and do one workshop and then go teach it themselves you’re going to dilute what it is that you’re doing and I would I would argue unethical it’s unethical yeah too to give like a sword to an infant yeah right because the powerful components of it will then get adopted by an inexperienced teacher’s neurosis and they’ll use it to control or create the situation that recreates the trauma that they’re currently playing out so yeah again it’s it’s another one of those paradoxes it’s like we we go to a facilitator or a teacher or a coach because we expect that they have something to offer us that yeah if we have it in US it feels obscured and we’re looking for help with that and there are many times where people are just really happy to be like in that position and say yeah it’s I’m connected to the spirits and they say this about what you should do and things go wonky from there yeah I would say that the way I speak to this one is delegation of authority meaning if the people are delegating their authority to a teacher or the teacher is assuming authority over students and that usually can look like very strong hierarchy or Gatekeepers to you know like some levels of power that move up that that’s usually a good sign of it um but the if the teacher isn’t directly occasionally saying hey the truth is in you it’s not in me it’s a very important that’s a really important sign that the that there’s something else going on besides you know uh uh like I would say there’s more dysfunction in that situation why like whatever would make a teacher want to have the authority over other people or that kind of a thing and it doesn’t mean that they might not know stuff that you don’t know but the one thing for sure is that you know what you should do next better than anybody not better than any teacher teacher might be able to point out patterns and stuff like that but your journey is yours and you’re the authority of it and that’s that’s critical of a path isn’t pointing there yeah and it might even be that eventually you reach the same conclusions that you’re currently resisting but the process of your resistance is actually where you’re going to find what actually is true for you and not just take it for granted and then adopt a belief system that suppresses some aspect of your reality that if fully felt would ultimately perhaps result in having agreement with you with this person yeah there’s some others in there that are pretty they’re a little bit more direct there’s like one of the things you just mentioned was we have to save the world that’s a pretty yeah that’s a pretty big flag only we can do it that’s a pretty big flag there’s an Us and Them component of it you know we have to save the world from billionaires we have to save the world from close-minded people we have to save the world from climate change um there’s like that kind of um urgency and anxiety behind the spiritual tradition also shows some level of of dysfunction um there’s also things like I’ve seen like this is true I like one male teacher only teaching females and telling the females not to uh not to talk to their husbands or boyfriends about what happens in the room that’s like those are secrecy secrecy non-transparency there’s some transparency that you can’t go all transparent meaning let’s say you have a week-long retreat you don’t want everybody telling everybody what’s in that week-long retreat um because then you destroyed the ex you know things for other people and there are certain practices that are really hardcore practices and you don’t want people out there you know just throwing them around because people can get hurt other folks can get hurt I mean the way and this is the hardest thing for me to actually um go through we ask just for people to ask permission from us to use our work and that way it gives us a chance to be in a communication with them and see if they’re ready if you know how dangerous it’s going to be and give them a path to be able to share the work um but we ask that but that’s the one of the hardest things we found to because on one level you want full transparency on another level you have an obligation both to the work and to the people who touch it and so that’s that’s another one that’s that’s because some of them are like very serious like you hit this level and then you get this door opened and then you hit this level and then you get this door opened and then people in level seven Are Better Than People on level five and that that that’s really that’s a pretty big sign that there’s some destruction going on yeah and that’s that’s yeah it’s just another example there’s if you have if you have one person who is supposedly at a certain level and then they are the ones because of that that are capable of seeing what level others are at and they’re like the sole decision maker as to where like and this is this is difficult because that’s what what else is like you know a CEO or right or or you know there’s just a lot of a lot of ways that this Paradox comes up in life not just in in a personal development practice um yes another one is sort of uh I don’t know this shows up often as feigned reluctance of being in the role you know somebody who says I just have to do this it’s not my choice right the world needs me to do this and you know I wouldn’t I wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for the fact that it just is required of me so there’s there’s a weirdness there because that’s actually to some degree my experience right not I don’t feel like I have to do it by any stretch and I don’t feel like the world is asking me to do it but there is an experience of choicelessness in it there is an experience of like this is my calling and I’m and I and I and there was and there was indeed a reluctance to it at the same time me being reluctant created a lot of dysfunction so so like me actually I remember earlier on there was this learning that I had which was like I I was like I don’t have power here I don’t have any power because I’m constantly pointing to everybody else to be their own authority and and in that I created quite a bit of dysfunction and I had to learn oh no power is when people think you have power that’s all power is and so I have it because people think I have it and to be able to own that and to walk in that space instead of deny it uh was really important I created a lot of dysfunction by not doing that so on some level I I can definitely feel the like I’m pushed into this situation is there’s a feeling of being or pulled into this situation there’s a choicelessness in it and there’s also like and there’s a choice that you made and you it’s an ownership of that and you have to be functional about it so it’s there’s a bit of a bounce there but I understand what you’re pointing to for sure yeah yeah there’s a there’s sort of an expansiveness or a contraction around it and correct when I when I notice myself feel feel a contraction also other other people in the group will feel a contraction is when I feel the teacher contracted or the teacher or the facilitator or whatever word we’re using here yeah if if they feel some form of threat around what happens if they don’t do this because the world will X or you know it’s it’s needed yeah if there’s some self-importance in it that’s not being owned if it seems owned if it’s not feeling important and also I don’t need you to see me as important and I feel like this stuff is really important but I’m not taking it so seriously as to believe that I know what’s best for others and the world and what the world needs like there’s the arrogance in that of or just it’s really the suffering and it needs to stop suffering and I’m qualified to determine that and therefore we who have this secret knowledge are the ones right who are who are needed uh somewhere somewhere in there there’s the constriction where I just feel myself closed down and I can feel the constriction in in the group there’s fear in it it’s oh the world is dangerous and we’ve got to do this yeah that what I really like there is that there’s a subtle pointer in there about uh or a potential pointer of of ownership and it’s like if they can say I think this is important this is important to me you know I’m yeah I I don’t want to do that but I don’t feel like I have a choice it’s very different than I don’t have a choice right like there’s an ownership of their experience and I think that that in general when I see teachers who own their experience as theirs not other people’s that’s a pretty good sign in general that’s another one yeah and the teacher that always sees that they’re learning is another really good sign that that is constantly in a place of learning yeah I guess that relates back to the to the delegation of authority if the teacher is delegating their authority to what is needed externally from them rather than what is coming through them and feels like what they want and what they need and yeah there’s when when we’re in in deep contact with who we are we we don’t really know what we’re going to do next it’s not that predictable and so it kind of comes from this place of I have no idea what’s going to happen next and I’m just feeling called into this and this is what I want to do now and but when there’s not an ownership of that where it’s like I’m doing that because it’s right externally necessary that I do yeah that feels like the where the ownership Falls away I think that’s another really good pointer of a teaching that I would have a lot more respect and Trust for what I would feel is has more function is when the when they’re not supplying certainty to folks if a teacher is supplying certainty if they’re a certainty supplier then they’re just creating another framework instead of helping people see through all the Frameworks seeing like the freedom doesn’t come from buying one set of thoughts Freedom comes from not buying any thoughts and that’s very scary because most people are looking for some sort of ground uncertainty and so it’s much easier to sell certainty than it is to say yeah lack of certainty but the but the functional teaching is not is not selling certainty as a matter of fact there’s this great I think it’s the I think it’s a Hindu tradition where they basically say and the path one of the last things that goes away is the teacher and then the teaching meaning that like you have to see through the scripture that none of the scripture is right and you have to see through the teacher that the teacher isn’t right to get to what they would call you know uh freedom and so I think that that’s a path that sees that uncertainty is a really important step in the process is is a really good sign of functionality rather than yeah this is the way and it’s finished yeah I would almost even say that that’s it feels to me that that’s not just like a last thing to fall away but that’s also part of the process of it working is to see through the things it’s like and so another another piece that I see here which is which can be a red flag is like what is the promise if if the premise of the path is some clear end state that everybody seems to be constantly seeking something magical about it right whether it’s Enlightenment or Awakening but it’s it’s not just about like what the words are but it’s about really what the sort of the if there’s like a state attachment to yes and then your problems will be then you’re good then the suffering will end then you’re good enough that’s another thing I watch for because it’s that will just continue forever you can do all kinds of work on yourself and move a lot of you know trauma and still continuously organize your momentary experience around something that hasn’t arrived yet in the future and around the notion that the present is not actually good enough yeah what’s interesting is what’s donning on me in this process I’m thinking about you know a friend friends of mine who have a really deep and meaningful like Christian experience or really deep and meaningful Buddhist experience or Muslim experience where there is like this feeling of certainty in them and and so it’s like there’s some way in which I’ve seen some people in those things in those experiences where it feels like the authority is being handed over and there’s some people in those experience where the authority isn’t being handed over meaning that like you could have a relationship with Christ as like oh this is my direct relationship with Christ and this is where I go for the authority is in that relationship as compared to this is my relationship with Christ in it and it is exactly that which agrees with my particular interpretation of this Bible or you know so they’re even in that even though that there there is this way in which a certainty can happen in um in a religious context there’s still this um individual Authority in it there’s like the direct relationship with the meditation and I mean Buddha said don’t trust me you trust your direct experience and so I think that that’s the relationship with Christ or Muhammad or or in the Buddhist context it’s even in this it’s it’s not saying you can’t have that framework it’s saying that is the is the is this particular form of Christianity pointing you back to your relationship with God is this pointing you back to your experience or is this one of those forms of Christianity where it’s Follow the Leader it’s don’t trust your own do the rules follow the rules that kind of thing so I think yeah just to say that I want to make sure that people aren’t thinking that we’re saying all religious all the ways of being religious are not beautiful yeah absolutely and and even just to bring in a a different example just to show that this isn’t even about religion there can be the sort of Western societal pattern of work hard all of your life to save for a future retirement right and not pay and because of that not be really present and enjoying your life now as it actually is with an eye to the Future it’s the same thing it’s like if somebody’s selling me a product that will eventually get me to a place but it’s just a treadmill then that’s a red flag you know or maybe I’ll go on that path for a while and I’ll learn something about myself and it’ll be ultimately healthy for me to have had that experience so let’s go into that because I do think that there’s a lot of places that this whatever we’re talking about here is actually part of every part of our existence but before we do I want to talk about how these religious past and traditions go sideways yeah because I think one of the one of the biggest misnomers there is oh this teaches a bad teacher this teacher went berserk or this teacher as if it’s not a relationship between the teacher and the people and like it’s as if it’s not a group decision that’s being made right so we talked about this earlier so I want to bring it back to this but there’s lots of versions of this which is you know as a teacher you get attacked quite a bit right you get you know people are like well let me what’s wrong with you you that’s sitting up here thinking that you can you know have Authority or you know you just like their people are looking at everything and look at what you did see that shows that your Consciousness is fucked up and like all all that stuff happens right there’s people right now listening to this podcast criticizing what was just said and absolutely and and it’s and what that typically does is it creates defense in people what that typically does is you know a good example of this I’ve been thinking about you know doing more YouTube and Instagram stuff and putting myself out there so I looked at like three or four people I respected who started putting the content out there and I noticed that they all kind of went a little berserk and I think there’s two reasons that they all went a little berserk the first one is that they have to put out new content all the time and so and people like listening to people who are certain so they put out their content with and they believe their uncertainty it seems like and and therefore they just start thinking they know more and more and more than they actually know that’s part of the berserk process but part of it is that everybody attacks them and then they get more and more defensive and they get more and more like armored and they become more and more narcissistic and it’s and it’s not it’s a relationship it’s a relationship with the audience it’s a relationship with the Sangha it’s a relation it’s like that thing where people want a lot of people want somebody with a Halo somebody they want somebody who’s perfect and then they maybe even want to bring them down a notch and take them down and that whole relation it’s not you know it’s like and and the other thing is it’s incredibly lonely right like when people view me as their Authority and they’re trying to please me they’re not being with me right it’s it’s they they forget that I’m human and I have a heart and I’m a person and um and so there’s a way in which they sever connection with me um and so part of the process is to you know if you’re in a tradition is to treat the person like a human not like not like trying to prove if they’re the right Authority or not right like you’re the authority and when you know that you don’t need to prove it you can just be with them as humans and with all their ups and downs and goods and bads or whatnot you know they’re like even if your teacher has like some crazy ass power that you’re like what the going on right like people see me do these rapid fire coachings and they’re like holy that dude’s Insight like he just like knocked somebody clear into the their biggest issue in like three minutes how did he do that yeah and I’m still human and I and I’m still not finished and I’m still growing and and so I think it’s that’s true for every teacher I’ve met no matter what they present as like these powerful things that they can do these healings or whatever it is these insights and so I think that that that relationship back and forth between is really important and if and then the other piece that’s really important is like what I notice is you know like we’ve gone to Burning Man and there’s people are like yeah man I’ve been going to Burning Man for 15 years oh yeah I’ve been going to Burning Man for 20 years like they even identifying that and you see that happen around a teaching or a teacher where people start defining how good they are by how long they’ve been with the teaching or the teacher or how close they are to the teacher yeah and that is super dysfunctional whether the teacher is aware of it or not like that kind of uh what do you you know like gatekeeping and ownership and identification like super dangerous and that has nothing to do with the teachers teacher might not have the knowledge to know like oh I have to stop that so that’s another yeah that’s a fascinating pattern that I’ve seen in and this isn’t this isn’t Universal but a pattern that I’ve seen where like a group has gone wonky is often that it’s like the the right hand person who had like the most Distortion and brought the most sinister stuff to the group the most control and perhaps they’re in like they’re the one that has to maintain their position vis-a-vis another person rather than vis-a-vis there you know Divine claim to Authority so whether it’s the single second person in command or whether it’s just a number of people in the group you know people can come to this work and be like wow Joe he’s an amazing coach I want to be a great coach I’ll go through a bunch of courses and I did this you know like immediately like how quickly can I use this and do these things myself and then I’d like start sitting down with my friends and start like coaching the out of them without permission right ouch and like that would be yeah and you know that’s just like how you I don’t see any how any teacher could avoid that occurring especially the larger your uh practice or your organization or your group or your Sangha grows there’s going to be a number of people who are taking it and trying to use it with maybe the best of intentions it gets even weirder is because usually the right-hand person likes control because they’re really good at organizing and so because that’s what makes them the right in person they can get a lot of done and they can organize a lot of and so that like tendency for control is also serves the group if they but it can also turn into crazy wonkiness because the control gets you know hyper and protective and defensive and all that good stuff it’s um yeah it’s a it’s a total interesting phenomenon and there is this other thing that happens too which is like when you do seed your authority to a group there’s a feeling of safety to it there’s a feeling of being loved and accepted there’s a feeling of belonging that happens to it and you see this in many many religions like oh here’s this way that we all agree on this thing together and therefore we’re safe and therefore we can support each other and and it’s a it’s a thing to be able to give that same kind of support and love and sense of belonging without seating your Authority like it is a it is a walk to take and like you said this is not Justin in religious you know or spiritual or self-development things this goes into all the parts of society we all want to be on the inside of something it feels safe there yeah and it’s especially easy to feel on the inside of something if there’s an outside in others right yeah but it doesn’t have to be big red big red flag there right there and then there’s others and you see this so let’s talk about that let’s talk about how all this happens not just in not just in in kind of teachings and paths it happens in I mean in one of the most obvious ones is this is like every political rant ever right like right there’s a good guy that’s us there’s a bad guy that is pick a billionaire B radical left C uh fascist right you know what I mean like Progressive there’s always a bad guy there’s always a good guy it’s always us against them there’s always some fear lurking around the corner then the world needs us or the whole thing is going to fall apart and there’s somebody who and there’s not transparency and there’s like we know and they don’t know and there’s some and you’re seeding your authority over to some religious or some political figure instead of thinking for yourself or some news channel instead of thinking for yourself it happens exactly there and what’s really interesting is in our society right now I was just reading this thing is really cool is that Colts used to just be religious cults and now there’s political Cults there’s like Cults of like political belief where so it’s like it happens there happens in companies it happens in marriages it happens everywhere yeah and also around national identity one one thing that I find really this is also on brand for for our podcast with a lot of a lot of entrepreneurs listening like look at the the common wisdom about how to write a pitch deck for fundraising it’s like right here’s a problem there’s this big problem yes it needs to be solved yeah there’s inevitable consequences to it not being solved we can solve it only we can solve it though this is the team this is the team that can solve it and then you know underneath that there’s like the seeing seeing the herd Dynamics in investors and using some fomo to get everybody to like dive in and like Pile in on this investment before they they miss out and that’s just how things are done and the same thing occurs in marketing if you look at a billboard for a beauty ad yeah yeah it’s sexy right here’s a way that we are special it’s like the whole thing pitches the way in which we are special and you can be a part of this special thing and we’re special because there’s others who aren’t like us there’s a mess against them there’s there is uh we’re the only ones there’s the inevitability of Crisis if we don’t handle this you know like oh my God everybody’s gonna smell you and you’re gonna smell horrible if you don’t use our deodorant it is literally the same thing and and the and the reason it’s the same thing a lot of folks um they they they want to own your Authority they want to own your Authority because they think it’s going to make them happy they want you they want to decide for you to buy the deodorant and what’s really interesting is that you know there’s some really great books on this but a CEO this happens in a lot of companies I’ve been in in I’ve seen companies you know when I go in and work with folks in companies I’ve seen companies that have very cult like um experiences where you know they all have this very clear identity there’s a bad guy there’s a good guy there’s a time limit there is an inevitability unless they do X Y and Z and they and they firmly believe it and to some degree that’s incredibly motivating for them on another another thing is that it makes very fragile companies what I’ve seen is the really robust companies are the companies that are in debate and there’s a there’s great data on this one of my favorite is the Aristotle project done by Google where they really talk about how a team that where there can be really free debate and everybody feels comfortable debating and the voices are are all voices can be heard no matter how contrarian the Viewpoint is is what makes the most functional teams so it’s the same thing it’s like you can get away you can and it’s the same thing with the religious traditions and the fact that or the or the self-development Traditions is that you can get a lot of benefit from there’s a lot of benefit to be had from dysfunctional paths right there’s a lot of cool tools and great learnings and I’ve gone into some consciously and said oh I know there’s some cool stuff in here I’m gonna just not pay attention to these things and I’m gonna get in learn some stuff get out so there’s a lot of benefit to them and I think what happens is as humans is we’re we know on some level oh this is wonky this is wonky but there’s some benefit I’m not ready to give up the benefit yet and so sometimes that wonkiness gets us instead of we getting out before of course too late yeah I also I’m also curious to speak about this in in terms of relationships because a lot of this also a controlling partner and abusive partner is the one who’s like okay I love you baby you need me you don’t need those friends anymore you know everyone else is out there trying to get us or even just some like the kind of more romantic things like it’s you and me versus the world like like without any of the other stuff right um like what right yeah reverses and there’s this social isolating and that’s all the abusive but I would say wow 90 of the relationships I’ve seen I have seen there’s an agreement that this person’s the smart one and this person is not so smart this one’s the intelligent one this one’s the emotional one like there’s the seating of authority all the time how many times like oh I can’t do that because I need her to be happy or I need him to be happy or they couldn’t live without me I can me or right so all the time in there’s like somebody’s need for control around a certain subject inside of a marriage creates um craziest same kind of level dysfunction using the same tools using the exact same tools and and and what’s cool about that what make lets you see it is that it is subconscious in most of the marriages that this is happening and it is subconscious that it’s happening in most companies and it is subconscious that’s happening in different spiritual uh Traditions it is not like very few I’ve met a couple but very few of these people are consciously going okay I know how to manipulate a whole bunch of people I’m gonna use you know pathos and ethos and logos and I’m gonna you know doing us against them and some of it’s happening but most of the time it’s like they act the politician speaking it actually thinks it they actually think that there’s somebody who’s gonna come and get them not all of them but like some of them so yeah it’s just amazing obviously there’s those who are just manipulating people for the cash and there’s ways it’s real if you’re gonna get into politics there’s going to be mud slung yeah if you are looking for a place where there’s an US versus them in your life get into politics I think the last the last piece on this one which is all of this is a projection of our own yeah Consciousness which is why I said that you might get into a dysfunctional situation but it’s often the thing that you need to learn and so this is all happening inside of us we have a voice in the head for most of us have a very strong voice in the head and we believe that voice in the head when it says you have to do this or you’re going to be in pain or it’s only you that can do it and why haven’t you gotten off the couch and blah blah blah like all those exact same things the US and thems they have to do it the urgency the that’s all happening from The Voice in our head Talking to Ourselves and so all of this is just a projection and it all falls apart when you see it in yourself when you can no longer believe the urgency the US and them from The Voice in your head when you can no longer believe that your voice in your head is the authority telling you you have to exercise more oh you are right you know and I am the bad person who isn’t doing it you know like that whole dynamic is happening inside of us and when you see through the dynamic and the voice in your head then none you don’t fall for any of this stuff you don’t watch an ad and think oh yeah everybody will love me because I have like thinner thighs or whatever the crap it is right they’re selling right and everybody loving me matters because I don’t love myself right so yeah so we’re getting close to time here but I have one more one more place I’d love to apply this how has this shown up for you as a parent yeah oh goodness gracious that is wow holy crap I haven’t even thought about that yeah this is probably where most of my most of my thoughtfulness what most of my attention goes to Parenting teenagers anyways um when kids are young you are the authority and you should be and that’s how it works I you know like teaching them how to sleep and how to eat and teaching them how to be with their emotional experiences it’s your job and you are the authority and whether you ignore it or you don’t ignore it it you’re you are training them and so being conscious about it and being forthright in it I think is really important as they get older the main thing you want to do is teach them how to be their own authority right so I I often just didn’t even give compliments to kids there’s some good research on this and so with the kids and it was so counter it was so counter to how I thought it was going to be and and how I thought I should have done it but you know kids like they get their homework done and I’m not like good job and I see that they’re excited I’m like oh I see how excited you are yeah and I’ll be excited with them because I don’t want them to do their homework because I said to them that’s a good job I don’t I don’t want to be their third I want them to learn to listen to themselves and that’s why today my girls do their work without any nagging whatsoever it’s like I I literally had one of my daughters tell me she’s like I’ve gotten Straight A’s and you’ve never congratulated I was like I’m so sorry I’m so sorry and I told her how proud I was of her and you know and and and how I I realized the work that was put into it but it’s so important to me so maybe I over corrected there but it was so important for me to have them be able to listen to themselves and not tell them what to do and then I had the exact opposite thing happen with Esme recently which is crazy um Esme wanted to do a project so I’m like cool do the project I’ll support you and it just wasn’t happening it wasn’t getting done and um at some point I’m like yeah I don’t really want to support you because it’s not getting done and she’s like what I need you to do is just tell me exactly what to do and I was like huh and she’s like yeah I’ve never done this before I have no idea like I just need you to tell me step by step what to do the first time I’m like okay and so literally we walked through like a basically a pipeline process to find like cool experiences that she can have and we and like I just step by step here and I like she wrote the email and then I read the email gave her my feedback and then every step who do I send how do I send it blah blah blah blah and now she’s doing it on her own she doesn’t need my help at all and she’s running the process but she literally needed me and I was completely am I I don’t want to tell you how to do it I want you to be your own authority right and she was like the authority of me he says this is what I wanted this is what I want and and maybe and I think probably it was really important for us to go to the place where she just asked for it because then and because then it was I was not nagging I wasn’t I wasn’t you know telling her how to do things she she had taken the step of asking me which is something really critical so yeah this is a huge part of I see so many kids either rebelling against what their parents want or trying to please their parents and not having learned their own authority and and by the time they’re 17 18 years old I think it’s really important for their self-confidence to learn this is they’re they’re in charge of their choices and they get to make mistakes and screw up and come for advice when they want and they get to call in other authorities when it serves them and they’re they can bring that into awareness and not just have it be a default subconscious pattern of someone else knows better and I need this that’s right yeah and that’s what I I watch my girls do is they walk around and they look for good advice and which was always my hope because I was I was so ignorant that way because I had such a crappy relationship with authority I thought all authority was bad so I never got really great advice through my life from and I was surrounded by great people who could have given me great advice and so I’m really happy that they have that capacity to do that and at the same time know what’s right for them wow beautiful beautiful teachings I’m cool really glad that we’re so 100 airtight correct about everything certainly under all contexts for every person thank you everybody for listening I really enjoyed this Joe thanks for the conversation yeah pleasure total pleasure yeah sincerely though everybody if you’re if you’re listening to this and there’s something that’s like catching in you like Adam and you have a question please send it to us you can tweet it to us at Art of a comp you can also send us an email at podcast art of accomplishment.com or just visit the website and reach out through there and that’s also where you can find our courses and anything else about us coaching all of our other offerings yeah so thank you Joe thank you everybody yeah I really love this conversation this is a good one me too me too all right talk to you soon thank you