A Love Letter to Greta

You could tell it was a dream because somehow I had advice to give her, and honestly there’s possibly no one I’m less qualified to be giving advice to. She’s my greatest role model and inspiration…

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The Magic of Contradictions

Being able to hold multiple seemingly contradictory points of view at once is crucial to not only being successful, but feeling successful.

Funny, as I was looking for the above picture, I got really annoyed at the stock photos I was presented with when I searched “contradictions” (it did not help when I tried “paradox” either — exact same set of pictures).

“Contradictions aren’t just differences — they’re not even opposites,” I yelled, with my penchant both for semantics and for yelling at inanimate objects.

Rather, a contradiction goes beyond just an opposite — rather, it tries to deny the existence of it’s opposite.

For example, black doesn’t contradict white. We’re comfortable that both of these colourse exist at once.

Night doesn’t contradict day.

Rich doesn’t contradict poor …

Unless

We talk about a “poor billionaire”.

I’m comfortable with contradictions as a writer — when used as a literary technique they create interest. As above — when you hear “poor billionaire”, you instantly begin an internal dialogue about what areas of their life a billionaire might be poor in.

This is what horrible, manipulative writers want — for you to be so caught up in our web of tricksy words that your internal narrative is all about what we’re writing and not on making a shopping list in your head.

One of the reasons I teach meditation to my clients side-by-side with business growth is because what it takes to make meditation “work” is the exact opposite of what high achievers with unrelenting standards (read: all my clients) are used to.

The more you “push” — the harder it gets. The more focused you are on “getting it right”, the further it feels away.

Now, look — work, pushing and having standards aren’t inherently wrong — despite what a lot of the spiritual community would have you believe.

They’re important traits for success in a material and capitalist society.

BUT — the point of the bringing meditation and connection in, is to balance the external work with an internal sense of Peace.

And that peace is a direct result of SURRENDER and FAITH.

I know. Those are the scariest words of control freaks everywhere.

SURRENDER to the meditation.

SURRENDER the judgement of whether it’s right or not.

Have FAITH that whatever you’re getting is what you’re supposed to get.

Have FAITH you‘ll understand it when you’re ready.

Often, I have to tell my cients:

You are not behind:

Because there is no race.

There’s just your personal journey.

And the end of that journey is death — so maybe let’s not be in a rush to get there, yeah?

When you learn to balance your external work ethic and pushing — with internal surrender and faith — you’ll cultivate the sense of inner peace we all long for.

Here’s the thing — both “sides” are lying to you:

Having spent 15 years behind the scenes of this industry — having spent time with most of the major players — I can tell you, the reality is: the vast majority of “just be!” spiritual coaches work their asses off. They’re hustling, they’re grinding. They’re making it happen.

And the ones who don’t are broke.

The hustle grind coaches are normally really hustle-grinding — but they’re all burned out and hate everything (oh, I’ve been there!). Sure, they might make what seems like a lot of money — but they’re always miserable.

It is NOT healthy to live in place of only surrender. The external world requires action and interaction. It requires pushing. Being an adult requires discipline and focus. Yes, and hard work. The “nothing” fantasy — where all we need to do is “be” — is a lovely concept, but doesn’t play well in reality.

That said, it’s also not healthy to live only in a place of pushing and working hard. The internal world requires you to be less cruel to yourself. To find places of rest amidst a sea of exhaustion. The “all” fantasy — that if you do everything at all times you’ll finally feel successful and like you’re ‘enough’ — is a lie.

Anyone who is selling you either of these as a stand-alone definition of success, is trapped in their own all or nothing cycle.

This is why you see so many hustle-grinders refashion themselves into manifestation-spiritual gurus.

They work themselves into burnout (all). And then they stop (nothing).

They tell you to work 20 hours a day or you’re a piece of shit (all).

Then, they tell you to stop pushing and just let the Universe bring you abundance (nothing).

These are both toxic attitudes when taken to extreme. And pretty much everyone takes them to the extreme.

Here’s the thing — most of the entrepreneurs I know who are successful, have made it happen because they made the “all” part of their cycle last for 5+ years.

Sure, they’re all burned out with serious hormonal issues.

But they’re rich, so yay!

I know them because I am them — three years into burnout recovery and I’m starting to feel like a real human being again.

So, what pulled me out of it?

Well, the burnout recovery from a physical point of view requires a bunch of work on your food and exercise and calming the fuck down.

But from a work and mindset point of view, things changed for me when I realised and wholly integrated that:

I’m going to work forever.

It’s who I am.

I’ll still be angry typing in my coffin at my funeral because SOMEONE WAS WRONG ON THE INTERNET.

When I changed my Decision Making Horizon from “this week / this month” — to “the next 40 years”, it became immediately obvious that I couldn’t keep working the way I was working.

What was totally fine when I saw it as being a week or a couple of weeks — but once it was the rest of my life it was suddenly NOT COOL.

I realised, I’d been working myself to this idea that there would one day be “enough” and that if I just hit that point, I could “stop”.

While simulatenously knowing I was never going to stop.

I see this same thing in my most successful clients.

When they stop focusing on what they can do this week / month to hit some arbitrary goal, and start seeing their work as a day-to-day, forever part of their lives, they begin to see that what seems like a contradiction on the surface — working hard and hustling while also surrendering and having faith — is not a contradiction at all.

They’re two necessary parts of the whole.

The trick is to understand when you need one versus the other — because typically, it’s totally counter-intuitive for high achievers. When you think you should work, you should probably rest. And when you think you should rest, you should probably work.

It’s impossible to trust your “intuition” when your intuition is built on a foundation of toxic beliefs and societal expectations.

First, we have to unhook those stories. Those unrelenting standards that tell you if you don’t work every hour of the day and make literally all of the money (YOU MUST OWN EVERY CENT IN THE WORLD), then you’re a lazy miserable p.o.s. who is failing at life.

Then, we can rebuild your foundations so that your intuition is trustworthy again.

I had this same experience around food — when I had a whole bunch of hormonal issues and health problems, people would say “eat what your body tells you!” and I’d be like — “cool, but my body is saying to drink wine and eat all of the gluten, so I’m not sure that’s a good idea”.

In order to get to a point where I could trust what my body was telling me, I had to fix the foundations.

Now, when I’m tired, my body says “eat some cream!” or “go for a hike!”. Yeah, don’t worry. 30 year old Leela thinks 40 year old Leela is a freak, too. SWINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS!

The real magic in being able to hold seemingly contradictory points of view, however, is that doing so requires you to think in a really particular way.

You have to be able to see more than just one side of a story. You have to be able to hold up ideas to the light and see their inherent flaws and facets.

You have to become the kind of person who looks for ways that differing points of view are true and real — as opposed to the ways in which everything is a lie. Most people live in that world of cynical criticism, believing they’re superior for not “falling for” anything.

I was once at a seminar and the speaker said to the audience,

“What woud you say if I wanted to give you $1,000 right now?”

While I was saying,

“Thanks.”

The people around me were saying,

“What do I have to do for it?”

“Why would you do that?”

“What’s the catch?”

This attitude comes from people’s deep fear of “getting it wrong” and “looking like an idiot” — and it’s that exact same fear that holds them back from ever pursuing any of the things they want in life.

Most people are incapable of simultaenously holding the ideas of,

“This person might screw me over” and

“I’m going to take the money and say thank you.”

They think the negative thing and then get so caught up in the narrative that creates, that they see nothing else.

So, a new opportunity at work becomes,

“What’s the catch? What if I fuck it up? What if it makes everything worse?”

And they’re incapable of moving past that to the contradictory positive idea.

But it all begins with recognising that the things you think contradict each other, are actually both totallly crucial to you becoming not only successful, but also, to you surviving your own success.

Because let me tell you — not everyone does.

A Love Letter to Greta

The Magic of Contradictions

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