In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about setting more realistic expectations for ourselves. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves these days to know everything, do everything, be everything. But, even if that were realistic, which it’s not, the world is moving at such a rapid pace that it’s impossible to keep up. My guest this week, Steve McCready, is a coach and psychotherapist who reminds us that humans have limits. And that to do the extraordinary things we want to do, we need to acknowledge and work within these limits. This means taking care of ourselves – emotionally, mentally and physically. Here he offers insights on how to prioritize sustainability and efficiency, including following the 80/20 rule.
About My Guest
Building on his past experience as a psychotherapist and his extensive study of the human brain, personal growth, and personal performance, Steve McCready is a coach who helps small business owners become more focused, productive, and confident in their quest to use their business as a force for good in the world.
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Website: stevemccready.com
Daily Email: stevemccready.com/daily
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Transcript
Kim Meninger
Welcome, Steve. It's such a pleasure to meet you. It's such a pleasure to have you here. I would love to start by inviting you to introduce yourself.
Steve McCready
Sure. Well, first off, thanks for having me on. And looking forward to the conversation. And I appreciate the, the topic that you focus on, I think it's such an important thing that really affects a lot of people. So to introduce myself briefly, my name is Steve McCready, I am a coach, I am in Sacramento, California, where I've lived since around 1992 or so at least in this area. And my path to coaching is very weird. And roundabout. If you go far enough back there is a little a little bit of time and radio, actually. But my first real career I like to say wasn't it did that for a few years found it very unsatisfying from a emotional and like purposeful standpoint, intellectually, it was interesting. And then I actually pivoted into psychotherapy went back to grad school at age 31, or so after swearing for years, I would never go back to school, got, got my Master's got licensed and opened a private practice in 2006. And then what's happened is over the past seven years or so, I have gradually shifted my focus over into coaching, which uses of course, a lot of the same tools, a lot of the same concepts, but applies them to people at a different point in their journey and focuses in some different areas, to, to again, over-simplify, if you want to think of psychotherapy is going from bad to good, I like to think of coaching as going from good to great. And so these days, my focus is on coaching, I do have some legacy therapy clients I've continued to work with, but I don't take new therapy clients at this point, just in the coaching realm. And my job as a coach is basically to help people get the heck out of their own way. So they can become what they are capable of what they what they want to be and, and part of them thinks or knows they can be. But then another part of them is like, I don't know, if I can do that and you know, gets in their own way, my job is to get that stuff out of the way so they can live bigger, broader, more exciting and impactful lives in the world.
Kim Meninger
Well, just as an aside, I love your definition of the distinction between psychotherapy and coaching. My lifelong dream was to become a therapist, when I went to college, that's all I thought I was going to do. And just everything was in the direction of applying for a clinical psychology PhD program until I didn't and ended up in high tech, and then found coaching many years later. And I feel like I get to use all of the all of the skills in sort of natural curiosities that would have brought me to therapy in the first place, but with a different population. And so I appreciate what you're saying. And I'm curious what you see, in terms of the people that come to you do you have a particular population that you tend to work with? Are there certain types of challenges that you focus on? Especially, I'm sure there's a broad range, but.
Steve McCready
Right, it can, it can be a little bit of everything, my I do tend to focus with people and work with people, largely in a at least a I'll say, a business forward context or a primarily business context. So whether that is working with business owners, and helping them be able to be more effective leaders or how to take their business to the next level, whether that's working with higher level professionals and helping them to be more productive, to be more effective to be better leaders. And you know, really whatever sorts of basically whatever sorts of development that are, that's necessary for them to get from where they are professionally to where they want to be. And my focus, least orients from the area of the mind, and psychology, I know lots of other things that relate to this work. But that's, that's the orientation, right? It's about helping you learn how to see different learning, to help you learn how to think different learning, to help you take all that noise and stuff in your head, get it sorted out, get it clear, and then use it constructively to go where you want to go.
Kim Meninger
Hmm, you know, I often joke that everyone should have to go through therapy before they enter the workplace because we're all like triggering each other. Although it's an you know, I take for granted because I've always been fascinated by human psychology, whether I was studying it or just navigating the world that everybody thinks the same way I do. But there are a lot of people in the workplace, who do not have the same understanding of the importance of how our brains operate, and how just sort of our fear, fears and doubts and why they're there. And so I think it's so important for us to be doing this work and giving people this information so that they have better resources available to them.
Steve McCready
Well, you know, the thing is, like, I don't know about you, but like I had all through primary school and high school I had exactly one course that touched on psychology at all, and it was a psychology course that I took as an elective in high school. Right that was it. But all of this stuff about interpersonal skills about understanding how our brains work, how we think how that affects us, this is all such fundamental stuff my take with of course, the biases that would be understandable with my background, is that this is the kind of thing that actually should be a component of core curriculum stuff. And everyone shouldn't be learning this stuff. Because what's often happening is we may learn that from our families, we may learn it from other environments, but not everyone gets that. And I certainly didn't, which is part of why I both, I think went into the field, but also feel so called to help others who didn't. And in a way, you know, I remedial education has like a kind of things that people associated with it in a bad way. But I'd say I'm kind of helping fill in the gaps that people didn't get, but ideally would have, but didn't through no fault of their own just how their life journey has, and you know, helping to give them those things. So they can again, be more effective and powerful and just happier in their day-to-day lives.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I think that this is something that is fundamental to the human experience. And that there it I'm a little bit hopeful because I have two young boys that are in elementary and middle school. And I'm seeing more in terms of growth mindset, that seems to be a big theme. I'm seeing a lot of focus on empathy and emotion managing emotions. It's not happening across the board. I know, you know, I wouldn't Massachusetts, very different curriculum.
Steve McCready
But I, yeah, but I think you're right, that there is a greater awareness of that, like I have, my daughter is a middle schooler and I see that with her, I see that with her friends, both in their awareness of the stuff, their curiosity about it, their openness to it, and I see that there is some greater degree of at least conversation about it in schools. And that was true in elementary school as well. So I'm with you, and at least having some, some hope for the future in that area that I think maybe we are moving in a more enlightened and better direction.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, I hope so too. So what are you seeing as it relates to imposter syndrome? Is this something you see? I regularly? What's your experience with? I can see you nodding your head?
Steve McCready
Yeah, like all the time. Because I think so the thing I want to lay out here is, as the I feel like I'm always like, pointing the finger at social media and kind of doing this, and it feels almost like a cliche. And I feel like some old guys basically, like Get off my lawn. Even though like I love technology, and I'm a tech guy, but social media, I think does have a lot of problems in our world, though, with it going so fast, and having so much information and being so like limited in what it actually shows us we get such a distorted picture of reality so much. That's always been true. I mean, that was true in the 50s, too, like, right, everything looked okay, on the surface. But the reality is much, much more complicated as anyone was actually a study the 50s can tell you, and, and so we get these distorted pictures. And then what we start doing is we start comparing ourselves to that. And with that kind of a comparison, you're inevitably going to be like, what's wrong with me? Right. And so that's one and then two, I think we just, we are way too quick to associate things as far as like, we're not this thing until we get this checkbox and maybe not even that, right? Like, I think about this with becoming a psychotherapist, for example. It's like, sure, there was a point at which I went through all my education. I went through getting all my practice hours I went through taking my exams, and sure they hand me this paper piece of paper. It's like you're licensed now. But like, Was I not a psychotherapist. Before that. Was I an imposter psychotherapist? It's like no, I was just at a certain point in my journey. And even then, once I'm licensed, it's not like no, I magically know everything, like no, I barely knew anything. It was just like, I have basic competence to practice. That's really what it's all, it's saying. And I'm still learning things. Obviously, the coaching is a whole other layer of learning. And I will, I'll be learning forever. And so this idea that we have to be like, perfect or, and have it all together is I think what causes so much of this, we have these really unrealistic high expectations about what we will, what we've achieved, or what we're capable of. And it misses a fundamental thing. That actually being our flee of service to people and being impactful. And being respected is less about getting it perfect or getting it right the first time and more about being committed to making sure that it does get to a point of being what it needs to be eventually there is room for error. But we have to learn to allow that for ourselves and to see it as not, I'm an imposter. I'm a you know, I'm you know, a fake or a fraud, but oh, I'm a human.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, that's such a powerful way to think about it because I think about this a lot to most of the people that I work with and I have identified this way at many points throughout my life and career are included. really high achievers with very high standards for themselves, which, you know, often carries over into perfectionism and just constant fear of not being good enough not knowing enough of comparing ourselves to others and feeling like we don't measure up. And I love what you talk about in terms of just being on a journey and learning because we, we sort of think in these very binary terms, right? Either I'm this or not this not there's like some kind of a spectrum that I'm on, and what I really liked about what you use the term service, and that's what I think about a lot, because there's something about being an expert or expertise that creates a lot of anxiety and self-doubt for high achievers. And it's really not a good standard because who's deciding whether you're an expert or not. And I often joke, right, that even if you could know everything, by tomorrow, there's new information in the next week, there's new information, right? There's something new, which actually brings…
Steve McCready
Which actually brings up I think, a really relevant point to Part of why impostor syndrome is a bigger challenge that we have so much more access to information to knowledge to things that it becomes, it's, we're super aware of how little we actually know of what's knowable, right? You, I remember this, like, when I was a kid, when I get interested in the subject, I'd find all the books I could find on the subject and read and like, I'd read most of them, if not all of them. Now, that was, of course, not all the books existed, but it was always whatever is in the local library. Nowadays, if it's like, it doesn't matter what the topic is, I want to read all the books on that you can't do that. There's, there's too many about everything, even really focused specific things. And so it's very easy from that to go, oh, I don't know enough, or I don't know, much. And it's just, that's just not how it works. I mean, my daughter, in a lot of ways, knows objectively a lot less than me, but at the same time, she has a different perspective on the world because of her personality and identity. And so I learned things from her all the time, I gain things from her all the time, even though she's got way less life experience. In fact, sometimes that's an advantage. So it really isn't about, yeah, being like, again, perfect or this, it's about how are you able to serve or support the other people who you're you know, who are in your world, or who you're tasked with doing that for, and that can be done at any number of levels of achievement, accomplishment, or skill.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, and this is where I think school systems kind of set the wrong expectation because I think a lot of our high achievement comes from being “A” students. And when you're a student, you can know everything that's expected of you, because everything's packaged into learning modules, right? Like, there is a there, you know, there are parameters around what you're expected to know. And you're given all of that information. So as long as you study hard enough, you're committed to, to, you know, producing high-quality work, you can get a perfect grade, but you come into the workplace thinking that those seams skills and academic habits are going to serve you. And then suddenly you realize, like, oh, no, I'm surrounded by all these other smart people. There's information. I don't know, I don't even know what I don't know.
Steve McCready
Right. Well, like I mean, imagine a course where over the course of the year, the curriculum changed, and evolved. And it's like, oh, actually, well, we've added this, and now you're gonna have to learn this. And that would be much more representative of what a typical job is or what the world is like. So I think you make a great point about, it gives us this, this false sense of how the world works. That is actually as anyone who's been in both places knows is nothing like how the world works, and it's in so it really can set us up for this thing of like, well, wait a second. And because we don't people don't talk about it enough, then we start to go. Am I the only one who is feeling this way? Am I everyone else has this and I don't so what's wrong with me? And that's I think we're things really can start to go off the rails because we get stuck in our own heads. And we don't actually have a clear picture of what's really going on.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up because I think that's a really big part of this is nobody wants to say, you know, anyone else feel like a fraud, right? We're all walking around masking our own fears and doubts. And there's a lot of bravado in the workplace. And, you know, I often tell people to, that these kinds of insecurities show up in different ways. So oftentimes, when we think of imposter syndrome, we think about playing small, it's, you know, avoiding that, asking that question because you're afraid of outing yourself as incompetent or, you know, different ways in which we hide from others, whereas there are other people who, you know, they have to be the smartest person in the room. They're, they're not listening to other people. And so I think it's important for us to recognize that there are very few wholly healthy, confident people. Right, like we're all trying to work through this together without really talking about it. And so I think keeping that in perspective is important too, especially when you bring in social media because nobody's putting their dirty dishes on social media, they're putting all their highlights, right?
Steve McCready
Yeah, they're generally true. I used to actually occasionally post pictures of me like, right after my workouts have me all, like sweaty. And the whole point was like, Yeah, I don't always look like all, you know, polished and together. I'm like, you know, a human being. And yeah, because we don't we don't for all the reasons that you've said. And it really sets up a lot of difficulty. But I think those of us who are in positions that people look to, we can do a lot to change that, right? I mean, obviously, like, when I'm coaching my clients, it's not about me, but I do share a little bit here and there to help dissuade them of the idea that like, I have everything together, because I don't, I'm a human, I'm a work in progress. I mess stuff up, I make mistakes. And that's not really what is the difference between success and failure, it's more about if you are willing to be very curious, and you're willing to be committed, and you're willing to keep going and clean up your messes, you can get pretty darn far. And that'll work really well a lot more than just not acknowledging any problems or failures well, frankly.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I also think that, you know, this is kind of cliche, but we do feel more connected to people who seem real, and people who seem human. And I think when we talk about leadership, or we talk about, you know, the workplace, people trust people who own their mistakes, and who show vulnerability more than people who seem like they are sort of perfect and removed from the scene, right? And so there's something incredibly valuable about being able to relate to people in that way.
Steve McCready
I agree. I think when we see someone who looks perfect, we think one of two things is true, either this person is hiding stuff, which then impacts our ability to trust them, or, Oh, my God, they really are that much better than me, in which case, we're just intimidated, which doesn't work very, very well. Right. And so it's like, yeah, that's not a, it's not a good vehicle for supporting connection. And I think that that's, that's a whole other topic and its own way. But, you know, that's a huge problem in our world right now is connection. And one of the things that gets in the way of connection is when we're not being genuine and real. And when we don't feel like we have permission to be that and to be, again, an imperfect, messy human, who is on a journey of learning and growth, which is what we're all on whether or not we acknowledge it.
Kim Meninger
Yes, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, to go back, again, to your point about service, I think about this a lot too, because if we are in our own heads, constantly worrying about what we don't know, or you know, how we measure up to the people next to us, we're never going to feel a sense of confidence or adequacy in our roles. But if we focus instead, on being of service, if we think about how can I help, right? How can I make a contribution? How can I be part of something that's bigger than myself, our mind automatically goes to external, the external, we're not listening to our inner critic, and we feel more confident as a result.
Steve McCready
I think that that's, that's true. And I think it really, it changes the game in a way that is very powerful, but a little a little bit more flexible, right, versus the thing of, again, knowing the answers, getting 100 on the test, or any of that I was really fortunate, in my first IT job to have really the best of the best, a supervisor ever worked for anything. And one of the things that she always said to me, is what she valued about me wasn't how much I knew, which was good, because I knew enough, but not a ton. But it was that she knew if she gave me a task, that it would get taken care of, you know, not immediately, not necessarily, it was right the first time, but that I was committed to it. And that was the part that matter because she knew she didn't have to worry about it anymore, would get dealt with. And that was really impactful. To me, it was like, oh, it's not that I know everything or that I had never made mistakes, or it's like, oh, there's a value in, in the commitment here. And I think, you know, again, the, if we commit being of service to people, and really looking out for them and trying to understand and trying to help them with what they're wrestling with, that's really powerful to people because a lot of the time we do feel alone. You know, like something's wrong with us or any number of other things. And so when we have someone who's saying, No, that's okay, well, we'll you know, we're gonna keep working on this until we get it sorted out. We'll figure it out and might get messy, it might get a little ugly, but we'll do it. There's a comfort in that. I think that that comes with people and it lets people just kind of relax a little bit. And when we are in that more relaxed open space, well, then we can see things clearer. And when we see things clearer, it's a lot easier to then move forward from there right there.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, absolutely, I mean, you make a really important point about the environment, because one of the things I think about a lot is like stress cascades. So, you know, to, to have the kind of leadership style that you're describing, you have to be able to manage your emotional impulses and be able to, you know, not freak out when someone on your team makes a mistake. And I think so many organizations nowadays, are doing so much in such little time with such few resources that everyone feels just completely under stress. And so it's hard for managers to have the presence to show up in the way that we're talking about to which is going to have a ripple effect across their team. So I think for, for people who struggle with the kinds of things that we're talking about, it's not always just you, it's, a lot of times it's the water that you're swimming in, or you know, the people that you're surrounding yourself with.
Steve McCready
We’re in, if you want to talk about the, the metaphor of the water we're swimming in, which is a good one, I think the river or whatever, whatever the water is, the current is going way too fast. Frankly, it's going faster than what we were designed to operate in. And we're trying, and we're doing the human thing of learning and growing and adopting, which we are actually really good at. But we're really in a space that's not optimal with how fast everything's going and what have you. And it really does set up a lot of real problems for people. And it's, obviously within the context of an organization, it gets complex because there's a lot of different competing priorities and other things. But, at some point, we have to acknowledge, like, humans have limits, y'all.
Kim Meninger
That's a really great way of saying it, and something that I just don't think that we take seriously enough, I think, you know, we, we just keep testing and pushing until people burn out or disengage or leave.
Steve McCready
And part of it is we don't actually under when we see people do amazing things. We it's easy to point at that and go see humans don't have limits. And it's like, in one sense, that's true. In another sense, it's not. And when you start to really look at people who achieve big, great, amazing things, and you look at how they did it, it's always through processes and systems that actually acknowledge human limits, right? So it's like when you work within the limits of the of the human system, it allows you to really, to go further and to do more, but you've got to work with some fundamental limits and things like understanding again, humans can only do so much work in a week that we just can't, like we have, and we have to alternate effort and rest. That is just fundamentally shown to be true in so many different areas, whether it's physical, mental, emotional, what have you. And if you acknowledge that and work with that, sure, you can go to great places. But if you act as if that's something you can ignore, that's not a sustainable practice. But unfortunately, that's how a lot of systems today try and operate.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, so do you when you work with people who are high achievers, and probably part of the systems that we're talking about? Are there specific things that you recommend that they do, like practices, anything that can help them with some of the thinking and some of the challenges that we're talking about?
Steve McCready
Yeah, there's, there's a, there's a bunch, but a couple of things really related to this is, is understanding like, how do you work within this, because even though there are sometimes fundamental systemic problems of people, we're just being expected to do too much. And I have seen that most people are operating in ways that have some inefficiency, or have some things that they're doing that may or may not be producing the result that they want, we have a we most people I think, are operating in ways because of just how our society is that don't actually give them good rest, from just a physical standpoint. But also don't give them good rest or recovery from an emotional and psychological standpoint. And I think that really finding ways to do more of that is essential, whether that's swapping out certain hobbies, or activities that you had with other ones that are more nurturing or fulfilling or doing other sorts of things there. And that's an area where we're often looking at, like the whole picture of like, what is a typical week look like for you, and trying to find spots where we might be able to create more of a recovery element to it, because what's happening a lot of cases, it's like, the metaphor I use a lot is, so if you go on a road trip, and your car, you know, you have to periodically stop for gas, like you got to stop and get gas. If you're driving uphill, or there's a bunch of stuff in the car, you're gonna have to stop for gas more often. But we as humans think like, well, we don't I don't have I don't have a gas gauge. I just need to keep going so I'm just gonna keep going. And it's like, yeah, but no, you have limits to Who? And we don't acknowledge that. So that's one. And we've got to really work on how do we refuel effectively with the right sort of stuff, whether that's sleep, whether that's the right kind of self-care, whether that's, you know, getting together with friends, whether that's nutrition, all of those things, that's one. The other is this, often, a lot of our efforts and things we're doing really severely violate the 80-20 rule, right? We're doing these things. And it's like, well, you know what, you could cut most of that out or do it way differently, save yourself a bunch of time and effort, but actually get basically the same result. And so always looking for spots like that, where we can do things, you know, I was talking about this before, it's like my, my emails that I send out to my email list, they're plain text, I don't find, you know, cute, stock images. And I'm not against any of that stuff. But for me, what I came to learn is like, I could spend an hour finding stock photos or doing other things to format it. And what that actually does, as far as enhancing my readers experience of the email is not enough for me in my world to justify that expenditure, that breaks the 80-20 rule for me. And so it falls on the far, far side of it. And so I dumped it because that's part of what I needed to do to make my practice of sending out my email to be one that worked for me in the grand scheme of my life. So working both sides of the equation to is really a big piece of it. And, of course, the specifics vary from, from person to person.
Kim Meninger
I really liked that you brought up the 80-20 rule, too, because I think a lot about the fact that being busy is not the same as being productive. And I think for those of us who are perfectionist or high achievers or hold ourselves to very high standards, we feel this sense of we have to go-go-go we have to always be doing. And we sort of measure our value by how much time we're spending in our work. And there is great value to just slowing down long enough to ask yourself, Is this the best use of my time, right now?
Steve McCready
Is this what I should be doing or, or even thinking enough about how we go about our work because it's so easy to get caught in reactivity mode. You know, I, I recently did a workshop for the partners in a CPA firm. And we were looking at stuff and it turned out to so many of them just they get caught up in being reactive. And they don't have because they haven't been really given permission or autonomy. They don't have great boundaries around things. And so they're just responding and reacting to all kinds of stuff, which means they're getting interrupted constantly switching gears constantly, which is incredibly inefficient. And just very, very chaotic. And so we did a lot of work-around. Here are some strategies to start creating some boundaries about your day and how you work. And here's some other things like close your email app, when you're not in it, shut off your notifications, basic stuff that is hard and uncomfortable for people to do. But when they start to see how much it impacts things. It's kind of amazing, right? This is one of those, it's a death by 1000 paper cuts situation as it gets created. And then when we remove it, it's like, oh, wow, that is really a big deal. But it does require some discomfort on the front end because it often feels like people are getting mad at you or any number of other things you're going to happen when you start really protecting your time and your attention and your energy from all of the outside forces that would love to take it for themselves.
Kim Meninger
Yes. And I often think about boundary setting as being more effective when done collectively, right? Because we when we try to create change in the back to that queue. It's really hard because we feel the pressure to conform to the environment around us. And then other people get resentful. Like, why does she get to set boundaries? Why does he gets to do that? And so instead, if we can just acknowledge that universally, there isn't a single human in the workplace today, it feels like they have enough time. Everyone's struggling with the exact same challenges that we're talking about. As look, let's solve the problem together, let's all talk about what 80-20 The 80-20 rule means for us.
Steve McCready
This is, this is a place a great example of where leaders can really do some powerful things right by them want adopting these practices on their own, and then to really giving not just permission, but maybe encouragement to their team members to say, here's how we're going to operate, it is okay for you to for example, you know, check your email twice a day, or whatever it might happen to be or to not check it after this hour or whatever. That's even, that's just okay. That's how we work here. And really making it a thing where because you're, you're absolutely right, right. If you take a system, and one part of the system got to rebels or does something different, the rest of the system tends to just push back and be like, what's wrong with you? What are you doing? Why are you being weird? And it's really hard to implement change that way. And it's really hard to hold change that way, which is why so many change efforts like that fail, but you're right, when you start to get enough elements involved, then the force changes on it. And it really does become possible to implement these things because it just takes less effort when you've got other supporting figures around you.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, absolutely. And hopefully, you know, that will give permission to other people. bowl to invest in themselves as well. But I think it's also worth saying that if it feels like you can't do that, if you're in an environment, you've tried your best and it doesn't work and people are not respecting you, then that's also good information. I think of that as data. Right? It's data on whistling decisions.
Steve McCready
I think. And I think it is, it's really important. It's easy to, especially when we see everyone else speaking of places where, where we want to be real careful about what we take in from outside, we see everyone else kind of like putting up with it, apparently, anyway, and they're still there. And they're going, we're like, Well, I guess I have to I guess that's just how it is. And it's like, not necessarily and only as long as you're willing to tolerate it. And that, yeah, if it's if it's not what feels like a sustainable human place, that sometimes the answer isn't about let's try and implement some change. But it's like, maybe I need to go somewhere else. That's got its own challenges, of course, but totally the right thing to do sometimes. Yeah.
Kim Meninger
And I think sometimes, unfortunately, when we're in these high-stress environments, and we live in a high-stress world, there's this feeling of I should just be grateful to have a job. And, you know, we forget that we have choices, but I think part of managing impostor syndrome and becoming more confident in general, too, is recognizing where your power lies.
Steve McCready
Yes. And I think that's absolutely true. And I think that sometimes the power also, it's easy to get caught up in the idea that, because where we can do things, sometimes the place spaces where we can take action are very small, are limited. And it feels like what's the point, right, we want to make some big change. And it's like, revolutions often happen from a bunch of small changes that build up. And it's, that's what we often have to do with ourselves is we have to make a little shift here. And then that gives us a little bit more breathing room, then we make a slightly bigger shift. And then we make a bigger shift. And then we kind of build these things up iteratively. And I see a lot of people get stuck on that they're like this thing, it's too small to make a difference. It's like, yeah, it by itself is, but what it's going to do is allow you to make a bigger difference next time. And you've got to if you build this spiral, you can get to where you can really make some big things happen. It just takes some time, and integration, and patience and a lot of other things that are admittedly very challenging. But that's how it works.
Kim Meninger
Yeah. And I think if we, if we gave ourselves the space to reflect, and really thought objectively about our own journeys, we realized that that's how we've gotten to where we are.
Steve McCready
That's true, too, like it is, it's always a good idea. One of the exercises I do like to do with people is like, hey, let's take a look at your past successes. How did that happen? Right? Because our brains, of course, are always focused on danger and threat and whatever is a great survival tool, but not necessarily a great tool for other things. And we tend to not think about those things. But if you go back and look at I mean, you couple of things happen. One, you learn, like, Oh, here's how I work. Here's how I've achieved these things. And then two, you start to go like, Oh, maybe I'm not such a loser after all.
Kim Meninger
Exactly. This has been such a fantastic conversation, Steve, I think this just the insights that you shared, and the tips that you offered are really powerful. I could talk to you for the rest of the afternoon.
Steve McCready
But I think both of us love this stuff. So it's a natural fit. And it's such an important topic. But it is it's one I find so important. And I wish everyone like I said knew about it to this level. So I'm always grateful to have an opportunity to talk about it with people, it gets me pretty excited, as you can hear.
Kim Meninger
Well, for anybody who wants more of you and wants to learn more about what you do, where can they find you?
Steve McCready
Sure. So best place to connect with me is via my website, which is just my name, Stevemccready.com. And that's M-C-C-R-E-A-D-Y. You can sign up for my email list there. I do have a daily email, which on one hand, people are like, what, why would I want to get email from you daily. So you have and here's the thing that will promise you is they are short emails, they are under 500 words, usually under 200 words, sometimes less than 20 words, because the idea is what I'm trying to do is send out something every day to get you and it's just weekdays. But to get you thinking to get you to look at things a little bit different to get you to wonder or to think and the idea is just to get to just kind of tweak your brain a little bit and get you to go home, or to, to play with things because again, it's related to that train to help you see think about and look at the world in a different way. And to do it quickly. My goal is to send you something that you can read in you know, in at most a couple of minutes, but often 10 or 15 seconds, give you something to think about and off you go. So that's a good way to get a sense of kind of who I am. And you know, and what I do. And here are some of my, my thoughts about how all this stuff works.
Kim Meninger
Well, that's fantastic. Steve, we will have that link in the show notes as well for anybody who is interested in thank you again for being here and having this conversation with me.
Steve McCready
Oh, absolutely. I mean, thanks. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, I love, I love talking to stuff so I really appreciate the opportunity to, to have the conversation for one and to, to be able to share it with other people and help some more folks to be aware of this To be able to apply it because I think it's, it's important stuff especially in today's world.