Therapy and Asking for Help (8-21-24)

Today marks my 600^th blog! It’s wild to think I’ve been doing this for about 12 years. I appreciate all of you for reading and encouraging me to keep writing.

I mentioned a few months ago that after having a tough time I leveraged our Lyra benefit and reached out to a therapist for the first time. This series is going to consist of lessons I picked up from that experience. I’m hoping that it helps normalize therapy, and that maybe a few of the things I learned will be useful to you as well. We will kick the series off by focusing on asking for help.

I was nervous for my first therapy session. After a few moments of small talk, my therapist asked, “What brought you to therapy? Why now?” I paused for a second. It was hard to admit I needed help. I was used to having broad shoulders. I was used to being able to handle anything thrown in my direction. Eventually, I responded, “To be honest, life is kicking my a$$ and has been for a little while. Yes, I’m making it through it, but that isn’t the same as living. I don’t feel good about where I am or the person I am right now. I tried a few things on my own and they didn’t work. I decided I needed to get some help to handle life better. That’s why I’m here.”

What does this have to do with anything? It can be difficult to ask for help sometimes. It can be hard, because you’re worried about others judging you, being less than, or feeling weak for needing help. I’ve felt all those things. Have you? Once we start feeling those things, it’s easy to get stuck feeling those things, which prevents us from asking for the help we need.

Instead of focusing on the discomfort surrounding asking for help, I focused on the pain I was experiencing without the help. Once I acknowledged and embraced that life was kicking by butt and how that was having a negative impact on all aspects of my life, I realized the pain of living with that far outweighed any discomfort from asking for help. The next time you’re hesitant about asking for help for anything, ask yourself if you’d rather face the short discomfort of asking for help or if you’d rather be stuck feeling the current pain you are experiencing.

The challenge: Will you be willing to ask for help?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Fear and the Brave Voice (7-12-23)

This week I’m going to kick off a series about lessons I’ve learned from being a dad. This entry is about fear and the Brave voice.

Lately, Cam and I have had a lot of conversations about fear. He talked about how the voice of fear was always too loud, and he couldn’t get it to shut up. One night I explained it to him like this. “The problem isn’t that fear is too loud. The problem is that it’s not being balanced by the Brave voice. Fear is doing its job. Fear’s job is to look out for you. It’s just that fear talks A LOT. The Brave voice says, ‘I hear you fear. Thanks for the input. You make some good points. I’m safe AND I got this!”

This all comes into play during a recent trip to Hoosier Heights, an indoor climbing facility. Cam starts climbing but won’t go up very high because of his fear of heights. We talk about the fear and how the Brave voice tells fear, “I hear you AND I got this.” Cam slowly starts working to face this fear. He climbs a little higher on his own. I climb beside Cam and together we go a bit higher. Each time he does a bit better and better. He continues to build confidence and realize that he’s safe AND he has everything he needs to be successful. Eventually, he makes it to the top of the wall for the very first time! He was so excited and proud!

What does this have to do with anything? If you’re anything like me, you get scared sometimes. Maybe you’re afraid of heights. Maybe you’re afraid of public speaking. Maybe you’re afraid of everyone finding out you’re an impostor. When I was younger, I would try my best to just ignore the fear voice, but that never worked. I would hope that the fear would go away, but that never worked either. The fear is always there somewhere. I’ve learned that I need to listen to fear. I need to give it a chance to say what it needs to say, because it is just trying to look out for me. Then, I need to thank the fear for doing its job, ask the Brave voice to weigh in, and then let fear know I got this.

The challenge: Will you listen to fear as it does its job? Will you make sure your Brave voice is talking too?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Luigi, Fear, and Bravery

Last week was about Super Mario, Super Stars, and recognizing we can’t be invincible all the time. This week is about Luigi, fear, and bravery.

In case you aren’t familiar, in the Super Mario series, Mario (in red) has a brother named Luigi (in green). Mario is typically player 1 and Luigi is player 2. Mario is portrayed as a happy go lucky hero, always there to save the day. Luigi is typically portrayed as anxious, nervous, and afraid. He gets startled and scared easily. They both end up saving the Mushroom Kingdom and other kingdoms on their joint and solo adventures.

At the surface level, Mario is the hero we all want to be. He always seems to be confident and sure of himself, saving the day with a smile on his face. However, I’d argue that Luigi is actually the braver hero. Luigi is consumed by fear, yet he understands that his mission (saving the kingdom, his friends, and/or his brother) is worth fighting for. Luigi is terrified, AND he continues to step into scary and difficult situations in order to do the right thing. Luigi might be player 2, but he’s number 1 in my heart 😉 #smooth

What does this have to do with anything? Similar to Mario and Luigi, it’s easy to assume that bravery and heroism looks like the outwardly confident person who saves the day. However, this isn’t the only way to be a hero. Often, the real hero is the one who faces their own fears, their own personal demons, and keeps moving forward. This is the person who says, “This is going to be an uncomfortable discussion, AND I’m going to lean into it anyway.” or “I’m afraid of this challenge before me, AND I’m still going to tackle it.” Whenever you feel fear in your life, I hope you’re like Luigi. I hope you allow that feeling to wash over you, AND still find a way to take a step forward.

The challenge: How can you better embrace your inner Luigi to be brave in the midst of fear?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Being Brave and Humble Enough to Ask for Help (9-15-21)

Last week I shared a lesson I learned from Professor Skinner about curiosity, and this week I want to share another lesson Professor Skinner taught me about being humble and asking for help.

It’s another day in Professor Skinner’s class and this time she tells us that she has a problem we need to solve as a team. She hands us a collection of pieces that we are supposed to put together to form another shape. It’s like the picture. You have triangles, squares, rectangles, etc. and it’s supposed to make something bigger. The deal is that as soon as you solve the problem you are free to go. She hands out the pieces and the teams begin to feverishly work to figure this out. Minutes go by and no one has figured it out. After 20 minutes or so, Professor Skinner says something like, “You can ask for help, but you’ll lose some points.” Everyone is stubborn, refuses her offer, and continues working on their own.

Finally, my group and a couple of the other groups ask for help. When they do Professor Skinner gives them an additional piece she had been withholding. That’s right. The entire time we had been working she had been withholding a piece of the puzzle. #theultimateSkinnerflex The lesson of the day was that you need to be humble enough to ask for help. Those points we “lost” didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, because asking for help enabled us to finish. Those points symbolized whether or not we could swallow our pride and be brave enough to ask for help.

Think about work for a moment. How often are you afraid to ask for help because you are afraid you’ll be penalized in some way? In the grand scheme of things would it be better to “lose” a couple of points and perform or do it all on your own and not achieve success?

The challenge: Be humble and brave enough to ask for help.

Bonus 1: This month marks 9 years of blogs. Thanks to all of you for reading and sharing. It means a lot to me.

Bonus 2: I feel I’ve turned asking for help into a superpower. One of my mantras is that someone smarter than me has already attacked this problem, so I should learn from them first. I can’t tell you how much asking for help early and often has helped me accelerate in my learning and performance. #thehumblehustle

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 5 Biking and Bravery (6-5-19)

Last week was about small, medium, and big deals. This week is about bike riding and bravery. Recently, we taught my daughter how to ride her bike. I love Alice to pieces, but this was not easy. Alice is great at many things, but physical coordination is not one of them. Also, she was terrified of going faster than a crawl on her bike which made it hard to balance. The second we let go of her seat she’d get scared, stop pedaling, and then crash.

We worked and worked and worked with her and she was frustrated. She told us she couldn’t do it because she was scared. She was ready to give up and I told her, “Alice, I’m not asking you to stop being afraid. This is scary, and that’s okay. Am asking you to be, and right now being brave means you pedal and pedal and pedal. Do you think you can do that?” She said she could, so I told her to keep saying, “Pedal, pedal, pedal,” as we went. We do this a couple of times with me holding her seat, and then I finally sneakily let go. I run beside her with my hand behind her and she thinks I’m holding on, and she keeps pedaling. She crashes after 15 feet. She’s frustrated, until I tell her I wasn’t holding on. I told her she was brave and kept pedaling, and asked if she could keep doing that. Soon 15 feet become 50 became 65 became 149 became 264, and now we don’t measure because she can ride her bike pretty well. #touchedandprouddad

You might wonder where this is going. Alice was terrified, so she couldn’t ride her bike and thought the only way she’d ever ride her bike is if the fear went away. Life doesn’t work like that. The fear never fully disappears, the bravery fills the space and pushes fear to the corners. In her case being brave meant she just had to keep pedaling. Now think about work. Think about all the different situations we enter that are scary. I’m not asking us to stop being afraid. I’m asking us to be brave. Sometimes, being brave means holding your ground in a conversation even though it causes tension. Sometimes being brave is about embracing your ignorance and trying to see something from someone else’s perspective. Sometimes, being brave is owning your mistakes. Sometimes, being brave is wading into a difficult conversation to give someone feedback. Sometimes being brave is opening up to others.

The challenge: How will you be brave?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Superhero Lessons Part 2 Green Lantern and Overcoming Fear (4-6-16)

Last week we talked about Batman, The Flash, and knowing where the finish line is before you take off sprinting. This week I want us to look at something else that could get in the way of us reaching the finish line. That thing is FEAR.

Maybe you have heard of the Green Lantern. Green Lantern is basically an intergalactic cop with a power ring that he uses to fight bad guys. The ring is powered by will/grit/determination. This ring allows him to use his imagination to create anything he needs to make to save the day. For example, say he was surrounded by bad guys with guns. He might create a huge shield that blocks all of their bullets. Maybe an airplane is going to crash, so he could create a large hand to catch it. As long as he has the will and the imagination he can virtually do anything.

All superheroes have an arch nemesis. The Green Lantern’s vile villain is Sinestro, a Yellow Lantern (see picture). While Green Lantern is powered by will, Yellow Lanterns like Sinestro are powered by FEAR. The whole idea is that fear is the largest threat to someone’s will to do something. When fear comes into play the Green Lantern loses his will, his imagination, and his power. Green Lantern and Sinestro have clashed time and time again with Green Lantern always finding a way to overcome fear in order to beat Sinestro.

What does an intergalactic cop have to do with work? It all comes down to your willpower versus the fear you face. How often are we excited about a great idea that withers away because fear sets in? How often do we allow fear to chip away at our self-confidence? We become worried the idea won’t work. We become worried that other people might judge us. Before we know it, our imagination, our power, our will has been crushed by fear. We can’t remove fear from our lives, but we can overcome it.

Challenge: How will you overcome fear, so your willpower can make your thoughts a reality?

Bonus Confessions: Things that fill me with fear on a regular basis that I have to find ways to overcome. Maybe we share a few of these in common.

Being a dad-> Am I doing this right? Am I setting the girls up for success? Do I know what I need to know?
Being incompetent in this role-> How long do I get to play the new guy card until people just say I’m incompetent? Am I valuable to anybody?
Sending out my blogs-> Every week I ask myself: Is this any good? Is this weird that I’m sending these out? Do people think I’m arrogant for doing this?
Performing poetry/giving speeches-> I’m good at these things, so I shouldn’t have fear but I still do. All the way up to the point I step on stage I worry about crashing and

burning. Will I forget my words? Will the audience accept something like this? Will people listen? Is this the right message? Will this make me weird in people’s eyes?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry