How Entrepreneurs Can Avoid Boredom
Experiencing fear is part of entrepreneurial life, but do you really know what your fear is trying to tell you? In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain why entrepreneurs feel fear and the best way to respond when you feel it.
Here's some of what you'll learn in this episode:
- Why envisioning a future goal results in fear.
- The essential role that courage plays in the process of goal achievement.
- How commitment and courage lead to capability and confidence.
- The danger of avoiding the decision to jump to the next level.
Show Notes:
If you lack the knowledge to do something, you lack the skills, because skills always follow knowledge.
Entrepreneurs take advantage of their minds’ ability to visualize bigger and better next steps.
Our minds make emotional commitments to a future result before we have the intelligence to get there.
Substituting courage for capability means that you move forward in spite of the fact that you don’t have the knowledge or skill.
When you’re emotionally attracted to a goal, you can use that excitement about the possibility as fuel to get you through the scary part.
To some extent, you’ll know you’re committed to a goal when you’re feeling fear.
When you visualize something bigger and better than your present situation, you don’t yet have the capabilities to get there.
All growth comes from first being committed to improvement.
When you don’t have the courage to take the next step, your mind makes everything that you’re presently doing boring.
Resources:
The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan
Episode Transcript:
Shannon Waller: Hi, Shannon Waller here and welcome to Inside Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan. Dan, you said something the other day, as you often do, that I was really intrigued by, because it sounds not contradictory, but I wasn't quite sure what you meant. So I love taking this opportunity to take advantage. You said, “At the heart of boredom is the terror of taking the next step.” And I'm very intrigued by that because I don't think of boredom and terror in the same sentence usually. So what does that mean? I'm super curious.
Dan Sullivan: Well, our minds are constantly looking for bigger and better. And this is anybody, but I deal with entrepreneurs, and I think that entrepreneurs have taken advantage of their mind's ability to visualize bigger and better next steps. There's two aspects to jumping to a level which, at the present, you don't have any capabilities. And one of them is the excitement of visualizing what it's going to be like when you have achieved the jump to the bigger and better results. And then there's also the fear of your present state that you don't even have the capabilities and it's going to require courage.
So in our 4 C’s Formula , we say that all growth comes from, first of all, being committed to improvement, and then lacking the capability that that's going to take. You go through a period of courage while you learn and you change yourself. You transform yourself so that you're capable. And then when you're capable, then you get a reward and your confidence jumps. Okay? And then from a higher level of confidence, you can do the formula over again. You can have a commitment to an even higher goal.
Shannon Waller: Hi, Shannon Waller here and welcome to Inside Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan. Dan, you said something the other day, as you often do, that I was really intrigued by, because it sounds not contradictory, but I wasn't quite sure what you meant. So I love taking this opportunity to take advantage. You said, “At the heart of boredom is the terror of taking the next step.” And I'm very intrigued by that because I don't think of boredom and terror in the same sentence usually. So what does that mean? I'm super curious.
Dan Sullivan: Well, our minds are constantly looking for bigger and better. And this is anybody, but I deal with entrepreneurs, and I think that entrepreneurs have taken advantage of their mind's ability to visualize bigger and better next steps. There's two aspects to jumping to a level which, at the present, you don't have any capabilities. And one of them is the excitement of visualizing what it's going to be like when you have achieved the jump to the bigger and better results. And then there's also the fear of your present state that you don't even have the capabilities and it's going to require courage.
So in our 4 C’s Formula , we say that all growth comes from, first of all, being committed to improvement, and then lacking the capability that that's going to take. You go through a period of courage while you learn and you change yourself. You transform yourself so that you're capable. And then when you're capable, then you get a reward and your confidence jumps. Okay? And then from a higher level of confidence, you can do the formula over again. You can have a commitment to an even higher goal.
And what I've noticed happens to people when their mind engages emotionally, that they have to take the next step, but they don't do it. In other words, that's going to require courage and they don't have the courage. Their mind then makes everything that they're presently doing not interesting, and therefore their world, because they're avoiding a decision to jump to the next level. And they're not being courageous. Their mind rewards them negatively. It actually punishes them by making everything that they're presently doing no longer interesting to them. And they say, “I'm bored.”
Shannon Waller: Whoa. That is so interesting and so true. Yes. It's like you're restless, but you haven't yet committed or been willing to go through the courage to go the next step. Bam. Oh, I love that. Is this a normal human experience, Dan, does everyone...?
Dan Sullivan: Oh no, it's true for everybody. Yeah.
Shannon Waller: Yeah. Okay.
Dan Sullivan: It's true for everybody. Yeah. And therefore, see, the whole thing is our mind makes emotional commitments to a future result before we have the intelligence to do it. We don't have the knowledge. We don't know the how and everything that's going to take to get to there. But not only that, because we lack the knowledge, we also lack the skills, because skills always follow knowledge. So the first step is, lacking capability, you have to substitute courage, and that means that you move forward in spite of the fact that you don't have the knowledge and you don't have the skill. And that's scary. It's very, very scary.
Shannon Waller: It's very scary.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. So people who are courageous actually can retain the excitement of the vision. They can retain the emotional excitement. “Yeah, this is going to be really scary, and I don't really know what I'm doing here, but I'm so emotionally attracted to this jump that I'll use that as fuel. I'll use the excitement of the possibility as fuel to get me through the period of courage.” Because that's going to be really scary. It's going to be energy draining and everything. And I think it's actually, there's a magic trick that goes on here that the combination of commitment plus courage actually equals capability. It's like a mathematical formula.
Shannon Waller: So commitment plus courage equals capability.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I think it's times courage.
Shannon Waller: Oh.
Dan Sullivan: I think it's a multiplier. So I think it's commitment times courage equals the new capability. Okay? And I think the new capability comes that you're willing to give up your present level of knowledge, and you're willing to give up your present level of capability to acquire greater knowledge and greater capability. And I think something magic happens in multiplying commitment and courage that you multiply them and the two of them is kind of like an alchemy. There's something magical about it.
Shannon Waller: Well, and the image that's coming to mind is grabbing hold of a trapeze, jumping off, hanging on, and then letting go of the trapeze.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Shannon Waller: There's two acts of courage there. One is jumping off the platform, the other is letting go, being willing to do your fancy somersaults in the air before you grab the next one.
Dan Sullivan: Babs and I just started working with Dr. David Haase at very specialized clinic in Nashville, Tennessee. And we're going there for improvement. And he's got a lot of great new technologies and great new medical approaches where you will be able to see substantial improvement. So what I did is I created a Certainty/Uncertainty Focus worksheet, and I sent it to him. And it was that two years from now, I'm going to be off all prescription drugs for ADD and for sleep. Right now I'm relying on them. And I'm ADD, so I take Adderall and I've got a long term Adderall I take in the morning. And then depending on my need during the day, I've got short bursts of Adderall. And Adderall restores order through my erratic mind. And it served me well. And I've been doing it for about 11 years.
And the other thing is that I tend to still be wound up at bedtime, probably from taking my Adderall, and therefore I take two sleep medicines. I take Lunesta and I take Sonata depending on my need, but I have to start off, just to go to sleep, I have to take it. And I said two years from now, I want to find some alternative way of handling my ADD and handling my inability to go to sleep and stay asleep. So I sent it off to him, and right off the bat, he came back and there's a clinic I'm going to go to in North York, and they teach neurofeedback. So he signed me up for 40 sessions, and by the end of the 40 sessions, which will take a half a year, he said, “You won't need the Adderall and you won't need the sleep medicine.”
Shannon Waller: Wow. Wow.
Dan Sullivan: So, exciting to be off the medicine and really scared to be without the medicine. So I'm in the period of courage right now.
Shannon Waller: Mm-hmm. Thank you for sharing that, first of all. Yeah. So there's health commitments we want to make. There can be relationship ones we want to make, there can be career ones, projects. I was just doing some thinking about an event that I'm doing with a client, and it feels like I'm between the trapezes a little bit. So all of those things. But it's that commitment and just staying really strong to the vision. Dan, I like what you said about that because that helps counter the terror as we talked about the beginning. And it means that you will find your way through. That's the magic part. And it's that confidence and trust that you will because of just applying yourself. Because the interesting thing about fear is it can be really useful.
Dan Sullivan: Well, it's adrenaline both ways.
Shannon Waller: Yeah. It makes you very alert.
Dan Sullivan: Fear triggers adrenaline and excitement triggers adrenaline. And I've learned to supply myself with a formula that does it. But he pointed out that because of my genetic makeup, that there would be a tendency, let's say, if I stayed with this, in each case, sleep medicine, probably 15 years and Adderall, about 10 years, that I have right now preconditions for Alzheimer's and I have preconditions for Parkinson's. Okay? And he said, “You're not anywhere near those.” But he said, “If there was no change in your prescriptions over the next 10 years, you would start possibly exhibiting ...”
Shannon Waller: That's not allowed, Dan, to say.
Dan Sullivan: That's not in my future game plans. Okay?
Shannon Waller: No, we need your brain.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I just felt that to get the best out of our work with David Haase, that I should make a commitment to a change that scares me and that will prove that I'm a serious customer. But if I didn't do this knowing what I did, if I don't go through with this, and I said... It's 40 trips, it's probably a three-hour round trip, and we got fitted into a very busy schedule, but I've committed to it and he doesn't make any money on this. This is a separate order. He just said, “This is the best way. If you do it and you go through the 40 sessions, they're about 40 minutes each. There's every bit of research indicates that in both cases you will not need the drugs you're taking.”
Shannon Waller: Oh, I'm excited to learn more about that as you go through it. And I think what you said also is incredibly useful is that you can't just engage with something but not fully commit. And to some extent, you'll know when you're committed when you are feeling that slight sense of fear.
Dan Sullivan: Well, and having engaged emotionally and intellectually with the project, if I don't follow through on the project, everything around me will get boring. We do not want Dan to be bored.
Shannon Waller: No, I've always said this, Dan: a bored entrepreneur is a very dangerous creature.
Dan Sullivan: Well, they're boring for one thing.
Shannon Waller: They're boring. They make messes. They set fires so that they can become…
Dan Sullivan: They go negative, they…
Shannon Waller: They go negative, they're grumpy, they're horrible to work with. They're not good communicators—all the things. Dan Sullivan: So anyway, just to take it back to the boredom. And so my sense is that bored people are people who have in some part of themselves made an emotional commitment to change things, but they have given in to the fear of what it's going to mean. And they're paralyzed by their fear. And that changes… They lose all appreciation for everything they're doing in the moment. So nothing is interesting to them, which is another way saying that they're bored.
Shannon Waller: Interesting. And Dan, just as we wrap up, how can people take action on this? How can they shift from that boredom back into that state of courage? What would you recommend?
Dan Sullivan: Well, make a commitment to a change, and then hustle to find the solution.
Shannon Waller: I like that.
Dan Sullivan: And you have to go outside of yourself. In other words, you need other people's guidance, you need other people's capabilities and knowledge, and you need other people's solutions in order to do this. I couldn't do it by going cold turkey.
Shannon Waller: Right? Yeah. So go back to your original emotional commitment and then get very resourceful—another key entrepreneurial word—to be able to go outside yourself. I think that's another great clue is people can get stuck inside with their own lack of capability. And forget that there's a whole world out there of incredibly talented, motivated people who would love nothing more than to help you with your particular situation. So not getting isolated is another key part of this, I think.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, to a certain extent, the problem that originally triggered the need for prescription drugs in the case of both sleep and the ADD is I was trying to handle it all myself and I couldn't. So I've got a crutch, a chemical crutch that allows me to go along, but I wasn't really using other people's… Plus, there's a lot of brand new stuff happening in the world right now. So I've made this as a Lifetime Extender project. I've communicated this to a lot of people in the Lifetime Extender Program.
Shannon Waller: Oh. And I can't wait to learn more since so many entrepreneurs are ADHD/dopamine deficients. So this will be…
Dan Sullivan: And can't sleep at night.
Shannon Waller: And can't sleep at night and have a lot going on. So I love it. Well, Dan, this is a great conversation and again, a whole different approach to boredom than I've ever heard before. So I love your insights and I think they're spot on. It's time to engage the courage and develop the capabilities. Thank you.
Dan Sullivan: Thank you.
Shannon Waller: Whoa. That is so interesting and so true. Yes. It's like you're restless, but you haven't yet committed or been willing to go through the courage to go the next step. Bam. Oh, I love that. Is this a normal human experience, Dan, does everyone...?
Dan Sullivan: Oh no, it's true for everybody. Yeah.
Shannon Waller: Yeah. Okay.
Dan Sullivan: It's true for everybody. Yeah. And therefore, see, the whole thing is our mind makes emotional commitments to a future result before we have the intelligence to do it. We don't have the knowledge. We don't know the how and everything that's going to take to get to there. But not only that, because we lack the knowledge, we also lack the skills, because skills always follow knowledge. So the first step is, lacking capability, you have to substitute courage, and that means that you move forward in spite of the fact that you don't have the knowledge and you don't have the skill. And that's scary. It's very, very scary.
Shannon Waller: It's very scary.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. So people who are courageous actually can retain the excitement of the vision. They can retain the emotional excitement. “Yeah, this is going to be really scary, and I don't really know what I'm doing here, but I'm so emotionally attracted to this jump that I'll use that as fuel. I'll use the excitement of the possibility as fuel to get me through the period of courage.” Because that's going to be really scary. It's going to be energy draining and everything. And I think it's actually, there's a magic trick that goes on here that the combination of commitment plus courage actually equals capability. It's like a mathematical formula.
Shannon Waller: So commitment plus courage equals capability.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I think it's times courage.
Shannon Waller: Oh.
Dan Sullivan: I think it's a multiplier. So I think it's commitment times courage equals the new capability. Okay? And I think the new capability comes that you're willing to give up your present level of knowledge, and you're willing to give up your present level of capability to acquire greater knowledge and greater capability. And I think something magic happens in multiplying commitment and courage that you multiply them and the two of them is kind of like an alchemy. There's something magical about it.
Shannon Waller: Well, and the image that's coming to mind is grabbing hold of a trapeze, jumping off, hanging on, and then letting go of the trapeze.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Shannon Waller: There's two acts of courage there. One is jumping off the platform, the other is letting go, being willing to do your fancy somersaults in the air before you grab the next one.
Dan Sullivan: Babs and I just started working with Dr. David Haase at very specialized clinic in Nashville, Tennessee. And we're going there for improvement. And he's got a lot of great new technologies and great new medical approaches where you will be able to see substantial improvement. So what I did is I created a Certainty/Uncertainty Focus worksheet, and I sent it to him. And it was that two years from now, I'm going to be off all prescription drugs for ADD and for sleep. Right now I'm relying on them. And I'm ADD, so I take Adderall and I've got a long term Adderall I take in the morning. And then depending on my need during the day, I've got short bursts of Adderall. And Adderall restores order through my erratic mind. And it served me well. And I've been doing it for about 11 years.
And the other thing is that I tend to still be wound up at bedtime, probably from taking my Adderall, and therefore I take two sleep medicines. I take Lunesta and I take Sonata depending on my need, but I have to start off, just to go to sleep, I have to take it. And I said two years from now, I want to find some alternative way of handling my ADD and handling my inability to go to sleep and stay asleep. So I sent it off to him, and right off the bat, he came back and there's a clinic I'm going to go to in North York, and they teach neurofeedback. So he signed me up for 40 sessions, and by the end of the 40 sessions, which will take a half a year, he said, “You won't need the Adderall and you won't need the sleep medicine.”
Shannon Waller: Wow. Wow.
Dan Sullivan: So, exciting to be off the medicine and really scared to be without the medicine. So I'm in the period of courage right now.
Shannon Waller: Mm-hmm. Thank you for sharing that, first of all. Yeah. So there's health commitments we want to make. There can be relationship ones we want to make, there can be career ones, projects. I was just doing some thinking about an event that I'm doing with a client, and it feels like I'm between the trapezes a little bit. So all of those things. But it's that commitment and just staying really strong to the vision. Dan, I like what you said about that because that helps counter the terror as we talked about the beginning. And it means that you will find your way through. That's the magic part. And it's that confidence and trust that you will because of just applying yourself. Because the interesting thing about fear is it can be really useful.
Dan Sullivan: Well, it's adrenaline both ways.
Shannon Waller: Yeah. It makes you very alert.
Dan Sullivan: Fear triggers adrenaline and excitement triggers adrenaline. And I've learned to supply myself with a formula that does it. But he pointed out that because of my genetic makeup, that there would be a tendency, let's say, if I stayed with this, in each case, sleep medicine, probably 15 years and Adderall, about 10 years, that I have right now preconditions for Alzheimer's and I have preconditions for Parkinson's. Okay? And he said, “You're not anywhere near those.” But he said, “If there was no change in your prescriptions over the next 10 years, you would start possibly exhibiting ...”
Shannon Waller: That's not allowed, Dan, to say.
Dan Sullivan: That's not in my future game plans. Okay?
Shannon Waller: No, we need your brain.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I just felt that to get the best out of our work with David Haase, that I should make a commitment to a change that scares me and that will prove that I'm a serious customer. But if I didn't do this knowing what I did, if I don't go through with this, and I said... It's 40 trips, it's probably a three-hour round trip, and we got fitted into a very busy schedule, but I've committed to it and he doesn't make any money on this. This is a separate order. He just said, “This is the best way. If you do it and you go through the 40 sessions, they're about 40 minutes each. There's every bit of research indicates that in both cases you will not need the drugs you're taking.”
Shannon Waller: Oh, I'm excited to learn more about that as you go through it. And I think what you said also is incredibly useful is that you can't just engage with something but not fully commit. And to some extent, you'll know when you're committed when you are feeling that slight sense of fear.
Dan Sullivan: Well, and having engaged emotionally and intellectually with the project, if I don't follow through on the project, everything around me will get boring. We do not want Dan to be bored.
Shannon Waller: No, I've always said this, Dan: a bored entrepreneur is a very dangerous creature.
Dan Sullivan: Well, they're boring for one thing.
Shannon Waller: They're boring. They make messes. They set fires so that they can become…
Dan Sullivan: They go negative, they…
Shannon Waller: They go negative, they're grumpy, they're horrible to work with. They're not good communicators—all the things. Dan Sullivan: So anyway, just to take it back to the boredom. And so my sense is that bored people are people who have in some part of themselves made an emotional commitment to change things, but they have given in to the fear of what it's going to mean. And they're paralyzed by their fear. And that changes… They lose all appreciation for everything they're doing in the moment. So nothing is interesting to them, which is another way saying that they're bored.
Shannon Waller: Interesting. And Dan, just as we wrap up, how can people take action on this? How can they shift from that boredom back into that state of courage? What would you recommend?
Dan Sullivan: Well, make a commitment to a change, and then hustle to find the solution.
Shannon Waller: I like that.
Dan Sullivan: And you have to go outside of yourself. In other words, you need other people's guidance, you need other people's capabilities and knowledge, and you need other people's solutions in order to do this. I couldn't do it by going cold turkey.
Shannon Waller: Right? Yeah. So go back to your original emotional commitment and then get very resourceful—another key entrepreneurial word—to be able to go outside yourself. I think that's another great clue is people can get stuck inside with their own lack of capability. And forget that there's a whole world out there of incredibly talented, motivated people who would love nothing more than to help you with your particular situation. So not getting isolated is another key part of this, I think.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, to a certain extent, the problem that originally triggered the need for prescription drugs in the case of both sleep and the ADD is I was trying to handle it all myself and I couldn't. So I've got a crutch, a chemical crutch that allows me to go along, but I wasn't really using other people's… Plus, there's a lot of brand new stuff happening in the world right now. So I've made this as a Lifetime Extender project. I've communicated this to a lot of people in the Lifetime Extender Program.
Shannon Waller: Oh. And I can't wait to learn more since so many entrepreneurs are ADHD/dopamine deficients. So this will be…
Dan Sullivan: And can't sleep at night.
Shannon Waller: And can't sleep at night and have a lot going on. So I love it. Well, Dan, this is a great conversation and again, a whole different approach to boredom than I've ever heard before. So I love your insights and I think they're spot on. It's time to engage the courage and develop the capabilities. Thank you.
Dan Sullivan: Thank you.