So have you ever had somebody that you really care about who keeps making the
same bad decisions? They isolate their drinking
addiction and you want to help them? It
bothers you, right? Like, you see their life going in a direction
and you may even think, like, I could fix them or whatever. But you're struggling
to know how to help. I bet you can relate. I can relate. And I
can also relate because I struggle as well. And I want someone to
fix me, but just kidding about that. But I want to help.
So this is the Decide youe Legacy podcast. Today we're talking about
seven powerful ways you can help other people.
Your friends, your co workers, your family, even
strangers. And at the end of this, I got a crazy story to share
with you. It involves me actually getting shot at with my buddy
Josh. Stick around. And if you haven't already, check out episode
148, where I talk about the first four ways powerful ways you could help
other people. I'm covering the next three today. At the end of
this podcast, you're going to feel inspired to reach out and to do some
productive things. It's going to surprise you what those actions are.
Maybe making some mistakes that you haven't even identified yet. I'm
Adam Gragg. I'm a family therapist, and I'm a legacy coach.
I have been doing this kind of work for over 25 years.
My business is called Decide youe Legacy. Founded
it in 2012. And my purpose, my aim
is, and our aim as a company is to empower every person and
organization to live courageously. Nothing is
more important to your mental health than being courageous.
Nothing's more damaging than just playing it safe. So I like to start off every.
Off every episode sharing something that I've done
recently that was courageous. It may not feel courageous to
you, but it was for me. So what I did is I had a
business meeting last week with a company that's interested in
hiring Decide youe Legacy. And I brought in another
business leader to join me. And I hadn't actually done that
before. He's in the same industry. He's actually
very experienced. He had a ton to offer. It was uncomfortable for him. It was
uncomfortable for me, but it ended up being a really
positive connection for both businesses. And I learned a lot and
I grew. So, hey, I want you to start with an
action as well. Who is somebody in your life
that you see potentially struggling.
Maybe it's a sibling or a parent
or a friend, and you struggle to know how to actually
encourage them, how to help them. I want you to think about
that individual. Often it is good to think of a sibling or a
parent because those are people you interact with a lot. And you've
probably built up some bad habits that you can work on breaking
today. Let's go ahead and jump in and work on breaking it. So if
you haven't already, go Back to episode 148, first four.
First four ways you can help people is you can help them clarify a vision
for their future. You can help them face their junk that's holding them
back, their past bad habits. You can help
them have a change in attitude to shift their
perspective. You can help them understand what they bring to
interactions and see it clearly so they understand they
can go into relationships and they add value.
Good stuff. So why do you want to actually help people?
Well, helping other people is really
why you exist. You're made for this. You're made to give back,
and it builds your connections with people. It's very
gratifying to see somebody make changes in their
life, to face their own fears, to live courageously. And you
know, at some level that you may have had a part in that.
And it's really gratifying years down the road to say, well,
I engaged in that relationship in a way where I may have had a part
in that. You have powers that you may not even actually know about.
You know, my dog Max turned 16 just last
week. I didn't actually know. The vet told me that's what the record said. So
he may be a little older, maybe a little younger. Whatever he is, he's the
oldest dog at this vet clinic where he actually
does. They do boarding and everything. And it wasn't just a
month ago when I got a call on the last day of a vacation.
I'm driving in the car with my mom and the vet calls and says, I
don't think your dog's going to make it. I was coming back the next day
and my mom started crying. And so. And I'm
like, you know, I'm sad. I mean, this is a good friend of mine, my
dog. Yeah. But I'll tell you what, man, I got back and
they're like, this miracle has happened. He must have known you were coming back. He
bounced back from that. He's deaf and incontinent. That's okay. You
will be too when you're 112 and so. But he
bounced back, man. I mean, I dropped him off there today and they're like, we
don't know what happened to him. And I said, hey, there's power. We underestimate the
power of love because he feels loved. And you can do the same
thing with other people in your life. Amazing stuff. So the first
power that you may not be aware that you actually have is you can help
people actually experience their feelings, experience their
emotions. People basically have three choices when it comes to
their feelings. They can stuff them, they can suppress
them, push them down. And oftentimes people who have that
habit, they invalidate emotions in other people because they're not comfortable with
them and themselves. Other people are hurting. Other people are
struggling. Other people are excited. They have trouble saying things like,
hey, I can really tell you're excited and being excited with them. Or if
they're sad, it seems you're really struggling and getting.
Stepping into that sadness with them. We can invalidate
by telling people to get over it, even just by our body language, by our
own level of discomfort. So the second thing you can do is you can express
them, and this can lead to some really bad stuff. It's like
you're taking orders from your feelings. I feel like I must say something to that
person, and I go ahead and say it to them, and it ends up derailing
the whole relationship. You know, I feel like I should tell them off
for disrespecting me, and I go ahead and tell my server
off. You know, you're not paying attention to me. What are you doing? No. If
we listen to them and we go down that path, it can lead us really
down a negative spiral into the gutter. So you don't want to take orders for
them. You don't want to actually listen to what they're telling you to do, even
in private. So they may tell you, you know, you're so tired, take a nap,
procrastinate. You don't have to face that thing right now. You can face it later.
Go ahead and watch TV instead of preparing for your next
podcast or preparing for your next client. Nope, you don't need to do it. And
then that leads us down a spiral as well. They're not our friends. They can
give us very valuable information. And that's kind of the contradictory thing here. It
may sound really contradictory because they give us insight
into ourselves, and they also give us insight into our perspective and our
attitude. But they don't re. They don't give us truth all the
time. They don't give us that actual direction. They can actually tell
us where, what not to do, rather than what to do. So the third thing
you can do, which is what I want you to encourage you to do with
people you care about is you can experience them, you can learn from them.
If you feel a certain way, it doesn't actually mean it's true, but you can
still learn and identify and say, I'm really feeling excited about this
person and I think I'm going to marry them.
But then you realize that you've just had a few too many
drinks and this is not a healthy decision. Not me, I'm saying
you. So anyway. But you can get bad advice from these
feelings. You can observe and say, I'm really afraid
here and why, what's going on here? Well, maybe it's connected
to a bad experience you had previously in a certain
similar situation and you're able to identify that and step back from
it and then not take orders from it, from it. So recognizing them
gives you power over them. You're able to identify what's going on.
You can do that. You have the power to do that. But some of you
don't believe me. But I'm going to give you an example to show you. So
a client, this is actually very recent. The guy
came in and he said that his wife struggles with him because he's not
open about his feelings. And I asked him, well, what benefit
would it be in your life if you started talking about your emotions? And he,
he sarcastically said, no, just no benefit. You know, it wouldn't really do anything.
Emotions, those things are silly, you know, and he was totally joking, but he was
making a point too that he wants to push him away. The
sarcasm was a self protective function. And the guy has
kids, the guy has friends, family, job, successful
dude, and he's learned to function this way. And we talked a little bit about
it and it boiled down to that. In his life
there have been a lot of situations where he hasn't failed, felt, seen,
and it goes way back. Like, like he's, he's been in
situations where he's had to be the funny guy. He's felt
that way at least. He's been in situations in his life from early
childhood where it was about performance, not being
accepted for who he is. And so that feeling can go pretty deep.
And just the talking about it in that setting with me
as his coach and everything, I believe that has tremendous benefit. You find somebody safe,
you can be that safe person to talk about whatever it is behind
where it started. And they realize that a lot of
this emotional stuff is based on
stuff in their past that they can unpack and undo and that safety you can
provide for them by validating them, by helping them talk about it, by helping
them identify it, by pointing out to them. Like it seems to me you feel
frustrated, it seems to me you feel insecure. It makes sense to me you
feel that way based on what you've gone through in your life. That's the validation
you can get at. And you can ask questions like, you know, how are you
feeling about this? Really? People that are not comfortable with their
feelings are going to struggle with that potentially, but don't relent.
Why? Because it's not about you. It's about helping.
It's about helping somebody else. That's crucial right there.
In fact, if you go into trying to help other people and you're making it
about you, then you're going to be triggered by their emotional reactions.
If you're making it about helping somebody else, then
you're able to sit with it even when they're pushing you
away because you truly believe that this is helpful to them. It's going
to require you getting uncomfortable. So maybe you can think in your own
self. What are you putting off because you're afraid and why? And then
how do you feel about it and what is the foundation of those
feelings that gives you some insight? Great question
to ask yourself even at the beginning of the day. What do I not want
to engage in the most? It's probably something you could spend some time
processing and then taking some steps to actually engaged
engage. So the sixth powerful way you can help other
people is you can help other people care for
themselves. And I am not a woo woo self care
dude. In fact, my thinking about self care is going to
probably shock you. So I think it's great that people have
hobbies and I believe people should have hobbies for one
main reason. Because those activities
that you find enjoyable take the focus off
of yourself and they put it on something
healthy. I'm talking about healthy hobbies. All right, so I'm
not talking about escapism here. We can justify and
rationalize something as a hobby that's really us escaping and avoiding, but
those rejuvenating, energizing, passion
driven activities that you find
the next day to have filled you with energy. It's filling you with energy
because you're taking the focus off yourself
and you're putting it on to something productive that you can continue
to develop. Getting the focus off yourself is self
care. That's what causes people so many issues, is
they're consumed with their own feelings, they're consumed with what they
want, and they're forgetting that they have a Lot of ways they can help
other people. I told you it'd kind of shock you. When I was
22, I started mentoring a kid
through a mentoring program here in this town
that his name's Robby, and we still have a good relationship. Today
he was 12. Okay, so I'm 51, he's 41. Or
he, I get it confused. He's 40, he's 10 years or 11 years younger.
Okay, so he had gone through. And when I was matched with him, he had
gone through a lot of significant challenges. You know, he was in foster care.
He hadn't met his father. He was struggling. And I
remember being incredibly insecure. You know, what do I have to offer this kid?
Okay, I'm going to give it a shot. Because people have convinced me this is
a good thing. That was basically my attitude. And I remember taking him to the
YMCA and sitting in the parking lot and I
said one thing, and I don't even know where it came from, but I said,
man, Robby, you've gone through a lot.
And he got emotional
and I got emotional. I was shocked.
And I, at that point, I
realized that I can help people in
ways that I have. No, that I never thought I could before.
It was like this. It was the start of a
great relationship. And we talk. I
mean, we hang out. He's married
now. He owns his own business. He owns a construction business.
And it's a super cool thing. And I look back and wonder, where did
it start? It changed my life.
And I believe it impacted his life as well. And one way it changed my
life is I realized I want to get more tools. You know, I want to
learn what's going on here, because this is filling me up so
much and creating so much excitement in my life that I don't want this to
stop. And I never thought it actually could happen. Cool stuff.
And I'm able to. And you're able to help other people
identify these ways that they can give back. I mean, sure, ask
them about their hobbies, even invite them to engage in your hobbies, but help them
to see that they have tremendous value to give. And I find that when
I engage in healthy activities that are rejuvenating, I,
I, I, I check, I go, I get back from this self
consumption and this performance mentality and self promotion. And
I realize, man, I got something to give back. And I want to give, I
want to give back. And it's so energizing because then it's like, man, this is
what life's about. I can help People. It's like with your kids. I mean, some
of the most incredible times are when you have these connections over
something they're passionate about, and you get to validate and you get to build into
them that kind of passion. So really cool
stuff. Reaching out and figuring
out ways that you can help people identify. So identify how they can
impact other people. How they can impact other people.
So the sixth powerful way you can help other
people is helping them to build
connections. And one of my
most favorite things to do in life is
connecting people I know with other people. I know so good
people with other good people. And then seeing how
that relationship transitions into something bigger
and better. One thing about it is
that it is a risk. You're connecting people. But
it's very gratifying to know that you can. You can do this.
I'm generally always uncomfortable with it, but find that when it's
done, which is how you know you're engaging in something that's really great,
is when it's done, you know, the next week, the next day.
Although it's maybe uncomfortable in the moment, I'm like, I'm really glad I did that.
That was a good thing. So inviting
people to. That you don't know, to join you with other
friends, playing golf or going fishing or for
coffee. Hey, we'll meet up and have coffee. I want you to meet somebody. This
is cool. Or over email, you're connecting people, you're inviting
them to play poker. But in all these situations, you're the one who's willing to
go first and to initiate the interaction.
I had this situation when I was
16 that I was talking to some other buddies about, and
it was basically, who knows, crazy experiences we've been through in
life. Well, at age 16, I had a
shotgun pulled on me. And then another friend was saying, well, describe the
situation. And I told them about it. And actually, the shotgun wasn't just pulled
on me. It was actually fired at the back of my car. You ever
had those moments? I bet you can relate. When you're with a friend and you
go through this experience that is so
shocking that it's never going to be something
you forget, and it bonds you in a way that you couldn't possibly
imagine. I didn't actually realize what
had happened in the moment. I heard this big bang. But my buddy Josh,
who is another friend, somebody I'm still close with today,
he. He was calm. We were both shocked about what was going on.
My heart was pounding, and we heard it. We sort of felt it in the
car. If you know what that feels like to get the back of your car
blasted. I mean, hopefully you don't, but you do kind
of feel it. I remember the whole situation, like what happened.
And as I look back, I think on that
situation, the part that stuck with me the
most from then is that we didn't
freak out, like we were already friends. He didn't scream,
you know, and shut me down and tell me I'm stupid. And we drove
off. We were grouped and we already had a good friendship. But
it's a memory we talk about at least every six
months. And it was an experience that connected
us. Real friendship isn't built during the fun times. It's
actually revealed during the hard times, during the circumstances
that we didn't choose for ourselves. That's why people build great connections.
Often when they're going through something very difficult in their life,
like a divorce or a job firing or a
financial turmoil, it proves to us that they're
more than a casual acquaintance. And you have the
ability to connect other people. How? Well, think about the situations where
you can just invite somebody to join you
in whatever you're doing. Exercise. Hey, you
want to go? I have a friend who recently, once a month has
been planning pickleball events and he just sends
out a Google invite and sends it out to maybe eight friends or
whatever. And people go, who can go? But he's been planning that consistently,
so it shows up on my calendar. It's like, I wish I could go
and I want to go. But it's that invitation that makes you feel
included. And also there are people that I would connect with in that environment that
I don't even actually know. Very cool stuff. It's
going to show you as connect as you connect people
with these other people you want to help, that you can let
go and things can happen. You don't have to control it.
Hopefully you never get shot at. Okay, that's not what
I'm recommending here, but I am recommending that you find ways to connect people
and even think about it. You know, look around you. Who's in life with
you? Who do you want to be in life with you more? Who do you
really want to help? Well, invite them. I recently invited my sister, who is
T.R. i have trouble connecting with, to attend a
business meeting as well, to get to know her on a different
level. At a different level. So she met my operations guy,
Lloyd, and it was a fun time. Very business
oriented, but it's kind of fun to connect with your sister that way. She owns
A business, successful business. And so it's really pretty
cool. So what's a moment in your life? Think about it when.
When it showed you who your real friends are. And I'd really
encourage you to share that so you can comment
and you can express that. You can write that
down below. If you're watching this on YouTube,
what's the situation where you really felt like you
learned who your good friends were? You know, just last week, I had
a situation where one of my clients was struggling in an area
in his specific line of work. And I had this other client who I
thought, man, you could really help this guy. And I connected him. I asked
for permission, say, hey, I know somebody you really probably talked to here.
And then they ended up talking on the phone on Friday. And I heard it
was helpful. I wasn't there in the interaction, but I only heard positive
things from both of the people that were involved in that conversation. And I had
a part in that. Man, that's pretty cool. Wow. You
know, like. And I don't know what it's going to end up,
what the end result is going to be, but there's no growth
in life without risky endeavor.
If you want to grow personally, with more freedom,
more connections, with more financial success,
whatever it might be, you're having to do things that are
risky, which involves courage, and you don't know what the outcome
is actually going to be. Think about it. You're going to help more people. When
you realize that I have to let go in my life
more, you can do that. So
seven ways to encourage others. This is part two. It's
motivating. And if you found this helpful, check out Shatterproof
yourself. This is our course. There's seven small steps to
a giant leap in your mental health. One of the big steps is on building
relationships. I walk you through whiteboards that I've shown to
clients thousands of times, and there's
videos of these whiteboards and worksheets that I've used with clients
thousands of times over 25 years. It's stuff
that you're going to need to take action on, and you can go ahead and
enroll in that course and you get community engagement as well.
So by the end of the day today, do something
with some insight that you gained today. Of these ways
that I shared seven ways you can help people, talk to somebody
about it, share it with somebody casually. Remember,
insight is less than 20% of transformational
change. Action is 80%.
Make a good plan and act, because a good plan that you
act on is 100 times better than a perfect plan that you do
nothing with. Remember, there's no positive change until you
decide. Deciding means you are
eliminating other options. You're deciding your legacy
today. Your legacy is the impact your life has on other
people. So do me a favor. Forward this episode to one
friend, share it and say, hey, this episode was helpful.
Subscribe and give me a rating and review on Apple
or Spotify. This helps the podcast to grow organically,
and I'm going to close the way that I always do. Make it your
mission to live the life today that you want to be
remembered for 10 years after you're gone. You decide
your legacy. Nobody else. And either you will decide your legacy or by
default, fear is going to decide it for you. I appreciate you greatly
and I'll see you next time.
It.