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I'm touched by your vulnerability and openness. It reminds me of a client who had built a billion dollar company and wanted my help building his next one. My im

by LeonW 7y ago

I'm touched by your vulnerability and openness. It reminds me of a client who had built a billion dollar company and wanted my help building his next one. My immediate sense was that that was not really why we were talking or why he was here. We kept going and eventually I challenged him asking whether he had really built a billion dollar fortress to never need to be vulnerable. He broke down and we went deep, uncovering some of the deepest trauma I'd seen someone go through when they were 4 years old. From there, everything shifted and things took a very different direction. It's those kinds of insights, when as you say "as my healing journey has progressed, any ambitions I held to achieve business success on par with the Airbnb founders has faded, and been eclipsed by the realisation in order to anything really well – from running businesses and leading social/political movements, to simply having successful friendships/relationships, a healthy family life and a physiologically healthy body – a healthy emotional foundation is of prime importance.", once we really get in touch with our inner world, things shift dramatically and what has meaning to us changes. That doesn't mean that we don't want to to continue having a meaningful contribution to the world, but the sense of ego-striving that is often just a mask for our wounds can gently fall away and allow us to walk through life a little more freely. My learning has been whether you get to the billion dollar level or not, the untouched wounding eventually comes through and takes its toll if it stays unaddressed. It's stories like yours and the one I've described that make coaching the most meaningful thing I've done in my life to date.

iliketosleep 7y ago
Isn't this just essentially just a reflection of maslow’s hierarchy of needs? I mean, everybody has their demons, and the founder of the billion dollar company has the time and resources to face those demons by receiving top quality professional assistance, leading him/her closer to some kind of self-actualization. Whereas a large majority of the population (even in developed nations) are still struggling on much lower levels of the hierarchy, such as fulfilling their "safety needs" (e.g. employment, health, etc). I would therefore argue that the "untouched wounding" remains buried for most people because they are never in a position to address it, and the "ego-striving" remains essential part of their survival toolkit. There is simply no "salvation" in this regard for most people and it's quite sad.
- tomhoward 7y ago
  No. Emotional healing became my top priority when I was effectively broke and homeless. I mean, I was crashing at my parents and friends’ places, but it was a profoundly miserable (and low-Maslow) state of existence. Founders of break-out successful companies don’t just voluntarily embark on emotional healing practices once they reach the pinnacle of business success. They generally do that when they suffer a humiliating fall from grace. E.g., Early-career Steve Jobs and Jack Dorsey. Also, Maslow’s model isn’t really broadly accepted in mainstream psychology, certainly not in any linear sense.
  - lisper 7y ago
    There are a lot of rich people out there who have all of their Maslovian needs met but who are absolutely miserable. What happens is that they never really figured out what they wanted out of life, they just assumed that having money would allow them to get it, and they'd figure it out later. But then they get money, realize that they are still miserable (because they still don't really know what they want) and then sink into deep existential despair because if you have a billion dollars and you're still unhappy, now what the fuck do you do? Ron's second law: the hardest part of getting what you want is figuring out what it is.
  - loceng 7y ago
    To add to this, when your ego mind drivers lead you to success giving you potentially unlimited resources - money and time, it is easier to maintain coping mechanisms of distraction - unless there's some traumatic or stressful enough event that "cracks" someone, causing an impetus and necessity to explore change.
  - baby 7y ago
    This is a prime example of survivor bias. Most homeless people don’t make it back to the top.
    - tomhoward 7y ago
      I tried to be clear that I wasn’t “homeless” in the sense of living on the street. I just couldn’t make rent (ironically I had to Airbnb out my room) or easily afford food/bills, so needed to sleep at parents’/friends’ houses for a while as I worked to get back on my feet. Plenty of people go through this, due to a business/career/relationship breakdown, and recover to a good life, and it’s very common for people to start focusing on their emotional/spiritual wellbeing when they hit rock bottom (e.g., join 12-step programs, counseling etc). People who are chronically homeless are in a different category, but it’s widely accepted that chronic homelessness is usually linked to mental illness and/or addiction (which is a form/symptom of mental illness after all). I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how outcomes for chronically homeless people could be improved if they had access to the kinds of support and healing techniques I’ve used. Given the opportunity, I’d be very willing to support research into this in the future. Invoking concepts like “survivorship bias” is unhelpful in a discussion like this; my story is obviously anecdotal, not an academic paper or claim of scientific evidence. But that aside, “survivorship bias” in this context would require the existence of a whole lot of people who attempted the same approach to emotional healing that I did but failed to improve their lives, and there’s no evidence for this.
tomhoward 7y ago
Cheers for that. > the untouched wounding eventually comes through and takes its toll if it stays unaddressed This nails it, and I think a lot about this in the context of the very public cases of "unicorn" CEO falls-from-grace in recent years. > That doesn't mean that we don't want to to continue having a meaningful contribution to the world, but the sense of ego-striving that is often just a mask for our wounds can gently fall away and allow us to walk through life a little more freely. Very nicely put, many thanks.
gnator 7y ago
Great book on this topic is I Don't want to talk about it by Terrance Real

by LeonW 7y ago

iliketosleep 7y ago

Isn't this just essentially just a reflection of maslow’s hierarchy of needs? I mean, everybody has their demons, and the founder of the billion dollar company has the time and resources to face those demons by receiving top quality professional assistance, leading him/her closer to some kind of self-actualization. Whereas a large majority of the population (even in developed nations) are still struggling on much lower levels of the hierarchy, such as fulfilling their "safety needs" (e.g. employment, health, etc). I would therefore argue that the "untouched wounding" remains buried for most people because they are never in a position to address it, and the "ego-striving" remains essential part of their survival toolkit. There is simply no "salvation" in this regard for most people and it's quite sad.

tomhoward 7y ago
No. Emotional healing became my top priority when I was effectively broke and homeless. I mean, I was crashing at my parents and friends’ places, but it was a profoundly miserable (and low-Maslow) state of existence. Founders of break-out successful companies don’t just voluntarily embark on emotional healing practices once they reach the pinnacle of business success. They generally do that when they suffer a humiliating fall from grace. E.g., Early-career Steve Jobs and Jack Dorsey. Also, Maslow’s model isn’t really broadly accepted in mainstream psychology, certainly not in any linear sense.
- lisper 7y ago
  There are a lot of rich people out there who have all of their Maslovian needs met but who are absolutely miserable. What happens is that they never really figured out what they wanted out of life, they just assumed that having money would allow them to get it, and they'd figure it out later. But then they get money, realize that they are still miserable (because they still don't really know what they want) and then sink into deep existential despair because if you have a billion dollars and you're still unhappy, now what the fuck do you do? Ron's second law: the hardest part of getting what you want is figuring out what it is.
- loceng 7y ago
  To add to this, when your ego mind drivers lead you to success giving you potentially unlimited resources - money and time, it is easier to maintain coping mechanisms of distraction - unless there's some traumatic or stressful enough event that "cracks" someone, causing an impetus and necessity to explore change.
- baby 7y ago
  This is a prime example of survivor bias. Most homeless people don’t make it back to the top.
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    I tried to be clear that I wasn’t “homeless” in the sense of living on the street. I just couldn’t make rent (ironically I had to Airbnb out my room) or easily afford food/bills, so needed to sleep at parents’/friends’ houses for a while as I worked to get back on my feet. Plenty of people go through this, due to a business/career/relationship breakdown, and recover to a good life, and it’s very common for people to start focusing on their emotional/spiritual wellbeing when they hit rock bottom (e.g., join 12-step programs, counseling etc). People who are chronically homeless are in a different category, but it’s widely accepted that chronic homelessness is usually linked to mental illness and/or addiction (which is a form/symptom of mental illness after all). I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how outcomes for chronically homeless people could be improved if they had access to the kinds of support and healing techniques I’ve used. Given the opportunity, I’d be very willing to support research into this in the future. Invoking concepts like “survivorship bias” is unhelpful in a discussion like this; my story is obviously anecdotal, not an academic paper or claim of scientific evidence. But that aside, “survivorship bias” in this context would require the existence of a whole lot of people who attempted the same approach to emotional healing that I did but failed to improve their lives, and there’s no evidence for this.

tomhoward 7y ago

Cheers for that. > the untouched wounding eventually comes through and takes its toll if it stays unaddressed This nails it, and I think a lot about this in the context of the very public cases of "unicorn" CEO falls-from-grace in recent years. > That doesn't mean that we don't want to to continue having a meaningful contribution to the world, but the sense of ego-striving that is often just a mask for our wounds can gently fall away and allow us to walk through life a little more freely. Very nicely put, many thanks.

gnator 7y ago

Great book on this topic is I Don't want to talk about it by Terrance Real