In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about what keeps us from reaching our full potential. Although we want to continue to grow, take risks and achieve our goals, our brains want to keep us safe. This means we have a bias towards our comfort zones because what’s comfortable to us has proven to have kept us alive. Unfortunately, what got us here won’t get us where we want to go. My guest this week, Byron Morrison, mindset and performance coach and author of the book, “Maybe You Should Give Up - 7 Ways to Get Out of Your Own Way and Take Control of Your Life”, shares powerful insights and action steps we can use to get unstuck and become the people we want to be.
About My Guest
Byron Morrison is the author of 3 best-selling books and over the last decade, he has worked with CEOs, entrepreneurs and leaders in 15 different countries to help them take back control of their life and business.
Life hasn't always been this way though, for most of his life he was his own worst enemy, sabotaging everything from his health to his relationships and his personal success. After his dad's cancer he went on a journey of transformation, where after losing 50 pounds and turning his life around, he set out on a mission to help others take control of their life.
For the last decade, he’s been working with people from around the world to help them get out of their own way so that they can start living the life that they want. Everything he’s done has built up to his new book “Maybe you should give up - 7 ways to get out of your own way and take control of your life” which hits stores in June.
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Connect with Byron:
Website: https://www.byronmorrison.com/
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Transcript
Kim Meninger
Welcome, Byron, it's so nice to meet you. I've loved our conversation so far before we even hit record, can't wait to jump in and, and talk some more. Before we do, I'd love to invite you to introduce yourself.
Byron Morrison
Hey, so firstly, thank you for having me here. I'm excited to be joining you today. And as you said, the beginning my name is Byron Morrison, I'm the author of maybe you should give up. And I'm also a mindset performance coach. And over the last decade, I've helped CEOs, entrepreneurs and business leaders in 15 countries to really become who they need to be to get to the next level of success. So I'm excited to dive into that today.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, I can't wait to hear more about your book and how you think about this topic. Before we do that. Can you tell me a little bit about your story? How did you get to this point where this is the work that you're doing?
Byron Morrison
So for me, it all started over a decade ago, I was at a point in my life where To be honest, I was quite stuck. Like I knew I was capable of so much more. But I was burnt out in my career, I was overweight, I was struggling with confidence. And I was just very much falling short of my potential. And it was only after my dad's cancer where he had most of his bowel surgically removed. And he spent 25 days in ICU most on life support and breathing through a tracheotomy that I realized life had to change and luckily pulled through something I'm eternally grateful for. But that for me was the turning point, I realized, you know what, something have really has to shift yet because I'm tired of being frustrated and stuck where I am. So I wish I could say that overnight, everything magically got better. But I was for the next couple of years, I was in the cycle where I knew what I needed to do. But I wasn't doing it. I was doubting myself, I was overthinking I was avoiding the actions that I had to take. And I was just constantly taking one step forward and two steps back. And that was when I really started diving into the mindset behind why I was doing what I was doing. I just became fascinated with the psychology and why we think and behave the way that we do. And I really dedicated myself to uncovering why was it getting in my own way. And it was only when I dived into that further, though uncovered, why was the biggest stumbling block in the way of my success and how I actually needed to overcome that to break through to the next level. And that's got me to the point that I'm at today where I've been helping other people do the same thing.
Kim Meninger
So I think this is such an important conversation because while your particular circumstances are obviously unique, I'm sure a lot of people can identify with that. The way you describe that, as I sort of know what I'm, quote, unquote, supposed to be doing. But I'm not doing it. Or maybe I don't even know where to start. I just know that where I am today is not where I'm meant to be, or I'm not reaching my full potential. What's the best starting point for this conversation? Like where, where do we start, when we start to think about like, I'm at point A, I know I want to be somewhere else, but I don't even know where to begin.
Byron Morrison
So I think the first point is just understanding why you're actually stuck. Because what most people don't realize is that your brain has been wired for quantity of life. And what that means that it's been programmed in a way that it wants to survive, it doesn't want to thrive, it wants to keep everything the same, the same types of relationships, same amount of weight on your body, the same amount of wealth, happiness and joy. The reason why it wants to keep everything the same is everything in your past has been survived. Where's your goals, your dreams, your aspirations, the life that you want, it's all new. And that's why it brings with it in inherent risk. And that's why even though you may be unhappy in your situation, right now, your brain takes comfort in what it knows because it wants to get you keep your life as long as possible. And this is why whenever you're trying to push yourself to move forward, it sabotages you by filling your head with doubts of what if you're not good enough. What if you fail, what if you get rejected, it puts all of these mental barriers in your way, because it wants to keep you stuck where you are. And this is why you have to recognize that that story in your head is designed in a way that it wants to keep you here. And this is why you're never going to be able to move forward with your life and tell you start changing the way that you think. And the first step in that is becoming aware of what are those mental stories and why you're actually getting stuck in your own head.
Kim Meninger
This is so amazing because this is exactly how I think about impostor syndrome too, is I often describe it as this anxiety, right? That's rooted in that brain response to a perceived threat. So if I'm going out and I'm taking on a new role, or I'm stepping outside of my comfort zone in some way, my brain is gonna say danger, right? Alarm bells are gonna go off and then I'm gonna start telling myself the story that I'm not good enough so that I stay stuck in the comfort zone so they don't expose myself to this potential threat. And so this is obviously a really powerful force. And there's a reason for it. I don't think we want to necessarily get rid of it. We, we appreciate that natural survival instinct. But how do we reconcile that with the fact that we want to do more than we want to challenge ourselves? There is a logical part of our brains that say A I want to continue to grow, I want to take these risks. But this sort of anchoring force of No, don't go out there don't do anything different can be really overwhelming. So where's the, where's the opportunity there?
Byron Morrison
So for me, one of the biggest reasons why most people don't achieve their goals is they focus too much on what they want. And they don't figure out who they need to become in order to make it happen. And the reason why this is so important is every new level of success requires a new level of view, which is why your current habits or behaviors, your way of doing things that got you to where you are, isn't gonna get you to the next level. And if anything there, the very reason why you've stuck. And this is why everyone listening to this right now if you're struggling to break through to that next level, you really need to figure out who is the version of you who's actually got there. Like, you might want to close your eyes, visualize it, just think of the person who's actually achieved the goals that you want. And then ask yourself, what did they do to make that happen? What habits did they develop? What routines did they create? What non-negotiables? Do they follow through with every single day that helped them to get to where they are, that's gonna give you a roadmap where you can then figure out, okay, these are the exact changes I need to make in my life to actually become who I want to be. But then the reason why this is so powerful, is anyone can take action on the day, so feel motivated. It's what you do on the days that you don't, that's so important. And this is why you need to stop pushing yourself to show up as that version of you and everything that you do. And the way I tell my clients to do this is, whenever you're faced with something where you're facing that internal friction, you've got to stop and ask yourself, what would the past I want to become do right now? Would they make excuses? Would they put it off? Would they procrastinate? Or would they push themselves to take action because they know it's what needs to get done? And this is applicable, whether it's having a difficult conversation started work on that report going to the gym, anything else you need to do, if you take yourself and your current thoughts and way of doing things out of the equation, and just stop making your actions and decisions based on the person you want to become. That's how you're going to actually break through that discomfort. And that's how you'll change your internal narrative and evolve into that next-level version of you.
Kim Meninger
Wow, I just wrote that down to what would the person I want to be do? Right? And so I'm curious, not, not that we need to get into, like deep therapy kinds of topics. But is there? Is there any pre-work that needs to be done before I can actually get to that point? Like, do you have to face anything in the past? Do you have to heal any wounds? Like, can you start from anywhere?
Byron Morrison
100% percent, like I'm not a therapist, so when I'm dealing with clients, we don't focus on the past, like, it's not my job to help them heal trauma. Like if there's someone comes to me, and they're dealing with a lot of those personal problems, I'll say to like, this is something you need to speak to a therapist about. But the reason why this work is so empowering is your past is irrelevant. The focus is all about what are you going to do now to create the future that you want. Because I never want to take away through the challenges that people have been through the horrific things they've gone, had to endure in their life. But the reason why a lot of people are stuck is they're holding on to that. They're reliving it in their mind, they're beating themselves up, they're dwelling on what they did or didn't do. And the whole point of the work we're talking about here is recognizing you can't change what happened, what's done is done. But you can make a decision right here and now that you're going to do something different. And it's incredibly empowering. When you make that choice of you know what, I'm going to let this go and I'm going to move forward. I'm going to use all of that as a catalyst that's I needed to go through to get me to this point right now that I'm ready to actually jump to that next level. That's how I've really found, found a lot of people just let the past go. Because so often, the reason why we hang on to it is because we're just mentally still living there. And when you start really embracing the present, and be like okay, what action do I need to take today? That's when you can set yourself free.
Kim Meninger
Can you share whether it's your own story or stories of some of the people that you've worked with? Can you share some of this in action? I'd love to hear kind of how to how it plays out in practice. Yeah.
Byron Morrison
So because the theme we're talking about today is imposter syndrome. I've got a really great client example of this. So I had a CEO come to me a couple of years ago who his business was scaling, things were going really well. But he was just being crippled by self-doubt. Like he just had so much impostor syndrome over the fact that he didn't believe that he was a good leader, and he couldn't inspire his team. And we started breaking it down because we had to figure out okay, where is this actually coming from? This wasn't about opening up old trauma, but we need to have a conversation about okay, what's happened to get him to take on this thought pattern. And we traced it all the way back to the start of his career. Because for him, he uncovered that when he first got into a managerial position, he completely floundered. Like was really toxic work environment, everyone was blaming each other, like people were not getting on the same page, and the project he was put in charge of was a complete disaster. And for him, that just shook his confidence so much that he made a decision then and there that he wasn't a good leader. And as we started tracing it through the trajectory of the rest of his career Yeah, he had so many other examples where he'd lead teams to great success. Like he'd scale the company to other projects and other businesses he's worked on, all of these things have gone on. And it only just needed him to take a moment to recognize that that time he failed, was actually the stepping stone, because that taught him what he didn't want in a work culture taught him how to get people on board. It was, even though it was what such a traumatic and painful thing for him was the very thing that set him up with future successes. Because only when he took a moment to take stock of that, that he could see that actually, there was so many situations in his life that proved he was a great leader. And in a moment, he just let it go. So that goes a little bit counterproductive to I was saying before because it wasn't about opening up trauma. But for him, that was just a case of him just needing to stop and be like, Okay, why am I actually thinking this? What evidence is like, making me believe this and what else is going against that allows that allows me to see it differently?
Kim Meninger
It's so interesting that you say that because I think that we are so wired to look at the mistakes that we make, or what we perceive to be failure, and we let that identify, you know, it becomes part of our identity or becomes part of our narrative. And he had all these other successes beyond that, that clearly were not being integrated into the narrative. He was just kind of breezing right past them, right? And I think this is such a classic way in which we operate, especially those of us with impostor syndrome, were so keenly aware of everything we've done wrong, and then all of the successes sort of feel like a fluke. Oh, yeah. But you know, that's explainable by some other thing or that? No, I can't take credit for that. And so I love the way that you talk about it is really looking at the evidence and getting real with ourselves about Wait, is this true?
Byron Morrison
That goes back to what I was talking about before, though, about how your brain is wired. There's probably 99% of people listening to this right now, if you told them like, tell me three things that you did, right? Last week, they probably struggled to come up with an answer. But if you ask them, like, tell me three things that went wrong, they could just list it instantaneously. And that's because we're our own worst enemies here. We put these expectations and standards on ourselves that anything that we fall below that we've just built up in our mind that it's a complete catastrophe. But anything we do well, we just like, oh, well, I should have done that. Anyway. So we, so dismissive of our own progress, and successes. And this is why I'm such a big believer that you have to learn to cut yourself some slack. Because while being your own harshest critic can be a fantastic motivator. If you're someone who never feels like what you do is enough, and you're always beating yourself up and dwelling on what went wrong, or how you didn't get it that one or 2%. Better, you're never going to be happy. Like, you're always going to live your life where you're going to be questioning yourself worth and feeling like you're not enough. And this is why I talked about this in the book. But a big part for me of finding joy in life is learning to balance their standards and expectations and your goals with the reality of what's going on. It's knowing when you can go to bed at night and be like, You know what, I wasn't perfect, but I did enough, I showed up, I did my best and being at peace with that. That for me, is really what it takes to get to that next level. Because if you don't have that internal compassion, and you're always just beating yourself up, you're never going to fully succeed. Because it's always gonna feel like something's missing. And you're just gonna go into this downward spiral.
Kim Meninger
How does compassion fit into this? Because I think that's such an important point. And we beat ourselves up. And there's all the cliches, right? If we talk to ourselves in ways we've never talked to people we loved. But I wonder that, that's rooted in exactly what we're talking about, right of these sort of survival strategies? How do we get to a place where we can give our like, cut ourselves slack and sometimes feels like, we're afraid that if we're too gentle with ourselves that we're somehow going to become complacent or lazy? Or we're never going to actually get to where we're going? And so how do we, how do we get to a place where we can be kinder to ourselves and not feel like we're, you know, that's going to stand in the way of reaching our goals?
Byron Morrison
There's a few aspects to it. The first one is to set more realistic expectations with yourself. Because I find with the CEOs and leaders I work with one of their biggest shortcomings is they overload themselves. So they go into the day wanting to get all of these things done. And it's just never going to happen. Like with everything going on, they're just setting themselves up to fail from the get-go. So it's really being optimistic with okay, what time it's available time dive today, and what can I actually move forward? And one of my favorite questions to ask is looking at the day being like, what do I need to complete by 5 pm to feel like today was a success as that allows you to then be at peace with okay, I moved forward what I wanted to yes, there's still stuff on the to-do list, but you're never getting on top of it. So there'll be the first aspect just set better expectations with what you can actually move forward today. The second one and I was talking to about this with a client last week. He comes, He actually went on a five-day break. And this is something he had planned, he set it up, we put everything prepared in advance. And when he came back in on the Tuesday, he was feeling like he was behind. And he was just dwelling on the fact like I had so much to do. And he was just getting stuck in his own head. And I need to point out to him that the problem is he was stuck in the micro. So he was just focusing on what was going on that day. And when you are only focusing on what's immediately in front of you, that's where you're just going to start to second guess yourself. So you need to balance that with looking at the macro bigger picture. Because one day where maybe you don't perform as well, may seem like a huge issue. I in the moment, over the course of a week, or a month or a year, it's nothing. And this is why you need to take that step back and be like, you know, what if I wasn't as productive today? Is that a reflection of what I've been doing for the last few weeks or months? And if the answer is no, then it's easier to just be like, You know what, maybe I was a bit tired and off my game. Obviously, if you're someone and yourself, they'll be like, you know, what, I haven't been putting in the work. I've been lazy, I haven't done anything. That's a very different conversation to someone who's really trying to push that next level and just has an off day.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, oh, I love this sort of resetting of expectations and how we see ourselves because I think you're right, we live in this environment that's so action-oriented, where we are so judgmental of our productivity. And we set ourselves up for failure on a daily basis with the expectations that we hold for ourselves. And so we're already starting, you know, from, from, I don't even know how to describe it. Right. But you know, we're, we're starting from a losing place. So one thing that I think about is the practicality of what you're talking about, and you had mentioned earlier about how important it is to do this when you're unmotivated versus when you're motivated. So are there like practical things that you can do on a daily basis to remind yourself of these bigger commitments or these bigger ideas? Because when we're in the moment, and it feels like that deadline is looming, or you know, just uh, just go-go-go? I'm not necessarily thinking about the bigger arc of my life lately. So how would you break the habit of just being tied to the now and not zooming out? Like you're describing?
Byron Morrison
I've seen love this question is, like, one thing I do with every single client is I push them to every morning to take 30 seconds to reflect on their goals. Because most people, if you think of like New Year's resolution, as an example, they go into the year, they're really motivated, they're like, this is what I want to do. And then life gets busy. And they forget about it. And then three months later, they're no further along. Whereas if you actually want to make progress, you've got to be hyper-intentional. You've got to start every single day with being like, what am I doing and why? Because when you make your reasons to do something bigger than your reasons not to, that's when it becomes so much easier to follow through. And the way that you do it is through that conscious intention every single morning of being like, what do I actually need to get done? And why am I doing it? I use myself as an example. We started the campaign for my new book last November. And there's been so many days where I'm like, I do not want to work on this today. Like, such a big part of what we're doing is like a ton of content for Instagram and Tiktok. And all of these platforms. And I've regularly got days, I'm like, the last thing I want to sit and do is film TikTok videos for three hours. So what I've done is my big goal with the book is to hit at least the Wall Street Journal, hopefully, the New York Times. So I've actually printed out the New York Times logo best seller, and I have it on my desk in front of me. And every single morning, when I sit down, I've got that visible on the times when I don't feel like Korean content, I didn't feel like doing anything, I can look down and see it. And I'm like, that's why I've got to do it. Because in June, I will be so glad that I did. And I use that as my motive there present me feeling like it no longer is as important as the goal. And so different people this works in different ways. Like, you might be someone when one visual thing is enough. It could even be your family or someone that you're doing this for, it could be the house that you want to buy, like the life you want to live, you could turn into a vision board, you could write it down, like it really doesn't matter. I've even got one client who meditates every morning and he visualizes the life he wants to create and who he asked to beat to make it happen. The implementation of it is really dependent on the individual. You've got to figure out what motivates you and pushes you to want to take action and then you have to be disciplined with being consistent with it.
Kim Meninger
We think about this a lot too. And because what you're describing is beyond just a goal, it's the value that's associated with that goal, right? And I think that sometimes we get we, we forget why we're doing something. And so one of the things that I often think about as a strategy when dealing with self-doubt, so let's just use as an example you're in the workplace and you're, you're questioning yourself and you're thinking to yourself, like do I speak up in this moment or do I not If you really understand to your point, who do you want to be? What, what are your core values? How do you want people to experience you? Or how do you want to be perceived, right? That, that gives you if you hold on to that really tightly in that moment, when you're not sure what to do, if you can always ask yourself, which of these paths is in greatest alignment with the person that I want to be with the, the, like, the, which of these paths is in greatest alignment with my core values, you're not always going to pick that path, maybe you're tired, maybe you know, there's something else going on. But for the most part, it becomes a check on you. And it pushes you through the fear and the sort of inertia and allows you to show up as is who you want to be. And then it becomes sort of self-reinforcing over time. So I love the idea of just kind of keeping at the forefront. What is it I really care about? So it's a constant reminder when I find myself D motivated or uncertain. This is the path to go down.
Byron Morrison
Yep. And that's why that's my favorite question. Like, let's say that person is in the meeting. And they're like, I don't know if I should talk up, or I'm nervous and ask yourself, like, what would the person I want to become do right now? And then the way that you feel is irrelevant, and push yourself to take action. There's another one I love using as well. And that is, am I going to regret later not having done this? Because a lot of the time in the moment we talk ourselves out of it because we're afraid. But then later that day, we beat ourselves up. So you've got, like, reframing in your mind is, are you then gonna feel worse later on that you didn't do it. And this is applicable for every area of your life. Like I used to say the other day where I had a really long day, and I didn't know when to go to the gym. I was like, I want nothing more than to sit on the couch and watch TV. And I just asked myself like, am I going to regret this evening? That I put this off? And the answer was yes. So I was like, You know what, I'm going to make a decision to go and get done. And it's just one of those future reframing, I find this so incredibly powerful because it's all about then pushing you to make decisions based on where you want to get to not on where you are. Because if you just try and rely on feelings and what you want to do in the moment, chances are, you're not going to actually push yourself to face what you should. So you have to eliminate that and, and start making decisions on that future version of you or the life that you want.
Kim Meninger
I love that I think that's such a great point. And I think about a lot how we're so wired for loss avoidance. And I think that goes back to what we were talking about earlier with the survival strategies that we just, we don't want to lose anything in this moment. Or you want to eliminate pain in this moment. But we don't think long-term about what do I lose by not doing it right. What do I lose by playing small or getting into this fear?
Byron Morrison
I'd love to build on that quick use. I did a video about this a couple of days ago because I did another show where we're talking about fear. And they were talking about how do you actually break through that I said, one of my favorite ways is to tip the scale in the other direction. Because we get so caught up mentally on focusing on what if I fail, what if I get rejected all of those things if you want to overcome that you have to tip the scale in a way that the fear of not knowing becomes worse. So it's like what happens if you reach the end of your days, and you regret never haven't gone after your goals? What happens if you don't hit your sales target, so you can't provide for your family, like whatever it is, you have to make it more painful not to take action than to actually take action because then suddenly you become more afraid of not following through. And it's a such an empowering thing. It's just taking that fear and completely flipping it. And that just shows how those mental stories can either hold you back, or you can use them to drive yourself forward.
Kim Meninger
I love that. I think that's it that is very consistent with I was thinking about like what's bigger than the current fear? It is really just kind of zooming out and looking at that bigger picture. And I guess my question for you is because I know that everybody's going to be thinking this is time, right? It sounds like when you talk about the practical steps. It sounds like you're talking about 30 seconds, you're talking about, you know, a couple minutes here and there. But I'm sure there are people listening that are thinking oh my gosh, this sounds like I'm going to be spending all my time thinking about my goals and thinking about myself not have time to do anything else. How does time factor in?
Byron Morrison
Depends on the individual, but this very much is just if you're focusing on getting stuff done. It's just auditing within yourself whenever you're facing that internal resistance. Because if someone sat there wondering, oh, I don't know where I'm going to have time for this. My question to them would be how much time are you wasting by not doing the things you should be doing? Because often you're then go-to responses to procrastinate, and rather than doing something that could take you five minutes, you sit around for two hours, like scrolling social media or doing things to avoid that discomfort. So that's why I'm always curious whenever anyone throws a time objection my way. It's like yeah, but how much time are you losing by not doing this? And it's then it becomes easier to prioritize it. And also as well when you start seeing the benefit of using these products. This is like when you notice, okay, if I start my day and I look at my goals, it helps me get super focused and motivated. All of a sudden you recognize on the days you don't you, you're less productive. So it's the simple things. And when you compound them together, that's what has a huge impact. So it's just about figuring out again, on an individual level, what really works for you. Because the best practice for you may not work for me. And it's just, this is why one big thing I always say with personal development is you've got to just try all these things, and just see what really clicks with you. And then just figure out, okay, these are the things I need to do every single day that allows me to feel and perform at my best.
Kim Meninger
I think that's such a, such a great point, too. Because if we're identifying with what you're saying, then obviously, the current way of doing things isn't working for us. So we're obviously losing a lot of time, just like you're describing, you know, whether that's in procrastination, or beating ourselves up, or all of the different ways in which we respond to the fact that we're not getting to where we want to be. So it's not necessarily that time is additive, right? It's substitution of time for, you know, doing certain things today that we're not doing in place of other things that we're doing that we can start to remove.
Byron Morrison
And it's also just coming back to being a little bit honest with yourself about what's really going on. Because I've been fortunate over the last few years, I set the beating of working with CEOs and leaders in 15 countries. And one of the biggest challenges that comes up when people first reach out to me, it's like, I don't have enough time to get things done. Like I had an application call recently with a guy and he was just like, I'm so busy, I have no time for anything like he was working like 70-hour weeks, and we broke it down. And he was losing a good six hours a day, just to procrastination. He likes it on YouTube, he'd avoid things. So he that he'd have to work late, and then he'd have to sacrifice time with his family. So that was causing issues in his marriage because he was always feeling like he was behind. And he had convinced himself, they were super busy. But he wasn't actually getting much done. And that's why you've got to be honest with yourself and recognize that there's a really big difference between being focused and productive, and just being caught in busy work and tasks that don't really matter. So you've got to audit, like, yeah, you're busy, but is it actually valuable worth it? And it's, it can be a tough pill to swallow at first. But when you can recognize that, maybe it's not a time problem, maybe it's an effectiveness problem, maybe you're not making the best use of the time that you have. And when you can own that you can be like, Okay, I need to overcome these things. That's how you can start getting it under control.
Kim Meninger
I think that I love the use of the term auditing because I think so much of how we spend our time is unconscious, we're not really thinking about it. And we are creatures of habit, we unless you start to actually think about how you're spending your time and the quality of that time, we, we don't necessarily think you don't necessarily see the ways in which we're wasting time.
Byron Morrison
That goes back to what I said before about getting stuck in the micro though, because when you're someone who's in a busy job and a career, and you've got family and all these things going on, you're stuck in the day to day, so your focus is just trying to survive. And this is why you have to look at that macro picture, you need to take a little bit of time at the end of the week and just look back. Okay, what did I actually do this week? What tasks did I get involved in? What projects? Did I work on? What conversations did I get pulled into what fires did I focus on that probably shouldn't have? And just look back and be like, okay, based on that, what do I need to commit to not doing anymore? Like people get so caught up crank to-do lists, but one of my favorite is creating a not to do list. It's the things that you're going to commit to no longer doing going forward. Because I regularly have clients come to me and we audit what they're doing. And just by going through and figuring out what's busy work, what doesn't matter? What shouldn't they be doing? We often remove over 50% of the stuff that they're doing, because it doesn't actually matter. Or it should be delegated to a member of their team or hand it off. But they don't do it because they haven't stopped to think about it. So it's like yes, that 15 minutes may seem like hassle. But that can save you hours every single week.
Kim Meninger
That's amazing. I'm curious because you mentioned 15 countries. Do you see any cultural differences? Is there anything that you notice? In certain countries that you don't see in others?
Byron Morrison
Not really, the mainly wine is kind of like Middle East where they're working days are a little bit different. So you've got to be a little bit more flexible because they do kind of weekends or Friday, Saturday kind of in Israel side of it for like the tech guys. I've worked with that. But culturally like people are people. Like at the end of the day, it's like a lot of the time it's just understanding why you're thinking what you're doing, because we like to think that we're all so different. But internally, we have so many different similarities. And that's why I think a lot of the time we just build up issues in our head whereas actually if we start cutting it goes back to cutting yourself a little bit of slack and just slowing down and being like what's actually going on here. But all So from my experience, like with my kind of exposure to people, it has been very European North America. So I haven't worked too much in the Asia and Africa side of things. So there may be cultural differences that I haven't been exposed to there. But for the kind of Western countries I've been involved in, it's been very much kind of across the board, similar challenges going on.
Kim Meninger
But I think that's why it's so important to hear the stories that you're sharing because I think we often do feel like, well, my situation is different. You know, yeah, maybe there are other stories out there, but I'm the exception. Whereas after a while, you start to realize we there are more similarities than there are differences.
Byron Morrison
Yeah, but this goes back to the, the issue. And I think a big part of this is driven by social media because so many people live their life scrolling and comparing themselves to others. And then they feel bad about their own situation. And this way, anyone listening to this has to recognize that whether you go on LinkedIn, or Facebook or Instagram, like people are already putting up what they want you to see. So you're essentially comparing your life to someone else's highlight reel. But not only that, people also generally only post the positives. So this is why a lot of people feel like they're alone in their challenges, because they're like, oh, everyone else has got this great, amazing life. And of course, that's what you've seen, like, if you go on LinkedIn, or any other platform, you're just scrolling through, it's all wins and positives. So you're just like seeing the segment of whatever it is on that day of the stuff going right in those people's lives. So that's why you feel alone. And this is why I've aimed my content to be such an open book or being like, these are the challenges I have gone through that I'm currently going through and just try and share my own story. Because I know back when I was starting out, I felt like I was the only person going through these problems. And now at this point of working with so many different people, I've seen that, with every single person struggling with self-doubt with worrying about if they're good enough with worrying about what everyone thinks about them. It's such a universal thing. But because it's uncomfortable, we don't talk about it. So that leaves a lot of people to feel isolated in something that is very much around the globe, every single person problem.
Kim Meninger
Yeah. It's so true. I feel, I love that comparing your real life to somebody else's highlight reel because I do think that we all think everyone else has it all put together. And we're the only ones and there's something wrong with us. But just, just knowing that everyone else is feeling the same way will hopefully create a little bit more comfort and security. I have a question for you. Can you talk a little bit more about your book and why you named it? Maybe you should give up?
Byron Morrison
Yeah, so I absolutely love this question. Because everyone's a little bit shocked at first, they don't want to give up. And we've been convinced by the personal development and self-help industry that if you quit, and you give up, you're a failure, and you're not good enough. And I find for a lot of people, that mentality is actually the very reason why they, they're stuck. And it's just like after my own journey and everything I went through, what I uncovered is subconsciously, there's seven mental barriers that every single one of us is holding on to, that's actually keeping us where we are. Whether it's to fear comparing yourself to others being too hard on yourself, worrying about problems that haven't happened yet we have all of these mental blocks that causes us to get in our own way and sabotage ourselves. And that's why the book is not about giving up on your goals and dreams. It's about giving up on everything that's stopping you from actually achieving them. So ultimately, it's a book about empowerment, that helping you break through everything that's stopping you from going to the next level of success and creating the life that you want.
Kim Meninger
It sounds amazing. I can't wait to read it. I really am really excited. Where when is it going? When is it getting published? Where can people find you?
Byron Morrison
So the book is out June 27. It's available now anywhere that you can order books, and people can find out more about me at Byron morrison.com. And I'm also active on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok. Just search for author Byron Morrison, and I'll come up.
Kim Meninger
Thank you so much for this amazing conversation. Byron, I have no doubt it's going to be helpful. This is just it's so nice to be able to pick apart what's getting in the way so we can rethink and just be more intentional about how we're operating within our lives. I just don't think we give enough thought to it. Yeah,
Byron Morrison
I've said this one final thing, I'd just love to add in quickly that I just really wanted to include on the topic of imposter syndrome, because a lot of people see impostor syndrome as a bad thing. But the way I see it, if you don't have at least a small element of imposter syndrome, that's a sign that you're playing too small. Because so many people see it as a stain that they're not good enough, where's actually that growth and the success you're trying to get to that means you're moving in the right direction? So therefore impostor syndrome is only a bad thing if it paralyzes you. Whereas if you use it as a auditing self-awareness to have either Okay, or if you got impostor syndrome because you need to put yourself in more situations to Grow your confidence or do you need to do it to develop the skill set, figure out where it's coming from double down on that. And that's how you're going to improve. So I think it's just that reframing of a lot of people see as a bad thing, but I see it's just a sign of growth.
Kim Meninger
I love that I completely agree with you. I sometimes say that I think about that myself is if I'm getting a little bit too comfortable if I'm not feeling any self-doubt, oh, that's a, that's a signal that I need to be stretching myself a bit more looking for that new challenge. So thank you again, Byron. This has been so great.
Byron Morrison
Thank you for having me here.