Why Did You Even Look At That?

Written By Bart Berkey | Founder of Most People Don't

When You Go Looking for Pain

"Why are you even looking at that right now?"

My daughter lives in Hawaii, so we get a few days a year and not many more than that.

She was in the seat beside me, the windows were down, and it was a morning I had been looking forward to for months.

And I was holding my phone.

I had opened LinkedIn for no reason at all.

There was a small break in the conversation, and my hand went to my pocket the way it frequently does.

The first thing on the screen was another speaker's post, and she was booked at eight events in November.

What I felt was sadness, and then something closer to shame, and it took about two seconds to get there.

Why wasn't I selected for that corporate event, and why wasn't I on the list for that association conference?

Then I started doing the thing we all do, which is negotiating with the feeling.

Maybe some of those are unpaid, maybe a few are small rooms, maybe she used to work at one of those companies and they just called her back.

I was sitting in a rental car in Hawaii, on the one trip we get, with my daughter next to me, building a legal defense against a stranger's good news.

Nobody had sent me that post, no client had emailed me about it, and no one had walked up and told me I was behind.

There was a break in the conversation, and my hand automatically went to my pocket. I went and got it myself.

Most of what hurts in a life arrives without asking, but this arrived because I drove to it.

And then I did something I am even less proud of.

When You Go Looking for Proof

Still in the car, I went looking for proof that I was okay.

I checked my last newsletter's open rate, then new leads, then views and likes and comments on my own posts, hunting for a number that would settle me down.

Think about what that actually was.

A stranger's calendar made me feel small, so I went digging through my own statistics for permission to feel normal again, while my daughter sat two feet away from me and we only had three days together.

She said it a second time, and this time she took the whole thing apart.

Be happy that someone gets to do what they love for a living. Be glad that this speaker has that many chances to share her message and help people, and be grateful that there are that many companies out there who believe an outside voice is worth paying for, because that is the industry you make your living in.

Every single one of those is true, and not one of them had occurred to me.

Optional Pain

Some pain is assigned to you, whether that is illness or loss or the phone call you did not want or the client who leaves. It shows up whether or not you were ready, and your only job is how you carry it.

Optional pain is different, because it is the pain you go get.

It is the app you opened during a break in the conversation, the comparison you ran when nobody asked you to, the scroll you started because your hands were empty for eleven seconds.

None of it was required, and every bit of it costs the same as the real thing.

The test is simple, and it is to ask who or what caused you this pain?

If the honest answer is that you went and got it yourself, then you are allowed to stop it too.

Take the Pressure Off Yourself

There was guilt sitting underneath all of it, and the guilt was about not working.

Some of us have a hard time being still, because quiet feels like slipping and a day off feels like a day someone else is using to get ahead of us.

So we bring the office along on the trip, in our pocket and call it staying on top of things.

Trust your team, your colleagues, and the process you built, to hold for a few days without you standing over it, because it will, and because nothing is wrong.

And once in a while you need someone who loves you, a family member or a friend or a colleague, to look over and tell you to stop punishing yourself.

Give yourself the grace you would hand any of them without thinking twice.

Later on that trip we stood looking at a volcano that has been there for longer than anyone can hold in their head.

Ten events in November did not seem like much of an emergency from where we were standing.

Three things to try this week

1. Change what the app is for. Go to notifications and messages only and skip the feed, because you will still see anyone who is actually trying to reach you and you will stop volunteering for the rest. It takes about four seconds to start doing and you can begin today.
2. Ask who handed it to you. The next time something on a screen makes you feel behind, ask whether anyone sent it or whether you went and got it, and if you went and got it, put the phone down and pick your head up. You do not have to be talked out of the feeling, because you never had to have it in the first place.
3. Say the good thing out loud. When someone in your field wins, say one specific sentence about why you are glad, either to them or to the person sitting next to you. Being glad for someone is a skill, and like every other skill it gets easier the more times you use it.

When there is a break in the action and your first instinct is to reach for your phone, do not, and pause and look up instead.

At six in the morning on Oahu, what is actually around me are coffee shop workers high-fiving each other at the start of a shift, a server using a repeat customer's first name, a stranger stopping to thank someone in uniform for their service, a mom bringing her toddler in before school, and an employee eating the free breakfast that comes with the job before the day starts.

None of that was on my phone, and all of it was three feet away.

Something made you feel behind this week.

Did anyone hand it to you, or did you go and get it?

Most people don't. But YOU do.

Bart

If your team knows what to do, but isn't consistently doing it, let's fix that.

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I sit down with CEOs, founders, hospitality leaders, entrepreneurs, association executives, and everyday standouts, and ask questions to uncover their motivations, drives, and habits, then conclude the conversation by asking each of them to finish the same sentence: "Most people don't __."

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