Todd: 0:00

This is the Cluttered Path, a compass for midlife. Have you ever wondered what really happens behind closed doors with a therapist? For years I was skeptical I mean, I was even judgmental about mental health and the people who sought help from a therapist. What if everything we've heard about therapy is just misguided? Today we're clearing up misconceptions. With licensed psychotherapist Steve McCready. We're going to uncover why these chronic adapters, overthinkers and people pleasers actually have way more options than just simply dealing with it. We're going to learn why real change isn't about some magic formula. It's really about finding your story instead of trying to fit someone else's mold. So whether you've doubted therapy, you felt misunderstood or you just wanted to understand what makes us tick, today's conversation might be the nudge you need to finally get unstuck. So, steve, welcome to the show.

Steve: 1:00

Thanks for having me, todd, good to be here.

Todd: 1:03

Great to have you, so it really is an honor to meet with you. Could you kick us off by telling us a bit about yourself and how you became a psychotherapist?

Steve: 1:11

Sure, so my name is Steve McCready. I am currently in Sacramento, california. I grew up primarily in Santa Cruz, though I was a little bit I was like 10 when we moved there. But that's kind of what I consider home because it's the place that probably most shaped me. But I've been here in Sacramento since 1992. So yeah, psychotherapist, I also do some coaching, my professional background involved. I used to work in IT A very, very long time ago. I worked in radio for a bit of time.

Steve: 1:41

Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember listening to it, playing it more enthusiastically than good, and all of that, but so yeah. So from the standpoint of therapy, I came to therapy as a career when I hit in what I sometimes refer to as an early midlife crisis, had an episode of major depression, went to therapy myself. Early midlife crisis, had an episode of major depression, went to therapy myself. And through the process both of that but also of some career counseling because it was some severe career dissatisfaction that's part of what triggered the depression, not the only thing, but part of it Through that exploration came to the awareness that actually therapist is kind of a job that has a lot of things about it that would fit well for me. It's kind of a quiet, low-key job, right. It's you one-on-one with people, you have this nice, quiet, peaceful space and all that. I'm like that seems kind of cool, and as I looked more into it it became clear it was the kind of thing that really could fit me pretty well.

Steve: 2:37

And so, after I learned about the graduate programs in the area, decided to go for it and got myself through that program, did all my training, got licensed, and so I've had my own private practice since 2006.

Steve: 2:51

And for me, my focus now is really largely on a pretty specific group of folks, and these are people who often have difficulty navigating through the world because they are very attuned to their environment, very concerned about the different things around them, and that sometimes happens to a degree or an extent that it really interferes with their own ability to hold on to themselves and to follow their path, their path. My job is to help them find balance effectively to be able to empower themselves, but to do so in a way that is still mindful of those other relationships and other people in the world, and to really go from lose-win to win-win in the relational space, but also to be able to find ways to live lives that are more true and authentic to themselves, because I think that that's really the only way they're going to be able to do whatever it is that they're meant to do here in the world. Excellent.

Todd: 3:54

Before we get into the questions, I just want to start by sharing how I developed a negative perspective on pretty much the entire mental health profession on pretty much the entire mental health profession. And it started well, probably when I was younger. But one thing that stands out is when I was in boot camp, it was a pretty stressful time. I was at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, parris Island, and just out of high school we're all kids except for a few guys. It's pretty stressful for us and inevitably, with all the stress they were putting on us, somebody's going to have a mental breakdown.

Todd: 4:23

And one guy it happened to him just had a mental breakdown and the drill instructors just turned the entire platoon against him and they made a show of making. It was like a ceremonious packing of his stuff. While they're sitting there yelling at him, he's throwing all of his stuff in his sea bag. We're getting rid of him, we're dumping him. And they turned the whole platoon against the recruit and then one of the drill instructors got in his face and was like you know what? You're going to see? The wizard, do you understand? And that's what they referred to the psychiatrist or psychologist and they just called him the wizard because it was just this mysterious, magical thing. And then what they did was they made the entire platoon sing that song from the Wizard of Oz. We're Off to See the Wizard.

Todd: 5:09

It was surreal, and it was just the guy's already suffering mentally and then they added that to the mix. He was just crying. I mean, there was, it was a significant mental breakdown, and so that experience and others fostered in me a negative view of the pretty much the entire mental health profession. So, just starting with the questions here, for people like me, can you pull back the curtain on psychotherapy? What is it?

Steve: 5:33

Sure, and I will do that in just a minute, but first I wanted to speak to what you were just talking about in this deeper issue that's at play here, and it comes down to this it is still not okay for men to be vulnerable in our society, and that is in part because there continues to be a conflation of vulnerability with weakness, and the two things are not the same. Just because I might allow myself to feel some very intense, very overwhelming, very powerful feelings, does not mean I'm going to be reduced to a just like you know, quivering ball of flesh that can't do anything. They're not the same, but they often are conflated as that, and we still live in a society with all too many places where men are punished for having feelings treated as weak and all of that. And so when you start looking at the idea of something like therapy, where we're going to talk about, yeah, feelings, you can see why people would have kind of a negative perspective on it. Of course, there's a heck of a lot more to it than that, and so, yeah, so the thing here therapy is not, at least necessarily just about like let's have you get more comfortable with your feelings and get more, you know, connected with your feelings, though that is often a component of it.

Steve: 6:57

But it really comes down to this it's about how do we help somebody who has what I would generally refer to as a hostile or antagonistic relationship with themselves and the thoughts and feelings in their head. How do we transform that so they have a healthy and functional relationship with themselves and all of those parts, even the ones, and especially maybe the ones that they don't necessarily like so much, because we all have those, even me. I've done more than my fair share of therapy and guess what? I still have those parts. I have a different relationship with them now than I used to, but I still don't love those parts. I've just learned how to work with them and I've come to see they do have some value to offer.

Todd: 7:45

Yeah, I mean that resonates. I mean I totally a hundred percent agree with what you're saying, because I've spent much of my adult life hiding and not understanding that it's okay to talk about feelings. But in retrospect I can look back and I can see some of the best leaders that I encountered in the military were people that were emotional and they shared their feelings but you still respected them. I mean people that have this command presence but at the same time they were personable and they could interact with you and they could share how they're feeling about things. That's as a society, I agree, we've really caused men to suppress things.

Steve: 8:20

So yeah, and I think the thing here is that it's about letting your feelings be what they're supposed to be, which is a very powerful and important source of information. Your feelings tell you about what matters to you, about your values, about where those things are being violated or pushed on or threatened, and there can be tremendous power in emotion. And there can be tremendous power in emotion. No-transcript becomes problematic, but, as you've said, when you see somebody who really understands the power of them and can embrace it, there's tremendous energy there that you can do some pretty impactful things with.

Todd: 9:13

Excellent. Yeah, I'm from the mountains of North Carolina, so we didn't talk about feelings, we, uh no, we just bottled it up until we exploded, Right? So yeah, I've seen a lot of that. So how does psychotherapy compare to just counseling, regular therapy or other forms of therapy? I'm speaking ignorantly here. Sure, when does psychotherapy fit in the big scheme of?

Steve: 9:38

things. So it's a good question and a lot of this is just a matter of labels. There is in some cases, certain legal elements, like psychotherapy and I'm. I can only speak to california as it relates to this stuff because I that's the state that I'm licensed in, but psychotherapy is a um, it's a legally protected term here, so anyone can call themselves a counselor, um, and there were, you know, things around that are a little bit different, but, like you can't call yourself a psychotherapist unless you hold specific licenses, and there's five or six different psychotherapy licenses in California. You might be doing more or less the similar work, not necessarily to the same depth or other things, but at some level any of these are about.

Steve: 10:22

Therapist is obviously a generic term. Are you a psychotherapist? Are you a massage therapist? Are you a physical therapist? People use therapist as shorthand because it turns out that saying psychotherapist is kind of a mouthful. Like you know, I still I mean, I've been doing this for a very long time and like people will say, you know what do you do? I'm like I'm a psychotherapist Half the time it comes out of my mouth muddily, not like I don't know what I do. It's just a hard word to say. A lot of times it's like I'm just a therapist.

Steve: 10:51

Nowadays, therapy has at least become a lot more normalized. When somebody hears therapist, a lot of people just assume psychotherapist, therapist. So they're all basically people who are helping people in some way shape or form around issues of psychological stuff, so stuff in their head or aspects of navigating life in the world and relationships. But some of the different terms can relate to different levels of training, different levels of licensure, etc. So there's a difference. It's not necessarily a critical thing, especially because there's actually not much data suggesting that a lot of the different licenses or levels of training necessarily have a great relationship to outcome. As an example, there are intern-level therapists who aren't licensed they're working under supervision who can get outcomes that are better than clinicians who've been practicing for like 20-plus years, like me.

Steve: 11:51

Wow we don't do enough to study outcomes and what works, but also because, much as we want to make this into this hard science, all measurable kind of thing, the reality is it's a healing relationship between two people and the quality of that relationship is so unique and so nuanced and so critical to the outcome that it becomes hard to look at things like well, this technique is going to work better than that technique, because technique is only 15% of therapeutic outcome anyway.

Todd: 12:33

Wow, that's eye-opening Because, yeah, I've talked to various counselors and some people favor different techniques over others and a lot of it was formulaic. I mean, I would encountered some people that would just send me a Word document and say hey, just read this document, and it was like okay, cool, thanks.

Steve: 12:52

And Todd, how did that make you feel Unwanted? Sorry, therapist joke, but that is the thing. People aren people, people aren't formulas. I think therapeutic frameworks have their place and I think certainly there are conceptual elements that are, that are critical and valuable. So I don't want to be completely dismissive of them. But at the same time you can't really think of therapy as a recipe. The process of me working with somebody. It's not. It's not like it's not a recipe, it is a puzzle that we are putting together. So sure, there are certain ideas and approaches and concepts we can use to help do that puzzle, but the reality is we're going to visit every part of the puzzle a bunch of times. We're not going to do it in order. We're going to have parts that are really hard and parts that are just super easy, and it doesn't even make sense why. That's always been my take on it. It's not a recipe, it's a puzzle.

Todd: 13:45

Yeah, and I'm guessing you have to visit things many times before people go.

Steve: 13:51

oh yeah, I get it now For a lot of different reasons, for sure, for a lot of different reasons, but yeah, that's true. And people, you know, one of the conversations I've had with literally almost every client I've ever worked with is to be like you know, why is it taking me so long to get this? Or I bet none of your other clients take this long. Lot of this connects to our emotional brain, to our amygdala, to these very powerful, very primitive parts of our brain that are wired and oriented around survival, and so that stuff can be very, very sticky in our brains. It does not let go easily. It takes work and practice, because you are basically retraining yourself and, in the process, often dismissing behaviors and things that your brain, at one point they probably were a survival mechanism, to be fair, but your brain still thinks are, and so part of your brain thinks you're basically telling it to like do the equivalent of you want me to jump out of this plane without a parachute? No wonder that brain's like, uh, no, yeah no thanks.

Todd: 15:10

Yeah, I don't want to do that. So yeah, now what's the difference between therapy and coaching? You do both, yeah.

Steve: 15:18

Yeah, so that is a good and distinctive question. So coaching and this is, I mean, coaching is a whole other thing. But so therapy is, again, legally regulated, right, and every different state has licensing requirements and such, and very specifically, one of the things that comes into it is we are treating people with diagnosable mental health disorders, and that's its own kind of can of worms. I won't get into that particular topic because we could literally spend an hour talking about diagnosis and all of that, but suffice it to say so. This is some like somebody who is suffering from depression or suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder. Coaching is not the appropriate thing for them, and a coach who treated them for that would be doing therapy without a license, which is legal issues, because you're basically it's like a doctor practicing without a license same thing.

Todd: 16:10

So coaching is typically more.

Steve: 16:16

It can be related issues.

Steve: 16:17

Right, you might be helping someone to be more focused, to be more productive, to be more motivated, but you're working with someone who's coming from more of a I'll say a non, you know a baseline.

Steve: 16:31

That is not necessarily a case where they'd be able to be diagnosed with something, so it might be just someone who's like, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm kind of scattered and overwhelmed or stressed out and I don't know how to manage it. Now there's cases where that can overlap. I have people in my therapy practice who and I generally avoid diagnosis unless it's necessary anyway, but they don't have a diagnosable mental health disorder. But again, the same tools and strategies that I'm using can work there. But that is a person who, in a different context or situation, they might choose to seek out a coach and that would be appropriate. So that's kind of a broad answer, a shorter way you can put it. This is simplistic to to say that up front. Sometimes you, you can think of it as therapy is often about getting from bad to good and coaching is about getting from good to great or good to better.

Steve: 17:24

I like that um, or okay to better, and that's you know. So that's another way of looking at it. Coaching is inherently forward thinking. We're not going to talk about your mom and coaching right, or your childhood generally, because we're looking at more how do we go forward, how do we build on things, whereas therapy we often are getting into the background, not because all of us therapists are obsessed with your mothers, but because we actually understand the brain and how the brain works and how our childhood experiences can be so fundamentally and deeply shaping and how we see it engaged in the world. And if we understand those better, then we can work with you to reprogram your understanding of them so that they don't control you in the same problematic way that they have been.

Todd: 18:05

So that's why we go there. Yeah, one of my misconceptions when I was young was basically you go get therapy and they talk you into a problem and it's like that's not it.

Steve: 18:19

And let's be clear, like I mean, there are therapists out there who don't do their jobs well, like in every field, and it is a thing where we have to be careful because we are sometimes opening up some things that have been sealed and closed off. And that has to be done with care and caution, because I'm doing work with people sometimes that can get some pretty intense emotions coming up and if I'm not helping them be able to deal with those, it can actually cause some real problems. So that's one example where it kind of could do what you're worried about some real problems. So that's one example where it kind of could do what you're worried about. But then there's also this Sometimes what we're doing is we're taking something.

Steve: 19:05

I would liken it to this let's say, god forbid. As a teenager you're up in the tree in your family's front yard, you fall out of the tree and you break your arm and for whatever ridiculous reason, your neglectful parents don't take you to the doctor. Like it doesn't look that bad, it'll probably be fine, but it turns out it's broken. It heals, but it heals weird right. And then, like later on in life, you're like this is causing some real problems for me and you go see an orthopedist who's like, well, okay, we get. The good news is we can fix it. The bad news is we're going to have to break it and reset it properly.

Steve: 19:33

Therapy sometimes is similar to that, but more in a mental, emotional way. We're taking these things and going and kind of opening them up and that can be pretty distressing and it will sometimes be a case where things might get worse before they get better, because we're going into stuff. But it really has to be done with caution, slowly, deliberately, giving people things to use to help soothe themselves as they're going through it, you know, and all of that. But the other one I sometimes compare it to is like remodeling your kitchen. You know, you get about a third of the way through and you're like why did I set a bomb off in my kitchen? What the heck is wrong? And it looks like this isn't good. How is this progress? But when you're done, of course you've got this beautiful new kitchen. So sometimes things got to get messy before they get better.

Todd: 20:18

Yeah, yeah. So I mean that lays the foundation, then, for psychotherapy, counseling and all of that stuff. So let's talk about some of our common struggles as human beings. Now you've used the phrase chronic adapter. What is that, and how does that negatively impact us?

Steve: 20:35

Sure, so first I'm going to talk about actually how it could be useful. So adaptation is part of why humans are still here. We are incredibly adaptable, right. We adjust to different types of environments, different kinds of challenges, different kinds of situations, and that's great when it's necessary. Challenges, different kinds of situations and that's great when it's necessary.

Steve: 20:55

Sometimes people grow up in environments where they are not given space or support for being who they are. They're judged, they're criticized, they're attacked, they're punished. Now, this can be something in any number of circumstances that that can arise, right, that can be somebody being bullied at school for being a little bit different. That can be a home where someone is just having normal kid wants and needs, but because their parents are narcissists, they're not allowing space for it. Or because their parents are caught up in their own stuff and their own drama, there's not space for it. So sometimes we learn to adapt as a way of getting by and we get good at it. Now it also has this side effect when you're really adaptable and flexible, it will get you compliments and praise if you do it right.

Steve: 21:45

You're so strong, it's so great how you adjust to all of these difficulties and challenges and just kind of go through with them Uh-huh. Yeah, it's great, except for the fact that it's costing me my identity, right, and so that's what I mean. So it's one of those things, and this is true of a lot of coping behaviors. It's not like they don't have an upside right. People are generally not just like hitting their heads against a wall right, because that is just inherently bad and painful. People do things because there's some real or perceived benefit, and in a lot of behaviors like people pleasing is another great example Yep, if you do it in the right environment, it'll get you a lot of positive attention. If you do it in a work environment, I mean, I used to joke that basically when I was in IT I worked in a couple law firms and literally all the paralegals and legal secretaries.

Steve: 22:46

They were all people pleasers and it made them very good at their jobs until they burned out. Yeah, I can see that, and so any of those forms of adaptation. Again, they have an upside, but they have this downside called they're not sustainable and they take your identity Right you become a doormat. You become a doormat and you don't even know who you are anymore, in some cases because you're so busy being whatever you think you need to be to manage the environment right. It's like a chameleon that forgets what its natural color is, essentially.

Todd: 23:12

That's the word. I was Right when you said it. I was thinking chameleon. So yeah, chronic adapter, so that can be. That can have a negative impact. Sure, so for me, I'm an overthinker and I'm a huge self-criticizer. I'm always just torturing myself. Why do we do that and why can't we stop doing?

Steve: 23:30

it. So let's see. So we'll tackle the self-criticism first. I think there's a couple of things that go into that One, and I want to say this like because I probably won't hit it on everything we talk about today.

Steve: 23:51

Very few of these things have a single solitary origin. A lot of them have I like to think of it as layers, and there's almost always a societal layer, by which I mean there are ways in which our culture creates certain norms or puts out certain messaging, or says certain things or teaches us certain things, and the self-criticism is one where I'm convinced that this is the case. How many movies have you seen where it's a sports movie and the team is down at the half and the coach comes in and just starts yelling at everyone and ripping everyone and they come out in the second half and do some amazing performance and win the game? Or where it's happened on an individual level, right, and that's true. You see that in the military movies, where the drill sergeant comes in and just yells at them and screams at them and then they get their act together and suddenly turn better. So we've got this message that that's actually an effective motivational tool that has been put out there through culture, even though there's nothing in psychological research to support the idea that criticism does anything to help. Criticism does anything to help. It can in certain cases create a very short-term bump because of fear, but it's not sustainable and it comes with a tremendous price. But I think that's one of the things that comes for self-criticism. That's one.

Steve: 25:01

Now here's another one One of the things that ideally happens as we're growing up. If we have healthy enough parents who are appropriately critical when we make mistakes, appropriately complimentary when we do things well, we learn to get an accurate perspective on right and wrong and learn to kind of engage around a more healthy form of self-management. We basically internalize that parent eventually and it becomes our internal kind of guide or conscience. And there are people out there who you know they have that and they don't struggle with this. If we don't get that, maybe we have a parent who's particularly harsh. Maybe we don't have a parent who's involved or engaged at all, because they're either neglectful or they're engaged in substance use or caught up in other things in their life. They're just stressed out because they're working three jobs. We may not have a parental model and it seems that if we don't, what we tend to do is we tend to internalize this very rigid black and white one that does things like basically if it's not perfect, it's garbage.

Steve: 26:07

I do that, yeah, right.

Steve: 26:09

And so there's any number of factors here where we have that happen, where we we can really internalize that, and it's supported by this belief that like, well, that's how we get ourselves to get better, except it doesn't actually work right. Um, so I think that's a part. I think there's also some messaging around that the flip of it is just this, like you know, kind of hippy just go with the flow, oh, everything's, everything's cool, it's all fine, which is obviously its own form of problematic. And this is where, so this is where Kristen Neff and her work around self-compassion, I think, is so important, because her take is well, actually it's like this.

Steve: 26:50

It's basically like you've got to find a way to allow yourself to be where you are and to accept that and look at where appropriate or necessary, how can or do you do better next time? Or another way I might put it to go buddhist for a minute is uh, this is a quote from um I won't get his pronounce his name, quite right shunru suzuki, who's the guy who founded the san francisco zen center back in like the 60s. So he was fond of saying this you're perfect just as you are and you could use a little improvement.

Steve: 27:20

I like it yeah right, which is which is kind of self-compassion in a nutshell. So that's the thing that we've got to find there. So that's that piece. Now, overthinking is a number of things that can go into that right. It's one. We have problem-solving brains and some of us really are comfortable operating in our heads, especially your head. I mean, I won't say it's a safe place, but at least it's free from outside criticism. Not mine when you're in there, I have tons of self-criticism. I said it's free from outside criticism.

Todd: 28:00

Got it? Yeah, I'm tracking, yeah.

Steve: 28:02

You know your internal critic, and that's another. You know that one's familiar, and that's another reason. By the way, sometimes people develop very self-critical voices. It's as a way to try and toughen themselves up against the external voices they fear. Yeah, and it's like nothing, and that's I mean, most self-critics. I know there's nothing anyone can ever say to them that is meaner than what they say to themselves.

Todd: 28:25

Oh yeah.

Steve: 28:25

I've said that, yeah. So the overthinking. It's about a mix of very driven problem solving and being comfortable there and a lack of confidence in one's ability to find a solution and or unrealistic expectations about the quality of your solution. If it's got to be perfect, well you're going to keep working on it until you get it perfect, and, as you know, virtually nothing is or can be perfect, and so you're going to just keep spinning in your head forever, if you let yourself Right. So that's one, but a lot of it's also just the like. If there's this fear or lack of confidence around things, we spin it around in our head until we try and find a perfect thing and we can get caught up in the idea that that exists when it doesn't right and this yeah, go ahead, no, no, go ahead.

Todd: 29:21

I'm a huge overthinker. I mean, coming into this chat, I'm just like oh no, I'm talking to a psychotherapist, oh no don't mess this.

Steve: 29:30

What happens if I don't ask the right questions? Yeah, he's going to melt your brain. No, I didn't feel that way. Good, good sometimes to be imperfect and to be messy, in part because we live in a world where we don't get to see it in other people nearly enough. Okay, we talked earlier about like it's not okay for guys to show vulnerability. So there's there's one, there's one problem. That's a simple one. Then we look at things like social media and what's on social media two sets of things One, people's overly polished, edited, refined videos, or things like fail videos, which is all of people's humiliating moments that are all clearly painted as like that.

Todd: 30:22

Look at that loser Right. You're that idiot.

Steve: 30:25

Right. What's not painted is like oh look, here's a human being human it is sometimes, but not often enough. So here's a human being human it is sometimes, but not often enough. So it's like this we know all of our messy stuff, we know all of our ugly bits, but for most other people. We have a wildly distorted picture of them.

Steve: 30:46

That's true, I have to occasionally correct clients about this who think, for some reason I have my life all started out perfectly together. It's like, no, no, I'm human too. It's even worse because I know this stuff, so my brain can go don't you should know better, steve? It's like I might know better. That doesn't mean I can do better, because I'm still a human, right so. But we get caught up in this unfair comparison and it's like, of course you're gonna fail, right. It's like because there's just it's not even, it's not apples to apples. It's just not fair.

Steve: 31:17

So there's a bunch of those things that can come into that and plan, and again the exact mix looks a little different person to person, but it's a. It is a safety seeking strategy that is generally destined to not really succeed and it comes at a tremendous cost, because we spend a lot more time on our heads than is of value and that means a lot less time actually doing trying things, connecting with people, taking risks. And the thing is, when we start to do that, we start to learn that, even though it might be uncomfortable or messy, that stuff isn't going to kill us. The more we protect ourselves, the more we can build up on, unfortunately, our stories about how scary and awful everything is, that it feels scarier. So then we avoid it more and then we reinforce the story of how scary it is, so that it feels scarier and you can see the spiral.

Todd: 32:15

And then I don't like going out in public, and then we don't even want to.

Steve: 32:18

well, yeah, this is exactly where we can see things like agoraphobia or some of these other challenges that people have. It's because the spiral it gets tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter, and this is why it is so important to be engaging in the world and doing things and to be taking risks and as a society and this is so this gets at like parents and like educators and people we have to embrace and encourage and support people in trying and failing. We have to. We have to, absolutely have to.

Steve: 32:57

One of my favorite movies of all time, which is a little bit obscure because it just wasn't super known and popular at the time it came out, is called Meet the Robinsons. It's a Disney movie from 2017, I think. No, it's way older than that 2007,. Maybe Anyway, I won't get the year right it's called Meet the Robinsons.

Steve: 33:16

It's an animated film and the point about it is this it has great, great messages about failure. It takes our traditional views about failure and about mistakes and it turns it all on its head, and it does it in a really good way. And the cool part is it's actually something that was derived from some of Walt Disney's beliefs and values, which I think is cool too. So that's a neat thing, but it's one of those movies I'm like. Everyone needs to see this movie, and this is like because the message is so transformative if you internalize it. Mistakes aren't the problem. Making them repeatedly can be a problem. Making certain types of mistakes, of course, can be a problem, but by and large mistakes, if worked with properly, are actually an essential ingredient in the path to success and greatness. The messy ugly, long, tedious, challenging path, yeah, but it's still the path.

Todd: 34:10

Yeah, I recently read a book called Inner Excellence and he pointed out in there. He's like there's no failure, there's just feedback. Maybe you won, maybe that wasn't the best thing for you, maybe losing was the best thing for you so you could learn. So that was instructive for me. That helps for me as an overthinker and self-criticizer, so that's really helpful.

Steve: 34:31

I think that can be a tremendous framing, as long as you give yourself space to feel the disappointment, the embarrassment, the frustration, the whatever. It's not either. Or Because if we get caught up in the like, you know, just jump right to the like okay, what's the opportunity here? What's the possibility? That's where we start getting into the realm of toxic positivity and it's just another form of dismissing our feelings. What we need to do is go oh, that sucked, or oh, that was frustrating, or oh, that was disappointing, or oh, I don't ugh, and to kind of let ourselves shake it off. Do that and then go okay, I survived. What can I learn from this and how can I use it going forward? That's the feedback loop, right? But yeah, give yourself space to be like okay, that sucked, because a lot of the time it does.

Todd: 35:20

Yeah, yeah, Overthinking and self-criticism. What I've seen myself do is something I fail at something, and then I just apply it to myself in general, and then I apply it to myself as a husband. I apply it to myself as a father. I'm a bad husband, I'm a bad father. I, you know I do that and it's like I recently, you know, within the last few years, I learned that the book that I mentioned, Inter-Excellence, actually speaks to that. It's like you have to speak about that in past tense. It doesn't apply to you everywhere. So, yeah, you did this, you made a mistake. It's not who you are.

Steve: 35:53

So that was I'm just repeating what I heard I'm learning here. But it's good, that's a great, but it's a really important thing. It's like if we get too identified with our actions, they can take on a power that they don't deserve, in a way that doesn't serve us. That can also work in reverse, right. If you get people who think that they're great and amazing and walk on water because of one thing that happened. That's a whole different set of problems. But it comes down to this Overconfidence is bad, so is underconfidence. The more we can have an accurate picture of ourselves the Buddhists talk about the idea of true seeing as their, their framing of this, which is an ideal that we don't ever get to to be clear, right, but the more we can get there, the better, because then we can actually work with an accurate data set, right. Yeah, you know if, if you ask for directions from san francisco to new y, I can give them to you, but if you're actually in Texas, the directions aren't going to work.

Todd: 36:57

So there's this word boundaries. It's actually out there a lot. I hear it a lot. What are boundaries and how do they help us?

Steve: 37:05

I like Brene Brown's definition of this. Her thing is boundaries are basically a clear articulation of what's okay and what's not okay. That's it right. But we use boundaries as a way of essentially navigating. The intersection of our lives with other people's lives is the way that I put it right. So a boundary can be. It can be internal, about ourselves and I do this thing or I don't do this thing. It can also be that right. But it can also be I'm not going to let people speak to me this way or I'm not going to do this with these people, or any number of things. So it can be internal or external. But it's really basically about how we manage the spaces so we can be relational with people, Because if our boundaries are too rigid and too harsh, then no one can connect with us, but if our boundaries are too loose, we get walked on.

Todd: 38:02

Yes, and people pleasers. Yeah, you're just allowing it to happen. They scheduled a meeting at 6 pm on Friday. You know something like that, Right?

Steve: 38:12

exactly.

Todd: 38:13

And you just go to the meeting grumbling about it. That's a great example.

Steve: 38:17

Yeah, it's like if you've got a thing going on or if you're not willing to do it, you just be like yeah, I'm sorry, I'm not able to go to meetings after five o'clock on Fridays. That's a boundary, right? As an example, or any number of other things. You know, I'm not going to be around people who are doing this thing. Ok, that's a boundary.

Steve: 38:36

The key and this is a place where a lot of people get the management of boundaries wrong is we've got to really be mindful of what part of the boundary we can enforce, and we need to set boundaries that we can actually enforce. Like I can't stop you from doing whatever you're doing. I mean, I could, but I'd have to like get physical and that's weird and not okay. Right, but what I can do is I cannot be around for it. Yeah Right, yeah Right, I can't be like you can't yell at me. I mean you can yell at me, I can't really stop you. I can say if you're going to keep yelling, if you're not going to lower your voice, I'm not going to be able someone who's yelling at me. So if you're not able to lower your voice, I'm going to have to end this call. You can keep yelling all you want. I just won't be there to yell at Right.

Todd: 39:22

I'm out. I've got a funny boundary that my boss set with me. One time it was 10, 15 years ago I called him at 3 o'clock on a Friday and just talking about a customer problem or whatever, and we were all remote workers. He lived up in Maine. I'm talking about the problem. I'm like you know, talking through it, hey, I want to do this. And he just stops me and goes Todd, I'm three beers in, so let's pick this up Monday. I was like that is a boundary. I'm like that is so awesome. Yes, okay, I'll talk to you Monday.

Steve: 39:54

Right. A place where people pleasers often struggle talking about that is they assume other people's boundaries and respect them without having even verified that they exist. So here this happened, like a client who will say something to me. They'll be like well, I was going to send you an email but I didn't want to pester you, which I appreciate that they're trying to be considerate. But the thing I will tell my clients is like one of my jobs actually is managing the boundaries in this relationship. Your job is to ask for what you feel like you want or need. If it is crossing a boundary, I'll manage that. I'll do it gently. I won't be mad at you. We'll sort it out.

Steve: 40:38

But like I don't, you know, I can close my email app. I don't care, I definitely like you can call me, you can text me, you can email me, because I can manage my boundaries. If I'm not in a position where I'm ready to engage with it, I won't see it, love it. You know you don't have to worry about it, but a lot of the time you know that's what people please. Just I didn't want to bother you, I didn't want to be a pest, I didn't want to be this and whatever, and they're the ones who ask me like is it okay to ask for, you know, whatever thing which I can relate to, because I've been there a lot myself. I am big time recovering. People, pleaser, to be clear, right, and I always, I always say this if you can accept no, you can ask for whatever you want.

Steve: 41:19

There's a whole thing out there. There's this this um guy who he did. He built this whole concept, this thing called rejection therapy, and he did this year-long experiment. It was a year long where every day he went out with a specific objective of getting rejected. So he would go out and ask you to do ridiculous things, although one of them is great, like the most, I think it's probably the most famous of his experiments. He goes to Krispy Kreme donuts one day and he goes could I get donuts? All put together again, the shape and colors of the Olympic rings, and the person was like hold on a minute. Goes back, talks to the manager. The manager's like yeah, when do you need them? He's like could you do it now? He's like yeah, that's fine. And they did, oh, wow.

Todd: 42:04

Okay.

Steve: 42:06

He was like what? Because he fully expected they'd just be like yeah, no, no, sorry, we can't do that, you can arrange it yourself.

Steve: 42:12

So like that was, and that that was the big takeaway. He was like, yeah, he'd have these cases where he'd try to get rejected and he would fail at getting rejected. He like he. He asked a cop if he could drive his car and the cop let him. Like. I mean, it's just exactly so. The the book is called. It's called rejection, proof is the name of the book.

Steve: 42:32

Um it, it is like, but it's such a thing of understanding, like how people we make our world so much smaller than they need to be. Yeah, right, wow, and that, yeah, if we're willing to ask, there's a lot more possibility out there. But I've seen this, I've seen this with people who are, you know, afraid, afraid to do things as simple as return an item to a store. And so the thing I would do with people is I'd be like, well, here's what we're going to do. I want you to go to Target, I want you to buy something, something boxed or packaged, whatever small, go buy it, put it in your trunk, and then I want you the next day to go back to Target and return it. And they're like what I read, what that's really.

Steve: 43:13

You know, it seems, it seems weird. It's like, until you realize what it does is it's going to bring up their anxiety about getting rejected or about getting judged or getting criticized, but all, of course, that's happened is the target person's just going to be like, yeah, whatever, yeah, no big deal. And that's the thing we need to have the experience of being, of this thing being not no big deal, and that's the thing we need to have the experience of this thing being not the big deal. That's how we disrupt the story in our heads. We think it's going to be awful, but then we experience it and we're like oh no, big deal.

Todd: 43:47

Yeah, I've heard about stoic meditation practices where I've actually done it, where you practice negative visualizations. You imagine the worst thing that can happen and it you know it helps. But yeah, I'm thinking about, okay, I'm combining topics in my head, Thinking about that guy that was trying to get rejected. If he was an overthinker and self-criticizer, he would probably be like oh, I stink at getting rejected, I'm failing.

Steve: 44:13

Oh, my word, the thing we're afraid of into the objective. Yeah, and so the we. So we make it where the thing that we would have historically considered a loss now becomes a win nice okay, this is it's.

Steve: 44:38

It's a kind of it's one of the things you're like that's stupid. It seems so ridiculous, but it works because the human brain is what it is. It's because it's really it's. Basically it's about tweaking the equation, so it tips the equation from uh yeah, no way, to like all right, that's. And that's often. All we need to do is we figure out. I often use the concept of an equation with a lot of. This is like, if we're not something, it's because our assessment of it is that it's a bad deal. That doesn't mean it's an accurate assessment, but if we start to understand the equation, the way that we're formulating in our heads, then we can start looking at how do I shift this equation?

Todd: 45:24

So it goes from a no to a yes, you're making me think of the headmaster of the school. Like my high school, when I was a senior, he would send me out on errands. I didn't realize he was doing this, but he would explain to me. Hey, he would send me to the newspaper to get an ad or something. He was literally sending me out to do business for the school. And he would say now, when you walk in, you need to act like you're in charge and you need to do this and you need to do that. And I walked in and I'm putting on an act and I would say I would just pretend that, okay, I need to do X, y and Z and I need you to help me with blah, blah, blah. And people responded positively. I'm a 17-year-old kid and I'm walking in and these adults in their 30s, 40s, 50s they just responded pleasantly and that blew my mind because I was expecting them to go get out of here, kid. What are you doing?

Steve: 46:15

But yeah, of course, because we've got a story about ourselves, but when we act in a certain way, we're projecting a different story, as long as we can pull it off people respond to the story that we're projecting and that's a thing that can be used for good or bad, but that was actually one of the most useful pieces of advice.

Steve: 46:35

I got in one of my IT jobs Because I was going to customer sites and I was kind of anxious about it. I'm just walking in there, I don't know anyone. And one of my coworkers was like just walk in and look like you know the place or like you own the place, no one will ever question you. And it's true, you just walk in, go wherever and be. And if anyone ever looked at me, I'd just be like here for the computer stuff and they'd be like, oh, okay, yeah. And it was like yep, and I'm walking into, like I'm walking through law offices and there's all kind of and no one's even blinking at me.

Steve: 47:02

I'm like, right yeah, oh pretend you're in charge, um, yeah, and, but it is. So it is one of those things of we can do some of that. So this is where the whole idea of like fake it till you make it comes in. Yep, right, because again, if we, if we operate as if we, it's surprising because, because we create these really inaccurate stories about our truth and about the world and about reality, but they seem real. That's the hard part too. It's not like we're like our brains, like I think I'm being delusional right now it's like, no, the brain's like this is how it is, and it's like, actually, no, it's not. Um, it might some of it's right, but some of it's really wrong, right, and so it's good to have ways to test it and to poke at it, because that's how we learn what the truth really is.

Steve: 47:50

Yeah, and when we get at the real truth, then we have a much easier time navigating the world because again we're working with the, we're working with directions from where we actually are, not where we said we were, or where we wish we were, or where we fear we are. Anyway.

Todd: 48:09

Yeah, so that's. I mean, we talked about common struggles that we're all going through from time to time, but let's switch gears and talk about how you help people grow. Now you mentioned stories and frameworks that help people build lives. Can you elaborate on that, sure?

Steve: 48:26

So we internalize stories, in essence like it's something like this so a thing happens. Right, we do a thing, or a thing happens, whatever, and there's, there's some events around it and we, our brains, connect dots, but they don't always do it well, and so we build up these stories about ourselves that are often inaccurate. Right, it might be something like somebody who maybe tried to play a few different sports as a kid, struggled with them and just decided, like I'm no good at sports, I'm not athletic. Well, maybe they're not naturally physically talented, Maybe Maybe not, I don't know physically talented, Maybe maybe not, I don't know. But maybe all that happened is they just didn't get anyone helping them to learn athletic skills. Maybe they had a distorted idea about how quickly you could improve those skills or any of those things.

Steve: 49:22

Right, I spent, because of some childhood stuff with me. I spent a good chunk of my life convinced that I was not creative, that I didn't get the creative gene in my family except multiple artists in my family, and it had nothing to do with me not being creative. It had me not having an understanding of how that actually works. And then, when I got enough self-awareness and self-development, I was able to go and engage in an extended experiment where I was able to prove to myself that no development. I was able to go and engage in an extended experiment where I was able to prove to myself that, no, I'm actually quite creative if I want to be right. So that's one thing, and part of my work is helping people see the distorted stories that they have.

Steve: 50:00

Now. Often these are stories that help them or serve them at some point. Again, to be clear, it's not like these are, you know, just random things. They're. Often they were helpful at some point, now they're not. And so my job is often to help people figure out what are these stories? Where did they come from? How are they inaccurate? And then writing a new story that is more accurate. Because, again, it's not like the story is I'm a great artist? Like no, because you're not magically a great artist, because you say you are. You could say, right, I. Or let's go back to this kid. You know he could say I haven't had the support, the practice or the training to develop my athletic skills yet, but if I'm willing to practice and get some help and support, I can get better. That's a workable story because it's true. Yeah, I like that. It's not a flashy story, but it's a workable story, right? And this is if you're familiar at all with Carol Dweck and her work around mindset. This is growth versus fixed mindset, right? Fixed mindset is I'm not athletic. Growth mindset is I don't have athletic skills now, but I could build them if I did the work. So I think that a big part of it is helping for me, helping people see that and shift that.

Steve: 51:21

Now, for me, I like frameworks versus recipes. Part of that is because I'm just somebody who doesn't like things being too rigid, I think, but part of it is also because I think one size doesn't fit all, but often concepts do so. As an example, talking about how growth and improvement works. Now, I could give you some allegedly great recipe for how to improve yourself in any number of things how to deal with your anxiety, how to deal with your anger, how to, you know whatever run a faster mile, but the reality is they all come around to basic core concepts. Take some action, gather some data about how that action went, make some refinements to the action if necessary, and do the action again. That's it. That's a framework. You could do that in a lot of different ways, right, Like, apply this to this non-athletic kid, Like, Like, apply this to this non-athletic kid, Like there's any number of things that he could do, and applying that.

Steve: 52:33

And so for me, it's about finding these frameworks and then helping people figure out their specific implementation of the framework Because, again, what will work for you and what will work for me aren't always going to be the same.

Steve: 52:50

Our points of reference may not be the same, right, North Carolina, California, we're of a similar age, so we at least get certain generational references, but geographic ones might not. So I try and find these things that are really getting to the bare bones of what are the components that support a certain thing, and then helping people figure out what's their particular expression or implementation of that. And because, when we build a solution that is personal, that we help design one, it's more likely to work. But two, because we were involved in building it, we're actually way more likely to work. But two, because we were involved in building it, we're actually way more likely to follow through with it. Which, by the way, for the parents out there, if you've ever heard this the whole parenting tip of have your kid design their own consequence there's a reason it works. Yes, because once they created the solution, they're more. They're more committed to it. That's true with all this. This is why, in a work environment, work collaboratively, have the team help build the solution, don't impose it upon them.

Steve: 53:57

Yes, that is so true Any number of things I get. There are certain situations where that's not viable or practical. Military might be a good example, but by and large… Actually it's not.

Todd: 54:09

It's not like that, okay cool.

Steve: 54:10

See, my ignorance is showing here.

Todd: 54:12

No, no, I mean that's okay, because that's one thing I like to point out. One of the most intellectually free organizations that I was ever a part of was the Marine Corps, and I was infantry, and you would think that it's just command and control. You get a command and you both. But that's not what they taught us. From the day we entered bootcamp, they started inculcating leadership into us and they said you need to be making decisions because we need you, and they talked about combat and stuff like that. They're like combat these wars are won down at the trench level, with people making decisions about what needs to happen, and so, yeah, it was a little bit of an aside, but yeah.

Steve: 54:52

No, but that's great. I appreciate the correction. One and two okay. I mean, that's exactly what we're talking about.

Todd: 54:59

I didn't take offense by you saying that it was just it's a misconception, because you know, for people that haven't been in the military, there are a lot of command and control leaders and it doesn't work and, like you pointed out, you can instill fear at the outset and it'll work for a short amount of time. But in the military, especially if you're in a combat zone, if you're a leader and you're trying to do it that way, try and pose your will, you're going to get killed by your own people. It's just reality, because they go along for a short time and then they're going to go. No, we're not doing this. I've seen it happen so many times. I mean, I was never in combat, but we did have instances where we had bad leaders and a boundary had to be set. I'll just put it that way.

Steve: 55:45

I can imagine.

Todd: 55:46

But now so you've alluded to this, now Can you elaborate? I mean, you talk about the inner work that has to be done, and what I'm gathering is people are responsible for owning that inner work outside of their therapy sessions. Can you elaborate on that?

Steve: 56:02

Sure, I can share with you my insights or observations about you and your behavior patterns or the actions that you're taking or the ways your thoughts are distorted, or any of that. I can give you all that information in the world. But, um, and as overthinkers do like to do things like, think that the answer is more information, which is another reason we get caught in overthinking. But we're also the same people who read 10 books on a topic when one would have covered us fine. Um, I do that yeah yeah, say yeah, same.

Steve: 56:29

I've been known to do it myself. It was a lot easier back before the internet when I could actually read every book on certain topics, you know. But that's neither here nor there the thing. It comes down to this it doesn't matter what I teach you, what information I share with you or any of that. If you are not taking these things and putting them into action, your brain will not get rewired, because that's what this is about. This is about, at some level, literally rewiring your brain. I'm not doing it, you're doing it yourself.

Steve: 57:01

But when you change how you engage with different situations, how you think about certain things, how you respond to certain things, when you do that consistently over time, your brain will literally rewire itself. It doesn't matter how old you are. So much for the old dog new tricks thing. It can be harder when we're older. It's not necessarily as fast and there's other things that can get in the way of it. But the point is it can be, and it really comes down to this Our brain is trying to be energy efficient, because our brain uses a very disproportionate amount of the energy that our body uses, and so when it notices these things go together, it's like cool, I'll make a shortcut and it wires a shortcut.

Steve: 57:49

That's great, unless it's a bad habit, in which case it's not great, or unless it's a habit that serves us and then stops serving us so it's no longer great. But if we stop using it, it will disconnect itself in time as a new one gets wired. But that process doesn't necessarily happen as rapidly when we're older as when we're younger, right, but it's always true. But that's that's about repetition. It's the same thing of, like you know, if you, I give my daughter a hard time about this. Like you know, she should go take her flute lesson and then, if she doesn't practice it, it's like you're not going to really integrate what you learned if you don't practice it. Right, it's. It's like the learning. The learning is such an actually small part of the work which is really disappointing to me to discover I'm good at learning.

Todd: 58:36

And it's nice and clean and easy right, the doing is all messy.

Steve: 58:38

I can pump the info into my head. Yeah, absolutely. You need me to read 10 books. Okay, cool, what about tomorrow? But the doing is obviously a mess here. But that is actually where the growth lies.

Steve: 58:50

But this, to touch back on stuff we've been talking about growth is messy, it's imperfect, it's bumpy, it's weird, and this is why it is so important that we are able to allow ourselves to be messy, clumsy, stumbling imperfect human beings along the way. The process is messy, there's just no way around it. The thing is whether or not you tell yourself it's a problem. Right, see, like if you remodel your kitchen and in the middle of the remodel, when the kitchen looks like a bomb went off in it, you're not thinking this is a problem. You're like, yeah, it's in the middle of the remodel, no big, it'll be great when it's done. And it is yeah story. Back to story. There's a story you have about the messiness of your kitchen in the middle of the remodel, an accurate story. Of course, it's got to get messier before it gets better.

Steve: 59:42

We build stories about being messy as humans that are wrong and they're awful because they get in the way. Instead of the story of humans. Life is messy, humans are messy and, oh my god, the world is changing so fast. The world like I I see this with my daughter right, because she's she's 15 and I'm 55 like four years a lot has changed and we we joke about it a lot, but it's like. So I try and both share things with her about like what life was like, but not from the standpoint of like thinking it has anything to do with today's reality. I try and be aware of and I try and understand her reality because it's it's incredibly different. Oh yeah, you know, and a lot, a lot of it's actually a lot harder. Yes, um, I mean I'm super jealous of like music streaming, because if I could have literally every song I wanted in something I could hold in my hand, I would have just sat in my bedroom listening to music 24-7 as a kid. But other than that, I think it's a lot harder today.

Todd: 1:00:42

Yeah, these kids don't know about the record store and thumbing through the albums, the vinyl, that was an experience, that was fun.

Steve: 1:00:53

Yeah, no, I, I, I've spent. I used to spend like, yeah, there were like, when I was a teenager in Santa Cruz or what four record stores in downtown Santa Cruz and so I would like, you know, I had to take the bus home from work and I'd have to go through downtown to do it, so I'd change buses, but I'd go and like and like an act two hours, go, wander around, check out all that. I was amazing, Like, yeah, that was. Then that's like. Yeah, that doesn't, that doesn't exist anymore.

Todd: 1:01:18

We'd scrounge a little bit of money enough to buy some music and you get. Then it switched from vinyl to cassette tapes and all this stuff and it was. That was an experience, but yeah, it was very expensive. Now we can just stream it. So, yeah, that's cool man, this was deep man. I really appreciate this. This is this is edifying. So, I'm man. What an honor to talk to you, man. Yeah, let's wrap it up here. But how do people get in touch with you? Where can they find you?

Steve: 1:01:45

So simplest way is just go to my website, which is just my name, so that's stevemccreadycom and that's M, c, c, re, a, d Y, so you can go there and you can connect to me via. Via that you can also if you're someone who's on Tik TOK. I've been playing on Tik TOK a little bit. Lately. We'll see how this. It's currently in the experiment stage, but I'm posting some videos there, so that's another place you can catch me and whatnot. But if you want to connect with me directly, just go to my website. There's plenty of links. You can send me an email. I'm happy to answer any questions or other stuff. Or if someone's interested in looking at working together, you can set up a consult and just be happy to talk and explore and see if it makes sense.

Todd: 1:02:24

Yeah, both counseling therapy and coaching.

Steve: 1:02:27

Yeah, yeah, both counseling, therapy and coaching. Yeah, it's just one site. So, yeah, they can reach out and they don't even need to know what they need. I always tell people I was like, don't worry about it, we're going to talk about what's going on and I'll share with you my thoughts on what's up. And because my goal is I'm not here to help everyone, I'm here to help certain people with certain things. But if anybody stumbles in my door, I'm going to at least try and make sure I point them in the right direction, whether that's here's a person you should talk to. Here's a book that would help you. Here's a resource, you know, because, well, yeah, I mean, this life thing is hard. We all need a little help here and there. You know it's not much effort on my part to do it.

Todd: 1:03:10

So if I can help point people in the right direction, I like it, man. So here are my takeaways. We're all human. We've got some very common struggles and needs, and therapy provides healing where you need it. Coaching can help you improve. So that's what I'm taking away from this discussion and, yeah, this got really deep. So I'm looking forward to actually listening to this recording. So, yeah, good stuff.

Todd: 1:03:28

But visit Steve's website. Contact him for services. Maybe he's not a good fit, and I've said this on previous episodes when you're talking about getting counseling or therapy, not everyone's a good fit. But if maybe Steve's not a good fit, that's okay. Find someone. If you're stuck somewhere, if you're dealing with these struggles, get with someone to help you. That initial contact with whomever might not be a good fit, that's okay. Move on to the next, but find someone, because there are people out there that are trained in how to help people get unstuck, find healing, recovering from past wounds. Work on that. So Steve also alluded to some book recommendations here and we'll put links on the description here to Steve's website. Also, some of these book recommendations I was writing them down while you were talking, but the one was self-compassion the proven power of being kind to yourself. You also mentioned here rejection proof and then that book from Carol Dweck Mindset.

Steve: 1:04:29

Yeah, so her book is called mindset. It's that one. It's. It's I. The concepts are interesting. The book itself, I'll say this it's always one that I'm like. It's like a guarded recommendation, um, but it's. It's useful, um. Also, I'll tell people, any of brené brown's books are really powerful.

Steve: 1:04:47

The thing with Brene I'm a fan of her earlier works, just maybe because that was my introduction to her. The thing that I think Brene brings to the conversation is she manages to integrate a lot of these concepts and ideas in a way that's very relatable but still has the research rigor behind it. And so if you find some of this cause, some of this stuff is a little more psychological than you know a lot of people want to get. Yeah, first off is very, I think, very accessible, um, and so from that standpoint, that's one reason I like it, although the I don't want to talk about it the Terrence real book, that is also very accessible and it's just, it's a. It's a powerful read just in and of itself. But anyone who either has struggled with depression as a man or has been adjacent to somebody who's a man who's struggled with it, that book will educate you, it'll speak to you.

Todd: 1:05:41

Yeah. So I've really enjoyed the chat. Steve, Appreciate it so much man, Absolutely yeah. Thanks. Thanks for listening. Much man, Absolutely yeah. Thanks. Thanks for listening, and if you've enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review. Share it with your friends and go check out Steve's website about life. That's gonna force you now.