In this episode, we explore why even the most capable leaders can find themselves stuck in cycles of frustration, control, defensiveness, burnout, or self-doubt,

We’ll look at why personality assessments and leadership training are valuable but incomplete, how pressure exposes the places where God still wants to do His deepest work in us, and why the relationship we have with ourselves quietly shapes every relationship we have with those we lead.

Most importantly, I’ll walk you through practical examples that will help you recognize how hidden assumptions, violated expectations, and unexamined interpretations influence your leadership long before any leadership skill has the opportunity to help.

Because before we can lead others more effectively, we must first learn to see ourselves more truthfully.

We’ll cover why leadership often feels harder than it should by talking through:

03:32 – Why leadership exposes what’s happening inside us

06:09 – The difference between personality and perception

08:21 – The question that changes everything

09:56 – One of leadership’s biggest blind spots

11:00 – What personality assessments helped me understand—and what they couldn’t

15:00 – Three common leadership situations that reveal hidden assumptions

17:37 – Why your interpretations become your reality

19:09 – What Moses teaches us about humility and teachability

20:21 – A simple question to begin examining your own leadership lens

20:49 – The next step: Discover what’s driving your leadership with the FREE Core Priorities Snapshot

Why do we know what’s true, yet still struggle to consistently live like it’s true?

Those are some of the questions I answer in this episode, and they’re the heart behind Powered by PURPOSE and the question that launched a decades-long search for answers:

What if the problem isn’t that something is wrong with us...

but that we’re seeing ourselves through the wrong lens?

You’ll discover how this podcast takes a different approach to personal growth - and how it maps back to seeing things through the lens of God’s truth.

So if you’ve ever felt frustrated by the gap between your intentions and your experience, this is where the journey begins.

In This Episode We Explore:

The questions we’ve all asked ourselves

01:50 – The discovery that changed everything

03:15 – Your life is already revealing evidence

05:42 – Why this isn’t another self-help podcast

06:12 – The difference between more information and better interpretation

06:56 – Who this podcast is for & what you can expect each week

07:56 – Your next step: Trying the FREE Core Priorities Snapshot!

If you’re like most people your personal growth journey has likely been fragmented or inconsistent over the years, and I’m willing to bet it’s not from a lack of effort, faith, or good intentions,

It’s more likely because you’ve been misinterpreting yourself.

Viewing your life through a lens created from inherited standards, assumptions, and incomplete information that you’ve never been taught how to examine.

And until that changes, you’ll continue to experience unnecessary friction in the areas that matter most to you.

It’s why your confidence fluctuates, some relationships are strained, decision making can be exhausting, emotional reactions are often disproportionate to the situation, and your direction in life feels scattered.

But fear not! You aren’t broken…

You just need a clearer lens.

And Powered by PURPOSE was created to address that very issue through a faith-rooted approach that gets to the root of all behavior: perception.

Why?

Because our perception shapes everything.

It shapes how we interpret ourselves → others → our circumstances → and even God.

And when it’s distorted everything feels harder than it needs to be:

- Insecurities drive behavior

- Self-condemnation gets projected onto others

- Judgment of others strains relationships

- Feedback feels like a personal attack

- Emotional reactions don’t reflect our intentions

These aren’t personal flaws…

They’re distorted perceptions, and distorted perceptions create unnecessary friction everywhere they show up,

But the good news is - perception can be corrected, and once it is everything else falls into place!

Not overnight - and not through positive thinking…

Through evidence based self-examination.

Because the truth is - how we see ourselves doesn’t stay contained within us, it becomes the lens through which we relate to everyone else.

If we’re impatient with ourselves, we tend to become impatient with others.

If we’re constantly judging ourselves, we often judge others too.

And if we’re unwilling to examine our own assumptions, we’ll struggle to receive correction from anyone - including God.

That’s why this work matters, and that’s why I created Powered by PURPOSE.

Not as another personal development program or productivity system,

And certainly not as another framework that asks you to force yourself into someone else’s definition of success.

This work has a different starting point...

While most approaches focus on behavior first…

The PURPOSE™ Framework is different - since behavior is downstream of perception, we must first address the root causing the symptoms.

So here we start by examining the evidence your life is already revealing, and unpacking the areas where your judgment of yourself (and others) is skewed from inherited standards that are conflicting with your unique hierarchy of priorities.

Because before we can change our behavior, we need to understand what’s driving it,

And before we can fulfill our calling, we need to understand the lens through which we’re viewing it.

And before we can truly renew our minds, we need the humility to examine where our thinking may already be distorted.

That’s what the PURPOSE™ Framework is designed to help you do.

Nothing is skipped. Nothing is forced. Each step builds on the next.

Perceive Yourself Truthfully - Understand how your priorities shape your perception of yourself, others, and God, so you can replace misinterpretation with truthful self-awareness.

Unearth Your Unique Calling - Discover your intrinsic drivers, clarify your calling, and identify opportunities that fit the way you’re uniquely designed to faithfully steward your gifts.

Root Yourself With Intention - Design personalized rhythms and decision-making frameworks that transform clarity into sustainable action.

Purge Your Distorted Perceptions - Through one-on-one facilitated work, you’ll identify and correct the belief distortions creating unnecessary friction, emotional reactivity, and misalignment.

Own Your Next Chapter - Make strategic decisions with greater confidence, clarity, and self-trust.

Sustain Your Capacity - Build systems, rhythms, and structures that support long-term stewardship without increasing pressure.

Expand Your Reach - Amplify your impact through aligned visibility, communication, and scalable systems.

It’s not about becoming someone different,

It’s learning to see yourself, others, and God more clearly through truthful self-examination and renewed perception rooted in God’s truth.

So if you’ve spent years working on yourself but you still don’t fully understand why certain patterns keep repeating, and your intentions and behavior aren’t always aligned,

Then there’s still a disconnect, and it isn’t solved through discipline or motivation because it’s a perception + self misinterpretation problem,

And self-awareness alone isn’t enough if we’re still misinterpreting what we’re seeing.

It’s addressed by Perceiving Yourself Truthfully, and that’s what you’ll find here.

Everything Inside Powered by PURPOSE

is designed to help you move from awareness to → understanding to → application.

Free Subscribers receive:

• Weekly articles & podcast episodes

• Access to the Core Priorities Snapshot

• Practical insights on perception, relationships, faith, leadership, and calling

The free content is designed to help you recognize patterns, identify distortions, and begin seeing yourself more clearly.

Think of it as awareness.

You’ll learn what might be happening and why it matters.

Paid Subscribers

Gain access to Perceive Yourself Truthfully, a private learning library designed to help you understand the hidden lens shaping your perception.

This includes:

• Private Podcast Episodes & Subscriber-Only Articles

• The Full Core Priorities Assessment

• Reflection & Self-Examination Exercises

• Community Only Q&A Sessions

• An Ever-Growing Library of Teaching Content

The private content moves beyond awareness into understanding.

You’ll learn how your priorities influence your perception of yourself, others, and God - and how that perception affects your relationships, emotional reactions, decision-making, confidence, and calling.

Founding Members

Get everything included above plus full access to Founded on PURPOSE™.

This is where self-awareness becomes application.

You’ll move beyond understanding yourself and begin translating that clarity into your calling, decisions, leadership, and daily life.

Subscribe now

This is perfect for anyone who:

✔️ Loves Jesus and want to align their life with truth ✔️ Feels an unexplained friction

✔️ Is willing to look inward and answer honestly ✔️ Wants clarity grounded in evidence

This is NOT a good fit for:

❌ Quick motivation seekers ❌ Passive consumers

❌ Anyone unwilling to examine themselves honestly

No matter where you begin, the goal remains the same:

To help you renew your mind, see clearly, and faithfully steward the life God has entrusted to you.

Because faith here is not a decorative overlay.

It’s the restoration of truth to distorted perceptions, so your life and work become increasingly aligned with your purpose and calling.

Romans 12:2 clearly instructs us to be transformed by the renewal of our mind.

But transformation isn’t emotional performance, and renewal isn’t forced positivity,

It’s truthful cognitive correction.

They require humility, self-examination, and a willingness to let truth correct our distortions.

And when that happens... everything else begins to fall into place.

I’m glad you’re here!

- Melody

P.S. Sharing is caring 😊 If this message resonated with you and someone you know has been working hard to grow, but still feels stuck, frustrated, or disconnected from their calling, then share this with them.

Share

Oftentimes the breakthrough isn’t achieved with more effort…

It’s discovered through a clearer lens.

In this episode we’ll explore how many of the conflicts we experience with our spouse aren’t actually caused by the event itself, but by the meaning we assign to it.

Through the lens of perception, projection, priorities, and biblical self-awareness, we’ll uncover why two people can experience the same situation and walk away with completely different interpretations.

Most importantly, we’ll discuss how humility, truthful self-examination, and renewing our minds with God’s truth can transform the way we relate to ourselves, our spouse, and ultimately God.

This Episode Explores:

00:00 — The Hidden Source of Marriage Conflict

01:56 — Why Renewed Minds and Marriages Require More Than Good Intentions

03:28 — Marriage Doesn’t Create Insecurities - It Reveals Them

07:00 — How Our Perception Shapes the Relationship We Experience

08:29 — Who We’re Really Arguing With

11:01 — Where Distorted Perceptions Come From

13:36 — Priorities, Expectations, and the Roots of Misinterpretation

15:26 — Real-Life Marriage Scenarios

17:50 — Shifting From Blame to Self-Examination

19:12 — Humility, Teachability, and the Pharisee Problem

21:13 — What Biblical Love Actually Looks Like in Marriage

23:06 — Self-Love vs. Self-Obsession & Why the Difference Matters

23:50 — The Goal of Marriage

24:31 — Questions to Help You Examine Your Perception

25:12 — A Practical Next Step Toward Seeing Yourself More Clearly

Resources Referenced in This Episode

If you’d like to gain clarity on the core priorities that are already shaping your life, then the FREE Core Priorities Snapshot is the best place to start.

Give it a try today to uncover insights you’ve likely never seen before, so you can live out your unique purpose!

Full Transcript

So what if the arguments you’re having with your spouse aren’t really about what’s happening in that given moment?

But instead, they’re actually exposing the meaning we assign to what’s happening?

Because most of us know that when two people experience the exact same event they both walk away with completely different interpretations, which means the conflict is rarely about the event itself,

The conflict is actually rooted in our own perception of the situation - and that’s not just our perception of our spouse - but subconsciously the more influential dynamic at hand is our perception of ourselves,

And just like we talked about last week with our kids, our relationship with our spouse exposes how we see ourselves from the very first moment we meet them - we just aren’t fully conscious of it,

And if our perception of ourselves is distorted (which it often is for most people), then even our good intentions can turn into frustration, defensiveness, and disconnection when we’re with them.

But here’s the thing… since you’re listening to, or reading this, that’s proof that you’re invested in becoming the best version of yourself for your marriage,

And you’re in the right place, because here we address the root of what’s actually driving your behavior vs just the behavior itself - which is actually just a symptom, but it’s also a powerful indicator of your perception.

So that’s what we’re going to dig into today.

And even if you aren’t married, stay with me,

Because the principles we’ll discuss apply to anyone in a romantic relationship - regardless of the stage you’re in.

In fact, if you’re at the beginning of a new relationship it will set the stage for a level of closeness that isn’t achievable without this level of awareness - so buckle up! It’s about to get real…

Hello, and welcome to Powered by PURPOSE - I’m Melody Lacey, and I help people clear the distorted perceptions that keep us from being able to see, and treat, ourselves, and others - like our spouses, the way God asks us to.

Because we’ve all been there…

Most of us have struggled, to some degree, with a tension that creates an emotionally reactive response with our spouse, and that disconnects us from how God has called us to love one another,

So we’re going to take a God (and spouse) focused approach to self-discovery and personal growth here - to unpack the real root cause behind the friction all married couples feel in our dynamic with each other at times,

And we’ll do this by examining how our beliefs shape our perception of reality,

Which, as you’ll see, requires some humility to examine truthfully, to find out what’s really driving our behavior.

And that’s the first step in renewing our thinking with God’s truth, so that we can start seeing things more clearly,

Because when you understand yourself more clearly, then you’ll be able to understand your spouse much better as well…

And then marriage becomes the loving union it’s intended to be, instead of a source of frustration.

Because the reality is - renewed minds - and marriages - require MORE than just good intentions,

And thankfully God has given us the template and tools to grow closer to modeling the bridegroom He is to us.

So let’s start unpacking this…

Marriage Doesn’t Create Conflict. It Exposes Our Insecurities.

Here’s the reality every married person already knows - our spouses experience every aspect of our personalities

because they are the ones who we can truly let our guard down with, and be completely vulnerable with, which we all know comes with both ups and downs.

And our personalities obviously exist before we meet our spouse, and so do our insecurities.

Absolutely no one gets married and then suddenly develops insecurities out of nowhere.

Some new ones might get discovered that you didn’t know were there, or exacerbated by a dynamic that wasn’t present before sharing your life with someone else,

But the fact is our insecurities exist long before we meet someone we want to date - regardless of the age we are when we meet them.

Marriage simply creates enough proximity for all aspects of ourselves to become visible - and in some cases - highlighted.

Our spouses experience our ‘best selves’ through our love, our intimacy, our support and patience, and the grace we extend to them as they grow in life alongside us as human beings experiencing new things along the way,

And some of those things are challenging… like our careers… whether or not we have children… finances are usually a big one… and then there’s the extended family and our in-laws…

All of these come with frustrations that need to be navigated together, as a team,

And many of them expose the other side of ourselves as well - like our fears, attachment issues,

And just like with our kids, our expectations…

This is where it gets really tricky - because our expectations of THEM are often a reflection of the expectations we have of OURSELVES, AND they are usually rooted in standards we inherited from our own parents, society, religion, etc… but we’ll touch on that in a bit…

So marriage becomes a mirror.

Not because our spouse causes these things,

But because the relationship reveals what’s already there.

And most marriage advice out there tends to focus on behavior and approach - you know, things like:

• Effective communication,

• Establishing roles and routines to support each other and the household,

• And if you go deeper it’s learning about each other’s love language and learning how to meet their needs,

And all of those things absolutely matter…

But through all of that, our spouses are always experiencing us - as people.

And they experience the emotional environments we create with the energy we bring to every interaction,

And as I talked about this last week -

Our energy is affected by lots of variables - like - how we slept last night, if we’re hungry and cranky, how much stress we’re under at any given time, the skills we have to handle our stress, and let’s not forget our hormones… ohhh the hormones…

The hormones that once brought us together with our spouse, are now fluctuating all the time and have a different kind of fire associated with them,

And both women AND men deal with those fluctuations as we age,

And while we have very little control over the fluctuations in any of those variables (especially the hormones),

Our perception is always present - like 100% of the time - and it’s dictating the relationship we have with our spouse, but more importantly - it dictates the relationship we have with ourselves,

And it stems from → the assumptions we unconsciously operate from,

Which influences → the way we respond to them and how we handle frustrating situations,

Which is rooted in… you guessed it → the way we view and treat ourselves.

We Project Our Relationship With Ourselves Onto Our Spouses

We’ve all blamed our spouses for making us angry, or insecure, or defensive, or maybe for feeling rejected,

But your spouse is actually just surfacing something that’s already there, and the interpretations are different for everyone,

Which is why two people can experience the exact same situation completely differently.

Your spouse isn’t dictating your interpretation of any situation, your perception is,

And they’re simply exposing it.

So if I’m constantly critical of myself… I will most likely be critical of my spouse.

If I struggle to extend grace to myself… I’ll likely struggle to extend grace to them.

If I never feel good enough… I may unknowingly communicate that they aren’t either.

Not because I’m trying to,

But because projection is an unconscious expression we have with others,

And the projection is rooted in our distorted perception of ourselves,

Which becomes the lens through which we interpret others.

Including our spouses.

So for example, if I secretly believe I’m ‘failing’ as a spouse, I may become unusually sensitive to feedback.

A simple comment about the dishes in that context isn’t just experienced as a comment about the dishes.

It’s experienced as confirmation that I’m not enough.

And then I’m reacting to my insecurity, not my spouse.

So the deeper truth we’re unpacking here is that:

We’re not arguing with our spouses,

We’re arguing with our interpretation of our spouse.

And underneath that lies the unresolved tensions inside of ourselves, which is creating a distortion of reality.

The Distorted Interpretation Isn’t The Problem

So if you haven’t already, this is the point where you might be freaking out, or trying to call BS on all of this - but hang with me and try to be open minded to this perspective, because it’s what can break you free from the blame game and dare I say… playing the victim in your relationship - I know - I said it, and yes, we’ve all done it…

But if you’re hearing this and thinking:

“Great. Now everything is my fault...”

Take a breath, and calm down, because no…

That’s not what I’m saying.

This isn’t about whose fault anything is.

It’s about how you’re perceiving any given situation,

And how that’s driving your interpretation of it, and thus your response to it.

The point is awareness - self-awareness… which BTW is the ONLY thing you can control!

Which is actually great news, because that means you have way more control over your experience in your relationship that you might realize,

And you’re in good company, because everyone has to navigate their distorted perceptions… it’s just usually called ‘baggage’ and we all have it,

Everyone has insecurities…

And no one is perfect,

We’re all just (hopefully) doing our best and working with what we’ve got,

And the good news is there’s no real danger in having distortions,

The danger lies in refusing to acknowledge that they exist, and then refusing to examine them,

Because the distortions we defend become distortions that deepen division,

But distortions we examine, become opportunities for connection.

And that’s why you’re here investing in the health of your relationship by taking the time to learn what’s really going on,

And the fact that you’ve hung with me this long proves that you care about how you’re showing up for your spouse, which is awesome!

Where Our Distorted Interpretations Come From

OK - so before we can get into addressing our distorted perceptions (which remember is the only thing we really can do), we need to understand where they come from in the first place.

I mean, none of us wake up one morning and decide to interpret ourselves, or anyone else, inaccurately.

Our understanding of ourselves develops over time and is shaped by two primary factors:

1. The standards we use to evaluate ourselves - which is what drives our perceptions and our expectations… plus…

2. The actual priorities that are already driving our decisions and behavior, which often conflict with the standards we’re evaluating ourselves by - hence the tension…

So we’ll start with the standards we use to evaluate ourselves and everyone around us.

Like I said earlier, every single one of us inherits standards that become expectations. They come from:

• Our family and upbringing,

• The culture we’re living in,

• Our religious beliefs and encounters with other Christians,

• Social media of course,

• Our real life social circles - and dare I say - even the celebrities we don’t even know personally!

• And then some of us - like me - set our own - just to keep things interesting!

The challenge is that we rarely recognize our standards and expectations as interpretations.

We experience them as reality.

We assume our spouse should see the situation the way we do because the standard feels obvious to us.

But ‘obvious’ isn’t objective.

It’s simply familiar.

And that’s why two loving people can look at the same situation and arrive at completely different conclusions.

And the thing is - some inherited standards are in fact healthy…

I mean, I’ll submit that God’s standards are the only ‘shoulds’ we should - lol - aspire to live up to,

But the nuance here is in HOW we interpret our standards and to what extent they dictate how we function.

Because that’s where it gets tricky,

When you combine the fact that some of our inherited standards aren’t actually healthy,

With the fact that many people never consciously examine them…

The result is we simply absorb them,

And then we spend our entire lives measuring ourselves against them,

which often results in an ongoing conflict with the second factor, which is..

The real, and highly individualistic, priorities that are already driving our behavior.

THIS is the other part most people miss, because we weren’t given the tools to examine them properly.

You see - even if theoretically two people did inherit the exact same standards, they still won’t interpret themselves the same way.

Why?

Because no two people on the planet prioritize the same things, in the same order, to the same degree of magnitude.

Everyone is driven by different priorities.

And consequently we all have different motivations, different needs, and different sources of meaning,

And those priorities are the real indicator of what we truly value as individuals.

But there’s often a disconnect between what people THINK they prioritize and where they actually spend their time - which, spoiler alert - is the evidence of what you actually prioritize, vs what you intend to.

And that’s where friction festers in our life.

But while the thought of friction can create negative vibes, it’s actually incredibly helpful because it’s part of the evidence that helps us get to the root of what’s going on.

Because when we evaluate ourselves against inherited standards that don’t align with what God defined,

and we think we’re prioritizing one thing, but our calendar reflects something else.

You’ll spend your years feeling like you’re not measuring up,

When the real issue is simply a misinterpretation of ourselves,

Because we’re measuring ourselves against the wrong criteria,

And then we’re stuck in a never ending cycle of self-judgement,

Which doesn’t exactly set the stage for a healthy relationship with ourselves, or anyone else - and it’s just an unnecessary layer that we can absolutely rid ourselves of.

The Meaning We Assign Creates The Conflict

So let’s look at how this plays out in real life with our spouses, so you can really see where I’m going with this.

Now that we know that no two people have the same mix of priorities or inherited standards, and everyone interprets things differently because of that, this is how we see it in our marriage:

Scenario 1: Your spouse forgets something ‘important’ - and I’m using my air quotes here because the level of importance is also subjective and may not be equal between two people - but for this example we’ll assume the degree of importance was agreed upon and your spouse signed up for a specific task and then they forgot to do it.

One interpretation could be that they don’t care.

Another one could be that they’re just overwhelmed.

Another common one is: “I must not be important to them.”

And then there’s…: “They never listen or follow through.”

It was the same event - 4 different meanings.

And let’s be honest, I just stopped with four, you can insert your interpretation, and whatever yours is, it’s simply another type of emotional reaction,

And it’s likely a different argument than your spouse’s is,

Because the conflict isn’t actually the forgotten task - it’s in the interpretation attached to it.

Scenario 2: Your spouse wants time alone.

Some think: They don’t want to be around me.

Others don’t take it quite as personally and they think: They’re just overwhelmed and need space.

Still others wonder if they did something wrong.

And then some believe that they’re simply taking ownership for their own wellbeing.

Same event. Different meanings.

Scenario 3: Your spouse doesn’t respond enthusiastically to one of your ideas.

Some might think that they don’t support them.

Others might wonder if they just need more information.

Some feel like they’re being criticized.

And others are patient because they suspect they’re just processing the idea before responding.

Again… Same event. 4 different meanings.

Notice that none of those interpretations are actually facts - they’re conclusions made by each individual.

The Person You’re Really Arguing With

So this begs the question of who we’re actually arguing with when these situations blow up.

Sometimes we’re arguing with:

• our insecurities

• our expectations

• our fears

• our need for approval

• our fear of rejection

• our need to be right

Our spouse simply became the screen onto which those things were projected.

This doesn’t eliminate responsibility, it increases it,

Because now we can ask: “What inside me is being activated right now?”

Instead of: “How do I get them to change?”

Why Humility Matters More Than Being Right

Because here’s the thing - if you’re in a relationship where you’re constantly focusing on your spouse’s behavior and you’re trying to get them to change, and you’re hoping they will start to see things your way,

That’s futile, and it’s really not the best use of your energy and it’s precisely why you get so frustrated and emotionally charged when conflicts arise.

Because changing other people isn’t possible - only God can do that, and even He requires us to be willing to allow Him to work within us,

He repeatedly shows us throughout Scripture that the only control we have is over ourselves, so if you find that you’ve been focused outward, it’s time to shift inward,

And that requires coming to the altar with some humility - and yes, that can be a hard pill to swallow,

BUT - it’s literally the only thing you can control, and it’s actually great news because leaning into understanding your perception,

and evolving it to align with God’s truth and your unique design is the most powerful thing you can do for yourself

and it will change your entire life experience with yourself and your spouse - and BTW - everyone else too.

It’s like the Pharisees - I talked about this last week too - they were so vocal about being right and justifying their views about God - yet when the truth and the life stood right before them - they were blind to it and couldn’t see past the noses on their faces.

And while most of us would never compare ourselves to the Pharisees,

That’s exactly what many couples are doing when they are certain their interpretation is reality, and they approach each other with the goal of trying to prove:

• who is right

• who is wrong

• who started it

• who should apologize

But Jesus came with a relationship centric message for all of us - and He’s been communicating HIS priority on healthy relationships as He’s defined it from Genesis until now…

Because He knows that transformation never begins with rigid certainty,

It begins with people who are curious and humble enough to be teachable, and flexible enough to grow when necessary - and let’s be real - it’s always necessary…

When our pride says: “I already know.”

We need to take a step back and allow humility to ask: “What might I be missing?”

And healthy marriages require both people to remain teachable enough to ask that question.

What Love Actually Requires

Because if we don’t, we’ll never be able to live out the second greatest commandment to love our spouse as ourself,

Because while the world is telling us to love ourselves, there’s a gross misunderstanding of what love actually is…

When most people hear “self-love,” they think of things like self-care, self-esteem, self-acceptance, confidence, boundaries, or personal fulfillment.

And some of those things have value, but that’s not how Scripture defines love.

According to 1 Corinthians 13, love is really hard. It asks us to be:

Patient. Kind. Not envious. Not boastful. Not proud. Not self-seeking. Not easily angered. Keep no record of wrongs. And rejoices with the truth.

That’s a much higher standard than simply feeling good about yourself.

And if I’m honest, it’s also a little uncomfortable.

Because when I evaluate my relationship with myself through that lens, I don’t always find love.

Sometimes I find impatience… and harsh criticism.

Sometimes I find pride.

Sometimes I find unrealistic expectations and a running record of every mistake I’ve ever made.

So if I struggle to love myself according to God’s definition of love, why would I assume I’m naturally loving others that way consistently?

And here’s something that’s rarely discussed:

Jesus didn’t tell us to love others more than ourselves (though He did tell us to put others before us - but that’s slightly different),

He told us to love others as ourselves.

Which means - you guessed it! - the relationship we have with ourselves matters.

Not because life is all about us.

But because we project our relationship with ourselves onto everyone else - including our spouses.

So if I keep a record of my own wrongs, I’ll tend to keep a record of theirs.

This is where self-love and self-obsession part ways.

Self-obsession is preoccupied with self.

Biblical self-love is concerned with relating to yourself truthfully.

One keeps you focused inward,

The other helps you remove the distortions that prevent you from loving God and your spouse well.

So the goal isn’t thinking about ourselves more…

It’s learning to see ourselves clearly enough that we can stop making everything about ourselves.

Because loving others well starts with understanding the relationship that’s always present:

The one you have with yourself.

Because the relationship we have with ourselves becomes the model we project into marriage.

Practical Self-Examination

So hopefully you can see by now that most marriage conflicts aren’t caused by the event itself.

They’re caused by the meaning we assign to the event.

And the goal of marriage isn’t finding someone who never triggers your distortions.

The goal is becoming humble enough to examine those distortions when they surface.

Because conflict often reveals the places where truth has an opportunity to transform us.

And transformation begins when we’re willing to reconsider our interpretation.

So here are some questions you can start asking yourself right now:

“What assumptions am I making about the situation and my spouse?”

“What story am I telling myself?”

“What expectation do I feel is being ‘violated?’”

“What internal fear is being activated in this situation?”

“What objective evidence do I actually have to support my position?”

“What might I be misinterpreting about their actions?”

Honestly - asking those questions will help your relationship right away - but if this topic drummed up some recurring patterns in how you interpret yourself or others,

And if you’re like most people and you’ve never been taught how to objectively identify patterns driven by your subconscious,

Then the Core Priorities Snapshot will help you uncover your unique priorities, assumptions, and interpretations, and that’s the first step in learning how they are already shaping your reactions so you can start seeing yourself more clearly.

The link is below and it’s absolutely free to try, and it’s a great way to remove the log from your own eye and start renewing your mind as Scripture asks us to,

But the thing is - renewed minds require more than just good intentions.

They require the humility to examine yourself truthfully, and a willingness to let truth correct your perception.

And I’ll leave you with that - so tune in next week for more on how our perception shapes our reality.

Until then - take care!

But what if our children are experiencing something even more influential than our parenting techniques?

In this episode, I explore how the relationship we have with ourselves shapes the way we relate to our children, often without us realizing it. We unpack where distorted perceptions come from, why so many parents struggle with guilt, frustration, and unrealistic expectations, and how our unexamined beliefs can unintentionally be projected onto the people we love most.

We’ll also explore why Jesus emphasized childlike faith, what the Pharisees reveal about the dangers of rigid thinking, and why humility and teachability are essential for both spiritual growth and healthy parenting.

Because the goal isn’t to become a perfect parent.

It’s to become a more self-aware, truth-seeking, and teachable one.

And that begins by examining the relationship that underpins every other interaction: the relationship we have with ourselves.

In This Episode We Cover:

00:00 – The Thing No Parent Wants to Hear
Your children are experiencing more than your parenting techniques, they’re experiencing your relationship with yourself.

03:10 – Children Experience More Than Parenting Methods
Why kids absorb far more than our rules, routines, and discipline strategies.

05:34 – We Project Our Relationship With Ourselves Onto Our Children
How self-criticism, perfectionism, and unmet expectations become relational patterns.

06:16 – Distortions Aren’t the Problem
Why every parent has blind spots, and why awareness, not condemnation, is the goal.

07:08 – Where Distorted Perceptions Come From
The two factors shaping our self-perception: inherited standards and lived priorities.

10:50 – A Parenting Example of Hidden Friction
How conflicting priorities and expectations create unnecessary frustration and self-judgment.

11:52 – What Is a Distortion?
Defining distortion, moralization, and why defended interpretations become generational patterns.

12:58 – What Children Actually Need
Why humility, correction, repair, and truthfulness matter more than perfection.

13:53 – Childlike Faith vs. Pharisee Thinking
What Jesus’ teaching reveals about teachability, humility, and the danger of rigid perception.

15:23 – Three Everyday Parenting Scenarios
The broken glass, the poor grade, and the emotional meltdown, and what each reveals about perception.

18:04 – Why This Matters Spiritually
How our relationship with ourselves becomes a relational inheritance and shapes how we love others.

20:34 – How to Begin Correcting Distortions
Practical self-examination questions to uncover the assumptions driving your reactions.

21:26 – The Core Priorities Snapshot
Using lived evidence to identify distortions and better understand yourself.

21:42 – The Goal Isn’t Perfection
Why one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is modeling what it looks like to remain teachable.

Resources Referenced in This Episode

If you’d like to gain clarity on the core priorities that are already shaping your life and parenting, then the FREE Core Priorities Snapshot is the best place to start.

Full Transcript

OK - here’s the thing no parent wants to hear:

Your children aren’t just experiencing all of those parenting techniques you’re trying to be consistent with day after day as you try to raise good human beings...

They’re actually experiencing something much more powerful that underpins everything you do…

Your relationship with yourself.

Because long before our children adopt our rules and routines, they experience the way we relate to ourselves,

And nothing exposes our relationship with ourselves faster than parenting!

And the truth is - whether we realize it or not, kids feel the energy we bring to every interaction - long before we verbalize anything,

And that energy is louder than any of the words we say, even when we’re yelling…

So it’s something we need to have in check if we want to get our message across, so you know - no pressure!

But don’t worry - if you’re listening to, or reading this, that’s proof that you’re invested in becoming the best version of yourself for the children you’ve been entrusted with,

And you’re in the right place, because here we address the root of what’s actually driving your behavior vs just the behavior itself - which is actually a symptom, but also a powerful indicator, of something deeper - your perception.

So that’s what we’re going to dig into today.

And even if you aren’t a parent, stay with me,

Because the principles we’ll discuss apply to anyone responsible for influencing, guiding, teaching, or caring for others - regardless of age.

Hello, and welcome to Powered by PURPOSE - I’m Melody Lacey, and I help people clear the distorted perceptions that keep us from being able to see, and treat, ourselves, and others, the way God asks us to - and that includes our kids,

Because the struggle is real…

Most of us are struggling, to some degree, with a tension that’s keeping us emotionally reactive, and disconnected, from how He’s called us to steward our influence over the people He’s placed in our care,

So we’re going to take a God (and others) focused approach to self-discovery and personal growth - to unpack the real root cause behind the friction all parents feel in our dynamic with our kids,

And we’ll do this by examining how our beliefs shape our perception of reality,

Which, as you’ll see, requires some humility to examine the evidence our life is already revealing, and what’s actually driving our behavior.

Which is the first step in renewing our thinking with God’s truth, so that we can start seeing things more clearly,

Because when you understand yourself more clearly, then you’ll be able to understand your kids much better as well… and then parenting becomes the joy it’s intended to be, instead of a source of frustration.

Because the reality is - renewed minds require MORE than just good intention,

And God has given us the template and tools to grow closer to being the kind of parent He is to us.

So let’s get to it…

In the last episode we explored the one relationship that shapes all others, and

As I already mentioned, today we’re going to apply that idea to one of the most important roles many of us will ever have:

Parenting.

Children Experience More Than Our Parenting Methods

The reality is kids experience our expression of love in a multitude of ways - through our patience, our frustration, the grace we extend to them, and of course our met, and unmet, expectations, which usually leads to our praise and criticism.

So most parenting conversations you find tend to focus on behavior and approach - you know, things like:

• Effective communication

• Setting boundaries and establishing routines

• Discipline methods

• Natural and imposed consequences - both ‘good’ and ‘bad’

And all of those things absolutely matter…

But children don’t just experience our attempt at executing our parenting techniques,

They experience us - as people.

And like I mentioned earlier, they experience the energy in the emotional environments we create with every interaction,

And we all know that our energy is affected by lots of variables - like - how we slept last night, if we’re dealing with low blood sugar because we’re running on 2 macro bars and now it’s the ‘witching hour’ - so everyone else is hungry and cranky too…

Our energy is affected by every form of stress, and let’s not forget our hormones… oh the hormones…

And guys - you have them too, so don’t roll your eyes, but that’s not what we’re here to cover today,

But suffice it to say we’re all dealing with the same variables that our kids are affected by because we’re all human…

And while we have very little control over the fluctuations in those variables (especially those pesky hormones),

Our perception is always present - like 100% of the time - and it’s dictating the relationships we have with ourselves,

Which stems from → the assumptions we unconsciously operate from,

Which influences → the way we respond to ‘mistakes’ and how we handle frustration,

Which is actually rooted in → the way we view and treat ourselves.

Which raises an important question:

What are our children experiencing and absorbing from the way we relate to ourselves?

We Project Our Relationship With Ourselves Onto Our Children

Because if I’m constantly critical of myself… I will unintentionally become critical of my children.

If I struggle to extend grace to myself… I’ll likely struggle to extend grace to them.

If I believe my worth comes from achievement… Then it’s highly likely that I’ll evaluate them through their achievements as well.

If I never feel good enough… I may unknowingly communicate that they aren’t either.

Not because I’m trying to,

But because projection is an unconscious expression we have with others,

And the projection is rooted in our distorted perception of ourselves,

Which becomes the lens through which we interpret others.

Including our children.

The Distortion Isn’t The Problem

And if you haven’t already, this is the point where people tend to freak out…

So if you’re hearing this and thinking:

“Great. Now I’m messing up my kids.”

Take a breath, and stick with me, because No…

That’s not where we’re going with this.

The point isn’t condemnation or throwing our hands up in defeat.

The point is awareness - self-awareness… and you’re in good company,

Because every parent has distorted perceptions…

And every parent has blind spots…

And every parent is imperfect,

Because we’re all people who are just doing our best and working with what we’ve got,

And don’t worry, there are proven ways to address all of all this,

And the fact that you’ve hung with me this long proves that you care about how you’re showing up for your kids,

Maybe even more so than how you show up for yourself… which is key here.

Where Distorted Perceptions Come From

Because before we can get into correcting our distorted perceptions, we need to understand where they come from in the first place.

I mean, none of us wake up one morning and decide to interpret ourselves inaccurately.

Our understanding of ourselves develops over time and is shaped by two primary factors:

1. The standards we use to evaluate ourselves - which is what drives our perceptions, and

2. The actual priorities that are already driving our decisions and behavior, which often conflict with the standards we’re evaluating ourselves by - hence the tension…

So we’ll start with the standards we use to evaluate ourselves.

Every one of us inherits standards. They come from:

• Our family and upbringing,

• The culture we’re living in,

• Our religious beliefs and encounters with other Christians,

• School of course…

• Our peers in every environment,

• And then some of us - like me - set our own - just to keep things extra interesting!

And the thing is - some of those standards are healthy…

I mean, I’ll submit that God’s standards are the only ‘shoulds’ we should - haha - aspire to live up to,

But the nuance here is in HOW we interpret those standards and thus HOW we live them out.

Because that’s where it gets tricky,

When you combine the fact that some of the inherited standards we have aren’t actually healthy,

With the fact that many people never consciously examine them…

The result is we simply absorb them,

And then we spend our entire lives measuring ourselves against them,

which often results in an ongoing conflict with the second factor, which is..

The real, and highly individualistic, priorities that are already driving our behavior.

THIS is the other part most people miss, because we weren’t given the tools to examine them properly.

You see - even if two people inherit the exact same standards, they won’t interpret themselves the same way.

Why?

Because no two people on the planet prioritize the same things, in the same order, to the same degree.

Everyone is driven by different priorities.

We all have different motivations, different needs, different sources of meaning,

Unique gifts, and individual callings.

And those priorities are the real indicator of what we truly value as individuals.

But there’s often a disconnect between what people THINK they prioritize and where they actually spend their time - which, spoiler alert - is the evidence of what you actually prioritize, vs what you intend to.

And that’s where friction festers in our life.

But while the thought of friction can create negative vibes, it’s actually incredibly helpful because it’s part of the evidence that helps us get to the root cause of what’s going on.

We evaluate ourselves against inherited standards that may not actually align with what God defined,

and we think we’re prioritizing one thing,

but our calendar reflects something else.

THIS is why so many people spend years feeling:

• inconsistent

• lazy

• unmotivated

• guilty

• frustrated

When the real issue is a misinterpretation of ourselves,

Because we’re measuring ourselves against the wrong criteria,

And we’re stuck in a never ending cycle of self-judgement,

Which doesn’t exactly set the stage for a healthy relationship with ourselves - and it’s just unnecessary.

A Parenting Example

So now that we know we’re all human - and we all have some level of distorted perception, and now we know where it comes from - let’s look at how that plays out in our role as a parent, or caregiver of another soul.

Dig if you will a picture - of a parent who deeply values connection as his or her highest priority,

But this parent also believes that a ‘good’ parent (and I’m using my airquotes here) should always be productive, efficient, and in control of everything.

Well the top priority and those beliefs aren’t the same,

And now they’re constantly judging themselves through a standard that conflicts with what naturally matters most to them.

That tension creates enormous frustration - especially if the connection priority hasn’t been identified, so they don’t even know the root of the tension.

And now they feel like they’re failing,

Because they’re evaluating themselves through a distorted lens.

Defining Distortion

And here’s what I mean by ‘distortion.’

A distortion isn’t simply being wrong,

It’s an interpretation issue that causes us to perceive ourselves, others, or God inaccurately.

And once that interpretation is internalized (or worse - moralized), we stop seeing it as an interpretation,

And we start seeing it as reality, and sometimes even a responsibility.

That’s why distortions can feel so convincing.

And that’s why they’re often so difficult to identify on our own.

But the danger isn’t in having distortions - we all have them - remember?

The real danger is refusing to examine and acknowledge them, and defending them!

Because distortions we moralize become distortions we protect.

And distortions we protect become distortions we pass on.

And I think it’s safe to say that’s not what any of us are going for.

What Children Actually Need

What we’re trying to do is meet our children’s needs - and we want to do that well.

And what children need is clarity from the people leading them in life - the kind of clarity that’s only found through the standards God actually did set for all of us. Standards like:

Honest humility. The willingness to seek correction, and a focus on repairing what’s broken, and the growth that results from it.

Children benefit from seeing adults who are willing to learn right in front of them, and alongside them.

Parents who are willing to apologize when necessary, and who are willing to reconsider their perspective - you know - the whole slow to speak idea…

We need to be willing to admit:

“You know, I may have interpreted that incorrectly.”

THAT’s what healthy self-awareness looks like.

And it’s the opposite of perfectionism - it’s truthfulness.

I think this is why Jesus spoke so often about becoming like little children.

Not because children are innocent, and certainly not because they’re always right,

But because children are generally teachable.

They’re curious, and open, and as long as they aren’t chastised for it,

And they’re generally willing to admit what they don’t know.

Contrast that disposition with the Pharisees who spent their lives studying Scripture, waiting for the Messiah, and teaching others about God.

Yet when God Himself stood right in front of them, most of them couldn’t recognize Him.

Not because they lacked information, but because their perception had become rigid.

They had become attached to who they expected God to be.

What they expected Him to do, and how they expected Him to act.

And those expectations became so strong that they couldn’t see reality when it arrived.

The problem wasn’t God.

The problem was the lens through which they were interpreting Him.

And if we’re honest, we’re capable of doing the exact same thing.

Not just with God, but with anyone - including our children - and ourselves.

The more attached we become to our interpretations, the harder it becomes to see anything clearly.

That’s why humility matters so much.

Because humility keeps us teachable.

And teachability keeps correction possible.

So in an effort to not to approach our parenting like rigid Pharisees,

Let’s look at a few real-life scenarios that demonstrate the spectrum of reactions we tend to have to some common parenting challenges.

Scenario 1: The Broken Glass

A child drops a glass.

The event is neutral.

But the parent’s interpretation isn’t.

One parent sees: “Accidents happen.”

Another sees: “Why are they always so careless?”

Another sees: “Now I have more work to do.”

Another sees: “I can’t believe I just yelled about a glass.”

The child’s behavior isn’t the only variable.

The parent’s perception is.

Once you know this, then you can ask:

“If I had dropped the glass myself, how would I have spoken to myself?”

Because that’s often the exact tone that comes out toward the child.

Scenario 2: The Poor Grade

Some parents see: “This is information.”

Others see: “This reflects their potential.”

Others see: “This reflects me.”

🔥 That last one is where it gets interesting.

Because now we’re talking about identity - and I don’t mean theirs…

Now we’re talking about how entangled our identities are with our children’s performance against our expectations based on our association with how our worth is tied to achievement…

And suddenly a math grade isn’t about math anymore.

It’s about tying our perception of worth to test scores,

And projecting that distortion onto the child we value more than math.

Scenario 3: Emotional Meltdowns

A child has a meltdown,

And the parent becomes emotionally activated.

Why?

Because many parents aren’t responding to the child’s emotion,

They’re responding to their own discomfort with emotion.

And where did they learn that?

Often from the way they relate to themselves.

If I don’t know how to sit with my own frustration… I’ll struggle to sit with theirs.

If I suppress my emotions… I may try to suppress theirs.

If I fear conflict… I may overcorrect theirs.

Again - The child isn’t experiencing a parenting technique,

They’re experiencing a person.

A person who is unknowingly navigating the relationship they have with themselves and it’s being projected onto them.

Why This Matters Spiritually

And here’s where it gets even deeper - because this matters spiritually as well.

Jesus tells us to love others as ourselves,

And parenting is one of the clearest places that command becomes visible.

Because our children experience our definition of love before they understand theology.

But as we just explored, the relationship we have with ourselves not only dictates our relationships with others, it becomes a relational inheritance.

Whether we intend it to or not.

And that’s where it becomes really interesting.

Because many Christian parents have heard:

“Honor your father and mother.”

Thousands of times.

But often with little discussion that pairs that commandment with:

“Become like little children.”

Or:

“Test everything.”

Or:

“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Or:

“Take every thought captive.”

Or:

“Correct one another.”

Or:

“Remove the plank from your own eye.”

You get the gist…

So in a naturally hierarchical parent / child relationship that commandment, when taken in isolation, risks becoming a moralized distortion of the parent’s perception of their role,

And once that happens, questioning it feels sinful.

So well-intentioned people unconsciously cling to the thought that: “‘Good’ children don’t question their parents.”

Instead of: “God can use anyone to reveal truth.”

Which creates a completely different dynamic than what I believe God intended,

Because it often results in straining relationships instead of building them up - which is what He clearly prioritizes for us.

But when our children think that correction of adults is disrespectful, and curiosity is rebellion, and disagreement is viewed as dishonorable,

Those distortions can follow someone for decades.

Not because Scripture taught them, but because the perception distorted the Scripture.

The commandment wasn’t distorted.

The interpretation was.

But when we lean into childlike faith, that carries the traits of curiosity, dependency, and teachability,

Which are the very traits many adults have lost because certainty and control felt safer than humility.

But humility is what allows correction.

And correction is what allows transformation.

How To Begin Correcting The Distortion

So if at this point you’re thinking - ok, there might be something to this…

Maybe I do project my relationship with myself onto my kids, so what do I do about it?

Don’t start by analyzing your children. You can’t control them anyway - just ask the parent of a screaming, overtired 2 yr old on an airplane…

Start with examining the only thing you can control - yourself.

Ask yourself the tough questions:

“Where am I hardest on myself?”

“Where do I struggle to extend grace?”

“What standards am I using to evaluate myself, and where did they come from?”

“What expectations am I unconsciously projecting onto others?”

And as you ask yourself those questions - if you discover that you don’t understand yourself quite as well as you thought you did,

Then check out the Core Priorities Snapshot at link below.

It’s a free tool I created to extract the lived evidence I talked about earlier, because that’s the key to seeing yourself clearly, and dismantling those distortions as you identify them.

And just remember that the goal isn’t to become a perfect parent,

The goal is to become a more self-aware human being and a humble servant,

And humble servants become parents who create nurturing environments where the child they’ve been entrusted with, can grow into the person God created them to be.

And the fastest way to get there is by examining the evidence your life is already revealing so you can start seeing yourself, and everyone else, more clearly.

And when that happens, every relationship improves.

And one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is not the appearance of certainty, but rather:

Modeling what it looks like to remain teachable.

It assumes we already have a healthy relationship with ourselves.

In this episode, I explore the one relationship we never escape: the relationship we have with ourselves.

Together, we’ll unpack why so many of us struggle with insecurity, comparison, emotional reactivity, relational conflict, and chronic dissatisfaction despite years of personal growth, self-discovery, and self-improvement.

We’ll examine the difference between self-focus and self-love, why modern self-awareness often falls short, and how many of us unknowingly misinterpret ourselves through inherited standards, distorted assumptions, emotional experiences, and incomplete information.

I’ll also share why our relationship with ourselves becomes the lens through which we interpret everyone else - including God - and how that affects our leadership, emotional stability, decision-making, communication, relationships, and ability to live out our faith.

Most importantly, we’ll explore why truthful self-awareness requires more than introspection. It requires learning how to evaluate ourselves through the evidence our lives are already revealing so we can begin replacing distortion with truth.

Because when we learn to see ourselves more clearly, we become better equipped to love others the way Jesus calls us to.

In This Episode We Cover:

02:34 — Why self-love and self-focus are not the same thing

02:34 — The hidden flaw in modern self-awareness culture

06:08 — How we project our relationship with ourselves onto others

05:05 — What 1 Corinthians 13 reveals about loving ourselves biblically

07:19 — Why perception - not intention - often dictates behavior

07:32 — The connection between self-understanding and leadership

07:58 — How distorted perceptions affect our relationship with God

09:19 — Why objective evidence creates deeper self-awareness than introspection alone

Resources mentioned in this episode:

If you’d like to gain clarity on what’s already shaping your life, then the FREE Core Priorities Snapshot is the best place to start!

Full Transcript:

Most people know that Jesus said we’re supposed to love others as ourselves, but have you ever stopped to consider what that actually assumes?

Because it assumes we already have a healthy relationship with ourselves.

In fact, that’s the one relationship we never escape.

No matter where we go, what we accomplish, who we marry, who we work with, or how many people surround us, we are always with ourselves.

And yet most of us spend very little time really examining the quality of that relationship.

Instead, we tend to focus on our relationships with everyone else.

Of course, we want to communicate better, right? We want to love better and lead better. We want to be better parents and serve others as best we can and build better relationships.

But what if the quality of every one of those relationships is being influenced by the one relationship that’s always present?

The relationship we have with ourselves.

That’s what we’re going to explore in today’s episode. So hello, and welcome to Powered by Purpose. I’m Melody Lacey, and I help people clear the distorted perceptions that keep us from being able to see ourselves and others the way Jesus does.

Because the struggle is real. Most of us are struggling to some degree to live and relate to others the way he calls us to.

And that tension is what’s keeping us emotionally reactive and disconnected from how he’s called us to live. So we’re going to take a God and others approach to self-discovery and personal growth. And we’re going to unpack the real root cause behind the friction in your life and relationships.

We’re going to do this by examining how your beliefs shape your perception of reality and looking at the evidence your life is already revealing, so you can clearly see what’s actually driving your behavior.

And then we’ll look at how to recalibrate your thinking with God’s truth so that you start seeing things more clearly. Because when you understand yourself more clearly, you’ll be able to understand others much better as well. And then everything else falls into place.

So whether you’re building a business, leading a family, coaching a team, or simply trying to live your life more faithfully, this is how we get closer between our behavior and our intentions, so that we can truly honor God and fulfill his unique calling for our lives.

Because the reality is, renewed minds require more than just good intentions.

So let’s get into it.

The problem isn’t that you don’t know yourself.

One of the greatest misconceptions in modern personal development is the idea that self-awareness simply means thinking about yourself a lot. And spoiler alert, it doesn’t.

Truthful self-awareness requires an accurate interpretation. And most of us have spent years evaluating ourselves through inherited standards and distorted assumptions, which we then look at through emotional experiences and with incomplete information.

So we don’t struggle because we don’t know ourselves, we struggle because we misinterpret ourselves, which means we’re also inevitably misinterpreting others too.

So in order to improve that, we have to understand what it actually means to know ourselves.

We’re told to look inward for answers, to discover who we are and learn to love ourselves.

Yet despite all of the attention that we devote to self-discovery and self-love, most of us still struggle with insecurity, comparison, things like anxiety and emotional reactivity. And then we have relational conflicts and chronic dissatisfaction.

And why? Why do we still have those things even though we work on ourselves?

It’s because both of those concepts are often built on a flawed foundation. If we’re interpreting ourselves through distorted perceptions, which are those inherited standards with incomplete information, then it doesn’t matter how much time we spend thinking about ourselves, we’re going to continue to reinforce the same misunderstandings.

And we misunderstand love as well.

See, the world’s definition of love usually centers on things like self-esteem, self-confidence, self-care, self-acceptance, self-expression, and self-fulfillment. And while those things can be healthy,

They all share a common focus. You just heard me say it a bunch of times. That common focus is self.

So the assumption is that if we spend enough time focusing ourselves, we’ll eventually become happier, healthier, and more fulfilled. Yet most people who are self-focused are still struggling. And why is that?

Because self-focus and self-love are not the same thing. In fact, they’re often opposites.

So the more consumed we become with ourselves, the harder it is to genuinely see anyone else the way that God asks us to.

Because God’s definition of love, including self-love, is different than the world’s.

1 Corinthians lays that out pretty plainly. It’s quite a list. Love is actually fairly difficult.

It requires us to be patient, kind, not envious, boastful or proud, not to be self-seeking, not easily angered, keeps no records of wrong, and so it’s a much more demanding definition than most of us are accustomed to, and it raises an uncomfortable question…

Do we relate to ourselves this way? Am I patient with myself? Am I kind to myself? Do I keep a record of my own wrongs? I mean, I know I do. I really try to let that go, but that’s a big one for me, because…

If I don’t consistently relate to myself with patience, kindness, truth, and grace, why would I expect my relationships with other people to look any different?

This is where it gets interesting…

We project our relationship with ourselves onto others.

So most people assume that their struggles are with other people and are primarily about those people, but more often they’re revealing something about ourselves, because if you’re impatient with yourself, you tend to be impatient with others.

If you’re constantly judging yourself, you’re going to judge others. And if you keep a record of wrongs, you’ll keep records for others as well. So you get the gist.

The patterns don’t stop with us, they spread outward from within us, because our perception flows from the inside out.

So how we see ourselves influences how we see everyone else.

And this really matters because most people aren’t intentionally trying to be critical or defensive or reactive, judgmental, or emotionally volatile, right?

Most of us have really good intentions.

We want to love other people well. We want to communicate clearly and respond with grace. We want to honor God and make wise decisions, and we want to steward our responsibilities faithfully and become the kind of person others can trust and depend on.

But those good intentions alone won’t dictate our behavior. Our perception does.

And when our perception of ourselves becomes distorted, every area of life is affected. We become less effective leaders because we struggle to separate truth from projection.

We become less emotionally stable because our reactions are being driven by interpretations we never examined.

We become less mentally clear because we’re evaluating ourselves against inherited standards that may not reflect reality.

We become less relationally effective because we unknowingly project our struggles onto others. And we often feel more distant from God because distorted perceptions affect how we interpret Him as well.

The impact extends far beyond self awareness.

It affects how we think. It affects how we feel, how we lead, relate to others, and make decisions, how we handle conflict for sure, which directly influences how we communicate. And then that flows into how we steward our influence. And ultimately, it all boils down to how we experience peace.

So the quality of our relationships will never exceed the quality of our self understanding,

And this is why so many people feel stuck.

They’re trying to improve their relationship with others without examining the lens through which they’re interpreting themselves.

This is why learning to interpret ourselves is so important.

Jesus said that the second commandment is to love others as ourselves.

But notice he didn’t say more than ourselves. He didn’t say instead of ourselves. He said as ourselves.

That means the relationship with ourselves matters…

Not because life is supposed to revolve around us, it’s because the way we relate to ourselves becomes a template we unconsciously use to relate to others - including Him.

And that’s where true transformation begins.

But the challenge is most of us were never taught how to interpret ourselves accurately.

We’ve been taught to analyze our thoughts and examine our feelings, reflect on our experiences, and even explore our personalities,

But very few of us have been taught how to evaluate ourselves through objective evidence rather than inherited assumptions and emotional reactions or cultural expectations,

And that’s why self-awareness often feels elusive.

We’re trying to understand ourselves using the very lens that’s creating the distortion.

But when you take a different approach and examine the evidence that your life is already revealing, like your patterns, your true priorities, and you see why you make the decisions that you do and why you react the way you do, that makes an enormous impact on the relationship with yourself and with others.

Because you gain access to a level of clarity that you haven’t been able to achieve through introspection alone.

So if you’re wondering how to do this, then I have good news for you.

There’s a a FREE way to get started to look at a different way of examining yourself, and the link is here: The Core Priorities Snapshot

I hope you enjoyed this and tune in next week for more insights on this topic.

You’ll learn how distorted perceptions are formed through inherited standards, personal biases, and incomplete information - and why those distortions affect not only how we see ourselves, but also how we relate to others and to God.

Together we’ll explore the concept of “self-misinterpretation” as the hidden root of emotional reactivity, relational conflict, chronic self-condemnation, vocational frustration, and spiritual confusion, and why traditional “know yourself” approaches often fall short and how truthful self-awareness begins by examining the evidence your life is already revealing.

If you’ve ever wondered why understanding something intellectually doesn’t automatically translate into experiencing it, this episode will help you see the deeper issue - and offer a path toward greater clarity, renewal, and transformation.

You’ll Learn:

• Why self-awareness requires more than introspection

• The hidden difference between intentions and behavior

• The two primary causes of self-misinterpretation

• Why inherited standards often create internal conflict

• How distorted perception impacts relationships

• What Romans 12:2 really means in practical terms

• Why truthful self-awareness is the foundation for loving others well

Resources mentioned in this episode:

If you’d like to gain clarity on the core priorities that are already shaping your life, then the FREE Core Priorities Snapshot is the best place to start because it’s the foundation for the entire PURPOSE™ Framework and mastering your perception.

Chapter Summary:

00:00 — The Hidden Problem - Are You Sure You Really Know Yourself?

The opening challenge: what if you’ve been examining yourself through distorted lenses and unknowingly building your life on a false foundation?

02:20 — The Lie We Believe About Self-Awareness

Why thinking about yourself isn’t the same thing as understanding yourself, and why accurate interpretation matters.

02:45 — My First Therapy Session

The story that started everything: grief, panic attacks, career frustration, and a question that would shape the next two decades.

The Gap Between Intentions and Behavior

04:22 — Why Couldn’t I Live What I Believed?

Exploring the painful disconnect between knowing something is true and actually experiencing it.

05:21 — When Stress Becomes Your Identity

How chronic environmental misalignment led to emotional reactivity, exhaustion, insecurity, and relational tension.

06:20 — The Realization That Changed Everything

The breakthrough insight: the problem wasn’t personal failure—it was self-misinterpretation.

Understanding Self-Misinterpretation

07:56 — The Two Causes of Misinterpretation

A practical framework for understanding how perception bias and incomplete information shape every interpretation we make.

09:08 — Why “Know Yourself” Culture Falls Short

The hidden flaw in modern self-discovery approaches and why more introspection often leads to more distortion.

10:47 — Renewing the Mind Means Correcting the Lens

A practical exploration of Romans 12:2 and how transformation happens through truthful perception, not behavior modification alone.

Relationships Reveal Everything

12:22 — Why Relationships Expose Distortion

How the way we interpret ourselves inevitably shapes how we interpret everyone else.

13:36 — A Different Approach to Self-Awareness

How the PURPOSE Framework uses lived evidence, intrinsic drivers, and perception recalibration to uncover what’s actually governing your life.

14:48 — The First Step Toward Loving Others Well

Why truthful self-awareness is essential to fulfilling the second greatest commandment—and what we’ll explore next week.

Full Transcript

Are You Sure You Really Know Yourself?

Like, you really understand who you are and why you view the world and other people the way you do?

Most people think they do, and many people put a lot of effort into it.

But what if I told you that you’ve likely been misinterpreting who you really are because you’ve been examining yourself with blinders on?

That’s what we’re going to explore today, and it’s so important because it’s the key to closing the gap between our behavior and our intentions.

And doing that is what unlocks the power to transform your relationship with yourself, everyone around you, and your relationship with God.

It’s that powerful.

Hello, and welcome to Powered by Purpose.

I’m Melody Lacey, and I help people clear the distorted perceptions that keep us from being able to see ourselves and others the way Jesus does.

Because the struggle is real, you guys.

Most of us are struggling to some degree to live and relate to others the way He calls us to. And that tension is what’s keeping us emotionally reactive and disconnected from how He’s called us to live.

So we’re going to take a God-and-others approach to self-discovery and personal growth to unpack the real root cause behind the friction in your life and your relationships.

We’ll do this by demystifying how your beliefs shape your perception of reality by looking at the evidence your life is already revealing so you can clearly see what’s actually driving your behavior.

And we’ll look at how to recalibrate your thinking with God’s truth so that you can start seeing things more clearly.

Because when you see yourself more clearly, you’ll be able to see others more clearly too.

And then everything else falls into place.

So whether you’re building a business, leading a family, coaching a team, or simply trying to live your life more faithfully, this is how we close the gap between our behavior and our intentions so we can truly honor God and fulfill His unique calling for our lives.

Because the reality is this:

Renewed minds require more than good intentions.

The Biggest Lie About Self-Awareness

I think one of the biggest lies people believe is that self-awareness simply means thinking about yourself a lot.

But I’ve come to learn that truthful self-awareness requires an accurate interpretation of information.

Most of us have never actually been taught how to interpret ourselves clearly.

That’s the journey I’ve been on for years, and it’s why I do the work I do now.

And it all started back in 2002 with my first therapy session.

I’ll never forget it.

I went into that session with a list of events that had taken place in the prior two years. Little things like my father unexpectedly dying at only 51, graduating from college and moving away from my grieving mother and sister to start a new job that I ended up hating, then changing to a new position.

But there were good things too, like meeting my husband and getting married.

I also started my MBA while working full-time.

Those were the things I had dealt with - or at least I thought I had.

Because time kept moving forward, and I assumed I was moving forward with it.

But I brought all of it into that appointment anyway because I figured it was still helpful context.

The thing was, I was tormented by the disconnect I felt between what I thought I had already processed and a recent panic attack that had woken me up in the middle of the night.

Clearly something was going on.

That’s why I made the appointment.

I explained to her that my main complaint - something I’d struggled with for a long time - was that I couldn’t reconcile why I could know something was true, truly believe it, explain it intellectually to other people, and yet still not feel like I was actually experiencing it or able to live it out.

This was plaguing me.

And at the time, I thought there was something wrong with me.

When Good Intentions Don’t Match Your Behavior

I became obsessed with working on myself and figuring out how to have a job and not hate my life.

Because for a long time, those two things seemed to go hand in hand.

And like most people, my intentions were generally good.

I wanted to love people well, communicate clearly, show up consistently, be emotionally steady, and be a faithful steward of everything I’d been given.

I was actively seeking God and trying to trust Him that everything was happening for a reason.

I was asking Him to guide my steps.

It felt like I was doing all the things.

I was looking inward for how I could personally grow and improve when I was faced with all the frustrations at work.

And there were a lot of them.

But in the midst of my struggle, my behavior wasn’t representing my intentions.

That was the exact disconnect I was trying to address.

The reality was that my stress behavior was what people saw most days.

I definitely wasn’t showing up as my best self.

That showed up in emotional reactivity, which actually goes against my normal nature of being calm and composed.

But that’s when I’m not stressed.

It also showed up as constant exhaustion from the daily friction inside my head.

That created tension in some of my relationships, especially at work, which then led to insecurity about myself, the path I was on, and my ability to keep going.

And I just couldn’t seem to break those patterns.

What I Finally Realized

In 2010, after eight years of therapy that hadn’t really gotten me anywhere, I hit a breaking point.

I took a twelve-week hiatus from work.

Looking back now, I can see that it became the first pivotal turning point of my life.

Because I was driving myself absolutely crazy trying to force myself to function inside environments and expectations that fundamentally conflicted with how I’m intrinsically wired.

That’s what was causing the chronic stress behavior, self-condemnation, and emotional exhaustion.

Those things naturally created relational consequences and emotional volatility because I was ashamed of myself and confused about why I couldn’t just do better and live congruently with my intentions.

What I’ve come to realize is that I was actually misinterpreting myself and the world around me the whole time.

I didn’t have the tools to recognize that I was evaluating myself against a set of inherited standards that I couldn’t live up to while simultaneously living according to an entirely different set of personal priorities.

That was the root of the conflict.

And now it all makes sense.

The inherited standards were driving me into work environments that weren’t a good fit.

I was trying to perform at my best despite the frustration I felt.

I was using those inherited standards as false evaluation criteria for my performance.

And that entire cycle was skewing my perception of the situation and everyone involved in it.

Why We Misinterpret Ourselves

Here’s what I’ve learned since then.

Misinterpretation happens because of two primary factors.

1. Perception Bias

This is the lens we use to interpret reality.

It’s formed through what we’ve been taught by our family, culture, religion, emotional experiences, social conditioning, fears, insecurities, and aspirations.

2. Incomplete Information

In any given moment, we’re evaluating life with incomplete or inaccurate information.

We rarely possess the full context of a situation.

So how can we expect to have objective understanding or accurate self-awareness - let alone an accurate view of other people?

Our brains fill in the gaps.

And what do they fill those gaps with?

Perception bias.

Which brings us right back where we started.

Round and round we go.

It becomes an endless cycle when we don’t have the tools to diagnose and address it properly.

Where the “Know Yourself” Culture Falls Short

This is where the modern self-awareness movement often fails.

Most people are trying to discover themselves, improve themselves, heal themselves, and optimize themselves.

But if they don’t first correct the distorted lens through which they’re evaluating themselves, they simply get lost in the cycle.

The deeper they go inward, the more distortion they reinforce along the way.

That explains the chronic self-condemnation.

The comparison.

The emotional instability.

The relational conflict.

The burnout.

The misaligned careers.

The identity fragmentation.

The spiritual frustration.

And the years spent forcing ourselves into environments that were never aligned with who we truly are.

Meanwhile, we’re fooled into thinking we’re becoming more self-aware.

But often we’re simply becoming more introspective.

And those aren’t the same thing.

Renewing the Mind Means Correcting the Lens

To be clear, I’m not saying all inherited standards are negative.

In fact, God calls us to inherit His standards because He knows we can’t love Him and others without His help.

Which is precisely why we’re called to be transformed through the renewing of our minds.

But renewing the mind isn’t behavior modification.

It’s not positive thinking.

It’s not religious performance.

It is the truthful correction of distorted perceptions.

Renewing the mind means correcting the lens.

Because it’s in the interpretation and application of external standards where we often become confused, especially when those standards conflict with the priorities already governing our lives.

Many people aren’t even consciously aware of those priorities.

But there’s a sweet spot.

It’s found by exploring who you are based on the evidence of your life, identifying your true priorities, comparing them with the inherited standards you’ve been judging yourself and others against, and then evaluating all of that through the lens of God’s calling for your life.

That’s where clarity begins.

Why Relationships Reveal Everything

This process matters because whether we realize it or not, we project ourselves into every relationship we have.

That’s why it’s so hard to love others as ourselves.

If we’re constantly beating ourselves up, it makes sense that we’ll do the same thing to others.

Relationships become the easiest place to see the consequences of misinterpretation.

Because if you misinterpret yourself, you’ll misinterpret other people too.

You’ll misinterpret conflict.

You’ll misinterpret criticism.

You’ll perceive rejection where it may not exist.

You’ll misinterpret responsibility, authority, and even God Himself.

Because when you misinterpret yourself, you inevitably project that insecurity onto others.

You judge them unfairly while seeking validation for yourself.

You react emotionally because you’re personalizing situations through constant comparison.

You’re defending your identity.

And that means you’re relating to others through distortion instead of truth.

That’s why relationships become visible evidence of skewed perceptions.

A Different Approach to Self-Awareness

You deserve more than a self-improvement approach that simply asks you to explore who you want to become.

My framework goes deeper by guiding you through a process that uncovers the evidence of what your life is already revealing about what’s actually governing your thoughts and behavior.

It looks at your lived evidence, which brings you to truthful self-awareness while identifying your intrinsic drivers.

Those discoveries then become key inputs into the next step: perception recalibration.

Which is where the renewal of the mind takes place.

This approach is based on proven methodologies that I’ve combined and paired with God’s truth - methods that brought me more relief and clarity than I ever found through other approaches.

And it’s why I’m so passionate about sharing them with you.

The First Step Toward Loving Others Well

You can start this journey for free.

Start exploring yourself more objectively and honestly.

Pay attention to the priorities that are already governing your behavior.

Compare them with the standards you’ve inherited and the intentions you’re trying to live out.

Because once you realize you may have been misinterpreting yourself, you’ll begin to notice something else:

The way you see other people has been filtered through those same distortions.

And that’s why self-awareness is the first step toward fulfilling the second greatest commandment:

To love others as yourself.

That’s what we’ll unpack next week.

Until then, take care.

In this candid and, dare I say funny, conversation, my sister Amanda and I explore how self-awareness, priorities, family dynamics, and personal development impact everything from relationships and self-worth to mental health and spiritual growth.

Together, we unpack the difference between aspirational values and lived priorities, how comparison distorts perception, and why learning to accept who God created us to be changes the way we relate to both ourselves and others.

We also dig into how the custom AI tools inside the PURPOSE™ Framework help reveal subconscious behavioral patterns in an objective, honest, and deeply transformative way.

Here’s how it plays out:

🎭 ACT 1 - What Your Life Is Actually Revealing

00:00 — The PURPOSE Framework and why your life reveals what truly matters to you

04:55 — How AI tools exposed hidden behavioral patterns and relationship dynamics

09:10 — Priorities vs. aspirational values: the root of self-judgment and comparison

🪞 ACT 2 - Trying to Become Someone You’re Not

17:15 — Burnout, motherhood, career pressure, and trying to become someone you’re not

27:21 — Productivity, money, and attaching your worth to achievement

34:25 — Rediscovering identity, joy, and the freedom to live differently

43:17 — Projection, resentment, and expecting others to value what you value

☕ ACT 3 - Acceptance, Healing Relationships, and Rooting Identity in Truth

52:07 — Healing your relationship with yourself through self-awareness and truth

54:32 — The Frother Story ☕😂

58:07 — Self-love, spiritual growth, and rooting your identity in God

1:02:34 — Using AI tools for structured self-awareness and personal growth

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Penny is inside → Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers - This will identify your core priority hierarchy, personal zone of genius, existing limiting beliefs, and a personalized Purpose Statement that becomes the foundation for everything you do.

You can also work with me one on one where we’ll work through a perception based belief recalibration process designed to:

✔️ Identify the highest-leverage distortion & expose the assumptions sustaining it.

✔️ Correct perception at the root & neutralize emotional charges.

We also unpack why most self-improvement advice fails, and I introduce a data-driven process for identifying your true subconscious priorities, and the power they have to build a life that doesn’t require external motivation because you’re already intrinsically inspired to act.

This episode is especially relevant for:

• High achievers stuck in cycles of burnout

• Entrepreneurs forcing strategies that don’t feel right

• Anyone questioning why “working harder” isn’t working

In this video we cover:

(00:00 – 02:00) Introduction

(02:00 – 05:20) Competence vs Fulfillment

• High performance without inspiration

• Early signs of burnout (boredom, cynicism, emotional erosion)

(05:20 – 07:30) What Burnout Actually Is

• Burnout = layering performance on uninspiring work

• Why discipline can mask misalignment (temporarily)

• The breaking point: when performance no longer sustains you

(07:30 – 10:30) The Problem with Self-Help

• Most advice = copying others + forcing habits

• Surface-level solutions vs root cause analysis

• “Burnout just shifts locations” if the foundation isn’t fixed

(10:30 – 12:00) Discovery of a Real Process

• Finding a structured method for identifying root cause

• Why discipline works naturally in aligned areas

• Difference between aspiration vs true priority

(12:00 – 14:30) How to Recognize Misalignment

• Signs: lack of follow-through, constant need for motivation

• Self-judgment and comparison loops

• Misalignment as the root of inconsistency

(14:30 – 17:00) Aspirational vs Actual Values

• Education system trains conformity, not self-awareness

• Decisions based on ROI vs intrinsic interest

• Importance of evidence-based self-understanding

(17:00 – 19:30) Breaking the Negative Loop

• Comparison → self-doubt → burnout cycle

• What actually creates a “good day”

• Living in vs outside your core priorities

(19:30 – 22:30) The PURPOSE™ Framework

• Data-driven self-awareness vs feelings-based identity

• Introduction to tools: purpose, niche, messaging

• Traits of the greats + belief recalibration

(22:30 – 25:30) Why Affirmations Don’t Work

• Brain rejects what it doesn’t believe

• “Your brain is a BS detector”

• Need for belief-based alignment, not forced positivity

(25:30 – 28:30) Industry Illusions & False Growth

• Self-help/spirituality loops that keep people stuck

• Chasing “feel good” vs solving root problems

• Identity vs temporary emotional highs

(28:30 – 31:00) Perception, Fear & Performance

• Pedestal thinking and subconscious limitation

• Stress = fear of loss or gain

• Importance of perception in growth

(31:00 – 33:30) Aligned Authority

• Difference between confidence vs alignment

• Energy vs depletion

• Knowing vs forcing

(33:30 – 36:30) Entrepreneurship Reality

• Misaligned businesses fail (even if profitable)

• Personal example of forced effort vs aligned flow

• Burnout as a biological breaking point

(36:30 – 38:30) Solopreneur Challenge

• You can’t love every part of business

• Importance of outsourcing based on priorities

• Hiring aligned people vs just filling roles

(38:30 – 40:30) Core Takeaway

• You need to know who you are

• Evidence-based self-awareness vs aspirational identity

• Stop building on a weak foundation

(40:30 – End) AI Tool + Practical Application

• Using AI for pattern recognition and data analysis

• Making self-discovery accessible and actionable

• Final encouragement: take the process seriously

If this conversation resonated with you, here are 3 ways you can get started:

1. Start with clarity - the FREE Core Priorities Snapshot is a guided introduction to uncovering the subconscious priorities already shaping your life.

Subscribe now

Plus every Thursday you’ll receive a clarity-first article or podcast episode designed to recalibrate your thinking around truth, so you can build your life with true clarity.

2. Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers - If you’re ready to go deeper now, this will identify your full core priority hierarchy, personal zone of genius, existing limiting beliefs, and a personalized Purpose Statement that becomes the foundation for everything you do.

Tap into Your Intrinsic Drive

3. Address the perceptions holding you back with Purge Misaligned Patterns - a facilitated belief recalibration process designed to:

✔️ Identify the highest-leverage distortion & expose the assumptions sustaining it.

✔️ Correct perception at the root & neutralize emotional charges.

✔️ Stabilize leadership, pricing, and visibility.

This is not motivation - it’s correction - and correction restores your power.

Start Recalibrating

Get more from Melody | Powered by PURPOSE in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

I share my journey from a 20-year corporate career into purpose-driven work, explaining how most people unknowingly build their lives and businesses on misaligned beliefs,

And Grant, who is mental performance coach who works with athletes to build their mental toughness and resilience with proven actionable tools, discusses his approach,

And together we explore how identity, subconscious priorities, and emotional triggers shape performance - especially for athletes and high achievers.

The episode bridges performance psychology, entrepreneurship, and identity work, offering a powerful framework for:

• Discovering what truly drives you

• Breaking through mental plateaus

• Performing under pressure without entering survival mode

• Aligning your life, work, and goals with your natural design

In this video we cover:

(00:00 – 02:30) Introduction & Melody’s Background

• Melody’s 20-year corporate career and transition post-COVID

• Introduction to mindset work → reframed as belief recalibration

• Why traditional mindset work can fail without a solid foundation

(02:30 – 05:30) Mindset vs Belief Systems

• Difference between attitude vs deep belief structures

• The problem with “top 10 business ideas” culture

• Why identity and purpose must come before strategy

(05:30 – 08:30) The Risk of Misalignment

• “Toxic positivity” and forced motivation

• Building a business you end up resenting

• The gap between stated values vs lived behavior

(08:30 – 12:00) When to Recalibrate

• Recalibration triggers: growth, plateaus, new goals

• Parenting, coaching, and developing intrinsic motivation

• Exposure vs forcing outcomes

(12:00 – 17:00) Athletes, Passion, and Performance

• Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation in sports

• Dangers of pushing talent without passion

• Real-world examples (children vs elite athletes)

(17:00 – 20:30) Breaking Mental Barriers

• “Traits of the greats” framework

• Removing pedestal/pit thinking

• Unlocking performance through belief ownership

(20:30 – 24:30) Stress, Fear & Performance States

• Survival mode vs peak performance mode

• Fear = perception, not reality

• Reframing anxiety as fuel

(24:30 – 27:30) In-the-Moment vs Pre-Game Work

• Why mindset tools alone aren’t enough

• Two-phase approach:

  • Pre-conditioning (belief recalibration)

  • In-the-moment regulation (breathing, triggers)

(27:30 – 31:30) Burnout, Plateaus & Identity

• Recognizing burnout vs misalignment

• Reconnecting with passion

• Transitioning out of identity-based roles (athletes, careers)

(31:30 – 35:30) Identity & Self-Worth

• Detaching identity from titles and income

• Internal vs external validation

• Faith, identity, and subconscious programming

(35:30 – 39:30) Facing Fear Head-On

• Worst-case scenario planning

• Mental rehearsal and emotional desensitization

• Navy SEAL mindset principles (micro-goals, visualization, triggers)

(39:30 – 42:30) Redefining Resilience

• Resilience ≠ enduring suffering

• Resilience = recovery and adaptability

• Neutralizing emotional charge through recalibration

(42:30 – 45:30) Daily Mental Training System

• Morning visualization

• Midday reset

• Evening reflection

• Training the mind like a muscle

(45:30 – 50:00) Alignment & “Perfect Day” Concept

• No universal perfect day—only aligned days

• Living in top 3–5 priorities

• Difference between aspirational vs actual values

(50:00 – End) Education, Burnout & Real-World Application

• School system vs individualized development

• Burnout as misalignment

• Connecting responsibilities to intrinsic motivation

If this discussion resonated, and you’re ready to go deeper, here are 3 ways I can help:

1. Start with clarity - the Core Priorities Snapshot is a guided introduction to uncovering the subconscious priorities already shaping your life, and all subscribers get access for FREE.

Subscribe now

Plus every Thursday you’ll receive a clarity-first article or podcast episode designed to recalibrate your thinking around truth, so you can build your life with true clarity.

2. Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers - If you’re ready to go deeper now, this is a guided discovery process to identify your full core priority hierarchy, personal zone of genius, existing limiting beliefs, and a personalized Purpose Statement that becomes the foundation for everything you do.

Tap into Your Intrinsic Drive

3. Address the perceptions holding you back with Purge Misaligned Patterns - a facilitated belief recalibration process designed to:

• Identify the highest-leverage distortion

• Expose the assumptions sustaining it

• Correct perception at the root

• Neutralize emotional charge

• Stabilize leadership, pricing, and visibility

This is not motivation - it’s correction - and correction restores your power.

Start Recalibrating

Get more from Melody | Powered by PURPOSE in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

FULL Transcript

Grant Chiasson

We’ve got a lot to cover. We’ve got a lot to talk about. I mean, we’re both kind of delved into each other’s worlds in the last month or so and this is exciting. And you know, I think I’m very comfortable in a situation like this - going live, you know, talking to somebody that speaks the same language as me in terms of, you know, we’re all about the mental side and all about the mindset. So let’s just dive into it from the get go. Just introduce yourself in your words and take it from there.

Melody Lacey

Alright. Well I’m Melody Lacey. I spent over twenty years in corporate America leading project teams, multi, multi million dollar website development mostly, although I did start with the Department of Defense. That was a whole different culture. But I really wasn’t happy, you know. I followed the whole recipe for success, and thought I was nailing it and then I was miserable.

So around COVID, I left corporate America and never looked back. tried a few different things and in the process learned a lot about mindset work. And I use mindset as a generic term because there’s a lot of different ways to approach it. And I got trained in a couple of different methods that have just been life changing for me,

So now that’s what I bring to my clients. And as you saw, there’s a hierarchy of priorities, and it was interesting when I did that throughout my own training. That’s the first step in my process. You know, personal development and self-improvement is second in my hierarchy. And that’s funny, because if I look back at my whole life, that is consistent with my whole life, especially as an athlete, which is your main target audience, right?

And so it totally made sense that this was the next step in my career path. So I mean I could call myself a mindset coach from the standpoint of that being such a familiar term for people, but it’s more like belief recalibration because if you do mindset work with a set of beliefs about yourself that aren’t quite accurate, but they’re deeply ingrained in your subconscious, you’re just layering on a a weak foundation.

So the work I do actually comes before layering on mindset work to make sure you’re intrinsically motivated to do whatever it is you’re doing, and if you’re not, how to adjust that so that you’re meeting goals and growing in your life and career.

Grant Chiasson

Perfect. I mean, when I think about it too, it seems like the word mindset became interchangeable with like in my space, like the attitude. You know, you better have the right mindset going to practice today. But that to me you’re using as a word like your attitude, like you’re choosing how you think about it. But knowing now, I mean your entire mindset is just your total belief and shifts towards the big picture and then to the micro goals.

So I think it’s important to distinguish between it. You know, I think the perfect, like you said, my perfect title I would love to be called like a mindset and performance coach. But it’s like you said, you get it mixed up in the terms and mental performance is kind of where we’re at with it. But you know, it’s incredible your journey and what you’ve done and built because for me personally, you know, going through your purpose framework and you know, doing this, I needed this at the beginning, you know, because everybody if you look at YouTube, everybody searching or no, they figured out that you can say if you want to start a business, these are the top ten most profitable in twenty twenty six.

Melody Lacey

Yeah, yeah. It’s all about choosing the right niche.

Grant Chiasson

Yeah I know. And so, you know, if somebody is in a position where they said, look, I know the answer to all of my personal beliefs and problems is probably to start a business, and I want to have control. I want to be in that realm. I just have nowhere to start. I mean, they’ve got to dive into the purpose and identity right away. I mean, what you - what it created for me, and luckily, you know, I’m in the space, like I told you, I understand how to kind of feed it when I need it to to get the right feedback from it. But I mean just to have a full, clear picture of where I stand, what’s my branding, what’s my belief, everything that’s structured in my subconscious, just flowing freely to communicate it to other people. How can I help you? It’s so crucial and beneficial. So yeah, I wish I would have had this from the beginning.

Melody Lacey

That’s why it’s such a foundational piece, right? Because if you’re trying to build like, you know, I’m glad that the term toxic positivity started to be thrown out there because it really can become toxic to try to force positivity where you’re not really feeling it, right? Because that is a fast track to potentially just keeping you misaligned in whatever you’re doing. And if you are someone who is exploring, you know, decentralizing your career,

And you decide that entrepreneurship is something you want to pursue, but you’re not sure what you want to do, you really risk just creating another job you’re going to resent. And then, you know, you’re the one who’s done that at that point. So, you know, you need to figure out how to pivot if you find yourself now doing a job that you hate and it’s your own business. So the way to get ahead of that is to figure out what really you’re meant to do.

I believe that we’ve all been created with a specific calling and part of our calling is to figure out what that is. And we’re not taught how to do that in school. Our school system is set up for us to, well hopefully learn how to learn, but really learn how to take tests and really learn how to fit a mold, and learn how to get to a next step, which usually involves more schooling and then working for someone else.

So there isn’t much in the whole progression there that prepares anyone for entrepreneurship, let alone identifying what it is you really love to do. All of this discipline and motivation work is really just trying to force something that you’re not driven to do already. And there’s something to be said for being disciplined, but everyone is naturally disciplined in the things that they love.

And in something that you love already, you have that. So the whole idea with those first thirteen questions, and the first step of my framework, is to identify what those things are because your life is already showing you proof of what you care about most, and what happens is we’ve all inherited these aspirational values and priorities that we’re trying to essentially live up to.

In my podcast last week I was basically floating the idea for people who aren’t familiar with this work that if I asked you what do you value, what do you prioritize, people get excited. They’ll tell you all about it, right? But then if we take a look at the evidence in your life of how you spend your time… Well, will those two lists match up?

For most people they won’t, because people are trying to ‘be better.’ Well, you have to define ‘better,’ and I think we’re better off looking at the evidence in our life and being who we are and then building on that. Because there are ways to take what you currently value and prioritize, and if you’re not where you want to be, adjusting that. And that’s why belief recalibration is really a more accurate term for what I do, versus like mindset, which can, like we said, be interpreted lots of different ways. But belief recalibration kinda isn’t a familiar term for people.

Grant Chiasson

Right. Yeah. I mean, so I understand so in terms of recalibration, I mean, so look, I’m 33. I’ve had a good 10 plus years of trying to navigate, you know, real life, job, parenthood, fatherhood, all the things, ups and downs, roller coasters. So I guess my question is, how often should I recalibrate? If that makes sense. You know, because right now I’m in a really good spot. So it’s like, what does it take for me to say, okay, it’s time to kind of figure things out again? What do you think?

Melody Lacey

Yeah, well it’s whenever you’re trying to up your game in an area, and meet a goal.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot from the standpoint of what an athlete would need, and at all different ages, so I’ll answer it from that perspective. So I’ve been thinking about the role that you play as a parent and as a coach with a young athlete. So as you know, I homeschool my children, which is not something I ever planned on, but here I am. And you know, now I wouldn’t have it any other way. But the challenge that I run into is not from an education standpoint, it’s from socialization and exposure to things like sports. So I got them involved in cross country in the fall and now track now that we’re in the spring with the local school. And you know they pushed back a little bit.

I was a competitive athlete and so was my husband and we were just very naturally competitive, and just really driven to work hard, to try to win. We both did timed sports - Races. So it’s you against the clock and it’s all about your physical performance, which is like my whole thing. I just love to optimize everything I can. However, my frame of mind back when I was swimming, that was really my biggest sport I was most competitive in.

And I looked at it like if I didn’t win a race, even if I won a race, we’ll talk about that scenario. If I didn’t get my personal best, I was mad. And I had this thing in my head where you’re not taking it seriously enough if you’re not mad when you don’t do well. And here I was the one defining that, especially if it was a personal best situation. And I would just beat myself up over it.

And I know you work with athletes to try to get them beyond that moment, right? So it doesn’t trigger something in them because it absolutely did with me. So now as a parent, I’m looking at my kids and I’m having to push them a little bit to try new things. And so if you take my whole priorities hierarchy, it’s looking at, okay, what are you intrinsically motivated to do? Well, if they answered that right now, I mean running is not gonna show up in their top three and that’s really the zone you want to be in in life but our our hierarchy changes with stages, so now at 13 theirs is different than it’s gonna be at 15 and at 20, 25, right? Just because our stage in life changes so that’s to be expected but there’s gonna be some consistencies. So as a parent or as a coach, knowing what I know, how much do I push them?

Well, the way I look at it is our responsibility is to expose our children to as much as possible because how do you know what you like and what you’re passionate about if you haven’t tried things, right? So if they end up hating it, I won’t make them do it again. But I am going to make them go through a season because, you know, at first they didn’t like practice, but it was because they were out of shape for the first time in their life.

Well, they weren’t in the fall. They’re natural athletes. These girls could be phenomenal in any sport. They’re identical twins and we’re like, we have to get these girls into sports, but they’re just like, if it’s not fun, they don’t want to do it. But they l ended up liking cross country. But that’s coming off of the summer. So they were in amazing shape because they run around all the time. They don’t sit at desks all day.

But track season is in the spring, so it came off of winter. And we skied and stuff, but like they weren’t running around all day. So they were sore. And it was like what is going on? You know, they’re like fit 13 year olds who never felt the soreness of getting into shape. And so they had to get over that hump, and I had to say, all right, this is normal.

So part of it, you know, as a coach and as a parent or teacher, you’re teaching a kid what to expect because our satisfaction in life is really around met and unmet expectations, right? And so where do our expectations come from? We could have a whole live about that, just that topic. But they ended up not really being thrilled about practice and part of it was like on a track, you can see them the whole time. Whereas cross country, if they needed to walk, they’re in the woods, you might not see that.

And so they ended up loving the first meet. They didn’t want to do the meet, but then they ended up loving the meet. And so what’s happening is I’m having all these like little milestones of where keeping them going and exposing them to new things is really key.

Now, if you take an athlete, so you’re working with people who are really bought into their sport, right? And if you’re competing at the collegiate level, you’ve decided I’m dedicated to this sport. But there could have been a lot that led up to that that was external. So as parents, I think we really need to be careful to not push our kids.

So this is where I would find myself like, okay, I need to push you to get through a season to experience something new. Then we can talk about whether or not you like this, because I’m not gonna force you to do something you hate, and I’m gonna figure out how to build grit and discipline in something that you love because that’s really the zone we should be in and that’s the zone we should be aspiring to to get to at every stage in life.

But at the same time you have to see something through long enough to know what you like about it and what you don’t like about it. But if you have a situation where you have a coach, a parent or a teacher who’s really pushing a kid because maybe they have natural talent, but if they hate the sport, that’s gonna cause more damage in their long term psychological and mental health and in their performance because as you and I know our physical performance is arguably more affected by our mental game than even our physical conditioning because the physical conditioning is much easier than the mental game and that’s the work you do. So we have to be careful to not push a kid beyond I push them into something they hate.

So if you were to do the hierarchy of priorities with a kid and find out that this kid or so let’s say a college student, this person’s really not interested in football. Right? He goes to practice, he’s performs really, really well, but if you do the hierarchy, you find out it’s not where he wants to spend his time, because off the field, if he doesn’t care about football, that’s a red flag that this guy isn’t really into it.

So I think that’s the baseline. It’s figuring out if someone is passionate about what they are doing. Now, my mentor has this story he’s told multiple times about this pole vaulter. So in contrast to someone who doesn’t like it, if they found that out in their hierarchy of priorities, he worked with this girl who was just her whole life was pole vaulting. She spent all of her time thinking about it, reading about it, training. If you looked in her room, she had pole vaulting stuff everywhere. She was an Olympic pole vaulter. But she got there because it was pole vaulting all day long. It’s where she spent her mental time. It’s where she spent her physical time. It was in her physical surroundings. Pole vaulting was her life. Now, in a situation like that, you’re not questioning whether or not this person is intrinsically motivated. That’s there.

But if she wants to get to the next level, well now you have to start dealing with the belief recalibration. And that’s the step that I do with one on one work with people is really about getting to the traits of the greats. So what happens is we have these limiters in our minds of like, well that person’s really amazing and we decide why they are, right? Or that person’s really not good and then we kind of look down on them,

And in the process, we’re putting ourselves and the others in pedestals and pits. We’re on the pedestal for this person, we’re in the pit with this person. Now, if you’re trying to get better as an athlete, you do need to study other athletes. So in football, you watch plays, you watch, you know, games, you watch like what a quarterback’s doing, right? Like how did he move? How did he make that judgment of who to throw to and when and whatever,

And that is great, but if in your mind you think I’m not capable of that, well, how do we get over that hump? And that’s the belief recalibration. So first you start with what you did with the questions of identifying are you intrinsically motivated to do this?

Let’s assume yes. If you want to get better, what you do is you run this process for you choose you know, choose maybe if you’re a quarterback, choose five quarterbacks you admire the most. Study their traits and then we run the belief recalibration to show you you actually possess all of those traits. And what it does is it breaks down all the mental barriers that are really holding you back from your peak performance because you realize, this person actually isn’t above me. And what it does is it invites this energy into you into your body and into your mind and your belief system that you’re capable of anything.

And it unlocks talent that was just well locked inside of you when you go through this process. So you know, and you asked how often do we do it? Well, in that case, in an athlete, it’d be whenever they’re training, whenever they realize, I’m not getting past maybe I’m at a training plateau. So you know, then look at all right, what do I need to study?

And then essentially realizing Okay, I actually can do this. And it’s not about positive thinking. It’s a systematic process that really gets into the back of your mind, into your primal brain. And all our stress in our life, all stress comes from fear of losing something you desire or gaining something you’re avoiding.

That’s when the survival part of our brain kicks in. And you don’t want to be in survival mode when you’re playing a football game. You’re not going to have peak performance throwing that ball. So in order to master your life and your skills, you have to go through this recalibration so that you’re not being triggered and you’re not in survival mode. You need to be in peak mode when you want peak performance.

Grant Chiasson

Isn’t there a zone? I’m thinking back to my old psychology books now. It was like that zone of optimal performance where it’s like peak arousal, lowest performance, but like when they when they’re crossing their barriers together, like just enough arousal of that fight or flight to use it as fuel where you have just the right balance to where now you can operate at a high. You remember what I’m talking about?

Melody Lacey

Yeah. Adrenaline itself can make you run away, which you don’t want to do when you need to when you need to charge forward, right? but yeah, it’s a fight or flight and adrenaline can be a fuel for that, But you want to make sure you’re fueling the right behavior. When I say right behavior, that’s being defined by whatever goal the person’s working towards. And in this case, we’re talking about a quarterback, right? So you end up learning there’s been so many studies done that you know, what we perceive as fear when we have a physical reaction to something, there’s actually no discernible difference between that fear reaction that or the like anxiety and the just the vibration we’re feeling in our body and excitement. It’s all mental and how we’re perceiving what’s going on. And you can retrain, you can recalibrate that physical sensation to be a positive fuel for performance, and it’s really powerful.

Grant Chiasson

Yeah. And what you said too is another psychological trigger. I wrote about this on Halloween actually, because it’s called the alter ego effect. To where when you feel like that limiting belief kicks in, just like you said, and you have those anchored like role models and those anchored ones, and if you could like create just pick one of them out of the out of the five, you’d say. And when you feel that arousal.

And then when you feel that tension and that anxiety, which slows you down in your performance, you essentially have some kind of reset or trigger beyond, you know, the deep breath and anchor point to almost tell yourself, okay, wait, what would Tom Brady do in this situation? And it’s almost like you’ve learned so much and taken so much in that you actually have rewired your brain to think like that person. And you slowly, what’s the goal? Calm down.

Just relax, get back to that optimal level of arousal. So the alter ego effect, my mentor Ben Newman, keeps a note card on his favorite number’s forty-four. So he keeps like this secret agent note card thing that says like zero forty-four, like double seven, but he’s forty-four. And he just keeps it on his desk. And he’s like, you know what? When I’m like freaking out, when I’m going through one of those days, I just look at the card, like, okay, wait, what would James Bond do?

And I’m like, I do the same thing with Batman. I’m like, okay, what is Batman gonna do? You know, my mom and I had hundreds of Batman figurines growing up. So okay, this is part of your work which you’ve done to me. I know that I have this hero, you know, subconscious motive to be drawn to the hero as I learned yesterday, going back to what I enjoyed growing up and building things and fixing things. so just the little details that can shift your thought process, affect your arousal, filter out the body. You’re gonna perform at a higher level. It’s plain and simple.

Melody Lacey

Yeah, but I would argue you don’t want to be standing there thinking, what would Tom Brady do? Ideally, you’ve already done the belief recalibration to realize you possess the same traits that Tom Brady possesses, so that in that moment you know what to do. Because you’ve already dealt with that. If you’re constantly thinking, I want to perform like that person, they’re still on a pedestal, which means you’re still viewing yourself as less than. And that actually hurts your performance.

So the work has to be done pre performance moment. Pre-game where you’ve already gotten yourself to a point where you absolutely know without a shadow of a doubt you can perform exactly like that. Now, I mean, there might be physical differences. You still have to do the physical training, right? But the belief recalibration has been taken care of. So you might be like channeling a performance standard.

But at that point, if you’ve done the recalibration, it’s in you. So you don’t necessarily want to be thinking, I want to be like that person. You want to do the work to embody that trait. So now you’re the superhero. You’re as good as Tom Brady, you’re not less than. Where your framework is incredibly powerful, and for anyone who’s watching, Grant has this amazing resource, the Fearless 20. and it’s in the moment work.

So what it helps you do is, so my work revolves around triggers and getting rid of triggers. And so I didn’t use that word yet, because you’re not necessarily triggered by someone you admire, you’re trying to aspire. But the same thing is happening from a brain perspective where what’s happened is you’re triggered to think you can’t do it. You know, you’re less than that person. Whereas an emotional trigger could also be someone who really drives you crazy, right?

And you should maybe work on not letting someone else steal your joy and control your emotions, right? So you can work on so many different issues and triggers. But what your work helps big people with is in the moment, stress management. So that trigger doesn’t happen in the first place. Where you could be in a game where something happens and let’s say it’s catastrophic for the game, right? Or maybe you get injured.

And moving forward, you can heal your body, you can do all the PT, you can do all the training. But if you now have a fear that is stuck in your brain, you now have a trigger too. That’s gonna hold you back. And so the association to that fear. Obviously the triggers associated with something that you’ve grown to know.

You don’t want that to happen again, right? You know, and for I mean, no one wants things like an injury to happen. So if now your plateau is actually lower because you can’t get over it from a mental perspective, and now you’re dealing with a fear based reaction. Your framework is incredible. I so pictured when I was going through it, I pictured myself poolside and I’m like, if I had had this I could have done the breathing and the visualization immediately. That lessens the possibility for a trigger forming in the first place. So I see our work as like two-phase. You need skills for in the moment and for prep, and then you need skills that are like way pre-game, which would be the work that I would do. Make sure this is something you actually want to do.

Grant Chiasson

Well or even just the night before. Yeah.

Melody Lacey

Yeah, I mean it’s even just a night before, but like you’re not I mean, once you learn the skill, you can do it in the moment, but what you offer is more nervous system, right? It’s like nipping things in the bud and not letting your body go into a physical reaction and that, you know, really imprints on our brain because that’s what triggers the survival mode mechanism. And so they really go together so well and you know, if someone’s doing this work, they should be doing all of it, in my opinion, because we have lots of different parts of her brain and they could all use a little work. It’s not just the back. I know, it’s funny that I point there when I’m talking about it.

Grant Chiasson

No, that’s just the cerebellum, the little brain.

Melody Lacey

That’s the one that needs the most well, I don’t know. What happens is when you quiet the survival mode, you know, when you’re not being chased by a bear, right? We need to be functioning more in our prefrontal cortex. And so the belief recalibration really enables that. It enables mastery over your life, your attitude, but your performance, both physically and mentally. Beause anything we’re doing is a mental game.

And you don’t want to be in survival mode, right? I mean, just think of all the negative impacts we have physically from being in survival mode, let alone from a performance standpoint. Well, there’s health issues with that, right? Cortisol and all that. But yeah, I mean cortisol is actually, it gets a bad rep, but that’s just because it’s elevated in people unnecessarily. Cortisol plays an important role in our lives.

Grant Chiasson

Just spike it in the morning and you’ll be fine. I mean, if you spike that cortisol right when you wake up, you’ll be smooth sailing the rest of the day and it’s gonna be a perfect flow.

Melody Lacey

That’s right. Yeah, you just don’t want it spiking like all the time ‘cause then you know…

Grant Chiasson

No, I’ve been doing that. That’s not fun. No, no, that’s not fun. And what I see too, so obviously everything that I dive into when I talk, you know, when they say when you create for your avatar or whatever, perfect client. I just talk to myself when I was twenty years old. And I just say, Okay, here’s where I would have benefited from your framework. I’m at the point now where I’ve convinced myself my brain is in full flight mode. I’ve convinced myself that my body’s burnout. I’ve convinced myself that there’s no way beyond this plateau. There’s no way of getting out of this situation. And the only thing left to do is just run from this. And that led to quitting. And then I quit football. So I can see where, if I was 20 years old and I said, okay, I’m gonna go home for a weekend, I’m gonna get off the phone.

I’m gonna just do a full evaluation of myself, see where I’m at, and then say, okay, I am still in love with the game. I’m still with that passion. I still need to trigger that because that’s gonna motivate my next steps. And then so now you figured it out, you know where you’re at, you understand, okay, this is who I am, this is where I want to go. Now, boom, I would go to Grant Chessall and say, all right.

What’s the next steps? And then we start coming up with a plan of immediate action right now. So it’s being able to overcome the limiting beliefs. And number one, just stop thinking you have to do it all on your own. I mean, they’re right. This is crazy. You know, now I don’t make a decision now without talking to a hundred people, you know. But you know, just to reaffirm what I was thinking, I end up making the decision that I wanted to make, but you know, if I look back at that athlete and I say, okay.

Number one, you’re gonna find out that you’re still in it and you’re still passionate about it. Number two, if not, now you have an avenue to peacefully leave the game. Right. Build your identity beyond it, right? To build to start that next chapter. And that is so important. And I have a great friend. He plays basketball in the Philippines. He talks about he’s like a coach in the transition from athletics to no athletics, And the big gray area is who am I? Who am I? And that’s where an athlete would just absolutely benefit from diving into their purpose.

Melody Lacey

yeah. I mean absolutely. Like for me it was like, Well, who am I without you know, I never put much stock into the title that I had of titles I had throughout my corporate career. I enjoyed the income, which is what kept me there. Those are the golden handcuffs that kept me there so long. but you know, when you start doing your own thing and you know, you forego the income at least for a while, certainly the steady paycheck as a W-2 employee versus being self employed. You really start to realize, my God, I think I really did have more tied into my identity of who I am, what I do, and then I realized the title was actually a surprising part of that for me.

I didn’t even know how ingrained that was until I got to that layer of my own recalibration work. And then the paycheck, like is my worth actually tied to my income? You know? And as a Christian, I would say no. But then I realized, wait, there’s actually something to unpack there because do I really believe that? No. But is my brain still kind of functioning from that perspective? yeah. So that is something I needed to work on.

So there can be a real disconnect between who we think we’ve been, who we think we are. And if you know if you have a religious belief system, you’re probably putting yourself in perspective of that belief system, right? But that doesn’t necessarily translate to how we function in our daily life and the programs that are running in our brain, which is where this work is so valuable.

Because it can create a link between who we really are, which, you know, with my identity in Christ, I know who I really am, but do I believe it? You wanna make sure that connection’s there, because then that provides peace beyond positive thinking. Positive thinking’s not gonna get you there. It’s only gonna get you so high.

Grant Chiasson

Where’s my book? I’m getting into a lot. The power of negative thinking, Bob Knight. And it’s like yeah, all we talk about positivity, positive mindset, and I’m all for it. But you better face your fears and you better label them. And you better say, okay, wait. What’s the worst that could happen? And that’s what this whole book is about. What’s the worst that could happen? And then prepare for it. And then relentlessly prepare for that.

And that’s where he gets with negative thinking.

Melody Lacey

Dale Carnegie wrote a book called ‘How to stop worrying and enjoy your life’ and it is about dissolving the stress response by immediately making peace with the worst case scenario of any situation and how liberating that is.

Most of the time the worst case scenario doesn’t actually happen, but now you’re prepared for it. So anything that happens that’s less than that worst case scenario, you’re already good with, right? So that’s a really powerful way to deal with, you know a lot of stress we deal with.

Grant Chiasson

Yeah. And to get it out of your head. You know, don’t just sit there on your phone and think about, man, if this happens tomorrow, man, that’s gonna suck. You know, like you got you gotta be physical with it. You gotta get a pen and paper out. You could crumple the paper up right after, but you gotta get a pen and paper out and say, If this happens, then I’ll do this.

Melody Lacey

Yeah, it’s not dwelling on. That’s different.

Grant Chiasson

You know, I go back to a story of a kid who was a senior in high school. It was the state baseball tournament. This is a couple years ago. This guy was an incredible athlete. And he was going through a slump in the playoffs. And it was like the semifinal game. And he was 0 for 4. At the bottom of the last inning, down one. Maybe tied. He was 0 for 4. And it was like two outs. What’s gonna happen?

And just like in slow motion, I can still see it like I’m watching it today. Made con just enough contact, swung, popped it right over the shortstop’s head, winning run comes in, we win. So they go to the state championship and they win the state championship. So after all the dust settled, I went up to him. I said, man, look, you know I’m diving into this stuff. I was fresh into like mental performance and just diving into performance psychology. I said, what was going through your head?

And he said, you know, I didn’t say don’t strike out again. I said, you’re due for one. Let’s make contact.

Melody Lacey

Right, odds are he was gonna hit it, right?

Grant Chiasson

Yes. Yes. Instead of him saying what is the worst case scenario. So now I tell athletes, I say, I t when I tell that story, I say, You need to see yourself in that worst case scenario the night before. You’re 0 for four, there’s two outs and your team needs you to get a hit, how are you gonna respond? And then just sit with that. And just sit with it. Just sit with the feeling like your gut’s gonna turn upside down and just sit with it and then say, Time out, okay. Secondly, what if I do strike out and lose the game for them?

Okay, like let’s just go through it. Of course it’s gonna suck, season’s over, everybody’s pissed, but at the same time, like the sun still comes up. You can move on to the next chapter. Right. That’s how it was meant to be. So just rehearsing it all and just having that mindset. I mean, it’s so powerful. And this whole week, sneak peek, tomorrow I’m dropping my article on the Navy SEALs and the mindset. And the psychologists that came in, they narrowed it down to four aspects of what it would take to increase graduation rates because there was a higher need for seals at the time and they were all just tapping out like this is nuts. So he they said it came down to micro goals, it came down to visualization, mental imagery, rehearsing it over in their head.

It came down to the self-talk and then teaching them about triggers where, you know, don’t think like every second of the day, I gotta do this for my kids. You know, the ones like that. Yeah, yeah. Wait until that moment where you’re on the brink of total disaster and say, okay, I need that trigger right now. Boom. See the kids holding you, walking off of a plane. You just save somebody’s life because of the extra training and what you did in the field. And then boom, here’s that shot of adrenaline. They finish what they got to do and keep going.

Melody Lacey

Right, ‘cause what we’re actually trying to develop is resilience, right? Resilience I feel like has been kind of I don’t know, misused. It’s not our ability to stay in a bad situation and tough it out. It’s our ability to bounce back stronger and to not let things tear us down quite as much. And so you know, with the recalibration work what we would do, in everything you just described is and in the worst case scenario. So you’re right, you touched on this a bit. If you are running through a worst case scenario, you people run the risk if they don’t know how to do this work properly, of letting that actually consume their minds, right? They might start dwelling on that and reeling on that. And instead of it freeing them, it would become a hindrance.

Whereas the recalibration work I do, you’re looking at the benefits and drawbacks across a whole range of very specific questions that look at they’re challenging. They’re like, what’s the drawback of this going well? And what’s the benefit of it not going the way you want it to? And you’re neutralizing the charge that would hold you back from peak performance so that your body and your mind are no longer hindered from performing at their peak level. and so it’s not just a matter of, okay, it probably won’t be as bad as the worst case, and like, you know. It’s okay, even if that really did happen, there would be so many benefits in that happening, and so really nothing bad, so to speak can happen in any scenario.

And so if you release yourself from all of that emotional drama, then you really can bring out the most in whatever it is you’re trying to do. Which, and especially when it’s sports, we’re talking about a physical per performance but also the mental game. But the mental applies to everyone, everywhere, all the time.

Grant Chiasson

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I that’s why I tell one of my biggest selling points is, you know, where when you think of, you know, the way I practice in sports psychology or the rap that you would get from, you know, the perceived sports psychologist in a movie or something where, you know, it’s those weekly one to one sessions, got the clipboard and all that. Yeah. Yeah. Right, right, right. Tell me about life, like look, yeah. Every day, non negotiable, when you wake up

You’re gonna tie into your goals. You’re gonna think about what motivates you and your passion. And then you’re gonna fast forward, you’re gonna close your eyes and feel the emotion as if you felt what you would get from accomplishing that goal, that big scary goal. What’s it gonna feel like and see that? Yeah.

Correct. Just wake up and start the day with that. Midday, get a reset, get a box breath, recalibrate the nervous system. End of the day, reflect on the wins. What can I improve on tomorrow? And go. And if you do it the right way, like every single day, I mean you’re you’re gonna build the resilience. There’s just there’s just no evidence to show that you’re right. There’s just no evidence to show that that won’t possibly be that it won’t be ineffective.

There’s just nothing to show that. It’s proven.

Melody Lacey

That’s what training is. You know, I mean it’s easy to look at like a Navy SEAL, like so I’m excited to read your article tomorrow. But you know, it’s not like that these Navy SEALs at five years old were somehow like, you know, already on the track to being a Navy SEAL ‘cause they were so amazing in the face of danger and distress. But through the course of their life they were probably predisposed to handle stressful situations well. And if someone goes into the program they’re certainly inviting that kind of challenge into their life. And it’s because they believe that they can overcome challenges, right? But when someone’s in combat or in a life or death situation, your ability to do what you’ve been trained to do instead of freeze, or maybe sometimes you should freeze, right? Maybe you should be hiding. I mean there’s all different things that they’re trained to do in a life or death stressful combat scenario. And so in order for someone like that to be able to perform over and over again, they can’t be taken down by any one situation, right? They have to be able to do it again tomorrow or next week or whatever, right? And the mental toughness that they develop is through training.

I mean we can’t be caught in these situations with now I need to run this fourteen step process like that’s right in front of us. The training has to be done, you know, to whatever level it needs to be the need is, right? So earlier I was talking about the traits of the greats, like that’s something you would work through, you know, systematically, when you when you’re focusing on that, right? That’s not like an on the field type training exercise.

But then on the field, that’s where you know the box breathing and calming the nervous system comes into play. And it all counts. And you know, anything we’re good at, we’re training for. We’re training our brain and our bodies for whatever it is we do on a regular basis. And you know, if you’re a chef, you train. You’re cooking. Right? I mean my family teases me all the time. Melody’s always training and it’s just my nature, right? I’m always just trying to get…

Grant Chiasson

And you just say, and that’s why I’m a beast. And say, Take note. That’s why you say that. That’s the first response you see to that.

Melody Lacey

Well, it’s just you know, we don’t get better at things by accident, right? So if you really want to get better at anything, you need to look at what it’s gonna take and then do the work. And that’s what you and I are trying to help people with from a mental standpoint. A mental toughness standpoint. And the work is so powerful. It’s been really life changing for me and I’m happy to be able to bring it to others.

Grant Chiasson

absolutely. I mean, that’s part of the mission. you know, what I learned when I trained with Ben, he said for you to have a perfect day, if you to just have a perfect day in this system, what I’ve seen with the high performers, high achievers, what I coach, he said you need to have one task that makes you a better person, one task that improves your business, or if you’re an athlete, your athletic, you know, profession, you know, a lot of professional athletes with him or your craft.

And you need to give back to somebody else. That’s it. Three three domains of a of a perfect

Melody Lacey

So everyone’s hierarchy of priorities are revealed in the questions they ask you. And in that case, his hierarchy was revealed in what he said it to you. Those are clearly the things that are most important to him. Now, for someone else, it might be a little different. Maybe it’s being able to withdraw for a little bit and recharge in that way.

Grant Chiasson

See I would count that as personal development though.

Melody Lacey

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. I mean, those are big buckets you just listed. And I’m not actually, it sounds like maybe I’m countering those and I’m not. I’m just trying to make the connection between what one person values and what another person values in terms of their priorities. And that is you can easily see it in others because like the questions, like if I say, How’s your family? Well, right there you know how much I value family.

Because we talk about and we think about the things that are most important to us, and that’s gonna be different for everyone. And so a perfect day for one person versus another is totally perception based, and our perfect days are how aligned we are with our top three to five priorities. And that’s what you know the work you did through my program, those thirteen questions reveal.

And you’ll realize that if you’ve gotten through a day and you’ve really only hit like priority seven, eight, and nine, you’re dragging. You’re not feeling inspired. You’re not feeling any natural energy. But when you’re in the top three to five, it doesn’t even really matter what happened that day. If those are being fulfilled in some way, you feel great. And you know, we all experience this. We just don’t necessarily know what to attach it to. And that’s what the questions help reveal.

And you know, if we talk about your perfect day, it could be aspirational and then you’re always let down by it. When you realize the times you feel the best are actually when you’re functioning within your highest priorities. And so addressing that gap is really powerful for people. but yeah, you’ll hear it in other people of, this is my best day. And it’s and you weren’t saying this. You weren’t saying, my day should be the same as that person’s best day. But there are buckets for sure that we all need filled. They’re just filled in unique ways because no two people have the same set of priorities. And I’m talking subconscious priorities, you know, that’s what I’m always trying to help people understand is there’s the aspirational priorities, what we think we value, and then there’s what our life really demonstrates.

Grant Chiasson

Yeah, I have this smile on my face because I’m just thinking about the perfect day of my students when I was a teacher. And maybe you can confirm this being the mother of 13 year olds, but I’m just thinking of my perfect day, 33 years old, like wake up, get some sunlight, exercise, get some cold, just deep breathing, get to get to writing for an hour and a half, get a walk, get some work done, communicate, network, read a little bit and then you know go walk the family and then I think about a lot of my students like their perfect day is just waking up and just praying that they get a text that school is canceled and then staying in bed for the entire day and and just hibernating.

Melody Lacey

Homeschooling’s really different. because it well, I provide a personalized education. I’m not forcing everyone into a mold, And so I think that my job as a parent is to I mean, I have to teach the fundamentals. So if you don’t like math, too bad. You have to be able to function in the world. But at the same time, if you can show a kid where math helps them meet their highest priority, ‘cause you wanna you wanna know that even at thirteen, right? A kid that wants to stay in bed all day, that’s probably a stress response. Because by day if that kid was allowed to do that for a couple of days on end, they’d get out of bed on their own and they’d start doing the things that naturally.

Grant Chiasson

Definitely a sign of burnout just because like you could tell it’s like mid semester and look, I get it. I’ve been there too. But yeah.

Melody Lacey

Well, they’re sick of being told what is important when if that’s and that would mean that there’s a huge disconnect between what they’re being told to do and forced to do versus what naturally inspires them. So there’s so many applications of what I do. So you know, talking about niching down and figuring out your audience, the work that I do applies to literally anyone. I mean, I could choose any avatar because it’s applied to every aspect of life, every every type of person, and it’s used in schools. So there’s a lot of people who use it in schools and you know the ADHD term is thrown around a lot and really you know my mentor has kind of dispelled that as so this woman came with this case of my kid yeah all he thinks about is hockey.

We can’t get him to pay attention. He’s moving in his chair all day long. We can’t get him to focus in school. And this facilitator, who does the same type of work I do, worked with all the parents and the teachers and basically proved to them that they’re no different. This kid there’s not anything wrong with this kid, ‘cause when you when he started teaching them, so what he did is he reversed it and he had the kid start teaching this group of people all about hockey for a couple hours. This kid was teaching them all about the things that he’s learned about with ice hockey. They start moving in their chairs, they start looking at their phones, they start gazing on he’s like, look at all the people in here who have ADHD. Right? And so like I have the opportunity to to tailor what I’m doing to the interest of my kids, but then yes,

So what he ended up doing is helping those parents and teachers link the subjects that you know we have to learn regardless, even if they’re not inspiring. But to hockey. This is how it serves your highest priority. That’s cool. This is what you care about the most. And so when you start making those links, people get on board for things that they weren’t when they couldn’t see the connection, and so the point of the exercise that that facilitator did was to show them there’s nothing wrong with the kid.

Grant Chiasson

That’s cool.

Melody Lacey

Because there was actually nothing wrong with you. You just weren’t interested in hockey. But when we can make those connections, we unlock, you know, our ability to learn things that we previously didn’t think we were interested in, but it’s because of the way they’re presented. And there was a disconnect in our brain that it wasn’t serving us. And if it’s serving your highest values and priorities, well it’s like it’s like almost a magic wand. You’re like, all right, I’m on board. I’m in.

Grant Chiasson

I just think I found a magic money wand. My brain is churning right now thinking about a workbook that is football themed that teaches math and reading and science and social studies. And I’m like, my gosh. Like this is.

Melody Lacey

Studies have been done around like video games, right? So there’s been like a pain point for parents for years, right? all my kid wants to do is what is play video games. And you know, a kid who wants to get really good at gaming might end up being interested in software development. And if that kid realizes, well I have to learn how to code, which requires math skills and reading skills, that kid’s gonna learn it.

We will pursue learning anything it takes to meet the goals that we are really naturally driven towards because we’re naturally inspired to do it. But when you’re forced to do something you really don’t care about, it’s just harder. And so you have to be able to make those connections and and that’s like central to the to the work I do in terms of application for for others and it’s what I’m

Constantly navigating with my kids. I mean, you know, they’re not necessarily excited about every topic we’re learning about, but again, you have to as a parent and a teacher, you have to balance exposure and then feeding passion. But with a kid, you’re also the exposure is what will help you identify the passion. I mean, unless they’re exposed to things, how do they even know what they like, right?

Grant Chiasson

That’s true too. Right. Yeah. I mean, that’s why when you think about, you know, the ones who, like you said, like just thinking about school. Like even for me, I mean, a meat head quarterback, I was like, I hate school, but I am obsessed with football and like I’m counting down the minutes till practice at two thirty, you know, and but in the combination of those two, it was like, Okay, well, high school is not bad.

It was just thinking about it from that perspective. But I love the I love the thought process of finding ways and just challenging teachers to do that to find passion mixed with learning and

Melody Lacey

Teachers in a classroom are dealing with a very real challenge of crowd control. Right. And it’s really hard to provide a personalized education to thirty kids with one teacher. so I get the challenge. It’s one of the reasons I just opted out of that. It’s a really big challenge that educators have to get creative about addressing. But as a parent, you could take this process and what you do to link, like, say, let’s just use the math

Let’s use math football ‘cause that’s what were that’s where your mind went with making

Grant Chiasson

I’m just I’m just seeing dollar signs about this workbook…

Melody Lacey

Right. Your kid’s gonna be a math whiz and a football star. But if you can show a kid, all right, here you basically you do the benefits and drawbacks of how the math skills will make them a better football player. Yes. And so it’s a specific process. It’s not just like, yeah, I mean I guess I don’t know. That would be a that would maybe be a stress, like or a a stretch to just dream up and that’s why there’s a process for doing it. Right. Because what you ultimately are doing is you wouldn’t link it just to football. You would link it to that athlete’s top three priorities and say, This is how math is serving you. This is how not knowing math is gonna keep you from fulfilling your highest priorities in life. And then it’s like BAM, your brain gets on board.

Grant Chiasson

You have to have a why. You have a why instead of why are you doing this to me? You know? Yes. Why are you doing this to me? And I used to like making that connection too, trying to make them think a little bit different. man. For sure. We can talk about this for hours. I mean, yeah. So look, Melody, I don’t want to keep you any longer. I mean, this has been incredible. You know, this the work that we’re doing, the work that you’re doing is super beneficial.

I can’t wait to cut these into little shorts and send it out everywhere because people need to see and know. You know, a mentor said this Tuesday, he said, you know, we’re always worried about growing the business and getting the next customer and the next lead. But it just comes down to talking, being present, having the relationships. And he said, just imagine before you get a little exhausted thinking about, you know, putting out that extra post or putting out that extra content or making that extra direct message, whatever it might be.

Said, what if tomorrow that message, that content, that piece gets across that one person that is just desperately waiting for a melody to come into their life to help them get over that barrier? And it’s like, my gosh, okay, yeah, let’s go. Let’s get after it. Like it’s just purpose. Yeah.

Melody Lacey

You know what’s interesting is when I was first introduced, I guess it was maybe the second round, of the method that I now facilitate. I was active in an online session with hundreds of people, but I was interacting with the facilitator and he asked what do you hate about doing your business? I’m like, the marketing. my god, I hate the marketing, right? ‘Cause you know, as you when you end up being a solopreneur

Now you can still outsource, right? Like you can hire agencies. In fact, I’ve managed marketing agencies. I worked in marketing departments, but it was doing, you know, website development projects. But again, I was managing the C suite and I was not doing that work, But what you see in that scenario, just kind of side note, is that there are different people and whole teams doing the work that you end up doing single handedly as a solopreneur. So for anyone feeling stressed by that, it’s a big job.

Well, so the guy looks at me and goes, Well, what if you didn’t hate it? And I was like, I can’t even imagine that. I can’t even imagine not hating it. No, he’s Yeah. And he kept saying it and I was like, Well, I guess I wouldn’t hate it. Like I guess it’d be better, it’d be easier. And you know, he was basically leading me into doing the benefits and drawbacks work on that.

Grant Chiasson

It’s unfathomable.

Melody Lacey

But what my mentor is constantly driving home is, you know, you’re not gonna be intrinsically inspired to do every aspect of your business. I mean, there’s just too many different functions and skills you need, right? And if we’re talking about like really functioning in our top three zones, it probably has very little to it maybe you have some priorities that fall into a marketing bucket, right? Like maybe you love maybe you love creating videos, right? Like some people really love that. I don’t but some people do, right? So that part of your business probably comes really naturally to you.

But maybe you aren’t good at the finances, right? He really drives home outsourcing the things you don’t like and the things you’re not intrinsically motivated to do because they’re not in your top hierarchy of your priorities, and find people where those things are their top three. Because then everyone wins.

The person that you hire, and you know, a lot of times, you know, we’re dealing with financial constraints as solopreneurs starting new businesses, right? But he’s like you’ll get a return far beyond what you are paying when you hire the right people. If you hire the wrong people, you’re losing money. You’re losing money out of the game. You hire the right people, they’re producing way beyond what you’re paying. And the way that you know is, you know, I have this process of

You pretty much have to prove to yourself that they are functioning within their highest priorities because they’re gonna perform like rock stars because they love it, they’re motivated to do it, it’s not just a job for them, it’s a passion, and that’s what you really want. For every aspect of your business and other aspects of your life, you want a team who’s functioning in their highest values every day. Because then they’re bringing it, they’re gonna be the best.

And you know, that’s how we fill gaps. And so there’s I said there’s so many applications of this method. I mean, it’s used in the corporate setting all the time. I mean companies put together like values and missions statements whatever, that’s bullshit. You can’t have it at a company level. I mean, yeah, that can be aspirational, you can try to convince people, but people function at their individual level.

And until you can tie into that as a manager and make sure people are in the right roles, people are always going to be underperforming and they’re going to be there just doing a job instead of feeling inspired by the work they do. And when you’re inspired by the work you’re doing, there’s no stopping you, right? And so the application for a solopreneur is just finding those people to fill those gaps so you don’t have to be everything to everyone all the time because that’s just not possible.

But what it’s gonna do is it’s gonna distract you from the things you really are inspired to do. And you’re gonna end up feeling drained and depleted instead of inspired and energized. And you know, when you’re doing something you love, you can do it all day long. You don’t even get tired. Right? You have more energy at the end than you had at the beginning. But when you’re not inspired, it drains you in the first five minutes. And well, even beforehand, because you’re probably dreading it.

Grant Chiasson

Right. It’s like getting into a cold plunge. It’s like, my gosh, why am I doing this again? And then once you get out of it, it’s like, yeah, okay, cool, yeah. That’s good. All right, it was worth it. So good. Well, awesome. Look, Melody, can’t thank you enough. We’re gonna have to do this again. We’re happy to this again. This is so awesome. We everybody who’s tuning in, I see we got ten people. I mean, look, thank you guys for listening and watching. this is gonna be on my mindset Monday post that I’ll try to collaborate with Melody that we’ll do on Monday, try to get that in there. But either way, best place to reach you, Melody, right now.

Melody Lacey

Well, I mean everyone’s joined on Substack, so check out my Substack and if you subscribe you’ll be on my email list. I’m a little late on today’s podcast, but I’ll get that l out later today. But I try to publish something every Thursday and then of course, you know, daily notes from my brain on the Substack Yeah. But on my profile is my link to my website where you can learn more about the various products that I have and basically other groupings of self serve tools and then working with me one on one. Perfect. But thank you, Grant.

Grant Chiasson

This was great. This has been great. Awesome. Well definitely benefit from this, learned a lot and looking forward to talking to you. Likewise. All right.

Melody Lacey

Yeah, sounds good.

But if you actually look at how you spend your time, your energy, and your attention… your life might be telling a very different story.

In this episode, we unpack the hidden gap between your aspirational priorities and your lived priorities - and why that disconnect is the real reason you feel inconsistent, frustrated, or “off track.”

Because the issue isn’t your discipline.

It’s that you’re measuring your life against standards you’re not actually living by.

We’ll walk through how to start identifying what’s really driving your behavior using the evidence your life is already revealing - so you can stop judging yourself unfairly and start building from what’s actually true.

Because before you can grow, change, or live more faithfully, you need an honest starting point.

In this episode, we cover:

• [00:00] What do you say matters most?

• [02:47] The gap where frustration begins

• [04:00] Why this gap creates self-condemnation

• [04:55] Looking honestly without judging yourself

• [05:26] Faith, truth, stewardship, and growth

• [06:35] Before fixing discipline, ask this question

• [07:21] What to actually examine

Resources mentioned in this episode:

If you want help identifying your actual priorities, you can explore the Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers tool.

Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers

And in the next episode, we’ll go deeper into why you think you know what matters to you - but don’t see much evidence of it in reality.

Full Transcript

If I were to ask you what matters most to you in life what would you say?

And then if I took a look at patterns inside your daily activities, would they support your answer?

That’s what we’re gonna talk about in today’s episode.

Hello, and welcome to Powered by PURPOSE - I’m Melody Lacey, and I help people who love Jesus - but sometimes struggle to live and relate to others the way He calls us to.

Because the struggle is real you guys! You know it - I know it - everyone knows it…

So each week we’re going to take a God (and others) focused approach to self-discovery and personal growth here,

We’ll unpack the real root cause behind the friction and conflict in your life and relationships,

so that your life and work truly honor Him and bear fruit for His kingdom.

We’ll do this by looking at the evidence your life is already revealing,

get radically honest about what’s actually driving your behavior.

and we’ll demystify how your beliefs are shaping your perception of reality.

Because as you’ll come to see - the root of your tension isn’t your intentions… it’s your perception.

You’ve unknowingly been building your life and work around assumptions you’ve never actually examined,

and you’ve been judging yourself (and everyone else) by standards you’re not actually living by,

Ouch - I know!

But until that gap is addressed, everything will continue to feel harder than it needs to.

So fear not!

We’ll also discuss how to recalibrate your thinking with God’s truth, so you can start seeing things more clearly.

Because when you see others more clearly… everything else falls into place.

You lead differently.
You make decisions differently.
And most importantly - you start to treat others the way Jesus actually calls us to.

So whether you’re building a business, leading a family, coaching a team, or simply trying to live your life more faithfully…

THIS is how we close the gap between your current state and living out your true calling, so you’re actually bearing fruit for God’s kingdom.

So let’s get into it…

Most people think they know what matters to them.

Like, if I sat down and talked to you about your priorities, you’d probably get all excited and tell me all about them. You’d tell me what you value, what’s important to you, and you’d probably list a bunch of things you think you should be doing as well.

But if we actually took a look at your life - your decisions, how you spend your time, where your attention actually goes on a daily basis - it might tell a very different story.

And that gap…
that gap right there…

That’s where most of your frustration is coming from in life.

Because here’s what’s really happening:
You’re not actually living by the priorities you talk about.

You’re living by a different set - one that’s not as obvious to you.

But at the same time, you’re judging yourself by a completely different set of standards.

Standards that you’ve probably inherited - we all have.

You’ve inherited them from… you know… you dead grandmother who always had dinner on the table by 6 o’clock and everyone was so impressed by that.

You’ve inherited them from people in your church that you were impressed by - or maybe even a celebrity or a sibling - my sister thinks I’m pretty impressive - but I digress…

You’ve inherited them from all kinds of places - even from the Bible. I mean, we should inherit some of them, right?

But here’s the thing:

There’s a set of standards you aspire to live by…
and then there’s the set that you actually live by.

And they’re probably not the same.

So basically, we’re going to break down aspirational standards and priorities… relative to your real ones.

So this gap between aspirational standards and your actual priorities is the real root of self-condemnation.

And it’s why you feel inconsistent.

That’s why you’re thinking:

• “Why can’t I just follow through?”

• “Why do I keep feeling off track?”

• “Why aren’t I further ahead by now?”

• “Where’s the frother - why can’t I keep track of that thing?”

When in reality…

You’re actually not off track.

You’re just measuring yourself against something that isn’t actually driving your behavior.

The thing is - your daily life activities are the ones telling the truth.

But the story they’re telling isn’t written by what you say matters.

It’s demonstrating what you actually care about - not what you wish you cared more about.

This is the evidence that shows what your life is consistently organized around.

And those are your real priorities.

And most people have never been shown how to actually look at that honestly.

I’m not talking about judging yourself.

I’m talking about truly understanding:

• Why you make the decisions you’re making

• Why certain things feel heavy

• Why other things feel natural

This is the starting point of everything I teach inside my PURPOSE™ Framework.

Because before you can grow, and make real progress in all those areas you’ve been working on, you have to be willing to see what’s actually there.

What’s actually true about your life.

Because if you think about it…

We’re all called to live in alignment with truth.
We’re called to love God, to love others as ourselves.

But if we’re being honest…

We’re not really very good at either of those things, right?

Which is why I’m here talking to you about this.

We’re also told to steward what we’ve been given.

But, you know - we’re fallen, we’re imperfect… so we don’t always get things “right.” - and I’m using my air quotes here because defining what’s right is a whole other topic we’ll get into later,

But this is also about trying to grow in life.

If your perception is distorted, you won’t even know what to work on.

Because if you don’t understand your current state, how are you supposed to put together a plan to improve and grow?

You’re definitely going to struggle to execute if you don’t even know where you’re starting from.

So the real key is a starting point.

And that’s doing a current state analysis of what your life actually demonstrates right now - so that you can see it clearly and then move forward from there.

Because you can’t align your life with truth if you’re evaluating it through a distorted lens.

So before you try to go fix your “discipline problem”…
before you try to get more consistent…

Maybe just pause and ask yourself honestly:

What is my life actually showing me right now?

And before you get all weird about it and want to push back on this -

This isn’t about judging yourself.

It’s not about anything you’re doing wrong.

In fact, it’s about eliminating that kind of judgment from the equation in the first place, so you can be more objective.

So you can evaluate yourself without all of the emotional baggage.

Because you don’t want to build off of that - you already know what that looks like.

So what I’m proposing is taking a different approach.

Looking at the evidence objectively… and then building from there.

And it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Take a look at:

• Where you spend your time

• Where you spend your money

• Where you’re most organized - because even if you think you aren’t - you definitely are in at least one part of your life

Those are the kinds of things we need to analyze.

It’s not what you think you should be doing…

It’s what you’re actually doing.

That’s what we need to look at.

This is actually the first step in my framework.

Everything builds off of this - it’s that important.

So you can start tallying up some evidence yourself, on your own…

Or you can use my handy-dandy custom tool that walks you through 13 very specific questions that will actually reveal your existing priorities in life.

And with that information, you’ll be one step closer to:

• No longer beating yourself up over all those other standards you’ve set for yourself

• And/or using that information to elevate your game

…but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

We’ll go deeper into this idea in the next episode -

where we’ll break down why you think you know what matters to you… but don’t see much evidence of that in reality.

But in the meantime -

If you’re interested in the guided experience inside my Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers tool - I know it’s a mouthful, check out the link below.

And we’ll meet again next week.

I’d love to know how you prefer to consume your content, so please fill out the poll below and let me know!

PLUS - here are some articles to catch up on if you haven’t seen them already ↓

A bit about my backstory and the trap of trying to do everything ‘right.’

Sometimes God isn’t asking you to stay grateful where you are - He’s asking you to trust Him for what’s next.

You’re not lazy, undisciplined or broken… and you certainly don’t need more motivation ‘hacks!’

Most high achievers can relate to the struggle of overcoming the fear of failure,

But the subconscious fear of growth and gain are rarely discussed,

And they’re more powerful than people realize, because on the surface…

Growth is what you want,
Gain is what you’re working toward,
And expansion is the goal!

But underneath that desire something else is often happening without your permission:

Your subconscious is protecting you from the perceived threat of change,

Because the reality is that all change - even positive change - gets flagged as dangerous.

Not because it is…

But because it requires something new that can’t be overcome with discipline,

Because it has nothing to do with our commitment or capability,

It’s that our perception hasn’t caught up with what’s becoming available to us as we grow.

So our brains respond with resistance in the form of:

Hesitation, overthinking, or a subtle sense of friction that we can’t quite explain,

So let’s dig into what’s really going on, and how to overcome it.

Subscribe now

The fear of growth is actually an identity conflict.

It’s what happens when you’re evolving into a new role,

While still identifying with an outdated version of yourself,

Because you haven’t fully owned who you’re becoming.

And when that disconnect exists, everything feels heavier than it would be otherwise.

I experienced this firsthand when I started marketing my services.

For a time I was feeling stuck between two versions of myself:

The version from my past corporate career…

And my current role as a belief recalibration facilitator.

The problem wasn’t my expertise, it was my perception.

My subconscious identity was still anchored to who I used to be,

And that gap created tension in how I positioned my work.

There was a disconnect between the value of the transformation people experience,

And my perception of my role in facilitating it.

But here’s what’s crazy -

As much as we talk about not being shackled to titles in life,

There was true power in clearly defining my new title,

Because it wasn’t just about what I do now…

It’s about who I am, and what I have to offer now.

And once I reorganized everything around that title it brought me into the alignment I help others find,

And it allowed me to fully embody my new role inside my offers, my messaging, my pricing, and my positioning.

And with that…

The tension disappeared.

Because here’s what actually happened:

Our brain resists identity shifts because it’s designed to keep us consistent with who we’ve been,

So when we evolve and step into something new there’s a lag because our perception hasn’t caught up with our new reality.

Which means you have to lead the shift,

NOT wait for it to feel natural.

You need to decide who you are, and act accordingly.

This is a key step for identity realignment.

And retraining your brain is as simple as saying it out loud, with conviction.

Claiming and owning the role - even before it feels fully comfortable.

Because before you can convince other people,

You need to train your brain by showing it:

“This is who I am now.”

And the more you act from inside that new identity, the more you become it,

Until eventually the tension dissolves because your perception caught up!

Which is powerful, but sadly identity is only one side of this perception trap…

The second layer of resistance is sometimes even heavier, and it’s:

The fear of gain.

Which often shows up consciously as the fear that you won’t be able to handle what comes with your new identity. Things like:

More responsibility - Greater visibility - New challenges - and Higher expectations (both internally and externally).

But again, these are perception issues,

Because what you’re doing is prematurely evaluating your future capacity through the lens of your outdated identity.

Which means your judgment is inherently incomplete.

You’re trying to assess what you’ll be able to handle…

From a version of yourself that hasn’t fully expanded yet - and that just isn’t fair, or accurate.

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I faced this challenge too.

When I restructured my business around my one-on-one work it exposed my fear around the scalability challenges of trading my time for money (which is something most entrepreneurs are trying to avoid).

So I had to make a decision…

Do I hold back because I don’t have a current solution for a future ‘problem,’

Or do I move forward in alignment with the transformation process I’m so passionate about bringing people…

And trust that I’ll be equipped for that challenge when it arises?

This is where my connection to my calling and my faith were essential.

Because growth isn’t just about building something externally,

It’s about becoming someone internally.

And that requires trust - not just in ourselves…

But in God.

Because we’ll never have everything figured out in advance,

And we can’t let our fear create an over-reliance on our own understanding,

Or wasted energy trying to solve problems before they even exist.

We simply need to take the next aligned step and Solomon’s advice to:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight. - Proverbs 3:5–6

Because the truth is when we’re stuck viewing things from who we used to be,

We’re terrible judges of what we’re capable of handling.

But we can trust that when we’re faithfully following what God’s called us to do,

He’ll equip us to handle whatever comes our way as he develops…

Our Leadership Capacity.

Because by now you’ve likely picked up on the fact that:

The fear of growth isn’t about growth, and

The fear of gain isn’t about gain.

They’re about how you perceive yourself,

And how you evaluate what you think you’re capable of,

And they’re both rooted in the fear of change.

And when change requires you to:

Let go of who you were,
To step into who you’re becoming,
And trust what you cannot yet fully see…

Your subconscious perceives that as a threat and throws up resistance to hold you back from what you’re capable of.

But when you pair recalibrating your perception with trust in God,

Everything shifts.

Growth is no longer threatening,

And gain no longer feels overwhelming,

Because you come to understand that you’re not being asked to handle everything right now,

You’re simply being asked to take the next step.

And when you do…

You’ll have the capacity required to truly own your new role,

And accomplish feats your old self never could have dreamed of!

And you can get started right now ↓

Start Your Own Transformation

Related Articles:

Entrepreneurs don’t usually struggle because they lack ambition.

If anything, it’s the complete opposite.

We care deeply about what we’re building,
And we think things through because we want to make the ‘right’ decisions.

But there’s a subtle shift that can happen in that process.

What starts out as responsibility can quietly turn into fear.

But that fear doesn’t always look like fear.

Instead it often sounds more reasonable, like:

I’m just being thorough…

I need to get the timing right… and

I don’t want to make the ‘wrong’ move.

But underneath those thoughts there’s often something deeper driving the hesitation.

The fear of loss.

When that fear takes hold the stakes start to feel higher than they actually are,

And every decision carries immense weight because the perception of the risk has inflated.

This is why:

• Raising your prices feels dangerous,

• Clarifying your positioning feels limiting, and

• Letting go of something misaligned feels irresponsible.

And so you pause… analyze… and wait…

And this is where ‘the perception trap’ forms.

Because the more you try to avoid loss…

the more you delay the very actions that create growth.

So opportunities pass you by, your momentum slows down,

And eventually you find yourself stagnant, which is exactly what you were trying to avoid in the first place.

Avoid the Perception Trap

I’ve lived this out in a very real way.

For years I stayed in misaligned corporate roles because on the surface they all made sense.

The salaries were high and the benefits created a sense of ‘security,’ because at the time things like private insurance wasn’t even an option,

So leaving didn’t feel like just a career decision, it felt like a risk to my family’s stability.

And I take that responsibility seriously.

But over time it became clear that I was holding onto those jobs out of fear;

And that fear kept me in places I had outgrown,

Until I reached a point where I had to make a decision…

Not based on certainty, but based on trusting that God would provide.

After taking a leave of absence and doing some deep soul searching and prayer,

I stepped out in faith and resigned from a six-figure job without having another one lined up and I placed my security fully in God’s hands, and boy did He deliver.

Shortly after resigning a new opportunity presented itself - one I never could have planned for in advance,

And with it came an even higher salary, a much better cultural fit, and a lesson I hadn’t fully grasped before:

It wasn’t God who needed to prove His faithfulness,

It was me who needed to trust it by taking the first step.

But the lesson didn’t stop there.

Over the years, we’ve moved multiple times, and each time my husband had to rebuild his client base from scratch.

He works in high-end residential remodeling - an industry known for its ups and downs.

And yet, with every single move the work came to him - in the form of high-end clients, with projects that required his level of expertise, in markets that could sustain his bill-rate.

God delivered this so consistently that I could even analyze it as data and come to predict it - which is greater security than any boss or company can ever offer.

And then came the bigger test…

When I left corporate for good.

For the first time we were fully relying on his income alone while I built my business.

And that process wasn’t quick. It’s taken years to develop.

Years of building new skillsets, refining my offers, repositioning in the market,

And ultimately becoming who I am now.

And during that time, something deeper surfaced.

I realized I had placed more security in my paycheck than I wanted to admit.

Because when that income was gone I was faced with different kinds of questions:

Who am I without a title?

What is my value without an income?

And what does it actually mean to trust God when the outcome isn’t clear?

THIS is when the real work began.

I was no longer just building a business, I was recalibrating my perception around my worth and what I can control.

I was evolving from feeling the need to control the outcome, to

Learning how to be faithful in my actions and letting go of the delusion that I have control over outcomes.

Because the truth is none of us can control the outcome…

Only God does.

Which means the pressure we feel to “get it right” was never ours to carry in the first place.

You can control your actions, decisions and effort,

But the results are not yours to determine.

And when you start to understand that, something shifts.

‘Risks’ start to look different.

They’re no longer something to avoid, but rather something to engage with.

Because what once felt like potential loss, now becomes an opportunity to grow.

In skills, experience, and faith.

Start Recalibrating YOUR Perception

This is the difference between scarcity and trust.

Scarcity says:

“If I make the wrong move, I lose.”

Trust says:

“Even if this doesn’t go how I expect, I’ll be provided for.”

Scarcity leads to hesitation.

Trust leads to movement.

And this is why fear of loss is so deceptive.

Because it feels like protection, but it often leads to paralysis.

And paralysis limits growth.

The irony is hard to miss once you see it.

The thing we’re trying to avoid is often the thing our current behavior is creating.

Not because we’re incapable, but because our perception is keeping us from acting.

But when the shift happens…

You stop trying to control the outcome and start focusing on the next aligned decision.

You release the pressure of the unknown, and take responsibility for your actions instead.

You trust that God’s provision isn’t something you have to force, but something you can rely on.

I can see that clearly now.

Looking back, there’s actual data.

Proof that God has provided every step of the way,

Even when my faith was still growing and I was still holding onto false securities.

Release Your False Securities

THIS is the kind of realization that changes how you move forward

Because you begin to understand that you don’t actually have anything to lose…

Except the version of yourself that was trying to control everything.

And that’s what sets you free!

Free to take action and grow without carrying pressures that were never yours to begin with.

The fear of loss doesn’t protect your growth, it’s preventing it.

But when you recalibrate your perception and begin to operate from trust instead of fear…

Everything starts to feel lighter.

Not because the stakes disappeared, but because your relationship to them has changed.

And this is the real shift that elevates your leadership capacity to reach its full potential!

If this article resonated, and you’re ready to elevate your leadership, here are 3 ways I can help:

1. Start with clarity - the Core Priorities Snapshot is a guided introduction to uncovering the subconscious priorities already shaping your life, and all subscribers get access for FREE.

Subscribe now

Plus every Thursday you’ll receive a clarity-first article designed for entrepreneurs who are ready to rewire their limiting beliefs and build with internal clarity and structure.

2. Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers - If you’re ready to go deeper now, this is a guided discovery process to identify your full core priority hierarchy, personal zone of genius, existing limiting beliefs, and a personalized Purpose Statement that becomes the foundation for everything you do.

Tap into Your Intrinsic Drive

3. Address the perceptions holding you back with Purge Misaligned Patterns - a facilitated belief recalibration process designed to:

• Identify the highest-leverage distortion

• Expose the assumptions sustaining it

• Correct perception at the root

• Neutralize emotional charge

• Stabilize leadership, pricing, and visibility

This is not motivation - it’s correction - and correction restores your power.

Start Recalibrating

Related Articles:

Leaders tend to have very high standards - the kind that fuel growth, drive results, and push for continuous improvement.

But there’s a subtle shift that can happen if those standards go unchecked.

They stop being a tool for growth, and instead become a lens for judgment.

In the last article, we talked about what happens when you compare yourself to others and place someone you admire on a pedestal.

In doing so, you inadvertently shrink yourself.

Your confidence wavers, and your decisions start to feel riskier than they objectively are.

But there’s another side to the comparison trap.

One that feels more like confidence and certainty.

It presents itself when you look at others - their work, their decisions, and their leadership…

And instantly judgment sparks within you.

You notice what they’re doing wrong.
What they’re missing.
What you think they ‘should’ be doing differently.

And it can feel justified. It might even be accurate.

But underneath that reaction something else is happening inside of you.

You’re placing them in a pit.

And once you see it, you start to notice how often it happens.

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To be clear - we all do this.

It isn’t a personality flaw.

It’s simply a pattern to pay attention to.

And it shows up when someone consistently irritates you.

When you feel frustrated every time they speak.

When you find yourself thinking:

“Why are they like this?”

At the extreme, it can make you not want to be around someone at all.

And more subtly it shows up as a low-level annoyance you carry with you without even questioning it.

But those reactions? They’re signals to pay attention to.

That’s how you know you’re placing someone in a pit.

But the twist here is that you’re not just evaluating them.

What’s actually happening is…

Self-righteous projection.

Without realizing it, you’re judging others through the same lens you use on yourself.

This is especially true for high performers, and even more so for perfectionists.

When you hold yourself to extremely high standards you’re constantly evaluating your own performance,

And carrying the pressure of feeling like: “I should be better than this.”

That internal pressure doesn’t stay contained within yourself though.

Instead, it gets projected outwardly, and you begin to see flaws everywhere.

In other people’s decisions, in their communication, and in their leadership.

And when this is happening, you’re automatically elevating your position,

And that rise can feel like an expression of your:

→ Certainty → Discernment → High standards → Experience

But it’s actually something else…

It’s a distorted comparison lens that’s keeping you from seeing reality clearly.

And this is where it gets even more revealing:

The traits that frustrate you the most in others… are traits you also possess.

Not in the exact same form, and not in the same context,

But they’re there. Every human possesses every trait.

The difference is this:

You tend to express that trait in areas that are less important to you…

So you dismiss it in yourself.

But when someone else expresses that same trait in an area you deeply value…

It becomes intolerable.

That’s why your reaction is so strong.

You’re not just reacting to the behavior,

You’re reacting to the meaning you’ve assigned to it.

And again, everyone does this to some extent.

Minimize Your Pit Tendencies

For me, it was most prominent during my corporate career.

I found myself constantly frustrated with the environment around me.

Leaders who wouldn’t make decisions.
People who wouldn’t speak up.
Teams that felt stuck in hesitation.

And my internal narrative was:

If people would just step up… this wouldn’t be so hard.

It didn’t feel like superiority… It felt like clarity.

Like I could see what needed to happen and others couldn’t.

But looking back I can see what was really happening.

I was projecting my own frustration, and placing others in a pit as a way to make sense of it.

And here’s the part that’s easy to miss:

When you put someone in a pit it doesn’t just distort how you see them.

It distorts how you lead.

Because it creates blind spots.

You stop being open to learning.
You misjudge people and situations.
You underestimate perspectives that could actually sharpen you.

And over time, something else starts to happen.

You become harder to work with… even when your intentions are good.

So if you’re reading this and you want a clear indicator for whether or not this pattern is active in your life…

Take a look at who consistently frustrates you.

Not occasionally. Consistently.

The people you feel irritated by, dismissive of, or quietly critical toward…

Those are often the exact mirrors showing you where your perception is distorted.

This is one of the clearest signals that there’s a recalibration opportunity.

And until it’s addressed, it will limit how far your leadership can actually go,

Because you can only operate from distorted perception for so long before it catches up to you.

And this is the real risk of the pit:

Putting someone in a pit doesn’t protect you.

It isolates you, and it blinds you.

And over time it subjects you to the same kind of judgment you’ve been placing on others.

Some people call it karma. I call it correction.

And eventually it places you in the very position you were judging.

Because when you judge others harshly…

You’re creating an environment where that same standard gets applied back to you.

And eventually, you feel it.

You feel it in your relationships,
In leadership tension,
And in missed opportunities.

Avoid the Pit Comparison Trap

So why does this happen in the first place?

At the root, it’s generally not arrogance…

It’s more often misalignment combined with pressure.

You’re likely holding yourself to external standards that don’t fully align with your internal priorities.

And when you’re trying to live up to expectations that aren’t actually yours…

And you’re carrying internal criticism that hasn’t been examined…

That pressure looks for somewhere to go because it needs a release,

And it often gets redirected outwardly at others.

But when you shift out of that pattern something different happens.

You grow with people, not at their expense.

But this work requires something most people avoid:

And that’s humility.

Not the kind that lowers your expectations,

But the kind that’s willing to ask:

What if I’m not seeing this clearly?

Because without that question… There’s no possibility of recalibration.

And this is where faith becomes practical.

We’re not called to judge others harshly.

Not because standards don’t matter, but because we all fall short.

And more importantly…

Because we don’t see the full picture of someone else’s life.

Their priorities. Their pressures. Their season of life. And their capacity.

When you begin to understand that everyone is operating according to their own set of priorities…

Judgment starts to soften, recalibration is possible, and everything starts to shift.

Because when you remove the distortion of the pit mentality you aren’t abandoning your discernment…

You’re becoming more accurate in your assessment.

You can still evaluate. Still lead. Still hold standards.

But without projecting false inadequacies onto others to elevate yourself.

This is what real leadership looks like.

Leadership isn’t about rising above others…

It’s about lifting others up and bringing out the best in them.

Seeing their strengths clearly.
Understanding their limitations without judgment.
Creating environments where people can grow.

Because when you lead that way, everyone gets stronger… including you.

When you elevate others properly, you don’t lose your position,

You strengthen it.

And when you grow with people instead of at their expense, your impact compounds in a completely different way.

THIS is the shift that changes everything.

Comparison isn’t the problem. Distortion is.

When you elevate others, you shrink, and

When you diminish others, you inflate.

Both judgments are distorted, because they’re both inaccurate.

And leadership ultimately comes down to one thing:

Seeing people - including yourself - clearly enough to build from truth.

If this article resonated, and you’re ready to build from truth, here are 3 ways I can help:

1.Start with clarity - the Core Priorities Snapshot is a guided introduction to uncovering the subconscious priorities already shaping your life, and all subscribers get access for FREE.

Subscribe now

Plus every Thursday you’ll receive a clarity-first article designed for entrepreneurs who are ready to rewire their limiting beliefs and build with internal clarity and structure.

2.Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers - If you’re ready to go deeper now, this is a guided discovery process to identify your full core priority hierarchy, personal zone of genius, existing limiting beliefs, and a personalized Purpose Statement that becomes the foundation for everything you do.

Tap into Your Intrinsic Drive

3. Correct the Distortion with Purge Misaligned Patterns - a facilitated belief recalibration process designed to:

• Identify the highest-leverage distortion

• Expose the assumptions sustaining it

• Correct perception at the root

• Neutralize emotional charge

• Stabilize leadership, pricing, and visibility

This is not motivation. It’s correction. And correction removes the pits.

Start Recalibrating

Related Articles:

Entrepreneurs are, by nature, high achievers.

Becoming an entrepreneur means you’ve already decided not to settle for the status quo, and you’ve taken responsibility for your future by stepping into the arena where your decisions directly influence the outcome.

That alone places you in a category of people who are willing to act and take risks.

But there’s an interesting paradox that comes with being a high performer…

The very standards that make us capable can also work against us if we’re not careful.

We naturally expect a lot from ourselves, and our high expectations fuel our growth, discipline, and contribution…

But those same standards and internal drive can easily slip into something more corrosive:

The comparison trap.

Comparison is tricky, because it rarely looks like envy.

More often, comparison shows up as elevation, from placing someone we admire on a pedestal.

And without even realizing it, that pedestal begins to shape (or rather, distort) the lens through which we evaluate ourselves.

It’s admiration taken too far.

It’s when we watch someone who we we perceive to be:

• more established • more confident • more visible • more successful than us, something subtle happens…

Our interpretation of reality becomes distorted.

Suddenly their work appears effortless.

Their certainty looks unshakable and their authority seems larger than life.

Meanwhile, our own work suddenly feels smaller than it actually is.

That’s the pedestal distortion.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Once someone is on that pedestal, suddenly the stakes of our own actions start to feel exaggerated.

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And this is where things start to get interesting…

Because this new subconscious inflation begins to influence the most common entrepreneurial decisions.

• Choosing a niche suddenly feels risky.

• Raising prices feels like overstepping.

• Reaching out to potential collaborators feels intimidating.

• Posting video content suddenly feels vulnerable.

The action itself hasn’t changed,

But the perceived consequences have expanded.

Our mind is now running interference with fears like:

What if they realize I don’t belong here?

What if I’m not actually as capable as they are?

What if this exposes me?

This is how imposter syndrome often begins.

It’s not because of a lack of capability…

It’s because our perception has created an unrealistic hierarchy, and we’re not on top.

But there’s another version of this comparison trap that’s often overlooked,

Because sometimes the pedestal isn’t occupied by another person…

Sometimes the person on the pedestal is a past version of yourself.

This is something I’ve personally had to work through.

For years I struggled with comparing my current self to who I used to be - especially in areas like fitness and physical appearance.

Thirty years ago my body was different, my lifestyle was different, and my priorities were different...

But as I got older I resisted accepting those realities, so mentally I was stuck comparing myself to the past,

And I was constantly measuring myself against a standard that no longer makes sense for the life I’m living today.

That comparison quickly turned into self-condemnation because I felt like I was declining.

Like I should somehow be able to maintain the same physical standards I had decades ago.

But my perception changed once I worked through the recalibration process myself, and I realized I wasn’t declining at all.

I was evolving.

My life has expanded, my responsibilities have changed, and my leadership has grown.

So when I stopped measuring today’s reality against an outdated version of myself, I could finally see clearly that:

Today’s best version of me is exactly that - my best today.

Not my best thirty years ago.

That realization didn’t lower my standards, it updated my perception.

And that shift restored energy I didn’t even realize I had been draining through all of those years of self-comparison,

Which allowed me to fully claim the power I have today vs. living in the past.

Claim YOUR Power

Another place where comparison showed up for me was being a beginner again.

I’ve been struggling with an internal resistance to creating video-based content, and while some of that resistance is tied to my appearance insecurities, there’s another deeper layer at play here too.

Starting this chapter of my life meant stepping into something new.

After decades of working in environments where I was established, respected, and known for my performance and confidence, suddenly I was a beginner again.

And starting over has been very humbling.

I found that I was comparing myself to people who are further along, especially because I’ve been learning from many of them as I develop my new skills.

Their polished presence, confident delivery, and established authority were both inspiring and deflating.

My perception was twisting those signals and making my own starting phase feel unnecessarily uncomfortable.

But every leader has a starting phase, and every expert was once new,

So again, this is where belief recalibration made all the difference,

Because it neutralized the comparison distortion so that I was able to embrace the actions that would help me grow, vs letting them intimidate me.

I’m not going to lie - this is ongoing work,

But having a proven system to identify these triggers - and then recalibrate them - has truly been game changing.

But this begs the question….

Why does comparison trap us in the first place?

There’s a deeper issue behind comparison, and it’s not insecurity.

It’s misaligned standards.

If we haven’t clearly identified the priorities that naturally drive us, our brain will borrow standards from somewhere else.

Places like → industry expectations → cultural narratives → other entrepreneurs → past versions of ourselves...

And once those external standards become the measuring stick, comparison is almost inevitable.

We begin asking:

Am I doing this as well as they are?

Am I moving fast enough?

Am I behind?

But those questions assume something that may not be true…

That their path is the correct one for you, or me.

And that is exactly why the first step for growing beyond this has nothing to do with tactics.

Instead ↓

It starts with internal clarity.

Before evaluating your performance, you need something far more important:

Clarity around the subconscious priorities already shaping your behavior.

Inside the PURPOSE™ framework, this is the Pinpoint phase.

Instead of asking:

What ‘should’ I be doing?

We examine the patterns that are already driving your decisions.

This deep dive reveals your core intrinsic priorities,

And once those are visible, something important happens…

External comparison loses its power.

Because you’re no longer measuring yourself against someone else’s path,

Now you’re building from your own internal alignment.

But clarity alone doesn’t dissolve emotional charges.

That’s where recalibration becomes necessary.

In the recalibration process I guide people through, we examine the traits in people that trigger the comparison reflex.

Together we identify what you most admire, what you most resent, and who intimidates you the most.

That root cause analysis reveals the pedestals and pits in your life.

And here’s the critical realization:

Every human expresses every single trait across time and context.

And when you examine the traits you admire in others, and come to see that you possess them too, something fascinating happens…

The pedestal collapses.

Not because the other person loses their value,

But because your value matches theirs - and they return to human scale.

And once that happens, the emotional charge disappears because you’ve leveled the playing field,

Which restores clarity.

And once perception stabilizes, something else shifts…

Comparison itself stops being a problem.

In fact, it can become incredibly useful.

You can observe someone else’s expertise, study their strategy, learn from their experience,

Without the emotional baggage.

Instead of thinking:

They’re better than me.

You think:

What can I learn from how they approach this?

That shift requires mental agility,

And mental agility doesn’t happen through sheer willpower,

It comes from retraining how your brain interprets input - which upgrades your perception.

Build Your Mental Agility

And this is the point where expansion becomes viable.

But it requires a shift most leaders miss.

Many entrepreneurs try to expand before stabilizing their perception.

Which leads to hesitation, inconsistency, and imposter syndrome,

Because the pedestal perception is still active.

But when the pedestal collapses your perception stabilizes,

And expansion becomes internally aligned because you’re no longer pressuring yourself to become someone else,

Instead you’re building from the priorities that are already driving you from within.

And once you reach this point you realize that comparison isn’t the real problem,

The distorted hierarchy is.

And with that clarity, something powerful happens:

Decisions feel lighter and execution becomes steadier.

Not because the external environment changed,

But because the perception of it did.

And leadership ultimately comes down to one thing:

Seeing reality clearly enough to build from truth.

If this article resonated, and you’re ready to remove the pedestals from your perception, here are 3 ways I can help:

1.Start with clarity - the Core Priorities Snapshot is a guided introduction to uncovering the subconscious priorities already shaping your life, and all subscribers get access for FREE.

Subscribe now

Plus every Thursday you’ll receive a clarity-first article designed for entrepreneurs who are ready to rewire their limiting beliefs and build with internal clarity and structure.

2.Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers - If you’re ready to go deeper now, this is a guided discovery process to identify your full core priority hierarchy, personal zone of genius, existing limiting beliefs, and a personalized Purpose Statement that becomes the foundation for everything you do.

Tap into Your Intrinsic Drive

3. Correct the Distortion with Purge Misaligned Patterns

If you recognized yourself in this article then this is likely where your real work begins.

Purge Misaligned Patterns is a facilitated belief recalibration process designed to:

• Identify the highest-leverage distortion

• Expose the assumptions sustaining it

• Correct perception at the root

• Neutralize emotional charge

• Stabilize leadership, pricing, and visibility

This is not motivation. It’s correction. And correction removes the pedestals.

Begin Recalibrating

Related Articles:

Most entrepreneurs assume that their biggest challenge is discipline.

Like if we could just be more consistent…
More focused…
More confident…

Then everything would stabilize and our businesses would run like well oiled machines.

But that assumption around discipline (or whatever it is for you) is actually hiding a deeper issue that very few people ever stop to examine.

And that’s our perception.

Because let’s face it, a lack of discipline is rarely the root cause for anyone who is willing to start a business,

And it’s our perception that’s driving that very assessment of trying to figure out what’s ‘not working well,’

It’s our perception that shapes our reality, and every decision we make as leaders,

But sometimes it’s skewed because we’re stuck in patterns that aren’t helpful.

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There’s an invisible layer quietly shaping our decisions every day.

Every day we’re interpreting signals… signals like:

A client message.
A slow week of sales.
A critical comment.
A competitor’s success claim.
A piece of feedback.

None of these events arrive with meaning attached to them.

Meaning is assigned by our perception.

And our perceptions aren’t neutral.

They are shaped by:

• past experiences

• emotional charges

• comparison dynamics

• fear of loss

• internal narratives about success and failure

• the list goes on…

This is why two people can experience the exact same situation and interpret it completely differently.

In fact, it’s nearly impossible for two people to experience the same situation similarly.

One might see a signal for adjustment,

While the other sees confirmation that everything is collapsing.

The difference is not intellectual,

The difference is we all have our highly individualized perceptions acting as a lens of interpretation,

And that lens can distort our view.

But let’s be clear - ‘distortion’ doesn’t mean someone is irrational,

It simply means the interpretation of the situation has been exaggerated in one direction.

As entrepreneurs we experience this in several common ways.

One distortion shows up as what I call - The Pedestal.

Someone else’s success story becomes proof that you’re falling behind.

Their visibility feels larger than life.

Their certainty appears unshakable.

And suddenly your own work feels smaller than it actually is because your perception placed that ‘successful’ person on a pedestal which you’re now using as the lens for evaluation.

Another common distortion pulls us into the opposite direction - The Pit.

This is when a setback becomes proof that everything is failing.

One slow launch becomes a narrative about declining relevance.

Or a single piece of feedback becomes confirmation that your direction is wrong.

Neither of which has to be catastrophic, but your perception may make it out to be.

BTW - Here’s a Hot Tip - when your language defaults to the extremes of ‘everything vs. nothing,’ ‘all or none,’ or ‘always and never,’ terminology, that’s a tell-tale sign that your perception is actively skewing your reality because those extremes are very rarely true.

Another very common distortion shows up as perceived ‘Loss.’

This comes into play when a decision starts to feel dangerous because the potential downside feels larger than it actually is.

The risk here is that as entrepreneurs we’re constantly weighing the pros and cons of every decision, and when you have a fear of loss, you hesitate in drawing a line in the sand around decisions like:

• Raising prices.

• Clarifying your positioning.

• Defining your true target audience.

The perception of losing customers makes each of these actions feel risky, even when they are strategically sound,

But that fear of loss is amplified,

So you end up making emotional decisions instead of data-based decisions,

And your perception tricks you into thinking you’re being strategic and ‘managing’ your risk,

When in fact you’re being influenced by an unhelpful pattern.

Uncover Your Patterns

This is why discipline alone rarely fixes the problem.

When our perception is distorted, discipline just amplifies the existing patterns and effort feels wasted.

So you - push harder - work longer - and attempt to overpower the discomfort,

But the underlying interpretation of reality hasn’t changed,

So the pressure keeps increasing while clarity decreases.

And eventually there’s a collapse in momentum,

But not because of a lack of discipline,

It’s because a perception problem can’t be solved with behavior.

Perception issues require a different approach.

Examining our perceptions requires something that isn’t discussed often enough in entrepreneurial circles.

Humility.

And by humility, I don’t mean lowering your expectations, that’s not actually what humility is.

Humility in this context, is being willing to ask yourself a difficult question, and that is:

What if my interpretation of this situation isn’t entirely accurate?

That question right there changes everything,

Because it opens the door to recalibration.

So instead of defending your perceptions, you begin examining them,

And when your perception around a situation stabilizes, your leadership stabilizes with it.

This is the work most entrepreneurs never realize they need to do.

Most business programs and advice focus on strategies, tactics, and productivity improvements,

But very little attention is given to the belief architecture shaping our perception.

Yet that’s the architecture that is actually influencing:

• how we interpret risk,

• how we receive feedback,

• How we process ‘success and failure,’ and

• how our authority is expressed.

And when we examine our perceptions clearly - not under the cloud of shame or self-condemnation,

Those revelations influence our leadership more than anything else.

Because true clarity is not just about direction,

It’s about our interpretation.

Two leaders can face the same reality, and one becomes reactive, while the other is steady.

That’s because facts don’t drive our leadership, our interpretation of them does.

But, we do get to choose which direction we want to go once we understand the perceptions driving the behavior,

Which makes leadership feel calmer,

Decisions become steadier,

And execution becomes coherent.

Not because the external environment changed,

But because the interpretation of it did.

Which leads to a question worth asking yourself.

If you’ve been feeling friction in your work lately, the most helpful question probably isn’t:

Why can’t I be more consistent?

It’s more helpful to ask:

What’s shaping how I’m perceiving and interpreting this situation?

Because once you understand the lens your perception is creating, the clearer you can make it.

The fact is, the way you interpret reality is the foundation for every decision you make,

So internal clarity is the real key to unlocking your power as the leader you’re meant to be.

This is the shift that changes everything.

If this article resonated, and you’re ready to examine your lenses, here are 3 ways I can help:

1.Start with clarity - the Core Priorities Snapshot is a guided introduction to uncovering the subconscious priorities already shaping your life, and all subscribers get access for FREE.

Subscribe now

Plus every Thursday you’ll receive a clarity-first article designed for entrepreneurs who are ready to rewire their limiting beliefs and build with internal clarity and structure.

2.Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers - If you’re ready to go deeper now, this is a guided discovery process to identify your full core priority hierarchy, personal zone of genius, existing limiting beliefs, and a personalized Purpose Statement that becomes the foundation for everything you do.

Tap into Your Intrinsic Drive

3. Correct the Distortion with Purge Misaligned Patterns

If you recognized yourself in this article this is likely where your real work begins.

Purge Misaligned Patterns is a facilitated belief recalibration process designed to:

• Identify the highest-leverage distortion

• Expose the assumptions sustaining it

• Correct perception at the root

• Neutralize emotional charge

• Stabilize leadership, pricing, and visibility

This is not motivation. It’s correction.

And correction clears lenses.

Begin Recalibrating

Related Articles:

There’s a belief structure that many responsible people hold at their core:

If something is costly, it will make me more faithful.
If it drains me, it must be refining me.
If I feel resistance, I must need more discipline.

These beliefs sound spiritual, but they’re actually distortions of the truth,

And when distortions go unexamined, they reshape how you function.

The Distortion Beneath the Devotion

The Biblical concept of stewardship is often misinterpreted as endurance, and it’s important to be able to spot the actual distorted beliefs underneath that confusion:

Distortion #1: Difficulty Equals Divine Assignment

If it’s hard, God must be shaping me through it.

Correction: Hardship can refine character - but misalignment is not a spiritual curriculum.

James 1 speaks about trials producing perseverance - not about repeatedly choosing structures that violate your design.

Key truth: Not every draining structure is a test - some are simply poor stewardship.

Distortion #2: Depletion Proves Commitment

If I’m exhausted, at least I know I’m giving my all.

Correction: Galatians 6:9 encourages perseverance in doing good - not perseverance in self-erasure. There is a difference between sustained effort and sustained override.

Key truth: The fruit of the Spirit includes self-control - not self-neglect, and exhaustion is not a spiritual credential.

Distortion #3: Rest Must Be Earned

I’ll slow down when I’ve proven myself.

Correction: Genesis 2:2 shows God resting after creation - not collapsing from depletion. Rest was embedded into the architecture of stewardship before sin ever entered the story.

Key truth: Rest is structural - not indulgent.

Distortion #4: If Others Can Sustain This, I Should Too

Other leaders handle this. Why can’t I?

Correction: Romans 12 describes different gifts distributed intentionally - not competitively. You are not called to steward someone else’s wiring.

Key truth: Comparison distorts hierarchy, and when you adopt someone else’s capacity as your benchmark, you create internal conflict.

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How Distortions Spread Into Business

When these beliefs go unchecked, they don’t stay abstract.

They show up operationally:

• Pricing feels emotionally charged because worth is tangled with sacrifice.

• Visibility fluctuates because you equate being seen with being evaluated.

• Authority destabilizes because leadership feels like constant proving.

You start believing:

I should be able to handle more.

This is just what responsible people do.

Maybe I’m just not resilient enough.

So you push harder.

And because you are capable, you can sustain it - for a while.

But sustainable effort and forced endurance are not the same thing.

When you repeatedly override your intrinsic priorities, your nervous system doesn’t interpret that as faithfulness,

It interprets it as a threat.

And over time your motivation collapses, not because you lack discipline, but because your perception is distorted.

What Stewardship Actually Requires

Biblically, stewardship is about the multiplication of entrusted resources,

Not the maximization of suffering.

The parable of the talents in Matthew 25 doesn’t praise exhaustion, it praises wise investment.

Wise investment requires:

• Clarity & Discernment

• Understanding what has been entrusted

• And refusing to bury it under fear or comparison

You cannot multiply what you do not understand.

And you cannot steward capacity by pretending you have more - or less - than you do.

The Difference Between Sacrifice and Self-Override

Another common subconscious distortion is that the Biblical definition of sacrifice requires some form of self-override, and while that might be true sometimes, there are key differences to define here.

The main one is that sacrifice is purposeful, while self-override is compensatory

Sacrifice says:

This is aligned with what I’ve been called to build.

Self-overriding says:

I ‘should’ be able to tolerate this.

Sacrifice produces meaning, while self-override produces quiet resentment.

The difference is not effort - it’s orientation.

Reorient Your Distorted Perceptions

What Self-Override Looked Like in My Life

For most of my early career I thought I was being faithful.

I chose my degrees and jobs because they were defensible.
Stable. Logical. Impressive on paper.

They never deeply resonated, but they ‘made sense.’

And because I didn’t yet have a clear alternative, I defaulted to what I did have:

Responsibility.

I told myself clarity would come later, as long as I stayed disciplined, kept performing, and honored the path in front of me.

I excelled at the work too, which made it harder to question.

Competence can mask misalignment for years.

I assumed the tension meant refinement, the depletion meant growth, and the ache meant I needed more grit,

But underneath it all was a distorted belief I was bound by:

If I quit, I’m failing.

And beneath that:

Responsible people don’t walk away without a defined plan.

So I kept being responsible…

Then one Sunday, I heard a sermon that stopped me cold.

That sentence rearranged me.

I realized that responsibility wasn’t just a virtue in my life, it had inadvertently become an idol.

And once that distortion was exposed, the recalibration began.

Quitting wasn’t irresponsibility, it was obedience and faithfully trusting God’s provision instead of my paycheck.

Why This Requires Recalibration - Not Motivation

If stewardship has been entangled with self-override in your thinking, motivation will not fix it because the distortion feels righteous.

And when a distortion is moralized, it becomes immune to course correction.

You will spiritualize the override,
Justify the depletion,
And you’ll likely call burnout ‘stretching.’

And from inside that lens, everything looks reasonable.

This is why renewal of the mind matters.

Romans 12:2 does not call for intensified effort.

It calls for transformation through renewed thinking, and renewal means correction.

Correction means identifying:

Where you exaggerate responsibility.
Where you internalize comparison.
Where you equate suffering with obedience.
Where you confuse endurance with faithfulness.

Until those beliefs are recalibrated, strategy built on top of them will remain unstable.

Start Recalibrating Your Beliefs

What Changes When the Belief Is Corrected

When distorted beliefs inside your business are corrected:

• Pricing becomes clean instead of compensatory.

• Visibility becomes neutral instead of threatening.

• Authority feels grounded instead of performative.

• Effort feels purposeful instead of draining.

Not because the work gets easier, but because it fits.

Stewardship multiplies what aligns, it does not reward self-erasure.

Faithfulness is not measured by how much you can endure for endurance’s sake,

It’s measure by how faithfully you steward what you’ve been entrusted with.

That requires - self-honesty - examination - and the courage to correct distorted assumptions,

Because you cannot steward what you refuse to understand,

And understanding your design is not pride…

It is reorientation around truth.

If this article resonated, and you’re ready to turn reflection into architecture, here are 3 ways I can help:

1.Start with clarity - the Core Priorities Snapshot is a guided introduction to uncovering the subconscious priorities already shaping your life, and all subscribers get access for FREE.

Subscribe now

Plus every Thursday you’ll receive a clarity-first article designed for entrepreneurs who are ready to rewire their limiting beliefs and build with internal clarity and structure.

2.Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers - If you’re ready to go deeper now, this is a guided discovery process to identify your full core priority hierarchy, personal zone of genius, existing limiting beliefs, and a personalized Purpose Statement that becomes the foundation for everything you do.

Tap into Your Intrinsic Drive

3. Correct the Distortion with Purge Misaligned Patterns

If you recognized yourself in the section about righteous responsibility… this is likely where your real work begins.

Purge Misaligned Patterns is a facilitated belief recalibration process designed to:

• Identify the highest-leverage distortion

• Expose the assumptions sustaining it

• Correct perception at the root

• Neutralize emotional charge

• Stabilize leadership, pricing, and visibility

This is not motivation. It’s correction.

And correction restores stewardship.

Begin Your Recalibration

Related Articles:

If messaging were just a skill issue, this wouldn’t feel so personal.

For early-stage entrepreneurs building businesses they intend to steward long-term, messaging often feels heavy.

Especially since writing is central to everything you’re building.

Even on Substack, you’re not just publishing articles, as an entrepreneur you’re constantly:

• Clarifying offers

• Refining positioning

• Signaling conviction

• Building trust

• Translating depth into short-form

• Writing for reach and for resonance

• Showing up in community spaces

• And oftentimes trying to sound coherent across platforms

That’s not ‘just writing,’

That’s layered communication architecture.

And without upstream clarity, it eventually collapses under the weight of its own uncertainty.

You won’t just struggle to write - you’ll struggle to sound like yourself while trying to explain what you do.

And that’s a deeper problem.

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The Real Friction Isn’t Writing - It’s Diffusion

When messaging feels hard, most entrepreneurs assume they need:

• Better copy.

• Clearer offers.

• Stronger hooks.

• To post more consistently.

And while any of those could be true, they are rarely the root issue.

Very few people ever question audience connection,

And even fewer examine whether their format aligns with their natural communication style and strengths.

These are key factors, because your messaging collapses if your structural clarity is rooted in unexamined assumptions - beliefs you’ve absorbed about success, audience size, visibility and worth.

Clear messaging requires clarity about:

• Who you actually serve

• What you actually believe

• How you naturally communicate

• What each channel is meant to do

Without that, every piece of writing becomes heavy,

And unfortunately not even the best templates in the world will fix a lack of clear direction, because templates assume:

• Stable positioning

• Clear internal priorities

• Defined audience

• Settled conviction

When those don’t exist both you and your audience will detect the performative, cringey, borrowed, and even slightly dishonest feeling behind the templated content.

And when you’re someone who values integrity, that dishonesty - even when it’s subtle - creates internal resistance.

Your system will fight you on publishing something that feels misaligned, and that’s not self-sabotage,

That’s internal coherence doing its job.

Because you’re trying to solve -

positioning, persuasion, reach, identity, and differentiation all at once,

And without the proper foundation that’s exhausting and completely unsustainable.

But it’s also fixable…

The Step Most People Skip

When starting a business most entrepreneurs rush right into:

→ Offers → Audiences → Content Calendars → Lead Magnets → Messaging Frameworks

Without first clarifying the internal foundational layers that underpin the entire business.

Then when the messaging feels unstable, many assume it’s a skill gap, but that’s rarely the case.

More often it’s a sequencing gap.

Building a sustainable business from the inside out means starting with what’s already true about you.

Which also means confronting what isn’t true - the limiting beliefs you’ve absorbed about what success is ‘supposed’ to look like, who you’re ‘supposed’ to serve, and how you’re ‘supposed’ to show up.

You’re the one running your business, so it’s about first identifying:

Your intrinsic drivers.
Your psychological patterns.
Your real priorities.
Your actual strengths.

Your preferred communication format and platform.

But intrinsic clarity isn’t just about strengths,

It’s about identifying the beliefs shaping your decisions, and deciding whether they’re actually true or not.

This internal layer is foundational,

And because it doesn’t immediately produce visible output, it’s often skipped in favor for more ‘productive’ tasks,

But when you skip it, everything downstream will eventually crumble.

When you start with intrinsic clarity you can then naturally layer on the external fit, because you’ll be in a better position to define:

Who your work is specifically for.
What you stand for and what you don’t.

What makes you unique.

Where to showcase your work so it reaches those who need it.

And when these layers are defined your messaging becomes translation instead of invention.

You’re no longer guessing or blending in,

Instead, your messaging is anchored and when your feed gets loud - because it will,

You won’t spiral.

You’ll be deeply rooted in your foundation because you’ve taken the time to define it.

And if you believe your work carries purpose - not just profit - then clarity isn’t optional, it’s stewardship.

You’re not called to reach everyone.

You’re called to speak clearly to the people you’re entrusted with.

We’re told to be transformed by the renewing of our minds,

And in business, that renewal isn’t abstract - it means confronting the assumptions shaping our strategy.

That’s what inside-out building actually means.

It’s not introspection for its own sake.

It’s architectural clarity that stabilizes execution,

Because if you’re naturally wired for thoughtful, analytical, depth-oriented communication but try to perform broad-stage energy because that’s what appears to ‘work,’ your nervous system will resist it.

And if you don’t know who you’re speaking to - or what the objective of the message is - every format feels unstable.

Stabilize Your Positioning

My Own Misalignment (before the algorithm was even involved)

When I first started publishing consistently my audience was too broad.

Not because I didn’t know who I could help, but because I could genuinely help more than one group.

My tools have powerful applications for:

• Mid-life corporate professionals who feel misaligned and are questioning direction

• Early entrepreneurs already building who need clarity and structural alignment

I am both of those people.

I have a deep heart for the earlier version of myself - the corporate leader who was successful on paper but felt internally unsettled.

But when I tried to speak to both groups it muddled my messaging because those audiences are in different psychological seasons of life.

One group is still deciding whether to act.

The other is already acting and refining.

They process information differently, respond to different approaches, and have different entry points.

Writing to Everyone Is the Fastest Way to Sound Generic

Once I chose to primarily speak to builders my messaging simplified immediately,

Not because I narrowed my compassion, but because I clarified my focus.

There’s a quiet fear most entrepreneurs don’t name:

If I narrow my audience, I’ll exclude people who could benefit.

That sounds generous, but often it’s driven by distorted reasoning:

If I choose, I lose.
If I narrow, I shrink.
If I speak clearly, I’ll be rejected.

Those aren’t strategic conclusions, they’re unexamined beliefs,

And when those beliefs carry emotional charges, like

• The fear of loss,

• Fear of rejection,

• Fear of insignificance,

They quietly dictate your messaging decisions, and

Your attempt at inclusiveness ends up diffusing the signal and your language becomes abstract.

And when your language is abstract it becomes replaceable,

Which morphs into performative - even when it’s sincere.

Specificity sharpens trust building tone, and that isn’t exclusion - it’s coherence.

Anchor Your Voice

The Friction in the Feed

Clarifying my audience solved one layer of friction, but it exposed another.

Even when your internal focus is clear, your external environment can destabilize it.

Because once you’re publishing consistently, you’re not building in isolation,

You’re building inside an ecosystem, and ecosystems have gravity.

That’s when I started noticing the second kind of diffusion.

Not from my own indecision, but from proximity.

Even on Substack - which has much higher-quality content than most platforms - the ecosystem has its own patterns.

Growth marketers.
Subscriber screenshots.
Revenue updates.
Echo chambers of adjacent positioning.
People doing something close to what I offer.

And because of the algorithm, it can start to feel like everyone is saying some version of the same thing because the system keeps showing you what’s proximate to you.

I could feel it wearing on me and it was starting to turn into comparative cognitive overload,

And comparison quietly distorts perception, making proximity feel like competition and visibility feel like validation.

Substack may not be the ‘meta algorithm,’ but it’s still an ecosystem designed for content exposure - some of which is fantastic, and some of which is noise.

Creating Grounded and Authentic Messaging

If your messaging feels heavier than it should then it might be time to ask yourself:

• Do I know exactly who this is for?

• Am I afraid of excluding people?

• Am I trying to speak to two psychological seasons at once?

• Am I writing in a posture that isn’t natural to me?

• Am I consuming so much that my internal signal is getting diluted?

This isn’t about learning how to write ‘better,’

It’s about gaining foundational clarity about yourself and your audience, and

Clarity reduces friction more effectively than visibility ever will.

When your beliefs are examined, your purpose is anchored, and your structure aligns with both, your messaging stops feeling like performance.

It feels like integrity expressed consistently, and with structure, and isn’t that what we’re all going for?

I’d love to know how you handle your messaging, and whether or not you struggle with distractions from your feed.

If this article resonated, and you’re ready to align your positioning with your purpose, here are 3 ways I can help:

1.Start with clarity - the Core Priorities Snapshot is a guided introduction to uncovering the subconscious priorities already shaping your life, and all subscribers get access for FREE.

Subscribe now

Plus every Thursday you’ll receive a clarity-first article designed to help rewire their limiting beliefs and build with internal clarity and structure.

2.Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers - If you’re ready to go deeper now, this is a guided discovery process to identify your full core priority hierarchy, personal zone of genius, existing limiting beliefs, and a personalized Purpose Statement that becomes the foundation for everything you do.

Tap into Your Intrinsic Drive

3.Align Your Business with Purpose - If you’re ready to build your business from the inside out then Founded on PURPOSE™ takes you 2 steps further by translating the internal clarity into external business architecture by uncovering your unique market positioning and brand foundation paired with daily execution rhythms to keep you focused. 👉 This is where your alignment becomes operational.

Explore Founded on PURPOSE™

Regardless of where you begin, my goal is to help you build with inner clarity and structure.

Related Articles:

Everyone says it matters, but very few actually define, and can clearly articulate, what they’re aligning to.

And when alignment isn’t anchored, it’s simply disguising personal preference as ‘purpose’ and leaving you afloat with the mental permission to constantly:

🌀 Pivot when you’re bored,
🌀 Rebrand when your energy dips,
🌀 Chase new ideas that look profitable,
🌀 Second-guess yourself when you feel stagnant,

And then wondering why your ‘clarity’ never stabilizes…

That, my friend, isn’t a motivation problem,

It’s an architectural problem, and for most of us it started in early childhood.

The Institutional Conditioning We Rarely Question

The vast majority of us were trained inside systems designed for efficiency - not discernment.

Our educational institutions are optimized for standardization.

Corporate structures are optimized for output.

And our performance in most arenas is measured by productivity, not our unique design.

The message we received was often subtle, but always consistent.

We were taught directly, and indirectly, to be useful, efficient, productive…

To fit the model.

Very little of our formation focused on identifying:

• What we’re uniquely wired to steward

• Where our natural contribution is the strongest

• How our internal design intersects with real needs

Instead we were trained to become competent order-takers,

Not faithful stewards.

And Christians weren’t immune to this conditioning,

We just had to reconcile the mixed messaging we were getting from our faith vs our daily performance expectations. 😣

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The Chronic Misunderstanding of Calling

There’s a subtle hierarchy many believers absorb without even realizing it:

Missionary = spiritual
Pastor = called
Worship leader = serving God
Business owner = practical

As if profit disqualifies purpose.

But if we truly believe everything belongs to God, then that same faith dictates that capital does too.

Which means business isn’t spiritually neutral - it’s a stewardship arena.

Jesus didn’t divide sacred and secular the way we often do.
He talked about money constantly because resources reveal allegiance.

But Matthew 6:33 doesn’t say ‘seek ministry first.’

It says:

Seek first the kingdom of God…

Which applies to boardrooms and startups just as much as pulpits.

If God is the vine and we are the branches (John 15), then every branch has a function.

Different roles → Different fruit → Same source

Which means calling is not a narrow career category,

It’s faithful participation in the role you’ve been uniquely equipped and entrusted with,

And some of those roles involve building profitable businesses that steward resources well.

Which flies in the face of both the misguided spiritual narrative and mainstream business building hustle culture.

The Problem With Manufacturing a Profitable ‘Purpose’

Here’s where ‘alignment culture’ gets tricky, and sometimes even dangerous.

Most entrepreneurs choose a niche by evaluating:

What could be profitable?
What’s trending?
What’s scalable?

And then call it their ‘purpose’ and align their business around those factors.

The problem isn’t being profitable, trending or scalable - those are all great things -

The problem is that decision-making model was inherited from the same outside in productivity-first systems we were trained in,

And when your business direction is chosen primarily for output, not intrinsic design and meaningful stewardship, something subtle happens:

You begin building against yourself. 👎

You may succeed financially,

But internally, you’ll be in constant production mode - not contribution mode.

And if there’s no intrinsic engine sustaining you,

Eventually the friction will win.

In Matthew 7: 24-27 Jesus used a simple metaphor to describe the disconnect from building a life by listening to him vs following him and it holds true for our businesses too:

A business built on manufactured purpose may sound impressive,

But if it contradicts your design, it won’t sustain you.

And you can only work against your wiring for a season, NOT for a lifetime.

Try This Instead

Building on the Rock Bed of Your Purpose

Aligning with your purpose isn’t some mystical feeling reserved for the chosen few who seemed to be born knowing what they were meant to do in life.

Fortunately there’s a discovery process for the rest of us, with a structure anyone can follow to uncover your unique opportunity to make an impact with the work you do.

It’s rooted in coherence between four layers:

1. God’s Universal Design for All of Us

1- Seek Him first.
2- Love others as yourself.
3- Care for the marginalized.
4- Steward what we’ve been given.

These are the non-negotiable universal behaviors of faith-focused work, whether in the form of a business or everyday life.

It applies regardless of position or industry.

2. Your Unique Design

🔎 Your intrinsic priorities - the ones already driving your decision and behavior.

🔎 Your genius zone - where you feel most alive and inspired.

🔎 The patterns of energy and attention you return to time and time again.

These are not accidents or coincidence - they are your scaffolding to build off of.

You were not randomly assembled, and your work shouldn’t be either.

3. Your Lived Evidence

🤔 Where have you consistently invested time, money and energy?

🤔 What trade-offs have you repeatedly made and didn’t even think twice about?

🤔 What problems do you instinctively want to solve?

Your inspired purpose leaves traces, and it shows up in patterns you might be dismissing, long before it shows up articulately in your language.

4. Your Business Architecture

If you run a business, any kind of business - yes, even as a solopreneur - your company structure matters, and many entrepreneurs skip this step.

It’s crucial to define your business’

✍️ mission, vision, core values, positioning and operational rhythm,

Because when you don’t explicitly anchor these to the first three layers, your business will inevitably drift toward profit-first pressure by default and you’ll lose your way and your focus.

Aligning your work around these four layers ensures that you’re intentionally structuring your business around your God-given design and direction - and

That’s the antithesis of vibe-based alignment.

That’s faithful stewardship, and you can start building yours 👉 HERE.

Why This is Crucial in Our New Reality of AI

We’re in a season where low-level productivity tasks are being increasingly automated, and that’s actually great news for high-performers and solopreneurs.

AI can replace tasks that would otherwise bury us in an unending to-do list.

But it cannot replace our → discernment → stewardship → moral judgment → calling, or → our responsibility.

Which means the entrepreneurs who build sustainably on the rock of eternal and internal alignment will never be replaced by a computer.

Instead, we can optimize our systems with powerful technology, while also bearing fruit in ways only we can as individual branches by doing:

• What we’ve been entrusted with

• For who we’re designed to serve

• And letting God handle what we’re not responsible for

In a world of increasing automation, self-awareness and surrender is not indulgent, it’s foundational.

What Changes When You Stop Manufacturing Purpose

By first looking inward and upward you remove the pressure or having to figure everything out yourself.

You stop trying to force clarity by inventing meaning,

Instead you start observing evidence in the patterns already present in your life.

You stop asking:

What should I build to succeed?

Which, if we’re honest, is often just another way of asking ‘What will make the most money?’

And start asking:

What have I been entrusted with to faithfully steward?

That shift alone changes everything,

Especially how you evaluate business opportunities and define success.

It also changes how to respond to ‘competition’ in the marketplace,

And how you handle seasons of growth, and seasons of pruning.

Because once stewardship becomes the lens, the comparison game loses its power.

So let’s be more careful with how we use the word alignment.

Let’s not allow it to become just another buzz word that signals self-awareness, or treating it as a branding accessory,

Let’s put it in its rightful place as a structural commitment to:

Ensuring that what you build externally reflects what God has already woven internally.

THIS is how you build from the inside out,

And that’s true alignment with your purpose.

If this article resonated, and you’re ready to turn reflection into architecture, here are 3 ways I can help:

1.Start with clarity - the Core Priorities Snapshot is a guided introduction to uncovering the subconscious priorities already shaping your life, and all subscribers get access for FREE.

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Plus every Thursday you’ll receive a clarity-first article designed for entrepreneurs who are ready to stop forcing discipline and motivation, and start building from intrinsic drive.

2.Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers - If you’re ready to go deeper now, this is a guided discovery process to identify your full core priority hierarchy, your personal zone of genius, reframing limiting beliefs, and articulating a personalized Purpose Statement that becomes the foundation for everything you do.

Tap into Your Intrinsic Drive

3.Align Your Business with Purpose - If you’re ready to build your business from the inside out then Founded on PURPOSE™ takes you 2 steps further by translating the internal clarity from Pinpoint Your Intrinsic Drivers, into external business architecture by uncovering your unique market positioning and brand foundation paired with daily execution rhythms to keep you focused.

This is where your alignment becomes operational.

Explore Founded on PURPOSE™

Regardless of where you begin, my goal is to help you build with clarity - not pressure!

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