--- title: "50: How to Break Up with the Unhelpful Parts of Your Brain" id: "5241" type: "post" slug: "break-up-unhelpful-brain-050" published_at: "2018-05-12T07:30:16+00:00" modified_at: "2026-11-01T19:25:35+00:00" url: "https://johnpoelstra.com/break-up-unhelpful-brain-050/" markdown_url: "https://johnpoelstra.com/break-up-unhelpful-brain-050.md" excerpt: "In this episode I read a letter I wrote to myself encouraging me to keep showing up while calling out the things I to need stop doing. I encourage you to write your own Dear John letter and break up..." taxonomy_category: - "Podcast" taxonomy_post_tag: - "mindset" --- [Skip to the content](#site-content) [John Poelstra](https://johnpoelstra.com) ### Bringing order to chaos and clarity to confusion - [One Conversation](https://johnpoelstra.com/) - [Podcast](https://johnpoelstra.com/category/podcast/) - [Coaching for Directors](https://johnpoelstra.com/coach/) - [About](https://johnpoelstra.com/about/) Toggle search field - [One Conversation](https://johnpoelstra.com/) - [Podcast](https://johnpoelstra.com/category/podcast/) - [Coaching for Directors](https://johnpoelstra.com/coach/) - [About](https://johnpoelstra.com/about/) # [50: How to Break Up with the Unhelpful Parts of Your Brain](https://johnpoelstra.com/break-up-unhelpful-brain-050/) In this episode I read a letter I wrote to myself encouraging me to keep showing up while calling out the things I to need stop doing. I encourage you to write your own *Dear John letter* and break up with the unhelpful parts of your brain and share it with me. It’s more powerful than it sounds. [https://media.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/content.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/JPS050-Break-Up-Unhelpful-Brain.mp3](https://media.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/content.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/JPS050-Break-Up-Unhelpful-Brain.mp3) Podcast: [Download](https://media.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/content.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/JPS050-Break-Up-Unhelpful-Brain.mp3) Subscribe: [Apple Podcasts](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-john-poelstra-show/id1130635146?mt=2&ls=1#episodeGuid=http%3A%2F%2Fjohnpoelstra.com%2F%3Fp%3D5241) | [Android](https://subscribeonandroid.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) ## Notes - Listen to the episode to hear what I wrote - Wikipedia’s explanation of a [Dear John letter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_John_letter) - Write your own letter to yourself - You might be shocked at how helpful and powerful it is to do - [Rick Tamlyn](http://www.ricktamlyn.com/About/) (mastermind facilitator, author, speaker, coach) ## Credits - [Hallon](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Christian_Bjoerklund/Skapmat/christian_bjoerklund_-_skpmat_ep_-_01_-_hallon) by Christian Bjoerklund - [Cold Funk](http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100499) by Kevin MacLeod - [Original photo source](https://unsplash.com/photos/T5lmpSYxnSU) All songs licensed under [Creative Commons](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) ## Transcript *This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.* Today I want to encourage you to write a breakup letter with yourself, with the unhelpful parts of your brain. There’s this notion of a Dear John letter, and because my name is John, I’ve often heard this joke across my life. Now, if you’re not from the United States and you’re wondering what a Dear John letter is, I went to do a little research on this, and here’s what Wikipedia says. A Dear John letter is a letter written to a man by his wife or romantic partner to inform him their relationship is over because she has found another lover. The man is often a soldier stationed overseas, although the letter may be used in other ways, including being left for him to discover when he returns from work to an emptied house. The simple equivalent, I would say, is It’s a breakup letter. I wrote a Dear John letter to myself. And here’s the backdrop. If you listened to the last episode where I was giving an update on what I was learning and what was happening in March, April, I was down in Los Angeles for another mastermind event hosted by Rick Tamlyn. And this is often a technique that that I use with clients that have— clients have found this super valuable. And I haven’t always done it myself. So I thought, we’ll take some of your advice and see what comes of it. Anyway, I had some things rattling around in my head from going to that event, some of the feedback I got at the mastermind very directly from people. This is the beauty of an event like this, by the way, because you form real trust and intimacy with this small group of people, and they’re able to say some very direct things that you often need to hear. Now, some of them don’t land, and that’s okay, but there aren’t very many places in my life where I get this feedback like this direct. And so one of the things I got, one of the pieces of feedback that I got from a couple people as I was having my own little hot seat was You don’t seem committed enough to this portion of what you’re working on. And I had had an inkling that that might be a problem, but they’re like, no, this is like, you’re not convincing. Or there was— it was convincing, confidence, commitment. There was— it was kind of a theme there. And I thought, oh, okay, hard to hear. Good to know. What do I want to do about it? So, one of the things I did was to write myself a Dear John letter. So, here we go. I’m going to read it to you. And my encouragement as you’re listening to what I’m sharing here is to think what you might write in your own letter. April 12th, 2018. Dear John, you are on a roll, man. Your time away from Red Hat has been rich and valuable. Perhaps more so than you realized it would be, and in a different way than you expected. You’re learning as you’re going, which is expected and right on track, as Rick Tamlyn would say. Sometimes you’re too hard on yourself about how far along you should be right now, that somehow you are lame because you went to the mastermind event twice. Maybe you need a mastermind event every quarter to keep the positive energy flowing, and that now that’s what’s required for you. And if that’s what you need, there’s no need to turn that into meaning that you are a slow learner or that something is wrong with you. Stop telling yourself that you should be doing things a different way and that you are a defective person, which means that you are making slower progress than the average person, if such a thing exists. And yet you waste too much time giving that meaning. If you could do things a different way, you would. Instead, you are making your best attempt each day to create the future you want. You are also actively engaging with people independent of you, people outside of yourself, your coach, mentors, friends, and new people you meet at events, etc. Could things be more efficient? There’s no doubt things could be more efficient if you knew the perfect path to success for your life, but you don’t. Nobody does. You won’t see the perfect path until you’re at the end of it and ready to start the next one. That’s just how life works. If you continue to ask yourself, what’s wrong with me? Or continue to remind yourself that you seem to be moving slower than other people, your mind is going to continue to answer questions in that negative space. Consciously and subconsciously, your brain is going to come up with ways to answer those negative questions. The problem with negative questions is that they can’t be answered in positive, life-giving ways. The only way to answer, what’s wrong with me? Is to list all the things that are wrong with you instead of all the things that are right with you. It’s the old Tony Robbins thing around giving our brains positive jobs to do instead of self-defeating brain challenges that the brain can only answer with negative answers. Stop it! Instead, be on the lookout for what is working right now. What’s giving you fuel and fire? Set your mind to the task of getting more of those things. If you found that attending expensive mastermind meetings gives you fuel, set your brain to the challenge of finding more ways to attend them. If you found that conversations with people around personal growth, building their business, and coaching fires you up, give yourself the— give your job the brain of figuring out how to have more of those conversations on a consistent basis. Don’t go down the negative path of listing all the negative reasons that it won’t be possible. Instead, give your brain the job of solving the problem of achieving this thing doesn’t have a solution yet. What could it be? It doesn’t matter if you keep coming up with zero options or only one. If you keep leaning into it, something will eventually become clear. Clarity, or the answer could be something completely unexpected, like don’t pursue it. Here are some things you must commit to and make a bigger part of your day if you truly want to succeed with your business and meet your goal of making a dollar amount I’m not willing to say here in 2018. Maybe this side note, maybe we need some exploratory work around why I’m not willing to share my number, but, uh, topic for another time. Back to the letter. Stop these things that are not serving you. Look for active ways to curtail or stop them now. Stop surfing email, news, and social media after dinner every night. Stop spending so much time hiding behind your computer and attempting to think your way towards more business and opportunities. Stop making excuses about why you can’t start certain projects or initiatives. Start listening to your inner knowing more and remember that in addition to the power of your inner knowing, you have to act too. Remember the experience of losing and finding your notebook on the MAX? Start each week by scheduling at least 5 conversations with people connected to what you are doing in some way. However loose that might be. Set your alarm for 5:30 each morning and get out of bed even if you don’t feel like it or didn’t sleep well. When you run out of creative energy or feel stuck, switch to editing audio or producing an upcoming podcast. This is a positive way to channel your energy to the future and continuing to get your work into the world. Given a choice between consuming information, studying, or going to online webinars and meeting with people, Meet with people. Turn on the self-control website blocker to keep you away from social media and the news. So just a little insert here. I mentioned losing my notebook and finding it on the MAX. The MAX is the light rail in Portland, Oregon, and I rode it to a meeting I had downtown last week. And I carry around a little, a green, it’s got like a Moleskine notebook. And Long story short, I was riding the MAX home and I was hungry and it was super noisy. And so I just got off at one of the stops to finish eating the burrito I’d bought at a food cart. It was delicious. And so I hopped off and I thought, well, I’ll just eat this burrito and then just get on the next train. Well, I got off the train, I ate the burrito, and then I realized I had nothing in my hands and that I’d left this notebook on the train and it was gone. Oh no! I went through all the iterations of what I could do. I found the website to report it missing. And then I thought, well, I’ve got a couple hours before my next client call. Maybe I could ride the next train to the end of the line, which will take me about 30 minutes. And maybe the train that I was on is still there. I don’t know. So anyway, I got on the next train. As I’m riding down, I thought, well, you know, I went through all these rationalizations over, you know, do I really care? Oh, there’s not that much important stuff in that notebook. And I was like, well, there kind of is, but there isn’t. And well, you know, basically it was like everything I’ve learned in the last 4 months. So, you know, and, and I am a believer that the important stuff will surface again. So it wasn’t a complete loss. But anyway, so I’m riding down towards the end of the line that the particular car I was on ended, or the line that I was in, it ended. But to get to the end of the line, I had to change trains and get on another one. And so I got on the other one to get back to where my car was parked, and it got to where my car was and I got off. I just, I couldn’t decide whether— how much I cared and if it was worth spending the rest of my afternoon riding the train to get this notebook. So I got off, and then I don’t know what compelled me, but I got back on the train. I thought, okay, I’ll ride at least 2 or 3 stops. And Maybe I’ll give up. Anyway, long story short, for some reason I rode all the way to the end of the line, got off the train, crossed the tracks to what looked like the train I had been on. The doors were all open and I started walking through the cars and I got through the second car and there on the seat was the notebook that I had left exactly where I had left it. Completely amazing. What’s the moral of the story? I guess the moral of the story is you got to try. I think that’s what propelled me forward was this idea of like, well, I think I have barely enough time to do this. I’m just going to try. Funny enough, one of the ideas that I’d had in my notebook and in the back of my head for a while was, you can buy a ticket for the light rail. It’s $5 for the whole day. So I had thought, sometimes I get ideas just— and I like riding trains. It comes from time I spent in Europe. I thought, someday I should just maybe buy a $5 ticket and just ride from one end of the line to the other and just bring a notebook or some music to listen to and just think and just see what happens. So I inadvertently did that. I don’t know that I had any breakthrough thoughts, but my persistence paid off. Maybe there’s some other deeper learning from that. I don’t know. So anyway, back to this whole idea of breaking up with yourself or breaking up with the unhelpful parts of your brain. What would you give yourself as advice for today or this week? And I challenge you to write it down. You’ll find, I think, a lot more power in the process of putting the words on the page, that something happens beyond just having the thought in your head. So write it down. And you know what? Send me a copy. Maybe I’ll read it on a future episode. You can remain anonymous or not, but I’ll be curious to see what you come up with. #### John Poelstra John Poelstra coaches directors in finance and software. Trained through the Co-Active Training Institute, he has coached for more than 10 years, with over 520 clients and 3,150 sessions. He brings 25 years of experience from the inside: software testing, project management and team leadership at Red Hat and Dell/EMC, and finance as a bank auditor at Wells Fargo and a CPA at Grant Thornton. He hosts The John Poelstra Show podcast. [Author archive](https://johnpoelstra.com/author/john-poelstra/) [Author website](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-john-poelstra-show/id1130635146) May 12, 2018 [Podcast](https://johnpoelstra.com/category/podcast/) [mindset](https://johnpoelstra.com/tag/mindset/) [Previous post](https://johnpoelstra.com/coping-cop-out-tina-robinson-049/) [Next post](https://johnpoelstra.com/email-is-overrated-051/) ### Leave a Reply [Cancel reply](/break-up-unhelpful-brain-050/#respond) ### John Poelstra [https://johnpoelstra.com/?attachment_id=3756](https://johnpoelstra.com/?attachment_id=3756) **Work With Me** I coach directors in finance and software who want to prioritize, delegate, and lead with clarity. Start with One Conversation, a complimentary 60-minute coaching conversation. 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