--- title: "55: Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable" id: "5289" type: "post" slug: "getting-comfortable-being-uncomfortable-055" published_at: "2018-06-17T04:09:18+00:00" modified_at: "2026-11-01T19:23:36+00:00" url: "https://johnpoelstra.com/getting-comfortable-being-uncomfortable-055/" markdown_url: "https://johnpoelstra.com/getting-comfortable-being-uncomfortable-055.md" excerpt: "Over the past couple of months I've been learning by doing, living more from my heart than my head, and learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Next month I'm teaching an in-person class on how to create a podcast..." taxonomy_category: - "Podcast" --- [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/) # [55: Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable](https://johnpoelstra.com/getting-comfortable-being-uncomfortable-055/) Over the past couple of months I’ve been learning by doing, living more from my heart than my head, and learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Next month I’m teaching an in-person class on how to create a podcast in Portland, Oregon, and I hope you’ll join me. [https://media.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/content.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/JPS055-Getting-Comfortable-Being-Uncomfortable.mp3](https://media.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/content.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/JPS055-Getting-Comfortable-Being-Uncomfortable.mp3) Podcast: [Download](https://media.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/content.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/JPS055-Getting-Comfortable-Being-Uncomfortable.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%3D5289) | [Android](https://subscribeonandroid.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) ## Highlights and Resources Mentioned - Kyle Cease — [Free 2 hour movie](http://kylecease.com/game/) - [I Hope I Screw This Up](https://www.amazon.com/Hope-Screw-This-Up-Falling/dp/1501152092/) by Kyle Ceases - [Zoom](https://zoom.us/) - John’s upcoming [in-person podcasting course](https://www.pugspdx.com/july-2018-courses/podcasting-jumpstart-july-2018) : PUGS Podcasting Jumpstart in Portland, Oregon - Success is what you define it to be - Commitment, not courage is the key to driving learning and new thing forward - Building bigger muscles to fight the gremlins and spot their cycles so as not to take them so seriously - Learning to be more comfortable with being uncomfortable - [CTI Coach Training](http://www.coactive.com/coach-training) - Emphasizing my [podcasting services](https://johnpoelstra.com/podcast-production/) more and finding out what people need–glad to talk with you too - My challenge to you: be with the comfortable feelings, observe them and don’t push them away–they won’t last as long as you think. ## 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/U3C79SeHa7k) All songs licensed under [Creative Commons](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) ## Transcript *This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.* So here are the things I’ve learned in the last couple months, those months being mostly April and May of 2018. Headed into an extremely busy June. I have 2 conferences coming up and a family camping trip, and how all that fits into June, I’m not sure. One of the best discoveries or learnings came out of going deeper With a guy named Kyle Cease. I never heard of him before, but I did hear about him at the Mastermind events I went to earlier in the year. Apparently he’s a stand-up comic that had a pretty big presence on one of the cable comedy channels. Anyway, he has transitioned from doing comedy to doing personal transformation work. And I’ve been watching a bunch of his stuff. It is fantastic. He does this 2-day event where there’s no agenda, where he just riffs and creates based on whatever the audience brings. So he has no notes, he has really no planned agenda, and he just talks and works with people and amazing stuff happens. And that’s kind of inspiring some of my own work. It’s often the path that coaching takes, strangely enough. Uh, some of the best coaches, and I think in my own experience, some of my best coaching is when I am completely in the moment and I have no idea where things are going, what’s going to happen, and just being really, really present to what’s there. Cease talks a lot about living from your heart and getting out of your head. And as a person that has lived a good deal of my life in my head, I could not agree with him more. There is so much more that happens, uh, when I live and think from my heart. And you know what, there’s a longer discussion of that in, um, the episode with Tina Robinson around figuring out what we want, so I won’t go into that here. So anyway, I highly recommend Kyle Cease’s stuff. His book is hilarious. I haven’t completely finished— it’s called— I hope I screw this up— I haven’t completely finished it, and I’ve been skipping around, and I think I’m in the middle of about 7 or 8 different books right now. It’s time to declare some book bankruptcy. But until I do, I need to keep reading some of these books. So anyway, he has a couple of programs that are available online at his website, kylecease.com. If you go to kylecease.com/game, You give your email address and there’s no spam involved. He emails periodically, but it’s not over the top. Anyway, if you give him your email address, you can watch a 2-hour version of this 2-day event for free. And then if you’re really taken by that, he gives you the whole 13 hours of the event, which includes the event materials from the event and then other stuff for $20, which I also bought. Now, I usually don’t buy these things online, but Anyway, I’m totally taken by this guy, and I think he’s on to some really, really good stuff. So he informed 2 Zoom calls that I did earlier— or not earlier this month, but last month. Um, so I had 2 different topics that I threw out there to the world. I put a date on the calendar, scared me to death at moments. Not that many people came, but the people that did come, I think My sense was, and they said as well, that they got a lot out of it. So that was cool. What was almost more valuable to me was, in addition to doing the Zoom call itself, was just the process of preparing for the call, whether it be putting a date on the calendar with no idea what I was going to talk about, refining the material, coming up with a loose outline of things I thought I wanted to talk about and then just going for it. You know, I talked about in some earlier episodes the roller coaster of highs and lows, and that was totally the case with these Zoom calls. I was surprised by how open people were. People shared some really personal stuff and everyone was able to benefit from each other. It was really, really Lovely. I learned some things about promoting it. I found that sending to my mailing list generated no signups. Posting on social media did get some signups. And personally inviting people caused the most signups. It’s kind of hard to personally invite someone that you don’t know, but in time— and I plan to keep doing these things on a regular basis— hopefully Well, hopefully word will spread that they’re valuable and that they’re interesting and that you take something valuable away from them and that more people will come. So you might be saying to yourself, well, John, how would I do this Zoom call thing that you speak of? It’s, it’s not a webinar. It’s not a conference call. It’s a Zoom call, which is, it’s like BlueJeans or WebEx or one of those video platforms. Everyone can see each other if they choose to have their cameras on. And you basically sign up for a Zoom account, pick a date, pick a topic that you have something to say about, even if you’re not sure what it is you’re gonna say, and then commit to it. This was the critical aspect of all of it. At a certain point, I asked myself, oh my goodness, why did I do this? What’s going on here? And then I just said, you know what? I am totally committed to this event. And I’m going to define what success is. And success is that I do my best to hold and have this event. It doesn’t matter if anyone comes or not. Success is I did everything I do to— I did everything that I could to have the event and that I had the event. And that really changed the orientation of some of the promotional opportunities that I had. Where I kind of just went for broke. I thought, well, what are people gonna think if I post this thing too many times? Or will they like it or will they not? And because I was just committed to doing everything I could to make the event happen, I pushed myself a little further than I would have normally. Along those lines, I would say one of the biggest epiphanies I had of the last month and a half or so was the really the familiarity of the gremlins and the cycles of them showing up. Of— it’s like almost like building a muscle. And, you know, I don’t know if, like, if you’ve done any strength conditioning or anything, you know, you start to feel stronger, you start to see the muscles, and you just start to just carry yourself and feel differently. That’s what’s happening. I’m starting to see what some of this Gremlin imposter syndrome garbage. Imposter syndrome, if you’re not familiar with the term, is the idea that a lot of times when we venture into a new area that we don’t feel overly confident in or we’re not sure how well— we feel like we have enough competence that we can talk about it. Well, the minute that we stick it out there, the fear is that, oh no, people are going to realize that I’m just a big poser. I’m faking it. I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m an imposter. So I call that imposter syndrome. So I see it like clockwork. And what’s really been exciting is to not listen to it as much as I used to in the past. So I’ll get to this in a little bit, but I’m teaching a class in podcasting in Portland, Oregon. So if you’re a local in the month of July, go to Portland Underground Graduate School, look at the July courses, and there’s a course listed there on How to get started with podcasting. So I’m teaching a course. So I put the course out there and the next day I thought to myself, oh no, I’m an imposter. I don’t really know, you know, what are people going to think? They’re going to think I’m doing it the wrong way. Oh no. Oh no. And then in a moment of just growth, and I’d like to say a little brilliance, I said to myself, this is totally expected. You put something out into the world, it’s a little scary. And of course, now you’re having those thoughts of, oh, maybe I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe people think I’m just like— this is, this is to be expected. And you know what? You’ve learned from past experience that tomorrow or the next day or even 4 hours from now, you’re going to feel different. And you know what? I did. I woke up the next morning and I was like, oh yeah, I got enough good material here. I am not positioning this course as This master-level podcasting audio production thing. I’m positioning it as, you know, beginning to end, understand how it works, understand the basics. And I’m totally going to deliver and overdeliver on those things. So there’s not going to be a problem. But in this, same thing happened with the Zoom call. And same thing has happened with several other situations where the fear sets in or the gremlins or the, oh no. And then it’s just like, eh. Yeah. Yeah, it’s uncomfortable. And so this also loops back to Kyle Cease because he talks about being with our emotions, being with those uncomfortable things. And I love this analogy he used in something I listened to recently where he talked about it’s when we don’t— when we aren’t fully with our emotions or we don’t allow ourselves to be with them, it’s like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. You just can’t do it. I mean, you can do it. It takes a lot of effort. It’s ultimately unsuccessful. And when that beach ball pops out, depending on how it pops out, it can really go the distance because of all the built-up pressure and everything that was going on there. So I guess the other takeaway here too is just becoming more and more comfortable with being uncomfortable and realizing that this is a muscle that I can grow and that I can be with. And that in being with it, it doesn’t take over as much of my mental space as it used to, and that is really cool. Another area of growth that I saw that just blew me away, I had the opportunity to volunteer as an assistant to one of the coaching classes that I was a student in a couple years ago. And of course, it was up in Seattle, and I’ve described some of these classes before. They can be pretty intense. And as a student in these classes, I was typically the person that was just dreading being called on, didn’t necessarily want to participate in the front of the room demos, and just kind of tried to fly under the radar. Well, watching these demos and watching these class activities, I was blown away by how far I’d come because there were so many times where I just had to put— almost tape my mouth shut because I wanted to get As an assistant at these classes, you have no speaking role. Occasionally you’ll participate in an exercise, but you’re not teaching, you’re not really speaking. You are just, as I like to say, holding the space for learning, people’s growth, and everything else that’s going on. And so you’re basically there to make sure that everything runs as absolutely smoothly as possible and then participate when needed. But I was just blown away by seeing these same exercises and demos that I had been in as a student with no idea how to handle. And now realizing that after all these years of practice and the skills that I’ve sharpened, I would have jumped in there in a heartbeat and just played with it without the fear I think that I would have had in the past of failing. So that whole living in the moment thing. I mentioned a little earlier podcasting. So, and I mentioned podcasting was one of the outcomes of the mastermind that I went to at the beginning of April in terms of how could this play a larger role. Where I’m going with this is I’m using it as a diversification approach and also as another way into coaching. So thanks to my friend Stephen Warley, I was talking to him about this idea of— it’s so funny because he said this to me a couple years ago, you know, you should be a pod— you should be a coach to podcasters. And I just couldn’t quite get my head around it. Well, I talked to him about it recently, and, and his suggestion was interview 4 or 5 people and find out what’s getting in their way. Like what’s holding them back? And then I added onto that. So what I did was I posted into some of the Facebook, the private Facebook groups that I’m in for coaching, a couple of them, one that’s really active related to the school that I went to, Coaches Training Institute or CTI. And I posted in there and I said, hey, is there anyone here that wants to have a podcast and isn’t sure what to do? Or, you know, is there something standing in your way? If you’ll share that with me, I’ll give you as much practical help and advice as I can. So I basically scheduled Zoom calls with— I had 7 or 8 people say, yeah, I’d totally be interested. I did, I think, 4 Zoom calls and I learned something from every single call. I believe I helped each of the people I talked to, which is really cool. So I met 4 or 5 new people that I wouldn’t have otherwise met. I got a sense for their pain points. I realized that I had some simple ways that I could help them solve their problems. And through one of the calls, it just kind of illuminated for me that in many of the ways that my clients struggle with different things related to the thing that they want to accomplish, there’s probably a whole— there’s probably a whole— I don’t know if it’s a niche or something around helping people get their podcasts launched because the same things that come up around with doing our big thing in the world can come up around podcasting. You know, I don’t have anything to say. I don’t sound good enough. Uh, the excuses and the procrastination and all that stuff shows up in podcasting too. So why not marry something that I really enjoy with something else? Well, I enjoy and I’m good at with something else that I enjoy and I’m good at. This thing has just kind of started to take on a life of its own. I was also asked to do a presentation around podcasting and its benefits and how it works to a private mastermind. And as I pulled together all the information for that, that again showed me like, wow, there’s so much that I know here. And then that sparked my thought of, okay, if I want to keep pushing this thing forward, where could I push it forward and how could I get out into the world more. And because of this coaching thing that I’d assisted at in Seattle, I met someone that had taught through this Portland Underground Graduate School and raved about it. So I contacted them and said, hey, can you— do you think they’d want a class on podcasting? One thing led to another. We’re doing a class on podcasting in July 2018. So Just following this path. It’s quite amazing. So I’ll put out that same offer here. And I have put this offer out on some previous podcasts and I’ve had 1 or 2 people take me up on it. And I would love for more people to take me up on it, which is if there’s something you want to talk about, it can be anything. Reach out. Let’s have a conversation. I’ll get on Zoom with you for 30 minutes, much like I did with these 4 or 5. Zoom calls I do with people around podcasting. I’m not selling anything, I’m not pushing anything. We’re just having a conversation. Now, if in the conversation you think, oh my gosh, I’d like to talk to you more often or work with you or whatever, yeah, we can have that conversation. But I just wanna be really clear that this is not some sneaky thing to get you on the phone and lock you into a Zoom call and not leave until you buy something from me. That’s not what’s going on here. So if you have questions about podcasting, how to start one, something holding you back, Anything else that’s resonated or that you disagree with from a previous episode, send an email to REDACTED and I’ll send you a link. We’ll find a time and we’ll get on Zoom and meet each other. So my challenge to you today, going back to this situation I described of feeling like an imposter and feeling overwhelmed and, oh no, I’m in over my head. My challenge to you would be to be with those things, to be with those feelings, and to watch them and not take them so seriously and not act so quickly to try to make them go away, whether that be to numb yourself, procrastinate, check out, whatever you do to avoid uncomfortable feelings or thoughts. Be with them a little bit. And realize that for most of them, 4 or 5 hours or the next day, something’s going to be different. #### John Poelstra [Author archive](https://johnpoelstra.com/author/john-poelstra/) June 16, 2018 [Podcast](https://johnpoelstra.com/category/podcast/) [Previous post](https://johnpoelstra.com/wasting-time-with-greg-dekoenigsberg-054/) [Next post](https://johnpoelstra.com/figuring-out-what-you-want-with-tina-robinson-56/) ### Leave a Reply [Cancel reply](/getting-comfortable-being-uncomfortable-055/#respond) ### John Poelstra [https://johnpoelstra.com/?attachment_id=3756](https://johnpoelstra.com/?attachment_id=3756) ### Subscribe to Podcast [Apple Podcasts](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-john-poelstra-show/id1130635146?mt=2&ls=1) [Android](https://subscribeonandroid.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) [by Email](https://subscribebyemail.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) [RSS](https://johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) ### Links - [About](https://johnpoelstra.com/about/) - [Coaching](https://johnpoelstra.com/coach/) ### Subscribe to Podcast [Apple Podcasts](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-john-poelstra-show/id1130635146?mt=2&ls=1) [Android](https://subscribeonandroid.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) [by Email](https://subscribebyemail.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) [RSS](https://johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) © 2026 [John Poelstra](https://johnpoelstra.com/) — Powered by [WordPress](http://www.wordpress.org) Theme by [Anders Noren](https://andersnoren.se) — [Up ↑](#)