Escaping the Cage That Traps You

It is a daily boost from motivation to move.com. Just kind of talking our way through the week. My name is Scott Smith. Good to have you. Thanks for stopping by.

I'm the nicest renegade you will ever meet. I think we'll dig into that a little bit later on, but not today. Cause you're like, what is that man? I said, renegade you'll ever meet.

You think about it and listen to me a couple of days. You'll probably get it, but I'll explain it more. Maybe tomorrow. But as I've tried to figure out my life, and to me, life has always been a big jigsaw puzzle.

It always has been. I just always believe that I can just do anything if I can figure out what to do. Right? You too? Yeah. I just always believe that anything is possible.

It's really real in me. I mean, if you wonder about that, I mean, I live a life like you do. I've got all the same problems you have. I just don't choose to think about it that way.

Sometimes I get caught in the mess as well. It's happened to me a lot over the years. I've done a podcast 20 years. A lot of you guys have heard me get caught in it again and again and again.

That's why I say don't listen to my back catalog unless you want to just relive a life of somebody just figuring stuff out. So it's all about figuring stuff out, but I'm so fascinated by it that I spend so much time studying and so much time trying to poke at exactly a level above. Have you ever done that? You're right there.

You can almost, like, what is that thing? Think, what's hiding from me? And I spend my life kind of looking for that thing. And in many ways, I found a lot of things.

But one thing I've always wondered about was something somebody said to me a long time ago. They said, they always fall up. Have you ever noticed that?

Have you ever heard that word, a person who falls up? So if you're like me, I'm pretty gifted in some things, pretty talented. I have a big knowledge base, and I'm just going to humbly speaking.

I say that because my friend Billy always says, humbly speaking. I said, don't be humble. Just say this stuff, okay? Which over my life, I've had some talent, but I've had a lot of drive too.

And I have a lot of good attitude. And I tend to be able to walk into things and figure it out and just kind of play. I'm not the best at everything I do. But I also understand that, you know, you don't have to be.

You just have to work pretty hard at it. You can beat almost anybody who's the best. But if you have the talent for something and you work hard at it, it's hard to be beat.

That's how you succeed in life, by the way. Figure out what you're gifted at and then give it all the work you can. Things change. But I've always wondered in my life, sometimes I would get beat by people.

When I say beat, I really mean that. I felt like I got beat. Usually it's a job. I haven't had too many jobs, but you know, it's people. Every problem in the world comes down to people and money, I'm telling you, and the people will drive you crazy.

Have you ever been in a situation where somebody who is obviously not as good as you, not as smart, not as capable? Oh, there comes an AI word, capable. You're a capable person stepping into the right room.

Stop writing that, guys. You're messing up the AI. But you got a job. And people around you who seemingly are far less, far inferior to you, that's the word.

They get the raise. The boss likes them more. They get the stuff. And you're like, what am I going to do? And sometimes you just get an attitude and you stay there forever.

And sometimes you say, that's it. I'm out of here. That's usually my MO, by the way. That's kind of a quick exit. Once I figure I'm going to be pissy anyway, I may as well leave and be nice someplace else.

That's kind of my thing. Yeah. Sometimes I hang on too long. I do. And sometimes I just go. People say, what'd you leave so fast for? I said, I learned a few lessons along my way.

But it happens, right? Have you run into that before? The very thing you're good at, the very thing that is your core competency, maybe the very thing that lives in your heart and your soul, the very thing that you said, I'm going to do this. And you got out of school and you went and did, and you did it for maybe 20 years and got to the other side of wherever you were going.

You went, what happened? A lot happens, by the way, you know, the younger people come in, older people leave. Economies change. Everything happens. A lot of that happens.

Life gets in the way for sure. But the core of it is this. Why does somebody who... very much doesn't have what you got going on. I'm just going to say it for what it is.

There are some people who don't got going on what you do. And you may be that person. You may be the one with less going on than you think you do. You may be.

I'm just saying. But just say that, no, you're the one that's got it all going on, and yet everybody else keeps beating you. What is happening here? It's kind of a cage, isn't it?

You're good at what you do. You're stuck doing what you do. I've said for many, many years, don't be too good at what you do in your job. Because if you're too good at what you're doing in your job, you're not going to get another job.

You're not going to get a raise. You're not going to get promoted. They're not going to take you from what you're already good at and give you something else.

Now, why is it? The outside layer of this, people love what you do. They do. If you get a job, somebody in there loves what you do. You're very valuable to them and they love what you do.

What you do, not you. They love what you do, not you. And when you walked in the door to do the job that you're going to be doing, you walked in the door and you locked it behind you at the same time.

It all happened in one fell swoop. Boom, done. You're in. The minute you said yes, the door opened, the door closed, and locked shut right behind you.

And when you walked in the door, you had this room. And the room you wanted to grow into, you're thinking, well, if I step in here, it's going to take me up higher and higher and higher and higher. This is where I'm going to go. It didn't happen.

As you went up higher and higher, what you didn't realize was the height and the ceiling of the room was set when you walked in the door. It wasn't going to move. You were hired to fill the height of the room for what you do.

You fill the slot. You were put in a position. That's where you are. Now, sometimes, yes, you do get out of it. Sometimes, yes, there are openings that happen.

Sometimes, yes, we do. It happens. People die. People quit. Companies grow. There's all kinds of ways to do this. And when I say you, I mean everybody has felt trapped.

But why can't I get ahead? That's what's happening. People see you as a resource. They don't see you as a you. And as long as you're a resource, you can always be replaced.

It's no big deal. If you leave, you might think it's a big dramatic thing. I'm going to get out of here and leave and do what I love to do. They're like, oh man, we're sorry to see you go.

Okay, put out a job notice. We need to fill this slot. That's it. It's a different story if it's totally about you. then you're going to get everything you want.

But for most people, that outer circle is you're just a resource filling a slot. And listen, I'm not against it. It's kind of what has to happen in society. It's kind of how business work and families work.

Somebody has to fill the slot. And there are a lot of people who are just very happy doing that. This is the funny thing about what I do for a living. Not everybody wants to go out and dominate the world.

And some people, that's all they want to do. So that's what makes this life so confusing. But just remember this, if you remember nothing else, is people are kind of interested in the resource that you are. And it's not a bad thing.

There's no villains in this story. It's not a bad thing. So what's the next level? If we go stepping in a little bit more, there are people who actually love you, care about you.

These are your family, your friends, your colleagues who be that way. They really do care about you. And they want the best for you. They want the best for themselves, too.

They love you so much. they don't want you to stretch. They don't want you to move on. They don't want you to try your things. They don't want you to live your dreams.

They don't want you to do that stuff. One of the biggest questions I get all the time is people say, man, I'm changing, I'm growing, and nobody is going along with me on this one.

It's like my family's fighting me. My friends are fighting me. And the answer is always, well, we can't do much about it because you're changing, you're moving, you're growing, you're moving away. They feel it.

So what are they doing? They're holding on to what they've got because their contentment, their excitement in life, sometimes their security in life comes because you're in their life, because they love you. The very love for you is what holds you there.

So you're really good at playing that role. And it traps you. Again, there's no villains here. That's okay. You don't have to shake up everything and break it and leave.

You don't have to do that. You just have to understand what the hold is. You're not going to get out of this no matter what you want to. It's just going to be something that you have to manage.

And finally, the ultimate competence in the world, the ultimate thing that will trap you is the fact that you love yourself and you're proud of what you've done, proud of what you built.

You worked hard at it. It's yours. You like it. And that traps you too. The very thing. It was the thing you do and it was the people who love you. That's easy to figure out, right?

But what happens when it's in your face? But the very thing you do so well or not and the love you have for yourself or not is your trap. What happens when that happens? It's confusing.

It really is truly a cage. And again, you're not going to get out of this. I wish I could say that. Here's the key to the cage. I can give you a temporary key.

It's like a security lock. I can give it. We can unlock it for 60 seconds and it's going to lock again. Why? Life is a moving target. Life will keep changing.

And a lot of people want to just kind of change things and make them go their way. You'll never be freer than the day you figure out that nothing's ever going to go your way.

That in fact, every single thing in the world is going its own way. And you don't have any control over that whatsoever. All you can do is dance the dance. That's it.

And once you figure that out, you kind of relax a little bit. Once you figure that out, everything's really possible. Once you figure that out, when Scott says, explore the possibilities of life, get out there and make things happen, you're like, yeah, let's go do it.

And somebody says, hey, what are you doing that for? You don't have to be rude. You don't have to be mean. It just doesn't matter. You just have to keep doing what you're doing.

Did you catch what I said? It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. It doesn't register with anybody else. But if it registers with you, you're on your way.

Okay, I know where I'm taking this tomorrow.