58 - Control Is an Illusion | The Truth About Trust and Peace

Create opportunities where others have failed and push you to build empires where once there was empty space.

Let's embark on this journey together and make a difference in this world. Welcome to the Impact Podcast with Eddie Wilson today. Let me ask you a question. What do you actually trust? Trust is one of those concepts, words, ideologies that you hear often talked about. But very few people can break down the systematic way to trust, okay? So you think about this. Most people tell you that they only trust what they can verify. Or they will extend trust only after it's been

after it's been proven or after somebody has a proven track record that they can trust. However, it's not the way it works. And in my own life, this has been a quest I've been on because inevitably as you go through life or go through business, people will break trust. When they break trust, then it really you struggle to then have a relationship. And when you struggle to have a relationship, then you struggle to actually put weight on that person or that that togetherness, right? Whether it's

an employee that doesn't follow through or maybe tells a white lie that you find out about later

“and all of a sudden it's like, well, can I trust in them? Can I put weight on them? Can I rely on them?”

Or maybe it's somebody in a relationship and you begin to trust or in your own life. You know, like I know that I have broken people's trust, right? Oftentimes when you're in a leadership position, you struggle to navigate what should be said, what shouldn't be said. You know, in relationships, it's difficult allowing emotions to come in. And oftentimes, you can break trust. So once you've broken trust, how do you actually get back to a place of trust? So this is one of those topics.

I'm going to dive in today, but it'll be a little bit more philosophical. I think than tactical, but I will give you a tactical at the end because in the end, there is a practical, outcry, a practical outcome of this conversation. Five quick segments. I want you to count them out

with me as I go and then we're going to put rubber on the road here in just a second. So as an opening,

when things start to break, where does your mind go? When things begin to break down, where does your mind go? Do you try to regain control? Do you, do you, do you have scond from it? Do you basically

“just like disappear from it? When things begin to break down? Do you look for something to trust?”

Because here's the reality of leadership. You control very little of what happens. But you are responsible for how you respond and as a leader, for into the degree of leadership you have, how you respond, ultimately sets the tone for everyone and everything. And your piece, it's directly tied to what you trust in that moment. So let me go back. So because here's a reality of leadership. You don't control much of what happens. You are responsible for how you

respond and your piece, it's directly tied to what you trust in that moment. So over these next five segments, I'm going to use the Socratic method. I'm going to ask a lot of questions to get you to think in your mind. What activity comes out of your life naturally, right? So I'll ask a lot of questions versus giving a lot of, um, let's just say anecdotal truths and then we'll tie it together. Okay.

So number one, the first segment is I want to make a statement that says control is an illusion.

“Control is 100% illusion. We like to believe that we are in control. But are we?”

What are you in control of? Truly today. Right now, you're in your car. What are you control of? Your, your, your, your, your house, your at your place of work. What are you truly in control of? Think of it right now. You're sitting in your car. You're driving down the road. And what are you in control of? Are you in control of all of the, the nature that's around you? Or you control of that deer that's about to run out in front of your car. You can control

of the driver that's in front of you. You control of the actual vehicle. Can you actually will your vehicle into a successful drive, right? Like, it's impossible. What are you in control of? You can build the plan, execute well, surround yourself with the right people and still everything can shift. You could have had the master plan. You could have had the perfect case scenario. But the fact of the matter is, is you are in control of almost nothing. Everything can shift.

So what is in control? Well, here's the shift. Control is not the ability to dictate outcomes. It's the ability to remain steady regardless of the outcome. When you are faced with multiple

no matter what it is. And most anxiety comes from trying to control what was never yours.

Something you didn't possess, something that you had no control of. He think about it. The forms of emotion that come out of a state like this fear. Well, what is fear? It's typically it's the unknown that is uncontrolled. How about jealousy? How about will someone pick someone else over me? How about greed, right? Like, the desire for something that's not yours that you desire to possess that you don't have the control to have, right? Like, what about envy, right? Like, it's just

like you start going down these emotions and so much of it is tied to this illusion of control. And most anxiety comes from trying to control what was never yours. And when you let that go, you don't lose power. You gain clarity, which gives you power. So there's this great shift, this paradigm shift, where we believe that the things that we could control gives us a sense of security, right? And that sense of security allows us to have power.

“But the fact of the matter is, is that you have to let, you have to let go of what was never yours”

to control. And when you let that go, you get you gain clarity. And you only possess what it is that you can control, which is typically yourself or how you react to all those situations. Because I was second number one, second, second number two. So the first question I asked, right, Socratic method, what do you control? And be honest with yourself. The fact of the matter is, as you control very little, okay? 7 number two, let's talk about fear. Fear isn't the

problem that's preventing you from trust, okay? So if this is all rude and trust, like if the overarching conversation is trust, the first thing that we are talking about is that control is illusion, right? So how do you place trust in things that you can't control or that are uncontrolled?

“Next fear and this kind of like forward motion or this activity that comes out of fear, right?”

Because typically fear prevents trust and then trust, a lack of trust prevents forward motion. So fear isn't the problem. It's a signal. The question I want to ask you is, what do you do next? Once you feel the feeling of fear? Once you have fear present. So the first question I ask was, are you in control of anything? The second thing is, is what do you do when fear is present? Okay, when fear is present? What do you do next? Think about your bigger decisions in life.

When you didn't feel ready, when you moved anyway, you didn't feel ready, but you moved anyway. And that's the difference, is that courage is movement oftentimes without clarity. Courage is an opposition of fear because fear says, there's an unknown ahead. Courage says that I'll move anyways, even though I don't have clarity. But it's the subsiding or the pushing away of fear. And if you wait until you feel certain,

you'll actually never move. You can't eliminate fear. You outgrow the need for certainty.

You don't eliminate fear. You outgrow the need for uncertainty. Are for certainty. So in eliminating fear, which is is really almost impossible, right? Because there is always going to be the unknown. What you do is you overcome it by outgrowing the need for certainty. Okay, so that's segment number two. So the first question I ask was, are you in control of anything? The second segment I'm asking, what do you do in the face of fear,

“right? Like fight, flight, what is it? segment number three. Where does stability actually come from?”

Okay, so where does stability actually come from? Everyone wants stability. Think about this overarching idea of trust. And you're like, hey, I want to get to a place where I trust. And so therefore, if I can feel stable, or if I can feel secure, then I can trust, right? So everyone wants stability. That's a fact, right? Like there are people who will give up anything for stability, right? I have so many illustrations of people trading something of such a great value

because they don't want risk. They don't want liability. They want stability, right? Liability versus stability. So they're willing to trade something of great value for the sake

of having stability. The problem is, is that most people look for stability in things that are

actually unstable, things that actually move, like think about this. Most people are looking for

I don't know if, you know, if we have a coffee shop, right? And you hear me talk about the coffee brand.

We have multiple coffee shops. And, you know, you try to predict the outcomes. You say, okay, based on the sales that we believe are going to happen. Therefore, we're going to order this much more product. So we're going to put this much more merchandise in the store. Whatever it is, we believe that because of all of these people that we believe are going to come to shop outcomes, right? So you begin to try to make decisions based on stability, but you get your stability,

or we get this, um, really this like a placebo effect of stability based on things that move,

“which are really unstable, right? Like things like can't predict, like outcomes. How about timing?”

Can you ever predict timing? You know, like one thing that I am very, very faith-based and very much put a, uh, uh, I lean and I put faith and trust, uh, in a creator God. And and in that creator God, I could tell you that there is one thing that is absolute in my life is that my timing is not God's timing, right? Like one thing that I am certain of is that oftentimes what I expect him, God, to be present or to be active in my life,

is oftentimes where I struggle to see him the most because his timing is not my timing, right? So timing is also unstable. Conditions are unstable, right? Like we can't create the conditions around us. And oftentimes when we are planning and when we are structuring things, the conditions change, you know, like our very first, if you've ever heard the story of when we created the aspire tour and in the aspire tour, uh, the very first event, um, we had

one of our celebrities that was flying in. So you could plan and we sold tickets and it was a sell out

and it was an amazing crowd that showed up in Dallas, Texas, our very first event. And we got noticed

that the pilot on a private jet of one of our speakers had a heart attack on the runway, right? And the actual celebrity was not going to make it. And so now you got thousands of people that paid for a ticket, right? All the marketing went well. All the branding went well. All of our team is there. We're set up ready to go. And we get the, we get the notice that hey, by the way, your primary speaker is not going to make it today because the pilot of his private jet had a heart attack on the runway.

Show number two at a spire, right? Show number two. We plan. We prepare. We sell tickets. We're selling out Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The largest flood in that over a hundred years in Fort Lauderdale takes place the day before the event. Our semi trucks with our, with all of our gear in it,

“literally is, it is filling up with water. That's how much water is in the streets. Our people,”

the airport shuts down for over 14 hours, right? Like it was a disaster, right? Number three, we go to Denver, Colorado, and a week before, five or six days before, the HVAC in the pool area falls out of the ceiling and ends up killing somebody in the pool a few days before we're supposed to be there with thousands and thousands of people, right? So you think about this, like you

cannot control the conditions. It conditions are conditions. They always change.

Slamia ask you, third question. What in your life doesn't move when everything else does? Because peace isn't found in stable conditions. It's found in a stable center. What doesn't move? When that's built, you can stop chasing calm and actually start carrying it with you. This is

“important. I want you to, as you're thinking through what I'm speaking about on the podcast today,”

I want you to hear that. When you stop chasing calm and you carry it with you, right? Like when you understand that you are the stability, right? Like that your core, your center, your belief system, who you are, how you show up. That stable center, when you carry it with you, if you stop chasing calm and stop carrying it, then you could build peace in your life. All right, so that's segment number three, segment number four. The direction of your mind, your attention is shaping your experience.

We've talked about this over the past couple of podcasts. We've talked about how your perception of the experience actually dictates the experience itself, but it really moves in four directions. Just bear with me on this. If you, uh, there's four phrases I want you to think through or maybe even write down. Number one, look up. What's the meaning? If there is no purpose,

me be divine guidance, right? Like that would be a God presence in my life. For you, you've been

not described to that belief system, but what is it? What is the purpose, right? I say, look up is just an ethereal purpose driver in your life because when you feel pressure, if there's no purpose and it's hard to turn that into some sort of meaning. So if there's no purpose, pressure feels

“pointless, but purpose turns pressure into fuel. When, when I believe that God is calling me to”

something or I've feel a divine pulling toward something. Well, then the pressure is just a part of the journey, right? Number two, I say, look around. What influences in your eyes, I say, look up, look around. Influence, you become like the environment that you're in. Calm compounds. Chaos compounds faster. Have you ever noticed when somebody is calm in a room, it begins to slowly move its way through the room. I have this thing that I do with our staff periodically called a

lunch and learn. The energy by which I come into the room is the energy that they all eventually sink into, okay? If I have nervous energy, right? Like they will be nervous. If I have calm energy, if I have reassuring energy, if I have positive energy, they will walk out eventually over an hour time period, but that calm takes time. Now, have you ever noticed anything turned into chaos? Have you ever been somewhere where there's sheer chaos? I have been to a few things

I've been to concerts that turned into chaos. I've been in hurricanes where with a group of people that turned into chaos. I've been in an earthquake that turned into chaos. I've been overseas in various situations where there's chaos. Chaos immediately reacts and it's like a chain reaction that happens simultaneously. True chaos, right? So, look up. That's your purpose. Look around. That's your influence. Calm. Compounds. Calm. Chaos. Compounds. Faster. Are you putting more

calm in your life or more chaos in your life? Number three, look ahead, right? So, that's your imagination, that's your vision for the future, that's your desires or dreams. Most people rehearse failure instead of possibility. If you constantly put the failure of tomorrow in front of you, ultimately you will fail. If you put possibility in front of you consistently oftentimes you will,

that's kind of the concept that most people would say is manifesting. But your mind will always

work against you. Your mind is a very powerful thing. And so the more you put failure in front of you, the more your mind will architect all things towards that failure, right? And when you put imagination and possibility in positivity in front of you, your mind begins to build all those things around you as well. And lastly, look back. The evidence. So, I said, look up, right? That's your purpose. I said, look around. That's the influence around you. Look ahead. Your imagination, your desire

your purpose. And look back. That's the evidence. You've already survived more than you can

“even remember in this moment. In my journaling, over the past couple of months, I've been journaling”

and just really just recounting the successes in my life. You know, like the successes and what actually took place during the success, dissecting down the success. The reason I'm doing that is as I'm looking back, I'm remembering the successes I had and what it took to get there, right? Because then what happens is my mind begins to stir towards the future. Confidence comes from remembered winds, not an empty belief. I often say to HR directors that have worked for me,

when you are interviewing somebody, ask them about a time that they've won anything. If you will ever find somebody that has won at a high level, so I love competitive people, it's why I love hiring people that are from the military or have a sports background, because if they've ever won anything in their life, they can anchor back into that moment of winning and rearchitect another win. But if you've ever found somebody, you know, it's like you

think about, you know, I'm a Cleveland Browns fan, okay? So don't feel too sorry for me, but Cleveland Browns fans have this belief system that if something can go wrong,

everything will go wrong. We'll get the nod for a first-round draft pick or a number one draft pick,

and they immediately, immediately the thought of every Browns fan in the world is like,

“we're going to squander it like we have how many times before, right? You have to begin to look”

back. You have to be, you have to find the evidence of the things you've already survived and that confidence from remembered winds helps you grow in the future, not empty belief, okay?

remind, that's how to control these things. And so the question is, is how much is your mind

controlling your future, right? And the answer is a lot, and so therefore as you imagine,

as you dream as you think, is it a level of positivity or is it always rooted in the failures of the previous days, right? And then signify this, the last piece I'm going to pull all together. And I'm just going to call this segment, wholeness and stillness, okay? So this is a little of the master class on trust, I'm going to pull it all back together. You may have to listen to this when a couple of times, I'm putting a lot of meat in here. But at some point, you realize that the

next deal that you have or the next success that you experience won't fix anything. It won't fix anything. In previous episodes, you heard me talk about one silver bullet versus 10,000 lead bullets.

“That was the last episode I believe that I put out. And in the end, you have to stop”

worrying about that one silver bullet that fixes everything. You have to just stay the path and create character traits that allow you to find success and perseverance. But at some point, you realize the next deal won't fix it. The next milestone won't complete you. You don't become whole when things settle or you find this one success, you become whole when you stop needing that one thing to actually create you as a success. It's not an amount of money. How many entrepreneurs have

you heard say this phrase? Well, I told myself the goal I had was I was going to get to be a millionaire by the age of whatever. I was going to make 10 million bucks by the age of 30. And by the

way, every one of them always follow up with. And then I got there and realized it really didn't matter.

“Or I looked back and realized I'd already reached it and it wasn't even a big deal, right? Because”

most often times it was all of those activities in their life that got them to the million dollars or the $10 million that was the success. It wasn't the actual thing, right? Like it wasn't the silver bullet. So you don't become whole when things settle. You become whole when you stop needing them to settle down, okay? Or stop needing that one thing to happen, right? Like that one person to acknowledge you, that one person to say yes to you, that one person to give you a

raise, that amount of money that you say, if I ever made this, I'm finally success. You're literally

creating this, this platform that will never have what you ultimately want, what, which is trust.

From this place, when you stop needing them to complete you. From that place, you get quieter internally because clarity doesn't come from more thinking. It comes from less noise. The best leaders aren't the loudest for the fastest. They are the most steady. They are the most steady. One thing that I've learned is that trust oftentimes is simply steadiness. Trust is the belief that everything will be okay. And oftentimes they will be okay based on somebody's nature

of steadiness or calm. At the height of chaos and war and plague and instability, Marcus Aurelius, who is one of my favorite characters in history, didn't focus on controlling his empire. He didn't sit there and make list after list after list of the things he could control now. By the way, I do that sometimes. When I feel like things are chaos, all I do is I get out my phone, I get out my laptop, I start making list. Here's the things I want to do. Here's the

things I want to control. Here's things I want to change. Here's, you know, like, if financially things start feeling unstable, I'll get, you know, all of my passive income in line. I'll do all these different things, right? But Marcus didn't focus on controlling the empire. He focused on governing himself. He wrote reminders like this in his meditations. You control your response, not the events of your life. The obstacle that's in your way is a part of the path. It's just a part of the journey.

But it's not the descriptor of your life. The obstacle is the way. Your mind shapes your experience. How many times you wrote what he thinks shaped the experience of his life. Why? Because he understood if you can't lead yourself, you can't lead anything else. Okay. So let me draw all this to conclusion. I gave you five points, almost like a lecture style in a classroom. I hope you gathered

“some of it. I hope that it seeded into you because now I'm going to put it all together, right?”

And I want to give you the practical side of trust. So here's the question, right? It's a

And fear creeps up, right? Like all those types of things. What's your modus operandi? What do you do? Right? Like what do you typically when you look back on your life? Right? Like what is your

“characteristic? So here's the question. What do you actually trust? I didn't say who? I said what?”

Do you trust outcums? Do you trust conditions? Do you trust other people? Or do you trust your ability to meet whatever comes? Here's where I believe trust actually originates, sits, and performs from. Is I think it's 100% internal? I think in the end,

what we're saying is is when we say I can't trust that person. What we're ultimately saying is is,

I don't trust myself based on the outcome that person will give me. I think that when we say, I don't trust that person in my life. I think what we're saying is is, I don't trust myself with the emotions I'm going to feel with whatever the outcomes are based on the relationship with that person.

“What's interesting is is, I believe that trust originates with self. I believe it sits”

in self, and it's the ability to detach from all other things and their influence on your life. I believe that love comes from God, and I believe that trust comes from within.

What do you actually trust? Outcums? You can't control them, so how do you trust them?

What do you trust? Conditions? Well, how do you control the conditions in your life? Do you trust other people? Well, I found a lot of people that have severely disappointed in my life, so therefore can I trust people? In the fact that the matter is, is I do trust my ability to meet whatever comes my way? You think about it this way, oftentimes you take a new employee,

“so let's just give us an area here. So we've got a new brewery still walking into the coffee shop, right?”

And we say, well, we don't want to leave them alone with a customer until we trust their ability. Okay, so what we do is we train them, we give them activity, and then you actually have to allow them to begin to perform the action that you've trained them on. Well, if you are a good teacher, it's easier to trust that person because in the end what you're doing is you're relying on yourself

to ultimately correct and to compensate for whatever they're lacking, right? That's really where

trust originates from. So what you're saying is, no matter what the customer is going to be taken care of because you're there to compensate for whatever they're missing. So it's easier to trust, it's easier to extend that trust when you trust yourself more. Because in the end, peace is not found when life gets easier. It's found when you become stronger than what you face. This is, this is it right here. If you could hear me, if you could take this home with you,

if you could package this up, put it in your pocket, live your life with this, it would change everything. It would change the way you feel, it'd change the way we react, it would change the way that you walk, it would change the characters of the characteristics of your life. It would, it would instill character in your life. Peace is not found when life gets easier. You're sitting there asking for peace, but the fact of the matter is,

why do we, why do we extend trust and then trust is followed through on, then we get peace, right? Why are we searching so much for peace? Peace is not found when life gets easier. Peace is found when you become stronger than what you're currently and what you future in the future will face. And the leaders who last, right, the leaders who last are the ones that have this foundation, this calm, this self trust that allows them to have peace. So let me walk

it back real quick, draw a conclusion. If you lack peace in your life, it's because you don't have trust in yourself. When you don't have trust in yourself, you won't extend it to others, you won't allow them to fail and compensate thereby making you a better leader and teacher to those around you. And when you lack that peace, it all rests on your shoulders and in the end, you have to

to compensate and to master everything that comes their way. It is there that you find peace.

“For me, that peace is found in God, right? Like I believe that God will not give me anything that I”

cannot handle. I believe that I'm equipped, I've been built, I've been created to fulfill on every

mission that I've been given in this life. And it is in that and in that trust and that faith and

that belief that I can have complete trust and experience complete peace.