You're Addicted to Potential (And It's Keeping You Stuck)

What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't fear...it's potential?

In this eye-opening episode of Breakthrough with Mallory & Julie, we're exposing one of the sneakiest forms of self-sabotage: becoming addicted to what could happen instead of taking action on what should happen.

Maybe you're staying in a relationship because "they'll change someday." Maybe you're stuck in a job that's draining the life out of you because you're hoping the next promotion, the next manager, or the next reorganization will finally make everything better. Maybe you've spent years telling yourself you have so much potential...without ever giving yourself permission to test it.

Sound familiar?

This episode is your loving kick in the pants.

Julie and Mallory unpack why we cling to unrealized potential, why fear convinces us to stay stuck, and why hope is not a strategy—but action is. Through hilarious stories, real-life examples, leadership lessons, and a few uncomfortable truths, they challenge you to stop waiting for your life to magically improve and start making the decisions that move you forward.

You'll discover:

🔥 Why people stay in bad relationships, toxic jobs, and unhealthy situations far longer than they should

🔥 The hidden fear behind "I don't want to fail"

🔥 How "potential" can become an excuse for avoiding action

🔥 The difference between believing in possibility and enabling dysfunction

🔥 Why every dream needs a Plan B (and why it actually makes you braver)

🔥 How to stop waiting for change and become the person who creates it

If you've ever caught yourself saying...

"Maybe next year..."

"Maybe they'll change..."

"Maybe someday..."

...this episode is for you.

It's time to stop living on potential and start living with purpose.

Because your future won't change because you hoped hard enough.

It changes because you decided to act.

🎙️ Listen now, then send this episode to the friend who's been saying "maybe" for way too long.

Stay connected to Mallory and Julie!

breakthroughwmj.com

mallory@HerrinHR.com

julie@julieburch.com

@Breakthroughwmj  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Are you staying too long in a bad environment? Maybe a bad relationship, a bad job? Are you just holding on because you think, truly, it will get better at some point? Are you addicted to potential? Hi, Breakthrough Crew, I'm Mallory Heron, wife, mom, CEO, speaker, author, and podcaster, and welcome to Breakthrough with Mallory and Julie.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Hey, Breakthrough Crew. I'm Julie Birch with Julie Birch Speaks, and I'm a speaker, author, podcaster, and a warrior. I like to believe that we are fighting our war on self-abdication, meaning we give away our power. And that is truly what this episode, I think, epitomizes. What would you say?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Absolutely. I think most people have found themselves at some point longing for something better, but it just doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. I mean, I've been there, especially with boyfriends before, like, oh no, it's gonna get better. It never did. And what the problem is, if we stay in that mindset too long, it's going to prevent us from actually taking action. That's right. Because you're kind of giving that power away to another person, another situation, and putting the onus on them to get there.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

I think so. I think we are addicted to potential. And I think potential sometimes can be the problem. I always say potential is overrated, impact changes lives. And I think there's two sides when we talk about the idea of being addicted to potential. I think sometimes we're addicted to staying, right? We stay too long. And I think that's kind of what we where we look at and we say, oh, maybe it'll get better. You mentioned relationships, and you know, I feel so blessed. I have the most amazing husband on the planet, love you, babe. But, you know, I I went through a lot to get to that perfection. And that is definitely something I've I've been in a really terrible relationship, and everyone around me was telling me this is not the right one, this is not the right guy, this guy's a jerk, you need to let go. But I had that fear of I don't, I don't want to fail. I don't want them to be right. I want to be right. I said he's great. Now I feel like I'm stuck because I don't want to prove them right. I don't, I don't want to fail. And if if we were to break up, if I were to leave, then it would be my failure.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

I understand that completely. And for me, it's even included, but I don't want to be alone. Now that I'm older and I have an amazing marriage too, great husband, James, shout out. I I love being alone. Like it I like to be invited places, but I very much don't want to go. I want to stay home with my family and my dogs.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

I get that. You like to be invited, and I like to say yes, but then when it comes to the actual time to go, I I don't really want to leave.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah, day of activity Mallory is usually not in the same mood that accepted the activity Mallory was. That's exactly.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

I'm I'm much more willing to accept it, but when it actually comes time. I travel so much for work though that I do think that for me that is a big part of it. That once I'm home, I want to be home. Yeah, you want to relax. But then now the flip side of that, of course, is that my husband's retired, so he's home all the time. So when I come home, he's waiting for me to come home so that we can go do stuff. And I'm tired.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

I also I have to say, naps are underrated. Um the a power nap can get you very far and give you the energy you need for the activities. So when we're thinking though, about um addiction to potential and for me, you know, having stayed in situations too long, I I find that I felt a lot of the time, like perhaps because I didn't want to prove people right or I thought I knew best. I didn't want to look bad, I didn't want to embarrass myself. And it felt a lot safer not even to try things.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

And that's I it took me a really long time to get to a point where I truly believe that it's better to try and fail and you learn from that than it is to just never try at all. With starting the business, my husband had to really talk me into it because I'm very I'm pretty risk-adverse. I don't I don't want to do anything wrong. I want to do well at whatever it is that I'm doing, maybe more competitively competitively than I should. And so the thought of doing something that I don't know as much about, right? And then bombing, just failing miserably. I guess in my head I thought other people might be like, ha ha ha. No one's thinking about me like that. Nobody's thinking that. But he told me it's if you at least give it a shot, you won't regret it. And if you fail, it's fine, but you won't regret it. And I think we missed that piece.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

I think what you said was really funny. And I'm I'm guessing that some of our listeners actually caught it as well. Because what you said was if I fail miserably, and that's that is our fear factor, is that we're not gonna just fail, we're not just gonna, it's not gonna work out, we're gonna fail miserably. But more often than not, we don't fail miserably. It just didn't work out. We can course correct and we can do something different. I think when we say addicted to potential, and we kind of identified there's there's two sides to it, but the idea of people staying in relationships, I think people stay at jobs. I think we we what if I can't get another job? What if the next job I have is you know worse than this one? So we're miserable, we're not happy where we are, we don't feel like our talents are being used or appreciated, or we don't like the people that we work with, we don't like the work we're doing, whatever it is. We don't, we're not making enough money. We're there could be a million reasons why you're not happy, but we stay because it's easier. And it's it's risky to start looking for another job. It's risky to start a new job. So we stay uncomfortable, we stay miserable because it's the easy route. But I think we really do have to challenge ourselves to understand easy is easy, but it's not always the best.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

That's true, and you can still miss out on a lot. I think of it as things like um I am fascinated by van life. And there's single women that just hit the open road with their pets and they live in this converted van, and it's I've romanticized it in my head. Now, am I ever actually gonna go do that? Probably not.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

It's a van down by the river.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yes, that's the dream. I'm probably never going to do that. Um, but the the potential's there. Right. But I think the difference is is that something I really truly want? Or is that just kind of a daydream? Right. And when it's not kind of a daydream and it's something you truly want or a situation you're in, that's a big difference. That is it's got a lot more gravity to it. Right. And that's where we have to step up. I see it in my work often where, you know, speaking of employment, um, where bosses have invested so much time and energy and resources into a specific individual. You you bond with them, you care about this person, and they're just not cutting it. And instead of saying, hey, you know, this isn't working out, it's time that we part ways, they're like, Well, maybe if I try this other thing, or maybe they'll be better at this thing over here. And it's just, it's never coming together.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

I feel like so often in today's business environment that we are overwhelmingly overwhelmed. We're overloaded. And so we're short staffed and everybody's working really hard. And oftentimes in those situations, we look at it and we say, a warm body is better than nobody. And at least there's somebody filling that seat. And I don't think that that's always true. I also think financially, from a business perspective, we look at it and say it costs more to hire a new employee than it would be to really work on the people that we have. But it becomes a tipping point of at what point do we need to say this is not working out. Because a warm body is not better than nobody. And it's not fair to them either. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

I feel like if you aren't successful with where you work, which is where you spend most of your time, you don't feel good about yourself. That's right. You need to be cut loose to go find the place where you can do a good job and feel good about yourself. And I see this happen around the holidays, especially where you know, maybe a client's like, Oh, we've got this person, it's just not working out. We've made the decision finally that we're gonna we're gonna separate. But it's the holidays. So let's wait until after the new year.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Right. People love getting fired in January.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Right? Like this isn't helping. The the the sentiment I understand and appreciate, but it's in reality, it doesn't do much. And then the flip side of it too, if if you're I I have a very dear friend who has been miserable in her job for at least a year and it hasn't gotten better, and she finally started like looking for other jobs, but I can't help but think in the time it took for you to think about, well, maybe it's gonna get better. Right, you probably could have already landed another job where you could be happier.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah. I do think that that's and it sometimes it's hard to hear. And I hope that our listeners, as they listen and say, What can I learn from this or what can I take from this? I think that's one of the things to keep in mind is if you are unhappy, this goes back to the war on self-abducation, meaning that you have the power to change it. Nobody else in the world is responsible for your comfort or for your happiness. So if you're not happy in a situation, then knock off the fear factor and challenge yourself to actually take action. There's a great saying out there, and I have to say it slow, so I say it right, and I use this all the time. So if you've been in some of my sessions, you might have heard me say it. But when the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same, you'll change. When the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same, you'll change. And we don't mean physical pain, obviously, we mean that mental, emotional pain. But I think it's true. You are miserable where you are. You, you know, you hate your job, you hate your situation, where where you live, whatever it is. But yeah, and I I tease about it, but it's true, you know. Oh, I hate my my apartment. My apartment's the worst. The people that live above me, you know, they're a family of 12 and they, you know, they play in a band and they clog, and you know, and we hate it. We say, oh man, you should move. And like, ugh, but then I'd have to find a new job. I'd have to, you know, pay a deposit, I'd have to move my stuff. And so the pain, the that frustration, the emotional, mental pain, it's easier just to stay where we are. But staying where you are because it's easier and for no other reason does not make you any more happy or any more comfortable or any more successful. Honestly, it just makes you more miserable. So I think sometimes, and I've had bosses, uh, when I've worked with organizations, I've had the employer, the boss, tell me that they've fired people and then they got thank you notes later from that employee saying, if you had not fired me, I probably would not have quit. And now that I had, I was forced, you kicked me out of the nest and I was forced to do something different, I'm a million times happier. So I think sometimes we think of being fired or we think of quitting as failure. I think sometimes we've been told you can't quit. Don't be a quitter. And I think sometimes you gotta be a quitter.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Sometimes that's um you have to. There's a great Taylor Swift song. You know I was gonna bring out Taylor Swift. Had to. T so's old. So there's uh, and it's uh uh she says, you know when it's time to go. I can't remember the name of the song, but I think it's somewhere around there.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

I cannot help you with this.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

And it's I mean, she's I could phone a friend. It's like you know in your bones this is not working, it is time to go, and you have to overcome that fear and actually make steps. That doesn't necessarily mean the next step you take is gonna be a complete 180. Right. But you have to start working toward that at some point. It's staying in a mindset where you're driven by fear or you just don't want to get out of your comfort zone. Right, nothing will change. Like what you said, nothing will change.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

And it goes back to the what we've loosely been calling this episode is that you're addicted to potential. Because we just stay where we are, and that the what we tell ourselves is that there's potential. If this changes, if this changes, if this person leaves, if this person comes, we get addicted to potential. So I think it happens in that instance, but I also think that it happens on a more even more personal level. And I share this story, uh, but and it is very, very true for me. I was that kid growing up, and I'm I know I'm not the only one. I know some of our listeners can relate to this. I was the kid, I swear, every report card that I ever got always had the teacher would always write on it. Julie has so much potential if she would just apply herself. Man, that made me mad. And it really scared me to death because what I thought was, what if they're wrong? What if I did try, I did put in the effort and I wasn't successful? What if I they were wrong about the potential? And I think because I was afraid of failing, I l stayed in the potential. I was addicted to just, yeah, I've got potential. I could be successful, you know, if I wanted to. I could get better grades if I wanted to. I could do more if I want, but I don't want to. So addicted to that potential, and I really for a long time, I feel like it really held me back. I was saying, I kind of feel like I lived a lot of my uh early adulthood uh in mediocrity because that little inner voice kept telling me, what if I fail? What if I fail? And it was that, well, I've got the potential. As long as I don't ever test that, then I can always fall back on the potential.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Well, and I think about that with my own kids, and they're like my son, he struggles more in a classroom setting academically than in other areas. And I used to tell my kids stuff like if you would just apply yourself, you would, you know, be successful. Not necessarily though. My son is very skilled at other things. So mechanics, taking stuff apart, putting it back together, he's amazing at. Um, and I can't imagine how hurtful it would feel if I were to tell him, but you're you're you need to be successful in this other area. That's what matters. And if you for his case couldn't necessarily be, that would feel horrible for him. And I feel like with both of my kids, as long as they're trying, exactly. That's all that matters to me. You can get a D as long as you tried.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

I have always said D is for diploma. My sister, who is a absolutely one of the most brilliant people I've ever met in my life, uh, she does not agree with me, but she was the one that knew from the time she was in like third grade that she wanted to be an attorney, and she worked really hard. She would uh and I tease about this, but this is a true story. When she was in high school, and I was already out of the house by then, and I would come over on the weekend, I'd come over on Saturday night, and my sister would be studying on Saturday night. On Saturday night, why are you not drinking?

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Especially at that age.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Right? Why are you not? We used to party in the like the desert on dirty abandoned couches out of, you know, in field tubs of alcohol with fruit punch.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

I that is prime party time.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

I'm probably giving away a little too much about um the way I grew up. Uh, but she and but she was very clear when I would tease her and say, Why aren't you going out? She's like, 'cause I have to study. I gotta get into law school. Go ahead. And that is truly her path of success has been just unbelievable. But it's a different path than me. And I think that's the key. When you're talking about your kids, is that you gotta find their path, you know? What works for them? What's their where where did where is their potential? We don't want to stuck be stuck in that, but identifying where the potential is and then and then really tapping into that.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

And what they're interested in. And I I always want to support and encourage them to do what makes them happy, even if it's something that would not make me happy in the slightest. If they're happy, if they're healthy, if they can, you know, once they leave the nest, they can care for themselves, even though they'd never have to leave because I'm not ready.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Um Yeah, well. And trust me, at some point you will be.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

That's true. And well, and I think about it with my own parents. It we have a a good relationship now, but we didn't always. It was a little rough when I was a child, and I didn't get encouraged to pursue something I was interested in. I didn't get any like we all were on the same page, like I'm not going to college. Like we're there's no way we can even afford it. Why bother talking about it? And over the years, I've always had this yearning for my parents to really be parents, like that. I saw other people when my friends, what their parents are like, you know, they're around their family much more. It's this warm environment, it's nurturing, it feels like a big hug when you come home. Mine weren't ever like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

And for me, I stayed in that place of being addicted to potential about well, they could be though. At any point, they're gonna start behaving like how I expect parents to behave. And it was in therapy. I finally figured out I need to change my expectations of them and let go of the potential that I think could be, because it's not realistic. I can't control other people, and the only thing I'm doing is keeping myself in a negative, depressed state of mind where I view our relationship more poorly than it needs to be. If I just would let that go, that potential, and accept things as they actually are, right, my relationship with them would improve significantly. And it did. Right. And I don't have that expectation of them anymore. I don't want to say that it's always, you know, a good idea to just like set the bar down lower or anything. If and that's in that case, not what I was doing. It's just kind of it's just a small shift, but it made a world of difference.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

I think what you're saying makes great sense. And the lowering of the bar, that's I I think that is just by when we think about it that way, I think that's part of what we're saying is that we're addicted to like you have to set the bar high, you have to do these things. And I think that it is always a judgment call. I think, first of all, I think setting the bar high for yourself is powerful. Uh recognizing what's a realistic bar for others is a different thing. Yeah. I think that we can set ourselves up, set that bar high, work to achieve it. And it's not that I don't think we do that with others as well. I think we do that with kids. I think we say, I believe that you are capable of so much. And I would never want you to sell yourself short. Yeah. I think we do that with employees. I'm a big believer when I work with organizations and I do leadership training and I work with them on leadership skills. That's something I really do believe is that we don't set the bar low. I think we create an environment where we have very high expectations and we help them achieve those high expectations. But I also think realistically, and this is, I think what you're saying, is that we have to be realistic enough to say that this is not going to realistically happen. This is not, this is not within their scope of potential.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

It takes us being self-aware on our own part to recognize what is it that we should be doing or where we might need help, where we need to develop in some area, but also with other people. They have their own motivations, their own skill levels, their own interests. We can't project what we think feel want onto them. That's right. And honestly, I will say when I was in my 20s, there was a lot of drama. And at the time, I didn't know it, but looking back, I was like, oh, I was addicted to that drama. And that, you know, very much mindset of like, oh, here's another thing. When it rains, it pours. Right. And the drama, and part of that was the potential of things, like this relationship with a friend is going to improve. This particular boyfriend, it's gonna get so much better, like it was in the beginning. No, it didn't. It never did. And letting go of the expectations that I had of my parents really helped me see more of where I was doing that in other areas and kind of turn things around completely.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

I think it's about action. I think we have to realistically look at things and say, what action can I actually take? So when we say we're addicted to potential, it's okay to see potential. I think it's great to see. Potential in others and people and yourself. But when we get stuck in the potential and there's no action associated with it, I think that becomes the problem.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Yes. And I think this podcast is a great example of that. So you should have goals and dreams and things you aspire to and then take action and make it happen. For example, we always wanted to be on a podcast or have our own podcast. Um, but that you know, it is a goal up here, but on our own, we we weren't doing it. And so we teamed up, and now here we are. So setting a goal for yourself and recognizing the potential in that that's one thing. That's good, that's healthy. We want to do that. It's that other side of it that becomes a problem now. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Wonder twins power activate anyway. It's true though. And so looking for options for instead of telling yourself what you can't do, it's shifting it to what I can do. And I think that's true across the board. I feel like when we lean into, well, I know there's just potential. All right, well, what action is going to move that potential into reality? So potential, it's just sitting there. There's it, you're it's a hope. That's hope is not a strategy. A wish is not a strategy. I've had to say that to someone before that I worked with. It's true. I mean it that realistically, hope is it's a beautiful thing, but hope is not a strategy. So if you feel like, well, there is potential, all right. Well, what action would you have to take for it to move from potential to reality? Yeah. So I'm all about the actions.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Absolutely. Uh you have to be. So if we're thinking about, you know, takeaways, things that people can, you know, hear in this podcast and go put into practice, what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Well, I think the action step is key. I think anytime you feel like, well, I know there's potential, don't beat yourself up for that, but look at, okay, if I, if legitimately there is potential, then what action would I need to take? And it doesn't have to be all or nothing, right? You kind of alluded to this earlier that I I would never tell anybody go in and quit your job tomorrow. But if you're miserable, then you better be taking some sort of action step to find it. Yeah, so that's the pay bills. Yes. So I'm all about like action, action, action, action. Hope is not a strategy, action is a strategy. Um, the other thing, and this is I call it, I always say that you have to plan B it. And I've been using this for a long time because I've had people say, Oh, but you know, what if this happens or what if that happens, or just the worst is going to happen. And what I always challenge people with is, what are you afraid of? If you take this action, if you start this new job, if you quit the job that you have, if you try this new business, you start a bit a podcast, what's the worst thing? What are you afraid is going to happen? And drill down on that. What are you really afraid of? I'm afraid that I won't like it. Why are you afraid you won't like it? What if you don't like it, what happens? Well, what if, what if I can't pay my bills? If I if I don't have a job, then I can't drill down. And when you can identify what is your real fear, what are you really afraid of, then the question is, what are you gonna do about it? I was speaking uh for a government agency, actually, I'll never forget, and uh Social Security Administration. And they they were having some big changes, and so they're they were, I was actually working with them on change management, and this is this kind of came to the surface as if they were afraid that these changes were gonna be bad. And what are you afraid it's gonna happen? Well, you know, what if, you know, we what if they take away our benefits? What if they take away our hours? But as we dug deeper, they what if we get laid off? That was ultimately what the fear was. It wasn't the fear that what if our new bosses sucks, what if our, you know, what if they move us to a different apartment? No, the underlying fear was what if we get laid off? And when somebody finally like said that, I looked right at her and I said, Okay, what are you gonna do? And she kind of laughed, she said, Well, uh, cry. And I was like, Yes, you would, then what? Yeah, and then and she said, and I, well, I guess I'd have to get another job. All right then. Yeah. So really, even if what you are really afraid of, if it were to happen, what are you gonna do about it? And when you can give yourself a plan B, if that happens, if we fail miserably, if we do a podcast and nobody listens to it, which we hope that doesn't happen, please listen. Please listen, share, share with your friends, like, subscribe, share. Everybody that's listening, your job, your homework assignment is to share it with at least one other person. Put it on your social. But but honest to goodness, if if for some reason this was a disaster, it didn't work, nobody listened, it didn't grow. The worst thing that's gonna happen is we'll say we used to have a podcast. We won't do it anymore. We just won't do it. It's not the end of the world. And I think that's what we have to start remembering is that if you're not taking action on your potential, then that's on you. And it doesn't have to be big giant leaps and bounds. And what you're afraid of, if you plan B it, you you'd be amazed at how you can convince yourself to do something.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Nothing is set in stone unless you're engraving stone. And then there's more stone if you mess up. There was this uh I don't I wish I could attribute the quote. I don't remember who it was, but someone said the only I wish it wasn't her. Uh it was a guy. But he said the only real defeat in life is death. Which is a little grim. But I mean, he's got a point. You can't you move on. Like things keep going. You're still here. There you go. We maybe we should put that on a t-shirt or hope it's not a strategy. I like it.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

It's a little savage, but I don't think death is I mean, I'm that's I'm not looking forward to death, but I believe in what happens after death is so amazing that that's not even that's not even a bad thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yeah, I mean, I'm not looking forward to dying.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

No, I'm not looking forward to it. I've got a lot of stuff to do. I've got laundry in the dryer right now.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

We're we're busy.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Too busy for that.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

I've got I've got contracts.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

It would be bad. In addition to, you know, really putting in the work and taking the action steps. I think you have to be loyal to yourself.

unknown 28:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

And treat yourself well and be really honest with yourself and self-aware. And it's okay to need help in some areas. It's okay to need resources. It's okay, like you might have limited options, but you have options.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

But you always have options, and you can do it. You can do it. Look how far you've already come, right? Oh my gosh, you are amazing. You have so many amazing skills and abilities just waiting there.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

You've got a lot of potential. Don't define yourself by what you can't do. That's right. We should put that on the t-shirt too.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Oh, we got a lot of t-shirt messages. Yes, we need some merch. We need we do. We need merch. My sister calls it merch merch. Oh, that's so good. Yes. We do. We need merch. Yes. Let us know. What kind of merch? Young listeners, send us a message. Let us know if you want merch and what kind of merch would you want? Yes. We would love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

And you know, we're we're always planning things. There could be some things that we release at some point, maybe this year. Is this very vague and cryptic? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Hopefully it'll keep you listening. We love it. We do want to hear from you though. Yes. And we actually do get to hear from you. So we want to make sure we hit Fan Mel Five. I think I have way too much fun with that.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

I do too. I really love it. If I had any music ability, I would like put something to it. We were we're very fortunate. A dear friend of mine, Matthew Vasquez, made our podcast music. Yes. And I don't I don't necessarily want to be like, hey, can you make more? If we need a fan mail five intro. But if anyone out there wants to give it a shot, feel free. So this is from Jennifer in Texas. And she says, I've been dating my boyfriend for almost two years. In the beginning, things were great. About three months in, he lost his job and he's struggling to find work. A lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Yeah, that's tough.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Uh he has become very depressed and doesn't want to go out or really do anything anymore. My friends tell me to move on, but I feel like he has the potential to be like it was in the beginning and to go far in his career. What do I do? Whoo-hoo. I've been there.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Right. I you know, we don't know all of the circumstances that that Jennifer's struggling with. Uh my first kind of gut reaction when I hear something like that is, is he taking any action at all? Yeah. If all he's doing is complaining and saying, Well, I sent 50 resumes on Indeed or whatever, but you're not actually taking any real action. If you're telling me that for a year and a half you've been putting, you know, submitting 50 resumes a day on Indeed and you're not getting any callbacks, maybe it's time to change your strategy. Yeah. Maybe what you are doing is not working. So is there is there movement? Is he making an effort? Because I think we can be compassionate with people that are struggling, but at some point you get to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and you get to move on. And I keep we we just did our episode talking about how people that are negative are no bueno. Yeah. So I think that would be my question is how how much effort do we feel like he's putting in, or has he just given up completely and he's living on the couch, you know, in pajama bottoms and eating pizza?

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Which is like the dream, but you still have to you still need to like have a living here. Right. You have to be able to pay the rent. Yes. Pizza's expensive now. So remember when it used to be cheap? I also think you have to really think about what do you want for your life? What do you want for this relationship? Do you see this being you're gonna get married someday, or are you just kind of having fun? Because if you're just kind of having fun and this isn't ultimately what you want, it's okay to break up. It's uh it's always okay to break up.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

As hurtful as that can be, and yeah, you gotta go through it. I think a little space can be really effective. So if you do decide like this, you know what, this isn't what I want for myself or or what I want in a relationship, you can step back and hey, in the meantime, if he turns things around, if he improves stuff, he comes back to you, then you can decide, like, hey, yeah, this is something that I want to, you know, get back into again.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Right. I think that part of what you're saying, what what I when I hear that, one of the things I think of is that are we enabling? In other words, if we're taking, if we're if we're paying for their rent, if we're taking care of them, if we're all we're doing is saying, Oh, it's so bad for you as well. I understand. And we're taking care of everything, we're enabling them. You know, we have to people have to take responsibility for themselves. And we've all known people where it's like, I just wish there was something I could do to help them. You know what? You can't. They have to help themselves. Stop enabling them and making it too easy for them to not take action.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

I had some so family friends when I was growing up. Um, and there's this family, they had two sons, we knew them, and it became a situation where as they got into their 20s, uh, there was, you know, some struggles with addiction and then like a lot of crime. So every time we do not advocate crime on this podcast. No, no.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Um, if you want to hear about crime, lots of good podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Crime junkies, great. Um, but he, you know, he wasn't working and his folks were pretty well off, and they would just, you know, basically pay for his life. Yeah. And we knew where that money was going, but they were like, but he needs to eat, he needs this and that. And I I get that. You want to make sure people survive. But then every time he was arrested, they'd go bail him out of jail. Every time he is now in jail for a long time for attempted murder. But when I think about enablement, that's serious crime right there. And that's like probably the hardest position to be in. It's your child, you love them. Oh, for sure. But you have to love people enough to m help them grow.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

You know, you the yes, you you cannot enable. I mean, that's and and that's a really sad and dramatic example, but it's exactly true. And I think we do that with our loved ones all the time. I think that's uh I don't know for sure that that's what's happening with Jennifer. You know, how much is she contributing? How much is she enabling? Um, but I think that, you know, we do it with our kids, we do it, I think we do it with friends, I think we do it in relationships, and and I think that it really does go back to are we are we challenging them to be you know, agency over self, to to be able to stand on their own two feet. If we keep having to prop them up, then they're never gonna learn how to stand.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Yeah. But we can help them develop the skills too.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Yes. And we talk about that on breakthrough. So, you know, check us out.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Thank you so much for being here. Um, like, subscribe, share, follow, interact with us on social media. All the things. All the things. Send us your question, and you never know, it might be read on FanMail 5.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Yes, we would love it. Thank you so much for joining us. We hope to see you on the next episode.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Bye. Bye, everyone. This episode is brought to you by Julie Birch Speaks. If you want another boring keynote, keep scrolling. But if you want an experience, meet Julie. Julie isn't just a speaker, she's the moment your audience didn't know they needed. With down home charm, a sharp sense of humor, and zero tolerance for fluff, she delivers real-world techniques that make people laugh, think, and actually do something different when they leave. Through relatable stories, bold truth telling, and solid business strategies, wrapped in brilliant comedic humor. Julie connects in a way that feels like a conversation, not a lecture. Your audience won't be just entertained. They'll be equipped, energized, and ready to level up. Solid business strategies, brilliant comedic humor. Find Julie online at JulieBirch.com or give her a call at 214-679-2717.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

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