Authority Issues

Joe: I was starting to not feel seen and I got really frustrated one day and Sarah was like, Oh, I love your frustration and all the separation totally went away. It's us. We're doing this together. I have a role. You have a role, but we're humans together. 

Alexa: Hi, I'm Alexa Kistler. I'll be your guest host today here on the art of accomplishment, where we explore living the life you want with enjoyment and ease.

Today, I'm going to chat with Joe about a topic near and dear to my heart, authority issues. Hi, Joe. 

Joe: Hey, it's good to see you, Alexa. 

Alexa: Good to see you too. So today we're going to talk about authority issues. 

Joe: That's a personal favorite of mine. I have had a well seasoned bouquet of authority issues in my lifetime.

Alexa: You know what? Me too. 

Joe: I hadn't noticed, Alexa.

Alexa: So what do we mean by authority issues? 

Joe: Authority issues basically means that you are treating authorities not like human beings. And so in a weird way, almost everybody has authority issues, but that's the main thing. That's what I would call the authority issue that somehow or another that you either think that the authority is trying to oppress you, or the authority is somebody that you're trying to please, or the authority somehow can validate you.

You're just not treating them like a normal human being, the way you would treat a friend, or somebody on the side of the road, that you have some level of projection onto them, which is distorting your relationship with them, and distorting the way that you are in the world. Distorting what you can actually like, get in the world too, right?

So when I was a kid, the main authority in my life obviously was my dad and that relationship was not functional at all. So I went through life not trusting any authority and therefore, the idea of having mentorship, I couldn't even conceive of it until I was well into my thirties that somebody would mentor me.

So I lost that. Like with teachers, I just didn't trust any teacher. So I could read the book, but I wouldn't actually go and hang out with any kind of spiritual teacher because I couldn't trust them. There was something wrong with all of them. And teachers that I had in college, I was like always looking for how they were wrong. So I wasn't really also learning from them. And so what I got in my life was deeply affected by the fact that I didn't trust authority and I had that kind of authority issue. I think simultaneously I saw other people who were like, Oh, I need to please the authority. And so they didn't get to think for themselves. They didn't get to get in touch with their own wants and desires. They were leading their life, not from their truth, but from what they assume the authority wanted from them. And all of that is what I would call an authority issue. Any side of that would be an authority issue. And it really creates some crazy dynamics for the person who is apparently in authority as well. There's a whole bunch of stuff it does on that side, which is very interesting to me. 

Alexa: Yeah, let's talk about that. What do authority issues create for the authority? 

Joe: Yeah. So one of the things I noticed is like in a company or in a cult or like with rock stars, any of those kinds of situations, what happens is that people treat the authority differently, not as a human.

And so it's a lot easier for the authority to stop acting like a human. And so you know, there's things that, if you walk around your world and you're, let's say, in charge of 2000 people in a company, let's just say, and everybody's worried what you think, and everybody is trying to please you. It's often very hard for the authority figure to actually feel that, to actually allow themselves to go, Oh, wow, everybody here is trying to please me. As a matter of fact, the majority of people who are running a company of 2,000 people often feel alone in it, feel like they don't have anybody who wants to help them.

So it's a strange mechanism but at the same time, they're being treated in this very specific way and so they start losing touch with reality. People don't give them bad news. People don't give them real feedback. Everybody's trying to please them. And so they don't actually feel deeply connected, which is what makes them feel alone in it.

So there's that aspect that happens. The other aspect is for some authorities, what it feels like is that people want you to make their decisions for them. Because, oh, do you like that? Does that work? Is that okay, sir? And you start making decisions and telling people they're right and wrong. And that makes actually oddly makes people feel safe. Oh, okay. Because this person says it's right or wrong, then I know I've done it right or wrong because if that person's gone, then we have to actually live with the reality that nobody knows what the fuck's going on really. There's some people who are better guessers at it, but nobody was like, Oh, I know how to build a spaceship company. I know how to build it. Nobody knows how to do this stuff that's being done in the world, anything new, anything innovative. And so we'd either have to deal with the fact that nobody actually knows or we have to hand our power over to somebody and when you hand the power over to somebody, it distorts their reality, right?

Oh, my God, thousands of people need me to decide. It's like it becomes really easy to go, oh, yeah, people shouldn't be making their own decisions or I'm special. The other thing that happens, what I noticed is that people get very selfish in those positions because there's not a lot of themselves that they can get anywhere else.

They're walking through the company and you walk through a company of 2000 people, if you're just an employee, and it's oh hey, what's going on? They walk through a company of 2000 people and it's "He's there." Did I dress it or am I straight enough?" Whatever the crap is going on in all these people's minds, because there's all this projection on this person. So try to act normal after living with that for two or three years with people screaming every time you get on stage, with people throwing themselves at you, thinking that you're going to make their dreams come true, whatever it is.

And so it really distorts. It really distorts. And then that's one side of the other side is that then people are attacking you for no reason whatsoever because you're the authority. People like me, fuck you, you don't tell me what to do. Duh duh. So you're either walking around and people are trying to kiss your ass or people are attacking you for no reason.

Which really creates quite a defensive mechanism in a human being and you start thinking you're above and start thinking that people actually need leadership and that people are dumbasses. You're attacking me for no reason. You don't even know who I am. It's really quite a dynamic.

And the thing that's really interesting to me about it, is that usually what people do is they blame the authority figure, right? Our company's crap because the CEO, our country is crap because of the president, that country is crap because of the president. Like usually that's the face, that's who's going to get blamed. But what I've noticed is that the culture affects the CEO as much as the CEO affects the culture. It is an actual dance. The authority and the culture, they have a dance together. And whether you're looking at chimpanzee culture or indigenous tribe culture, those cultures, they're very aware of that.

Oh, you have a job. And if we don't like it, you're not going to hold your job for very long. That in chimpanzee culture and monkey culture, that if the head male, chimpanzee doesn't treat everybody with respect, they get kicked out a lot quicker than the ones who treat them all with respect. If they're like very dominant, they don't last as long. And so there's this kind of understanding that we're responsible. I feel like, as an example, most people in the United States right now, they feel like they're put upon by the choices for president or by the president. They're not like, oh, we're choosing this. We're choosing this. 

Alexa: Yeah. 

Joe: If the culture was like, no, you don't get this, no, we're not going to choose between a delusional and a demented president, as an example, then it wouldn't be the case. We're accepting this and people don't like taking that responsibility. And so that's the interesting thing about authority issues all the way around is that, on a personal level we're handing our power over one way or another, whether I'm handing, like I handed my power over by rebelling against, or somebody is handing power over by trying to get approval. Either way, we're not paying attention to our choices. And if we really deal with it and treat them like a human, then we're empowered, but we have to take responsibility for the relationship.

Alexa: Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And also, I'm just comparing it to my own sort of authority issues. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Alexa: And I think I have a thing where, let's see, how do I explain that? It's if somebody has authority and they are not feeling their emotions, so if they have fear, which you can see even in a really small example, like a teacher at the front of a class or something like that and they're holding a bunch of fear and trying to like, be above their fear. I can't stand it. Oh man. 

Joe: Totally. 

Alexa: It's almost not that I'm not treating them as a human, I think, it's almost more hey man, you're just a guy. You're not some authority on high. You're just a guy. You think you know what you're talking about, but I don't think you know what you're talking about. I think you're just some guy. It's almost me knocking them down to human level. 

Joe: Yeah. So the interesting thing about that is let's say the person next to you in the class was scared. Would you turn over to them and say, you're just a guy. 

Test: Probably not. 

Joe: So that's the unique spin that happens but I love what you're saying, right? Because that's very much what I did. I very much was like, maybe I would even try to knock them lower than me. Oh, see, you're a spiritual teacher that needs your face on a book. You don't fucking get it. I remember I had literally had that thought process around Adi Ashanti, who ended up being one of the more important figures in my life. Oh, dude look at you. You need your face on a book. I just, whatever I did, whatever was required to make sure that I was better than the authority. So I didn't have to feel my own longing for their approval or my own hurt for their disapproval or whatever the emotions were underneath. Yeah, of course they're a person and of course they're scared.

Alexa: Yeah. When I look at it from another angle, it's true that I know a number of like founders and CEOs who have that kind of fear that you're describing. And I've even heard people say things like, Oh, I just don't feel like I can give anyone advice anymore because people take my advice way too seriously, they change their lives around it. So I have to be cold, like I have to be distant from folks. 

Joe: Yeah there's some studies that really show that people who have been in positions of power for an extended period of time start losing empathy. I don't think that's universal, but statistically true, which is really a heavy cost for people. But there is, there's this weird consequence, right? So I hang out with a billionaire, like a famous one, and everybody's coming to them to make their dreams come true. The driver, the person opening the door for them, like everybody's looking at them like, oh, you can make me happy. Ooh, Jesus, like imagine walking around like that. 

Alexa: Yeah, I don't want to feel that. 

Joe: It's really, yeah, it's really heavy. Yeah. I heard this comedian talking about it. He's quite a famous comedian. He said it's like being famous is like walking around with Alzheimer's. Everybody's very sweet and they know you, but you know, nobody like you're in a small village with Alzheimer's and everybody's Oh, hi, you're like, I have no idea who you are.

Alexa: Oh, yeah, that's rough. 

Joe: Yeah. All these people relating to some character that they think you are. And then you put that authority figure that you talked about who was saying like, oh I'm scared. You're like, you're scared, I see you're scared, and you're just a normal person.

They're scared because they're like, I can't show that I'm scared because I'm the authority, and then nobody will trust me, and there's some truth to that, right? The weird thing is that we do humans in general, do like their leaders to be secure and confident and not scared and know what they're doing and like have a certain amount of asurity or narcissism that's yeah, I got this, even though they don't, because none of us do. 

Alexa: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. But there's like a kind of a fine line to walk there because I'm just comparing this to a recent experience of attending a talk by a founder and they were scared. , 

Joe: Yeah. 

Alexa: My kryptonite. And they kept responding to really critical, I don't want to say like really critical questions, but questions about their product and their approach with defense. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Alexa: And the more that they would defend and try to uphold that idea that they were the power and they were cool. 

Joe: The more the attack happened. 

Alexa: Yes, exactly. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Alexa: I also was just having a hard time sitting there. I don't enjoy watching this happen. It's really, it's a lot for me to sit with. I wish I weren't here right now. It's a cool product and everything, but this leadership style isn't working for me and I know that it's because they're trying to maintain an appearance of having it all together.

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. So it is this very, for the authority figure, it's this very weird, oh, to know how, because there is a very specific way in which, if that authority figure would have said as an example, Oh, wow, that's some really cool criticism. Can you tell me more? Like, how would you improve the product? What do you see here? Then they would be like very confident and very open and everybody would be like, oh, that's great. But if that authority figure went, oh shit. My product fucking sucks. Do you know, like I put fucking years of my time into this and then you don't even like it, or whatever, a thousand other fear responses that like they would have lost the room even further.

Alexa: And that one sounded like collapse to me. 

Joe: Collapse or freeze or like they went a little bit to bully. It sounds you know, the fear triangle, but if they would have done any fear response. 

Alexa: Yeah. That's probably right. 

Joe: That would have created this other thing. So that's why they're like, Oh, I'm going to just manage my fear and compartmentalize my fear, which is making it worse as compared to, using their fear as a mechanism to see what they can learn and how they can grow.

The interesting thing to me is that, we run in the masterclass, we run this executive cohort. One of the things I do in the executive cohort is that I have people visualize the reality of being an authority figure. You walk into a room and everybody notices you're there. There's a couple people, you can see it in their face, they're like, fuck you, just because you're the authority figure. And there's a couple people who are like, ooh, are they looking at me? Do they notice me? And I like literally walk through and have them feel all the emotions that you don't allow yourself to feel as an authority figure, because it's really quite overwhelming of oh, people are saying specific things to you to make you feel good, or to kiss your ass, or to show value to you. Everybody wants to be of value to you. Everybody wants to be seen. What is that? People aren't showing you their full selves, and there's people rebelling against you, and feeling all this stuff. And it's amazing the reaction, and it's amazing what happens when you do that as an authority figure, like how you walk into a company differently, when you actually can see the reality on the ground and allow yourself to feel it rather than try to avoid it.

Alexa: Yeah. 

Joe: And yeah, there's a lot of emotions to be dealt with on that side of the coin, but it's all happening because of authority issues on the other side of the coin. So it is this dance that we're doing together. The authority figure and the group, like in a weird way, the authority figure is channeling like the way the group treats them.

Alexa: Yeah. I definitely see truth in that. 

Joe: Yeah. And vice versa, that the authority when they spit, it's a waterfall at the bottom is something that I say all the time to CEOs. 

Alexa: And what do you mean by that? 

Joe: That's like a little bit of a criticism of a CEO can create million dollar changes at the bottom of the company. So as an example, so I went into one of the top biggest five companies in the world to go and do a cultural shift and I went through three levels of management. All of them trying to manage the response of the person at the top, right? So the first person's managing me like that, dah dah dah, for the second person who manages me and they're not really worried about my results. They've like in their mind, they're saying, okay, this is what I think that the manager, the CEO, whoever needs to be happy. So make sure you do that. And I don't do that anymore now I only work with the leader. I won't work with everything in between. I just refuse to do that because it gets so distorted. There's so much time spent. I was working with some folks, and they told me literally they spent $100,000 on a video for the CEO. It was $100,000 that was spent on a single video just to show the CEO something so that the CEO would approve the budget.

There was $100,000 spent instead of hey, here's the situation. Here's the reality on the ground. This is what we're wrestling with. What do you think we should do? How do we move forward? Or this is how we think we should move forward. No, it was like $100,000 polished piece to get what you want, right?

So that's the spit at the top is this waterfall at the bottom. The company, the organization is in some degree a reflection of the leader and the leader is in some degree a reflection of the organization. 

Alexa: The other thing it sounds is almost being said not quite, is that dynamic that you're talking about wouldn't necessarily work on the leader if they were able to stay really in themselves, in their vulnerability and their curiosity. So for instance. If this founder that I was listening to their talk the other day hadn't had something to defend. If they were truly open to the criticism being something interesting, like an opportunity for them to change their product, even though, yes, they've probably been working on it for the last four years of their life.

Joe: Yeah. 

Alexa: If it were an opportunity or at least something that they would like to see before it hits them in the market, that would have been easier for my system, for instance. 

Joe: Yes, absolutely. Like I really encourage, so I walk up into our office for instance, and I really encourage people to make fun of me. I make fun of myself. There's a lot of laughing at Joe that happens in the office. We laugh at each other too. Don't get me wrong. But this is really important for me culturally for people to see me as human. And so I make, I do lots of things to make sure that stays the case, where people don't look at me and think that they have to please me. Like one of the things that we do in our company that I mean that you know about is that at the end of every email people have to give somebody else an action. So if you write to me or, a part-time assistant writes to me on an email, it's not an email, but in our internal communication thing, and they write to me, they have to give me an action to take at the end of that. They have to assign me, they have to delegate to me, right? And so that's part of what we're doing to say, Oh, wait, we're all a team here. I have a particular role. You have a particular role, but anybody gets to assign anybody a task, and anybody gets to say no, and anybody gets to say, but it's so important that, oh, to realize that relationship is going both ways. There's a whole bunch of things that we do to do that. But I think I learned it actually through teaching more than I learned it through like running the company, which is that when somebody attacked me, if I ever defended, it always went south, like it just totally went South.

Especially in the role of this kind of teaching, right? So now I'm far more likely to say something, I remember somebody saying to me the other day you make shit up. You just made this up. I'm like, absolutely. I cannot prove any of this to be true. Absolutely. Test it for yourself. Figure it out for yourself. And I'm not also going to say that making it up is bad. Jeff Bezos made up Amazon. Yeah, but like making shit up is how humans create cool shit. But yes, I'm like, yeah, made stuff up there. I'm making this up right now. And that's the part that, like, when I'll say it, there's something that people like about that energetically. They're like, Oh, yeah, cool, he's no defense. But then there's something else in there that, people go, wait wait, I want some sort of solidity. I want some sort of ground that tells me that there's a right and a wrong, that there's something I can trust. And if you stop believing in the authority as anything besides just another human being who's got one job to do, then the other thing you have to give up is the idea that there's some ground that you get to stand on, right or wrong, or good or bad, performed or not well performed.

That all goes away without an authority and that's what I see. I see a lot of folks, particularly people transitioning from C-level to becoming an entrepreneur of their own. That's the biggest hurdle they have to come up is Oh, I don't get that leader anymore to follow, everybody's following me. I don't get that idea that they know what the fuck they're doing anymore. And it's a big hurdle for a lot of people to take. 

Alexa: Absolutely. Yeah. It seems like a reflection of a personal growth journey. 

Joe: Yeah. It very much is. And there's nothing wrong to say, Oh, the place I love in life is to be of service to somebody, in that role. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's actually quite a freeing, lovely thing. And the best way to do that is to also see that they don't know what the fuck they're talking about either, like that their approval doesn't mean anything. It's just, we're just 2 human beings. We like each other's approval. And then that's the other thing that people don't really see is that the authority figure also wants the approval of the people who are working with them. 

Alexa: Yeah. 

Joe: And it's very hard for people to see as if you're in a meeting and somebody's Hey, that's great work. That's fantastic. You did a great job there. That's the authority figure in the room because no one's really doing that for the authority figure. And so it's interesting, like when I'm working with executives who are like, oh, when the power structure is off between them and a peer, and it's one of the things I'll say to them is, hey, just compliment people on their work. It makes you the authority in the room. 

Alexa: That's powerful. 

Joe: It's crazy. 

Alexa: Yes, and I really felt it when you said that, even when I've been in authority roles at work on big projects, like it's true. Nobody tells me I did a good job. It hurts to see that. 

Joe: Yeah. I have this email right now to one of the CEOs I work with and it's basically just an email to say, hey, just so you know, it's possible that you can feel, like when you walk into the office, you can feel like you have a team of people around you, who want to support you and you want to support them and you feel held by them and they feel held by you. I just want you to know that's possible. It doesn't have to be you are at it all alone and you have to manage everybody and you have to move everybody and you have to, again, you're all alone in it. It's really possible for you as the authority in the company to walk in and just see that everybody wants you to succeed. They want you to win and they're there to help you and that you are there to help them win and there's that feeling of actual teamwork in it. And what's amazing to me is there's very few CEOs who actually get that. There's very few CEOs who feel like, oh, I'm part of a team that loves being a team that loves working together and that supports each other. It's really rare. The team might have it, but the CEO doesn't feel like they're part of that team, which is crazy.

Alexa: Yeah. This might be torturing the metaphor, but the metaphor that had come through before when we were talking about not defending was be the lake. So somebody has a sword and they're attacking the lake and you're like, that's fine. I'm a lake. 

Joe: Right. 

Alexa: So then thinking about that, 

Joe: Hack away. 

Alexa: Yeah, go for it.

Joe: Go for it. 

Alexa: Yeah. And I think I've had that experience too. I've sometimes I've been presenting some potentially very confronting thing to a really large team at a big company. I've generally speaking, been a consultant, but I worked in strategy. So it's sometimes what I find is really confronting to how a team has been moving. And sometimes there's a lot of, yeah, attack, which is, I see it as fear in them. And those times when I have felt like the lake, it's yeah, you're right. Yeah. That is a small end number for me to base these findings on. It is. Absolutely. Yeah. Take this and do whatever you want with it. It does land differently, but so moving that metaphor forward to being the authority who feels supported. It's yeah, can you see yourself as supported in being that lake that is, like there are boats and fish, there's all sorts of things that are going on and moving through that system. 

Joe: Yeah. I think it's even more than that. It's the way I feel in our company is that everybody wants us to win. There's nobody who's working with us who doesn't want us to win. There's nobody working for us who doesn't want to win. There's nobody working with us who doesn't want what we're doing in the world to grow. There's nobody working with us who doesn't want me to be in integrity and happy and successful. And I want that from them and for them. It's very, I know people exist in marriages where this isn't the case where you're not really sure that like your husband or wife wants what's best for you. But if you have that kind of marriage and it's yeah, like the whole, a whole company can be like that.

And the trick is that they feel seen, everybody feels seen. 

Alexa: That is a trick. 

Joe: And I don't even know how to explain that, a perfect example of this is, as I was starting to be a leader in a company of a bigger size and I was starting to not feel seen and go, there's the them and us and me and them, that kind of authority issue thing coming up, I got really frustrated one day and Sarah was like, oh, I love your frustration. And all the separation totally went away. It's us. It's us. It's we're doing this together. I have a role. You have a role, but we're humans together and that's what happens if you don't have an authority issue, right? If you're not, oh my God, I did something wrong because they're frustrated or fuck you, you don't know what you're doing because you're frustrated and scared. It's oh yeah, I love your frustration, Joe. It's telling us that there's something important that we're missing. That's where the culture affected me and I'm sure that happened because I've made the culture a safe place to be able to do that, but that's the experience that is just oh, she saw me. And I noticed whenever things are going wrong in the company, my first move now is to make sure everybody feels seen. 

Alexa: Oh, beautiful. Because that's what you want. 

Joe: It's what I want and it's what changes. It's just the most effective way to change shit is to like, help people feel seen and feeling seen is not always comfortable. Feeling seen sometimes is uncomfortable, but if everybody feels seen, then whatever the politics are, they go away.

Alexa: I don't know where this question is going to go, but I just want to ask. 

Joe: That makes me excited for it. 

Alexa: Do you think this thing about being seen like how does that tie back into authority issues? 

Joe: Yeah, I think that's where they all arise from. 

Alexa: Like a feeling of not being seen. 

Joe: It's I wasn't seen for my goodness, so fuck authority. And I think the people who are seen for what they offer the authority by being a good kid, by offering value, by doing the chores or whatever, those people are more likely to grow up and try to get the authority figures approval. And there's benefits to both, right? The fact that I had authority issues allowed me to do experimentation, which allowed me to build something like this.

Me having authority issues meant that I was like, fuck society, I'm going to do things my own way, which allowed me to experiment in weird things like esoteric parts of Buddhism and not work for a decade and meditate and blah, blah, blah, like that all came from that fuck authority place.

So there's been a tremendous amount of benefit from it often CEOs are people who had authority issues. So they're like, fuck that. I'm not going to have an authority above me. That's often the case. So I'm going to do this thing, which is an interesting check. I want to go back to that. I'm going to pin that because that creates this weird dynamic for CEOs. And so there's benefits to that. There's also benefits to not having that kind of looking for that approval. It's like you can get mentorship easier. You can be open to learning. You don't reinvent the fucking wheel like I did a thousand times, you're not in a fight with 

Alexa: That's right, you can have a teacher. 

Joe: You don't get kicked out of college like I did, right? There's a whole bunch of really beneficial things that happen if you have the other side of an authority issue. But it's harder because you don't get to listen to yourself as much.

So there's no wrong way to go about it. It's just really whichever side you're in. How do you start listening to yourself? And the other piece that's really true about that is that it also really reflects how you treat your own authority. So the critical voice in the head often acts like an authority figure and as you don't buy into it, your reflection in the world is that you don't buy into the authority outside either. You're like, oh, you've got some good things to say. You've got, maybe I have to translate you. No, I'm not going to listen to that. That kind of freedom that you have with your own internal authority figure often shows exactly how you're going to treat authorities in your own life. Yeah. So just for the CEOs or the leaders in here the thing I pinned that I think is really important is, I've seen a lot of times CEOs are like, yeah, I don't like authority so they, entrepreneurs, particularly not somebody who's rose through a bureaucracy to become a CEO, but entrepreneurs, they're like, I don't want authority. And so then they are like, I don't want to be that oppressive authority that my dad was. And so then they don't actually stand into their authority completely and then everybody feels lost in there. in their organization. If you don't come in and say, this is, you don't have to say, this is what we're doing, but you have to say, this is our process. This is our values. This is our principles. This is how we operate. And we're not doing, we can discuss it, but we're like, that's my job is to hold that and this is how we're doing things. If you don't give enough of that to a team, they won't feel safe. So it's better to say, this is exactly how I want you to do something, which is the far side of one spectrum, the other side of the spectrum, which I started with cause I had such a, yeah, just do what you want, figure it out. Tell me what you want to do. That doesn't work either. And the middle path for me has been, these are the principles. This is how we operate. This is the structure. This is the process. These are the roles. If you want to change them, it's open to discussion. But this is how we're doing things so that people feel safe because when there's no authority, people start vying for that authority role. If you don't provide it, other people will vie for it and that creates utter chaos. And that in a room all the time, if we're facilitating something, if I do not act like enough of an authority, the whole room feels unsafe.

If I act too much like an authority, the room starts to feel unsafe. 

Test: Yeah. 

Joe: It is this balance. So it's an interesting, really interesting piece is that we do want someone to actually play the role as humans. Like we want someone to fulfill that position. It's a very natural position for any group of primates to have. But what's interesting to me about it is it's not what you think it is, meaning if you look at baboons, they put all these tracking collars on baboons. And I love this metaphor, and every morning the baboons would come down off the tree or whatever, and they would decide which way to go. And so they were trying to figure out how the fuck they decided which way to go. Who led them? Was it the alpha male? And it turned out it was anybody. Sometimes the least dominant female would lead the way, and sometimes the most dominant male would lead the way. And so they would sit there, and what would happen is some people would start going this way, and the troop wouldn't listen, and then somebody would go this way, the troop wouldn't listen, and then somebody would go and what they literally found was the baboon that did it with the most directness. Cause that's what you could track. They were just like, yep, this is what we're doing. And they went at a reasonable clip and they moved with confidence. Then the whole troop followed. And I see that's actually what happens in an organism. That is the nature of how humans work. Now that alpha male baboon is still the alpha male baboon, but the leadership came as much from him as anybody else in the in the group. And you see that happen all the time, like you can see that, a CEO wants something to be this way, but it's not that way. And they're like, why isn't it that way? Because the culture is doing something different. And to recognize that is really, it's quite lovely to when you really see oh, if you harness that instead of fight it as a leader, it's a really amazing, it's magical. 

Alexa: Yeah. 

Joe: There's a wisdom greater than any one person's in a group. 

Alexa: Yeah. I love that too. It strikes me that there's something really interesting in there about how to act with confidence if you yourself have some amount of authority issues? 

Joe: Right? Yeah. That's the crazy piece too, right? The problem that I had playing the role of the person with authority is that I was scared I was going to get attacked. It makes sense. I would attack every authority that I ever came across. And that was like the best thing about that recently we're doing masterclass and somebody wrote this like beautiful thing saying, it was in the feedback for the course. Did you read this thing? 

Alexa: I don't think so. 

Joe: In the feedback for the course, they're like, God damn it. I did everything I could to make this course oppress me. 

Alexa: Yes. 

Joe: And you just wouldn't fucking do it. It was like I tried to make you the authority. I tried to get you to tell me what to do. You just wouldn't fucking do it. 

Alexa: It's true. That's real. It's one of the reasons that like you became my teacher. I looked, I've tried so many different folks and I believe that there's a lot of people out there who have something worth learning, but gosh, if something's not quite right, I just can't stay in the group and stay really open, but with you, I can. 

Joe: Thanks. 

Alexa: Yeah. Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah. It's been a pleasure watching you see me more and more as human and less as an authority over the years. That's been like a great pleasure. As an example, I think in the last six months, you've given me two compliments. That was good work with that. And that feels good, not so much because of the compliment, because I also see that as oh, you see me as human. And it's such an amazing relief to be seen as human. I also understand deeply that that's not my job for some folks, right? My job for some folks is to be the authority figure that they rebel against or to be the person that they try to please until they like the whole thing disintegrates and they see me as human and that's fine. Like I understand that's my job is to be a mirror of something in that way, but I can't deny it feels really good when someone likes sees me. And they're like, they look behind the curtain of this veil of teacher and they're like, oh hi. Hi. 

Alexa: You're just some guy. 

Joe: You're just some guy. Exactly. We can just be human together. Exactly. It's really quite sweet. 

Alexa: I'm glad. So it does bring me to, I think one last question, I think, but it comes in two parts. So it's if you see authority issues coming up in your own life, how do you like what to do with that? But the two parts are, if you're an authority versus if you have an authority.

Joe: Yeah, it's three parts, right? Or maybe four. There's what do you do when you have the authority issue where you're rebelling against the person? Fuck you, I don't trust you. What do you do if you're like, I'm trying to get the authority person to approve of me? And then the person who is the authority, who's I don't want to be the authority. What do you do there? And then there's the person who's the authority, who's like completely lost on the other side. Like I'm all alone in this, that whole thing. And so there's four major categories. If you're in the rebellion, the most important thing is just to see them as human, all the way human, and to see the authority figures all the way human, give them compliments. If you see them, if they're authentic, apologize when you're rebelling against them, notice that you're just rebelling against yourself, that it's not really them that you're rebelling against. 

I remember when I was younger, I used to say, I'm such a rebel, I even rebel against telling myself what to do, and just owning that, apologizing for that, and learning to really get in touch with your wants. So what I noticed is that somebody who has that kind of authority issue, it wasn't safe to have their own wants. And that's one of the reasons that the rebellion to the authority happens. And so the more you can every day write down what are my wants, how do I want to exist in the world and be really in touch with those and act from those then the rebellion against authority stops because what you really are after is getting your wants met and identified and seen.

Alexa: Yeah. Being your own authority. 

Joe: Being your own authority, right? And having your authority not come from shoulds, but come from wants. So that's one. On the other side it's the same thing. That core principle is the same, which is like really get in touch with your wants. So if you're constantly looking for the authority figure to say, yes, you've done a great job.

You'll also notice if you're really looking for that, eventually you become resentful of the authority figure, too. So there, there's usually some way in which you, because you are sacrificing some part of yourself, some part of your truth to get approval, so that resentment will naturally build. So I would, again, apologize to the authority figure and say, Oh I'm sorry, I didn't, I've had some things that I've wanted to tell you that I'm not telling you because I want to, keep our relationship safe. And that kind of thing is a good one, scary, but good to again, become your own authority with being able to really get in touch with your wants. The best thing to do if you really want to dissolve that quickly is to say things that you think the authority figure doesn't want to hear from you that you think are really valuable and just say those. You start small and then get bigger. 

It reminds me of two things. I have worked with a lot of people who report to a CEO or report to maybe even a narcissistic CEO and they'll be like, I can't say this. They'll get mad at me. I can't say this. They'll fire me. I can't, and I'm like, hey, yeah, you can. And they're like, no. I said, I can prove it. There's somebody in that C level executive who says the hard truth to them. And they're actually the closest person to that CEO and that's always the case. That CEO always has one person and that's the person they trust the most because they can say the hard thing to them. They don't do it in a way that's defensive. They're just like, oh, no, this is who their real thought partner is. And so learning how to say the truth to them in an undefended way and in a non fear way, if you're scared, if you say the truth to the 30 figure and you're scared, they're never going to trust it. Just like you didn't trust the CEO who's acting out of fear in the top of the room. They're looking for the baboon who's walking confidently in that direction. You know what I mean? And if you're scared of it, they're not going to follow. So that's another, that's, if you're on that side, that's a really quick way to handle it.

If you're the leader who rebelled against authority and now you are the authority, and so you think that if you're too much of an authority, everybody's going to attack you and you're going to feel oppressed by it, then your job is to really look for and ask the people that you're leading, what do you want? What's the structure you want? What is it that you don't know? Where do you feel unsafe and find out that every place that they feel unsafe is a place where you're not actually acting as the authority that you're supposed to be acting as is is the agreement. And so typically, structurally, the best way to move out of that is to say this is the process. These are the principles. So you're not telling people how to act. You're not telling people how to do the job. You're telling people this is the way that we work. This is the process, and so people know that process. This is the way we do emails. This is the way we do meetings. This is the way that we solve problems. This is the way we make decisions, but you let everybody have their own autonomy inside of that. That usually creates a lot of safety, but you still get all the wisdom of the group and you're not oppressing people. And so you're, actually, that's like a great way to move. You're the authority figure, it feels like you're all alone in it and you can justify I'm so smart that these people need to be told what to do, but I feel so alone and nobody gets me and I have to manage everybody. The best thing to do is start asking for help. 

And typically what happens there is they ask for help, but in a way that proves that they're not going to get the help. So the way to ask for the help is to say, this is what I need specifically, and these are the criteria of what would make it actually work for me. So it's not God damn it, why can't you just fucking get the sales numbers up?

It's not gonna, it is wow, I feel like everything I'm doing to get the sales numbers up isn't working and I really need your help to get the sales numbers up and what I need to feel confident that the sales number is going to be up is that you're tracking not just how much sales we're making, but how many steps we're making, incremental steps we're making on a weekly or bi weekly basis. So I know that the work is getting done. And so I really need help knowing that we're going to hit our numbers because we're making these incremental steps. And how would you feel about taking that on and making it so I don't have to worry about that anymore. I think it's a very different thing, right? So often the way those people ask to get their needs met, to get helped, will ensure that they don't get it. 

Alexa: Yeah. That seems right. 

Joe: That's a very long answer to your question, but there's different angles to it. 

Alexa: Yeah. It was surprisingly long. I actually expected an answer like, yeah, notice how vulnerable it is to be in authority.

Joe: Yeah. Okay, maybe you should be on this side because that sums it up. Do that. Do what she said. 

Alexa: No, don't put that on me. I don't want to be the authority. 

Joe: Somebody will rebel against you. It's too late. It's over. 

Alexa: So something that I saw, this could just as easily come up within say a romantic relationship. Somebody is not owning their own authority. 

Joe: Yes. 

Alexa: It creates almost the exact same dynamic. And the one person being either like don't make me the authority or I guess I'm alone in this, and withdrawing their empathy even. That is a thing that I see. 

Joe: God damn. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a beautiful, I don't have anything to say about it. Just, yes, you are absolutely fucking, that's a beautiful scene. 

Alexa: Okay. 

Joe: But it's nice to say, yeah, wow. It also works with couples. Same thing. 

Alexa: Great. 

Joe: What a pleasure. 

Alexa: That was fun. 

Joe: Thank you. 

Alexa: Thank you, Joe. See you next time.

Joe: Yeah. 

Alexa: Thanks for listening to the art of accomplishment today. If you want to learn more about us or our work, you can join our newsletter or check out our courses at artofaccomplishment.com. If you enjoyed what you heard on this podcast today, we would love it if you'd share it with a friend. And of course, please follow and rate us on your podcast app.

The Art of Accomplishment is produced by Brett Kistler and Joe Hudson. I'm Alexa Kistler, your guest host for today. Mun Yee Kelly is our production coordinator and Sarah Melody edited this episode. Thanks.