Embracing Growth and Change with Christian Ray Flores

Sometimes, we all stop and think about where our life is going and feel like we’re meant to accomplish more. Life might be good, but there’s something inside that is urging us to grow and do something bigger, and we are willing to work for it. It’s a feeling many of us have had, and it often leads to big changes. When you feel like this, how do you turn that feeling into real steps forward? In this episode, I sit down with Christian Ray Flores, a performance coach and entrepreneur. He discusses the common experience that we seek more in life despite achieving some level of success. He explains the concept of hedonic adaptation and the natural cycles of life, including the need for personal growth and fulfillment at different stages. Redefine success — tune in today! --- Listen to the podcast here: Embracing Growth and Change with Christian Ray Flores Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. We’ve had some episodes that have covered some broad topics and we’ve also had some episodes that have covered some specifics, specific aspects about starting a business, specific pursuits, specific components of our lives. Today, I want to take us a little bit back to the more broad topic because we’ve all found ourselves in that situation and I think the broad category of experiences around the situation can be I’m looking at my life and maybe it’s okay, maybe it’s not, but I know I’m capable of something more and I have the desire for something more, I have the willingness to work for it, which is the situation that a lot of people find themselves in and I found myself in quite a bit throughout my life. To touch on this topic, I would like to introduce to you my guest today, Christian Ray Flores, who is an entrepreneur, evangelist, media producer, and a performance coach. --- Christian, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for joining. So, as a performance coach, you work with a lot of people in the situation that I just kind of described there where someone’s saying, “Okay, I’m taking a look at my life and I’m deciding that I’m ready for something more, I want something more, I’m capable of something more.” Yes, a lot. Me, actually, most of the people I work with are in that space. Yeah, I can imagine that. What’s a good way to kind of wrap your head around it, starts with a feeling, I’m assuming, for most people but – It totally does, yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is an excellent question, by the way. Thank you for setting me up for success here. You know what I think? I think what happens is that the world changes around us and we change and those are the main reasons why we find ourselves in these places where we go, “You know what worked for me two years ago, three years ago, five years ago, it’s just not working for me anymore. It’s just not satisfying me and something that I would be grateful for five years ago, it’s just not enough, and what do I do with that now? What kind of moves do I need to make? What kind of skills do I need to acquire? What risks do I need to take?” And that is sort of in the back of our mind. It’s a little voice telling you, “Is this all there is?” and, yes, and I think the – I’ll tell you a story of – I’ve had so many of those, so many. I can count at the very least five big ones where I’ve made, as a result of that thought, thinking about it, talking to some people, making a switch that is dramatically into another lane professionally, for example, so I’ve had five different careers, and I think I can name maybe five more that are more minor but also significant. But I’ll tell you a story of one of the earliest ones. One of the earliest ones earliest ones was I think it describes the situation when you have acquired your first level of success, you professionally have mastery, maybe you’re a senior executive, VP, a successful writer or an artist or an engineer, whatever, and then something shifts where you go, “There’s a need – I need more,” but then I have this thing that I already have status, I have a good amount of money, respect in that old thing that keeps me from making a jump or a lateral movement, adjacent move, that kind of thing. So I’m in a train car and my very first career that was successful was actually, luckily enough, my very first career. I have a degree in economics, I speak several languages, but I went into music in my mid 20s because I was I was like, “Ah, what the heck, I’m in my 20s, I’m young, I can fail, no problem,” and it turned out to be a great move for me. So, at the time, I’m already selling millions of albums, I’m playing sports arenas, I have a staff of 21 people, and most of them are in the train with me, going from city to city, doing this big tour, and I’m sitting there in the train and looking out the window and I literally have this very soft little voice say in my mind, “Is this all there is for me?” And that’s the conflict. The conflict is you already have achieved. You have respect. In my case, I had pretty significant achievements, and yet I found myself that there’s parts of me that were dormant even in this success. I was in Eastern Europe, 15 different countries, that was sort of the territory, the cultural territory that I was in. And I’m an international guy. I grew up all over the world, six different countries. I want to see the world, I want to be in other places. I speak four languages, I have an economics degree. I want to do philanthropy. I want to build a family and the family life in the long run really clashes with the lifestyle that I have. There’s all these other dimensions that were dormant and they together came up out and bubbled up in this big question. Is this all there is for me? And most people will ignore this thing that bubbles up for way too long. And why? Because it’s scary, because of the uncertainty that comes with it, because of the risk that comes with it, with the possibility of failure that comes from it. And at the very core of that fear, it’s actually not fear of failure, at the very core of that fear is a fear of rejection. What are my friends going to tell me? What are the colleagues that respect me going to think if I say I don’t want to do this anymore, which is exactly what I did, basically, and they’ll think you’re crazy. That’s what they’ll do. And that’s the fear. So do you believe that there’s a natural cycle to this? So, for example, someone will achieve something and then they’ll enjoy it for a little while and then, naturally, any human being will eventually get, I don’t want to say bored but suddenly feel that need for something else, or do you think this is way more driven by either a change, as you said, in your circumstance, a change in the world, or something a little bit more personality driven, where some people can’t stay still for like three or four years and then they’re like, “I need something else and what’s next,” but other people may have this personality type where they can do the same thing for pretty much their whole lives and be fine with it? I think both are active. So the first one, I think what you mentioned is probably a good term to describe it is hedonic adaptation. Hedonic adaptation is you get used to the good stuff and either it makes you very happy right away and then after a while, you go, “Oh, this is just normal for me. This is a new baseline,” like if you were a kid right out of high school, getting a thousand bucks in your bank account would blow your mind. Oh, yeah, for sure. And then, a few years later, it’s depressing to you, because your expectations change, your tastes change, your lifestyle changes. But it’s also true on a micro level, like you’re thirsty on a hot summer day and you want ice cream and you get like three big things of gelato. Probably after the first one, the second and the third actually don’t make you as happy. That’s hedonic adaptation as well. So a part of it is that, I think, and you start seeing the downside of the things that you chose, etc. Everything has a downside. But there’s another layer to it that is more almost like longitudinal in my mind and it’s the seasons of life. In your 20s, I think you’re meant to puzzle a lot to figure out who you are, how you fit in the world, what do you want to do when you grow up, that sort of thing. And then, really, usually, on average, in your 30 to 35, you achieve some sort of mastery, like you’re good at this thing, whatever it is, finance, engineering, literature, whatever, and you get your first taste of status. Now you’re not a low level person, you’re going up the ladder of whatever, respect, if it’s in the corporate world, up the ladder of the corporate world, etc. And usually by around 35-ish, you hit that first season of, yeah, but what am I going to do long term now that I have some confidence in my skills. And this is sort of the first group of people that I usually see asking for help. It’s around that time, about 35. So, after that, what people do is they go, “Okay, this is it. This is my track, this is my lane,” and they go into this, this, this, and this profession, whatever. And around 45-ish, the cycle repeats itself a little bit. Forty-five, fifty. And I think that has to do with us maturing, understanding that half of our life is sort of behind us with the midlife crisis thing, there’s almost like a natural internal recalibration that happens. I had a midlife crisis literally on the spot at 40. It was like clockwork. And I remember when I was in that place, I was like deconstructing my game, almost, and going, “What do I want to do, actually? What will fulfill me?” So status is less important a little bit. It just goes a little bit to the second, third level of importance, but fulfillment becomes top priority because you’ve now achieved more. You are usually, whatever,...