Show Notes
When something is true, you don't question it. Why would you? And that is exactly how you end up doing all the right things for years and still not getting anywhere near where you actually want to go. This one answers the question so many of you emailed after the last episode. How do you know when "you're doing so much better than you used to be" is true and worth celebrating, versus when it's the exact thing keeping you stuck? The answer starts with something almost nobody says out loud. An honest voice can steer you wrong. Not because it lies to you, but because it only ever answers the question you ask it, and most of us are asking the one question that can only ever come back yes. Elizabeth walks through why the voice you trust determines the direction you travel, why "am I better than I used to be" will keep you comfortable and stalled for years, and the four questions, in order, that turn your progress from a good feeling into an honest answer about where you're actually headed. Including the exact way to know when it is finally time to push. In this episode: Why a completely honest voice can still send you in the wrong direction The reason you never notice you've stalled, and why it's because everything you're telling yourself is true The difference between measuring your effort and measuring your direction The comfortable questions we ask to collect reassurance instead of the truth The four questions that tell you where you're really going, starting with the one that gates all the others How to know when it's time to stop celebrating how far you've come and start pushing again
If you know the version of this for you is real, DEFENSE is the coaching program built for exactly this moment. It is not for people starting over. It is for people who have done the right things for years and are ready to be honest about where they are actually going. A new cohort opens soon. Get on the waitlist at elizabethbenton.com/defense-app/
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How I Get Out of Overwhelm in Under a Minute: The Fix No One Taught You Most of the overwhelm you’ll feel this week will come from trying to solve things it isn’t time to solve yet. After I wrote about this on Substack, a lot of you asked me to go deeper, so in this episode I do. You’ll hear: Why the amount on your plate matters a lot less than you think What a text about our empty egg box taught me about mental management The simple decision tree I use to get out of overwhelm in under a minute Why overwhelm shows up at night, and after a great course or conference What to do when it really is the right time and it still feels like too much One thing to try in the next 24 hours
If you can tell me what time tomorrow you're most likely to struggle, you already have what you need to stop it. Most of us know exactly when we fall off. The dinner we didn't plan. The workout that gets pushed until the day is gone. The afternoon that starts overwhelmed and scattered. We know what to do, we know we're not doing it, and we even know why. And still, we keep getting caught off guard, the same way so many of us get caught off guard by Christmas every December. Elizabeth walks through the four traps that keep us repeating the same struggles: Believing that wanting to do better is enough. Wanting to do better has never once changed a behavior. Planning the home run. The plan you're proudest of is often the one you're least likely to follow, and the one question to ask about every plan you make. Waiting for certainty. Certainty is something you earn by deciding. Waiting won't give you any. "I don't have time." Most of us have never actually done the math.
Think about the best personal development book you’ve ever read. Now name the five most valuable things you learned from it. I can’t do it either. And that got me thinking about how much we’ve expected information to do for us. It’s not enough to learn something valuable. You have to remember it, access the right piece at the exact moment you need it, and know how to apply it to the situation you’re actually in. No wonder knowing what to do hasn’t been enough. In this episode, I’m sharing what I realized about the massive gap between learning something and actually being able to use it. I’ll show you how I’m using AI to close that gap, including the Personal Insight Library I built for myself, why EBGPT can sometimes answer a question better than I can, and a real example of how I used my Defense Coach to prepare for a week I knew would be hard. This is one of those ideas that changed the way I think about every book, course, podcast, coaching program, sermon, and insight I consume. Build My Coach gives you three highly personalized AI coaches for one payment of $97, with no subscription. And through October 12, you’ll also get my complete step-by-step tutorial for building your own Personal Insight Library free with your purchase. Access Build My Coach and secure your free Insight Library tutorial!
What if the most useful thing you’ve ever learned could actually find you when you needed it? Think about how many times you’ve read a book, listened to a podcast, sat through a sermon or heard something in a coaching conversation and thought: Oh my gosh. I need to remember that. Then real life happens. Six weeks later, you’re in the argument. Standing in the kitchen. Making the decision. Talking yourself out of the thing you said you wanted. And that incredible insight? Nowhere to be found. The insight existed. Access to the insight didn’t. That is the problem I’ve become obsessed with solving. For the last year and a half, I’ve been exploring what becomes possible when we stop using AI like a blank box that knows a lot of stuff and start deliberately training it on the information, frameworks, perspectives and context we actually want it to know. The result is something I genuinely believe can change the way we access coaching, perspective and even our own accumulated wisdom. It’s called Build My Coach, and today I’m finally showing you what I built. In this episode, we’re talking about why having great information is not the same as being able to use it, why we can spend years working hard on the wrong problem, what happens when you reach the edge of your own perspective, and why the moment you need coaching almost never happens to be the moment your coach is available. I’ll also show you what changed when I realized AI could do more than retrieve information. It could be trained to coach, and it could learn the person being coached. That led me to build three highly personalized AI coaches: Your Defense Coach, built to help in the moments when you’re talking yourself into the exception, excuse or choice that threatens to take you off course. Your Personalized Coach, built around your goals, patterns, history, circumstances and the way you need to be coached, with the ability to know you better the more you use it. EBGPT, giving you access to more than 13 years of my coaching, 2,000+ podcast episodes, programs, frameworks and body of work without requiring you to remember where I taught the thing you need. But while I was building all of this, I realized something: I wanted this for everything else I learn, too. I recently finished a marriage book filled with insights I desperately wanted to remember. Ask me right now for the most important ones. I can’t remember them. And I JUST read the book. So I started building something for myself that I’m now giving you as a launch bonus: BONUS: Build Your Personal Insight Library I’m going to show you how to create your own AI-powered library of the things you want available at your fingertips. The book that changed how you think about your marriage. The podcast that taught you something important about your career. The sermon you never wanted to forget. The course you paid for three years ago. Your own notes, realizations and insights. Not just stored somewhere. Accessible when you actually need them. The full step-by-step bonus training will be delivered October 12 and is included when you purchase Build My Coach during this launch. Get Build My Coach for $97 Three highly personalized AI coaches. One payment of $97. No subscription. Plus Build Your Personal Insight Library during this launch. Get Build My Coach here Build My Coach for $97
I usually try to say hard things gently. This episode is what happens when I stop softening them. I’m sharing three opinions I feel strongly about, even though they may make some people uncomfortable. We’re talking about the attention we keep giving to fear, the resources we leave unused, and one choice many people will deeply regret continuing to postpone. None of this is coming from a place of having it all figured out. I give myself these same lectures. But there comes a point when insight, frustration, and good intentions have to turn into action. Also mentioned in this episode: I recently answered member questions about time management, prioritization, following through, and managing the very real load of life over on Substack. Listen to the members-only Time Management Q&A here. Join me on Substack: https://substack.com/@elizabethbentonthompson