Overcoming Loneliness at Rock Bottom: A Guide for Entrepreneurs

Welcome to the Paul Vette podcast. For high performers who know 90 percent is not an option. There's been one choice that has brought me to the bottom of the pit and at the same time has also freed me. And now I want you to know that you don't necessarily have to make a choice that does both for you. Liberating perhaps, but it doesn't have to be quite so monumental. That one choice I made was that I went to live in Mallorca. Because I was DJing there and I was supposed to stay for 2 weeks. A month back in the Netherlands and then 2 weeks performing there again. But because of my expertise in hospitality, I was invited to be part of a management team. I said yes to that, because I only had a few gigs in the Netherlands, so I decided to keep flying back and forth from Mallorca to the Netherlands. But what turned out? It was a bubble, it was a castle in the air there. So when I had lived there for 3 months and came back to the Netherlands, I didn't get that promised bag of money. While I had incurred costs during those months. So that meant personal bankruptcy. I was really at rock bottom. And then I broke. Because in that moment of lying at the bottom of the pit, a ray of sunshine had come into me. And that ray of sunshine had come in the form of a lady who had demolished my walls in one go. So that meant I suddenly had an opening in my body. An opening for feeling, whereas before I was just a walking head. And because that small opening was there, the possibility came for me to break in the presence of another while I was lying at the bottom of the pit. And yes, you can literally ask someone, hey, can you help me? But the moment you break in the presence of someone who loves you, start crying, they also see that as a kind of cry for help, I can tell you. A super painful moment of course, because I had to admit I just can't do it alone anymore. I really couldn't do it alone anymore either. But after that I really didn't get better. A bit better, but not much better at accepting help. I started entrepreneurship, continued with entrepreneurship because as a DJ and producer and before that as a bar owner I was also an entrepreneur. And I know that so many stress factors come at you as an entrepreneur. Yeah, you can't share all of those with people. It has no use either, because you just have to fix them. But still, it eats at you. And sometimes so many of those stress factors come together. And then it might even seem like things are going completely wrong in your life, in your business, that you also encounter yourself again at that bottom of the pit. And I also wonder, do you know these kinds of moments? Yeah, how did you feel there? Did you feel pressure then? Did you actually feel motivated? Or did you also feel fear there, like I also felt? And I know that bottom of the pit is terrible. And there you don't feel understood at all. And most entrepreneurs then even take on too much ownership. Because then they see everything that went wrong and take the blame for it. Which by the way is a good quality. But not when you see it as blame, not when it puts too much pressure on you. So I wonder, at what moment in recent years were you at that high? So not in that low, but at what moment were you in the high? So did you see the light, did you have that success? It's just important for a moment not to keep reminding yourself that that bottom of the pit was there too. The advantage is when you think about the high and you think back to the moments of loneliness and lack of understanding at the bottom of a pit. Yeah, then you can also see that from a distance. Now I of course wish for you that that bottom of the pit no longer feels like the bottom of the pit. Of course you can then push off from there. So yes, you may also accept extremely much pressure. Especially if you can deal with it well. Because you can also use that as boundaries, as reference points like 'Okay, now something needs to happen. I recognize all that.' But you don't have to lie alone at the bottom of the pit. There are ways, 2 ways to help you with this. And in this episode of the Paul Vette podcast I want to do that with you. I want to give you those 2 tools. One is very logical, but one we never think about. Because the moment you're lying at the bottom of the pit, there's really only 1 big problem at hand. The rest seems secondary. But that one big problem, we often don't dare to share with people. And I'm not going to ask you to do that either, otherwise you wouldn't listen to this episode at all if you wanted to do that. If you do want to do that, then that's obviously the best solution. But what we forget is that we also experience other problems simultaneously. Not that one big problem that pushes us completely to the bottom of the pit, but there are other problems you also experience. And what I want you to do is discuss one of the smaller problems or some of the smaller problems with people. With people you trust. Because the moment you can discuss small problems with another person, you automatically get the feeling that you're not alone. And that big problem that you really don't have to share with people is going to feel a lot lighter. Really. I always apply this myself too, because that big problem on one hand I can discuss it with people, but it just has little use because I also see it as a source of strength. Often chaos is also an opportunity. Precisely in that big problem there's always a brilliant solution that takes you a whole lot further in one go. Because that problem didn't arise in your business or in your life for nothing. There's an opportunity underneath it. But the moment you dare to discuss the other small problems, even if you just discuss them with others, you feel a certain form of support somewhere. And that support helps you to see that bigger problem just a bit lighter. Maybe even to be able to look at it with a bit more distance. And then if all goes well, you'll at least no longer feel lonely and will feel understood while you're still going to tackle that big problem alone. That works fantastically. That really works very well. And I also wonder, what feeling does it evoke in you when you think of yes, suppose there's something brilliant in that big problem, what could that mean for you? Yeah, that feeling that might open up then, yeah, that's really gold. That's really gold. Then the second solution, it's really fantastic. You need visualization ability for that, but you do have that. You can think in pictures or in images. What I want you to do is that the moment you think about lying at that bottom of the pit alone, you then imagine that there's also an adult version of you who has already fixed this problem once. And you can just engage your imagination. Because every problem you've experienced in your life so far has already been fixed by you once. So there's a version of you, an adult version, and you can imagine it in the future or just think back to the moment when you felt yes, there I was really powerful, there I felt strong, there I was on top of my game. When you think of that person of yourself and then feel how that person feels. So maybe powerful, maybe actually calm, maybe peaceful, maybe more zoomed out. As if that's a helicopter view version of yourself. It can all happen, but feel how that person feels who just fixes problems. And the moment you feel that person, you can as it were look from a distance at the person lying at the bottom of the pit. And you can say to them: 'Hey, it's going to be okay. I'm going to fix it.' Just those words alone. You can think them or say them out loud 'Hey it's going to be okay, I'm going to fix it'. And what's interesting then is that you feel more connected to yourself. Feel it, you automatically feel more connected to yourself, now, in this moment. When you think: hey, I'm that fixer, I'm that closer, I ensure that I'm on top of my game. I'm that powerful person, that calm person, that decisive person, that person with willpower, that person with passion and fire. When you connect with that, you feel different. Then it feels better and you even feel more connected to yourself. Less alone, more understood. And that's really not because I'm talking to you, maybe a little bit, but especially because you're talking to yourself in a different way than you're used to. And this is a tip of the iceberg of my PIS method, the Permanent Identity Shift, where I help people, guide entrepreneurs, also artists and top athletes, to connect with the best version of themselves, to use that terminology for a moment. And at that moment, when you actually go through the 5 steps I've designed, it's not even just that you'll only be able to look at your past and it won't affect you much anymore. Because many people want to leave their past behind them. No, I wouldn't do that, because in your past you've developed primal talents and primal strength that are still stored there. And I want you to extract them and integrate them into the person you are now. That from there you create an environment for yourself that nourishes you, that helps you grow. From where you can even activate and improve your performance, cultivate and grow it. Faster and more effectively than when you're just going to do this through life experience. Which by the way is a very powerful way. And then the last step is always the permanent identity shift where you really completely burn the bridge back to the person you were and fully connect with the person you can and want to be. 2 spots per month are available. Request an intake via Paulvad dot com slash intake. And who knows, maybe we'll see each other there. Did you find this valuable? Then share it with other high-performers. For those who also don't settle for average. --- This transcript has been translated from Dutch.