In this solo episode of Live On Purpose Radio, Dr. Paul Jenkins takes on the question he has heard most often in three decades of clinical work: why do I do what I do when I know what I know? His answer starts with an image. Picture yourself stuck inside a box, with the instructions for getting out printed on the outside. You can’t read them from where you’re standing, and that has nothing to do with intelligence, motivation, or capability. It is a matter of perspective, and it is the first reason he gives for why all of us need coaches.
We experience everything from inside our own minds, Dr. Paul explains, and our biggest error is believing what we think. Assumptions don’t feel like assumptions. They feel like reality, which is why blind spots stay blind. He shares a moment from a retreat with his coach Jody Moore, where two dozen people each took an hour in the hot seat over three full days. When his turn came, he laid out everything going on in his business and his mind, then paused for the coaching. Jody’s whole response was, “Well, that’s a thought.” He had believed he was describing his circumstances. She showed him he was describing his thoughts about them. A coach, he adds, does not know your life better than you do. What a coach has is the one thing you cannot give yourself: an outside perspective.
The second reason is that information is not transformation. Dr. Paul returns to the difference between breakthrough learning, when the lights come on, and transformational learning, when practice slowly changes who you are, and compares it to learning the piano until his hands knew where to go without thinking. Then he adds the third piece: another human. Change happens in relationship. A promise made only to yourself usually leaves a back door cracked open, and telling a coach or accountability partner closes it. He explains the difference between real friends and deal friends, and why he felt free to make his coaching relationships entirely about his own growth. He loves the way his daughter defines commitment: doing what you said you’d do after the feeling you had when you said it has passed.
The episode closes with an invitation. Maybe you don’t need another book, another podcast, or another breakthrough. Maybe the instructions are already printed on the outside of your box, and you need someone standing outside it to read them to you. Dr. Paul built Positives to support both kinds of learning, with daily, weekly, and monthly practices plus private and group coaching. There’s a free sample at liveonpurposeradio.com/positives. Learn more about the show at liveonpurposeradio.com and about Dr. Paul’s work at drpauljenkins.com.
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