Inspiration Station - The Transitional Period Pt 2 (Slow Down To Speed Up)

Every success journey includes valleys between where we've been and where we want to go. These transitional periods aren't detours—they're essential refining processes that prepare us for what's next.

Most high-achievers resist transitions, viewing them as frustrating slowdowns when we desperately want to accelerate. But what if slowing down is precisely what enables our future speed? What if these uncomfortable middle spaces are where our most significant transformations occur?

The refining of precious metals provides a powerful metaphor for understanding transitions. Gold becomes beautiful and valuable only after enduring thousands of degrees of heat, allowing impurities to rise to the surface and be removed. Similarly, our transitions immerse us in discomfort that brings hidden weaknesses, limiting beliefs, and unnecessary baggage to light. The process isn't pretty—it involves friction, tension, and sometimes pain—but it produces something pure and valuable.

Consistency emerges as the crucial factor that carries us through transitions. As shared in Galatians 6:9, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." The most successful people aren't necessarily the most talented; they're the ones who master consistency through mundane tasks, especially when progress seems slow. Robin Sharma captures this perfectly: "Small daily improvements over time lead to stunning results."

What's holding you back might be the very things you're carrying from your past—others' expectations, outdated identities, or comfort with familiar limitations. True growth requires traveling light. Are you ready to embrace your transition, shed what no longer serves you, and discover the gold being formed through your current discomfort? Join us as we continue exploring how to navigate transitions effectively and transform them from obstacles into launchpads for your future.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to the Inspiration Station
• 1:35 Continuing Our Conversation on Transitions
• 4:10 Why We Misunderstand Transitions
• 7:00 Consistency as Your Superpower
• 9:15 The Refining Process of Gold
• 12:28 Choosing Growth Over Comfort

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Welcome to the World of Warcraft. Today, we are going to play a game called Warcraft 3. This is a game that you can play with your friends, or with your friends, or with your friends, or with your friends, or with your friends, or with your friends. Welcome back to the Inspiration Station, and they call me Mr U. I'm your host, mr U. Thanks again for watching and listening. This is the All Purpose Pod for an all-purpose life. Wherever you are and however you're listening to this episode. Thanks again for making us a part of your week.

Speaker 1: 0:55

We decided to be back with you. Last time we had a discussion about transitions, how we get through them, what they are. We're going to continue that conversation. It seems to me that it's been resonating with many of you, so we're definitely going to get into that a little bit more. Just a quick update as well. There's been a few changes to our overall format and all of the shows on our brand, but as it pertains to the Inspiration Station, we've decided we're going to be going audio only. We may have a pop-up video episode from time to time, but for the most part, the Inspiration Station on the Call Me Mr U brand is going to be audio only it seems to be really resonating with people who have busy lifestyles and that's kind of who we're speaking to People who are homeschooling their kids, they're jogging, doing laundry on a morning commute to work, maybe sitting in their cubicle listening to the show. So we've heard all of those things put some more examples. So we're going to try to make this easy for you to get our show and get these actionable tips, strategies and advice to kind of help you win the day. So we're excited about what is going on so far.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Let's pick up what we left off the last time. Now. We were talking about transition. We talked a bit about what a transition was last week and kind of one example of what it looks like. Let's get into some more.

Speaker 1: 2:24

It really feels as though to me that we're not really handling the whole transitional thing very well. I think we're misreading what it looks like and what it's supposed to do for us. I think a lot of times people see transition, especially if you're an A-type personality like myself. So I'm talking about myself, not really talking about you, kind of telling on myself a little bit here. But if you're an A-type personality, a transition is basically a forced shutdown or forced slowdown, if you will. You have left the area where you know it wasn't profitable for you, it wasn't beneficial or effective for you to be in that place, so you're moving on to bigger and better things. I think we all want that on a success journey.

Speaker 1: 3:13

Nothing new to report there, but what happens is that in the transition, we're not speeding up or speeding toward the goal, this future goal that we have for ourselves. This picture of what we think we should look like, or our financial picture or our emotional picture should look like, or even our entrepreneurial picture should look like we're not speeding toward. It feels like we're slowing down. Maybe that's true. Maybe it's just our perception. I kind of lean to the other side. I think it is kind of true we're slowing down. Maybe that's true. Maybe it's just our perception. I kind of lean to the other side. I think it is kind of true we are slowing down.

Speaker 1: 3:50

There's some great business minds that believe and I agree with them that in order to speed up, sometimes you have to slow down. Take an assessment of where you are, what season of life you're in, and then proceed accordingly. A lot of times we want to speed and barrel through what we need to learn, just so we can get to the next thing, to the other stuff, to the big stuff. But that's really not ever been good for us and I can't think of anybody who's ever done that where it's been beneficial for them. Transitions, in short, are slowdowns, but they're slowdowns so that we can speed up Slowdowns, so that we can get our bearings and then we can accelerate into the new beginnings that we're heading into anyways. So I'm trying to let you know in short order that transitions are not something to be angry about. Transitions are not something that you should run from or try to hide from, or try to overlook or try to just get through and get over with. Transitions are beneficial for you to have the transformation, the acceleration, the impact that you say you want to have Now.

Speaker 1: 5:06

As a high performance coach, I meet with a lot of people. I talk to people who are looking to regain their edge in life. We can talk about that offline if you have any kind of questions about that, but what I'm trying to say here is that I speak to people who have those kind of aspirations and a lot of times the beginning is fantastic. We know what we're trying to accomplish. We understand where the person is, the picture that they see of themselves and their situation, their perception of things. But when it's time to put the rubber to the road, that's when we seem to always have the problem. Anybody that's a coach out there, I'm sure you get what I'm saying. Drop an emoji in the comments section or however you listen to this podcast, because I'm positive you're going to see that in some area of your practice or your process.

Speaker 1: 5:55

When it's time to start putting work in towards the goal that we have, that's where the struggle begins to kick in. That's when the struggle bus is really, really revving up. One thing that we did and we talked about this the last time we talked is that we take a lot of the baggage from the past, all that heavy weight, all those burdens, those ideas that others put on us, those ideas and concepts and views and thoughts that others have put on us and we carry it around like a sack of potatoes on the way to the future that we say we want to have and, honestly, that just never works. We can't get to the future heavy. We got to get to the future light. We have to lose that stuff that wearies us and keeps us from excelling.

Speaker 1: 6:42

There's a passage of scripture that I love and I'll share this with you really quick. It's Galatians 6 and 9. It says let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. So you already know that consistency should be your superpower. Consistency is your superpower. Anybody I've ever met that's been successful on any level, and I've met many people throughout my life that are successful on the highest of levels. They all have one thing in common they didn't have rich relatives. They didn't have a trust fund. What they had was an understanding of the need for consistency, doing the little thing, the mundane things that we need to master, and do those over and over again consistently until they get to their goal, until they reach the pinnacle or the summit of what they're trying to accomplish. Robin Sharma has a great that small daily improvements over time lead to stunning results, and I really believe that when we're in a place of transition, it's not supposed to be comfortable.

Speaker 1: 7:57

People are talking about iron, sharpens iron, and this is a biblical quote, but you hear it all the time now, mostly on sports networks and sports broadcasts. Honestly, not even sure they even understand what they're talking about. When iron sharpens iron, it is friction, it's tension, it's sparks, it's a grating, it's impact, it's fiery. There's nothing cute about it. When we're in transition there's nothing cute about that. There's nothing cute about it when we in transition there's nothing cute about that. There's nothing cute about being uncomfortable. There's nothing cute about being in a place of tension and restriction. There's nothing cute about that.

Speaker 1: 8:39

Most people I know love the look of gold or silver, especially when it's authentic and it's real. It's a beautiful metal. It makes beautiful jewelry, beautiful rings. Gold and silver is just beautiful. We got to thank God for that. It's just beautiful. It's God made. But if you watch the process if you ever watched it on public television or any kind of documentary watch how silver and gold is refined. Watch how it gets to the place where it's looking like the metal that you enjoy, that you love to wear, that you love to have in your home. The refining process isn't cute and I'm likening this to transition because I want you to get a visual picture of what we're talking about in this transition series.

Speaker 1: 9:32

If you will, first off, for gold and silver to be refined, it has to go into intense heat. I've got the number for how hot it is, but it's thousands of degrees of intense heat. Gold and silver goes into that. It's fully immersed into this heat, into this crucible, if you will. And what happens next is not cute either. First off, you're being fully immersed into intense heat, boiling liquid. It's like sticking your hand into a volcano when it's about to erupt. You get what I'm saying, you get the visual. Nothing cute or sexy about this. It's really really powerful, but it's intense.

Speaker 1: 10:22

After that it begins to shed parts of itself, things that are layers, things that are maybe perhaps filthy or perhaps undesirable on the gold and the silver. It begins to shed that while it's being immersed in this intense heat. Then, after a good bit of time in this heat I don't remember how many hours it was, but you can bet it was more than 10 minutes in this heat the impurities, or what they call the dross D-R-O-S-S, begins to rise to the top. So it can be cleared out, so that what remains is the pure gold and silver, without defect, without blemish and without, most importantly, without impurities in it.

Speaker 1: 11:13

That refining process that gold and silver goes through to get it to look as good as you love it to look when you see it, transition that valley that we all have to go through between what we want and where we've been it has a refining quality to it. We all want to get from our past to the future. It's a goal for all of us and we all share it. It's a shared vision, you will. But in the middle of that there's always Transition.

Speaker 1: 11:48

We can't avoid that, we can't get around it. We definitely can't drag banks from the past, people's expectation of who we're supposed to be and who they think we should be. We have to Lose that luggage and continue to go forward. I'm amazed that people will continue to consider choosing bondage and slavery and ineffectiveness and oppression over a place that just feels insecure in the moment but it just feels uncertain. I wish we had more time. I feel like we're going to be on transition for a little while longer, so I'm excited about this, but I wanted to make sure that we kind of had a perspective about where we were going with this. So thank you for continuing to listen to the Inspiration Station and recall me, mr U, we're not done just yet. A lot more transitional talk to come and some call to actions to put you to work on the success journey. Have a great day. Thanks again for watching and listening.