SUMMER REPLAY: IAN CRON: The Path to Flourishing—and Freedom

Episode Transcript

Note: Transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the episode audio or video for exact quotes.

[00:00:00] Megan: Hey everybody, it’s Megan Hyatt Miller here, and hey, just a reminder, The Double Win Show is taking the summer off. Hope you have great things planned for the summer, but listen, we will be back in early September with some brand new episodes that are fantastic. We can’t wait to share those with you. In the meantime, we’re gonna be sharing some of our very best episodes from the past few years.

[00:00:20] You’re not gonna wanna miss them, and I bet you haven’t listened to all these yet, but you’re gonna want to. So here’s one of those now.

[00:00:27] Ian: People get sick in secret, they get well together. That’s part of the magic of community, right? Is you tend to get sick and stay sick alone in isolation. That’s why connection, as Johann Hari says, is the opposite of addiction.

[00:00:44] It’s not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is community.

[00:00:49] Michael: I am Michael Hyatt.

[00:00:49] Megan: And I’m Megan Hyatt Miller

[00:00:51] Michael: And you’re listening to the Double Win Show, where we talk about how to win at work and succeed at life. And on today’s show, we interview our pal, Ian Cron.

[00:01:00] Megan: Oh my goodness, you guys, this conversation is gonna blow your mind.

[00:01:06] Ian has a new book out. I’ll tell you a little bit about him in a second, but he has a new book out called The Fix. The subtitle is How the 12 Steps Offer a Surprising Path of Transformation for the Well-Adjusted, the Down-and-Out, and Everyone in Between. And this is really a show for everyone. Whether or not you are a person who identifies with addiction, has addiction in your family, whatever, it doesn’t really matter because what Ian talks about in this podcast is something he calls the big ache, this kind of longing that we have inside of us that shows up personally and professionally, for which we try to solve for with all kinds of things, all the obvious addictions, of course, but many that aren’t so obvious and are much more insidious.

[00:01:48] And I guarantee there will be something in here that will resonate with you that’s standing in the way of what you want out of your life, that is sabotaging your best efforts to get the double win, to win at work and succeed at life. So if you don’t know Ian, he is the author of one of our absolute favorite books, The Road Back to You, as well as his newest book, The Fix, as I said.

[00:02:09] Um, what’s really cool about Ian is that he is, uh, kind of a Renaissance man. He is an Episcopal priest. He’s a psychotherapist. He’s an Enneagram expert. He’s a best-selling author. He’s also a coach, an executive coach to some of the most successful business owners and entrepreneurs and founders that are out there.

[00:02:30] Um, and he really brings all those pieces together in his work in a way that is holistic and deeply meaningful and life-giving, and I think that’s the word that I would use to describe this conversation, is that it is life-giving. Um, so without further ado, here’s our conversation with Ian

[00:02:51] Michael: Ian, so great to see you. Thanks for coming on.

[00:02:53] Ian: Michael, Megan, I’m bubbling with excitement that we get to be together.

[00:02:57] Megan: Me too, because I, uh, started your book, The Fix, this morning. I have to be honest and say that I have not finished it yet, but let me see. I am 21 pages in, and my head is exploding, and people, stop what you’re doing right now.

[00:03:12] Go to Amazon, order this book. You need it. You want it. We’ll tell you why in the subsequent minutes of the show. But I think this is gonna be a fantastic conversation for anybody listening. And, you know, as we were talking in your bio in the intro to the show today, this is not a show or a conversation just for people who self-identify as either being in recovery or dealing with addiction.

[00:03:40] This is all of us, right?

[00:03:42] Ian: It absolutely is. I think everybody exists on the addiction continuum. It’s part of the human condition. Beauty of the 12 steps, which we’ll talk about, I’m sure, as we go along here, is that everyone can derive the same benefits from them that people who do identify as people in recovery.

[00:04:02] And I guess my secret hope is everybody discovers them, everybody gets in recovery, and enjoys the peace, freedom, and joy that is their birthright.

[00:04:12] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:12] Michael: I was a little skeptical when you told me the title and what this book was about. ‘Cause first of all, it wasn’t anything so much about the subject matter, but I thought, “How is he gonna improve or surpass what he did with The Road Back to You?”

[00:04:25] I recommend that to everybody, all my clients. You know, such an amazing book, and you know, the sales prove it. Are you over a million copies now?

[00:04:33] Ian: Yes, pretty well over.

[00:04:35] Michael: That’s crazy. Well, I’m just proud to know you.

[00:04:38] Ian: Thank you, my friend.

[00:04:40] Michael: Well, let’s start at the beginning, for people that don’t know you. And by the way, if you like this episode, I’d encourage you to go back in our archives because, uh, I was just thinking this morning, we interviewed you over two shows previously where we talked about productivity about, uh, by the numbers, and that was all about the Enneagram and its impact on productivity, but this is a different topic.

[00:05:00] But I’d like you to just do a fast catch-up for us of, first of all, just sort of your career path. We’ll get into all that stuff. We’ve given you the basic bio stuff. But then how you, you went from the last book to this book. What got you interested? What was the inciting incident that, that led you to this topic?

[00:05:18] Ian: Yeah. So I enjoy a portfolio life. I’m a coach, I’m a psychotherapist, I am a trained spiritual director. Adjacent to all that, I am an Episcopal priest, a speaker, you know, author. It… So I, I have so many buckets and streams, it’s hard to know what I’m supposed to do on a given day, but I love each and every one of them.

[00:05:41] And each of them serves my life purpose, which is to introduce and facilitate for people experiences that deepen and improve their lives.

[00:05:52] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:52] Ian: Hence, the Enneagram. I came across the Enneagram. After years of studying it, I’m like, “Okay, I gotta share this with people.” Then I first went into recovery in 1987 from alcoholism, participated in 12-step groups for a number of years, stopped for multiple decades, or periodically went.

[00:06:11] You know, would sprinkle in and out. I like to say, looking back, that I was only auditing the course. I, I hadn’t signed up for credit yet. Then back in COVID, I had a relapse that, uh, took me to treatment. I kept that very personal and private-

[00:06:28] Michael: You did …

[00:06:28] Ian: and, uh, did my work for the last four years and decided, because of the impact that 12 steps have had on my life personally, professionally, spiritually, in every domain, that it was time to share what I had learned, which is my pattern, right?

[00:06:45] I don’t, uh, come in as the expert usually in any of my books, but really as a co-journeyer with other people and say, “Hey, look what I found. Come and see if there’s something here for you.”

[00:06:55] Megan: You know, as I have been thinking a lot lately about the idea of human flourishing, and, you know, what does it mean to be fully alive, fully present in your life, able to savor the good things, to exercise contentment, and really want the life that you have, not just one that you’re trying to create in the future.

[00:07:15] It occurs to me in the beginning of your book that one of the biggest things that stands in the way of that is the problem of pain and suffering and trauma. And as you talk about this kind of longing for, you know, something that we don’t even necessarily know that we have, but this… You, you call it the big ache, uh, in the book.

[00:07:35] You know, that we know we’re made for more, and that in many ways this world falls terribly short of what we’re made for. And I think we really have to reckon with, what are we gonna do about the pain and suffering? And that’s really where addiction comes in. So can you talk a little bit about what addiction really is and, and what it’s not, and how it relates kind of to that larger spiritual experience that we have as humans.

[00:08:02] Ian: Well, to begin, Megan, great question. Addictions are very, very complex. Mm-hmm. So we don’t have time to unpack all of them, right? Okay. It has to do with the way our brains are wired. It has to- Mm-hmm … so it’s, there’s a physiological component, there’s a social component, a familial component, trauma component, economic component, frankly.

[00:08:22] Mm-hmm. So it’s just, it’s a spiritual component, and so I would just define an addiction for the, our purposes as an unhealthy compulsive relationship with a person, a behavior, or a substance that has mood altering effects. Mm-hmm. In other words, it numbs the big ache, as you call it-

[00:08:42] Megan: Mm …

[00:08:43] Ian: and negative consequences.

[00:08:45] Let’s make up a guy. His name is Bob. Bob is a workaholic. He’s CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He’s traveling two weeks out of the year transcontinentally.

[00:08:54] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:54] Ian: And he can’t stop working. Bob’s solution to the big ache, it has become work. He’s over identified who he is with work. His self-esteem is bolstered by, and held up in, by his success and by the measure of his, uh, wealth and prestige And, uh, it begin– it has mood altering effects, right?

[00:09:17] It makes him feel good. It makes him feel powerful. It makes him… Right? And it has negative consequences eventually. Mm-hmm. He has lost marriages. He’s estranged from children or doesn’t know them very well. They’re angry with him. By the way, Bob is actually a conflation of many of my coaching clients.

[00:09:32] Megan: Yeah.

[00:09:33] Ian: I bet. Okay?

[00:09:34] Michael: I can’t relate.

[00:09:35] Ian: Yeah. And so Bob has an addiction, right? And as equally damaging in many ways as any drug or alcohol addiction. Mm-hmm. Now, Bob could also be addicted to porn at the same time. Bob could also be addicted to alcohol, which is very common among the, that particular strata of the population.

[00:09:53] Mm-hmm. So he’s not just mono addicted, he’s poly addicted, right? Yeah. You know, this is how people move through the world, many, many people. It’s very interesting. I was reading a study just before I got on here. Do you know how many work days of productivity are lost every year? This was of, as of 2002, as a result of addictions.

[00:10:14] Megan: Hmm. No.

[00:10:15] Ian: 500 million work days.

[00:10:18] Megan: Hello.

[00:10:18] Ian: Whoa. That is a government statistic.

[00:10:21] Megan: Wow.

[00:10:22] Ian: Lost productivity as the result of addictions.

[00:10:24] Michael: That’s amazing.

[00:10:26] Ian: Yeah. 500 million days.

[00:10:28] Megan: That’s crazy. You know, just to tell kind of a personal story, uh, that, uh, that really has been on my mind lately. For me, I think this shows up online, like, um- Hmm

[00:10:39] social media. Hmm. And I think this is maybe the most socially acceptable addiction that’s going right now because it’s just so insidious and woven into every, every fabric of our lives in many ways. You know, our phones, our iPads, our computers, you know, just screens in general, the addictive nature of that.

[00:10:58] But You know, I, I realized a couple of weeks ago that, you know, I’d tried, like, all the screen time stuff. You know, I’d tried all the kind of external things of, like, maybe I could, to use a, a metaphor, instead of drinking three drinks a night, I could maybe just have half a drink a night, and that would be okay.

[00:11:14] You know? Just, I’ll just moderate it. And what I realized was, is that, that kind of, like, dopamine reward cycle that’s happening, you know, when you have the, the Instagram app open and you’re searching things and whatever, there’s kind of not moderation for me there. Like, it… I’m no match for the algorithm is the bottom line, you know?

[00:11:31] It just keeps giving me eye candy, all these great things, whether it’s how to create a garden or, you know, some interior design thing, you know, all the, all the pretty things that I love. And so I decided to take it off of my phone and what… and, and just, you know, log out of everything and, and whatever.

[00:11:47] And what was so, what’s been so fascinating to me is that I feel like I’m getting my brain back-

[00:11:54] Ian: Mm-hmm …

[00:11:54] Megan: or my heart back. It’s like- Mm … what was actually happening was I was anesthetizing myself where I was just kind of numb and unable to have complete thoughts. And also, you know, many people can relate to this, I would, you know, go kinda down the scrolling, the doom scroll.

[00:12:11] It wasn’t really doom. It was actually, like, pretty nice things in many ways, but I’d, you know, be on for an hour or two at the end of a long day, you know, kind of swapped out the evening cocktail for the evening, uh, descent into Instagram. But I would be, you know, be finally time to go to bed, and I would feel kind of frazzled and empty and just very unsatisfied.

[00:12:34] Yes. And, and I just thought, “This is not working for me anymore, and I’m gonna get to the end of my life, and I’m gonna realize that I was spending five, six, seven, eight hours a day on screen time on my phone.” Obviously, not just on Instagram, but still a significant portion of that. And, like, that’s not a life.

[00:12:51] It’s just not a life. All the best things in life happen when we’re away from our screens, when we’re not numb in some way. Then I thought, “I’m gonna need to do something pretty radical here,” because I, what I found is that any time a situation was, uh, uncomfortable or I didn’t like it, like I’m sitting on the couch with my five-year-old and I’m just kinda like, I need to tune out ’cause it’s too much sensory input, or she’s watching a mindless show that I don’t really wanna watch, you know, I’m on my phone, and then I’m annoyed when the kids interrupt me.

[00:13:22] And so there were real negative consequences. Now, this is kind of like in the more what we might consider more benign addiction compared to like I lost my job because of it or something like that. But I also think it’s still destructive. And so anyway, all that to say it’s like what we want… This addiction is such a counterfeit for what we really want.

[00:13:44] It, it’s like we’re gonna try to solve an inside problem with an outside solution, and it doesn’t work.

[00:13:48] Ian: No. And that never works, and it’s always self-escalating.

[00:13:51] Megan: Yep.

[00:13:52] Ian: It’s always gonna get worse and worse and worse.

[00:13:54] Michael: Okay, I wanna talk about that. I suspect, though I haven’t studied it, that there’s levels of addiction.

[00:14:01] Do you have a framework for that? You know, like somebody that’s like functional, and then somebody- Yeah … just like totally incapacitated. There’s probably a lot of gradations to that.

[00:14:08] Ian: Yeah, and we even have that in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. We have mild- Mm-hmm … moderate, and severe addiction.

[00:14:15] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:15] Ian: But, you know, whether you’re tethered like a bird to your perch by a chain or a thread, you’re still tethered- Hmm … to the perch.

[00:14:26] Megan: Yeah.

[00:14:26] Ian: So you could have the chain of heroin or you could have the thread of workaholism or whatever or the rope, all the gradations in between, but you’re still tethered, right?

[00:14:35] Mm-hmm. The result is the same. And human beings are always on the prowl for a fix. Yep. Looking for something to distract or numb the big ache of what it means to be simply human-

[00:14:50] Megan: Yeah …

[00:14:51] Ian: living in a world where as spiritual creatures, that’s my conviction, who desperately yearn for an experience of union with their higher power, God- Mm-hmm

[00:15:00] as I choose to call Him.

[00:15:02] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:02] Ian: And when we don’t have that Right? We go in search of counterfeits like the ones you articulated- Yeah … so beautifully.

[00:15:10] Megan: Okay, can you talk a little bit more about the big ache, what it, what it really is, and how it shows up as kind of desire or longing in our lives?

[00:15:20] Ian: Let’s just face the fact that all human beings are fundamentally restless, at times irritable.

[00:15:25] There’s a sense of discontent- Mm-hmm … a feeling of emptiness, anxiety, depression. We sometimes call it anhedonia, the, this sort of inner dullness at times. And in my spiritual tradition, this is described beautifully, right? The solution to that is spiritual, but we keep looking for behavioral and chemical ways to- Hmm

[00:15:49] address it, and that’s called spiritual bypassing. We’re going around God in search of some other solution to the big ache. Hmm. When… And as I mention in the book, right, from the Hebrew scriptures, right, like, that’s called drinking from the wrong well. That’s like- Yeah … going to the hardware store to buy bread, right?

[00:16:09] You, you’re shopping in the wrong place.

[00:16:11] Megan: Looking for love in all the wrong places-

[00:16:13] Ian: Yep, exactly …

[00:16:15] Megan: as

[00:16:15] Ian: the old song says. Yes. And so, so much of the 12-step journey, you know, is about… People really misunderstand it. They see shows where 12-step groups are meeting, which are always, by the way, utterly false. I have never seen one that captures- Really?

[00:16:29] what actually happens in a meeting. You do not have a bunch of people sitting around watching each other not drink. Hey, look at Bob. He’s really not drinking well, isn’t he? That’s not what happens. In fact, they’re always so glum on TV, when in reality you go to a meeting and the first thing newcomers say is, “I couldn’t believe how much laughter and joy there was.”

[00:16:48] Megan: Wow.

[00:16:49] Ian: Yeah, just tons of it. And we don’t sit around just talking about not drinking. We, we sit around talking about how do we become the highest expressions of ourselves who have moved from these egocentric lives to theocentric, God-centered lives-

[00:17:04] Megan: Hmm …

[00:17:04] Ian: right? And how can we become of maximum service to our fellows?

[00:17:08] And the whole point of them, and people don’t realize this, here’s the whole point of 12 steps, they are to facilitate a spiritual awakening of sufficient force that it expels the need or the desire for any outside solutions to internal- Hmm … problems. So literally-

[00:17:28] Megan: Wow. Can you say that again? Like, that was a lot.

[00:17:30] Michael: Can you say that again? Yeah, repeat that one a little bit.

[00:17:31] Ian: Okay, I hope I can.

[00:17:34] Megan: That was brilliant. Do it again.

[00:17:35] Ian: The whole point of the 12-step program is to facilitate a spiritual awakening of sufficient force that it expels the need for external solutions to internal problems. It, you know, e.g. alcohol, drugs, workaholism- Mm

[00:17:53] porn. Insert your fix of choice here, right? Mm-hmm. It just renders them unnecessary. And so- Mm … for example, I’m an alcoholic and a drug addict, okay? Mm-hmm. I go to Christmas parties. I’m around people who drink all the time. I do not get up every day and go, “Oh, man, oh, man, I gotta hang on by my eyelids,” you know?

[00:18:12] I don’t even think about mood-altering substances. I don’t even think about them because that desire has been replaced by what I was always looking for in the first place- Mm … which was an experience of union with God. And so that now has become the centerpiece of my life, and I have practices to keep it there, in a community that holds me in its care to continue to live that life.

[00:18:42] Megan: Mm.

[00:18:43] Michael: This is so profound. My guess is that there are probably people listening here who are trying to differentiate or discern whether or not they have an addiction. You know, so maybe it’s the guy that, um, or the gal that, you know, they have a drink or two every night, but they don’t get drunk, but it’s every night You know, or they g- they work long hours and they say, “You know, I just love my work,” you know, or, “I’m learning so much.”

[00:19:12] So how do you discern where the bright red line is where this… Let’s just call it what it is, this is an addiction.

[00:19:19] Ian: Well, the way is to test this out, right? One would be are you continuing in a behavior, you, you have this nagging suspicion right on the margins of awareness, you know? That’s sort of going, “Is this a problem?”

[00:19:34] You know what I mean? Like, “Is it… I don’t know.” You just have this sort of discomfiting feeling, right? And then you find yourself doing things like asking a friend to hold you accountable to only having two drinks a night or working- Mm-hmm … so many hours, you know, to hold you accountable, right? Well, that might be a sign.

[00:19:50] ‘Cause if you’re not an addict, you’re not worried about stuff. You know what I mean? Like, you’re not worried about it. Doesn’t even occur to you usually, right? And, uh, I would say another thing is are you beginning to experience negative consequences as a result of the behavior, right?

[00:20:05] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:06] Ian: And if you really wanna test it, just stop and stay stopped, right?

[00:20:11] Just stop. If you can stop and stay stopped, okay, chances are you don’t have an addiction, right?

[00:20:16] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:16] Ian: Are you beginning to experience negative consequences, and can you stop it?

[00:20:20] Megan: What would some of the negative consequences be, especially for the, you know, maybe the less severe addictions? Like, it’s not, it’s not that you’re not showing up to work or you’re passing out on the front lawn or you’re spending money on a credit card that your spouse doesn’t see, but, like, the more…

[00:20:40] The, the ones that are easier to fly under the radar with, what would some of the negative consequences be?

[00:20:46] Ian: Emotional turmoil. It could be relational, right? It’s standing between you and a relationship with another person.

[00:20:53] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:54] Ian: Uh, that’s a big one, right? Yeah. If your partner is saying, “You know, you’ve gotta stop working so much,” or, “You’ve, you’ve gotta cut down on drinking, or you have to…”

[00:21:02] Or shame, hiding, secretiveness.

[00:21:06] Megan: Mm.

[00:21:06] Ian: I feel so hor… You know, porn is a rough addiction.

[00:21:09] Megan: Yeah. Mm.

[00:21:09] Ian: And it’s real. It is real, okay? Mm-hmm. Just the pain and despair, the bewilderment. Why do I keep doing this? The time spent away from people you care about and activities that you love. Mm. I mean, these are all signs that something is going sideways.

[00:21:25] Michael: Would it be fair to say that maybe another sign is that you do this behavior mostly in isolation?

[00:21:31] Ian: Yes. Thank you. Yeah. This is so good, Mike. So what’s so interesting is real happiness, and you had Arthur Brooks on the show recently, so I’m just gonna tap into Arthur for a second. Real happiness comes when you make memories in community.

[00:21:45] Megan: Yeah.

[00:21:46] Ian: You make memories in community, right? You, you go to the beach, you play volleyball, you’re with each other. There’s laughter. There’s joy, and you’re making memories in community. Now, when you look at beer ads on television, have you ever seen one where a guy is sitting on his couch with two six-packs of beer watching football alone?

[00:22:04] Michael: No

[00:22:05] Ian: No. What are they always doing? They’re at a resort, they’re drinking, they’re, uh, they’re laughing, they’re dancing, they’re having fun. Because a beer company wants you to believe that this really is the key to happiness.

[00:22:17] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:18] Ian: Right? But the fact of the matter is, how many people actually do spend a lot of time alone sitting on the couch drinking beer, watching…

[00:22:25] You know, and getting fairly lit up or just under the influence, mood altered. Mm. And, um, it’s happening alone. That’s why I would say that people get sick in secret, they get well together.

[00:22:37] Megan: Mm.

[00:22:38] Ian: That’s part of the magic of community, right? Is you tend to get sick and stay sick alone, in isolation. That’s why connection, as Johann Hari says, is the opposite of addiction.

[00:22:50] It’s not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is community. Ugh.

[00:22:53] Michael: That is so good. So profound

[00:23:01] Okay, so let’s just say that the person listening to this is suspecting that maybe it’s more than a habit, it might be an addiction. Where do they start? Like, they’re not… Because I think the value of your book is, and correct me if I’m wrong, but this would be for people that are in recovery, but even more so for people that haven’t entered into recovery but can still benefit from the, the 12 steps.

[00:23:24] So where do they start?

[00:23:25] Ian: Let’s just, let’s just take addiction off the table just for a second. Let’s say you’re somebody that’s not a particularly suffering from any… You have low-grade addictions in your life, but they’re not really interfering with relationships or work or, you know, your relationship with yourself, God, and others, right?

[00:23:45] You would still derive incredible benefit from the book because it lays out a program for living that is- Mm-hmm … deeply rooted in ancient spiritual truths, right, particularly from the Christian tradition, and you would have a, a program for living, a plan for transformation that would greatly benefit you.

[00:24:02] Mm. Now, for people to… Now specifically to your question, depending on the addiction, if someone’s listening right now and they know I have a drinking problem or I have a prescription medication problem, I have a porn problem, you know, whatever the case may be, an o- an eating problem which is prevalent, addiction to food, the first thing they need to do is step one of the 12 steps, to admit that I am powerless over my substance or my fix of choice, and that it’s making my life unmanageable.

[00:24:32] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:33] Ian: And unmanageable may not mean losing your house, your car, your wife, your kids and all that stuff. That’s severe unmanageability. It could be just emotional, spiritual, mental unmanageability, right? Mm-hmm. If you’re out over your skis, this thing has got a hold of you, and you just don’t know what to do next, right?

[00:24:51] Mm. I would strongly recommend that that person find a therapist with a background in addictions. If they have a severe addiction, I would encourage them to either get to a 12-step meeting immediately or, if it’s pretty far down the road, seek treatment-

[00:25:06] Megan: Mm-hmm …

[00:25:06] Ian: because we need help, right? Like I, I always say the three most courageous words in the world are, “I need help.”

[00:25:12] Megan: Yeah.

[00:25:13] Ian: And by the way, that’s the beginning of true healing. That’s when the relief actually comes, right? I need help. Because the snare of addiction is so powerful and the forces of denial are so great, self-deception, that to get out, to extricate yourself from this problem, you need other people to be involved

[00:25:35] Michael: For the person listening to this that’s contemplating what you just said and reaching out to someone, they feel so much shame that they maybe don’t feel like that there’s a safe space where they can be.

[00:25:48] I mean, is there a way to normalize that feeling and just say, “Look, you’re not alone. That’s very typical.” I mean, what would you say to the person that’s feeling the shame and they just are stuck?

[00:25:59] Ian: Yeah. First of all, it is very normal. Second of all, if they wanna find a, a place where they’re not gonna feel shame for it, right, certainly 12-step communities are that.

[00:26:10] I mean, holy smokes. And there’s about, I don’t know, there are hundreds of 12-step types, you know, for treating different types of addictions and mental health problems, you know. There’s just hundreds of them based on the 12 steps. A therapist certainly isn’t gonna shame you for coming in and saying- Sure

[00:26:27] “You know, I have this problem.” But shame should also be a, a red flag that something really is wrong. And just going back to that Johann Hari quote, because it’s so good, the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, although that’s part of it. It is connection. Mm. It’s community. True. Right? You have to come out of hiding and begin to name the truth.

[00:26:51] You know, you said something to me once, Mike, that is actually quoted in the book. You said to me once something to the effect that the greatest obstacle or the gr- the one thing that stands between you and the, you becoming the highest expression of yourself is the truth.

[00:27:05] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:05] Ian: Something like that? Am I right on

[00:27:07] Michael: that?

[00:27:07] Yeah. I think what I say is, and it’s probably not original with me, but the shortest distance between you- Yes … and the life you want is the truth. Boom. I think Tony Robbins says, “All progress begins with the truth.”

[00:27:19] Ian: Oh my gosh, this is the 12 steps, Mike. This is step one. We’re just gonna get honest. We admit that we’re powerless over blank.

[00:27:26] It could be the kind of kooky enmeshed relationship I have, codependent relationship I have with my wife or my kids or my partner, and it’s making my life unmanageable. That’s the truth.

[00:27:37] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:37] Ian: We begin with the truth. We get honest, right? We do that in the context of community. We do it with another person, and we seek out help, right?

[00:27:45] Mm. The first three steps could be summarized like this. Step one, I can’t. Step two, God can. Step three, I think I’ll let him.

[00:27:58] Michael: For those of us that are not familiar with the 12 steps-

[00:28:00] Ian: Yes …

[00:28:00] Michael: could you elaborate or expand upon that?

[00:28:03] Ian: Sure. The first step, as I mentioned earlier, we admitted we were powerless over a blank, that our lives had become unmanageable.

[00:28:08] There’s “I can’t.”

[00:28:10] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:10] Ian: Step two, came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.

[00:28:15] Michael: Hmm.

[00:28:16] Ian: And let’s think of that word sanity as the word for wholeness.

[00:28:19] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:20] Ian: Step three, made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood Him. Right? So I can’t, God can, I’m gonna let Him, right?

[00:28:31] So people think that powerlessness is actually a shameful thing. We’re constantly told, “Take control. Take back control of your life,” et cetera, et cetera, right? When in reality, powerlessness is a superpower.

[00:28:45] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:45] Ian: When you finally admit, “I am powerless,” or, “I do not have control over nearly as much of life as I think that I do,” suddenly a great, great burden is lifted from your shoulders.

[00:28:57] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:57] Ian: I have had the personal, palpable, felt somatic experience in my own life many times when I have said, “I’m out of ammo.”

[00:29:06] Megan: Hmm. “

[00:29:06] Ian: I’m out of ammo.” And when I’ve said that and I’ve, I’ve turned my gaze toward my higher power, toward God, and said, “I’m out of ammo,” and suddenly it’s almost as if I hear God say, “Oh, good.

[00:29:20] Now we can get somewhere.” Right? ‘Cause my ego always wants to take charge. It wants to believe that it is the star of the show, man. It’s the producer, the director, the screenwriter of this little soap opera we call my life. And what we wanna do, and what the 12 steps helps us to do, is move from an egocentric life to a theocentric life-

[00:29:40] Megan: Hmm

[00:29:40] Ian: where you’re no longer in charge. And that’s a great relief. True. You know, there’s a passage in the, in the New Testament, if it’s okay, and I don’t presume that everybody listening on this show is a person of faith, but I think this is just true, and you can replace the word Christ with what- whatever word you choose.

[00:29:57] “For I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” And then this is the message translation, “My ego is no longer central.”

[00:30:07] Megan: Hmm.

[00:30:08] Michael: Ooh.

[00:30:08] Ian: Yeah, because the word I in that sentence is ego in the original language. For ego, for crisis, crucified my ego, and my ego no longer lives. The life I live now, and then he goes on to say, “My ego is no longer central.”

[00:30:25] Golly whiz, when your ego gets out of the way, it’s a great relief to go from creator to cre- creation here.

[00:30:30] Megan: Mm-hmm. And one of the interesting things, of course you know our family story really well, and our younger three children are adopted. And what we did not understand, because like so many people who have stepped in that journey, was that we were entering a healing journey with our kids.

[00:30:47] You know, that any child that is available for adoption has endured unimaginable loss-

[00:30:53] Ian: Mm-hmm …

[00:30:53] Megan: trauma and tragedy. And that what you’re walking into is not merely giving a child a family or becoming a family of people who are not blood relatives to one another, but you’re walking in this healing journey.

[00:31:07] And as we have done a bunch of therapy, which I’ve talked about in our book, Mind Your Mindset, one of the things that I’ve learned from our therapist, she does, uh, a narrative-based therapy that- Yes … helps to really set the story straight because one of the things that happens with trauma is that your understanding of what happened to you and how the world works just gets all disordered and wonky.

[00:31:28] You know? It’s like she- as she would say, you get the wrong feelings on the wrong people and the wrong events, which then totally distorts your life, you know? And so what’s interesting is the way that she does therapy, she will do intensives with families like ours, where you come and you do six to eight hours of therapy a day for three, four, five, eight days.

[00:31:46] It was the first time we did that, and let me just tell you, that is like going to boot camp for your soul. You know, it’s intense. And kids are not able to attend therapy volunteer- volun- voluntarily as, you know, young kids especially. And what she does is she kind of sits there and as they’re working through the narrative, as they’re, you know, in air quotes, “forgetting” part of their story that they’ve kind of gotten back in order, you know, they’re falling back into the disordered way of thinking, is that she kind of won’t accept the lies.

[00:32:18] She confronts them. She’ll wait ’em out. She’ll smoke ’em out, all kinds of things. And what I love about that, having watched it, while it can feel a little aggressive sometimes, what you realize she’s doing is she’s setting these kids free from their coping strategies that stand between them and healing.

[00:32:36] Because as long as they hold on to really the addiction to these stories that are untrue about themselves and other people in the world, they can never be healed. You know? It’s only in truth that they can be healed. And, you know, I think about that as we’re talking about it. It’s like ultimately what we want for ourselves and the people we love most is freedom.

[00:32:57] The only human flourishing that can happen has to be planted in a bed of freedom. You know? Yes. You can’t be in bondage and flourish. Like, those are, those are antithetical to one another, and I, I think the truth is, um, the pathway there.

[00:33:13] Ian: Thank you for sharing that.

[00:33:14] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:14] Ian: When you break down the 12 steps, it’s all about freedom.

[00:33:18] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:18] Ian: The pathway to it could be broken out like this, and I know we haven’t articulated all the different steps. That would take a minute. But one to three is about making peace with God, right? Mm. You’ve heard those three steps. That’s what that’s about. Four through seven is about healing your relationship with yourself, making peace with yourself.

[00:33:37] Eight and nine is about making peace with others.

[00:33:39] Megan: Mm.

[00:33:40] Ian: And then 10 through 12 is really about, how do I cultivate a lifestyle that promotes growth and healing in each of those domains of my life moving forward?

[00:33:50] Megan: Hmm.

[00:33:50] Ian: It’s so simple. Gosh. People wanna make this hard.

[00:33:52] Michael: It’s like the ultimate… I don’t mean to trivialize this or diminish it.

[00:33:56] It’s like the ultimate personal growth program. It’s like everything that you read about personal growth and personal development and human flourishing, it’s all kind of captured- Mm-hmm … for quite a while now. I mean, didn’t… It was kind of invented in the ’30s? Is that right?

[00:34:15] Ian: Yeah. So it began with a man named Bill Wilson.

[00:34:19] Bill Wilson was a stockbroker and a hopeless alcoholic. You have to remember, in those days, there was no solution to this problem. You were just deemed hopeless, and people anticipated that you would either die from drinking in a sanitarium or on your own somewhere, right? Mm. Bill Wilson has this profound spiritual experience in a hospital room, and he later went on to found Alcoholics Anonymous, and he took six steps from a Christian organization called the Oxford Group-

[00:34:49] Megan: Mm-hmm

[00:34:49] Ian: and then expanded it into 12. And for him, all addictions, though they have other complicating factors, are principally spiritual. The problem is principally spiritual, right? He just put together these steps that would help people mend these broken, ruptured relationships in their life and place them in a place where they are now no longer the center of their own universe but where now God is at the center, which was who and what they were looking for all along.

[00:35:21] You know- Hmm … it’s interesting, Carl Jung, the great, uh, Swiss psychiatrist who was… is sort of known as the kind of secret founder of AA, co-founder of AA- Oh … he used to correspond with, with Bill Wilson all the time. He used to say that all addicts are frustrated mystics.

[00:35:37] Megan: Oh.

[00:35:38] Michael: That’s powerful.

[00:35:39] Ian: Yeah. And Jean-Paul Sartre, you know, he, he once said that when, when you see a man knocking on the door of a brothel, he’s looking for God

[00:35:46] Megan: Mm.

[00:35:47] Ian: And the problem is these are counterfeits of what we’re really looking for. Mm-hmm. They’re bad hacks. These are bad hacks, and we have to, you know, plug into the real source of healing and life so that these things are unnecessary for us. We just- Mm … can look at them and be indifferent now.

[00:36:07] Megan: I love how you’re talking about this because, you know, I think that my understanding of addiction years ago, and, you know, we have someone in our family who has dealt with addiction, actually multiple people, but one in particular who has not only recognized addiction but then entered a pretty intense process of recovery.

[00:36:30] And it’s been an unbelievable gift to that person, but also to all the people that love them. And I used to think that recovery was about learning how to not give in to temptation. And I think maybe a lot of us think that. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. But, you know, I think, I think a lot of us think it’s something about being able to be presented with something that you want and say no to it.

[00:36:55] And I love that the answer isn’t willpower. The answer is meeting the real desire that’s, that is underneath the counterfeit one. Mm-hmm. Yes. That just feels so much more human to me and more restorative. I don’t know. That, that’s a big aha, I think.

[00:37:12] Ian: Yeah. So one of the things I, I talk about in the book, right, is the difference between reformation and transformation.

[00:37:19] Megan: Mm.

[00:37:19] Ian: Mm-hmm. Okay? Most people on their spiritual journeys, not most, but many, many, many, okay, are engaged in well-intentioned but grace-opposed projects of reformation. Mm-hmm. I’m going to, with my unaided willpower, make myself a better person. Mm-hmm. And I’m always like, “How’s that going?”

[00:37:40] Megan: Yeah. How’s that working out for you?

[00:37:43] Yeah.

[00:37:44] Ian: Just tell me, how’s that going? Yeah. We can move the furniture around a little bit, couple inches here, couple inches there, right? But I refer to that as taping fruit to trees. It’s, it’s

[00:37:54] Megan: kinda like, um, you know, the difference between working out and wearing Spanx,

[00:37:58] Ian: you know? Yeah, exactly, right? So that’s reformation, right?

[00:38:01] But transformation is something entirely different. Mm. That’s when, and here’s how it happens. It’s so simple and so counterintuitive that people just can’t get it until they hit a bottom and say, “Okay, I’m out of good ideas, so I’ll try yours,” right?

[00:38:17] Michael: Yeah.

[00:38:18] Ian: Transformation is when you give God consent. It’s one of the biggest words I use.

[00:38:25] Megan: Mm.

[00:38:25] Michael: Yeah.

[00:38:25] Ian: When you give God consent to do for you what you cannot do for yourself, namely change.

[00:38:34] Michael: Mm. Yeah.

[00:38:35] Ian: This is a huge idea in the spiritual life, right? Mm-hmm. And all of your practices are not gonna earn you transformation, you know? Like, like, it, it’s just not, right? What all you can do is place yourself in a place where God can have at you, right?

[00:38:55] Mm. Now, that’s transformation. In the s- in the book, I tell a story about Aiden, and both of you know Aiden, so that, this makes it fun, right? This is my son, yes.

[00:39:02] Megan: And how old is he now,

[00:39:03] Ian: Dan? He’s 27 now. So he was about- Oh my gosh,

[00:39:05] Megan: that makes me feel old, by the

[00:39:06] Ian: way- I know, I know … ‘

[00:39:08] Megan: cause

[00:39:08] Ian: I feel like since I was like 14.

[00:39:09] Sure. So when he was about two years old, maybe a little younger, he was… I was giving him a bath, and I realized I didn’t have a towel. So I ran to the linen closet to get one, and in the minute that it took me to do that, when I came back, Aiden had taken an epic poo in the tub. Okay? Now, I’m talking about Exxon Valdez level problems here, okay?

[00:39:28] Like, I’m worried about harp seals and penguins, you know? It’s like this is, this is bad. And in the time that I’ve been gone, he has been picking up these little buoys- Oh … and then realizing, “Oh, my hands are dirty now.” He’s trying to get rid of it, right? He realizes, “I got a disaster on my hands,” and he’s like, “Oh, what do I do with this?”

[00:39:44] And now he’s wiping… His hands are dirty, so he puts those down, and he’s wiping his hands off with his hair. And then he’s wiping his hands on the tiled walls. And by the time I… And on his chest. And by the time I get there, he’s just covered in poo. Right? Now, Aiden has been trying to fix himself.

[00:39:59] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:00] Ian: He’s been trying to fix himself, and it’s only making things worse, all right? What he needs is a power greater than himself to enter the equation-

[00:40:12] Megan: Mm …

[00:40:12] Ian: and do for him what he cannot do for himself. Ah, here’s Dad. Dad’s gonna come in, wash him off, take care of him, pull him out of the tub, transformed child.

[00:40:22] That is a really good illustration, I think, of what happens in the spiritual life, right?

[00:40:27] Megan: Mm.

[00:40:28] Ian: We’re constantly thrashing around the water, trying to get our hands cl- you know, coming up with all kinds of kooky strategies for changing ourselves, fixing ourselves, becoming better people, blah, blah, blah. And, uh, what we really need to do is to say, “I’m powerless.

[00:40:42] God, come and do for me what I cannot do for myself.”

[00:40:54] Michael: I have a friend, and we together have another friend, and this other friend desperately needs some coaching. And so my friend knows that I’m a coach, and he says, “You have just got to persuade him to do this.” And the guy doesn’t wanna do it. Like, I’ve, I’ve literally had the conversation with him, and it… to me, it’s always in the form of an invitation, and not even with me.

[00:41:16] I was inviting him to get into a working relationship with another coach that I know, and he just said, “I just, I just don’t wanna do that.” I mean, he’s just very resistant. So then a friend is saying, “You need to take another pass at him.” And I said, “That’s not gonna happen.” And I said, “That never goes well.

[00:41:32] You can’t coerce participation.” And he said, “But, but don’t you realize he could, he could crash and burn?” And I said, “He may have to.”

[00:41:41] Ian: Yes.

[00:41:43] Michael: And I think that’s the difference. My friend basically wanted me to enter into a reformation process, even if I had to hold him at gunpoint, to coerce the behavior. And I think what I recognized, and you gave me language for this, is that that’s not gonna lead to transformation.

[00:41:59] And in fact, what I found is when somebody wants you to do something, there’s almost always a resistance to it.

[00:42:06] Ian: Mm-hmm. Absolutely, yes.

[00:42:07] Michael: And I’m thinking the people that are listening right now who are … who maybe they don’t feel like they have an addiction problem, but their husband or their wife or their son, and we do want you to buy Ian’s book.

[00:42:20] But don’t go buy it and then demand that somebody read it.

[00:42:24] Ian: Mm.

[00:42:24] Michael: Mm. That will basically, I, I think, push them back into the hole and make them even more resistant to change. And this has been difficult for me, as you know, Ian, because we’ve talked many times about this. I grew up in a home with an alcoholic father.

[00:42:39] And so it’s very easy for me to be the, the fixer and to think I got to fix everybody around me.

[00:42:45] Ian: Yes.

[00:42:46] Michael: And what I’ve had to g- to learn with as I’ve kind of unraveled the codependency addiction that I had was that I have to just be okay with people not changing. I want them to change. I pray for them to change.

[00:42:59] But they have to want it.

[00:43:01] Ian: Yes. And Mike, thank you for your vulnerability and for sharing that because you just so beautifully articulated so many truths, I wouldn’t even know where to start. So if you have someone in your life who falls into this category, right? And chances are it’s everybody, right? We all have an alcoholic brother, sister, parent, child, drugs, uh, porn, whatever it is, right?

[00:43:22] But we, we all have… We’re surrounded by people with the big ache, right? Mm-hmm. And with bad solutions to the problem. And you really can’t change other people, and that’s… When you go to Al-Anon, which is the group that people go to when you have a, a, a spouse or a child or a friend who’s, has a problem with addiction and you have become codependent, right?

[00:43:42] And you’re having to work on yourself, that’s really the place to start. If you’re in a relationship with someone with a significant problem, the best thing you can do is start by working on you.

[00:43:52] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:52] Ian: And establishing getting un-enmeshed from them- Mm … and trying to fix them, change them, enable them, pay their rent.

[00:44:01] You know? So we have a, as I mentioned earlier, and I have permission to say this, I have a child who’s in recovery, my actually my son, Aiden. And, you know, we had to get to a point with Aiden, and by the way, he says this was the turning point, where he was in our home, he was drinking and using, and, uh, we discovered that.

[00:44:18] He had been lying to us, secretive, all the stuff, right? And we just lovingly, without any judgment, without any blame, just said, “Aiden, we love you, and you have an hour to pack your stuff and leave the house.” Hmm. Now, he had no car, he had no money, he had no place to live, he had nothing. And he’s … And of course, now we’re into a titanic struggle, right?

[00:44:39] And it’s like, “No, son, we love you, and you have to leave now.”

[00:44:43] Megan: Hmm.

[00:44:43] Ian: Now, couple of days on the street, and Aiden figured out… This is a kid who went to boarding school and grew up in a fairly privileged home, so he, he… This was not his natural environs, okay? He, he discovered, “Oh, I’m now paying the price for my own choices.”

[00:44:58] Megan: Hmm.

[00:44:58] Ian: And what it did is it precipitated enough of a crisis that he, he realized, “I’m out of control and I need help.” Hmm. So people do have to reach a point in their life where they go, “The pain that I’m experiencing from this is greater than the pain that it was trying to solve- Yeah. Mm-hmm … that my behavior was trying to solve, and I have to get at the underlying causes and conditions,” to your point, Megan.

[00:45:22] “I have to get down beneath the surface.” And that’s what the 12 steps does, right? Like, the 12 steps helps you get underneath the addiction itself. ‘Cause you see, here’s the deal. Drinking isn’t your problem. It’s your solution.

[00:45:36] Megan: Yes. Hmm.

[00:45:37] Ian: Workaholism is not your problem. It’s your solution-

[00:45:40] Megan: Mm-hmm …

[00:45:41] Ian: to a problem.

[00:45:42] And you have to focus your energies on the problem, not the perceived problem, which is actually what you’ve been using all along to deal with it, right? And again, that’s what I love about the 12 steps. It’s like, okay, we’re gonna have a, an experience of God that now it expels the need for this, but we now also have to get at the underlying causes and conditions- Mm-hmm

[00:46:02] that created the problem in the first place.

[00:46:05] Megan: Hmm. That’s so profound, and I love the framing of that, that the addiction is just a bad solution to a very real problem-

[00:46:14] Ian: Yeah …

[00:46:15] Megan: that needs attention, and care, and understanding, and, you know, all the things that any healing modality would, would bring to it. You know, a lot of the people in our audience would describe themselves as high achievers.

[00:46:26] Many of them are leaders or business owners or they hope to be someday. And they may naturally kind of bristle at this idea of, you know, “Well, I’m not like those people. I do all this work on myself, and I’m setting goals, and I’m productive,” and all this kinda stuff. I would just love for you to talk for a minute, I know we’ve talked kind of around it, but how does addiction show up most commonly and most insidiously for people like us, and what’s on the other side if we’re willing to look at those things and really realize that they’re a bad solution to a real problem?

[00:47:05] Ian: Let’s just talk about the number one addiction.

[00:47:07] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:08] Ian: Playing God

[00:47:09] Megan: Mm.

[00:47:10] Ian: Playing God. That’s an addiction, right? And your ego is always telling you, “I have so much control of my life. I’m really in charge here. I am so powerful. I have built this big company. I have lots of wealth. I have perfect children. I’m really in control here.”

[00:47:28] And that is a great lie. I mean, you, you are walking around on a planet moving at 67,000 miles an hour through the universe, right? Spinning. You are a little vulnerable biped … that really does not have nearly as much control over your life as you think you do, right?

[00:47:46] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:47] Ian: So a life that is built on self-will and self-propulsion is a life being teed up for disaster-

[00:47:56] Megan: Hmm

[00:47:56] Ian: of some kind, right? And so the addiction to wanting to be in charge, and we want people to organize their lives around our priorities and our desires and our wants. We are manipulative. We are people that are doing all kinds of stuff to get the world to do what we want it to. It’s so interesting. I was with a, a leader that I, that I coached the other day, and I had been on site with him, and he actually runs a number of companies.

[00:48:20] And I watched him work, and I was with him. And I said, “Have you ever noticed that you, like Steve Jobs, are trying to bend reality all the time and to get people to control the narrative all the time?”

[00:48:34] Megan: Mm. “

[00:48:34] Ian: To get people to do and situations to be… Like, I see you wrestling so hard trying to make it all work.”

[00:48:42] Right. And the response was tears.

[00:48:45] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:46] Ian: He’s an anxious, anxious mess. Right. And his addiction is to his own self-will, right? To controlling the world. And, um, when you work on the 12 steps, you move from this posture of, “I’m the creator,” to being, “Oh, yeah, I’m the creation.”

[00:49:04] Megan: Hmm.

[00:49:05] Ian: And there’s a way of moving through this world where I can still be as effective, still be as productive, but be a person who is centered and grounded in this knowledge that I am no longer in charge.

[00:49:18] Mm-hmm. And we begin to see the fruit, which is an organic thing, I would remind you, so it, it’s something that grows on its own, right? If you’re planted in the right soil. And what begins to happen is this intentional program of doing inward work, doing repair work with other people that we’ve experienced rupture with in our relationships, and then just tending the garden, right?

[00:49:42] By working the steps every single day. It’s just tending the garden, right? And I just love that image of a trellis, you know, like in your garden. Like, the 12 steps are like a trellis. It’s just a structure on which you can begin to grow really beautiful plants, right? Hmm. It’s not magic. It’s actually quite simple, honestly.

[00:50:02] So simple, it’s deceptively simple. Not easy, but simple. But now you have a plan, right? Most people don’t have a plan of transformation for their lives. They have hacks. They have ideas. They have things they try, but they don’t have a plan, right? 12 steps are a plan, and everybody from heroin addicts to soccer moms sitting at the table who have an addiction to people-pleasing and their life is unmanageable emotionally, you know, whatever it is, you know, everyone on the spectrum, on the continuum of addiction or of the big ache, the, the whatever it is, can derive the same benefits that people like me do.

[00:50:40] Megan: Yeah.

[00:50:40] Ian: So the whole goal is, right, to democratize the steps, to make them available to everybody, and I just know that if people come in with an open mind and an open heart or a broken heart- Hmm … that they will actually come away saying, “Oh, now I got a plan.”

[00:50:57] Michael: Buddy, this is really important work that you’re doing, and I really wanna encourage you guys to buy the book and to dive in.

[00:51:06] This would make a great first step in your own transformation or just to carry you along in the journey.

[00:51:14] Ian: Hmm.

[00:51:14] Michael: We always have three questions that we ask at the end that are kind of the lightning round, but it’s all about the double win, so, you know, the show’s about winning at work and succeeding life, trying to restore kinda that holistic approach to life where it’s not all about work, but it’s all these other things, too.

[00:51:30] So what’s your biggest obstacle in you getting the double win?

[00:51:37] Ian: Hmm. fear.

[00:51:39] Michael: Hmm. Hmm.

[00:51:40] Ian: And, and I would say that fear is a… Everyone knows that fear is a, you know, and anxiety is a, a problem, right? But usually fear is what activates our, our character defects and character defenses. Yep. Right? If you’re afraid that you’re n- not gonna get a, a raise and a promotion, you might find yourself, uh, subtly bringing down someone else on the team to make yourself look better.

[00:52:08] So what’s happened is fear has activated a character defect, right? And so, so for me, fear, I realized in my recovery journey, like one of the things you do on the recovery journey is you do a fear inventory.

[00:52:21] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:22] Ian: Because you… To know what your fears are and to face them squarely is super important on the spiritual and the emot- journey of emotional health.

[00:52:29] Because it’s those very fears that activate the obstacles to you becoming the highest expression of yourself.

[00:52:35] Michael: Hmm.

[00:52:36] Ian: Hmm. So I would say I’m working right now on fear and anxiety.

[00:52:40] Megan: Hmm.

[00:52:40] Ian: I think I’ve always been a low-level fearful and anxious person, and I’m just facing up to that now. It’s hard for me to ask for help sometimes.

[00:52:49] Michael: Mm-hmm. Yep.

[00:52:49] Ian: It’s really hard.

[00:52:50] Michael: I get that.

[00:52:51] Ian: And I feel like that’s a big obstacle for me to having a double win. Mm. I just need to become more practiced. I need to normalize saying to other people, “Hey, you know what? I need help. Can you help me? I’m trying to figure something out.”

[00:53:03] Megan: Yeah.

[00:53:04] Michael: You know, that’s been the journey.

[00:53:06] I won’t speak for you, Megan, but that’s been the journey, my journey this year-

[00:53:09] Ian: Hmm Mm …

[00:53:09] Michael: is confronting anxiety and fear, and I didn’t actually have language around it until this year and got into therapy again, and it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done. Hmm.

[00:53:20] Ian: And

[00:53:21] Michael: I still got a long ways to go, but man, I am I’ve seen vast relief from just kinda confronting that and acknowledging it.

[00:53:28] Ian: Yeah. Yeah. That fear is a, is another part of the big ache. Mm-hmm. And I’m just glad that you didn’t, you know, turn to other behaviors or substances- Mm-hmm … to deal with that dimension of the big ache. But, but if you had, I’d have understood.

[00:53:44] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:44] Ian: And I’d have said, because I just… This is why I’m like, “No shame, man.”

[00:53:47] Like, this is what humans do.

[00:53:50] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:50] Ian: Right? No shame. But let’s get to the root of it and find a way home.

[00:53:55] Megan: I love it. Okay, next question. How do you know when you’ve personally gotten the double win?

[00:54:02] Ian: There are moments in my life when I have a feeling of ultimate wellbeing.

[00:54:10] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:54:10] Ian: Uh, where I feel integrated, where I feel like I’m firing on all cylinders, and that’s probably the only way I could describe it.

[00:54:19] It’s interesting, in the, in… Biblically we’d say I have an experience of some taste of shalom, right? Mm-hmm. This feeling of all is well, right? That I’m flourishing. Yeah?

[00:54:29] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:54:29] Ian: And where what’s happening in my, in my personal life is illuminating and funding what’s happening in my professional life, and where what’s happening in my professional life is feeding and…

[00:54:42] So I’m in a, a healthy, virtuous loop-

[00:54:45] Megan: Yep …

[00:54:45] Ian: uh, where everything is going right.

[00:54:47] Michael: Beautifully said.

[00:54:48] Megan: Mm. Mm-hmm.

[00:54:49] Michael: The last question is what’s one ritual or routine that helps you do what you do, that kinda keeps you on, you know, the right path?

[00:54:57] Ian: I have a daily practice of meditation.

[00:55:00] Michael: Hmm.

[00:55:01] Ian: It’s so simple. I, well, I have two.

[00:55:03] Well, one is a morning practice of meditation because what is so desperately needed in our age is a practice that can clear away the mental clutter-

[00:55:16] Megan: Mm-hmm …

[00:55:16] Ian: that prevents us from seeing that we are in already in connection and in relationship with God.

[00:55:25] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:26] Ian: So we have to clear away the mental rubbish that’s there.

[00:55:29] And for me, and I do it, you know, based on the teaching of a wonderful man named Father Martin Laird. He’s a Catholic- Mm … professor at Villanova. So for me, that practice of meditation is about grounding myself, it’s about centering, it’s about increasing awareness and realization of union with God.

[00:55:50] Michael: Hmm.

[00:55:50] Yeah.

[00:55:50] Ian: And, and to me, that’s the big kahuna of the spiritual journey, right? Is the awakening and the realization that I am in union with God.

[00:55:59] Michael: Is there a particular book that you could point us to?

[00:56:01] Ian: Oh, yes. I can. Several. Uh, one would be Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird. Hmm. Another one is called Ocean of Light by Martin Laird.

[00:56:10] Father Thomas Keating’s- Mm-hmm … Open Heart, Open Mind.

[00:56:13] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:56:14] Ian: We call it centering prayer meditation, right? For me, that’s how I start my day every single day, and it’s a practice. Sometimes it’s boring, dull, but that’s why we call it a practice, you know? Like, you know, whatever. The other thing, Mike, I do is I, I meet with a trainer five days a week-

[00:56:30] Michael: Hmm

[00:56:31] Ian: for strength training in addition to my cardio stuff, and that’s something that has come online in the last two years, and that has had a profound effect on me discovering at 64 years old, hey, guess what? You’re not a brain on a stick. You have a body. And this body is really interesting. And it’s a really good idea to have a good relationship with that body.

[00:56:52] So- Mm-hmm … that’s been big, too.

[00:56:55] Michael: I started doing that with a trainer 19 weeks ago.

[00:56:58] Ian: Yeah.

[00:56:58] Michael: And so Gail and I work out with him three days a week.

[00:57:01] Ian: Yep.

[00:57:02] Michael: Monday, Wednesday, usually Thursday if we go to the lake on the weekend. Today we worked out this morning. We’re recording this on a Friday. But, uh, it’s been transformative.

[00:57:10] Ian: Yes.

[00:57:12] Michael: Absolutely. And he shows up at our house, so I don’t have any excuse. Yeah. And that was the reason I did it. I said, “I have, I am not being consistent,” and I, I kinda gin up the energy to do it, and then I fall off the wagon. So I said- Yep … “I’m just gonna get somebody to show up at my house.” Yeah. And I know not everybody can do that, but having an accountability partner is awesome.

[00:57:29] Ian: Yeah. In fact, I’m meeting mine in 33 minutes. I have to get my head on- All right … because he is this wonderful, uh, Mexican man, uh, named Juan Carlos, and, uh- … he, he yells at me all the time, “Sin dolor no hay gloria,” which means without pain there is no glory, and- … I have to, have to get my head into that zone in 33 minutes for that.

[00:57:50] Megan: Yeah, that’s a zone, for sure.

[00:57:51] Ian: Yeah.

[00:57:52] Michael: Well, buddy, thank you so much for coming on. I, I really f- I’m shocked at how t- fast this time has gone. Yeah. But I feel like we’re just getting started. Mm. So we’re gonna have to get together soon- Yeah … and carry this conversation on over coffee or something. Love you.

[00:58:06] Can’t wait to see you and Anne.

[00:58:07] Megan: So

[00:58:08] Ian: fun. Love you guys, too. Thanks so much.

[00:58:10] Megan: Appreciate you.

[00:58:21] Michael: Well, Meg, as per usual, that was an amazing interview. Not because of us, but because of the guest. And one of the things we try to do every week is bring you people that we find interesting.

[00:58:32] Megan: Yeah.

[00:58:33] Michael: And Ian is one of those treasures that we’ve known for many years. I’ve mo- known him for probably 15 years now.

[00:58:39] He’s one of my closest friends. Mm-hmm. And he’s got so much wisdom. The way he’s poured into my life has been life-changing.

[00:58:46] Megan: One of the things that I appreciate about people who are in recovery is that they are often some of the deepest, most reflective people that you’ll ever meet, and I think that’s because they’ve hit rock bottom, they’ve been through a lot of suffering, they’re very self-aware, they’re very honest.

[00:59:03] You know, all those things together I think are kind of Ian’s secret sauce, plus all the unique things in his history and his experience that are just really special. Like I said when we were talking, you know, I just started this book this morning, regrettably. I wish I had finished it before the interview.

[00:59:19] And even 21 pages in or whatever I’m at, yeah, 21 pages, I was just blown away. I mean, it just resonated so deeply. I feel like we are living in a time where we are, we’re addicted to our screens, we’re addict- addicted to social media. We’ve never been lonelier or felt more empty than we are now. We’re reduced basically to consumers.

[00:59:41] You know, so much of our life, especially if we’re affluent in any way, is spent making purchasing decisions and thinking about purchases and basically not living in the life that we have, but living in the life we wish we had or we think is somehow better than the one that we have, and we miss so much.

[00:59:57] You know, it’s a counterfeit solution to that idea that he calls the big ache, and I think that is such a resonant idea. It feels so true to me.

[01:00:08] Michael: Absolutely is. Well, as a writer, he has all these pithy things that he says-

[01:00:13] Megan: Yeah …

[01:00:14] Michael: that I just love, and so I wrote down a couple. But one of them he says is that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety.

[01:00:21] Mm-hmm. The opposite of addiction is connection.

[01:00:24] Megan: Yep.

[01:00:24] Michael: And I thought, “That’s really true.” And what did he say about, something about we do one thing in secret, but we heal in community?

[01:00:33] Megan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like addiction happens in secret. I mean, you’re not, like, addicted with other people.

[01:00:38] Michael: Could be, I suppose.

[01:00:39] Megan: I guess you could be, but, like, in general, like think of a porn addiction.

[01:00:42] You’re not doing that with other people. Like that- Yeah … is, that’s a solitary endeavor. And I think that that is a great litmus test for is this an addiction. You know, when I talked about, uh, much less dramatically, you know, my, what I feel like is my addiction to Instagram, you know, I’m not, like, th- looking at Instagram with my family and, you know, like getting my friends to come over and, you know.

[01:01:03] Like, that’s just scrolling mindlessly wherever I am. Any time something is a little bit uncomfortable or boring or I just kinda wanna check out, like, that’s the means to do it, and I think that’s a very helpful way to think about it that is, pun intended, sobering because you realize, oh, yeah. You know- Right

[01:01:22] where am I doing things by myself that is, are damaging relationships or other things in my life

[01:01:31] Michael: One of the things that resonated with me that you said when you were talking about that is that you get irritated when people try to interrupt you from that activity.

[01:01:39] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[01:01:39] Michael: And I thought, wow, you know, I got my own issues or versions of that.

[01:01:43] That’s a pretty good indicator too. I, I love this. The whole point of the 12 steps is to facilitate a spiritual awakening so strong it expels the need-

[01:01:55] Megan: Mm …

[01:01:55] Michael: for external fixes

[01:01:57] Megan: That was profound because you’re… Again, it’s not about willpower or brute force, it’s about connecting with the thing that we’re most made for.

[01:02:06] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:07] Megan: You know, it’s like, I think it was Os Guinness who said, “We have a God-shaped hole”-

[01:02:11] Michael: Yeah …

[01:02:11] Megan: inside our heart, right? Isn’t that who said, who said that? And I think that’s really true. You know, you can try to put all kinds of other shapes in there, it just doesn’t work, and you spend your whole life and all your money searching for it and, and never, never find it.

[01:02:24] And I think that’s a good reminder too, especially in an age of distrust and cynicism, that at the end of the day, we are made for something so much more, and we settle for so much less.

[01:02:35] Michael: And you know, this isn’t a faith-based show, but Megan and I are people of faith and, you know, we welcome that perspective because it’s kind of our worldview, and if it’s not yours, then, you know, you can create your own version of this, whatever.

[01:02:46] We don’t certainly mean to exclude you, but I love this quote, “Transformation is giving God consent to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.” Mm-hmm. And I think that all of us in life come to that place where we’re sort of at the end of ourselves, and we realize that we just can’t power through it.

[01:03:04] We just can’t muscle through it. The mask has been removed and, and now we have to do some serious business.

[01:03:10] Megan: Yeah.

[01:03:10] Michael: So I, and you probably feel this way too, but I know I’m gonna be thinking about this conversation for the next several hours and hopefully the next several days.

[01:03:18] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:18] Michael: But, um, it’s so, so powerful, and I think it’s easy to write off the 12 steps as, “Oh, that doesn’t apply to me,” or, “Oh, I know what that’s about.”

[01:03:27] Megan: Right.

[01:03:28] Michael: But I promise you, you don’t. Mm-hmm. Not unless you’re a recovery group. And you might be tempted to write this off and think it only applies to those people, but it honestly applies to us. It is, as Ian said, a roadmap to human flourishing.

[01:03:45] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:45] Michael: It is the best way for us to become the best version of ourselves so that we can reach our God-given potential.

[01:03:51] Megan: Yep, and what a great message for this time of year when self-reliance and I’ll fix all my own problems really is being shouted from the rooftops. I think what a great message to think differently about how you step into the new year. Again, guys, we wanna encourage you, get this book, The Fix. Give it to people you know.

[01:04:13] I mean, I’m 21 pages in, and I’m gonna order a bunch of these, and I’m gonna hand them out to people I love because I, I truly think it is a gift. The message itself is a gift, and it’s one that leads to freedom and peace and life, and that’s what I want for the people I love the most. So I hope you’ll do the same and, uh, order yourself a copy and then give it away as well.

[01:04:32] If you wanna find out more about Ian, um, you can do that at ianmorgancron.com, ianmorgancron.com. Of course, we’ll link to that in the show notes. But we can’t wait to hear what you think about this book and this conversation.

[01:04:46] Michael: And guys, if you found this helpful, as always, we would encourage you to rate and review it- Wherever you listen to podcasts.

[01:04:53] That helps us get more visibility to the show. It feeds the algorithm the right juice so that more people can be exposed to the wonderful guests that we bring on. So hope you’ve enjoyed this. We’ll see you next time.

[01:05:05] Megan: Bye-bye.