502 | What’s The Difference? People Pleasing vs. Servant’s Heart

Chris LoCurto 0:00
On today's show the question, what's the difference? Now it can be hard to tell when you are someone else's just people pleasing, versus serving others with an open heart. That is what we're going to be discussing next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day, wherever you are. It is a beautiful day here in Tennessee. So glad that the sun is shining, and it's getting a little bit warmer, which is nice. What is it like consistently? Welcome back to the show. Brian Alex insistently. What's the weather over there?

Brian A 0:54
Well, the sun is shining, the birds are singing the tank is clean. But it sounds good. Finding Nemo reference. I was like, What are you talking about there? There's all kinds of answers I could have fallen into that category of I was reading.

Chris LoCurto 1:17
It worked. I liked it. I liked it. Well, welcome back to the show. How about you tell our listeners what we're doing today?

Brian A 1:24
Well, we do have something a little bit different. So the setup here is what's the difference. And obviously, this episode is going to be a little bit different in itself, we're going to break apart two seemingly similar, maybe hard to distinguish things in hopes of gaining some perspective, whether we're talking about ourselves or other people. But before we get too deep into it, let's kind of set up the topic here. We're talking about being a people pleaser, as some of you already know if that's you or not, some of you may not even realise it. Now, the general idea of pleasing serving loving others is not a bad thing at all. But when our motives get caught up with root issues, and Chris, I'm sure you'll kind of unpack more about that in a minute. This can become a real problem. And we open ourselves up to all kinds of bad things, manipulation, abuse, etc. And, you know, looking at Scripture, we understand from God's perspective that he'd rather us be pleasing Him and OBEYING Him rather than men. And you know, the book of Colossians. For example, the apostle Paul talks about what's the opposite of people pleasing it's sincerity of heart and fearing the Lord, it's obedience to His commands. And we know we're supposed to love, honour, serve and respect each other. But yeah, things can get a little messy, especially when our motives are a little bit on clear. And so let's bring you back into this Chris, we've known each other for a while. So I'll just make an observation here. You know, I know you and I feel like I know your heart. I've seen it on display so many times you love to help people. You love to see others grow. You have a you have a general desire for their well being. And you have a servant's heart. And at the same time, I know a lot of your story, the things you've been through your personality, style, all of that, and you've struggled and you've said it many times before even on this podcast, you've struggled with being a people pleaser. And so let's stop right there. I I want to dive into this. And just have you unpack for us, because I know there's a lot of people out there that struggle with you know, what am I doing right now by being that people pleaser? Am I just a servant's heart? How far do I take it? What does that look like? So when we come back after the break, I'd love for you to unpack what that struggle has been like for you and where that breakthrough came.

Chris LoCurto 3:53
I don't know what you're talking about. I've never struggled. So.

Brian A 3:57
Now Chris.

Chris LoCurto 4:02
world's shortest episode.

Brian A 4:04
Okay. That was quick.

Chris LoCurto 4:08
I've never had a problem. All right. Why don't we come back and telling the difference between people pleasing and having a real servant's heart? Hey, folks, you've probably heard me say that registration is open for the next level leadership live event in April of 2023. But you've only got a few days left to take advantage of our incredible offer your chance to save $500 off of every ticket. That's right, the $500 discount off of your tickets every ticket that you buy is going to expire very soon. The next level leadership live event is your best opportunity for you and your team to get the tools you need to take your leadership to the next level. So do yourself a favour head on over to Chris akerlof.com/events Just type in Chris a crypto.com for Word slash events plural. Before the special offer goes away, I cannot wait to see you and your team in April. Alright, we're back. And we're talking about my struggles, as Brian pointed out in the front part of the show there, that that is, you know, we're talking about the difference between people pleasing and having a real servant's heart. And there is absolutely a difference. And so we want to, we want to unpack that we want to talk about what is the difference? And why do they look so similar in many times, there's things that you're doing, that is serving people, and unfortunately, it's more wrapped in people pleasing. And then there is a distinct difference when you're able to get out of the people pleasing. So let's just start with my struggles, what I've struggled with in life, and I've talked about this before, but let me kind of hit this that where, you know, the first half of my life probably even a little bit longer than I was definitely a people pleaser.

What do we mean by people pleaser? Somebody who is doing things to please others, because in the end, it gives me worth so I am well aware that there is a large percentage of the people that are listening to the show, you know, when we look at our demographics, not everybody but there's a good percentage of people who are also people pleasers as well, or come from a people pleasing background. So to understand what it means to people, please, if we just give you our definition of what we feel like it is it's doing those things, it may be, you know, the focus may be helping somebody to get better, the focus may be trying to make somebody happy, which is keep in mind as I say this, you can't make anybody do anything. Unless you can like physically control him. I can't make you happy, Brian, I can't make you feel stupid. I can't make you feel intelligent. I can't make you feel attractive, although you are quite handsomely attractive, obviously. I mean, I get that without saying you get that a lot. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I can't make any of those feelings, emotions happen. All I can do is highly suggest something. Well, we talk about that a lot. When it comes to the concept of control. You know, I can't control somebody, I can't make you feel inadequate, I can't make you feel unworthy, I can't make you feel any of that stuff. I could only you know, I can't make you feel stupid. People say all the time, well, you know, that person just made me feel stupid, or that person made me feel, you know, like, I'm an idiot, I can't make you feel like an idiot, all I can do is highly suggest that you feel like an idiot, which is very, incredibly unhealthy on my part. The problem comes in when you receive it, and then now you are an idiot, right? If you receive what I'm suggesting, well, then it becomes your reality. So I've set your reality, but you've received it. And now it is your reality.

So it's the same concept when it comes to people pleasing, same exact thing. The difference is I'm trying to please you somehow, most of the time, this shows up, it's super easy to see. It's it's the person who's always trying to make people happy. It's the person who feels responsible for other people's happiness, for other people's, you know, feeling good about themselves. And so it's not difficult to see that person who spends a lot of time trying to figure out, what can I do today to get you to feel better? What can I do today to make you happy? What can I do today to make you love yourself more. Now, again, all of that is focused on if you feel better about you, if I see that you're happy, if I did something that caused you to be happy, if I did something that caused you to feel good about yourself, then I feel good about myself and I feel more worthy. This is where I get my worth. So what I'm reading into the situation is, is that you're struggling with something, or here's the extreme side of this. And this happens a lot too. I might not be doing good with worth I'm struggling with worth on the front side. So I project onto you that you need to be happier. You know that you need to feel better that he you know that your day is not as good. So I'm going to come in and rescue you in your day, right? All of this is suggesting that you have a problem. Because you're not happy enough. You're not feeling good enough, you're not feeling worthy enough, you're not feeling loved enough, whatever it is, you know, whatever I'm projecting here. And then the other major piece is is that if you do appear to seem happier than my worth metre goes up because I've just become more worthy. Look at what I've done.

Look at me. Where's the problem in this? There's many problems. Many times people pleasing from that aspect is setting a false reality right now. Once again, since I can't make you feel any way, all I can do is highly suggested, if I understand that, then I don't attach my worth to it. If I understand that my worth is not in you being happy, my worth is not in you being pleased, you know, think of how many team members try to to please people, please a boss, a leader, you know, another team member, right. And they go to crazy lengths, we always talk about, you know, if you go through personality styles, high eyes tend to fall into this category, eyes and SS tend to fall into this category a lot. But I as well definitely fall into the category of trying to please a leader by taking on too much. You know, they will, they will keep taking on stuff. And the great thing is in the beginning, they're doing great, they're knocking things out, the leader sees this is just like, wow, I really liked this team member. And so the people pleaser if they're not, again, if they're not aware of this, they continue to do more and more and more take on more. And then when the ball start dropping, and that leaders coming back going, Hey, why is this falling apart? It is a natural response for that people pleaser. To go well, you've put too much on me and start blaming and throwing the leader underneath the bus. Because now the thing that they were doing that was getting so much approval, so much attention from that leader is now backfiring. They've done too much they've gone too far. Because all in an attempt to gain worth and now it's falling back on them. So hopefully it does all of that makes sense. Does that set up do well? Is there any questions you have so far in any of this?

Brian A 11:34
Yeah, I mean, I'll just make an observation. This ties into so many things that we teach around here. So many of our core teachings on the podcast and the point main group in the business, it centres around these kinds of worth issues and where the water gets a little muddy for me, you know, I'm more on that DC spectrum. And so I I don't, I'm not aware of myself, people pleasing a lot of the time, or feel like I have any tendency to however, I catch myself a lot of times feeling like, well, I don't want them to think this about me. And so then I'm gonna keep and I noticed just as you're talking, I'm noticing, wow, okay, maybe I'm, I've got, you know, things to watch out here as well, there may be folks listening, that, you know, they wouldn't think of themselves as a people pleaser. But as we as we start to, it's like an onion, you start crying as you get into. Okay, yeah. It's so much easier, especially when I'm more on that I'm channelling that D. To be like, I don't care what people think and be a bulldozer and just, you know, kind of run through, but then they go, man, I'm being a jerk and all this and I don't want to do that either. And so finding that that heart finding that the middle ground where there's that tension on both sides that you're not, you know, you're not abusing manipulating is like one of our recent podcast episodes about the victim and the the villain mentality and how there's these two spectrums. And there's two extremes on either end, and we find ourselves somewhere in there. Usually, we have thoughts going through our heads all the time that are somewhere in that spectrum. And so let's unpack just a little bit more about for those on my side that you know, because you mentioned the AI and the S I'm over here as a D and A C. And I, you don't have to pull back the reins, okay. Don't be a jerk, Brian. And I pull back the reins a little bit, but occasionally I find myself. Yeah, kind of getting sucker punched into that of, well, let me just check if they're okay, let me do this. Let me do this. Let me do this. And I kind of find that I'm, I'm seeking value. I'm seeking some worth. I'm seeking to make sure that I'm okay. And I can't be okay, maybe this is a great way to think about it. I can't be okay, unless they're okay. exists. And as soon as I catch that, I'm like, Ah, what do I do? Alright, so that's where I get stuck. Yeah, even as a as a DNC.

Chris LoCurto 14:13
Yeah. So the funny thing is, is as we talk through personality styles, we tend to talk about them as individuals a D, and i and s or a C. Well, we all have, you know, levels of everyone right? And so while you are dominantly DNC you still have ins and they're they're still aspects of you. It is not only the eye and the s that people pleases, it just tends to be so if we were going to generalise which all of the 99 C's are like you better not don't do that risk round. I'm about to turn you off right now. So if I here's my you know, the the caveat is that this isn't exact it is if we were just generalising We would say the people, personality styles, the eyes and the esses are going to tend to be more people please in the task, personality styles, the D and the C are going to tend to be more controlling. So do not take that and run with that and go, oh, somebody has a D, they're controlling somebody is a C, they're controlling the I just said my reality, that's the way to go. I'm not listening to you anymore. The thing to understand is, we all have levels of different di, S and C, but also it's not, it isn't your personality style that drives your responses. It's the vice versa, right? It's the things that you have in you the things that have been trained inside of you the things that, you know, that God had created in you and having a personality style, and then all of your root system thrown into this mix.

That drives how you go about getting worse, right? So for me, I'm a very high s, I'm an S i DC. And so for me, I was a colossal people pleaser, because there was so much training that I had that my worth was in if people were doing good, if they weren't doing good. Unfortunately, I have a huge period of my younger years, that when people weren't doing good, I was their problem. I was their villain, right? It would come to me out of the out of nowhere, I had absolutely zero to do with it. But somehow I became the problem. And so that trained me to believe that it was my responsibility for people to be happy, it was my responsibility. And I surrounded myself with these people, as well, as I, you know, continue to get older, I found myself putting people in my life that I would spend time trying to make happy, right? Because in my mind, that was my worth. So again, with that being said, it can be any personality style. The key is, are you driving or trying to derive worth from making somebody happy, even to the point that you made a while back about? Well, I don't want them to think this about me. How many times do you try to and this is where the control side comes in? How do you try to control somebody's opinion? Yeah, well, you do it by highly suggesting that they have a different opinion of you, or a better opinion of you or whatever. Why why is that important? So that you don't lose worth in your mind. If you can see you losing worth in this person's, you know, in the way that they're viewing you the way that they're responding to you well, then crap, you've got to fix that piece. So everybody can people please, to an extent, right? It's where you're getting your worth from. That's the big piece. So with that being said, that is something that I struggled with for a very long time. It wasn't until my mid 20s, so almost half of my life ago, when I really felt God just smacked me upside the head.

And believe it or not, it was in ministry days, you know, when I was in youth ministry. And my desire was, you know, I could watch these amazing pastors and speakers and preachers just move people with emotion. And they had just, you know, amazing numbers of people that would just flock to them, right. And I would see this and our associate pastor was one of those guys, he was only a year older than me. And he just had he had been preaching since he was like, I don't know, I think it was 15 years old or something like that. And he could just move people, right. And that was my, that's what I wanted. Like, that's who I need to be like right there. And I remember I'd finished preaching a youth service and I came over to the main services a Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday evening. And so it was it was a mega church that I was in and, and the I sat up in the upper balcony, which on a Wednesday night, only the floor was was full. And I sat up there and I was listening to him preach, and he was talking about how Satan gets to us and our weaknesses. And he goes, you know, Satan gets to a drunkard through the bottom of a bottle. He goes, that'll never happen to me because alcohol was never touched my lips. Funny thing, somebody afterwards told them what NyQuil was gonna ruin that for him. He said, How Satan gets to me is, you know, I want you guys to think that I'm a great speaker. Because, you know, someday I want you to think I'm a great pastor. But right now my focus is I want you to think that I'm a great speaker. And I was like, yes, that is me. I'm 26 years old hearing this going. That's what I want, sitting up there. And it gives me chills every single time. 26 years later, I still get chills thinking about this. Sitting up there in that balcony. I heard God say, Did you hear what he said? And I want Yes, he wants people to think he's a great speaker. And then I heard no, he said that someday he'll want people to think he's a great pastor. He's supposed to be that now. And every hair on my body stood up. And then I heard God say If I'm going to put my people in front of you better be about me. Not you better be about what they hear, not what you say. And brother, that was the absolute shock that I needed. That was a flip of a switch that day for me when I started now keep them on I didn't. While I flipped the switch, I didn't fix everything that day I had, I still had a journey that I had to go on. That was a day that I began the process of not seeking man's approval and man's worth, and seeking heavily God's you know, I felt God speaking to me that day, in telling me, you know, if I do this, it better be by my standards, not by yours.

It better be about me, not about man. And that was a powerful piece for me to start recognising how much I had spent my life trying to please man, how in the way that I was looking at my the ministry that God put in my hands and the ability for me to get up and speak and preach and teach God's word, which man has come a long way since there was about me. It was about me delivering a message that moved people so that I could feel good about myself. If I felt like they felt good. If I saw that they were moved emotionally, then it was great. So world of difference how I teach now. Right? My you know, when people come to our events, next level leadership live event, you know, the retreats, people aren't coming for the the motivational speaker, I don't get up there and do what I did back in the in the early 90s, mid 90s. Right. I don't get up there and try and move people with emotion. It is heavy duty teaching, it is deep teaching, it's tough teaching. You know, everybody who comes to our events for years, I used to say, I don't think this lesson is going to be that tough, we'd get done within people like oh my gosh, that's a lot, right. And the funny thing is who doesn't show up to our events? People who aren't willing to do something about it, people who aren't willing to implement, the people who don't show up are the people who are focused on I just need to be motivated and not really do anything with it. Right? That was the change for me, was looking at the difference of people pleasing to feel good about myself, and instead focusing on what do people need? And that's where we shift into this concept of a servant's heart. So what happened with me? Well, I started realising that I was affecting people in a negative way. You and I have had many conversations, there have been many times that you know, I've pushed on you for things that you are experiencing, you know, this is everybody, everybody around me, everybody in the business everybody around you who comes and seeks this recognises they're gonna get pushed on in certain areas. I love you to death, I think the world of you. But here's what I had to understand. If I people please, Brian, I heard Brian you know, as you're coming to me and seeking something, here's a situation in my life, you know, helped me you know, walk through this, maybe you weren't coming to me, I just decided to jump into your life and help you a

Brian A 23:04
couple of times. We're brothers,

Chris LoCurto 23:06
I get to do that. I get to do that. You know, if there's something you know, when people come and seek us and next level life, or strapline or whatever. The thing that I've had to come to understand is if I am trying to make you my friend, I tell people in strapline, I hope you leave liking me. But that's not why you're here. And that's not why I'm here. I don't know of anybody who's left not liking me. But I always tell people, I'm going to push on you, there's going to be aspects, that if once we get through this, you're going to be incredibly thankful that you walked through this process. Well, what is this? Is this me just trying to push on people? Is this me just trying to, you know, tell people things? Nope, it is not, it's me being able to gift that God gave me as a here's the funny thing, the very things I was doing as people pleasing, which was about my worth, he rolled up into a process that I get to help people with now, because it's not about my worth. So instead of looking at somebody and trying to make them happy, what I've done for the next 26 years past that is help people to discover things that are going to help them to have a better life, to have better families to make better decisions to run their business better, to be a better leader, to be a better team member to be a better business owner to be a better Christ follower Child of God, right.

And so the servant's heart steps in and I am a very high altruist that is my highest motivator, my highest value if you've taken the motivators profile as well, that is by far my highest I. I am very motivated by developing people by removing pain from the world. So here's the funny thing. I can't stand to see people in pain. I hate conflict. I hate struggles, and yet, I'm really good at helping people work through painful situations. So I'm really good at helping people to see things and make better decisions and move forward right? The servant's heart. And by the way, high Ultras are the doormat of society, you know, we allow people to walk all over us, because we're trying to help them. And unfortunately, there's a lot of unhealthy people who see that and take advantage of it. Well, it's our fault. We put ourselves out there, unless we become healthy, and recognise that it is not serving somebody to, you know, feed into their struggles and their issues and allow them to take advantage of that situation. Hopefully, that makes sense. I'm going to take a breath here in a minute, you can ask me any question. But you know, the servant side is making sure that I'm assessing what I believe is the best thing I can do to help you what I believe is the thing that you need in the moment, sometimes that's a push, sometimes that's just a hug.

And sitting in silence, sometimes that's a hard push back on somebody. And sometimes it's just gentle. One of the things I love about having like strat plan is we always have these different always 90% of the time, we have different personality styles are on the table. And so I might be speaking to a D and go and pressing on that D and then turn to a high s and very gently talk through the situation. And they get the same teaching the same growth, everything, but I don't need to to buy for the high s. Right. I don't need to to buy for the high I you know that high D the high seas many times I've got to press in on the thing that they're pushing hard on. And once they get it, they're like, Oh, okay. And they're able to, you know, five minutes later move on. But on the same conversation, I can turn to a different personality style and become a different person, you know, talk to oh, I don't become a different person, I just lean in their direction. I don't beat them up. I don't have to hit them harshly. I just can press in and speak and talk about hey, do you see this? Do you recognise this here? And they can see it. And it's completely different. What I call push, you know, to the highest, it seems like it's a push, but it's really not to the high D it's definitely a push even though to the high D sometimes it doesn't even feel like a push it just feels like every day. So the servant's heart for me is recognising not how can I gain worth from helping this person? Not? How can I gain worth at all? It is assessing to the best of my ability if this is something that God has gifted me with? What does this person need? And how can I help them get to it the best I possibly can. It's all about questions, thoughts, comments? That's a lot of Yes. Oh, man.

Brian A 27:45
Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot there to unpack if we if we had a series we got all right, we could unpack a lot of this. No, my my mind goes to you know, if we're coming to the end of the year, and if we had one theme, one, even one word to sum up a lot of the thematic elements of this whole year 2022 It's been about assessment, self assessment. And you know, we're taking an assessment here today. I mean, even even for me and I kind of set up the the the format here, and in my mind thinking, Oh, I don't I don't wrestle with this so much. But I can see now oh, gosh, yeah. It's it's a lot more clear, some things have kind of come into focus. So let's let's help people before we get to the conclusion, just to tease out some of those earmarked thoughts that go through our heads some of those the tapes that are running, I mentioned a moment ago, I don't want them to think x about me. Are there some other cues that we could offer people hey, you might be leaning towards that. You know that people pleasing disposition that mentality if you're not okay, unless somebody else is okay. What else comes to mind that you think might be helpful to people

Chris LoCurto 29:09
you want to Jeff Foxworthy this type of? Might be a people pleaser AF.

Brian A 29:14
Can you do the accent? That's awesome guy. Great.

Chris LoCurto 29:19
I think those things like those are some of the big ones. The I feel responsible for this person's happiness. Right? If they're not happy, I can't be happy. If they're not having a good day. I can't have a good day. You know, a lot of so a lot of codependency almost. Oh, totally is. Oh, absolutely. Right. So think about think about how why do we have amazing comedians? Where does all of that comedy come from? Right? Well, for the most part, the bulk is people recognising at a very young age, that they could make somebody happy. And if they can make them happy, then they can be happy. Well, here's an answer. Just one thing that most people don't know, a lot of comedians are very alcohol dependent, drug dependent. A lot of smoking cigarettes, you know, a lot of dependencies, because of the stress that it takes to try and make people laugh. Right? Well, where does that coming from? I'm not saying all but there's a lot and I think if you and I know because I've actually done research on this, there's a good number of comedians that will be very open about you know, how that how their struggle, their personal struggles and families are screwed up. And you know, they they do a lot of divorce in there a lot of you know, which is everywhere anyways, but you get the point that I'm making here. The concept of having to try and make somebody happy. make somebody laugh, make somebody okay, if you're not okay, I'm not okay. I'll never forget a Far Side cartoon. It was called the I'm okay. You're okay corral. It's good to gunslingers like, you know, you dropped first I understand your need for control. No, no, you dropped first because I understand, you know, and then just go back and forth. But it was just hilarious. When you look at the intent of trying to please a person, what's behind it. I'm saying that this person needs me. For them to feel better. Well, you just can't stop there. Because here's the key. What if they don't feel better? Than what? Well, I'm going to suck? Uh huh. Yeah, here's where we truly see the people pleasing, right? We have no problem saying, Well, I tried to help them out. But they just, you know, they wouldn't change.

And what we miss out on is the struggle that we experience on the backside of that, right? Let me either that the worth that we experience or the loss of worth, that we experience, and we put it in those two categories. So if we gain worth by helping somebody who was that really truly about it was really, truly about us. Right? It wasn't truly about that person. I'm not saying you can't feel good about yourself. That's not what I'm saying it all I'm saying that add on the backside of this, if you're gaining worth, then there's an issue, right? Because the focus is on Oh, I'm worth more because I did this thing. If you're losing worth because it didn't work out, you didn't do a good job, whatever that the struggle is, once again, it's not about that person, it's about you. So the keys are, you know, if this person isn't okay, I'm not okay, I'm responsible for this person's happiness, I see this person isn't happy, I need to do something about it. You know, it's my job, it's my role to do this, any of those pieces are going to be on the front side. The other side of this is recognising when it doesn't work. And recognising how you feel and how bad you feel. That is a massive indicator that you have connected emotionally handcuffed yourself to this person. Which means that you are believing the lie, I can make this person happy and I can make this person better I can make this person whatever. Right? So when they're not that the lie punches you in the face, oh, no, you can't do that. You're the problem. You have failed. You're not worthy. All of that is a crock. Right? Because all of that is self inflicted, you know, it's self imposed. It is in my mind. You know, that's a on that side, it becomes a level of self flagellation, right, I'm gonna beat myself up because I didn't do a good enough job, which means that I'm just going to continue to tank my worth in the process, right? The other side of that on the Oh, it worked. Look at me, I'm amazing. What's the big problem there? That work goes away in five minutes. And now I have to find somebody else to please. So any of those aspects? You know, the things that you're telling yourself, I need to, I have to, those are all going to be the wrong phrases in your head. It's a flag what? Yeah, what does this person need?

And why do I think they need it? Right? There have been many times I've actually assess the situation and ask myself, do they need anything from me right now? And many times answer's no. They don't. You know that what they need right now is for you to be silent. Don't say anything at all. Don't help at all. Another thing that I will commonly do is ask. Hey, Brian, is there anything you want me to speak to on this? Is there any Do you want any advice on this? Is there anything you want to hear? And you know, I've done that for years now, and I've probably had somewhere between three and five times over the years where somebody just said, No. And I'm like, Great, fantastic. Moving on. Most of the time, people like yes, I would love to hear something. But there's times feel like no, actually don't want you to speak into this at all. Fantastic. Moving on. Right? No loss of worth no struggle. Oh my gosh, they just told me they don't want to hear my brilliance. Who would that be about? That would be about me again, right? So it's a very easy, they don't want to hear they may not. I may not know what the crap I'm talking about, they may not be ready to hear. So it doesn't matter what the issue is. The issue is right now. That's where they are. Leave them alone. Right. So that makes sense question. It's great.

Brian A 35:28
Yeah, I wish there were an app like a Fitbit or something where it tells us our worth metre and tell you know, if it pegs or if it's like, you know, sinks down and we can kind of monitor like a heart monitor. That'd be so awesome. That'd be great. Just people pleasing

Chris LoCurto 35:45
right now, stop your people. You're controlling right now?

Brian A 35:50
Oh, my gosh, no, gosh, that thing would be going off all the time with me.

Chris LoCurto 35:54
That would be so hilarious. Oh, man.

Brian A 35:57
But yeah, that's just a great. It's not a catch all. But it's such a general rule of thumb. And it goes into so many different topics that we've, we've covered over this year, just in that self assessment process, when I make it about me, and not somebody else, that there's something going on, I'm going to be in that victim mentality, or I'm going to be pushing and, you know, putting pressure on others or, you know, there's this tug of war going on inside me, I got to just let go of that and go, Okay, I need to just relax here. am I serving with an open heart? Am I doing it genuinely? Is the Lord pleased with this? Am I making about myself? Am I getting something out of this? Or is it just, you know, with with liberal, openness and generosity, and you know, so then that kind of brings us to our conclusion, Chris, for someone like yourself, because you had mentioned kind of being trained in that way growing up? Where people used you as a doormat, you know, and you mentioned that a moment ago, just in the the personality types and how, you know, some of those motivators can can work in that way. Where are the breaks? Where's the limits? Where's the boundaries? How, how do I gently but you know, in an effort to be healthy, with health in mind, put those limits there, what can I say? What can I do?

Chris LoCurto 37:29
So before I can get to the breaks, I feel like, we got to hit something you mentioned at the very beginning. And that was, you know, my worth and man versus my worth and God, right. Scripture tells us to seek to not seek worth in man but to seek worth only in God. And that is something that I pray that is something that's in my, my prayer life is that I'm only seeking worth from God right or not worth but approval. Don't seek the approval of man seek the approval of God, right. We have got this is one of the toughest things. So many people do not experience a tangible God. You know, it could be because of the, the religions that they've come out of it could be because of the teaching that they've come out of it could be because they you know, they, they can be great believers in God, but they don't experience Him, you know, in a tangible way. But they experienced man, every single day in a tangible way. Right. One of the things that we have to come to an understanding on is that there is nobody who loves me, like God does. He is the only create tore, we are all created. We are all created beings. None of us are creators. None of us are better than anybody else. None of us are more special than anybody else. Right? God is not a respecter of persons. What does that mean? God does not look down at his creation and respect any of us. And I think people get really, really confused on that thinking that he does. Oh my gosh, if I could just make God happy. If I can please God today, he's really going to change his thoughts on me. Nope. God loves you as much as he can love you. He can't love you anymore. Can't love you any less. Right? He already loves you the way he loves you. He is the greatest pursuer of your heart period. He is the one trying to get you to understand his ways and to have eternity with Him. Right? He's trying to get you out of a tonne of false teaching that's out there right now and it's just getting worse and worse and worse. I I can't even believe the stuff I'm hearing coming out of pulpits nowadays. It's just, it's just getting so far away from God. It's ridiculous and insane. And he's the one who's continually trying to pull people away from you know the words of men back into the words of God, right. He's the only one who holds Sorry, eternity in his hands. The only one period he's the only one who gave us the opportunity to even have that eternity to be grafted into the inheritance to have that eternity period. He's the only one. But we spend most of our time going, yeah, yeah, I hear that Chris. And I love God, and he's amazing. But if I can just get crystal Accardo to think I'm amazing today, if I can just get Brian Alex to think I'm amazing today that I will feel so much better about myself

Brian A 40:28
or the boss or the spouse or whoever you are, or

Chris LoCurto 40:32
this is the lie that we believe. Yeah, instead of getting our worth from the King of the universe, who already tells us what our worth is, who already tells us how worthy we are to him, we see that we see that with the cross, we see that with the ultimate sacrifice. We see that with the self and by the way, biblical definition of love is not emotion. Only we as humans say that love is emotion. The biblical definition of love is selfless sacrifice. If you don't believe me, look up John 316. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. It didn't say God loved the world so much that he felt really good about himself and he had a big worth and you know, he made his days brighter. He loved selflessly. Therefore, he sacrificed selflessly, as you look through out scripture, you will find when it's pointing to biblical love, it is tied to selfless sacrifice. So when we understand God has selflessly sacrificed for us, what are we doing for him? If we're putting man on a pedestal, I don't care who it is. And by the way, I'm going to shock a lot of churchgoers right now. Those of you who are following in authority of somebody over you and that somebody is not Yeshua, you know that somebody is not Jesus, immediately. You're following pagan practices. There is no scriptural authority above you, no matter how many people preach it, because it's pointing to them. So think about who's usually preaching the the authority, man's authority over another man is somebody who's in authority. Right? And then those people who believe in God, oh, yeah, that's exactly what it is. That is not what Scripture says. There is above us. There's no, your shoe is our high priest. We are supposed to be priests. We're supposed to follow that. We're not supposed to put any human beings on a pedestal. We're not even supposed to put them in authority. Take a look at how Paul speaks to this. You're not on my team. You're not on Peters team. You're not on a pollicis team. There are no freaking teams. Paul didn't say freaking. There are no teams, guys. There's your shoeless team. That's it. That's it. He's the only one above you, I just happen to be an apostle, because that's the gifts and talents that God gave me. Where are your gifts and talents, and you're supposed to be bringing those to the table. So if you're following this system that says, oh, somebody else is an authority, you're missing out on that connection to your God, which means you're also listening to somebody else tell you that you're less than the authority above you.

Oh, Chris, that's crazy. They're not saying that. Yep. By saying that somebody is above you or over you, when you look at bishops in the Bible, they were not over anybody until Constantine. It didn't happen until they started melding pagan belief systems into Christianity, right? These are people who were supposed to take care of now, are there teachers? Yes. Are there people who are supposed to be leading other elders? Yes. But they're not the guy who happens to run a business? Well, it's somebody who's operating in the gifts of the Spirit so well, that you see it coming off of them, or her and that person is supposed to then help other people. They're just not over them. They're not an authority over them. Why is all of this important? Why are you even mentioning this? Chris? I don't even believe that. That's fine. Dig into Scripture and discover it or ask us some questions. We'd love to answer. Why is all that important? Because all of that helps me to put man on a pedestal and not seek God and his worth. All that helps me to put humans look at the show. We don't even think about a show called American Idol. What does scripture say about idolatry? It is screaming against it. And we have no problem. This show is so popular. I don't know if it's still on. But I know it ran for an incredible number of years. It may still be on it. I don't know. But we didn't even think about something about making people idols. We don't think anything about making political people idols. We don't think anything about making singers, actors, idols, right. We don't think about making Rockstar pastors idols. If we are going to get to a place where we can be healthy not seeking the approval of man not seeking worth for men than we have got to understand a right relationship with the King, the creator of the universe. And that is we are his worth, we are His creation. So with all of that said, Where did the brakes come in, the sooner I can get to a healthier understanding of my worth. My worth isn't what God has told me, I am His creation, I am his son, I have the same inheritance that Yeshua has, I get to partake in that your shoe as my Lord, and I'm going to rule and reign with him. I'm going to fall in line with all of those promises, all of those things that he has said over and promised over and over and over again. I get to be in that nobody on this planet is offering me anything that comes even remotely close to that. Nobody can No, nobody can give me anything. Right?

So if man can offer me that, why in the world? Am I making men so amazing? And laughed it up in my mind? Right? So what are the breaks come in, the sooner I recognise my worth and God, the sooner I could start seeing that my worth is not emotionally handcuffed to man. So if I'm going to serve instead of people, please, then I've got to start learning how to self assess me first starting with myself, Where am I? Where struggles? Where are the things that I'm getting worth losing worth? Where are the things that I'm seeking for things in human beings, the sooner I could recognise those things, then I can see at the moment, I'm going to do it with somebody else, right? If I find myself trying to people, please. Or if I find myself trying to, you know, puff somebody's head up with compliments or whatever, you know, I love what you always give me compliments. Used to do that? Did the dishes give me compliments? If I find myself doing that, then I need to recognise I'm losing worth or I'm trying to gain worth in that moment, what's my struggle? My struggle is I'm not connected to God well enough, I'm not spending enough time with God, right. That's where the brakes start to come on. So if I start to help somebody, and I see that my worth is attached to it, put on the brake stop right here. This is a waste of time back off. Now, I think what you're asking is more the what happens when we become the doormat, right? If I'm helping somebody and they become a victim, or if I'm helping somebody and they become incredibly controlling, then I need to recognise what is this person struggling with? are they losing worth? are they gaining worth? Are they trying to control the situation? Are they trying to manipulate me in this process? And if so, then instead of losing my mind becoming a victim, you know, yelling at that, whatever, just go, You know what? Let me back out of this. So sorry. I was hoping to help with this or, you know, if there's anything you have the question, why is great, but this is going in an unhealthy direction. You know, I'm saying that this is becoming more about me trying to, you know, make you happy, as opposed to, you know, help you with the thing that you're struggling with, you know, I feel like, the thing that you're talking to me about is how do you make better decisions over here. And as I'm helping with that, it seems as though that's creating this situation where now you feel like a victim or it appears as though I'm experiencing this as though I'm your problem.

You know, I'm you feel though I'm not giving you good advice, or whatever the thing is, right? I'm just throwing these out there. But usually what tends to happen is if somebody wants some help on something, you start to help them and then they become a colossal victim and start telling you how your how wrong you are, and everything is, that's perfectly fine. If that's it, great. Let me just move away from this health, putting on the brakes and saying, Let me step away from this situation. What you will discover very quickly as and one of the things I always do. I had this situation recently where I made a comment to somebody and very quickly understood the comment I made was without great information, I made a comment and what oops, I didn't have all the information and I immediately backed out of it. So sorry, let me retract that. That is incorrect. I should not have said that very quickly. I'm taking responsibility. That was wrong. Let me back out of that. Right. You have to start with you. Did you do something wrong? And if so take responsibility like you should solve it. But what if it isn't? What if something you know somebody legitimately is coming to you asking for help you're helping them you're giving them advice, it's quality, healthy advice, and they become a victim then start to put on the brakes I'm so sorry. I feel like this is I'm experiencing this is going in the wrong direction. This doesn't seem to be helping this seems to be something that's frustrating you or whatever yada yada yada. So I'm just gonna back out of this if this is something you want to talk about in the future, that's okay. And start putting the put up the healthy boundaries. What you will discover it If somebody doesn't want the boundaries doesn't want the brakes put on, they're gonna keep coming after you they're gonna keep attacking, they're gonna keep pushing, they're gonna keep trying to drive, you know, to a argument or whatever. Why would they do that, because this is where they're struggling, they're trying to gain worth by being a victim and making you a villain. And that's only going to be unhealthy. If you're getting your worth from, and you're gonna stick in it, or you're going to receive it. And that's just going to, that's just going to really ruin everything that you were trying to accomplish by helping somebody tonne of stuff.

Brian A 50:36
It's a beautiful wrap up to what we're talking about today. And I think you've already addressed some of the other questions we were going to, we're going to use to kind of conclude we, you know, I wanted to ask the question about how do we nurture a servant's heart that's full of compassion, I think you've already you've already dealt with it. And it even it even explains, you know, as we get into the heart of God, his heart for us, we get our worth and our value from him. We build this natural, let's say, a defence system and immunity towards having to please other people, because we've got that part, we got that I hate to break it down to this level, but that itch has been scratched already. And so we're not going outside of our relationship with the Lord, to try to find that in other humans, because his love for us is sufficient His grace, and His mercy, His kindness is is sufficient, it fills us with that compassion so that we can make it about other people who are struggling, and not about what we're getting out of the situation. And helping people and and then eventually being used by them. I think this is a, this is a great primer, I could see us tackling this subject again in the future. But man, if people have questions, specific examples, or they want to ask about certain situations, they can send us an email, can't they?

Chris LoCurto 52:09
Absolutely. podcast at Chris liccardo.com, we would love to hear from you. You know, it is something that are obviously what is our goal we I've been doing this show for, you know, 10 910 years now, we just had our 500th episode, I will tell you and I you know, this is the second show that I've done, you may know of the first show that I did for many years. So why do we do this? Gosh, this is the thick of the topics that we cover, think of the content that we cover. Sure isn't about people pleasing. You know, a lot of this is tough stuff a lot of this stuff to only to help people. And so we are just we're blessed that people want to have this type of help that people want to do something with this. This information. So yeah, it it's it's a love, it's a passion.

Brian A 52:59
Love it. All right. Well, that's all the time we have for today.

Chris LoCurto 53:05
So what do we always say, folks? Hopefully this has helped you today. There's probably you may be struggling with a lot with this. The things that we shared today, it would not be surprising. You may have some some things going on inside, you know, as Brian recognised during this, right, you know, just the oh my gosh, that's usually how it happens right in the middle of the process. Oh, crud, that's me. I do that. Do not panic. Do not fear. Do not, you know, don't become a victim. Instead, what do we do about it? Listen to the things that we talked about here. Follow the steps focus on God, focus on your worth, focus on getting human beings off of pedestals. They don't belong there in the first place, right? Focus on those things. And then you will be amazed at how much healthier you will be and how much less of a people pleaser you will be. And how much those of you who have that servant's heart, get to walk it out. You get to be authentically you when you're not focused on pleasing man, which is way greater than then people pleasing any day. You know, half of my life was people pleasing. The other half of my life is serving in I served all the time. It's just now I serve for God instead of serving for Chris. You know, in the early years i i told myself I was serving God and I was absolutely definitely, but I was definitely serving me as well. It is so much better when I'm serving. So hopefully this has helped you today. Take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.