In this episode, I'm talking about the moment you realise the thing you're clinging to is the very thing keeping you stuck.

"Let go of the vine" is the image: you're swinging across a gap and you refuse to release because it feels unsafe. But the truth is brutal, you can't grab the next vine while your hands are full. Most people don't fail because they're incapable. They fail because they keep gripping an identity, a relationship pattern, a role, a grievance, or a comfort behaviour that once helped them survive, but now sabotages their life.

We unpack what clinging looks like in the real world: staying in a job that drains you because it's predictable, staying angry because it feels powerful, staying hypervigilant because the nervous system thinks you're still on the job, staying in "I'll start when…" because it protects you from judgement. If you've been carrying too much for too long, you'll recognise the cost.

I walk you through a simple framework to identify your vine: what are you tolerating, what are you defending, and what are you repeating. Then we get practical with a three-step reset you can do today: name the vine, choose the next move, and commit to one uncomfortable action that proves you're serious.

Discipline isn't punishment, it's self-respect. Letting go isn't reckless. It's deciding to stop negotiating with the part of you that wants comfort more than growth.

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This isn't motivation. It's responsibility. If you want a stronger life, you don't need more insight. You need the courage to release what's familiar so you can build what's possible. Starting today. No excuses. Move.

In EP 3605 of The Strong Life Project, Shaun O'Gorman breaks down a simple truth most people avoid: anxiety grows when you keep feeding it. Not because you are weak, but because your brain is doing its job. It is trying to protect you. The problem is the protection strategy becomes the prison. You avoid the hard conversation, the gym, the inbox, the decision, the vulnerability, the uncomfortable truth. You feel temporary relief, and your nervous system learns, "Good, we survived." Then the fear expands its territory. Next time it takes more avoidance to feel safe.

Shaun explains how this cycle shows up in real life: overthinking, reassurance seeking, scrolling, numbing, snapping at the people you love, and living with a low grade dread that never fully leaves. He also makes it clear that insight alone does not change anything. Repetition does. What you practise becomes your baseline.

The second half flips the script. Courage is not a personality trait. It is a behaviour pattern you can train. Courage feeds itself the same way anxiety does, through small, consistent actions that prove to your brain you can handle discomfort. Shaun shares practical ways to build your courage loop: shrinking tasks to something you will actually do, making one clear decision, taking one honest action, and doing it again tomorrow. No hype. No pretending. Just personal responsibility with a plan.

If you are sick of being controlled by your own mind, this episode gives you a grounded framework to stop reinforcing fear and start reinforcing strength.

EP 3604 What is the cost of it? is a blunt audit of the price you are paying, often without noticing. Shaun O'Gorman pulls apart the hidden costs that show up in everyday decisions: the cost of staying silent to keep the peace, the cost of avoiding hard conversations, the cost of chasing performance while neglecting recovery, and the cost of tolerating standards you would never accept for someone you love.

This episode is not about money. It is about energy, identity, relationships, and self-respect. If you keep saying yes when you mean no, you will pay with resentment. If you keep numbing out with distraction, you will pay with momentum. If you keep running on stress hormones and "just pushing through," you will pay with patience, sleep, and the way you speak to the people closest to you.

Shaun challenges you to stop pretending you can have everything without trade-offs. Every goal has a cost. Every habit has a cost. Every relationship you keep, and every boundary you avoid, has a cost. The problem is not paying a price. The problem is paying the wrong price. High performance is a conscious decision, not luck, ever.

You will learn a simple decision filter you can use today:

1. What is this costing me right now?

2. What will it cost me in 6 months if nothing changes?

3. What will it cost the people around me?

4. What is the cost of changing, and is that the better deal?

If you are stuck, tired, reactive, or drifting, this is your reset. Bring brutal honesty, pick one area you have been tolerating, and commit to the next right action. Progress is expensive, but regret costs more.

Listen now and do the maths on your life before life does it for you.

Most people don't overthink everything. They overthink the worst. One comment from your partner, one email from your boss, one slow week in business, and your brain writes a disaster movie. You rehearse rejection, failure, conflict, embarrassment. Then you call it being realistic.

In EP 3603, Why can't we overthink the best?, Shaun O'Gorman flips that pattern on its head. If your mind can run 50 scenarios where it all goes wrong, it can run 50 scenarios where you handle it, adapt, and win. Same brain. Same imagination. Different direction.

This episode breaks down why your nervous system defaults to threat scanning, and how that habit sabotages confidence and performance. When you overthink the worst, you don't prepare, you panic. You avoid conversations. You play small. You start living a life built around risk management instead of purpose.

Overthinking the best is not delusion. It's rehearsal. It's training your attention to look for options and actions instead of only danger. You respect risk, but you don't worship it.

Shaun gives you a simple tool to retrain your thinking without pretending life is perfect:

You'll learn how to use optimism as a strategy, not a mood, and how to build an internal dialogue that creates calm, clarity, and decisive action under pressure. If you're tired of your mind being the loudest enemy in the room, this is your reset.

Listen now and start aiming your thinking at the life you actually want to build.

In EP 3602 of The Strong Life Project, Shaun O'Gorman breaks down the concept of vagal authority and why some people can walk into pressure, conflict, or chaos and instantly change the energy in the room. This is not charisma, status, or volume. It is nervous system regulation, the capacity to stay grounded and connected while your body wants to spike into fight, flight, or shut down.

Shaun explains what the vagus nerve does in plain language and why calm is not a personality trait, it is a trained physiological skill. The vagus nerve is a major two way communication pathway between brain and body that influences heart rate, breathing, digestion, and recovery. When it is working well, it helps you downshift after stress, think clearly under load, and stay open to connection. Higher cardiac vagal activity and high frequency HRV are often linked with better self regulation and executive control. When it is not, you might look fine on the outside but live wired, reactive, impatient, numb, or exhausted.

You will learn how vagal authority shows up in leadership, parenting, relationships, and high performance. The person with the most regulated nervous system often has the most influence, because people can feel safety or threat through tone, facial expression, pace, posture, and presence long before they hear your words.

This episode also challenges the trendy, oversimplified vagus hacks floating around online. Shaun focuses on what actually builds capacity over time: consistent sleep and training, breath control, down regulation routines, emotional honesty, boundaries, and choosing behaviour over excuses.

If you have been stuck in high alert, snapping at people you love, or feeling flat and disconnected, this is your reset. Listen in, identify your patterns, and start building the kind of authority that makes people trust you without you having to demand it. At the end, Shaun gives a drill you can use in 60 seconds to rehearse regulation.

In EP 3601 What is your programming? we pull the curtain back on the invisible code that runs your life. Most people think they are making conscious decisions, but they are mostly executing old patterns that were installed through childhood, culture, trauma, peer influence, relationships, and the job they do. That programming shows up in the same places again and again: the way you react under pressure, the stories you tell yourself, the standards you tolerate, the relationships you repeat, and the excuses you keep protecting.

This episode breaks down how your programming forms and how it becomes automatic. If you have a short fuse, avoid conflict, chase approval, self sabotage, procrastinate, overwork, or numb out, those are not random flaws. They are strategies your nervous system learned to survive. The problem is that what once protected you can now keep you stuck. Your default settings might be costing you your health, your leadership, your confidence, and your closest relationships.

You will be challenged to identify your triggers and the moments you "switch" without thinking. You will learn how to spot the thought loops that sound like truth but are actually conditioning. More importantly, you will get practical steps to start rewriting the code: slow down the reaction, name the pattern, interrupt it with a deliberate behaviour, and reinforce a better response until it becomes your new normal.

This is not motivational fluff. It is a call to take ownership of your internal operating system. Because if you do not choose your programming, someone else already did. And if you keep running the same code, you will keep getting the same results.

In this episode, Shaun O'Gorman breaks down a modern trap that's quietly crushing good people: productivity dysmorphia. It's the distorted belief that you're never doing enough, even when you're performing, progressing, and carrying serious responsibility. You look at your week, your body of work, your family load, and your leadership demands and still feel behind. Not because you are behind, but because your internal scoreboard is broken.

Shaun unpacks how this mindset forms through comparison culture, endless metrics, and the addictive pull of "just one more task." You'll hear why high performers are especially vulnerable: competence raises expectations, so you keep moving the goalposts. The cost is brutal: chronic stress, short fuse, poor sleep, relationship erosion, and the constant background guilt that you should be working.

The episode gives you a practical reset. First, separate activity from impact by defining what "productive" actually means in your current season. Second, install a daily definition of done so you can finish the day without negotiating with your own mind. Third, audit the lies driving the pressure such as perfectionism, fear of falling behind, and identity tied to output. Shaun also challenges the common mistake of trying to fix a mindset problem with more time management. If you don't address the belief…

Shaun shares signs: you minimise wins, you feel anxious during rest, you constantly rewrite your to do list, and you judge yourself by what's unfinished rather than what's completed. He offers a seven day challenge: document evidence of value delivered, not hours worked.

You'll leave with a simple framework to measure progress without self punishment: choose three priorities, track one meaningful outcome, and deliberately create recovery so your nervous system can handle the load. This is about building a life that performs without breaking. Stop chasing more and start owning enough.

In EP 3599, What is your highest ROI behaviour change, Shaun O'Gorman cuts through the noise and asks a ruthless question: if you could only change one behaviour that would create the biggest improvement across your life, what would it be?

This episode is about leverage. Not motivation. Not a new routine you do for three days. Leverage means one behaviour that multiplies results across your health, relationships, leadership, mood, energy, confidence, and performance. Shaun breaks down how most people chase low value changes because they feel productive, while avoiding the uncomfortable high value behaviours that actually shift identity and outcomes.

You will hear a practical way to identify your highest ROI behaviour change by tracking where your life consistently breaks down and linking it to the behaviour that drives the pattern. Shaun explores common high ROI levers such as sleep discipline, emotional regulation under pressure, honest communication, removing alcohol or junk inputs, daily training, and taking ownership instead of blaming circumstances. The point is not the specific behaviour. The point is selecting the one that creates the greatest ripple effect, then locking it in through standards, environment design, and repetition.

Shaun also challenges the listener to stop negotiating with themselves. If you keep treating your best life like an optional extra, you will keep getting optional results. The episode closes with a simple commitment framework: choose the behaviour, define the minimum non negotiable version, set the trigger, and track it daily for long enough that it becomes who you are, not something you try.