How To Lead with Freedom When Pressure is Constant

Show Notes

In this episode of the Grounded Man Podcast, host John Douglas explores the constant pressure faced by men building businesses and supporting their families.

He breaks down the difference between the chosen pressure of an exciting challenge versus the constant pressure that slowly drains your energy and headspace.

John explains that pressure is not coming from your responsibilities, but from how you relate to them internally, often driven by fear, scarcity, and unconscious conditioning.

He unpacks how the fear of loss, failure, and rejection keeps many men stuck in a cycle of tension and overthinking.

By shifting toward an abundance mindset, practicing presence, and building self awareness, you can begin to release unnecessary pressure.

This allows you to lead with more clarity, freedom, and enjoyment in both your business and your life.

For more on the Deru approach to leadership from the inside out, visit www.derunation.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@derunation

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Introduction

00:01:17 — What Constant Pressure Feels Like

00:02:15 — Chosen vs Constant Pressure

00:04:08 — Pressure is Internal

00:05:05 — Fear and Pressure

00:08:00 — The Cost of Indecision

00:09:52 — Scarcity Mindset

00:10:56 — Moving to Abundance

00:15:35 — Presence and Letting Go

00:17:45 — Observe When Pressure Rises

00:20:03 — Closing Thoughts

Sequence of Topics Covered

Introduction & Context
 • Podcast purpose and eliminating pressure

Understanding Pressure
 • What constant pressure feels like
 • Hidden burnout and mental weight

Chosen vs Constant Pressure
 • Growth vs draining pressure

Pressure is Internal
 • Driven by perception and the future

Fear and Scarcity
 • Fear of loss and survival thinking
 • Scarcity mindset

Shifting to Abundance
 • Energy is abundant
 • Focus on what you can control

Presence and Letting Go
 • Acting with clarity and faith
 • Detaching from outcomes

Root Causes of Pressure
 • Conditioning and need to prove

Self Awareness Practice
 • Noticing tension and asking why

Freedom from Pressure
 • Leading with presence and freedom

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How free do you feel right now in life? Or how much weight are you carrying? Because if you feel like you're carrying a lot of weight, that's a sign that the constant pressure is there. Welcome to the Grounded Man Podcast by Deru. I am your host, John Douglas, and founder of Deru. And this space is for hardworking men building businesses, carrying responsibility, and providing for the families who feel they should be freed. You see, the world has changed, and leading through hard work and long hours now limits a man's influence. The new way is mastering the inner game of leadership so you can carry it well, enjoy what you're building, and still feel free. Deru is leadership for the 21st century. This episode is episode 5. We are talking about constant pressure, or more likely, actually, how to eliminate that constant pressure. Before I get into that, I want to talk about how does that show up. Pressure can show up in many different ways. It shows up through many different emotions, most of them negative. Some of them though exciting, because you know, not all pressure is bad. When I talk about pressure, I don't think that pressure is a bad thing. I'm just talking about the constant pressure. You know, that constant hum, that constant drain that you feel that sometimes it actually you don't even notice it's there because it feels so normal to you at this stage. And it's only when you get a break, you get a holiday, you get a moment out of the business or out of work, and you reset and you realize, God damn it, I was so drained, I was so burnt out, I didn't even know it. And that's the kind of pressure I'm talking about that maybe you don't even know it exists. And so you can feel that right now. How free do you feel? An easy way to judge it. How free do you feel right now in life? Or how much weight are you carrying? Because if you feel like you're carrying a lot of weight, that's a sign that the constant pressure is there. But there's also a different type of pressure, and that pressure is chosen pressure. Chosen pressure is when you set yourself a goal or some ambitious target to meet or some standard to raise, and it stretches you, it pulls you outside your comfort zone, and you grove through it. But it's chosen, you've chosen it consciously as an area that you want to expand and grow. That's not constant pressure. Constant pressure is unchosen, it's there anyway, whether you like it or not. And most of that is coming from your experience of the world around you. And so I want to bring you down a path into deep diving into uh into this pressure and pull you again out of that very quickly. Because this episode is not really about, as I said, reducing the pressure. I want to help you eliminate it, and I want to give you a path to do that. So if we think of pressures, we might get pressures in the business for from it could come from financial stress. It could come from feeling isolated like nobody else cares. It can come from feeling hurt or disappointed when others don't, you know, do what they're told or meet the standards or they let the quality slip. It can come from overwhelm, maybe just too many things going on. It can come from busyness where we're just chaotic, firefighting, jumping from one thing to the next, reacting. All of these are these different types of pressures. Can also come from guilt and shame. Maybe around, you know, if you're working too long, you know you should be at home with family. Or likewise, if you're at home with family, sometimes you feel guilty about you should be in work if you've taken an early evening or something. And so this pressure shows up in so many different ways. But if you think about it, who feels the pressure? Because you can't feel somebody else's pressure. You can resonate with them. Somebody else can't feel your pressure. The pressure you feel is inside. Because if it was external pressure, this would be like an imminent danger, this would be like imminent danger. You're out for a walk in the woods and you meet a bear and he looks hungry. Then there's an imminent danger there and there's pressure because you could literally die. Or maybe there might be imminent danger from driving on a wet road someday and the car starts to slide. Or maybe there's imminent danger from somebody who attacks you on the street trying to rob you. Or maybe there's imminent danger from your walking along a cliff edge. So there's there is places that there's imminent danger and they can cause an external pressure because you're at risk. But most of that pressure that we carry, it's illusional. Because a lot of it is based on an outcome or based on the future or based on uh something that that will or will not happen. And so it's only mental, it's only emotional. We carry it in the body, we carry it in our mind. Nobody else is seeing this, but we're feeling it, and we're it's weighing us down. So where does that pressure come from? Really, it's coming from that fear. Like is if there's a danger there, if there's an imminent danger there, it's it's coming from uh we want to survive. And fear helps us, it's the best tool ever for surviving. But when it's coming from something like a doubt or a worry, that's future focus. That's things we cannot control. They're the uncontrollables, the unknown, the uncertain. But when our time and energy goes into there, you start to feel pressure. So that's a very good way of seeing if you're knowing if you're focused. Because if you're feeling pressure, you're not focused. And often many men confuse, they think the pressure, the more pressure you're under, the more focused you are. But that's not the case. You're just trying to own things that aren't yours. Like, how can you operate on maximum performance when you're not when you don't have peace of mind and you don't have presence? Most people I talk to that are suffering from this constant pressure, they're they would say that they're probably operating in in a second gear or third gear, and they want they obviously want to be in fifth gear. But you have to allow yourself to get to fifth gear, and so you have to allow yourself to release the pressure. This is an allowing game, and allowing means releasing things, not releasing responsibilities, releasing the inner divisions, releasing the where you ever you feel separated inside, wherever you feel some tension inside, some friction inside, you have to start to ask yourself why. And usually if you ask yourself why enough and think about it long enough, your ego and your body and your mind, they fear that they're risking a loss here. Like let's say a decision comes whether we need to say yes or no to this investment. And if you're not a peace of mind in that moment, well then fear owns a peace of your mind. Because if you're making a decision based not on peace of mind, then you're not doing it for the good of everything, and you're not doing it to express and for forward progress and for growth, you're doing it to survive. And fear is the ultimate survival too. So fear thinks that there is a risk of loss, and that can be loss in many different ways. So it could be literally loss of life, it could be loss of health, it could be a loss of love, which is a fear of rejection, could be a fear of poverty. So it crops up in different ways. You don't actually think this through in your head as you're going through life, and that's why I'm talking to you about it, because this is actually what's going on in split seconds, in nanoseconds, in your body and in your mind. And I'm just bringing it out into minutes so you can actually understand what is my body and mind actually doing. How do I actually control it? Because if you can't control your mind, you can't change your mind. You can't change your mind, you can't change your life. So the body risks, feels like there's a risk here. And every decision you make obviously carries a risk. There's a bigger risk to inaction than there is to action. Theodore Roosevelt had a great quote. He said, in any moment of decision, the best decision is the right decision. The next best decision is the wrong decision, and the worst decision is no decision at all. And I love that quote because the biggest waste of of anything is that we're going to risk. Remember that every decision carries a risk, so there's a loss there. And the biggest waste is wasting our time because we don't have enough of it. And so we need to start getting better with making decisions quicker so that we actually are moving towards what we want quicker before the time runs out. And even old age is a fear. So there's a fear of time running out. And so funny, that the fear, whatever you fear, owns you. Because you if you if you start thinking about this long enough, whatever you fear, you start to protect. So if you if you fear poverty, like let's say you fear running out of money, you'd start to slow down, play it safe, hold back, prolong decisions, hesitate. What does all those things do? It just means that your results start to dip, and therefore you're at a greater risk. You're actually stepping closer to financial disaster. So you start to protect the fears, and this is why it's so, so important to know that they're there and see them and feel them, and you know through your body how your body's reacting to things. Because none of this is true. It's just a pure illusion when it's when it's all about the future. Again, there's imminent fear. That's a threat, that's a danger in your in your surroundings. Right now, it's a physical threat to your survival. But then most of the fear is the doubt and the worry, and it's not it's not like a panic fear, like a 10 out of 10. It's more like ones, twos, threes, fours, maybe fives. And sometimes you might have a tough week, you might be up in the six or sevens with stress. But it's the subtle fear, it just goes through you and it stops you from saying yes quicker. So why does it do that? Why does it fear loss of whatever that loss might look like? Money, status, whatever that might be. Why does it fear loss? It fears loss because there's a scarcity mentality behind it. There's a scarcity mindset, there's a lack mindset. So basically, you think everything is limited. And there's a part of you is limited, like you're physically limited in your ability of what you can do. You're physically limited in the amount of time you have. That's true. That is the scarcity piece. But the energy is not scarce. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, which means it's infinite, which means it's inexhaustible, which means there's no end to it. And so energy is abundant. And so we and your thoughts are energy, your emotions are energy, your actions are energy, but your thoughts and your emotions, that's the infinite part of you. That's the bit that's not limited. That's the bit of you that's spiritual. That's the bit of you that can that this that the energy of the universal energy, if you like, or universal power, it responds to. So when I talk about you think on a certain frequency, you send a certain vibration of frequency out through your thoughts that you think, and that attracts to you, you know, the events and the opportunities that are on that frequency. So why do you attract to yourself the same things you're thinking about? And that's because that spiritual energy is responding to you, that vibration, that frequency that you're sending out is coming back in a physical form. And so we can think bigger thoughts. So all we have to do is change from a scarcity mindset into an abundant mindset. So instead of thinking like there's we're short money, we're short sales this month, we don't have enough people, where's our next customers and clients going to come from? What happens if we don't get any business over the next while? Uh what happens if the you know, if Donald Trump makes a decision to start a world war? What happens if Putin, you know, starts another war? Like what if all these things happen? What if, what if, what if, what if? That's all kind of scarcity mindset thinking. And it's not focused on abundance, focusing on being present, focusing on what you can control, focusing on having faith in yourself that if you show up with a good positive mindset and a good positive energy in your body, that the world will respond positively to that. So you get distracted. So you're either unaware. So the root of all this is ignorance. Either you're not aware of this, or else you are aware of it, but you just keep getting distracted. And either way, it has the same impact. And the world doesn't really care. Life doesn't really care. It won't give you any grace for not knowing. So your number one job is to start getting awareness, start learning, understanding what the truth. And there's so that's we we worked in from the outset what pressure is all the way back to the root cause, which is ignorance, not knowing, not being aware, not understanding. So now I'm gonna build you back out from that place, back out. So, what do you need to be aware of? You need to understand the truth, and there's universal truths, like some of those laws and principles that govern energy. What I'm gonna leave you with two to remember, right? One is that energy is abundant and limitless. So you can think bigger thoughts and think more positive thinking. And there's nothing stopping you. It doesn't matter if you failed for the last 20 years or you feel you failed, because failures are perception anyway. But it doesn't matter if you feel like you failed for the last 20 years, you can start thinking like success right now, right here. Nothing stopping you. The only thing that will stop you is it'll feel false and it'll feel fake, but that's only because it's it's uncomfortable, it's unfamiliar. And so the body values familiarity lot a lot more than it values abundance and positivity. And so even if it's familiar but it's negative, you'll trust that more than something that is more positive and abundant but unfamiliar. So this is again, this is going back to you need to trust yourself. So that's the first one. Energy is abundant and limitless, and we can think more positively. That's how we access that abundance and access that kind of infinite side of ourselves. And the next one is that remember this, okay? So whatever state I live from determines the experiences that I live in. So basically, the positive thinking and the positive energy in your body will create a positive experience. So that's how you turn that energy into reality. Is that you have to get you have to embody it through your beliefs, through your state, through your identity, and allow that to express itself into your reality, into your experiences. They are two truths to remember. So when you're aware of them, you're like, haha, so I can think better now. I don't know, it doesn't matter. Like it doesn't, it operates without precedent. It doesn't matter what's happened before. I can set a new vision right now today and focus on it and keep visualizing it and keep seeing myself in it and keep living from that place. And I develop an abundance mindset and I start to be grateful for the opportunities at hand. And I notice that my team are actually, they are starting to step up a little bit. I know I notice myself, I'm responding better now to things that I used to react to. And you start to notice little shifts and changes that start to compound over time, over months. And this abundance starts to become a new way of thinking and a new way of operating and a new way of feeling in your body. You start to feel abundant and you feel that through confidence and you feel that through ability and power. Not power over others, but that willpower and that universal power will shape your reality. And so when you start to notice this abundance, you start to notice the opportunities that are there because you become more present. Because you're not worrying about the future that you can't control. Now you have more energy for the present moment. And you say, oh, this is what we can do today. Well, this is what we can focus on. Well, this is the problem we can solve. And so you see what you can do today, and you know you're more aware of the resources that you have. Well, we actually do have the technology, we actually do have the people, we actually do have the solutions. Let's do this. And so you're you're a lot more positive and proactive because of this. So it's not pressure, there's more presence and proactivity. And you're doing this with fate. Like, why would you start focusing on what you can do today? Because you know that if I just keep working on what's in front of me and keep doing it to the best of my ability, that more and more good will come, more and more abundance will appear, more and more prosperity and wealth will appear. And so when you start acting from this space and operating from this space, you've just freeing yourself, you've liberated yourself, you've liberated yourself from the pressure, and you've put yourself into the present to be here right now to lead yourself and others to the best of your ability. And so I've just taken this on a short journey from pressure all the way into fear, through risk of loss, through scarcity mindset, back to ignorance, and then building back out on truth, on awareness, on abundance, on opportunity, on fate, on trusting the process and freedom. You see, the pressure you experience is all internal because even if there's things external, it's how your perception and your awareness take that in. And if you don't know who you are inside, everything feels like a personal attack. So if you take things personally, if you attach to outcomes, you take them personally. And when you take things personally, you cause pressure within yourself. When you're not attached to outcomes, it becomes imp impersonal. And when it's impersonal, you're very objective, you're very calm, and you can stand back. And so instead of saying, Oh, I'm really frustrated, you say, This situation is frustrating. And I think it's because blah de blah de blah. And so you work back and you you you have a moment there where you think about why is it frustrating? Well, it's actually questioning my authority, it's actually challenging who I think I am, it's actually challenging who I'm trying to be as a leader, and that's why it's frustrating. But you accept it for what it is and you get on with it. You don't avoid it. This is not about avoiding pressure or putting it under the carpet because you don't you haven't dealt with it. You need to deal with it by saying, by seeing what it is, seeing what it is for what it is, and not put not attaching your own stories to it. Because that's where the pressure comes from. There's an internal divide. There's something, probably going back to childhood, that's where most of this stuff starts. Some programming, some conditioning in your mind that makes you feel that you're you're not good enough, you're not capable enough, you're not wordy enough, you're not doing a good enough job, and it starts to question. So you're trying to prove and chase something, you're trying to achieve a certain level of success to prove it to yourself or to prove it to somebody who's not even watching. And in doing so, you put this pressure on yourself. It's the expectation, it's the outcome. That's where the weight comes from. So when I talk about picking up the weight and carrying that weight, what I'm talking about is carrying it in a way that you don't carry it with the suspended weight of the pressure that feels like it's just something swinging in mid-air that's slowly gonna knock you over on top of you. You release that and you say, Well, that's actually not mine to carry. I choose to carry presence instead. I choose to be here right now. And so for the next week, I just wanted you to notice moments when you feel tension and friction in your body when something happens, when you have a decision to make, or your uh situation has just happened and unfolded. I say, just notice it. You don't even have to fix it, just notice it and just ask why is that there? And just do a bit of self-reflection, introspection, just follow it back, keep ask why. Tony Robbins had a great thing, the seven levels of why. Just go back a few levels as to why, find the root cause, and you always feel that I'm getting frustrated about something that happened when I was eight years old. But because my body has remembered that, it's remembered that event and it's come up again in the emotion of the current situation. I'm reacting the same way because I'm just trying to survive. So let's get rid of this pressure because if we want people to carry responsibility into the future, especially the next generation, we have to show them a way hat to carry responsibility with freedom on a freedom rhythm and not on the pressure pad. Take care. Thank you so much for listening today. I really enjoy sharing this wisdom because it doesn't come from me, it comes through me from the work I do with men like you that I serve. So if the idea shared today resonated, be sure to like and follow the show. And if another man would value it, share this episode with him. Because the more men who hear this, the more of us can break free from pressure and enjoy what we're building. So let's enjoy the build together. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you next week.