The Three-Letter Word That's Keeping You Stuck ============================================== Sean Stephenson's 'Get Off Your But' is a loving intervention for anyone hiding behind an excuse. We talk radical responsibility, flipping the but, and why the cage door is already unlocked. ---------------------------------------- SAM: Hey, welcome to 7 Minute Books. I'm Sam, and today we're talking about Get Off Your But by Sean Stephenson, a book about the tiny three-letter word that quietly runs our lives. Sophie, I have to ask, what was your first reaction when you realized how much this book is actually about? SOPHIE: Hey there Sam, good to be here. My first reaction was that it's way more confrontational than the title suggests. Stephenson isn't offering gentle encouragement. He's diagnosing a disease, and the disease is the word but. He says it's the most dangerous weapon we use against ourselves, and honestly, by the end I believed him. SAM: Yeah, and the guy has the standing to say it. He was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, so his bones were shattering constantly. Doctors told his parents he'd never walk and probably wouldn't live long. And he ended up a motivational speaker with this huge joyful presence. So when he asks what your excuse is, it lands differently. SOPHIE: Right, and that's the thing. He's not coming at this from theory. His whole life is the argument. The only real disability, he says, is a broken spirit. So the book opens by diagnosing the but, and he's clear that it's not a rational assessment of your circumstances. It's a defense mechanism. SAM: Which is the part that stung for me. He says the but is the voice of fear speaking in the language of logic. Like, I could start that business, but I don't have enough money. That sounds like a fact, but it's actually a choice to stay safe. SOPHIE: Exactly, and that's the first step he lays out. Every but is a choice. You're prioritizing safety over growth, and you've made a pact with your own mediocrity. He wants you to become a but-buster, basically a detective of your own self-sabotage. SAM: I love that phrase. And then he moves into what he calls radical responsibility, which is the cornerstone of the whole book. And I want to be careful here, because it's not about blaming yourself for your problems. It's about owning your responses to them. SOPHIE: Right, and there's this story he tells about being bullied as a kid. These boys called him a cripple, and he felt the hurt, obviously. But then he realized he had a choice. He couldn't control them, but he could control his reaction. That's the fulcrum the whole book pivots on. SAM: And the question that flips everything is moving from why is this happening to me, to what am I going to do about it. That's such a small shift in wording, but it changes you from a passenger to the driver. SOPHIE: Yeah, and then he goes after identity. He talks about identity scripts, the stories we repeat about ourselves until they feel like facts. I'm just not a morning person. I'm not good with numbers. I'm the shy one in the family. Those aren't facts. They're narratives. SAM: And the but is basically the punctuation mark at the end of those scripts. He says you can be the scriptwriter instead of just the actor. He could have written his script as the fragile boy in the wheelchair, and instead he wrote it as the man who brings joy to millions. SOPHIE: Which is such a good distinction, because he's not denying his physical reality. He's refusing to let it be the headline. He says he moved the but from the front of the sentence to the middle, and then he deleted it entirely. SAM: Okay, and then there's the tool I've actually been using since I read this, which is flipping the but. It's so simple. You catch yourself saying I want to write a book, but I don't have time, and you flip it to I don't have time, and I want to write a book. SOPHIE: And that flip is uncomfortable, right? Because it strips away the excuse and reveals the truth. You're not making time. You're choosing not to prioritize it. Once you see that, you can either accept the choice or change it, but you can't hide anymore. SAM: I actually pushed back on this when I first read it. I thought, some buts are real. Some people genuinely don't have the money. And he'd probably say fine, but the but still isn't doing anything for you. It's still the thing keeping you in the cage. SOPHIE: Right, and that leads into his section on fear, where he separates good fear from bad fear. Good fear keeps you from stepping into traffic. Bad fear keeps you from asking for the raise or going on the date. It's not protecting you from danger. It's protecting you from discomfort. SAM: And his antidote is developing a fear of regret. He asks what your life will look like in five years if you don't take the risk. And the pain of regret, he argues, lasts way longer than the sting of failure. SOPHIE: Yeah, and then he redefines power in a way that really got me. Our culture equates power with control and invulnerability. He says true power is vulnerability. When you hide your weaknesses, you also hide your strength. SAM: That's the part where his own story does the work. He talks about the loneliness and despair he felt as a young man, and the terror of asking a woman out. And he says his charisma doesn't come from being invincible. It comes from being honest about his fragility. SOPHIE: And then he takes on the myth of someday. Someday I'll get in shape. Someday I'll make amends. He calls it the tyranny of the future, because the past is a memory and the future is a fantasy. The only moment you have is now. SAM: And his answer is the discipline of now, which is basically immediate imperfect action. Don't wait for the perfect business plan. Start selling something today. Don't wait for the perfect words to apologize. Pick up the phone. SOPHIE: Right, because the gap between who you are and who you want to be isn't crossed by thinking. It's crossed by doing. Action is the antidote to the but. SAM: And I appreciate that he doesn't promise a problem-free life. He talks about the gift in the wound, the idea that your deepest wounds often contain your greatest purpose. Your but is often pointing directly at your destiny. SOPHIE: Which is a wild idea, that the thing you feel most unqualified for is often the very thing you're meant to do. The resistance you feel is proportional to the size of your potential. He says lean into the discomfort. SAM: And then he gets practical about community. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If everyone around you is comfortable with their excuses, they'll validate yours. You need a but-busting tribe. SOPHIE: Yeah, people who will look you in the eye and say I hear your excuse, but I know you're capable of more. That's not harsh. That's loving. And he credits his family and his wife for never letting him settle for a victim narrative. SAM: And the final piece is service. He says the ultimate cure for self-pity is focusing on helping others. When you're consumed with your own problems, your buts grow larger. When you shift to what you can contribute, they shrink. SOPHIE: Right, because the but is often a form of self-absorption. You're so focused on what you lack that you forget what you have to give. Service is the final nail in the coffin of the but. SAM: So the one thing I'm actually taking away from this is the flip. I'm going to catch myself every time I say but this week and just turn the sentence around. It's such a small move, but it makes the excuse impossible to hide behind. SOPHIE: I love that. And if you want to go deeper, the whole library is over at 7minutebooks.com/app, with over 6,000 fiction and nonfiction titles you can read or listen to in any language, plus infographics on many of them. It starts at $2.99 a month, $9.99 a year, or $19.99 once for lifetime access. SOPHIE: The whole book comes down to this. The cage door is unlocked, and the only person holding it shut is you. So get off your but and go live the life you were meant to live. We'll see you in the next one.