Keys to Open Doors: Ownership

I guess it's time to get a flat brim cap and start Jiu Jitsu.

Ownership

I love talking about ownership, and I hate talking about ownership.

I love it because we literally cannot do anything without it. You have no say in anything you have no ownership in.

 It’s tragic when this is your own life.

I kind of hate it because it puts me in the same niche as a bunch of YouTubers and podcasters who use it as a stick to beat people over the head with. They all seem to suddenly grow really nice beards and start getting tattoos in their 40s for some reason.

Ownership is literally everything in moving forward with life and making changes. It is the determining factor in how far a person will go if they go anywhere at all. It is the make-or-break mindset.

So, what makes me struggle with it?

Ownership and Blame

It all comes down to blame.

I'm not big on blame. It serves no purpose unless you are trying to fix something.

Let’s say I notice a giant puddle of water in my backyard. I am curious to know what is causing it. I investigate until I find a broken sprinkler head. Very cool. I have found the problem, and now I can fix it.

Taking it a step further, let's say I see that the sprinkler head is broken because my son ran over it with the lawn mower. This is also good; now I can talk to him to keep it from happening again.

Technically, we found two things to "blame," but it was all about finding a solution. The “blame” part is only there to fix the problem and prevent it in the future. A lot of what I see presented as ownership in the podcast world is more about blame and criticism than anything else.

Ownership is about taking responsibility for our actions and their outcomes, not because we need to blame ourselves or anyone else, but because it gives us power and control over our lives.

When you don't have ownership over your own life, you don't have any say in what happens, and that's tragic. Ownership is about empowerment and growth, not blame. It allows us to see and fix problems rather than focus on who's at fault.

Real Empowerment Requires Ownership

I hear a lot of people talking about empowerment on social media and in other pop psychology spaces. I don't like the word now because of how it's been so overused, but when I look at the work I do and the work I've done for close to 20 years now, it's really all been about empowering people.

I remember what it was like to feel powerless in my own life. I felt powerless over addiction, powerless over my emotions, powerless over my thoughts, and powerless in my relationships. I felt like my life was on a rail and that there was nothing I could do about anything.

It was a miserable way to live

The only way to have any power in your life is to embrace ownership of everything. Our choices shape our lives. We are the sum total of the things we do. There is no way around this.

There are a lot of things that happen to us in life that are not our fault.

Anything that happens to us as children is not our fault.

Somebody doing something else to us is not our fault (ownership also applies to others).

But…

Our response to these things is always on us.

What we do with them is on us.

This is where our power as human beings lies.

Empowerment without ownership creates unaccountable, entitled people. Unaccountable and entitled people do not do the cool things they want to do with their lives because they are too busy complaining and looking at everyone else.

Ownership and Fault

If I could have a billboard that everyone could see, it would probably say, "Don't Believe Everything You Think, but "Something Can Be Your Responsibility Without Being Your Fault” is a close second.

I think I’ve shared this before, but it fits here as well:

A man was talking to his friend on the phone when his neighbor set his house on fire.⁠

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“Ahhh..sonuva…my neighbor just set my house on fire.”⁠

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“Holy shit! Go take care of that - call me back whenever you can!”⁠

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“No, it's OK. I’m not messing with it.”⁠

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“What? Why?”⁠

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“He started it, not me.”⁠

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“Are you serious? Your house is on fire.”⁠

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“Yeah man, it's bullshit. I have no idea why he did that - I've always tried to be a good neighbor. It doesn’t make any sense. People are just so unhealthy. I did get weird narcissist vibes from him, now that I think about it.”⁠

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“He does sound weird, but you really need to go put it out. Your house is literally on fire.”⁠

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“No way, I'm not going to do that. I've spent my life cleaning up other people's messes and I'm not going to do it anymore. I've learned that my need to fix other people's mistakes is a trauma response and I can't keep feeding that. My inner child needs to be able to trust me to have good boundaries.”⁠

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“C’mon, man. You're telling me that your house is literally on fire and you're not going to do anything about it?”⁠

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“100%. At some point I have to stand in my truth and reclaim my power.”⁠

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“Alright man, I don't know what else to tell you. I hope your house doesn't burn down.”⁠

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“It is what it is. I’m tired of busting my ass to fix things that aren’t my fault.”⁠

He burned to death.⁠

Some things require our time, attention, and energy, whether they are our fault or not. This is very important.

Taking Ownership

Here are a few things I try to take ownership of:

If I am in a disagreement with somebody or there's some kind of strain on our relationship, I try to take ownership of my side of the street. Things they said and did are not something I can take ownership of, but I try to take 100% ownership of how I responded to the things they did and said, no matter what they are.

This helps me see what I can do better next time, and it has helped me see long-standing patterns that led to broken relationships in my life. This does not mean they will treat me differently or behave differently, but that is not my concern.

I take responsibility for what I do with the emotions that are constantly arising in me. This is important: I do not take responsibility for them arising because I cannot control that. I am, however, responsible for what I do when those emotions are present.

Being angry doesn't mean I get to lash out at people.

Experiencing depression doesn’t mean I get to shirk my responsibilities and not do anything.

Being anxious doesn't give me a license to snap at the people around me.

Being super happy doesn't mean I get to impose that on others.

Ownership and Open Doors

It does not matter if there's an opportunity right in front of you - if you do not have ownership you cannot seize it because you will not recognize it as yours. A lack of ownership removes everything from our sphere of control. There is no difference between an opportunity right in front of us and an opportunity 1000 miles away if we do not have a sense of ownership in our own lives.

People without a sense of ownership jump at opportunities that are not affordable for them and then blame others. Finger-pointing and blame are some of the hallmarks of a lack of ownership.

People without a sense of ownership jump at opportunities because they excite them in the moment. They do not consult with others and feel like things are unfair when the very predictable consequences of these actions appear at their door. This is natural when you do not believe that you are responsible for the things in your life.

Having actual values and priorities is only possible with a sense of ownership. If you do not take ownership of your own life, you cannot have things that you stand for and things that you stand against. Your priorities will never matter because you do not believe that these things are in your hands. Values and priorities are simply ideas that sound nice on paper when you don't have a sense of ownership. You can only find opportunities aligned with your goals when you have values and priorities to base your goals on in the first place.

If you don't have a sense of ownership, you will not be concerned with whether or not an opportunity is sustainable for you because you do not see the far-reaching consequences as your problem. It's like borrowing a car to run to the store and back - only having a quarter of a tank is fine because you don't see it as your problem because you didn’t need to go that far, and you do not have ownership of the car.

Journal Prompts

Where am I avoiding taking responsibility for my actions and their outcomes? How do I change this?

Where can I take more ownership to create better outcomes?

Do I tend to blame others or look at myself when things go wrong?

Where do I need to take ownership of some things I am not happy with? How might this lead to positive changes for me?

What relationships would be improved in my life if I were to take ownership of my side of the street?

Until Next Time

I may revise this post down the line. My father-in-law passed away unexpectedly a few days ago, and I had a hard time getting this done. It feels disorganized and poorly written, but I will look back at it with fresh eyes in a month or so and make a call then. Thanks for bearing with me.

I appreciate you reading, take care.

James