Season 8 – Episode 40: The Power of Completion: Why You’re Carrying More Than You Realize with Special Guest Coach K

Ever feel like you're carrying around a heaviness you can't quite explain?

Maybe you're exhausted, distracted, or constantly thinking about something that happened months or even years ago. Maybe you can't figure out why it's so hard to move forward.

This week's podcast might explain it.

Coach K and I are talking about something we don't do very well as humans: completion.

We rush from one thing to the next. We don't celebrate our wins. We avoid difficult endings. We leave conversations unfinished. We never fully process losses, transitions, or even really great moments.

And then we wonder why we feel stuck.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why endings often feel like failures
• How unfinished experiences create emotional and mental clutter
• Why completion is essential for learning and growth
• Practical rituals and conversations that can help you let go and move forward
• The question to ask yourself if life feels heavy right now: What in my life remains incomplete?

Listen to the episode and let me know what comes up for you.

Love,
Sari

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"If you're feeling heavy and if you're feeling stuck, you might look at what is left incomplete in your life. Because if you go back and start intentionally completing those things, you're going to start feeling lighter right away."

sari de la motte

Transcription

Sari:

And we sat on the ground without new furniture and we toasted to this moment that we were able to do this really fun thing. So completion doesn't need to be necessary... And it's not like, oh, we're completing that we got the house, we're going to sell it tomorrow.

Kevin:

No.

Sari:

No, we completed this journey to get this home-

Kevin:

Exactly.

Sari:

... and we now have it and we're going to mark that. And when you do that, what I want everybody to really recognize is that it opens up then the next phase.

You're listening to Sari Swear on the Sari Swears podcast. Well, welcome everyone to another episode of Sari Swears. Coach K is here with us because we are talking mindset stuff-

Kevin:

Yes.

Sari:

And I notice that you're wearing as a recovering addict a Cypress Hill shirt.

Kevin:

Yeah. I noticed that today. I mean, I love their first album, but it got into the second and third album, it was like Hits from the Bong and stuff like that. I mean, I guess, I used to smoke a lot of weed so...

Sari:

Yeah, okay.

Kevin:

... but I'm not a weed smoker anymore.

Sari:

No, thank God. Don't do drugs, children.

Kevin:

Yes.

Sari:

Okay. So anyways, God, you always take us off of...

Kevin:

I'm so selfish and self-centered. Sorry.

Sari:

... what we're supposed to be talking about. We are talking about, I don't even know what we're talking about now. Oh, we are talking about completion and the importance of completion and how as a society we do not complete well. So first of all, what do we mean by completion? What are we talking about?

Kevin:

Oh, it's closing out an old chapter and being able to go into a new one in your life.

Sari:

And that we are saying that we tend to not do that. So give us some examples of how we don't complete as a society or even trial lawyers, how they don't complete.

Kevin:

Well, I mean, a big thing in the trial lawyer culture is just move on to the next thing. Don't celebrate, don't spend too much time. I don't know. They even have certain time limits they put on it, and then just move on to the next thing. Don't complete properly or however we want to say it.

Sari:

Yeah. I was just thinking, and I've probably told this story before, maybe not on a podcast, but how we are so, at least I was, very adverse to endings. And so when I would go to Finland, we would leave the day before school got out and come back the day before it started. I mean, we were in Finland the entire summer, most of my childhoods. Childhoods? I had more than one. No, childhood.

And on the last day, all of my relatives, because if you don't know this or you're new to us, when my grandfather died, I had eight aunts and uncles, 16 total. So eight on both sides. My dad has eight brothers and sisters, and my mom has eight brothers and sisters. And so on my mom's side, when her dad died, she was only 13, very sad, but he left money or land to all of the kids and they were poor, poor people. And so the money was like nothing, like $250. And the land was basically all they had.

And so almost everybody took land on this one side of the lake. And so now it's either a cabin or a house or a house or a cabin. It's all family in this compound. So on the day that we're leaving, everybody would come out of their houses and their cabins, and they would literally line up as we were walking to the car and everybody would be crying. So I kind of get it now as I'm talking through this.

Kevin:

Makes sense.

Sari:

How I wanted to avoid this, because I would go and I would hide. I would literally go to someone's house and crawl under the bed until somebody found me.

Kevin:

Well, everybody was crying. I would have too.

Sari:

Yes. Yes. They were so sad that we were leaving, and I was sad that I was leaving. Finland was my happy place growing up. And so that started my aversion to completing or endings.

I think maybe that's the word we should use here at first is that I think all things end, and yet we rarely want them to. I mean, there's sometimes we want them to, like my first marriage. That shit needed to end. Yes, I was married before to Kevin and then... No, I wasn't married to Kevin.

Kevin:

No.

Sari:

But I think in general, we tend to see endings as bad. Why do you think that is? Even like a divorce where you hear someone's getting divorced and you're like, "I'm sorry." And sometimes people are like, "Don't be. It's not a bad thing." But I think our immediate thought is, "Oh my God, the ending is bad." Why do you think that is?

Kevin:

Well, I mean, probably the first thing I think of is death.

Sari:

That's the ultimate ending.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Sari:

Yeah.

Kevin:

So I mean, I just think as if you think of our brains and where they're wired, the amygdala, how it's so afraid of anything like that. It's trying to keep us safe, trying to keep us alive. So instinctually, we're afraid of the endings completing.

Sari:

Well, that brings up the point. I think that a lot of endings that are natural in our lives bring change. And so I think that's what the brain is actually-

Kevin:

Change, just... Ooh, that's a big one right there.

Sari:

Ooh, ooh, we didn't even talk about that before we started, but I think that's what it is.

Kevin:

I think you're right.

Sari:

Because I'm thinking we're having a big ending in our life right now is that in two days our daughter is going to graduate, not high school, not college, elementary school.

Kevin:

Elementary school.

Sari:

Y'all, I'm going to be 60 with a fucking cane at her high school graduation. Kevin's like, "No, you're not going to have a cane if I have anything to do with it."

Kevin:

No, that's not going to happen.

Sari:

He's like, "We're going to be healthy."

Kevin:

Yes, we are.

Sari:

And we are healthy and we're getting better at all the time, but we just got back from Canyon Ranch.

Kevin:

Which was fucking awesome.

Sari:

We should not have two people with ADHD on the podcast at the same time because we're just like our brains are running with squirrels.

Kevin:

And then there's a spider. And look, I like your pants.

Sari:

Wait, there's a spider in here?

Kevin:

Yes.

Sari:

Oh, my pants are cool though.

Kevin:

Yeah, you got cool pants.

Sari:

I know they're like undone.

Kevin:

You commented that you didn't like my jeans today. You said they were too baggy.

Sari:

No, I was like, "Are those new jeans?" And you're like, "Well, I haven't worn them in a while." And I said, "Good."

Kevin:

Okay. ADHD, ladies and gentlemen.

Sari:

But to finish that thought, it's because you look good in skinny jeans. I want to see all of the parts.

Kevin:

Okay.

Sari:

Okay. Anyways, what were we even talking about? Oh, and I think it's changed. So I think anytime we have an ending, that means there's something new or different coming and our brains are averse to change. And so maybe that's why we don't like it.

Kevin:

I think you really nailed it.

Sari:

Yes. And so what we were taught in coaching school is how to properly complete. Now before we talk about how we do that and we're going to share that with you today and if you've been to one of our events, you know how we do it here. We're going to share with you some ways to do it in your everyday life too. Let's talk about what is at stake if we don't complete or we don't do endings well. What would you say is one of the things that is at stake?

Kevin:

Well, what's at stake is that we just drag all that shit into the next chapter.

Sari:

Yes. So we were talking about how there's this emotional or energetic clutter. Speak a little bit on that.

Kevin:

So I mean, if you just think about mental bandwidth, there's so many things that happen, so many thoughts throughout our day that are just cluttering in our head. Think about the way our brains are just functioning on a normal basis. So we can actually do something that's a ritual, a ceremony, that can release that clutter, that can remove that clutter because our brains are full of clutter. Especially ours, ADHD.

Sari:

Yeah, for sure.

Kevin:

So it's of the utmost importance, especially trial attorneys, to be able to clear out all that emotional and mental clutter, because fuck, you have a lot going on in there.

Sari:

Well, I think even when we're coaching with our clients, I mean, there's not a single coaching session I've ever had that we haven't uncovered something that they're still carrying with them-

Kevin:

Yep, yep.

Sari:

... that they haven't released yet, and therefore they can't move on to the next thing.

Kevin:

Yeah. Trial loss or all kinds of different things.

Sari:

Absolutely. And it could be as big as trial loss or it could be smaller things, relationships they haven't completed well or relationships they haven't completed at all that they need to complete, but because they're so afraid of that ending, right? We somehow view, I think two things now that we're processing this on the actual episode is that it means change and that's scary. But I also think we automatically view endings as a failure on some level, especially when we talk about relationships, going back to the divorce example.

And I just recently parted ways with a best friend of 20 years and that has been very, very painful. And some of the work that I've been doing around that is that not all relationships are meant to go the distance, whether that's a marriage or a friendship or a partnership or an employee relationship. And I think when an employee leaves or a relationship ends or a friendship ends, we tend to think of that as a failure, and that's been some growth for me particularly as a leader is that it's not always a failure. It's sometimes the thing that's meant to happen.

Kevin:

But it makes so much sense because, I mean, isn't being a trial attorney all about winning?

Sari:

No, but that's what they think it is.

Kevin:

That's what they think it is. You know what I'm saying?

Sari:

Yes.

Kevin:

So if you're all about winning, you don't want to be with something that's a loss or even associated with a loss, right?

Sari:

Yes. Yes. So I think the big thing that we want people to get out of today's episode is that endings are not failures and endings are not things that we need to view with fear or apprehension. In fact, endings are a natural part of life and when you know how to deal with an ending and complete it well, then that's going to make your life better because you're not dragging all of that emotional energy into the next thing.

Kevin:

Well, you can also pick and choose all the good stuff and bring that into the new thing.

Sari:

Yes. Yes. I love one of the things that you said when we were talking before we started recording is that one of the things when we don't complete well is we're not being intentional. Talk a little bit more about that and how important being intentional is.

Kevin:

Well, yeah, I mean, choice as human beings. Intention to me, the first thing I think of is choice. You have choice, autonomy, freedom.

Sari:

You're at choice.

Kevin:

You are at choice when you're being intentional and it's a human need for freedom. Choice gives you that freedom of, I'm going to choose to do this thing. You're intentionally doing it rather than it's not intentional and it's just happening to you.

Sari:

Yes.

Kevin:

So it's hugely important to say, "No, this is what I'm doing. I'm choosing to even complete something."

Sari:

Yes.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Sari:

So here's some reasons why you want to get much better at, and in some ways go against your brain wiring, which is averse to change and views endings as failures, but here's why you want to get good at it. You put this comment in your notes I just thought was beautiful.

You said completion acts as a cognitive boundary, right? And that it allows your brain to release mental clutter, lower stress hormones, and transition smoothly between tasks into rest, effectively preventing burnout and decision fatigue. Holy hell. Completion acts as a cognitive boundary. Talk more about that. I think this is so huge and that people are not getting this.

Kevin:

Yeah. I mean, I'm just thinking about all kinds of things. My brain's going everywhere because I have ADHD, but creating these guardrails and these boundaries with completion makes it so that you can move on to something new and not bring other things that go across that boundary.

Sari:

Ooh, I love that. Yeah.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Sari:

We already have too much swimming in our brain.

Kevin:

Oh my God. Our brains are the... I don't know how... Do you know the number of thoughts we have per minute, per hour? It's insane.

Sari:

Well, I think when we don't compete well too, we are bringing that with us. So instead of spending our cognitive allowance, so to speak, on the things or the tasks at hand, we're constantly being pulled into the past or into... Mostly in the past we're talking about completion and going, "I wonder why they thought that, or I wonder why this didn't end differently. I wonder..."

I know I'm doing that with this relationship that just ended. And so I think part of it is because we didn't compete well. And so you're dragging all that in. So it's not just energetically following you, it's taking up emotional bandwidth.

Kevin:

Yeah. That bandwidth, I talk to my clients all the time. It's like, "It sounds like this takes up a lot of bandwidth or how much bandwidth is this taking up? Because I mean it sounds like you're really consumed by this."

Sari:

Yes. That's such a great point. You also said that when we complete well, it is an opportunity for learning. So how is completing well allowing us to better learn?

Kevin:

Because when you're going to complete, you're going to think about, okay, this is what the thing was and this is maybe the struggles I had, but then there were the successes that I had. And you can by doing that and asking the right questions in that completion process, there's a ton of learning. It's like, "Oh, I did this. Well, I don't want to do that next time. Well, this good shit right here, I'm bringing it into the next thing because this was great."

Sari:

So it's reflection, giving yourself-

Kevin:

Hugely reflective.

Sari:

... and an opportunity to reflect.

Kevin:

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Sari:

Yeah. And we also talked about how when you properly complete, it gives you a clean transition into the new thing. And so again, you're not dragging all that stuff in there. Now I want people to recognize that completions can look different and sometimes completing could be as simple as shutting your laptop for the day and your complete for the day, and sometimes-

Kevin:

And be intentional and say, "I am complete for this day," and shut your laptop.

Sari:

I am compliant for the day, right? And other times completions can be long. Like my completion in terms of grieving my NAM, my new age mom Mary, who I named the courtroom after, took probably a year. I mean, there were a lot of ceremonies, there were rituals, there was journaling, there was looking at pictures, there was crying music, right? A lot of things that I did to work through that. So that completion took over a year, where sometimes it can be a few seconds.

Kevin:

This is fascinating to me because I'm just thinking about the level of importance, how thorough or long or involved the completion will be. It could be something that's a simple thing, but you do want to complete it and that might be something very simple. Like closing the laptop or whatever. But something that goes down to a huge, someone who had a massive impact on your life, it takes longer-

Sari:

Yes.

Kevin:

... it takes more layers.

Sari:

Or it can.

Kevin:

Or it can.

Sari:

It doesn't have to, but it may. So we don't want-

Kevin:

Generally speaking, it can.

Sari:

We don't want to give the impression that it's just this whole podcast and completion thing is about getting better at goodbyes. I mean, that's not what it is. It looks different depending on what we're talking about.

Kevin:

And it looks different, and it can be easier, harder, whatever, and that's okay.

Sari:

Yes. Before we talk about ways to complete, one of my favorite stories on completion is, and this concept of dragging this energy with you when you don't complete well was about a year into COVID and the cancer journey, basically as we all know, the world had to stop. And so I had all of these people, I think there were, I mean, I don't know, three or four or five, maybe even more people who had booked time with me to come out and work with some mock juries and all of the things.

And as I was starting to feel better and as we were starting to come out of COVID, it was now time to figure that all out. And it wasn't even like we were coming out of it. We're kind of in the middle of it, and I was starting to feel this like... And you remember this, absolute-

Kevin:

Yeah, totally.

Sari:

... dragging down this. And these are people that I love and wanted to work with, right? Michael Cowan being one of them.

Kevin:

This is an energetic piece.

Sari:

This is an energetic piece. And so I remember we talked about this many times.

Kevin:

He wasn't wrong.

Sari:

Why am I feeling so ugh about this? And we finally decided, I said, I think you might have even said it, you said, "The energy isn't there anymore." When you booked these things, it's like it's been a year. It may have even been a year and a half, maybe even two years, where we now had to start looking at rebooking them.

Kevin:

It's like a budgetary item that's been moved.

Sari:

Yeah. We kept dragging it in. He's like, "I think we just need to send in their money back." Now at that time, that was a shit ton of money. In fact, we had to take a loan to be able to do that.

Kevin:

At this time, it would have been a shit ton of money.

Sari:

Yeah. It was a shit ton of money, but a little bit more back then than it would have been now. Now I could probably write a check for that. But the point being, it wasn't an easy decision to do.

And I know now that I'm saying this, I've had clients who had the same kind of thing happen where they took the case and they kind of got into it and they put money into it, but they're like, "But I'm not feeling this anymore. I don't know if that it's a good case. I don't want to work on this anymore." And I've said to them-

Kevin:

Such a common situation.

Sari:

... the same thing, "How much would it cost you to get out of this?" And they're like, "I don't know, like 60 grand." And I'm like, "Then get out of it. Then get out of it." And I've had clients who have done that and they're like, "Oh my God." And so we did this, right? We sent money back to all these people who had...

And again, did I need money right when we were coming out of cancer and COVID? Absolutely. And yet it was so obvious that that energy was old energy. Now, half of those people, if not more, ended up sending me checks, sometimes even more than what they originally sent me to continue to work with me down the line, right? But the energy of that, when it was booked and created and how we had been carrying it for like a year and a half at that point, it was so over that once we decided, even though it meant taking a business loan that, okay, we can't keep carrying this. We got to start new.

Kevin:

This absolutely illustrates that money is energy.

Sari:

Yes, yes, yeah.

Kevin:

Absolutely illustrates that.

Sari:

And everybody was fine. They were great. And I was like, "They're going to be mad." I was like, no, it was absolutely everyone was gracious and beautiful and we started new. And like I said, most of those people ended up booking more work with me in the future.

But it was like the energy that we'd never completed because we didn't know at the time with this, is this going to be six months? Is it going to be two months? What is it going to be? So that's my favorite example of-

Kevin:

That's a great example.

Sari:

... of how you and I had to make a big decision of how to complete, even though we weren't sure it was the right decision. But the minute we made it, it was absolutely the right decision.

Kevin:

Yep.

Sari:

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Sean:

My biggest takeaway is that I now have a new approach as to how I'm going to enter the courtroom. It's a new energy, a new spirit, and it really gets me excited because that's actually the more fun part of what we do. And I'm looking forward to taking advantage of everything that I learned here.

Sari:

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Okay. So how do we complete it? How do we get better at completing? So we have stolen, I'll just come right out and say it, the completion ceremony that our coaches' training, CTI, Coactive Coaching, taught us and did at the end of all of their events, which is a completion circle. And we now do completion circles at the end of our events, whether it's when my masterminds are out here for a trial lab or it's our two-day command in the courtroom or it's your momentum. I'm assuming you did it with your momentum group.

Kevin:

Oh yeah.

Sari:

Great.

Kevin:

We went over the line too.

Sari:

Oh, I love that. But talk to me or tell the group or the listeners, I should say, what that completion ceremony looks like.

Kevin:

The over the line completion ceremony?

Sari:

No, no, no. Our completion circle.

Kevin:

So we all sit in a circle and it's basically everyone says, "I am complete," and it's so that you can complete whatever thing we're doing, command the courtroom or whatever it is. But before you say that, you share the experience, what it was like. And that's the learning part.

It's also the honoring part, and we go around the circle and then the leaders always last, and it creates this real jelling of the group too. They're not allowed to crosstalk, but you can look over and say something to a person, and you can feel energetically how that impacted them. It's a really powerful experience.

Sari:

Yeah. So it's not even just they don't have to share what they experienced. It's just anything they need to say or want to say to complete this experience. And it's funny because we've had, several times this has happened, where people said, "But I'm not complete." And again, there's that, "But I don't want this to be over," because y'all have a good time when you're out here, I got to say.

Kevin:

Yeah, it's fucking awesome.

Sari:

And what we always say is, as my earring falls out.

Kevin:

Oh no.

Sari:

That we're not saying that you're complete forever and that you'll never be back. We're saying this experience with these people at this time is now over. And by completing and saying you're complete, you're honoring this experience.

Kevin:

Yep.

Sari:

And so everyone just goes when they think it's their time, and it is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Kevin:

It's beautiful.

Sari:

Sometimes there's tears. Sometimes there's acknowledging other people and what they were. I mean, this group that most of them were strangers, even if it's for a two-day event during that circle it's like lifelong friends. It's really, really amazing.

So some people might be thinking, "Okay, well, I'm not going to do a completion circle at home or whatever." Although you could, if you're doing an event, let's say you have a corporate retreat, right? You take your whole team to do a thing over the weekend, I think a completion circle would be beautiful, right?

Kevin:

Oh, yeah.

Sari:

We've had this great time together, team building and so we're now going to have this circle and basically here's the only rules if you're the person in charge. I go last, everybody else goes when you think it's your turn to go, just read the room.

And say what you need to say and at the end you just say, "I am complete," so that we know you're done. And if you have nothing to say, you can just say, "I'm complete," and we'll know that you're done.

Kevin:

And there's more physical action ones too that make it real ritualistic, like leaving things behind and taking things forward, and that's the over the line.

Sari:

Yes, and we've done that.

Kevin:

You can do that with smaller groups usually.

Sari:

You can do that with smaller groups. I don't know that we have time to get into that, but let's talk about some other things like rituals. So for example, when we're talking about, you said you were open to sharing about your mom's death, what happened a little over a year ago, and how that happened.

And so you and your mom were estranged when she died and your brother called to say that she had passed, and you two had never had a conversation to mend your relationship. You had tried, I'll just say that to our listeners, but she wasn't open to it for whatever reason. And so I think there might be people saying, "Hey, that was my experience too."

Or maybe somebody died that they loved and were in a great relationship with, but it was sudden. So how do you compete in a situation like that? So can you share a little bit about how you were able to complete that just really recently?

Kevin:

Yeah, just really recently I was at Canyon Ranch, and it was sudden because I didn't know that my mom was in hospice and I didn't know all these things.

Sari:

We had no idea that her breast cancer had returned.

Kevin:

She had died a little over 24 hours before I got the call from my brother. So it was very sudden, and there wasn't any chance to say goodbye even if I could try or anything. So that was hard, and that was just sticking with me.

And then when I went to Canyon Ranch, I did a whole session on grief. And we came to write out the things, whatever I wanted to say or whatever I needed to say to her to feel complete. And it was on water-soluble paper.

Sari:

Okay. So what is water-soluble paper? This is a really cool thing that Canyon Ranch has.

Kevin:

It's just paper that you can drop into water, and it disintegrates immediately.

Sari:

And it's good for the environment.

Kevin:

It's good for the environment. It's totally cool. It helps that if it's running water, you go underneath it. If you just throw it right into water, it takes a while. I did the running water because it looks cool.

So I walked up to this fountain, I wrote it out on the paper what I needed to be complete, I walked up to the fountain, I dropped it underneath the fountain and I just watched it instantly dissolve and I felt this relief, this kind of release and it was like, okay, I did that. I feel better.

Sari:

I see you getting a little teary even talking about it. It was really important for you to do that, wasn't it?

Kevin:

It was. It was because it was something that really was sticking with me. But like grief comes in waves, it would just show up at weird times, and think, oh yeah, it's that thing. Okay.

Sari:

And I don't know that you would have been ready a year ago-

Kevin:

I don't think so.

Sari:

... to do that. And so again, here's another example if there was some stuff you had to work through. There was some anger, there was some like, maybe I should have tried more, all of that.

Kevin:

Confusion.

Sari:

When you finally kind of work through all that stuff, the final completion was to write what you wanted to say to your mom and do this ceremony. And I think people tend to think about things like this and go, "Well, that's stupid or whatever." But these things, there's a reason why we have rituals and we were talking about before, I don't know Americans have as many rituals as some other cultures. So we tend to look at rituals as this silly woo-woo thing. Would you agree?

Kevin:

We do. Yeah, we do. But I mean, think of birthday parties and sporting events. I mean, we have so many rituals.

Sari:

Those are all rituals, yes.

Kevin:

Tons of rituals. We love rituals. We say we don't.

Sari:

The Americans who were here first have tons of rituals.

Kevin:

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Sari:

This country, I mean, this land that we're on is all ritual based.

Kevin:

Lots of ritual, lots of ritual.

Sari:

And there's a reason for that. I mean, there's something cognitively or neurologically that happens when we take the time to mark things in this way. Opposite of water's fire. So there's oftentimes where you and I have done things at certain times like New Year or birthdays or where we've put in things we want to leave behind into a bowl and burned it. Or we've saved something because there was bad energy, right? Even if we don't totally believe in that, there's something ritualistic about it.

Kevin:

We've even gone as far with the woo as putting a crystal on top of a doorframe because that is the energy we want in the house. We've done this stuff.

Sari:

Yes. At this point, people are like, "You guys are crazy."

Kevin:

Oh my God.

Sari:

But to me, even whether or not there's evil spirits or whatever, it's just a visual reminder or it's the act of doing the ritual, that's where the power is.

Kevin:

It takes something that's an extremely abstract concept and makes it tangible.

Sari:

Yes. Yes, for sure. Other places that you can be more intentional in your ending. So for example, if you have tried a case with someone or ran a retreat, for example, we do this at our business, or completed a project that you are very intentional about debriefing that. I think we so often just move on to the next thing, but I think there is so much power in sitting down with your co-counsel, whether it's someone in your office or it's someone that you partnered with outside of your office and saying, "Let's debrief how that went. What worked, what didn't work." We do that every time we run a promotion. We do that every time we have finished a trial lab or a command in the courtroom, that's completion, right?

Kevin:

If somebody taught you the question, that is the powerful question, what did you learn?

Sari:

What did you learn from Mary? Yeah, yeah. So that goes back again to that concept of completing allows you to learn. So when we specifically leave room to say, "Hey, before we go onto the next count, man in the courtroom or whatever, we're going to consciously complete this one by debriefing it." We don't sit in a circle and say we're complete, but debrief, debriefing is a type of completion.

Conversations are a type of completion. So many of you have loose ends with people, whether it was something negative that happened or maybe it's just floating away, but if it was an important relationship, there's still these tendrils that are out there that a conversation could fix. Say more about that and how important those completing conversations can be.

Kevin:

Well, I think it's a huge relief of anxiety for a lot of attorneys and just humans, it can make you anxious about those things that aren't tied up and those things that are just floating out in the ether. So having something as a completion ceremony of conversation of sorts, just completing those little thought tentacles like you said.

Sari:

"Hey, this was weird and let's just talk about it."

Kevin:

"That was a little odd," or, "Wasn't that off," or, "You know what? I didn't even get a chance to say how great that was."

Sari:

Yes.

Kevin:

Those kinds of things.

Sari:

Because that's the other thing I think is important to note that these aren't necessarily negative things that we want to make sure we complete well. We don't even complete positive things. Well, especially trial attorneys.

Kevin:

They don't want to celebrate, just move on, keep moving on. Come on, don't look back and don't celebrate. If you do, real fast and then move on.

Sari:

So we highly recommend when you've done something well, whether that's a CLE or you got a great verdict or you just hired your first paralegal or whatever it may be, that you mark that in some way. Maybe that's just taking 30 minutes with a cigar and a glass of bourbon, or it's going out for a walk or scheduling a dinner for one or with colleagues, but somehow where you are marking this great thing that happened.

Kevin:

I have a client that moved into a new house, and it was the dream home. And he was like, "Yeah, that was really cool." And he was just like, "Okay, and now I'm [inaudible 00:30:12] the next thing." And I'm like, "No, this is amazing. This is a big deal. And what are you going to do to properly celebrate this?" And they were like, "What?"

So they ended up finding this, a couple days later I got a picture and a note and they ended up finding this old bottle of champagne that they had forever that they were going to use at some special time. And he literally just cracked the thing open, and it sprayed all over the lawn, but it was this ritual to celebrate their new home.

Sari:

I love it. I love it. It reminds me of when we got our penthouse, which sounds crazy. We didn't buy a penthouse, but we rented this really nice penthouse... At the time, it was really nice. It's not that great, you guys, but it was fun.

Kevin:

It was a big deal though.

Sari:

It was like the top of the... Right? And we were like, "Let's go have champagne." And we couldn't find our champagne glasses. So we went downtown, because it was our first place downtown, and bought them just to celebrate this moment.

Kevin:

Do we still have those glasses?

Sari:

Yes.

Kevin:

Cool.

Sari:

And we sat on the ground without any furniture and we toasted to this moment that we were able to do this really fun thing. So completion doesn't need to be necessary... And it's not like, oh, we're completing that we got the house and we're going to sell it tomorrow. It's no, we completed this journey to get this home-

Kevin:

Absolutely, yeah.

Sari:

... and we now have it and we're going to mark that. And then when you do that, what I want everybody to really recognize is that it opens up then the next phase. And then when you complete that phase, you need to mark it so it can open up the next phase.

Kevin:

Exactly. And something like a home, you're actually crossing over the threshold into this new-

Sari:

Literally crossing the threshold.

Kevin:

... land, this new house.

Sari:

Yes, absolutely. Same with this new office. We haven't had our party yet, but we're planning on it. There's something to say for we've completed this part of our journey and this is the cool thing that happened at the end.

Kevin:

And commemorative, yeah.

Sari:

Yes. And so that frees you up to then take it to the next level. Because I think what most of you are not recognizing is that you are dragging all this energetic shit into the next thing. And if you keep dragging then that into the next thing and then that into the next thing, that's going to get real heavy after a while.

And if you're feeling heavy and if you're feeling like you're stuck, you might look at what is left incomplete, not completed, in your life. Because if you go back and you start actually being intentional about completing those things, I'm going to tell you you're going to start feeling lighter right away.

Kevin:

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Weight of the world, off the shoulders.

Sari:

And that's really the last thing I want to say is one of the completions I think that we tend to avoid at all costs is the end of a relationship. But I do want to say that there is absolutely a call for doing that. I think a lot of our clients are still, and I don't mean spousal relationships necessarily, maybe, but are still in partnerships or still have employees that when they first started, they were here, and so they're still there and that they're not working out anymore.

And we're so loath to end those relationships. And what I want to really offer you, because this has been so true in my life, is that as hard as it is sometimes to bring an end to a long-term relationship that is important to you is that you're not doing them any favors either. If you're not feeling it, I can guarantee you they're not feeling it because relationships are reciprocal.

And so we tend to think, well, it's just me and I'm being mean, but it's like, I love that Tyler Perry quote that's like, "Sometimes when you get to the next level, people can't breathe that air." Sometimes we can't take everybody with you because some people can't exist at that level, and it's so true.

Sometimes there are people that, I think all the time, there are people that are supposed to be with you on certain parts of your journey and other times where they're not supposed to be. And I think people who are really moving forward in their life recognize that and aren't keeping relationships longer than their shelf life.

Kevin:

Right.

Sari:

And I don't mean to say that people are disposable. That's not what I mean, but you know what I mean as you hear me say that there are some relationships that probably are no longer serving you and it'd be better for both parties if that relationship ended.

Kevin:

Yeah. It gives a disservice to the other person as well.

Sari:

Exactly.

Kevin:

The whole relationship.

Sari:

Exactly. It just frees you both to take it to the next level. Well, anything else that they need to know about completion? Are we complete with this podcast?

Kevin:

Well, close to complete, I would like to say that these kinds of ceremonies, rituals and learnings are done a lot in coaching.

Sari:

Yes.

Kevin:

Yes, they're done a lot in coaching. It's a big part of the coaching journey, and I have a coaching program, Momentum Coaching, and we can go along this journey together and having a coach is hugely important.

Sari:

Yes. And so they can learn more about your momentum coaching at...

Kevin:

They can learn more about my momentum coaching at, what is it again?

Sari:

Sariswears.com/coaching, right? And so you can get even a sample session, and that reminds me that this is my last podcast of the season. We did that on purpose. We're completing this podcast season because I come back in the fall. But we are having a hostage, get it from Hostage Hero, a hostage takeover of the podcast.

Kevin:

Hostile takeover?

Sari:

Yeah. I guess it's a hostile takeover.

Kevin:

It's not hostile though.

Sari:

Is that a hostage takeover? Yes, it is hostile.

Kevin:

Is it?

Sari:

You've threatened me. No, I'm just joking.

Kevin:

I say.

Sari:

Kevin is going to be here for four weeks in the summer, so you don't just have-

Kevin:

Actually, five total.

Sari:

Five? Okay. So you don't have reruns with just me as we normally do in the summer. He's going to come in and he's going to do some podcasting on his own, and so you get some extra dose of Kevin. I don't know how you're going to like that though if we're not together like riffing on each other, but I assume he's going to do great.

Kevin:

We're going to have some good mindset stuff for you to chew on.

Sari:

Okay, cool. Awesome. So that's going to be happening. And so for me, I will see you back for season nine. Can you believe it's season nine in September? I'm looking very much forward to that, and I will say this, season eight, I am complete. Talk to you next fall. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you for listening to the very end of this episode, A+. I'm going to ask you to subscribe to the podcast, whether you're one of the weirdos that like to watch it on YouTube or you just listen, make sure you hit that subscribe button. It helps the podcast grow, and let other people find me, y'all. But don't stop there. Be sure to leave me a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We want this podcast to reach as many ears and eyes as possible. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye, everybody.