19 - Dallas Wiebe: Breaking Your Hidden Rules In Your 40s

Dawn talks to her guest Dallas Wiebe this week. He is a dedicated husband, a father, and a talented mechanic who built a successful automotive business. This all changed when his father, while dying, couldn’t stop thinking about work, about being helpful. Dallas became aware that he saw things in his father that he did not want to see in himself. He contacted Dawn to get help with the issue.

Dallas and Dawn discuss their shared background of coming from a Mennonite culture and how the ideals of the Mennonite people may have influenced their internal processes. Dawn then asks her guest to illustrate some of these internal processes, these hidden rules, and how they might have affected his life. She asks him how they could have negatively impacted relations with his people, how he processes emotion and how they altered how he conducted day-to-day business.

In this episode, Dawn and her guest Dallas identify the moment of Dallas’ wake-up call, explore his varied memories of his father, discuss the good and bad of the hidden rules that Dallas grew up with, and detail what healthy boundaries look like. Dallas shares much personal insight on these topics with Dawn. His story will resonate with anyone trying to assert their boundaries and sense of self.

About Dallas Wiebe

Dallas Wiebe is a proud husband, caring father, motivated church leader, and successful business owner. God gave Dallas a unique combination of a sensitive soul and a desire to run straight at the scary. God has given him a heart for others who have been crushed by trying to live with a version of God that has removed the power to change and only leaves hopeless guilt.

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Dawn Taylor - The Taylor Way: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin

Dallas Wiebe - Innovation Autoworks LTD: [email protected] | facebook

Episode Transcript

Dawn Taylor 00:09

I am your host Dawn Taylor and today we're going to talk to the amazing Dallas Weibe. So today we're gonna be talking about the unconscious rules for life. You know, you know those ones that we got from our childhoods, but we don't even think about or even realize they're there. And that when we finally uncover them realize how much harm they can actually be causing how much damage they've caused, and relationships in our lives, and all of the rest. But before we get started, I want to tell you a little bit about our guests, so you can be as excited as I am. Dallas is a dad, he's a husband of a million years, yes, actually a million years. Okay, maybe 24! He owns an amazing automotive repair business that keeps him way too busy. He's all about fast cars, horse power, and his passionate love for God. He's an incredible Christian man who's very dedicated to his church. And he has this amazing, unique combination of a sensitive soul, but also a desire to run right into the scary. And him and I've spent, we've spent a bit of time talking about running into the scary in the past. So Dallas was run into a little bit of that scary right now. Welcome to the show!

Dallas Wiebe 01:17

Thank you so much, Dawn. It's good to talk to you. And and yeah, this is, for me, it's kind of like running straight at something I'm scared of. So let's do this. Let's have this chat.

Dawn Taylor 01:30

So Dallas applied to be on my podcast coming from and yes, he's given me permission to talk about this, a situation in his life where his dad passed away a few years ago. And when it happened, it jarred something in him, it jarred something major in him that I don't think anyone saw coming, himself included. And when he reached out to me to chat one day he was at a pretty low point, Dallas, you want to talk a little bit about that? What brought you to even finding out that you had some unconscious rules?

Dallas Wiebe 02:02

Well, the thing about unconscious rules is you don't all you have them.

Dawn Taylor 02:06

Right?!

Dallas Wiebe 02:07

Yeah. So it doesn't look like you have unconscious rules, it looks like the world doesn't make sense. It looks like why can't I do the things I normally do and have this all worked out. So for me, the crisis in my life was watching my dad die by watching him die in a way that I thought. I thought somehow because it was, it was a, you know, an illness that took him out over eight months or so. But I thought somehow, it would go different. I thought there would be that, you know, people get this idea that if someone dies quickly, they didn't get to say goodbye properly? So if you have time, you will get to like, share those things that need to be shared and have that connection that you would hope you'd have with someone who he won't get to see anymore. And just the way it went down for him I, we didn't get that chance to connect. It was you know, how to beat the cancer, how to do this, how to do that. And so the ability to get to know who he was better at the end was exchanged for getting to know someone who was just scared, and dying. And I couldn't connect with him. So that made me think about how much I was like him in my wiring and my thinking, and how much of that wiring and thinking and you know, hard rules for life. How much of that in me could still change? So you're looking, I'm looking at my life through this. What I'm doing is not working lens. But why can't I see it? Why can't I see a way out of this? And I've just used to think about things. So I just like use what I know what I understand digging hard, and just to work my way through problems. But what I've run into and this will be talked about, we started working together as he kind of pointed at these things where I couldn't just buckle down, pull myself up on my bootstraps, and lean harder into something and fix it. Because the method that I was applying, my system was flawed. And I couldn't see it because I had rules they have this basic structure of how I attack problems, these rules that made it impossible for just working harder to solve it. Just being more stubborn, more gristly or whatever it is. Right? And somehow so it's little stuff. I mean, I'm gonna say something stupid, but maybe it'll help drive it home. When you're a fussy Mennonite-

Dawn Taylor 04:53

Okay, so let's pause for a second and describe that to people because like you and I, you and I come from a Mennonite background. And I often get asked like, what is that a Hutterite? And it's like, no, not really it- can you explain to listeners what was your childhood, like in that way? Like, when you explain Mennonite to someone, what does that mean to you? Like, how did that create your identity?

Dallas Wiebe 05:21

That's very different, like, so. My dad grew up until his teen years as like a practicing Mennonite, which is mostly just really very religious. But there was a whole bunch of really structural things about what's important, and what's not important. And so, when I say fussy, Mennonite, I kind of just mean, we grew up where you keep very good care of your stuff. Oh, yeah, very, very hard working. And but so you don't waste anything. You're very careful with your money.

Dawn Taylor 06:00

Very frugal.

Dallas Wiebe 06:01

Frugal is a nice word for it.

Dawn Taylor 06:03

Cheap is the other word for it.

Dallas Wiebe 06:07

Cheap, is a less happy word for it. You stretch every dollar. So it doesn't even mean you're broke. Most Mennonites are hardworking people and they have a reasonable income.

Dawn Taylor 06:18

100% They often have good income.

Dallas Wiebe 06:20

Yeah. But everything has to go as far as possible. And so good planners, good long term thinkers, but lots of times, everything gets sacrificed to the long term plan. So I wouldn't, because we weren't, like I never grew up as a practicing Mennonite in some colony somewhere. That's the old school roots of where it came from. But there's these leftovers. So those things I talked about, that's kind of the leftovers, I remember getting into my grandpa's car. And there's very distinct directions about where you put your feet. And where you where you've knocked the dirt off your feet. And, when you're driving the feet they didn't leave the floormat. And like there's, there's good care for stuff. But then there's, the... Mennonite method is usually just a little bit more. And this isn't just Mennonite, this is like, my family as well, right?

Dawn Taylor 07:11

It's, I'm laughing because I often say like, take those rules. And this, this totally ties into this, like invisible rules we have in ourselves, because like, as I work with clients that have like, Eastern European culture, or you like Ukrainian or Iranian, or like from Iran, or like, it doesn't matter where like, every culture has its own, almost set of standards and guidelines that they run by. And Mennonites have their own. And it's like, as a woman like your, the expectations put on you is like incredibly high. But strange. Like they aren't modern.

Dallas Wiebe 07:54

No.

Dawn Taylor 07:54

It's not modern rules. But think of what Dallas just said based on the car like just like the 20 rules of driving grandpa's car. They use that in everything from like, how you set the table to how you eat to how you run your business, like actions equal worth is like a big belief. Right? It's... there's some really interesting rules.

Dallas Wiebe 08:16

Yeah. And so Mennonite men, like, in my family, especially. But I can see that the family tree, what you what you do for a living. The way you work is really important, right?

Dawn Taylor 08:29

Oh, big time!

Dallas Wiebe 08:30

That's a leftover in lots of people's history. Like that's true there.

Dawn Taylor 08:33

Yeah.

Dallas Wiebe 08:34

But so if you were hard working, respectable Mennonite man, and you go to work and you take a lot of pride in it. You put up with a lot of pain. You may have one or two heart attacks at work. But as long as one arm still works, you should still go to work, you know,

Dawn Taylor 08:49

Just put a bandaid on it.

Dallas Wiebe 08:50

Yeah, just put a bandaid on it!

Dawn Taylor 08:53

Just put a bandaid on it.

Dallas Wiebe 08:54

It's not unique to the Mennonite culture like that thinking. But that was very strong there. So for example, when I was watching my dad, when he was sick, he looked out the window and was wanting to drive the truck that was delivering the goods because he was a truck driver. And for him, he really missed being able to work. That was just... he knew that world. It had an expected response for his input. It was predictable, and it felt right for him. So for him to look out the window and see just the delivery truck, and he drove big rigs and all this stuff. But he wanted that he wanted to go back to that again. And so it was a little weird to be sitting there with him. Wanting to have a heart-to-heart conversation, but not being able to really get that out. And yet he was in his pain and in his own mourning, looking at the end of his life. He wasn't able to have the heart-to-heart conversation. But he wanted to drive that truck. Right. And so that was hard. That was a bit of a weird thing for me. It's like there was so much there was so much good about him, he was he was the kindest man, you've met, one of my friends said-

Dawn Taylor 10:05

Your dad was amazing.

Dallas Wiebe 10:06

You could feel his kindness come in the door with it. You know? So he was a very kind man. But I think some in some ways, these unconscious rules that I'm talking about. They were, he was working with them. But he didn't know he was. So he was stuck with the truck was too dirty. It had to be washed. Even if it was minus two outside. Like, in some ways, he was a bit of a slave to some of those rules without understanding that they were pushing them around. And I saw that in me. So that was that was kind of the epiphany of, you know the grief of watching your dad die. It's the first real close person to me that died. It rips you open a bit raw, you start analyzing things, you start checking into life, what matters and that's pretty typical. And but for me that the things that I saw in him that didn't work out as well, as I'd hoped were in me, I seen those rules in me. I've seen that the inability to leave a problem half solved and have any peace, right, you have to go get the finish it, you have to when you can't let go, we have to, and the ability to go to a family function and not get caught up in problem solving something like. You know, in a way, we enjoyed it, because there was three boys and almost every family function, and my wife didn't enjoy it that much when we did this. We get suckered into it, whether it was solving some app problem on a phone or fixing a hot water tank, there was always like, you couldn't just sit around. And we even went camping together. Beautiful times camping together. But-

Dawn Taylor 11:44

Oh, rest is for the wicked!

Dallas Wiebe 11:46

Yeah, so but even then-

Dawn Taylor 11:48

There's a line from my childhood.

Dallas Wiebe 11:52

But it also was just kind of like therapy, if you kept moving, and you kept working. It just felt right. You know. So I had to start looking at my ability to leave something dirty, to leave something unfinished, to... and obviously not everybody needs to be encouraged in this direction. Like, it depends on what your rules are inside. Some people are very messy. But my thing was, I kind of felt wrong, I didn't feel right, to leave certain things or to not finish something or to I couldn't let go. So as a mechanic, you know, I tend to sway toward the technical side. So I'm problem solving computer related diagnostic issues with cars, but I couldn't let go, like so I'd be digging and digging. And you know, I'm gonna have to solve this, I'm gonna win, I'm gonna win. And what my, what the problem needed. And what my brain needed was to let go for a bit back off, go get some different perspectives, talk to some different people don't be so egotistical about it that I have to solve it all. Let it rest, sometimes an idea comes back at you something fender let cool a little bit, right. So-

Dawn Taylor 12:59

Yeah.

Dallas Wiebe 12:59

in that in that way. I was making like, things that were stressful and hard, worse. And I wouldn't feel right inside. So if I couldn't, when I'd come home, I'm kind of upset and, and it's just a car problem. Like, it doesn't need to own my soul. But it was my rules around finishing strong and solving everything. And even tying in my ego into my work like that is kind of what men do in general. But depending how you're wired, you do it more than more or less. So, for me, it's like, if I couldn't fix this, if I couldn't win this, if I couldn't prove to myself that I'm smarter than this problem or whatever, it would kind of take a piece out of me. And that's kind of a fragile place to be you know, so-

Dawn Taylor 13:48

Totally. So, you've brought up a few times, feelings. Emotions. Like how it made you feel things, if you can see Dallas as grin right now is he's laughing about me saying this. It would make you laugh. But that was a piece of it. So as Dallas said earlier, he reached out to me as a client. We also had known each other most of our lives. Our dads actually worked together, we had some common people in our inner circles. I graduated with one of his brothers. So we kind of like... kind of knew each other but not super. Not super well. Like I don't know if we'd ever even sat and had a conversation prior to our very first Facebook messaging.

Dallas Wiebe 14:35

That's right. So it was just more like "Hey, I know who you are, you know who I am."

Dawn Taylor 14:39

Totally and so he had reached out to me and you were in a dark place and I know that one of the first- one of the things that as we.... How do I word this? As we dug into your rules... I wanted to say as we fought through your rules to convince... right? Because you did that too.

Dallas Wiebe 15:00

Convinced me that I even had any to start with.

Dawn Taylor 15:03

Yes, that was entertaining was getting to the point of convincing you that there could have been a rule there in the first place. So one of the big things that came out of it for you was even understanding what feelings and emotions are.

Dallas Wiebe 15:15

Yeah, well, you said I was in a dark place. And I would say, more specifically, I was in a grey place. So feelings and emotions in general, were just one of those things that's untrustworthy. They kind of disregarded in my head as, well, inconvenient, and they could lie. So-

Dawn Taylor 15:37

Ding, ding, ding, there's a rule! For anyone. So for anyone listening, I'm gonna ding ding, ding every time a rule comes up. Maybe not, but anyway. But just think about that, right? Like when we're talking about these unconscious rules, and these, these ones that show up in our lives, right, just to give you like, a super tangible rule that Dallas had-

Dallas Wiebe 15:59

Yeah?

Dawn Taylor 15:59

right? Was like feelings and emotions are always denied. Pretty much like, there's just no need for them. There's no need for them!

Dallas Wiebe 16:09

Get them out of the way, put those somewhere, wherever you can stuff them. And, you know, give her like, push your shoulder into something and work. And so you know, the time you get into your mid 40s, and that's your method. Things are pretty great. Like, you don't feel up and you don't feel down.

Dawn Taylor 16:26

No, you're kind of flat.

Dallas Wiebe 16:28

Just, kind of flat. Until life kicks you hard enough and you feel down and you're like, well, I can't stay here.

Dawn Taylor 16:34

What is this feeling?

Dallas Wiebe 16:37

So then, yeah, so then I want to call and to talk to you and, and you started pointing at all these things that are basically, well, feelings and emotions. I'm like, well, I don't believe in those so much!

Dawn Taylor 16:53

You actually used those words. "I don't believe in those." Like, yeah, you kind of don't have a choice. We need to find these for you.

Dallas Wiebe 17:00

Yeah. So that rule was written way deep inside of me, and probably from, you know, as a kid haven't having to deal with the emotions and feelings that weren't convenient. And so you, you build a method to deal with it. It's not necessarily wrong. It's just survival. You just doing the best you can as a, as a little person,

Dawn Taylor 17:19

Its a beautiful protection mechanism.

Dallas Wiebe 17:21

Yeah!

Dawn Taylor 17:22

Yeah.

Dallas Wiebe 17:22

But that rule gets written in the base program, like that gets written into the early part. So it isn't even something your question. Like, it's just, it's unconscious, it's underneath it. So when you're responding to life and living life, and not even knowing the rules you're operating by, then you can't fix anything. Because you keep adjusting all the variables that are on the outside of those rules, you keep adjusting the things that are like outcomes, not the input devices. So for me, tripping over these rules as we're going through stuff, it was really hard on my soul, because you're messing with my base program, like you're-

Dawn Taylor 18:04

Ugh Yes.

Dallas Wiebe 18:06

You know, and so you-

Dawn Taylor 18:08

Hard on your soul is probably an understatement, somedays.

Dallas Wiebe 18:12

And you'd point something out, and, and you do your best to rile me up. I mean, let me know. And then, and so, I would have, you'd have to kind of leave it with me, let me chew on it for a while. And then I, you know, come back again next week. I'm like, yeah, you're right and I don't like it. And then... But that's kind of what the thing of change is, especially as you get older as like, to let go of these rules is scary. Because you're, you're letting go of things that you even though they're broken. They're only you know, like, what you what you drive by.

Dawn Taylor 18:48

They're your normal.

Dallas Wiebe 18:49

Yeah, they're what I call my method that was broken, but and so that's just one of those simple rules. That was right under the bottom of it, right. And, it was actually probably one of the baseline rules that had to be adjusted.

Dawn Taylor 19:03

So talking about these unconscious rules, right? And how all of a sudden you're like realizing you have these in the the shifts that needs to happen with them. There isn't a person listening that isn't my Oh, yeah. Okay, maybe I have a weird rule or two.

Dallas Wiebe 19:15

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 19:16

Right. We all have them is the thing. That's actually just reality. So I'd love to dive into each rule that we talked about and go okay, so this rule? How did how did it affect your life in a negative? And how did overcoming it and bringing emotions in, shift relationships in your life, your business, your world for positive? So how did it affect you in a negative?

Dallas Wiebe 19:40

Well, the negative side of all that kind of disregard for emotions in general is not only do you not know how you feel, I didn't know how I felt because I've turned them off as best as I could. I struggled and nobody else helped. And so emotions that seemed, well inconvenience other people. It was like, well, why are you asking like that? Like, so that isn't a baseline for a healthy relationship. You know, it's-

Dawn Taylor 20:08

What? For real??

Dallas Wiebe 20:11

So when it had to start with me being able to deal with my emotions, and people say, well deal with your emotions, it's like, well, let yourself have them. I am like, well, what about all the pain in my life, but I can't put that all out. It'll creep out in little stuff here and there, but let yourself have some. It's not like, one of the things that triggered me is music. Certain music can bypass my defenses. So my emotional defenses were often good, but I could have a bad day and not really put a finger on how I was feeling. But go get myself into a, you know, a bit of a private space and play some some music, it would come up to the surface, how I felt, and sometimes just processing the emotions, having them be present. And going, yeah, I guess my face is leaking, now I'm crying. And I can I'm not really proud of that as far as my man genes go, but my soul feels better, by actually letting out this feeling that's inside of me. And I'm not suggesting that I'm going to let my emotions run my life, I still have a lot of the decisions to make, that have to be weighed out with reality. But when trying to have a relationship with well, myself. And then the next step with people, if you deny emotions exists, because they are inconvenient, sometimes, there's a very, low ceiling, on a relationship potential. It's very hard to get to know how you feel. And therefore it's very hard to have any clue on why people around you respond this way or that way. Because emotions are kind of like, they aren't always telling the truth. But they're always always telling you something. Like they have a reason for being there. Right. And so, sometimes your emotions are just completely overwhelmed up about something. And it's not really that one thing it was that broke, that was the straw that broke the camel's back, it was 35 things that you've been ignoring for a long time just stuffing it in there. And all sudden something triggers that and you're like, this is completely overblown, by this situation, why do I feel this strongly about this? And so sometimes there's strong feelings around something. And that was to me, it went from using... from running from emotions, to using emotions as a detector of things inside of me that had been buried, and needed to be dealt, like, talk to, need to see what that's about. And so there was there was parts of me that were I didn't like, I didn't like how that part of me work. It didn't like how that made me feel. So if you just turn your emotions off, the feedback mechanisms broken. You don't even know where to look.

Dawn Taylor 23:03

Ok, right there. When you turn your emotions off. Your feedback mechanism is broken.

Dallas Wiebe 23:09

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 23:11

That statement right there is so freakin true. Right? If we can just shut this off, if we can just shut it off, shut it off, shut it off, shut it off, shut it off. Right? But it's in those emotions that were like, hey, wait, something's going on here. Something is going on here. There's something wrong and it's whether it's with us or it's with somebody else. Right? When you're in tune with those emotions when you can finally face them all of a sudden it can shift like I know like for you it's shifted your relationship with your employees at work your... like your family, your friends. Like the deeper conversations you've had the... your wife, your daughter, like your puppy dog!

Dallas Wiebe 23:56

Yeah, I've become a bit of a softy as of late.

Dawn Taylor 24:00

Still strong and manly though. Come on Dallas! Gotta put that out there.

Dallas Wiebe 24:04

Well, the thing of it is I enjoy it. Like I'm enjoying the things in life that I used to find unnecessary. And they are the spice of life. So, you know, I enjoy talking to my daughter and you know, she's getting married in a few months and that's a crazy process to be a part of. And-

Dawn Taylor 24:28

Yeah.

Dallas Wiebe 24:30

So the funny thing is about emotions in other people is often they want to talk about it too. And for me to sit there with my logical brain and say, Okay, explain to me exactly your problem and why do you feel that way?

Dawn Taylor 24:49

That's just so useful! Come on though...

Dallas Wiebe 24:53

Not a good opening line for your teenage daughter. And so I had to leave room to let the emotions fall out in conversation and not try to logically stuff it into me getting an answer quickly, right? Because that's the... that's my mind, that's common in males. But I'm a hyper example of that. Where am I 100% problem solver human being. So just give me the data. Just the facts, ma'am. Like that line there. You know?

Dawn Taylor 25:26

Just the facts ma'am that's amazing. I can like hear my German grandpa in that line right there. Oh my gosh!

Dallas Wiebe 25:37

So if you want to hear what someone's got to say, you can't ask them to distill it down to facts only because their heart's hurting. You know, so to have a relationship with somebody, it takes listening through the tears and the giggles and all the all this stuff. So when you when you start hearing people from their heart, there's connections made at levels that will never be made by Mr. Logicman and his problem solving suitcase, right. So-

Dawn Taylor 26:06

That should be like your Halloween costume next year. Mr. Logicman and your problem solving suitcase. Right there. Just visualize it.

Dallas Wiebe 26:16

Yeah, I'll bring my small white puppy with me.

Dawn Taylor 26:21

Yes!

Dallas Wiebe 26:21

It'll be a great paradox to look at!

Dawn Taylor 26:25

So what was the other rule you were going to talk about? Another rule that had come up for you?

Dallas Wiebe 26:30

Oh yeah. So this is a more... way less emotional thing. But so what had happened is, because I got into business, in my early 30s. I had, I was motivated, I was a motivated business worker, right. So I got into business without training, right? As an automotive technician, fancy word for mechanic. You're fixing cars and doing stuff, right? You just fixing cars, and I enjoyed making hot rods and things. And then this opportunity comes to buy a business. And you know, it's just a little two bay setup, but you're buying the property in the building. And so I had in the Mennonite fashion had been pretty, fairly frugal to this point and built up enough equity to pull it off. But totally bet the farm on it, like you're betting your house, you're betting everything against it you're going all in. And when you start that, you're pretty sure that you could fail, but you're gonna like, kill yourself, so you don't fail. And for me, failure was associated with loss, unacceptable loss. And that's a pretty harsh thing, because there's so much more like failures, like, reframed in my head to a crazy degree at this point. But in the process of just working hard, and being fairly intelligent about handling my customers and the money and my employees, I had to put myself through business school, basically in the school of hard knocks, because I had no training and dealing with that, just careful learning on the spot. But I found that I had taken and, you know, made a pretty successful business in a short time with hard work and some really, really good employees, hiring the right people at the right time. And, you know, my brother helped me build a new building, and, you know, just all the, all the combinations work together. But I had completely built up who I was as a successful business person as who I was. So the rule about if this business fails, I fail, was killing my business. Right?

Dawn Taylor 26:30

Ok, let's just talk about that for a second.

Dallas Wiebe 28:55

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 28:56

If my business fails, I fail, which then flows into what? I'm a failure.

Dallas Wiebe 29:02

Yep, that's the next next step of the flowchart.

Dawn Taylor 29:05

And how often does that happen in everything. We're like, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner as especially. There's such this, like, there's such a huge belief that like we are our businesses, and if we fail, or the... if the business fails, if we just... If something doesn't go according to plan, then like, we're this horrible human instead of being like, no, no, no. There's 100 different metrics that went into that.

Dallas Wiebe 29:34

Oh Yes. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 29:36

But that deep seated belief. Good luck to anyone listening telling me you don't believe that one, because that's a common one. but- Right?!

Dallas Wiebe 29:44

It's a common one. And what happened is, it made me more and more risk averse, right.

Dawn Taylor 29:49

Yeah.

Dallas Wiebe 29:50

So as you as you go along and you get some more employees and you deal with, you know, the overheads climbing and the overheads climbing and you're trying to find the profit where margin that you thought you had built into this. And you can only be so risk averse as an entrepreneur and get anywhere. So you take even me going into business was more risky than a lot of people that in my life would say was a good idea. Right? Like, what are you going to gain out of that you're just buying yourself a job, you could go wor- keep working. But so I proved to myself that I could make a business go. But I had grown so fast that the overhead had gotten pretty serious. And it only worked if I had the right people around.

Dawn Taylor 30:39

Yeah.

Dallas Wiebe 30:39

But I was becoming a massive stress ball that was hard to be around.

Dawn Taylor 30:45

Yeah.

Dallas Wiebe 30:46

And so the combination of that, plus this fear inside and be a failure that I could see, I could see the numbers changing directions, I could see, the business wasn't as healthy as it once was. And it was still working. I just saw the curve, you know, I saw the trajectory change. And I'm like, and my response to it was making it worse. I was getting, I was getting cheaper, I was more upset when people made mistakes, I was just pointing out all the errors of everybody around me like that was the reason why we were slowly losing ground. And so it did two things. It was unhealthy for the business. But it was breaking me because I started to see the business as a problem. The business was my enemy. It was, a thing to run from, it's like, I gotta get away from this, I'm too stressed out. I'm getting too many migraines. It's... I can't maintain this anymore. And that was a real crisis for me. Because up until that point in my life, I kind of made a well, a weird, half adrenaline fueled method of solving problems. And that was, stare at it, and run at it. And in the process, you'll learn like if something terrified me, I just go at it. And so... That probably didn't help my mom sleep much. But-

Dawn Taylor 32:12

I was gonna say, it's so fun to be married to and so fun to raise as a child!

Dallas Wiebe 32:20

You know, I was a pretty soft soul so I wasn't going out to terrify the people who loved me but adrenaline was my drug. And that was my one of my ways of getting a good feeling was to run out something, have it scare the crap out of me, and then beat it. Like that was kind of my drug.

Dawn Taylor 32:40

When you... not just and this was in your thing you'd sent like we talked about earlier, it's like adrenaline was your drug of choice.

Dallas Wiebe 32:46

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 32:47

And it was like skiidoes and race cars. Like all the toys.

Dallas Wiebe 32:56

Well, that now the mountain, snowbowling was was really important to me, because there's something about the beauty of the mountains of freedom of the mountains. And then this huge, huge, like, risk factor, combined with horsepower. So that was... That's was that's my thing. Actually, and I sold my sled a couple years ago, and people were like, why? And I'm like, I don't need it anymore. And not that it's wrong. It's just that the drug that I needed out of it isn't required anymore. So that type of thinking was really tying me up. But like, if you're an athlete, you say it may be tight. Like it, it made me so I couldn't play the game anymore. So going to work, quite sure that work was the source of all the anxiety in my life, thinking somehow that I was still in charge that I should go to fix this. But the harder I tried, the more I buckled down. The more I tried to plug the holes in the dam by being upset about everyones- everybodys' mistake, the worse it got. And so one day, well. My trick was I gave it... I gave the thing to God. I said, God, okay, you can own the business. I'm just gonna show up and work for you. Right?

Dawn Taylor 34:12

I remember that, yeah!

Dallas Wiebe 34:13

Yeah and so that began a change in my mental process. It took a while to let go even figure out what I'm saying to you right now that I do that. But being able to look at that and go, you know, I can do other things. I'm capable of all kinds of stuff. This can fail or die or can grow or whatever. It isn't who I am.

Dawn Taylor 34:38

Okay, pause there again. Seriously, this can grow or die. It could fail. It doesn't matter. This is not who I am.

Dallas Wiebe 34:49

Yeah, yeah and so-

Dawn Taylor 34:50

not our identity and for people listening they're like meh, God, whatever. Take the word God out of it and put universe take the word universe that have been put in whatever you want, it doesn't matter. It's, releasing that control of it.

Dallas Wiebe 35:06

Well, yeah, if you've got to be in control of everythin-

Dawn Taylor 35:09

Right?

Dallas Wiebe 35:09

and you kind of made yourself into a god. So that's got some downsides to it.

Dawn Taylor 35:15

Totally!

Dallas Wiebe 35:17

It locked me up. So that kind of thinking froze me up. So starting to free in that starting to be able to handle some risks are going to be able to try different things at work, because as a business grows, the same method that got you started won't keep you going. And so you gotta fire some ideas through the cannon and see what works. And if you're totally afraid of the ship going down every time you try something new, it doesn't work. So yeah, and for me is one of the recent things that I did was when profits were flat, I introduced profit sharing. And to try to, to show how healthy the business could be. And to get people to come on and say, you know, there's a lot of money for you to make, if you want to work with me.

Dawn Taylor 36:10

Yeah.

Dallas Wiebe 36:11

But to give away the profits that you're hoping to use to pay off some debt, to give it away to your staff. Without knowing whether it's going to work. It's like, well, this could, this could be given the way that the last bit of nest egg I was trying to put away for this debt or that debt.

Dawn Taylor 36:32

Yeah?

Dallas Wiebe 36:32

But it turns out, people like to be included in the business, they like to be included in the bottom line. So getting really honest about that with people and saying, and like posting monthly profit statements of your business to your whole staff, and watching it go up, as they're watching it go up. It's just been a few months, but it's challenging, and it's yeah. And it's really fun to watch other people start to see "Hey what I do actually matter here!" whether I come to work and give it a bit or not. It matters, it changes, how things go for me too. And so it's for people to say you're doing what I'm like, I'm giving away 50% of the company profits to my employees. You're crazy. And I am like, well, if you make enough and they make enough, then everything works. And in this in this market, retaining skilled staff is where it's at. Like if you can retain skilled staff, you're winning. And so my goal isn't to retire any given time, my goal is to enjoy working. So-

Dawn Taylor 37:40

I'm so proud of you, like so proud of you. No seriously! No, but even for some anyone listening, like the journey of my business is my identity. And it's my everything. And if it fails, I fail on all of that stuff.

Dallas Wiebe 37:58

Yeah!

Dawn Taylor 37:58

To get yourself to the point where you're like, No, no, it's okay. This isn't my identity, my identity is enjoying life and in helping these people and supporting them and helping everybody succeed.

Dallas Wiebe 38:11

Yeah, I mean, yeah. I'm getting more positive feedback. I love training people and I love educating people that have taken young entr- we all young people who want to do something and teaching them something and teaching them how to... this... Overall, corporations are really good at teaching people how to do one job, but they never get to see larger picture. And so whenever I get a young worker starting off, if they have the mind for it, I want to, I want to train them how to run a business, hey, at work do be a mechanic, that's a very good job. And it's a very technical, you got to be smart to do that these days, cars these days are pretty brutal.

Dawn Taylor 38:52

It's not the old... it's not the old vehicles that we worked on in high school, no,

Dallas Wiebe 38:58

But the way this trade works, if you're good at it, you leverage up into running your own business. Like that's, the way to get, to take your knowledge that you gained in the first 20 years. And get it into your into your head and find a way to use that. And so I'll train new staff, if they want to know, I'll train them as into what I have going on. And I've had people get trained and leave. And it used to be a big thing. I used to be really sad when people left, you know, because it's just, you know, it's so hard to replace people. And I don't want people to leave, but to have somebody come in pretty rough around the edges and not really, you know, really anchored in any value that they could offer to anything and to leave knowing they went to a really good job. They're growing as a human, they're way better off. I like that. That's that's a positive feedback loop for me. So that's way different than just trying to get someone to stay in the business long enough to see if you can fill the role and take care of your responsibilities and make some money. And then so, yeah,

Dawn Taylor 40:06

Okay, so let's, tie that back to the very beginning of this conversation, where we talked about your dad laying in that hospital bed and staring outside and just wanting to drive the delivery truck.

Dallas Wiebe 40:19

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 40:20

And your fear, your giant fear of becoming your dad.

Dallas Wiebe 40:27

Yeah, in many ways, becoming my dad is in his is an honor of that part. That part of him I didn't want to have that I want to see doing work as my therapy.

Dawn Taylor 40:40

Yeah.

Dallas Wiebe 40:40

I didn't, want to see that as my way to get through life. Because something else my dad was pretty good at this is just a balance to this is he, loved the people around him. But he often struggled with people that wouldn't value the same things he valued. So things being clean and tidy, taking good care of stuff. But he was a hard worker unselfishly toward others. So this last Sunday, we had a baptism in our church, and he was the guy who would prepare everything, clean up, fill up the baptismal tank, make sure it was a comfortable temperature, he'd have the mop bucket ready keep the floor from being a nasty slip zone. And he just took care of everything. And his picture. And some other people's is in our dining room, stuck on the wall, as kind of the hard work and heroes that people didn't get to see that much. But we know are there. So I found myself this Sunday, grabbing a mop bucket, out of that janitor room. And to me, it was kind of a full circle moment for me to be doing the job that he would normally have done, and then realized how good he was at serving people, without asking for credit. Like he was just good at being a great servant. And so in one on one side of his work driven mode, he had tied his identity to that he had tied his being to being able to keep busy and wasn't sure who he was when he wasn't working hard, I can say. But the other side of it was he was able to work and bless people without having to be seen, without having to get the big deal. And so I look at this rule that I that I saw in him where, you know, work was made so important to his psyche, that when you take it away, it really bothered him. And I'm like, I don't want to be that grounded in work, I don't want to have work is my only method to keep my myself feeling good. But on the other side of it, I've started to find the ability to do work, to bless people and see in them a payback in that where you're working for something bigger than yourself. And all sudden, the work becomes pleasant. It's worth doing. And so the rule of work is that you can work way harder than you think you can. If you have the right motives. It's amazing what you can accomplish and healthy too!

Dawn Taylor 43:28

Oh my gosh, so much. So much.

Dallas Wiebe 43:32

But if you view work as with an unhealthy view, it could be the enemy. It could be the thing you're trying to run from like you're everybody's working to retire. Or it can be unhealthy crutch to be your... keep your brain happy. But what's your rules around it. It isn't work's fault. It's how you look at it, right?

Dawn Taylor 43:53

When I think with that there's... I was talking to someone today about how we're so quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater. So we have these people in our lives, you know, like your dad, my mom when they passed away. And I know we've had just even friend conversations about this, about how there's parts of our parents that we've loved so much, and they were so outstanding, there's parts that we hated, or that were really toxic or really not good. And that's okay! Like it's okay in our perspective, to see the person in that light and to know that maybe some of their actions or some of their behaviors, did cause damage to us, or did shift things in us or did change things about us to interactions we didn't love or like or even appreciate. You know, as we got older.

Dallas Wiebe 44:00

Right. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 44:43

But we also don't have to throw out the person with it. Right? Like we don't have to throw out the person with it. And I know like one of my mom's was like, it's always about give, give, give, give, give, like also super generous, right like, I am sure her and your dad would have been very good friends. If they ever spend some time together as they were both that way. Yeah. But my mom also didn't have healthy boundaries on it often-

Dallas Wiebe 45:07

True, yeah.

Dawn Taylor 45:08

Of knowing when she needed to actually stop! When it wasn't an appropriate moment to give, when it wasn't healthy for her kids or her family, when she needed to actually have a healthy boundary in place so that she wasn't giving so much of herself that she was being destroyed by it.

Dallas Wiebe 45:26

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 45:26

And so, I know, that's been hard, like, even on us as kids as growing up. And I know, it's conversations that I've had to even have with my husband is, like, I have to make sure I have healthy boundaries on that because I very quickly will turn into my mom and that way.

Dallas Wiebe 45:41

Yeah, yeah.

Dawn Taylor 45:42

And instead of being like, no, it's still absolutely beautiful to give, give, give, give, give, and I can more than most people of my time, my energy, my resources, whatever. But I can also have a healthy boundary on it. So it doesn't become an identity for me.

Dallas Wiebe 45:59

That's right. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 46:00

And that's where so many of these rules that we take on become an identity, the rules of who we have to be as a mom, who we have to be as a dad, who we have to be as a boss, what our beliefs are on something what we're willing to budge on or not budge on how things go down. The amount of times in our house, even we say like, "Oh, we're going to be in trouble. We're breaking a rule here." Right? And I mean, we're breaking a rule by doing something like not making turkey on Christmas dinner. Yeah, yeah, one of those kind of rules, Like, those silly rules, but it's still a rule. It's still these weird unconscious rules that we have about, like, if I don't this, then I'm not that.

Dallas Wiebe 46:43

Yeah. And it's, you have to be open to the discovery of these rules, if you actually want to change. Because, for me, becoming aware of the rule took a hard thing, to be able to look something look my life in the face and say, "The way I want it to go, the way I think it should go isn't happening." And am I willing to go through the painful process of like, upsetting everything right now of letting go of the way I want I think things should be and so to ask questions about stuff to say, "Well, why do I do that?" And why? So it's, it becomes less of a fear of breaking everything and more of a curiosity. I wonder how much of this is this baked into my thinking? I mean, one of the big words of our day is like unconscious bias. And it's used in all kinds of ways, and some of its has good value in it. But we have these unconscious biases that affect how we take stuff in. And we don't even have to go to the point of judging others with that unconscious bias. We're just not taking it in. And so the luxury of learning involves breaking down rules, the luxury of getting to change is breaking down rules. And so if you say, "Man, I gotta change this, this is not working." Well. That's a healthy question. But then, what am I doing to create this because it's so easy, point outwardly and is, and point at all the things that come at us as the issue. Look, when I was at work, I was, you know, my employees aren't doing this, and my employees are doing that. And so you take, as the employer, I could do something about it. If I was willing to change, break down my rules on my end, and try some different things, right. But making this... pointing at them and saying, Well, if they would, if they would do this or that, then it would be good. Well, I can't do anything about that!

Dawn Taylor 48:50

Right?! And I feel like that's an easy way for someone to even start to see where their rules are in their own life is. Where are you really frustrated?

Dallas Wiebe 48:59

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 49:00

Where is an area of your life, that you're really frustrated that somebody else is screwing up in all the time?

Dallas Wiebe 49:05

Yeah, yeah.

Dawn Taylor 49:06

Right. Like, it's my frustration and put somebody else is at fault for it all the time. Right, what kind of crazy rules you have attached to it? What kind of crazy expectation do you attach to it?

Dallas Wiebe 49:18

Yeah, and it isn't that people around us couldn't improve.

Dawn Taylor 49:23

Always, come on, we're perfect Dallas.

Dallas Wiebe 49:28

But it's just that so much of what really frustrates you, the stuff that repeats over and over again, is something you're carrying in you too, right? It's something that I'm facing this a certain way. And so I find that whole concept of walking up to a frustrating situation, giving myself a second and going all right, instead of just being angry at it, which is there like I can feel that come up and I'm... okay, I'm not excited about this. If this isn't the first time you've walked into this, so there's something I'm able to do differently, what is it? What can I do differently about this? And, you know, a lot of people will not really like quiet self reflection time. I mean, as a Christian we pray, right. But there's if you don't, if you can't be okay with your own self, in your own space in some quiet time, and actually assess, hey, when I was really upset about that being at work, what was that feeling? I've had weird, weird, weird stuff come up, I have expectations about somebody that they should just know better. They should just know better than doing that. And then in the back of my head, I can kind of feel now. Well, I was taught to know better about that. Because of the expectations put on me, but I didn't like how I was taught that. I was taught that the harder way. And so to expect them to know that I had to change, even though I've had a reasonable request of an employee, the way people learn is all different. And so if I say something, and they would, "oh, okay, I'll just change." Well, that isn't usually how it works, right? You got to find out how they work. And so for me, it was like, the ability to assess the situation and go, yeah, I'm frustrated by this. But I am treating them like, well, sometimes, maybe how my dad treated me. And I want them to just get it and do it right. But that hasn't been even defined properly, in a way that they understand. And the motivation, why they would do that isn't even present for them. So I gotta find out what their currency is, what matters to them. And then I got to find out what language they speak. And that's different for different people. So- and that's turned into a curiosity- an experiment! It's curiosity now to figure out how to communicate with people versus a complete frustration and yet I still get frustrated. But I sit down and ponder it, like pray about it. You know, I get input. I have ideas. I can do different things the next day, instead of repeating the same thing, hoping for different results, which is insane.

Dawn Taylor 52:01

It totally is. Definition of insanity.

Dallas Wiebe 52:28

Yeah!

Dawn Taylor 52:30

Husband says it all the time doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Dallas Wiebe 52:34

Yeah. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 52:36

Dallas, this is amazing. And I just want to thank you so much for being here with us today and having a talk with us. And, again, tying it back to that initial story is you've completely shifted your direction, you're never going to be your dad laying in that hospital bed.

Dallas Wiebe 52:54

No, you know, this is a really good snapshot for me. Because when you change in life, sometimes it's slow. And then you look back to something you go, "Oh lots have changed!"

Dawn Taylor 53:06

A lot!"

Dallas Wiebe 53:07

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 53:07

Like so much! So if you have one challenge for the listeners about something that they could do right now to support themselves, in this way, help themselves in this way, or even start to like dig into some of their own rules. What would it be?

Dallas Wiebe 53:22

Next time you're really frustrated with somebody, some relationship, or some even situation, but probably going to be a person involved. There's a good chance, especially if it's a repeating situation, so somebody that's stuck in your world, that you can't get out, there's a good chance that they are doing some crazy things that are messing you up. But there's even a better chance that you've got some rules baked into your responses, baked into how you're looking at the situation, that if you would assess it, you know, with a kind of curiosity, "what I got involved here, what am I? What am I bringing to this?" you could do something to make that situation a lot better. And it has to... you have to be honest with yourself, you have to be okay with a bit of quiet time with yourself. But if you can sit down and assess that, you're not going to get it the first time. But you might try 10 things that don't work. And the 11 that might work. What you like you probably hit the same situation 30 times already. So what's 11 more?

Dawn Taylor 54:26

Right? I know, I know. What is your favourite place you have ever travelled?

Dallas Wiebe 54:27

Maui.

Dawn Taylor 54:27

Oh yes, you do love Maui

Dallas Wiebe 54:27

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor 54:28

So lets finish off with just a few fun silly questions like I always do at the end.

Dallas Wiebe 54:33

Oh, good! We are going back this year,

Dawn Taylor 54:45

Are you? Oh, that's awesome. You are a lover of there. What was something you spend a silly amount of money on? Other than car engines?

Dallas Wiebe 54:56

It's gonna have to, it's gonna have to include car parts.

Dawn Taylor 55:00

It would be car parts would be my guest for you.

Dallas Wiebe 55:03

Just today I made over 1000 horsepower, on my Mustang, so I have a problem!

Dawn Taylor 55:09

I need to come for another ride.

Dallas Wiebe 55:11

Yeah!

Dawn Taylor 55:12

Is there a secret guilty pleasure way that you use to decompress? Do you have a silly show that you watch? Or a thing you eat? Or...

Dallas Wiebe 55:23

This is really, this is really sappy, but I'll step out there. To decompress, I often need to cry. We talked about emotions, I need to cry people like you need to cry like yeah, you do, too. We just don't know yet. So I pick, on certain days, I will pick certain songs that have a lot of feel attached to them. And they may have been from the hard times or whatever they are, but you probably have yours too. And I play them on purpose, while I'm driving. So no one's around. And usually my face leaks a little bit. But then I feel better. Yeah,

Dawn Taylor 55:58

That's amazing. I love it so much. Thank you so much Dallas for being here. If you enjoyed this episode, and I really, really hope you did, I hope that you will forward it to friends, share it with people, all those fun things. I hope that something you've heard today hit home that shifted have something in you and just prove that you're not alone. Join us again in two weeks for another amazing topic. It's a fun one. And please tell your friends the more people to feel understood the better. Check out the show notes for information on how to get your car fixed by Dallas if you want that. But also things we talked about today. And they're located at the taylorway.ca Also all the contact information, everything we talked about all again, it's all written out there. And you can subscribe now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you'd love the show, please leave a review.

19 - Dallas Wiebe: Breaking Your Hidden Rules In Your 40s

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