🎙️ When Success Isn't Enough: Finding Peace Beyond Achievement with Steven Barton

✨🌎 Emotional intelligence and leadership meet inner peace as Steven Barton reveals why true fulfillment comes from within, not external success.

"I have everything in the world that I want, and I'm not happy." For many high achievers, success becomes the very thing that reveals what's missing. In this episode, Steven Barton shares how hitting rock bottom despite having everything forces us to confront a profound truth: the most valuable thing in life is life itself. We explore how compassionate detachment from external achievements, possessions, and validation creates lasting peace, unlocks our highest potential, and allows us to evolve into more conscious leaders and human beings.

Steven Barton is a transformational leader and advocate for conscious living who helps individuals discover fulfillment beyond external success. His insights challenge the belief that achievement alone creates happiness, guiding leaders toward inner peace, self-awareness, and a more meaningful way of living and leading.

👉🏻Connect with Steven here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coach-steve-barton/
Website: stevebartoncoaching.com 

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Discover how emotional intelligence transforms leadership and performance through Peak Performance WITH Emotional Intelligence (PPEI) programs and keynotes.

👉🏻 Self-Mastery Tools for Reaching Your Peak Performance: https://drjacquelinecampbell.com/self-mastery-tools

👉🏻 Or if You're an Event Planner Looking for a Speaker Visit her website: https://www.drjacquelinecampbell.com

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Transcript

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So I went to therapy and the therapist said, Why are you here? I said, I have everything in the world that I want. I'm not happy. And that was a trip. And I just threw everything that ever happened to me. The sexual abuse, the disappointments, the guilt, the shame, everything. And I just said, Wow, this is great. Welcome to the Resilient Minds Podcast. Stories of grit, growth, and success. On this show, we focus on the real stories behind the success, the struggles, the resilience, and the courage it took to keep moving forward even when times got tough. My goal is to provide you with stories of hope and transformation, showing that no matter the challenges, there is a way forward, and you can find it. This is Resilient Minds. Hey, I'm your host, Dr. Campbell, and I'm here with Steve Barton, and he has an amazing story to tell us today. He is an executive coach and author, and he has something very interesting. I'd really like for you to start with this, Steve. Um, what can you uh first introduce yourself? Tell us what you do, but please explain what the game of 10 means. Well, let me introduce. I'm Steve Barton. I live in Portland, Maine, and I've been a coach for the past 10 years, actually 11 years. I've graduated from the Gestalt International Studies Center in Wallfleet, Massachusetts, 2015. And also in 2015, I created a game and because I like to figure stuff out. And so I thought if it isn't simple and easy, it's not true. So I like to hone things down to the pure truth and keep it simple, superstar uh theory of marketing, everything is keep it simple. If it's too complicated, then the untangle it and get rid of the nonsense and focus on the truth. So the game of 10 is basically the game of life, and it's based on the premise that everyone is 10, born 10. And then through we're appointed 10, actually. In our essence, as in, like you're given that when you're born. It's our God given right to in our appointment. Okay. Yep. So and through life's difficulties, disappointments, uh, traumas, and if they reoccur, which they will if they're not let go of and dealt with. So what we what we think about, we bring about the law of attraction. So if you are uh com identified as being a victim or things don't work out for you, you will attract that. So that is called, I call that the game often played, one through nine. So if people are very much identified, which is our ego, is and we will track that our whole life. Not always, but more times than not, and then then say, Why does this keep happening to me? So the so you have the villain, the victim, and the hero mentality, and and it it repeats itself until we learn to go to the core truth of when it first happened, right? And we then we either let it go, hopefully, right, or we keep it, have the awareness to let it go. Yeah, and so I I teach my clients how to how to forgive themselves and others. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, it just means it doesn't have the control it once had over you. Yeah, so do it for yourself so you don't give it to others. I love that you add the forgiveness piece very much. I mean, yeah, and forgiveness is spiritual, it is religious, it is psychological. We have to let go. Let it forgiveness is letting go. A lot of people think think that they have to forgive the person, place, or situation that happened to them. They actually have to forgive the thought about what happened to them. It doesn't mean it didn't happen, it doesn't mean it wasn't horrific, it doesn't mean that at all. It means it can no longer have the mental, the physical, the spiritual hold it once had on you. Yeah, because then the victim mindset wants to it, it not us, but it wants to control us and make us feel smaller and less, you know, adequate. And by feeling like somebody harmed me, and let's say I still want to forgive them, but then I just keep harboring that pain, it's because I won't let go, because I still want to be either resentful or bitter or angry, and then that's how it's doing it to us. Well, yeah, it's a false sense of security. You you want to hold on to that so it doesn't happen again. Well, the the paradox is when you're playing the game often played, is it's gonna happen to you again in some form. In some form. Yeah. Or what's worse, and this is the hard part, and this is like when I'm I'm talking to people about um awareness because it's a two-way street. Yes, the law of attraction, but there's also what you're projecting out, even if it's not happening, you can still visualize it happening or experiencing it because the stories that we're playing. Yeah, somebody could say that they love you and you still hear that they hate you. Yeah, because what's your brain is playing? Because you can't trust that love. Because somebody hurt you before that you didn't let go of. So you're gonna put up that wall, close your heart, and protect you, but actually you're harming yourself. Yeah, but I think a lot of people don't understand that love has boundaries. They think if I'm just love everybody unconditionally, I'm gonna get walked all over. Well, no, sometimes love says no, and sometimes love says go. Yeah, and sometimes love says stay, and sometimes love says yes. So you want to stay in the stay and yes, and they want to be really clear with the no and goes, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Because I I think of love more as a state of being, not something that you either give or take away, or right, like because it's a vibration, it's an energy, and who wouldn't want to be in that state all the time, regardless of who cares about you and who stays and yes, and you want to be totally grounded in the reality of some people who want to take that, right? They want to use that to for harm, even unwillingly and unknowingly, because hurt people hurt people, right? So therefore, you have to be aware that they're in it for take and not give, because love is all giving, and you have to be aware, not protect and not put up walls, but put up boundaries, loving boundaries, respectful boundaries of yourself. That you know, the red flag set showing up in a relationship, and you want to be aware of them and you want to question them. And the ones who want to share that with you are keepers, and the ones that don't want to share that with you, you want to be the runaway. You can lovingly say goodbye. Yeah, I love you now, and bye. Thank you. Yeah, no, you don't call me, you ghost me, you do this and you do that. But I love you. I said, No, not not the kind I'm I'm applying for, not the kind of love I'm looking for. Yeah, the statement that I usually say is just loving them from a distance. Like that's perfectly fine. Yes, and will you ever forgive me? I forgive you right now, and I just don't want to be with you right now. Well, can we ever be friends? Maybe, maybe, not now, maybe just not now. You know, I Marianne Williamson was one of my coaches, and and uh I love that she hasn't said it lately, but uh 30 years ago she said, you have to love everyone, you don't have to have lunch with them. Yeah, good. I agree, I love it, and that's okay. It is okay. I love you, be you. Explain like right before we hopped on, you were talking about the the game of 10 being playing with your authentic self. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that, the listeners? Well, when you are playing 10, you are your authentic self. You can't be like you don't want to be like someone else, and you don't want others to be like you, you want them to be them unapologetically. I'm myself, and some people love me and some people don't. And I had to come up with a word with my I'm a I love business and I love marketing, and so I asked my chat because it was really disturbing me. Things like this disturbed me, okay. This is cool, and what it was was I want one word that says I deeply, deeply, deeply care, and deeply, deeply, deeply don't give, eh? Okay, you know the word fill in the vote. Yeah, so and it came. I asked chat, I asked groc, I asked Gemini, and it came up with two words, and it's called compassionate detachment. I love that. Uh-huh. Isn't that beautiful? Yep. So I had to come up with a word, didn't have to, but my marketing brain says in the chat. I said, come up with one word that fits my brand, the game of 10, the game often played. It's all about 10. And it came up with a few good ones, but it didn't come up with the one I came. I say I ten care t-e-n c A R E with an accent at the end to make it bougie. X tenkare, ten kare. Oh, so so all my friends now go, you know, this this the so-and-so did this this all happened. I go tenkare, yeah, exactly. Tenkare. Now I've been inside joke. Yeah, I mean, it works because I care and don't care, you know, it's deeply. And it's a balance. So you have to so 10 is walking that straight balance with two 16 poles on either side of life and balancing it all out right with awareness. What I found that I I love the concept of it, and I feel like you and I are aligned with that because when it comes to the nervous system, from my experience, anyways, when it's trying to understand something, it needs to understand full-blown one extreme and then full-blown the opposite extreme. So think about assertiveness. It, the brain, in terms of the human development, needs to understand what complete assertiveness means, which is aggressive, and complete passivity, which is very inactive, in order for it to be neutralized. Yes. And so I use the word neutralized, but you know, I love what you said. Compassionate, what is compassionately detached? Compassionate detachment. Basically basically, that is the basis of Buddhism. Yeah. Compassionate detachment. That's Buddhism. Buddhism isn't even a religion, it's a philosophy. Yeah, so and I'm not religious or I'm philosophical about everything, but I'm not religious about anything. So, but someone said, Do you believe in God? I said, I live with why do you have to believe in it? Because it doesn't make sense to me to believe something that is. That's why we get along so well. I don't, I don't get it. You know, I used to get it and it would kind of turn me off, but now I get it to, you know, and anyway, it's I'm not I ain't normal. I am natural. Okay. Right. It's well, I think that it's because it's so hard to the way that I see the different levels, like if you're going from one to ten, like there's literally levels of um whether it be your conscious awareness or vibrations, and as you get higher and higher, you don't resonate. So you don't understand, like you can see it from a bigger perspective, but they also don't understand you. There's just a separation. But the people that are the highest level, so to speak, not to say that they're superior at all, it's just a separation, they can see things from a different perspective where there's more detachment. Right. In a healthy way. Yep. So 10 is you're dealing with the infinite. And when you're playing the game often played, one through nine, the lowest level is someone who's a one. Yep, they get 10% of what they ask for. 90% of what they don't ask for. Oh, do you have a scale for this? Kind of like David Hawking's consciousness. Oh, I have to make one now that you asked. You have to make it, and you have to let me know. We'll talk about it after. So, so people who are twos get 20% of what they ask for. People who are nines get 90% of what they ask for. And these are high-level executives who mostly play the game often played. And I had one who I was telling him about the game of 10. He goes, I I like being a nine, I want to have 10%. That gap. And in that gap is fear, self-doubt, guilt, and shame. One through nine. So people who are working a high level of awareness want oftentimes want to have that 10%. I can get more. I need more. I need I use fear and self-doubt, guilt to motivate me to do better. So I don't lose it. Okay. Right. And when you're at 10, you can't lose. You're always winning. Every mistake is a lesson to learn from. Yay. Every failure is great. Oh my God, I didn't know I could F this up. Great. Now I've learned from it. Yeah. So it's it's a different game. It's a totally different game that not often played. Right. And it's it's too bad because there's such joy and peace, I feel, because that I feel like that last little smidge at the top, because there's so many conscious people that have so much out of life that if they had the the change, like you're talking about, the shift in awareness, that if they detached from everything, the money included, the partners included, right? Like I can't lose my spouse, or I can't lose my child. If you lovingly detach from everything, you increase that, and then everything becomes so much more peaceful and so much more beautiful. And then you get more. You have okay. Here's we're gonna play the game often. We're gonna play the game of 10. Okay. Okay. There is there is more, but it's not the more that we think it is. Right? It's the all right, so let's play the game of 10, okay? Six phrases repeat after me. Okay. Ten is we are the highest level of awareness. Everyone is 10. Okay. This these phrases go for you and it goes for everybody. I am 10. I am 10. I'm doing the best that I can with the awareness that I have. I'm doing the best that I can with the awareness that I have. I'm always right with the awareness that I have. I'm always right with the awareness that I have. I am enough. I am enough. I do enough. I do enough. I have enough. I have enough. Those six phrases are an active meditation. They shut off your egoic mind because it answers every question it asks throughout the day. Shuts it off. You can do it any time of day, between phone calls or between tasks. It clears your mind so that you can download from awareness the universal consciousness, the divine. You can download versus the most okay. So why people don't go from nine to ten or one to ten is because they're addicted to uh fear, self-doubt, guilt. And it's an addiction. And in between the gap is where people use addiction to fill it in. Yeah. And it's artificial. So I work with I've been doing some podcasts on addiction, and they people I've talked to say that's good, you know, that they fill in that gap where you don't have to, you just have to let go of the things you're holding on to. Will fill in the gap. Yeah, because it is literally addicted to suffering. Yes, and it becomes normal. And what would I do if I didn't have that? It would be boring. If people think that enlightenment is boring or awareness is or or inner peace is you know what this there's one common denominator that every person in this world wants that doesn't have its inner peace. Right. Yeah. Right. But it sounds boring, doesn't it? Well, okay, I can only speak for my my journey. Yes, multiple people that I've talked to, they believe that it's boring because your emotions are neutral, they're complete bliss and peace because they're they don't go super, super up because you don't get excited, and they don't go super low because you don't get disappointed. The roller coaster rides over. In that neutrality, what I found is it had to train me because I was very lonely. It was very quiet. I thought I did something wrong and nothing was going right or wrong. And so I'm sitting there thinking, this is this has gotta be wrong because nothing, it feels like apathy. Once I realized what it was doing was teaching me to be in stillness, to be in peace, then I was grateful. Then I realized nothing's happening because you're not doing anything, you have no more programming. Um and I'm not saying that I'm perfect or that we're done, right? There's always new layers, but it's so much different. Yeah. On the other side, it's kind of like you're more of a not kind of literally a co-creator of your reality. So you're able to program what you want now, which is different. Yeah, it is different. It's not difficult, it's different. Yeah. Well, it was difficult to understand what it was. Yes. And then once you're doing it, you can't imagine I can't imagine being emotionally on a roller coaster with anybody, you know. You go on the ride. You go on the ride. I'll be I'll be here ground on the ground. Have fun. I mean, I'll imagine. Steve, so with all of this beautiful knowledge that you share with people, you told me that you were on so many different podcasts today. I love that you're sharing this message because the world needs it, but all this knowledge came from somewhere. So the the podcast is Resilient Minds: Stories of Grit, Growth, and Success. I know you have a backstory that you had to overcome. What was that like? The backstory? Yeah. Like hell. Right? I was gonna say there's a whole journey in the church. Choose one spot. It was like hell uh in a handbasket, as we say in the hands. Choose one spot that would be really, really helpful for the audience. A lot of them are business owners, high-performing professionals. I had fired an employee who was a friend. And after I fired her, she sued me for sexual harassment. And this was during the time when Manita Hill and it was the Wild West. And I can go to my grave knowing I never had a sexual thought about her, okay? And it was on the newspapers, it was on the television station, people were being sued for they were paying out two hundreds of thousands of dollars just so they wouldn't get the name because it you were guilty until proven innocent. Right. And at that point, I decided to go do this in a way that this is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. And that was the switch right there. I had no idea what I was gonna put myself in the position, mental position I had put myself in. I was getting people, I got an attorney, a law firm called me up. We're canceling our I was in a flower business 30 years in the flower business top flower company in the in Portland, Maine, and and and a law firm called up one day and said, We're canceling our account with you. I said, That's kind of crazy. You'd think I'd be a great client if I'm that reckless. You know, does your boss know if I'm that bad, I'd be a great potential client. So um I decided to go to go to therapy. Uh, what it open, I uh my former wife was the uh VP of LL Bean, worked her way up from uh four to midnight shift on the floor, became a VP, store manager, then VP. And she goes, Everyone at Beans is talking. I said, Great, they're not talking about you, you're not important. So, anyways, not for that reason, though. I said so. I went to therapy, and the therapist said, Why are you here? I said, I have everything. The world that I want, I'm not happy. And that was a trip. And I just threw everything that ever happened to me the sexual abuse, the disappointments, the guilt, the shame, everything. And I just said, Wow, this is great. And it's felt like a pile of yuck in the middle of his floor. And I said, This is great. He goes, I'm leaving this stuff here. He goes, I don't want it. I said, not not my problem. Get your made, get your cleaning service to take it. I'm not taking it with me. And I said, he goes, any homework? I said, any homework is done. Can I? He goes, first he says, Why are you here? I said that. And then I said, What can I expect? He said, How long's it going to take? And and what can I expect? He says, typically I tell people three months, you're halfway there. I have everything in the world I want and I'm effed up. That's that's effed up. He goes, so I knew that. So he goes, he's there. Awareness. He says awareness that something ain't right. And then um he said, so and what you'll get is uh mental health. And I had no idea what mental. I was 36 years old. I didn't know I had feelings. Yeah. I was told, you know, my I grew up when you shouldn't feel that way. All right. Or why do you feel that way? Questioning, so finally I just said, Why have 'em? You know, you get you tell someone you got them, and you're gonna get dismissed from them. So finally I learned I got feelings. Okay, and I'm gonna go through this with grace and dignity, and the truth's always gonna come out, and it did, you know, it what it got resolved. And um so yeah, that was and plus during that time probably over a month and a half, um, I had an out of body experience. I got on a natural high that was went to different levels. Yeah. Okay. I'd done I had done some drugs in the 80s a few times. I liked them too much, so I stopped. But I never did heroin, and I got on, I know I got on a heroin high without doing heroin, and I got so high I couldn't come down, and my family thought I was going crazy. Yeah. And I just said, just give me space, I gotta figure this out. And and they were being helpful in a dishelpful way, but yeah. So there was a there was that. So it's like when this stuff happens, there's not really any rule books on how to deal with an awakening of that degree. It was a it was an emergence, a spiritual emergence, and it wasn't an emergency on my end. It seemed that way on the other on on my family who cared for me, yeah. In a dis in a dishelpful way, with a lack of awareness of this. So I I really love working with people who go through these things. Okay, you you can talk to me about this stuff. Be careful who you talk to about other people, right? Because they ain't gonna understand, right? And don't worry, you're not crazy. You've gone sane in an insane world. Yes, oh my gosh, thank you for saying that. Because that's the best way that I could okay. So the best way that I could describe it, besides you do feel crazy when a real a spiritual awakening really does make you feel like you're crazy, and I feel I felt sane. So I didn't I didn't feel crazy at all. I felt like, oh my god, it was like I finally am sane. Oh my god, the veil has been lifted. I had the out-of-body experience of like, oh, it's I know who I am, right? I know who I am. I feel like one, the out-of-body experience is the instant shift, and this is why they created psychedelic therapy to create the distance from what level of consciousness you were to now where you've been and you see. All of a sudden, but if you're blocking the journey naturally, holistically with your body and and without substances, then you have to go through layers. I hadn't removed things from my life when I started having my awakening. And I'm thinking nobody sees this, nobody feels or hears this. It's gotta be, I have to be wrong. I'm crazy, right? So it took me a while to declutter my life, and then I'm like, no, now I'm saying, that sucks because like now I'm alone. So I gotta find my my tribe. Find your tribe, it's lonely at the top, but what a view, they say, and you find that you start yelling at other mountaintops, and now you just like bring on the mountaintops in, you know, and just and you don't care, I don't care anymore. So but even at people think I'm crazy, you know. I was just gonna say because they they see you with all your friends and they're like, they're all crazy. Yep. I used to think that too. When before I said, so I started hanging. I said, all the people I thought were weird and crazy. I started hanging out with, and they would think they were my people. The weird and crazy became my people. Thank you. I just I thought you think you were so weird. Well, we thought you were weird too. Right, yep. Gotta love the woo-woo. Yeah, the woo. I love I love the grounded woo. I'm so not woo that I love practical. Well, I feel like I'm practical, but I still love stuff. I yeah, I I like grounded, you know, I can go woo very easily, but I love the I love just being in my body and being here because it's a short time. I'm 70 years old, so I get another I get another 70 years, I'm sure. Right. Well, I feel like individuals like us, because I made a conscious choice. I knew there was a separation between going too far away from you know this physical reality or staying completely grounded here and acting like it was normal, being in the matrix, right? Or there could be bridges, people who understood both sides who are translators. That's the way that I described it. They did it slow, I just did it quickly. I did my slow. I did it quick. I just said, let's do this now. And it's like, and so I had to come back and really do the steps too. So I just went there, you know. I had a choice to be to come back or to stay. Yeah, that was conscious. I chose, I said, I'm finally having a good time here, you know, and I'm gonna stay and figure it out and go through the stuff and so forth and so on. But it's it was that was my turning point. That was, and I've and I had to go through a lot of stuff, crappy stuff. I've my my first my wife, I have a first wife and a final wife. Now I have a girlfriend, so nine years, and so I'm just like I'm not easy to be around because I just love everything and everything's wonderful. So I'm not for some for people who like to complain about stuff and and bitch and moan, complain. I'm not for you, I will drive you crazy, you know. So I will drive you crazy. So I just say, you know, be with me as long as you want. I'm not a lever, I'm a I'm committed, and but I get it. I'm my last my final wife said you're too much. I said, I know. Yeah it's accepted the self. I accept that I, you know, but the truth is I'm enough. Okay, I'm enough, and finally I'm enough, and I'd unapologetically enough. And the back to the game of 10. That's my story. I'm sticking to it. Was it rough? Hell yeah. Did I survive it? Hell yeah. Do I laugh about it? Yes. Do I laugh with it? Yes. And can I help people? Yes. So the the first statement, I am 10, is a declaration of who we are. The next two phrases, I'm doing the best I can with the awareness that I have. I'm always right with the awareness I have, are declarations of our divine innocence. The next three phrases, I am enough, I do enough, and I have enough, put you in present moment awareness of the I am in the universal space is the universal time, is now in the I am now. Enough is the universal space to open up all possibilities of awareness. And in reference to numerology, the number 10, when you add zero to one, it creates one, which represents wholeness. I love it. Yep. The mono, is it called the monotheism? Basically, yeah, the monad. Well, um, I really, really enjoyed this conversation. And so for all the listeners who are like, what did they just talk about? They are crazy. We're crazy and we totally accept it and we love it. We're crazy like foxes. So what we're talking about is the different levels of consciousness as you pay more attention to the self, which is your inner being, then you grow into your authentic self, which means you have to shed layers of your false program self, and then you become a whole integrated being, and that's what increases your consciousness, your awareness, and your um your vibration here on earth. So this was such a wonderful conversation. I really, really appreciated your time. Is there any last comments that you want to say to the audience? Yeah, I mean, it's all about being yourself. Don't, you know, I'm not a biblical, don't idlewash people thinking that people are better than you or less than you. Uh just be you and be respectful of yourself, be respectful of others where they're at. And the hardest part about being your authentic self is everyone wants you to be like they are. Or you want to be like they are. And you can't because you are 10. And sometimes you just don't see it. That's a game often played. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you so much, and uh thank you for doing what you do. Absolutely, likewise.