What If You Are Not Stuck, Just Unheard with Billy Seol

You can want change with your whole heart and still feel like something invisible keeps pulling you back. That tension is not proof you are weak. It is often proof that a system is running, and you have not been shown how to read it yet.

We sit down with Billy Seol, an ex-Apple and Disney software engineer who left code for Buddhist life coaching, to rethink behavior change, habits, and motivation through a surprisingly practical lens. Instead of treating willpower like the only engine of progress, we talk about action as an interplay of variables, like turning multiple knobs on a soundboard. When you stop forcing one lever, you start seeing other forces at work: incentives, expectations, burnout, self-image, and the quiet stories you learned about what “hard work” is supposed to mean.

We also dig into a tough question: who is your effort benefiting? If grinding is costing you your health and peace, it may be serving the machine more than it serves you. From there, we move into a grounded mindfulness practice that builds real self-awareness without turning your life into homework. The simplest tool is a meditative check-in you can do anywhere: “How am I feeling right now?” Asked repeatedly and honestly, it reconnects emotions, memories, and patterns that drive your autopilot, so personal growth becomes less about shame and more about clarity.

If you have been stuck, burned out, or frustrated with self-improvement advice, this conversation offers a calmer, smarter path forward. Subscribe for more, share this with someone who is hard on themselves, and leave a review with the one pattern you want to understand next.

Transcript

Why Wanting Is Not Doing

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Dear listeners, you know, like there is a strange comfort in knowing you want to change even when you don't. Yeah. I mean we carry this intention, right? Like a policeman, right? Like proof, which is kind of we're trying, that proof we care, but somewhere in between wanting and doing, something breaks down. Not because we lack discipline or the willpower, but because the system itself resists. So the question comes is what if that resistance was not a personal failing? What if it is followed a pattern that you one you could actually see, right? But there, as soon as I am awake, and this is Mind Means Machine, a place where we slow down enough to notice what we usually rush past. And today we are asking what makes change so hard, even when every part of us says we are ready, right? And joining me today is a very lovely guest. Please welcome Billy C O. So welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, and I'm excited to talk about change. Amazing. Thank you so much, Billy, for joining us today. And dear listeners, like before we get into the discussion, I'd quickly love to introduce you to Billy. So Billy is an ex-Apple and Disney software engineer who left the world of code to become a Buddhist life coach and then did something unexpected. Like he wrote mathematical formulas for why people cannot change even where they want to change, right? So I do not want to take much of a time.

Willpower Is Only One Knob

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Let's get started. So, Billy, I mean, like most people they think that change is about the willpower, about trying harder and harder and wanting it more. But you have worked with the partners and the systems your whole life. So, what do you think is the biggest misconception here that people have about why they stay stuck?

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah. I think, you know, in general, I do understand why people view change or action in that kind of a lens, right? Because in general, we can we generally experience convenience when concepts are sufficiently chunked down, right? When we look at individual experiences of eating breakfast, for example, right? Okay. We all have different reasons for eating breakfast, we all have different preferences, we all have different methods of eating breakfast, but that to talk about all of that in an individual lens versus saying I had breakfast this morning, it does a lot of chunking down, makes the ideas a little bit convenient for the head. So I'm not arguing that it is not about willpower. No, parts of it is about willpower, right? But what I'm really trying to propose with my formula system is that willpower is just one way change can happen. And the way I see change, the way I see action is that it's an interplay between some primary variables that have a different effect on the action, right? So just if you're a sound engineer, you know that you have a lot of knobs you can turn, and each knob does something different to impact the final output of the sound. So just like that, my formula system is wanting to offer you the kind of possibility that what if action isn't unilaterally about the one singular factor of willpower and whether you have it or not, what if it's less about that? And what if it's actually an interplay of multiple variables working at the same time? So that I think there's only one way to change. I think that is the biggest misconception. That's interesting as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yeah. So, you know, like when someone comes to you convinced that they just need to push harder. So what do you, I mean, what do you help them see instead of hard working?

Working Hard Versus Benefiting Yourself

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Yeah. So the thing is, again, if hard working works for you, great. Yeah. I'm not gonna unilaterally say that's a bad thing you're doing. No, if you're a good hard worker and you are able to do it, that's fine. But the thing is, why though? Why do we need to work hard? And this this is a very individual question, right? So, like, for example, it might be very late for you, Avik, but then you're recording here. So some might say, Wow, you're you're working that late? You're working really hard, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

So, you know, our parents, when they were raising us, we woke up at very inconvenient times crying for food. But, you know, our parents wake up without complaint and then, you know, feed us, right? So some might say, Wow, you're parenting really hard. Okay, but why do we do things that hard in the first place? What's the point of working hard? The if I'm to generalize all the individual reasons why a person might work hard, it comes down to this. We work hard because what we are working towards benefits us, right? Yeah. So I'm not gonna work hard to destroy my life. I'm not gonna work hard to do things that don't benefit me. Okay, that's sort of the North Star that we're looking for, right? If I'm if I'm working hard, I better have a good reason to work hard, and that good reason is it's gonna benefit me. Okay, now so I just sit with that question. Okay, you're you're burnt out, and um, you know, you don't want to go to work, and you're starting to lose hair from stress in the side of your head, and uh, you're having constant stomach ulcers, okay, and you want to work harder. So is this benefiting you? No, definitely. I'm losing. Yeah, the thing is, but you know, it's an individual case. Some people might say, Yeah, it's still getting me what I want. And again, who am I to say no to that? I I'm like, okay, great. I just wanted to do a gut check of whether this is working out for you, whether this is actually beneficial for you, right? But 90% of the time, when we're working so hard for something, we become a byproduct, we become a cog in the you know, grand machine, we become a replaceable part. And in that case, it doesn't really benefit us. It actually benefits the system, it benefits the expectations, right? Yep, yep. But when we're the thing is, when we're so into it, it's kind of hard to see it from that zoomed-out lens. So this is the conversation that I have with them. Okay, so why do you need to work hard? And we need to come, we need to come to the conclusion that I work hard for me to benefit me. Then we assess, okay, then what you're doing right now, is it benefiting you? If not, how can we adapt it to a way that does benefit you?

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Interesting. That is that is really interesting. I mean, we often even even I also feel like fine, like our previous generations, like the boomers or boomers or the baby boomers, basically, yeah. So they used to say, like, if you work hard, you will gain everything. But yes, I also agree with you. Like, it is again depends on person to person, but how they think. But what I also feel is like why to work harder when I can work smarter, right? So if I'm gaining in two minutes, why I have to wait for 30 minutes, right? So yeah, I mean, again, it's a person-to-person vary, but yes, true.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

I agree. Yeah, but again, it just generalizes into do things to benefit

Happiness As The Real North Star

SPEAKER_01 7:06

myself. And if I'm to generalize that one more time, it's so that I can be happy, right? Like why do we want more money so that we can be happier? Why do we want relationships so that we can be happier? Why do we want to start a family so that we can be happy, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

So if you're working that hard, is it getting you closer to that happiness? And if you are working towards happiness, doesn't it make sense to happily work towards happiness? Like we have this invisible drawing line of I'm gonna suffer and I'm gonna grind so hard, and then when I reach the finish line, I'm finally gonna be happy. But like, no, if I'm walking down a happy path, isn't it natural that I'm going to go down to the happy conclusion? But this requires a little bit more introspection around what happiness means to you, right? And so these are the questions and these are the conversations that people generally are not having with themselves. And that's where I come into help.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Amazing. And if you have to say, like if I say about the daily life, right? Like for someone who is listening right now who feels like they have tried everything, so then where does this show up in their everyday life? Like any small signals or anything?

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Yeah, so they tried everything, usually indicates they tried everything that they were told to, that they taught that they were taught. But this generally means that themselves becomes the last place that they actually look for, right? But I will say I understand that perspective because we generally have a poor idea of our potential and our abilities. Why? Well, the thing is, every one of us were bored not knowing how to do anything, right? So we we benefited from our parents, we benefited from school, we've benefited from society. People, adults,

When You Tried Everything But You

SPEAKER_01 8:56

other influential educators, they teach us things, right? But what they don't teach us, and also they don't have the responsibility to teach us this, but what they don't teach us is now that you know these things, you are capable now. Nobody explicitly tells you you reached a point where you're sufficiently educated and you're sufficiently grown up, and now you can do anything in the world. Nobody ever explicitly tells you that because it's not really anybody's role, right? Therefore, our belief system about ourselves doesn't really get updated. So we may be like 30 or 40 years old, but we still feel like we need to learn more. We need to learn more from teachers, external sources, and we don't rely on ourselves to teach us how to live our life. Yeah. Because we generally have negative perceptions about I waste so much time, I never finish anything, oh, I'm just a slacker. You see, and that self-image, I mean, if you are hiring a tutor, would you hire a tutor who describes themselves as a slacker? If you are hiring a professional, would you hire a professional that you know doesn't like themselves? So why would you look within yourself in this kind of a thinking model? You wouldn't. So when people say I tried everything, it means I tried everything that other people have suggested and other that worked for other people. And the thing to do now is to look within. But again, like this is such an abstract term because nobody explicitly tells you how to look within, right? Like if you're going to listen to somebody else's courses or like uh curriculums, they explicitly tell you do this, do that. But when it comes to listening to yourself, when it comes to communicating to yourself, you're the only one who can teach yourself how to listen to yourself, right? I can give you clues, I can give you like things that you can try, but it's very difficult for you to learn from yourself when you didn't really know how to listen to yourself in the first place. So in a coaching relationship, that's where I try my best to be an attentive listener. And I learn a lot of things about my clients' life on behalf of them, and then I keep reflecting it back to them so that they can say that, oh wait, like I am, I'm feeling those things, right? But I said those things, but I wasn't listening to myself. So Billy listened to it and then Billy is reflecting it back to me. But in conclusion, it's me who thought those things. Oh, this is what it's like to listen to myself. And when you tried everything, it's in conclusion, very likely that you haven't worked with yourself yet. Interesting.

The Question That Reconnects You

SPEAKER_00 11:26

So if you have to give one advice to the listeners today, what will you give?

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, so it's a very, very, very, very simple question. How are you feeling right now? So the thing is, people are generally going to say, give an answer that's like one word. I feel okay. I feel fine. Sure. Great, that's okay. I'm not I'm not saying don't feel fine. I'm not looking for a specific answer. But we want to go a little bit deeper. Okay. So now that you said that you're fine, now that you expressed that, now that you acknowledge that you're feeling fine, how are you feeling right now? And then, well, I told you I feel fine. Okay, great. Not a problem. But that has expressed itself, right? So what else do you feel? Well, you're asking me three times, and you know what? Now I'm a little bit frustrated. Great. Tell me a little bit more about that frustration. Well, I don't like it when people ask me the same thing multiple times. It means that they're not listening to me or, you know, I don't feel respected. Okay, great. And when you're disrespected, how do you feel? Like, I feel really angry because, you know, there were these times in the past when XYZ happened and um it reminds me of this too. So you see, it's a very simple question, but it allows you to start forming connections with yourself where you might have lost connection with these like memory nodes, these emotions. But unfortunately, when you're living your life day to day, these unconsciously unconnected nodes are actually what drives your behavior most of the time. So you don't specifically remember that you are annoyed when you're asked the same thing multiple times because of this particular experience and how that meant for your life. You don't explicitly remember that part. But what and what happens when somebody asks you the same thing over and over again? That pattern is what triggers, right? So what happens is your life is run on an autopilot that's written by you, but ironically, you don't understand that autopilot. So it doesn't have to be much, it doesn't have to be like a ton of journaling like every day, like it's homework. But it's a very meditative question. When you're at the traffic stop, how am I feeling right now? When you just hang up a call, how am I feeling right now? When you close your laptop, how am I feeling right now? When you when you're done sipping your cup of water and then you put the cup on the table, how am I feeling right now? It's a very simple question, but it starts developing the synaptic connections that are required for you to have a deeper connection with yourself.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Amazing, amazing.

Where To Find Billy And Closing

SPEAKER_00 13:52

So what I'll say is before we get into it. Billy, like if someone wants to connect with you, how they can connect.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Yeah. Uh I all the topics that I discussed to learn more about my life and my work and all the great uh vast majority of the expansive topics I want to discuss and you want to experience, you can go to BillySoul.com, B-I-L-L-Y-S-E-O-L.com, and then uh you'll be able to access everything.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Amazing. So, dear listeners, what I'll do is I'll put all the links, details, everything into the show notes for easy reference. And I'll just say like change is not a failure of will, it is a conversation with the system that's been running longer than you have been paying attention to. So, Billy, thank you so much for sharing your perspectives and also about the examples and the knowledge that you have shared. So, dear listeners, like thank you so much for being here. And if this discussion has resonated with you, I hope it will give you the permission to look at your own uh patterns with a little more curiosity and a little less judgment. And that's what we do, right? And with this hope differently, like this is your whole servicing, this is my mix machine. Until next time, take care of your mind. And I will see you next time. Thank you so much.