Episode 418: Chuck DeGroat, "Who Am I Becoming?"

Dr. Chuck DeGroat is back for his fourth podcast visit — and this time he brings a question that has followed him through his mid-fifties: why is it taking so long to grow up? His new book, Who You’re Becoming: The Slow and Courageous Work of Cultivating Character in a Narcissistic Age, grew out of that wrestling and a decade of sitting with leaders whose language had outrun their transformation.

Michael and Chuck talk about why character change is so slow, and why the answer has less to do with discipline than with a nervous system that’s stuck in chronic storm. They discuss faux vulnerability — the way people can acquire all the right therapeutic language without anything actually shifting underneath. They talk about the difference between chasing a moral standard out there and becoming who you actually are. Chuck tells the story of a pastor who, through tears, looked at his own online presence and said: I don’t know who that guy is. And they end the way you’d hope a conversation like this would end — with an ancient Celtic breath prayer, led by Chuck, that invites the listener into stillness rather than just describing it.