I’m so excited to reintroduce you to Lisa Garr, a media expert, and host of the Aware Show among many other things. She’s an incredible friend and a blessing to me personally… and to a lot of people! You probably already know and love Lisa. She’s been a long-time catalyst in the space of personal transformation and is a leading force for helping people create awareness and for spreading awareness all around the world.
So, it’s apropos that our discussion today, truly unintended as it was, took us right into the heart of the pivot … the importance of having 360 degree “conscious” awareness and the ability to effectively utilize change. Yes, UTILIZE change. Not just manage change… to identify the opportunity inherent in change and then leverage it for growth and betterment. It’s the opposite of living life, or running a business, in a reactive or avoidant state, as is so common these days. It is especially important, and perhaps one of the most critical skills, for people in business today – to see change in this, as Lisa puts it, “graceful and elegant way”.
Lisa shares a very personal, and recent, pivot story that illustrates the benefits of living consciously – of living a life of awareness, not one driven by unconscious habits and marked by unhealthy patterns. Lisa’s own realization that all of her pivotal “breakthroughs” came on the other side of “breakdowns” offers us important things to think about in our own lives. While definitely valuable breakthroughs, they came at a price.
Lisa and I talk about how we can break the patterns in our lives that don’t serve us, how to avoid drama, and be open to the signs that we often don’t see until it’s too late. And, more importantly, how we can adapt and thrive amongst the inevitable change all around us.
To learn more about the Aware Show and all of Lisa’s media programs, visit www.Awareshow.com, where you can also show your support and subscribe to the aware movement.
As always, enjoy more Conscious PIVOT podcasts at AdamMarkel.com or subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. Join our incredible PIVOT community at www.StartMyPIVOT.com, where you can download your free Kickstart Guide to pivoting into a business and life you LOVE.
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Listen to the podcast here
“Breakthroughs Through Breakdowns”: Breaking the Pattern with Lisa Garr
I’m so happy to be with you right now. I’m so happy to be alive and awake in this moment, aware. As always, doing something to elevate our consciousness. For me I use myself as the example because I can’t literally put myself in other people’s shoes. I just know that for me, when I’m actively working on myself and raising my vibration, opening my heart and all of that, I am a better person and I’m a happier person and I’m a more effective person. When I’m not doing that, when I’m not actively consciously working on me that way, my life doesn’t go to shit all in a minute but it can sometimes feel like that. It certainly definitely is downhill. It just starts to decline in ways that are pretty obvious.
We are all here now in this together and that is truly a blessing because us taking a conscious collective breath in this moment as we’re doing right now is special, sacred and holy. If you needed a reminder of how holy and sacred and special it is, there are people all over this world who are taking their very last breath right now. This moment is incredibly important. How we use it, utilize it, is both our responsibility and our gift.
Breakthroughs through Breakdowns: Lisa Garr
I am so blessed to be with a dear friend today. Somebody I absolutely adore. Somebody you will get to know better and will no doubt adore. You probably already know her because she’s been around in this space of personal transformation and creating awareness and helping people to create their personal awareness, but also how to spread awareness and consciousness across the globe. She is a media expert. She’s at multiple radio shows running for many, many years, including The Aware Show. There’s going to be a show called The Aware Channel very soon. I’m super excited about that. She’s just such a blessing to me personally and to a lot of people. I welcome to our Conscious Pivot Podcast, Lisa Garr. Welcome, Lisa.
I feel like there’s an audience here.
There is a big audience. It’s a virtual audience and we can feel them. They’re applauding, they’re clapping, they’re driving, they’re running, they’re walking, they’re doing all kinds of crazy stuff, who knows what.
That’s the beauty, is that anytime anyone watches this, it connects us right where they are, right where they need to be, right where they need to hear. That’s the beauty of what we do. It’s exactly the intention I always set. Thank you, by the way, because it’s an honor to be with you, my brother from another mother. I’m telling you, you are such a special person, Adam Markel. You have an incredible, not only a charisma to you but, it’s my media person talking, you can’t teach charisma. You own it. You have a beautiful heartfelt friendship about you that is so golden. Thank you for having me here. I appreciate it.
You’re making me emotional. There is so much love between us. Thank you for that compliment. What are you committed to? What do you love? What’s exciting about your life? What do you want people to know about you?
Last time I went to Marianne Williamson‘s live talk here in Los Angeles, she is on fire. I host a show called The Aware Show, but am I aware 100% of my day? No. That’s probably why I host it. I was listening to Marianne talk and I honestly think that woman is conscious 24 hours a day based on what she’s up to. I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually ran for president someday. Having a president that just nails you on authenticity all day would be incredible. I host the show because I get these daily opportunities to have these conversations. I’m just as challenged as anyone else. I own two companies; two full on, full time companies. They both have been in existence for twenty plus years. I am a mom, a wife, things break down and change all day long. It’s actually been my pattern to have breakthroughs through breakdowns. It’s a very unconscious pattern, something I’ve been creating for a long time. I make sure I create a breakdown so I can have that breakthrough. I’ve got to find another breakdown so I can have that breakthrough. That is a lot of work.
Think about how many people right now are listening to this, who else is listening to this going, “Holy shit, that’s my life. I get these great breakthroughs that come and the price of them is the breakdown.” That’s a pattern.
Let me tell you where I found this out. It’s because I’m constantly hitting up against a full on life, a full throttle life. I have met this really, really great guy, this therapist. His name is Gary Salyer and he does something called family constellation work. It’s a bit of traditional therapy mixed with NLP, mixed with a lot of great things. He had me do a timeline of my life. I went from year to year to year on this timeline. He literally mapped it out on the floor and we put these index cards on every decade of my life that I had breakdowns. Then he had me put different color index cards on every decade of my life or parts of my life, like specific ages, where I had breakthroughs. It was totally clearly mapped out on that floor. Every time I had a massive breakdown would always come first, then I would have the breakthrough, and then the breakdown and then I would have the breakthrough.
I realized that I became unconsciously addicted to this pattern. Do you hear that? Unconsciously addicted to the pattern of creating the only way I could have a breakthrough is if I crash and burn first. Why set up systems and structures before you have a crisis? Why set up patterns that are going to work? There’s no reason to. I think I just had this long-term pattern of you’re not going to be able to be successful unless it breaks down completely first. I just caught this one at 50.
Tell me if this feels right to you. You live in reactivity.
Yes.
So many people, our world is living in reactivity. That’s why I say a lot of people are probably nodding their head right now just with you going, “Yes, that’s me. I’m constantly reacting.” Some reactions are obviously more dramatic. They’re more pivotal than others, and those we might call breakdowns. It’s this addiction to reaction and reactivity versus what is responsivity.
The nature of this world right now, it moves so fast that things are changing all the time. It is hard to get ahead of things. Systems and structures, you may put into place. The technology will change, it will become obsolete in six months. There’s got to be a way to adapt to the ever-changing predictability of technology, it’s going to change, and not looking at it as a massive breakdown.
I want to just take you back to the process you did with that gentleman when you laid out the cards in the decades. Were there any other patterns or things that you picked up through that process that you want to share?
Yeah, I did. I looked back at this timeline and I look down it. The process, he does decades and moments of your life and he goes all the way out until 90 to 100 years old. You get to look back at your timeline from 100 years old, even from 80. It’s a huge perspective shift, massive perspective shift. Go out to 80 years old and look back in a meditation or in a visualization and really spend time with this. I looked back and I saw, “Do I want to do this for 30 more years?” I’m 50. “Do I want to create this level of bullshit for 30 more years?” No, because then at 60 I’ll have cancer and at 65 I’ll be fighting it, and then I’ll look back and say, “What happened to the child-raising years of my life? Was that worth it?” I don’t want to do that. I really don’t. All the relationships I’m going to destroy from continuingly creating that pattern, it creates emotional havoc, relationship havoc, cellular havoc. No. It’s been what I’ve been doing.
Addicted to drama. It’s like I raised my hand and go, “Yeah, addicted to drama.” I’m getting chills. I literally have the chicken skin and I’m getting it just thinking about all the people who are probably going, “I am addicted to drama. How am I fucking addicted to drama?”
I’m addicted to breakdown. We’re passionate. We’re creative people. We need that maybe, a little bit of that adrenaline rush to get us to move. We’re both athletes. We need a little adrenaline to get over that wave or to get up that mountain. You can’t really create that propulsion unless you have resistance on the other end of it. That’s what pushes things, that’s what catapults things, some leverage to go forward. There’s got to be a way to reframe this, Adam.
It’s the concept of pivot that I think is a part of the solution. How am I scanning the horizon, and alert and aware, to use your beautiful word, to be more aware, to be more alert so that we’re not blindsided? There are so many signs. Let me ask you something. The breakdowns that have been in the past, I love the way you mapped that out so that you don’t want to look ahead in the future and go, “What will be the breakdown that I’m going to have to provide a breakthrough? Do I really need to get cancer? Is that a breakdown I need to have? Do I need to have a divorce? Do I need to have a business bust or a relationship bust or some other thing happen just so that I can get that leverage, get that coil and then recoil action? Is there another way?” I think there is. I think there’s another graceful, elegant way to see change, to anticipate it because we know it’s coming. To be alert and aware and scanning the horizon in a way that’s saying, “Happy to be guided. Happy I’m not attached to this thing. I’m going to get into the core. I’m not attached to the home I live in even though it’s gorgeous as it is, as beautiful.” I know you live in a gorgeous beautiful home and a lot of people do. Or, “I’m not attached to where I live. I’m not attached to my car. I’m not attached to so many of the things that I am protecting, that literally my self-created drama is always about protecting my shit or protecting my name, my reputation, my this, my that.” There’s always a protection. It’s fear-based and so therefore it’s like, ” I can’t let anything penetrate or buckle it under.” That makes us closed off.
Breakthroughs through Breakdowns: That’s a lesson in life for all of us because the whole of life is a process of letting go.
I think this is the connection point. It closes us off to the guidance, to the wisdom. The wind, the wisdom, the god or spirit sense, might say it’s time for change. Do you remember Mary Poppins? I can’t even believe I’m bringing this up, but the wind changed. She, as much as it was painful for her to leave that family and for the family to have her leave, her work was done. The wind blew and she needed to go. That’s a lesson in life for all of us because the whole of life is a process of letting go. We’re not taking any of it with us anyway. What is it that we’re prepared to let go of now? Can you let go of your fear and your attachment to things, especially physical things?
That’s deep. All of what’s out there in society is saying you want to get a mortgage, you want to get a home, you want to get a loan for this. It just keeps us really very stuck. That might be the American dream, to come and you get a job and a house and a picket fence and 2.5 kids. Really every other structure is crumbling at this point. Look at every structure that we have, financial structures, housing markets, religions, major catastrophic structure change is happening if you look at it as a global perspective in terms of decades. Why are we so locked in? This is one of the things that I really got last night. If we don’t have a deep why of value attached to it, like I’d like to stay in my house but not because it’s a pretty structure and has white frames around the windows. It’s because there’s really close neighbors down the street that my daughter gets to go back and forth to and experience freedom. There’s a community of kids that go to the school down the street that they get together at night and they’re good kids. There’s a room in my house where I can have events like you. There’s reasons why this is a good spot. We like it here and if it’s not going to happen then we’ve got to figure that out too.
I think loosening our attachments to structure, it’s not easy. You chase that American dream and you chase that thing and you chase that, and then you realize this wasn’t maybe all I needed. You don’t know. The bottom line is value. Look at the people that have this devastating hurricanes take apart their houses, their homes, everything. Decimate entire islands. They got out with their family and that’s what they have right now. Earthquakes, if you are able to get out with your family, you have your family, your loved ones. Things are just things; they’re stuff. It’s a lot. We’ve gone after that. Remember the old days when you would see the stage presentations? “Get the boat. Get the yacht. Get the car. Have the American dream.” It’s not really about it. It’s really just about this connection and family.
Often it takes catastrophe. When you talk about the theme of breakdown to breakthrough, why is it that it takes catastrophes for people to have that truth show up for them, that bona fide truth that, “My shit is under water or it’s burned up or whatever, it got swallowed up in a crevice. Yet the only thing I care about is that my kids got out, my husband, my wife, my dogs, my cats, whatever. The things that I love, these living beings, are the things I care about most.” It’s interesting that oftentimes those are the greatest teachers, these breakdowns.
Let’s talk about it in terms of business context. There was a time in the internet marketing space that we all had these huge staffs and big huge backend development programs and teams and so forth. I think it was definitely needed at the time. It goes back to the independent business owner and the entrepreneur, who there are so many of us now, even if you have that side hustle or whatever it is. The business owner needs to know what every single person’s job is. They don’t necessarily have to do it but they need to know it. In case something breaks down, they can step in, find someone new, do it themselves, anticipate the breakdown, anticipate the change. That is something that I think is essential as an entrepreneur. You can have a great team. Two of my team members right now are in this hurricane chain that’s just hitting our beautiful islands. I’m left without customer service and the backend of my website. I might need to know those passwords right about now. Gather all of that and get it done. Find someone who can help me who’s maybe local. Have a backup plan. It is essential as an entrepreneur to anticipate breakdowns. Big learning curve for me.
Some of these islands are the most idyllic places. You go there for a vacation, you think you want to move there, you don’t ever want to leave. This is paradise. Yet we know this Mother Nature just reminds us that the winds of change come and the seas rear up. Now, you’re in a place like Saint Martin or St. Barts or Saint Barthélemy. It’s just idyllic, most incredible. 170 mile an hour winds and waves start pushing through, there’s no place on Earth that you’d least want to be than there.
We have that too. We live in California, we live on massive fault lines. At any moment, anything can be taken out from underneath you. How do we anticipate the breakdowns? How do we come up with them as re-framing them? Here’s number one for me, is my thoughts. The first thought and the first words that come out of my mouth have to be to inspire and motivate myself. I cannot go into devastation, destruction, collapse. I’ve got to go into that default pattern. My default pattern has got to become, “You’ve got this. We’ve got this. We’ve been here before. We’ve risen out of the ashes before. We’ve got this.” Just start to look for the opportunities.
I have this little quote here by my mentor, Wayne Dyer. It says, “If you believe it will work out, you’ll see the opportunities. If you believe it won’t, you’ll see the obstacles.” I love this. It’s right here on my little vision board altar next to my desk. That is true. You’ve got to be able to see the opportunities first. The obstacles are there, they’re glaring at you, but it’s the opportunities within the obstacles and that’s the opportunity for change. That’s the meat of the pivot. That’s the grit of the pivot. Pivot’s happening. Where is the little sliver in there that there’s an opportunity and how can you widen that and go in it because it’s going to happen. Pivots are going to happen.
[Tweet “If you believe it will work out, you’ll see the opportunities. If you believe it won’t, you’ll see the obstacles.”]
We call that the frame. How do you frame the situation? Like you said, if you frame it as “I’ve got this.” It’s not what I want necessarily and you get past the point of realizing, “How did I attract this?” How did I not see that coming? I’m getting blindsided. I was scanning, I was looking, I was aware, or so I thought,” and yet something comes anyway. You go, “Now I got this.” I think that’s really tangible as a framework. Second, what’s the creative opportunity here? If you say, “I got this,” there is an opportunity. You will see it. If you say, “I don’t got it and this is going to wipe me out and devastate me,” then you’re going to see clearly you’re looking straight at the waves that’s about to knock you down. We have a third piece but I would like to unpack this with you because this is beautiful.
To use your wave analogy, don’t turn your back on the wave. You can’t turn your back to the ocean, almost never because that’s when you get hit and you get blindsided. As much as we want to keep our sight set forward on the goal and keep the momentum moving forward, we’ve always got to look behind us and say, “What’s happening there? Is there something I might not be seeing?” Maybe you have an accountability partner that helps you see someone who’s super detail-oriented and say, “Did you think about this?” I really think that should be a position in any corporation, the did-you-think-about-this person, the what-if person. There are what-if personalities, “What if this happens? What if they do it this way? What if someone hacks the system? What if this?” Just to be able to look into things that are going to potentially happen.
I love this because I want to, if possible, plus it. I don’t know that I can plus it but I want to try. The thing I’m hearing is that you’re not in avoidance. I think there’s a lot of tendency when we talk about habits and why does certain things repeat in our lives like this breakdown and breakthrough cycle. One of those things that repeat or one of the cause I think is the avoidance, that people avoid a lot of the things. Before it became a tidal wave, there were signs earlier that they avoid it. The tidal wave shows up and then they do the ostrich thing, like bury their head in the sand and try to avoid it.
The signs, the hindsight is 20/20. There is a reason for that phrase because the signs are always there. We just don’t and sometimes can’t pay attention to them. Sometimes I’m just in such full throttle mode that I can’t pay attention to that sign. It’s there, it’s glaring but I’m busy. Maybe there’s variation on the signs, “Here’s a level ten sign. You really need to look at this one. This is a level one sign.”
This is about awareness. This is the heart of your work and your show and everything. I love mindfulness and yet I think I want to get on a podcast or do a blog about this concept of mindfulness and how it’s really, really catching on. I don’t want to stop the momentum in Corporate America and everywhere else that mindfulness training is happening. Good on you. At the same time, this is about getting out of your mind and it’s about creating space and quiet and stillness so you can actually hear, see, be guided that there are the signs.
Breakthroughs through Breakdowns: The Aware Show
How I created The Aware Show was out of a brain injury. I had a mountain biking accident. I fell off my bike in the middle of a race and I passed out at the end of this really, really long brutal, very hot race. Right before the top of the mountain before the finish line, I must have passed out on the bike, hit my head, cracked my helmet in several places, wound up in a helicopter being lifted out of the scene, not knowing the severity of the damage I had done to my brain. It took me a long time to rebuild my brain. It took me a better part of maybe a year to a year and a half to actually discover which part had been damaged, do the neuro feedback exercises to rebuild the right prefrontal cortex. Literally, neural bridge by neural bridge, I rebuilt that sucker. It’s a really amazing protocol and technique that you can actually rebuild parts of your brain that has been damaged. I wanted to tell the world about that. I just did this thing that is so cool, “Can I talk to my neurologist and can I talk to my neuro feedback specialist and my acupuncturist and my intuition teacher? Can I tell the world about this?” I found my way to a radio show. It was a station that was being sold, the Drive Time hosts were bailing and I said, “I want to do this. I want to tell the world what I’ve learned, and that change is possible and this is how.” That’s how I started this eighteen years ago.
Now, I reach millions of people a month with these seven different platforms I’m on, going for more because it’s my purpose. This is because I live it. I never set out to be a broadcaster. I never set out to be a host. I do this because every single day I am learning. I started this thing I am so not aware. I try everyday that’s why I host the damn show with the name on it. It’s because awareness is something that I strive for and get moments of and space for. I need this every single day, every day.
I love how you put together that recipe. I’m just going to say what happens when these winds of change show up? I’ve got the three bit: I’ve got this, I see the opportunity and I’m aware, not avoiding. This idea of to know you’ve got this, to know that there’s an opportunity, and to know that it’s key to be aware, to be looking into things and not avoiding them or turning your back on them as though they’re going to go away magically, that’s a huge one. You’re currently still pivoting, as we all are all the time. One of the things I know that you’ve got tremendous experience in is the media side. Tell us a little bit about that latest of pivots for you.
I am a bit of a story whisperer. I have for so long, when I do an interview, I don’t do intros either or ten steps to this and all that, although those are interesting. I look for the why. Why did you get into the body of work you got into? Why do you do what you do? As an expert, as an author, as a coach, as a whatever, why do you coach people? Why? What is it that motivates you? I have this huge why. Why get up every day and do this radio show? Why do people do the things they do has always been my life-long curiosity quest? When I’m listening to people, I want to know, not necessarily that you did a TED Talk which is great, but I want to know why you wanted to do what you do and why you want to change people’s lives? That for me is so much stronger than where you went to college and your bio and all that.
[Tweet “When I’m listening to people, I want to know why you want to change people’s lives.”]
I’ve been coaching people on their story and where their story really takes a turn so that it can help the most people. We have our dear friend, George Bryant, who you are in this amazing partnership with in More Love Marketing. He has this really trigger word for him called tripwire. I interviewed him about this because he has a passion for marketing. He also happens to be a twelve-year Veteran Marine. In marketing there’s this very common term of a tripwire, which is an opt-in page or whatever that trips people into being a part of a sequence or being a part of an offer or something like that. He, as a Marine, saw his friends, which I can’t even imagine, stepping on a tripwire and knowing it’s the last few seconds of your life. He lost Marines to these experiences and he had to tell their families. He holds that with him every single day. He will not ever use that word, tripwire.
To go a step further, he was speaking at a huge media marketing conference where the guys that created Tripwire campaigns were in the audience and he told them to never use that term again. This is their brand but he went there to tell them that because of what he feels. I would trust George with marketing more based on that story because, exactly what the name of the company is, More Love Marketing, he and you come from a perspective of love for marketing rather than open rates and click-throughs and conversions and IPCs and all of those terms. This is a part of it but it’s based on that story of George’s never wanting to use marketing to trick people again. That is so much more powerful. It’s just an example of how a story can give you credibility that you can never get with a bio, a resume, a ten-step process or even as an author.
People aren’t great at telling their stories often, right?
No. It ties back to that timeline. If you look back, and I have this process that I take people through, looking back of childhood, adolescence, insert hero’s journey here. We have these pivotal moments that are our story and we can’t sometimes see it because we’ve lived it and we’re in it and we’re surviving it. Those moments have formed you into who you are. They catalyze what you do. They are what you do. They are who you are being, extracting those stories and reshaping them so that they can be the most impactful possible. I did this three and a half minute-video with George telling that story. It was so powerful that you would trust him forever doing marketing with you. That is so much better than, “I have this conversion rate and that IPC.” Here is why I don’t use this tripwire and here’s why you should have no one left behind in your marketing campaign.
Lisa, thank you for the work that you do. I’m just imagining the people out there that are not necessarily leveraging the value of their own life experience, whether it’s for marketing or it’s for greater connection. The root of More Love Marketing and why we formed that company and started that work is that we really believe it’s all about relationship building. Helping people to build stronger relationships is a really great benefit in the world. It’s a great benefit in business. It’s a great benefit in the world.
I can’t tell you how many coaches that I’ve coached that I get them up on stage and they say what they do. After I pull their story out of them as to why they do what they do and what the pivotal points were in their life, then they tell me what they do. From that perspective, it is chilling how much more powerful it is. Then they don’t ever have to look for clients again. The right client attracts to them because they know that person will understand them. They know that person’s got their back, they see them. Then they will find the right people and then they help the right people and so on and so on and so on. It becomes a reciprocal effect and everyone’s helping and we have a more conscious world. Big picture stuff.
Speaking of big pictures, do you have some conscious practices, rituals, habits? I call them rituals because the thing that we do unconsciously could form habits. Some habits are great and some habits are not so great. I think rituals is conscious habit formation. What are some of those things that you have, if you have things like that, to keep you smiling and knowing that you’ve got this?
Here’s one of my breakdown rituals.
This is a pre-breakdown or post-breakdown ritual?
This is a during-a-breakdown ritual. It’s a traditional technique but it really, really works. It’s a gratitude sandwich. If there’s something that is happening that is upsetting, that is a crisis, that is breaking down in its moment, you cannot deny it and say, “This isn’t happening, let’s just go to love.” The brain is going to say, “You’re lying to me. F you.” I would like to, and what I’ve done that has really, really, really worked for me is what it is. Here’s the breakdown. The minute I see the breakdown and say, “This is happening,” I go right into what I’m grateful for. I force myself to name three things that I am grateful for, just right then and there. If it is the fact that I’m walking and then I have a body that can walk, or that I have an amazing, loving child or whatever, I just have three things I’m grateful for.
Breakthroughs through Breakdowns: For every one negative thought, your brain needs five positive thoughts to counteract the chemical balance.
What that does is it stops the chemical cascade in the brain of going towards the fight or flight cortisols, stress release hormonal cascade. That is just a trigger of cascades of chemicals in the brain. It interrupts the pattern of the brain chemicals and of the thought process. You immediately start to go towards dopamine, serotonin, solution-oriented brain chemicals. This is a very important piece. The brain automatically starts to look for opportunities because it has a pool of serotonin and it’s now got some dopamine to help itself look for some type of shiny object. It will start to find a solution. There is science that tells us for every one negative thought, your brain needs five positive thoughts to counteract the chemical balance, this is Harvard business study, of that negative thought. This is something that actually works.
You have a panic. You have a crisis. You have a thing. Instead of beating yourself up or the nearest person around you, you force yourself into five things. I start off with three things I’m grateful for, then the other two just wind up flowing, wind up happening. Then it starts you going into the area of, “What’s possible? What are the opportunities? What am I not seeing? I’ve got this. What are the opportunities?”
“What am I aware of? What am I willing to look at so that I’m not avoiding?”
It’s a really, really good practice.
That’s amazing. I love the simplicity of that. People can really take away that for every negative thought which could produce cortisol, which we know ages you, stresses you, it’s a precursor to cancers and all kinds of things. To stop that fight or flight response, five positive thoughts or five gratitudes even will help to balance it out. In that pool, like you said, that serotonin pool, you’ll see more opportunities, you’ll see those shiny objects, the dopamine response which only helps you to then be in a place where you’re not driven by the emotion or driven by the downward spiral of emotion, which only takes you to continue to spiral, like a death spiral downward. To stop that is essential because it only ever ends up landing you in a ditch, which is a very familiar ditch to people; they know what that’s like. That ditch can last an hour or a week or a month or a year. It can really take you out for a length of time. To arrest it early is what I’m hearing you say, and that’s super important.
Even if it’s just love, love, love, love, just start repeating that to yourself. It starts to change the brain pattern and then you can get into the other things that you’re grateful for. I did this yesterday. I stopped what I was doing, which is I was in the middle of something huge, to go pick up my daughter, which is fine, which is great. I get there. She’s in an hour and a half soccer practice that we miscommunicated. School’s half an hour away, all of a sudden I’m there for an hour and a half, and then it’s another half an hour home. Now I’m late and all this stuff happened. Rather than getting her in the car and saying, “How come you didn’t tell me about this? I had this, this, and this.” All that’s going to do is make her feel bad and make her wrong. Why would I do that? It was a mistake. It was miscommunication. I walked around the campus and I’m like, “Love, love, love, love, love, love.” I literally did that chant while I’m walking. You can go walking with five things you’re grateful for, gather up the five things, turn that whole moment into something that’s out there, watched the practice, got to do some things that I needed to do, rechanged my evening so I can get where I needed to on time. That’s a simple example. Why would I want to get my relationship, that beautiful person in the car, and be upset?
Not consciously, you wouldn’t want it.
We do this to our loved ones, our spouses, our children, our team.
That’s true. Often when we get into a negative space or place, whatever, we drag people, we drag them down. I was a lifeguard for many years, and George and I connected at a level of that story of not leaving people behind or leaving them in their state of drowningness and not be of assistance. It’s so important that we not also create double drownings, because you recognize that when we’re in a bad place, we can latch on, we can be a negative influence on other people. Not even just what we do to ourselves but who else are we impacting? In that case, you would have impacted your daughter. That was just unnecessary. Whether it took you walking around and saying love, love, love, love, love, for fifteen minutes or whatever, it stopped you from infecting her as well as infecting yourself. That’s a really simple ritual. I think that’s a huge takeaway from this because we all do it.
It’s simple but I like practical. I’m all about the practical. My radio shows are always bringing everything back to practicality. We’re all busy people. We all do multiple things. What can help you in that moment when you’re freaking out is what I love. I hope that helps.
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Lisa, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people out more about you or want to listen to your radio broadcast? Just give us a website or something of where people can go to.
You can go to TheAwareShow.com/media. Everything’s up there for you. My website is TheAwareShow.com. If you go to all these different shows that I do, you can listen to some shows on there as well. If you go to TheAwareShow.com/media, it tells you about my media mentoring program, which is really helping a lot of people.
Get your story. How is it that you really utilize that story for all its worth both in business and in personal?
It is not just story, but it’s story and strategy and service. There’s three parts to it. Once you find your story you’ve got to be able to get it into the media, which I am an expert at. I receive thousands of pictures a week, and then how you can be of service with that story. There are a lot of parts to it.
Lisa, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you all for tuning in, listening and for subscribing. Also, love to refer you back as well to this pivot community, the Conscious Pivot community shows up every day in so many beautiful ways to start my pivot community on Facebook. You can get it PivotFB.com. A couple of quick reminders as well, our beautiful program, The Pivot Incubator, is in launch mode which is so exciting. You know where to get that, PivotIncubator.com. Lastly and most importantly, this topic that Lisa and I have been unpacking today, is really to know how it is that we are able to anticipate change, utilize change and be resilient. Bounce back in the face of change.
The one additional thing that I want to plus Lisa’s recipe with is the way I love to end this session today. The framework again was I’ve got this, that’s number one. I’m open to seeing the opportunity, number two. Third, I’m not turning my back in avoidance of what I don’t want to see. That’s just magnificent. The one that I would add to it is that we take care of ourselves. To be resilient, to be able to coil and uncoil and even bounce back further and farther, which is a pivot skill, you’ve done it elegantly your whole life. I’ve seen it in my own life experience. At the time, it doesn’t necessarily feel great, but later on you go, “Look at how that breakdown did turn into a major growth opportunity and moment.” What I’ve learned is that we do have to be resilient. The greatest resilience to me comes from taking care of yourself. My greater goal in my work, my why in our company, our why is about helping people to find their peace. That peace comes through something really fundamental that I think a lot of people need help with, which is how to love themselves, to really truly love themselves.
Breakthroughs through Breakdowns: Self-care leads to self-love, which leads to self-trust.
It’s a big thing and there aren’t a lot of role models in our lives. It’s not a one recipe to get there. The one little thing, the baby step that I recommend for everybody listening and watching right now, is that you take care of yourself. Self-care leads to self-love, which leads to self-trust. Trust in you, yourself and in the universe. This is the process of actualizing ourselves and ultimately experiencing inner peace. What’s that one act of self-care that you can give yourself? For me, in this moment, it is to declare that I love my life in this moment to me. Again, when you wake up tomorrow, and that’s what I wish that you wake up, that you’re a little more aware and conscious when you wake up. Physically, you get to wake up knowing that there are people who will not wake up tomorrow morning, that when you wake up you have something to be grateful for right then and there. You don’t even have to think too hard about it. Then you declare, “I love my life. I love my life. I love my life.” With that, I want to say goodbye, au revoir, adios. Lisa, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Thank you so much for our time together and sharing that with everyone else. Thanks, Adam.
