Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Hello, and welcome to Stop Wasting Your Life, the podcast. I'm Ava Heimbach, your host and founder, and I'm here today with longtime friend, mentor, and pretty much my second mom, Leanne. Quick little backstory about Leanne and her family. Her and her husband were, I guess it was just your husband who was in line, right? Or were you there?

• Speaker #1

  No,

• Speaker #0

  it was just him.

• Speaker #1

  Hello, by the way. Hello, by the way, people.

• Speaker #0

  Yes, she's sitting on my couch next to me. So, but yeah, her husband was in line at a daycare and my dad just happened to be in line at the same daycare for her son and I to go to this. Or I guess it was preschool, right? It was a preschool. Was it like a really good one?

• Speaker #1

  It was a very good sought after preschool. Okay. And so you had to arrive early, we were told. So I think Mike got there at around 5 a.m. Oh.

• Speaker #0

  Yes. So Marvin must have been there at 5am too, because they were next to each other. But my family had just moved to Lawrence. And how do you guys just moved?

• Speaker #1

  And we had just moved to Lawrence.

• Speaker #0

  And they started talking and my dad came home was pretty much like, Megan, I think you would love this girl and set you guys up. Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  we had a first date. You had a first date. Which was to a retreat. And yeah, so our first date was a weekend together at... you know, sleeping in the same room and let's just throw them in. Yeah, let's just do this. And yeah, but it was a, it was like a God moment, you know, like where, you know, that, that we were put together and our families became friends. And I mean,

• Speaker #0

  when I say she's like a second mom, like she's like a second mom. I mean, I can't remember a time in my life where they weren't there and her boys are my sister and I's age. So we grew up with her boys. They've been at every family gathering we have. I go to her for advice. I pretty much have two sets of parents. It's wonderful. But that's how we met. And I asked her to come because she is so wise. And I really value her opinion and her outlook on life. So today we're going to be talking about how to have a growth mindset and how we can use that growth mindset to live more purposefully, intentionally, and just achieve that kind of life that we want to live. So. We're going to do two episodes. So today we'll talk about growth mindset, what that is, what it isn't, aspects of the growth mindset that will teach you how to navigate life, and then just using that for more purpose and meaning. And then next week on our second episode, we're going to discuss those specific strategies that will get you there.

• Speaker #1

  Right.

• Speaker #0

  So let's do it. Yay. And before we begin though. Five free nights in the Hawaii House Giveaway. August 15th is when that ends. So go ahead and enter into that. It's a four bedroom, three bathroom house, three minutes away from the beach. You can go to our website at www.stopwastingyourlifepodcast.com. Click on the giveaways tab where you will find all the ways to enter into that drawing. So that will give you three days to enter. So enter that in as soon as you can. And then also, I say it before every single episode, but there is no right or wrong way to live your life. The definition of a fulfilling life is unique to each person. So I'm not here to tell you how to live your life, but rather give you ideas, knowledge, inspiration, and cool people to talk to so that you can create a life that you think is beautiful. Welcome to Stop Wasting Your Life. the podcast that helps you break free from a life of self-doubt and distraction and inspires you to create a fulfilling and purposeful life. Each week, we dive into actionable advice, meaningful conversation, and insightful interviews to empower you to prioritize your well-being, pursue your passions, and become the best version of yourself. It's time to stop wasting your life and start building one that you are excited to wake up to. Once again, I'm Ava Heimbach, your host, and I'm here with Leanne Shaw, and this is Stop Wasting Your Life. So tell me, Leanne, quick little tell me about yourself. Just give us the rundown. Who are you?

• Speaker #1

  Who am I? What a big, broad, wonderful question.

• Speaker #0

  Let's just sum it up a little bit.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, it's kind of an intimidating question, but I get it. first and foremost, I, this may not be like. culturally super popular to say right now but first and foremost i'm a wife and mother it's what i always wanted to do i had no other real what's the word i'm looking for desire well i had You know, I just knew that's what I wanted to do with my life. Like that was the main focus. I went to college. I did all the things that I was supposed to do. But in the end, I had a career. I got married. And then eventually when I had my kids, I knew that's just what I wanted to do. I wanted to be with them. I wanted to raise them. And so I dedicated my life to raising my boys and creating what I thought was a happy home.

• Speaker #0

  And your girls.

• Speaker #1

  And my girly. No doubt you guys were a big part of that. And where I could foster love and discipline, you know, and honestly, just a place where we could grow like that was my desire was just to invest in these little people and in my husband and in all the other people around me. So I was very intentional about that. Really, really, I was and I wasn't perfect at it. But I was intentional at least. And now my boys are grown and my girls. And I just want to continue that investment in them and in myself. And so now I am also a mentor and a life coach, trying to help people navigate life. So, and what a life coach is, because a lot of people don't know that, or it might be a foreign word to them, is basically somebody who helps people to go from. where they are to where they want to be. So you just are coaching people in all aspects of their life. And for me, I do that through a lens of the Bible and faith. And that's where I'm coming from. And I hope to just make people's lives better. And it's my joy. And actually, I feel like it's my calling. And I'm also a hopeful entrepreneur. Like I started a business with my boys. I don't know if you remember those cleaning cars. They were too young. I pushed them too hard. And now looking back, but at the time I thought I was creating discipline and hard work and, and anyway, and, and I have started a couple of businesses, which both of them have sort of failed.

• Speaker #0

  That's okay though. You, things have to fail. Yes.

• Speaker #1

  And I've lost some money and I've lost some pride, but I'm learning. And that's why we're here right now talking together about how to grow and not stay stuck in these. failures and mishaps and circumstances that happen in our life. We're here to learn and grow and mature and move on and find a new way. It's all about the pivot, Ava.

• Speaker #0

  It is. As my dad would say, every single time anything goes on in my life, Marvin just says, pivot and move forward. And I think there's a lot of truth in that. But also sometimes I tell Marvin that I want to sit in my sadness for a little bit, and then I will pivot and move forward.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, it's a process.

• Speaker #0

  It is a process. So when you say growth mindset, what do you mean by that? Well,

• Speaker #1

  a growth mindset goes way back. I mean, this is not a new concept. The growth mindset moniker is kind of newer in the world of psychology and beyond, but it goes back to even as far as like God, you know, he is into growth. You know, he started in creation with a growth mindset. And all throughout the Bible is the idea of intentional step-by-step growth. I mean, the whole thing is learning and growing and maturing. And so it goes pretty far back, you know. And then, and I'm just talking in brief bullet points here, but Aristotle also had this idea of growth through, he viewed a... person is being able to change and grow through training in virtue or goodness and that a truly happy person will find fulfillment in that continual pursuit of excellence. So we're taking it way back, right? When we talk about Aristotle, but if we move forward quite a bit in time, there was a popular book that came out and I forget what it's called. I think it's called the mindset in, in early two thousands. And. This researcher put together the idea and labeled it growth mindset. And so now we have, it just blew up from there. It was actually pretty pivotal at the time, pretty pivotal research. But basically, if you talk about growth mindset in a simplest form, it refers to the idea that intelligence can be improved. You know, there was a time when people did not. view that as possible. You know, you have a fixed capacity in your mind and that's it. But this belief says that your abilities and your intelligence, your level of effort and perspective, it can all be developed through, you know, things like dedication and hard work and persistence. And we'll talk about some of those things as we continue this conversation. So you can change no matter who you are, no matter where you're at, no matter what your circumstances are, what your level of resources are. You have the capacity and the ability to move forward and to grow, learn and better your life.

• Speaker #0

  So if I feel like because sometimes I feel like I'm in a point in my life where I'm doing a lot of growing and. I'm becoming the best version of myself. And then all of a sudden something will happen and I'll feel like I just took like four steps backwards. And I almost get frustrated with myself because I'm like, wait, I was doing so well. I was growing and I was taking steps towards this life that I want to live. And then all of a sudden I'm back to square one and maybe behind. What do you have to say about that?

• Speaker #1

  Well, I'm so glad you asked that question because really, it's a matter of perspective and you have to see life. People see life usually on a linear continuum. Like if you just think of a line going from A to B to C to D kind of in a horizontal manner, you, you feel like you're taking two steps forward, maybe three or four steps back and two steps, but life isn't really like that. Actually. It is actually like an undulating line. Like you're going up and down peaks and valleys. It's a series of undulations, peaks and valleys. And if you think of it as a graph, you start on the bottom left and you're going up and down. But your general trajectory is up. So you hit a peak and all of a sudden you're doing great and all of a sudden you hit a valley. Well, guess what? It seems to the valleys sometimes aren't as low and the peaks sometimes are higher. And so you look at that graph where you're on the bottom low, lower bottom left. And eventually over time, you will see yourself actually now you're at the top right. If that's a visual, you can see a bit better if we had one and you could see my hands right now. I'm moving all over the place. She's making a go. Yeah, up and down. But it's like a wave in the ocean. It's all you feel like it's always going to bring you back to the shore. But really, if you know the waves and you and you navigate them correctly. you can, you can go further out and you can go further out and the wave is going to bring you back, but you can go further out. You know, that is being a ocean person.

• Speaker #0

  So I know like recently from just some personal things that I've been going through, I've really come to Leanne as just for wisdom and advice and to talk through kind of just where my head's at and the situation, but when I feel like I've really hit. that very low valley. Can you explain some things that you've told me to try and get back up to that higher place that I was maybe at before? Because sometimes, and especially in these situations, like I felt like I was at that peak and then all of a sudden I dropped down to this valley. So now it's like, well, then how do I make my way back up to the top of that peak?

• Speaker #1

  Well, you naturally did a few things. that accomplish that. So I give you some credit for that. You're reaching out to other people. You can't do life alone. We're not on an island. We're not insular. And I looked up that word.

• Speaker #0

  That was a big word. Wow.

• Speaker #1

  Insular means on an island. So we can't be insular. We can't. And when we tend to be that way, especially in the roughest times, we just don't know how to reach out. We don't want to around people We don't want to explain our hurt a lot of times, but you do reach out and you and you connect with those people that are that you feel like are going to be helpful and also communicate with those people. Maybe what you need or don't need. If you need just a sounding board, just let them know that, you know, like I just need a sounding board right now. I don't need advice because I am a person who's quick to jump on advice and. Maybe that's not always what's needed. But as far as going back to what you have done, naturally reaching out to people is very important. And you did that. You've reached out to, I know, me and to your grandma and I don't know who else, but that's valuable and that's helpful. People to walk the journey with is important. And secondly, you have to... Lean on what's important to you, what you know to be true. For me, it's faith. For you, it's faith. We lean on that and we rely on it in times of extreme suffering and heartbreak or challenging times in our life. I mean, that is our rock and our foundation. So I would say those are two things that you naturally gravitated toward. Does anything stick out to you as to what I advised you or talked to you about? Maybe you have some thoughts about that.

• Speaker #0

  I mean, one of the big things was really just leaning in to the people that, you know, love you and you love. So really spending a lot of time with my sister and knowing that she's there for me and she loves me. And instead of focusing on maybe the valley itself or what's happening in the valley, really focusing on. the good parts of it, which are my sister and I have become really close because we just went to Italy together and she saw me cry on the steps in front of the Sistine Chapel. And really just understanding that how lucky am I that I have a sister that will let me sit and cry in front of the Sistine Chapel and still love me and be patient with me. I'm pretty sure she went and got like a Fanta while I was doing that and came back. And it just made me realize that I'm so lucky to have people that love me and you and genuinely want to fill me up as a person. So I think that was one thing that you said that really stood out to me and I've been really trying to do is lean into people. And I think sometimes I'm bad about doing that because I think that I can do it all myself and I can control situations or it's too much work or it is too much work.

• Speaker #1

  To lay and too vulnerable to lay yourself out there. And it's just exhausting to even do that.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I think I've actually gotten a lot better at being vulnerable, which is really good. And also just admitting my mistakes. I feel like when I was younger, it was really hard for me. Like that ego in me was really hard for me to admit when I'm wrong. But I feel like as I've gotten older, it's a lot easier for me to be like, I messed up. Okay, this was wrong. This is something that I did that I probably shouldn't have, or I wish I could change that. but

• Speaker #1

  Well, something I remember telling you now is that you can't let your mind run away with itself, like to take one small fact and then just run with it so far that it that it doesn't even that it's not even something that is true. You know,

• Speaker #0

  that was a big one, actually. And I mean, you heard me those first couple of days like you heard me say. What if I would have done this? What if this would have happened? What does this mean? What does this mean? And I think I am really bad about really reading into things that happen and questioning like, okay, well, what would have happened if I did this? Or what do I think this meant? Or was this a sign or was this a coincidence? And I think one thing you've really pushed is I might not ever know why, but I kind of just have to give that to God and be like, okay, God. What are you going to do with this situation? Which is so hard for me.

• Speaker #1

  You change your why into a what, because really why is not helpful, but what is. And that's where we can get back to the growth mindset is what is happening here? What can I do as a response to it? And how is God working in this? What is he doing? What is the next step? That's more helpful. Then why? Because honestly, and it is okay to think about why something happened so that we can learn and grow from maybe mistakes that we made. But ultimately, when we ruminate on that why and don't ever get to the what we miss out on the opportunity to grow.

• Speaker #0

  I think my problem is also, though, I want to know. I want to know what the what is. Did that make sense?

• Speaker #1

  Like you don't always know what I want to know. What the why is?

• Speaker #0

  Why the what is why it is.

• Speaker #1

  You want to know the what or you want to know the why?

• Speaker #0

  I want to know why the what is.

• Speaker #1

  Hmm. Deep.

• Speaker #0

  If that made any sense. There were lots of what's and why's in there.

• Speaker #1

  Lots of why's and what's. Basically, we overcomplicate things. And this is how our mind. goes in this never-ending cycle, especially when we're thrown into times of crisis where we just can't break out of it. And that's what we're going to learn about here, is how to get unstuck sometimes when you feel like you can't move forward. And our mind plays a big part of that. Our thoughts are important. How we process our thoughts are important. And guess what?

• Speaker #0

  We overcomplicate things. Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  we have to break out of the cycle that keeps us in fear, keeps us in grief, keeps us in a very stuck place that we feel we can't move forward. So that's what this conversation will be about today is how can we get unstuck? How can we train our minds? To get out of the negative and move forward.

• Speaker #0

  That's a hard thing to do.

• Speaker #1

  Right. And, you know, we're all human. I think all of us seek a beautiful life, right? Of purpose and meaning. There's nobody who seeks to be lonely or seeks to be, you know, sad of a job and sad. And, you know, we all want a beautiful life, but it doesn't just happen. happen, we have to cultivate a good life. So I, one of the things that I do is garden. I'm a gardener. So I'll throw out a really good gardening example or just plant. When I was younger, I felt like I could not take care of plant. And honestly, I didn't. Plants died. I thought I had a brown thumb, you know, but I later learned that a plant. just needs to be taken care of better. You know, like I did never, it never dawned on me that maybe if I moved it to another spot in the house, it would grow. Or maybe if I actually watered it more routinely, or maybe I needed to water it less, maybe I needed to do just a tiny bit of research on this plant. And when I realized that and how easy it was, and that I just had to be intentional and knowledgeable and put a few little things in practice. Now I have plants everywhere. I mean, and they, and I think, and they're happy. And they're happy and I have to stop buying plants because I have too many. But so we all want to be like a flourishing plant, but not all of us are willing to do what it takes to get there. And a lot of us don't realize how some simple steps could take us pretty far down the road. And some of us try, but even in our trying, we find ourselves short of the beauty and purpose that we desire because we all desire that. So this is a key point, a growth mindset. If you're in that growth mindset, you stop trying. You start training. It's not about how hard can I try? If you think about, let's say, let's think of a good example of this, learning to play chess. If you're learning to play chess, you can try your best at playing chess, but if you don't know the rules and you don't know the strategy, you're never going to be a good chess player. Trying doesn't matter, you know, in a sense, in that sense. So I think we have to stop trying as hard because we all know those times when we just try and nothing happens. We have to train.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. So what would you say to someone like me who gets really overwhelmed by that, if that makes sense. Like, I feel like there's a lot of things that I do, but then if I'm not doing it as well as I could, or it's not working out how I want to, or I feel like I'm behind her X, Y, Z, I kind of am just like, oh, okay, well, guess that didn't work out. What's next?

• Speaker #1

  You have to put reasonable expectations on yourself for sure. And that's part of the winning strategy here is being. reasonable with yourself and you can't try or train, I should say, on everything at once. And I think that's kind of one of the negatives of our current times is that we have so much information. Everything, everything could be a full scale research project where we, from the food that we eat to the coffee we drink to. the exercise that we do to, I remember looking up that plastic, I thought, okay, plastic is bad for me. I'm not going to microwave plastic anymore. But then you get to looking into plastic and you're like, the whole world of anti-plastic is overwhelming.

• Speaker #0

  Oh yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Like you could, you would have to completely change your everyday life to not incorporate plastic in there. So you think to yourself, well, what the heck i'm not going to use plastic i'm not going to care about this anymore because it's too overwhelming or so you could go that way or you could be totally limiting your life in the the people around you's life because you don't want plastic and that gets pretty down and you're a downer all of a sudden in life. So you have to balance it. So I just use that example to say we can't be over training, overthinking, but we do need some of it. So for a person like you and like me oftentimes as well, we have to check ourselves. In order to have a growth mindset, you have to put what's not important down and pick up what is the most important. And that is a learned skill. It's not something that some people do things naturally, some people don't. We all have a different mix of abilities and strengths and weaknesses. And if your particular challenge is being overwhelmed, then you have to learn to lay aside certain things. And other things to put your intention on. And that's just a area of growth that happens over time.

• Speaker #0

  Because I need to grow in that. I don't. I totally do.

• Speaker #1

  And you can do it, Ava. I'm here to tell you. I know. You can do it.

• Speaker #0

  It's so hard though because I'm like, oh, I can handle doing eight different things that I love to do and that are going to make my life so much better. And then as time goes on, I'm like, wait. no, I can't, I can't do eight things. And then I get frustrated with myself.

• Speaker #1

  And then this is, again, the cycle. And this gets this can get into neuro psychology, which is the pathways of our brains that our brain does make pathways. And this is a whole other topic. But it's, but it's interesting to know that physically speaking, our brains make those pathways for you. And it's There's a process there that has been created. And in order, your brain is capable, though. It's capable of changing those pathways. But again, the intention has to be there for you to do it. And it takes persistence and repetition.

• Speaker #0

  When you say repetition, what do you mean by that? Like what is being repeated?

• Speaker #1

  Good practices. Sometimes it's you have to talk to yourself and tell yourself truths when you're. when your mind is spiraling out or you're feeling overwhelmed about something, you have to tell yourself, no, not going to go there. This is what I'm going to do instead. And it takes practice to do that. And maybe you've experienced that in, in your journey, when you've had problems that when you've had patterns that you've had to overcome, you know, you just have to keep on repeating your self-talk until it becomes more ingrained. That's one example. It's not something we don't believe ourselves right off the bat. I mean, we we need that. Our brain needs that repetition of whatever it is, fill in the blank self-talk that you need to be doing to get you through the situation you're in.

• Speaker #0

  What does your self-talk look like?

• Speaker #1

  Hmm. It's a good question. Well, it it depends. Right. But weigh me what. Do you mean what is my positive or negative self-talk or both?

• Speaker #0

  Maybe both. Up to you. What is whatever self-talk you want to talk about?

• Speaker #1

  My, so if I am, I struggle a lot lately with worry about my kids, about my boys, especially. And I have to pull myself out of that. And it's super easy to keep in it. And it feels very oddly comfortable to do that. And you know where to turn in your mind. But I've had to say no to that and be super intentional. Nope, I'm not going to worry about this. Because like we talked about earlier, I'm giving advice that I need to take about don't let your mind run wild with things that could. completely be false. I mean, and you're using one little tiny, this is what worry does. It takes one little tiny aspect of something and then just magnifies it. So I try to take those thoughts and make them captive to what's real and true. And that's not an easy thing because we all have these, our mind, our minds go wild and our minds are naturally negative. Our brain. naturally is a negative functioning muscle in our body. And we have to train it to be positive. That's just a scientific fact. And so...

• Speaker #0

  That is one way I personally struggle and I personally have been trying to put into practice training myself and creating new neural pathways. Although I don't think of it as, you know, it's kind of nerdy. I'm creating a new neural pathway. I am more, I'm just surviving. That's what I'm doing. Sometimes you're just trying to survive. You don't even want to flourish sometimes. Sometimes you just want to get to the net, to get out. You just don't want to sink. And that's not a bad thing because. Getting out of the really tough times can lead to flourishing. It's a part of the journey that we're on.

• Speaker #1

  Are there any other important aspects of growth mindset that we should just be aware of or no?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I mean, there are several actually. But let's start with resilience. You know, resilience. is a big word. What do you think it means, Ava?

• Speaker #1

  Resilience.

• Speaker #0

  I'm putting you on the spot here.

• Speaker #1

  Okay, let me think. I guess being able to work through what life throws at you.

• Speaker #0

  I think that's a pretty good, pretty good definition. Yeah, because actually, that's great. Because it's how we press on through adversity. Yeah, like it's toughness, it's pressing on in hard times. getting the job done, you know, whatever the job quote unquote is. And so it means being flexible, for example. And when I think of flexibility, what do you think of when you think of something that's flexible? Do you have a good example of something that's super flexible?

• Speaker #1

  Like an object or like, yeah,

• Speaker #0

  or whatever.

• Speaker #1

  Oh, when I hear flexible, I think of being able to be like, okay, I can switch something around to do that.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. And that is, that is a good, good idea around flexibility.

• Speaker #1

  Either that or the gymnasts that can touch their toes and do the splits.

• Speaker #0

  And do you think they do that naturally? Like they were born to do that? No, they had to train, just going back to our training idea. That was good. Thank you. But also I think of when, so let's think of it this way. Let's use an example in nature of a palm tree. And palm trees are where usually they're on in coastal areas where there's lots of wind and storms that can blow in and trees are susceptible to damage. But a palm tree isn't as as accessible. What's the word? A palm tree isn't as prone to damage because it's flexible. A palm tree, it's it's it's a trunk is movable and it. bends and it sways with the wind because it was made to do that, we need to be bendy.

• Speaker #1

  I am not a very bendy person. I am trying to work on being bendy, but I think sometimes I'm so set in my ways and I can be so stubborn. Oh my goodness. I can be so stubborn. And sometimes I think that that is definitely something I need to work on in my relationships and just understanding that I need to give a little bit. I don't. I'm very rigid in my ways.

• Speaker #0

  But see, the first part of growth mindset I maybe should have mentioned is being aware. Uh-huh. So that, you're getting there.

• Speaker #1

  You're getting somewhere. One day I will be a palm tree.

• Speaker #0

  When you know you're prideful, when you know you're stubborn, when you know you seek control, that's the first step.

• Speaker #1

  I'm very aware of it. I think sometimes I just am aware of it, but I'm like, oh well. I don't care. I guess I'm just not going to be a palm tree ever.

• Speaker #0

  It is what it is. But the opposite of a palm tree is kind of what you're talking about. It's maybe being rigid, right? So we don't want to be rigid. That sounds awful. And a lot of times things that are rigid are easily broken or brittle. I'm trying to think of something that, I mean, a palm tree is flexible. What's easily broken or brittle? I think of my nails. That's silly. Such a girl. But they are. They're easily broken. and they're brittle and i so totally don't want them to be like that so that's why i wear my gel nail polish that's why i learned to do it at home so that i don't have to pay for it all the time so we don't want to be like that we don't want to be easily broken we want to be resilient we want to bounce back and so when we're talking about growth mindset being growth minded being prone to grow and not to stay stagnant or it, this is a big part of it. We have to understand where we are rigid. where we are brittle, where we can easily be broken, and instead shore that up a little bit and be a little bit more flexible, like the palm tree, so that when the storm comes, we're not broken. We're swaying with it, and we bounce back.

• Speaker #1

  So what are some ways that we could be flexible or that we could work on that flexibility?

• Speaker #0

  Well, working on our flexibility, well, like we... mentioned a moment ago comes from, first of all, the realization that you are inflexible. And then once you realize you're inflexible, we can put some of these things into practice to better ourselves. And we'll talk about going forward how to do that. Another way to say that we are inflexible, this brings me to the point of a fixed mindset. So when we talk about being rigid or controlling, or I know I'm this way, but... This is the way I am. That's a fixed mindset. It's the opposite of a growth mindset. So I have this little, which we can't, you guys can't see out there in the podcast world, but I have this little image that, that shows a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. When you have a fixed mindset, you avoid challenges, you don't receive feedback or criticism very well, you focus on proving yourself, you feel threatened by others, you can't accept failures or mistakes in yourself and maybe in others, and you stay comfortable and you shy away from things that are unfamiliar. And so that that's having a fixed mindset. So when you ask me, how can I be more flexible, or growth minded, or you know, you have to view your challenges as opportunities, you have to learn to embrace people's feedback, good or bad. And you have to be more focused on what your process is and not on the end result. And we can talk more about that later. We'll talk about more of all these things later. And you have to fail, get back up, learn from it, and step out of your comfort zone. Bottom line, learning to be resilient, learning to be more flexible, sometimes it's not an easy ask. You know, it takes time and it takes a lifetime, but it's worth it. And every little step we take into something better, it means a more meaningful, better life. person that we can be. And that, that is meaningful. That's purposeful. That's something that we can wrap our minds around a little better rather than I'm going to be like a palm tree and completely flexible. It's more like I'm getting there. I'm getting there. Yeah. And that is enough. There's a few things that I can point out about that. And first of all, I don't mean this to be corny, and it's really not. You have to believe change can happen. Some people think they're just stuck and there's nothing they can do. If you've ever heard of the quote from Henry Ford, he said, whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you're right. If you believe that you can't do it, you're not going to do it. If you believe you can do it, it's likely you're going to do it. Belief has a lot of input here. So believe that you can change. And secondly, don't blame others when things are happening to you or don't blame the situation or the heartache or fill in the blank. You are not a victim of your life. Everybody, everyone from top to bottom has suffering and pain. You're not unique. And so don't be a victim. You have to think beyond that. You don't blame others. Don't blame yourself. You know, blame can be placed on ourselves and others pretty easily, and maybe rightfully so, but we have to move beyond it. You can't dwell on it. And another aspect is to be curious. When we're curious about ourselves, when we're curious about our situation, why is this happening? Why is this affecting me so much? Just a myriad of questions we can be asking, and instead of focusing on the problem, it's helpful. And another thing that we can be mindful of is it's okay to fail. And failing isn't truly failure if you keep going, you know, and we can learn from it. I think I mentioned I had two businesses that failed. Okay, whatever. I feel like I have learned from it. And in fact, I just closed that business yesterday, went to my accountant, closed it up, got the sheet of paper that says, you're a failure. You know, it said business closure document. And honestly, I've dealt with it so well for some reason. I'm just, you know, it's it is what it is. And I did my best. And I have learned from it. Like I can already tell I have learned because, and I could go into that, but maybe this isn't the time, but I have learned some lessons so that I can take this to my next business and say, okay, got this. And I'm sure I'll fail in other areas, but it's okay to fail if you learn from it. The next thing I'd like to say, there's two more things that I think are super important. And one of them is you can't live your life out of fear. You can't make choices out of fear and that everybody does that. So as we kind of talked about before about you can't always be asking why, you can't always be asking what if, what if I did this? What if I did that? Or what if this happened? Or what if that happens? You have to say, even if this happens, even if everything falls apart, this girl is moving forward. I got this. Even if it's hard and convenient. And the next thing, even if it's out of your comfort zone, you got to leave it. And it's hard not to be comfortable, but this is where we really grow. So that's just a few bullet points that can be challenges to each of us. So this next week, you know, I challenge you, Ava, I challenge everyone who's listening to this to dig into those bullet points and just be thinking through those about what you can adjust in your thinking. you know, can you be more curious? Can you not blame others? Are you, are you really a victim lately? Think through those things. And then next week, we'll talk more specifically about strategies. Next week, we'll talk more specifically about strategies that you can use. There's 10 of them and you can use those to get to a better mindset, a growth mindset.

• Speaker #1

  So we will come back next week. and talk about those 10 points. But until then, that concludes the end of this episode. So I hope everybody enjoyed it and you come back next week to get some of those actionable strategies to get to that growth mindset. And just another little reminder about the Hawaii House giveaway. You have three days, three days to go to www.stopwastingyourlifepodcast.com, click on the giveaways tab, follow the link and find all the ways you can enter to win. And we will see you next week. Thanks for listening to today's episode of Stop Wasting Your Life. We hope that you are feeling motivated to take charge of your future and start living with purpose, intention, and authenticity. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to leave us a good review, give us a follow, and subscribe to our newsletter. For more information, go to www.stopwastingyourlifepodcast.com, and we will see you next week.