Everything My Mindset Coach Has Taught Me

0:03SPEAKER_00:Welcome aboard to business class. The only place to be if you are on your journey to success. I'll be showing the ups, the downs, and everything in between. Just a disclaimer that this is all my own advice and what if someone works for me as a first-time business owner. So please take everything I say with a pinch of salt. So take your seats, drop in, and welcome aboard to business class with me, Mickey Ellen's. Happy good day, everyone, and welcome back to a solo episode of Business Class.

0:30SPEAKER_00:I am finding it so fascinating what people's preferences are in terms of solo episode, guest episode. I didn't I actually feel like I get more episodes saying you guys love a solo, which flatters me. I mean, I kind of don't believe that because I'm like, I feel like you'd rather listen to someone a lot more interesting than me. But I do feel like with solos, I can just sort of speak my mind, be myself, relax a little bit more, and yeah, I guess just give you an insight as to what's going on in my brain at the minute.

1:00SPEAKER_00:So today's episode is a really interesting one. It's basically going into things I've been learning in therapy. Um, I've had a lot of mindset training recently, like a lot. I've spent a lot of money on uh developing different techniques to help me stop stressing about the small stuff. Um, because being a business owner is just a series of problems thrown at you every day, handling stress. Um, it's constant. It's every single day. And if you're not on top of it and not learning these techniques and how to manage it, it can really, really easily get on top of you.

1:40SPEAKER_00:So I thought, what better way to sort of share my insight with you this week than go through everything I've been learning? Um, I basically just put together all of my notes. There was so many notes. I actually didn't even know if I could fit this into one episode. So I asked ChatGPT to just rearrange it and kneaten it up a little bit and put it into sections, which has actually been really helpful for my brain. Um, so that's what we're gonna go into today.

2:02SPEAKER_00:Takeoffs and departures. Take off, hopefully, is that on Friday I'm doing my first TED talk.

2:12unknown:Wow.

2:13SPEAKER_00:So when you're listening to this, I would have done it. So hopefully I smashed it. Hopefully it went well. Um I don't know if people know this, but it takes about a year to prepare for a TED talk. Um, so many approvals. It's like writing a book. You have to have a lot of different people read through it, approve it, you have to memorize the script back to front. You're only speaking for 15 minutes, you have to like uh put together an outfit, you have a stylist, you talk about stage presence.

2:41SPEAKER_00:It's just like been this vigorous training for like a year. So it's crazy that it's this Friday. Like it's just one of those things, you know, when something's so big, you're like, I just can't even imagine a universe where I've done that. So yeah, it's this Friday. And today, when I'm filming this, it's a Monday. So I've got a couple of days left to go through it, learn it, love it, live it. So please cross your fingers for me, even though I would have already done it at this point.

3:07SPEAKER_00:But let's just hope that past Vicky has absolutely smashed that out of the park. My departure is just um, I can't stick to habits. And I have done, I've said that on so many podcasts. Someone said, I can't remember what I was listening to recently, whether it was a documentary, movie, book, I can't remember where I absorbed this. Um, someone said you can't stick to certain habits because your life isn't shit enough yet. And I think that is so accurate.

3:36SPEAKER_00:You don't stick to things or commit to things unless your life is shit enough for you to have to do that. That's the only thing that will make you do it. So, say for example, um you set yourself a goal to make£100,000 in a year, and you're like, Oh, I just don't think I can do it, it's not realistic enough, blah, blah, blah. If you literally, I mean, I said this at an event the other day, and I think everyone in the in the audience was like, Are you okay?

4:03SPEAKER_00:But I said, if someone like pointed a gun at your family and said, Listen, I'm gonna kill your whole family if you don't make£100,000 in this year, you would find a way to do it. And I know that's a really weird, weird, dark thing to say. But my point is, you find a way when that's your only option. And I think that's why I struggle sticking to habits because my life is not shit enough for me to need to do that habit. So, for example, for me, it could be for me, I've always spoken to them blue in the face about keeping my house tidy, even though I've got a cleaner.

4:36SPEAKER_00:Um, it's just always a mess. And I love meeting you guys in real life, and you're like, Vicky, my house is also a mess. And I'm like, thank you. Um there's just not enough of a reason for me to keep it tidy. Obviously, it makes me feel nice. Obviously, I prefer my house to look like a show home 24-7. But is anything bad gonna happen if I don't? No. So that's why I find it hard to do. Whereas if I knew every time I didn't clean my house, you'd have like£100 withdrawn from your bank account, that might make me do it a little bit more.

5:08SPEAKER_00:Do you know what I mean? So I think that was just a really interesting observation and has just made me actually not care a bit less, but it's just made me think some things, some things you just you don't need to do. So, anyway, those are my takeoffs and departures this week. Um, let's jump into things I have learned from my therapist recently. So, section one, we are diving into other people's opinions and being disliked by people and you know, in business, you're gonna work with people, you're gonna post on social media, you're gonna have opinions on what you sell on you, uh, especially if you're wanting to grow a personal brand.

5:49SPEAKER_00:As I have grown, I will occasionally be having a scroll on TikTok and I'll come across a video about me. And yeah, it's not nice. It obviously always makes you feel a bit crappy. Um, it always makes you question yourself a little bit. So that's the first section that we're gonna dive into today. Um, first thing that I sort of learned from my therapist was you hold up a mirror and trigger feelings in people. So whatever people hate or envy you for, they are lacking in themselves.

6:22SPEAKER_00:So a lot of the time people come to me and say, I feel scared to post on social media. I'm scared of what the people will think of me. When you post on social media, it's gonna piss a lot of people off. And a lot of people are gonna think yourself obsessed, conceited, all the words, because that is something that they couldn't imagine themselves doing. So they're then gonna take it out on you. Um, the same for so many things. Like you could be a great, I for example, I am a very natural speaker.

6:51SPEAKER_00:I love to speak on stages. A lot of people are like, that's my worst nightmare. Um, and a lot of people do belittle me for it. Like they'll be like, I could never do that. Like, you know, those little comments where you're like, okay, well, just don't. And that's because that's something they can't do and they will sort of reflect that. So just think of yourself as a walking-talking mirror. Like you are going to project a lot back onto people. Um, especially if you're younger and you're in your in your 20s, in your 30s.

7:20SPEAKER_00:Don't want to offend anyone here with their age. Um, but you, especially if you're successful, that's holding up a mirror to a lot of people who have not achieved that. Therefore, they will start to resent you, spread lies about you, etc., etc. So that is very comforting for me to know. Um, the next thing I've jotted down is when we feel we can't have something, we pull down the person who does. Um, so I always love an analogy. I found with me in therapy what works the best is analogies.

7:54SPEAKER_00:If you think about a car you've wanted your whole life, you've saved up for it, you've dreamt about it, you're like, it's gonna be my car. And you see someone that you really don't like with that car, it's just gonna make you not like them even more. And that's just how our brains work as a human being. I'm sorry, but sometimes you do have negative feelings. You have jealousy, you have resentment, you can't be a perfect ray of sunshine all the time.

8:20SPEAKER_00:So it might just come up for you that you're like, do you know what? That really makes me hate that person because I really want that car. And it just makes you want it even more. So if you think about it, a lot of the things you might have, other people want. So they're gonna hate you just for being you, just for existing, which I always say that's the most powerful thing you can do is exist. And it makes people not like you just by existing. Um, if someone has a problem with you without knowing you, they're often attacking their imagination of you, not actually you.

8:50SPEAKER_00:And I always think back to, I think I've said this in a previous app months ago, Tom Holland's amazing quote that went viral on TikTok. He said, something along the lines of I always butcher this. If you if you have a problem with me and you like haven't texted me about it, or you don't have my number, you don't know me well enough to have a problem with me. And I'm like, whoa, because a lot of people have a problem with me, and I've never spoke to them, I've never met them, I don't have any mutual friends with them.

9:27SPEAKER_00:And you're like, but you don't you don't know me. So how can you form a judgment or an opinion on me? And I again, if you love an analogy, you're like me, you're like a creative brain. My therapist went through this analogy for me, and it's the story of Buddha, okay? So strap yourselves in for this, it's only like a two, three-minute story, but essentially Buddha, there's this famous story apparently of Buddha. It's like the story about things being someone else's gift.

9:59SPEAKER_00:So the analogy of the story is that, and I'm gonna I'm going to make this more modernized, but Buddha, who is you, goes to have his morning matcha. He goes to Costa, Starbucks, wherever it might be, gets his morning matcha, sits down every day, he's at peace, he's happy, he's maybe writing his affirmations in his journal, vision boarding in a really good place. And there's this group of bitchy girls that are taking the piss out of him because of how calm he is, and that he's manifesting these big things and blah blah blah.

10:35SPEAKER_00:And so they're like, you know, laughing at him, throwing rocks at him. If we go back to the Stone Age times of when Buddha was here with us. Um, and it happens every day. He goes to have his matcha in the same place every day, they keep laughing, they keep laughing, they keep laughing. And then eventually the people that are taking the piss out of him and noticing they're not getting a reaction, which annoys them more, they go over to Buddha and they basically say, Why aren't you bothered?

11:04SPEAKER_00:Like, we take the piss out of you every day, we insult you every day. Why are you not bothered? And he basically just says, like, that's your gift. I'm gifting that back to you. Like, I you can choose whether you want to receive someone's hate or you know, dislike towards you. And he just was like, That's not that's not mine, that's not my gift. And it goes back to um again a couple of eps, maybe it was like a year ago now, when I was speaking about how a business mentor of mine told me about the pebble analogy where you have to think of things as physical pebbles and you can give it back to someone.

11:41SPEAKER_00:So if I've got a friend who's constantly saying negative things to me and making me feel a bit crap about myself, I'll just be like, in my head, I'm giving you a mental pebble and I'm giving it back to you because I don't need to carry that. That's that's your gift to hold on to. I'm gonna gift that back to you. And I just love that because I'm like, there's so many things we take on and labels we take on, but why do we take them on? Like, you know, when people say you're ugly, you're stupid, you're a bitch, you're this, you're that.

12:13SPEAKER_00:Just don't take it on. I'm gonna gift that back to you. And then I've gone on to write, your life isn't built on what people think of you, it's built on what you think people think of you. I am the worst for creating scenarios in my head, like the worst. Um, and a really good exercise that my therapist is getting me to do at the minute is write physically writing down fact versus fiction. I would be one of those people where, you know, I could be sat on a train and someone's looking at me funny, and I'd be like, they think I'm ugly, or they don't like me, or why are they staring at me?

12:47SPEAKER_00:That's so rude. Um you are creating such a big narrative in your head that is just incorrect and you don't know, like you literally don't know. And I've even been a part of it before. I remember recently I've been, you know, dealing with a lot of things at the minute, and one of my friends messaged me and she thought she was like, Have we got a problem? Like, you've not replied to me for a couple of weeks. And I'm like, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm the problem in this situation.

13:13SPEAKER_00:Like I'm that person that she was overthinking about just because I've got a lot on and I can't reply to something. So we build this whole narrative. Like people have their own worlds going on, their own problems that they're carrying. And then we are such selfish people that we assume everything's about us when it rarely ever is. Um, so just gift it back to people, you know? And we think back to, I learned a lot about cavemen brains, cavemen times, how we're wired the same as cave people.

13:44SPEAKER_00:Um, the caveman brain sees judgment as danger, but the perception someone might be judging you isn't an isn't the actual danger. Like our brain looks out for red flags and looks out for alarms going off when a lot of the time there's no fact behind it to back it up. And I had a recent occurrence where I went out with my family for a couple of drinks. And if you know me, I'm just not a big drinker. I've always been one of those people that's like, oh, I'm really boring and I don't like to drink and I really put myself down for it, or I pretend that I like a drink and I pretend I like going out.

14:28SPEAKER_00:It's just not for me. I don't enjoy it. Okay. I don't enjoy a bar, I don't enjoy a pub, I don't enjoy a club. I love a meal and a nice cocktail, and that's like my extent of it, basically. And we went out for drinks, I wasn't drinking very much, and my family quite like a drink, so they were drinking quite a lot. So I felt like the odd one out in the group. Then I started to sit and look around at everyone at the bar, and I was like, oh, everyone probably thinks I'm so boring and so stiff and so rigid.

14:58SPEAKER_00:And basically, my when this really got to me, my coach was like, Would you take life advice from anyone in that bar? And I was like, No. So why would you care about their opinion? And that's literally genuinely one thing I've implemented. Would I take life advice from that person, then I don't care about their opinion because there's not many people that I would take life advice from, especially not the people in that particular bar. Like, you know.

15:27SPEAKER_00:So that massively helped me. And also, we compare our interior world to everyone else's exterior world. You are the only person that knows everything that goes on within your life, and you're comparing your 100% of your life to someone else's 5% that they choose to show you. And that, I mean, I can say this now because my TED Talk will be out. That's what my TED Talk's about. Like, no one can be 100% authentic online. We constantly choose what to edit, what to leave in, what to leave out, what filter to add on, what story to tell, what narrative to tell.

16:05SPEAKER_00:There's never anyone that can be fully 100% authentic online. That was a section of my TED talk. The next section is your brain isn't always telling you the truth. And do me a favor, if you like a read, read the what is it called? The chimp paradox. If you don't like to read, just Google the premises and you'll understand the premises. Essentially, when we are born, we are basically born with two brains: the human brain and the chimp brain. So the chimp brain comes from how we developed from chimps and they kind of merge together, and that is your brain.

16:41SPEAKER_00:It's kind of like 50% human, 50% chimp. Really, really interesting concept. So the monkey is like faster, stronger, reactive, it prioritizes safety, comfort, food, survival. It can be irrational, paranoid, reactive, anxious without much evidence. It's like a little child, basically. When you talk to yourself, you're sometimes trying to communicate with the monkey and you can't control the monkey, but you can manage it. So when you are, you know how I don't know.

17:12SPEAKER_00:Hopefully, I'm not going to sound like too much of a psychopath here, but I talk to myself quite a lot. Say, for example, I'm like stressing about something, or even that I'm at work and I'm procrastinating and I'm not working, I'll literally say, Come on, Vicky, get to it. Like I'll literally be like, come on. Or I'll be like driving and I'll be like, stop it. Like, I'll literally talk to myself. That's you talking to your brain. And the easiest way for you to understand whether your brain is in charge or the chimp brain is in charge, is saying, Do I actually want to feel or behave in this way?

17:46SPEAKER_00:And if the answer is no, it's usually the monkey that has taken over. So I've been tasked to like name my monkey, communicate with it, and literally think about it. Like he was saying to me, think about it like my dog Toby. So I have, I've spoken about this on the podcast before. Let's get it a little bit deep for a sec. I have a real fear about many things, but like I have anxiety around traveling alone. I have anxiety about sometimes uh scenarios where I feel quite trapped.

18:23SPEAKER_00:So say if I go and have dinner with a friend, sometimes I can get quite anxious because I'm like, I feel trapped here. Cause like, even though I know I'm safe and even though I know I can, you sometimes you do let your chimp take over. So I literally now in my head speak to my chim and think about it as if you're speaking to a child or a dog. So this sounds this can sound really weird if you're if you're not with this. You could either be like, Vicky, I love this or I hate it.

18:47SPEAKER_00:Um, but let's say I'm in a restaurant, I start to feel my anxiety come on, my face is getting hotter, my hands are getting sweaty, my temperature's dropped. You can literally in your head be like, monkey name, Rachel. Could we call Rachel? We could be like, Rachel, I'm safe right now. You're safe. Everything's fine, nothing's gonna happen. You can leave if you want to leave. And as soon as you start talking to yourself, I can feel my anxiety levels drop because it's it's not even like it's a theory, it's like science that you have part of your brain that's from a chimp.

19:24SPEAKER_00:So you have to talk and communicate with your chimp. Um, and again, the more aggressive and judgmental you are towards it, the worse that it gets. So, have you ever noticed when you get really hard on yourself, you get worse. So, you know, for example, you do your driver's test and you fail it, and you're, I was gonna say driving home, you're going home and you're like, I'm so stupid. Why did I not revise for that? I'm such an idiot. It you get more and more wound up.

19:52SPEAKER_00:It doesn't help the situation, does it? So if you think about your brain like a little dog or a little puppy, you wouldn't be shouting and screaming at them. You'd be like, it's okay. Like you'd you'd calm them down. So that's genuinely how I approach a lot of things now. If I don't get something right or I make a mistake, rather than being like, oh my god, I'm such an idiot. Why am I so bad at this? I'd be like, it's okay. I did my best, I'll try again tomorrow.

20:17SPEAKER_00:And you just the way you behave is just so different. So it's such a good book to read and such a good premise to think about, and also just to understand that your brain is not a hundred percent you. Like, that is quite a deep thought. You are not 100% you, like your brain is like it's just not fully you. It's that's really blowing my mind. You share it with a caveman, like a chimp, someone that's not fully developed yet, someone that isn't doesn't have all the same beliefs that you have.

20:52SPEAKER_00:So once you start to speak to it differently, it's honestly crazy. Like, please try it because it's amazing. And that's why affirmations and narratives matter, because we can effectively reprogram our code and what our chimp thinks. So I'm someone that sometimes struggles with um affirmations and all of that stuff because when I'm having a bad day, the last thing I want to do is sit with my notebook and be like, I am strong, I am confident, I am capable.

21:21SPEAKER_00:Like, I just don't have the patience for that. But you wanna again speak to it like your dog, your child, whoever family member, and you do start to see it, starts to believe those words. So you change in the narrative, you change your life, and it really does work. The next thing we're gonna go into is anxiety. Now, whether you have, you know, fully blown anxiety where you've got the badge of honor, you've got the disorder, you've been on the medication, i.e., me, for a very long time, or whether you just feel anxiety because you know, anxiety.

22:00SPEAKER_00:Anxiety isn't one of those things where it's like, only I can have it because I've had the diagnosis. Everyone has felt anxiety in their body. And it's really just going into how anxiety isn't a bad thing and how it isn't the enemy. So, again, like I said, we've got anxiety versus alarm. Is this actually anxiety or is this my alarm going off because something that feels similar to a previous threat is happening? So let's say I have a great example for this.

22:29SPEAKER_00:I often struggle a lot with big girl groups. Um, a lot of people wouldn't know that. Um, I find them very daunting. I have had a lot of bad experiences with previous girl groups, like friendship groups. So my brain has an alarm that goes off when I approach a group of girls. So let's say I'm going to a founder's dinner. I host my own. So obviously I'm comfortable at my own. But let's say I'm going to a new founder's dinner. Every time I will go to one, I'll have an alarm that goes off.

23:04SPEAKER_00:That's almost like, Vicky, we don't do well with big groups of girls. They're not going to like you, they're going to find you overbearing, they're going to not let you sit at the table. But I know that that's just an alarm and that that's not true. So it's not my actual anxiety, if that makes sense. So you have to know the difference between the alarm and the anxiety. Whereas anxiety for me could be that I am at this dinner and someone is rude to me or someone does make me feel left out, and then I'll start to feel like just because I'm seeing proof of my alarm, if that makes sense.

23:39SPEAKER_00:I feel like I explained that pretty well. So it's learning the difference between is your alarm going off or is this just anxiety? And he also taught me that negative emotions are very short-lived. So I believe when you have a negative emotion, it lasts about 90 seconds. So you can sort of just like breathe them in and out in and blah blah blah blah, breathe them in and out and just feel them out. And emotions aren't inherently good or bad. We have started to label physical sensations.

24:12SPEAKER_00:So, for example, a racing heart and sweaty palms can be fear or it can be excitement. Being out of breath can be a panic attack or it can be exercising. You've just come off of a treadmill. It's the same exact feeling, but we just label them differently. Shaking can be anxious or excitement. Feeling hot can be having a panic attack or you're in a sauna. Do you know what I mean? So it's just changing the way that we label things. Um, I know Mel Robbins has done a lot around this, where before she goes on stage and she's really nervous, she'll tell herself, I'm really excited for this.

24:51SPEAKER_00:I'm super excited. And she'll just keep saying it over and over again to tell her body right now, you feel like it's because you're excited, not because you're anxious. Um another great analogy of what helped me with anxiety that he came up with, which I loved, which was the, you know, so you know the film It with the clown in it? If you've not seen it, basically essentially what it is is this kind of alien that takes form of your biggest fears and anxieties.

25:20SPEAKER_00:So if as a if you're like one of the kids in the film and your biggest fear is snakes, the clown will like morph into a snake because that feeds off of what you fear. So he just said to think of your anxieties and fears like the it clown analogy. It takes the form of what scares you and becomes powerful when you believe the fear, but it can't physically harm you. Um, I'm pretty sure that it clown can harm you, but in this version of the world, it can't.

25:50SPEAKER_00:So it's just becoming something that's gonna make you feel fear, but can't actually physically hurt you. And also he gave me this another great analogy of a monster in the closet. So when he was saying, Oh god, how I'm in the I'm the greatest at analogies, but I'm the worst at relaying them. He was saying essentially, say if you had a little kid and they were like, Mommy, there's a monster in the closet. You would say, you would go and check the closet and get it out.

26:20SPEAKER_00:You wouldn't give it techniques to try and cope with the fact that there's a monster in the closet. So sometimes you don't need another technique for living with the monster. You need to deal with what's creating the fear and get the monster out of the closet. I love that. Um, and he has also taught me to not go around fear and anxiety, but to go through it. That is the only way, the only way to get rid of your anxiety is to create new patterns and memories, is to go through it.

26:51SPEAKER_00:So when I go through my most most anxious periods, I avoid going to restaurants, I avoid leaving my house, basically. And yeah, it's if you avoid that, it's gonna make it worse. I just think of the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario for me is I'm gonna faint, I'm gonna be sick, I'm gonna cry, but then it's done. I've not died, nothing bad's happened. So I just have to go through it rather than go around it. And exposure is what helps us grow.

27:25SPEAKER_00:Um, again, analogy for you: if you were scared of public speaking and you lived your life on a stage for 30 days after it, you would feel completely comfortable doing public speaking because that's the only way that you've gone through it. So when I'm scared of things, I just try and do them as much as possible. And they do help. The next thing I found really interesting was the concept of how important it is to make yourself a safe space rather than relying on a place or a person or an environment for safety.

27:56SPEAKER_00:So he was saying to me, where is your safe space? So I said, Well, my house, my home, my bedroom, being with my partner. And he said, And where's somewhere where you don't feel safe? So I said, when I'm surrounded by loads of people, sometimes loads of drunk people, really, I don't feel safe. I don't feel comfortable. So he said, Well, what would happen if someone invited a hundred people around to your house that had all had loads of alcohol? Would you still feel safe in your safe space?

28:24SPEAKER_00:And I said, No. So he was like, You have to create your own safe space. You know, if I'm traveling on a train, I am creating my safe space. So I've basically, obviously, through all these mindset techniques are great, but I've also created something that I can bring with me that is my safe space. So I have like a little pouch that I bring in all my bags that has everything I need to create a safe space wherever I am. So I've got like a fan, I've got a, you can buy these little whistles from Amazon.

28:52SPEAKER_00:They're they're not like a whistle that makes a noise, it's to help you slow down your breathing. So you get like it's is really helpful. Um, I'll have like mints because mints can't help me keep calm and I've got like a minty taste in my mouth. Um, little like fidgety toys. Um anything you personally need to feel safe, start bringing with you so that you are your safe space and you're not relying on a person or a place to feel safe, to feel safe, to feel safe.

29:25SPEAKER_00:Um he also taught me, so he works or has worked with the Navy SEALs to keep them calm. And if you don't know much about the Navy SEALs, you know, essentially they are put into these environments where they're constantly being put in just the worst environment. So they could be, for context, they could be being shot at and be buried up to their shoulders in mud, not knowing if they're ever going to see their families again. And we struggle with anxiety from day to day as business owners just trying to get Canva to work or waiting for someone to reply to an email.

30:09SPEAKER_00:Like, can you physically imagine if you're in a much worse scenario? So think about how those people deal with anxiety and stress, right? How do they do that? So, a question that the Navy SEALs use to ground, to calm down is what do I know for sure right now? Or I think it's what do I know for certain right now? And start to list those things off. This is a really good grounding technique for me when I am spiraling, overthinking, panicking, when I am out and about, or if I'm at a restaurant or somewhere I don't feel very comfortable.

30:52SPEAKER_00:I'll speak to myself or I'll get my partner before I've said to my partner, please can you ask me the question? He'll ask me the question and I'll start listing things off to him. So, example, when it was my birthday, I went to a gorgeous spa, and then me and my partner went to a restaurant afterwards, and it was a really cute restaurant. It was like a little pub, but it was a small pub and it was quite hot, and I just felt really claustrophobic and I started to panic and you know, like really panic.

31:22SPEAKER_00:I wanted to leave, but I was like, no, my therapist said I need to leave, I need to stay here, so I'm gonna stay and I'm gonna go through it. I'm not gonna go around it. So I stayed and it was really hard. And I started to list what I knew for certain. So my partner was like, okay, Vic, what do you know for certain right now? So I said, I know for certain right now I'm in a safe space. I know that I can leave at any time if I want to. I know that the waiter is not gonna think I'm rude if I don't eat my food right now and if we go to a different restaurant outside, you know, it's a bit more breezier and uh open.

31:56SPEAKER_00:I know that you won't judge me for that. I know that you will make me feel safe if I need to leave. I know that it won't ruin our night. I know that I've had an amazing birthday. And as you start to list the things off, you do start to feel your anxiety drop. Like, I don't think people realize the power of speaking to yourself. Like sometimes you've just got to think of yourself as multiple people trapped in one person's body. Like, speak to yourself, have conversations with yourself.

32:31SPEAKER_00:That is often how I get myself out of the most trickiest moments. Or say you're alone in your office, you've just lost a big client, you're stressing about paying something, or whatever it might be. Again, sitting with yourself, what do I know for certain right now? And then that's when you get rid of all of the fluff and the overthinking and the stories that you tell yourself, sort of like fact versus fiction. And then another great question he asked me if I had no access to evidence from the past or future, is there actually anything wrong right now?

33:11SPEAKER_00:And that is the fastest way to calm yourself down. If I had no access to evidence from the past or from the future, is there anything actually wrong right now? That actually makes me feel really calm. Like if you blank out your past and you blank out your future and you just don't know anything and you're just in the now. Whoa, I've literally zoned out while I'm doing that because I feel so calm. If you're watching me on YouTube, my eyes just fully locked.

33:40SPEAKER_00:Anyway, the next section, a lot of the suffering comes from the story after the event. So all suffering can be intensified by the interpretations that we add, which we've spoken about. If something isn't life-threatening, sometimes it's threatening to the ego. A lot of what we do lies in the ego and what we want other people to think. So if my business failed tomorrow, I maybe a year ago would have been more bothered about what are people gonna think online, what are people gonna think about that know me, and then that would damage my ego.

34:23SPEAKER_00:I wouldn't really be caring about, well, you know, my business has just failed, sort of thing. The arrow thing I was talking about is he was saying there's there's two arrows in life. The first arrow is unavoidable pain. So things we go through in life, deaths, relationship heartbreaks, loss. The second is the additional suffering we create through interpretation and how so much of our lives are just pain. It's just pain that we choose to put ourselves through.

34:55SPEAKER_00:If I think back to like how many times I've been anxious and I've ruined, ruined days and weeks through things that just didn't happen, I'm like, God, I feel so stupid. Um, and that one bad moment doesn't make a bad day. There are good moments within difficult days. So just acknowledging it's a moment in time. Every day is just a day. Whenever I have a bad day, I think this is one day and then it's done. So even like I was talking about my TED talk before, I'm nervous about that, but I'm like, it's just a day and then it's done.

35:30SPEAKER_00:I'll wake up like every other day, I'll have my breakfast. Within a couple hours, I'll be back at home with my dog in my bedroom, and the day is done. It is just a day. It's one day out of your life and it's done. So even if you've had the worst day possible, imaginable. You know what I'm trying to say. It's just a day. Next thing is a bit about values. I've always struggled with values because I haven't really understood what they are, but I think when you're really aligned with your values, that's when you become kind of unbreakable.

36:05SPEAKER_00:And a lot of what people can say to you won't affect you. People compromise their values to be accepted, and people pleasing can actually be a form of control, which when he said that, it actually blew my mind. Because I'm a people pleaser, and I'm I'm trying to control people into liking me. If I behave exactly how you want, I can control whether you like me. You're not yourself and you're not sticking by your values, you're controlling people. Humans are driven by values and beliefs, even when we aren't consciously identified them to them.

36:42SPEAKER_00:I think that should say. And I, when I had this session, I was like, this weekend I'm gonna write down all my values and what I want to stand by as a person and my values and beliefs and things like that. And he said, your values, like if you want to know what your values are as a person, they are what you do almost behind closed doors. So you can say, one of my values is that I put my family first in every situation. Your values need to be tested for you to know what they are.

37:18SPEAKER_00:That's how you kind of flex what your values are. So it could be like, my values are I'm kind, I'm creative, things like that. But your deeper rooted values are things that you're you need to be tested at to know if they're your values. And that's how you know yourself as a person. So that's why we have to go through difficult things to know what our values are as a person. Look at your own behavior to know what your values are, and your actions show you what you actually value.

37:49SPEAKER_00:That one's kind of like aimed at me. Um, also, we did a bit about how we invent social rules. So I am, I do love to hold a pity party for myself sometimes where I'll be like, oh my gosh, I'm so boring because I don't like to go out drinking. And most other people that are my age, like 25, 26, they love to go out drinking. Like, says who. Like we invent all this stuff that's just not even correct. Like, there's so many people my age that hate drinking that fine enjoyment in other things, but we just make this stuff up, and there's just never any evidence to back it up.

38:31SPEAKER_00:And he said to me, you can't build an exceptional life while expecting your while expecting yourself to live exactly according to everyone else's expectations. So you can't live an exceptional life if you are standing by what a normal person your age should be doing. Because chances are when you are successful, you are not normal and you are not what everyone else is doing. Would I have achieved the things I have if I had spent every weekend trying to fit in?

39:03SPEAKER_00:And often, not to aim it at some people, but a lot of the time people that are in their 20s do go out drinking because that's what we think we should be doing and we don't want to be told that we're boring. What I've done up until now got me here. It doesn't mean it doesn't necessarily get me where I'm going to next. I love that. I've literally just jotted that down from like one of the most recent sessions. What I've done up until now got me here.

39:31SPEAKER_00:It doesn't get me to where I'm going next. You're always having to become a new version of you and come up with new beliefs and values. Next section we've got is growth is supposed to be uncomfortable. Pain and discomfort is often what forces change, sort of like we were saying before. People have to go through something painful to initiate change. You have to be uncomfortable to grow. You can't always go around it, you go through it. Exposure to hard things grows your capacity rather than shrinking your life.

40:09SPEAKER_00:Growth can temporarily feel like you're getting worse. Like I've been in so many situations where I'm like, everything's going wrong, everything's going wrong. But you always come out the other side of it thankful that it turned out that way. My iPad just died. We're gonna have to go onto the phone for the notes. And ask yourself when you are struggling with habits, what would make this 10% better? So I was basically saying to him how I really struggle with habits, or I really struggle with just things that I find hard.

40:40SPEAKER_00:So, like a thing I might find hard is just keeping my house clean. He said, What would make this 10% better? So we all have things in our life we hate doing. So he was saying he hates putting out the bins or he hates doing the recycling. Can you make it 10% better by putting on your favorite show while you do it? You know, like always, not always choosing the suffering group, like you can add small things onto it to make it better. Don't demand perfection from yourself, make the next action easier.

41:08SPEAKER_00:And then so one thing, one concept that's really helped me was thinking about the different versions of yourself in business. So in business, you can have like your Batman and your Bruce Wayne, or like your Spider-Man and your Peter Parker. There you go. I've just seen that, so I feel like I'm in the mar the Marvel world now. So your business self doesn't have to be identical to yourself out of business, and sometimes that can be a protection barrier.

41:40SPEAKER_00:That's something I like to do. Uh, and also that way I can say, you can't form an opinion on me because you don't know me outside of business. Like that is something I personally love to do is have my two versions. Um, okay. My notes are kind of scattered all over the place. You're gonna have to bear with here. But we did a lot of work on ego versus the soul. So, ego is how does my life appear to other people? What will make my business look good right now?

42:07SPEAKER_00:Soul, who am I becoming? What will make me feel fulfilled over time? And often we feel burnt out because we are not feeding the soul, we're feeding the ego. And overwhelming exhaustion can come from having too many decisions, doing too many things that we just don't care about. Sometimes the soul choice feels worse temporarily, whereas the ego choice gives you instant relief. Your job is to build a life aligned with your values rather than one optimized to look impressive.

42:40SPEAKER_00:And ultimately, I want you to think about who am I when no one else is watching? That is really the biggest thing for you to take away from this episode. That was a lot of information for you to retain. Um, kind of a messy episode just because it was my notes from every which way. But I would say my biggest takeaways from having mindset training would be fact versus fiction. Speaking to yourself more has been a big help for me. And also how deep and complex you are as a person, everyone else is exactly the same, um, and that you can't see everyone else's reality, you can't possibly know everyone else's reality.

43:32SPEAKER_00:So that is why we have as human beings conflict and wars, you know, and all that stuff that we don't need because there's so much we don't understand about each other. But equally, it's a good thing because it makes me switch off a little bit. So when I do, you know, have people make videos about me, or I do have people who don't understand what I do or like me, or you know, all the things that usually affect us as human beings. I sort of just take peace in the fact that they don't know me, they don't know my world, um, and just try not to take things as personally.

44:13SPEAKER_00:And it has really helped. I'm gonna be honest. It has really helped. So I really hope this episode has helped you, especially if you are like me, like a bit of a recovering people pleaser. I think some advice I wish I could give to everyone is that often you are the one from holding yourself back. Anything you want is genuinely possible and achievable, but we are the ones that stop ourselves from doing it because of outside opinions, limiting beliefs, so many things.

44:48SPEAKER_00:Like our minds are fascinating and such a trap. So just try and think of it as who is me? What are my values? What do I stand for? Who am I as a person? Who's my chimp? What pisses them off? What sets them off? How can you speak to it? That has been the biggest hell. And just talking to the two. Yeah. I felt I feel really calm today from having that episode. I feel like I can take on the world now. Because even if I do these podcast episodes, honestly, I go back to my phone and there's like 50 notifications of things I've missed while I've been filming, and I'm like, right, come at me then.

45:27SPEAKER_00:And it's usually just a series of problems, as it always is as business owners. And I just feel a lot more calmer in a calmer state today. So I'm ready to take it on. Um, if you've enjoyed this episode, please do me a huge favour and rate it five stars on wherever you're listening to this episode, or subscribe, like this video. Just really helps us reach new people. Um, nice for me to know as well that it's helped you and that people actually listen to these episodes.

45:55SPEAKER_00:Always blows my mind. Um, and I will see you on the next episode of this.