Feeling Good Enough

Do sometimes have that nagging feeling in the background that you're not quite good

enough?

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Today's episode is all about not feeling good enough, not being good enough.

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And it's a really close topic for each of us.

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How are you doing today, Kat?

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I'm doing great.

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How are you?

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I'm feeling good enough, but I feel that way.

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We're going to explore that.

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Yeah, no, I think that's a good topic for sure.

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And I think it's something that many people can relate to.

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It's not that it's always a persistent feeling for me personally, but there are definitely

times where I feel not good enough.

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And I think that is pretty common.

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Yeah, I would say so.

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think when you're in the achieving world and you're doing things, you know, and we've come

at this kind of topic from different angles before, but it really does stem to there's

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something inside of you that is feeling inadequate.

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At least that's been my experience.

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What would you say is kind of the heart of it all when it comes to you?

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Yeah, I think that the feeling is when you are thinking in your head, like I'm not good

enough.

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It's usually, I'm not a good enough blank.

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I'm not a good enough mom, dad, employee, spouse, whatever it is, you know, keeper of my

home, dog, mom, cat, dad, whatever you want to say.

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That's it's usually something like that.

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And I know that we've talked about this quite a bit on the show and it's a theme that

keeps coming up because it's something that a lot of people struggle with.

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And I will say that most of the reasons that we don't feel good enough is because

somewhere along the way we saw something or society told us that we had to be a certain

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way in order to be seen as enough.

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We had to have certain things in order to be seen as enough.

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And anytime we don't have them or we see someone on social media having something that we

don't, that's sort of what sparks and triggers that not good enough feeling.

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Right, so it's kind of, it's a lack, right?

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I mean, it's a lacking that can be brought in from the outside and make you feel the way

on the inside.

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But that initial kind of lack, that kind of lack of enough, lack of feeling good enough,

to me, and I kind of pin the school system on a lot of problems, but I do think there is

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part of that.

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And I feel like, I feel that it's just a,

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perpetual loop that has been put on society for decades and decades and decades.

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And it's always, it's not about striving or trying to achieve good enough status.

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It's just trying to be satisfied because you have to, nobody on the outside is gonna tell

you you're good enough.

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And when they do, it really doesn't matter until it comes back inside and you go, actually

I am good enough.

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yeah, go ahead.

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Go ahead.

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think that's a good point because, you know, you brought up schools and schools bleed into

right work life, maybe corporate life.

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And it's not that schools or the corporate world or just workplaces in general are telling

people they're not good enough.

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It's that those places place very high values on achievement and

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You receive awards.

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If you get the best grades in the class, you receive awards.

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If you had the highest number of sales on your team, it is rewards based acknowledgement.

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And so that ties your self worth, the feeling of yourself to your performance.

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And so one of the things I tell my kids, that I hope becomes just a part of their

understanding and DNA, but something I sort of had to add into mine is that.

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You were born worthy.

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And so when they go and take a test or they do something before they take the test, if

they're nervous, I just kind of repeat back to them.

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What do I always say about the test?

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Do I care about the grade?

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And they'll be like, no.

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And just before everyone jumps on me, of course, you know, I want them to do well and

study.

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But the point of telling them this is so that they get to the next part, which is what do

I care about?

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And it's you care that we study that we worked hard.

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I try to praise the effort, not the result, because not every person is going to have the

same result from the effort.

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As long as they, you know, pour in to whatever they're studying, whatever they're doing,

and they do it to their own versions of their best and excellence.

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I'm satisfied with that.

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So no matter what comes back, I'm like, I saw you study.

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Like your value and my happiness with you is not based on that.

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I'll often tell them that, you know, I love them from the time they were, you know, little

dots in my belly, you know, floating around and there's nothing they can do to stop for me

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to stop that.

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There's no grade.

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There's no behavior.

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There's nothing that can stop it.

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And I hope that sticks.

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I hope so too.

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I've been doing the same thing with my kids.

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I find that as they get older, especially they're both in high school at this moment and

it really is, you know, a lot of work and you don't always, I mean, you my daughter last

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night working all weekend on an essay and you know, that effort was there and...

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It kind of sucks to have somebody else come in and go, well, no, you didn't do this.

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You didn't do this.

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You didn't do this because it feels slightly more subjective than a math answer.

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mean, we all know one plus one equals three.

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So we're just going to, you know, you get that right.

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You move on.

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But did I get that wrong?

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I think I got that wrong.

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Okay.

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but I really do agree with you.

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And I think it's trying to foster that belief inside that.

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And like, look, I put the effort out.

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I did everything I could to make this.

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work.

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I studied, I, you know, even with my son playing sports, I just say that all you can do is

go out there and give your best effort every shift because he plays hockey and it goes and

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shifts.

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And yeah, your last shift may not be as good as your first shift, but they're not all

going to be the same.

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It's just about the effort and that kind of digging in and putting forth your best work.

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worth at that moment.

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Is that the right word?

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Your best effort.

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Yeah.

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And I want to illustrate how I came to have this opinion because this is not the opinion I

was raised with.

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so to give background, I, was very much.

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praised for good grades.

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And, I have, parents who are high achievers and they created three high achieving kids,

right?

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Who are, we're all workaholics and I am in recovery, I guess, from being a workaholic.

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But not, and I'm not saying that this is wrong, but this is just the way that I was raised

and the way that many people are raised.

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And it's that you are supposed to do all of these things on the sort of life checklist.

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And if you do, you go to school and you get great grades, you know, top of your class, you

get extra praise.

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And what it created was, you know, three kids that.

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Just went for more and more and more, more school, more grad school, more, you know,

professional degrees.

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And none of those things are going to fill that.

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I good enough hole in your heart and your body?

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The only thing that can do that is from you and die.

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And by you, I mean me too, doing the work, becoming self-aware and recognizing that.

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None of these external approvals, awards, titles, none of those things can provide

fulfillment.

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Only your opinion of yourself.

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That's a really good point.

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And yeah, I know we've talked a lot about, you know, how we were both raised.

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I was definitely went through a different part.

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I felt the, because of my sister, you know, being autistic, that I had to do the work for

two people.

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And no one ever told me that.

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I was just, that was a story I gave myself.

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And you know,

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We've talked a lot about off air, but maybe we should probably get into this because the

good enough really is tied to happiness.

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And you you're talking about like workaholics and like, you know, just keep on doing these

things for the accolades that just never fulfill you.

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I think there's something deeper here with this and it really is allowing yourself to feel

enough to feel good enough to feel fulfilled.

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And most of us aren't, most of us have been, we've been programmed in the society that

it's the pursuit of happiness, not the attainment of it.

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And it's, you know, you're chasing this horizon that you're never gonna catch because as

soon as you get to that spot, that's a little further ahead.

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You think this was gonna be the thing that makes me feel enough.

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This is the thing that's gonna make me feel happy.

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And it doesn't, it just gets you to that point where you're like, yay, I got this.

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designation, degree, car, house, education, whatever it is.

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And then you have this moment and it might be several days.

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It might be even just a split second where you have that, got it.

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And then it's gone.

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And that's because the happiness from outside of you is fleeting.

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And that's where the inner work has to really come in and you have to start teaching

yourself that you are enough.

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You were born enough.

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And it's really hard when you've got

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30, 40 years of experience and conditioning underneath that.

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But what we've been finding in the work that we've been doing with others and with

ourselves is that, you know, it can shift pretty quickly.

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You just need to be aware of it.

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And like we say, awareness is always that first step.

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Yeah.

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And I actually was, talking with my therapist recently and she was saying that, busyness

being busy, always having so much stuff to do, always pursuing things is actually a trauma

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response because when you're busy and when you're constantly pursuing success and when

you're constantly going for the next thing, you don't have time to sit with your feelings.

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You don't have time to actually manage the stress.

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It's something that people do to keep their brains occupied from actually having to feel

whatever might be going on with them.

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And I know that it's been an adjustment for me personally.

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I've changed how I work quite a bit over the last few years and I've really prioritized my

health and rest because I used to feel guilty for like taking a nap.

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I would be so tired or I was up late writing and I would feel like, let me just get this

20 minute nap in before I pick up the kids so that I'm alive to bring them to all their

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activities.

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And I would do it and I would wake up beating myself up, right?

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Because in my head, the version of the successful business owner, entrepreneur, author,

cat,

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is somebody who's like professional and sits at her desk and she gets things done.

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And like, you know, it's this unattainable level of perfection that I had in my mind that,

I had to keep up with.

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And again, no one told me that I had to be this way for some reason in my head, I equated

perfection with deserving, right?

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That I only deserve the income.

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only deserve the flexible schedule.

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I only deserve it.

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if I do x y and z.

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But the truth is is that we don't have to do anything to be deserving of a beautiful life.

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All of us just by nature of existing on this planet deserve to carve out a peaceful space

in it.

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that.

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When you were transitioning from this way of being of like, you know, not feeling good

enough to have a nap, not maybe that's not the right word, but you know, not giving

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yourself grace to take 20 minutes to how you are now.

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I think a lot of people will hear that and go, I wish I could do that.

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Can you just talk a little bit about like, because I've witnessed this transition and I

know it's not seamless.

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So maybe

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No, it's definitely not seamless.

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You I think that you and I really talked a lot about this and we talked a lot about

self-talk, how we're speaking to ourselves.

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I think the real turning point for me was realizing that

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despite being, you know, young and quote unquote healthy, was starting to develop some

health issues, some autoimmune things, which are very activated by stress in our

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environments and things like that.

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And I was starting to feel really run down in bad and, really lacking energy to care for

my kids went through big life changes.

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And I kind of realized like, if I don't stop going at this pace, I'm going to get sick.

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I'm, I'm going to have like bigger problems and I really, I didn't want that.

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And so it took some, you know, Blood work and diagnoses and some desire for lifestyle

changes to really say, how much do these accolades matter to me?

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And how important are they?

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How important is getting the big talk here or the speech there or working with these

brands or whatever.

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Is it worth?

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shortening my life for, it worth my health?

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Is it, is it worth this level of stress?

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And it's not that I wouldn't accept those opportunities and enjoy them if I had them

today.

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It was more that at that moment in time, I was relentlessly pursuing them at like an

intense pace and feeling like if I wasn't constantly feeding the business and the system

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and everything that

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you know, if it all failed or didn't work out or didn't secure these contracts, then like,

I, I was a lousy business owner and basically that equated to being, you know, worthless

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as a human, which is sort of a, like a dramatic way to say it, but that is like how my

subconscious was feeling.

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Right.

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And so I believe it was your suggestion for a new year's resolution to start.

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congratulating myself for things.

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I think it started with me having to sort of like put Christmas together for the first

time by myself, right, as a solo parent.

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And I was like, my gosh, I can't believe it.

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Like I made the whole meal and I did all the thing.

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And you're like, yeah.

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And listen, you're like, have never heard you like be so nice to yourself and congratulate

yourself so much.

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That should be your New Year's resolution.

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You should just keep congratulating yourself for like everything you did.

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And so that was my New Year's resolution.

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And I think just constantly looking for ways to be kind to myself has really made a big

difference.

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But yeah, I revert all the time.

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This is a work in progress like we see on all of our podcasts.

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We're still working on this.

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Well, yeah, but that's the joy of it.

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And the difference now between, because that was a couple of years ago to now, you are, I

can see when you're not feeling good enough, it really does come from that lack of

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acknowledgement.

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And I can give it to you when we're working and throughout the day, but we both know that

that's not what's gonna really solve it.

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it's really our own.

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ability to parent ourself and reprogram ourself on a moment-to-moment basis.

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You're not going to get it right all the time.

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That's not the point.

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But the point is to kind of look at it and go, you know, we have a good podcast to talk

today.

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We did this.

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You did the Christmas stuff.

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It doesn't have to be massive.

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It can be as simple as, I made really good rice tonight.

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And that's it.

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It's just feeling like you're doing a good job because

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the outside world tends to tell you you're not.

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And when we coach people, we really do try to encourage them to start, you know, being

kind to themselves because so many of us think that the way to succeed is to be hard on

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ourselves because it's just, you know, the school system is hard.

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But, you know, like most of us who are striving for something, I think we tend to use the

stick and not the carrot.

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And what...

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I'm gonna challenge you to think is that if that way was working, if that way was meant

for you to feel enough and feel happy, wouldn't you feel it already?

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You've been doing it your whole life, most likely.

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It's not like you just suddenly in the last week said, you know what, I'm gonna start

punishing myself and see if this works better for me.

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It's not that, it's the other.

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It's that you haven't taken that time to go, maybe if I reward myself a little bit at a

time, I'll feel better at this.

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Maybe if I, you know, and the reward can be just acknowledging like,

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Hey, I showed up for work today.

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did the things that I, you know, I wanted to do.

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Did I get them all done?

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We're not even going to address those things because you know, you like you just try to

develop a positive mindset towards yourself.

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And when you do that, things start to shift because when somebody else tells you

something, when they say you didn't do enough or you didn't make enough or whatever the

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case is, you are.

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able to kind of come at it from that inside point and go, no, I'm good.

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I'm good.

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But you didn't do this.

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Like, yeah, you know what?

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I saw something yesterday and you know me with my lack of quoting and it was a really good

quote too.

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And I saw it like several places, but it was, you, I'm going to brutalize it of course,

but that's the show, ladies and gentlemen.

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but it was like, thank you.

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Thank you.

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And I am okay with that.

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But nobody has the permission to make you feel less than unless you give them permission.

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And it was way more graceful than that, but that's the truth.

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It makes sense.

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And honestly, on that note, something I was thinking of as good action step for our

podcast listeners is to unfollow anybody on social media who sparks that feeling of you

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not being good enough.

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Like you should be able to make lunch for your kids and throw a lunchable in there and

peace out.

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without feeling bad because someone made their kids lunchboxes look like cute little

ghosts and aliens inside or whatever.

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know, it's, and if you did that more power to you, that's you rock.

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But so does anyone else that just throws it in there, right?

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But you have to monitor what you're surrounding yourself and what you're feeding your

mind, right?

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So another thing I did, what you said reminded me of that is I unfollowed a lot of people

on social media.

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who maybe were portraying lifestyles that I was nowhere near at that time.

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And I was thinking to myself, so often like, gosh, like this mom is my age or this mom is

younger than me and she's already like achieved this much or she's her business is already

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like this or whatever it is.

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instead I started following more personal development, more therapists, more

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you know, yoga instructors, just more people who prioritized having a peaceful life,

having a calm nervous system.

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And if you find that you are dissatisfied with your life, if you feel that you're not good

enough because you're constantly comparing yourself to others, that can be a really first

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step, a sort of monitoring the media that's coming into your brain.

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I like that.

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And yeah, I remember, I remember you getting off social media multiple times and being

like, you know, you were okay.

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And then you took a 10 minute break and then like, what's wrong?

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And you know, it's just, it's not just social media.

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It's anything.

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If you are watching a show and you come out of it, kind of feeling like not great, just

put it on the shelf for right now.

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Same thing with social media, but definitely follow us at five year you, because we aim

to, we aim to delight.

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yes you make you feel good

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will make you feel amazing.

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But I really do see that, you know, I, I, I even got up and walked out of the movie

theater during like the trailers around Halloween because I'm like, this is making me

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feeling they were terrible.

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Yeah.

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And I used to love horror movies, but I, know, as, as you start to kind of soften yourself

and allow things, you know, you kind of see things differently.

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I was never great with horror movies, but this

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This was nasty.

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And I just found that, you know, like, this doesn't make me feel good.

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I'm going to give myself the, I'm going to make myself feel good enough by walking out.

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And when the movie starts, I just walked right back in and sat back in my chair.

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It's these little things.

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You are the guardian of your brain and your peace.

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And if you are not a good steward for that, you're going to feel bad.

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And that's okay if you do feel bad, but just know that you have the control to switch it

in the, you know, in an instant.

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So.

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when you understand that, pay attention.

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Did you just eat something?

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Like, you know, for me, Catherine, sugar, unfortunately, with my sweet tooth is like not

really good for my mood.

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It kind of gives me anxiety, like within like, you know, 20 minutes to an hour.

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So I've had to stop it.

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And it was only when I started to become aware of, you know, I really like this, but now I

feel bad that you start to tie one thing into another and you go, okay.

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Social media following these certain people doesn't work, but I do like these things.

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So I'll do this, watching dramas and you know, the terrible things in the world and the

news makes me feel bad.

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So I'm gonna watch comedies that make me feel better.

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And the interesting thing that happens as you start to show yourself that you care more

and more with these small micro actions, which aren't that big, but they have this huge

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impact.

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And suddenly your energy...

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around everything changes.

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you know, people start noticing you're like, you seem happier and like, what are you

doing?

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And you think nothing.

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I just stopped doing the things that made me feel bad.

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And it's kind of like the, it's kind like you've been pushing the ball underneath the

water all this time and you kind of just go, wait, I don't like that.

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You let it go.

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The ball comes to the surface and you're like, right.

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This is how I'm supposed to feel.

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I'm supposed to feel good.

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Right?

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So to sum up what you just said and the episode in general is there are so many people out

there who don't feel good enough for one reason or another.

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And the truth is the only person who gets to say whether you're good enough for anything

is you.

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And every time you make a choice to care for yourself,

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to care for your mind, to eat something that's good for you, to walk out of the movie

theater because the movie is jarring, to unfollow people on social media who make you feel

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less than.

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Every single time you take an action for the betterment of yourself and your self-worth,

you're sending a signal to your own brain that you are good enough and you are worth the

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time.

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and the effort of completing these actions to make sure that you feel better.

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I love that.

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I love that a lot.

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And thank you for being so concise.

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That was a great sound bite by the way.

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Like that was really good.

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I liked that.

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We should, we should, should we record these?

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No, I'm just kidding.

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Slowly checks to make sure you hit the record button and he did.

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Okay.

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Good to know.

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Well, Kat, I think that's great.

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There's another aspect of this that I'd like to touch on, but I don't think we have enough

time in this podcast, but it's about, it's about the people around.

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us and kind of giving them permission.

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So maybe we can touch on that in the next podcast and just how we can protect ourselves

even better around those types of people.

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Before we get to our glimmers, we are avid readers.

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We're both trying to read 50 books a year.

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So what is the book that you are reading right now?

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Or one of the books, we've got like 30, 40 under our belt for the year.

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So what's the book that comes to mind?

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my gosh.

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Put me on the spot.

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Well, right now we are reading a Russell Brunson book together, which is a marketing book.

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It's an expert secrets.

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I'm also reading a fiction book about witches because.

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I love, I'm always got a fiction book going.

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And I think those are the two we have right now.

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I think you have a third one going, but you know, I try to flip back and forth between two

and you always have like seven or something.

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What's your other one that you're reading?

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I checked Goodreads.

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I have nine books on the go right now.

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And I, and I'm like, but the thing is sometimes I, sometimes I feel like the marketing

stuff, sometimes I'm into the personal development stuff.

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Sometimes I'm just doing other things too.

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So, yeah, the one I'm reading right now is called scarcity brain.

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And it is just fascinating how our brain is always looking for more.

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And the, the thing that really kind of

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surprised me with it was this dad was building a Lego bridge with his son and his son's

three years old and like the son's like pillars were smaller than the dads.

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So what does the dad do?

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And it's probably the same thing you would do.

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You'd go into the Lego box and try to get some more pieces to make the bridge on the son's

side higher.

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The son, having not been conditioned by a lifetime of more,

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took the dad's while the dad was doing that and went to the dad's side, took a few pieces

off and put it down.

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And the bridge was sturdier cause it wasn't as high up, you know, using less pieces, more

efficient, all these things.

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So the dad was, I think he was like an engineering professor or something like that.

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And everywhere he would go, he would bring this out and put it to people and say, you

know, what this bridge is uneven, what would you do to solve it?

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And without a fault, every time people added more.

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to it over and over and over again.

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I'd love to get into this more in a different episode, but it was just like, we're not

programmed to think about taking away stuff.

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like, we saw things by adding more.

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And I've just been like, I'm looking at everything so differently now.

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It's really is fascinating, but Scarcity Brain is the book.

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And of course I don't know the author, but I'll make sure I link to it in the notes.

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list.

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If you search either of our names on Goodreads, can see, you can friend us and you can see

all the books that we've read this year and the ones that we're currently on.

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Yeah.

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So Kat, what's your glimmer for the week?

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man.

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So I found a gluten free bakery as part of our health journey.

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We have cut out gluten and we've had so many fails trying to find like gluten free bread

and all tastes like cardboard, but sweet Lord, this gluten free bakery, Andrew, I ate a

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whole loaf of bread in like two days, you know, because I, it, it tasted,

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just like regular bread.

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got like a pumpkin muffin.

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they had little samples.

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It was super good.

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Definitely pricey, but I'm worthy of it, Andrew.

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So I will be going back.

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What about you?

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that a try.

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You know, my glimmer this week is like Halloween just ended.

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I went the whole month without having a single piece of Halloween candy and I still

haven't.

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And that is a testament to me making myself feel enough over, you know, my habits of bad

eating.

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to the place where when we got to Atlanta a few weeks ago, one of my friends is like, I

know you love Halloween candy.

378

got, and he picked out all my favorites in a bag.

379

And I'm like, that isn't like, you know, I love you so much, but I can't eat that.

380

And he's like, that's okay.

381

And you know, he took it for himself.

382

Go win-win.

383

But I, I was just very, very amazed that I did it.

384

I didn't set out to do it.

385

I just kind of got to the end of it you kind of look back and you're like, wow, I did.

386

I did that, I didn't intend to, but I was pretty happy.

387

Well, I'm really proud of you.

388

know what a big accomplishment that is knowing you as long as I have.

389

And, very proud of you for putting yourself first.

390

Thanks, and I said it without twitching this time, so that's really nice.

391

All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening.

392

You guys are the best, and we hope you have a great.