Blossom Your Awesome Podcast Small Changes Big Impact With Clint Callahan

Blossom Your Awesome Podcast Small Changes Big Impact With Clint Callahan


Clint Callahan joins us on Episode #204 of the Blossom Your Awesome Podcast.

Clint has been a therapist for 23 years. He is also a business and life coach. He is the founder the Small Changes Big Impact: 1% Per Day Transformational System.
He is also the author of the Beat Burnout in 15 Minutes a Day: How To Prioritize Yourself Without Losing What Matters Most

To learn more about Clint click here or to check him out at this link here.

On this episode Clint shares the power of daily habits and how we can implement small changes for big impact. He said it has to do with mindset and daily habits more than anything else. 

• change is possible for anyone and everyone 
• it is a lot easier than you think with the right mindset shift
• a few minutes a few times a day can completely transform your life. 

KEY TAKEAWAY - The key takeaway here is that we do have the ability to change and we can make a huge impact in our own lives and those of others with small habitual habits. It's possible to transform with a few minutes a day. It's not so much how much time we spend on these changes, but more about making it a ritual and routine for long term sustainable change and impact in our lives. 

To see more of my work check me out at my website

Where I write and cover mindfulness and other things to help you Blossom Your Awesome.

Or follow me on instagram where I post fairly regularly and ask an inquisitive question or two weekly in hopes of getting you thinking about your life and going deeper with it.

My Instagram - i_go_by_skd

To support my work - my Patreon

To see more of who I'm talking to on the Podcast, to advertise your brand on the Blossom Your Awesome Podcast or just get in touch click here.  

Transcript

Sue (00:01.389)
Hi there, today on the show, we have got Clint Callahan here with us. I am so honored and delighted to have you here. Welcome to the show.

Clint Callahan (00:09.398)
Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Sue (00:12.673)
Oh, I am looking forward to it as well. So Clint, you are a therapist and a life coach. You have something here that you've created, a transformational system, small changes, big impact, 1% a day. Give us the backstory here. We'll get into the system that you've created, but the backstory on becoming a therapist and that work and now the life coaching.

Clint Callahan (00:38.318)
Sure. So I was born, I weighed one pound, 15 ounces. So I technically shouldn't be here because that was 47 years ago and they didn't have the technology they have today. So I was told from a very early age that I'm basically a miracle, that I'm super lucky to be here and to be able to walk and talk and hear and see and all the things that everybody else kind of takes for granted. And that, you know, it's a heavy burden to kind of plan on a kid because I didn't know any better.

All I know is that I was alive. I really didn't know anything other than that. And so from that, it kind of, you know, my, I grew up in the black hills of South Dakota with my, my parents and my sister. And it was a, it was a great childhood until I started getting into school. And then I went through a lot of bullying from elementary all the way through high school, where my friends individually were great friends, but as a group, we, you know, was, I was tended to be more of the butt of the joke and that really created a lot of.

people-pleasing, imposter syndrome, anxiety, depression, all the wonderful things that happen from being bullied. And so in the beginning, it started out as somatic symptoms, right? A lot of body stuff going on, like I was physically ill for a lot of grade school because of the bullying. And then eventually, because the doctors couldn't figure out why I was so physically ill all the time, because there wasn't like, there was pathogens or anything like that. They didn't really think about the somatic effects of psychology, of like, you know, psychological of anxiety and those kinds of things.

And so then eventually my parents, and it switched to anger, and my parents started putting me into therapy when I was about 12, and therapy was a godsend for me because it let me put words to what I was feeling because I was able to know that there was more than just three feelings that I was experiencing. I was either happy, I was either sad, or I was angry. And most of the time I was angry because I didn't have a lot of control. And so from that led me into my love affair with psychology because it literally changed my life.

And I know not everybody is as lucky to have that first experience with psychology as being positive, but that's one of the things and one of the reasons why I went into it is because I wanted to give people that positive experience of once you know yourself, once you can own your stuff, then you can begin to fix it. And that's really what all this is about.

Sue (02:56.029)
Wow, okay, so I wanna touch on this bullying thing for a moment, because I feel like it doesn't get addressed enough. Where, you know, if somebody's listening, their child is a victim of bullying or they've experienced it or whatever, I mean, it's mostly adults listening here, what is the guidance there? Where does one start with that as a parent or a caretaker or whatever that may be?

Clint Callahan (03:23.17)
Well, the first thing is you have to ask if you notice a profound shift in the way your kid reacts and is relating to things, if they tend to be more angry, more they tend to have upset stomach, more they tend to have, they tend to be a lot more isolating or they tend to be more disconnected, then you really just need to start talking with them and potentially see if they need to get into some therapy because sometimes you don't want to tell on your friends, right? Because these are your friends.

at that age, you know, elementary, middle school and high school, it really is a lot like, you know, back in caveman times where the group that you're with, you live and die by that group. That's how you feel. It's not the reality, but feelings are not facts, but we look at them as if they are facts. So it's really being able to recognize these warning signs of what's going on with your kids and asking questions and finding out, really engaging them.

Don't settle for how was your day and them saying it's fine. You need to ask follow up questions. Well, what happened? Was there anything hard that happened today? Was there a good thing that happened today? I mean, I'm the son of two teenage boys. And let me tell you, as a trained therapist, getting them to tell me anything is even difficult. So, I mean, it's not you, it really is the age. And for them, it really comes down to, I didn't talk to my parents about what was going on with my friends and what was happening in my friend group until I was...

much later until like 14, 15 years old. And that was after I had about two years of therapy that I finally was able to talk with them about it. And they were able to give me advice and think about it. And they were like, well, why didn't you tell us before? And it was like, well, because I didn't want to get anybody else in trouble. I didn't want to get in trouble because somehow I thought also it was my fault. And now it's even more complicated than ever because back when I was a kid, they didn't have social media, cell phones, all these different things that where it can follow you into the home now, where mine was

I had school, which was unsafe, and I had home, which was very safe. And it just depends on how that works out. And so you need... So for me, what I do is we monitor our kids on their social media and they hate that. We have an app that we use called Bark that we follow them where they can see all the stuff that they're being texted or that they're texting. And if it's inappropriate, it flags us and lets us know because we don't want them to have to go through that kind of stuff.

Clint Callahan (05:48.022)
It's a fine line you have to walk because our kids hate it, but at the same time, we have to do it because there's too much stuff out there in the digital world that I don't want them exposed to yet.

Sue (05:59.457)
Mm hmm. And now, you know, since we're on this topic, the digital world, I mean, we can't really how do you keep your kids from being impacted in a negative way? You know, it's so hard. I mean, it's it seems like most of it is not necessarily healthy or good for kids on so many fronts.

Clint Callahan (06:23.93)
Well, and the digital, you know, social media in particular, it's designed to trigger the old school caveman lizard brain, whatever you want to call it, triggers in our brain to give us that dopamine rush. Just like mobile games, just like mobile games actually more even than console games, because there's a difference. Mobile games and social media are both designed to be super accessible, to trigger that dopamine reward system all the time, like super fast.

Like, you know, usually you'd get usually so the normal dopamine response system, like, you know, prior to mobile gaming was like, you know, you'd get maybe two to five to 10 dopamine hits in a day. You know, mobile game, you can literally get that in about 10 minutes. So you become so then dopamine, dopamine. And then when you're done, then it crashes and you have a dopamine crash and then you're more irritable. You're more frustrated. You feel like time kind of has slipped away. I don't know about you, but.

I've sat on, I've been on Facebook and I've done that and I've noticed all of a sudden, like, wait, where'd 30 minutes go? Oh, I've been doing this for 30 minutes. How is that possible? And that's because it's that pleasure seeking behavior. And these are designed by neurobiologists, neuroscientists, neuropsychologists, marketing, all these different things. These really high level people that understand how this works on such an intricate level to trigger us to desire it just as the same way as you would.

a drug or gambling or anything else, sex, food, whatever you want to call it. It is another form of addiction that triggers the same pathways in the brain, which is why it can cause so much, so much trouble, which is why I love the fact that they put out that documentary on Netflix. What is it called? I always forget the name of it. The, I can't remember. Oh, well.

Sue (08:10.869)
I think I might have seen it and I can't remember the name either, but it was about all the different social media apps, right? Where they were showing literally like they had, you know, these people coming in like, oh, okay, he's been on there for 20 seconds, hit him with the ad, you know, or whatever, hit him with this. And it was like, wow, you have no idea this is what's going on in the background there. Oh, yes, the social dilemma.

Clint Callahan (08:12.852)
Yeah.

Clint Callahan (08:17.514)
Yes.

Clint Callahan (08:25.974)
Yeah.

Clint Callahan (08:34.05)
The social dilemma. It's the social dilemma. Yes. Where they talk about even with the people that own the companies, ban their own technology from their homes because they know how much it can trap you in there because it's using the most primitive part of ourself, the desire to be social, the desire to have someone like us. And then, but the problem with that is then we get stuck in these comparison traps.

which then cause us to feel bad about ourselves, which then cause us to judge ourselves. Because before we judge ourselves against maybe 25 to 100 people. Now we can judge ourselves against literally the entire planet, anybody on social media, we can judge ourselves against that. And that's part of the problem. That's one of the things that why I've, why my course that I created focuses on burnout and why I'm also looking at looking into a relatively new phenomenon called micro burnout because of

social media and the way that it's changed, the way that we interact with each other and the world in general.

Sue (09:38.113)
Okay, so, and this is a whole conversation in and of itself, right? So what practical guidance just, you know, while we're on this, what is, like, what do you think is the solution? Is there a healthy solution to get your kids off of social media or for us even as adults? Like, what do we do?

Clint Callahan (09:43.84)
Mm-hmm.

Clint Callahan (09:48.706)
Mm-hmm.

Clint Callahan (10:01.45)
You need an accountability buddy that then is the person that controls how much time. You talk about it ahead of time and you say, okay, I get X time of social media. And like for my kids, we give them two hours, we give them two hours a day on their phones that they can use it. And we get then that includes games, that includes social media, but also we have the filters and the apps and everything in place to track every place they go on everything they do. So that if there is bullying, if there is things going on, we can...

we know we get alerted instantly and then we can have a conversation with them later. And it's those kinds of things where really it comes back to just the same as everything else, right? It's awareness. You have to be aware of what this does to you. And one of the things, so like I was saying before we started this, like about the micro burnout piece of things is where micro burnout is a relatively new thing that I'm noticing in people is because all the social media, all the different prompts from...

being able to access your email from your phone for work, for personal, all the different social media things, all the things that ping us to let us know, Hey, people want our attention. People want our attention, right? Netflix, all the things that always comes up on your phone saying, Hey, there's a new show you might like based on your stuff. We noticed you haven't been here for a while. Come back and look at us. All those different things. And that's creating this micro burnout of always being on 24 seven. It basically is like when you're on call.

Like I discussed before, when we were talking, like when I was a young social worker around 25, one of my first jobs I had, I was on call and it was old school. So I had a pager and a cell phone. I had a pager, but I didn't have a cell phone. So I had a pager. So I had to make a call. So I would have to basically go to sleep for one week and it would be the worst week that I always had for about 11 months that I did this, where I would get ready for the week.

pick up the bag, have the pager on, check all the stuff. And then it was like I was on 24 hours a day for seven days straight. I slept like crap, I ate like crap, I felt like crap because I had to be on because there could be an emergency at any second, right? To spring into action to do whatever the thing was that they needed me to do. And so that was the thing that was exhausting. And I've noticed kind of that same feeling in myself sometimes when it comes to my cell phone.

Clint Callahan (12:23.978)
So I put it on sleep mode now every night religiously, I set up the program where it's in sleep mode at 10 o'clock. Or the only way you can reach me is if you call me multiple times in a 10 minute period to break through that. Otherwise it's off. No text, no social, no email, no nothing. Because if I could, when I do that, when I look at my phone before bed, it's the worst thing for me. Because before I know it, an hour has passed, it's now 11 o'clock. I'm like, where did that hour go?

I got sucked into the emails I have to reply to or a text message or social media or all these different things. And so it really is, it's about you knowing yourself and it took, it's taken me time and I still mess up every day, sometimes weeks at a time of getting sucked into it because it's so easy. And really what I think it is a piece of it is it's boredom. It's quick, fast acting, easy dopamine hit that makes you feel good.

because you get this information, this thing that you want so fast. And that's the part that gets us every time because it's, it is literally using the same system that drugs do, that sex does, that food does that, you know, um, that, you know, at a boy, good job, that those kinds of things, all those things do the same thing in our brain because our brain has not changed in 250,000 plus years. So because of that, they're using

All this old stuff that was meant to be a very intermittent system to being an all-the-time system, which is why so many people are running off of a dopamine deficit is one of the things that it's called.

Sue (14:06.981)
And oh my goodness, so much food for thought there and so many insights, but you know, a couple of things I wanna touch on here and commend you for, like you're giving us some really powerful insights here with ways to manage and alleviate, right? Cause people always have an excuse, but putting it in sleep mode and these apps like Bark, which I've never heard of, but that sounds like a great resource. And then something I just love that you said on that note, the bullying note.

Clint Callahan (14:10.024)
Hahaha

Clint Callahan (14:22.534)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Clint Callahan (14:35.617)
Mm-hmm.

Sue (14:36.345)
is with this app, because so often parents are, oh, let me put up this app and so I can monitor the time they're on or whatever. And you're protecting your kid in one way, but this accountability where it's not just if somebody's saying something to your child, but if your child is making inappropriate comments, I really, I think that's a huge component that is missing because so often,

Clint Callahan (14:43.695)
Mm-hmm.

Clint Callahan (14:48.833)
Mm-hmm.

Clint Callahan (14:55.149)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

Sue (15:04.185)
We're pointing fingers at the bully, but not at the parents of the bully.

Clint Callahan (15:06.258)
Mm-hmm. Well, and also, you know, we also have to look at our own kids too, because our own kids could inadvertently be the bully and we didn't know that. And that's why having these things where this thing lets us, where I like bark because I got that from my sister because of her kids. And I like it because it monitors their social media, it monitors the text messaging for like drug content.

sexual content, bullying content, medical content, just concerning stuff. And sometimes it comes up and you're like, okay, what is this? That doesn't mean anything. There's no medical content there. And you're like, that's kind of irritating, but it at least keeps you aware that, okay, they're doing stuff. They're talking to people. You know who they're talking to. You see who the conversation is with, which then allows us to go in and have that conversation. Why did you just say this to your cousin? Why did you just say this to your friend? What was going on?

Can I see the rest of the content? Cause he gives you like about three to four lines, but I want to see the rest of it. Cause I want to know why you were doing this and what was going on. Cause you basically have to teach them to be a good digital citizen, right? It's just like being out in the world. That's one of the things that a lot of people were not taught because being a digital citizen is just like being a citizen in real life. Cause there's lots of things that you may think that you would not say to somebody in person, but for some reason online, you're more than happy to spew your hate and your.

and your frustration and stuff online. And it's like, well, what's the difference? There is no difference. The words still hurt. And that's what we need to remind ourselves is that all of us are doing the best we can. All of us wake up, make a thousand choices a day and just make it up as we go along. Nobody has the answer. I mean, I've got some answers because I've lived a long time and I've studied a bunch, but I don't have the answer. I've got some. And that's really what people have to remind each other is that...

No one has the answer. All we can do is help each other to try to become the best versions of ourselves that we can.

Sue (17:07.093)
I love that, that is beautiful. Really, really great guidance there. So now Clint, getting into this other work you do, you're a life coach, small changes, big impact. Give us the insight here, how and why you came up with this.

Clint Callahan (17:17.965)
Sure.

Clint Callahan (17:26.902)
Sure. So I came up with small changes, big impact, mostly because I've been doing therapy for 23 years, and I really like helping people and seeing people have that light bulb moment of, wait a minute, I don't have to keep doing this stuff anymore. And the answer is no, you're the author of your story. You can change your mind. You can change your path. You can change what you're doing at any time you want to, if you choose to. But the problem is there's so much choices for us to make that we all have decision fatigue in some way.

And so what I've done is I've figured out a way to create a system where you can take 15 minutes a day, however you want to break that up and use that to change the way that you're processing information throughout the day. For me, this came from me because I was profoundly burned out after the death of my mother in 2005. And then I went into real estate and then 2008, 2009 happened and I lost everything. And I was profoundly burned out as just...

as a therapist, as a person, as a human, as a new parent, as a husband, in all different ways I was completely burned out. And so because of that, I had to figure out my way back to being a functioning human being again because what happened for me is the first thing when I began my journey through burnout was that burnout is not what the therapist I was seeing told me it was.

It's not what they said. It's like, oh, you're just working too hard. You're doing too much. And like, no, it's more than work. And so what I really found out is that burnout is actually a systemic collapse in various areas of your life. And there's about four areas of your life that you go through when you start to feel really burned out. And so the first thing that happens when you burn out is you start to go through social withdrawal. You know, you, you start, you want to be alone.

You don't want to, you dodge social events. You don't want to go to meetings. You don't want to be around other people. You want to be alone. And that is the first warning sign that you're starting to want to be that you're starting to go into burnout. Now, if you're an introvert, it may look a little bit different, but it's still deeper social isolation and more withdrawal. And then the second one is self-care neglect. So you begin to.

Clint Callahan (19:40.33)
Stop taking care of yourself. You don't shave as often. You don't shower as much. You wear the same clothes repeatedly. You start to break down in that area. You don't go to the gym anymore. You're not eating as good anymore. You're starting to do those things that neglect you. You're not checking in with yourself anymore. Then that starts to affect your relationships. That's the third phase. You begin to have a breakdown with your support network, with your spouse, with your girlfriend, boyfriend, family, close friends, all these different ways.

And that is a defensive tactic that you do because you don't want people to see that you're not really there anymore, that you're really feeling burned out. At my most burned out, I was probably 10, 15, maybe 20% engaged with the people in my life. I was basically a robot in my own life. And then the last one where we most people feel like burnout is, is that's when you start to have issues at work. That's when you disengage from work.

That's when your boss calls you up and says, you got to straighten up or you're going to be fired and those kinds of things. But at that point, it's usually the, it's like the last straw. You're mentally and emotionally disconnected from everything. You're disconnected from you. You're disconnected from your friends. You're disconnected from your family. You're disconnecting from everything. And you consider quitting. You think if I get a new job, I'll do better. Or you have quick little changes where you do better, but then your performance deteriorates again. And this is when you need...

good and immediate intervention. You need it before the fourth phase. But that's what burnout is. And the thing about burnout is that it's not just about work. It's about everything. You can get micro burnout from having to plan meals every day for your family. You can get micro burnout for always being the one that has to pick up after your kids. You can get it from life, becomes little instances of burnout.

of micro burnout that leads to this big thing of burnout. So how do you change it in 15 minutes a day? That's what this is all about. So the way that I did it is I got back into, I studied Buddhism in college and mindfulness and all these different things. And so I started meditating again, which was the only thing I could think of that I could do that wouldn't take more of my energy. Because when you're burned out, the last thing you want is to do more because you don't have enough to do what you're doing now. So I started meditating.

Clint Callahan (22:01.378)
because I had a newborn at the time, my oldest was like nine months old when I started going through this, we, I started meditating, I only had three minutes, pretty much at a time to meditate. So I'd meditate for three minutes and then I journal for two. And I started doing that once in the morning to set my intentions and to see kind of what was floating around in my brain. Once during lunchtime for about three minutes and two minutes, three minutes of meditation, two minutes of journaling. And then I do that to check in.

Am I following my intentions for the morning? And then I did that in the evening. So in 15 minutes a day that allowed me to get back in touch with me, because that's the thing is it all starts with you knowing you, you owning your own stuff. If you can't do that, you're not going to change because, and here's the thing about change. It's always uncomfortable. You never get to change when you're comfortable. It always creates discomfort.

but you have to push through the discomfort to the other side to figure out why am I feeling this way? Why am I acting this way? Why am I so disconnected? What is going on with me? And most of the time it's the story that we're telling ourselves that is causing us so many of these issues.

Sue (23:19.981)
You know what I absolutely love here about what you've shared, Clint, is there are so often burnout is 99.99% of the time associated with work, right? But a lot of times when people might have a job they love or enjoy, and maybe they're feeling a little overworked, but there's these other things that are really causing the burnout that we never really factor. So that's such a powerful insight there.

Clint Callahan (23:33.442)
Yep.

Clint Callahan (23:43.928)
Mm-hmm.

Sue (23:49.813)
Again, it's like, it's the whole thing. We've got to be whole in every component of life to be centered and grounded, right?

Clint Callahan (23:59.638)
Yes, 100%. And that's why starting back at just the most basic thing. Because the thing I love about talking to people about meditation is they're always like, well, I don't know how to do that. I don't have hours a day to sit and try to quiet my mind. And I'm like, no, no. Meditation is not about quieting your mind. One of my favorite things that one of the Buddhist monks that I worked with said is telling your mind to be quiet.

is like telling the wind not to blow. It's futile. You can't do it. So what it's about is it's about recognizing the thoughts that are coming up again and again, and then not it, but then learning to not engage with them. And that's the hard part because when a thought comes up, you might follow it for a little while and then you're like, Oh, I just failed at meditation because I followed that thought. But it's like, no, meditation is about just focusing on your breathing and seeing what comes up.

And that's why one of the things, this is a plan that I teach people when they're feeling really emotionally, just kind of just, ah! And what I do is, I call it an emotional management plan. I have a poster for it, which I'll send to you, so you can put it out there and people can look at it. And basically what it is, is the first thing you do is you start with box breathing. Box breathing takes about a minute and 20 seconds to do. So what box breathing is, is it calms your parasympathetic nervous system, which is where the fight or flight response.

resides in our body. So box breathing is you breathe in for four seconds and hold your breath for four seconds. And then you breathe out for four seconds and hold your breath empty for four seconds. And then you breathe back in for four seconds. So it's four, four. And then you do that four times. And what that does is it's your brain telling your body, there is no physical danger. Because when people think of anxiety and of

anxiety, anger, depression, these really big emotions, they think it comes from the brain, but it doesn't. Because 80% of our information comes from the neck down, it comes from our body. So if we can control our body, then we can start to control our mind. So the first thing we do is we work on the breathing to slow down and stop the fight or flight response, the biological piece of fear, the fight or flight response. Then...

Clint Callahan (26:19.67)
The second thing you do after you box breathe is you journal for about a minute or two minutes what the story is in your head. By doing that, it lets you see then what your brain is telling you to act on. And then after that, you go and do a bit of exercise, about two minutes, like jumping jacks, pushups, you go walk really quick. You do something to change where your blood is going because when you're sitting at your desk and you're feeling all anxious and you're feeling all stirred up,

Adrenaline is flowing through your body. Cortisol is flowing through your body. All these stress hormones are in your body. But when you're sitting around, they don't go to your arms and legs. They go to where your body is still active. And so that is your, your stomach. That's why you get really acid gut and why it feels bad to your heart and your lungs, because they have to work. Otherwise you're dead and to your brain. But when adrenaline is in your brain, it's the most amazing thing because it's designed.

to speed up your brain and slow down how you perceive time so that you can dodge and avoid like physical attack. But when you're sitting at your desk or you're sitting in your car or you're doing something like that, that feeling then amplifies the anxiety because now one second feels like five to 10 seconds. So you're literally stuck in your own hell for an extra amount of time. So that's why when you're super anxious, you're like, oh man, this thing must have been going on for...

15 minutes and you look down and it's like, oh wow, it's only been a minute. How is that possible? That's how it's possible. So from there then after that you go back and read what you wrote. And then if you can look at that, what you wrote, and if you still agree with it, do it again. Box breathe, journal, exercise, go back and read it again. It takes about five minutes to do this, but it attacks this feeling state that you're in from the biological...

from the physical and from the psychological, so that you can hit it from all three sides.

Sue (28:19.781)
This is so powerful and so phenomenal. And I love that, because so often, again, people are so resistant. I'm sure you get that all the time. And, oh, I can't meditate or I can't do this, or I don't have this amount of time. But we're talking about minutes, right? Two or three minutes to pause, take a moment, self-reflect. I love the incorporation of the breath work to kind of get the awareness. And then the journaling, the sound.

Clint Callahan (28:32.523)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Clint Callahan (28:48.875)
Mm-hmm.

Sue (28:49.397)
So incredible. So this is the system.

Clint Callahan (28:52.574)
Yeah, that's what the system is. Basically what my system does is it teaches people all these different kind of tools. It teaches them different way of looking at things from a different psychological perspective. It teaches people just all these different tools that I teach people in my therapy practice all the time because once you are aware of something, it basically comes back to something I always tell my clients, which is if you don't own it, you can't fix it. And that's the thing. And the only person that can own your stuff is you.

Because we are so good at saying, well, it's not my fault. My boss is writing me all the time. Oh, well, I can't do this because my kids or I can't do that because, you know, X, Y, Z, whatever reason. And so we always have great reasons and excuses to say why everybody else is at fault for why we're not doing what we need to do. Because once you own it, human beings can't help but do something about it if they know it's broken. They have to do something about it. Because then you're like, well,

Okay, so that means that I'm stuck where I am because of me. Nobody wants to admit that, nobody. But once you recognize that and you're able to then have a big toolbox of different psychological tools to help you manage your negative self-talk, to help you manage the way that you're perceiving reality, to help you manage the way that you're dealing with other people, the way you're reacting to other people. Because really, feelings are a formula, which is...

something that is quite surprising. It's not that complex. It's thoughts plus feelings equals your action or your reaction. But the thing is, if anyone who knows math, this is the engineering father in me from my dad, is equations have to balance. So if your thoughts and feelings create an action or reaction, that usually the action or reaction is with another human being, which then in them, it creates thoughts and feelings, which creates an action or reaction in you, which creates this cycle.

that we get stuck in with other people. Instead of slowing down and thinking, why am I feeling this towards this person right now? Why am I having these thoughts towards this person right now? Why am I wanting to react this way towards this person? And that's the stuff that we get stuck in all the time is we stop and don't look at ourselves and say, I am just as much as at fault in this conversation as the other person.

Clint Callahan (31:14.742)
When I work with couples all the time, when one comes in and says, well, it's all his fault, it's all her fault, they're the one who's making me X, Y, Z. And I'm like, I'm sorry that that's not how the math works. In a relationship, whatever that is, intimate, either intimate relationship, work relationship, friendship, there's always enough blame to go around. It's always 50-50, 60-40, 70-30, but it can never be 100% one person's fault because...

That means the only way it could be 100% your fault is if you're in a room alone with yourself. Then yes, it's 100% your fault if you're just by yourself. But beyond that, it's impossible.

Sue (31:59.185)
Clint, I have to commend you here because something about the way you're conveying this, because it's just, I know it's going to land for people. The way you're saying this, you're presenting it, giving a different kind of perspective here, right? And so often, like you say, and you know this firsthand with a therapist, when people go to therapy, it's like they're there to fix the other person. But it's that accountability piece would change transformation, healing.

Clint Callahan (32:21.25)
Yep.

Sue (32:27.785)
all of it. So I just, I love everything you've just shared here. I think it's so awesome. So another thing I think it's so cool, affirm this for us, even this two to three minutes a day or five minutes, the two minutes or three minutes of breath work, two minutes of journaling, those incremental things, doing that consistently, we get positive change and it becomes habitual and you start seeing and feeling the results.

Clint Callahan (32:31.106)
Hehehehe

Clint Callahan (32:38.114)
Mm-hmm.

Clint Callahan (32:41.698)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Clint Callahan (32:54.05)
Yes.

For me, when I first started this, when I was at the height of my burnout and I started going back to doing, figuring out this solution for me, it literally took in about a hundred days or so of, and I hear this thing, I didn't do it every day during the hundred days. I did it like I started out strong and then I kind of petered off and then I got back on and then I kind of petered off and then I got back on. But even doing that, each time I did it, it was easier to do it.

And that's what people don't understand is building failure into or building setbacks into your goals is one of the most important things you can do. Cause if all you can do is all you've all you can commit to right now is doing it once a week and do it once a week. If all you can commit to is doing it two to three times a week and doing that, if you want to do it seven days a week, you can do that. But recognizing that you're not going to be able to maintain it the whole time, but you'll still see growth because

It always comes back to, if you know what's going on with you, and then you can start to see the warning signs, then you can say, no, I don't want to do that. You know that bridge I keep driving off of into that cliff of self doubt and shame and frustration. Why do I keep going there? I don't need to go there. There's exits on my highway all the way up to it. And I choose not to take them. And that's what I want people to understand is everything you do is your choice.

everything. From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, you have thousands of choices. A simple example is if you hit snooze on your alarm clock, that now gives you a, now you're 10 minutes behind for the rest of the day. How does that affect your day? It changes the whole thing. And if you wake up on time, you feel less stressed and it changes your whole day. From that one simple act in the morning changes the entire direction of your day.

Clint Callahan (34:54.582)
Small stuff.

Sue (34:57.342)
And it is small stuff and we make it so like just, you know, ginormous. And I love talk to us briefly more for a moment about building setbacks. I think that's such practical guidance.

Clint Callahan (35:11.53)
Yeah. So one of the things that I learned really early on when I was just in therapy myself and doing this stuff is someone told me that having setbacks as a part of your goal means that you will always accomplish your goal because the setback is now a part of it. So it's one of the most common places you see that is diets, right? So I got a friend who was doing a lot of weightlifting and who wanted to do competitions and stuff. When I'd go see him, he's like, all right, this is my cheat day. I'm like, what do you mean this is your cheat day? He's like, well, I eat.

Like white rice, broccoli and chicken, you know, pretty much the rest of the week. But when I go with you, I get a cheat day where I can just hang out with you. I can eat what I want. I can do what I want. I can do those things, but then I can get back at it the next day and not feel guilty. And I was like, huh, that's an interesting concept. I wonder if other people do that with different goals or not. And that's the thing is that when it comes to any goal, you have to build in a cheat day. You have to build in a setback day.

There's days when I wake up and like, I don't want to do this. I'm not going to get up and meditate, even though I know it's good for me. I'm not going to journal, even though I know it's good for me. But most of the time what I've found is the longer I... The more I know I have the cheat days, the more I don't use them, because I know they're there. And that makes it so much easier, because if I want to, I can. Like, you know, like if I have the flu, I can have the flu and it won't... And I'm not mad at myself.

for being sick and taking time away from doing what I'm supposed to do. Because you have to build in those moments when you can say, I don't want to, because nobody can go 100% all the time. Well, you can, but that's called mania and that's a medical disorder, so we don't really want to worry about that.

Sue (36:58.645)
Wow. Oh my goodness. Okay, Clint. So a couple of things. First and foremost, you have been so awesome, so insightful. You've had so much amazing practical guidance here. And I think people are going to have so many takeaways. And I just thank you so much for your time.

Clint Callahan (37:17.366)
Thank you. I enjoy myself. And as you can tell, I love to teach and I like people to be able to understand that they can change and that I've done it. And I know lots of people that have done it and I've worked with lots of people that have done it. And it just takes the desire to do it and being willing to say, you know what, I want to own my part so I can get on with it. And that's really the best advice I can give is figure out your part in it and you will be able to figure out your way through it.

Sue (37:46.901)
And now the irony in everything you just shared is at the very end, I always ask people what their closing message would be for everyone. And I think you just said it. Anything you'd like to add to that?

Clint Callahan (37:50.594)
Hehehe

Clint Callahan (37:59.075)
No, I mean, I think I've said everything I can say about this, except for I have a book out there right now on Amazon. It's called Beat Burnout in 15 Minutes a Day. It basically is everything that I've done, that I've told you, that I do in my practice out there on Amazon as well, because I want people to truly get better. So it's Beat Burnout in 15 Minutes a Day without losing everything that you want in your life.

Sue (38:23.203)
And I'll be sure to have links to all of that. Thank you so much, Clint. You've been awesome.

Clint Callahan (38:29.258)
I'm so glad I could be here. Thank you for having me.

Sue (38:31.621)
Thank you.