Hey, guys, and welcome back to another episode of your Brain's Coach podcast. My name is Angela Sharina, I'm your host, I'm your Brain's Coach and it is my job here to bring to you all the best recent, cutting-edge, most fascinating, useful, applicable and effective brain-body tools brain-mindset-body-work tools so you could take better control of your thoughts, of your emotions, of the systems and environment around you, so you could take better and better actions, so you could create better and better life experience that you absolutely love living. Guys, today it's going to be a mix of productivity tools which is actually just one productivity that will help you to build more fulfilling life, better working, more thriving business. On the mindset side, today we're going to talk, we're going to start our conversation about uncertainty and navigating a failure, and it's going to continue into the next week. On one of the days of the week we're going to have a couple of authors on our podcast who study and work in uncertainty. I'm hoping to get my favorite Navy SEAL high-performance trainer sooner than later, but then also we're going to have Susanna Fuhr, a co-author of the book the Upside of Uncertainty a guide to finding possibility in the unknown. So we're going to talk about mindset frames that I found very effective and I hear them over and over and over again from entrepreneurs and business owners and just people who achieved a lot and went through all of the challenges that you got to go through to achieve a lot of things. So how they think differently, how they conditioned their mind to think in order to successfully go through a lot of failure and challenges, in order to keep going, stay resilient and, at the end of it, achieve great things.
Speaker 1You're not going to get stronger by lifting lighter weights and in life, guys, it's exactly the same. If you're at a certain level and you know there is a next level that you want to build and you're working on it, and maybe you're going through challenges and you're like, why is it so hard? But guess what it's like in the lifting room? You don't get stronger, you don't grow more muscle by lifting lighter or the same weights. You only grow, you only expand your capacity by taking on harder and more difficult and more challenging in the lifting career literally heavier stuff and then you grow and then you increase your capacity and then you're stronger and then you're able to do and finally achieve more, when life is the same whether you are on your career path or you're building your business, whether you're developing anything next level of anything, the way, as Ryan Holiday says and he has a book like this the obstacle is the way. The obstacle is the way, and it is the way because it allows you to build quote unquote muscle to be good enough to sustain the next level.
Speaker 1I gave a talk on turning dreams and goals into real life accomplishments in August and I took there. One of the things that I talked about there was you are not good enough yet for the dream that you have, because if you already were good enough, you would already have it. Business owners who have a business that may be an inspiration to you, or somebody who has the health that you want, the relationships you want. They have certain skills that you don't have yet and that is why they don't have what you don't have. As simple as that. It's humbling. Some people from the audience then told me you know, at first I got mad like how am I not good enough yet for my vision? But then, once you explained, I realized you know, yeah, I'm not yet good enough for the next role or for the next business level, or for that relationships or the body. But I finished this piece obviously with that statement that you're not good yet enough.
Speaker 1Yet Yet is the key word. You can and have the capacity to build, develop, learn and then, once you are good enough, you know. It's like with weight loss People who maintain great weight and health and fitness are not different than from people who don't. They just have different skills that they develop A skill of going to bed on time, a skill of prioritizing good nutrition and skill of prioritizing exercise and making it happen, a skill of doing the right things when the easy thing is easier. They develop the skill mentally and physically preparation their organization, they develop the skill and that's why they have it. And once you develop the same skills, you're going to have it too. That's why, when I coach people, I always focus on the skill development.
Speaker 1Okay, this is the goal. What do you need to do consistently and I do it for myself as well To have this goal? If you say you want to have this million-dollar business, what are the skills, the habits that you need to have as a business owner to develop that on delivery side, on the selling and marketing side? What are your daily million-dollar business owner habits and skills and where are the gaps, and then you work on that and you develop those, and then you get a chance to achieve your goal. In fact, once you develop the skills, the goal that you have is going to be a byproduct of it. It's going to be something that you just naturally have because you focus on skill development. But the whole idea, the main point here, is the goal that you have the dream.
Speaker 1The next level of anything will require you to work on skills, on certain habits, on things you don't know how to do, on learning, and all of this is going to be through challenges. It's like getting to the next level in a game. It's going to be through challenges. It's like getting to the next level in a game. In order to get to the next level and beat the next dragon, you need to develop some skills, some chops, and once you develop them, then you can beat the dragon. So the same here. Every treasure, next level in your business or personal or fitness health game is guarded by this dragon or problem or challenge that you need to build skills to overcome, to beat, to win, and then you're going to have your goal. The obstacle is the way, the challenge is the way. It's supposed to be hard. You're not going to get stronger by lifting lighter weights, but how do you get through those challenges? Not losing hope, persevering keep going, even when you have no freaking guarantee how it's going to play out, when exactly if.
Speaker 1From my experience, people who succeeded the only difference between them and people who failed their pursuit is they kept going, but they also kept turning and pivoting and listening and never stopped learning, and very often they would change their vision in so many different ways by the time they got to their goal. The goal that they get is actually not the same as the goal that they had when they started, because they pivoted and they adjusted based on real life feedback, and they adjusted their product, their offering right when we're talking about business, but anyhow, they kept learning and so, getting into the mindset toolkit of today, in order to get through a lot of failures, a lot of challenges, you need to adopt this framework of learning, one of the frameworks that I learned from high-performance trainers and authors like Susanna Forer, who wrote the book the Upside of Uncertainty, which, by the way, susanna, we're going to have on our podcast very soon. So learning frame right Not every challenge at all you're going to win, but at every challenge there is an opportunity to learn. Every day, in fact, you can learn something new, and people who move really fast through challenges and achievements learn super fast. That's why, for me, what was the major transition this year is focus on learning Every single obstacle, every single day, whatever the interaction is this cold call or the email or the system that you need to learn.
Speaker 1Focus on learning. You're not great at it at all. There is a challenge. You need to figure out how to accomplish it. But first and foremost, you need to learn to upgrade your skill set in order to be good enough for the goal that you say you want. So everything is a learning opportunity.
Speaker 1Something didn't work out. Lean in, ask why didn't it work out? How can I make it better? What do I need to learn? What do I need to understand better? What do I need to change to learn? The purpose is to learn. Getting is going to be a byproduct of when you learn enough to get good enough right. So learning is the major purpose of anything in life. If you are not learning, you're not living. The purpose of life is to learn.
Speaker 1Then the second frame that helped me and so many other successful people that I listened to and talked to and even worked with this idea of life and business and all of the goals that we have for ourselves, this idea that it's all a game, an infinite game of getting better, of getting points, of getting another chance, of getting another life. It's all a game From the perspective of the universe. You have this speck of sand that means nothing in the universal scale. That means nothing in the universal scale. So once you understand that it's all a game, yes, you can die and things cannot work out and things can really hurt, because you are the player, you are that character playing it. But if you adopt it as this mindset of game, then all of it gonna feel lighter, and all of the challenges and all the failures. You're like I got another chance to go through this level and I didn't pass it. But there is another chance, I have another life and I'm still up and I can get at it again. And when you chip away one milestone, you're like I got my points, let me go again. So it's all a game.
Speaker 1And the reason why it's so important to adapt all these different ways of thinking of failure and challenges is because psychologically it makes it so much easier and your psychology will define how your body feels. Guess what, guys? Stress can be good for you, for your health even or it can can be bad and it can make you sicker and weaker, and the only difference is how you think about that. Is it a challenge that you have the resources to overcome? Is it going to make you stronger? Is that the belief that you have, or is it something that potentially can kill you? And your body literally reacts differently, like the blood circulation, the inflammation levels, how your immune system reacts, depending on the belief that you have about challenges. And also, you're going to have less energy when you believe that it's so stressful and you don't want to deal with that and it can kill you, etc. So that actually makes your whole nervous system work over time and waste a lot of energy, and that's going to make you even more fatigued and tired and the whole pursuit of your goals even more challenging, and it's like this vicious cycle and the byproduct of that is going to be you quitting because it's just going to become impossible at some point. So that's why it's so important to change your psychology first, because it will change your biology and that will change your actions and that will change your destiny. So learning game.
Speaker 1Another one is focusing on gratitude, like every day you wake up. Yes, you don't have like what I don't know Kardashians have, or the most of whoever you admire. You might not have that. You might have millions and billions, but guess what? You probably have amazing people around you family, house, the work where you deliver value that you might love, or that you have work, that you have this ability to be healthy and wake up and walk and have the opportunity to pursue big dreams and goals if you choose to. You are healthy. There are so many things to be freaking grateful about. You're not that there is this saying any day is a good day as long as I'm above the ground. So the more you approach life with this gratitude and like I'm so freaking happy that I just have this and I have the freedom to pursue what I want to pursue, life is so gracious with giving us all that we need to get to our next level. So just being grateful more.
Speaker 1And another frame that has been coined by Ben Sullivan, the co-founder of Strategic Coach, one of the biggest companies coaching companies for entrepreneurs who want freedom and want to build big businesses that stand the test of time right. So Dan Sullivan has this book Gain Versus Gap, or. The book is about focusing on what you are gaining every day, like the learnings, the progress, always looking at ah, a year ago my business had nothing and this year I have two big clients, I have more conversations, people potentially becoming clients and all these different projects in the new website building and speaker reel and all these great things that I'm working on. I'm super excited about it. Just a year, yes, I am so far from what I want to achieve, but I also made so much progress and where I was in life three years ago where this whole hard thing started and mentally I grew so much. The more you focus on the gain, on how you're progressing and growing, the more gratitude you're going to have and the more energy you're going to have and self-belief, self-confidence, then you can achieve great things. So gain versus gap.
Speaker 1And then Sullivan in the book emphasizes this idea that entrepreneurs who are able to stay resilient and go through a lot of challenges and failure and keep going until they succeed to their personal level of success right their vision. The main difference is they focus more on the game, on where they've been, what they've built, how they've grown, versus the gap and never having enough. And that's a switch you can do in a second. You can start focusing on gaining, on gratitude, on growth, on learning, on what kind of person you're becoming a better, a more mature, wiser person. If you focus on that, there is so much strength and resilience and confidence that's going to radiate through you that no obstacle will be unstoppable. You'll feel just so empowered and people will feel that around you and people will want to connect and give you opportunities and help you and go with you on a journey. So don't underestimate the energy that you hold inside and that energy comes from the mindset and what you constantly think. And again, the beautiful thing about that is that you can switch, you can change your mindset in a moment.
Speaker 1Now. It takes work to make it permanent, to make it your second nature. It makes work to make your new thinking your default kind of thinking. So you change your energy permanently. That's why those affirmations and morning routines. It's like reps in the gym. If you want to build a certain fitness, then you got to show up and do the reps. They're the same with mindset If you want to build a certain kind of mindset, growth mindset, learning mindset, constant improvement mindset.
Speaker 1Then you got to train your thinking and, as we talked on this podcast, there is a simple way to restructure your thinking in three steps. First, you record it, you notice it. Second, you revise it, you change your thoughts and you write down your new thinking that you'd like to adopt, your new mindset, your new statements and information, and then repeat, you repeat, repeat, repeat. So record, revise, repeat. Three hours of changing your mindset and, just like muscle, it takes reps. So we talked about the learning frame.
Speaker 1Right, I'm learning every single failure, every single challenge and an invitation into the game. So you get the chops, so you get the skills that the person that you envision, the business, the health, the fitness, the relationship that you envision. They become byproduct of your lifestyle. What do I need to learn? What skills do I need to acquire to have this goal? Gratitude and gaining, focusing on progress, on what you have to again manifest, to nurture, to grow this energy that will give you empowerment to overcome anything in your way.
Speaker 1And you know that challenges are temporal and that is the next mindset frame, timing that you are not there yet. You might need more time to develop it. It might not be the exact right time, for when the conditions come together people places, opportunities, economy, the world situation it just might not be the time for that idea to grow and succeed yet. So you need to keep working, keep refining it, keep getting really, really good. It might not be the time yet, and over time you'll change, you mature and things change and certain things will come together to make your idea, your next level, easy to become reality, right? So it's not just you when you're working on the goals, that manifesting them in the world, it's also the world Time evolution frame that your first idea and that's what I hear from all the successful founders is shit, guys. And in order to make it worthy of attention of the world, in order to bring value into the world, you need to work on it. So it's an evolution.
Speaker 1When you were a kid, you didn't understand anything about the world. You were just like blob of screaming and shouting and running around who couldn't take care of themselves. Humans are like, very incapable when we are born, when you are an infant, you can't even feed yourself. You can't take care of yourself in any way. You won't survive without your caregivers, right? And so your idea is like that, this blob of messiness which doesn't serve anyone. It just like in your head. It might be clear. Very often, even in your head it's not clear, but to the world it's just this blob of messiness that needs to evolve, to be refined, to be worked on like a piece of art.
Speaker 1Some artists work on their well, writers work on their books for like years, sometimes several years, to make it into something good enough for an editor to look at. And then the editor will cut out like half of it and say you need to rework the whole thing, right? So your first idea is in the process of evolution and it's never good enough. And so you are right now, maybe at that point, maybe in the middle point, to the point where your idea gets as that good that it's never good enough. And so you are right now, maybe at that point, maybe in the middle point, to the point where your idea gets as that good that it's going to bring you, for example, the income that you want Evolution frame, it humbles you, it shows you. You know what? Maybe I don't get that traction because my idea is not good enough, and maybe I need to get it better in order for the world to pay attention and to I don't know pay for my idea or the service or value that I'm trying to bring. So not yet, not yet. Evolution just like you mature and you sometimes embarrassed and what kind of person you were and how bad you were, and sometimes I'm like, oh my God, I worked with my clients and I got them results and I didn't know so many things that I know. Now I'm like, how did that happen? I don't even know right. So evolution.
Speaker 1And then the last but not least, is a hero framework or framing. Realize that heroes that we admire are made by quests, by challenges, by what's the best word. Heroes are made through quests and challenges and all these adventures that actually require going through a lot of hard stuff and figuring it out. And being in this uncertain state, am I going to figure it out? Heroes who we admire, admire are the ones who, despite all the uncertainty, decided to commit to the result, to the mission, and sometimes they don't even see it coming into fruition in their lifetime, but they move it forward enough so the next generation stands on the shoulders of giants and can keep on working on that. The heroes that we admire. They're going through a lot of challenges.
Speaker 1And so, guys, when you wish for things to be easy, realize that that is not what A life of a hero, of someone who achieves things that were not there, of big, of great things worthy of a celebration and I don't know world paying attention. If you want to be a hero, you gotta be ready. You want to have, you want to want the life of a hero, which is quests and challenges, which is a little bit of celebration and time off, a day here, a week there, but the rest of the time it's in the pursuit, it's in the challenge, it's in embracing the messy, the uncomfortable, the failure and not being good enough very often, and failing and falling short, and then getting yourself back up with a smile on your face, all in dirt and scars, and getting back up and keep going right. That's who you admire and that's the kind of person who achieved things in the world of uncertainty that we are living in and that's how our ancestors developed this beautiful world that we live in, where so many people take comforts for granted and when the failure comes their way or a challenge, they're like why me, why is it so hard? Not you? That's the human condition. You want to build great things, you want to create something awesome. You got to work hard for it. It's not going to be AI, automated and you're just going to sit on the beaches of Miami or wherever that is and everything just going to come to you Never going to happen. That's not how life works, guys. And everything's just going to come to you Never going to happen. That's not how life works, guys.
Speaker 1And I think the most important pitch of today's podcast is that change your expectations for appreciation and things will go a lot smoother when, in your mind, you understand that the mission you decide to take on will be a lot of challenges and the next level is always through hard stuff. Once you make this attitude adjustment, a lot of things just going to be so much easier Because, like, yeah, I'm so grateful I actually have the opportunity to work on that and all these other challenges that are going to teach me and mold me into a person that I need to become in order to have this and develop this vision. Just change your expectations for appreciation and, again, things will get a lot easier. And when you're going through hard stuff, remember it's a learning opportunity, remember it's a game. Remember, it might not be the time yet and, just like a human, you need to evolve it from a messy baby to a mature, wiser version of your vision. So, not yet, keep working on it. And then a hero there is no hero without challenges, without quests, without hardships, without failure, without falling short. No muscle is built by lifting lighter weights. So that is the mindset part of today's podcast.
Speaker 1And to finish it off on the productivity side, guys, there is no chance you'll be able to do everything and there is no chance you'll be able to stand out and keep your sanity and make something awesome happen if you don't focus. And the first step to focus is be very clear about what you're about, what that vision you are about and what you're not. And I love this frame from Alex Hermosi. There might be a ton of great opportunities. You might hear them every single day, but you gotta be able to say that is a great opportunity, but it is not my opportunity. The more you can carve out your niche and show off your uniqueness and make it really stand out and deliver certain value in a very unique way that only you can do, the easier it's going to become for you to deliver great value, to separate your service or product from all the people.
Speaker 1Your pitch Don't try to be everything for everyone. Become so unique and irreplaceable that the world is going to come to you, and the byproduct of that is going to be meaningful productivity. Not because you're able to tick off more boxes than all the other people or you automated stuff to the point of things just I don't know happening for you. Somehow You're not going to be the best in running thousands of emails. No, your productivity is going to come from having a lot more time, resources and space for working on the few things that matter, versus all of the things that are interesting, exciting, great opportunities. And you could be working on. Life hates waste, and trying to work on everything and being nothing is a lot of waste.
Speaker 1I often hear these pitches about different products. It's like, oh, we do this and we do that and that and this, and I'm like at the end so what's the core thing? Yeah, you do all of this thing, and in your brain then it's like nothing. And then you think to yourself. I think to myself, I'm like, oh, my God, this person is trying to do in their days all of these things and they try to distribute money and time and I don't know their marketing and all the resources among so many things, what is left for one thing? I see clearly at this point that this is not gonna work until the person focuses on just a couple of things, and that's also.
Speaker 1You can learn from gurus of modern day productivity like Carl Newport, who wrote Deep Work, who also wrote the recent Slow Productivity really great book, and it's all about doing very few but the right things, the right things for you, versus trying to optimize everything around thousands of things with AI etc. Which, at the end of the day, actually still ends up to be nothing, just noise, a lot of noise. And that's the main productivity advice for you for today Focus, figure your thing out really, really, really clearly. So whenever opportunity like an invitation to a meeting etc. Comes through, you can immediately say you know, this is not related, I'm not wasting my time there, I'm going to keep working on my thing and then saying yes to only a few opportunities, but the ones that really move the needle forward. The more you're able to do that, the more space, time, resource and abundance you're going to have and the more influence and impact you're going to have on your core thing that you choose to work on Be you, be uniquely, indistinguishably. You Focus on your thing and then the world will come to you. That's how greatness achieved and has been achieved throughout human history, even before we had AI.
Speaker 1Guys, I hope you found this useful. On the mindset side, how do you need to adjust your attitude in order to persevere, to go through everything you need to go through to make your thing good enough so the world notices right when your mindset isn't your best friend? Ask yourself that and start adjusting with a three-step plan Record, revise, repeat, put in the reps. And the second, productivity. The first step to productivity is not trying to get more things done, but figuring out what are the right things to get done in the first place.
Speaker 1Have an awesome blossom Friday. It is Friday here. Get meaningfully productive with an attitude of superhero, learning, adjusting and evolving. Stay tuned for our guest upcoming episodes on uncertainty, on mattering communication to inspire, to lift up and lead. A lot of cool stuff coming, so stay tuned and also don't forget to share this episode with at least one person who might need this attitude adjustment to change their expectations for appreciation, to get meaningfully productive so they can stay on the right track to make amazing things happen. Thank you, guys, and have a beautiful inspired learning day ahead.