[00:01] Welcome to The Focus B Show, where Katie Stoddart, high performance coach, interviews experts around the world in performance and mindfulness. Now here's your host. Katie.

[00:32] Welcome to a brand new episode of the Focus B show. Very excited about today's discussion and topic on how you can train your mind for success and happiness. What I found is that a lot of the time there's a focus on the strategy. So we look at the different habits we can implement on how to track our business KPIs, on what outcomes we need to reach in order to be successful, when actually 90% of it or 99% of it actually goes on in our own head before we even implement a strategy, we need to have the motivation. This is internal. We need to have ideas, this is internal. And creativity is an internal process. We need to have discipline, this is also in our head, et cetera, et cetera. So all the things that happen before taking action and implementing these ideas and strategies happen in our own mind, which is why there's such a huge trend out there on mindset. There's a reason it's not just a fancy word. So let's break down today the key elements that determine a very proactive mindset that will serve you and not hinder you. The first part I'd like to look at is beliefs. When we have disempowering beliefs or beliefs that hold us back, this is when we are telling ourselves things like, I can't do this, I will never be able to do that, or My personality isn't this way. For example, if you are someone who considers yourself to be quite shy, you might tell yourself, oh, I don't talk to people I don't know, or I don't like calling or cold calling other companies, I prefer writing an email. And you will tell yourself all these beliefs that confirm who you think you are, and this is keeping you safe, this is keeping you in your comfort zone. And as Tony Robbins explained, the greatest force in the universe is the need to be consistent with our own personality identity. So if you feel that you are a shy person, you will do everything to confirm this. And this includes these beliefs that you may have about yourself, but they're also beliefs that you have about other people. Oh, all other people are mean, or people are always selfish, or people tend to be really kind and generous. Depending on which of these beliefs you adopt. This will impact how you react to people. If one of your core belief beliefs is that people are mean, if someone comes and wants to ask you something, you will shy away or ignore them. However, if you believe that the world is filled with nice and generous people, you will be more receptive and open. This is important because this is how you will treat everyone and everything also in business and in your own life, depending on what you believe. If you're single and you want to be in a relationship and your belief is that all the great women or men out there are taken, how do you think you approach a networking event or people that you meet online if that's your core belief? A lot of the time we're not actually aware of our own belief patterns, which is why they dictate our world without us noticing. Extremely inconvenient. You can become more aware of them through doing some introspective work. This can be through journaling, maybe meditating and pausing, or working with someone externally, such as a coach, maybe a mentor. Because as you speak, they will pick up on this. They will say, this is the third time you mentioned that success is hard or I need to work hard in order to achieve great results. That's also a belief. Maybe you don't need to work that hard and you will achieve just as great a results. Another reason why you might not be aware of your own beliefs is because you see them as fundamental truth. You don't think this is something you believe, you just think this is true. Full stop. It is important to work long hours, dot you might never have stopped to question, is that really true? Can the four hour work week work? That's another reason why you might not be aware of some of your beliefs. Because you just see them as truth. One way to notice them is while you're journaling or if you're working with the coach. Start to question your own words is this a fact or is this just something that you believe? And in the third group of beliefs, one was about yourself, two about other people, and three is about the world in general. So thinking things such as the world is going great and things are improving, or the world is all collapsing and perishing, especially at the moment. Depending on how you see these things, you will find evidence out there to confirm it. So if you believe that it's a wonderful place to live, your country, your town, the world itself, you will find evidence that it's a lovely place. If you think all people are rude and disagreeable, you will find proof to validate this. What does this mean? This means that two people that have the exact same day but a totally different set of belief will perceive the world differently and feel differently about it. So that was the first aspect, beliefs. The second aspect is the discipline of the mind through how we manage our own thoughts. I remember years ago, I never used to even consider that we can change our thoughts. But think about it. If you choose to focus on an apple right now, you will see an apple in your head and any word I say, see an elephant, you'll see an elephant. You can actually do this to yourself. And not just with apples or elephants. You can think to yourself, let me now, instead of worrying about X, focus on this report. I want to finish. We do this all the time. We're not aware a lot of the time that we have the ability to do this. We have the ability to switch our thoughts in our mind like a television channel setting. What's even more powerful is that then if we catch a thought that we don't want to have that isn't helping us or serving us in any way, we can pause it and we can literally put it away. If it is useful, if it is something you need to think about, but now isn't the right moment, then you can maybe make a note, write it down, place it for later. But some of our thoughts are utterly useless because of the amygdala, which is a more reptilian side of our brain, the old brain that wants to keep us safe. They might suddenly choose to focus on someone that looks suspicious. Oh, let me place all of my thoughts and focus on this because I want to keep you safe, says the amygdala. But that's not a very useful thought if that person isn't suspicious at all. And this is when the prefrontal cortex that's a more advanced part of our brain takes over and says, oh, actually, that person's fine, we can put that thought away. This is just an example with one suspicious thing, but you can do the same if you're in a bad mood because the weather isn't good. You can also switch that thought off. That's also not helping you yet. How many people get stuck every single day feeling annoyed or grumpy or upset because one email didn't go right, or because it's raining and they wanted to be sunny, or it's sunny but it's too hot. All these thoughts you can change. And this leads me to the third thing that is essential that we can change in our own mind, which are the emotions. This is a topic, I'm really passionate about it. I will definitely cover more episodes and videos and articles on the topic of emotions, but very briefly, in the same way that we can manage our own thoughts. And yes, this is true, you can manage your own thoughts. You can also manage your own emotions. I'll go through a brief process where you can do this. First of all, identify what triggered a certain change in emotion. Was it a comment? Someone just said, was it something that just happened? If you can't identify it, that doesn't matter. That's not the most important, but that's a starting point. The most important part is to identify it and be aware of it. This means both being able to put a label on it and actually feeling it in your body. When you feel excited, your whole body feels totally different to when you're upset or angry or surprised. And once you raise the awareness of your emotion, several things happen. First of all, the sooner you catch it, the sooner you can change it. And second of all, if you're aware of it, you can, yes, either stop it from exploding or going up, but also take a moment to see what's happening. Because here's what most of us do when we have an emotion that's disagreeable and doesn't suit us, we distract ourselves. We'll start doing something else. Go online, take out a phone, turn on television. We'll distract ourselves. This works to change our emotions a bit, but doesn't really solve it deep down because the emotion coming up is like a small child that wants attention. It says listen to me. And if you just ignore it and get distracted, it comes back later. So coming back to my point triggers number 1. Second point is awareness. Noticing that emotion and then it's taking a bit of time out and this can literally be two minutes that will be more effective than distracting yourself. It means getting up, leaving the computer, the conversation, whatever's going on, sitting on your own in a room or a different space, and breathing. This takes practice because like I said, we want to distract ourselves. But the more we get into the habit of noticing when something's up and taking a tiny bit of time out, two minutes, five minutes breathing, just being on your own, no phone, no distractions, the easier it is to recenter yourself and continue. And if you develop this ability to manage your emotions in this way, you will have a superpower that many people still are struggling to develop. And once you can manage your beliefs, your thoughts and your emotions, nothing will get in the way. Because think about it, all the things that happen, all the strategies you put in place, everything out there comes from these beliefs. Your thoughts, your perceptions, your emotions. And when you're in control of them, then you can achieve any goal you want to. Really, that part is easy. Managing your emotions is a lot harder. One last point about emotions is if you want to generate certain emotions in yourself to make yourself feel better, this is also part of emotional management. Then you can either use specific anchors, which are gestures or words or affirmations to put you in that state. Or you can use something that generally changes your body and physiology. This can be certain type of breathing, it can be exercise, it can be going for a walk, it can be listening to a music that inspires you and makes you feel happy. But finding the things that provoke these emotions in you and the more you put them in your life, the more you'll feel that way. It's like a mathematical equation. Add the things that bring you that joy, you will feel more joy and happiness. Add the podcasts or YouTube videos that inspire you, you'll feel more inspired. So this is an overview of some of the fundamentals and some of the fundamental ways of influencing your own mind so that you can achieve the success and fulfillment that you deserve. Because it is my core belief, and this is a belief that every person out there deserves to be happy, fulfilled and successful with what they're doing. So implement these. Let me know how it works for you and what you've managed to transform in your own life. And thank you so much for listening. Bye.

[14:45] Thank you for listening to the Focus B show. We would love to hear your feedback. Let us know in a review how this episode inspired you. Keep buzzing.