Reflecting Back to Move Forward: The Importance of Perspective and Gratitude

Have you heard the myths that self-reflection is a waste of time, that perspective doesn't matter in the beauty industry, and that focusing on personal growth is a distraction from business success? The truth is that self-reflection and perspective are crucial for salon owners and beauty professionals to cultivate a positive mindset and drive business growth. But how can you harness the power of self-reflection and perspective to transform your business and personal life? Stay tuned for the game-changing truth.

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Reflecting on your perspective can lead to profound insights.
• Celebrate wins, embrace learnings, and fuel your growth.
• Shift your mindset to positivity for unstoppable success.
• Overcome fear and irrational thoughts to unlock limitless potential.
• Express gratitude and acknowledge achievements for continued motivation.

Every single learning is a learning. There is no negative or positive learning. That is just learning, that is just experience.

Reflective Clarity and Growth: Gaining clarity through self-reflection is pivotal for both personal and professional growth. Reflecting on your past actions, decisions, and the lessons learned provides insights to navigate your future. It allows you to understand how far you've come, identify areas of improvement, and continue to grow in your journey.

The resources mentioned in this episode are:

• Download the complimentary workbook Reflecting on My Year of Growth and Success from the resources library on the website focusgdt.com to guide you through self-reflection and set your mindset for success.
• Register for the upcoming virtual retreats on pricing strategies and goal setting at focusgdt.com/retreats to gain valuable insights and strategies for your business.
• Follow Focus GDT on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at @focusgdt for more tips, insights, and updates on business growth and success.

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Transcript

00:00:00
Welcome to beyond the mirror with your hosts Adrienne Wager and Jody Field. In this podcast, Adrienne and Jodie take you on an intriguing journey beyond the surface, deep diving into the world of business in the hair, skin, beauty and wellness industries. From business success tips and marketing hacks, to industry insights and trends, it's all here. They leave no stone unturned. You.

00:00:26
So get ready to unlock your full potential, evaluate your business, leave behind the limitations, and embrace the endless possibilities that lie beyond the mirror.

00:00:52
Hello, everyone, and welcome. It's great to be back for our first episode of the year. Happy new year. It's episode 14. I'm Jody Fielden, and I'm joined by my work wife, bestie, and business partner, Adrienneenne Varga.

00:01:06
During these podcasts, we share with you how you can leverage your passion into profit. Whether you're looking to launch into the next phase, take time away from the floor, or you're looking to sell your business and cash out your investment, you're in the right place, because we've just about done it all. And we're here to share with you that you can too, because it's time to believe your business can be everything you ever wanted. Absolutely. And hello, everyone.

00:01:29
Welcome, welcome. Happy new year. Happy 2024. And we thought today's episode, we start the new year in this, today's episode, we will start the new year talking about the importance of self reflection and perspective. Yeah, we've all been definitely doing some self reflection this year.

00:01:52
Everyone's having a good close look at where they've come from and it's just that time of year, isn't it? Yeah, we are just coming back from holiday, so our brain is still a little bit scattered. We're still on island time, being at Copa, so it's very much summer beach, island time. It's so hard to get back to work. Absolutely, I know.

00:02:17
And I guess that leads us into the first point about perspective, the perspective of where you are and where you've come from. And is the glass half full or half empty? Yes, absolutely. And I think this is one of the most important part of self reflection. When you sit down beginning of the year and you look backwards to the previous year, and perspective is extremely important because your idea about how your year was, it comes back to perspective or the way you are seeing things.

00:02:56
Are you seeing things as glass half full or half empty? Because many times happens, when we look back towards a year backwards, normally what happens? We focus on the things, what we didn't achieve, what we missed achieving, and then we need to teach ourselves to reflect on really what we achieved. Because honestly, if we're looking back little bits and pieces that adds up and maybe one or two big things, what you really wanted to achieve, you didn't achieve it. Maybe it's in a process of achieving, but you sort of see it as a half empty glass, which is not serving you and which is not serving your thinking.

00:03:49
And this why I thought when we going to think about and talk about in our episode today, talk about the self reflection and reflecting back, just really think about what will serve your mindset and mentally what will serve you. And you really need to focus on and finding all those hundred little elements, what you already accomplished, what you already did, what made you to grow. And many times happens that we have plans, but when we have plans, then things are changing. And maybe you don't achieve what you wanted, but something much, much better came out of it. Yeah, definitely.

00:04:40
And I think the perfect example is one of the clients that we're working with this week, and I had the meeting with her, and she's been going through everything, and it turns out that Adrienneana did her tracking and her pricing, and she was making more money than what she was, like three months ago, substantially, like quite a bit more. You'd have to quickly crunch the numbers for the percentage. But she wasn't seeing it in her bank account. And she's like, I don't get it. It's not showing.

00:05:17
I'm not making any more money than what I was before. So we went back and we looked over the numbers, and she was actually making $300. She was taking home $300 more a week than what she was six weeks ago. But because she was reinvesting that money back into a business, she wasn't seeing the money in her bank account. And to be able to realize that I actually am better off than what I was six weeks ago, but because she was reinvesting it, she didn't think she was.

00:05:58
So she was still seeing the glass half empty. She wasn't seeing everything that she was doing and how much she was growing her business by looking at it from that different perspective. Yes. And I think all these things are very valuable. And also just personally, for us, we do a lot of self reflections, and even during the year, sometimes we stop and breathe and look back how far we came.

00:06:26
Because sometimes you do so many things and you don't feel like you are moving forward unless you stop and you look back and then you realize, oh, my God, how much we grown, how much we learned. Yes. We changed directions a couple of times. A couple of times. But we are growing, we are moving forward.

00:06:48
And I think this why perspective is extremely important and it's very important for us to understand that our focus needs to be on what we achieved and what we have. And that can be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of little things apart from the things what you didn't achieve. Because if you focus on what you didn't achieve, it can be only one or two things, but your mind can fixate on that really badly and you attract what you focus. So if you are focused on your failures, what normally people say, like, I failed or I didn't succeed. And this is when I talk to people, when they say to me, I didn't succeed last year, I didn't succeed with what I wanted to succeed with.

00:07:44
Normally I ask, just think about for a moment, what if you didn't have to succeed and learning was enough? What would you do? Because what we consider not succeeding is actually learning. And that's good enough to move you towards on your journey. Exactly.

00:08:09
And I think it's really important to celebrate those wins. You really need to look at even those learnings that you're talking about, that things didn't go quite the right way, but you know not to do them again. Or you know that you need to pivot and you need to celebrate that you learned to pivot or that you were able to take away something from it instead of seeing it as a failure. So that in itself, having the right perspective is a celebration of your winning or the learnings that you've had. Yeah.

00:08:47
And then I think it's really important that we just shift our focus and focusing on all the positive things because that will create our mindset, which you can carry on like year after year. And that mindset is definitely going to help you to move forward and move through, to be able to push through hard times. And I think you also need to really acknowledge your success of these successes, whether they're big or little, and having your mindset changing and really having that growth focus and that positivity needs to be acknowledged that I am really doing well. It may not be what I was expecting it. This isn't how I thought it would look.

00:09:40
But I'm still here and I'm learning and I'm growing. Even if my bank account doesn't look like it's growing at the moment, I'm still growing. Whether it's developmentally reinvesting stuff back into your business and just all the experiences that you go through. Yeah. And this is the next point, what we wanted to talk about, really celebrating your wins and learnings.

00:10:05
So this is when you're going to shift your focus to something, what you achieved. Because every single learning is a learning. There is no negative or positive learning. That is just learning, that is just experience. And then when it comes to your wins, you need to remember, because many times we do have little wins.

00:10:28
But if you don't write it down, if you don't journal, if you don't create a document for yourself, we just shift through all those wins and all those positive things, and then one negative things happen. And that one negative thing is just wipes off everything. All the 50 or 100 good little wins. And we just keep focusing on that negative thing because fear kicks in. And that's really a driver for people.

00:10:59
And once fear kicks in, most of us, we don't know how to deal with that emotion, fear, because when we fearful, we create images in our mind. And our subconscious mind is a picture based mind. So fear kicks in. We have these pictures in our mind, we're creating scenarios. And most of the time those scenarios, they don't even happen.

00:11:27
And I will share a very personal story about it. Jodie already knows because this is my. And I'm still working on it, to let this fear go. Sometimes when I imagine that my financials are not where I have to or I want it to be, then I have this fear kicking in that I going to end up on the street as a homeless person. I won't have a house, I won't be able to eat properly.

00:11:59
And this fear kicks in. And I have the awareness of this fear. It's in my mind. It's a picture in my mind. Am I ever going to be homeless?

00:12:09
I don't think so. My finances doesn't show it that way unless I make it doesn't. I usually turn around and say, it's okay, Adrienneana, we've got a tent out the back, we've got the apartment downstairs. It's all right, you won't be homeless.

00:12:32
Yeah. It's just so unreasonable. And it happens. So this is when awareness needs to kick in. And for me, I have certain process I go through when this comes up, and thanks God, it's coming up less and less and less.

00:12:50
But it is valid and it happens. So if it happens to you, if you find hard to focus on your wins and learnings, just start with very little. Start with one or two things, what you can consider as the positive thing in your life right now. And this is when we go back to basics, can I breathe properly? Yes, I can breathe properly.

00:13:14
Am I healthy? Is my body functioning? Am I living in a nice environment right now? So all those things, what we take granted, and one of my biggest part of my gratitude list is the hot water. I love hot water.

00:13:32
And I always think even if it's cold outside and I can still have a hot shower, I'm very grateful for the fact that I can have a hot shower. So when we think about our wins and learnings, I think many times we think it needs to be something huge, something big. But if you cannot come up with something straight away because your mind is still focusing on the negative, just go back to basics. Just go back to be thankful that you are healthy, that you can breathe, that you can walk, that you can work, you still have a job or a business, or you still have beautiful people around you. Just start with that.

00:14:15
Yeah. I always find that it's the simple things that coming back and just being so grateful, okay, my kids are healthy, my husband, all these little things, layer upon layer. And you can slowly then start working towards the bigger things and the more materialistic things that you're grateful for, that you have. But I think you're right. It's really important to start with those elements that are actually the true measure of are you safe and grateful?

00:14:50
Yeah. Okay. That brings us to the next one that ties up. When we were talking about the challenges or failures and how to look at them as a lesson, we were talking about that we need to look at them as a lesson and change our perspective. But how can you actually change your perspective?

00:15:11
Because a lot of people go, oh, yeah, everyone's telling me to do it, but how can I change my perspective? Yeah. So this is something which many people struggle with, and I will be very honest about it, it takes practice. It's not just like for very positive people, it could come naturally. I consider myself an extremely positive person.

00:15:36
But still, sometimes when I get one punch after the other punch after the other punch, I'm just like, far out. What else? And this is when you need to sit back, because in every negative thing, what we consider negative, that is actually a positive thing. When you see the learning side of it, when you say, well, I went for a ride, this person could betray me. But what I learned, I'm never going to get into this situation ever again.

00:16:12
And instead of perfect example. Sorry, I was just going to say the perfect example before we move on from that is when we first started marketing. Do you remember when we first our first year, and we started marketing and we invested everything we had at the time.

00:16:31
When I say we did everything, we put everything back in the very beginning. And we were just so disillusioned and disappointed and taken for the ride that Adrienneana is talking about. And we're sitting there going, what's happened? And we had that moment of being grateful for what we have, and Adrienneana turned around and gone, well, this is a like that money has been a very expensive lesson, but it's a lesson about how we can't just pay someone else to do something that we really need to be having control of ourselves. So I just want to throw that in there.

00:17:12
That even though you think it is devastating, that moment when you can step in and Adriennean is really good at it, is to be able to step in and say, okay, well, did we learn something from it? And if we learned something from it, then it's not a failure. It may be expensive and painful, and you just shift from it. Your focus is not going to be about the happening or what happened. Your focus is going to be, this is what I learned.

00:17:51
And many times when I have learnings, I actually write down my learning, because once you hold that pen and you put that pen on paper, it's a neurological connection going to click in, in your mind. And once you write it down, what happens is just going to give you a very deep learning. So it's very important for salon owners, to the owners, many times happens that our team or our staff don't behave the way we expect them or they leave us in not a nice way. And many times we are devastated because we think, and we know that we did absolutely everything what we could and what we were capable for, but it still wasn't enough. And this is when you need to see both side, and then you need to make those learnings, or need to write down those learnings, because those learnings are your little diamonds for the rest of your life.

00:18:58
And that's, again, our choice. That's, for us, which side we want to move towards to we want to keep in our mind we were betrayed or like it was something wrongdoing or whatever, and just focusing on that. And I know people, one of my best friend is really good about hanging on to all the negative things and bringing up, and bringing up. She's actually working on it now, but she is really good about it. And then when I suggested to her, look, why are you focusing on and bring it back?

00:19:36
So you're going to live emotionally again in the same thing instead of letting go, thanking for the experience, learn it and move on. And that's it. It's for me in my mind, almost like I shut the door and I have a hallway between two doors. And in that little time when I walk through that hallway, this is when I make my learnings. And then I open the new door, and then it's done and dusted.

00:20:05
I never go back. I never go back to reflect back on the same thing and the experience. What you mentioned before, our first marketing person who looked after our marketing, and we had no idea what she was doing, and she was taking us for a ride, and that was our forward because we didn't know and we could have stopped her earlier, but we didn't do it because we were too busy with other things. And we just like, no, it will work. It will be fine.

00:20:40
And I kept going back for a while because it was so hurtful. It was $30,000 hurtful. This is the one thing that I've actually seen Adrienneana hold on to it. I've seen some, lots of, like, between us, we've been together, what, 13 years? It's coming up to 14 years in a couple of months.

00:21:04
And this is the first time I've really seen Adrienneana. Like, she was stuck on it. Because normally Adrienneana's method is okay, especially if she's sad or something like that. It's like you give yourself a certain amount of time that you're allowed to wallow in that feeling, and then you're like, okay, that's it. I'm done and dusted.

00:21:26
Usually it's 24 hours. I'm talking Adriennean. It was a lot longer than 24 hours this time.

00:21:35
It was a big sting, and we want to give ourselves a little bit of a sideways, but being able to, it was a big lesson, and we were able to actually get to that point where we could turn around and go, you know what? It was an expensive lesson, but it was a valuable lesson.

00:21:59
And where we are at now, honestly, looking back, we should be extremely thankful for this person and podcast. I'm so thankful for you because you put us on a path when we realize we have to learn everything and we learn so many skills and we put so many effort in it. But now when we outsource marketing, at least we understand what we are doing and we know who is the right person for our business. So looking back, and that was like two and a half years ago. I think it was around two and a half years ago.

00:22:39
Yeah, it's really great. Yeah. And the way we grew or grew and changed. It's really because of we said, well, we cannot have this experience anymore. I'm not willing to put another 30,000, alas, into a learning experience.

00:23:00
This is one investment of learning and I'm done. So the next investment was different coaches and courses and learning everything. But that investment was good because we gained, but it was also the different. We gained a lot of knowledge, but we gained a completely new perspective. It wasn't the most pleasant way of being taken up to the viewing tower, but it gave us a really good perspective of what we needed to do and what we needed to learn.

00:23:33
And now we are able to teach that. We share that with our clients so that they don't make the same mistakes. They can avoid that. Usually most people have a little bit of that experience, but if we can help people avoid it, we always do. Yes, absolutely.

00:23:53
And that takes us to our next thing, what we wanted to talk about today, and that was the importance of acknowledging our success. And this is really good when you have a one year looking back, because success is. Sometimes I think when people think about success, they think about huge things. I bought a house, I bought a car, or I went to a three month trip or whatever. But you can be successful in so many little things in your personal life, in your business life and everywhere else.

00:24:31
And I think when it comes to acknowledging success, say journaling is a very good tool. When you reflect back on your day, on the micro level, and then every single day you can remember all those positive experiences. Sorry. All those positive experiences you can remember. So you don't need to look back over a year time.

00:25:02
So if remembering for a year backwards for a year is a problem, and normally it could be because it's such a long time and there's so many things happening, I would really encourage you just open a booklet, like a workbook or something, and every single day write down three things which was positive. Yeah. Writing it down is really important and it's something that I haven't gotten into the habit to and I think I'm going to make that one of my goals for this year is to be writing down my successes. Yeah. And it doesn't need to be too many.

00:25:42
Like, if you can just remember three or five things a day and it doesn't need to be a huge, like 500 words or 1000 words, sometimes what I write down is actually five words or ten words. And I think that's really, I was just going, oh, okay. Just the five words. I can do the five words. The ten words, or that might get.

00:26:11
My attention span is not that long, but I can definitely get in the five words. Yeah. And also, I share one other secret. What I used to do, I'm not doing it right now because I'm in a very good headspace, but I used to have, a couple of years ago, I used to have quite a challenging time, and it was really difficult for me to focus on positive things. So I actually written down, I think it was a list of 15 really positive things.

00:26:39
This is the basic ones, like, I can breathe, I have a healthy body, whatever. And I made that list, and I actually stuck that list on the side of my bedside table. So when I woke up in the morning, I always woke up on my right side. And when I opened my eyes, I actually saw the list, and I was reading the list. And this is how I started my day.

00:27:07
And the importance of this, because when we wake up in the morning, we have these 30 minutes when our brain is still in that hypnotic state. And whatever you feed your brain with or your mind with in that 30 minutes is going to set your day. So I think that's something which not many people know. No, I didn't know that. I think I might start taking advantage of that, especially with Graham.

00:27:39
I'll have a recording to wake him up with my voice, telling him all the things that he needs to do for the day. For me, I'm not quite sure how positive is that for him.

00:27:54
It's positive for me.

00:27:59
Well, that brings us back to. Well, the next thing that we were going to talk about was the five things that we're grateful for. So what are your five things at the moment? My five things at the moment that I live in a beautiful place, in a really lovely house with my neighborhood, is absolutely amazing, quiet, beautiful people. And I feel like I'm a multibillionaire, because where I live, I'm not paying that much for it, and it's not that expensive, but I live in a beautiful place, and I can start my morning to walk my doggie on the beach.

00:28:41
I do my exercise every single morning. I can afford organic food, which is absolutely amazing. It's very important for then, you know, I have a beautiful business partner in Jodi, which I'm really grateful, because when you are starting a business, it's really nice to have support. It's really nice to have someone who wants exactly the same thing, what you want for yourself for different reasons, but who is willing to do everything out of her power. So I'm very grateful for focus, for the company, what we created, and also very grateful for the people who I have around me.

00:29:23
And that's including our coaches, including my very few friends, not many, but very few, and very dear friends. And I'm very grateful that my parents are here in Australia right now and visiting us for four months, which is amazing because we couldn't see them for five years. So I think this is already more than five. So I think maybe you could share the five things. What you are grateful for, I am grateful for my children is one for how perfectly matched they are for me.

00:30:03
So I look at like, if you've been listening to the podcast, you'll know that I've got two autistic children, and one of them is severely autistic, nonverbal. I look at other people, other parents with their kids, and I think I could not cope. I'm so grateful that I have the children that are perfectly matched for me and what I can support, and I love them so dearly, and I would never change a thing about them. The second thing is that I'm so grateful for my husband again. He's the perfect.

00:30:39
He is the ying to my yang. He's all calm and Mr. Zen most of the time. But we're complete opposites in most things. So I'm grateful for that.

00:30:52
And then Adrienneana, I'm grateful for you because Adrienneana is my work wife. Adrienneana and Graham are the same personality. Very similar personality and traits and strengths and everything that complements all my crazy. They are what balances me out. So those three things I'm eternally grateful for, and I'm very blessed.

00:31:17
I don't think many people can say that they have so much harmony in their immediate circle, in their life. So I'm very grateful for that. And yes, where we live, we are extremely blessed. We're in a beautiful part of the world. We have the beach at our fingertips.

00:31:35
We have beautiful nature. So very blessed about where we live. How many is that? That's four, five.

00:31:48
You'll like this one, because it's how much I've grown. I feel grateful for my health. Amazing.

00:32:00
I went on a journey, what was it last year? And we found out that I didn't prioritize my health as much as I prioritized other things. And so now, especially in light of recent things and stuff going on, I'm very grateful that I have the health that I have. And I guess one of the things I still need to work on is being better about my health. We've always had been on organic and chemical free and all the rest of it, but actually just making sure that my health, from top to bottom and inside and out, needs to be priority.

00:32:45
So I'm grateful that I've learned that lesson. Yeah, absolutely. And then look at us, a list of five for both of us. It took for us a couple of minutes to come up with. And it is because we are so focused on the positive things, we are consciously every single day working towards to think positively and seeing the positive in everything.

00:33:08
So when our audience is going to decide, someone is going to decide to think about the five things, it might will take a little bit longer for you. So don't feel pressurized, because we just came up very quickly with our positives. I actually practicing positivity since I was around 15, so very long time ago I started to do it, and my gratitude list started with, I think, four or five things, and I have almost three or four, a four pages full with positive things if I have to go back. But because I programmed my mind to focus on positive, it's so easy for me to come up with if someone is asking or if I have to give examples. It just comes naturally because that's in my subconscious programming.

00:34:03
That's in my subconscious mind. Yeah. And look, it's something that I learned very young as well, but not in as much as Adrienneana has. Very conscious about it, and she's been a lot more proactive in focusing on it. But I always remember, and it goes back to where Adrienneana was talking about the hot shower and just all those basics, was that my little brother came to live with me when I was 22 and he was 15.

00:34:38
And back in those days, I was working three jobs and always worried about, can I pay the power and how am I going to make ends meet and how am I going to pay the bills? Oh, the reggio's coming up. And all that fear of failing and not having enough money for tomorrow, that when Graham and I got together, I used to stockpile baked beans and spaghetti because I had this for years. I've only stopped doing it in probably the last, I don't know, ten years. Yes, but I used to stockpile canned goods in the back of the cupboard, just in case if I ever lost my job or I couldn't.

00:35:27
But I used to lie there, and when I'd be having these panic attacks and I'd be going, I have my health. Being a hairdresser, I can get work anywhere at any time. So I'd go through this list of all the things that I have. That means it doesn't matter if I lose my job or there's something like that that I can do and I'm going to be safe. So I think that really ties in with, I wish I had have known back then to be able to write them down, because it would have made those moments much easier to get through if I could just quickly turn to all the positives.

00:36:12
Yes, absolutely.

00:36:16
Look, there is no the right time to start to reflect on your journey or on your life if you didn't do it before, the best way and the best time to start it right now. And I think it's very important for us to practice self care and self love, because many times when people realize something, what they should have done or could have done, then they stride away, start to become really hard and harsh on themselves, like how stupid I am, why I never thought about that. And then they're going down spirals. And yes, they don't have that positive relation. You've got some birds, Adrienneana.

00:37:06
You may hear all the birds in the background at Adrienneana's, which is hilarious because she has this big, beautiful franjapeni and some native australian bushes straight outside the window where she is overlooking, there's a big nature reserve with cliff face and the ocean, like an ocean, rock, beach, and everything down just behind where she is. And those birds all come up and are going nuts there outside her window. So if you hear, they're not birds in a cage, they're the wildlife that has come to pay Adrienneana a visit.

00:37:44
It's the afternoon. That'll teach you for putting out their seeds, the positive relationships that we have around us. And I think that's really highlighted by the positive relationships are the people that can help you see the positive instead of highlighting the negative. And one of the clients that I was talking about this morning, her husband and parents and that were telling her, just go back and work for someone else. There's lots of negativity because that's the way they look at things and watching as she tries to evolve and change her pattern of thinking.

00:38:27
So it's really important. And I think one of the benefits of her working with Adrienneana so closely is I can see that that positivity is starting to change. And the way that she doesn't let the negativity and the doubts and the fear of everyone else, she's actually able to move through that now instead of being drawn down into the fear. So being able to have people around you that are positive and uplifting and want to see you succeed and want everything the best for you and they're there for you rather than them being there for their own.

00:39:19
Yeah. Adrienneana says it better. Yeah. When it comes to relationships, your environment shapes you. So if you are in a negative environment, that negative environment is going to have an effect on you.

00:39:35
And when you make a decision that you had enough from the negativity and you start to work towards to be positive, then normally what will happen? Those people, they feel uncomfortable because you are stepping outside of your comfort zone. You are not the same person anymore and that makes them to feel uncomfortable. And this is when you really need to look back and understand those relationships and understand the relationship which are positive and have positive effects on you. Because really we will choose on we are capable or we are able to choose our environment.

00:40:22
But sometimes we don't realize that we have this power because we are so used to our comfort zone, we are so used to our environment that we don't even realize that there is something else, something better out there. So I think it's very important for us at the beginning of the year to look back and reflect on all those relationship which were positive and which helped us to move towards to the positive way and also look back all those relationship which were offering for us learnings. And maybe it was a tough time when you had to go through that experience, but reflect on the learnings, which is very important because those learnings, those experiences are gifts. And if we use those things in the right way, there is no other way for us just to grow. And also we need to go through experiences in life, because if we don't, then it's very difficult for us to understand other people, where they are at, what they are struggling with.

00:41:35
And it all comes back to experiences. And I would say most of the big teachers or big coaches or people who are teaching about life, those people, they went through so many experiences and those people's life generally quite difficult. Lots of challenges, lots of things. What they had to solve and have to walk through and walk past. And those experiences, they gained learning out of it.

00:42:09
And this is why they are where they are right now. They are able to help people who are just actually going through that path because they already done it, so they can help. And it's exactly the same with everything, isn't it? It is. And that leads me on to talking about reflecting and relationships.

00:42:31
You've written a book, Adrienneana has written a book, and it's called reflecting on my year of growth and success. Would you like to tell us a little bit about that book and how it can help people actually reflect on their year and focus on the positives. Yeah. So this is just a little workbook booklet. So this is only 14 pages.

00:42:55
But what I did, I wanted to do a self reflection for myself. And the way I was going through, I had the idea, you know, what if I going through for myself, it might can be really helpful for others, too. So I just created this little booklet. When you're going to do a little bit of a journaling, do a little bit of looking back, and this booklet is going to guide you through step by step, and it's going to be very valuable. And we're going to offer this for absolutely complimentary for you guys who are listening to us.

00:43:31
You just need to go to our website and download it from our resources library, but it's going to help you to stop for a moment, breathe and go through the exercises. 14 pages and six different reflections. What I did for myself, and I think it was absolutely great to set my mindset and set me up for success for this year. And also it's so motivational and it creates such a positive environment for yourself because you really take time to think about it. And the way I did it, I actually went through very slowly.

00:44:15
And sometimes I even crossed over what I've written down a day before or two days before, and I actually reflected again and I find even more positive things around it. So, yes, it's a little. Do you want to show? Yeah, I can show. Why don't you show it?

00:44:35
All right, let me show us. Adrienneana just needs to go and work out how to. I've put her on the screen layer. Press shift. Oh, my God.

00:44:47
I don't know how to do this. But I can. You can. You'll be right. I don't know.

00:44:54
You usually know how to drive these things better than I do. You're the professional, I'm just the sidekick. No, that's not that.

00:45:04
You'll watch Adrienneana now. She's going to go through all the different modes. Yeah. I don't know how to share, like normally. Here we go.

00:45:13
I know how to share. You know how to share? You can do it. Is that the button that says present? Give me 1 second.

00:45:21
So here we go. Now I know how to do it. There we go. There we go. So this is the booklet, what I created.

00:45:33
So it's basically reflecting on my year to growth and success. Unfortunately, on the screen doesn't show too well, but I just. Going to full screen? Yeah.

00:45:47
Let me see if I can drive. Just let me see if I can drive so that we don't have that at the top of the screen.

00:45:58
Hooray. There we go.

00:46:02
Between the two of us, we can usually figure something out. Yeah, absolutely. So this booklet, or playbook or whatever you want to call it, is called reflection on my year of growth and success. So we're going to reflect on six different things and I will show you. So it's going to have an introduction for you, what you can read through.

00:46:26
It's all setting up our mindset for positive. And I've written this in the first person, so it's you. It's all about you. And you just read through all the instructions and then you're going to understand the steps, what you need to take in order to fill out this booklet. So the first section is celebrating my wins and learnings.

00:46:51
And here an explanation about what you need to do and quite lots of space for you to write it down. It's almost like journaling, but it's just not a daily journaling. You just go back for a year. And the next one is reflecting on positive relationships, which is very important for us to feel grateful or to be grateful for all the positive relationships we have. And then the next one is acknowledging my success, which we were talking about here in our podcast.

00:47:25
The next one is seeing the glass us full and I think it's very important. And then the next one is what are the five things I'm grateful for this year? And the last one is challenges to overcome. I think it's very important for us to understand all those challenges and frustrations or happenings which weren't positive, and we overcome those ones. I think it's very important to find out what were those challenges and also what we were learning out of that experience.

00:48:04
And then just a couple of notes place here for you. And then at the end there is a conclusion and I just made little snippets of information and that's it basically. So I think I'm just going to try to get us back here. Here we go. Yes.

00:48:29
So, guys, if you are interested and if you always wanted to reflect back and you didn't know how to do it, this is my way. This is how I do it for myself. And I'm more than happy to share with you. All you need to do is go to our website, focusgdt.com. And in the toolbar up the top, you'll be able to see resources or you can type in focusgdt comresources and you will be able to go in and grab that book.

00:49:06
There's also a heap of other resources that we've got in there that you may like to peruse through. That brings us to the end of our podcast. Quick shout out. We have our retreat coming up. We've got our first one next week and then we have our second one on February.

00:49:28
Now, Adrienneana, help me with the date. What date is it? Well, I won't be able. I think it's end of February. We have so many dates going on.

00:49:37
But this year what we decided to do, we decided to run and organize two days.

00:49:51
So this year we decided to run two days virtual retreats, which is going to focus on mindset and business elements to work on. And in these two days we will finalize and finish around two to three months worth of work. We notice that these days everyone wants to get things done and they rather set aside two days, three days to work on their business. And it's more efficient than it used to be a couple of years ago when everyone wanted to have a digital experience, learning everything in their own time and having that flexibility. But it took longer.

00:50:38
So this year we are focusing on retreats. We have retreats on getting your pricing right and addressing the feeling guilty because changing the price and asking the right price for your services. And we have retreats coming up which are all about planning goal settings and understanding where you are right now and where you want to be and setting the right goals. So that's what we are focusing on. The next retreat is going to be very soon, in a couple of days, and then the next one is going to be in February.

00:51:18
That's right. So some of the things I'll go through some of the points. So we will be creating a business mindset focused on finding solutions, business foundations and fundamentals, what to track and what numbers mean in their business and how those numbers dictate the choices that you make and creating specific goals and outcome strategies for your prices. So that you're pricing with purpose instead of guessing when you can price with purpose. It empowers you and you're able to be confident when you do increase those prices.

00:51:57
And when people question you, you know exactly why you're charging, what you're charging, why you're charging, and that you're providing the value. So that is going to be a big part of it. Again, you can go to focusgdt.com retreats and there's the link in the bottom of the screen. You'll be able to go there and register. There's also a video there.

00:52:26
So if you want to watch more and you want more information, you can watch a video from one of Adrienneana's master classes, the workshop that she did, which is a glimpse in the mirror, and you can watch that, and Adrienneana will go through and explain how those prices actually tie in with everything that you want to do with your business. That's it for us. Like, our time's already up. We've gone way over our usual allotted time, people.

00:53:03
Have we missed anything? Oh, our Instagram and Facebook handles. Adrienneana. Yeah, that's at Focus GDT, and we are on TikTok also. So if you are on TikTok, come find us.

00:53:16
Exactly the same at focus GDt. So all of our social media, the handles are at Focus GDT. And we will see you next time, guys. I think that was it for today and looking forward for 2024.

00:53:34
Well, that was beyond the mirror. Thank you for being a part of this exhilarating adventure. Join Adriennea and Jody next week as they continue to help you unlock the true potential of your business so you can leave your limitations behind and embrace the endless possibilities that lie beyond the mirror. And if you have a burning question that you'd like to feature as a guest on this podcast, just leave us a message at the podcast page@focusgdt.com. So until next time, keep pushing boundaries, keep thriving, and always remember that your success is right here, right now, beyond the mirror.