How to Break Limiting Beliefs, Redefine Success, and Align with Your Purpose with Stephen McConnell

In this powerful episode of The Daring Well Podcast, Rita Mercer sits down with Stephen McConnell — CEO, speaker, NLP coach, and author of the upcoming book The 7 Laws of Personal Mastery. Together, they explore how to redefine success, overcome limiting beliefs, and create sustainable growth without burnout.

Stephen shares his deeply personal journey through addiction recovery, emotional healing, and discovering purpose. He explains how neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and intentional habits can transform both personal and professional growth.

Listeners will learn practical strategies for reframing anxiety, developing healthier thought patterns, building empowering communities, and aligning decisions with core values. This conversation is filled with wisdom for leaders, high achievers, entrepreneurs, and anyone seeking clarity, healing, and authentic success.

In This Episode, We Discuss:

• What neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) really means
• Why identity matters more than goals alone
• Breaking free from limiting beliefs and burnout
• Stephen’s personal journey through alcoholism and healing
• The importance of emotional intelligence and self-awareness
• How to reframe anxiety into excitement
• The impact of community and mentorship on growth
• Aligning your decisions with your purpose and values
• Creating sustainable success without sacrificing peace

Memorable Quotes from the Episode

“Everything in life is going to hurt. You get to choose how you hurt.” — Stephen McConnell

Connect with Stephen McConnell

• Website: https://www.myndsetgrowth.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenmcconnell1/

Transcript

Redefining Success

 to The Daring Well Podcast with Rita Mercer.

Yeah, everything in life, and this is part of us being a human being, everything in life is going to hurt. Do you get to choose how you hurt and how you're prepared for it? And that's the intentional personal mastery part of things.

Hello, my dear.

Welcome back to The Daring Well Podcast. So as we listen to today's episode, I want you to think about what if success did not have to cost you your peace?

What if clarity around your true purpose could really accelerate your growth without all the burnout? So my guest today is Stephen McConnell.

He's here to help us explore how to redefine success, how to align with our true self, and how to learn to take intentional action for personal and professional growth. He's the CEO and the founder of the Growth Mindset Initiative.

He's a speaker, he's a writer, he's a Neuro Linguistic Programming Certified Coach, and he's a Personal Mastery and Leadership Coach. He's got 30 years in the field, in the corporate world, and 20 of those years in manufacturing.

He's the author of a new book that's going to be released this summer, The 7 Laws of Personal Mastery. So he's going to talk about that today in our conversation.

His work centers on helping people achieve clarity through finding their true purpose to accelerate strategic growth without all the burnout.

So I'm excited for Stephen to share more about ways to create new metrics for success, new ways that we can create systems that make sense for us individually, how to achieve clarity, and how to align with our true self, with purpose, with

confidence, and intentional action without all the burnout. So again, thank you. Welcome to The Daring Well Podcast. Welcome, Stephen.

I'm excited for you to share about the book, and I'm excited for you to share ways that we can grow. So tell us a little bit about what is neuro-linguistic programming and then let's jump into our talk today.

2:26

Understanding Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Thank you, Rita.

It's an honor to be here. And neuro-linguistic programming, if you were to go into yourself and break down, let's just say a memory, a simple memory. How is that memory wired within your brain, within your neurological, your nervous system?

It starts with emotions, and then it's filtered through beliefs. And that's really where neuro-linguistic programming is, is how we have learned to program ourselves within our life, within our reality.

So neuro-linguistic programming, how I use it is usually building a system, because I have a manufacturing background for lean six and all of those SOPs and ways to systematize the world, and taking that emotional, that belief system, the

reticulating, activating system, and bridging the two. But think about it, January 1st, did you make a resolution? If you did, did you stick with it to this point?

The reason I bring that up is basic goals, lean six, achievements, all of that is on the logical side of our existence in our brain. That's the prefrontal cortex. We have to believe that we're going to achieve.

We have to believe that we are that future version of ourselves. So, if for health reasons, I'm going to lose five pounds, and by January, by February 1st, you didn't achieve it, you didn't make it, and you said, I don't need to do that.

It's because neuro-linguistically, the identity wasn't there.

That's what I aim to bridge through being an author, through being a personal mastery coach, is bringing the identity and the emotional systems of us as human beings together with reality and the logical systems that we've already built.

There's so many successful systems out there, but bridging the two is what will bring each individual into their own empowerment.

4:50

Stephenʼs Purpose Journey

That's cool.

That's cool. Thank you for breaking that down. It kind of leans into our why.

So I'd love for guests to share their why as to why they do the work that they do, what inspires them. And so talk a little bit about your North Stars.

Talk about, so when we think about professional growth, many times people can't see how to get from A to Z, how to get from A to J, like just middle of the road because they're stuck in the messy middle. And like, how do they get there?

And so I love for guests to be vulnerable, just share pieces of their, why, how they got there, their journey. So talk about your North Star, what got you to encounter the limiting beliefs, like what got you to that point?

Okay. So going back, back, back, back, back, right? I had learned, well, I hadn't learned.

I was coping with alcoholism. I was going through these loops when whether I didn't necessarily hit rock bottom, but there was this slow self-awareness of that my health was deteriorating.

As I sobered up, I then had to go through another phase where I take care of the emotions because I was suppressing the emotional side of me with alcohol. That made me start to become self-aware of what is my purpose. How am I go?

What it wears? Is this all that there is to life? That in and of itself made me realize that as a child, on through, I loved being a purpose, a person of service.

That was where I wanted to go. I saw it throughout my life whether some people even called me arrogant, because all I wanted to do was take care of somebody. Listen, I see this and we need to fix it this way, this way.

They're like, well, how arrogant are you? They were affronted because of the attempt to assist. So, trying to bridge that, my North Star, the big, powerful North Star for me is to solve poverty in the world.

That is the meaningful journey.

I say journey because it is a journey, it's purposely out of reach, it's purposely so far in the sky that I walk in that direction in alignment, knowing that the journey is going to take me to better places while I'm impacting and empowering others.

So, the purpose is to be of service. Growth Mindset Initiative, my business that I've built, is developed so that I begin to address that through the poverty mindset.

And if you think of that's not something that's in your mind, think of a time where you've overthought or you refuse to make a choice, and it was a choice that would benefit you, or even if maybe you're struggling with some sort of addiction, whether

Yeah.

Yeah. And so going through those stages of following your heart, just a servant's heart is what I hear. I hear a servant's heart.

And so following your purpose and even finding yourself in the roles of being a fixer, how did you not learn to navigate that?

The roles of a fixer. Well, there's, as I touched on just previously was, is that at first, I just jump in and push my way in and impose myself.

And I was, you know, some good friends or some leaders or some mentors would pull me aside and be like, that's very arrogant. They didn't want to hear a lot of the solutions or didn't even recognize that there was a problem.

So in that way, I began to burn myself out. I was overthinking and then holding myself back as far as trying to fix or over fixing another solution I knew I could fix. That built those cognitive, well, it didn't build.

I already had the cognitive loops to overthink, to ruminate, to do all of that.

And then learning, through learning to become a Neuro-Linguistic Programming Coach, learning to see self-awareness-wise, see these symptoms, and begin to have the curiosity to say why, where is it triggered from, what emotions are there, how am I

going to build a structure forward? Now, I am still the fixer, but I aim to fix internally first, so that I can walk the path that people are stopping and saying, how can I have that?

And in that way, the fixer is still there, but it's in a healthier, I like to call it routine, than it is a habit for going into the world and pushing my way.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

I love that, Stephen. So thinking about ways that we can, especially for the high achievers, the professionals that are always on, they're always being the fixer. So you get good at something, but you get so good that you don't have the balance.

I know that you've learned balance, and you've also created this system. Hence the book as well.

But talk about what are ways that leaders, leaders, business professionals, high achievers, how can they find ways when they find themselves doing what they're great at, but also do it with balance, do it so they're not always on, doing it so they're

not always putting all this pressure on themselves and burning themselves out. What are some ways, so you said awareness. What are some other ways, getting curious?

What are some other ways that leaders can, and professionals can find ways out of that?

11:47

HOLD System for Growth and Balance

Yeah.

Awareness is the very, very first part of that, and other ways is you have a mentor or a mentorship, or have a community around you. I honestly like to have a community, recommend a community around you that is one step above you.

They see, they've gone through, they're like, and then listen to what they're saying. Often, I'll speak to Toastmasters. Two years ago, I joined Toastmasters, and I never thought myself to be a speaker.

I just wanted to go there so that I could hold workshops, so that I could impact people. These mentors within the club were just way above me, but they all put their arms around me, raising me up.

And in the process of that, we're all at our different levels. We also raised ourselves up, and we raised them up. And I didn't realize it.

Like, here I am, this insignificant person, joined a club. But then I hear time and time again, one of my mentors come to me and be like, that was so valuable. You touched my heart, you've improved my life.

And so, going back to the self-awareness part, there's a system that I like to, I talk about in my book, The 7 Laws, is the Hold System. The Hold System is the habits that we talk about. So it's H-O-L-D-S.

We talk about, the Hold System is habits, becoming aware of your habits, understanding what they're doing.

And a lot of times when we talk about becoming aware of our habits, it is, first and foremost, seeing how you react, or seeing how the other person is reacting to you. Then having a curiosity. Curiosity is a huge benefit to self-awareness.

Once you start to see that, and you start to have a curiosity, well, why did they do that? That's when you start to look inside and say, well, why did I react this way? What was the trigger?

Where am I at? That's a self-awareness builder right there.

Understanding your habits.

Yeah. Then when we go into it, we also go into the outlook. That's the O in the holds system.

The outlook is then as you're going in through this, what's my outlook? How am I thinking of the world? There was an author of a book, and I'm not remembering the book or the author, and I apologize for not giving them their new flowers.

But they talk about that there are different characters out there, and we all can be these characters. You can be the victim, you can be the villain, you can be the sage, you can be the hero, or you can be the neutral person.

The neutral person, things just happen to you, and you don't even, you react maybe, but you don't react in a way. Villain, well, I'll just use the quote, hurt people, hurt people. True.

So if you look at somebody that seems to be a thorn in your side for today, think of them and how are they hurting you, because that's where it stems from.

You're the victim, everything is there, it's a filtration system in their systems to where something is always happening to them. There's no ownership. It's always the world against me.

So external system of control.

Right.

Then the hero is learning ownership and learning to take control, learning to build and grow. The sage or the guide, they are on the other side of that hero. They've been the hero.

They've been all of them. They probably are still all of them, but in this particular sense, they're able to stop and pull other people forwards. They're guiding them.

So, back to the hold system, you have the habits, the outlook. What is your outlook? What are you filtering this reality with?

For me, past life, when I was an alcoholic, the outlook was the world is happening to me. Quite often, it would trigger my anger, which then I become the villain. And so, it's very reactive and not responsive.

In that, there's the next level, which is language. Language, what are you speaking to yourself? And also, how are you speaking?

And once again, self-awareness-wise, if you sit there and have a conversation, and then stop and think about, well, why did I say this? Why did I say that?

You're starting to show symptoms of how you are coming out into the world, and internally, there's reasons for that. So that builds self-awareness. The next one is D, decisions.

Same thing with language as decisions. Why did I decide this? Very curiosity.

I did this thing. Why did I do this thing? Was it aligned with my purpose?

Was it aligned with who I am? And decisions are also things internally that you've decided, no, I'm not going to do that. No, there's this great opportunity.

No, I'm not going to do that. Or, yes, I'm going to do this. I'm so excited, and reframing anxiousness and stress into excitement.

Those are all learned skills there. So then S, S is speaking.

So pause one second, Stephen. How do you, how do you reframe pain, anxiety into, how did you say that?

Yeah, anxiety or stress into excitement.

How do you do that? What is, what does that look like?

Well, first and foremost, a lot of our emotions are the same. So if you think of it as a spectrum, it's not necessarily, I wouldn't, I would love to draw a straight line and say it's beautiful and there it is. This is anxiety and this is excitement.

It's not that case. It's very three-dimensional. Our emotions are three-dimensional.

But the best way I could tell you is, Rita for a second there, I want you to just take a moment and think of a moment where you were feeling anxious and stressful. All right.

Now, drop that, throw that aside, go to a moment where you're just absolutely excited for life.

Now, realize that those two emotions are the same, and that excitement you bring into, this is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, bring it into that moment where you were anxious and stressed. Then, what's the language around that?

The language around that, why would you be excited instead of anxious and stressed?

Now, so what we're hearing here is you're taking the prefrontal cortex, the logical side of our brain, we're pulling our emotions out and going, I can connect this here and here, and then putting it back into emotions and saying, I am nervous for

being on this podcast. Wait, exciting time in my life, I'm excited to be on this podcast. Then in this way, we begin to build the emotional intelligence and understand our feelings, understand our triggers, and grow from there.

This is a system that we all can do, a skill that we can all do, where it starts with the small things, and you slowly practice and build the skill and practice and practice it. You just think about Michael Jordan.

If he never practiced, would he have been as great as he is? Same skill, let's go into the emotions. If we don't practice there, we're not going to build the skills there.

That's the confidence.

Yeah, well, it's so-

You can have two of the emotions at the same time, the anxiety and the excitement at the same time is what I'm hearing.

Absolutely.

It's the same thing. So, what is, a lot of way I think of things, emotions are fleeting, they're moment. You think of something that you don't want to do.

Either you have anxiety and stress for the five to 10 minutes right before doing it, or you associated the label to the action itself.

That's mundane, that's boring, because once you understand where that level of anxiety is, then you can tell yourself, well, this mundane task that I'm so bored to do brings me better clients in so that I can help them.

Well, all of a sudden, it's no longer mundane. It's something that you need to repetitively consistently do to move your passion forwards.

That's good. That's good. So it allows us to look at the anxiety and the excitement without shame, especially the anxiety piece because I think that's where the shame comes in.

It's like, I'm not good enough. I suck at this. And it's like, whatever the belief systems are surrounding that, like you've got to challenge those.

Okay. Thank you for breaking that down. Thank you for breaking that down.

Let's see, I think we were on, we finished up language. So, did we do decisions? Okay.

Decisions and then space.

And one thing you mentioned, and I loved it, I want to just highlight that for your listeners. Shame, guilt, those are belief systems. Those are filters, how we see the world.

And I love how you said it. I just wanted to highlight that. I wanted to pay that forward because this is a beautiful thing that you had said.

So, yeah, back to decisions. Decisions are exactly the same thing. Our Reticulating Activating System is part of our brain.

I referenced it earlier. If you don't know what that is, imagine going out and buying the car of your dreams. And now you're driving down the road and all you see is the car of your dreams.

Everybody else is driving. Your brain has learned to, your nervous system has learned to filter out anything and everything that's only important to you. And if it's not intentional, it's subconscious.

And the subconscious features things for your safety, your security. Therefore, when we say Reticulating Activating System, it's a filtration system. Otherwise, I don't remember how many billion data points that our brain receives.

And without this filtration system, we're not able to function. We just over receive everything.

You can teach and train your Reticulating Activating System to go out, go forth, and see the world as a filter purposely so that you're intentional within it. And this is where decisions are. And I think I went too deep on the decisions part.

But that's really what that is, is the decisions, is how you're filtering, and you can see the external, how you're reacting or responding in the world. And it's also internally what you're choosing not to put out in the world.

For me, for many years, alcohol addiction, all of that, I chose to repress who I was because I felt that it was broken, because I felt that it was wired from, because that I felt that, and through the sobering process, through going through the

different phases of working on my health, working on my emotions, working on my spiritual side, working on my spiritual side, working on my spiritual side, I realize that we are all here for a purpose. The decisions have to align with my purpose.

And then there's space. Space is internal. Do you give yourself space to think, process, reflect?

How do you treat yourself in your home, which is your heart, your body? It's also external. And I had already touched a little bit upon that, the community that you surround yourself with.

Do they drag you down every time you start to raise up? Do they raise you up every time you start to drag down? Those are very important things.

See about who's around you right now. And if this is the first time you've ever heard of this concept, watch them. Watch them.

They are around you because like people like to be around like people. And so if they are pulling you down for one reason or another, that means that you're pulling yourself down for one reason or another. So that's the hold system.

Say that last part again.

If you're around like mounted people, they're either pulling you up or pulling you down. Say that again.

Oh, yeah. Well, our community, the community that we built around ourselves, whether it's conscious, intentional, or subconscious, we tend to be around the people that we are alike. Like people are like people.

And so if you watch them and you see how they are, how they're treating the waitress, we've heard that expression so many times. I watch somebody and how they treat the janitor or how they treat the waitress, and then I judge them.

Well, same concept. The people around you, how do they treat others around you? And in that way, either they're raising you up or holding you down, it starts internally.

Are you raising yourself up or holding you down?

That's powerful. So based on the space, like the space that you are sharing with your people, personally, professionally, absolutely. So talking about fixed mindset, growth mindset, and the limit is not the ceiling, it's you and your belief systems.

And if you choose to stay there, you choose to do something different. And everything, I think as we think about our conversation today, Stephen, everything comes at a cost.

You can choose to be a functional alcoholic, or you can choose to do something different because it's going to cost you something either way. And it's like, what do you want to do to grow? Do you want it bad enough?

Beautiful.

Yeah, everything in life, and this is part of us being a human being, everything in life is going to hurt. Do you get to choose how you hurt and how you're prepared for it? And that's the intentional personal mastery part of things.

That's powerful.

And that's the work that you do.

Yeah.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, as we wrap up, what are some words of wisdom that you want to impart to listeners today as they're thinking about this trajectory of their professional growth, their personal growth, and just wanting to be better?

28:35

Values and Mastery

Well, they've heard the hold system.

I would also simply say that this comes from Roy Disney. And part of my fascination with Roy Disney is Walt Disney, the team dynamics between the two. Think of also Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

There's the visionary and there's the integrator. And I love those team dynamics. I love helping corporations put those team dynamics together.

But Roy Disney had said something that, if you, the more you sit and think about it, the deeper you get on it is when your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.

And I love that quote so much that that's part of the book that I write. That's part of the work that I do with clients is core values. What are your core values?

That's your foundation. That's between who you are and your beliefs. And so, what are the values?

Once you know your values, you're clear on those values, decisions become so much easier.

Values about your family life, values about your spiritual life, the values about your space that you create, your community. Yeah, values are what grounds us. And also, values are what shape us, that teach us, that guide us.

Absolutely, absolutely. Great words of wisdom. I love that.

So, Stephen, as we wrap up today, I've enjoyed our conversation of just learning to be just true to ourselves.

I think that's one of the takeaways that I'm having today is learning to be true to ourselves, learning to just be curious, all the different ways that we can grow and just create systems that make sense for us. Absolutely.

So, what are ways that you best serve clients? So, is it organizations that you best serve? Is it one-on-one?

Is it small teams? Like, what are ways that you best serve? And how can people connect with you?

And share more about the book, when it's going to be released, and what are some goodies that could be expected in the book?

I love one-on-ones. I know that that's not sustainable always. However, I also going into a corporation and just doing workshops and building.

I had one corporation where their culture was very political. And they're like, we've got to change this. We know that the world is changing around us.

The younger generation prefers different values. I love the fact that they were humble about it. Politicalness, and they didn't want to hear it at first, but politicalness in a corporation culture is straightforward.

All the different people in a manipulative phase. You have the people who kiss up, all of that. They're all trying to get their own way.

I loved the transformation that they had as they began to realize the way to build a team dynamic. So I love those corporate workshops, working with people who really care to change and move forward.

Where to reach me is mindsetgrowth.com, and that's My, myndsetgrowth.com. I spelled it that way because you have to have an ownership on your own mindset and growth. So it's My Mindset Growth.

The book, 7 Laws, 7 Laws of Personal Mastery, well, the holds is part of, the holds system is part of the self-awareness chapter within it.

Each chapter has their own system that brings, that brings the emotional, personal, neuro-linguistic programming, the emotional identity that we have into a standard operating system for ourselves.

It helps bridge the two, because, like I said before, as you have goals in life, logically, it sounds great, emotionally, we reject them or identify with them.

That is where this book comes from, is it's bridging those, through 7 Laws, each part of your life, who you are, your emotional side of things, and then bringing it into habit forming and through the routinization, so it saves you time because your

brain naturally wants to save time and energy. That's what you look forward to in the book, is 7 Laws of Personal Mastery. If you want to, if you're not certain about it, and you want to talk to me further, I'm on LinkedIn, reach out to me.

Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing. As soon as the book is going to be released, I'll include the link in the show notes, so definitely share that with me as well, Stephen.

But yeah, I'm so excited for listeners to hear this episode. I'm excited for them to go deeper in their growth personally and professionally, and also finding ways to just be true and authentic so they can not lean into burnout. So I love that.

Thank you so much, Stephen.

Rita, it's been an honor. Thank you very much. I love this conversation.

Also, if I could, the work that I do, think of it in this way. It took me 10, 16, well, not including the addictive part, took me 16 years to get here. As I help clients, I get them through a lot of this in a year or so.

I mean, it's not easy work, it's deep work. In this way, that's what we bring as coaches to the world is the systems of apprenticeship to guide and empower themselves. But this has been an honor.

I love this conversation. I'd like to have it again.

Yeah. I would love to have you as a guest again. Awesome.

Thank you for extending the opportunity to connect with you again. I definitely would love that. Because I think we were just scratching the surface, especially when the book comes out.

It'll be another great opportunity to share more about the book. But yeah, I would love to have you back as a guest, Stephen. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, awesome.

Well, thank you everyone for joining in Daring Well to the community. It's been an awesome opportunity just to hear more about Stephen's story and then learning more about ways again to grow. That's it for today's episode.

Thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe wherever you hear this episode. Wishing you a fabulous day, my dear.

Until next time, keep living, keep loving, and keep daring well. Take care, guys. God bless.

Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of The Daring Well Podcast.

If you enjoyed today's episode and want to continue exploring the world of holistic wellness, be sure to subscribe to The Daring Well Podcast so you never miss an episode filled with transformative conversations and actionable advice.

Thank you again for being part of The Daring Well Podcast community. Together, let's dare to live well in mind, body, and spirit.