How Do You Keep Going When Life Completely Falls Apart?

What happens when life shatters emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and you have to rebuild from ground zero? In this deeply moving episode of Friday Feelings, Jenelle sits down with Leah Russo, a powerhouse of resilience, to unpack the messy, non-linear journey of surviving personal devastation. 

From walking away from a 10-year marriage with no safety net to enduring five major spinal surgeries, Leah shares the raw truth of what it really takes to keep going when your world breaks wide open.

You’ll hear tactical ways to reclaim agency when everything feels out of your control, how to reframe fear as an opportunity, and why micro-steps matter more than motivation. Jenelle also unpacks the neuroscience behind thoughts and emotions, how what we believe literally rewires our brain and body for transformation.

If you’ve ever stood in the storm and wondered if you could survive, this episode is your reminder: Yes, you can.

Resources:

• Connect with Leah! https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahrusso/
• https://www.novaragtm.com/

Referenced Materials:

• Feelings Wheel (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jx2fGEGgUgS5imWQW2jlhEjkvtODpGyI/view?usp=sharing)
• Tool/Concept: Agency List - a strategy taught by a community member to reclaim power in overwhelming moments, listing actions she can control (e.g., using a heating pad, watching birds).
  Reach out to Leah directly if you'd like to learn more about this!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:10

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Friday Feelings, where we turn emotions into power, vulnerability into strength, and remind you to feel everything, fear nothing, and transform your life. I'm your host, Janelle Friday. And today we are actually talking about something that's very near and dear to my heart. Because if you know my story, you know that there are extreme tragedies that I've had to work through. I talked, I call them Mount Everests. So today's title is How Do You Keep Going When Life Falls Apart? I think it's something that resonates with every human being on the planet. And I think if you're listening to this episode, you're gonna find amazing nuggets of wisdom from my amazing guest. So I want to say hello to Miss Leah Russo. Leah, thank you so much for being here today.

SPEAKER_01: 0:59

Yeah, happy to join you. I'm excited about it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02

Me too. So you and I met because I was a customer success manager at Adobe, and you uh were using Marketo and Visible at your organization. You were part of the marketing team. And um I think when I think when good people connect and you kind of see each other and you resonate, it sticks with you. And so where we've not been in touch for all these years, right? There was just an immediate connection that we've been building on. And then recently we've reconnected and I got to hear your story. And here you are. You've gone through some incredible opportunities of growth that have been difficult and you've had a tremendous transformation. So that's why you're here with us today.

SPEAKER_01: 1:45

Yeah, absolutely. And it's awesome because you've seen portions of that, and now I get to tell basically the full story.

SPEAKER_00: 1:54

Yeah, I love that. Well, so let's kind of talk about what we're really digging into, um, which is primarily uh resilience. I often joke and say if you're alive, you're resilient. At a base level, I think everyone has resilience, but I think it's a buzzword, and I really want to talk about what does it actually mean when life falls apart? Uh, maybe you're battling with depression, maybe you've had suicidal thoughts, maybe you are in the depths of despair and it's difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. What do you do in those moments? So we're gonna dive into Leah's story. And really the focus, as you know, on this podcast is practical tools because quite frankly, I'm not gonna tell you to read a book. I'm not gonna tell you to get on your knees and pray and meditate. That is not a solution for the most difficult moments in life. It requires purposeful, intentional action and getting out of your comfort zone because if it didn't work for you yesterday, it's not gonna work for you today and it's not gonna work for you tomorrow. So um, let's talk about what is resilience. It's the ability to adapt and recover in the face of adversity, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Resilience isn't about being unbreakable, it's about getting back to when up uh getting back up when everything inside of you says, don't stay down, I give up. So, Leah, resilience for you is a way of life, I would say. Is that a fair statement?

SPEAKER_01: 3:31

It is. It's it's the most authentic way I live life, I feel like. And for me, I've I've you know, my journey with resilience has really dynamically changed over even the last decade, plus some, right? I used to think that resilience meant being tough, sucking it up, pushing through the pain, right, smiling through it, putting on a facade. And what I've really learned, especially in the last year, has been that resilience is soft, it's slow, it's messy, right? It's moving forward when your life is completely dismantled and you need to build everything from the inside out, right? You have to get comfortable with that uncomfortable, that unknown, and really sit in it and know that it's less about bouncing back and more about becoming.

SPEAKER_00: 4:28

I love that. So you have multiple examples you could share, but we only have so much time, right? So let's start with, you know, you and I talked earlier and I asked you to come up with one to two examples of things that were catalysts in your life. So um let's start with the first one.

SPEAKER_01: 4:47

Yeah. So um a little over 10 years ago, I left my first marriage. I packed up my life. I moved across the country with no safety net. Um, I didn't really know anybody, and I wasn't necessarily sure that I was gonna make it. And I I successfully did it. But then after that, I faced multiple endless surgeries, which is you knew me through that time, right? It was it was tough. And I went through five major spinal surgeries. And just when I thought I was healing myself, just when I thought I had overcome and become this new version of myself, my body was breaking. And I learned how to rebuild myself emotionally and mentally and spiritually through all of that, right? And I think for me, the biggest thing was even through all of that time where it felt like I was falling, or it felt like, oh my God, I just got things together, things are picking up. Um, it's that continuous movement of rising, even when it doesn't feel safe.

SPEAKER_00: 5:55

Or you physically can't.

SPEAKER_01: 5:57

Or I physically can't. Like I can't, I can't walk, I can't get out of bed. I can't um, you know, I'm in the hospital for weeks. You know, what does that look like? It's those rock bottom moments.

SPEAKER_00: 6:08

Yeah. Well, I mean, so so let's go back to your first example, right? You made the choice to leave a marriage, 10-year marriage. Um, we don't need to get into the nitty-gritty, right? That that's that's not what we're gonna focus on. But what I want to focus on is you moved across the country, sight unseen, without a network. Yeah. Right? Scary. Very scary because for the most part, change and the unknown keeps a lot of us from moving forward. So I want you to go back to that moment when you said, I'm terrified, but I'm gonna step forward anyway. Talk us through that moment.

SPEAKER_01: 6:47

Yeah, I think a lot of it was reframing the the terrified into what could this potentially open up as an opportunity for me to step into my true self or get back to that person that I felt like as a child, where I could do anything, right? And it was it was scary, but I think it was also that reframing of looking at it and being like, what could this do? If I took the fear out of it and I sat down and I just looked at the opportunity ahead of me, what would that look like? And visualizing it really helped in terms of saying, like, I think I can do it. It's terrifying. I think I can do it, but let's let's just see where it goes. And now I my life has been a 180 since then.

SPEAKER_00: 7:38

Was there a was there a moment because obviously you had to make the decision to say, I've had enough, I'm done. I'm leaving, I'm I'm calling it quits, right? Yeah, and you could have sat in that moment and stayed in bed for months, right? There's so many outcomes that could have happened. So I really want to quantify for you, for me, for the audience, right? What was the trigger for you to say, I need something different? Was it some? I think sometimes change happens when we it's more painful to stay in the circumstances we're in than to step forward and change. Is that fair?

SPEAKER_01: 8:19

Yeah, absolutely. And I and to be honest, I stayed in that in that uncomfortable, comfortable, right? Of hey, this is my life, this is what I signed up for. I'm gonna push through, I'm gonna make it work, and gonna try everything I can do. And um it took having a great support system at the time to be like, hey, you deserve better than this, you deserve a you know a life that makes you happy. And it's hard to hear that when you're comfortable already. It's really hard to leave comfortable, um, even when it comfortable isn't good, like it's hard to leave that, right? Yeah, and I think for me, looking at it from a 50,000-foot view of is this what I envisioned my life being? Like, am I really truly happy? If I thought about my five-year-old self or my 10-year-old self, is this what she would have wanted for me? And that was really powerful to think back and be like, no, I never wanted to stay here. I never wanted to be in a situation like this. Um, and if you talk to anybody that knows me from back in those days or or before, they'll tell you that I'm an extremely strong, extremely resilient woman, and that they didn't know who I was during that time. They couldn't see me as that person. And looking back, right, I I see it now. But when you're in that, and when you're in the thick of it, it's really hard to see that for yourself. It's really hard. And um it took me to the point where I was like, okay, I've got to make some changes here. I don't know what that looks like, right? But I have got to make some changes because this can this just cannot be my life. I deserve more for myself. I have worked so hard, this can't be it for me.

SPEAKER_00: 10:29

I totally resonate with that. And I didn't have a 10-year uh foundation to walk away from, but I got married in my early 20s and on our honeymoon, it turned violent. Yeah, it turned into a completely different person. And I was desperately insecure, didn't want to be alone, so I accepted that state of being. And I it only lasted two and a half years till I finally was like, I need help. And I reached out in desperation to a coworker who said, Yeah, I'll be there to make sure he, you know, when you tell the truth and walk away, you're safe. But um that, especially as a woman, I think a lot of women identify with that feeling of like, uh, am I gonna be okay by myself? Because we've kind of been trained that we need a man. I mean, that I'm a Disney princess girl. I'm not gonna lie. I love the Prince Charming Love Story. But what I've learned in my adult life, right, is that that is a lie. The lie is that you are not capable as a woman to stand on your own two feet. Now, I have a lot of male listeners. If you're a guy and you're like, preach on, sister, good for you. Or you have a wife who is who enjoys having that male counterpart because I do, right? I have a husband who's a manly burly Colorado man, and I love that about him. But I also have realized, and and I see this in you too, is that I am not going to let myself become dependent on anyone ever again. I've got to know that if he passes away, if we go bankrupt, if the world ends, that I'm going to be scrappy and figure it out. Right?

SPEAKER_01: 12:17

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 12:18

So from a relationship standpoint, um, if you go back to those moments, what let's say one or two critical things about yourself that you learned in that process of leaving that relationship?

SPEAKER_01: 12:33

I think for me, I didn't necessarily view myself as strong and resilient while I was going through it, right? Because it's hard. You don't see that till you're out of it. Um but I was, and even when I felt overwhelmed, I was still making tiny steps in moving forward. I was still finding a community that was supporting me, and I was evaluating my community and making sure that the people that were in it were lifting me up, not holding me back, right? And that were a very strong support system that I could lean on in any moment's notice. If I needed to get out, I could get out, right? Um women leaning on women, right? I think that's a huge part of it. Yes. My very, very, very best friend. Um, I mean, the night I left, she had chocolate therapy Ben and Jerry's ice cream sitting there waiting for me. And she was she was a phone call away and and knew exactly what to do. And I think knowing, and this is something I continuously go back to even now, knowing when it's okay to say, you know what, I'm overwhelmed. I don't, I I need help. Um, it's not a weakness. It's not. I know, I know it feels like it is, right? It feels like you're not being strong and you're not being independent when you're saying those things, but it is okay to not be that all the time, right? It is okay to step back and say, oh my God, I really need just to set, like I need to set and reset. Like I need to step back, take a moment, take a deep breath, maybe take one little action to move to the next thing that you could possibly do. Um, because if you look at it, and we were talking about this earlier, if you look at it from wide scope of things, of all the things that you need to do to get yourself out of that situation or to be able to move forward, it's so overwhelming. It's so overwhelming. Sometimes to the point where you'll talk yourself out of it.

SPEAKER_02: 14:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 14:53

And and you know you need a change. You know you need to take that step forward. So, what does what does that micro step look like for you? Is it just getting out of bed? Is it being able to treat yourself to some chocolate ice cream with your best friend? Is it making a plan or visualizing what your life could potentially look like if you made such a dynamic change? Is it reframing it as an opportunity instead of a suffocating moment in silence? Right? Like, yeah, what is that for you?

SPEAKER_00: 15:29

Yeah. So as I'm listening you talk, and and I love that you're but you're you know the best friend story. Um what happens if you don't have anybody? If there's a listener who's going, I would love to do that, but there's no one in my life that I trust to be that vulnerable with, right? Um, I can relate to that a little bit because by the time I was at the two and a half year mark with this individual, he had isolated me from my family. I was not allowed to have friends. He would call my work to make sure that I was there, and he would make sure I'd left on time and came straight home. I was completely isolated. And sometimes I think we stay in the environment of fear and isolation without knowing what do I do if I don't have anybody? I don't have a best friend to eat ice cream with, Leah. I don't have a mom to come bail me out if I don't know what to do. How do you how would you encourage an individual in that in that role right now?

SPEAKER_01: 16:29

Um, so speaking from experience here, my best friend that that brought me that ice cream passed away seven years ago unexpectedly. So I know what that feels like now to not have that. And it's it's scary because it really does feel like you're you're in it alone. But the reality is there are people that are so good in this world that will help you through things, right? I have leaned on doctors in the past that I trust, right? Um, I mean, one of my doctors has become one of my closest friends, and what I would consider somebody on my board of advisors. Um it's the most unexpected people that will lean out and help you if you become vulnerable and share what you're going through. Because you don't have to do it alone, right? It's not something that as isolating as it feels and as scary as it is to open up about, especially when you're in an abusive situation, because it's it's it comes off to me, or at least it did back in the day, that sharing what I was experiencing in my home environment, even with work colleagues, would paint me in a negative light. That I wasn't a strong woman, that I was allowing someone to do that to me, right? It's not something that I was openly sharing with my family. Um, and I think it's okay. I mean, to even reach out to one, like if you have an annual appointment, tell your doctor. You know, people are not gonna judge you. They're actually gonna want to help you. You can reach out and tell a stranger, right? You can say, hey, do you have a second to chat? I can't tell you the amount of people that I've randomly asked if they would have coffee with me just because I needed someone to ask advice about one or two things. I mean, there are things you could look in your neighborhood, see if there's a book club, or you know, reach out to any of the many groups online and see an area that you're interested in that would bring you joy. For me, right, being outside, being in nature, hearing birds, it soothes my nervous system. It calms me down. So for me, I would I was really into photography at the time. So I joined a photography group and I leaned on that network of people and shared what I was going through because okay, if they don't see what, like, you know, they're not gonna judge me. They don't really know me. It's okay to share that. Like, it's okay to open up and it's okay to ask for help. Um, because we all need it. If you're if if you're not going through this right now, there will be a point in your life where something big is gonna happen to you and you're gonna need some tools in your toolkit to help you through it because it I have not found one person that can do this alone.

SPEAKER_00: 19:40

Uh well, we're not we're not meant to live life alone. I do say that a lot, right? We are built, human beings are built to be in community. Even cavemans live together. Come on, people. Okay, but so I I really want to touch on if you are not in an abusive relationship or you've never experienced that, that's not what we're focused on here. Yeah, I'm gonna bring this back to BrassTacks' simple wording, which is emotional trauma. Okay. I've heard people say, Well, I've never really been through emotional trauma. I'm sorry. Whether it's your childhood, your teenage years, your 20s-somethings, you're trying to adult in your 30s, you're in your 40s and figuring it out, you're in your 50s and 60s retiring, there is trauma along the way. Now it's not trauma that will lead to suicidal thoughts, but trauma nonetheless shapes us, right? Period. And when you're in an emotionally difficult relationship or circumstance, I have this term that I use, which is your base operating program. Okay. From an emotional intelligence perspective, that is self-awareness. So um, to relate to that, I was raised in a very conservative Christian household, and my base operating program that I was ingrained with was I'm always right. I was completely blind because it was a subconscious belief. Okay. So from that perspective, trauma often creates our triggers. Trauma often um flavors our imposter syndrome negative voice that we often listen to and plays on repeat. Okay. So you went through this massive emotional trauma. You're standing on your own two feet, you're really proud of yourself, and then the other ball drops, which is now you are going through radical physical trauma. Okay. That's a trauma on a totally different level. We've got a brand new track playing of physical trauma. And in the moment, I'm like, boy, girl, I can't, I just can't wrap my mind around five spinal surgeries and the mental strength that you had to have to go through not one, not two, but five and come out to be who you are today. So let's let's shift gears and now talk about that physical trauma and how it has shaped who you are.

SPEAKER_01: 22:07

Yeah I think um man the physical's trauma it's something else it's a it's a it's a whole different level um than other things that I have experienced and the physical pain it's so debilitating and so relentless. Um and I think that's the differentiator in between the two is that the emotional pain I could have fine I could find moments of joy where I could step away from it and be like, oh I'm sharing a laugh with a friend or hey I'm having really cup of cup great cup of coffee but the the thoughts kind of swirl but you're not physically sitting there in pain you're not like from a pain perspective there are there have been days where I can't drive I can't walk right um I'm in a diaper like real humbling experiences and I think surgery after surgery I remember being flat on my back and wondering am I ever going to feel whole again? Like is this ever going to stop? It it it is ever going to give me a break where I feel like I can come up through for error and yet I continued to power through and figure out a way to navigate it in a different perspective. And I think shifting even going through back to back to back to back surgeries like that for me you know I thought the lowest low was leaving the marriage, moving across the country and then a couple years ago I lost my job um and I had been walking around on a broken ankle for six months and didn't realize it went into the doctor he's like oh you need surgery three weeks after I had ankle surgery I needed an emergency neck surgery on multiple levels in my neck and couldn't use my left arm. And so I'm like I need to find a job like I can't I can't keep doing this. This is crazy. So I had the neck surgery and three weeks later I started working again. I mean it was just absurd. But for me it was just okay I just need to get through this one hard thing and look at the next thing ahead of me and find humor in it. So for for me I reframed it. I said I'm not gonna let this ankle surgery you know screw me up. I am going to sit down if I have to get a scooter I'm gonna decorate the crap out of that scooter. I put lights on it I put a bell on it I found a way to make it mine and bring some humor into it so that I could laugh as I went through it.

SPEAKER_00: 24:58

And I think part of that was due to my now husband he is hysterical um he has helped me go through all of these surgeries uh and continue to just look forward towards the next thing even with the setbacks because we all know healing isn't linear right yeah before we get too far down this I I really want to um identify when when you think you can't continue you're at rock bottom and I and I've I've been a friends fan for forever and I remember when Rachel figures out that Ross is in love with her and she goes to the airport and he's dating somebody else and she gets back and he she listens to him talk to her on the phone and she goes I thought it couldn't get any worse but it's like there's crap there's the level below crap there's rock bottom and then there's me like yes she's going so so if you'd be kind enough I would love for you to talk us through a moment where maybe you were in the hospital maybe you were home and you couldn't and you were just at the lowest of low there's a moment where your brain says I can't continue it just has to stop. I don't know how I'm gonna take another breath where do you go from there? What were you telling yourself what did you have to do to get out of that mental bottomless black hole of just I mean I'm done I'm done um I think for me and that's a hard place to go back to to be honest because it's dark but especially being in the hospital the last surgery almost took my life um in multiple ways and uh it was hard I really didn't think I had it in me to keep going after that um and I think realizing that I still had a choice that I still had power even if it's only one percent power right I still had a choice I still could sit there in pain and think I'm gonna get myself out of here I don't know how but I'm gonna do it I'm gonna get myself out of here and then I'll figure out the next thing that I got to do.

SPEAKER_01: 27:18

But having some type of agency in it has really helped me realizing that like I do have a little bit of power in this even though it feels like it's got the grasp on me. And so one of the things that I've learned over the past year um and I owe this to one of my great ladies in my community that helps me is um an agency list. So coming up with ways that you can reclaim your power when you're in a state of overwhelm. And this still happens to me right I have I'm battling all these autoimmune diseases. I don't think anybody's shocked about that right you've heard some of the things I've gone through um so I get these flares and it's very overwhelming. Sometimes I can't move sometimes I'm in spasm so what are things that I still have agency over my body on right whether that's getting on a heating pad whether that's sitting and watching the birds outside whether that's asking my husband hey can you make me a coffee and laying in bed on my heating pad those are things that I still have control over even when it's not me doing it for myself right it's hey I can still control some things and it gives it doesn't fix everything but it just reminds me I'm not powerless. And to me that tiny sense of agency can be the difference between spiraling and stabilizing things.

SPEAKER_00: 28:57

I love that and I'm here comes the the neuroscience nerd that's becoming me which is just weird because I'm not numbers or science or whatever but to all of the things that I talk about from the perspective of your thoughts literally create your reality no not in everything right we can't manifest things physically that we can't I can't manifest a million dollars I'm probably going to say that a million times but people take it too literally what I'm saying is in that moment in your brain you told yourself yes I can I will step forward even if it's only one percent I'm not dead I still have a choice and you mentally made a decision that mental decision is an electrical spark in your brain that then goes to the nervous system that goes to create emotions and feelings to get up and out mentally and physically feel yourself go I still can I can go grab a heating pad I can roll over to the other side I could sit up and read a book maybe you can't do that like right the the whole the whole concept here is that and what you weren't realizing in that moment is there is scientific physical things happening because of what you're thinking and that rolls into your body responding and creating the reality of what you've told yourself you're gonna do right so I want to highlight that because I think there are some people out there that go EQ is so woo woo and and I honestly never heard that term until like six months ago and I was like what is that and it's like oh you know the feel good sunshine rainbows it's just kind of woo-woo out there.

SPEAKER_01: 30:41

Okay let's ground ourselves in the reality we are not just talking about think positively there is scientific evidence that your thoughts generate your emotions and your body accepts those thoughts as reality period that's the science behind it so here we are now how long has it been since your last surgery about three years three and a half years three and a half years and from the surgery until today what would you highlight as before the surgery I was this after the surgery now I'm this okay before the surgery I would say I was very much a hamster running on a wheel in the dark just trying to move forward to the next thing right but now and now not getting anywhere just more hurdles like right a hamster running on a wheel jumping over mountains right like that's what I was doing I I felt like I was in a spiral almost and now I feel like this is gonna sound so silly but I feel like I am you know the captain of my own ship in a way like I am on the ocean navigating the waters but I am the captain who lays in the hammock on his own ship or her ship right because for me I think one of the biggest lessons I've learned through the last three and a half years is that rest that was the hardest lesson through all this rest is a choice it is giving that 1% to yourself right you don't have to be the hamster on the hamster wheel jumping over every single mountain being a powerful hey I can do it I'm independent right that fatigue it's not it's not a weakness it's a message from your body right and there's power in knowing that I am enough that I can navigate this right now exactly how I am I love that.

SPEAKER_00: 33:09

So last week we heard from Nils and Nils talked about how he visualizes a very specific scene in his mind that grounds him that gives him peace that allows him to refocus and for him he's visual and he mentioned that some people are auditory and then literally you and I have this conversation I'm like well what tools do you need to use to help yourself out so talk us a little bit through the things that you do that you've discovered really help you and work for you.

SPEAKER_01: 33:37

Yeah so I would say you know the normal stuff of meditation and grounding and breathing while they're great it doesn't always work for me. I've ADHD right I've I've got a lot of things going on I've got paint chronic pain so I've had to figure out different ways to cope um reframing is huge for me. So shifting that story and finding beauty and humor in it of either decorating your scooter or um in physical therapy when I don't like doing certain exercises I name them funny names. So um like I'll I'll call certain things sun reapers and all kinds of stuff like and but it helps me get through it right and it feels like I'm giving myself a superpower. When I know that I my body's experiencing a lot of uh overwhelming feelings or anxiety I'm not good at identifying my feelings I know that that is something that I personally struggle with. So I use a feelings wheel and then I either sit down and go to Chat GPT and ask for hey I'm feeling these feelings give me some journaling prompts um or uh I use those words and I paint I write them down on canvas and paint over them to express myself um or sometimes I'll dance it out I have playlists for different feelings that I have uh that I've made over the years that I will sit and listen to or dance it out real hard. I'm really big into vision boards. Uh uh someone in my community shared with me a quote about if you're not visioning your path forward, then you're just a character in someone else's intentional aims. And that was powerful to me. It made me really realize that I want to do things with intention. I don't want to be the hamster just jumping over endless hurdles on a wheel I want to build a world for myself that supports my beliefs and my values. And part of that is reaching out to your community and your and your friends or your doctors or you know people that have shown up for you in your life and being vulnerable when it matters and I think also checking in with that circle right your vibe attracts your tribe. So I'm constantly auditing hey are they aligned with who who I'm envisioning myself to be do they bring diversity of thought um am I setting good solid boundaries with them which was something else I had to work through right a whole nother episode that's a whole nother episode but but sitting down and and really assessing with myself like checking in almost and being like hey is what you're doing actually working for you yeah and then rotating in and out what does and doesn't because things change right things change.

SPEAKER_00: 36:46

Well and you're and I think what you've highlighted is you have a vision board but you are not a visually stimulated individual you are auditory. So when you told me that you have Friday dance parties to dance it out I'm like I need to adopt that can I come over and dance um you love listening to birds right the dancing of the birds and so so I want to highlight that because where I'm very visual and I music is for me and it does different things for me than I think it does for you. Um not everybody is the same and and if you listen to someone talk about well I need to visualize it and you're going well that's not me don't quit listening don't stop digging in know that we are all uniquely built motivated inspired moved we learn differently we communicate differently and there's no one right way and your way is not wrong.

SPEAKER_01: 37:36

I want to highlight that because I've had a couple people say well I is something wrong with me that I don't do it that way and I'm like no it couldn't be no I I a hundred percent felt that way in the beginning when I was first dipping my toes into this I'm like oh none of this is resonating with me. I don't feel like I can focus through any of it I'm probably doing it wrong and then I'm putting pressure on myself right so then it was okay there's there's got to be a way to still get the benefit but maybe just shift the approach.

SPEAKER_00: 38:08

Yeah I love that well I hate to say this but we're closing in on time we may even be over time and that's okay. But I want to kind of highlight a couple things statements which is chaos insecurity doubt depression is not a failure of character it's not a um a weakness it is part of the human experience that every single human being is going to go through at some point in their life but it's also this it's also the birthplace of transformation right it forces growth. So my question to you if you're listening is what hard thing are you standing in today? What are you facing that feels insurmountable? What emotions are you feeling that are so powerfully driving you into a state of despair that you feel hopeless because now Leah I'm gonna ask you if a listener says yeah that's me what practical advice can you give?

SPEAKER_01: 39:17

You know resilience isn't perfection it's about giving yourself permission right permission to fall apart to ask for help to rest to start over to believe in yourself that your story is still being written and there's endless possibilities in front of you ahead and to give yourself permission to just take one teeny teeny tiny step to start that I love that.

SPEAKER_00: 39:44

So as we wrap today Leah if someone's like oh my gosh I got to connect with Leah and you should where can people find you and and what are you working on right now?

SPEAKER_01: 39:55

Yeah so people can find me on LinkedIn. I am also in a super big scary uh time of transition in my life so really trying to figure figure out what my next step is um but if anything I shared today resonated with you or if you are just learning how to give yourself permission, right? I'd love to be able to connect you can find me on LinkedIn where I talk about resilience and emotional intelligence and building go-to-market clarity through real human connection. So reach out Leah Russo on LinkedIn and I would love to connect.

SPEAKER_00: 40:34

You're also a marketing genius I have to say always will be a marketing powerhouse. So if you're someone who's like man uh I need someone who's really great with marketing also Leah um so man we're gonna wrap Leah I want to record another continuation of what we're talking about because I feel like we could do this forever but um from the bottom of my heart your transparency your vulnerability and willing to talk about the most difficult places that we as human beings exist in life is not easy. So thank you so much um not just as my friend but as someone who's willing to put yourself out there to help other people thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01: 41:13

Yeah absolutely always always happy to help and if I could be a you know source of inspiration just to take that step that's what I'm here for.

SPEAKER_00: 41:22

Well you've inspired me if that means anything all right everybody well as I wrap today's episode I'm gonna again encourage you to be inspired to feel deeply even if those feelings are terrifying depressing and make you feel like you're alone don't avoid the feeling lean into those feelings because the only way to get out of them is to work through them to live fearlessly to not allow fear to keep you from moving forward because everything you have ever wanted is on the other side of fear. And to remain authentic do not hide do not make excuses do not ignore or suppress be authentic even if as Leah says you fall apart I want you to keep leaning into your feelings because as we've identified on this episode that's where transformation occurs. It is from within it is in the most difficult and most painful moments in life and when you get through one you build a little more muscle to know that you can get through another so stay fearless. And I'm gonna see you next Friday