Rise and Lead
Rise and Lead
Mindset Training: Conquer Your Mind and Rest Will Follow with Dr. Nekeshia Hammond - RAL 87
In this episode, Mindset Training: Conquer Your Mind and Rest Will Follow, Benjamin and Dr. Nekeshia Hammond talk about self-leadership, burnout, making life pivots, and how to get more out of life than you are experiencing right now. Dr. Hammond is a psychologist and author of the newly released book, Mindset Training: Conquer Your Mind and the Rest Will Follow. She is a mental wellness expert and is highly recognized for her expertise in mental health, burnout prevention, and leadership development. She has held influential leadership roles, including President of the Florida Psychological Association. Her thought leadership has been featured on NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, and Essence Magazine. This conversation explores the critical importance of self-care as the foundation for mental health and personal growth and tackles the societal stigmas that often equate expressing personal needs with weakness, highlighting a positive shift towards mental health awareness and self-love. This episode empowers you to see self-care not as a luxury, but as an essential tool to become the best version of yourself, ultimately benefiting those who depend on your well-being.
Episode Quote:
"Self-leadership is not selfish, it's essential to your health and well-being. By leading yourself well first you position yourself to maximize your impact on others."
This episode, like all Rise and Lead Podcast episodes, is highly practical and motivating. Don't forget to subscribe to the Rise and Lead Podcast to ensure you get notified when new episodes release every month. When you share about the podcast, make sure and tag @benjaminlundquist, and he'll always try and give you a re-post. Remember, the best time to rise and lead is now!
you have goals, like you're allowed to grow as a person, you're allowed to implement self-care. You're allowed to be happy, you're allowed to thrive Like you're allowed to have those things. And sometimes it's a conversation that we have to have with ourselves about self-love or self-forgiveness and those sorts of things or worthiness issues. Those can also block us sometimes on thinking about our own needs and how we can meet them. But everyone's at a different place in their wellness journey and it's really important to know maybe that's your thing, right. Maybe you're like, hey, emotionally, like I need to really work on connecting with my emotions and dealing with my self-love issues. Maybe that's it, which is okay, but just recognizing that and having that awareness is really step one.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Rise and Lead. I'm Benjamin Lundquist, and this podcast is all about personal growth and leadership. Thank you for listening and for being a part of our Rise and Lead community. We're a community of leaders who are passionate about growth, leadership and expanding our impact on the world. My guest on this episode is Dr Nikesha Hammond. Dr Hammond is a psychologist and author of the newly released book Mindset Training Conquer your Mind and the Rest Will Follow. She is a mental wellness expert and is highly recognized for her expertise in mental health, burnout prevention and leadership development prevention and leadership development. She has held influential leadership roles, including president of the Florida Psychological Association. Her thought leadership has been featured on NBC, abc, cbs, fox and Essence Magazine. Together, we talk about self-leadership, burnout, making life pivots and how to get more out of life.
Speaker 2:The Rise and Lead podcast is designed specifically to motivate and equip you to live your greatest life with maximum impact. We are going to find out what makes great leaders great and how you can start growing yourself. Rise, expanding your impact, lead and living the life you have been created to live. We are stronger together and I want to personally invite you to be a Rise and Lead partner in spreading the word about this podcast and all the episodes that will follow, so together we can reach more people. Before we dive into this teaching, thanks for letting me share a few ways that you can support the podcast. Make sure you subscribe so you can get all the episodes that release every month.
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Speaker 2:Your input, ratings, reviews and shares help our team to continue creating a better podcast to serve great leaders like you. If this is your first time listening, I would encourage you to go back and listen to the Rise and Lead Foundation episode so you can hear more about my story and the five foundational pillars of the podcast. I like to start each episode with prayer, so let's pray together. God, use this episode to help someone pivot to a healthier mind and, ultimately, a healthier life, a life that is more confident, more focused and more impactful. In your name, we pray, amen. Let's dive right in to my conversation with Dr Nikisha Hammond.
Speaker 1:So the new book it's Mindset Training, Conquer your Mind, and the rest will follow is all about holistic self-care, because a lot of times we focus on one area of our lives, but we really need to be thinking about how do we grow physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, as a whole package? Right? So there's a lot of tips and tools in there and I'm super excited I know it been recently released, so, yeah, it's been great.
Speaker 2:So how does the leader, how does the individual kind of cultivate that holistic mindset and approach when it comes to self-care?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a great question. And it's really through reflection, which we don't do enough of because we're bombarded with messages from society, what's going on around us. I like to remind people, if you ask yourself three questions, preferably once a week, you can get into that mindset of holistic self-care. So the first question is to check in with yourself and ask yourself how am I doing? The second question is to ask yourself what do I need physically, emotionally, spiritually? Ask yourself, what do I need physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, because what you need today may not be what you needed three years ago or what you'll need three years from now. So it's really important to be asking yourself those types of questions. And then the third question to ask yourself is what step can I take today to make these improvements in my life? And sometimes it's just a baby step, which is okay, right, but it's really reflecting and getting to that mindset of knowing what are my needs right now in multiple areas of my life. And then what am I going to do about it?
Speaker 2:All leadership starts with honest assessment. You've got to be able to be honest enough to say here is where I am actually at today, and I think sometimes we're afraid to do that. Sometimes we'd rather not go to that space and that place In reflection. What would you say to somebody who is having a challenging time being really honest about how they're doing? And I've met a lot of leaders and have worked with a lot of leaders that can go for years without actually sitting down and saying baseline, this is where I'm at and here's how I am actually doing. So for somebody that struggles to go to that place of self-vulnerability, what advice or counsel would you give them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not always the easiest thing to do.
Speaker 1:Like you mentioned, it is hard sometimes because sometimes, when we're alone with our thoughts, we're just thinking about things that we don't either want to think about, or things that are painful or things we need to work on in our lives.
Speaker 1:But something that can be really helpful if you're listening to this and this applies to you is you don't have to do this process alone, so you might have to reach out to a life coach or a mental health professional, or a person at a place of worship, or your best friend or whomever it is around you who is positive and uplifting for you to have those sorts of conversations, who is going to be honest with you but can tell you in a way that is appropriate and that the way that you can handle it best, so that you can work on also seeing, like you said, some of the vulnerabilities, some of the changes you need to make. And it's okay to be imperfect. There's no perfect leader out there. It's okay to be imperfect, it's okay to have our flaws we should work on improving ourselves but it's okay to be wherever you're at right now, whatever place you're at right now In that reflection process, you being willing to ask yourself the questions.
Speaker 2:If you struggle with that and I think all of us do at times like, just go into that, here's where we're really at, surrounding yourself with people who are willing to ask you the tough questions, when you may not be willing to ask yourself the tough questions.
Speaker 1:Community is so huge and important. It's life-changing to be in good community with people, so absolutely yes.
Speaker 2:What are some of those key questions that a mentor, a friend or a board member should be asking somebody to help that person assess honestly where they're at?
Speaker 1:A lot of times. It's important for us, of course, to check in with ourselves and also to check in with people around us. So when you're asking someone, if you ask someone like, how are you doing, they're going to be like, fine, because that's just the thing. But if you really know them and you can say, hey, I noticed, you look down or you look anxious or is something going on and they may or may not want to share. But your next question to them could be how can I support you right now? Because support looks different depending on what is going on in this person's life. For some people, they just need you to listen to them. They don't need your advice. They need you to listen. For some people, they need advice. For some people, they need support in some other way that you can help them right. So support comes in many different ways, but we have to also be having that conversation of how can I best support you right now.
Speaker 2:We often are fearful to call out what we are seeing. Why do you think we're often afraid to call out or talk about the things that we see in other people that we need to talk about, but we're hesitant to do that?
Speaker 1:Two things. One is sometimes we're afraid of the answer. Especially when we're close to someone, we might be afraid of the answer or we might be afraid that we can't help them, and that's why I mentioned before support. It comes in many different forms. Sometimes that person that is struggling with whatever they're struggling with, they do need something more than what you can provide, maybe as a friend, which is why it's important if especially if they're open to resources for you to say, hey, I know a therapist or I know a coach or a mentor, you know whatever it is that they may need, if you're able to help them and to refer them to someone else who can further and help them in their journey, that's gold, like that's amazing. You are still helping. You may not directly be helping, but you're still indirectly helping and that's impactful for that person.
Speaker 1:I will say, checking in with other people goes a really long way. I've met thousands and thousands of people at this point in my journey and my mental health, being in the mental health field and one of the things and I don't want to simplify this too much, but one of the things that people have said that have really been in like their darkest, hardest hour some people thinking about hurting themselves is that someone reached out to them during, like, literally in that moment, like they sent a text message or they call them, like they're like hey, I'm just checking in with you and it was so life-changing for them and I always want to share that because we forget the power of human connection. For someone to receive like hey, I care about you, I'm checking in on you. You don't know what they're going through, you don't know what their day was like, we don't know all the time, but that is really powerful for a lot of people, depending on what the person is going through and where they're at mentally. Yes, definitely, I'm a huge advocate, of course, of getting a mental health professional involved, but at the same time, typically saying to someone like I see you hurting, I see you're in pain, I'm fearful for what you may be thinking, or they're telling you that they wanna hurt themselves, and those sorts of things.
Speaker 1:It's critically important. That's like a huge red flag. You could be saving their lives. Actually, I know many people who have saved someone's life because they took that extra step of checking in with saying, hey, I need to get you this certain resource, I need to refer you to this therapist or whomever it is, to make sure that they were okay. It's hard because we're just at that point in society that we just don't always know. I think one of the dangers of social media, for example, is that we think everyone has these perfect lives. We see all these images and videos of people smiling and happy, but there's a lot, a lot, millions and millions of people that are also hurting, also depressed, also struggling, that you don't necessarily know those things based on their social media profile, which is why it's really important to have those check-ins with other people, because they really do go a long way.
Speaker 2:Check-in with yourself on a regular basis and when you gave us the three questions in which we're working through, how often would you recommend somebody ask themselves those three questions? Was it once a month or once a week?
Speaker 1:Yeah, once a week. Once a week Because a lot happens. A lot happens in our weeks, like week to week. I know a couple of weeks ago we had two back-to-back hurricanes in the Florida area, like it just. I was like my goodness, like what is going on here? But it's just, I mean, our weeks just change so much, there's so much that's happening. So I would say, ideally every week, once a week.
Speaker 2:Create that rhythm where you're going to carve out whether it's 20 minutes of reflection time, but to ask yourself those questions of how am I really doing, what are the needs that I really have in my life this week, and what is a step that I can pursue to meet those needs? Let's talk about that second question of what do I really need. Why is it that we have such a challenging time recognizing what we need? I almost feel like there's this stigma around being needy is weakness, and so we just don't talk about the things that we need and you might end up going for years without having foundational needs met, simply because we're afraid to recognize those. What's the challenge in society with recognizing needs? Talking about needs, what do you see in that space?
Speaker 1:Because there's this notion, which is not true at all, but that self-care is selfish, right. So I still remember growing up as a child in just that era. It was just like this go, go, go mentality. I don't remember any conversations about self-care. I don't remember conversations about, like, take care of yourself, reset, recharge. Like think about your own needs. Those weren't the conversations. It was just like go to the next thing, the next achievement, get this done. It was almost like being a machine. But fast forward to today.
Speaker 1:Thankfully, we are in a better space where we're talking about mental health which is exciting to me, of course and we're saying like it is okay, though, to know what your needs are, to check in with yourself, to understand that you have goals, like you're allowed to grow as a person, you're allowed to implement self-care, you're allowed to be happy, you're allowed to thrive. Like you're allowed to have those things. And sometimes it's a conversation that we have to have with ourselves about self-love or self-forgiveness or worthiness issues. Those can also block us sometimes on thinking about our own needs and how we can meet them. But again, everyone's at a different place in their wellness journey and it's really important to know maybe that's your thing right. Maybe you're like, hey, emotionally, like I need to really work on connecting with my emotions and dealing with my self-love issues. Maybe that's it, which is okay, but just recognizing that and having that awareness is really step one.
Speaker 2:Do you need to share those needs with the people around you? Do you just understand those needs yourself? How do you know when you need, no pun intended, to communicate what you need to other people? How do you figure out navigation with what you share with others compared to what you just need to realize and recognize yourself?
Speaker 1:When you think about your household, whomever may or may not be in your household. So if you have kids, or if you have grandkids or significant other or not, whomever it is in your household, it is important to be having those conversations with them as well, because they can help you with this process, hopefully, and they can know what you're working on. And also, there are certain goals that you may have that are just personal to you, right? So I know for myself. Well, I've been on a spiritual journey, if you will, for many years, but some of it is just very personal, with my own connection with God and just the personal growth that I want to experience, which is team or family or whomever it is around you. So it really depends on what area it is. But, most importantly, it's like are you getting the support that you need on these goals and some of them, I think definitely yes to share with others, and then some may be personal.
Speaker 2:The people who love you would want to support the goals that you have for your life. But if they don't know what the goals are that you have for your life, but if they don't know what the goals are, it might be there just might be a miss there. Some goals are just and needs are ones that are personal to you. Maybe they're like soul needs, you know, kind of that inner work. But you also have goals that can be supported, affirmed and encouraged by the people around you. But if they're never made aware of that, it's going to make it tough for them to step into that place.
Speaker 1:For anyone listening that's like, okay, self-care is selfish or I don't know if I can just focus on myself. Also, remember that when you are focusing on being a better version of yourself, this is not really just for you, because that allows you to be better for all of the people around you as well. So all of your whomever your family members, your friends, your coworkers, your community they want to see the best version of you. So this process, this inner work, this growth as a person again is really affecting a lot of people around you as well. I hope that people can keep that in mind, too, when they think about this journey they're on.
Speaker 2:Self-care has an end game that is not selfish. Yes, when you self-care, you are positioned to release your superpower from health and wholeness to the world. When you compromise your own care and stewardship of your life, it really has a much bigger impact than on you, because all the people that you love are missing out on the healthiest version of you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ask people like do you feel like they would want to see the version of you that's stressed out, overwhelmed, sleep deprived? Do they want to see that person angry, irritable person, or do they want to see happy, content, fulfilled, taking care of themselves, healthy? Do you want the person that's like irritable, angry, you're like why are they talking to me like this? Do you want that person on the line or do you want the person who's friendly, who's relatable, who's laughing with you? Right, like we want to have good experiences with people around us, but we can only get that when we're working on making sure that we're healthy. We're taking care of ourselves.
Speaker 2:Self-care is not selfish. No, when you self-care, you're actually valuing yourself, with the end game of being positioned in health and wholeness to serve other people better. Self-care is really so much bigger than you.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh yes.
Speaker 2:Obviously it is you, but the implications of self-care are so much bigger than you. Have you ever been in a place of burnout, where you had nothing left in the tank, where you begin to see the impact that burnout was having on the people around you? Have you been in that space and what did you do in that space?
Speaker 1:I still remember my son was about three or four at the time. He's 12 now, but I definitely hit burnout. I was trying to be super wife, super mom, super business owner, doing a gazillion things in the community. However, I was choosing at that time to get like two, three, four-ish hours of sleep a night on average, which is so healthy would not recommend that, but it made sense to me at the time because everything was like go, go, go and just hustle hard and all these things instead of taking care of myself.
Speaker 1:So when I hit burnout back then, I literally, like physically, got to the point where I was like I cannot do this anymore. I was so exhausted and I literally said a prayer to God one night. I'm like God, like this has to change, like this is not working Right. And to your point, though, it has implications, because if I'm tired, I'm stressed out, overwhelmed and not getting any sleep, I am going to show up differently for people around me than if now which is a non-negotiable I actually get sleep and live a way healthier life and have a lot of different roles in the community, but then I can show up as a better version of myself for other people around me too, in addition to myself.
Speaker 2:How often do you engage with clients who are living in burnout without realizing they are living in burnout? Is that something common that you see in people that you work with?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So especially when I'm working with different corporations and we're having group conversations, that's something that actually comes up a lot Like people were like, oh, I didn't even realize, because sometimes we don't know the signs. Which is exciting to me, being in the public education realm, of telling people like, hey, here's the burnout signs, hey, here's what to look for, because I know in the mental health field sometimes we don't even realize we're in it until either someone else tells us, hey, like this is not healthy, or you learn the tools and you understand what the red flags are. But yes, that absolutely happens, a lot, unfortunately. But the good news is, when you do learn and really understand burnout and understand that you're allowed to take care of yourself, it's very life-changing on the other side.
Speaker 2:How do you begin to pivot from? This is not sustainable. It's impacting the people that I love. I'm not caring for the areas of my life that matter most. I seriously need a turnaround. This is not an option. How did you begin to do that and how do you counsel people who want to turn around to begin to initiate that turnaround in their life?
Speaker 1:To your point. It is hard. So one of the things to think about I'm a huge fan of baby steps. As a start. It is extremely overwhelming if you're in a space of burnout, overwhelmed, stressed out and anxious to be like, okay, I'm gonna take this massive leap and do a 180. Your brain is going to be like, no, I can't, that's too hard, like you're going to find a bunch of mental excuses for that. But if you what's easier to digest mentally is to say, okay, let me take some baby steps, then so what I did back then because I again the leap was just too much mentally. But I would say, okay, let me take a little bit of time for myself then.
Speaker 1:So I often talk about taking the minute with people, like literally 60 seconds a day to reset and recharge. You start to retrain your brain that it's okay to have self-care, it's okay to reset, it's okay to recharge, and that's something I personally did as well because, again, I was just going 100 miles an hour and I didn't understand the value of, like, taking the pause and resetting, recharging. So, even again, starting with baby steps, that counts too. And then, once you mentally get to the point where you're like, okay, this is okay. Your brain goes I'm okay, I can take the baby steps. Then you can start to take bigger steps and go farther and then start to take leaps. But it really is a process and it's okay to start with taking baby steps towards your self-care journey.
Speaker 2:Do you just need to start baby stepping whether you believe it or not just to start getting things moving? How do you see that all correlating together?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've seen it both ways, actually, depending on the person. But also a lot of times if, when you make the mental shift so something like you said, that light bulb has to go off, that and sometimes it's burnout Hopefully for a lot of people it's not burnout, but the light bulb has to go off where you're like this is enough, this isn't working, this isn't sustainable, this is not who I want to be and once that goes off, you're like, okay, well, now, what? Right? You're going to ask yourself what do I do now? So one of the things to start doing is the baby steps, and it's okay, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1:If you don't believe in that at the beginning. You're like, oh, I don't know about the self-care thing, cause, honestly, I was the same way. But you start to take the baby steps and your brain, you'll get to a point mentally where you're like wait a minute, this actually does feel good. And you'll realize, like, say, taking a minute, you'll realize even how tense you are. When you do start to practice taking the reset and the recharge, when you start taking the deep breaths, when you take the pause, when you focus on mindfulness, like when you really start to put those things into place. Then you realize physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, you're like, oh okay, like I didn't need to make these changes. And then again, like I said, it can snowball from there, but it is the mindset. Is really important to make that shift first.
Speaker 2:What is the belief that we need to shift from? That is holding a lot of people captive.
Speaker 1:That belief, it's usually about permission. And when I say permission, it's you have to give yourself permission to take care of yourself. So a lot of people that I've talked with with a lot of different organizations, when I share my story about burnout and share like hey, growing up I don't remember any conversations about self-care, mental health Like it was just like be a machine, like do this, do this, do this A lot of people are like yep, yep, that's my story too and it's okay, it is what it is. That's the narrative that we have in our brains, like just go to the next thing, go to the next thing, go to the next thing. But then we have to start to unlearn that. So there has to be that shift, like you said, of like wait a minute, I don't have to be a machine, I do deserve to be happy and be emotionally healthy. And then, once you understand that, then you can start to take the steps.
Speaker 2:I don't know how this would come out, but the idea of I am giving myself permission to care for myself because I matter and because I deserve the best self-care, because I am a person of worth and value. We often are so held back because we don't give ourselves permission to recognize what we need and to really believe that we deserve the care that we actually need to be our best.
Speaker 1:I also don't want to minimize. For someone listening to this that's like whatever life situation or childhood trauma or something happened where there's blocks sometimes that we have mentally and emotionally. So I don't want to minimize those things too. Sometimes it just takes more time. But I am a huge fan of affirmations of, like you said, telling yourself the things you are worthy. You do deserve those things, even if you don't believe them. When you're saying them to yourself, it is another way to retrain your brain. There are so many lies that we tell ourselves just because you think something doesn't make it true. There's so many things that we tell ourselves about ourselves that are not true. So you have to tell yourself new stories and again, even if you don't believe it at first, keep telling yourself the positive stories to retrain your brain to understand that you deserve these things.
Speaker 2:I know for me. Sometimes I really need those key people in my life to not give sympathy to the lies that I sometimes believe about myself. Yeah, and instead of somebody saying hey, benjamin, I just feel so bad I'm sorry that you feel that way For somebody to say I love you enough to tell you that what you are believing about yourself is simply not true, yeah, and to be able to say here is what is true about you. It is very different to give somebody hope than it is to give somebody hype. For me, hope often comes in just knowing that you have a next step that you can take.
Speaker 2:That's it Like just knowing there is a tomorrow, there is a next step. Any thoughts on that? The way that just having a next step or clarifying what that is can really be hope for somebody in making their turnaround?
Speaker 1:I love that honestly and it is about that and it is about having hope there's I mean, there's even plenty of studies on it of, again, it's mentally, it's the things that we believe in, it's our mindset, it's our perspective Two different people going through the same situation, situation. They're going to have a completely different perspective and understanding of what occurred because of their mindset and their perspective. So the person that has hope may be like man this was a really difficult situation I went through but I understand this is temporary, I understand I can get through. I understand I'm resilient, I'll get through it versus a person with no hope. You know may crumble in that same exact situation. So hope and mindset are so powerful. They're very underrated but they're very powerful to get through life. And, to your point, it's different from saying like, oh, everything will be fine. Well right, like things are hard, like life can be hard. Sometimes we have our challenges. But yeah, I love that about the hope.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you have to establish somebody's next step, even when they're not able to do that because their mind's just not in that place. And I just think about if you got a phone call or a text, or you observed somebody that was just in a dark place being able to say, tomorrow morning, 8 am, I'm meeting you for coffee, that's where we're going to go. To say tomorrow morning, 8 am, I'm meeting you for coffee, that's where we're going to go. And here's the address for those of us who are supporting people in that space. You need to establish a next step for somebody that is at least going to get them to tomorrow morning. Here's the address. We're going to hit up, we're going to hit a latte together and I just want to meet you there and we're just going to hang out.
Speaker 2:There's a part of the Last Dance documentary where there's this dialogue between Michael Jordan, who has just lost the NBA finals, and his trainer and the trainer at the end of the season, after the finals are done, because Jordan had lost with the Bulls, the trainer said something to the effect of I'll see you in a few weeks, or I'll see you in a few weeks, or I'll see you in a month and we'll start training. And in the documentary, jordan turns to his trainer and he says I'll see you tomorrow and the idea that you've just lost the finals. You're in this place of discouragement. That did not go as planned, but I have the next step. That training starts tomorrow Okay, bad night.
Speaker 2:Next training starts tomorrow Okay, Bad night. Next step starts tomorrow, and that's what I'm going to be doing. For a lot of people, that may be. All that they need, at least in the moment, is just to have clarity on what that next step is, which is your question Number three, like what is my next step? How do you help people work through that, in knowing what their next step might be?
Speaker 1:It's asking yourself those things, so your question might be what is my next step? And you may be I'm absolutely lost, I don't know Right. If that's the answer, though, then your quest is to find out what your answer is for you, which may mean you have to reach out to your mentor or a mental health professional or a life coach or a family member or friend or coworker, or whomever is that person is that can help you find that answer right, because, again, there's many times in life that we are just stuck, but the good news is, like you mentioned earlier, there's very amazing people around us that can help us through that process and let us know like hey, maybe try this next step.
Speaker 2:If you listen to Rise and Lead. I'm a big review person. I always like to review things. So three big questions that Dr Hammond shared with us. How are you doing? Number one being brutally honest in assessing every week, carving out that reflection time to ask how am I really doing? Number two what do I need most in my life right now? To recognize that needs are not a sign of weakness. Recognizing needs is actually a source of strength. You always come back to self-care is not selfish, it's essential. And then that idea of hope comes in recognizing what your next step might be. What have been some of the highlights so far with the book Mindset Training?
Speaker 1:I will tell you this story. I haven't shared it yet on a podcast, so I will say, of course the book is called Mindset Training, but through the process of the launch I really, really had to work on my own mindset too, specifically with this book, because it was a very big project. So one of the things that happened so I'll tell you the end of the story, the spoiler alert and then what happened that day. But it did hit the USA Today bestseller list, which was really exciting as an author, of course. But I still remember I mean, you don't know as an author if you're going to hit the list or not. So I remember that morning when you have and it's the top 150 books in the US.
Speaker 1:So I remember, looking through the list, I told myself all these things. I was like I don't know and like I went through this whole process before just checking the computer. I'm like it's okay, if I don't make a list, it's fine, I could try it with another book. But then I was like, no, but I spent a lot of time and energy. So I was going prize type of speech and I'm like it's okay, maybe next time. This is how you would talk to a kid. This is what I was telling myself.
Speaker 1:And then I told myself I just made something up. I was like, okay, maybe it's like I'm at like 148 or 149 or 150, like the endless. So maybe I should go to page three. So all these things are going through my head that I'm like, no, just calm down, just go to page two. I go to page two and I see it was like number 61, but I see, like my book cover and I was like shocked and surprised and happy.
Speaker 1:I was crying Like I cried for like five minutes and I was so excited that I share that because I had just started telling myself all these things because we do this and a lot of things in our life, we just make up things. I was like I don't know, maybe it's not there or maybe I'm 149 or 150, like not that the number mattered, but I just I was just so anxious about that situation and I think the most rewarding things thus far about the book is I love when people reach out, not just for me as an author, but they tell me like something in the book that really helped them. That's exciting for me because my goal as an author is to make sure, of course, I'm helping people and they're having their transformations in their lives. So that's been just exciting and exciting process.
Speaker 2:Massive congratulations on the book and you know we've known each other for a while. I know this book, mindset Training. We'll link it in the bio and everything is going to help a lot of people. Is there a gem that you always think about? I can't wait for somebody to get in my book here, because you just have a powerful truth that you're going to share with somebody else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think one of the spots in the book is I talked about when I was a child, way long ago, that we had perfect attendance awards at my school back then, and it seems noble. I was obsessed with getting this piece of paper that said you had perfect attendance. But what it taught me almost was never take a day off, no matter what, and I strongly don't agree with that now. But I talked a little bit about that journey and how for some of us. We know people that have worked 20, 30, 40 years and never taken a vacation and they're proud of that.
Speaker 1:But I'm not a fan of that, because we all need to take our mental health days. We need to make sure we're taking care of ourselves. It's not only about work in our lives. There's other parts too that are important. So that's one of my favorite stories in the book of just how we can try to get out of that mindset. And, yes, please still work hard, of course, hustle hard all those good things, but also you can take the day off like you can take care of yourself too.
Speaker 2:What is your real heart hope for somebody who reads this book?
Speaker 1:My real heart hope is that someone will say, okay, I need to start today to make the changes in my life, even if, again, it's the baby step of taking the minute each day for themselves. Like I would be elated if people said, okay, I know I need to start, I know I need to start my self-care journey, or I know I need to reset and get back on that path again where I'm checking in with myself, where I'm taking the reset, where I'm taking the recharge and taking the time to make myself my number one priority.
Speaker 2:I would be elated as an author if people did that and had that transformation in their lives. What is some of the best advice that anybody has ever shared with you that you have really held on to when it comes to doing life well?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's actually a lady. I don't even think she knows that she has this impact on my life, but there's a lady I met years ago at a conference and I remember I was having a conversation with her and she told me she said you need to stop being so hard on yourself. And just that one conversation. Like I said, there's many years ago, a lady I met at a conference, but it was a really pivotal point for me because she was like you need to basically celebrate the small wins too, Stop being so hard on yourself. And I really had to start reflecting on my own self-talk, which at the time was very negative, very harsh, strong inner critic, and I made those changes which I talk about in the book as well. But making those changes has really been impactful.
Speaker 1:So I would say that's definitely a piece of advice that I always really cling to is not being too hard on yourself. It is teaching yourself like again, sometimes it's just babysitting, but it's teaching yourself mentally like you're worthy, you're allowed to celebrate, you're allowed to have happiness, even if it's there's small moments of joy and there's large moments of joy, like everything matters, like all of it is important, and it is important for your mental health too. So the more you celebrate, I even list in the book like I think there's a page of I don't know like 20 different examples of small things you can do to celebrate. Like small wins count too. We can't just wait for the biggest celebrations because life is tough. We just have a lot of challenges and different things thrown at us. But if you work on saying okay, I'm grateful, in this moment I can celebrate this small win, it really just changes your mindset and your perspective and it helps you be more resilient with things that are thrown at you.
Speaker 2:If you think about all the content you've created, you think about the books. If you think about the hundreds of unwritten books that are still in your mind, in your heart, you're thinking about those. You think about all your social media content that you're active with. If all of that was erased and, Dr Hammond, you really only had one message that you could share with the world if you boiled all of that down, what would be the message that you would want to share with the world?
Speaker 1:I would say to make yourself your number one priority.
Speaker 2:It's not selfish to self-care. Make yourself your number one priority. It's not selfish to self-care. Make yourself your number one priority. The most important person that you will ever lead is yourself, and the end game is that you can be in a place of health and wholeness where you can bless, care for, empower and equip the people around you because your tank is filled up. Yes, You're in a good place. We may get overwhelmed by what am I supposed to do in the next week or month, or six months or year? Let's just focus on 24 hours. What do you want somebody doctor to do in the next 24 hours? To maybe turn their life around or just move their life forward?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the next 24 hours, find 60 seconds to take the break for you, the mental break for you. In that 60 seconds, do what brings you joy and works on calming your nervous system down. If it's taking some deep breaths, if it's I love drinking cups of tea if it's drinking a cup of tea, if it's like just being present in that moment, just having a mindful moment, whatever it is for you for 60 seconds, start that practice in the next 24 hours and do that as many times as you can daily. But again, we're talking about just 24 hours here. So take the 60 seconds, take the minute that you need.
Speaker 2:If you're listening, grab the book Mindset Training, amazing resource that is already helping so many people. Dr Nikisha Hammond, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for being on this episode of Rise and Lead. I hope this episode impacted and inspired you. Send me a DM and let me know. I read every message that comes in. Make sure you screenshot this episode, share it with someone and post it to your social media accounts. Don't forget to tag me so I can give you a repost. I know there is someone who you know who needs to hear this episode. Thank you for sharing, subscribing and rating the podcast. Seriously, that means the world to me. Look for new episodes to release every month. You won't want to miss those. Thank you for taking the time to invest in yourself. You are worth it. Remember, the best time to rise and lead is now. Thank you.