[13 min] How to Rewrite a Better Story For Your Future with Megan Hyatt Miller

Wanna know what really holds entrepreneurs back?

… it’s not lack of funds.

… it’s not lack of time.

… it’s not lack of influence.

It’s the story they’re telling themselves around these perceived “limitations”.**

But the good, no GREAT, news: You can tweak, change, and rewrite the story however many times you need to.

In fact, in this episode, Megan Hyatt Miller, the CEO of Full Focus, shares exactly how to rewrite and believe your new story. (Because let’s be real: if you don’t believe your new story—it won’t work.)

Click play to hear all of this and…

(00:00:40) How to identify the story you’re telling yourself.

(00:02:01) The role the brain plays in interpreting events and the importance of questioning the stories we tell ourselves.

(00:02:59) The importance of creating a new, positive story to replace the old, limiting one.

(00:05:19) How to reframe our thoughts.

(00:08:37) A lie business owners often tell themselves.

(00:10:30) Megan’s personal health example to show how changing the story can lead to different actions and results.

For full show notes, visit:

https://jasminestar.com/podcast/episode424

Transcript

Whitney Carmichael (00:00:01) - It's a. Are you ready to rewrite the story you're telling yourself? Hi. Whitney here, content director for Jasmine, star and social curator. And in this bite sized episode of The Jasmine Starr Show, you'll walk away with not only the three steps to take to stop living a small life, but you'll learn how to identify the actions to get the results you want. No. Scratch that deserve. Enjoy this episode.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:00:40) - Now there are people who are just getting started in business. So we're going to talk about different types of business owners on this journey. But if you're advanced, if you're making tens of millions or you're just getting started with your first 10,000, like there is people who are starting a business and they haven't yet made sales and they're unsure, like, am I good enough? Is this going to work? I see this a lot regardless of the size of the business. So if a person would come to you and say, Megan, what's my first step? Like, how do I start focusing on mindset? It seems like this big thing, what do you say? Where do we start? I love that you pointed that out, Jasmine, because I think you're right.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:01:10) - It does feel like this big squishy thing that's like some people just maybe magically get. And maybe you feel like people that don't get it. The good news is that's actually not true, despite how it might feel. So what's happening for all of us is that our brain takes the facts of our lives. You know, maybe the fact that you haven't made a sale yet or the fact that you've done 10,000, or the fact that you've done 10 million, what whatever that number is for you. And then it tells us a story about what that means, because our brain likes to make meaning. It likes to give us interpretations that ultimately are going to keep us safe and protected. And so that's where really the self-doubt comes from, because our brain doesn't want us to try new things. It doesn't like it when we're out of our comfort zone and all of that. So really, the first step in starting to think about mindset is to realize that you have this character that we call the narrator in your head, really just your brain, but we personify it.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:02:01) - Who is interpreting the events of your life all the time and telling you what they mean? And it does that in the form of a story like I always, I could never this is how this works. It's usually comes out as statements about how the world works, how you are, or how other people are. So those are kind of the three categories that generally these statements, these stories present themselves in. And so the first step is really just identifying the story that you're telling around something where you feel stuck or where you want to go to the next level, but maybe that feels out of reach for you. And if you can just begin to be aware of the story, then you're really set up for the next step, which is to interrogate the story. And at this point, we want to kind of shake loose what happens in our lives or what the facts are from the story that our narrator is telling us about those facts. Because once you start to loosen those things up and you realize there are actually two different things, there's facts, and then there's the fiction or the story we put on top of it.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:02:59) - Then you're set up for step number three, which is to imagine a better story. What I see people do with mindset sometimes is they try to leapfrog from identifying a story that they're telling that they know is really contributing to them playing small, and they try to leapfrog to a bigger, better story without interrogating it. And it just doesn't stick because it's kind of like your brain says, yeah, right. You know, because it feels so true, that story and the facts together, you know, and so you've really got to go through the interrogation process. So you set the stage for the new story taking root.

Jasmine Star (00:03:32) - Okay. So can we pause there for a second, identify the story, interrogate the story, apply a new story. That sounds amazing, but people get stuck on applying, like on assessing the story. People have a hard time identifying what happened to make me feel or second guess or pause or stay stuck today. How do they find that story?

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:03:49) - Yeah, well, first of all, try to think about what are the sentences kind of just in my head because stories really present themselves like statements.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:03:58) - So what am I saying? And then start to ask yourself the question, this is part of the interrogation. But you know, you want to try to just it's almost like you're trying to peel your fingers back from the grip on that story. That makes it feel so true by asking what somebody else see it that way. What else could be true? Can we really verify that story as being a fact, or is that a subjective interpretation of those facts? And I did this actually with a group the other day, and they were struggling with a new system that was being rolled out in their business, and they really weren't excited about it. They didn't think the team that was going to be doing it was the ideal team. They wanted to be able to do it themselves. They thought they had more expertise. And the interesting thing is that when you have a story that feels like facts, but it's not, it directs the actions that you take which ultimately deliver the results that you're getting in your life.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:04:53) - And so, for example, if you think a team who is working on something in your company is incompetent or they're not as good as you would be at doing it, how you show up to try to implement what they're going to suggest is going to be very different than if you think they're great at what they're doing, or they're really smart, and that's ultimately going to affect the success of that project. And that's true in so many areas of our life, which is why this is so powerful.

Jasmine Star (00:05:16) - so can we get a little bit more granular?

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:05:18) - Yeah.

Jasmine Star (00:05:19) - Okay. So a top two limiting beliefs or the stories that people are repeating as fact that I've seen is I don't know how like, I don't know the first step, I don't know how and I don't have time. So we all have different stories that led us to this belief. But could you give us an example of how I don't have time? Like what? Story could have predicted that for us to have that as our narrative, as an example.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:05:44) - Well, you know, for example, like, I'm a mom of five kids, I have five children, ages 21 to 3, and I have a business. And I had to make a really big decision when my little boys were they're adopted from Uganda. When they came home. They had a lot of traumatic experiences and needed a lot of hands on, you know, parenting to help them heal. And as I was kind of ascending in my career, I made the decision that I was going to be done every day at 3:00 because I needed to be present for them. And so instead of thinking to myself, I don't have time to do everything I need to make this business succeed. Which, by the way, is the first thought I have. Your brain is always going to give you kind of these self-protective, negative thoughts. So don't worry about that. You're not doing anything wrong. If that happens, you're just congratulations. You're normal. I said to myself, wait a second, is that really true? Is it really true that I can't get everything done that I need to get done to make this business grow? No, I mean, I couldn't there's not, like, a list of here's all the things you have to do.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:06:41) - Exactly. Other than the list I'm making for myself. In fact, what if I have exactly enough time to get the most important things done and I can ultimately build a team to do the things that I don't have time to do? Well, that all of a sudden radically changes how I approach that situation. And I was doing that, by the way, at a time when our team was very small. My kids are much older now, when I had a lot fewer resources than I had today. But I chose to embrace the constraints. And so, for example, you might say, I don't have enough time to do everything, but I do have enough time to do the most important things. And so that's what we call a paradoxical framing of a story where you don't totally discount your original story, because there probably is a grain of truth in it. And I think it's not helpful to kind of completely dismiss it in some cases. But you can twist it. You know, my time is limited, but I have all the time I need to do the most important things, and I think that changes how you're thinking about the actions you're going to take, because now you're going to become like I did, way choosier about the decisions that you're making, what you choose to invest your time in, you're not going to be jumping on Facebook or Instagram unless it's for professional purposes.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:07:55) - You know, you're going to be like really focused and very choosy about what you invest in, and that's going to change your results.

Jasmine Star (00:08:02) - Oh so good. Thank you for diving deep there and adding so much clarity. So a person who is here and they hear, well, CEO five kids having time for the most important assembling teams. And that was on the origins of mindset. And then there's always the skeptic, which I appreciate and I applaud. I am naturally a skeptic and many people are like, well, I don't see how this mind stuff like stuff, it kind of like works for me. Like whenever I have a problem, I just go and solve it. I take action, I figure it out. I don't really need to focus because adding mindset just makes it more like another layer. Okay, so would you say that mindset work is for everybody, or do you think that there's more people who are like more akin to it?

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:08:37) - Where do you go? I think there are probably people who are more naturally open to it, but there's not any research that would suggest that some people are going to get better results with mindset or, you know, they're just like naturally hardwired to really benefit from mindset work while others won't.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:08:52) - Here's what I would say to that person, because I totally relate to you and my husband, who is our Chief Product Officer and was very instrumental in the research of this book, would naturally be in that camp and has really made a lot of progress over time as he's delved into the research on this. Because here's the thing. Your brain is if your action bias, which I mean, I can tell Jasmine, you are, I am. It's like, let's go get it done. Right. But when you have an action bias, the actions that you're taking are limited by the story that you're telling. So a story that says, I could never or this is not possible, there's no way I could go from $10,000 that I made last year to $100,000 this year. There's just no way that could happen. Well, your brain is going to do that thing where it starts sorting for solutions that are congruent with your story. It's kind of like if you bought a Tesla, all of a sudden you would think everybody in your town bought a Tesla.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:09:46) - In fact, you just started noticing them because you got one yourself. Same thing with our actions in the solutions that we have access to. So if you want to have access to the kind of actions that are going to get you the results you want, then you have to go further upstream and you have to tell a story that's going to kind of point your brain in the direction of the solutions that are going to be helpful, instead of giving you more of what you're already getting. So that's why this matters. You just can't think the thoughts you need to think to get where you want to go. Unless your brain is predisposed to look for the solutions you need.

Jasmine Star (00:10:20) - So how might somebody do that? Can you give us like a super granular example, like when you have to go upstream? Like I get this, but there might be somebody who's listening to be like, well, what does that actually mean? Okay.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:10:30) - So for example, I have been a person who's really prioritized my health for a long period of time.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:10:35) - I had a rare heart attack. There's nothing to do with lifestyle, and that's some kind of. Heart attack. But almost nobody ever has young, active women in their 40s. That's who gets this heart attack. It's called a scan heart attack. So I had this about a year and a half ago, and my doctor said, you also have some genetic risk for other heart disease. I think that you should really try to focus, you know, at an even higher level on reducing your risk by losing weight. And I was like, oh, okay. You know, I'm not real excited about that. But I had some early success with some lifestyle stuff. And then I hit a wall and I just wasn't making progress. And so, you know, my natural instinct would be, I need to be more consistent. Maybe I need to add 15 more minutes of walking every day. Maybe, you know, whatever. Just those little tweaks in reality that wasn't going to get me where I needed to go.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:11:20) - And so because I said, I don't know how to get a breakthrough here, but I'm certain there is a solution. I just have to find it. Okay, so that's my story. I don't know how to get a breakthrough here, but I'm sure there's a solution if I can just find it. Well, I ended up finding an amazing regenerative medicine doctor out in California who does a lot of work with peptides. And there's been a lot in the news about some new peptides that have come out that have been helpful. And I've lost £50 in the last about eight months and dramatically lowered my heart disease risk in the future. And the reason I was able to get different results is because I took different actions. But the only way I had access to different actions is because I had a story that set my brain up to go find that solution, because our brains going to go answer the question that we give it, and if we give it, you know, unproductive or unhelpful questions, it'll find those answers, but they're not going to help you.

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:12:16) - And in my case, this was a big breakthrough.

Jasmine Star (00:12:19) - Okay, girl, it's like you just take the high level stuff and I'm like, I get it, I get it. And then you add a practical, real life example and I'm like, poof!

Whitney Carmichael (00:12:29) - Welcome back. We can't wait to see all that you accomplish by rewriting your story and getting into action. Until next time.