Latest / The Expert Method / Resilience Starts With Baby Steps
Transcript
- speaker-0: Welcome back to Systems of Scale. I'm Ian Gatsky. Today, I'm joined by Jeanette Harrison. Jeanette's an author and educator, and she's also somebody who's rebuilt her life more than once. And she talks about that journey with a level of honesty you don't hear very often. In this conversation, we get into what happens to your identity during unstable seasons, what she means by letting go of your struggle story, and why small steps, literally, became a way for her to steady herself and move forward. We also talk about a few practical tools she uses to work through trauma and regain confidence. If you're new here and you get value from this conversation, hit subscribe and share it with a friend. And now here is my conversation with Jeanette Harrison. Jeanette, thank you so much for being here. speaker-1: Thank you for having me today and I appreciate it. speaker-0: Absolutely. So for anybody that's not familiar with your work, you are an author of multiple books and your writing in your blog is very raw, authentic, and you aren't afraid to go deep in what it is that you share. It feels like you hold nothing back, but in your writing, in your books, in your blogs, you've talked about how you've gone through multiple major resets in your life, financially, physically, professionally. When you move through periods of instability like that, How does it affect your sense of identity and who did you become or who did those seasons make you? speaker-1: the last major shift I had is when I came to Idaho. And in that one, I felt like I didn't even know who I was anymore. And I had to kind of figure out who I used to be and kind of call that was who I am now. And then I've had times when I lived in Missouri, went through a really hard time. And I actually, was like, who am I? Who is this person? Like I was so just. not myself. was saying things that I would never even say. And I thought, well, maybe I'm losing my mind because this is not seeing like me. And so I started really thinking about like what I wanted to do. And I started using, ⁓ it's based on kind of like the West Point strategy called Mind Strong. That's what they teach the cadets at West Point, but I adapted it for myself. So I started using some of their techniques. just kind of get back to myself and who I am. And then I ⁓ use also some other techniques that are available throughout, you know, psychology and different self-care, whatever I could take. I put it all together and that's how kind of I started rebuilding myself from there. speaker-0: I think the periods of disruption are what make us. So what do you feel like you took away from some of these periods of disruption? Like how have those instable moments, those difficult, challenging times influenced who you've become today? Like what did you learn from some of those periods of disruption that you want to share with others through your writing? speaker-1: When I'm going to something challenging, one of the things that's always in the back of my mind is what am I supposed to be getting out of this? Like, why am I in this place? What is the lesson I'm supposed to be learning? I believe in that. believe that everything that we experienced, there's something we can draw on from it later. And there's some kind of shift we're making. I'll use this example this week. I, past week, I did a talk. I was a speaker. ⁓ And I posted on LinkedIn, which is crazy, now that I think about it, that, ⁓ now I can have speaker to my repertoire. But honestly, I was a speaker before because I was a faculty member and I did sexual assault training for nurse examiners and I trained medical students. But for some reason I had forgotten that was me because I had this huge portion of my life, this 10 year period where I wasn't that. And then all of a sudden I'm, I'm just kind of like, I'm remembering who I was. so every time you go, it's kind of like, how do you connect to dots in your own life? And then how do I take this really kind of strange experience that I've had that wasn't me, I felt like it wasn't who I was and make it part of who I actually am. And that's, that's challenging. speaker-0: That was great. think something profound that you shared that I had never really considered is that when things kind of fall apart, right? When things don't go as planned, when you're going through something really hard, like something is just out of alignment, right? Out of sorts ⁓ in your life, you kind of come back to your foundation, right? You kind of remember who it is that you are and where it is that you came from. And you, you you learn more about your true self, your true identity, which You know, as I think about it, you know, I'm young, I'm 26, I don't have a lot of life experience to call on. know that I have a lot more hardship in front of me and a lot more to learn about the world and, you know, especially a lot more to learn about myself. But I think the idea that who we are is always in us, right, is always in there. And I think those challenging moments, those challenging stretches that we can go through really show us who we are, like who you are under the surface, who you are at your foundation. And you can take that and build back stronger from an event like that. speaker-1: Like I said, I did the whole Mindstorm thing. And so I did some research about it. Like what makes people able to get through this stuff? Cause I mean, so I had to get a therapist and let's be honest, because you can't go through all the things I've been through in life and like, just figure it out on your own. It's just not happening. And so he said, Jeanette, how do you get out of bed every day? like, I don't know. didn't do it. And so I kind of have done some research in the past. And what I found is that part of it is your DNA. It's actually part of some people's part of their DNA that they just handle stress and change better than other people do. And it's similar to happiness. Some people it's part of their DNA that they're actually happier than other people. And it's a, it's a DNA thing. It's not necessarily, you know, you seal these aphorisms like happiness is a choice, which is a lie because part of your happiness is a choice, but not all of it because part of it is based on your DNA and based on your own personal makeup. so to say it's you choose happiness or you don't, or you choose to handle stress or you don't, it's not some things for some people, the stress would be overwhelming to them. And for other people, it's not. I must just be one of the people that I can deal with a lot of stress, which I thought I could, but there's the breaks and plates for everyone. speaker-0: What was that breaking point for you? speaker-1: Like I mentioned, I was doing the Mind Strong thing and I was doing all of these mental health things because I thought I had anxiety. And I was having panic attacks and I thought I have anxiety and I need to get this taken care of because it was affecting my life. I was just freaking out. Then I was like, okay, I my anxiety under control. was, you know, I started slowing down and reading and taking long baths and all of these things that are supposed to help you with anxiety. And then I was out on the trail one day walking and it was some really weird sensation. I was walking along the trail. All of a sudden everything went black. Just like I had walked into a dark room and I, right after everything went black and I saw an event. That happened in the past that was upsetting to me, a traumatic event, it flashed before my eyes like a movie. And I didn't realize it, but this has probably been happening for years, but it was the first time that I noticed it. And I was still walking as that was going on. When I opened my eyes, I was on a whole different part of the trail. At that point, I realized I had PTSD because I had done some research on that. When I recognized it was PTSD, then I was like, we're dealing with something totally different here. We're dealing with a totally different beast. speaker-0: Yeah, it's not just any- speaker-1: Ironically, a few months later, I had to come to Idaho during the pandemic with nothing. And that was a whole new trauma. So it basically compounded the PTSD I already had with this new trauma of moving to Idaho. speaker-0: How have you been working through these past traumas yourself? the Mind Strong process, can you tell us a little bit more about what that looks like or anything else that you've been using to help you work through these traumas? don't think, you know, nobody gets out of this life unscathed, right? Everybody kind of goes through their own traumatic situations, their own hardships. So what have you learned about what's worked for you in navigating that and getting through it? speaker-1: I a lot of research. I research a lot online. AI has helped me a lot. And one of the things that it does is when you come out of an abusive environment, a lot of people are gaslighted in that environment. That's what it's the core of the abuse. Usually it's some kind of psychological abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse, and then possibly physical abuse. One of the first things I did is I started asking myself, is what this person's saying about me true? Because sometimes as key human beings, people say things to us all the time and we internalize it. And we think that what they just said is the absolute truth. And this is how people see me. So this is must be the person that I am. But that's always the case. That was the first thing I did. I do serious meditation now. But at the time I just started doing general meditation where I'll go sit out on my porch and drink my coffee. and wash my dogs, play in the yard, whatever. I just sat there and I just started taking into myself. I've read a lot of books. And so it started just like you're doing, going on and talking to people. And I would make myself talk to 10 people a day. Just go up and start having conversations with strangers every single day because it builds your confidence. Even if it's, I remember one time. I had a full on conversation with a woman at the grocery store about cottage cheese and I don't know how we. It was so ridiculous, but I needed to do that for myself. I took a lot of baths in my Jacuzzi tub and then I walked a lot, which one of my books is actually about walking. speaker-0: He's right. Nice. think some common themes there are first, slowing down, right? Finding a way to get present, be in the moment with, for you, looked like meditation. I'm a big cheerleader for meditation. It's done so much good for my life. Journaling those long baths, right? Just kind of moments with yourself to kind of slow down. And I think in going through that process of slowing down, it helps you just get out of your head and fully process or digest what you're going through a little bit better, right? Kind of just that act of slowing down puts the full scope of what it is that you're going through into its accurate perspective. It just makes it feel less big a little bit, right? Like it brings you back within yourself and equips you with the power, I guess, to take the next step forward. And then there's something interesting that you talked about there, which is First off, asking the question of, is what they're saying about me true? Or is this story that I'm making, I'm telling myself about myself, is that true? Right, just taking a critical lens and looking at it objectively, saying, is this true? Is this narrative that I have in my brain true? Is what these people are saying about me true? Usually when you objectively look at something, this belief that you have, or this assumption that you have, it falls apart pretty quickly. And that actually reminds me of something that I was at an event last week Thursday. And it was all about making connections with people. And one of the speakers brought up this idea of the three questions that you can ask to of break any assumption that you have about anybody. assumptions, the old saying about assumptions is when you assume it makes an ass out of you and me, it's so true, right? Assumptions just don't serve anybody. But the first question that they had of those three questions was, is it true? Is this assumption that I'm making about somebody else, is it true? And then second is like, is there another explanation? And then the third question is, what is the more charitable perspective? So if you take any assumption that you have about anybody in a professional environment, personal environment, or an assumption that you're making about yourself, first you can ask, is it true? Second, is there another explanation? And third, what is the more charitable perspective? And if you ask those three questions of any assumption that you're making about anybody personally or professionally, you can watch that assumption fall apart pretty quickly and take a more productive perspective over whatever it is that you're. thinking about whatever situation you're in. And then the third thing that I heard in what you shared is that for you, isolation was the thing that you were struggling with. So you almost put yourself in a situation, you made this standard for yourself, where you kind of forced yourself, I guess, for lack of a better term, to go out and just kind of break through that isolation to start conversations with others. So you kind of like exposed yourself to the opposite of whatever it is that you were struggling with. I think all three of those are pretty relevant to any trauma that you might be go through. Amazing. So kind of just expose yourself, kind of exposure therapy, if you will, and then slow down, spend some time with yourself, work through, digest. And for a lot of trauma, right, that's probably not something that you can do on your own, but you worked with a therapist. I think that's a great thing for everybody to do. If you're going through something, slow down and work through it. Just kind of think through it, talk through it with somebody else or with your thoughts in a journal or in meditation or in a long bath. Let the thoughts just kind of wander a little bit. Yeah, just kind of break down those assumptions, really objectively look at the story that you're telling yourself. speaker-1: And another method I use is called empty chair therapy, where like you're talking to somebody, but it's just an empty chair and it helps you process your thoughts and your ideas. And so instead of just sitting there waiting until your next therapy session, or the next time you have to talk to someone, then you can sit and talk to this empty chair and tell it your problems and how you're feeling that day. or whatever else, and that really helped me kind of move past some of those problems because sometimes when you hear things out loud that you're thinking in your head, you're like, why am I thinking this? That doesn't even make any sense. Sometimes you get to call yourself out. So that's good. speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. I think that practice in general of forcing yourself to take thoughts and put them into words, either on paper or spoken word to somebody else or the empty chair, which I like that idea. It might seem a little funky at first, but I could see how that would be really helpful in just talking and just taking these thoughts that you have in your head and putting them into words. And then you can realize, you can hear yourself saying them or see what you wrote and be like, that's crazy. Why am I thinking these things is like that's They just lose so much power or it forces you to get a lot more clear and really dig into what's going on or into your idea. But in a lot of your work, you've written about needing to let go of your struggle story. So what does letting go of your struggle story mean to you? And how do you know when a story about your past has shifted from being empowering and something that is fueling you through life, something that's keeping you stuck and limiting your progress? speaker-1: The reason I wrote about that is I have this gratitude practice that I do. And I have been complaining for five years about how I had to come to Idaho with nothing. I came here, $2,400, two suitcases and my little dog. And that was it. And I had to start over with nothing. And I've been just honestly boo-hooing about it forever. And I was reading. this other blog that also did the similar gratitude practice. And the woman, she was like, well, I moved here with nothing. And I was like, oh my God, it's like the same story. We're telling the same story. Then she said she didn't have any dishes and then she didn't have a car. Wait a minute, this is my life. And then I realized, and I was like really mad. This woman took my struggle story and you know, then I decided. but I do have dishes. Okay, so I can't sit there and complain about how I don't have anything because now I have furniture and I have dishes and I have a lot of clothes in my closet and I still have my dog and I still have those two suitcases, but I have a lot of stuff. So I'm okay now. I I still have things that I want, but it's not at the... where I was when I came here, where I was, I bought a mattress from Amazon and a bed in the box. And that's what I was sleeping on. And I had a frosted couch that I got from the thrift store. And that's what I sat on. And I watched TV on my iPad. And now I don't even have that couch anymore. I got rid of it. And the bed in the box, still have that, but it's about time for that to go too. But I have the dishes. have all of that stuff. it's accepting. Hey, I did this for myself. So for me to continue complaining about it seems kind of dumb. It's kind of like, I have that part. I'm okay. It's kind of telling yourself, you got this. You have done this already. So you don't need to say, Hey, I can't do that. Because basically what you're telling yourself is, Hey, You see these dishes over here, you don't deserve those. Or you see all these clothes in your closet, you don't deserve that. Or this furniture, you don't deserve that. It's basically telling yourself that you deserve lack instead of the abundance you've created in yourself. kind of that scarcity mindset or survival mindset. And you have to let go of that a little bit at a time. It can happen all at once, but a little bit of, yes, I have dishes. Yes, I have corn, I'm sure. Did something. You know, so that's, those are the kinds of things that I feel like once you realize I don't have to be that person anymore, that's when you let go of it. speaker-0: When the struggle story perpetuates the struggle, it's not serving you, right? It's keeping you in struggle, right? That's not serving you in any way. speaker-1: They keep you in that mindset when you're not even really there anymore. speaker-0: So how do you flip that and use the struggle story as something that moves you forward, moves you beyond the struggle? Maybe something that you can teach others and help them with a similar struggle. Like how do you use the struggle story more effectively? speaker-1: Um, well, I'm trying to, gave a talk about resilience and so I am actually taking that into a workshop next week. And it's also about resilience and it ties into my book, bragging about you. And it's basically, instead of saying, Hey, this is something that I struggled through. This is something that I accomplished. I came out of on top of it. For example, I moved here with nothing and now. I have something and I've done this, this, this, you know, I've written three books since I lived in Idaho. I worked for the housing authority. I've met all of these people, made all of these connections, started a business. That's not the struggle story, but this is what came out of it. And this is how I rose above it. And that's what I'm trying to teach people that it's okay. This happened to you. And it's part of sometimes what makes you better. And. makes you do more and be more, but it's not all that you are. It's just something that happened. It was just a temporary situation. And now you can focus on all the awesome things about yourself. speaker-0: Yeah. And you can move on, right? can use how that struggle served you into the next thing. So it sounds like you're starting to put this exercise or put this process together into your own workshop, which is amazing. I think you can help a lot of people with that. But tactically, like how do you plan on working with people to help them work through that digestive process of digesting their struggle story, taking the lessons from it and leaving everything that doesn't serve them? into the next thing. Like how do you tactically see yourself working through that with people in the workshop? speaker-1: Basically what I do is I give my own talk because then people were like, well, your life has been a mess. Which it has been a roller coaster ride to say the least. And then they feel a little more comfortable acknowledging their own issues, but then also acknowledging their accomplishments because just like. We're talking about some people, they just get stuck in that struggle story. Like, well, I had a car accident 20 years ago and that's defined my life ever since when they had the car accident, but then they went into this really physically demanding job and then they started the second career and they were successful in that career. It's about figuring out who you are now and what all of those things built on each other and made you awesome. I have. A worksheet that I do it's called you're awesome. And here's why. And I use, I'm going to use that in the workshop and it basically helps people see kind of the good things about themselves. And then we're going to bring that all together with how this stuff happened, but what are all the good things that are happening? And then how do you take, for example, what were my goals when I didn't have dishes? One of the first goals I had was I had a, I bought paper plates and then about regular plates and. those goals, those onto dreams. And your dreams don't have to always be like, I'm going to climb Mount Everest or I'm going to be the fastest cyclist in the world. It could just be something small like I'm going to have a cupboard full of dishes. Or I'm going to have, you know, a nice car or I'm going to have a closet full of clothes. It doesn't have to be anything humongous. It just has to be something that you could do. And it starts with incremental steps. I believe I'm using incremental steps to achieve goals. speaker-0: Baby steps as Bob would say, and what about Bob? It starts with baby steps. Once you start making progress, building up traction, then the goals, the dreams that you have for yourself begin to expand. But it starts with changing course, getting out of that struggle, getting out of that downward trend, right? Turning the corner, moving forward, and starting small until you can win big in the long run. Amazing. So that you're awesome, and here's why worksheet. Like if you had to kind of synthesize the transformation of the impact. So is this the first time that you're going to be given this workshop? speaker-1: It is, it is the first time I've done the talk already. It follows along with my bragging about you book. So that was really popular and I was really surprised. It was, I had a friend who is a school administrator and he heard me just yammering about it as I was writing the book. And he's like, that no one's going to buy that book. And I'm like, probably not, but I wrote it and it's really a guided journal. I didn't think it was going to be very popular. I just thought, okay, well I put it out there and you know, we'll see what happens. And it ended up being like really well received. And someone told me it was, I think it was partly the timing. It was after COVID. I actually published it when I had COVID myself. Boom, published it while I'm still stuck at home. And it just did really well. And I, maybe it was a spine. I have no idea. But people were already using that. Yeah, and that's how I'm going to use to bring it all together is that book. speaker-0: Love it. Yeah, so the workshop's kind of a tactical, we're gonna do this together, we're gonna do the work that the book kind of assigns to you together here in this workshop. Amazing. If you had to kind of just explore the idea of the impact that you would love this workshop to have on the people that show up, what is that transformation or what is that impact that you want this workshop to have on the people that attend? speaker-1: I just want them to feel like it's something intentional and that they need realizing that they have their own resilience story and that they really overcome more than they think. that they feel a stronger sense of self love and self awareness instead of, well, I don't know. There's nothing special about me when probably there is a probably something super awesome and nobody knows about it. speaker-0: And it kind of reframes the idea that a lot of these people are like, ⁓ these things happen to me, right? But I think Tony Robbins talks about how, you know, these things happen for you, right? And here's how they serve you. Here's how they made you a better you. Kind of tying back to the beginning of our conversation and just reframing the events that people have lived through, the things that have forged them into who they are and reframing that to me, to for me, on how these things have served me. And then get them to kind of turn a corner, right? And start laying out what those baby steps are for you right now. And it's going to be different for everybody based on where they're at in their life, right? For you, your goal when you first got to Idaho was let's get paper plates, right? Let's get some furniture here. And now once you've accomplished, you've made those small baby steps, you've made that small progress, you're now able to expand and think bigger. But yeah, it doesn't need to be, I'm going to fly to the moon. I'm going to climb Mount Everest from the jump. That's not going to serve you, right? That's probably going to, you're going to think about that and then just kind of shut down because you're Mindset your confidence in yourself is not to the point where you can even digest or consider that right? need to start small build up the confidence I think one of the best quotes that I ever heard about confidence is that confidence comes from keeping the promises that you make with yourself So start by making some small promises some smaller goals that you set for yourself you achieve those you build confidence You can think bigger and you can dream bigger for yourself. And I think that workshop will have a really big impact on people So if you're in the Idaho area Sounds like you're just doing an in-person right now. If you're in the Idaho area listening, look up Jeanette, find one of these workshops, check out the You're Awesome and Here's Why Worksheet. Check out all of her books too in the description. I want to talk about walking, right? And kind of those taking small baby steps, right? That lead to bigger transformations in your journey. But during some of your more unstable periods, you've written about this in your blogs and obviously you wrote a whole book on this, but Walking became a central part of your life. Why walking? And what did walking give you beyond just the physical health element of walking? speaker-1: I had been walking since was in high school. think my grandmother, she had heart disease and so we would go on walks with her. So to help with her health. And as I got older, I played soccer in college. As I got older, I wasn't as in shape and walking is a super low impact exercise that anybody can do. You don't have to be in shape. You're not sweating it out in your living room. You can do it anywhere. And I started doing the walking program because of the Billions Test Challenge. I was a member of the American Public Health Association and they, at the time they had something called the Billions Test Challenge. I decided I was going to do that. Started walking around my block with my dog. After that, then we started walking around two blocks and then three blocks. And I started looking at my, you know, I had the app on my watch. I was looking at the app. And I saw that everybody else was picking my butt in this program. All these other people were walking 10,000 steps a day and I'm sitting over here being happy that I did two or 3000. I'm competitive. So when I decided I was going to start being more competitive in this walking program. And so I started increasing my steps every week. Then COVID happened and you're not supposed to be outside. I did some research again and I decided that, there's this whole thing called diffusion of molecules. So when you're outside, you are less likely to catch a virus than you are if you're inside. I went out and walked when nobody else was outside. And every single week I increased by a thousand steps. picked a thousand just because I felt like increased by 10 % every week. I w there's a thing in the power of 1%, but I did 10%. And so every week it was, I'm to do 10,000 more steps this week and 10,000 steps more than next week. got up to like 20,000 steps by the time I got to Idaho, which was good because I was excited about being in nature here. But it helped me process everything that was going on in my life too, because it's an emotional release. helps you release, release hormones that help with stress. like serotonin and dopamine, it helps to reduce your cortisol level. So walking, it's not just mind, but it also is body. So body, mind and spirit when you're out walking. speaker-0: Absolutely. A lot of what you shared today rhymes with so many ancient wisdom. Like you can go back, like I'm a big fan of Stoicism and you read the Stoics, right? They talk about meditation. They talk about journaling. They talk about the value of walking, right? A lot of what you're talking about, they talk about the reframing of the events that have happened to you, right? A big pillar of Stoicism is you don't control events. You control your reaction to those events. And I think anytime something that you're teaching, or something that you've discovered, you find it rhyming with lessons from history from like thousands of years ago, you're onto something, right? You're onto something like, okay, this is like a true foundational principle of life. But yeah, walking is something I try and do first thing every single day. It's a low impact exercise that people can stay committed to. And again, it kind of goes back to those baby steps, right? Baby steps, starting small and like getting 1 % better. The thing that you had mentioned with atomic habits, James Clear, that made me think of that. But when somebody is super overwhelmed, right, maybe they're going from this place of being out of shape, they don't have the habit of exercise, of working out, and somebody is a long way from where they want to be, why do you think that the small metrics, the small baby steps kind of matter? And I know this is kind of reiterating what we had mentioned earlier, but I wanna really drive this point home of why start small? Why do small metrics, small wins in the beginning, kind of smaller goals, if you will. Why do you encourage people to start there? speaker-1: It's about confidence. So you start feeling more confident in yourself, but you also start developing a habit. It's easier to go out and walk 2000 steps and then say, Oh, next week I'm going to do 3000 or 4000 or 6000. Well, then it is to go, I'm going to go start walking 10,000 steps five days a week. And you've been sitting on the couch because what's going to happen is after those, you do 10,000 steps a couple of times, you're to go home and be like, okay, that was exhausting. And my body's sore. And I'm tired and I'm not used to this and I can't get myself to do this every single day. But when you build up to it all the time, then you have this strength to do it. It's about conditioning. You're conditioning your body and your mind and your spirit, just like we talked about to do these things. I like to use the example of used to swim and I taught several people to swim and I was a lifeguard at IKEA. And a lot of times that people that I'd have to jump in and save. They were the kids who thought that they could just go jump into the deep end of the lake. wasn't even a swimming pool. It was lake without knowing how to swim. And you can't do that because then you're going to be the one on the life raft and you're going to get a bad memory from that and not want to do it again. But if you learn to swim in the shallow end first and then progress further on, then you'll be excited to be in the deep end. Then it's like a prize. like, woo, I get to jump off the diving board or I get to go on the rope swing or whatever it is. Another thing, if you want to use like an intellectual way of thinking about it, it's like math, right? You don't go learn trigonometry your first year in math. You start with addition and subtraction and multiplication and division, and then you develop into trigonometry. speaker-0: You build the foundation first. If you look at the greats in any practice, they emphasize the value of just doing the fundamentals really well. Michael Jordan would practice chest passes for an hour every day, even when he was the best in the world, even when he's Michael Jordan. It starts with the fundamentals, it starts with doing the basic things, right? But then also you build up that habit. You start in the shallow end, you build the habit, and then that habit will carry you through. to the bigger versions of whatever that is for you. Whatever the deep end is for you, starting in the shallow end, building that habit will take you there. If you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for 10 seconds, what would it say and why? speaker-1: Don't give up. Just keep going. speaker-0: Jeanette, thank you so much for your time today. speaker-1: Thank you so much, you know, it's a pleasure. speaker-0: Thank you for listening. Here are my three main takeaways from my conversation with Jeanette. Number one, rebuilding starts with reconnecting to who you were before the disruption happened. Jeanette talked about needing to remember herself, then integrate that with who she is now. It reminded me of that principle you see in a lot of great operators. When things get noisy, go back to the fundamentals. Number two, the struggle story can turn into a trap if it keeps you living in scarcity after things have already changed. That shift for her was noticing, I have dishes now. I have furniture now, being grateful for the things around her that she once strived and yearned for. That's a real line in the sand moment, and it rhymes with the same idea you hear from founders who've survived the hard seasons. You don't deny the past, but you stop rehearsing it and telling it to yourself and letting it embody who you are and your identity. Number three, small metrics and small wins build confidence because they build evidence. Her walking progression, which she's written an entire book about, is a perfect example. You condition your body, you condition your mind, and you stack wins. That's straight out of the playbook of anyone who has ever built or done anything hard. You shrink the target, execute consistently, let momentum do its job. If you want to get connected with Jeanette, you can find her links alongside her books and worksheets that we mentioned in the description of this episode. And if you're an author, course creator, consultant, or coach, and you know your clients aren't following through the way that they should, download the free program execution engine toolkit in the description. It'll show you how to install execution infrastructure inside your program so that clients actually complete the work, get the value, stay on for longer, and buy more of your products. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next one.