Latest / Real STRength with Sarah Draper / Run On Alignment, Not Adrenaline With Michelle Philips | #14

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Run On Alignment, Not Adrenaline With Michelle Philips | #14 · Real STRength with Sarah Draper

• speaker-0: I always say every book I've ever written or everything I teach comes out of my own doubts, fears, and insecurities. These habits that I had been developing only because I'm so interested in positive psychology really kept me alive. I don't even want to say alive, but my habit of journaling. They really kept me from drowning. I want you to run on alignment, not adrenaline. No one's teaching people how to have agency over their thoughts and emotions. Conflict is energy. speaker-1: Welcome to the Future Walk Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Drapert. Each week on the podcast, I explore tools to help you lead your best now and into the future, and I talk with top leaders to see how they stay focused when life gets cluttered. It's time to stop reacting to your life and start leading it. Welcome to Future Walk. Welcome to the Future Walk Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Draper, and I'm so glad you're here. Today I'm joined by Michelle Phillips, known to her clients as the Light Lady. Michelle's an award-winning author, international speaker, and Fortune 100 coach who has spent 25 years helping leaders master their internal energy to shape their outcomes. She's the creator of the Energy Rules Framework, author of Happiness is a Habit. And the newly released Energize Your Happiness and host of the Write Your Outcome podcast. Now, the future walk helps you to step out of external noise to think clearly about your future. And Michelle's work helps you manage your internal energy so you can actually create that future. Now, both practices start with this belief that you have more control over your outcomes than you think. Michelle, welcome to the podcast and thank you so much for being here. speaker-0: Thank you for having me, Sarah. I'm very excited to dive into this. This is my favorite topic. So I'm really happy to be here. speaker-1: ⁓ thank you. Thank you. So so happy you are here. So to dive in, let's let's just do it. And we'll love to have you share a little bit about yourself and where you've come from, why you do what you do and some of the, you know, we'll get into some of the impact and the how in the world, but just why you're doing what you're doing. speaker-0: Yeah, well, I will say, you know, I always say every book I've ever written or everything I teach comes out of my own doubts, fears, and insecurities. So the saying, you know, what you need most, you teach, ⁓ resonates deeply with me. I've always had a propensity for I like people, right? You know, you can tell I'm good with people. People say that all the time. But I really learned how, you know, I studied emotional intelligence and then I studied positive psychology and Earlier in my career, I did all the sales training for Verizon Wireless. And that led me to the psychology of sales. Which once I got into psychology, I was like, ⁓ my gosh, I love this topic more than anything. And I went back for my master's at Fordham. ⁓ and I remember I gave a presentation then called Leading with a Heart. It was very we're talking maybe 30 years ago, 2020. It a while ago. Five years ago. I gave this presentation. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And this woman in the class was a VP at a big company and she's like, I want you to do a full day workshop for my executives. And I was like, Okay, I didn't have a full day workshop, but I just spoke from my heart on leading people, not just there's always a task involved, but there's a heart involved, there's a person involved. So I started ⁓ doing workshops for this company way back when moonlighting, and they became my first client. And I thought, ⁓ my gosh, I'm onto something. I started I literally jumped ship ⁓ in two thousand from my corporate work to start my own consulting business, which is where I am twenty five years later. Twenty six almost in August. speaker-1: ⁓ my goodness. That's amazing. And so your journey started with just that human connection and recognition of leadership is is heart work. It's hard work. It's ⁓ right. And that that being ⁓ that really a necessity to to connect at the heart level. That's fantastic. And I'd love to hear your positive psychology. ⁓ do you mind sharing a little bit about that? I'm a I'm also ⁓ you know, positive psychology practitioner, if you will. speaker-0: Hurt. speaker-1: And I would love to have you share a bit about that. speaker-0: Yeah, so again, I've been doing this so long, positive psychology wasn't even a thing when I started, right? We used to call it positive thinking, Norman Vincent Peel. You I read all these books and I was always a believer before there was any science or research behind any of it. And I remember clear as day, it was a cold winter morning. I was at a coffee shop in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, and I bought this book called Learned Optimism by Martin Dr. Martin Seligman. Yeah. And I rem Yeah, remember going, ⁓ my gosh, like there's somebody's putting a body of research behind everything I already believe and know to be true. But now there's this body of research. So I was so excited. so I started reading about it and what was happening. And positive psychology was so new then they didn't even have the course. So when the course the first course at University of Pennsylvania, I'm getting ahead of myself. Martin Seligman is the leader I call him the father of positive psychology out of the University of Pennsylvania. When the program first started, the first year, I think there were 36 people in the program and I applied. Did not get in. So I thought, do they know who I am? But it was global, they only could take 36 people. So within the next year, I wrote my first book, Happiness is a Habit, based on positive psychology. speaker-1: ⁓ you did. Yes, ⁓ no. speaker-0: And the next year they wrote to me and said, You should apply this year. ⁓ wow. And I thought, ⁓ I'm good. I just wrote a book on it. But I did write Martin, Dr. Martin Seligman. So when Happiness is a Habit was coming out, I wrote him and said, I have this new book. I would love you to endorse it because you really shape my life with your work. And he wrote me back a one sentence email. He said, I always read, rarely endorse. So I was like, okay. So then when the book came out, I wrote to him again. I said thank you again. I don't even remember I sent him the book, I think. And he wrote back to me again and he wished me, you know, hope it's a best seller. One sentence. Yeah. And then maybe a year or so later he came out with a new book. I can't remember which one. But in the book he wrote that he gets so many emails, he responds to all his emails with one sentence. ⁓ So I laughed. I'm like, Okay, I've been the recipient of two of his one sentence emails. I know speaker-1: Someone else who's been a recipient of one of those. speaker-0: Yeah, so it was funny. So I while I respect him, I I give him, you know, I shout out to all the positive psychologists, all the researchers doing the work. ⁓ but that's what led to the first book. speaker-1: ⁓ my goodness, that's amazing. I once I started to hear about positive psychology and begin to understand the kind of the the framework of it, not even a framework, but the the the spirit of it, like living your best life. He is absolutely the father, the founder, ⁓ living your best life, living how do you thrive and flourish and and and what does that mean in your life? What does that mean to the people around you? ⁓ Dr. Chris Peterson, one of his who was right co-founders. I I use his a quote he had in an article some time ago talking about resilience. I use it all the time because it it was almost a pivot point, like almost a right turn or a 180 for me and my understanding of what resilience really was. And that his description was just a description in this article, was about resilience being the ability to struggle well. And I use that all the time because it just reframed this whole idea of struggle, reframed difficulty and challenges into something of normalcy and also something of opportunity and growth rather than something to overcome. It's really something to get into and then reflect on out on the other side to bring that forward to others. So yeah. Positive psychology. ⁓ my goodness, I love that. Thank you. Thanks for sharing that. And and ⁓ again, congratulations on the new book. So what is tell us about this this new book and and kind of where your journey's taking you but in between these? Cause this is probably twenty some years in between them. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. So interestingly enough, Sarah, I like what you're just saying about the ability to struggle well. When I got into positive psychology, and I think that's happiness unfortunately gets a bad rap because they ⁓ it's fake or it's toxic positivity, whatever people are saying these days. But genuine good feelings are palpable. Mm-hmm. It's it's the Duchenne smile, it's the real smile. It's like people can walk in a room and not say anything. So the first book was basically mental, physical, spiritual, emotional habits that keep you grounded and feeling good about yourself and your life. And what even motivated that even more was early. I mean, I know you're an army, ⁓ is it what do you say, West Point graduate? Is it West Point? So you get that, ⁓ those habitual like working out and well being. And so I've always been someone who works out and eats right. speaker-1: In Armenia, yeah. speaker-0: And it was working so well for me, then I started to what are the my f habits around finance? What are my habits around relationships? What are my habits around self-care? So I really started exploring habits. And when my first marriage was crumbling, I realized the one thing that kept me strong in the loneliest, most heartbreaking time of my life was my habits. I still went to the gym. I still ate healthy. I had a great podcast not a podcast, a great playlist on my iPhone or back in the day we had a pot iPod. And I had a great group of people to support me. So these habits that I had been developing only because I'm so interested in positive psychology really kept me alive. I don't even want to say alive, but my habit of journaling they really kept me from drowning and going down a very dark path. I could see easily how people start to drink too much because I was didn't want to be home by myself. So I would go out at night and then, ⁓ just one drink. ⁓ just one more. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ I'm not going to work out in the morning. Right. So to make the quick ⁓ the quick bridge for you. Yeah. Happiness is a how it came out the beginning of 2014. And it was all about habits of positive people. ⁓ based in the research, lots of research in that. ⁓ also it's it Dan ⁓ Tal Ben Shahar, ⁓ who teaches at Harvard, he did endorse this book. So I will ⁓ he did say yes to an endorsement. So he teaches the happiness workshops at classes at Harvard. So then when the book came out, Sarah, you kind of you become the poster child of what you're teaching. So whenever I was in a bad mood, my dad would go, Remember, Michelle, happiness is a habit. Yeah. I'm not really happy right now. speaker-1: Okay. That's a lot of accountability in that now. speaker-0: So you learn to struggle well, as you said before. So I was still I was able to, when things didn't go my way, get back on track quicker. So the more I practiced the habits, the more I started experiencing what I call energetic highs. Mm-hmm. So when you are it's kind of like momentum. When you're doing something on a regular basis, you start to get momentum and it gets easier. versus ⁓ I'm gonna start working out tomorrow for the first time in my life and I don't know the first thing about working out. Right. So the momentum of my good habits, and I love everything you say, Sarah, like check, check, check. Like go outside, get fresh air, take those mental breaks. Don't put back to back meetings on your schedule. All those things I'm a big advocate of. Energize your happiness, what I found was it's almost, you know, what the positive psychologist would call flow, the flow state. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And the athlete calls the zone. I call your personal energy alignment when you are, I say tuned in, tapped in mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally to your own, your own mind, your own heart, your own gut, which then connects you to something greater than you. Wow. And that's where I say all the masters live. The best songs are written from this place, the best athletes. Or when you're in that. Creative space, which I believe going on a future walk gets you there because it gets your senses into the present moment. You're able to make better decisions. speaker-1: Yes. Wow. ⁓ gosh, so many, so many great things there. ⁓ maybe working here backwards, just that most recent thing. I I've begun to think about personal performance, if you will, like your your ability to perform as as strength and and real strength, not just like the grit get it done. That resilience piece, but those wh three dimensional or full person, full person and what you're doing it for. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: connection. So I talk about you working in your states, the those things that help your foundation, your, you know, your your body, right? But also like your nervous system and working in those states and having tools to regulate that. And then getting into your traits. This is where the emotional intelligence and other things along those lines come in, building the capacities of resilience, focus, empathy, all those. And then Than what you're doing it for. And that's the relate. So I call it strength because S T R state trait relate. Okay. The relate is what you're doing it for with a thing outside of you. Or sometimes where you get that strength yourself internally, where you get your inspiration from. But I I love that ⁓ just kind of that that recognition of the value of the whole person, right? Not just any one part of you, but but that whole person. leading to your personal energy alignment. So now people call you the light lady. Is that right? Okay, what was it about that? speaker-0: Yeah, I mean, many years ago, ⁓ I'll tell I'll tell you the quick story. In nineteen ninety-seven I studied with Jack Canfield in Santa Barbara, California, who I have to give a plug, he endorsed the second book. So I'm not happy to have him his name on that book. I studied with Jack Canfield, the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul series, a co-author. And ⁓ in the workshop, there was about 200 of us there for eight days. ⁓ And after every break, we had to change our seats. So there was this man there who had a really weird haircut. And I don't know, he looked weird to me. So I purposely avoided him when we would switch our seats. And when I finally met him, because I finally did sit next to him, it turned out he had just had brain surgery, be which is why he had a weird haircut. And I I always say to myself, I always say now, every time I judge another, I judge wrong. Right. I was so judging him. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: He turns out we're in California and he lives right in the next town over in New Jersey where I grew up in New York and he goes to me at the workshop, Michelle. We're both being certified. We were being certified in Jack Canfield Success Principles, Self Esteem, P Performance Workshops. He goes, Let's do a workshop in September, in August. And I said, ⁓ you know, my sister's getting married. I'm throwing a bridal shower. And he goes, Okay, let's do it in September. I go, My sister's getting married in September. I can't and he looked me straight in the face and he goes, How long are you gonna put off doing, you know, going for your dreams? Wow. Because I wasn't doing this full time yet. I was still at corporate job. And I thought to him, Screw you, who are you to s tell me, you know, what I'm doing? And he became one of my guiding angels. He's since passed away, but he has was one of the biggest angels in my life. And he lost 70% of his vision during his illness. ⁓ my goodness. Which created he could see like s light, but he really couldn't see focus. Okay. So whenever he saw me, he said I was light. And he came to my home. He said, This is like you. He's like, you bring light. So he started calling me the light lady. I again, I just took it as a fun little nickname. And it wasn't till, I don't know, maybe five years ago, I said, Like why are I not using it? I s I tease, I say, if Queen Latifah can call herself a queen, I can call myself the light lady. So that's yeah. speaker-1: that that's stepping into it. That's totally embracing that. And then that's I mean that's your whole thing is about energy. Well not your whole thing. You've got a lot of things, but really about that the energy and and how you use that. Right. So when you work with leaders and you've worked with some, you've learned from some extraordinary ones clearly I also see that you've got a connection with Stephen Covey. Is that right? speaker-0: ⁓ well yes, I did his workshops for many years as well. And so speaker-1: Go on. No, no, go on, go on. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, no, there's so many great teachers out there. And that's the thing. I ⁓ there's so many we are at a time in history where we have really lost our connection to what I call the magic. We've lost our connection to transcendence and things that you can't prove. So as much as I love positive psychology and I love the research, I don't need it to believe. Right. So that's why I always consider myself the bridge. You know, someone said to me after a workshop once, they walked up to me in the hallway. I remember on the break, and the guy walked up to me and he said to me, You bring soul to the workplace. and I thought, ⁓ my gosh. So so often we leave half of ourselves in the car to come into our places of work and we're so busy operating, like you say, from tasks and to dos. And we're literally operating what I call from the neck up. We're just thinking, thinking, thinking. And my goal is to connect people not only to their heart, but to their gut, which your gut is the place where your soul meets your body. And that's why there's such a strong connection that we are we are not human beings. We're you we're we're the being behind the human. Yeah. There's a force, there's a spirit, there's a force that's animating our bodies. And when you go to a funeral, that spirit is gone from the body. The body is laying there in the casket. But the spirit, the life is gone. So the life that is animating us is what I want people to connect to because it's always guiding you. It's ⁓ it's the best GPS system you will ever own. speaker-1: And that's that light. Okay, so so you talked about the being behind the body and your heart, the heart of the leader and the soul and your work learning from so many extraordinary leaders and thinkers. And now you take all of this and you bring it to leaders. You bring it to other leaders and and you help them bring the energy into their their place, right? speaker-0: Well, yeah, so the whole idea is and it's everything you talk about, which is what I love, because I listen to your work, I hear you saying alignment is better. You know, alignment ⁓ I always say, I want you to run on alignment, not adrenaline. Most leaders are running on adrenaline and we're always being they want to do more, push out more, do more. And we are not machines. Right. The you know, the machine always wants you to can you wanna play again? Do you wanna play again? ⁓ you got a lot of likes, you better post again, post and it's like, ⁓ my gosh, we are always speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: being pulled into the machine world or the screen world when we are not machines or computers. So what I want my leaders to do is know what it feels like to be in alignment. And I give the example of I always say to my classes, imagine I just gave you, well pick your favorite sports car. And imagine I give you your favorite sports car and you have these high performance tires and I I put you on this road with nobody and I say, just have a blast. So you go out there and you are riding and you are taking the turns and the car performs so well. What happens the minute one of those tires blows out? Right? You're you're out of alignment, but you're still driving. It's almost like driving on the rumble strips. So most people, unfortunately, are living their life like that every day. They're riding on the rumble strips, their tires are blown out, they're mentally, physically, emotionally depleted, but they're showing up. And because speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. speaker-0: They're high performers, they know how to do it. So I want people to know, and I love what you say, you know, take a future walk. I always tell my leaders, I want you to go outside for five minutes if you could, you know, 10 to 20 if you can, but five minutes and look at the sky and smile. It just breaks breaks everything. And then your neurons. So the again, it's momentum. So I want to say one last thing. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Every thought you have is an electromagnetic unit of energy that gathers another thought, that gathers another thought just like it. So if you are having negative thoughts or you're having conflict, you're just building one negative thought after the other, versus when you take the future walk or the five minutes, y then you break that thought cycle and you get to start over. speaker-1: I love that. So so working with leaders and and getting them to run on alignment, not adrenaline, and giving them these skills, what are some of the more common or helping them understand some tools maybe that people can use? You've talked about get outside and look at the sky and smile, right? Something something like in the moment, practically in the moment that is really legitimately doable. What are some other things you help people? speaker-0: Yeah, the biggest thing on, you know, is the write your outcome method, which I talk about. And it's basically the write your outcome method. Let me just so there's two things. There's energy and then writing the outcome. So your energy, I always say energy has there's rules to energy. So when my my new book is all and different energy rules. And I I play on the word because it kind of rules like I have a lot of energy. That's rules, but it also there's rules to energy. If you jump off a building, you fall. It's gravity. It's a rule. So our emotions are following the rules of energy, but we are not, we are not, we don't have agency over our thoughts and emotions. No one's teaching people how to have agency over their thoughts and emotions. So before I even get to the right year outcome, let me do this. You know, I just read an I just saw a statistic. 20, I think it's 23% of college students are on antidepressants. Mm. Because nobody has taught them how to manage their thoughts and emotions. Mm-hmm. So that's what I teach in energy rules. Your thoughts your thought your thought is a belief. Your thought stems from a belief. A belief is something you decided was true. speaker-1: Yeah. yeah. speaker-0: Belief is something you decided was true. You could say, I'm good looking, I'm not good looking. I'm rich, I'm not rich. I mean, I know people with a gazillion dollars and they think they're poor, and I know people that don't have that much and think they're rich. Right. So we first have to look at our beliefs because whatever you're believing is creating an emotion. And now I have the emotion that, you know, I'm doing well, I'm not doing well. The focus of our emotions is I call it the magnifying glass theory. So if we went outside. On a sunny day, Sarah, and I had a magnifying glass and a pile of leaves, I would take all the energy of the sun and I would focus it and I would s we would start a fire. We have the same energy with our thoughts and where we're putting our focus, but we're so sloppy with our thinking. We're judging and complaining and criticizing and we're just we're throwing our thoughts, our focus where our attention is so muddy that we have no momentum, no power. speaker-1: Right. Right. speaker-0: When I take my thoughts and emotions, and I made up a word, I make up all these things, energizio. which is focusing your attention on what you want. When I focus my attention on what I want and where I'm going, I will be, I will get better momentum. It's kind of like complaining about there's no I can't find a house. There's no houses, there's nothing on the market and expecting to find a house. You're spending all your time focusing on what you don't want. Right. We do it with jobs, we do it with spouses, we do it all the time. So in energize your happiness, I start to break it down all these emotional, mostly mental tools that I work with the leaders, because the leaders are smart. Here's the thing these people are super smart, high achievers, running huge companies. I mean, I look at the, you know, the budgets they run and the amount of people that are under them. And really it's about managing where they're focusing, where they're putting their energy. Because if they're not getting the outcome they want, they could write a new outcome based on where they focus. speaker-1: Yeah. How is there a a tool or like an action step that you use to help people be able to focus? Because I I find like focus is is super ⁓ it's like some valuable gem that I don't always have generally have access to, right? It it seems like something other people can cultivate. And I do a lot on my own to try to teach my brain to focus. Mindfulness meditation and journaling and get breaking break that that neural energy that you were talking about, how the energy, that momentum of that negative energy, how it built on doing things to break that. And those things help, but is there like a, you know, a a suite of tools that seem to to resonate with most of your leaders that really help them be able to focus on, figure out what they want, truly what they want, but then focus on that versus all the other shiny objects that might come up. speaker-0: Yeah. Well, first of all, there's so many things popping in my head. You're doing it. The whole future walking is slowing down the neurons, getting in touch with your senses. Right? It's you're when you're in nature, everything calms down and and you think clear. So it's literally it's to me I call it a living meditation because focus is not something you like, I love to meditate in the morning, but then you have to constantly refocus all. day long. And people don't like to hear this, but it comes from slowing down. Yeah. And there's a great quote, I'm going to see if I say it right, these times are urgent. We must slow down. speaker-1: Ooh, I like that. That's pretty profound. Yep. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. So in the write your outcome method, I ask them I use a worksheet because I find writing is a great tool for focus. ⁓ I give a lot of writing assignments in a journal using a pen and not I don't like screens as much as possible because screens are distracting. Mm-hmm. There's always something popping up to distract you. So speaker-1: Yeah. Right. speaker-0: I, you know, give them a worksheet. I'm like, go find your favorite beverage, your favorite seat in the house. I want you to use an actual, you know, pen in the you know the journal and I want you to write your outcome. So W-R-I-T-E. W stands for write what you want. I want to improve my focus. Mm-hmm. R is recognized resistance. Yeah. And this is where people, ⁓ I have the attention span of a fly. I can't. speaker-1: The Right. speaker-0: How many adults tell me they have ADD? And then I say to them, I look them straight in the eye and I go, Have you been diagnosed? Mm-hmm. And they go, No. I'm like, if you've not been diagnosed, don't even put that label, stop even saying that. But you start to recognize all the there's never enough hours in the day. All these the all this resistance we have. Mm-hmm. And I always tell people the the the sun and the, you know, the twenty four hours in the day keeps the planets aligned. It's not the system, it's the planet It's the programmer. speaker-1: Right, if it works for the planets, we can handle it too. speaker-0: Yeah. So it's recognize these ris you have to recognize where we're being resistant 'cause that you're shining the light on it. And then I is intentionally choose a better thinking thought. Right? So me so if I'm saying I've got the attention span of a fly, stop saying that. Start saying, I think I could do this for two minutes. I'm I you know, like intentionally choose something that makes you feel better. Yeah. I'm going to take a ten minute future walk. I'm gonna leave my phone in the house, like Sarah suggests, and I'm gonna focus on the new I call it the new green right now in New York, like that new when the when New York when the leaves start to come on the trees, it's that beautiful speaker-1: My favorite green. ⁓ so speaker-0: Pretty. So I'm just gonna go outside and focus on new green. So that's intentional and that feels good, right? It's not don't make it so hard that you, you know, you just want to feel good. Then take an actual step, what I call the emotional ladder. And when you take a step towards what you want, you feel better. And then the E just stands for energy, you know, take, you know, enthusiastic act and energy ZO. So once people like write it out in longhand. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Even the act of writing slows you down. It it ⁓ forces you to have kind of one thought, one stream of thought. Yep. You're using four out of your five senses. You're kinesthetically writing, you're saying it to yourself, and you're seeing it. So the act of writing is a beautiful meditation in itself. And again, it's something you practice all day long every day. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: So it's awake and doing. You know, it's kind of like I love potato chips and popcorn. And I could eat a bowl of popcorn and then go, Did I eat that? What just happened? Right. We're unconsciously doing so many things. Right. So it's really bringing that consciousness back to what you're doing. speaker-1: ⁓ that's awesome. So it's write what you want, recognize resistance, intentionally choose a better thinking. speaker-0: Well, feeling feeling thought, yeah. speaker-1: Feel okay, feeling and then take a step on the emotional ladder and energy, CO. ⁓ that's great. So you talk about you don't talk so much about goals, do you? You don't work as much or do you work speaker-0: Yeah, the action. I do. It's interesting. I feel like I've in my evolution, I was I'm a big, you know, that was the first class I taught, right? Franklin Covey, I taught Franklin Covey goal setting. Yeah. I'm still a big goal setter. ⁓ what I've learned o over the years about myself and about energy is I do still set goals and I still work. So if I get a client, so a brand new coaching client, I would give you a worksheet. I would give you on these pre-work questionnaires. And through the pre-work questionnaires, themes will bubble up. Yes. And what we need to work on. Right. Right. Then those will become our goals. Mm-hmm. But the biggest thing with the goals are the energy you are feeling while you are achieving your goals. Yeah. And that's what's wrong with that's what's why so many people are dissatisfied right now is because we're we're, ⁓ my God, who's how many people are driving nicer cars, living in bigger houses? speaker-1: There's speaker-0: We are we keep having more and more and more in our Western world, but when you achieve something on adrenaline, it's not fulfilling. Right. Right. 'Cause you're you left your you l you literally left your soul in the car kind of thing. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So so you'll start then with ⁓ helping them to identify what really is most important for them and then working on that pathway to help get there, using energy and using all the principles that you've ⁓ that you've really developed over time. You've learned but you've made sense of and put into really logical frameworks that that help other people. speaker-0: Yeah, these people are really smart people. They're really smart. They're doing really well at their jobs. Yeah. But again, if they're not emotionally centered, it they have anxiety or they're burnt out, that kind of thing. speaker-1: Yeah, fant ⁓ so so thank you. ⁓ and part of that is ⁓ again back to that energy side. So that alignment, we've talked about how that alignment is within. How about externally as a leader? What what impact does that energy and alignment have for their leadership and the people ⁓ that they're leading? speaker-0: Can I tell another story that illustrates Yeah, so on I don't know if you follow, but on October ⁓ twenty-sixth, ⁓ twenty twenty five, did you watch the monks, twenty-four monks set off? So on October twenty-fifth, didn't make headlines, so I'll tell you the story. You could still look it up. So on October twenty fifth, twenty twenty five, ⁓ a group of ⁓ monks, I think there was about a half two dozen monks, they left Fort Worth, Texas. Mm-hmm. speaker-1: Yes. I'm bummed I missed it. Please tell the story. speaker-0: on a pilgrimage, what they called a walk for peace. And what they did was they weren't protesting, they weren't trying to change anyone's beliefs. They weren't looking for votes. They were just walking from Texas to DC. They did this over a hundred and eight days. Wow. Walking approximately twenty three to twenty five miles a day. Wow. And in the beginning, and if you remember how cold this winter was where we had speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: Really freezing snow, especially here on the ⁓ on the where I'm on the east coast. speaker-1: It's so I know. speaker-0: They walked through all this crazy snow and they just peacefully walked and didn't talk. And their energy of love and peace was permeating so beautifully that by I don't know how many weeks, millions of people were going in the streets just to watch them walk by. They were falling to their knees. They were praying. They were crying. They were handing them flowers. And what they really showed in ⁓ in an era of noise and yelling and likes and follows, that you can make a big impact with your energy alone. speaker-1: Yes. Wow. ⁓ my god. speaker-0: Wow. They were s yeah, they were so powerful and it pains me that it didn't make the news, but some people f it's called Walk for Peace. speaker-1: for peace. Thank you so much. So walk for peace. What a beautiful and well a beautiful illustration of the profound impact of everything you teach, right? Not saying a word, just that presence alone. And then that collective presence, I can't help but think about that. It still would have been very impactful had it been one, but having that collective maybe energy multipliers, would you see them like really helping to to augment each other as well as like ⁓ amplify one another. Yeah. speaker-0: Definitely. And that's kind of what you talked about, I think, on one your podcasts, about like if you have to have a difficult conversation, making sure you're in that good energy space to have that conversation before you just burst in the office from one meeting to the next and now you're all off and now you're trying to give this person developmental feedback and it's not received because you're not even in a good space. So leaders have so much power that they can, you know, use for them, you know, for for their own good and for the good of their people that speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: Work with them. speaker-1: yeah. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. and a lot of power, a lot of agency, right? So they have that positive, they have that potential, positive or not positive, right? With that positive energy, they really have an amazing ability to have that that a good ⁓ effect on another human being and then eventually a ripple effect out into the world. Right. And then so the the Positive power, that positive energy, that positive ripple effect for an outcome. Right. And so you talk your your podcast is right, your outcome. Can you talk to us about outcomes? ⁓ maybe i if it's the same as goals or different from goals, like how you speaker-0: Well, I think I I so it yes and no. So to me, it could be a goal. Mm-hmm. But to me, write your outcome because be I had a gr I had a a client in a class once and I thought it was so good. She goes, ⁓ this works for my, you know, my quarterly goals, but it works for when I'm about to walk in the house after a hard day's work and I know the sink's gonna be full of dishes. Right. Do I wanna walk in the house and have a bad night and be mad at my kids and my husband? Or or do I wanna before I get there, I'm going to say, you know what I'm The outcome I want is a ⁓ peaceful, enjoyable evening with my family. So it's something we could do all day long. It also to me is when I go back to the monks, we expect a world to be peaceful when most people aren't peaceful on the inside. So to me, that inner sense of peace, that inner sense of trust and knowing permeate. So each of us. To me in energy in my book Energy Rules, I even write about the division in our country in the fr in the like what do you call it? The author's preface because I mean, back in twenty fourteen when I felt like things were starting to widen and the polarities and the division. When I was writing my book, I came to a point where I said I could make a decision just to hang around with people who think like me, vote like me, and believe like me. And I thought that just shrinks my world. And I don't want to shrink my world. I want to expand my world. So that's where Energize Yappiness kind of came from too. How do we stay open to each other? How do we keep our hearts open and our minds open in a world that wants us to be divided? That wants well, then maybe just the news wants us to be divided and, you know, fighting. ⁓ so I thought this is a great opportunity for me to mold my energy. I can't call myself a leader or call myself a spiritual person if I'm only for people who think and believe like me. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: I have to be inclusive and I have to be able to listen to both sides, even if I don't agree, and not get emotionally hijacked. So I want to be able to manage my energy in a in the way that I manage my nervous system so we can have a real conversation that is meaningful versus me forcing my opinion on you and then maybe you forcing your opinion on me and we leaving not having anything accomplished. So Einstein has the great quote. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transmuted. Hmm. Yes. And conflict is energy. So do I wanna take this energy of conflict and do I wanna fight with you or do I wanna put it into something that's meaningful for both of us? speaker-1: Yeah. What are your what are your personal practices you do to be able to be in that space, to be in that space of transmuting that energy to to not getting sucked in emotionally, being able to have a dialogue with someone whose views might be very different from you. What do you do for yourself? speaker-0: Yeah, and that's where the space comes in. It's leaving space, ⁓ and silence. Mm-hmm. You know, if you say something I don't agree with, it could be something that really hits me hard. And I think, ⁓ she just said that and I don't agree. So my inner child or my inner, you know, arguer, fight and flight, wants to just fight and defend. But I I know from studying this long enough, anytime I'm defending, justifying, or rationalizing, I'm staying stuck. Yeah. So if you if someone says something I don't agree with, my goal is to breathe and not say anything. speaker-1: Yeah. How long does it does it ever take you more than a breath, or are you so funny too at this point? speaker-0: No, I'm still human. No, I'm still human. But it's it's a practice over time. And when you see that you're getting your s emotionally hijacked, I know that there's a wiser each of us, every single person listening to this podcast has a wiser self, has deep wisdom inside them and deep spirituality, but we don't access it all the time because we're so busy living in our brain. So that's why I want to connect the the mind to the heart to the gut. Cause then it's aligned. Yeah. And then we're so it doesn't mean I don't agree. It does not mean I don't get upset. I always tease my husband can write the tell all on me because I have my moments and my little, you know, cranky parties or whatever. Yeah. But the difference is when you have the tools I write about in either of these books, they are temporary and you get yourself back on track much quicker. Some people speaker-1: Men and we all do, yeah. speaker-0: A high percentage of the population has no idea they have the well the things you talk about, the agency to make a different choice. And people go on social media just to fight with each other. Like they just, you know, it's become this crazy universe where people do need to transcend and know. You ask me how do I deal with people? I always I know everyone's doing the best they can. speaker-1: And the best they know to do, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Starting with that, ⁓ that place of recognizing that's that's really powerful. Like people are doing the best they can, the best of what they know to do. ⁓ yeah, it's great. You ⁓ you said something, two two words that really stood out to me transcend is a little bit about that, like transcend what's happening, maybe internally to Get it and then have the tools, right? Practice those tools to be able to get yourself to that place for the other person. But also align. When you said a line this time, so for those just listening, Michelle drew a drew a line, literally aligned brain, heart, gut, right? That is that's a really nice reminder. Alignment starts here, and that's when it can go out more broadly. speaker-0: And I want people to know what that feels like. So some people say, what does that alignment feel like? And it's flow, right? Again, the positive psychology. It's when you're running. I love dancing. If you love to dance, like sometimes you just I always say you could swim in your own emotions on the dance floor. And dancing doesn't have a goal. It's not like I have to get to that side of the room. You're just in this beautiful flow. Yeah. Any hiking, right, puts you into the flow, you know, anything in nature puts you into the flow because When you are in your personal energy alignment, in your flow, your brain stops talking. Yes. And then you're in a peaceful place. So that's what you know, what you talk about, what I talk about. And when you're in that place of peace, you make better decisions. speaker-1: Yeah, it does. Make better decisions and more creative ones. And we could talk for hours about all the positive psychology and broaden and build. And when you're in that place of positive emotions, how you see things more ⁓ expansively and creatively and can bring them together in new ways. And that is ⁓ that's a beautiful thing. So well, thank you so much for for all of this. Is there anything before we wrap up, is there anything you want to share? What and anything else ⁓ for the listeners wanna share about what's upcoming for you, what your what your big thing is that you're working on, the outcome. What outcome are you writing right now? speaker-0: Well, right now it's all about the new book pretty much because it just came out in ⁓ December or January. So it's energize your happiness. You could go to energize your happiness dot com. It's on Amazon, it's on Lulu.com, and it's on Audible dot com. You can listen to it. ⁓ and I really want to get it into as many hands as possible because each person does have control over their destiny. And each one of us has that same power, like the sun has that power that we put into that magnifying glass. Yeah. Each single every single person listening has that same power and when you focus it, you'll get a better result. So that's really my message to everyone. speaker-1: ⁓ that is this is so beautiful. And Michelle, thank you for being here and sharing your work with us and sharing a some of your heart and soul with all of us. ⁓ you have beautifully taken 25 years of experience with with your life, with all these leaders you've worked with and really powerfully distilled it into something so simple. You know, energy first, everything follows, create that alignment and then it will it will extend out from there to really help you write your outcome. So so thank you for all of that. And for everyone who's listening, appreciate your time. Again, as Michelle said, you can find her at energizeyourhappiness.com. And again, her books are happiness as a habit and energize your happiness and her podcasts, write your outcome. So if this conversation resonated with you, yeah, thank you. Please share with someone who needs to hear it. I think everyone needs to hear this. So share it with everyone. ⁓ And if you haven't already done so, please follow this so you don't miss any future episodes. Thank you for joining us on the Future Walk Podcast. Again, I'm Sarah Draper. And then this week, notice your energy. See what becomes clear when you align it with the outcome that you are writing. Until next time, enjoy your walk.