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Kristen Butler: Expanding Your Comfort Zone for Bold Personal Growth · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Leigh Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have Kristen Butler.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: She is the best-selling author and CEO of the Power of Positivity, a community with over 50 million followers globally.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Kristen was awarded Success Magazine's Emerging Entrepreneur in 2022.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: She is a leader, writer and a visionary in personal development, with a huge heart and a captivating authenticity.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Her mission is to uplift the planet.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Kristen passionately started Power of Positivity in 2009 after completely transforming her life from rock bottom.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Using the power of positive thinking.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Kristen contributes her transformation to a positive mindset, her relationship with God and an active, plant-based lifestyle.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me Leigh.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it so much.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: So I'm really excited to jump into your journey to where you are today, as well as your book and really talking about the comfort zone, which you know, I think has gotten a bad rap over the time.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I've been alive, for sure, but we're going to start off with boldness and I would love to know what your definition of bold is.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: You know, what comes to mind is one of my favorite quotes, and it's been since I was a teenager and that is shoot for the moon Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: And what comes to mind is living out loud, knowing yourself, knowing what you want in life and then pursuing it, aiming high.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I believe so much in aiming high.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I think there's so many people who have good intentions and they work really hard, but their aim isn't very high.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: And so to live bold is to live big, to live your fullest, because we only have this one life and we want to make the best of it and live to our fullest potential.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: And there's so many people that I know, when I think about it, they're living under their potential, they're not living boldly.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: It's almost like they limit the possibility of what they could be and who they, who they are now and how they can evolve, in a way.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: But I love that aiming high, really shooting for the moon and regardless, you're going to land and you're going to land among the stars.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: You're going to learn, you're going to grow, you're going to go to the next point of your journey, and so, when you think about that definition, what's a memorable, bold moment for you?
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: You know I could easily say so many different things and I could say starting Power of Positivity, you know, 15 years ago.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: But a really bold move to me was a few years ago when I started my personal brand, because, you know, power of Positivity is 15 years old this year and for a while I lived behind the scenes.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: I loved writing and creating and designing and so coming out with my own personal brand, that was very bold.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: And also starting to talk about my rock bottom journey Again very bold where it was like I was fine behind the scenes but I knew that I needed to help people in a bigger way and sharing your story is the best way to do that, where someone could say, wow, look, she did it.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I can do it too, because before that, the affirmations, the quotes, they were all helpful.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: The articles about how you can change your life, you know all helpful and we were creating so much transformation.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: But then when I came out and really started talking about my rock bottom moments and being vulnerable and talking about how stepping out of my comfort zone and living outside of my comfort zone wasn't serving me and how I started to expand my comfort zone, that really created big ripple effects where I was kind of challenging an idea that I believed was creating a lot of burnout.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: It created a lot of burnout for me and sharing my experience and so many other people started stepping up and talking about their burnout stories and that they lived by that adage and so, yeah, I feel like that's probably the biggest, boldest move I've made recently, for sure, yeah, and I can relate from the perspective of how I started my business Bold Industries Group.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: So that's my company name, that's the S Corp I have.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I think when I first started for people even to understand who I was like, I felt like I needed company, like I needed you know what I did for consulting, so I think part of it was that, but it was.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: This evolution to really last year is when I converted to LeeBurgesscom.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Right, and what does that mean?
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And it is extremely vulnerable.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: And your story, you know your message, your message you know we've heard that a lot but your story can't help anyone if you keep it to yourself.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And I think that's what I learned.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: You know, little by little, each year and I'm still on that journey you know I've opened the door and like, little by little, I'll be, you know, pushing the door open more and more and sharing that story.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And I think it is something very powerful when you create that personal brand as well as vulnerable.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: And I think there's when you're bold, you are vulnerable and it's a very thoughtful process.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes there's a myth that being bold is just like not thinking and just jumping and not thinking about anything you're doing, but it's a very thoughtful, pragmatic process.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I love what you said.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: I believe that that you do have two routes.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: You can kind of be bold and not intentional, or you can be extremely intentional, and that's where things can be extremely intentional and that's where things can be more sustainable.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: And that's what you're talking about these small steps and opening the door slower, because that's what really wins the race.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: It's like enjoying the journey, enjoying the process, and it's a healing journey, almost creating your own brand.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: You're like revealing yourself and then you're opening up and you're sharing with the world.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I totally agree.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: For me yes, I was super intentional about it and you've got to do that because otherwise you can find yourself in burnout again or too many failures For me.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: I know for sure, if I made quick moves where it wasn't being super intentional, it never really ended out in the way that I thought it would.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a myth too of folks think that you burn out, you make a decision or you leave the job and that's the reason you're burnout, when really it'll follow you.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: I think the reasons that we become burnout at least for me was I kept trying to do the same things that worked in the past.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I worked harder, I did more, I took on more responsibility, I stood up for more people or, you know, did what I needed to do to do the right thing, and it just got to a point where me doing that to the length and the 10 X that I was doing it was actually the opposite of what I needed to do, which logically didn't make a lot of sense to me, right?
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: So I think what I realize now as an entrepreneur is I could get burnout again, just differently, in the sense of working hard or trying to do something to kind of fill the gap or whatever it may be.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: So I think people understanding that to actually heal from burnout you have to understand how and why and and what got you to that place in the first place, right?
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: That's so true and then kind of building your life every day around that version of you that doesn't burn out.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: So, whatever that looks like, whatever kind of self-care practices help, that's really what I've been doing and I love what you said about like that burnout can stay with you if you don't make those changes or if you don't try new things.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: A lot of times we are working really hard, but it's the alignment with our future our present and our future that we need to cling to and lean into.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: And lean into that flow and we'll definitely experience less force.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: That's what I've found.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So let's just start at rock bottom.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: So what is rock bottom for you?
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: What did that look like, and how did you pull the string of positivity through to get to the next step, whatever that may be?
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: rock bottom.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: It was almost two decades now for me looked like.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: At that point.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: I was laying in bed for two weeks straight.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I had already burnt out so many times that I mentally and physically just didn't have any energy.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: I had no desire to even go brush my teeth and in that place I started seeing a therapist and talking with her about my past, and one of the biggest key messages that I took away from that was just to be myself.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: You know, I was trying to live in a way that I saw other successful people living.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: I was living in a way that would please other people, saying yes to things that other people wanted me to do.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: But maybe it was definitely an inner no for me, but I didn't want to say no.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: So I didn't have healthy boundaries around my time, around my energy, and I felt this deep inner passion to succeed and I didn't know exactly what that looked like.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: So I just worked really hard and you can get there.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I was very successful in my business that I had at the time, but I lost it because I couldn't keep up with the orders.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: I couldn't keep up with that momentum because it's not sustainable.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: We're humans, we're not robots and when I lost my business, it was like I put my whole life into that.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: You know, when people say, you know that's my baby, that's a double-edged sword, because when something's your baby, and then if you lose it or if it's failing, you feel like you're failing or you're a failure, and if you tie everything into that, you feel like nothing when it's gone.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: And so that's certainly how I felt.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: But when I started to remind myself that I needed to be myself, to prioritize what I needed and who I was, that's when I started to feel more grateful for well, at least I have a bed to sleep on, you know, at least I have a roof over my head, at least I have people that care about me.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: And I had to come from that gratitude perspective, and that's what started really lifting me out of bed and getting me to just participate in life again.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: So when you started out the power of positivity, obviously you didn't have 50 million followers globally at that point.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Like, why did you do that?
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Was that part of your healing process?
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Was that part of embracing the gratitude and maybe spreading the message?
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: It's a really great question.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: You know, it was a few years later and by that point I had already experienced so many shifts in my life.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: I was prioritizing my wellbeing.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: I was going to the gym, I was taking longer walks, I had lost a lot of weight, I was mentally feeling so fulfilled.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: I had clients that I was working with that I loved.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: At the time I was, you know, just freelancing and working on their social media.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: You know, I was rebuilding my life and I loved social media.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: I'd loved social media for years and years.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: This was before, like MySpace and Facebook and all of that that.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I loved social media.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: And so at that time, facebook, they just started pages and what's kind of funny is because they didn't have like businesses on there, they just kind of had a feed.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: It was like your family or, you know, for me it was classmates at college.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: You know it wasn't really like this big thing that it is today.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: And when they started pages, I was creating pages for my clients, creating business pages, and I thought I want to start a page for myself.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: But I was prioritizing this work-life balance, right, and I knew that if I'd made it about work, that I would overwork.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: That goes back to what you were saying earlier about like kind of designing your life so you don't burn out again.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm like well, what am I passionate about right now besides like social media and my work and health and fitness?
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: And I started to reflect about well, really, what was the key transformation?
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: The key element in this transformation wasn't just the habits that I was making, but what was it.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: And that's when positivity came to mind.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: And then I thought, well, it's not just mindset, it's a lifestyle.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: So that's where power of positivity was birthed.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: And, being an entrepreneur at heart, I'm like I have to go to GoDaddy and make sure that the domain's available, right, I don't want to steal someone's business, you know, and it was available.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Actually, it had just expired.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: So I was like okay, right, yeah, and I'm like this is meant to be, and all I did was I just started sharing quotes and affirmations and tips, you know, things that were helping me stay positive, that I knew that it could help someone else out in the world stay positive as well.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really cool for me, like once I figured out like, oh, that's you.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: You know, cause I didn't know that was you behind that for a while, cause I actually had it in my feed and you know, across different things along the way, but you know, realizing that, oh, that was Kristen behind that quote, or behind that positive feeling that I got from reading that, or you know some quote that I needed just to hear that day, particularly so exciting to know that that's how it started and where it came from.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: So when you think about the power of positivity, I think positivity can get, I think, a bad rap too, because there's toxic positivity.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: So what's the difference between what you do and toxic positivity?
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: That's a great question.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: You know, what led me to burnout was actually toxic positivity.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: I was stuffing all of my emotions down.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: I'm like I can get through this, I can push through, I can do anything and oh, there's a setback, I'm just gonna ignore that or deal with it later.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: That's toxic positivity.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: What I promote is true, authentic positivity, and what that is is dealing with your emotions when they come, but letting them come through like visitors.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: So they come up, you kind of reflect on it or you feel where that feels in your body and you move through it.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: You find something to be grateful for, because the truth is, at all times, both realities are existing, something that we can complain about or be upset about or feel negative about, or something we can feel grateful about.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And when something big happens, I might journal, I might go for a really long walk and reflect, I might do extra self-care.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: I tend to my emotions, but I don't let them overtake me and I don't stuff them down anymore.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so feeling all the feels you know, and not pushing them away, but letting them come through, right, you know they don't have to stay, like you said, they're visitors with us, and then we keep moving forward.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I think that's something I said just keep moving forward, like this happened.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, that really was not what I planned, or not how I thought it would go or how I thought I would feel.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: You know, like you said, where am I feeling it?
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: What do I need to understand from it?
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: And what do I need to learn from it Usually is something I ask myself too, and then keep moving forward.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that you talk about in your book and your book is the key to positivity, why you've got the comfort zone all wrong and how to tap its power to live your best life now.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: So, when you think about the comfort zone, thinking about something that also gets a bad rap is a comfort zone, and you and I talked a little bit about this before we started taping about.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: You know, I've heard for the longest time and I've even done a post or two around.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I think about getting out of your comfort zone, and I think what I learned from your book is that there's three zones, and I would love for you to kind of.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: When it comes to the comfort zone, there's three rings around it one on the outer, the next layer and then the big center.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: You know, with the most space is the comfort zone.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: But I'd love for you to kind of walk us through what's the definition of the comfort zone and the three zones you can be in.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: So instead of stepping out of your comfort zone, I advocate for expanding your comfort zone.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: We can touch on that in a little bit, but to me, the comfort zone is not a place of Netflix and chill and complacency, because often when you're feeling like that, you're actually not comfortable.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: And so what I found in my journey, and my healing journey, was that we need to stop shaming ourselves for our comfort zone, because that in itself will keep us from comfort.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: What we resist persists, and so when I actually started leaning into my comfort zone and understanding it what made me comfortable, what were my preferences, what felt good to me I actually started to do work that aligned with who I was and I started to feel more fulfilled.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Sure, there's challenges, because we're humans and when we grow we're going to face challenges, but it's kind of like the tortoise was slow and steady, and when we can embrace who we are and take on new things and grow in a slow and steady pace and expand our comfort zone, we're much more fulfilled and we have sustainable success.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: What I found, and doing my research for the book, was that most people are burned out, they're not feeling fulfilled with work, they're overworking and there's just no balance and when you look at offices they're filled with, you know, coffee and candy stations, because you're just trying to artificially engineer our energy.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: But what if our energy came?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: And I love coffee, but I'm just saying what if our energy really came from the fact that we're passionate and we're fulfilled and we love the work that we're doing?
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: That's the comfort zone, that's true comfort.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: We're still taking action, but it's in alignment.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: You know, we were put on this earth to expand, to take action, to feel fulfilled, and that's the comfort zone.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: But what I found is most people were where I was and that was in the survival zone, where our actions are led by fear fear that we need the money, we're not going to make it, we're not going to be able to pay our bills, we're not going to be as good as this other person, and so all of our actions are really driven by fear and we accomplish a lot.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, when I was in my survival zone constantly, I was accomplishing great things, but I was also very burnt out.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: It was a chaotic place.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: I would have very high highs and very low lows.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: And when you think about, physiologically, our nervous systems, we can survive when our nervous system kicks in and we have to, you know, run from a threat or whatever.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: It might be Right, but it doesn't serve us if we just live in that state constantly, right, and so we're not even creative or truly productive being in that state, but yet most Americans are in their survival zone.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: And then the third zone is the complacent zone, and this is where we end up.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: When we've been in our survival zone for so long that we're just like done, taking action.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: It's like okay, that doesn't work, like nothing works for me.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: We're just trying to make it from one day to the next.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: We don't feel joy, we don't feel fulfilled, we're kind of just robotic.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: We're just trying to give the least amount of effort to push through because we've burnt ourselves out.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: And there's so many people that are living in this state and when they're here, they don't need to be told you need to do more, you need to get out of your comfort zone, because most of the time they've already tried, they've already worked so hard.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: They actually need to lean into self-care, lean into prioritizing their wellbeing so they can recharge themselves, just like we recharge our phones, right?
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: You know, when I was in the complacent zone, this is when I was bedridden and or always burning out, you know, I didn't even want to get out of bed, I didn't even want to leave the house.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: You know, nothing really excited me.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: I didn't feel like I had enough energy to achieve anything, and so that's why I really advocate for people to create a comfort zone where they can be in their flow, they can be creative and they can work to grow their comfort zones.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: They're comfortable with more and more and more work to grow their comfort zones.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: They're comfortable with more and more and more.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: We want big comfort zones.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: And we want comfort zones.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: That I would think inherently and by reading your book you mean also, you're growing in that comfort zone by expansion.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: That's growth.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: It isn't.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: It isn't complacent.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: So when, when you think about those zones and it isn't complacent so when you think about those zones and you describe them from the center out, so for folks listening, the complacent zone is on that outer edge then and that's really where you're closest to fear and your action, when you take it as a motivated action, like you want to, you want to get out of it, you want to, you know, you want to get out of bed.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: For me, Like I want to get healthy, but I almost I would never have called myself complacent because to me that word is like a very negative word in my like, in my world, like oh, that means I'm not trying, it means I don't care, it means I've given up.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I think for me, when I was at that state of burnout, for me I had just been worn down, and so I think that's what you mean by it.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Isn't someone who's like lazy, or given up, or just doesn't try.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: It's someone who potentially has tried really hard and maybe they haven't moved as the needle or they've done this, like me, done the same thing over and over and thinking it would work again.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Is that a good way for someone to think of?
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Like, if I'm in that complacency, like you have a quiz in your book, like that doesn't mean I'm not trying.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: It just means maybe I'm trying the wrong things or maybe I need to get curious about something different, or maybe I need to just for me time out, Like you need to just take care of your dang self.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: You know, tell me a little bit about you.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Know, if someone gets that you're in the complacent zone and they're like oh my gosh, that means I'm lazy or I'm not trying, what would you say to them?
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: What would you say to them?
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: No, you said it so perfectly.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: When you're here, it's like you've already given so much effort that you don't think about when you're with you, when your phone is is almost dead, it's like you've got to hurry up and plug that in to recharge it and think about how often we recharge our phones, but we don't think about how often we need to recharge ourselves Right.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: And when we think of it like that, we can kind of ease up.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Ease up on the guilt and really figure out what do we need in this moment?
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: What kind of self-care, what would truly help me feel more of myself?
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: And when I was in the complacent zone again, that's when I had so many negative emotions because I was just tired.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: You know it was like this isn't working.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: What else do I need to do?
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: I wasn't being lazy by any means.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so when you get into the next zone and you might not go through them all do you have to pass through survival to get to the comfort, or could you skip it?
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: You tell me with all your work that you've done.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes fear does motivate you into action and you might find yourself scrambling to put things together in their survival and then move to comfort.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: That's what I've felt like, the process kind of.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: But you can jump right into your comfort zone, harnessing some of the tools I have in the book, like gratitude and visualization and the four pillars of self-care.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: There is a way, but often innately, we just move through the feelings right, we kind of move up that emotional ladder.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like yeah, and then survival, really, when it comes to action, is forced action, which takes courage, right.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: So it's closest to courage versus fear, right?
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: So I think that's interesting Complacency kind of is a neighbor with fear and survival is a neighbor with courage, right.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: So I think, when you think about courage, that's where I think boldness comes in.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: And.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I think you're starting to move through to kind of what do I do next?
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: What do I do differently?
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: And for me, ownership comes into play here of I understand my beliefs or what I believe, and now I need to own the next step.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: And so it's kind of a forced action of like I needed to quit my job without having a job.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I had to own that.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Do that.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, it was scary.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I probably had neighbors of fear and courage, you know, with me at that point in time.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: But then I think I moved into the next zone of who I really am and meaning like for the first time at that time I was 48.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Like I can be me, like for the first time in a really long time, a hundred percent me.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I don't have to hide that.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I, you know, do things that people may not understand or you know what I mean.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Like I can be me.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And it was just a very interesting feeling at that point in my life, at 48, you know, probably the first time I felt like that since 18, you know we'd be anything you want to be, what do you want to do, and so you know.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: And I think when we're younger we have more of that and somehow, like I don't know, I lost some of it in my late 30s to early 40s and I probably started burning out probably around 45.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: It took me three years to get to this big place, but you know, I wasn't paying attention to the signs, and so I think for me, kind of getting to that comfort zone which is inspired action I think that was the first time I had felt that in a long time how do you help people see that they need to move to another zone or what are things that you know like someone who's listening now, well, I don't know which zone I'm in.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Is there like an indicator light in the sense of I need to move out of complacent, get to survival or get into my next steps towards my comfort zone?
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: That's a great question.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: In the book I talk about different emotions that are in each one and in the comfort zone.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: That's positive emotion.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: So when you're thinking about the things that you're doing every day, really question and reflect, you know, do I enjoy this?
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: And if I don't, how can I enjoy it?
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Is it a mindset shift that needs to happen or is there action that needs to be taken?
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Is there a direction that I need to go?
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Is there a pivot that I need to make?
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Because I think sometimes we stay in something too long from loyalty, which can be a good thing but then who are we being loyal to?
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: We need to be loyal to ourselves and if we're not loving what we're doing, then there's a sign here that there needs to be a change.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: So it's really getting in tune with your feelings and that's the positivity, right when you don't want to be toxic to your own self and ignore the signs, ignore the feelings, and so often gratitude can help you, bring you back in and it also can help you discover what you love, what your passions are right now, because even that can change.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Even today, when I am thinking about the next few months, it's like what's lighting me up?
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Is it speaking?
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Is it writing another book?
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: You have to ask yourself these questions on a regular basis so that you're in alignment with what you're doing, Because the more alignment that you have and the more passion and positivity, the more successful it's going to be.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: You're coming from that place.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, you're taking action, but it could be aligned action that could give you bigger results, versus little alignment and high effort, which is not going to give you the results that you're truly seeking.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that you're using the word alignment versus balance, because I bet I think balance is a moment in time and I think alignment can last longer than balance.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: For me, this is how I feel about it and so you know we all talk about work-life balance and those sort of things and for me it's work-life alignment, because something inevitably is going to get out of balance or out of alignment potentially.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: But I think when balance I think it's just a quicker you know, think about balancing on a seesaw or on a skateboard or anything like that, or surfboard like it's instantaneous you're out of balance.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: And I think, with alignment, people to see it in a better way that aligning with what you truly love and want to do versus finding balance in it.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think sometimes people think it has to be their job.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: You know you spend a lot of time at your job, but maybe you can get alignment outside of work, maybe you're just really good at your job, there is a sense of financial stability, but it doesn't knock your socks off, it doesn't mean quit your job, like that's one of the things.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: You know, I had to do that for me, for my health, but that isn't something I advise everyone to do.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: It's your own personal path to happiness, to alignment, to your bold journey.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: But I think where you spend a lot of your time, I think you should be finding joy in it, but sometimes it might be outside of work, like maybe it's where you volunteer, or maybe you are part of a choir, or maybe you help or mentor others or, like you said, maybe you have a side hustle where you work on, you know, something that you don't get to work out in your day job, and those are things that can be very positive in a space of your comfort zone, as we describe it, of where you find joy and happiness and you're growing in that space.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Would you agree to that?
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Or what is your thought about?
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Like someone thinking, well, I've got to quit my job if I want to, you know, take this path or kind of find my best life, passion and purpose.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: No, I'm the same as you.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: I don't advise to just quit something.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: You know it can work for some people.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: But that can be a bit chaotic.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: For me, what I did when I started monetizing Power of Positivity and decided, oh wow, I would love for this to be my full-time gig.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: I was working with clients and I had a full-time work schedule.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: And then, as I started to grow power of positivity, I would decide, okay, I loved all of my clients, but which one do I need to say goodbye to?
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: And then, one by one, I slowly not everyone has that chance because not everyone's a freelancer but in your own way, whatever that might look like for you, make sure that you have one thing working well and you can kind of transition to it.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: I think that pivot transition is much easier than just full on quitting and starting something new.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Build it and then go to it, versus just kind of burning it and then trying to find the next plan.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: It's a lot easier, I mean everyone's different, but I don't advocate for that necessarily.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's personal right.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: You know, for me I had to like.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I feel like it was had as a had to moment and I think it's something that I learned was, you know, scary and but it was freeing at the same time for me, I think.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: The other thing no-transcript.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Take the feedback from the people around us at least I did as a measure of who I was and my worth.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: And if you have, you know, negative people around you or if you're in a more negative environment, that's not really going to serve you.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: And as I rebuilt my life, I started looking at, really journaling what I thought about myself truly and I was really honest with myself and I thought, wow, no wonder I'm trying to get different color eye contact, my contact, blue eyes and all these different things that I was trying to do to myself because I didn't love myself truly and it's not easy to reflect on these kinds of things.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: But beliefs can be changed and that's one of the biggest, most powerful things that I've found is that I can identify it.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: I don't have to shame myself for feeling like that, I can change it.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: And so I started, you know, reciting affirmations in the mirror and that was so powerful and it was life-changing, because I realized that I kind of hated myself and I didn't like who I was and I didn't understand why.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: But I didn't need to.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: I could start telling myself I love you, You're enough, You're beautiful, you can do this.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: And when you truly look in your own eyes it's like you can't escape yourself and it almost is more transformative than anything else.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: And I had to do a lot of work through the years and even now, if there's something that I think I don't think I can do, that I really have to just write down that limiting belief and flip it around.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I can do that, but first I have to believe I can do it and then take the action.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: It's so powerful when we really look and identify these limiting beliefs, because often we didn't give them to ourselves.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: We kind of just took them from you know our environment and held them as truth.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they got ascribed to us versus we subscribed, right, you know.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: So I think that's a, that's a powerful thing.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, so when in the bold framework, the reason I start with B, which is believe, is that everything after that is based on what you believe.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: What you believe is the springboard to your action, every thought, every move you're going to make, and I spend a lot of time on that.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: And that's actually when I was healing.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I created the framework for myself because I needed steps, I needed to understand and I love a good acronym and so that's where I started with beliefs and my own belief in myself.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: And so in understanding, like, why wasn't I, you know, believing in myself?
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Why did I not think I was successful?
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Why did I think I wasn't enough?
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Like, where did that come from?
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: You know, no one ever said that to me.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: You know it was interesting, just the things I had to go through and some of the shadows I had to find and look at, because I didn't even know they were there.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, so true, as we close out, you say something in the book which I think is to me analogous to being bold, which you talk about being comfortably courageous.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: So what is your definition of someone who is being comfortably courageous, and what would be your advice if someone's trying to take that step being comfortably courageous is taking things on one step at a time, believing in yourself even if there's no evidence that you can do it right, but taking action.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Taking forward action, but in incremental ways.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Taking forward action, but in incremental ways.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: So, for example, in December I started 75 hard and I discovered I had a limiting belief Like you can't do that, kristen, you cannot do two workouts a day Plus all these other things.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Right, it was such a limiting belief.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: I was like where did this come from?
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: And you know, it took courage for me to just say yes, I'll just do it, let's just do it.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: And to show up every single day, even though it was winter time where I live and I didn't like the cold.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I had to embrace it.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: I had to say to myself you know, this is healthy, this is healing, you know, and find positive reasons to keep moving forward.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: I didn't push myself, I didn't just start running day one.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: You didn't do a cold plunge on day one.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: No, but I did do it.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: A few weeks later I did do a cold plunge and you realize that you have so much more potential in yourself when you try hard things.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: But you don't want Overcome something right yeah.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't want it to feel hard To me.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: You have to try to find the positive.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, I want to be healthier for myself and my kids.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: I want to try something new.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: I want to be toned whatever reasons that you might have and so to move forward in incremental ways, because I feel that when we're too courageous, that's when we get burnt out.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: We're like, oh, I can conquer the world, and then we fail and then we quit and that creates a quitter with too much courage.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: It's what I've found.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: But if we can just be courageous a little bit every single day and do new things, try new things in ways that feel good to us, find the positive, we can be sustainably successful in what we're doing.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a little bit of bold every day and because I think bold and courage are are definitely, you know, cousins, if anything you know if not sisters.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: So I think, you know, in that sense, of just something small, and I think that's also just to remind everyone is like being bold is not always big and loud, it's very quiet.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: I think some of my boldest moments, as I've said before, just all mine.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: And you know like that, yeah, like they're very, very quiet and so you don't have to be loud and big and doesn't have to be a social media post or anything like you're being bold just by saying I'm curious, I want something different, I want to walk around the block today, I want to you know journal about my feelings, even though they're not all positive, Like I just need to get it out, Like those are bold moments, and so I just want people to realize that, too, when you're, you're being comfortably courageous, like those are kind of those bold moments.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Those you know step-by-step, because I think that's how we get you know step one leads to step 100 eventually, and you don't have to do all 100 in one big leap.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely yeah.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: All the information about the power of positivity is below in the notes, the book, the journals, everything that you can pick up.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Kristen I appreciate you.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: This was a great conversation.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.