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The Productivity Mindset With Carlene Marie · The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson

• 0:37
  Jennifer Johnson: We often think about productivity in terms of tools, systems, and time management techniques.
• 0:43
  Jennifer Johnson: But what if I told you that the most powerful productivity tool you have is actually your mind?
• 0:49
  Jennifer Johnson: The way we think, focus, and direct our mental energy has a profound impact on what we can accomplish.
• 0:56
  Jennifer Johnson: Yet most of us have never been taught how to harness the power of our minds for peak performance or productivity.
• 1:04
  Jennifer Johnson: We're running on mental autopilot and when we could be operating at a much higher level.
• 1:09
  Jennifer Johnson: Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Carlene Marie, who is a leader in mindset and performance coaching.
• 1:16
  Jennifer Johnson: She's a former editor in Boston and New York City publishing houses and is now a certified master mind power coach, columnist, and keynote speaker.
• 1:26
  Jennifer Johnson: She's the founder of Mindset Slingshot, which offers virtual courses and leadership workshops.
• 1:32
  Jennifer Johnson: We're going to explore how to unlock your mind's potential and use mental strategies to dramatically improve your productivity and performance.
• 1:42
  Jennifer Johnson: Welcome, Carlene.
• 1:44
  Carlene Marie: Thank you so much, Jennifer.
• 1:46
  Carlene Marie: It's such an honor to be here with you.
• 1:47
  Carlene Marie: So I so appreciate it.
• 1:49
  Carlene Marie: What a great introduction about the power of our minds, right?
• 1:53
  Carlene Marie: I love that.
• 1:53
  Carlene Marie: So thank you.
• 1:54
  Jennifer Johnson: It's an amazing topic because it's not something I'm sure that most people have thought of.
• 2:00
  Jennifer Johnson: It's not something we just sit around going, hmm, I wonder.
• 2:04
  Jennifer Johnson: But it's so powerful.
• 2:06
  Jennifer Johnson: So I want to start out with the foundation, okay?
• 2:09
  Jennifer Johnson: So that we we have somewhere to go from.
• 2:12
  Jennifer Johnson: But what do you mean by mind power?
• 2:15
  Carlene Marie: Sure.
• 2:15
  Carlene Marie: So in the world of mind power coaching, we define mindpower as the convergence of mental toughness and emotional resilience.
• 2:25
  Carlene Marie: So what does that mean?
• 2:26
  Carlene Marie: It means that no matter any obstacle that you encounter in your life, that you have the power, the mental toughness, the emotional resilience to navigate it and to navigate it successfully.
• 2:39
  Carlene Marie: And so, without, like you had already alluded at the very beginning of the intro, that often our minds run on autopilot.
• 2:48
  Carlene Marie: I love the famous quote by Carl Jung, and he said this until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct our lives and we will call it fate.
• 3:02
  Carlene Marie: So that's so incredibly powerful because most of us, until we learn to harness the power of our own minds, are running on that unconscious autopilot until we learn to identify some of the faulty patterns that we developed, either going all the way back to childhood or even to last week, where we define and we determine these limiting beliefs.
• 3:30
  Carlene Marie: And oftentimes those are unconscious patterns that are just running behind the scenes.
• 3:35
  Carlene Marie: And so awareness is the key, and being bold and willing to go there so that we can begin to retrain the brain, mind the mind is what I call it, and do it every single day.
• 3:49
  Carlene Marie: That is where we become the empowered director of our thoughts, which influence our emotions, which then influence our behaviors, our very choices and our very results in our lives, whether it's financial or our health or relationships, the power of our thoughts determine our reality.
• 4:08
  Carlene Marie: So when we learn to master the power of our thoughts, we literally can master our own lives.
• 4:14
  Jennifer Johnson: I I love that definition.
• 4:16
  Jennifer Johnson: Uh, going back to the Carl Jung quote.
• 4:20
  Jennifer Johnson: We do call it fate.
• 4:22
  Carlene Marie: Right.
• 4:23
  Carlene Marie: That is what we call it.
• 4:24
  Carlene Marie: Right.
• 4:25
  Carlene Marie: We're just kind of swimming along with the tide and not realizing that we can become the empowered director of our lives.
• 4:32
  Carlene Marie: Tony Robbins, the great Tony Robbins, says, where our focus goes, our energy flows.
• 4:39
  Carlene Marie: So when we are focused on what we don't want, or we're defaulting to old patterns of fear or anxiety or negative emotions of anger, hurt, fear, sadness, guilt, you name it, when those patterns are running behind the scenes, because often they do.
• 4:58
  Carlene Marie: They served a purpose for us at some point in our lives.
• 5:01
  Carlene Marie: We call those in the mindpower world, these are our running parachutes.
• 5:05
  Carlene Marie: These are simply the placeholders of the lessons and the learnings we didn't get at the time that these faulty beliefs were implanted in us.
• 5:14
  Carlene Marie: And oftentimes that happens in childhood, and they were a mechanism to keep us safe, to keep our brain protected.
• 5:21
  Carlene Marie: We didn't have maybe language to understand what was happening to us at the time.
• 5:25
  Carlene Marie: And so that's where these neural pathways begin to get ingrained.
• 5:29
  Carlene Marie: And we don't even realize that we're running these same pathways and wondering why, despite our best effort, despite our motivation, despite even some discipline, we can't seem to get from where we are to where we want to be.
• 5:44
  Carlene Marie: And so when we learn where those patterns have formed, and we begin with awareness and identification, and then the discipline to begin to repattern.
• 5:55
  Carlene Marie: I make it very simple, like we're there's no blame or shame.
• 5:58
  Carlene Marie: We're all biological beings, right?
• 6:00
  Carlene Marie: We were doing the best we could with what we had at the time.
• 6:02
  Carlene Marie: But the awareness and the identification, we say in mind power is the first step in transformation.
• 6:09
  Carlene Marie: So when we're able to go back and see the pattern, and I always say, look, what was once patterned can simply be repatterned.
• 6:18
  Carlene Marie: That's actually neuroplasticity.
• 6:20
  Carlene Marie: So it used to be the old saying, you can't teach an old dog new trips.
• 6:23
  Carlene Marie: Yeah.
• 6:33
  Jennifer Johnson: I want to go back to neuropathways because some of our listeners may not know what that is.
• 6:38
  Jennifer Johnson: Um neuroplasticity.
• 6:40
  Jennifer Johnson: I mean, I've heard these concepts, I understand them, but some people may be like, what are you talking about?
• 6:46
  Carlene Marie: What are neuropathways?
• 6:49
  Carlene Marie: So neuropathways are the kind of well-worn trails that our thoughts and behaviors and kind of impressions of certain events kind of formed for us.
• 7:03
  Carlene Marie: And then they become kind of the default road.
• 7:06
  Carlene Marie: You start paving the road, then you start traveling the road, and you take that road and you think it's the quickest way to go from A to B.
• 7:14
  Carlene Marie: Oftentimes they can be very, are very reactive, can be very like instead of responding, we can just default to that rather quickly.
• 7:24
  Carlene Marie: So that's kind of a neural pathway, just kind of like our default path where we think or we rely on to get us from one thought to another, or a thought or an impression and a response to it.
• 7:38
  Carlene Marie: So that's kind of just a very simplified way of saying what those neural pathways are.
• 7:43
  Jennifer Johnson: I love it that you said the you know, the pathways, the worn roads, essentially.
• 7:48
  Jennifer Johnson: It's kind of like uh we've done it this way.
• 7:52
  Jennifer Johnson: This is always how we've done it, we're just going to keep doing it this way.
• 7:55
  Jennifer Johnson: Or you have your same pew at church every Sunday, and then you know, all of a sudden someone sits in it and you're like, my world has ended.
• 8:05
  Carlene Marie: That's so true.
• 8:06
  Carlene Marie: It's so it's so true.
• 8:07
  Carlene Marie: Like you think about when you get up in the morning, right?
• 8:09
  Carlene Marie: We all have like our morning routine and we don't even realize that, you know, we get up, we're gonna do the same routine, we're gonna hit the rest bathroom and you know, pick up our toothbrush with our right hand or whatever.
• 8:20
  Carlene Marie: And we go through and we have that same kind of routine uh that's very fundamental.
• 8:25
  Carlene Marie: But when we talk about our responses to certain things that may even activate us, charge us, some people like the word trigger, we can succumb to the faulty patterns that we learned in the past, whether that was in childhood or through a relationship or through traumatic events, or even from a limiting belief or a story that we picked up from somebody even last week, right?
• 8:50
  Carlene Marie: So we can fall back on those patterns.
• 8:54
  Carlene Marie: And most of the time without training the brain, they tend not to serve us well, right?
• 8:58
  Carlene Marie: They did at one point, but we discovered that they don't.
• 9:02
  Carlene Marie: Let me make this really like relatable.
• 9:05
  Carlene Marie: Say you're in a conversation with somebody that you love and they say something that all of a sudden, I don't know, doesn't feel good.
• 9:12
  Carlene Marie: Maybe you just in your mind felt like it was dismissal, or you felt like it was a criticism, or it was something that just in your body just kind of hit you in the moment.
• 9:22
  Carlene Marie: So most people will just without even realizing it, like Carl Jung says, will go into this unconscious response, whatever that is.
• 9:32
  Carlene Marie: For some, it might be a healthy response.
• 9:34
  Carlene Marie: They get curious, they become empowered.
• 9:37
  Carlene Marie: Hey, wait a second, tell me more about that.
• 9:39
  Carlene Marie: What do you mean?
• 9:40
  Carlene Marie: Right.
• 9:41
  Carlene Marie: But for a lot of people, without realizing it, they'll automatically succumb to a well-worn neural pathway of possibly defensiveness or anger or some withdrawal or sadness without even realizing it.
• 9:56
  Carlene Marie: So maybe that makes it a little bit more relatable in how our day-to-day how it shows up in our day-to-day relationships.
• 10:03
  Jennifer Johnson: So what was it?
• 10:04
  Jennifer Johnson: I'm curious, what made you realize that the power of mind was kind of the missing piece?
• 10:12
  Carlene Marie: Well, I think originally that for me was planted throughout my life.
• 10:17
  Carlene Marie: It started, I think, at age 17.
• 10:19
  Carlene Marie: My 45-year-old father was suddenly immobilized with a rare illness.
• 10:25
  Carlene Marie: And I still, it's part of my story.
• 10:27
  Carlene Marie: I say this, I still can't tell you to this day how this book landed on his nightstand.
• 10:32
  Carlene Marie: But this larger-than-life, gregarious man suddenly lay immobilized in the middle of our family room.
• 10:39
  Carlene Marie: And I was just about to head off to college, and this book landed right next to him.
• 10:43
  Carlene Marie: I don't know who brought it to him, and I picked it up, and it was entitled Love, Medicine, and Miracles.
• 10:48
  Carlene Marie: And it was written by Dr.
• 10:49
  Carlene Marie: Bernie Siegel, who was a doctor out of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where I'm from.
• 10:55
  Carlene Marie: And he was a doctor, a scientist, but it was his patients' true accounts of the power of their minds, visualizing their healing, what their self-talk, what they were saying to themselves, professing their healing in all of the ways that they embodied their healing through all the five senses.
• 11:15
  Carlene Marie: And I would dare to say the sixth sense is our self-talk, what we say in our own mind, and how they healed themselves.
• 11:22
  Carlene Marie: And so at age 17, I believed it.
• 11:24
  Carlene Marie: I soaked it up, I read it aloud to my dad.
• 11:26
  Carlene Marie: I believed it.
• 11:27
  Carlene Marie: And for whatever reason, I I believed it, but it didn't work.
• 11:32
  Carlene Marie: And my father passed away very suddenly.
• 11:35
  Carlene Marie: So the seed was planted done.
• 11:37
  Carlene Marie: And then throughout my life, when I discovered later in my life at age 34 that I had a rare cancer, I fell on the same power of the minds and was able to tap into that, visualizing my healing, what I was saying to myself before, during, and after a surgery, where I came out of multiple surgeries without any pain meds, with feeling so incredibly healthy and being able to tap into that.
• 12:03
  Carlene Marie: But I think for me, the crux of it really came at the moment after I launched my young adults into the world and my nest was empty.
• 12:13
  Carlene Marie: And I was at this biggest crossroads of my life where my 25-year marriage had come to an end.
• 12:19
  Carlene Marie: And I was at the moment of what now and what next.
• 12:23
  Carlene Marie: And some old kind of thoughts were reoccurring about some fear, some self-doubt, and can I really do this?
• 12:32
  Carlene Marie: And I believe it, I mean, this is what became the genesis of me becoming a coach, sought the um the help and support of my own life coach.
• 12:42
  Carlene Marie: And so through that support and being able to rewire some of those negative, limiting beliefs that, you know, it kind of I thought were going to encumber me to move my life forward.
• 12:54
  Carlene Marie: But very, very quickly by retraining my mind, become the empowered director, I started creating clarity, started creating momentum, and that begets confidence.
• 13:04
  Carlene Marie: And so I began very quickly to inch by inch by inch move my life forward, where I completely reinvented my life, moved, moved to a brand new state here.
• 13:13
  Carlene Marie: You and I share now, and launched a bought a new home, launched a new career.
• 13:18
  Carlene Marie: And and that's really what also wanted me to level up, becoming my own life coach, and then also gaining multiple certifications as a mind power coach and then a master mind power coach.
• 13:29
  Carlene Marie: So I I live in this alignment today.
• 13:31
  Carlene Marie: I'm actually so fulfilled is what I was called to do because I went through it personally, and I get a front receipt every single day with the clients that I coach to be able to watch them transform their lives by transforming their thoughts.
• 13:44
  Jennifer Johnson: And that's a pretty special place to be in for sure.
• 13:46
  Jennifer Johnson: Do you would is it safe to say, or or I guess it seems as though the biggest mental barrier is our negative self-talk?
• 13:57
  Carlene Marie: Is that safe to say or is it?
• 13:59
  Carlene Marie: That's so so so accurate.
• 14:01
  Carlene Marie: It is.
• 14:02
  Carlene Marie: It's that like mind chatter, the monkey mind, right?
• 14:04
  Carlene Marie: It's the negative talk.
• 14:06
  Carlene Marie: And oftentimes that runs behind the scenes and we're not even conscious of it, right?
• 14:11
  Jennifer Johnson: So now in terms of productivity, what is that?
• 14:15
  Jennifer Johnson: What is is that part just part of the biggest mental block that we have with regard to productivity is our mind saying, oh, you can't do that, and you're you you're not good enough to do that, or you're not trained.
• 14:28
  Jennifer Johnson: And is is that it, or are there other components to that uh aspect?
• 14:34
  Carlene Marie: I think that's a great question.
• 14:35
  Carlene Marie: I think it's so multifaceted, right?
• 14:37
  Carlene Marie: So there's the negative self-talk, but there's also the belief that we need to just power through, right?
• 14:44
  Carlene Marie: Like we, if you're talking about productivity, most will just want to work to the point of exhaustion, right?
• 14:53
  Carlene Marie: Because if you're grinding and you want to get ahead, then you're just gonna you're gonna go through a season of sacrifice, right?
• 14:59
  Carlene Marie: But that actually is counterproductive to the way the brain can work for us.
• 15:04
  Carlene Marie: So we're actually sabotaging ourselves when we don't realize how the brain is optimized and how we can do that.
• 15:12
  Carlene Marie: So, okay, there's the self-talk, right?
• 15:14
  Carlene Marie: That we need to learn to retrain the brain.
• 15:17
  Carlene Marie: And that comes with awareness, identification.
• 15:19
  Carlene Marie: Okay, there it is.
• 15:20
  Carlene Marie: All right, where's this coming from, right?
• 15:22
  Carlene Marie: If this limiting belief, imposter syndrome, or I'm not good enough, oftentimes that is the number one limiting belief that I encounter in all my fellow mindpower coaches encounter.
• 15:33
  Carlene Marie: Despite high executives, amazing entrepreneurs, there's something running behind the scenes.
• 15:38
  Carlene Marie: Like, am I worthy of success?
• 15:40
  Carlene Marie: Am I good enough?
• 15:41
  Carlene Marie: Right, a lot of self-doubt.
• 15:43
  Carlene Marie: So there's there's one part of that, which is retraining the mind.
• 15:47
  Carlene Marie: And it's a very simple tool in mind power that we call um the mental toughness challenge.
• 15:52
  Carlene Marie: And it basically is this there's the negative thought, so it's awareness.
• 15:56
  Carlene Marie: And I know you speak about that a lot.
• 15:58
  Carlene Marie: Awareness is the key.
• 15:59
  Carlene Marie: So you identify it, you become aware, then you identify it, and you're like, okay, no sh no blame or shame.
• 16:06
  Carlene Marie: I'm a biological being, I'm just threat assessing, right?
• 16:09
  Carlene Marie: Our ancestors were threat assessing.
• 16:11
  Carlene Marie: So there it is.
• 16:12
  Carlene Marie: But now I'm gonna pay attention to that for 1% of the time because it can tell me a story, it can help me identify where a limiting belief originated or where it's hindering me.
• 16:23
  Carlene Marie: But there it is.
• 16:24
  Carlene Marie: But then I'm gonna ask myself a very simple question, and it's this what do I want instead?
• 16:30
  Carlene Marie: And it's so simple and yet it's so profound.
• 16:34
  Carlene Marie: It allows us to take the negative and staying stuck in that spiral and being able to automatically switch the brain to possibility.
• 16:41
  Carlene Marie: What do I want instead?
• 16:43
  Carlene Marie: I want confidence, I want abundance, I want clarity, right?
• 16:47
  Carlene Marie: I want success.
• 16:48
  Carlene Marie: And that actually physiologically starts to change the body, right?
• 16:52
  Carlene Marie: So when we are stuck in a negative thought, it tends to increase our cortisol, our stress hormone, it tends to create fogginess, it hijacks our prefrontal cortex, which is where our logical, clear thinking is.
• 17:07
  Carlene Marie: And when we're stuck in that negative loop, it has a very physiological effect.
• 17:11
  Carlene Marie: So by simply transferring and saying, okay, what do I want instead and focusing on the positive?
• 17:15
  Carlene Marie: Well, then that has a physiological effect, can create great momentum, can be very energizing.
• 17:21
  Carlene Marie: If you feel all of the adrenaline, the dopamine, the serotonin, and you can begin to create momentum.
• 17:28
  Carlene Marie: So I feel like that's a very fundamental tool when you find yourself stuck, ruminating, overthinking, or just stuck in what we call, you know, the itty bitty shitty committee.
• 17:41
  Carlene Marie: It's running behind those scenes, right?
• 17:43
  Carlene Marie: So that's one of the things when we talk about productivity, right?
• 17:49
  Carlene Marie: Harnessing the power of your minds.
• 17:51
  Carlene Marie: But I want to share too, I think this is really, really powerful, is where a lot of us don't realize how the brain optimally works and we're working against it.
• 17:59
  Carlene Marie: So most of us are familiar with the circadian rhythms of night and day, right?
• 18:04
  Carlene Marie: 12 hour cycles, sun up to sundown.
• 18:06
  Carlene Marie: And so our bodies, they react to that rhythm, right?
• 18:11
  Carlene Marie: Where the sun's going down and then it increases melatonin.
• 18:15
  Carlene Marie: And then our brains like learn to or respond to that, and we sleep, we become tired.
• 18:22
  Carlene Marie: Little side note here is the invention of television, blue light.
• 18:26
  Carlene Marie: Now our phones and the light, that's totally working against our rest.
• 18:31
  Jennifer Johnson: Blue light, light glasses, right?
• 18:33
  Carlene Marie: Yeah, right.
• 18:33
  Carlene Marie: All of it.
• 18:35
  Carlene Marie: So that's working against our brain, the production of serotonin.
• 18:39
  Carlene Marie: I'm sorry, melatonin, and our ability to rest.
• 18:42
  Carlene Marie: Okay, so that's the the 24-hour cycle.
• 18:45
  Carlene Marie: But within the wake cycle, there are also the same rhythms peak state, flow state, peak coming down, and those are the ultra DN rhythms of the day.
• 18:56
  Carlene Marie: And those flow in 90-minute cycles.
• 19:00
  Carlene Marie: So an old study was saying this, it was called the Pomodoro Fat, that you work in sprints, right?
• 19:08
  Carlene Marie: 30-minute sprints.
• 19:09
  Carlene Marie: Well, the new research is totally counter to that.
• 19:13
  Carlene Marie: It's basically saying, yeah, it's telling us now that it takes 30 minutes for us to really get into peak flow state.
• 19:21
  Carlene Marie: And that after 90 to 120 minutes, the brain needs to idle to be able to reset, to absorb everything that it did, and then come back for another 90 minute cycle.
• 19:36
  Carlene Marie: So in Mind Power, we teach a mind power planning system that operates, we call these jam sessions.
• 19:43
  Carlene Marie: It up it optimizes the way your brain works to make your productivity work for you.
• 19:50
  Carlene Marie: So it's working in a 90-minute session, allowing yourself to get into flow.
• 19:55
  Carlene Marie: You might want to press it and go to 120, 120 minutes, but then this is key.
• 20:00
  Carlene Marie: Even if you feel like you can press through, even if you feel like you want to keep going, it's the discipline to say, no, I know what my brain needs.
• 20:08
  Carlene Marie: And so now for about 15 to 30 minutes, I'm gonna step away and I'm not gonna go and turn my attention to email.
• 20:16
  Carlene Marie: I'm not gonna look at any technology.
• 20:18
  Carlene Marie: I'm gonna go outside for a walk.
• 20:20
  Carlene Marie: I'm going to go have lunch.
• 20:22
  Carlene Marie: I'm just gonna kind of sit and breathe and allow the brain to archive and allow the brain to idle so that when I come back for my next 90-minute jam session, I'm ready to go.
• 20:34
  Carlene Marie: And so what we have found with this planning system is that even our highest achievers, um, high executives, entrepreneurs that used to want to push through, when they would do that by 5 p.m., they would go home and give their families really where there was nothing left.
• 20:53
  Carlene Marie: Right?
• 20:54
  Carlene Marie: So they're not loved ones, their children, their partners at the end of the day with their tank fully just empty, because most of the time by 2 p.m., based on the cycle, if you do not give yourself the time to idle and rest, you're pretty much done with a lot of your clarity, focus, and your creativity.
• 21:14
  Carlene Marie: So by allowing yourself to work through that, most of our clients show up and they say, Wow, 7 p.m.
• 21:21
  Carlene Marie: I'm still feeling alive and energized because they've learned how to optimize their time to enhance their productivity and their performance based on how the brain works for them and not against them.
• 21:33
  Jennifer Johnson: So the the break time isn't an equal 90 minutes, it's 90 minutes of work and then maybe a half hour.
• 21:40
  Carlene Marie: Correct.
• 21:41
  Carlene Marie: And it and it's also, I really want to say this too it's a half hour of movement, eyes in the sky, conversation.
• 21:50
  Carlene Marie: It's not getting in front of now email, right?
• 21:53
  Carlene Marie: It's not getting back in front of using your cognitive load.
• 21:57
  Carlene Marie: You're actually allowing the brain to idle, to archive, to rest.
• 22:02
  Carlene Marie: And by doing that, you'll then come back if you're on computer work or writing or doing creativity with so much more focus and endurance to be able to optimize your work.
• 22:13
  Jennifer Johnson: So implementing this, I mean, it sounds so great.
• 22:16
  Jennifer Johnson: Do you set a timer?
• 22:18
  Jennifer Johnson: Do you what do you how can you actually implement this?
• 22:21
  Jennifer Johnson: Because this is a crucial part of that whole how you stay productive.
• 22:26
  Carlene Marie: It's so true.
• 22:27
  Carlene Marie: I I and I'm here, I get it.
• 22:29
  Carlene Marie: Like I think for somebody that is a to do list queen, which I used to be, um, the to do list is like a never, never ending.
• 22:36
  Carlene Marie: Thing.
• 22:37
  Carlene Marie: And what we say is like I say, small hinges can swing really big doors.
• 22:43
  Carlene Marie: And so it can be very overwhelming to start structuring your day like this.
• 22:48
  Carlene Marie: It's the only way I structure my day now.
• 22:51
  Carlene Marie: But I didn't start where I am now.
• 22:53
  Carlene Marie: So to start is very simply kind of thinking about what are my top three things that I need to do today that will make the greatest impact.
• 23:04
  Carlene Marie: Right.
• 23:04
  Carlene Marie: So those are pick your three biggest.
• 23:07
  Carlene Marie: And then if you can create three 90-minute jam sessions around those, then you're already outperforming your colleagues by staying that laser focused.
• 23:18
  Carlene Marie: So it's a matter of like, okay, planning your day, looking at your calendar, where can I plug in a 90-minute jam session?
• 23:25
  Carlene Marie: And then what one task can I really effort at that and dial in the focus?
• 23:31
  Carlene Marie: And it's also about retraining our environment.
• 23:34
  Carlene Marie: So it's retraining ourselves, but it's retraining our environment.
• 23:38
  Carlene Marie: It's not, it's shutting the phone on, do not disturb, right?
• 23:41
  Carlene Marie: It's not allowing people to walk in your office, right?
• 23:45
  Carlene Marie: It's your 90 minutes of laser focus.
• 23:48
  Carlene Marie: And then when you take the break, go have that conversation, go have that movement, go have that lunch.
• 23:54
  Carlene Marie: But it really is a discipline.
• 23:56
  Carlene Marie: And it can you could start with just one 90-minute session a day, and then making sure that you have your 30-minute break, 15 to 30 minutes to let the brain idle and archive and then come back again.
• 24:07
  Carlene Marie: So a lot of times when I'm coaching my clients, the system, we start small and say, look, maybe where can you identify your top three things that you need to do today that will make the most impact?
• 24:20
  Carlene Marie: And identify those and then plug them into your 90-minute jam sessions.
• 24:24
  Carlene Marie: Maybe it's one starting once a day, then maybe it's up to two, then maybe three, and then you start creating your calendar Monday through Friday, creating this system where you're really identifying what will have the most impact.
• 24:37
  Jennifer Johnson: So that was my my next question is so you start this and you start small, maybe like you said, with one 90-minute session.
• 24:44
  Jennifer Johnson: You know, is an accountability partner or is it just scheduling and how do you keep this sustainable for the long run?
• 24:52
  Jennifer Johnson: Because yes, I can see I'm gonna try this because I do the 30-minute, like, okay, I'm gonna sit down, or I might even do an hour where I sit down and I focus on one thing.
• 25:03
  Jennifer Johnson: And I mean, but focusing for 90 minutes helps you do that deep dive.
• 25:08
  Jennifer Johnson: It helps you really get into what you're doing, or is it half hour doesn't really allow that?
• 25:14
  Jennifer Johnson: But how do you make that sustainable?
• 25:17
  Carlene Marie: I think that's a great question.
• 25:19
  Carlene Marie: And I think that's where I think I'll say it again: the results and seeing the results, confidence begets confidence when you start seeing the results of your laser focus and you start seeing the way your performance and your productivity is increased, and you're not pushing yourself to the state of burnout, but you're actually conserving your energy, conserving your very mind power.
• 25:42
  Carlene Marie: And you are starting to see the fruits of that.
• 25:45
  Carlene Marie: I think it's it's it's exciting.
• 25:47
  Carlene Marie: I think you start to see how it starts to work for you.
• 25:50
  Carlene Marie: So I would say that start small.
• 25:53
  Carlene Marie: And then as you start to see the results of that, the fruits of that, I think it's very it creates momentum and I think it starts to create that excitement that wow, I can really make this work for me.
• 26:04
  Carlene Marie: When we when we coach the mindpower um planning system, it's it can be like for somebody that loves a to-do list, it can be very, very overwhelming because we really help our clients break down what are your top three things that you need to do either today or this week.
• 26:20
  Carlene Marie: And then those are what gets plugged in first to your 90-minute jam sessions.
• 26:26
  Carlene Marie: And so by the end of the week, you're like, wow, now I can turn my my focus to the things that are were like number they didn't categorize as the top.
• 26:34
  Carlene Marie: Maybe they weren't the things that I really wanted to get to, but those are typically the things way down on somebody's to-do list that never move.
• 26:41
  Carlene Marie: And so this system is is really helpful to just help with the focus, and then it really can change that that productivity.
• 26:49
  Carlene Marie: Having a having a support of a coach, of course, is great, or just even accountability buddy, right?
• 26:54
  Carlene Marie: And so the other thing too is we always in mind power, we always do this planning on Friday, on Friday afternoon, because you're still in your state, whether you check out at noon or four, you still are planning.
• 27:08
  Carlene Marie: Okay, what are the top three things that I need to accomplish that will have the greatest impact next week?
• 27:13
  Carlene Marie: And so we start creating and plugging into the calendar those.
• 27:17
  Carlene Marie: And then you hit the ground running on Monday, which is gonna put you light years ahead of your contemporaries, because most people get to their desk and then they start planning.
• 27:26
  Carlene Marie: They look at their email and they're like looking, they're checking voicemail, they're like checking the news, they're drinking their coffee, and hey, that's great.
• 30:00
  Carlene Marie: Like if you want to create your first 90 minutes as your admin and you want to do that, all the power to you.
• 30:07
  Carlene Marie: But we do tend to like group like-minded things into 90-minute jam sessions.
• 30:14
  Carlene Marie: So really, really key.
• 30:16
  Jennifer Johnson: Exactly.
• 30:17
  Jennifer Johnson: So, what you know, as with anything, there's always going to be people who are out there out there who are skeptics.
• 30:23
  Jennifer Johnson: They're always like, what do you say?
• 30:27
  Jennifer Johnson: What do you say to the skeptics?
• 30:30
  Carlene Marie: Well, I think what I would say is a lot of this is scientifically proven.
• 30:35
  Carlene Marie: If you don't believe me, go check out Dr.
• 30:38
  Carlene Marie: Bruce Rip Lipton, the author of Biology of Belief, Dr.
• 30:42
  Carlene Marie: Theo Compernell, who wrote Brain Chains.
• 30:44
  Carlene Marie: I mean, all of these things that I'm sharing with you are proven by science, proven studies, neuroscience, right?
• 30:51
  Carlene Marie: So, okay.
• 30:52
  Carlene Marie: But old habits die hard.
• 30:55
  Carlene Marie: I get it.
• 30:55
  Carlene Marie: And oftentimes a lot of people, like I said earlier, don't think they, you know, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
• 31:02
  Carlene Marie: Neuroplasticity is real.
• 31:04
  Carlene Marie: We can learn to not only retrain our brains, but retrain our own environments.
• 31:10
  Carlene Marie: And and small hinges, as I said, swing really big doors.
• 31:13
  Carlene Marie: So oftentimes in transformative coaching, we don't want to start changing everything at once at the very, very beginning.
• 31:21
  Carlene Marie: We want to just celebrate micro wins and just being able to see the need for this and say, okay, I really want to work with my brain and not against it.
• 31:31
  Carlene Marie: I think who would who wouldn't want to do that?
• 31:33
  Carlene Marie: I don't know.
• 31:34
  Carlene Marie: But I want to work with my brain and how it optimally works for me.
• 31:38
  Carlene Marie: And I'll tell you what, beyond just productivity, beyond performance, I think it's key that the things that I'm sharing with you prevent burnout, reduce stress, create confidence and clarity and focus.
• 31:52
  Carlene Marie: So all of this to say, when we bridge, I call it the psychokinetic bridge, it's the brain, which is psycho, kinetic, which is body.
• 32:02
  Carlene Marie: When we take a moment, even throughout the day, and we realize that we had a win, an accomplishment.
• 32:09
  Carlene Marie: So many of my high performers, they don't do that.
• 32:12
  Carlene Marie: They just keep going one thing to the next.
• 32:14
  Carlene Marie: They're just moving and plowing.
• 32:16
  Carlene Marie: And what happens is at some point, the unconscious mind will say, What's in it for me?
• 32:22
  Carlene Marie: And it hasn't had anything that's in it for it.
• 32:25
  Carlene Marie: And it will have tremendous effects on our bodies because every thought we think and every word we speak, the body listens.
• 32:32
  Carlene Marie: And so without having little micro acknowledgements, little micro wins, we can burn out, we can just really become so stressed.
• 32:40
  Carlene Marie: But when we go throughout our day and we take even a micro moment to be like, wow, I just accomplished this.
• 32:46
  Carlene Marie: Wow, that feels really good.
• 32:49
  Carlene Marie: Just to even take a moment.
• 32:50
  Carlene Marie: So if the whole planning system sounds like a lot, and I get it, we all come at this from different angles.
• 32:57
  Carlene Marie: Maybe it's just starting with creating the micro wins and just being able to slow down, even if it's for 10 seconds, and give ourselves a pat on the back.
• 33:07
  Carlene Marie: Give the unconscious mind that acknowledgement that this feels good.
• 33:11
  Carlene Marie: I'm in a state of appreciation, I'm in a state of gratitude.
• 33:15
  Carlene Marie: You've heard me say before, the brain can't hold a negative thought at the same time, it's in a state of gratitude.
• 33:20
  Carlene Marie: So even just stopping what you're doing and realizing a grateful moment of all that we are and all that we're efforting at and all that we're producing takes a huge amount onto the mind and onto the brain.
• 33:33
  Carlene Marie: And it really helps us on our long-term goals.
• 33:37
  Jennifer Johnson: Right.
• 33:37
  Jennifer Johnson: Oh, I love this.
• 33:38
  Jennifer Johnson: This is such great information.
• 33:40
  Jennifer Johnson: Um where would you tell someone to start as we as we as we finish out?
• 33:46
  Jennifer Johnson: Where would you tell someone to start on this journey?
• 33:50
  Carlene Marie: I there's so many, I mean, there's amazing things out there.
• 33:53
  Carlene Marie: You could work with a coach, of course.
• 33:55
  Carlene Marie: Um, but I think also just to start on the journey of being able to think about what are my goals, right?
• 34:02
  Carlene Marie: What am I focusing on?
• 34:03
  Carlene Marie: What do I want to achieve?
• 34:05
  Carlene Marie: And then just kind of really distilling that down to your top three and getting really crystal clear and realizing everything on our to-do list doesn't have the same weight.
• 34:15
  Carlene Marie: What would have the greatest impact?
• 34:17
  Carlene Marie: So I think just a matter of pause, right?
• 34:20
  Carlene Marie: Without letting the calendar run you, you become the empowered director of your day, of your calendar and ultimately your results and your success by just pausing and being able to just go within and start there and say, what are the things that I need to focus on that are going to move the needle for me?
• 34:36
  Carlene Marie: And then really thinking about what are your top three things that will make the greatest impact today, this week, this month.
• 34:44
  Carlene Marie: And then that just by identifying that, then you can kind of put those times in your jam session, like apply each one to a 90-minute jam session.
• 34:54
  Carlene Marie: Maybe it's just once.
• 34:55
  Carlene Marie: Try it once a week.
• 34:56
  Carlene Marie: Then maybe try two, and then start honing your calendar where you really start to begin to see how it can really work for you.
• 35:04
  Carlene Marie: More than anything, more than the productivity, more than increased performance, just how you're going to respond with greater clarity, greater confidence.
• 35:12
  Carlene Marie: You're going to be more calm.
• 35:14
  Carlene Marie: You're going to be in control.
• 35:15
  Carlene Marie: And your day's not going to run you and your day, you know, you're going to be able to run your day.
• 35:19
  Carlene Marie: I do want to say, I have a client that she calls it like she actually creates a 90-minute uh jam session.
• 35:27
  Carlene Marie: She calls it triage time because often a lot of us have calls coming at us, especially if you're in sales, you have a lot of things coming at you at once.
• 35:36
  Carlene Marie: So you're welcome to make a 90-minute jam session where you are responding to all of the things that were going to be interrupting you during your focus time.
• 35:46
  Carlene Marie: And so that takes a lot of the pressure off because a lot of people are like, where do I put that?
• 35:50
  Carlene Marie: Right?
• 35:51
  Carlene Marie: Where do I put that time?
• 35:52
  Carlene Marie: Just create a jam session.
• 35:54
  Carlene Marie: So now it's your response time.
• 35:55
  Carlene Marie: It's phone calls, you're replying to emails, it's all like-minded because now you're in response mode.
• 36:01
  Carlene Marie: You're in problem-solving mode, you're returning phone calls, you're interacting.
• 36:05
  Carlene Marie: And a lot of people find that when they're in that 90-minute time, they are just on fire.
• 36:11
  Carlene Marie: They're flowing, they're brain to their mouth, like they are just in flow state because they are replying and responding and having conversations, not little bits throughout the day, but they're doing it all in one 90-minute session.
• 36:23
  Carlene Marie: And they're just working with the way the brain is optimally working for them to articulate their thoughts and to be crystal clear and have clarity.
• 36:31
  Carlene Marie: And they're in they're in problem solving mode.
• 36:33
  Carlene Marie: And um it's it's incredible to see that.
• 36:36
  Carlene Marie: So small, small wins, micro wins, starting there and just taking it one step at a time.
• 36:42
  Jennifer Johnson: That is great advice.
• 36:43
  Jennifer Johnson: That is wonderful.
• 36:45
  Jennifer Johnson: I can't wait to put this put this to work for myself.
• 36:48
  Jennifer Johnson: Now we're we're into the final form.
• 36:51
  Jennifer Johnson: The final form is where I ask four questions.
• 36:54
  Jennifer Johnson: I do this for every guest that's on my show.
• 36:57
  Jennifer Johnson: So are you ready?
• 36:59
  Carlene Marie: Yes.
• 37:00
  Carlene Marie: Okay.
• 37:01
  Jennifer Johnson: What's your favorite book and what made it stick with you?
• 37:07
  Carlene Marie: So that's a tough one.
• 37:08
  Carlene Marie: I'm an English major and I'm a little more.
• 37:10
  Carlene Marie: But I will say in the work that I do, I think in the work that I do, that is so incredibly purposeful and meaningful, it is truly my calling.
• 37:20
  Carlene Marie: The book that really resonates with me most is written by Victor Frankel.
• 37:25
  Carlene Marie: It's titled Man's Search for Meaning.
• 37:28
  Carlene Marie: And the premise of this book is where did life happen, not to you, but where did life happen for you?
• 37:37
  Carlene Marie: And I think all of us have things in our lives that we've experienced where we can think life really happened to us.
• 37:45
  Carlene Marie: I know I've certainly had events like that in my life.
• 37:48
  Carlene Marie: Dr.
• 37:49
  Carlene Marie: Victor Frankel was a Holocaust survivor in Auschwitz and saw atrocities.
• 37:55
  Carlene Marie: He was able to see where life happened for him, where he could find the silver lining.
• 38:01
  Carlene Marie: What did that do for me?
• 38:03
  Carlene Marie: What did that create within me?
• 38:05
  Carlene Marie: And so that's been really a profound book for me personally, and also a book that I rely on in my coaching as well.
• 38:14
  Jennifer Johnson: Wow, I'm gonna have to read that.
• 38:15
  Jennifer Johnson: I have not read that yet.
• 38:16
  Jennifer Johnson: Do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice that you find yourself coming back to time and time again?
• 38:24
  Carlene Marie: I love Carl Jung, and I know I'm repeating it again, but it is, I really think, the crux of my own life because I did at one point was not living in the consciousness that I thought I was.
• 38:35
  Carlene Marie: And he said, until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct our lives and we will call it fate.
• 38:43
  Carlene Marie: And having a deep faith, um, and also believing that, of course, in a higher power of my own life, to be able to realize that there are unconscious beliefs that we all carry, and they don't always serve us well in our lives and our relationships and all of our endeavors.
• 39:02
  Carlene Marie: But when we can really bring those to our awareness and make them conscious, then we can become the empowered director of our choices, our behaviors, and our lives.
• 39:12
  Carlene Marie: And so for me, that's been that's been pivotal.
• 39:15
  Carlene Marie: I'm I'm sitting here with you today because of that very quote, and and not just thinking about it, but actually actualizing it, like doing the thing, right?
• 39:23
  Jennifer Johnson: So it's a great quote.
• 39:26
  Jennifer Johnson: What's one habit or practice that's changed your life?
• 39:32
  Carlene Marie: Gratitude, just soaking in gratitude, even throughout the day, just those micro moments of where I was once uh type A, more overachiever, pleaser, pushing ahead for the achievement and the accomplishments, and never giving myself a pat on the back and just finding myself exhausted, depleted, not being able to pour out to others, being able to give my moments and take a moment and soak in that moment of gratitude.
• 40:00
  Carlene Marie: Um, not just for myself, but to my God and all the things that are blessings in my life.
• 40:06
  Carlene Marie: It changes our physiology, it changes our mindset, um, and it really can be a catalyst to um to great change.
• 40:16
  Carlene Marie: So, gratitude, a practice of gratitude, starting the day that way, and then the little micro moments of gratitude throughout the day as well.
• 40:22
  Carlene Marie: It's simple, but yeah, I think it's really a profound practice.
• 40:26
  Jennifer Johnson: It is a great practice.
• 40:27
  Jennifer Johnson: And finally, if you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be and why?
• 40:31
  Jennifer Johnson: I love that.
• 40:32
  Carlene Marie: I'd have dinner with my dad.
• 40:34
  Carlene Marie: My dad passed, like I shared when uh when I was 18 and was such a mentor to me, and really was the very kind of first person that challenged me.
• 40:44
  Carlene Marie: And um really Wizard was a deep thinker.
• 40:47
  Carlene Marie: And so I I am who I am today, even though I had only 18 years with him.
• 40:51
  Carlene Marie: And boy, I'd want to, I believe he's crossed over and has great wisdom.
• 40:55
  Carlene Marie: And I want to have dinner with him today and say, hey, what do you think that all these things in my life have led me to this calling and this purpose?
• 41:02
  Carlene Marie: Uh, what do you think, Dad?
• 41:04
  Carlene Marie: You know, what can I be doing better?
• 41:05
  Carlene Marie: What do you see?
• 41:06
  Carlene Marie: You know, and just kind of, you know, just just be able to soak in that presence.
• 41:10
  Carlene Marie: I would love that.
• 41:11
  Jennifer Johnson: I'd love that.
• 41:12
  Jennifer Johnson: And and um, I'm sure he's very proud of you.
• 41:15
  Jennifer Johnson: Thank you.
• 41:16
  Jennifer Johnson: I so appreciate that.
• 41:17
  Jennifer Johnson: Thank you.
• 41:17
  Jennifer Johnson: Carleen, this has been a wonderful conversation with you.
• 41:20
  Jennifer Johnson: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, how can they do so?
• 41:24
  Carlene Marie: Oh, thank you so much.
• 41:25
  Carlene Marie: They can visit my website, which is Carlene Marie, C-A-R-L-E-N-E, M-A-R-I-E.com.
• 41:33
  Carlene Marie: That is my website for my coaching.
• 41:36
  Carlene Marie: And then also I am the co-founder of Mindset Slingshot.
• 41:40
  Carlene Marie: And together with Master Mind Power Coach, my partner, where we team up together, we do online virtual courses and keynotes together.
• 41:49
  Carlene Marie: We do a lot of corporate executive coaching events, and that is mindsetslingshot.com.
• 41:56
  Carlene Marie: So those are two different ways that we could work together.
• 41:59
  Carlene Marie: And um, I I love and I love every aspect and every person that crosses my path, I believe, comes to me for a reason and a season.
• 42:06
  Carlene Marie: And it's my honor to help them become the empowered director of their thoughts and their lives.
• 42:12
  Jennifer Johnson: Awesome.
• 42:13
  Jennifer Johnson: Thank you so much, Carlene.
• 42:14
  Jennifer Johnson: Thank you.
• 42:15
  Jennifer Johnson: This is wonderful.
• 42:16
  Jennifer Johnson: I appreciate you too.
• 42:17
  Jennifer Johnson: Have an awesome day.
• 42:18
  Jennifer Johnson: Thank you to all of my guests.