Latest / Impact Ready / 205. From Reactivity to Intention: How Awareness Creates Better Impact

Transcript

205. From Reactivity to Intention: How Awareness Creates Better Impact · Impact Ready

• 0:02
  Welcome to Impact Ready, a show dedicated to helping you elevate
• 0:06
  your impact in the world. I'm Steph Safra, your host.
• 0:09
  Let's explore the power of showing up with intention and
• 0:12
  energy each day. This is for those who seek to
• 0:15
  make life truly meaningful. Get ready for impact.
• 0:22
  Hello team. Before I get into the episode, I
• 0:24
  wanted to remind you about a project that I'm starting called
• 0:27
  Proof of Light. And what proof of Light is, is
• 0:31
  basically a collection of real stories from real people about
• 0:35
  moments in their life when somebody made a difference for
• 0:38
  them, whether it was a a big act of kindness or a small act of
• 0:42
  kindness. Maybe just someone showing up at
• 0:44
  the right time, something that reminded you of the good in
• 0:48
  people. Because when you start looking
• 0:50
  for light, you start to see more of the light, and you also start
• 0:54
  to realize how even the smallest actions can create very powerful
• 0:58
  ripple effects. And whether this was something
• 1:01
  you experienced or something you witnessed, if you have a story
• 1:04
  like that, I would love for you to send me your proof of light
• 1:07
  because I want to start sharing these things in the world.
• 1:10
  We see so much of the heavy, the traumatic, the hard, the
• 1:15
  challenging out in the news and on socials, and we don't see as
• 1:19
  much of the light. And I think it's very important
• 1:21
  because again, when you start to look for it, you start to see
• 1:23
  more of it. You can send me your story
• 1:26
  through my website. You can use the link on my
• 1:29
  Instagram page. It's a form that you fill out.
• 1:32
  It's in my bio, or you can just e-mail me directly at
• 1:35
  steph@stephsaffer.com. And like I said, I'll be sharing
• 1:39
  these stories on my podcast and on my social channels so that we
• 1:42
  can start shifting the narrative of what we noticed and
• 1:45
  remembering how much impact one single moment can can really
• 1:49
  have in people's lives. So on to the episode today.
• 1:54
  I was having coffee with my friend last Friday and we were
• 1:58
  talking about our businesses, our passions, ideas that we've
• 2:02
  been talking about. It was just one of those great
• 2:05
  conversations where everything was flowing and honestly, like I
• 2:08
  couldn't stop talking to him. And at one point he looked at me
• 2:11
  and he said, why impact? Why are you talking about this
• 2:16
  topic specifically? What's so important about impact
• 2:19
  to you? And I had to stop to think about
• 2:22
  it for a second. It's funny how when you're so
• 2:25
  deeply entrenched in something, a world of your own making, that
• 2:29
  sometimes it's hard to explain why it matters so much or what
• 2:32
  it's even all about. And it's had me thinking ever
• 2:35
  since, why is this so important to me?
• 2:37
  Why did I come to this obsession around how people show up in the
• 2:40
  world? A lot of times when I say the
• 2:44
  word impact, people are thinking about the big moments.
• 2:47
  They think about achievements or accolades or the big milestones
• 2:50
  that you hit. They're thinking about the stuff
• 2:52
  that you write books about or that you talk about at
• 2:55
  retirement parties. They're thinking in their mind,
• 2:57
  oh, this more about legacy and it is all that big stuff.
• 3:01
  Impact is certainly that, but it's not just that.
• 3:04
  It's all the small stuff too. It's the little moments that
• 3:08
  happen every single day, like the tone of voice that you use
• 3:12
  with people, the energy you bring into every room that you
• 3:15
  step into. It's the way that you react when
• 3:18
  something doesn't go your way, when you're challenged or
• 3:21
  pressured or pushed, or when something's changing before your
• 3:25
  eyes. Like what's happening with
• 3:27
  technology and the world of AI. How are we responding to that?
• 3:31
  It's how you treat the person next to you.
• 3:33
  It's how you talk to your kids when they're grumpy in the
• 3:36
  morning. It's all of those little moments
• 3:40
  and impact is happening all the time, whether we want it to or
• 3:45
  not, whether we are aware of it or not.
• 3:47
  It is a constant, ongoing phenomenon.
• 3:52
  And when this really sunk in for me, when I landed on this idea
• 3:56
  and it hit my brain differently than it ever had before, I was
• 4:00
  actually very uncomfortable with it.
• 4:03
  It felt like this whole new level of personal responsibility
• 4:06
  in my life that honestly, I wasn't sure I wanted.
• 4:09
  It felt very uncomfortable because impact was no longer
• 4:13
  just reserved for the big moments.
• 4:15
  It wasn't something that I could turn off and on as I pleased.
• 4:18
  It wasn't just about my public persona or how I acted when I
• 4:21
  was out in the world. This was all the time, and I was
• 4:24
  recognizing that at any given moment I could be having a
• 4:28
  positive or negative impact on people depending on the way that
• 4:31
  I was showing up. And when I thought about this, I
• 4:35
  started remembering and recognizing all the times that I
• 4:40
  don't pay attention to the way that I show up in a day, all the
• 4:44
  times in my past that I was completely unaware of the impact
• 4:47
  that I was having. That really hit me in that
• 4:51
  moment. It reminds me of all the
• 4:54
  automatic processes that go on in the world without our paying
• 4:58
  attention, like breathing, for example.
• 5:01
  Breathing is happening all the time for us.
• 5:03
  It's something that we're doing all day, every day, and yet
• 5:07
  because it's so automatic, we lose our awareness of it.
• 5:11
  It's just happening in the background all the time and we
• 5:14
  don't think about our breathing until somebody brings it up.
• 5:18
  Like right now you're probably thinking about your breathing
• 5:20
  because I'm talking about it. All of a sudden we are aware of
• 5:23
  our breath. And it's not that you weren't
• 5:26
  breathing this whole time, it's simply that you are now paying
• 5:29
  attention to it. And that's a lot like impact.
• 5:32
  We are always having an influence on our environment
• 5:35
  around us, but we really only noticed it when somebody or
• 5:38
  something brings it to our attention.
• 5:41
  These automatic processes, because we're not paying
• 5:44
  attention, they tend to go on autopilot.
• 5:47
  And that's fine, except for the fact that for many humans,
• 5:51
  autopilot means reactive. It means being reactive.
• 5:55
  It means old programming or historical beliefs created when
• 5:59
  we were kids through all of our lived experiences.
• 6:03
  Autopilot means habits and patterns that we haven't
• 6:06
  actually put a lot of thought into and might not necessarily
• 6:10
  serve us. It's that way for a lot of
• 6:13
  humans, because they've never been taught to pay attention to
• 6:17
  what their autopilot is or what kind of reactivity they bring to
• 6:23
  situations. And this reactivity bleeds into
• 6:26
  every part of our life. We react to stress, we react to
• 6:30
  people, we react to pressure. Humans take on a lot.
• 6:34
  They're living very full, busy lives, doing a lot of tasks, but
• 6:38
  often times they're not doing it with a lot of intention.
• 6:41
  They're just responding to whatever is in front of them.
• 6:45
  And after living that way for a while, things can feel chaotic
• 6:49
  in our lives. We can start to feel like the
• 6:51
  victim to our own circumstances. I have definitely felt that way
• 6:56
  in my life. I remember a period of time in
• 6:59
  my late 20s. I had just graduated from my
• 7:03
  Chinese medical program. After three rigorous years of
• 7:08
  having everything planned out for me, I found myself in a
• 7:11
  place where I was floating without any real direction or
• 7:16
  real idea of what I was supposed to be doing next.
• 7:19
  I had dreams, I had visions, but I didn't know what I was doing.
• 7:22
  My finances were a mess. I had a ton of Graduate School
• 7:25
  debt. I was trying to start a
• 7:27
  practice, but I didn't really know how.
• 7:30
  I I didn't have a strong network at that point.
• 7:32
  I was feeling very isolated and alone.
• 7:35
  And to top it off, I had had my heart broken for the very first
• 7:39
  time in my life at the same period.
• 7:43
  And I was wrecked like the kind of heartbroken that people write
• 7:48
  songs about, like emo altrock. Listen to that song on repeat in
• 7:54
  your room for hours at a time, kind of wrecked.
• 7:57
  And because I was so wrecked and so centered on myself, I was
• 8:02
  reacting to every circumstance around me, feeling like I was
• 8:05
  just being bounced around from one emotion to another and one
• 8:08
  circumstance to another. I was kind of drifting around.
• 8:12
  It was one of the most chaotic times in my life and truly one
• 8:16
  of the most depressed periods of time in my life.
• 8:19
  I felt very low. So this reactivity and feeling
• 8:24
  like a victim to our circumstances, I felt that old
• 8:28
  familiarity all too well when I started to understand, oh, a lot
• 8:33
  of people live this way without intention, without a real plan.
• 8:38
  But in the last decade, I noticed that there are other
• 8:41
  people who were doing the whole thing differently.
• 8:44
  They were living their life in a different way.
• 8:46
  They seem to have a greater sense of clarity and purpose.
• 8:50
  They just move throughout their day with a confidence and an
• 8:52
  ease. You know those people who walk
• 8:54
  in the room and you just suddenly become aware that
• 8:56
  they're there? It's almost like they're
• 8:58
  magnetic. You just notice something about
• 9:01
  them. I noticed these people.
• 9:04
  I started to think about what makes them that way.
• 9:07
  They were often mentors of mine or people in the spaces and
• 9:09
  industries that I was really interested in.
• 9:11
  Some of them are actually my peers who are carrying
• 9:14
  themselves this way. And I became obsessed with the
• 9:18
  difference for probably the last eight years.
• 9:21
  I wanted to know what this is all about.
• 9:24
  I wanted to understand the difference between the people
• 9:26
  who felt like they were getting tossed around in the waves of
• 9:29
  life and the people who seem to just steer their way through it
• 9:33
  like they are the captain of their own ship.
• 9:35
  I wanted to know and that's what brought me into this world of
• 9:38
  self development and really had me digging into all of these
• 9:42
  different facets and reading and going to seminars and learning
• 9:46
  as much as I could. And what I came to realize is
• 9:49
  that those people who are steering their own ship, the
• 9:52
  captains of their life, it's not that they were more talented or
• 9:56
  more skilled or that they were luckier or they were smarter.
• 9:59
  It wasn't any of that. It literally came down to one
• 10:02
  thing and that was they were more aware and therefore they
• 10:06
  had more intention that they brought to everything in their
• 10:09
  life. They decided how they wanted to
• 10:12
  show up everyday. They chose how they wanted to
• 10:15
  respond to things in their life. They took ownership of their
• 10:19
  feelings and their thoughts and their actions.
• 10:21
  It was the intention and the awareness that separated those
• 10:25
  two groups of people. Essentially, they were prepared
• 10:30
  to rise up to any challenge before the moment even asked
• 10:33
  them to. And to see that this was
• 10:35
  possible, that people were doing this every day, it felt so
• 10:39
  exciting because it had me remembering that each one of us
• 10:44
  has our own power within us and that we're all in choice.
• 10:48
  Do you remember the first time that you realized that that you
• 10:52
  were in choice? I remember this is so silly, but
• 10:55
  I had read a story, this was before social media, and I had
• 10:59
  actually just read an article about somebody who sold
• 11:02
  everything in their life and traveled the world with their
• 11:05
  family for a year. I think it was just so such a
• 11:08
  silly little story. It wasn't super dramatic or
• 11:11
  anything. They had just sold their house,
• 11:12
  they sold all their belongings and they picked up, they quit
• 11:15
  their jobs and they left and they traveled the world and did
• 11:18
  it their way for a year and then they figured out what they were
• 11:21
  doing afterwards. I don't even remember the
• 11:22
  details, but it was the first time where I was like, Oh my
• 11:24
  God, I can do anything I want with my life, anything I want.
• 11:29
  I can totally disregard the social norms and the cultural
• 11:34
  expectations that I had so heavily let guide my life prior
• 11:38
  to this. This was in my probably my early
• 11:40
  20s where I read this story and I thought to myself, I get to be
• 11:45
  in choice. I remember that time thinking
• 11:49
  wow, I get to be the captain of my own ship and how exciting is
• 11:53
  that? We have the choice in how we
• 11:57
  respond. We have the choice in how we
• 11:59
  prepare for the moments that we are asked to step into.
• 12:02
  We have the ability to take personal ownership of all these
• 12:06
  different facets of our own being.
• 12:09
  And I don't know about you, but I was never taught that.
• 12:11
  Nobody ever sat me down in 3rd or 4th or 5th grade and said,
• 12:15
  hey, little Stephanie, you have the ability to take ownership of
• 12:19
  how you feel. You get to choose how you
• 12:21
  respond to the things in the world.
• 12:24
  Nobody ever told me that. And I think that's changing.
• 12:27
  I think now it's becoming more of the conversation, especially
• 12:30
  with younger generations. But for me, this was like news
• 12:34
  flash. And so now into my 40s, having
• 12:38
  had this realization again and again, and not even a decade
• 12:42
  ago, really digging into this, I have felt this urge to start
• 12:46
  conversations about it and help other people remember their
• 12:49
  power and their personal responsibility.
• 12:51
  Because on the other side of that is so much freedom and so
• 12:55
  much joy and ease and fun that didn't exist for me when I was
• 13:00
  stuck in my own victimhood and reactivity.
• 13:03
  It wasn't there. It's like somebody lifted the
• 13:05
  veil and I could finally see what was on the other side.
• 13:09
  And I know there's so much more to it, which is why I continue
• 13:13
  to explore this and have conversations about it.
• 13:15
  It's why I love working with people who are just as curious
• 13:19
  and just as motivated to discover their own potential as
• 13:21
  I am. And it's why I think about this
• 13:24
  every day. If people are constantly having
• 13:28
  impact, and our influence shapes our relationships, our
• 13:32
  opportunities, and our experience of this life every
• 13:35
  single day, are we having the impact that we want to have?
• 13:39
  I think about that every day. Am I having the impact that I
• 13:43
  want to have? And I think it's to the point
• 13:47
  where my friends and my family and my wife might be getting a
• 13:50
  little sick of me talking about this.
• 13:54
  I definitely know my teenagers are because I asked them the
• 13:56
  other day what it was like to have two moms who are both
• 13:59
  coaches. My oldest said it gets annoying
• 14:02
  sometimes, but it's annoying because most of the time you're
• 14:05
  right and I don't want you to be annoying or not.
• 14:09
  It's worth thinking about. Are you having the impact you
• 14:13
  want to be having in your life every day, every week, every
• 14:16
  moment you get to be present with the people you love.
• 14:20
  So now you know, now you get to experience that very
• 14:22
  uncomfortable feeling that comes with the realization that our
• 14:25
  impact is just like breathing and it's happening all the time.
• 14:29
  It's not reserved for the big moments.
• 14:30
  It's all the moments big, small, and in between.
• 14:34
  And I'm so glad that you're here listening and having this
• 14:37
  conversation with me. I hope that this inspired you.
• 14:41
  I hope we all get the privilege of having a lightning bolt
• 14:44
  moment in this next coming week. And I'll do my best to just keep
• 14:49
  bringing the tough questions to this place in space that we get
• 14:52
  to hang out together. So thank you for listening as
• 14:55
  always, and thank you for being ready to Impact.
• 14:59
  Thanks for listening to Impact Ready.
• 15:01
  I hope today's episode inspired you to own your impact and
• 15:04
  recognize that you are powerful. By elevating our energy and
• 15:07
  awareness, we can create exponential change in this life.
• 15:11
  If you enjoyed today's insights, share them with a friend and
• 15:14
  subscribe to the show for more. I truly appreciate you.
• 15:17
  Thanks again for being here.