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Stuck in a Negative Loop? This Simple Mindset Tool Changes Everything · Business for Humans

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  I'm Jamie Gennaro, business coach, consultant, and founder of Practica Consulting.
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  In today's episode, I share a powerful mindset tool rooted in cognitive behavioral
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  therapy to help you break free from limiting beliefs.
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  I walk you through how your thoughts drive emotions, actions,
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  and results, and how simple awareness can help you shift patterns,
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  overcome self-sabotage, and move closer to your goals.
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  Enjoy.
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  One of my key clients, one of my clients that I've been working with for more
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  than a year didn't know about this tool.
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  And then it made me realize I have gotten so used to using it that I kind of
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  stopped training my clients on how to use it.
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  And I just think it's so vital and critical to keeping our brains in the place
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  where they're going to serve us the most so that we can get to our goals.
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  Because our brains are really tricky.
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  There is this thing that happens with our mind that it will play tricks on us.
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  And if we don't look at it objectively, then we will let it keep us in patterns
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  that are not getting us to the goals and the results that we want.
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  Hi, welcome to another episode of Business for Humans, which is feeling so timely
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  that I started this almost 100 episodes ago, which is crazy.
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  But this was before chat gpt
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  this was before all this ai mumbo
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  jumbo and it's just fun that
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  i named the podcast that also because i
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  was thinking about corporate environments that don't always
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  treat people like people they treat them like resources that was my original
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  intention but now it's like okay this is business for humans not business for
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  robots or robots talking to robots which is basically what happens when we use.
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  A chatbot to write things for us.
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  It's mining content from other chatbots. It's mining content from the internet.
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  Maybe things that humans have written, but that's getting rarer and rarer. This is not about AI.
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  It's just, I digress for just one second more.
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  But yeah, so I named the podcast Business for Humans with that original intention.
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  And now I just think it's so cool because I think this emphasis on analog and
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  this emphasis on just people, like if you look at my content, it is so analog.
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  Like I do not fit the mold of the highly produced, really nice Instagram accounts.
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  Everybody I'm sure has some kind of AI tool that they're using.
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  I'm analog and maybe I'm going to get lost in the in the crowd and in the scroll.
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  But maybe the analog is going to be the thing that becomes cool.
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  So the old lady becomes viable again.
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  So anyway, okay, I digress. What I want to talk about today is a tool that I
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  have been using in my coaching for years.
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  And I realized that one of my key clients, one of my clients that I've been
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  working with for more than a year, didn't know about this tool.
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  And then it made me realize I have gotten so used to using it that I kind of
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  stopped training my clients on how to use it.
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  And I just think it's so vital and critical to keeping our brains in the place where.
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  And they're going to serve us the most so that we can get to our goals.
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  Because our brains are really tricky.
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  And I like to talk about the brain and my clients' brains as if they're separate from their entity.
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  Because there is this thing that happens with our mind that it will play tricks on us.
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  And if we don't look at it objectively then
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  we will let it keep us in patterns
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  that are not getting us to the
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  goals and the results that we want and if
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  you know me you know that i am not about pushing for
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  a goal or that the outcome attaching yourself to the outcome is the important
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  thing it's that you want to be evolving along the way and i think reaching for
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  a goal helps you elevate and helps you reach out of your comfort zone.
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  So I love goals for that reason.
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  But I really encourage people not to attach themselves to that because that
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  will shift the way that they're evolving through the journey because they'll
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  just be looking at this one outcome.
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  And if something else were to happen that maybe would even be better for them.
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  They ignore it because they're motto-focused on a goal.
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  So I think it's great to set a goal, but we have to be careful about our brain
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  telling us all the reasons why it's not possible.
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  So let me go to the foundation of this.
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  So my coach training was based on cognitive behavioral therapy,
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  which is basically the idea that we all have this narrative that runs through
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  our brains that is typically pretty negative.
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  And a lot of it is our frontal lobe,
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  trying to keep us safe. So a lot of what our brain is doing is survival.
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  And some of it is old,
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  non-evolved parts of the human brain that react to this, you know,
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  fight or flight or freeze nervous system situation, which of course,
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  like our central nervous system.
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  Connects to our brain, right?
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  So these transmissions are happening from our body when we're shocked or scared.
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  I mean, even at the most minor level, like if somebody drops something and then
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  you're kind of, you know, you jump and then something happens to your brain, right?
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  And so it's a mechanism for survival. So all the things we're afraid of,
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  right, we are in this negative spin to keep ourselves safe. Great.
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  But we're not living in an era where there are predators, okay,
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  except for maybe like sharks and whales.
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  But, you know, like we're not in a state where we need to constantly be in survival mode.
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  And I say that with a grain of salt because I know that there are people living in those situations.
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  So I give grace to that and I hope you understand that I have so much compassion for that.
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  That's a different situation than where I think most of my listeners are sitting, right?
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  And I think that we tend to let our brain go to the worst case scenario first,
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  because we think that that is the reality that's going to keep us safe.
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  And it's just this very interesting thing that our brain does.
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  So cognitive behavioral therapy is having awareness of those thoughts.
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  So we don't have to believe them, even if they're really deeply ingrained stories.
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  So I will give you one from my past.
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  Maybe you'll relate to that.
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  I'm not good at math. Okay, like how many people do you hear say that?
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  Like, oh, I'm not good at math. Math's not mathing.
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  Nobody told me there'd be math, right?
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  Like, I'm not good at math. So this was a story that I was very tied to for
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  a very long time because I got a D on my Algebra 2 test in high school or end of junior high.
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  And it, like, crushed me.
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  And I remember sitting down for this test and sort of going blank.
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  I was never a good test taker.
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  And I just felt like my brain doesn't understand this input of information.
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  I'm great at regurgitating history texts. I'm great at writing essays.
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  I'm great at presenting.
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  But when it comes to math, I am not good at it. And this was a story that I
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  really held on to and perpetuated in my life.
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  Not good at math means you're not good with money.
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  And so it just spun and spun and spun.
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  And so when you have a thought like that, what kind of a result do you think
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  you're going to be creating in your life?
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  Because what happens from a thought is that we have an emotion about it.
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  And of course, when you get a D on a test and your teacher like slaps it down
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  on your desk. I think it was even a D minus.
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  There was shame, right? So humiliation and shame.
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  These are two feelings that we all as humans run away from.
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  These are two feelings that are literally some of the most painful feelings
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  that a human could experience outside of grief.
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  And I will say as someone who's experienced against a lot of grief.
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  I do think that grief is a very productive emotion. We don't want it, but we can't control it.
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  There's no way for us to control it, but we think we can control humiliation and shame.
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  So we step away from those two feelings.
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  Sometimes it doesn't mean we change our behavior, but we like run away from
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  wanting to face it, wanting to face the situation that created shame.
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  Thoughts are creating this emotional situation.
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  So if we're talking about this exercise of how you can kind of coach yourself
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  through these old stories, first you want to have awareness of the thought.
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  Is there a thought that is perpetuating some kind of result that you've had
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  in your life? So it's very easy to connect a thought like, I'm not good at math,
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  I'm not good with money, to, oh, I don't have enough money, right?
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  So the result of that is I am left scrambling for money.
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  It's easy to connect that thought with that result. But on the way to the result
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  from this thought, I'm not good at math, there's an emotion and then there's
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  usually an action or an inaction.
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  So if you were to write this down on a piece of paper to be able to coach yourself,
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  this is a model that I learned from my coach certification, which is called,
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  it was the Life Coach School.
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  There are many ways at this.
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  So if you go and do research on cognitive behavioral therapy,
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  or you really look at any therapy that is related to thought work,
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  you're going to find some version of this model.
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  So you can pick and choose what resonates with you.
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  But the one that I learned is basically if you write on a piece of paper these
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  letters in a line, C, and the C stands for circumstance, T stands for thought,
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  F stands for feeling.
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  A stands for action, and R stands for results.
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  So it's not going to work.
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  For every single situation that you're in, but it's a really good foundational
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  way to really objectively look at your thoughts and see what's happening from them.
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  The reason there's a circumstance at the top of this is because the circumstance is unchangeable.
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  So when I work with clients on burnout, I don't want to change their situation.
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  I don't want to change their circumstance.
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  I want to walk them through this whole
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  line of like their thoughts and their emotions and the
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  results that they're creating so they understand that
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  the power is within them to change the
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  result and it has nothing to do with the circumstance
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  or the situation or the job or the people
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  that are around them and what i love about this is that it really makes you
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  the driver of your life so you stop getting in the situation where you're like
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  but this situation is why things are effed up And this person is why things
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  are effed up. And my house is why things are effed up.
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  This, you know, like we can just make so many excuses.
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  But what's really interesting is that there's usually this old story,
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  this old pattern that's driving us into the result. So I'm not good at math.
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  I'm not good with money. Okay, so let's pick one. I'm not good with money.
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  It's kind of an easy one to run through. I'm not good with money.
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  Creates shame. Like, oh my God, Everyone else has money, right?
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  So we can write down all the thoughts around this, which is really helpful also
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  just for the objection, what am I trying to say?
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  Being objective of these thoughts, right? So the more you can find,
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  the more you can take a step back from them and see them as thoughts,
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  stories, patterns, and detach yourself a little bit from them.
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  So it's really helpful if you're like, okay, I don't believe it.
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  I don't believe the story.
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  The only fact here is that I...
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  Work for myself. I live in the Netherlands. You know, there are certain facts
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  about my situation, but none of them equal, I'm not good at math, right?
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  Like those two things don't really go together.
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  Like I work for myself. I'm not good at math. Like, no, I work for myself,
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  but lots of people work for themselves and lots of people are good at math.
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  So it's not like a one for one, if that
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  makes sense right or or you know I
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  have a job and this is
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  the worst job I've ever had well you have
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  a job other people have the same job and it's not the
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  worst job they've ever had right so two people can have different thoughts about
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  the same exact situation that's just kind of the point I'm trying to make of
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  like how it's so different between your situation and the thought you have about
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  the situation because your thought could
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  easily change like I moved to the Netherlands When I first lived here,
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  I felt really uncomfortable and I didn't like it.
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  And when I got into coaching, I was like, I can just choose to like it.
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  You know what I mean? Like other people live here, other people like it.
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  Why am I so set on not liking it and then creating a situation for myself and
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  a result for myself that's so sad and unhappy? What if I just choose to like it?
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  Okay, so let's go back to the emotion that comes from that thought.
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  I'm not good at math. Shame. I don't like this place.
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  Sadness. This is not about going for the happy thought all the time. It's about awareness.
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  So I'm not feeling great about my situation.
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  What am I thinking about my situation that might be creating that feeling?
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  And we're not going to jump from I hate this place to I love this place.
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  Like there's no way that those two things are going to be able to go,
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  you know, you can't convince yourself of that immediately.
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  It's, it's a bridge, right? We have to start with awareness and then we build
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  a bridge to a potential new way of thinking about it. That's coaching.
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  Coaching is that bridge. Trust me, it is really hard to cross that bridge alone.
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  I mean, you might have friends and support systems, but I will tell you like
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  coaching is that bridge.
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  It's bridging you from what is the depth
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  of the situation you're in now what's the situation you want
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  and how do we draw that bridge
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  and it's totally personal to you ai is not gonna get you across that bridge
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  to bring it back full circle okay now we have the thought now we have the emotion
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  let's go back to math shame what kind of action do you think you take from shame.
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  Well, there's probably a lot of eating, a lot of drinking, a lot of running
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  away from the shame, all the ways people run away from shame.
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  Maybe people are smoking crack, right? Like for real. There are so many ways people run from shame.
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  So this is the tool. And if you want a worksheet to help you figure out how
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  to do, how to use this tool on your own, you can, what's the best way that you can get the worksheet.
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  You know what? For now, let's just keep it simple. You can email me and the
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  information on how to email me will be in the show notes.
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  So just email me and in the subject line, just say self-coaching. Let's call it that.
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  Making it up on the fly, people. You can run yourself through this process and
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  trust me, it is powerful.
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  This is the first step, right this is the awareness step that first side of
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  the bridge the left side of the bridge before you cross it you can do a lot
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  of that work yourself and trust me it's gonna be powerful,
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  So I'm going to leave it at that for today, and I will talk to you next week.
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  We are gearing up for summer, and this is the perfect time to start realigning
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  to the things that you might want or the things that you might be able to change at work.
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  So I am running a six-session program. It's called the Power Reset.
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  This is for high-achieving women, people in senior roles who are over-performing,
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  pushing, proving themselves all the time, and exhausted.
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  I want to keep you in your job.
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  I want to keep you high level, but I want to remove the pain. I've been there.
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  I know the pain. It affects your sleep.
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  It makes you gain weight. It makes you take time away from your family.
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  I want to help you with this.