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6: Lasting Transformation: Change Your Identity, Not Just Your Habits · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:21
  Polly Mertens: Hey superstars, welcome back Polly here.
• 0:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Hello beautiful humans, Sam here.
• 0:26
  Samantha Pruitt: What are we going to talk about today, my friend?
• 0:30
  Polly Mertens: I love this topic.
• 0:31
  Polly Mertens: We're talking about creating lasting change and emphasis on lasting change, right.
• 0:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Maybe a word with a capital T Transformation.
• 0:41
  Polly Mertens: Bring it, bring it, bring it.
• 0:42
  Polly Mertens: Why are we talking about this?
• 0:45
  Samantha Pruitt: By the way, we say everything is our favorite because everything is our favorite genuinely, authentically, because we're in the business of humans.
• 0:55
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, we love what we do.
• 0:56
  Polly Mertens: We love doing this and sharing it with you.
• 0:59
  Polly Mertens: So why do we pick this topic this week?
• 1:01
  Polly Mertens: Well, you know.
• 1:02
  Polly Mertens: So this is being recorded, you know, at the turn of the new year, if you will, and you've just come off a massive accomplishment.
• 1:10
  Polly Mertens: I mean, I mean one of many massive accomplishments.
• 1:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, you're talking to me.
• 1:13
  Samantha Pruitt: I thought you were talking to the audience.
• 1:14
  Samantha Pruitt: I was like they haven't closed out the year from hell.
• 1:18
  Polly Mertens: Oh sorry, yeah, yeah yeah, you mean me personally, but that's a bad.
• 1:22
  Polly Mertens: And as we step into a new year, it's you know, we're all kind of like wide eyed and doughy about the possibilities and the opportunities, yeah yeah, and like, oh good, that's done.
• 1:34
  Polly Mertens: All right, now, now bring it right.
• 1:36
  Polly Mertens: And you, you know, as you came back from your amazing accomplishment and I thought about, wow, you know, so, tell them what, what you were doing at the turn of the new year, yeah.
• 1:49
  Samantha Pruitt: So I picked with great intention and opportunity for myself at the close of the year to do a huge physical challenge.
• 1:58
  Samantha Pruitt: I like to do things on New Year's Day that are usually pretty physically epic, because then they are also mentally and emotionally epic for me, and I like to come into the year like full frickin charge, like lighting lights lighting things on fire.
• 2:15
  Samantha Pruitt: So this particular year, what I chose to do was run a 100 mile race in Arizona.
• 2:19
  Samantha Pruitt: It's called Across the Years.
• 2:21
  Samantha Pruitt: The funny thing about it is I was partially picked that one because some friends of mine were going.
• 2:28
  Samantha Pruitt: We were going to have a little bit of reunion.
• 2:29
  Samantha Pruitt: We haven't run together in five, six years, haven't seen each other, actually pre pandemic days, and so we picked that one.
• 2:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Now, the unfortunate part about it was it was a run in circles timed event.
• 2:44
  Samantha Pruitt: Normally I would not choose something like that.
• 2:48
  Samantha Pruitt: However, I was open to it because if something new.
• 2:52
  Samantha Pruitt: And so what I chose to do was run for 100 miles in circles, for 1.4 mile laps, and what was it like?
• 3:03
  Polly Mertens: 67 laps?
• 3:04
  Polly Mertens: You had to do 71 laps.
• 3:07
  Samantha Pruitt: 71 laps is 100 miles Identical laps that are now ingrained deep into every cell of my being Every tree, every rock every every thing.
• 3:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, I found a few of those rocks, oh my goodness.
• 3:19
  Samantha Pruitt: So that's what I was doing physically and what you were doing on the counter side of this and that's why we're talking about it today is, in our personal conversations like the, the radicalness of how you were experiencing end of year transformation with intention, and how I was, and what we were choosing to do in these instances, and you were doing the polar opposite of what I was doing.
• 3:44
  Polly Mertens: I was sitting at home doing nothing.
• 3:45
  Polly Mertens: No, no, no, no.
• 3:47
  Polly Mertens: I was very intentional.
• 3:49
  Polly Mertens: Yes, I had signed up for a online course that included videos and then also some NLP and hypnotherapy kind of material around money and, specifically, money energy.
• 4:03
  Polly Mertens: And so you know I'm, I'm, I love power powering through these types of things.
• 4:09
  Polly Mertens: So it was a three-year course and I was doing it, you know, in 48 hours Not in 48, but a lot faster, yeah, a lot faster.
• 4:17
  Polly Mertens: So you know I'm, I'm, I mean, I remember when I was studying my certification in hypnotherapy, I was being hypnotized like four times a day.
• 4:24
  Polly Mertens: I was like this is amazing.
• 4:25
  Polly Mertens: So, no, no, no, not shy about hypnosis and that whole process.
• 4:31
  Polly Mertens: So you know, so I was doing what I would call money energy work, you know, releasing old traumas and clearing things and opening up doorways to new energy.
• 4:41
  Polly Mertens: Around money and the word that this guy uses is happy money and so I'm accepting that and taking that with me.
• 4:47
  Polly Mertens: So you're running around in circles.
• 4:49
  Polly Mertens: I mean I could just in a sprained ankle at mile, whatever, and so basically ran a marathon at the end with a sprained ankle 50 miles.
• 4:57
  Samantha Pruitt: The first half I was clocking pretty good and then the wheels fell off the bus pretty hard, based on some poor decisions and a sprained ankle, but yeah.
• 5:05
  Polly Mertens: So what we?
• 5:06
  Polly Mertens: What that got us thinking about was transformation looks different for everybody, yes For everybody, yeah, and so you do these things.
• 5:16
  Polly Mertens: Or maybe you tell us why do you do these?
• 5:19
  Polly Mertens: I mean, like I'm still in awe, I mean 50 miles, 100 miles I've seen you do go up for start at the starting line of a 240 mile race.
• 5:26
  Polly Mertens: I mean this is like anyway, it just settles up for that kind of mileage, like there must be into something that you get out of it.
• 5:33
  Polly Mertens: So what does?
• 5:34
  Polly Mertens: What does that bring you for transformation?
• 5:35
  Polly Mertens: What have you seen in her?
• 5:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 5:37
  Samantha Pruitt: So for me transformation has taken on a lot of different modalities, experiences, etc.
• 5:44
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm a willing participant in the process of transformation.
• 5:48
  Samantha Pruitt: I know the power of it and I embrace it fully.
• 5:52
  Samantha Pruitt: I didn't for the first 30 years of my life.
• 5:53
  Samantha Pruitt: I was forced into my initial first transformation, but since then I discovered the value of it and I actually have decided that I now consciously go and look for these opportunities.
• 6:07
  Samantha Pruitt: I tend to tick a lot of them that are physical challenges, like you're pointing out, because there's something different that happens to me and, I believe, to humans, and has been my experience working with other humans within the brain and the spirit of the human being when they do something absolutely balls to the wall, physically challenging, and I mean like, oh, borderline, impossible.
• 6:39
  Samantha Pruitt: Can this physical challenge actually be accomplished?
• 6:43
  Samantha Pruitt: And that's different for everybody and we can meet them where they're at right.
• 6:47
  Samantha Pruitt: So when I first started doing those kind of things, it literally was learning to run and then my first 5k.
• 6:53
  Samantha Pruitt: That was transformational for me to get to the start line of that and then accomplish that.
• 7:00
  Samantha Pruitt: Because during the course of the physical experience, first just the audacity to say yes and sign up for these things, the courage required to show up at the start line of anything is tremendous.
• 7:15
  Samantha Pruitt: So you've already won just the fact that you're showing up.
• 7:17
  Samantha Pruitt: But during the physical exercise, if you will, or the physical experience, your body chemistry absolutely changes.
• 7:25
  Samantha Pruitt: You have physiological changes that happen within your body, in the cells of your body, in the mitochondria of your body and every piece of your human being that happens to change as you're experiencing that physical.
• 7:40
  Samantha Pruitt: And so when you put yourself through something incredibly hard, taxing, taking you to your physical limits if you will, you ride up into the edge of what your physical body can do, can it physically keep moving or whatever the thing is and then you open up your mind and your emotions in your spirit, to another side of yourself.
• 8:07
  Samantha Pruitt: You didn't know was possible and I believe it only sits on that edge, like what I've seen for myself personally and with other humans is, once I got to the edge, sometimes by the way I fell off the cliff.
• 8:17
  Samantha Pruitt: I got to the edge and then Mind and body both broke down.
• 8:22
  Polly Mertens: Sure, that's going to happen if you take on big challenges.
• 8:25
  Samantha Pruitt: It's no big deal.
• 8:26
  Samantha Pruitt: You're going to be fine in most cases.
• 8:28
  Samantha Pruitt: That's how you find your edges right.
• 8:30
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, but what I found on the other side of that was a completely different human being not physically, mentally and spiritually because I was willing to go to that extreme in the physical way.
• 8:44
  Polly Mertens: What I like, what you're saying.
• 8:45
  Polly Mertens: A couple things I want to point out.
• 8:45
  Polly Mertens: One is the transformation started even before you got to the starting line, when I said yes to the thing.
• 8:53
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, like is the decision of I'm going to do this thing I don't know how I'm going to do it sometimes is the first thing that comes to mind, but I'm going to sign up for it, right.
• 9:02
  Polly Mertens: And so there's transformation, there's changes, there's patterns, there's habits, things that you're affecting to get to that 5K starting line, the 50K or the 100K or whatever it is that you're looking at.
• 9:15
  Polly Mertens: And then there's also transformation that happens during it.
• 9:19
  Polly Mertens: Yes, right, and so, equally, some, maybe most of the transformation you might say happens before or during or whatever it is, but the whole journey, like you put yourself through a tunnel if you will.
• 9:31
  Polly Mertens: Yes, right, and so it's like I know there's a light Metamorphosis, yeah, the other side.
• 9:37
  Polly Mertens: So that's awesome and I want to say add to this that for me, I have both done some of those physical challenges.
• 9:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, you love these stuff too, yeah some of them look quite different.
• 9:49
  Polly Mertens: Or I've thrown myself into personal development work and I have more recently found in the last and we're going to define transformation here in a little bit, but we're just going to keep using it for now.
• 10:01
  Polly Mertens: So in my transformation journey of lots of different elements of myself, it doesn't always have to be physical Right, and so you've probably, if you've listened to a lot of personal development work out in the world, people tell the story of how they did studies of basketball athletes and they had some of them go to the gym and shoot 30 baskets an hour for six hours or whatever.
• 10:26
  Polly Mertens: So they got a lot of practice in, like real-time practice, and then they had some that took those same six hours or whatever it was hours of time and just had them at home shooting baskets in their minds.
• 10:38
  Polly Mertens: Visualize so doing, visualization, like making, and then some they did nothing new Like they, just they didn't spend that extra time.
• 10:45
  Polly Mertens: And the ones that did the virtual hoop shooting am I saying that right?
• 10:51
  Polly Mertens: They actually transformed the most, they had the most growth, right, because what they were doing, so the people that were shooting the hoops in person had the same percentage, if you will.
• 11:02
  Polly Mertens: Maybe their percentage started to get a little better.
• 11:04
  Polly Mertens: Maybe they were shooting like six out of 10 and they went to like eight out of 10.
• 11:07
  Polly Mertens: But the people who were visualizing it, they were shooting 100 out of 10 out of 10, you know, because they could Like there was nothing.
• 11:14
  Polly Mertens: They just saw a perfect shot going in every time.
• 11:17
  Polly Mertens: So what that has taught me is, well, I love physical challenges and I love I mean I'm right there with you, I've done some of them is you can also find other modalities of ways of transforming in the mind and in the body that don't have to be running around 100 miles, right and so whatever, whatever that's one of the things we just wanted to touch upon is like how different it is, like how you get there or how it works for you.
• 11:44
  Polly Mertens: And I mean you've done other physical challenges, you've done other transformation, and myself included.
• 11:49
  Polly Mertens: So you know, for people that want to know what is a modality.
• 11:53
  Polly Mertens: So I mean transformation can be talk therapy, it can be physical movement, like you talked about hypnosis, it can be mushrooms, you know psychedelic journeys, all sorts of things.
• 12:06
  Polly Mertens: You know.
• 12:06
  Polly Mertens: Whatever the transformation work is coaching, life coaching can be that way, journaling, gratitude processes, whatever.
• 12:14
  Samantha Pruitt: It can be the most simplistic thing or the most complex thing.
• 12:19
  Polly Mertens: So let's define, now that we've talked, you know kind of the intro of what God has started or talking about.
• 12:25
  Polly Mertens: This is like what is transformation?
• 12:27
  Polly Mertens: What is it?
• 12:28
  Polly Mertens: Do you have a definition that you want to share or do you want me to kind of lean on?
• 12:31
  Polly Mertens: We can lean on what we learn from Webster.
• 12:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, how I perceive transformation is change it's that simple but change in how the person identifies in their life, in the universe, in their skin.
• 12:53
  Samantha Pruitt: So one day I was a couch potato, which is a real thing, and the next day I was not.
• 13:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Now I still look the same.
• 13:04
  Samantha Pruitt: I was still 50 pounds overweight, I still could barely move, I still felt like crap, like all the things right, but I changed in my brain how I was going to be identified in the world, how I would identify myself in the world.
• 13:19
  Samantha Pruitt: It was incredibly liberating and your life caught up with that change.
• 13:24
  Samantha Pruitt: I started to take action steps.
• 13:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, my thoughts changed, my actions changed to support the new identity.
• 13:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Correct.
• 13:32
  Samantha Pruitt: How does this work?
• 13:34
  Polly Mertens: for you.
• 13:34
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, so I just want to share a little bit of you know, let's say, a traditional definition.
• 13:39
  Polly Mertens: So a definition of transformation is a thorough or dramatic love those two words.
• 13:44
  Polly Mertens: Thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance.
• 13:49
  Polly Mertens: It's the actor process of transforming change in form, appearance, nature or character, or alteration, especially a radical one, radical.
• 13:59
  Samantha Pruitt: Radical In identity.
• 14:02
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and I think you know, when I have gone on my journey through what, when I look back on my 20 years with bulimia, why I never for those 20 years, why I couldn't break out of that and why it wasn't lasting, is I would try and lean on willpower.
• 14:17
  Polly Mertens: I would try, you know this, I would try that whatever.
• 14:19
  Polly Mertens: But to make it lasting, as you just said, like you have to see yourself differently, like I still identified as a bulimic for all those years.
• 14:27
  Polly Mertens: It's when I started to create and speak into reality I'm a non-bulimic or I'm bulimia free.
• 14:35
  Polly Mertens: That's what.
• 14:36
  Polly Mertens: That's one of my transformations.
• 14:37
  Polly Mertens: There's others, but that was one of them.
• 14:39
  Polly Mertens: That's when I started to create the new identity, that new path from my mind to go oh, like yours was like oh, we're not a cash potato.
• 14:47
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, wait, we sure.
• 14:48
  Polly Mertens: Now I'm a gym rat.
• 14:49
  Samantha Pruitt: No, you're a gym rat, which is hilarious, because there I was walking into the gym for the first time in my life in baggy sweats, 50 pounds overweight.
• 14:55
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm not looking like a gym rat, right, but I am telling myself you are a gym rat, yeah, and every day you show up you're going to become more of one, absolutely.
• 15:06
  Polly Mertens: And that's how you reinforce it.
• 15:06
  Polly Mertens: So that's you know.
• 15:09
  Polly Mertens: So we could say it's change right, it's change Right.
• 15:11
  Polly Mertens: And what we just really wanted to emphasize is the lasting change comes from the identity change.
• 15:19
  Polly Mertens: So, you can change, like a little habit, or you can eat a little better, or you know, I hear people like, oh, I'm going to lose a little bit of weight, and I go, yeah, let me see how that goes for you, right, because until you see yourself as a healthy eater, or you see yourself as a healthy person, or you see yourself as making a certain amount of money, or you know a certain kind of relationship that you want like I'm worthy of a good relationship you're, you're, be, you know who you will be in those moments is going to be a reflection of the old you, right, until you change that belief and that identity if you walk deep down, and that's why we talk so much about how all of the decisions you make in the course of the day, all these teeny little decisions right, will support a new or an old identity.
• 16:05
  Samantha Pruitt: They will support a continuing to be stuck or a no longer stuck in the process of evolution, in the process of transformation.
• 16:15
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, one question that I use that I lean on from a mentor of mine many, many years ago.
• 16:19
  Polly Mertens: He would say how would the person I want to be do the thing I'm about to do?
• 16:25
  Polly Mertens: Ooh that's good.
• 16:26
  Polly Mertens: Yes, how would the person I want to be?
• 16:28
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I want to be a gym rat.
• 16:29
  Polly Mertens: Or if I want to be healthy, or if I want to be in a loving relationship, or, you know, have my own business A boss yeah.
• 16:35
  Polly Mertens: So, whatever, it is a great parent.
• 16:37
  Polly Mertens: How would that person do this thing?
• 16:41
  Polly Mertens: How would they lead their day, how would they take this moment, how would they handle this phone call, this conversation, this choice of food?
• 16:48
  Polly Mertens: You know you go shopping, you know.
• 16:49
  Polly Mertens: Do you bring a prepared list with you because you've created a healthy lifestyle and a meal plan, or you're just going to wing it or run through the fast food window?
• 16:58
  Samantha Pruitt: I think people in general default into old patterns of behaviors, as we've discussed many times in habits and behavior patterns, because they claim they are unmotivated or they are stuck or they are lost or they are all the sticky, goopy things that you want to.
• 17:21
  Samantha Pruitt: You want to unpack that a little bit.
• 17:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, why does that happen to people?
• 17:25
  Polly Mertens: Well, I think what we want to get to is you know, when you recognize your life.
• 17:30
  Polly Mertens: Something isn't showing up in your life that you want something's not working yeah something's not working, We'll pick up.
• 17:36
  Polly Mertens: You know we can pick one of them, but One of the things that I have said to myself and my coaching was based around is breakthroughs without breakdowns, and so you know you had a health crisis.
• 17:49
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, just to help you know, and some people have health scare, crisis.
• 17:53
  Polly Mertens: Somebody walks out of your life, somebody.
• 17:55
  Polly Mertens: You know, job, whatever you know, you can have some dramatic breakdowns.
• 17:59
  Polly Mertens: You know you lose your house, lose your car, disasters yeah, so you don't need Breakdowns, let's call them with a capital B, to create breakthroughs with a capital B.
• 18:08
  Polly Mertens: So what we want to help people understand is how do you create breakthroughs with many breakdowns Like you know, like, yeah, you said that you're stuck, you're frustrated, you're uninspired or something like that, or you're not finding it.
• 18:20
  Polly Mertens: So I Want to share a five-step process that that I love to leverage, and we'll just unpack this one step at a time.
• 18:28
  Polly Mertens: We'll go quickly, but so the first step we talked about is like knowing where you are, mm-hmm, right, so like what's not working?
• 18:35
  Polly Mertens: And we've, I call it taking inventory, taking inventory, yeah, so it's like all right, let me get real with myself.
• 18:40
  Polly Mertens: Like you were on that couch or you know, potatoing.
• 18:44
  Samantha Pruitt: All those friends that say I just feel like shit, I can't figure out what's going on, tory, for goodness sake.
• 18:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Like it's not all, livious inquiry.
• 18:53
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, get about it.
• 18:54
  Polly Mertens: Like call us.
• 18:55
  Polly Mertens: We'll unpack that like come on, yeah.
• 18:57
  Polly Mertens: So what is it?
• 18:58
  Polly Mertens: What's where's the dysfunction?
• 19:00
  Polly Mertens: Where's the breakdown?
• 19:01
  Polly Mertens: Where is it you?
• 19:02
  Polly Mertens: Is it someone else?
• 19:02
  Polly Mertens: Is it something you're doing?
• 19:03
  Polly Mertens: Is it something you're not doing?
• 19:04
  Polly Mertens: So just get, get to know where you are and to be clear, without judgment, guilt, shame, etc.
• 19:10
  Samantha Pruitt: This is just taking inventory.
• 19:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Doesn't mean going down the rabbit hole of you know Either what was me, or beating yourself up, doesn't doesn't help it.
• 19:19
  Polly Mertens: There is a dimension, actually, that it does help, but Sometimes well so here's what that is.
• 19:25
  Polly Mertens: So the second step is getting leverage right, and so and we talked about this when we talked about emotional fitness is, you know, people aren't gonna make a change when it's mildly discomfort?
• 19:36
  Polly Mertens: No, no, it's usually no because we get so Uncomfortable.
• 19:41
  Polly Mertens: We have our enough moment right.
• 19:43
  Samantha Pruitt: So getting leverage is like I have a funny example of this.
• 19:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, I'm running a hundred miles Just to revisit, I was wearing the wrong shoes.
• 19:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, I've been doing this a long time.
• 19:56
  Samantha Pruitt: I might want to know better, but anyway, the course was 50% paved, 50% dirt, so I happen to be wearing road running shoes.
• 20:02
  Samantha Pruitt: I generally don't wear road running shoes, I'm mostly a trail and ultra runner.
• 20:06
  Samantha Pruitt: So I was wearing this road running shoe, was great, I love it, but I could feel on the top of my foot it was compressing a nerve and it was causing some discomfort and it was like starting to, you know, ping me, ping me and radiate hey, hey, little did I stop and change my shoes after the first mile.
• 20:24
  Samantha Pruitt: 30 miles, and the reason I didn't is because I had a time goal.
• 20:29
  Samantha Pruitt: I was running fast, I was going hard, I was feeling good, I was charging girl, I was charging.
• 20:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, I'm busy.
• 20:36
  Polly Mertens: I'm like all these things, oh, I've got this job, I've got this deadline, yeah, like whatever exactly.
• 20:41
  Samantha Pruitt: I'll get to it later.
• 20:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, that cost me in the end.
• 20:46
  Samantha Pruitt: It cost us always.
• 20:47
  Samantha Pruitt: It always catches up is what I wanted to say.
• 20:49
  Samantha Pruitt: It always catches up.
• 20:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, catch it before it becomes a thing.
• 20:53
  Polly Mertens: Well, they say, you know like if life's gonna give you Lessons, you know, if you want to get it when it's like a little knock on the head, or do you want to get it when it's a big, you know thump on the side of your car or an accident, or exactly Whatever, yeah, so okay, sorry, derail this no absolutely, because it's it's true and one of the things.
• 21:11
  Polly Mertens: So we were talking a little earlier about the mental rehearsal that we can do right.
• 21:16
  Polly Mertens: So Sometimes the transformation that I help, have helped people through and in my program, is like it's Mentally rehearsing where this goes if you don't stop it right.
• 21:29
  Polly Mertens: So if the pain is, let's say it's a five, right now it's kind of an annoyance, like you said, like oh, the first 20 miles, like yeah.
• 21:36
  Samantha Pruitt: I can live with this.
• 21:37
  Samantha Pruitt: I can live with this.
• 21:38
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I don't like it but I can live with it, right and then.
• 21:41
  Polly Mertens: So, if it is something that you recognize, you want to change, it's Mentally rehearsing, going down the road of, like, what will this look like if I keep running this hundred miles With the same pair of shoes?
• 21:54
  Polly Mertens: Or you know, as a metaphor, right, like what if I keep doing this thing with this relationship, with this job, with this exactly lack of physical self-care?
• 22:03
  Samantha Pruitt: right.
• 22:04
  Polly Mertens: Or not paying attention to whatever my health.
• 22:06
  Polly Mertens: You know things night after night, without sleep or hormones day after day without gut issues.
• 22:10
  Polly Mertens: You know, time after time in a relationship that is toxic, it's gonna go probably more off the rails than it already is.
• 22:19
  Polly Mertens: So getting leverages, getting yourself to see that if you don't do something now it's only gonna get worse.
• 22:25
  Polly Mertens: So address it now because it's a smaller problem than it could be, type thing, and so leverage is to be clear.
• 22:32
  Samantha Pruitt: You don't have years to waste.
• 22:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Isn't it funny how we think we have all this time?
• 22:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, people are terribly confused about that as well.
• 22:40
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, that's for another episode, how we can help people like shorten, that you know understanding the preciousness of the gift of this life.
• 22:47
  Polly Mertens: So getting leverage is like that enough.
• 22:50
  Polly Mertens: Moment, that decision you're like I can't keep running in a damn shoe, I know this is, you know, causing me pain and suffering, kind of thing.
• 22:57
  Polly Mertens: And then that moment of decision you know, like you on the couch or me with my eating disorder, or any number of other stories we have.
• 23:05
  Polly Mertens: So it's those moments of decision.
• 23:07
  Polly Mertens: And I would say, in those moments of decision there's two Trailer decisions that also need to be met, or commitments.
• 23:16
  Polly Mertens: I'd say so there's.
• 23:17
  Polly Mertens: I call it decide, commit and resolve.
• 23:20
  Polly Mertens: So decide is Okay, this has got to change.
• 23:23
  Polly Mertens: I you know, or I'm going for that thing, or I'm gonna look like that, or I'm saying no to this ever more, or I'm saying yes to myself, or I'm gonna feel bad.
• 23:31
  Polly Mertens: Whatever the next side is, I commit to it right, and people are pretty weak in committing right.
• 23:38
  Polly Mertens: That's why we see New Year's resolutions last about three or four days.
• 23:41
  Polly Mertens: I don't know what your gym looks like, but lately I'm like I didn't come for everyone.
• 23:48
  Polly Mertens: It's like oh yeah, here's the committed ones.
• 23:50
  Polly Mertens: You might say so.
• 23:52
  Polly Mertens: Commitment is nice, but resolve, is that burning the boats moment, right?
• 23:59
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, burning the boat so you can go from ready to willing and then committing and then resolve.
• 24:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Like this is done Resolve I am not going back, right, yeah.
• 24:13
  Polly Mertens: So that looks like for you is like I'm not going to be a couch potato any longer.
• 24:17
  Polly Mertens: This must change.
• 24:19
  Polly Mertens: I must change it, I can change it.
• 24:22
  Polly Mertens: I'm going to do something about this.
• 24:24
  Polly Mertens: And so I know like I'm emphasizing this, because different people's breakdowns have capital B's or lowercase B's right.
• 24:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's talk about some fun burning the boats, though.
• 24:34
  Polly Mertens: I love that phrase.
• 24:35
  Samantha Pruitt: What makes a boat go fast?
• 24:36
  Samantha Pruitt: We have all these analogies around sports and coaching games.
• 24:40
  Samantha Pruitt: So the burning of the boats so examples of burning of the boats is we both done this.
• 24:46
  Samantha Pruitt: We have quit jobs.
• 24:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, we didn't have a new job yet, maybe we were launching our own business or whatever we were doing and why we made these decisions, but we quit the jobs, we burned that boat.
• 24:59
  Samantha Pruitt: We have both absolutely done the toxic relationship with loved ones or partners.
• 25:06
  Polly Mertens: We're not calling you again.
• 25:07
  Polly Mertens: Goodbye Right.
• 25:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Walking the walking out the door with your stuff in the car is a burning of the boat, right Like it's those radical moves where you got really brave and made it happen.
• 25:24
  Samantha Pruitt: This will never happen again.
• 25:26
  Polly Mertens: End of story.
• 25:27
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, period, I will never pick up that thing.
• 25:31
  Polly Mertens: Go by that person's house, call that person, do that thing.
• 25:34
  Polly Mertens: This ends now.
• 25:36
  Polly Mertens: And that level of resolve, I think it needs to be stronger for the difficulty that you face, right, so you've got to get that leverage on yourself.
• 25:46
  Polly Mertens: Some of what creates that leverage is that beautifully compelling feature.
• 25:49
  Polly Mertens: That's the next thing is you have to create a future for yourself that is more compelling.
• 25:57
  Polly Mertens: You've identified with gym rad or weight loss or certain business you want to start or whatever it was, and it has to be more compelling than the life that you're walking away from.
• 26:08
  Polly Mertens: And so if that life that you're walking away from the more painful, it is great, because that gives you a lot of resolve.
• 26:15
  Polly Mertens: Right, this is so damn painful and you reach for you sort of like on this, the gymnastics swinging for the next rung, and you don't necessarily know, but you reach out for that next rung of your compelling future and you grasp it.
• 26:30
  Polly Mertens: And so it's that leaping into the next phase.
• 26:34
  Polly Mertens: And it's the more painful the discomfort of what you're leaving and the more of a gap, the bigger the gap towards your compelling future, the more you need that resolve to get you there Like, okay, I'm never doing this again.
• 26:48
  Polly Mertens: I'm reaching for that future.
• 26:49
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm going to do whatever it takes.
• 26:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Why are people afraid of burning the boat, of making that, yeah, hugely.
• 26:57
  Polly Mertens: Because the present is often more comfortable, comfortable, well, more comfortable, that word, I'm just saying that word.
• 27:04
  Polly Mertens: Hold on, fish.
• 27:05
  Polly Mertens: Hold on, it's more comfortable than the unknown.
• 27:07
  Polly Mertens: So we don't know what lies out, like you didn't know what laid ahead when you were going to become an ultra woman, or become a runner, or become self-employed, get a divorce, move to another town, all the things.
• 27:22
  Polly Mertens: It's like well, at least I know this.
• 27:24
  Polly Mertens: So the comfort of what you've lived in, or the discomfort it's sometimes more comfortable than the uncomfortableness that your brain makes, the fears, the unknowns, the uncertainty of what lies ahead, I don't know all the things that could be wrought with.
• 27:42
  Samantha Pruitt: I want to add to that what I see in here.
• 27:44
  Samantha Pruitt: A lot of resistance is back on those word identity that we mentioned earlier, and I know we're going to dig a little bit deeper into that.
• 27:50
  Samantha Pruitt: So a lot of people stay in their comfortable but yet unhappy miserable existence, job, relationship, physical body, et cetera, et cetera because their identity is trapped in those things that they happen to do.
• 28:08
  Samantha Pruitt: That are these continuations that build upon that dysfunctional identity.
• 28:11
  Samantha Pruitt: So sometimes the identity is coming from the outside world too.
• 28:17
  Samantha Pruitt: I should just say that, totally, I think that's what my family expect me to be, this person, when I go to holidays and every weekend we get together and we eat whatever like.
• 28:29
  Samantha Pruitt: There's these family environments that feed the dysfunctional identities and they're trapped in that because other people expect them to stay the one they eat their junk food with, the one that they commiserate with and binge watch Netflix, the one that they talk about their woe is me and their partner relationships or coworkers.
• 28:52
  Samantha Pruitt: We all have the same shitty job.
• 28:54
  Samantha Pruitt: It's okay, we're in this together, we're all miserable, but it doesn't matter, because Susie and the cubicle over there is just as miserable.
• 29:01
  Samantha Pruitt: So it's the identity that they have, but then it's also this societal or external identity that is doubling down on, keeping them stuck in a toxic identity.
• 29:14
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you speak to that?
• 29:16
  Polly Mertens: Well, if they adhere to it or if they take that they're willingly participating.
• 29:20
  Polly Mertens: Well, and I think just looking at the arc of a lot of I'm going to speak in the first person, but I will absolutely think a lot of women will resonate with this is the arc of a lot of what society tells a woman sounds like go to school, get a good job, get married, have kids, have the house, and then it's a cliff Like what do I do after all that?
• 29:43
  Samantha Pruitt: You serve society's needs.
• 29:44
  Samantha Pruitt: What do you mean?
• 29:45
  Samantha Pruitt: You're supposed to be a plan B.
• 29:46
  Polly Mertens: Well, some of that, I would say, is the species saying I think it's a species needs to be, you know, like, keep the species perpetuating if you will.
• 29:53
  Polly Mertens: And then you come to that moment and you're like what is this life that I've created?
• 30:01
  Polly Mertens: Who's this person in?
• 30:01
  Samantha Pruitt: the mirror.
• 30:01
  Samantha Pruitt: Why don't you recognize?
• 30:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Why am I doing these things?
• 30:04
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, why am I pursuing this job?
• 30:06
  Polly Mertens: Why am I pursuing this?
• 30:08
  Samantha Pruitt: This is the same for men.
• 30:09
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, I was just speaking from the first person and I think you know women, we, you know we have a similar arc.
• 30:17
  Polly Mertens: If you will, and unless you step out of that and you break that up or you dissect it or you just kind of step out of the, I just want to say, like the smoke or the fog and mirrors of that old story and paradigm that we think society wants for us, it's like that's just a story and you go to different societies, they want slightly different versions of that, like you're just living in the society that you're living in, that you've adopted the one that you're most hearing or most seeing.
• 30:44
  Polly Mertens: But it's not true.
• 30:46
  Polly Mertens: You know, we got to check in with that inner compass.
• 30:49
  Polly Mertens: What is true, if you will.
• 30:50
  Polly Mertens: So that helped.
• 30:52
  Polly Mertens: Okay, we're like totally derel on our steps, but I'll get back to you.
• 30:57
  Polly Mertens: We got so much, okay, so just let me recap.
• 30:59
  Samantha Pruitt: So not one question your identity and question is that identity something I am creating yeah, because this is my life and body, by the way or is it being imposed upon me?
• 31:10
  Samantha Pruitt: And I think, in this year, this day and age and I know I'm not talking globally and I understand there's a lot of cultural and society things that don't get us started on that, but we happen to be in the United States of America, we happen to have at our disposal a lot more space to think about these things and challenge them.
• 31:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, next step.
• 31:34
  Polly Mertens: Okay, so we're talking about the compelling future.
• 31:36
  Polly Mertens: So just to recap on that, the compelling future is you know what is the future and what does life look like as you create this transformation?
• 31:44
  Polly Mertens: What is your outcome?
• 31:45
  Polly Mertens: What is your new you?
• 31:47
  Polly Mertens: Is it new?
• 31:48
  Polly Mertens: Job Is it new?
• 31:49
  Polly Mertens: Who knows?
• 31:49
  Polly Mertens: You may not be able, but you just know it's different.
• 31:52
  Polly Mertens: Your vision, yeah, yeah, your vision.
• 31:53
  Polly Mertens: So creating a compelling future so you can work for it.
• 31:56
  Polly Mertens: And then Oftentimes it creates a discrepancy between your old habits, as you're living pretty much your old life, let's say.
• 32:09
  Polly Mertens: But you've got this new future.
• 32:10
  Polly Mertens: You're like, wait a minute, I'm leaning into this Iron man life right now.
• 32:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Right.
• 32:16
  Polly Mertens: And so sorry we're doing a lot of physical.
• 32:17
  Polly Mertens: We could definitely talk about work, but you know so we're also going next level ladybossing.
• 32:22
  Samantha Pruitt: So we're leaning into a new career trajectory that we're taking our audience along for the ride Right and we've got so many transformations happening.
• 32:34
  Polly Mertens: So old patterns would say, oh, not good enough, or who do we think we are?
• 32:39
  Polly Mertens: Or I'll do that later, or you know, or that doesn't matter, right.
• 32:45
  Polly Mertens: But when you step in and you ask Am I worthy?
• 32:48
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, well, when you're stepping up to the back, what's behind you is that resolve that we talked about, that resolve like, no, I've burned the boats, we're f'ing doing this, we are doing this thing.
• 33:00
  Polly Mertens: Like cut all ties, cut all outs, if you will.
• 33:05
  Polly Mertens: You may find yourself leaning into old patterns, and then it's about interrupting them, right.
• 33:09
  Polly Mertens: So the next step is interrupting any old patterns that may lead you back down towards that old life, like picking up a little, you know, extra Kentucky Fried Chicken on the way home, or, you know, making the phone calls that are not doing things you know not.
• 33:25
  Polly Mertens: Oh, I'll sleep in tomorrow, you know, instead of that.
• 33:27
  Polly Mertens: So, interrupting those old patterns and recommitting re-resolving to that compelling future, like, no, this is who we are now, this is what we do, we're doing this now.
• 33:38
  Polly Mertens: And the next one is conditioning that new pattern, right, and so that's just repetition, that's that marathon that becomes that new identity, right?
• 33:45
  Polly Mertens: And so, you know, if people were here and I would draw this chart.
• 33:48
  Polly Mertens: It looks like how I used to draw this in my class.
• 33:51
  Polly Mertens: It's, like you know, like a square root symbol.
• 33:55
  Polly Mertens: Like it's like it goes across and then it dips down, and then it jumps up and then it goes off to the right.
• 33:59
  Polly Mertens: So, like your old life is like the beginning of the square root on the left hand side, and then boom, you go into a pit or break down or life starts to get hard.
• 34:07
  Polly Mertens: Your compelling future is, boom, you shoot up to that top of that square root symbol and then so building these new conditioned patterns, like reinforcing, like you know if I'm doing this Ironman, like I've got a training program I've got to get up to.
• 34:22
  Polly Mertens: You know if we're doing this.
• 34:23
  Polly Mertens: You know we're doing.
• 34:24
  Polly Mertens: You know posting every week.
• 34:26
  Polly Mertens: We've got to make a commitment to ourselves to get into the studio.
• 34:29
  Polly Mertens: You know we've got to do these things.
• 34:30
  Polly Mertens: We've got to get our website, we've got to get a program.
• 34:32
  Polly Mertens: You know bup, bup, bup, bup, bup.
• 34:33
  Polly Mertens: So it's marching your way up that ladder so that you know, in two weeks, two months, two years, whatever that compelling future is, we achieve it and but we're always on that path to it.
• 34:44
  Polly Mertens: Yeah Right.
• 34:45
  Polly Mertens: And so it's conditioning in the new patterns.
• 34:48
  Polly Mertens: We don't, oh, sometimes we record in the studio, sometimes we don't.
• 34:51
  Polly Mertens: It's like, no, we always do, like we record, we record, we record.
• 34:55
  Polly Mertens: That's us conditioning we, we are this lifestyle.
• 34:58
  Samantha Pruitt: I call it stacking bricks and I got that originally from being, you know, a triathlon coach.
• 35:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Everything is a bricks.
• 35:04
  Samantha Pruitt: It's just kind of a fun sports analogy.
• 35:06
  Samantha Pruitt: You stack workouts on top of workouts on top of workouts until you develop your skills and efficiencies, et cetera.
• 35:11
  Samantha Pruitt: But in the world of business, stacking bricks looks like what you were just saying.
• 35:17
  Samantha Pruitt: You build a business one brick at a time, right, you don't all of a sudden have going, you know, open your doors in the shopping plaza and you're ready for business to sell merchandise or whatever the type of business you're in.
• 35:29
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, there's this whole process that must happen along the way.
• 35:33
  Samantha Pruitt: The consistency is the key.
• 35:37
  Samantha Pruitt: It doesn't have to be pretty, it doesn't have to be fast, it doesn't have to smell good, look good, it doesn't none of the things about being perfect.
• 35:46
  Samantha Pruitt: You know we are loving the perfectly imperfect way we're building this business and how we're leading our lives.
• 35:50
  Samantha Pruitt: The consistency of stacking the bricks the results will come only way, absolutely yeah.
• 36:01
  Polly Mertens: If we got so deep down into the minutiae, the things that are going to break, you know like we had some link broken or something.
• 36:06
  Polly Mertens: You know it's like okay, we'll fix the link.
• 36:08
  Polly Mertens: You know it's like, oh, we didn't have that on the first episode.
• 36:10
  Polly Mertens: Okay, well, let's get it in the future ones.
• 36:12
  Polly Mertens: You know it's not letting perfection get in the way of progress.
• 36:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, I didn't lose 50 pounds in one day.
• 36:19
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean hello.
• 36:20
  Samantha Pruitt: And I know there's a lot of people that are opting into you know fast weight loss methodologies and stuff.
• 36:27
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm not shaming, blaming or doing anything, whatever.
• 36:29
  Samantha Pruitt: Their choice is their choice.
• 36:30
  Samantha Pruitt: But, like for me, I wanted to rebuild my body, brain and my life.
• 36:36
  Samantha Pruitt: So I needed to do that.
• 36:38
  Samantha Pruitt: One brick at a time, which dialed all the way down into the micro, was literally one decision at a time.
• 36:45
  Samantha Pruitt: What would I put in my mouth now?
• 36:49
  Polly Mertens: It really is exactly what you're saying.
• 36:51
  Polly Mertens: I mean lasting change.
• 36:53
  Polly Mertens: You know, comes from that, where it's based out of, is that moment of decision, committing and resolving.
• 36:59
  Polly Mertens: That creates the foundation that you're talking about for stacking your bricks and then you becoming not overnight, like you said right, like you don't become a world class leader, world class athlete, world class, you know, husband, wife, whatever, overnight, you do that in the small wins, the small decisions every day that reinforce you know.
• 37:22
  Polly Mertens: So, are you committed, resolved to this new person?
• 37:26
  Polly Mertens: If so, then what would that person do?
• 37:29
  Polly Mertens: You know?
• 37:30
  Polly Mertens: What does that look like?
• 37:30
  Polly Mertens: What is that new life?
• 37:31
  Polly Mertens: All this transform, sorry, translates to teams as well.
• 37:37
  Polly Mertens: I was just thinking about that, as you were saying that I was like you know, like committing to teams, committing to changing the company that you're in, whether you're the leader or you're a part of a team, it's all the same.
• 37:50
  Polly Mertens: Like you have to decide what is the goal.
• 37:53
  Polly Mertens: Where are we going with this thing?
• 37:54
  Polly Mertens: You know who are we going to be and I would say what you and I love helping teams with the most is that culture shift, because how the team identifies themselves, you know you and I are huge fans of watching.
• 38:06
  Polly Mertens: You know great shows about Olympic athletes and people pursuing, like you know, the amazing race and massive things.
• 38:12
  Polly Mertens: You know these teams that people get on.
• 38:14
  Polly Mertens: It's like they are just like putting themselves through some and you know what people are doing, those massive things inside of their business Every day all day, all day and it's or in their family, in their home, or they're not.
• 38:26
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, imagine how much faster you can stack the bricks if you have a team of people stacking bricks.
• 38:34
  Samantha Pruitt: But to be clear, what if you're choosing to stack different kinds of bricks?
• 38:40
  Samantha Pruitt: right, Like so you're not even on the same page, so that's why a lot of families break down, relationships break down or companies, organizations and teams break down because the individual is over here stacking their bricks haphazardly however they want, and then you know, someone else is stacking over here in the corner and their bricks happen to be a different shape, like there's so many reasons these things are not going to ultimately build the Eiffel Tower or the London Bridge or Mount Everest, right.
• 39:08
  Samantha Pruitt: Like that's not going to happen if you're not in agreement with where you're going and you know what your value system is and the mission is the shared compelling future.
• 39:17
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, the shared compelling future, the shared agreement on how are we doing this?
• 39:22
  Polly Mertens: Who are we going to be?
• 39:23
  Polly Mertens: What is the culture that we?
• 39:24
  Samantha Pruitt: you know, I think that's why a lot of people get miserable in their home environments or in their work environments?
• 39:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, Because I like to stack purple dominoes, probably, right, Okay, and you maybe come to the relationship rainbows and you come with a round rainbow colored stretch Marvel that you want to stack.
• 39:54
  Samantha Pruitt: So how are we gonna get on about building this thing, this Jenga thing?
• 39:59
  Samantha Pruitt: I've got Purple Dominoes, you've got a Rainbow Marvel.
• 40:03
  Polly Mertens: What are we doing now?
• 40:04
  Polly Mertens: That's not gonna work.
• 40:06
  Samantha Pruitt: It's not gonna work right.
• 40:07
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean it sounds ludicrous, but if you take each individual in a organization, corporation or team environment, we're all unique.
• 40:17
  Samantha Pruitt: You deserve to be around Rainbow Marvel.
• 40:20
  Samantha Pruitt: You know you're exquisite.
• 40:22
  Samantha Pruitt: I want to honor that.
• 40:23
  Samantha Pruitt: But I deserve to be the Purple Domino right and so making those things happen.
• 40:29
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean I know this is our life's work and this is what we love to do.
• 40:31
  Samantha Pruitt: It's so freaking fun to put all those people in a room and make some big dreams happen, taking people through transformation processes.
• 40:42
  Polly Mertens: You know.
• 40:42
  Polly Mertens: So what we've talked about you know we're just giving you the steps here is and as we alluded to in our stories, you know so I was doing, you know, kind of meditative, visualizing, hypnosis work for my transformation, transforming mind through energy work, things like that.
• 40:59
  Polly Mertens: You're out, you know, pushing your body to new limits to.
• 41:03
  Polly Mertens: You know, past pain, past barriers of what's possible and stuff like that.
• 41:07
  Polly Mertens: Whatever your modality is, you know, and if you haven't found it, like if you are knocking at the door of change, you're like I already know I want to change and I've committed to it and I can't find the modality or the thing, or like nothing's worked or whatever.
• 41:22
  Polly Mertens: Keep trying something else right.
• 41:24
  Polly Mertens: Like, like.
• 41:24
  Polly Mertens: If you are committed to that transformation, that new result, that new compelling future, keep trying other things, because you know I mean in the world of even physical healing.
• 41:35
  Polly Mertens: You know acupuncture isn't going to help a broken ankle.
• 41:41
  Polly Mertens: I mean it'll help some with blood flow or whatever, but you might need some physical therapy, you might need some.
• 41:47
  Polly Mertens: You know stretch, you know different things, right, so finding what works for you but getting about it, like get into that journey because you know, if I just want to kind of summarize, if there's one thing that you get out of this, we recognize that feeling like stuck, exhausted, blah, like stagnant, frustrated, unmotivated, uninspired, all of those things, those yucky life doesn't feel good, look good, it's really just calling you to a change.
• 42:18
  Polly Mertens: It's life saying, hey, it's time for a change over here.
• 42:21
  Polly Mertens: Hey, and you're the change.
• 42:22
  Polly Mertens: Like it's not going to happen outside of you and would now be a good time to step into your awesome life.
• 42:29
  Polly Mertens: Right, and I think those on Team Awesome that we most appreciate and how we want everyone listening to this is Team Awesome is not letting stuck, unmotivated, uninspired, to persist.
• 42:42
  Polly Mertens: Right, it's get the breakthrough before the breakdown.
• 42:45
  Polly Mertens: Right, with a capital B, like make those small changes and, as you've said, like it's a call to transform and growth is inevitable.
• 42:54
  Polly Mertens: Like that's just life.
• 42:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, I mean, as coaches, we believe everybody is transforming, always in varying degrees, varying times, varying intensities.
• 43:04
  Samantha Pruitt: It's kind of the idea of this really wild thing called living.
• 43:10
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, in the human experience.
• 43:11
  Polly Mertens: And if we expect it to be easy, well then, that's just not this life.
• 43:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, right, and so when you we wouldn't have it any other way.
• 43:19
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, so noticing those moments of stuck, exhausted, unmotivated what have you?
• 43:23
  Polly Mertens: Oh, this is here to invite me to change, and that's what I came here for.
• 43:29
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh yeah, that's what I came here for, so that's it All.
• 43:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, we got a wrap Very good.
• 43:37
  Polly Mertens: So what do you want to tell?
• 43:38
  Samantha Pruitt: people.
• 43:38
  Samantha Pruitt: I want to remind these beautiful humans of ours that how your life feels is more important than how it looks, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome life.
• 43:50
  Samantha Pruitt: All right, let's do it Woo.