Ep83_Positive_full
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] Yesterday I went to the pet store and I bought some freshwater fish for my daughter's fish tank. I was gonna surprise her. And one of them died right away actually. And it was a bristle nose to clean the algae off the fish. They feed off the algae. So I went back to the pet store this morning and I asked to see if they could replace the fish that had died and they said, well our policy [00:01:00] is you have to actually bring the actual fish back.

And I said, that's a problem cuz that fish, I flushed down the toilet and you know, then I said, okay well can I get another one of those fish. And I'll buy it and everything. And she started to get it. She got it in the tank and everything. And then she asked me, how many fish are in my tank? I said, seven.

And she said, well, that's a lot, but you can do one more kind of thing. And then she asked me, well, what's the temperature in your tank? And I said, well, temperature in my apartment is usually during the day when I'm there, like 72 degrees. Oh, that's too cold. And do you have a heater? And she said, I said, no, I don't have a heater.

Said well, Well then go get a heater and then you can come back and everything and we'll get you a new fish. And my initial reaction, I wanted to give away my power and say, just gimme the fish. Come on. You know? That's what I wanted to say. But then I thought, well, she's doing her job and she's doing a good job and she cares about the fish.

And it ended up being a positive interaction, but that. Stepping back was really important for me cuz I was kind of frustrated. Just give me the stinking fish. But anyway, it worked out really good and positive. So I'm gonna talk to you today about developing a positive perspective, like an outward view [00:02:00] of what can I learn, how can I grow?

What's the opportunity? She was doing her job, she was helping me, she was trying to be a good employee, she was being a good employer. I'd like to hire somebody with that kind of assertive communication skills, myself, skill myself. How do we develop that positive perspective rather than seeing what can go wrong?

How are they gonna take advantage of me? How are they mistreating me? We can make that shift. So we'll, welcome to the latest episode of the Decide Your Legacy podcast. If you found this podcast helpful at any point, subscribe so you'll never miss another episode. Pull out your phone, gimme your rating.

Review Apple, Spotify, wherever, get your podcast content. Hundreds of you listening to this episode right now have never given it a review. I would greatly appreciate a review. And subscription. It helps the podcast grow organically, which it has been doing. It helps it reach more people, so it can help more people.

I'm your host, Adam Gragg. I am a legacy coach, a podcaster mental health professional. I want to talk to you today about [00:03:00] concepts that you can describe to your six year old and they can understand. You can listen to it with your kids. You can listen to it with your friends, with your family, with your spouse.

I'm also a fellow traveler. Everything I discussed today, at least I believe I struggle with myself. I'm gonna challenge you today to listen as a teacher, not just as a student, to think about some concept you get from today. You can teach to somebody else in the next 24 hours. And this is the podcast that you do not just listen to.

So we will start with an action in just a moment, but something I did uncomfortable recently. Well, I'm actually gonna do it today. So at the end of this episode, I'm gonna have a seven minute coaching session with my producer Bryan, and you're gonna see some live action. I have no idea what issue he is bringing to me and we're gonna talk it through, and then he's gonna leave with something he can apply to his life that will make a big difference.

I challenge you to do uncomfortable things because not much is more important to your mental health than facing your fears, your core issues, and not much is more damaging to your mental health than playing it. Safe life is no fun, I'll tell you [00:04:00] for sure. So this action, so what is in your life, a situation, a relationship, a challenge, a business opportunity.

A business problem where you tend to have a negative attitude. You tend to see the negative and what can go wrong, how it could fail, how you could be hurt again. Because if it's something we've been hurt with, it's an area where we've been hurt before, it's potentially gonna be easy to be negative about that area now.

So an example would be your job health, playing golf, playing pickleball, playing ping pong, anything parenting your future. Where do you tend to go to the negative? What could go wrong? I'm gonna stay away. I'm not gonna get hurt again. Come on. I don't wanna get hurt. So what is that thing? Write it down in your journal.

Speak it into your phone. And we're gonna focus on that three actions that you can take to build, to develop a positive perspective. Life is much better with a positive perspective, and it takes work so, So let's discuss something that's really important. This is a psychological concept that I would like everyone to understand.

It's called [00:05:00] confirmation bias. So it's the tendency, this is kind of my definition, but the tendency to find things in your environment and to think thoughts that confirm what you already believe or what you want to believe, or what you believe that is keeping you safe and not doing those uncomfortable things.

So we're gonna find confirmation of what we already believe so people do this politically. They do this with challenges facing their fears, anything in their life, which causes some level of discomfort, it's very easy to have find confirmation bias. It can be a positive thing too. For example, if you don't notice any, you know, green cars and you wanna buy a green car, then you start noticing green cars.

There are more green cars, so it's. Often very negative though. And so the term negativity bias is our tendency for us to find it much, much easier to focus on what could go wrong than what could go right. How it could fail than how it could succeed. How people could judge me than how people could like me or how people could be inspired by me.

And the reason is because that keeps us safe. It's in our DNA that we do not want to be excluded and hurt and rejected because that is dangerous. [00:06:00] And if we get rejected consistently, then we're all alone and we're isolated, which to a human, that's life or death. So we can have those kind of emotional reactions to situations and believe that this negativity bias is accurate and our thoughts are lying to us because they're based on other.

They're based on other people's perspectives are based on trauma. They're based on just us staying safe, and then we get sucked into that and we don't see any opportunity in the situation. That's negativity bias. I actually looked up what positivity bias is, which it's not actually an official psychological term for my research.

And I would just say that it's the tendency to, in to develop the capacity to see in every situation what could go right, even when there's evidence that things could go wrong. Cuz there's always evidence that things can go wrong. There's always evidence. There's evidence that this what you know, that there's evidence that in Wichita Kansas we could be hit by a a tornado because other parts of the city happened, hit by a tornadoes.

I mean, and I've never actually been in a tornado. Now. I could focus on that when the weather's bad, I don't, I probably should more [00:07:00] cuz I kind of just still drive around. But I wouldn't suggest that. But you know, cuz you haven't seen it up close.

I've seen and had friends homes who've been damaged, so I've kind of experienced it through other friends. But that negativity bias does not actually keep us safe. It takes away all this good stuff in our lives that could go right. The cost is so great to our creativity, to relationships. The cost is great to our health because of the stress hormones and our stomach issues and all the stuff that can happen biologically because we're stressed out.

The cost is great to our professional success, to our financial success, to just enjoying life. It doesn't help. We think it keeps us safe, but really it blocks out all these other good things that are going on in our lives and the way that God's working in our lives and giving us opportunities that we don't even see and recognize because we're so narrow minded and focused on the danger, danger, danger.

So the benefit of learning how to develop a positive perspective is that we start seeing solutions and we didn't even know they exist. It's amazing that when I stopped [00:08:00] stressing and worrying about something, A problem that I'm starting, that I'm trying to solve, and I just kind of surrender the whole thing and go on a walk and let go and read a book on a different subject and watch something on tv, then a solution can come to me and it's the right solution.

It's like this inside internal intuitive response or action that I can take and it's the right, it's one that's gonna gimme success, but I'm not thinking my way into that solution. The brain's a great, wonderful tool to solve specific problems when we're channeling it in the appropriate way, but it's not our friend when we're just going through life with idle time and.

Letting it free without any kind of constraints. It's not our friend, it'll, it won't benefit you there. So the benefit today is you're gonna feel, you're gonna feel like you have tools you can apply right now to start developing this perspective that sees the opportunity in your life and can start propelling you forward.

To take that kind of an action, take those types of actions, which is my life purpose by the way, to help people find that clarity that propels 'em to face their biggest fears. They can live and leave their desired legacy. And that's my hope for you today as you leave this podcast. So I recently had a friend that said,[00:09:00] To me that he didn't like his job.

And he said, you know, he doesn't get to help anybody. And he was kind of comparing other people's jobs to his job, which is not necessarily the best thing. And he's got a good job. I mean, he works for a big franchise organization and he deals with money and finances and everything. And I said, well, how many opportunities do you have to impact people in a day?

You have as many as me. And he said, no, I don't. No, I don't. No I don't. And then we kind of talked about it some more and then he could see that, you know, he's not taking advantage of those opportunities to be a light and a dark place cuz he is not interacting at the level he could with people that he has the opportunity to interact with.

And I could just sense his excitement growing as he saw that he has an opportunity to be a friendly, smiling person in the midst of some chaos, in the midst of stress. And that will change you. And that's a positive perspective about his situation. It's no longer, and they made, he made that shift just by answering that question. He made that shift, and so from my experience, it's 10 times easier to focus on the potential negative outcome than the potential positive outcome. In fact, this is a psychological fact that it is [00:10:00] easier, maybe not for you, but for the general population. That's kind of psychology 1 0 1. Number one thing you can do, action you can take to build a positive perspective is live in the moment.

Enjoy the moment at hand. You're never gonna have another moment like this. You're never gonna have this day again. You're never gonna have this day of your life again. This is a valuable blessing. This is a sacred blessing that you get to live this day today. I know that sounds cliche and that rhymes well, that's kind of cool.

But what I mean is free live in the moment means to be free of your mind, to be free of your emotions, to not be a slave to them, to actually be present in the situation that you're in right now. And some would say that it's very naive just to be an optimist all the time. And it can be Pollyanna and I get it.

You have to look and think about some of the things that could go wrong. They would say that it's not safe. To be thinking about all the things that can go right and the potential, but I will tell you, are you gonna be better prepared if you're consumed by everything that could go wrong? Most of those things that go wrong, you're not gonna [00:11:00] be able to prepare yourself for the worst things in my life.

I had no idea were coming. I had no idea were coming. I had no idea that I would end up divorced. I had no idea. I had no idea that I would face some challenges that I faced when I was a kid. I had no idea. I'd face some challenges that I'd faced as a young adult. I had no idea where they were coming. In fact, I was totally blindsided.

I couldn't prepare for those things, and I could go back and say, well, I was just naive and I could've prepared myself. Well, no, I couldn't have because of whatever my age, my maturity level, and I'm much more prepared to face the situations when I live in the moment today. And I face the situation at hand and I free myself from all this overthinking and this worry.

So are we better prepared? I often ask clients, you know, what are you afraid might happen if you don't worry about this thing? Because they're all consumed in this thing that could happen. Whether it's a business trip or it's a financial concern, or it's something in their marriage or something in a relationship, or what even their husband or.

Their wife's drinking problem or drug addiction, or their kids or whatever, and they're consumed by it. I said, what are you afraid will happen if you don't worry about this? Well, it's gonna fall apart. You know, I won't be prepared. I won't be able to help them. I won't be able to be myself. I won't be able to do good in a situation.

I won't be [00:12:00] prepared to, you know, survive if I don't, you know, prepare myself for the worst situation, which I think is gonna happen. And yeah, they're focusing on it consistently. All the time, but they're not living in the moment. They're not living in the moment. So they're actually creating a situation where it's more likely to have, in my opinion, the negative thing occur because they're putting so much energy into it.

Cuz what you focus on the most grows and cognitive bias, and cognitive negativity bias and confirmation bias, they all play into this and we start feeding this and then we stress ourselves out. Nobody solves good problems, solves problems well when they're all stressed out. Nobody can be really creative when they're all stressed out, not at least at their top.

Potential, not at their best. So some actions you can take. Couple things that you can do here to start working on this living in the moment. So one is to be rare aware of your surroundings. So I like to sit around people when I do work, I'll go to the library. We have a great downtown library in Wichita.

I'll go to Starbucks. I frequent every Starbucks in town and other coffee shops too. Let's go aroma. I love coffee shops. I love libraries. I love places where I can, people look at people and walk around [00:13:00] and you know, I love bookstores. Barnes and Noble, we got one of those here in town too, and I still go to these places.

Yes, bookstores do still exist and I like to be able to work hard. For, you know, 55 minutes or so, Pomodoro technique, and then I can. Get my mind off of it by looking at other books or looking at people or take a five minute break and like look at people or whatever is in the store, or think about something outside of what I'm actually focusing on.

But it keeps me focused in the moment because I know I can have this release where I can let go and focus on other things. So you just become aware of whatever your surroundings might be. So I have a buddy that loves birds and I love learning about birds from him. Not from necessarily books or anything, but.

There's so much to observe and to be aware of, and so you can notice how you feel. You know the temperature outside. Notice what you see in the colors and the texture. Notice what you feel. Notice what you smell and what you taste, and really try to taste the coffee when you're drinking it. That's being in present in the moment.

It's a practice. And it will be hard. You have to slow down. So sometimes slowing down, especially if you're used to go, go, go, and that's a trauma response in your [00:14:00] body that you're used to. It takes a while. It can take a couple years to really slow down. So you rent a kayak or buy a kayak or a paddleboard, and you really get in the moment you're not listening to things.

You're not, you're just trying your best to be present in the moment. The wind, the birds, everything around you. So some, another thing you can do is some kind of meditative action and meditation gets a bad rap because it. Lots of things in my. Opinion are meditative type actions. So if I'm in the car without the music on and I'm just trying to be aware of what's going through my head and letting go of it, that's a meditative time that I have driving to work without any kind of sound going on.

So hitting golf balls is a meditative type thing. Journaling is a meditative type action, giving my dog a bath, which I did on Friday night. Go Max. You know, it was a meditative type action because I just enjoyed the moment I got in the moment just giving him this time. And so I was able to get outta my head and be present.

And that's what we wanna do. Listening to music can be meditative. It can be a distraction too, but you decide what's gonna get you to a place where you can get space from your thoughts and feelings and observe [00:15:00] them rather than be absorbed into them breathing as well. So five 15 is what I've been practicing, and so five breath in. Hold it for a second. You know, breathe in for five seconds, hold it for a second. Breathe out for five seconds and you can do four 14, but some kind of intentional breathing practice as well. So, second thing to do in order to make progress in developing a positive perspective is to want, is to face your core issues.

The real issue, and you face it by engaging a plan to relentlessly face your core issues, cuz you know whether it's a core issue or not. You may have medicated it and numbed it and hidden from it, but you know, it still comes up, it still rises to the service under stress or in social situations or in situations romantically.

Leader in work situations or when you're gonna take a risk and you talk yourself out of it because you have these core issues you haven't actually faced. And that should give you hope because if you face those things often with a professional or a friend, somebody that has skill, a trauma therapist, someone like myself, a coach who has a background in therapy, which I'm still licensed therapist and all, and I specialize and have [00:16:00] specialized in trauma, is to get some way to work through that issue because it's not gonna go away on its own.

It's not gonna go away its own. It's like a diabetic that's trying to manage type one diabetes without insulin when they're insulin dependent and thinking they're just gonna kind of get outta this by eating healthy. I mean, I not a doctor that specializes in that, but I would imagine that it's pretty much not gonna happen unless you actually face the core issue that you need to have some medical care and to be on insulin in order to live the full productive life.

And one of my really good friends, Jeremy's a type one diabetic. I know a little bit about it from watching him, but you gotta deal and face the core issue and. It's fascinating. Sometimes when couples talk to me about conflict and I asked them to reenact a conflict, when I would do, was doing a lot of couples counseling and I still do some couples coaching and I love it.

It's really fun, but a lot of people do not like it who are in my profession. But by the way, people that bring an issue, I. Up at first is it's often not the core issue, so they're fighting about money, but there's some other issue that is actually the core issue, and it might be trust [00:17:00] and loyalty and commitment and negotiation.

And then we have to get through to the core issue to solve that problem. Because when that problem goes away, then the other problems go away as well, because those are just symptomatic of a core issue that's not actually being addressed because those issues are safer to address than the core issue.

The core issue is a very vulnerable issue. It's one that they may not understand whether they can get to the other side. It's a risk to address it and they may end up having more conflict because addressing that issue, but it's the real issue that needs to be resolved for them to have the full intimate connection that they can have.

You know, an addiction is a relational issue. Often it's a medication to not avoid a core issue, a relational issue. In fact, we often manufacture issues cuz we feel comfortable. Dealing with those other things rather than the core issue happens again and again. Another psychological concept I want you want you to understand is called cognitive dissonance.

And so cognitive dissonance is, is when you're living with inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes. And especially related to behavioral decisions that you [00:18:00] make and attitude changes. So for example, if you are an alcoholic, you know that being an alcoholic is against your value system, then that's cognitive dissonance.

If there's some dissonance involved, or you have an addicted child, or you have money issues and it's against your value system, or you're behaving in a way where you're mistreating people, yet you know that that's not the way you wanna live. You're consistently interacting in a way where your ego is driving things and you're proving your worth and you know that's not the way you wanna live and be seen, but you keep doing it.

That's cognitive dissonance. So we can't reconcile. So people that go through divorce at times and often there may in some situations be no other alternative then actually a divorce because there's another relationship and there's an ongoing relationship, or there's some situation that's just extraordinarily toxic.

And I'm all for marriage and I'm a hundred percent supportive of marriage. And I'm, I'm a fan, believe me. And the dissonance that people experience when they go through a divorce, even in one of those situations where it's technically a necessity, at least the separation is a necessity. [00:19:00] The dissonance is, is is tremendous because these are good people who are struggling with reconciling an issue.

And our brains want to be organized. It wants to find order outta chaos. Yet in many situations, you cannot find order in that situation. So a friend of mine actually lost his wife after a 50 year marriage. He's experiencing a tremendous amount of grief. And in the grief process, I believe there's a lot of cognitive dissonance cuz it doesn't make sense.

And we're trying to understand and we are living with two competing realities here. They're gone and they're not gone. They're, you know, I missed them and yet they're not here. And even I could have think done things differently the last year of the life had I known. And that's all cognitive dissonance.

And we can find ways by dealing with the real core issues. We can start working on and creating a plan to address that cognitive dissonance. A couple things you can do here. Is and is admit it. I mean, first of all, you have to admit that there's something that's actually impacted you and it's causing you to have this perspective that is not positive, but is negative even though you're may, [00:20:00] it's subconscious right now.

But we can bring that to our conscious awareness if we're willing to. And these meditative practices help talking to friends, engaging it, not running from it. That starts creating this ability to get clarity so you can start creating a plan to face these things. So you figure out what has impacted you and you admit it.

So if you could go and go back to your earliest memories and say, these things probably have an impact. Had an impact on me then, and even though I don't believe they had an impact on me today, most likely with other people, I would say those things had a big impact on you. And whether it was something that you define as very minor or whether it's something that.

The society would define as being major, but you're able to admit and say that probably had an impact. And it may just be your personality style or how you interpreted things, which could have been wrong, but it was presented in a way that was really hard to take it in a way that was motivating. For example, if you had a parent consistently as a child after sports or music or whatever you did with performance, they would point out what you could work on and improve.

And now some could say, well, that's what a good parent does. You know, they point out what. Go wrong and they point out what they did and could improve on and say, well, hey, for [00:21:00] some kids that's gonna sink in as like, I'm not good enough. And it's gonna sink in as like, you don't really, you want me to do better and I'm not good enough for you because all the stuff I hear potentially and stuff that sticks is the stuff that I'm doing wrong or need to work on.

And that can create a tremendous amount of turmoil inside somebody's head, and they can bring that with them into every relationship and every interaction. How can I perform and fit in? I remember having one client who came to this realization. Years and years. I mean, he's in his, he, well, I mean he was in his sixties when he shared this with me, but this, he told me that he realized that moving from school to school to school as a child had created a situation in his life where he had this perspective that he had to fit in quickly or else he was in danger.

And so he ended up trying to do things to please and trying to fit in because he went through some experiences where he was not, he was an outsider, come to a new school, and then he experienced rejection by being himself. And so he decided, I'm gonna be safe. And so I'm not gonna say anything except things that please other people and it didn't pay off for him.

I mean, that never becomes a healthy strategy. Relationally. Ask people that are married, [00:22:00] do they want their spouse to always be agreeing with them and never challenge them? No. That doesn't build intimacy. That doesn't build a relationship. You know, relationship is a dialogue, not a monologue. It's getting feedback, it's listening.

People that can't listen and are so set in their ways are doing it because they're scared, because that thing that they have to face, whatever that truth is you're sharing, it doesn't fit into their psychological world right now. And so it creates that cognitive dissonance for them. But that can be a very healthy thing.

Cognitive dissonance, not dissonance is not a bad thing. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It points you emotionally, the things you have to actually deal with. Because you know, you need to find a situation where you can reconcile this or at least come to acceptance. And that's the key. It's really, some things are irreconcilable.

We're never gonna understand this side of heaven, but we can come to terms with it. Acceptance of that situation.

The second thing is, what might you be avoiding? So you, you, you admitted that there are some things that have impacted you in your past and now you ask yourself, what am I avoiding?

Most likely what? Do I want to face or do I need to face [00:23:00] in order to get to the other side? You may not even see the connection right now whatsoever, but hopefully you're thinking a little bit differently right now to say, I have these patterns of behavior in my life because I'm most likely avoiding a core issue I don't even admit was actually a core issue.

I mean, I've mentioned before that I dealt with some things and I'm still dealing with some things that happened when I was five and six years old that I didn't start admitting impacted me until I was in my forties. Didn't talk to my parents about until I was 47. And I'm three months away from being 50.

It tells you, and I'm in mental health profession and have been for almost 25 years. It tells you how easily it is for someone to push things aside that had a huge impact on their life. In fact, I would say I became a therapist in order to avoid primarily and then secondary motive to help. Luckily now it's shifted, but a lot of people have mixed motives when they start something new.

So numerous studies have shown that people when in, uh, marriages, let's say that when people don't address core issues that they have and they, they, they pile up. So maybe at the beginning of a marriage they have two or three, and then. Even before the marriage, they have one or two not enough to actually keep getting married.

[00:24:00] And then they have other issues cuz they get, cuz they get to know each other better. And then when they let 'em pile up, because they're always fighting about money and parenting and these things that are kind of important and they could be a core issue, but they also could be a distraction. And those things that pile up end up being.

Contributory factors with the death of a marriage, cuz they haven't actually, they get to the point where they're so stinking overwhelmed by the situation. It's not that they can't and ha don't have responsibility to address them. They do. And they should address them one at a time, not all at once. I mean, that's like, that's like not good for a marriage as well, you know?

But people get to the place in a marriage at times where they just give up and they give up hope and then they do destructive things. And it could be addiction, it could be other relationships. But if they go back and they face, and both parties have to face the issue because it may be brought up numerous times, like I've seen situations where one spouse has brought up the fact that they don't like this aspect of their relationship and the dynamics with either the family, the external family, or the dynamics with their work or how they interact with the kids, or some core kind of interaction.

Interaction, relational [00:25:00] issue, and it's continually, It's continually minimized. It's continually, you know, made not an issue. And so they feel like, I can't find a way out of this thing. You know, there's no way to move forward. And they love the person and they wanna work on it, but they just can't actually have a dialogue about the situation with their spouse.

But that's the key right there. So you face the core issues and you have the courage to face the core issues and listen. And listen to other people's perspectives and be willing to question your own thoughts and to question your own perspective. Because my perspective is wrong all the time. My emotions come outta my perspective and it's wrong all the time.

If I listen to it, I can't. I mean, I, if I listen to my emotions all the time, I would be living in fear and I have to have friends that tell me, Hey Adam, this is not something to be afraid of, and I have to trust their perspective more than my own on many occasions. And luckily, I am blessed with great friends and blessed with the ability right now it's better than it was, at least to actually listen at a higher level than I used to.

So if you found this podcast helpful, hit the link to shatterproof yourself. These are seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. This is gonna [00:26:00] be actions you can take new transformational content that you will not wanna miss, and you're only gonna get access to the video and the workbook through this link.

Third step you can take to develop a positive perspective is you can start asking yourself, what is the opportunity here? What is the opportunity here? What you focus on grows, so you start to discipline your focus. You have responsibility over what you focus on. You create a discipline of seeing the opportunities and seeing the potential, and seeing what could go right for me.

I think one of the secrets of success is just being, what society would say is stupid, cuz society would say it's stupid not to be prepared. It's stupid not to think about all the things that could go wrong. It's stupid to not have a plan yet history is filled with people who have just done things cuz they know it's right without a plan, at least an organized plan by, by societal standards.

And they've done it with a sense of naivete, knowing. And focusing on the potential and the [00:27:00] opportunity and their why is so big that they can actually deal with and conquer almost any how. And you can call 'em stupid. I don't call 'em stupid. I call 'em smart. You know, these are the people that start a business because they're inspired and they know this is gonna help somebody, but they get it going before having it all figured out and before having all their finances in order, before having everything in order.

They good at going and they work on it. Or the guy that asked to grow out on a date, even knowing that, hey, By other people's perspective, she's out of your league, yet they do it anyway cuz they're confident in themselves and they're not thinking about what could go wrong. And that becomes extremely attractive to the girl and they end up hitting it off because one person was naive, but not really.

They were just focusing on the right things, not the wrong things. Just being himself or herself in the interaction and not thinking about the response from other people. Cuz that's the healthy interaction is when you let go of the outcome. That's the healthy risk. When you let go of the outcome, you know it's the right thing.

You trust the [00:28:00] situation and you let go of the outcome. So a client recently told me that, That she's not confident. She's not, she's not confident. And I, I, I questioned her. I said, I, I don't believe that, you know, I believe you're confident in some parts of your life. You're just not self-confident. Overall.

I didn't really say that, but I challenge, I said maybe it's just self-confidence, not confidence. Cuz I'm thinking, well, she's super confident when it comes to playing. Golf cuz she's really good at golf and she's super confident when it comes to her job cuz she's really good at her job. I mean, I can tell she's really good at her job.

And so that self-confidence develops as we see the opportunity and we see the good things in our lives and we start working it and we start making it a discipline. When you wake up in the morning, when you go to bed, when you walk throughout the day, you're remembering what you've been blessed with and the good things that can happen.

You're open. You're open to the opportunities ahead. So people are often overwhelmed when they wanna make tons of changes at once, but that. Positive perspective can show you and help you see that I can make one change and start building on that one change. You know, what's [00:29:00] the next thing in my life that's gonna be a positive change, that's gonna start giving me confidence, self-confidence that I can make other changes.

Not this overwhelming, I'm gonna change all seven. Areas of my life at once. No, it's changing one thing at a time and disciplining ourselves to see how we can, and it doesn't mean not being prepared for the obstacles mean you can prepare for the obstacles. Sometimes if you wanna do something, you write yourself a letter in advance of what you're.

Of a response to yourself trying to talk yourself outta doing this thing. So I had a client recently that wanted to get up at five 30 every morning for seven days straight. I haven't done this, but one actually great action would be to write himself a letter that on day five, if he doesn't want to, Get up, you know, the night before or he thinks it's gonna be a bad morning.

He reads that letter to himself like, here's why you're gonna get up. Here's the commitment you made and why, and the benefits. Cuz he was real pumped about it and has been pumped about it. But we figure out, and, you know, that's, that's an opportunity to, to remind yourself of the perspective that you had, which was opportunity focused.

So a couple actions [00:30:00] you can take right here. So you can just journal what's going right. What can I learn from this? What's the opportunity here? You can read something inspiring for 15 minutes a day. I mean, you can start there. Don't start with an hour a day. Start there. No distractions. Just start right there.

You can develop a gratitude practice like my daily five and five, baby. I mean, that one is my favorite, but daily five and five. Five things from yesterday. There are positive five things you're excited about later in the day. Do it in the morning, but whatever gratitude practice you enjoy, you know, I'll link in the episode to 25, favorite 2025 of my favorite gratitude building questions as well.

So I got a special thing here for you right now and it's seven minute coaching session with my producer Bryan,

come on down, Bryan this is my producer Bryan, and he has an issue that he's gonna talk about professionally with his business that I have no idea what this is actually gonna be. So he's gonna share that with me. And we're gonna do for seven minutes a coaching session here. And so what's your issue, Bryan? I know you got lots of issues, but what's your

Bryan Steele: Yeah.

Right. There's, there's plenty to go through, but I think one of the biggest ones is most of my new clients, cuz I'm, I'm trying to attract [00:31:00] businesses. Business leaders who are wanting to grow their brand through a podcast. And I think my biggest challenge is most of my clients, almost all my clients, come through some my network somehow, right?

It's somebody that I personally know or they know somebody who knew that I was available to do this sort of thing. So that's the podcasting. Doing the podcasting. So they reach out and then I get them as a client. The part that I struggle with is somebody that's a complete stranger isn't connected to me in any way, shape or form, finding out about me, contacting me, and then.

Becoming a client, I feel, how, how do they find out about you? So I've, I've got a website forge podcast.co. But it doesn't get a lot of traffic. I mean, it gets a couple dozen visits, but people do contact you through that Sometimes. I, I get, get some context. Okay. But I have not yet landed a client through that.

Adam Gragg: So I'm gonna just define the problem we're talking about here. So it's, it's, it's these, these, these cold leads that call in mm-hmm. And having a process to get them to. To either seeing if they're a good fit or not. You kind of don't get to that point right where it gets really. Okay. So what makes this [00:32:00] important for you?

Bryan Steele: Because I think to me, once I'm able to attract and and gain clients through cold leads, and that puts less of a burden on me going out. Personally and, and getting them myself or depending on my existing network, right. It becomes independent, allows the business, I think to scale a little easier than, than just me one-to-one going out and trying to do that.

Adam Gragg: And how would, kind of a weird questionnaire, but like how would other people, how would you know that, I mean there's the numbers and everything, but how would you know that you were having success? Making progress in this area,

Bryan Steele: I think it would be a conversion rate on people who contact me. Right. Okay. So if somebody, somebody contacts me, whether it's, you know, through my website or sends me a message on social media or calls the phone number, something like that leads so you to

Adam Gragg: the, the rate.

But what about like, how would you know inside, or how would your, how would people around you know that you're making progress here? How would people, what [00:33:00] would they see in you? And it's a harder question that you're making a shift. How would they see Yeah. That I'm making this shit. Yeah, like how would they see that you have, I mean, in a sense, like more confidence in those interactions.

Yeah. How, how would you know and how would they know?

Bryan Steele: I. I think, I think there would be more confidence. I think clarity in, in my messaging, the things that I'm communicating, the benefits that I bring just having more confidence in that. And then people being, you know, like excited about their podcasts and, and their podcasts are growing.

I think

Adam Gragg: because that's all external though. That's still like an external metrics. I'm thinking internal. You're thinking internal. Yeah. Like how would you know, I'm like on the right track internally and. This is moving,

Bryan Steele: I think. I'm think I'm gonna feel a sense of peace about what you're talking about.

About what I'm talking about. Like I'm gonna feel like there's not gonna be anxiety or pressure or anything like that. It's gonna be very clear to me, this person's a great fit and I know that person's a great fit and they're gonna hire me. Or I [00:34:00] know this is not a great fit. I'm not gonna be able to help them.

And hey, just being able to share that. Yeah. And having that, that peace and that Confidence

Adam Gragg: And what's the biggest obstacle right now that you face?

Bryan Steele: I think just getting the right person to find me, I guess, if that, if that makes sense.

Adam Gragg: What's the biggest obstacle? Internally?

Bryan Steele: Internally? Ooh. The biggest obstacle internally.

Not sure. I mean, to be honest, I, I'm. I would have to think about that more.

Adam Gragg: Oh, okay. So, well, good questions make you think so. Well, now let's create, let's go to the next step. So what ideas do you have to, and it'll look, go pretty specific here. So you, you mentioned that if you had more confidence in how you were talking and you were at peace with the client and it seemed to flow naturally mm-hmm.

And everything. Mm-hmm. So what ideas do you have that could move that, or that could help?

Bryan Steele: I mean, I think [00:35:00] the, the biggest ideas that I have, I think I need, you know, maybe some new content on my website that maybe is more, has, has more clarity as to the benefits. Okay. Cause as opposed to like, if somebody thinks they want to have a podcast, well that's already what they're thinking about.

I think I can communicate something a little more. Transformational, and I haven't really done that yet because I think it's more than just having a podcast. I think it's having an entire content strategy. Okay. Right. Having something broader than just, that'd be their, a

Adam Gragg: podcast addressing their objections kind of thing.

Bryan Steele: Yeah. Or just that, that it's, it's bigger than that, right? It's, it's going to be something bigger. I think that that's something that I, I've got, oh, one of my bigger struggles I feel like is just like, I don't have a lot of time. Right. So trying to create social media stuff just the bandwidth Okay. For that is I just don't have a lot of time available.

Is that something I should hire somebody for? Do I need to reach out to some people like that that have a background in that?

Adam Gragg: So, so I'm hearing like you [00:36:00] would have a website developed with more objections and kind of benefits. Yeah. Yeah. And then you'd also free up more time. How would you free up more time?

Without hiring other people

Bryan Steele: free up more time without hiring other people.

Adam Gragg: You're pretty efficient with your time. I mean, yeah,

Bryan Steele: right. I think, I think it's, it's maybe look for less sleep college students. I don't, can't get much less, it feels like, maybe, maybe reaching out to some college students who.

Would maybe need projects for a class. Ah, okay. Or something like that, where it's like they could use something as part of a portfolio. Yeah. If there's somebody who's really good like that I do know a professor at wsu who's in the communications department. Maybe there's some students that might be looking for projects like that.

Okay. So that, that's maybe an idea without having to Okay. Go out and hire somebody.

Adam Gragg: Any other ideas? Not the free up time part, but the moving this forward, moving this forward, forward success in this area of cold leads. [00:37:00]

Bryan Steele: Of cold leads, I think beyond changing the website, beyond maybe getting some students who could help,

Cold leads are hard cuz cuz it all either takes time or money. I could, I could invest in ads or advertising some sort of a, a package or advertising on Facebook or something and trying to figure out targeting for that uhhuh to somebody who, okay, yeah. You know, like, am I business owners, business leaders, things like that.

Adam Gragg: So what, what action. From, from this conversation? Like what insight? By talking and answer these questions, did you gain? I think it's like one piece of insight.

Bryan Steele: I think reaching out to a few people that I know to see about somebody helping me either with creating an update to my website or some, some content for me that's possibly a student that I wouldn't have to necessarily pay.

They could get some college credit out of that. And That probably is the biggest one I can [00:38:00] take a step on.

Adam Gragg: Okay, cool. So Bryan's like your typical entrepreneur. He works on other people's businesses more than his own.

Bryan Steele: That's That's very true. Yeah. I work, I work a lot harder on all the other podcasts.

Adam Gragg: Oh, actually, well, I mean, not be the typical entrepreneur. Yeah. So, hey, remember my 2080 rule insight is 20%. You gained insight by this from this podcast today. Insight from this seven minute coaching session questions. That you ask yourself and you answer insight. So, but action is 80%. So whether Bryan does this or not, that's up to him.

But that's 80% of change and that will make a big difference. And hopefully you can see that in his face cause he was answering his own questions. So what resonated with you most today and in the next 24 hours? Talk about that concept, teach it to somebody else. Take emotional risk based on what you learned today.

If you love this episode, post a screenshot on your Instagram and then tag me, Adam Gragg, G R A G g. I will love you forever if you do that. Really, really appreciate that. So have me out to speak live or over zoom and engage with me or one of my legacy coaches for coaching. [00:39:00] Love to help you out. So I'm gonna go ahead and sign off the way I always do.

Make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for. 10 years after you're gone, you decide your legacy. Nobody else. I appreciate you greatly and I'll see you next time.